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MAN'S PLACE IN THE
KOSMOS.

(Copyright, 1906.)
BY
DR. S. A. MERRILL.

"Laugh where you must, be candid where you can,
But justify the ways of God to man." —Pope.
"That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence
And justify the ways of Qod to man." — Milton.

New York:
ALDEN BROTHERS,
Publishers.

CONTENTS.
PAGE.
Similations, Integrations, and Harmonies  7
Origin of Species  11
What is Man?  17
The Infinite Man  30
The Everlasting Gospel  39
In the Beginning  49
Do the Scriptures Teach the Doctrine of Reincarnation?. . 57
Where and What is Heaven ?  67
What Are the Hells?  72
The Spiritual Man  88
The Higher Consciousness  90
Live in the Spirit  93
Concerning Infestations and the Casting Out of Evil
Spirits  95
Jesus and Judas  7  104
Progression in Spirit Life  113
Pre-existence (poem)  125
The Spiritual Universe  128
Concerning Sabbaths  135
No Missing Links  141
The Foods of Man and the Moods of Man  147
Forces Personal and Impersonal  158
Churches and Creeds  162
Babylon  167
Who Is Jesus?  168
The Mystery of God  '.  170
Organic  172
Differentiations  173
Progressions  175
Scraps of Truth   177
India  179
The Metaphysiology of the Spiritual Man  • • 182
The Solar Spiritual Worlds That, Surround Our Star—
the Sun  185
The Celestial City  189
Man's Place in the Kosmos  193

"Strike me, but hear mt."—Phocion.
"The greatest study of mankind is man."— Pope.
"All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone."
— Emerson.
"Virtue is knowledge: vice is ignorance." — Socrates.
"Except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his
blood ye have no life in you. For my flesh is meat indeed
and my blood is drink indeed." — Jesus.
"I am the root and the offspring of David and the bright
and morning star."— /ejus.
"As a man casting off worn-out garments taketh new ones,
so the dweller in the body, casting off worn-out bodies, enters
into others that are new." — Buddha.
"And then Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be small
among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall be come
forth unto me that is to be a ruler in Israel — whose "goings
forth" have been from of old — from everlasting." — Bible.

PREFACIAL.
"God of the granite and the rose
The molecule and the morning star."
It is not my purpose to preface my book with a
multiplication of words which are very good foods in
their ways and places, but of little use — like all other
foods — where used too much.
There be some, perhaps, that may be shocked when
they see in the book a deliberate defence of such char
acters as Pharaoh and even Judas, and little did I
suppose, when more than a half century ago, as a stu
dent at college, I provoked the indignation of the dear
old president by putting him in a cul de sac in the
class room for defending both of them before the
class — I little thought at that time that I should ever
be called upon more than a half century away to utter
a word in their behalf.
But so it is — has happened the materialist would
say — for this wonderful "whirligig of time" doth
oft bring in some very "strange revenges !" So, here
we are, dear reader, ready and willing and pleased
to defend the man Judas, et id omne genus upon the
philosophical high grounds of a loftier, truer and
nobler morality than the dear old world hath hitherto

PREFACIAL.
been able to receive, for its judgments are often not
"spiritually discerned" — many of them.
To all, and such especially who can see no proper
defence of the man we refer them to the humble book
I have written, which though abounding with many
and even great and grave faults, will, I trust, state
the case fairly ; and let me hope, also, may accomplish
something — to "justify the ways of God to man."
It was for this purpose chiefly that I undertook to
write the present very humble work. But if in doing
so I shall have contributed anything toward so noble
an object I shall be even more content. Yea, happier
than to have conquered a kingdom.
S. A. M.

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

SIMULATIONS, INTEGRATIONS AND
HARMONIES.
He who liveth with and for himself abideth alone.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a grain of wheat
fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if
it die it bringeth forth much fruit." He who liveth
in and unto the life of the "neighbor," who hath sent
forth abundantly the tentacles, nerve filaments and
radicles of his manifold being into the lives of his
fellows, and by earnest words and deeds hath con
verted them into the living tissues of nerve, muscle
and ligament, both in truth and indeed vitally united,
fast bound, the feeble, finite, perishable microcosm into
the life of the Divine Humanity; hath in every deed
and truth infinitized and eternized his infinite being by
intermingling and interblending its fibers with the
tissues of the infinite Macrocosm — God evermore and
ever blest — the All and in All. It is one of the Incar
nations of the Divine man: for man is the Divinest
object in this mighty universe of ours.
"Abide in me and I in you. ... I am the Vine;
ye are the branches. . . . If a man abide not in me
he is cast forth as a branch and is withered ; and men
gather them and cast them into the fire and they are
burned." Again: "That they all may be One, as
Thou Father art in me and I in Thee; that they may
be one in us." These utterances are from the most
perfectly inspired words that have ever, as yet, fallen
from the lips of man.
No friction can be allowed to enter into the Eterni-

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
ties, Infinities and Unities of the Ever-Living Life ; no
jars or discords amid the Divine Harmonies, rhythms
and melodies, by which the bright living orbs — mate-,
rial, spiritual, Celestial — measure the Infinite years of
God. Truly saith the poet Shakespeare:
"There's not the smallest orb that thou beholdest,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims ;
Such harmony is in Immortal souls;
But while this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close us in we cannot hear it."
While in this social life of reciprocal and fraternal
loves, utilities and duties, each and all occupy different
locations and degrees of latitude and longitude upon
the social and spiritual planet — creating those marvel-
ously manifold differentiations in their original life
forms, forces, functions, opinions, and in their mani
fold relations to the social kosmos, there is created a
divinely appointed labor of Love, for the united effort
and patience of society and of the individual.
And here, while the powers of the individual to per
fect, to save himself, are in truth and deed very limited,
those of society for similating, uplifting, harmonizing
the individual unto himself and itself are practically un
limited; especially when we come to consider as we
shall by and bye, the wondrous plan employed by the
terrestrial, spiritual, and Celestial humanities to de
stroy the dead Karmas of the past, and to create a new
Karma by opening the "Gates of the Future" and
introducing man into a new social-spiritual environ
ment and a new reincarnation.
In order that we may more simply represent to the
eye the marvelous interdependence of man upon his
fellow man for support and continuity of life, let us
take three perfect cylinders, with perfectly even bases,
such as are commonly used for supporting the fronts
of buildings. Place these pillars perfectly erect upon
a perfectly level plane surface and at the corners of a
triangle whose sides are less than equal to the height
8

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
of each cylinder. They will stand there forever, pro
vided no force intervenes to disturb them in any way,
although very little will be required. But now let the
top of each of these cylinders be notched so that they
shall dovetail each into the other when required, and
let them at the same time be made to lean toward each
other until their tops meet and match together so as
to form a triangular pyramid, their bases also being
beveled to suit their new position. It would now
take an immense force to disturb them.
Individually regarded, these cylinders were the most
perfect when in their first estate, before being notched,
beveled and made to lean from the erect position, or
the one in which all are bound to fall without support.
But now, if we consider these several beings as social
entities, having similar needs, a common purpose and
a common destiny, these similations and differentia
tions in their life forms, which in the individual are
blemishes and imperfections, become the greatest
source of strength, stability, continuity and harmony
of life to each and all of them, which, taken together,
no outside force, not even an earthquake, can over
throw or destroy.
In this way, and in all ways, do all things of this
marvelous and sublime universe of God dovetail and
cog into their fellows; and thus doth every soul of
man, however humble, eventually inosculate its most
interior veins and arteries, and interweave and inter
mingle its nerve filaments with the life currents, the
living tissues and the nerve system itself of the infinite
universe of God; and thus, also, doth the soul "lose"
itself in the infinite ocean of Nirvana. In like manner,
in all normal and properly developed life forms in this
divinely wise and benignant universe of the Living
God, each entity imparts to his fellow and receives
at the same time from him in return something of the
infinite strengths ; and in all these universal life forms
and relationships each individual gives and receives a
sustenance, a strength, a life force, an infinitization,
an eternization — I will not say in a ratio proportional
to the cube of the numbers so associated together in
9

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
harmonic relations — but in a proportion and an involu
tion of numbers that run into the Infinite. Truly says
Emerson :
"I am the owner of the sphere,
Of the Milky Way and the solar year,
Of Phidias' art and Mozart's strain,
Of Lord Christ's heart and Plato's brain."
If we take another example from the material life
of man, and reflect upon it attentively, we shall have
another illustration of that marvelous power with
which he is endowed, as a social being, to re-duplicate
himself to an almost infinite extent in his ability to
minister to his own enjoyments: I enter a restaurant
and sit down to enjoy a brief meal that costs me only
a few cents; that meal, which cost me but a few
moments of my time at some easy occupation, has been
brought together — the different elements of it — from
nearly every country and climate under the stars, and
for its possibility and its cheapness has employed every
ship that sails the seas, every train that crosses the
continents, and every laborer that toils for man under
the whole heavens. So of the daily paper that adds
to the enjoyment of my meal, at the cost of only two
pence, by bringing me the news from every quarter of
the globe. It bears the impress of the thought, the
genius, the invention, the labor and the capital not
of this age only but of ages.
And thus doth the myriad-handed, myriad-footed,
myriad-brained social man reach forth the tentacles of
his manifold being and draw his maintenance from
the bosom of the Infinite Being.

10

MAN'S PLACE IN. THE KOSMOS.

ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
The origin of species, say my celestial
teachers, consists in the grafting of a spirit
form upon some cognate terrestrial form of
life that is living in gestative conditions with
the mother at the time of its incarnation.
This is a brief statement of the law concerning the
origin of species, and places it in harmony with the
origin of all progressive beings in God's great universe,
for the universe is one, and its law of enfoldment is
also one, whether in material or spiritual spheres and
estates, since all forms of progressive life have their
origin in the spiritual world — in the spiritual life of
the Creator himself.
It is in truth by the cion or graft that life proceeds
upon its long, marvelous and wonder-working way
upward and onward in its infinite and ever-progressive
eternal flight through the infinitely manifold ranks,
orders and systems in plant, animal, human, spiritual,
kosmic and universal, and by which life imparts itself
to the innumerable forms which illustrate the path of
its long ascent in the unf oldment of new forms of being.
In these marvelous metamorphoses by which life
ascends from its most simple and primeval forms to
those of higher and more complex organization, the
Creative Intelligence proceeds by various methods —
though the principle is one — several of which we shall
indicate in passing.
The first is one employed where it is desired to create
a being intended simply to perpetuate the species and
upon the same plane of existence with the parent
forms. In this case the incarnating form or cion is
a spermatozoon, taken from the male parent, and is a
new being, in embryo, similar to that parent and an
exact copy of him in most respects until brought under
maternal influences.
The spermatozoa are nothing less than cions taken
from the nerve system of the male and are derived
from, portions of that nerve system that have been
n

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
planted in the male organs and fed with highly stimu
lating foods until a rudimentary brain has been devel
oped at the free extremity, and the caudal extremity
has become developed into the germ of what afterward
becomes the spinal cord. This "seed" animal, which
is so often referred to in the sacred writings, is an
exceedingly minute, microscopic copy of the nerve
system of the paternal ancestor — "a chip of the old
block," in vulgar parlance — and when grown to adult
years would be nearly an exact copy of that ancestor
in all cases were it not so greatly modified afterward
by the maternal influences exerted upon the child in
utero in dressing the new being in its fleshly robes of a
lifetime. There is, however, another potent cause of this varia
tion from paternal resemblance in the child when
grown up. It is where there is an incarnation taking
place in the child of some person from spirit life, for
it is in this manner that great men are born to become
leaders in all human affairs. Such reincarnations often
increase the mental and moral force of the new being
many times, as a certain Roman said of Julius Caesar:
"Caesar hath in him many Caius Mariuses." It was in
this way that the whole Jewish people looked for the
coming of their Messiah and also of Elias.
On a certain time his disciples inquired of Jesus:
"Why then say the tribes and the Pharisees that Elias
must first come?" Jesus replied: "Elias truly shall
first come and restore all things. But I say unto you
that Elias is come already, and they know him not, but
have done unto him whatsoever they listed." Yes, it
is in this way that great men are created to become
leaders in all important concerns in human life, and
the same principle obtains even in the lowest realms
of plant and animal life in the evolution of a new
species. Jesus fully indorses this doctrine of the rein
carnation, as the reader can easily see by referring to
his own statement in Rev. xxii., 16, in which he alludes
to two of his own recent incarnations in plainest terms,
which can neither be gainsaid nor misunderstood: "I
am the root and the offspring of David and the bright
12 j

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
and morning star." Yes, Jesus was the "bright and
morning star" of our civilization, but not the Infinite
God who fills immensity ; and what is more, he never
authorized any one to make so preposterous a claim
in his behalf.
"I am the offspring of David," said he to John, and
truly, though the Sonship took place many generations
before the time of Joseph and Mary. To this part
of the statement of Jesus the whole Christian world
will agree that it was not only true, but that it was
owing to the fact that he was incarnated in the family
of Joseph and Mary. They will admit the truth of
the one incarnation, although it practically concedes
the whole doctrine of pre-existence and reincarnation.
Jesus also stated furthermore that he was the "root"
of David. , Now, Webster gives the word root, when
applied to human beings, as signifying an "ancestor,"
a "progenitor," and gives it no other significations.
But while the entire Christian world will likely admit
the truth of the statement of Jesus that he was the
"offspring" of David, they will refuse to concede the
truth of his other assertion that he was — by incarna
tion also — one of the ancestors of David, though it
stands in the same relation precisely to the subject of
the sentence that the word offspring does.
Besides, if he could incarnate in one world to help
save its people, could he not also have performed a
similar office for some of the other worlds that revolve
about our solar orb? Why not? Certain it is at
least that he claims to be an ancestor of David, and
to have been such he must of necessity have incarnated
in the same family line as the one by which he entered
the family of Joseph, who was a lineal descendant of
David, as both the genealogies of Matthew and Luke
plainly state.
And if the words of Jesus be true, that he was both
ancestor and offspring of that Jewish monarch, it was
by virtue of the fact that he had incarnated in the
family line of David on two different occasions, viz.,
once within historic times as all the world knows, and
also at some remote period away back before the time
13

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
of that king. With this view of the doctrine of rein
carnation it becomes easy to understand Jesus when
he said: "If he can receive (or understand) it, this
is Elias, who was to come." A plain intimation, as
he states in Matthew also, that John the Baptist was
a reincarnation of the prophet Elijah.
The second form of the incarnating principle is made
use of by the creative spirit architects where it is in
tended to create new species by grafting into some
organ or other parts of the organism of the animal as
the nurseryman often inserts a cion into one of the
branches of a tree instead of using the entire tree for
the reception of the graft. For example, the fin of a
fish, limbs of quadrupeds that have developed an abnor
mal number of limbs or digits are among them, many
of them being characterized as "freaks," but they serve
to illustrate the principle involved in the case. The
fossil horse of many toes and the person with six digits
on each hand and foot are examples of this law.
The serpent, with its most perfect spinal column, is
the basic form for the evolution of all quadrupedal and
bipedal forms of animal life on the globe. The nor
mal number of digits for the mammalia, and even for
the reptilia, appears to be five. But instances have
been known where entire families of human beings
have been provided with six instead of the normal
number, five.
This would appear to indicate the intervention of a
new law whereby one or more of the digital nerves has
been removed from the nerve system of the animal.
This could not take place if the Creative Wisdom had
not created examples to teach man the nature and the
operation of the laws in manifold and multiform ways.
We have a very interesting illustration of this law
in the African elephant, which has but three toes upon
each foot, or two less than the normal number. The
third, and one of the greatest, of these laws that govern
the morphology of the animal and plant world is by
the principle of elimination, an example of the opera
tion of which law we may see in the animal we have
just introduced. This elephant, when he was evolved

r*" 1 MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
from his paternal ancestor, appears to have lost two of
his ancestral toes by elimination or by dropping two
of the nerves that supply the toes on each foot.
The African elephant, we believe, is a smaller and
less powerful animal than the Asiatic, more wild and
ferocious in disposition, but has powers of "survival"
quite equal, probably, to those of the other. If the
Asiatic shall ultimately survive his African cousin, it
will likely be owing to his greater gentleness and intel
ligence that recommend him to civilized man by his
greater usefulness.
Another very interesting example of the law of
changes that governs the morphology of animal life
is to be found in the Asiatic and African rhinoceros.
One of them — the Asiatic, we believe — has but one
horn, while the other one has two. This example also
supplies a potent argument against the Darwinian prin
ciple of evolution, with its rigid system of development
along certain absolutely fixed lines.
Unlike most other horned animals, its horns are
placed one in front of the other, along the line of
spinal axis, instead of having them placed at right
angles with the line of the major axis, as in the case
of the cow, the deer, and other horned animals.
It can only appear to be the result of arbitrary and
intelligent interference from some outside force, and
not to be the result of infinitesimal increments of
change and of growth accumulated through vast ages.
The domestic cow is another illustrative example
in some ways of the operation of the metamorphic prin
ciple in the transformation of animal forms, both by
elimination and by transformation. She has four toes
on each foot, but two of them are rudimentary in
form and have been transposed in their position to
the under and lower portion of the leg and are not
used in locomotion at all.
In many cases the cow supplies us with a very inter
esting example of the principle of metamorphosis by
elimination. It is found in the "muley" or "polled"
ox that is entirely destitute of horns. That the ordi
nary horned cow will at times bring forth offspring

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
that is wholly destitute of horns, and in neighborhoods
where no male animal of this hornless breed is to be
found, we have abundant evidence both from personal
knowledge and from the observations of others with
whom we have spoken. We recall a case of the kind
that occurred on the home place of my father when
I was a lad of twelve years. It was an example of a
baby calf without horns, from a mother with an ample
head of horns, there being no male of that variety in
all that section of Illinois.
I have conversed with an old friend of mine — Judge
V., of this place — who lived in the State of Indiana
in the early times. The judge informs me that he has
known of a number of similar cases originating under
similar conditions, all of which were females, as was
true of the other example to which I have just referred.
If we turn our attention to the plant world, we shall
see some interesting examples of plants retrogressing
toward ancestral conditions — a form of atavism —
whereby the plant becomes greatly transformed from
original conditions. This is the case with the common
wheat plant, triticum vulgare.
We have known whole fields of this grain, sown
upon ground entirely new and with the best seed, that,
in the low places where water stood more or less upon
the young plants in winter, and freezing and thawing
more or less in the winter, were transformed into
chess, or cheat, as usually termed.
Professor Loveland, of Summerland, Cal., informs
me that the barley plant (hordeum vul.) in this State
often undergoes a similar transformation under un
favorable conditions.
These metamorphoses in the life of plants are per
sistent and permanent and must be regarded as new
species of plant life — as much so as the Asiatic ele
phant and rhinoceros and the African elephant and
rhinoceros are distinct species.
We have known similar transformations to take
place in the stramonium plant {datura stramonium)
and in other phases of plant life.
We now come to a more important part of our sub-
id

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
ject, viz., the formation and grafting of nations. For
this purpose, war, dreadful as it is in many of its
aspects has been the instrument chosen by the higher
powers who have superintended the evolution of civil
ization to accomplish the work.
It was by transplanting the Norsemen or men of
the north, first from their lairs amid the icebergs of
the frozen north, where they had developed an im
mense energy of body and of mind from long battling
with its cold, its hardships and privations, into the
sunny plains of Normandy, where they became Nor
mans and afterward into the "right tight little isle"
of England.

WHAT IS MAN?
Such was the question propounded by the afflicted
Sage more than three thousand years ago and in all
probability had been a subject of inquiry coeval with
the existence of man upon the world long ere the man
Job had opened his eyes to the light of it.
Indeed it has become the question of questions for
the solution of man and far outweighs all others that
can command his attention, and far transcends all
riddles that Sphinx ever propounded. And solve it he
must, or perish. Yes, it is the puzzle, the hitherto
insoluble mystery that has cast its mighty and myste
rious shadow over the untold ages of men's tenancy
of the planet. .
"Star-Eyed Science" bows her head in the presence
of the mighty question and confesses herself inadequate
to the solution of this world's greatest and most inter
esting and important inquiry ever submitted to the
attention. of mankind. But "The greatest study of
mankind is Man," and like many another "impossibil
ity" that has long since been solved and shelved, it
17

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
wili in God's own good time be revealed to man in all
its wonderful, divine beauty and glory. Yes, what is
the purpose for which man was and is created ? What
is his rank in creation?
What part does he bear amid the vast forces that
play the mighty game of Life in World and Universe ?
Apparently evolved from protoplasm, or dirt ("And
the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," Gen.
ii., 7), he has gradually ascended through all ranks
and forms of life from moneron to man, and from
man to the God.
Man, as a being of many Incarnations, is a spiritual
kephaloid and, for a marvel, doth not lose his individu
ality by his incarnations with other souls of equal
or like degree, though undergoing certain modifications
by his new relationships thus formed, among which are
a greater intensity and potentialization of his entire
being. This, when properly understood, will serve to ex
plain why it is that many persons of advanced intelli
gence are able to converse at once with a number of
others, or to dictate to several amanuenses, at the same
moment of time, the several personalities maintaining
their respective individualities all the while.
Such persons, by repeated Reincarnations, became
endowed with poly-mentation, or many beings grouped
in one, and without any loss of their proper indi
viduality. Manifestly a created being of very high and pro
gressed conditions, as we are obliged to consider him
both from reason and from the Scriptures, since
reason cannot see any place in the long chain of evolu
tion by which the full-orbed man could find any hold
or lodgment in any of the ascending forms and series
that were concerned in his development wherewith
he could be incarnated until the evolved and evolving
being should arrive at the physical "image and likeness"
of man himself — had attained the appropriate human
plane. He must have been created for some indispensable
18

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
use and function in God's great universe. The con
clusion is inevitable, that his presence in universal
life in all his conditions, past, present and future, is
neither a misfortune nor a mistake, and the Creator
had no necessity to apologize for his work. The
work of evolution has been carried forward in a
systematic, orderly and Providential way, in which
all the foods, forms, forces, means and methods that
were required to bring him up to his present status
were fully anticipated and provided for. Nothing
was employed in the mighty work that was not abso
lutely necessary, and nothing was overlooked that was
indispensable to its accomplishment in perfect time
and way.
Yes, man is a fixed and indispensable part and
the chief factor in the evolution of the mighty worlds
and universes by which he finds himself environed on
every hand, and as necessary to the gods and to their
universes as they are to him. ("All things were made
by Him, and without him was not anything made that
was made.") And neither chance, caprice, chaos,
world, flesh or devil have had aught to do with the
work of the Creators except to help it forward.
Yes, Creation is the eternal procedure and mani
festation of Law. But Law is nothing more nor less
than the preconceived and pre-established plan, pur
pose, health and harmony that always existed in the
Divine Mind (Holo-cosmos) and in the divine man
or Micro-cosmos. In other words, Creation is only
the steady and orderly outgrowth of life forms under
Law, and Law is only an expression of the Divine
Will, Intelligence, Love and Wisdom operating in
Time, Space, Force and Matter in the evolution of
men, of Worlds and of Universes under the directive
agency and potency of the Supreme Intelligence (or
Holo-cosmos) that presides over the Creation of all
things. That it has appeared otherwise to mankind in
past ages is due to his mental and moral destitution
in his Spiritual Babyhood, when he was "naked" and
destitute of all spiritual forms with which to clothe
19

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
himself — and when he was little else than the spiritual
larva of a man.
Yes, it was due in greatest measure to this almost
absolute lack of perception of the meaning of the
forms of Spiritual Law, and at a time when the creeds
and the beliefs of mankind were in the process of
formation. "Therefore speak I to them in parables;
because they, seeing — materially and literally — see not
spiritually, and hearing — literally — they hear not
spiritually; neither do they understand."
That these things should be so is what we ought
naturally to expect as we look backward through the
long, dim, uncertain twilight of past ages to learn the
data from which mankind have formulated most of the
creeds and the faiths that still continue to exert so
vast and mighty influence over the minds and the
hearts of men in this wonderful age, when the various
material sciences and the spiritual philosophies and
sciences have made so great an advance along the lines
of universal progress. Yes, we are therefore obliged
to conclude not only that man is a fixed fact and
factor in Universal Life, and that he has been evolved
through a long line of ascent from the very humblest
and feeblest beginnings of Life on the globe ; and that
his creation has been the result of the operations of
Divine, Angelic Intelligence and Wisdom, which
Science , terms Law — which perfect Law is but an
expression in Time, Space and Substance of Spiritual
forms that pre-existed in the Divine, Infinite, Creative
Mind itself — as much so and by the same law as the
painting the palace and the statue pre-existed in the
.minds of their artists before they began the practical
work. We are furthermore obliged to believe that all things
that concern the welfare and the happiness of man
kind were anticipated and determined, weighed,
measured and perfectly understood and were evolved
by steps that were foreknown, foreintended and fore
ordained, and that there is no event or movement of
genuine interest to human kind taking place in the
20

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS,
world, that the Creator does not fully sanction, approve
and determine, he himself being the author of it.
And this is absolutely true not ^lone of great
measures and movements that take form and place
under the direction of so-called wise and good men,
but also all important movements and events that
originate with what are usually termed evil men. All
are "raised up," foreordained and set to work by
the Creative Wisdoms, as the Angel informed Daniel :
"That the living may know that the Most High
ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whom
soever He will: and setteth up over it the basest of
men!" For the Lord hath need of men of bad morals
as well as good in the accomplishment of His vast
purposes in the evolution and perfection of the Divine
Humanity. And where good men will not answer
his requirements he employs even the "basest of men."
"For His ways are not our ways, nor our ways His
ways." Said Jehovah to Pharaoh, who was one of
the basest and most tyrannical of human rulers : "For
this purpose have I raised thee up."
Christians have hardly yet begun to understand
and to appreciate the vast and indispensable service
that the man Judas conferred upon the Christian re
ligion by taking the darkest part in the dark back
ground of the mighty picture of the mightiest, the
grandest, and, we may add, also the most glorious
tragedy since time and world began, by endowing it
with the wings of the hatreds as well as the loves
of mankind to bear forth into the world and into the
deeps of the hearts and the lives of men the marvelous
story of the Cross and into every clime and country
the world over.
"That the Scripture might be fulfilled !" Yea, more :
that the grand and glorious purposes of the eternal
God might be fulfilled, and that the sublime story
of the Cross might be duly advertised and go forth
to the spiritual conquest of mankind endowed with a
divine power and energy to accomplish its wonderful
and glorious mission !
For I take it that this greatest of the world's
21

MAN'S PLACE IN. THE KOSMOS.
tragedies, of the man Jesus hanging upon the cross
of Jew and gentile, and forgiving and praying for
his tormentors who put him there : and the man Judas,
who betrayed him, also hanging on a cross, the crea
tion of his own remorse at beholding the results of
his own hands in the work of creating the other: the
combined and contrasted elements of the wondrous
tragedy in all its wonderful aspects — form a picture
at once the most unique and impressive; yea, the
greatest, grandest Bulletin ever set up in this little
world of ours, and hath armed the mighty picture with
a magic power and influence over the hearts and the
lives of men everywhere that no other arrangement
of the celestial programme for the salvation of man
kind could have imparted to it.
"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, shall draw
all men unto me !" Yea, how marvelously true ! The
real part that poor Judas played in this sublime tragedy
of a world has never yet been told ! But it will be
in all due time. For he also, like Pharaoh, was
"raised up" — incarnated to play the (seeming) base
though indispensable role of treason in this sad, strange,
eventful drama of Universal Life. As truly so as was
Jesus himself, who was incarnated to enact the greater,
grander and more glorious part upon Calvary in be
half of mankind.
But let us_ inquire. What is the real purpose for
which man is created, by whom and for whom un
numbered worlds are created and innumerable worlds
are also destroyed when they have fulfilled their sub
lime purposes in the service of Gods and men ; when
from untold ages and uses they are no longer needed ?
Yea, what are the real ends and uses that man sub
serves in the functions and economies of World and
Universe? For these worlds that nightly parade the
starry heavens without number are in very deed and
truth the nurseries in which the Baby Gods are born
and bred, as is apparent both from reason and from
Scripture. They are created by the Gods of the
manifold societies and Fatherhoods of the Spiritual
and Celestial worlds, and that preside over the forma-
22

MAN'S PLACE IN. THE KOSMOS.
tion and destiny of men and of worlds, and for like
reasons that earthly parents create families — to pro
vide the means and the instrumentalities for the per
petuity of their own earthly lives when past their
labors and require the aid of offspring to sustain their
life powers until they pass on to the higher planes
of immortality.
But these comparisons apply correspondentially, not
absolutely and literally. These young infant Gods that
swarm over and fill unnumbered worlds are created by
the paternal Gods to provide the means for the per
petuation of their own spiritual existence, and hold
a correspondential relation to them that the children
of earthly parentage supply for the continuation of
the earthly existence of father and mother, until the
next kosmic change (of death) tenders it no longer
needful. "Lo, all grow old and die." It is the law that rules
in all the worlds. There is nothing that can be
organized so perfectly that it cannot be cte-organized
and Mw-created by reversing the conditions under
which it came into existence. It could , only be ac
complished by an entire arrest of all change within
itself, and that would be death. We here quote the
words of the Buddha in this connection :
"As a man casting off old, worn-out garments puts
on new ones, in like manner doth the person who
putteth off old bodies clothe himself in those that are
new." This law applies to the spiritual body correspon
dentially in a degree.
The Spiritual body or Psyche of man is as much
a created and an organic entity as is the Soma or
material body, and both are subject to a similar law of
change, though the former exists under more lasting
conditions, but never under conditions of absolute
eternality save under the beneficent Cyclic Law of Re
incarnation. For progress in the spiritual realm con
sists not in perpetual motion in straight lines. All
things of the universe move in curves and cycles and
are forever returning to their original point of depart*
23

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
ure to renew and refresh their being in primeval
conditions. Were anybody obliged to move on forever in
straight lines, it would soon pass beyond the limits
of the habitable Universe, or, worse still, it would
soon collide with some other part of Creation, with
ruinous results. But all this is averted by the beautiful
cyclic law of renewal and return to primeval con
ditions and estates, so that all things of this great
and glorious Universe move one in Celestial, Divine
Harmony. We- can now perhaps begin to comprehend the fact
that even the very Gods themselves are subject to this
beneficent law of change, of renewal, of progress, and
by the equally important law of waste, and decay, and
even of death itself, every unused faculty of mind
or of body alike must have active and constant exer
cise or it will gradually weaken and tend to ultimate
extinction, and, like the eyes of the once eyed but
now eyeless fishes of Mammoth Cave and other sub
terranean waters, end in their final extinction.
Hence arises the necessity for the renewal of the
Spiritual man in terrestrial conditions at certain vast
kosmic periods of time, the ordinary extent of which
for the adult man may be a thousand years, which is
the period assigned to it by Plato; and the Milennial
era given to it by John in the Apocalypse, during
which the saints — those who lived this life in normal
states — "will live and reign with Christ a thousand
years." But which the wicked — those who lived this
life under less normal conditions — will not share with
them, being withheld by the evils they lived into this
life by a long stay in the lower spheres to live out
and free themselves from those conditions before they
can enter the higher spheres.
The two periods are one and the same. Hence
arises the perpetual demand for new bodies to refresh
and renew the clothing — that is, the bodies of the
Gods or higher Celestial, angelic men ; for the bodies
of men, both material as well as spiritual, are vestures
in which the spirit clothes itself, and must be refreshed
24

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
and renewed at certain remote cyclic periods of time,
as the terrestrial man renews his garments from time
to time — bjy incarnating in new bodies — or death
will ultimately result. Hence, as already stated, the
'constant and eternal demand for new beings, new
men and women, who are nothing more than new
spiritufa.1 suits of clothing required by the higher
Gods of the race to renew, reinvigorate and re-eter
nize their spiritual forms, when worn and wasted from
too long stay amid the glories and the splendors of
the upper day.
That the spiritual body is a destructible entity even
the Scriptures teach. "Fear Him who is able to de
stroy both soul and body in Hell !"
For the Gods themselves are but the organic,
spiritual, cell life of the Supreme Being, and their
forms, when worn and wasted from long residence
and use amid the intense activities and splendors of
the more potively polaric conditions of the higher
Celestial, Spiritual Universes, must take an outing
once in a long while, like a resident of city life in our
own little world, to rest and refresh and renew their
overtaxed spiritual powers amid the easy, self-indul
gent, spiritually relaxing forces of the negatively
polaric lower planes of being.
The ultimate appropriation 'of the spiritual forms
of the men and the women for these marvelous uses
of reincarnating with the higher Gods of the race —
the men and the women whom we behold every day
in such vast numbers making their "exits and their
entrances" upon this "Bank and Shoal of Time" after
a brief stay upon the material planes of existence —
explains the reason why it is that this great and
marvelous Universe of the Eternal God, already and
always infinite, is not necessarily increasing in a new
infinity of spiritual populations and in spiritual worlds
to take care of them, which would be true were every
human being that enters and exits from this stage
of time and world is a novus homo or "new man."
When the new spiritual being — the Son — that has
been created by manifold terrestriations or involu-
25

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
tions in the worlds of matter until he has attained
the spiritual stature of the "Father" to a degree,
though in less celestial forms of the life forces, a
'mutual reincarnation takes place, or, more exactly
speaking, the "Father" incarnates in the "Son," since
it was for this purpose the Son was created by the
Father for the new creation and perpetuation of his
own being and to prepare him to enter upon a new
cycle and a new life of enjoyment and of labor amid
the infinities and eternities of Life Universal. And
this is what is meant by the "reconciliation" of the
Son with the Father. It is the harmonization of the
twain "in and into one new man" by the Son's attain
ment of the spiritual estates of the Father, and thus to
be able to incarnate with him in a new life for both
Father and Son.
"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also
who shall believe on me through their word : that they
all may be one as their Father art in me and I in
thee, that they also may be one in us." But this is
the Social, Spiritual form of the Divine incarnations
of men and Gods, which is less ontological and inti
mate in form and character than is the personal and
individual form thereof.
Into this divine celestial Unity of the "twain-in-one"
the Son brings up from the lower material Universes
new life forms and forces; while, on the other hand,
the Father brings thereinto the Celestial, spiritual
forces and forms of the higher Worlds and Universes.
Each imparts to the other an endowment of new
forces, both in kind and in degree, and each aids in
eternizing the twain now being, now become one.
"And I give unto them eternal life."
Hath not the prophet Micah, referring to Jesus, well
said: "And thou Bethlehem, though thou art least
among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall
he come forth unto me that is to be a ruler in Israel,
whose "goings forth have been from of old — from
EVERLASTING." In Bhagavard Gita Krishna the inspired Hindu
prophet applies a similar term to the cyclic evolutions
26

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
of all being. "I am the going forth of the whole
Universe, and likewise its dissolving. He who, cast
ing off the body, goeth forth thinking of me, he
entereth into my being." And thus the beloved
Christ: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with
the glory I had with thee before the world was."
"Many births have been left behind by me and by
thee, O Arguna. I know them all, but thou knowest
not yet even thine own."
"Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state."
Yes, it is a truth, and a very merciful one, that the
gates of both the future and the past are benignly
closed to mankind in his present mundane estates and
conditions, which are germinal in their character and
function. Were the Seed, when planted in the earth, to be
long exposed to the solar rays, it would shortly perish.
But man in this terrene existence is but a seed that
is germinating in the soil and underworld of the earth,
and any exposure of him to the unveiled splendors and
glories of the higher life would affect him in a similar
manner — unfit him for any further life in the lower
spheres. He was planted here in the proper soil of
earth to germinate and to grow up within himself in
basic and in most interior conditions the mighty
spiritual and celestial laws and principles of the higher
!, worlds of his being.
Were he permitted to know the splendors and the
glories amid which he has lived in his past spiritual
estates, he would be prone to live in much sorrow and
discontent from contrasting the two forms of his
existence, past and present.
Thousands, yea millions, would cast aside their
bodies and rush into the other life before the proper
time, in some momentary fit of madness — a step most
fatal to their future happiness and well-being, as vast
numbers in this unhappy age of suicides, war and
murder will find to their cost. 27

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
It is, in truth, a salutary mystery that the Creator
has for this reason suspended over the gates of the
future to restrain men from accomplishing their own
ruin. Let us take God's way into the great and
glorious future and abide his own good time.
Spiritualism, or free intercourse between the two
worlds, was permitted by the Angelic Wisdoms at the
time it came ; first to the Shaker Friends, in 1837, and
was designed by them for the benefit of the" "Skeptics
and doubting Thomases," who could not believe on the
testimony of men who lived two thousand years ago,
and needed fresh this year facts to get rid of their
unbelief. Spiritualism had been suppressed by the Jewish
authorities of the times of Saul and David, prompted,
doubtless, by the Higher Authorities of the spiritual
world, speaking through the prophets. It was also
practically suppressed, after the advent ^of Christianity,
by the Catholic priesthood, inspired by the same source,
it being the intent and purpose of the spiritual leaders
of civilization that those nations who were in any im
portant way concerned with the origin and spread
of the Christian religion should not be permitted to
have spiritualism introduced among them until they,
or the majority of them, at least, had attained a
mental, spiritual and a scientific status that would
enable them to "handle" the subject without injury to
themselves and to mankind.
That the inhibition will be removed ere long there
can be no doubt, and that the clergy will no longer
oppose the return to the apostolic practices of healing
and of casting out even of evil spirits we think there
can be little serious doubt. The entire priesthood —
save a few — for ages have cast aside the words of
the Master as recorded by Mark xv. : 16-18, and as
a result have fallen into much unbelief concerning both
the words and the works of Jesus.
That the Higher Wisdoms of the spiritual world
have seen proper to suspend these practices in the
churches during the greater portion of man's spiritual
infancy, and for wise reasons that have been already
28

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
given, there can also be very little reason to doubt.
Our clerical friends will, however, be obliged to
give up their opposition to the practical operation of
these important principles that so vitally concern
human welfare, or they will ere long find their audi
ences thinning out faster than ever.
The subject of the possession and the infestation
of mortals by spirit men is a vast one, and one that
can be fully and finally understood by a long and
patient and intelligent study of it from both sides
of the life of man. It is the active cause of most of
the insanities that fill our asylums and send great
numbers to the grave of the suicide and the assassin.
That the beloved Christ was right, and wonderfully
so when he professed to cast out evil spirits and devils,
who by their arts and practices had obtained magnetic
control of certain sensitive and weak-will elements of
the human family, who also, being ignorant of these
concealed foes and their works and ways, there cari
be no doubt to one who has studied this very difficult
question from a rational and impartial standpoint.
The beloved Teacher made this subject of the cast
ing out of evil spirits a matter of special instruction
and injunction upon his disciples, and at one time
severely upbraided two of them because they could
not cast them out. That many skeptical minds will
ridicule the views of Christ in regard to these things
and attribute them to his lack of science and all that.
But the clergy, "what are they going to do about it?"
Obey the injunction of the Master, roll up their
sleeves and go to work and aid the few who are
already engaged in the work, or will they still con
tinue to give the subject a wide berth and denounce
all those who believe that Christ knew what he was
talking about and doing about, and are trying to do
as he did?
The subject is one of tremendous import to the
whole family of man in both worlds, and for the
simple reason that it is a question that involves the
entire relations that exist between the two worlds of
human life.

