Up, up, up, there in the steep and silent heaven, there shines
a radiant sun, more glorious than even a seraph might tell. Its
essence is not matter, but spirit; and from its surface there
go forth three kinds of light: the one in rays, another in waves.
Condensed, the former becomes matter, and the latter is the ocean
in which it is upborne - in which the worlds are floating, and
in which all things have a being. Ay! All things ride upon the
billows of this infinite sea, even as a shallop or an eggshell
sails upon the tiny wavelets of a lake. The third substance given
off from this great sun goes forth in corruscations. The first
kind of light proceeds from the surface, the second from the interior,
the third from the very heart of this infinite center - or from
Gods body, His spirit, and His Soul. The first is pure fire, the
second, pure life, the third is the sea of monads. Every scintilla
of that which proceeds from the Soul of this sun (like that which
proceeds from a human brain in action) is a thought, shot out
into the vast expanse, but destined to return by another pathway,
not direct, but circuitous and spiral. (16) Well (says the voice
speaking from within to the philosopher who is listening to the
revelation), I was one of these monads, and found myself enveloped
in a myriad fold and firmly imbedded in a granite rock, where
I remained shut up of long ages, pining constantly for deliverance
from the thralldom. Even then I found my monad heart pulsing with
a divine life, and ardently longed to celebrate the knowledge;
for I knew I came from Deity, and longed for my return.
---------------------------------------------
(16) An illustration of the Law of Action and its Reaction.
---------------------------------------------
My first recollections are of a fiery character, for my dwelling
was in the very nucleus of a comet that had just been whirled
into being. How? I cannot now stop to explain. Only this will
I say: with me there were myriads of others, for in every molecule
of spiritual and material substance was imbedded one of my brethren,
all longing to escape and return to the heart of god, whence we
had been sent forth to perfect His great design.
The comet cooled, became a world, and finally an earthquake threw
the block of granite, wherein was I, to the surface; and, by and
by, after waiting many ages, I found room to move, and did so.
The result was that we - the other monads and myself - changed
our outer shells into moss. The moss died and left us free to
try what further we could do; for be it known that our forces
had not yet been fairly called into action. The next change was
a higher one, and afforded scope for the display of a higher order
of power. This time I became a plant; and the next time a plant
of a higher character; at each epoch losing one coat, (*) until
at last I could be plant no longer, and so was forced by a law
within as well as laws without myself, to become the center of
an animal.
---------------------------------------------
(*) An onion is a familiar analogue. As the process went on, the
monad lost layer after layer, each one developing higher forms
of excellence and beauty than the preceding, yet the same monad
still; each layer demanding and creating, so to speak, its proper
requirements and conditions. Here is the germ of a grand system.
---------------------------------------------
And so I ran the gamut of change through countless ages; every
new condition being more and more favorable, brought out new properties
from within me, and displayed new beauties to the suns bright
eye. I was still a monad, and will ever be such in one sense,
albeit time, after reaching my human form, will be of no account,
only states. Something whispered me that I should ever advance
toward but never reach perfection. I felt that, monad though I
was, yet at my heart, my core, my center, I was the germ of an
immortal human Soul, and that that Soul itself was destined, after
its material career was ended, to throw off form after form, just
as I had all along the ages. And thus I passed through countless
changes, exhibited a million characteristics, until, at last,
I who had at first worn a body of fire, then of granite, then
of moss, now put on a higher and nobler dress, and became for
the first time self-conscious, intelligent, and, in a degree,
intuitive both as to the past, the present, and the future. And
all these infinite changes were effected by throwings off, in
regular order, just as material suns throw off ring after ring,
which in turn resolve themselves into planet after planet. During
all these transmigrations my monad body was active, my monad soul
quiescent, but ripening all the while; first in plant, then in
the lower and higher forms of fish, reptile, bird, beast, and
mammal - quadruped and bimanal. Thus I had reached the most distant
prophecy of what I was hereafter to become; and, as it may interest
you to learn the steps by which I ascended, from the pre-human
to the very human, I will recount them in general. The list is,
therefore, as follows: the first approach to the man was, when
I found myself successively animating, as a central life-point,
the forms of Simæ, Satyrili, Troglodyte, the Gobbons, Hylobates,
and Cynocephalii, passing through the specific forms of Coluga,
Aye-aye, Banca-Tarsier, Maholi, Lemur, Loris, Diadema, Indrus,
Marikina, Marmoset, Dourocouli, Salmari, Yarké Saki, Couzio,
Cacauou, Sajou, Sakajou, Araquato, Meriki, Cotii, Marimondi, Charneck,
Drill, Mandril, Chucma (babon), Wanderoo, Bhunder, Togue, Mona,
Quesega, Colubii, Budong, Entellus, Kahaw (developing the human
nose), Gibbon, Siamang, the Hylobates, Orangs, Chimpanzee, Gorilla,
Nschiego, Troglodyte, Kooloo Kamba, Barbeta, Aitcromba, Hamaka
(Troglodyte of Mount de Garrow), Neg, Bosjesman, Hottentot, (*)
----------------------------------------------
(*) this theory must be true, for an astonishing confirmation
therefore is not only found in the marvelous resemblances between
human and animal features, but in the still more wonderful fact,
that the human fStus assumes at various stages of its increment,
successively the appearance of moss, lichen, gelatine, reptile,
bird, beast, and so on, all the way up to its final human form,
and if the gestation in even a perfect female be interrupted at
a certain stage, the child is born with the characteristics which
distinguish the animal whose natural place upon the ascending
plane is that at which the gestation was disturbed. The facial
angle of some persons is precisely that of the Lemurs; the human
Lusus NaturS, so called invariably resemble some beast, bird,
reptile or monkey. It is but a few years ago that a negro
woman of Charleston, South Carolina, was delivered, not only of
what looked like a nomkey, but which was a monkey out and out.
The woman had never seen a monkey in her life, sot that this was
not a case of mere mother-marking but gestation was interrupted
in some respects in some way, at about the nineteenth day after
conception, while it went on normally in other respects. An additional
proof of the truth of this development theory is seen in the fact
that ordinary parents often produce extraordinary geniuses; thus
another negro woman of the same city produced a boy by a black
and ignorant father, who is today one of the most extraordinary
musical geniuses the world ever saw.
----------------------------------------------
Negro, Malay, Knaaka, digger, Indian, Tarter, Chinese, Hindoos,
Persians, Arabian, Greek, Turk, German, Gaul, Briton, American!
(1)
----------------------------------------------
(17) This has reference only to the physical body.
----------------------------------------------
Theres the list in general terms; specific nations are not needed
at this point. The last eighteen are strictly human, for at the
point(Neg) I ceased to develop animal; and, in passing through
that highest form of animal existence, I was impelled one step
further, and lo! The first course of transmigrations were ended:
I awoke to a consciousness of self, and man, the immortal, stood
revealed!
[Note. - The exact order is not stated, for there are many intermediate
links connecting the Simiæ with the Lemurs and Troglodytes,
or with that portion of the genus of the Quadrumans comprising
the Gorilla, higher Orangs, Nschiegos and Chimpanzees; yet the
chain itself is, generally speaking, quite correct.]
Thus is completed the outlines of the history and experience of
a human soul. Let us return to the awakening....
I now realized that the Soul and Spirit-worlds were far different
from each other, for the former is Within, but the latter, like
the planetary worlds, is Without; (18) not in the sense of in
the house and out of the house, but rather in the sense of in
the bed and in a dream - not exactly, but analogous. The fact
is, mankind, albeit many know it not, are living upon the confines,
at least, if not occasionally full residents, of two or three
worlds at the same time - worlds which impinge upon and interlace
each other, just as fine spirit contacts rough matter; and yet,
while this fact is so, it happens likewise that in many respects
these worlds are as wide apart and distant from each other as
in Pleiades from Mazaroth or distant sun from twinkling planet;
for the reason that states, not miles, separate the denizens of
either. Those whose being is in accord with the vast Harmonead
move alike upon the shores of each sphere of being, whence they
can catch the echoes and footfalls of the pilgrims on both banks.
Most people are familiar with the stereotyped assertion that Man
is a microcosm - a universe in miniature, than which nothing can
be more correct and true. The body is not the man; neither is
the nerve-center of his brain that which constitutes his personality,
any more than the central spiritual sun around which all material
systems revolve is the supreme God Himself; for even as Deity
dwells within the centralia of that August luminary, so also does
the very man himself hold his court within the bosom of that magic
sphere which exists within his skull. In the subjoined description
of the student, the sentient and conscious point is spoken of
under the similitude and figure of a fiery globe. The likeness
is imperfect in some respects, for not only is man a world within
himself, but he is an entire system of worlds, each one of which
is perfect of its order, full and complete. God is at once a center,
a Republic, and a King. So also is man in a finite degree. His
faculties may be said to constitute the distinct members or States
or nations of the great confederation, whereof the supreme Ego
is sovereign Lord and President, one, however, who can, if it
so elect, assume and wield despotic power over all within the
great domain. So far can this power be carried and exerted, that
pain may be overcome, and even death itself be kept at bay. The
Will is Lord of mans accidents and incidents, and if his reason
guide it well, nothing can withstand its force.
