II. Sir John Aird, B.irt., M,P. 
 
 In reply to your inquiry I would reply that " manners 
 maketh the man," and the posses- " 
 
 BIOII of this is far more valuable 
 for a youth starting in life than 
 the possession o!; money. 
 
 V 
 

 
 MAN LIMITLESS
 
 Man Limitless 
 
 BY 
 
 FLOYD B. WILSON 
 
 or 
 "PATHS TO POWER 
 
 R. F. FEN NO & COMPANY 
 
 9 and 1 1 East Sixteenth Street, New York
 
 Copyright, 1905 
 By R. F. Fenno & Company 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Itlan Limitless
 
 TO 
 
 R. E. T. 
 
 CO-WORKER WITH ME IN THE UNDEFINED AND AS 
 
 YET SUPERFICIALLY EXPLORED REALMS 
 
 OF MYSTICISM TO LEARN AND 
 
 TO DISCOVER TRUTH
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 History has shown, that in every step man 
 has taken upward to a higher plane of mental 
 activity and ideality, he has taken each one by 
 the overcoming of certain environments and by 
 the freeing himself from some early beliefs 
 which a broadening intelligence discovered to 
 be fallacious. In advancing he has, however, al- 
 ways carried with him certain dogmas of error 
 in spite of the fact that others which had for- 
 merly fettered him were thrown aside. Having 
 made the intellectual advance, more light grad- 
 ually came; and, with the mental horizon wi- 
 dened by years of thoughtful observation, an- 
 other and another step has been taken. At each 
 advance some errors have been dropped, while 
 some were still retained and carried forward. As 
 I follow the ascent of man toward complete men- 
 tal freedom, I can see most clearly that he has 
 forged his own fetters, and that he alone is re- 
 sponsible for his slow growth. 
 
 The dawning of the new century is marked as 
 a thought-period in history. Representative man
 
 8 Introduction. 
 
 is doing his own thinking. He has advanced to 
 a point where his consciousness has awakened to 
 a conception of his possibilities. Step by step 
 he has progressed through the ages ; now, at one 
 leap or bound, he links himself to Infinity and 
 claims the realization of his hopes and ideals as 
 his birthright. He demands if Infinity holds 
 secrets that they shall be disclosed to him; be- 
 cause he is one with infinite life. 
 
 Knowing this plane is attainable in the present 
 age, and believing thousands and thousands are 
 now approaching it, I present this volume, point- 
 ing out the mental paths I have traversed and 
 which led me to recognize man's heritage of 
 power opening into his limitless possibilities. 
 
 FLOYD B. WILSON. 
 
 New York, 1905.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Man Limitless 13 
 
 Love 3i 
 
 The Christ Principle through Intuition . . 45 
 
 Work 65 
 
 Control of Memory 87 
 
 Suggestion 105 
 
 Must Age Enfeeble? 121 
 
 Pathway to Accomplishment .... 137 
 
 Children of the Gods 149 
 
 Shakespeare's Ariel 169 
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding . 189
 
 "Life itself has speech and is never silent. 
 And its utterance is not, as you that are deaf 
 may suppose, a cry : it is a song. Learn from it 
 that you are a part of the harmony; learn from 
 it to obey the laws of harmony." From "Light 
 on the Path." 
 
 "The Universe exists for man. It is man's 
 heritage, man's arena, man's throne. It has no 
 secrets which he cannot grasp, no barriers which 
 he cannot surmount, no forces hostile to him 
 which he cannot conquer." Orlando J. Smith in 
 " Eternalism." 
 
 ii
 
 I know I have the right to draw from the 
 universal all I would to fulfill any upward, noble 
 longing of my soul; and I know I shall receive, 
 if I harmonize myself with the throbbing vibra- 
 tions of infinite force. That harmonizing, how- 
 ever, is my task, my responsibility, and my joy.
 
 MAN LIMITLESS. 
 
 From childhood, youth is found estimating his 
 physical and mental strength by comparison with 
 his fellows. Then, years attained or differences 
 of ages form the criterion by which measure- 
 ments are made. If he be younger than his com- 
 panion, that is a sufficient factor or excuse 
 for his being a class below in studies, or a less 
 desirable partner in a feat of strength on the 
 playground. If ambitious in one or both of 
 these lines, he may pride himself in outstripping 
 those of his own age a year or more. Fixed in 
 one's early memories are these comparisons in 
 the study of limitations, coupled with a certain 
 degree of satisfaction if self-examination placed 
 him in rank a shade above the average standard. 
 From play-mates, from parents, from teachers, 
 from friends comes this estimation by compari- 
 son with others. It often wakens to ambitions, 
 and this is healthful ; but about all it draws un- 
 intentionally the circles of limitation. 
 
 It is not strange that the effect of such en- 
 vironment surrounding one is to center or direct 
 
 13
 
 14 Man Limitless. 
 
 the mind to the study of his own limitations, 
 rather than to that of his unmeasured possibil- 
 ities. How long it may take to outgrow this 
 condition when a wider philosophy may be em- 
 braced, each must learn for himself. 
 
 Considering the growth of man during the 
 past century, one may note that although Prot- 
 estantism long before had organized itself and 
 brought forth several sects, separate and distinct 
 from the church of Rome, the various schools 
 and colleges continued essentially in type ec- 
 clesiastic each had its own dogmas and they 
 stood sentinel barring advance, for they assumed 
 to fix the boundary line of human knowledge, 
 and thus drew down the curtains of limitations 
 hiding from man the vistas beyond. 
 
 One purpose of all religions, however, was 
 and is to teach the relationship between man and 
 God. Even the most narrow of the creeds have 
 declared, in substance, that man could do noth- 
 ing against the will or purpose of God. God 
 was to be sought in prayer to help man to his 
 needs. It was God who saved him from dangers 
 God who gave him health God who sent him 
 sickness or sorrow in punishment for wrongs 
 God who gave him joy God who prospered him 
 God who alone might save him God who 
 loved him. This God was all-powerful. He sent
 
 Man Limitless. i$ 
 
 the rain and the sunshine the buds and the blos- 
 soms the seed-time and the harvest. I know 
 of no modern Western religion that does not in- 
 vest God with all this power, and which does not 
 teach that man should be thankful to God for 
 every blessing he enjoys. 
 
 If I state correctly the teachings of our West- 
 ern religions, might not this question be pro- 
 pounded with assurance of an affirmative reply: 
 If one had complete favor with God, might not 
 God, if he would, grant that favored one all 
 the blessings and powers craved, and would not 
 that one then be, in those particulars, at least, 
 equal to God ? Even according to the old creeds, 
 narrow as many of them were, they taught, in 
 essence, that power came to man as a direct trans- 
 mission from God. It came from an omnipotent 
 energy, and yet man had access to that energy. 
 The way to obtain God's favor was somewhat 
 obscure. To guide one therein, platitudes were 
 made use of. "Man must obey God's will," 
 "Man must humble himself before God," "Man 
 must have a new birth," were among the many 
 that might be cited. Let one follow these indefi- 
 nite instructions as best he might, yet unless he 
 wrapped about him an unswerving faith, there 
 was promised little hope of attainment. In 
 short, God might have a wise purpose in with-
 
 16 Man Limitless. 
 
 holding the blessings sought, so religion itself 
 acknowledged its own limitations. Instead of 
 teaching clearly a definite theory as to the rela- 
 tionship between man and God, and how to bind 
 the human with the Infinite, it merely suggested 
 that through prayer and sacrifice there was a 
 way, and further that that way might be found. 
 Each must seek for himself. Each must hope, 
 and pray then be content, whether the coveted 
 blessings were received or not. 
 
 With the dawning of the twentieth century, 
 we find a greater liberality in creeds a broader 
 view of the Infinite even among those who cling 
 to belief in the personality of God. They see in 
 their churches good fruits they enjoy the social 
 meetings the intellectual treats given by the 
 clergy the fine choirs and soloists who furnish 
 music and all seem to have a place in modern 
 civilization. I present here no criticisms on this. 
 When a more advanced civilization demands 
 more, it will have it. 
 
 My purpose in leading up to my theme in this 
 way, however, is to show that the crudest dogmas 
 all agreed that man was a recipient of power 
 from without from God. If the way to attain 
 were not made clear, why that is only one of 
 a myriad of obscurities of modern theology. 
 There was the source of power from which man
 
 Man Limitless. 17 
 
 must draw to attain his purpose. Thus vaguely 
 all these creeds taught man's wonderful, limit- 
 less possibilities when he labored under God's 
 guidance and favor. 
 
 Religion, in its broadest sense, signifies the up- 
 reaching of man to all his possibilities. In its 
 original signification, it represented the binding 
 of the human back to its own fatherhood. Study 
 ancient or modern creeds as one will, there is 
 always found within them a directing power 
 never compassed, exerting its indomitable force 
 over man. This was called God. The ancient 
 Jew invested it, to the average reader, with a 
 tyrannous personality, while the modern Jew 
 recognizes no personal God. Practically every 
 branch of the Christian Church holds to the 
 personal idea comprised in a mystic trinity. 
 They approach or link themselves with this 
 omniscient power by prayer or petition, after 
 first advising God by way of preface, of his own 
 promises to man. They take God at what they 
 call his word. He has placed them here. He 
 has made certain promises. They ask their ful- 
 fillment, conditioned if this be consistent with 
 his will and purpose. 
 
 My view of God is broader than that. Living 
 within that limitless source of all power, I know 
 I have the right to draw from it all I would to
 
 i8 Man Limitless. 
 
 fulfill any upward, noble longing of my soul ; 
 and I know I shall receive, if I harmonize myself 
 with the throbbing vibrations of infinite force. 
 That harmonizing, however, is my task my re- 
 sponsibility and my joy. 
 
 Studying man in the abstract then, through 
 the dogmas of ancient and modern creeds, we see 
 he has been declared, even by them, limitless. 
 He has access to infinite power if the Infinite 
 favor him as the Infinite may, he himself be- 
 comes a God. These dogmas within themselves 
 led up to this conclusion, yet the clergy fell short 
 of pursuing them to this point. Emerson dared 
 follow the logical premises to the inference to 
 be drawn from them and boldly declared that 
 "the simplest person, who, in his integrity, 
 worships God, becomes God ; ' ' and that that one 
 "believes he cannot escape from his good that 
 the Highest dwells within him." 
 
 If, therefore, the dogmas of ancient as well 
 as modern religions found man all powerful and 
 limitless if God were with him, they reflect the 
 human longing. In many of them, we may see 
 the reflection of the age, its crudities and errors ; 
 but, back of all, is the human longing to blend 
 itself with an energy uncomprehended, yet be- 
 lieved to exist and to encompass all. 
 
 Modern science has taught us that light and
 
 Man Limitless. 19 
 
 sound are, to the brain, simply different intensi- 
 ties of motion ; and this may lead to discoveries 
 of forces within man that could not have been 
 conceived of till this revelation was made. One 
 set of vibrations is carried through the medium 
 of the ear to the brain and interpreted sound; 
 another impresses itself upon the optic nerve 
 and is distinguished as color or form. Methods 
 to awaken atrophied parts of the body have been 
 learned, because of our clearer conception of all 
 that is embraced in that single word, motion. 
 The measuring of the vibration of force from 
 planet to planet, through the medium of reflected 
 light, has widened man's conception of the uni- 
 verse. As he learns more of it, his own horizon 
 of knowledge broadens his own conception of 
 his place in the universe. The great strides man 
 has made during the past fifty years have lifted 
 him upward, toward the Infinite, so that he 
 may now receive, through vibrations, more of 
 that unmeasured, undefined, yet all-pervading 
 power. To avail ourselves of the wisdom of 
 others, we must, at least, have unfolded mentally 
 so as to appreciate the wisdom they possess. To 
 obtain the power from the Infinite which we 
 desire, we must be developed consciously so as 
 to be able to receive and hold the vital, magnetic
 
 2O Man Limitless. 
 
 vibrations that are flashed from infinite energy 
 through the ethers to intelligence. 
 
 Although man may have had erroneous con- 
 ceptions of God and the relationship existing be- 
 tween him and the source of power; still, as he 
 has evolved and learned to think and reason in- 
 dependent of creeds or dogmas or majorities, the 
 possibility of a personality directing infinite 
 force is passing from consciousness. Can human 
 intelligence conceive of a personality combined 
 with omniscience, omnipotence and omnipres- 
 ence ? Man has evolved into a greater man, and 
 he has extended his relationship with Being he 
 has learned, in some degree, how to appropriate 
 or avail himself of some of its energy he has 
 commenced to walk with God. Still he cannot 
 claim familiarity, for his comprehension has as 
 yet embraced only the little his unfoldment per- 
 mits him to grasp. He has barely started to cul- 
 tivate acquaintance with God, or Energy. 
 
 The evolution of man is now advancing him 
 to a plane above where the mists of ignorant 
 superstitions can rise. The old dogmas pre- 
 sented paths that apparently started one right, 
 but led to tangled morasses. New paths ap- 
 peared which seemed to help to extricate, but 
 pursued, led to shades of density and darkness. 
 Emerging from these, led by flashes from infinite
 
 Man Limitless. 21 
 
 light, man has continued in his upward march. 
 A new century has dawned; and now, standing 
 on a plane over which bright sunlight spreads, 
 he sees something of the vastness of meaning and 
 grandeur in a human life. Within that life is 
 the germ of infinite possibilities. He is now not 
 oppressed with the fear of an omnipotent force 
 restraining him as he journeys onward in pur- 
 suit of knowledge. He is free, and within him- 
 self a new power has taken lodgment. This may 
 be termed a mental growth, but it is more it is 
 an ascent through evolution to a higher manhood. 
 If one has reached this plane and looks back- 
 ward, he will discover that the long struggle 
 man has made to acquire knowledge was largely 
 a battle with ignorance. Now he can understand 
 why dogmas of error existed and restrained. In 
 reasoning from cause to effect, the teachers could 
 only follow lines within the range of their own 
 horizon of knowledge. No one no philosophy 
 is to be censured or criticized. Church dogmas 
 held high the dangers of mental plunges beyond 
 their own sounded depths; and fear was trans- 
 formed into an entity that stood guard over 
 man's intellectual advancement. These dogmas 
 claimed to tell where the priceless jewels man 
 was seeking for were to be found they suggested 
 ways to reach them; and then, in substance, de-
 
 22 Man Limitless. 
 
 clared man should love the Infinite just as 
 fondly whether his prayers were granted or 
 not. 
 
 Late in the century past a new sect appeared 
 under the appellation, Christian Scientists. 
 Some of their statements were quite astounding 
 to modern methods of thinking. The funda- 
 mental pillars of their philosophy were: There 
 is no matter, and disease is a delusion of sense. 
 They grew and multiplied, and now claim about 
 two millions of converts in this country. Among 
 these are prominent lawyers, judges, business 
 men, soldiers, orators and poets. They claim 
 wonderful cures have been brought about 
 through the simple agency of affirmation and 
 denial. In theory, they claim by these means 
 to draw power from infinite energy, or to attune 
 the vibrative force enveloping one to that great 
 harmony. The mental scientists, on the other 
 hand, believe in the potency of affirmations, but 
 reject denials in toto. They are not yet as 
 firmly organized a body as the Christian Scien- 
 tists, as they have no recognized head or synod. 
 Perhaps this is well for it gives each individual 
 freedom. Both the Christian and the mental 
 scientists have eliminated the personal God from 
 their written or unwritten creeds ; and both are 
 now teaching the limitlessness of man. Their
 
 Man Limitless. 23 
 
 prayers are the affirmations of health, power, 
 wealth, joy, thus enveloping their selfhoods with 
 an attractive atmosphere which can receive the 
 vibrations from infinite force. This they claim 
 brings to one the realization of desire. 
 
 Modern spiritualism comes forward also, and 
 shows an astonishingly large body of converts, 
 though its history extends back only to the mid- 
 dle of the century just passed. In some partic- 
 ulars it is closely allied to both the Christian 
 and mental scientists, though the stricter fol- 
 lowers of either may deny the possibility of in- 
 tercourse between those dwelling here and those 
 who have passed to what may be beyond. The 
 power of thought, however, to bring one his de- 
 sires, is clearly accepted by the modern spirit- 
 ists. They are one with the mental and Chris- 
 tian scientists on this, though the way the end 
 may be brought about differs. They believe 
 each one draws about himself spirit guides and 
 these are the messengers and forces to assist 
 him to the attainment of desire. 
 
 The Hindus who follow the teachings of 
 Buddha compress within two words, Karma 
 Yoga, which may be translated work or doing 
 work, their methods and ways, not of linking or 
 binding man to infinite force, but of attaining 
 knowledge and teaching man that within his
 
 24 Man Limitless. 
 
 very being all force is coiled up. They boldly 
 assert that this human body is the greatest body 
 in the universe, and a human being the greatest 
 being ; that man is higher than all animals, than 
 all angels; that none is greater than man. To 
 bring one to knowledge of his true selfhood a 
 course of discipline is voluntarily entered upon 
 by those who are desirous of attaining mastery. 
 With purpose true and steadfastness in contin- 
 uing the work, it is claimed the Yogi will, in due 
 time, find himself (as he is and always was) 
 the essence of knowledge, the immortal, the all- 
 pervading. The Hindus recognize inspiration in 
 every man's nature to be awakened or discov- 
 ered by discipline, and the ancient prophets of 
 the world as great Yogis of the past. In their 
 philosophy, limits to man's powers are incom- 
 prehensible. 
 
 I claim, therefore, that in naming man limit- 
 less I have only voiced the teachings of the 
 ages. I am aware that from the pulpits we are 
 often told much of man's weakness and worth- 
 lessness. It seems that the clergy are prone to 
 overlook the fact that their own dogmas also tell 
 of man's divine origin and his infinite possibili- 
 ties, if he enjoy the favor of God. In the poetry 
 of the anti- Jacobin, I find :
 
 Man Limitless. 25 
 
 "Man only, rash, refined, presumptuous Man 
 Starts from his rank and mars Creation's plan! 
 Born the free heir of nature's wide domain, 
 To art's strict limits bounds his narrowed reign; 
 Resigns his native rights for meaner things, 
 For Faith and Fetters, Laws and Priests and 
 Kings." 
 
 Bailey in Festus gives direction as though in- 
 spired : 
 
 "Let each man think himself an act of God, 
 His mind a thought, his life a breath of God." 
 
 Robert Browning caught a clear vision of the 
 coming man with limitless possibilities beyond: 
 
 "Man's self is not yet man, 
 
 Nor shall I deem his object saved, his end 
 
 Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth, 
 
 While only here and there a star dispels 
 
 The Darkness, here and there a towering mind 
 
 O'erlooks its prostrate fellows. When the host 
 
 Is out at once, to the despair of night; 
 
 When all mankind alike is perfected, 
 
 Equal in full-blown power, then, not till then, 
 
 I say, begins man's general infancy." 
 
 If one would rise above his environment, lift
 
 26 Man Limitless. 
 
 himself out of the steady refrain of man's crit- 
 icism on man, forget the emphasized short- 
 comings of humanity as told too often by many 
 preachers and orators, and silently contemplate 
 the evolution or ascent of man as shown by 
 authentic history, I feel he would be convinced 
 that man's possible attainments cannot be meas- 
 ured that boundary lines to his onward intel- 
 lectual march are unthinkable. 
 
 Once let man place himself firmly on this 
 plane, and he will know that it is folly to longer 
 question if the wish of his soul may be gratified. 
 If man is limitless, every desire of his soul can 
 be won. Let him grasp this truth so fully and 
 completely that none of the dogmas of ignorance 
 and superstition can make him waver for a mo- 
 ment. This is his primary task, in order that 
 he may use wisely the mighty forces within his 
 own selfhood. 
 
 Standing then secure on this intellectual 
 height, he may note that the teachings of the ages 
 show he must draw new power to himself from 
 infinite energy of which he is a part, or uncoil 
 it from the soul reservoir within himself. It 
 may be that by our modern methods of discipline 
 to consciously receive the vibrations from the 
 Unlimited, it also is required that there may be 
 an unwinding, to some extent, of this coil of
 
 Man Limitless. 27 
 
 knowledge within the soul in order that our con- 
 scious selves may be recipient. I am convinced 
 from my own experiments and methods of dis- 
 cipline (though also recognizing that power can 
 be drawn from the Universal) that the Hindu 
 philosophy is true that within the soul of man 
 there is a reservoir of wisdom. As one learns to 
 enter this mighty reservoir, this cathedral of 
 power, consciousness broadens ; and then his up- 
 liftment will permit him to touch other keys of 
 Energy's magic harp of harmony. Man's 
 growth begins in bringing to consciousness some 
 of this knowledge sealed within, then advancing 
 step by step till he finds himself in perfect tune 
 with the harp of infinite Energy, its vibrations 
 are entered and he becomes of them a part, con- 
 sciously contributing to and receiving from the 
 pulsating force guarding and encircling the uni- 
 verse. When discipline has brought him this 
 development, then he may know and sing, with 
 the poet, to all the world: 
 
 "No pent-up Utica contracts our powers, 
 But the whole boundless universe is ours."
 
 "When we understand love as a force, not as 
 a weakness, we find in it the very Key to ever- 
 lasting power. Nothing can successfully oppose 
 us when we have identified ourselves with the 
 Supreme Love." Charles B. Newcomb in "Dis- 
 covery of a Lost Trail.''
 
 Love is only indomitable when it holds su- 
 preme control it holds supreme control when 
 it fills our minds so completely that there is no 
 room for hate or doubt. Such love is so strong 
 and absolute that it will enter into no compro- 
 mise or bargain. There can be nothing commer- 
 cial in its nature. It does not offer to give with 
 any proviso as to receiving in return.
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Love in one form or another is the motive 
 power of the universe. In the abstract, it is the 
 impelling force that moves men and nations to 
 labor for advancement for the achievement of 
 ambitions for the fulfillment of ideals. Love 
 reaches beyond desire, and yet awakens desire. 
 It blends intellect with aspiration the mental 
 with the spiritual and gives the incentive to 
 guard and prolong life in order that one may 
 grasp and encompass more of its hallowed and 
 mystic meaning. It is universal, as the very 
 lowest forms of life evidence its controlling 
 force. 
 
 In inanimate life we see the plant sending its 
 roots down to secure nourishment ; and then, hav- 
 ing converted this into sustenance, carry upward 
 to assist growth in the sunlight. It reaches for 
 its needs to give full expression to its develop- 
 ment and beauty, seeming in its mute way to 
 enjoy itself most when evidencing vigorous life. 
 Is not this law of nature a plant's expression of 
 love its silent purpose to attain its end in the 
 mystery of unfolding? If these indicate love- 
 
 31
 
 32 Man Limitless. 
 
 cravings in plant life, we note they began in call- 
 ing for the necessities of existence these sup- 
 plied abundantly gave to existence vigor, which 
 led to the unfolding into strength and beauty. 
 Does this signify that love and life ever, even in 
 inanimate nature, constitute a dual unity? 
 
 In animal life we note a broader development 
 it extends beyond even to the protecting and 
 caring and helping of its own kind. It reaches 
 out often to the weak and suffering through al- 
 most a human feeling; and, more than that, it 
 recognizes the expression of love from others 
 and rewards by showing love in return. 
 
 My purpose, however, deals with the human, 
 and is to learn, if one may, something of the 
 creative power of love and its part in aiding to 
 the attainment of ideals to the upliftment of 
 man. 
 
 Emerson made it one of his subjects for essay, 
 but he wrote only from the human point of view 
 as seen through sex affinities. This field of emo- 
 tion, vast as it is, is but the reflection of one 
 phase of the power of love. To know, to com- 
 prehend the vastness of love, its mystic force, 
 its far-reaching attractive power over man, in 
 directing, guiding and sustaining him through 
 the labyrinths of life's experiences, would be to 
 pierce the secret of existence, to solve the prob-
 
 Love. 33 
 
 lem of human purpose, and to grasp all the possi- 
 bilities of ultimate man. 
 
 My studies in psychology, philosophy and 
 occultism, regarding the unfolding of the human, 
 have led to many experiments, proving the at- 
 tractive power of Love to bring one his desires, 
 hence I select this for a theme as I feel it has 
 been proven to be the secret force of the Uni- 
 versal the light on the path to the attainment 
 of every longing of the human heart. 
 
 From the earliest dawn of intelligence in hu- 
 manity from the time the child commences to 
 group ideas together, so as to form a thought, 
 he faces two opposing factors or propositions. 
 Right and wrong, light and darkness, truth and 
 falsehood, honor and shame, success and failure, 
 love and hate. With wider experience in life, 
 he finds these contrasts to multiply till they reach 
 myriads, one word signifying the end desired, the 
 other its opposite. Youth, however, is an opti- 
 mist. It is the experienced one who suggests the 
 danger, and brings to youth's consciousness the 
 possibilities and probabilities of defeat. Does 
 this suggestion of the elder well-meant though 
 it be help or retard development? Who is 
 nearer God, the Source, and who can catch 
 most intelligently the whispers of Infinity 
 youth or manhood ? Experience is our grandest
 
 34 Man Limitless. 
 
 school, but Father Time only gives the lessons, 
 leaving us to draw conclusions. How often have 
 we failed to draw them right! I have heard 
 able men who have won great successes say that 
 their judgment did not lead to these. They had 
 won, they declared, where least they expected it 
 their judgment had erred, coupling with it all 
 their experience, more than half the time. 
 Youth, acting from desire, love, impulse, is right 
 in so doing, perhaps about half the time. Is 
 there a philosophy that can help to guide so that 
 one can direct effort that no energy be wasted 
 and the prize be won ? Unhesitatingly I answer 
 this question in the affirmative, but one cannot 
 master the philosophy without discipline. Then, 
 too, he must be true to himself. If he learns 
 some of the affirmations of the glorious Optimism 
 of the age, and calls them his belief, his creed, he 
 is not yet so firmly entrenched in the philosophy 
 as to receive its full measure of benefit. Doubts 
 will come to all who have gone only so far as to 
 say "I believe!" Faith founded on belief will 
 often waver. Let us be honest with ourselves 
 and convert belief into knowledge by proofs. 
 Until we do this we are only weak followers of 
 those who know. Carlyle says: "Properly speak- 
 ing, there is no other knowledge but that which 
 is got by working; the rect is all hypothesis of
 
 Love. 35 
 
 knowledge; a thing to be argued of in the 
 schools ; a thing floating in the clouds, in endless 
 logic- vortices, till we try and fix it." 
 
 In considering the conservation of force in the 
 human, and the directing of it to the ends de- 
 sired, my purpose herein is to inquire how pow- 
 erful a factor is comprised in the magnetic one 
 called Love. Love is only indomitable when it 
 holds supreme control it holds supreme control 
 when it fills our minds so completely that there 
 is no room for hate, or doubt. Such love is so 
 strong and absolute that it will enter into no 
 compromise or bargain. There can be nothing 
 commercial in its nature. It does not offer to 
 give with any proviso as to receiving in return. 
 Some examples will serve to make this clear. 
 
 Joan of Arc heard strange voices calling her 
 to action and advising how she could perform a 
 service for France and honor her beloved king. 
 There was no question in her mind of worthiness 
 or unworthiness of the king in her simple way 
 she almost reverenced him. Did this most un- 
 selfish and most magnanimous love of that poor, 
 unschooled shepherdess open the pathway to in- 
 finite force and bring its messengers in touch 
 with her, so that by their magnetic power a 
 shepherdess was evolved, mentality recreated, 
 into a warrior-leader, whose presence on the bat-
 
 36 Man Limitless. 
 
 tie-field assured victory and the glory of 
 France? My purpose here is not to follow the 
 pressure brought upon her to continue in service 
 after the victory of Orleans. Her special work, 
 under absolute spirit guidance, seems to have 
 been comprised in that one act. Then she wished 
 to retire her intuitions told her that she had 
 accomplished the best she could for the king 
 and for France. The voices did not urge her to 
 further deeds of valor. Fear rose in her heart. 
 Love had won its purpose ; and she without the 
 attendant spirit force was a simple country maid 
 again, with all the doubts and fears and tender- 
 ness of woman-kind in peasant life. 
 