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
To longer ignore these vast problems that so vitally
concern the whole life of man, or to hold them as
"contraband," and denounce all those who, moved by
philanthropic motives, seek to investigate these ques
tions from both their spiritual and scientific sides, is
neither just nor wise.
There has never been a time in the history of the
world in which so large a per cent, of human kind
are affected by the insanities that originate in the
spiritual world of mankind, and the number is rapidly
on the increase, both in Europe and America. While
the population of Massachusetts increased at one time
but 13 per cent., her insane people increased 50 per
cent. The people of the State of California have filled five
large public insane asylums, not to speak of the
private ones.

THE INFINITE MAN.
The Universe is one man. But man is an infinite
measure. It is that Infinite Divine Being we term
God— the Supreme and perfect Oversoul. "In whom
we live and move and have our being" and an indis
soluble and eternal part of that Infinite Man — if we
obey his living eternal laws.
If there be any of the evangelists to whom the world
is especially indebted for having given it some glimpses
into the greatest of all the sciences as indicated by the
beloved Christ in his last great discourse to his disci
ples, and elsewhere in John's gospel, it is to John. And
that greatest and most important of all the sciences is
Metaphysiology, or the Physiology of the divine Man.
John was the most spiritually minded of the disci
ples of the Master; saw most deeply into the occult
truths of the Word— the spiritual Man, as delineated
30

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
by Jesus in his discourses to the disciples and to the
public. It was this more profound appreciation of the deep
things of the spiritual man as set forth by Jesus that
created and established the greater bond of love and
sympathy between them than existed with Jesus and
all others of his disciples, and which caused him openly
to be called "the disciple whom Jesus loved."
The other evangelists — Matthew, Mark and Luke — •
were little more than historians of the ethical teachings
of Jesus, though Matthew, in his report of Christ's
"Sermon on the Mount," bas manifested a profound
appreciation of that greatest, noblest and best of the
collections of moral essays, principles, truths, maxims,
that were ever delivered to mankind.
But Christ in that last and most touching of all his
discourses, when giving his disciples his last and for
mal farewell, and in other conversations elsewhere
with his disciples and with the multitude, has laid
down a few simple, sublime outline truths that are
destined to become the foundation of a new science
and a new philosophy; and that science and that
philosophy, as we have already seen, is Metaphysiology,
or a proper knowledge of both the interior and the
exterior forms and forces of the spiritual man. When
Jesus informed his disciples and the Jews that unless
they "ate his flesh and drank his blood they had no
life in them"; when he hold them, "I am the living
bread which came down from heaven: if any man
eat of this bread he shall live forever: and the bread
that I will give him is my flesh which I will give for
the life of the world"; and when he said, "I am the
vine, ye are the branches," and many other of the
sublime yet occult truths of the divine Word, he was
laying the formations of a spiritual science of the
lineaments and characters of the spiritual man incon
ceivably grand and glorious, and though but very little
understood by the spiritual children that surrounded
him, and were addressed more as absolute scientific
and philosophical propositions to the more adultman of
future ages, yet have been a source of consolation,
31

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
comfort and a joy to the Christian of every age from
that day to this, and will so continue till the end of
time. For man hath a spiritual eye — the eye of faith.
Webster doth not define it, yet still it is there. And
we walk in its light — by faith and by sight also. It
It is the "Pure Reason" of the philosopher Emanuel
Kant. It is the lumen or light by which, when man
hath put aside this "muddy vesture of decay," will be
the eye by which he will see all things clearly in the
brighter and more heavenly light of the higher worlds.
It is in this higher, holier light that even in this life
man sees, though dimly, as Paul has said, many of
the deep things of the spirit that greatly console him
for the evils of the world.
This inability on the part of the great mass of
human kind to understand the deep and the mighty
things of the spirit in a rational and scientific sense
is the chief reason why there yet remain in the various
creeds of Christendom so many inert and insoluble
symbolic truths that have never yet been rationally
appropriated and digested by the great mass of man
kind. ,We say inert and insoluble, for the simple and
very good reason that if a truth, however great it may
happen to be, is insoluble to the intellect of man, it is
by virtue of this fact of little value to the mind and
the heart of man and is inert and dead — one of the
husks of the Word. For example, the well-known
doctrine of "Infant Damnation," after remaining in
the Presbyterian "Confession of Faith" for some cen
turies, dead and inert for lack of some one to crack
the nut and give its containments to science and the
world of mankind, has at last been cast overboard
by the good Presbyterian Patres.
Now, that article of their faith was perfectly right.
All it needed was for some one to explain its meaning
so that Reason and Science could comprehend it. But,
like the Myth of Adam and Eve in the book of'
Genesis, it was highly symbolical and no one has ever
fully solved its deep and mystic meaning. But Adam
and Eve: What are they but the Rational and the
32 _

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
Spiritual understandings of the human Intelligence?
Adam is the Rational Understanding ("Die Ver-
standt") of Emanuel Kant. Eve is Pure Reason (der
Reinan Vernunft). Of this important faculty, as a
class woman, who is of more spiritual make than man,
enjoys the larger share.
The Rational Understanding is a masculine 'organ,
and man has a greater endowment of this, as a class,
than has woman. When it is stated in Genesis that
Eve partook first of the fruit of the tree of knowledge
of good and evil, and afterward gave to Adam, and
he also did eat thereof, it is a simple statement in
the forms of symbolic language of an act and a fact
in the history of the operations of the human mind
that is as old as the world: — yea, as God himself. It
is this feminine element in the human intelligence,
whether it be in man or in woman in greater degree —
though far oftener in woman — that first discovers and
"eats" all new and great truths and afterwards imparts
them to the Rational Intelligence, and "he did eat."
As to the "Fall" of man, what simpler and more
natural explanation of this beautiful myth can be given
than to consider the truth that man is a two-fold
entity — he is both an animal and a spiritual being.
As he partakes more and more of the spiritual foods
— of the "tree of the knowledges of good and of evil"
— and becomes more spiritual in his nature, the
Adamic, or animal, man in him "falls" off from him
as the tree sheds its bark and the serpent his skin: —
and as the animal in him "falls" the spiritual man
within him rises; which is true of man both racially
and individually, and has been thus from the dawn
of his existence upon the planet until now.
If our worthy Presbyterian friends had only made
an attempt to resolve this tenet of their faith — viz.,
"Infant Damnation" — instead of casting it overboard
as a something likely, soon or late, to sink the ship
if not disposed of in some way to adapt the Credo
to the swiftly advancing opinions of mankind under
the potent influence of progressive free thought, they
might have lighted upon a great and mighty original
33 -..-.-  --

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
truth that would have gone far toward the solution of
many other occult and vital principles in the life of
man. For in very deed and truth and in all canbor,
the churches, many of them whose constituents have
lived too long and too much upon the mere husks oi
the Word, are mightily in need of a change of diet;
for the want of which thousands are leaving the
churches behind them, and many of them are seekin.?
"strange folds and pastures new." But in all sincerity
this need not, ought not, so to be. Man is pre
eminently a social being and greatly needs companion
ship and sympathy to keep him out of evil and evil
ways. How many a noble man has been saved by
the love, the help and sympathy of friends when he
was falling, and how many have been lost for the
want of them? Yes, and many a man, and woman
too, has been saved from moral and spiritual ship
wreck by still adhering to the old ship long after they
had ceased to have any real interest and sympathy
with the views of the "Lights" in command. It was
the Social influences rather than the Spiritual that
saved them.
For the Church, as its name implies, is "God's
House," and when it is once properly adapted to the
progressive nature of man as well as to his sympathies
and affections, it will become and remain forever his
spiritual guide, guard and protection in the midst of
all the moral, social and spiritual dangers that may
beset his pathway and allure him from the paths of
rectitude, honor and decency.
But the church must advance. It must put aside
or properly explain scientifically the tough, hard
noduses of the Creed, which are and have been for
ages now stumbling blocks in the ways of Christians
and non-Christians, that have kept millions out of the
fold, and have driven out many of those already there
when their growing intelligence would not permit
them any longer to remain in it and by so doing
indorse the awful terrors of the Creed. The character
of our Heavenly Father as Jesus defined him to be
and the one formulated in the Credo are not alike, but
in utter contrast with each other.
34

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
No human intelligence, or intelligence of any sort,
human or divine, can reconcile them, until the sym
bolic sense of the Creed is put aside and we apply the
Scientific Sense, in giving it the only true explanation
it can have. The contrast thus displayed in the delinea
tion of the Divine Character as they appear in the
plain teachings of Jesus, and as they are taught in
the Creed, is indeed terrible ! We quote Christ's words
concerning it: "Or what man is there of you who,
if his son ask bread, will give him a stone; or if he
ask fish will give him a serpent? // ye, then, being
evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more shall your Father who is in Heaven
give good things to them that ask Him?"
We present to the reader both the old and the new
amended article concerning Reprobation as it appears
in the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, as we find
them in a late copy of the Outlook:
"For then shall the righteous go into everlasting
life and receive that fulness of joy and refreshing
which shall come from the presence of the Lord. But
the wicked who know not God and who obey not the
gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ, shall be cast into
eternal torments and be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord and from
the glory of his power." The new and amended state
ment of the article is in these words:
"The wicked shall receive the eternal award of their
sins, and the Lord will manifest the glory of his
mercy in the salvation of his people and their entrance
upon the full enjoyment of eternal life."
"It is not rash to say," says this author, "that the
doctrine of eternal punishment is thus practically elim
inated from the Presbyterian Creed. Yet one may
hold that doctrine and remain Presbyterian."
"The whole statement will soon come to have a
meaning to the church that would now be disputed
by the strict constructionists. Its adoption is a revo
lutionary event in the doctrinal history of American
Presbyterianism and a great triumph of Theological
liberality." True, it is a "revolutionary event" in the
35

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
history of the church, and very revolutionary at that.
The Presbyterian fathers, in their efforts to escape
from their creedal difficulties, appear to have for
gotten the injunction of the Master in Matt, ix., 16-17:
"No man putteth a piece of new cloth into an old
garment; for that which is put in to fill it up taketh
from the garment, and the rest is made worse. Neither
do men put new wine into old bottles,- else the bottles
break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles
perish. But they put new wine into new bottles, and
both are preserved."
This revolutionary step on the part of the church
fathers appears to have been little worse than a make
shift to get rid of the growing clamor in the churches
in favor of getting rid of an article of the creed that
was fastened upon it during the dark ages of church
authority and power, and was so manifest an insult to
reason and to the one Supreme Being himself that it
threatened the dissolution of the churches themselves.
There is something truly appalling in the contem
plation of the Supreme Being as one who sits in un-
approached and unapproachable majesty, power and
wisdom at the Summit of Creation, and bringing
worlds full of beings into existence at the breath of
his power — beings, too, endowed with the most ex
quisite sense of pain and of pleasure — and consigning
them to eternal torment, and for no other assigned or
assignable reason than his ability to do it. We search
history and world in vain to find a parallel for such
a Being. The only one that we can put into a com
parison with this picture of the character of the
Supreme Being is the ancient Myth of Saturn, which,
when interpreted literally, as it was in former times,
became a subject of mucb aversion and ridicule; but
as now understood in the light of modern science,
takes its place as a beautiful picture, given in symbolic
language, of the way in which Old Father Time dis
poses of his children — the minutes, the hours, the
days, months, years and ages, as they pass, and bdry
themselves in the vast abysm of time.
But this Myth of the "Reprobation" of his own dear,
36

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
blind, ignorant children, and casting them into end
less torment ; and the even more irrational teaching of
the doctrine of "Infant Damnation" — whence came
they but from the too literal interpretation of the text
of the Divine Word itself by the spiritually ignorant
child-man of the primitive ages of the early church?
Had our good Presbyterian Patres had the courage
and the light to come forward and give to the modern
world a scientific unraveling and exposition of these
two very important Arcana of the Word, they would
have conferred a great and lasting benefit upon all
human kind. But they failed to accept the proffered
occasion, and their final solution has been handed
down to the next generation, which will be farther ad
vanced and more heedful of the mandates of Reason
and of the just opinions of mankind. And it will then
be made plain, and in a philosophic and scientific way.
We have very high authority in the teachings of the
Master for this view of the origin of these Myths :
"And his disciples came and said unto him: Why
speakest thou unto them in parables (symbols) ?
"He answered and said unto them: Because it is
given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of Heaven : But unto them it is not given. Therefore
speak I unto them in parables: because they seeing,
see not (spiritually) and hearing, hear not (spirit
ually), neither do tbey understand (spiritually).
"But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your
ears, for they hear." But this inability of the disciples
of Jesus to comprehend spiritual things was not
wholly true of them — at least, not to all of them, and
of some of the more obvious Arcana of the Word.
At a later occasion, when he presented to the Jewish
multitude and to his disciples also those beautiful,
symbolic pictures concerning the eating of his flesh and
drinking of his blood, many of his disciples said : "This
is a hard saying ; who can hear it ? * * * So that from
that time many of his disciples went back and walked
no more with him." The truth is there are Arcana
and arcana, and some are easily soluble, while others
37

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
are more difficult of solution, and are obliged to wait
for their solution in an age that is more advanced in
spiritual things, and aided also by the lights of a
true science, but not a pseudo-science, of which man
kind has been afflicted too much already.
But what is the true intent and meaning of this
very remarkable and terrible Myth of "Infant Dam
nation" — the eternal damnation of little, infant chil
dren, those whom Christ, on more than one occasion,
set them before his disciples as the very highest models,
as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven? "And they
brought unto him also infants that he would teach
them. But when his disciples saw it they rebuked
them. But Jesus called them unto him and said:
"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid
them not, for of such is the Kingdom of God. Verily
I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the King
dom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter
therein." And again: "At the same time came the
disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in
the Kingdom of Heaven ?
"And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set
him in the midst of them and said : Verily I say unto
you, except ye be converted and become as little chil
dren ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this
little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of
Heaven, and whoso shall receive one such little child
in my name receiveth me." It is such dear beings
as these, so precious to the heart of the beloved
teacher, that theology would consign to eternal dam
nation! Could spiritual antithesis, untruth and un
reason further go?
Yes, it is very true, as science hath declared : "The
Universe is governed by Law." But Law is but an
expression of the Modus Vivendi of the Infinite
Divine Being whom we call God.
The Universe is a manifold and many-sided Being,
and all who desire to formulate some picture of Him
to aid the mind in the contemplation of His character
38

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
use manifold terms of definition, as the artist who
attempts to define a vast mountain takes his object
from many viewpoints.

THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL.
"And I saw another Angel fly in the midst of
Heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto
them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and
kindred and tongue and people, saying with a loud
voice : Fear God and give glory to Him : for the hour
of His judgment is come: and worship Him that
made Heaven and earth and the sea, and the fountains
of waters."
But this "Everlasting Gospel" is not the gospel
of Ancient Theology, which is based upon the partial
and symbolical sense of the Word, but is founded
upon its scientific and spiritual sense.
Theology is but the preliminary and preparatory
Gospel, the literal or A, B, C Department of human
life and thought, that, like the preparatory depart
ment of the school and the college, are designed to get
the pupils more fully equipped and prepared to enter
the higher classes and departments of science and
philosophy. The Divine Word, as it was delivered to mankind
by the great teacher, and practically embodied all that
was essential in the teachings of all the great Reform
ers of mankind who had preceded him, was given to
man in what may be termed an involved and dual
form, viz., the literal or symbolical sense of the Word,
and the spiritual or the full scientific sense.
In this dual arrangement of the involved forms of
the Word the literal and Symbolical sense are neces
sarily obliged to occult and in greatest degree to con
ceal the interior and spiritual forms of the Word,
39

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
which lie within and behind the literal forms thereof,
and constitute a dense, dark veil— the flesh — through
which but few of the bright rays of the spiritual
sense of the Word penetrate or pass. So that the
person who is living in earthly life forms is in this
way shut up within his own material body as in a
sort of poison, through which he gets only partial
gleams of the full spiritual light that come to him
through the dense shell that invests him on every side.
"For now we see as through a dark glass. But
then" — after the demise of the material body — "face-
to face."
This is peculiarly true of the lower forms of the
racial infant, spiritual man, whose spiritual body is
made up almost wholly of animal knowledges and
life forms, so that, like his original prototype that is
spoken of in Genesis, he is destitute of the moral sense
of right and wrong, and remains in that spiritual
estate until he has eaten of the fruit of the "tree of
knowledge of good and evil," which he, as an animal
man, is forbidden to eat, and for the obvious reason
that these higher knowledges of good and ill, if used
freely by the animal man, soon dissolves, breaks up
and destroys his life principles, and he is soon en route
to death. It is for this reason, also, that many men and
women of a high order of intelligence, and who are
rapidly growing in a knowledge of spiritual things, are
much troubled with disorders of the animal functions
of the body. It is one of the natural consequences
of that slow, gradual decomposition of the animal
man that necessarily attends the spiritual transforma
tion that takes place in the spiritual man (or body)
whereby he is enabled, soon or late, to slough off the
old Adamic man with all his gross foods, deeds, appe
tites and desires and to "put on — clothe himself with —
the new man, which has been renewed in spiritual
knowledges after the image (and likeness) of Him
that created him."
That this was the form of death that the Adamic
man was warned against by his Creator, and not the
loss of his material body by what we ordinarily term
40

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
death, will become apparent if we take the statements
of the Bible as our authority. For according to that
account Adam (which means an earth man) did not
die as to his material body, but lived in it for many
hundreds of years afterward, "and beget sons and
daughters." For the Adamic or primeval men of the planet were
not men of a very high order, but the very reverse.
They were the very earliest and rudest forms of
human life, and but two or three removes from the
animal world out of which they had come up by recent
incarnations. They were little more than mere animals by nature,
differing from them chiefly in their more erect and
manlike forms, but with the moral and mental status
of animals, though with the outward "image and like
ness" of the Gods — that is, of men.
The Spirit of Intelligences, however, reckon the
Gorilla and the Anthropoid Apes as the lowest forms
of primitive man, and the "missing link" in the chain
of being from animal to man.
That we have given the true sense of the term
"Everlasting Gospel," given in the words of the
text, Rev. xiv., 6, will become manifest if we reflect
carefully upon its true spiritual rendering of the
whole passage. For the Angel does not command men
to worship the God of theology, but the God that is
revealed in and by his works. "Fear God and give
glory to him: for the hour of his judgment is come:
and worship him that made Heaven and earth and
the sea and the fountains of waters," viz., the God of
Science, of Astronomy, of Geology, of Philosophy and
of Reason.
If there be anything among all the knowledges of
man that inspires in him the passions of unutterable
love, adoration, worship, it is a contemplation of the
Creator as exemplified and revealed in his works.
"An undevout astronomer is mad," says the poet
Young. And it is this God that men everywhere are
commanded to worship.
Yes, the Angel, in preaching the new and "ever-
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
lasting Gospel" to all that dwell on the earth, and to
e^ery kindred and nation and tongue and people,"
virtually enjoins upon all mankind that they no longer
worship the God of Theology — the God that was taken
from the Word when used in its narrow, symbolical
sense — useful and even indispensable to the worship
and to the welfare of man in the early periods of his
existence, when he had the spiritual understanding
of an infant, but now no longer useful, because he
has outgrown them; so that now, in dwelling in these
very narrow forms and uses of the Word, they terribly
cramp his whole spiritual man and greatly retard his
spiritual growth in all things.
Yes, this is what the new "Everlasting Gospel" doth
not accomplish for mankind. It places no fetters on
the human mind — the worship of this "God that made
Heaven and earth and the sea, and the fountains of
waters." It only uplifts the soul into a transport of
love, worship and communion with an adorable Cre
ator and Father, and enables him to realize that he
is indeed a veritable child of his — a son of the Infinite
God himself. "Oh, God," said the great astronomer,
Kepler, as he was demonstrating the laws governing
the planets in their everlasting flight about their great
centre, the sun — "Oh, God, I am thinking thy thoughts
after Thee!" And this is indeed the "hour," the
fact and truth of his "judgment." Who that hath
reflected much upon the vastv inequalities and dis
crepancies that everywhere exist in human life hath
not often had the sensibilities, yea, the very soul of
him, bowed down with sorrow and anguish, and even
rilled with rebellion at what to him appears to De
the injustice and unfairness of the Creator in his allot
ments of human destinies?
But if we will only be patient, and call to our aid
the lights of true science to guide us in our investi
gations, we shall shortly discover that these vast dis
crepancies and differences that we see around us on
every side are not to be regarded in the light of in
equalities in any just and proper sense of that term,
42

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
but are disciplinary in their character and belong to
the lower incarnations of the human plane.
There are so vast a proportion of mankind who
are living in the lower and first incarnations, and who
are incapable of looking into the great mirror of
Life and seeing themselves as others see them. But
time and repeated re-embodiments will, in God's good
lime, bear them up on to the higher and more benefi
cent planes of being. This little world of ours, when
its people have once fully entered upon the new civ
ilization in its higher and more perfect forms, will
become an important sanitarium for the reincarnation
and renewal of the bodies — both material and spirit
ual — of those who had lost them by a premature in
carnation. How many a poor, spiritually sick human
soul has been hunted to his grave, dying upon the
scaffold or in the midst of the curses and tortures
inflicted by the maddened and howling mob, who
during his whole lifetime had striven vastly harder to
stem the torrent of his appetites and passions than
other thousands who have died ' in the "odor of
sanctity," and with their ears ringing with the ap
plause of millions ? The vast differences and inequali
ties of every kind that exist among mankind is due
to their lack of advancement. They have not been run
through the "Mills of the Gods" as often as others.
When they have built themselves up by as manifold
reincarnations as a Christ, a Buddha or a Lincoln, they
will become endowed with an equal, if not an even
possibly greater, power and ability.
Much depends upon the person, the work for which
he is being prepared and the aid he gets from the
powers above him.
And yet all of them were equally the handiwork of
the same Infinite, Almighty Creator, Lord of the
Heavens and the earth, and bear his own sign manual
engraven upon every line and atom of their being!
Shall we say with certain ones of the older times,
"The way of the Lord is not equal"? No! By no
means whatsoever; 43

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
Christ, who better understood the secret laws that
operate on mankind, bid his followers pierce their
enemies through the heart in the spiritual sense of that
word, as being not only the surest but the morally
safest and the best for all parties concerned. "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do."
And in wbat way can we do a weak, ignorant and
sick brother a greater service than to open his spiritual
eyes in this instructive and saving way? Jesus him
self put these grand and noble principles into prac
tice under circumstances the most appalling, perhaps,
that ever fell to the lot of man.
But the greatest, the sublimest of the moral forces
that are concerned in all such cases comes to the man
who forgives. The Angel calls the attention of the
world to this message, which we have just quoted,
and which he has been authorized to preach to man
kind. It is the announcement of the ending up of the
old Dispensation with all its ancient and imperfect
forms, ceremonies, modes and phases of thought and
action, and the formal introduction of the new
Millenial Era and Dispensation, now near at hand, if
there be any truth in the present strange and mar
velous "Signs of the Times."
But man is a Creature and not a Creator, nor
self made. He came up through and out of the
animal world, which in its infinity of life forms had
gestated man in his more primeval estates and con
ditions and were the stepping stones by which, under
the directive energies of the Divine Mind, had enabled
man to ascend through, from and out of the various
orders, classes and species of the lower worlds of life
on to the higher planes and spheres of his manifold
and marvelous being.
Oh, if man only knew the real causes of these so
wonderful, so strange, and yet so absolutely indis
pensable differences in the lives and the fortunes of
their fellow men! Not "Total Depravity" or any
other variety or species of Badness. But for the
simple reason that the Creator of men, of worlds and
their civilizations, like all other persons, requires Time
44

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
as one of the indispensable factors of Creative energy
in the creation of man and his worlds, and plenty of
it, too — first as an animal of a low type and order,
second as one of a higher rank or physical man, and
third as a spiritual being, or man in all his infinity of
modes, forms, conditions and estates of existence.
But these spiritual forms and degrees of his being
can only be attained by long ages of earnest life and
work; manifold Reincarnations in terrestrial estates
under disciplinary conditions, followed by long ages
spent in spiritual soul life, devoted to the culture
and growth of the spiritual side of him until he shall
have attained the Godhood in the higher and highest
forms of the Divine life of man and of God — after
he has sloughed the last vestige of the animal and has
ascended on to the higher planes of immortality and
everlasting life! But while he remains upon the
lower animal planes of being, there is one side of his
nature that will always respond more or less to all
appeals to the animal nature within him. It is the
human* side of him.
It is for those manifold and manifest reasons that
Jesus enjoined upon his followers in that greatest of
all his discourses on human ethics: "Ye have heard
that it hath been said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor
and hate thine enemy.' But I say unto you: Love
your enemies: bless them that curse you: do good to
them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully
use you and persecute you !"
Thus it is to "bruise" the head of the serpent of
man's selfishness, and then in turn to assist our offend
ing brother — if he will permit us to help crush it also
in himself; for by thus giving the Adamic or animal
man a free hand, we disarm him and make a strong
appeal to his nobler nature to come forth and assert
itself. This was what Christ did when he voluntarily
sought the Jewish authorities and gave himself up to
* The word human is from homo, and this in turn
comes from humus — soil, earth. 45

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
be put upon the Cross, where the worlds could behold
him hanging upon the Cross in illustration of that
divine, world-compelling principle that years before he
had announced in his sublime "Sermon on the Mount,"
and afterwards converted it into a grand object lesson
to instruct, uplift and overcome the passions, hatreds
and angers of the worlds and the ages of mankind.
And that is what he is accomplishing now at this very
time. His great and glorious example and words,
holding thus the mirror up to divine nature, fur
nishes a center of crystallization for the Amorphic and
disorderly masses of mankind, that as a point of attrac
tion grows more potent and commanding as the years
and the ages roll onward.
Could the Great Teacher have taken singly the mob
that put him on the Cross, they could never, any one
of them, have touched a hair of his head. It was the
hydra of the mob that crucified Him, whose mutual
hatreds and passions were whetting each other, and
gave no opportunity for poor, weak, human nature to
assert itself. But it killed poor Judas at the first shot.
We could give many examples of the operation of
this divine, holy principle in human life, but will con
tent ourself with a single one. Sir Walter Raleigh
was at one time challenged to fight a duel by a rash,
hot-headed young man, who had taken some high
offence at him. Raleigh refused to fight him, where
upon the young man spat in his face !
Taking out his handkerchief he calmly and delib
erately wiped it off. "Young man," said he, "if I could
as easily wipe your blood from my conscience as I
can remove this indignity from my face, I would this
instant take your life !"
, But such an exhibition of heroic forbearance and
self-restraint was more than the arrogance of the
young man could bear up under, and he immediately
fell upon his knees and begged the forgiveness of the
old hero. It is this moral grandeur of soul, this sub
limity of compassion, sympathy and affection, that is
the glory of the human character. "In hoc signo."
Yes, it is truly in this that we must conquer.
46

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
And if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw
all men unto me." It is the spiritual leaven that,
descending from the sublime heights of Divine Love,
tenderness and compassion, that in God's all good
time will become the whole race of mankind.
"Master, who did sin this man or his parents that
he was thus born blind?" "Neither hath this man
sinned nor his parents: But that the works of God
should be made manifest in him." What! is God
the author of evil? Yea, verily it is just as the be
loved Jesus taught his disciples in regard to this un
fortunate blind man. "I form the light and create
darkness. I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord,
do all these things."
Yes, and not until we have mastered the infinite
problem of how the eternal God is, as stated by Jesus
and Isaiah, the author of all things, can we begin
to comprehend the vastness of His plans for the Cre
ation and Salvation of mankind.
If now we have the candor and the freedom of soul
to admit the mighty truth of the statement thus laid
down and established by the great Teacher, we may
begin to see that crime itself is less a fault than a mis
fortune. Indeed, the greater the crime the greater the
misfortune. Did not the wise Socrates say: "Vice is ignorance"
(concrete) and "Virtue is knowledge" — yea, organic
knowledge? We must lift up the sinner, first into the
light of our intelligence and afterward into the light
of our love, sympathy and compassion. And if it be a
real misfortune to be born blind physically, how much
greater a misfortune must it be to be born morally
and spiritually blind!
We necessarily regard such a being as a Durant or
a Holmes as a moral monster, and so he is. But the
causes that created them were put into them before
they were born. They themselves were greater victims
than were their victims. Their crimes were but an
expression in time and world of forces most of which
were put into them before they were born. The latter
47

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
were innocent people, who, upon entrance into spirit
life, went and joined their friends in that life, and
there was the end to their misfortunes. The former
on entering into the other life, went into a state of
terrible darkness, sorrow and remorse from which
it may require ages to fully recover.
The treatment by society of these waifs of the two
worlds is in general of the very worst. Instead of being
calculated to "plant eyes" in the moral and spiritual
nature of man, it does the other thing. It maddens
and blinds them to the light, beauty, grandeur and
glories of the moral and the spiritual universes of
the living God and Father of all mankind. Society
lights upon a man with very weak and imperfect sight.
It shuts him up in one of those abodes of moral and
spiritual darkness called prisons, where they contrive
to put out what little sight was in him.
We must preach and practice, too, this higher,
newer, nobler "Everlasting Gospel" that the Angel
which John saw "flying in the midst of Heaven" was
commissioned to preach unto all that dwell on the
earth, and to every nation and kindred and tongue and
people." This expression, "Flying in the midst of the
Heavens," does not refer to spatial conditions, but to
the religious and philosophical conditions and estates.
Christianity, when it has once passed beyond its pres
ent symbolical conditions and has been expanded into
its philosophical and scientific phases, will become a
universal religion and philosophy in one, and the war
fare that has existed through the ages between science
and religion will forever end. And the New Christ
ianity will become the Central Religion of Humanity,
and identical with civilization itself.
Yes, how sublimely grand and glorious will be that
religion when it hath cast off the child clothing im
posed upon it by the infant spiritual understanding of
the early ages, has put on the dress of manhood, and
no longer worships the spectres of a dead and dying
theology, and "worships Him that made the Heavens
and the earth and the sea and the fountains of waters."
48

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
It is the "New (spiritual) Heavens and the New
Earth" that John saw in his vision, "wherein dwelleth
righteousness."

IN THE BEGINNING.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth."
If we are to assume that this statement in Genesis
is a veritable inspiration from the sages of spirit life —
and we see no good reason to doubt it, despite all the
animadversions of infant and very fallible human
science — we are by no means obliged to take this word
"beginning" in any absolute sense; but, on the con
trary, in a very limited and finite one. Worlds, like
men and all other created beings, have a "beginning" —
are born into existence, run through all the various
stages of their various life forms, grow old and die.
But the infinite and the absolute eternal have not
either beginning or ending, save in the forms of life
through which all its children, born of time, are
obliged to pass.
We must ever bear in mind, too, that all inspired
communications from the high spheres from which
all true inspiration comes is very highly symbolical,
and it is very necessary for him who would rightly
interpret symbols to get back behind and to find the
real and the true and the full meaning of the symbols
God purposes to more fully reveal to mankind.
For what, let us here ask the question, is a symbol ?
It is one of the sides (only) of a many-sided truth —
too many sided for the infant spiritual man to compre
hend in its entireness, and so the sages of the higher
worlds place it before him in "installments" of the
[Divine Word, that he can better comprehend, and
4T

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
keep him drilling away at so much of the whole mean
ing as he can fully grasp, and keeps him at it until
he hungers for something more and better. The two
knights in the fable who passed by the shield set in
the middle of the road, but went by it on opposite
sides of it, and came near splitting each other's skulls
over the question, what sort of a shield it was, whether
a golden or a silver one, supply us with a very good
illustration of the way men of half truths are often
obliged to wrangle over complex and many-sided prin
ciples — "and worry and devour each other" over their
true meaning, where each of the parties involved are
looking at them from different standpoints all the
while. "Most men are but halves and quarters of men,
and, misunderstanding, accuse each other," said a wise
Frenchman. The picture of a human being is but an example of
one of these symbols of poly-sided truths, one of which
is given in the picture, while the others are invisible
from the present viewpoint of the beholders. All
other sides of the question, What is man, whether
exterior or interior sides of it, are invisible to the
eye from the present position, and will forever remain
so until the beholder shall have shifted his standpoint
on to higher planes of being.
"So all grow old and die."
It is the voice of Nature — the ultimate destiny of
all created beings, whether material or spiritual. For,
as already shown, creation is only another name for
organization — the putting into organic forms of use
the great, raw, inorganic forces of the universe; and
when they have fully subserved that use — have ex
hausted these life forms of their utility — they die.
Otherwise they would be in the way of new forms
destined to take their place when fully matured.
The sun, that traverses "space" with manifold times
the velocity of the swiftest cannon ball, to procure
the raw materials upon which he subsists, and warms
and lights the giant worlds that are anchored to him,
not only accomplishes this vast and important function
in this way, but by the same procedure he frees him-
50

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
self from the ashes of his fires (electro-magnetic),
which would otherwise extinguish them, and in this
manner would soon destroy all life not only upon our
own little world, but upon all the other worlds that
are warmed, illuminated and sustained by the solar
orb in his long and mighty journey through the depths
of space.
For the great and glorious sun does not, as science
has wrongly declared, feed his dependent worlds with
foods and forces derived from a self consumption of
his own materials, as mariners are sometimes forced
to consume portions of the ship that is to bear them
home for lack of other fuel to keep them warm. It
is a function and not a consumption of his own ma
terials that supplies him with the vital forces and foods
that sustain his eternal fires, both for himself and all
his worlds, and these foods and forces are not wasted
?nd exhausted in a vain effort to heat up all surround
ing space, as science would have it. But, being of a
magnetic and electric character, are drawn out by an
electric attraction simply to the worlds themselves, and
only in sufficient amounts to chemicalize and convert
them into caloric heat and light within the atmos
pheres of the various worlds that are dependent upon
him for their daily foods, but wastes none of his forces
to illuminate and warm up the vast cold regions of
space that those worlds occupy. He gathers up the
raw materials of his foods both from surrounding
space and from the infinite life forces that eternally
flow into him from Deity Himself. According to the
statements of those who have made the ascent of high
mountains, it gets colder and darker as one ascends.
The farther one gets above the earth and toward the
sun, the thinner become the atmospheric forces that
chemicalize the solar rays and convert them into heat
and light, so that when the traveller has attained a
great height he sees the sun as quite a dull orb that has
to a great extent put aside the intense and painful
character of his rays, so that even at midday of the
brightest days it becomes colder and darker, much
like the twilight. 5i

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
Another of the serious errors of science, as it seems
to us, lies in the supposition that the planets situated
most remote from the sun must of necessity enjoy but
a small amount of light and heat from him.
But if we consider the fact that the amount of heat
and light enjoyed by the people of these distant worlds
does not come to these worlds in the form of absolute
heat and light, but, as we have seen, in the forms of
electro-magnetism, and that these rays of the solar
orb are attracted to the various worlds in kind and
quantity, and in proportion to the conditions of the
atmospheres of those worlds, why then it becomes
plain to see that an infinite and all wise Creator, who
himself dwelleth in and is "light ineffable," will have
no difficulty whatever in constituting these atmospheres
chemically to make compensation for the distances of
Ihe various planetary bodies, both new and remote
from the sua, by graduating the light-producing ele
ments in each atmosphere, not only in harmony with
the distances, but also with the sizes of the orbs that,
with the sun, constitute our solar system. Otherwise
it would be quite impossible for the Creator to get up
a well-ordered and well-arranged system in which
some of its inhabitants should not suffer from excess
of heat and light while others would experience great
inconvenience from the opposite conditions of cold
and darkness.
It is a great mercy to mankind that the worlds were
created by an infinite and all-wise God and not by the
materialist with his chance-world and pull-haul of mud.
"I do not see any God in your system of creation,"
said Napoleon to Laplace, who had presented him with
a statement of his views upon the "Nebular Theory
of Worlds." "Sire, it does not require any God,"
replied Laplace.
And yet it is said of the great astronomer that he
never uttered the name of the Supreme Being without
removing his hat !
Said a warm devotee of the "Nebular Theory" of
the origin of worlds, "Given matter and gravity, and
all the rest is easy," referring to this half law, half
chance theory of creating worlds.
52

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
Just as if gravity could so proteise itself by acting
at one time in its usual way of seeking the center of the
cooling, contracting body ; and again, "presto, change !"
switching off, side tracking a ring of matter from the
mass of the cooling body, and arresting its movement
centerward and allowing the balance of the mass to
continue on, fixes it stationary as to the retreating
mass, rolls up the ring into a sphere and repeats
these self-transformations at certain way stations along
the path of the cooling, retreating mass in accordance
with a law indicated by the astronomer Bode!
Could distress itself go farther in its extremity to
find a substitute for the directive intelligence, wisdom
and power of an eternal God?
The account given in Genesis of the creation of the
world is a beautiful myth, and a very general state
ment of the order of procedure employed by the cre
ative wisdoms (let us make man) in the evolution of
our dear old Mother Earth — and very likely similar to
the methods pursued in the creation of all other
worlds. Materialism, fresh from the labors of concocting new
and strange laws for getting rid of an intelligent, all-
wise Creator, by ostracizing Him from His own glori
ous works, ridicule the idea of creating a great world
like this in six days! But the fault lies in a great
measure at their own doors. Not being able to pene
trate beneath the literal and symbolical sense of word,
they take the symbol for the entire fact and laugh
at their own mistakes.
The geologists of spirit life inform me that the "day"
spoken of in Genesis is not our diurnal one of twenty-
four hours, but an astro-geological one of 750,000 of
our years ! So that the time included in the "six days"
amounts to four and a half millions of years, which
is quite a long period, even in geological time.
But if we consider the fact that this creative period
spoken of in Genesis does not begin until a time that
is after the work of constructing the planet has pretty
well advanced, the part remaining to be done being
chiefly the evolution^of vegetable and animal life on
53

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
down to the time when man made his appearance
upon the world, we shall discover that this 4,500,000
of years is but a part, and possibly a small part,
assigned by the creative wisdoms in the creation of the
world and in the development of its flora and fauna.
This will become more apparent if we reflect that
the manifold and varied forms of plant and animal
life that inhabit the globe are not the result of infinite
ages of infinitesimal increments of change; but are
due to transformations that take place within the brief
cycles of months and even days, as we see them con
stantly taking place in the plant and animal life about
us in the less permanent species or varieties of animal
and vegetable life of the world.
No more conscientious and painstaking scientist has
ever wrought in his field of labor than Mr. Darwin,
to whom the world is vastly indebted for the work
he accomplished in removing the shackles from the
limbs of science, and made it safe for the honest in
vestigator to freely pursue the paths of science without
fear of auto da fe!
But Mr. Darwin, after a long life spent in experi
menting, could never produce a single permanent
species. But what are varieties other than variable
species, some of which in truth are very difficult to
make vary? And it may possibly be true that had
Mr. Darwin been permitted to carry on his investiga
tions much longer he might have found one. But his
inability to discover any may be due to some law
of parsimony in nature, due to the fact that such
changeless forms of plant and animal life were created
in the early ages of the world before its soils had
become receptive of those stimuli that impart higher
and more prolific powers of generation to the indi
vidual. But however that may be, we deem reincar
nation to be the ample, absolute and perfect law that
underlies the entire subject of the variations and other
changes that take place in vegetal, animal and
human life, and the principle involved in which ex
tends also to the higher and more perfect metamor
phoses that exist upon the higher planes of spiritual
54

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
and celestial life. For the Supreme Being. is one and
the law under which He reveals Himself is also one,
but one that manifests itself under infinite variations —
one of the illogical theories that have come down
to us from the infancy of the race.
Indeed, if this theory be true, why, then, this vast
universe of the living, infinite God that hath hitherto
been regarded as also infinite, both in numbers and in
extent is in reality growing in both these respects at
an amazing rate, i. e., in population and in extent,
for the one necessarily implies the other. In other
words, if this infinity of worlds that we behold in every
part of the sidereal heavens are employed in the same
or similar office as our own ; if they are nurseries and
kindergartens for the creation of new men and new
women — and from all that we can learn of them this
appears to be the office which they are destined by their
Creator to fulfill — why, then the human mind is unable
to escape from a conviction either that the spiritual
worlds whither all these vast Amazons and Mississippis
of population that come from these unnumbered worlds
go to discharge their infinite multitudes of "waters" —
these spiritual worlds also must, like the vast new
populations they are destined to provide room for, be
growing and extending in a marvellous rate ! Or that
the life of each of these new beings is of comparatively
limited duration, and finds somewhere, some when and
somehow another end to this cycle of our existence,
where it can pass out of it and thus relieve the wonder
ful plethora created by the vast crowd of new beings
that are forever pressing upward, on to the higher
planes of existence from the worlds below ! V/e in
truth can see no logical way to escape from such illogi
cal and untenable theories concerning the purposes and
uses that man is evidently designed by the Creator to
fulfill in the functions and forces of universal life.
The words, "In the beginning," refer not to the com
mencement of absolute or infinite time, as has already
been shown, for no such absolute "beginning" has ever
taken place nor could take place. For if the universe
or God ever had to begin in order to exist at all, what
55

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
was there anywhere at that time, if we may be allowed
the expression, out of which to create a God, and who
was there to do the work?
The greatest and most terrible mystery of all life
is how it ever came to exist at all; how there came
to be any God, any universe whatever. In the pres
ence of so insoluble and unsearchable a mystery the
loftiest spirit of man forever folds its wings and bows
its head! We can only rationally conclude from a
careful study of His manifold and marvellous works
that He is all wise, infinite, eternal, omnipotent and
unchangeable as to general laws by which He admin
isters the worlds, but that this fixed and stable con
dition of the forces that go to make up His Being do
not interfere with any reasonable understanding of
His freedom of action in the affairs of creation, since
it is in the light of such freedom of work that He
reveals Himself to all His children, the Father to the
Son, the whole unto the part, since the Father could
in no way fully disclose Himself to His child without
stamping upon his tender, infantile nature the prin
cipal forms and characters of His own immutable and
eternal being.
One of the seemingly insuperable obstacles in the
way of believing and accepting the views of those
who entertain the notion that every human being that
is incarnated in this terrestrial life of ours is a
veritable "novus homo" or new man, that has never
had an existence in past ages, but is destined to live on
eternally in the future. For if this view of things be
the right one, and if all other worlds are performing
a like office, viz., are engaged in the work of creating
new beings, new men and women, who are destined to
live and move on in an unending cycle that hath one
end, viz., an absolute beginning, but will never be able
to find another or terminus.