---------------------------------------------
(18) An illustration of the Law of Hermes: As above, so below;
as in the within, so in the without.
---------------------------------------------
As stated previously, all foregone thoughts and deeds of mine
became objectified in my new sphere, for which I can find mo descriptive
term so good as that of Memorama, for such it truly was, and the
fact of its existence at all ought to become a significant one
to mortals, for even as their deeds and thoughts shall be on earth,
even so will be the delights or agonies consequent upon their
inspection of these memory tables on the other shore, whither
all must go, whether the voyage be agreeable or not.(19) Memory
constitutes the basis of mans heaven or his Hell.(20) On it is
founded the superstructure of his sorrows or his joys, and woe
be to whomsoever shall read and, reading, neglect the caution
here imparted. I give it in all love, for I know its immense importance.
---------------------------------------------
(19) As ye sow, so shall ye reap. The Law is absolute and cannot
be evaded. Neither Justification by Faith nor the Vicarious Atonement
will avail in the least. Payment is demanded to the last farthing.
(20) That which is, in life, mans memory, is like the printers
type which makes an impression on paper which we read. The memory
of the mind stamps itself upon the Soul, and this memory proceeds
with the Soul through all its experiences in all worlds. It is
an ever-conscious impression which cannot be erased except by
suffering and service.
---------------------------------------------
My thoughts and actions - even the minutest - passed before me,
across the polished surface of my enclosing sphere, standing out
in bold relief. The pictures incessantly altered their aspect,
or gave place to new ones, but there was something which did not
change, but on the contrary seemed to gather weight and durability
all the while. This was the attention point, the focalization
of all the Souls observant powers, nor did it undergo any permutation
whatever. I stood, as previously intimated, in the center of a
crystalline sphere. It was translucent but not transparent. Nothing
beyond its glory-tinted walls was discernible, but all within
it stood revealed in grand and cryptic light, which, as already
observed, appeared to proceed from my own head. The vertical diameter
of this sphere was not more than fifty yards, its horizontal one
somewhat more, for its form was slightly ellipsoidal. Its floor
was as a polished mirror, reflecting not only my own image, but
those of all things else within its beautiful walls. In this mirrorlike
surface I beheld my person and features most distinctly;
and it was quite a matter of surprise to discover that I was,
without the slightest effort on my part, completely and beautifully
clothed in garments of a fashion and style which, of all others,
I should have selected, had opportunity for so doing been presented.
Here is a new mystery of the Soul-world which may well engage
the attention of Psychologians. Depending from my neck and shoulders
was a long and flowing robe, apparently seamless, and woven of
lightest gossamer. The forearms and left shoulder joint were bare,
and I noticed that they as well as my hands had lost the sickly
cast and shrunken, shriveled appearance formerly characterizing
them. Now, to my great delight, they were fair, plump, and of
the most dazzling and voluptuous mould and proportions. As I made
this happy discovery, there flashed across me something of the
deeper meanings slumbering beneath the phrases love, loving, and
lovely; and I could comprehend why one person should become so
en rapport, so obsessed with and possessed and absorbed by another
as to lose not only all self-control, but self altogether. I could
now understand why the most loving must ever remain apart, even
in the mist interior communion on earth, until there are no dull
senses to be bridged, and understand the amazing difference between
a love that seeks its solace through sense, and that which brings
Souls together. While people are enwrapped in flesh and blood,
love is often obliged to express itself in modes distasteful to
its higher nature, and unworthy of itself. Not so in the Soul-world;
for there the very joy (magnetic, if you please) which one lover
feels in the mere presence of the other reaches a point of fulness,
completion and intensity that mere nervous filaments are incapable
of conveying, mere nervous exhalations can never give. No body
is capable either of giving or receiving, even with the strongest
efforts of will, even a foretaste of the joys which the Soul,
freed therefrom, can and does spontaneously. The keenest Sybarite,
the finest-nerved voluptuary, can have no adequate conception,
either of the nature or the depth of the joy imparted mutually
by two loving Souls in the higher worlds. Love, I have said, I
knew but little of, and cared less for, previous to my departure;
but now, as I gazed upon myself, and realized for what I was intended,
there arose a something within assuring me of my boundless, limitless
capacity to and for love. And then the gentle hint of Nellie came
back, and had the mate assigned me then appeared, I do not think
he would have met a very cold reception. Thereafter all this ended
as God decreed it should - rightly.
Around my waist there was a zone of belt of blue, which kept the
fronts of my open robe together, and then fell floorward in two
knotted tassels on the left side. The throat and upper portions
of my bosom were covered with what bore the appearance of finest
lace, whiter than the driven snow. The hair hung in luxuriant
curl-tresses adown by back and cheeks, which latter, as disclosed
by the floor-mirror, were no longer sunken, sallow, or emaciated
in the least degree; on the contrary, they were round, full, white,
fair as the cheeks of daylight, and suffused with the softest
and most delicate tints of the newly-opened blossom of the peach
tree. The teeth! - I had teeth - were ivory-hued, large and even.
The eyes were larger than they had ever seemed before; their lashes
were long, dark and drooping; and they were shaded by a brow far
more delicate and finely penciled than they ever wore on earth.
My stature was a trifle less, apparently, than when incarnated,
and there was a health, vigor, and freshness, which reminded me
of the early days, ere womans estate had come with all its cares
and toils, its miseries and deep griefs. About my head there was
a shining band, like unto the spirit of a silver coronet, pearl
and diamond frosted, and flashing back the light from a thousand
jeweled points. In the center of this zone was a triangle of ruby
hue, surmounted with the cipher R, and in its center was a crystalline
globe, winged, and bearing the motto, Try. (21)
---------------------------------------------
(21) The insignia of the authentic Rose Cross.
---------------------------------------------
Curiosity is the Soul of advancement; it is a female element almost
exclusively; and though all else forsake woman, curiosity never
will, either on earth or anywhere else. It prompted me to the
investigations above recounted and to others which followed hard
thereon. I wondered how my feet and ankles looked! The desire
was no sooner formed than gratified. The latter were encased in
proper attire, but the former not quite so, fur instead of a shoe
as I expected to find, there was only a sort of sandal - a mere
sole, light and graceful, fitting perfectly, and seemingly kept
in place by narrow red bands, which were laced to the ankles and
over the foot and instep. The bands themselves seemed to be of
a material no coarser than cords of braided light. Such, in brief,
were the revealments of the mirror. Mirror! exclaims the reader,
why, mirrors are adapted only to solar light, and that which proceeds
from material combustion. They reflect from their polished surfaces,
according to the well-known laws of optics, which laws cannot
possibly obtain of the strange world of which you were then an
occupant, which realm lies above and beyond the sphere of their
action or influence; how then could you see the image of yourself?
Again; If the first suit of apparel on which you found yourself
after death was only mere appearance, of what nature or character
were these last? If the spirit of a human being is, as we are
led to infer from your narrative, in nowise physical, or even
hyper-physical, as the Spiritualists assert - and they claim to
know all about the matter, if it is only a phantasmal projection
from the very Soul, and out-attachment of the supreme self, how
do you reconcile your statements concerning blue-cast hands, wrinkled
epidermis, shriveled appearance, and so on, with your subsequent
assertions that they afterwards became fair, plump, and beautiful?
Do Shadows grow? Do Phantasms avail themselves of the law of increment?
Please explain: clear up, elucidate! Reply: These are the very
points concerning which the people need light; for assuredly that
which they have heretofore received, instead of illumining the
subjects under consideration, have tended directly to increase
the already dense obscurity, and only rendered the darkness still
more palpable and dense. In order to form a clear conception of
what lies before us, it will be well to remind each other that
both Soul and body act under the impetus of two distinct codes
of law, the one volitional, the other mechanical, and therefore
involuntary. An illustration of both is seen in the case of a
man who, either reading a book or earnestly conversing as he moves
along, takes no notice whatever of passing persons or things,
and yet pursues the direct path, not once misses his way. Both
laws are operating simultaneously. The bodily powers are under
the same government; for the heart beats, digestion proceeds,
and all the functions of the physical economy are carried on by
a power lying altogether back of will. There is also another law,
which from voluntary, at length comes to manifest itself altogether
involuntarily, I refer to the law of Habit. Now, that this law
governs both soul and body is proved by a simple reference to
the swearing man, who also drinks liquor, chews tobacco, falls
asleep at a given hour and wakes up at another. Whosoever hums
a tune often will at length be haunted by it, and cannot rid himself
of the tormenting tune-fiend by even the most strenuous resolve
and effort to do so. It, like a fever, must and will run its course.
We also habituate ourselves to certain forms of expression and
ideal associations. Thus much by way of preface.
Now, it was the involuntary obedience of my soul to the Habit-law
that caused it to array itself in the semblance of the old and
well-remembered dress. The law of the association of ideas gave
the blue cast, the wrinkles, and the emaciation which so surprised
me.