 The first question propounded by the cautious 
 investigator of power claimed to be received 
 from the Universal, or from spirit forces that 
 may be of, or may, as parts of a great whole, be 
 the instruments to convey power from the 
 Source to man is, why this or that particular in- 
 dividual is or was selected for that particular 
 work. My investigations are fast bringing me to 
 a point where this question seems most weak and 
 puerile. As I study human growth, I find man 
 himself, consciously or subconsciously, opens the 
 way to receive this aid. The infinite force, God 
 himself, if you prefer to use that word, does not 
 make the selection. Man creates his own God
 
 Love. 37 
 
 and his own devil his own environment and his 
 own limitlessness. Desire, lifted into intense 
 longing, and that crystallized into absolute and 
 unquenchable Love, is the magnetic force that 
 brings to one's aid what some term the spirits 
 of mortals who once dwelt here and who form a 
 helping band on the other side, what others call 
 the infinite vibrative force of heaven, and what 
 others more orthodox call God. 
 
 Joan of Arc among her herd in the fields, felt 
 pained that a foreign nation was crushing out of 
 existence her native land. To her simple mind, 
 this was outrageous robbery. Her king was also 
 to her the God of France. In the ancient re- 
 ligion that bound her, there was a love and rev- 
 erence for altars, relics and saints. She did not 
 know her king, and but crudely her country; 
 yet, she loved them both. With disaster and 
 war, this love was intensified, and grew to a de- 
 sire to be of service to both king and country. 
 She was without ambition, so love could vibrate 
 only the single throbbings of unselfish devotion. 
 This, I argue, was the attractive force she sent 
 out to the spirit realm. The task of that spirit 
 band was no light one. They must make their 
 presence known by developing in her clairaudi- 
 ence and clairvoyance, for only through these 
 could she be told that her prayer was answered.
 
 38 Man Limitless. 
 
 Consciously she was made to feel, by degrees, 
 the task she was to perform by aid of spirit 
 forces, though the responsibilities attending its 
 accomplishment her wildest imagination could 
 never have conceived. 
 
 May it not be true that over and over again 
 one has cherished an intense desire that broad- 
 ened into love and sent out the attractive force 
 to compass and draw this infinite power to him, 
 when came with it hints of the responsibilities to 
 be assumed in the undertaking, and he has paled 
 at thought of carrying them, thereby causing 
 fear to arrest progress and defeat the success 
 half- won? I have argued over and over again 
 with people who have declared that they put 
 their best thought and their best efforts in an act 
 to attain a desire and failed in the accomplish- 
 ing. Under close questioning, I have found that 
 their desire was born mingled with doubt, or 
 that the responsibilities attendant on its attain- 
 ment had given fear a lodgment in thought, 
 thereby creating auto-opposition. One must 
 realize that within his own thought is the force 
 that carries him to success, as well as the oppos- 
 ing factor that may turn even success half -won 
 into failure. On himself alone rests all the re- 
 sponsibility. As old as that semi-mythical tale 
 of the fall of man from paradise, is the human
 
 Love. 39 
 
 desire to throw the responsibility of one's blun- 
 ders, short-comings, and failures on others. I 
 have had men in positions of trust in large com- 
 panies quick to ascribe the cause of failure to 
 subordinates, for whose ability and acts they 
 themselves were solely accountable. The average 
 man seems to be ready to receive all praises given 
 to the department over which he presides; but 
 when criticism comes, he starts on expeditions of 
 discovery that should have been made long be- 
 fore, to find if he may, blunders in the work of 
 his assistants in order that he may throw the 
 censure on them. 
 
 If one would go in the silence, and commune 
 there alone with himself, look soberly over his 
 own innate desires and the volume of work be- 
 tween him and their attainment, and resolve 
 that that is worth all the work embodying sacri- 
 fice of countless pleasures, as it may, then steady 
 devotion with singleness of purpose will lead 
 absolutely to victory. To overcome auto-opposi- 
 tion, the fears and doubts that arise in one's 
 thoughts after resolves have been made and the 
 work commenced, is the problem love has solved. 
 Love for the attainment of the end that brings 
 good to others, or advancement to man generally, 
 is sufficiently disinterested and broad, even 
 though the accomplishment of the purpose may
 
 40 Man Limitless. 
 
 mean pride, honor and glory to himself. Love 
 is so potent when it rises supreme that doubts 
 and fears are dispelled by its radiance ; and love 
 will rise supreme if the resolve is born of desire, 
 and that recognized as the whisper of divinity 
 within one's own selfhood. He who reaches this 
 plane is lifted to it by love, and the Chinese de- 
 clare, "The virtuous prince confronts the gods 
 without any misgivings, and he who confronts 
 the gods without any misgivings knows heaven. ' ' 
 Coleridge, in one of his poems, touches upon 
 the mystic power of love most happily in: 
 
 "Where true Love burns, Desire is Love's pure 
 
 flame; 
 
 It is the reflex of our earthly frame, 
 That takes the meaning from the nobler part, 
 And but translates the language of the heart." 
 
 In the daily round of the petty duties of life, 
 our attention is continually being arrested by 
 those who show love for their work, be it what it 
 may. Whether that love was cultivated, or grew 
 out of simply undertaking the tasks willingly, 
 need not be questioned. They who so work are 
 working on the right plane to reach success, be it 
 great or small. When one brings comfort or 
 happiness to another by doing what is regarded
 
 Love. 41 
 
 BS arduous work, and is so filled with the feeling 
 inspired in that other's breast that he rejoices in 
 the work and loses sight of its arduousness, then 
 has love shown itself triumphant. Over and 
 over again we have passed through or passed 
 near such experiences. Touching as they did 
 upon the ordinary in daily life, we have given 
 them hardly a passing thought. These incidents 
 suggest the power of love in every avenue of life. 
 When love rises back of and is bound up with a 
 noble desire completely entwined therein, so it 
 cannot be dethroned then, one marches for- 
 ward to victory, and his whole pathway is lumi- 
 nous with light. 
 
 Men like George Peabody have toiled for 
 wealth, happy in performing their duties to gain 
 it and continued steadfast therein, after accumu- 
 lating enough to assure them abundant supply 
 for themselves and their families, far beyond the 
 demands of most extravagant and luxurious liv- 
 ing, and this for the sole purpose of gaining 
 more to give to others. The joy in being able 
 to carry out great schemes bringing charity to 
 and education for the masses filled their beings. 
 Love then stood behind effort, and toil was 
 robbed of even the suggestion of drudgery. 
 More than this, love's attractive force so per- 
 vaded and surrounded the toiler whose work
 
 42 Man Limitless. 
 
 was to bless coming generations that it brought 
 around him a spirit band of mighty power that 
 worked for him, speaking to his consciousness, 
 and pointing out successful investments through 
 the subtle monitor of intuition. The purpose of 
 supreme intelligence is upliftment to all. He 
 who labors to uplift the masses calls the cohorts 
 of Infinity to his aid because he blends his per- 
 sonality with the Universal, and the refrain of 
 the Universal is now and ever, "Onward." 
 
 Love in the human is a growth that must be 
 daintily nourished. It is timid in that it waits 
 to be sought it is powerful when once one fully 
 possesses it or is possessed by it. It recognizes 
 no foe, and yet overcomes opposition by its at- 
 tractive force. It dignifies work, for work with- 
 in its scope is delight. It joys in giving, for 
 its province is to scatter blessings; and it lifts 
 man to a realization of his oneness with infinite 
 power.
 
 ' ' Through days and dreams I seem to walk with 
 
 one whose feet must shun 
 Henceforth, the paths of earth; for whom the 
 
 sun 
 
 Rises in unknown realms I cannot trace; 
 And still there is home no vacant place. 
 Before me comes upon the air her face. 
 In the deep, luminous and wondering eyes 
 I read the rapture of a glad surprise; 
 A tender hand is clasped within my own, 
 And on the air there still vibrates her tone." 
 Lillian Whiting in "From Dreamland Sent.' 9
 
 The spirit speaks in dreams in fond desire 
 in roseate hope. That dream, that desire, that 
 hope is spirit's breathing of God's message, tell- 
 ing you what may be yours if you will. Trust 
 the spirit.
 
 THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE THROUGH IN- 
 TUITION. 
 
 It is now over nineteen hundred years since 
 the dial of time was stopped, and the year 
 marked one. A volume of history was then 
 closed a new volume opened. This, not a his- 
 tory of wars and conflicts, but a history of the 
 growth of man's consciousness. Intelligence, 
 even at that time, had risen, lifting man to a 
 higher plane and teaching him something of the 
 unseen force on which he might draw. A life 
 then was ushered into expression whose deeds 
 were carried on the tablets of memory for years 
 and years, and handed down from one genera- 
 tion to another, before the need of a record was 
 felt. Centuries passed before that record came 
 into permanent form, even to the few the 
 learned. And yet that advent of a life was 
 potent enough to make a division on the calendar 
 of time, to be recognized later in every business 
 transaction among the foremost nations of this 
 planet. 
 
 The story of the Galilean Fisherman's King 
 came to us indirectly through the Greeks they 
 
 45
 
 46 Man Limitless. 
 
 were a highly romantic and imaginative people, 
 and when their poetry reached its most heroic 
 heights, there was a union of mortals with im- 
 mortals, thus producing a race possessed of 
 magic force and power. It is not strange that, 
 coming through this channel, a veil of mystery 
 which has dimmed perfect perception was 
 thrown over the record. To-day, as we read the 
 story of that life in the form we have re- 
 ceived it, we still, like those who followed him, 
 are questioning the wonderful meaning there 
 shadowed. An historical record, colored with 
 the lively tints that dart from Eastern imagery, 
 and mingled with intuitional truths received 
 from those mystic vibrations from infinite mind, 
 is a record that confounds the logician, startles 
 the thoughtful, and amazes, at times, even him 
 who has attuned his soul to the vibrations of the 
 force energy of the universe. 
 
 Think a moment does not the record plainly 
 show that the repeated assertion of Jesus of "I 
 and the Father are One" was never compre- 
 hended by his own disciples ? And what to them 
 was "Greater works than these shall ye do?" 
 The disciples never did greater works than he 
 or, if so, the record fails to show them. Whom does 
 "ye" refer to, then? Clearly to those to come 
 after to you and me to all who live to-day.
 
 The Christ Principle. 47 
 
 I do not want to call forth opposition ; but, as I 
 understand spiritual growth, it has taken nearly 
 nineteen hundred years to bring forth a mental- 
 ity on this planet whose unfoldment would per- 
 mit the understanding and appreciating of the 
 real teachings of Jesus the Illumined. A new 
 era of time is approaching, and man is finding 
 his divine selfhood. Laotze, in China, twenty- 
 five hundred years ago, dreamed of this truth 
 Plato guessed at it and guessed well Jesus 
 knew it and taught it. It is no wonder that the 
 record coming to us through the Eastern and 
 Greek philosophers was not understood. The 
 record taught human birth to rise from sin and 
 branded innocent childhood with horrible stains. 
 A mythical story was invented to save the per- 
 sonality of Jesus from the stain, for the simple 
 reason that the philosophers for centuries have 
 not separated the incarnate the immaculate 
 Christ principle from the personal Jesus who 
 taught them. 
 
 To know the Christ principle, let us turn to 
 the intuitional side and study the record. Let us 
 recognize the Adam life and its real meaning 
 let us travel over the road or climb the heights, 
 from the physical being typified by Adam, to the 
 Christ life waiting expression within every 
 breathing mortal, and typified by Jesus.
 
 48 Man Limitless. 
 
 There is no metaphysical student to-day who 
 questions the absolute permanency of soul life. 
 It is without beginning and without end. Its 
 first entrance into matter, giving form to indi- 
 vidual entity, is exemplified by the Adam life 
 or age. The earliest intelligence was to recog- 
 nize and use the physical entity. The Infinite 
 energy of the Universe as I reach it intuition- 
 ally, was first directed to teach man the use of 
 flesh and bone and muscle and nerves, to serve 
 his purpose in the physical economy of living. 
 This Adam age, then, represents the child life of 
 humanity. During the first years of the life of 
 a child, the only mental instruction offered is 
 that of the power of the mind over the physical. 
 To move this physical entity as one would to 
 make it obey the will were and are the pre- 
 liminary requirements to make it obtain mental 
 mastery over the unreal or material selfhood. 
 Though the mind here is the directing force, 
 early intelligence erroneously gave matter a 
 power it does not possess and so made it an op- 
 posing factor in man's unfolding. Back in the 
 earliest human life on this planet the conflict 
 between mind and matter began. Opposing 
 forces were recognized in the human entity and 
 the strife has been waged for thousands of years 
 in ignorance. The Adam age was misinterpreted
 
 The Christ Principle. 49 
 
 it did not mean the commencement of soul 
 life. Where there is a beginning there must be 
 an ending. Then, soul first infused itself into 
 material form: that is all. I take it that the 
 soul, prior to that time being free as thought, 
 found itself seemingly restrained. It fought 
 against its seeming fetters, though they were of 
 its own forging. Mind everywhere existent, fill- 
 ing all space but occupying none observed that 
 the new creation (matter) attracted its like to it- 
 self, and that it filled and crowded space. Did 
 this observation give rise to conflict, creative of 
 fear? Who shall answer? Surely the require- 
 ments of materiality could not have received 
 attention till they became known. For the soul 
 to adapt itself to new conditions, the laws of 
 harmony, not between soul and matter, but of 
 soul encased therein and vibrative force, were to 
 be learned. The lesson has been only partly 
 learned, and a compromise has patched up a 
 peace. 
 
 Childhood passed, we reach early youth, and 
 here we find the Moses age. Some rules must 
 be accepted as the basis of right action. The 
 Moses age presented them under the form of 
 the ten commandments. They taught the prop- 
 erty rights of each, the sacredness of life, the
 
 50 Man Limitless. 
 
 relationship of parents and children, and gave 
 society a moral code. 
 
 In the development of man, the David age 
 succeeds the Moses age. David recognized the 
 relationship of families and communities to each 
 other. He sang of the overthrow of enemies and 
 the victorious triumph of friends. Another step 
 in unf oldment was taken. From the family idea 
 rose the community idea the centralization for 
 general protection and benefit. Out of this grew 
 the national idea and all it stands for. Its ex- 
 pression awoke new zeal in man and gave to 
 language the magic word we call in English, 
 patriotism. Youth catches its meaning and 
 greedily devours the warlike stories of heroism 
 on the battle field. The uplifting, as one will 
 note, so far had been practically on material 
 lines. The boy now stands firm, he is seeking 
 mental light he is reaching beyond the environ- 
 ment of physical sense. 
 
 The next plane attained is the intuitional 
 it may be named the Isaiah plane or age. A 
 discovery had been made man mentally may 
 draw power from the unseen he may even be 
 guided from a source beyond that of conscious 
 reasoning. Light had come from within man 
 does not walk alone. A spiritual relationship 
 with a force beyond the comprehension of the
 
 The Christ Principle. 51' 
 
 sense plane was revealed. The horizon of mental 
 vision was lifted, and all its boundary lines were 
 fading. 
 
 "What is it? And whither, whence, 
 This unsleeping, secret sense, 
 Longing for its rest and food 
 In some broader, untried good? 
 'Tis the soul mysterious name, 
 Him it seeks from whence it came; 
 While I muse, I feel the fire 
 Burning on, and mounting higher. 
 Onward, upward to thy throne, 
 O, thou Infinite, unknown 
 Still it presseth, till it see 
 Thee in all, and all in thee." 
 
 Through the intuitional, whose limits are as 
 boundless as thought's realm of imagery, comes 
 the realization of the Christ principle in man. 
 Isaiah and Jeremiah opened wide the door, and 
 lo! on the threshold stood Jesus, as the perfect 
 embodiment of the Christ principle, bringing to 
 mankind the proofs of the divine within the 
 human. In every life to-day, these successive 
 stages are noted. One may pass through each 
 and every till the Jesus age of spirit illumina- 
 tion is reached during the time of twenty years
 
 52 Man Limitless. 
 
 from birth. The ages that marked the uplifting 
 of man to a true comprehension of self have 
 brought him to such an unfoldment that he may 
 pass through them all and reach the highest 
 within the usual term required to complete the 
 growth of the physical body. You will please 
 note, by way of condensation, that I, writing 
 from the intuitional plane, regard the Adam age 
 as representing the infancy of the child, extend- 
 ing, perhaps, until the child is five or six years 
 of age. Perhaps a little before that he has to 
 be taught something about the rights of prop- 
 erty. The play-things that belong to another do 
 not belong to him; and even before he has 
 reached the age of five he usually learns that he 
 must respect his parents' authority. The Moses 
 age, therefore, blends in the Adam age, but be- 
 gins to fashion itself more firmly at about the 
 age of five or six and from then onward. A little 
 later, possibly before the child reaches ten, if 
 he lives in America at least, he is shouting 
 "hurrah" for the Fourth of July. He does not 
 understand the science of the government of his 
 own country, but he has some joy in being an 
 American. In short, the idea of the David age 
 is dawning upon him and he recognizes the 
 household authority the laws of the village and 
 the parks but he soars to something a little
 
 The Christ Principle. 53 
 
 higher, vaguely glories over his country's flag, 
 and is learning something of the national idea 
 as well. All this is comprised in the David age. 
 About fourteen, possibly younger, a restless 
 thinking begins to find lodgment in his breast. 
 That thinking reaches beyond his physical en- 
 vironment possibly he listens to songs when in 
 the church and sermons preached there with a 
 new zest. God and Heaven and Hell signify cer- 
 tain unknowns to him and he finds a craving in 
 his heart to know more of them. This represents 
 the dawn of the Isaiah and Jeremiah age. In 
 short, the intuitional, which is born of vibrative 
 harmony, whose melodies all of us have heapd but 
 never fully analyzed, has reached consciousness. 
 He finds himself mentally inquiring to learn his 
 place in the great Cosmos. In short, the Christ 
 principle within him is speaking and telling of 
 its existence. It is opening his understanding 
 to a comprehension of the great Oneness of all 
 life. The throbbings born of the intuitional are 
 very active in the young person passing through 
 his teens. At reaching the age of twenty he has 
 either made some acquaintance with the spiritual 
 selfhood asserting itself within him or he has 
 become for the time being insensible to its vibra- 
 tions. Though this may be the case, within five, 
 ten or twenty years it may assert itself again
 
 54 Man Limitless. 
 
 and even more strongly; because the soul never 
 forgets its fatherhood. However, during the 
 last fifth of the past century many children have 
 been born who have been named by theosophists 
 and astrologers as children of the sixth race and 
 give evidence of the psychic powers of clair- 
 voyance, clairaudience and the most subtle intui- 
 tion in childhood, at the earliest age of intelli- 
 gent expression of thought. They Avill later, I 
 prophesy, solve mysteries in life's mysticism 
 that will appall the sage. They will glean the 
 truth from nature's unwritten book of har- 
 monies, whose songs will reach their intelligences 
 through the mental sense of hearing, responsive 
 to the soft, ceaseless, rhythmic vibrations of the 
 unseeable chords of the mighty universal harp, 
 touched by the fingers of energy moving under 
 the direction of that mighty impersonality the 
 Imminent God. 
 
 In my hurried review of the growth of mental- 
 ity to a plane where man could receive and com- 
 prehend the Christ principle, it must be quite 
 apparent to the reader that few, if any, were 
 ready to receive and understand it when Jesus 
 proclaimed it. Why? How simple the answer 
 when we study the Christ principle on .the only 
 plane on which it can be comprehended the in- 
 tuitional. The Isaiah age had come, but mate-
 
 The Christ Principle. 55 
 
 rial fetters bound human thought, and minds 
 were thereby imprisoned, so that few intelli- 
 gences could receive the vibrations of truth from 
 the Infinite with which Jesus was consciously 
 responsive. The spiritual light then threw its 
 lustre over the few those few are always found 
 in every period of history, and always were, and 
 always are among the workers uplifting man. 
 The hour had come for man to be told of his 
 spirit relationship to the great force energy of 
 the universe, in order that he might come into 
 complete harmony with himself, and know his 
 central position in the great Cosmos. The Christ 
 principle, therefore, was not disclosed at too 
 early an age, even though it were not compre- 
 hended. Some of the possibilities of man had to 
 be disclosed to him, as history has proved, hun- 
 dreds and hundreds of years before he would 
 unfold so as to grasp even those which now seem 
 to us to-day most patent and clear. 
 
 Sectarianism is a natural outgrowth of inde- 
 pendent thinking too easily satisfied. It sepa- 
 rates religious societies by dogmas; and yet, 
 throwing dogmas aside, all claim to be working 
 largely to the same end the advancement of 
 their members morally, and the helping of the 
 needy. Dogmas are the enclosures that separate 
 the Presbyterians from the Methodists, and the
 
 56 Man Limitless. 
 
 Baptists from the Lutherans, and so on. An- 
 other circle of dogmas holds all these and other 
 sects as one, and it is named Protestantism. An- 
 other and still wider circle takes in the Roman 
 Catholics as well, and calls itself Christian, leav- 
 ing the Jews only outside. In short, we have 
 circles within circles angles of agreement and 
 angles of divergence. These various sects live, 
 grow and flourish, not because of their dogmas 
 but in spite of them. They live and grow, be- 
 cause to some extent they are moral powers in 
 the community. All they have done for the edu- 
 cation and upliftment of the masses, they have 
 done for progress. Many of them have grown 
 somewhat liberal with the growth of mentality 
 generally ; but now at this period of history 
 a thought current has risen that will bring more 
 than liberality it will bring about, it seems to 
 me, a breaking from all the chains of error. 
 
 I will not here attempt an analysis of this or 
 that dogma, distinguishing one sect from another 
 this paper has another purpose. In a general 
 way, I ask my readers to note that it is the moral 
 influence of the various sects in their efforts to 
 teach honesty in business relations, uprightness 
 in social life, and charity to the needy, that has 
 given them their power. In these three particu- 
 lars, at least, all the sects are united, and to these
 
 The Christ Principle. 57 
 
 I may add also the three branches of the Catholic 
 Church the Eoman, the Anglican and the 
 Greek; and even the Jews come forward and 
 say, as to those teachings, we are working in 
 harmony with the Christians. "With such pur- 
 poses as these, it is not surprising that modern 
 religion has been popularized to the masses and 
 become formidable and powerful. Often, it has 
 opposed scientific progress, because the light of 
 science proved a dogma erroneous. In some 
 cases the church fought vigorously for its pet 
 dogma; but its power, though often retarding 
 progress, has never been found great enough to 
 overcome truth. 
 
 There is one dogma only to which I will refer 
 and that is a broad one, for on it rest the pil- 
 lars that sustain the entire fabric of belief of 
 modern Christianity. Every sect or church call- 
 ing itself Christian is founded upon belief in 
 a Jewish institution of blood-sacrifices. Now, 
 the origin of these sacrifices was not Jewish, 
 it was Persian. They sprang from the genius 
 of the Aryan, and were, therefore, Zoroastrian 
 not divine, but distinctly human. To appease 
 God, that the sins of coming generations, as well 
 as of those who had lived in the past and so be- 
 lieved might be wiped out, human blood must 
 be shed. ' ' Christ died for our sins, ' ' wrote Paul.
 
 58 Man Limitless. 
 
 Through all Paul's teachings is found this need 
 of the sacrifice of human blood of a supremely 
 spiritualized and innocent man. In the four 
 gospels these teachings are not found except in 
 one clause in the 26th chapter of Matthew, which 
 is plainly an interpolation to Judaize this gospel, 
 as it was the only one that was circulated freely 
 among the Jews. 
 
 So much for the history of blood-sacrifices 
 upon which modern Christianity founds its doc- 
 trine of atonement. I will go no further here. 
 I recognize that many of my readers may still 
 accept it .as the foundation of their faith only 
 half-believing it may be, yet fearing they will 
 plunge themselves into chaos by letting it go. I 
 present now no argument against it, except to 
 call attention to the fact that historically it de- 
 scended from old religious rites and ceremonies, 
 which the Jews borrowed from Persia. 
 
 To bring forth the Christ principle within us, 
 we must free our minds from dogmas and pas- 
 sively open them to truth, for thus do we develop 
 our spiritual or real entities, and learn to 
 draw, through conscious mind, upon the inex- 
 haustible resources of the universe. To be able 
 to draw from this source, one must be spiritual. 
 That word "spiritual" has been abused by the 
 ecclesiastic. He was blinded by his dogmas, and
 
 The Christ Principle. 59 
 
 so we must not censure him. To be spiritual 
 means to him primarily the entrance into mem- 
 bership and communion with the church. It 
 means more, of course, but this is the preliminary 
 step. Next, it means the renouncing of pet am- 
 bitions the giving up of ideals in a word, self 
 sacrifice here, for possible joys beyond this plane 
 of existence. Some would add other require- 
 ments. They would have you, particularly if 
 possessed of ample means, unite yourself with 
 organizations that distribute charity. Another 
 class might urge you to join the Good Govern- 
 ment Club as an aid, and so on. 
 
 To be spiritual how those words have been 
 abused ! Why it has taken nearly nineteen hun- 
 dred years for people generally to understand 
 their true meaning. The spirit speaks in dreams 
 in fond desire in roseate hope. That dream, 
 that desire, that hope is spirit's breathing of 
 God's message to you, telling you what may be 
 yours, if you will. Trust the spirit. It will 
 never waken you to desires or ambitions that 
 may not be realized. Trust the spirit that is 
 being spiritual. Your desires are your good 
 your good is your God believe the messages 
 he has thus telepathically sent your conscious- 
 ness. He is most spiritual who lives closest to 
 his ideal.
 
 60 Man Limitless. 
 
 We have studied the record too seriously from 
 the logical side and from the dogma side. This 
 has misled man. The Bible has lived through 
 all these thousands and thousands of years, be- 
 cause of the intuitional truth it contains. There 
 is much there, however, that is not inspiration. 
 The child of the sixth race will, early upon the 
 opening of the new century, I prophesy, point 
 out from it the intuitional truths man should 
 recognize, and its other pages will cease to be 
 read. Inspiration is a word signifying uplift- 
 ment everyone may feel its force and utter 
 spirit truths. It would take millions of volumes 
 to express the inspirations felt by mankind dur- 
 ing a single year. 
 
 In India the simplest layman has no confused 
 idea as to the meaning of being spiritual; and 
 the principal reason for this is that he has never 
 looked in his sacred books or studied any dogma 
 to learn of it. Let him belong to the school of 
 the Vedanta, or the Jains he looks within for 
 light. The books cannot teach him how to be 
 spiritual they may illustrate it somewhat, but 
 that is all. His discipline brings to him the un- 
 foldment of spiritual consciousness. He reads 
 his sacred books for joy. 
 
 Not separating, in our daily thought, objective
 
 The Christ Principle. 61 
 
 consciousness from subjective consciousness is 
 largely due to the fact that we have held errone- 
 ous ideas as to the Christ principle. We were 
 trying to place it somewhere in the skies instead 
 of in our hearts. We did not know that desire 
 was divine we did not know it was a promised 
 blessing. We did not know that material desire 
 could be obtained through spirit help. To-day 
 clairvoyance is recognized by philosophers and 
 scholars as a gift some possess. It has been 
 called by some a sixth sense, but really this sixth 
 sense includes other occult gifts, such as clair- 
 audience and intuition. It may be a little later 
 that we shall find these gifts are senses just as 
 real as any of the five senses we possess, but 
 senses that have been lost by man through non- 
 use. The consideration of spirit phenomena, as 
 seen by the clairvoyant, would take me beyond 
 the limits I have allowed myself in this article 
 and beyond its province. 
 
 Buddha taught happiness to be the annihila- 
 tion of desire, but Jesus, a later and to my mind 
 (recalling the evolution of man) a more ad- 
 vanced psychic, taught happiness to be the at- 
 tainment of desire. We are to-day believers in 
 and followers of the Galilean who taught the 
 oneness of man and God in purpose and power 
 in "I and the Father are One."
 
 62 Man Limitless. 
 
 ' ' What would ye know ? To silence go, 
 There shall ye learn, for what ye yearn 
 Is but the portion waiting the way 
 To reach you. In faith then, each day, 
 Seek the silence rehearse there your longing, 
 To your aid come the spirits, not singly, but 
 
 thronging, 
 And rejoicing to bring all the blessings, they 
 
 sing, 
 All hail to thee, praise to thee, thou art the 
 
 King." 
 