56

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

DO THE SCRIPTURES TEACH
REINCARNATION?
"I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright
and morning star." — Rev. xxii., 16.
In treating this doctrine of the Reincarnations of
Man, it will be our purpose to pass by many of those
passages in the Bible which are held by some to teach
this doctrine, and which, if they are really designed
to do so, refer to it in quite a vague and uncertain
way and thus partially destroy the force of other pas
sages in it whose meaning is so plain and obvious
that their true intent and meaning can hardly be mis
taken. And probably no better text can be found
to begin with than the one that relates to the man who
was born blind and was cured by Jesus, and concern
ing whom His disciples came to Him afterward and
inquired: "Who did sin, this man or his parents that
he was (thus) born blind?" Jesus replies to the ques
tion that was put to him by His disciples by placing the
responsibility where it justly belongs, viz., by the Cre
ator Himself, who made him.
There is yet another question that comes up in con
nection with this inquiry of the disciples, and just now
is one that we moderns at least feel a deeper interest
in than in the other, and that one is the implied
question of pre-existence and reincarnation that is in
directly involved in it, viz., whether this loss of sight
in the blind man was the result of some crime or other
sin that the person had been guilty of in some prior
existence. But the inquiry put by the disciples is one that could
have been advanced by one who fully believed not only
in the Oriental doctrine of pre-existence, but also in
its companion doctrine of the reincarnations of man.
It not only implied a belief in these all important
views concerning the life of man on the part of the
57

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
disciples, but more than all this it implied such a belief
on the part of Jesus himself, and also a further belief
on their' part that Jesus so believed and that they
had been made aware of the fact from the character of
His previous teachings.
No one not a believer in these doctrines could have
asked such a question, and no one who was so great
and distinguished a teacher of mankind as was Jesus
could have failed to correct the views of His disciples
upon so vital a point, involving as it did the entire
spiritual interests of the human race. To have omitted
so important an occasion to correct the opinions of
His disciples would have been a serious mistake, if not
worse, against the very highest spiritual interests of
mankind, His disciples included, whose teacher plenipo
tentiary He professed Himself to be.*
This entire silence on the part of Jesus regarding
so great and vital a doctrine in religion and philosophy
can leave very little doubt in the minds of all candid
men that He fully agreed with His disciples in these
views, which were held not only by all intelligent Jews,
Greeks and Romans who were the contemporaries of
Jesus, but was, moreover, the leading belief among all
the civilized nations of His times, and still continues
to be such down to the present time.
If it be so great a heresy as the church of to-day
would have us believe, how would it have been pos
sible for Jesus to have failed to seize the important
occasion thus offered Him to set not only His disciples,
but the whole Christian world, right in these so radical
and vitally important doctrines?
A single brief sentence from Him at the time would
have settled the question for all Christendom and for
all time.

* "I _ am come a light into the world that they that see
not might see and they that see might be made blind." Such
is the tenor of all His claims concerning Himself, and to have
omitted the opportunity to set His disciples right upon so
vital a question, and the world through them, was something
more than a mistake. It would have been a betrayal of
civilization itself! . 58

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
But the doctrines of pre-existence and reincarnation
are held forth in the Scriptures not alone by indirect
testimony of even the strongest kind. Neither does it
lean upon a single text for its support, but upon many,
and in the plainest words that human language can
give utterance to.
In Jeremiah, chap, i., 5, we find this passage: "Be
fore I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before
thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and
ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."
Surely, those are words plain enough so that he who
"runs may read." Referring to John the Baptist as rep
resenting the prophet Elijah as Elias by incarnation, as
the Jews had long expected to come in that way, Jesus
said, Math, xi., 14-15: "If ye are willing to receive it,
this (John the Baptist) is Elias which was for to
come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."
Again in Math, xvii., 12: "But I say unto you that
Elias has come already, and they knew him not, but
have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise
shall also the Son of Man suffer of them."*
Then the disciples knew that he spake to them of
John the Baptist. Again in John, 1st chapter, verses
6-10: "There was a man sent from God, whose name
was John. The same came for a witness to bear wit
ness of the Light that all men through him might
believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear
witness of that Light. That was the true light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the world."
In John x., 36, and elsewhere, Jesus applies similar
language to himself : "Say ye of him whom the Father
hath sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphem-
est because I said I am a son of God ?"
(This passage in John has always been wrongly
translated. Not the Son of God, but a son is the prop
er translation ; but a son — one of the Sons of God — is

* This Elias, or "John the Baptist," appears also with Moses
after his assassination by Herod, and converses with Jesus
at the transfiguration, so that at the time of the transfigura
tion of Jesus, Elias could have been but a little time in spirit
life after his murder by Herod. 59

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
the true rendering of this text.) The translators have
always strained this passage, as they have some others,
to make it appear that he laid claim to being the Infinite
God himself, instead of being "made like unto His
brethren," one of the Sons of the God, as the Scriptures
declare. Did he not teach all to pray: "Our Father who art
in the heavens" ? As much "our Father" as he claimed
Himself to be. And the view should not lower Him in
any view or degree whatsoever, but it does elevate man
and doth show forth the glory and grandeur of the
destiny that awaits him in the future. "For he took
not on him the nature (even) of angels: but he took
on him the seed of Abraham."
Yes, pre-existence and reincarnation, its companion
doctrine, form the keynote of John's gospel, and if we
take them in connection with the metaphysiology of the
Divine Man which runs all through its wonderful pages,
but more especially to be found in that last address and
prayer of the Master, to be found in the vi., x., xiv., xv.,
xvi. and xvii. chapters of John, it makes his gospel
the most interesting and authoritative exposition in
symbolic language of the metaphysiology of the divine,
spiritual God-man to be found in the whole world.
As containing the true metaphysiology of the Divine
Man there is nothing to be found elsewhere in all the
writings of the sages of the past that can be com
pared with it — not even in the works of the great
Greek philosopher, Plato-Socrates. But some one will
say this doctrine of pre-existence, so far as the Scrip
tures are concerned, applies to one, and only one — to
Christ Himself, the very God. On the contrary, as
we have already seen, not only is the prophet John
spoken of in this relation as one who, like Christ, was
"sent from God," but so, likewise, is the prophet
Jeremiah. We refer the reader to Jer. i., 5: "Before
I formed thee in the belly I knew thee: and before
thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee
and ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."
That Jesus never intended to assume any super-
6b

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS-
human character or powers is all too plain from the
entire spirit of His teachings.
When Jesus, after His resurrection, meets Mary at
the sepulchre, he saith to her: "Touch me not. But
go to my brethren and say to them, ascend to my
Father and your Father and to my God and your
God." And it is equally plain that His disciples re
garded Him in the same light, as a man "sent from
God" — a minister and teacher plenipotentiary sent from
the great Fatherhood of the vast, infinite societies of
the spiritual world and bearing with him and from
them the elements of a new dispensation, whose evo
lution involved the spiritual welfare of the whole
human race. "Wherefore in all things it behoved
him to be made like unto his brethren," saith the
Apostle Paul.
The assumption that Jesus is the Supreme Being
in its totality — He who inhabits the whole material
universe of God — is not only contrary to all reason
and sound sense, but is wholly unthinkable. But, as
Mr. Webster once said: "There are those who can
reason against the sun!"
"Before Abraham was I am" ! No grander expres
sion ever fell from the lips of man. But what Jesus
intended to say by this beautiful expression was that
He was a more advanced spirit in the organic societies
of the spiritual heavens — ranked higher in the knowl
edge of spiritual things than Abraham.
So also John, who ranked himself below Jesus in
the spiritual heavens, as well as in the world. "This
is He of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is
preferred before me, for he was (in spirit life)
before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to
unloose." Jesus was one of the ancient Fatherhood, and had
more extended experience in universal life; had
passed through a greater number of incarna
tions in the present order of the world's material
and spiritual estates. Hence he was the one
chosen as a more advanced member of the
Fatherhood, and the one best prepared to lead the
61

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
very important movement originating in the spiritual
heavens and with the Vatera, or Fathers of the race,
to establish a more perfect religion and the primal
truths of a higher philosophy and a more scientific
spiritual system than any of the great Avaters that
had preceded him.
Among the passages in John to which we desire to
call the attention of the reader are several that refer
to the physiology of the divine spiritual man. For
in truth and verity "there is a natural (material)
body and there is a spiritual body," as saith Paul.
And as there is a physiology of the natural body, or
soma, so in like manner is there also a metaphysiology
of the metaphysical body, or psyche, or spiritual body.
The first to which we refer the reader is in John
vi., 5I_S3: "I am the living bread which came down
from Heaven: if any man eat of this bread he shall
live forever, and the bread that I shall give him is
my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
The Jews said among themselves : "How can this
man give us his flesh to eat?" Jesus in reply said to
them: "Verily, verily I say unto you, except ye eat
the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood,
ye have no life in you."
We come now to a very remarkable passage that is
found in Rev. xxii., 16, and is the very last word
He has ever been known to give utterance to since
His return to spirit life at the time of His resurrec
tion: "I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify these
things in the churches : I am the root and the offspring
of David and the bright and morning star."
Jesus here, in the fuller light and more perfect
revealment in spirit life as to his rank and office in
the great forces of civilization, undertakes to define
Himself more perfectly, and to put aside the errors,
many of them, into which so great a number of his
followers have since fallen, both in apostolic and more
modern times.
When Jesus refers to Himself as being the offspring
of David, the whole world knows what He means,
both church people and unbelievers. Though twenty-
62

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
eight generations of men had come in after the time
of that Jewish king, and before Jesus' time, He was
still reckoned as the "offspring" of David, and was
such in the true spiritual sense in which it was in
tended to apply. If now we will only allow the same
rules of exegesis to apply to His other declaration,
that He was also the "root" of David, we shall not
only see that He intends, by so saying, to assert that
He had also incarnated at one time, and that, too, in
past time, in the same family of that Jewish monarch,
and hence constituted himself as the "root" of David.
For the word root as applied to human beings, signi
fies "ancestor," or "progenitor," as defined by Web
ster, and these two meanings are the only ones he
gives. In this manner the beloved Christ refers to two of
His own terrestriations, or incarnations, in material
life forms, not intending, however, that it should re
main as anything else than as one of the arcana of the
Word, until mankind at large shall have arrived at a
darger and more perfect spiritual understanding, when
not only this, but many other occult forms of the Di
vine Word, will be made clear to the perceptions of
mankind. The church authorities of the spiritual world are in
some respects holding back the various churches of
the world in the perception and understanding of spir
itual things, and are holding them in the liberal and
symbolical sense, and for the benefit of the lower races
and classes of'mankind.
It is not intended by the spiritual leaders of the
church in spirit life that mankind shall fully and prac
tically embrace this and many other doctrines of the
Word until they have advanced to a deeper' and more
spiritual perception of the Divine Word, not only as
it exists in our own scriptures, but as it has also been
given in all other religions and Bibles in all the world
and in all ages. Jesus recognizes this important truth
when He says: "Other men have labored and ye—
His disciples— have entered into their labors."
Until mankind at large has in this manner become
63

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
more spiritually advanced concerning the great laws of
metaphysiology, it would be somewhat of an injury to
them to be brought too closely in contact with some
of the religions of the world. Hence the spiritual
restraint in which the churches of to-day are still
held. For in all truth and reason the infant spiritual man
cannot properly comprehend, and spiritually digest, the
spiritual foods of the more adult spiritual man, but
must be fed for long ages on the milk of the spiritual
foods, and cannot take much or many forms of the
spiritual meats and breads that are "spiritually dis
cerned" and eaten by the older and more advanced
spiritual men and women.
Such must subsist upon the milk of the Word, and
other simpler forms of spiritual foods. It is for such
reasons that the spiritual heads of the church in the
spiritual heavens have retained the church militant in
the world for so long a period of time, living upon
the diluted forms of spiritual nutrition, such as are
found in the symbolic and other literal forms of the
mere husks of the Word.
The interpretation of the sense in which Jesus in
tended the word root should be received by the
churches in all due time is confirmed in a manner in
Rev. xix., 12. Speaking of the man Jesus, John says :
"His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were
many crowns. And he had a name written that no
man knew but he himself."
This passage in Revelation, were it taken literally,
would involve the greatest absurdity. But when it is
properly understood spiritually, contains a beautiful
arcanum. The "many crowns" spoken of in this re
markable passage refer to the many crowned exis
tences, or re-incarnations, which He had experienced
in the past.
That this is what it is intended to represent we shall
refer the reader to Rev. ii., 10 :
"Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer :
behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison
that ye may be tried: and ye shall have tribulation
64

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
ten days; but be thou faithful unto death and I will
give thee a crown of life !"
Again in Rev. iii., n : "Behold I come quickly: hold
fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy
crown." The victors in the gladiatorial sports of the ancient
Romans were crowned with laurels, and those who
triumphed in the Olympian games of the Greeks in
like manner were similarly crowned. So in the spir
itual world a similar award is given to the man who,
at the end of a well-spent life, has triumphed over all
his foes. He is entitled to and receives a crown at
the end of each of his terrestrial reincarnations.
But these views concerning the pre-existences and
the reincarnations of the Divine Man are quite as strik
ingly referred to in Micah v., 2, which reads as fol
lows: "And thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee
shall he come forth unto me, he that is to be a ruler
in Israel: whose 'goings forth' have been from of
old — from everlasting." How grandly, gloriously
beautiful the expressions !
These expressions, "come forth," "goings forth,"
have a distinct and peculiar sense, and refer to the
cycles of re-births and re-embodiments that Jesus, like
all other very advanced men, had experienced in his
past eternities of being. In John xvi., 28, Jesus uses
the same expression : "I 'came forth' from the Father
hood (or Vatera) and am come into the world. Again
I leave the world and go to the Fatherhood."
Man in his terrestrial estates is but a spiritual in
fant, a veritable "Son of God," and as such belongs
to the spiritual childhood of the race.
In his nearest approach to the animal world, he is
very little if anything more than the spiritual larva
of a man. As he advances, however, into the higher
and more advanced degrees of man by repeated in
carnations in terrestrial states, he at length becomes
sufficiently progressed to enter the lower degrees of
the vast divine Fatherhood of the race which filleth
the entire spiritual heavens with theirf light and glory,
6S

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
as spiritual Suns that create, warm and illuminate the
spiritual and terrestrial worlds and universes of the
infinite life of God. That we are not mistaken in at
tributing so vast and wonderful power to angelic men,
let the reader refer to Dan. iv., 17, and also to the en
tire Apocalypse, where John is shown the marvellous
power possessed by these angelic men.
Again, if we follow out this idea of the Godhood
and if its infinities of societies and of angelic men, we
can do no better than to refer the reader to the 82d
Psalm, 6th verse: "I (Jehovah) have said, Ye are
God's and all of you are children of the Most High."
Jesus himself indorses this view to the fullest extent
when on a certain occasion, the Jewish mob were about
to stone him for what to them appeared to be the
sheerest blasphemy. Jesus replies to their charges of
blasphemy by quoting from this Psalm of David's,
and giving to it His full, sanction, and emphasizing it
by appealing to their sense of the sanctity of the
Scriptures in which it was written: "Is it not written
in your law, I said ye are God's."- Now if He called
them Gods to whom the Word of God came, viz., the
common people. Say ye of Him whom the Father
hath sanctified and sent into the world, thou blas-
phemest because I said I am a Son of God — not the
Son of God, which is a false translation.
Yes, in this mistranslation of the words, "Son of
God," which has no article, definite or indefinite, but
which was prefaced by the definite article the is to be
found one of the principal errors in the translation
that go to make Christ to appear to be the Son of God
in a special and separate sense from the rest of man
kind. It adds vastly to the greatness, grandeur and
glory of the man Jesus, if we accept Him, as did His
disciples, as an "elder brother," and hence as one
that had passed through many and great experiences
in the realms of being, and had come down into our
little world to instruct its people in their low, ig
norant and savage conditions.

66

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

WHERE AND WHAT IS HEAVEN?
"Heaven lies all about us in our infancy," says the
poet Wordsworth, referring to it in the spiritual sense
of the word. It is also quite as true in the literal and
scientific sense. The spiritual heavens of our planet
surround the earth in a series (seven in number) of
concentric spheres or zones that extend sixty degrees
north and south from the equator toward either pole.
These zones or belts are placed at different distances
from each other and from the earth, varying from fifty
miles near the earth to many hundreds of miles each,
for the higher spheres, as I have been informed by my
celestial teachers.
These spheres or zones, as they are termed in spirit
life, are very much like our own earth for the first and
second spheres.
They are not only provided with mountain systems
very much like those of our own world, but also with
streams of water, hills, valleys, lakes and seas.
These lower spheres — the first and second — have
not in past times been subject to much improvement,
having been abandoned by the higher classes and given
up to the lower and very lowest elements of humanity,
as they have been upon the earth plane itself; and it
is this abandonment of the lower spheres to the lower
castes and classes, thus practically converting them
into the dens, prisons and the slums of spirit life, that
has given these dire abodes of spirit life their terrible
reputation during the long past ages, down to quite
recent times. But within the last three-fourths of a
century a new order of things has/ been growing up
amid those dread abodes of spirit men — originated and
put in operation by the wise and the good of spirit
life, who are now earnest and active in the work of
cleaning up and putting in order all parts of the spirit
ual lower worlds and making them fit abodes for hu
man kind. Schools, colleges, lyceums, societies of
various kinds have been established for the instruction
67

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
of all classes. The Salvation Army, which is one of
the very greatest of the educative and uplifting forces
of the life of man, originated in the spirit world, and
is among the greatest, if not the very greatest, of the
healing and holy influences that are leading the people
of the spirit world to a newer and a nobler life.
General Booth, the man who inaugurated the "Sal
vation Army" in our world, received, and still receives,
his inspirations from the good, the great and the wise
philanthropists of that world, and is wisely pursuing
the same means and methods employed by them in the
work of elevating the ignorant and the fallen ones of
earth. Thousands upon thousands of the intelligent, wise
and good of spirit life are engaged in this divine and
holy work. They descend from even the very highest
spheres of spiritual life by myriads to assist in these
sublime and glorious labors. Among them are great
numbers of the former kings, emperors and other
worldly potentates who in this life oppressed and im
poverished their peoples, but are now engaged in the
far nobler and better work of aiding them in getting
rid of their ignorances and their poverties and to
become men and angels in the divine uses they are
destined to fulfil. In this glorious work of elevating
the people in the lower spheres the beloved "Master,"
who is the President of the Philanthropical Society of
the Spiritual World, bears an active as well as an
exalted function. Some time after his arrival in spirit
life he went and "preached to the spirits in prison,"
as has been related of him by the Apostle Peter.
But too dense and dark a cloud of ignorance hung
over the lower spheres of the life of man, and the work
of evangelizing those spheres was abandoned for the
time,, and was not resumed until a little more than
a half century ago — fifty-five years — when the spirit
ual heavens were again opened to all who were able
and willing to receive the new revealments from the
spiritual world which, for the sake of the protection
of the Divine Word and the infant spiritual man
against the misconceptions and ignorances of both
68

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
worlds, and especially of those coming from the spirit
ual world, the spiritual heavens had of necessity been
closed up until such times as the understandings of
men and the progress of the sciences should render it
safe to reopen them again, especially to such as are of
honest, earnest and candid minds.
At that time Jesus answered and said: "I thank
thee, Oh Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,
and hast revealed them unto babes."
The doors of the spiritual world were opened dur
ing the time of the Master, and for a brief period af
terward, during apostolic times, for the purpose of
working those miracles which were wrought to aid
in the establishment of Christianity upon a sure
foundation, and were shortly afterward closed again
until advancing science, and man himself, should have
made a degree of progress that would render such
vigilant guarding of the "gates of day" unnecessary
for all advanced, intelligent minds, while prejudice
and self-interest would take care of the rest.
For in deed and truth do "all things work together
for good to them that serve God." Yea, all things.
"From seeming evil, still educing good," in the words
of beloved Milton>
I have been informed by my spirit guides that the
"zodiacal light" which surrounds our sun and ex
tends outward hundreds of millions of miles, accord
ing to some astronomers, is the true basis of our more
permanent spiritual heavens. The spiritual heavens
of our own little planet earth, with its seven concen
tric spheres, extends only about 1,500 miles outward
into surrounding space. On the other hand, the solar
spiritual-celestial heavens of our sun, when fully com
pleted, will occupy many billions of miles in extent in
its several axes — major, minor and transverse.
It is a spheroid, both prolate and oblate in form,
that surrounds our sun on all sides of him, extending
to vast distances beyond him, and, like the material
earth's also, is one of the manifold attendant worlds
69

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
that surrounds our sun on all sides of him, extending
through the infinite fields of space.
For our system of worlds, both the major and
minor planets and their dependent baby worldlets,
together with the sun himself, from a universe that
is still very young; many of its parts are yet very in
complete; and the spiritual universes also share with
the more material orbs themselves in their youth and
their incompleteness.
But I hear some objector say : "Why is it that, if the
spirit worlds, as you say, lie all around about us on
every side, that we cannot see them ?" In reply we will
say that it is owing to the fact that flesh and spirit —
matter and spirit, which amounts to the same things —
are spiritual incompatibles, so that the one can not
see or "discern" the other — neither the flesh the spirit
nor the spirit the flesh, save in a very limited degree
and way.
For there are spiritual incompatibles r.nd chemical
incompatibles, and the inability of the flesh to see or
"discern" spiritual things, and the inability of the
spirit to see and fully comprehend material things, has
always been a very great mystery and a stumbling
block to the greatest minds in all ages of the world
as Paul, one of the greatest of theologians, has given
ample testimony in his epistle to the Romans in chap
ters vii. and viii.
It is true they have a limited ability to cognize each
the other, but a quite limited one indeed, especially
so, in truth, in regard to the ability or more strictly
speaking, the inability of matter to discern the things
of the spirit.
Has not the materialistic philosopher been blindly
and busily at work delving in the mud of earth and
skies, looking for the source of all spiritual things
without the ability to find them? As a chemist at an
early day he informed the world that the oils of pep
per and of turpentine were the same things, although
poor, unscientific mortals were unable to see it, or
rather to feel it in that light.
Poor pseudo science also made the same mistake
70

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
concerning the identity of the white diamonds with
which the fair lady adorns her person, and the black
diamonds with which she warms herself at the parlor
stove. "They are the same !" says chemistry. Pseudo
science endeavors to explain by saying that this mar
vellous difference in the physical properties of the
twain substances is due to the fact that the minute
globules of carbon, etc., are differently arranged in
the two substances, and hence the wonderful differ
ence in results. But the philosophic mind whose eye
sight has not been blurred by too much and long delv
ing in nebular and other forms of matter to find the
rootlets of the tree of knowledge will naturally in
quire: "But how came it about that these hypothetical
globules of matter have been so differently placed and
arranged in the one substance than in the other, and
what was the placing force that could arrange them so
differently as to create such marvellous differences in
the results?*
We look in vain in all the scientific works for an
explanation of this wonderful phenomenon in the oc
cult relations of mind and matter, a fact easy enough
to "discern," if we can only lay aside our preconceived
notions and examine the subject in the light of pure
reason !
This mysterious force that handles the delicate
globules of carbon so deftly, and with so wonderful
and scientific exactness — what is it in truth, if not the
soul itself that science hath been looking for these
past thousands of years, and looking in vain, for the
very true yet simple reason that it is not physically
"discerned," but spiritually. For all things that are
* Wherever there is a depd — something done — there of ne
cessity is a doer. Wherever there is an effect there is also
a cause that produced it. Just as sure as night follows day, or
the body which released from the hand falls to the earth.
. And what are these occult forces that thus differentiate the
two bodies of carbon in this wonderful way: what are they
but two very different spirit souls that in some mysterious
way have been for a time lodged in bodies of carbon, and
in doing so were compelled to temper and conform them to
their dwn forms and modes of living or modus vivendi.

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
hath both a soul and a body and the twain both see and
understand, and yet eternally misunderstand, each
other, since one of them, being but a product of the
other, fits it so exactly as its material counterpart that
unless the cognizant mind can discern the distinguish
ing marks that diagnose the twain, he will confound
this mechanical coincidence of the twain as absolute
proof of an exact coincidence of being. Hence a
denial of the existence of soul. And hence this denial
of the existence of a spiritual organic interior force,
that, under the guidance of the higher creative ener
gies of life universal, organizes and upbuilds all ma
terial things out of the raw material forces of chaotic
life. This is where the materialist lost his way, and
with his dim lantern, has been floundering around ever
since in the mud and mire of the external world, tak
ing another look to discover his lost path. But he will
do vastly better bye and bye. He will go to the higher
hills of life for a new standpoint and point of de
parture, and begin his search over again in pursuit
of his lost path, and will extend his investigations,
many of them, to fields that he never dreamed of
before.

WHAT ARE THE HELLS?
IN very general terms.
They are the lower workshops of the race, where,
growing out of his early incarnations in terrestrial
estates and upon the human plane, he encounters vast
evils, antagonisms, inharmonies, hardships, untold
deeps of sorrows, pains, anguishes that often crush
the very heart of man ; he is set to work by the higher
powers as a slave to man and even to nature herself in
labors manifold and severe, to educate his mind, brain,
nerve, muscle, bone, sinew and to give him the will as
well as the ability to labor ; and to put the steel and the
granite into the deep foundations of his being, and to
72

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
give him that energy and hardihood that are indispen
sable to his requirements by enabling him to bridge
over the eternities of existence that lie before him.
The creative intelligences of spirit life had dandled
him upon the lap of nature ; the whoie habitable world
within the tropics had indeed been a veritable "Garden
of Eden," where his spiritual guides and teachers had
provided "every tree that is pleasant to the sight and
good for food." The tree of life also was in the midst
of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and
evil. He had nothing farther to do in order to live
in abundance than to put forth his hand and pluck
the fruits that nature had provided for him, and every
animal want was fully satisfied.
It was during the pliocene period of Tertiary times
that man made his advent upon the planet, and there
was an almost tropical climate over the entire planet
nearly to the poles, and tropical fruits grew in abun
dance for the use of animal man over the entire area
of this vast garden.
But man, though he came forth from the animal
world, which was the scaffolding by which the crea
tive wisdoms had built him up, and his whole nature
was animal-like in character, was something more than
a progressed ape.
God, the supreme architect of the worlds, though
making use of the "dust of the earth" — protoplasm —
as his building material, yet ere he completed his di
vine labors in creating man, he "breathed into his nos
trils the breath of life" — the divine pneuma. "And
man became a living soul" — a vastly greater and more
advanced being than any of the animal forms below
him and out of which he sprang.
But there came a time when man could no longer be
permitted to live upon the labors of others, eating the
fruits of the labors of the gods and lying around in
the shade when satisfied with abundance, like any
other mere animal, without spiritual intelligence, with
out thought, without reflection and without the ability
to discriminate between good and evil — a little,
though not much, above the mental and moral status
73

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
of the higher orders of the anthropoid apes. The child
has to be weaned from this state of being dandled for
ever on the lap of mother nature, and set to work to
earn his own living by his own labor, and very hard
labor it has proved to be.
The serpent, that most "subtle," crafty and insinu
ating principle in the interior of the life of man, is
prompted to tempt him to "eat of the fruit of the tree /
of knowledge of good and evil," that, like the tree of
life, grew m the garden of man's being. But this is
the very thing desired and sought for by the higher
powers of the spiritual world, and it is really due to
their promptings that this "subtle," serpentine element
in man's nature is set in motion and becomes active
with the desire to become "as gods, knowing good
and evil." ,
This threatening command on the part of the Lord
God is addressed to the man as an animal being
merely — one who has not reached the spiritual status
to discern "between good and evil." "Of every tree
of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree
of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of
it: for in the day thou eatest of it thou shalt surely
die." Now, as a historic being, this man Adam does
not die at all, either on the day when he ate the apple,
or on any other day of the 930 years of his natural life.
And yet the prophecy of the Lord was literally ful
filled, the spiritual eyes of the man were opened, and
he at once began to see spiritual things, and his mere
animal nature began to "fall" from him, and as it
falls the spiritual man within him rises, and will con
tinue to rise until the whole man has been transformed
from the nature of an animal to that of the God, and
he has been transferred from the low plane of animal
desires, affections and knowledges to the high spiritual
planes, loves, wisdoms and intelligences of the Gods
of the race.
Yes, all these gigantic evils of every sort and kind
which man has experienced is due to the fact that he
is encamped on the great battlefield, and is engaged in
the mighty conflict that is forever taking place be-
74

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
tween truth and error, light and darkness, the animal
and the spiritual within him and without him, until he
has fought his way.
Upward from the material and terrestrial planes
of existence and on to the high social, spiritual and
celestial planes of his being. Yes, all the mighty evils
of any form and kind that man has experienced in
the long ages of the past have been absolutely indis
pensable to his growth, progress and welfare as a
spiritual being. It required an educatory period of
more than 200 years and in a state of slavery to edu
cate the colored men of this country mentally and
physically up to a grade where he is capable of taking
care of himself as a physical being and to impart to
him some of the ideas and principles of self-govern
ment. And yet this cannot be said of all of them,
a large per cent, of whom have not reached that
standard in performing the divine uses of labor and
in the matter of a just and righteous self-government;
but few of them, comparatively speaking, have as yet
manifested the ability to do it. Yes, upon the political
and civil planes of being, the colored man, not of this
country alone, but of nearly all other countries, is on
a still lower plane of evolvement, so that his white
brother is obliged to serve as a prop to prevent him
from falling into anarchy, as they have done in Haiti
and other Southern countries, where revolution suc
ceeds revolution with greater frequency than the ad
vent of the years, after more than a century of self-
government, or self-anarchy, rather, that is found no
where else in all the world.
These are some of the divine uses of labor and of
the so-called hells of both the spiritual and the terres
trial sides of this our life in the flesh. Terrible as are
some of the so-called hells of spirit life, the purposes
they are intended to subserve in the economies of uni
versal life are analogous to those performed by the
jails, penitentiaries and prisons of earth life, though
at the present time less primitive and more reforma
tive in character.
In the time of Jesus the condition of the ignorant
75

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
and the criminal classes in the lower spheres of spirit
life was indeed very bad. As Jesus could give man
kind no definite idea of the character of the sufferings
of human beings in spirit life, he was obliged to make
use of highly wrought symbols to express his sense
of the nature of man's sorrows and sufferings in spirit
life, and his views so expressed have been greatly
exaggerated and misrepresented by the dense spiritual
ignorance of mankind and by many mistranslations of
the Word itself. But mankind, the more spiritual-
advanced classes, have progressed beyond their spirit
ual-larval estates, and the large influx of these ad
vanced classes into spirit life during several centuries
past is fast producing a new order of things in spirit
life, and vastly to the enlightenment, progress and
welfare of all classes, and especially of the lower
classes. Yes, the infant spiritual man of this time is shaped
and shaping himself beneath the hammer of the
celestial intelligences — is fitting himself to enter into
more perfect and harmonial relations with the higher
Gods of the race and with his fellows. It is the advent
of the spiritual millennium so long prophesied of, and
which is destined to bring in the "new heavens and the
new earth."
Swedenborg's greatest mistake, however, concern
ing the hells of spirit life, very naturally and in great
measure grew out of his aristocratic relations and
sympathies, his lack of sympathy with the lower
classes, and more especially the sinful classes of hu
manity, and his belief in common with the beliefs of
the churches, and also of his spirit guides and in
structors in the spiritual world; and of mankind at
large, viz., that the sinner as such is not so as an
expression in time and in world of forces that were
put into him before he was born by creative and
hereditive influences, but that he is such from a known
and an intentional bad use of his moral, mental and
spiritual faculties, and from hatred and disregard of
the laws of God and humanity.
It was a moral badness that he put into himself,
76