Presently, however, I passed under the operation of higher laws
of nature, and more interior ones of my own Immortal soul. One
of the first, and most important of these last, is the Law of
Vastation, whereby the Soul throws off the old loves, preparatory
to entering upon new ones. Its first involuntary act, in the second,
as in the first case, was to clothe itself; but no longer subject
to the old law of association, and coming under a new one, it
rejected the things of memory, and assumed the garb corresponding
to its new-born loves, all in conformity to a law within itself.
[In dreams, the garb and surroundings are typical or symbolic
of mental, moral and esthetic states; therefore it is possible
to construct an exact science of dream-interpretation.] And the
drapery assumed was not merely the result of caprice or an involuntary
fantastic taste, pride, or vainness, but was the legitimate and
orderly result of the triple law, whose elements are fitness,
expression, and correspondence. The white drapery symbolized,
if not my absolute purity, at least my aspirations thiterward
( and this explains why all men and women array their breasts
in white bosoms, frills and laces). The bandeau, the zone, girdle,
jewels, all symbolized an affection, aspiration, or quality of
the inner being; and as these latter change, so also do the former.
The law is imperative, because it is a thing of the soul itself,
whose external manifestations invariably - in the Soul-world -
represent its inward states, moral, religious, and intellectual.
In the light of this explanation, therefore, no one need marvel
at the radical changes in my personal appearance. We shall throw
much more light on the general subject when next we treat of the
mysteries of being. The present undertaking being merely prefatory,
as a matter of course, confines us to the mere superficialities
of a realm whose vastness exceeds all human conception. In reference
to the wrinkles of my ands and their sudden disappearance, enough
has been said; yet for the information of whoso chooses to profit
by it, I will merely add here, that as Time only affects man in
his outward relations, it cannot, of course, bring wrinkles on
his features, for Souls do not grow old by years; albeit they
do grow old by experiences, without reference to duration, but
only as to depth and intensity. A single week of mental agony
will ripen a Soul more than would fifty centuries of clock-beats,
passed free from the sorrows aforesaid.
Let it not be forgotten that there are two distinct and dissimilar
worlds beyond the grave, not that I had rapidly crossed from the
first to the second stage of my transmundane existence. One of
these is the mere external world of Spirits, wherein a life analogous
to that of earth is for a period led by the inhabitants thereof.
The other is that concerning the mysteries were of I am now treating.
Millions of beings there are who , although disrobed of fleshly
garments, are yet pilgrims in search of the Soul-world. The latter
is divine and interior, the former natural and merely Spiritual.
A man on earth may gaze on the surface of a picture, or mechanically
read a book, and yet find nothing therein; whereas either of these
may lead another person not only into their own beauty-depths,
and into the Soul of the painter or the author; but they may serve
as clues which his Soul may seize on and follow into realms never
even imagined to exist by the poet-painter, to the painter-poet.
So also the mere mortuary fact by no means serves as a free ticket
or pass into the grand Temple, at the mere vestibule of which
grim Death lands those who take passage in the phantom shallop,
whereof himself is pilot and steersman. The mere post-mortem existence
does not necessarily entitle one to all the privileges of the
Temple, nor make one a resident of, or even spectator of, the
worlds of soul. True there will occur a change in all, whereby
they can pass the mystic ferry; but his change must be worked
out from within, and in no wise depend upon outside influences;
it must be volitional, not mechanical. The ferriage must be paid
in well-wishing and better doing. The life beyond is a real one,
compared to which that of earth is a mere shadow, and the form
of government is an isonomous one; equal rights, equal laws, impartial
justice, administered, not by external agents of an outward power,
but by the very constitutional delegates from the secret Soul
itself; for no justice is so very just as that which each Soul,
by virtue of its own nature, administers to itself, (22) and through
which its lower becomes subordinated to its higher and nobler
faculties, qualities and powers. And this is the law that keeps
many a one from entering the sacred penetralia until properly
disciplined and prepared for the change. (23)
---------------------------------------------
(22) The reason why none can escape the Law of Retribution or
Reaction. That which is written cannot be erased except by the
Soul concerned. There can be no intermediary; none to assume the
blame or penalty, although sympathetic Souls may help lighten
the burden. Thus hast thou written, thus must thou read, is the
eternal fiat.
(23) Return good for evil, is based on this Law. We can overcome
the evils we have committed and erase them from the records by
doing good to the truly needy, by being the Good Samaritan to
those in trouble and in sorrow. We are not our brothers keeper
in that we have no right to dictate to hm, but we may lend the
helping hand in his hour of need.
---------------------------------------------
I wondered at first why these truths were not more generally known
and appreciated by the people, who, because they have an intellectual
perception of the fact of Immortality, call themselves Spiritualists;
but as the veil was slowly drawn away, and I saw that much that
had to me appeared real, proved now to be but seeming, there was
no more marveling. There was, still is, and for a long time will
be, four sorts of Spiritualism in the world: First, a mere bodily
sensitiveness, nervous acuteness, and susceptibility to magnetic
emanations and impressions, out of which arises a great deal of
the stagnant filth and social corruptions so prevalent, the debaucheries
and license, and great evil which pain so greatly the hearts of
true men and women. Second, a Spiritualism of the brain alone;
a cerebral quickening, a hothouse ripening of faculty, which gives
rise to much talking, and sometimes leads to the discovery of
many of the elements of the great principia under lying the Sympathiad,
and Prophesies the good time that is yet to be. Third, compact
Spiritualism, or that wherein and whereby a certain class of sensitives,
be they male or female, become the dupes of their own folly and
the victims of disembodied maniacs, lunatics, and self-deluded
denizens of the middle state; Spirits who wander on the outskirts
of three worlds, without a permanent resting place in either.
These have been useful, however, inasmuch as they have called,
and even compelled, attention to phenomena which they produce,
and which cannot be explained away, nor accounted for, save by
admitting two things: First, that Immortality is a fixed fact;
and second that it is possible to bridge the hitherto impassable
chasm which divides earth from regions which lie beyond. The fourth
kind, and truest and best, indeed that which only is truly spiritual,
is the growing up into a spiritualized, out of the merely physical,
self-hood; and this growth of soul necessarily admits the subject
of it into the mysteries of being, precisely in accordance with
the degree of the persons own unfolding. (24) It is the offspring
of good resolutions, well and faithfully carried out; ignores
pride, talk, lust, hatred, envy, malice, slander, and all else
which characterizes the other three sorts. Immortality is to such
not only an acquired, but an intuitive, fact. Such Spiritualists
are good, moral, humane, charitable, merciful, kind, and true;
religious, Christian in deed as well as name; and such as these
are never pulling down, but ever building up the Good, the Beautiful,
and the True; and when such an one dies, his or her stay in the
Middle state is very short, for they have paid their ferriage,
and are speedily intromitted to the mysteries and grandeurs of
the world of Soul.
---------------------------------------------
(24) The only safe and logical path toward Spiritualization -
a process of transmutation which ends in Soul consciousness and
Immortalization. There is no danger in this Path, for the reason
that the Aspirant advances only so fast and so far as he has earned
the right to by the Law of compensation. There is here neither
weakness not hot-house of mushroom growth.
---------------------------------------------
Such an one is unfolded; and by this term is not meant that state
to which a man arrives after packing the contents of two or three
libraries on the shelves of his memory; nor the condition of one
who has arrived at honor and distinction by dint of mere acquaintance
with learned authorities, and the accumulation and piling up of
knowledge of various common and popular sorts; for it frequently
happens that men and women, who are very ignorant of all these
things, and who, so far as they are concerned, are not progressed
at all, prove on trial to be far more unfolded than thousands
ov those ho have grown gray in the service of Letters, and who
have, by persistent assiduity, succeeded in transforming themselves
from human beings into locomotive encyclopedias, splendid to look
at, interesting to dine with and talk to, but cold, unheartful
encyclopedias after all. Education is often a mere mechanical
mastery of useless abstrusities; coins, which on the social counters
jingle well, but which are not over and above current in the far-off
worlds, where a boors earnest prayer weighs far more than the
ornate, rhapsodical orisons of scores of learned pendants, pretenders
to superior knowledge, who, to judge them by their language, take
god to be a school committee rather than a loving, tender parent.
Thus I found true, what had previously been surmised, that a person
may know but little, yet approach much nearer the Divine than
one who has more brain furniture with a great deal less heart.
It was revealed to my understanding that the great law of Vastation,
by whose operation the monad developed moss, threw it off, and
brought forth something better and higher, until at last the conscious
point - the truly human degree - was, after the lapse of ages,
reached, did not cease its functions even after the death of the
body, albeit its mode action was somewhat changed and modified;
for now it was observed by me, that while the soul may, both prior
and subsequent to death, draw in knowledge from without - inspiration,
progression, procession, it may also expand from within, and enter
consecutively domain after domain in the Soul-deeps of its almost
infinite being. This is aspiration, unfolding, development; and
ever will the immense, the immortal thing, continue to Vastate
the bad, the ill, imperfect, and untrue, so long as any of such
remains to be thrown off, as it has been doing ever since the
clock of Time struck one upon the bell in Eternitys tower! It
will continue the process until that tower itself shall topple
and fall with hoary age!
