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THE RESULT OF
THE VITAL ENERGY OF PLANTS

A NEW, TRULY GREAT DISCOVERY

ALBERT ALBERQ,

AUTHOR OP

"The FiiORAii King, a Life of Linn^us,"

" Fabled Stories from the Zoo,"

'GusTAvus Vasa and His Stirring Times,"

'Charles XII and His Stirring Times," Etc.

Cbicago:

jFraternal printing Co.

1899.

430.38.}

MAY 24- II

The spell of severe winter, January and February, '99,
opened my eyes for the study of a branch of nature hitherto
almost entirely neglected. As it may be of some use in
opening up a new field, and is of most interesting and
fascinating nature, I will make a minute record of it.

It came about in this way: I was frequently taking my
meals at a German restaurant, southeast corner of Sixty-
first and State streets, Chicago, where I had observed some
ferns in the front window, and on Sunday January 29, '99,
I observed that their contours were faithfully delineated
on an enlarged and elongated scale on the frosted front-
window pane, and that also an evidently dry specimen of
a geranium in the left corner was clearly depicted. Then
I observed that on each of the five dining tables, placed in
front of the four side windows, were glasses, or tumblers,
containing each a stalk or two of celery, and to my utter
astonishment, that at the bottom of each of these plate-
glass windows were most vividly depicted stalks of celery
with sprigs and leaves, and that each of these ice-portrai-
tures or ice photographs was exceedingly thick, quite bas-
relief, in complete accordance with the pulpy celery stems,
the majority of which, please observe, had already been
eaten, and thus only left as a reminiscence of themselves
these frosty tracings on the windows, as those remaining
in the tumblers were only thin and small and without
scarcely any leaves, mere tufts being suffered to remain, in
fact, the rejected ones left over from the dinner. I drew
the attention of my companion and of the two waitresses

(one being the daughter of the proprietor ) to the phenom-
enon, and we were all highly interested and amazed.

I have since continued my espionage into this secret
branch of nature, as I shall further relate, but only in cel-
ery have I found the extraordinary vital force displayed in
such an amazing capacity as to form its counterpart in
quite thick or heavy bas-relief, which conclusively proves
that there is no other plant endowed with such an extraor-
dinary powerful vitality, and must, therefore, truthfully
bear out the assertions of its life and energy bestowing
power. Make the experiment and judge for yourself.

Enticed by this glimpse into the secrets of nature I
began a pilgrimage in more down town situated districts
and also on the north side, and everywhere I have found
that these tracings are no freaks of "Jack Frost," but are
the result of a perfectly-arranged system of nature— as
how else could it be? ~ And I have endeavored to classify
them as follows, which everyone can compare and verify
for himself as I have done over and over again.

My next observation was in the kitchen of a friend,
where I told his family that they had had cabbage for
dinner. "Yes, yesterday. How do you know? Do you
smell it still?" "No, but I see it on the windows. There
you see the cabbage leaves quite plainly." And so they
did. My friend, who is of a very investigating turn of
mind (being an eager spiritualist), next drew my attention
to two large windows on a saloon on the northwest corner
of Thirty-tirst and Dearborn streets, nearly opposite, and
her^ a most gorgeous display of tropical plants, interlaced
with feathery tracings, presented itself. It lasted several
days— as long as the intense cold did. Later on I saw its
equal only at a large saloon, corner of North Clark and
Superior streets. On numerous other saloon windows were

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somewhat similar tropical displays, although none so
beautiful as particularly on saloons where they sell Swedish
punch, the favorite intoxicating drink of that nationality,
which is made from arrack, distilled from cocoanut, rice
and sugar cane, which the Swedes import from the West
Indies, and which may thus explain the tropical display
caused by the effluvium thereof. Sometimes in adulter-
ated state made from the saccharine of common licorice,

I have always thought the name of "sample room"
being an idiotic name for these places, but I verily
acknowledge its appropriateness, for these frosty tracings
evidently displayed samples of the various mysterious dis-
tilled ingredients which had been uncorked at the bar, and
with which the air was surcharged, impressing their still
extant vitality on the moist plate glass.

The fancy bakeries and drug stores alone vie with the
saloons in their display, although not quite so gorgeous nor
so diversified.

The vital force of plants, as of everything else, is invis-
ible and imponderable and impalpable, and can therefore
not be annihilated, but in this instance makes its effect
visible in the icy tracings. I would feel inclined to hold
with the theosophists that it is the astral body or vital
force of the plant thus becoming visible, but I will defer
that opinion until later on, when further experiments,
cited in this paper, may enable me to make such a startling
assertion. But the all-pervading soul of the universe must
perforce permeate every plant as well.