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
with which his Creator had nothing to do in the way
of responsibility.
They forget the statement of Christ: "A good tree
cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree
bring forth good fruit — for a tree is known by its
fruit." It is with the morally unhealthy as Jesus put it in
behalf of the man born blind. We must allow the
Creator to share a great part of the responsibility in
the case, if not the whole of it, as did Jesus. "Neither
this man did sin nor his parents, but that the works
of God might be made manifest in him." Yes, this
lack of moral and spiritual perception on the part of
the sinner cometh not from any intentional badness
that in some mysterious way he has got into himself.
It is due nearly if not wholly to the exercise of forces
that were put into him long before he ever saw the
light of day; and to the fact that he has never ex
perienced the refining and potentizing influences of
a sufficient number of incarnations in terrestrial and
spiritual spheres of life to lift him up onto the higher
planes of spiritual life. Take the worst murderer
that world or universe has produced and give him a
few more reincarnations in terrestrial and spiritual
life forms, and you will find him somewhere in one of
the higher ranks of mankind. Said a little lady theos-
ophist to one who had manifested very bad manners
in her presence: "You will do better when you are
grown!" Yes, man is a spiritual being that revolves
in the eternities and infinities of universal life, and
requires vast periods of time to bring him up to the
stature of the God. Let us therefore be patient and
give him all the time he may require to reach the
period of perfect self-government, and not be too
much annoyed or distressed at the antics, cruelties
and other barbarisms of the spiritual infant, for "all
babies are barbarians," as some one has well said.
This idea that man advances in spiritual life and
growth by repeated reincarnations is somewhat eluci
dated by both John the Baptist and by Jesus himself.
To quote from the words of John: "And this is the
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
record of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites
from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? John
bare witness of him and cried saying, This is he of
whom I spake. He that cometh after me is pre
ferred before me, for he was before me." This second
use of the word "before" has a different meaning from
the one used in the first part of the sentence* and has
a similar use and meaning to one given to it by Jesus
himself in John viii., 58: "Before Abraham was I
am." He does not refer to the number of years he
had lived in the world during his present incarnation,
but to the more important fact that he was really an
older spirit than was Abraham, by virtue of the fact
that he was an older spirit than Abraham in having
passed through a greater number of incarnations, two
of which, as we shall see elsewhere, he has referred .
to in his very last words — Rev. xxii., 16.
Yes, it is a question of the number of incarnations
the person has passed through that determines his
mental and moral status, and not one of intentional
vileness or badness that make some people good and
others bad. They have not yet fully cast out — and
off — the animal man which they brought up with
them out of the animal world from which they origin
ally came, and whose knowledges, though manifold
and keen, do not include among them the higher wis
doms and knowledges of "good and evil." The earlier
forms of man upon the planet did not possess the
ability to discriminate between good and evil, which
is true in great measure of some of the lowst forms of
mankind that exist upon the planet at the present
time The creative intelligence in drawing the line of the
comparative mental powers of man and the animal
world below him, drew it at the line of demarcation
between "good and evil" on the one hand, and all
other inferior forms of intelligence on the other. And
yet there are some animals that appear in many cases

*The one refers to time and the other to spiritual con
ditions. 78

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
to manifest faint perceptions of good and evil and of
a rational intelligence.
This earliest form of mankind, who lived in the
Tertiary era, when the climate of the earth was tropi
cal nearly to the poles, and as a consequence the whole
world nearly was a veritable "garden," is the "Adam"
or earth-man of Genesis, and typifies the animal na
ture that is in man. The entire story of the origin of
man as given in Genesis is a beautiful myth, and we
can make nothing rational out of it, unless we carry
the wonderful symbolism all the way through.
Another of the leading and very wuleading mis
takes of Swedenborg is found in paragraph N. 480
of his work on Heaven and Hell, in which he gives
the reason why man is unable to escape from the hells
of spirit life by progression into the higher spheres of
the spiritual life of man.
We quote: "That man after death remains to
eternity such as he is as to his will or reigning love,
has also been confirmed by abundant expe
rience. . . .
"It was said by the angels that the life of the
reigning love is never changed with any one to
eternity, since every one is his own love. To change
that love in a spirit, therefore, would be to deprive
him of his life. They also told me the reason, namely,
that man after death can no longer be reformed by in
struction as in the world, because the ultimate plane
(or material body), which consists of natural knowl
edges and affections, is then quiescent and cannot be
opened, because it is spiritual, and that upon that
plane the interiors, which are of the mind, rest as a
house upon its foundation; and hence it is that man
remains to eternity such as the life of his love had
been in the world."
Such are some of the chief reasons by which
Swedenborg seeks to demonstrate the eternality of
the so-called hells of man in spirit life whereby God
and his mercy, love, compassipn, tenderness, his senti
ments of reason and justice, are forever barred out,
and the Creator himself, the universal Father— He
79

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
whose compassion is called forth even by the fall of
a sparrow — becomes the victim of an iron fatalism
from which there is no escape for him to all eternity!
That Swedenborg, great as he undoubtedly was,
was in some way greatly misled by his spirit teachers,
chief among whom was St. Augustine, who in this
life was a fatalist in his church views, of the most
pronounced character, and exerted a more powerful
influence in shaping the creeds of Christendom than
all the other church fathers together, there can be
little reasonable doubt. Such a doctrine shocks every
sentiment of justice, reason and fair play that exists
in the heart of man. It is a terrible libel upon the
character of the Creator — an awful travesty on the
character of our Heavenly Father. It would render
migratory — nay, worse than useless, the mission of
the Master into Hades after his return to spirit life
to "preach to the spirits in prison," as stated by Peter,
I. Pet. iii., 19, 20. The attempt to preach repentance
and reform to men and women whom the eternal
laws of God had forever precluded from all hope, all
chance of change in the betterment of their spiritual
conditions, would, in our estimation, be about the
worst case of tantalism that ever struck time since the
days of Tantalus himself.
Swedenborg also, like the poet Dante, wrote upon
the doors of the hells of spirit life: "Leave hope be
hind, all ye who enter here I" His ideas, if true,
would colonize the greater portion of God's great
family of children in eternal fire !
Can such an awful state of things be true, and
would it not involve all the other man-breeding worlds
in a like calamity, unless the Creator has given them all
better terms and conditions for the evolution of their
peoples than He hath given to our own dear little
world? But this would hardly be just and fair. We
cannot believe it.
But let us examine this matter of these mistakes of
the seer Swedenborg from still another viewpoint.
It is a rather curious circumstance in the life of
John Wesley that he received at one time a satin note
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'MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
from Swedenborg not long before his death, in which
he invited him to an interview with himself, naming
the hour and place (at his hotel in London) for the
meeting, and informing him that the angels of the
Sixth Circle had informed him that Wesley had long
desired to have such an interview, and had requested
him (Swedenborg) to grant Wesley the opportunity
to realize his wish. Wesley at the time was in a con
ference of his preachers when he received the
note, which he at once read to the conference, and
admitted that Swedenborg's statement was true, and
that he had long felt a desire to have such an inter
view with the great seer, but had never mentioned the
matter to anyone before. He at once sent a note to
Swedenborg in reply, informing him that he was about
to visit a distant conference and could not meet him
then, but would meet him upon his return. Sweden
borg at once replied with a second note to Wesley
stating that before the time named for his return from
the conference he himself would have passed to spirit
life, which in the sequel proved to be true.
In this way the great apostle of the masses who
live spiritually upon the literal and exoteric sense of
the word, and Swedenborg the great apostle of its
interior, spiritual and esoteric sense, were never — for
some reason — permitted to meet each other and hold
the interview that both greatly desired.
Shall we raise the question, why? To one who be
lieves in a Providence that oversees and overrules all
the affairs of men, and especially in all great and im
portant events, there can be no doubt that this meet
ing of the two great leaders in the religious life of
man was disallowed and forbidden in the congresses
and conventions of the great spiritual hierarchies of
the spiritual world that hold their sessions in the
higher spheres of spirit life and preside over the des
tinies of the various churches, and determine uponthe
character of the various forces that shall enter into
them. The formation of new sects to meet the spirit
ual needs of a progressive humanity, and the time
when they shall take their place on the stage of time —
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
these and many other matters that concern the welfare
of all the churches — are deliberated over and deter
mined upon by these great ecclesiastical bodies in
spirit life. Otherwise the spiritual and even the ma
terial concerns of the churches, both in the spirit world
and in this world also, would become a chaos and a
confusion and not an orderly and progressive evolu
tion. It was probably owing to this fact that these two
very great men were never permitted to meet in this
life. There can be but little doubt that the mind of
Mr. Wesley was already a good deal predisposed to
look into the affairs of the spirit world for a solution
of the mystery of the spirit rappings that had taken
place in the family of his father, Mr. Samuel Wesley,
and an intimate acquaintance and free intercourse be
tween the two great minds would in the end possibly
have resulted in the adoption by Mr. Wesley of some
form of spiritualism, so that secession and division
would have taken place in his church, and two or more
wrangling, warring sects would have come upon the
stage, instead of the one great, true organism that has
done so much to educate and instruct its own people
and to carry light, truth and salvation to nearly every
nation and people under the whole heavens.
That this was the view of the higher intelligences,
and that the meeting of the two great men was over
ruled by them, is not unlikely to say the least. For
take it all in all we are of the belief that the churches
as a rule will not be advanced very far into the spirit
ual sense of the Word by the angelic wisdoms of the
spiritual world until the physical and the psychical
sciences have made greater advancement — have in
deed and truth met and kissed each other after their
long estrangement and separation.
That that time is close at hand the wonderful strides
that the physical and the metaphysiological sciences
have made in recent years betoken the near approach
of the new era. The trouble with Swedenborg's
views concerning the limitations of the sphere of ef
ficient changes in the life of the spirit man in spirit
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
life, grew out of the fact that when he became a seer
of spiritual things he came under the instruction of
spirit teachers who in this life had never enjoyed the
advantages which the new and marvelous light of
material science is beginning to cast upon nearly
every question of a psychical character.
Indeed, it is in wonderful measure illuminating, in
structing and uplifting the minds and the hearts of
men on all the living questions of the time in more
than a thousand ways.
We are swiftly nearing the time spoken of by John
in Rev. xviii., i, 24, wherein he describes the old order
of civilization and the manner of its ending, especially
in the 21st verse of that chapter — an absolutely neces
sary and indispensable measure, preparatory to the in
troduction of the new order of civilization — the "new
heavens and the new earth." The new house can
never be built on the site of the old one, until the old
one has been utterly destroyed and taken away. It
was the lack of this spiritual scientific light, even as
late as the times of Swedenborg and which his prin
cipal teacher in spirit life — St. Augustine — had less
of in his day than did his pupil — Swedenborg — that
so greatly unfitted the great seer in so many ways to
become a true and living interpreter of the "spiritual
sense of the word" as he claimed to be. Hence it is
that many of his expositions of the Word are not only
false but absurdly so.
But again let us inquire "What are the hells of
spirit life?" They are surely not places of torment
where the great Creative Father has colonized his
great family of children in everlasting flames!
Of what conceivable or even inconceivable use could
such a place or places be to either themselves, to the
rest of mankind or to the Creator Himself ?
To subject a being who has been created of so low
mental and moral status, as we have shown the infant
spiritual man to be, to eternal torture — who in his
dense ignorance knows and can know almost nothing
of the innate and interior laws that govern himself
and his fellow men — would present the Creator as
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
a Being so wholly unwise, unjust and cruel as to be
incomprehensible to the reason and understanding
of mankind instead of the loving Father of all his
great family of children whom Jesus describes in the
Sermon on the Mount. And here let us inquire why it
was that Jesus in some of his rapt moments on several
occasions denounced the future of the sinner in some
what wrathful terms. He was addressing men who
were infants in their knowledge of the operations of
the spiritual laws of man's life in either world and
more especially in the other world ; and as he was well
aware, both from knowledge and experience, that it
was useless to attempt to make them comprehend the
real situation of the man when he has become a citi
zen of the spirit world, he did the only thing that
could be done to impress the minds of his hearers with
the nature of the dangers and the liabilities he will
be obliged to encounter when he arrives in spirit life,
he wrapped the whole subject up in symbols and meta
phor and gave it to the people in that form. Like the
good, wise, earthly parent, whose wayward infant
child does not fully understand the terrible dangers of
playing with the fire, he does not sit down and
preach to him a long discourse on the dangers of fire,
most of which he will not be able to comprehend, but
he will be perchance obliged to address the child with
some degree of asperity and sharpness, "Keep away
from the fire!" and even punish him in other ways,
too, if he still refuses to obey his first command. For
all laws must be indorsed with proper penalties or
they are not laws in any right sense of the term, and
hence in the Word most of the laws are spoken of
as "Commandments." "He spake as one having au
thority and not as the scribes." He was addressing
spiritual infants and he addressed them in language
that they could comprehend. Any other w.ould have
been an idle waste of words. And that is without any
doubt the reason why those who at that time were in
strumental in formulating the credos of the churches
were allowed, possibly prompted, by the higher powers
to still farther exaggerate if possible, the terrors of
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MAN'S ''PLACE. IN THE KOSMOS.
the great and awful mystery of the condition of the
lower and baser classes of mankind in the lowest
estates of spirit life.
But a new and glorious era has dawned upon affairs
in the lowly spheres of spirit life within the past half
century. As heretofore stated, this is the time referred
to in Acts 3-21 — the "times of the restitution of all
things" in which the lower spheres of the spiritual
world have become a vast field for the exercise of the
benevolent energies of the human soul, and myriads
of the more advanced classes of the spiritual world
are daily descending into its lower spheres ; yea, many
of them penetrating into the deepest dens and prisons
of spirit life, bearing with them light, life, love, hope,
joy, hope and good cheer to the "lost" and abandoned
ones of those terrible places, vast numbers of whom
have been outcasts from the loves, affections and the
sympathies of human kind for long ages! "Verily,
verily I say unto you, that the time cometh and now is
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of Man,
and they that hear shall live."
But this is more perfectly true of the ability to
reach the "dead" of both this life and spirit life, also
in this the second or spiritual coming of Christ, as His
descent into the hades of spirit life proved a failure to
accomplish anything for the spiritually dead of gospel
times, but only for those of more ancient times.
The spiritually "dead" of gospel times have been
obliged to remain in the lower spheres for these nearly
2,000 years — first, because they are utterly repugnant
to and unfit for society in the higher spheres ; second,
it is best for them to remain right in those spheres
where they entered spirit life as the very hells them
selves, to which they gravitated on their entrance into
spirit life; are the best society and contain the best
educating influences the spiritual world could give
them at that time. The higher, more advanced classes
of spirit life repelled them too much to do any
thing to help these animal men in the lower spheres.
They were too spiritually aristocratic to be of any use
to them. An intense mutual dislike and hatred existed
85

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
between the two classes — the one to give and the other
to receive instruction or sympathy or help of any sort
or kind.
A careful reading of Swedenborg's Heaven and
Hell reveals in graphic and awful colors the terrible
antagonisms and intense hatreds that have existed
between them, due in great measure to this proud and
aristocratic feeling exercised toward the humbler
classes by the rich and great of both worlds, so much
so that it is very much as Seer Swedenborg has stated
in Heaven and Hell, N. 581 : "The reason that tor
ments in the hells are permitted by the Lord is because
evils cannot otherwise be restrained and subdued.
"The only means of restraining and subduing them,
thus of keeping the infernal crew in bonds, is the fear
of punishment. There is no other means given; for
without the fear of punishment and torment, evil
would burst forth into madness as a kingdom on earth
where there is no law and no punishment !"
Such are some of the expressed sentiments of
Swedenborg, the great intellect and seer, who shared
deeply in the aristocratic sentiments of the upper
classes of his time — sentiments that naturally and
rightfully grow out of the characteristic differences
that the Creator hath established among men, and
which are the glory of the divine humanity when prop
erly exercised and understood, as it makes every man
and woman a living fountain of holy loves, magnet
isms, affections, which are foods for the sustenance
and life of every other soul about him. "He that be-
lieveth on me as the Scripture hath said, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water."
"This is that bread which came down from Heaven.
He that eateth of this bread shall live forever."
"Whoso eateth my flesh (zvisdom magnetisms) and
drinketh my blood (magnetic loves) hath eternal life."
"As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the
Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me."
It is these divine foods that Christly souls eat of one
another in their social, spiritual and all other proper
relations that exist among them, that makes all such
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
intercourse in its higher forms so sustaining, delight
ful and glorious !
As the grape yieldeth its life blood for the use
and sustenance of man as a food for the higher senti
ments and passions of mankind ; as bread is the "staff
of life" and the chief food of the various bodily or
gans especially, so Jesus, at that "last supper," with
His disciples, symbolized both of them as correspon-
dential with those social, spiritual and other personal
foods that Christlike men and women can and do
constantly impart to each other in all the sweet and
holy and living relations existing among them. But
this is not all. Sweet, pure, holy men, soon after their
entrance into spirit life, enter some one or more of the
vast societies that exist in the spiritual heavens, and
there these divine food functions become vastly more
perfect and potent, each soul not only imparting the
various divine magnetisms of his being to all others
in his society, but also receives them from all others.
Nor is th%s all. Every society in spirit life is a divine
unit, and as such exists in the spiritual heavens as an
integral function for the whole heavens to which it is
related, and imparts its magnetic and other precious
divine foods in accord with all its functional relations
to its own heavens. But the earth itself is but a part
of spiritual heavens in its lower forms and uses, and
all its people, as fast as they become sufficiently ad
vanced mentally, morally, socially, and have become
fully harmonized with more or less of its glorious
societies, are constantly receiving the heavenly mannas
and all other precious and divine foods that are for
ever outflowing from the divine centers of life . uni
versal, to enrapture, cheer, nourish and sustain all life
everywhere throughout the living boundaries of all
created and uncreated beings from monad upward to
man, and from man to the Gods themselves.

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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

THE SPIRITUAL MAN.
Saith Paul: "There is a natural body, and there
is a spiritual body." How Paul came in possession of
so occult an ontological fact, in an age and country so
densely ignorant and materialistic, we do not know,
but imagine it came to him more as a spiritually in
spired truth than from any constant rational percep
tion of so important a spiritual principle, in all scien
tific and logical bearings and results.
Be that as it may, there is in deed and truth a won
derful analogy and correspondence between the two
organisms. As the mollusk secretes within its more
interior and delicate organs the material of which its
external shell or house is formed, and which, with an
art divinely cunning, it weaves about itself; as the
tree clothes itself roundabout with the rough covering
of bark, to protect the more delicate sap vessels of the
interior ; so, in like manner, doth that divinest artificer,
the spiritual man, sit back behind the so-called "visi
ble" and fabricate that really wonderful house we
term "natural body," which, though of apparently
coarser texture and mold than is the spiritual body,
it is designed to nourish and protect, is, nevertheless,
in shape like unto it, and in itself is a marvel of de
sign and beauty, when perfected; and is well adapted,
in all respects, to minister to the needs of the living
artist that sits within, and weaves it in the loom of
time. In real truth, this terrestrial house, in which
man temporarily resides, fulfills the still more im
portant function of a laboratory or stomach, in which
he digests and elaborates the forces of this terrestrial
plane of being, as the basic elements of the spiritual
and spiritual-celestial body.
Matter is only the name of one of these basic forces
that sustain the universe of being, and the grossness of
it consists mainly in the grossness of our ideas regard
ing it. It externalizes itself, or, more strictly speak
ing, the higher forces externalize themselves through

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
matter in three dimensions; but the higher forces
operate within, in a "fourth dimension" (of Prof.
Zolmer), as the shaft works in the slot, the hand in
the glove.
It is by and through this fourth dimension that
the celestial-spiritual man, after one of his long
flights through the eternities and infinities of time and
space, descends ("falls") into terrestrial states and
forces — even descends into the hells — to rebuild, re
new, refresh, reincarnate and more fully eternize his
spiritual-celestial body.-
As the external body has parts, organs, functions,
so has the spiritual body — and in the true spiritual-
celestial man and woman, as distinguished from the
lower or animal man, which is not in itself subject to
the laws of spiritual good or God, until similiated and
harmonized with and by the higher or spiritual man,
it becomes of the highest order both in substance and
in form, being wrought out from the highest, holiest
loves, affections, truths, principles of the spiritual
worlds. "The first man is of the earth, earthy," for the
reason that his body is developed out of the animal
kingdom below him, and on the terrestrial plane of
being, and partly out of the mundane forces, by the
creative intelligences; and it is designed to serve the
purpose of a ready made house to live in; a ready
made garment to clothe himself withal; and a ready
made laboratory to aid him in the easy elaboration
of those elemental forces with which he is to reclothe,
rebuild and refurnish his more permanent home, — the
more divine, precious and holy, eternal, spiritual-celes
tial man — the Man-God.
Man as to his foods is an omnivorous being. He is
not only a plant eater but an eater of animals, in some
phases of his manifold being. Both the plant and the
animal have previously passed the elemental forces
and foods of the material world through the refining
and reconstructive processes of their own digestive
organs, thereby raising these elementary forces to a
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
higher organic level before being used by the animal
man. Now, he lives upon the higher spiritual-social and
spiritual-celestial forms, foods and forces in a some
what similar manner. Every soul with whom he is
brought into touch in the divine harmonies in spiritual-
social life, is engaged in the labor of eating, digesting,
elaborating spiritual truths, foods, forces, in the
laboratory of his own interior, spiritual being, and
elevating these spiritual foods to still higher food
levels. Yea, all true spiritual men eat one another —
impart to each other their spiritual blood (loves) and
spiritual flesh (wisdom) to nourish, upbuild and sus
tain each other.
It is by these divine offices of imparting each to the
other and to all, in a degree, these divine, social-
spiritual foods, by ways, words and works of love and
use, and by eating one another mutually and function
ally, that the social, spiritual-celestial man is made
to othcrizc himself — to build himself into his entire
social environment of souls and into the higher soci
eties of the spiritual and celestial universes of God.
. . . "That they all may be one: as thou, Father,
art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one
in us," — thus not only making the terrestro-social
man one in spiritual life with his fellows but one
and at-one with the higher celestial men and women
of the spiritual worlds, for in very truth, when prop
erly discerned, this is the great "Atonement," — the
Son with the Father, — the brotherhood of man with
the Fatherhood of God.

THE HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS.
"Consciousness," as one has well said, "is the visi
ble scene of the soul." It is the parliament of mind.
In that vast theater of mind, the higher forms of
spiritual man, especially, view the whole scene of con-
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
flict in this human life of ours — this "visible scene of
man" ; and, by and through its parallaxes, its conflicts
and its stars, shares in these conflicts and makes them
his own. Here in this parliament of the soul, the con
flicting forces in the virtuous soul of Hercules fought
out the battle 'twixt virtue and pleasure or vice.
But consciousness and its contents are dual — the
higher consciousness and its forms, and the lower
consciousness and its forms. The former in its
higher planes and aspects belong to the celestial-spirit
ual man; and its contents are the loves, wisdoms,
benevolences, affections and sympathies of the celestial
man. The latter or the inferior consciousness is one
that we possess in common with the animal world;
and its contents are the lower knowledges of the
animal world, together with all its array of animal
propensities, passions, appetites, desires, impulses, etc.
The higher or "new consciousness," — termed the
"new man," "the second man," the "Lord from the
heavens" — is the intelligent, rational consciousness
that properly belongs only to that higher plane of
existence; the higher, more advanced celestial-spirit
ual man, who is at once Creator and Lord of the
heavens and the earths. This newer and higher con
sciousness is fully shared only by man in his higher
and more advanced and potential degrees and states ;
and, also, by man in his pure celestial states, ere he
descends to terrestrial planes to reincarnate with the
animal man, or "first man," as it is termed in the
Word. Both bee and man work with marvelous intelli
gence ; but while the intelligence of the bee stops with
the conclusion of his work, the intelligence of the man
may go a step farther, and give a reason for his work ;
why, how, upon what principles, for what purpose or
purposes, etc., it was accomplished. In other words,
he is endowed with a new and vastly higher factor in
the realm of conscious intelligence ; one that does not
exist, so far as known, in the bee, nor to any very
higb degree in the lower forms of mankind.
In the play of the personal forces of the individual
9i

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
between the higher and lower planes of the conscious
ness lies one of the greatest sources of error in esti
mating the validity and justness of our own motives
and intentions and those of others. I discovered early
in life that philosophy had to make a very important
distinction between the intentions, or the conscious
intelligent purposes of the man; those motives which
he has fully weighed, measured and approved ration
ally, as beneficial to himself and his "neighbor," and
those motives, impulses, passions, etc., which being
of the animal order of existence, and lying below the
higher or spiritual and rational plane, and upon the
lower, less visible, or wholly invisible planes of being,
escape the notice of the man, for the simple reason he
has not been sufficiently reincarnated, and, hence, has
not yet had time to round up his being to that higher
plane where "his deeds are made manifest" to his
higher consciousness.
So true is this, that one whose soul hath been led
up by the evolutions of past and present incarnations
on to that higher plane of consciousness, sees in all
the acts and actors of time and world only a reflex
of himself; and every such deed as but the natural
reflex of forces he sees within him; each actor but
as an alter ego or other self, occupying whose place
in the sphere he himself would have enacted a similar
role. In truth, he will often exclaim with the philoso
pher, who on hearing of some unusual deed said,
"Why, I was there, too ;" or with Bishop Newton who,
on seeing a malefactor on his way to Tyburn, said
"But for the grace of God, there goes John Newton ;"
for the vaticinal consciousness of the divine, celestial
man spans the entire universe of life; in it he sees
the operation of all its most visible and invisible forces
and their laws; and by and through them learns "to
justify the ways of God to man."
Still all must work, each in his own way, as he
sees the light and the work ; each must enact his part
in his own way on the great amphitheater of time and
man. And all are needed there, since each and all the
various human terrestrial, as well as spiritual, forces
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
limit, temper and restrain each other, while the higher
lead. Said Madame De Stael, "Russia is an absolute des
potism, tempered by assassination."
Yea, verily, the Nihilist, even though his theory of
government be a worthless and senseless caricature
of the real and the true, holds up the even scales of
justice before the eyes of the Czar, follows him into the
secret chambers of the palace and of the soul, and
makes him tremble in the presence of his own vast
responsibilities and duties to his people and to man
kind. It is in truth this higher rational, divine conscious
ness that spans the worlds; yea, the very universes of
being, and enspheres terrestrial man at last into a
conscious, living, eternal brotherhood ; one among the
living brotherhoods of the living worlds, under the
living fatherhood of the living God.

LIVE IN THE SPIRIT.
"Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law Divine
In one another's being mingle."
It is the law and condition of the universe itself
which is provided, as is the human system, with a
most marvelous nerve system that unites soul with
soul, suns with suns, and their worlds, universes with
universes, and all things with God — the Supreme
Being. It is through this sublime and beautiful nerve sys
tem, that unites the one and the all, that souls derive
their spiritual nutrition from other similar organic
beings around and above them — a function of the
mind symbolized by the Christ in that marvelous ex
pression : "Except ye eat of the flesh of the son of man,
9.3

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." An ex
pression literally true, for in this sense we are all
more or less cannibals and mutually eat and drink
of each other.
Yea, all things of this glorious universe of the liv
ing God throb, vibrate, thrill and are nourished and
sustained from the tides that forever flow from high
to low, from low to high, through the veins, nerves
and arteries of universal life.
This society already so formed, and to form, let
me hope, in the future, for the protection and up
building of all, will supply the angelic societies of
spirit life with those terrestrial-spiritual, or basic,
forces, which, combined with those coming from the
highest spheres of spirit life, shall enable them to
create a spiritual atmosphere that shall environ its
members, and that shall act in like, manner as does the
terrestrial atmosphere — as a buffer against the
meteoric missies that daily bombard the planet by
billions, and would be a source of perpetual menace
to its inhabitants were they not most of them speedily
consumed upon entering it. In like way shall these
dark meteoric spiritual bodies be, most of them, con
sumed as to their lusts and hatreds and ignorance by
entering the pure spiritualized atmosphere that shall
invest the persons of all who shall become practical
members of this divine society which is speedily des
tined to encircle the world in its benign enfoldments.
Such a society, when it has-been perfected, by the
spiritual forces of the higher life of man immortal,
will become a potent instrument in the hands of the
angels for the divine healing — mental, material, spirit
ual — for all who are connected therewith, and who
may feel the need of such harmonization and bal
ancing up of their physical and psychical powers ; and
few do not. It will create a vast fund of spiritual
forces upon which all its members may rely for their
healing, as well as development and protection. For
these divine potencies of spiritual life go hand in
hand. Beloved friends, let us unite to set a ball in motion
94

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
that, like the snowball on the mountain side, shall
speedily sweep from its pathway every obstacle that is
hostile to the progressive life of man.
Let us live in the spirit, in mutual good will, good
wishes, good aspirations, inspirations and invocations
in behalf of each other and of all. It will do more
toward developing our mutual spiritual powers ; to aid
the sick ones in spirit life, that come to us for light,
sympathy and help ; and to protect each and all from
the assaults of evil and deceiving spirits, than can
be accomplished in any other way.

CONCERNING INFESTATIONS AND THE
CASTING OUT OF EVIL SPIRITS.
"If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do
your children cast them out?" — Luke xi., 19.
"He cast out spirits with his word." — Matt, viii., 16.
"And the seventy returned again with joy, saying,
Lord even the devils are subject unto us through thy
word." — Luke x., 17.
"And his name went throughout all Syria : and they
brought unto him all sick that were taken with divers
diseases and torments, and those that were possessed
with devils, and those which were lunatics, and he
healed them." Matt, iv., 24.
"And he ordained twelve that they should be with
him and that he might send them forth and to have
power to heal the sick and to cast out devils." — Luke
ix., 1.
"And he healed many that were sick of divers dis
eases, and cast out many devils, and suffered not the
devils to speak, for they knew him." — Mark i., 34.
"Then was brought unto him one possessed with a
devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him insomuch
95

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
that the blind and dumb both spake and saw." — Matt.
xii., 22.
"If any man believe in me, the works that I do shall
he do also, and greater works shall he do because I
go to the Father."
"And these signs shall follow them that believe: In
my name shall they cast out devils: they shall speak
with new tongues ***** they shall lay hands
upon the sick and they shall recover." — Mark xvi., 17,
18. "And he came down with them and stood in the
plain and in the company of his disciples, and a great
multitude of people * * * came to be healed of their
diseases : and they that were vexed with unclean
spirits: and they were healed. And the whole multi
tude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out
of him, and healed them all."
"And one of the multitude answered him and said,
Master, I have brought unto thee my son, who hath
a dumb spirit.
"And wheresoever he taketh him he teareth him:
and he foameth and gnasheth with his teeth and pineth
away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should
cast him out: and they could not. He answereth him
and saith, Oh, faithless generation, how long shall I
be with you: how long shall I suffer you? Bring
him unto me. And they brought him: and when he
saw him, straightway the spirit tare him, and he fell
on the ground and wallowed, foaming. And he asked
the father : how long is it ago since this came unto
him, and he said of a child, * * * When Jesus saw
that the people came running together he rebuked the
foul spirit, saying unto him, thou deaf and dumb
spirit, I charge thee come out of him and enter no more
into him. And the spirit cried and rent him sore, and
came out of him, and he was as one dead, so that many
said: he is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand
and lifted him up and he arose." — Mark ix., 14.
"Now John, when he heard in prison the works of
Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto
him, Art thou he that should come, or should we look

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
for another ? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go
and show John those things that ye do hear and see.
The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers
are cleansed, the dead are raised up, the deaf hear and
the poor have the Gospel preached to them."
The aboye is the testimony of Jesus to John in re
gard to his reasons for doing the manifold and mighty
works which he did among the people: to establish
the truth of his mission as the true Messiah, long
promised to the people of the Jews, and through
them a light to all the nations of the earth. We have
copied thus copiously from the text of the New Tes
tament as we desired to place at once before the mind
of the reader those great works alleged to have been
wrought by the master in attestation of his mission, to
mankind as the latest and the greatest of the Avatars
(or "From-the-Fathers") that have incarnated to
teach and to save men.
But the chief question I desire to raise in this con
nection relates to His mission as a healer — one en
dowed with great power to heal the diseases of man
kind, and also to impart to others a like gift of heal
ing. One would judge from the way the church has
turned its back upon this class of physicians, and have
steadfastly ignored the subject as a body of teachers
and ministers, that the entire church has wholly put
aside as void and of no binding influence or obliga
tion upon it the whole doctrine of Jesus concerning
the healing of the sick, the casting out of devils and
other evil spirits, or that these persons in the other
life can and do infest human beings that are resident
in the flesh, not only with their diseases, but also with
themselves, and may and do inflict great and serious
injury upon them in this way. Yes, did Jesus and His
disciples in truth cast out demons and evil spirits, or
were they "spooks" or imaginary beings that existed
in nothing save in the ignorant and superstitious fears
of foolish people? Could Jesus himself have been
mistaken ? Is it possible that he did not know whereof
he spake so positively, and that what he took for an
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
infestation from some invisible evil spirit or man was
(and is) nothing more nor less than a deranged con
dition of some portion or the whole of the material
organism of the sick man himself, and that the idea
of spiritual invisible beings having anything to do
with it? "Why, that," says science — pseudo-science —
is nothing less than a silly superstition that has no
existence except in the disordered brain of some
lunatic !"
And yet, say what we may, think what we like, con
cerning this remarkable subject, Jesus was perfectly
right, and His disciples, when they healed the sick,
many of whom were made sick in this manner by the
presence of some sick spirit that has invaded and is
infesting the person of the sick one.
Yes, it is a great, a weighty and an important
truth that such a state of things exists on the border
line of the two worlds and will continue to exist there
until science, genuine, not false science, shall take up
the subject, investigate it thoroughly, and apply the
proper remedies. Yes, the man Christ Jesus not only
has given the correct diagnosis, but in His treatment
of the sick He gave the appropriate remedy — His own
personal loves and magnetisms. Let bigots and charla
tans say what they may to the contrary, notwith
standing. Yes, true science will ere long take up this important
question, not as heretofore, with a sneer upon its lips
to cover up its own dense ignorance upon the subject,
but with an honest determination to get at the bottom
facts. With a proper knowledge of this great and
vitally important feature in the occult life of man,
and the application of the proper remedies, our insane
hospitals would become empty in no very great length
of time. But they never can so long as medical
bigotry presides over the legislation of mankind.
Yes, among the words and the works that the be
loved teacher gave to men, none are more weighty
or of greater importance to human welfare than are
those which relate to the sick of spirit life and their
98

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
relation to many of the diseases of this life, let ignor*
ance and bigotry sneer as it may. Yes, —
"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again
The eternal years of God are hers."
And those who imagine that Christ taught as He
did in regard to these matters because he was ignor
ant of the real facts, do but stultify this greatest of
all the teachers that ever came down from the spiritual
heavens to instruct mankind.
"I am come a light into the world that whosoever
believeth on me should not abide in darkness, and if
any man hear my words and believe not I judge him
not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save
the world." — Jno. xii., 46.
"My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me."
What sublime and glorious testimony! "I am not
come of myself, but He that sent me is true whom ye
know not: But I know him: for I am from him and
He hath sent me." — Jno. vii., 28.
Yes, the greatest and the most vitally important of
those doctrines that concern the life and the health of
mankind so far as his bodily conditions are affected
by occult forces and influences from decarnate spirits,
are those taught by the Master when he was living in
the flesh.
If any man will but cast aside his theological preju
dices for a time and will carefully look into the facts,
he need not lack for examples that will leave no doubt
in his mind that Jesus told the exact truth concerning
all these matters, and gave the true causes of them.
Robert G. Ingersoll once expressed his regret that
"he did not have the making of things, otherwise he
would have made health catching instead of disease."
But that was one of Robert's mistakes. Health is
catching, and vastly more so than disease, otherwise
the whole race of mankind would have perished long
ago. It is often said of Americans that they are a race of
"health hunters," and it is indeed quite true. But it is
due in great degree to the fact that they are more
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
advanced in many ways than the balance of humanity,
and hence have become more sensitive to the ills that
flesh is heir to.
Now, this health-hunting business is not confined
only to this life, but extends also to the next one.
Now, this pursuit of health is the chief reason why
human beings are "infested" by so many of the deni
zens of the spiritual world. They are the sick of the
spiritual world, and many of them are like the people
of this world — looking for health which is just as dear
to them as it is to ourselves.
They come to mortals in^the flesh to obtain their
magnetisms and for the same reason that the sick
man of this world applies to the healer for his mag
netisms, which are more healthful and health-inspiring
than his own. Some of the infesting spirits, it is true,
come for other reasons, sometimes for revenge.
Such persons are evil spirits and infest human be
ings for evil purposes. But the greater portion of
them are the morally, mentally and spiritually sick
people of the spiritual world, who come to us mortals
for help — to get rid of their diseased magnetisms —
their impure and diseased blood, and to take into
themselves the purer and more healthful blood of those
who are morally and mentally more pure and healthy.
Blood in the animal body corresponds to love in the
spiritual body, for love is the blood of the spiritual
man, and hence the great truth and beauty of that
statement of the Master: "He that eateth my flesh
(wisdom) and drinketh my blood hath eternal
life. * * * For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood
is drink indeed." It is this love that saves — this heav
enly bread, this purer, sweeter, holier love, or spiritual
blood and bread, "that cometh down from heaven" and
its higher societies of divine men and women.
For in truth this healing blood (and bread) doth
not belong to Christ alone, but to all Christ-men and
women, for Jesus spoke these words as a representative
man of the higher orders of men and women of our
world, and as their spiritual head.
Yes, it is this need of help from the terrestro-
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
spiritual forces of human life, and which they can find
nowhere else, that brings so many of the spirit sick
to people in the flesh to find those whom they may
control and in whom they may find these forces for the
palliation or the cure of the various evils from which
they suffer. But the help they may obtain in this
way is only very partial, unless aided by science and
the co-operation of angels, so that hospitals have in
recent years been established to assist in their treat
ment. Many of these spirit sick ones are evil minded,
and seek to find such mortals as they can personally
control, and being persons of very reckless and inhar
monious character, they invade the persons of such
weak-willed people as they can control — actually enter
into and take "possession" of their persons. Such
persons are said to be "possessed," and such they are ;
both are insane, but the one that is in earth life is
in the worst condition of the twain. Many of these
spirits are malignant, and such Jesus characterized
as devils, or do-evils, for such they are when they come
to mortals with evil intent, as they impart their own
ills to them in exaggerated form.
That spirits impart their diseased conditions to per
sons in the flesh, consult Swedenborg in his Heaven
and Hell.
It is only within half of a century that hospitals of
one and another kind began to' be formed for the
treatment of the sick of spirit life, and vast numbers
of them since then have been treated for the ills they
suffered from while living in the flesh.
The means and the methods so employed by the
angels resemble much those made use of by the
"Salvation Army" people, with the exception that those
employed by the angels are vastly more extended,
embrace a vaster number of subjects and are more
perfectly adapted to the needs and requirements of
spiritual beings than are those of that noble body of
self consecrated men and women that are included in
the Salvation Army. Untold thousands of the great,
the wise and the good of the very highest spheres of
spirit life have become missionaries, many of them
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
descending into the lowest spheres of spirit life and
mingling freely with the lowest and the humblest
citizens, many of them such as in this life were re
garded as among the basest of mankind, and carry
with them life and light and love and hope and music,
and all things lovely and beautiful and cheering and
inspiring to the heart of man.
The lower spheres of spirit life, with their untold
billions of people, vast numbers of whom have lived
in them these thousands of years past, have become a
vast theatre for missionary enterprise, and millions
are engaged in the glorious work.
For in truth, in the spirit world, and more truly than
in this world, for these are the "times of the restitu
tion of all things," when the higher and more ad
vanced classes of mankind, who in this life tyrannized
over and oppressed their brethren, and put burdens
upon them intolerable to be borne, and practically
deprived them of their immortal birthright to life,
liberty and happiness, are now given the opportunity
to "lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the
plummet," and thousands of these are descend
ing into the lower spheres to look up these humble
spiritual wards and brothers of theirs whom they
have neglected for so long, and are bringing them out
of the dark "valley of the shadow of death" and into
God's blessed and eternal sunlight of joy and peace.
The time is now nearly at an end when the rich and
the powerful can spend the earnings of the poor in
riotous living, depriving them of the means to make
life a joy and a proper preparation and stepping stone
to the order, the system and the sublime glories and
splendors of the life eternal.
Yes, one of the greatest and most important truths
that Jesus has imparted to mankind is the knowledge
of the fact that mankind in the flesh may be, and
most of them are, influenced by decarnated spirits,
both good and bad, and according to the character of
the returning spirit will be the influence that he will
exert upon the person or persons living in the form,
whether it shall be of a healthful or an infestational
IQ2

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
character. It is by virtue of this marvelous relation
existing among and between human beings living in
the material form and out of it that many persons in
this world are enabled to accomplish great good by
faith and prayer and the intervention of angels.
Let us take for example the case of Dr. Barnardo and
George Muller, of London, England, who have, by
the exercise of prayer and faith, been able to rear,
educate and maintain more than 60,000 orphan chil
dren. Really and truly the work of raising the more
than $15,000,000 that were raised and expended in
these iabors of love in caring and providing for these
waifs of humanity during the many years these noble
men have been engaged in this great work, has been
one of the functions and the duties of decarnate men
or angels. They — the angels — influence and teach in
a similar manner, viz., by strongly impressing their
views upon the leaders of mankind. They not only
impart ideas in this way ; they set up or pull down the
leaders of mankind accordingly as they serve or fail
to serve the best intersts of human kind. In Dan. iv.,
17, we are given an example of this interference on
the part of the statesmen of the spiritual world with
the affairs of human life. "This matter is by the
decree of the watchers" — those statesmen whose duty
it is to watch over human life and to carefully study
the effects of those measures which have already been
introduced to accomplish their intended results — "and
the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the in
tent that the living may know that the Most High
ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whom
soever he will and (often) setteth up over it the
basest of men."
The "holy ones" are manifestly those higher spiritual
teachers, and statesmen who, by their superior wisdom,
are such as determine the policies and measures to
be adopted at the various stages and crises in human
affairs. Several of the books of the Old Testament are filled
with accounts of these interferences by the higher
powers with the affairs of the Jews, who were repeat-
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
edly sent into exile or involved in desolating wars, or
punished in some manner by having set over them
"the basest of men," and for hundreds of years.
In this way they got rid of the idolators, so much
so that at last the Jews are a united nation and people,
a cosmopolitan race that are probably more numerous
than at any time in their past history, and are more
true to their religion, their country and their home,
though living under all skies the world over, than any
other race, nation, tribe or people to be found anywhere
on the face of the whole earth. They have become
thoroughbreds, and the only people on the footstool
who steadfastly worship the only one, true God.