 Each of us wants to know more of and to con- 
 sciously possess the Christ principle the in- 
 carnate Christ within. The way to its pos- 
 session begins in worthy desire, and it ends in 
 triumphant faith. The path between the two 
 is the bridge of silence. Let us seek it find it 
 cross it and fill our lives with joy.
 
 "We see the whole universe is working. For 
 what? For salvation, for liberty, consciously or 
 unconsciously, from the atom to the highest 
 being ; working for that one end, liberty for the 
 mind, for the body, for the spirit, for every- 
 thing ; always trying to get freedom, flying away 
 from the bondage." From Karma Yoga of 
 Swami Vivekananda.
 
 Work is the external must that gives expres- 
 sion to life, and happy he who has learned to 
 love what makes life possible to express individ- 
 uality.
 
 WORK. 
 
 From our earliest remembrance, the word 
 work was made to signify a task imposed by 
 force, or undertaken through duty or volition. 
 Within its domain were toil and hardship. Back 
 in the ages, we were told a command had been 
 disobeyed, and the edict for that disobedience 
 was condemnation to the prisonhouse of work. 
 Rest was its counterpart; and the earliest 
 dwellers on this planet found the complement 
 of life encased within the meanings they gave 
 to these two words work and rest. 
 
 In the evolution of man came the develop- 
 ment of ideals; and work was given a higher 
 meaning, for it represented the path to the cher- 
 ished end. Yet its earliest signification still 
 hangs like a pall over childhood and early youth ; 
 and even the world's great toilers too often only 
 feel in it its early meaning of thraldom. Pleas- 
 ure in work has had a slow growth. It began to 
 assert itself centuries ago. It is reserved to the 
 twentieth century, however, to develop mentality 
 to a point where one may always find joy in 
 work. Will the twentieth century fulfill to man 
 
 6s
 
 66 Man Limitless. 
 
 this mission ? Many have approached that plane 
 few, if any, have placed themselves absolutely 
 upon it. 
 
 Were one to contemplate nature as it unfolds 
 itself to the eye in the speechless life, we would 
 observe that everywhere is ceaseless action in 
 every living thing. All life is a great mystery 
 of throbbings and responses. Roots reach down 
 for moisture seeking their own and the warm 
 sunlight draws this upward, assisting to convert 
 it into the constituents required by each peculiar 
 life for its growth, that it may fulfill its destiny. 
 Work everywhere. Not a command of infinite 
 Being that man must obey because a greater 
 than man said this is the Law; but a law even 
 infinite Being, Omniscience, the great primeval 
 atom, the fathomless It, (call this Intelligence, 
 what you will) as well as all living entities, must 
 obey, because work is an integral part of life. 
 Work is the eternal must that gives expression 
 to life, and happy he who has learned to love 
 what makes life possible to express individuality. 
 Even in sleep, the subjective self assumes control 
 while the conscious slumbers ; and the heart con- 
 tinues its beatings, and the blood is sent forward 
 in its normal channels, assisting each organ of 
 the body to perform its work, in accordance with 
 the law of life. Continued pulsation, ceaseless
 
 Work. 67 
 
 vibration, is life's refrain. [We cannot escape 
 from it, and if we love life we should love work. 
 Even he who claims to be weary of work is sim- 
 ply longing to turn from one kind to another. 
 Great wealth cannot take work from one, for it 
 imposes duties, social and other, in spite of vol- 
 untary wish. Work and life then are insepara- 
 ble, bound together by an ineffaceable decree 
 obey and live, refuse and perish. 
 
 If it be, then, that existence is subject to this 
 mighty law, let us seek to find, not merely the 
 grandeur or nobleness in work, but how to love 
 it always, for then only can complete happiness 
 be attainable and the dream of the soul made a 
 reality. 
 
 Love is a word of wide significance. In its 
 scope of attractiveness between two individuals, 
 it often asserts itself spontaneously, giving all 
 and asking nothing. Its endurance in such cases, 
 however, depends on like mutual growths. The 
 consideration of this is outside of my purpose, 
 for we can cultivate love for work, even though 
 it may often be a question if we can love one 
 whom we may will to love. If we love our 
 ideals, we should love the paths to their attain- 
 ment. If we would win our ideals, this should 
 not be a forced love. Let us see if we cannot 
 overcome the errors of the past, and discover
 
 68 Man Limitless. 
 
 within our selfhoods the dominant stimuli re- 
 quired to make the path to achievement a de- 
 lightful, entrancing road, even though it lead 
 over walls and precipices, through tangled 
 woods and over arid deserts to the sunlit, peace- 
 ful homes in the land of purpose fulfilled. 
 
 In the earth's earlier civilizations, the neg- 
 ativeness of law formed the great background 
 of the nations' decrees. The laws did not set 
 forth what the citizen or subject should do 
 they rather assumed he knew that, and that he 
 was in rebellion by nature ; and so, the edicts of 
 kings and sovereigns and rulers were expressed 
 in a series of ' ' thou-shalt-nots. " When mental- 
 ity, always growing or evolving, even during 
 those thousand years of medieval darkness, felt 
 an upreaching and sought new paths of useful- 
 ness, life's environment prompted the seeker to 
 examine the law's decrees to discover if there 
 were not some "shalt-nots" barring the way. 
 Those ''shalt-nots" sought for were generally 
 found, and so to grow meant independent think- 
 ing and independent work, in opposition to the 
 negatives rulers had made to check the ascent of 
 man. Some paled when they discovered these 
 barriers ; and environment so cramped their un- 
 derstandings that rather than disobey bad laws, 
 they felt it duty to turn back to Hoi Polloi, and
 
 Work. 69 
 
 let others do the thinking. And so, in countless 
 cases, work did not pale these aspirants that 
 they were willing to do but they felt they could 
 not enter upon it and become violators of the 
 law. 
 
 We who live to-day and enjoy the civilization 
 and progress of which we are part, cannot but 
 feel, as we look through history's pages, the 
 great debt due to those who have worked against 
 all this opposition to uplift man. We are the 
 product of their tireless work and of their sacri- 
 fices for principle. In spite of all this, we our- 
 selves have our own environments, our own prej- 
 udices, our own false gods, and our own igno- 
 rances. All reformers have had their prejudices 
 and limitations. Luther placed himself firm as 
 a rock on Hie est corpus meum. The old world 's 
 greatest and wisest statesmen declared that a 
 free republic and corrupt morals were always 
 linked together. Through our literal and false 
 interpretations of the Bible, sects have sprung 
 up that are a menace to good morals and good 
 citizenship. 
 
 Our age, grand and great as it is, is not free 
 from countless errors. Environment still rears 
 high her prison-walls. Prejudice, often used as 
 a synonym for ignorance, stands sentinel with- 
 out its gates. Fear of power within one's self
 
 70 Man Limitless. 
 
 to break through them is the canopy overhead, 
 hiding out the sunlight of Truth. And the 
 dreadful dogma of some ancient creed (errone- 
 ously called religion) has placed its blinding fet- 
 ters over the eyes of intelligence so that Truth's 
 rays often only dazzle and pain. 
 
 This glance backward I have made; because 
 in our work to-day for the attainment of ideals, 
 though many of the barriers have been swept 
 away, we must recognize that a new civilization, 
 a new religion, a new conception of Truth, have 
 also, with the blessings they bring, reared new 
 barriers to intellectual progress. Everything 
 that endures in creed and civilization does so be- 
 cause it possesses some truth. It should not re- 
 ceive, therefore, wholesale condemnation 
 cherish its truth, and weed out its errors. I 
 speak for upliftment to man's possibilities; and, 
 recognizing some truth in each and every of the 
 many vagaries called philosophies, I hurl at them 
 no bolts of destruction. Error often seems to 
 have a slow death, but it must die. Only truth 
 can live. Error must gradually pass to oblivion 
 as man unfolds. It is of the negatives of life; 
 and the denials or "nots" of existence are de- 
 structive, not constructive. Upbuilding follows 
 right thinking, and right thinking has no har- 
 mony with the negatives of forbidding. Our
 
 Work. 71 
 
 problem is to know what to do, not what we 
 should not do. I study the lessons given child- 
 hood with pity and sympathy for children, for 
 their lessons each begin with a "don't." Worse 
 than that, each "don't" is intensified with a 
 penalty following it. This, at least, suggests that 
 there may be something delectable in doing the 
 thing forbidden ; and the price to be paid for the 
 doing is expressed in the penalty. Even the 
 "do" that follows the later sections of the les- 
 sons is linked with a command and implies some 
 sacrifice if faithfully observed. Thus we see the 
 ancient meaning of the word work the meaning 
 before man had evolved to ideality still clings 
 to us, and is especially manifest in our training 
 of children. AVe begin wrong. Incentives to 
 right action, right doing, right thinking, can 
 never be stimulated by centering instruction on 
 pointing out the forbidden ways and lines. 
 
 Out of this false training, one might conclude 
 that to follow and pursue right action and 
 duty was contrary to desire, and, therefore, 
 burdensome and full of self-sacrifice. The battle 
 of mentality was to force action on lines or paths 
 that appeared to be and were called uninviting 
 and uninteresting. Why, it is only within the 
 last thirty years that we began to allow election 
 in studies to be offered for the degree of Bach-
 
 72 Man Limitless. 
 
 elor of Arts ; and only within the last ten or fif- 
 teen years that we have learned that this elec- 
 tion has brought about a higher standard for 
 admission to college, a higher rank in college and 
 a higher average range of scholarship among our 
 college graduates. By that, we opened the way 
 for the student to recognize joy in work. The 
 work now is substantially on lines selected to 
 do this means steps upward to mental heights 
 longed for and desired. It is right action on pos- 
 itive lines, where not even a vista of a negative 
 can appear. More and more wisdom is being 
 shown by educators, appreciating the benefits 
 this elective system has brought about, and even 
 greater and better results will follow, directly 
 and indirectly, these truer methods of mental 
 training. 
 
 Could we go back to early childhood and start 
 training with suggestions of what to do, and fill 
 the child-mind with these, every lesson would 
 prompt to advancement. Could we leave out en- 
 tirely the forbidden, every lesson would point 
 to action progressive and constructive. The for- 
 bidden ways, coupled with penalties if pursued, 
 thrust upon consciousness a choice ; and the fact 
 of penalties rather suggests there must be delight 
 in following these ways, that will compensate 
 even if one is forced to pay the affixed charges.
 
 Work. 73 
 
 The child-mind, seeing delight in the forbidden, 
 does not recognize the work in those paths as 
 wearisome ; but work in the line of duty or com- 
 mand becomes drudgery, because of the fascina- 
 tion offered in the forbidden. With parents and 
 teachers I leave this problem, believing it may 
 be solved, and the child-mind never disturbed, 
 puzzled or outraged by the negatives of the for- 
 bidden. It is not a simple one, yet we have 
 advanced part way in its solution. Shall we 
 solve it step by step, or by a single stroke that 
 means revolution? Time must answer. 
 
 Unfortunately, we ourselves are not the 
 product of such early training; and so, to make 
 work a delight, we have a thousand doubts and 
 fears to overcome. These doubts and fears were 
 grafted in our minds by the early lessons, and 
 they blossomed into trees bearing unwholesome 
 fruit through the nourishment given by the false 
 philosophies of life. Still, we are what we are, 
 through the evolution of the past, and through 
 the fruits of early discipline, of study, of ex- 
 perience and of association of ideas; and now, 
 with that past behind us and the future before 
 us, ideals may yet be grasped, if only we can 
 make work one continued dream of delight. Is 
 this possible? Is this too much to hope for? 
 
 To appreciate beauty in nature or art, one
 
 74 Man Limitless. 
 
 must not content himself with hurried glances. 
 He must view the panorama of nature or the ob- 
 ject of art somewhat passively contemplate it 
 leisurely. Now as one approaches this task, let 
 him first clearly define his purpose. Let him, 
 for a moment, withdraw his gaze from the moun- 
 tain of work between him and the goal. Let 
 him rest the eyes of his soul on the heights he 
 seeks to climb. Let him examine his conscious 
 self through the mystic counsel of the ideal, or 
 subliminal selfhood. Let the conscious or ob- 
 jective self view, under this able counselor, the 
 path to the end with all its formidable barriers. 
 Let one also, under the guidance of that wise 
 counselor, note the glorious rewards to con- 
 sciousness in the mental unfoldment to be gained 
 by doing the work. Pausing there, in the still 
 hour, let consciousness decide the question. 
 Does it feel the labor too great, the devotion to 
 purpose a sacrifice, then wait a little. At an- 
 other time, and perhaps still another and an- 
 other, try the same experiment. Let weeks or 
 months go by, if you will, between them; then, 
 if each and every time, the feeling in contemplat- 
 ing the tasks is one of dread, accompanied by 
 regret of so much self-sacrifice, why do not at- 
 tempt that work. Seek some other, making tests 
 in a similar way. Work you must that you
 
 Work. 75 
 
 cannot free yourself from, even m your games 
 of exercise. He who seeks idleness for a time 
 often does well, for that quiet gives the sub- 
 liminal selfhood an opportunity to speak when 
 the conscious may listen. This other selfhood, 
 which has several names and is frequently 
 spoken of by our superficial writers as the nobler 
 self, I designate, following Flournoy, Professor 
 of Psychology in the University of Geneva, 
 Switzerland, as the subliminal selfhood. It must 
 be remembered, however, that it acts in degree 
 as nerves or muscles, in performing their pur- 
 pose, in the economy of life. The heart's beat- 
 ings are not always uniform, and brain centers 
 respond to calls with varying intensities of ac- 
 tion. The subliminal self cannot be compre- 
 hended in its entirety the Hindus call it the 
 super-conscious, it forming the link between 
 man and God. Still, it is a part of us our bet- 
 ter, truer selfhood, which the coward, conscious 
 self stupidly battles with, as if it were an 
 enemy. Man creates his own doubts and fears, 
 because of this warfare of the selves. He attri- 
 butes his change of attitude to moods to bad 
 logic, or to impulsiveness. Let him harmonize 
 his selfhoods in those quiet hours when decision 
 is to be made. Let him recognize that the sub- 
 liminal selfhood is the real suggester, though
 
 76 Man Limitless. 
 
 the conscious will claim the honor. Action 
 works through the objective or conscious mind; 
 back of it, however, is the silent mainspring of 
 all life's activity and force. 
 
 Let it be that the work has been selected. Let 
 it be that one has listened to these inner prompt- 
 ings and heeded them. Let him ever remember, 
 from that time on, there must be no turning 
 back. The decision has been made with due de- 
 liberation, and is final, and is right. Then the 
 purpose is born of love, and every path to the 
 end will loom up with attractiveness. When the 
 first wakeful moments come each day, let him 
 turn his thought to the delight in accomplish- 
 ment through work. Let him note, from time to 
 time, the advance he has made and the joy that 
 that has brought him. Such habits of thought 
 lift one above all petty details of the perplexities 
 in work, and even make him glory that they ex- 
 ist for him to conquer. At times, in his most 
 sacred moods, when reaching mentally for his 
 good, let him turn to Emerson : ' ' There are de- 
 grees in idealism. We learn first to play with it 
 academically, as the magnet was once a toy. 
 Then we see in the heyday of youth and poetry 
 that it may be true, that it is true in gleams and 
 fragments. Then its countenance waxes stern 
 and grand, and we see that it must be true. It
 
 Work. 77 
 
 now shows itself ethical and practical. We learn 
 that God is: that he is in us and that all things 
 are shadows of him!" 
 
 Whether our chosen work carry us in the in- 
 ventor's workshop, in the chemical laboratory, 
 in linguistic philosophy, in psychology's limit- 
 less field, or where it may, there is one new sur- 
 prise after another waiting us, and each new 
 one brings greater delight, for then are we rais- 
 ing ourselves above ourselves. This is growth. 
 This is work's recompense. Contemplating this 
 makes all the word work implies intense with 
 magnetic attractiveness. 
 
 The^Hincfii7~fwami Vivekananda, in one of 
 his lectures on the Yoga philosophy, crystallizes 
 discipline in a series of monosyllabic words most 
 fitting : ' ' Take up one idea. Make that one idea 
 your life ; dream of it, think of it ; live on that 
 idea. Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, 
 every part of your body, be full of that idea 
 alone. This is the way to success." 
 
 In another of Swami Vivekananda 's lectures 
 touching upon the secret of work, he most hap- 
 pily says : ' ' There are a few who are really the 
 salt of the earth in every country and who work 
 for work's sake, who do not care for name, or 
 fame, or to get to heaven. They work just be- 
 cause it is going to do good. You should work
 
 78 Man Limitless. 
 
 like a master and not as a slave; work inces- 
 santly, but not as slaves work. Do you not 
 see how everybody works? Nobody can rest; 
 ninety-nine per cent, of mankind work as slaves, 
 and the result is misery; it is selfish work. 
 Work through freedom. Work through love. 
 The word love is very difficult to understand ; it 
 never comes until there is freedom. The 
 ideal man is he who in the midst of the greatest 
 silence finds the intensest activity, finds the 
 silence of the desert. He who has learned the 
 secret of restraint; he has controlled himself." 
 
 It is also true that ' ' the instinct of man passes 
 eagerly onward to the impersonal and illimit- 
 able," and Joseph Le Conte, in his work on 
 ' ' Evolution, ' ' when referring to this fact, says : 
 "Ideals are but mile-stones which we put suc- 
 cessively behind us, while we press on to another, 
 they are successive rounds of an infinite ladder, 
 which we put beneath us while we rise higher." 
 
 With our purpose to attain an ideal or a 
 series of ideals, for many appear along the path 
 of life, we by careful selection and by frequent 
 contemplations of them so blend our work with 
 our ideals that that work itself is idealized. 
 This is a step towards genius, I grant; but it is 
 a step all toilers can take, even though their 
 highest aspiration is only to be ranked among
 
 Work. 79 
 
 those who do and dare for principle. If one 
 reaches this point, he has overcome drudgery in 
 work; and one is certain to attain to this if he 
 follows practically the lines herein indicated. 
 I do not mean, however, to be understood that 
 there is no other way if I succeed in pointing 
 out one way to find joy in work, I accomplish my 
 purpose. Now, the conclusion to be drawn from 
 all this is, the potency of suggestion; and its 
 philosophy demands some brief consideration to 
 convince the reader that I have not given here 
 a theory, but a method demonstrated by prac- 
 tical tests to be a safe one to follow. 
 
 Hypnotic suggestion has a limited range of 
 usefulness. Within its range, however, which 
 has broadened since Charcot of Paris adopted it 
 as a substitute for anaesthetics in his surgical 
 operations, it has been found most valuable. 
 For the moment, it may check pain, lift one out 
 of various physical environments ; and, by giving 
 this relief, permit operations to be performed, 
 or curative remedies to be applied, to produce 
 the results desired. 
 
 Suggestion without hypnotism has a wider 
 range. Its effect on the young was noted ages 
 ago, and was spoken of as the power of example. 
 Often it was noted that a single idea or per- 
 haps a thought found lodgment in another's
 
 80 Man Limitless. 
 
 brain, and later became a directing force in the 
 life of him receiving. The incident was attrib- 
 uted to accident or coincidence, and neither 
 the real purpose nor potency of the suggestion 
 understood. Now, though not yet generally ac- 
 cepted, the curative effects of suggestion are be- 
 ginning to be recognized in chronic and the 
 most stubborn diseases found in the human 
 system. The power of suggestion also in mak- 
 ing bright the long, dark and dreary paths to be 
 traversed by one seeking to attain definite pur- 
 poses is absolute, if only properly understood 
 and applied. I grant, however, that its relation 
 to man, both physically and mentally, is as yet a 
 subject of much speculation and controversy. 
 
 In a paper read by Charles M. Barrows of 
 Boston before the Society of Psychical Research 
 in London in 1897, and which appeared in Part 
 XXX, Vol. XII, of the proceedings of that so- 
 ciety, he clearly demonstrated that by the use 
 of suggestion as a remedial agent, he had over- 
 come chronic cases (a majority of them con- 
 sidered hopeless by eminent physicians) of deaf- 
 ness, sprains, rheumatism, neuralgia, abnormal 
 growths, etc. This remarkable paper concludes 
 with: 
 
 "What if it should appear that this subliminal 
 agent is simply one intelligent actor filling the
 
 Work. 8 1 
 
 universe with its presence as the ether fills space, 
 the common inspirer of all mankind? By what 
 authority is it assumed that this wizard self 
 resident in one man is related to the selves of 
 other men merely as, in the language of theology, 
 one personal soul is related to the rest? Are 
 we sure that this transcendent energy is parted 
 into numberless distinct entities, one for each 
 human being ? Should we plunge into a darker 
 mystery, were we to compare this subliminal 
 agent or self to a skilled musician presiding over 
 many pipes and keys, and playing through each 
 what music he will? Imagine each human be- 
 ing one of millions of animate organs, through 
 whose mind and body one unified, all pervasive, 
 immaterial self blows with the breath of energy 
 to make the varied music we call life. If this 
 were true, then would the subliminal self be a 
 universal fountain of energy, and each man an 
 outlet of the stream; each man's personal self 
 would be contained in it, and thus made one 
 with the other; and with a slight change, we 
 might adapt the quotation: 'In that deep force, 
 the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, 
 all psychical and bodily effects find their com- 
 mon origin.' ' 
 
 In my own demonstrating along the lines of 
 overcoming drudgery in work and converting
 
 82 Man Limitless. 
 
 it into joy and delight, I began with myself. 
 It came in my way in the business of my pro- 
 fession to familiarize myself with Spanish, after 
 I was forty years of age. I had taken a super- 
 ficial course in the language covering a space 
 of six months in my senior year in college, and 
 naturally but little impression of that had re- 
 mained. Just before taking a trip to a Spanish 
 country, I would crowd all I could of this work 
 in a few weeks and carry books to continue the 
 study on my journey. I found the task grievous. 
 Later I learned to apply suggestion to my work, 
 as herein set forth, and lo! a toil became a joy, 
 and the result thereafter was surprising progress 
 from week to week. My ears as well as my 
 eyes seemed to rejoice to perform their respec- 
 tive functions to aid in the accomplishment of 
 this self-imposed task. Again I applied like sug- 
 gestions to various forms of work that come to 
 one in active life, and later I applied it to that 
 which forms the humdrum of life, and I learned 
 the wide application of this fruitful force. Dur- 
 ing these years I made tests as I might among 
 friends, following the same repeatedly to happy 
 conclusions. I then read history from a new 
 standpoint, and its pages I found full of ex- 
 amples where even suggestion had awakened
 
 Work. 83 
 
 powers undreamed of in those that rose to the 
 galaxy of geniuses. 
 
 We have sometimes called these effects the 
 power of a word or the power of a thought. 
 For a moment let us revel in the unknown 
 the speculative, as we inquire after the real 
 cause of this magic force. Of ourselves it is, 
 but not wholly within ourselves. Of the infinite 
 energy of the universe it is, we may say ; but that 
 at once provokes the question, what is the in- 
 finite energy of the universe? It is past com- 
 plete comprehension, it seems, with our present 
 unfoldment. Do not let us argue that it is be- 
 yond the grasp of the human mind, for that limit 
 has never been reached. Man's development has 
 long been restrained by studying his seeming 
 limitations. When we find a new force in na- 
 ture that can be made useful, whether it be elec- 
 tricity, telepathy or suggestion, let us learn how 
 to use it for our good. Let us leave definitions 
 to those who make dictionaries. Be it ours 
 to prove the wide application and use of these 
 forces, and the lexicographer will learn later 
 how to define them. Belief in the continuity of 
 life is fast reconciling man to accept progression 
 now and evermore as endless evolution. With 
 our finding joy in all work, we waken to some of 
 the greatest delights of existence. We give our
 
 84 Man Limitless. 
 
 selfhoods wider opportunities to unfold. We 
 find new chords in the harp of life's harmony 
 which we may strike, and these vibrations will 
 reach and thrill other hearts than ours, bring- 
 ing to them as to us new joy in living.
 
 "Man is a centre, as it were, and he is at- 
 tracting all the powers of the universe towards 
 himself, and in this centre is fusing them all 
 and ejecting them again in a big current. That 
 centre is the real man, the almighty, the om- 
 niscient, and he draws the whole universe to- 
 wards him; good, or bad, misery or happiness, 
 all turning towards him, clinging round him, 
 and out of them he fashions the tremendous 
 power called character and throws it outwards. 
 As he has the power of drawing in anything, so 
 he has the power of throwing it out." From 
 Karma Yoga of Swami Vivekananda.
 
 Somewhere in Memory's cabinet all we have 
 ever studied, or read, or seen, or thought is held 
 (perhaps I should say guarded) ; but to find 
 these mental treasures when we would that is 
 the problem. 
 
 96
 
 CONTROL OF MEMORY. 
 
 Bulwer. in "The Coming Race," told, as it 
 came to him, his story of heights to be attained 
 by man, investing them with a wealth of color 
 that only a novelist's imagination could con- 
 ceive and draw. Bellamy, in "Looking Back- 
 ward," gave us one from another standpoint. 
 Both presented us with man emancipated from 
 strife, envy, pride, vanity and greed. Novelists 
 deal often with a Real they do not comprehend. 
 Imagination is creative, but the secret wires 
 that bind it to the Unseen carry the substance 
 out of which are fashioned ideals to be wrought. 
 They who cultivate the imagination, as these 
 writers have done, may write and speak prophet- 
 ically, even though they may not present every 
 detail with the exactness or completeness the 
 future shall reveal. 
 
 As one studies man's unfoldment during the 
 centuries past, he will find that novelists and 
 poets have foretold much of what was to come. 
 Who, in Shakespeare's time, could have inter- 
 preted Puck's "I'll put a girdle round about 
 the earth in forty minutes?" And who is so
 
 88 Man Limitless. 
 
 wise that he can comprehend and intelligently 
 tell to man to-day all that Schiller felt when he 
 wrote in "Wilhelm Tell" "Seid einig einig 
 einig" (Be united united united) ; and 
 Robert Browning hinted at what a complete man 
 might be in 
 
 .... "Finds progress man's distinctive mark 
 
 alone, 
 
 Not God's, and not the beast's; 
 God is, they are, 
 Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be." 
 
 Long ago we were told that Pontius Pilate 
 asked "What is Truth?" Was the question 
 an intuitional breathing? Sermon after ser- 
 mon has been written on this text. These hon- 
 est, right-thinking men, who made this their 
 text, doubtless believed what they wrote: but 
 there was not and is not unanimity of opin- 
 ion. They differed and differ widely, and yet 
 not for controversy. Each wrote and each 
 writes to-day from his plane of unfoldment 
 he could do, he can do no more than that. Truth 
 is the unchangeable, the absolute. Our con- 
 ceptions of it can never be beyond our own plane 
 of evolution or progression. Students in psy^ 
 chology and philosophy to-day are growing less
 
 Control of Memory. 89 
 
 dogmatic they are now honest searchers for 
 truth. In natural as in mental science, experi- 
 ments are being made, and each discovery lifts 
 man one step higher toward his possible goal. 
 
 In a general way we have noted all this. We 
 have noted of late wonderful unfoldment and 
 grasp displayed by our young students in the 
 preparatory schools before completing the stud- 
 ies required to enter college. We have attrib- 
 uted it to better methods of teaching, or more 
 faithful application on the part of the student. 
 In part, both are true. But back of all there 
 is a subtle something overlooked, and that is 
 the basic cause. By our methods of teaching 
 and studying, teacher and student have learned 
 better how to call forth the faculties of the 
 mind. By these, memory has been strengthened, 
 the sensibilities have been intensified, and per- 
 ception has been quickened and made more clear 
 and accurate. In developing the arm muscle, 
 the physical trainer does not devote all his at- 
 tention to the arm. He knows the bearing every 
 muscle in the system has upon the arm. He 
 has attained this knowledge by tests; and the 
 wonderful work now being done by many of 
 these physical trainers is making Samsons in 
 our very midst. Teachers in the mental field 
 are fast becoming students in psychology; but
 
 90 Man Limitless. 
 
 it seems to me that that great laboratory has as 
 yet only opened to inquirers its outer doors. 
 