Three tobacconists, and saloons with their tobacco
counters near the window, furnished a few tobacco leaves
in ice tracings, of which, however, none seemed complete,
but were cut in halves or thirds of the leaves in their
entirety.

5

l^ext I took stock of the window of a Greek fruit
dealer on Thirty-tirst street, and in company with another
companion was much delighted to find ice tracings of
various kinds of fruit foliage and of two distinct pine-
apples on their stems. A candy store near by presented a
curious, very long, prickly, tapering stem, but otherwise
only enlarged crystals, thrown higgledly-piggledly about
—emanations of sugar, no doubt. On a small restaurant
window were thrown pell-mell enlarged specimens of vari-
ous cereals. This I have afterward found generally to be
the case on restaurant windows, as well as on those of
baker shops, private dining rooms, living rooms and bed
rooms, but like at the tobacconists these cereals or leaves
are never complete, but like chopped off.

In a small Swedish restaurant, 3205 Wentworth ave. , I
observed a curious thing. The usual display of cereals and
vegetables were observable on the heavily frosted windows.
The little desk where the cash was received was, contrary
to custom, placed near the low side window of the inner
dining room. There I saw some vegetable leaves, but also
a perpendicular strip about eighteeh inches long and two
inches wide, of the exact reproduction of ^ lace, such as
waiting-maids occasionally display on their coquettish
aprons, the same pattern being continuous all through and
particularly heavy, as if crochet work, ice delineation of
cotton or worsted. I asked the girl if she had had such
an apron on, and she replied: "Yes, yesterday." She,
like the others present, of course only laughed at these
curious freaks of "Jack Frost." But there will be others
whom these discoveries will set prying into the secrets of
nature and who will be prone to clasp their hands, even
when trembling with cold, in adoration of the Creator and

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His wondrous ways, as displayed in ice tracings or palen-
genesis.

Next day I inspected several windows of dry goods
merchants, but found nothing, except where woolen stuffs
were exposed, when they generally displayed grass and
foliage, plainly such large herbage as Australian sheep
graze on, the large windows at Messrs. Griesheimer &
Co., facing Lake street, corner of South Clark street, fur-
nishing very fine specimens. Meat markets showed sim-
ilar herbage tracings, although coarser and somewhat
chopped off, and so did leather findings and even shoe
stores.

A paint store window on Monroe street sampled vari-
ous groups, or big splashes, of enlarged mineral crystalliza-
tions, and so did a printer's ink store on Harrison street.
But linen, or rather cotton shirt displays, seemingly pro-
duced nothing anywhere but snow-flakes, moisture frozen
from within in the regular way; nor stationery and period!
cals exhibited for sale, for these latter were indeed the
dead letter within, that require human intelligence to en-
dow it with life.

Empty store windows and doors were devoid of icy
tracings, there generally being no moisture within to fur-
nish the drawing materials for "Jack Frost," and no
plants or animals defunct, still endowed with particles of
undying vitality, to supply the patterns.

Scarcely a day passed during this cold weather that
did not add charming demonstrations of the frosty flowers
left by the vital energy of plants. Thus on the night of
February 9 I called upon a family at 3129 Wentworth ave.,
to see if the plants in their front parlor had made any
ice portraitures. Being such cold weather they had shut
off their front parlor a day or two previously, and removed

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all the plants into the warm dining room. The owner,
who is an old gardener and feeling much interested, pro-
posed that we should look into the bay window of the front
parlor, where plants had stood; we did so, drew up the
blinds, and were all much delighted to find the window
panes full of very beautiful and magnified ice leaves, par-
ticularly so the upper front pane of glass. This will be
sure to be the case at innumerable other places where plants
stand or have stood, so you had better look and judge for
yourself. Their bed rooms had all large specimens of
cereals, impressions of the wheat, or rye, that had passed
through bodies, whether by breathing or exhalation.