JESUS AND JUDAS.
"That the Scriptures might be fulfilled.- — lesus.
"For this purpose have I raised thee up." — lehovah
to Pharaoh.
"I form the light and create darkness. I make
peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things."
— lehovah to leremiah.
"Shall the clay say to him that shapeth it, What
makest thou?" — Ibid.
The human mind can conceive of no greater con
trast than is presented by these two greatest of the
actors that wrought in this greatest and grandest of
the world's tragedies. And yet there is another side
and another light in which the divine humanity is
destined to view this vast drama that involves worlds in
its fulfillment.
For the great Architect of all the worlds worketh
by wise plans, some of which are not so easily com
prehended by man in his early spiritual conditions and
estates, and must patiently abide the time when his
Creator shall permit him to have a better knowledge
of the ways, means and methods by which he works
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
out the vast plans, purposes and problems of an in
finite universe.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither
are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
thoughts." — Isaiah i., 8, 9.
Yes, the Creator, our own Heavenly Father, is often
obliged to employ human means for the furtherance
and the execution of His mighty plans and purposes
in the field of creation that appear questionable and
even worse in the eyes of the uninstructed man, who
does not understand the wisdom, power or the needs
of the Creator in the choice of His means and instru
mentalities for the accomplishment of His great and
wise purposes.
Among the most important of the instruments se
lected by Jehovah for the accomplishment of His great
and beneficent plans fpr the uplifting and salvation of
mankind, we must regard those of Pharaoh and Judas
to have been the most important of all the baser means
which He employed in their execution. Taking the case
of Pharaoh, whom Jehovah (Lord) informed that:
"For this very cause he had raised him up to show
in thee my power and that my name may be declared
among all the nations of the earth."
The Lord had two very important objects to ac
complish in raising up this man Rameses and seating
him upon the throne of the Pharaohs at the time He
purposed to return the Israelites to their original home
in Palestine, and one of these objects was to make
the very name of the Egyptian king and his people,
and even the very land of Egypt, utterly and forever
hateful to them by the beastly tyrannies and oppres
sions which they would experience at the hands of both
king and people, so that they would never in the future
have any desire to return to the land of their op
pressors, though it was at the same time the land of
their fathers, and had been for the past four hundred
years. What Jehovah intended to accomplish by Flis
treatment of Pharaoh was to spread abroad among the
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
nations many wonderful reports — many of which
would be greatly exaggerated — of his wonderful deal
ings with Pharaoh and his two peoples, but were
more especially intended for the peoples of Palestine,
to cause them to stand in awe of the Jews and then-
God and to thus render their entrance into Palestine
and their final settlement there more easy of ac
complishment. At one time, when the heart of Pharaoh relented
under the terrible discipline of Jehovah, and was
minded to let his people go, Jehovah interfered and
"hardened Pharaoh's heart," in order that he might
have the opportunity to chastise both the king and his
two peoples a while longer, until all should become
wholly sick of each other and willing and anxiousx to
forever separate and be quit of each other — without
any desire to ever return.
For the eternal God was engaged in the business of
accouching a great nation, and one that was and yet
is destined to play a marvelous role in the affairs of
human civilization. This disciplinary course pursued
toward the Jewish people by the higher powers of the
spiritual world has been continued down to the pres
ent time. They have been exiled in greater or less
extent, several times during the past 3,500 years, until
they have become a race of religious thoroughbreds,
that will stand by their religion through thick and thin
and under all circumstances the world over — the ex
ample of a great people that, without home, country
or liberty, and never has been permitted access to the
land in any other country, have, despite all, and in all
countries, maintained their autocracy, nationality and
their religion in the most marvelous way of any
people that has ever struck time.
This disciplinary dispensation will not, cannot, in
the very nature of the situation in Europe, be gotten
rid of fully and finally until "the fulness of the Gentiles
has come in; or, in other words, until the tyrannies
that Jews, in common with all other old world
peoples suffer from, have been wholly and forever
removed, and free governments for all have been
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
established in their places. They can never be gotten
rid of until the millennial era, now coming in the midst
of the most terrible wars, whose final object is intended
for the removal of the obstacles that stand in the
way of the realization of this marvelous era of uni
versal love, joy, peace and fraternity when these great
difficulties in the path of the divine humanity have
been fully and finally and forever taken away.
For the new civilization, the "new heavens and the
new earth," can never be fully introduced and laid
upon its living and eternal foundations until every
last vestige of the old materialistic civilization has been
utterly and everlastingly destroyed and taken from
the earth. And that new civilization is the new city
described by John in Rev. xxi., 1-27. In Rev. xviii.,
1-24, we have a vivid description of the old Babylonish
civilization and the manner of its utter overthrow and
destruction, in the 21st verse of that chapter.
In the case of Judas we have an equally plain ex
ample of one who has been foreordained by the higher
powers to the execution of a certain part in the great
tragedy of Jesus and the cross.
"I speak not of you all," said Jesus on that mem
orable night. "I know whom I have chosen: But that
the Scripture may be fulfilled, he that eateth bread with
me hath lifted up his heel against me !"
We have in this and in other Bible passages a plain
intimation that it was both foreseen and also fore-
intended by the higher powers that someone should
perform that part in the great tragedy, but it is also
plainly stated by the Master, both here and elsewhere
in the gospels.
Jesus even proceeds so far as to prompt Judas to
hurry up the dreadful work, and not keep him any
longer than possible in dread suspense. "That thou
doest, do quickly." Fearful, too, probably, lest Judas
should falter in his purpose, and His own plans and
purposes for the completion of His great life work
for the salvation of mankind should in some way be
deferred or defeated altogether.
Then, too, He might not have been sure of Him-
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
self — of His own ability to maintain Himself in that
sublime height of passion He had wrought himself
up into in order to sustain Him in His endurance of
His terrible self-inflicted ordeal! That thou doest,
do quickly." "Be sure of yourself and of the ac
complishment of your purpose, and don't keep me in
this fearful suspense any longer than necessary!"
In this manner he even appeals to the mercy of
Judas, and entreats him to be as expeditious as pos
sible in the execution of his purpose and not to hold
Him in that tremendous, heart-rending agony of un
certainty and doubt which Fie soon after manifested in
the garden when He retired by himself to intercede
with His heavenly Father. "If it be possible, let this
cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as
thou wilt!"
It is the loftiest sublimity of heroism — the scene,
the passion, the actor, are blended, as it were, in one,
the greatest, grandest and most terribly glorious ever
endured upon this dear old earth or elsewhere by gods
or men.
The magnitude and importance of the part enacted
by the man Judas appears never to have been fully
understood in its highest significance down > to the
present time. Mankind appears to have been content
to receive the benefits of a salvation purchased by the
assassination of the man Jesus, but curse the authors
of it, and especially the man Judas. If the tragic
death of Christ upon the cross and the part taken in
it by Judas could have easily been omitted, is it not
plain to see that the authorities of the spiritual world
who oversee and superintend the affairs of human
civilization (see Dan. iv., 17) would never have put
Him into such tragic and awful experiences? "And
I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto me." Such
is the estimate of the value placed upon it by the
Master himself in one of His discourses to His dis
ciples some time before His death. And it is a sub
lime truth. Yes, give a little longer time for the
operation of the benign principles involved in the life,
death and sufferings of Christ to produce their natural
, 108

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
effects upon mankind, it will be found that this divine
humanity of ours has been integrally united and crys
tallized centrally about this man Jesus.
Yes, as elsewhere stated, this wonderful bulletin of
the cross and all its containments has been the great
est driving and uplifting force connected with all
Christianity ; yea, with civilization itself.
The vast importance of the relation which this man
Judas sustains, and will ever sustain, to this sublime
inter-world's tragedy, will never be fully unfolded and
understood until man himself has risen up to a better
understanding of the nature, the duties and responsi
bilities of the Creator Himself in all His relations with
mankind, His own dear children, both in this world,
the other world and all worlds. That the higher au
thorities of the spirit world — yea, the Father Himself —
believed it to be indispensable to the salvation of
mankind that Jesus should come down to this world
and suffer many things from the Jews, "and be killed,"
there can be no doubt in the mind of any student of the
Bible. Also that the Fatherhood, by whom He was sent,
believed that His suffering, betrayal and death were
a very needful part, yea, sustained a positive relation
thereto of untold value to the scheme of human re
demption, is equally evident from all the evidence in
the case, especially if we consider the tender and
touching appeal of Jesus to His heavenly Father when
in His awful agony in the garden, he besought Him
to release Him from the dreadful ordeal if the plan
of salvation could be successfully completed without
such a terrible sacrifice! "Oh, my Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertbeless, not
as I will, but as thou wilt." And again He went away
and prayed, saying: "Oh, my Father, if this cup may
not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will
be done!" So that "an angel from heaven appeared
unto him, strengthening him."
How unutterably sad and agonizing is this appeal
to His heavenly Father to stay the enactment of a
death so inconceivably tragical and awful! But the
iog

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
heavens refuse any stay of the dread sentence, though
an angel is sent to comfort and strengthen Him against
His appalling sorrows, sufferings and death.
But the heavens are dumb to His piteous appeal to
stay the execution of a death so inconceivably cruel
and awful. No pitying hand is extended to arrest the
execution of the terrible impending sentence — the
awful spectacle of a God expiring on the cross in the
midst of unutterable agonies is too absolutely necessary
to the fulfillment and perfection of His own and His
Father's scheme for the salvation of a world, is too
imperative and absolute, to admit of any arrest or
even delay in its enactment. And the terrible Fates
move forward ! No stop ! No stay ! To the onward
march of the eternal destinies!
'"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
are His last expiring and despairing words when sus
pended upon the cross.
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do," is one of the last of the loving words to which
He gave utterance while hanging on the cross and wit
nessing the frenzied mob as they sought to increase
the keenness of His expiring agonies.
And it is for the perfection of this sublime plan
and purpose of the spiritual heavens to arrest the
attention of this densely ignorant, unspiritual child-
man and cause him to look up, set him to thinking
upon spiritual things and induce him to forsake his
sins and lead a new life before God, angels and men.
For the perfection of this wonderful scheme for the
redemption of a world, this mighty advertisement of
the everlasting divine word, the man Judas was em
ployed by the angelic authorities of the spiritual world
to supply the darkest part of the dark background in
the picture that was to furnish a proper setting for
the sublime spiritual lights, the moral grandeurs and
glories displayed by the divine God-man during His
unutterable sorrows, anguishes and agonies in the
garden, at the trial and while suspended 'twixt heaven
and earth upon the cruel cross. The picture is perfect.
no

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
We look in vain for anything that approaches it in
tragic grandeur( and sublime, infinite glory!
No wonder that the Father refused to release Him
from enacting His part in the mighty all-worlds drama
and tragedy, for such it is.
"And I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto
me." And so it is and will be until the whole world shall
be lifted up into the eternal brotherhood of man, and
, into perfect harmony with the Fatherhood of the Gods.
To assist the angels in their wondrous plan for the
moral and spiritual evolution of the divine man this
man Judas was specially incarnated. His treachery
toward his teacher and noblest friend; his conspiracy
against him with the priests; his sale of Christ for a
few paltry "pieces of silver"; his speedy and terrible
remorse at the consequences of his treason; his self
immolation and execution, are all necessary features
in the mighty picture and wholly indispensable to the
perfect fulfillment of the purposes of the Gods.
To prepare himself for the execution of his part
in this business of the spiritual uplifting of a world,
it became necessary for him to spiritually degrade him
self and to incarnate in a sphere and in a family of a
lower order morally than the one he had previously
been attached to in that life, in order that he might
become suitably conditioned for the base part he
was to play therein. It was an act of much heroism
on his part; one that has cost him the execrations
and the curses of mankind for nearly 2,000 years, be
sides centuries of hard work to regain lost ground.
There is no authority that can repeal the law that gov
erns the action of fire on the person of the man that
falls into it, no matter what may have been his motive
in getting there.
He can only be aided in escaping from its effects
by an act of forgiveness toward him on the part of
mankind that will eventually lift him up out of them.
But will they grant it ? Most assuredly, yes !
in

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
Jesus forgave His enemies even when, suspended on
the cross, they were tormenting Him. And He has
not only bid us to imitate Him in the exercise of this
simple act of magnanimity towards those who in some
way have been estranged from us, but He has also
put it as a prior condition to our being forgiven by our
heavenly Father that we also forgive our enemies,
and the eternal law in itself is equally mandatory in its
demands upon us in this respect.
"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye for
give not men their trespasses, neither will your Father
forgive your trespasses." The law is absolute and
eternal. Yea, the churches must learn to exercise a
broader and deeper spirit of love and charity toward
all men everywhere, and to that end they must practice
a greater charity toward each other and toward the
man Judas, who has sinned more deeply against old
theology than against reason, justice and the eternal
truth of things. It will beget a newer and more
catholic spirit in them, that will bind them more per
fectly together in one as an irresistible force to com
plete the evangelization of the world. And to the
more perfect accomplishment of this most glorious
consummation of all good, the perfect union and har
mony of the forces of civilization, the churches must
study more deeply the functionation of the divine
humanity, not only among the churches themselves,
but everywhere in all conditions, states, estates and
offices that exist among the whole vast family of man.
They must look more deeply into the universal and
eternal causes of sin and transgression by man of the
eternal law itself. For, as the beloved Socrates has so
well stated the facts: "Vice is ignorance: Virtue is
knowledge." Yes, vice is simply ignorance concreted
in the life of man, and virtue is its polaric opposite.
For this will become the creation of a new spirit,
which in truth is a holy spirit — the holy spirit, or spirit
of the whole. For the holy spirit, the "Pneuma
Agion," is the harmonious coaction of every office and
organ, every force and function in universal life, as
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
that life proceedeth outward to consummate creation
in all its infinite departments of being. It forms the
infinite holo-cosmos that embraces within one vast
sweep of conscious and coactive energy all forces and
forms of beings create and increate — the universal
harmonium and oversoul. God over all and blessed
forevermore. It is this "spirit of the whole" that presides over
the conception of men and of nations that are "raised
up" to perform some special, important office in the
divine humanity. And it was this holy spirit that
brooded over the parents of the beloved Christ in their
incarnating conception of this minister plenipotentiary,
healer and teacher that descended from the skies to
organ every force and function in universal life, as
earth, to illuminate, to heal, to instruct and to bless
mankind. It was the literal rendering of certain pass
ages in the genealogy of Jesus that caused the church
to make the mistake of supposing that Jesus was begot
ten without earthly father — a mistake, however, that,
like many another literal translation of the Word, hath
been a source of spiritual profit up to a certain era in
the life of humanity, when the literal and symbolical
sense of the Word must give place to the spiritual and
scientific sense of it, for the spiritual freedoms and
other spiritual uses of the thousands who are marching
forward into the new dispensation.
It is the inability to see and the unwillingness to
permit these beneficent changes and transitions that
hath heretofore created so much and terrible friction
and war among men of different creeds and beliefs.
This irrational and ignorant opposition to the rational
and healthful progress of humanity has been personified
in Revelations, chapter xx., under the likeness of a
dragon, which is the Devil, or Do-evil, and Satanas,
which means opposition, or irrational and unjust hatred
and opposition to all proper growth and progress in
human life.
It is the misguidance of mankind by many of those
who have been appointed by Heaven tp instruct, protect
and guide them until they have attained unto a proper
"3

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
moral and mental status to guide and govern them
selves, when they will be called upon to surrender
the autocracy and allow the people to govern them
selves. Fortunately, there be some of the rulers of the world
who appear at least to understand this outworking
of the divine law that destinates the life of the divine
humanity, and are seeking to make them ready for the
mighty changes that await them. A little hearty and
appreciative opposition and restraint, to hold the people
back until they are more advanced and better prepared
to assume all the prerogatives of self-government, may
not be amiss for a time yet.
But the inevitable eternal destinies of the great
family of man are too palpable and manifest to be
misunderstood. It would be far better for the people
and for their rulers that the latter shall seek to pro
mote rather than to oppose this political and spiritual
accouchment of the world's peoples into self-governing
nations, that is now so swiftly progressing under the
leadership of Heaven.
What a seeming pity it is there are not a few more
Dom Pedros in the world to help the people make
themselves ready for their transition out of the old
order of things into the new — the order of the "new
heavens and the new earth," only making such and
so much apparent opposition to the revolution by which
the people assumed the reins of the government as to
appease his friends and family, who were opposed to
his beneficent schemes for helping his people into self-
rule by means of wise and judicious measures for their
true growth and progress. It may be possible that
Europe has at least one ruler, Emperor William of
Germany, who has already accomplished a vast work
for the advancement of his people, with what ulterior
motives it is difficult to say, perhaps— whether for the
sole purpose of conciliating the people into an endorse
ment of his dynasty for all time, or to educate them
into an intelligent perception of the rights, duties and
obligations of self-government with the intent to hand
114

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
it over to them as soon as he believes them fully pre
pared for it.
It is probably nothing more than justice to assume
that the great Emperor — for great he certainly is —
has been actuated by the wiser and nobler of the two
alternatives. If our supposition be the true one — if he is con
ducting a campaign of education for his people with
the intent and purpose of turning over the government
into their hands by peaceful and voluntary revolution,
it will indeed be a glorious act of self-abnegation — one
that will place him in the very highest role among
the rulers of earth and will endear him to the nations
and peoples of the world for all coming time.

AN IMPORTANT LAW OF PROGRESSION IN
SPIRIT LIFE.
A far-reaching and very important law of spirit life
is the one which sends the spirit back to earth life to
obtain certain material forces from those still resident
in the flesh, to aid him in the proper rebuilding of his
own spirit body, in such cases as those who, while they
were living in the flesh, lived very bad lives, and hence,
when they entered spirit life, are "sick" spirits, and
require to be treated for their maladies of earth life.
For all things that affect the body affect the mind, or
spirit body, also, with this difference, however, that
the ailments which the material body (soma) impresses
upon the spiritual body (psyche) are more abiding
than are those made by the spirit body upon its ma
terial companion, which is dissolved at death. For
such is the law.
Since the establishment of hospitals in spirit life
for the treatment of the ailments which the spirit man
_ "5

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
incurred while a resident of earth life, vast numbers
of the insane and of others who are afflicted with the
"ills that man is heir to" are being treated, and with
wonderful success.
And the treatment of these maladies originating in
earth life are not confined to such only as are passing
into spirit life at the present time, but untold thou
sands of those who entered it ages ago are also the
subjects of this benign law of treatment. For this is
the "Judgment Day," when even those "who are in
their graves — spiritual — shall hear the voice of the
Son, and they that hear shall live." This is also the
era or "times of the restitution of all things," when
those who were the leaders and the rulers of mankind
and should have been their teachers and helpers, to
lead them to a higher life, became their oppressors,
rather, and failed to discharge their duties to the
humbler classes when in this life — these great ones —
all, indeed, who failed to perform their duties to the
humbler classes in return for the services and uses
wrought by them for those placed over them by the
higher powers — these mighty ones are descending by
myriads, many of them into the very lowest dens of
darkness, sorrow and despair, and are doing all they
can to aid the noble philanthropists and sages in their
blessed work of healing the sick of all times and
conditions. Such is the law of compensation placed upon them
by the higher powers and the higher law, and there
is no longer any evasion of it.
The material body of man is an organ of the spiritual
man who lives within it as in a house of his own
making, and fulfills a number of offices in the life of
the individual. As already stated, it is a house or
tenement in which for the time "he lives and moves
and has his being."
It also performs the office of a stomach for the uses
of the spiritual man, wherein, aided by its correspond
ing organ in the spiritual body, he digests, elaborates
and refines his foods, both temporal and spiritual, for-
both these needs and requirements of the spiritual man.
116

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
From this laboratory, as from a common fountain,
aided by appropriate machinery, the various foods thus
prepared go forth into every part, nerve, cell and fiber
of both the physical and the spiritual man, to refresh,
rebuild and renew him in every portion of his being,
though the foods which the spiritual man selects, dis
tributes and formulates unto itself for the proper re-
newal of its own tissues, are of a less gross form and
degree than are those foods and other forces which
the more animal man makes use of to renew and re
build its own proper structure.
These foods and other forms of the life forces that
man thus receives from the raw materials supplied
by nature come from the heights and depths of uni
versal life, both from the spiritual and the material
worlds, and are superintended, directed and moved
by the creative intelligences in the evolution of all
beings, both small and great, material and spiritual.
From these foods thus appropriated from the vast
storehouse of nature, man not only supplies his own
and hourly needs in greatest measure, but from these
manifold foods which man thus elaborates and refines
within the crucible of his own being. But in their more
subtle, refined and spiritual forms he imparts them to
all who come within the sphere and scope of his own
being. "I am the living bread that came down from
heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live
forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh,
which I will give for the life of the world."
"I am that Bread of Life." "This is the Bread that
cometh down from Heaven that a man may eat thereof
and not die."
"The Jews therefore strove among themselves say
ing : "How can this man give us his flesh to eat ?"
"Jesus said unto them verily, verily I say unto you,
except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Who so
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal
life and I will raise him up at the last day. For my
flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He
"7

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth
in me and / in him."
"And the man said: The woman which thou gavest
to be with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and
I did eat." In all matters that concern the Intelligence
of man woman represents "Pure Reason" or direct and
immediate perception, while man (as a rule) creeping
to all his conclusions by a comparatively slow process
of reasoning, represents the "Rational understanding"
as defined by the Metaphysician Emanuel Kant.
Hence it is that the womanly or femenoid Intelli
gence is the first to perceive great primal truths — first
"eats" of them and afterwards hands them over to the
man, or masculine intellect, and "he did eat."
"'For there went virtue out of him and healed them
all." This "Virtue" or dunamis, that in this way went
out of him and healed so many of the multitudes that
came for the purpose of being healed of their diseases
were his personal loves, affections, magnetisms and
other potent foods which he imparted to all who
were in mental and spiritual touch and harmony with
him. "For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood — or love
— is drink indeed."
Not only did the beloved Christ possess this mar
vellous power or "gift," but so also did Paul and
Peter, who, for example, raised the dead Dorcas to
life. In truth it is a "gift" possessed by all healers in
every age, as Jesus himself prophesied would take
place with all who believed in Him and in His meth
ods and means of healing.
"If any man believe in me the works that I do shall
He do also and greater works shall he do because I go
to the Father."
And again: "And these signs shall follow them
that believe. In my name shall they cast out Devil1". :
they shall speak with new tongues :
, * * * * * *
"They shall lay their hands on the sick and they
shall recover."
All of which predictions of the beloved Master have
118

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS. '"*
been literally and abundantly fulfilled in modern times
both among Christian Scientists, Spiritualists, and
many others of the "Mind Cure" persuasion.
But to return. A time will come, as soon or late it
comes to all, when the material body with all its mani
fold organs, functions and potencies must be put aside.
It has fulfilled the full round of its wondrous being,
as Nature intended, if its "allotted" time has not been
cut short by accident, disease, or some other of the
thousand and one causes that produce premature death.
The spirit man passes on into the realm of Spirit Life.
We see him no more for the simple reason that like
the electro-motor he is of too fine materials to be cog
nizable by the gross unspiritual five senses of this
"muddy vesture of decay that doth so grossly close
us in." With the putting aside of the material organ
ism he also laid aside the material laboratory or stom
ach wherewith he had for long years with the assist
ance and co-operation of its correspondenting spiritual
stomach, prepared the foods for his subsistence and
well being.
Henceforth he will be obliged to depend upon the
digestive and the elaborative organs of the spiritual
body alone for the means to prepare the*foods for his
daily and hourly uses and enjoyments in the spirit
world. If the spiritual house which he built up during
his sojourn in the flesh be of so high, pure and endur
ing character that it shall require no radical changes
to be made in it afterward to adapt him to life in the
spirit world, all is well with him.
He has fulfilled the law of his own being and is at
peace within himself and with God's great Universe
everywhere. But if, during his lifetime in the world, he has been
building up a diseased body both of the material and
spiritual kinds, he has both sub-consciously and uncon
sciously been slowly drifting into what for a better
name we term "the Hells" both of a material and
spiritual character, which in some of their leading
aspects will return to him in a more aggravated form
than in this life of the flesh.
119

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
And now since he has not any longer the material
body with all its important organs and functions to
act in concert with those of the spirit body and thus to
assist it in the elaboration of his foods, not only such
as are designed for ordinary uses, but more espe
cially those of another and quite a different sort ; viz.,
such as are intended to act as alteratives — as we in this
life are in the habit of terming them — and which he
must have and use to effect these important radical
changes which he must undergo in order to get rid
of the diseased conditions which he lived into while in
earth life, — by those spiritual transformations that
will restore it to healthful conditions.
This is the great difficulty that hitherto has con
fronted man upon his entrance into Spirit life, — a dif
ficulty arising from his dense ignorance of the laws
that regulate his own spiritual being. This was the
vast problem concerning the life of man that confront
ed Swedenborg and his teachers in spirit life, chief
among whom was St. Augustine, who was a fatalist
of the most rigid character and from whom Sweden
borg imbibed that terrible system of pessimistic the
ology that he has given to the world.
Both St. Augustine and Swedenborg were very
great and very learned men, especially the latter. Both
of them were voluminous writers. But St. Augustine
has done more to shape the religious opinions of man
kind and to impress upon them their cruel and utterly
relentless character than all the primitive church
Fathers put together.
The human mind can contemplate only with aston
ishment, the utter "sang froid" with which Swedenborg
inverts the character of the Divine Being — "Our
Father who art in the Heavens," — as delineated by the
beloved Christ — into the very strange and unutterable
Being that still exists in some of the creeds of to-day,
that has no counterpart in reason, science, philosophy
or even in any of the Mythologies that exist among
men of the most barbarous tribes — a doctrine and a
character that if true and could be realized in its
120

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
enormity would dethrone the very foundations of
human reason itself.
But as we have shown elsewhere, the Hells of Spirit
life as defined in the creeds are couched in intensely
symbolic language, which when it is taken in a literal
sense, as the churches have done in the past ages to
present times, justifies all the horrors of which we
have spoken. But when used in a spiritual sense are
rational, just and true, and places men in perfect align
ment and harmony with universal law, and when fully
explained and understood in all its bearings, as it soon
will be by the more adult spiritual man, will no longer
exist as a terror and a stumbling block to human
reason. But on the contrary will be a source of great
joy, peace and divine satisfaction to every soul of man.
It was this theological nodus that confronted Swed
enborg at the outset of his scriptural studies and in
stead of taking the true spiritual sense of the word,
he fell into the literal sense of it as Augustine and
others of the Church Fathers had done before him,
and his intercourse with these Fathers in spirit life
had only served to impress it still more deeply upon
his own mind as the true spiritual sense of the word, —
at least in many cases where the philosophical or
Theosophical Sense should have been made use of.
Hence, he not only put aside the plainest teachings
of the Master upon this subject, both while still in the
flesh and also after his Ascension when "he went and
preached to the spirits in prison," and in doing so he
violated the plainest dictates of reason and humanity,
the teachings of Science and Philosophy, both physical
and psychical and lastly the Word itself, which as an
authoritative message to mankind must of necessity
be in full accord and harmony with the Bible as traced
everywhere in the great volume of Nature by the
finger of the Almighty, but also upon the living tablets
of the human soul !
But all things take their place upon this "vast scene
of man" in all due order, time and place. A new era
has at last dawned upon both spirit world and human
world. It is the era of real human progress. It is the
121

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
establishment of a newer, higher and nobler standard
for the "ludgment" of mankind.
"And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before
God, and the Books were opened — viz., "Old Theo
logy" — which is the very imperfect and in many re
spects very false estimate placed upon the character
of man, by his religious teachers in old theology ; also
the very crude and in so many respects very false esti
mate placed upon the true character of mankind by
our works upon civil, social and political law.
"And another book was opened which is the Book
of Life and the dead were judged from the things
written in the books."
The first two books contain the very imperfect and
false estimates or "Judgments" placed by theology
upon humanity, and are still retained as an important
element of the "general judgment" now taking place,
because true and vital in many of their leading feat
ures, and which when they are modified by the higher
and more perfect Judgments of the marvellous sciences
of the present age, will constitute Judgment in its high
est and most perfect form.
And this is the "Book of Life." It is Science, true
Religion, Psychology, Philosophy, Philanthropy and
every other science that elucidates and ennobles the
true character of human kind, as applied to the office of
assigning to man his true character, first as an individ
ual and second as to his rank and place in the Univer
sal Heavens.
We now return more directly to the law concerned
in healing in its metaphysiological relations to the
treatment and the cure of. spiritual "and other diseases,
and as it relates to both the healer and his patient.
Let us inquire what it is that takes place in the
sick when they are healed by the "laying on of hands"
as did Jesus and His disciples when they were in the
world, and has since been done by many healers of the
present time. There is a simple transfusion of the
healthy "Blood" of the healer into every part and
organ of the sick person, whereby he is restored to
health. The living forces of the healer, — the loves,
. 122

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
affections, and other personal magnetisms enter into
every fiber, nerve and atom of the body of the sick
person, and repelling the disease establish health in its'
place. The entire physical man has undergone a radi
cal transformation.
But when the sick man has put aside his material
body and has entered the spiritual world, the same law
obtains — follows him thither, but operates now undei
somewhat different conditions. In other words he has
not any longer the aid of the material body to assist
him in the evolution of those forces which he requires
to co-operate with the spiritual forces within him in
expelling the diseases which he took into him by a bad
life in the flesh.
And yet he will be obliged to have these co-operative.
forces for the repulsion of the diseases of the spiritual
body, — forces generated in the material body, as Swed
enborg has stated in N. 480 in his "Heaven and Hell."
But while Swedenbory could see no way out of this
difficulty yet there is one now made manifest by the
light thrown upon these vexing questions of the mind
by the more advanced conditions of modern Science,
Philosophy and a true Theosophy, which were not
much known to Swedenborg and the age in which he
lived. These co-operative forces originating in the material
body, which the sick man of spirit life can no longer
obtain from his own physical organism, having cast
it off from him at death, he can still find an abundant
supply in the bodies and souls of other people, and
from such as still living in the form but in more
healthful and normal conditions spiritually are far
better adapted to his needs of health and recovery
than any that could be derived from his own diseased
material body were it still available for bis uses.
This divine source of healing is one of the greatest
of the prerogatives of the divine social man and is
much more potent now in the hospitals of the spiritual
world and applies to a vastly wider range of diseases
there than here. In truth it applies there to every form
of disease and all diseases there become more amenable
123

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
to treatment since the sinner has got nd of his old sick
body with its diseases and its enticing passions and
appetites, and does not encounter so much opposition
from them as when subject to them in the life of the
flesh. It is this somewhat occult law discovered and de
monstrated by the old Greek philosopher and scientist,
Anaxagoras, "Father of Modern Science," as he is
sometimes called to-day. It is this occult law or
force that brings millions of human beings after their
entrance into spirit life back to their former terrestrial
habitats to become the source of the manifold cranks
and other insane people that fill insane asylums, jails
and penetentiaries that abound in our land.
Anaxagoras, upon his entrance into spirit life, like
* the wise Socrates, chose to remain in the lower spheres
among the people of all ranks, classes and conditions,
the better to enable him (them) to study their needs
and requirements, and to help them where they re
quired help.
Anaxagoras discovered, from long and careful ob
servation among the lower and other classes, that such
as chose to remain in terrestrial conditions, not seek
ing to escape the evils incurred by remaining in the
lower spheres by a too early ascent into the higher. He
discovered that such as' preferred to remain in touch
with the earth and earthly influences, and mingled
freely with all classes, and especially with the
people of the world, who, still in full and active pos
session of their earthly bodies, could supply them with
those terrestrial-spiritual forces and foods which they
required both to sanitate and to rebuild their diseased
spirit bodies, that these by long subjecting themselves
to terrestrial influences became gradually improved in
their personal and sanitary conditions. Like Anteus,
the Son of Ge, or Earth, who wrestled with Hercules,
they became stronger and better by coming into and re
maining in touch with dear old Mother Earth and her
benign and salutary influences.
By some to us as yet unknown and mysterious im
pulse, the dog when bitten by a poisonous serpent, is
124

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
said to retire by himself where he is not likely to be
disturbed and buries the bitten part in the earth and
lets it remain for days perhaps subject to its sanitive
potencies. Physicians have made the important discovery that
the earth poultice is one of the very best applications
that can be made to wounds and other lesions of the
body of certain classes or kinds.
These forms of sanitation would likely be more pop
ular were it not for the name and some degree of in
convenience that attach to them.
But man has adopted the sand bath and the mud
bath, and it remains to be seen if both of them may not
become more popular as time passes. Certain it is
that terrestrial and semi-terrestrial influences and po
tencies play a wonderful part in the sanitary means
and methods employed by the angels in the treatment
and cure of vast numbers of the diseases that afflict
mankind in the lower spheres of spirit life, according
to their word.

PRE-EXISTENCE.

One morn beside the hedgerow 'neath the trees-
The lofty Eucalyptus — I espied
A glorious *Psyche wing the early breeze,
Dancing and prancing on the morning tide.
But yesterday a dull, unsightly worm
Crawling and sprawling on maternal breast —
To-day a thing of life, a glorious form
Cleaving the air with wondrous life and zest.

*The large golden lyre-winged butterfly. The Greeks
had but one word for Soul and for the Butterfly, viz.:
Psyche, which they regarded as the true symbol of the
soul of man in all its beautiful metamorphoses. The in
cident took place just as I have related it.
123

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
With joy I hailed it and in converse free.
"Oh, glorious sprite," said I, "whence comest
thou here?
From Sunland or from some more far country
Where Angels dwell in some celestial sphere?"
"Did *Eos, Painter of the Dawn, portray
Those rainbow tints upon thy dainty wing,
Or did Apollo with his lyre for aye
Impart such power that as they soar they sing?"
My only answer was a higher flight,
Cleaving the air as if in perfect scorn
Of earth and all that dwell within its light
And all who to its miseries are born.
"Spirit of life and beauty," then cried I,
"Canst thou not answer one who though earth's
pawn
Like thee hath spanned the past eternity —
Cotemporary of Creation's dawn?
"I am not all unworthy, but have sought
To dwell in harmony with all human kind ;
Nor these alone, but in my inmost thought
Have loved all meaner things with fervent mind.
"Say, canst thou tell me aught of former life,
Of blest Nirvana or of Devachan,
Where once we dwelt so free from pain and strife
Which here so blurs the life of gods and men ?
'"Don't tell me you forget ; it can't be true !
In thy dear brightness thou recallest well
The long, bright halcyon days when I and you
In those high spheres knew naught of earth's dark
spell.