 Memory, logic and reason are the tools one 
 uses to master a study. The compartment of 
 memory in the mind contains facts learned. Dr. 
 Henry Maudsley of London, however, claims 
 that we only speak metaphorically when we 
 make such statements. He firmly maintains 
 there is no repository in which ideas are stored 
 up; and declares when an idea which we have 
 once had is excited again, that there is simply 
 a reproduction of the same nervous current, with 
 the conscious addition that it is a reproduction. 
 Psychology, he claims, affords no help in our 
 efforts to understand this faculty of memory; 
 because physiologically considered, the condi- 
 tion of memory is "the organic process by which 
 nerve-experiences in the different centers are 
 registered, and to recollect is to revive these ex- 
 periences in the highest centers to stimulate, 
 by external or internal causes, their residua, 
 aptitudes, dispositions, or whatever else we may 
 choose to call them, into functual activity." 
 
 If Dr. Maudsley is correct in this, though I 
 do not accept his conclusion, still I maintain, 
 the position of the psychologist to discipline the 
 mental mechanism so as to stimulate and awaken 
 this functual activity in the highest nerve cen-
 
 Control of Memory. 91 
 
 ters, embraces the same thought as that of carry- 
 ing discipline to a point that all we give memory 
 to hold may be arranged or tabulated. And, 
 therefore, this awakening or disciplining can be 
 further carried to such perfection that, no mat- 
 ter how long the interval may be since we placed 
 that word, idea or thought in memory's cabi- 
 net, when we have need of it, it will present 
 itself instantaneously. Having lifted ourselves 
 to this unfoldment, to learn language would be a 
 joyous pastime, and knowledge once culled, 
 would be consciously forever retained. Our train- 
 ing has started us on the way ; and, to advance as 
 one's desires prompt, we should recognize first 
 that this goal can be attained. To educate per- 
 ception to this point I claim is the primary work, 
 and the task is not a light one. If the progress 
 in mental development in the past century, par- 
 ticularly in the last third of that century, teaches 
 anything, it is that phenomenal unfoldment has 
 been made. If the logic of the mental trend for 
 the same period records any finality, it is the 
 conviction that we have only commenced to 
 take over the heritage of infinite power resident 
 in our selfhoods. If our conception of ultimate 
 man is to be drawn from the growth so recorded, 
 then we have reached a period where to ques-
 
 92 Man Limitless. 
 
 tion any abridgment of man 's mental scope is il- 
 logical. 
 
 In our early studies in mental science, we 
 were told that the faculties or capacities of the 
 mind were tersely expressed in seeing, feeling 
 and knowing. There were no limitations placed 
 on our capacities to see or perceive, for through 
 this faculty the realm of the imagination was 
 reached and feeling struck the sensitive chord 
 of our being whose secret home is in the imagi- 
 nation, so its depth could not be sounded. But 
 to know that was beyond belief, and here there 
 were limitations. Unfoldment has brought 
 knowledge. It has increased as we unfolded 
 it is ever increasing but we only know when 
 we can bring forward the proofs. Just here it 
 is to be noted that these proofs, though clear to 
 us, may not be patent to another. As presented, 
 they may force belief in him, but he too must 
 make the tests before he can claim to know. 
 
 If this reasoning will lead my reader to be- 
 lieve that man's mental powers have only been 
 toyed with as yet that memory's cabinet is 
 practically untabulated and at best loosely ar- 
 ranged that our chief discipline begins there, 
 that we may have a wealth of facts (supply) 
 to draw from, that logic and reason may assume 
 no false premises, then we may rejoice to learn
 
 Control of Memory. 93 
 
 of new methods to help perfect (shall I say) 
 the tabulation of the contents stored in the 
 pigeon holes of memory's cabinet, that its treas- 
 ures may always be ready for us as calls or 
 drafts are made. 
 
 That somewhere in the storehouse of memory 
 every word, idea or thought we have placed 
 there is lodged, has been proven to us over and 
 over again. Many of them we do not care to 
 remember we never even tried to give them a 
 permanent place ; still, as some new scene is pre- 
 sented, or some story related, we clearly recall 
 without effort incidents of the long ago which 
 we had consigned to the closed chamber of For- 
 getfulness. We all have had enough experience 
 of this kind to convince us that forgetfulness 
 is only transitory. Somewhere in memory's 
 cabinet all we have ever studied, or read, or 
 seen, or thought, is held (perhaps I should say 
 guarded) ; but to find these mental treasures 
 when we would that is the problem. If we 
 have occasion, and due notice in advance, to re- 
 cite a poem learned years ago, we are prone to 
 turn to the volume where it may be found and 
 read it over and over again until we know mem- 
 ory will respond on the occasion. Is this the 
 best way? 
 
 As my subject is so vast, I can only hope to
 
 94 Man Limitless. 
 
 present in a single essay some preliminary dis- 
 cipline to start an investigator on a few lines 
 only, in this work of tabulating the riches in 
 memory's storehouse. What I have already done 
 in my experiments assures me that complete 
 tabulation is not a dream or a transcendental- 
 ism. The intellectual progress I have referred to 
 among our young students proves they have bet- 
 ter command here than students had thirty years 
 ago. The discipline of the schools has brought 
 this about in an indirect way. May it not be 
 that the time has now come when more direct 
 training can be used to advantage, though that 
 training be purely voluntary, and each indi- 
 vidual enter upon it alone ? 
 
 Primarily, I charge the student to repeated 
 self-examinations until he convinces himself 
 that forgetfulness only expresses a relative con- 
 dition. It means simply that memory does not 
 respond to the will at that particular moment. 
 An hour or perhaps a week or month after mem- 
 ory may respond to that call, even though the 
 call has not been repeated. We have all gone 
 through such experiences. May it be that there 
 is a labyrinth of stations through which the 
 message was forced to pass before the home 
 office could be reached and the response sent to 
 consciousness? May it be that beyond our own
 
 Control of Memory. 95 
 
 selfhoods are spirit forces that receive the mes- 
 sage and directly attend to its transmission? 
 Had our loved household American poet pierced 
 this center before he wrote: 
 
 "The Great Spirit, the Creator, 
 Sends them thither on His errand, 
 Sends them to us with His message."? 
 
 Socrates knew his demon, and Plato gave the 
 philosophy of Socrates immortal life. Great 
 poems, great dramas, great operas, have been 
 composed through intuitions called inspirations. 
 Novelists have dreamed of plots to stories be- 
 fore touching pen to paper that recorded them. 
 Perhaps, beside the holding of every word, idea 
 or thought heard, learned or treasured in this 
 life, the tablets of past memories are safely 
 recorded there as well. The Hindus claim this 
 self-evident the Japanese regard it in their 
 philosophy as an axiom; and, if this be true, 
 then it is memory of that past, through dreams, 
 that has furnished poets, novelists and musical 
 composers over and over again, with the woof 
 to hold the brilliant mental pictures out of 
 which was fashioned the dramatic scenes genius 
 uses to symbol its purposes. The Hindu phil- 
 losophy suggests methods to awaken to conscious-
 
 96 Man Limitless. 
 
 ness past memories. If one can learn first how 
 to draw from memory on call all gleaned in his 
 present incarnation, it may advance him so that 
 he can learn to recall past memories of other ex- 
 istences. Our work is not, at this point, to dis- 
 cuss whether or not there have been re-births. 
 If there have been, and this philosophy is rap- 
 idly gaining converts, its absolute proof will 
 some day be found through the faculty of mem- 
 ory. If man gains control of memory, as herein 
 suggested as possible, it will be a natural se- 
 quence to follow to that apparently tightly 
 sealed compartment of the past. If found, 
 opened, and its treasures disclosed, then man 
 will have attained to the height where Eastern 
 philosophers long ago placed him, for then "no 
 being can be greater than man." 
 
 To record now some of my experiments that 
 have convinced me of the truth of the state- 
 ments I have made relating to control of the 
 treasures in this storehouse of memory, and to 
 suggest a few of the methods I have tried and 
 proven as valuable aids to this end, I come, at 
 this late moment, abreast of my subject : 
 
 First, in my silent hours I have quietly but 
 firmly held the thought or sent the suggestion 
 to consciousness that to forget was impossible 
 a truth we all accept, but one we thoughtlessly
 
 Control of Memory. 97 
 
 deny repeatedly in our ordinary conversation. 
 Here is a habit to be broken a habit that is 
 detrimental to the development of a ready mem- 
 ory, and a habit that is pernicious, because we 
 are affirmatively asserting as facts what we 
 know are not. He who says I have forgotten 
 it has entirely passed from memory is not 
 speaking truth. 
 
 I found that by holding myself passive for a 
 half hour each day, often giving five minutes to 
 firmly fix and hold this thought in mind, within 
 a single month I had almost ceased from using 
 the word "forget." I also found, at other mo- 
 ments during the day, facts and incidents were 
 recalled, without effort, that I especially wanted 
 to use to assist in some business or social mat- 
 ter engrossing me. With all this came a delight ; 
 and it seemed that memory was furnishing logic 
 and reason with a wealth of material to be 
 worked over to carry out their purposes in my 
 personal affairs. 
 
 Later on I began to direct my work to re- 
 calling particular names and faces of those 
 known long ago ; and it seemed that old friends 
 (many long ago dead) almost visited me again. 
 Over boy-dreams of life I went with joyousness 
 the visions became very real I could not 
 fancy myself alone they, the former compan-
 
 98 Man Limitless. 
 
 ions seemed present, helping me to recall a past. 
 Who shall say they were not there ? 
 
 Years ago I had made a specialty of com- 
 mitting poems I loved, and entire scenes from 
 plays of Shakespeare and other dramatists, to 
 memory. I attempted to recall some of these. 
 Sometimes I made little progress. I have gone 
 to three or four sittings, holding for five or ten 
 minutes a mental picture of the scene described, 
 and waited for words to come in perfect order, 
 and they would not. Then, days after, when I 
 dropped that particular task, the entire poem 
 or dramatic scene has flashed to consciousness 
 with hardly a single synonymous word substi- 
 tuted for any the author used. I now am refus- 
 ing to turn back to the volumes where I could 
 find these poems or dramas. I wait till they come 
 back to me, simply asking memory to disclose. 
 I have even carried this to the repeating of 
 poems in Latin and in German which I com- 
 mitted in college days and have not seriously 
 tried to recall for spaces of fully thirty years. 
 
 In all this work I beg my reader to note that 
 I am working something like the inventor in his 
 work-shop. Even after he may have brought 
 out something original and secured letters pat- 
 ent, he usually regards that as representing only 
 the fundamental or basic purpose of his plan.
 
 Control of Memory. 99 
 
 Though an original idea is embodied, improve- 
 ments may be required to make it practical. 
 
 I require more leisure than I have at present 
 to carry my experiments to a point where from 
 them I can fashion a method and give the world 
 a complete working system, whereby the treas- 
 ures stored in memory can be grasped as will 
 may demand. This leisure I propose to bring to 
 myself in due time; but prior to that, I would 
 I might learn of hundreds working for the same 
 ends, whether on these or other lines (for there 
 cannot be too many students here), as this age 
 demands that the faculty of memory be made 
 absolutely subservient to the will. 
 
 There is a particularly delightful test and 
 one which I hope sometime to make. This is the 
 going into solitude, carrying with me a Greek 
 tragedy or a Latin comedy I read in college and 
 have never glanced at since one, however, that 
 I once knew well. Then, without referring to 
 translation, grammar or lexicon, I shall ask 
 memory to permit me to read and enjoy it 
 again. There on the tablets of memory all is 
 recorded. Let us find those tablets. 
 
 If, as some tell us, and as we sometimes feel, 
 we can by true thoughts call to us spirit forces 
 that can aid us in this task, then let us call 
 them. Great writers, great inventors, great re-
 
 ioo Man Limitless. 
 
 formers, great statesmen have thought out their 
 best purposes alone, or gone where they might 
 be alone and undisturbed, that a greater intel- 
 ligence or a combination of intelligences might 
 speak to them. Longfellow clearly felt and un- 
 derstood that the wise caught glimpses beyond 
 the earth's plane and delicately, yet forcibly 
 wrote : 
 
 ' ' Thus the seer with vision clear 
 
 Sees forms appear and disappear 
 
 In the perpetual round of strange, mysterious 
 
 change 
 
 From birth to death, from death to life, 
 From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, 
 Till glimpses more sublime of things unseen be- 
 fore, 
 
 Unto his wondering eyes reveal 
 The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel 
 Turning forevermore, in the rapid and rushing 
 river of Time." 
 
 Within one's self is the real incentive to ac- 
 tion. May not the prompting come through 
 subconscious vibrative force? The subconscious 
 knows of the riches in this storehouse, and may 
 it not urge the appropriation? May the secrets 
 of the subconscious be its wealth gained by its
 
 Control of Memory. 101 
 
 intimate connection with spirit guides or with 
 the Universal? What we know tells us of much 
 we do not know. Shall we wait and argue 
 against theories that may or may not be fully 
 proven; or, shall we go forward rejoicing to 
 learn and know, and through patient, faithful 
 self-discipline add to our knowledge till the 
 proofs gleaned overcome some theories, reveal 
 others to be true, and give us a philosophy rest- 
 ing on the demonstrations of human experi- 
 ences ?
 
 "This stored-up mental reservoir is a sub- 
 merged personality which thinks, reasons, loves, 
 fears, believes, accepts, and draws conclusions 
 beneath and independent of consciousness." 
 
 "Man, as a soul, should affirm his rule and 
 dominion over his body as distinctly as over 
 any other machine he uses. He should gain a 
 positive sense that his physique is not himself, 
 but rather his most obedient servant. As a 
 spiritual ego he should also disconnect himself, 
 in consciousness, from his lower or sensuous 
 mind, while intuitively asserting his supremacy 
 over it, and also over intellect and memory. As 
 he rises above all inferiors, they lose their tyran- 
 nous dispositions and drop into beautiful min- 
 istry and subordination." Henry Wood in 
 "Ideal Suggestion through Mental Photog- 
 raphy." 
 
 103
 
 Back of every effect there is a cause, and if 
 we follow the trail to its starting point we shall 
 find suggestion the creative protoplasm out of 
 which it grew, be the act what it may. 
 
 to/
 
 SUGGESTION. 
 
 Let one take a retrospect of his own life, and 
 he will find behind every serious act he has 
 performed there was originally a suggestion out 
 of which it grew or was formulated. This sug- 
 gestion may have been brought to his conscious- 
 ness by another, by quietly reading something 
 co-related to it, or by some mystic cause spring- 
 ing from an awakening desire. Back of every 
 effect there is a cause, and if we follow the 
 trail to its starting point we shall find sug- 
 gestion the creative protoplasm out of which it 
 grew, be the act what it may. When first the 
 suggestion harbored itself in thought, it may 
 have attracted little attention. Once received, 
 however, it seems to possess a vitality of its own, 
 and grows and spreads until recognized by ob- 
 jective consciousness. Sometimes the growth has 
 been so slow that memory finds difficulty in fix- 
 ing the time of the impression; but when se- 
 curely lodged, it appears to preserve for use 
 the vital spark to spring into robust life at the 
 call of opportunity or desire. 
 
 Observing all this it is pertinent to inquire 
 
 105
 
 io6 Man Limitless. 
 
 if suggestion has a potency of its own, and if so 
 on what stimuli it thrives. Can it be converted 
 into force that will aid one in the accomplish- 
 ment of purpose ? Is it of itself an entity ? Is 
 it a substance out of which grow creative 
 thoughts that mould material things? Does it 
 of itself bind together images and concepts 
 which give birth to ideas out of which reason 
 weaves thought? Is it the starting base of 
 action the forerunner of the moulding of pur- 
 pose the indestructible germ pressing forward 
 the unfoldment of man? 
 
 The hypnotist has proven that one under 
 hypnotic influence is in a sleep which differs 
 from natural sleep only in the fact that one has 
 the free use of all his faculties except objective 
 consciousness. The subjective is reached by 
 the hypnotist through suggestion, and the patient 
 readily accepts the suggestion as true, then from 
 that point of view, argues and acts logically 
 upon the assumed premise. Although hypnotic 
 suggestion is extensively practiced by medical 
 men to-day, the best authority indorses the opin- 
 ion that hypnotism itself has no curative power. 
 Dr. Tuckey regards it as "merely a psychical 
 preparation or vehicle." 
 
 Charles M. Barrows of Boston has had a wide 
 and successful experience in treating and heal-
 
 Suggestion. 107 
 
 ing by suggestion without hypnotism. He has 
 presented some very valuable papers before va- 
 rious societies of original research, and gives an 
 outline of his work in a little volume entitled 
 "Suggestion Instead of Medicine," from which 
 I quote: 
 
 ' ' The more intimate and extensive study which 
 scientific methods now make possible shows 
 man's psychical being to be no such thoroughly 
 explored region of known extent and determined 
 limits as some earlier scholars have supposed. 
 It resembles the grants of land made to the first 
 settlers along our Atlantic coast, strips of sea- 
 board territory bounded in part, but stretching 
 away into undefined wilds, no one knew how far 
 to the westward. Certain sides and aspects of 
 our mental life, some faculties and functions 
 have indeed become familiar ; but only in recent 
 years have students turned their attention to the 
 dim domain yet unsurveyed, or seriously asked 
 how far into the unknown waste the frontier 
 line of research may lawfully be pushed. This 
 closer acquaintance with his psychical resources 
 strengthens the conviction that man is too large 
 a being, too highly endowed, to find complete 
 expression and an adequate outlet for his total 
 self through the channel of a single conscious- 
 ness; that not all the activities of which he is
 
 io8 Man Limitless. 
 
 capable can find room and play, unless they use 
 the whole brain for an organ. Our remote an- 
 cestors may have possessed a very limited con- 
 sciousness, unvexed by any of the problems of 
 a later age or a science which 'makes thought 
 psychical and blots out life with question 
 marks'; and a simpler brain doubtless sufficed 
 for its organ. But it is a far cry from the simian 
 in his savage wildness to the civilized gentleman 
 with his refinements and varied culture. Slowly 
 the man supersedes the beast; and cosmic 
 agencies, 'acting through five-score millenniums', 
 have evolved the complex structure that crowns 
 the nervous system of the human being to-day. 
 Plurality of consciousness is granted now to be 
 the underlying fact which makes true suggestion 
 possible. ' ' 
 
 To produce results the suggestion is a psy- 
 chical message which passes from the suggester 
 to the brain of the one receiving, and must by its 
 influence affect some part of the gray matter in 
 the brain. Barrows argues that that gray mat- 
 ter does not think, and does not understand lan- 
 guage any more than bones and muscles do ; and 
 yet certain kinds of stimuli are carried in these 
 messages and these affect that gray matter ac- 
 cording to biological law. Although changes are 
 wrought and these changes are the result of
 
 Suggestion. 109 
 
 a natural law, still he confesses it "involves a 
 baffling mystery" and must so continue till we 
 learn how to invade "the laboratory of occipital 
 consciousness. ' ' 
 
 When we seriously consider how little we know 
 of the entire process of converting food into 
 blood and chyle and muscle, how little we know 
 about how words and facts are impressed on or 
 held by memory, in short how little we really 
 know of the powers of our organism physically 
 or mentally, we ought not be surprised that there 
 are controlling forces within which man has not 
 fathomed, and which are set in motion by men- 
 tal stimuli. There is the one great force in our 
 being which physicians recognize as vis medica- 
 trix naturae that possesses provisions for resist- 
 ing and arresting disease and acts quite spon- 
 taneously; hence it is clear, that in healing by 
 suggestion this energy is evoked. 
 
 Passing over the fact that our knowledge of 
 man and his possibilities are even in this age 
 only partially grasped, the study of suggestion 
 without hypnotism has taught and is teaching us 
 how to heal, how to unfold, how to live, how to 
 enjoy. If we have not yet unfolded sufficiently 
 to grasp the delicate philosophy of why and how 
 suggestion works out purpose, we have learned 
 how to use it for the attainment of wise and use-
 
 no Man Limitless. 
 
 ful ends in purposeful living. In my introduc- 
 tion I called attention to the fact that in a glance 
 backward over life's work (whether success or 
 failure followed) each serious move or act could 
 be traced to a suggestion as the motive cause. 
 Following that, I traced through the best author- 
 ity with which I am acquainted the philosophy 
 of the workings of suggestion as far as seems 
 tangible to our logic with our present develop- 
 ment especially as far as the same may refer to 
 the subject of healing; and now I turn to the 
 making of practical use of auto-suggestion in our 
 upreaching to the attainment of ideals. 
 
 Henry Wood in "Ideal Suggestion through 
 Mental Photography" says: "At no previous 
 time have the influence and potency of thought 
 received such careful and discriminating inves- 
 tigation as is now being centered upon it. While 
 a few seers of keen and intuitive perception have 
 grasped the great fact that thought is the uni- 
 versal substance and basis of all things, never 
 until the present era has this vital truth pene- 
 trated the more general consciousness. The in- 
 tuitive comprehension of this truth is no longer 
 limited to a Plato, Paul, or Emerson, but is 
 grasped by many minds who are striving to give 
 it articulation." 
 
 Power can never be increased by the repeated
 
 Suggestion. 1 1 1 
 
 retrospect of one's blunders and failures. They 
 are of the past; and, as far as one may, should 
 be assigned to oblivion. To-day is fresh with 
 promise and our desire and the work between 
 it and us as well should be idealized. Then, the 
 object sought and the path to it become doubly 
 attractive and inviting. We can forbid the pos- 
 sibility of failure, by holding firmly before the 
 mental vision the ideal of what we are striving 
 for as a prize that is ours, and simply waiting 
 our advancing to it and claiming it. Between us 
 and the attainment sought is that space which 
 often intervenes between one and the place he 
 desires to reach. Distance is overcome by time, 
 and the method of conveyance is the measure of 
 the time required. In overcoming distances or 
 spaces which may be classed as mental, our 
 thoughts are the dray-horses, the steam engines 
 or the electric motors. We can control thought, 
 and if we discipline our mental faculties to do 
 the bidding of will, we shorten the distance or 
 time between us and our purpose by discarding 
 the dray-horse pace of thought of sluggish men- 
 tality by bringing to it the finer and swifter 
 vibrations to meet the demands of this age of 
 steam and electricity. Then also we may exult 
 that there can be recorded no failures as we work 
 directly forward towards the goal, being merged
 
 ii2 Man Limitless. 
 
 with ana into the mental-building thought vibra- 
 tions of this history-making period in man's 
 unfoldment. 
 
 If for any reason health has been impaired, or 
 if one's work demand severe strains on his phys- 
 ical powers, perfect health is requisite primarily 
 for the attainment of purpose. Reasonable at- 
 tention to exercise, and systematic arrangement 
 of hours of work and rest should be given of 
 course; and, assuming that this has been or is 
 being done, suggestion can be appealed to to do 
 all the rest. Let one take a half hour every 
 morning, and sit in a comfortable position with 
 both feet resting on the floor. Let him take sev- 
 eral deep breaths, counting eight to ten in in- 
 haling and the same number in exhaling. This 
 induces passiveness which is to be sought first. 
 Then let him draw an ideal photograph of him- 
 self as he would have himself that is really his 
 true physical self, in spite of the mirror declar- 
 ing to the contrary. It is not a change of the 
 general outline one desires, but a filling up in 
 places, and a face and form which possess and 
 reflect health and vigor. Sitting there, let him 
 concentrate on that mental photograph as being 
 a perfect reflection of himself. Let him for ten 
 minutes, at least, silently repeat some phrases 
 descriptive of this ideal self, or of its powers
 
 Suggestion. 113 
 
 as "I am perfect in vigor perfect in health 
 perfect in the entire physical being." "I can 
 endure the greatest of mental or physical tasks 
 without growing weary." "I am whole and 
 sound in every part." "I dedicate myself men- 
 tally and physically to the glorious work of the 
 advancement of man. ' ' These or similar phrases 
 will fashion themselves in language, and best be 
 spoken silently though forcibly. Then, the last 
 ten minutes of the sitting it is best to relax, and 
 quietly contemplate the joy when the end is at- 
 tained and victory won, yet always viewing that 
 time as not distant but here and now. 
 
 If the morning half hour is taken for health, 
 then give a half hour in the evening or middle 
 of the day (the time is immaterial) for a sitting 
 to fill the subconscious mind with the purpose in 
 view. Breathing exercises should always pre- 
 cede the suggesting of the ideal to this other self 
 within. Then again, let one draw the mental 
 photograph of all he would be let it be clear 
 and distinct, let the face outlined show the 
 power, dignity and manhood that belong to the 
 one possessing the attainment desired. Concen- 
 trate upon this ideal picture, and afterward re- 
 view it passively. 
 
 It may be asked if there is no other work to 
 do than this? I reply, of course there is. One
 
 ii4 Man Limitless. 
 
 must do the work required to gain the prize 
 in the usual way. If the end sought is that of 
 completing a college course of studies, one will 
 be required to devote the time and energy the 
 curriculum calls for to study. The holding of 
 the ideal photograph then being to see himself or 
 herself a graduate (with honors if desired) with 
 degree won. The sending of the suggestion to 
 occipital consciousness, or to the subconscious 
 mind the holding of the mental photograph by 
 objective consciousness and impressing it by so 
 doing upon that unexplored region of mystic 
 activity are the required acts of ours to lighten 
 the path to the end, to aid in the overcoming of 
 all obstacles, and to insure the attainment of the 
 cherished purpose. 
 
 The gaining and preserving of perfect health, 
 and the securing of a broad foundation for an 
 education are after all but starting bases in the 
 purpose of life. They are, however, elementary 
 conditions to be attained that more serious work 
 may be done. It is really, after all this is passed, 
 that the most wonderful power of suggestion 
 is made manifest. I hinted at this at the com- 
 mencement of this essay; and, running through 
 nearly all the papers in this volume, the reader 
 v,*ill find I claim it is through suggestion that 
 man's power has grown to be what it is to-day.
 
 Suggestion. 115 
 
 The method of its use has unfortunately lacked 
 system. In fact, there has been no method until 
 during the last quarter of a century. Its real 
 power was not understood, and its philosophy 
 is still involved in much of mysticism. To-day, 
 however, we know noble desire to embody within 
 itself the power of expression ; and that that de- 
 sire can by objective consciousness be impressed 
 upon subconscious mind (or possibly upon sev- 
 eral minds or selves of which we know little), and 
 that then, it, through ways and avenues we know 
 not of, works out the problems and brings us the 
 blessings, if only we do with willingness the 
 tasks before us, holding our faith perfect, and 
 keeping our mental eye firmly fixed upon the 
 goal. 
 
 I have found, and hundreds and hundreds of 
 others as well, that by auto-suggestion the minor 
 needs and desires of life may be attained as well 
 as the more serious ones. These results may be 
 brought about quickly when once one has learned 
 how to plant the suggestion in the gray matter 
 of the brain. This is a discipline each must 
 undertake for himself. The method herein pre- 
 sented has brought success to many, but probably 
 other methods may be found more acceptable to 
 some of my readers. I can only present what I 
 have absolutely proven to be practical. I have
 
 n6 Man Limitless. 
 
 learned, also, that the sending forward of sug- 
 gestion after one retires and just before sleep 
 overtakes him has repeatedly proven effective 
 and accomplished the purpose. 
 
 I feel just at closing that I may add one 
 thought in way of possible explanation of this 
 silent, wondrous force suggestion sets in motion. 
 The physician (as far as pertains to healing) 
 calls it vis medicatrix naturae, the theologian, 
 God, and Herbert Spencer, a part of that great 
 force behind all, never yet fully compassed. May 
 there not be a harmony found on which all these 
 conclusions may rest? In all my work, I have 
 come to recognize that there must be a central 
 force working out unfoldment to all a force 
 whose only purpose is good. We connect our- 
 selves to that force though we may not compre- 
 hend how, because there are vibrative links bind- 
 ing us to it ; and yet may not these vibrative links 
 be a host of spirit consciousnesses which form 
 the stations (if I may so speak) along that wire- 
 less line through the ethers of space? In all 
 future advancement of man, he must, if he 
 would progress, take into account the force or 
 the forces on the other side. May it not be that 
 they directly help mould longing into suggestion 
 and then quicken mentality to action that honors 
 may be won ? Since we have learned as much as
 
 Suggestion. 117 
 
 we have of the purpose and power of our spirit 
 guides, can we help but believe that in this field 
 they find work in which they delight? Some 
 day, I prophesy, old spirits who have progressed 
 far will return to us here, when we are strong 
 enough to understand ; and these spirits will ex- 
 plain mysteries the laboratories and telescopes 
 have not unraveled, and they will also bring for- 
 ward such complete proofs of their eternal vigi- 
 lance that man must accept, and then we all 
 shall know.
 