The saloon, southeast corner of Sixtieth and State
streets, was new papered on February 1. It being a very
cold day the consequence was that at night the entire two
large front windows were covered with an uncommonly
thick layer of ice tracings of cereals, the effect of the paste
used during the day. I drew the attention of the proprie-
tor to it, who at once perceived the phenomenon of the
powerful emanations of the cereals of which the paste was
made, and as I was curious I called again the following
afternoon, when we both observed that mostly everywhere
the tracings of cereals lay in uniform layers, just as the
paperhanger's brush had affixed the paste on the long
paper strips, by strokes right and left, which, however,
had been effected in the adjoining back room, but having
once been transfixed on the back of the paper, now in the
big bar room, to judge by appearance, had evidently trans-
mitted by vibration its influence on the large window glass
panes, perhaps accelerated by the paperhanger's brush
when smoothing down the paper on wall and ceiling. In
the smoke rooms ice tracings of tobacco leaves were plainly
visible during several cold days.

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The windows of laundries and of barber shops seemed
to have somewhat similar small patterns of frost, for
which I could find no better explanation and term than
frozen soap suds.

I found that large and fashionable stores or restau-
rants were generally too well heated to allow ' 'Jack Frost' '
to draw any beautiful or interesting figures on their win-
dows, the small and poorly heated stores furnishing by far
the best examples.

Mrs. Charles Howard, 6558 Stewart ave., a very promi-
nent lady theosophist of Chicago, who after having heard
a portion of this paper read, looked in her own house to
see if she might discover any sign of ice palingenesis and
soon found an exemplar on a window pane, in front of
which had chanced to be left a small jar of preserved
grapes, in consequence of which a couple of large bunches
of grapes had developed on the frosted window.

At the grocery southeast corner of Thirty-first street
and Princeton ave., I again saw the phenomenon of the
celery thick bas relief stalks and thin foliage.

Now compare all these and other various trades and
occupations, and judge for yourself, always bearing in
mind that the celery at your green grocer will furnish the
finest specimens of undj^ing energy and that "Jack Frost"
therefore seemingly most emphatically endorses celery as
a conserver and restorer of vitality resuscitating in itself.

Nearly thirty years ago I resided at a large farm in
Sweden, and I then often observed that our windows
during severe cold became frosted with beautiful pictures
of spruce firs, in long lines along the bottom of the window
panes. My friends suggested that it was caused by the
adjoining spruce fir forest, and so, no doubt, it was, but
not by photographic reflections from without, but as ema-

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nations from within, for there was an intervening avenue
of maple and elm, and stables and sheds, and large fields
between the manor house and the forest, which was quite
an English mile off, but we used spruce fir wood for fuel
in our tall tile stoves, and it was the lingering, redolent
air thereof, that still depicted these tiny images of its
origin on the glass, these spruce fir tracings being on a
diminutive scale, quite opposite to these various magnified
specimens observed by me in Chicago, and which you can
see for yourself anywhere when cold winter prevails.

"Where have my eyes been all this time!" you may
verily exclaim.

And it is very curious to observe that while the tO'
bacco leaves and cereals only show the ice figures of theii
maimed forms, the celery plants on the contrary, plainly
display the shape in its entirety, the stalk, the foliage, and
if I mistake not, even partially the i;oot, although only
the stalk, and very little of the foliage remained in front
of the frosted windows, as in the instance at the German
restaurant, first quoted in this paper. And regarding the
appearance of spruce firs in entire, though diminutive
shape, on the windows at the Swedish farm, of course
there never had been in the room any but small pieces of
spruce fir corded wood, and which had been consumed by
fire, but whose presence had been capable of depicting
spruce fir trees in their complete arbor ici beauty. These
seemingly conflicting evidences and conditions will set any
speculative philosopher a-thinking.

In 1888 I wrote a book, entitled: "The Floral King; a
life of Linnaeus," published by W. H. Allen & Co., 13
-Waterloo Place, London, W., and I believe, incorporated in
the library of the Linnsean Society, Burlington House,
Piccadilly, London, W. On page 141 the great naturalist

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refers to the phenomenon of ice palingenesis already in
1761, as follows:

"I received a month ago, from the Councillor of Com-
merce, the Honorary Herr Burgencrona, a quantity of tea
plant seeds. I tried them in water, to see if they were
sound, but found that they were decayed although the
kernel appeared sound, which generally happens with the
seeds of the tea plant. I poured water from the water jug
into the hand basin in which the seeds lay, and macerated
for eight entire days, the water became brown, the seeds
were taken away and sown. This brown water remained
another eight days, if not more. I found great pleasure
in observing how the brown water separated itself from
the clear water in the hand basin, and looked like a paint-
ing of brown shrubs in the liquid water, and thought I saw
here a species of palingenesis. At last the water froze in
the cold room, and perfectly retained the figure which the
tinged water had before, so that the ice lay in the hand
basin like branches and leaves. The ice was about an inch
thick, and between the branches the water had not formed
the slightest ice. It is very strange that I have not seen
anything similar. I showed it to Herr Adjunctus Melan-
der and Magister Docens Bergman, who both viewed it
with the same asthonishment. The ice figures, which
show themselves on the windows, are flat, and filled up
between the branches with ice. There have been those
who have thought that this comes from vegetable exhala-
tions, perhaps, after they have passed through the bodies
of animals. It is noteworthy that the water which was
in the water jug was also frozen, but as no tea plant seeds
had been^soaked in it, it had frozen in the regular way,
according to the laws of crystallization ad angulos, as salts