The figure of an onion, though homely, is, nevertheless, a good
one, inasmuch as it offers a familiar illustration of the monad;
for, first there are the two or three external skins, after which
comes layer after layer, until at last we find a center, which
center contains an invisible, because a spiritual point, which
constitutes the germ or seed-principle, contain, latent in its
bosom, countless acres of onions, that are and are not, at the
same time, fields of plenty, seeds of mighty harvests, which only
need the necessary conditions to prove their power and develop
their capacities.
Philosophers have long sought, with their crude plummets, to sound
the bottomless abysses of mans Immortal Soul. Spiritualists, in
their turn, have tried to do the same, ay! And loudly boasted
of their success. Success, forsooth! Why, their lead, even when
all the line attached thereto was well run out, rested on one
or more of the very topmost ledges of the unfathomable and vast
profound, their weights only lodged on the upper crags of one
or more of the tiniest mountains, whose heads are upreared from
the floor of the great ocean Soul. Proclaiming man to be a world
in miniature, they have, in their treatment of him and his, not
only belied and stultified themselves, but have shown that, after
all, he was to be classed with all other worms of the dust, a
semi-voluntary automation - a skip-jack, to be coaxed, wheedled,
and driven, just as circumstances might dictate and decree. Theoretically,
to them, he is a God; practically, a mere machine, whose office
and function it is to eat, drink, be merry, sleep, wake up, labor,
and beget his kind, whose destiny, in turn, is to repeat the same
identical round, with perhaps a few trifling and unimportant variations,
totally forgetful or unconscious of the fact, that when pronouncing
him to be a microcosm, they were uttering a sentence brimful of
Gods everlasting truth. Philosophers have a bad habit of saying
one thing and meaning another; for while loudly declaring, they
never yet have fairly believed, that howsoever vast the universes
without may be, yet all and each of them grow diminutive and contracted
when compared with those that exist within the Soul. Nay, they
have never realized that all that has a being outside of man is
met, mastered and overmatched by an infinite universe from within.
Crime! folly! - what are they? Philosopher, answer thou me! They
are, they are - they are - well, I can hardly tell what they really
are. I will tell you: these things frequently mark the career
of the Progressed man, never that of the developed or unfolded
one, and in all cases are either the result of impulse, Spirit-obsession,
or of a bad calculation. When nations merely Progress, every jail-yard
has its gibbet; when the people are Unfolded, temples for God-worship
take their places. Philosophers try to explain away all crime
and evil, knowing it to be real; yet at the same time treat the
doers of ill-deeds as if they were not fitter subjects for Soul-hospitals
than for thumbscrews and disgrace. They forget that society gains
nothing by making a man think less of himself! Instead of pursuing
really reformatory methods with those who are vicious or whose
souls are sick, they have favored the policy of revenge and atonement,
and adopted the lex taliois instead of the lex justitiS, as Common
Sense, if nothing else, would ever seem to dictate, counsel, and
approve.
The Social Sympathium is yet to be. Discord rules the age. The
human soul is unbalanced. Equilibrium and Virtue come together.
By and by Philosophers will realize this truth. Men who gaze intently
on the wonderful perfection of the outer Sympahium, and realize
its vast excellence, constantly fail to recognize the fact that
the inner world of man would be the same were but Charity and
kindly dealing, in thought as well as act, to take precedence
of Suspicion and Punishment. As yet the world is but a baby-realm.
There are no real saints therein at present, for the reason that
the currents of the time are not adapted to the floating of that
species of craft; nor will the social garden produce that sort
of fruit until it is well subsoiled by charity-ploughs and common
sense. At present, probably but few men or women live on earth,
no matter how abstemious they may be, nor how correct and staid
their deportment, but in whose hearts lurk many a thistle seed,
ready to spring up and pester the world whenever bad conditions
shall call them into active life; nor can there be a pure saint,
until every one of these seeds shall be deprived of life. Then,
the great truth is made apparent to the people, that the greatest
sin a person can possibly - taking the future as well as the present
into the account - is the sin against him or herself, society
will rapidly purge itself of wrong, and there will be fewer bad
memories to haunt and terrify them after lifes troublous drama
shall end, and far fewer leaden-hued pictures be reflected from
the mirror-floors of the world of Soul.
Wealth, the possession of riches, is, on earth and in all human
society, the universal passport to honor and distinction. This
is one of the fallacies of man, and the greatest; but the good
deeds done to the neighbor and the self are hereafter changed
into a kind of coin readily current in the lands beyond the tomb.
Now, no one thing yet unaccomplished is more certain to come to
pass than that this lesson will yet be learned by the people.
When it is mastered, there will be far less strife for the honors
and emoluments of office, and the universal cry will be, Whom
can we get, whom shall we persuade to be our Ruler, President,
or King? Whom can we employ to fill those offices? instead of
Vote for me! as now. Mankind on earth do not, as we of the soul-world,
seek for joys that are pure, and purely human, too; they do not,
as we, drink from chalices at whose bottom no dregs are found
after the ruby wine has been sipped. Alas, no! But instead, they
seek for such joys as are absolutely sure to leave a sting behind,
and Repentance, Agony, and Remorse are the terrible triplet they
are obliged to nurse, for oh, how long! This is moral and spiritual
suicide - so far as super-mundane joys are concerned, suicide,
slow but sure; and such Souls, on entering the middle state, are
poor and thin and lean and powerless, for deeds or thoughts either
good or great; and memory reflects back but few, if any, pleasant
images, but, in lieu thereof, presents for inspection and as food
for contemplation, an array of barren mountains, fierce whirlpools,
crags toppling over into dreadful darkness, beetling cliffs, from
whose bald summits the vulture and the night-owl shriek and scream.
No pleasant pasture lands begem the picture, no sweetly-singing
rivers of delight; but only things of weirdness, rage and fury,
set as centers into pictures representing boisterous and tempestuous
seas, cold and dreary ice-islands or desert sands which swallow
up the sunshine, the moisture and the rain, but never smile with
a single green or lovely thing. These are symbols and smiles of
the Souls states, and are the legitimate and inevitable out-creations
of itself; but, thank God! Not of its inner deeps, else the universe
might well run mad, and every living thing curse its God and
- die. True it is that none of these frightful things is the result
of the natural and unbiased choice of any human creature, yet
they are none the less real in the second stage of existence,
for the reason that Destiny forever compels a man to be himself.
Sooner or later he will bring himself voluntarily to acknowledge,
bow, and bend before it; and the instant that he does so, the
grand Vastatory law comes into play, and he slowly emerges from
Hell, and takes the road to Heaven.
So far in human history on the earth the Devil has proved a failure,
utter, total and complete. Not so Evil. This latter works out
its mission well, even if it does no more than to convince man
that his only, best and truest friends are himself and the Infinite
god whose child he is.
In the higher realms, to which mankind is destined, his actions
are never the result of an applied force from outside himself;
but when voluntarily submitting to the pressure from within, he
is irresistibly led from bad to better, and from better to Best.
Reaching this point, he no longer rebels against God, but against
himself, his higher, nobler, better nature, and giving up all
of mere self, begins to desire nothing so much as to love and
be loved, to serve God and minister unto others good; and at last
finds himself standing in the Door of the Dawn, having emerged
from the Hades of his own and others making, and stepped into
his house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens - house-spheres
such as I have partially described, prepared for and in, and of
him, from the foundations of the Ages, houses which are indeed
builded upon very pleasant spots, on sunny glades and love-tinted
hillocks on gods Eternal domain, houses, too, which men often
refuse to enter and occupy till after the lapse of years of misery
spent in the horrid caves and unsightly huts dug and builded by
themselves.
All these things flashed in upon my Soul, as I stood gazing into
the Mirror on the floor, and upon the vivographs of Memory gliding
by upon the walls, in which ever event of my life, no matter how
trivial, was clearly represented. Not a good thought or deed,
no matter how private, not a single sin, no matter how venial,
but was there reproduced for my inspection and instruction, moving,
with all their foregone accessories across the walls of that magic
globe. They were living icons, perfect rescripts, of all foredeeds,
thoughts, actions, and transcripts, all too faithful, of the volumes
of my memory. (25) Soon all this passed along, the last scene
being that of my death within the chamber of the house upon the
hill. Scarcely had it vanished, whither I knew not, than a blank
section moved across the line of vision, almost instantly succeeded
by a Phantorama still more wondrous and imposing. Instead of representing
myself alone, this second picture revealed the results, both direct
and indirect, of my personal influence upon others, whether exerted
in a domestic, social, or professional capacity. I could not help
being particularly struck with one tableau, which, as it embodies
a moral lesson, I will here stop to briefly describe.
---------------------------------------------
(25) This is the Biblical Book of God and the Lambs Book of Life.