 ' ' Old Age is not a friend I wish to meet ; 
 
 And if some day to see me he should come, 
 I'd lock the door as he walked up the street, 
 And cry, 'Most honored sir! I'm not at 
 home.' " 
 
 From the Japanese of Chisato.
 
 Man, in all that marks his individuality, is a 
 reflection of his thoughts entertained during his 
 lifetime. They stamp on his face, character, 
 and on his form, vigor or decay. 
 
 The fountain of youth was sought for in the 
 past to-day, a strong intellectual manhood or 
 womanhood, till one feels he has completed his 
 purpose, is the desire of the workers in the 
 world. Within our own mentalities is the crystal, 
 life-giving spring. If we seek we shall find. 
 
 130
 
 MUST AGE ENFEEBLE? 
 
 Back of all science I might say back of all 
 demonstrated truth there was a record man 
 was taught to reverence. Between man and 
 that record in the early ages there was a priest- 
 hood claiming to be solely responsible for the 
 interpreting of it. I do not think I offend any 
 in this age of enlightenment when I state the 
 fact, that that interpretation has fettered the 
 ascent of man. To imply there might be error in 
 the interpretation exposed man to punishment 
 to prison and death. One looks back at that 
 period of history ; and noting man 's power now, 
 almost wonders that he evolved so slowly, and 
 that the revival of learning or the ascent of indi- 
 vidualism was so long held in check. A little re- 
 flection, however, makes it evident that man was 
 enslaved by those who honestly thought they 
 were laboring for his improvement and growth. 
 Ages ago there was a mental awakening, but the 
 unfoldment of man only by degrees started for- 
 ward on its persistent upward trend. 
 
 As we review history, and exult that man has 
 progressed to independent thinking, let us not 
 121
 
 122 Man Limitless. 
 
 lose sight of the fact that on every side even to- 
 day, when a bold statement is made claiming a 
 new demonstration of truth, one is met with a 
 quotation from the Bible asking how he can 
 reconcile the conclusion with that record. When 
 in college over thirty years ago Professor Alex- 
 ander Winchell, LL. D., gave us a series of lec- 
 tures against the Darwinian theory of evolu- 
 tion, I remember he prefaced his first lecture 
 somewhat as follows: "If my great-grandfather 
 was an oyster, a mollusk, I simply want to know 
 it. If this is proven, and it does not conform 
 to the present interpretation of the biblical rec- 
 ord, why I must find a new interpretation. I 
 will not stop my investigations, because they 
 seemingly lead to conflict with the Mosiac rec- 
 ord." Then, in spite of this strong declaration, 
 through all these lectures he practically claimed 
 that Darwin suggested in reasoning from the 
 known to the unknown what might possibly be 
 inferred, but he emphatically argued that Dar- 
 win failed to furnish us with the satisfactory 
 proofs. Fifteen years later I picked up a book 
 of his, entitled "Sparks from a Geologist's Ham- 
 mer," and read "Evolution is now a finality of 
 science." I cite this incident merely to give at 
 least one example to illustrate that in our own 
 age, man is not free from dogmas that still are
 
 Must Age Enfeeble? 123 
 
 reverenced even though they may be questioned. 
 Dr. Winchell was from boyhood deeply reli- 
 gious, but he was an able scientist, an indefat- 
 igable student, and an honest man. His hon- 
 esty cost him, a few years later, dismissal from 
 a professorship in a sectarian college, his special 
 act for disfavor there being a course of lectures 
 showing the days of creation mentioned in Gen- 
 esis could not be taken as twenty-four hours 
 each, but that each represented an age, a series 
 of years. To-day, we say what ignorance and 
 prejudice this! And yet this incident occurred 
 less than thirty years ago. 
 
 When religious bodies meet from year to year, 
 the convention is not called to inquire if any 
 have learned a new truth ; and if so he be asked 
 to bring forward his proofs. Rather, it seems 
 to me, these conventions, beyond the routine of 
 the details of elections and the providing for the 
 administration and the holding together of the 
 members of the body, are to inquire if some of 
 their members have dared to utter publicly state- 
 ments which may be construed as not being 
 sanctioned by the ritual or dogmas of the or- 
 ganization. If complaint is filed against any, 
 then there may be a trial, and later judgment 
 and probably expulsion. It may be this is the 
 only way to protect and promote the society or
 
 124 Man Limitless. 
 
 church. I do not pretend to answer to that ; but 
 I feel while such conditions exist that the growth 
 and ascent of man will not be promoted by any 
 such organization. In the scientific world, there 
 is no real scholar or scientist to-day who will not 
 turn down any formula or accepted finality of 
 the past, if demonstration is brought forward 
 proving it error. 
 
 Back in this old record we were told that three- 
 score and ten years were allotted to man if, 
 perchance, he should reach fourscore, then was 
 there labor and sorrow. A literal interpreta- 
 tion of that passage has found lodgment in 
 human minds generally. History it is claimed 
 has shown the average man at his best from 
 forty to sixty-five, and that usually about or 
 shortly after the age of sixty-five, deterioration 
 starts in. With this conclusion written in bold 
 letters almost like a placard to attract attention, 
 man has been confronted since that record was 
 made. Many other conclusions, once equally as 
 firmly held to be truth, man, through his own 
 inventions aided by the mathematical tables he 
 has made and the laboratory demonstrations he 
 has brought forward, has set aside as fictions of 
 a past age. Man at that period of history, as 
 now, looked about him, and found in plant, tree 
 and animal life, the age of development for
 
 Must Age Enfeeble? 125 
 
 production, and from that time he observed a 
 steady growth till the maximum of power and 
 resistance were reached, then followed gradually 
 deterioration, and the infirmities of age and 
 death. He compared himself to the life about 
 him, read the record, and accepted it as true. 
 He built machinery and used it, and proved it 
 had a life; with use and time it wore out and 
 crumbled, why not man? 
 
 It is clear that man, reasoning from the lim- 
 ited range of knowledge he possessed at the 
 dawn of history, could come to no other con- 
 clusion than he did. The proofs about him were 
 convincing and seemingly absolute to his dawn- 
 ing intelligence. With this conviction firmly es- 
 tablished, the generations began. Like begat 
 like in form and in thought. How long a period 
 of time passed before the human lifted itself to 
 original thought we may not know. That such 
 a time did arrive we do know, and there was 
 found the individual, asserting and claiming the 
 advancement of man to a higher plane his birth- 
 right, and there too were found the multitude 
 decrying upliftment. In such an age, at least, 
 it is most evident that Matthew Arnold's "ma- 
 jorities are unsound" would apply. 
 
 In that age there were neither dentists nor 
 oculists. When teeth started to decay, there
 
 126 Man Limitless. 
 
 was, therefore, no dentist to be called in to ar- 
 rest or overcome the destroyer; or being sought 
 too late, to place artificial teeth in the mouth to 
 do the work of the natural ones. When the eye, 
 wearied by use or becoming defective from any 
 cause failed to focus perfectly, its possessor 
 could not see clearly to carry himself from place 
 to place; hence he moved more slowly and the 
 chemical constituents of his bones began to 
 undergo a change. To prolong life under such 
 existing conditions would certainly be to fill it 
 with labor and sorrow. Being unable to prop- 
 erly nourish his system or to see to move about 
 and among people, other faculties became im- 
 paired by non-use ; what more natural then than 
 to declare death's goal had been reached? To- 
 day, we have learned how to overcome these 
 physical conditions, so that at this period of life 
 one old in years can masticate food as com- 
 pletely and see as perfectly as during most vig- 
 orous youth. 
 
 It is only within the past century that it has 
 been demonstrated that the entire human system 
 is year by year throwing off and taking on to 
 such an extent that within a maximum of seven 
 years at most the whole physical being is com- 
 pletely changed. Later investigations make the 
 term much less. Flammarion, I believe, limits
 
 Must Age Enfeeble? 127 
 
 it to ten months. As to the length of the term, I 
 do not argue. The maximum limit or the min- 
 imum may be accepted. The fact of this com- 
 plete renewal repeating itself at short periods 
 of time proves that the comparing of a human 
 being to a machine as to duration of life 
 is absurd. Keep renewing the worn parts of a 
 machine as they lose their usefulness, and the 
 machine will never wear out. 
 
 As I endeavor to reach back in thought to 
 that early age when that combined history and 
 prophecy of man's allotted term on this earth 
 was written, I find that though the period is 
 distant eons from primitive man, the hu- 
 man then had a most circumscribed existence. 
 He to an extent dominated the animal kingdom, 
 but he himself was not free. National life and 
 all its joys and woes had not yet thrilled the 
 human heart. Ambition was almost unknown. 
 A few leaders whose power was a development 
 through thought-force assumed control of the 
 many. To that few a gleam of light had come, 
 for evolution was even then at work, and they 
 thought themselves into leadership, boasting a 
 higher origin than the masses whom they awed 
 and commanded and ruled. To extend life 
 was not a thought or purpose of that age; but 
 to rule, to possess, to conquer, and to enjoy.
 
 128 Man Limitless. 
 
 Age after age has succeeded, and man in 
 thought has claimed more and more in way of 
 wealth and luxury and knowledge. For these 
 he has often sacrificed health and peace and 
 happiness; and yet he has advanced to a high 
 plane of intellectuality. He has given to enjoy- 
 ment a thousand meanings his ancestors could 
 not have imagined to be comprised within that 
 word. He has entered forbidden fields in search 
 of knowledge, and from them has culled glorious 
 truths. He has learned to pierce through space 
 without limitations. He has to a wonderful ex- 
 tent annihilated distance, and talks with those 
 separated from him a thousand miles and more. 
 He seeks for treasures hidden beneath the once 
 uncontrollable waters lying below the expanse 
 of earth, and even oceans form for him no 
 fetters. 
 
 During the past thirty or forty years man has 
 been thinking more of the necessity of maintain- 
 ing good health and of preserving a vigorous 
 manhood than at any period of his history. Suc- 
 cesses having been won that place him on a 
 satisfactory plane financially, he studies how to 
 enjoy himself there, and how to prolong life 
 to extend that enjoyment. He has been told re- 
 peatedly during the past quarter century that 
 man, as to all that constitutes his individuality,
 
 Must Age Enfeeble? 129 
 
 is a product of his own thoughts. Proofs of this 
 have been brought before him so complete that, 
 although he practically accepts them, he is not 
 always ready to enter into the discipline neces- 
 sary to introduce right thinking where wrong 
 thinking has brought unhappiness or failure. 
 
 Before making the application to man of the 
 philosophy outlined herein, let us turn for a 
 moment to the development and decay of life in 
 a few of our domestic animals. The offspring 
 of the cow, whether male or female, reaches 
 maturity in a single year. At the age of twelve 
 we find that bull or cow still in vigorous life, 
 yet its age then represents a multiple of 
 twelve from maturity. The same practically 
 can be said of the dog, and the cat, while the 
 hog matures earlier and lives a shorter life, and 
 the horse matures at two and retains his vigor 
 much longer than the cow. In human beings 
 the average age of passing puberty is fourteen. 
 If the history of domestic animals permits us 
 to draw any inference as to comparison regard- 
 ing age of deterioration, then man at twelve 
 times fourteen, or at the age of one hundred 
 and sixty-eight, should be as vigorous as the 
 average man of sixty to-day. I do not say that 
 man, as to age claimed to have been allotted, 
 should be brought into comparison with domes-
 
 130 Man Limitless. 
 
 tic animals; but I do claim, if a comparison is 
 to be made, it should be by taking multiples 
 from the age of maturity. 
 
 Why is it, then, that man has failed to take 
 his heritage of years, if it be true that so far 
 he has not taken it ? Is not this question already 
 answered? He read and heard the record ex- 
 pounded to him. He accepted it. He studied 
 himself carefully and learned the age of bodily 
 vigor, of mental awakening, of physical growth, 
 of early and ripe manhood, as evidenced by man 
 living under that conviction. He fitted these 
 periods to the years allotted as given in the 
 record, and went forward in his work. In his 
 thought were fixed his probable and possible 
 limitations of life. In going forward with such 
 fixed ideas of the limits of human life on this 
 planet, age will and must bring its marks and 
 leave them impressed on one, year by year, be- 
 ginning about the age of fifty. Man in all that 
 marks his individuality is, therefore, a reflection 
 of the thoughts entertained during his life-time. 
 They stamp on his face, character, and on his 
 form, vigor or decay. 
 
 Let the reader call up in memory some of his 
 old friends. Some he will find at their posts in 
 the office, shop or bank, happy and joking midst 
 their work after passing the fourscore limit.
 
 Must Age Enfeeble? 131 
 
 Others at sixty are complaining, weak, sorrowful, 
 out-of-tune with the world, or tearfully labor- 
 ing and striving to learn how to get to heaven. 
 
 I remember in 1895 my professional business 
 brought me to Augusta, Maine. One day a gen- 
 tleman with whom I was walking halted a friend 
 of his in a most familiar way, saying, "Wait a 
 moment, Senator, let me introduce you to a 
 friend of mine, as I want him to know how 
 young some old men can be." The party ac- 
 costed awaited the formalities of introduction 
 and then said, ''Yes, I am ninety- three years 
 young." "And when did you begin to say 
 'young' instead of 'old?'" I asked. To this 
 he replied, "At seventy." I looked at him and 
 felt forced to remark, "I don't believe you have 
 grown apparently a day older since then." He 
 replied, "I certainly don't feel that I have." 
 This gentleman was an ex-U. S. Senator, a Mr. 
 Bradbury, who a few years ago passed over to 
 the other side. He had never, I believe, given 
 advanced thought serious study, and he held no 
 theories concerning the prolongation of life 
 differing from those around him. Did the 
 extending of life with health come from the 
 repeated speaking of those phrases where he 
 united his ego with the single word, young? 
 Henry Wood would call it ideal suggestion.
 
 132 Man Limitless. 
 
 Through this, the spiritual ego is awakened and 
 consciousness is brought to a conception of the 
 real divine self and its power. 
 
 To live that one may be oblivious to years, I 
 claim first he must attach no importance to that 
 old record. It doubtless represented the average 
 age man lived at that period of history, but that 
 does not concern us now. Next to this, one 
 should recall the teachings of science as to the 
 renewal of our bodies, and determine to fill his 
 mind with love of vigorous manhood. It is not 
 perpetual youth we seek, it is vigorous, unblem- 
 ished and unlimited manhood or womanhood. 
 This, if one desire it, I boldly claim is attainable, 
 because it is one of the possible products of 
 thought. It is yours, reader, to claim and enjoy, 
 if you will. To will it to you requires daily 
 thought of a character that uplifts and never 
 depresses. Surely such delightful thinking 
 ought to be no task. Does one ask further if I 
 fix any limit to the time man may, in years to 
 come, learn to hold body and soul together and 
 dwell on this earth: To this, I reply, I fix no 
 limit ; still, when I take note of the great battles 
 each will fight with others whose thinking is 
 opposite, and knowing the mental opposing cur- 
 rent to be met, I recognize that it will oppress 
 many in their efforts and possibly prevent their
 
 Must Age Enfeeble? 133 
 
 reaching the advanced limits they may set. 
 What matters it after all? In any event, by 
 right thinking health will be improved, life 
 lengthened, some victories won, and a new truth 
 in due course of time demonstrated to aid pro- 
 gressive man. 
 
 One's friends too often work great injury to 
 those they would kindly help by mentally follow- 
 ing them and looking forward to their failure in 
 this or that undertaking. If one does not agree 
 with the course his friend is taking, and the 
 friend is working honorably and resolutely as he 
 feels is best, send forward, if you want to favor 
 him, thoughts of success (you may be wrong in 
 your conclusions, and he may be right), and then 
 you are doing your part to help him onward. 
 
 The fountain of youth was sought for in the 
 past to-day a strong, intellectual and extended 
 manhood or womanhood, till one feels he has 
 completed his purpose, is the desire of the work- 
 ers in the world. Within our own mentalities is 
 the crystal, life-giving spring. If we seek we 
 shall find. If with age come enfeeblement to 
 one, let him know his own thoughts have brought 
 it on, and the responsibility is his alone. With 
 the throwing aside of all thoughts of sickness 
 and failure and death and anxieties concerning 
 what is beyond, I would urge also one cultivate
 
 134 Man Limitless. 
 
 love of youth, of life, of work, of happiness and 
 of progress. These are aids to right thinking 
 along the line that strengthens the union of body 
 and soul; and a firm binding is needed between 
 the physical and the spiritual that one may com- 
 plete the full cycles due him on the earth plane, 
 in order that he may enter spirit life fully pre- 
 pared to undertake its higher lessons which can 
 only begin when freedom is absolute, and dis- 
 tance, time and environment have been anni- 
 hilated.
 
 "Out in the Future, star-crowned and bright, 
 "Waiteth for you a dawning of light. 
 
 It is coining to you, no other shall prize 
 
 The glowing tints that for you arise. 
 On your path alone shall its light be shed, 
 Ilium 'ing the way that your feet must tread. 
 
 Though darkness and doubt overshadow just 
 here 
 
 Be patient and trustful, the dawning is 
 near." Lillian Whiting. 
 
 135
 
 The study of humanity and its accomplish- 
 ments shows that they who travel the pathway 
 of success conjure up no unseen or theological 
 deity possessing power to thwart. They battle 
 with no imaginary enemy; and they find, com- 
 bined with potency, a divinity in their own 
 thoughts and purposes which directs them to the 
 attainment of worthy ambitions. 
 
 136
 
 PATHWAY TO ACCOMPLISHMENT. 
 
 Among all men and conditions of men we find 
 that those who are bewailing their fate, or as 
 they put it, the way the world has treated them, 
 feel in their hearts they have not received and 
 are not receiving the just rewards for their toil 
 and effort. It seems that many become profes- 
 sional growlers because they compare their work 
 with the work of others and their rewards with 
 the rewards of others, and feel themselves over- 
 shadowed. Were these people to look back over 
 their lives and trace again their pathway step 
 by step, doubtless they would find that early 
 they began to make these comparisons, arriving 
 at conclusions unfavorable to themselves. As 
 time passed on, they, by an unfailing law, grew 
 bitter through such habits of thought and speech 
 and became more vigorous in their denunciation 
 of others, who were seemingly more favored by 
 luck or fate, and life's duties became to them 
 year by year more and more arduous tasks. 
 
 The present age has been called a psychic one ; 
 and, although the marked characteristics of 
 every age may be distinguished by one's ability
 
 138 Man Limitless. 
 
 to appropriate the treasures in his soul, yet 
 there are periods when the soul seems more re- 
 sponsive to objective consciousness than at 
 others. That period has been entered during 
 the last decade ; and, for the next ten years great 
 progress should be made by man generally be- 
 cause he is becoming acquainted with his true 
 selfhood and learning to use powers within him 
 which have been dormant till now. 
 
 I do not want to offend; but the elementary 
 teachings of the Christian church have been 
 promises of reward for good work and punish- 
 ment for bad. In a certain sense this doubtless 
 is true; but when these theorists make Infinity 
 a personality, who himself has made certain 
 laws, and having made those laws demands their 
 being obeyed by his creations, offering reward 
 if they are kept, and assuring in the same breath 
 that punishment will follow if they are not, then 
 man, following that philosophy, must lose his 
 own individuality and independence and sub- 
 ject himself to a power which, as defined by 
 orthodox theology, is both whimsical and tyran- 
 nical. 
 
 With the broader views of the present age, we 
 hear less from our pulpits of the punishments 
 God will inflict and less of the rewards he will 
 give. In short, in spite of all the dogmas re-
 
 Pathway to Accomplishment. 139 
 
 ligion has been called upon to protect, it is now 
 beginning to be recognized generally that man 
 must indeed work out his own salvation. When 
 a broader philosophy is embraced, it will show 
 that the infinite force of the universe, whatever 
 it may be, is always working for the progression 
 and advancement of every thing that grows, and 
 every being that possesses life. The whole pur- 
 pose of infinite force is to protect and to unfold. 
 If humanity, as a whole, would see in this in- 
 finite force which is called God, an undefined 
 all-pervading entity beyond man's complete 
 grasp with his present unfoldment, but yet a 
 force to which he is bound by indestructible 
 bonds and a force on which he may call for help 
 and aid, because he is one with it, then would 
 man realize his place in the universe and grasp 
 the mightiness of the absoluteness of law, and 
 of eternal justice. 
 
 One's growth depends upon placing himself 
 in harmonious relations with this infinite force. 
 How long it may take for man to outgrow the 
 environment surrounding him and to fully ap- 
 preciate his oneness with that mighty power 
 which protects and o'ershadows all, may be a 
 question. However, to me it seems that many 
 who are known as advanced-thought people have 
 already reached that point, and their thoughts
 
 140 Man Limitless. 
 
 are being suggested to human minds throughout 
 the world, and those thoughts are taking root, 
 and in due time will bear fruit for all who think 
 and work and love. Until one can grasp this 
 truth, I cannot see what hope he has of attain- 
 ing his desires, except by the hard and slow and 
 indefinite methods which have been followed so 
 long. 
 
 Could man awaken to the fact that the infinite 
 force of the universe knows only love, and that 
 its one purpose is to uplift those who come 
 within its vibrations, then is one's own thinking 
 transformed completely. He has no battle with 
 fate, no battle with fear, no battle with wrong. 
 The Infinite is sending forth its vibrations to 
 help him. Whether or not he places himself 
 in position to secure this aid depends in no way 
 upon the Infinite it depends only upon him- 
 self. This conception of infinite force I recognize 
 gives one the poetic view of God. In this day 
 of advancement, thinkers claim that the inspired 
 writers who gave us this poetic idea of God were 
 those who harmonized themselves with the vibra- 
 tions from that eternal Source, and then they 
 received and presented truth. More stoical phi- 
 losophers came later, and in their cold study of 
 humanity, its desires, hopes, failures, rebuffs and 
 sufferings, their narrow intelligences divined
 
 Pathway to Accomplishment 141 
 
 the causes of all these to be the acts of the in- 
 finite force that alone decided what compen- 
 sation was due, and alone possessed the power 
 of reward and punishment. Reasoning as they 
 did, with their limited and circumscribed intel- 
 ligences, this was perhaps the best they could 
 do to define the cause, in order to account for 
 the effect. To-day, if one would advance he 
 must come to a study of his real selfhood and 
 learn from the open book of life that is before 
 him. The book is wider open to him than it was 
 to those early teachers and students. Man has, 
 by evolution, become a greater and a grander 
 being. It is doubtless true that the man of 
 average intelligence to-day possesses millions 
 more of brain cells than he who embraced the 
 philosophy of that early day. Truth is eternal, 
 but man's comprehension of it is limited and 
 circumscribed in proportion to his own mental 
 unfolding. 
 
 As long as man recognizes a ruling intelligence 
 with arbitrary ideas and purposes of its own 
 regarding man, so long will he continue a strug- 
 gle within himself for advancement, mingled 
 with doubt and fears as to whether or not he is 
 working in accordance with the purpose of that 
 all-powerful ruler. If failure come, he may 
 ascribe the cause to be that his hopes and ambi-
 
 142 Man Limitless. 
 
 tions were not in harmony with the purpose of 
 the Master. Perplexed with doubt, he may seek 
 guidance from that great Unknown by methods 
 handed down through church dogmas ; and after 
 working hope into half-belief, he thus starts 
 forward to accomplishment with questionings 
 even as to the wisdom of the attainment sought. 
 He feels he cannot compass infinite mind, he 
 fears to oppose it, and so energy is scattered for 
 lack of concentration. 
 
 The study of humanity and its accomplish- 
 ments shows that they who travel the pathway 
 of success conjure up no unseen or theological 
 deity possessing power to thwart. They battle 
 with no imaginary enemy; and they find com- 
 bined with potency a divinity in their own 
 thoughts and purposes which directs them to the 
 attainment of worthy ambitions. 
 
 Fear conjured into an entity is the enemy 
 of progress, the opposing factor to high resolves, 
 the shibboleth of the unsuccessful, the fiendish 
 joy of the cynic, the ghost of buried dogmas, and 
 the imaginary foe of those who dare. To the 
 brave and progressive ones who work for uni- 
 versal good, there is no real opposing force. To 
 the brave and selfish ones who work that they 
 may advance by defeating or blasting the hopes
 
 Pathway to Accomplishment. 143 
 
 of others, there are opposing forces, seen and 
 unseen. 
 
 One may and must in his pathway to accom- 
 plishment leave friends behind who may not as 
 yet have sought or grasped the truth of being. 
 He may seek the companionship of those on a 
 higher plane of unfoldment; but never advance- 
 ment to himself by trampling on the rights of 
 others. His pathway to his good never leads 
 over ways that interfere with the desire of 
 others. He may at times be envied by those who 
 have not risen to a comprehension of their birth- 
 right; but they cannot harm him with their 
 vibrations, if he has harmonized himself with 
 those mightier ones that bind him to infinite 
 force. 
 
 The primary self-training one must pass 
 through to fit himself to attain his heart's de- 
 sire is that which will lead him to know he 
 could not have the desire without possessing in 
 his own mentality the power to convert that 
 desire into realization. Many assent to this 
 proposition when it is presented to them, but 
 later when obstacles appear, doubt and question 
 its truth. Here, the new student must exercise 
 the greatest care. His faith in this elementary 
 truth must be firm as the rocks; and this faith 
 he must establish, if he would win, before start-
 
 144 Man Limitless. 
 
 ing on the quest. Although he may have read 
 what many have written on this subject, he yet 
 may not be fully convinced. Then let him wait, 
 stop reading, and do some thinking himself. 
 
 Let him study the lives of those about him, 
 as the examples furnished by history may not 
 appeal so strongly to his reason. Let him study 
 the peculiar characteristics of his friends whom 
 he has known for years. Let him note their suc- 
 cesses and their failures. Let him note how 
 confident some of them were of their power to 
 accomplish what seemed to be the impossible to 
 others about them. Let him note how successes 
 both great and small were won. Let him note how 
 others whose early surroundings promised much 
 of success, failed to gain the smallest measure 
 of it. Let him study the thoughts each and 
 every one of them held; and he will find that 
 they who attained their desires had always con- 
 fidence in themselves, so firm that it could not 
 be swayed by the argument of others, or the 
 trend of affairs apparently the reverse of the 
 expected. They who won, lived and wrought in 
 this philosophy, whether they had or had not 
 learned its alphabet. 
 
 Let him study also the men of achievement of 
 this day whose record is an open book, and there 
 he will find that their achievements have over
 
 Pathway to Accomplishment. 145 
 
 and over again more than crowned their boldest 
 desires. With attainment of desire rose before 
 their vision new desires new images of what 
 they might be and they progressed higher and 
 higher, till the godship-plane to which their 
 thought had pointed them had been gloriously 
 won. 
 
 After all this reflection and preparation, and 
 after establishing the faith that can know no 
 wavering, then the student should go in the 
 silence over and over again, until he has crystal- 
 lized his desire and knows it to be a heart long- 
 ing of his being. Idle dreams of wealth, or 
 power, or happiness, or success, are not heart 
 longings. I do not mean to be understood here 
 that there can be but one real heart longing. 
 There may be many longings, each worthy and 
 attainable one to follow the other in succession. 
 With each longing, however, must be coupled the 
 willingness to undertake and to accomplish the 
 special tasks incident to the technic of the art 
 or subject of which mastery is sought. 
 
 This preparatory work on which success 
 hinges has a two-fold purpose. First and fore- 
 most, absolute faith is to be fixed in one's men- 
 tality of the ability within himself to attain his 
 purpose. This faith must not be fixed by a 
 study of the beliefs of others; but by a mental
 
 146 Man Limitless. 
 
 process each must pass through, appealing to his 
 own deductions from a study of life's open book. 
 Second, with faith built on its only true founda- 
 tion, the Known, he has next, in the silence, to 
 commune with his own soul and to learn its 
 longings. Doubts as to the certainty of accom- 
 plishment, or doubts as to the real longing of 
 his heart can never again arise after such prep- 
 aration. Such certainty will fill his whole being 
 with delight. The sunshine becomes more 
 bright, and the darkest clouds but make him to 
 glow with the radiance Knowledge alone dis- 
 penses everywhere. He then is at peace with the 
 world he becomes a factor for good within it; 
 and, in his objective consciousness, love begins 
 its mission of unfoldment, as he joyously jour- 
 neys up the bright pathway now known to him 
 to lead to the happy land of success. Vibrations 
 uplifting are felt as emanating from those with 
 whom he may associate or meet, other vibrations 
 more powerful still reach him from the unex- 
 plored region of unseen forces where a mighty 
 band of the cohorts of the Infinite work with 
 and for his advancement, his glory and his 
 honor.
 
 The sun is set; but set not his hope: 
 Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: 
 Fixed on the enormous galaxy, 
 Beeper and older seemed his eye: 
 And matched his sufferance sublime 
 The taciturnity of time. 
 He spoke, and words more soft than vain 
 Brought the Age of Gold again : 
 His actions won such reverence sweet, 
 As hid all measure of the feat." 
 
 Emerson.
 
 No secrets of infinity are now beyond the pos- 
 sible reach of human intelligence is the bold 
 statement of the advanced thinker of to-day. 
 Is the time not ripe for philosophers in this age, 
 to plunge into the heart of mystery? 
 
 148
 
 CHILDREN OF THE GODS. 
 
 In ancient Japan, those who became renowned 
 as the favored or honored ones were deemed to 
 possess some mystic force that enabled them to 
 draw fulfillment of their desires through the 
 messengers from Infinity, always presumed to 
 be attending upon them, and so they were distin- 
 guished or called children of the gods. Egypt 
 and other oriental countries made a similar 
 classification for their great ones; and all the 
 learning and philosophy of modern times have 
 not sounded the depths, nor uncovered the mys- 
 tery of genius, whether found in statesmanship, 
 invention, sculpture, painting, music or poetry. 
 Is the subject too subtle for philosophy ? 
 
 To admire and understand mastership in any 
 field of action requires some unfoldment in the 
 same direction. This opens the vista of appre- 
 ciation and enables one to enjoy the work of the 
 master. All admirers are inclined to throw 
 around him a sort of sacred halo, and warn the 
 multitude to keep its distance and reverence the 
 mastership reflected. In brief, to-day, as in 
 ancient times, the development of the genius, in 
 
 149
 
 150 Man Limitless. 
 
 whatever field he may grace, is seemingly re- 
 garded as something beyond the analysis of 
 logic. Study to know and appreciate his work, 
 says his devoted biographer that only is your 
 part. 
 
 To-day, one seriously seeking his own un- 
 foldment will not be led from his purpose by 
 warnings, come from what source they may. If 
 it be granted that some are divinely led, there 
 must be a cause for this. In ages past, those re- 
 ceiving favors from the gods were believed to be 
 chosen by some of the deities to carry out cer- 
 tain ends and purposes. In modern times, all 
 religions centralize power in One (call that One, 
 God, Energy, or any name you choose), and tell 
 us that omnipotent One can favor whom he will. 
 Why this one or that one may be favored and 
 chosen as a man of destiny is, it appears, a secret 
 of Omnipotence. I cannot see that such an in- 
 ference or conclusion shows that any advance has 
 been made on the deductions of the philosophers 
 of ages past on this subject of vital interest to 
 humanity. Then they had gods many, and one 
 or several of these gods made the selection; 
 now we have only one God, and he makes the 
 selection. Both the will and purpose of the in- 
 dividual are taken possession of by a mightier 
 power, and these are directed by that power to
 
 Children of the Gods. 151 
 
 specific ends and success follows. Others of in- 
 defatigable industry labor and reap little of re- 
 ward, because it appears the great central Being 
 or Force has not elected them for leaders. Does 
 this seem to average intelligence fair? 
 
 In teachings generally it is claimed that 
 worthy rewards are certain to follow steadfast- 
 ness of purpose, coupled with willingness to wait 
 and work. But when one attempts beyond the 
 usual, seeks to discover the unrevealed, strives 
 to reach heights yet unattained, then is he 
 warned. A few only are selected to climb the 
 dizzy heights, he is told, and to assume to be 
 of that few is almost arrogance leave that en- 
 tire mysticism to the Infinite it is impenetrable 
 it is one of his secrets. 
 
 No secrets of Infinity are now beyond the 
 possible reach of human intelligence, is the 
 bold statement of the advanced thinker of 
 to-day. Is the time not ripe for philosophers, 
 in this age, to plunge into the heart of 
 mystery? These platitudes about Infinity se- 
 lecting are inferences from a worn-out philos- 
 ophy of the past. Men of destiny everywhere 
 have possessed an abiding faith in themselves. 
 Many have most modestly declared that they 
 saw their duty and did it, and that was all. 
 Many, on the other hand, have declared they
 
 152 Man Limitless. 
 
 were directed by an intelligence in a manner 
 beyond their comprehension, and that to this un- 
 known all honor is due. Modesty, after accom- 
 plishment, ornaments the hero ; but, in the strife 
 to win, he felt only the vibrations of "I can" 
 and "I will." 
 
 Assuming for a moment that God does make 
 the selection that the genius, the hero, the in- 
 ventor, the discoverer, is one of that great fam- 
 ily formerly known as the children of the gods 
 may there not be a reason within the individual 
 self for the election ? Why did God select him ? 
 The earnest, thoughtful man feels in himself 
 powers he is not using. Sometimes environment 
 seems to forbid their use, and sometimes oppor- 
 tunity seems wanting. Why? Who controls 
 environments and opportunities? Man or God, 
 or both ? 
 
 The historian or biographer reaches to grasp 
 the work and purpose of his subject and his 
 influence upon the time and thought when he 
 lived, as well as upon succeeding generations. 
 If the biographer be of a metaphysical turn of 
 mind, he may strive to penetrate the inner con- 
 sciousness of his hero to discover in some de- 
 gree the impelling force within, back of, or 
 around that hero. From such biographers, one
 
 Children of the Gods. 153 
 
 often receives valuable suggestions to aid in 
 answering these questions. 
 
 The new century starts with thinking man 
 practically unhampered. He is open to test new 
 lines of development, if others have proven them 
 of advantage. He is no beggar for favors, but 
 he wants his own. He reads the accepted con- 
 clusions of history, and these tell him that 
 fortune is often won without effort, that fame 
 comes through opportunities the recipient did 
 not create, that success is a bolt from the blue of 
 heaven, that, in the great treadmill of work, 
 faithfulness will receive fair compensation and 
 that this should satisfy. The children of the 
 gods will obtain the crowns, and whether he is 
 one or not, time will reveal. Are these conclu- 
 sions wisely drawn? Let us in the light of the 
 revelations of this age of steam, electricity, 
 telepathy and untrammeled thought, run over 
 the record. 
 
 A blacksmith at his forge hammered sparks 
 from iron, and with heat and hammer moulded 
 it into shapes he would. Under his skill, by the 
 employing of heat and force, he adapted to use- 
 ful ends, inert material, powerless to convert it- 
 self to man's needs, but powerful in itself for 
 them, under intelligent manipulation. Did re- 
 flection over the sublimity of this work rouse dor-
 
 154 Man Limitless. 
 
 mant brain cells to action, and give birth to new 
 desires? As these new desires dawned on that 
 workman's consciousness, what radiance of in- 
 finite soul-light filled it and gave him control of . 
 the keys of memory, and laid her treasures open 
 to him at will? Elihu Burritt, the blacksmith, 
 became Elihu Burritt, the linguist. He read 
 Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and became prac- 
 tically master of nearly all the modern Euro- 
 pean and Slavonic languages. He who does 
 this, or approaches this linguistic mastership, 
 has made memory the hand-maid of his will. 
 Did God select Elihu Burritt to teach a lesson 
 to you and me, and all the world? And, if so, 
 what lesson have we learned? Man has been 
 called simply an instrument in the hands of 
 God ; shall he idly wait, like the crude iron slum- 
 bering in the mountains, for a greater intelli- 
 gence to awaken to action? If we must be 
 guided by that greater intelligence, how may we 
 know when it speaks to us? To many it has 
 spoken in dreams and visions that in one case 
 changed purpose, in another, awoke to joy, in 
 another warded from danger, and in another let 
 loose the God-like force of creative genius. 
 
 If -we all agree that man, in moments when 
 active consciousness is at rest, may be shown 
 visions of what he may be, and stimulated to
 
 Children of the Gods. 155 
 
 grasp the unfoldment they promise, then the 
 knowledge we seek first is how to teach conscious- 
 ness to harmonize itself to receive and know 
 these directions. 
 
 One may be mentally active and physically 
 still, or mentally passive and physically active. 
 He may by discipline make himself both men- 
 tally and physically still at the same moment. 
 Elihu Burritt, as I understand his development, 
 could be absolutely passive mentally, when strik- 
 ing vigorous blows on the yielding steel or iron. 
 He had repeated them so often that he struck 
 them almost automatically. As he saw new 
 shapes and forms moulded under these blows, 
 his mind was receptive to vastness, power, na- 
 ture, infinity, God. Unfoldment came, because 
 he had erected no environments or limitations. 
 
 Go in the silence as all great prophets and 
 leaders have done, and there commune with the 
 Infinite. In that sacred hour passively drop 
 your beliefs they may or may not be true. Free 
 your minds from their possible fetters and open 
 your soul to receive truth. If one wants any- 
 thing, he goes out and seeks for it, does he not? 
 One can hardly expect it to come to him unless 
 he asks and seeks. Now he may have firmly 
 entrenched many beliefs in his consciousness 
 that are not true. He may have read countless
 
 156 Man Limitless. 
 
 pages to prove them true ; and yet if he bring the 
 light of law and evidence upon these beliefs, he 
 will find their foundation to be the supposed 
 beliefs of some other, amplified by the beliefs of 
 the commentators themselves. These commenta- 
 tors may mean to help man and may be honest ; 
 but their good intentions do not mean that their 
 beliefs are true. A belief may be true. I recog- 
 nize that one may be almost convinced at times, 
 without seeking demonstration. My warning is 
 only that one shall logically distinguish the 
 difference between a belief and a demonstrated 
 truth, and always remember further investiga- 
 tions may overthrow the half-accepted proposi- 
 tion. When you have disciplined yourself to 
 this point of discernment, your mind is open to 
 receive knowledge and to attain truth. 
 
 In the compact made to form a union of states 
 that a nation might be born, our patriots met, 
 filled with love of statehood and yet possessing 
 some pride in the possible nation to be. Many 
 compromises were made one great one. When 
 nearly a hundred years had passed, a man of 
 humble and obscure origin appeared and said, in 
 substance, that a perfect union and a lasting 
 peace could only be secured by making every 
 state a slave state or every state free that har- 
 mony under other conditions was impossible. He
 
 Children of the Gods. 157 
 
 who said this had had a public life of but one 
 term in Congress, and some prominence as a 
 lawyer in a western state. That thought aroused 
 argument and set statesmen thinking in every 
 corner of the republic. We know to-day that 
 that utterance was truth. It was truth, but a 
 new truth, and, therefore, awoke a storm of op- 
 position. Abraham Lincoln stated that proposi- 
 tion, and was chosen to demonstrate it to the 
 world. After Lincoln had spoken this truth he 
 did not stand idly waiting to see how it would 
 be received. Down in his soul he must have felt 
 that he had spoken, and that through him must 
 be wrought out the demonstration. 
 
 Emerson says to say the right thing to 
 do the right thing at the right time that is 
 genius. Lincoln said and did the right thing 
 at the right time, and fame has placed him at 
 the head of the roll of our honored dead. The 
 lesson you and I may draw to-day from this 
 life is that Lincoln was always conscious that 
 he was guided and led by infinite energy. He 
 could and did commune with the Infinite. He, 
 like Joan of Arc, heard the voices that spoke 
 truth, he trusted the messages the Infinite sent ; 
 and the whole world to-day bows as Lincoln's 
 name is spoken, and speaks reverently of his 
 wisdom and prophetic utterances.
 
 158 Man Limitless. 
 
 A love-child, born on a small island in the 
 Atlantic ocean, showed precociousness in his 
 early youth, courage when hurricanes swept 
 across the island, and an indefatigable longing 
 for education, and to know the colony growing 
 up in the western hemisphere under England's 
 fostering and semi-tyrannical rule. What was 
 it that whispered to the boy Alexander Hamil- 
 ton, telling him that his future and his destiny 
 were bound up in that far away colony? How 
 clearly he recognized in boyhood the training re- 
 quired to fit him for the responsibilities so soon 
 to be crowded upon him! With what zest and 
 heroic purpose did he enter upon his college 
 studies, attaining high rank therein and com- 
 pleting fours years' work in two. He felt throb- 
 bing about him the duties of an active and of 
 an eventful life. He studied the course of that 
 restless, surging thought-current, breaking down 
 and over the barriers erected by superstition, 
 might and wrong. He saw that strife and war, 
 and a baptism of blood, must precede the birth 
 of a new nation; and so closely did he identify 
 himself with that nation unborn, that only 
 through opposition could his best intellectual 
 gifts be brought into expression. 
 
 At seventeen he wrote papers that patriots 
 thought were written by John Jay at nineteen
 
 Children of the Gods. 159 
 
 he was captain of an artillery company and 
 winning distinction in the battles of Long Island 
 and White Plains. 
 
 Before the altar of freedom he stood, and on 
 that sacred shrine he, without any ambitious or 
 selfish reserve, cast his young manhood with all 
 its hopes and promises. He entered the arena of 
 strife and dedicated his life to the warfare of 
 controversy, criticism, enmity and hate. 
 
 Think of a young man only seventeen years 
 old who graduated from college to draw the 
 sword for principle, but was practically taken 
 from the field when only twenty to be the Aide- 
 de-Camp of Washington with rank of lieutenant- 
 colonel. Then note his series of powerful arti- 
 cles in the Federalist, immediately after the 
 close of the war, educating the people to favor 
 the ratification of the constitution; and later 
 taking the portfolio as the first Secretary of 
 Treasury of the new Republic and showing him- 
 self master of the situation. He had had no ex- 
 perience even in handling large commercial ques- 
 tions for business houses; and yet, against op- 
 position, he worked out a policy that brought 
 order out of chaos and placed this country on a 
 firm financial basis, and secured for it credit 
 with the nations of the old world. Hamilton 
 stands out, at this period of our country's his-
 
 160 Man Limitless. 
 
 tory, as the one genius who conceived the possi- 
 bilities of the new nation, and who knew by 
 intuition, that to endure, its foundation must rest 
 on the indestructible pillars hewn out of the 
 boulders of sound finance. We cannot contem- 
 plate the upbuilding of this nation without the 
 genius of Hamilton. This man of destiny never 
 asked to be told where he might work. The 
 whispered breathings of the Infinite were heard 
 by him; and though his work was beset with 
 opposition, ridicule and danger, he plunged into 
 it fearlessly, because he felt it was committed to 
 him to do, and he was always ready as a child 
 of God to answer Duty's call. 
 
 Wagner once wrote: "I compose for myself; 
 it is just a question between me and my Maker. 
 I grow as I exercise my faculties, and expres- 
 sion is a necessary form of spiritual exercise. 
 How shall I live ? Express what I think or feel, 
 or what you feel? No, I must be honest and 
 sincere. I must, for the need of myself, live my 
 own life, for work is for the worker, at the last. 
 Each man must please himself, and Nature has 
 placed her approbation on this by supplying the 
 greatest pleasure man ever knew as a reward for 
 doing good work. ' ' Following this thought, Wag- 
 ner tells us in unmistakable language that he 
 had brought his conscious self into communica-
 
 Children of the Gods. 161 
 
 tion with his own soul that soul, the real self 
 which receives the whispered breathings through 
 the ethers or messengers from infinite Energy, 
 and then longs to give its wisdom to intelligence, 
 had become dominant in his consciousness; and 
 criticism, censure, abuse, even exile, could not 
 change his purpose. It is true that he did not 
 hesitate in his operas to sacrifice every precedent 
 of musical construction ' ' in order to make music 
 tell the tale." The musical world had to be 
 educated to a new school of music, and Wagner 
 created it. The pathway of the children of the 
 gods to the paradise they seek is often beset with 
 hardships and dangers sometimes the paradise 
 is never reached, and praises are only sung by 
 coming generations. Wagner worked and waited 
 long to find his; and age and burdens had fur- 
 rowed his face with lines of care before it opened 
 to him. Then he entered its portals, and there 
 was crowned with wealth and fame and love. 
 
 Liszt felt harmonies and wrote them, know- 
 ing they must be expressed from the key-board 
 of a piano. The Infinite had sent them to his 
 soul, his soul to consciousness. As he stretched 
 his small hands to strike the chords, and pained 
 those muscles to do the bidding of Art, he must 
 have risen, in his effort to express the melody 
 within himself, beyond the physical sense of feel-
 
 1 62 Man Limitless. 
 
 ing or the tortures he might inflict later on others 
 ambitious to play his compositions. Beside the 
 joy those harmonies give the world, a lesson is 
 taught to the pupil of the supremacy will may 
 gain over the muscles and ligaments of the hu- 
 man hand. When Art seeks expression, it will 
 find it. Again, one is told of the error of assum- 
 ing any limitations in our demands, even upon 
 the physical. 
 
 A little reflection upon these lives and the 
 history of achievement generally will serve to 
 convince one that mental mastership in any 
 field of thought is sought by him who wins. He 
 learns his particular place or field of work by 
 patient self-examination in moments of stillness. 
 In these silent sittings the soul longings are told 
 to consciousness. One must repeat these sittings 
 again and again, until clear visions of the 
 future float before him, and until he will men- 
 tally see himself in full possession of all that is 
 comprised in the longing. Then he may know 
 that that ideal can be made real. He may then 
 rank himself with those who were called children 
 of the gods in the past, and who are called to-day 
 men of destiny; but let him remember that the 
 gods or spirit guides, though beckoning him for- 
 ward with positive assurances of success, leave 
 much for him to do. If only he keep his eye
 
 Children of the Gods. 163 
 
 single, fearing no devils, and holding before his 
 mental vision the purpose sought as one certain 
 to be gained, success must follow. The time it 
 may take will depend on both the nature of the 
 longing and upon the unwavering faith he has 
 fused in his consciousness by suggestion. When 
 victory is certain, it is puerile to demand that the 
 exact date be fixed. 
 
 There were geniuses in the past that vivid 
 Eastern imagination named offspring of the gods, 
 and there are those who might with equal justice 
 be called children of the gods to-day; and these 
 are they who have gained through discipline 
 psychic consciousness. Let me be clear on this. 
 He is psychically conscious who has learned to 
 commune with his own soul learned to receive 
 the messages, directions and suggestions from 
 the infinite force that may be communicated to, 
 objective consciousness. He has bridged the 
 chasm between the conscious and subconscious 
 self, and even caught glimpses of the subliminal 
 beyond. Within the human heart there is an 
 inexpressible longing to attain its good. This 
 longing is upreaching to wider fields of useful- 
 ness. Following its lead and direction, creative 
 genius is awakened. 
 
 When and where was the possibility of tele- 
 pathy first dreamed of ? I do not hesitate to ven-
 
 164 Man Limitless. 
 
 ture a reply to this question, though I know 
 that reply cannot be verified absolutely as the 
 true one. Distant from all known methods of 
 communication men have been, when, to save 
 their lives or to bring good to another, immediate 
 communication was imperatively demanded. The 
 soul then opened itself to receive anything, every- 
 thing the infinite force of the universe might re- 
 veal, and consciousness first blindly grasped the 
 message sent. Again and again by others was 
 this longing to project thought repeated. Then 
 the story was told at first, half doubtfully, till 
 science took up the problem and is now trying to 
 solve it. Telepathy is to-day accepted as a 
 method of communication between people dis- 
 tant from each other, though the laws governing 
 it may not yet be clearly defined. Here we see 
 human longing telling of what may be; and I 
 hold a true human longing is best defined as a 
 telepathic message from the Universal, telling 
 one what is within his grasp. 
 
 The student in his self-examination must learn 
 to distinguish the difference between his fancies 
 and his longings. A fancy may be a wish of 
 sense for the moment. It is a fleeting vision at 
 best, and quickly lost sight of. A longing of the 
 soul is an inspiration trusted and followed, it 
 leads to realization. Your longing points to paths
 
 Children of the Gods. 165 
 
 you may tread. Recognize its meaning and accept 
 the guidance offered. No matter whether your 
 work seems circumscribed or boundless to those 
 around you it is everything to you learn what 
 it is know it is yours, and honor it as it honors 
 you. If you feel, in this age, that the being 
 called a child of the gods or a man of destiny 
 feebly expresses the growth you perceive as your 
 consciousness recognizes and uses its power to 
 draw from the Universal, then pierce deeper into 
 the future and see the glory and majesty of ulti- 
 mate man man so unfolded that he blends him- 
 self with infinite Energy and stands alone, him- 
 self a god.
 
 "These our actors, 
 
 As I foretold you, were all spirits and 
 Art melted into air, into thin air : 
 And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
 The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
 And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
 Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made on, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 167
 
 When the star of genius first rises above the 
 horizon and he catches glimpses of it, he recog- 
 nizes within himself the spirit of daring. In 
 those moments of upliftment, the new-born 
 power is reflected in affirmations declaring the 
 discoveries of selves within the self. In divers 
 ways this upliftment comes to genius, but always 
 bringing to him confidence of the power of mas- 
 tery within himself. 
 
 168
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S ARIEL. 
 
 In a recent number of the Atlantic Monthly, 
 there was published a speech (taken from 
 Cabot's Memoirs of Emerson) written by Emer- 
 son to be delivered before the Saturday Club, on 
 the three hundredth anniversary of Shakes- 
 peare's birth. This speech was unintentionally 
 left in his library on that evening and so never 
 delivered. From it I quote : ' ' He is a cultivated 
 man who can tell us something new about 
 Shakespeare; all criticism is only a making of 
 rules out of his beauties." And yet, implying 
 that there must always be something new to find 
 in Shakespeare, Emerson adds, "In short, 
 Shakespeare is the one resource of our life on 
 which no gloom gathers; the foundation of joy 
 which honors him who tastes it; day without 
 night; pleasure without repentance; the genius 
 which in unpoetic ages keeps poetry in honor, 
 and, in sterile periods, keeps up the credit of 
 the human mind. ' ' 
 
 The present age is marked as one where man 
 generally is found doing his own thinking, in- 
 dependent of the teachings handed down from 
 
 169
 
 170 Man Limitless. 
 
 those who were called sages in a not distant past. 
 This age is proving itself, in many particulars, 
 to be a psychological one. Men are penetrating 
 into the unfathomed depth of human possibili- 
 ties. The power of thought to direct man and to 
 bring to him his desire is the foundation pillar 
 of several cults some of which already assume 
 to be new schools of philosophy. Notably among 
 these we find the Christian scientist, the mental 
 scientist, the hypnotic suggester, the suggester 
 without hypnotism, and the spiritist. 
 
 During the past fifty years, man has been 
 developing very rapidly, as shown by his accom- 
 plishments in science, in art, in education, in 
 inventions, and more than all, in general human 
 upliftment. In this I particularly include his 
 ideas of the right of nations and peoples in times 
 of war; but above all, the right of man in his 
 own way to form his own conclusions as to the 
 religious, intellectual and moral teachings of the 
 past, and as to the teachings best adapted for 
 him to-day. 
 
 Searchers here and there appear from time to 
 time with something new to offer about Shakes- 
 peare concerning his individuality, his life and 
 his work. He stands forth to-day, in the estima- 
 tion of learned critics, as the most wonderful 
 dramatic artist the world has ever known. He
 
 Shakespeare's Ariel. 171 
 
 wrote, it is argued, from the artistic standpoint 
 he wrote to please, but may he not have re- 
 flected again and again the man as well as the 
 artist ? May he not, in his last plays, have told 
 secrets that have been overlooked, that this age 
 can penetrate simply because man has evolved to 
 a higher plane of penetration than was attained 
 by those living in an age of less unf oldment ? 
 
 The last four plays that Shakespeare wrote 
 have been classed in this order: "Pericles," 
 "Cymbaline," "The Tempest" and "Winter's 
 Tale." Each of these has as its keynote the 
 beauty of forgiveness. Those who have delved 
 deep into Shakespeare regard these plays as sug- 
 gesting the peaceful plane he had reached in 
 life. Controversies did not trouble him then; 
 enmity and jealousy of others had ended ; he had 
 his position secure in the dramatic world ; he had 
 acquired an ample fortune. As he turned back 
 to rural surroundings, he introduced them as 
 scenes in some of his later plays, showing that 
 his heart, in ripe manhood, turned back to boy- 
 hood scenes with joy. 
 
 Shakespeare has introduced the fairy or spirit 
 element prominently into but three of his plays 
 "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Macbeth," 
 and "The Tempest" In "Midsummer Night's 
 Dream" and "Macbeth," the spirit force deter-
 
 172 Man Limitless. 
 
 mined the action of mortals. In "The Tem- 
 pest," a later play, Prospero had evolved to a 
 plane where he was master of spirits and men, 
 tides and tempests. The epilogue is very sug- 
 gestive; and, as my proposed paper rests upon 
 that as its text, I quote it entire : 
 
 "Now my charms are all o'erthrown, 
 And what strength I have's mine own, 
 Which is most faint : now, 'tis true, 
 I must be here confined by you 
 Or sent to Naples. Let me not, 
 Since I have my dukedom got 
 And pardon 'd the deceiver, dwell 
 In this bare island by your spell ; 
 But release me from my bands 
 With the help of your good hands : 
 Gentle breath of yours my sails 
 Must fill, or else my project fails, 
 Which was to please. Now I want 
 Spirits to enforce, art to enchant, 
 And my ending is despair, 
 Unless I be relieved by prayer, 
 Which pierces so that it assaults 
 Mercy itself and frees all faults. 
 As you from crimes would pardon 'd be, 
 Let your indulgence set me free. ' ' 
 
 Moulton, of our later writers, seems to have
 
 Shakespeare's Ariel. 173 
 
 penetrated part way into what Ariel was to 
 Shakespeare, yet, to my mind, stops short of pur- 
 suing the investigation to the heart of the mys- 
 tery. This extract from Moulton's "Shakespeare 
 as a Dramatic Artist" will serve to explain: 
 
 ''Shakespeare has made Ariel an Elemental 
 Being of the higher order, identified with the 
 upward-tending elements of Air and Fire, and 
 with the higher nature of man ; and he has made 
 Caliban an Elemental Being of the lower order, 
 identified with the downward-tending elements of 
 Earth and Water, and the lower nature of man. 
 
 "The identification is too detailed to be fanci- 
 ful. The very name of Ariel is borrowed from 
 air, and he is directly addressed: 'Thou, which 
 art but air.' The identification with fire is not 
 less complete : when describing the lightning 
 Ariel does not say that he set the ship a-fire, but 
 that the ship was 'all a-fire with me': 
 
 'Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, 
 I flamed amazement : sometimes I 'd divide 
 And burn in many places.' 
 
 We can see in him just the qualities of air and 
 fire. He is invisible, but, like the lightning, can 
 take shape as he acts. Like air and fire he can 
 penetrate everywhere, treading the ooze of the 
 salt deep, running upon the sharp wings of the
 
 174 Man Limitless. 
 
 north, doing business in the veins of the earth 
 when it is baked with frost. His natural speech 
 is music, or waves of air. His ideas are the 
 ideas associated with the atmosphere liberty 
 and omnipresence: to be 'free as mountain 
 winds,' to fly on the bat's back merrily, couch in 
 the cowslip's bell, live under the blossom that 
 hangs on the bough. Like the atmosphere he 
 reflects human emotions without feeling them." 
 
 Dr. Furnivall, in his introduction to the Leo- 
 pold Shakespeare, tells us how over and over 
 again, through these plays, Shakespeare reveals 
 himself : 
 
 "As to the question how far we are justified 
 in assuming that Shakespeare put his own feel- 
 ings, himself, into his plays, some men scorn the 
 notion, ask you triumphantly which of his char- 
 acters represent him, assert that he himself is 
 in none of them, but sits apart, serene, unruffled 
 himself by earthly passion, making his puppets 
 move. I believe, on the contrary, that all the 
 deepest and greatest work of an artist play- 
 wright, orator, painter, poet is based on per- 
 sonal experience, on his own emotions and pas- 
 sions, and not merely on his observations of 
 things or feelings outside of him, on which his 
 fancy and imagination work. Shakespeare tells 
 me he felt hell; and in his Othello, Macbeth,
 
 Shakespeare's Ariel. 175 
 
 Lear, Coriolanus, Timon, I see the evidence of 
 his having done so. He tells us how he loved his 
 friends, as with woman's love; and in his An- 
 tonio thrice repeated his Helena, his Viola, I 
 see his own devoted love reflected. He tells me 
 what his false, swarthy mistress was ; and in his 
 Cleopatra, I see her, to some extent, embodied. 
 I see him at last laying bare his own soul as he 
 strips the covering off other men's; and I see 
 him at last passing into at-oneness with God and 
 man, into fresh delight in all the glories of the 
 outward world, and the sweet girls about him in 
 his Stratford home. Then content to sleep. And 
 I refuse to separate Shakespeare, the man, from 
 Shakespeare, the artist. He himself, his own 
 nature and life, are in all his plays, to the man 
 who has eyes and chooses to look for him and 
 them there." 
 
 To some, this bold statement of Furnivall's, 
 as to Shakespeare's putting himself, his own 
 emotions and passions, into the characters in his 
 plays, was startling. The earlier critics were 
 agreed that search through his plays did not, in 
 any way, reveal the man Shakespeare his char- 
 acters were clearly denned human beings, who 
 lived their lives ; but in all that they did, in no 
 way gave the slightest hint of the innermost 
 thoughts of the Master who drew them. Lost
 
 176 Man Limitless. 
 
 in the greatness of the art of Shakespeare which 
 his masterly types reflected, they reached to 
 grasp the ideals created by the mighty genius 
 they reverenced. That the imagination of 
 Shakespeare was fed and nurtured by the 
 thoughts he held, by the longings that welled 
 within him, by the ambitions he strove to realize, 
 by the loves within himself, did not receive con- 
 sideration at all, as I view it, from these earlier 
 critics. The types Shakespeare presented gave 
 a wide field for study that they might be clearly 
 understood the critics hardly concerned them- 
 selves as to whether the Master may have found 
 the models within or without himself, but as- 
 sumed that he must have found them wholly 
 without himself. To my mind, the "Midsummer 
 Night's Dream," his first fairy play, reflects, in 
 a certain sense, the religious teachings of his 
 time. Beyond man, it was assumed, there was a 
 force that controlled him. Man was controlled 
 against his will, against his wish, against his 
 purpose, by that mysterious force which serious 
 writers have ascribed as belonging to a personal 
 God, and writers of a livelier and happier im- 
 agination to fairies or spirits unseen. In 
 short, that play to me reflects the younger man 
 who has accepted the philosophy and conclu- 
 sions of the teachings of his age. Shakespeare
 
 Shakespeare's Ariel. 177 
 
 had not, at that time, become in any sense a 
 serious metaphysical or psychological thinker. 
 The world was just opening its portals to him 
 and all was new; and from his standpoint, ex- 
 ceedingly interesting and delightful. In "The 
 Tempest" we find the work of the master genius 
 the man who had fought and won the man 
 who did not need to guess what mysteries life 
 held for humanity, because he had sounded their 
 depth. 
 
 When the star of genius first rises above the 
 horizon and he catches glimpses of it, he recog- 
 nizes within himself the spirit of daring. In 
 those moments of upliftment, the new-born 
 power is reflected in affirmations declaring the 
 discoveries of selves within the self. In divers 
 ways this upliftment comes to genius, but al- 
 ways bringing to him confidence of the power of 
 mastery within himself. 
 
 Socrates recognized a spirit force near him, or 
 a spirit presence in a certain sense it might 
 be termed his familiar, speaking in the language 
 of the spiritist of to-day. In the epilogue to 
 "The Tempest," Shakespeare bids farewell to 
 his fairy hosts, evidently having determined that 
 his work as a playwright was ended. He had 
 done his work; and, as Furnivall most happily 
 puts it, he was content to sleep. Ariel, the
 
 178 Man Limitless. 
 
 Spirit of Air, was the familiar of Prospero ; and 
 who does Prospero stand for? Let us see. 
 
 Prospero was wronged by his brother, consid- 
 ering the matter in a worldly way. But may it 
 not be that there was a guiding force around 
 Prospero which saw for his full and complete 
 development it was necessary that he be sepa- 
 rated from the world, in order that that full un- 
 f oldment might come ? 
 
 The university men led by Ben Jonson were 
 envious of Shakespeare's popularity. "When 
 they could harm him in no other way, they 
 wrote him down as ignorant. In silent moments, 
 may he not, with his awakening power, have 
 appealed (unwittingly, perhaps) to the encir- 
 cling spirit force about us of which Longfellow 
 speaks so eloquently in his poems? As far as 
 history shows, Shakespeare was not in the habit 
 of striking back when blows were struck at him. 
 Even when Pembroke took away his love, how- 
 ever much it may have stung him, it did not 
 blunt his devoted friendship. Often must he 
 have felt the need of classical training when 
 mingling with the University men. Sometimes 
 the want of it may have cast dark shadows on 
 his life. In presenting to us the great tragedies, 
 there is no doubt but at that period he passed 
 through all the hell man may know, and per-
 
 Shakespeare's Ariel. 179 
 
 haps then he was in such a frame of mind that 
 he almost gloried in the tortures he endured. 
 Down deep within him, and guiding him through 
 this awful labyrinth of suffering, may there not 
 have been a spirit force that whispered of the 
 infinite growth one may attain who successfully 
 battles with prejudice, opposition, grief, enmity 
 and hate? May it not be true that this spirit 
 force whispered of a glorious peace beyond that 
 could be won only by those who pass through 
 this severe school of discipline without losing 
 faith in the nobility of man ? 
 
 Hamilton Wright Mabie recognizes "The 
 Tempest" as a play that fashioned itself largely 
 in Shakespeare's imagination, and then signifi- 
 cantly adds: "The profound seriousness of 
 temper which pervades the play, the clearness 
 with which its ethical bearings are disclosed, the 
 deep philosophy which underlies it, carry an ir- 
 resistible impression of something personal in 
 the theme, and the treatment. It is impossible 
 to read 'The Tempest' without a haunting sense 
 of a secondary meaning." * * * "When 
 Shakespeare set the noble figure of Prospero on 
 the unknown island, and made him master of 
 spirits and of men, with a knowledge of life that 
 was so great that it easily passed into magical 
 art, he could not have been oblivious to the spir-
 
 i8o Man Limitless. 
 
 itual significance of the work, nor of its deep 
 vital symbolism in the development of his own 
 mind and art." 
 
 The most ancient religions taught that man 
 was dominated by an infinite power to which he 
 might appeal for aid. Out of these religions 
 grew others as the human developed, which ex- 
 panded the love element in the infinite and 
 brought man in closer touch with this central 
 force. Genius, subtle as it has been regarded, 
 was viewed as suggesting, at least, the God with- 
 in the human. In some mysterious way, it has 
 been conceded, the genius appropriates from or 
 approaches oneness with God. Although from 
 pulpits it is and has been universally proclaimed 
 that man should bind himself to God by prayer, 
 and that his only hope for health, success and 
 joy is in God's mercy and love, yet the clergy 
 generally have been slow to recognize the genius 
 as one who had called for and received within 
 himself whatever of infinite power he could per- 
 sonally absorb. Often the genius was not a 
 prayerful man, often decidedly unorthodox, and 
 totally ignorant of the orthodox methods and 
 ways of approaching God. Teaching as the 
 clergymen do and did of the proofs that prayers 
 were answered, they are yet hardly ready to de- 
 clare with Emerson that "there is no screen or
 
 Shakespeare's Ariel. 181 
 
 ceiling between our heads and the infinite 
 heavens, so is there no bar or wall in the soul, 
 where man, the effect, ceases, and God, the 
 cause, begins." 
 
 The philosophy of the Hindus teaches them 
 how to uncoil the wisdom which they claim is 
 within the soul and bring it to conscious posses- 
 sion ; the western student in what is termed ad- 
 vanced thought recognizes a universal force of 
 which he is a part and studies how to appro- 
 priate from it what he would. As to results 
 sought for and obtained, there is after all a 
 harmony between the two systems. Whether 
 the wisdom coveted is within the selfhood and 
 disclosed by discipline, or contained within an 
 omnipotent and omnipresent force which fuses 
 itself into human consciousness because of faith- 
 ful upreaching on the part of man, matters lit- 
 tle. Possibly a greater unfoldment may dis- 
 cern that both these philosophies are true. A 
 genius then may be defined as one who learns, 
 either consciously or subconsciously, how to ap- 
 propriate the wisdom within his own soul, or the 
 wisdom from the Universal of which he is a part ; 
 or better still, to draw from either or both these 
 sources, as he may need. 
 
 Shakespeare as a worker in the world, among 
 the scholarly dramatic writers, must have felt a
 
 182 Man Limitless. 
 
 deep longing for wider culture, broader views 
 of humanity, and deeper insight into the mys- 
 teries of life. This longing reached beyond the 
 schools and beyond the libraries, and even 
 pierced the deepest recesses of the human heart. 
 In moments of silence, such longings, modern 
 philosophy has proven, can attract from with- 
 out or draw from within the knowledge sought. 
 To some, the Universal seems to blend through 
 sudden flashes of thought which perception 
 grasps to others, fairy spirits seemingly attend 
 and carry the messages of power asked from in- 
 finite force. 
 
 "The Tempest" to me is Shakespeare's master- 
 piece, and here he laid bare his soul, and told 
 the world his secret longings and the mystery 
 of their fulfillment from the infinite source of 
 supply. In an abstract way, Prospero reflects 
 himself, his ideal self the man who won by the 
 aid of the infinite force of the universe which 
 he commanded through its faithful couriers. 
 Prospero had been wronged in a material sense, 
 and through that wrong Prospero developed 
 power by learning in the silence its source. 
 Armed with that power, he dominated the ma- 
 terial, harmonized all antagonism; and proved 
 forgiveness to be the key-note in lifting one to 
 clearly understand that the pulsating energy of
 
 Shakespeare's Ariel. 183 
 
 the Source pervades all life and throbs only for 
 the good and the upliftment of all. Prospero 
 did not send his longings out to infinite force 
 through vibrations. He, for his particular de- 
 velopment, seemed to prefer to direct a familiar 
 who though real to him could be unseen to others. 
 A familiar or messenger who could awaken those 
 who slept, and then observe them on waking, and 
 be invisible. He was a part of the Universal, a 
 breath of air, ever active, and as subtle and cer- 
 tain in accomplishment as the thought vibrations 
 we now recognize which bind man to infinite 
 knowledge and power. 
 
 When a great genius reveals himself to the 
 world, he is wont to do so by symbols, or possibly 
 I might better say by parallels. Those who should 
 know can understand by following what he 
 writes, and if none may grasp the meaning in his 
 day, it still is well, for the time may not be ripe 
 for the truth to be known. Through the ages the 
 great ones have told of visions seen or promises 
 made to them in dreams that gave them courage 
 to work and dare; and yet the world may not 
 have then been ready to be told of the close 
 union between man and God. The story of Joan 
 of Arc was younger in Shakespeare's time than 
 to-day, and English divines recognized in it a
 
 184 Man Limitless. 
 
 species of hypocrisy and witchcraft. Shakes- 
 peare could hardly, therefore, speak more openly 
 than he did, and yet he would tell his contempo- 
 raries of the real source of his success. 
 
 The play was called "The Tempest," and yet 
 it was a tempest that did no harm. It was a 
 necessary incident and perhaps a symbol to teach 
 the lesson of growth. To the master the tempest 
 had long been passed, but as he recalled the hell 
 of suffering which he had endured, and later 
 noted the rewards it had brought, he knew that 
 through it was the path to a holier peace. Pros- 
 pero's apparent sternness with Ariel only re- 
 flects the firm stand one must take who reaches 
 for mastership. He draws on infinite force as 
 he requires not as a suppliant beggar, but as 
 one who knows the mystic binding through the 
 fatherhood of love. 
 
 Some of the critics have questioned if the 
 Epilogue was Shakespeare's. It certainly lacks 
 the general characteristics of Shakespeare's 
 mature work; and the thoughts have been 
 classed as commonplace, and the rhythm un- 
 Shakespearian. Why should it not be, and yet 
 this epilogue be written by Shakespeare and be 
 his farewell to dramatic work? Do not the 
 three first lines give us the key ?
 
 Shakespeare's Ariel. 185 
 
 "Now my charms are all o'erthrown, 
 And what strength I have 's mine own, 
 Which is most faint. ' ' 
 
 Following this line of reasoning, I conclude 
 that Shakespeare linked himself to the Source 
 through spirit guides whom he saw through 
 clairvoyant vision, and with whom he conversed 
 through the aid of clairaudient hearing. It was 
 his method of appropriating from the center. 
 His work done, their mission to him was ended, 
 and his charms were all o'erthrown. Ariel was 
 the messenger he may have first caught glimpses 
 of, and later learned to command. Ariel to some 
 might represent subtle vibrations; but to one 
 with clairvoyance and clairaudience developed, 
 he was a spirit in touch with the Infinite from 
 that force a subtle mighty power is ever reach- 
 ing out to aid the development and upliftment 
 of all who have learned man's true place in the 
 great cosmos, and who not only feel but know 
 the eternal Oneness of all life.
 
 "We see but half the causes of our deeds, 
 Seeking them wholly in the outer life, 
 And heedless of the encircling spirit world, 
 Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us 
 All germs of pure and world- wide purposes. ' ' 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 187
 
 From the earliest revelations of man that have 
 come down to us, writers have been bold in ascrib- 
 ing their talks and interviews with spirits, angels 
 and God. They seem to distinguish between good 
 and bad spirits and place the angels on a some- 
 what higher plane than that of the spirits. May 
 it not be possible that these writers, with the 
 unfoldment which had come to them, mistook, 
 in their clairvoyant visions, exalted spirits that 
 had progressed for angels even for God ? 
 
 188
 
 SPIRIT AID IN MAN'S UNFOLDING. 
 
 When the earliest church called Christian was 
 presented to us by authentic history as formida- 
 bly organized, it claimed a new revelation had 
 been received from its founder, whose name it 
 bore, and it taught primarily that life on this 
 earth was chiefly to be regarded as a preparatory 
 school to fit one for the life beyond the grave. 
 Man was to suffer here, and the greater his 
 suffering, the greater his reward might be. With 
 the centuries came dissensions, and out of the 
 Apostolic Church came the three branches, the 
 Roman, the Anglican and the Greek. Out of 
 these came the various sects all claiming to be 
 followers of the same founder, but differently 
 interpreting his teachings as given in the ac- 
 cepted record. These various churches and sects 
 have adapted themselves to modern thought and 
 civilization, so that the influence of some one or 
 more of these teachings practically covers West- 
 ern Europe, North and South America. Differ- 
 ing as these religious bodies do in forms and be- 
 liefs, there is one point on which all agree ; and, 
 because of that, I make the classification so gen- 
 
 189
 
 190 Man Limitless. 
 
 eral. Though life here may have a much wider 
 significance than the early church originally gave 
 it, all these branches and sects teach that life is 
 immortal; and further, that one carries his in- 
 dividuality beyond, because he may again meet 
 and mingle with those he loved here. When 
 asked for proofs, they present their record, their 
 interpretation of it, and their faith proofs fully 
 demonstrated they have never assumed to fur- 
 nish. With the unfolding of man, can any be 
 found to meet his demands in this age ? 
 
 Much older than the religions of the western 
 world, however, was the belief that man could 
 draw power from the unseen. He in former 
 times appealed to this or that god for aid, par- 
 ticularly when seeking the accomplishment of 
 great tasks. That there was a power beyond the 
 human on which man might draw is a belief, 
 therefore, as old as history. The religion founded 
 some nineteen hundred years ago modified, in a 
 way, the ancient idea of the source of power and 
 the methods of approach to it; but it did not 
 create the belief in man of the existence of a 
 power beyond on which he might draw. That 
 belief, as the records show, seems to have been 
 accepted on the part of the human, and to have 
 been co-existent with the history of man. 
 
 The early teachers had unfolded to a point
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 191 
 
 where a multitude of gods brought mazes of en- 
 tanglement to their logic ; and then, in the trend 
 of intellectual evolution, the host of Pagan gods 
 was finally displaced, or resolved by reason into 
 two, and these represented two opposing forces. 
 So much of wrong and evil was patent to their 
 senses, that if the great Good (God) all powerful 
 did not have an opposing factor, they saw no way 
 to account for the wrong in the world and in 
 the minds of men. They who did good were 
 under the influence of the good God and he trans- 
 mitted power to them to overcome evil. They 
 who did wrong had aid from the evil god, called 
 the Devil, and he willingly was contributing of 
 his power to them; and so, in the universe, the 
 battle of evil against good was continually being 
 waged. Complete conquest of good over evil, 
 when a millennium would appear, was certain to 
 come, but far remote. 
 
 Modern religious teachings are amazingly con- 
 tradictory and illogical at best. God is on one 
 Sunday a God of love, on another a jealous God, 
 on another an angry God, on another an aveng- 
 ing God ; and all this love and jealousy and anger 
 and revenge he feels and exercises toward what 
 these teachers claim is the crowning masterpiece 
 of his own creations. Such a conception of
 
 192 Man Limitless. 
 
 Being must be that of almost primitive man 
 with undeveloped, unfolded mental faculties. 
 
 In this day all stand free to speak their 
 thoughts, whether they conflict or not with creeds 
 or dogmas. Standing at the open gate between 
 this earth life and the spirit life, I can see why 
 from paganism, intelligence seemed to have taken 
 a great step in advance by resolving multiplied 
 forces into but two, one evil and the other good. 
 Again, I recognize these old philosophers caught 
 glimpses of truth; but when they or their fol- 
 lowers presented it in detail, there was a mysti- 
 cism about it. The logic of the human is always 
 limited to its intellectual grasp. 
 
 From the old oracles of Delphi, one learns 
 that those versed in that lore were sought 
 to tell the meaning of the messages received. 
 Following that trend, interpreters arose to 
 explain the record of history and prophecy 
 handed down to humanity as authentic; and 
 these interpreters did not and do not agree, clear- 
 ly proving to my mind that the environment and 
 mental unfoldment of the writer and the inter- 
 preter are the causes of disagreement. 
 
 There is one dominant idea which pervades 
 every modern religious belief, and that is the 
 necessity of sacrifice to attain reward. I ques- 
 tion if this did not arise from the simple fact
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 193 
 
 that one must always pay a price for his good, 
 whatever it may be, and the price paid repre- 
 sents the sacrifice. Passing over this for a mo- 
 ment, and freeing mind from all thoughts as to 
 whether or not there is an accepted belief one 
 ought labor to uphold, let me consider some ex- 
 periences and some of the messages received 
 through human instruments, or brought by shad- 
 owy spirit forms in person, telling of the life 
 beyond ; and then, it may be that a new interpre- 
 tation of this record, through broader mental 
 unfoldment, will be made manifest. 
 
 I take it primarily that no one will read this 
 paper who has not had some experience, or made 
 some acquaintance with the conclusions of others 
 in their studies in occultism. I will not refer, 
 therefore, to a long array of names of those who 
 have made serious investigations in occult 
 phenomena and who have presented us volumes 
 giving the results obtained ; but will assume that 
 my reader has made himself familiar with at 
 least several of these works, besides having had 
 valuable experiences of his own. Presuming all 
 this on his part; and further, that he has made 
 himself more or less familiar with the excellent 
 work done by the Society of Psychical Research 
 in these lines, I feel that he must agree with these 
 investigators that immortality has been proven,
 
 194 Man Limitless. 
 
 that life is continuous, and that there is no death. 
 Further, I assume that he will agree it has been 
 proven that one's individuality continues, and 
 that one is no wiser the day after the immortal 
 part passes from the body than he was the day 
 it left it. Believing then that these are self- 
 evident propositions to my reader; and further, 
 that progression is continuous in the life beyond, 
 let us, as preliminary and in way of review, pass 
 before our minds again the conclusions of some 
 of these investigators. 
 
 I take up the volume "Miracles and Modern 
 Spiritualism" by that eminent scholar and scien- 
 tist, Alfred Russel Wallace, D. C. L., LL. D., 
 and read: "How valuable is the certainty gained 
 by spiritual communications may be gathered 
 from what was said to a friend of mine by a 
 clergyman who had witnessed the modern phe- 
 nomena : ' Death is a different thing to me now 
 from what it ever has been ; from the greatest de- 
 pression because of the death of my sons, I am 
 full of confidence and cheerfulness; I am a 
 changed man. ' This is the effect of modern Spir- 
 itualism on a man who had all that a belief in 
 Christianity could give him before; and this is 
 the answer to those who ask, '"What use is it?' ' 
 Summing up his investigations, Dr. Wallace con- 
 cludes :
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 195 
 
 "We have now to explain the Theory of Hu- 
 man Nature, which is the outcome of the phe- 
 nomena taken in their entirety, and which is also 
 more or less explicitly taught by the communica- 
 tions which purport to come from spirits. It 
 may be briefly outlined as follows : 
 
 "1. Man is a duality, consisting of an organ- 
 ized spiritual form, evolved coincidently with 
 and permeating the physical body, and having 
 corresponding organs and development. 
 
 "2. Death is the separation of this duality, 
 and effects no change in the spirit, morally or 
 intellectually. 
 
 "3. Progressive evolution of the intellectual 
 and moral nature is the destiny of individuals; 
 the knowledge, attainments and experience of 
 earth-life forming the basis of spirit-life. 
 
 "4. Spirits can communicate through prop- 
 erly-endowed mediums. They are attracted to 
 those they love or sympathise with, and strive 
 to warn, protect, and influence them for good, by 
 mental impression, when they cannot effect any 
 more direct communication. ' ' 
 
 I turn next to Rev. Dr. Minot J. Savage, whose 
 work to discover the truth or falsity of Spiritual- 
 ism has been most painstaking and thorough. In 
 "Can Telepathy Explain?" he gives numerous 
 experiences, from which I quote one. "An
 
 196 Man Limitless. 
 
 English girl was engaged to be married to a 
 young American who had been a student abroad. 
 They had met at Heidelberg. He died suddenly 
 after returning to this country. She came over 
 here shortly afterward to visit his mother. While 
 in New York, she went to a medium. There was 
 no appointment beforehand, and there was no 
 way by which the psychic could know who she 
 was. Taking her turn, she sat down by the 
 medium, who went into a trance and began to 
 speak. Immediately the girl's lover claimed to 
 be present. He told her a number of things 
 which only they two had ever known. He re- 
 called circumstances connected with their ac- 
 quaintance. Now, it so happened that this young 
 lady's father was an English officer in the war 
 in South Africa. Among other things which 
 the young man told was this. He said: 'I am 
 glad that I have been able to save your father's 
 life once or twice during the past summer.' 
 Now comes the strange coincidence, if coinci- 
 dence only it be. The father writes home from 
 South Africa, being entirely ignorant of all 
 that had taken place here, and relates what 
 seems to him a somewhat remarkable fact. He 
 tells how he was sitting in his tent one day 
 when there came upon him suddenly an unac- 
 countable impression that he was in danger. It
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 197 
 
 was as though someone was trying to make him 
 feel this and induce him to move. So strong was 
 the feeling that he got up and went over to the 
 other side of his tent. He had hardly done this 
 before a shell struck the chair where he had been 
 sitting. Had he remained there he would have 
 been instantly killed. Of course it is not asserted 
 that this is anything more than a coincidence; 
 but the suggestion is made that coincidences of 
 this sort have been so very frequent of late as to 
 make one wonder as to whether there is not some 
 deeper meaning in it all." 
 
 Later on in this volume Doctor Savage sums 
 up his deductions as follows: "It is practi- 
 cally true that all men everywhere have always 
 believed in continued existence after death. It 
 is the teaching of all the religions of the world. 
 It is bound up with the deepest loves and dearest 
 hopes of the human heart. Now if this hope 
 have a substantial basis that is, if all the people 
 who have ever lived on this earth are still living, 
 and if they are not far away somewhere in the 
 deeps of space, then what more natural than 
 that they should attempt to come into communi- 
 cation with and influence the lives of those whom 
 they used to know here. If they are living at all, 
 there is no longer any reason for supposing that 
 they are away off, shut up in certain places
 
 198 Man Limitless. 
 
 called heavens or hells. This earth of ours is as 
 near to heaven and near to God as any of the 
 planets in space. There is no reason, then, why 
 we should suppose that the former inhabitants 
 of this earth may not be near to us, provided 
 they are living at all. It is within the limits of 
 the conceivable and rational also that they should 
 be in some way embodied. Paul said: 'There is 
 a natural body and there is a pneumatical body. ' 
 I do not offer this phrase as authority. I simply 
 say that so far as any science can tell us to the 
 contrary, it may be true. The intelligence which 
 once animated the body of a friend here may still 
 be the animating principle of an ethereal body 
 unspeakably more real and powerful than that 
 which used to clothe it, and still it be not cogniza- 
 ble by our senses. I do not say that these things 
 are so. I simply assert that they may be. The 
 only person in the universe which ever does 
 things is either a human being or a being with 
 quasi-human intelligence. We have no knowl- 
 edge of intelligently exercised force except such 
 as it is under the guidance of a human or quasi- 
 human will. I submit, then, that on the supposi- 
 tion that people do live through the fact of, and 
 after death, the theory of their agency in ac- 
 complishing the things which we are discussing
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 199 
 
 is much more simple and natural than any other 
 which has been brought forward." 
 
 From "Immortality and our Employments 
 Hereafter," by the eminent occultist and trav- 
 eler, Dr. J. M. Peebles, I stop to take three brief 
 extracts : 
 
 ''When seen that every atom, every pebble, 
 every mineral, every vegetable, every animal, is 
 insphered with its own aura, you may under- 
 stand that there is a talismanic medium of invisi- 
 ble communication, detectible by sensitive 
 persons. Your clothing is pervaded by your 
 aural emanations. Consumptive persons weave 
 sickness into their garments. Accordingly, the 
 vestures of the sick, as well as old tattered gar- 
 ments, should be buried, or burned." 
 
 "Ancient spirits, when descending or ap- 
 proaching your earth, generally prefer not to 
 give their names; they also dislike to have their 
 earthly experiences referred to, for they live 
 more in the present, and the unfolding future, 
 than in the past. They prefer to be reticent. 
 They love deeds rather than words. Whether 
 ancient or modern, spirits differ in the power of 
 vision much as we mortals do, the more exalted 
 having the deeper powers of penetration. ' ' 
 
 "Spiritualism, in its best definition, is a phe- 
 nomenon, a philosophy, and a religion ; the latter
 
 2OO Man Limitless. 
 
 its chief glory. It inspires during life to holy 
 endeavor. It does not drape the mourner's home 
 in gloom, but lifting the curtain of darkness, 
 shows heart-stricken weepers those they love 
 ay, more : it brings their glorified forms into their 
 very presence, permitting them to clasp their 
 white hands, and listen to their tender musical 
 words of undying affection." 
 