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are crystallized, for which reason Newton says that water
is a liquid salt. * C. Linn^us. ' '

It will perhaps be necessary to explain what Linnseus
means by Palingensis, and as it bears directly on the matter
in question I will quote "Paracelsus," as re-capitulated by
Dr. Franz Hartmann in his splendid work upon the writ-
ings of that famous Swiss philosopher of 400 years ago, and
published 1891 by the American Publishers Corporation,
New York, page 346:

"Palingenesis. If a thing loses its material substance,
the invisible form still remains in the light of nature (the
astral light); if we can re-clothe that form with visible
matter, we may make that form visible again. All matter
is composed of three elements — sulphur, mercuiy and salt.
By alchemical means we may create a magnetic attraction
in the astral form, so that it may attract from the ele-
ments (the A'kasa) those principles which it possessed be-
fore its mortification, and incorporate them and become
visible again. ( "De Resuscitationibus." Paracelsus. )

Note by Dr. Franz Hartmann: "Plato, Seneca, Eras-
tus, Avicenna, Averroes, Albertus Magnus, Caspalin, Car-
danus, Cornelius Agrippa, Eckartshausen, and many
others wrote about the palingenesis of plants and animals.
Ivircher resurrected a rose from its ashes in the presence of
Queen Christina of Sweden, 1687. The astral body of an
individual form remains with the remnant of the latter
until these remnants have been fully decomposed, and by
certain methods, known to the alchemist, it may be re-
clothed with matter and become visible again."

Will that not hold good also with the human body?
we may reasonably ask and explain and justify spiritism,
if that, indeed, were needed, and furthermore advance the
principle and practice of cremation, that the remimnt body

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may not too long be undergoing the process of decomposi-
tion, and thus nullify "in that sleep of death what
dreams may come." It takes from about nine to eleven
years for a corpse to chemically disintegrate, or entirely
divest itself of its earthly remnants and become a denuded
skeleton.

To shorten the time for the spiritual consiousness of
the astral body, while still adherent to the corporal rem-
nants, would that not be good, or would it be wicked, or
none-effectual?

As yet I have not had an opportunity to inspect the
exhalations or emanations that may present themselves on
the sometimes frosted windows of fish stores and game
stores, nor undertaker's morgues and the more grewsome
dissecting rooms and on tombs with glass windows— all
fraught with the mysteries of death, or may be, astral life.

I am not sufficiently conversant with spiritism to know
if there have been any authentic physical manifestations
or materializations by spirits, whose bodies have been
cremated or otherwise perished through fire. It would be
Interesting to learn, authentically, as it would bear di-
rectly on the subject in question, whether "the astral body
of an individual form remains with the remnants of the
latter until these remnants have been fully decomposed,"
to quote Dr. Franz Hartmann, — when logically the astral
body belonging to the cremated body or remnants, which
undergo immediate decomposition, or transmutation,
would at once pass on to a higher spiritual plane. We
might, or we might not, thus gain immediate accession to
a more beatified condition, by cremation one way or
another.

I read some little time ago of a terrible explosion of
fifty-five tons of black gunpowder, near Toulon, in France,

13

Sunday, March 5, 1899. About sixty people were blown
into fragments. The explosion it is believed, was caused
by chemical decomposition of smokless powder. Now,
with which scattered limb of each individual did the astral
body or spirit make the ascent? And descended, as each
individual limb would not entirely decompose for some
considerable time, with which did the astral body elect to
stay, or did it not rather stick to each individual limb,
and in that manner became entirely torn asunder, into so
many cloudy shreds, or did it probably remain with the
brains? But, then, of course, they were scattered, too-
poured out of the sculls like hash or stirabout from a cup.
With which part then, did the astral consciousness remain?
An enigma, indeed, for any psychologist. The contempla-
tion of these queries might make the staunchest theoso-
phist quake in his shoes for fear of being mixed up in, or
rather say, scattered -promiscuously about in any kind of
explosion.