The Soul writes its own book, beginning on the day its place of
habitation, the body, reaches the age of responsibility, i.e.,
puberty, and continues until death closes its pages. God, the
gods, or the angels of heaven, what ever you will, act as the
librarians to file these books of Records and none is ever lost
or mislaid. It, the book, is ready and open as soon as the Soul
is called to stand before judgement.
---------------------------------------------
I saw myself in the act of warn disputation with a friend, on
a subject well calculated to elicit the best thought of the best
thinker. I had the right of the argument, and this was so apparent
that my friend with whom I was arguing lost temper. At the time
of the occurrence I took but little note of the matter, not deeming
it a subject of very great importance. Now, however, I saw, what
surprised me greatly, that this mental excitement had reacted
physically, and, in running its course, brought on a slight inflammation
of the brain, a sort of slow but positive fever, which, while
not confining the patient, yet affected both Soul and body to
a great extent, and so modified the cerebral constituents that
the Immortal Soul, wherein dwelling for a season, could not thereafter
manifest itself as formerly. (26) I now realized that chemistry,
in the higher sense, was an efficient force in the human mental
as well as in the material economy; that changes in the physical
cells of the brain could be made by intellectual excitations,
and that these in a great measure affect the mental and physical
operations, even to the extent of a complete bouleversement. In
consequence of the change effected in the individual alluded to,
projects of various kinds, previously determined on, had to be
given up, for which reason the entire current of a life was turned
completely; nor is it for me to say whether greater good or ill
will be the ultimate or final result, for the reason that as yet
I can neither see the origin nor end. These are only known by
the Infinite One above us and beyond. Suffice it, therefore, to
observe, that had I known what weight inhered in words whether
lightly, harshly or kindly spoken, especially to the sensitive
and susceptible natures of many of earths pilgrims, never would
I have uttered a syllable without well weighing the possible consequences
thereof; especially would I have kept back all which bore the
slightest resemblance to heat or anger. Oh, what a wondrous thing
is a human Soul! Until now it was not clear to me that, by virtue
of both a static and dynamic law of the universe, human happiness
is derivative, and ever depends upon the amount and kind bestowed
upon or imparted to another. The law is dual; that is, it works
both ways; for even as a man or woman finds joy in the act of
causing or of bringing joy to others, so also the misery and woe
which A may cause B, C, D, and E to feel or undergo, not
only reacts upon A by force and virtue of the Great Sympathia,
but it is utterly impossible for A to be happy, so long as the
least trace of his or her action mauvaise remains with B, C, D,
E, F, and G. Nor is this all; for if these last persons act badly
toward H, I, J, and K, said actions being the legitimate result
of As, originally, upon B, C, D, E, F, and G, then A cannot escape
the consequences, no matter how distant or in whatever corner
of Gods universe he may be, or in whatever crevice of the great
creation he may seek to hide. A wave or ray of agony from B, C,
and the rest of the alphabet, will finally reach him! A lash from
the great whip of conscience or remorse will fall on him, when
rocks and mountains, though heart-implored, refuse to. Until the
law of compensation is satisfied, he shall never fail to hear,
pealing into his Soul from the Lacerated hearts of others, the
terrific sentence: Thou art the man! Thou hast done it! Pay what
thou owest! If the reflections shall prove to have been good instead
of evil, then the words which shall be heard will be: Even as
thou hast done it unto the least of these, my servants, thou hast
done it unto me. Well done, thou good and faithful servant! enter
thou into the joy of thy Lord! Take up thine abode in the mansions
of bliss, prepared from the foundations of the world! The coin
of heaven is ever stamped with the seal of a persons deeds, be
they good or evil.
---------------------------------------------
(26) We should be ever watchful that our influence on our fellow-men
be constructive and advance the interests of those with whom we
contend.
---------------------------------------------
This Soul-law is well illustrated by an incident which occurred
to me, the writer hereof, Paschal Beverly Randolph.
Many years ago, when a mere lad of ten or a dozen years, I lived
in the metropolis of America, where also I was born. One day several
lads of us were playing at ball in a street then called Chapel,
but since known as West Broadway. In throwing the toy at one of
my playmates it missed him and crashed through the window of a
shoemenders shop, the proprietor of which became greatly enraged,
and in a paroxysm of fury not only cursed and swore most dreadfully
at us, but also seized the offending ball, and threw it on his
burning grate; we poor mourners, in the meanwhile looking down
into the fiery grave of all our sport. Tears, expostulations,
entreaties were all so much wasted breath, and proved utterly
unavailing. The ball, unfortunate ball, was irrevocably doomed
to an igneous tomb; nor could all our prayers, joined as they
were, to abundant offers on our part, and that of several pitying
onlookers, to doubly pay the cost of the demolished glass, soften
the obdurate heart of the revengeful cobbler in the least degree.
Burn that ball he swore to; utterly consume it he vowed to; and
most religiously he kept his promise.
The ball was burned, but as the smoke of its substance - the remains
of two worn-out stockings and an India-rubber shoe, and of our
torment, went up towards heaven, there accompanied it a most dire
threat of vengeance from out my boyish heart, proud, indignant
little human heart, which then, for the first time, swelled almost
to bursting with vindictiveness and rage. In my paroxysm of fury
I swore a vendetta more fierce and terrible than that of the Orsini
against their mortal foes, the Borglas of sunny Italia. I resolved
to kill, slay, totally extinguish the whole race of cobblers,
but that one in particular. His doom was to be killed, slain,
cut to pieces remorselessly and cruelly murdered, after which
his Soul was to be eternally damned, roasted, stewed, broiled,
and grilled forevermore, upon the gridirons of the infernal pit,
all for burning a sixpenny ball! For ten long days and nights
I pondered on the subject and sought to contrive means whereby
to carry out my philanthropic design. Having heard and read of
battles, bloodshed and gory fields of human slaughter, wherein
he who did the most murder was the greatest hero; having heard
and read of human butchers and butchery, my heart had turned from
the one, and I shuddered at the picture of the other. Now, however,
all these images of horror returned. I still hate them, but of
all others it seemed to me that that ball-burning shoemender was
the most atrocious fiend that ever the earth. In my boyish frenzy
I vowed he was an ogre, giant, demon, and all else that was horrible
and bad, to rid the earth of whom would be doing an especial and
particular favor to God, nature and human kind. Amidst all the
scourges and pests who had ever trod the earth from Ghengis Khan
to Lord Jeffries, not one loomed up who was half so criminal,
half so deserving of the intensest scorn and maledictions of the
human race, as was that unfortunate and guilty cobbler. We resolved
that he must die, and die by powder and fire; but in consequence
of the fact that the explosive grains were rather unpopular just
then, while guns, pistol, firecrackers, doubleheaders and torpedoes
were strictly prohibited by the constable round the corner, we
concluded to defer the execution of the malefactor, till the ensuing
Fourth of July, then a matter of some eight months distant. But,
at last, it came. Our revenge had sleep, but was by no means extinguished.
The ogre dwelt in the same place still. The hour for dire retribution
drew fearfully near, and at length arrived, The cobblers doom
was sealed. Our maleficent congress, boys, all under twelve, had
resolved that he must die, then or never, so far as we were concerned.
Pistols and powder being still as scarce as ever, we assailed
the enemy with a large string of ignited Chinese crackers in lieu
of guns and bullets - articles de campaign, not procurable, owning
to the limited resources of our combined exchequer.
We suffered a defeat, a rout, total and complete, not did one
of us escape what the cobbler called a welting, for our shoulders
tingled many and hour thereafter from the application of a strip
of leather, wielded by the stalwart right arm of the vindictive
man. Now it so happened that, nearly opposite the scene of this
farce, there stood a tall flagstaff, Tom Rileys Fifth Ward liberty
pole, it was called, and with this pole is associated, not only
the moral of my story, but also one of the most singular experiences
ever undergone by a human Soul, while incarnated in a tabernacle
of flesh and blood, nerve and sinew, muscle and matter. After
mutually smarting from the application of the cobblers welt, we
took counsel and refuge beneath the liberty pole aforesaid; and
the last I remember of the affair is that, while gazing upon his
triumphantly retreating figure, it stuck me that the very quintessence
of my felicity on earth would be achieved could I have the exquisite
joy and unsurpassable pleasure of hanging him to the weathercock
on the summit of that flagstaff. This would be to me - to us,
a very heavenly state indeed. And so I humg him, in fancy, to
the north corner of the vane, enjoyed his imaginary struggles
for a while, and then went home. Years passed. My childhoods troubles
were forgotten and mans estate had come, with all its griefs,
cares, and strifes, and, from a student of the revenge I became
one of the science of Forgiveness. During one of these latter
years I became interested in the question, Has man a death-surviving
Soul or not? and to the solution of this great problem I bent
the entire force and energy of my mind, not hesitating to make
all sorts of experiments that held out a hope or possibility of
my reaching a definite conclusion in regard to the subject. In
pursuance of this grand object I one day made an experiment which,
in some respects, was but too successful; it was not by means
of drugs or potions, magnetism or spiritual circles. At the end
of one of these experiments I became totally lost to the external
world, its surroundings and influences, and found myself in the
world of Spirit, in the midst of a vast and boundless Chaos, in
which no sound struck upon me save the rattling of the bones of
a huge and ghastly skeleton which swayed and swing to and from
in the bleak air from the point of a vane on top of a vast pole,
itself the very specter of the one on which, mentally, I had hung
my mortal foe.