 One of our latest and most valuable books on 
 mediumship is "Shadow Land" by Mme. E. 
 d'Esperance, published in London. Here this 
 wonderful psychic tells how faithfully she la- 
 bored to obtain the truth through various phases 
 of mediumship that came to her without seeking. 
 Mme. d'Esperance placed her mediumship at the 
 service of scientific critical observers of Ger- 
 many, France, Sweden, England and other coun- 
 tries. Among these were Hon. Alexander A. 
 Aksakof a member of the privy counsel of the 
 late Czar of Russia, "Shadow Land" has been 
 translated into French, German, Swedish, Dutch, 
 Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Magyar and Rus- 
 sian. She closes this volume with : 
 
 ' ' Now my task is done. They who come after 
 me may perchance suffer as I have suffered, 
 through ignorance of God's laws. Yet the world 
 is wiser than it was, and it may be that they who 
 take up the work in the next generation will not
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 201 
 
 have to fight, as I did, the narrow bigotry and 
 harsh judgments of the 'unco' guid.' Still, I will 
 not wish them too smooth a road, for it seems to 
 me that, looking backward, I find the troubles 
 that have attended my search and they have 
 been many sink into insignificance. Nor do I 
 regret them. They have been the monitors warn- 
 ing me that I had wandered from the right 
 road, and though I knew it not at the time, were 
 my best friends. Now at last I have found what 
 I have been seeking through these long years; 
 years of hard work interspersed with sunshine 
 and storms, with pleasure and pain; now I can 
 cry aloud in jubilant voice to all who will hear : 
 'I have found the truth' and the same great 
 prize may be yours, too, if you will seek it hon- 
 estly, earnestly, humbly, diligently. This one 
 atom of the living truth has brought me that 
 Peace which passeth all understanding, and by 
 its clear light I see and know that spirit com- 
 munication is true. ' ' 
 
 Camille Flammarion, after relating a remark- 
 able case of the successful attempt of one to ap- 
 pear before another by will and be seen when 
 separated by many miles, says : "In the present 
 condition of our knowledge it would be absolute- 
 ly foolhardy to seek to explain ; our philosophy is 
 not yet far enough advanced. There are a great
 
 2O2 Man Limitless. 
 
 many things which we are forced to admit, with- 
 out the power to explain them in any way. To 
 deny what we cannot explain would be pure 
 folly. Could any one explain the world's system 
 a thousand years ago? Even now, can we ex- 
 plain attraction? But science moves, and its 
 progress will be endless. 
 
 "Do we know the whole extent of the human 
 faculties? The thinker cannot for a moment 
 doubt that there may be forces in Nature still 
 unknown to us as, for example, electricity was 
 less than a century ago or that there may be 
 other beings in the universe, endowed with other 
 senses and faculties. But is terrestrial man en- 
 tirely known to us ? It does not seem so. There 
 are facts whose reality we are forced to admit, 
 with no power whatever to explain them." 
 
 Rev. H. W. Haweis, M. A., late Incumbent of 
 St. James, Marylebone, London, author of 
 "Music and Morals," "Thoughts for the 
 Times, ' ' etc., in an address on ' ' Spiritualism and 
 Christianity," delivered in St. James Hall, Lon- 
 don, on April 20, 1900, boldly declared he was 
 a Spiritualist, and that he was particularly in 
 complete harmony with the proofs brought for- 
 ward, that the status of the soul is not fixed by 
 death, but that there "is unending progress." 
 He closed his address with: "I say Spiritualism
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 203 
 
 has finally taken away from us the capricious, 
 fanciful, irrational kind of God who is supposed 
 to judge his creatures in a way that would be a 
 disgrace to a common magistrate, without intelli- 
 gence, pity, sympathy or knowledge ; such a God 
 as had revolted so many sensible religious peo- 
 ple, and Spiritualism has done away with him. 
 Spiritualism has told us of this remedial world 
 beyond. It points us to life, not death. Yes, it 
 leads us to the center and source of life; it re- 
 veals to us the bright galaxy of ministering spir- 
 its, the Jacob 's ladder, that reaches from earth to 
 heaven, and upon which the angels of God are 
 ascending and descending. Spiritualism has 
 given us back our Bible, given us back our 
 Christ, given us back our immortality, and given 
 us back our God. ' ' 
 
 I have been liberal in making these quotations, 
 and yet many others seem to crowd upon me for 
 place in this paper. The work these scientists, 
 these scholars, these psychics did to learn the 
 truth brings unfoldment to all who travel over 
 the same paths. From childhood, each new truth 
 learned enlarges the intellectual vision and the 
 possibilities of the individual. If the time has 
 now come that one can step over the border line 
 and commune with intellects that have been long 
 in the spirit world, there progressing and adding
 
 204 Man Limitless. 
 
 to their knowledge, may not this prove to be the 
 real source or fountain of supply to which man 
 should learn to come ? Plow often have we lifted 
 ourselves up to it subconsciously! How often 
 have we felt the blessing was sent from God ! 
 Sometimes we felt less bold and ascribed it to 
 luck or coincident. When no explanation for an 
 effect appears, man has been quite ready to ac- 
 count for it by naming it a strange coincident. 
 In short, humanity seems to hesitate to say, "I 
 confess, I do not know. ' ' Many things that occur 
 seem so natural, in the trend of human events, 
 that we accept them as matters of course; and 
 yet, if asked to explain the cause of the effect, 
 the average answer would be, "I do not know 
 it may be God. ' ' 
 
 About fifteen years ago I commenced my in- 
 vestigations in occultism with the express inten- 
 tion and purpose and expectation of proving 
 the phenomena had only an existence in minds 
 being acted upon by, or acting under some 
 hypnotic influence. As time went on and I saw 
 and read more, I began to comprehend that the 
 greatest intellects of modern times had wrestled 
 with these questions and had given their verdict 
 that this phenomenon was true. Although 
 some of their experiences were very remarkable, 
 and their reasoning from cause to effect most
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 205 
 
 convincing, I found, in order to convince myself, 
 I had to pass through similar experiences before 
 I could accept and know their conclusions to be 
 true. Having done this, I found other questions 
 crowding upon me. I found a spirit force on the 
 other side making strange predictions and these 
 were later verified, not only to me but to others. 
 I received through mediums communications 
 from those claiming to be spirit guides, giving 
 me warnings and advice which were exceedingly 
 valuable. I found at other times, through the 
 same sources, that positive promises of accom- 
 plishment would not be made, but assurances 
 were given that that unseen band were there 
 striving to help and that they would do all they 
 could to grant the wish desired. I then ques- 
 tioned them as to what I should do in order to 
 receive their best help, and the substance of their 
 replies could be put into a few words "Be pa- 
 tient wait trust. ' ' 
 
 After regular sittings with a select few with 
 one medium for five or six months, and then with 
 another and another medium for about the same 
 time, I obtained some very valuable data con- 
 cerning the rapid progress of some in spirit life 
 to higher conditions, and of the power to bring 
 in the aura of a mortal ancient spirits who also 
 claimed to have passed through many incarna-
 
 206 Man Limitless. 
 
 tions. These ancient spirits have brought to the 
 circle an electric current of intensity, sometimes 
 accompanied by a waft of cold air that would al- 
 most make every sitter shudder when it struck 
 him. We learned that when these ancient forces 
 were added to our bands, more power to assist in 
 the accomplishing of purpose was given. Through 
 some mediums we received from the ancient 
 guides valuable counsel and advice, through oth- 
 ers they came in materialized forms. One of 
 these gave a series of talks and lectures on the 
 power of thought to dematerialize, and to gather 
 the atoms together again, reproducing flowers 
 before us. In one cabinet two spirits have often 
 come to me, and to this day do meet me there, 
 both claiming to be planetary spirits, one from 
 Mars and the other from Jupiter. At the same 
 cabinet I meet whenever I go one who claims to 
 be my wife's brother; and he tells me he has 
 taken great interest in my investigations. He has 
 told me that he, since going to the other side, has 
 visited, on several occasions, both Jupiter and 
 Mars. When I asked him for information con- 
 cerning the people who dwell on these planets, 
 he replied that this information he hoped to give 
 me a little later. To use substantially his own 
 words he said, ' ' You cannot know what force we 
 have to use to hold ourselves so we can appear
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 207 
 
 and speak to you. As we repeat these manifesta- 
 tions we find we come with more and more ease 
 and that we can say more. I expect in good 
 time I will tell you fully of all my journeyings 
 through the planentary world ; and then you will 
 better understand my work here, and how ab- 
 sorbingly interested I am in it all. ' ' 
 
 I finally determined upon a line of investiga- 
 tions quite different from that of any of the 
 writers I have quoted quite different from any 
 experiments I had ever heard of. I arranged, 
 through a private medium whom I found a most 
 wonderful instrument, to have a series of regular 
 weekly sittings at which only four persons should 
 be present, the gentleman and his wife, my wife 
 and myself, with the object to learn more in de- 
 tail concerning the spirit world and how, if possi- 
 ble to avail ourselves of spirit help in daily life. 
 More than seven years have passed since we 
 started on these weekly sittings, and my notes 
 now cover several thousand pages. Much of 
 what these sittings have taught me I am not 
 ready to give to the public as yet and shall not 
 be for at least a year or two, as certain work is 
 going on that it will take time to complete. When 
 that work is accomplished, I will in a detailed 
 way tell more of these sittings, their purposes, 
 teachings and lessons. Suffice now to give a few
 
 208 Man Limitless. 
 
 experiences and some of the messages received, 
 together with some pertinent suggestions as to, 
 and on what I base the conclusions drawn from 
 these and other of my investigations. 
 
 Practically it will be noted by the reader that 
 the serious part of my work commenced after I 
 had reached a point where my convictions were 
 in harmony with those of the writers from whom 
 I have quoted. Having proven that they who 
 knew us here could come near us at will, after 
 they passed over to the other side, and could look 
 further into the future than we, I concluded 
 their messages could assist in directing in the 
 material and intellectual affairs of life. That 
 through such assistance and guidance, one could 
 be saved from many errors and strengthened 
 often in times of need. I then devoted myself to 
 the study of what was required of us on this side, 
 in order to give our guiding band on the other 
 the opportunity to reach our consciousnesses, so 
 that we could receive the message from them and 
 know the source from which it came. 
 
 Through repeated tests it was proven to me 
 that there is a willing band of spirit helpers 
 shaping our destiny by reaching out beyond our 
 physical or mental range and bringing to us the 
 aid we need to accomplish purpose. Over and 
 over again was it proven to me that this force
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 209 
 
 was the motive cause for tlie attaining of a 
 cherished wish for the complete fulfillment of a 
 desire of the heart. So forcibly did the 
 realization of this truth come at times, that 
 I have found myself almost in amazement 
 saying, why this force is what the devout 
 have named God and to whom they pray! As 
 my experiences went further, however, I recog- 
 nized there were limitations seemingly of spirit 
 power; and, like the great scientist, Herbert 
 Spencer, I was forced to recognize that back of 
 these spirit bands, ourselves, all life and creation, 
 was a central power or force never compassed, 
 never half comprehended the Source of all. As 
 I reflected on this and recalled how confidently 
 many modern preachers referred to God's pur- 
 pose, God's way, God's methods of reward and 
 punishment, as if they could grasp the pulsating 
 thought at the center of life, a clear light came, 
 showing that according to his degree of unfold- 
 ment, man had mistaken from time to time some 
 one of the spirit host for the Infinite himself. 
 
 From the earliest revelations of man that have 
 come down to us, writers have been bold in 
 ascribing their talk and interviews with spirits, 
 angels and God. They seem to distinguish be- 
 tween good and bad spirits, and place the angels 
 on a somewhat higher plane than that of the
 
 2io Man Limitless. 
 
 spirits. May it not be possible that these writers, 
 with the unfoldment which had come to them, 
 mistook in their clairvoyant visions, exalted spir- 
 its that had progressed for angels even for 
 God? May it not be that those called inspired 
 writers were, in reality, what to-day we would 
 call advanced mediums who dedicate their 
 psychic gifts to truth ? When passive, mediums 
 have waited for some spirit from the spirit realm 
 to reach their consciousness, and over and over 
 again other spirits than those expected have 
 entered their aura, claiming to be this or that 
 one, and given messages of strange and confusing 
 natures. Well-developed mediums who cling 
 close to truth learn how to prevent these spirits 
 from controlling or confusing them by directly 
 asking aid from the guides whom they have 
 learned are worthy of absolute trust. Unfortu- 
 nately, there are many mediums who, in a trance 
 state, open wide the door for any spirit to enter. 
 Such mediums bring to the sitter often the 
 strangest and most unintelligible messages. I 
 have sometimes felt that these undeveloped, un- 
 disciplined mediums were the sport of the lower 
 spirits that had ascended from mortals who 
 passed from the earth plane before they had 
 learned anything of the depth and beauty of
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 211 
 
 meaning reflected from the lives of those repre- 
 senting progressive humanity. 
 
 I have boldly stated here some conclusions, as 
 it would be out of the province of this paper to 
 go over the work of years in detail to present all 
 the premises upon which they are based. Still, 
 some experiences must be related to give my in- 
 ferences weight to the reader. 
 
 As we went on with our sittings, I was, of 
 course, having other sittings with other mediums. 
 In fact, each of us four took occasion often to do 
 this. Sometimes the messages received in sit- 
 tings with other mediums were only in symbols, 
 and these were interpreted at our own table. 
 Again, strange clairvoyance would be experi- 
 enced by our principal medium and a note made 
 of it. Later, its meaning and purpose would ap- 
 pear often relating to the good of another and 
 in no way connected with us. One illustration of 
 this kind which interested us all (and yet for a 
 time seemed purposeless) I will relate. We had 
 just placed our hands on the table one evening 
 when our medium, who is also a prominent phy- 
 sician, said: "Let me relate a strange experience 
 I had to-day. In fact, I seem to be called upon 
 to do this. I was in a street car and saw a young 
 lady enter, leaning on crutches. The vision was 
 very real and I rose, offering her my seat. She
 
 212 Man Limitless. 
 
 smiled and disappeared, and then I resumed my 
 seat, recognizing that I had mistaken a clair- 
 voyant for a real vision." We all searched our 
 memories, but none of us could remember of hav- 
 ing any young lady relative or friend who was 
 so afflicted, and who had passed to the other side 
 of life. I however made note of the incident. 
 Nearly six months after that the physician told 
 us when walking up the street he had distinctly 
 heard one walking on crutches behind him and 
 his mind recalled the vision above related. He 
 said the thumping on the side-walk was very 
 pronounced, and he also thought he heard the 
 rustle of a lady's skirts. Turning around, noth- 
 ing was to be seen. On several other occasions, 
 as months went by, he heard the thumping of 
 crutches and caught glimpses of the face now 
 clearly defined in his consciousness. He related 
 these incidents, and added that the meaning 
 must appear. He questioned if it were a warn- 
 ing that one present at the table might suffer 
 accident. This, he added, would hardly be the 
 purpose of the vision, for the face of the lady 
 was clearly impressed on his mind and she bore 
 no resemblance to any one he had ever seen. 
 
 About one year after the street car incident, a 
 lady's maid called at his office one morning, ask- 
 ing him to come to a house he had never visited,
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 213 
 
 and she gave a name he had never heard. As 
 lie looked up he saw clairvoyantly the crippled 
 lady behind his caller bowing and smiling at him. 
 This maid told him that she was sent to call him 
 on account of a young lady who was seriously ill 
 with nervous prostration that this lady had 
 been growing much worse of late, and that one 
 of his patients (whose name was given) had 
 recommended him. Upon reaching the young 
 lady 's room, he found her almost in delirium and 
 striving to break away from her nurse with the 
 avowed purpose of throwing herself out of an 
 upper story window. As the Doctor entered he 
 saw again, clairvoyantly, the young lady on 
 crutches standing at the head of the bed bowing 
 and smiling at him. He noted that upon taking 
 hold of the patient's wrist to count the pulse 
 beats, she immediately grew calm and remained 
 so during his visit while he diagnosed the case 
 and wrote out the prescription, which the 
 patient, now quiet and passive, smilingly said she 
 would take. Rising from his seat, he observed 
 a large photograph, hanging on the opposite side 
 of the room ; and then he recognized the face of 
 the crippled lady he had seen in these several vis- 
 ions. His eyes naturally remained fixed on this 
 picture for a few moments, when the mother of 
 the patient addressed him saying, "You note the
 
 214 Man Limitless. 
 
 resemblance, perhaps. That is my daughter's 
 sister. She, poor girl, was a cripple and forced 
 to use crutches from childhood. She, however, 
 was always smiling and cheerful. She died 
 nearly two years ago and her sister, for whom 
 you have prescribed to-day, has been ill almost 
 from that date. ' ' Within a few weeks from that 
 time the patient became perfectly well and 
 strong under this physician's care. Though the 
 occurrence took place several years ago, this 
 young lady continues in excellent health. 
 
 Did that sister, a spirit, on the other side, 
 recognize in this physician one who could under- 
 stand her sister's case? Was she striving for 
 over a year to bring about a way to introduce 
 the case to him ? Of course, new cases often came 
 to him, and come to every physician upon the 
 recommendation of patients. There are features 
 about this case that, coupled with other experi- 
 ences of my own, I feel the sister on the spirit 
 side divined learned through sources we may 
 not know here that this physician could restore 
 her sister to health, and she made it her work to 
 bring about the meeting. Evidently from this 
 and innumerable other cases with which I am 
 familiar, the spirit guides often find difficulties 
 in solving the problems they undertake just as 
 man on the earth plane. Can we not give them
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 215 
 
 help in their work and so hasten the coming of 
 our own good to us ? 
 
 In the spring of 1903 I was contemplating a 
 trip to Mexico. Certain other business affairs 
 barred my going as I anticipated, and two fixed 
 dates for starting had to be abandoned. At one 
 of our sittings in April I asked as to the date 
 when I would be able to leave New York for 
 Mexico. I named several dates in May, running 
 finally to about the middle, and was told it would 
 be impossible for me to start on any of these. 
 Then I said, "Will I go in May at all?" I was 
 told, ' ' No, that would be impossible. " ' ' Well, ' ' 
 I added, "as I must be back a few days before 
 the 1st of July, it would be practically impossi- 
 ble for me to go at all, as you see it, would it 
 not?" and the reply came, "No." I was told 
 then that I would go down, and that I would re- 
 turn before July 1st. While this conversation 
 was going on, our medium saw clairvoyantly 
 written out on my breast the date, June 3rd. On 
 asking the guide if that was the date fixed, I was 
 told, "Yes." For weeks following I did every- 
 thing I could to get away in May. On two occa- 
 sions I had transportation engaged and sleeper. 
 I was forced to defer leaving on each of these 
 dates, and not until the third day of June did I 
 start. I returned a few days before the 1st of
 
 2i6 Man Limitless. 
 
 July, and I accomplished my work just as I was 
 told I would do, and within the time named. 
 
 In the spring of 1904 I had arranged a trip to 
 El Paso, Texas, to meet some engineers, expect- 
 ing for business reasons that I might be obliged 
 to extend my trip to Guaymas, Mexico. Prom 
 the same source I was told that there would be no 
 need whatever of my going to Mexico and that 
 I would complete all my business at El Paso. I 
 was told the people I desired meeting would be 
 there to meet me, and that everything would be 
 accomplished within a few days to my complete 
 satisfaction. Upon reaching El Paso I found 
 myself waited for ; and within forty-eight hours 
 I had completed the entire business. To go to 
 Mexico to the point I named I found was not 
 necessary at all ; and again, I found there would 
 be no use in doing so as the person I thought of 
 meeting there had gone to the City of Mexico 
 where he was likely to be detained several weeks. 
 
 There were many messages and communica- 
 tions received at these sittings that might be pre- 
 sented, but the relation of these would only be 
 to extend this article; and again, to bring some 
 of the best of them forward in detail to the pub- 
 lic, I would need to have the assent of others. 
 
 As to telepathy, I have found that when I tried 
 to call people to me, I have generally succeeded,
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 217 
 
 though not always. There is one case that was 
 rather peculiar. While dressing one morning I 
 felt the necessity of seeing a gentleman stopping 
 at a hotel, before a meeting that was to take place 
 between him and another at one o'clock. Sud- 
 denly it came to me that there was no need of our 
 meeting and I dismissed the thought from my 
 mind. At about half -past ten the gentleman that 
 I felt I ought to see called, and I asked him how 
 it was he happened in my office. He replied he 
 had been down town and had started back to his 
 hotel and paid his fare in the street car. When 
 he reached the point where the car was passing 
 my office, he said he felt impelled to leave it and 
 come. I told him I had called him in the morn- 
 ing and thought it was very necessary we meet 
 before the other meeting, and then later I felt 
 there was no need of it. It seemed, however, that 
 he got the message just the same and he ap- 
 peared. 
 
 Within the past year I mailed a letter to a for- 
 eign country that I, a week afterward, decided to 
 recall. I sent a telepathic message to a friend 
 who was in that country, over three thousand 
 miles distant, asking he procure the letter and 
 return it me unopened. One month later I re- 
 ceived a letter from him saying he had taken the 
 liberty of holding a letter from me addressed to
 
 2i8 Man Limitless. 
 
 another, he feeling constrained to do so, believing 
 I desired this, because of some things he had dis- 
 covered relating to business matters that I may 
 not relate here, and because of an intuitive im- 
 pression urging him to do this act. 
 
 I have sometimes felt that the messages we re- 
 ceive telepathically are brought by spirit guides 
 and passed from one to another of them. Is not 
 this more natural and simple than to ascribe it 
 wholly to those subtle undetermined vibrations 
 through the ethers ? If this should be found to be 
 true, then when we sit very quietly and ask our 
 spirit forces to carry the message, we are certain 
 of one thing, and that is, we have delivered the 
 message properly. We have done our part. We 
 then should image before us the person to whom 
 the message is addressed and picture him receiv- 
 ing it. We who send the message following this 
 plan doubtless do all that we can do. Now, if this 
 is how messages may be carried, then it is clearly 
 seen why they are not always received. The 
 messenger takes them from us. That part is sim- 
 ple. But he may not be able to deliver them to 
 the consciousness of another. I can clearly see, 
 however, that if two persons arranged to com- 
 municate by telepathy at a certain hour and each 
 put himself in a receptive mood, there ought be 
 no failure in the receipt of the messages. I am
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 219 
 
 only offering these suggestions as a possible ex- 
 planation for the transmission of messages from 
 one to another by means of what is now called 
 telepathy, not implying, however, that thought 
 is not carried independently also through vibra- 
 tions. More experiments must be made, and I 
 merely suggest some be made on this theory of 
 spirits being the messengers. 
 
 A recent experiment of the Society of Psychi- 
 cal Research has been brought to my attention 
 since I prepared this paper. This experiment 
 shows (Prof. James Hyslop of Columbia Uni- 
 versity declares) that the message was carried 
 through the agency of a spirit. It was a message 
 of four words transmitted almost instantaneously 
 between Mrs. Piper in the United States to an 
 English medium in England. It was sent in 
 English and given in Latin. Prof. Hyslop re- 
 marks upon this: 
 
 "The conditions were such that it came 
 through the medium's subliminal consciousness 
 in that language. Understand, she doesn't know 
 Latin herself. 
 
 "The public does not understand the probable 
 relations between a medium and his control by 
 ' control ' I mean a spirit, or whatever it is which 
 is sending the message. The medium, as every 
 one knows, is in an abnormal mental condition
 
 22O Man Limitless. 
 
 when the message is received a clairvoyant con- 
 dition we call it. 
 
 "In the latest experiment with transmission 
 between the United States and England we used 
 every precaution to insure against accident, col- 
 lusion or fraud. I do not know if it was trans- 
 mitted instantaneously. It was certainly sent 
 and delivered inside of half an hour. The sen- 
 tence used was not a stock phrase which might 
 be hit upon at the other end by guesswork. It 
 was an unusual phrase made up at the moment 
 of sending. 
 
 ' ' As nearly as we can make out, the conditions 
 in the spirit world are such that space is not a 
 factor with them. That ability to command 
 space seems to be common with them. A thou- 
 sand miles is no more than an inch. However, 
 we have made only a few experiments in that di- 
 rection. ' ' 
 
 From the experiments of others recorded and 
 my own, I then deduce in regard to guidance to 
 man from the other world, the following conclu- 
 sions : Man is in touch with the supreme power of 
 the universe through spirit messengers. Back of 
 all is this wonderful force of which we talk much 
 and know little. We can, however, get better ac- 
 quainted with the medium between us and the 
 great center. The medium or mediums between
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 221 
 
 UB and the great center are these spirit forces. If 
 our desire is of the highest and noblest, we must 
 learn to cultivate an atmosphere about us which 
 will permit the entrance of a band of guides who 
 will find in our aura a delectable climate. The 
 power of suggestion is clearly seen, under this 
 explanation. We suggest to ourselves or suggest 
 to another a longing or desire, and hold that 
 thought firmly for a time. This gives our atmos- 
 phere an attractive power for the spirit force we 
 need, in order that help may be obtained from it 
 to convert that longing into realization. Re- 
 peated suggestions should often be made, as the 
 first may not have force enough to bring about 
 the conditions that are necessary, in order that 
 the full strength of the spirit band may be 
 brought together for the end desired. 
 
 It may be asked, if this be true and there 
 are evil spirits as well as good, may not one with 
 evil tendencies gain power from the unseen to 
 assist him even in crime ? To this question I can 
 only reply, ' ' Yes. ' ' There is this, however, to be 
 noted. If any one works to injure another, 
 although he may bring this evil force about him 
 to assist him in his purpose, at the same time 
 there is an antagonistic force on the other side 
 surrounding the other with which he and his 
 cohorts must battle. It is only where the central
 
 222 Man Limitless. 
 
 thought of the mind is good and for genera, ad- 
 vancement although it may be coupled with am- 
 bitious desires, there is no wrong in that that 
 one can call a strong band, and a band that will 
 marshal others possessing even greater power 
 than themselves to aid those they love in the ac- 
 complishment of purpose. Then there can be 
 no opposing forces to be fought because the 
 whole tendency and effort of the central force 
 of the universe toward all humanity is and must 
 be for its advancement, unfoldment and progress. 
 I, therefore, claim that in recognizing these 
 spirit forces, we do not take away from man his 
 God. The venerable Dr. Lyman Abbott in an 
 address at Appleton Chapel, Harvard Univer- 
 sity, in December, 1904, said: "The times de- 
 mand a God not far off and only reached 
 through sacerdotalism and Bible-made theology, 
 but an all-pervading spirit of life, truth, vitality 
 and beauty, illuminating all things, pervading all 
 things, nearer to each physical entity than hands 
 and feet. ' ' Continuing in his description of what 
 he believes to be a reasonable God, Dr. Abbott 
 said: ''He is an energy, as tangible to science 
 and literature and history, and as provable 
 by them as by revelation. Each of these three 
 world forces tells that there is one eternal 
 energy. No thinking man will say there are
 
 Spirit Aid in Man's Unfolding. 223 
 
 many energies. The days of polytheism are past. 
 There is only one energy. That energy has al- 
 ways been working. It is an intelligent energy. 
 No scientist can deny it." 
 
 If one can conceive of a personality constitut- 
 ing this infinite energy and embracing all life 
 connected therewith, I will not argue denying it. 
 I cannot recognize that force to be a personality 
 and always omnipotent, omniscient and omni- 
 present. If one can conceive of a personality 
 with these attributes, he must reason differently 
 from me; perhaps it may be true. We have 
 much unfoldment to do before we will reach and 
 know this wondrous force, and yet to accomplish 
 that is attainable knowledge. If man works in 
 this philosophy, aided by these spirit forces, a 
 day will arrive in the upward trend of develop- 
 ment when he will walk, not only with exalted 
 spirits who will aid and direct him in all the 
 affairs of life ; but finally he may reach by direct 
 communication the infinite force itself. Long 
 before that time comes, however, man will have 
 evolved to a position where his knowledge must 
 exceed that of any of those preceding him on 
 this planet. 
 
 The papers in this volume lead up to the pos- 
 sibilities of ultimate man. Let one acquaint 
 himself with the spirit forces about him, let him
 
 224 Man Limitless. 
 
 learn how to aid those forces to do their best 
 work, let him recognize right thinking to be his 
 elementary and daily task, and that it teaches 
 worthy desire to be merely the forerunner of 
 realization; and then there will be growth and 
 progress for humanity more wonderful than at 
 any previous period marked by history. Life 
 then will take a grander, truer, holier meaning, 
 for man will know no prejudice, no superstition, 
 no environment, no limitations.
 
 19745 
 
 
 -.
 
 WHERE THEY LOST THEIR LUCK. 
 
 IN dawdling. 
 
 In indecision. 
 
 In poor judgment. 
 
 In worrying and fretting. 
 
 In magnifying difficulties. 
 
 In trusting unworthy people. 
 
 In trying to get rich quickly. 
 
 In letting their ambition cool. 
 
 In not daring to take chances. 
 
 In making a business of pleasure. 
 
 In waiting for something to turn up. 
 
 In working only when they felt like it. 
 
 In negl^ng their personal appearance. 
 
 In look^^ on the dark side of everything. 
 
 In ovi-reonfidence born of a first easy victory. 
 
 In not being ready for the opportunity when it 
 came. 
 
 In dreaming of great things instead of doing the 
 little ones at hand.
 
 LIBRA