Or, to follow up the purport of this essay, will not each
individual limb retain a stunted or abrogated vital force,
of which the chopped-up cereals and tobacco leaves gave an
indication, when displaying their maimed portions in atten-
uated ice tracings, or palingenesis on the frosted windows?
There is certainly a suggestion of comparison. Or will the
scattered limbs, as in the case of the maimed celery plants,
which nevertheless displayed their entire form on the frosty
windows, retain the vital force in its entirety? Or as the
effect of the burned pieces of spruce fir wood evinced still
retain in their redolent essence their entire form, or like
as Linnaeus found the seed in the tea plant efflorescent in
an entire ice tea plant? I don't intend this for a pun, but
just think of it. Nature's conundrums. I must perforce
acknowledge myself an agnostic in this respect. Yes, with

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which UQdecayed particles does the spirit or astral body
remain? Is it a case of attenuation? Or of division? Or is
it a case of cellular or molecular multiplication? Or always
of radiation? Or of vibration? Which is it? Which, which?
Oh, "what fools these mortals be!" Are we not told, that
"Spirit" is God, God is omnipresent in every minutest
thing, what does it matter then if we were blown into
atoms we may profess? Each atom is imponderable, in-
destructible, impalpable, a part of "the incomprehens-
ible original motive power, " to quote Linnaeus. But has
each individual atom also individual consciousness? Ay,
"there's the rub," but I will tell you: The never failing
instinct of every individual atom proclaims the ever pres-
ent intelligent volition of an Omnipotent God.

A practical illustration may be added: If a man has a
leg or arm amputated, he may even for some time be -un-
conscious thereof, and after the operation for a long time
still feel the usual extension of the limb, and the astral
toes and fingers, so to speak, being occasionally benumbed
by cold. What does this infer? But after some length of
time the feeling ceases. What does this infer, if not that
the segregated limb has by this time completely decom-
posed and withdrawn its astral counterpart from the main
body? It is related how a man had his nose badly hurt, and
to repair the same another man kindly allowed a part of
his skin to be cut off and grafted on the injured nose. All
went merrily for a long time, but finally the generous man
who had allowed a patch of his skin to be donated to the
other man's nose died, and after a little while the skin
patch on the nose began to decompose and had to be taken
away, or it would have infected the entire artificial nose,
and made the whole affair rotten throughout. What are
we to infer from that, but that the astral body of the de-

15

fimct man was on account of the chemical decomposition
leaving the putrid corporeal remains, and likewise withdrew
its last vital influence from the patch of skin on the nose
aforesaid. It sounds almost ridiculous, but it was no
laughing matter for the man with the artificial nose.

On contemplating the other extreme — the astral
bodies attached to drowned corpses, confined within sub-
merged hulks of wrecked vessels at the bottom of the
seas — will it not suggest to our contemplation, or, at any
rate, to our imagination, that these water-bound sprites,
being tied to these human remnants or bodies, which are
doomed to resist decomposition for a much longer, nay,
indifferent period, must mean non-liberation or non-sep-
aration to them in tiiis saline submarine world, and thus
present to our imagination a lively astral community
within and around the hulks of all submerged wrecks — a
kind of ghostly "American Hotel " life, or, as Macbeth has
it, "cribbed, cabined and confined?" A phase of astral
life, I believe, not hitherto invaded from a theosophical
point of view. A weird, uncanny place and phase to con-
template, but yet a factor in astral plane, undesirable to
dwell long among, unless the prolonged spiritual or astral
imprisonment, in comparison with the period pending a
new re-incarnation, or mundane existence (in some pisca-
torial shape, perhaps, taking the watery element into con-
sideration, and that the larger fishes, at least, are by no
means devoid of instinct or elementary intelligence and
passions, as witness the furious combats between whales),
unless to the astral entities, or consciousnesses, these apal-
ling years may seem only like mere fleeting moments.