* Eos means Dawn. 126

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
"Bring me some token of that blessed time
When life was one long dream of conscious bliss
Where oft we winged those heavenly airs sublime
Unconscious of the cares and tears of this.
"Bright messenger of the dawn, so free,
When yon bright orb spread his first glorious
beams —
When sang the stars in all their youthful glee —
Repeat to me what were thy morning dreams !
"Oh, say not that thou knowest naught of this,
Since thou art Psyche, free from earthly forms,
While I, still prisoned in this earth-shell, seek release
To find again the sun that ever warms.
"Still art thou dumb ! Ah, couldst thou say thy say
How it would shame professors of the college
Who are delving in the mud of earth for aye
To find the rootlets of the 'tree of knowledge !'
"But wisdom ofttimes is most eloquent
When it sits dumb before the word it brings !
Words have no power to tell the message sent,
And what the sage can't say the poet sings.
"Fain would I learn if thou canst tell me now
The wondrous mysteries of Re-incarnation?
'Twould be a marvellous story as I trow
And dim the glories of the first creation !
"Reincarnation is Creation's Law —
By it the Monad doth ascend to man,
Man to the angel, angel to the God
Qne universal and consistent plan.
"Say, wast thou present when our dear old earth'
First out of Chaos into Cosmos came?
Is Vega or Arcturus prior of birth ?
Lord Sirius or our own great God of flame„2
127

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
"Wast thou a witness when the morning stars
Together sang, the new-born universe?
Teach me that song, if love of truth inspires,
I fain would place it in my humble verse.
"Perchance, but just now freed, thou canst not say,
Since Time hath rule in all sublunar things ;
If so, I'll patient wait another day
And greet thee when the bird of morning sings.
"Still art thou Sphynx? Perchance it may be wrong
To filch the secret story of Creation ;
Perhaps I do but push my quest too strong,
And ought to wait till the next decarnation.
"But that's of little use to Fleshly men
Who hunger for some freshly inspired pages
Who have no wish to get beyond their ken,
But famish on the moldy crusts of ages!
"Still art thou mute? Perchance it is the best
That life's past glories visit not these eyes,
That Heaven in mercy vexeth not our rest
With visions of the splendors of, the skies !
"Yet let me thank thee for the priceless Word,
The message all unconscious thou has brought,
Divinest Psyche, Angel of the Lord,
Which in his higher wisdom he hath wrought."

THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.
The solar-planetary systems that fill all space in in
finite numbers are mizo-cosms; and individual worlds
are but mega-cosms in this vast infinite, magnificent
and infinitely glorious panorama of the worlds and
128

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
their sublime inter-planetary relations and uses, which
they sustain to each other in the life of all things.
The universes, philosophically and spiritually con
sidered, are nerved, muscled, ligamented throughout,
the only portions that we can behold with our natural
eyes being the osseous system, or the material worlds,
which form the bases of the various world systems —
the "footstools" of the Gods ("Heaven is my throne:
The Earth is my footstool," saith Jehovah.
These marvellous parallelisms, analogies and corre
spondences in the constitution of all things are not
only wonderful, unutterably glorious, but they are won
derfully helpful to the higher intelligences in their
work of teaching the laws, or modes of action and of
being of the various universes to the planetary boys
and men ! They form an easy line of ascent from par
ticulars and details and into generals and universals.
They present the laws to the infant as well as the
more adult spiritual man of the lower worlds in an in
finite panorama, beautiful object lessons that carry for
ward and upward the young spiritual mind in a won
derful way !
As soon as man has acquired sufficient strength and
clearness of vision to enable him to put aside his Earth
goggles, which were given him by the Creator to enable
him to more easily endure the too dazzling rays of the
great intense spiritual sun, he will open his spiritual
eyes upon a spiritual universe so magnificently and sub
limely glorious that his soul will be rilled with transport
at the wondrous scene that will greet his astonished
sight. In the evolution of this wonderful subject we have
to consider man in his social and spiritual relations to
his kind. In the study of these very important rela
tions we are much aided by the Master in some of the
juvenile lessons in spiritual things which he gave to his
disciples and to the world in his discourses to them
not long before his crucifixion. "Jesus said unto them,
Verily I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the
Son of Man, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth
129

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life : and
I will raise him up at the last day" . . .
"He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood
dwelleth in me and I in him."
Christ in thus informing the Jews, including his own
disciples, that he was the "bread that came down, yea
that cometh down from heaven," struck a vast and
vital and eternal principle that relates and governs all
the world. Spiritual, natural, material, human — all of
them — a divine focal principle that concerns all men,
with this difference concerning Jesus, that he was (is)
a very advanced spirit with many re-incarnations be
hind him, and for that reason had been chosen by the
Fatherhood as a special minister plenipotentiary clothed
with full powers as teacher and exemplar, to become
the most central force about which would focalize and
crystalize the forces of civilization itself.
The nature of these forces of which the Master
speaks are not difficult to comprehend perhaps if one
can put off his church prejudices and other precon
ceptions too old for his eyes and blur the vision.
"And virtue went out of him and healed them all."
It was by means of this personal divine "virtue" that
Christ went forth and with his mighty will power to
heal the multitudes of the sick that came to him fo^
healing. It also enabled Paul and Peter to raise the
dead as Christ had done, as we have elsewhere seen in
another chapter, and which has also enabled modern
healers to perform similar wonderful works.
Yes, love is the "blood" of the spiritual man and
"flesh" is the "bread" of the spiritual man to which
Jesus makes allusion in his discourse to the Jews (John
vi, 51-58). They form the personal -magnetisms of
all men according to their degree and kind — their
growth and advancement in spiritual things. "For my
flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed."
No one who can comprehend a tithe even of the vast
and sublime truths — the spiritual pearls of thought to
which the beloved one gave utterance during his earth
ly ministrations, but will admit that the "bread" and
the "blood" that were elaborated in his spiritual sys-
130

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
tem were standard high, and sufficiently true, pure and
commanding to modify and transform the other great
religions of the world and to create a religion broad
enough and big enough to supply ample standing room
and acting room for every "Son of man," and a spir
itual cuisine large enough and free enough to allow
every son of God to choose his own foods without let,
hindrance or dictation from any source whatsoever.
Our personal prescription of the foods and drinks of
others grows too often and to much out of our own
personal experiences and necessities; and while it may
be perfectly harmless, grateful and wholesome for us,
may be deleterious to others. This precious conserva
tive law extends to all the worlds, both material and
spiritual, but is more potent in the latter than in the
former, and more potent and active as one ascends
from lower into higher degrees of the spiritual and
celestial life of man. Hence the severity with which
Jesus spoke of the course pursued by the Scribes and
Pharisees and all others who "compass sea and land
to make a single proselyte, who, when he is made, be
comes twofold more a child of hell than themselves."
For by so doing they do not subjugate his errors but
his honesty, and turn him over to the devil of evil ways
and practices, for the eternal God can do nothing for
a rascal — can build very little that is great or good
upon a rogue.
But we must consider these divine, spiritual, organic
principles in a still higher light. Says the man Jesus :
"He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwell
eth in me and I in him." It is a vital principle extend
ing to and intimately relating to all cognate souls
everywhere in all worlds. It is the law and the force
that unites and determines the destinies of all souls,
and more especially those which concern the relations
of the true man and true woman. The spiritual plane
tary man or mega-cosm of our little world is made up
of an almost infinity of spiritual beings, men and wo
men, each of whom performs some function or use
greater or less in the "divine humanity" or planetary
man. These relationships do not give themselves ex-
131

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
pression in mere words and symbolisms. But chiefly
in the form of most beautiful nerves and ligaments that
unite the wise and the good — indeed they are beautiful
or ugly according to the character of those united.
The spiritual vision of the writer was at one time
sufficiently opened to witness an example of this won
derful relation between two persons, one of whom was
a healer. A broad, bright, beautiful golden band ap
peared to come forth from the region of the solar,
plexus of the physician and to extend across the inter-
lying space — some thirty feet or more distant — and
to enter the body of the patient in the corresponding
region. One of the things connected with the beautiful
vision was the fact that this spiritual golden band, that,
though broad, seemed to be no heavier than the lightest
gossamer, appeared to have material weight as it hung
suspended between the two persons in a long, light
curve downwards toward the earth or floor.
This example, if we consider it attentively, and with
out prejudice, may serve to explain much that has
hitherto been regarded as inexplicable in the occult or
spiritual life of man. The writer will give an example
in point.
He was well acquainted with an intelligent physician
who had two brothers that were twins. If one of these
were taken ill in any way, the other, though living
hundreds of miles away, was invariably attacked in the
same way. This marvellous divine unity under spirit
ual conditions extends to the whole body of the divine
humanity in greater or less degree and potencies, and
the more spiritually minded and intelligent one may be
the more he is lifted up to a plane where he becomes
conscious of its truth.
These spiritual foods of which Christ speaks not
only relate all souls to him who love him, and in a very
vital way as he has stated, but they are like and similar
to those which we are considering in connection with
the entire body of the spiritual planetary man. These
sublime forces are not only the nerves and the liga
ments that unite and bind in one all the elements of the
Divine Man; they are also a great part of the goods
132

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
upon which he subsists both physically and spiritually.
Persons have been known to subsist for years upon the
spiritual forces which they draw from their friends
around them in bodily presence and from those im
parted to them by the Angelic Societies in the spiritual
world to which they are affinitively related while still
in this life.
"I have meat to eat that ye know not of," said Jesus
to his disciples on a certain occasion.
As foods for both the material and the spiritual
man these personal forces that are derived from the
material worlds and their atmospheres and from the
spiritual worlds and their atmospheres, and are after
ward digested, elaborated, refined and eaten, both by
the man himself, but chiefly by his friends — these are
the chief attractions and foods that drew man and
woman together in the social, spiritual and conjugal
relations, and are the causes and influences that render
all these relations so delightful and intoxicating to
human souls. They eat one another, but functionally
and not in any harmful, but beneficent way — as stated
by the beloved Christ. "For my flesh is meat indeed
and my blood is drink indeed." "Whoso eateth my
flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life." Yes,
it is by virtue of the fact that individual man is nerved,
ligamented and co-muscled even with his fellow and
through him with every other part of the Divine Hu
manity, and is thus also fed from its divine living
fountains of life universal, that he becomes eternalized
and lives ultimately among and by the Immortals.
, The hand, the finger, the foot — every cell of the
many millions that form the man — derive their ex
istence, subsistence and base of life from these divine,
precious and holy relations with other souls. "Thanks
to the human heart by which we live." But that
which doth relate man most potently to the infinite
life and accomplishes most to eternize and infinitize
the whole life of man, are the relations he sustains, and
ever must sustain, to the infinite creative sphere which
constitute the brain, or the positive pole of the holy
Divine Humanity. Cut off the hand or finger of a man
133

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
and it is immediately dead. And the forces of sur
rounding life at once begin the work of disintegration
and death.
In like manner if man separates himself too far from
the vital currents that are forever flowing forth from
the living Brain of the Divine Being to impart life,
health and motion to all his worlds and universes, he
also perishes, and is found no more in the ranks of
living men and women. And this he can do if he so
desires. Yes, man so far as his degree of advancement in
spiritual things will admit, is totally related to all those
societies in spirit life for which he has any very posi
tive attraction.
For, as the human body is made up of an infinity of
cells that are corelated and held together as one body,
and is composed of manifold organs, functions and
uses, as has been .shown elsewhere, so likewise the
spiritual worlds are made up of innumerable societies
that correspond in their spiritual relations and uses
to the organs, functions and services that are per
formed by the manifold membership of the human
body. And this is true not only of the great universe it
self in all its compensatory relations with its worlds,
systems and inferior or lower universes, but it extends
all the way down to the terrestial worlds and all their
containments, where are found the earliest involutions
and incarnations of spiritual forms in material forms.
For material forms are only the dress which spirit
forms create and in which they array themselves, as
the hand in the glove and the person in the suit or
dress. This eternal outflow of the living forces of the
solar spiritual have a compensatory inflow that come
to them from the terrestrial worlds and all their con
tainments. The former or the solar spiritual outflow of
the spiritual currents and forces of universal life and
correspond to the systematic currents of the arterial
blood in the human system and their outflow and cir
culation throughout every portion of the human body.
The latter, or compensatory inflow of the spiritual
i34

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
eternal life forces of the universe correspond to the
venous circulation of the blood and other fluids of the
human system. For these are corresponding things
of the Divine Being.

CONCERNING SABBATHS.
The word Sabbath means rest. The Jews originally
in the time of Moses observed three forms of the Sab
batic idea or principle:
First — The observance of every seventh day as a
day of rest, which was designed more especially to
give the laboring man a period of rest from all his
ordinary physical labors, having for its object a two
fold purpose, viz., First, rest from all toil and business
labors for the refreshment and restoration of the forces
and functions of the entire material man ; and, Second,
the culture, invigorating growth and progress of the
spiritual man, and his advancement into the higher
planes and degrees in the life of the spiritual universe,
which is the present and ultimate goal whither tendeth
all his just efforts and eternal destinies.
It was a rest of every seventh day, and was an em
bodiment and an imitation of the lunar week day prin
ciple by which all animals and plants incubate and
menstruate, and which if not properly incorporated
into the culture of the Flora and the Fauna of man in
the future as it hath not been in the past, hath been
among the prolific and woful causes of the universal
breeding of predatory microbes in man, animal and
plant the world over.
We are moving too fast. We must slow up a great
deal or else the ugly consequences soon or late will
result in moribund relations and a dying world.
The Second form of the Sabbatic law, or principle,
as prescribed by Jehovah and adopted by Moses, was a
Sabbath of years — and made every seventh year a
i35

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
year of "rest to the land." "Six years shalt thou sow
thy field and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard
and gather in the fruit thereof — but the seventh year
shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land. A Sabbath
for the Lord; thou shalt neither sow thy field nor
prune thy vineyard.''
It was not only a year of "rest to the land," but also
became a whole year of rest to man and maid of the
toiling classes whose worn and weary bodies have be
come sick and faint, often insane, from the fearful
burdens imposed upon them by their unholy and un-
brotherly brethren in the flesh.
The almighty, all-wise Father of the great family of
man hath unlocked the vast storehouse of labor-sav
ing machinery to the world to enable man to enjoy
greater and more perfect season of rest and social,
spiritual and material recreation from the harsh and
grinding effects of labor upon the man of toil. But
the greater portion of those who have the control of it.
instead of applying it to the great, wise and noble uses
for which it is designed by the eternal divine Provi
dence to subserve, viz. : to enable them to have the
means and the leisure to cultivate their own nobler
and better natures and their families and dependents,
they are making use of these means which the ternal
God hath given them to pile up vast mountains of the
wealth of which they have robbed the people and im
posed upon them as vast burdens too intolerable to be
borne. The third form of the Sabbatic law or principle is
the year of the jubilee, of the fiftieth year. This is the
greatest and the most benign of all the laws ever
hitherto devised for the nationalization of the land to
prevent its monopoly by the rich and to prevent its
alienation from the possession and uses of the people
and their families. But government will — and that,
too, ere long — assume eminent domain over all the
national wealth of the world and will forever hold them
in trust for the uses and interests of the zvhole people,
and will never more allow them to be alienated from
the people in the future in any manner or degree
136

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
whatsoever. In so doing the government will repre
sent the real proprietors of the land and other natural
wealth of the world, and will hold it in trust in be
half of the whole people — for the present race of
man. This is the greatest and the most benign of all the
agrarian laws that have ever been devised for the
nationalization of the land to prevent its monopoly
by the rich and powerful, and its alienation from the
possession and uses of the people. But when political
government has become more perfect — when it has be
come a "government of the people, by the people, and
for the people," there will come a time, and one not far
hence, when all individual proprietary rights will re
vert to the central governments of the several peoples
of the world to be held in trust for their highest in
terests and uses.
By so doing, earthly governments will be made to
represent more perfectly the real and original spiritual
proprietors and will better carry out their plans and
purposes in the proper disposition of the natural wealth
of the world — to confer titles upon it.
As soon, however, as well established popular gov
ernments have been created by intelligent and well
ordered peoples, these governments will assume the
control and trusteeship of all the public wealth in their
several countries of the world, in the name and by the
authority of the original proprietors, and in behalf of
the whole people. For, say what we may to the
contrary notwithstanding, the fact will remain that
man as we know him here in the flesh is not the origi
nal creator and owner of the worlds and their vast
containments of natural wealth — although he is at
present making some very fine improvements upon
the property. But that, as the Scripture teaches and
the higher intelligences of the spiritual affirm, (the
material worlds and their belongings) are the work
of advanced men living in the spiritual world — which
is nothing more or less, practically considered, than
a reaffirmation of the statement of John m his gos
pel: — "All things were made by Him — Jesus — and
137

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
without him was not anything made that was made."
But Jesus was nothing more nor less than a man,
one of these advanced men who are the doers of the
Work in the higher departments of the labors of
man in the spiritual worlds in proper connection and
in relation with the material worlds. John was so
deeply impressed at the wisdom and the power of
these angelic men of the spiritual world that he fell
down at his feet to worship the angel that showed
these wonderful things. But is instantly rebuked by
the angel: — "See thou do it not. I am thy fellow
servant, and of thy brethern that have the testimony of
Jesus : — Worship God."
The prophet Daniel manifested a like spirit in the
presence of these more advanced men in spirit life
who could shut the mouths of lions, enable men to
walk in the midst of the fiery furnace without the
slightest injury done to clothing or person though
heated to a very wonderful degree.
In regard to the Sabbatic year as a year of rest
both to the land and to people, it is by no means an
improbability that wben human life has become more
enlightened and advanced; has less of the tiger and
more of the characteristics of the lamb; when ma
chinery has taken the "burden from the shoulders
of all men," and man has made the conquest of the
air as well as sea and land, and no man requires to
give more time to the social and the intellectual uses
of his material man, it may be that he will require
an occasional whole year of rest both for the uses
of the land, but more especially in his own behalf, as
a somewhat protracted period of rest and relaxation
of the whole man in order to promote those com
pensatory processes in his physique that will maintain
his system at par. Man is now just entering upon
a period in his history in some respects the most re
markable by far of all the chapters in the past history
of the race, written or unwritten.
Like some ancient ruined castle that has been the
home and safeguard of its people for many a mil
lennium of years but has at last become so delapidated
138 ._._.

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
and contracted for its growing family as to compel the
owner to remove it entirely to make room for the new
and spacious palatial home that is to take its place,
in like manner and for like reasons the old civilization
which has been the home and the safeguard of the
whole human family, lo, these thousands of years,
is at last become so delapidated and destroyed by time
and weather, so far outworn and outgrown its uses,
that the wreckers are now already busy at their work
of pulling down the ancient edifice to make ample
room for the new. The next fifteen to twenty years,
or more, perhaps, will be given by the Higher Powers
to the destruction and removal of the wreckage of
this ancient building and to prepare for the manifold
generation that are to come. As it has been well said
of it in the Bible, that grandest, noblest of all the
books ever given to man by his teachers in spirit life : —
"And I saw a new heavens — a new civilisation — and a
new earth, for the old heavens and the old earth were
passed away and there was no more sea" — no more
unhappy peoples in a state of perpetual unrest and
agitation like the sea waves.
To return to our Sabbatic year. The old Greeks
and Romans set aside every fourth year as a year of
mental and physical recreation and social enjoyment,
basing their rebuilding of the whole man upon the
animal plane chiefly though not entirely. With the
new civilization that is soon destined under divine
Providence to take the place of the old, both the
mental and the material as well as the social and the
spiritual man, should and likely will, receive a nearly,
if not equal attention. For the chief object of society
in the education of youth should be to form a system
of educational training for them that shall tend to
remove the eccentricities and inequalities of human
life to an extent and degree sufficient to enable all
classes to harmonize perfectly, but no farther.
To go beyond that in our efforts to educate is to
interfere with the rights of the individual and inflict
a serious injury upon him, as do all our sectarian and
other partial systems for educating the young.
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
The time is but little distant now when man shall
be called to witness a wonderful scene taking place
upon dear old mother earth. He will not only behold
every sea, lake, river, ocean, white with the commercial
fleets of all nations; the continents and large islands
of the globe gridironed with railways and other roads ;
all of them, both trains and fleets, bearing happy mill
ions daily to and from every quarter of the globe ; but,
when he lifts his eyes to the heavens, he shall behold
a new and more glorious spectacle. He will see the
very heavens alive with the airships of the God men
who have at last made the conquest of sea, sky and
land, and now seem likely to scale the higher heavens
to discover and capture the palaces of Jupiter and his
gods. For the "whole boundless universe" is man's and
neither man, God nor devil hath any right to withhold
from him those higher knowledges upon which he
"lives, moves and hath his being."
We are living too fast. We must moderate our
pace as a people, or we shall ere many generations
breed monkeys rather than men — slow down!
The Sabbath, when it is properly observed and un
derstood, will be seen and recognized as a function of
universal life and not created by planetry man or his
laws. The birds incubate a certain number of weeks,
and the higher animals — man and beast — both men
struate and gestate in a similar way and the law ex
tends itself even into the vegetable realm, and plants
also menstruate in harmony with this universal law
established by the Creator through the attractions
and other influences of our lunar planet.
We have seen the female eucalyptus nearly cover
the ground beneath it with what appeared to be water,
while that under the male trees was perfectly dry.
Even the law that is subserved by planting at certain
periods of the lunar influence, is a very important
one, as those who test it by proper experiment will
discover. We speak from experience.
Let those laugh who will. Yes, the seventh day or
Sabbath is an important function in all life, both ani-
,..^-- 14°

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
mai and plant, and this is especially so with man.
If the rational be so perfectly conjoined with the
spiritual the affectional and the natural understand
ings they form that wonderful feminine faculty
that is properly termed "faith" and which is the most
subtle, refined and penetrative of all the human facul
ties and which the great metaphysician Emanuel
Kant characterized as the pure Reason, or "der reinen
vernubt." This most important function in the intellectual life
of man and of woman, but of which woman possesses
by far the most, is, as we have already stated, the most
active and farseeing in the whole range of the human
faculties, though woman has the largest share. The
great skeptic and materialist, however, the Hon.
Robert G. Ingersoll, denounced it as a vile compound
of bigotry and superstition.
Paul has given the best definition, so far as it goes,
when he characterized it as "The evidence of things
not seen." Yes, dim as the light has been from the
density of the veil' through which it comes to man, it
has been through long ages the greatest source of light,
hope and comfort to ignorant and erring man during
his long period of germination and gestation in the
heart of the spiritual earth.

NO MISSING LINKS.
In charting the great planet, earth, for the distri
bution of its manifold functions 'and forms of life,
the Supreme Architect first mapped out the basic
forces of civilization in the very structure of the
living world itself, both in its geological and in its
geographical conditions and elements for the evolu
tion of life upon it.
It is this important fact that so intimately con
cerns the development of the floral and the faunal
141

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
life-forms of the planet, that has misled the material
istic philosopher in studying the forces as well as
[the processes by which creative progress has been
carried on. For every degree of longitude and lati
tude is not only a material idea, but also a spiritual
one. In the distribution of the climates, the soils,
the rocks, the waters, and the forms of the continents,
they have all been arranged by the Creative Wis
doms in a way to co-operate with the cosmic world-
building forces, to aid them in the evolution of all
created life forms. In crossing the continent from
the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific Coast region,
one is struck with the transformations in form and
color that have taken place in his old familiar friends
— the robin, the dove, the squirrel and others of his
former acquaintances, among bo*h animals and
plants. Originally the same, the Creative Intelligence
found different climatic foods and forces, different
tools to work with, and as creation delights in va
riety it has in many cases supplied us with vari-
tones in place of monotones. They are pieties im
pressed upon the pages of the great Book of Nature
by its Great Author. For all things bear the stamp
of His intelligence and His energies expressed in
harmonious and mathematical forms.
This differentiating energy of the creative func
tions is not only displayed in a very remarkable
manner in the evolution of the lower life forms of
our world, but formulates itself in an even more
characteristic way in the higher forms of the life of
man. Take our own people as an example in point. It
is possible for an expert in American biology to go
into an assembly of a thousand persons of American
birth and descent for several generations, all of them
strangers to himself, and from every part of the
Union, and determine the state in which each one of
them was born and bred, and make few mistakes.
Of a truth these local transformations, so marked
in their character, are not due wholly to local causes,
142

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
not yet to cosmic forces, but to Spiritual causes also
in the incarnations from the Spiritual world.
The various terrestrial life forms in turn supply,
the bases for the incarnations that come from the
various races, sub-races and arch-races of the An
gelic forms of Spirit Life.
From the summits of existence to the lowest
depths of the chain of being there are no "missing
links," save the imperfection of man's knowledge.
Not by "insensible gradations" hath the Divine
Architect wrought out the manifold life forms, in
which "He lives and moves and hath His being."
But in vast cycles and by leaps and bounds hath the
creative processes been accomplished.
Not by post-uterine means and methods, nor dur
ing extra-uterine states and conditions, save, as has
been already stated, but by and during intra-uterine
forms and modes of existence have those important
transformations been effected that we term species,
genera, etc.
And this statement' of the Divine law of creative,
progressive evolution is in practical harmony with
the views of Agassiz, Cuvier and Liebig — the great
est of the world's comparative anatomists and
scientists. Says Prof. Agassiz: "All domesticated animals
and cultivated plants are traceable to distant
species." And the domesticated pigeons which supply so
large a portion of the illustrations are, notwith
standing their great diversity under special treat
ment, no exception to the rule. The truth is our
domesticated animals, with all their breeds and va
rieties, have never been traced back to anything but
their own species. Nor have artificial varieties so
far as we know failed to revert to the wild stock
when left to themselves.
As we have already seen in previous numbers
Judea, Greece, Rome, India, have performed very
important parts in the evolution of the literal forms
of the Divine Word. And this they have done and
143 j

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
do because as nations they represent the Divine
Word in its various cosmic forms. India evolved
the idea of the Brotherhood of Man, but upon class
and caste lines. But these fraternal caste lines in-'
eluded within them even the animal world beneath him.
But to Judea was assigned the very important
office of evolving the more perfect religion of Chris
tianity, whose central idea is the Divinity and the
Divine Unity of all life. It is the Fatherhood of
God and the Brotherhood of Man.
These divinely grand conceptions of man and of
his eternal relations to the Divine Being have hith
erto been little more to the world in practice than an
ideality, a golden dream that has haunted man's
imagination and inspired him with hOpe during the
long dark ages that have elapsed since the man of
sorrows. But the signs of the times are full of great prom
ise. The old civilization is swiftly approaching its
end, and Socialism, the "New Heavens and the New
Earth, wherein dwelleth Righteousness" will shortly
take its place.
While all the nations are destined to sustain im
portant uses, and functions in the new world's civ
ilization — the Divine Cosmic Man — two of them will
play very important parts in it.
They are the two great national, or rather, racial
movements of combined nationalities, we term
Saxon and Slavon — destined to divide between them
the empire of the world.
To one of them has been committed the sublime
task and office of evolving and imparting to man
kind the great institutions of Civil and Religious
Liberty in their more perfect forms.
Aside from these peoples who speak the English
tongue, no nation has as yet shown itself capable of
self-government, with universal tolerance of relig
ious opinions.
The Slavon is the dual feminine complement of
the Saxon, and will ultimately present to the world
a vast concourse of peoples and nations whose in-
144

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
stitutions have been wrought out on purely socialis
tic lines. The twain constitute the head races of
the world.
They are symmetrical halves of the Divine Hu
manity, and in the evolution of its institutions they
represent respectively Wisdom and Love. Each
wing of the Divine Humanity has received its own
special office and function in the affairs of mankind
at the hands of the Divine Architect and will yet
work out its manifest destiny in an integral and
peaceful .relation to all other nations, empires and
races in the bosom of the great holy, divine Univer
sal Republic.
There is no need of heat, anger or interference
between these two great movements on the planetary
theater of time. Each one has its own "metes and
bounds" assigned to it, geographical and other,
which neither will be permitted by the higher
powers to finally transcend.
In harmonizing and otherwise preparing the great
nationalities of the world for the higher civilization,
the various world religions will still play a very impor
tant part. For religion is the basis of philosophy
and of science and the central building-force of civ
ilization itself.
Of all these religions Christianity is chief, and as
such will supply to the other religions and their
peoples those vital and indispensable principles of
Spiritual and metaphysiological truth in which these
other religions of the world are deficient.
Meanwhile Christianity itself is undergoing a
gradual but real transformation. Its more crude,
literal, theological and mythological forms of truth
are giving way under the benign rays of the great
Sun of Scientific Truth, and its more occult and in
terior forms of truth are expanding under the intel
ligent scrutiny of more advanced thinkers, into uni
versal truths, principles and symbols.
But the greatest, grandest, most vital of all these
symbolical truths, as disclosed by the Master inhis
last, great address as delivered to His disciples, just
145

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
before His death, and recorded in John's gospel, are
yet to be more fully disclosed to the spiritual under
standing of man.
They relate to the Social, Spiritual and Metaphy
sical forms of the Spiritual man which, like its
cogener and similar, the material man is not a mere
formula of words ingeniously arranged, but, like its
material counterpart, is a tangible concrete entity of
living forces.
In the Social, Divine, Cosmic Man, or Megacosm,
the individual man enters, by proper faith and works,
and becomes vitally related therein to his fellow
man by living forces as potent as those which relate
the stars to each other in the realms of space.
In no other form of the Living Word, ancient or
modern, are these great occult — yet fast becoming
manifest — truths concerning the metaphysiological
forms of the spiritual body of man, taught with so
much truth and distinctness, as they have been in the
discourses of the Christ, as recorded in John's gos
pel. The book occupies a distinct place in the liter
ature and philosophy of the world.
It presents to the mind of man the sublimest pic
ture of the physiology of the Spiritual man and of
his relations to the spiritual universe, to be found in
the words of any teacher, ancient or modern.
Through the spiritual organs and functions of the
Cosmic or Social man, he inspires the interior life
forces (atmospherea) of great Nature-God-digests
and elaborates them within the cunning interiors oi
his own marvelous being, and afterward gives them
to his fellow man for his eating — "loves and wis
doms," Spiritual magnetisms, "bread and wine,"
"flesh and blood," "Except ye eat of the flesh of the
son of man and drink his blood — the Cosmic or So
cial man — ye have no life in you."
But saith ignorance, "How can this man give us
his flesh to eat ?"
Yes, mankind are beginning to understand these
great interior facts in the life of the Spiritual man.
He is becoming Gnostic. 146

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

THE FOODS OF MAN AND THE MOODS
OF MAN.
Part I.
Homo est quid est,
Mann ist vas er isst.
The above proverb : "Man is what he eats," comes
down to us through various sources, and from a
venerable past. We quote it as it shows that the in
fluence exerted upon human character by the foods
we consume are so manifest that reflecting men,
everywhere, and in every age, recognize the fact.
But, while it is a truth of great and vital importance
in any aspect of the subject, it becomes an absolute
and all potent verity only when we take into the
account the entire range of the foods of man — ma
terial, mental, social, spiritual, celestial.
This demand for so vast a variety in the foods
which man employs in the creation of his material
and spiritual vestments grows out of an imperative
law of his most interior being; that is, an absolute
and perfect vital, chemical and spiritual affinity and
attraction eternally pre-established between man
and his foods, man and his moods, and man and his
bodies — temporal, spiritual and eternal. This mar
velous ego is forever at work, both consciously and
unconsciously, weaving the warp and woof of his
foods into tissues of his material and Celestial gar
ments, so perfectly that there is a definite and ab
solute correlation betwen the man and the foods he
consumes, and the living vestures in which he
clothes himself, and which he is ever obliged to
maintain and renew against the disintegrating and
destructive forces of the Universe within and with
out .
Man not only selects his foods rationally, and in
harmony with an interior and imperative law, so
147

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
far as his limited cuisine will admit but these foods
have a direct correspondence not only with his in
terior conditions and requirements, but are further
more in alignment with his differentiations of char
acter and of function in all his relations, both with
the social and with the cosmic ego. But these foods,
after they have passed through the chemical pro
cesses of digestive elaboration, are required to sub
mit to the elective and assimilative attractions and
choice of the manifold organs and cellular differen
tiations that exist in so complex and marvelous an
entity as in the human body.
Both the animal and the spiritual man co-operate
in this very complex function of the choice of foods
and with most unerring certainty, where proper
foods are supplied — partly by the dictate of reason,
but chiefly as an interior response to the various
cellular attractions for all those delicate and differ
entiated elements that form the real forces that en
ter, renew and perpetually rebuild the terrestro —
spiritual body and all its modes of life in the flesh.
There is not only an absolute and perfect corre
spondence betwen these interior forms and the foods
by which man maintains them, but there is even a
perfect correlation existing between the Foods of
Man and the Moods of Man.
Buckle, the eminent historian of Civilization, at
tached so vast an importance to the foods of a people,
the occupations they follow, the air they breathe,
their climates, habits of thought, etc., that he under
took to tell the end of a nation from the beginning.
What are all these really but the unconscious foods
of a people. This is strikingly true even were the
philosopher to confine his observations upon man
kind from the time when man first emerged from the
animal world beneath him — through the various an-
thropoidal forms by which, guided by the Creative
Wisdom, he made his ascent out of the vast matrix
of Nature, in which the animal man was conceived,
gestated and born into Time.
, If we ascend the mighty currents of his existence
148

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
and consider attentively the infinite and infinitely
varied foods, forces and formulas of the life ele
ments — mineral, vegetable, animal and spiritual — by
and through wbich the infinitely complex and com
pound being we term man has been elaborated and
evolved in all its manifold parts, spiritual as well as
material, we shall begin to comprehend the vastness,
the magnificence, and the grandeur of the creative
procedure; and also the marvelous adaptability of
the manifold racial, sub-racial, national and even
tribal elements of mankind, by which man was born
into time and world, when directed by the Creative
Wisdoms to work out the vast problems of the per
fect functionation, unitization and ultimate harmon
ization of all these seemingly antagonistic elements
of the Divine Humanity into the Universal Repub
lic and the Eternal Brotherhood of Man.
These marvelously differentiated and apparently
hostile elements of mankind, as we find them in the
world of to-day, are but the rough blocks which,
when they have been touched and polished by the
Divine finger, shall be put into the Living Temple,
which will form the perfected Divine Humanity —
"within which they shall neither hurt nor destroy in
all my holy mountain!" For this is the "Stone" —
Democracy or the rule of the people — that the Seer,
Daniel saw in prophetic vision, "cut out of the
mountain — Monarchic rule — without hands, that be
came a great mountain and filled the whole earth."
It is the Universal Republic !
Part II.
It is well recognized by ethnologists that people
differ widely, not only in the original constitution
which they derived from the lower animal world,
but that their history, civilization, traits of charac
ter, as well as their moods and tenses vary greatly
accordingly as they live in valleys, upon mountains,
on islands, in the interior of vast continents, in for
ests, in hilly countries or in desert regions. And this
149

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
is what we should expect, as climate, soil, water, air,
scenery, together with the peculiar vegetal and ani
mal productions of these various localities are potent
foods in the formation of the human character, ma
terial and spiritual.
In truth, every degree of longitude and latitude is
an idea peculiar to itself, and impressed upon it by
its own corresponding degrees of longitude and lati
tude in the spiritual world ; and are important fac
tors in the revolution, not only of the human form
and mentality, but they impress themselves with
great energy upon the flora and the fauna of these
localities. The plants and animals of this Coast not
only vary greatly in form and character from the
same or similar forms of life east of the Rockies, but
they differ greatly in their habits also.
If among the early historic races we look for the
most independent, advanced and progressive types
of mankind, we shall find them in the mountain
regions of the world.
Little Switzerland has evolved and maintained
the republic in the midst of her eternal snows and
mountain solitudes for hundreds of years before the
birth of our own great republic. And little Andora,
a much smaller people, has maintained her autonomy
during long ages amid the Pyrenees, and against
her potent neighbors, France and Spain.
If, however, we wish to find races of mankind
that are characterized by considerable immobility in
progressive times, we have only to study the his
tory of China, Russia and other peoples inhabiting
vast plain regions, where not only the popular mass,
but the vastness of the country itself help men to
lose their individuality and personal enterprise, and
to depend chiefly upon the central ruling power for
all progressive tendencies and impulses.
Like the French people, the Slavonic races belong
to the social and femenoid types of mankind —
though with far less individuality than they — and
they cultivate and feed upon the social-spiritual
forces more than other people. 150

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
Compare with these the wonderful energy, in
dividuality, mobility, and the intellectual progress of
the Grecian peoples and the English-speaking na
tions. The Greeks, though but a very small people divided
up among quite a number of petty states, during
their time displayed an energy and activity, intel
lectual and spiritual, national and individual, that
has been the astonishment and admiration of man
kind for more than twenty-five centuries. Glorious
little Greece, with thy wondrously variegated scen
ery, thy lovely vales, thy lofty mountains,, sparkling
and transparent seas and lakes, thy beautiful island
gems. "Where burning Sappho loved and sang;"
thyself a most wondrous picture drawn by the finger
of the Almighty; one of the triumph functions of
the spiritual womb wherein was gestated the early
forms of that civilization which, when it is perfected,
will fill the earth with the divine glory. What other
hand in all the world could have supplied so wonderful
a variety and supply of those subtle and refined forces
and foods which were required to build up a race of
artists, poets, philosophers, orators, statesmen, scien
tists, and even warriors, as thou hast done?
Thy geographical form upon the map is that of the
human hand, for there is a correspondence more or
less perfect of all things terrestrial and celestial, and
justly so, in thy example, for thou art the land by
which the creative intelligencies traced the first great
lessons in art, science, philosophy, poetry, eloquence,
democracy, patriotism, and in the science and arts of
Homo-Culture. What country has supplied more glorious examples
of patriotic devotion in defense of home, country, lib
erty and civilization than thou hast?
Delightful Greece! Inspired by thy grand, lovely
pictures, wrought in earth, sea, sky and stars, thy
poets, pbilosophers, artists and scientists have dreamed
151 1