Attracted irresistibly by the ominous sounds, I turned my gaze
toward it, when instantly the horrible, ghastly thing became endowed
with life and speech - ventriloquial power of speech, and it shrieked
into my startled ears these terrible, these ominous words: Wretch,
look upon the work of thy hands! Here didst thou place me in the
years now gone, and here have I hum and swung; here must I hang
and swing during many and many a coming age! Gaze upon this cord
- look on it; think of it - placed around my neck by you - by
you! The flesh once with these bones which now rattle in
your ears - your ears! - has, by the elements, been changed and
dissolved into atoms - do you hear? - into atoms finer than the
flecks of light in a sunbeam - ay, finer than the scintillations
of yonder star, the point of the buckle of Orions belt; and that
star is an eye, and it watches you - watches you; and, as you
see, is the only one in your horizon from zenith to nadir. That
star is the sentinel appointed by Him to see to it that you escape
not the doom - the doom! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! And that soul must burn
and keep on burning, in its own self kindled flames, until their
fiery tongues shall have licked your joints - your joints, your
marrow - your very marrow, and keep licking them until-----
In Gods name, what, and when? I tremblingly inquired. And, from
between the chattering, clattering, horrible jaws of that ghastly
thing there hissed back this answer: Atom by atom, the elements
whereof my body was formed shall once again cleave to these bare
bones; and, of their own volition, persuaded thereto by the spectacle
of thy agony, softened by thy prayers, quit their gambols in space,
their festive sport amongst the star=beams, and rearrange themselves
into the original flesh, and blood, and nerve, and cartilage,
and lymph, and muscle, wherewith these bones were clothed once
upon a time in the dead years of an infinite Past! But, I cried,
as the sweat of agony seemed to ooze even out of my spectral cheeks,
there must be some mistake. The crime imputed was never committed
by me. I never slew you, not anyone else. Grue, I remember you,
but I only---- Wished and willed to do it! shrieked my tormentor,
from the gibbet; and what ever the Soul strongly wills is done,
so far as human responsibility is concerned. You wished and willed
me to be here; and here I am, by virtue of a great and mighty
law. Hast thou not heard the law laid down, by the sufferer of
Calvary, whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath already
committed adultery in his heart, and must pay the penalty therefor?
And thinkest thou that this is the only application of the great
law of justice and compensation? Fool! Know that thy crime is
just as great as if thou hadst, with thine own fingers, ;ut the
cord of murder about my neck - about my neck! The crime-thought
is as grat as the crime-act. So it is with thee, thou murderer!
Man is judged from the desires and motives of his heart, whether
these be for good or ill, and never from or for his act alone;
for the reason that actions are often the result of an instantaneous
impulse, external pressure and circumstance; but motives are the
creatures of will, the perfect offspring of desire! I groaned
in agony, an agony so great that it burst the bonds of sleep,
and I awoke from that which was not all a dream. It was an awful
lesson, and taught me how to become a wiser and a better man.*
---------------------------------------------
(*) This fearful apocalyptic vision occurred on the night of February
3, 1861, and was the means of inducing a train of thought and
feeling in my mind that resulted in conversion from all sorts
of philosophism to a belief in the pure and sweet religion as
taught by Christ. -P.B.R.
---------------------------------------------
Still the phantorama glided past upon the wall, revealing many
a new mystery, and showing me that every human being is more or
less responsible fro the result of personal influence exerted
upon others.
Much rare and valuable knowledge flowed in while I stood there,
in the center of the magic sphere, gazing on the second vivorama,
or living picture, delineating the results of my influence on
others. Many and many a strange scene passed athwart that globes
interior; and I was not only what the result of my influence had
been, but also what would have resulted had y action, in a given
instance, been different from what it really was. Thus, I saw
that had a cross word been spoken to a child, whom I had endeavored
to soothe by kindness, that child would have been led to restrain
himself, instead of, as happened, taking advantage, and attributing
by complaisance to fear or something akin thereto. I saw, on that
mystic scroll, the simulacræ of every person I had ever
known, and found that there, in the Sou-world, people and things
passed at their true, and by no means at a fictitious value, as
men and money do on the earth.
All mankind are divisible into seven great Orders, to each of
which there are three sub-orders or classes. I shall speak of
the Orders, not of the classes. Many of those who, when found,
in this place, where the secrets of all hearts are in very deed
laid open, really belonged to a far lower plane, anc vice versa;
for many a civilizee and aristocrat was now found to belong to
the order of barbarians; whereas, not a few of those usually considered
low were seen to be better unfolded than thousands with loftier
pretensions. Will it be credited, I even found the purist virtue
in one whose occupation was harlotry! Once upon a time, long before
I passed through deaths cold river, I was walking rough a beautiful
grove, hard by my dwelling-place, the house upon the hill. It
was a gala day, and hundreds had gathered there to celebrate the
noon of summer. Mirth, gayety, and sport ruled the hour, and my
Soul was very glad.
Amongst the rest who had gathered there, were several females,
whose trade was Sin, and who I supposed came there for their horrid
purpose. How mistaken was I! At that time it did not strike me
that beings so lost could have a pure thought, or in any way be
tempted to quit the hot pavements of the city to spend an hour
in Gods great Temple, amidst its living columns, the stately forest
trees, without mischief and wrong-doing in view. I looked upon
them, especially her with the pale, thin lips and large, drooping
eyelids, with utter loathing. And thus I passed them by. (27)
Years fled; never again did I think of them - much less that such
creatures could have aught of goodness in them, or feel the need
of Gods sunshine, or of a bath in his pure ocean of fresh air.
In life they were forgotten, but how, as that mystic diorama moved
forward, I saw that very scene in the grove reproduced in every
minute detail. There sat the courtesans, there walked I past them;
and as she of the large blue eye looked up toward me, with a mute
demand for one sympathetic glance - one kind word - only one kind
word - I turned heedlessly away; and, in doing so, I now saw that
a wrong thing had taken place; for had I spoken kindly they might
have been saved from ruin, so far as the world is concerned -
utter and complete. Then, when it was, alas! too late, I saw how
very easily I might have melted and won the heart of the woman
with the thin, pale cheek, and she would have become a ministering
spirit for good to many and many a lost and degraded one. I now
saw her antecedents - a young girl, a tender, loving daughter
- fair, beautiful, and sensitive to the last degree. In her home
misery reigned; no work for the father, no bread for her little
sisters, a sick mother, and the storms of winter howling in the
streets, and the cold wind, sleet-laden, searching for nooks and
crannies, that it might freeze the little hands and make the pale
lips blue.
---------------------------------------------
(27) It was the consistent practice of the great Paracelsus not
to differentiate between men because of their status in Society.
He firmly believed that he could learn a lesson from all; from
the beggar as from the rich man; the outcast as readily as from
the scion of society. He refrained from passing the drunkard in
the gutter for fear he might be the loser. No man can know what
is written in the heart of another, whether that other be high
or low, until he has taken the time and the trouble to read that
heart. Judge not that ye may not be judged, is golden wisdom.
---------------------------------------------
And then the father took to drinking, and the pampered servants
of the rich lordlings of the great city drove her with the large
blue eye from their doors; and she was hungry, very hungry; and
then the foul fiend tempted her to accept a handful of silver
from a - male! for men never do such things - things so infernal,
so hideous, so ineffably mean, in exchange for her body! And so
she sold it - again, and again, and again! Great God! She was
obliged to sell it or starve in the midst of the granaries of
Plenty! Starve herself? Yes, but not only herself - that were
easy, but the mother who bore her in agony; the father, whose
reason had for a time deserted its throne; the little ones, clustering
about the scanty fire in the little tin stove - these, all these,
must eat or die! The Poorhouse! A poor refuge indeed! For although
they may have been better off therein, would she? Doubtful! for
- well, never mind what! She sold herself for bread!
Presently work came, but the stain was n her. She had run down
a declivity so steep that she could never clamber up again, unless
some friendly hand be stretched forth to help her. And such hands
are very scarce. And now I saw what good might have been done,
in the days gone by, had I only thought.
(28)
---------------------------------------------
(28)there is many a potent sermon in the few words: Judge not
that ye may not be judged. The true Neophyte accepts not merely
the words as fundamentally true, but likewise the spirit of the
dictum. It would almost be a truism to say that no man is able
to know the underlying cause of a certain act. How then can he
judge? How does he (or she) know that he would do in a like circumstance?
It is permissible to condemn and preach against an act which is
evil or destructive in itself, but one should be slow to condemn
the person unless that person is professedly acting with deliberate
intent.
---------------------------------------------
This scene passed across the walls of my sphere. And then there
came after it a large blank space, and this taught me that it
indicated that somewhere in my life there had been a corresponding
omission. What can it have been? Scarce had this query been framed,
than there appeared a picture, which need not be described, but
the sum of whose teachings may briefly be stated thus: I had never
married - had never been hailed by the dear titles Wife and Mother.