Did it ever strike your fancy, as it has forcibly done
mine, that those globular, bloated looking fishes, like
round heads, floating about the salt main, frightfully

16

resembling severed human heads, might appropriately
be considered as representing the swelled heads of glutton-
ous city fathers or boodling aldermen, that have ultimately
received their meed in an oceanic shipwreck and now go
prowling about, bristling, gloating, glaring to see whom
they may devour, still intent upon a grab in their pisca-
torial, punitive existence, as the theosophical theory
might suggest, living out their "liarma," until the period
of passing on to a higher plane has arrived? I never see
any of those bloated looking piscine physiognomies, but,
grinaly smiling, I say to myself: "Might not that be some
cruel uncle, or defrauding trustee, or the pugnacious
villain of some human melodrama?" And if everything
has an astral body or counterpart, which the frostflowers
led us to speculate upon and assert, what will the astral
bodies of the slimy monsters of the deep be like? It
makes the blood curdle and the nerves shudder to specu-
late thereon. Some of those curious creatures go about
with their own electric lamps stuck up before their eyes
on a horny bracket, and some have eyes that emit their
own electric light. A most wonderful world, that sub-
marine realm, but what position, if any, does it occupy in
the evolution of "Karma," or transit of astral life? we
may ask, since astral or spiritual consciousness does not
detach itself until final decomposition is arrived at, nec-
essarily retarded by the saline aquatic element.

It has several times been asserted during the last
thirty years that the fishermen at the mouth of the river
Porto in Portugal are able to restore a drowned person to
life still after twenty-four hours immersion in the water,
which seems to bear out later scientific assertions that it
takes from three to thirty-six hours for life to quit the
body, that is, the vital force to exude, that no one dies

17

instantly, from which, however, we are forced to exempt
those that are burned up, somewhat reluctantly admitting
the truth of the theosophical belief that the astral or
or spiritual body remains until the last remnant is decayed,
and of which the radiation of life force from apparently
dead plants, but still endowed with particles of extant
vitality, have given us an exemplification as demonstrated
by the frost flowers frequently referred to in this paper.

If it be true that the Portuguese fisher folk can restore
life yet after twenty-four hours immersion in the water,
why has not the world at large utilized this knowledge? I
heard it related already in my youth, and have since read
about it, as a mere curious item, but have to acknowledge
having hitherto been as reprehensibly silent upon the
matter as those to whose function or department it cer-
tainly belonged to elucidate the world.

From our observation of ice tracings the frost seems in
a manner to supply the means of astral resurrection ol
plants, which Paracelsus and Dr. Hartmann refer to as
being one of the secrets of the alchemists of bygone ages,
for the plants plainly demonstrated by their ice palinge-
nesis that they possess an innate power of extending their
influence even into frost. With frost and cold we gener-
ally associate death, just as with genial heat we associate
life. But ice is not death, as witness the whole arctic
region, replete with cold blooded animal life. Thus, then,
we may infer that the frost flowers have been for the
nonce imbued with life from their parent efflorescent
plants, for else how could they have been called into exist-
ence? And exist they must certainly do. Do we not here
stand face to face with another wonder of creation — ice
palingenesis, or evolution of a plant into a frost flower
counterpart, an ice shadow of its material ego, which

18

could not have been called into existence had the parent
plant no self consciousness, no vital energy, no ego, no soul!

The great electrician, Thomas Edison, holds that
plants possess consciousness. I am perfectly convinced of
it, to- wit, if you deprive a creeper of its support, it will
soon send out an eager tendril to find another hold, and I
kiss with reverence every hand that kindly tends to the
comfort and well being of window plants, moving them
according to the sunlight they so much need and love,
lopping them, and even talking to them in a way with
"such love as soul to soul affordeth" children of the same
creator. And in this light also the most ancient Hindoo
sect, "The Jaines" (which means "the conquerors of self"),
look upon all plants, and protect and cherish them accord-
ingly. How much we boastful Christians have to learn
from the misunderstood and maligned Hindus!

Have the plants any object in thus mirroring them-
selves in fancy ice tracings, or is it a mere freak of the
plant, as we hitherto thought it was a freak of "Jack
Frost?" Depend upon it, there is no such thing as freak
or chance in nature, although the transient existence of
the frost flower on the glass may appear to us as purpose-
less as it is inexplicable to most of us. Yet they will
occur again and again as often as opportunity affords, a
bit of nature, tiny and transient, I grant, but yet a phase
of nature although hitherto ignored or laughed at. But
from the attention drawn to the frost flowers I hope you
will henceforth find them as interesting as heretofore you
have found them, and always will find them, exquisitely
beautiful, and that you may try and find out their cause
and their mission.

I cannot leave this subject without again quoting my
illstrious countryman, Linnaeus, the "Floral King," p. 131,

19

as he with reverence apostrophizes the Maker of all these
wonders : "I behold only the back of the Infinite, Omnis-
cient and Almighty God, where He went forth, but I felt
dazed. I tracked the footsteps over the fields of nature,
and I observed in every one — even in those which I could
scarcely descry — an infinite wisdom and power, an incon-
ceivable perfection. I saw there how all animals were
maintained by the vegetation, the vegetation by the soil,
the soil by the globe, how the globe was turned night and
day around the sun, which gave it life, how the sun with
the planets and fixed stars rolled as on an axle, an incon-
ceivable number and infinite space, and were kept up in
the void nothingness by the incomprehensible motive
power, all things' Being, the commander and mainspring
of all causes, the Lord and Master of the world. If we
wish to call Him Fate, we commit no fault, for everything
hangs on His finger ; if we wish to call Him Nature, we
neither commit any fault, because from Him everything
has originated ; if we wish to call Him Providence we also
speak rightly, for everything obeys His will and guidance.
He is entirely Sense {Seyism), entirely Sight; entirely Hear-
ing, he is Soul {Anima), He is Spirit {A7iimus), He alone is
self sufficient! No human guess can comprehend this
form; it is enough that he is an eternal and infinite
divine Being, who is neither created nor born, a Being
without whom nothing exists, that is made, a Being who
has founded and built all this, who everywhere shimmers
before our eyes, without our being able to see him, and
who can only be beheld by our thoughts, for such a great
Majesty sits upon such a sacred throne that there no one
is admitted but the soul. "

How beautiful all this, how true, how incontrovertible!
"The incomprehensible original motive power," as Lin-

20

naeus has it, so stupendous, so adorable that we perforce
must worship it, and for the sake of comprehensive brev-
ity call it God, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God!
Monotheism and pantheism comprehended and compressed
into one, of whom we are part and parcel, but at which
sublime conception our irreverent thoughts sometimes
rebel, for that would make God participant in our crimes,
our follies, our fallacies, which queries have often been
mooted. But relevant queries which often have worried
me individually, I will reluctancy note down : Is this our
omnipresent Godhead also manifest in the grotesque, the
comic, the irrational, the abnormal and kindred things?
I can understand the Godhead using crime and folly in all
their phases and shades to school our free will, but how
about some of those other qualities and conditions, just
enumerated — how about the grotesque and the innocently
comical? Well, yes, we are forced to admit the omnipres-
ence of "the incomprehensible original motive power,"
even in all those things, for God cannot help himself (so
to speak without irreverence) from being omnipresent, for
He is all in all, nothing whatever can exist outside of
Him, or It, or Us, call it whatever you may, for "Spirit"
is God, the intelligent force is here within us, about us,
that cannot be refuted, and the conviction makes me feel
that I may be perfectly justified in enjoying the grotesque,
the comic, aye, even the follies of the world, when viewed
from the right standpoint of innocent mirth or contempla-
tive philosophy.

Eeturning to my friend, the spiritualist, to recount
my frosted window investigations, I again quite unexpect-
edly lit upon another curious experience of ice tracings. I
observed that on the small upper side-pane of the bay
window of the room in which his son slept, there was a

21

most beautiful design of a wooded hill, at the bottom of
which lay a small craft at anchor. A little way up the
hill was a flat-roofed house and still higher another build-
ing and a fine church with a tower. The architecture of
each was very distinct. Two steeples and a flag staff were
seen in the distance. Some ravines intersected the lower
part, and trees and shrubs, rich in foliage, were scattered
about. Above appeared an arch of clouds. It was a most
exquisitely beautiful ice tracing, of which I drew a faint
delineation on paper. I requested the family to ask the
son on his return in the evening what he had dreamt the
night previously, for I thought that possibly we might
here be on the track of thought-photography, with which
Boston has surprised the world, but the young man could
remember nothing. However, the family intended shortly
to remove to their old home in a rural place near Cleve-
land, Ohio, which the father declared somewhat resembled
the exquisite ice-tracing. When I saw the son (a young
gentleman about thirty-two years old) a week later, he
admitted that he frequently dreamt of their old home in
Ohio, although he could not recollect having done so on
the night in question. So that the inference of dream-
thought transmission may thus still be left open.

Since then, returning one night about 8 o'clock by the
State street cable car, I observed on all of the car windows
opposite me exceedingly fine ice tracings. One as of a
small part of a city, situated on the banks of a river,
where a coal or grain chute was visible, and a vessel was
lying beneath, as if receiving the cargo. Another fur-
nished the interior of a tunnel with all the supports for an
excavation, and a third was full of curious machinery and
gear. I admit willingly that "Jack Frost" in this instance
could easily cause anyone's imagination to run riot, — but I

22

will ask you, who is of a practical mind, and of course un-
derstand these things much better than we old fo^es do:
"Is it possible that some workingmen had just been travel-
ing homeward in this car, and had these images in their
minds eye,— and gazing intently, or staring vacantly,
whichever you may call it,— with the retinas of their
own eyes had unconsciously transferred or positively
photographed in ice tracings these mental impressions on
the opposite negative moist plate glass, an object-lesson of
co-related forces?"

While thus musing I fell into ruminating how our
breath, invisible in warm atmosphere, in frosty weather
becomes visible, in a manner materialized, as I saw illus-
trated by all the passengers present, puffing away like
little steam engines, emitting the molecular particles with
which their respective engines had been fed.

Your own breath will in frosty air convince you that
it materializes in infinitesimal crystallizations before your
very eyes.

In conjunction with this I may mention that on some
empty store windows were visible innumerable enlarged
snowflakes, dotting the pane of glass on the inside, the
moist atmosphere having crystallized in this manner of
natural law of liquid salt.

And if you breathe on a piece of glass, and immediately
apply a microscope thereon, you will discover tracings of
beautiful foliage.

A physician informed me also that if you freeze urine
in a small phial and submit it to a microscope you will
discover beautiful foliage therein.

I would suggest to some physicians who may become
acquainted with these our investigations of ice palingenesis
that they would make experiments by freezing — exposing

23

embryos and foetuses, in all their stages, to the influence of
strong frost to see if any effect would be visible on the
frosted glass. Such experiments might bring forth won-
ders, and in a manner take the place of alcohol preserva-
tions.

Indeed, taking into consideration all these evidences
and tests that crowd in upon us, particularly from the
vegetable world, the Biblical symbol of the "Tree of Life,"
and the accepted term of the "Tree of Genealogy" assume
almost sacred character.

Our remote ancestors in ancient Thule, when con-
structing their Scandinavian mythology on the basis of
their more remote Aryan ancestors', symbolized this
"Tree of Life" in an ash tree, Ygdrasil, which extended
its influence everywhere. How strangely things come
round in the whirligig of time, now that we begin to con-
ceive that a veritable system of foliage permeates all
nature as exemplified in numerous microscopic things, and
on which I shall now discant. After all our ancestors
were, perhaps, not such fools as we take them; they must
have possessed some intuitive knowledge.

If you insert an incandescent electric light into a large
chunk of ice you will be amazed by discovering tracings of
beautiful foliage concealed therein, but this will probably
only occur in impure ice, containing animal and vegetable
matter, not in ice from distilled water; the test remains
to be made.

On the small, frosted windows of coal dealers there
will occasionally be seen attempts at tracings of crystals
and curious foliage, and also circles, with numerous irregu-
lar rings, like the surface of blocks of wood, sawn across,
displaying the year-rings of the arborial growth. Can it be
possible, or might it not be possible, that the foliage dis-

24

coverable in a cliunk of ice, and the emanations from, or
aura of, a chunk of coal have something in common, say a
latent, abiding co-relation to each other In eternal cosmos,
water (chaos' condensed steam?) made impure with the
arbcrial astral, or soul, of anti-deluvian forests, which
were compressed into coal layers eeons ago? "The same
substances in different chemical spectrums." It is sug-
gestive at any rate.

I only ask some one else regarding all these phenom-
ena, perhaps some scientist may suggest other, and more
satisfactory explanations.

The law of radiation, or the law of vibration, no doubt,
may offer some solution of the frostflower phenomena, but
by no means exhaustive in regard to all the phases alluded
to in this paper, besides, these, as well as all other natural
laws, accrue from the divine origin and volition within, —
all manifestations of the all-pervading, God-imbued motive
power of all things, whether purely physical or gradually
merging into metaphysical.

Of course I expect I shall be ignored, or at the best
abused, or struck down with the academical rod, the
aphorism that "a little learning is a dangerous thing," but
I will meekly defend myself, or at any rate try to avert
the blow, with the Shakespearian parry that, "there are
more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy, " and to which, I am sure,
no academical expounder will as yet find satisfactory solu-
tions, including some of those I have in an humble, unpre-
tentious manner propounded in this paper.

ALBEET ALBEEG,
3555 Fifth Ave. , Author and Lecturer.

Chicago, III., June, 1899.

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