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
dreams that to-day have become living realities and the
wonder and delight of mankind. Even thy beloved
Socrates, in demonstrating the existence of the one
God and his glorious attributes, drew his inspiration
in great degree from thy glorious environments.
Greece supplies us with an example of a purely
vegetarian people — a fact that goes far toward an
explanation of her intellectual glory and her political
defeats as a people or peoples. Greece was the most
purely intellectual and Eesthetic people the world has
produced. Vegetarian peoples produce the most active and
powerful men of the race. When that important
work has been accomplished of spiritualizing the
racial soma, then will come the time of the second
Anastasis, or resurrection, referred to by Christ,
wherein the early and ignorant pioneer races and
families of mankind shall, at the end of a thousand
years — the briefest period within which they can
properly return — in spirit life, have their opportun
ity granted for a new reincarnation in the flesh.
This is the philosophic reason for the seeming
cruel and prodigal waste of human life by flood,
earthquake, disease, battle-field, and in other ways,
by which whole families and races perish.
It is "natural selection and the survival of the fit
test." Nature takes care only of those racial and
other forms that tend most swiftly to the evolution
of the perfected somatic body of the race, so that
it shall become a perfect instrument for the accom
plishment of the needs and uses of the future in
carnations of mankind. Then will come the proper
time of re-incarnation, not only for the pioneer races,
many of them, but for those ^especially who in past
times benevolent and cosmical uses enjoyed but a
brief or imperfect incarnation. Great numbers also
of the inhabitants of the Solar-Spiritual Heavens
will then incarnate as teachers and exemplars of
mankind. Whether a time will soon come when all
men will become vegetarians in their habits, time
only can determine; though probably so, unless star-
 152

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
eyed science shall, as now appears likely, become
able to derive the foods of man directly from the
earth's atmosphere, where the elements of all that he
now has, or may bave, are to be found in more per
fect union with the spiritual elements which perma
nently enfold and spiritually chemicalize and vitalize
them for the uses of both the animal and spiritual
vestments of man.
The use of a purely vegetarian diet tends greatly,
however, to the formation of an intellectual and
spiritual high priesthood, whose function in the life
of the Divine Humanity shall be to spiritualize the
animal and spiritual bodies of the race. That pro
cess will go on until the racial animal body of man
kind shall become spiritualized and refined to a de
gree as yet unknown. Will continue until there shall
no longer exist any of that antagonism between the
aspirations and desires of the animal and the spirit
ual bodies of mankind alluded to by Paul : "For the
flesh warreth against the spirit and the spirit against
the flesh." But the Soma or animal body will not
become any the less robust or potent by this
refining process, but, on the contrary, it will be
come vastly more powerful as well as healthy by it,
until disease and death has been banished from the
earth. Professor Berthelot, a French scientist, has for
some time been experimenting on the synthetic pro
cess of deriving the foods of man direct from the
atmosphere, and has recently announced that he has
discovered a cheap process by which sugar can be
made from the air we breathe, which in truth con
tains all the elements of the foods we use, both of a
spiritual and terrestrial character.
Part III.
The priesthood in all ages have asserted and exer
cised their right to determine the kinds and quali
ties of the foods that mankind shall live upon. The
principle is not only a true, but also a very important
153

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
one for the government of mankind in its early baby
hood estates and conditions. But they may carry
the principle too far and in this way interfere with
the perfect right that all should have, to choose
their own spiritual foods when he has arrived at
man's estate, just the same that he possesses to
choose his own material foods as he approaches and
attains physical manhood.
Said St. Ambrose, referring to the Eucharist: "I
believe it because it is impossible!" The remark
shows how absolutely needful it is for men that may
be endowed with great intelligence and even wisdom
in the events and things of this world — to have some
one — some authority — that they have confidence in —
to select their spiritual food for them, not having
any proper judgment in their ability to choose their
own spiritual foods and nourishments. "For seeing
they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do
they understand" the things of the Spiritual man.
This is neither to be regarded as at all wonderful
or to be regretted provided this is the motive that
prompts so many to abandon their leanings and
attachments and fall back into Rome or into its
ecclesiastical and spiritual environments ; though
some without doubt have taken the step from lack
of courage, and confidence in themselves, and others
from mercenary motives.
But one of the most powerful, perhaps the most
powerful, of the inducements that cause men to leave
their liberal attachments and to fall back into the
older forms of spiritual organization, lies in the fact
that so many living in too great laxity in the princi
ples of mental and moral freedom, have fallen into
vicious and even criminal ways and habits of life.
They indicate the near and swift approach of the new,
diviner, more spiritual and social order of human life,
"New Spiritual Heavens and the New Earth" of
John Apocalypse, xxi., i, and terrible crimes and
seeming casualties are among the forces that are be
ginning to sweep the old order of things, viz.: the
"First" or the Old "Heavens," political, social and
154

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
other, and the "First" or Old Earth, in its industrial,
economical and social-industrial, and fearfully wrong
and unjust aspects — off the stage of time and the
world. "And I saw a new heavens and a new earth, for
Old (or First) heavens and the old earth had passed
away and there was no more sea."
This removal of the Old Heavens and the Old Earth
spoken of in Rev. xxi., is referred to in Rev. x., 2, also
in the fifth and sixth verses. The little book referred
to in the second verse is social-industrialism or the
new spiritual earth, which though it be very sweet
to the taste of the most people is very bitter in the belly
and very difficult of digestion and assimilation in the
great body of the Divine Humanity, as it is already
proving itself to be and will become still more so in
the near future, when the old order of things must
give place to the new Novus Ordo. For this is the
moulting period of the planetary man, and is as abso
lutely indispensable to the life of the Divine Humanity
that it should moult and cast off its old clothes, as
it is for the caterpillar to moult into the Psyche or
butterfly — just the same, and equally marvellous when
the transformation has been fully accomplished.
Its acomplishment will be attended with vast
changes and more or less of human sorrow and suf
fering. But, if all souls will have faith in the wisdom
and goodness of our Heavenly Father in causing us
to pass through these vast transformations in the
Divine Humanity, and will pray to him that they
shal be attended with the least suffering and loss
compatible with the working out of his vast plans and
purposes concerning them, much can be done to miti
gate their sharpness; for the terrestial man has great
power to co-operate with the spiritual heavenly man
in this era which belongs to the woman, who is more
gentle and lovable than is man, her male companion,
and is destined to exert vast influence over the desti
nies of the world in all time and ways.
"And the angel that I saw stand upon the sea and
upon the earth .lifted up his hand to heaven, and
155

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
swore by Him that liveth forever and ever, who created
the heavens and the things that therein are, and the
earth and the things that therein are ; and the sea and
the things that are therein, that there should be time no
longer." In the. paragraph of Rev. x., we are given a proph
ecy that already and recently had its fulfilment and in
a very wonderful way in the evolution of the means of
communication over the whole earth. We have prac
tically annihilated time for our own darling little world
and shall ere long doubtless co-operate with the peo
ples inhabiting the other planets of our solar system
in establishing communication between our world and
theirs, as hath already been mooted by intelligent men.
This great universe that we have got into is in truth a
marvellous thing.
"But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel
then he shall begin to sound the Mystery of God should
be finished as he hath declared to his servants, the
prophets." This prophecy has also been — is being —
fulfilled at this very time in the history of man. This
prophecy is made perfectly plain in the Eighty-second
Psalm of David, so far as statement can make plain.
It is also made very plain and obvious in John x., 34-
36. But its true significance is held back both by the
spiritual ignorance and the preconceptions of the great
portion of mankind and by angelic interference until
their spiritual understandings have reached that de
gree of evolution where they can receive and make
use of this important truth without injury to them
selves individually and socially.
For it is with angels as with men, who introduce .all
great truths and events upon the historic stage, each
important truth or event making its entrances and
exits in its own exact and proper time, otherwise con
fusion, disorder and great injury would result to the
highest interests of civilization. There are great num
bers of arcana that have lain in an occult and dormant
condition on the pages of the Divine Word, patiently
biding the time when they will be called to participate
actively in the mighty march of the ages. We have
156

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
a beautiful exemplification of this law in the treatment
of the vast and important truth disclosed by the Mas
ter and recorded in Rev. xxii., 16, both by angels and
by mankind, who were not permitted to "receive" and
appropriate this very important and creed-destroying
arcanum until certain older truths and foods had be
come sated and unfit for spiritual use and were mak
ing their exits to give place to the new. The spiritual
and the rational understandings of men have advanced
to a stature that not only premits but demands it.
For, indeed, and in truth, this is the time spoken of by
the angel in Rev. x., when the voice of the seventh
angel is "beginning" to sound forth the mighty truth
that the kingdoms are become the kingdoms of our
Lord and of his Christ: "And he shall reign forever
and ever." The reader will note that the "finishing"
or full unfoldment of this mighty "Mystery of God"
that has dominated man during all the long ages of
the spiritual-Sarval and infantile estates, making him
appear unto himself as an abject "worm of the dust"
— takes place when the seventh angel shall "begin"
to sound the "finishing" or ending of the mystery, be
ing anterior to the sounding of the trumpet of the sev
enth angel which will not take place until a time sub
sequent to the unfoldment of the mystery, as the "be
coming" of the kingdoms of our Lord and his "Christ"
on the part of the kingdoms of this world is a continu
ous action, and though swiftly advancing will require
a little time yet for its full and perfect completion.
There is a wonderful significance in this action of
the "mighty angel," that in this beautiful symbolic
picture represents the vast social-industrial concerns
of men in placing his feet upon both sea and land, and
by so dping and in this manner appropriating the whole
world and all that it contains in behalf of and as a
representative of the whole people whose patient toil
and genius has accomplished this wonderful annihila
tion of time, and has brought the ends of the earth
together.

i57

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

FORCES PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL.
In this work-a-day universe of the living God, men
and angels, who are spiritually advanced men in de-
carnate conditions, are the factors, or the doers and
actors of the Living Word.
The highest forms of the living forces that carry on
all the vast operations of universal life are the organic
personal forces — the men and women, whether incar
nate or decarnate, that do the work — as the Bible itself
has stated (and spiritual science reveals) : "All things
were made by him (Christ) and without him was not
anything made that was made." But this statement
which was intended for the infant spiritual man as a
literal truth in the earlier ages of Christianity, hath in
it a higher, more perfect truth or revealment for the
more advanced spiritual man of to-day: and that
higher truth is the fact that Christ, in this statement
of the Word, has a representative meaning. He stands
for humanity itself. It is plain to see that he could
not have done the work alone. He must have co-oper
ation infinite, and there must be untold numbers of
them co-operating with our Christ in the world-build
ing and man-building work. We believe Dr. Abbott
to be correct so far as his statement covers the whole
ground, which it does not fully.
There is a great "First Cause," but it is not a "Firsf
cause as to chronological sequence, but in spiritual
sequence of degree and kind. It is the prime cause of
all other causes of inferior and less degree and rela
tionship. Dr. Abbott, in so defining and putting aside the idea
of causation, has stepped off into space, as it were —
into the inorganic world of chaotic forces, whither the
most of his readers, at least, neither will nor can
desire to follow him.
He appears to have landed in the camp of the
materialists. It remains to be seen what they will do
158

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
with one who finds something in this great infinite
universe besides gross matter.
Dr. Abbott's definition, if we rightly comprehend it,
may be considered as in some respects a proper one
to define the inorganic forces of the various spiritual
atmospheres that surround the world, and as a spirit
ual envelope that includes and invests the entire uni
verse of all the worlds as the oversoul. Like the
atmosphere that invests our own world and which is
constantly and forever flowing into and out of our
bodies with every breath that we inhale or exhale, and
is the force that aids in the work of carrying on all
the affairs of the human system, both material and
spiritual. And possibly this is what the doctor means
when he says: "My God is an ever present force,
which is manifest in all the activities of men and in
all the workings of Nature." In this he is undoubtedly
correct. And again when he says: "I believe in a
God who is in and through of everything, and not
an absentee God whom we have to reach through a
Bible or some other outside aid, but a God that is
closer than hands or feet."
In this, too, his statement appears to be correct if
we understand it rightly, and yet he probably looks
still and only to these inorganic forces that reside in
the atmospheres of the worlds for the source or foun-
tainhead of them all, and not to the forces that are sent
down to man by and from the living brain of the great
infinite spiritual universe itself, which is what men
call God. And rightly, too, if they will only be careful
to distinguish in their thought which is meant.
Whether it be the holo-kosm or Infinite God, or the
Micro-cosm or finite one, for they are corresponden-
tially alike, but for lack of right words to designate
them we are apt to define and to use them as though
literally alike — a usage that creates much confusion
and manifold misunderstandings in the minds and
in the hearts of men.
When the doctor makes the statement that "the Bible
can no longer be accepted as ultimate, we hardly com
prehend his meaning, unless it be that men will spir-
i59

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
itually remain right where they are at present, holding
on — many of them living, literally, on the merest
husks of the Word, and hence becoming spiritually
dead and incapable while in that condition of spiritual
death, of making any genuine progress in spiritual
things. If that be his meaning we agree with him and we
further suppose that no intelligent man or woman
will fail to agree with him in this view of it.
But if he means to say that the Bible has been fairly
outgrown as a spiritual textbook for the masses of
mankind, especially when it has been taught and
received by men in the more interior and spiritual
sense, certain portions of it, why then we are obliged
to seriously differ with him.
While we entirely repudiate the practice of Swed
enborg in his attempts to spiritualize a great portion
of the Bible that concerns the physical, political and
historical affairs of the Jews, we still hold that there
are other portions of the occult Word that the greater
portion of mankind, at least, have not reached spiritu
ally insoluble, inert and dead — their spiritual digestive
organs do not grasp and appropriate them. The high
est and most perfect source of the energies and the
forces that forever play upon and upbuild and sus
tain the life of man come from the mighty outflow from
the celestial-spiritual brain of the universe — God in
the very highest and most perfect of his divine celes
tial correspondences. For the universes like man have
a twofold, yea, even a threefold circulation of the mag
netic and other foods and bloods that constitute the cir
culatory system of the vast Divine, Unutterable Being
whom men truly worship as the one only God.
From this solar celestial, spiritual brain of the Su
preme Being eternally pour forth those mighty cur
rents of the magnetic loves which are spiritual bloods
and other life forces .of the Divine Being, and stream
ing through its vast arterial system, invade, pervade
and renew every part and atom of its infinite body.
But these vital currents of the mighty food forces
by which the vast population of this Infinite Being are
1 60

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
fed and sustained, originate as we have seen, in the
positive polaric forces of the celestial-spiritual solar
worlds and descend downward and outward into every
part, organ and function, not only of the higher worlds
but also of all the terrestrial worlds that inhabit space
and form the negative pole in this mighty cycle of
world being.
From all these lower (terrestial) worlds also forever
flow forth responsive return currents which correspond
with the venous circulation in the human body, to feed
the suns and all their containments of spiritual being,
and in this way to restore and to maintain the equilib
rium of the mighty circulatory system of the interior
fluids of this vast Infinite Eus.
For the suns, spiritual and material, feed the uni
verses and all their containments with the positive
food forces, while in return the terrestrial worlds,
which are the nurseries for rearing and educating
God's great infinite family of spiritual child-men, feed
the higher and solar worlds and all their belongings
with those negative food forms, personal and imper
sonal which they require for their uses. The Gods in
universal life in their relations with the Divine Human
ity, as we have elsewhere indicated, sustain a similar
correspondential relation that the infinitely manifold
cells of both the material and spiritual bodies of men
have and hold to each other. And the ultimate uses
which men and women subserve in the economies of
universal life is to refit and renew the higher Gods
and thus to bridge over the vast period of time em
braced in the next kosmic cycle that lies before them in
the future, by a new incarnation with some of the
Younger Gods who have through ages and manifold
re-incarnations perfected their own being in terrestrial
and spiritual estates.
For this is the ultimate use, purpose and destiny for
which man, the young infant God, who was made in
the express image and likeness of tbe infinite God him
self ("let us make man in our own image and likeness"
— are the words of Jehovah) and has been called forth
into being — to refresh, renew and perpetuate the
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
higher Gods, when worn and weary from excess of
age. They must have rest, refreshment and renewal
of their ^bodies ere they go forth into a new cycle of
the eternities of being and action.
And thus do they, the Son and the Father, mutually
eternize one another.
Like Eneas when Troy was in flames, he takes his
ancient father, Anchises, upon his young broad and
strong shoulders and bears him forth into the world
of life again and thus renews his age and perpetuates
his existence.
"And I gave unto them eternal life;" the statement
applies equally to both.
The benefits conferred are mutual and equal like and
unlike, different and the same — and thus do they mutu
ally restore, renew and prepare one another to enter
upon a new cycle in the rhythmic onflow of the infi
nite, eternal ages.

CHURCHES AND CREEDS— WHAT ARE
THEY?
The Church is God in humanity, playing the infinite
role of civilization. The word Church meaneth "God's
House" in the original, and was built upon the earth-
plane to house God's great family of man during its
spiritual infancy, against the inclemencies of time and
world, and to act as a mighty lever to uplift mankind
on tp the higher planes and spheres of life, of being,
and of action.
Sects and creeds are but the natural expression of
the essential differentiations that necessarily exist in
human life growing out of childhood conditions
and the proper functionation of the great family of
men, which takes place during the spiritual-larval and
infantile stages of his being, but will ultimately dis-
162

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
appear as he approaches nearer to manhood's estate,
where he will be better able to comprehend the "per
fect law of liberty" for every soul of man; and thati
these natural differentiations in the spiritual life of
man have been stamped upon his very inmost being
by his Creator to enable him to perform the manifold
offices, functions and uses in the social and spiritual
life of the Divine Humanity that he forever destined to
fulfill. Creeds are spiritual landmarks on this great "scene
of man," and perform important uses in the early
stages of his progressive spiritual life. They also in
some of their spiritual forms and features represent
those standard spiritual foods upon which it is indis
pensable that the infant larval and spiritual man should
be fed in order that he shall grow up in normal condi
tions. For "as a man thinketh so he is." And also,
as a man eateth so he is: since to think is also to eat
spiritually. They are correlative terms.
For "Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink his blood ye have no (proper) life in you.
For my flesh is meat indeed and blood is drink indeed."
In other words, they were standard spiritual foods
, upon which the spiritual catechism of the church were
to be fed, neglecting which they (even) did not have
any (true and normal) spiritual life whatsoever.
Yes, the old German proverb is very true indeed:
"Der mensch ist was er isst," or "Man is what he
eats." Take twin children of the same father and mother,
and of equal moral and mental endowments, and let
one of them grow up under the highest moral, social
and spiritual surroundings, and the other under the
very lowest and basest environment of the streets
and slums of a great city and an associate of the
very worst of the criminal classes. They would
never be recognized probably by any one as brothers
of the same family, even though twins of very
close resemblance, before separation, upon whom
the experiment had been made, and so nearly alike in
form and feature and mental and moral expression of
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
face at the outset that friends could not distinguish
one from the other. The very different foods, mental,
moral and even the material foods upon which they
had subsisted during the years of their ascent from
tender infancy to late adult life, would in all proba
bility have obliterated all trace of that wonderful pa
ternal resemblance that existed between them before
they were separated from each other and placed under
different mental, moral and material surroundings.
They had lived so long upon a different menu, spiritual
and other, and subject to that marvellous spiritual
chemistry that worketh in every man — whether to
build him up into greater sublime heights of the divine
wisdom and glory or sink him into vaster deeps of
moral and spiritual degradation each man must deter
mine for himself in the long run — hath wrought out
in each a very different spiritual body built up indeed
of quite different foods, forms and forces and as to
their former apparent identity wholly unrecognizable
to the eye of man.
We belong to no one of the churches save to all
of them in a sort of spiritual way. I went into one of
them very many years ago when a young student,
but as I could not take the creed entire, was allowed
to enter by merely assenting to the Covenant. I shall
always be devoutly thankful for having been permitted
to enter and to abide in "God's House" during those
early years.
We should greatly dislike to live in a world without
a church, religion, Bible and without a God. The
churches have been the central, mental, moral and spir
itual forces that have built up the civilizations of man
kind the world over, chief among which by far are
those which have been established upon the formations
established by the great teacher himself.
We surmise that skepticism itself would tire of living
in a Godless world and like Napoleon- desire to restore
the old regime that had been overturned by the mad
caps of the revolution.
The Presbyterian Church, at its late convention, did
some wise things, and things that were otherwise. It
164

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
did one very wise thing when it threw overboard the
doctrine of the damnation of infants, those blessed
little ones that Christ took into his arms and blessed
them as the special objects of the love and affection
of the Heavenly Father.
But the Church in convention, with nearly full sov
ereign powers we may say, would have done a much
wiser thing still if it had placed before the world
the spiritual, or better still, the scientific meaning, not
only of his very strange doctrine of the eternal torture
of little children, but its companion-doctrine of eternal
reprobation. For this idea, like all others that come
into human life, enter by virtue of certain truths that
are lodged within it, but in symbolic forms that are
visible only to the feminine or spiritual understanding
but not to the masculine or rational understanding of
man. But if it does seize hold of the very small frac
tion of the whole truth contained within the statement
and expands it to cover the whole fact — the part for
the whole, the symbol for that which only in a very
partial manner represents the full fact, as this one
should literally take the picture of the horse for the
horse itself.
Both of these doctrines are substantially true, and
it is indeed a very strange and wonderful thing that
it should ever have gotten into the narrow limits of
the creed, or once having entered it should have re
mained in it for so long a time without having devel
oped its spiritual sense.
This strange doctrine of the damnation of infant
children in hell is due to the mistake of taking the
narrow literal symbol i for the real, the broad eternal-
facts of man's wonderful experiences while traversing
the worlds in his everlasting flight through time,^ space
and matter. As stated in a former paragraph, it is a
very great and very serious injury to the incarnating
spirit to be deprived of its material body, torn asunder
when both the material and spiritual body are in so
new, tender, imperfect and rapidly formative states,
which we can easily see if we reflect that this material
counterpart of the incarnating spirit, viz., the material
165

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
body, is nothing less than a great part of the digestive
functions of the spirit man within, by which, in con
nection with the corresponding spiritual organs, the
incarnating spirit was wont to digest, elaborate and
refine its various foods, both of a spiritual and material
character. He has lost it not alone as a laboratory for
the refinement and assimilation of all his foods, mater
ial and other, but also as a beautiful and useful gar
ment to protect it against the inclemencies of this
lower world.
These are among the most important reasons why
the demise of this material envelope of the infant man
especially becomes a very great and incalculable injury
to the infant spirit when deprived of these so important
organs and functions whereby he "lives, moves and
has (healthful) being." The infant martyrs of the
spiritual world are thus obliged to undergo a greater
martyrdom than do grown people whose physical and
psychical bodies we may very naturally suppose have
become matured and incapable of serious detriment by
the transition we call death. The sufferings that many
of them experienced in their martyrdom were indeed
terrible, but in most cases of brief duration.
The troubles experienced by the little ones by their
very premature and enforced introduction into spirit
life can only be removed by long residence in spiritual
life, and new incarnations in terrestrial conditions.
And this is the reason why the church authorities of
this world have been prompted and inspired by the
Higher Powers to have this very strange doctrine of
the terrible liabilities of little children put into the
creed in the still more dreadful form of the eternal
damnation of the little tots whom Jesus loved and
honored with the especial love of the Father Himself
where it has remained for ages as an affront to God
and a dreadful stumbling block to man, Christian and
un-Christian, as no one would undertake to present the
scientific sense and meaning thereof.
For the removal of this evil of child martyrdom
from among mankind and womankind \s a matter in
which the church must and will be greatly concerned
in the near future. 166

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

BABYLON.
"Come out of her, come out of her, oh, my people,
and be not partakers of her sins,*' and her daring
crimes against God and the Divine Humanity.
This is a word of warning addressed to every right-
minded man and woman of this age. "Babylon" is
nothing more nor less than the old individualistic civ
ilization, now fast dying, that under the similitude of
a city represents the old order of things under which
man has lived during his long infancy. God — "The
Higher Powers" — are making war against the Divine
Humanity itself and its monstrous and unutterable
crimes, fairly bombarding it with the terrific forces
of the world to make room for the millennium — or the
new spiritual social civilization. "The new heavens
and the new earth" which is to take the place of the
old as soon as the old can be gotten out of the way.
The next fifteen years more especially will be a time
of "great tribulation" for poor humanity, the object
of which has been and still is to soften and fraternize
the heart of man up to the "Golden Rule" and to drive
humanity up on to the higher spiritual planes of the
social and spiritual life of man.
Even the wars among the various nations of the
earth tend in the same direction — make men acquain
ted and fraternal — preparing mankind for the organic
life, and are co-operating with the mighty forces of
the spiritual heavens, are organizing and crystalizing
the "advance guard" of human life and are beginning
to do effective work in organizing "the new heavens
and the new earth."
Humanity must now put aside its playthings, put
its house in order, as did our people during the rebel
lion, and go to work in building up the new social
order of civilization— the "Novus Ordo Saeclorum,"
or the New order of the infinite ages of the divine
life of man. 167

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

WHO IS JESUS?
He is the latest and greatest of the Avatars that have
ever come down from the Fatherhood into our world
to instruct its people by precept and by example, word
and deed, the great primeval truths of the Divine
Logos, or Word.
The word Avatar comes from A meaning from or
out of — and vatera, and meaneth Fatherhood, and
comes originally from the old Sanscrit word vatri or
vater, which is found in the German as the word for
father.* The Gods who superintend the building of the
worlds, both temporal and spiritual, as well as the
civilizations in which they afterwards fruit, live and
co-operate in vast societies — fraternal in character, of
different ranks, classes, orders, hierarchies, principal
ities and powers, and extend into and embrace the
whole universe in all its higher world spheres, depart
ments and degrees. But sustain a paternal relation to
the lower spheres where the children live and are
growing up into manhood and the Godhood likewise.
The children also, like the Fathers extend — live and
co-operate throughout the entire universe, but in its
low, lower and lowest departments of life and labor
in the various worlds according to their manifold de
grees of growth and progress. Jesus himself refers
to the paternal relations that exist between the higher
and the lower worlds of life when he says :
"I came forth from the Father(hood) and am come
into the world. Again I leave the world and return
to the Father" (hood).
We, here, in these lower spheres and conditions of
our dear old earth, are but an infinitesimal fractioti
of that vast infinite family of men, women and chil
dren that swarm over and people all the lower worlds

?Revised February 20, 1906. 168

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
that inhabit space, and are growing up into a larger,
wiser and nobler manhood and womanhood for the
needs and uses of the Gods when fully grown.
This great family of growing children, vast num
bers of whom as we have heretofore intimated, have
but recently emerged from the animal world, with
something of the form, but very little of the mental
and moral status of mankind, have to be taught, edu
cated and grown up into higher degrees of life, labor,
and progress in spiritual estates and conditions. It
is to superintend this labor of educating these men,
children and others thatthe gods, veiling their glori
ous forms in the flesh, come down and mingle with
the men of earth to teach, instruct, govern, encourage
and lead them forward and upward into the divine
life of the perfected man and woman.
It was at a convention of the Gods who had superin
tended the work of creating our world, and at a time
when it had been prepared and made ready for the
advent of man upon it, that the word went forth, "Let
us make man (and) "in our own image and likeness"
— for the earth is now ready for his advent and resi
dence. Without the aid of these holy men who have been
the teachers, exemplars and leaders of mankind
through the long ages of his residence upon the world,
without their aid to instruct and illuminate and inspire
him to resist and overcome the powerful attractions
of the flesh, it would have been quite impossible for
man to rise superior to these potent tendencies and
impulses of the fleshly man, and he would have re
mained forever subject to the law of the flesh — the
mere human animal that he was when he first
emerged from the animal world, in which he was ges-
tated for some millions of years.
Yes, the man Christ lesus — which signifies "The
Anointed Healer" — was a spiritual map, was a chart,
a picture, of the human soul in all its higher modes,
tenses, conditions and estates, mentally, spiritually and
metaphysically — a standard man in all the fulness
of the divine perfection, and was sent down into our
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
world by the divine Godhood Fatherhood — for they
are one — for an example, a representative man of the
higher man or gods of the higher spheres of the spir
itual life of man; and to become the world's teacher
in the more practical and the higher forms of the
word. For Christ, both in word, deed and in his entire life
was the most practical exemplar of the doctrines of
the Word — the most perfect combination of the real
and the ideal, the practical, philosophical and spiritual,
that has yet descended from the spiritual world to rep
resent at once the manhood and the fatherhood of that
world in their greater perfection.
As Christ said of Himself: "I am come a light into
the world that whosoever believeth on me should not
abide in darkness."

THE MYSTERY OF GOD.
"And I saw another mighty angel come down from
heaven clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon
his head and his face was as it were the sun, and his
feet as pillars of fire, and he had a little book open:
and he set his right foot on the earth and cried with
a loud voice as when a lion roareth ; and wheii he had
cried seven thunders uttered their voices. And the
seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about
to write: And I heard a voice from Heaven, saying:
Seal up those things which the seven thunders
uttered; write them not.
"And the Angel which I saw stand upon the sea and
upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven and swore
by Him who liveth forever and ever, who created
heaven and the things that therein are, and the earth
and the things that therein are, and the sea and the
things that are therein, that time shall be no longer."
170

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
This remarkable prophecy has already received its
fulfilment. During the past three-quarters of a century it
requires but a very brief time in minutes or seconds to
send a message around the globe. But with wireless
telegraphy there is no appreciable loss of time incurred
in the transition of news from place to place, the
communicating parties standing, as it were, face to
face. The prophecy hath in this respect been marvel
lously fulfilled. But in the days of the seventh angel,
when he shall begin to sound the "Mystery of God"
should be finished — as he hath declared to his servants
the prophets — David, Isaiah, Micah and others. The
seventh angel is the angel of peace, as will be seen
by referring to Rev. xi., 15 : "And the seventh angel
sounded and there were great voices in heaven saying
the kingdoms of this world are to become the king
doms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign
forever and ever.
This declaring of the "Mystery of God" does not
wait for its complete fulfilment of the prophecy spoken
of in Rev. xi., 15, but at the time when that angel
begins to sound.
Japan came into the kingdom of the rule of peace
and good will nearly a half century ago. And this
rule of love, of peace, and of good will — what is it,
otherwise than the kingdom of the heavens? That is
just what it is, and Japan is the pioneer nation in the
Orient that has led the way peacefully into the king
dom of the heavens. It is a great honor for the great-
little nation, and well she deserves it. It is no wonder
the statesmen of spirit life who preside over the des
tinies of the nations, sided so emphaticallly with Japan
during her great and terrible struggle with Russia,
performing such prodigies of valor and of endurance
as the world has never seen surpassed in any age or
in any country in the world.
But the "Mystery of God." What is it other than a
"finishing," a removal of the dense veil that has hung
over the world of mankind during the long dark ages
of his ignorant childhood? But the veil has at last
171

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
been taken away, and those who fear to assert the
divinity that rightfully belongs to them, it is due either
to a lack of faith in themselves or in the plainest
teachings of the divine Word. Did not Christ on that
memorable occasion when the Jews twice took up
stones to kill him for his blasphemy, as they regarded
his words — did he not assert the common divinity, the
Universal Brotherhood that unites and fraternizes all
men, when he plainly told the Jews: "Doth not your
Scripture say, I — Jehovah — said ye are Gods." Now
if He called them gods, to whom the word of God
came — viz., the common people — "Say ye of him
whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the
world, thou blasphemest because I said I am a Son
of God?"
In this utterance of the Master he asserts the divin
ity common to all men, himself included, and in the
plainest possible terms that human language admits of.
In this manner doth the great Teacher in the broad
est and most unequivocal terms assert the common
divinity of all men — of whom he was one — with the
difference between himself and them that he was a
teacher sent from God to teach men. Nothing can be
plainer than these plain words of the Master, which in
the most unmistakeable terms assert and proclaim the
eternal divinity of man and finishes and ends the
great "Mystery of God." They differ from them
only in degree of advancement — growth, progress —
and are all of them en route to the high hills of immor
tality and eternal life, to mingle with the high gods —
themselves also gods — and mutually eternize each
other in a new incarnation, a new cycle and a renewal
of their unending life.

ORGANIC.

I have been informed by scientists who have lived
long in spirit life that the origin of species is due to
the incarnation of some spirit form — some organic
172

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
principle of pure spiritual life upon some correspon
dent entity that is living in utero — or in other words
in the womb of the mother. For in truth the germs,
the organic principles of all life come from the spiritual
realms of life.
It is to this being that for the time exists in the
mother's womb and is completing one of its own
cycles of involution and evolution that comes the abil
ity to bridge over the spaces that lie between the infi
nitely varied forms of life that everywhere exist in the
realms of life.
And this principle or law not only obtains and gov
erns in the descent of spirit forms into material forms
or involution, but applies also to the ascent of the ma
terial life forms into higher and more refined forms
and conditions of the Life Universal. It is law. This
law or principle by which life forever flows onward in
the evolution and sustenance of the infinitely varied
that everywhere greet the eyes of the beholder in all
parts of God's great and blessed universe.
The universe, or as its name implies, the "one
revolving" is itself but one being — that in its vast
ness comprehends all life. It is the divine, infinite
holocosm or most perfect man — the macrocosm or
"grand man" of Swedenborg.

DIFFERENTIATIONS.
The Seer is one who, in his inspired hours, intro
duced by the Higher Gods behind the veil of flesh
and sense, and they reveal to him, hitherto, "unut
terable things."
Re-incarnation is Creation's law:
By it the monad doth ascend to man ;
Man to the Angel; Angel to the God;
One all-embracing and eternal Plan.
i73

MAN'S PLACE IN THEXOSMOS.
But this is only incidental to our present purpose.
I desire to say a few words on differentiations in
thought foods, or the "living biead."
"What is Truth ?" The question is coeval with the
race ; one, at least, that extendeth back to the time in
his history when man began to be filled with a de
sire to eat of the fruits of the tree of the Higher
Knowledges and the Truths of Life.
One of the aspects in which we desire to consider
Truth is its diversity — the infinite shades of differ
ence in form, substance and essence, in its infinitely
varied and varying forming and reforming integra
tions and combinations as foods for human material
and spiritual uses and requirements.
Both human, animal and spiritual foods differ as
greatly — running into infinitely differentiated com
binations, forms and essences in their integrations —
as do human beings in form, face and characteris
tics. And this marvelous order exists manifestly by
the design and purpose of the Infinite, All-Wise
Creator of all things ; not only to stimulate, and, at
the same time, satisfy the appetite and desire for
truth foods, but more especially to create thereby
an infinite variety and diversity of spiritual foods for
mankind, — and thereby to stimulate spiritual
growth, — as well as animal foods, and to adapt them
to the infinitely varied and varying necessities and
wants of that omnivorous and infinitely differen
tiated being — man.
Given proper conditions, and human beings soon
differ as greatly in the forms and qualities of the
food they eat as they differ in face, feature, and in
their more interior qualities and forms of life. But
insomuch as the exterior and interior forms and
qualities of every soul of man have an exact corre
spondence, so likewise will his tools, temporal and
spiritual, adapt themselves to the interior require
ments and the laws by which his whole being moves
on and unfolds.
So deeply doth this Divine law of our existence
and unfoldment penetrate into the order of our life
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
forces — these infinite differentiations and correspon
dencies — that even in matters of our temporal goods
it has become a matter of common observation that
"one man's food is another's poison — though very
few have as yet gotten over the habit of importun
ing his neighbor to eat a little of what agrees so well
with himself. Herein is to be found one of the great
est sources of inharmony among mankind; indeed,
probably the very greatest, when we consider the
social, religious, and even the civil, antagonisms that
exist among men. It springs from what to the ma
terial or infant understanding appears as the perfect
simplicity of Truth, and its lack of diversity in
human uses and needs. "The mind sees only that
which it brings with it the power to see."
Every soul is so constituted as to occupy a differ
ent standpoint of both longitude and latitude upon
the spiritual earth ; and, hence, views the whole spirit
ual Heavens under a different aspect.

PROGRESSIONS.

What is little Grecia, the founder of the arts,
sciences, philosophies and democracies in their more
primitive and embryonic forms? And what is Rome,
chosen by Divine Providence also to play its part
in the great drama of civilization to represent law —
civil, social, religious, political — yea, to give law to
Christianity itself in all its primeval and more rudi
mentary forms, ceremonies and doctrmals? What
are these but coins of the different races of man
kind, cut in different ages from the original paternal
tree of Ayrian stock and grafted into the ruder and
more primitive races that dwelt in the beautiful
vales of Italy and of Greece. What was little Judea?
What were all these glorious countries and their
peoples but a trinity of spiritual kindergartens—
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MAN'S PLACE 7N THE KOSMOS.
nurseries where the Celestial Creative gardeners of
the spiritual heavens, who superintend and direct
the forces of civilization, had planted, cultivated and
developed these germs of spiritual truth and life that
were first to prepare the way for Jesus and his word,
but were afterward to undergo a second incarnation
in the spiritual womb of the mighty mother church
of Rome to properly gestate the infantile and even
the larval* man of those times, which she received at
the hands of barbarians that overran Italy and
Greece so often during the early ages of Christianity.
"Rome," as was well said by the historian Froude,
"Rome is the most marvelous institution that hu
manity ever threw out of itself." It gave law and
perfect form to all things concerning life and its
priesthood became the spiritual nurse of mankind
and decided for it what was proper, spiritual food for
its spiritual babies. In doing this her priesthood and
the later priesthoods of Protestantism have con
ferred an infinite benefit on the entire race of man ;
and none the less for their suppression of the mani
fold little sects and sectlets that have attempted to
come upon the stage of time since Christianity came,
much to its advantage, and with a vast saving of
blood for all Europe.
Had the political feudalisms that grew up all over
Europe been allowed by Rome to be reinforced by a
multitude of religious feudalisms, the blood that
would have been shed to get rid of them would have
been vastly greater than it has cost mankind to pre
vent their formation. And this has been one of the
offices and duties of the Romish church, to suppress
the religious cranks (most of them) nipping them
well in the bud. It has greatly facilitated the forma
tion of the great nationalities of Europe under com
mon languages, a common religion and a common

* Nearly all the very lowest races of mankind today are
little else than spiritual larvae of men and will be obliged
to pass through the spiritual womb of the churches to
enable them to ascend into the spiritual, rational and ce
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
civilization. In the formulation of the religions of
mankind Rome has done for modern civilization
what the Jewish priesthood has done for that people
that gave Christ to the world. The high spiritual
truths taught by Jesus were most of them out of
the spiritual reach of the greater portions of man
kind of his times. They were too strong meat for
their spiritual digestion and assimilation and had to
be run through the spiritual laboratory of the priest
hood to have them prepare such foods for these
moral and spiritual babies as they could properly
masticate, digest and assimilate to their infantile
systems. Jesus himself recognized this spiritual in
ability of the men of his time — even the learned men
of the Jewish church. "They, seeing, see not, and
hearing, hear not, neither do they understand," and
some times reproved his own disciples for their
lack of spiritual perception.
Regarding the division of the church in later
years into several leading branches that also is a wise
arrangement of Divine Providence, better fitting it
for its divine uses, giving the human intelligence
greater freedom of action by better adapting it to
the various mental and spiritual estates into which
that intelligence naturally differentiates itself.

SCRAPS OF TRUTH.

It requires vast time for Nature to build up a man,
beginning with the slime of old Mother Ocean — "pro
toplasm" as it is termed by science — and "dust of the
earth" as it is called by Moses in Genesis. But it does
not demand a tithe of the time that is required to build
a Darwinian man . .
The "Day"' that is spoken of in Genesis is not one of
twenty-four hours, as there are various forms and
lengths of days that are mentioned in the Bible, which
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
are cycles of time, cosmic in character, and are termed
"days" bcause they fulfill certain correspondential
relations with each other and also by reason of the
poverty of language, which is not rich enough to detail
a new word for every phasis of meaning in the uses of
words, and hence employs the same word often for
manifold phases of the same idea, and for ideas wholly
dissimilar often. In the Apocalypse of John and also
in the prophet Daniel the word "day" is used to em
brace a cycle or period of 365 ordinary days of twenty-
four hours, while in another place it is declared that
"one day with the Lord is as a thousand years : and a
thousand years as one day."
The "day" spoken of in the first chapters of Gene
sis comprehends a geological cycle or day of seven
hundred and fifty thousand of our years. It is a geo
logical cycle which is the longest of the cycles
spoken of in the Bible, and may have been made use
of in this occult form and way to help maintain this
beautiful allegory in its present mythical form until
science had arrived upon the stage of time and world :
and the scientific mind also. This would make the
entire period required to build up the plant and ani
mal life of the world about 4,500,000 of our years — an
ample time for this part of the labors of creation if
we cast overboard the absurd and wholly untenable
theory of Mr. Darwin with its infinitesimal increments
of change, and adopt the more perfect and scientific
one everywhere to be seen in the world about us, and
held by such great scientists as Culver, Agassiz, Liebig
and others, certainly quite as great and distinguished
in the same department of natural history and kin
dred fields of investigations as was Mr. Darwin him
self. If we can accept this statement of the time that
was taken by the creative intelligences in the work of
developing the planet and the animal life of the planet,
and then backward and contemplating the still vaster
periods of time that must have been required to
build up the nucleus of the planet, cool down its enor
mous heat, and lay down its manifold strata, we should
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
likely approximate a period of time nearly if not quite
equal to the period of time recently assigned to the age
of the planet by Lord Kelvin, who placed it at about
twenty millions of years — wbich, though in truth it
be a vast period of time for actual creative work, it
is, notwithstanding, but a brief space of time when it
is compared with the time of three hundred millions
of years, which Mr. Darwin assigned to the work
accomplished by the waves in triturating and wearing
down a certain portion of the Walden range of moun
tains on the coast of England.
The truth is that scientists are reading better the
wonderful story of the rocks and at the same time are
meeting with a new class of facts which they cannot
so easily bend to their theories as many of those upon
which they depended to sustain their theories, many of
them now well known to be false.
Newer views, truer views and more telling facts
have upset already many of these false theories of
creation that have been advanced by the materialists ;
and many others are destined to follow them ; and
hence the opinion of Lord Kelvin, one of the highest
if not the very highest of them all in his department
of science.
Recently a gentleman who has for years made a
close study of Mt. Pelee and its terrible work of
destruction of the lovely little city located at its base,
brings back the report that all vestige of the place
has been totally wiped off the face of the earth, and
that the earth on which the city formerly stood is
covered with a vast bed of lava, fast changing into
granite!

INDIA.
Poor India! The true Niobe of nations. For
thousands of years prostrate beneath the feet of
the animal world and best illustrative among the
179

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
nations of the relations of man to the animal world
in which he was gestated, and out of which he
sprang. In this function assigned to that people by
the Creative Wisdoms, of illustrating in life and in
history. He has done so both in normal and abnor
mal conditions and degrees. There is nothing so
low in the scale of being that he does not acknowl
edge him as a brother and literally treats him as
such. It is not any mere ideal spiritual relation ex
isting between man and his inferior brother in the
lower realms of being, but a literal and eternal truth
that he feels himself obliged to observe in manifold
ways, in his intercourse with the citizens of the great
primitive under-world of animated life. It is no
whim or caprice of his that has caused him to ob
serve the sacred law of relationship that exists be
tween man and the antecedent forms of life below;
him ; it is due to the part and office so assigned him
by the Great Architect in His original distribution
of the organs and functions of the Divine Humanity
among the races and nations of the world.
Allied closely with the Jew in racial conditions,
and destined, like him, to illustrate the sacrificial
functions that symbolize the methods of procedure
by which he ascends from the feebly and partially
united forms of the individual man up into the divine
integration of the social man in the Divine Human
ity — the Cosmic man — the two people have been
called to perform both opposite and reciprocal func
tions. Both have' performed "blood sacrifices." But while
the Jew has sacrificed the animal, the Hindu has sac
rificed himself — yea, and herself. Witness the fu
neral pyre where untold thousands of widows an
nually went up in flames; the Ganges, where great
numbers of infants were thrown to the crocodiles,
and the thousands otherwise sacrificed to wild
beasts. Each people symbolizes the living eternal facts
and forces that play throughout in the infinite thea
ter of Universal Life ; but each represent these forces
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
and their symbols under different conditions and as
pects. The Hindu, as we have said, makes a sacri
fice of himself. He represents in symbolic forms, not
only the principle of self-sacrifice, but of self-salva
tion. When the human mind has arrived upon the plane
of reflection, self-study, self-knowledge, man then
becomes sufficiently^ intelligent to co-operate with
the celestial, man-building, world-building forces of
Universal Life, and to assist them in the work of
self-evolution, self-building and rebuilding, so far
as that principle can be carried out by the individual
alone. But in truth that ability of self help is small
until he reaches a very high plane.
The Hindu, more than any of the primitive relig
ious cult races, represents the important principle
in human life. It is the principle also of Individual
ism put into the self-evolving and differentiating
forces. But carried to its logical results it necessarily,
in his case, arrays society into four great castes or
classes whose walls of separation are as impenetrable
as the everlasting rock. It is the stoical or male
form of Wisdom with no proper co-operation with
the feminine principle of Love. And hence Theoso-
phy is very properly termed the Wisdom (mascu
line) religion.
Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, and many other
great Avatars,* taught the religion of the head.
Christ, the last and greatest of them all, taught the
philosophy of the heart. The former taught the re
ligion of the rational understanding as applied to
morals and materials. The office of Christ was to
teach the religion of Love, of the Spiritual under
standing of Sociology, of the Paternity of God and
the Brotherhood of Man.

* Avatar. — Literally one sent by and from the Father
hood or Vatara: — to teach mankind.
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

THE METAPHYSIOLOGY OF THE
SPIRITUAL MAN.
Saith Paul: "There is a natural body, and there
is a spiritual body." How Paul came in possession
of so occult an ontological fact, in an age and coun
try so densely ignorant and materialistic, we do not
know, but imagine it came to him more as a spirit
ually inspired truth, rather than from any constant
rational perception of so important a spiritual prin
ciple, in all scientific and logical bearings and re
sults. Be that as it may, there is in deed and truth a
wonderful analogy and correspondence between the
two organisms. As the mollusk secretes within its
more interior and delicate organs the material of
which its external shell or house is formed, and
which, with an art divinely cunning, it weaves about
itself ; as the tree clothes itself roundabout with the
rough covering of bark, to protect the more delicate
sap vessels of the interior; so, in like manner, doth
that divinest artificer, the spiritual man, sit back be
hind the so-called "visible" and fabricate that really
wonderful house we term "natural body," which,
though of apparently coarser texture and mold than
is the spiritual body, it is designed to nourish and
protect, is, nevertheless, in shape like unto it, and in
itself is a marvel of design and beauty, when perfect
ed ; and is well adapted, in all respects, to minister
to the needs of the living artist that sits within and
weaves it in the loom of Time. In real truth, this
terrestrial house, in which man temporarily resides,
fulfills the still more important function of a labora
tory or stomach* in which he digests, and elaborates
the forces of this terrestrial plane of being, as the
basic elements of the spiritual and spiritual-celestial
body. Matter is only the name of one of these basic forces
that sustain the universe of Being, and the grossness
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS. T
of it consists mainly in the grossness of our ideas re
garding it. It externalizes itself, or, more strictly
speaking, the higher forces externalize themselves
through matter in three dimensions ; but the higher
forces operate within, in a "fourth dimension" (of
Prof. Zollner), as the shaft works in the slot, the
hand in the glove.
It is by and through this fourth dimension that
the celestial-spiritual man, after one of his long
flights through the eternities and infinities of time
and space, descends ("falls") into terrestrial states
and forces — even descends into the Hells — to re
build, renew, refresh, re-incarnate and more fully
eternize his spiritual-celestial body.
As the external body has parts, organs, functions,
so has the spiritual body ; and in the true spiritual-
celestial man and woman, as distinguished from the
lower or animal man, which is not in itself subject
to the laws of spiritual good or God, until similiated
and harmonized with and by the higher or spiritual
man, it becomes of the highest order both in sub
stance and in form, being wrought out from_ the
highest, holiest loves, affections, truths, principles
of the spiritual worlds.
"The first man is of the earth, earthy," for the
reason that his body is developed out of the animal
kingdom below him, and on the terrestrial plane of
being, and partly out of the mundane forces, by the
Creative Intelligences; and it is designed to serve
the purpose of a ready made house to live in ; a ready
made garment to clothe himself withal ; and a ready
made laboratory to aid him in the easy elaboration
of those elemental forces with which he is to re-
clothe, rebuild and refurnish his more permanent
home — the more Divine, precious and holy, eternal,
spiritual-celestial man — the Man-God.
Man as to his foods is an omnivorous being. He
is not only a plant eater but an eater of animals, in
some phases of his manifold being. Both the plant
and the animal have previously passed the elemental
forces and foods of the material world through the
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
refining and reconstructive processes of their own
digestive organs, thereby raising these elementary
forces to a higher organic level before being used by
the animal man.
Now, he lives upon the higher spiritual-social and
spiritual-celestial forms, foods and forces in a some
what similar manner. Every soul with whom he is
brought into touch in the Divine harmonies in spirit
ual social life, is engaged in the labor of eating, di
gesting, elaborating spiritual truths, foods, forces, in
the laboratory of his own interior, spiritual being,
and elevating these spiritual foods to still higher
food levels. Yea, all true spiritual men eat one an
other — impart to each other their spiritual blood
(loves) and spiritual flesh (wisdoms) to nourish, up
build and sustain each other.
It is by these Divine offices of imparting each to
the other and to all, in a degree, these Divine, so
cial-spiritual foods, by ways, words and works of
love and use, and by eating one another mutually
and functionally, that the social, spiritual-celestial
man is made to otherize himself — to build himself
into his entire social environment of souls and into
the higher societies of the spiritual and celestial uni
verses of God.
. . . "That they all may be one : as thou Father
art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in
us," — thus not only making the terrestro-social man
one in spiritual life with his fellows but one and at
one with the higher celestial men and women of the
spiritual worlds, for in very truth, when properly
discerned, this is the great "Atonement," — the Son
with the Father, — the Brotherhood of Man with the
Fatherhood of God.

184

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

THE SOLAR-SPIRITUAL WORLDS THAT
. /. SURROUND OUR STAR— THE SUN.
Not long since the beloved Seer, Swedenborg,
came to me and informed me that the Zodiacal Light
—which is a wonderful zone or belt of bright light
that invests the solar orb on all sides of it — is the
basis, the foundation of our permanent Spiritual
Heavens. This bright and beautiful body is often
visible for some time after the sun has set and for a
time, also, in the morning before he rises, — visible
to the naked eye of man, — and especially during
the winter season, in very cold weather, when the
earth's atmosphere is more transparent and clear
than ordinary.
Astronomers have for a long time indulged in
much controversy and speculation as to what this
remarkable phenomenon is due; of what composed,
etc., etc.
Speaking of its extent Prof. Swift, of the Lowe
Observatory, says: "It seems to surround the sun,
but there is evidence that it has been seen, in the
winter, stretching across the sky to the Eastern hori
zon. If this be so, then it also surrounds the earth,
and the diameter of the ring must be at least two
hundred millions of miles. I have twice seen it reach
to the Eastern horizon. It appears to be the shape of
a double convex lens, the center of which is the
sun." Astronomers give us no idea of the width of this
wonderful body, but Swedenborg states that it and
the corresponding width of the many concentric
spheres or Spiritual Heavens that surround the solar
orb are about five hundred thousand miles each in
width, and that it extends outward into space far
enough to include the farthest planet, or Neptune
as astronomers reckon, though the Celestials speak
of three others.
I will not stop here to discuss the composition of
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
this singular body, which astronomers generally re
gard as rather of a material character, but which
Swedenborg and other celestial astronomers assert
that it is magnetic.
He informs me that the first or lowsst spiritual
sun-sphere is located about half a million miles from
the solar orb, and passing outward beyond this the
various spiritual and spiritual-celestial sun-spheres
are severally situated, about one hundred and fifty
thousand to one hundred and seventy-five thousand
miles distant from each other ; and that those which
are already more or less inhabited are about fifty in
number; but these do not include all that are more
or less perfect in their natural formation, as these
extend very nearly as far out as our planet Mercury.
They extend a good way farther out than our planet
earth. But such are only in a partial state of evolu
tion and will require a much greater time to prepare
them for the advent and the occupancy of spiritual
man. He states that ere our race have fully graduated
from the material worlds of our solar system these
spiritual spheres of this portion of the spiritual Hea
vens will be extended to the utmost limit of the
solar system, and will then have wholly taken the
places of the several spiritual Heavens that invest
the various planetary orbs that form our system.
These minor spiritual Heavens are, like the material
worlds thmselves, but temporary places of residence
— preliminary schools of training for the higher and
final states and residences of the spiritual men. That
when the inhabitants of our spiritual-solar orb or
system of orbs have fulfilled their law of involution
and evolution into and out of the realm of matter,
so-called, — which is the negative pole of the Univer-
ccelum — by what is termed Re-incarnation, the ma
terial worlds including the great sun himself will
become dead worlds. The spiritual worlds will
throw them off as a man casts off his material body
when he no longer requires it, and the material,
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
worlds will be taken out into space and exploded into
nebulous or cosmic matter.
The spiritual intelligences informed me of this
final destiny of the suns, about the time I published
the "Evolution of the Psyche," but I did not pub
lish the statement at the time as I had no confirma
tory data to print with it. But as I have recently
fallen in with a remarkable description of the death
of a world, by Prof. E. S. Holden, of the Lick Ob
servatory, I will give it in this place. I quote :
"The object of this paper is to detail the history
of the remarkable 'new star,' of 1892, in the constel
lation Auriga. This star, which doubtless resembles
our sun, within two days increased in brilliancy six
teen fold. Three months after its discovery it had
become invisible! After another four months it re
appeared and was comparatively bright. But it was
no longer a star, but a nebulal In other words, it
had developed changes of light and heat which if
repeated in the case of our own sun would mean a
quick end of the human race and the utter annhila-
tion of every vestige of animal and other life upon
earth!" Yes; and of all life ugon all His worlds! But of
this at another time. Prof. Holden concludes :
"The results are of intense popular interest, as we
have seen. Our sun is a star.
"In studying the birth, death and resurrection of
other stars we may be studying the past and future
of our own sun, and, hence, be learning somewhat
of the possible catastrophes that may overtake the
earth.*

?There are no catastrophes in Hie life of God's great
universe. All things, including the worlds, are governed
and guided by the same hand that made them — by fixed
immutable eternal laws. But what are the laws but the
modus Vivendi of the Divine Being himself, who lives in,
animates, moves and directs the worlds and_ all their con
tainments with absolute and unerring certainty and mak-
eth no mishaps or mistakes. To one who has perfect con-
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS
"Such catastrophes as produced the new star are
indeed rare. I do not know that their study is espe
cially comforting to the human race. A new celes
tial body is born of them which, by its evolution,
may produce a solar system like our own. But it
was produced at the sacrifice of a previous system
intrinsically as precious so one might say. But in
the absence of definite knowledge, we have the right
to assume that one universe is as good as another,,
In this case one universe was totally destroyed ; and
on its ruins another may rise !"
Recently — on the 4th of last June — there fell a
very interesting specimen of cosmic matter near
Effingham in the state of Kansas ; one weighing two
hundred and fifty pounds and made up of iron and
pebbles. What a "strange eventful history" could this
messenger from the skies, this fragment of a world,
bring to us if it could repeat the whole story of its
experiences. Who shall say through what distant,
unknown portion of the vast realms of space the
world, of which this tiny fragment was a part, ful
filled its mighty orbit ; what may have been the fate
of its inhabitants; and when did it come to its end?
Many of the strata of our own world are largely
made up /from these cosmic materials that have been
captured by the comets, which are the "common
carriers" of space, and brought hither to our world
when its "crust" was being formed.
But all worlds are not subject to the same vicis
situdes; none of them until they have fulfilled the
full measure of their years and the utmost limit of
their usefulness.
Our own satellite or moon is an example of a
worldlet that is yet in its infancy; a mere nucleus
or skeleton of a world center, not yet clothed upon

fidence in the wisdom, power and goodness of the Supreme
Being there is no field for the operations of Chance, Ca
price, Chaos or Devil. All things whatsoever are destin-
ated, controlled and guided by His Almighty hand.
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
with proper strata nor yet with seas and an atmo
sphere. Our own earth will yet become a sun, but
not until it has performed its full routine of uses as
a nursery for human.beings ; has been re-incarnated
again and again for this purpose, and has become,
like Saturn and Jupiter, surrounded by a retinue
of worldlets and worlds. For worlds are born, live
and grow, through vast periods of time, fulfill their
Divine uses in the economy of the universe and die.
It is the law of all created beings !

THE CELESTIAL CITY.
"And the city had no need of the sun, neither of
the moon, for the glory of God did lighten it !"
With our present conceptions of the origin of
light, of heat, and in truth of all the vis vivae of Uni
versal Life, no more perfect description than the
above could be given of the source of the light that
illuminates, delights and glorifies the Eternal City.
But perhaps the greatest difficulty one encounters
in attempting to describe and define the things of
the occult and — to the merely five-sensed man —
the "invisible" realms of the spiritual worlds that
inhabit space, lies in the fact that living as he con
stantly does only within that exterior realm of Na
ture, where the five senses are forever at play, and
where he is eternally bombarded by her material,
three-dimensioned forces, he finds it quite impos
sible to sense, much less to "see" and to realize, the
superb realities and magnitudes of the spiritual uni
verses, revealed only to such as have advanced into
the spiritual consciousness of Life, and, hence, abide
more or less within the realms where the sixth and
the seventh senses have play.
To one who lives too much in the mire of the five-
sensed realm of eternal Life, the things of the mind,
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
and of the whole realm of spiritual life appear to
him as unrealities, or as things he has been taught
by the dicta of pseudo-science to regard as only the
"affections of matter," — a phrase well designed to
conceal the confessed ignorance of Agnosticism,
which, while confessing to complete nescience upon
all the great questions that concern the things of
the occult and invisible worlds, at the same time
often displays an arrogance and intolerance toward
those who profess belief in the occult that is sur
prising, and parades its own confessed ignorance of
all knowledge of occult beings as proof positive that
they neither exist nor can make themselves mani
fest. But this is nothing more than the tyranny of
the five senses transferred to the realm of mind, by
which it becomes subject to their illusions; for even
the spiritual, or seven-sensed, man becomes more or
less subject to the illusions and tyrannies of the five
senses. The main difficulty with those living chiefly in
the five-sensed and three-dimensioned realm of be
ing, consists mainly in their inability to conceive of
any thing that can have a separate and a greater or
less independent existence outside of and beyond
the "visible," tangible, temporal and so-called ma
terial forms of Life. Especially is it true when any
attempt is made to give to these subtle and fluidic
forces an organic and substantial shape.
To the mind, however, that hath lived somewhat
in the realm of the occult and the invisible, whose
spiritual sight hath been quickened and made clear
by the Celestial Euphrasia, the whole environing
universe becomes a vast living Entity, formulated
in time, space, form, substance, essence, force, di
mensions (within and without), eternities and in
finities — a Being that is spiritually nerved, muscled,
ligamented, and animated throughout by the Celes
tial forms, forces, essences, melodies, harmonies and
numbers ; and that the visible and tangible worlds —
the suns and all their vast retinues of worlds and
worldlets that inhabit space — are but the fulcrums
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
upon which the Gods rest their vast levers ; the foot
stools upon which they place their blessed feet ; the
pulleys and the coarse tackle through which the more
subtle and refined forms and forces of the universe
play the infinite game of Living.
For in very deed and truth the material worlds so
infinitely multitudinous and magnificent as they are
to the eye of the astronomer, and separated as they
are from each other by such amazing distances, are
but the merest atoms in this infinite ocean of Life,
when we cqpipare them with the vast spiritual
worlds with their more infinite dimensions, spaces,
forms, potencies, splendors and harmonies, that in
vest them on every side and occupy their vast inter
spaces to complete the Divine fullness and perfec
tion of the Infinite Life.
Our material sun, so-called, is in truth a vast
world, eight hundred and sixty-six thousand miles
in diameter. Beneath this vast photosphere, calori-
sphere and other atmospheres with which he invests
himself to the height and depth of twenty-five thou
sand miles on every side of him, there is a solid,
substantial world nearly eight hundred and twenty
thousand miles in diameter, and inhabited by billions
of the great universal family of man, living in intel
lectual and spiritual estates far in advance of those
occupying our own little world. Indeed many of
them have been our instructors, as have many of the
advanced teachers of some of the larger planets.
Our sun has more than fifty times the area upon
his solid globe of all his planets that he bears along
with him in his sublime march through life — not
mere empty space, and it would indeed be a vast
waste of opportunity for the Creator to let it remain
forever a desert waste, when He is so careful to
establish life everywhere apparently, even among
the snows of the Arctic world. His photospheres,
calorispheres and magnetospheres instead of being
so intensely heated as to destroy all surrounding life,
do but generate a sufficient warmth to impart life
and well being to all his inhabitants, and by an

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
electrical transfer, as with our terrestrial telephones
and telegraphs, he is enabled to excite in the various
atmospheres of his attendant worlds those condi
tions or states by which their several atmospheres
are enabled to generate the light and heat with
which all life upon them is sustained.
The vast spiritual-celestial heavens of our star —
the sun — which forms the Celestial City of our God,
hath in its greatest, or its major equatorial, diame
ter an extent of one hundred and fifty billions of our
terrestrial miles, or more than a million and a half
times the distance of the earth from the sun, while
its transverse diameter, upon the same equatorial
plane, is eighty billions, and itspolaris diameter is
but four and a half billions in extent, thus making
the spiritual heavens, with which we are connected,
present to the eye the appearance of an immense
spheroid both ovate and prolate in form.
But this is not all that may be said of its fair
and wonderful proportions. Outside of this vast orb
and environing it on every side to the height and
depth of twenty-five billions of miles is the vast
spiritual-celestial corona — an unutterable, divine
halo or glory — a spiritual-celestial atmosphere, pho
tosphere and mento-sphere, and, comparing great
things with small, resembles and corresponds with
the halo with which the old painters invested the
head of the beloved Christ.
For all things of the individual and finite universe
of the microcosm, have their correspondences and
greater prototypes in the more infinite macrocosms
and in the infinite, absolute holocosm of the infinite
God. Since the finite man is but an infinitesimal
copy of the infinite universes of the living God, and
is designed to lift up his mind into a proper under
standing of Him, by an easy and profound and ever
present illustration.

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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
God of the granite and the rose
The molecule and the morning star,
Thy spirit thro' all being flows
And far is near and near is far.
In Thine immensity of thought
All things are born, and all things die.
The eternities for Thee hath wrought
Full many a system, star and sky.
Before Thy throne of boundless might
Man bows himself in reverent love,
But knows, in all these worlds of light,
He's kindred with the stars above.
Almighty Father, Lord of all,
Teach us to view with equal eye
The small in great, the great in small,
The wonders that about us lie.
S. A. Merrill.
Ocean Park, 1904.
"There is a natural body and there is a spiritual
body . . . There are bodies celestial and bodies
terrestrial. But the glory of the celestial is one
and the glory of the terrestrial is another." — Paul.
"By which also he (Christ) went and preached
unto the spirits in prison." — I. Peter, iii., 19.
We quote the following, one of the mistakes of
Swedenborg, from "Heaven and Hell," No. 480:
"That man after death remains to eternity such
as he is as to his will or reigning love has also been
confirmed by abundant experience. . . .
"To change that love in a spirit therefore would
be to deprive him of his life, or to annihilate him.
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
They also told the reason, namely, that man after
death can no longer be reformed by instruction as
in the world, because the ultimate plane, which con
sists of natural knowledge and affections, is then
quiescent and cannot be opened, because it is not
spiritual; and that upon that plane the interiors
which are of the mind rest as a house on its founda
tion, and hence it is that man remains to eternity
such as the life of his love had been in the world."
The fatalism contained in this paragraph from
the great seer is very much in character with the
very gross and exaggerated statements in Theoso-
phy concerning the doctrine of the Karma.
In both statements it is a little more than an
assertion that the leading attributes and functions
in the original constitution or life of man pass
through the various transformations that he is
obliged to without any essential or injurious changes
therein. And this is just what we ought both to
desire and expect from the very nature of the law
that governs the evolution of all beings. For man
is constantly, indeed every moment, undergoing
beneficent economic changes within himself.
But the greatest of the transforming influences
that go to help him in his efforts to effect any benefi
cent modifications or changes in his original make
up are to be found in the supplementary reincarna
tion that he undergoes after the decrease of the
animal body coupled with those that take place
during his long residence in spirit life prior to the
next incarnation in terrestrial states. But this ter-
restriation, this being reborn into the new terrestrial
estates and conditions, and in the holy being of
a new, perhaps a very different, earthly mother —
from the one that presided over the previous terres-
triation — becomes the very greatest of these benign
transforming influences that aid the man in his
efforts to shape his own destiny.
Otherwise he would indeed become the victim of
a stern and inexorable fatalism — one that would be
imposed upon him by the otherwise absolutely ben-
194

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
eficent and necessary conservatism and durability
of his own constitutional make-up — and one that
like the uncast cauda of the young bactrachean
steers from behind and from inferior forces and with
retrogressive rather than progressive results. There
is a numerous class of mankind — the vicious and
criminal — who if they were obliged to take up their
life lines at the point where they laid them down
at the end of their former incarnation in earth life
and to follow them out in the direction of their life
tendencies at that time, as taught by the gross and
absurd tenets of theosophy — that would find them
selves moving nearward toward the monad and
ultimate extinction.
There is no alternative. It is a monstrous fallacy
and misconception of the sublime law that governs
heredity, environment and re-birth, and like the
Orthodox and the Swedenborgian conceptions of a
literal hell, is one of those ghostly and irrational
caricatures of reason of science and of enlightened
common sense that have come down to us from a
blind and ignorant past, when man was in his spir
itual infancy and lived in the literal sense of the
word from his inability to perceive its true spiritual
sense and to understand the divine law that is dimly
shadowed forth in the literal or symbolical sense.
It is this literal and imperfect sense of the Divine
Word that the great mass of mankind still "live
for and have their being."
The Law of Cure.
In the practical annulment and repeal of this
fatalistic law and for the uses of spirits in the treat
ment of the maladies of spirit life, the world is in
debted much to the old Greek philosophers and sages,
and especially to Anaxagoras, "the father of modern
science," as he is sometimes called, who devoted
long years to the study of man in abnormal condi
tions. He studied man as he manifested himself in
all his natural modes and habits of action and of
i95

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
being, and especially among those classes who, not
having been reared under the bias of any special
religious creed or cult, were leading more natural
lives in the land of the soul.
The seer Swedenborg has in truth well defined
the law, as we shall see, in its general forms and
tendencies, for it is the same law correspondentially
and on the material plane, that obliges one body to
move on forever in the direction of the impelling
force until given a new direction or brought to a
state of rest by some force.
Swedenborg's mistake lay in the fact that his pre
conceived (church) ideas and prejudices, which
were those of his principal spirit instructor, St.
Augustine, mislead him. And neither of them were
far advanced enough into the laws of metaphysi
ology to comprehend the fact that one spirit can
temporarily lend his material body to another for
hygienic purposes, as one person can temporarily
loan his coat or even a whole suit to another to pro
tect him from the inclemencies of the weather. This
principle is well illustrated by the methods em
ployed by the spiritual healer in the treatment of
the sick of this life. He first makes use of his own
material organism to draw out the poisons from that
of his patient, and afterward infuses a portion of
his own purer magnetisms — spiritual blood — in
place of it to rebuild his whole system, animal and
spiritual, on higher, purer conditions.
But this ancient Greek seer, noting the fact of the
almost universal tendency of spirits to return and
remain upon the earth plane and to mingle with the
inhabitants of earth-life as far as possible, set him
self to work to study the laws involved in the rela
tions established between the two classes by their
after intercourse.
He observed the wonderful tendency of spirits,
great numbers of them, to seek to come into rapport
with cognate minds, especially in earth-life, and that
many of them, even of the insane, in the course of
time became relieved of their maladies incurred
196

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
during their earth life, while such as from ignorance
of the laws of control or from injurious preceptions
remained away, continued in the same condition in
which they entered the spirit world.
If we look a little closely into this law of mutual
aid which spirits both in the same world and in
both worlds may render each other — for there is
much of mutuality in it — and which a spirit while
yet in the flesh may render either knowingly or un
knowingly, we shall see that it is one of the benign
arragements of Divine Providence whereby man
as a social being is enabled to confer almost infinite
benefits upon his fellow. So that there is a profound
occult or hidden truth in the old hymn :
"There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emanuel's veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains."
But that "blood" — what is it but love — the creator
and the regenerator of *he worlds? What is it but
those divine personal electro-magnetisms that per
vade every part, organ and function of the divine
man and the divine woman, and not only thrill with
life and with joy every atom of their being, mental,
moral, material, but when rightly used are marvel-
ously hygienic and medicinal, not only to their pos
sessor, but to all to whom he may impart them?
Hence the marvels of healing by spiritual healers
and by mental and Christian Scientists. They give
them of this divine healing energy and they are
made anew. But the sphere of the true spiritual
healer is not confined to this world alone, but ex
tends equally to the spirit world and to all its in
habitants. And who is "Emanuel," or "God with us," but
man himself?
And what is that "fountain filled with blood" but
the vast divine, holy infinite universe of the living
God? 197

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
In this way Anaxagoras became cognizant of the
great law of cure — the law of liberty, of escape from
the otherwise fatal limitations inherent in his own
constitution — a stubborn and absolutely necessary
and useful resistance to changes injurious to the
perpetuity of his existence — and which can only be
made subservient to those radical changes that are
necessary under certain conditions to be wrought
in the spiritual nature of man in order that he may
get rid of his sins and at the same time may escape
the fatalism of this law of his being as defined by
Swedenborg — by a proper use of all those divine
social, spiritual and celestial influences and forces
that in the other life, as well as in the present, exert
their benign influence in the changes and transfor
mations he is obliged to pass through in both worlds.
But Swedenborg was not cognizant of this law of
mind by which man is enabled to escape from the
fatalistic tendencies of his own system, and for the
simple reason that great as he was, both his own
preconceived views and his childlike reliance on the
absolute truth of the communications of his spirit
teachers prevented him.
The same is also true of a great portion of the
church fathers even to this day, and hence so many
of them still adhere nominally at least to the eter-
nality of a literal hell.
The principles involved in this law of supple
mentary reincarnation and re-birth — for that is what
it is — this law of escape by the spirit form the
tyranny of his own body — were first introduced, but
to a very limited extent, into spirit life by the old
Greeks, centuries in advance of its more extensive
use in recent years. But church influences and pre
judices were too strong for its general adoption. The
church fathers in both worlds, living in the literal
sense of the word, could not regard the matter in
any other light, since for man in his infantile and
unscientific spiritual estates, as he then was, it was
unavoidable, and best indeed that he should be.
Our Father in Heaven imparts his laws to his in-
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
fant spiritual children on the earth as commands,
in the same manner and for a like reason that an
earthly parent issues his authoritative command to
his child : "Keep out of the fire !" while he is yet in
his infancy and of too little understanding and ex
perience to comprehend the real nature of the
danger. There are great and infinite dangers to be met,
resisted and overcome by man with all the "might,
mind and strength" of which he is cipable, assisted
by the angels and even God himself.
And hence the frequent and fervent admonitions
of the Christ: "Strive to enter in at the straight
gate; for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter
in, but shall not be able." And this caution was
far more necessary to place before man in an im
perative form at that time when he was in a more
childish and barbarous condition, than for those
living to-day, who better understand the laws of
being. "There be more things in heaven and earth than
dreamed of in our philosophies." — Horatio.
If now we follow the decarnated man into his
higher post-terrestrial life, we find that in accord
ance with the important law of metampsychosis he
puts off his spiritual body — as is well known to
spiritualists — and appears in another, which is even
more beautiful and refined in its character than is
the spiritual one. This is the celestial body of man,
and it is quite as "invisible" to the spiritual man as
the latter is to the terrestrial man. It sustains a
similar relation also to the spiritual body that this
one does to the terrestrial.
The time of the putting off, or death, of the spir
itual body takes place about the time of his attain
ing the fifteenth sphere, and forms one of the danger
points for such as have lived a too gross and impure
life while in the flesh. For if his earth life has been
too much on the animal plane, the spiritual body
and the celestial body also become so weighed down
and perverted in their character by the material,
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MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
moral and spiritual poisons the man has incorpo
rated within his whole system that after he has cast
off the two outer vestments or bodies he finds him
self in too weak and demoralized a state to well com
plete the long cycle upon which he has* entered or
to easily pass through the "narrow gate" that marks
the transition from the celestial to the terrestrial life
at the next incarnation. Such weaklings find much
difficulty in making this transition. But such trials
in the life of man spiritual belong now chiefly to
the past and to those who still cling too tenaciously
to the ideas and methods of the past. Science is
accomplishing wonders in freeing man from the
shackles of ignorance, bigotry and sin in spirit life,
even the very worst, and preparing him in no very
great, time to begin his triumphal march toward the
eternal city ! It has removed the barriers which
ignorance and superstition have so long interposed
against free progress and abolished the "thousand
year" cycle during which the lower classes of spirits
have been obliged to remain on the earth plane to
get rid of the detaining forces that hold "earth bound
spirits" for the lack of that knowledge, sympathy
and help which he can now obtain from the great
souls who are prosecuting this war against igno
rance, darkness and crime, those who in the past,
from the gross conditions of their spiritual bodies,
have been obliged to remain on the lower planes,
where they can have free access to the earth forces
and that was really the best for them in every way
at that time — at the end of this long so-called "thou
sand year" term, which is not an arbitrary period of
time, become enabled at last to progress out of the
lower spheres and to be able to cast off the spirit
body in one of the higher spheres.
This is what is implied in Revelations xx., 5, 6,
as the "Secpnd Resurrection." His contemporaries
in the flesh life, however, who entered spirit life
about the time he did but under more normal con
ditions and started upon the long journey soon after
their entrance, have passed the danger point by the

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
"First Resurrection." For, as stated by the intelli
gent angel who was showing John "these things"
"over such the Second Death" — the putting off of
the spiritual body — "hath no power." John, not well
understanding these instructions of the angels, has
stated the subject in a somewhat inverted form.
Uncounted millions of the low orders of spirits
an many that are not so low, prefer to remain upon
the terrestrial planes of existence and pass through
all the necessary transformations there and remain
there still for long ages, and are very useful to the
higher creative Gods in the labors of world building
and other important offices. They are the classes
that theosophists call "elements" and "elementaries"
and are indispensable, as stated in much of the la
bors performed by the higher spirits in the building,
unbuilding and rebuilding of world. They have also
great power over the elements. Hence the name
elementals. It was such spirits that carried out the
commands of the Master when he "rebuked the
winds and the sea, and there was a great calm."
There are plenty of authentic examples that have
come down to us both by history and tradition in
which human lives and weak and struggling human
causes have been saved by this very useful and
worthy people. In past times they have often ap
peared to sensitive people, so that tradition is not
wrong in telling us of gnomes, elves, fairies and such
folks. For a time there is no place in earth, heaven
or even space itself where man, the ubiquitous being,
may not normally reside.
We have conversed with some of these spirits,
who have great wisdom and power. It is not in
tended by the guides of our civilization that man
kind in general shall have intercourse with these
classes of spirits, and especially the people of our
own race, lest they, like the Hindus, many of them,
also fall into the practice of the arts of "black
magic." And that is the reason also why spirit in
tercourse has been practically suppressed by the
church for long ages and not permitted again until
201

MAN'S PLACE IN THE KOSMOS.
1837, when it was at last introduced among the
Shakers, and continued with them for seven years,
when the presiding spirit intelligences left them, but
before doing so informed them that it was for the
purpose of "opening up communication with skep
tics and doubting Christians." It was this class
that was intended to be reached in this way by the
guides of civilization, by permitting the "doubting
Thomases" in human life, who cannot believe in a
spirit man or a spirit world on the second hand evi
dence of other people, but must have some present
this year facts of their own before they can be sat
isfied. Still, the spiritual heavens are practically closed
to a large class of mankind, especially in the
churches, and will likely so remain until after the
gerat revolution that shall establish socialism and
the divine eternal equality and brotherhood of man,
at which time the more spiritual order of civilization,
the millenium, will be inaugurated and established.
And it is very near at hand. The entire heavens
dawn with the light of the new era.

The End.

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