I had therefore failed in the one supreme womanly duty. Nor can
any Soul be fully filled with joy who neglects those great commands
of God and Nature. Children are the crowns of Heaven; nor can
anyone - man or woman - taste the serener and the sweeter joys
of Being, who has failed to love and be loved, wed and be wedded
for this is one and the chiefest of means whereby the Soul becomes
mellowed and fit for higher uses in the Soul-home. For these reasons,
my joys, though great, were not equal to what they might have
been; and yet, take it all in all, provided the entrance into
the upper land is made with a clear and healthy conscience and
a fair record be left behind, no sense of clearness, lightness
and joy can equal that which is experienced subsequent to the
first awakening after Azraels decree has severed the marriage
between matter and Soul. The Senses! Roses emit sweet odors, grateful
to the nostrils; yet not all the perfumes of the Gulistan are
worth one inhalation of the celestial aroma in which the spirit
of the good man or woman floats when one fairly over the barriers
which separate the worlds. Color! I never knew the music of hues
before I passed away - never conceived of the sublime mysteries,
nor realized the great glory whose temple is the chalice of a
flower. Touch! Ah, what language, what pen, what tongue can describe
the deep raptures of a Soul, when Gods sublime atmosphere first
laves the immortal being! The highest, keenest nerve-joy the body
can experience must be very, very dull and tame in comparison.
And so on through the Sense-gamuts of Earth and the hyper ones
of Spirit. Yet only the good enjoy these pleasures. Sin and pollution,
whether of thought, whether of thought or overt act, detract from
the senses and susceptibility to pleasure in both worlds alike;
and so absolutely true is this, that sin and folly ought to be
shunned by the people, if for no other than the selfish desire
of being happy from ones self. It is better to live right, die
right, and be right after death than it is to purchase transient
pleasures on earth by drawing too largely on the bank of life,
to find ones drafts dishonored at the counters of the world above.
Suicides and voluptuaries are on an equality up there. Both are
only half-men, half-children, half-women; nor can they taste of
the higher raptures, unless they grow to holiness.
After a while there ceased to be any more pictures, and I became
aware of the fact that an unseen force was at work on the outside
of the globe, evidently endeavoring to break it down or in some
way force a passage through its walls. What this something could
be was a mystery, just so long as I vehemently desired to know,
which of course I, like others under similar circumstances, did.
I could not, while thus endeavoring, obtain my desire, and therefore
I naturally began to wish that Nellie or the old man would come,
because, in spite of my matchless surroundings, I felt quite human
in the midst of Spirituality, and the sight even of another than
myself would have been a solace and a consolation. No sooner had
my mind placed itself upon a new object than I made two new and
important discoveries: First, that loneliness or solitude is one
of the most terrible punishments to which either God or man could
ever possibly condemn a sinful human being. (29) God pity the
lonely man or woman! Oh, it is very dreadful to be compelled to
exist alone! Oh, it is very dreadful to be compelled to exist
alone! And there are thousands who walk the great worlds streets,
who move along in the very midst of a Solitude as deep, silent
and fearful as that which prevails in Zaharas desert wastes, where
human footfalls never disturb the awful stillness of the hour.
There are those who travel up and down the worlds highways, upon
whose Soul no glad sounds ever fall, and who appear to be condemned
to loneliness, as if they were thus expiating some awful penalty
as an atonement for great and undreamed-of crimes, committed either
by themselves in some pre-existent state, or by their ancestors
when the very world was young. There are those who, while all
about and around them are merry and jocund as the bees on a May
day, are themselves as far removed from the pale of human sympathy,
and as utterly alone, as if they were shut up in some rock-ribbed
cave in the heart of Mont Blanc or the Mountains of the Moon.
Oh, it is a fearful thing to be shut out from the great Sympathia,
whose function is to blend in one the chords of all human hearts!
It is a sad fate indeed to be obliged to live amidst the clamor
and the clang of discord, when all other Souls are dancing to
the glorious sounds of the great Harmonead; yet many such, ay,
far too many such there be, who are thus cut off, shut up, barred
out. They might have been let in, had the father given the mother
a smile, a caress, a blessing, at the proper moment, instead of
a frown, a rudeness, and a secret curse, as is, alas! Too often
the case; and yet nothing is more positively certain than that
somebody must answer to their own Souls, their own consciences,
for this most fearful entailment of misery, loneliness and woe.
See! Yonder is a woman - a wife - big with a man-child, who will
ere long see the light; but she is miserable - is lonely; is perchance
cursed for becoming a mother; and so she frets and mopes and pines,
all the while paining to be delivered of her misery and child.
At length it sees the day, the suns bright laugh meets no responsive
smile from its pale, thin, tiny lips. It mopes and grows, but
is prematurely old at ten years, a man at fifteen, a mournful
pilgrim at twenty-five, and an old veteran at thirty years! Whos
to blame? Somebody! Else Gods justice is, like mans a mockery!
---------------------------------------------
(29) Read Hargrave Jennings One
of the Thirty.
---------------------------------------------
Brother or sister, who readest these pages, wouldst thou know
one of the grand secrets underlying the constitution of the great
Brotherhood of Crime? It is because man is a social being, has
a mortal and invincible hatred and repugnance to solitude, feels
the meed of associates and sympathy, and will have both is possible,
even though obliged to seek them in the very midst of hell itself.
Didst thou ever observe that the majority of spiritual mediums
are men and women who are sensitive, lonely, bereft, and forsaken?
Well, look around, and thou shalt find it so. And these, failing
to find sympathy on earth amidst their fellows, search for it
in the awful labyrinths that underlie the tomb, and from the Middle
States vast hordes of semi-infernals come trooping at the heart-calls
of these wretched ones, who are thus preyed on by vampires from
both Eternity and Time; for embodied wonder-mongers sap them dry,
and wear them out, while disembodied demi-devils delude them,
until the fair Soul-garden either becomes an arid waste, or teems
with thistles, thorns, and all unsightly and unseemly things.
When such victims cry aloud unto god, and keep crying. He will
send His good angels to comfort, save, cheer, and protect.
Reader, wouldst thou know why millions of women, fair, lovable,
and good as ever Gods sun shone upon, yearly rush down the mountains
side and plunge neck-deep into the swamps of prostitution and
infamy? It is because their human hearts yearn for sympathy, pine
for love, long for something good and kind; which failing to discover
and obtain where hope has told them such things were, they seek
for it, at last, in the horrid belly of social damnation. Their
motto, A short life and a merry is better than a long and lonely
one! tells too truly the story of many a poor girls heart. My
God, my God, have mercy on the lonely ones! For Thou alone knowest
that many and many a sin against society and Thee is committed
by such and others, not of settled purpose of ill-doing, but because
urged on by sheer despair. Many a crime has been committed from
a mental aberration caused by the horrors of loneliness. Human
tribunals take but little, if any, account of a criminals antecedents
and surroundings. He or she is judged too harshly, in the main;
and thus it will be until mankind learns a deeper lesson of wisdom
than yet presides over its courts and councils. Only god can truly
know a heart; (30) and whilst this fact is so clear, it is better
to err on charitys side, if error must enter into the account
at all.
---------------------------------------------
(30) Only God and I know what is in my heart. _Moslem.
---------------------------------------------
In prison there is at least a community of punishment, and the
sense of this goes far to relieve the tedium of incarceration;
for, bad though it be, many a one has found it preferable to the
perpetual and dreadful solitude to which liberty condemned him.
Why are there such vast numbers of deserted wives and husbands?
- so many ruined and cheerless hearths and homes? The answer
is, because neither of the heads of the household has even dreamed
that the companion had rights which the other was bound to respect;
and the greatest of these rights, and the one most disregarded,
is the right of being loved by the other - loved tenderly, truly,
kindly, humanly. The parties to the domestic compact have severally
failed to realize what common sense ought to have suggested from
the first, that human happiness is never direct, but is always
reflected. When the married find out this great law, and practically
apply it, society will redeem itself from all hatred and harlotry,
license and libertinism, free-love and folly, madness, murder
and meanness. Ah! Friendly reader, it is a fearful state, that
wherein a womans or a mans true and generous love and sympathies
are driven down and beaten away by those to whom they naturally
cling. It is hard to have their human kindness misconstrued, and
to have his or her affection crushed by the heedlessness or lack
of generosity of those who ought to leap, and hail it with all
true human thankfulness. God knows that there is too little real
affection in the world, and it is very hard to have that little
forced back upon the full, true heart from which it was sent forth
on a mission of goodness. This sort of thing it is that freezes
up the spirit and makes man and woman lonely hermits in the very
midst of the teeming hives of human life, society, and effort.
It is a terrible thing to be compelled to eat your own heart -
to be forced to consume ones self - to hear the harsh, brutal
and unfeeling tone, when one should listen to the dulcet notes
of generous affections; for they freeze and chill the spirit,
and warp the very ligaments of Soul. These sad things must be
atoned; the vicarious sacrifice must be self-made by the doers
thereof - persons who unthinkingly tear down and wreck their fellows,
every Soul of whom might be builded up, made strong for the Right,
and emulous of all great and good and noble thoughts and deeds
which Gods human children have ever done, and all by kindness,
open-hearted conduct and friendly cheer. Heaven! How much misery
and crime might be stayed by one kind and loving word! How many
are at this day wading through Perdition, as they tread the pavements
of the worlds broad streets, and all for want of one kind word!
Wrote Milton:
...Devil with devils damned
Firm concord hold. Men only disagree.
There is much pith in this couplet, which is far from being all
poetry; that is, if a judgment must be predicated upon what the
worlds have witnessed of warfare, robbery, slaughter, and rapine,
all along the track of ages. Earth is, then, something worse than
hell itself! It ought to be better, for hell cannot be purged
nor the Middle State become pure, until earth is purified, and
the daily delegations sent across the dark River be of a better,
purer, and nobler mould than now.
I remember to have dearly loved the Apostles Dreed, especially
my own rendering thereof:
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Church; . . . the forgiveness
of sins; the resurrection; . . . the communion of saints; the
life everlasting. Glorious creed of glorious fishermen, repeated
daily by millions! But do these millions really believe the words
of freely spoken? Go ask their conduct in the worlds busy market-places,
where human bodies and human Souls are as so many counters in
the scale, not negro bodies and Souls, but hose of lordly bankers
and moneyed magnates, who serve as waiters in Molochs temples
on the four shores of the two great seas. Pity it is that people
do not believe their own religious creeds, for if they did there
would be fewer lonely ones on either side of the grave.
Sung a poet, quite as good, if not so great, as Milton:
If men cared less for wealth and fame,
and less for battlefields of glory;
If writ in human hearts, a name
Seemed better than in song or story:
If men, instead of nursing pride,
Would learn to hate it and abhor it;
If more relied on Love to guide,
The world wold be the better for it.
If men dealt less in stocks and lands,
And more in bonds and deeds fraternal;
If Loves work had more willing hands
To link this world to the supernal:
If men stored up Loves oil and wine,
And on bruised human hearts would pour it,
If yours and mine would once combine,
The world would be the better for it.
If more wold ACT the play of Life,
And fewer spoil it by rehearsal;
If bigotry would sheathe its knife,
Till good became more universal:
If custom, gray with ages grown,
Had fewer blind men to adore it;
If talent shone in truth alone,
The world wold be the better for it.
If men were wise in little things,
Affecting less in all their dealings;
If hearts had fewer rusted strings,
To violate their kindly feelings:
If Men, when Wrong beats down the Right,
Would strike together and restore it;
If Right made Right in every fight,
The world would be the better for it.
Ay! That it would and shall, brave lover of they race, when more
shall live the spirit thou has breathed. But Faith is not yet
dead; Hope still lives in human hearts; Charity is beginning to
be a power in the world, and these three - blessed three, will
yet work out the worlds salvation. Strong hands, clear intellects,
willing minds, are all that is needed to develop true human individuality,
a thing of the future; and then a man and a woman will pass for
the self-displayed value, the intrinsic worth manifested by Action.
It is not I they hate and ill-use; it is the fictitious personality
they have given me. They will not take me as I am, but insist
that I shall be what themselves desire I should be; and in crushing,
slaying, killing this phantom which they choose to attach to my
name they are, alas, crushing, slaying, killing me!
In the days when common sense shall reign, the diseases of the
social body will be eradicated, and then the loneliness of talent
and genius will be eradicated, and then the loneliness of talent
and genius will be exceptional to the rule, instead of the reverse,
as I these lonesome latter years. If men could but realize that
every human groan echoes up through all the starry vaults, even
to the eternal throne itself, they would not cause so many as
they do, especially when they discover that every one of these
groans must be expiated by the causer thereof. If men knew that
every pang endured by a human being on earth sweeps like a whirlwind
of agony along the telegraphic lines of infinite space, and that
not a soul in Gods vast domain but must feel the effects thereof
in accordance with the Great Sympathia - itself the nervous system
alike of God, Nature, and human kind, they would heartily strive
to lessen the amount, and banish all anguish and its producing
cause from their midst.
The human race is a mighty harp; touch one string rudely and all
the others vibrate; and the finer the cord the more it responds
to the shock. When Jesus groaned on Calvary, the pain of His body
and Soul was shared in by every creature beneath Gods Infinite
heaven; and the agony thrills still go sweeping through the worlds,
and will until all mankind shall go its way and sin no more. No
human body is healthy so long as a single atom of disease lurks
between the granules of a bone, or between the cells of the most
unimportant viscus; neither can society be calm, or the race be
happy on either shore of eternity, so long as one unholy man or
woman lives to mare the harmony, and be a discordant note in the
Great Sympathia. (31) Thus we dwellers of the Soul-worlds are
impelled to action in behalf of our brethren below, by the first
and greatest law of the universe, self-preservation. For in making
man abjure his errors and turn toward the Right, we lay the surest
and firmest foundation whereon to erect the great Temple of Purity,
wherein all alike shall worship God, do well, and think no evil.
The discovery of this great principle of unity, the acquisition
of the positive knowledge that every sensation, painful or pleasant,
experienced by any, even the most distant, low, and degraded of
the species, was necessarily shared in by all the rest, surprised
me greatly; and from finding that the finest-nerved and most sensitive
were also the most unhappy, I was led to infer the existence of
a great Vicarious law, whose elements were Sympathy, Compensation,
Distribution. True, some may pass through life, and apparently
escape its action, but not forever. God has said substantially,
Bear ye one anothers burdens; and borne they must be. Sensitives
bear the greatest portion of misery, and their fate seems at first
sight to be a hard one, a life all full of tears, groans, and
sorrows; yet the law of Compensation is operative in all stages,
phases, and planes of being:
And he who the weariest path has trod
Shall nearest stand to the throne of God.
---------------------------------------------
(31) One of the most mighty of the Laws underlying human happiness
and one that is especially germaine in this year of our Lord,
1931, and period of universal depression. If the potentate, magnate
and banker would recognize this Law and discontinue to exploit
the mass, and if the members of the mass would cease to exploit
each other by refusing to act like parasites on each other and,
instead, render fair service for the compensation given, then
justice would begin to reign and the depression forever end. Thus
far in our present unhappy state, the men with money, irrespective
of their position, alone have been condemned. They are in the
vst minority. As men suffer they usually begin to think, and if
they now think, they will not fail to see that during the period
of inflation almost every worker took advantage of his position
and utterly failed to render even fairly good service for the
remuneration he received. Contrary to the usual opinion, the rich
- manufacturer, banker and magnate - do not employ services of
men for themselves, but act as middlemen between worker and worker,
exacting a percentage. The worker who fails to render full service
is not robbing the rich, but his own fellow-workers. This, and
the immense profits demanded by the few, has been the cause of
the present depression. It is neither more mor less than the reaction
of an almost universal exploitation of man by man. And the problem
will not be solved, nor the remedy found, until all men, rich
and poor, come into a recognition of this Law.
---------------------------------------------
There are seasons when men and women of certain mould, without
the least apparent cause, are plunged into the very midst of the
blackest barathrum of misery and woe, and who ten times a year
pass through the body of a death too fearful in its agonies to
be even faintly imagined by those of a different make-up. They
complain, and are met with the stereotyped: Fancy! Hypochondrias!
Delusion! Delusion, forsooth! Is that pale and haggard cheek,
that pain-thrilled sea of nerve, those drops of almost bloody
sweat, that utter prostration of Soul, a mere delusion? Will the
hypothesis of diseased nerves, liver, heart, or stomach account
for these things? To the looker-on of surface, Yes; to the student
of the Soul and its mysteries, No! There is a deeper cause, a
higher power in operation. Will the theory of physical disease
account for the instantaneous plunging of a man or woman into
the deepest anguish who, scarce ten seconds before, was in the
enjoyment of perfect health of spirit, Soul and body? Never! What
mens the terrible weight of woe which suddenly leaps upon the
Soul of the sensitive? Whence comes this ocean of mental pain
and half-sense of retribution, knowing themselves innocent and
spotless of all wrong? I will answer. At that moment someone,
somewhere, is undergoing all these pangs from apparent cause.
The wave of pain has gone out, and, like the needle to the pole,
flies directly to those whose position on the plane of the great
sympathetic nerve of the universe fits them to receive it. Someone
wlse receives it in turn; but it becomes less intense, degree
after degree, until at last only a faint and tiny wave reaches
the foot of the throne.
Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabacthani!s groaned the dying Jesus; and the
throes of his agony went pulsing through the universal human heart,
till the most majestic prince of Seraphim quailed with agony.
Even so, still, as in the days of yore, is operative the same
great vicarious law.
When the suffering Soul turns itself to God, relief comes, but
not an instant before. This latter law - for it is one - was well
known in ancient times, and amongst the higher classes of the
Orient is so still. It and its operation is well set forth by
a modern poet of Islam: