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BINDING HST MR 151923 




The 
Theosophical Quarterly 




VOLUME XIX 




PUBLISHED BY 

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



The Theosophical Quarterly 



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Entered July 17, 1905, at Brooklyn, N. Y., as second-class matter, 
under Act of Congress of July 16, 1894 

Copyright, 1921, by The Theosophical Society 





JULY, 1921 

The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion 
or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless con- 
tained in an official document. 

THE SECRET DOCTRINE AND RECENT SCIENCE 

IN the Notes and Comments printed in THE THEOSOPHICAL QUAR- 
TERLY for April, 1920, attention was called to the significant fact 
that a series of forecasts drawn from the teaching of the Adepts, 

in articles published first in The Theosophist, and reprinted in Five 
Years of Theosophy (1885), had been strikingly and completely fulfilled. 

Among the passages quoted was the following : "When an astronomer 
is found in his Reports 'gauging infinitude 5 , even the most intuitional 
of his class is but too often apt to forget that he is gauging only the 
superficies of a small area and its visible depths, and to speak of these 
as though they were merely the cubic contents of some known quantity. 
This is the direct result of the present conception of a three-dimensional 
space. The turn of a four-dimensional world is near, but the puzzle 
of science will ever continue until their concepts reach the natural 
dimensions of visible and invisible space in its septenary completeness." 
(Reprint of 1910, p. 158.) 

In the same Reply, we are told that "the 'Adepts' of the Good Law 
reject gravity as at present explained". Particular interest attaches to 
these two passages, because of the presence, in the United States, of 
Dr. Albert Einstein, the Swiss mathematician, who is the most widely 
known critic of the older conception of gravity, and the most conspicuous, 
though far from being^ the first, advocate of "a four-dimensional world". 
Because of his visit and the brilliant expositions which heralded it, both 
the idea of four dimensions and the criticism of gravity were daily dis- 
cussed by the newspapers, with almost startling familiarity. It may 
fairly be said that the conception of a four-dimensional world is no 
longer "near" ; it has arrived. 

Students of Theosophy are interested in this fulfilment of a fore- 
cast made nearly forty years ago, for several reasons. To begin with, 
they are interested in the idea of a four-dimensional space; though 
they may not think of it in quite the same way as do Dr. Einstein and 
his fellow mathematicians. We measure in three directions : length, 



4 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

breadth and height. The position of any point in space can be deter- 
mined in terms of these three co-ordinates, as they are called. Einstein 
insists that, since position in space is not fixed, but relative to moving 
bodies, and since these bodies move in time, time must be taken as a 
fourth co-ordinate, or dimension. Students of Theosophy look at the 
"four-dimensional world" in what may be called a more practical way; 
practical, that is, as making quite thinkable and possible certain mani- 
festations of spiritual life; such, for example, as the Body of the Resur- 
rection, appearing in the centre of a closed room, without passing through 
its boundaries; and, in general, as supplying a basis for understanding 
the activities of the Spiritual Man. 

While it is true that his investigations and computations may never 
lead Dr. Einstein to a deeper understanding of the Spiritual Man, it 
is also true that the general conception of a four-dimensional world, 
which he is popularizing, and, even more, his whole thought that the 
world of space and time is not fixed but relative, may break the bonds of 
the material mind for many, giving the Spiritual Man a chance to breathe. 

Students of Theosophy have a further interest in the fulfilment of 
the forecasts of the Adepts, and an interest in drawing attention to this 
fulfilment, because, once again, this may bring aid and comfort to the 
Spiritual Man, by helping him to burst asunder the heavy shackles of 
nineteenth century materialism and disbelief : the mood which impelled 
it to reject the knowledge of the Adepts, offered with so generous a 
hand. Students of Theosophy are, therefore, interested in the four- 
dimensional world, because they are interested in the Spiritual Man, who 
there finds adequate room; they are interested in the forecasts of the 
Adepts and their fulfilment, because they are profoundly interested in 
the Adepts themselves. 

One of the published reports of Dr. Einstein's views quotes him 
as saying that time and space are not the fixed realities they had been 
thought ; that both are relative to matter. This may be called a char- 
acteristic example of those looking-glass inversions lately discussed 
in these Notes and Comments. Students of Theosophy would be inclined 
to say that all three, space, time and matter, are relative to Conscious- 
ness; not, of course, the external, personal consciousness of any indi- 
vidual, but what one may call the Consciousness of the Logos, the Over- 
soul, the universal Consciousness of our system of worlds. But it is 
evident that the conception of time and space, whether as fixed, or as 
relative, have their place in consciousness. Where else could they have 
a place? 

As these Notes are written, Madame Curie is on her way to the 
United States, and the newspapers are full of her visit and of the 
Madame Curie Radium Fund. Both popular and scientific periodicals are 
devoting much space to this distinguished woman, a Pole by birth, but now 
thoroughly identified with France. 

Just as Dr. Einstein is the symbol of the four-dimensional world 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 5 

and of relativity, so Mme. Curie is the symbol of radio-activity and the 
new and striking conception of matter. It may, therefore, be both per- 
tinent and interesting to point out that this whole field of discovery was 
explicitly foretold in The Secret Doctrine, and, since these Notes and 
Comments are written on May 8th, White Lotus Day, they are offered 
as a partial memorial of the great occultist who died on that day thirty 
years ago. 

Students of Theosophy are interested in radio-activity and the new 
conception of the atom because they are interested in all truth ; but even 
more, because these conceptions and discoveries mark a stride, and a 
long one, from nineteenth century materialism toward a more spiritual 
understanding of the universe. They give more breathing room for the 
Spiritual Man. They mark a distinct approach to the views held by 
students of Theosophy during a good many thousand years; notably. 
they very closely reproduce views put forward in The Secret Doctrine, 
with certain forecasts. 

Before we touch on radio-activity and the new atom, there is another 
exceedingly interesting field of study in which the author of The Secret 
Doctrine has recently been vindicated by modern discoveries : the subject, 
namely, of former continents, two of which are generally spoken of as 
Lemuria and Atlantis, and the part these continents played in the develop- 
ment and distribution of life. Need it be said that students of Theosophy 
are interested in these continents, as in present and future continents, 
because they are the field of our spiritual development? They are inter- 
ested in the confirmation of views put forward in The Secret Doctrine, 
because this may make definitely easier the acceptance of that other part 
of The Secret Doctrine which is directly concerned with spiritual life. 
This confirmation may make it less difficult for some to accept the reality 
of spiritual life, and to seek to obey its laws. 

We come, then, to the former continents and to the distribution 
of plants and animals upon them. When The Secret Doctrine was written, 
the field was held by Alfred Russell Wallace, who was somewhat stub- 
bornly convinced that the idea of vanished continents was a delusion, 
and who held that the present continents, with relatively trifling modifi- 
cations, had held the field since the beginning of geological time. The 
Secret Doctrine took direct issue with Wallace, clearly teaching the 
existence of a series of former continents, to two of which the familiar 
names of Lemuria and Atlantis were given, names borrowed from Sclater 
and Plato. 

Speaking generally, Lemuria belonged to what geologists call the 
Secondary epoch, though it would be better to call it the third, since it 
is preceded by the Primordial and Primary epochs; Atlantis, at first a 
northern extension of the west end of Lemuria, belonged mainly to the 
Tertiary, the fourth geological epoch. Islands, former mountain peaks 
of both these continents, survive today. 

The point which we wish to make is that, in the thirty-three years 



6 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

since The Secret Doctrine was published, geology, spurred by biology and 
the distribution of animals, has cut loose from the static views so in- 
geniously supported by Wallace, and has accepted a theory of former 
continents very like that of The Secret Doctrine. 

The views now held may fairly be illustrated by The Wanderings 
of Annuals, in The Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature, by 
Hans Gadow, who was born in England and educated at Cambridge. 
This valuable little book was published in 1913, a few months before 
the beginning of the World War. 

In a section on Ancient Geography (pp. 80-85), we are told that the 
history of the lands and seas since the Carboniferous period, that is, since 
the middle of the Primary, or second, epoch, may be read as follows : 
There were two huge masses of land, a high Southland extending from 
South America across Ethiopia and India to Australia ; and a low North- 
land comprising Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia and Siberia. These two 
lands were separated by a broad Mediterranean sea, an east and west 
extension of the Pacific basin. In Carbo-Permian times, that is, in the 
latter half of the Primary, or second epoch, two new features are indi- 
cated : a bridge between the northern and southern continental belts, 
joining Europe and Africa; and a dividing waterway running north- 
ward somewhere near Iceland. 

With the Trias, the beginning of the Secondary, or third geological 
period, this northern waterway was bridged, while Siberia was isolated, 
the European sea communicating with the Pacific to the north of India. 
In the later Jurassic, after the middle of this third geological epoch, there 
are three separate masses of land : first, a northern Atlantic land, uniting 
North America and North Europe ; second, a continental mass connecting 
Siberia, East Asia and Australia ; and, third, the so-called Gondwanaland, 
South America with Africa, Madagascar and India. In the Cretaceous, 
the closing period of the third epoch, Western North America is con- 
nected with Western South America, continued across the Antarctic to 
Australia, which is still joined to Eastern Asia and Siberia, the latter 
joined to North America but separated from Europe. Consequently an 
enormous ring of land encircled Gondwanaland which was an island 
continent. During the later Cretaceous, toward the close of the third 
geological epoch, Siberia joined Europe and Canada, but North America 
was divided down the centre. Chile and Patagonia were severed from 
the rest of South America, while Australia was separated from Asia. 
Consequently, toward the close of the third geological epoch, there was a 
great antarctic continental area from Chile to Australia, while the rest 
of the world formed a ring with a gap through North America. 

We come to the Tertiary, which is the fourth geological epoch. 
During the earlier half of this fourth epoch, the North American, Euro- 
pean and Siberian lands separated and joined again in various ways. 
Antarctica broke away from America and Australia. Gondwanaland was 
divided. India became an island, while South America remained con- 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 7 

nected with North-West Africa. Next the African continent was con- 
solidated ; the North and South Atlantic oceans joined and South America 
was isolated. During the Miocene, about the middle of this fourth geo- 
logical epoch, only Australia, New Zealand and Madagascar were 
important isolated regions. In the Pliocene, toward the end of the fourth 
epoch, North America was finally separated from Europe by a northern 
extension of the Atlantic, but was connected with Asia at Behring 
Straits. 

So far the modern view, much of which is avowedly tentative. But 
it shows a near approach to what The Secret Doctrine taught thirty-three 
years ago ; the great southern areas of the Secondary, the third geological 
epoch, corresponding with Lemuria, the home of the Third Race; the 
land connecting South America and North-West Africa in the Tertiary, 
the fourth geological epoch, forming what we may call Atlantis, with 
the Fourth Race ; then the submerging of Atlantis, continuing through the 
Miocene period. 

Maps would be needed to make this clear; but we can see, on the 
one hand, the complete cutting adrift from the static view of Wallace, 
and, on the other, a remarkable approach to The Secret Doctrine. 

We rejoice in this, first, because we desire the truth to be established ; 
and even more because this vindication may make easier the acceptance 
of the spiritual history which goes with these teachings, with its direct 
application to our own spiritual life. 

We may now return to the theme suggested by the coming of Mme. 
Curie : radio-activity and the modern view of the structure and nature 
of matter. Here again we have a twofold interest: first, that of the 
subject itself, which touches the ultimate structure of the manifested 
universe ; second, the fact that the new views closely approximate to those 
put forward in The Secret Doctrine, as being held by Masters in Occult- 
ism ; and the further fact that these new discoveries were definitely fore- 
told in The Secret Doctrine; the time when certain results would be 
reached, was explicitly stated. Let us try to substantiate this by page 
references to the edition of 1888. 

Speaking with warm admiration of the work of William Crookes 
and his experiments with "radiant matter/' the fourth state of matter, 
following after solid, liquid and gaseous, the author of The Secret Doc- 
trine says : 

"Chemistry is now on its ascending plane, thanks to one of its 
highest European representatives. . . . The revolution produced by 
Avogadro was the first page in the volume of the New Chemistry. Mr. 
Crookes has now turned the second page, and is boldly pointing to what 
may be the last. For once protyle accepted and recognized, Chemistry 
will have virtually ceased to live : it will reappear in its reincarnation as 
New Alchemy, or Metachemistry. The discoverer of radiant matter will 
have vindicated in time the Archaic Aryan works on Occultism and even 
the Vedas and Puranas" (I, 621-3). 



8 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Alchemy was not a popular word in 1888. How does it stand 
today ? 

We may answer by quoting from The Interpretation of Radium, the 
able and authoritative work of Professor Frederick Soddy (Revised 
Edition, 1920, p. 232), prefacing the quotation by saying that an alpha- 
particle is now recognized to be an atom of helium, while a beta-particle 
is an electron : 

"There is one interesting point that may be referred to, which serves 
to show how nearly science has approached to the ancient alchemical 
problem of turning base metals into gold. In these spontaneous changes, 
if either actinium D or thorium D had elected to expel an alpha-particle 
instead of a beta-particle, the product would have been an isotope of 
gold instead of lead. 

"Gold occupies a position in the periodic table two places removed 
from and before thallium, so that if thallium could be induced to part 
with an alpha-particle, the product would be an isotope of gold. If it 
was sufficiently stable the product would be gold for all practical pur- 
poses. It is true its atomic weight and density would be somewhat 
greater, but otherwise it would be the same. Or, again, if bismuth could 
be made to expel two alpha-particles, or lead an alpha and a beta par- 
ticle, gold again would be the product. This, then, is a list of recipes 
for the modern alchemist, one and all indubitable, but one and all await- 
ing a means of accomplishment. It remains for the future to show how 
the nucleus of an atom can be so influenced as to be caused to eject an 
alpha or beta particle at will. But it is a tremendous step gained to 
know for the first time in what transmutation really consists." 

In other words, subtract an atom of helium and an electron from an 
atom of lead, and you have an atom of gold. It is hardly necessary to 
labour the point that, like the four-dimensional world, the New Alchemy 
at least as a conception is no longer on the way. It has arrived. 

And the New Alchemy or Metachemistry has arrived as the result of 
remarkable discoveries which have their point of departure in the radiant 
matter of Crookes. This was clearly indicated in The Secret Doctrine, 
where we are told, in a footnote to the passage on page 621 already 
quoted, that the new views would be reached "on that day when his 
discovery of radiant matter will have resulted in a further elucidation 
with regard to the true source of light, and revolutionized all the present 
speculations." 

This revolution foretold a third of a century ago has already pro- 
ceeded far. The present view is, that all atoms of all substances, whether 
solid, liquid or gaseous, are in ceaseless motion to and fro, ceaseless vibra- 
tion, of an almost inconceivable rapidity. The average speed of a hydro- 
gen molecule at a temperature corresponding with the freezing point of 
water has been calculated to be over a mile a second. In liquids and 
solids, the atom vibrates only through a very limited distance, the motion 
being then reversed, so that it is correct to speak of the "vibration" of 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 9 

the molecules. An illustration in a recent work on The Nature of 
Matter and Electricity, by Comstock and Troland (New York, 1919), 
representing an instantaneous view of a piece of iron or copper a few 
hundred-millionths of an inch wide, as seen through an imaginary micro- 
scope of enormous power, shows the atoms about their own diameter 
apart, somewhat like the first spatter of rain on a dry pavement. The 
"instantaneous view" is insisted on, because the atoms, even in a solid, 
are intensely, ceaselessly vibrating. 

It is interesting to compare with this a passage in The Secret 
Doctrine: 

"Occultism says that in all cases when matter appears inert, it is 
the most active. A wooden or a stone block is motionless and impenetrable 
to all intents and purposes. Nevertheless its particles are in ceaseless 
eternal vibration which is so rapid that to the physical eye the body seems 
absolutely devoid of motion; and the spacial distance between these par- 
ticles in their vibratory motion is considered from another plane of 
being and perception as great as that which separates snow flakes or 
drops of rain" (I, 507). 

In 1888, when this was written, the idea that all the elements recog- 
nized by the old chemistry were really mutations of something more 
primal, was in the air. A brilliant statement of this idea was made by 
Crookes on February 18, 1887, before the Royal Institution, in an address 
quoted at length with warmest approval in The Secret Doctrine, as being 
a close approximation to the archaic teaching. "Occult Science," we are 
told, "adds that not one of the elements, regarded by chemistry as such, 
really deserves the name" (I, 584). 

Crookes suggested the name "protyle" for the primal substance. 
Since 1887, great progress has been made toward determining its nature. 
The new light on the structure of the atom has come largely through the 
study of the radio-active substances. And it is now held to be probable 
that the atom is made up of a minute, positively charged nucleus sur- 
rounded by several rings, or, better, regions of electrons. Since the 
volume of the nucleus and the volume of the electrons is in all cases very 
small compared with the dimensions of the system, the major part of the 
volume of an atom is unoccupied in the ordinary sense of the word. The 
chemical properties of the different elements are determined chiefly or 
entirely by the number of electrons surrounding the nucleus, and hence 
by the charge on the nucleus, which is balanced by the negative charge 
of the electrons. 

All the elements of the old chemistry are, therefore, regarded as 
systems of positive and negative particles of electric force. The mole- 
cule and the atom, in the old sense, are gone ; the elements, as elements, 
have followed. The new atom, formed by groupings of electric particles, 
is so complex as to be compared with a planetary system, like that of 
Saturn, or even a solar system. So we come back to the archaic Occult 
teaching, which sees in every atom a miniature universe. 



10 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

It remains to ask the question: Are these electrical particles sub- 
stance or force? Are we not driven by the sheer weight of these recent 
discoveries toward the conclusion of The Secret Doctrine, that they are 
the one and the other; that substance and force are two views of one 
reality ? 

The same conclusion can be reached from the other end. What is 
the nature of the forces known to us : electricity, light, heat? Electricity 
would appear to be substantial; is light so also? The Secret Doctrine 
affirms that it is: "What are Electricity and Light, in fact? . . . The 
Occultists are often misunderstood because, for lack of better terms, 
they apply to the essence of Force under certain aspects the descriptive 
epithet of Substance" (I, 508-11). 

Here, we can only touch on the modern conclusion which, so far as 
light is concerned, is still in a transition stage. But atoms of light, sub- 
stantial particles of some kind, are already spoken of. 

All these discoveries had their point of departure, as was foretold 
in The Secret Doctrine, in Crookes' discovery of radiant matter. This 
is clear enough. But The Secret Doctrine is even more explicit : "Be- 
tween this time (1888) and 1897 there will be a large rent made in the 
veil of nature, and materialistic science will receive a deathblow" (I, 612). 

The author of this sentence died in 1891. 

In 1894, a new era of chemistry was begun by the discovery of the 
inert gas argon, followed in rapid succession by crypton, neon and xenon. 
In the next year, 1895, helium, hitherto known only in the sun, was dis- 
covered in certain minerals in the earth's crust ; it is now held that helium 
is a fundamental constituent of all the so-called elements. In 1895, W. C 
Roentgen discovered the X rays. In 1896, Henri Becquerel laid the 
foundation of all later discoveries in radio-activity, when he found that 
uranium was radio-active. 

By 1897, therefore, all the elements of the modern revolution were 
known. Subsequent years have brought the marvellous development of 
these discoveries, as when Mme. Curie isolated radium from uranium ores 
in 1898. Materialistic science may fairly be said to have received its 
death-blow, since matter in the old sense has ceased to exist. The solid 
atom is gone; the "solar system" atom, built of particles of electrical 
force, has taken its place. 

The question may reasonably be asked: How could the author of 
The Secret Doctrine not only foretell these discoveries, but indicate as 
exactly as we have seen, the years within which they would be made ? 

The answer is likely to come as a distinct shock to the gifted 
scientists who have made these discoveries. It is best given in the 
author's own words : 

"The exact extent, depth, breadth, and length of the mysteries of 
Nature are to be found only in Eastern esoteric sciences. So vast and 
so profound are these that hardly a few, a very few of the highest 
Initiates are capable of assimilating the knowledge. Yet it is all there, 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 11 

and one by one facts and processes in Nature's workshops are permitted 
to find their way into the exact Sciences, while mysterious help is given 
to rare individuals in unravelling its arcana". This is followed by the 
reference to the year 1897 already quoted. 

Let us suppose that this distinctly startling assertion were accepted. 
It would only lead to another question : How is it possible for the pro- 
ficients in the Eastern esoteric sciences, presumably without aids which 
the modern laboratories have possessed only within the last few years, 
to reach and even to anticipate the most advanced conclusions as to atoms, 
electrons and the ultimate states of world material? 

The answer is to be found, perhaps, in the juxtaposition of two 
sentences in passages already quoted. The graphic representation of 
the atoms of copper or iron, "as seen through an imaginary microscope 
of enormous power," a view which was, in fact, reached through a long 
series of delicate laboratory experiments, is practically the same as that 
affirmed by Occultism when the same matter is "considered from another 
plane of being and perception." Elaborate apparatus on the one side; 
awakened spiritual insight on the other. 

And, in virtue of this spiritual insight, the Occult view of the atom, 
and of world material, while it has been in certain respects approached 
by the latest science, nevertheless in other respects is still an almost im- 
measurable distance ahead of that science. The modern scientific view 
does, indeed, see in the atom a miniature solar system, a microcosm of 
the universe, whose constituent parts are electric particles, positive and 
negative, moving with inconceivable rapidity and almost incalculable 
force ; particles, therefore, which are at once force and substance. But 
the eastern science sees in this element of force, even in the atom, a reve- 
lation of spirit, a manifestation of the universal Spiritual Life, something 
akin to immortality. 

There is the difference. Knowledge is the goal of the one. Divine 
life is the goal of the other. And, in the view of students of Theosophy, 
the scientist, until he gains something of this spiritual outlook and 
approach, will always be confronted by unfathomable mysteries. 

For example: the modern view of the atom would be thoroughly 
comprehensible if we knew the real nature of the electric substance to 
which all elements have been reduced, and if we also knew why like par- 
ticles repel each other, while unlike particles draw together. There is 
still "action at a distance," even between electrons ; and action at a distance 
is inconceivable. 

The student of Theosophy would seek the solution by beginning with 
the One, instead of the many; the parts of the One, however minute, 
are related to each other, because they are related to the One; their 
common relation to the One establishes between them the interaction, 
whether of attraction or of repulsion ; just as the relations between human 
souls result from the fundamental oneness of all souls with the Over- 
soul. This unity may be experienced in spiritual consciousness the 



12 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Eastern esoteric method; but the chasm can never the bridged by even 
the most subtle and elaborate physical experiments. 

\\ c may, perhaps, illustrate the relation between spiritual power and 
scientific apparatus in this way : Take two of the modern miracles, the 
power to see through a deal plank by means of the X rays ; and the 
power to talk across continents and oceans by wireless telephone. 

But the outstanding fact is, that just such powers as these have 
been known and exercised for centuries and millenniums, not through 
complicated physical apparatus, but through the developed faculties of 
the human soul. 

Take, for instance, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali : "By bending upon 
them the awakened inner light, there comes a knowledge of things subtle, 
or obscure, or remote" (III, 24). "Through perfectly concentrated med- 
itation on the light in the head comes the vision of the Masters who have 
attained" (31). "Thereupon are born the divine power of intuition, the 
hearing, the touch, the vision of the Spiritual Man" (35). 

Or take the Buddhist Akankheya Sutta : "If a disciple should desire, 
'Let me hear with a divinely clear hearing, surpassing that of men, sounds 
both celestial and human, far and near. . . . Let me with a divinely 
clear vision, surpassing that of men, discern beings as they pass from 
one existence to another' " then let the disciple do certain things. 

But the Scriptures of the world are full of traditions of spiritual 
seeing and hearing; powers Occult only in the sense that they are not 
yet developed save in the few; Occult, yet purely scientific. They depend, 
it is true, on holiness of life. But holiness is itself scientific, since it is 
life in accordance with enduring spiritual law. 

These modern discoveries are, therefore, of high interest and value, 
first, because they confirm the more tangible parts of the body of Occult 
teaching; and, second, because they tend toward a view of life less densely 
materialistic, a view of life less incompatible with, less hostile to, the life 
and growth of the Spiritual Man. Even though indirectly, they make for 
the spiritual wellbeing of mankind. 



// is not by change of circumstances, but by fitting our spirits to the 
circumstances in which God has placed us, that we can be reconciled to 
life and duty. F. W. ROBERTSON. 



FRAGMENTS 



A MEDITATION 

HEAVEN is a state we are told ; a state of bliss, of complete reali- 
zation, of fullest happiness, and enduring happiness, a happi- 
ness which does not pall, never grows stale or old, never loses 
its keenness. We all wish for heaven, either in the next world 
or in this. 

We are all trying for it. Even the man of evil life is really trying 
for heaven, i. e., the desire for heaven is the basic desire that is impelling 
him, though he has blinded himself, and perverted that desire. Without 
it he would have no mainspring. 

If we imagine that we do not wish happiness, we flatter ourselves 
with a psychic delusion, or have given some psychic twist to the words. 

We seek happiness because we seek God and Immortal Life, the 
mere fact that we are alive proves it. 

So we need to examine ourselves seriously on this matter, and find 
where we stand in relation to it. Let us ask ourselves two questions : 

(1) Have I a liking for heavenly things: would I enjoy them if I 
had them? 

If so, why? (so far as I can discover). 

If not, why? and what can I do about changing this? 

(2) Am I at all aware of heavenly things, or are they only abstrac- 
tions ? 

No one can get much personal satisfaction out of an abstraction. 
Where do I get my personal satisfactions ? Never mind about your soul 
(whatever you consider that to be) ; God will take care of your soul. 
You must take care of your personality, and the penalties for not doing 
so are terrible. Naturally enough, since Christ loves it, and gave his 
life for it. 

We must then raise the level of our personality so that it can have 
an appreciation of heavenly things, as well as sensing them in the first 
place. 

If I can only enjoy material things, even though they may be harm- 
less, or even good material things, how can I expect to have any satisfac- 
tion in the heavenly world, where material things do not exist? If I 
can only "see" with my physical eyes, what shall I see when I have no 
physical eyes? and so on with all the senses. 

This world is like the sand pile in an infant school, intended for our 
instruction, a perfect and beautiful symbol of life as it exists on all 
planes. We become so absorbed in the game, that we forget that it is 
a game, and are lost without it, like the confirmed gambler without his. 

How much of my enjoyment in the things I "see," springs from 

13 



14 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

mere physical sight, and how much from what lies behind that sight, 
the fine appreciations that are gratified by its means ? 

If I had the highest heaven, Christ and his saints and the angels, 
would I enjoy it, and would I like them ? or would I be bored ? so bored 
that I would quickly fall asleep after the first five minutes of it? (which 
is what often happens after death). 

The answers to these questions are vitally important, for our whole 
possibility of happiness lies in them. 

Some say at this point (and sincerely) : O never mind my happiness ; 
that does not interest me, it is the happiness of others that counts. Good : 
but the same vital questions concern us in the happiness of others. There 
is no task in all the world so difficult as to make others happy. Even 
Christ has not been able to do that for us yet. 

How can we bring happiness to others, if only in small measure, or 
cease to be a cause of unhappiness to others, until we can give satis- 
factory answers to these questions? 

When we have examined much and long, let us remember this for 
our consolation and encouragement (we shall have need of both) : 

Taste for spiritual things can be cultivated, just as taste for material 
things can be cultivated, and in the same way. How do we usually cul- 
tivate taste or tastes for various things in material life, either for our- 
selves or for children in our care? In like manner we can cultivate a 
taste for heaven, cultivate a taste for Christ, cultivate a taste for the things 
that Christ likes and works for and desires. Following in his footsteps, 
what is that but fitting our tastes into his, our desires into his? He is 
the Way to heaven ; for his children, he is heaven. 

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither can 
that which is mortal inherit immortality. But the mortal can learn to 
put on immortality, can turn its attention to, then take interest in, then 
transfer its desires to, that which is immortal. Thus we climb by the 
ladder of ourselves. It is all a matter of this transference of interest and 
desire ; the rest takes care of itself. 

But just as heaven is spiritual and immortal, so it is complete. 
Therefore the whole of us must be transferred, every interest, every 
desire ; and they must cease to be small and cramped and miserable, they 
must become generous and forceful and radiant with life. This will be 
our first reward for the transfer, the first fruits of our labour. That 
which has been sickly and anaemic, living on reflections, and growing in 
the moonlight of the psychic world, becomes strong and vigorous in the 
sunshine of Paradise. 

There can be no happiness while one part of the man pulls up, and 
another part pulls down. That constitutes the crucifixion of conscious- 
ness. All must be given. 

Blessed is it that for the average man his principles separate at 
death, each to rest in its own sphere: the body to the grave; material 
desires to fade out in Kama Loka, the haven of dead dreams; and the 






FRAGMENTS 15 

wearied aspiration to the gentle twilight of the Elysian Fields, the Deva- 
chanic peace, where effort is unknown, where the lesser gods, the "heroes," 
meet and converse in undertones of the great deeds of the past, and the 
victories won. Across their skies the angels pass in drifting masses like 
summer clouds. 

"Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas, 
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please." 

But when the transfer is made the man is complete, his desires are 
centred, his consciousness is unified. There is no more conflict. Growth 
is not struggle, but progress, an ever-widening vision, an ever-deepening 
delight, a fuller and fuller draught of joy. Whether in the body or out 
of the body, God will know ; but the man will hardly know, and surely 
he will not care. He will be in heaven. What matter the vesture of 
heaven when the reality of it has been secured ! 

True life begins for us when we enter heaven, that first heaven to 
which we one by one transfer our "possessions," those possessions which 
constitute ourselves. There is much to do then, nearly everything to 
learn; but no lesson is a task, no labour is a toil. The moments fly by 
on golden wings, each more precious than the last, each opening ne\v 
vistas of loveliness, each bringing more splendid opportunity, more power 
to do and to give, and wider fields of service. So it continues through 
all the seven heavens and into the higher three which make the ten; on 
and on, and up and up, into the flaming Heart of God, beyond the vision 
of the cherubim, beyond the longing of the seraphim, where eye hath not 
seen and ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of 
man. For the mortal has put on immortality, heaven has begun, eternity 
has begun, death is swallowed up in victory. 

When we consider the goal, does it seem too hard a task to require 
of us, denizens of the underworld, that we shall begin to give attention 
to heavenly things, to cultivate a taste for heavenly things ? little by little, 
if we can no more, to acquire an understanding of heavenly things, so 
that something beyond the soft mists of Devachan and its tender reminis- 
cences, may reward our efforts? God's patience is infinite; to each 
struggler he grants time, and again time, and yet more time. God can 
afford to be patient for he dwells in heaven. O that terrible patience 
of God ! 

But can we afford to be patient? 

CAVE. 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 
KATHA UPANISHAD 



TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSKRIT WITH AN INTERPRETATION 

II. 

In the heavenly world there is no fear at all; nor art Thou there, 
nor is there fear because of decay. Crossing over both hunger and thirst, 
passing beyond sorrow, he rejoices in the heavenly world. 

Thou indeed knowest the heavenly fire, Death! Declare it to me, 
possessing faith. The heavenly worlds enjoy immortality; this as my 
second wish I choose. 

WE may briefly recall what has gone before. 
Nachiketas represents the soul of man, sent by his 
Father, the Higher Self, into incarnation; there to gain, 
through the long series of births, a harvest of wisdom and 
sacrifice and power, to be brought back, in the day of liberation, for the 
enrichment of the Father. The House of Death, into which he descends, 
is this present world, which is manifested in the "three times", present, 
past and future, the three-fold refraction of Eternity, through the prism 
of Maya, the great Illusion of Differentiation. 

Because he is now to be liberated from the "three times", he is 
given a wish corresponding to each of the three times : a wish concerning 
the past, a wish concerning the present, a wish concerning the future. 
Through the desire for liberation, he has earned this threefold gift, 
which is the single gift of divinity refracted through the prism of Maya. 
The gift for the past, which expresses itself as the return to the Father, 
reconciliation with the Father, has already been bestowed. 

Further, because the great Initiation is the summing up, the con- 
summation of the soul's long journey, Nachiketas equally represents the 
soul of the disciple entering the great Initiation. The disciple, through 
aspiration and sacrifice, has already won the first gift : the return to his 
Father, the Master on whose spiritual ray he is. In virtue of that return, 
he is ready to ask for the second gift : the entry into present immortality. 
Therefore he asks the Initiator for this heavenly fire. 
The Initiator replies : 

To thee I declare it; through awakening, learn thou of me this 
heavenly fire, Nachiketas, becoming conscious of it. Behold and know 
the obtaining of the unending world, the root and resting place, that which 
is hid in the secret place. 

He declared to him that fire, which is the beginning of worlds; what 

16 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 17 

are the bricks of the altar, how many they are, and how they are. And 
he in turn repeated it to him as it had been told him; and Death, well 
pleased with him, again spoke. 

To him, he of Mighty Soul, well satisfied, said: Today I give again 
thy wish; thine shall this ftre be by name; and take thou this garland 
of many forms. 

He who kindles the triple fire of Nachiketas, gaining union with 
the three, completing the three works, crosses over birth and death; 
gaining knowledge of the Radiant Divinity, ever to be praised, who knows 
that which is born of the Eternal, and comprehending it, he goes to the 
unending peace. 

He who kindles the triple fire of Nachiketas, knowing this triad, 
who, thus knowing, prepares the altar for the fire of Nachiketas, he, 
escaping beforehand the snares of death, and crossing beyond sorrow, 
rejoices in the heavenly world. 

This is thy heavenly fire, Nachiketas, which thou hast chosen by thy 
second wish. This fire, men shall call thine. Choose, Nachiketas, a 
third wish! 

Nachiketas asks for the secret of the heavenly world, the heavenly 
fire. Perhaps it may be said that the Upanishad, in recording the 
response of Yama, lord of Death, at once conceals and reveals the secret. 

For there is no explicit answer, no clear description of the heavenly 
fire. Yet, in the answer of Yama, much is revealed as to its nature. 

It is known through "awakening"; but awakening means the arous- 
ing into activity of Buddhi, the divine principle which brings illumination. 
So we may take it that the heavenly fire is Buddhi active, which has 
hitherto been hid in the secret place, dormant in the inner chamber of 
the soul. With the kindling of Buddhi, comes present immortality, for 
this is the fire which makes immortal. 

It is further called the triple fire, or the fire thrice kindled ; we may 
take it that this refers to the three higher principles : Buddhi-Manas, 
Buddhi itself, and Atma, of which Buddhi is the manifestation. 

This triple fire burns on the altar, which is built four-square : the 
lower quaternary, the four lower principles, unillumined mind, the form 
body, vitality and the physical body. 

After giving this teaching, Death asks Nachiketas to repeat it to 
him. Nachiketas does this, a symbol, it would seem, of the blending of 
consciousness in Master and disciple. 

Death then bestows upon Nachiketas a garland. This is, perhaps, 
the crown of life, given to those who are faithful unto death (Rev. 2, 
10). It may be more accurate to render the Greek word (Stephanos) 
as wreath, the wreath of bay leaves given to the victor. This would give 
a more vivid meaning to Paul's comparison: Every one who contends 
in the stadium constrains himself in all things; they, indeed, that they 



18 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

may obtain a wreath which withers, but we, a wreath which withers not 
(I Cor. 9, 25). 

Explaining the phrase: ''gaining union with the three", the com- 
mentary attributed to Shankaracharya says that the three are "father, 
mother and Master". But even with this, we still appear to have a hidden 
meaning, the mother being the past Karma, the sum of aspiration and 
sacrifice in the past; the father, as before, is the Higher Self, which, 
through union with the gathered effort of the past, forms the new-born 
Spiritual Man. The Master guides and safeguards the process of birth 
and growth. 

The Spiritual Man, thus born, escapes from the snares of death 
before the hour of death has come, and crossing beyond sorrow, rejoices 
in the heavenly world. So we come to the third wish, the wish con- 
cerned with the illimitable future. Nachiketas thus expresses his wish : 

This question that there is, in the case of the man who has gone 
forth; some saying that he is, zvhile some say that he is not; a knowledge 
of this, imparted by Thee this, of my wishes, is the third wish! 

(Death answers) : By the Radiant Divinities even, this was ques- 
tioned of old! For not easily known and subtile is this law. Another 
wish choose thou, Nachiketas! Constrain me not, but spare me this! 

(Nachiketas speaks): By the Radiant Divinities even, this was ques- 
tioned, thou sayest, O Death, and it is not easily known! And another 
like Thee to speak it is not to be gained. No other wish is equal to this! 

(Death answers) : Choose sons and grandsons of a hundred years, 
many cattle, elephants, gold, horses; choose the wide dwelling of the 
earth, and live thyself as many autumns as thou wilt! If thou think est 
this an equal wish, choose thou wealth and length of days. Be thou great 
on the earth, Nachiketas! I make thee an enjoy er of thy desires! 

Whatever desires are hard to gain in the world of mortals, ask all 
desires according to thy will! These beauties with their chariots and 
lutes not such as these are to be gained by men; be waited on by these, 
bestowed by Me! Ask me not concerning dying, Nachiketas! 

This passage marks the vital turning point in the ceremony of the 
Mysteries, the great Initiation, which we conceive this Upanishad to 
represent. It is the final trial of the candidate, the last temptation. 

Before considering this trial more in detail, we may bring, for 
comparison, a similar passage, which is found, in slightly different ver- 
sions, in the two longest of the great Upanishads. 

It forms a part of the story of Shvetaketu, descendant of Aruna, 
a story at once profound and full of humour. Shvetaketu is a youth, 
both adventurous and conceited, the son of a lovable father, who is the 
very essence of humility. 

Moved by the spirit of adventure, Shvetaketu betakes himself to 
the court of the great Rajput prince, Pravahana, son of Jivala, a Master, 
whose disciples are gathered about him. 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 19 

King Pravahana greets the youth graciously, and asks him whether 
he has learned the teachings of wisdom from his father. 

The youth, with complete self-assurance, declares that he has 
learned wisdom. 

The Rajput king then asks him five questions : 

Knowest thou how these beings, going forth, depart on different 
ways? 

Knowest thou how they return again to this world ? 

Knowest thou how that world is not overfilled by so many, thus 
going forth incessantly? 

Knowest thou at which offering being offered, the waters arising 
speak with human voice? 

Knowest thou the approach of the path, the way of the Gods, or 
the way of the Fathers, or by doing what they reach the way of the 
Gods or the way of the Fathers? For the word of the Rishi has been 
heard by us : "Two paths for mortals I have heard : path of the Fathers, 
and path of the Gods. By these two goes all that moves, whatever is 
between Father and Mother!" 

These five questions contain, in fact, the essence of the Mystery 
doctrine, the twin teachings of Reincarnation and Liberation. For the 
path of the Fathers is the way of reincarnation, while the path of the 
Gods is the divine way of liberation, of perfected spiritual illumination, 
the small, old way that leads to the Eternal. Through Karma, what- 
ever binds to self, they go upon the way of the Fathers. Through 
faith, fervour and service of the Eternal, they go on the path of the 
Gods. One or other path, as the ancient Rishi said, is followed by all 
that moves, whatever dwells between Father Heaven and Mother Earth. 

So there is the dividing of the ways. Those bound by Karma go to 
the world of their reward, and then return again to this world. And, 
because they return again, that world is not filled to overflowing by so 
many, going forth in death incessantly. And at the sacrifice of human 
birth, the waters, that is, the currents of Karma, arise and speak with 
human voice, the voice of the new-born child. 

These five questions not only imply the whole teaching of the 
Mysteries; they themselves supply the answers. The dividing of the 
ways, asked after in the first question, is clearly indicated in the fifth. 
The reason why the world of rewards is not filled, is supplied by the 
question as to the return of beings to this world. 

Shvetaketu, however, each time answered, "No!" Whereupon, the 
King graciously invited him to remain with him as a pupil, to learn the 
beginnings of wisdom. The youth, his vanity wounded, ran away, and 
returned to his good father, whom he began to reproach, saying, "Did 
you not say that you had instructed us? But this Rajput fellow has 
asked me five questions, and I do not know one of them !" 

Very gently, the father replied : "Thou knowest us, dear, that what- 



20 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

ever I knew, I told to thee ! But let us two go and become the disciples 
of the wise king!" 

"Let your honour go !" the youth replied, his vanity still sore. 

So Gautama went to the king's court, where he was graciously 
received, and hestowed on the king a costly gift. Whereupon the king 
said: 

"We give the worthy Gautama a wish !" 

And Gautama replied : 

'The wish is promised to me! What thou saidst in the boy's 
presence, tell that to me !" 

But the king answered : 

"This is among wishes of the Gods! Speak some wish of the 
sons of men!" 

Gautama answered : 

"It is known ! For there is store of gold, of cattle and horses, of 
slave girls and robes and vestures ! Be not thou niggardly, Sire, of the 
Great, the Infinite, the Illimitable !" 

And the king replied : 

"Thy wish, Gautama, is a holy one!" 

"I come to my Master as a disciple!" answered Gautama, for with 
these words, those of old came to a Master, for this was the formula 
of discipleship. 

Then the king said : 

"So do not thou reproach us, thou and thy ancestors, since this 
wisdom (Vidya) never before dwelt in any Brahman. But I shall 
declare it to thee, for who is worthy to refuse thee, speaking thus?" 

This is the version of the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad, closely 
translated. In the Chhandogya Upanishad, there are slight variants : 

Gautama came to the king's dwelling, and the king received him with 
honour. Then early in the morning Gautama, going to the assembly, 
went up to the king, who said to him : 

"Honoured Gautama, choose thou a wish of the wealth of the sons 
of men !" 

But he replied : 

"Thine, O king, be the wealth of men! But the word that thou 
saidst in the boy's presence, tell that, verily, to me !" 

The king was constrained, and bade Gautama dwell with him as his 
disciple, saying to him : 

"Never before thee does this wisdom go to Brahmans, for among 
all peoples it was the word of command of the Rajputs!" 

This is exactly the temptation with which King Yama the Initiator 
tries Nachiketas : "This is a wish of Gods ! Choose thou a wish of men ! 
Choose sons and grandsons of a hundred years, many cattle, elephants, 
gold, horses. . . . These beauties with their chariots and lutes not 
such as these are to be gained by men !" 

It is of interest that, by the shortening of a single vowel in the 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 



21 



Sanskrit (reading hasti for ha-asti), the wish offered to Gautama would 
be : "Store of elephants and gold, of cattle and horses, slave girls and 
robes and vestures;" elephants being the symbol of kingly power in 
India even to this day, when an assembly of princes means also the 
gathering of a herd of elephants. 

Nachiketas is, therefore, tempted by the offer of kingly power, 
wealth in gold and cattle and horses ; sons and grandsons, long lived, to 
offer for him the sacrifice to the Manes, and all things that allure the 
sensual man. 

These are the things that Prince Siddhartha refused and laid aside 
when he entered the path of the Buddhas of compassion, coming as his 
mighty Predecessors had come. 

This is, once again, the Temptation in the Wilderness : bread for 
the hunger of the body; the miraculous flight from the temple, to feed 
the soul's vanity; the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, to 
feed the spirit of ambition. 

Sensuality, vanity, the pride of kingship and power : the same 
temptations which every disciple must face and conquer, before he can 
enter on the Way. Happy is the disciple who is not tempted ; who, being 
tempted, overcomes. C. J. 

(To be continued) 



Nothing can distinguish man from man, in order to beatitude, but 
choice and election; and nothing can ennoble the choice but love, and 
nothing can exercise love but difficulty, and nothing can make that 
difficulty but the contradiction of our appetite, and the crossing of our 
natural affections. And, therefore, whenever any of you are tempted 
violently, or groiv weary in your spirits with resisting the petulancy of 
temptation, you may be cured, if you will please but to remember and 
rejoice, that now you have something of your own to give to God, some- 
thing that He zvill be pleased to accept, something that He hath given 
you that you may give it to Him. For our money and our time, our days 
of feasting and our days of sorrow, our discourse and our acts of praise, 
our prayers and our songs, our vows and our offerings, our worshippings 
and protestations, and whatsoever else can be accounted in the sum of 
our religion, are only accepted according as they bear along with them 
portions of our will, and choice of love, and appendant difficulty. 

JEREMY TAYLOR. 



DANTE SKETCHES 



Many are the wand-bearers, but few the God-possessed. Plato. 

IN a preceding number of the QUARTERLY an attempt was made to 
show that Dante, as an accomplished scholastic, inherited a tradition 
favouring mystical writing and the mystical interpretation of both 

Scripture and the symbols of religion. Further than this, he also 
proclaimed explicitly that he was such a writer and such an interpreter. 
We are, therefore, justified in seeking the mystical meaning which Dante 
may have had in his own mind and experience when he wrote, and in 
seeking also to estimate how far Dante himself had progressed along the 
so-called "Mystic Way" that "small old Path that stretches far away." 

In doing this there are two distinct dangers. We are likely to read 
into Dante the particular thoughts and ideas of our own minds and of 
our own times, rather than the thoughts which a man of his century and 
of his intellectual setting would in all probability have had. And we are 
also inclined, on the other side, to forget that he had thoughts which we 
have not, and that he had an understanding of certain things, his posses- 
sion of which we today, of a more crude and dogmatically material cast 
of mind, are very loath to acknowledge. We are not ready to admit that, 
for all his deep and wide knowledge of scholastic philosophy and theology, 
Dante actually knew more about the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven 
and the things pertaining to it, than we do. We are not ready to do this 
because the modern Western mind, even inside the Roman Church, unless 
particularly trained to an understanding of scholasticism, is inclined to 
consider it an effete and outworn intellectual system, which has seen its 
day, and is now superseded by a more liberal theology adapted to the 
advances of modern science. It is felt that the world has moved a long 
way in the six hundred years since Dante's death, and is it not true that 
the great minds of the Church, such as a Cardinal Mercier, are rewriting 
St. Thomas Aquinas with a view to rendering him more "up-to-date" ? 

Nevertheless, St. Thomas Aquinas was himself a mystic; and the 
heart of scholastic theology is a distinctly mystical apprehension of the 
universe. So Miss Underhill writes : "As with St. Augustine, the intel- 
lectual greatness of St. Thomas obscured his mystical side. Hence it is 
commonly stated that fourteenth century mysticism derives from St. 
Bonaventura, and represents an opposition to scholastic theology; but 
as a matter of fact its greatest personalities in particular Dante and the 
German Dominican school [e. g., Eckhart, Tauler, Suso] are soaked 
in the spirit of Aquinas, and quote his authority at every turn" (Mys- 
ticism, p. 550). 

These two errors, therefore, of underestimating Dante's achievement, 



UANTE SKETCHES 23. 

and of misreading him, are dangers it is essential that we should avoid, 
and they can be overcome in two ways. First, by a careful study not 
merely of the writings of Dante himself, but of his contemporaries and 
immediate predecessors, so as to gain the fullest knowledge possible of 
the main currents of thought which must have influenced his mind as it 
matured. In the second place, it must never be forgotten, that if a man 
says something that is true, it is true for all time, no matter how archaic 
are the words and terms in which the thought is clothed. To be sure, 
many people will ask with Pilate, "What is truth ?" and further, "How can 
we know that so and so is true?" They might recall Christ's answer, 
given in the Gospel of Nicodemus : "Jesus said, Truth is from heaven. 
Pilate said, Therefore truth is not on earth. Jesus said to Pilate, Believe 
that truth is on earth among those, who, when they have the power of 
judgment, are governed by truth, and form right judgment" (Cap. Ill, 
vv. 11 to 14.) Thus the "power of judgment," put into actual operation 
at the behests of Truth, leads to "right judgment" : "If ye live the life, 
ye shall know the doctrine." The power thus to judge would seem to be 
the same as that explicitly described by St. Paul : "The natural (-v/rtr^/co? 
= psychic) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they 
are foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, because they are 
spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he 
himself is judged of no man." And Paul adds that "we," that is, 
ol reXeia the perfect, the initiated, "have the mind of Christ" (I Cor. 
ii, 15, 16, cf. v. 6). 

A common realization of Truth, therefore, is dependent upon a 
relation of personal statures, of developed or undeveloped conscious- 
ness; and what seems true to one man, may seem false or worthless to 
another. It is this variation in the apprehensibility of Truth which makes 
the study of mysticism, of the mysteries, of the occult, so difficult. And 
it is the reason why no one who falls short of an adequate degree of attain- 
ment in spiritual consciousness, can establish a final canon of interpreta- 
tion. There are always those, for instance, who insist that words should 
be taken as they stand, literally, and in their barest possible meaning. 
There are always those who, with Dante, wish it to be known "that the 
sense of this work [i. e., the Paradiso] is not simple, but on the contrary 
it may be called polysemous, that is to say, 'of more senses than one'; 
for it is one sense which we get through the letter, and another which we 
get through the thing the letter signifies ; and the first is called literal, but 
the second allegorical or mystic" (Epistle to Can Grande, 11. 135-142). 
Dante held with Aristotle, that "the truth about a thing is a perfect 
likeness of the thing as it is"; but he goes further than Aristotle, 
and is characteristically Christian and mystic when he adds, "True 
blessedness consists in the sense of the prime source of truth, as is 
evident by John in the passage: This is true blessedness, to know 
thee the true God,' and the rest" (Op. cit., 11, 94-6 and 613-616). 



24 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Truth is knowable, it is to be found in the vision of God; and Dante 
appeals directly from those who "carp" at his claim to have visited Para- 
dise and to have experienced the vision of God, to the great mystics who 
preceded him. "And if all this suffices not the carpers, let them read 
Richard of St. Victor in his book De Contemplatione, let them read Ber- 
nard De Consider atione, let them read Augustine De Quantitate Anima, 
and they will cease to carp." J In other words, Dante invites those who 
carp to compare his work with that of recognized saints and mystics; 
and he adds a further plea on his own behalf when he writes : "But if they 
rail 2 at a condition of so great exaltation because of the sin of the speaker, 
let them read Daniel, where they will find that Nabuchodonosor, too, was 
divinely enabled to see certain things against sinners, which afterwards 
he committed to oblivion. For 'He who maketh his sun to rise upon the 
good and the evil, and sendeth his rain upon the just and the unjust/ 
sometimes in compassion for their conversion, sometimes severely for 
their punishment, reveals his glory in greater or less measure, as he wills, 
to those who live never so evilly." 

In the last analysis, therefore, a man is only judged by his peers. 
The validity of a given spiritual experience can only be finally established 
by one who has himself experienced it. Nevertheless, so absolute and 
uniform would seem to be the principles revealed by the records of 
spiritual experience, that a study of the lives of mystics, and of the mys- 
teries, in all countries, of all times, of all shades of religious belief, 
will yield in no uncertain measure an intellectual comprehension of the 
mystical life and of spiritual consciousness. And if this comparison be 
made, it will become evident that certain symbols, certain metaphors, 
certain methods of approach, and a particular language, are to be found 
in use by spiritual writers who must in the nature of things have been 
totally unknown to one another. If Dante ever heard of the Tao-Teh- 
King or the Bhagavad Gita, he certainly never saw them or read them ; 
yet he shows much the same understanding of the principles of religious 
experience as do both these early books. 

For our present purpose, it does not matter whether Dante can be 
shown to have derived his ideas from a given mystical writer or not. The 
proof of such derivation will always be of interest, because if he did so 
derive them, he has demonstrated his ability to recognize the value of 
those ideas and to have made them his own, and therefore to have appro- 
priated them. If he did not derive from another writer, however, he 

1 Op. cit., 11. 553-557. Cf. Paradise X, 131 "Richard, who was in contemplation more 
than man." Augustine's book gives a scale of the spiritual degrees in the ascent to God. 

'Miss Hillard translates the Latin word oblatrarent "howl"; Mr. Wicksteed, "yelp"; 
literally it means "to bark at," but its post-Augustinian tropological sense is "to rail or carp at." 
Cf. Lewis and Short's New Latin Dictionary. To translate this as "yelp" is to make Dante 
bitter of speech and unnecessarily severe. This has been too often the current conception of 
Dante; but is it justifiable to suppose that he would always apply the same scorn, simply because 
in the Inferno and elsewhere he does so to sinners deserving of it, while here he is merely 
combating worldKness, and employs a synonym to avoid repetition, and a word commonly 
used in the above sense? 



DANTE SKETCHES 25 

proves that his own consciousness evolved the ideas; and his spiritual 
stature may be estimated by placing his own conceptions beside those of 
other statements from a totally different source. 

Therefore, as a first step in interpreting Dante in an "allegorical" or 
"mystical" sense, which he himself authorizes, we should point out that 
this very desire on his part to allegorize, shows at least an instinctive 
kinship with the greatest scriptures and with the mysteries. "All in the 
ancient scriptures is allegorical," writes Madame Blavatsky in The Secret 
Doctrine, and the second part of her first volume is devoted to "The Evo- 
lution of Symbolism." "Even a parable is a spoken symbol : a fiction or 
a fable, as some think; an allegorical representation, we say, of life- 
realities, events, and facts . . . All the thoughts and emotions, all the 
learning and knowledge, revealed and acquired, of the early races, found 
their pictorial expression in allegory and parable. Why? Because the 
spoken word has a potency unknown to, unsuspected and disbelieved in, 
by the modern 'sages'" (Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 307; ed. of 1888). 
So Dante writes that his works "should be" expounded allegorically, and 
that the allegorical exposition "hides itself under the mantle of these tales, 
and is a truth hidden under beauteous fiction," which, when "spiritually 
expounded, even in the literal sense, by the very things it signifies, signifies 
again some portion of the supernal things of eternal glory" (Convivio, 
II, i). Light on the Path expands this same idea: "There is another 
way of reading, which is, indeed, the only one of any use with many 
authors. It is reading, not between the lines but within the words. In 
fact, it is deciphering a profound cipher. All alchemical works are written 
in the cipher of which I speak ; it has been used by the great philosophers 
and poets of all time. It is used systematically by the adepts in life and 
knowledge, who, seemingly giving out their deepest wisdom, hide in the 
very words which frame it its actual mystery. They cannot do more. 
There is a law in nature which insists that a man shall read those mys- 
teries for himself. By no other method can he obtain them." 

Dante's writings, in our opinion, are "forcing human language to 
express one of the most sublime visions of the Absolute which has ever 
been crystallized into speech. He inherits and fuses into one that loving 
and artistic reading of reality which was the heart of Franciscan mys- 
ticism, and that other ordered vision of the transcendental world which 
the Dominicans through Aquinas poured into the stream of European 
thought. For the one the spiritual world was all love: for the other all 
law. For Dante it was both. In the Paradiso his stupendous genius 
apprehends and shows to us a Beatific Vision in which the symbolic 
systems of all great mystics, and many whom the world does not 
call mystics of Dionysius, Richard, St. Bernard, Mechthild, Aquinas, 
and countless others are included and explained" (Evelyn Underbill's 
summary, Mysticism, p. 551). Inevitably he used allegorical language, 
but Dante's individual mysticism can be deciphered and determined by a 



26 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

comparative study with other systems and other methods. His visions 
in the Vita Nuova and Convivio, his intensely vivid and human drama of 
the soul's growth and inmost life, as mirrored in the Inferno, Purgatorio, 
and Paradiso, his astronomical, philosophical, and theological explana- 
tions mixed as they are with kabalistic and astrological elements 
these all go to show that he has but one object : to restate such fragments 
of the Wisdom of God as he can call his own, in an enduring form, and 
for the benefit of his fellow-men. "The end" [of his poem], writes Dante 
to Can Grande, "is to remove those living in this life from the state of 
misery and lead them to the state of blessedness . . . because the whole 
was undertaken not for speculation, but for practical results." And 
again, as already quoted : "Oh blessed those few who sit at the table 
where the bread of angels is consumed, and wretched they who share the 
food of sheep ! But . . . they who are fed at so lofty a table are not 
without compassion towards those whom they see browsing around on 
grass and acorns in the pasture of brutes ; and inasmuch as compassion is 
the mother of benefaction, they who know ever proffer freely of their 
good wealth to those poor indeed, and are as a living spring at whose 
waters the natural thirst above spoken of is refreshed" (Convivio, I. i, 
51-68). MARION HALE. 



At a meeting in London, on December 20th, 1888, Madame Blavatsky 
n'as asked: Is the apparent objectivity in a dream really objective or 
subjective? She replied: "If it is admitted to be apparent, then of 
course it is subjective. The question should rather be, to whom or what 
are the pictures or representations in dreams either objective or sub- 
jective? To the physical man, the dreamer, all he sees with his eyes 
shut, and in or through his mind, is of course subjective. But to the Seer 
within the physical dreamer, that Seer himself being subjective to our 
material senses, all he sees is as objective as he is himself to himself 
and to others like himself. Materialists will probably laugh, and say that 
we make of a man a whole family of entities, but this is not so. Occult- 
ism teaches that physical man is one, but the thinking man septenary, 
thinking, acting, feeling, and living on seven different states of being 
or planes of consciousness, and that for all these states and planes the 
permanent Ego (not the false personality) has a distinct set of senses." 



FEAR 



"^T"~Y~ "T" E ought to meditate more on heaven," said a wise student 
V/\/ of Theosophy. "We should formulate clearly to ourselves 

\ \ what our ideal of heaven is, what it is that we really and 
honestly desire, and should then think of that as attainable 
here and now, or in a few years at most. Hope for it. Never cease to 
hope for it." 

By way of beginning, I was trying to formulate my ideal of my own 
heaven and to do it honestly. The memory of a particularly violent 
toothache was fresh in my mind, which promptly announced to me that 
what it wanted was a heaven free from pain. That sounded axiomatic 
enough, and, putting that down as point number one, I was about to pass 
on to something more positive. What did I want? To be a Saint? 
What did the Saints want? Hum-m-m. For the most part they wanted 
suffering. I did not want suffering as any part of my heaven, or, if I 
did, I was not conscious of it. Yet, "At the heart of pain lies joy." I 
never pierced the heart of pain to find the joy, but I could imagine finding 
it there. Surely, pain borne for the sake of love would be a joy in pro- 
portion to the greatness of the love. That was why the Saints longed 
for suffering. They loved so intensely that they craved suffering as an 
expression of their love. To love that way would in itself be heaven; 
the divine alchemy that would turn all things to joy and cast out all fear. 

Then, suddenly, I saw that what I wanted was not freedom from 
pain, but freedom from fear of pain. I imagined myself in "heaven," 
that is, on the other side of death, looking down on the world and on 
the Master's warfare being waged here. I imagined his call for volun- 
teers to go into incarnation, into the midst of the fight for his cause, 
and I thought of myself as desiring freedom from pain ! Heaven forbid ! 
Give me freedom from the fear of it that I might leap to answer. 

After all, the greater part of our suffering from pain arises from the 
fear of it, rather than from the pain itself. We could bear any pang 
for a second, if we knew it would last no longer. The worst pain would 
then be little more than strong sensation. It is the fear that we are going 
to have more of those terrible twinges, that they will go on repeating 
themselves for hours, or days or months, that is by far the worst of our 
suffering. In point of fact, we never have to bear more than a second's 
pain in any one second, and that we could do comparatively easily if 
only fear did not add the pain of all the future to it. Mr. Griscom used 
to say that it is our resistance to it, and not the pain itself, that causes 
the suffering. If we could only accept it completely and let it sweep 
through us without resistance, it would be merely a cleansing sensation. 

Few can hope to rise to that height, but it may be within the ex- 

27 



28 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

perience of many of us that the effort to take pain rightly, to use the force 
of it (and whatever else pain may be, it is certainly magnificent force) 
in the Masters' cause, will at least transform the memory of that pain 
from a nightmare to a joy. Another wise student once said to me, "If 
you want to be happy, act in such a way that the remembrance of your 
actions will make you happy. Do what you would like to have done, 
not what you want to do. Things are a short while in doing, but they 
stay done a long time." 

During the war we were told that if we would do our simplest daily 
duties with conscious intention to serve, offering them to the Masters' 
cause as we did them, they could be used, and might indeed be of more 
value than an army corps. That we do not understand how or why this 
is so, is of no consequence. What is needed to make prayer effective is 
faith, not an understanding of the mechanics of it. So, surely, if our 
feeble efforts at daily duties can be used, it must be that the great power 
of real pain may be used in the same way, if we could only remember 
to hold our will and intention steady. Perhaps not only the memory, 
but also the pain itself at the time, would thus be changed into a joy. 
Perhaps that is the meaning of, "At the heart of pain lies joy," for we 
do not find the heart of anything until we see it in its relation to the 
Master. 

At this point I decided that the way was getting too steep for a 
beginner's feet, even in speculation, and I came back to the question of 
Fear, a subject of which I had had more ample personal experience. It 
appalled me to think how much I was under the influence of Fear in all 
departments of my life, fear of pain, fear of death, fear of failure, of 
ridicule, of what others would think, fear of discomfort, fear of being 
bored. Such petty, miserable fears, and yet it seemed to me that, when 
analysed, most of the actions of most of us have their roots in the last 
two, fear of discomfort or fear of being bored. Why else do we want 
money, for instance? We are afraid of poverty because we think it 
would be uncomfortable and unconscionably dull. Not very exalted foes 
that we should fear them so much, and yet the fact remains that we do. 

In one of his books I think it is the Memory of Past Births 
Mr. Johnston speaks of our consciousness rising during deep sleep to the 
ocean of immortal power and peace, to the consciousness of the spiritual 
world, but that as we return thence we are met at the threshold of 
waking by the army of shadows of the material world, with their captain 
Fear at their head, and robbed by them of all memory of where we have 
been. Nightly we are in touch with infinite power and infinite bliss, 
and nightly we are robbed of this priceless memory by Fear and Fear's 
cohorts. Evidently if we would retain the memory of that bliss, "on 
whose fragments all beings live," we must first conquer Fear. 

"Love casteth out Fear." So does Trust, and each step forward 
brings an increase of both love and trust, weakening the hold Fear has 






FEAR 29 

upon us. It must be through these that we shall win the final victory; 
but there is something else that we can do at once. We can, as it were, 
attack Germany in the Balkans. We can attack Fear through its most 
potent ally, without which it can do little, the traitor in our camp: our 
own uncontrolled imaginations. It is through the pictures the imagination 
presents to our minds, that Fear works. That what seems to be courage 
is often simply lack of imagination, is proverbial. Unless we see the 
picture of the danger, we feel little fear. In a crisis calling for swift 
action, we shall perhaps feel none at all, however grave the risk. The 
need to concentrate on the work to be done, shuts out the pictures of 
possible consequences. On the other hand, imagination is essential to 
progress. It is said to be one of the two great magical powers by which 
we must rise. I would rather be afraid than lack imagination, but for- 
tunately that is not the choice. The fault does not lie in the presence 
of imagination, but in the absence of control over it. It is a tremendous 
power, the guide of the will, the ladder by which we were meant to rise 
to heaven; and we have made it the ally of evil and the cause of much 
of our trouble. There is a fine old legend of an evil magician in the days 
of Charlemagne, who dwelt in a castle on an inaccessible rock. The 
castle could only be reached by a winged horse, and the magician had 
the horse. He was a wonderful steed, capable of taking beyond the stars 
the fortunate rider who possessed the magic bridle to control him, but 
fatal to others. He is mastered at length by Bradamant, the pure-hearted 
warrior maiden, with the help of her enchanted shield, and thereafter the 
magician is an easy conquest. Doubtless the legend has many meanings, 
but I am convinced of the truth of one, that Fear cannot be successfully 
assailed until in some degree at least we can control our imaginations. 

It is easy to test the extent to which the imagination has been mis- 
used. Try to imagine the spiritual world, a conversation with the 
Master, what it would be like to love as the Saints love, or even how some- 
one we love feels, in some trouble with which we should like to sym- 
pathize, and see how long our imaginations stay steadily on the theme 
set. Then imagine ourselves as we should like others to see us under 
almost any circumstances you please, and note the difference. How eagerly 
and lovingly the imagination plays around ourselves, how slowly and 
laboriously in all else ! The truth is we have made it the slave of vanity. 
It responds instantly to its master's voice and is deaf to almost all else. 
It is the slave of vanity, and vanity is always the slave of Fear, shudder- 
ing with terror at the thought of the least hurt to itself. Obviously then, 
to free the imagination from domination by Fear, it must be freed from 
vanity. 

This can only mean that we must never permit it to be used by 
vanity. The pastime of picturing ourselves to ourselves in heroic sit- 
uations, or saying clever things, or proving to ourselves how right we 
were and how wrong he was, will all, I suspect, when analysed be found 



30 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

to have vanity back of them. If we would purify our imaginations, these 
and all other forms of "mental talks" with ourselves, must be given up. 
Then perhaps our imaginations will become the ladders to heaven they 
were meant to be. Then Fear will lose its weapon and life its phantom 
terrors, and we shall gain freedom, the freedom to answer as we would, 
wherever and whenever we hear our Master call. 

BEGINNER. 



The nature and functions of real dreams cannot be understood unless 
we admit the existence of an immortal Ego in mortal man, independent 
of the physical body, for the subject becomes quite unintelligible unless 
we believe that which is a fact that during sleep there remains only 
an animated form of clay, whose powers of independent thinking are 
utterly paralyzed. 

But if we admit the existence of a higher or permanent Ego in us 
which Ego must not be confused with what we call the "Higher Self" 
we can comprehend that what we often regard as dreams, generally 
accepted as idle fancies, are, in truth, stray pages torn from the life 
and experiences of the inner man, and the dim recollection of which at 
the moment of awakening becomes more or less distorted by our physical 
memory. The latter catches mechanically a few impressions of the 
thoughts, facts witnessed, and deeds performed by the inner man during 
its hours of complete freedom. For our Ego lives its own separate life 
w-ithin its prison of clay whenever it becomes free from the trammels 
of matter, i. e., during the sleep of the physical man. This Ego it is 
which is the actor, the real man, the true human self. But the physical 
man cannot feel or be conscious during dreams; for the personality, the 
outer man, with its brain and thinking apparatus, are paralysed more or 
less completely. 

We might well compare the real Ego to a prisoner, and the physical 
personality to the gaoler of his prison. If the gaoler falls asleep, the 
prisoner escapes, or, at least, passes outside the walls of his prison. The 
gaoler is half asleep, and looks nodding all the time out of a window, 
through which he can catch only occasional glimpses of his prisoner, as 
he would a kind of shadow moving in front of it. But what can he 
perceive, and what can he know of the real actions, and especially the 
thoughts, of his charge? Transactions of The Blavatsky Lodge of The 
Theosophical Society, Part I ; Madame H. P. Blavatsky, at a meeting held 
in London, December 20th, 1888. 



THEOSOPHY 1 



WHAT is Theosophy? What is The Theosophical Society? 
What is the relation of Theosophy to The Theosophical 
Society ? 

Let us begin with the more concrete question : What is 
The Theosophical Society? 

The Constitution thus defines the Objects of The Theosophical 
Society : 

The principal aim and object of this Society is, To form the nucleus 
of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, 
creed, sex, caste or colour. 

The subsidiary objects are: The study of ancient and modern re- 
ligions, philosophies and sciences, and the demonstration of the impor- 
tance of such study; and, The investigation of the unexplained laws of 
nature and the psychical powers latent in man. 

In each of these three Objects, there is an underlying principle, not 
expressed, but implicit. In the first Object, this principle is, "the identity 
of all Souls with the Oversoul"; the term made familiar by Emerson. 
And, as Emerson teaches, each soul is, in essence, one with the Oversoul, 
and with all of the Oversoul. 

But that identity is not yet realized. It can be realized only through 
ages of growth and spiritual progression, as the soul expands, and opens 
itself to the life of the Oversoul and to all of that life. 

Therefore the first Object of The Theosophical Society does not 
propose to form a universal brotherhood of humanity by simply gathering 
together the existing materials, all men and women, good and evil alike ; 
but, on the contrary, it proposes to form only the nucleus of such a 
brotherhood. Into the nucleus can enter truly only that which is of the 
nature of the Oversoul, only that which is spiritual and immortal. There- 
fore the nucleus is not for today, but for the distant future, for men and 
races yet unborn; the foundation stone of the future spiritual being of 
an immortal mankind. 

In the same way, in the second Object, the study of ancient and 
modern religions, philosophies and sciences, there is implicit the principle 
that there is an underlying unity in these three, religion, philosophy and 
science ; they are all views of truth, views of the Oversoul from different 
points. The importance of their study lies in the search for this under- 
lying unity, the search for the expression of the Oversoul, which that 
unity will reveal. 

So in the third Object, there is implicit the thought that, since each 

1 A lecture by Charles Johnston, on May 1, 1921, on the occasion of the Convention of 
The Theosophical Society. 

31 



32 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

soul is fundamentally identical with the Oversoul, there will be, for each 
soul, a progressive unfolding of divine and spiritual powers, until all 
the powers of the Oversoul are attained and revealed in it. And, with 
this unfolding of the soul will come a progressive insight into mystery 
after mystery of nature and nature's hitherto unexplained laws. 

When these Objects were phrased, in the seventies or early eighties 
of last century, the word psychic had not gained a sense which it has 
since acquired, as distinct from spiritual. Psychic was used rather as 
the antithesis of material, as it is habitually used by many French writers, 
such as Bergson, perhaps because the word "spirituel," in French, does 
not mean exactly spiritual, but rather intelligent, clever or witty. If we 
were to rephrase the third Object today, we should be inclined to speak 
of the spiritual powers latent in man, rather than the psychical powers. 

So that in each of the three Objects there is thus an underlying 
principle ; and these three principles find their unity in the Oversoul. 

This may seem like a doctrine, even a dogma. But The Theosophical 
Society does not require the acceptance of any doctrine or dogma, or even 
the acceptance of such underlying principles as have been outlined. On 
the contrary, it is expressly stated in the Constitution, in the Article on 
Membership, that every member has the right to believe or disbelieve in 
any religious system or philosophy. That is already going far; but the 
Constitution goes even farther, for it adds that every member has also 
the right to declare such belief or disbelief, without affecting his standing 
as a member of the Society, each being required to show that tolerance 
of the opinions of others which he expects for his own. 

This is a broad and generous provision, the very perfection of intel- 
lectual charity. But it is something more. It is an implicit expression 
of the conviction that every true inspiration, whether of religion, phil- 
osophy or science, is a partial revelation of the Oversoul, a ray of light 
of the Logos, a thought in the Mind of God. 

This word which has just been used, the Logos, is the Greek original 
of Verbum, the Word, as used in the opening verse of the Gospel accord- 
ing to Saint John : In the beginning was the Word, the Logos, and the 
Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. 

Perhaps it would be better to translate the first words : In the primal 
principle, rather than: In the beginning, as indicating a source rather 
than an origin in time. 

It seems to be generally held that Saint John owes his use of this 
word to Philo, who is summing up a main current of Hellenic philosophy, 
which goes back through the Stoics to Heraclitus, who spoke of the 
Logos as the universal principle which animates and rules the world. 

For Philo, the Logos is the Mind of God, very much in the spirit 
of the ancient Chinese phrase, used nearly four thousand years ago in 
the Shu King : I will examine these things in harmony with the Mind of 
God. 

Perhaps we shall get a clearer view of the significance of the use 



THEOSOPHY A LECTURE 33 

of this word, the Logos, by John, if we remember that Matthew and 
others of the disciples, seeking to express their understanding of the 
divine personality of Jesus, thought and spoke of him as the Christ, that 
is, the Anointed, the Messiah : the Lord long looked for, of the Messianic 
hope, the king of royal David's line. John, interpreting the same divine 
personality, took the expression, the Logos, thus announcing Jesus as 
the incarnation of the Mind of God. The word Messiah, the Anointed, 
in its Greek equivalent, Christos, is used in the Septuagint, the Alex- 
andrian Greek version of the Old Testament, in a more general sense. 
Thus, when Isaiah speaks of the anointed, Cyrus, the word used in the 
Greek is Christos. But in the New Testament, the word Christ has gained 
a deeper significance. Christ is the Messiah. Christ is also the Logos, 
the incarnate Mind of God. 

It may be valuable to consider this word, Logos, as it was first used 
by Philo of Alexandria, writing about the fifteenth year of our era, on 
the Creation of the World as given by Moses. Philo was gathering 
together the three threads represented in the population of his native 
city, Alexandria, where he lived most of his life and wrote, though he 
went on one occasion to Rome and, in all likelihood, went also to Jeru- 
salem, to the great festivals of the Jews. 

Alexandria had its Greek, its Jewish and its Egyptian population. 
Philo gathered together the thoughts of all. He had some knowledge 
also of the spiritual life of India, as it became known to the western 
world through the expedition of Alexander the Great to India. Through 
Megasthenes and others, a considerable knowledge of India thus found 
its way westward, and it would be possible to fill a small book shelf with 
Greek writings on India which we owe to Alexander's expedition. Thus 
we find Philo saying of the Indian Gymnosophists, or Sannyasis, that 
their whole existence is a lesson in virtue. 

Alexander's expeditions drew a circle, one may say, round the three 
centres of wisdom, Greece, Egypt and India, with Jerusalem in the 
centre; and, in Alexandria, Philo's city, these threads of wisdom came 
together. 

Philo undertook to expound the records of the Old Testament along 
the lines of allegory, as in his book, the Allegories of the Sacred Laws, 
that is, the Laws of Moses. And he expounds them in the light of the 
philosophical thought of Plato, so that it was said by an early Christian 
writer that it is difficult to say whether Philo Platonizes, or Plato 
Philonizes. 

And as the foundation of his exposition, he takes this teaching of 
the Logos, the Mind of God. 

We may condense as follows the first passage in which this thought 
is developed, in the exposition of the Creation of the World : 

When a city, says Philo, is founded by a great king, who is also a 
man of brilliant imagination, a skilful architect whom he employs, seeing 
the advantage and beauty of the situation, first of all sketches out in 



34 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

his own mind nearly all the parts of the city, the temples, gymnasia, mar- 
kets, harbours, docks, the arrangement of the walls, the situation of the 
dwelling houses and the public and other buildings ; he carries in his heart 
the image of a city perceptible only by the intellect. We must form a 
somewhat similar opinion of God and His creative work. The world 
first existed only in the Mind, the Logos, of God. 

It may be an interesting surmise, which has, perhaps, been made 
before, that Philo had here in mind, not an imaginary town, but his own 
city of Alexandria; that the great king of his parable was Alexander, 
who, in the year 332 B. C, commanded Deinocrates, the wise architect, to 
plan the city Alexandria, with its walls, harbours, temples, streets, mar- 
kets, its many public buildings. Everything which Philo says, describes 
his own city. It does not exactly describe, let us say, Jerusalem, which, 
though it had walls, had no harbour, nor Rome, the two other great 
cities which Philo is likely to have known. 

Therefore Philo thinks of the plan of the universe to be created, as 
first formed in the Mind of God, in the Logos. And, if we accept this 
great, fundamental thought, a plan of all life, must it not follow that 
there is, in the Mind of God, a plan for each life, a life-plan for each 
one of us, in the Logos, in the Mind of God? 

The plan, for each one of us, is to be discerned through prayer, 
through meditation, through the illumination of that Light of the Logos 
which, as Saint John has so beautifully said, lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world. 

But, since the life of each of us is a divine gift, it carries the quality 
of divinity, the gift of free will, which the Divine Power cannot and 
will not revoke. We have the right to choose, either to follow the plan 
of the Logos, led by the Light of the Logos, or to refuse. With free 
will must the plan be worked out ; it cannot be worked out, except through 
the free energy of creative will, realizing in succession the thoughts in 
the Mind of God. 

We come thus to the word, Theosophy, used by Saint Paul in his 
first letter to the disciples in Corinth, in the twenty-fourth verse of the 
first chapter : Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God, Theou 
sophia. 

It is worth noting here that there are two Greek words meaning 
wisdom : Gnosis, as in the name of the Gnostics, and this word Sophia, 
with a somewhat different shade of meaning. Gnosis appears to mean 
rather illumination, the immediate light of divine inspiration, which the 
Gnostics aspired to reach ; while Sophia is wisdom applied to the conduct 
of life. 

We can see this in the name Sophist. It carries an unpleasant flavour, 
but in the period before Plato, the Sophist was, or aspired to be, a teacher 
of the highest and best of human things, as Plato says, speaking of 
Protagoras. And a modern writer on the Greek Genius says of the 



THEOSOPHY A LECTURE 35 

earlier Sophist, that "he came nearest, perhaps, to a university teacher, 
glorified, extended, and brought into contact with practical life." 

Paul divides the word into its two parts, Theou sophia, the wisdom of 
God. It seems to occur first as a single word in the Miscellanies of 
Clement of Alexandria, who speaks of solving problems "theosophically," 
that is, in the light, and through the power, of the divine wisdom in us. 
After Clement, the word is found often in the intervening centuries, 
coming into all modern languages. 

So at last we reach The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 and 
taking this, honourable and ancient name, and, in fact, using Theosophy 
as the wisdom of the Divine in us, wisdom applied to the conduct of life. 

By this road, therefore, we come back to our fundamental thought : 
the conduct of life in the light of divine wisdom; the seeking, through 
prayer, through meditation, for the immemorial Light in the soul, the 
Light of the Logos, the leading of the Mind of God. 

Here we have our immediate practical application. We are reverently 
and humbly to seek that Light in the soul and, striving to follow the Light, 
through effort and sacrifice, undaunted by failure, we are to work out 
the plan of the Logos, to realize creatively the ideal of our lives as it 
exists in the Mind of God. 

- Yet we must have the humility to remember that at first but one ray 
of the Logos shines into our hearts, a ray refracted and beclouded by 
our minds ; and that the same immemorial Light has illumined reverent 
hearts, in all lands, throughout all times. 

These illumined sages and saints have recorded their experience in 
seeking and following the Light, in the sacred books of all races, in every 
age. With this unity of spiritual experience in view, The Theosophical 
Society, in its second object, suggests the study of ancient and modern 
religions, philosophies and sciences, as a check on our own experience. 
To ignore this gathered wisdom, or to treat it superficially, would be 
the unpardonable folly of vanity, and could lead only to confusion. 

The scientist respects the stored experience, the careful experiments, 
of all his predecessors. The mystic, if he be a true mystic, reveres the 
experience of those who have gone before him, and seeks among the living 
for those whose experience is wider and deeper than his own. 

Therefore we study the records of all spiritual experience : the Bibles 
and prayer books and hymnals of all religions. We seek to supplement 
and correct our own experience by every available revelation of the Light. 

If we follow this course, with reverent seeking for the Light, and with 
heroic valour, two results would seem to follow. First, wholly occupied 
with the quest and the creative effort, we shall find our purpose and 
inspiration in these, and shall never fasten with hungry thoughts upon 
the result, the personal reward. This is the wise precept of the 
Bhagavad Gita (2, 47) : "Thy authority, thy right, is in the work, never 
in the fruits, the personal rewards." The motive of life will be pro- 
gressive illumination, the continuous exertion of creative will, in obedience 



36 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

to the inward light ; a ceaseless striving, through innumerable failures, to 
realize the splendid plan in the Mind of God. 

Besides this disinterested aspiration and sacrifice, as itself the pur- 
pose and the reward of life, there will be a second result, not less inevit- 
able. Each one of us, fighting our way forward along the path toward the 
Logos, will find no time to look backward at the debris of the task, the 
things already accomplished and done with. It will be even less possible 
for one to fasten hungry eyes on the results of another's work, the things 
which, even for him, already belong to the past. Anything, therefore, 
like envy, like covetousness, becomes wholly impossible to anyone fol- 
lowing this life of inspiration and effort, unless it be envy of the finer 
valour, the completer sacrifice of another. But envy in the common sense, 
the envy of another's possessions, is unthinkable. It can have no possible 
place in that benignant light. 

But, if envy of the possessions of another be impossible, since each 
is altogether bent on treading the path that leads to the celestial light, 
the fullest sympathy is not impossible. Comprehending love is, indeed, 
of the very essence of the undertaking, an inalienable element in the Great 
Adventure. 

Each one of us strives to follow the inward light, in the spirit of the 
Vedic prayer: "Let us fix our souls upon the excellent light of that 
divine Sun, and may it lead our souls forward." But, since these are rays 
of the same divine Sun, the Sun of wisdom, it is the one Sun that illu- 
mines us all. As we draw near to That, we draw nearer to each other, 
just as the spokes draw closer together when they approach the nave. 
The power to understand, the power to help, are, indeed, the fruits of 
that divine Light, coming as the reward of sacrifice and aspiration. 

We come thus to the essential Theosophical thought of co-operation 
in the search for spiritual light and life. Each of us has, perhaps, his 
unicoloured ray; only when united, can they form the white radiance of 
Eternity. Each has his own note, but harmony comes through the blend- 
ing of contrasted notes. So students of Theosophy work together, striving 
through aspiration and sacrifice to build the nucleus of the divine 
humanity. 

We have already drawn illustrations from East and West, from the 
Gospels and Greek philosophy and from the Indian books of wisdom. 
And necessarily so, since this teaching of the Logos is fundamental in all 
religions. We have found the ancient sage of China, nearly four thou- 
sand years ago, endeavouring to think in harmony with the Mind of 
God. And Tao, the fundamental principle of Lao Tse, some twenty-five 
centuries since, is so close to the same thought, that the great French 
Sinologue, Remusat, thought that Logos was the fittest word to 
translate it. And we are told by a recent student of the Tao Teh King, 
Dwight Goddard, that, when Christian scholars came to translate the 
Logos of Saint John, they were satisfied to use the word Tao. 

From China westward, we can trace the same great thought through 



THEOSOPHY A LECTURE 37 

India, where Vach and Viraj exactly indicate the Logos, and where 
Brahma-vidya anticipates Theosophia ; through Thoth or Tehuti in Egypt, 
the Divine Intelligence uttering the creative word; through the Logos 
from Heraclitus to Philo, from the Wisdom of Solomon (9, 12) : "O God 
of the fathers, and Lord of mercy, who hast made all things in thy 
Logos," to Saint John; literally from China to Peru and even farther 
west to Guatemala, finding the same concept in "the Creator and Former, 
the Mother and Father of life," in the aboriginal Popol Vuh. 

Theosophy, which rests on a thought fundamental in all religions, of 
necessity cannot be antagonistic to any religion. The Theosophical So- 
ciety is, in virtue of its very nature, the friend and ally of all religions, 
even of all Churches, each of which has its individual light. And it has 
been well and wisely said that the purpose of The Theosophical Society 
is, to convert each man to his own religion. 

A little while ago, we were considering a verse of the Bhagavad 
Gita: "Thy authority, thy right is in the work," the Sanskrit word 
for work being Karma. And this brings us to another fundamental idea. 

Perhaps we can best approach the consideration of Karma through a 
sentence in the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad : "As they said of old : Man 
verily is formed of desire; as his desire is, so is his will; as his will is, 
so he works ; and whatever work he does, in the likeness of it he grows." 
Even then, in that ancient Upanishad, it was a saying of far older days. 

Here again, the word is Karma ; and it is a fundamental thought in 
the wisdom of India, that a man's life is his own doing, his own work. 
He advances through effort and sacrifice toward the Logos. At each 
moment, he is at that point on the road to which his effort has carried 
him. His task is, to go forward on the road. The point of the road at 
which he finds himself is not so important; the vital thing is that he 
shall go forward. 

From this consideration of Karma it will follow once more that, to 
those who hold this view of life, envy or coveting is impossible; simply 
non-existent for that view of life. And, if this view were generally 
apprehended, all the ferment and revolutionary turmoil, the feverish 
social problem, as it is called, would cease to exist; it would be like a 
flurry of snow falling into a stream, "a moment white, then melts for 
ever." 

There is another simile of the same law which Prince Siddhartha, 
the Buddha, seems habitually to have used, the simile of sowing and 
reaping, the seed sown and the fruit gathered ; he who sows rice, reaps 
rice, and he who sows sesamum, reaps sesamum. This has its exact 
parallel in Saint Paul's autograph letter to the Galatians (6, 7) : "Be not 
deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
he also reap." 

And every gardener and farmer knows that as he sows, he reaps. 
Therefore he regards his own field, his own garden, and not another's. 
Here, once more, if we look at our lives in this light of sowing and 



38 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

reaping, a greedy envying of the fruits of another must melt away. Or, 
to return to the former simile, each of us, through effort and sacrifice, has 
reached a certain point on the path toward the Eternal; the vital thing 
is, to go forward, through effort and aspiration and sacrifice. 

And we shall do well to keep in mind that superb phrase of the 
Bhagavad Gita (3, 10) : "Putting forth beings united with sacrifice, the 
Lord of beings of old declared : By this, by sacrifice, ye shall increase 
and multiply." We are united with sacrifice, through the creative act 
of the Lord of beings, through the everlasting will and decree of the 
Logos, and we shall be wise to cleave in love to this companion of our 
journey. 

So we find this fundamental principle, the Logos, everywhere, in 
all religions. And students of Theosophy hold that all religions owe their 
very existence to the Logos; the great Master who is the founder and 
central figure of each religion, being clothed with the Logos, an Avatar, 
a plenary Incarnation of the Mind of God. 

At this point, we may, perhaps, draw a contrast between the mood 
of the East and the mood of the West : The East, more contemplative, 
approaches life on the side of intelligence, seeking to penetrate and com- 
prehend the great Mystery, desiring illumination and the clear vision 
of the Everlasting. The West, more active, full of energy and force, 
and very often carried away and overwhelmed by its own energy ; so that 
the streets of a great city like New York are turbulent torrents of energy, 
furiously rushing this way and that, with very little wisdom, very little 
illuminated insight into the path that is being travelled ; hardly a thought 
of the inward light flowing down from the Logos, ready to lead us along 
the everlasting ways. 

One can find the same contrast in the Eastern and Western religions 
of today. The Eastern teachers, as the outer world knows them, and as 
they are known to some degree even in the West, resting in a refined 
understanding of intellectual problems, diligently analyzing the Mind of 
God. And, on the other hand, we have so many Western churches busy 
about many things, the so-called institutional churches, full of energies 
and activities, but hardly considering the Mind of God which, if sought 
after, may shed light on each of these things, revealing its enduring value, 
its part and purpose in the immortal work. 

Here, Theosophy can render a service to each, giving the East a 
deeper comprehension of the Mind of God, as to be not alone understood, 
but also to be continually realized through effort and sacrifice ; and help- 
ing the West to dwell more in the light of the Logos, which lighteth every 
man that cometh into the world, pouring its benign radiance on each task 
and problem as they arise, and guiding us with ever growing brightness 
into the ways of the Everlasting. So does Theosophy supplement and 
complete, lending its inspiration to all. 

But we have seen that the second Object of The Theosophical So- 
ciety indicates that we must study not only religion, but philosophy and 



THEOSOPHY A LECTURE 



39 



science also. And students of Theosophy, obeying the high device of 
The Theosophical Society: "There is no religion higher than Truth," 
do, in fact, ardently pursue the study of both philosophy and science ; of 
science, not only for the truths which it directly gives, its many insights 
into the working methods of the creative Logos, but also because science 
profoundly colours philosophy, and plays a vital part in forming our 
conceptions of human life, and of all life. 

We can see this at once in Darwinism. Primarily concerned with the 
problems of biology, with the life and growth of plants and animals, the 
Darwinian theory of evolution at the same time profoundly affected the 
philosophy of the time, strongly colouring the general conception of life. 
And it affected philosophy both in a favourable and in an unfavourable 
way. The unfavourable way was well characterized by John Burroughs, 
in one of his last writings, in which he undertook to show that the brutal 
and destructive mind of Germany was inspired and moulded by Darwin's 
doctrine of the struggle for life and the survival of those who succeeded 
in that struggle. 

But the teaching of Evolution bore another and a better fruit. It 
directly affected religious thought. Darwin taught the age-long evolution 
of bodies. With and from this came the cognate thought, the infinite 
development of the soul. In a sense, Darwin's thought liberated the soul 
from the bonds of a static salvation, bidding it go forward to a never 
ending, ever growing splendour of perfection. 

If we take a wide view of the progress of scientific thought, covering 
a period of several centuries, we shall be inclined to call the nineteenth 
century the century of Darwin. And we shall find that, about the year 
1900, another note began to dominate ; no longer that of biology, but that 
of physics and chemistry blending into one ; not concerned primarily with 
the problem of living organisms, but concerned rather with the ultimate 
constitution of matter, the final substance of the external world. 

In the twenty years which have elapsed, marked and indeed marvel- 
lous results have been reached, which have a peculiar interest for students 
of Theosophy, since they closely approach the views that are character- 
istic of students of Theosophy. 

Briefly, the result is, the dynamic conception of the universe. Matter 
is no longer thought of as solid and inert; the atom has lost its unity, 
and is seen as a highly complex body, comparable in its degree to a plane- 
tary or solar system, and made up of units of positive and negative elec- 
tricity ; minute but intensely potent particles of energy. A seeming solid 
substance is held to be a system of these electrically built atoms ceaselessly 
vibrating with inconceivable swiftness. 

The whole universe, therefore, and every particle of matter in it, is 
formed of these intensely vibrating systems of energy. Matter, in the 
old sense, has simply ceased to exist. 

Philosophically, this dynamic view of the universe has already found 
expression in the writings of Henri Bergson, beginning about the year 



40 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

1900, and especially in Creative Evolution, which is the goal and summary 
of all his books. 

Bergson speaks of the "elan vital," the vital drive, to be recognized 
in all life about us, and to be identified in the creative will and conscious- 
ness within us. And he well describes this power as creating, both without 
and within us, something perpetually new ; developing a series of forms, 
whether of art or nature, each of which might, in the retrospect, be seen 
to be the outcome of what went before, but no one of which could be 
foretold, by any mental process, before it has actually come into being; 
just as, from a contemplation of their supposed anthropoid forefather, 
no one could have prophesied Phidias and Plato. 

Bergson sees this vital drive, both within and without us, as of the 
essence of Life, of creative consciousnes and will ; and, while he himself 
has not pushed this splendid thought to its spiritual conclusions, as Darwin 
did not push the thought of evolution to its spiritual conclusions, it will 
well repay us to try to do this. 

For we shall see, in this drive of creative will and consciousness 
within us, exactly the power and light of the Logos, which we found to 
be a fundamental thought of all religions. And we shall recognize in the 
perpetually renewed creation of the vital drive within our consciousness 
and will, that ceaseless spiritual renewal, through effort and sacrifice, the 
very treading of the path toward the Logos, the immemorial way of the 
Eternal. 

Here, once more, we can make directly practical application. We 
shall understand life, the life of each of us, to have its very essence in 
this ceaseless spiritual creation, through effort and sacrifice, the sacrifice 
of the worse to the better, the sacrifice of the lower to the higher; the 
effort, at each moment, to catch the light of the Logos, and, in each element 
of our task, to carry out the plan and will of the Logos. Our life, like 
the universe, will be throughout dynamic. 

And we shall at once perceive a conclusion that flows from this, a 
conclusion of most practical force. We shall understand the falsity, the 
illusion, of looking for rest, in the sense of something stationary and 
stagnant, as the end and the reward of our work. There is no place 
for the rest of stagnation in a dynamic universe; even a stone is, as to 
its atoms, in intense, ceaseless vibration. Much more, there is no place 
for the rest of stagnation in spiritual life, life in a spiritually dynamic 
universe. 

We may as well face this at the outset, and make it the set attitude 
of our minds and hearts. Our destiny is, ceaseless creative effort and 
sacrifice, which will be steadily intensified as we draw nearer to the 
Logos, on our ancient, predestined way. 

Rest will come, it is true ; but it will come, not through a stationary 
condition of stagnation. Rest will come through the perfecting of our 
creative effort and sacrifice, through the complete harmonizing of our 
wills and of our hearts with the creative will and heart of the Logos, 



THEOSOPHY A LECTURE 41 

which the Popol Vuh so well calls the Formative Power, the Engenderer. 
That will be the rest of perfect activity; the peace of intensely active 
creative motion ; the unconsciousness, if you will, of a consciousness 
absolutely at one with the Divine Consciousness. 

To reach this view and ideal of life, to begin to put it into effect, we 
shall need something like a reversal of polarity. We shall have to turn 
our eyes resolutely from what has been accomplished, from anything like 
the idea of harvested rewards ; we shall have to fix our vision and our will 
on what lies before us to be done, pressing toward that mark by an intense 
effort ; with complete sacrifice leaving that which is behind ; looking to the 
light, following the gleam. 

We have an illustration ready to hand, in THE THEOSOPHICAL QUAR- 
TERLY, which gathers up one part of the work of students of Theosophy. 
The April number has recently been distributed. But we are no longer 
concerned with the April number; we are busily engaged upon the July 
number. As soon as that is printed, we shall begin upon the October 
number, each representing new creative effort ; an embodiment, so far as 
we are able, of new light and power. 

THE THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY does not live, and could not live, in 
its back numbers, in what has already been done. Nor can any periodical. 
A magazine that attempted to live on its back numbers would not live 
at all. It would be already dead. 

So we may apply our simple parable. We too must courageously 
put behind us the desire to live in our back numbers, in what we have 
already accomplished, the heaped up results of our preceding work. We 
may be buried in these things; we cannot live in them. 

Therefore let us valiantly grasp the principle that our effort and our 
sacrifice are to be endless, everlasting as the creative will of the Eternal. 
Let us fix our eyes, not on a haven of rest and cessation, but on the 
full flood tide of creative will, which shall find its one and only rest in 
more perfect effort and sacrifice; in effort and sacrifice completely one 
with the divine effort, the ever renewed sacrifice of the Logos, the cease- 
lessly creative Mind of God. 

Philosophers of old sought curiously for perpetual motion. We have 
come to see that all motion is perpetual ; that the true wonder would be, 
to find, anywhere in the wide universe, motion that is not perpetual. It is 
time to recognize the same truth within us ; to make up our minds to the 
perpetual motion of spiritual life. This resolute looking forward and 
striving forward, this reversal of polarity, is one way of understanding 
repentance, conversion, the Greek "metanoia," the transformation of the 
heart and will into likeness with the will and heart of the Logos. 

So we come to sum up our conclusions : The Theosophical Society, 
with its three Objects; the first, finding in the Oversoul, the Logos, the 
binding force of human life and the nucleus of divine humanity, seeing 
the Light of the Logos in human consciousness, which steadily tends to 
become spiritual consciousness ; the second Object, to seek for that Light 



42 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

in all religions and philosophies, seeing in them the recorded experience, 
as a check on our own, of those who have sought and obeyed the Light ; 
recognizing, too, that all true science comes by inspiration, revealing the 
working methods of the Logos ; the third Object, with its promise of the 
spiritual unfolding that comes by following the Light. 

So in Theosophy, Divine Wisdom penetrating the soul, and applied 
to the conduct of life, we see an inspiration for every one, the best ally 
and friend of religion and of all religions, the completing element of every 
science, the power destined to still all social turmoil, driving out envy 
through aspiration and love. 

Finally, the practical bearing on the life of each one of us : illumined 
by that benignant Light, our life becomes the Great Adventure. The 
Great Adventure and something more. For all the delight of the finest 
artistic creation, the best embodiment of beauty; the high ecstasy of the 
scientific search for truth; best of all, the passionate love and adoration 
of the Highest, which has enkindled all human love; these shall be our 
heritage as we rise toward the Living Divinity. 



Count each affliction, whether light or grave, God's messenger sent 
down to thee. Do thou with courtesy receive him. ENGLISH MESSENGER. 



You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that 
stand out above everything else are the moments when you have done 
things in a spirit of love. HENRY DRUM MONO. 



FORCE AND CAUSE 



PHYSICS, the science of materialized phenomena, has become the 
least materialistic of our sciences. The atom, once so hard and 
compact, is now an unstable aggregate of "electrons". And the 
electrons are mere waves, "strains", "swirls" of Ether. Ether 
be it understood is not matter, not physical matter, at least, but the zone 
where the attractions and repulsions of forces set the electrons in motion. 
It is the medium in which force can act. 

So far have the physicists come. They have risen from the many 
to the one, from the phenomenal to the noumenal, from the gross to the 
subtle. But they have hesitated, as if in fear of the consequences of their 
thought. They were forced to leave behind them a solid-seeming sub- 
stance, but this new substance of their discovery, the Ether, is so rarified, 
so undefmable, so full of unknown potencies. It contains matter within 
Itself, but It is not matter. What is It? 

There is a suggestive statement in the Secret Doctrine (Vol. I, 
p. 493) : "The Occultist sees in the manifestation of every force in 
Nature, the action of the quality or the special characteristic of its nou- 
menon, which noumenon is a distinct and intelligent Individuality on the 
other side of the manifested universe." 

If the Physicist turned his contemplation inward, he would find the 
key to what he seeks. For, in his consciousness, he would find the 
microcosmic correspondence of the Cosmic Ether, whose outer robe he 
has barely touched. 

It is significant that the first signs of this inward research in the 
laboratory comes from France. M. Frederic Houssay, Dean of the Fac- 
ulty of Sciences of Paris, has published a little book, Force et Cause? 
which must chill the marrow of old-fashioned agnostics, if there be any 
left. 

M. Houssay 's theorem is that the concept of force is more intelligible 
than that of matter, as the active cause of phenomena. It is more intel- 
ligible, because it is more akin to the domain of consciousness, which we 
know by immediate experience. He proceeds to correlate force and con- 
sciousness. He concludes that a Cosmic Consciousness produces and 
directs all the forces, which mould the worlds. 

M. Houssay is an excellent metaphysician, but the peculiar value of 
his work consists in its rapprochement between intuition and the labora- 
tory. M. Bergson has accustomed us to the constant testing of meta- 
physical intuition by physical experiment. He is a philosopher seeking 

1 Force et Cause, by Frederic Houssay, Bibliotheque de Philosophic scientifique; Ernest 
Flammarion, Editor, Paris, 1920. 

43 



44 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

support from science. M. Houssay belongs to the rarer species of the 
scientist seeking support from philosophy. 

As the basis of his inquiry he asks how we can represent to our- 
selves a Cosmic Consciousness, which generates Force. 

"If we may succeed in conceiving, if not yet in proving precisely, the 
creation of matter and the appearance of life by the single action of a 
directed force, we shall still be faced by these two terms, directed force 
and mind (pensee). Or are they reducible to a single term? 

"In an irreversible fashion, yes; that is to say, in one sense and not 
in the other. One can easily conceive mind as capable of directing a force 
and even of producing it. The inverse is not conceivable at all. 

"For us, however, who do not make an interior examination but 
who look about us, mind manifests itself in phenomena only at the end 
of terrestrial history. It is an end. It is very evident in man, rudimentary 
in certain animals, mammals, birds, a few insects. 

"It is certainly not this recent (manifestation of) consciousness, 
which is justly called epiphenomenal, that has been able to direct and 
produce the force, which caused all the phenomena anterior to the mani- 
festation. It is necessary ... to admit a primordial mind, which is 
above space and time, which is the only cause of force and of all things, 
and of which the last work is a return to itself, a return whose stages 
we mark in the rudimentary animal mind, and finally in the higher and 
larger human mind, weak, indeed, in creative power, but capable of dis- 
covering the creative process. . . . If we return to the rigorous deter- 
minism of phenomena, which has banished chance and inconsequence, this 
Mind appears to us as Intellect and Will" (pp. 141-142). 

M. Houssay insists upon the need of regarding the Cosmic Mind as 
impersonal. We may deify It, if we will, but we must not endow It 
lightly with our desires and prejudices. Because a certain end seems 
desirable or useful to the human mind at present, it does not thereby 
represent the real purpose of the Divine Mind. In order to learn that 
purpose, we must study and reflect upon experience carefully and slowly, 
having faith in the "rigorous determinism" underlying all that happens 
to us, for what is the external order of events, if not the projection of 
the Universal Will? Above all, we must not generalize prematurely, 
we must not assume that we know even a little more than we do. The 
old Judaized theology was one such premature generalization, and Dar- 
winism is another, with its loose talk of chance variations and selection 
mere words, nomina non res, which represent a modern form of a very 
old illusion, that a word can signify the infinite. 

Therefore, M. Houssay draws no conclusions as to what must be the 
exact nature of Cosmic Thought, nor does he ask why it operates accord- 
ing to Its chosen way, and not otherwise. He accepts Its reality, because 
Its reality makes the world more intelligible and explains certain funda- 
mental facts, and he considers, in the light of this attitude, a series of 
factors, ranging from physics to sociology. 



FORCE AND CAUSE 45 

First, he examines the "ultimate particle" of physics, the atom, that 
thing which is half-phenomenon and half-hypothesis. The atom has 
become exceedingly diaphanous, but it has been hard to give up all idea 
of its materiality. 

"In order not to discard altogether the old notion of matter solid by 
essence and not by existence or by result, physicists admit still in the midst 
of zones of force or of spheres of protection, a point infinitely small, on 
which is fixed all the mass of the atom. This point, the veritable centre 
of the figure, this geometrical entity appears to me altogether superfluous. 
. . . But although I have no difficulty, I ask myself whether it will be 
easy for everyone to imagine pure force and movement without a thing 
which moves. It is, however, a simple result of abstraction operating 
upon an image accessible to all, by removing progressively all that is 
variable, the medium which is unimportant, the particular thing which 
is moving, which is no more important; and by conserving that which is 
constant in the vortex : a force . . . and a form, we must add that" 
(pp. 101-102). 

The atom is to be regarded as a swirl, an elementary whirling motion 
(tourbillon) . 2 But it has a form, because its force decreases as it spirals 
away from the centre, so that the mind draws an arbitrary barrier across 
its lines of force, and designates as the atom only that force which is 
contained within the barrier. None the less, though this representation 
of the atom as a hardened and separate entity is an illusion admitted 
even by physicists, yet it is in a measure justified, since the One Motion 
appears when manifested as if broken up into an infinite number of force- 
centres. Therefore, every atom is to be regarded as an aspect of Uni- 
versal Nature, as a basis of individuality. M. Houssay says profoundly 
that "if phenomena are given as discontinuous, that is to say, as numer- 
ical, it is the most profound, the most penetrating, the most decisive 
legitimization of the scientific method, an Ultra-Pythagorean justification 
of the value of Number" (p. 102). 

The material world is, thus, the result of a struggle for individuality. 
The atoms war upon one another, capture one another, are held in 
systems, which in turn war upon other systems. The force contained in 
these systems is recognized by us as mass, hardness, cohesion, weight, 
inertia, all the phenomenal complex which is included in our concept of 
matter. 

But matter is constructed at a frightful cost. The force which is 
free in the primordial atom is chained, when that atom becomes involved 
with another. And the force becomes the feebler, the more complex the 
system of which it forms a part. The force, indeed, must remain con- 
stant at the centre of the atom, must be ever renewed there. But it loses 
its freedom of action, when it is in contact with other force-centres, 



2 According to one modern theory, an atom is to be compared to a tiny solar system, with a 
positive electron in the centre and one or more negative electrons revolving around this centre. 



46 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

because it must expend so much "work" in the struggle to capture the 
others or to escape from them. 

Physicists, glimpsing this cosmic shambles of forces, have ventured 
to describe it as the expression of a universal law of the degradation 
of all energies. This law states that all the differing motions of the 
universe tend to resolve themselves into one type of motion, that the 
universe is "running down" and will some day be all reduced to the 
state of molecular heat, all the infinite hosts of atoms being brought into 
absolute bondage to one another. This imago mundi would have a 
certain sombre poetry, if it did not suggest too closely certain modern 
ideals of democracy! Something tells us that the Universe is not made 
like that. 

M. Houssay accepts the evidence for the degradation of energy, 
but he asks whether there is any evidence for the reverse process of a 
rehabilitation of energy. "The order of the various aspects under 
which physical energy manifests itself is not arbitrary, but proceeds 
from superior to inferior forms. ... A superior energy, mechanical 
energy, for example, can be integrally transformed into another, the 
energy of heat. The inverse transformation, that of heat into mechanical 
work, is difficult and incomplete. It is difficult, because it involves a 
fall of temperature from a warm body to a cold body, from the boiler 
to the condenser; without this rigorous condition there can be no steam 
engine. It is incomplete because in practice 10 per cent or 15 per cent only 
of caloric energy is transformed into mechanical work, the remainder 
being lost in reheating the condenser. . . . There is not complete 
reversibility; there are superior and degraded forms of energy. These 
latter, returning to the former, effect a rehabilitation of energy "and, 
in the physical world, this rehabilitation is hard and always accompanied 
by a larger loss of dissipated energy" (p. 147). 

But "in this prodigious destruction, in this terrible return to nothing- 
ness, life seems to me an arrest, partial, indeed, for it includes manifest 
degradations", but an arrest just the same and more than that, "for it 
is a rehabilitation of energy, transforming chemical into mechanical 
energy, without an interposed fall of temperature, permitting even the 
appearance of new energies, which the inanimate world ignores and 
which are manifestly superior forms, I mean, the psychic energies" 
(p. 148). 

The individual creature may exhibit in its death all the signs of 
dissipating energy, but in the resurgent life of its offspring, above all 
in the immortality and growth of the species, we are face to face with 
a process only faintly suggested in the inorganic world, the process 
whereby the world stops "running down" and starts "winding up". One 
recalls certain occult references to the great turning point of evolution 
in the mineral kingdom. M. Houssay is, I think, the first scientist to 
develop those occult suggestions into an experimental theory. If he 



FORCE AND CAUSE 47 

found the suggestions by intuition rather than by reading, all the more 
is his work a sign of the times. 

He would have us think of the forms and structures of living things 
as consequences and not as causes of Life. In other words, Life, Con- 
sciousness, Mind call It what we will uses form, structure, body, in 
order to draw back into Itself the force which It emanated from Its 
own Nature in the beginning. Perhaps, one should apologize to M. 
Houssay for using a Neoplatonic idiom to paraphrase his thought, for 
he claims a hearing as physicist, not as mystic. But he is partly to be 
blamed for our boldness, since he uses almost the same idiom himself. 

But, to return to the laboratory M. Houssay asks what is it that 
separates organic behaviour from inorganic, what is it that makes us 
distinguish between an Amoeba and an atom of nitrogen. There is no 
question yet of consciousness. Doubtless, the Amoeba is more sentient 
than the nitrogen, but both of them are so remote from us that the term, 
consciousness, applied to either, is equally unintelligible. It is a question 
of objective modes of behaviour, to be registered and compared by 
laboratory methods. 

"Since the superior form of energy, in the scientific domain, is 
mechanical energy, the most beautiful example of the rehabilitation of 
energy by Life would certainly be that which would show how living 
beings have become more and more capable of producing that form of 
energy, in appearance, spontaneously, but in reality because they have 
become veritable accumulators of it" (p. 160). 

The lowliest organism is distinguished from its mineral environ- 
ment by the steady conversion of chemical into mechanical energy, so 
that it transforms more energy than can immediately be used, and stores 
it up for future use. Perhaps, here is one clue to one of the mysteries 
of form<. The form of the organism, which appears to us as stuff or 
matter, is in reality a representation of potential mechanical energy or 
as M. Houssay expresses it "an incarnation of mechanical energy." 

"All the forms, whose successive progression we can follow, all 
these structures are the result of successive modellings undergone through 
the ages under the influence of all the activities of the world, so that 
the forces which appear to emanate from the living creature are only 
the exodus of forces formerly introduced, accumulated and reserved" 
(p. 175). 

"Chemical energy, actually elaborated by the creature from food, 
is transformed into mechanical energy in the muscular fibre itself by 
reason of the fibre's structure. . . . This last structure is the result 
of accumulated mechanical energy, reserved under the form of elastic 
energy" (p. 169). Herein is expressed the mystery of the adaptation 
of the living structure to its environment. A creature has evolved a 
particular structure, because that structure is an accumulation of mechani- 
cal energy, which is changed from potential to kinetic in a way best 



48 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

calculated to meet the resistance of a particular environment. The body 
of a fish is adapted to water, as the body of a bird is adapted to air. 

The organism as individual must spend more than it can collect, 
must lose the property of motion and die. But the essence of organic 
life is transmitted to the offspring, that essence which is the increasing 
power of accumulating energy. Thus each succeeding generation may 
start with a greater power than its predecessor. There are failures, of 
course both for individuals and species, for power increases by use; 
if it be not used, there will be degeneration. Life must lift force from 
a state of inertia, and in so doing must Itself assume a physical nature. 
The physical nature tends to draw force down, even while Life tends 
to pull it up. 3 This physical tendency seems to have objective expres- 
sion in the hardening and separating of the tissues. M. Houssay calls 
bone an internal excretion, a sediment of inertia which the organism 
cannot throw off. The process of hardening or ankylosis terminates 
in physical death. Perhaps, we have here one explanation of the necessity 
of cycles. In order to conquer brute matter, Life must "fall into gener- 
ation," that is, must cast aside old forms and ever make for Itself new. 
It must use a succession of vehicles. 

In the plant, the major effort of Life seems to be directed towards 
the accumulation of higher forms of chemical energy. The animal, 
assimilating the energy stored in the plant, converts it into mechanical 
energy, to be released at once or stored in elastic muscles, ready to act 
when an outer stimulus is conveyed to them through the nerves. 

But in the higher animals the nerves also convey an inner stimulus. 
The inner stimulus is not a physico-chemical nexus ; it is something which 
is known directly as consciousness. It controls and dominates ever more 
effectively the automatic responses of the animal to external physico- 
chemical attractions and repulsions. In man the seat of consciousness 
becomes the centre of all his forces, the part of his nature to which all 
else tends to be subordinated. It is manifested as intelligence, imagina- 
tion, desire, emotion, will, the faculty of choice. Man has ceased to be 
merely an accumulator of physical energies. He is even in his lowest 
types a psyche, a living soul. 

Whence comes psychic energy? How does the inner stimulus 
awaken ? 

By the power of Life, it is said; by a continuation of the process 
of rehabilitating energy, which had already been effective in transmuting 
food into movement. At this point, appears another of M. Houssay's 
penetrating intuitions. He thinks of the lower physical energies as 
being somehow derived from a prior psychic energy. Our individual 
selves illustrate this principle. We imagine and will an action, and the 
action follows; imagination and will have generated mechanical energy. 

'This struggle of life with matter, in its physical aspects, seems to be expressed by the 
Sanskrit term, Nitya Pralaya, defined in^the Theosophical Glossary as "a stage of chronic change 
and dissolution, the stages of growth and decay." 



FORCE AND CAUSE 49 

So, the Anima Mundi, the World-Soul, creates the visible universe, by 
the power of Its Imagination and Will. Psychic energy, existing prior 
to other energies, is, indeed, unknown to modern science, but the 
alchemists have used its potencies. 

M. Houssay has perhaps surmised the existence of the skandhas, 
of the "elementals" which make manifestation necessary. "Mens agitat 
molem, said the ancient dualism, and we say today that matter is energy ; 
it is energy alone which, in its mutations, transforms that which our 
senses term matter. . . . The psychic energy, from which all could 
descend . . . would be thus nearer to the origin than other types 
of energy physically known. It would be also nearer to the end, since 
upon the earth at least, it is the last to manifest itself phenomenally" 
(p. 186). 

As the lower animals restore and accumulate mechanical energy, 
the higher restore and accumulate psychic energy. The process of 
rehabilitation is carried a step further. 

But rehabilitation is not thereby completed. Human consciousness 
is a phenomenon of marvellous spontaneity and power, but still it is 
only phenomenon, an appearance, a reflection of Real Consciousness. 
It is the Real, not its reflection, that all creation seeks as the Supreme 
Good. 

"The study of things shows goodness (bonte) emerging from the 
confusion of struggles and immolations, as clearly as it shows intelli- 
gence flashing and leaping from automatic matter" (p. 225). But what 
is goodness ? It is easy to say that it is the sign of a union of noumenon 
and phenomenon, that it is the Real Itself incarnating in a form and not 
merely Its reflection. But what must be some qualities of the Real, 
when thus incarnated? 

"The man the most social, the most representative of the new estate, 
the ideal if one will is he who thinks the most of others and the least 
of himself" (p. 223). The appearance of separateness or individuality, 
impressed upon evolving things from the elemental force-centres to man, 
passes away, and, in its stead, arises the realization that "The All is 
One," that the highest principle of all creatures is one and the same. 
The Good reveals itself in man as the breaking down of egoism. Where- 
ever is self-giving, the sacrifice of personal desire, there is the Good. 
When self-giving has become absolute, inevitable, then, truly, "a pilgrim 
hath returned back from the other shore." 

Thus M. Houssay concludes his argument : 'The arrival of life in 
the Good and in Intelligence can be conceived truly only as a return, 
a rehabilitation of energy, a last reflection of the First Cause, which has 
emerged from continuous degradation. It is less a progress than a 
salvation (sauvetage), if these words so brutal and precise can be thus 
employed." Before Abraham was, I am. 

STANLEY V. LADow. 



TAO-TEH-KING 



AN INTERPRETATION OF LAO TSE'S BOOK OF THE WAY AND OF 
RIGHTEOUSNESS 

II 

11. Thirty spokes unite in the nave. The use of the car depends 
on the empty space for the axle. 

Clay is fashioned into vessels. The use of the vessels depends on 
the empty space within. 

Doors and windows are framed in making a house. The use of the 
house depends on their empty spaces. 

Therefore utility depends on what is manifest, but the use of a thing 
depends on what is unmanifest. 

THE point which Lao Tse wishes to make appears to be that, 
while the material universe presents itself to our senses as stable 
and solid, its whole life depends upon immanent Spirit, the 
Logos, the vital stream which he calls the Way, and which in 
itself is not manifest to the senses. 

The same general thought is expressed by Paul, following Philo and 
Plato : "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eter- 
nal power and Godhead." 

To put the same thought in a more modern way : Matter is useful 
because of the force which is manifested through it, and force is useful 
because of the yet more unmanifest Spirit which inwardly guides it. 

But Lao Tse has in mind also a direct application to conduct : The 
heart must be made empty of desires, in order that the Spirit of the Way 
may enter and possess it. Then only the life comes to its true use. 

12. The five colours blind the eyes of men. 
The five tones deafen the ears of men. 
The five tastes deceive the mouths of men. 

Impetuous motion, the passion of pursuit, madden the hearts of men. 
The desire of possessions goads men to injurious acts. 
Therefore the holy man is concerned with what is within, and not 
with the desire of the eyes. 

Therefore he renounces what is without and cleaves to what is within. 

The five colours, as enumerated by the Chinese commentator, are: 
red, blue, yellow, white and black. To the five notes of the scale, Chinese 
names are given. The five tastes are : sweet, sharp, acid, salt and bitter. 

Lao Tse is preaching a little sermon, not so much on the illusions 
of the five senses, as on fascination through the five senses. Perhaps 

50 



TAO-TEH-KING 51 

the quaintest of all the sermons on this theme is found in one of the 
tracts attributed to Shankaracharya : "Beguiled by the five senses, five 
creatures meet with death, the deer, elephant, moth, fish and bee." The 
deer is lured by music; the elephant is killed while ecstatically rubbing 
his head against a tree ; the moth drawn to the flame is a universal simile ; 
the fish is lured by the bait ; the bee, attracted by the scent of the flower, 
is eaten by birds. The Sanskrit text draws the moral : "What, then, of 
man, allured by all the senses at once?" 

The truth, in the larger philosophical sense, would seem to be that 
the outward-looking senses had their part in guiding us into manifested 
life. But the tide has turned; we should be on our homeward way. 
Therefore we must turn back, and look within. There we shall find 
the Way, leading us homeward. 

13. The wise man shuns fame equally with infamy. His body weighs 
him down like a great misfortune. 

What mean the words: He shuns fame equally with infamy? 

There is something base in fame. To have it, is to be full of appre- 
hension; to lose it, is to be full of apprehension. 

Therefore it is said: He shuns fame equally with infamy. 

W hat mean the words: His body weighs him down like a great mis- 
fortune? 

If we suffer great misfortunes, it is because we have bodies. 

When we no longer have bodies, what misfortunes can we suffer? 

Therefore, when a man shrinks from governing the kingdom, he may 
be trusted to govern the kingdom; when he is unwilling to govern the 
kingdom, he is fit to govern the kingdom. 

Here again, the lesson is detachment. Attachment to the body, a 
perpetual gratification of the appetites of the body, causes most of the 
maladies of the body. But the body used as the soul's instrument, not 
pampered and indulged, is full of vigour. 

So the vanity which seeks fame and popular renown renders a man 
vulnerable to every breath of popular displeasure, so that there are no 
such cowards as politicians. He who is quite indifferent to fame will 
dare all things. 

The kingdom, as before, means both the earthly and the mystical 
kingdom. The safe ruler is he who has freed himself from the slavery 
of ambitious vanity. He who has trampled self under foot, is ready to 
be entrusted with the task of governing himself. 

The same truth is taught in Light on the Path: That power which 
the disciple shall covet is that which shall make him appear as nothing 
in the eyes of men. 

14. You seek the Way, but see it not: it is called colourless. 
You listen, but hear it not: it is called soundless. 

You would grasp it, but cannot touch it: it is called bodiless. 



52 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

These three qualities cannot be expressed in words. Therefore they 
are taken together, and it is called the One. 

Its higher part is not manifest; its lower part is not hidden. 

It is eternal and cannot be named. 

It returns to the unmanifested. 

It is called the formless form, the imageless image. 

It is called the undefined, the undetermined. 

Who meets it, sees not its face; who follows it, sees not its back. 

By discerning the immemorial Way, the things of to-day may be 
governed. 

He who understands what was in the beginning, is said to hold the 
clue of the Way. 

Light on the Path again furnishes the best comment : Seek out the 
way. . . . Hold fast to that which has neither substance nor exist- 
ence. Listen only to the voice which is soundless. Look only on that 
which is invisible alike to the inner and the outer sense. 

The higher part of the Way is not yet manifest to us. The small, 
old path which the seers tread, stretches far away. But its lower part 
is not hidden. Each one of us, every human being without exception, 
is even now standing on the road; is at a point from which, if he gives 
his heart to it, he can go forward on the path of the seers. The duty 
nearest to hand is the golden opportunity; if rightly done, for the sake 
of the Way, he has already begun to go forward on the Way. There- 
fore its lower part is not hidden. Following that Way, the soul returns 
to the home from which it set out so long ago. What was in the begin- 
ning, is the soul. He who begins to obey the soul, holds the clue that 
will guide him on the Way. 

The formless form, the imageless image, indicate the Way, the 
Logos, as the Creative Power; storehouse of the prototypes, the ideas, 
in Plato's sense, of all forms and images to be created. We may get 
an apt illustration in the germ plasm before embryonic development 
begins : no form is visible, yet the form is there ; no image can be per- 
ceived, yet the image will in due time completely manifest itself. Paul's 
sentence, already quoted, expresses exactly the same truth. 

15. Those of old, the Masters of the Way, were detached and subtle. 

So deep were they, that men knew them not. 

Since they could not be observed, I shall endeavour to indicate what 
they were. 

They were circumspect as he who crosses a torrent in winter 

They were alert as he who fears those about him. 

They were reserved as a guest. 

They were self-effacing as melting ice. 

They were natural as uncarved wood. 

They were lowly as a valley. 

They were impenetrable as troubled water. 



TAO-TEH-KING 53 

Who can make the troubled clear? By stillness it will become clear. 
Who can bring life to birthf In quietude it will come to birth. 
Who follows the Way seeks not to be overfilled. 
Since he is not full of self, he recognises his faults and seeks not 
to be judged perfect. 

Perhaps the quaintest expression of the seclusion of the Masters 
of wisdom is that in the Bhagavad Gita (7, 19) : "At the end of many 
births, the possessor of wisdom comes to Me, perceiving that the Logos 
is the All; such a one of mighty soul (Mahatma) is very hard to find." 

The same truth is set forth, with the reason for it, in Light on the 
Path: "There are certain spots on the earth where the advance of 
'civilization' is unfelt, and the nineteenth century fever is kept at bay. 
In these favored places there is always time, always opportunity, for 
the realities of life; they are not crowded out by the doings of an 
inchoate, money-loving, pleasure-seeking society. While there are adepts 
upon the earth, the earth must preserve to them places of seclusion. 
This is a fact in nature which is only an expression of a profound fact 
in super-nature. . . . The same state exists in the super-astral life; 
and the adept has an even deeper and more profound seclusion there in 
which to dwell. . . . He is, in his own person, a treasure of the 
universal nature, which is guarded and made safe in order that the 
fruition shall be perfected." 

Therefore the Masters of the Way are so deep that men know them 
not. They are lowly as the valley. Therefore one of them has said : 
"I am the Way. ... I am meek and lowly in heart." 

But, though hidden, the Masters of the Way may be found; once 
more to quote the Bhagavad Gita: "Sounding the syllable Om, for the 
Eternal, with heart set upon Me, who goes forth thus, putting off the 
body, he enters on the highest Way. He who ever rests his heart on 
Me, with no other thought, for him I am easy to find" (8, 14.). 

And once again, Light on the Path: "For those who are strong 
enough to conquer the vices of the personal human nature, the adept is 
consciously at hand, easily recognized, ready to answer." 

So Lao Tse says that the Masters of the Way are impenetrable 
as troubled water. Who can make the troubled clear? By stillness it 
will become clear. Who can bring life to birth? In quietude it will 
come to birth. This again is exactly the thought of the Bhagavad Gita : 
"Where thought enters the silence, stilled by the practice of union, there, 
verily, through the soul beholding the Soul, he finds joy in the Soul" 
(6, 20.). Lao Tse continues to develop the same thought. 

16. Seek emptiness of self. Seek stillness. 

All things manifest themselves and then return. 

When the plant has blossomed, it returns to the root. 

The return to the root is called stillness. 

That stillness may be called a reporting that it has fulfilled its task. 



54 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

This reporting of fulfilment is the immemorial rule. To know the 
immemorial rule, is to be wise. 

To ignore it, leads to impetuous and evil motions. 

To know the immemorial rule, brings poiver and forbearance. 

Power and forbearance bring compassion. 

Compassion brings a kingly heart. 

He who is kinglike, grows heavenlike. 

Through likeness to Heaven, he possesses the Way. 

Possessing the Way, he is eternal; his poiver s will never fail. 

In the autumn, the rose loses blossoms and leaves. The life-power 
withdraws to the root, and the plant becomes dormant, as it was in the 
early spring. But the summer's growth has added to the rose, a new 
store is gathered in. 

So is it with the soul. Coming forth from the Eternal, it turns 
again and takes the Way homeward to the Eternal, enriched by the 
harvest of life; thereby enriching the Eternal. 

Katha Upanishad puts this well : "The Self-Being pierced the open- 
ings outward ; hence one looks outward, not within himself. A wise 
man looked toward the Self with reverted sight, seeking immortality/' 

But it is possible to turn towards the Self, only by turning away 
from self. This renunciation and denial of all the wills of self brings 
sovereign virtues : power, forbearance, compassion, the kingly heart, 
likeness to the Way, the Logos. 

Of the kingly heart, a Chinese commentator says : He who empties 
his heart of self, can contain and embrace therein all beings. He who 
can contain and suffer all beings, has immeasurable equity and justice; 
he is free from partiality. To be just, equitable and impartial is the 
kingly Way. As the Way of Heaven is perfectly righteous, the Way 
of the king, being perfectly righteous, is the Way of Heaven. The Way 
nourishes all beings ; the king imitates this Way. He who possesses the 
Way, extends his benefit over all beings, over all creatures. 

The king, as before, is both the Master, ruler of "the kingdom of 
heaven", and the earthly king, for whom the heavenly king is the model 
and ideal. 

C. J. 
(To be continued) 



ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 



and goodness and beauty are three aspects of the divine 
world, the world of reality. They are three ways in which the 
J^_ facts of that world can be perceived by men. Yet they are not 
three ways. They are one way. For any one of them, taken 
alone, can lead to hell as easily as to heaven. The desire for knowledge, 
unless combined with love of goodness and of beauty, can turn a man 
into a cold-blooded fiend. The desire for beauty, unless combined with 
love of truth and of goodness, can turn him into an unscrupulous sens- 
ualist ; the love of goodness, all by itself, can turn him into a Pilgrim 
Father, well meaning, perhaps, but a blight. 

This is why every expression of art, or of supposed art, concerns 
us vitally. We desire progress for ourselves and others; real progress. 
Art can hinder, and often does, when it ought to help. Art should make 
men noble. Too often, it debases. In that case, of course, it is not true 
art. Yet it masquerades under that name, and needs to be exposed for 
the fraud that it is. 

At a recent gathering, the Recorder broached the subject deliberately. 
He had come to the conclusion that much of modern art is revolting, 
sometimes because it is ugly, sometimes because it is immoral, some- 
times because it is untrue. And the Recorder wanted to know what his 
friends thought about it. 

The Historian spoke first. "Revolting!" he said; "much of it is 
nauseating. Not long ago I read some reviews of a book entitled Bliss, 
by a certain Miss Katherine Mansfield. It was praised for its psycho- 
logical insight; for its remarkable understanding of human nature. The 
London Times Literary Supplement spoke of the author as 'an artist in 
fiction'. The Cambridge Review said : 'This book places Miss Mansfield 
as the best of our contemporary writers of fiction'. All the reviewers 
were" enthusiastic. And their enthusiasm is the point. I bought the book 
and read it. Plenty of unpleasant books must be written, I suppose; 
but when practically all reviewers praise such books and evidently enjoy 
reading them, the situation has become serious. 

"The book consists of a dozen or more short stories. Almost with- 
out exception, the incidents which the author describes are unpleasant, 
her characters are unpleasant, her treatment of them is unpleasant. It 
is as if she had asked you to dinner, and then, instead of entertaining 
you with good food at a prettily decorated table, had taken you down 
to her cellar, had opened a large sewer or cess-pool, and had invited you 
to go in wading with her. It is almost incredible that the book was 
written by a woman. And the worst of it is, she has talent, talent 
which is absolutely soulless and which is exercised for the entertainment 

55 



56 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

of those who seem to have lost their power to relish anything unless it 
has a rotten taste and an evil odour. 

"She not only takes human nature on its lowest level, and treats 
that as its normal level ; she takes nature and art and everything in life, 
and bedecks them with slime. 

"The book itself is nothing. But the reviewers make it a sign of 
the times." 

"There is another and less extreme phase of the same tendency," 
the Philosopher commented, "which seems to me to be even more unfor- 
tunate, because less easily recognized. That is the tendency among 
modern poets to strain for effect ; to sacrifice beauty and all else on the 
altar of 'originality'. Anything to be unusual, the unusual form, the 
unusual word, the unusual subject. The result is artificiality; not art. 
True poetry, as I see it, is a song, an outpouring of melody. Each word 
should seem inevitable, as if that were the one word to fit the heart- 
beat of the poet, whose gift it is to make you sing his song with him. 

"Could you sing this if you tried? yet this is said to be the best of 
the poems of Wilfred Owen, who, according to The New York Times 
Book Review, 'has achieved immortality for all time' because of it and 
because of others like it. The poet meets a soldier killed in the war : 

"Here is no cause to mourn," cries the poet. 
"None," said the other, "save the undone years, 

The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours 

Was my life also; I went hunting wild 

After the wildest beauty in the world, 

Which lies not calm in eyes or braided hair, 

But mocks the steady running of the hour, 

And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here. 

For by my glee might many men have laughed, 

And of my weeping something has been left, 

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, 

The pity of war, the pity war distilled. 

Now men will go content with what we spoiled. 

Or, discontent, boil bloody and be spilled. 

They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress, 

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress. 

Courage was mine, and I had mystery ; 

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery; 

To miss the march of this retreating world 

Into vain citadels that are not walled. 

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot wheels, 

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, 

Even with truths that lie too deep for taint, 

I would have poured my spirit without stint, 

But not through wounds ; not on the cess of war. 

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were. 

I am the enemy you killed, my friend. 

I knew you in this dark ; for so you frowned 

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed, 



ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 57 

I parried, but my hands were loath and cold. 
Let us sleep now . . ." 

"What does it mean ? What does it say? What does it sing? 

"Or take this from the same review, a poem by John Freeman, 
said to be 'one of the finest of the young English poets, a man who must 
be placed among the first half dozen singers of Great Britain' : 

I am a river flowing round your hill, 

Holding your image in my lingering water 

With imaged white clouds rising around your head; 

And I am happy to bear your image still. 

Though a loud ruffling wind may break and scatter 

That happiness, I know it is not fled. 

But when the wind is gone or gentled so 

That only the least quivering quivers on, 

Your image recomposes in my breast 

With those high clouds, quiet and white as snow 

Spiritual company; and when day's gone 

And those white clouds have stepped into the west; 

And the dark blue filling the heavens deep 

Is bright with stars that sing above your head, 

Their light lies in the deep of my dark eyes 

With your dark shape, a shadow of your sleep. . . . 

I am happy still, watching the bright stars tread 

Around your shadow that in my bosom lies. 

"The reviewer calls it 'mystical'. It is not mystical. It is a frantic 
effort to be mystical. Poets do not make frantic efforts to be anything. 
These men fail even to convey a suggestion of spontaneity. Yet, as the 
Historian said, it is not so much the authors as the reviewers of their 
work, which are noteworthy." 

"Can it be," asked the Student, "that the war, with its tremendous 
and constant shocks, has left most people unable to respond to any 
stimuli which are not violent and unfamiliar? If so, there is no need 
to worry about present tendencies, because it should not take long for 
the world to react toward more wholesome standards, and particularly 
toward a love of normal and genuine beauty." 

"I am not so sure," said the Scientist. "If a man is obliged to 
live on raw meat and Bombay Duck and pickles, for several years, he 
is not likely to return to a diet of bread and butter and their concomitants, 
until painful illness compels it." 

"Even so," the Student retorted, "may it not be that we have 
already passed the climax of your 'painful illness', and that such a book 
as the Historian described to us, represents a temperature of 106 F, 
with the probability of sub-normal symptoms in the morning?" 

"Have any of you read something that you really enjoyed?" the 
Recorder interjected. 



58 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

"Lots of things", was the reply. 

"That is more than I need! What particularly struck you?" and 
the Recorder turned to the Historian, who had been ill, and who there- 
fore had had more time for reading than most of us. 

"I was deeply impressed by the last letter of Aubrey Beardsley", 
the Historian answered. "To my mind it contained the very essence of 
tragedy. He was in the South of France, dying of consumption. For 
months his letters had told of hemorrhages, and of dire poverty: 'I am 
living with the pangs of constant fever, unceasingly tortured by the 
fear of a beggar's misery, a beggar's death'. 'In the name of Satan, 
send me de quoi vivre. I am begging this as a charity, not as my right'. 
He had lived himself to death, not well or wisely. And he had used 
his talents as talents should not be used. The tragedy was that only 
at the very last moment did the real horror of it come over him. Then, 
on March 7th, 1898, he wrote : 'Jesus is our Lord and Master. On my 
bed of agony . Dear friend, I implore you, destroy all copies of 
Lysistrata and all obscene drawings. Show this to Pollitt and implore 
him to do the same. By all that is holy, all obscene drawings. A. B.' 

"Instead of destroying them, the man who received that letter sold 
those drawings to a Viennese collector. But that Beardsley, gifted as 
he was, should have waited until death 'had him by the hair': that is 
appalling, the more so, because his vision at the end, proves how much 
good there was in him". 

"Yes, that is dreadful", the Engineer commented ; "but thank heaven 
he saw what he saw, even at the last minute of his last hour. . . . 
Strange that most of us learn nothing until we die". 

"Why is it?" the Visitor inquired. 

"Perhaps because, to learn anything, in the real sense, requires a 
tremendous effort of will. The lower nature does not desire to learn. 
Take sensuality: most men treat their sensuality as they might treat a 
pet animal ; for even if they keep it chained up, they feed it with scraps, 
almost every time it opens its mouth at them. Literally, they do not 
want to kill it out. They can taste it while resisting it. They enjoy 
being tempted". 

"Personally", commented the Sage, "I doubt if sensuality can be 
killed out. I think the force in it the force of which it is a perversion 
must be withdrawn from that pole, by means of intense activity at the 
opposite pole. Love of divine things, love of real beauty, must either 
well up spontaneously (which does happen), or must be cultivated with 
such energy and perseverance, that all the force of the nature is brought 
to flow in that direction, instead of into lower psychic moulds. Heaven 
knows I do not mean that temptation should not be resisted. It must 
be resisted. More than that, it must be avoided, as poison is avoided, 
or as a man instinctively avoids a snake. But that is, in part, a negative 
process, and I agree with the Engineer that few men avoid temptation 
in that spirit, until they have worked positively and constructively at the- 



ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 59 

other pole : until, in brief, they have established a good habit in place of 
a bad habit. Love of what is pure makes love of what is impure, im- 
possible. But there must be no divided allegiance. There is profound 
truth in the saying that God is a jealous God". 

"There is another aspect of the same subject which should not, I 
think, be over-looked", the Disciple suggested. "There are certain kinds 
of temptation which ought to be avoided at almost any cost. There is 
only one thing to do : to run from them before they appear, or to spring 
back and to run from them the very moment they do appear, in the event 
that we have not been able to foresee their appearance. This is par- 
ticularly true of all temptations which come under the head of 'sensuality'. 
But take gluttony, which may also be classed as a 'sensual' sin, and 
which is perhaps less dangerous than others : suppose the performance 
of duty requires a man to face that temptation, my belief is that he 
ought to rejoice rather than lament. And he ought to rejoice because 
it means that he has been given an opportunity really to serve, really to 
mortify self, really to deny self, and therefore really to make a gift to 
the spiritual powers (his own Master, or the Lodge, or God, as he may 
personally prefer to express it) which alone can put force into his prayer. 

"Assuming that he is striving to become a chela, a disciple, or even 
a worthy member of The Theosophical Society, it follows that the prayer 
of his heart must be, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done,' no matter 
what those words mean to him. A Master longs to win all hearts which 
belong to him, which are on his 'ray', so that he can lead them to his own 
Master, that thus their joy may be full and the will and love of his 
Father be accomplished. The would-be disciple, in his turn, longs 
passionately that his Master's kingdom may come, and that the will of 
that Master, his spiritual Father, may be done on earth as it is done 
in heaven. The worthy member of The Theosophical Society, who does 
not necessarily believe in Masters, none the less longs to see the prin- 
ciples of the Society recognized and acted upon by his fellow men. In 
all cases, therefore, 'Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done', expresses the 
best of our desires. 

"If a desire be sincere, we work for its realization. This involves 
effort, struggle, sacrifice. We discover that life is a battle. There are 
enemies to be overcome. And the first enemy to be conquered is within 
our own nature. Each man contains within himself, in miniature, the 
whole range of evils which the Masters fight in the universe around us. 
To help them in their fight, we must see to it that their kingdom comes, 
and that their will is done, in our own lives, in our own hearts and minds. 
Each one of us, in that sense, may do the work of a magician. 

"Witchcraft will illustrate my meaning. You have read that one 
of the ways in which a supposed magician set to work to injure an enemy, 
or a client's enemy, was to obtain a picture and then to make a small 
model of the person to be injured. He would then concentrate his mind 
on this miniature representation, and would pierce its heart with some 



60 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

sharp instrument, with the intention that the blow should act by reper- 
cussion and should kill the person attacked. 

"Diabolical practice, in that case, was based on sound theory. 
Because we can affect the macrocosm by working on the microcosm, 
especially if it be our intention to do so. And we do not have to make 
any miniature representation of our larger objective. We ourselves are 
living models and moving models of the battle that is raging, with the 
hosts of darkness on the one hand and the hosts of light on the other. 
Strike a blow there, with right intention that is, with the purpose that 
the Masters may use it in their world-wide warfare and we become, 
to that extent, magicians. The power of it is enormous. 

"But we must aim high. Half-hearted or timid efforts can not score 
a victory. As an old writer put it : 'May I so renounce myself that Thou 
mayest reign in my heart without a whisper of a rebel voice'. If we 
want a King, we must make him King. Most of us are still at the stage 
of drafting Constitutions to limit the King's rights, to protect 'the 
people* from the King's possible intrusion! . . . But my friends, 
what a chance for us this summer, when perhaps the pressure of outer 
work will lessen, to do .all things with that intention ! You remember 
the Bhagavad Gita: 'In thy thoughts do all thou dost for Me; renounce 
for Me; sacrifice heart and mind and will to Me', that the will of the 
Lords of Karma, who are the Lords of Compassion, may be accomplished 
perfectly to the uttermost ends of the earth." T. 



None of you can be called a true believer till he loves for his brother 
what he loves for himself. SAYING OF MOHAMMED. 



God never imposes a duty without giving time to do it. RUSKIN. 



It is not enough to be good. You must appear good, and your good- 
ness must be agreeable and even enviable. P. J. STAHL. 



DEAR 



LETTERS TO STUDENTS 

May 20th, 1911, 



Thank you most sincerely for your very kind letter. I shall try to 
call upon you as soon after five as possible, and I feel sure that we should 
be able to help each other. I know you can help me ... 

I do not wish you to feel that I am a wall of adamant or of any- 
thing else. I want you to feel perfectly free to come to me at any time, 
to ask me any question, to seek any kind of help. I shall often fail you 
because of my own limitations, but it will not be from lack of desire to 
aid. 

On the other hand, I think you have expressed admirably my idea 
of what you need in order to take the next step forward. There are 
parts of the Path which we must travel alone, and this phase returns 
at each stage upwards. 

When we are first attracted to the higher life we may and usually 
do get much help. We may and often do have some kind of a definite 
spiritual experience. This may be repeated once or twice in order to 
rouse us thoroughly. But once we have made a start, cannot you see 
that it is much wiser for us to be left alone until we reach up to the 
spiritual world and take what we want with our own power, instead of 
having gifts sent down to us which are given us in love and not of right ? 

We must pay very heavily for such gifts, pay in suffering and pain 
from which no one can save us. Therefore in very mercy we are not 
given any more of such things than is absolutely necessary to keep us 
going forward. 

Now you do not need such stimuli, and unless I am much mistaken 
you need not look forward to getting them until you yourself have 
reached up to the spiritual plane with your own power and can take them 
with full right. This you may be able to do in ten minutes or in ten 
years. That depends absolutely upon yourself. And remember that the 
Master is standing waiting, and longing, with an infinite longing, for you 
to reach this point. He will do everything he can, is doing everything 
he can, to aid and assist you, and if you could have even a faint realization 
of the happiness and joy that it will give him when you do struggle up 
to him, I think it would be a very powerful additional incentive and 
inspiration. 

The experiences which and others have, even when they 

come from him, are signs of weakness, not of power, and you do wrong 
to compare yourself with them to your own detriment. 

You have passed out of their class entirely and I think you should 
realize this fully. We must not be unjust to ourselves any more than to 
another. In occultism the sin is exactly the same. 

61 



62 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Remember what I said the other day. The three stages of the inner 
life are, 

First : Renunciation. We must free ourselves from every worldly 
longing and desire which ties us to the world. 

Second : Purification. We must clean ourselves on all the planes 
of our being, so that we become fit abiding places for the Master. 

Third : Obedience, which is the key-note of the life of the disciple : 

not obedience to or , or to any human being whatever, 

but to your own higher light until you have come into conscious com- 
munion with the Master, and then obedience to him. . . . 
With kind regards, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



June 18th, 1911. 
DEAR 

May I venture to make certain simple and very practical suggestions 
to you, which, in a sense, are amplifications of your rule; and which, I 
trust, you will accept as an evidence of my deep and sincere interest in 
your efforts to reach our common goal. 

I make them without apology ; for if any apology at all were required, 
it would be quite impossible to make them with an apology. 

1. Mental stillness: try to quiet and control your mind in all ways 
and at all times, not only when you meditate, but throughout the day. 
Fight against a certain feverishness of mental activity. 

2. Cultivate the habit of listening to others when they talk. At 
present you do not listen to what others say, save incidentally. Your real 
attention is given to your own thoughts and mental comments on the 
subject of conversation. Consequently you are constantly missing the 
point of what is said, and misunderstand what is said because you hear it 
through the veil of your own thoughts. 

Another result of this habit of inattention, and of preoccupation with 
your own thoughts, is that quite unconsciously you interrupt others when 
they are speaking; therefore 

3. Scrupulously avoid interrupting. We learn from what we hear. 
We can do our own thinking about it afterwards. 

4. When listening, avoid speculating upon how what is said will 
influence or affect others. The point is what effect it is having upon 
you. Remember that the Master may speak to us "out of the mouths 
of babes" or fools, or bores. We never can tell whence the light will come. 

5. Avoid excitement, whether from outside or self-created. There 
is really nothing in the universe worth getting excited about save the 
Master's love for us and our relation to him. 

6. Do not drive yourself, physically or mentally. Regard your 
personality as an instrument, given you by the Master for his service, 






LETTERS TO STUDENTS 63 

which you should keep and use with the greatest care, and maintain in a 
state of the highest possible efficiency. Do not blunt or dull it by undue 
fatigue or strain. 

7. Remember that the only way we can learn to love the Master 
as we should, is to reflect back to him something of his love for us. 
Therefore, strive earnestly to feel his love for you. Look for it in the 
depths of your being, seek for it in your highest feelings ; endeavour to 
realize it in your consciousness through the power of imagination; pray 
for it as you pray for salvation, for only as you find it can you find 
salvation. 

I ask your consideration of these simple rules, for I know that if 
you practise them faithfully you will reap a rich reward. 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



July 8th, 1911. 
DEAR 

In response to your letter, my advice is that which Punch gave to 
the young man who wanted to marry that is don't. 

There is no reason I know of why you should join in conversations 
which are tearing people's characters to pieces. Simply don't. Keep quiet, 
or, if you must say something, speak of the virtues of the victims. 
Everyone has some virtue. Even the devil is industrious. In a very 
short time your friends will realize that you are an unsympathetic auditor 
when people's failings are discussed. You need not take your friends to 
task for evil speaking. It is not your job to save their souls. Just keep 
quiet. If your friends insist upon talking about such things, stay still 
until they change the topic of conversation to something to which you 
can contribute. 

An entirely quiet and unexpressed disapproval (either by speech or 
manner) is a fearful dampener to a conversation, and in this way your 
inner attitude can do much unobtrusive good. 

With kindest regards and best wishes, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 






November 17th. 1911. 

DEAR 

******* 

There are two joys in the life of the would-be disciple. 

One is the joy of feeling the Master's gratitude for what we try 
to do. This joy is not unmixed with pain, for it is humiliating and 
almost crushing to realize this gratitude, a pathetic gratitude for our 
poor efforts. 



64 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

The other joy is to see a person grow : someone we have tried 
to help. . . . 

To meditate is to function with the inner part of you. Naturally 
you cannot do it yet, save for moments, and after repeated efforts. We 
must make these repeated efforts to get the force which carries us 
"through" at times. Do not be discouraged, therefore, because you can 
never tell when you will break "through" again. . . . 

I am, with best wishes, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



February 26th, 1912. 
DEAR 

You poor dear child : you are like some wild thing in a cage. You are 
beating yourself against the bars in a frantic effort to do something, 
when all you have to do is to be still. 

If you would be still for even a little while you would see that your 
cage is of your own creation, has no real existence and can be dissolved 
by the peace and power of the Silence, as mists in the summer sun. 

Please read page 15 of Joy and Strength for the Pilgrim's Day, 
especially the last twelve lines, and carry out literally the advice there 
given. Make this the prominent feature of your daily meditation for 
the next two weeks anyhow. 

Also please get out of your mind once and forever the idea that 
your letters or your visits or our talks are a trouble or a burden. On 
the contrary get definitely into your mind the fact that we want you to 
do these things, that we like you to do them, and that we love you 
very much. 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



May 13th, 1912. 

DEAR 

******* 

Illness is always a severe test for those who care for the patient, 
but do not forget, and try to get comfort from the saying, "Whom the 
Lord loveth he chasteneth". If trite and commonplace, also it is true. 

Do try to get sleep. 

Do you never take naps? If you cannot find time at night, is there 
never a half-hour during the day to make up? . . . 

I was so pleased with your report and your successful effort to 
realize it, that I asked a friend about what you say in regard to "Silence" 
about not understanding it. I have copied out for you the result and 
enclose it herewith. 



LETTERS TO STUDENTS 65 

Silence 

"Do you not know what it is to be quite silent inside? To feel 
within one's heart a still, quiet pool where the stars are reflected, and over 
which moves a cool, fresh breeze? the spirit brooding over the face of 
the waters? Surely at times you have known this, times of meditation 
or prayer. 

"This is a picture of Silence, the silence we must learn unremittingly 
to keep in our hearts and always to be conscious of, whatever the rush 
of life, or the manifold pressing duties of the hour may be. Here is 
the silence in which the Master lives, and which can live within us, where 
we can always hear his voice, and in the most difficult trial feel the pres- 
sure of his hand. Later comes the silence of the snows, which is a 
majestic silence full of an awful peace. When this comes we have climbed 
fairly well. First is the silence of the deep still pool." 

Am I not nice to have got this for you ! 

With kind regards, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



Persecution that increased the sufferings of the martyrs enriched their 
crown of triumph; temptations are a persecution that has the same effect 
in a faithful soul. P. J. MICHEL. 



What is more beautiful than consideration for others, zvhen we our- 
selves are unhappy? FABER. 



We shall be eternally swallowed up in eternal love. FABER. 




Selections front the Rubayat and Odes of Hafiz, by a Member of the Persia 
Society of London; published by John M. Watkins, London; 10s. 6d. 

Hafiz was born at Shiraz in the early part of the fourteenth century, and 
died about the year 1390. He is, therefore, contemporary with Chaucer, though 
the religious purpose of most of his verse makes it closer in substance to Langland's 
Piers Plowman. 

The scholarly and carefully written Preface tells us that Hafiz believed in the 
one Eternal God whom the whole world reveres, or ought to, in one form or 
another, and regarded Him as the 1 only Absolute Existence. His philosophy taught 
that every soul, before being incarnated in some human body, was an actual part 
or portion of God, and had, until incarnation, union with God; that, on being 
transplanted to and confined in a human body, it was in a lamentable state of 
separation from God, and that it could never again know true happiness until it 
had been released from the body and reunited with God ; and that only those who 
were seekers after God, and who travelled along the allegorical Path heavenward, 
and delighted in and drank the allegorical Wine, and loved the 1 True Beloved, 
would ever enjoy that reunion. 

The longing for the True Beloved, Hafiz expresses for the most part in verse's 
which have the ring and colour of love poems, such as this : 

What made Thy locks to curl in such a twisting maze? 
Thine eyes so languishing, whence came their dreamy gaze? 

Since no one pelted Thee with roses, how is it 
Thou art so wholly perfum'd with their scented sprays? 

Much of this, therefore, is hardly distinguished in colour from, let us say, 
Shakespeare's Sonnets, or from the best known verses of Ben Jonson, translated 
by him from an old Greek love-song. It belongs to an extended cycle of poetry 
beginning, perhaps, with the Song of Solomon, as traditionally interpreted by 
Catholic mystics, and including Dante's poems to Beatrice, with the part played 
by Beatrice in the Paradiso. The underlying motive and inspiration of this type 
of allegory is, that the fervour and rapture of mystical devotion can be expressed 
only in terms of passionate love; and, if we are in sympathy with this view, we 
shall find much that is impressive and beautiful in Hafiz' songs to the Beloved. 

But there are also, in the writings of Hafiz translated in this volume, poems 
which are austerely religious in form as well as substance ; such verses as these : 

O Thou, towards Whose dwelling-place men turn to pray, 
The hearts of all whom Fortune blesses own Thy swayl 

He who to-day from Thee doth turn his face aside, 
How shall he dare to face Thee on the Judgment Day? 

Since I am gentle, helpless, and in poverty, 
I'll patient be if in Thy fire Thou triest me. 

But Thou, so self-contained, in pride and majesty, 
Dost turn away if I but raise mine eyes to Thee. 

66 



REVIEWS 67 

Grant me the joy of Union, if it be Thy Will; 

Or anguish sore, through sev'rance, if it be Thy Will. 

I do not say to Thee, "What wilt Thou give to me?" 
For grant whatever is according to Thy Will. 

The translator has taken almost infinite pains to give a faithful rendering of 
both the form and spirit of the Rubayat, the quatrains so distinctive of Persian 
poetry, the rhymed iteration in the last two stanzas closely following the Persian 
original. A complete glossary of Sufi symbols adds to the value of this excellent 
piece of work. C. J. 

Life of Dante Alighieri, by Charles Allen Dinsmore; Houghton Mifflin Co., 
1919. 

Dante, by the Rev. John T. Slattery, Ph.D. ; P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1920. 

Dante, by C. H. Grandgent, L.H.D. ; Dufneld, 1916. 

The Spiritual Message of Dante, by the Rt. Rev. W. Boyd Carpenter ; Harvard 
University Press, 1914. 

Dante, by Jefferson B. Fletcher; Henry Holt, 1916. 

The Mystic Vision in the Grail Legend and in the Divine Comedy, by Lizette 
Andrews Fisher, Ph.D.; Columbia University Press, 1917. 

Six hundred years ago, Dante Alighieri died an exile in Ravenna, September 
13th, 1321. His anniversary is being widely celebrated in Italy, France, England, 
and America ; and it would seem fitting to call the attention of QUARTERLY readers 
to several recent books which have dealt with this great genius, whom Ruskin 
called, "The central man of all the world." Each of the six books enumerated 
above offers an entirely different approach, and they can very well be read not 
only as the distinct views of individual writers, but as complementing each other, 
because they represent separate types of interest. The latest book, by the Reverend 
Dr. Slattery, a Roman Catholic priest, presents Dante as the supreme Catholic 
poet and theologian. He sees Dante as the epitome of the greatest of Catholic 
centuries, the culmination of the ages of a united Catholic Faith, before Protest- 
antism and physical science had diverted men's minds from the "true purposes" 
of existence. He gives a detailed and practical picture of Dante's times; he out- 
lines the Divine Comedy for its eternal moral and theological significance; above 
all, he presents Dante, who was, be it remembered, a Catholic, from the point of 
view of a Catholic, which Protestant readers must learn to appreciate to under- 
stand Dante. 

The Life of Dante by Mr. Dinsmore is the ablest book yet published by this 
highly considered Dante scholar. No interpreter of Dante, either as poet, as 
fellow-man, or as mystic has offered a happier combination of sympathetic insight 
and sound scholarship with the gift of felicitous literary expression. Mr. Dins- 
more's books are delightful reading, freighted but never weighted with knowledge, 
full of brilliant phrases and suggestive vistas. He sees Dante's many gifts in their 
true proportion ; and perhaps his most valuable contributions to the enormous store 
of Dante interpretation, are his chapters on "The Secret of Dante" and the poet's 
"Qualities of Genius and Character." "The mystical sense was the very core of 
Dante's nature" (p. 254) is his main contention ; he points out that, "The 'Inferno* 
is a vision of sin, and the artist is often painting states of the mind" (p. 279) ; 
while the following paragraph is virtually a summary : "Dante called his poem a 
'Comedy,' his readers soon added the adjective 'Divine,' because its pages were vital 
with the strength and glory of spiritual realities. It is this divineness which will 
charm men for unnumbered generations" (p. 241). The reviewer knows no better 
study of Dante. 

Professor Grandgent of Harvard wrote that, "Our poet was a many sided 
genius who has a message for nearly everyone." The interest of his book is best 



68 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

characterized by the word lite'rary ; and it is Dante as a literary genius and master- 
craftsman that he presents to us. Naturally, to understand Dante's literary gifts 
requires a knowledge of twelfth and thirteenth century authorship, for Dante ''does 
represent his time as no other age has ever been represented by any one man . . . 
I have attempted to trace a portrait of the 1 Middle Ages with Dante's features show- 
ing through;' But it is only of one phase, though an important one, of the Middle 
Ages, which Professor Grandgent treats. He deals with the medieval mind as 
revealed in its literature, and by canons of literary interpretation. Moral questions 
are discussed as determining Dante's cast of mind, not as valuable in themselves. 
Professor Grandgent has none of the practical attitude so characteristic of Dante 
himself, and which is the key-note of Bishop Boyd Carpenter's lectures, The 
Spiritual Message of Dante. The latter feels of the Divine Comedy that, "It is 
as a drama of the soul that we are to regard it" (p. 9), and, "The one word which 
gives us the clue' to the whole is 1 love" (p. 8). "The value of the Divine Comedy 
is various. It repays the study of the historian, the philosopher, the archaeologist, 
the naturalist, but its central thought reveals its spiritual value. That value springs 
from its personal quality, and that personal quality is the spiritual experience 1 of 
the poet set forth in his own subtle, splendid, and ample fashion" (p. 247). Dante's 
soul is akin to ours, his experience may be ours "the experiences indicated in the 
Paradiso fall into line with the spiritual experiences of awakened souls ; they are 
not fictions of the fancy" and we may well take' Dante for our guide as a high 
interpreter of life. 

Mr. Fletcher surveys in a brief and compact little book the salient features of 
Dante the medieval philosopher and artist. Dante was an accomplished scholastic; 
his "teaching" is wrapped in "primary" and "secondary symbolism," in theologic 
thought moulds, in the intricacies which delighted Provencale versifiers. "The 
Divine Comedy is virtually an epitome of theology, or summa theologicz, drama- 
tized and set" (p. 87). No one can appreciate the richness of the Middle Ages 
without entering into its approach to, and solution of, the problems of life and 
death, of how the universe is constructed and moves, of why human nature varies 
as it does. Those who would see in Dante only a literary phenomenon, will fail 
to understand even that phase, if they do not consider his whole philosophy of 
life. His judgments against sinners in hell become mere brutal torments, his 
rewards in paradise become ludicrous caricatures and impossibilities. Mr. Fletcher 
introduces us to the symbolic fibre of Dante's mind, and touches upon a large 1 
number of the disputed problems of interpretation which have exercised the 
ingenuity of commentators for centuries. 

Miss Fisher, in a succinctly worded and scholarly book of barely a hundred 
pages, attempts to solve one such problem of symbology; the Pageant in the 
Earthly Paradise at the summit of 'Mt. Purgatory. She relates it to the mystical 
symbolism current in Grail legends, and connects both these legends and the 
symbology of Dante's Pageant, with the Corpus Christi processions, which were 
an immediate aftermath of the dogmas of transubstantiation, promulgated in 
Dante's life-time. 

"Great men," says Carlyle, "taken in any way, are profitable company." These 
six books offer totally different approaches to Dante, and one or all would greatly 
enrich the reader's ability to penetrate the heart of the greatest of Christian poets. 

M. H. 



ANSWERS 




QUESTION No. 255. //ow could a mother who feels that she ought to give a 
great deal of personal attention to her children, and is prevented from doing so by 
constant illness, learn to see the purpose of that illness? 

ANSWER. "We can only give what we are" is one of the maxims of occultism. 
So a mother, no matter how good her intentions, can only give to her children that 
which she herself is in herself. If she would have them truthful, obedient, patient, 
she must be truthfu^ obedient, patient herself. What is it that life, through that 
illness, is trying to teach her? for illness has its lessons as well as health, or there 
would be no illness in the world. Perhaps she needs patience or sympathy, power 
of endurance or cheery acceptance of pain. Surely these are qualities that she 
would wish to be able to give her children, and how can she do so save by gaining 
them herself? J. F. B. M. 



QUESTION No. 256. There are certain people who akvays irritate me. I am 
ashamed of my inability to keep my serenity when I come in contact with them. 
I try to prepare for the next encounter, I pray about it; but when the time comes 
I am just one mass of irritation. How can I conquer this? 

ANSWER. Does not this irritation arise from wrong self-identification? What 
is the "you" which is irritated? What irritates you? Why? In preparing for the 
next encounter, even though you pray, you are entertaining the idea that you are 
going to be irritate'd and are praying for strength and grace to control and master 
it. The duty begins with you, who are irritated, to find the cause. And by no means 
necessarily does it reside in those who irritate you. A. K. 

ANSWER. "I try to prepare for the next encounter" does that not mean that 
you see an enemy in the one who "irritates" you ? Do you see at all that the enemy 
may be in you? Do you recall the use' of the Warrior, outlined in Light on the 
Path? Have you tried that method? Have you read recently its vivid description 
of the fate of the egotistical man? Is not your attitude egotistical? Do you ever 
stop to think what the Master may want of you in the "encounter"? How do you 
present his messenger (for such you are see Fragments, Vol. I) to the other 
person? By the way, just what does the other person think of you? What may 
you do to assist him to see and accept you as of and from the Master? "The duty 
of another is full of danger" are you not dwelling, in your heart, on his responsi- 
bility, rather than your own, for your being irritate'd by him ? Why not try looking 
zealously for the good in him, and wherein he, perchance, may be the Master's 
messenger to you. Perhaps you see your own pet faults in him and do not like 
them! Why blame him? PADDOCK. 

ANSWER. Irritation is invariably a sign of weakness in ourselves. We ought 
to acquire the habit of turning on ourselves whenever we feel irritation and tracing 
it back to its source in some root of weakness in' our nature. We can begin with 
the premise that it is not because the other person has a glaring fault that we 

69 



70 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

are irritated. Lots of people have glaring faults and we are not in the least irritated 
by them. It is not because universal justice has been outraged that this particular 
fault annoys us so, we 1 may be sure, but because somewhere our own particular 
toes are being stepped on. Very often it is one of our own cherished faults that 
is coming back to us through the other person. Nothing is so irritating as this; 
but if we use it to realize how disagreeable our fault must be 1 to others, the irrita- 
tion may disappear in contrition. Very often, too, the irritation is due to indecision 
of the will. We cannot make up our weak minds whether to continue to suffer 
the "imposition" in silence or to say something to stop it. So we fret and fume 
inwardly and do nothing outwardly. The cure for this is a definite decision as to 
our right course carried out with quiet firmness, whethe'r it be speaking to the 
other person or silencing our own grumbling minds. 

The cultivation of sympathy instead of self-pity, of positive decision instead 
of negative indecision, and the habit of using irritation as a valuable guide to self- 
knowledge will go far toward eliminating it. J. M. 

ANSWER. There is a quality, which it is hard to express in a single word, 
and yet it is indispensable to the student in occultism who would pay his debt. 
One has seen that quality, now and then, in a soldier on leave from the Great 
War : something in the glance of his eye that showed serenity of soul, a will which 
trivialities could never again ensnare, a freedom which came from laying down life 
itself on the altar. 

With that merging of self into a great love of country, came 1 the power to 
serve, to endure, to fall and to die, and yet to keep going forward. On more than 
one stricken field in France, the dead did rise and make one last charge that neither 
the Germans nor the hosts of hell could stop. 

That is the kind of serenity one would wish to have, is it not? A self-satisfac- 
tion which comes from brooding upon one's own fancied qualities and perfections, 
ought not to be called serenity, for it is a sham thing, a psychic counterfeit, a veil 
of self-illusion. When someone comes along who looks right through that veil 
without seeing the pretty pictures which give us such satisfaction, what shall 
we do? Shall we be irritated, or shall we turn in gratitude to the Masters for 
sending that person; and then shall we tear that veil down, and, entering into 
serenity, go forward? D. 

QUESTION No. 257. Why do Theosophists pay so much attention to the writ- 
ings of the ancients? 

ANSWER. Because students of Theosophy have learned to value experience, 
and are thankful to be able to check their own experience in the light of the past. 

Secondly, for reasons set forth, in an entirely different connection, by Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, when addressing the members and students of the Royal Acad- 
emy. Advising them to study the great artists of the past, and explaining that 
mere imitation is not art, he declared: "The more extensive your acquaintance is 
with the works of those who have excelled, the more extensive will be your powers 
of invention, and what may appear still more like a paradox, the more original 
will be your conceptions." T. 




REPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE 
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 

The Annual Convention of The Theosophical Society was called to order on 
Saturday, April the 30th, 1921, at 10.30 a. m., by the Chairman of the Executive 
Committee, Mr. Charles Johnston, at 64 Washington Mews, New York. In addition 
to the Branch delegates, there were assembled members-at-large, and members of 
the New York Branch and other Branches. The first business being temporary 
organization, it was duly moved and seconded that Mr. Johnston be elected Tempo- 
rary Chairman. Carried. Miss Julia Chickering was then duly elected as Tempo- 
rary Secretary. It was moved and seconded that the Temporary Chairman appoint 
a Committee on Credentials, to determine what Branches were represented. Com- 
plying with this direction, the Temporary Chairman called attention to the fact 
that this was a Convention of Branches of The Theosophical Society, and that 
there is a great distinction between a Convention of Members and a Convention of 
Branches. As Branches consist of members in good standing, the dictum of the 
Treasurer, who receives the dues, is required, as to members in good standing; and 
the assistance of the Secretary, who sends out the charters, as to the qualified 
Branches. The Chair therefore appointed as a Committee on Credentials, Professor 
H. B. Mitchell, Miss I. E. Perkins, and Miss M. E. Youngs asking them to 
prepare their report as speedily as possible. 



ADDRESS OF THE TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN 

MR. JOHNSTON : I think every Convention which comes makes us happier and 
more profoundly grateful that we are at a Convention of The Theosophical Society ; 
that The Theosophical Society has this deep enduring life which brings us together 
year after year, and each year with increasing strength and increasing abundance 
of life. We shall, in time, realize how enormous our privilege is. We should have 
to take a view of it from perhaps a century away or ten centuries away, to see how 
tremendous is the privilege which members of The Theosophical Society have in 
meeting year after year in Convention. One can say with entire impersonality that 
the fact that the Convention is meeting here to-day is the central fact in the world 
situation. There are important international conferences being held about this 
time which may, and in all probability will, affect the history of the world after 
generations and centuries have passed. Nevertheless, our Convention here really 
outweighs those international conferences both in its spiritual importance and in its 
length of reach. It is likely to affect a far more distant time than the international 
exchanges that are going on in Europe, if we are true to our duties and responsi- 
bilities. 

In the older Conventions it was the custom, perhaps, to talk Theosophy. The 
great contrast between those days and the present is that now we try to lire 
Theosophy, rather than to talk it; and we are entirely convinced that only in the 
measure that we have lived Theosophy have we the ri^ht to talk about it. So the 

71 



72 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

two thoughts that I should ask you particularly to bear in mind during the Conven- 
tion are that our tremendous privilege 1 carries with it a tremendous responsibility to 
all future time and to all the races of mankind that are to come; and that we can 
only measure up to our great responsibility by living Theosophy, and living it every 
hour and every day. 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CREDENTIALS 

PROFESSOR MITCHELL: The Committee on Credentials has examined the creden- 
tials, and begs to report that there are represented here to-day, by delegate or proxy, 
18 Branches, entitled to cast 83 votes, as follows : 

Altagracia, Altagracia de Orituco, Middletown, Middletown, Ohio 

Venezuela Newcastle, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England 

Aussig, Aussig, Czecho-Slovakia New York, New York 

Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio Norfolk, Norfolk, England 

Hope, Providence, Rhode Island Sravakas, Salamanca, New York 

Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana Pacific, Los Angeles, California 

Jehoshua, Sanfernando de Apure, Stockton, Stockton, California 

Venezuela Toronto, Toronto, Canada 

Karma, Kristiania, Norway Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela 

Krishna, South Shields, England Virya, Denver, Colorado 

On motion of Mr. George Woodbridge, seconded by Mr. Gardiner H. Miller, 
the report of the Committee on Credentials was accepted with thanks. 

MR. JOHNSTON : Having established the fact that we are a Convention, the first 
thing we need is permanent officers. 

MR. PERKINS: I should like to suggest that the President of the New York 
Branch, in accordance with a time-honoured custom, act as Permanent Chairman. 
I nominate Professor H. B. Mitchell. 

MR. JOHNSTON : Professor Mitchell has been nominated as Permanent Chair- 
man of the Convention, and I put the question not so much because he is President 
of the New York Branch, as for reasons which radiate from him in all directions. 

Professor Mitchell was unanimously elected, and took the chair. He called for 
nominations for the permanent Secretaries of the Convention. It was moved by 
Mr. C. Russell Auchincloss that Miss Perkins be made Permanent Secretary; sec- 
onded, and carried. Mr. Stanley V. La Dow moved that Miss Chickering be made 
Assistant Secretary; duly seconded and carried. 

ADDRESS OF THE PERMANENT CHAIRMAN 

PROFESSOR MITCHELL: Mr. Perkins's allusion to the "time-honoured" customs 
of our Society may serve not only to remind us of the part time plays in our hopes 
for the' Theosophical Movement, but also, by showing us how dependent our con- 
cept of time is upon our standards of reference, help us to realize the meaning and 
the value of those "long views" which the study of Theosophy imparts. 

It is indeed fourteen years since I was first given the high privilege of presid- 
ing at a convention of The Theosophical Society. Were this not The Theosophical 
Society, but some gathering of university or college students, fourteen years might 
well seem long, for in the academic atmosphere two different standards act to 
refract the sense of time into a curious duality. On the one hand, in their libraries 
and lecture halls, our universities are the custodians of our heritage from the past, 
and strive to show us the present in the light of the age-long history that has 
preceded it. But on the other hand, a student generation lasts but four years, and 
each such generation stands in its own eyes sufficient unto itself, living its own 
brief college life with little thought of the world that lies beyond it, of what came 
before, or of what will come after. And so it is a common phenomenon, among 



T. S. ACTIVITIES 73 

the student body, to find recent precedents erected into "time-honoured" customs. 
"Established traditions" spring up almost over night, to be forgotten again on the 
morrow. The students' consciousness is dominated by their own time standards, 
and these standards are set, not by the impersonal teachings of history, but by the 
narrow limits of their own personal college residence, by the instinctive sense of 
their own separateness, their own new and brief existence in the academic world. 

I have spoken of this phenomenon of college-boy psychology because I believe 
that we may see in it a reflection of the psychology of the world at large, and that 
the same causes which operate to defeat the teachings of history in the student 
consciousness are responsible for the curiously foreshortened view of life which 
falsifies the vision and thought of our time. No mere intellectual acceptance of 
man's antiquity upon the earth, no mere study of history, suffices to correct the 
time standards that are set by an instinctive materialism which narrows personal 
existence to the space from birth to death. Where immortality is not a basic fact 
of consciousness, where the doctrine of re-incarnation does not unite our thought 
of our own past to the past of the whole human race, the sense of the brief transi- 
toriness of our own personal existence must outweigh all less intimate perceptions, 
and rob the present of its true meaning by isolating it alike from the future and the 
past. 

We are not supposed to have visitors here to-day, but only members and dele- 
gates, and so we can speak with freedom and without fear of being misunderstood. 
Theosophy alone can give the "long views" that one must have to understand the 
meaning of life the meaning of human history and of our own individual exist- 
ence ; for Theosophy alone unites these two, and opening the individual conscious- 
ness to a knowledge of its own beginningless and endless immortality, gives us the 
inner standards by which to measure time as it concerns the human race. We may 
know much less of the details of human history than many of the world's scholars, 
but we know it far more truly, and its! lessons are living facts of our habitual 
consciousness. 

So it is that we are here to-day as the custodians of the world's most ancient, 
most "time-honoured" tradition a tradition antedating all history, all civilization ; 
for it is the tradition of the great Lodge of Masters and of the spiritual life and 
power that has upbuilt every civilization and guided the events that history records. 
It is given to us, as it is not given to others, to look back over the history of the 
world and to read its record in the light of its spiritual significance as the history 
of the soul. It is given to us to know something of the power behind the throne 
the unchanging purpose that acts through changing figure-heads, leads through 
changing scenes, giving them unity and coherent meaning; that uses instruments 
infinitely diverse to one common end, and which we ourselves aspire to serve. 
We can read history in the light of the immortal Lodge of Masters, and of their 
age-long efforts for us their younger brothers. We trace their gift to the world, 
the stream of spiritual force which flows through them to us in its g-eat cyclic 
tides, from century to century. We see the tides rise and fall, bringing civilization 
after civilization to their crest, where the vision of the 1 heavens may be seen and 
man may claim his spiritual heritage. We know we ourselves have been so lifted, 
time after time, age after age, and have seen the world sink back again, afraid 
to seize the hour of its opportunity. Light on the Path has made this very clear 
to us, and in our own hearts we have recognized its truth. But now again is the 
time of opportunity, now again we have 1 been swept forward on the crest of the 
wave, and we are determined that this time the back-wash and under-tow shall not 
sweep us back, but that we shall hold what we have gained. 

We have all studied the law of cycles, and know of the recurring effort the 
Lodge makes for us in the last quarter of each century. Let us look therefore at 
this hundred year cycle in which we are, and see how it stands with us. Its begin- 



74 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

ning is marked by the birth of our Society, in 1875, forty-six years ago. We are 
close to the half-way mark, to 1925 ; nearly half our race run, nearly half our task 
accomplished. Perhaps we shall understand better what this means, if we remember 
that the first of the four phases of the cycle ended with the end of the century; 
that Madame Blavatsky lived but sixteen years after the founding of The Theo- 
sophical Society, and that it was given to her successor, Mr. Judge, to guide the 
work for but five years more. With his death we entered a time of peculiar stress 
and strain perhaps the breaking crest at the summit of the wave. We survived 
with difficulty, but survive we did; and now, in the second phase of the cycle, we 
have held our own yes, and pushed forward for twenty-one years ; a time equal 
to the sum total of that which was given to Madame Blavatsky and Mr. Judge. If 
we have done this, we can do more; and 1975 is not so distant as it was. 

We take credit to ourselves, therefore, for having lived so long in a world where 
living is not easy. Even in this incarnation, our Society is now "time-honoured." 
But we must wish to serve, as well as to live, and we ask ourselves, What is now 
our special task? What difference should it make to the world that we have 
survived and are here to-day? I do not think it hard to find an answer. 

In the world about us, wherever we 1 look, we see flux and change and turmoil ; 
the break-down of the ancient order, and what the Bhagavad Gita calls the "con- 
fusion of castes." It is a discouraging spectacle, if we look at it from a static 
point of view. But if we study it as a problem in dynamics, it may show us our 
opportunity; for when all else is in flux and confusion, then is the time when 
reconstruction is possible, and when clear, true vision, firmly held convictions, a 
solidly united body, moved by a single purpose, can be effective as never before. 
Such a body may indeed become the nucleus of the future order the force, uniting 
and turning into one direction (the direction which it, itself, sets), all these blind, 
unpurposed and unco-ordinated forces of the world. We should be such a body 
such a nucleus. That is our function in the world one meaning of our object to 
form the nucleus of a universal brotherhood and to fulfil it we do not have to 
preach to the world, we have only to make our ideals live in ourselves and so in the 
world with all the power that is in us. 

Surely this task is not beyond what is possible for us. We have been tried and 
tested in test after test : first, in our faith in the powers of the spiritual universe, 
our faith in the Lodge of Masters, who initiated The Theosophical Society and who 
gave us our ideals. And when thati had been passed, there was the test of our 
loyalty to our leaders. Could we follow where that spiritual power led, and be loyal 
to the ones who embodied it, and gave it to us ? That test, too, we passed, and then 
there came the test of our ability to see spiritual principles and to understand them, 
and to be true to them, when, they were not interpreted for us when there was 
only the voice within us to tell us that they were spiritual principles and that our 
loyalty was due to them. In a deeper sense this also was a test of loyalty to 
leaders, for a leader is one who embodies spiritual principles and if we cannot 
recognize the principles we can never really recognize the leader. 

In the years to come we must expect other tests, and as we look at the part we 
should play in the inner world of thought and ideals, and as we look back over the 
tests we have already passed, I think we shall see that we must expect to be tested 
now in our loyalty to ourselves and to each other a test of our esprit de corps. 
Let us think for a moment of what esprit de corps really means, imagining ourselves 
members of some ancient regiment, tried in many battles, given high place and 
privilege, its record written in its country's history, itself the bodyguard of its 
country's ruler. The honour of such a corps is the honour of each member of it. 
A comrade's honour is one's own honour, because it is the honour of the corps; 
and for this each will give his life, spending himself endlessly, unfalteringly, that 
the tradition of the corps may suffer no stain, but be passed on as it came to him. 



T. S. ACTIVITIES 



75 



As we think of this, we may see what it means to be a member of The Theo- 
sophical Society a conscious part of a movement whose tradition is more ancient 
and more honourable than that of any corps or regiment on earth. Our fellows' 
honour is ours ; defence of them is defence of the movement that means more to us 
than life itself. But beneath our loyalty to each other, beneath our loyalty to 
leaders, beneath our loyalty to the body of which we are a part, must be our loyalty 
to the spiritual principles, the spirit of truth and of righteousness which is that 
body's soul and life. All our other loyalties are based on this, the deepest and most 
fundamental. Where that spirit is, there is our brother, and there our loyalty is 
due ; where that spirit is not, where there is one who does not serve or reverence 
it, there is no brother of ours ; and where, if such should be, that spirit is violated, 
travestied and outraged, there is one who, though he were our brother, or ourself, 
must be cast out. 

Surely, as we have been so tested in the past, we should be able now to command 
the courage and the hope to go forward confidently, making our life in the world a 
united, potent, definite force, giving to our ideal all the enthusiasm of our hearts. 
No one of us can measure the power that such an ideal as ours, made to live as 
we should make it live, by whole souled devotion, can have upon the world which 
is in flux around us. Even the psychic counterfeit of an ideal, the false, perverted, 
evil distortion of it, can sway millions, as we see to-day in the mad fanaticism of 
Russia. And if the perversion is so potent, surely the truth must be more potent 
still. Let us go forward then with full confidence and high hope, to prove that the 
knowledge and vision entrusted to us have not been given us in vain. 

The Chairman stated that the next business was the appointment of the usual 
standing committees. On motion of Mr. Acton Griscom, seconded by Mr. C M. 
Saxe, the Chair was empowered to appoint the standing committees ; appointments 
were made as follows : 

Committee on Resolutions 



Committee on Nominations 
Mr. J. F. B. Mitchell, Chairman 
Mr. C. Russell Auchincloss 
Mrs. Adelaide A. Outcalt 



Mr. E. T. Hargrove, Chairman 
Mr. Acton Griscom 
Mrs. E. S. Thompson 



Committee on Letters of Greeting 
Dr. Archibald Keightley, Chairman 
Mr. K. D. Perkins 
Dr. C. C. Clark 

THE CHAIRMAN : It is customary for the Committee on Letters of Greeting 
and the Committee on Resolutions to meet during the noon recess. The Committee 
on Nominations is requested to meet as early as possible, so that they may be 
able to report to the Chairman. The next business before/ the Convention is the 
report of Officers. 

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 

MR. JOHNSTON: Mr. Chairman and Fellow Members. The function of the 
Executive Committee is one of very serious responsibility, for more than one 
reason. It is laid down by the Constitution that the Executive Committee shall 
represent the Society between Conventions. During the Convention, the entire 
legislative power of The Theosophical Society is vested in the Convention Assem- 
bled. Between Conventions, the Executive Committee bears the heavy responsibility 
of representing that power and using it when necessary. To represent The Theo- 
sophical Society is a privilege, without question. It is also a very grave respon- 
sibility, and it can only be done in any measure successfully, so far as the members 



76 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

of the Executive Committee try, at least, to represent the principles of Theosophy, 
day by day and hour by hour, and in every moment of their lives. Otherwise, they 
are not really representing The Theosophical Society. There is also the principle 
of continuity. A very vital part of our Movement, as the Chairman has said, is 
that it shall be a continuous and unceasing spiritual progress. It will not avail 
for us to meet with enthusiasm, at Convention times, and sink down into lethargy 
between Conventions. That will get us nowhere. The only thing that will avail 
is an absolutely steady forward push, without reservation, without self-saving, and 
with courage and valour at every moment. The continuity of the Executive Com- 
mittee is provided for in the Constitution of the Society, in that only two members 
come up for election each year, the remaining two-thirds of the Committee always 
continuing in office. That plan was put into force with the express purpose of 
assuring a maximum of continuity. 

Therefore, the Executive Committee has very serious and very heavy respon- 
sibilities, and these really indicate a corresponding responsibility on the part of 
every member in the Society. The Executive Committee will only be truly repre- 
sentative in a vigorous onward movement when every member of the Society is 
vigorously moving forward. Otherwise we shall not have an authentic representa- 
tion. So the obligation works both ways. It is the obligation of the Executive 
Committee to represent the highest ideals of the Theosophical Movement at every 
moment, and to represent them with continuity; it is the obligation of every 
member and of the members gathered in Branches, to do exactly the same thing 
to represent in thought, in aspiration, in will, in every act,- the highest ideals and 
principles of The Theosophical Society, without flagging, or relaxation of effort. 

Between the Conventions the Executive Committee is under obligation to 
meet such situations as arise during the course of the year. There are three points 
which have arisen or existed during the past year, on which the Executive Com- 
mittee has directed me to report to the Convention. These three points, I shall 
take up in their chronological order the order in which they happened. 

Owing to the war, conditions in Germany are still chaotic. There are individual 
members who appear to be gaining some understanding and who express loyalty 
to the Theosophical Movement. Time alone can clear and test this situation. 

There was another point of difficulty, in the British National Branch, which 
it is hoped that the British members themselves will be able satisfactorily to 
adjust. At the annual meeting of British members, held last October, a Resolution 
was introduced endorsing certain resolutions which were passed by the Society 
ss a whole at its Convention of 1920. As this met with opposition, action was 
postponed. Since then, the; resolution has been submitted to a Referendum and 
approved by a large majority. The necessity for this suggests, however, a defect in 
organization which the British members will doubtless wish to remedy. 

I have also to report that it became necessary for the Executive Committee 
during the course of the year, in discharge of the responsibility with which it is 
entrusted by the Constitution, to withdraw the charter of the former Providence 
Branch, as it had become evident that the fruits of the Branch were foreign 
to the purposes and ideals. of The Theosophical Society. This involved the with- 
drawal of the individual diplomas, but at the same time, the former members of the 
Providence Branch were notified that the Executive Committee would be prepared 
to consider any renewed applications. 

The point which naturally comes into prominence once more at this stage is 
the work and responsibility of Branches. It is an especially fitting topic for the 
Committee to bring up at a Convention which is a Convention of Branches. That 
is another fundamental matter in the Constitution which, perhaps, ought to be 
cleared up. This is not a Convention of members of the Society, though only 
members are present. It is a Convention of Branches, for the reason that only 



T. S. ACTIVITIES 77 

when a Branch is formed requiring three or more members only when a Branch 
is living, can the principles and practices and methods of The Theosophical Society 
be really and vitally worked out. The matter has been touched on a great many 
times, but it is worth touching on again. The fundamental function of our work 
is this : in Branch meetings to take up questions of real import, every member con- 
tributing, whether it be a point of view or a point of understanding, to this theme ; 
the fruitful result is the united light which that group of members gains on the 
subject by active spiritual, mental, and moral co-operation. It is clear that one 
person alone cannot co-operate. The minimum is three members (a table can stand 
on three legs but not on two) ; The Theosophical Society is functioning only when 
active spiritual, moral and mental co-operation is going on. 

Without Branches, we should not really be a living, functioning Theosophical 
Society. Given your Branch and its principle of co-operation, it becomes clear that 
members should lucidly and forcefully understand the purpose of their work, the 
purpose of The Theosophical Society; and understanding it, that they should carry 
it out vigorously, fruitfully and devotedly in their Branch meetings. There must 
be the purpose, denned in the objects of the Society ; the method, the Theosophical 
method of active spiritual, mental, and moral co-operation ; and there must be the 
thorough underlying unity between the Branch life and the life of The Theosophical 
Society as a whole. And as everyone here represents Branches, I bring this to 
your notice, not at all with the thought that you do not understand it or realize it, 
but in order to emphasize once more its vital importance. Without Branches 
rightly acting, The Theosophical Society as such cannot act, and the right life of 
a Branch depends upon the devotion and understanding of the Branch members. 

These are the main matters that the Committee has directed me to lay before 
you, and I now put this report into the hands of the Convention for consideration. 

Moved by Mr. Mitchell and seconded by Mr. Hargrove: Be it resolved that 
the report of the Chairman of the Executive Committee, and that the actions of 
the Executive' Committee during the past year, are hereby approved and confirmed. 
Carried, unanimously. 

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY T. S. FOR THE YEAR ENDING APRIL 29TH, 1921 

New Members 

Consolidation was one of the watchwords of the last Convention. It was made 
clear that the Society was upon the battle line, subject to attack fully as violent as if 
the warfare were objective and open. The demand was for greater watchfulness, 
deeper understanding of principles, and keener discrimination of the issues arising 
from them. The Branches have responded to that demand, and they evidently have 
felt that these were not the conditions under which recruits were of primary impor- 
tance. The demand was to hold and to advance; new members have been enrolled 
only as they themselves felt the call to the conflict. Two new Branches have been 
chartered the Blavatsky Lodge in Whitley Bay, England, with 5 charter members ; 
the Pittsburgh Branch, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with 12 charter members. 

Correspondence 

During the past year the correspondence of this Office has been almost wholly 
what might be described as "routine letters." So very little of it had any but the 
most remote bearing on the theosophic life and its problems. This means, for one 
thing, that the Office is not serving its full purpose. Such requests for help as 
come, usually come too late. Take the most external ones, requests to send the 
QUARTERLY to a new address ; most of these come several weeks after the magazine 
has been mailed to the old address and nothing remains to do but send a second 
copy. In more vital matters it is the same. Some isolated member reads some- 
thing, in the QUARTERLY or in one of the standard books, which he does not under- 
stand. It disturbs him; there is no fellow-member with whom he can talk it out. 



78 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

That is the time to write to the Secretary. Instead, he waits, the misconception 
grows until, perhaps, the only relief he can see is to send in his resignation. Yet 
how glad this Office would be to serve as a sort of study class for those who have 
not the advantages of Branch life. There are also times in the life of a Branch 
when it might be wise to ask counsel. There are advantages that come from view- 
ing a situation as a whole, without the troublesome details and personalities that 
often make it difficult for those who are close to a problem to get it in proper 
perspective. 

Branch Activities 

The impressions gained from a careful study of the Branch Reports may be 
summed up in two terms greater individuality in method; greater devotion to our 
common understanding of the principles and aims of the Movement. All have had 
to meet the high-tide of psychism, which in certain communities has proved an 
alarming menace to sane, well-ordered life. Some of our members have had the 
experience of finding that their neighbors, who once regarded them as radicals of 
some strange stripe, now rank them as ultra-conservatives because of their un- 
friendliness to psychic experiments and practices. So in many Branches an impor- 
tant part of the work has been to keep clear, first for themselves and then for others, 
the distinction between spiritual forces and their psychic counterfeits. Certain 
Branches have been developing speakers, to be prepared for propaganda, should 
the cycle for that return; others work only with individuals; some meet once a 
month, some three times a week; most have Study Classes; several maintain circu- 
lating libraries; many distribute the QUARTERLY. One, the Venezuela Branch, has 
set itself to meet the need for satisfactory editions of standard T. S. books in the 
Spanish language. They have already brought out four such editions, admirably 
translated, and attractively printed and bound and more volumes are promised. 
All the reports from Branches show deep devotion to the work and enthusiasm over 
its ever increasing possibilities. 

The Theosophical Quarterly 

It is not so many years ago that the Editor-in-Chief of the QUARTERLY asked a 
number of new members who were gathered about him whether any of them ever 
read the magazine from cover to cover. Despite their prompt assurances, he ex- 
pressed grave doubt, adding laughingly, that the evidence was against their asser- 
tions. They understood him to mean that if the force and understanding that 
breathed through it were fully recognized and used, there must be certain unmistak- 
able evidences, both in personal and in Branch life. It is clear that during the 
past year the Branches have been basing more and more of their work upon the 
QUARTERLY, both as throwing new light on life, and as affording timely material 
for study and discussion. An increasing number of people are coming into contact 
with the Society through the magazine. In some cases new members have never 
known a single representative of the T. S. the magazine has been their sole 
initiator. 

The Quarterly Book Department' 

Our own edition of Through the Gates of Gold is the only addition to the list 
of publications. There is no disposition to increase the Department's list at a time 
when the cost of producing books is so excessive, and the materials so inferior in 
quality. Its aim is to keep its present publications in ample stock, and to procure 
alJ other standard books, as desired. Inquiries about books, courses of reading, etc., 
are always gladly answered. 

A Personal Acknowledgment 

As always, my first thought is of gratitude to the Masters for the continued 
opportunity of service. This year, ill health has greatly restricted my work, but I am 
thankful for a sense of connection that is not dependent upon daily contact. It is 



T. S. ACTIVITIES 



79 



also a pleasure to have the opportunity to express my most sincere gratitude to my 
fellow officers, whose thought for my necessities has relieved me from anxiety 
about the immediate future. The Assistant Secretary, who has taken over all the 
detail work, asks that mention be made of constant help given by New York 
members. Certain features of it are regularly carried by certain of their number 
(Miss Chickering, Miss Youngs, Mrs. Vaile, Miss Graves, Miss Lewis and Miss 
Wood) with the assistance, as always, of Mrs. Helle and Miss Hascall in address- 
ing QUARTERLY envelopes. 

With a deep sense of gratitude that this work, on which I am venturing to 
report, is, as far as we so desire and labour, work for and with Masters, I am, 

Respectfully yours, 
ADA GREGG, 

Secretary, The Theosophical Society. 

MR. WOODBRIDGE: I should like to have the pleasure, if I may, of proposing a 
motion of thanks, and love, and gratitude to Mrs. Gregg, and also to move that her 
report be accepted. The motion was seconded by Dr. T. L. Stedman and unani- 
mously carried. 

THE CHAIRMAN : In past Conventions, we have often, when Mrs. Gregg could 
not be here, had the pleasure of sending her some little token of our appreciation 
of her long service to the Society. This year, as she is in the country, she cannot 
be visited by any one of us ; we cannot send her flowers ; but I think we might like to 
send her a telegram. (At this point the Chairman received a paper.) It is evi- 
dent that in this suggestion the Chairman has anticipated somebody else, for the 
paper, just handed me, reads: "Resolved that the delegates and members present 
wish to unite in sending their love and greetings to Mrs. Gregg, and that they re- 
quest someone (let us say Mr. Woodbridge) to send her a telegram as from this 
Convention." This Resolution was heartily seconded and voted. 

The Chairman announced the next business before the Convention as the report 
of the Treasurer, and asked that Mr. Johnston take the Chair while that report was 
made. 

Report of the Treasurer of The Theosophical Society 

April 23, 1920-April 27, 1921 
Receipts Disbursements 

Current Dues $ 659.03 Rent Secretary's Office $ 140.00 

General Contributions 617.76 Pension 40.00 



Subscriptions and Donations to 
the THEOSOPHICAL QUAR- 
TERLY 558.71 

Special Contributions 800.00 

$2,635.50 
1922 Dues prepaid 118.00 



$2,753.50 

Transferred to General Fund 
from Special Publication a/c 312.00 
from Discretionary Expense 
a/c 483.00 



Printing and Mailing the 
THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY (4 

numbers) 2,225.92 

Expense of Subscription Dept. 

THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY . . 47.55 

Stationery 43.98 

Postage 65.90 

Miscellaneous 134.31 

$2,697.66 



Deficit April 23, 1920 408.70 



Cancelled check 



$3,548.50 $3,106.36 

14.00 Balance April 27, 1921 456.14 



$3,562.50 



$3,562.50 



80 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Assets Liabilities 

On deposit, Corn Exchange April Issue the THEOSOPHICAL 

Bank, April 27, 1921 $397.19 QUARTERLY $623.27 

Checks for deposit 122.50 1922 dues prepaid 118.00 

$519.69 $741.27 

Deduct outstanding checks un- 
cashed 63.55 



$456.14 
Excess of Liabilities over Assets 285.13 

$741.27 
April 27, 1921. HENRY BEDINGER MITCHELL, Treasurer. 

There is a balance in the bank of $456.00. Over against that $456.00 which we 
have in bank, we have to pay for the April issue of the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY. 
That is not properly included in the expenses of the year, because we have already 
included four numbers, which is all any year is entitled to. But it is a bill which 
stands against us, so we have roughly speaking $623.00 to pay out, and $456.00 with 
which to pay it. There is, then, an excess of liabilities over assets in hand. But I 
assure you that that will be made good. The Movement is far too deeply loved; 
it stands for far too much for it ever to lack while some have anything at all. And 
from those who have, we may be quite sure The Theosophical Society will receive, 
in the future as in the past. There is, however, a question of policy involved in 
this, which I should like to submit to the Convention. 

The QUARTERLY is now about to begin its nineteenth volume. It is eighteen 
years since it was founded by Mr. Griscom. The price during that time has remained 
the same. There is no other magazine of which I have any knowledge that has 
remained at the same price throughout these eighteen years. The cost of paper 
has greatly increased, the cost of labour has greatly increased, and it is those two 
things which constitute the cost of our magazine. Nothing is paid to our con- 
tributors and their compensation has not been increased. The expense of produc- 
ing a single issue of the QUARTERLY has trebled more than trebled if we go back 
to the earliest days. If the magazine sold to-day for fifty cents, it would be, rela- 
tive to the price of other publications, priced about the same as it was originally. 
I think it would be wise for someone to move that the Convention recommend that 
the price of the QUARTERLY be raised to $2.00, rather than $1.00 a year; fifty cents, 
rather than twenty-five cents a number. The QUARTERLY is sent to all members 
of the Society in return for their dues $2.00 a year. It is an open question in my 
mind whether the dues of the Society should not also be raised, to maintain them, 
relative to other expenses, at what they were ten, fifteen or twenty years ago. It 
has never been the purpose or the practice of The Theosophical Society to exclude 
anyone from its membership because of poverty, because of inability to pay the 
dues. Where that inability actually exists, but where there is, on the other hand, 
real participation in the spirit and purposes of the Society, we all know that the 
contribution of money is a very secondary thing. No one will be excluded on ac- 
count of poverty if they will believe in the earnest protestations of the Society and 
of its officers, and write frankly; it is always possible to make provision. I think 
most of us, however, are able to pay three dollars a year for dues. Nearly everyone 
who sends in their dues sends in something extra as a contribution. Perhaps raising 
the dues would be just transferring figures between two columns of the Treasurer's 
book raising the amount of dues and lowering that of contributions. But I rather 
think that even if the dues are raised, certain members will continue to send a 
little extra as a contribution. Therefore I should suggest that the Convention con- 



T. S. ACTIVITIES 81 

sider raising the dues to three dollars a year, and I would urge that the subscription 
price of the QUARTERLY be doubled. 

MR. JOHNSTON: The Convention has heard the report of the Treasurer. Be- 
fore asking you to signify your wish as regards it, I know perfectly well that I 
shall express the opinion of everybody here when I say that the value of the 
Treasurer's work and the devotion which he puts into it are something which cannot 
be acknowledged by the most generous resolution of thanks ; for which we can 
make no return, but we must wish to make some direct payment in our warm, 
cordial gratitude for the devoted work which the Treasurer has, year after year, 
put into this difficult and onerous task. 

PROFESSOR MITCHELL: I should like to speak to that motion, because I know 
more about it than anybody else. I should like it to be passed with one amendment 
only that the Treasurer's office be the recipient of the thanks. No one knows how 
much is done by the Assistant Treasurer, the Assistant Secretary, and the assistants 
to the assistants. Miss Youngs, as Assistant Treasurer, has done the labour, kept 
the books, sent the receipts, has worked most faithfully. And we all know the ac- 
tivity of the Assistant Secretary. So I should like to second this motion myself, 
and do second it with enthusiastic thanks, because I want it directed to those who do 
the work and not just to the holder of the title. 

MR. JOHNSTON : We are really indebted to the persons who have so loyally and 
devotedly carried out the work, month after month and year after year. There 
remains the report of the Treasurer; what is the wish of the Convention? 

[The suggestion that the subscription price of the QUARTERLY be doubled, was 
discussed at length. It was suggested that the QUARTERLY should be recognized 
more generally as the best means for propaganda which members of the Society 
can use, and that, instead of increasing its price, the heavy extra cost of its publica- 
tion might be met by a Propaganda Fund. This suggestion was accepted unani- 
mously, and was acted upon immediately, annual contributions totaling $658.00 being 
pledged by those members who were present at the close of the morning's session.] 

It was moved, seconded and carried, that the report of the Treasurer be accepted 
with thanks. 

THE CHAIRMAN (Professor Mitchell) then announced that a motion to adjourn 
until 2 :30 P. M. would be in order. On motion duly made and seconded, it was so 
ordered. 

AFTERNOON SESSION 

THE CHAIRMAN, after giving the total of the Propaganda Fund ($658.00) 
which had been pledged at the close of the morning session, stated that the first 
business of the afternoon session would be the report of the Committee on Nomi- 
nations, followed by the election of officers. 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON NOMINATIONS AND ELECTION OF OFFICERS 

MR. J. F. B. MITCHELL: Trie Committee on Nominations takes pleasure in unani- 
mously nominating Mr. E. T. Hargrove and Mr. Charles Johnston for the Executive 
Committee, to serve for three years, to succeed themselves ; Professor H. B. Mitchell, 
Treasurer; Miss M. E. Youngs, Assistant Treasurer; Mrs. Ada Gregg, Secretary 
Emeritus; Miss I. E. Perkins, Secretary, and Miss Julia dickering, Assistant 
Secretary. 

MR. WOODBRIDGE: I move that the Secretary be instructed to cast one ballot, 
and that the nominees be elected by the Convention. (So ordered). 

MR. ACTON GRISCOM : I move that the committee on nominations be discharged 
with the thanks of the Convention. (Motion carried). 

THE CHAIRMAN : The next business is the report of the Committee on Letters 
of Greeting, but prior to calling for the report of the Chairman of that Committee, 
I shall ask Mr. Hargrove for certain letters and greetings which have come too late 
to be presented to that Committee. 



82 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

MR. HARGROVE read extracts from letters that had been received from Mr. 
Zerndt, a member of the Aussig Branch in Czecho-Slovakia ; also a cablegram sent to 
Mrs. Griscom by Miss Theodora Dodge, who was present at the last Convention, 
reading: "Greetings to you all in Convention. I am with you all in spirit." Mr. 
Hargrove said that a letter of greeting from the Virya Branch of Denver, Colorado, 
had been interrupted by the death of Miss Du Pre, one of the oldest and most 
valued members of the Society, who will be mourned by all who knew her, and 
who had learned to appreciate her wonderful unselfishness and great purity of 
heart. He then read as follows from a letter which he had received from Mrs. 
Graves of the Branch in Norfolk, England : 

"You have been informed [in the official Branch letter] of our proceedings re- 
garding the British National Branch, so I need say nothing on this point, except that 
I, in common with all other members, am full of hope that the work here will now 
go ahead in the spirit of devotion and true' Brotherhood, through which alone we 
can make progress. There was never, I think, a time in the whole history of our 
country, when that spirit was more greatly needed; and the need for faith and 
courage was never greater. At such a time we shall all feel helped and strengthened 
by the knowledge that our brother Theosophists in America are meeting in Con- 
vention, for we know that you will not forget the British National Branch in your 
discussions and deliberations; and though none of us can be with you actually, we 
are all with you in thought and in spirit, praying that the blessings of the Masters 
may be given to the work, in which we all here are united with you. Time and 
space are no real barriers to those who are working for the same object, in single- 
ness and 'one pointedness' of purpose." 

MR. HARGROVE then said : Certain of our members in England have asked me to 
speak for them, and 1 should like to try to do so. First, I should wish to make it 
clear that members of The Theosophical Society in this country really feel with that 
small group in England, who are struggling so bravely to carry forward the banner 
of the Masters, and of Theosophy, into the spiritual desolation of England as it is 
to-day. England is the victim of a violent reaction following the War. It has been 
said, and I believe truly, that England cannot die because of those who died for 
England. That splendid army of souls who laid down their lives, without a 
moment's hesitation, or any thought of sacrifice, for the cause of Masters, during 
the Great War, carry on, to-day, in the same spirit of sacrifice and with the same 
intention. They did not formulate it to themselves as we would formulate it. One 
may have thought he died for Christ; another may have thought he died for Eng- 
land; a third may have died just because he was a good sportsman and believed 
in fair play. Yet, no matter how they expressed their ideal to themselves, that ideal 
was the ideal of Theosophy. And I think that we, assembled here in Convention, 
would do well to remind ourselves, once more, of the all-comprehensiveness of the 
theosophical ideal. 

The Theosophical Society, to-day, stands for a higher and more splendid ideal 
than the world has ever known. In the past, while the world has seen the ideal 
revealed in the lives and the sacrifice of Masters, in the person of Masters, the 
western world has never before been told that that same attainment is the oppor- 
tunity of the human race 1 . It was only in 1875 that Madame Blavatsky revealed the 
doctrine of Masters, the doctrine of human perfectibility. We are the custodians 
of that ideal. We are responsible for its growth in the hearts of men. It is im- 
possible, of course, for us to embody it; and yet, after all, there is no such thing as 
the impossible. The fact that, intellectually, it is impossible, ought to be a stimulus 
to those who perhaps would describe themselves as would-be disciples of the Lodge. 

Compare this attitude with that of the world. In England at the present time 
you have, on the one hand, the self-assertiveness of Labour ; on the other hand, the 
self-assertiveness of the aristocracy two different kinds of self-assertiveness, be- 
cause one is positive and psychic, and the other is negative and psychic. Among the 






T. S. ACTIVITIES 83 

aristocracy, you find too often the self-assertiveness of inertia, with a repudiation 
of responsibility so negative that some of them say "they suppose the day of aris- 
tocracy is past," that it is "the turn of the working man" washing their hands of 
England's honour, of England's prosperity, of that burden which the great Law itself 
placed upon them by reason of their birth. It is they who ought to be confronting 
the self-assertiveness of Labour, which is trying to create an aristocracy of Labour 
not in the true sense of the word, but in the sense in which it might be used in 
Russia at the present time, where the proletariat is placed above all classes or grades 
of society. It is the self-assertiveness of a group as against the whole, beginning 
with the creation of a government within a government. Nothing could be further 
removed from the ideals of Theosophy, which point out to all men, and to all classes 
of society, a common goal of attainment, showing that any one life is only a step, 
can only be a step, toward the attainment of that goal, and that the true purpose of 
life is to fulfil that destiny so far as it may lie in a man's power to do so. 

Theosophy reveals to us, not only an age-long growth, but an age-long effort at 
persuasion on the part of those who have attained. It shows them stooping, as it 
were, toward those who have not attained, to lift them up from the mire of life to 
a paradise of wisdom and love and power. A member who spoke this morning, 
when we were discussing the circulation of the QUARTERLY, referred to salesman- 
ship; and we can well think of the Masters as salesmen. It is rather a tragic way 
to think of them, and yet it may prove helpful. Our friend said truly that if once 
you can get something into the hands of a possible purchaser, you can leave it to 
him to pay for it afterwards. I remember a statement by one whose business it was 
to dispose of mining properties in the West : If you can persuade a man to go down 
a mine, he will always pay for it, somehow, when he comes up! And the Masters 
are trying to persuade us to buy something, something beyond price, to accept from 
them the water of life which they give freely. If we would but hold this treasure 
in our hands for a moment, we would never let go. And they know it. So they 
try to persuade us to open our hands, the hands of our hearts, to receive and then 
to retain if only for the flash of a second, their gift of immortal life and of immor- 
tal consciousness. 

Such is the opportunity of that small group in England; to open their hands 
and to receive, and thus to draw into the life of England the help that England 
needs. I doubt whether they know what their opportunity is. It is hard for a 
handful of mortals, not always working side by side, often separated one from 
another, to feel to the point of conviction that so few that one man perhaps work- 
ing in an office, a woman working in her home, a girl teaching in a school have it in 
their power, by their spirit of devotion, by their zeal in the cause of Theosophy, to 
call forth the leader for whom England waits. If they will lead, and will lead con- 
sciously in the spiritual sense ; if they will recognize their own mission there in the 
midst of that darkness, then, through the action of Karma, they will, as it were, 
evoke from that darkness, the mission of the man who waits for whom the Lodge 
waits, and whom the Lodge itself cannot push forward into outer activity until Eng- 
land herself calls. 

The Masters wait because they are the servants of Karma though of course 
they are more than that, for if it were not for the wall of their hearts of which 
H. P. B. speaks in the notes to the Voice of the Silence, there is not one of us here 
to-day who would not be swamped by his own Karma, by his own sins of the past, 
if not of the present. And so they are more than the servants, they are the with- 
holders of Karma, and they are to-day withholding the Karma of England, until the 
time when, by means of The Theosophical Society and the burning devotion of its 
members, they may be permitted to send forth into England, not a conscious mes- 
senger, but the man whom they have in reserve, to speak for the conscience of Eng- 
land, to speak, for the ideals of England, to carry forward the banner of the old 
nobility of England which is embodied, not only in the hearts of so-called nobles. 



84 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

but in the hearts of the jockeys, the stable boys, the race-course touts who rushed 
to the aid of the first hundred thousand and who died on the fields of France. 
That old spirit of England was responsible, in the first place, for the birth of the 
American people. It is nothing foreign to ourselves. It must be in the bones and in 
the blood of most of us here to-day. And so, for theosophical reasons and for 
reasons of blood also, all of us must desire to see that nation recover itself and 
cease to make of itself an exhibition in the eyes of mankind. 

What ideals does this Society stand for, what hopes ! No one can know them, 
no one can share them, unless he is a student of Theosophy, and not a student of 
the books only, not a listener only to speeches at meetings, but one who has learned 
to enter into and to love this old teaching, and who has recognized and learned to 
long for that which the teaching reveals, the small old path, stretching far away 
toward the Lodge toward the Lodge, yes, and more than toward the Lodge; 
toward those who constitute the Lodge ; toward those men and women who, having 
lived and laboured, have attained the power to serve, and who, to-day, standing as 
it were with their backs against the wall, withhold from us and from mankind as a 
whole, this frightful curse of our own creation, the Karma of the world's sin. 
Standing there, they appeal to us, particularly at this time of Convention, to come 
over to them, to turn from the false glamour of earthly things, to conquer that maya, 
that thirst for life of which the Buddha spoke, and to realize that there can be no 
true life except in terms of the real, and that the real, the only real, is the life of 
the soul, the life of the Eternal itself. 

Now there are many people in England who understand, up to a certain point, 
the needs of England. They see, on the one hand, the extravagance of Labour and 
the worse than folly of the upper classes. They see what England ought to be, what 
Labour ought to be. They see the opportunity of Labour and the opportunity of the 
aristocracy . And in the name of religion they fail, because of their religion they 
fail, for the reason that they misunderstand absolutely the teachings of Christ. 
Some of you have read a book called The Mirrors of Downing Street it is supposed 
to have been written by Harold Begbie and there is much in that book which is 
admirable. The writer suggests a fine ideal of service, of unselfish service, of self- 
surrender in service. But everything he says is tainted with his misunderstanding 
of Christianity. His one idea of what is right at the present time is to forgive and 
forget the sins of Germany. He seems to think that whether the German people 
are repentant or not makes no difference whatsoever; that whether they are the 
same kind of Germans as in 1914 makes no difference whatsoever. Because a war 
has been fought and won, it is the duty of those who have won to treat those who 
have lost as if they had done something noble in being beaten. And this is supposed 
to be "Christian." That is where Theosophy is so frightfully needed. 

It would not seem as though we had reached our thousands in this country, 
and yet, in the deeper sense we have, because no matter what may be said in criti- 
cism of America, of the United States, there is no doubt that it is in a healthier con- 
dition to-day than England very much healthier and there are few people, in 
public life in any case, who would dare to talk about Germany as men in England 
are talking. 

It is in the name of religion, or at least in the spirit of religion, that the "some- 
one" to whom I referred ought to speak in the name of righteousness, in the name 
of decency, in the name of honour. And he will so speak if the members of The 
Theosophical Society in England not only will do their duty, but will do it with 
the faith, with the devotion, with the passion that everyone of us ought to feel when 
it comes to the cause of Theosophy, of Masters, and of the Lodge. 

Our Chairman was speaking this morning of esprit de corps. What is the oppo- 
site of esprit de corps if not the spirit of self-determination? The phrase, I believe, 
was coined in this country, but it seems to have been coined specially for the grati- 
fication of the English people, who grasped at it greedily, particularly the Labour 



T. S. ACTIVITIES 



85 



leaders and other egotists in other walks in life. Everyone who calls himself an 
apostle of the new order has declared that this phrase exactly expresses his own 
ideal and purpose ; and as a mantram it "works." But it is a mantram of evil, of 
the Black Lodge, of destruction. The spirit of self-assertiveness claims that a man 
has a right to determine his own conduct, a right to govern himself, a right to live 
his own life in obedience to his own whims, to express himself from moment to 
moment, and from day to day, as his own spirit (whether it be a spirit of hell or 
of heaven) may determine. And so, in England to-day, among all classes, this 
spirit of self-determination is rampant. In its place must be put the spirit of Theos- 
ophy which is the spirit of self-surrender. 

There was trouble over there^-yes, even in the ranks of The Theosophical So- 
ciety. What was the cause of the trouble? Essentially, it was the spirit of self- 
determination. Because, instead of sharing in the esprit de corps of The Theo- 
sophical Society, instead of sharing in the feeling of the whole, in the spirit of self- 
surrender, there came a spirit of self-assertiveness. Always, if a man does not feel 
with and love the body to which he belongs, if in his heart he stands outside the 
ranks, he is inclined to see in the spirit of the ranks, the spirit of a clique. But it 
is of the essence of a clique to desire to keep others outside itself. Do you find in 
The Theosophical Society a desire to keep people out? O, no! In The Theosoph- 
ical Society there is an immense desire to get people in; not to exclude but to in- 
clude. Once in, you want them to share with you your own enthusiasm, your own 
love, your own experience. You want to give them all that you have gathered, all 
that you have learned, by mistakes perhaps, that they may be able to tread the path 
of life with greater security, with greater effectiveness. 

Self-determination ! And so when the test came, there were those who said they 
were not going to follow the lead of America, to follow what we did at our last 
Convention here. Their reasons were the reasons of Pacifists, were the reasons of 
pro-Germanism. But back of that was the spirit of self-determination. The last 
thing in the world that any of us had dreamed of was to tell those English members 
what they ought to do. We did not ask them to endorse our resolution, to review 
the action of the Convention. From one standpoint, it was an entirely superfluous 
act seeing that they were represented at the Convention, which was a Convention 
of the Society as a whole. It was absurd to suppose we were trying to dictate. 
And yet a few of them, because they had been influenced by this modern spirit of 
separateness, by this psychic disease which is sweeping over England, took it upon 
themselves to object, and so finally arrived where they had placed themselves, out- 
side the ranks of the Society. All that can be said of them now is what H. P. B. 
once said : Peace be to their ashes. We are sorry ; but what concerns us first and 
foremost is the welfare of the Society itself, and the Society is better off when 
those who have ceased to share its spirit, leave it. 

Perhaps this is a strange way to speak on behalf of England. And yet, if I am 
to speak at all, I must say what I feel. And speaking now not so much for the 
English members, as for the Society in this country speaking, if I may, as from 
this Convention I should like to send them word of our sympathy, but above all 
of our hope. I should like to send them from this Covention not merely a greeting, 
and not exactly an exhortation, but a message calling upon them to answer to the 
appeal of Masters and to the appeal of those who have died for them; and to take 
faith! In all the history of The Theosophical Society there never was so great a 
need or so great an opportunity. We, in this country, will do what we can, but 
ultimately it is those members in England who have the fate of England in their 
hands. It does not need genius. It needs devotion, and it needs understanding, 
right understanding one vital division of the noble eightfold path of Buddha. But 
it needs above all things, right will, right determination, an absolute refusal to fail, 
an absolute refusal to recognize that there is any such thing in life as the impossible. 
That word impossible has damned more souls than sin itself. And if those English 



86 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

members are to succeed, they must throw that word out of their vocabulary. Their 
task is not impossible, because nothing is impossible. And the soul of every human 
being knows it. It is only the lower nature, it is only weakness, it is only the shadow 
of the real that dares to use that word. And there is not anyone among us, either 
here or there, who does not know in his heart that he can, and, pray heaven, 
knows also that he must, when the high gods point the way. That is what those 
members in England, being mortal, must be told ; while if they can be told it on 
the flood tide of this Convention, so much the better. For the rest, on their heads 
be it. The Masters have placed them there with that responsibility ; have placed 
them there confronting that opportunity, and this means that the Masters will give 
them the power to achieve, if they will but undertake to achieve. 

A crisis, yes, of course it is a crisis; a crisis in the life of England. Thank 
heaven again that it is not a question of numbers. What was true of Sodom and 
Gomorrah is true to-day. If there are three righteous men, but there are "right- 
eous" men in England by the hundred thousand. The difference is that it needs 
some sense as well as righteousness. It needs Theosophy. And so, if there are 
three people in England who, understanding Theosophy, will try to work for Theos- 
ophy, will make it as themselves, will get up with it in the morning and go to sleep 
with it at night, eat with it, work with it, die with it, England will be saved. 

The world needs England. Every nation needs England. This country needs 
England. France needs England. Nobody can be saved alone. This country 
cannot be saved alone. It has often thought that it could be, has talked as if it had 
been; but it cannot be saved alone. I do not mean we should interfere in the affairs 
of other people. But I do mean that we should recognize facts, and that we should 
understand and feel with the rest of the human race. We cannot isolate ourselves. 
Brotherhood is a fact in life. And so it is that the salvation of England concerns 
each one of us intimately, personally, not only in this life but for always, and that 
the future of England, of the British National Branch of The Theosophical Society, 
the future of its individual members, is something that deeply concerns this Con- 
vention. I do not think it necessary to suggest any form of resolution, but I should 
like to write and tell them something of what I have said, and that it is the belief 
of this Convention the united feeling of this Convention that great is their op- 
portunity, and that they must of necessity have it in their power to do all that the 1 
Masters could hope for, where England is concerned. 

THE CHAIRMAN : There is no need of a motion to send that message to our 
English brothers. Yet if we think it be a message addressed only to them, we have 
strangely misunderstood. It is a message addressed to every one of us, to eve'ry life, 
to every heart. W r e would do well to take it so. And as we listen to the letters of 
greeting from our members and Branches in other lands, I think we would do well 
to listen to them as indicative of at least the effort made 1 by others to follow in that 
Path which has been so clearly pointed out to us. Our next business is to hear 
these letters of greeting. 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LETTERS OF GREETING 

DR. KEIGHTLEY: On behalf of the Committee, I shall read certain letters, and 
have asked Dr. Clark to present others. (The reading of these letters was listened 
to with great interest and frequent applause. They appear at the end of the Con- 
vention Report.) 

THE CHAIRMAN : The Chair would now be glad to receive a motion to dis- 
charge the Committee on Letters of Greeting, with thanks. 

MR. WOODBRIDGE: In making that motion, may I also call attention to the fact 
that we would like to send greetings to those members? One of the letters came 
from a member of the Executive Committee, and I am sure it would be the wish 
of all of us to send a special message of love to Colonel Knoff. [This was voted.] 

THE CHAIRMAN : The next business is the report of the Committee on Resolu- 
tions. 



\ S. ACTIVITIES 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS 

MR. HARGROVE: Mr. Chairman, I am glad to report, as Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Resolutions and on behalf of that Committee, that there is very little to 
say. 

I. Our first resolution is that Mr. Johnston, as Chairman of the Executive 
Committee, be authorized to reply to the letters of greeting. 

II. That visits of officers to the various Branches be authorized. 

III. That the thanks of the Society be extended to the New York Branch 
for the hospitality received. 

The adoption of the resolutions was carried. 

THE CHAIRMAN : The next business is the pleasure of hearing from the dele- 
gates, Branch representatives, and proxies. 

MRS. GITT: Each of us has entered The Theosophical Society for a different 
reason. Mine was to learn more about the Christian Master and the Christian 
religion. I take more than pleasure I take soul-gratification, in saying that the 
Theosophical teachings and the Theosophical doctrine have made the Christian 
Master and His teachings a revelation to me. I am more deeply interested each year 
that I live, and my special interest is along the line of Church work. Of course, 
we would all greatly prefer to see some change in the Church. The non-essentials 
of the Christian religion have been made so much of, but I think that in the past 
year there has been improvement along that line. Then another point is, that the 
people who attend services want to hear more about the Christian Master and His 
teachings. They want Jesus. That desire is in their hearts, and the Churches 
ought to respond to it. I find that on many sides there is a feeling that Theosophy 
and the Christian Churches clash. That is not true. They do not clash. Theosophy 
is the revelation of the Christian teachings, and the more you understand Theosophy, 
the more you will understand Christ. On the; whole, I have been greatly pleased 
this year with the influx of spiritual force that has been apparent in the Churches 
which I have had an opportunity to observe. 

MR. BANNER: The only difference in our report this year, in comparison with 
previous years, is that we come to-day as real delegates, when before we came as 
members-at-large, delegates from the Pittsburgh Branch. The charter has not 
reached there yet, I received it here and have it in my hand. Inasmuch as there 
has been only one meeting of our Branch, a meeting for the purpose of organiza- 
tion, there is little or nothing to tell you aside from that. We hope that next year 
there will be some progress to report. 

THE CHAIRMAN: Will Mr. Woodbridge speak for Boston, and for New York? 

MR. WOODBRIDGE: I do hate to have to speak for Boston I doubt whether my 
language would be suitable. And I am afraid to talk for the New York Branch 
knowing what the' Branch is, I should not like to be taken for Exhibit A of the 
New York Branch. I am going to try to express the gratitude of T. S. members. \Ve 
are grateful for the New York Branch; grateful to the Masters. There is the 
feeling of real gratitude, almost like an electric current. It is not merely going forth 
from our hearts as emotional enjoyment, but it takes the form of a determination 
to show that the sacrifices which have been made by the older members, that the 
effort they have made to keep going the work started by the Masters will not be 
stopped by us; that we intend not merely to take what has been given us, but also 
to show our gratitude by trying to do what will please those who have been helping 
us and teaching us. Referring to that point in the Los Angeles letter about changes 
in numbers, let us do as Mr. Griscom once said, let us look at things around us, 
and instead of being discouraged because The Theosophical Society is small, be 
encouraged because it is so effective. It is said that the waste tissues in the ordinary 
man, if they were not thrown off, would accumulate at a frightful rate. As I 
calculate it, I should now if they were not thrown off, weigh sixteen and a quarter 
tons. Our Society to-day is perhaps exactly the effective size to do the work it is 



88 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

called upon to do. It is not our business what the size is. The only question is, 
what are we going to do about it? We have been here, and have been given a 
light. What are we going to do about it? 

THE CHAIRMAN : Mrs. Gordon tells me that she cannot talk, but I know she 
brings to us the greetings of the Middletown Branch, which, year after year, we 
take great pleasure in hearing from. 

Miss RICHMOND: [asked to speak for the members-at-large] I had in mind 
something of what Mr. Woodbridge just said. I am so impressed after an absence 
of some seven or eight years, to see how the work has grown. I do not mean on 
the part of the older members, from whom that might have been expected I mean 
on the part of the younger members. Perhaps you who come every year do not 
realize it so thoroughly. It comes to me this year, at least, as a tremendous surprise 
and a great encouragement. Madame Blavatsky and Mr. Judge, I feel sure, would 
be happy; are happy because of it. 

Then, one word of encouragement to those who, like myself, are far from New 
York. We are frontiersmen. And frontiersman used to mean a pioneer. Think 
what that means. If anyone thinks there is loneliness about that, he does not under- 
stand what Theosophy can mean in life. I am reminded of two passages, one from 
Mr. Judge's Letters, which refers to the fact that if one makes an advance, then it 
is certain there is a sort of silence or loneliness all around in the forest of his 
nature. That is not discouragement. And from the Tao in the last QUARTERLY, 
"The Master works without working. He teaches in silence. He who would tread 
the Way soon becomes silent. The Way quiets impetuosity. It looses bonds. It fol- 
lows lowliness." And that is the keynote of it all. 

MR. J. F. B. MITCHELL: I do not know that I have anything to say for the 
New York Branch, but for myself I want to express my own great happiness at 
being here again and to join with all my heart in what Mr. Woodbridge said of the 
gratitude that we owe and feel to those who have made it possible for us to have 
the privilege of being here. 

Before the Convention I was asking myself what might be the keynote this year, 
on what point did the thought of the world most need clarifying. Six years ago, 
when thought in this country was particularly blinded, this Society led the way by 
a clear-cut declaration that when a spiritual principle was believed to be at stake, 
neutrality was wrong. At a later Convention came the statement that compromise 
with evil was wrong. In both these declarations the Society led the way and 
showed what should be done. Unfortunately, the world did not follow. We did 
compromise with evil, but at least an increasing numBer of people are coming to 
see that we did so compromise and that it was wrong. There again the Society 
led the world. Later still, when the the word brotherhood was being so terribly mis- 
used, the Society came out with the declaration that Bolshevism is not brotherhood, 
but its opposite, and the opposite of all for which the Society stands. 

We have all seen the immense power that clear thinking, on the part of the 
Society and its members, has in the world. Mr. Hargrove has pointed out the 
glorious opportunity of the English members and the German members. Each one 
of us should take this to himself as his opportunity and his opportunity to-day. 
What is it that we want to se'e clearly? That, in my view, was brought out by the 
Chairman in his opening speech this morning when he spoke of the need for faith 
in the spiritual powers. This, it seems to me, is what the resolutions of the pre- 
ceding years were pointing toward : that the world should have faith in the spiritual 
powers, should realize that the powers of the spirit are in ceaseless conflict with 
the powers of evil, the powers of materialism, that neutrality and compromise 
are wrong, that brotherhood does not rest on the material, is not interested 
in the material, but has its foundation in the spirit and must fight on the side 
of the spirit, against the material. It is for us to put our faith in the 
Spiritual Powers and to point out the way to a world confused by psychic 



T. S. ACTIVITIES 89 

glamour. We have the opportunity, by clear thinking, to go far toward correcting 
that confusion by throwing our faith, our utmost effort, on the side of the spiritual 
powers, against compromise, against delay when action is called for, against neu- 
trality, against any and all of the false conceptions of brotherhood that would 
make it a thing of material aims, of equality in possessions, of forms of govern- 
ment, of democracy, or of any other outer material aim with which it is now con- 
fused and with which it has nothing to do. For brotherhood is, in and of itself, 
of the Spirit, its foundation is spiritual and the spiritual is the side on which it 
must fight. 

MRS. REGAN: I have very little to tell. We have held meetings just the same 
as last year, in the same room. We have divided our time between the study of 
the Yoga Sutras and the QUARTERLY. That is about all. 

MR. PERKINS : Mr. Chairman, I was so glad that Mr. Mitchell said something 
about the glamour in the world at the present time. We all know what that is 
because we know it right inside ourselves. We do not have to become acquainted 
with it in history, or in Russia, or Germany, or somewhere else. What is our hope, 
in the face of this glamour of unreality, this psychic thing, which seems to be 
trying to involve the whole western world? Something comes down across the 
track of that glamour, or up from inside of it; something that is different, some- 
thing that has life, something that has a ring to it ; something that has a lilt to it, 
which is from another world. We know what that is, whatever we, individually, 
may call it. We know well that something which comes down from the Lodge, by 
way of those who have gone before. And so, as we look back along the line of 
everything that is dearest to us, we know that every worthy thing in our conscious- 
ness, that our very understanding of the words chivalry, romance, courage, loyalty, 
comes through the meaning that was put into them, lived into them, by the Lodge. 
And so, back of the words that mean most to us, and back of the ideals by which we 
are trying to live, we find human beings, yes, members of The Theosophical 
Society. It is only a few days to White Lotus Day May 8th when we shall be 
particularly remembering the great contribution that Madame Blavatsky made to 
the Movement. Then we come to Mr. Judge, whom many of us know only by the 
work which he left. My own mind runs next to Mr. Griscom. And so we come 
down to those older members who are with us to-day. The chain to us younger 
members of the Society is an unbroken chain. 

What are we to do with the problem? a great world problem, our own prob- 
lem, the problem of the Society; all one problem, as we see it? One of the letters 
Dr. Clark read to us from a member in Czecho-Slovakia, reminded us again that 
it is one life that is flowing through the Society. We feel, as we listen to those 
letters of greeting from far distant members, that it is the same life flowing 
through them that flows through us, the same life that came down to all of us from 
afar. And so, as we look forward into the new year that begins with this Conven- 
tion, I am sure we shall be looking forward to doing something about this problem 
of glamour where we come closest to it, within ourselves. We have been told what 
to do about it. From the Masters all the way down through this unbroken chain, 
they have been telling us what to do. During this Convention, officers, members, 
one after another, have been telling us what to do. I believe that this Convention, 
and the individual delegates and members of the Society who make it up, will 
quietly resolve to do that thing. 

MRS. OUTCALT : I feel I have very little to say that will be new to you. Miss 
Hohnstedt and our President always make the report from Cincinnati and they 
have both written on here this year. But words will not express how pleased I am 
to assemble with you people. Miss Hohnstedt would come home from Convention, 
year after year, and I always said to her, "You look as though you had been bap- 
tized anew." And I am here now for that baptism not for myself, but that I may 
give to others. In Cincinnati, we have had many discouragements; but we meet 



90 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

once a week and do what we can. Different members have established study classes ; 
and the first thing we know there is some unexpected bar to the carrying out of our 
plans. But we feel that we may take encouragement from the results of the work 
that Mr. Judge did when he met, all alone, and carried on the meetings by himself. 
In Cincinnati we do not have many strangers come into our meetings principally 
members yet, as we go out among the different societies and Churches, we find 
Theosophy. I think that on the thought plane, it is reaching everywhere. 

MRS. THOMPSON : I have nothing to say except to emphasize all that has been 
said about gratitude for being here. 

MR. JOHNSTON : Mr. Chairman and Fellow Members This morning something 
was said about Branch life and work, on the one hand, and on the other hand, iso- 
late'd individual members. I should like to go into this a little further. We know 
very well that members in certain cases are isolated, and have very little outwardly, 
so far as they can see, except the receipt of the QUARTERLY, to link them with the 
Theosophical Movement. And they feel, perhaps, very much alone and very much 
deserted. I should like to suggest that such an isolated member has a magnificent 
and still unrealized opportunity, not primarily to talk Theosophy, but to be an em- 
bodiment of Theosophy, and to have it in a contagious degree. We know people 
who hold various beliefs at a temperature near absolute zero, and no one is ever 
infected. The ideas may be as unexceptionable as those of Einstein; they will not 
stir anybody. It needs self-giving without any reservation, and a vigour and inten- 
sity, and earnestness in the holding of the Theosophical ideas; a determination to 
embody them to the tips of one's fingers. That is what makes the contagiousness 
of the, I will not say the malady of Theosophy, for it is a benediction. To make 
that benediction contagious is the superb opportunity of the isolated members. 

Much has been said about the blunders and harm that religious and theosophical 
organizations fall into because they have not right understanding. It is of utmost 
importance that members and students should understand and master, from careful 
study and meditation on what they study, the principles, thoughts, and ideals of 
Theosophy. No amount of zeal will carry us anywhere without clear understanding 
and intelligence. But having got that, we must also have zeal, vigour, earnestness, 
and fire. You cannot catch fire from a log that is not burning. A black log will 
not set fire to anything. If there is a blazing fire in the heart of an isolated member, 
while it may not show in two or three years, it is a tremendous spiritual force that 
is working twenty-four hours a day, and if there be, anywhere within a radius of 
ten or even a hundred miles, those who have the power to catch fire, they will catch 
fire. The isolated member is the beneficiary of a splendid opportunity to be and 
to live something 1 real, to inform his heart and soul, that he may blaze and radiate 
spiritual life to others. Every such isolated member should be the potential centre 
of a strong Branch, which should carry out and put in force the practical teaching 
and the method of The Theosophical Society. But before he can be a nucleus of 
such a Branch, he must thoroughly represent the principles and teachings in his own 
person. Otherwise he will get something started, perhaps, which will be intensely 
personal, an exemplification of a desire to stand on the teaching perch, which will 
be quite useless, though not quite harmle'ss. There must be a beginning in oneself. 
He should inquire: what are the other things I ought to be doing to be a living, 
radiating, flaming centre of Theosophical life? If such an isolated member really 
busies himself, heart and soul and spirit, with that problem, he will find the answer 
and will realize his opportunity. 

THE CHAIRMAN : With the reports of the delegates, the official business of the 
Convention comes to an end. So I would ask for a motion to adjourn. 

MR. WOODBRIDGE: I received instructions to-day from the Convention, to pre- 
pare a telegram to Mrs. Gregg. I think Mrs. Gregg would appreciate the fact that 
it was inscribed by the Convention as a whole, and not personally from me. The 
telegram, as I have written it, reads : "Officers, delegates and members in T. S. Con- 



T. S. ACTIVITIES 



91 



vention assembled, officially and personally unite in sending our beloved Secretary 
grateful and affectionate greetings." 

Then I should like to exercise a privilege which has been mine for several 
years, and that is to move, on behalf of the Convention, a vote of thanks to our 
officers. This was made a rising vote. 

THE CHAIRMAN: If there be no further business, a motion to adjourn is in 
order. Motion was made by Mr. Ludlow Griscom, seconded by Mr. Mitchell, and 
carried. 

The Chairman declared the Convention adjourned. 

ISABEL E. PERKINS, Secretary of Convention. 

JULIA CHICKERING, Assistant Secretary of Convention. 



LETTERS OF GREETING 

Obersedlitz-Aussig, Czecho-Slovakia. 

Dear Comrades: You are assembled in Convention, united to Him from whom 
all our blessings flow, to thank Him for all that we receive. I wish also to express 
my thanks with you; it is my greatest and deepest petition to Him that He may 
help me to do only His will, each time, unto death. My hearty thanks go to you 
for your great help and I hope that it is possible for me to pay my great debt. . . . 
I express once more my detestation of the attitude of Germany in regard to the 
war, as well as of the enormities committed by Germany under the influence of the 
Black Lodge during the war. 

Always faithfully yours, 

HERMANN ZERNDT. 



Kristiana, Norway. 

To The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: At each Annual Con- 
vention we find a natural and favourable opportunity for retrospection. This is a 
solemn hour not only for The Theosophical Society as a whole, but for all its mem- 
bers separately. The review of the events in the bygone years may bring on mixed 
feelings joy over the good that has been done, and sadness over the many failings 
and lost opportunities. And be it also remembered that this hour of retrospection 
is one of our greatest opportunities for self-examination. It is an hour of attention, 
contemplation, and meditation in order to take in, digest, and assimilate the everyday 
teachings of life. 

Some Branches of our Society have, I think, good reasons for joy, other 
Branches less. And there are also localities where Branches have sadly failed, and 
where the remaining true members have felt much depression and despondency. 
These faithful ones have wanted encouragement and support, and they have had it. 
They have been encompassed with our warmest sympathy and best wishes. And 
not only they, but also their failing comrades have had access to the same source 
of help, if they only would drink of its sweet waters. 

And knowing that our Divine Co-Workers will see to it that this beneficial 
spring never is empty, but always filled to the brim, if we do not make it a stagnant 
pool, let us continue to keep its waters sweet and limpid by letting it flow abund- 
antly to others, thus fulfilling our duty as co-workers of the great Lodge, whose 
agents we are for the irrigation of the field in which the man-plant is to be culti- 
vated till the purpose of the soul is achieved. 

May all members of The Theosophical Society ardently and incessantly help 
in this work of irrigation in order to strengthen sympathy and love among all men ; 
and may we, with ever-increasing power, encompass the whole creation with the 
gentle feelings and unrivalled compassion of the Christian Master, whose life was 



92 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

dedicated to this single purpose, namely, to help and to save sinners. This is the 
claim which the principal aim and object of The Theosophical Society is laying 
upon its members. May we not fail in our primary duty. 
With cordial greetings from comrades in Norway, I am, 

Yours sincerely, 
THOMAS H. J^NOFF. 



Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. 

To the members of The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled : Once 
again, at this time, our thoughts turn especially towards you, and it is my privi- 
lege to convey to you our heartiest greetings and good wishes for a most successful 
Convention. We feel that the Conventions are milestones or stages in a spiritual 
career and that each one expresses more and more of that principal aim and object 
for which we are banded together. We are unable to be with you in person but 
we shall be present in spirit, and to that extent we shall participate in that renewed 
energy and clearer vision, whereby we may more efficiently do the work that is at 
our hand. 

The result of our Branch Convention last October, in spite of its one 1 mistake, 
has done a great deal of good in several ways ; it has put new life and energy into 
members ; it has made us think about things that otherwise might have been passed 
over without due thought ; it has enabled members to see more clearly the relation- 
ship of our Branch to the T. S. Away from you as we are, and constituted as we 
were, up to 1906, as an independent but allied Society, there has still been the tendency 
to regard us in that light; but since 1906 the position has been, happily, different. 
I consider that the wise provision in the By-Laws for organizations or persons 
outside America becoming part of the T. S., has been greatly to our benefit and, 
I have no doubt, to those in other countries. So we can say that we are part of 
The Theosophical Society just as any Branch in America can, and further, that 
this Convention is of vital interest to us as to you. . . . We miss Dr. Keightley, 
but we are thankful for his ever-ready advice and suggestion from which we have 
often profited in the past. We miss him, but not sorrowfully or despondently, for 
we are glad that he is able to be with you, and we feel that it is our duty, though 
at the same time our joy, if our hearts are in it, to continue, to the utmost of our 
ability, the Work for which he has laboured so long. 

Yours fraternally, 
E. HOWARD LINCOLN, Secretary British National Branch. 



Arvika, Sweden. 

To the members of the T. S. in Convention Assembled: The members of the 
T. S. Branch in Arvika, Sweden, send you all our hearty greetings. Our work 
goes on as before ; and we intend to have our annual meeting on the same day as 
the Convention, thus bringing us, as we see it, a little nearer the great Convention. 

Fraternally, 

HjALMAR JULIN. 



To the Secretary T. S.: The Norfolk Branch of the British National Branch 
of The Theosophical Society sends its heartfelt greetings to the Annual Conven- 
tion, and sincere good wishes for its success. 

None of the members of the Norfolk Branch were able to attend the Annual 
Convention of the British National Branch held at Newcastle last October, owing 
chiefly to their inability to leave their various occupations; but also because the 
Norfolk Branch, as a whole, was very much of the opinion that the moment was 
not an auspicious one, coming as it did, almost immediately after the sudden depar- 



T. S. ACTIVITIES 



93 



ture of our late General Secretary. This opinion was made known to our fellow 
members in the north of England, but was outweighed by the general dasire for a 
Convention. 

Knowing that the chief subject for discussion would, in all probability, be the 
Resolution regarding the German members of The Theosophical Society, the Nor- 
folk Branch made it absolutely clear that they entirely upheld the attitude adopted 
at New York on the subject. They further intimated their desire that, although 
none of their members could attend the Convention, their definite attitude should 
be taken into consideration, if there was any voting on this subject. When the 
proceedings of the Convention were made known to the Norfolk Branch, it was 
with considerable consternation that the members discovered that it had been 
decided to put off taking up a definite stand on this all-important question. Fortu- 
nately, however, shortly after the Convention, four of the five members of the 
Branch were able to meet, and it was unanimously decided to write an open letter 
to the members of the 1 Executive Committee of the British National Branch (one 
member of the Executive Committee belongs to the Norfolk Branch) deprecating 
the action taken at the Convention, and urging the immediate calling of a referen- 
dum on this vital question. . . . The opinion of the members of the Norfolk 
Branch was so very definite, on the question concerning the German members of 
the Society, that it does not seem an exaggeration to state that, had they been 
present at the Convention, the resolution to shelve the consideration of the German 
question could not have been passed. 

Yours fraternally, 

HOPE D. BAGNELL, Secretary Norfolk Branch. 



Caracas, Venezuela. 

To the Members of The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: The 
Venezuela Branch rejoices exceedingly at the news of the forthcoming Convention 
of the T. S., which, at the close of every year, crowns the vital and eminently fer- 
tile work of the Society. This Branch, duly assembled, sends its most cordial 
good wishes for the success of the Convention and expresses its profound gratitude 
for the assistance invariably derived therefrom. 

It is, perhaps, not out of place here to consider that these annual assemblies 
of the Convention not only represent the numerous local meetings held during the 
year, but also are, so to speak, an actual consummation thereof, wherein is found 
a more effective communion and a more real and powerful unity. Our Branch 
will be present in spirit, contributing, to the utmost, its will, its life, its sympathy. 

Yours very fraternally, 

JUAN J. BENZO, Secretary. 

In another letter, Mr. Benzo writes: "The incident of London, described in 
Mr. Kennedy's letter, is, in the opinion of our Branch, very significant, and, as 
regards that country, deplorable. It is also to be deplored that such an incident 
due to lack of faith, perhaps should have occurred. It is sad to see a companion 
disregard the principle, the guide, so to speak, which is so necessary for all just 
understanding and discernment." 



Ocumare del Fuy, Venezuela. 

To the Members of The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: In the 
name of the members of the Altagracia de Orituco Branch, I send to you our fra- 
ternal greetings; reiterate our adherence to the large purposes of the Convention; 
and once more invoke, for its complete success, the bond which inviolably unites us. 
May the blessing of the Masters accompany you in your work for the happiness of 
humanity. ACISCLO VALEDOX, Secretary. 



94 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Curasao, West Indies. 

To the Secretary of The Theosophical Society: It is with a feeling of confi- 
dence in the future that the Curasao Branch of The Theosophical Society forwards 
to-day its first annual report, as the members thereof trust that the efforts of their 
young Branch will be looked at by their elder brethren with sympathy and love. 

. . . One part of our activities is the formation of a small library, but taking 
into consideration the few members at present registered, it will take a long time 
before we have our desire fulfilled; therefore any contribution of our brethren to 
this end will be very welcome. 

With fraternal greetings and our best wishes for the success of the Convention 
and the welfare and progress of the Society, 

Yours in love and friendship, 

R. M. PRINCE, President. 
EMILIO L. HENRIQUEZ, Secretary. 



Aussig, Czecho-Slovakia. 

To the Members of The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: Dur- 
ing the past years we have learned from the Convention reports that the assembled 
delegates and members of The Theosophical Society agreed in thought and feeling 
regarding the questions and issues under discussion. As we know that thinking 
in accordance with the Master's thinking is of real effectiveness, this unanimity 
of thought must imply tremendous spiritual action, and must manifest itself as a 
strong spiritual influence on the evolution of humanity. 

If we agree that we must become like the Master, if we would partake of his 
consciousness and of his will, then we perceive the urgent necessity to do this in 
all its details. And since it is our thinking which directs our powers powers which 
we ceaselessly receive from the soul our conduct is much better if our thinking 
has been done rightly. This is true also of the world's conduct. Therefore, it is 
our belief that the Society's activity has much influenced the evolution of religion, 
philosophy, and science in regard to their reconciliation. . . . We have not for- 
gotten that the analysis and correcting of our own and of the world's thought is 
only a part of the whole work. The other part is likewise necessary; to aspire, to 
meditate, and to pray, and to make strong efforts to live out what we think to be 
right and what we aspire after. 

The other great lesson we have learned by your help is the need to eliminate 
foreign elements from The Theosophical Society. We perceive the spiritual demand 
to undertake spontaneous action towards that elimination, if the foreign elements 
have not the decency to go voluntarily; in which case there exists the danger that 
the Black Powers will use them as vanguard in its attack. 

With genuine heart we look upon The Theosophical Society and its work as the 
handiwork of the Masters. We remember thankfully the great and immeasurable 
privilege of being members of the T. S. 

Faithfully yours, 

OTTOMAR KOHLER, Secretary. 



Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. 

To the Members in Convention Assembled: The members of the Newcastle- 
on-Tyne Lodge would like to be with you in person, but as this is not possible they 
send you hearty greetings and fraternal good wishes for a "splendid" and success- 
ful Convention. 

Yours sincerely, 

PETER DOUGLAS, President. 
ETHEL M. LINCOLN, Secretary. 



T. S. ACTIVITIES 



95 



Los Angeles, California. 

To the Officers and Members, Theosophical Society, in Annual Convention 
Assembled: The members of Pacific Branch of The Theosophical Society extend 
to you their sincere greeting, with the added pledge of faith and allegiance. Of 
the vast numbers who have accepted the theosophical doctrine, since the time that 
it was first brought to their attention, how many have been faithful to their con- 
victions in regard to it? How many have proven their faith and allegiance to the 
Cause of the Masters? How many, through spiritual blindness and personal ambi- 
tion, have grasped the shadow for the substance? "Many are called but few are 
chosen," and to the few has been allotted the task of bearing aloft the flaming torch 
that lights the way to man's Immortality, in the blessed work of the Masters, to 
which they have dedicated themselves! What joy is greater than this? 
Faithfully and fraternally, 

ALFRED L. LEONARD, Secretary. 



Salamanca, New York. 

To The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: We have been unable 
to do more this past year than keep the spark of Theosophy alive here; but we 
have lost none of our earnest desire to become an active branch. In whatever is 
done to further the Master's Cause, our hearts are with you. 
Sincerely and fraternally, 

CARRIE HIGGINS, Secretary Sravakas Branch. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

Berlin, May 24th, 1921. 
To the Editor of the Theosophical Quarterly: 

The undersigned ask the editor of the QUARTERLY to be good enough to publish 
the following in the next issue of the QUARTERLY: 

The March edition of Mr. Raatz's journal, Theosophisches Leben, contains in 
an article, "Theosophische Gesellschaft und Allgemeine geistige Verbruderung," a 
violent and slanderous attack upon The Theosophical Society as well as their 
leaders. 

The following is only an extract of his calumny. He writes in his opening 
chapters : 

"Does there still exist a T. S. in the spirit of the founders? The answer to 
this is a distinct No! There is no such T. S. ; that which calls itself thus is 
nothing but the remnants, empty shells, without any spiritual contents, without the 
spirit of Brotherhood." 

And further on: 

"But there did exist a very limited number of Theosophists in New York, in 
whom for a time the spirit of Brotherhood lived, and these found followers in other 
countries, including Germany. An organization was formed, which received quite 
often instructions from the spiritual world, so that it grew stronger internally in 
spirit and externally in numbers. But in 1906 a new spirit was infused in this 
organization, whereby the Immortals were forced to withdraw from it. The spirit 
of Jesuitism was expressed quite openly by this organization during the war; 
under the pretence and cloak of Brotherhood all members were driven into the 
war against Germany. They were persuaded that they would receive a reward 
from God, if they helped in killing their brethren, the Germans. The chief person 
of this organization is so blinded and filled with the spirit of Jesuitism, that 
cannot recognize the insanity implied in such expressions, often repeated in the 



96 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

official organ, the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, as: 'Germany must be killed like a 
mad dog!' Every principle of Brotherhood is lost here, and in consequence the 
Society is gradually crumbling and decaying!" 

The undersigned repudiate this attack most energetically. The assertion, that 
the ideal of Brotherhood has been used by the 1 leading members of the Society 
as a "cloak," is a false and slanderous representation of the real facts. We all 
know, and are fully convinced of, the devotion and self-sacrifice' with which all 
the members attacked by Mr. Raatz have kept faithfully the principles of Brother- 
hood for decades. From the first day of the war they have 1 defended the true 
spirit of Brotherhood against misinterpretations. 

If we had required any other proof to be convinced of the accuracy with which 
Mr. Raatz is characterized by the QUARTERLY, and how imperative his expulsion 
was, this proof as given in the article referred to would suffice to convince us now. 

No, The Theosophical Society is not only not dead, but on the contrary we 
feel that on account of the 1 wise fulfillment of its mission, it is pervaded with new 
vigor, and that its spiritual influence has eveti enlightened and strengthened us 
here in Germany. 

The faithful and wise judgment and discrimination with which the leading 
members of the T. S. have stood up for the principles of Universal Brotherhood 
in the columns of the QUARTERLY and in the T. S. inspires us daily; it has Dre- 
vented us from becoming victims of those forces of evil which speak so strongly in 
Mr. Raatz's article. 

This renewed attack of Mr. Raatz confirms, and covers every word, that 
H. P. Blavatsky said in the Key to Theosophy: 

"What wonder, then, that those members who fail to carry out its ideal should 
turn, after leaving the Society, for sympathetic protection to our enemies, and 
pour all their gall and bitterness into their too willing ears! Knowing that they 
will find support, sympathy, and ready credence for every accusation, however 
absurd, that it may please them to launch against the The'osophical Society, they 
hasten to do so, and vent their wrath on the innocent looking glass, which reflected 
too faithfully their faces, people never forgive those whom they have wronged! 
The sense of kindness received, and repaid by them with ingratitude, drives them 
into a madness! of justification before the world and their own consciences. The 
former is but too ready to believe in anything said against a society it hates." 

(Signed) OSKAR STOLL, MELITTA STOLL, DORA RAATZ-CORVINUS, MARGARETHE 
BITTKAU, CHARLOTTE BITTKAU, HELENE HAGEMANN, ALFRED 
FRIEDEWALD, FRANCES FRIEDEWALD-CORVINUS, ROSA DIETSCH, 
SANDOR WEISS, LEO SCHOCH, LISA SCHOCH, HELENE RUHL, 
RICHARD WALTHER, FRIEDA BUTTNER, FRANZ BUTTNER. 




OCTOBER, 1921 

The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion, 
or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless con- 
tained in an official document. 

RADIUM AND MANVANTARAS 

|T EADERS of modern scientific thought have already declared that 
I the conception of Matter and Force reached by the study of radio- 
-A^-^ activity, the view that all chemical elements are built up of 
intensely active electrical particles, provides a meeting ground for 
science and theology. The thought is that we have attained to a con- 
ception of Substance which is at once Matter and Spirit, a form of Being 
of which Spirit or energy is the one pole, while Matter is the other. 

It is of high interest to find that, resolutely pushing forward the 
investigation of radioactivity in another direction, and pondering over the 
results with the scientific imagination, leaders of science have tentatively 
reached certain views concerning the larger processes of world-life which 
are to be found in essence, and even worked out in some detail, in the 
religious philosophy of the older scriptures, inspired by the Eastern 
Wisdom. 

An example of this broader and deeper use of the scientific imagina- 
tion may be found in Professor Frederick Soddy's able work, The Inter- 
pretation of Radium (already referred to in earlier "Notes and Com- 
ments"), the Preface of which is dated July, 1920. 

The way in which these imaginative, and, as we think, deeply intuitive 
speculations came into being, is also profoundly interesting. The main 
substance of the book is made up of lectures delivered by Professor 
Soddy, beginning as long as seventeen years ago, while the book finally 
left the author's hands only last year. The process suggested by the 
composite, though well digested result, is this : It would seem as though 
Professor Soddy, after he had spent many years in actual laboratory work, 
and had summed up the concrete results, with illustrative experiments, in 
the various series of lectures ; after he had "liberated his soul" in giving 
birth to these more tangible things, had allowed his soul to have its own 
way, to ponder and brood, to perform concentrated meditation, as Patan- 
jali would say, upon this whole mass of wonderful material, and that, 

7 97 



98 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

as the fruit of this finer, secondary process, he had brought forth the 
cosmic speculations which we are about to consider, and had included 
this intuitive harvest in the completed book published a few months ago. 

That the process of pondering and meditation was not complete, that 
it lacked one vital element on which Patanjali would have insisted, an 
element characteristic of the Eastern Wisdom, we shall try to show a 
little later, after we have considered the main speculations put forward 
by Professor Soddy and their marked Oriental colouring. 

After summing up the earlier scientific view of a universe running 
down, like a clock once wound up ; a universe, therefore, doomed to even- 
tual inertia and deadness, as illustrated by the popular speculations con- 
cerning the cooling and death of the sun, preceded by the chilling of the 
earth and the consequent extinction of all life, Professor Soddy speaks 
of the more recent conception of a continuing process which includes not 
only the degradation, but also the regeneration of energy, a conception 
largely drawn from our knowledge of radium and its congeners : 

"Into the arena of these silent world-creating and destroying in- 
fluences has entered a new-comer 'Radioactivity' and it has not required 
long before it has come to be recognized that in the discovery of radio- 
activity, or rather of the sub-atomic powers and processes of which radio- 
activity is merely the outward and visible manifestation, we have pene- 
trated one of Nature's innermost secrets. Whether or no the processes 
of continuous atomic disintegration bulk largely in the scheme of cos- 
mical evolution, at least it cannot be gainsaid that these processes are at 
once powerful enough and slow enough to furnish a sufficient and satis- 
factory explanation of the origin of those perennial outpourings of 
energy, by virtue of which the universe to-day is a going concern rather 
than a cold, lifeless collocation of extinct worlds." 

While radium in substantial quantities has been found only in cer- 
tain rare minerals, like the uranium ores, it has, nevertheless, been proved 
that radium and other radioactive elements, like thorium, are very gen- 
erally diffused through the rocks of the earth's crust in minute amounts 
which make a considerable total, and may be supposed to produce very 
important results. To Lord Rayleigh (Professor Strutt) and Professor 
Joly we owe the determination of the presence and amount of radium 
in rocks gathered from many different points on the globe. 

Professor Joly has also recorded much interesting work and 
speculation, in his book, Radioactivity and Geology, regarding the possi- 
bility of using these widely distributed radioactive elements as time- 
clocks for the world, and for the universe generally. Roughly stated, 
the principle is this. Radium shoots forth, from within its atoms, 
contained atoms of helium and electrons, as bullets are shot from a 
gun. This process of bombardment continues at a certain definite rate, 
a certain percentage of atoms firing within a given time. After a time 
which can be measured, the bombardment ceases. The bombardment 
periods differ enormously ; in some of the radioactive substances they are 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 99 

counted in fractions of a second; in others, in days or years; in others, 
as in radium itself, they extend over centuries ; in yet others, like uranium, 
they last over billions of years, according to the accepted view. By firing 
off these helium and electric bullets, and thus losing weight, each radio- 
active element is degraded into an element of lower atomic weight. 
Finally, taking as a basis of calculation the amount of uranium which 
has not yet been degraded by this process of bombardment, in a given 
rock, compared with the amount of helium shot out, it is possible to 
establish a time-measure for that rock. 

Speaking of the method thus very imperfectly outlined, Professor 
Joly says: "With an interest almost amounting to anxiety, geologists 
will watch the development of researches which may result in timing the 
strata and the phases of evolutionary advance ; and may even going still 
further back give us reason to see in the discrepancy between denuda- 
tive and radioactive methods, glimpses of past aeons, beyond that day of 
regeneration which at once ushered in our era of life, and, for all that 
went before, was 'a sleep and a forgetting' " (page 250). 

It is impossible not to feel the Oriental flavour of this. It may be 
brought out by quoting a few lines from one of the Puranas, the Indian 
"Books of Ancient Teaching" : "When fire had perished from the earth, 
and this entire world, motionless and moving, had been dissolved into one 
mass, and had been destroyed waters first came into being. As the 
world formed at that time but one ocean, nothing could be distinguished. 
The benign Evolving Power, Brahma, slept upon the water. But awaking 
because of the predominance of energy within Him, the Evolving Power 
moved upon the water, hither and thither, like a firefly at night in the 
season of the rains" (Vayu Purana, vi, 1-7). 

Here are "glimpses of past aeons", followed by "a sleep and a for- 
getting", with the beginning of the "day of regeneration which ushered 
in our era of life". 

Taking passages, like that quoted, as his starting point, Professor 
Soddy allows his scientific imagination to consider the larger cosmic pro- 
cesses : 

"Joly has had the courage to push the argument to its logical con- 
clusion, and has supposed that the radioactive materials are not confined 
to a thin surface crust, but are equally distributed throughout the globe 
in much the same proportions as they are in the crust. If this is so, there 
is no escape from the conclusion that the interior of the earth, so far from 
gradually parting with its heat and cooling down, must actually be getting 
steadily hotter. The heat generated within, even after the lapse of hun- 
dreds of millions of years, would scarcely appreciably escape from the 
surface, for, as Lord Kelvin deduced, the central core of the earth must 
be almost insulated thermally from the surface, owing to the low con- 
ductivity of the rocks composing the crust. He assumes throughout an 
average composition of the globe of two parts of radium per million 
million, which is considerably below the average he found for the rocks 



100 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

of the crust, and he calculates that in the course of a hundred million years 
this minute quantity will produce a rise of the temperature of the central 
core of no less than 1,800 degrees centigrade. Unless, therefore, this heat 
is utilized in some unknown way, or the disintegration of the radio- 
elements is prevented by the high temperature and pressure, the ultimate 
fate of the globe must be very much as depicted in the Biblical tradition. 
Sooner or later the crust must succumb to the ever-increasing pressure 
within, and the earth must become again, what it is supposed once to have 
been, a vastly swollen globe of incandescent gas. As Joly remarks, there 
is no evidence that this has not already occurred more than once, nor 
assurance that it will not recur. So far as physical science yet can deduce, 
the accumulation of thermal energy within a world containing elements 
undergoing atomic disintegration during the 'geological age' must alternate 
with a state of things which might be termed the 'incandescent age', in 
which this accumulated energy is dissipated by radiation. This periodic 
cycle of changes must continue until the elements in question have dis- 
integrated that is, over a period which radioactive measurements indicate 
is of the order of tens or hundreds of thousands of millions of years. 
During the incandescent age the loss of heat by radiation, which increases 
according to the fourth power of the temperature, is immensely greater 
than could be supplied even by atomic disintegration. ... As soon as 
sufficient of the heat energy of a world has been radiated away for a solid 
crust to form, the poor thermal conductivity of this crust at once reduces 
the radiation loss to a negligible figure again, a fresh geological age is 
inaugurated, and again the heat accumulates within. This view, that the 
elements contain within themselves the energy from which Nature obtains 
her primary supplies, and that in cosmical time 'geological age' and 'incan- 
descent age' alternate as the night and day, however imperfect it may 
still be, is at least more in harmony with existing knowledge than the 
older conventional view that the universe was wound up once for all in 
the beginning like a clock, to go for a certain time, for the most part 
quietly and uneventfully, pursuing its allotted path towards ultimate 
physical stagnation and death. But what a picture it conjures up of 
life and of the precariousness of its tenure from its lowest beginnings 
to its highest evolution, not a permanent accomplishment, but a process 
to be inaugurated and consummated afresh, if at all, between the ending 
and beginning of each new cosmical day!" (pages 177-180). 

Much of this is so profoundly Oriental, that it would be easy to 
translate it into Sanskrit. Professor Soddy himself suggests this Eastern 
colouring when he speaks of the ultimate fate of the globe as depicted 
in the Biblical tradition. Perhaps the passage he has in mind is the fine 
outburst of eloquence in the second letter of Saint Peter: "Looking 
for and hasting unto the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire 
shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Never- 
theless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (III, 12-13). 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 101 

Like so many things in the Bible, for example, the narratives of 
the Creation and the Flood, or what Saint Paul says of psychical and 
spiritual bodies, the same things had been taught centuries or millenniums 
earlier in the Scriptures of the East. 

The "days and nights of Brahma", and the melting of the elements 
with fervent heat, are a fundamental part of the cosmical teaching of 
the greater Puranas, as we shall presently show. From a later Buddhist 
Scripture, the Visuddhi Magga, 'The Path of Purity", we may quote 
a peculiarly vivid description of this dissolution of the world, which 
closely parallels the conception of Professors Joly and Soddy, except 
that the rising temperature attributed by them to internal activity is 
here attributed to the appearance of successive suns : 

"When now a long period has elapsed from the cessation of the 
rains, a second sun appears. Here is to be supplied in full what was 
said by The Blessed One (the Buddha) in the Discourse on the Seven 
Suns, beginning with the words, There comes, O priests, a time'. When 
this second sun has arisen, there is no distinction of day and night; 
each sun rises when the other sets, and an incessant heat beats upon 
the world. And whereas the ordinary sun is inhabited by its divinity, 
no such being is to be found in the cycle-destroying sun. When the 
ordinary sun shines, clouds and patches of mist fly about in the air. 
But when the cycle-destroying sun shines, the sky is freed from mists 
and clouds, and is as spotless as a mirror, and the water in all streams 
dries up, except in the case of the five great rivers. After a lapse of 
another long period, a third sun appears, and the great rivers dry up. 
After the lapse of another long period, a fourth sun appears, and the 
sources of the great rivers in the Himalaya Mountains dry up, namely, 
the seven great lakes. . . . After the lapse of another long period, 
a fifth sun appears, and the mighty ocean gradually dries up, so that 
not enough water remains to moisten the tip of one's finger. After 
the lapse of another long period, a sixth sun appears, and the whole 
world becomes filled with smoke, and saturated with the greasiness of 
that smoke, and not only this world but a hundred thousand times ten 
million worlds. After the lapse of another long period, a seventh sun 
appears, and the whole world breaks into flames; and just as this one, 
so also a hundred thousand times ten million worlds. All the peaks of 
Mount Sineru (Meru), even those which are hundreds of leagues in 
height, crumble and disappear in the sky. The flames of fire rise up 
and envelop the Heaven of the Four Great Kings (Maharajas). Having 
there burnt up all the mansions of gold, of jewels, and of precious stones, 
they envelop the Heaven of the Thirty-Three. In the same manner 
they envelop all the heavens to which access is given by the first trance. 
Having thus burnt up three of the Brahma-heavens, they come to a 
stop on reaching the Heaven of the Radiant Gods. This fire does not 
go out as long as anything remains ; but after everything has disappeared, 



102 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

it goes out, leaving no ashes, like a fire of clarified butter or sesamum 
oil . . ." (Warren, Buddhism in Translations, pages 322-324). 

This magnificent description of what Professor Soddy calls the 
"incandescent age" is followed by another which pictures the gradual 
rebirth of the world and the initiation of a new "geological age". It 
is too long to quote in full, but we may indicate the process described 
by a few illustrative passages : 

"Now after the lapse of another long period, a great cloud arises. 
And first it rains with a very fine rain, and then the rain pours down 
in streams . . . then a wind arises, below and on the sides of the 
water, and rolls it into one mass which is round like a drop on the leaf 
of a lotus. . . . The water is sweet, and as it wastes away, the 
earth arises out of it. ... The beings, who have been living in the 
Heaven of the Radiant Gods, leave that existence . . . and are 
reborn here on earth. They shine with their own light and wander 
through space. Thereupon they taste that savoury earth, are overcome 
with desire, and fall to eating it ravenously. Then they cease to shine 
with their own light, and find themselves in darkness. . . . Just as 
when panick-seed porridge is cooking, suddenly bubbles appear and form 
little hummocks in some places, and leave other places as depressions, 
while others are still flat; even so the mountains correspond to the 
little hummocks, and the oceans to the depressions, and the continents 
to the flat places. . . ." 

Thus, according to the teaching attributed to the Buddha, twenty- 
five centuries ago, is ushered in the new "geological age". Making 
allowance for difference of imagery, it is essentially akin to the cosmical 
speculations of Professors Joly and Soddy, except in one fundamental 
matter, to which we shall come shortly. 

Not only that, but the periods of time contemplated are of the 
same order of magnitude. We shall get a more concise statement of 
these in the older Puranas. To introduce the discussion of these periods, 
we may summarize what Professor Wilson says, in his Preface to the 
translation of the Vishnu Pur ana. 

Professor Wilson explains that the first of the six books is occupied 
chiefly with the details of the primary and secondary periods of eman- 
ation. The first book sets forth how the universe proceeds from Prakriti 
(Nature), or eternal primal matter; the second, in what manner the 
forms of things are developed from the elementary substances pre- 
viously evolved, and how they re-appear after their temporary destruc- 
tion. Both these emanations are periodical; but the termination of the 
first occurs only at the end of the life of Brahma (the Evolving Divinity), 
when not only all the gods and all other forms disappear, but the elements 
are again merged into primary substance, besides which only one spiritual 
being exists. The secondary dissolution takes place at the end of every 
Kalpa, or "day" of the Evolving Divinity, and affects only the form 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 103 

of inferior creatures and lower worlds, "leaving the substances of the 
universe entire, and sages and gods unharmed". 

It will have been noted that the same relation between primary and 
secondary periods was suggested by Professor Soddy: "This periodic 
cycle of changes (the alternation of 'geological age' and 'incandescent 
age') must continue until the elements in question have disintegrated 
that is, over a period which ... is of the order of tens or hundreds 
of thousands of millions of years." We have here both the secondary 
periods, Kalpas, and the primary period, corresponding to "the life of 
the Evolving Divinity". 

Compare with Professor Soddy's estimate of the magnitude of these 
periods, the figures of the same order in the Vishnu Pur ana: A year of 
mortals is equal to a day of the gods. A period of four Yugas is equal 
to 12,000 divine years, or 4,320,000 mortal years. A thousand of these 
periods of 12,000 divine years, or 4,320,000,000 years of mortals, is 
equal to one day of the Evolving Divinity, and his night is of equal 
duration. At the close of a day of the Evolving Divinity, a dissolution 
of the universe takes place, which lasts through a night of the Evolving 
Divinity, equal in duration to his day. At the end of that night, he 
awakes and emanates anew. A year of the Evolving Divinity is com- 
posed of three hundred and sixty such days, and a hundred such years 
constitute his life. The year of Brahma, therefore, is equal to a period 
of 1,555,200,000,000 years of mortals, which is fairly comparable to the 
"hundreds of thousands of millions of years" of Professor Soddy's 
interesting speculation, while the conception of alternations of "cosmical 
days" and "cosmical nights", of "incandescent age" and "geological age", 
is substantially the same as the Oriental system of "days and nights of 
Brahma", of Kalpas and Yugas, of Manvantaras and Pralayas. 

Another noteworthy book, The Origin and Evolution of Life, by 
Henry Fairfield Osborn (1918), takes up the story at the point at which 
Professor Soddy drops it; namely, the renewal of life in the world at 
the beginning of a "geological age". In this book again, one is tempted 
to make the same generalization as before, that the author first worked 
out, through many industrious years, the concrete substance of his 
theme, and then that he let his creative imagination work, pondering 
and brooding, performing the concentrated meditation of Patanjali, and 
adding the elements of greatest value after the laborious part of the 
task was done ; this time, in the Preface. And here, as before, we shall 
have to note a remarkable divergence from the thought suggested by 
the name of the Eastern sage. We shall speak of the valuable con- 
structive elements first, and then return to the marked omission in both 
cases. 

The first vital thought begins the Preface: "In these lectures we 
may take some of the initial steps toward an energy conception of Evolu- 
tion and an energy conception of Heredity and away from the matter 
and form conceptions which have prevailed for over a century." 



104 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Here we have once more the principle touched on at the beginning 
of these "Notes" : the view that the cosmic Substance is, at the one pole, 
Spirit, or energy, and, at the other, Matter and form; a view which is 
fundamental with students of Theosophy. The sentence quoted from 
Professor Osborn, therefore, marks the beginning of a new epoch; 
while he uses the word Energy, rather than Spirit, for reasons that are 
easily intelligible, it nevertheless remains true that he is upholding a 
conception of Evolution which tends directly towards the spiritual view 
of students of Theosophy. Professor Osborn realizes the mystery of 
life. 

A part of his second paragraph emphasizes this : "Lest the reader 
imagine that, through the energy conception, I am at present even 
pretending to offer an explanation of the miracles of adaptation and of 
heredity, some of these miracles are recited in the second part of this 
volume to show that the germ evolution is the most incomprehensible 
phenomenon which has yet been discovered in the universe, for the 
greater part of what we see in animal and plant forms is only the visible 
expression of the invisible evolution of the heredity-germ." 

This insistence on the invisible forces which control evolution recurs 
again and again throughout Professor Osborn's book. For example, 
speaking of "chromatin", equivalent to the "germ-plasm" of a generation 
ago, he says : "It is the visible centre of the energy complex of heredity, 
the larger part of which is by its nature invisible. Chromatin, although 
within our microscopic vision, is to be conceived as a gross manifestation 
of the infinite energy complex of heredity, which is a cosmos in itself" 
(page 95, note). And three pages further on, he speaks of "the 
chromatin as a microcosm" ; while the parallel columns on page 142, 
the first entitled "The visible body", and the second, "The invisible 
germ", are strongly suggestive of the occult teaching in The Secret 
Doctrine, just as what Professor Osborn has to say of "four 'life 
elements', namely, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Carbon", imme- 
diately recalls ideas in the same work. 

We may quote one more very interesting passage regarding the 
"invisible" forces, or unknown powers, directing evolution : "May there 
not be in the assemblage of cosmic chemical elements necessary to life, 
which we shall distinguish as 'life elements', some known element which 
thus far has not betrayed itself in chemical analysis ? This is not impos- 
sible, because a known element like radium, for example, might well 
be wrapped up in living matter but remain as yet undetected, owing 
to its suffusion or presence in excessively small quantities or to its 
possession of properties that have escaped notice. Or, again, some 
unknown chemical element, to which the hypothetical term bion might 
be given, may lie awaiting discovery within this complex of known 
elements. Or an unknown source of energy may be active here" (page 6). 

Of equal importance with the "energy concept of life", and equally 
fundamental in Professor Osborn's thought, is the insistence on Law 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 105 

as against Chance, throughout the whole process of the evolution of 
living beings. Only a few phrases can be quoted: 'That life forms 
have arisen through law has been the opinion of another school of 
natural philosophers, headed by Aristotle. . . ." The question "of 
law versus chance, in the evolution of life, is no longer a matter of 
opinion, but of direct observation. So far as law is concerned, we 
observe that the evolution of life forms, is like that of the stars: their 
origin and evolution as revealed through palaeontology go to prove that 
Aristotle was essentially right when he said that 'Nature produces those 
things which, being continually moved by a certain principle contained 
within themselves, arrive at a certain end'" (pages 8-9). As to this 
guiding power of "Nature", there is a remarkable passage on page 156: 
"This principle of homodynamy and heterodynamy applies to the body 
as a whole and to every one of its parts, according to two laws : first, 
that each individual part has its own mechanical evolution, and, second, 
that the same mechanical problem is generally solved on the same prin- 
ciple. This, we observe, is invariably the ideal principle, for, unlike 
man, nature wastes little time on inferior inventions but immediately 
proceeds to superior inventions." 

If space permitted, it would be of absorbing interest to follow 
Professor Osborn in his application of the "energy concept of life", and 
"the principle of law against fortuity", through the successive ages, of 
invertebrates, of fishes, of amphibians, of reptiles, of mammals and of 
man, which correspond, in a general way, to the Oriental teachings of 
the succession of great life-periods. But we can quote only one passage, 
which bears directly on the question of life-periods and cycles: "Of the 
eighteen great orders of reptiles which evolved on land, in the sea, and 
in the air, during the long Reptilian Era of 12,000,000 years, only five 
orders survive to-day. . . . The evolution of the members of these 
five surviving orders has either been extremely slow or entirely arrested 
during the 3,000,000 years which are generally assigned to Tertiary 
time; we can distinguish only by relatively minor changes the turtles 
and crocodiles of the base of the Tertiary from those living to-day. In 
other words, during this period of 3,000,000 years the entire plant world, 
the fish, the amphibian, and the reptilian worlds have all remained as 
relatively balanced, static, unchanged or persistent types, while the 
mammals, radiating 3,000,000 years ago from very small and incon- 
spicuous forms, have undergone a phenomenal evolution, spreading into 
every geographic region formerly occupied by the Reptilia and passing 
through multitudinously varied phases not only of direct but of alter- 
nating and of reversed evolution. During the same epoch the warm- 
blooded birds were doubtless evolving, although there are relatively few 
fossil records of this bird evolution" (page 231). 

The inquiry into the causes of this remarkable slowing down and 
arrest of development is of deep interest. We can quote only the last 
paragraph: "Consequently the causes of the arrest of evolution among 



106 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

the Reptilia appear to lie in the internal heredity-chromatin, i. e., to be 
due to a slowing down of physicochemical interactions, to a reduced 
activity of the chemical messengers which theoretically are among the 
causes of rapid evolution." 

If Professor Osborn does not ask the question which logically fol- 
lows, namely, "What are the causes of this slowing down, this reduced 
activity, in the invisible forces behind the chromatin?" it is simply 
because he has frankly admitted, from the outset, that "we know to some 
extent how plants and animals and man evolve; we do not know why 
they evolve." 

Professor Osborn speaks of periods of 3,000,000 years for the 
Tertiary, and 12,000,000, for the era of Reptiles. This raises the deeply 
interesting question of the total length of geological time since the 
deposition of sediment began, under something resembling present con- 
ditions. This question is discussed by Professor Osborn, and he appears 
(page 153) to estimate the whole period at only 60,000,000 years. But 
there are weighty reasons for greatly extending this estimate; among 
others, the immensely greater periods which appear to be demanded by 
the processes of radioactivity which we have touched on: the degenera- 
tion of uranium through the expulsion of helium, for example. 

This aspect of the question, as well as others, is very ably discussed 
by Mr. Arthur Holmes, in The Age of the Earth, which fully considers 
the time estimate drawn from the total of sediment deposited; the 
estimate based on the total quantity of salt in the sea; on the accumu- 
lation of carbonate of lime; and also on the relation between such a 
substance as uranium or thorium, and the helium which it has extruded. 
On page 89, he gives tentative results, as follows : Using the accumula- 
tion of salt as a basis, he deduces a period of from 210,000,000 to 
340,000,000 years; from the accumulation of sediment in the sedimen- 
tary rocks, he derives a period of from 250,000,000 to 350,000,000 years ; 
from the accumulation of calcium carbonate, the figure reached is 
320,000,000 years. 

These estimates are peculiarly interesting to students of Theosophy 
who are acquainted with the statement in The Secret Doctrine (1888, 
n, 710) : "It is certain, on occult data, that the time which has elapsed 
since the first sedimentary deposits is equal to 320,000,000 years." 

There is very much, therefore, in the speculations of Professor 
Soddy regarding the alternation of "cosmical days and nights", and in 
the thoughtful views of Professor Osborn regarding the energy con- 
ception of life and the obedience of evolution to cosmic law, which 
students of Theosophy will sincerely welcome, as a marked approach 
toward the teachings of the Eastern Wisdom, as they understand them. 
The progress in the thirty-three years since The Secret Doctrine was 
published is noteworthy and significant. 

This brings us at last to the marked points of contrast, which have 
already been suggested. 




NOTES AND COMMENTS 



107 



First, as regards the cosmical speculations of Professor Soddy. He 
conceives the whole mass of substances, of chemical elements, which 
make up the earth (and other worlds), as gradually passing from their 
present solid state to a phase of incandescent gas; then, because of the 
rapid radiation of energy, as again condensing, and taking substantially 
the same solid forms as before ; each of the elements, numbering nearly a 
hundred, having its own complex atomic form ; each atom being, in fact, 
a cosmos, "far more complex than a grand piano", to use his own simile, 
these atoms apparently being small solar systems of whirling electrons. 

The conception, therefore, is, that these infinite myriads of tiny solar 
systems preserve their orderly character, their inner electron rotation, 
through the "age of incandescence", and return in an orderly manner to 
their former place in the re-solidified world. 

Of this conception, we have no criticism whatever. But we do view 
with wonder the corollary he attaches to it: that the appearance or 
revival of life on the restored world, if it should happen, is a happy 
accident. 

Exactly the same criticism applies to Professor Osborn. He steadily, 
and, as we think, quite rightly, holds out against Darwin's idea that chance 
determines the processes of evolution, insisting that they obey cosmic 
law. None the less, and this appears to us a startling philosophical hiatus, 
Professor Osborn appears to hold that the most vital fact of all, the 
original appearance of life on our planet, was the result of a happy chance, 
a sheer piece of "fortuity". 

The cause would seem to be, as we have suggested, that, while both 
have meditated profoundly, one element of meditation has been lacking 
in both : namely, the consciousness of consciousness itself. They might 
almost be said to be unconscious that they are conscious, so slight is their 
grasp on the fundamental reality of consciousness. 

Professor Osborn often quotes Huxley. But we remember a fine 
passage of Huxley's, in which he says that, while certain philosophers 
have sought to derive consciousness from matter or force, he, in the 
hardness of his heart or head, cannot see how consciousness could con- 
ceivably be derived from either matter or force. The materialists who 
have tried to bite that file have, as he vividly says, simply broken their 
teeth. 

The missing element in their meditation would, therefore, seem to 
be meditation on consciousness itself ; the immediate recognition of its 
reality and character. And nowhere, perhaps, is there a happier definition 
of consciousness than in the Buddhist dialogue between King Menander 
and the sage Nagasena : "In exactly the same way, your majesty, what- 
ever form a man beholds with the eye, of that he is conscious with the 
consciousness ; whatever sound he hears with the ear, of that he is con- 
scious with the consciousness; whatever odour he smells with the nose, 
whatever taste he tastes with the tongue, whatever tangible thing he 
touches with the body, whatever idea he conceives with the mind, of that 



108 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

he is conscious with the consciousness. Thus, your majesty, consciousness 
is the act of being conscious!" (Warren, page 182). 

And the act of being conscious is something as different from energy 
as it is from matter, just as Huxley said. 

The Eastern Wisdom rests on consciousness; on the steady recog- 
nition of consciousness, not as something considered theoretically, but in 
the very act of being conscious, which is a far more real miracle than 
the miracles of heredity rightly recognized by Professor Osborn; on the 
study of consciousness, the gradual growth and expansion of conscious- 
ness, until stages of consciousness are reached, spiritual and divine, which 
give an insight into the laws, the invisible causes, the existence of which 
Professor Osborn so clearly recognizes. 

In a remarkable passage (page 182), Professor Soddy considers the 
traditional association of transmutation with the elixir of life, and asks : 
"Is, then, this old association of the power of transmutation with the elixir 
of life merely a coincidence ? I prefer to believe it may be an echo from 
one of the many previous epochs in the unrecorded history of the world, 
of an age of men who have trod before the road we are treading to-day, 
in a past possibly so remote that even the very atoms of its civilisation 
literally have had time to disintegrate." 

But the truth would seem to be, that it was not so much the study 
of radiant elements, as of radiant consciousness itself, which taught the 
wise men of the immemorial past, not this secret only, but many of the 
deeper secrets of spiritual insight and of immortality. 

As a general criticism of the two very able works considered, we, 
therefore, think that what is lacking in both is a thorough recognition of 
the reality and character of consciousness, which might be expected to 
yield two results : first, an understanding of how, even throughout the 
"age of incandescence", the higher forms of consciousness persist, "in 
the Heaven of the Radiant Gods", as the Buddhist book symbolically says, 
ready to manifest themselves again in the new "geological age"; and, 
second, a deeper insight into those invisible forces insisted on by Pro- 
fessor Osborn, the processes of which, as he describes them, are so 
analogous to processes of consciousness ; so that he compares the inven- 
tions of "Nature" with the inventions of man, in terms not flattering to 
the latter. Is it not thinkable that, in a heightened, deeper and more 
intuitive consciousness, we should find a closer approach to Nature's 
perfect handiwork, and, therefore, a clue to the workings of these 
"invisible forces"? 

The Eastern wisdom begins practically at the point where these men 
of science stop; with the real exploration of consciousness, in its ascend- 
ing degrees. But there is no good reason why they should stop. We 
urge them to go valiantly forward, to cross the line between mortality 
and immortality. 



FRAGMENTS 



ONCE the question was asked : Help us, O Wise One, to compre- 
hend how we may find unity in diversity, truth in falsehood. 
This is the answer that was recorded : 
Unity in diversity, always, when faith and understanding have 
made the mind synthetic instead of critical, as is the lower mind. 
Truth in falsehood, never. Falsehood is a perversion, and must be trans- 
muted back again to truth. 

Unity springs from God, and diversity springs from God. Unity is 
life as God sees it ; diversity is life as man sees it, for man sees but part 
of which God sees the whole, being that whole himself. For that which 
we are not, we cannot see, since sight is the expression of the power of 
comprehension. We pass the angels on the road, but we do not see them, 
because, lacking altogether the angelic nature, we do not comprehend it. 
Comprehension comes before sight. Where there is sight before compre- 
hension, it is not sight, but psychic vision. 

It is not wrong for man to see life as diversity ; diversity creates com- 
parison, and through comparison we learn, as the rubbing of two sticks 
produces fire. It is the law of illumination. Man errs when he makes 
of diversity a finality, saying: "This is the only way. I alone have 
truth" ; forgetting fundamental unity, denying his faith, that is, neglect- 
ing God, who, though triune, is yet one. 

There exists your truth and my truth. Yet, in that they are truth, they 
are essentially one. We should not ignore their differences, as we do not 
ignore the fact that you have one body and I have another body, that you 
have one mind and I have another mind, or that you have one soul and 
I have another soul. But the spirit and the life which animate these, 
our differences, are one. As St. Paul saith : God is all in all. 

Faith is our ladder while we climb to knowledge. Why not faith in 
the spiritual life, as well as faith in the material life, where our daily 
existence is rooted and grounded in faith? in the rising and setting of 
the sun, in the security of the earth in space, in the return of the seasons 
with spring-time and harvest. Yet from material eyes, that which lies 
behind the veil of these manifestations is invisible, mere matter of specu- 
lation and of faith. Even so, the whole civilization of man is based upon 
them. 

Falsehood is not an expression of diversity of mind, however much 

109 



110 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

some may try to prove it so ; falsehood is an expression of dishonesty of 
will. A pure motive precludes falsehood. 

The perverted, self-seeking will is the child of the devil, the father of 
lies. All those possess truth who honestly seek and serve it for its own 
sake, regardless of diversity of mind. All possess falsehood who seek 
only themselves. Their formulae may be true, but their faith is a lie. 



The would-be disciple who waits for more favourable opportunities 
has not as yet the making of discipleship in him. "Adventures are to the 
adventurous," and opportunities are to those who create them out of 
available circumstance. The manvantara will close, but the more favour- 
able circumstance will never have appeared. 

Nay, more, with each recurring cycle, big or little, the opportunities 
will be less favourable, the way a little harder, the situation more difficult, 
until it becomes desperate. 

To the man who really desires discipleship, the immediate situation 
is always the best possible. The fact is, that any personal holiness, any 
spiritual advance that we can clearly recognize, is well within our present 
power of attainment. This is not always true of material things, whether 
of the body or of the mind, though it is far more often true of them than 
men generally realize. But in the spiritual world it is an invariable law, 
since vision follows power, as it must of necessity precede attainment. 

The first half of discipleship is self-mastery through love ; the second 
half, the attainment of union with the object of that love. What circum- 
stance can be other than richest opportunity for the acquirement of either 
of these? 

I cannot be a disciple, saith one, because I have a wife. Saith an- 
other : I cannot be a disciple because of many children, or large affairs, 
or poverty, or ill-health, or isolation, or too much company, there is an 
endless list of them. Nay, friend, those circumstances exist that thou 
mayest become a disciple ; without them thou couldst not arrive. Search 
the impediment in thy lack of understanding, or in the weakness of thy 
desire. God does not give his children stones for bread. 

CAVE. 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 
KATHA UPANISHAD 



TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSKRIT WITH AN INTERPRETATION 

III. 

Because these things, lasting only until the morrow, Thou who 
makest an end, consume this fire of all a mortal's powers, and even 
the whole of life is little; Thine, verily, are chariots, Thine are dance 
and song! 

Not by wealth is the son of man to be satisfied. Shall we choose 
wealth, if we have seen Thee? Shall we live, so long as Thou art lord? 
But that is the boon to be chosen by me! 

Having drawn near to the unfading Immortals, a fading mortal here 
below, and understanding Them, thoroughly considering the enjoyment 
of these beauties and of desire, who would delight in long-drawn life? 

This, concerning which (even the Radiant Divinities) question, 
Death, What is in the Great Beyond tell us that! This boon which 
enters the hidden no other than this Nachiketas chooses! 

THIS is the reply of Nachiketas, as the disciple, to the great 
temptation, the "temptation in the wilderness". It is the three- 
fold temptation, appealing to the desires of the body, the vanity 
of the mind, the ambition of the spirit, which runs through the 
whole of human life ; and the shameful succumbing to which, unhappily, 
constitutes so large a part of unregenerated human life. 

The task of the disciple is, with the help of the Master, to see these 
things in contrast with the reality, the beauty, and holiness of the Eter- 
nal ; and, having completely made the contrast, to choose the Eternal. 

And, since the Great Initiation is the summing up of human life, 
in order to make it the stepping-stone to the Great Beyond, it would 
seem that the first part of the Great Initiation consists in a final viewing 
of this threefold allurement, and its final rejection. 

This rejection by Nachiketas, as the disciple, is the theme of the 
passage just translated; and the rejection will always be made on the 
same grounds: the contrast between the Eternal and that which is out 
of the Eternal; or, putting this in a more concrete form, the contrast 
between the beauty of holiness, in the Master, and the desires of the 
lower self, as the disciple finds them within him. 

This rejection must continue, in heart and mind and will, in under- 
standing and in act, throughout the whole course of discipleship ; disci- 
pleship is just this progressive choice and sacrifice, where the field of 
choice is lit by the light and love of the Master, the holy light of the 

111 



112 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Eternal. First, through the Master's light, a discerning between the 
things of the Master and the things of the lower self; then the cour- 
ageous sacrifice of the self to the Master; the process carried out in 
moment after moment, in situation after situation, in act after act, with 
the unceasing regularity of breathing, or the beating of the heart; like 
these, this perpetual choosing and sacrifice is the essential condition of 
life, life in the Eternal. 

When the Master sees that both discernment and sacrifice have 
become habitual, inevitable, penetrating the whole nature of the disciple 
even to the most hidden corners and crannies, so that no element remains 
of bodily lust, of vanity, of the ambition which is always based on "the 
great lie of separateness" ; when sacrifice of his own will to the will of 
the Master has become, not a second nature, but the primary, exclusive, 
and inevitable bent of his whole will and heart; when the Master sees 
the heart of the disciple to be clean utterly, then, it would seem, comes 
the Great Initiation, which is the theme of the eleventh book of the 
Bhagavad Gita, and of much of the Apocalypse, especially the fourth 
chapter. The inner life and consciousness of the disciple become one 
with the life and consciousness of the Master, the life and consciousness 
of the whole Divine Hierarchy; the holy, illimitable life and light of the 
Logos, the very Being of the Eternal. During the Great Initiation, the 
disciple, through this union with his Master, is one with the Eternal, 
possessing the full consciousness, the omniscience and omnipotence of 
the Eternal. He has become the Eternal, making actual in his conscious 
realization the great truth that underlies and sanctifies all life : that the 
true Being of each one of us is, indeed, the Eternal. 

The tradition is that, during the Great Initiation, the disciple sees 
clearly all steps of the divine stairway, up to, and including, the ultimate 
Being of the Most High; but that, after the Initiation is complete, and 
he returns to waking consciousness, he sees clearly only the next step, 
the task immediately before him, revealed by his Master's light. He 
must set himself to that task. When it is completed, the Great Mystery 
will again descend upon him, the Eternal will be once more revealed; 
and he will return from that Illumination filled with the vision of a 
greater task, a further step forward toward the ultimate goal. 

Since the Great Initiation consists, not in set teaching, but in the union 
of the disciple's consciousness with the consciousness of the Master and 
the consciousness of all the Heavenly Host, it is clear that no written 
record of set teaching can embody it. 

Therefore, the remainder of this Upanishad is not a continuation 
and completion of the Drama of the Mysteries, but rather a series of 
precepts and teachings, as we may believe, from some book of discipline 
for disciples. Every part of it will lead up to the supreme Mystery; 
but, for a knowledge of the Great Mystery itself, we must await the 
day of final trial and illumination, when death shall be swallowed up 
in victory. 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 113 

We come, therefore, to the series of precepts for disciples, though 
the form of a dialogue between Death and Nachiketas is still loosely 
maintained : 

One thing is the better; other than that, verily, is the dearer. These 
two draw a man in different directions. 

Of the two, for him who takes the better it is well; he fails of his 
goal who, verily, chooses the dearer. 

The better and the dearer come near to a man; viewing both well, 
the wise man discerns between them. For the wise man chooses the 
better above the dearer; the fool through lust of possession, chooses 
the dearer. 

Thou, indeed, pondering over dear and dearly loved desires, Nachi- 
ketas, hast passed them by; not this flowery way of wealth hast thou 
accepted, in which sink many of the sons of men. 

Far different are these two ways: the unwisdom of delusion, and 
that which is known as wisdom. I hold Nachiketas a chooser of wisdom; 
nor do many desires draw thee astray. 

Others, turning about in the unwisdom of delusion, self-wise, think- 
ing themselves learned, stray, wandering in the way, deluded, like the 
blind led by the blind. 

This is so clear that it needs hardly any comment. It may stand 
for the practical application of the whole of the Eastern Wisdom. 

The point to keep in mind would seem to be that the initial choice of 
the disciple is only the first step ; it must be followed by successive choos- 
ings of the better rather than the dearer, day by day and moment by mo- 
ment. It must be kept in mind, it must be engraven on the heart, that 
every moment brings its choice of the better, whether as effort or as sacri- 
fice and acceptance. And unbroken, never flagging effort, is by no means 
the least difficult sacrifice. Often we feel ourselves ready to ask for 
suffering rather than the hard necessity of effort ; but to seek suffering 
that we may shirk effort, is to choose the dearer rather than the better. 

The word here rendered "the unwisdom of delusion" is hard to 
translate in its full meaning, because it goes back to a deep conception 
of the whole universe of Life. There is the Eternal, beginningless, 
undying, everlasting; there are also all manifested and transitory things, 
the whole many-coloured pageant of the worlds, which are unreal in so 
far as they are not eternal. 

In every situation, in everything without exception, both these 
powers or elements are present : the Eternal, and that which is but the 
painted apparition of the Eternal, part of the great Glamour of things 
visible and manifest. Wisdom must discern between them, but it is a 
moral discerning, an act of will and sacrifice, rather than an act of 
understanding ; or, more truly, an act at once of sacrificial will and under- 
standing. The East, perhaps, lays the greater emphasis on the under- 
standing; the West, on the choice of the will. But this is mainly a 



114 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

matter of emphasis. Both discernment and sacrifice must be present in 
each moment, each act, if the goal is to be completely won. 

The Great Beyond shines not to the child, led forward by allure- 
ment, misled by the delusion of wealth. "This is the world! There is 
none beyond!" thinking thus, again and again he falls under my 
dominion. 

He who is not to be gained by many, even for a hearing; whom many 
know not, even when they hear: wonderful is the speaker, blessed is the 
receiver of Him; wonderful is the knower, receiving the teaching from 
the blessed. 

Nor when declared by the lower man is He to be well known, though 
pondered in many ways. There is no going to Him, unless He be declared 
by the other, for He is inconceivably more subtile than the measure of 
the subtile. 

Nor is this mind to be gained by reasoning; declared by the other, 
verily, it may be known well, beloved! this, which thou hast gained, 
for thou holdest the Real firmly; may there be for u$ a questioner like 
thee, Nachiketas! 

The fundamental thought here is the divine and mysterious principle 
which makes possible the Great Initiation: the sharing of consciousness 
by virtue of the ultimate reality that all consciousness is One, namely 
the consciousness of the Eternal. 

Were it not true that the consciousness of the supreme Eternal is 
the highest and most real consciousness of each one of us, it would be 
eternally impossible for us to attain. It is only because our consciousness 
is realized as greater and ever greater, that we can go forward even a 
step upon the spiritual way. ~ 

And only because that supreme Eternal is the ultimate Self of each, 
and, therefore, of all, can there be any communication whatever between 
living beings. Even though we do not recognize it, every word spoken 
to another invokes that highest Self which is in us both. Even^hatred 
and envy and malice bear testimony to that common Being. 

Sharing of consciousness, therefore, is the deep, vital truth ; a shar- 
ing of the consciousness of others, based ever on the supreme mystery, 
our partaking in the consciousness of the Eternal. 

On this shared consciousness rests all human life; all human bet- 
terment, through sharing a consciousness even a little higher than our 
own. It is the direct sharing of the consciousness of the Master that 
makes discipleship possible; that makes the Great Initiation possible, 
when the supreme day comes. 

Therefore, we are told : "There is no going to Him, unless He be 
declared by the other." The divine consciousness is communicated to 
the disciple by the Master; the knowledge of the Master is communi- 
cated by the disciple to him who is not yet a disciple, but who seeks 
discipleship. And the disciple communicates that consciousness by living 
in unison with it; there is no other way. 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 115 

/ know that what is called treasure is unenduring; nor is that 
unchanging One to be gained by things that change. Therefore the fire 
of Nachiketas has been kindled by me; for changing things I have gained 
the Unchanging. 

The gaining of desire, the world's foundation, the unending fruit 
of sacrifice, great fame, the wide foundation, thou, wise in valour, Nachi- 
ketas, hast passed by. 

But He, who is hard to see, who has entered the hidden place, who 
dwells in secret, standing in the deep, the Ancient, pondering on that 
divine One, through the path of union with the Higher Self, the wise 
leaves exultation and sorrow behind. 

Hearing this and fully comprehending, the mortal, setting aside that 
which is conditioned, and gaining this subtile One, rejoices; for he 
has gained what is worthy of rejoicing. I think Nachiketas is an open 
dwelling. 

In the loosely woven dialogue, the first paragraph is attributed to 
Nachiketas; the remainder, to the Teacher, Death. 

The second paragraph is once more "the kingdoms of the world, and 
the glory of them", the great temptation which Nachiketas has overcome. 

Having conquered, he is ready to seek the Divine Self within him- 
self, to receive the Master's Alight. Therefore he is an open dwelling, 
emptied of all other things ; ready to receive that Divinity which declares, 
in the words of the Sufi poem : "the house will not hold Me and thee." 

Other than law, other than lawlessness; other than what is done or 
abstained from here; other than what has been or what shall be what 
thou so seest, say that it is That. 

That resting place which all Vedas proclaim and all fervent devo- 
tions declare; seeking for which, they fulfil the service of the Eternal 
that resting place briefly I tell to thee: It is Om. 

For this unchanging Om is the Eternal; this, verily, is the Supreme. 
Knowing, verily, this unchanging Om, whatever a man desires, that 
is his. 

This is the most excellent foundation; this is the supreme founda- 
tion. Knowing this most excellent foundation, he is mighty in the world 
of the Eternal. 

The full mystical meaning of Om is set forth in the Mandukya 
Upanishad. It is the universe as the manifestation of the Divinity, 
which yet remains one, the hidden Spirit. 

That Divine Self is the theme of all Vedas, or books of wisdom ; it 
is the goal of all fervent devotions. It is that which all disciples seek, 
each finding it first in his own Master. 

Since all things are but the manifestations of the Divine One, he who 
has found that, possesses all things; whatever he desires, that he has. 



116 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

This is in truth the most excellent foundation for the soul to rest 
on, since it is the foundation of the universe itself. 

That Seer is not born, nor dies; nor does He proceed from aught, 
nor has any become He. Unborn, eternal, immemorial, the Ancient is 
not slain when the body is slain. 

If the slayer thinks to slay Him, if the slain thinks of Him as slain, 
both these understand not; He slays not, nor is slain. 

More subtile than the subtile, yet mightier than the mighty, the Self 
is hidden in the inmost heart of the creature here. Him he beholds, who 
is without desires, his sorrow gone, through the grace of that divine 
Disposer, beholding the mightiness of the divine Self. 

This is the original of the splendid passage, in the Bhagavad Gita, 
in which Krishna, as the Initiator, incites Arjuna to the immemorial 
battle. It inspires the splendid intuition of the Higher Self, unborn, 
eternal, everlasting. 

The contrasted nature of That which is more subtile than the sub- 
tile, and yet mightier than the mighty, is expressed in a very similar 
way in the parable of the grain of mustard seed, "which indeed is the 
least of all seeds : but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, 
and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the 
branches thereof." So, in the Upanishads, the Divine Self is likened 
to the least of seeds, the kernel of a grain of rice; it is also a great 
tree, lord of the forest; to it all beings come, as birds come to a tree 
to rest. 

Seated, That goes far; resting, It goes everywhere. Who other than 
I is worthy to know that Divinity, who is joy without exultation? 

Bodiless in bodies, stable among unstable things; understanding this 
mighty Lord, the Divine Self, the wise grieves not. 

Not by speaking is this Divine Self to be gained, nor by reasoning, 
nor by much hearing. Whom It chooses, by him It is to be gained; this 
Divine Self chooses his body as Its own. 

He who has not ceased from evil doing, who has not attained to 
peace, who is not one-pointed, whose heart has not gained peace, cannot 
ivin Him even by much knowledge. 

Of Whom Priest and Warrior are the food; Whose condiment is 
Death: who knows truly where He is? 

Here is a final truth which every disciple, everyone who has come 
into contact with discipleship, will confirm. After all is said and done, 
after all aspiration and sacrifice, every effort and act of discipline, there 
remains, in the unveiling of the Divine Life, an inscrutable element of 
grace. 

Nor is it thinkable that, even when the mightiest Masters have 
attained the final culmination of divine illumination, they can penetrate 
the ultimate secret, the last and unfathomable mystery, why God is love. 

(To be continued.) C. J. 



SHELLEY AND KEATS 



"IT ORD BACON'S warning against "Idols of the Forum" is always 
timely. In considering the present subject, it must be heeded. 
JLy Often words are accepted as exact and complete definition of a 
thing, while, in fact, these popular words (idols) may give no 
true account whatever of the matter under discussion. In his life-time, 
Shelley was called atheist. Many regard Keats as pagan. In a recent 
volume by Miss Underbill, which studies the method of devotion used 
by Christ, by His disciples, and by the Saints of the first four centuries, 
a line of Shelley's is used on the title page as motto. An inference from 
that title page might be : Shelley is then Christian after all. Is any one 
of these epithets correct, atheist, pagan, Christian? Or may all be 
"idols"? 

The subject involves a larger issue than the life and accomplishment 
of two poets. This issue is : the relation, on the one hand, of Religion 
to Science, and, on the other, to Art. Shelley was, first of all, a seeker 
and lover of truth; he was a scientist, a philosopher. Keats was an 
artist with comprehensive sight that gathered up every lovely object, 
"from silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon." What is the attitude of 
Religion toward Truth? not toward "speaking the truth", which is an 
effort obligatory upon everyone, but toward Truth as a scientist under- 
stands it : Truth in its cosmical aspect which concerns man's place in 
the universe ? What is the attitude of religion toward Beauty ? 

The second question would seem to have been answered in the 
Middle Ages by the invention of Gothic architecture. By creating a 
Christian form of art as a further medium of expression, the Christian 
religion seems to have recognized a unity underlying Virtue (or Good- 
ness) and Beauty. But have the consequences of such unity ever been 
frankly faced? Has any one ever been told, that, in order to reach 
Heaven, he must not only be good, but must also love and appreciate 
Beauty ? Francis Thompson was not a radical poet ; he was an orthodox 
Roman Catholic. Yet he writes as follows of the present day attitude of 
the Roman Catholic Church toward Art : at best, Art is superfluous, at 
worst, pernicious, on an average, dangerous (Essay on Shelley). 

As regards Truth and Science, the old hostility of Religion has dis- 
appeared. But nothing constructive has taken its place. Religion has 
a right instinct about the extreme harmfulness of Christian Science, 
Spiritualism, etc., but it has no metaphysical base from which to proceed 
against these errors. On the whole, its attitude is apologetic. It lacks 
confidence in its own raison d'etre. It endeavours to justify its place in 
an economic world by a mad scramble for social service. 

Such are conditions today, in this matter of Religion, Truth, and 

117 



118 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Beauty. What were they a century ago, before the influence of Keats 
and Shelley had been radiated by enthusiastic followers, Tennyson and 
the Pre-Raphaelites ? before Darwin and Wallace had rescued from 
oblivion the old doctrine of evolution? Here is Newman's estimate of 
what Keble did, beginning with the publication, in 1827, of The Christian 
Year. "He did that for the Church of England which none but a poet 
could do ; he made it poetical. The author of The Christian Year found 
the Anglican system all but destitute of this divine element [note New- 
man's use of the word divine for poetry]. . . . heaviness, feeble- 
ness, unwieldiness, where the Catholic rites had the lightness and airiness 
of a spirit, a dreariness which could be felt forcing itself upon the eye, 
the ear, the nostrils of the worshipper ; a smell of dust and damp". New- 
man's loyal affection for an old friend, and a desire to get in a stroke 
against the English Church, led him to exaggerate what Keble did. 
Keble did turn upon the Church a thin rill of poetry. He could not have 
done even that, save for Shelley and Keats who had bombarded an 
arid sky, one with defiance, and the other with indifference, until the rain 
came down. Keble could not himself have brought down rain. New- 
man's phrase, "dust and damp", is a fair description of the Church in 
1800, describing its alienation from more than Beauty. Is it any wonder 
that the sensitive eye, ear, and nostril of Keats turned from that Church 
with indifference? 

On the side of Truth or Science, the case was no better. Consult 
a book like Dr. Patterson's conservative and orthodox History of the 
English Church. He shows that Wesley's revival did not, unfortunately, 
as it might have done, create a Franciscan Order in the Anglican Church, 
but resulted in the formation of a new Nonconformist body, which, while 
it often excelled in practice, was also very often weak, mentally. Within 
the Church, there was formed through the Wesleyan mission, an evan- 
gelical party whose practice also was excellent, but which failed, through 
lack of intellectual grasp, to maintain its position. Shelley had a simple 
and logical question to ask that dull, dead and dogmatic Church. He 
wanted to know why Plato and Socrates must perish, while the meanest 
spirited knave in England could boast of an immortality which he had 
done nothing to earn ? There was no adequate answer. As a consequence, 
Shelley, until his death, regarded not only the Church but Christianity 
as superfluous and harmful. 

Before considering what they offer in place of Religion, let us do 
Keats tardy justice by hearty recognition of his successful life. Tragedy 
is the word with which even his admirers wrong his splendid courage. 
What is there tragic in his gay and manly endurance of misfortune? 
Misfortune is not tragedy. Aristotle's definition of tragedy is a losing 
struggle carried on by a noble but imperfect character which, finally, 
loses. Is it a moral defeat to die, aged twenty-five? Read the life of 
Keats so lovingly recorded by Colvin. Read the Letters, which have 
their human spots of depression and discouragement, but which, on the 



SHELLEY AND KEATS 119 

whole, are so manly, gay, and forgetful of self for others. The Life 
and the Letters change pity for Keats into glowing admiration; we do 
not say in comment : this man was hardly used alter his environment, 
give him another chance and he may do better. We say instead: how 
bravely this man accepted his lot how clearly he recognized some of 
his weaknesses and the need to correct them; he has done well in this 
grade of Life's school promote him to something higher and more 
difficult. 

It is not growing like a tree 

In bulk, doth make man better be; 

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, 

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere ; 

A lily of a day 

Is fairer far in May, 

Although it fall and die that night. 

(Ben Jonson) 

Shelley's life, on the other hand, is a warning, not an inspiration. 
It shows the grave danger of two errors fashionable at the present 
time Spiritualism and parlour Bolshevism. Shelley had a "psychic 
control," and his mad, flitting, fitful life was obedient to what he imagined 
"her" wishes for him to be; but, in fact, what he did was to gratify 
his natural impulses. Throughout his harassed years, he was the victim 
of nightmares and visions, unable to discriminate between delusions of 
night and facts of day. But the master motive in his career was the 
being who came to him in childhood and youth ("Epipsychidion"), 

on the air-like waves 

Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor 
Paved her light steps. 

Shelley's verse describes accurately the psychic plane and makes com- 
ment unnecessary. He did not see this being, because the glory of light 
surrounding her was too dazzling for his eyes to endure; but he took 
for granted that this celestial creature was feminine. "She" spoke to 
him of "knowledge and truth and virtue", and set before him lofty 
hopes of divine liberty. He dedicated himself to her service in this 
high enterprise, with desire that the world might be freed from its slavery. 
But, to his consternation, this being passed from the tremulous plane 
of wonder-level dream, to which Shelley seems to have had reasonably 
free access, into 

the dreary cone of our life's shade, 

where she was lost to him. Thenceforward his purpose in life was 
single to labour in her service for humanity, to free the world from 
every kind of oppression; and, in that effort, to find her again, and to 



120 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

worship her in ultimate union. While his purpose is single, the episodes 
of his life alternate between quixotic endeavours at "uplift" work (even 
anticipating the present Irish Republic movement), and temporary rap- 
tures when he thinks he has found his lost vision incarnate in a mortal 
woman. Though, in opinion, he was radical and revolutionary to an 
extreme, he did not seek, by open violence, to overthrow traditional 
despotisms in family and state, in order to introduce his millennial period 
of brotherhood ; he contented himself with propaganda allied to soap-box 
oratory. In the matter of marriage, however, he put his Bolshevist 
opinions into practice with deplorable results ; and led a mad-house kind 
of existence. The sane Keats would never cross his threshold. Much 
has been said, pro and con, about Shelley's relations with women. He 
seems to have been oblivious of women unless they could talk some- 
thing that sounded like philosophy (he was often unable to distinguish 
between philosophy and its counterfeit). When one could so talk, 
Shelley became infatuated the infatuations were of varying lengths 
and were influenced by circumstances of environment. Madness and 
horror the ends to which psychism and Bolshevist theories lead ! 

Shelley's life is tragi-comedy. Perhaps its most disgraceful inci- 
dent is the episode with his wife Harriet, whom with his two infants, 
he had deserted, for a six-weeks' elopement to the Continent in com- 
pany with Mary Godwin. When the fugitives returned to London, they 
were penniless. Shelley drove in a cab, with Mary Godwin, to his wife's 
lodgings, and obtained from her 20 to pay the cabman and so forth. 
Notwithstanding these deplorable weaknesses, the completeness with 
which Shelley gave himself to the measure of light he had, is an 
example that all might follow. His measure of light was but a shadow 
"the awful shadow of some unseen power." Even a shadow, however, 
may possess something of radiant energy, if the Reality that casts it be 
of sufficient force. Thus we read in the fifth chapter of Romans 
that, as reports of Christ's life and of the miracles of His disciples 
spread, the people "brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid 
them on beds and couches, that at the least, the shadow of Peter 
passing by might overshadow some of them." What was the spiritual 
reality that cast the psychic shadow of which Shelley was enamoured? 
He gives a clue when he writes 

Her spirit was the harmony of truth. 

"The harmony of truth" that sounds like something theosophical. 

Shelley was born in 1792. He was passing out of childhood when the 
last cycle of the century closed the cycle of the Lodge Messenger. We 
know that the Lodge effort of 1775, whatever it accomplished, did not 
result in the carrying over of an instrument like the T. S., which H. P. B. 
had to forge for her work of 1875. We can conjecture that the Lodge 
would wish to leave in the outer world some record of its effort, and that 
line after line of reserves had broken under the pressure of the Black 



SHELLEY AND KEATS 121 

forces. Then the cycle closed in 1799. But, as the Lodge withdrew 
from the outer world, its shadow retreated behind it, slowly. And it 
was that shadow, "the harmony of truth", (we can conjecture) that fell 
upon Shelley. He and the other poets of that period, Keats, Words- 
worth, Coleridge, etc., preserve in their verse reflections of immortal 
Truth and Beauty. After their shortcomings and faults are noted, we 
should then acknowledge immense gratitude to these poets. It is as if, 
when the regular ranks had broken, boys of eight had been armed and 
called into action. By a miracle, those boys held, and waged their con- 
flict remarkably well for boys. It is the Beauty and Truth and Virtue 
radiant from that shadow the shadow of the Lodge that gives to the 
poetry of Shelley and Keats, charm and power. Shelley responded 
with self-abandon to his glimpse of an ideal. He sprang after it, 

Like one sandalled with plumes of fire. 

How do we, members of the T. S. today, respond to the flood of light 
that has been poured upon us? Are we winged with fiery desire to fly 
along the Path of Discipleship ? Shelley, mistakenly, sacrificed for his 
shadow, things that may be useful fortune, reputation, friends. To us, 
the T. S. opens the gate from shadow to light. How ardently do we 
long for the Reality that awaits our taking? Shelley sang of the shadow 
("Prometheus Unbound") : 

Life of Life ! thy lips enkindle 
With their love the breath between them; 
And thy smiles before they dwindle 
Make the cold air fire. 

Lamp of earth! where'er thou movest 
Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, 
And the souls of whom thou lovest 
Walk upon the winds. 

Are we not, rather, like snails, coiled in our shells, fixed upon the Path, 
not travelling? 

Keats and Shelley are mystical poets. Many people would add 
that both poets, notwithstanding possibly indignant protestations on their 
part, are, essentially, Christian, also. Miss Underbill's use of a line 
from Shelley as motto for her book, The Mystic Way, may represent 
that second point of view. 

It is easy to understand the grounds for that opinion, since what 
separates the two poets from those who, by stricter usage, would be 
called Christian, is a difference, not of nature, but of degree. Without 
trying to establish precise definitions, we may take Dante as one 
whose position there would be no question, either religious or poetic. 
Suppose we use as a figure for Dante's Paradise, the old symbol of a 



122 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

celestial city, with towers and turrets resplendent in light. Dante dwells 
within that city. He is acquainted with its streets and citizens, its Lord 
and His Counsellors. The jewelled walls of that city, emerald, sapphire, 
and amethyst suffuse the clouds with rainbow-fire. Now all poets 
are not like Dante. Some are content to sing of the tints they see 
on the clouds. Others, more truly enamoured of beauty, follow the 
rainbow to the city gates, "every several gate, one pearl." Then, if 
they are disciples and seers, besides being poets, as Dante was, they 
go through the gates, and become citizens. But even to reach the jewelled 
wall, is not that a high degree of victory? And to write its sparkle 
into verse, so that others, "cabin'd, cribb'd, confined" on earth, recognize 
an authentic glimpse of veritable fact is it not entirely natural that 
prisoners of "sullen earth" should hail as saviours, those who bring them 
tidings of a "country far beyond the stars," outshining the sun and moon 
in splendour? Ought we to expect, from those who sit in darkness, 
fine discrimination between degrees of light between the Lamb, which 
is the light of the city, and the lustrous wall and gates. To earth, it is 
all one glory, dazzling. Nor is it only to the prisoned inmates of 
"sullen earth" that such poetry comes with wings. What about the 
dwellers of that city who go to and fro in the pigsty of the world 
when, on earth, they find mention of their home, and see a sparkling 
fragment from the "ageless walls"? 

For very love beholding 
Thy holy name, they weep. 
The mention of thy glory, 
Is unction to the breast. 

(Bernard of Cluny) 

Is it not a sudden meteoric dart of heavenly fire that Shelley often gives, 
while Keats glows with steadier radiance? 

And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, 

And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, 

A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of Queens and Kings. 

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, 
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, 
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; 
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, 
And on her silver cross soft amethyst, 
And on her hair a glory, like a saint : 
She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest, 
Save wings, for heaven : Porphyro grew faint : 
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. 

("Eve of St. Agnes") 

It is also easy to understand that those whose own wills are not 
one-pointed, suffer little perplexity in following guides of unequal mood 



SHELLEY AND KEATS 123 

and temper. Even the Divine Comedy does not represent the ascent to 
heaven as swift and smooth. Many hesitancies, doubts and impedi- 
ments hold back the pilgrim. But the pilgrim is taught (and the teach- 
ing of the Holy Spirit is comfort, also) that even these doubts and delays 
are occasions for greater gifts. On the other hand, Shelley and Keats, 
and poets in general, pass, in a breath, from ecstasy at Heaven's gate to 
shuddering dejection over man's inexplicable fate. 

I could lie down like a tired child, 
And weep away the life of care 
Which I have borne and yet must bear, 
Till death like sleep might steal on me, 
And I might feel in the warm air 
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 

(Shelley) 

The passionate song of the nightingale drives gloomily into the heart 
of Keats a contrast between the bird's life and man's cruel fate, 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird ! 
And an ecstasy of 

Dance and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth, 

with magic casements and rainbow foam, ends in chilling doubt as he 
sees the enchanted foam become a barren sea, "perilous" and "forlorn." 
This alternation of melancholy with joy is only the restlessness of a soul 
without the walls, that has not come to rest in its Creator (cf. St. 
Augustine). Thus, while one can understand, and, in great part, sym- 
pathize with those who would class Shelley and Keats as Christian, 
it is safer to call them mystics. For while both poets give expression 
to Christian (and universal) truths, in poetizing some old legend, they 
do so unconsciously. What attracts them in the legend is its beauty. 
Dante would deliberately have shown the three sides of the legend 
he would have shown it from the angles of the True and the Good as 
well as of the Beautiful. Keats and Shelley in setting forth its Beauty, 
set forth the True and the Good also but far less consciously. They 
are poets and mystics, but Christians, only potentially; and because 
they were not disciples, they could not understand. 

In the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY for April, 1919, there is a 
study in "Notes and Comments" of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. 
Theosophy had furnished to the student a key with which to open the 
meaning hidden within that drama of Initiation a meaning that was 
hidden from Shelley himself. Let us now apply the key of Theosophy 
to the wonderful fragment which Keats worked and reworked without 
being able to conclude it, Hyperion. In an early sonnet, Keats had 
written of seeing 

Upon the night's starr'd face, 
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance. 



124 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Keats feared he might not live to write down what he saw. Fortunately 
he did live long enough to give us this beautiful fragment of his visions. 
Hyperion is a poem of epic scope, and shows, among other things, in 
what large dimensions Keats had learned to think and imagine. It is a 
story of 

Gray legends, dire events, rebellions, 

Majesties, sovran voices, agonies, 

Creations and destroyings. 

The dire events recorded are the superseding of one set of powers by 
a second. This seems as if it might be revolution; but the poet calls it 
ordered change, not insurrection. The successes and failures of the 
persons involved are 

Symbols divine, 

Manifestations of that beauteous life 
Diffused unseen throughout eternal space. 

The persons who carry along this symbolic action are majestic gods 
and princesses. There is Saturn, the dethroned monarch, who in grief 
over his lost sway, cries out : 

Cannot I create? 

Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth 
Another world, another universe, 
To overbear and crumble this to nought ? 

There is the Queen of the air who wails 

My life is but the life of winds and tides. 

Finally, there is Hyperion himself, a swift and splendid god, though 
dethroned. 

Hyperion arose, and on the stars 

Lifted his curved lids, and kept them wide. 

And still they were the same, bright, patient stars. 

Then with a slow incline of his broad breast, 

Like to a diver in the pearly seas, 

Forward he stoop'd over the airy shore, 

And plunged all noiseless into the deep night. 

In general, it is the theory of Evolution that Keats is unfolding 
under the symbols of the old Greek myth. Life, having evolved for the 
manifestation of itself, certain forms and faculties, is not content, but 
strives for higher and better modes of expression. Life succeeds in its 
endeavour and if the old moulds and powers cannot maintain equal 
speed, cannot transform themselves to fit the new conditions, they are 
thrown off from Life's fast revolving wheel, and are left behind to perish. 
It is the law of growth; and one of the gods tries to console Saturn 
with this thought of law. 



SHELLEY AND KEATS 125 

We fall by course of Nature's law, not force 
Of thunder, or of Jove. 

He counsels Saturn to give up his personal view of their catastrophe 
and to look at it more philosophically : 

As thou wast not the first of powers, 
So art thou not the last. 

Nothing more has overtaken Saturn through the advent of the new king 
than, through Saturn himself, had overtaken Saturn's predecessor and 
a similar fate may in turn await the new ruler. It is the law of Karma. 

As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far 

Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs ; 

And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth 

In form and shape compact and beautiful, 

In will, in action free, companionship, 

And thousand other signs of purer life ; 

So on our heels a fresh perfection treads, 

A power more strong in beauty, born of us 

And fated to excel us, as we pass 

In glory that old Darkness. . . . 

******* 

For 'tis the eternal law 
That first in beauty should be first in might. 

It is the God of the Sea who thus reasons philosophically with Saturn 
and reasons from experience. For he has caught sight of his own dis- 
possessor, and he feels the justice of the dispensation that dethrones him 
in favour of the new and more splendid god. 

Have ye beheld the young God of the Seas, 
My dispossessor ? Have ye seen his face ? 
Have ye beheld his chariot, foamed along 
By noble winged creatures he hath made? 
I saw him on the calmed water scud, 
With such a glow of beauty in his eyes, 
That it enforced me to bid sad farewell 
To all my empire. 

Apollo, the God of Light, is the new Emperor God, and his pinnacle 
of beauty gives the coup de grace to the discouraged brood of the former 
gods ; they feel they could never attain to his height of splendour. One 
of their number has heard him sing, and Apollo's transcendent sweetness 
drives despair deep into their hearts. 

I stood upon a shore, a pleasant shore, 

Where a sweet clime was breathed from a land 

Of fragrance, quietness, and trees, and flowers. 

From a bowery strand 
Just opposite, an island of the sea, 



126 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

There came enchantment with the shifting wind. 

A living death was in each gush of sounds, 

Each family of rapturous hurried notes, 

That fell, one after one, yet all at once, 

Like pearl beads dropping sudden from their string : 

And then another, then another strain, 

Each like a dove leaving its olive perch, 

With music wing'd instead of silent plumes. 

All nature responds to the singing of its new Lord and cries out : 

Apollo! young Apollo! 
The morning-bright Apollo! young Apollo! 

This wonderful fragment breaks off suddenly just at the point where the 
youthful Apollo is entering, through pain, into the maturity of his powers. 

Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush 
All the immortal fairness of his limbs : 
Most like the struggle at the gate of death ; 
Or liker still to one who should take leave 
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang 
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse 
Die into life : so young Apollo anguish'd. 

Taught by Theosophy, we understand what Keats is writing; we 
have glimpses of the celestial city of which he paints so lovely an 
image. The old myth symbolizes the superseding of the natural man by 
the spiritual. The first creature, of the earth, has served his turn, 
and must now yield to the second man, the Lord from Heaven, symbolized 
by Apollo, God of Light. The bewilderment of Hyperion and Saturn, 
at what seems to them catastrophe, is the bewilderment of the natural 
man whose eye cannot see, nor his ear hear, nor his heart conceive the 
hidden wisdom of God which is only discerned by the new, spiritual 
individual. So too, in the victorious anguish of young Apollo, there is 
a shadowing forth of that other young Victor, Christ, who took leave 
of death, and died into life. Keats lived to trace the symbols he read 
upon the night's starred face. But he did not live, nor did Shelley, to 
set forth the "high romance" within those symbols. That romance is 
Christianity. 

One is loth to conclude a study of these inspiring poets, leaving them, 
as it were, shut out from Heaven. And if that be human feeling, how 
would Heaven itself regard this sentence upon two who caught so much 
of its beauty, and who, through the beauty they pass on, guide so many 
toward Heaven. Can not the Divine Compassion find excuses and 
reasons where human charity fails? Might not Shelley's flight of fire 
toward his goal, or Keats's dying sigh for steadfast love, win the regard 
of that Compassionate Heart which so generously interprets the motives 
of men? 

One remembers the inscription casually placed upon Shelley's grave- 



SHELLEY AND KEATS 127 

stone, "Cor Cordium." Are those words casual after all ? While Shelley 
and Keats were writing their poems, there was maintained in France, 
from 1800 to 1820, a quiet effort of prayer which finally established the 
Society of the Sacred Heart. Is it a wild stretch of fancy to lodge 
Keats and Shelley in that Divine Heart? St. Thomas Aquinas was of 
the opinion that for special reasons an Angel might leave Heaven to bap- 
tise a dying pagan. Our conceptions of truth are so petty and distorted. 
We have disfigured the victorious Christ into a "pale Galilean." What 
if that "Cor Cordium" be a special baptism from Heaven the seal of 
the Heart carrying with it the sign of the Cross made in proud recognition 
of two souls whose fire was but a single spark from His Flame, whose 
zeal for Truth was but a pale reflection of His own? Whatever their 
faults and short-comings, Shelley and Keats may be lodged secure in the 
safe retreat of that Heart. The vast and charitable spaces of eternity 
afford ample opportunity for their purification. 

C. C. CLARK. 



You say your husband is a religious man; tell him when you meet 
him that I say I am not much of a judge of religion, but that in my opin- 
ion, the religion that gets men to rebel and fight against their own gov- 
ernment, because, as they think, that government does not sufficiently 
help some men to eat their bread in the sweat of other men's faces, is not 
the sort of religion upon which people can get to heaven. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1864). 



A man who knows that he is a fool, is not a great fool. CHUANG 
Tzu. 



Even though Olympian Jove does not avenge at once, he will do 
so, though he tarry long; and with their own lives and the lives of their 
children the wicked pay a heavy penalty for their sins. HOMER. 



HISTORY AND ITS INTER 
PRETATION 



THERE is a history dating from the fourteenth century which is 
prefaced by the following rather suggestive phrase, "History, a 
species of knowledge universally esteemed, largely cultivated, and 
manifoldly useful." After six centuries have added their quota 
of "useful" historical material, it would be interesting to know the extent 
to which this phrase is still recognized as true. Leaving aside the extent 
to which the subject is esteemed and cultivated, how is history used 
to-day? For what purpose, in the majority of cases, is it studied? To 
what extent has the modern tendency to turn from the past and throw 
away tradition, blinded us to its value? How general a recognition is 
there of the fact that in the nation and in the race, character is developing, 
evolution progressing, in a manner and toward a goal identical with that 
of the individual ? 

The idea of the close correspondence between individual and nation 
is not a new one. It was probably recognized as true, centuries before 
Plato, in his Republic, declared that the character of the state must 
depend on the character of the individuals that composed it, that a city 
can be no better than are its citizens. Coupling with this idea, the state- 
ment that the destiny of man is to become perfect even as the Father in 
heaven, we get a host of suggestions, the first perhaps being the need 
for a recognition of spiritual life and progress, as a vital element in the 
present day interpretation of history. 

With the coming of the Christian era, a new element entered into 
the life of nations. Prior to that, separated and frequently hostile peoples 
lived an intensely national life with sharp lines of demarcation ; and his- 
tory, where historical records were kept, showed little consciousness of an 
interrelation of nations or of connection with the whole past of the 
human race. Christianity, with its teaching of the Father and of a 
common sonship, of a common humanity subject to the laws of a divine 
kingdom, established a sense of the continuity of the whole human race 
in the present and in the past. For centuries through the Middle Ages 
this resulted in a very one-sided view of historical facts, since all life 
was regarded so exclusively from the side of religion and the Church that 
other elements were frequently pushed out of their proper perspective. 
In our own day the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. The 
tendency now is to explain historical developments in any one of a 
number of ways, but practically all of them intensely materialistic. The 
most generally used, perhaps, is the economic interpretation, the effort 
to explain all human events as necessarily the outgrowth of economic 



128 



HISTORY AND ITS INTERPRETATION 129 

conditions. Some writers attempt to explain everything by biological 
laws, others by geographical conditions. Again, mathematics or me- 
chanics is used, or the epochs of history are regarded as just so many 
stages of physiological growth and explained by physiological laws. But 
if, as has so often been quoted in these pages, the universe exists for the 
purposes of soul, certainly the true interpretation of human events would 
be less materialistic, more lofty than any of these. 

The history before quoted a universal history written by Ibn 
Khaldoun, a learned Arab, living in North Africa and Spain shortly after 
1300 adopts a point of view which is, in some respects, unique. The 
author was one of the first to treat history as a science. He regards it 
as the science of civilization and sees in it a collective movement, an 
incessant and inevitable development. Recognizing the fact that nation- 
ality is to a people what individuality is to a person, he makes the spirit 
of a people (using the word in the same sense as the French esprit) his 
interpretation, so to speak, of all that he considers. Economic conditions, 
then, physical conditions and so on, fall into position as contributing causes 
of the spirit which characterizes a people. And in turn, the development 
and growth of that spirit is the cause of the events which mark the outer 
life of the people. 

Khaldoun distinguishes very definitely, different grades of esprit with 
their attendant or resultant conditions grading them from the state of 
envy, wrangling and strife, or perhaps luxurious ease, weakness and 
cowardice, up to that of intense religious ardour. The religious impulse 
(and in this is apparently included the religious zeal of the fanatic) he 
considers the highest and most powerful animating force. His distinc- 
tion between this and the next lower grade is rather closely drawn when 
he portrays a large and powerful nation, relying for its strength on what 
is, in many respects, its excellent esprit de corps, overwhelmed and con- 
quered by a nation much smaller in numbers, inadequately equipped, but 
animated by esprit de corps plus religious ardour the spiritual force. 
Without the latter force, party spirit, self-interest, perhaps even cowardice 
may creep in under stress of circumstances. When the spiritual force is 
predominant, all unworthy sentiments disappear, all hearts are united, 
all work toward the same end, with devotion, valour, exaltation in the 
face of death there is a synthesis of effort that is irresistible. 

The idea of the close interrelation and interaction between individual 
and nation is markedly suggested in his account of the slow and laborious 
process by which the family spirit, then the tribal spirit, is developed, and 
finally a dynasty founded, the right to rule established (a process analo- 
gous to the development of real individuality in a man). And in this 
connection the author's view on the subject of nobility is interesting 
a family has no claim to nobility, he thinks, simply because its ancestors 
were nobles. It may be influential and respected, but "only among fam- 
ilies united and animated by a strong common feeling so as to form a 
powerful and distinguished confraternity, is nobility a reality." He 



130 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

traces the course of nations through the stages of growth, till the prime is 
past; wealth, luxury, indulgence have brought their weakening effect; 
esprit de corps is lost, and the spirit of strife and insurrection is growing. 
Concerning a people in this state, he writes : "They have forgotten in 
what manner their empire had its beginnings. They are ignorant of how 
much God has done in order to raise the dynasty which governs them; 
they see a sovereignty well established, an authority which enforces 
obedience and maintains order in the State, without having need of the 
support which the family and tribal spirit could furnish it. They have 
no idea of the difficulties their ancestors had to surmount before arriving 
at power." His observations are especially pertinent in our own day 
when such a condition as he depicts is so vividly before the world. 

The history of Ibn Khaldoun is of interest here chiefly because it 
suggests an interpretation of history from the point of view of the inner 
life and development of the people, regarding external conditions in their 
proper subsidiary position. To the student of Theosophy, it may contain 
in its gradations of esprit a further suggestion of which its author was, 
without doubt, wholly unconscious. Most readers of the QUARTERLY are 
more or less familiar with the theosophical teaching of the seven prin- 
ciples the idea that man is composed of seven fundamental aspects of 
the One Reality, three higher and four lower. Many of us have dwelt 
upon it sufficiently to recognize in ourselves, under varying circumstances, 
the operation, the predominance, of one principle or another certainly 
to distinguish between those impulses and motives that are characteristic 
of the lower quaternary (the less good or actually evil elements in us), 
and those of the higher triad, the better element, the aspiring nature in us. 
Have we ever stopped to consider that by the law of correspondences 
as in big so in little the nation must be similarly constituted? Each 
nation, then, would be likewise composed of seven principles arranged 
or predominating as the aggregate of the principles of its individuals. 
There is something suggestive of this fact in the statement, made several 
centuries ago, that every nation has its governing principle; in England 
it was liberty, in Holland trade, in France honour of the King, and so 
on. And in the growth of a nation there should be discernible the same 
features that characterize the growth of character in a human being 
the slow struggle toward the development of a true individuality, a grad- 
ually increasing self-knowledge, a hardly-won freedom and power to 
manifest its true self, and at last the period of achievement when it finally 
enters into its genius. Regarded from this point of view, the movements, 
the characteristics, the spirit of nations, take on a new significance, as 
we see in one situation the lower elements of greed, avarice, self-seeking, 
predominant, in another the higher virtues, honour, sacrifice, loyalty to 
principle; or, more probably, good and bad both at work, the nation in 
the throes of that struggle between higher and lower which so often 
overwhelms the individual. 

It is said that we may have a very illuminating experience by going 



HISTORY AND ITS INTERPRETATION 131 

back in thought, step by step, over our childhood and early life. We shall 
discover events so shaping themselves that, time after time, the same 
lesson was taught us, now in one way and now in another, as time after 
time we failed to learn, or only partially learned. We shall see one quality 
after another slowly and laboriously developed in us, with the patience 
that only the divine powers possess ; or again, repeated opportunity offered 
for the conquest of some weakness or sin. We shall find that at fairly 
definite intervals, the same tendencies came to the surface, the same sides 
of our nature became active our growth followed a cyclic law. And if, 
looking back over the past, we use our discoveries wisely and well, we 
shall regard them as guideposts, pointing the way to our right course for 
the future, indicating to some extent the lessons we still have to learn, 
the points where weakness must be most carefully guarded against, where 
the lower elements in us are likely to take us unaware, and the points 
where our real selves have the best vantage ground to fight from. With 
the threads of our life thus in hand, we shall be forewarned and fore- 
armed for the future. Far more than that, we may be able to trace out 
the Master's plan for us, see what he means our life to be, and so, ceasing 
the struggle for a realization of our own plans and hopes and will, seek 
to follow his will, and consciously work with him. 

There would be a parallel to this in what might be called the theo- 
sophical interpretation and the theosophical use of history. In viewing 
any situation in history, whether past or present, there would imme- 
diately be applied the questions : how has it come to be what it is ? what 
does it tend toward ? what causes have given it the character it possesses ? 
what is its relation to the growth and the high destiny of mankind ? One 
aid that has been suggested for this purpose is to ask ourselves, repeat- 
edly, in reading a newspaper or a book, "How does this or that point affect 
the coming of the Master's kingdom ?" To follow out this plan with com- 
pleteness would, of course, require a deep understanding of human nature 
and a wide knowledge of world events. But it is worth while to make a 
beginning at the point where we now are, with our present limited under- 
standing and distorted vision. And as the effort is persisted in, as we 
correct present impressions or conclusions by further observation, not only 
will our struggle with our own selves, our efforts at self-knowledge and 
self-mastery, aid us in understanding and interpreting world events, but 
our very effort to understand the latter will in turn help us to get outside 
ourselves, and thereby bring light to many a corner in our nature hitherto 
darkened, make clear many a problem hitherto unsolvable. 

J. C. 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE 
AND MR. EDISON 



THE Scientific American for October 30, 1920, contains an inter- 
view recording Mr. Thomas A. Edison's "Views on Life and 
Death," as reported by Mr. Austin C. Lescarboura. The same 
ground was covered in a more popular way, in a second interview 
published at the end of January. The substance of these interviews 
may be divided into two parts : first, a discussion of the question whether 
communication with the dead is possible, a problem which Edison seeks 
to solve by the use of a delicate apparatus similar to the valve used in 
wireless telegraphy; and, second, Edison's conclusions concerning the 
nature of organic matter, a theory of living atoms, and a description 
of the part these atoms play in the formation of the conscious person- 
ality, with the further question whether the personality thus formed can 
survive the dissolution of the physical body. 

The part of the interview which deals with communication between 
the living and the dead aroused a storm of controversy in the news- 
papers, as an episode in the general discussion of Spiritualism which 
has been going on for months. Much was said, and somewhat heatedly 
said, on both sides. The view of the most thoughtful Spiritualists 
appears to be that, if our human ears were attuned to finer vibrations, 
the disembodied personalities could speak to us, and we could hear them ; 
but the main difficulty in the way of communication lies in the fact that, 
with all the desire in the world to communicate, disembodied personalities 
are hampered by the fact that they have not yet fully mastered the use of 
their newly acquired astral organs, and cannot use them in such a way as 
to come into contact with us; and, when they have at last learned to 
use these unfamiliar instruments, the law of progress carries them for- 
ward to a condition in which communication with those still embodied 
is no longer possible. On the other hand, it is held that, if we are willing 
to undergo the necessary training, we can go to them, though they can- 
not come back to us. By discipline and training, we can enter the state 
in which they live, and can return with information about it; just as we 
can go to a hospital to visit a sick friend there and can return with the 
memory of a conversation, while the sick friend is unable for the present 
to return the visit. 

Among those who took part in the discussion, there were also those 
who held that communication with the dead could, in the nature of 
things, never be proved scientifically; or that, if such communication 
be possible, it is, nevertheless, morally wrong. 

Since the valve, the apparatus which Edison proposes to use to 

132 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE AND MR. EDISON 133 

decide the possibility of communication with the dead, is still a physical 
mechanism, however sensitive, it is clear that it can respond only to a 
physical stimulus. But, if the vibrations of thought be super-physical, 
a mechanism is needed which will respond to the vibrations of thought. 
Therefore the test which Edison proposes appears to be quite inconclusive. 

We purpose, however, to put aside for the present the question of 
communication with the dead, in order to consider Edison's theory of 
the nature of organic and conscious life and of the living atom. 

The idea of the living atom is by no means a new one with Edison. 
More than thirty years ago, in Harper's Magazine for February, 1890, 
an earlier interviewer reported him as saying: 

"I do not believe that matter is inert, acted upon by an outside 
force. To me it seems that every atom is possessed by a certain amount 
of primitive intelligence. Look at the thousand ways in which atoms of 
hydrogen combine with those of other elements, forming the most diverse 
substances. Do you mean to say that they do this without intelligence? 
Atoms in harmonious and useful relation assume beautiful or interesting 
shapes and colours, or give forth a pleasant perfume, as if expressing 
their satisfaction. . . . Gathered together in certain forms, the 
atoms constitute animals of the lower orders. Finally they combine in 
man, who represents the total intelligence of all the atoms." 

"But where does this intelligence come from originally?" asked the 
interviewer. 

"From some power greater than ourselves," Edison answered. 

"Do you believe, then, in an intelligent Creator, a personal God?" 

"Certainly. The existence of such a God can, to my mind, almost 
be proved from chemistry." 

It is of deep interest to find Mme. H. P. Blavatsky commenting on 
this view, a month or two later, in her editorials in Lucifer. Thus, in 
April, 1890, she writes : 

"Edison's conception of matter was quoted in our March editorial 
article. The great American electrician is reported by Mr. G. Parsons 
Lathrop in Harper's Magazine as giving out his personal belief about 
the atoms being 'possessed by a certain amount of intelligence,' and 
shown indulging in other reveries of this kind. For this flight of fancy 
the February Review of Reviews takes the inventor of the phonograph 
to task, and critically remarks that 'Edison is much given to dreaming/ 
his 'scientific imagination' being constantly at work. Would to goodness 
the men of science exercised their 'scientific imagination' a little more, 
and their dogmatic and cold negations a little less. . . ." 

After more than thirty years, then, Edison has once more recorded 
his views concerning organic life and the living, intelligent atom. The 
substance of what he now says may be stated as follows : 

1. Life, like matter, is indestructible. 

2. Our bodies are composed of myriads of infinitesimal entities, 



134 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

each in itself a unit of life; just as the atom is composed of myriads of 
electrons. 

3. The human being acts as an assemblage rather than as a unit; 
the body and mind express the vote or voice of the life-entities. 

4. The life-entities build according to a plan; if a part of the 
organism be mutilated, they rebuild this exactly as before. 

5. Among the life-entities, ninety-five per cent are probably workers, 
and five per cent directors; the directors are located in the part of the 
brain known as the fold of Broca, as is proved by surgical operations. 

6. The life-entities are indefatigable workers. If, for any reason, 
they depart from our bodies, they go to work on some other form of life. 
They cannot be destroyed; they simply change the form and character 
of their work, by a process of transformation and regeneration, so that 
they are used over and over again. 

7. Science admits the difficulty of drawing a line between the 
inanimate and the animate ; perhaps the life-entities extend their activities 
to crystals and chemicals. 

8. While the "workers," the life-entities which have been doing 
the routine work of the body during life, depart at death in various 
directions, it is possible that the "directors" remain together as an 
assemblage ; in this way the conscious personality might survive. 

9. The life-entities live for ever; so that, to this extent at least, 
the eternal life which many of us hope for is a reality. 

This is much more comprehensive than what Edison put forth in 
the passage, already quoted, embodying his views in 1890. A comparison 
will be made between Edison's views and what Mme. Blavatsky wrote, 
thirty-five or forty years ago, on the same subject, in Five Years of 
Theosophy ("The Transmigration of the Life-Atoms," page 340), and 
The Secret Doctrine (First and second editions: Pages 49, 85, 110, 130, 
143 (footnote), 213, 223 (footnote), 224 et seq., 249, 260, 267, 274 et seq., 
and 280, Volume I. The third edition was repaged.) 

These passages uphold the view that Life is the eternal, uncreated 
energy which finds expression in the law of continuity. The various 
forms under which objective things appear to us in nature minerals, 
plants and animals are the different modes in which this Life-force 
manifests itself. Were it inactive for a single instant, the particles would 
lose their cohesion and the object disintegrate; though the force would 
remain in each particle, in a dormant state. 

A distinction is drawn between atoms that are moved by kinetic 
energy, which are called life-atoms, and those which contain imperceptible 
potential energy, the sleeping atoms. Mme. Blavatsky suggests that it 
is possible to awaken into activity the dormant life inherent in the so- 
called inorganic atoms, or, conversely, to disintegrate objects composed 
of these atoms ; that living forms are perpetually casting off "lives" which 
have fulfilled their purpose; and that, after the human stage has been 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE AND MR. EDISON 135 

reached, life-atoms can be transferred to other objective forms under 
the action of the will, or, at times, of emotion. It is further suggested 
that, in nature's workshop, the life-atoms, whether kinetic or dormant, 
are worked up into various forms, and pass from one to another, unless 
the holding power of the individual be strong enough to keep them 
together for evolutionary training; so that, in a literal and physical sense, 
we transmit our life-atoms to each other, each one of us thus being his 
'brother's keeper." 

This process of combining and separating goes on through life-cycles 
of varying duration, whether it be in the objective appearance and dis- 
appearance of mineral, plant, animal and human being, or in the mani- 
festation and withdrawal of planet, solar system or universal cosmos. 
"The Root of Life was in every Drop of the Ocean of Immortality. 
. . . Life precedes Form, and Life survives the last Atom of Form" 
(The Secret Doctrine, Volume I, p. 58). 

It should be borne in mind that for the documents and Commentaries 
on which The Secret Doctrine is based, an antiquity of thousands of 
years is claimed. 

Coming to more detailed comparison, we find that The Secret 
Doctrine fully agrees with Edison that Life is indestructible. Whatever 
appellation the mind of man may give to the Divine Power whether 
He, or It, be called Brahma, or First Cause, or God, our finite minds 
can only comprehend the idea of a cause, immanent in universal nature, 
and manifesting as Life. And, just as the microscope has discovered 
an infinite number of organisms, only to have them as infinitely extended 
by the ultra-microscope ; just as the number of the visible stars has been 
indefinitely extended by the development of the telescope, so all mani- 
fested life is built up of an almost infinite number of infinitesimal lives. 
Edison speaks of myriads, while Mme. Blavatsky takes from the Eastern 
books the word "Crore," a crore being ten millions; comparing the life- 
entities to atoms, but adding that the life-atom is to the material atom 
what the tiniest infusorian is to an elephant. Speaking of the electrons, 
Edison uses a similar comparison: the electron is to the atom what a 
grape-fruit is to the Woolworth building. It will, of course, be remem- 
bered that, in 1888, when The Secret Doctrine was written, the name 
"electron" was not yet in use. 

The lives revealed by the microscope, the bacteria and infusoria, 
are themselves composed of myriads of lesser life-units or electrons; 
so that our bodies are built up of an enormous number of cells, or 
microbes, or electrons, or life-atoms, each a life in itself, and grouped 
together in specialized organs with functions of their own, but all working 
together to serve the purpose of the unified directorate, the unit man. 
So long as all conform to the law of harmony and obedience, the organism 
prospers. Disharmony brings sickness and death. 

Human beings act as an assemblage, in the state or nation, but they 



136 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

also tend to act as self-assertive units, ultimately to their own discomfort. 
The individual organs of our bodies likewise work together for the 
common weal. Where this united action fails, suffering and ultimate 
dissolution take place. If this be the law in the aggregate human body, 
there should be a corresponding process in the aggregate body of a 
nation, and of humanity. 

So far, we have covered the first three points of Edison's argument. 
We come now to the fourth : that the life-entities build according to a 
plan, or replace damaged tissue from memory. With this, The Secret 
Doctrine agrees, but adds that the plan has existed from the beginning; 
it is the plan impressed on nature by the Universal Mind, Anima Mundi, 
or Alaya. This plan is carried into objective manifestation by groups 
of "Builders." These work under the guidance of "Architects," who, in 
turn, follow the plan in the Universal Mind of which they, together with 
the Builders, form a part. For there are many degrees of such workers, 
each class having its own function and intelligence, while all contribute 
to the fulfilment of the great Law of Life, originated as Divine Ideation 
and impressed on Universal Substance. 

Thus, for the Builders, the cells, or the life-atoms of the body, or 
the still higher forces which direct the action of life in matter, there is 
always a plan, according to which they carry on the process of building 
from the beginning; or a memory, to guide the rebuilding of what has 
been destroyed. The "astral body," or "design body," is the mould on 
which the physical body is built. One may find an analogy in electro- 
plating; in the way in which particles of metal, drawn from a metallic 
solution, are deposited in all the details of the mould. If, for the mysteri- 
ous electric force of the battery, we substitute the still more mysterious 
vital force of the semi-conscious and semi-intelligent Builders, guided by 
the fully' conscious Architects, we have a picture of how the matter of the 
body is deposited on the astral mould, and made to clothe it. Or we 
may find another picture of the process in the experiment of Chladny's 
figures, where a metal plate or membrane, on which some light powder 
has been sprinkled, is put into vibration by a musical note, when the 
powder arranges itself in various patterns according to the quality of 
the note. A similar line of thought was followed in a work called 
Geometrical Psychology, in which the ideas of Mr. Betts are expounded 
by Miss Louisa Cook, who shows that the relative interferences of vibra- 
tory forces produce exquisitely graceful flower forms. So that we have 
a number of illustrations, showing how physical matter may take form 
under the stress of directing forces. 

Edison's fifth point is, that ninety-five per cent of the life-atoms 
may be routine workers, while five per cent may be directors. The Secret 
Doctrine teaches that the Universe is guided from within outwards, both 
as a whole and in all its parts; and that an infinite number of semi- 
conscious and semi-intelligent workers, guided by fully conscious and 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE AND MR. EDISON 



137 



intelligent directors, carry the plan into execution. It is further suggested 
that, while the work proceeds from within outwards, human beings may 
co-operate in this work, making a contribution from without inwards : 
"Man ought to be ever striving to help the divine evolution of Ideas, 
by becoming to the best of his ability a co-worker with Nature in the 
cyclic task." These forces become more powerful, as they approach 
the consciousness of Unity, thus taking rank as directors of the work. 
Edison fancies that the directors should be located in the fold of Broca 
in the brain, just as Descartes thought that the soul dwelt in the pineal 
gland; but, surgical operations notwithstanding, this seems to us like 
saying that the creative work of a musician dwells in the keys of the 
piano or the strings of a violin, because he uses these instruments in 
playing. 

Coming to the sixth point, The Secret Doctrine agrees with Edison 
that the life-entities are indefatigable workers. All, from the highest 
Architects to the lowliest Builders, are ceaselessly at work, building, 
conserving, or pulling down and thus transforming and regenerating the 
forms of nature, from those which are objective and perceptible to our 
ordinary senses, up to the most subtile and super-normal subjects of 
super-sensuous perception. So long as there is Life, there is work; 
and, when Life is no longer outwardly manifested, there is still Life and 
work, though of a kind which our finite intellects cannot comprehend. 
The ordinary man can distinguish one colour from another. The trained 
craftsman can distinguish sixty shades in each colour of the spectrum. 
Science considers the long series of vibrations from the slowest to the 
most rapid, octave after octave. But science well knows that only an 
octave here and there has as yet even partially been apprehended. Audible 
sounds stretch from the lowest note of an organ to the voice of the gnat, 
but there is a whole series of unexplored octaves of vibration between 
the highest sound vibration and the lowest light vibration, or even the 
heat vibrations below the red. 

Science is increasingly conscious of the difficulty of drawing a line 
between inanimate and animate being. This brings us to Edison's 
seventh point. He thinks that the life-entities may work, not only in 
what we call living things, but also in chemical substances and minerals, 
directing, for instance, the symmetrical formation of crystals. On this 
point, The Secret Doctrine is quite definite, declaring that not only our 
own bodies and those of animals, but also plants and stones, are alto- 
gether built up of the same life-entities. The same infinitesimal, invisible 
lives compose the bodies of the ox and the man, the mountain and the 
daisy, the ant and the elephant. Each particle is, in turn, life-giving 
and death-giving to each particular form. By aggregation the life-entities 
build up universes and planets and the ephemeral vehicles ready to receive 
incarnating souls ; and as eternally change the forms thus built up. 

Coming now to the eighth point : Edison thinks that the routine 



138 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

workers among the life-entities may carry on the general work of nature 
in various ways, and in different directions. The Secret Doctrine con- 
firms this view, and distinguishes at least three classes of such Builders 
at work on this earth. There are (a) the purely "physical" atoms, or 
their smaller particles, now called electrons, which compose the crust 
of the earth, and supply the basis of all objective forms. Next come 
(b) the "lives," providing the mould or model on which the physical 
particles, the electrons, are deposited, and which are interblended with 
the physical particles, or, as it were, incarnated in them. These two 
classes work out the regular evolutionary process, building up the con- 
solidating forms and "habitations" in accordance with the plan of the 
World-Soul, and the records carried over from the preceding planetary 
life-cycle. But The Secret Doctrine also tells of (c) a third class of 
Builders, who are the skilled and instructed Architects in relation to the 
earth ; they are the evolved and perfected humanity of earlier periods of 
the solar Cosmos, and play a very important part in our evolution and 
progress. It is further suggested that, in the same way, human beings 
may be divided into three classes, while there are hints that further 
classes will be added in future circling Rounds of this planetary period. 

Thus we have (a) the elemental lives which are the basis of form, 
guided and moulded by (b) the Builders, who provide the moulds or 
models upon which the first class consolidate themselves; and we have 
also (c) the Architects, still higher in the scale of conscious evolution, 
who bring to the work of the first two classes the element of universal 
intelligence, or Mahat. These last are the Creators, who work out the 
plans of divine ideation with which they are impressed, and who guide 
the life-entities subject to them, and under their charge. All are subject 
to the evolutionary law of cause and effect, the law of Karma, which they 
work out in every life-cycle. But the Architects, the celestial Hierarchy, 
reached their present high rank through orderly development; through 
growth, they became what they now are. And in the same way this 
Hierarchy will pass on, in the next life-cycle, to higher worlds, making 
room for a new Hierarchy, composed of the elect of mankind. 

We come, finally, to the ninth point in our analysis of Edison's 
views : the belief that the life-entities live for ever. The Secret Doctrine 
is in full agreement with this. It teaches that there is a progressive 
evolution going on throughout the universe. Conscious Powers, whom 
we may call Dhyan Chohans, Archangels, Messengers or Planetary 
Spirits, are the executive agents of the universal Life. Each in their 
degree, they work out the plan from within outwards; and, when the 
human stage is reached, man should collaborate with them, making a 
contribution from without inwards. Conforming himself with the spirit 
of these guiding Powers, he should co-operate with them, in working out 
the universal Law. When he does this, conforming himself with the 
spirit of the Architects, he enters into their consciousness and shares 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE AND MR. EDISON 139 

the eternal nature of their life. In this way he attains to a greater, 
wider arid more powerful consciousness than that which is dimly out- 
lined in Edison's democracy of the life-entities, routine workers and 
directors. 

Thus The Secret Doctrine places its record before us. After a 
period of quiescence from objective activity, the cycle of activity returns. 
Life moves toward manifestation. And throughout the different stages 
of this development, in whatever direction, or on whatever plane they 
may appear, there is a unity, a correspondence of activity. The same 
Law operates in the universal Kosmos, the solar system, the planet; in 
mineral, plant, animal and man. 

The One Life moves. From the Unmanifested Logos comes the 
manifested Logos, which is reflected in the collective aggregate of 
Planetary Spirits and nature spirits, synthesized and personified as Fohat, 
the primordial, vital, electric Force, which is also a conscious, intelligent 
Entity. 

Fohat, then, is the personified, vital, electric Power, the transcen- 
dental binding unity of all cosmic energies, on the unseen, as on the 
manifested planes; every manifestation of that Force partaking of the 
nature of consciously exerted Will. 

On the abstract side, there is the One Life. On the objective side, 
there is a septenary scale of manifestation. The one, unknown Cause, 
manifesting itself as omnipresent Life and Mind, is immanent in every 
atom of Matter. 

There is a Kosmic Fohat, a unity of conscious Force, for the whole 
universe. There is a unity of conscious Force for each world. There 
are as many unities of conscious Force as there are worlds; together, 
they make the one universal Fohat, the Entity aspect of the one universal 
Non-Entity. 

Fohat, the unity of conscious Force, builds the worlds in the like- 
ness of older worlds, on the plan stored up in the Universal Mind, of 
which Fohat is the manifesting agent. These earlier worlds, these "older 
wheels," existed in former life-cycles of the universe; for the law of 
the birth, growth, decay and regeneration of everything is perpetually 
the same, whether it operate in the universe as a whole, in the solar 
system, in the sun or in the glow-worm. It is an everlasting progress 
toward perfection, whose underlying Substance and Force are for ever 
the same. 

From the point of view of ordinary human observation, we have 
the objective phenomena of electricity, magnetism, light, heat, sound, 
cohesion, and so on, which are all the progeny of the super-sensuous 
activities of Fohat and its subdivisions. To these various forces The 
Secret Doctrine gives "a distinctive objective, if not material, structure, 
in the relatively noumenal, as opposed to the phenomenal, Universe." 
The Secret Doctrine postulates intelligent, divine workmen as the direct 



140 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

cause of such forces as electricity, magnetism, light, heat, sound, cohesion, 
and so on, instead of regarding them as forces generated by matter, or 
as modes of motion. These consciously directed forces are what have 
been called elementals, or nature-spirits; they are the active, though, 
to our senses, imperceptible causes of terrestrial phenomena; and are 
themselves the effects of prior causes behind the veil, causes which un- 
erringly guide their operation. Electricity, light, heat and cohesion 
have been called "the ghost of matter in motion ;" they are super-sensuous 
states of matter, whose effects alone we are able to cognize. 

When a planet "dies," its informing principles are transferred to a 
sleeping centre, possessing latent, potential energy; and this centre is 
thus awakened into life, and begins to form itself into a new sidereal 
body. It is Fohat, the parent of the infinite progeny of forces, which 
guides the transfer of energy from one planet to another, from an out- 
worn star to a new child-star. And as above, so below ; there is a com- 
plete correspondence of activity in regard to the building of a planet, a 
mineral, a plant, an animal and a man. 

The Secret Doctrine postulates a collective Architect who furnishes 
the plan on which the hosts of intelligent Forces build the objective 
forms. But these objective forms are finite and perishable only in their 
objective manifestations, not in their ideal forms. As Ideas, they have 
existed from eternity and will ever exist; it is, therefore, the privilege 
and duty of man to apprehend these ideas and, to the best of his ability, 
to work for their realization, thus becoming a co-worker with Nature 
in the cyclic task. 

Thus, between the views which Mme. Blavatsky put forward thirty- 
two years ago, in The Secret Doctrine, and, still earlier, in The Theoso- 
phist, and the thoughts expressed now and in the past by Edison, there 
is a good deal of likeness. The idea of the life-entities is common to both ; 
but The Secret Doctrine further teaches the existence of many degrees 
of conscious, intelligent directors, ascending Hierarchies, who build up 
the vesture of man, and, when the times comes, inform that vesture; 
Hierarchies which are the builders of man and of every other form, 
on this world, as on every other world. 

Man's freedom of will, which is imparted to him by one of these 
Hierarchies of celestial builders, makes it possible for him either to co- 
operate with them in the divine plan, or to work against them, to the 
confusion of the work, and to his own confusion. Where he thus acts 
against the universal law, he pays the penalty, and has the opportunity 
of learning his error and its cause. 

We may, perhaps, draw to our aid Maeterlinck's happy inspiration 
of the "soul of the hive," guiding the community of bees. That soul 
may represent the collective purpose of the hive; while the separate 
units, the queen, the workers and the drones, carry out their specific 
functions in regard to the hive as a whole. A parallel may be drawn 



I 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE AND MR. EDISON 141 

between the bees and ourselves. When there is harmonious conformity 
to the soul of the hive, all goes well; where there is disobedience, con- 
fusion follows. Life is not a democracy in reality, though so many human 
beings think it ought to be. The soul of the hive (in our case, the divine 
plan), is the intelligent guide for the individual units of which it is 
composed; and those units must obey the direction of the soul, or else 
endure those transformations which lead to discord and the dissolution 
of the hive. So man must obey divine law, expressed by the Hierarchies 
of Architects and Builders, who will, in the fullness of time, "descend on 
radiant earth and reign over men who are themselves." 

Until man realizes this, the separate personalities will be more and 
more subject to disease, misery and suffering. When he learns to con- 
form to the divine law, no longer amusing himself with the illusion of 
his pride of place, and his assertion of his personal right to do as he 
pleases, it is possible that the Architects, now hidden, may reveal them- 
selves as his leaders and guides. A. K. 



We must hold this opinion of the just man, that, if he fall into 
poverty or disease, or any other of these seeming evils, all these things 
work together for good to him, either during his life, or after death. 
For that man is never neglected by the gods, who exerts himself to the 
utmost to become just, and, by practising virtue, tries to approach, as 
nearly as a man may, to the likeness of God. PLATO. 



Heedless, allured, one moment I forgot my goal, 

A thousand years it stretched the journey of my soul. ANON. 



We must only love ourselves as for God, instead of which we are 
always trying, if we are not careful, only to love God for ourselves. 

IGNATIUS LOYOLA. 



ASPECTS OF DISCIPLINE 



THE story of a man's life, which he himself told me some weeks 
ago, interested me greatly at the time, and has interested me 
still more since, in view of those things which seemed to me, 
upon reflection, to be behind the narrative and to extend into 
all life and all living. The story itself was commonplace and familiar 
enough. It was the history of a young man, educated, of good family, 
engaged to be married, employed in a confidential position in a bank in 
a small city; a young man of many fine qualities and of much promise, 
generous, and universally popular. Little by little this popularity led to 
minor neglects of daily duties both in the family and at business, to 
extravagances, finally to excesses and to dissipation, to self-indulgences 
of every kind, with the inevitable result, that finally he became hard- 
pressed financially, and saw no way out. As matters became increas- 
ingly worse, he "borrowed" money from the bank, and with the con- 
nivance of a friend, an under officer of the bank, forged several checks, 
meaning to return the money before the irregularity was discovered. 
It was, of course, discovered ; the usual legal steps were taken ; for 
business reasons the bank officer was eliminated from the proceedings, 
and this man was made to bear the whole brunt of the charges. He was 
tried and convicted, and was sent to the State prison for a term of years. 
His history since that time is not the important thing, although, as 
a matter of fact, he has been released on parole, is working at good pay 
for a business man who had himself a similar experience in his youth, 
and his fiancee has stood by him, as have also his entire family. What 
concerns us at the moment are the reasons, the real reasons, behind the 
whole occurrence; the man's response to the involuntary pressure which 
was put upon him, with the result of this response. 

Let us suppose that the real qualities of this man were not those 
qualities which had been evident, outwardly attractive as many of them 
were. Let us suppose, for instance, that his generosity, of which men- 
tion has been made, was only another expression of that self-indulgence 
which later manifested itself in grosser forms; that when he was in 
funds he liked to give money away indiscriminately, with both hands, not 
with the desire of relieving distress, but because of the personal pleasure 
it gave him to be a distributor of largesse. Generosity was perverted, 
turned into self-indulgence ; other splendid qualities were distorted in the 
same way by self-will. But let us suppose that other eyes, tender and 
clear-seeing and full of love, looking steadfastly at those things in their 
real perspective, saw not only the virtues behind the perversions, but 
also saw in him possibilities and potentialities that he himself had never 
dreamed of, graces, even, that could be developed. Let us suppose 

142 



ASPECTS OF DISCIPLINE 143 

that unseen powers had caused the utmost pressure of life to be brought 
to bear against his weakest points, quietly, unceasingly, unyieldingly, in 
order to bring him to the depths, to strip him of all that was unreal, 
that he might come to himself and see, and seeing, become. 

What was this particular man's response to the involuntary disci- 
pline which life thus imposed upon him ? Far from thinking that heaven 
had anything to do with it, his first feeling was one of rebellion. Self 
was uppermost, self-pity for his hard luck, resentment that, with all his 
friends and his fine qualities, some way out had not been found for him, 
some exception made. There was nothing at first but resentment, and 
the wish to escape the penalty; there was no repentance. 

But little by little, in the loneliness and solitude of his imprisonment, 
the Unseen Powers increased the pressure upon him, until his real self 
began in some measure to break through ; until he began to have a glim- 
mering of the purpose and meaning behind all this involuntary discipline. 
Gradually, very slowly, he came to understand that he had violated 
greater laws than those penal laws whose demands he was then satisfy- 
ing. Help to a further understanding came to him through others, as 
help always comes if the desire for it, and the self-surrender, be complete 
enough. Little by little there dawned upon him something of the right 
perspective; a realization that, in being ruled by self, he had been 
ruled by devils ; an understanding that, in betraying his employer, his 
family, his friends, the Divine in himself, he had been a traitor to One 
to whom his heart was now turning for help. With this realization 
came the beginning of repentance, deep and heartfelt, and then a desire 
to atone, to expiate, for love's sake. 

Let us take another case of involuntary discipline, one that goes even 
further and deeper. Let us suppose the case of a child afflicted for years 
with incurable illness, forced not only to give up the normal, happy 
things of youth, but driven also to the realization that life, so long as it 
lasted, must be renunciation and continued pain. What is such a child's 
response to this involuntary discipline, granted again that the Unseen 
Powers send that understanding and help which continued high courage, 
patience, faith, never fail to receive? It is not impossible for the child 
to learn that such circumstances are both a result and a preparation; 
that the important thing is to win on the inner plane at all costs, what- 
ever the apparent outer giving-up may be; that beneath suffering is a 
purpose and a meaning, a gift. I have seen such a child, groping with 
infinite courage through times of darkness, come to the heart of Life, 
to find there not darkness, but, radiant and glorious, the Master Him- 
self ; to know, as a fact quite simply expressed, that at the heart of pain 
lie "Beauty and Truth and Christ." For a crippled child to enter so 
fully, here and now, into the joy of the Lord, is surely a reward that 
transcends expression. Impossible ever to go back, now, to a "normal" 
outer life, even should the clouds and shadows lift. From this point 
on, it must be only a question of time before a complete understanding 



144 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

comes, and a final and joyous acceptance ; and then for a faithful soldier 
and servant, life's discipline is no longer involuntary, but voluntary: 
a new motive has entered in. 

It is interesting to note how this matter of motive enters into disci- 
pline in the Army; what widely divergent results are reached, depending 
upon whether the discipline imposed be involuntary or voluntary. The 
men who came into the Army from civil life when we entered the war, 
found the very antithesis of their former surroundings. For the first 
time, in most cases, they led a regulated life. Everything went by rule, 
under orders, even to the position of one's shoes under the bunk, the 
exact angle of the head-dress, the hour at which one was required to 
be in bed. They learned how to obey. They learned, also, that this 
new life lived in obedience was a far simpler thing than anything they 
had ever known before. But those who were not able to see beyond 
the exacted obedience to the reasons behind its exaction, utterly missed 
the point of the whole experience: ten chances to one they became 
mechanical, wooden, and lost initiative. The man who caught something 
of the pride in the Army as a whole, who was able to look beyond the 
daily life and routine and experience of his platoon, or of his company; 
who was able to see that his regiment was, after all, only a part of the 
great whole, and that the success of this whole depended upon the way 
in which the smallest units in it performed their task that man was 
able to take Army discipline and use it with a definite purpose, and to 
make others use it in the same way. It was the man who voluntarily 
accepted Army discipline because he saw the Army as the outward 
expression of militant force arrayed against an evil thing, who was able, 
also, as many were, to treat Army discipline as a Spiritual Rule, to be 
glad of fatigue and hardship and suffering because it was for a Cause 
greater than himself ; it was this man who used his circumstances and 
surroundings to the uttermost, and helped others to a clearer vision and 
to its fuller expression. It was by no means necessary for a man to be 
imbued in the first place with such clear perception of the actual facts 
and possibilities of the situation. One saw constantly, in the Service, 
individuals whose motive so improved under this new involuntary disci- 
pline that, slowly at first, in the end completely, they accepted the disci- 
pline voluntarily, as something which they wanted in order to accomplish 
the work which they had set themselves to do. 

So it must always be with the discipline which life brings to each 
one of us. It is involuntary at first, and, in the nature of things, resent- 
ment and rebellion ensue; our spiritual eyes are holden and we cannot 
see. But as the unyielding, kindly pressure persists, the perception 
grows that there is a spiritual harvest to be gleaned, that in every portion 
of life this is possible, and that one begins to be a disciple when one 
crosses the line between involuntary and voluntary discipline. Then we 
face the question as to what, exactly, we want to do, how much we want 
to do it, and how best we may do it. 



ASPECTS OF DISCIPLINE 145 

What docs one do when one wants with all one's heart and soul and 
mind and will to be a disciple, to serve, to give, to help? The will and 
the desire are not enough in themselves. One must be the things 
oneself. One must be trained, not only by the circumstances and sur- 
roundings of life, but by personal effort, by deliberate self-schooling in 
certain ways, with the help from others which will come increasingly 
as one earns it by strong effort, and by bearing always in one's heart and 
mind the deeper motive. 

This is how one woman, Madame Leseur, did it. She lived in 
France, and died there, in 1914, at the age of forty-eight. She kept a 
journal in which she wrote, sometimes at long intervals, for herself 
alone, the thoughts and feelings and aspirations which she found in 
her heart. This journal is the narrative of the evolution of a soul, writ- 
ten in utter simplicity and humility; it is a history of "renouncement, 
detachment, voluntary poverty, dislike of the world, sacrifice and forget - 
fulness of self, acceptance of suffering." Yet, on the outer plane, this 
woman lived in the world, with household cares, with many social and 
family ties and duties, with a multitude of outer activities constantly 
engrossing her and demanding her attention. She was married to a 
husband who was without real inner life, and whom she adored with the 
whole of her great heart. Gay and charming, attractive in appearance, 
her manners were full of distinction, and she was an accomplished 
hostess, with a multitude of friends in the world of her day. The later 
years of her life were marked by constantly increasing pain and physical 
suffering, until the end came. Yet, living in the world, fulfilling every 
outer duty, meeting every active call upon her, she was not of the world, 
but truly lived the most intense spiritual life in an inner world of her own. 

Perhaps some of the things which she herself has written will best 
convey the beauty and strength of her inner and outer life of disciple- 
ship; her joyous acceptance of everything, without exception, that life 
sent, as something to be used in her Master's service; her increasingly 
purified motive. Some of these are passages from her journal, some are 
Resolutions, some are from her Rule of Life. 

"I want to re-form my life. That is, without any great exterior 
change or singular behaviour, to establish in my soul more serenity, true 
humility and charity ... I must try to be all things to all men" 
(this is constantly repeated). "What we have to do is to work upon 
ourselves, to accomplish our own transformation to be ourselves the 
things that we would have others be." "I believe there is no humble, 
unknown act or thought, seen by God alone, that does not serve souls. 
To do each day, humbly, and so that God alone may know, all the good 
that one can do. To strengthen my will by regular work. To do the 
humblest things, and thus possess the truth and beauty for which I 
long ... to miss no opportunity for an act of devotion, especially 
if it will not be remarked. I must sacrifice, unknown to anyone, my 
tastes and inclinations, everything but the principles by which I live; I 

10 



146 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

must do what seems to me my duty works of charity, devotion to 
others and to the poor in a way that can hurt no one nor interfere 
with immediate duties. To love strongly without self-seeking, to accept 
by divine grace the duty of every day and hour, not neglecting the most 
infinitesimal." 

"One resolution which I have taken, notwithstanding physical and 
moral weakness, is to be 'joyful' in the Christian sense of the word. And 
in view of a greater good, even to watch over my bearing and my dress ; 
to make myself attractive for God's sake. To be austere to myself, and 
as attractive as possible to others." 

"In that meditation and close contact with God, my soul gets greater 
strength to perform the wearisome, monotonous tasks of every day . . . 
To be unswervingly faithful to the daily task, in big and little things, in 
work, in painful inaction, in illness and suffering, as in joy and health." 
The enforced inaction of illness must have been, for her active spirit, a 
crucifixion indeed, and yet she says, "Since I believe in the Communion 
of Saints, I will ask God to apply to those I love the sacrifice of this 
inaction ... By suffering and sacrifice I can obtain for them a trans- 
formation of life. To live is to fight and suffer and love." 

"To go from the near duty to the far duty. To preach by prayer, 
sacrifice and example. I must be an influence, not a profession of faith. 
To try always to understand everyone and everything. Not to argue, 
but to work through contact and example. To interest myself in every- 
one, and to make our home a living centre, to give it a soul. To become 
little with the little ones, even the little of soul; to speak the tongue 
that they can understand." 

"To be an apostle, what a word ! And what a task, impossible to 
perform alone. But I know well what this word 'apostle' means, and 
all the obligations it implies. 'By their fruits ye shall know them! God 
knows our souls thoroughly; He is aware of our least desire, the least 
movement of our wills. But men see* only what we express outwardly. 
That is why our acts and words and attitude should be the faithful 
reflection of our souls, for men will judge God by His works in us." 

"To act in spite of prostration of body and to suffer without any 
consolation is, perhaps, to secure what our prayer was not worthy to 
obtain. Only sacrifice is certain to go straight to the Heart of Jesus." 

Thus did one woman live a life of discipleship. Along those same 
lines, 'it is possible for everyone who truly wishes it, to grow, to learn, 
to serve; to take the discipline that our own problems of the moment 
impose, the circumstances and surroundings of our daily lives, as being 
exactly what we need at this moment of time to strengthen some weak 
spot, to make stronger some virtue, to prepare us for the next step and 
for a larger work ; to realize that, the harder the circumstances and the 
more severe the pressure, the greater the opportunity, and the greater 
the possible result ; but not to care for the result : the weaver does not 
watch the finished pattern but concentrates upon each thread; it is the 



ASPECTS OF DISCIPLINE 



147 



effort that counts ; to be thankful for the discipline of life, and to trust. 

Our determined, conscious efforts with ourselves our lower selves 
must be exerted also in the little things, the things of every day ; it is in 
these that we must school ourselves. For when a crisis comes, a man 
acts in accordance with the decisions he has been making over a long 
period of time in the innumerable little things of life, in terms of the 
motive which has actuated him in those little ways. There is no time to 
say, "Here is a crisis," to think out what must be done, to try to raise 
one's level of thought and motive and action, to prepare for it. One 
has been unconsciously preparing for it all along, and one acts instinc- 
tively in accordance with the preparation that has been going on. 

So it must be in terms of our inner effort. Nothing is too small or 
too unimportant to use for that inner discipline which we desire, and 
are determined to have, although the ways and means must vary as 
individuals vary. Take such an apparently small thing as rising every 
morning half-an-hour earlier in order to have time for reading and medi- 
tation : try it and see whether or not it is easy under all circumstances 
to persevere in it, day in and day out. Then too, the average person 
instinctively singles out and sinks into the most comfortable chair in 
the room; try habitually taking a straight-backed chair, and sitting 
straight. Almost ridiculous, such things, it may seem; but remember 
the motive with which they are done, that they are only for God to know 
and to see, as Madame Leseur believed. They are offerings to Him. 

With these and other ways of inner self-discipline, the limits of our 
horizon are extended, our perspective is enlarged. In response to our 
effort and aspiration, the spiritual help which we receive is increased, 
until it may become like the turning of the full 1 force of a torrent into 
a narrow mountain pass, causing the detritus and rubble of our faults 
and weaknesses to be washed away by the flow, the excrescences of our 
sins worn off, and the channel of the torrent made smoother and deeper. 
We must not merely accept ; we must look actively for the means, calling 
on every quality within that may enable us to see and to see truly, asking 
help from the Companions around and above us. The help is there for 
the asking; and the Way will be made more and more clear to the 
seeing eye and the understanding heart. For we have been told the 
Way: "If any man would come after me let him take up his Cross 
daily, and follow me." 

The little things of each day are a divine gift to us: through the 
right use of them may be attained that poverty of spirit which desires 
to renounce in order to possess all; which finds, in freedom from the 
material and from the things of the world, freedom also to look within, 
to seek and to keep seeking, and more and more fully to possess the 
Divine. And, having looked and found within, to find the Divine in all 
the circumstances of life without exception, and in the hearts and lives 
of all others as well. Then we may enter fully, here and now, into the 
Kingdom. . STUART DUDLEY. 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 
PHARAOH OF EGYPT 



I 
THE OLD KINGDOM 

IF we wish to grasp the true significance of Akhnaton, it becomes 
necessary to take a slight survey of the historical, political and 
religious events which preceded his reign. As will be seen later, 

Akhnaton can hardly be called a product of his times; indeed he 
presents so startling a contrast to all that goes before, he stands out so 
boldly even against the highly coloured background formed by the vivid 
and varied personalities, particularly of his immediate predecessors, that 
he has sometimes been called the first individual in history. In letting 
our thoughts range over a period of thousands of years before Akhnaton's 
time, it is difficult to make a wise choice of the salient points, because 
nothing that took place in Egypt is unimportant. The least happening or 
thought, traced to its source, will be found to stand on a vast foundation 
of hidden truth. This has so long been recognized that it has become 
almost proverbial, and it seems scarcely necessary to draw attention 
to it now. 

In looking back, therefore, to the earliest records which thuman 
history has thus far vouchsafed us, we see glimmering through the mists, 
which half hide but which cannot wholly conceal them, the colossal forms 
of the Creators and Rulers of earliest Egypt, but so comparatively little is 
known of them as men that we must be content, in so brief a sketch as 
this, to leave them in their majestic isolation, dwelling of necessity more 
on what they accomplished, than on what they were. In that earliest time, 
in the very dawn of recorded history as we know it today, the Pharaoh 
occupied the most exalted position which it would be possible to imagine, 
mixing little with his subjects in general, and, though working unremit- 
tingly for the good of his kingdom, being surrounded by an impenetrable 
veil of mystery. He was almost literally worshipped by his people, to 
whom he was known as the "good god", their deep respect and reverence 
making them reluctant so much as to refer to him by name. Even to his 
courtiers he was known as "one", and official reports sent to the King 
were impersonally entitled "to let one know." Indeed, he was so com- 
pletely supreme that he, as a result, represented in his sacred person all 
things, both religious and civil. He was chief worshipper in the temples, 
the intermediary between the people and their God, and while, at first, 
only the central offices of the state administration were known as the 
"great house", gradually this became one of the august titles given to the 
King himself, and the words "Great House", in Egyptian Per-aa or 
Per-o, have come down to us as Pharaoh. 

148 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 149 

We shall see how, little by little, as time moves on, the Pharaoh 
becomes more human, more accessible, in fact more democratic, and that 
while, up to the very end, the mystery of Divinity clings to him, still more 
and more is he known personally to his people, takes part personally in 
their activities, becomes more the approachable human being. 

The Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom and his court, and even the life 
of the people, lives for us again in the splendid art of that time, an art 
which never afterwards in Egypt reached a higher level. Just as hardly 
anything in Egyptian architecture of a later date strikes us with more 
solemn awe than do the pyramids, so, in no later art of Egypt, do we 
find the stupendous force, the majesty and power, that we see in the 
Old Kingdom statues and reliefs. When we look at the diorite statue 
of Khafra, or the minute carved ivory head and bust of Khufu (better 
known as Kheops) with its fiery intensity, its almost cosmic energy, so 
unsurpassingly expressed in so small a compass, we know that we are 
looking on a monarch who in all reality ruled by Divine Right. The statue 
of Khafra is one of the grandest works of art of all time, and, as in the 
case of all good portraiture, we know, in both these examples, that these 
are portraits and not ideas in stone. And the nobles and courtiers of that 
wonderful period have caught a spark of the Divine Fire, have been 
illumined by the teaching of their Mighty Rulers. One has but to look 
at the magnificent carved wooden panel of Rahesy, a high official of the 
Illrd. Dynasty, the seated statues of Rahotep and his wife Nefert (also 
Illrd. Dynasty), or the mortuary statue of Ranofer, a noble of the Vth. 
Dynasty, to realize that these men "talked with God." Their superb 
assurance, their majestic bearing, make them fit companions for the Great 
Lord, the Pharaoh. 

The temple was quite literally the House of God, and the local noble 
was at the head of the priests of his community. But his duties as priest 
were not actually a vocation, for he continued his worldly duties as well 
as fulfilling those of the temple. Religion was so intimately bound up 
with daily life and routine in those pure early days, that this was not 
only a perfectly natural but equally possible arrangement. The Pharaoh, 
as supreme sacerdotal head, was represented in every temple in the 
land by a High Priest, who made offerings for the "life, prosperity and 
health" of the King. Some of the High Priesthoods were especially 
ancient, that of Heliopolis in particular, whose High Priest was known 
as the "Great Seer". Grain, wine, oil, honey were brought and reverently 
placed in the temple as offerings to the God, and the temple ritual was 
simple and devout, suiting the sincerity of the times. 

We find a loftiness and grandeur in the religion of this early world 
which is what we should expect, knowing that Egypt was ruled by a line 
of King Initiates, and it is significant that the Egyptians "emerge into 
historical times with an ancient religion of vastly remote prehistoric 
origin." 1 To the Theosophist such a statement is no surprise, nor is it 



1 Breasted's History of Egypt. 



150 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

even new, for he knows about that far Atlantean world from which 
earliest Egypt sprang, and from the wreck of which were saved the 
secrets of the Ancient Wisdom. Religion plays such a large part in the 
life of ancient man, that, if we wish to understand him at all, we must 
try to understand and sympathise with his religious beliefs. It is our 
surest, we might say our only means of comprehending him. But as in 
all religion, and perhaps almost more so in Egypt than elsewhere, we 
must never forget to look for origins and real meanings, which are 
invariably hidden under a thick outer coat of cult and ritual. Unless we 
keep this clearly and unceasingly before us, we lose our way in an intricate 
and paralysing maze of detail. We can imagine that those Great Initiates, 
those early Pharaohs, had to give vast truths to the masses in such sym- 
bolic forms as the average could understand and accept, and, as is the 
fate of all symbols if they fall into ignorant hands, they gradually as- 
sumed meanings which were never originally intended, and in the end 
appear so distorted as to be hardly recognizable. 

Therefore when we speak of Sun Worship and of Ra as the Sun 
God, thereby, perhaps involuntarily, calling up mental pictures of strange 
ceremonial customs and of Ra as a not always very admirable deity, we 
are speaking from the outer point of view. But when we stumble on the 
popular and deep-rooted belief that, in long ages before, Ra had been 
the first King of Egypt ; when we begin to realize that all great and holy 
things dated from Ra, as is indicated in the popular saying (when refer- 
ring to some unusual event), "The like 'has not happened since the time 
of Ra"; when we realize as we look deeper than ceremonial rites and 
extravagant ritual that it was Ra who exacted pure living and clean 
thinking, we have in fact stumbled on a simple, undistorted reality ; we 
have followed the stream back to its clear source, and are certain that 
Ra was in very truth the earliest Divine Ruler (Theosophists would be- 
lieve him to have belonged to the Great White Lodge), whose wisdom, 
goodness and justice still echo down to us after these countless thousands 
of years. Contrary to what most of our folk-lore experts would have 
us believe, we know that Ra was not the creation of man's imagination, 
typifying the sun as a force in nature. Quite the opposite : the Sun in all 
its splendour typified Ra the Divine ; the Sun was his insignia of Divinity. 
Even the spot where Ra dwelt was from hoariest antiquity held sacred. 
This was An in the Delta, the On of the Hebrews. Later, the Greeks, 
knowing it to be the centre of Sun Worship, called it Heliopolis, the name 
by which we now know it. There, throughout the ages, were temples and 
monuments dedicated to the Sun. Today only one obelisk, dating from 
the Xllth. Dynasty, has been recovered. But there are, fortunately, rec- 
ords which last longer than monuments built by human hands, and these 
are the sanctuaries erected in the heart, those memories kept holy and 
ever fresh because of the continued and loving recollection of the beloved. 
Thus the "legends" which cling to the "Sacred Spring of Ra" at Heliopolis, 
where the Divine King was wont to bathe and refresh himself, have out- 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC' 151 

lived the granite temples built for his worship ; and thus even the modern 
Arabs, little knowing why, still speak of it as the ''Spring of the Sun." 
It is here that Mary is said to have halted during 'The Flight", and it is 
here that the Holy Child was bathed and refreshed. Botanists tell us 
that on the margin of this "Sacred Spring" there grows today a plant 
which is found nowhere else in all the world. Even the intrusion of the 
beautiful Osirian faith, while taking the strongest hold on the religious 
impulses of the people (for Osiris was deeply loved, and was called 
Unnejer, "The Good Being"), never really weakened the position of Ra, 
who was spoken of as "The Limitless One", as he who existed "before 
the pillars of the sky were made", and who continued to be thought of 
as the Father of Egypt up to the last. 2 

A few words should be said about certain aspects of Ra, because of 
the importance given to at least one of them by Akhnaton, some two thou- 
sand years later than the Old Kingdom times of which we have been 
writing. But it should be remembered that we are not writing on Sun 
Worship in general, and that Sun Worship is so tremendous a subject 
that we are only attempting to jot down points to serve as sign-posts, indi- 
cating a few of the roads which may be followed by anyone seeking 
further knowledge. 

Ra had many aspects. In the earliest Sun Hymn which we know, we 
read: 

Hail to Thee Atum! 

Hail to Thee Kheper ! 

Who Himself became (Self Generator). 3 

Atum (or Atmu, Turn or Tmu) was Ra in the West, the Setting 
Sun, the Aged Sun, the All-Wise, the All-Knowing. Kheper (or Khepr 

2 This statement might be questioned by some Egyptologists who declare that not only is 
there much evidence to show that Osiris antedated Ra, but that his worship certainly lasted into 
later times Osiris being the "Great God" during the Greek period in Egypt, when Ra was almost 
forgotten. It is a much disputed question,, but on one side of it there is never any disagree- 
ment. The worship of Ra was always the State Religion, the religion of the Pharaoh. The 
Pharaoh himself belonged to the Solar Race and was believed to be the incarnation of the Sun 
God. (This, however, is not to be confused with the identification of the deceased with Osiris 
after death, which is quite a different matter.) Ra belonged to the Throne, Osiris more to the 
people. Therefore, as Egypt through the ages became more externalized, Ra might well have 
withdrawn, have become more and more hidden, but by no means forgotten by the chosen few, 
who remained true to the ancient faith; while Osiris, easier to understand, because more essen- 
tially human, should have become better known to the masses. Eran says that "up to the 
latest times the priests of On (Heliopolis) were credited with the possession of great wisdom." 
There can be little doubt that it wad they, especially, who guarded the mysteries of the Secret 
Doctrine long after all outer forms and records had been forgotten or destroyed. Had Herodotus, 
Strabo and others relied, for their information, on written records alone, many, if not the 
greater part of the most valuable facts, religious and otherwise, which we learn from them, might 
still remain hidden treasures. 

Regarding the question as to the relative ages of Ra and Osiris, Wiedemann says: "Ra was 
regarded by the Egyptians not only as the Sun God, but also as the first King of Egypt. In eaily 
times the people seem to have held this conception with a fixity which no theological attempts 
of the priests to set other deities higher in the pantheon could shake. Not until later times did 
he yield his place in popular favor to Osiris, the archetype of Egyptian kings; nor even then was 
he altogether deposed, but while Osiris was supposed to have ruled as a man over men only, the 
dominion of Ra was relegated to a time when Gods still sojourned among men, and Ra bore rule 
over both." 

3 Wiedemann's translation. 



152 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

or Khepera, represented by the scarabaeus ) was Ra in the East, the Rising 
Sun, typifying Energy and Growth (though not in the sense of fertility) 
"He who was Becoming." Ra, represented by the Solar Orb itself, 4 but 
that Orb as the outer form, not as the Self of the God, was the Sun in 
the Zenith, typifying Majesty, the Lord of Infinity, the All-Powerful. In 
a Turin papyrus (which, indeed, is XXth. Dynasty, but which may serve 
as example, as it is a late record of earliest times), we find the legend 
of Ra and Isis. Ra speaks, saying : "I made the Heaven, and the secret 
of both Horizons ... I am Khepera in the Morning, Ra at Noon and 
Turn in the Evening." 

Ra Horakti/ or Horus of the Two Horizons, is the aspect of the 
Sun God which we must bear especially in mind, for it was this aspect 
which was emphasized by Akhnaton. Horakti, "The Great God, the Lord 
of Heaven, Ra Horakti", was the Horizon of the East and of the West, 
Ra both at his Rising and at his Setting, symbolizing a Manvantara, 
a Day of Ra. 

There is much disagreement as to when Sun Worship first came into 
Egypt. Petrie believes that it was brought in by the Ilnd. Pre-Dynastic 
people, and that the Priestly Line of the Vth. Dynasty were their de- 
scendants. It is evident that the line of Khufu, IVth. Dynasty, was 
replaced by a Dynasty of Kings all of whom bore the proud title "Son of 
the Sun", which forever after was one of the names taken by the reign- 
ing Pharaoh. In Hordedef's Tale, 6 we read how the wife of the Priest 
of Ra became the mother of Ra's three children, and that these were the 
first three Kings of the Vth. Dynasty, the first three "Sons of Ra". 
Breasted, however, thinks that this title was probably "not unknown 
earlier". In any case, whether the title "Son of the Sun" antedates the 
Vth. Dynasty or not, we know, at least, that Ra and that Sun Worship 
can be traced back to hoariest times. 

We have spoken of the grandeur of this early religion. An objec- 
tion is often made that the Pyramid Texts are written for the use of 
the Pharaoh only, but if this appears to be so, it is because, as we have 
seen, the Pharaoh represented within himself all aspects within the life 
of that time, particularly of religion, as though, through him alone, 
humanity could reach out and grasp immortality. If we look deeper, 
however, we find that the future state of the private individual was abso- 
lutely dependent on the quality of his own life lived on earth, he alone 
was responsible for his own acts; and while the Pyramid Texts are full 

4 It is probably hardly necessary to remind the reader of what he undoubtedly already 
knows, that the hieroglyphic sign for Ra is the circle with the central point, the meaning of 
which is so brilliantly explained in the very opening pages of The Secret Doctrine. We also find 
this sign incorporated in many words implying the action of the sun, such as: shu dry, herur 
day, rek time, neheh=eternity, etc., etc. In detailed hieroglyphs, Ra is represented by two con- 
centric circles, the inner one red, the outer yellow. When Ra is represented anthropomorphically, 
he carries on his head the Solar Disc, the circumference of which is indicated by the Royal 
Uraeus, the Sacred Serpent. 

n The Harmarkis of the Greeks. 

6 Egyptian Tales, translated by W. M. Flinders Petrie, and Conies Populates, translated by 
Maspero. 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 153 

of protective magical formulae, these were practically never perverted or 
used as a screen for wrong doing, as they were in later times. Charms, 
indeed, there were to shield the defenceless, newly deceased, from the 
dangers of the next world, a world to which the newly dead was not yet 
accustomed ; but unless it could be said of him that "he is righteous before 
heaven and earth", or that "there is no evil which he has done", he could 
not be admitted to a happy hereafter. Only those who were morally fit, 
who had filled all their obligations, both social and religious, were accept- 
able. A man must "win immortality by the purity of his own soul." 

There is a beauty of expression, a majesty of thought in the Pyramid 
Texts, which it would be hard to rival. Death is not the end of things, 
rather is it a beginning ; the "dead" do not die, they pass on into a fuller 
life. Thus: "King Teti is not dead, he has joined the immortals, the 
dwellers of the Horizon"; and, "No! King Unis, thou didst not depart 
in death, thou didst depart to life immortal." Or again : "Oh Lofty 
One among the imperishable stars, thou perishest not eternally." "Ere 
ever the heavens were, King Pepi was. Ere ever the earth was made, 
King Pepi was. King Pepi lived before man was created, before the 
gods were born, before death itself was known . . . King Pepi is not 
dead, death comes not nigh King Pepi, who is eternal in the heavens. 
Oh Ra, hold out thy hand to King Pepi ! Oh Mighty God, stretch towards 
King Pepi thy royal sceptre, that he may live and flourish forever!" 
Later : "Oh King Pepi ! it is life itself which comes to thee, not death. 
Glory is thine, even among those Shining Ones, and thou art greatest 
among the living [meaning the "dead" who have reached immortal life] . 
Thou art mighty, power has been given thee. Thy will is supreme, 
come what may, thou art invincible." 

Among the very earliest of the texts we find the following : 

Oh Thou Quiet Watcher, watching in peace ! Oh Thou Divine 
Boatman ! . . . King Unis has come to thee. Carry him in thy Boat 
to the place where dwell the gods. For King Unis has come as a 
god to his own place . . . King Unis has conquered life, King Unis 
has conquered death, King Unis has conquered fear ... If thou 
refusest passage to King Unis, behold he will mount upon the wings 
of Thoth, 7 and thus will he reach the Horizon, and the place which 
awaits him there. 

And how can we imagine a more royal "passing" than this, also 
among the earliest of the texts : 

Clouds darken the sky, 

The stars rain down, 

The bows (a constellation) stagger, 

The bones of the hell hounds tremble, 

The porters are silent 

When they see King Unis 

Dawning as a soul. 8 

'In reading this, one's mind inevitably reverts to the "Great Bird" spoken of in Th* 
Voice of the Silence: "Bestride the Bird of Life, if thou wouldst know." 
8 Breasted's translation. 



154 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

II 
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM 

One wonders how, after reaching such lofty heights as this, it was 
possible for a people to fall again into chaos. But human progress moves 
in cycles, as we know, and mankind, despite its long line of Mighty 
Kings, must gradually have become too corrupt to follow their guidance ; 
and we can only fancy that the Dynasty of Great Initiates was withdrawn 
from active life, for, with the downfall of the Old Kingdom, Egypt en- 
tered on a long period of darkness and disorder. During this time there 
was undoubtedly much abuse by those who had seized on the helm of 
state, 1 for when we again pick up the threads of history, we find that the 
Pharaoh is no longer unquestionably supreme; a powerful provincial 
society has sprung up, as though in protest against the centralization of 
control in unworthy hands. The nobles have now to be reckoned with. 
The Middle Kingdom is the Feudal Age of Egypt, and we realize how 
changed are the times when we read the bold statement made by one of 
the feudatory lords : "I rescued my city in the day of violence from the 
terrors of the Royal House." Gradually, however, with a firm hand to 
take again the direction of affairs, a new and splendid era set in which 
is known as the Classic Period; an era when literature thrives as never 
before and rarely after, when art finds expression in new and lovely 
forms, when religion, though somewhat altered and more complex, has 
still retained most of its early purity. It is the time of the Amenemhats 
and the Senuserts, a thoughtful and beauty loving age. 

The men of the Middle Kingdom may be said to be more introspective 
than those of the Old Kingdom, and perhaps more self-conscious. Cer- 
tainly they were less magnificently rugged, less simply direct. We sense 
this at once in much of the art of the Xllth. Dynasty, which has a grace 
of line, a delicacy, which we did not find during the earlier period. A good 
part of this is, however, it seems to us, somewhat inferior, because less 
superbly spontaneous, except, indeed, for certain striking exceptions, 
such as some of the splendid portrait statues, and all of the jewelry 
belonging to the women of the Royal Household. This, for faultless taste 
and incredible delicacy, is quite unequalled. It makes us realize the high 
tide of culture to which Egypt has again attained, culture which would 
seem, perhaps, to have smoothed away many of the old forceful angles. 
It thus also makes us wonder if some of the old time virility is gone; 
but we recognize, in looking closer, that the force is still there though 
flowing in wider channels, so that the strength of the current is less 
evident. The Egyptian world had expanded ; new interests had sprung 



1 Recent excavations by Professor Petrie (1920-1921) in a IXth. Dynasty cemetery at 
Heracleopolis, show the evident hatred of the Egyptians for those in power. To quote from 
the most recent account: "The IXth. Dynasty was the chief period of this cemetery, as the city 
was the capital of that age . . . Hundreds of tombs were opened, but most of them had been 
maliciously attacked, and the bodies entirely removed or burnt. This shows a detestation felt for 
the invaders," the usurpers of power. 






I 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 155 

up. At home the State was represented somewhat more by an aggregate 
of individuals than by one powerful central force. Abroad, fresh con- 
quests in Nubia and Syria had widened the horizon, and new influences 
from Asia Minor and the far Aegean were felt. The pure white ray of 
completely united effort, in the world of the Old Kingdom, had passed 
through the prism of the more diverse life of the Middle Kingdom, and 
had been split up into an intricate blaze of colour and beauty. 

Ra, however, was still supreme. He had held his own even against 
the lovable Osiris, though this is true somewhat in the official sense, for 
Osiris had taken a firm hold on the affections of the people. But so 
great was the power of Ra that he accomplished what the Pharaoh of 
the Old Kingdom had done : he absorbed into his Divine Person all lesser 
lights. Though the temples were larger and richer than they had been 
in the days of the Old Kingdom, there was still no very large class of 
priests (though such a class did exist) ; and in great measure, as in those 
early days, the local noble combined his religious with his civic duties, 
so that it was an entirely natural result of the growing power of the 
nobles that many local divinities should have sprung up, for each nome 
had its local god, its great man, its hero; and, as we are told in Isis Un- 
veiled, "Eminent men were called gods by the ancients." It follows that 
in order to assure the life of the local deity, it was only necessary to 
discover in him some attribute in common with Ra, this attribute being, 
of course, his character as Sun God. An ambitious priesthood soon ac- 
complished this metamorphosis, the usual method being that the name 
of the Great God was tacked on to the name of the lesser god, thus 
signifying that Ra had taken him under his protection. 

The chief example of this arbitrary fusion of deities, the one at 
least which had the most far-reaching consequences, was that of Amen, 
a hitherto quite unimportant god of Thebes, who was suddenly discovered 
to be in reality a solar god, and, with Ra's august name attached, he 
unexpectedly burst into some prominence as Amen-Ra. This was no 
doubt the combined work of the priests of Amen and of the nobles of that 
particular city; also it was, in great measure, a result of the growing 
importance of Thebes as a political centre. We can see, on the one hand, 
what a mine of evil possibilities was thus opened up to a future un- 
scrupulous priesthood; while, on the other hand, Breasted points out 
that "there were in this movement the beginnings of a tendency toward 
a pantheistic solar monotheism", and we shall see how, many centuries 
later, Akhnaton, by his wide, unhampered vision, his intense singleness 
of purpose, and his indomitable will, forcing to one side the evil priestly 
influences, brought this tendency to its final and glorious fruition. 

We have said that the men of the Middle Kingdom were more intro- 
spective than their predecessors. We find this in the literature of the 
period, which we might divide into two parts, that immediately preceding 
the restoration of order, and that when the Middle Kingdom was at its 
height. While their belief in immortality was really just as firm, they 



156 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

wondered and speculated more about the life hereafter. They swept their 
eyes over the thousand years since the Pyramid Age ; they saw in the sixty 
miles of tombs and mortuary temples along the margin of the western 
desert (tombs which had already repeatedly suffered at the hands of the 
despoiler), what seemed to them the melancholy evidence of the futile 
struggle of their ancestors with death, and a great wistfulness filled their 
souls, and the eternal questions, "Why?" "Whither?" arose in their hearts. 
Fragments of a Song of Mourning, possibly partly a funeral dirge, have 
come down to us in a deep sigh of yearning across the ages : 

How prosperous is this good Prince! 

It is a goodly destiny that the bodies diminish, 

Passing away while others remain, 

Since the time of the ancestors, 

The gods who were aforetime, 

Who rest in their pyramids, 

Nobles and the glorious departed likewise, 

Entombed in their pyramids. 

Those who built their (tomb) temples, 

Their place is no more. 

Behold what is done therein. 

I have heard the words of Imhotep and Hardedef , 2 

(Words) greatly celebrated as their utterances. 

Behold the places thereof ; 

Their walls are dismantled, 

Their places are no more, 

As if they had never been. 

None cometh from thence 

That he may tell (us) how they fare; 

That he may tell (us) of their fortunes, 

That he may content our heart, 

Until we (too) depart 

To the place whither they have gone. 

As a reaction from this despondency the singer then weakly advises 
forgetfulness, and much emphasis is laid on the joys of the life of this 
world, since we cannot be sure of the peculiar nature of our fate in the 
next. 

Encourage thy heart to forget it, 

Making it pleasant for thee to follow thy desire, 

While thou livest, 

sings this false counsellor: 

Put myrrh upon thy head, 
And garments on thee of fine linen, 
Imbued with marvellous luxuries, 
The genuine things of the gods. 



2 Two Wise Men of the Old Kingdom. 







AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 157 

Increase yet more thy delights, 

And let (not) thy heart languish. 

Follow thy desire and thy good, 

Fashion thy affairs on earth 

After the mandates of thine (own) heart. 

Tifl that day of lamentation cometh to thee, 

When the silent-hearted hears not their lamentation, 

Nor he that is in the tomb attends the mourning. 

Celebrate the glad day, 

Be not weary therein. 

Lo, no man taketh his goods with him. 

Yea, none returneth again that is gone thither. 3 

The song of this Ancient Harper, probably written in the days just 
before order was brought out of chaos, offers no real solution for the 
doubts which are troubling him; and his song ends, as it began, with 
an unanswered question. But we cannot agree with some commentators 
on this period, who find in it, as well as in other (contemporary) docu- 
ments, a full-blown scepticism, which they declare indicative of the times. 
Ineffective as a philosophy of life it certainly is, but ineffective chiefly 
because it is the product of a mind numbed and befogged by a long night 
of sinister dreams ; not of a mind worn out and exhausted, so much as of 
one only partially re-awakened. This man's immediate ancestors had lost 
the inner light which illumined the men of the Old Kingdom, and he is 
painfully coming to life again ; slowly, perhaps quite unconsciously, trying 
to grope his way back to their position. A markedly deep veneration for 
the past, alone shows this. The men of this time did not deny the possi- 
bility of attaining knowledge, they were sadly conscious only of their own 
inability to reach it, which is a standpoint very far removed from real 
scepticism. (In saying this we are naturally speaking of a philosophical 
temper or mood, not of reasoned or systematic philosophy, for actual 
schools of philosophy, so far as we know, did not exist in Egypt till a 
very late date.) It has been said that "subjectivism usually ends in 
scepticism", but these men were not at the end of their subjective selves, 
as were the philosophers of the Post-Aristotelian schools in the Greece 
of a later age, rather were they barely at the beginning, and they therefore 
never reached anything as effete as scepticism. Pessimism, yes, but 
pessimism is usually a sign of immaturity, and it is certainly so in this 
case. This was not the product of a decaying civilization, as was the 
case in Greece; rather was it the dawning self-consciousness which was 
the fore-runner of a most brilliant and enlightened era. Whether they 
may have been heading toward eventual scepticism or not we cannot say ; 
fortunately for them, other and healthier influences poured in and swept 
them into a more constructive current of thought, as we shall see 
presently. HETEP EN NETER. 

(To be continued) 

3 Breasted's translation. 



PRODIGAL SONS 



A AHERE is a certain horrible dream which seems to be the com- 

l mon property of the race. In it you find yourself, inadequately 

^ or ridiculously clad, moving through shocked throngs of friends 

or strangers, some of whom appear to have a keen sense of 

humour, though your own is in abeyance. You have no reason or excuse 

you are simply there and you drift miserably about, your dreaming 

fancy occupied with your supposed effect upon those you meet. It is a 

dream uncannily daunting and disagreeable a sort of foretaste of what 

it might mean to enter in "not having on a wedding garment." 

This dream has some queer counterparts in waking life. The sense 
of the fitness of the wedding garment is ingrained in us, and not even 
the most obstreperous radical shall escape. Where earthly potentates 
are concerned, our observances must be iron-clad in their strictness, 
however casual we may be toward the spiritual powers and principalities. 

Once, in a European city, the writer spent an afternoon of enter- 
tainment it would have been tragedy to miss, watching the mad cavort- 
ings of the democrat when bidden by royalty. The King ("that absurd 
relic of medieval darkness") was giving audience to a number of foreign 
physicians, and the cards of invitation read "full dress obligatory." The 
hour being three o'clock in the afternoon, some, unused to European 
ceremonial, chose to translate this as permitting black ties, but on pre- 
senting themselves at the palace they found a Court Chamberlain 
adamantine as the St. Peter of ribald story. Then for a crowded quarter 
of an hour the air of the city thrummed with passion ; cabs dashed hither 
and yon, the windows blocked with distracted scientific heads looking 
for haberdashers; noted surgeons returned to their hotels in dog-trots, 
with white set faces, to re-array themselves; clinicians of world-wide 
repute burst in on astounded wives who had thought to be quit of them, 
with explosive and cryptic remarks, such as "givmeawhitetiequick !" ; 
men who were irritatedly convinced that royalty should be wiped off 
the face of the earth as a silly anachronism said, "hang it all, we shall 
miss it !" ; and all of them, in the eyes of their amused but helpful women- 
kind, turned into little frantic boys, as big men will in small crises. It 
was to laugh to see such a storm in a teacup, but, laughter sated, here 
was material for meditation. 

At what risk does man maintain his puny indisciplines in a world 
so accurately pread justed that the mystery of colours, among other 
mysteries, underlies its apparent topsyturviness, and where the mandate 
"let all things be done decently and in order" rules spheres and neckties 
alike. The King said, Friend, how earnest thou in hither not having 
on a wedding garment. And the man was speechless. 

158 



I 






PRODIGAL SONS 159 

What does it mean to have on a wedding garment? What relation 
does repentance bear to that meaning? Those doctors repented they 
wanted so much to meet a king, that they accepted the king's conditions. 
So did the Prodigal Son. He did not arise and turn home because his 
money had given out, or because he was tired of cheap boarding houses, 
as some people seem to think; but because he was homesick to death 
for his Father, and could not stand it another minute. 

The Father ran to meet him it takes two to make a good repentance : 
a father and a son. The son brings his change of direction, his broken 
heart, the careful eagerness of his retracing steps; and the Father fur- 
nishes everything else the exultant passion of welcome, the tumult of 
rejoicing, the feast, the wedding garment, and the ring. 

It is not easy to travel back from that "far country." Light on the 
Path says : "the heart will bleed, and the whole life of the man seem to 
be utterly dissolved." If we turn to the great Scriptures, Krishna, through 
all his tonic rallying of Arjuna's spiritual forces, does not minimize 
the difficulties. The Master Christ tells us that the way is strait and 
narrow and "few there be that find it." He brought "not peace, but a 
sword," with which we must slash ourselves free from maya, though 
flesh and blood go with it, and the power of that tangling web is recog- 
nized so clearly in Heaven that there is joy there when one sinner repents. 
Then the angels those creatures of enduring joy greet each other with 
soft laughter and say, "Our Lord has one more lover." 

The Prodigal Son was not a hardened criminal. He had not said, 
"Evil, be thou my good." He was just well, he was just me, and you, 
and you a delighted lingerer in psychic illusion. The world is God's 
prodigal son. While the substance lasted from which he spun his shining 
dream, he asked no more; he had what many prodigal sons have called 
"a hell of a good time," intending thereby only a blasphemous hyperbole, 
but achieving the bleakest realism. He was given the desire of his 
heart and did not perceive that to it was graciously added "leanness to 
his soul withal," till by-and-by the dream wore thin, wore thinner, turned 
into a nightmare of swinish horror, and he was mercifully shocked awake. 

Repentance, then, is a terrific thing to put in train and carry through. 
It is a gift ; it is an act ; it is a state. In its gift aspect, vast forces of 
which we can form no conception are working overtime to bring it about. 
These forces intend our unconditional surrender to the Heart Doctrine. 
"Great Sifter, O Disciple, is the name of the Heart Doctrine." 

Though its outward expression may be sudden, repentance is usually 
gradual in its growth. The prayer of man that he "be granted true 
repentance," is answered with homeopathic caution, and God's reticence 
as to His vision of us, veils us with shielding pity. This might suggest 
that we are asking for a drastic and devastating experience of which 
we can endure but little at a time only a faint percussion through 
that "thick wadding of stupidity" in which a great writer has said the 
wisest of us dwell, swaddled for our comfort. Full conviction of sin 



160 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

would be like being struck by lightning. Our self-love shrinks from 
"the queer, unpleasant, disturbing touch of the Kingdom of Heaven". 
The trouble is it shrinks from the least, most infinitesimal touch, and 
thousands even of those who punctually repeat their mea culpa, adroitly 
practise this mad evasion, until their lives cry out for the lightning. 
Their time has not yet come; it may not come till after many days, and 
it may in tempered degree be granted to some rum-soaked derelict at 
the corner Mission to-night, for the wind of the Spirit bloweth where 
it listeth. 

Perhaps we use this word of mighty meanings too casually. Perhaps 
we often mean that lesser thing contrition the bruised sense of our 
shortcomings that may persist for long before we arise and repent. It 
is possible to indulge one's self in varying degrees of contrition without 
getting much forwarder. When the physical body is constantly bruised, 
it hardens itself and forms callosities for its protection : perhaps the 
inner nature does the same? St. Paul congratulates his penitents that 
they "sorrowed after a godly sort," leading on to repentance. Contrition 
indulged in as a sporadic mood, without leading on to repentance, may 
both harden and delay ; but after repentance it is without doubt the habit 
in which the soul permanently clothes herself. Surely the prodigal son 
went softly all his days. 

There are masquerading elementals which pose for this grace. We 
know what it is to loathe consequences, to cringe before suspicion, to 
despair at being found out. We have said "I'm sorry now," like three- 
year olds tired of the corner. We may even perhaps have repented 
a little with "a penitence too tardy, and too tepid, and too brief" 
poised for the turn, "almost persuaded". If we happen to be church 
goers, we often all-too-easily concede that "we have erred and strayed 
like lost sheep." A penitential confession in concert is not difficult all 
we like sheep those on the other side of the aisle, these kneeling in the 
pew beside us, even the priest himself. It does not seem so dreadful 
just a lot of silly sheep. Presently the priest will turn to us and make 
all right again; he will remind us that "God desireth not the death of a 
sinner" (there we pin our idle faith), but "rather that he should turn 
from his wickedness and live" (just what we planned to do some Mon- 
day), and "therefore He pardoneth and absolveth", we almost feel the 
burden slip, and, lulled by beauty, we miss the awful key words "all 
those who truly repent and unfeignedly believe". There is no least hint 
that He meets at this moment any other than repentant sinners, and 
mere boredom at our own pertinacity in sin is not a credential. "A 
broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (that writer 
did not shrink from tautology). How near is the heart to breaking? 
As near as when that projected pleasure miscarried? As near as when 
the dog died? Not thus do we turn and go "like athletes, striding across 
the wilderness of our desires," not for this will Heaven's streets thrill 
with golden-throated laughter. 



PRODIGAL SONS 161 

Nevertheless, God be praised! there may be found an Altar here 
and there where penitents bow down before a living and realized Christ, 
where love's heartbroken compunction can be felt thrilling through the 
ranks like wind through corn, and where absolution is a living thing 
transmitted. 

Students of Theosophy are of many types, and some may find bore- 
some this insistence upon the need of repentance, their attitude being 
that they have turned to Theosophy as a welcome escape from the minutiae 
that wearied them in religion as a man might say he had turned to meat 
as a substitute for beef. It is possible they are making a mistake, and 
that their reappearance under the Christian dispensation, which places 
such stress on the need for repentance, is a hint that they have much of 
it to do. Although not officially adjured to repent, it is perhaps taken 
for granted that he has come in through that door, and he is now advised 
to carry on and not waste time crying over spilt milk. And yet repen- 
tance is of the essence of every implication granted him. Perhaps our 
attitude toward the paradox if paradox there be is the measure of 
our halting or our advance. 

Those who can content themselves with the Eye doctrine, may escape 
this sense that the toilet of the soul must be made ere the wedding gar- 
ment can be donned, for they are not bound for the inner temple. It 
is otherwise with those who are for the Heart doctrine, that plunge into 
a grand passion with all its penalties and privileges. He who said "My 
son, give me thy heart," preserved a significant silence as to those heads 
of which we have so good a conceit. So when one tells us he has no time 
to waste in mourning for the past, the words are true enough in their 
way, and very true in their place, but love speaks another language. 

There would appear to be a seemly sequence in the progress of the 
soul toward union, which we ignore or discard at our peril. Not only 
the so-called theosophical books, but the experience of the saints 
(advanced theosophists who had never heard the word), the ordered 
devotions of the rituals (built up by theosophists who would have died 
of the accusation), and our own secret spiritual intimations, make frank 
disclosure of this sequence if we will but attend. "I fling my past behind 
me" is love's second speech, not its first. Love says, "I have sinned 
against Heaven and in Thy sight, and am not worthy to be called Thy 
son." Love holds out its past in both hands as a broken-hearted baby 
holds a broken doll. 

"Trembling one, pursued by guilt, 

Dash thyself against the bosom of thy God !" 

L. S. 



TAO-TEH-KING 



AN INTERPRETATION OF LAO TSE'S BOOK OF THE WAY AND OF 
RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

III. 

17. In the highest degree, men know only that they have rulers. 
In the second degree, they love and praise their rulers. 

In the third degree, they fear them. 

In the fourth degree, they despise them. 

When the rulers lose faith in the Way, the people lose faith in their 
rulers. 

The first rulers are guarded and reticent. While they fulfil their 
task and complete their work, the people say: We follow our nature. 

IT would seem that the first four sentences may mean either four 
degrees of excellence, or the four traditional ages : of gold, silver, 
. bronze and iron ; in the last of which we are. 

But the meaning is exactly the same. The kings of the golden 
age were kings of the highest degree ; the King-Initiates of tradition, who 
led each man along the path of his own soul, inwardly co-operating with 
the soul. The will of the Higher Self and the will of the Master are one. 
Rulers of the second degree, no longer ministering inwardly to the 
soul, seek to gain admiration through gifts and benefits. And so through 
the four degrees. Exactly the same thing might be said of churches, or 
of men, or of women. 

18. When the Way was no longer followed, humanity and justice 
were remarked. 

When wisdom and prudence came into sight, great deceit showed 
itself. 

When harmony no longer governed the six kinships, the bonds of 
family love grew conspicuous. 

When states fell into disorder, loyalty and devotion were noted. 

Lao Tse recurs to the idea already touched on: Difficult and easy 
define each other; long and short reveal each other; former and latter 
define each other. In the earliest sinless races, the thought of holiness 
could not arise, as in broad daylight no one uses a candle. 

But true holiness is a willed turning from sin; true sacrifice is the 
giving up of a cherished self-will. 

Therefore the present age has its advantage. There can be a willed 
seeking of the Light, a willingly rendered obedience. Therefore it has 
been said that more spiritual progress can be made in the iron age than 
in the golden. But a better golden age lies ahead. 

162 






TAO-TEH-KING 163 



19. When wisdom and prudence are no longer noteworthy, the people 
will be happier a hundredfold. 

When humanity and justice cease to be noted, the people will be 
once more kindly and filial. 

When craft is forgotten and gain undcsircd, thieves and robbers will 
disappear. 

Renounce these three, and know that seeming renunciation is not 
enough. 

Therefore I show men what they should seek: 

To show simplicity, keep purity, renounce selfishness, abandon 
desires. 

This way of return to the golden age is, in fact, the way of the 
disciple; through the renunciation of all the wills of self, with their 
accumulated sins, to return to the simplicity of obedience; to find joy 
in the eager effort of obedience instead of in the satisfaction of desire; 
once more to follow the Way of the Eternal, and thereby to inherit the 
divine blessedness of the Way, the riches of the Logos. 



20. Give up the desire to be more learned than others, and you 
be freed from care. 

How small is the difference between the obedient "yes!" and the 
disobedient "yea!" 

How great is the difference betzveen good and evil. 

What all men fear, is easily feared. 

They fall into confusion, not checking themselves. 

They are carried away, like one ivho feasts, or one mounted on a 
tower in spring. 

I alone am still; my desires are not aroused. 

I am as a new-born child that has not yet smiled to its mother. 

I am detached; I seem to have no home. 

The multitude have many possessions; I am as one who has lost all. 

My thought is indrawn; I seem to know nothing. 

The vvorld is wise and prudent; I seem plunged in darkness. 

The zvorld is keen; I seem as one bewildered. 

I am as a shoreless sea; a barque without a port. 

The world is impetuous; I seem inert, like a rustic. 

I am apart from other men, because I worship the all-nourishing 
Mother, the Way. 

Lao Tse contrasts the show of outer learning with the pursuit of 
inner wisdom. Both consist in learning; therefore they are alike, as 
are "yes" and "yea", yet difference of motive makes them as unlike as 
good and evil. 

This introduces other contrasts between the way of the world and 
the Way of the disciple. The world is carried outward by desire; the 



164 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

disciple seeks the inward home. The world is headlong. The disciple 
enters the silence, detached as a new-born child. 

The contrast runs through all writings that speak of the soul. We 
may find a parallel in Saint Francis : 

"As pilgrims and strangers in this world, serving the Lord in poverty 
and humility, let them go confidently in search of alms. This, my 
dearest brothers, is the height of the most sublime poverty which has 
made you heirs and kings of the kingdom of heaven : poor in goods, 
but exalted in virtue. Let that be your portion, for it leads to the land 
of the living." 

Or we may find our illustration in Isaiah : 

"For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root 
out of a dry ground : he hath no form nor comeliness ; and when we 
shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." 

Equally apposite would be a passage from the Katha Upanishad: 

"Thou indeed, pondering on dear and dearly-loved desires, hast passed 
them by. Not this way of wealth hast thou chosen, in which many men 
sink. ..." 

For all are equally concerned with the destruction of the fortresses 
of self, that we may begin to build the house not made with hands, eternal 
in the heavens. 

Concerning this task, one might quote the whole of Light on the 
Path. A part of one passage must suffice: 

"When the disciple has fully recognized that the very thought of 
individual rights is only the outcome of the venomous quality in himself, 
that it is the hiss of the snake of self which poisons with its sting his 
own life and the lives of those about him, then he is ready to take part 
in a yearly ceremony which is open to all neophytes who are prepared 
for it. All weapons of defence and offence ate given up; all weapons 
of mind and heart and brain and spirit. . . . From that ceremony 
he returns into the world as helpless, as unprotected, as a new-born 
child. . . ." 

Therefore Lao Tse says : I am as one who has lost all ; I seem as 
one bewildered, a barque without a port. 

21. The visible forms of the Great Virtue emanate solely from the 
Way. 

This is the nature of the Way: 

It is without form, It is concealed. 

How formless It is, how well concealed! 

Within It are the forms of beings. 

How well concealed It is, how formless! 

Within It are beings. 

How profound It is, how deeply hidden! 

Within It is the Spiritual Power. This Spiritual Power is enduring 
and true. 



I 



TAO-TEH-KING 165 

Within It is th* unchanging Witness; from of old until now, Its 
name remains. 

It is the door through which all beings come forth. 

How do I know that it is thus with all beingsf I know it through 
the Way. 

If, following the early translators, we were to write Logos in this 
passage, to express the Chinese word, Tao, it would be at once quite 
easily understood. Taking the Great Virtue to be the feminine, the form 
aspect of the Logos, in Sanskrit the feminine Viraj, the primordial 
Prakriti, "The Soul of matter, the passive female principle from which 
everything in this Universe emanated," the masculine aspect of the 
Logos is spiritual force, which sends forms forth into manifestation. 

We can see exactly the same process in our minds, which are small 
copies of the Logos. In our minds are the images of what we have per- 
ceived. The will, the masculine principle, selects its material from these 
forms and creates some definite mind-image, some picture in the imagi- 
nation. For example, Shakespeare, gathering many impressions from 
men and women, used the creative will to form Hamlet and Portia. The 
actor or actress, using the same creative imagination, takes Shakespeare's 
words and makes Hamlet and Portia visible. 

This understanding of Tao as the Logos is completely in harmony 
with the great Chinese commentaries, one of which says : "Beginning 
with the heavens and the earth, down to the myriad beings, all things that 
have a body, a form, all things that can be seen, are the visible forms of 
the Great Virtue. They all come forth from Tao." And again : "Tao is 
bodiless. When It moves through the universe, It becomes the Great 
Virtue, and then It takes form. This is why the Great Virtue is the 
manifestation of Tao. Therefore it may be understood that all percepti- 
ble forms are the manifestation of Tao in creatures. . . . Tao has 
neither body nor visible form. Yet, although called bodiless, It contains 
all beings." To which another commentary adds : "It furnishes the 
substance of all beings." And, commenting on later words of this pas- 
sage, the authority first cited says : "All beings without exception pass 
away. Tao alone passes not away." 

This is thoroughly in harmony with all the teachings of the Eastern 
Wisdom, as set forth, for example, in the Upanishads. 

22. The partial becomes complete. 

The crooked becomes straight. 

The empty becomes full. 

The worn out becomes new. 

He who has little (desire) finds the Way; he ivho has much, goes 
astray. 

Therefore the Master keeps the oneness of the Way; he is the model 
of the world. 

He seeks not to be seen, therefore he gives light. 



166 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

He does not magnify himself, therefore he gives inspiration. 
He does not vaunt himself, therefore he has true worth. 
He does not glorify himself, therefore he is above all. 
He strives not, therefore none in the kingdom can stand against him. 
The saying of the ancients: "The partial becomes complete," is not 
an empty phrase. 

When a man has attained, the whole world is subject to him. 

It has often been said that this ancient Chinese book, written between 
five and six hundred years before the birth of Christ, is peculiarly 
Christian in feeling, as, for example, in the emphasis laid on humility. 
The passage rendered above, well illustrates this. 

We might take, for example, the text which the Master Christ took 
for his first public teaching in the synagogue of his own city, Nazareth, 
shortly after the temptation in the wilderness : "And he came to Naza- 
reth, where he had been brought up : and, as his custom was, he went 
into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And 
there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when 
he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The 
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach 
the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to 
preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, 
to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of 
the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, 
and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue 
were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this 
Scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered 
at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth." 

For it is the work of the holy and healing Logos, as of the Master 
who declares himself to be the Way, to fill the empty, to make the 
crooked straight, to give new life to the worn and heavy laden. 

And one may quote, perhaps, in supplement, his later words, recorded 
by the beloved disciple : "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased 
with goods, and have need of nothing: and knowest not that thou art 
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked : I counsel thee 
to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich ; and white 
raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy naked- 
ness do not appear ; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest 
see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten : be zealous therefore, and 
repent." 

Perhaps a closer translation of the last verse would be : "As many 
as I love, I convince and train as children; be zealous therefore, and 
change thy heart." 

The divine Logos, the Master who is the manifested life of the 
Logos, remains hidden, seeking not to glorify himself ; he gives spiritual 
light and inspiration, making the blind see, healing the brokenhearted. 
He is unseen, yet the whole world is subject to him, as King. 






TAO-TEH-KING 167 

23. He who keeps silence, gains detachment. 

The tempest does not endure all the morning; the rain storm does 
not last all day. 

What produces these two? Heaven and earth produce them. 

If heaven and earth cannot maintain (tempestuous violence), how 
then can man? 

Therefore, the man who gives himself to the Way, becomes one with 
the Way; he who gives himself to righteousness, becomes one with 
righteousness; he who gives himself to evil, becomes one with evil. 

He who becomes one with the Way, gains the Way; he who becomes 
one with righteousness, gains righteousness; he who becomes one with 
evil, gains (the shame of) evil. 

He who does not give all (for the Way), ends by losing the Way. 

Regarding the opening phrase, a Chinese commentator humorously 
says : "The immoderate love of discussion comes from an interior dis- 
turbance of the soul, just as the tempest and the rain storm are produced 
by the disordered action of heaven and earth. If, then, the disturbance 
of heaven and earth cannot long endure, it will be the same thing, in 
even greater degree, with the talkativeness of man." 

The same commentator further says : "He who has true self-confi- 
dence, gains the trust of the men of his time, even when he is silent. 
But those who love discussion, who ceaselessly abandon themselves to 
the intemperance of the tongue, the more they speak, the less they are 
believed. This distrust comes wholly from the fact that they have no 
true self-confidence." 

24. Who raises himself on tiptoe, stands not firm; who strains his 
stride, walks not far. 

Who contends for his own view, finds not wisdom. 
Who is self-complacent, gives no light. 
Who boasts of himself, has no true worth. 
Who glorifies himself, shall not long endure. 

Viewed from the Way, these acts are like the leavings of a feast, 
like a repulsive tumour. 

Therefore, he who has found the Way, shuns these things. 

A Chinese commentator says : "He who stands on tiptoe seeks only 
to raise his head above others, forgetting that he cannot keep this posture. 
He who strains his stride, seeks only to outstrip others, forgetting that 
he cannot continue." 

Another commentary says : "He who is self-complacent, with a sort 
of partiality for himself, imagines that all other men have less wit than 
he; he cannot profit by their gifts, therefore he finds not wisdom." 
Which would seem to be the Chinese expression of the Theosophical 
method. 

Yet another commentator says : "He who has found the Way, per- 
severes in humility." 



168 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

25. There is unmanifested Being, which existed before the heavens 
and the earth. 

How still It is, and bodiless! 

It stands alone, unchanging. 

It moves through all things, unmenaced. 

It may be regarded as the Mother of the universe. 

Its name I know not. 

To give It a name, I call It the Way. 

To describe It, I call It Great. 

Being Great, I call It elusive. 

Being elusive, I call It far-reaching. 

Being far-reaching, I say It returns. 

This is why the Way is great, the heavens are great, the earth is 
great, the King is great. 

Man follows the earth; earth follows heaven; heaven follows the 
Way; the Way follows Its own Being. 

One of the commentators says : "If I am asked concerning this 
Being (the Way), I answer: It has neither head nor tail; It is neither 
modified nor changed; It has no body or determined place; It knows 
neither over-abundance nor lack, neither diminution nor increase; It 
wanes not ; It is not born ; It is neither yellow nor red, neither white nor 
blue; It has neither inside nor outside, neither sound nor smell, neither 
depth nor height, neither form nor brilliance." 

This is exactly the method followed in the Upanishads : defining 
the Eternal by the negatives of everything that is not the Eternal, "Un- 
born, undying, unindicable." 

Another Chinese commentator says : "The Way has no companion 
in the universe. It dwells outside the limits of beings, and has never 
changed. Upward, it rises to the heavens ; downward, it penetrates to the 
abysses. It circulates throughout the universe and can suffer no detri- 
ment." 

Other commentaries add : "The sun's heat burns It not ; dampness 
rots It not ; It passes through all bodies and incurs no danger. It expands 
throughout the heavens and the earth, and dwells in the hearts of all 
beings ; It is the source of all births, the root of all transformations. The 
heavens, the earth, man and all creatures, have need of It, that they may 
live. It nourishes all beings as a mother nourishes her children. This 
is why Lao Tse says, It may be regarded as the Mother of the universe." 

C J. 
(To be continued) 




ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 



THE Recorder spoke with an air of finality. It was hot. "The 
programme of the April issue is to be continued," he said. 
"This is to be an experience meeting. If I do the writing, you 
must do the thinking. Who will begin? Who has had an expe- 
rience during the past quarter which is likely to be of service to others ?" 

"I doubt if one man in a million learns anything from the experience 
of others," the Engineer commented. "But I can tell you one thing that 
jumped at me a few days ago, and which may possibly suggest a subject 
for self-examination. It dawned on me suddenly that, in my business, 
I was asking the Master to co-operate with me, while, in my work 
'uptown/ that is to say, for The Theosophical Society and so forth, I 
was trying to co-operate with him. I found shades and gradations of 
difference, but, in a general way, my attitude was what I have stated. I 
wonder if there are fathers and mothers who make the same mistake, 
and who ask the Master to further their own plans and wishes for their 
children, instead of trying to find out what his plans and wishes are, 
and then working to co-operate with him." 

"I see your point, and I agree with you," remarked the Philosopher. 
"But I believe the difference, as usual, between a right and a wrong atti- 
tude, is a hair line, and that the ideal is not easy to find or to follow. 
There is much to be said for the sense of possession of the old-time 
family butler, who talked about 'my silver.' He did not really think 
of the silver as his ; but his sense of responsibility was so great, and his 
pride in the right performance of his duties was so intense, that he com- 
pletely identified his interests with those of the family he served. If 
we were the faithful and devoted servants of the Masters, that we ought 
to be, we should feel a sort of proprietary interest in their work, without 
that sense of possession which is characteristic of the lower personal 
self." 

"Servants!" exclaimed the Visitor. "Is that how people ought to 
feel toward the Masters or toward anyone or anything in space?" 

Now the Visitor was an old friend, a consistent sceptic who enjoys 
blunt speech and who never gets his feelings hurt. He was quite pre- 
pared, it seemed, for what followed. 

"Bury your old democracy," the Gael thundered, with mock fury. 
"It stinketh. Even as a theory, there is nothing left of it except the 
worms of its own corruption. Part of its vileness is its contempt for 
humble service. Learn, oh wretched remnant of a bygone age, that a 
real King is a servant of his God; that a real nobleman is a servant of 
his God and of his King, and that the only utter outcast is the man who 
serves himself, because he, whether he knows it or not, is the servant 
of the devil !" 

169 



170 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Hot as it was, everyone laughed at the Gael's explosion. 

"Triumphant democracy," our Visitor retorted, imperturbably. "It 
must be thirty years since Andrew Carnegie flung that in the face of 
England. And look at the world to-day : everywhere democracy triumphs, 
even in China. It is a new world, with democracy as foundation and 
goal." 

"A paradise of a world," said the Gael. "If you feel a proprietary 
interest in democracy, to quote a previous speaker, why not try a dose 
of Russia, although China, which you have named, might save your 
soul from worse. Democracy, my friend, is triumphant : no one will 
deny you that. The writers of the Church Litany did not have foresight 
enough to include it with 'plague, pestilence, and famine.' Hence, too 
few have prayed, 'From it, Good Lord, deliver us.' It is triumphant, 
with the result that, the more there is of it in any given country, the 
more appalling the condition of that country. England has more of it 
than France, so England is worse off than France. The United States 
has less than either, so the United States is better off than either, in 
spite of every imaginable natural handicap. Demos means 'the mob/ 
and Krated means 'I reign' : there you have it. It is the opposite of 
'government by the best/ because, even if you choose to interpret 'mob' 
as meaning 'average/ you know as well as I do that the average intelli- 
gence and the average morality, of a mixed population of from fifty to 
a hundred millions, gives you at best the cousin of a Sinn Feiner." 

"Enough," declared the Recorder at this point. "You have, hit on a 
subject that involves the whole of philosophy, both in theory and in 
practice. We cannot possibly dispose of it at one meeting. And I want 
your experience. . . ." 

"Please, one moment," the Historian interrupted. "Before we leave 
the Gael to sizzle in his still unexpressed indignation, let me comfort 
him to the extent of reading an amazing reductio ad absurdum of the 
democratic hypothesis, amazing, because written by a man who, upon 
other subjects, can write sound sense, and who is a devout believer in 
the very theory which he unintentionally destroys. Leaves for Quiet 
Hours, by Dr. George Matheson, formerly Minister of a Parish in Edin- 
burgh, is in many ways a really admirable book. It consists of brief 
sermons or meditations, and is practically and deeply religious. Yet 
listen to this : 'Easter Day was a new Christmas Day ; it was the second 
birth of Christ. His second birth was grander than His first. His first 
birth was under disadvantages. The disadvantage lay not in the manger, 
but in the royal lineage. The swaddling bands that circumscribed Him 
were not the facts of His poverty, but the glories of His ancestors ; the 
royal line of David separated Him from the main line of humanity. 
But when He came from the dead He changed his lineage. He broke 
with the line of David with all lines but the lowliest. His second life 
was not from Bethlehem : it was from the common dust of all cities 
from the city of the dead. . . . With Easter morn He came up from 






ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 171 

the depths.' The humour of it! Born a parasite, because by birth of 
royal lineage, he went through the wash, as it were, and came out the 
other side a good democrat, fit at last to shake hands with the 
proletariat !" 

"It reminds me of a coloured preacher among the Swazies," said 
the Scientist, "who used to assure his converts that when Christ rose 
from the dead, he came up black/' 

"Next !" and the Recorder turned to the Ancient for help. "What 
have you got that will divert their minds?" 

"An old letter, that I came across a few days ago, may not conform 
entirely to your demand for an 'experience' ; but it can at least very easily 
be turned into an experience, by those who will listen and read rightly. 
Here it is," and the Ancient read. as follows: 

' 'My son: what is your object in life? Your answer, I am afraid, 
if you were honest, would be, to do your duty and to avoid sin. 

" 'Is that the best you can do? As a member of The Theosophical 
Society, of the and of the , with the marvellous advan- 
tages and opportunities which such membership gives you, ought you 
not at least to pray and to work for a passion for the cause of the Mas- 
ters, as you understand their cause? Will you please meditate on the 
meaning of the word "passion"? 

" 'I can assure you of one thing : there is no happiness on earth, and 
heaven has no existence, except for right passion, for right love. Nega- 
tive contentment is not happiness. Nor can it last. Negative content- 
ment, like all other negative attitudes, leads only to negation, including 
the negation of itself. 

There is no happiness on earth, there is no heaven, except for 
a love so great, a passion so intense, that they carry you out of your- 
self, above yourself, to the world of reality and of things everlasting. 
The function of reason, primarily, is to lead you to that conviction; 
then, with the help of will and imagination, reason should feed the growth 
of love and passion; later, when love has become pure utterly, divine 
insight will take the place of reason, but, until that stage of purity is 
reached, reason will still serve to control and to direct the love and the 
passion burning within you. 

" 'Unite your prayers and your desires with those of Masters, 
with those of your own Master, who prays ceaselessly that your heart 
may become a living torch. Realise that that is his prayer for you. Feel 
his prayer, around you and within you. Make it your own; echo it, 
from the mud of your own nature. Rejoice that, because you are mud, 
or because you live in the mud and are muddy, your echoed prayer will 
have more power, in some ways, than the prayers of angels who have 
never sinned. Rejoice that you can turn some fraction of the mud of 
the world (the fraction you have made your own) into that which 
catches and makes more vibrant the prayers which reach you from 



172 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

heaven. A man nullifies his prayers, if he permits himself to think that 
he originates them. 

" 'But beware : do not confuse passion with emotion ; do not mistake 
the red heat of sensuality for the white heat of pure fervour. Excite- 
ment is an opposite of spirituality. Beware lest you misuse the fire 
from heaven. Pray for it ceaselessly, but, if it should seem that your 
prayer remains unanswered, give thanks for the gift of desire, and give 
thanks that, in their compassion, the wise gods give you time to purify 
the temple which your mind and senses have polluted, and which must 
be made clean if that fire is to burn there safely.' " 

"I like your letter, but I like mine too," commented the Lawyer. 
"Mine was written by 'Cave/ not long ago, to a friend who very gener- 
ously sent me a copy, with the thought that it might be of help to others, 
and perhaps through the medium of the 'Screen.' Shall I read it?" 

We at once asked him to do so, and he read the following letter, 
omitting only some opening sentences : 

" ' . . . You may remember saying something to the effect 
that perhaps what was the matter with you was that material life always 
had seemed so beautiful to you. I do not pretend to quote you, for it 
was not what you said which struck me, but the ideas which they sug- 
gested to my own mind about you I saw something that you needed 
to have told you, that (unconsciously, perhaps), you were "asking" in 
your real and deeper self. This is what I should like to say about it : 

' 'The material world, the physical world, is full of beauty. God 
made it, and all that He made is beautiful. In its essence it is the veil, 
the symbol, of the spiritual world. And he who cannot or does not see 
its beauty, is blind to truth. But here is where the difference lies. 

" 'One man sees this beauty and loves it for itself, desires it for 
itself. Another man sees that beauty and loves it for what it reminds 
him of, and desires in consequence more intensely that of which it is a 
reminder. Let me make my meaning clearer by an analogy, if I can. 

" 'Suppose you were travelling in New Zealand where the scenery 
is superb. You are away from home and wife and children and all the 
sweet surroundings which make life dear. You see something never 
mind what mountain or valley or tree or flower, which reminds you 
of home. Your heart fills, love and longing almost overpower you; 
but it is not that mountain, that valley, that tree or that flower which 
has given you the feeling; it is that of which it has reminded you, to 
which your heart is given. You have seen and admired all that superb 
scenery. You may thoroughly have enjoyed it; but it is a foreign land, 
a land in which you are merely a traveller, in that sense an "exile." And 
it is the suggestion of home that breaks your heart. 

" 'Is my point clear? 

" 'This is the difference between the man who is a disciple and the 
man who is not a disciple. All other differences are minor in com- 



ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 173 

parison, because they grow out of this. The disciple sees all the beauty 
in the world and I am using that word in its widest sense indeed he 
sees it more clearly than the "native" : but that which moves him in the 
beauty is the suggestion of "home," which constantly breaks his heart 
with a divine nostalgia. He is not "at home" in it ; the surroundings, the 
ties of the world, are not his : he is "a stranger and a sojourner as all 
his people were," as he and his people always will be until the end of 
time. These feelings in him are not forced ; he does not wrench himself 
away and make himself feel this way because he has some idea that he 
ought so to feel. No, he feels that way because he cannot feel any 
other way because those are the facts of his consciousness and of his 
affections. He has to force himself to be interested in the affairs of the 
world, in his surroundings, in the members of his family, because he is 
among them for a purpose. He is sojourning in this foreign land to 
accomplish some piece of business his "Father's business." Perhaps 
there are other "Exiles" to whom he should minister, some who have 
lived so long from home that they have almost forgotten, or who have 
suffered so much in exile that their faculties are impaired prisoners, 
maybe, of the Father's enemies, like the Englishman in Kipling's story, 
The Man that Was. Perhaps there are things he must learn, or debts 
he must pay, or accounts to straighten out there are many reasons, but 
always and for ever he is an "exile" and feels himself such. 

"This is the great touchstone Where do I feel at home? What 
are the things that touch the depths of me? For what are my deepest 
yearnings ? And then : Am I true to them ? Or do I keep them in some 
inner shrine for hours of meditation, and daily wind myself about other 
things, no matter how beautiful, which are not part of my real self? 
A man having this touchstone can always get his "bearings" on the Path.' " 

We were grateful to the Lawyer, and said so. But the Recorder 
was still hunting for an 'experience,' and turned to the Orientalist, 
appealing to him for something at first hand. 

"I think you are limiting the idea of experience," was the answer. 
"The letters just read to us were the fruit of experience, and perhaps 
of years of experience. A passing event or impression, cannot tell as 
much. Last week I saw a sunset, and it removed, for the moment, one 
of the veils between my eyes and God. But that kind of an experience 
cannot be told in words, unless perhaps in some great poem, such as I 
can never hope to write. Music might tell it : but I am no musician . . . 
I can speak, however, of a lesson which the past quarter, in my own 
experience, has reiterated a dozen times, that a sense of humour is 
essential if you would enter the kingdom of heaven. 

"Few people realize that both Buddha and Christ possessed a divine 
sense of humour. Some people, I believe, would feel that to attribute 
humour to Christ would be irreverent. What nonsense ! What hopeless 
misunderstanding! Would they limit humour to horse-play? Where 
does humour come from, if not from the Eternal? 



174 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

"The irony of both Christ and Buddha was so fine that it was lost, 
as a rule, on their followers, who record, with unresponsive seriousness, 
sayings too deeply humorous for laughter. Do you remember Buddha's 
conversation with Sariputta, as told in the Maha Parinibbana Sutta? 

" 'Now the venerable Sariputta came to the place where the Blessed 
One was, and having saluted him, took his seat respectfully at his side, 
and said : "Lord ! such faith have I in the Blessed One, that methinks 
there never has been, nor will there be, nor is there now any other, 
whether Samana or Brahman, who is greater and wiser than the Blessed 
One, that is to say, as regards the higher wisdom." 

" ' "Grand and bold are the words of thy mouth, Sariputta : verily, 
thou hast burst forth into a song of ecstasy ! Of course then thou hast 
known all the Blessed Ones who in the long ages of the past have been 
Arahat Buddhas, comprehending their minds with yours, and aware 
what their conduct was, what their doctrine, what their wisdom, what 
their mode of life, and what salvation they attained to ?" 

"The irony of that was obvious. Less obvious, but perhaps more 
humorous, was the irony of Buddha's reply to Ananda, then a young 
monk : 

" 'How are we to conduct ourselves, Lord, with regard to woman- 
kind?' 

" 'Don't see them, Ananda.' 

" 'But if we should see them, what are we to do?' 

" 'Abstain from speech, Ananda.' 

" 'But if they should speak to us, Lord, what are we to do?' 

" 'Keep wide awake, Ananda/ " 

"The irony of Christ in many cases was scathing, as when, address- 
ing the Scribes and Pharisees, he spoke of the ninety and nine 'just' 
persons, 'which need no repentance,' implying, of course, that no such 
persons existed. 

"The humour of H. P. Blavatsky was of a different order. Like the 
humour of those she revered and followed, it was never unkind or 
mean. But it was rough hewn. It was titanic. She herself was often 
the bull's-eye of her target. A delightful instance of her humour is 
recorded by W. B. Yeats in a recent article. She had many visitors, 
as usual. 'They talked and she played patience, and totted up her score 
on the green baize, and generally seemed to listen, but sometimes she 
would listen no more. There was a woman who talked perpetually of 
"the divine spark" within her, until Madame Blavatsky stopped her 
with "Yes, my dear, you have a divine spark within you and if you are 
not very careful you will hear it snore." ! 

"Some people would call that unkind. But H. P. B. knew to whom 
to what she was talking. The woman probably had a hide like a 
rhinoceros, and H. P. B.'s first duty was to protect her other visitors." 



ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 175 

"And what has been your experience?" the Orientalist concluded, 
addressing the Banker, the silent member of our party. "Now that the 
Recorder has pushed me to it, I do not intend that anyone shall escape !" 

The Banker plunged right in. "I have been chasing some of my 
'defeatist' ideas and feelings," he said. "Everyone harbours them, I 
believe. They are elementals, of course, and, judging by my own expe- 
rience, they are more dangerous than cruder sins, because they are able 
to masquerade as angels of humility. They paralyse the will by throw- 
ing into the mind, at one time a picture of fatigue, at another time a 
picture of failure memories of past failures, anticipations of future 
failures. In intellectual effort, such as that involved in writing, the 
fatigue is not often felt while we write. It is felt as a rule before we 
begin, or after we have finished. In the latter case, the fatigue may 
be regarded as genuine. But when we hesitate to begin, we shall find 
in most cases that what is needed is impetus, which is the result of an 
initial push. In other words, by an effort of the will we can 'get started/ 
after which, progress is easy. To start a physical object moving, requires 
ten times the power required to keep it moving. To push an automobile 
by your own weight and strength may be difficult. It may be still more 
difficult to stop it, once your initial impulse has proved effective. 

"It is important in any case, as I see it, to recognize the character 
and methods of our 'defeatist' elementals, because they are, in truth, the 
devil. They will hurl 'failure' at us, whenever we are foolish enough 
to listen to them, and much that is best in us will respond with emphatic 
agreement. The only remedy I know is to meet them with agreement, 
and then with deliberate thanksgiving, on the ground that the more 
incompetent and useless we are, the greater the glory of Masters who, 
in spite of our failures, will succeed at last in turning both us, and the 
people we ought to be serving, into denizens of the world of light." 

"There is one more," said the Orientalist. "The Scientist has not 
yet given us his experience." 

The Scientist laughed. "It will not please you," he said. "But you 
may have it for what it is worth. A man in a position of authority said 
to me recently (he was exhausted) : 'No one ever comes near me except 
to ask for something. What they ask for, may be only that I should 
listen to them, listen to their complaints, their troubles, their plans, 
their problems. Yet in that case they ask for sympathy, and always for 
attention. As I get older and more tired, there are moments when I 
dread the sound of a human voice: its demand for attention seems 
unendurable.' 

"It may be said that any man who felt like that, when others needed 
him or thought they did, must have lacked sympathy; certainly lacked 
love. But he assured me that a real need did not affect him that way 
in the least. To be able to meet a real need, helped and stimulated him. 
The trouble was, he said, that so few supposed needs are real. People 
talk, he said, for the sake of talking. They 'let off steam' at the expense 



176 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

of others. They want attention: but he would not admit that a desire 
for attention can be classed as a real need. 

"I suspect this also : that the most devoted of mothers, who is con- 
stantly with a number of small children, asking this and wanting that 
and always wanting attention feels at times as if she could not endure 
the depletion of it a moment longer. Even their devotion supposing 
that to exist would prove exhausting. 

"Therefore it seems to me that we may well ask ourselves to 
what extent, if at all, we inflict the same exhaustion on the Masters. 
Some people would say at once: 'that is different, for Masters have 
infinite love and strength, infinite sympathy and infinite patience/ My 
answer would be : 'nothing is infinite, short of the Absolute ; that which 
is still human cannot be infinite ; therefore the humanity of Masters must 
be capable of exhaustion/ ' 

"Do you mean to imply that we should not go to the Masters, or to 
our own Master that, for instance, I ought not to go to Christ with my 
troubles ? How about the admonition I have so often heard, to go to 
him with everything, with absolutely everything that concerns us through- 
out the day?" 

"My answer would be : that is what a mother wants from her chil- 
dren. She wants it even when they grow up. She wants all their real 
troubles; all their real problems. Her attitude never changes. But, as 
her children grow up, ought not their attitude to change ? As small chil- 
dren, they took everything to her. Full of egotism, as small children 
are, it never entered their minds that she would not be as thrilled as 
they were by the discovery of a new stick or pebble, or by the sight of 
a fire-engine on the street. While small children, it did not occur to 
them that she might be exhausted when they were not. But her influ- 
ence would have been harmful if, as they grew older, she had not taught 
them to be considerate, even of herself." 

"But how can you pray, without asking the Master's attention?" 

"That is just the problem," the Scientist replied : and he then 
relapsed into stony silence. 

"Well?" The Gael looked at him in shocked surprise. Still there 
was silence. The Scientist seemed lost in the contemplation of his 
problem. "Another of your traps," remarked the Gael. "Science is 
always like that, playing with the surface of things and leaving it to 
others to clean up the mess ! Science is . . ." 

"It will not take any longer to clean up the mess," the Recorder 
interjected, hopefully. 

"But our feelings, man, our feelings," the Gael retorted. "It is bad 
enough to make us talk, on a day like this; but to try to make us think 
is barbarous. And I refuse to do it . . . Anyone can solve his 
problem." 

"How?" 

"Does not every beginner know that, in order to begin, he must 



ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 



177 



strive to recover the child-state he has lost; that he must learn to pray 
about everything; must learn to refer the smallest act of his life, both 
inner and outer, to the judgment of Christ, for the blessing of Christ, 
and must make that attitude habitual, before it would be safe for him 
to consider what is involved in 'growing up'? 

"Being a Scientist, poor thing, his premises, from first to last, are 
full of flaws ... I am not criticizing him. I am commiserating . . . 
A mother does tire. But her fatigue does not count in comparison with 
her torture of anxiety when she feels that her child is holding back 
something from her, perhaps from motives of false consideration. And 
a Master, being human, doubtless experiences fatigue: but we know no 
more of the nature of that fatigue than we know what it means to be 
'grown up' spiritually. When the Master said to St. Matilda, There 
is not a bee that throws itself with such eagerness upon the flowers in 
order to suck the honey from them, as I, through the intensity of my 
love, hasten to the soul that desires me' it seems to me that he antici- 
pated the Scientist's objections by several hundred years. 

"And what is the use of speculating about the attitude we ought to 
adopt, or the consideration we ought to show, when we begin to 'grow 
up'? We are no more able to imagine what that condition will be than 
a little girl I once knew who used to say: 'Someday I shall be grown 
up like mother; and then I shall wear my hair on the top of my head, 
and I shall go into the kitchen, as she does/ No, Sir: these mental 
speculations about spiritual things; these attempts to reason, 'scientific- 
ally,' from the half-known to the unknown, with the idea that you will 
thus know something you did not know before, are the methods that 
H. P. B. anathematized in Isis, and that she continued to anathematize 
until the day of her death." 

The Scientist remained plunged in thought. "Thank you," the 
Recorder remarked, addressing him. And we prepared to adjourn. 

"One word more," the Ancient requested. "I think it ought to be 
made clear that Masters are subject to universal law, as we are; and 
that they obey the law, as we do not. A Master, in his compassion, may 
be longing to help someone ; but if that person, for lack of faith, or from 
diffidence, or for any motive whatsoever, good or bad, does not go to 
the Master, telling him all about it and asking for help, the Master's 
hands are tied. He is barred from giving direct help. We must open 
the doors of our hearts, of our minds, of our desires, of all the circum- 
stances of our lives, before the Master can enter in. He cannot open 
them from the outside. He would not if he could. He is not a burglar, 
or an intruder. He respects our 'rights,' our reservations, our locked 
closets. Above all, he respects the laws of his own being. He promises 
that if we will throw our doors open to him, he will enter and will share 
our lives with us. But he warns us that we must throw them open, or 
that he must stay outside." T. 



DEAR 



LETTERS TO STUDENTS 

July 25th, 1912. 



I returned today from a ten days' very strenuous trip west on 
business, and found your letter of the 21st. Dear lady, I am sorry, more 
sorry than I can tell, for all your anxiety and distress and worry. But 
it is a real thing we all are trying to do to reach the Master and we 
must expect sorrow and hardship and trouble until we have learned to 
take them all to the Master, to share them with him. As we do so, we 
gain power from him to bear them cheerfully, serenely, and in the process 
we shed our impurities of all kinds, until we are fit to enter his presence. 

It is perfectly normal for to have reactions of all kinds 

you must expect them. And please try to realize that you are trying, 
have been trying, to bring him to the Master, when what he needs first 
is to be made to behave, in the ordinary commonplace way. He must 
learn obedience, self-control, good manners, unselfishness, all these 
and more before there can be hope that he will go further. He may 
appear for a time to go forward on the path of Life and Immortality, 
but sooner or later his commonplace faults, his lack of discipline, will 
rise up as insuperable barriers. 

So these must be got rid of first. And you, dear lady, stop calling 
yourself names. You are what you are, and when upset and over- 
wrought, are still the same person with the same virtues, the same weak- 
nesses, as when at your best and highest. Calling names does no good : 
indeed it indulges the wrong mood you are in when you do it. 

It is the same old story a very simple story self-control, patience, 
serenity, faith (even when, especially when, things go wrong), poise, 
calmness, devotion. You know them all, and their necessity. In a word, 

try to be yourself what you would desire to become. . . . 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



August 16th, 1912. 
DEAR 

I am very much obliged for the report of July 29th, which I return, 
as I have marked it. 

I suggest that you combine the first two columns. "Silence" covers 
the ground. Outer silence is not to talk with the mouth. Inner silence 
is not to talk with the mind. Also you could combine "Repose" and 
"Do not hurry." Please add "Gentleness." 

178 



LETTERS TO STUDENTS 179 

Also there is a positive and negative aspect of each quality : 

Patience Impatience 

Repose Hurry 

Gentleness Roughness 

Quietude Noisiness 

Punctuality Lateness 

It would, I think, be useful for you to mark yourself for the times 
m have remembered the good, as well as for the times you have done 
ic bad. It will encourage you to see how much effort you really make, 
md how very often your efforts are successful. You dwell too much 
on the number of failures, hence your occasional fits of discourage- 
ment. . . . 

No, you will not lose your glimpse of what contemplation means, 
when you stop suffering. On the contrary, we do all spiritual exercises 
better when happy than when miserable. As a matter of fact, being 
unhappy is wrong : it is unnatural and a result of our own perverseness. 

Last year I suffered more than ever before in my life because I had 
to surrender something I loved very dearly and did not want to give up. 
After it was all over and I had surrendered, I saw for the first time the 
truth, that I did not really want that thing and would not take it back, 
and that all my pain came from ignorance and misunderstanding. It 
had all been explained to me in the effort to save me suffering, but I 
could not understand until I had made the sacrifice, or what I then 
thought was a tremendous sacrifice. Now I see that what I called a 
sacrifice was no more a sacrifice than when you pay a dollar for some- 
thing you want very much. You have not the dollar any more, but you 
have what you very much prefer to the dollar. This is true of all 
sacrifice, of all giving up of self of all the pain of self-conquest and 
purification. . . . 

Now please be patient and kind and gentle with yourself, and trust 
the Master's love and wisdom to see you safely through every crisis. 

As always, 
C. A. GRISCOM. 



DEAR 



Vevey, September 2nd, 1912. 



I am much obliged for your several letters and reports. The 
dominant feeling I have is one of affectionate sympathy for you, 
you do have such a constant succession of troubles and trials. I am so 

sorry was again ill, not for his sake, for about him I have 

no anxiety. The Master knows and does what is good and best for him. 
About you, too, I have no anxiety, for he also knows what is well for 
you, but I have a deep sympathy. I would save you these experiences 
if I could ; I regret the necessity for you to live through these trials in 
order to learn their lesson. I still more regret the obvious fact that, like 



180 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

every one else I know, especially including myself, we are so stupid and 
obstinate and self-willed, that we have to go through the same experience 
time and time again instead of only once. Oh ! why do we not learn 
our lessons ! Why do we not see that it would pay to surrender and no 

longer to fight! You fight 's illness; why not stop fighting it? 

Accept it, and while doing everything you possibly can to remedy, 
ameliorate and cure, welcome it as the best possible thing for him and 
for you, and look deep into it for the lesson it is designed to teach both 
of you. The instant that lesson is learned, the illness will go. 

He [the Master] loves you very much, watches over you ceaselessly 
and longs for a surcease of your suffering. 

As ever, 

Yours sincerely, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



September 19th, 1912. 
DEAR 

I have your letter of September 10th, and it quite cheered me up. 
I feel that you are doing very well, and that you are gradually getting 
control of those activities of your personality which are your barriers. 
It may not seem so to you, at times, but it does to us. Keep it up the 
fight and there is no doubt at all that you will win out. . . . 

I am dreadfully sorry about : it is heart-breaking, and I 

wish there were something I could do to help, but beyond sympathy I 
know of nothing. . . . 

I shall go into the question of your records when we meet. I think 
they also show improvement. . . . 

With kindest regards and best wishes, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



October 15th, 1912. 

DEAR 

I have your letter. I think you must expect any child to be rebellious 
and impertinent and flatly disobedient at times. I should; and I do not 
blame myself, or think that everything I have done or tried to do is 
wrong, because this very natural and usual thing has happened. There 
may be children who never act in this way, but I have never known 
them. So please do not think that the world has come to an end, even 
your world, or that the Master is any farther off than before. 

J|C * * * * * # 

I am, as always, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



LETTERS TO STUDENTS 



181 



DEAR 



November 26th, 1912. 



I was exceedingly sorry to learn from 



this morning of 



the continued hard time which you are having. 

I hope it is needless to assure you of my deepest sympathy. There 
is one thing more I want to say. It is at times like these, when our 
burdens seem more than we can bear, when our keeping of our Rule 
breaks down and when we see ourselves to be utterly unworthy, that 
the Master wants most that we go to him and tell him our troubles and 
our failures. He is not a fair-weather friend; he is the friend of the 
sinner, of the man who has failed, who is failing daily, who cannot carry 
his burdens. 

All the Master asks of us is that we shall continue to try. It is our 
effort that he measures us by, not our accomplishment. Instead of its 
being sacrilegious to go to him when you are in a bad condition, that is 
just the time when he wants you most and when it would be sacrilegious 
not to go. 

With kind regards, I am sincerely, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



1913. 



DEAR 



Would it help you to realize that the Master wants you in exactly 
your present environment? He sees that you need all the harassments 
and annoyances, and interruptions and worries and details, which inter- 
fere with your serenity and your efforts. He wants you to learn quietude, 
gentleness, dignity, courtesy, in the midst of confusion and trial. He 
would have put you in a convent, or in an entirely different set of cir- 
cumstances, if that had been the experience you needed. That being 
so, and you must convince yourself of it, then you can go forward with 
courage and hope, to do what he wants you to do courage and hope, 
because we know he never asks more of us than we can perform. He 
never gives us a task beyond our strength. Difficult yes. It would 
not be worth doing if it were not difficult. We want to do something 
hard for him. 

If you go back over your own records, you will find that when you 
fail most completely, it is after you have had too little sleep and too 
much fatigue. It is nearly always a question of physical nerves and 
has but little to do with your character. We are greater slaves to our 
bodies than we realize, or like to believe, hence the need for simplicity 
of living, of food, of rest. For instance, you write one time that you 

waited up till 12.30 A. M. for and were very tired. Then that 

you did not want to pray, and that your prayers were no good. Who 
could have fervent and heart-felt prayers at 1 A. M. after eighteen hours' 
hard work and when dog-tired? Surely you are foolish to blame your- 
self for such a feeling? What you can blame yourself for is letting 



182 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

yourself get so tired. If that was unavoidable, as it sometimes is, then 
it is better to postpone your prayers entirely, if you are going to be 
discouraged and unhappy because you do not go to them with enthusiasm 
and devotion. 

Remember, too, always, that it is our effort that counts. Keep on 
trying. That is the secret. No matter how hard and dull and inert we 
are, if we keep trying, in time we shall wear through our shell and 
reach Him in the clear light of the inner world. Look forward to that, 
and determine to get there. 

With kind regards, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



DEAR March llth, 1913. 

If you will send me the original of your reports, hereafter, I can 
return them to you fairly promptly and it will save you the labour of 
copying them. I want to save you all unnecessary work, and you should 
try to do the same. I have been over a big batch of them which have 
accumulated during these very busy times. 

You should reread your reports, at regular intervals. A large part 
of their value lies in this. Please remember this and act on it. 

I have told you many times that your recollection has not gone. 
You are more recollected now than ever before in your life. Believe 
me, this is true. We pass through phases of these things, learning one 
phase ; and then another, which we do not yet know, or have not mastered, 
comes up, and we are drilled on that. Only those above us can see what 
we really are and what we really accomplish. It is all a question of 
the amount we try, not the amount we accomplish, or seem to ourselves 
to accomplish. Also, sometimes we are helped at the start, and then, 
when we get on our feet a little, the help is withdrawn. The immediate 
effect of that is to make us feel that we have gone down hill and are 
doing very badly, while, as a matter of fact, we are doing well. 

Both of these things are true w.ith you. You are now doing with 
little or no help what a year or two ago you could only do with a great 
deal of help. . . . 

And now what can I say that will be helpful? I have been reading 
your records for nearly two hours and feel as if I had had a long talk 
with you. Poor dear child, fretting and fuming, and accusing herself 
and blaming herself, scolding herself, as if she were a very bad child, 
while all the time she is a very good child and is trying very hard. It 
is pitiful, and I wish there were something I could do to lessen the strain 
and ease the sore heart. 

The Master loves you, I know it, and you can know it too, if 
you will be still for a moment and allow his peace and love to well up 
inside you. 



LETTERS TO STUDENTS 

)k for it in your heart, not in your mind. 
And now good night. As always, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



183 



DEAR 



April 3rd, 1913. 



I return your recent reports. You need rest, more sleep, less 
running about, more quiet. It is the same old story, and until you get 
these there is no use in giving you more advice. 

You can rest as a sacrifice to the Master, something you force 
yourself to do for love of him. That will help your recollection both ways. 
You are learning all the time, and doing well in the main, but you 
fret too much about what you call your failures. Think more of your 
successes and of your efforts, and less of what seem to you inadequate 
results. They belong to the Master. You do love him. What is your 
intense desire to love, save love? 

With kind regards, I am 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



August 2nd, 1913. 
DEAR ******* 

I wish you did not react so constantly and so violently. You write 
what you feel and think at the time, which is what I want, and then 
an hour, or a day, or a week afterwards, you always say that what you 
wrote were just lies. They were not. They may not sound true in 

another mood, but were when you wrote. 

******* 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



August 8th, 1913. 



DEAR 



I have your special delivery letter. I also have your last record. 

No one but a Master should accept the responsibility of another's 
life. I certainly would not dare. All I can do for you is to suggest, to 
advise, to encourage, to readjust. 

There is no use looking for another way. You can progress only 
by the way already pointed out to you: and, in the main, that is the 
way of quietness, of silence, stillness of mind and of body, of serenity, 
of calmness. You must learn these. Their absence is the cause of your 
various troubles, as you see for yourself. 

You have been told this dozens of times, and often you have said 
that at last you understood. But you have never done it. Even this 
summer, when rare opportunity has been given you, you will not rest. 



184 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

What is the use of talking about obedience, of your desire to dedi- 
cate yourself, your life, your energies, to the Master, when you will not 
do this one thing you have been told to do with steady insistence for 
three years? 

You are tempted, among other things, by the thought that you can 
help people. You are intended to help people in time. But you must 
learn first to establish in yourself that which you desire to give them. 
It is folly at present to permit yourself to violate your own Rule and 
duty in the hope of helping others. 

Get, if you can, a copy of Walter Old's edition of The Tao-Teh- 
King. It may help you to understand; for your trouble is that you do 
not understand. It is not lack of will, or of desire, but of understand- 
ing, and understanding sometimes comes slowly and painfully. But do 
not be discouraged. You know much more now than you did six months 
ago, or a year ago, and you are learning by degrees. Persist, and you 
will come out all right; perhaps sooner than you expect. 

I am, as always, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



August 12th, 1913. 

DEAR 

By all means change the form of your report. It ought to be what 
you find most useful. The blank form you enclose seems to me very 
good. . . . 

You do not need more direction or more advice. You need to carry 
out that already given you : to rest, REST, REST : to be quiet, physically 
and mentally. You have not as yet even a glimmer of what this means, 
and it is your Path to the Master and to your heart's desire. 

With kind regards, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



September 8th, 1913. 
DEAR ******* 

I think you were wise. ... I should not, however, have written 
to Mrs. X. You must beware of scrupulosity. You say without hesita- 
tion that you are "out" when you wish to preserve your privacy. So 
in the street you can pretend not to hear, although technically you do. 
Mrs. X. is pretty sure to misunderstand such a letter, and you must do 
nothing to make people think you are peculiar. This is for future 
guidance not that there is anything more to do in this case. . . . 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 




The Hindu Yoga System, Charles Rockwell Lanman, Harvard University 
(Harvard Theological Review, October, 1918). This valuable essay should have 
been reviewed nearly three years ago. But the theme is so enduring that considera- 
tion of it is always timely. 

The first thing that strikes one, in Professor Lanman's study of the Yoga 
system (and, more specifically, of the translation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, with 
Commentary, by Dr. J. H. Woods, published in the Harvard Oriental Series), is 
his method: he begins by comparing the spiritual experience recorded in the Yoga 
Sutras with the spiritual experience of others, a Christian mystic, Angelus Silesius 
who, some three hundred years ago, sought "to attain the unattainable, to utter the 
unutterable," and certain of the Greek philosophers, such as Demokritos of Abdera, 
who may owe to contact with India certain of his teachings, such as "his view 
concerning peace of mind." There is the clear recognition that the Indian teachings 
rest upon the spiritual experience of those "followers of the Mystic Way, who 
time out of mind have held retreat for meditation in the solemn stillness of the 
forests 'lapped by the storied Hydaspes,' " the Jelum, rising in the North Western 
Himalayas, in Kashmir. This comparison of spiritual experience is worked out 
with special closeness between the Yoga Sutras and that great compendium of 
Buddhism, Buddhaghosa's Way of Salvation (Visuddhi-magga). 

And we find this profound generalisation: that all the spiritual records of 
India rest upon "the fundamental morality (specifically, neither Brahmanical nor 
Jainistic nor Buddhist) which is an essential preliminary for any system of ascetic 
religious training, and is accordingly taught again and again, now with a touch of 
gentle humour, now sternly, and always cogently, by Brahmans and Jains and 
Buddhists alike." 

We should like to add, or, indeed, to set down first, the Rajanyas or Rajputs, 
to whom some of the greatest passages in the Upanishads are explicitly attributed ; 
while both Krishna and the Buddha himself were of that kingly race. 

The second striking thing in this essay is the very serious tribute paid to the 
value of the Yoga system. The Commentary, attributed to Vyasa, which may be 
used in the general sense of "Revealer", rather than as a proper name, is, we are 
told, "informed by the noblest spirit and loftiest purpose"; the commentary on a 
passage in the third book, concerning temptation, "rises to a pitch of sustained and 
noble eloquence" ; while the "historic importance and moral dignity" of the work is 
insisted on. And, in a striking comparison between the Four Noble Truths of the 
Buddha and the "five means to the higher concentration" in the Yoga Sutras (i, 20), 
"faith and energy and mindfulness and concentration and insight," and between the 
treatment of the higher states of consciousness in the two systems, there is this 
notable comment: "The whole spiritual situation in both cases is similar; and that 
the substantial coincidences of the two descriptions may be nothing more than the 
natural outcome of that similarity, we will not deny." 

The third point, of subordinate, yet genuine interest, is the discussion of "the 
supernormal powers which, as Buddhist and Yoga texts alike maintain, are among 

185 



186 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

the fruits of the cultivation of profound concentration or samadhi. In order to make 
my meaning clear, let me instance some of these powers; such are clairvoyance and 
clairaudience, knowledge of the future and of one's previous births, thought read- 
ing, power to become invisible, the cessation of hunger and thirst, the power of 
hypnotic suggestion: 'your mind-stuff enters the body of another', the power to 
walk upon water or a spider's thread or sunbeams or to pass through the air, the 
power by reason of which 'the fire, hot as it is, burns you not', and so on. To seek 
these powers as an end, or to make a display of them to satisfy the curiosity of the 
vulgar, is wholly unworthy, and indeed most strictly forbidden. In the Gospel- 
narrative of the temptation, when the Devil says, 'If thou be the Son of God, cast 
thyself down from hence', the "answer of Jesus is an uncompromising rebuke. And 
in like spirit, the Mahabharata threatens with 'a hell from which there is no 
release' the Yogins who are thus guilty." 

In this context Professor Lanman has much of value to say of "the interest of 
studying Yoga in the light of the discoveries of modern psychology"; of Braid's 
hypnotism; of William James. In a word, the subject is treated in a sincere and 
adequate way. 

But the passages which make the most direct appeal to the present reviewer 
come toward the end of the essay. On the one hand, like certain allusions in 
Shakespeare's plays, they fix the time when it was written. On the other hand, 
they reveal the spiritual integrity of the writer. The passages are these: 

Speaking of the work of translation carried out by Dr. J. H. Woods in the 
fine Harvard edition of the Yoga Sutras, Professor Lanman pays tribute to the 
"genuine enthusiasm and indomitable patience" required. "All this and much more 
was needed to advance our scientific salients into the territory of the Hindu dialec- 
ticians. We may well imagine those jealous guardians of their sacred lore as saying 
to themselves of us, Us ne passeront jamais! But Dr. Woods' intellectual emplace- 
ments were good, and his preliminary bombardments have been effective." 

So much for the time note. Now for the greater matter. Professor Lanman 
goes on to speak of "our dearly loved French brothers with whom he (Dr. Woods) 
is now so zealously working," and who "are showing us the supremely great lesson, 
that the first thing needed for substantial victory is the loftiest moral courage." 

C. J. 

Un Drame dans le monde, by Paul Bourget (Plon-Nourrit, Paris), is the 
latest publication, we believe, of this great psychologist and artist. 

While 1 it is not customary for the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY to review novels, 
unless they deal avowedly with Theosophy, we wish to use this opportunity to pay 
our respects to a writer whose aim, throughout his long career, has been to 
portray life truly, and whose understanding of life, therefore, has never ceased 
to grow in depth and clarity. Working, at first simply as an artist, but as an artist 
who loved the truth for its own sake, and who never sacrificed truth for base or 
worldly ends, he works now, with even greater mastery of his art, and in the 
spirit of a deeply religious man, the 1 reward of his fidelity. Because, as St. Paul 
said of himself, so may it be said of Bourget; he was not disobedient unto the 
heavenly vision, but followed the Light always, whithersoever it led him, until 
now he 1 sees the many ways of life as God's ways for man's redemption. 

From the beginning he saw that "the wages of sin is death." There was 
always a suggestion of moral purpose in his stories. His Deux petites Filles, with 
its tragic tale of Simone, written in 1888, concluded: "I have been thinking that 
it is a serious matter to have sons and daughters, and that many people take it, 
this very serious matter, very lightly." In his Monsieur Legrimaudet (1889-1891), 
he remarks: "It has seemed to me often that the highest morality of a work of 
art, by which I mean a work of literature, consists in redoubling in us the sense of 



REVIEWS 187 

mystery, hidden in the depths of every human being, alike in the most wretched 
and in the most comic, as in the most sublime." 

We gather from his writings that at one time he was a sceptic, if not an 
atheist, but that later, "after years of struggle," he recovered, through "the dry 
analyses of science," faith in the Unknowable, which made it possible for him 
once more to pray, "Our Father which art in heaven." For how long this stage 
lasted, we do not know. The turning point seems to have come with his writing 
of Le Disciple. In any case, to-day, Bourget is a devout Catholic, but broad-minded, 
mellow, Gallican. As we have said, fidelity to the truth which he saw, although 
a limited truth, enabled the great Lover of Truth to lead him to a breadth and 
depth of vision, which although still limited, none the less gives power to serve 
such as perhaps no other publicist in France possesses. If he were to know more, 
we doubt if he could accomplish as much: and because now his desire to serve, 
quite obviously, is even greater than his desire to know (which is just as it ought 
to be), Bourget is reaping the reward which his own, soul would have chosen. 

Un Drame dans le monde is the story of a crime, followed by a great repent- 
ance; of a betrayal, followed by a complete forgiveness. Neither the man nor 
the woman had any faith. But the frightful facts of their existence compelled 
them to think, and after their agony, they found peace, in the determination of 
one to atone, and of the other to work with and for that atonement. There are 
actions, said the woman, which, once committed, leave you without any age, without 
hope, without expectation. And the man, though without faith, echoed his child- 
hood, and spoke o\ "buying back," of "making good" of expiation. The woman 
grasped at the straw, and found the full meaning of words which he had used 
emptily. "Christ means redemption," she discovered. And through her need, the 
man found salvation also. 

It is nothing, as we tell it. But Bourget's art is marvellous, the mor 
perfect, we think, now that his motive illumines it from within. He gives life, and 
vivid life, to every character he draws, to every incident he describes. He has 
humour, beauty of diction, rare simplicity of style, profound insight. His sense 
of perspective, of proportion, is Gothic. Each story is complete, no matter how 
brief. And yet, like all true art, his art creates more than a living form, more than 
colour and movement: it creates atmosphere. Not one word of this is suggested, 
but the atmosphere of Un Drame dans le monde says quite clearly: "Yes, that 
woman sinned, and knew it; and because she knew it, her sin became the main- 
spring of her life and effort. She flew, while you crawl. Are you without : 
Are you without the opportunity which sin gives? Have you no need, no occasion, 
'to buy back,' 'to make good/ to expiate? See your past as it really was, see 
yourself as you really are, and you too might fly!" 

We are among those who love France. It is our privilege, therefore, to express 
gratitude when an author represents so truly and so consistently, the nobility, the 
insight, and the charm, of the French genius. 
Still, we are not satisfied. We want more! 

Novels are used by most people "to kill time," or to distract their minds 
from the worries or boredom of daily routine. In the latter case, novels are 
used as a "harmless" substitute for alcohol or drugs. But they can and should 
be used primarily to help us to understand ourselves and to help us to understand 
the Divine or, rather, the action of the divine will in human affairs. And 
because it is of vital importance that we should see into the depths of our own 
lower natures, down to desires and tendencies which perhaps have not as yet 
emerged, we can gain much from the patho-psychology of such book 
Disciple, and even from Andre Cornelis.-on condition that we approach then 
in the right spirit and for the right purpose. As a general rule, however we 
believe it is far wiser and better to do as Paul the Apostle urged us to d 
M Bourget, we are sure, would agree that Paul was a greater psychologist than 



188 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

any modern), namely, "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, 
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if 
there be any praise, think on these things." Therefore we hope to read some 
day, in the form of a novel, the constructive, the positive side of Bourget's 
philosophy. He will be able to do that supremely difficult thing, portray his 
own ideal. He has described the Inferno; he has described the Purgatorio; he 
has not described the Paradiso. And we ask that of him : his greatest and noblest 
achievement, to be written, we fear, "for the few", but to be cherished by them, 
for many generations, as an inspiration and a delight Z. 

Death and its Mystery: Before Death, by Camille Flammarion, translated by 
E. S. Brooks; The Century Co., New York, 1921. 

An idea of the scope of this book may be gained from the titles of Chapters : 
Materialism an erroneous, incomplete, and insufficient Doctrine. What is man? 
Does the soul exist? Supra-normal faculties of the soul, unknown or little under- 
stood. The will, acting without the spoken word, without a sign, and at a distance. 
Telepathy and psychic transmissions at a distance. Vision without eyes the spirit's 
vision, exclusive of telepathic transmissions. The sight of future events. Knowl- 
edge of the future. 

The most interesting thing about this book, it appears to the reviewer, is the 
presence in it of two contrasted elements, broadly corresponding to what we mean 
by the words psychical and spiritual. Flammarion sets himself to solve the 
problem of death, the problem of "the Great Beyond," by marshalling the evidence 
for the existence of the possible survivor, from facts recorded before death ; that 
is, in our present experience. He brings together many well attested facts to show 
that this possible survivor, whom he calls the Soul, does exist; that it has supra- 
normal faculties of action and of perception; that the will can act at a distance; 
that there is vision without eyes, and hearing independent of the ears ; and, perhaps 
the most interesting section, because of the philosophical problems it raises, that 
there is definite prevision of future events, which may or may not be dramatic and 
significant. 

All this, of course, covers ground with which students of Theosophy have been 
familiar for years; in their view, it proves the existence, not of the Soul, but 
rather of the astral or psychic body, and its range of psychical powers of percep- 
tion and of action. It is of real value to have this evidence so well and lucidly 
brought together ; and, it will probably be agreed, this method of gathering evidence 
from living people is far sounder, far less objectionable, than much of the modern 
necromancy so fashionable just now. 

But all this is limited to the psychical world. Where are 1 we to find the con- 
trasted element, the spiritual, in this book? The answer is : in the great personality 
of Flammarion himself. It is really, although its distinguished author was probably 
quite 1 unconscious of this, a deeply interesting chapter of autobiography, the revela- 
tion of a valiant and loyal soul, inflexibly honest, full of aspiration, in which power 
is balanced by humility and inspired by compassion for the sorrows of men. 

The picture of Flammarion toiling, in the midst of his work among the stars, 
to lift the pall of blackness from human life, to lessen the 1 sorrow of the bereaved, 
to lay firmer foundations for faith, seems to us far better evidence for the 
existence of the 1 soul, and for its immortality, than all the supranormal powers and 
faculties recorded, even though this record be cogent and convincing. C. J. 



ANSWERS 




QUESTION No. 258. / am trying to think out a problem. I have all the facts, 
but my combination of them produces no solution. Exhausted, it may be, my 
mind does not work upon the problem longer. It does not stem to work at all. 
I do not seem to be thinking at all. After a while the solution comes to me. The 
mind seems to have worked it out by no will of mine. Sometimes days will elapse, 
and I have thought of many things foreign to the subject, when suddenly the solu- 
tion comes to me. How does Theosophy explain? 

ANSWER. It is one of the fundamental principles of The Theosophical 
Society and of the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY that no one can claim that his par- 
ticular belief is "Theosophy," or that his explanation is the "Theosophical explana- 
tion" of any question. Each one can give only his own belief, or quote from the 
writings of older and wiser students of Theosophy which in his opinion are 
applicable to the matter under discussion. Others are always free to agree or to 
disagree with what is quoted, irrespective of its source. From my reading of 
theosophical literature, and from my own experience, I am convinced that we are 
conscious of only a very small part of our real selves, and that a great deal goes 
on inside us of which we are not conscious at all or of which we only see the 
results. Few people are conscious of their real motives, or of the extent to which 
they are influenced by vanity and other forms of self-love. The consciousness of 
the average man is said to be centered in Kama-Manas, in which centre he may 
be quite unconscious of his real Self, the higher Triad, Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the 
"Re-incarnating Ego". This real Self is constantly trying to guide and help the 
personality. It may be that the solution of the problem comes from this Self, or 
it may come from some one of the many other parts of ourselves which have a 
consciousness of their own, some higher and some lower than the level of our 
personal consciousness. If it be a problem in which the soul is interested, it may 
be that the answer is brought through from sleep. Mr. Johnston, in his Song of 
Life, speaks most illuminatingly of the fact that during deep sleep the conscious- 
ness of all men rises to the spiritual plane and bathes in that ocean of immortal 
power and peace, but we are robbed of all memory of this by the army of shadows, 
our own fears and desires, that meet us on the threshold of waking. One pur- 
pose of purification is to enable us to bring through to waking consciousness more 
of what our souls learn in sleep. M. 

ANSWER. Experience would say growth is the law of all real things. Garden- 
ing is an example. The gardener exhausts himself digging and pulverizing the 
soil. Then he puts in the seed, and leaves it. After a few days the miracle has 
taken place. The same process governs the production of any work of art. It 
would seem true of moral problems also. C. 

ANSWER. Theosophy helps us to answer such a question, or in any case 
to obtain some light on it, because one of the principles of Theosophy is the 
universality of law. "Man is the mirror of the universe." Physical laws are the 

189 



190 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

reflection of spiritual laws. The processes of physical digestion correspond to 
the processes of mental digestion. The will and the emotions in both cases play 
an important part. "Thinking about something," as many people use that expres- 
sion corresponds to mastication. Thorough mastication we know to be essential 
to good digestion and assimilation, but we know also that it is only a preliminary 
step in a series of steps. "Thinking," in that limited sense, means analysis, or the 
separation of a problem into its parts. 

Intellectually, however, comparatively few are capable of mental mastication. 
They reject anything which is not in liquid form. They have not outgrown a 
milk diet. It is impossible, therefore, to generalize. We should have to know, 
first, the age of the person concerned. T. 

QUESTION No. 259. Each one of us has put a definite amount of time and of 
force tinto building up the faults of his lower nature. Must there be a correspond- 
ing amount of time and of force expended in the effort to overcome them, before 
these faults can be eradicated? 

ANSWER. Have you ever watched a building in process of construction? 
How slowly it rises. Each brick, stone and beam must be so carefully placed, 
by hand, one at a time. Have you ever watched a demolition? How quickly it 
moves. Plaster, lathes, and brick, a whole section that required half a day to 
erect, falls after a few solid blows. C. 

ANSWER. It would certainly seem that there must be a relation between the 
amount of time and force expended in building up, and that required for the 
destruction of our faults, but this does not mean that the same amount of time 
and force is required. There are many different kinds of force (and no doubt 
of time also, if our minds were capable of recognizing them). That we have 
spent ten years or ten incarnations in building up a fault, does not mean that it 
will take the same number of years or incarnations to eradicate it. Perhaps it 
would, if we had only the same lower force of our own self-will to draw upon 
to destroy it, that we used to create it. Nature takes a million years to form a 
rock and another million to wear it away, but the application of a different type 
of force (dynamite, for instance) may pulverize it in a moment. So we have 
often been told that of ourselves we cannot conquer our faults, but that the help 
of our Master and of his force is essential. 

J. F. B. M. 

QUESTION No. 260. How can we best strengthen the will? 

ANSWER. By exercising it. It is to that end that so many of the self-denying 
acts are directed. The things banned may be quite 1 innocent of themselves. But 
by prohibiting them, the inertia of the will is checked. It is given something to 
think about, something upon which to make an effort. Through effort, it grows. 

C. 

ANSWER. One 1 knows well how to strengthen a muscle by exercising that 
muscle, or group of muscles. One has a purpose in so doing. 

The growing child is taught and disciplined to exercise a faculty by various 
mental processes. The object in view is the gaining of personal power, and the 
gain is in the personal will. 

But the strengthening of the real spiritual will depends on the 1 performance 
of deliberate acts of discipline in the faith and full conviction that, though they may 
deny the personal self, such acts will add to the power of the united spirit of life 
which is man's only true Self. A. K. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 



191 



ANSWER. 1. Through greater love, and more constant and concentrated prayer 
and communion. 

2. Then, self-surrender becomes more complete. Our will is to do the divine 
will; it is no longer "our" will, but is swung over to the side of God. 

3. Finally, by work, by using the will. We pray "Thy will be done," that the 
Father may be glorified. We have been told "Herein is the Father glorified, that 
ye bear much fruit." By work, therefore, the outward expression of our inner 
desire or motive, that inner motive is in turn itself strengthened. C R. A. 

QUESTION No. 261. I have heard it said that each time a desired object or 
pleasure is given up, an inner growth takes place: is this so? 

ANSWER. All depends on motive. If a man makes a sacrifice of pleasure in 
order to obtain inner growth, such growth would be at least stunted. The gift 
or sacrifice would be made under conditions which would have self as their basis. 
But when such self sacrifice is a free 1 gift, unselfishly laid on the altar of the heart 
in devotion to the Master, all such offerings must surely be attended by inner growth. 

K. 



ANSWER. It must depend upon the motive. If the sacrifice is made for another, 
for the Masters' work, that the Divine will should be accomplished, yes, even if 
the sacrifice is actually mistaken, unwise, in the light of higher seeing. But if the 
sacrifice is made for one's personal growth in grace, if it is a, mere subtilty of 
self-indulgence, in that we take more pleasure in the thought of what we have 
been able to give up than in anything else, the growth is of a different sort, the 
progress is along the left-hand path. A. 

QUESTION No. 262. What is the true basis of tolerance? 

ANSWER. The true basis must be in the expression of Universal Brotherhood, 
the relation of all souls with the Over-Soul. A. K. 

ANSWER. Tolerance 1 should not be confused with indifference. Too often it 
is so confused. Humility and aspiration would seem its foundation. One perceives 
a ray of light and truth. A proud man thinks he has gained it, has< gained it all, 
and will gain for himself any small portion of it not yet won. A humble man feels 
that only a beginning has been made. He thirsts for more of this precious truth. 
And he seeks it everywhere, from all men. C. C. C. 

ANSWER. Love for if we truly have that, we shall be able to see, in what 
may seem like a hasty or ill-considered expression of thought or opinion on the 
part of another, the real needs of that individual, his weaknesses, his potential- 
ities. Tolerance is not a rigid, polite imperviousness to anything with which we 
do not agre'e; it is the quality of sympathetic understanding based on a desire to 
help, which can come only from the heart. R. 



192 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

QUESTION No. 263. What is the attitude of Thcosophy towards asceticism? 

ANSWER. Theosophy as such can have no attitude towards anything and the 
writer assuredly can make no claim to speak on its behalf. But a thing is either 
true or false, and the results of an action vary with the motive which prompts it. 
Asceticism is thus true or false, useful or mischievous according to the purpose 
which prompts it. A rigid rule of self-denial and self-sacrifice which leads to the 
mastery and conquest of self and its conversion to other uses, has a purpose of 
very wide application. Asceticism for its own sake is mischievous because it thus 
becomes a travesty of something valuable. A. K. 

ANSWER. There is true asceticism and false. The aim of true asceticism is to 
bring the will and higher faculties to function. Self denial and other ascetic prac- 
tices are to that end to awaken those dormant and higher faculties. C. C. C. 

ANSWER. What is asceticism? It must vary as individuals vary, in accordance 
with the circumstances and surroundings of their lives, depending upon the com- 
plexities of their inner and outer duties. It may be right for one man to become a 
contemplative, take a vow of silence, embrace holy poverty, undertake all kinds of 
austerities. It may be frightfully wrong for another, no matter how much he 1 may 
wish it, to do this; placed in the world, with definite duties and responsibilities, he 
must play the game, keeping wealth as a trust imposed upon him instead of giving 
it away, bringing the light in what measure he is able, to those with whom he 
conies in contact in the crowded ways of life. All this may mean something 
infinitely harder; the renunciation, the sacrifice may be much more complete than 
in the case of the contemplative. So, too, the inner rule by which such a man must 
live in the midst of outer activities, may contain immeasurably more of real 
asceticism than the rule of the contemplative. 

What is one man's meat may be another man's poison. Theosophy requires 
each to define asceticism for himself, in the light of the position in life in which 
Karma has placed him, his duties and responsibilities, his real inner vision. 

R. 

QUESTION No. 264. Are the so-called moral laws natural or divine? 

ANSWER. Infraction of the moral laws incurs, automatically, penalties on the 
external and physical plane ; in that sense they are natural. But all such natural 
laws are the outward expression, on the physical plane, of the Divine law which 
governs the universe, of spiritual cause and effect, of the working out of good or 
evil. A. 

ANSWER. So far as such "moral" laws are the expression in ordinary life of 
some of the laws of the soul, they are natural and divine. But some of such 
"moral" laws have their origin in association of animals and in sel f -protection : 
some are impositions of stronger individuals on weaker neighbors. But the moral 
law which is the basis of protection of the weak against the strong, the law which 
acts in restraint of selfishness in any form, that law is divine in its origin, though 
the selfishness to which mankind has given way, now renders it unnatural. 

A. K. 

ANSWER. Is a sunset less of a divine thing because man has discovered some- 
thing of its beauty? Are not Prudence, Temperance, Courage, and Justice qualities 
divinely placed in the order of life to be discovered by man in his process of 
experimentation? He discovers, through suffering, that gluttony brings unhappi- 
ness so he comes to prize temperance. Perhaps in a similar way, higher virtues 
will become entirely natural, after one has been lifted to their plane, through the 
interposition of an Avatar. X. 




JANUARY, 1922 

The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion, 
or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless con- 
tained in an official document. 



ROGER BACON, THEOSOPHIST 
(1214-1294) 

"Perfecti in sapientia divina!' 
"Men perfected in divine wisdom." 

ROGER BACON, Opus Majus. 

A" the very beginning of his greatest work, the Opus Majus, Roger 
Bacon discusses the "obstacles to real wisdom". Among these 
obstacles, he puts first the example of weak and unreliable 
authority and the uncritical acceptance of traditional views. 
Perhaps we shall be wise to follow his example and, before we try to 
get a true view of this great Theosophist, set forth and put out of our 
way certain accepted views of his life and work, which are completely 
misleading. 

The first of these misleading views, which was strongly, though in 
all probability unconsciously, supported by the popular discussion last 
Spring of certain cipher manuscripts attributed to him, and made the 
subject of lectures and articles in Philadelphia, is that Roger Bacon's 
ideas and principles are at once very mysterious and very little known; 
that our understanding of them depends on the unravelling of a highly 
complicated cipher, in a manuscript which is not certainly his, and even 
the subject of which is still doubtful. But the reality is, that practically 
every good library contains half a dozen or more of Roger Bacon's au- 
thentic works, well edited and with excellent commentaries, and that 
these easily accessible books set forth, again and again, Roger Bacon's 
fundamental principles and enumerate his discoveries and forecasts of 
inventions, in many cases illustrated by his own drawings. As regards 
his life, it is no exaggeration to say that we know five times as much 

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194 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

about him as we know about Shakespeare, for the reason that, while 
Shakespeare sedulously keeps his own personality in the background, 
Roger Bacon, like that other great Theosophist, Paul of Tarsus, inserts 
many passages of autobiography in his writings. We have, therefore, 
ample material, and admirable material, for a study of Roger Bacon's 
thoughts and principles, and this material is easily accessible. 

A second and more subtle misunderstanding of Roger Bacon may 
be illustrated by a passage from Sir William Osier's lecture on The old 
Humanities and the new Science, quoted some months ago in the 
THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY: "[ Saint Augustine] the moulder of West- 
ern Christianity, had not much use for science, and the Greek spirit was 
stifled in the atmosphere of the Middle Ages. 'Content to be deceived, 
to live in a twilight of fiction, under clouds of false witnesses, inventing 
according to convenience, and glad to welcome the forger and the 
cheat', such, as Lord Acton somewhere says, were the Middle Ages. 
Strange, is it not? that one man alone, Roger Bacon, mastered his envir- 
onment and had a modern outlook. How modern Bacon's outlook was 
may be judged from the following sentence: 'Experimental science has 
three great prerogatives over all other sciences it verifies conclusions 
by direct experiment; it discovers truths which they could never reach, 
and it investigates the secrets of nature and opens to us a knowledge of 
the past and future.' " 

We need hardly stop to protest against the very shallow and super- 
ficial view of the Middle Ages expressed in the sentences attributed to 
Lord Acton. What Sir William Osier implies, is our immediate con- 
cern, namely, that, in the so-called ''conflict between religion and 
science", Roger Bacon was a pioneer of science, as against religion. 
Osier does not say this. Perhaps he did not think it. But it is the con- 
clusion which floats on the surface of his words, and it is exactly the 
reverse of the truth. Roger Bacon invariably thought of experimental 
science as the handmaid of religion ; his whole purpose, in studying nat- 
ural science, was to lead up to divine science ; he thought of wisdom as a 
unity, with spiritual illumination as its crown. To put it more concretely, 
he devoted his life to a study of wisdom, in order that first Christendom, 
and then the whole world, might be illuminated by divine light and 
brought under divine governance; and from the very beginning to the 
end of his long life, he thought of the Church as the instrument both of 
illumination and government. This is, of course, in sharp antithesis to 
the thought implied by the passage quoted from Sir William Osier. 

Roger Bacon's guiding thought, therefore, was a Church, purified 
and illuminated, bringing divine wisdom and spiritual guidance to the 
whole world. The probable dates of his birth and death are 1214 and 
1292 or 1294. He was, therefore, during about fifty years, the contem- 
porary of two other great men, Albertus Magnus (1206-1280), and 
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), whose purposes and methods are very 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 



195 



like his own ; and, like them, also, he belonged by birth to the upper class 
of society ; like them, also, he has left abundant literary records which are 
easily accessible. 

It would seem wise to think of these three men as, in fact, cooper- 
ating at the same task : the illumination of Christendom. All three 
followed the same general method : the application of Greek philosophy 
to the better understanding of Christian teaching; in other words, the 
reconciliation of science and religion, of reason and faith. 

They appeared together at what students of Theosophy would be 
inclined to call a critical cyclic point in the history of Christendom and 
of the world. The period, from the fifth to the twelfth century, from 
the submergence of Rome's imperial power to the conscious beginning 
of the modern nations, was closing, and a remarkable renaissance of 
Greek philosophic thought was beginning in the Western world. 

The channel through which Greek philosophy came to the West in 
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is a significant factor in the cyclic 
culmination already spoken of. Though Rome and Italy were largely 
submerged by the Northern invaders, the Eastern Empire, with Con- 
stantinople as its capital and Greek as its language, continued to flourish, 
and much of Greek philosophy and science remained current there. 

Until the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Greek speaking 
Eastern Empire, the "Eastern Rome", was not seriously menaced by the 
new religious and political power which sprang up in Arabia. On the 
contrary, the Moslems, as soon as they had established their power about 
the Tigris and Euphrates, founding a school of philosophy and science 
at Bagdad, set themselves to learn Greek thoroughly and to master and 
develop Greek science and philosophy. They made extensive and gen- 
erally accurate translations, in part directly from the Greek originals, 
in part from Syriac versions, and they applied the vigorous powers of 
original genius to the development and perfecting of what they received 
from the Greeks. In doing this, they contributed an element of Orien- 
tal thought and mysticism to the gathered wisdom of Hellas. 

As pointed out by J. H. Bridges, the editor of Roger Bacon's Opus 
Majus, from the institution of the school of Bagdad, shortly after the 
year 800, to the capture of Bagdad in 1258 by the Mongol general 
Hulacu, scientific and philosophical thought were carried forward with 
restless energy in this Oriental region. All that had been done by the 
Greeks in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, chemistry, and natural his- 
tory, including anatomy, became accessible in Arabic. Even now there 
are many sections of the works of Galen (Claudius Galenus of Per- 
gamos, A. D. 130-200), that are only known to us through translations 
from Arabic into Latin. The best part of the work of Apollonius, the 
greatest, after Archimedes, of Greek geometers, has come to us through 
the same source. And it would be wrong to suppose that all this Arabic 
learning was mere dead erudition. "It was alive and grew. The Arabic 



196 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

instruments of observation were more precise and accurate than those 
of the Greeks. We owe to them the adoption, if not the discovery, of 
decimal notation. Albategnius gave new life to the science of trigo- 
nometry, and determined with nearer approach to accuracy the preces- 
sion of the equinoxes. Mohammed ben Musa laid the foundations of 
modern algebra ; Alhazen of optics. To tell of Arabic researches in 
chemistry and medicine would need a volume" (Bridges, Essays and 
Addresses, 1907, pp. 173-4). 

At some future date it may be possible to study more closely this 
wonderful school in which East and West met, indicating, perhaps, that 
it represents another critical cycle, a node in the great cycle of the 
Theosophical Movement. For the present, so far as its aspect of Orien- 
tal mysticism is concerned, we must content ourselves with a single 
quotation from Avicenna (Ibn Sina, born 980), the Persian philosopher 
to whom Roger Bacon constantly refers : "The full perception of 
Earthly Beauty was the remembrance of that Supreme Beauty in the 
Spiritual world. The body was the veil; but by ecstasy (Hal) the soul 
could behold the Divine Mysteries. As Avicenna, in his poem on the 
soul, has written : 

Lo, it was hurled 

Midst the sign-posts and ruined abodes of this desolate world. 
It weeps, when it thinks of its home and the peace it possessed, 
With tears welling forth from its eyes without pausing or rest, 
And with plaintive mourning it broodeth like one bereft 
O'er such trace of its home as the fourfold winds have left." 

This beautiful passage is taken from The Persian Mystics, in "The 
Wisdom of the East Series" (1913, p. 21). 

This mingling, therefore, of Hellenic science and Oriental mysti- 
cism was brought to Western Europe by the Mahomedan invasion of 
Spain; and, about the year 1150, Archbishop Raymond of Toledo estab- 
lished a school, the purpose of which was the systematic translation of 
the Arabic books containing it into Latin, many of them being turned 
first into Spanish, and thus passing through the hands of two or more 
translators. 

Perhaps the best summary of this movement in a single sentence is 
that of P. Hadelin Hoffmans, writing on Roger Bacon in the Louvain 
Neo-Scholastic Review: "Arabic thought served as the bridge between 
Greek mysticism and the Augustinian intuitionism of the Middle Ages." 

Among others, the three great men already mentioned, Albertus 
Magnus, Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas, taking this blended Hel- 
lenic and Oriental wisdom, worked to bring it into complete harmony 
with Christian teaching, and to use the whole to bring light and right- 
eousness to Christendom and the whole world. 

To Albertus Magnus, we can at present only give a sentence or two. 
Albertus "surpassed all his contemporaries, except perhaps Roger Bacon, 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 



197 



in the knowledge of nature", studying physics, geography, astronomy, 
mineralogy, chemistry, zoology, physiology and even phrenology 
(Catholic Encyclopedia). Albertus himself says: "A man is not per- 
fected in philosophy unless he studies both Aristotle and Plato" (Met. 
lib. I). 

We come thus to Roger Bacon. Born of good family at Ilchester 
in Somersetshire, about 1214, he went early to Oxford, where Robert 
Grossteste, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, was Chancellor and was work- 
ing hard to establish an efficient Greek school, bringing Greek scholars 
from the continent. To his example and precept. Bacon owed much and 
generously expresses his debt. When Bacon was about twenty-five, he 
went to Paris ; the remaining fifty years of his life were spent at the 
two universities, studying, lecturing, writing. 

Endowed with immense spiritual and intellectual vigour, with a mind 
well rounded and balanced, at once intuitional and accurate, Roger 
Bacon set himself to develop a complete system of training and educa- 
tion, the aim of which was to set in order, and to communicate, all 
divine and human wisdom, to be diffused throughout the world by the 
Church, in part working through the Religious Orders. Perhaps through 
the influence of the Franciscan, Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt, Roger 
Bacon had joined the Order founded by Saint Francis of Assisi, who 
died in 1226, when Roger Bacon was a boy of twelve, or, perhaps, a 
year or two older. We have no record of his reasons for becoming a 
Franciscan, but we may surmise that he recognized in Francis of Assisi 
an ardent agent in the work of spiritual illumination to which his own 
life was dedicated. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas were mem- 
bers of the Order of Saint Dominic. Robert Grossteste was a follower 
of Saint Francis. 

By his fiftieth year, Roger Bacon had competely formulated in 
his own mind the system and method for spreading "divine and human 
wisdom" throughout Christendom and the world. He got his opportunity 
through a very remarkable man, Guy le Gros de Foulques, or Fulcodi, a 
Frenchman renowned as a soldier and a lawyer, who had been secretary 
to Saint Louis, and who, after his wife's death, had entered the Church 
and reached the rank of Cardinal. He met Roger Bacon, probably at 
Oxford, and discussed with him current abuses and plans of reform and 
education. In 1265, Cardinal Fulcodi became Pope, as Clement IV. On 
June 22, 1266, Pope Clement IV wrote from Viterbo to Roger Bacon, 
commanding him to send immediately a written account of his ideas, 
notwithstanding the prohibition of superiors or general constitutions; 
but to keep the commission secret. 

To this invitation, which gave him the great opportunity for which 
he had waited and hoped, Roger Bacon replied with enthusiastic humil- 
ity : "The Head of the Church has sought me, the unworthy sole of its 
foot. ... I feel myself elevated above my ordinary strength; I con- 



198 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



ceive a new fervour of spirit. I ought to be more than grateful, since 
your Beatitude has asked me for that which I have most ardently 
desired to communicate, which I have worked at with immense toil, and 
brought into light after manifold expenses." 

Though he had toiled with this aim of ordering all wisdom for 
nearly forty years, Roger Bacon had no written summary of his work 
ready. He, therefore, set to work and, during the next year, wrote such 
a summary, expressly for Clement IV. This is known as the Opus 
Ma jus; it was followed by two additional summaries, the Opus Minus 
and Opus Tertium; and these three the Greater Work, the Lesser Work 
and the Third Work, with some other treatises expanding parts of these, 
form his literary gift to mankind. 

The Opus Majus is divided into seven parts. A brief summary of 
these will give a clear idea of Roger Bacon's principles, ideas, and pur- 
pose. We may lead up to this by giving the much briefer outline in 
the Compendium Studii Philosophiae: 

"In the order of teaching, grammar and logic stand first. Then 
follows mathematics; and physics, according to the suggestion of 
Avicenna, follows mathematics ; and metaphysics follows physics ; for 
the conclusions of the other sciences are the starting point of metaphysics. 
Morals are last in order, for their object is practical and the good of 
man, and therefore they are the proper conclusion of all the rest." With 
this general outline in mind, we may go back to the Opus Majus: 

Part I enumerates "the obstacles to real wisdom." These are (1) 
the example of weak and unreliable authority ; (2) the force of tradition 
and the continuance of accepted opinions; (3) an undue regard to the 
views of the unlearned; and (4) the concealment of one's own ignor- 
ance, while making a show of apparent wisdom. 

Part II deals with the relation between theology and philosophy. 
Roger Bacon holds that all sciences are founded on the sacred sciences. 
He believes in a primeval revelation, and finds records of this revela- 
tion not only in the Bible, but also in the Greek and Oriental philo- 
sophers. In setting forth the relation of all sciences to the divine 
sciences, he writes in a way which is eminently Theosophical : 

"All things should be ascertained through experience. But experi- 
ence is twofold ; one path is through the outer senses ; this is human 
and philosophical experience, so much as a man can attain, according to 
the grace given to him ; but this experience is not enough for a man, 
because it does not give full certainty about corporeal things, and 
attains to nothing at all concerning spiritual things." He then insists 
on the need of purity of heart as a condition of wisdom : "For the 
wicked man is the ignorant man, as Aristotle says in the second book of 
the Ethics. And Algazel says, in his Logic [Al Gazali, translated at 
Toledo], that a soul befouled by sins is like a mirror rusted, in which 
the images of things cannot appear clearly; but the soul adorned with 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 



199 



virtues is like a well polished mirror, in which the forms of things 
are clearly seen. For it is impossible for the soul to rest in the light of 
truth while it is spotted with sins ; but, as a parrot or a magpie, it will 
recite strange words which it learns through long repetition ; and this 
is proven, because the beauty of truth learned in its radiance draws 
men to the love of it, but the proof of love is the showing of works. 
And, therefore, he who works contrary to truth must of necessity be 
ignorant of it, even though he can weave together most ornate words 
and repeat the views of others, as an animal repeats the words of men, 
and as a monkey strives to carry through the works of men, although it 
does not understand their purpose. Therefore holiness renders the mind 
lucid, so that it apprehends more easily not only questions of morals 
but those of science also" (Opus Ma jus, II, p. 170). Later on, he 
adds : "Therefore it is necessary that the intellect should have help 
from elsewhere, and therefore the holy patriarchs and prophets, who 
first gave the sciences to the world, received interior illumination, and 
did not stand on the senses alone" (ibid. p. 192). It will be noted that 
Bacon cites the holy patriarchs and prophets, the Greek and Oriental 
philosophers as equally sources of wisdom, and the vein of irony which 
runs through his work will also be noted. 

Part III of the Opus Majus takes up the question of the written 
records of wisdom, for the most part in tongues other than Latin, and 
therefore needing translation. He lays down the admirable rule that a 
translator must know two things : first, the languages ; then the subject ; 
and he criticises certain translations unsparingly, because those who 
made them lacked one, or the other, or both of these requirements. 
What he says of current versions of the Bible is among the most inter- 
esting and valuable parts of his work. He thoroughly understands and 
lucidly sets forth the principles of sound textual criticism, as applied not 
only to Saint Jerome's Vulgate, but as involving also the Greek Septua- 
gint and the Hebrew originals. Therefore he insists on a thorough 
acquaintance with the oldest manuscripts, and with the original tongues, 
Greek, Hebrew and Chaldaean. He does more, he sets an example, by 
preparing a practical Greek grammar, a part of which has been printed, 
and by doing some work in Hebrew also. Whether he knew Arabic or 
not, cannot be certainly decided. He goes even further than this, out- 
lining the principles of comparative philology. With Greek must be 
studied its various dialects, comparable to the French dialects of Nor- 
mandy, Picardy, and Burgundy, or the four marked dialects of English. 
He perceived the kinship between Hebrew, Chaldaean and Arabic, which 
suggests that he knew at least a little of all three. 

Part IV deals with mathematics and its relation to "the sacred 
sciences". Mathematics, he says "is the gate and key of the natural 
sciences and the alphabet of philosophy. In mathematics alone we have 
a perfect and complete demonstration. While, therefore, mathematics 



200 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



is necessary for all science whatsoever, it is particularly needful and 
useful for natural philosophy." 

Part V deals with optics, which rests immediately on mathematics. 
Here we come to a much controverted question : Did Roger Bacon dis- 
cover the telescope, three and a half centuries before its recognized 
discovery by Galileo in 1609? As bearing on this question, we may 
quote these sentences from his writings : 

"It would be requisite to obtain men who have a good knowledge of 
optics and of optical instruments. For optics is the science of seeing 
truly, and by seeing we know all things. This science certifies mathe- 
matics and all other things, because astronomical instruments work only 
by vision, in accordance with the laws of that science. . . . Optical 
instruments are very difficult to obtain, and more costly than mathe- 
matical instruments" (Opus Tertium). 

"Optical instruments can be so formed that things far off may 
appear close at hand and the converse; so that from an incredible dis- 
tance we may read the smallest letters, and see things that are very 
small, and make the stars appear where we wish" (De Secretis Operibus 
Artis et Naturae). 

Roger Bacon thoroughly understood how a parabolic mirror brings 
rays of light to a true focus; he was also familiar with the properties 
of a convex lens. The two combined make the simplest form of 
astronomical telescope. That he made this combination and used it, has 
not been certainly proved, but what he says of optical instruments used 
in astronomy to make the stars appear where we wish, renders it highly 
probable that he speaks from actual experience. We know that he spent 
large sums on instruments, and he tells us that his friend and teacher, 
Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt, worked for three years at a concave 
mirror. It seems difficult to resist the conclusion that he understands 
the use of the telescope, even suggesting the name of "the optical instru- 
ment which makes things far off appear [tele-scope} close at hand". 
That a man like Roger Bacon, so saturated with the thought of experi- 
ment, so practically interested in instruments, should master the theory 
and not seek to apply it, is hardly credible; that he did so apply it, is 
strongly suggested by his description. 

One of the minor difficulties in the way of understanding the 
thoughts of Roger Bacon, is the fact that many words which he uses 
have since his time changed their meaning. Thus, what he calls "specu- 
lative alchemy," we should call theoretical chemistry; and so in the 
word "astrology", he included the theoretical part of astronomy, while 
he used "astronomy" rather for the applied science, including observa- 
tions used in navigation and geography. But Roger Bacon, like Albertus 
Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, did believe in the influence of the heavenly 
bodies on the earth and on mankind, though he carefully limits this 
influence : 




NOTES AND COMMENTS 



201 



'True mathematicians and astrologers lay down no necessity, no 
infallibility, in their predictions of contingent events. . . . What they do 
is to consider the way in which the body may be affected by celestial 
things, and the way in which the body may act upon the mind in pri- 
vate affairs or public, always without prejudice to the freedom of the 
will. For although the reasonable soul is not coerced to any future 
actions, yet it may be strongly stirred and induced, so as freely to will 
those things towards which celestial force may incline it. ... Far more 
potent than the impressions of earthly things are those of the heavenly 
upon bodily organs, which being strongly moved, men are led on to 
actions of which they had not thought before, yet always with full 
reservation of the freedom of the will" (Opus Majus). 

Roger Bacon has much to say of the application of astronomical 
observations to geography, in the determination of latitudes and longi- 
tudes, and it appears certain that he deduced the spherical form and 
approximate size of the earth. Regarding this point, Bridges says, in 
his Introduction to the Opus Majus: 

"Pierre d'Ailly, in his Imago Mundi, written early in the fifteenth 
century, discussing the relations of the extreme east and west of the 
habitable globe, has a long passage treating of the probable proximity 
of Spain and India. For all that appears in the work, this passage is 
his own. But in fact it is a verbal quotation from the fourth part of 
the Opus Majus (1266). And it has a history worth recording. For it 
is cited in 1498 in a letter from Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, 
as one of the authorities that had put it into his mind to venture on 
his great voyage". Humboldt asserts that the Iniago Mundi (embody- 
ing this passage from Roger Bacon) "exercised a greater influence on 
the discovery of America than did the correspondence with the learned 
Florentine Toscanelli." 

Bridges has also much that is of interest and value to say of the 
relation of Robert Grossteste and Roger Bacon to the reform of the 
Julian calendar, and of Bacon's relation to the work of Copernicus, who 
revived the teaching, anticipated by the Vishnu Pur ana and Pythagoras, 
that the sun, and not the earth, is the centre of the solar system. 

Part VI of the Opus Majus is concerned with experimental science, 
or the experimental method. Considerations of space prevent our giving 
this very valuable and prophetic section of his work the study it deserves. 
We must content ourselves with two illustrations, from his supple- 
mentary writings. In the Opus Tertium, he thus outlines theoretical 
and practical chemistry : 

'There is another science, which treats of the generation of things 
from their elements, and of all inanimate [inorganic] things; as of the 
elements and liquids, simple and compound, common stones, gems and 
marbles, gold and other metals, sulphur, salts, pigments, lapis lazuli, 
red lead and other colours, oils, bitumen, and infinite more, of which 



202 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

we find nothing in the books of Aristotle; nor are the natural philoso- 
phers or any of the Latins acquainted with these things. And, as they 
are ignorant of these things, they can know nothing of that which fol- 
lows in physics ; that is, of the generation of animate things, as vegetables, 
animals and man." 

In the Opus Minus, basing himself on Avicenna, he suggests an 
interesting relation between the elements and the heavenly bodies ; 
between gold and the sun, silver and the moon, copper and Venus, lead 
and -Saturn, tin and Jupiter, iron and Mars. That he had some experi- 
ence in practical chemistry is suggested by the sentence : "There are 
very few who can carry out distillation, or sublimation, or calcination 
properly, or resolve [analyze] , or perform other operations of this kind." 

Of magnetism, he has much to say, speaking of the attraction of 
unlike poles, while like poles repel each other "as the lamb flees the 
wolf". This he probably learned from Petrus Peregrinus, whose valu- 
able work on magnetism is extant, and to whom is ascribed the invention 
of the pivoted compass card. 

Perhaps even more interesting is the forecast of inventions in his 
work, De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae, in 
which, after unveiling the manifold tricks of charlatans and pretenders 
to magical knowledge, in accordance with his principle, "In nullo lae- 
denda est Veritas," "Truth must suffer no detriment", he goes on to 
speak of (1) ships that will move without oars, with a single helmsman; 
(2) cars moving without animals, "with an inconceivable impetus"; (3) 
flying machines, so that a man may sit in the middle of the instrument, 
turning a certain engine (aliquod ingenium) by which wings artfully com- 
posed may beat the air, in the fashion of a flying bird ; (4) a small instru- 
ment which will raise immense weights; by an instrument three fingers 
high and the same breadth, a man can lift himself and his friends; (5) a 
machine by which a man can draw a thousand men to himself against their 
wills : and "endless such things can be made, such as bridges across rivers 
without piers or supports, and machines and engines unheard of". 

He speaks of gunpowder, giving the right constitutents, sulphur, 
nitre, and charcoal, and says that a quantity of gunpowder the size of a 
thumb, when exploded, "makes a horrible sound and shows vehement 
corruscations." 

Roger Bacon is, therefore, a supreme example of the proverb he 
quotes from Aristotle : "All men by nature desire to know" ; but, if we 
would judge him rightly, we should remember his own fine saying : "The 
end of all true philosophy is to arrive at a knowledge of the Creator 
through knowledge of the created world." All that has gone before is 
intended to lead up to that moral philosophy, completely Christian in 
the highest sense, which trains man's spiritual and immortal part. 

Part VII of the Opus Ma jus is concerned with this moral science, 
which is, for him, the seventh principle of wisdom. This, he says, "is 









NOTES AND COMMENTS 



203 



the practicable science in the highest sense, which teaches us the ways 
of good and evil." 

To this theme, he makes the Greeks and Orientals contribute, 
equally with the Hebrews. His method is characteristically Theoso- 
phical. But we can do more than suggest his conclusions by reciting 
the "seven degrees of mystic intuition", as he gives them : 

( 1 ) Illumination purely scientific ; 

(2) Illumination toward righteousness; 

(3) The seven gifts of the Spirit enumerated by Isaiah (ch. xi, 2: 
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and 
understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge 
and of the fear of the Lord) ; 

(4) The Gospel beatitudes ; 

(5) The spiritual senses; 

(6) The fruits of the Holy Spirit; 

(7) Ecstasy, wherein the soul sees and hears things which it is 
not permitted to man to reveal. 

Here, we have an outline of the path of the disciple, and here we 
must end. What, then, was the practical fruit of this great Theoso- 
phist's life-work? Whether the three treatises reached Clement IV, 
whether he read them, we do not certainly know. He died a few months 
later, and his successors were less friendly. It is recorded that Roger 
Bacon was imprisoned by the authorities of the Franciscan Order; but 
that this imprisonment seriously hindered his life work, it is difficult to 
believe, in view of the immense scope of his writings, as we have them. 

We must conclude that neither the death of his friend nor the 
restraint imposed upon him by his Order was the real reason why his 
intense labours bore so little fruit. The practical reason was the failure 
of his immediate disciples, whether through sloth or stupidity. He was 
too great for his age; too great, perhaps, for the succeeding ages also. 
Only now, after seven centuries, is his conception of the unity of all 
wisdom, human and divine, making for spiritual life and immortality, 
fully grasped ; and it is grasped only by students of Theosophy, who are 
ready to say, with him, 'The Way of Salvation is one, though the steps 
be many; Wisdom is the Way of Salvation." 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 
KATHA UPANISHAD 



TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSKRIT WITH AN INTERPRETATION 

IV. 

The knowers of the Eternal, they who know the five sacred fifes, 
they who offer the triple fire of Nachiketas, tell of the two, the shadow 
and the light, entering the hidden place in the upper half of the life- 
cycle, and there drinking spiritual poiver in the world of good works. 

THIS is what students of Theosophy, using a word taken from 
the Buddhism of Tibet, describe as the teaching of Devachan. 
"The shadow and the light" are the principles of Manas and 
Buddhi, the latter the manifestation of Atma; after death, the 
higher triad is withdrawn into "the hidden place", the higher, subjective 
plane, and there draws in spiritual power, energy and refreshment for 
the spiritual nature, in preparation for the following rebirth. 

The symbol of the "five fires" is taken from the five fires in the 
dwelling of the religious householder; but, esoterically, the dwelling is 
man himself ; the fires, really seven in number, are spiritual powers, 
manifestations or reflections of the fire of Buddhi. This is made clear 
in the great dialogue between King Pravahana and Shvetaketu Aruneya, 
the opening sections of which have been translated in an earlier com- 
ment. This dialogue sets forth the fundamental Mystery Teaching 
which contrasts the Path of the Sun, also called the Path of the Gods, 
which is the way of Liberation, with the Path of the Moon and of the 
Fathers, which is the way of Reincarnation through Karma and bondage 
to personality. Of those who follow the latter path, it is said that, at 
death, they go to the "lunar world", and become "the food of the 
gods", the divine element in them gathering and assimilating the harvest 
of the life just ended. Then, after they have dwelt in the lunar world 
so long as the accumulation of their good works lasts, they descend 
again into incarnation through the door of birth, the character and rank 
of that birth being determined by their conduct in the earlier births. 
(Chhandogya Upanishad, 5, 10, 5-8.) 

May we gain power over the sacrificial fire of Nachiketas, which is 
the bridge of those who sacrifice, and which is the imperishable Eternal, 
the Supreme; the bridge of those who seek to pass over to the farther 
shore where no fear is. 

This verse picks up and expands the reference to the sacrificial fire 

204 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 205 

of Nachiketas, spoken of in the preceding verse. That sacrifice is, in 
reality, the way of Initiation, with its threefold sacrifice, transforming 
body, soul and spirit ; this is the bridge which leads to the fearless shore. 
The root of the word to "cross over" is the root of the word Avatar, 
one who, having crossed over, returns again to lead others by the 
same way. 

Know the Higher Self as the lord of the chariot, and the body as 
the chariot; know the soul as the charioteer, and the mind and emotional 
nature as the reins. 

They say that the powers of perception and action are the horses, 
and that objective things are the roadways for these; the Self joined 
with the powers through the mental and emotional nature is called the 
enjoyer of experience by the wise. 

But he who is without understanding, with mind and emotional 
nature ever uncontrolled, of such a one his powers of perception and 
action are not under his command, like the unruly horses of the 
charioteer. 

But he who is possessed of understanding, with mind and emotional 
nature controlled, his powers of perception and action are under his 
command, like the well-ruled horses of the charioteer. 

But he who is not possessed of understanding, with ungoverned mind 
and emotional nature, ever impure, gains not that goal, but follows the 
circling path of death and rebirth. 

But he who possesses understanding, with well governed mind and 
emotional nature, ever pure, he indeed gains that goal, from which he 
returns not to rebirth. 

But the man who, using the wisdom of the charioteer, keeps the 
mind and emotional nature, the reins, well in hand, he gains the consum- 
mation of the way, the supreme goal of the divine Pervading Power. 

This famous simile of the chariot, which is used by Plato also, sug- 
gests the setting of the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna and Arjuna ride 
in the chariot between the assembled armies. But, while Krishna acts as 
Ar juna's charioteer, the simile here is somewhat changed ; the lord of the 
chariot is Atma, the Higher Self ; he acts through Buddhi, the charioteer, 
with Manas, the combined mental and emotional nature, as the reins ; the 
five powers of perception and the five powers of action which act 
through the organs of the body are the horses, and the world of objective 
life is the road. The ideal is, that the intelligence and will of Buddhi, 
which embodies Atma, should rule firmly the mental and emotional 
nature in conformity with Atma, so that the mind thinks spiritual 
thoughts and the heart entertains spiritual desires; these spiritual 
thoughts and purposes being then expressed in outer action in the world. 
Every perception and power must be made obedient to divine wisdom 



206 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

and will, so that Divine Wisdom is made a living power in every part 
of life. 

The last three verses again sum up the Mystery Teaching : He who 
follows Divine Wisdom reaches the goal of the Logos, the divine Per- 
vading Power, called here Vishnu; but he who is under the sway of 
personality falls again into rebirth through the bondage of Karma. 

There is an exact parallel in the Revelation of Saint John: "Him 
that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he 
shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, 
and the name of the City of my God" (3, 12). 

Higher than the powers of perception and action are the impulses; 
and higher than the impulses is the mental and emotional nature; but 
higher than the mental and emotional nature is the soul; and higher than 
the soul is the Self, the Great One. 

Higher than the Great Self is the Supreme Unmanifested; higher 
than the Unmanifested is Spirit. Higher than Spirit is nothing; Spirit 
is the goal, the highest Way. 

This Self, hidden in all beings, shines not forth, but by the keen and 
subtile vision of seers the Self is perceived. 

He who has gained illumination should control speech and mind; he 
should rule them through the Self which is wisdom; the Self which is 
wisdom he should rule through the Self which is mighty; this he should 
rule through the Self which is Peace. 

The phrase "mental and emotional nature" here, as before, is used 
to translate Manas; Buddhi is translated soul; Atma is translated Self. 
It is evident that we have here one aspect of the Principles, taken in 
order from the lowest to the highest, with the universal Principles, the 
Logos, manifested and Unmanifested, and Spirit, or Parabrahm, from 
which the Logos, the Higher Self, the soul and powers of man come 
forth. 

It would seem, as was earlier suggested, that we have here passages 
from a Book of Discipline for Disciples, supplementing the Drama of 
Initiation. The closing verse, bidding the disciple who has gained illu- 
mination to control speech and mind, seems to suggest three consecutive 
steps in spiritual progress; three degrees, let us say, of the Spiritual 
Man. 

Arise ye! Awake ye! Having obtained your boons, thoroughly 
understand them. A razor's edge, sharp, hard to pass over, a path dif- 
ficult to tread is this, as seers declare. 

Without sound, without touch, passing not away, without taste, ever- 
lasting, without odour, beginningless, unending, higher than the Great 
One, set firm, perceiving That, he is set free from the mouth of Death. 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 207 

Having declared this immemorial Teaching of Nachiketas, spoken 
forth by Death, hearing it, the wise man grows great in the world of the 
Eternal. 

Whoever recites this supreme hidden teaching in the assembly of the 
Eternal, or with devotion at the time of the sacrifice for those who have 
gone forth he builds for the everlasting; he builds for the everlasting. 

The words "Arise ye! Awake ye!" indicate, as was earlier sug- 
gested, the ending of the Drama of the Mysteries which the Katha 
Upanishad, like many of the dialogues in the Upanishads, appears to con- 
stitute : a ceremony in which many take part and not simply a drama- 
tized tale of Nachiketas. The benediction at the close resembles the 
blessing which ends the Bhagavad Gita ; may it rest on the present 
translator ! 

The second part of the Upanishad has not even the appearance of 
continuing the drama between Death and Nachiketas, except at its close. 
It would seem to consist of excerpts from a Book of Discipline for Dis- 
ciples; pages chosen for their philosophical depth and religious feeling, 
rather than as embodying the more technical teachings. 

The Self-being pierced the openings of the senses outward; there- 
fore man looks outward, not within, toward the Self. 

A certain wise man, with reverted vision, turned his sight toward 
the Self, seeking immortality. 

The children of men go after outward desires; they go to the wide- 
spread net of Death. Therefore the wise, beholding immortality, seek 
not that which is permanent among impermanent things. 

That, through which he discerns form, taste, odour, sounds, mutual 
contacts, by that, verily, he discerns wisdom; for what else is there left 
here? This, verily, is That. 

That through which he beholds both dreaming and waking, meditat- 
ing on this Great One, the Lord, the Self, the wise man grieves no more. 

He who has come to know this taster of honey as the Self, the Life, 
near at hand, Master of what has been and what shall be, thereafter 
seeks not to hide himself from That. This, verily, is That. 

He who of old was born of fervent brooding, born of old from the 
waters, who, entering into the hidden place, standing there, looked forth 
through beings: This, verily, is That. 

She who comes to birth through the Life, the Mother, clothed with 
divinity, she who, entering into the hidden place, standing there, was 
born through beings: This, verily, is That. 

The Fire-lord hidden in the fire-sticks, like the germ well borne by 
those who bear the germ, day by day to be adored by the sons of men who 
keep vigil offering oblations, the Lord All-knowing: This, verily, is 
That. 



208 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

That, whence rises the sun, and whither he goes to his setting, in 
Him all Bright Poivers are set firm, nor does any transcend Him: This, 
verily, is That. 

From the primordial waters, the hidden deeps of the Unmanifested 
Infinite, through fervent brooding, the Manifested Logos came forth, to 
be born as consciousness in the hearts of all creatures, looking forth 
through the eyes of all beings ; as a twin power, yet subordinate, appeared 
the feminine form of the Logos, the Mother, who is manifested in the 
lives of all beings. 

As the two fire-sticks evolve fire between them, so these two aspects 
of the Logos evolve all life ; life personified as Divine Fire, which, at one 
extreme, is the inspiration of genius and, at the other, is the warmth of 
natural life. This, verily, is That: this manifestation and all manifes- 
tations are the Life and Light of the Logos, the One : "All things were 
made by Him ; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. 
In Him was life ; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth 
in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." A better transla- 
tion is, perhaps, "The darkness overcame it not." 

How is the Logos to be found ? The answer is given in the opening 
sentence: "The Logos pierced the openings outward, therefore man 
looks outward, not within, toward the Self. A certain wise man, with 
reverted vision, turned his sight toward the Self, seeking immortality." 

Lao Tse's teaching is identical : "This is the nature of the Way, the 
Logos : It is without form, It is concealed. Within It are the forms of 
beings. Within It are beings. Within It is the Spiritual Power. 
Within It is the unchanging Witness. It is the door through which all 
beings come forth. How do I know that it is thus with all beings? I 
know it through the Way, the Logos" (Tao -Teh-King, 21). 

That, verily, which is here, that, indeed, is there; that which is 
there, that is also here. From death to death he goes, who beholds dif- 
ference in this. 

By mind and heart, verily, it is to be apprehended that there is in 
this no difference at all. From death to death he passes, who beholds 
difference in this. 

The Spirit, of the measure of a thumb, stands in the midst, in the 
Self ; Master of what has been and what shall be; therefrom he seeks not 
to conceal himself: This, verily, is That. 

The Spirit, of the measure of a thumb, like a flame that is without 
smoke; Master of what has been and what shall be; the same to-day, the 
same to-morrow: This, verily, is That. 

As water, rained on broken ground, flows away among the moun- 
tains, so he who beholds the properties of life scattered abroad, runs 
hither and thither after them. 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 



209 



As pure water, poured into pure water, becomes one with it, thus, 
verily, is the 'Self of the silent sage, who has attained to wisdom, 
Gautama. 

This is the teaching of the Oneness of Divinity, the Unity which 
Lao Tse also reverences. That which is there, in the spiritual world, 
namely, Divine Spirit itself, is here also in this manifested world, for 
this manifested world is Spirit and Spirit only. 

The Spirit of the measure of a thumb is the same divine Life hid 
within us that Christ compared to a grain of mustard seed : smaller than 
small, yet mightier than mighty : "the same yesterday, and to-day, and 
for ever." 

Standing in command of the eleven-doored dwelling of the Unborn, 
of unbending consciousness, he grieves not; and, being set free, he is 
free: This, verily, is That. 

The Swan in the ether, the Power in the interspace, the Priest at the 
altar, the Guest in the dwelling ; dwelling in man, in the gift, in righteous- 
ness, in the clear sky; born in the waters, born in the sacred cow, born in 
righteousness, born in the mountains, is the Righteous, the Great One. 

He leads upward the forward-life; He impels the downward-life. 
All the Powers worship the Dzvarf seated in the midst. 

When this Lord of the body, who dwells within the body, departs, 
set free from the body, what, indeed, remains there? This, verily, is 
That. 

No mortal lives by the forward-life or by the downward-life; but 
the mortal lives through another ', in Whom these two are set firm. 

Behold, This shall I declare to thee, the Eternal, hidden, imme- 
morial; and also how it is with the Self, coming to death, O Gautama: 
To the womb go som<e, for the embodying of the Lord of the body; to 
that which moves not go others; according to their Work, according as 
they have heard. 

The commentary attributed to Shankara Acharya, speaking of the 
eleven-doored dwelling of the Self, the body, enumerates, besides the 
eyes, nostrils, ears and mouth, an added "door in the head/' which would 
seem to be the same as "the opening at the dividing of the hair," a door 
of divine vision and inspiration, spoken of in another Upanishad. 

There follow beautiful symbols of the Self : the divine Swan soar- 
ing in the ether; the Power in the interspace, mediating between heaven 
and earth ; the Priest perpetually offering sacrifice ; the Guest in the dwell- 
ing, through whose presence the body is the temple of God. 

The sacred cow is the symbol at once of the Holy Spirit, which 
gives each day our spiritual nourishment sufficient for the day, and of 
mother Earth, nourisher of all. 



210 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

The Dwarf seated in the midst is once again the Spirit of the 
measure of a thumb, smaller than small, yet mightier than mighty. In 
this divine Life are set firm the forward-life, which goes forth in sight 
through the eyes, in speech through the lips, and the downward-life, 
which builds outer perception and outer nourishment into the body. No 
mortal lives by these ; as it is written : "Man shall not live by bread 
alone." 

As to the fate of those who go forth at death, the deeper meaning 
would seem to be that some enter again into birth, through the bonds of 
Karma, of their works, while others, following the Path of the Gods, 
attain that quiet dwelling from whence they "go no more out." 

c. j. 

(To be continued) 






SAINT CLARE OF ASSISI 1 



WHEN Saint Francis was dying, and felt that the end was 
near, be bade the brothers carry him forth that he might look 
once more upon Assisi. Lifting up his eyes to the ancient 
little city on the hill, with its streets running one above the 
other in terraces up the steep hill-side, and its small stone houses crowded 
together, and to the smiling country stretching away outside its walls 
and gates, he prayed aloud and said : "Blessed be thou of God, Holy 
City, for many souls shall be saved because of thee." St. Francis spoke 
truly, for there, where he himself had been born and had lived and 
laboured for his Lord there, too, Clare was born, and there her child- 
hood 'was spent. 

Clare means brightness, and this name had been given to her when 
she was baptized in the Cathedral of St. Rufino, where St. Francis had 
been baptized twelve years earlier. For shortly before her birth a 
vision had come to her mother, Ortolana, a devout and pious woman, 
full of good works; kneeling in prayer before the Cross she had heard 
a voice which said to her that this child, which was to be born, would 
be a light which would enlighten the whole world. So she was called 
Clare Lady Clare for she belonged to a rich and noble family. But 
although Clare lived in a palace, surrounded by wealth and luxury, her 
heart and her real life were centred in things far removed from the 
life of the world. Many are the stories which are told of her as a child : 
of how she used little stones to count the number of prayers she had 
said, carrying into her games the spirit of devotion with which her child's 
heart was even then full; of her goodness to the poor, and of how she 
would save for them those morsels of food of which she was most 
fond, in order that she might give to Christ, not those things which she 
herself did not want, but those which she wanted the most. Even then 
she, who later on called herself a little plant in Christ's garden, passion- 
ately loved flowers, and spent much time in weaving garlands and 
wreaths with which to adorn the image of the Infant Jesus in the churches. 
So is the picture of those early years that of a child tender-hearted and 
loving, of unusual intelligence and beauty, truly good, joyous, and gay 
and singing as she played among the flowers, herself a fragrant flower, 
those games into which the thought of the Divine Child was ever woven, 
through which there must have flashed sometimes, as she grew older, a 
glimpse of the beatific vision. 

As a child, Clare must often have seen St. Francis, often have heard 
the tales that were told about him : first of his early youth and of his 
wild pranks and extravagances ; of his going to the wars ; then of the 



1 An address delivered to a Church congregation. 



211 



212 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

profound change that came over him. of his goodness to the poor and 
his alms-giving, of his nursing the lepers; later of his rebuilding the 
ruined church of St. Damian, begging the stones and carrying them one 
by one on his shoulders and placing them in order with the help of 
the poor priest; finally of his choice of the royal road of poverty, of 
his forsaking all for love of Christ. She heard these stories on every 
side. Men that her family knew, men of her own family, joined him. 
She was fired, stirred. Her whole heart and mind became filled with 
the desire to follow along that same road. For more and more, as 
she had grown older, had she come to love quiet and contemplation; 
more and more had she turned away from the things of the world to 
that real life which she found within. It became increasingly clear to 
her, too, that soon she must choose where her duty lay, which path 
she would tread, for her family and her relatives were even then per- 
sistently urging upon her a most brilliant marriage. 

She was sixteen years of age when St. Francis first preached in the 
Cathedral. His words were a revelation to her, her most secret in- 
quiries seemed to be answered, her problems and her perplexities were 
seen in a clear and radiant light, her heart was filled with a new peace 
and joy and fervour and a new determination. She must hear more. 
So she went to the Saint with her aunt, who sympathized with her, as 
companion, and talked with him, opening her heart to him and telling 
him of her desire to serve, and to leave the world and live in holy 
poverty. Again and again, at intervals, she talked with him. Moved 
as he must have been, St. Francis may have wished to try her, he may 
have delayed with design in order that she might be sure. It is said 
that he commanded her, as a proof of her devotion and of the reality 
of her desire, to beg her bread from door to door in Assisi. But full of 
courage, knowing that the Kingdom of Heaven may only be taken by 
violence, Clare, dressed as a beggar, obeyed. 

Finally, on Palm Sunday in the year 1212, when Clare was eighteen 
years of age, the sign for which she had been waiting came, and she 
could no longer doubt or delay. St. Francis preached that day, and as 
she listened, Clare was overwhelmed with a torrent of feeling. Never 
before had the things of the world seemed of such little worth; never 
before had she so longed with her whole heart and soul to renounce all, 
to give herself to her Lord. When the sermon was ended, the people all 
pressed forward to receive the palms from the hands of the priest. 
Clare, in humility, silently held back, still under the spell of St. Francis's 
words, waiting for she knew not what. The Bishop saw her in the 
shadows, and, coming down, went to her, and gave her the branches of 
palm with his own hands. At last she was sure. She knew that she 
must wait no longer. She had been called. 

At midnight of that same Palm Sunday, when all the household were 
asleep, Clare, with her aunt as companion, stole quietly down a back 



SAINT CLARE OF ASSISI 



213 



staircase and out through a closed-up door of her father's house. It was 
the Door of the Dead, and was only used for funerals, in accordance 
with the Italian custom. Only those went out that way who were never 
to come back, and Clare had made her choice. Through the sleeping 
town she went, and out across the fields and through the olive groves to 
the little church of Portiuncula, which has been called the cradle of 
the Franciscan Orders, There St. Francis and the Friars were waiting 
for her with flickering torches, after having said the midnight Office. 
There Clare put off her rich robes, her jewels and her silks; she clothed 
herself with sackcloth, with a rope as a girdle, and put her bare feet in 
wooden sandals. Her beautiful hair was cut off, and her head was 
covered with a black veil, and kneeling there at the same altar where St. 
Francis, only a few years before, had finally and decisively heard the 
clear call of Jesus and had known at last what it was that he must do, 
Clare gave herself to her Lord. "St. Francis read to her the words of 
Jesus to his disciples, and she vowed to conform her life to them'*, 
while her aunt and the brothers knelt around her in prayer. 

Early the next morning St. Francis sent her, for greater security, 
to the Benedictine convent at Bostia. Even there she was not safe. The 
step which Clare had taken was heroic; none knew better than she the 
persecutions to which she would be subjected by her family, the efforts 
which they would make to force her to come back. She had not long to 
wait. On Holy Monday her father appeared, and made every effort by 
arguments and expostulations and threats to induce her to return, but 
in vain. Clare remained firm. She knew, too, in her heart, however 
much her father might storm, that the women of her family her 
mother, her sisters and her aunt were in deepest sympathy with the 
step which she had taken. Finally her father, in anger, laid violent 
hands upon her and tried to drag her away by force. Clare clung to 
the altar with one hand, while with the other she threw back her black 
veil and showed her head shorn of its beautiful tresses, and only then 
did her father realize that both this step and her determination were 
irrevocable. 

Two weeks after Clare had left her father's house, her younger 
sister Agnes announced to her parents that she was about to join Clare, 
and that she, too, wished to forsake the world for the cloister. Her 
father was furious, and a family council was called to consider what 
should be done. What was to be the end of all this, to what extremes 
of conduct would this wild movement lead which the son of Bernadone, 
the merchant, had set on foot! While her relatives deliberated, Agnes 
made her escape, and Clare received her, and leading her to the altar 
offered her to the Lord. Close behind Agnes came her uncle, a fierce 
man, with an escort of twelve men-at-arms, who had been sent by the 
family to force her to return. Agnes refused to listen either to threats 
or entreaties, and, seeing her thus obdurate, her uncle, in a towering 



214 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



passion, ordered his soldiers to take her away by force. It is said that 
they dragged and pushed her, resisting at every step, down a steep moun- 
tain path, so that the rocks and stones were covered with her blood. In 
her extremity Agnes cried aloud "Clare, help me ! Help me, my sister, 
that I be not taken away from Jesus !" In an agony Clare prayed, and 
again help came, a sign. The slight body of Agnes became suddenly as 
heavy as lead, so that the soldiers were in no wise able to move it. They 
called to some peasants who were working in a field near by to come 
and help them, but even with their united efforts it was impossible to 
lift her from the ground. Finally, in an extreme of anger, the uncle 
drew his sword. As he raised it in the air to strike her, a sudden and 
sharp pain shot through his extended arm, and it became powerless, and 
the sword dropped to the ground. Terrified at this sight, and by the 
miracle, the soldiers fled, and Clare, raising Agnes, led her back to the 
convent, and thereafter they were not disturbed. A few days later, 
Agnes made her vows to St. Francis, and he, realizing that they must 
have a refuge where they might receive those other women whom he 
knew were to join them, gave to them the little grey Chapel of St. Da- 
mian, set among the wild olive trees and half covered with flowering 
plants and vines, where he himself had made his great beginning. No 
doubt he recalled that when he was rebuilding St. Damian's, moved by a 
power he did not then understand, he called to some peasants who were 
passing by, and said, "Come, help me, in the work of this monastery, 
for here shall devout women one day dwell, and by them shall our heav- 
enly Father be glorified throughout the length and breadth of his 
church." There, at St. Damian's, the Order of the Poor Clares came 
into being, and there, later on, Clare and Agnes were joined by their 
mother Ortolana, by their sister Beatrice, and by several of their nieces, 
the daughters of their oldest sister, as well as by many other women of 
the families of Assisi and of the neighbouring towns and cities. 

Then their Rule was given to them by St. Francis, and this Rule 
probably differed very little from that of the Friars Minor except in so 
far as it provided that they should live enclosed. There Clare remained 
to the day of her death, forty-two years later. In the earlier days of the 
Order it is probable that the rule of absolute enclosure was not strictly 
enforced, for it is clear that at first the sisters greatly helped the Friars 
Minor in visiting and caring for the sick, and in nursing the lepers who 
came to live in huts near St. Damian's. Certain it is that at first St. 
Francis and St. Clare laboured together outwardly in such works of 
mercy, and there is a legend which is still told in Assisi of one winter's 
day when they were both visiting a convent at Spello, a little town seven or 
eight miles from Assisi, and started the homeward journey, together on 
foot. The Master walked with them, as always, but St. Francis was dis- 
turbed in his heart with the fear of gossiping tongues, and bade Clare take 
the upper path along the hill-side, while he himself took the road through 



SAINT CLARE OF ASSIST 



215 



the valley. Clare obediently set out, although not understanding the 
reason for this parting of the ways, and after a little, when the paths 
converged, she leaned over and called gently down to St. Francis to 
inquire when she should again join him. St. Francis replied, "When 
the roses bloom on Mount Subasio", which indeed seemed very remote 
on that bleak winter's day. Clare walked on, wondering, and as she 
walked, the snow began to melt along her path, and lo! she came upon 
a rose bush in full bloom. With joy in her heart she picked the flowers, 
and holding them in her arms, she ran lightly down the hill-side to show 
them to St. Francis, and together they finished the journey to Assisi. 
Legend or no, what better proof than this that in those early days Clare 
worked with St. Francis? May we not believe, also, that this work 
together was ordained and ordered by him who was their Lord and 
Master ? 

But as the Order of the Poor Clares grew in numbers, the rule of 
enclosure was strictly kept, and the sisters never went outside their 
convent and their garden. This garden was large, covering several acres, 
and was surrounded by high walls, which enclosed as well a patch of 
woodland. They followed the rule of absolute poverty which St. Francis 
had given them, rinding in their freedom from worldly possessions the 
freedom, too, to turn within and to find there more fully, more com- 
pletely, the Master whom they followed. They had no money in those 
early days, and the dowries which certain of the sisters brought with 
them were given at once to the poor ; they would not accept property as 
possessions, in spite of the utmost pressure from Rome to induce them 
to do so. They lived in rough cells; they were constantly in prayer; 
they occupied themselves with spinning thread, with embroidery and 
fine sewing, and they made altar linen and many beautiful vestments. 
Certain of the brothers were delegated by St. Francis to provide them 
with food and the necessities of life, and these they obtained for them 
by begging from house to house. There is a story that one day, when 
the sisters were in need of oil, they set a large empty jar outside the 
convent wall, and sent a messenger to St. Francis to ask that the oil 
might be supplied them. Now it so happened that the Friar, whose duty 
it was that day to provide for the sisters, delayed for a long time, for 
some reason or other, in going to fetch the jar. Finally he arrived at 
the door of the convent, and looking into the jar, was amazed to find 
it full of oil. Indignant at what he regarded as a waste of his time, 
which he thought might have been better employed in other duties, he 
went back and told all to St. Francis, and only then did he understand 
that the jar had been filled by other than human hands, and that in this 
miracle he must see, as well, a rebuke for his own tardiness. 

Many are the stories of St. Clare herself, of her life and of her 
miracles. We hear of a miraculous cure wrought by her in the case of 
a man who was possessed by a devil. Clare, after praying and making 



216 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

the sign of the cross over him, bade him sleep for a little while on the 
spot where she usually prayed; he did so, and awoke cured. We read 
of how she repulsed the Saracens, when they had not only captured 
Assisi itself, but had even swarmed within the confines of St. Damian's 
and had invaded the cloister. The sisters, terror-stricken, rushed in tears 
to their Mother. Clare, although she was ill at the time, caused herself 
to be assisted to an open window overlooking the garden, and, standing 
there in full view, prayed for help, and again her prayer was answered, 
for she heard a voice say to her, "I will always defend thee." On 
the instant, fear spread through the ranks of the invaders, and imme- 
diately they fled from out the cloister and the garden, and never ceased 
in their flight until they had left the city of Assisi far behind them. Of 
these miracles, there is no end. They are charmingly told by Brother 
Thomas of Celano of the Order of Friars Minor. Among them he 
includes a miracle of the multiplication of bread. He says, "There was 
once only a single loaf of bread in the monastery, and the time of hunger 
and the hour for eating had come. Having called the refectorian, the 
Saint bade her divide the loaf and send half of it to the Friars and keep 
the rest for the sisters. Of this remaining half she ordered fifty pieces 
to be made, according to the number of the Ladies, and placed before 
them at the table of Poverty. When the devout daughter made answer 
that in this case the ancient miracles of Christ would be necessary in 
order that such a small piece of bread might be divided into fifty parts, 
the mother replied, 'Do what I tell thee, daughter, and trust what I say/ 
When the daughter hastened to fulfil the mother's commands, the 
mother hastened to direct her pious sighs to her Christ for her daughters. 
By the Divine favour the little piece of bread increased in the hands of 
her who broke it and an abundant portion was provided for each one 
of the Community." 

So we must picture St. Clare, beautiful and gracious, living among 
her ladies in gentleness and humility, able through her great love and 
nearness to the unseen world of the real, and through her life of prayer, 
to bring to pass these things, and many others like them, which the world 
calls miracles. We must picture her caring for her flowers she called 
herself "the little plant of the most blessed Father Francis" in her own 
tiny garden on the terrace, and singing as she worked, for like Francis 
she was gay and joyous, while around her bloomed lilies, symbols of 
purity; violets, of humility; and roses, of love for God and man. We 
must picture her going quietly through the convent in the early morning 
hours, "lighting the lamps and ringing the bells for prayers before her 
Community arose." We see her caring for some sick sister, washing the 
feet of the serving women, attending to the needs of her ladies in the 
refectory and refusing to partake herself until they had all eaten. 
Truly, Abbess as she was, she lived among them as one that serveth ! 
And we must picture her again late at night, after all were asleep, steal- 



SAINT CLARE OF ASSISI 217 

ing softly through the corridors and the cells to see that all was well, 
perhaps covering some sleeper who was cold. 

But we must see her, too, in still another light, in her quiet and 
seclusion on the hill-side amidst the olive trees. The sterner, heroic 
qualities of the girl had grown and developed. St. Francis's disciple 
had become a woman exceedingly brilliant, highly intellectual, forceful 
and full of power. We must picture her as well in the daily instruction 
of the sisters ; busy with new foundations of the Order all the world 
over; in correspondence with Pope and Cardinals in regard to these 
foundations and her Rule; receiving frequently messengers and emis- 
saries from Rome, sometimes even the Pope himself. Receiving, too, 
almost daily, those who came to see her from all over Italy, for the 
fame of the holiness and the goodness of the Poor Clares had spread 
abroad throughout the whole land, and the influence of their prayers 
and the power working through them from this communion reached out 
and drew to them from far and near all those who needed counsel and 
help and inspiration. For there had been a profound revolution in the 
lives of all classes of people ; hundreds had been filled with the desire to 
emulate Clare and her ladies. The rich and noble gave away their 
possessions to the poor and built chapels and retreats for themselves. 
Many who were unable to join Clare became members of the Third Order 
of St. Francis, while others tried to live under a rule in their own homes. 
Truly did Clare, enclosed as she was, begin to enlighten the whole 
world ! 

Such was her life throughout the forty-two years at St. Damian's, 
and her strength and her power and her loveliness continually increased : 
a life of continual communion. At night, "Clare remained watchful and 
unwearied in prayer, so that while sleep lay hold of the others she might 
by stealth, as it were, receive the visits of the Divine whisper." By day 
her communion with her Lord was unbroken ; each act was done for him, 
each thought offered for him. The years brought illness and infirmities 
of the body, so that the strength given her was indeed made increasingly 
perfect through weakness, until finally the end came. As she lay, sur- 
rounded by her weeping ladies, she was heard speaking softly to her own 
soul. " 'Go forth', she said, 'without fear. For thou hast a good guide 
for thy journey. Go forth', she said, 'for He who created thee hath 
sanctified thee and, protecting thee always, loveth thee with a love as 
tender as that of a mother for her son. Blessed be Thou, Lord,' she 
said, 'who hast created me.' When one of the Sisters asked her to whom 
she was speaking, Clare replied, 'I am speaking to my blessed soul/ Nor 
was that glorious guide far distant. For, turning to a certain daughter, 
she asked, 'O daughter, dost thou see the King of Glory whom I 
behold?'" 

Six hundred years later, when her tomb was opened, they found 
her, scarcely changed, in the coarse brown habit of the Order, with the 



218 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Book of the Rule in her hand, and it is said that the flowers which lay 
about her still preserved their fragrance. 

A story of humility and of poverty, of a great love and a great 
influence. For Clare, humility found its most complete expression in 
poverty; freedom from possessions brought inner freedom; having noth- 
ing, she possessed all things. She gave herself, and was free to give in 
return; few women have so influenced the life of their time. Surely 
some measure of such influence must be possible for each one of us, in 
these later days, if we truly desire it : possible for all those who are 
enclosed, as Clare was, hemmed in with all kinds of household duties 
and cares, with family ties. It must be a question of living the life, 
of doing each little duty of every day as perfectly as we can, as an 
offering to the Master, as the immediate thing which he is asking at 
that particular moment of time to have done for him. It must be a 
question of holding in detachment those possessions which we may have ; 
of looking upon wealth as being in trust for others; of freedom from 
things that we may be free to find, as did Francis and Clare, the inner 
realities and the real values. When we have laid hold on these, we can 
give, and others who need what we have to offer will come to us, as 
they came from afar to Clare, drawn by a spirit of true devotion and 
of sacrifice that transcends in its gifts and in its rewards all that we 
can ask or think. 

We, too each one of us can walk along life's way with some- 
thing at least of that same humility of spirit, that fire of love, that 
gaiety of heart that comes from true self-surrender. Perhaps we may 
become conscious, too, that One is walking with us by the way, if only 
our eyes will cease te be holden, trying to speak with us, as he did with 
Francis and with Clare, when we talk together and are sad. But we 
shall not know it save through that same spirit of prayer, carried into 
all daily life and all living. Vision and strength can only be possible 
through that same close communion with him, through the lifting up of 
our hearts to him, through the receiving of him into the quiet of our 
hearts. He called it that good part which shall not be taken away, this 
way of contemplation and of prayer. It is the same to-day, in all the 
rush and turmoil of modern life, as it has been throughout the centuries 
since he first said this. 

"For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound with gold chains about the feet of God." 

We, too, by our prayer, by our communion with the Master, are 
bound by living chains to the feet of him who died that we might have 
life, and that we might have it more abundantly. 

C. R. A. 




LODGE DIALOGUES 



IV 

NIGHT had come night with a million stars. It is the hour of 
faith, of the hidden life, when the secrets of the heart are 
revealed. The body lies asleep. On the other side of sleep the 
soul wakes, threading its way through the mazes of the mind 
temporary freedom and calm, readjusting itself to realities. 

At these heights the stars are close; one could almost touch them 
with the fingers of an outstretched hand it seems ; and they are friendly, 
too, in their nearness, not austere and distant in their purity and obe- 
dience as so often they appear from below. Here they shine from the 
depth of blue which throbs in unison with the great Heart behind. One 
can feel that Heart. 

We had come a long, long way, and the Littlest One and I lay and 
gazed at them. Not far off the Finger Peak pointed upward, piercing 
the blue. 

"Big Brother says they are the candles of the angels" ; the sweet, 
childish treble was hushed in tone, "but how slowly the angels walk 
then! I suppose not to joggle", he said. 

"They move in Eternity", I answered, "where they live, and with 
God's patience which they serve, mercifully for us, since we who live 
in time, can sustain the hope of not being left behind." 

"If the world is round", he continued, "might it not be quicker to 
walk about the other way and meet them?" 

"Some people have tried that, but in the dark they lost their way 
and fell into the abyss. It is a dangerous chance. Not one in a thou- 
sand succeeds. It is best to come here to gaze at them, and then to walk 
in their light. We never can lose them then." 

After a pause he asked, "When you go back, how do the stars look 
from there?" 

"Like courage and fortitude, dear child, like endurance and patience 
and strength; like belief in the Father's love, and trust in his wisdom, 
and obedience to his will. They are the lights of faith." 

"Where did the light come from to make them? I know", he added 
quickly, "from the eyes of the Devas, who made them a present to God." 

M. 



219 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 
PHARAOH OF EGYPT 



II 
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM (continued) 

ANOTHER example of the painful re-awakening of the men of the 
Middle Kingdom, immediately following the dark period, is a 
remarkable papyrus which describes a colloquy, one might call 
it a dispute, between a man and his own soul, a man who feels 
that he has a just grievance against society, which in consequence he 
despises. It is an early protest of the individual against what he con- 
siders unjust social conditions, the sort of thing we should never have 
found in the Old Kingdom. But it takes us much farther than did the 
Harper, because it maintains that, while we may know little in detail of 
what happens to us after death, this is no reason for unbridled indul- 
gence now. We can only give extracts, for the dialogue is long and 
much of it very obscure. The early part is given over to an enumeration 
of the miseries caused by the evils of the day, by false friends and by 
cruel enemies. But for all that, healing is not to be found in intemper- 
ance and self-indulgence, as the Harper would have us think. Death is far 
preferable to a life of debauchery, and should, indeed, be looked on as a 
happy release. 

Death is before me today 

(Like) the recovery of a sick man, 

Like going forth into a garden after sickness. 

Death is before me today 

Like the odor of myrrh, 

Like sitting under the sail on a windy day. 

Death is before me today 

Like the odor of lotus flowers, 

Like sitting on the shore of drunkenness. 

Death is before me today 

Like the course of the freshet, 

Like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house. 

Death is before me today 

Like the clearing of the sky, 

Like a man (fowling therein toward) that which he knew not. 

220 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 221 

Death is before me today 

As a man longs to see his house 

When he has spent years in captivity. 4 



It does not occur to this mournful individual to fall to with a will 
and help to better social conditions, that was to come later; the world 
had not yet waked up to the possibility of doing this. This man only 
longs for liberation from his miseries, sighing to himself : 

He who is yonder 
Shall stand in the celestial barque, 

Causing that the choicest of the offerings there be given 
to the temples. 

He who is yonder 

Shall be a wise man who has not been repelled, 

Praying to Ra when he speaks. 5 

While the Harper saw emancipation only in living for the moment, 
this despairing man sees it in seeking "those who are beyond" the dead. 
He is fortunately typical only of a short period of the thinking world of 
that day, but that he could exist at all is significant. 

Side by side with him we find the less egotistical reflections of a 
priest of Heliopolis, who bewails social conditions as intensely as does 
the Misanthrope, but not on his own account ; his concern is for society 
itself, which is its own worst enemy : "Righteousness is cast out, iniquity 
is in the midst of the council-hall. The plans of the gods are violated, 
their dispositions are disregarded. The land is in distress, mourning is in 
every place, towns and districts are in lamentation. All men alike are 
under wrongs ; as for respect, an end is made of it." 6 But he is no more 
successful in finding a solution than were the other two. 

Even the King does not escape the general despondency. Amenem- 
hat I, the great founder of the Xllth Dynasty, solemnly admonishes his 
son and successor, Senusert I, exhorting him to put his faith in no man. 
Late in life the attempted assassination of the King by his most trusted 
subjects, had so shaken his confidence in human nature, and had left so 
deep and terrible a scar on his soul, that his short utterance is full of 
bitterness. In a few dramatic lines, he has left us a vivid picture of that 
dark midnight scene in the palace, when the conspiracy, kept secret till 
that moment, bursts in all its fury on the old and unsuspecting King. 

It was after the evening meal, and night was come. I took for 
myself an hour of ease. I lay down upon my bed, for I was weary. 
My heart began to wander. I slept. And lo! weapons were bran- 
dished, and there was conference concerning me. I acted as the 
serpent of the desert. [He remained quiet but watchful.] 

I awoke to fight ; I was alone. I found one struck down, it was 



Breasted's translation. 

Ibid. 

Ibid. 



222 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

the captain of the guard. Had I received quickly the arms from 
his hand, I had driven back the dastards by smiting around. But 
he was not a brave man on that night, nor could I fight alone ; an 
occasion of prowess cometh not to one surprised. Thus was I. 7 

He then sternly counsels his son, with evident, perhaps pardonable,, 
disillusionment : 

Hearken to that which I say to thee, 

That thou mayest be King of the earth, 

That thou mayest be ruler of the lands, 

That thou mayest increase good. 

Harden thyself against all subordinates. 

The people give heed to him who terrorizes them. 

Approach them not alone, 

Fill not thy heart with a brother, 

Know not a friend, 

Nor make for thyself intimates, 

Wherein there is no end. 

When thou sleepest, guard for thyself thine own heart ; 

For a man has no people 

In the day of evil. 

I gave to the beggar, I nourished the orphan; 

I admitted the insignificant as well as him who was of 

great account. 

But he who ate my food made insurrection ; 
He to whom I gave my hand aroused fear therein. 8 

It would be an unpardonable injustice to the men of the Middle 
Kingdom, however, to imagine that the profound and negative dejection 
so pronounced in the Song of the Harper and in the lamentations of the 
Misanthrope and of the Heliopolitan priest, and even in Amenemhat I, 
was in any sense universal or of long duration. Egypt had suffered much 
during the dark period after the downfall of the Old Kingdom, and, 
as we have already pointed out, most of the despondent writing of the 
new era was in the early days before the complete restoration of order, 
and while men's hearts were still sore. They had lost the power which 
was the heritage of the men of the Old Kingdom, of making the particular 
subservient to the collective, of merging diversity into unity. An undue 
emphasis was put on their individual selves, dulling their spiritual per- 
ception. Their minds could no longer, as in the Old Kingdom, turn rap- 
turously outwards, losing themselves in the glories of the visible universe, 
seeing, with the eyes of the soul, that universe as but the reflection of 
the hidden and still more glorious kingdom beyond, where the spirit 
dwells eternal, seeing, also, man in his true relation to it. Instead of 
this, their bewildered minds turned inwards upon themselves, making 
their individual selves the measure of truth. And yet, with it all, there 
was a blind, a piteous reaching out and upwards towards better things, 
a struggling against the dark forces, which saves- this period from being 



7 Gunn's translation. 
Breastcd's translation. 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 



223 



completely decadent. We have but to sympathise with the yearning in all 
their references to their illustrious ancestors, "the gods who were afore- 
time", "the glorious departed", to appreciate their sad comparisons be- 
tween the evils of the present and the dignity of the past, and to know 
that they were grievously dissatisfied with themselves. It had long before 
been said by one of the Wise Men of the Old Kingdom : "That which 
destroyeth a vision is the veil over it." The men of the early part of the 
Middle Kingdom allowed their vision to be dulled by the thick veil of 
personality which shut them in and all but smothered them. 

Presently, however, we come upon a sharp counter-current, an en- 
tirely new spirit, a spirit of a strong and healthy recognition of the 
immutable, the eternal values of life. What if the resting places of the 
dead, so carefully planned, so strongly built, have been desecrated ! What 
matters it if nothing mortal remains sacred in a fleeting world? Char- 
acter, at least, can and should be made permanent, and it is character, in 
the end, which will bring about the regeneration of society, and triumph 
over death. This, of course, as we have seen, was also the point of view 
of the men of the Old Kingdom, only they, being less labyrinthine in their 
methods of approach, reached this solution with fewer difficulties. 

A striking example can be found in the scathing arraignment of 
society by Ipuwer, to us an obscure personage, but evidently a sage of 
high repute in his day. His grief is intense that the glory of the old 
world has departed; he censures himself severely for not having sooner 
made an effort to stem the tide : "Would that I had uttered my voice at 
that time, that it might save me from the suffering wherein I am. Woe 
is me for the misery of this time." But with consuming energy he ex- 
horts men to renewed effort to purify their lives, and to "destroy the 
enemies of the August Residence" (of the Pharaoh), assuring them that 
with this renewed effort will come again among them the Perfect Ruler. 
"It is said he is the Shepherd of all men. There is no evil in his heart. 
When his herds are few, he passeth the day to gather them together, their 
hearts being fevered." It would seem that Ipuwer is calling up before 
the eyes of men the forgotten image of Ra, the Ideal King, the first Divine 
Ruler of Egypt, and as Breasted, whose translation is given, points out, 
one compares it instinctively with the later Hebraic predictions of the 
coming of the Messiah. 

One characteristic form of literature of this period, and of which 
there is not a little, is that in which we find laid down very definite rules 
for good conduct, wholesome and sane living, moderation, the practice 
of cheerfulness, and, above all, moral earnestness, in fact the sort of 
sound advice which a father would give a son, knowing that it would 
help to build up, for the younger generation, a healthy and happy state. 
It is in the "Wisdom of Ptahhotep" that we find perhaps the best known 
example of this. These "Instructions" are found many times repeated 
in Xllth. Dynasty papyri, for they were held in such high esteem that 
they were apparently widely circulated, and were taught in the schools 



224 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



and given as writing exercises. Part of them were said to have come 
down from the Old Kingdom, being the "Sayings" of a Wise Man of 
ihe Vth. Dynasty. The "Instructions" are purely ethical in character, 
having little if any religious flavour, but they are full of a bed-rock 
common-sense and a ripe knowledge of the pitfalls to which poor human 
nature is exposed, all of which inspires deep respect. In them there 
is also a kindly tolerance, a sort of whimsicality, and flashes of quiet 
humour which are altogether human and delightful. 

If thou findest an arguer talking, thy fellow (equal), one 
that is within thy reach, keep not silence when he saith aught that 
is evil; so shalt thou be wiser than he. 

If thou find an arguer talking, a poor man, that is to say not 
thine equal, be not scornful toward him because he is lowly. Let 
him alone; then shall he confound himself. Question him not to 
please thine heart, neither pour out thy wrath upon him that is 
before thee; it is shameful to confuse a mean mind. If thou be 
about to do that which is in thine heart, overcome it as a thing 
rejected of princes. 

Cause not fear among men, . . . live in the house of 
kindliness. 

If thou be among the guests of a man that is greater than 
thou, accept that which he giveth thee, putting it to thy lips. If 
thou look at him that is before thee, thine host, pierce him not 
with many glances. It is abhorred of the soul to stare at him. 

If thou be lowly, serve a wise man, that all thy actions may 
be good before the God. If thou hast known a man of none 
account that hath been advanced in rank, be not haughty toward 
him on account of that which thou knowest concerning him; but 
honour him that hath been advanced, according to that which he 
hath become. 

If thou be among people, make for thyself love, the beginning 
and end of the heart. 

If thou be a leader, be gracious when thou harkenest unto 
the speech of a suppliant. Let him not hesitate to deliver himself 
of that which he hath thought to tell thee; but be desirous of 
removing his injury. Let him speak freely, that the thing for 
which he hath come to thee may be done, ... a well taught 
heart hearkeneth readily. 

If thou desire that thine actions may be good, save thyself 
from all malice, and beware of the quality of covetousness, which 
is a grievous inner malady. Let it not chance that thou fall there- 
into. It setteth at variance fathers-in-law and the kinsmen of the 
daughter-in-law ; it sundereth the wife and the husband. 

Repeat not extravagant speech, neither listen thereto; for it is 
the utterance of a body heated by wrath. When such speech is 
repeated to thee, hearken not thereto, look to the ground. Speak 
not regarding it, that he that is before thee may know wisdom. 

If thou be powerful, make thyself to be honoured for knowl- 
edge and gentleness. Speak with authority, that is, not as if fol- 
lowing injunctions, for he that is humble, when highly placed, 
falleth into errors. Exalt not thine heart that it be not brought 
low. Be not silent, but beware of interruption and of answering 
words with heat. Put it far from thee; control thyself. The 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 



225 



wrathful heart speaketh fiery words ; it darteth out at the man of 
peace that approacheth, stopping his path. 

Set out after a violent quariel; be at peace with him that is 
hostile unto thee, his opponent. It is such souls that make love 
to grow. 

If thou be great, after being of none' account, and hast gotten 
riches after squalor, being foremost in these in the city, and hast 
knowledge concerning useful matters, so that promotion has come 
to thee; then swathe not thine heart in thine head, for thou art 
become the steward of the endowments of God. Thou art not 
the last; another shall be thine equal, and to him shall come the 
like fortune and station. 

If thou wouldest seek out the nature of a friend, ask it not 
of any companion of his ; but pass a time with him alone, that thou 
injure not his affairs. Debate with him after a season; test his 
heart in an occasion of speech. When he hath told thee his past 
life, he hath made an opportunity that thou mayest either be 
ashamed for him or be familiar with him. Be not reserved with 
him when he openeth speech, neither answer him after a scornful 
manner. Withdraw not thyself from him, neither interrupt him 
whose matter is not yet ended, whom it is possible to benefit. 

Be thy heart overflowing but refrain thy speech. 

Be not covetous toward thy neighbours ; for with a gentle man 
praise availeth more than might. 

Let thy face be bright what time thou livest. 9 

We have quoted Ptahhotep at some length because of his great 
importance in Xllth. Dynasty literature. In the "Installation of the 
Vizier", we find the same insistence on honesty and fair play, only, as 
is natural in this case, it emphasizes more the official obligations, than 
the duties of the private citizen. 

Forget not to judge justice. It is an abomination of the God 
to show partiality. This is the teaching, therefore do thou accord- 
ingly. Look upon him who is known to thee, like him who is 
unknown to thee; and him who is near the King like him who is 
far from his house. 

Be not wroth against a man wrongfully; but be thou wroth 
at that at which one should be wroth. 

Behold, it becomes the arrogant (literally the "violent hearted"), 
that the King should love the timid more than the arrogant. 

Behold, men expect the doing of justice in the procedure of 
the Vizier. Behold, that is its (justice's) customary law since 
the God. 10 

We must not fail to note the reiteration that justice has been the 
law in Egypt since the time when Ra ruled on earth, and that the people, 
therefore, look for justice at the hands of the King's highest and most 
trusted servant, the Vizier. 

And when at last we turn to the mortuary texts of the Middle 
Kingdom, if we have any remaining doubts of the high ideals of this 

Gunn's translation. 
19 Breasted's translation. 



226 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



age, they are quickly dispelled. We read with profound admiration 
the list of virtues which the dead must present to their judges before 
they can be said to have earned an immortal life. Honesty, truthfulness, 
uprightness, purity in speech and act, the sanctity of the family ties, 
strict filling of all social obligations. In referring to the moral code 
of the Egyptians of this time, Chabas says : "None of the Christian 
virtues is forgotten in it ; piety, charity, self-command in word and action, 
chastity, the protection of the weak, benevolence towards the humble, 
deference to superiors, respect for property in its minutest details, 
all is expressed there." We find a typical example of the ethical 
standards of the Middle Kingdom in the well known Xllth. Dynasty 
tomb of Ameni (a noble, and probably the governor of his nome), at 
Benihassan. The words are those which the deceased is to utter before 
his judges : 

Not a little child did I injure. Not a widow did I oppress. 
Not a herdsman did I ill-treat. There was no beggar in my days ; 
no one starved in my time. And when the years of famine came, 
I ploughed all the lands of the province to its northern and southern 
boundaries, feeding its inhabitants and providing their food. There 
was no starving person in it, and I made the widow to thrive as 
though she possessed a husband. 

There were forty-two sins to which the departed soul had to plead 
"not guilty". If he proved his innocence he could then pass on as "true 
of speech". In the Middle Kingdom (as indeed had already been the 
case in the Old Kingdom), there is so much interweaving of the cult 
of Osiris with that of Ra when we approach the realms of the dead, 
and it is such a vast subject, that we cannot even touch on it now. We 
must not forget, however, that it is originally from the solar theology 
that we get the first glimmerings of moral obligations, as we have already 
seen in the Pyramid Texts, 11 and we find them continued now in the 
Middle Kingdom, and Ra himself, the Ideal King (as Ipuwer showed 
him to be, and as we find it stated in the "Installation of the Vizier"), 
is the one who stimulates to ever renewed efforts towards righteousness 
and justice. Thus we read, "that good which came out of the mouth 
of Ra himself, 'speak truth, do truth, for it is great, it is mighty, it is 
enduring. The reward thereof shall find thee, and shall follow thee into 
blessedness hereafter.' " 12 

"Breasted says: "There can be no doubt that in the Old Kingdom the sovereignty of Ra 
had resulted in attributing to him the moral requirements laid upon the dead in the hereafter, 
and that in the surviving literature of that age he is chiefly the righteous God rather than Osiris. 
. . . The later rapid growth of ethical teaching in the Osiris faith and the assumption of the 
role of judge by Osiris is not yet discernible in the Pyramid Age, and the development which 
made these elements so prominent in the Middle Kingdom took place in the obscure period after 
the close of the Pyramid Age. Contrary to the conclusion generally accepted at present, it 
the Sun God, therefore, who was the earliest champion of moral worthiness and the great jt 
in the hereafter. A thousand years later Osiris . . . emerged as the great moral judge . 
To these later conditions from which modern students have drawn their impressions, the current 
conclusion regarding the early moral supremacy of Osiris is due. The greater age of the Solar 
faith in this as in other particulars is, however, perfectly clear." 

"From "The Eloquent Peasant." 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 227 



It has been pointed out that the Pyramid Texts contain many 
magical formulae; but we now find them in vastly increasing numbers. 
One of the most striking changes of the times is the growing complexity 
of the dangers which the departed soul must encounter in the next world ; 
and the belief in the power of the spoken word, on behalf of the dead, 
has made great progress since the time of the Old Kingdom. 13 These 
charms, together with very beautiful prayers and invocations, were 
written for the use and protection of the deceased on the inside of his 
coffin. As we know, these "Coffin Texts" of the Middle Kingdom 
formed the nucleus of what became so familiar to the Egyptian of a 
later time, that is, "The Chapters of the Going Forth by Day," as 
le Page Renouf and some others translate it. Naville says he "would 
prefer 'Coming Out of the Day' the day being a period of a man's 
life, having its morning and its evening." Rawlinson translates it : 
"The Manifestation of Light" or the "Chapters Revealing Light to the 
Soul." Today it is commonly known to us as the "Book of the Dead", 
the modern name given by Lepsius, who attempted no translation of 
the ancient title. The charms used in the "Coffin Texts" were looked 
upon as of the greatest importance to the lonely soul in his journey to 
the next world, and at this early period their motive was in general a 
perfectly sincere one, if the soul was impure the incantation could not 
protect him. But as time went on, much of the early sincerity fell away, 
while the belief in the inherent power of the charms, no matter what 
the worthiness or the unworthiness of the deceased, remained ; and it 
was this trust in their invariable efficacy which enabled a crafty and 
self-seeking priesthood of a later day to work on the feelings of the 
people and to commercialize what had originally been a very pure 
element in their religion. To quote again from Breasted : "It is difficult 
for the modern mind to understand how completely the belief in magic 
penetrated the whole substance of life." But this is not true of all 
modern thinkers. Madame Blavatsky writes : "Magic was considered 
a divine science which led to a participation in the attributes of Divinity 
itself" ; 14 and again : "for notwithstanding that it is occult and unknown 
to our scholars, who deny its possibilities, magic is still a science." 15 
So if, in reading the "Coffin Texts", we feel that we have to dig and 
delve in a mass of what, to our average ignorance of today, seems an 
endless maze of unintelligible semi-crude writings, of spells very difficult 
to understand, and therefore still more difficult to translate, let us 
remember that these seemingly crude forms in reality hide a long- 
forgotten science of the most far reaching kind, whether most of us 
understand it or not. In any case, we are amply rewarded by the nuggets 
of pure gold which we come across in the shape of prayers and 
exhortations. 



J "The spoken word has a potency unknown to, unsuspected and disbelieved in, by modrrn. 
'sages'." Secret Doctrine, vol. I, p. 307. 
14 Isis Unveiled, vol. I, p. 25. 
w/ftirf, vol. I, p. 244. 



228 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



"That which saves the 'Book of the Dead' itself from being exclu- 
sively a magical vade mecum for use in the hereafter," says Breasted, 
"is its elaboration of the ancient idea of the moral judgment, and its 
evident appreciation of the burden of conscience." But this statement, 
it seems to us, is far too limited; for when one has subtracted all the 
magic, and all the moral judgment and the emphasis on conscience, there 
still remain the adoration and praise found in the hymns and prayers, 
and these can by no means be overlooked or set aside. Most of the 
larger papyri of the "Book of the Dead" 16 open with a hymn to Ra, 
which can be taken as but one example of this raising of the heart in a 
pure outpouring of worship : 

Homage to thee, O Ra, at thy beauteous rising. Thou risest, 
thou risest ; thou shinest, thou shinest at the dawn. Thou art King 
of the Gods, and the Maati Goddesses embrace thee. The company 
of the Gods praise thee at sunrise and at sunset. Thou sailest over 
the heights of heaven and thy heart is glad. Thy Morning Boat 
meeteth thy Evening Boat with fair winds. . . . Thou art 
Horus of the Eastern and the Western skies. . . . O thou 
Only One, O thou Perfect One, O thou who art eternal, who art 
never weak, whom no mighty one can abase; none hath dominion 
over the things which appertain to thee. Homage to thee in thy 
characters of Horus, Turn and Khepera, thou Great Hawk, who 
makest man to rejoice by thy beautiful face. When thou risest 
men and women live. Thou renewest thy youth, and dost set 
thyself in the place where thou wast yesterday. O Divine Youth, 
who art self-created, I cannot comprehend thee. Thou art the lord 
of heaven and earth, and didst create beings celestial and beings 
terrestrial. Thou art the One God, who earnest into being in the 
beginning of time. Thou didst create the earth, and man, thou 
didst make the sky and the celestial river Hep; thou didst make 
the waters and didst give life unto all that therein is. Thou hast 
knit together the mountains, thou hast made mankind and the 
beasts of the field to come into being, and hast made the heavens 
and the earth. . . . O thou Divine Youth, thou heir of ever- 
lastingness, self-begotten and self-born, One, Might, of myriad 
forms and aspects, Prince of An [Heliopolis], Lord of Eternity, 
Everlasting Ruler, the Company of the Gods rejoice in thee. As 
thou risest thou growest greater; thy rays are upon all faces. 
Thou art unknowable, and no tongue can describe thy similitude ; 
thou existest alone. Millions of years have passed over the world, 
I cannot tell the number of those through which thou hast passed. 
Thou journeyest through spaces requiring millions of years to pass 
over in one little moment of time, and then thou settest and dost 
make an end of the hours. 17 

In the "Coffin Texts" we find a distinct increase in the democrat^ 
zation of the hereafter, as compared with the Pyramid Texts. In the 



18 It is well nigh impossible, and indeed inadvisable, to draw too sharp a line of cleavage 
between the "Coffin Texts" and the "Book of the Dead," as many of the chapters of the latter 
are merely elaborations of those found in the former, and in many cases both are directly 
descended from the Pyramid Texts. 

" E. A. Wallis Budge's translation. 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 229 

latter we saw that the Pharaoh alone was mentioned, and we have stated 
what would seem to have been the reason, but the "Coffin Texts" are 
enlarged to include aspirants of varying degrees, such as Amamu, a 
man in private life without any official position whatever ; Sapti, a lady 
of the nobility ; Sena, an overseer of the palace of the King ; Menthuhotep, 
a priest, and countless others. This, of course, was a natural result, 
as well as a reflection of the existing social conditions, the rise of the 
nobility and to a certain extent of the middle classes, to which \ve have 
already drawn attention. 

In reviewing the Middle Kingdom then, and in summing up our 
impressions of it, we find that, like most many-sided things, whether 
individuals or epochs, it is full of apparent contradictions, and, indeed, 
we could hardly find two states of mind divided by a greater gulf than 
that which separates the Song of the Harper from the splendid opening 
lines of the now famous seventeenth chapter of the "Book of the Dead", 
that chapter which already in the "Coffin Texts" was much in use, and 
which, in fact, is almost certainly a survival from Pyramid times : 

I am He who closeth, and He who openeth, and I am but One. 18 
I am Ra at His first appearance, 
I am the Great God, Self- Produced. 



I am Yesterday, and I know Tomorrow. 

HETEP EN NETER. 

(To be continued) 



18 Lc Page Renouf says: "It would be difficult for us to imagine that the very remarkable 
opening" [meaning the first line quoted above] "of the chapter, is an addition. Yet it is unknown 
to the primitive recension on the wall of Horhotep's tomb, though found everywhere else" 
[Horhotep's tomb being the earliest in which this chapter is found]. "The texts, however, which 
contain it, do not agree." 

To the words: "I am He who closeth, and He who openeth, and I am but One," Renouf 
very aptly parallels: "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, saith the Lord.** 
Apocalypse, I, 8. 



Thus, from the sublime spirit of the ancients, there floiv into the 
minds of those who imitate them, certain emanations, like clouds of 
vapour from the cleft rocks in holy shrines; and these inspire even the 
least gifted with the enthusiasm and greatness of others. LONGINUS. 



EVOLUTION AND DAILY LIVING 



r "> HE study of natural history, or in its broader sense, biology, is 
popularly conceived to be of little value in so far as "questions 
1 of the day" are concerned. The mind of the public vaguely 
relegates biology to the limbo of unpractical subjects, a career 
for those who are relatively unfit to do anything better, a hobby for those 
who have exceptional opportunity or much leisure. While this body of 
opinion is generous enough to grant learning and considerable intel- 
lectual capacity to biologists, it is held a pity that such talents and 
accomplishments cannot be turned to more fruitful fields of endeavour. 
The writer, primarily a biologist, is compelled to admit that there is some 
weight to this criticism. It is quite true that biologists have little to 
contribute of value to these "problems of life", which are now the 
theme of discussion on every side. To say, however, that biology has 
no bearing upon them, is a totally different and a false proposition. 

It may well seem somewhat surprising that the study of plants and 
animals has any bearing upon the weighty problems, political, social, 
and economic, which at present are crowding upon the peoples of the 
world, crying for a solution. These weighty questions have existed, in 
one form or another, ever since civilization came into being, but they are 
periodically forgotten in eras of tranquil prosperity. Such an era has 
recently come to a close, the problems have been rediscovered, and a 
people, whose vanity is greatly tickled thereby, fondly imagines that the 
discovery is two-thirds of the battle, and that proper laws or treaties 
drawn up by sufficiently learned commissions will administer the coup 
de grace. That this attitude is even greater folly than the search for 
the Philosopher's Stone or the Fountain of Youth in the Middle Ages, 
and that it is founded on an utter disregard of some hard and unpalatable 
facts, is one of the contributions which biology is fully able to make. 

A sufficiently careful and honest reflection upon the known facts 
in the plant and animal worlds, leads to one obvious deduction, namely 
that a fundamental principle of design actuates all the activities of nature. 
The theories of chance and the fortuitous combinations of atoms, by 
which the materialists of two generations ago sought to explain even 
universal phenomena and their origin, are worthless in the light of 
recent scientific discovery in all its branches, and were generated not 
only by the relative ignorance of the period, but also by the intensity 
of the reaction against a mediaeval and outworn theology which was 
served wholesale as a substitute for religion. This principle of design 
is better known as the Law of Evolution. Evolution has been defined as 
a steady progression from a lower to a higher type, brought about by 
the due operation of immutable law. Progress and improvement are, 

230 



EVOLUTION AND DAILY LIVING 



231 



consequently, two corollaries of this law, and be it noted, they are not 
the vague aims of a somewhat mistily conceived God, but an actual 
product or result attained by the world of living matter through the 
ages during which it has been subject to the laws of nature. It is 
equally obvious that the limit to this progress and improvement of the 
forms of living matter is bounded solely by the existence of life. Exist- 
ence, then, and progress are as nearly synonymous as are the terms God 
and laws of nature. 

It cannot be too strongly emphasized that evolution is a fact, not 
merely a theory, a fact proved beyond peradventure. The recent rapid 
advances in Palaeontology have done more than anything else to estab- 
lish this by greatly extending our knowledge of animals living in bygone 
ages. A simple comparison of ancient types with living ones shows 
graphically the force of evolution and the progress which has been 
attained. It is obvious that a worm and a horse are very different; it 
is equally obvious that a horse is a higher type of animal than a worm, 
due in part, at least, to a more complicated structure. But we know 
from the fossil record that worms are but a feeble remnant of a remote 
past before horses, or, for that matter, any vertebrates, had evolved. 
Again, the modern horse with all its physical power, its solid hoofs and 
flowing mane, can be contrasted with the ancestral horse, a timid little 
creature with four toes, standing scarcely two feet high. Here science 
has brought to light a complete series of connecting links. Each geo- 
logical period had its horse, steadily increasing in size, steadily losing 
its toes, steadily lengthening in limb, until our modern horse was devel- 
oped, practically immune from enemies until man became a factor. This 
is but one of the many excellent illustrations available to show that 
evolution is a fact, not a theory. 

All living things are, therefore, evolving, progressing towards some 
higher type, some higher destiny, or else failing and disappearing. There 
is not the slightest shred of evidence to show that there is any conscious- 
ness of this state of affairs, but it is significant that it makes not the 
least difference ; the immutable law grinds on its passionless way, the 
great design of nature is being worked out. The modus operandi of 
this most colossal of designs is as interesting to study as the fact itself. 
The instinct of the survival of the species is one essential. Progress to 
be maintained must be transmitted, and there must be descendants to 
whom to transmit. Every living thing, then, has this goal towards which 
its every energy is bent. Thus is progress, or a stage in evolution, main- 
tained. A further great law is necessary to avoid a status quo, and this 
law is the survival of the fittest. This alone makes evolution, in the 
complete sense of the word, possible. Only the best descendants can 
maintain the necessary rate of progress, and the unfit are allowed to 
perish. Not only are they allowed to perish, but life on earth is so finely 
balanced, so marvellously worked out, that they are compelled to perish. 



232 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Even this does not satisfy a remorseless Nature. No matter how 
successful a given animal may be, sooner or later it is inevitably tested 
for its power of adaptability to changing environment. This is the 
supreme test, which has caused the extinction of more than three-quarters 
of all the types of animals that have ever evolved on earth. An inter- 
esting example of this is at hand. When the first settlers arrived in 
New England, the country was covered by primeval woods, and the 
native birds and mammals were naturally adapted to forest life. Think 
of the cataclysm that the almost total destruction of these forests, in 
the interests of civilization, was to their denizens. But certain birds dis- 
covered that the proximity of man was favourable to them in that their 
enemies avoided his vicinity. The Robin was one of these, and is con- 
sequently a conspicuous success. The Chimney Swift, nesting formerly 
in hollow trees, finds chimneys, even in cities, much more advantageous, 
and as there are now far more chimneys than hollow trees, has greatly 
increased instead of decreased. These are notable examples of the suc- 
cess of adaptability to a changing environment. They are, alas, a small 
percentage compared to the host which has vanished from New England, 
never to appear again. 

Such is a brief picture of evolution, how it operates, and by what 
laws it is operated. One important deduction can be made. Nature 
obviously intends her laws to work with absolute impartiality and no 
exceptions are tolerated. Every animal has an appointed habit of life 
and a definite type of food. We cannot imagine a wild horse living in 
a burrow underground, or a cow preferring fruit to grass. Obedience 
to its prescribed law is the outstanding virtue of every plant and animal. 
Disobedience or failure is invariably punished by death. Ignorance does 
not count, excuses are never accepted, and there are no alibis. It is no 
exaggeration to say that three-quarters of all animals born never grow up, 
and that the first hint of old age is fatal. Small wonder that evolution 
has never faltered; the design has been unfolding steadily, calmly, unin- 
terruptedly ever since life began. 

Another striking corollary is the failure of premature success. 
Ages ago the class of reptiles culminated in gigantic monsters known 
as dinosaurs. Of many kinds and of varied habits, they were supreme 
among the living creatures of their day, without enemies, with abundant 
means of procuring food. It must be admitted that they had passed 
every test; they were successful types par excellence. And therefore 
evolution would have culminated in them, had not an impulse in some 
other direction carried forward the great design of nature. This was 
exactly what happened. Far higher types of animals have since appeared 
on earth, but the dinosaurs left no descendants, and their disappearance 
was as complete and sudden as its cause is to this day mysterious and 
unexplained. 

Let us now see how Man fits into this grand scheme of evolution. 



EVOLUTION AND DAILY LIVING 233 

That he, too, is evolving requires no demonstration. It is taken for 
granted by everybody. Newspaper editorials and reform waves are 
alike based on this theory as an axiom. That he has evolved is evident 
to any intelligent tyro in the study of history. In fact so firmly is this 
idea imbedded in the public mind that the mere threat that some proposed 
measure will retard the advance of civilization is sufficient to arouse for 
it a storm of opposition and excited interest. 

If, then, it may be granted that Man is subject to evolutionary law, 
it will be profitable to see to what extent the respects in which he differs 
from animals affect his life and the laws by which it is regulated. Let 
us say briefly that man differs from animals chiefly in the character of 
his mind and the possession of a soul. The extent of his free will makes 
him morally more responsible. It is of interest, therefore, to realize that 
in spite of these tremendous differences, differences of plane, rather than 
of degree on one plane, he is subject to exactly the same laws as 
animals, only in most cases they work out on a higher plane than the 
physical. To say that Man is engaged in the struggle for existence may 
sound absurd if taken literally. He is no longer occupied in dodging 
more powerful animals who seek him as food, nor does he have to pur- 
sue them for food. The struggle for existence has become transferred 
to an intellectual, an economic plane. Political economists have long 
since pointed out that the food supply ultimately controls the density of 
human population, just as the supply of mice controls the number of 
foxes; and the millionaire living on his income is an exact analogue of 
the squirrel, which has an ample supply of nuts stored for the winter. 
The survival of the species is, of course, just as essential for the con- 
tinued evolution of Man as it is for any animal. While an unpopular 
doctrine as applied to man, it requires only slight reflection to appreciate 
that with him also the fittest ultimately survive. 

There is only one real difference between man and animals in so far 
as evolution is concerned, and that is merely a difference of degree. The 
penalty for disobedience and failure is usually less quickly administered, 
and is less surely fatal. The intellectual power of man has too often 
been prostituted to devising means of escape from, or mitigation of the 
consequences of disobedience. Much illness is the direct outcome of 
this. Indigestion and tuberculosis are two obvious illustrations. It is 
startling, on the other hand, to realize how impossible it is ultimately to 
cheat the law. The number of diseases and internal complications of 
civilized man has steadily increased, as medical science has increased. 
Intellectual candour compels the admission that man is the most dis- 
obedient of animals. 

To postulate the evolution of Man is to postulate for him, as for all 
evolution, some design. The last paragraph will afford a clue to the 
proposition that Nature is not primarily interested in his physical evolu- 
tion, or else his disobedience would be fatal. There are, however, many 



234 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



better proofs. The relative physical weakness of man compared with 
other animals is patent. His relative strength and endurance is almost 
insignificant. Consider the infinitely greater physical power of a flea, 
if allowance for its size be made. Not only is a relative weakness 
involved, but steady degeneracy in historical times is a matter of common 
knowledge. The athlete is a living exhibit of the extent to which the 
average man has degenerated physically. Man has deteriorated physi- 
cally as civilization has advanced. This steady deterioration is going on 
all about us daily. Our parents call us "soft", our unhealthy babies are 
kept alive and allowed to beget still more unhealthy babies. More and 
more defects are becoming hereditary. No, the energies of natural law 
are not directed towards perfecting Man's physical machine. 

There are many who think of Man's evolution in terms of the ma- 
terial progress of civilization. In the first place this is logically unsound, 
because such material progress is merely a by-product of intellectual 
progress. Granted an increasing knowledge of the facts of nature, and 
a better understanding of some of the principles of physics, chemistry, 
electricity, etc., material progress is inevitable whether the real goal of 
human evolution were to transform us into green monkeys, or some other 
more reasonable concept. In the second place, many people overlook the 
fact that intellectual progress does not imply intellectual evolution as a 
goal. Here history affords the answer. It is undisputed that knowledge 
has enormously increased since, let us say, the time of Aristotle, who 
was able to sit down and write a compendium of. the human knowledge 
of his day, a feat now absolutely incredible in even one subject. The 
number of facts to be learned or knowable is now infinitely greater. 
There is absolutely not a shred of evidence, however, that intellectual 
poiver has increased, that memory, concentration, subtility of mind, 
analysis, inductive or deductive reasoning, are more highly developed 
now than in the earliest Chinese, Hindu, or Egyptian sages. The radical 
difference between our complex civilization and the relatively simple 
one of ancient India is easily explained by the greater amount of ma- 
terial to work with, rather than the power of the intellectual instrument 
using the material. It is just this fact that makes a modern school of 
scientists so willing to suppose that the human intellect evolved from that 
of an ape, and that relatively slight differences in structure could account 
for an apparently enormous discrepancy. There is no satisfactory evi- 
dence, then, that intellectual evolution is the goal of mankind. 

At this point modern biology yields the field to philosophy to pursue 
the inquiry further. Its contribution, however, to the subject has been 
important. If Nature and the divine power behind it are not primarily 
interested in the physical and intellectual development of man, if these 
two planes of existence are eliminated, it may well be asked, what is the 
design ? Unfortunately for the peace of mind of the average man, there 
is only one plane left, and that is the spiritual. A man is his soul, and 



EVOLUTION AND DAILY LIVING 



235 



his body and mind are nothing but instruments, tools given him to work 
out an appointed destiny. While it might be urged that any tool is 
capable of theoretical improvement, and any such improvement could 
only redound to the ultimate benefit of the thing manufactured, it is 
obvious that nothing ever would have been manufactured, if we should 
await the arrival of the perfect tool. And this piece of foolishness is 
exactly what the average man is doing. He is wrapped up in his tools, 
in fact identifies himself with them, and makes no effort to manufacture 
a spiritual life, or to further the progress of his own soul. Nor does he 
stop here. Not only does he fail to use his tools properly, but he uses 
them improperly. Small wonder then that life is becoming more and 
more complex, that more and more problems are crying for solution, 
that evil, pain, and suffering of all kinds are steadily on the increase 
significant sign that the nemesis of flagrant violation of law is slowly 
but remorselessly overtaking a consistently blind and disobedient race. 

It is this appalling disobedience of Man, which is, then, the great 
lesson to be learned from biology. Man is the only living creature able 
to conceive of or to realize the great principle of evolution. He alone 
takes no interest in his development, plays with his tools instead of using 
them, or makes bad use of them, neglecting or shutting his eyes to his 
real destiny, his real work in life. 

The second great lesson of biology is the utter impossibility of escap- 
ing unpleasant consequences. We have seen that ignorance and lack of 
consciousness in animals make no difference. There are no excuses. 
The penalty of failure is death and extinction. How much greater the 
penalty, then, when neither ignorance nor unconsciousness exists? Su- 
perior as man may be to other living creatures, he does not suppose him- 
self superior to nature, to the laws of God or the universe. The exist- 
ence of physical pain is a sharp reminder of the contrary. No, he merely 
prefers to forget about it, as a thoroughly unpleasant subject. Maybe 
it is. Perhaps the laws of nature are thoroughly disagreeable, and the 
universe is constructed on faulty principles. So once complained a fool- 
ish woman to a wise philosopher. "Madam", said he, "what do you 
propose to do about it?" A little later she had decided to accept the 
universe as it was. "Madam", said the philosopher, "you had jolly well 
better." Biology can do no better than heartily endorse this piece of 
advice. BIOLOGIST. 



TAO-TEH-KING 



AN INTERPRETATION OF LAO TSE'S BOOK OF THE WAY AND OF 
RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

IV. 

26. Heavy is the root of light; stillness, the master of motion. 
Therefore the sage walks ever in the Way, keeping stillness and 

poise. 

Though he possess splendid palaces, he remains detached and still. 

Yet the lord of ten thousand chariots may act lightly in his kingdom. 

Through lightness he loses his ministers; following desire, he forfeits 
his throne. 

THE Chinese commentators say : "Lao Tse wishes men to master 
their passions through stillness and poise. He who is inwardly 
poised, is exempt from the levity of the passions; he whose heart 
is still, cannot be carried away by anger. He who can control 
himself, is poised; he who keeps his place, is still. The man with poise 
subdues the man of levity; he who is still, subdues him who is carried 
away." 

For the last two sentences of the text, we may cite Emerson's 
phrase : "We forfeit the thrones of angels for temporary pleasures." 

27. Who walks wisely, leaves no footprints; who speaks wisely, 
makes no mistakes; who reckons wisely, uses no tally; who closes wisely, 
needs no lock, nor can it be opened; who binds wisely, needs no cord, nor 
can it be loosed. 

Therefore the Master, working justly, seeks to save all, rejecting 
none. 

Working with justice, he seeks to save all; this is why he rejects 
none. 

He has light, and again light. 

Therefore the righteous is master of the unrighteous. 

The unrighteous is the opportunity of the righteous. 

If the one regard not his master, if the other love not his opportunity, 
though they be prudent, both are blind. 

This is the great mystery. 

A Chinese commentary says : "He who follows the Way, walks 
without need of feet, speaks without opening his lips, determines wisely 
without the measuring of the mind ; what he has closed cannot be opened ; 
what he has bound cannot be loosed ; for he imprisons his passions and 
chains his desires." 

Considering later sentences of the text, another commentary says: 

236 



TAO-TEH-KING 



237 



"Those whom the world calls wise, follow narrow ways. They give with 
partiality, and know not that justice which is broad and liberal toward 
all. Whom they esteem virtuous, and like themselves, they are ready to 
save. But him who seems not virtuous, they hate and cannot love. 
Therefore they reject many men and many beings. But the holy man is 
free from partiality, and instructs all without preference. He seeks to 
save all men and all beings ; therefore, there is no man, nor any being, 
whom he rejects. The holy man is not holy for himself alone; he is 
destined to be the exemplar of all men. If those who have no virtue will 
follow his leading, they may be rid of their faults and attain virtue. 
Therefore he who has virtue is master of those who have not virtue." 

28. Who knozvs his strength, yet retains gentleness, is the valley of 
the kingdom. (All flows to him.) 

If he be the valley of the kingdom, humility abides with him; he 
becomes again a little child. 

Who knows his light, yet retains darkness, is the exemplar of the 
kingdom. 

If he be the exemplar of the kingdom, holiness abides with him; he 
becomes again perfect. 

Who knows his glory, yet retains humility, is likewise the valley of 
the kingdom. 

If he be the valley of the kingdom, his righteousness is made perfect; 
he gains again the perfect simplicity (of the Way). 

When the perfect simplicity (of the Way) is spread abroad, it 
moulds all beings. 

When the holy man attains, he becomes the ruler in the kingdom. 
Governing all, he injures none. 

This is once more the teaching of humility, the spirit of the valley, 
which permeates and inspires the whole book. When the simplicity of 
the Way, the light of the Logos, the spirit of the Master, shall be received 
into all hearts, it will mould all beings according to the spirit of the Way. 
This is the coming of the kingdom. 

29. Who seeks to remake the kingdom, will certainly fail. 
The kingdom is divinely planned; man cannot remake it. 

If he seek to remake, he destroys; if he seek to seise, he loses. 
Among beings, some go before, some follow; some are hot, some are 
cold; some are strong, some are weak; some move, others halt. 

Therefore the sage refrains from excess, luxury, indulgence. 

Lao Tse has, in the first three sentences, a striking epigram, a general 
statement of nearly all of human life, whether of the individual or of 
multitudes. For what are most men and most movements doing, if not 
seeking "to remake the kingdom of heaven" according to their own 
desires ? But the kingdom is divinely ordained of old ; its perpetual laws 
are to be sought and obeyed. Our amendments will not be carried. 



238 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



The fourth sentence seems to reinforce this thought by a parable. 
Men and things are what they are : some are swift, others are slow ; some 
are hot, others are cold. Just as we cannot make men and things over, 
but must accept them, so we cannot make over the kingdom of heaven. 

Therefore the sage, discerning the laws of the kingdom and accepting 
them, conquers that in him which rebels against the kingdom, and refrains 
from excess and self-indulgence. 

30. He who works for the Master of men in accordance with the Way, 
seeks not to advance the kingdom by compulsion. 

For men render again what they receive. 

Where armies halt, spring up thorns and briars. 

In the wake of wars come years of fasting. 

The sage strikes resolutely and remains still. He dares not aduance 
the kingdom by compulsion. 

He strikes resolutely, without vaunting himself. 

He strikes resolutely, without boasting. 

He strikes resolutely, without arrogance. 

He strikes resolutely, but only when a bloiv must be struck. 

He strikes resolutely, but without self-assertion. 

The things of nature ripen; then they fade. 

Not so is it with the Way. Who folloivs not the Way, comes to 
destruction. 

If the preceding sentences were an epigram on men and their de- 
sires, then the present sentences are a criticism of nearly all ecclesiastical 
history ; of all those, esteeming themselves to be the only righteous, who 
seek "to advance the kingdom by compulsion." Where they have passed, 
spring thorns and briars, as in the wake of an army. After their wars, 
comes spiritual starvation. 

The Master seeks to win, not to tyrannize and compel. Having the 
power to force compliance, he draws, instead, with the cords of love. 

31. Weapons of offence, however keen, work evil: 

All men hate them. Therefore he who has found the Way is un* 
willing to use them. 

In peace, the sage esteems the left; he who makes war esteems the 
right. 

Weapons of offence work evil; these are not the weapons of the 
sage. 

He uses them from necessity only, but esteems stillness and 
quietude. 

In victory he is not elated. To be elated is to love destruction. 

He who loves destruction cannot rule over the kingdom. 

In times of rejoicing the left is preferred; in times of mourning the 
right is preferred. 



TAO-TEH-KING 



239 



The second in command occupies the left; the commander in chief 
occupies the right. 

I mean that he takes the place of mourning. 

He who has slain a multitude of men should weep over them with 
tears and sobs. 

The victor in the battle takes the place of mounriuy. 

We have the choice of two interpretations for this section of 
the Chinese sage's book. We may take what is said above simply 
in the sense of that pacifism which has saturated the people of 
the Middle Kingdom for the last seven centuries, leaving them, 
as a nation, at the mercy of foreign conquerors, beginning with 
the virile race of Genghiz Khan. "Khan of Khans," Prince of 
Princes, the greatest military family in the history of Asia. In one 
sense, this pacifism is befitting to the Chinese, who belong, as we have 
been told, to the outworn Fourth Race, while the more virile nations are 
sub-races of the Fifth. And, as races still older and more outworn than 
the Chinese are vanishing bodily from the earth, their souls moving into 
newer races, so the Chinese tend naturally toward pacifism and sub- 
jection. It is in the sense of pacifism that the Chinese commentators, 
for the most part, interpret these sections; for example: "The sage 
thinks constantly of peace, of non-action, and abstains from war. He 
who believes that the better plan is not to wage war shows that he holds 
precious the lives of men." Perhaps the tinge of Asiatic blood in so 
many Russians was a contributing cause of the pacifism of Tolstoi and 
his followers. 

But there is a deeper and more mystical sense in which we may 
understand what Lao Tse has written, that, namely, which is set forth 
in the fourth Comment in Light on the Path: "When the disciple has 
fully recognized that the very thought of individual rights is only the 
outcome of the venomous quality in himself, that it is the hiss of the 
snake of self which poisons with its sting his own life and the lives of 
those about him, then he is ready to take part in a yearly ceremony 
which is open to all neophytes who are prepared for it. All weapons of 
defence and offence are given up; all weapons of mind and heart, and 
brain, and spirit. Never again can another man be regarded as a person 
who can be criticized or condemned ; never again can the neophyte raise 
his voice in self-defence or excuse. From that ceremony he returns 
into the world as helpless, as unprotected, as a new-born child. That, 
indeed, is what he is. He has begun to be born again on the higher 
plane of life, that breezy and well-lit plateau from whence the eyes see 
intelligently and regard the world with a new insight." 

This stage in the spiritual life of the disciple would appear to be 
the theme of Isaiah, when he writes: "He is despised and rejected of 
men ; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief : . . . He was op- 



^40 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



pressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth : he is 
brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers 
is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. . . . He shall see of the travail 
of his soul, and shall be satisfied : by his knowledge shall my righteous 
servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will 
I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with 
the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death." 

And the same thing is true of those passages in the Sermon on the 
Mount, on which is based the doctrine of non-resistance. The Greek 
word really means to "set evil against evil"; the disciple is warned 
against this, exactly as in Light on the Path. But there is an abyss of 
difference between the refusal to return hate for hate and the failure, 
whether from weakness or cowardice, to protect others. The mistaken 
application of this spiritual principle has made China helpless for cen- 
turies. It would have had the same result, or worse, had France been 
unprepared in 1914. 

There remains the curious passage regarding the positions of left 
and right. Concerning this, a Chinese commentator says that the left 
side corresponds to the active principle ; it is the symbol of life : there- 
fore in ceremonies of happiness, the left is preferred. The right side 
corresponds to the inert principle ; it is the symbol of death ; therefore 
in ceremonies of mourning, the right is preferred. 

Perhaps the left side is preferred as being "nearest the heart"; but 
we need not look for a deep principle here any more than we need look 
for an Occult reason why "Keep to the left" is the rule of the road in 
England, while other nations keep to the right. 

32. The Way, as the Eternal, has no name. 

Though according to Its nature It is without size, the whole world 
could not overcome It. 

When princes and kings follow It, all beings submit themselves to 
them. 

Then will Heaven and Earth unite to send down a sweet dew, and 
the peoples will enter peace without being commanded. 

When the Way became differentiated, It took a name. 

When this name is established, men must learn to become stable. 

He who is stable is free from peril. 

The Way extends throughout the universe. 

As the streams and torrents of the mountains return to the rivers 
and the seas (so all beings return to the Way}. 

A Chinese commentator says that Heaven and Earth, men and all 
beings, draw their origin from the Way. This is why they can influence 
each other, establishing correspondences between them. If princes and 
kings can truly keep to the Way, all beings will come to submit them- 



TAO-TEH-KING 241 

selves to them; Heaven and Earth will of themselves enter into har- 
mony, and the hundred families will attain to peace. 

The Way, says another native commentator, is of its own nature 
invisible and immaterial. At the time when beings had not been mani- 
fested, no name could be given to It. But when Its divine influence 
had wrought transformations, and when beings had come forth from 
the unmanifest, It received Its name from beings. As soon as Heaven 
and Earth had become manifest, all beings were born from the Way; 
this is why It is regarded as the Mother of all beings. 

To be stable, says another commentator, is to stand, not allured 
and drawn away by the things of sense, but resting in perfect quietude, 
self -poised; then one is free from all danger. 

Heaven and Earth are used here, exactly as in the Upanishads, and, 
indeed, universally in the primeval tradition which survives from the 
islands of the Pacific to Mexico, for the positive and negative aspects 
of the manifested Logos, called in the Sankhya philosophy, Purusha 
and Prakriti, Spirit and Nature. 

A commentator says that all rivers and seas are the place where 
the waters unite; the streams and torrents of the mountains are parts 
and subdivisions of the waters. The Way is the source of all beings ; 
all beings are branchings of the Way. All the streams and torrents of 
the mountains return to the central gathering place of the waters, and 
in the same way all beings return to their place of origin, the Way, 
from which they set out. 

Exactly the same image is used in many Upanishads, as, for exam- 
ple : "And as these rivers, rolling oceanwards, go to their setting on 
reaching the ocean, and their name and form are lost in the ocean, so 
the sixteen parts of this seer, moving spiritwards, on reaching Spirit, 
go to their setting ; their name and form are lost in Spirit. This seer 
becomes one, without parts, immortal" (Prashna Upanishad, 6). 

There is a kindred passage, "By command of this Eternal, rivers 
roll eastward and westward from the white mountains", in the Brihad 
Aranyaka Upanishad (3, 8, 9). 

33. He who knows other men is prudent. 
He who knows himself is wise. 
He who rules other men is potent. 
He who rules himself is strong. 
He who suffices to himself is rich. 
He who acts with energy is possessed of a strong will. 
He who departs not from his own nature endures long. 
He who dies and yet endures has everlasting life. 

He who knows other men, says a Chinese commentator, is prudent ; 
he sees external things. His knowledge is limited to knowing the good 
and bad qualities of men, the superiority or inferiority of their talents. 



242 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

He who knows himself is illuminated; he is endowed with the inner 
sight. He alone can know himself who concentrates within himself his 
hearing, to hear That which has no sound, and his vision, to see That 
which has no body. 

Here again Light on the Path may be quoted : "Listen only to the 
voice which is soundless. Look only on that which is invisible alike to 
the inner and the outer sense." 

Another commentator says that he who suffices not to himself has 
insatiate desires ; even if he had abounding riches, he would be as one 
in want. Such a man cannot call himself rich. He alone deserves the 
name, who suffices to himself, who remains calm and free from desire. 

Commenting on the sentences which follow, a Chinese writer says : 
"He who cannot act with energy, to reach the Way, often fails in his 
designs. His will is not firm. But the sage who acts with energy, ever 
advances in the Way ; the farther off the Way appears, the more his will 
is enkindled to seek It." 

The comment of a native writer on the last phrase of the text is 
full of interest. He says that "Lao Tse's words, 'dies and yet endures', 
Chwang Tse's expression, 'not to die/ and the Buddhist 'not to be 
extinguished', have exactly the same meaning. The body of man is 
exactly like the case of a chrysalis or the slough of a serpent. Now, 
when the case of the chrysalis is left dried up, the insect is not dead ; 
when the serpent's slough rots, the serpent is not dead." And another 
commentator adds : "The animal life of man is dissipated, but the soul 
remains for ever." 

One may compare the simile in the Upanishad : "And like as the 
slough of a snake lies lifeless, cast forth upon an ant-hill, so lies his 
body, when the Spirit of man rises up bodiless and immortal, as the 
Life, as the Eternal, as the Radiance." 

The secret is that continual dying to self and to the world, for 
love of the Eternal, which Saint Paul had in mind when he said, "I 
die daily", a phrase that had been used earlier by Philo. 

"The sage", says another Chinese writer, "looks on life and death 
as the morning and the evening. He exists, but is detached from life; 
he dies, yet endures. This is what is called life everlasting." 

He is "the true alchemist, in possession of the elixir of life." 

34. The Way stretches everywhere; It can go to the left as well as 
to the right. 

All beings rely on It for their life, and It fails them not. 

When Its works are accomplished, It does not attribute them to 
Itself. 

It loves and nourishes all beings, but does not seek to constrain 
them. 

Ever free from desires, It may be called little. 






TAG-TEH KING 



243 



All beings are subject to It, It constrains them not. It may be 
called great. 

Therefore, to the end of his life, the holy man does not regard 
himself as great. 

This is why he can accomplish great things. 

The Way, says a commentator, flows everywhere, through the 
heavens and the earth, and the hearts of the myriad beings; It is on 
the right, It is on the left ; It has neither hody nor name. 

Another commentator says that, in the beginning, the Way gave 
life to all beings, and, at the end, It leads them to their perfect fruition. 
In the most perfect way, It loves and nourishes all beings in the uni- 
verse. Nevertheless, though it heap all beings with blessings, It never 
seeks to constrain them, to force their wills, to destroy their spiritual 
liberty. 

$5. The holy man preserves the great Principle (the Way), and all 
the peoples of the kingdom hasten to him. 

They rim together, and he does them no injury; he brings them 
peace and calm and quietude. 

Music and banquets hold the passing traveller. 

But when the Way comes forth from our lips, it is flat and 
tasteless. 

It is looked for and cannot be seen; It is listened for and cannot 
be heard ; It is used and cannot be exhausted. 

When the music ceases, say the commentators, when the banquet 
comes to an end, the traveller hastily withdraws. This comparison 
shows that the joys of this world are fleeting and illusive. Not so with 
the Way. Though It does not delight the ears nor flatter the palate, 
like music and banquets, yet, when It is followed and applied to life, 
It can pervade the whole world and endure through the generations. 



c. j. 



(To be continued) 



IS IT EVER RIGHT TO BE 
DISCOURAGED? 



THERE may be conditions under which we should all agree that 
a valiant and devoted servant of Masters was justified in being 
discouraged. Such exceptional cases, however, would be likely 
to carry their own warrant with them the individual would not 
need to ask, "Is this discouragement right?" For beginners in the 
theosophic life, like most of us, it might be profitable to ask ourselves, 
"Is it sensible to allow ourselves to be discouraged?" That question 
suggests that discouragement is voluntary with us. But is it? Would 
any of us choose to dwell in that miserable valley where fog, and the 
rain of our tears, shut out the sunshine and the cool, clean air from the 
heights? Perhaps one's first answer is a decided negative, he knows 
that he hates being in the grip of discouragement. Yet if he sit down 
and ask himself, in the quiet of his own heart, whether his moods, his 
feelings, his hopes, and his fears are all sent him from above (let us say, 
from God) : can he say that they are? No, he cannot. He must confess 
that they are chosen by him, from a large range of possible feelings 
constantly open to him; at least, he would say that this is sometimes 
true. 

So we might ask, Does God send us discouragement? Is God ever 
discouraged over us? We should have to admit that, according to the 
present outlook, mankind might be regarded as something of a disap- 
pointment. Man certainly does not appear to be filling his natural part 
in the evolutionary plan as well as the birds, to take only one of many 
possible illustrations. What has man to show, to-day, that compares 
with the beauty of the plumage of the birds, or with the melody of their 
unceasing chorus of praise? When is his rejoicing as true and clean as 
theirs, what has he created that is as lovely as their song? Compared 
with them, man seems to hover in the pin-feather stage ; helpless ; mouth 
wide open, clamouring always for more of the Creator's bounty: a 
thing unbalanced and unbeautiful, unless viewed with the indulgent 
eyes of a hopeful parent. Still, our concept of God does not include 
the possibility of His pausing in an undertaking to view with discourage- 
ment the unsatisfactory progress made. It is not possible to imagine 
such a slackening of the Will that holds the universe in its appointed 
place and order. 

Looking at the case in purely human terms, it would seem that 
God had much provocation to discouragement, since there are so many 
of His plans that require for their fulfilment a degree of co-operation 
that men, with a few exceptions, steadily refuse to accord to God : man's 

244 






IS IT EVER RIGHT TO BE DISCOURAGED? 245 



will runs in the opposite direction. Does God, perhaps, send discourage- 
ment to make man turn about and look his opportunity in the face? 
Some might answer, Yes. But those who have the enormous advantage 
of living in large families or of working in groups would probably dis- 
pute that conclusion. They have so often seen the operation of so-called 
misfortunes, and have observed how they were met by their fellows. 

Some loss or trial comes, one that bears alike on all, and is not, in 
any immediate sense, the result (punishment, some would say) of their 
common mistakes and sins. What happens? Part of their number leap 
forward, as if by instinct, feeling that here is the chance to acquire 
some new power of heart or will. Others steady themselves make sure 
of their connection with their true centre and set themselves to doing 
more faithfully the tasks already assigned them, feeling that this is their 
best answer to the new demand. A few, in the pressure of the same 
identical demand, topple over, and say, as they lie prone in the dust, 
"Why did this affliction come to me? When I have tried so hard to do 
right, this is certainly discouraging. There is no use in trying if all my 
efforts are to be met in this way. I have done the best I could." 

Most of us know this feeling but how does it look to us when we 
see the evidence of it in others ? Sometimes as though "discouragement" 
were a thin mask put on to hide from the wearer (others see beneath it) 
the ugly grimace of cowardice. Take the man at his word he has done 
his best, and has met with momentary defeat ! What an excellent 
position he is in. Any man who has done his best can do it again; let 
him only keep on, and defeat must inevitably turn into victory. Or 
ybe he sees that the effort he had thought so complete was very par- 
tial, compared with what he now sees one of his brothers doing; and 
e says to himself, "This is discouraging; I never could put that much 
into my effort; in fact I do not wish to give over everything that is 
autiful and joyous, as he has done, only to fall short as he, with his 
so great efforts, is plainly doing. Is it worth my while to try further 
when it is all so unlovely?" 

One answer to these comrades who, for the moment, think the hill 
oo steep, might be in terms of force. Their faces are set toward the 
goal; the desire of their hearts does not waver; their difficulty is that 
their calculation was faulty. They did not know how steep the grade 
that confronted them. They imagined, we might say, that they were at 
the beginning slopes, where the least exertion carries one along; instead 
they are better off because they are further on; they have had the good 
fortune to reach where the ascent becomes a bit difficult; the effort 
they made in the beginning is not sufficient to carry them up the slope 
ahead. Is it cause for discouragement that they find themselves that 
much nearer their goal? But they need more force, to carry them up. 
Yes, and they have learned how to get it ; they have learned that they 
can get all they will use, that Masters, like nature, abhor a vacuum, and 



246 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



will never let the reservoir go dry so long as one draws from it with 
steady, wise purpose. 

Some people who are making quiet progress, have fits of depression 
in which they see themselves tobogganing down hill. But why have they 
taken their eyes off the goal ? Why are they looking, instead, at their fel- 
lows, and using the devil's measuring rod? It may be God's purpose 
to give to a soul the great grace of real contrition. How silly, how 
ungrateful for one so favoured to look with troubled eye, not wholly 
unmixed with a tinge of envy, upon a comrade whose debonair manner 
is indeed pleasant but bespeaks an understanding yet so limited, a devo- 
tion so infantile, that an older child were indeed foolish to regret that he 
cannot feel or behave in that way. So much of the time we hold beau- 
tiful blossoms in our hands, and discard them to hold, instead, weeds 
that stain and sting. 

May we say, then, as a partial answer to the initial question, that 
it is never right to be discouraged so long as there is anything that one 
can do. If a student finds himself with no faults to overcome; if there 
are no virtues that he might acquire; if he has no disappointments, no 
failures, no heartaches to suffer and thus a chance to give to others 
the fruit of willing suffering then, he is dead, and probably far beyond 

discouragement. A T> /- 

A. 15. v_/. 



NOTES ON THE WORD 
THEOSOPHY 



O FAR as the writer knows, the uses of the word Theosophy, from 
its first appearance in Greek until the present time, have never 
been recorded. Many facts of significance have been revealed in 
connection with the employment of this term by one after another 
author. It appears in the earliest centuries of our era, extends through 
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and was in almost common use 
prior to 1875. The present article attempts to suggest to others fruitful 
fields of research, since it is too incomplete to offer any final statement or 
conclusive history. Almost every one of the men in whose writings the 
word occurs would repay a most thorough study, even including critics 
of the last three centuries. Outside of this more modern field of critics, 
no author we have discovered used the term without seeming in some 
way to have come into touch with that Divine Wisdom for which the word 
Theosophy stands. 

Any study of the subject would naturally fall into two divisions. 
The first would relate to the early history of the word, not so scant as 
might be supposed ; for that history would include not merely its actual 
appearance in one or another book, but also some indication of the intel- 
lectual background which occasioned the use the choice on the part of 
the author of that particular term. The second part, beginning not 
much before the sixteenth century, would take into account the streams 
of thought which are represented, first, by Theosophers themselves, who 
had a greater or less degree of insight and understanding; and, at the 
opposite pole, theologians, or purely wordly-minded philosophers and 
scientists, who resented the very existence of the other class, and who 
spent their energies in denouncing or ridiculing Theosophy, Theosophists, 
and all things theosophical, at every turn and on every occasion. 

To those interested in Theosophy, it might seem at first sight a waste 
of time to examine the hostile criticism directed against exponents of 
Theosophy, and the systems which they introduced from time to time into 
the current of European thought ; yet, as a matter of fact, the degree of 
this criticism, its development, the different grounds on which it has been 
based, and its gradual modification, reaching to-day almost to an attitude 
of friendly tolerance in certain quarters, is a phenomenon which has a 
significance all its own. So that any complete statement of the use of the 
word Theosophy in history would miss a large part of its fruitfulness by 
omitting those occasions where it occurs in writers whose attitude varies 
from purely hostile or ignorantly contemptuous, to one of amused or 
indulgent friendliness. This later phase cannot, however, be dealt with 
in this article. 

247 



248 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



In The Key to Theosophy (p. 2), Madame Blavatsky states that 
Theosophy, a letter for letter rendering of the Greek words #09 and 
o-oc/ua, is equivalent to the Hindu terms Brahma and Vidya, which have 
their own history in relation to our Theosophical Movement 1 , and which 
also have a high antiquity in the Indian philosophical systems. The 
present writer is not qualified to discuss this interesting phase of the 
problem, nor can he at the present writing hazard even a guess as to 
what terms or glyphs were an equivalent in ancient Egypt. But the two 
Greek terms, phonetically reproduced in Latin and English, particularly 
when used in conjunction, signified to the Greek mind concepts which are 
age-old in their antiquity in both India and Egypt, and which, to be 
properly understood, must take into account the fact that their Greek 
users knew this age-old tradition, that they stated that they knew it, and 
that, therefore, modern interpreters must search in Hindu and Egyptian 
religion and philosophy for the full significance which these two Greek 
words expressed. As Mr. John T. Driscoll writes in the article in the 
Catholic Encyclopedia, under the caption "Theosophy" : "India is the 
home of all theosophic speculation. Oltramere says that the directive 
idea of Hindu civilization is theosophic. Its development covers a great 
many ages, each represented in Indian religious literature. There are 
formed the basic principles of theosophy. Knowledge of the occult laws 
in nature and in life, the intuitive method, superhuman powers, hostility 
to established religion, are not all equally apparent in each age, but are 
present conjunctively or separately through the whole course of its 
history." 

Barring the last phrase, Mr. Driscoll's statements are unexception- 
able, and show an advance over such earlier statements as Madame 
Blavatsky must have had in mind when she wrote in the opening article 
of The Theosophist: "There were Theosophists before the Christian era, 
notwithstanding that the Christian writers ascribed the development of 
the Eclectic theosophical system to the early part of the third century 
of their Era. Diogenes Laertius traces Theosophy to an epoch antedating 
the dynasty of the Ptolemies; and names as its founder an Egyptian 
hierophant called Pot-Amun, the name being Coptic and signifying a 
priest consecrated to Amun, the god of Wisdom. [The Theosophical 
Glossary (1st edition), says "Amun (Coptic). The Egyptian god of 
wisdom who had only Initiates or Hierophants to serve him as priests."] 
But history shows it revived by Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the 
Neo-platonic School. He and his disciples called themselves 'Philaleth- 
ians,' lovers of the truth, while others termed them 'Analogists' on account 
of their method of interpreting all sacred legends, symbolical myths, and 
mysteries, by a rule of analogy or correspondence, so that events which 



1 Cf. the mistaken rendering of the recent Harmsworth Encyclopedia, London, <r. 1910, 
art. "Theosophy," vol. vm, p. 5912. "An intuitive or ecstatic mode of enunciating doctrines, 
originated in, or at least more particularly characteristic of, India, where it is entitled Atma 
Vidya (spirit science), or Gupta Vidya (secret science)." The author of the article misses the 
true value of the tertni. 



NOTES ON THE WORD THEOSOPHY 249 

had occurred in the external world were regarded as expressing opera- 
tions and experiences of the human soul. It was the high purpose of 
Ammonius to reconcile all sects, peoples, and nations under one common 
faith a belief in one Supreme, Eternal, Unknown, and Unnamed Power, 
governing the Universe by immutable and eternal laws. His object was 
to prove a primitive system of Theosophy, which at the beginning was 
essentially alike in all countries; to induce all men to lay aside their 
strifes and quarrels, and to unite in purpose and thought as the children 
of one common Mother; to purify the ancient religions, by degrees 
corrupted and obscured, from all dross of human element, by uniting 
them and expounding them upon pure philosophical principles. Hence, 
the Buddhistic, Vedantic, and Magian or Zoroastrian systems were taught 
in the Eclectic Theosophical School, along with all the philosophies of 
Greece. Hence also, that pre-eminently Buddhistic and Indian feature 
among the ancient Theosophists of Alexandria, due reverence for parents 
and aged persons ; a fraternal affection for the whole human race, and a 
compassionate feeling for even the dumb animals. While seeking to 
establish a system of moral discipline which enforced upon people the 
duty to live according to the laws of their countries ; to exalt their minds 
by the research and contemplation of the one Absolute Truth ; his chief 
object, in order, as he believed, to achieve all others, was to extricate 
from the various religious teachings, as from a many-chorded instrument, 
one full and harmonious melody which would find response in every 
truth-loving heart." [The Theosophist, vol. i, Oct. 1879, pp. 2-4.] 

Madame Blavatsky here clearly indicates that the pre-Christian 
Theosophical Movement was carried forward by the Eclectic School of 
Greek Theosophers whose centre was in Alexandria. Herennius, both the 
Origens, Cassius Longinus, the famous Clement, and Plotinus, Porphyry, 
Proclus and their school, were all among the principal pupils and follow- 
ers of Ammonius. These Alexandrian Neoplatonists are celebrated for 
their attempt to reconcile the Greek with the Jewish systems of philosophy, 
with all that that implied of what lay back of both the Greek and the 
Jewish. They also carried forward some echo, at least, of the ancient 
traditional Wisdom of Egypt; and succeeded in infusing an element of 
this accumulated Wisdom into the whole stream of Western Christian 
thought. However strenuously orthodox Roman theology excluded what 
was precious along with the vagaries of the Neoplatonists, their impress 
was too deep not to be lasting; and they bequeathed a body of literary 
material to which men of a far later and more limited and dogmatic era, 
could and did turn for inspiration and support. Not only this, but it may 
be said that their influence is directly responsible for certain accepted 
canons of belief in orthodoxy itself ; a debt which orthodoxy is none too 
eager to acknowledge, but which is fully recognized by impartial students. 

It is of primary interest, since Alexandria was the centre in which 
all these great streams of thought Indian, Greek, Persian, Jewish, 
Roman, and Egyptian met and were fused, that the Lodge should seem 



250 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

to have planted there a centre of life which should leaven the whole, the 
force of which was perhaps the most potent factor in the history of 
Christianity since St. Paul himself. "Theosophic teaching comes to the 
front in the third period of Greek philosophy," says Mr. Driscoll, in the 
article above quoted. ''Hence, it is found in the Jewish-Greek philosophy 
of the Neoplatonists and the theosophic atmosphere due to the influence 
of the Orient is plainly shown in Plotinus. The gnostic systems reveal 
more theosophy than theology, and in the Jewish Kabbala is found a 
theosophy mixed with various forms of magic and occultism." It is also 
of significance that from the time of Ammonius Saccas himself (died 
A. D. 242), this group of "Alexandrian Neoplatonists" so-called whom 
Madame Blavatsky characterized as an "Eclectic Theosophical School"- 
were Christians, or within the direct stream of Christian thought and 
endeavour. The church historian Eusebius states [Church History, vi, 
19, sec. 6.] that Ammonius was born a Christian, "remained faithful to 
Christianity throughout his life, and even produced two works called 
The Harmony of Moses and Jesus, and the Diatessaron or Harmony of 
the Four Gospels." St. Jerome makes similar statements. Either. Euse- 
bius is stretching a point to favour his church, or he is speaking of another 
Ammonius, because Porphyry, who lived eleven years with Ammonius, 
says that Ammonius apostatized in later life, and left no writings behind. 
Porphyry also says that Ammonius and his school maintained the tradi- 
tional secrecy, "after the manner of Pythagoreans." H. P. B. says, in 
the Glossary, that Ammonius "was of poor birth and born of Christian 
parents, but endowed with such prominent, almost divine, goodness as to 
be called Theodidaktos, 'god-taught/ He honoured that which was good 
in Christianity, but broke with it and the churches very early, being unable 
to find in it any superiority over the older religions." So it would seem 
that the Eclecticism of Alexandria, far from being "primarily a sign of 
scientific decay, an involuntary evidence of the exhaustion of thought" 2 
as the German Zeller would have it was rather at once the summing up 
at the end of an out-worn cycle, and the parting gift of this old cycle to the 
new one which took its start with Christianity. 

The first admitted use of the one word Oeocro^ia is, according to the 
dictionaries, in Clement of Alexandria. The words 0eo9 and a-o^ia were 
used separately, however, though in immediate juxtaposition, by St. Paul 
and also by Philo, as terms to convey just the intellectual concepts already 
existing in the earlier Wisdom religions. It is necessary to appreciate 
the full significance which the term vofyta had acquired at the hands of 
Philo and St. Paul especially when used with tfed? to estimate the true 
importance of the fact that our word Theosophy appears thus early in 
the Alexandrian school, used by one of Ammonius' own disciples, and at 
the opening of one of his most mystical writings. 



a A History of Eclecticism in Greek Philosophy, being the third part, first section, of 
E. Zeller's Philosophic der Griechen, published in 1844-52, translated by S. F. Alleyne, 



Dr. E 

London, 1883, p. 19 



NOTES ON THE WORD THEOSOPHY 251 

The Wisdom literature in the Bible is too well known to need com- 
ment. The Hebrew terms hokmah (Wisdom) 3 , and hakam (wise), con- 
stantly employed in Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, and the Wisdom of 
Solomon, were translated in the Septuagint by the Greek word ao(f>ia. 
Philo employs vofyta hundreds of times, amplifying the scriptural use, as 
was his wont, with all the riches of Greek philosophical traditions. 
Originally an attribute of God, <ro<f>ta became identified in the Talmud 
with the Spirit of God, the female principle of an adopted Trinity. This 
principle corresponded with the Holy Ghost of later Christianity (cf. 
Proverbs, cap. vm, with Sirach, 24 ff.), and was canonized as St. Sophia 
by the Greek Christians. Philo, a contemporary of Jesus and St. Paul 
(he speaks of himself as an old man in the year 41 A. D.), was probably 
educated as a Sophist, and went to be initiated in the Egyptian school at 
Alexandria. "He was a great mystic and his works abound with meta- 
physics and noble ideas, while in esoteric knowledge he had no rival for 
several ages among the best writers," writes H. P. B.; and again : "Philo 
Judaeus endeavoured to reconcile the Pentateuch with the Pythagorean 
and Platonic philosophy." 

"It was given to a contemporary of Jesus to become the means of 
pointing out to posterity, by his interpretation of the oldest literature of 
Israel, how easily the Kabalistic Philosophy agreed in its esotericism with 
that of the profoundest Greek thinkers. This contemporary, an ardent 
disciple of Plato and Aristotle, was Philo Judaeus. While explaining the 
Mosaic books according to a purely kabalistic method, he is the famous 
Hebrew writer whom Kingsley calls the Father of New Platonism. It is 
evident that Philo's Therapeutes are a branch of the Essenes." 4 

Philo had without question a most important influence on nascent 
Christianity, because in himself he effected the reconciliation between the 
esotericism of the three great streams of thought of his day ; and through 
his disciples this reconciliation definitely entered Christianity. According 
to the manner of the Eclectics he mingled with his Platonism ideas 
derived more particularly from Pythagoras, to such an extent that 
Clement of Alexandria calls him a Pythagorean. His emphasis on strict 
virtue indicates the genuineness of his initiation, for in his day the strictest 
Stoics were the only philosophers outside the schools in Alexandria who 
seem to have upheld any high ideals of virtue. 

It is particularly interesting, therefore, to find Philo using the terms 
#eo9 and vofyia together, on many occasions. As the author is unable to 
check up editors of Philo's text,. from the 17th century to modern times, 
by reference to the actual manuscripts preserved in libraries in Europe, 
it is impossible to say whether Philo combines the two Greek words 0eo? 
and <ro<pta to make one word, or whether he only employs them in juxta- 



Cf. Maimonides (1135 to 1204), the learned Jewish Talmudist, in his commentary on 
the use and significance of this term: Guide for the Perplexed, "Man's Perfection," cap. LIV, 
trans, by M. Friedlander, London, 1910. 

*Mme. Blavatsky The Theosophical Glossary: The Key to Theosophy, p. 5, first edition: 
and Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, p. 144, first edition. 



252 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



position. For instance, in the suggestive passage, "We say, therefore, 
without paying any attention to the difference here existing in the names, 
that Theosophy (TOV 6eov <ro<t>iav), the daughter, is both a male child 
and a father, and that it is that which sows the seed of, and which begets 
learning in, souls, and also education, and knowledge, and prudence, and 
all honourable and praiseworthy things," 5 it is impossible to tell whether 
Philo used the one word Theosophy, or the two terms ; though in either 
case he expresses exactly the same idea. But it does not very much mat- 
ter whether he did or did not actually use the single word, because Philo's 
meaning throughout is so abundantly clear. He is without question 
speaking of that Divine Wisdom which we mean to-day when we use the 
word Theosophy. 

It will be worth while to examine a few more passages of Philo to 
gain the full value of his thought. In another essay entitled On Seeking 
Instruction, he concludes with the words : "Therefore, the wise man has 
now been sufficiently perfected to be the inheritor of the knowledge of 
the subjects above mentioned. Tor,' says the historian, 'on that day the 
Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, to thy seed will I give this 
land.' But what land does he mean but that which has been already men- 
tioned, to which he is now making reference? of the fruit of which is 
the safe and most certain comprehension of Theosophy (TOV Oeov cro^ta?), 
according to which it preserves for its dividers all the good things which 
exist without any admixture or taint of evil, as if they had been incor- 
ruptible from their very beginning. After this he proceeds to add, 
'From the River of Egypt to the Great River, the river Euphrates/ 
showing that those who are perfect (01 re\cioi) have their beginnings 
in the body, and the outward sense, and the organic parts, without which 
we cannot live, for they are useful for instruction in the life which is in 
union with the body ; but they have their end with Theosophy (TOV Oeov 
<ro0iai/). which is truly the great river overflowing with joy, and cheer- 
fulness, and all other blessings." 6 In both these passages Philo speaks 
of Theosophy as nourishing the soul. In another, he carries his use of the 
term into closer relation with both Hebrew and Greek thought, introduc- 
ing the Logos doctrine as part of Theosophy, the Divine Wisdom. He 
writes, "Those also, who have inquired what it is that nourishes the soul, - 
for, as Moses says, 'They knew not what it was,' learnt at last and found 
that it was the Word of God (o Xo'yo? fleotJ), and the Divine Reason, 
from which flow all kinds of instinctive and everlasting wisdom. This 
is the heavenly nourishment which the Holy Scripture indicates, saying 
in the connection of the cause of all things, 'Behold I rain upon you 
bread from Heaven,' for in real truth it is God who showers down 



6 Philonis Judcei Opera, by Adriano Turnebo and David Hoeschelio, Frankfurti 1691, 
p. 458. Cf. C. D. Younge The Works of Philo Judaeus, translated from the Greek, in the 
Bohn edition; On Fugitives, Vol. II, pp. 204 and 205. I have materially altered Younge's 
translation, which seems faulty. 

On Seeking Instruction, Vol. n, Section 62, p. 157. For text, cf. Thomas Mangey, 
Phihnif Judaei Opera Omnia, Erlangal, 1820, 2nd ed., Vol. iv, p. 140. 



NOTES ON THE WORD THEOSOPHY 



253 



Theosophy (<ro<t>iav b Oe'os) from above upon all the intellects which are 
properly disposed for the reception of it, and which are fond of con- 
templation. . . . What, then, is this bread? Tell us. This/ says 
he, 'is the word ( 6 \oyos ) which the Lord has appointed.' This divine 
appointment at the same time both illuminates and sweetens the soul, 
which is endowed with sight, shining upon it with the beams of truth, 
and sweetening with the sweet virtue of persuasion, those who thirst and 
hunger after excellence/' 7 In passing, it would not stretch the Greek 
too far to translate this last phrase, "Those who hunger and thirst after 
righteousness/' thus reproducing exactly the words of one of Christ's 
Beatitudes. 

To resume, Philo says again : "But he who advanced further, not 
only seeing, but seeing God, was called Israel ; the meaning 1 of which 
name is, 'seeing God'; but others, even if they ever do open their eyes, 
still bend them down toward the earth, pursuing only earthly things, and 
being bred up among material things ; for the one raises his eyes to the 
sky, beholding the manna, the divine Logos, the heavenly incorruptible 
food of the soul, which is food of contemplation : but the others fix 
their eyes on garlic, and onions," etc. 8 

Finally, in a thoroughly mystical essay entitled, The Worse Plotting 
against the Better, Philo speaks of "Theosophy" (vo^tav Qeov) as "the 
nurse and foster-mother and educator of those who desire incorruptible 
food," and indicates in his allegorical manner that this was the rock and 
also the stream of water from which "the fountain of divine wisdom" 
flowed, when the rock in the wilderness was struck by Moses' mystic 
wand. "This rock, Moses, in another place, using a synonymous ex- 
pression, calls manna, the most ancient word (\oyos) of God." 

In these passages, briefly indicated here, occur many words, phrases 
and ideas almost identical with those used by St. Paul, and even by Christ 
himself. They are, of course, of frequent occurrence in the Neoplatonic 
Alexandrian writers. Philo, for instance, in one of the above passages, 
says, "That it is men who are perfect, who have their beginnings in the 
body and the outward sense . . . but have their end with Theoso- 
phy." St. Paul, using exactly the same word, perfect, 61 reXetot, which 
was intimately associated with the Greek Mysteries, writes, "And my 
speech and my preaching were not with persuasible words of man's 
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your 
faith should not be in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. 
Howbeit we speak Theosophy among the perfect: yet a wisdom not of 
this age, nor of the rulers of this age, which are coming to naught : but 
we speak in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which 



7 Turnebo and Hoeschelio, Op. cit., p. 470 De Profugis. Mangey, Vol. iv, p. 284. 
Younge, Vol. n, p. 222 gives in translation more than the text of either of the above. We 
have included Yotmge's additional sentences. He does not explain where he found them, or 
what MSS. he takes for his authority. 

8 The title of the book is, Who is the Heir of Divine Things. Younge, Vol. n, pp. 108-9. 
Mangey, Op. cit., Vol. iv, p. 34. 



254 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

God hath ordained before the ages unto our glory: which none of the 
rulers of this age knoweth : for had they known it they would not have 
crucified the Lord of Glory." 9 

In the Wisdom of Solomon, Septuagint version, we find (Chapter 
vii, vv. 25 and 28), "For she (Wisdom, <ro<pta) is the breath of the 
power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the 
Almighty . . . for God loveth none but him that dwelleth with 
wisdom." Philo, in the above cited passages, has already referred to the 
Logos as the hidden manna, the Wisdom of God, Theosophy, illuminating 
the perfected soul. He says specifically in another place that, "No mortal 
thing could have been formed on the similitude of the supreme Father of 
the universe, but only after the pattern of the second deity, who is the 
Word (Ao709)of the supreme Being; since it is fitting that the rational 
soul of man should bear before it the type of the divine Word ( Acxyos ) ; 
since in his first Word God is superior to the most rational possible 
nature." 1 * 

We find these ideas of the Power and Wisdom of God combined in 
Paul, and ascribed to Christ, the Logos. "Where is the Wise ? Where 
is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Hath not God made 
foolish the wisdom of the age? For, seeing that in the wisdom of God 
(Theosophy, iv ry aofya TOV 6eov) the age through its wisdom knew 
not God, it was God's good pleasure, through the foolishness of the thing 
preached, to save them that believe. Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and 
Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a 
stumbling block, and unto Gentiles, foolishness ; but unto the called 
themselves, (avrot,<; Be TOW /cXr?Tots=the elect?) both Jews and Greeks, 
Christ, the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God/' 11 Theosophy 
Xpurrbv 6eov SvvafJitv Kal #tou ao<f)iav. 

It would take us too far afield to trace all the occasions in St. Paul, 
or in Philo, where these ideas are developed; but, before leaving this 
early period we shall refer to two striking passages in the Gospels, which 
give a still more authoritative background for the meaning of our word. 

In St. Matthew, chapter 23, verse 34, Christ is reported as saying, 
"Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, wise men, and scribes : 
some of them shall ye kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge 
in your synagogues and persecute from city to city : that upon you may 
come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of 
Abel, the righteous, unto the blood of Zachariah, son of Barachiah, whom 
ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily, I say unto you, All 
these things shall come upon this generation." Now, St. Luke in a 
parallel passage, chapter 11, verses 47-51, makes a noteworthy change in 
the words of Christ. He writes : "Woe unto you ! For ye build the tombs 
of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. So ye are witnesses and 



1st Cor. 2:4-8. The marginal reading f or vojiav 9tov is given as 6<ov <ro<i>iai> 
10 Questions and Solutions. Book 2 question 62 Younge. Vol 4, pp. 391-2. 
* 1st Cor. 1:20-25, incL 



NOTES ON THE WORD THEOSOPHY 255 

consent unto the works of your fathers: for they killed them, and ye 
build their tombs. Therefore, also, said the Wisdom of God, I will send 
unto them prophets and apostles; and some of them they shall kill and 
persecute; that the blood of all the prophets that was shed from the 
foundation of the world may be required of this generation; from the 
blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the 
altar and the sanctuary : yea, I say unto you, it shall be required of this 
generation." The Greek words, fj <ro<j>ia rov deov Znrev the Wisdom of 
God said seems to denote the Wisdom of God which is operative and 
embodied, as it were, in Jesus ; and this phrase was frequently quoted by 
Christian martyrs, when, to comfort themselves under persecution, they 
recalled this saying of Christ. In fact it became a recognized formula 
of quotation. Eusebius, also, perhaps in the words of Hegesippus, calls 
those who had personally heard Christ, "The hearers of the Wisdom of 
God" 61 avrat,<t cucodts TTTJS evBeou <ro<f>ia<t 12 bringing theos and sopliia 
together in the same way as did Philo and St. Paul. It is obvious from 
the prevalence of such a usage that Christ, the Wisdom of God, was a 
common phrase among primitive Christians. And it is a striking fact 
that St. Luke puts the words, ^ <ro<j>(a rov 0eov into the mouth of Christ, 
making Christ say of himself that he was the Wisdom of God. 

Fascinating as it would be to develop this thesis in more detail, and 
to establish beyond peradventure that Christ himself, as well as St. Paul 
and Philo, was using a term freighted with meaning, and of age-old 
association with the mystery doctrines of Egypt and India, it is necessary 
to pass on to those who followed immediately in the footsteps of the 
Apostles, in whose writings our word occurs. Lyddel and Scott give 
Clement of Alexandria (in his Stromata) as the first writer in whom the 
united word Theosophy occurs. The present author, however, is of the 
opinion that, as at least a majority of the works that have come down to 
us ascribed to the pen of Dionysius the Areopagite are genuine, and as 
he used the single word repeatedly, the actual use of the word antedates 
Clement by a generation. It has been the fashion, since German scholar- 
ship attained the ascendancy, to consider the famous works of 
Dionysius as the product of some unknown and mysterious man 
living between 475 and 525 A. D. However, according to the Rev. 
John Parker, translator of much of Dionysius, the latest German 
scholarship, so-called, has granted, through Dr. Schneider, that "In 
Germany they now admit that the external proofs are in favour of 
the genuineness of Dionysius . . . they pretend that the doctrine 
is too clear and precise to have been written in the Apostolic Age." 13 
The author, after a brief survey, agrees that the external proofs favour 
the genuineness of the primitive Dionysius, rather than of the later and 



12 Cf. Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, N. Y. 1887, p. 582, foot 
of column 1. 

"The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, by the Rev. John Parker, M.A., London, 1897. 
Preface to the Divine Names, p. xvi. Italics ours. 



256 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



pseudo-Dionysius, and feels that his doctrine is exactly such as to have 
been almost necessarily the work of some one who could only have had 
the profound knowledge of a convert and companion of St. Paul, the 
familiar friend of St. John, and the Initiate of a truly Apostolic Age. 

Dionysius, Bishop of Athens, who was martyred in 119 A. D., wrote 
his first book on the Divine Names according to one ancient authority in 
A. D. 98, and he used the word Theosophy in it on numerous occasions. 
He says of himself in the fourth section of the Divine Names: "And 
whatever other divinely wrought illuminations, conformable to the ora- 
cles, the secret tradition of our inspired leaders bequeathed to us for our 
enlightenment, in these, also, we have been initiated." And again: 
"Besides, we must also consider this, that the teaching handed down by 
the Theologians is twofold one, secret and mystical, the other, open 
and better known one, symbolical and an initiator the other, philo- 
sophic and demonstrative; and the unspoken is intertwined with the 
spoken. The one persuades and seeks after the truth of the things 
expressed, the other acts, and implants in Almighty God by instructions in 
mysteries not learnt by teaching. And certainly, neither our holy instruc- 
tors, nor those of the law, abstain from God-befitting symbols throughout 
the celebrations of the most holy mysteries. Yes, we see even the most 
holy Angels mystically advancing things Divine through enigmas : and 
Jesus himself, speaking the word of God in parables, and transmitting 
the divinely wrought mysteries through a typical spreading of a table." 14 

With these by way of giving Dionysius' credentials, he writes to 
Bishop Polycarp that, "By the knowledge of created things, well called 
philosophy by him [Apollophanes], and by the divine Paul named Wis- 
dom of God (o-o<pia eteoO), the true philosophers ought to have been 
elevated to the Cause of things created and to the knowledge of them." 15 
This links Dionysius, as might have been expected, with St. Paul, and his 
authority for the use of the terms. He opens another work entitled 
Mystic Theology, with an address to the Trinity : "Supernal Triad, both 
super-God and super-good, guardian of the Theosophy of Christians, 
direct us to the super-unknown mystic oracles, both super-glorious and on 
the topmost pinnacle, where the simple and absolute and changeless 
mysteries of Theology lie hidden within the super-luminous darkness of 
the silence, not revealing hidden things which in its deepest darkness 
shines above the most super-brilliant; and in the wholly impalpable and 
invisible, fills to overflowing eyeless minds with glories of surpassing 
beauty." 18 Again, in the Celestial Hierarchy he writes, "Thus do all 
Theosophers, and prophets of the secret inspiration, separate the Holy 
of Holies from the uninitiated and unholy, to keep them undefiled; and 
they prefer the dissimilar description of holy things, so that divine things 



14 Divine Names, Chap. 1, Sec. 4; cf. Migne, Pat. Gr., Tom. 3, column 620. letter 
t Titus, the Bishop, Ibid. col. 1105. 

"Pat. Gr., Op. cit., Letter vn; col. 1080. 
Pat. Gr., in, cl. 997. 






NOTES ON THE WORD THEOSOPHY 257 

should never be reached by the profane, nor those who diligently 
contemplate the divine imagery rest in the types as though they were 
true," a thoroughly interesting sentence. 17 It will be noticed that the 
words here are used in their integrity, no longer divided as in St. Paul. 

In the Divine Names there are two brilliant definitions of Theosophy 
and Theosophers. The first is as follows : "And when Theosophers 
(6t 0eoVo0ot, one word) themselves celebrate him, as Author of all 
things, under many Names, from all created Things as Good, as Beau- 
tiful, as Wise, as Beloved, as God of Gods, or Lord of lords, as Holy of 
Holies, as Eternal, as Being, as Author of Ages, as Provider of Life, as 
Wisdom, as Mind, as Logos, as Knowing, as pre-eminently possessing all 
the Treasures of all Knowledge, as Power, as Powerful, as King of kings, 
as Ancient of days, as never growing old and Unchangeable, as Preserva- 
tion, as Righteousness, as Sanctification, as Redemption, as surpassing all 
things in greatness, and as in a gentle wind." 18 Later on in the same 
book, he says that, "The angelic minds . . . see at a glance the divine 
conceptions indivisibly and immaterially, and are moulded by the God-like 
One to the divine and Super-wise Mind and Reason, as attainable by 
reason of Theosophy . . .Theosophy is called source, and cause, and 
main-stay and completion, and God, and term of wisdom itself, and of 
every kind, and of every mind and reason, and of every sensible per- 
ception." 19 And finally, "Thus, then, the early leaders of our Divine 
Theosophy are dying every day on behalf of truth, testifying as is natural, 
both by every word and deed, to the one knowledge of the truth of the 
Christians, that it is of all, both more simple, and more divine, yea, 
that it is the sole true and one and simple knowledge of God." 20 

No wonder, with such an accumulated setting, that our word Theoso- 
phy should have been employed by numerous Christian writers. Clement 
of Alexandria (A. D. 153 to 217), a pupil of Ammonius Saccas, pro- 
found student of Philo, and a mystic and scholar of the highest degree, 
uses our word adverbially in his Stromata, a work replete with tradi- 
tional wisdom of Greece and Egypt. "The Stromata" he says in the 
opening chapter, "will contain the truth mixed-up in the dogmas of 
philosophy, or rather covered over and hidden, as the edible part of the 
nut in the shell. For, in my opinion, it is fitting that the seeds of truth 
be kept for the husbandmen of faith, and no others. . . . For it 
does not follow that if a man accomplishes anything, not purposely, he 
does it through force of circumstances. But he will do it, managing it by 
Theosophy ( 6*0 a- J0a>5 ) , and in accommodation to circumstances. . . . 
For, like farmers who irrigate the land beforehand, so we also water 
with the liquid stream of Greek learning what in it is earthy; so that 



17 Ibid., >col. 145. Cf. John Scotus Erigena's barbarous translation of this passage in 
Pat. Lot., Tom. 122, col. 1043. 
"Ibid., col. 596. 
11 Ibid., col. 868. 
*>Ibid., col. 873. 



258 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

it may receive the spiritual seed cast into it, and may be capable of easily 
nourishing it." "But the husbandry is twofold, the one unwritten, and 
the other written;" and again he says, "And to him who is able secretly 
to observe what is delivered to him, that which is veiled shall be dis- 
closed as truth; and what is hidden to the many, shall appear manifest 
to the few. For why do not all know the truth? Why is not righteous- 
ness loved, if righteousness belongs to all? But the mysteries are deliv- 
ered mystically, that what is spoken may be in the mouth of the speaker, 
rather not in his voice, but in his understanding . . . Some things 
I purposely omit in the exercise of a wise selection, afraid to write 
what I guarded against speaking; not grudging, for that were wrong; 
but fearing for my readers lest they should stumble by taking them in a 
wrong sense; and as the proverb says, we should be found 'reaching a 
sword to a child' . . . Some things my treatise will hint; on some 
it will linger; some it will merely mention. It will try to speak imper- 
ceptibly, to exhibit secretly, and to demonstrate silently. The dogmas 
taught by remarkable sects will be adduced ; and to these will be opposed 
all that ought to be premised in accordance with the prof oundest contem- 
plation of the knowledge which, as we proceed to the renowned and 
venerable canon of tradition from the creation of the world, will advance 
to our view ; setting before us what, according to natural contemplation, 
necessarily has to be treated of beforehand, and clearing off what stands 
in the way of this arrangement. So that we may have our ears ready 
for the reception of the tradition of true knowledge . . . and there 
are some mysteries before other mysteries." 21 

Without having had time to discover if other contemporary and 
subsequent writers use the word Theosophy, which is highly probable, 
it is interesting to note that it appears as a title applied to the Greek 
Emperor Constantine IV (Pogonotus), who presided over the Sixth 
(Ecumenical Council which met in Constantinople from November 7, 680 
to November 16, 681. On several different occasions Constantine is 
spoken of as "beloved of God," and "a Theosopher." 22 

This is translated in Latin by Deo instructae, the Latin term 
"Theosophus" apparently not having as yet been invented. We might 
note here that the same epithet in its Latin form is applied by an old 
chronicler to the French King, Robert the Good, in a charter dated Sep- 
tember, A. D. 999. 23 It has been said that it was through Robert the 
Good that the inherited gift of healing was acquired by the anointed 
French kings. 

John Scotus Erigena (d. c. 880 A. D.), was apparently the first to 
coin the Latin word Theosophus, and he did this by translating the works 






21 Migne, Pat. Gr., Tom. 9, col. 708, etc. Stromata, Bk. 1, Chap. 1. Cf. the translation in 
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. n, pp. 302-3. 

Sacrorum Conciliorum Collect. J. D. Mansi. Florentiae, 1756. Tom. xi, col. 221 
cf. columns 207 and 210. 

13 Jean Besly, "Data mense Septembri . . . an. 999. Indictione 12. regnante Rotberto Rege 
Theosopho, anno 5, legendum forte anno primo." 



NOTKS ON THE WORD THEOSOPHY 



259 



of Dionysius. The novelty of its use is proved by the fact that he 
translates the Greek word 0eo<ro0/i/ in one place by divinas sapientias, 
whereas he coins the term directly from the Greek in another passage. 24 
From Erigena the Latin term spread into scholastic theology, and appears 
from time to time as a synonym for Philosophus Philosopher thus, 
in large measure, losing its special connotation. For instance, the second 
Council of Limoges in 1031 speaks of King Robert as "doctissimo rege 
Francorum Roberto" rather than as "Theosopho." 

Hugh of Flavens, Bishop of Verdun, in his Chronicle, uses the term 
twice, in a rather derogatory sense. He says, "But wisdom fled from 
inhabiting a body dwelling in the senses. He pretended that at that 
time he was a philosopher, in order that those who did not know that 
he was a theosopher would believe him." ~ l! Hugh died in 1098. 

From now on the word seems to lose its special significance, until 
the time of Reuchlin (d. 1492), Agrippa (d. 1535), Cordano (d. 1576), 
Pico della Mirandola, and Paracelsus (d. 1540). With them the word 
Theosophy enters upon its second phase of meaning; this second phase 
in its turn containing also those writers who opposed Theosophy, and 
who, therefore, referred to it only in terms of criticism or ridicule. 

In conclusion, it would seem superfluous to point out the thor- 
oughly orthodox setting in which the word Theosophy entered upon its 
checkered career. We are inclined to differ from Matthew Arnold, who, 
though he says, "Jesus spoke of himself as uttering the word of God ; 
but that he called himself the Logos, there is neither indication nor 
probability: there is, however, some trace of him calling himself the 
Wisdom of God," yet adds, "These things are not in the manner of 
Jesus. Jesus never theosophized." 27 

Only those who do not understand could say that "Jesus never 
iheosophized." 

ACTON GRISCOM. 



* Joanis Scott Opera quae snpersunt omnia. Pat. Lot., Tom. 122, col. 270, 1043, etc. 
M Mansi, Opus cit., Tom. xix, col. 526. 

-* Httghonis Abbatis Flaviniaccnsis Ckronicon. Pat. Lat., Tom. 154, lib. 1, col. 151. 
Title: Objections to "Literature and Dogma." Contemporary Review, 1875, Vol. 26, 



pp. 684-5. 



NO 



NO is the classic drama of Japan. The character for it signifies 
to be able, talent, performance or accomplishment. 
The No is a combination of recitation and dance with music. 
It is often compared to the Greek drama with which, indeed, 
it has certain resemblances. The Greek drama was derived from the 
Rites of Bacchus and from the goat song. The No is derived from 
ancient shrine dances in honour of Shinto gods, from court dances, and 
from Buddhist shrine pantomimes. 

There is a legend as to the origin of the Kagura or ancient shrine 
dance. The Sun Goddess, disgusted by the pranks of her brother, hid 
herself in a cave and left the world in darkness. The gods assembled 
in the dry bed of the River of the Milky Way to deliberate upon a means 
of luring her forth. They caused Ame no Hime, "The Terrible Female 
of Heaven," to disguise herself fantastically and to dance upon an 
inverted tub. "Then the gods laughed till the high planes of Heaven 
shook," and the Sun Goddess came out of her cave. These Kagura 
are still danced at certain temples. 

At the court it was the custom to dance not only martial but fanciful 
dances. The nobles of the court at Kioto composed poems to accompany 
these dances, and sang songs in unison at court ceremonies. Finally the 
chorus of nobles became a trained chorus, with musicians, and a minister 
in charge of it. These court entertainments were called Saibara. Many 
of the names of No plays are identical with the names of Saibara given 
in a manuscript collection compiled about the year 900 A. D, In the 
iamous romance, Genji Monogatari 1 , the young hero, shining Genji, 
dances before the court the dance of the Blue Sea Waves, and sings a 
.song. Perhaps both are handed down to us in the play Suma Genji. 

In the Buddhist temples pantomimes were performed, representing 
incidents in the lives of the saints and the interventions of Buddha or 
the Bodhisattwa. These were accompanied by the reading of scriptural 
texts. In Japan, Shintoism and the various sects of Buddhism live 
amicably side by side and interpenetrate. The Buddhism of the No is 
that of the "Greater Vehicle," sometimes of the Amidist school, some- 
times that of the more mystical Zen. 

The No is a gathering together of all these elements. By the four- 
teenth century it had become a serious dramatic performance. 

There grew up at the same time among the acrobats, jugglers and 
mummers a form of comedy, the Kiogen or "Wild Words." These farces 
are still played as interludes between serious No, much as were mediaeval 
farces in Mystery Plays. The name "Wild Words" conies from a poem 
oy the Chinese poet, Po Chii-i. "May the vulgar trade of letters that I 
have plied in this life, all the folly of wild words and fine phrases, be 



1 The Genji Monogatari was written by the Lady Murasaki Shikibu at the end of the tenth 
century. It is one of the Japanese classics. 

260 



NO 



261 



transformed into a hymn of praise that shall celebrate the Buddha in 
age on age to come, and cause the Great Wheel of Law to turn." ~ 

The Shoguns, especially, took an interest in No. The Great 
Yoshimitsu was a patron of the priest-actor Kagehisa, and of his son 
Seami, the author of many No played to-day, and of the famous treatise 
on the theatre, the Kwadensho. 

The tradition of No has been carried on in an unbroken line from 
the fourteenth century. When the Shogunate fell in 1868, the actor 
Umewaka Minoru, a descendant of Kagehisa, at infinite pains preserved 
the art from extinction. He bought up an old stage, old costumes and 
masks and continued to give performances. 

Since the fourteenth century, No has been essentially an aristocratic 
art. It was performed for the Shogun and the nobility. Only one per- 
formance a year was public. The daimyos were forbidden to go to any 
other theatre. The actors themselves were descended from daimyo and 
samurai families. They handed on the secret traditions of their art 
from father to son. Great stress was laid upon their manners and their 
morals. Umewaka Minoru says that the character of an actor cannot 
be concealed, and that, if he would play great parts, he must be "pure, 
moral and true in all his daily life." 

Seami says that No is to teach the history of the country and to 
elevate the mind and morals. Even in the farce there should be nothing 
low. 

The first No theatres were built out of doors in dry river beds or 
in court yards. The No stage is a raised platform with a roof sup- 
ported by four pillars. The back is closed, and upon this wall is painted 
a pine tree, symbolic of the Unchanging. The stage is connected with the 
actors' dressing room by a bridge along which, at regular intervals, are 
placed three dwarf pines. The proportions of the stage and bridge are 
rigidly determined. At the back of the stage sit the four musicians, the 
flute player and the three drummers. One drum is played as is ours, 
with sticks, the other two, sometimes called tambourines, are tapped with 
thimble and hand respectively. The chorus sits at the right of the stage. 

There are few characters in the plays ; the Shite or hero, the Waki 
or attendant, and the Tzure, secondary personage. Sometimes there are 
other attendants, reapers or sailors. The parts are all taken by men. 
The actors wear masks in the roles of women, old men and demons. 
These masks are often extremely old and beautiful. Minoru says that 
a commonplace actor cannot wear a good mask. He cannot make him- 
self one with it. 

The No costumes are gorgeous in colour and stuff. Many of our 
museums have collections of them. 

The music of No is a subject in itself. It is built upon a subtile 
system of rhythms, based upon what we should call Pythagorean theories 
the Yo and the In, the Yang and Yin of China. The Japanese ear 



* Translated from the Chinese by Arthur Wayley. 



262 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



recognizes more intervals than does ours, accustomed to the piano. The 
chant somewhat resemhles our plain chant. A similar mode of orna- 
mentation may be found in Italian or Russian folk songs, or, for example, 
in certain troubadour songs. The effect, bizarre at first, becomes extra- 
ordinarily expressive and beautiful as one begins to understand it. 

The text is partly in prose, partly in verse. It is written in the 
Court conversation language of the fourteenth century, a style still in 
use in writing. The subjects of No, as were the subjects of Greek plays, 
are familiar legends and incidents in the lives of heroes. Buddhist texts 
are frequently quoted, and well known poems. About 250 plays written 
before the seventeenth century are still given. 

The No is thus a combination of the splendour of colour with the 
poetry of motion, music and idea. Had the Russian Ballet of DigliefF. 
in its best days, been connected with the mysteries, it might perhaps 
have been compared with it, although the ballet was more mimetic. A 
popular theatre was founded in the seventeenth century. Although 
imitating No in many ways, it was a theatre like our modern one, 
vulgarly mimetic and sensational. Its actors and incidents are familiar 
to everyone in the prints of the Ukiyo-ye school. 

The art of No, like all the great arts of the world, is confined in 
a rigid form, is symbolic, expressive of the noumenon rather than the 
varied phenomena of action or emotion. Paradoxically, such art seems 
more free, conveys more directly the spirit of its idea. As the simplified 
planes of Egyptian sculpture contain the essence of the science of anatomy, 
so the symbolic gesture of the No actor is the synthesis of expression. 
One of the proverbs of this, to us formal and sophisticated art is, "The 
Heart is the form." 

In words which remind us of Lao Tse, the Book of Criticism 
says, ''Forget the theatre and look at the No. Forget the No and look 
at the actor. Forget the actor and look at the idea. Forget the idea and 
you will understand the No." 

The No is a short recitation ending in a dance with chorus. A 
programme is composed of five or six pieces. First, a congratulatory 
piece or play of the gods. The gods have established and maintained 
the nation. Second, the battle or hero piece, for the emperors have 
pacified the country. Third, after battle comes peace. A Female or 
"Wig" play is given. The fourth piece is a play of spirits. The life 
of this world is a dream, after all. This play will show the adventures 
and sins of mortals and cause the audience to think of the world to 
come and of the Buddha. Fifth comes a moral piece on the duties of 
man. At the end is another congratulatory piece to call down the bles- 
sings of the gods. Sometimes this last play is omitted, but a congratu- 
latory chorus is sung. 

Thus a performance is a mystery of the whole life of man. 

Let us summarize briefly a typical, simple No, Nagoromo, the Cloak 
of Feathers. A fisherman has landed on the shore one spring morning. 



NO 



263 



Re song of the chorus and his words evoke the sea, the early mist, 
still shining moon, the wind in the pines. But to-day is no common 
j "An empty sky with music, a rain of flowers, strange fragrance 
on every side." 

Upon a tree, he finds a cloak of feathers. It is the cloak of a 
Tennin, a Celestial Dancer or angel. The Tennin appears and asks him 
to give it back to her. He refuses. Alas ! She cannot return to heaven 
without her cloak. The flowers of her head-dress begin to fade, her 
garments are stained. The chorus sings for her a song of envy of the 
birds that can fly homeward. The fisherman is touched. If she will 
dance for him, he will return the mantle. She dances for him to the 
chanting of the chorus, marvellous dances of Heaven, until, at last, she 
disappears as a "mountain in the mist." 

This is a fairy tale, but there are many other types of No, tales of 
war or exile, of heroism or passion. A favourite device is a ghost which 
returns to relate its past deeds and to ask for prayers. A battle does 
not take place on the stage but is mimed by the apparition. It is seen 
as it were through a refining veil, or in a mirror. 

The warrior Kumagai having killed the hero Atsumori, is filled with 
remorse and becomes a priest. He makes a pilgrimage to pray for his 
victim's soul. The ghost of Atsumori appears to him and rehearses that 
last fight on the seashore at Suma. The boats of his clan have put to 
sea, leaving him behind. Perplexed, he spurs his horse into the waves. 

"And then 

He looks behind him and sees 
That Kumagai pursues him. 
He cannot escape. 
Then Atsumori turns his horse 
Knee deep in the lashing waves, 
And draws his sword. 

Twice, three times he strikes, then, still saddled, 
In close fight they twine, roll headlong together 
Among the surf of the shore." 3 

The wraith, excited by these memories, rises from the ground with 
drawn sword, to attack once more his enemy, but Kumagai calls on 
Buddha's name, and obtains his salvation. In another life they will be 
born as friends. 

Our drama is one of action, the poetry, the fatality of action. The 
Japanese drama is one of concentration, of the perfect dramatic moment 
or situation, that moment Faust would fain retain. Such is the play Ikuta, 
in which the ghost of the same Atsumori returns at the prayers of his 
little son. The child has been informed in a dream that he must go to 
the forest of Ikuta. Accompanied by a priest, he reaches the forest at 
sunset. There, they see in a tent a magnificent young warrior clothed in 
blue and white and gold. It is the ghost of Atsumori. The child runs 

'Translated by Arthur Wayley in The No Plays of Japan; George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 
London. 



264 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



to greet his father whom he has never seen alive, but for whom he has 
so earnestly prayed. 

What can exceed the pathos of this meeting of father and child 
drawn together by love across the tremendous gulfs of death and hell? 

"Oh pitiful ! 

To see this child, born after me, 
Darling that should be gay as a flower, 
Walking in tattered coat of old black cloth. 
Alas! 

Child, when your love of me 
Led you to Kamo shrine, praying to the God 
That, though but in a dream, 
You might behold my face, 
The God of Kamo, full of pity, came 
To Yama, king of Hell. 
King Yama listened, and ordained for me 
A moment's respite, but hereafter, never." * 

He begins to dance the fateful tale of his death and of the fall of 
the Taira clan, when suddenly he stamps, shouting, "Who is that? Can 
it be Yama's messenger ? He comes to tell me I have outstayed my time. 
The Lord of Hell is angry; he asks why I am late." 

He must return to fight with demons. He is ashamed his child 
should see him thus. 

"Oh pray for me, pray for me 
When I am gone, he said, 
And, weeping, weeping, 
Dropped the child's hand." 

Like the story of (Edipus is the story of Kagekiyo, the old, blind 
warrior in exile. His daughter, wandering about the country in search 
of him, asks the way of the old blind beggar. He feels that it must be 
his child, but sends her on. Even when she discovers who he is from 
the villagers and returns to him, he refuses to keep her with him in his 
misery. Weeping, she obeys him. The chorus sings : 

"I am old : I have forgotten, things unforgettable ! 
My thoughts are tangled : I am ashamed. 
But little longer shall this world 
This sorrowful world torment me. 
The end is near. Go to your home; 
Pray for my soul departed, child, candle to my darkness. 
Bridge to salvation ! 
'I stay,' he said, and she 'I go.' 
The sound of this word 
Was all he kept of her, 
Nor passed between them 
Remembrance other." 

There is also the splendid poetry of Kakitsubata, where the glorious 
lady beloved of the poet Narihira appears resplendent as the iris, in the 
iris swamp where once he thought of her. 



NO 



265 



A priest, seeing the flowers, sings in words that are strangely familiar : 

"Time does not stop and spring passes, 
The light foot summer comes nigh us. 
The branching trees and the bright, unmindful grass 
Do not forget their time, 
They take no thought, yet remember 
To show forth their colour in season." 5 

This apparition, arrayed like the flower described in Narihira's poem, 
"in a court dress brought from China," is there to tell us that beauty is 
eternal. Narihira himself was the incarnation of a Bosatsu's music, and 
her spirit is the creation of his thought of her among the iris flowers. 

How exquisitely are entwined here the worlds of thought and mani- 
festation ! 

Chorio is a drama of initiation. Chorio dreamed that upon the 
bridge of Kahi he should meet an ancient man who could teach him the 
"art of fighting." When he awoke he went to Kahi but arrived too 
late. However, he returned another morning and saw, coming towards 
him on horseback, an ancient man so majestic that he knelt before him. 
The old man threw his shoe into the river. Chorio jumped in among 
the whirlpools and rocks of the rapids. Then a dragon rose up from 
the dark mists and fought with him for the shoe. Chorio drew his sword 
and struck a great blow at the dragon. Victorious, he brought back the 
shoe to the Ancient Worthy, Kosekko, who alighted, saying, "Well done. 
Well done." And he gave a scroll of writing to Chorio, containing all 
the secret traditions of warfare. And Kosekko said, "That dragon was 
Kuannon. She came here to try your heart, and she must be your 
goddess hereafter." 

This meeting must remind one of that meeting described by Rama- 
swamier in Five Years of Theosophy, when he saw a solitary horseman 
riding towards him on a road near Sikkim, and recognizing a Mahatma, 
fell upon his knees in the dust. 

The tone of all these plays is religious. The only true end of man is 
enlightenment. Men may love or fight, but at the last their souls turn 
wearily to the Buddha, who saves them through his Grace, at the prayer 
of the righteous. His Law alone endures. 

There are now five No theatres open to the public in Tokyo, besides 
which, No are performed at religious celebrations, weddings and 
festivities. We do not realize what such a theatre means until we com- 
pare it with our own theatre of to-day. We have not a single play house 
in New York or London devoted to the classics or to maintaining a 
standard of modern drama. 

We have exiled not only the kings and master builders, but the 
dramatists also. When shall we remember the real purpose of the drama, 
"To purge the soul through pity and through terror"? 

JEUNESSE. 

'Translated in Noh or Accomplishment, by Ernest Fcnollosa and Ezra Pound Macmillan. 



SELF-CONTROL 



THE expression, self-control, is so common that it seems hardly 
necessary to define it. But self-control as understood by 
Theosophy has a much deeper and more comprehensive meaning 
than it is generally supposed to have. 

What is the self that is to be controlled? And what (or who) is 
to control it? St. Paul speaks of the two natures fighting against each 
other, so that when he would do good, evil was present to try and defeat 
him ; and Theosophy speaks of the higher self and the lower self struggling 
against each other, each seeking to be master. What is this lower self? 
It is a body of forces or powers that can be used either for the preserva- 
tion of life or for its destruction. It is like fire and electricity. Elec- 
tricity when under the control of intelligence, is a splendid servant, but 
when not controlled it becomes a destructive force. So fire may be a 
blessing or a curse; it may bring cheer and comfort to our homes, or 
it may be a raging flame that sweeps away our homes and destroys life. 
To be a blessing it must be controlled. 

Words, deeds, thoughts, emotions must all be controlled if life is 
to be a blessing. There may be, and often is, control of words but not 
of thoughts and emotions. When it seems to be an advantage to be silent, 
men control their words, but bitterness still rules within. Napoleon 
said if he could keep his anger below his chin, he was all right, but if 
it rose above, he lost control of others. There is often a control of 
appetites by prize fighters and athletes because of the greater good that 
will come to them from this control. But internally they are unchanged ; 
the same desires are there, only held back for a little while during training, 
as one holds back a fiery horse, and when the race or the fight is over 
the appetites are indulged as much as ever. 

There is also control of the desire to harm another, because of the 
fear of evil consequences that may follow if the injury is done. 

All this is far below self-control as defined by Theosophy; in fact, 
this is sheer selfishness, a desire for happiness, prosperity, and success, 
regardless of their effects on others. Thus the lower self seems to be 
separated from others and looks on others as enemies if they interfere 
with, or limit its happiness. Its interest centres in having what it desires 
for itself alone. Theosophy teaches that separateness is the great heresy, 
that universal brotherhood is a fact in nature, that we are members one 
of another, and that we can only attain to good as we seek to impart it 
to others. This takes us back to thoughts and motives, which are more 
important than words or deeds. Thoughts are often hidden by words 
and deeds. So the control of self is the control of thoughts and motives, 
and this is never attained without strong desire and long continued effort 
of will. When we come to see that we are not separate, but parts of 
one whole, one with all things and all beings, and, as St. John says. 

266 






SELF-CONTROL 267 

that "we dwell in God and God in us," we shall desire to live true lives. 
We shall then desire to think thoughts of kindness and love, for by so 
doing we may reach true self-control. On the other hand, selfish thoughts 
produce hatred, strife, divisions and unhappiness to ourselves and others. 
But thought and service for others, with the forgetting of self, will 
bring happiness and joy, for the words of Jesus are still true: "He 
that would save his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for my 
sake and the gospel's shall save it." 

We see then the importance of real self-control; our own welfare 
and that of others demands it. It is necessary for true success in life. 
We cannot enjoy perfect physical health unless we control the emotions ; 
anger, envy, and jealousy are foes of health of body and mind. No 
matter how great and wise a man may be, if he yields to fits of anger 
at critical moments, life for himself and others will be spoiled. "He 
that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his 
spirit than he that taketh a city." In occultism no progress can be made 
without it; so from the beginning of our studies we are urged to culti- 
vate it "raise the self by the self," and strive to bring the lower self 
into subjection to the higher. We must still the lower voices before 
we can hear the higher. We must find the place of peace before we 
can really grow. How may we win self-control? There are some ways 
easier than others, and we may each find some help in the struggle. 

The old phrenologists used to teach that the faculties work in groups ; 
some are leaders, some helpers and some followers. Fear is a strong 
faculty and if the self-reliant faculties are not strong, fear will rule 
them and some others. Out of fear comes doubt, despondency, jealousy 
and other inharmonious conditions. Fear is cowardice, so if we can con- 
quer fear, its opposite courage will manifest and destroy a good many 
other things that hinder growth and progress. So it is a surer way to 
conquer the leader than to try to destroy the things that are born of fear. 

To conquer fear there must be self-knowledge. If you know your 
weakness, remind yourself of the strong opposites that are yours if you 
cultivate them hopefulness, self-reliance, and conscience. Fear is often 
the result of ignorance, as a child in a dark room is afraid, but when 
a light is made in the room his fears are overcome. The principles of 
Theosophy will help greatly in overcoming fear and its brood of evils. 

Another evil leader is sensuality, the indulgence of the animal senses 
for the sake of pleasure. The indulgence of animal appetites brings a 
number of attending evils, and man becomes a slave to eating, drinking 
and pleasure. To conquer this we must study the effects of wrong 
eating, overeating and over-excitement of any kind. This knowledge 
with the use of reason will greatly assist the development of will power, 
so that in time we shall have no difficulty in deciding what and when we 
want to eat and drink and enjoy. I have already referred to prize 
fighters and athletes as examples, and the training of these may be 
studied with profit. 



268 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Perhaps the most difficult thing to conquer is vanity. The grosser 
forms we may recognize in ourselves and begin to correct them, but we 
are often blind to the higher forms and so do not attempt to conquer 
them. Vanity is the perverted, or excessive action of what the phren- 
ologist calls 'love of approbation." When rightly used and controlled, 
it tends to make our intercourse with each other pleasant; it helps to 
civilize and harmonize men, and to restrain selfishness. It can be educated 
to move in proper channels, and unless it is so educated it produces 
some of the worst evils in life, such as insincerity, pretence, extravagance, 
and all kinds of shams. It even affects our religion, so that that which 
above all things should be sincere is at last used to win praise. When 
vanity is strong, men seek to win golden opinions instead of seeking 
to be right and true. They cease to value that which is intrinsic and 
seek for that which will buy things. Vanity leads to falseness, boasting, 
flattery, extravagance, and dishonesty. It makes men insincere in thought 
and conviction, for it weakens the conscience so that we do not see 
clearly what is right and honourable. Few of us are strong enough to 
stand alone, so opinions that are unpopular are held by few, but when 
they begin to be popular, multitudes endorse them. When anti-slavery 
sentiments were unpopular few confessed to holding them, but when the 
cause became victorious, almost everyone confessed his belief in them. 

It is most important that we seek to control this faculty so that 
we may live and act truthfully, sincerely, and lovingly, and thus win 
reality of character, when our yea will be yea, and our nay, nay, for 
Jesus says whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. How to do 
this is a most important question. We must first see and feel our weak- 
ness and imperfection, and earnestly aspire after the perfect. Self- 
knowledge comes by self-examination, and by study of the highest 
examples and ideals. 

Following this course, little by little the spiritual will may be awak- 
ened, but it is a long, hard battle; requiring patience and faith. The 
greatest help may be found in daily meditation, self-study and prayer. 

If we can master these three qualities fear, sensuality, and vanity- 
we shall have largely won self-control. Let us never forget that selfish 
thoughts fill the mind with darkness and hatred, causing strife and 
divisions, with unhappiness to ourselves and others. On the other hand, 
thought and service for others, with the forgetting of self, bring happiness 
and lasting joy. 

Self-control for our own sake, and for the sake of others is neces- 
sary, for it is obedience to, and the expression of, a great law of life, 
and this obedience will lead us out of darkness into light, out of bondage 
and misery into liberty, health, peace and happiness. 

JOHN SCHOFIELD. 



ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 



THERE are few things more helpful," said the Recorder, "than 
experience on the subject of prayer and meditation, I mean 
on the method of prayer, on how to pray and how to meditate; 
and I wish that some of you people would contribute." 

"If prayer may be defined as the science and art of communicating 
with the spiritual world," the Philosopher responded, "it necessarily 
must be the study of a life-time, and a progressive study; so that prac- 
tices and methods which are helpful at one stage, might easily be hin- 
drances at another. Allowance must be made also for individual tem- 
perament. Some people, for instance, whose minds are very active, and 
who are engrossed in worldly affairs, including both real and imaginary 
duties, require a more 'mental' method than those whose interest and 
attention are given already to spiritual things. To get rid of the 'world- 
liness' of their minds, they must use their minds for spiritual purposes, 
both during their time of prayer, and whenever they have an oppor- 
tunity to do so. If, when they begin to pray or to meditate, they find 
their minds 'buzzing', it would be best for them, until their minds quiet 
down, to read some devotional book a book of sermons or of medita- 
tions pausing at each sentence or paragraph to think it over. Little 
by little they should be able to start their own minds working, inde- 
pendently, in the right direction, and, through the properly directed 
activity of their own minds, they should be able to lead themselves to a 
right desire, and, finally, to a right resolution, which may be regarded 
as the true objective of meditation." 

"I do not understand how you identify a right resolution with 
what you suggested at first, namely, that prayer may be defined as the 
science and art of communicating with the spiritual world." Our 
Visitor raised the question. 

"Right resolution, if carried out, is merely an extension in time of 
communication with the spiritual world. A passing vision, a flash of 
insight, is of very little use to us, unless it result in corresponding 
action." 

"Could you illustrate what you have been saying?" 

"I will try. Suppose you have been reading a chapter in the Imita- 
tion of Christ. Let us assume that when you begin it, you are 'out of 
tune' with spiritual things, and that it is not until the end of the chapter 
that anything begins to work 'inside of you'. The last verse reads : 
'How small soever anything be, if it be inordinately loved and regarded, 
it keepeth thee back from the highest good, and defileth the soul.' Per- 
haps you do not receive a direct impulse from that, but you begin to talk 
to the Master about it. Your reading has attuned you to that extent. 

269 



270 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

You might say to him: 'Yes, Lord, I wish to serve and to obey the 
I wish that obedience to thee might become my greatest joy. [Now tr 
to imagine and thus to see for yourself what it would be like if obedien 
to the Master were to become your greatest joy.] Yes, I can see i 
There is that child of the B.'s ; their only child. She adores her fathe 
and because she adores him, if he tells her to do something, or expre 
any desire, she is thrilled with delight at the prospect of being able to 
please him, by carrying out his wishes, by serving him. I might love 
thee like that. I wish to do so. Please, I beg of thee, help me to that 
end. [Now, as the result of the slight feeling which your meditation 
has already generated, your mind becomes more creative in its activity, 
and sees into spiritual facts more clearly.] And I do not want to rest 
content with the blind devotion of a child. I want the devotion, the love, 
the worship. But I want understanding too. Without understanding, I 
cannot be of real service to thee. And I can see how a General might 
serve his Commander-in-Chief, with what delight, and with what in- 
tense appreciation of his superior's genius. I can see his heart and 
intellect and every faculty he possesses, on fire in loving, intelligent, 
forceful, concentrated obedience. It would be obedience, and yet there 
would be no thought of obedience, because he would have identified 
himself so completely with the plans and wishes of his superior. There 
would be utter self-forgetfulness. There would be the delight of the 
child's heart, plus the delight of the man's intellect. . . . Give me, 
I implore thee, love such as that, the love of an understanding 
heart. It would be wonderful. . . . But thou canst give, 
thou sayest, only as I give to thee! . . . The widow's mite . . . 
The seven loaves and few small fishes . . . We must give our all, 
no matter how little that may be, before thou canst multiply and make 
infinite ! Yes, I understand. And that is my desire . . . Thou sayest 
that I cannot do it all at once; that I must give thee the whole of one 
thing before I can give thee the whole of everything . . . But what 
have I to give thee, Lord ? I am poor ; I have no talents ; my time is not 
my own . . . Have I no sins, thou sayest; no weaknesses which 
might be turned into weapons of love for thee? And could I not give 
thee one of these? . . . Truly I should, but I have tried and failed. 
Never once have I given thee anything completely. There is my habit 
of interrupting others, and the offence I give so often in that way. I 
have tried to cure myself ; have tried to listen patiently . . . Ah, 
"patiently" : perhaps that was the cause of the trouble ! . . . I should 
resolve definitely and finally to make an offering of this habit to thee; 
I should ask myself when and against whom I sin most frequently; 
should attack the enemy at that point ; I should concentrate my attend 
there, where I am weakest; I should ask myself why I have failed i 
the past ; I should study the nature of the enemy to be conquered. Y 
I see. Interruption is only the outer expression of an attitude of hea 




ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 271 

and mind. What impels me to interrupt? Do I think my own ideas so 
much more valuable than the ideas of others, that I cannot wait until they 
have articulated theirs? Would it matter if I never uttered mine? Is 
it egotism against egotism? But in that case, need I be negative to the 
other man's attitude? Need I be dominated by him? Need I permit 
him to drag me down to his plane ? Might I not meet his lack of interest 
in my ideas, with intense interest in his? Should I not listen with thee, 
dear Lord and Master, and listen also for thy comment on what he 
says? . . . Or is the cause of my habit something quite different? 
Clearly, at my next meditation I must study this question again. I must 
discover what stands in my way. But this much I can resolve for to-day : 
at lunch, when I shall meet him, I will not interrupt, and I must watch 
my desire to do so in order to trace the desire to its root, if that be pos- 
sible . . . Master, help me to see, to understand myself, to will and to 
conquer! Very little do I love thee, because I love myself with most of 
the love thou givest me for loving. But I long to love thee, and if I can 
conquer self-love at one point, I shall at least have that much more of 
love to give to thee. And thou multipliest : thou wilt take my small gift 
and wilt breathe upon it and set it afire and some day that fire will con- 
sume my self-love, and I shall love thee utterly and for ever!' 

"That," continued the Philosopher, "is of course only a brief outline 
of what I would call one form of meditation. I suggest it merely to show 
the way in which reading may serve us, as a spring-board serves a diver. 
Our experience ought soon to teach us what kind of books will help us 
most. It may be that on some particular morning, it would be wisest to 
begin with one book and to pass on to another. We may need to lead 
ourselves from a comparatively lower plane, to the plane of our real 
desire. In some cases such a poem as Thompson's 'Hound of Heaven' 
will start the mind and the imagination working, these, in their turn, 
illuminating and firing the heart. You remember the words : 

Halts by me that footfall : 
Is my gloom, after all, 
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly ? 
'Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest 
I am He whom thou seekest! 
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.' 

On another day, in a different mood, the same man might find that, 
instead of poetry, he could draw inspiration only from some purely 
intellectual thesis, or from a life of Buddha, or of Christ, or of one of 
the Saints. The beginner must tempt his appetite! It is only the vet- 
eran, with well established and well regulated habits, who can afford to 
consume the same simple diet day after day." 

"I can see value in your method," remarked the Pragmatist, an 



272 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

old student of Theosophy, "but the method of Buddha should, I think, 
be used also. You remember the Mahd-parinibbdna-Sutta: 'Now these 
stages of deliverance, Ananda, from the hindrance to thought arising 
from the sensations and ideas due to external forms, are eight in num- 
ber/ Then he shows the way of escape from wrong self-identification. 
We should meditate upon the fact that we are not these forms, or the 
space which forms occupy, or even the mental concept of forms : we 
are above all these, as the beholders of mental concepts, and so on, 
back to the eternal and changeless Self. . . . It is a method which 
requires active and concentrated thought, but comparatively little reading. 
A Buddhist probably would confine himself to a single verse from one 
of the Suttas." 

"Some people make the mistake/' commented the Theologian, "of 
setting themselves a task in the matter of reading, I mean spiritual 
reading. They try to read at least one page or five or ten pages every 
day. There are times when a few words will be sufficient to start a 
real meditation. For instance, Thy will be done' may suggest the 
prayer, Thy will be done in and on and through me. Instantly we may 
see that such a prayer is good, but is negative. This will lead to a new 
and more positive prayer, namely : may we do Thy will, to-day, at all 
hours of the day, and in particular at certain moments when experience 
has taught us that we are very much inclined to prefer our own will. 
This, in turn, will lead to a consideration of the obstacles to be overcome. 
We shall try to formulate these and shall probably discover that among 
them we must count our stupidity, our laziness, our irritability and im- 
patience. It would be possible, of course, to continue such a meditation 
almost indefinitely, particularly if we take up the subject of our stupid- 
ity, the range of which is limitless, as we may be sure! But it is wiser 
not to attempt too much. We should confine ourselves to the main 
obstacles we are attacking, or perhaps to the obstacle which stood out 
most prominently in our effort of the day before, whether this be under 
the head of laziness, of irritability, or of intellectual blindness. Then 
we should resolve to overcome that obstacle, as has already been sug- 
gested, at a definite point, in a definite way." 

"If, at the time of our meditation, we have no book within reach," 
the Sage remarked, "we might find an excellent substitute in some re- 
membered incident from the life of one of the Masters. Take, for 
instance, the arrival of Christ at the city of Samaria, where he sat by 
the well, 'being weary with his journey'. We, perhaps, sometimes imag- 
ine ourselves to be mortally tired. We feel as if we could not move hand 
or foot, and as if the least mental effort were impossible. Do all of us 
realize, I wonder, that as yet we do not know the meaning of fatigue, and 
that the exhaustion of great Adepts must necessarily be infinitely greater 
than our own? Orthodox Christians miss so much of the wonder of 
Christ's achievement, by emphasizing his divinity at the expense of his 






ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 273 

humanity. Some of them would think it insulting to suggest that at times 
he must have felt worn out, while, to suppose that he could feel worn out 
now, to them would seem blasphemous. They do not understand that his 
triumph over exhaustion was one of the ways in which he showed his 
supreme greatness. This, of course, stands out particularly during his 
last three days of life in Palestine. People seem to think that a man is 
great because he is strong. Actually, a man is strong only in relation to 
others who are not as strong as he is. His greatness consists in 
triumphing over his weakness. . . . But the fruit of that meditation, 
if it were mine, would be that most of us are probably misunderstanding, 
not only Masters, but those who are much closer to us and perhaps our 
immediate superiors in the hierarchical chain. One of the most cruel 
things I have ever witnessed was the result of underestimating the 
human needs of a chela. Fortitude, strength of character and of will, 
were rightly attributed to him; but because the terrific strain that was 
being put upon these great qualities was not appreciated, and because it 
was imagined that he could do work easily which in fact he could do 
only at great cost, he was left without help when he needed help most. 
We should ask ourselves, therefore, what we might do to lighten the 
burden of those whose responsibility in the work is greater than our 
own. Nearly always we shall find that this will not involve doing new 
work, but, instead, the more complete performance of our present duties. 
In the eyes of the gods, I suspect that most of us only half do anything. 
If we were to try to do some one thing with absolute perfection, it would, 
I believe, be a valuable and perhaps an astonishing experience. As it is, 
much of the burden of spiritual beings of all grades, whether incarnated 
or not, consists, I believe, in finishing what we only half perform, and 
in cleaning up the mess we leave behind us. Both sympathy and grat- 
itude should compel us to change our ways in these respects. We may 
be certain that when Christ, travelling from Judaea into Galilee, was 
'wearied with his journey', and sat by the well to rest ('his disciples 
were gone away into the city to buy meat'), he would not have been 
wearied if his disciples had not overslept that morning, or had not for- 
gotten to provide food for the journey, or had not quarrelled among 
themselves, or had not in some way put a needless extra burden upon 
him . . . It is what we are doing all the time!" 

"I think that one of the most difficult and most important aspects of 
prayer, is right receiving", the Student volunteered. "We know that in 
order to give to others, we must receive from the Masters ; for otherwise 
we should have nothing to give. One or another of them has said often : 
'Receive from me if you would give to others.' But how can we receive? 
What does it mean? What would you do if told to open your heart to 
receive? . . . The answer, to my mind, is to be found through the 
analogy of our relations with people who are near and dear to us. Con- 
sciously to receive their love involves, among other things, the belief 



274 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

that they love us, and next, recognition of proofs of their love. We 
cannot wait until Christmas or birthdays, and for the exchange of gifts, 
for this recognition. To remain alive to the love that surrounds us and, 
if we are not alive to it, we shall not only fail to receive it, but shall 
fail to be grateful for it to remain alive to love, we must pay attention 
to and must appreciate, its constant and often silent expression. The 
deepest love does not parade itself. Its silences may be more significant 
than its words. There are acts of self-effacement which say more than 
any other gift can say. As between the Masters and ourselves, we miss 
all these finer expressions of their love, unless we train ourselves in 
gratitude by looking always for the opportunity to be grateful. As a 
friend said to me the other day, he was convinced that he would not 
have a roof over his head or a crust to eat or a book to his name, if 
it were not for the loving kindness of his Master. Some people are 
inclined to assume that what they own is theirs by right of Karma. I 
should not like to see what would happen to them if the Karma of 
Masters did not stand between them and their own ! 

"But the main factor is faith. We do not believe knowing our- 
selves as we do that a Master could love us. But the answer is, he 
can, because he is a Master ! That such a feat is easy, is more than I 
find it possible to believe; but that they do love us, I venture to say I 
know. And it is cruel not to recognize it; cruel not to receive it. If I, 
as a father, were to spend my life for my children, and they were to take 
it as a matter of course, or were to believe that I did it merely from a 
sense of duty, I know how I should feel, while they, of course, would 
cut themselves off from any benefit except the most external. ... By 
some miracle, we must believe; we must 'open our hearts to receive' by 
welcoming the love that is given us, and by taking it to ourselves with 
joy and gratitude." 

"I agree absolutely with what you have said", the Philosopher re- 
marked. "But I have known those whose tendency lies in the opposite 
direction a few whose daily inner experience it has been to be 'patted 
on the back' by all the Masters in space. As a form of psychic delusion, 
it would be difficult to imagine a worse." 

"I am glad you spoke of it", replied the Student, with a smile which 
suggested similar recollections. "Perhaps it would be well to add that 
true recognition of the Masters' love for us is accompanied invariably 
by abject self-abasement. 

"There is one other point which has a direct bearing on the subject 
of prayer and meditation, as regards their spirit rather than their 
method, but which, because it is vital to success, ought not, I think, to be 
omitted. It constitutes, as I see it, one of the greatest as well as the 
least necessary of obstacles to progress in discipleship : I mean the 
attitude which sees attainment as far off. I know men to-day who are 
trying to become disciples. They plod along, courageously, persever- 



. 



ON THE SCREEN OF TIME 275 

ingly, denying themselves this and that, 'holding on.' They believe in it, 
they want it, they love the idea of it sufficiently to be willing to make 
real sacrifices for it. But 1 have seen those same men working for some 
goal which they believed within their reach ; which three or four months 
of strenuous effort would enable them, they thought, to attain. In that 
case they worked with enthusiasm, with energy, with enjoyment. Some 
of them could neither speak nor think of anything else. It may have 
been some business or literary achievement which they had in view. In 
any case, they would have been the first to admit that its importance was 
as nothing in comparison with their 'real' aim that of discipleship. And 
while it seems to them that in their efforts for discipleship they never 
arrive anywhere, and that they do nothing except make new beginnings, 
they have often experienced the joy of success in the less important 
fields of their enterprise. 

"Why do they not work for discipleship as they work for lesser 
things ? Is it because they desire the less more ardently than the greater ? 
To answer in the affirmative would not be fair. If they could choose 
between the two kinds of success, they would unhesitatingly choose 
success in discipleship. They are paralysed by their own mental attitude. 
They see discipleship in terms of infinity, or at least as if it were synony- 
mous with Adeptship. There are those to-day, we have been told, who 
are so near their goal, without knowing it, that if they could escape from 
the self-hypnosis of its remoteness, they would find themselves well 
within reach of home. 

"The aspirant for discipleship too often makes the mistake against 
which Sir Isaac Pitman used to warn his students of stenography the 
mistake of glancing at later chapters. It was not only that they became 
discouraged by this general impression of 'so much more to be learned', 
but that they lost the sense of completeness and finality for the task 
which immediately confronted them, and which would have proved easy 
if taken alone. A month of intense effort though no greater effort than 
they give frequently to other things would work an astonishing change 
in the spiritual status of those who, with good will but without energy, 
are trying to become disciples." T. 



LETTERS TO STUDENTS 



DEAR 



I have your letter from 



September 9th, 1913. 
Do you not see that your con- 



stant references to your failures such a statement as that you "failed 
at every point" is plainly looking at and estimating results? How do 
you know you failed? You may not have succeeded in doing what you 
wanted to do, but are you sure you failed to do what the Master wanted? 
You must stop this judging and taking for granted that when you do not 
accomplish your will, you are failing to accomplish his. As a matter of 
fact, he is doing with you what he wishes. You are having the exper- 
iences he wants you to have. There is no question of failure or success 
about it; it is simply so, just as he wants it to be. 

This constant looking for results, and working for results, makes 
you morbid and depressed. Try for a while to have faith that things as 
they are, are the way they should be, and that you are not constantly 
upsetting the universe. 

With kind regards, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



DEAR 



September 20th, 1913. 
* * 



The problem of learning not to look for and estimate events by 
results, is not an easy one. You must go back to it again and again and 
again. We are all constantly seeking for results, working for results, 
estimating our accomplishment by results and it is wrong. 

A very little progress on the Path, indeed a very little ordinary 
worldly wisdom, proves to us that we cannot know what is good for us, 
or for others. A little faith tells us that the Master does know, and 
shapes events to that sole end. We acknowledge this as a theory; we 
believe it as a fact of life ; we write and preach and teach it as a law ; 
we adopt it as a rule for our guidance ; and then we turn round instantly 
and agonize because this or that is the matter and we do not like it. 
We cannot help suffering as yet when things go wrong with ourselves 
or others, but we can stop agonizing and kicking against the pricks. And 
when we learn to do this a little, we get peace ; we get past these nerve- 
racking, sodden, deadening rebellions against what is. We accept our 
own limitations and those of others, whether physical, mental, moral or 
spiritual. has a physical limitation, but that is the least im- 
portant of all limitations. We do not see it so because of our material- 
istic education. We look at things from a one-life point of view. These 

276 



LETTERS TO STUDENTS 



277 



things are hard to make a part of our daily consciousness, and yet it 
can and must be done. . . . 

With kind regards, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



DEAR 



September 25th, 1913. 



. . . I do not believe you begin to realize how far-reaching is the 
looking for results how deep it goes. You want - - to get well. 

You want this from the depths of your heart, and every time he is worse, 
or you think he is worse, you are miserable and upset. Yet you say to 
yourself, perhaps many times a day, that you want the Master's will to 
be done. The trouble is that we say that, but we do not feel it. We 
feel what we want. This real identification of our will with his is an 
age-long struggle, and finally comes from a perfect realization that his 
will is best for us and for others. This, too, we accept theoretically, 
but we do not actually make it a part of our lives. We want money 
and do not get it. It is almost impossible for us really to believe that if 
we did get it we should not be better off. Perhaps we want it for 
others, and then it is still harder. But the law is the same. We must 
not be discouraged if it takes us a long time to learn this lesson. . . . 

With kind regards, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



October 26th, 1913. 
DEAR 

. . . I am sorry I have written so infrequently lately, but I have 
been going backwards and forwards between New York and Watch 
Hill, and have been very busy when in New York, and anxious to get 
complete rest while here. . . . 

When we resolve upon some good action, or make a new rule of 
life, our lower nature enjoys in advance the esteem it will inspire and 
the good opinion it will have of itself : therefore it wishes to hurry, to 
go forward in advance of what the old churchmen would call the move- 
ment of grace. 

Also, while grace inspires a horror of sin, and a wholesome fear 
of sinning, nature falls into an excessive and unreasonable anxiety. 
Grace excites repentance and a sincere and peaceful sorrow, the lower 
nature conceiving an impatient chagrin, full of trouble and depression. 
This eagerness after virtue comes from self-love and not from the 
Master. 

A great saint once said : "How is it that a sin or imperfection 
makes us astonished, troubled, or impatient? Doubtless it is because we 



278 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



think we are resolute and strong, and so when we fail we are troubled, 
uneasy, offended : while if we realized what we really are, instead of 
wondering at our falls, we should marvel that we ever stand upright." 
This eagerness does not bring about the desired result; it prevents it. 

Another spiritual writer says : 

"You think too much about yourself. Why do you always worry 
and distress yourself because you find it hard to conquer your defects? 
It is pure pride. God does not absolutely require that you should con- 
quer them, but that you should desire to do so, and try to do so for his 
sake. Labour then to this end, gently and quietly, and be at peace. 

"Ardent natures who are prone to this mistaken eagerness weary 
themselves and suffer anguish of heart and tension of spirit, instead of 
practising a gentle and peaceful recollection; and so, when they ex- 
perience dryness in their prayers, they make astounding efforts to extract 
effective acts from their hearts, instead of accepting their condition 
quietly, with humility and resignation." 

Another writer says : "Your great mortification must consist in 
taming and moderating your over-activity and vivacity of mind and 
heart; in aiming to do all for God, but gently, suavely and peacefully; 

never giving way to violent emotion even in the impulse of devotion." 

******** 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



December 29th, 1913. 
DEAR 

I wrote you a note a week or so ago, but there are other things in 
my mind which I should like to say, and which have a bearing on the 
present situation, not only so far as you are concerned, but so far as 
the Movement as a whole is concerned; for the two should be, and to a 
certain extent are, synonymous. 

The last few months have been a period of intense outer activity, 
during which we have had an opportunity of putting into practice, as 
well as we know how, the principles we have been taught. Perhaps 
the words outer activity are too circumscribing, for the situation re- 
ferred to covers such a thing as illness, which in another sense 

prevented outer activity. Every one of us has had to meet the same 
thing to a greater or less degree, and the progress that we have made 
in recent months or years is measured by the way in which we acted 
during this period. 

Another indication of progress is the number of obstacles which 
life has thrown in our path to prevent our doing what we know we 
ought to do. Life helps the beginner. It is neutral in our early strug- 
gles, and then, as we make some progress towards self-conquest, it 
throws a constantly increasing number of barriers in our way, so that 




LETTERS TO STUDENTS 



279 



e may become strong in surmounting them. For instance, at the Mis- 
sion which we run for the reformation of drunkards, they are urged to 
take the first step, and, if they are willing to do this one thing, they 
are taken out of their old environment, are cleaned, fed, clothed, 
housed, and are surrounded by all the circumstances that will tend 
to reinvigorate their weakened will and their flickering desire, and 
to help them in their elementary step toward regeneration. The exact 
opposite is the case with the saint. The moment his attention is called 
to some fault, life seems to conspire, and in fact does conspire, to present 
him with endless opportunities to succumb to temptation or to conquer. 
Very often all internal and external supports and consolations are with- 
drawn, and he is forced by circumstances to conquer or to fall alone. 

These are the extremes, there is, of course, every degree of varia- 
tion in between. 

And we are all somewhere in between ; that is to say, in our struggles 
upward our circumstances are designed by a beneficent law, and by the 
Spiritual Beings who have our evolution in charge, to give us just that 
exquisite balance between helping and hindering circumstances that we 
can stand. The pressure of life is calculated to the fraction of an 
ounce. It is a fundamental spiritual law that we are never asked to do 
anything that we are not capable of doing. I mean this quite literally. 
We are, of course, sometimes stronger than we think we are; we have 
reserves of strength of which we are not aware, and these, when they 
exist, are sometimes taken into account. But I mean that we, just as 
we are, with our weaknesses, our faults, our laziness, our stupidity, our 
lack of understanding, are not asked to do anything which, all these 
things taken into account, we cannot do, and do without calling upon 
mysterious reserves of strength, which are supposed to appear upon 
demand from somewhere out of the sky. If we are accustomed to pray 
for strength and help in our struggles, that, too, is made a factor in 
our struggles, and we shall not get through unless we do pray. 

Now mark one point. I said that we were never asked to do any- 
thing that we were not able to do. Do not forget that you do not know 
what it is that you are being asked to do. If you are trying to conquer 
a bad temper, and during the day your temper explodes, and you make 
an exhibition of yourself, it does not follow that this is a contradiction 
of what I have said above. And this for two reasons. The obvious 
one is that you did not do your best, or anything approaching your best 
to control your temper in those circumstances. Another and less obvious 
explanation is that the wisdom of those who guide us saw that we 
needed a vivid illustration of our fault, and therefore the pressure of 
circumstances was designed to cause an explosion, and to externalize our 
fault. You will also see that this is a dangerous doctrine for the mul- 
titude, for we could excuse any sin we ever commit upon such a basis, 
were it not for the fact that, after all, all we are saying is that we were 



280 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

tempted and fell because we were too weak to stand the temptation. 
The point I want to make is really quite different, and that is that we are 
quite incapable of judging results, and that therefore it is foolish, nay, 
worse than foolish, wicked, to become discouraged and disheartened 
because of our many failures. 

Let us use another illustration. Suppose two people present them- 
selves for training, and in the course of time are told to work together, 
perhaps one under the other. To their dismay they find that their per- 
sonalities clash, and that they are in a perpetual state of irritation and 
fault-finding on one side, and hurt feelings, resentment, and wounded 
vanity on the other ; while both are filled with constant criticism each of 
the other. They are mortified and ashamed and may even be discour- 
aged. Of course this is silly when looked at from the point of view of 
the facts. These two hypothetical persons have within them all the 
faults which were indicated above. All that this enforced association 
did was to bring these faults to the surface, where they could be seen 
in all their ugliness, and conquered. 

The director who placed them together knew in advance that they 
were going to jar and react on each other in just such ways, and, taking 
for granted of course that they were sincere in their efforts to improve 
themselves, and therefore to maintain a constant struggle against their 
faults, from his point of view the experiment has been a success ; and 
instead of the whole affair being a lamentable exhibition of the inability 
of two otherwise excellent people to get along together, it was a well 
designed opportunity for two people to take a necessary step forward 
on the Path. Again you can see, therefore, how impossible it is for us 
to judge of results when we ourselves are concerned. We simply 
cannot, even when the situation is explained to us again and again. 
Where we ourselves are involved, we cannot understand until we have 
emerged from the experience by the higher side. We sometimes see 
the fruitful outcome of pain and struggle in others, even when they 
are in the midst of the fight. We can usually see the benefits after the 
battle is over. But each one of us, when it comes to his own life, has to 
go forward in darkness, because lack of understanding is an important 
factor in the problem. 

All this is mental, and therefore one-sided and incomplete. In any- 
thing so infinitely complicated as the living of the higher life, where 
there are no two experiences which are exactly alike, there must be ex- 
ceptions to any effort to express the rules of the game in words. But 
the laws that I have endeavoured to express above are pretty funda- 
mental, and I think apply to all the cases I have ever observed. Now 
the value of having some simple expression of these general laws is, that 
even if we do not see, when our own struggles bewilder and confuse the 
mind, we can get solace and comfort and strength and renewed aspiration 
if we have faith enough to apply our fundamental principles to the 



LETTERS TO STUDENTS 



281 



experiences through which we are passing. This is not easy, for it 
means making faith and trust dynamic powers in our lives, and that can 
only be done by love. Indeed, we cannot possess any of the qualities 
we need in our struggle upward in sufficient quantity and of sufficient 
quality, unless we are backed by love. We cannot really obey the Master 
unless we love him. We cannot really trust him with our lives unless we 
have that perfect confidence in him that springs only from love. We 
cannot have unquestioning faith in his wisdom, which gives us the cour- 
age to go forward in confidence and hope, unless our faith is illumined 
by love. And so I could go on and enumerate all the other qualities, 
but I have written enough. 

With best wishes for the New Year, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

C. A. GRISCOM. 



Not going out of the door I have knowledge of the world. Not 
peeping through the window I perceive heaven's Too. The more one 
wanders to a distance the less he knows. 

Therefore the wise man does not wander about but he understands; 
he does not see things but he defines them, he does not labour yet he com- 
pletes. TAO-TEH-KING. 



Who are they that have lost their labour, and in life mistaken their 
aim? They ivho think that what they do is right. THE KORAN. 



The chief pang of most trials is not so much the actual suffering 
itself, as our own spirit of resistance to it. JEAN NICHOLAS GROU. 



"^B lSSFLr-1 ^m t 




The Essentials of Mysticism and Other Essays, by Evelyn Underbill; J. D. 
Dent and Sons, London. 

Everything Miss Underbill writes is stimulating. There is, perhaps, no writer 
to-day better equipped to interest the general reader in the wide field of mysticism, 
or in the biographies of mystics themselves. Approached with equal sureness from 
the practical and the philosophical points of view, her understanding of the mys- 
tical states of consciousness seems to have broadened and deepened with each 
successive book ; and in this collection of thirteen essays, covering a wide range of 
subject, her conceptions have been sifted to their most compact expression, and 
in a few brilliant and lucid sentences the essentials of several aspects of mysticism 
are set so clearly before the reader, that he wonders how he ever confused 
mysticism with mistiness. 

This is Miss Underbill's notable contribution to the intellectual life of our day. 
She has brought within the reach of the many who are vaguely turning towards 
religious biography and mystical achievement, the records of the mystics of all 
ages, and has interpreted those records be they Hindu, Sufi, Greek, Catholic or 
Quaker in such a way as to make them both understandable and attractive to the 
modern mind. Her method primarily is the theosophic one to discern the truth 
and fundamental unity underlying all spiritual experience, and to point the way 
to a larger synthesis whose richness far outstrips any isolated example. 

The first essay, "Essentials of Mysticism," gives a masterly survey of the place 
of mystic consciousness in the order of man's evolution. Mysticism is not a by- 
product; it is the next forward step of human development, towards which all 
that is highest and best in man's artistic and creative activity is now leading him. 
The mystic consciousness means entrance into the spiritual world the world of 
Reality, to use Miss Underbill's favourite word. The second essay, "The Mystic 
and the Corporate Life", is directed against the current ignorant prejudice (seen 
most often among agnostics and Protestants) that the successful mystic is a 
''religious individualist" and "unsocial". "The Mystic as Creative Artist" shows that 
"When we ask what organ of the race the whole body of humanity it is, by 
and through which this supernal world thus receives expression, it becomes clear 
that this organ is the corporate spiritual consciousness, emerging in those whom 
we call, pre-eminently, mystics and seers" (p. 67). Ordinary artists crystallize, 
for us, glimpses of that Reality in which mystics habitually dwell. 

In a most valuable essay, "The Education of the Spirit", Miss Underbill pleads 
against the serious failure of modern education which makes no provision for 
the education of children in the knowledge and practice of the spiritual life. She 
suggests a broad outline of how to begin such an education: the need for it is 
apparent. It is too true that outside the religious orders, there is hardly an 
attempt made in this direction, and only by such effort will men be fitted to rise 
above the ordinary commonplaces of worldly experience. 

"Will, Intellect and Feeling in Prayer", shows the need for a balanced and 
healthy development of these three faculties to attain a normal spiritual con- 
sciousness. The Mysticism of Plotinus and of three Medieval mystics follows, 



282 



REVIEWS 283 

and the book closes with three studies of "Mysticism in Modern France" Soeur 
The>ese, Lucie-Christine, and Peguy, all written with sympathetic understanding 
and a mature analysis of salient characteristics. 

It is a matter for regret that where prolonged study and unusual intellectual 
capacity have produced so much that is excellent, Miss Underhill should still fail 
to appreciate the clear testimony of all great mystics to the survival and continued 
activity of spiritually developed individualities beyond the veil, communion with 
whom becomes a normal experience once that veil is pierced. Miss Underhill 
dislikes the intensely personal note of Christian mystics, failing to grasp the sig- 
nificance of the continuing humanity of a living Christ. Voices, conversations, 
direct sight of Christ or the saints are uniformly styled "visual or auditory 
hallucination" (p. 188), and the author divorces the "intuitive spiritual teaching" 
accompanying the voice of Christ, from that voice itself, crediting a psychologic 
state reacting to an inrush or "impact" of Reality. This is not only against the 
direct and explicit statements of nearly all ranking mystics, their only repeated 
statements which Miss Underhill systematically discounts but seems to us philo- 
sophically unsound, very hard to explain even in terms of modern psychology, 
.and intrinsically almost impossible to believe. It suggests that even a splendid 
intellectual equipment is insufficient: "But the natural man receiveth not the 
things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness: unto him : neither can he 
know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 

A. G. 

The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, Translated from the Sanskrit, by Robert 
Ernest Hume, M.A., Ph.D. (Oxford University Press, 1921). 

Perhaps the scope and value of this translation of the greatest Upanishads 
may best be indicated by a sentence of W. D. Whitney's, .written more than a 
generation ago, in reviewing an earlier translation: "If the non-Sanskrit-reading 
public is to have these obscure treatises placed in its hands at all for study, it 
ought first of all to know just what they say and what they do not say. Thus far 
it has had no means of doing this ; no simple philological translation. . ." 

A close study and a comparison of many passages with the original text show 
the present translation to be very much what Whitney asked for. The text is 
followed with unfailing accuracy and fidelity, even the order of the words remain- 
ing unaltered, so far as the difference of languages makes this possible. Dr. Hume 
has quite evidently spared no pains, neither time nor toil, to do an uncommonly 
thorough piece of work. That he has made a complete, thoughtful and very 
sympathetic examination of the whole available literature on the subject, whether 
published in India, Europe or America, the excellent Bibliography at the end of 
this stout volume shows. 

Perhaps an idea of the quality of his work may best be given by quoting an 
often translated passage from the Katha Upanishad, known to a very wide circle 
of readers through Sir Edwin Arnold's verse rendering, The Secret of Death. 
This beautiful passage, Dr. Hume renders thus : 

Not with wealth is a man to be satisfied. 

Shall we take wealth, if we have seen thee? 

Shall we live so long as thou shalt rule? 

This, in truth, is the boon to be chosen by me. 

When one has come into the presence of undecaying mortals, 
What decaying mortal here below that understands, 
That meditates upon the pleasures of beauty and delight, 
Would delight in a life over-long? 

This one thing whereon they doubt, O Death : 
What there is in the great passing-on tell us that! 
This boon, that has entered into the hidden 
No other than that does Nachiketas choose. 



284 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



The closer one's acquaintance with the Sanskrit text, the better one realizes 
the complete accuracy of this translation. 

Dr. Hume, who is Professor of the History of Religions in Union Theological 
Seminary, New York, gives a very attractive glimpse of his own life and per- 
sonality in the Preface: 

"In conclusion I would add a reverent salutation to India, my native land, 
mother of more religions than have originated or flourished in any other country 
of the world. In the very early years of childhood and later in the first period 
of adult service, it was the chief vernacular of the Bombay Presidency which fur- 
nished a medium, along with the English language, for intercourse with the wistful 
people of India, among whom are still many of my dearest friends." 

The present reviewer is not convinced of the expediency of reversing the 
traditional order of the Upanishads, associated with the Commentaries which 
appear under the great name of Shankara Acharya, as Dr. Hume has practically 
done; and this, for two reasons: First, because the shorter Upanishads, with 
their ever varying colour and tone, are so much more readable, so much more 
likely to attract and hold the attention than the two very lengthy treatises which 
begin this version, forming 200 pages, of a total of 386; and, secondly, because of 
the formidable and somewhat forbidding character of the opening passages of 
both these treatises, which are likely to daunt and perplex more than they 
illuminate. 

Again, there is much in the very valuable and thoughtful "Outline of the 
Philosophy of the Upanishads," forming the Introductory section of the book, 
which seems to fall short of finality. For example, the opening paragraph : 

"Almost contemporaneous with that remarkable period of active philosophic 
thought the world over, about the sixth century B. C, when Pythagoras, Confucius, 
Buddha and Zoroaster were thinking out new philosophies and inaugurating great 
religions, there was taking place, in the land of India, a quiet movement which 
has exercised a continuous influence upon the entire subsequent philosophic thought 
of that country and which has also been making itself felt in the West. . ." 
this movement giving rise to the Upanishads. 

We know, with great accuracy, the dates of Confucius and Pythagoras; we 
can come very close to the Buddha's dates. But to suggest that we have anything 
like the same certainty in the case of the Upanishads, is a somewhat daring pro- 
ceeding. In the one case, we have accurate chronological facts; but, in the other, 
we have only a tissue of conjecture and theory, far more deeply influenced than is 
generally realized by the chronology for which Archbishop Usher is responsible, 
and which attributed the creation of the world to the year 4004 B. C. We do not 
wish to imply that Dr. Hume accepts this chronology; but the point is, that his 
predecessors did, especially the pioneers who wrote the able essays in the Asiatick 
Researches, and all later speculation as to dates in ancient India is deeply coloured 
by their work. 

These still open questions in no way detract from the excellence of this work, 
as a thoroughly accurate and scholarly translation of the great Upanishads; and 
that, after all, is the heart of the matter. 

C J. 



ANSWERS 




QUESTION No. 265. What is the true function of art, and what is its proper 
relation to religion? 

ANSWER. Art, whether in painting, music or literature must be the true 
expression of genius, an illumination by that spark of the divine flame which is 
within each one 1 of us. The function of art, therefore, must be the portrayal of 
the divine, the bringing of divine inspiration to the hearts and minds of men, the 
inculcation of divine principles. True art must be an expresson of true religion; 
through religion the 1 true artist must find deeper and truer inspiration. 



ANSWER. In the absence of a specific definition of what art means to the 
questioner, one must take the widest available which may cover all the so-called 
"arts." Then it would mean the expression and means of manifesting genius. 
Now genius is the activity of the soul the life of the inner world. Then art is 
the translation of the activities of the soul into any form in which they can be 
expressed by way of music, poetry, painting, sculpture and description. Allowing 
religion to be the search for and the expression of the soul and the inner life in 
external effects, real art and true religion are twin aspects of one great reality 
life itself. A. K. 

ANSWER. Remembering the various planes or strata of life, it would seem as 
if the function of art might vary on those planes, though with correspondences, 
also. What can we imagine of the spiritual plane where individuals have left 
behind the gross and petty forms of self that absorb our earthly attention? We 
can think of those individuals with their purified and enlarged faculties, ceaselessly 
and joyfully serving the August Presences that excel them in the power to serve. 
Would not the overflow of purified hearts be prayer as well as song? Might not 
their theme of joy include both delight at the fairness of the vision, and wonder 
over the marvellous manner of its working? In such song then, on the spiritual 
plane, there would be united, religion as prayer, art as beauty, and science as the 
metaphysical structure of it all. 

What is unified on high planes becomes differentiated on lower planes. That 
is why on our earth plane, art and science and religion are not often found together 
as one. The art with which we are acquainted would seem to be a translation 
from the spiritual plane to the psychic. And therein lies the great service it can 
render man. The life of the spiritual plane is so far outside the average man's 
field of interest as to be non-existent, unless the artist, as an intermediary, trans- 
posing it to a lower key, bring it within the range of ordinary apprehension; and 
thus, eventually, a few of those average persons who understand and love the 
transposition, through it, can arrive at its source. 

The artist is an intermediary between the plane of earth and the plane of 
spirit. But the common opinion which holds the artist as a divine and holy 
creator is mistaken. The artist himself shares that popular mistake, inasmuch as, 

285 



286 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

having no scientific understanding of himself or the universe, he likewise believes 
that he creates what in truth he only sees as reflections or images of truth and 
beauty. 

It is by reason of his psychic principle or faculty that the artist sees those 
reflections. The average man has to some extent that psychic faculty as well as 
the artist, but he does not develop it; on the contrary he too often occupies it 
with images of food, drink and his favorite sports. The artist, in whom it is 
developed, may be guilty of the same error ; for the psychic plane, as a mirror, 
gives reflections and images both of high things and of low things. 

C. 

ANSWER, A man's religion may, perhaps, be said to be his method of approach 
to God, to the Logos, the Divine. It is the path of his evolution toward his ulti- 
mate goal, toward his perfection, and toward union with the Heart and Source 
of Life, by whatever term we may choose to designate that Source. All that 
helps him on his path bears a direct relation to, is in fact a part of, his religion. 

Plato speaks of beauty, truth and goodness as merely different aspects of the 
same thing, different revelations of the same spirit. Without some measure of 
truth, the path cannot be found at all. Without goodness, it cannot be followed; 
yet those who go by the path of goodness alone, travel a long and dreary road. 
Those who add the power to see and to love true beauty, the beauty of the spirit, 
must travel, it is true, the same road, but they travel it on wings. Hence all that 
helps toward a love and understanding of true beauty, is a help to religion. 

Natural beauty is meant to be an open door to the spiritual world, the world 
of spiritual consciousness, and we ought to use it to try to enter in and share that 
consciousness. We do not think often enough of God as the greatest of all 
artists, or look at His creations of landscape, tree or flower as we would look at 
a picture or a poem, seeking to enter into and feel the meaning of the artist. An 
artist would be great, would be fulfilling the true function of art, in proportion 
as he saw and felt this beauty and the meaning of the Great Artist back of it, 
and so seeing and feeling, made that meaning and beauty manifest to others 
through his work. T F B M 

ANSWER. To become aware of some new aspect of beauty is, by that much, 
to enter more deeply into life; for, surely, beauty is our name for one of those 
gates of consciousness through which life flows in upon us, life the creator, life 
the destroyer. If, then, it is true that beauty is an inherent part of life itself, 
of consciousness itself, it follows of necessity that beauty is something that all 
of us know a great deal about, and that anything which we truly know by experi- 
ence about life, we know, potentially, about beauty. 

When, at last, a man stops floating down the stream of life, and starts toward 
his goal, he begins to learn by experience something of the nature of this current 
which he is now opposing. If he be prudent, he will seek the counsel and guidance 
of other men who have fought their way forward towards the same goal. But 
in the confusion of many teachings, what and whom shall he follow; for every 
man's life sends him some message, whether he know it or not, and some, in addi- 
tion, have made record in books, on marble or canvas, in music, or built their 
aspiration into cathedral stone that towers toward the stars. 

What is the true function of art? What else but truly to teach beauty, that 
is, truly to teach life. But there are many things in life that do not interest the 
man who seeks his true goal, there is life for the sake of sensation, art for the 
sake of art, finesse for "piffle's" sake. In the midst of his struggle a man craves the 
companionship of men who have struggled, and who, from the heart of the con- 
flict, have spoken or painted or sung of the battle of life. 

We know, instinctively, how to find what we really seek. Listen to a man 






QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 



287 



for ten minutes, on any subject, and you know the quality of life which flows across 
the words from him to you. Glance at a book, at a painting, and you may know 
little? about it, but this you will surely know, that it does or does not speak to you 
straight from the heart of the conflict. The conflict, yes, but whose conflict? 
Are we, then, marauders, each fighting for his own way at his own will? No, 
every fighting man has a practical religion, some altar at which he sacrifices self, 
some banner, some leader for which he will die. 

There must be a very close relation between art which teaches the lessons of 
life, and religion for which men pour out life itself. If religion can inspire a 
man to die gladly for a cause greater than himself, can it not inspire art? Would 
you trust anything less potent than religion to inspire a coward to turn and fight 
steadily, a traitor to turn and live loyally, a glutton to turn and live selflessly? 
Some day we shall know more about the transcendent beauty which is to be 
found only at the heart of the conflict, for there the greatest of artists and 
warriors has set His banner which blazons a cross and a sword. 

A. D. 

ANSWER. Just as we can see and interpret any given object in terms of mat- 
ter, or of force, or of consciousness, so we can see and interpret the Logos, or 
deity in manifestation, in terms of truth, or of beauty, or of goodness. In both 
cases, however, in order to obtain an "all round" view, we must combine the 
three aspects or points of view. Thus, we may describe a man as lean (seeing 
him in terms of matter), or as lazy (seeing him in terms of force), or as clever 
(seeing him in terms of mentality) ; but, if we limit ourselves to one set of 
terms, we shall see only one-third of the man, as it were, and shall probably mis- 
understand that one-third. In somewhat the same way, a landscape can be seen 
by an artist, in terms of beauty ; by a scientist, in terms of geology, or of fauna and 
flora; by a religious person, in terms of ethics. Each point of view, taken alone, 
is narrow and misleading. But the true mystic, the Theosophist, does more than 
combine the three aspects suggested. He sees in each the remaining two, and 
he sees in each and in all a revelation of God's being, in the beauty, a reflection 
of the divine beauty; in the geology, or in the fauna and flora, a manifestation 
of the eternal ways of God, at work also in the perfecting of his own soul; in 
the ethical lesson, an expression, not only of the character, but of the purpose 
and goal of divinity. 

Religion, a word said to be derived from re, again, and lego, I gather, and 
which therefore suggests the idea of "gathering back to the source," or of 
reunion, ought to use art and science, as well as ethics, for this supreme purpose. 
It ought to recognize beauty and truth, no less than goodness, as aspects of the 
divine being, and also as interblending ladders, so to speak, up which man may 
ascend to reunion with God. Art, therefore, should be used by the Church as a 
path of devotion, as an integral part of religion. Puritanism, at one time, tried 
to banish art from human life. The Roman Catholic Church, at one time, tried 
to banish science from human life. In neither case was the effort entirely insen- 
sate, because both art and science, divorced from goodness, lead directly to 
damnation. Yet "the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world", led the hearts of men to revolt against these well-meant efforts to pro- 
tect them, and to insist upon the opportunity to make right, instead of wrong use 
of truth and beauty. That the opportunity is misused, hideously and ceaselessly, 
is obvious. None the less, religion cannot solve the problem by an "act of 
divorcement", but only by an understanding of the facts and of their relation, 
which means, in brief, by an understanding of Theosophy. 

T. 




The Convention of the British National Branch of The Theosophical Society 
was held at Newcastle-on-Tyne on September 18th, 1921. The meeting was called 
to order by Mr. E. H. Lincoln. Mr. Douglas was elected Chairman. The report 
of the Executive Committee, signed by A. Trood, E. Cassidy, C. G. Graves, 
J. Wilkinson, F. A. Ross, P. Douglas, E. H. Lincoln, was read and adopted. Mr. 
Lincoln, who reported as Secretary, concluded his statement by saying : 

"May we, then, here and now, resolve that the coming year shall find us more 
efficient instruments in the Master's service, and that on the flood tide of this 
Convention we shall go forth strengthened and equipped for the warfare we must 
face and conquer, the warfare which isi at the same time, the welfare, the real 
spiritual welfare of mankind." 

The report of the Treasurer showed a balance in hand. Mrs. Lincoln, as Cor- 
responding Secretary, told of most encouraging results with the unattached mem- 
bers. Books and pamphlets have been loaned, and the many letters written have 
evidently been much appreciated. 

We now quote directly from the printed report of the Convention : 

"A communication from the Members of the Executive Committee in New 
York, concerning the relationship of the British National Branch to The Theo- 
sophical Society and suggested action for the widening of the life of The Theo- 
sophical Society in the British Isles, was then put before the members by Mr. E. H. 
Lincoln, who also read a splendid letter from Col. Knoff (another member of the 
Executive Committee) heartily supporting the communication; the idea is that the 
Lodges shall be represented direct as Branches of The Theosophical Society, carry- 
ing on their business with Headquarters through their own officials. In the 
discussion on this subject it was shown that the Executive Committee of the 
British National Branch as such, and the existing Offices, would become non- 
existent, and that in the long-run the adoption of the International System would 
be to the benefit of Branches and Members-at-large alike; it was also recom- 
mended that Members-at-large become members of Branches. 

"The following Resolution was proposed by Mr. E. H. Lincoln, seconded by 
Capt. Graves and carried unanimously and afterwards signed by all the members 
present : 

" 'Resolved that the British National Branch, as such, cease to exist, and that 

in future each Lodge would describe itself as the Lodge of The 

Theosophical Society.' (Signed) J. Wilkinson, C. G. Graves, Marie Potter, A. F. 
Mann, I. W. Short, Fredk. A. Ross, Espoir Bagnell, Theodora Dodge, Gertrude 
Spooner, George Wood, Ralph Dunn, S. Dunn, Thomas W. Lincoln, Paul Vogler, 
Jane Arabella Corking, T. Mackey, Florence I. Olsen, Hannah Maughan, Eva 
Cassidy, Ethel M. Lincoln, Gertrude Mackay, J. W. Mein, Margaret Parkes, 
M. Douglas, F. E. Atkinson, A. Trevor, J. Crawford, P. W. Ward, C. G. Ward, 
Amy H. Golightly, Elizabeth Howe, John H. Hardy, P. Douglas, E. Howard Lincoln, 
By proxy: Alice Graves, Hope Bagnell, Margaret Richards, Maribel Davey, Gladys 
Pearce." 

The THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY congratulates the British members of The 
Theosophical Society, and believes that their action will redound to the benefit 
of the work in Great Britain. 

288 




APRIL, 1922 

The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion, 
or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless con- 
tained in an official document. 



THE POWERS OF GOOD AND EVIL 

"Where the Gods and the Devils contended 
against each other, both being children of 
the Lord of Being. . ." 

Chhandogya Upanishad (1, 2, 1). 

MRS. WEBSTER'S book, The French Revolution, is already 
known to readers of the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY. Mrs. 
Webster has now supplemented it by a second book, World 
Revolution, which takes up the same theme and brings it down 
to the present moment. 

The main thesis in Mrs. Webster's first book, which is set forth 
anew in the work now under consideration, is, that one of the dominant 
factors in the French Revolution, perhaps the decisive factor, was the 
secret society called the "Illuminati", founded by Adam Weishaupt in 
1776; that the French Revolution was inspired and carried forward by 
the Illuminati with the deliberate purpose of working evil, of bringing 
to destruction all that is best in civilization. Of Adam Weishaupt, Mrs. 
Webster gives the following account : 

"Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, was born on the 
6th of February, 1748. His early training by the Jesuits had inspired 
him with a violent dislike for their Order, and he turned with eagerness 
to the subversive teaching of the French philosophers and the anti- 
Christian doctrines of the Manicheans. It is said that he was also indoc- 
trinated into Egyptian occultism by a certain merchant of unknown 
origin from Jutland, named Kolmer, who was travelling about Europe 
during the year 1771 in search of adepts. Weishaupt, who combined 
the practical German brain with the cunning of Machiavelli, spent no 
less than five years thinking out a plan by which all these ideas should 

289 



290 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

be reduced to a system, and at the end of this period he had evolved 
the following theory: 

"Civilization, Weishaupt held with Rousseau, was a mistake : it had 
developed along the wrong lines, and to this cause all the inequalities of 
human life were due. 'Man/ he declared, 'is fallen from the condition 
of Liberty and Equality, the State of Pure Nature. He is under sub- 
ordination and civil bondage arising from the vices of Man. This 
is the Fall and Original Sin.' The first step towards regaining the state 
of primitive liberty consisted in learning to do without things. Man 
must divest himself of all the trappings laid on him by civilization and 
return to nomadic conditions even clothing, food, and fixed abodes 
should be abandoned. Necessarily, therefore, all arts and sciences must 
be abolished. 'Do the common sciences afford real enlightenment, real 
human happiness? or are they not rather children of necessity, the com- 
plicated needs of a state contrary to Nature, the inventions of vain and 
empty brains?' Moreover, 'are not many of the complicated needs of 
civilization the means of retaining in power the mercantile class (Kauf- 
mannschaft), which if allowed any authority in the government would 
inevitably end by exercising the most formidable and despotic power? 
You will see it dictating the law to the universe, and from it will perhaps 
ensue the independence of one part of the world, the slavery of the 
other. . . .' 

"Once released from the bondage civilization imposes, Man must 
then be self-governing. 'Why,' asked Weishaupt, 'should it be impossible 
to the human race to attain its highest perfection, the capacity for govern- 
ing itself ?' For this reason not only should kings and nobles be abolished, 
but even a Republic should not be tolerated, and the people should be 
taught to do without any controlling authority, any law, or any civil 
code. . . . For since the only real obstacle to human perfection 
lay in the restraints imposed on Man by artificial conditions of life, the 
removal of these must inevitably restore him to his primitive virtue. 'Man 
is not bad except as he is made so by arbitrary morality. He is bad 
because Religion, the State, and bad examples pervert him.' It was 
necessary, therefore, to root out from his mind all ideas of a Hereafter, 
all fear of retribution for evil deeds, and to substitute the religion of 
Reason. . . . After deliverance from the bondage of religion, the 
loosening of all social ties must follow" (pages 8-10). 

Weishaupt, besides being a theorist, was an organizer. He therefore 
set himself to construct a secret society, along lines borrowed from the 
Freemasons and Jesuits, its purpose being to put his theories into practice. 
The use of classical names was one of the features of this society of 
the Illuminati, among whose members were, besides Adam Weishaupt 
(Spartacus), Herr von Zwack (Cato), the Marquis di Constanza 
(Diomedes), Massenhausen (Ajax), Hertel (Marius), the Baron von 
Schroeckenstein (Mahomed), the Baron Mengenhofen (Sylla). Cities 




NOTES AND COMMENTS 291 

also were renamed : Munich was known as Athens ; Ingolclstadt, the birth- 
place of Illuminism, as Ephesus, and so on. 

Of this secret society, Adam Weishaupt, who had revolted against 
the principle of obedience taught by the Jesuits, was the despotic head, 
exacting blind obedience to his decrees, and working for world domina- 
tion with himself as the supreme dictator. 

Weishaupt had the blasphemous insolence to claim "as our Grand 
Master, Jesus of Nazareth." "The most admirable thing of all," he 
wrote to one of his followers, "is that great Protestant and reformed 
theologians (Lutherans and Calvinists), who belong to our Order, really 
believe they see in it the true and genuine mind of the Christian religion. 
Oh ! man, what cannot you be brought to believe !" The purpose was, 
"to tickle those who have a hankering for religion." 

So much for Mrs. Webster's opinion of Adam Weishaupt and his 
Order of Illuminati. Her thesis is, that all modern destructive move- 
ments, beginning with the French Revolution of 1789, continuing through 
the revolutions of 1848 and Marxian Socialism, and coming down to 
modern Bolshevism in Russia and Hungary, have their source and 
inspiration in Weishaupt's Order. Weishaupt, therefore, becomes the 
diabolus ex machina of all the disruptive movements of the last hundred 
and forty years. The lines of evidence by which Mrs. Webster seeks to 
connect the branches with the root are clearly worked out and supported 
by much careful research; but for details we must refer readers to the 
book itself. 

Of even deeper interest, and even more important, it seems to us, 
for a reason presently to be set forth, are the lifelike portraits of many 
of the men who were protagonists in these organizations of destruction; 
men like Robespierre, Babeuf, Marx and Bakunin. In these pictures, it 
appears to us, Mrs. Webster's best work is to be found. From these 
admirable full length portraits in words, our space will allow us to quote 
only a few illustrative passages: 

"On one point, however, Robespierre differed from most of the 
members of the same school of thought who came after him, in that he 
showed himself a consistent Socialist, for he had the singleness of aim, 
aided by an entire want of moral scruples, to push his theories to their 
logical conclusion. A Labour extremist in this country [England] 
recently described the modern Bolsheviks as 'Socialists with the courage 
of their opinions,' and the same description might be applied to Robes- 
pierre and Saint-Just. Thus Robespierre did not talk hypocritically of 
'peaceful revolution' ; he knew that revolution is never peaceful, that in 
its very essence it implies onslaught met with resistance, a resistance that 
can only be overcome by an absolute disregard for human life. 'I will 
walk willingly with my feet in blood and tears,' said his coadjutor Saint- 
Just ; and this, whether he admits it or not, must be the maxim of every 



292 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

revolutionary Socialist who believes that any methods are justifiable for 
the attainment of his end." (p. 41). 

" 'In the eyes of Maximilien Robespierre and his council/ says 
Babeuf , 'depopulation was indispensable because the calculation had been 
made that the French population was in excess of the resources of the 
soil and of the requirements of useful industry, that is to say, that with 
us men jostled each other too much for each to be able to live at ease; 
that hands were too numerous for the execution of all works of essential 
utility and this is the horrible conclusion, that since the superabundant 
population could only amount to so much ... a portion of the 
sans-culottes must be sacrificed; that this rubbish could be cleared up to 
a certain quantity, and that means must be found for doing it" (p. 46). 

To put it simply, those in excess of the numbers demanded by the 
theories of Robespierre were to be murdered. Theory was put into 
practice : "According to Prudhomme the total number of victims drowned, 
guillotined, or shot all over France amounted to 300,000, and of this 
number the nobles sacrificed were an almost negligible quantity, only 
about 3,000 in all. At Nantes 500 children of the people were killed in 
one butchery, and according to an English contemporary 144 poor women 
who sewed shirts for the army were thrown into the river" (p. 47). 

Babeuf has already been mentioned. His activities became dominant 
about 1795. Mrs. Webster describes him as following in the steps of 
Weishaupt : "Thus Weishaupt had employed twelve leading adepts to 
direct operations throughout Germany, and had strictly enjoined his 
followers not to be known even to each other as Illuminati; so Babeuf 
now instituted twelve principal agents to work the different districts of 
Paris, and these men were not even to know the names of those who 
formed the central committee of four, but only to communicate with them 
through intermediaries partially initiated into the secrets of the con- 
spiracy. Like Weishaupt also, Babeuf adopted a domineering and 
arrogant tone towards his subordinates, and any whom he suspected of 
treachery were threatened, after the manner of the secret societies, with 
direst vengeance." (p. 56). 

The scheme of Babeuf in no way differed from the Bolshevism of 
a year ago, the Bolshevism which is now masquerading as pseudo- 
capitalism, while remaining an infamous tyranny. Even more instructive 
than the details of his plan, we find the portrait of Babeuf : "When writing 
out his plans of insurrection, Babeuf would rush up and down his room 
with flaming eyes, mouthing and grimacing, hitting himself against the 
furniture, knocking over the chairs whilst uttering hoarse cries of 'To 
arms ! to arms ! The insurrection ! the insurrection is beginning !' Then 
Babeuf would fling himself upon his pen, plunge it into the ink, and write 
with fearful rapidity, whilst his whole body trembled and the perspiration 
poured from his brow" (p. 64). "It was no longer madness," said his 
secretary, "it was frenzy." 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 293 

Of the period between 1814 and 1848, Mrs. Webster has much that 
is of value to say, of which we can quote only a paragraph : 

" 'Italian genius/ says Monsignor Dillon, 'soon outstripped the Ger- 
mans in astuteness, and as soon as, perhaps sooner than, Weishaupt had 
passed away, the supreme government of all the Secret Societies of the 
world was exercised by the Alta Vendita or highest lodge of the Italian 
Carbonari.' It was this formidable society, the 'Haute Vente Romaine,* 
which from 1814 to 1848 directed the activities of all the Secret Societies. 
Far more subtle, and therefore more formidable, than the Carbonari, the 
leaders of the Haute Vente conducted their campaign precisely on the 
lines of the Illuminati, of which they were indeed the direct continuation. 
Thus, according to the custom of the earlier Order, followed by 
Anacharsis Clootz and Gracchus Babeuf , the members of the Haute Vente 
all adopted classical pseudonyms, that of the leader, a corrupt Italian 
nobleman, being Nubius. This young man, rich, handsome, eloquent, 
and absolutely reckless, was 'a visionary with an idee fixe of elevating a 
pedestal for his own vanity. 5 But it was not in the band of dissolute 
young Italians he gathered around him, but in his Jewish allies, that 
Nubius found his principal support" (p. 87). 

On the eve of the Revolution of 1848, one of his agents writes to 
Nubius : "The assault which in a few years and perhaps even in a few 
months from now will be made on the princes of the earth will bury 
them under the wreckage of their impotent armies and their decrepit 
thrones. Everywhere there is enthusiasm in our ranks and apathy or 
indifference amongst the enemies. This is a certain and infallible sign 
of success. . . . What have we asked in return for our labours and 
our sacrifices? It is not a revolution in one country or another. That 
can always be managed if one wishes it. In order to kill the old world 
surely, we have held that we must stifle the Catholic and Christian germ, 
and you, with the audacity of genius, have offered yourself with the sling 
of a new David to hit the pontifical Goliath on the head" (p. 131). 

Two portraits stand out in the period immediately following 1848: 
Ferdinand Lassalle and Karl Marx. Of the first, Mrs. Webster writes : 

"Ferdinand Lassalle, the son of a rich Hebrew merchant, was born 
in 1825. Tormented from his youth by hatred of the Christian races, 
whose blood even as a schoolboy he hoped to shed, Lassalle early 
embarked on a revolutionary career. Congenitally idle, dishonest, 
revengeful, an avowed atheist, Lassalle declared himself a revolutionary 
by principle, who would not hesitate at a Reign of Terror as a means 
to secure his ends. . . . Bismarck had been quick to recognize the 
advantage of harnessing the Jewish agitator to the Prussian Imperial 
machine, and before long we find Lassalle sinking his racial hatred against 
the Gentiles in favour of the worst oppressors of his kind. By 1859 he 
had become an ardent Prussian Jingoist, subscribing to the whole policy 
of Bismarck. . . ." (p. 166). 



294 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

We shall have something to say of this alliance later. Of Marx, 
Mrs. Webster says : 

"Even more valuable to the cause of German Imperialism was the 
founder of the creed now known as 'Marxian Socialism*. Karl Marx, 
the son of a Jewish lawyer whose real name was Mordechai, was born 
at Treves in 1818. In 1843 he settled in Paris to study economics, but 
his revolutionary activities led to his being expelled from France, and 
in 1845 he moved to Brussels, where, in collaboration with his German 
friend Friedrich Engels, he reorganized the Communist League, and a 
few years later (in 1847) published the now famous Communist Mani- 
festo. Soon after this he returned to Germany, where he took an active 
part in the 1848 Revolution, and in the same year we find him in Berlin 
at the head of a secret Communist society wielding the powers of life 
and death. For this it is said that he was condemned to death, but 
succeeded in escaping to London, where he settled down for the rest of 
his life and devoted himself to his great book Das Kapital. ... In 
neither work had Marx originated anything. His theory of 'wage-slavery* 
was, as we have seen, current during the first French Revolution, and had 
been continued by Vidal and Pecqueur, to whom the idea of the social- 
ization of mines, railways, and transport was also due ; his communism 
was that of Babeuf, of Louis Blanc, and Cabet; his Internationalist 
schemes had been propounded by Weishaupt and Clootz, as also his 
attacks upon religion. . . . Marx then was an impostor from the 
beginning. Posing as the prophet of a new gospel, he was in reality 
nothing but a plagiarist, and a plagiarist without the common honesty 
to pay tribute to the sources whence he drew his material." (pp. 166-169). 

Such is the mental equipment of Karl Marx. His moral nature, 
even more significant for our purpose, is thus vividly sketched by 
Bakunin : 

"His vanity . . . has no bounds, a veritable Jew's vanity. 
. . . This vanity, already very great, has been considerably increased 
by the adulation of his friends and disciples. Very personal, very jealous, 
very touchy, and very vindictive, like Jehovah the God of his people, 
Marx will not suffer that one should recognize any other God but 
himself. ... To praise Proudhon in his presence was to cause him 
a mortal offence worthy of all the natural consequences of his enmity; 
and these consequences are at first hatred, then the foulest calumnies. 
Marx has never recoiled before falsehood, however odious, however per- 
fidious it might be, when he thought he could make use of it without 
too great danger for himself against those who had the misfortune to 
incur his wrath" (p. 170). 

This discerning critic is in his turn criticised as follows : 

"Michael Bakunin, born in 1814, belonged to the Russian nobility, 
and at the age of twenty entered the artillery school at St. Petersburg. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS 295 

He passed his examinations brilliantly, but, always an incorrigible idler, 
spent most of his time, when quartered in a provincial town, lying on 
his bed in his dressing-gown. Before long he left the army, but took 
up no other profession, preferring to dabble in philosophy and to meddle 
in his friends' affairs. . . . Even his intimes and fellow-Anarchists 
Ogareff and Herzen had little good to say of him. *I infinitely regret 
having nourished this reptile . . .' wrote the former; 'he is a man 
with whom it repels me to shake hands;' whilst Herzen described him 
briefly as a man 'with talent but a detestable character and a mauvais 
sujet.' Incidentally Bakunin had applied the same description to Herzen. 

"Embroiled in all these private quarrels, too indolent to do any 
honest work, Bakunin ended by taking up the profession of a revolu- 
tionary a career which, like many another of his kind, he found both 
easy and remunerative" (p. 172). 

Mrs. Webster makes the point that "Bakunin was a disciple of 
Weishaupt," and shows how Bakunin and his disciple Netchaieff started 
a society precisely on the lines of the Illuminati : "In the Alliance of 
Bakunin, as in the Communist Manifesto of Marx, we find again all the 
points of Weishaupt abolition of property, inheritance, marriage, and 
all morality, of patriotism and all religion. Is it not obvious that the plan 
had been handed down to the succeeding groups of Socialists and 
Anarchists by the secret societies which had carried on the traditions 
of the Illuminati, and that Bakunin, and still more his coadjutor 
Netchaieff, was simply an Illuminatus ?" (p. 188). 

Of Netchaieff, we have this brief but significant portrait: "He was 
a liar, a thief, and a murderer the incarnation of hatred, malice, and 
revenge" (p. 189). 

It is not necessary for our purpose to follow the lines along which 
Mrs. Webster traces the descent of present day Socialism and Bolshevism 
from the original group of Illuminati founded by Adam Weishaupt in 
1776. The main argument of World Revolution has, we believe, been 
made sufficiently clear. 

Before commenting on Mrs. Webster's view, we may mention two 
other documents bearing on the case: An article, "The Jewish World 
Problem," by Lord Sydenham of Combe, in The Nineteenth Century and 
After for November, 1921, which seeks to show that the Jews have had 
the dominant role in Bolshevism from the outset ; and a booklet in French. 
The Jews and the Russian Revolution, by Boris Mirsky, a rather feeble 
and emotional attempt to disprove this view. Both are of value and 
interest, but the limitation of space prevents our quoting them at length. 

We come, then, to the main thesis of Mrs. Webster : that all the dis- 
ruptive, evil and subversive movements of the last century and a half 
have had their origin in the secret society conceived and founded by Adam 
Weishaupt ; and that this original cause is still in full operation, and must 
be expected to bear much evil fruit in the future. 



296 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

We believe that there is a certain element of truth in Mrs. Webster's 
view, but we believe also that Mrs. Webster has not gone deep enough, 
has not penetrated beneath the surface to the real causes of the facts 
which she so painstakingly details. 

Let us test the matter in this way : Would Mrs. Webster affirm that 
if Weishaupt had died, let us say, the year before he revolted from the 
training of the Jesuits, there would have been no French Revolution, no 
Revolution of 1848, no Marxian Socialism, no Bolshevism? We hardly 
think so. It would then follow that Weishaupt's society was only one 
factor among many ; his plans and methods may have supplied the moulds, 
the formulae, for future movements, but the causes are to be sought 
elsewhere. 

It has been said many times that only after we have gained a clear 
realization of spiritual light, of holiness, are we able to perceive the 
reality and danger of evil; not as a principle co-eternal with good, but 
as the rebellious distortion of the divine gift of free will, a spiritual 
power turned to evil ends. In the same way, perhaps, it may be affirmed 
that only after we have to some degree become aware of the part played 
in the life of mankind by the Masters of Light, are we able to perceive 
the dangerous, subtle and evil part played in human history by the 
masters of darkness. 

A quotation from Light on the Path will make our meaning clear: 

"In fact, to have lost the power to wound, implies that the snake is 
not only scotched, but killed. When it is merely stupefied or lulled to 
sleep it awakens again and the disciple uses his knowledge and his power 
for his own ends, and is a pupil of the many masters of the black art, 
for the road to destruction is very broad and easy, and the way can be 
found blindfold." (page 79). 

What we wish to suggest, then, is that, in the history so graphically 
and sincerely set forth by Mrs. Webster in her books, we have only one 
chapter, neither the first nor the last, of the history of a secret society 
which antedates Weishaupt by many millenniums, and which will continue 
its evil and destructive work for millenniums to come ; until the day, in 
fact, when mankind's advance in spiritual light and life will have raised 
the whole human race above the plane of darkness and evil which sup- 
plies the masters of evil with their life and sustenance, lacking which 
they are doomed to die of starvation. 

This may suggest the reason why the pupils of the powers of evil 
work so untiringly to thwart every real advance of the human race, to 
pull down whatever civilization painfully builds, that makes for light 
and true development and spiritual growth. And we underlined the 
characters of the men who are the protagonists in the drama described 
by Mrs. Webster, in order to make clear the type of men who are the 
natural pupils of the masters of darkness. To put it simply, their 




NOTES AND COMMENTS 



297 



characters are detestable from every sane and normal standard of human 
life. 

It would not be difficult to suggest reasons why these pupils and co- 
workers of the powers of darkness choose the chief clauses of their 
creed : Internationalism, communism, the destruction of the higher class 
through the despotic rule of the lowest class, the corruption of family 
life. The attack on religion hardly needs comment. 

If we take a large view of human development throughout the ages, 
we shall see that one great factor in spiritual evolution has been the 
national spirit : the development of some peculiar excellence or gift in 
a limited group, in order that this gift may enrich the whole of mankind. 
The simile has been used before, but it has its point : an orchestra depends 
for its musical value on the marked difference between the instruments 
which compose it, the contrast between them, the different parts of the 
whole melodic and harmonic creation which they bring into relief. But 
each instrument must be excellent in its own individual character and 
scope; the more individual it is, the better for the orchestral effect. 

So with nationality. It would seem that one power of the Logos, 
or a part of one power, is incarnated in each real nation, and that this 
nation exists to give that power scope and expression, in order to make 
it visible and available for the whole human race. Therefore true nation- 
hood is a divine expedient for forwarding the life of all humanity. And 
therefore the masters of darkness, who desire above all things that 
humanity shall not progress in spiritual life, invariably make their attack 
against true nationhood, in the name of a false and delusive internation- 
alism. By just that much can they put off the day of spiritual life, which 
will also be the day of their own destruction. 

The consideration of this false and dangerous internationalism, 
which means, in practice, a violent opposition to all true nationhood, 
brings us to one of the most valuable points in Lord Sydenham's article 
already referred to : the point that the most active and virulent agents 
and preachers of internationalism since the days of Karl Marx and Lass- 
alle have been Jews. Lord Sydenham writes : "In this country [Eng- 
land], and in others, there are many Jews who are loyal and valued 
citizens; but, whenever they have proclaimed their solidarity with their 
adopted States, they have been subjected to violent attacks. Of Mr. 
Morgenthau's recent claim to be an American, the Jewish World could 
say: 'What horrible banality! God's chosen people, their aspirations and 
their strivings satisfied, their martyrdoms avenged by becoming Amer- 
ican' (July 27, 1921). In the spirit here manifested, of which there are 
many examples, lies danger which Gentiles ignore at their peril." 

This suggests two considerations. First, those Jews who are the 
most violent preachers of internationalism are, for the most part, atheists 
and renegades from their own religion. They attack, with nationhood, 
the ties of religion and of family life; and this last attack means for 



298 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

them a dissolution of the bonds of family life, in order to open the door 
to sex promiscuity and unbridled sensuality. The proposed "socializa- 
tion of women" in Bolshevist Russia made this absolutely clear. The 
attack on nationhood, on patriotism, is only the entering wedge, to be 
followed by squalid libertinism. 

Therefore, those Jews who, like Mr. Morgenthau, have proclaimed 
their faith in patriotism, must not be content to stop at this point. They 
must look all the facts in the face ; they must recognize clearly that Jewish 
internationalism is only the beginning of a process of complete destruc- 
tion; and they must further recognize their own responsibility for their 
own race, with all its tendencies. They must actively and of deliberate 
purpose combine and organize their efforts to stem this tide of destruc- 
tion, set in motion by the renegade anti-nationalists of their race. They 
must bring these destructive energies completely to an end. If they do 
not do this, and do it promptly and decisively, then the Gentile races will 
unquestionably be compelled, as Lord Sydenham suggests, to take the 
matter into their own hands, and take effective measures to defend them- 
selves. 

The creed of evil, with its spurious and destructive internationalism, 
lays equal stress on communism, and from a like impulse of opposition 
and hatred toward every factor of spiritual development. Human charac- 
ter, as it grows, demands the progressive balance of two forces; indi- 
vidual growth as a conscious unit, possessing defined powers and respon- 
sibilities, and, on the other hand, a steady broadening and deepening of 
relationship with others. "Kill out all sense of separateness . 
yet stand alone" is the eternal paradox of spiritual life. But commun- 
ism deliberately works to submerge all individual growth and responsi- 
bility, all individual light and power, in a low and gross mob-conscious- 
ness, which offers no possibility for responsible spiritual life. Precisely 
for this reason, communism commends itself to the powers of evil, whose 
very existence depends on checking and stifling the spiritual advance of 
mankind. 

Ordered family life is, in the same way, a vitally valuable training 
school for spiritual development. The model of true family life is the 
relation between a Master and his chelas, his "children", to translate the 
word literally. Therefore the powers of evil make their onslaught on 
family life. 

Whoever studies Mrs. Webster's books must be struck by the fact 
that the organization, the methods, the very phrases of these workers 
of deliberate evil are all distorted counterfeits of the organization and 
methods of the Powers of Good. The fundamental reason for this like- 
ness is, that evil will is a distortion and corruption of divine will, and is, 
therefore, compelled to create along the same general lines, because it has 
no original life. But, as always, the counterfeit testifies to the genuine 
original. 

Students of Theosophy will understand both the law and its result, 




NOTES AND COMMENTS 



299 



and will see why words like Illumination, adept, lodge, and so on, con- 
tinually recur in the counterfeit activities of the powers of darkness. 
And just at this point, it seems to us, Mrs. Webster has lacked the clue 
which students of Theosophy possess, and has, therefore, tended to con- 
demn certain of the children of light, merely because their methods of 
organization are mimicked by the apes of darkness. For example, Mrs. 
Webster (page 26) ascribes to Cagliostro a role, which is the exact 
opposite of that which he really played, in the view of many students of 
Theosophy, who hold that he was an agent of the light, though he may 
have committed serious errors. Cagliostro was rejected by the Masonry 
of his day, and was later traduced and defamed; but that has been the 
common fate of those who are in advance of their time. What we have 
said of Cagliostro applies in a measure also to Martinez Pasqualis, whom 
Mrs. Webster equally blacklists, and to his pupil St. Martin. 

We come now to the practical application. We shall be well advised 
carefully to note the characteristics of the men whom Mrs. Webster has 
so vividly portrayed : their ambition, their vanity, their hunger for des- 
potic power, the corruption of their lives; because we have here a list 
of those elements in human nature, and therefore in our own natures, 
which give the masters of darkness their opportunity. 

Where races go over bodily to gross and evil ambition, like the 
Germans, these races will become apt agents of the powers of evil; 
where a race becomes widely tainted with greed and materialism, and 
makes itself the enemy of true nationhood and patriotism, as is, 
unfortunately, the case with many Jews, that race will offer special oppor- 
tunities; and we shall find natural alliances, like that between Lassalle 
and Bismarck, between Trotzky and the German General Staff. 

Right understanding is vitally necessary. Students of Theosophy 
ought to realize that the conflict between the Powers of Light and the 
masters of darkness is in fact universal; not remote or abstract, but 
waged day by day, hour by hour, in the very midst of human life. 
We should be on the watch for manifestations of these deliberately 
planned and directed activities; for example, we should be able at once 
to recognize the source and aim of the activities described in such a 
book as Mrs. Webster's, supplying the clues which are there lacking; 
discerning the real directors behind the scenes, and their lasting pur- 
pose of evil. We must use our discrimination always; and, knowing 
that this conflict is going on from day to day, in our own hearts and in 
the world about us, we should follow the events of the day, as recorded 
in the daily papers, with something more of genuine understanding and 
discernment, finding in these events, whether small or great, the evidences 
of the terrific conflict which is ceaselessly waged. Real understanding, 
even by the few, a clear recognition, here, in the world, of the work of 
the unseen contestants, will definitely aid the Powers of Light, when 
heart and mind and will are thrown on the side of the Divine. 



FRAGMENTS 



H 



E who would see the Master should seek him at the dawning, 
for it is then he is most visible to men. 



The Lodge has four great doors. One looks towards the North, 
one towards the South, one towards the East, one towards the West. 
Just prior to the hour of dawn there issues from each portal (as that 
hour may come), a messenger, an angel. He stands upon the threshold, 
the great doors opened wide, wrapped in silence. As the first grey light 
shows faintly in the sky, he steps across, raising his face to the stars 
above him. Then his voice sounds, a great echoing cry like an organ 
tone, that slowly pulsates into silence again : Awake thou that sleep- 
est: arise from death! Three times at intervals that cry resounds, then 
the great doors close upon the messenger's return. They tell us, those 
who know the secrets of the Lodge, that this is the Lodge's memorial to the 
resurrection of Christ ; that since that first Easter Day in Palestine these 
messengers have called each morning, and that the call stirs somewhere 
in the depths of every soul, to the North, to the South, to the East, 
to the West. They who are "awake" at dawn can hear it, they say, not 
only with the inner ear, but with the outer, and feel the quivering 
response of Nature to this "Aum" chanted on its new note. 



Christ held out his chalice to me, and I who was athirst, cried, 
Lord, give me to drink! And he said, Would'st thou drink? And I 
cried the more saying, Yea, give me to drink, Lord, I die of thirst. And 
he gave me, but his face was sad. 

The first taste was sweet, sweet beyond measure, with a sweetness 
that intensified all thirst, and that moreover made any other beverage 
unsatisfying for ever. The second taste was of wormwood and of 
gall, bitter unbearably. Yet it, too, intensified my thirst, and though I 
shrank, I knew that I must drink or die. Then I beheld the chalice, 
and lo, it was the Heart of my Lord which he held out to me, and I 
drank through the wound in it where he was pierced for my sins. Drop 
by drop the nectar fell from that opening of his love, as still he held 
the chalice out to me. And what I drank now was a liquid fire, burning 
and consuming me, a torture inner and outer. So I understood how 
God's love had created hell as well as heaven. 

CAVE. 

300 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 
KATHA UPANISHAD 



TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSKRIT WITH AN INTERPRETATION 

V. 

This Spirit ivho is awake in those who sleep, moulding desire after 
desire: this, verily, is the luminous one, this is the Eternal; this, verily, 
is called the immortal. In this all worlds are set firm, nor does any 
transcend it. This, verily, is That. 

As the one vital Fire, entering the world, has shaped itself according 
to form after form, so the one Inner Self of all beings shapes itself to 
form after form, and is also outside them. 

As the one Breath, entering the world, has shaped itself according 
to form after form, so the one Inner Self of all beings shapes itself to 
form after form, and is also outside them. 

As the Sun, the eye of all the world, is not stained by visible out- 
ward defects, so the one Inner Self of all beings is not stained by the 
evil of the world, being outside it. 

The one Ruler, the Inner Self of all beings, who makes one form 
manifold : the wise who recognize Him dwelling within them, theirs is 
joy everlasting, but not of others. 

The enduring among unenduring things, the Intelligence of intelli- 
gences, who, being one, disposes the desires of many, the wise who 
recognize Him dwelling within them, theirs is peace everlasting, but not 
of others. 

This is that, they say, the ineffable, supreme joy; how may I under- 
stand it? Does this give light, or shine by another's light? 

The sun shines not there, nor the moon and stars, nor these light- 
nings, nor fire like this. After this shining, all shines; from the shining 
of this, all draws its light. 

THIS passage is so clear, so eloquent and full of beauty, that it 
hardly needs any comment. It is the teaching of the supreme 
Divine Self, which is at once Divine Consciousness and Divine 
Will ; which is the inner Divine Self of all beings, and the origin 
and source of all power, of every form of force and will throughout 
the universe. 

As being the source and substance of all force, it is that ever- 
lasting Motion which is one aspect of the Eternal. And, since motion, 
in one of its manifestations, is light, this everlasting Motion is perpetual, 
eternal Light. 

301 



302 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

One phase of our perceptive consciousness is recipient of natural 
light, which is a manifestation of the everlasting Light. If we can 
conceive a spiritual consciousness directly perceptive of that Light, we 
shall recognize that such a consciousness will dwell in everlasting Light. 

This is one of the most universal of all religious and mystical 
symbols : the Eternal is the "Father of Lights" ; the incarnate Logos 
is "the Light of the world"; and we find, in the Upanishads and in the 
Apocalypse, exactly the same expression of the self-luminous spiritual 
world : "The sun shines not there, nor the moon and stars, 
from the shining of this, all draws its light"; and "There shall be no 
night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the 
Lord God giveth them light". 

Yet another universal religious teaching finds its expression in the 
passage translated above : the teaching that the Divine is both immanent 
and transcendent. The one Breath, the Spirit, enters the world shaping 
itself to form after form, and yet remains outside them. The Divine 
Spirit is at once the substance, the force and consciousness of every 
manifested form ; yet this manifestation, this endless differentiation does 
not for an instant impair the perfect unity, the entire perfection of 
the Divine. 

Rooted above, downward branching is this immemorial Ashvattha 
tree : this, verily, is the luminous one, this is the Eternal; this, verily, 
is called the immortal. In this all worlds are set firm, nor does any 
transcend it. This, verily, is That. 

Whatever is here, the whole moving world, moves in the Life, made 
manifest from That. This is the great Fear, the uplifted sceptre; they 
who know this, become immortal. Through fear of this, fire burns' 
through fear of this, the sun glows; through fear of this, Indra ana 
Vayu, and Death runs as the fifth. 

If one has been able to awaken to this, here, before the body's 
dissolution, thereafter he builds for embodiment in the creative worlds. 

As in a mirror, so in oneself is this perceived; as in dream, so in 
the world of the Fathers; as in the waters, dispersedly, this is perceived 
in the world of the Seraphs; as in the light and the shadow, it is per- 
ceived in the world of the Eternal. 

The immemorial Ashvattha tree is the Tree of Life, rooted above, 
in the Eternal, and branching downward through the manifested worlds. 
This again is a universal symbol, found in all religions. 

The Eternal is the "great Fear", the everlasting Mystery, before 
which even the loftiest spirit must ever bow down in reverent awe; the 
unseen, supreme Lord, whom all manifested powers, whether of life or 
death, perpetually obey. 

The recognition of this Divine Eternal makes for the building of 
the spiritual body, "the house not made with hands". 



IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH 303 

While we are here, the Divine Self is indistinctly seen; it appears 
"as in a mirror, enigmatically," in Saint Paul's words; in the worli 
of the Fathers, the restorative paradise between death and rebirth, it 
is seen as in a dream, since that is a world of celestial dreams ; in the 
world of the Seraphs, the angelic world, its radiance is like the gleam 
of sunlight on rippled water, every celestial being reflecting something 
of that light. In the world of the Eternal, there is the light and the 
shadow : the light of the Logos, the shadow of the manifested worlds. 

The wise man, considering that the activity of the powers of per- 
ception and action is separate from his real being, and that they have 
their rising and setting, as of activities arising apart from himself, 
grieves not. 

Higher than the powers is Mind; higher than Mind is spiritual 
being; above spiritual being is the Great Self ; above the Great is the 
Unmanifest. But higher than the Unmanifest is the Spirit, all per- 
vading, without distinctive mark. Knowing this, a living being is se* 
free and goes to immortality. 

This is what may be called the classification of the Principles : 
there are, first, the powers of perception and action; then Manas; then 
the spiritual being, Buddhi, the manifestation of Atma; above Atma is 
the Logos ; beyond the Logos is the Eternal. Knowing this spiritual 
stairway, man ascends it to immortality. 

The form of the Eternal cannot be seen, nor can any one behold 
Him with the eyes. Through the heart, through illumination, through 
the understanding He is apprehended. They who know this, become 
immortal. 

When the five powers of perception come to rest, with the mind, 
and the understanding no longer strives, this they call the highest way; 
this they hold to be union, the steady controlling of the powers; there- 
upon he becomes undeluded, for union is a rising and a surcease. 

Not, verily, by speech, or by thought, or by the eyes, can this be 
obtained. It is apprehended of him who realizes its being; how could 
it be known otherwise? 

It is to be apprehended by realizing its being, and by direct experi- 
ence of both; to him who has apprehended it through realization, its 
true being is revealed. 

When all desires that dwell in his heart are let go, the mortal becomes 
immortal and enters the Eternal. 

When all the knots of the heart are untied, the mortal becomes im- 
mortal; so far goes the teaching handed down. 

These passages would seem to be the original source of the teach- 
ing of union, of Yoga, one formulation of which has come down to us. 



304 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



connected with the name of Patanjali, while there is another expression 
of the same teaching in the Bhagavad Gita. 

Only one sentence appears to call for comment : "It is to be appre- 
hended by realizing its being, and by direct experience of both" : the 
meaning appears to be, a direct experience of the Divine within us and 
the Divine above us; the dim star within, and the infinite light. 

A hundred and one are the channels of the heart; of them, one 
rises to the crown; ascending by this, he reaches immortality; the others 
lead in diverse ways. 

Of the measure of the thumb, the Spirit, the Inner Self, dwells ever 
in the hearts of creatures. Let him draw this forth from the body, 
steadily, like a reed from its sheath. Let him know this to be the lum- 
inous, the immortal; let him\ know this to be the luminous, the immortal. 

Something has already been said, in a previous section, concerning 
the "channel in the head" through which the divine fire ascends, to 
what Shankara calls "the door". This appears to be a reference to 
the same teaching. 

As has already been said, the second part of Katha Upanishad 
appears to consist of pages taken from some Book of Discipline for 
disciples, each passage almost complete in itself, with the result that 
there is some lack of external continuity. But the inner thought is 
continuous, as will become clear as each passage is read, pondered on, 
and inwardly digested. The repetition of the closing sentence, here, 
as elsewhere, is meant to mark the end of the text. 

There is, however, an added passage, intended to preserve the unity 
of the whole book by declaring that the preceding passages were a part 
of the teaching given by Death to Nachiketas. This passage follows. 

Nachiketas, receiving this wisdom declared by Death, and the per- 
fect rule of union, attained to the Eternal, gaining freedom from passion 
and from death. So, verily, will he who knows this, concerning the 
Divine Self. 

C. J. 



Dost thou pray? Nay! 
prayer. ANON. 



God prays to thee 



Listen to His 






THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



III 

CAGLIOSTRO 

IN previous numbers of the QUARTERLY, reference was made at some 
length to the French Revolution, by Mrs. Nesta Webster, and to the 
attitude there adopted toward the Free Masons and Illuminati and 

their share in the responsibility for the Revolution. On such a 
subject, where the truth is so difficult of access, each additional point 
of view, presenting, as it may, some new facet of the whole truth, is well 
worth consideration. A book on Illuminism in France, by Dr. "Papus,"* 
who claims to have devoted years to the study of the subject, affords 
several significant points. 

Using the term Illuminati in a sense other than that of Mrs. Webster, 
he distinguishes definitely between them and the Masonic Order. The 
Illuminati among whom he classes the followers of men like Martinez 
Pasqualis, Saint Martin, Willermoz devoted themselves to science, 
theurgy, etc., teaching the doctrine of the perfectibility of man, 
endeavouring to develop inner faculties ordinarily dormant, and seeking, 
through the practice of magic, to obtain the objective assistance of a 
guide from the spiritual world. They avoided politics and kindred 
projects, and were avowedly hostile to certain of the societies whose 
aims were political. 

In his treatment of Masonry, the author makes another distinction 
within the Order itself. He traces the history of the Masonic Order 
proper, from its foundation in England, in 1646, by the members of 
certain powerful occult confraternities, as a centre of propaganda for 
their work, down to and through the establishing of the Grand Orient 
of France in 1773. The Order stood avowedly for liberty, fraternity, 
equality, but was not subversive in character; it was equally strong in 
its warfare against atheism and immorality. The subversive, distinctively 
revolutionary element among the societies of the time, he attributes to 
the surviving members of what had been the Knights Templar, who banded 
together in 1786 to form the Grand Chapitre General. In many instances, 
the members of this body took advantage of the Masonic organization, 
carrying on their work by forming higher grades of Masonry, their 
members well organized and admirably disciplined, and their teachings 
aiming to make of each member an avenger of the Knights Templar. 



* Students of Theosophy doubtless will remember Madame Blavatsky's unfavourable opinion 
of Dr. "Papus." It is interesting, nevertheless, to note the result of his researches in regard 
to Illuminism. EDITORS. 

305 



306 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Of course there were societies combining the qualities of all these three 
classes in varying ways, and with varying relations to the parent body. 

While some of the author's conclusions are without doubt open to 
question, they nevertheless afford valuable pointers, in a veritable maze 
of available information, where the time-honoured test, "by their fruits", 
cannot always be applied with any certainty. The interesting suggestion 
is made that the secret societies of any given period are like the astral 
model on which the physical body the outer social life is formed. In 
illustration, the author refers to the social system prior to the Revolution, 
at the time when the Knights Templar were an active influence. Then 
the hierarchical system prevailed, and recognition of a supreme power, 
and of obedience to it, were the rule all, it is said, an outer manifestation 
of the organization of the Religious Orders. This he contrasts with the 
democracy during and after the Revolution the outer manifestation of 
the organization of the Masonic Order. It is further asserted that the 
Monarchy and the Church, in suppressing the Knights Templar, while 
they recognized what was occurring on the outer plane, little realized 
the inner significance of the act and its far-reaching effect for the future. 

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, there was an enormous 
growth of the Masonic Order. From very small beginnings, it had 
increased in 1776 to the number of three hundred French Lodges. In 
1789 there were over six hundred, and by the end of the century, general 
statistics showed 137,675 Lodges, comprising over twenty-one million 
Masons. This meant that the principles of liberty, fraternity and equality, 
continually taught in the Lodges, could scarcely fail to become a living 
power in the life of the day. Hand in hand with that, there went 
an intense and widespread interest in the supernatural. Occultism, 
illuminism, spiritualism, magic were the fashion ; the Philosopher's Stone, 
the Elixir of Life, were topics of absorbing interest. Visions and 
revelations were sought after, and the power to control unseen spirits. 
Dabblers in various arts evolved mystical systems of one sort or another, 
and gathered each their small following about them, usually in a secret 
organization. Masonry was closely allied with the interest in the super- 
natural, and the members of the various Lodges were avid in search of 
experiences of all kinds, open to any influence that might be brought to 
bear on them. This was the instrument which the Lodge messengers, 
carrying on the work of enlightenment for the last quarter of the century, 
found ready to hand. And of the three men who came to do the 
Lodge work of that period Mesmer, the pioneer, St. Germain super- 
vising the developments, and Cagliostro later commissioned to help (see 
Theosophical Glossary) at least the last two men made extensive use 
of Masonry, introducing various rites not familiar, and often not 
acceptable, to Masons of the day. It was Cagliostro who made the most 
definite effort to weld the Order together, to give it oneness of purpose 
and loftiness of ideal, and to use it definitely as an instrument. 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 307 

It would be difficult to discover a man concerning whom more 
startlingly contradictory stories have been circulated than about Cag- 
liostro. Any one who is forceful, successful, eminent, is certain to have 
detractors, to make enemies; but it is not often that one finds the same 
man considered by hundreds of people wholly good, beloved, revered, 
even regarded as "divine", and by equal numbers, wholly bad, possessed 
of no spark of the qualities that would render him merely human. 
Carlyle, with his eye for the dramatic, pictures him a monstrous sham 
less than man, less than beast even; by profession a healer of 
diseases, abolisher of wrinkles, Spirit-summoner, Gold-cook, Prophet, 
Priest, thaumaturgic moralist and swindler; really a Liar of the first 
magnitude ; a Quack of Quacks, surrounded by gulled or gulling disciples ; 
a most dusky, bull-necked, mastiff-faced, sinister-looking individual, with 
mouth of pinchbeck, and front of brass. Indeed, even Carlyle's 
inexhaustible store of adjectives must have been taxed to meet the 
demand, and in the end he fails of his purpose through so far over- 
shooting the mark. 

Madame Blavatsky made the statement that Cagliostro, misjudged 
for so many decades, would be vindicated in the present century. An 
important step in this direction has been taken by Dr. Marc Haven in 
a book entitled Le Maitre Inconnu Cagliostro. In it the author, using 
the same method adopted by Mrs. Webster in her French Revolution, 
endeavours to discover the real man. Thanks to the thoroughness of the 
Inquisition, almost nothing of Cagliostro's own writings escaped the 
flames. But letters of noted men who knew him, journals and memoirs 
of the day, records of his Order, are consulted, with an effort to take 
into account the position and bias of the writer and whatever other 
elements might affect the value of the testimony. 

W. R. H. Trowbridge, in the Preface to his book, Cagliostro, the 
Splendour and Misery of a Master of Magic, writes : "In choosing 
Cagliostro as the subject of an historical memoir, I was guided at first, 
I admit, by the belief that he was the arch-impostor he is popularly 
supposed to be. With his mystery, magic and highly sensational career, 
he seemed just the sort of picturesque personality I was in search of. 
The moment, however, I began to make my researches I was astonished 
to find how little foundation there was in point of fact for the popular 
conception." The further this author pursued the subject, the more he 
became convinced of the error of the usually accepted view. And this 
is just the conviction one gains in following the researches of Dr. Haven. 
He shows us the bigness, the open-hearted generosity, the kindliness and 
impulsiveness of the man, in a way that makes him vividly real and 
living, and, what is more important, at the same time he shows the reason 
for his downfall (outwardly speaking, at least), the cause of all the 
slander, misunderstanding and obloquy under which the real man is 
concealed. 



308 



THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 



Numerous fantastic ideas can be gathered from rumours, some 
slanderous, some satirical, concerning Cagliostro's early life. Nothing 
is known as fact. Almost the earliest dependable accounts start with 
his first London sojourn in 1776, during which he foretold to several 
chance acquaintances the winning numbers in a Lottery then being held, 
and as a result fell into the clutches of a band of swindlers, was robbed, 
imprisoned, and finally, with his wife, left England almost without 
money or possessions. According to some accounts, he came into contact 
with Masonry more or less by chance, during this visit. Partly in view 
of his mission, and partly in view of the fact that London was, in a 
sense, the source of the Masonic activity of the day, it seems far more 
probable that his journey to London was made for the particular purpose 
of making this connection. 

Be this as it may, as he travelled about Europe, from this time on, 
he visited one Masonic Lodge after another, honoured and increasingly 
influential wherever he went. His endeavour was to develop and use 
what was best in them. He taught the members the relativity, the in- 
completeness of our knowledge of the world about us, our perceptions 
limited as they are, to what we can learn by means of the five senses. 
He taught of other senses, undeveloped in most men, but capable of 
development, which open up a new world and extend the limits of con- 
sciousness. But it was necessary to meet his pupils on their own ground, 
satisfy their curiosity, offer them proofs to win them to his teaching. 
Accordingly he held seances, performed magical operations, and of these, 
as might be expected, the most is made by his enemies. His method as 
a rule seems to have been somewhat like what is now known as crystal 
gazing. The principal features of it were a carafe or globe of water, 
into which gazed a small child, called the pupil or coulomb, who must 
not be past the age of innocence and in which he saw spirits who 
prophesied future events, told of happenings at a distance, gave answers 
to questions, and so forth. Eliphas Levi wrote suggestively : Cagliostro 
practises hydromancy, because he knows that water is at the same time 
an excellent conductor, a powerful reflector and a very refringent 
medium for the astral light, as is proved by the mirages of the desert 
and the mountains. Cagliostro himself said that he made use of these 
seances as a means of calling attention to the fact that there is another 
world than the material world of our familiar acquaintance. This 
suggests the early days of Madame Blavatsky's work, when popular 
interest in spiritualism and psychic phenomena were employed similarly 
for the same purpose. The seances, far from being useless ceremonies, 
mere amusement, suddenly proved to have an object. They were theurgic ; 
the regeneration of man was their aim, and through spiritual means. 

To follow the course of Cagliostro's career would be useless repeti- 
tion of what is already well known. Suffice it to say that as he travelled 
from one place to another, he developed more and more the plan for 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



309 



his Egyptian Masonry; his pupils increased with great rapidity, and not 
only had he a large following, but he became intimately associated with 
more and more distinguished people, people of learning, of culture, of 
every rank of society including the highest aristocracy. 

One account of Cagliostro's work makes the assertion that his real 
greatness lay in his power as a clairvoyant and as a healer. His power 
as a healer, as a physician (whatever his method), was overwhelmingly 
attested during his stay in Strasbourg. He had previously practised 
medicine to some extent. Here, a number of remarkable cures spread 
his fame abroad, and people flocked to him from far and near his 
hotel was filled with patients ; his stairway and vestibule, the street before 
his house, were crowded. From early morning until late at night, he 
continued the work day after day. Hundreds were of the very poor, 
and he gave them medicine, food, money. Many were of the very rich. 
To all alike his understanding of the hearts of men gave a healing of 
more than body. In a very short time, his work brought him into con- 
flict with the medical profession a sharp conflict, resulting in the 
bitter enmity of certain physicians. Unable to strike successfully at him 
in any other way, they engaged a recent arrival from Spain Carlo Sachi 
by name to act as tool. Sachi, claiming to have known and been aided 
by Cagliostro in earlier years, succeeded in obtaining a place as errand 
boy or apprentice for him. Cagliostro himself had always scrupulously 
avoided accepting any payment whatever for his medical services; in 
fact, he accepted money on no occasion, and the source of his obvious 
wealth was always a mystery. The new apprentice, engaged in carrying 
prescriptions to patients, extorted from them and pocketed large sums, 
and in ways best calculated to rouse their resentment. He gossiped and 
strutted about, making himself well known as the assistant of the 
great man, and then told, on all sides, evil stories of a supposed former 
relationship with the Count, and by insinuation and innuendo cast sus- 
picion on his present standing in Strasbourg, the value of his work, and 
the honesty of his purpose. A patient, hearing the tales, disclosed the 
state of affairs. Sachi was at once dismissed, and on threatening the 
life of the informant, was banished from Strasbourg for his threats and 
"for calumnies against a man very universally respected." He then 
claimed that it was all a mistake, that he had been speaking of someone 
else, and when this failed of its purpose, he withdrew from the city, 
and sent to Cagliostro an extortionate bill for services rendered. The 
only reason for going into this incident is that the highly coloured tales of 
Sachi were not only taken up at the time by enemies of Cagliostro 
by that army of little people who are always jealous of power or success, 
and by the still larger number of idle gossips but at a much later date, 
the. testimony of this scoundrel was widely used, and in the popular 
accounts that have remained, his stories are all too often quoted as fact. 

Cagliostro did not remain long in any one place, but travelled widely 



310 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

throughout Europe, and in some sections, notably in Central Europe, 
visited practically every Lodge, winning adherents everywhere for his 
Egyptian Masonry. The Lodges had no spiritual direction, were 
ignorant of their origin and their aim, and according to the account of 
Dr. Haven, Cagliostro's effort was to infuse the Christian spirit, the 
spirit of wisdom and of truth, into this growing organism. In order to 
do so, it was necessary that he should direct Masonry as a whole, draw 
it away from worldly concerns, direct it toward the light. At Lyons 
he achieved a triumph in his Masonic work, forming a Lodge, erecting a 
temple, wholly in accordance with his plan. This period was, in one 
way, the summit of his career. To attempt to re-tell Dr. Haven's 
account of it would be a mistake. But from that account a few passages, 
taken from the ritual of the three grades of Egyptian Masonry, will 
help to give, in brief, an idea of the nature of the teachings : 

Masonic works are entirely spiritual, and have no other object than 
to earn the privilege of being admitted into the temple of God. Man, 
created in the image and likeness of God is the most perfect of his 
works. So long as he preserved his innocence, he commanded all living 
beings, even angels, intelligent forces, ministers of God. But as the 
result of the abuse of his power, it was lost; man was made mortal, and 
deprived even of communication with spiritual beings. His work, in 
order to regain the original purity and power which were his right, thus 
becomes considerable, and this is the purpose of initiation. The regenera- 
tion is twofold : moral and physical. In order that he re-become a child 
of God, first the longing for it must be awakened within him, and he 
must then begin to shape his life accordingly. If he be sincere in his 
efforts, God will provide for him one of His elect to help him. He 
learns from this master that the work consists in glorifying God (spiritual 
regeneration) ; in penetrating into the sanctuary of nature (intellectual 
regeneration), and in purifying the elements in himself (social and physical 
regeneration). To glorify God in oneself, is to become interiorly formed 
anew, not by exterior austerities, but by interior conflict and struggle. 
The work is long and patience is necessary. To penetrate into the 
sanctuary of nature is to acquire knowledge, not of human learning, but 
the direct cognisance of reality. When man has become thus triply 
regenerated a healthy soul in a healthy body he will experience an 
influx of the grace of God and will himself become a master. And just 
as the ordinary man, living in the material world, perceives and acts in 
it, so the regenerate man can perceive and act in the spiritual world 
where he lives. 

This is, of course, only an incomplete rendering of the ritual of 
the first three grades. The more private papers, which Cagliostro 
regarded as of inestimable value, were, a part at a time, stolen in London, 
confiscated in Paris, seized and burnt in Rome ; so that practically nothing 
remains. 



THE KRKXCH REVOLUTION' 



311 



Of his stay in Paris the splendour and magnificence of his life 
there, the number and high rank of his friends and followers and of 
his connection with the celebrated affair of the diamond necklace, much 
has been written that purports to be fact. In fiction, it has been immor- 
talized by Alexandre Dumas in several of his novels and in a most 
unfortunate light. The Queen's Necklace represents him as clever, 
intriguing, using as dupes the other figures of the drama, secretly plotting 
and effecting the theft of the necklace, with the malignant purpose of 
discrediting the monarchy at this most critical period. Dr. Haven 
shows that Cagliostro had actually nothing to do with the theft of the 
necklace. He was not in Paris, had not come to Paris until the plan 
had been made and carried out. It will be remembered that the affair 
of the necklace involved the Cardinal de Rohan, a high dignitary of the 
Church and one of the highest of the French aristocracy, whose close 
intimacy with Cagliostro had long been a matter of note; and a woman, 
Madame de la Motte, a natural descendant of Henri II, clever, ambitious, 
audacious, totally unscrupulous. The Prince-Cardinal was not in favour 
at Court. Madame de la Motte, trading on his ambitions, led him to 
think that Marie Antoinette favoured him secretly and desired her to 
act as go-between; and finally induced him to become security for the 
payment for a diamond necklace, which the Queen was alleged to desire 
but to be unable to afford. The date of payment fell due; the Cardinal, 
immensely wealthy though he was, could not meet it. The Queen of 
course disclaimed all knowledge of it, and the Cardinal and Madame 
de la Motte were imprisoned. Madame de la Motte could not accuse 
the Cardinal, for no one would have believed her. In his palace, she 
had several times met Cagliostro there was much about him that was 
mysterious and not understood; her ready accusation, then, was, "The 
alchemist took the necklace to pieces in order to increase by means of 
it the treasures of an unheard of fortune." By insinuation, she involved 
his wife as well, and both were imprisoned in the Bastille for many 
months, awaiting trial. From Madame de la Motte's testimony at the 
trial, came many of the statements on which rest Cagliostro's reputation 
as an impostor, a charlatan and a swindler. He had become justly famous 
as a healer, a wonderworker, a possessor of fabulous wealth, the source 
of which was a mystery. Rumour had enlarged on his powers in end- 
less directions, and all this gave easy credence to the lurid tales of the 
unscrupulous woman who was determined to fasten her own guilt on 
him. To her, then, are due the stories that he claimed to be hundreds 
of years old; that he had been present at the marriage at Cana, and 
many others. She said he was a Portuguese Jew, a Greek, an Egyptian 
of Alexandria, that he sold immortality to the wealthy, and that he was 
guilty of misdemeanours of many kinds. 

As is well known, Cagliostro was completely exonerated, and on 
his release was given an ovation by throngs of people, who filled the 



312 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

streets as they escorted him back to his home. At this time, revolutionary 
sentiments were openly expressed, and his long detention in the Bastille 
on mere suspicion, caused him to be hailed as a martyr to the liberties 
of man. Though Madame de la Motte had been convicted and sen- 
tenced, a certain faction which lost no opportunity to strike at the 
King and Queen, published scurrilous pamphlets, claiming that Marie 
Antoinette was really involved in the affair, if the truth were known. 
The outcome of it all was that Cagliostro was immediately banished from 
France. He withdrew to London, and from there brought suit against 
the Marquis De Launay, Governor of the Bastille, and also against the 
Commissioner of Police, for the loss of valuable papers and other 
possessions, money, medicines, and alchemical powders, which had been 
wantonly seized when he was thrown into prison. This, of course, 
intensified the feeling against him among certain of the Court circle in 
France, and brought about his meeting with the man who has done more 
than anyone else to blacken his name, Theveneau de Morande. 

The latter was born in France, was a rascal from boyhood, and 
finally fled to England to escape punishment. Here he became a pro- 
fessional blackmailer, writing first Le Gazeteer Cuirasse ou Anecdotes 
Scandaleuse sur la Cour de France. He blackmailed Madame du Barry ; 
he tried to blackmail Voltaire, but came off the loser. The French 
Government attempted to seize him, and he posed in England as a 
political exile. Finally, the French Government employed him as a sub- 
sidized journalist and spy, and he became the editor of the "Courrier de 
1'Europe," which was read all over the continent. In it, he and a band 
of associates tore reputations to shreds, and to the attacks of this man's 
ready pen, Cagliostro was subjected by his enemies in France. Morande 
seized and improved upon all the wild tales, absurd or venomous as the 
case might be, which Madame de la Motte had invented during her 
trial, and for a considerable time tried through written attack to provoke 
a quarrel or induce a bribe. All the rumours afloat were gathered 
together, and finally someone was sought who had a grievance and would 
bring a charge against Cagliostro. As a result of this search, Sachi was 
unearthed. Morande brought him to London at his own expense and 
secretly swore out a writ against Cagliostro. English law at that time 
made imprisonment the penalty for even one complaint of indebtedness. 
Fortunately, Cagliostro was warned and took immediate legal steps in 
time to foil Morande's scheme. He then wrote a "Letter to the English 
People," in which he scored Morande so successfully that the whole 
affair was dropped. Both in his personal friendships and in his Masonic 
work, Cagliostro's standing remained unchanged, but in the latter field, 
in England, the results apparently did not justify the effort expended, 
and in 1787 he yielded to the urging of his friends and pupils on the 
Continent particularly of Sarrasin, one of his most devoted followers 
to the very end and left for Switzerland. The "Courrier" immediately 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



313 



claimed the glory of having driven him from London. It commiserated 
the Countess, who had remained behind in order to wind up their affairs, 
on having been deserted by her husband in his effort to save himself. 
Her stay with friends was represented as morally discreditable to her; 
the disposal of their furniture was represented as a seizure and forced 
sale. The seriousness of these calumnies was in no way lessened by the 
fact that the material in the "Courrier" appeared almost immediately in 
Leyden, Hamburg, Berlin, Florence, Amsterdam, and Paris. 

In the Queen's Necklace and the Memoirs of a Physician, Cagliostro 
is represented by Dumas as an anti-monarchist, and a powerful exponent 
of democracy and the rights of man, and it would be interesting to know 
just where fiction ends and fact begins in such a charge. Cagliostro 
foretold the fall of the Bastille, it is true; the attack on Versailles; the 
overthrow of the monarchy ; but in many another instance he had shown 
his clairvoyant powers, so the statements are no proof of anti-monarchical 
sentiments. In the Proceedings of the trial at Rome, he is accused of 
hatred toward the Court of France, and of sentiments and writings of 
a seditious nature, but the Proceedings, as will be seen later, warrant no 
credence. The so-called shockingly seditious writings are evidently 
identical with his "Letter to the French People," written during his exile 
in London. In it he laments his banishment as due to the King having 
been misled by his ministers ; he speaks of the horrors of his imprison- 
ment in the Bastille, and the cloud on the happiness of France constituted 
by the lettres de cachet, adding that God wills the Bastille be made a 
public promenade. (Mrs. Webster shows that this had long been talked 
of, and even considered by the King.) The letter continues, "O my 
friends, there will reign over you a prince who will find his glory in the 
abolition of the lettres de cachet, in the convocation of your States 
General, and above all in the re-establishment of the true religion. . . . 
Your sovereign is fitted for this great work. I know that he will bring 
it to pass, if he will only listen to his own heart. His severity toward 
me, does not blind me to his virtues." 

This letter doubtless is less startling to us now, familiar as we are 
with the actual developments of the Revolution, than to one confident 
of the permanence and security of the old regime. It will seem still 
less seditious, however, if we turn to certain of the prophecies of the 
famous St. Germain. The latter foretold long in advance, every step 
of the Revolution. "Some years yet will pass by in a deceitful calm ; then 
from all parts of the kingdom will spring up men greedy for vengeance, 
for power, and for money; they will overthrow all in their way. The 
seditious populace and some great members of the State will lend them 
support; a spirit of delirium will take possession of the citizens; civil 
war will burst out with all its horrors ; it will bring in its train murder, 
pillage, exile. Then it will be regretted that I was not listened to." And 
again, "The Encyclopaedist party desire power; they will only obtain 



314 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

it by the absolute downfall of the clergy, and to ensure this result they 
will overthrow the monarchy. This party, who seek a chief among the 
members of the royal family, have turned their eyes on the Due de 
Chartres ; this prince will become the tool of men who will sacrifice him 
when he has ceased to be useful to them; the crown of France will be 
offered him, and he will find the scaffold instead of the throne. But 
before this day of retribution, what cruelties ! what crimes ! Laws will 
no longer be the protection of the good and the terror of the wicked. It 
is these last who will seize power with their bloodstained hands; they 
will abolish the Catholic religion, the nobility, the magistracy." At 
another time : "Kingdom, Republic, Empire, mixed Governments, tor- 
mented, agitated, torn; from clever tyrants she [France] will pass to 
others who are ambitious without merit. She will be divided, parcelled 
out, cut up; and these are no pleonasms that I use, the coming times 
will bring about the overthrow of the Empire ; pride will sway or abolish 
distinctions, not from virtue but from vanity, and it is through vanity 
that they will come back to them. The French, like children playing 
with handcuffs and slings, will play with titles, honours, ribbons ; every- 
thing will be a toy to them, even to the shoulder-belt of the National 
Guard ; the greedy will devour the finances." 

The conduct of Lafayette and others prominent in the Revolution, 
even the rise of Napoleon was foretold. All these prophecies could be 
construed as seditious if one so desired, but how were they employed? 
Never in a way to cause strife. In every instance, as a warning, an aid, 
to the monarchy. By letter, by messenger, by personal interview, St. 
Germain made one effort after another to persuade Marie Antoinette of 
the danger, to lead her and the King to take measures which might avert 
the storm. A final letter to the Queen reads, "My words have fallen 
on your ears in vain, and you have reached the period of which I 
informed you. It is no longer a question of tacking but of meeting the 
storm with thundering energy." And immediately after, to a confidential 
friend of the Queen, "All is lost! This sun is the last which will set 
on the monarchy, to-morrow it will exist no more, chaos will prevail, 
anarchy unequalled. You know all I have tried to do to give affairs a 
different turn ; I have been scorned ; now it is too late. I can do nothing 
for the King, nothing for the Queen, nothing for the Royal Family, 
nothing even for the Due d'Orleans, who will be triumphant to-morrow, 
and who, all in due course, will cross the Capitol to be thrown from the 
top of the Tarpeian rock." 

Assuming that Cagliostro and St. Germain were both sent by the 
same source, both conscious of their mission, it is hardly to be supposed 
that one would be doing all in his power to avert the cataclysm, and the 
other intentionally fomenting strife. Madame Blavatsky says that Cag- 
liostro made fatal mistakes and was recalled. What was their nature? 
She does not indicate. St. Germain worked secretly; he foretold these 




THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



315 



events only to one or two or three persons the persons whose power 
and influence would effect the most toward frustrating the revolutionary 
plot. Did the mistakes of Cagliostro lie, perhaps, in too great freedom 
of speech, in disclosures to the many instead of to the few, in a possible 
failure to calculate the inflammable condition of the public mind, the 
terrible consequences of the conflagration, once ignited? There is nothing 
to indicate a reply only material for vague surmise. There is much in 
the revolutionary situation that is interestingly suggestive regarding the 
Lodge plan for the period or rather alternative plans, representing, 
perhaps, the difference in individual method of certain Lodge members or 
groups of members but here again, only surmise is possible. 

Cagliostro remained in Switzerland until 1783, then continued his 
travels, arriving finally in Rome in May, 1789. It was in the following 
December, that he was seized by the Inquisition. His torturing trial, 
conducted secretly and with evidence which the prisoner was never per- 
mitted to see; his long struggle to vindicate himself and his doctrines; 
his tortures of body and agonies of mind; the gradual crushing out of 
hope, of fire, of spirit; the public abjuration of his "errors", as, bare- 
footed and in penitent's garb, he asked pardon of God and Holy Church, 
while the executioner burnt before the multitude in the public square, his 
writings and papers ; his sentence and final life imprisonment, under con- 
tinual guard, in one of the deepest dungeons of the fortress of San Leo 
this closing chapter of his life is one of absorbing interest, though not 
to the present purpose. The authorized account of the trial has been 
translated into English under the title of the Life of Joseph Balsamo, the 
latter having been declared by his enemies, some years before, to be his 
real name. 

In fixing? this name on him, Goethe was actively concerned. Rumour 
had it that Cagliostro, instead of being of high birth and connected in a 
mysterious way with the East, as had generally been accepted, was actu- 
ally born in Palermo in a poor family named Balsamo. Goethe was 
entirely unacquainted with Cagliostro, but, as is well known, the literary 
and dramatic possibilities in the career of such a remarkable figure had 
appealed to him strongly, and he undertook to investigate the question. 
His findings are published in one of the volumes of Wilhelm Meister. 
He gathered considerable information about the real Joseph Balsamo, a 
ne'er-do-well and a miscreant, who apparently bore a strong physical 
resemblance to Cagliostro, and then on entirely unsatisfactory and incon- 
clusive evidence (not to him perhaps, but certainly to his readers), linked 
together the early years of one and the later years of the other, and con- 
sidered the matter settled. Quite typical of his method was his visit to 
the widow Balsamo. She was old, wretchedly poor, very ignorant, and, 
as is often the case in such circumstances, suspicious of strangers. Goethe 
represented himself to her as an Englishman who knew her son. The 
poor old creature was overjoyed at hearing again of her long lost boy, 



316 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

sent for a notary and had him write for her a letter, which Goethe was 
supposed to deliver. In it she said she had been told of his having become 
immensely wealthy and a great lord, described her own pitiful state of 
want, and implored his help. This interview, and the fact that a young 
woman in the family resembled the portraits and busts of Cagliostro then 
everywhere prominent, sent Goethe away highly satisfied. As a matter 
of fact, every statement seems, if only from the point of view of incon- 
gruity, to be proof positive that there were two men and not one. 

The Life of Joseph Balsamo, translated from the Original Proceed- 
ings published at Rome by order of the Apostolic Chamber, adopts the 
theory of identity, and gives many pages to the infamous early life of 
Balsamo. A more scurrilous and malignant account, it would be difficult 
to find. There is no form of dishonesty, chicanery, double dealing and 
maliciousness which he is not represented as indulging in habitually, and 
no low instinct or evil inclination which was not characteristic of his 
nature. A turn of roguery is given to every act of his life, as when he is 
represented as earning a precarious livelihood by making pen and ink 
drawings, not honourably, but by taking engravings done by some one 
else and touching them up, so that they might have the appearance of pen 
sketches. He is declared ignorant and averse to learning. He and 
his wife are said to have wandered about Europe at times as beggars, 
but usually living on the proceeds of her enforced immorality. This is 
sufficient to show the general nature of the account. It is given a 
semblance of fact by various means phrases such as : "This much is 
however certain (and he has confessed it himself)", then follows some 
low accusation. Or, "He did thus as all those intimately acquainted with 
him have affirmed." Or again, "During his trial before the Apostolic 
Court Cagliostro could not deny . . ." (Few men in the hands of 
the Inquisition could long deny what their judges wished them to affirm.) 
Of the utter incongruity between the vulgarity of his early life as here 
represented, and his later life of learning, culture, refinement, and close 
friendships with the nobility of every country he visited, the account makes 
no note. Such of the better known facts about him as the Life is forced 
to meet, it treats with characteristic disregard of truth ; as for instance : 
"In regard to medicine, fortune was exceedingly favourable to him, and 
he actually succeeded in the cure of some diseases. But in truth his 
knowledge did not surpass that which is acquired by every quack and 
nostrum monger." 

This is the book on which are based most of the popular accounts 
of Cagliostro's life and work. More than one writer could be cited, who 
begins his story with the statement that he had become interested in a 
book entitled The Life of Joseph Balsamo, had looked further and found 
the "Courrier de 1'Europe," one number after another of which corrobo- 
rated fully the first impression received, and so forth. The question of 
why such an account should have been issued by the Apostolic Chamber 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



317 



is easily answered, when we realize that the Church had long been the 
bitter enemy of Free Masonry, regarding it as a deadly menace. Added 
to this, rumours were rife concerning the magnitude of Cagliostro's 
work, the complete devotion of his countless adherents, and the danger 
of secret plots to effect his rescue from the Inquisitorial prison. To 
destroy his work then, crush his sect, turning their devotion into doubt, 
suspicion or hate, and to stamp out his heretical doctrines, were regarded 
as imperative whatever the means necessary. A passage from an article 
by H. P. B. in "Lucifer" January, 1890 quotes a typical instance of 
the terrorizing effect which his teachings, in the hands of his Inquisitors, 
would be likely to have : 

"In the number of the crimes he is accused of is included that of 
the circulation of a book by an unknown author, condemned to public 
burning and entitled, The Three Sisters. The object of this work is 
'to pulverize certain three high-born individuals.' [H. P. B. is quoting 
from contemporary correspondence, and adds her own explanation.] 
The real meaning of this most extraordinary misinterpretation is easy 
to guess. It was a work on Alchemy ; the 'three sisters' standing symboli- 
cally for the three 'Principles' in their duplex symbolism. On the plane 
of occult chemistry they 'pulverize' the triple ingredient used in the 
process of the transmutation of metals ; on the plane of Spirituality they 
reduce to a state of pulverization the three 'lower' personal 'principles' 
in man, an explanation that every Theosophist is bound to understand." 

Going back to Mrs. Webster's book and her belief that Cagliostro 
was a member of the Order of Weishaupt and concerned in its ominous 
work : it would be absurd to question facts which she has gathered from 
sources inaccessible on this side of the ocean. Nor would there be any 
point in denying his connection at one time or another with various 
persons and various centres known to be revolutionary in character. But 
one cannot accept her conclusions. Cagliostro's years of almost con- 
tinual travelling for the very purpose of reaching every Lodge possible, 
is ample explanation, it would seem, for contact with men of every stamp. 
And certainly there is no reason to suppose that he was influenced by 
them, adopted their doctrines or aided their work, as a result of such 
contact. His treatment of the Philalethes, his demand that they burn 
every record of their own before his teaching be given them, is evidence 
enough of his independence. Would it not be reasonable to assume that 
he was striving to counteract the work of Weishaupt, and to convert 
the immense influence of Continental Masonry from destructive to con- 
structive purposes? 

Dr. Haven makes frequent reference to certain valuable unpublished 
manuscripts concerning Cagliostro, holding out the possibility of an 
additional work on the subject, and it is sincerely to be hoped that this 
work of bringing to light the real story, the whole truth, will be continued. 

J. C. 



THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE OF 

CHINA 



A geology finds recorded in the fossils, coal-beds, and strata of 
rock and sand, the physical history of the earth, so linguistics 
finds in the age-old word pictures of China the secret of origin 
of all written languages. Not that the Chinese is the oldest 
written language, for the Egyptian, perhaps transplanted to the Nile 
by the fourth race refugees from Atlantis, is surely older, but its begin- 
ning is hidden in the haze of antiquity; also it did not fossilize in the 
ideographic period, like the Chinese, but developed gradually into a 
syllabic and then alphabetic stage, the records found on the obelisks and 
elsewhere showing all these modes of writing combined. The Chinese, 
on the other hand, has remained in the logographic state, in which each 
character represents an entire word (with perhaps many meanings) ; and 
it has developed along that line, becoming conventionalized, the char- 
acters losing all semblance to the pictures which they originally were. 
The Egyptian hieroglyphics are more artistic, some of the papyri being 
really beautiful, though in the eyes of the Chinese nothing is more truly 
artistic than the various combinations of strokes, lines, and dots that 
build up the pictured words of their own tongue. They admire these 
words for their appeal to the eye alone, apart from what they may 
express; and learning to draw the characters with accuracy and in due 
proportion filled, until very recently, a large part of the schoolboy's 
day in far CatHay. The Chinese often decorate their walls with beau- 
tifully executed characters, usually quotations from the classics, which 
are valued at least as much for the beauty of their lines and proportions 
as for the sentiments they express something like the samplers of our 
grandmothers' day. 

All languages, except those of the most degraded races, are dual, 
spoken and written, the latter being symbolic, the characters through 
which it is expressed representing sounds (alphabetic or syllabic sym- 
bols), or entire words (phonetic, pictographic, or ideographic). The 
earliest writing was directly symbolic, each character picturing a single 
word. Such was the early Egyptian and the ancient Mexican (daughters 
evidently of a common mother, probably of the Atlantidean) and the 
Chinese. In most languages there is more or less difference between 
the spoken and the written forms, but in Chinese the difference is so 
great as really to constitute two distinct languages. So wide is the 
difference, indeed, that an ordinarily intelligent, but not classically 

318 



THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE OF CHINA 319 

educated Chinaman would find himself almost as much at sea as a for- 
eigner in trying to penetrate into the meaning of an ancient classic such 
as the Tao Teh King. There is, however, one advantage in the fact 
of the written word being independent of sound, for it may then serve 
as a written lingua franca, understood by men speaking many different 
tongues. In China there are a great many so-called dialects, really inde- 
pendent languages, spoken by the inhabitants of the country, yet educated 
men throughout the Empire can communicate readily by means of the 
written characters common to all. This is only an extension or univers- 
alizing of the symbolism employed to a limited extent in the writing of 
all the European languages, as seen in the numerals, and in other signs 
used in mathematics and music, as well as in the marks of punctuation. 

Written Chinese is monosyllabic, and every character stands for a 
single syllable which is a word or rather in many cases not a single defi- 
nite word, but an idea. In the European languages the letters are arranged 
to form words, and words are grouped to express ideas; but in Chinese 
there is no alphabet, and the characters, many of them at least, are really 
not words except as each has a fixed name, differing in each dialect 
but are pictures of ideas, ideograms. This being the case, one can 
understand that each character can be translated in as many different 
ways as one can express any idea in words. But this is not the worst. 
One must find out, to begin with, what idea the writer had in his mind 
when he drew the character, for often a single character stands for any 
of several different notions which one the reader must determine for 
himself, partly from the context and largely by intuition. We shall see 
this later when analyzing the title of the Tao Teh King. 

The Chinese characters are of three kinds: 1. The pictograms, 
which originally were rude outline drawings of various objects men, 
trees, horses, the sun, moon, etc. These pictograms have been so changed 
in the course of the ages that most of them are wholly unrecognizable 
for what they are meant to depict, but a comparison with the ancient 
forms will bring out the resemblances. 2. The phonograms are com- 
pound characters, one part of which conveys the meaning, while the 
other is added merely to indicate the pronunciation. 3. The ideograms 
are apparently mere collections of lines and strokes conventionally 
accepted as expressive of ideas, but an analysis of some of the simplest 
of these will show that the designers displayed much ingenuity in so com- 
bining pictures of concrete objects as to express abstract notions. Thus 
the character for good is a combination of two, standing for woman and 
child respectively, the thought in the originator's mind perhaps being 
that the child was good so long as his mother was there. The char- 
acter for bewitching is a compound of the two characters for woman 
and winning, and this need not call for prolonged cogitation. Some of 
the other characters in which the character for woman appears are, 



320 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

however, less complimentary. Speech is represented by words and the 
tongue. The idea of sincerity or guilelessness is indicated by the signs 
for words and perfect; of flattery, by a compound of words and a pit- 
fall. The song of birds is pictured by three mouths in the branches of 
a tree. Fever is very obviously indicated by disease and fire, and sick- 
ness is represented by a bed and a man, which would seem to be more 
naturally a picture of sleep, but sleep is already appropriately indicated 
by eyes and hanging down. A character representing one man with 
two women means high spirits, gaiety, but the combination of two men 
with one woman stands for annoyance proving the writer a student 
of human nature as well as of Theosophy. Three dogs scampering 
about, mean whirling, spiral. And so on indefinitely. The examples 
given will illustrate the cleverness and ready wit of those who devised 
this wonderful system of chirography. These were, we are told in The 
Secret Doctrine, students of Masters who were made to record the oral 
instruction in symbols of their own choosing, it being forbidden to relate 
historical or religious events in definite and recognizable words, lest the 
elementals originally connected with these events be thereby recalled. 
These symbols, constituting as it were a system of shorthand notes, were 
examined by the Master and, if correct, were accepted by him. 

From this small beginning was created in time the Chinese system 
of writing, comprising some 30,000 characters. Many of these, however, 
are obsolete or seldom used, and should anyone contemplate the study of 
Chinese, he will be encouraged to know that when he can recognize the 
meaning of 2,500 characters he can read all the writings of Confucius, 
while Lao Tze's Tao Teh King contains a much smaller number of 
separate characters. 

The three words forming the title of the treatise just mentioned, 
which was the subject of study by the New York Branch of The Theo- 
sophical Society a year or so ago, and of which a clarifying interpretation 
is now in course of publication in the QUARTERLY, afford an interesting 
example of the symbolism of the Chinese characters and demonstrate 
the extreme difficulty of translating them into words. 

The first character, tao is compounded of two simpler characters 
meaning "to go" and "the head", and the idea, or rather ideas, which it 
expresses, are contained in these two concepts thus it means a way or 
path through which one goes ahead; reason, which is a function of the 
brain; then a combination of these two, the reasonable or right path; 
further, a rule or formula, or the way in which a thing is done. It is 
the character chosen by the translators of the New Testament to express 
the Word or Logos, and it has been suggested that, if Kant's Critique 
of Pure Reason were to be put into Chinese, this character would also 
enter into the title. Some of the translators of the Tao Teh King have 
called it Reason, others the Way or the Path, and some have dodged the 



THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE OF CHINA 



321 



difficulty by simply calling it Tao and leaving the meaning to the imagi- 
nation of the reader. Path or Way is undoubtedly the best word to 
denote the idea of this treatise; we find the same word used toward the 
end of the first Fragment of the Voice of the Silence "Hast thou not 
entered Tau, the 'Path' that leads to knowledge the fourth truth?" 
The word is here Tibetan, but taken, as many Buddhist terms were, 
from the Chinese. The early Buddhists in China called themselves 
Tao jen, or men of the path. Also the characters teh tao, meaning, to 
go in spite of obstacles, signify in Chinese Buddhism to follow the path 
unfalteringly until Nirvana is attained. 

The second character, called teh, is compounded of three characters 
meaning the heart, to go, and straight, and is usually translated virtue 
or goodness, power or quality, vital energy, life principle, or as we might 
say, prana. Goddard says it means virtue such as the Master felt go 
out of Him when the sick woman touched the hem of His garment. 

Finally, the character, king, is an interesting one. It is compounded 
of one character which gives it its pronunciation, and another meaning 
silk threads, or the warp or lengthwise threads of a weave. It is the 
common designation of a classical treatise, and is used in a special sense 
by the Buddhists to denote a sutra, the latter, as explained in the transla- 
tion of the Yoga Sutras, meaning a thread the same indeed as the 
surgeon's suture. 

There is a Chinese tradition that their written language was given 
to them by Heaven, and it really is difficult to believe that these thou- 
sands of wonderfully and logically constructed ideographs could have 
been evolved by the unaided mind of man. And in truth a treatise such 
as the Tao Teh King, written in these beautiful idea pictures, must be 
on a higher plane than writings in any of the western idioms, for the 
latter are apprehended by the reasoning faculty, which is on the plane 
of the lower manas, while the Tao Teh King in its original form can, 
one must believe, be fully comprehended by intuition alone. 

T. L. S. 



// men could hide themselves from the eyes of God and from the 
eyes of the world, there are very few indeed who would do good, and 
very few who would abstain from evil. FABER. 



HISTORY FROM WITHIN 



CHARLES VII OF FRANCE 

IN the January, 1915, QUARTERLY there is a wonderful story, "War 
Seen from Within", signed Men-Tek-Nis, a nom-de-plume of Mr. 
. Griscom's. It describes a gathering of disciples of the Lodge, includ- 
ing both those who were in incarnation and those who were not. 
The Master speaks to them, and in a succession of pictures shows them 
the ceaseless warfare of the White Lodge against the Black, waged 
through the centuries for the souls of men. He shows them, too, the 
restrictions imposed by the moral law they serve. For the White Lodge 
is circumscribed as the Black is not, and the limitless force of the Lords 
of Light can be used with safety in human affairs only as men make it 
possible by self-sacrifice. Free-will cannot be interfered with, nor men 
pushed about like puppets from above. But when, through right 
thought, motive, and action, men supply them with force from below, 
the Masters may use and supplement this force, magnifying it a thou- 
sand fold for the good of all mankind. 

Hence it is essential that there should be disciples in incarnation. 
When there is a piece of work to be done, chelas must incarnate, if not 
to do it, then that it may be done through them. They generate the 
needed force by self-conquest, self-sacrifice and prayer most potent of 
forces. They are, as it were, the ammunition train, and without ammu- 
nition battles cannot be fought except at terrible cost. Of course, the 
Lodge has many other kinds of work to be done by its chelas on earth. 
The outer campaign must be directed, the guns must be aimed, and men 
must be led, not driven, into the thickest of the melee. 

These, at least, are inferences to be drawn from Mr. Griscom's 
beautiful story. It closes with the Master's soul-stirring appeal for 
volunteers for his cause, addressed both to those already in incarnation 
and to "those who will volunteer to go there", to incarnate of their own 
free will to fight in his great warfare. Think of the chance to offer 
oneself for such a combat, going forth like a knight of the Round Table 
of King Arthur to slay some many-headed dragon of evil on earth ! 
Truly romance is of the soul. The source of the Arthurian legend itself, 
as of all true art and all true beauty, must have been in the inner world. 
Some saint or chela makes of his life a thing of divine beauty and high 
adventure, and then, later, a poet in a moment of inspiration catches the 
reflection of it and records it as an immortal poem. The noble ideals of 
chivalry could never have found their way into the hearts of men 
unless they had already been lived by chelas of the Lodge. 

History would be absorbingly interesting if we could follow the 

322 



HISTORY FROM WITHIN 323 

exploits of these knights-errant of the Lodge through its pages. They 
do not seem to wish to be known. Like Launcelot, they ride into the 
lists with closed visor and plain shields, lest men know them by their 
device ; and, the victory won, ride away unrecognized. We may be sure 
that the Lodge and its agents have borne their part in every great event, 
known or unknown, that has left its mark on the destiny of mankind. 
If the facts of history were not so hopelessly distorted it would be 
easier to see this, but even then we should remain blind to the greater 
part of what was being done, for we cannot see with the vision of the 
Lodge nor judge with its standards. We have been told to "take long 
views" and to remember always "the reality of spiritual things, the un- 
reality of material things". It is in the development of the soul, both of 
men and of nations, that the Lodge is interested, and in material things, 
material civilization, physical life itself, as they help or hinder the 
growth of the soul. 

As students of Theosophy, therefore, we are invited to seek in his- 
tory not its "economic" but its spiritual interpretation, and, holding the 
great principles of spiritual life firmly in mind, to read the record of 
events in their light, remembering always that the "facts", and above 
all the conclusions of history, are by no means above question. The 
basic laws of the universe are immutable. When history tells us that 
in this case at least a grape was plucked from a thistle, we may be sure 
either that the grape grew elsewhere or that the plant is not a thistle, 
whatever historians may choose to call it. "By their fruits ye shall 
know them". So if we ask ourselves what effect this man or this event 
had on the cause for which the Lodge ceaselessly works, and try to apply 
what we know of spiritual law, we may catch glimpses of the hand of 
the Lodge, possibly where we expect it least. Let us try to see history, 
as well as war, "from within." 

Suppose, for instance that we are reading the history of France at 
the time of Jeanne d'Arc. We read of the insane King, Charles VI, 
and his immoral, dissolute, German wife, Isabella of Bavaria, who 
betrayed her own son and sought to sell his kingdom to the English by 
the treaty of Troyes. France was torn by civil wars and by the revolts 
of the great, self-seeking nobles, Armagnacs and Burgundians, against 
the King. Her armies had been beaten for nearly a century, and, on 
the death of Charles VI and the accession of his son, the greater part 
of French territory was in the hands of the English, who claimed it all 
under the Treaty of Troyes, and set vigorously to work completing their 
conquest. Town after town fell into their hands while the King of 
France, Charles VII, still uncrowned and unanointed, remained sunk in 
lethargy and stupor, without an army, a plan or a hope. At length only 
a few strong places held out against the English, and the death of 
France as a nation seemed but a question of months. Then came the 



324 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

miracle of Jeanne d'Arc, sister of her "brothers of Paradise". In a few 
short months, by the aid and counsel of her comrades in the Lodge, the 
English were defeated, France saved, the King crowned at Rheims and 
the tide of English invasion definitely turned back. Then followed her 
abandonment, betrayal and martyrdom. What kind of a creature was it 
that sat on the throne of France and lifted no finger to save her ? 

A picture rises before the eyes : the court-room of her trial, crowded 
with hostile judges, clerks and soldiers, all equally bent upon her death, 
because of her loyalty to her King, and eagerly seeking to get some 
word from her that they could use against that King. And she, a slender 
girl of nineteen, standing alone, erect in the midst of his bitter foes and 
hers, fearlessly proclaiming to their faces that he was the noblest knight 
in Christendom. Perhaps a lie would have saved her life. She never 
lied. She was the soul of truth, and yet she called him the noblest 
knight in Christendom. Was it just the exaggeration of her loyalty? 
She was not given to exaggeration. What did she mean? 

History calls Charles VII one of its great enigmas. 

Moreton Macdonald in his History of France says : "The reign of 
Charles VII must always be regarded as two reigns that of Charles 
asleep and that of Charles awake that of Charles Roi de Bourges and 
that of Charles le bien-servi. It is frequently forgotten by historians that 
such inconsequences of character are not uncommon in human nature. 
We are too often inclined to write down a King as a fixed quantity; to 
do so no doubt simplifies the problem, but it is dangerous to the cause 
of truth. In Charles's case the change is too complete and too obvious 
to ignore. To account for it is more difficult. . . It seems, therefore, 
that we must be content to record the transformation and to examine its 
results." 

All historians are agreed that after the martyrdom of Jeanne d'Arc, 
Charles underwent a rare transformation. As if the shock of her death 
had aroused his soul from sleep, he who had before been so sunk in 
lethargy as scarcely to raise a hand to save his kingdom, now became 
one of the great kings of France. Hard-working, statesmanlike, govern- 
ing his realm himself, yet gathering around him many able advisers and 
lieutenants, he was called by his contemporaries both Charles the Vic- 
torious and Charles the Well-Served. He raised France from the point 
of extinction, at which she was on his accession to the throne, to a com- 
manding position in Europe. "He is the king of kings", Francis Fos- 
cari, Doge of Venice, said of him. "We could not do without him". 
True, it was not Charles, but Jeanne d'Arc, who saved France from the 
English; and it was her spirit and self-sacrifice, not his, that aroused 
both France and her King, and made triumph possible. Yet and this 
is a point of great importance to which we shall return later had it n< 
been for his co-operation, passive and supine though it appear to us, 
even she could have done nothing. Deep in stupor as he was, there was 



HISTORY FROM WITHIN 325 

still that within him which could see, however dimly and uncertainly, that 
that radiant spirit came from Heaven, and could make a feeble effort to 
respond to the message she brought him de par le Roi du del. Feeble 
truly, yet enough. Suppose one of her enemies, Cauchon or Tremouille, 
had been King of France. 

At his awakening after her death, he found France freed from 
imminent peril, but with its capital and much of its territory still in 
the hands of the English. The power of the King had sunk so low that 
France was little more than a collection of semi-independent feudatories, 
jealous of one another, rebellious, turbulent, self-seeking, turning their 
arms against each other or against their King, as their fancied interests 
dictated. The treasury was empty, the public finances in complete con- 
fusion, justice seemed to have perished, while the entire country was 
infested by bandits who robbed and tortured at their will. Half the 
houses in Paris were said to be empty, and grass grew in the streets. 

Charles, and the lieutenants he gathered around him, drove the 
English from France, established a standing army, overcame the rebel- 
lious nobles and made France again a united nation. The robbers were 
put down, the roads made safe, and justice, internal order and tran- 
quillity were re-established. The public finances were put on a sound 
basis. Methodical, hard-working, able, prudent and courageous, the 
King put through the military, financial and judicial reforms that laid 
the foundations for three centuries of greatness in France. With the 
Papacy and with foreign countries his policy was equally wise and far- 
sighted, so that he attained to great fame and influence in Europe. 

Some interesting opinions, contemporary, or nearly so, are quoted 
by Guizot: 

"He had his days and hours for dealing with all sorts of men, one 
hour with the clergy, another with the nobles, another with foreigners, 
another with mechanical folk, armorers, and gunners; and in respect 
of all these persons he had a full remembrance of their cases and their 
appointed day. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday he worked with 
the chancellor and got through all claims connected with justice. On 
Wednesday he first of all gave audience to the marshals, captains and 
men of war. On the same day he held a council of finance, independently 
of another council which was also held on the same subject every 
Friday." 

"He requickened justice, which had been a long while dead", says 
a chronicler more friendly to Burgundy than to Charles. "He put an 
end to the tyrannies and exactions of the men-at-arms, and out of an 
infinity of murderers and robbers, he formed men of resolution and 
honest life. He made regular paths in murderous woods and forests, 
all roads safe, all towns peaceful, all nationalities in his kingdom tran- 
quil. He chastised the evil and honoured the good, and he was sparing 
of human blood". 



326 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

And another : "When he was alive, he was a right wise and valiant 
lord, and he left his kingdom united and in good case as to justice and 
tranquillity". 

This is the man who let Jeanne d'Arc go to her death without the 
least effort to help her, so far, at least, as history records ; the man who 
prosecuted and despoiled his faithful servant, Jacques Coeur, on the 
absurd charge of having poisoned Agnes Sorel; and who at the end, 
starved himself to death through fear that his own son was trying to 
poison him. What is the explanation? There are, it is true, those who 
contend that he tried to save Jeanne d'Arc, sought to negotiate for her 
release, and threatened vengeance if she were harmed. Perhaps it may 
have been as they say, and the intervening five hundred years may be 
responsible for the destruction of all but the slightest evidence of his 
efforts. It is possible, but it does not seem probable. Certainly we have 
to-day no adequate grounds for believing that he himself did anything 
at all, though some of his captains, notably Xaintrailles, did plan an 
expedition of rescue. In any event, his lethargy, stupor and weakness, 
all through that time, contrast so sharply with the greatness of what 
he subsequently did for France and the splendid qualities he showed 
later on, that history is justified in calling him an inexplicable enigma. 
History cannot explain, but the study of Theosophy may give us light. 

Charles's body was inherited from an insane father and an immoral, 
dissolute mother. When the Ego, the soul, incarnates, it shuts itself 
within the personality. Its first duty is to obtain control of that per- 
sonality, to cleanse and purify it so that the light and inspiration of 
higher planes will not be prevented from reaching the imprisoned soul. 
We may imagine the personality as responding, in the different parts of 
its complex nature, to impulses sent along a great number of wires, 
like a great business of many departments connected with and controlled 
by telephone from a central office. It is the task of the soul to get each 
one of these wires into its own hands, and to see that no one else ever 
sends an order along any one of them. The trouble with most of us 
is that we have left many loose ends of wire inside us, unconnected and 
uninsulated, and that these are seized upon by elementals and used by 
them to transmit their orders, not ours. The poor, bewildered personality 
at the other end does not know the difference ; the order is coming over 
the right wire, inside "myself", and it obeys it as "my will" from "my" 
own central station. Most men identify themselves instantly with every 
passing desire that enters their minds from the psychic world. It never 
occurs to them that the desire is really not in the least theirs, or that 
they did not originate it. It requires practice to distinguish the differ- 
ences in the voices prompting us, and so we are constantly misled by the 
elementals of vanity and self-will, sloth and sensuality, and the host of 
others to whom we have given houseroom, and who use these unguarded 
inner wires to urge their will upon us. Insanity would seem to be the 






HISTORY FROM WITHIN 327 

condition which results when they seize control, not of isolated wires 
only, but of the central station itself. Perhaps Russia to-day is exem- 
plifying as a nation what happens when an individual goes mad. 

A body such as that which Charles inherited, therefore, would have 
the weakest of connections with the soul within it, and would have innu- 
merable loose and tangled ends of wire, easily grasped by elementals 
and most difficult to reduce to order. In addition, the immorality of 
his mother would have spread dense darkness over what should have 
been the windows for his soul, cutting off the light from higher planes, 
without which the soul is blind and starved. Surely only a great soul 
could have broken through such handicaps as his. Perhaps nothing less 
than the shock of Jeanne d'Arc's death could have reached and roused 
him. That did reach him. He broke through, sufficiently at least to do 
the work he came to do. He did it, and let go, the abandoned body 
dying an insane death. 

Can he be blamed for the death of Jeanne d'Arc? How can we 
judge? If a man leaps to the driver's seat of a runaway team of horses 
to try to stop them before they reach a group of school children, is he to 
be blamed if one be run over before he succeeds, even though that one 
be the flower of them all? 

There was, said Jeanne d'Arc, great pity in Heaven for the fair 
land of France. There are great souls in Heaven who have ever been 
willing to throw themselves into the breach in the hour of France's 
need, at whatever cost to themselves. France was the cradle on earth 
of chivalry, that fairest flowering of the spirit of Christianity itself. 
Where were her chivalrous sons, the souls that were Charlemagne, 
Roland, Godfrey de Bouillon, St. Louis, Bernard of Clairvaux, at this 
time of crisis when the land they loved was at the point of death? They 
would never have let the soul of Jeanne d'Arc enter incarnation and take 
the burden of saving France alone; and we may be sure they did not. 
Many great men, great warrior souls, must have incarnated with her in 
France at that time, perhaps only to be submerged in the heavy Karma 
that lay upon the whole nation, but with a fighting chance to overcome 
it, at least partially, in themselves, and so to be of aid. Dunois, La Hire, 
de Richemont, Jean d'Aulon and many others come to mind. They 
helped, each in his own place. Yet the King was the key to the whole 
situation. Without at least his passive assistance, nothing at all could be 
done. What way so certain to assure the King's co-operation as to 
incarnate as the King? 

Think of taking on that heredity ! Surely the soul that was Charles 
VII was either very low or very high ; low, if that heredity were its own 
"karma" in the ordinary sense; high, indeed, if it were taken as a volun- 
tary sacrifice to further the Master's cause, to save the land he loved. 
No one can touch pitch without being defiled. No soul could incarnate 
in such a personality without the certainty of being deeply stained and 



328 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

wounded by the reaction from the sins that personality was sure to 
commit. The best that the soul could hope to acquire would be a 
doubtful and precarious control, subject to many lapses. Sins are real 
forces, and leave real wounds in the inner nature that last until they 
are expiated. Our present faults, weaknesses and blindnesses are but 
the lasting effects of our past sins. So, perhaps, the soul that was 
Charles VII may, since that time, have spent more than one incarnation 
in working itself free from the stains and faults it then acquired. One 
wonders who he was when he came back. Someone wholly unknown to 
history? or some saint, or warrior or king who accomplished much 
good, yet with outstanding faults that lead history to condemn him, as it 
is sometimes pleased to condemn Napoleon? "Judge not". I wonder 
what the Members of the Great Lodge think when they see those 
wounds and remember the glorious fight in which they were received. 
Their very scars when healed, must turn into the Medal of Honour of 
the Lodge itself. 

Mr. Judge says that those who have gone before, and scaled the 
summits which we can only glimpse on our horizon, have sent back 
word that there is no limit, but that beyond there rise ever higher and 
higher peaks to be surmounted. So, as we study Theosophy, ever higher 
and higher ideals arise before us. Personal righteousness and purity 
are splendid things, yet they, and all personal ideals, pale before such 
utter self-immolation as may come through love of a great cause. What 
a picture it is ! On one side, the evil triumph of the Black Lodge as 
they looked at France, torn by internal dissensions and jealousies, at the 
point of extinction, the Karma of the nation's sins giving into their firm 
possession the body of him who was to be her King and her hope; 
against this the "great pity in Heaven for the fair land of France", and 
the determination of the Master, leader and inspirer of forlorn hopes, 
who ever wrings victory from defeat, that France should be saved. 
Then the soul that was to be Charles VII, putting aside, perhaps, a hard- 
won right to remain and serve in the sunlight of that Master's presence, 
stands out on the brink of incarnation, facing the evil to come, the foul- 
ness, perhaps the shameful betrayal of her who was, maybe, his age-long 
comrade, foreseeing all this clearly and loathing it with passionate 
loathing. Then, because he saw the wish in his Master's heart, the plunge 
into the desperate chance of that incarnation, the fierce, single-handed 
fight in the dark with the overwhelming powers of evil, to rescue, from 
within, the personality of the King of France. Again the apparent 
defeat, the aid from a comrade's sacrifice, and the final victory. What 
a welcome he must have had when, at last, the fight over, he came home 
to the Lodge, and heard Jeanne d'Arc say once more: "I dare swear 
he is the noblest knight in Christendom". 

J. F. B. MITCHELL. 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 
PHARAOH OF EGYPT 



III. 
THE NEW KINGDOM (THE EMPIRE) 

A~AIN the cycle of civilization turns to its completion, and again 
darkness and disorder sweep over Egypt. 
Towards the close of the Middle Kingdom the power of the 
feudal barons had been effectively broken, and Senusert III and 
Amenemhat III, the last of the great Kings of the Xllth. Dynasty, had 
fully regained the traditional supremacy which belonged to the Royal 
House. But after them there followed a few feeble monarchs, too infirm 
and irresolute to hold the reins of government, and in the end the Royal 
Line vanished. Then once more the provincial lords, knowing that there 
was no longer anything to fear, rose and struggled for power among 
themselves, but internal dissension only weakened the state, and opened 
up the country to foreign adventurers. Almost complete historical 
obscurity now closes in on Egypt, and it was during this time that the 
invasion of the mysterious people known as the Hyksos, took place. 
They swarmed into the Delta from Asia, laying the whole country under 
tribute, making the weak kings of this period their vassals, and ruling 
the land with a rod of iron from their stronghold, Avaris, in the Delta. 
Exactly who they were is not known, though there has been much specu- 
lation concerning them, and in general it is thought that they were Semitic. 
Manetho, the native historian of Egypt, who lived three centuries B.C. 
and to whom we owe the dynastic divisions, calls them Arabians and 
Phoenicians, popularly they were known as "Asiatics" and "Barbarians." 
It is still an open question which need not trouble us here; enough that 
the Egyptians chafed mightily under their despotism and never rested 
till, after a prolonged and irksome rule, filled with unquestionable bar- 
barities on the part of the invaders, they drove them out. There is a 
picturesque, though probably highly coloured account, which brought 
about the final and successful uprising. The Hyksos King, Apophis, 
apparently wishing to show the "mailed fist", sent to Sekenenra, "Prince 
of the Southern City" (Thebes), the following preposterous complaint: 
a messenger "has come to thee concerning the pool of hippopotami 
which is in the city (Thebes). For they permit me no sleep; day and 
night the noise of them is in my ears." As Thebes is situated well over 
three hundred miles south of Avaris, it is not surprising if the "Prince 
of the Southern City" considered that Apophis was going a bit too far, 
and though the account is probably a folk-tale, still, it is the traditional 

329 



330 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

"last straw" as well it might have been ! The uprising was universal, 
and the Hyksos were pushed back into Syria from whence they had 
come. But the influence of this foreign domination had been far- 
reaching ; it had broken sharply into the conservatism, so strongly marked 
a characteristic of the Egyptian people ; it had shown them warfare on a 
large scale, and it had made them realize that only by complete unity of 
purpose could they hope to keep their land for themselves. Gradually, 
out of the confused mass of petty kings and warring nobles, we see the 
star of a powerful Theban family in the ascendant, and when the curtain 
of mist and obscurity rises once more, it is to usher in an age of military 
genius and material splendour which was never surpassed in Egypt, the 
time of the New Kingdom, commonly called the Empire. 

It would, perhaps, be helpful to conceive of Egyptian history, up to 
the end of the Empire, as representing three great life-waves, and, keep- 
ing this idea in mind, we may thus consider the gigantic sweep of suc- 
cessive civilizations (of the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New 
Kingdom), as the shadowing forth of the three aspects of the Logos, 
Wisdom, Intelligence, Activity. 

The great XVIIIth. Dynasty, the Dynasty to which Akhnaton 
belonged, opened with Ahmes I, one of the Theban princes who were 
making their power felt. Petrie, in speaking of the immediate ancestors 
of Ahmes, i. e., the last of the kings of the obscure XVIIth. Dynasty, 
says: "This dynasty then, would seem to have been descended from a 
part of the Royal Egyptian Line which had taken refuge in the far south 
to escape from the Hyksos oppression. ... As the Hyksos power 
decayed, this southern family fought its way northward again, and so 
laid the foundation of the XVIIIth. Dynasty." Traditionally, Ahmes was 
known as the expeller of the Hyksos. Under his energetic rule the less 
powerful nobles were again suppressed, their lands reverting to the crown, 
and at last, as in the Old Kingdom, all Egypt became once more the 
personal estate of the Pharaoh, the government being completely 
centralized. 

The dominating characteristic of this period is military, Egypt 
became primarily a military state. We have seen that the struggle with 
the Hyksos had taught them the elements of aggressive warfare; it had 
also taught them the necessity of keeping up a strong defensive army at 
home. They had become past masters in archery, and the Hyksos having 
introduced the horse into Egypt, chariotry on a comparatively large scale 
was now for the first time possible. It is hardly to be wondered at that, 
with a formidable, well equipped army at their disposal, with the bitter 
memory of life under the domination of the foreigner who had with 
difficulty been driven back into Syria, the Pharaohs of this dynasty should 
themselves have dreamed of foreign conquests, perhaps with an element 
of reprisal in the thought. Aggressive warfare in those days cannot, of 
course, be considered in the same light as it is today. In the ancient 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 



331 



world a nation was, to a certain extent, only looked upon as such if it 
had proved itself strong and cohesive enough to preserve its independence 
against what was considered legitimate attack from the outside. National 
boundaries were not as a rule clearly defined, and, while there were 
certainly strong racial divisions, yet even these were more or less fluid; 
barriers were easily broken down, and races easily merged. This was 
the more fortunate in many instances, for the result of intercourse, even 
by means of war, meant not only the exchange of commodities but, what 
was more important still, the exchange of ideas and thus the spread of 
civilization. So, in the events which follow, we must, to a certain extent, 
get away from our modern standard of national ethics, and put ourselves 
back into ancient times. 

Ahmes I, then, began a campaign in Syria almost at once, and suc- 
cessive campaigns, the great feature of the XVIIIth. Dynasty, were con- 
tinued, without interruption, by his successors, each Pharaoh increasing 
the conquests of his predecessor, till at last the vast Egyptian Empire 
extended over most of the then known world. 

It is not possible to give, in a short sketch of this sort, more than 
the merest outline of events. We know more about this new state in 
Egypt than we do of any previous period, and there is a bewildering 
mass of historical facts from which to choose. 

The commanding position now once more occupied by the Pharaoh, 
meant an immense responsibility which the rulers of the Middle King- 
dom, sharing largely as they did the management of public affairs with 
the nobles, did not experience, and his duties were now so great that he 
was obliged more and more to lean upon his Vizier or Prime Minister, 
and we see this office assuming an increasingly important position. The 
Vizier was the Pharaoh's right hand man, and as such was expected to 
be above reproach, which, indeed, was already the standard held for him 
in the Middle Kingdom, as we have seen. He was regarded by the people 
as the mouthpiece of justice, their last appeal. 

Under the Vizier, distributed all over the land, were hosts of petty 
officials of the crown, administering local justice and replacing the position 
formerly occupied by the feudal barons of the Middle Kingdom. These 
officials were chosen entirely according to ability and without any relation 
to birth or rank. Thus was opened up to the middle classes the pos- 
sibility of public careers, and not a little pride was felt when men of 
humble origin suddenly found themselves in positions of considerable 
authority. One such man writes of himself : "I was one whose family 
was poor and whose town was small, but the King recognized me. . . . 
He exalted me more than the royal companions, introducing me among 
the princes." As a natural consequence government officials became in 
fact the nobles of the Empire, surrounding the person of the Pharaoh, 
and as a result, an official class, quite distinct and of itself, sprang up. 

The soldier in the newly created army formed a second distinct 



332 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

class in the social fabric of that day, for his importance rapidly rose 
owing to the increasing magnitude of the Empire, and the Pharaoh grew 
more and more dependent on him for the execution of his imperial 
designs. 

There was still a third class, as distinct as the other two. This was 
the priesthood which had now become a recognized profession. We 
saw how in the Old Kingdom particularly, the duties of the priest were 
performed by the local noble and that in the Middle Kingdom the priest 
easily combined his social with his religious obligations. But there now 
appeared an organized state religion, with the whole land divided into 
priestly communities and under one control. The triumph of the Theban 
family from which Ahmes I sprang, gave the State Temple at Thebes 
the natural supremacy, its High Priest in consequence becoming the head 
of the whole sacerdotal organization. Amen, the old local god of The- 
bes, had been, as we know, transformed during the Middle Kingdom, 
into Amen-RA, and he now, for the first time, assumed a national im- 
portance, and the High Priest of Amen-RA became not only officially 
superior to the much older Priest of RA at Heliopolis, but he also enjoyed 
an ever increasing political power. Besides being the national religious 
head he frequently held the important government office of Grand Vizier 
as well. The Priest of RA, however, though neither claiming nor hold- 
ing any purely temporal position, never lost his religious significance. 
Heliopolis continued to be, as it had been from the beginning, not only 
the centre of culture and learning, but also of pure religious inspiration, 
and its High Priest was reverently spoken of as "The Great One of 
Visions." 

The temples, particularly those of Amen, were now growing to such 
magnificence as to have become veritable palaces, the equipments and 
furniture vying with that of the Pharaoh himself. The pure simplicity 
of the Old Kingdom had gone forever; the humble offerings to God of 
grain, wine, oil, honey, offerings prompted by the heart, were quite 
unthinkable in this splendour-loving age. The temple endowments had 
reached fabulous sums, owing to the wealth which poured in as a result 
of foreign conquests, this enabling the Pharaoh to make such gifts to 
the temples as had never before been dreamed of. This growing wealth 
demanded for its administration such a multitude of temple officials that 
these, by mere weight of numbers, counted greatly in the political sense, 
and became more and more of a force which could not be ignored. But 
almost inevitable debasement of the old, pure standards was the result. 

There is still another very important feature of this period, the 
part which women played in public affairs. Already from earliest 
times the women of the Royal Line had been held in great reverence, 
and the immemorial law, by which the throne was inherited through the 
mother and not through the father, alone showed their consequence. 
Indeed, in Egypt, descent in the female line was jealously preserved in 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 333 

the Royal Family, until Roman times. Now, in the XVIIIth. Dynasty, 
and indeed somewhat earlier, women began to have more and more active 
authority, taking an ever-growing share in the external affairs of state. 
Isolated cases, it is true, had been known before. A princess of the 
Royal House had been the last ruler of the Xllth. Dynasty, and had held 
the throne through four troublous years. Much legend and romance had 
grown up about her, but in reality her influence had not been very far 
reaching. The Empire, however, is peculiarly marked by a long line of 
powerful women, whose commanding figures arrest our attention at every 
turn. Aahotep, the Great Queen of Sequenenra (the last Pharaoh of 
the obscure XVIIth. Dynasty, and the mother of Ahmes I) headed, we 
might say, this imposing line. Still more celebrated was her daughter 
Ahmes-Nefertari (the "Royal Wife" of Ahmes I) through whom, as 
Petrie says, "descended all the rights of the Royal Line," and who 
was "adored for many centuries as the great ancestress and foundress." 
Many records are left us which tell of the reverence which the great 
women of this time inspired, but lack of space prevents our quoting 
from them. They can, however, be found in abundance on stelae and 
the walls of the tombs of this period. 

Such then, in broad outline, was the Egyptian state during the 
XVIIIth. Dynasty, before Akhnaton's day. Ahmes I was followed by 
a powerful line of Kings most of whom were well able to cope with 
the growing complexity of the times, but often disputing the throne 
among themselves. Amenhotep I, Ahmes' successor, continued the cam- 
paign in Syria, successfully repulsed an invasion of Lybians, grown bold 
since the time of the Hyksos, and then concentrated his energies on the 
south, where the old Nubian Dominion of the Middle Kingdom, from 
the first to the second cataract, needed a firm hand, but he had no great 
difficulty in subduing the "wretched Kush" who apparently wilted at the 
first rumour of his approach. After a reign of some ten years he was 
followed by Thothmes, the first of that name which has become so cel- 
ebrated in Egyptian history. Thothmes I was partly a commoner, the 
son of a woman not of Royal Blood, and as we have just seen, Egypt 
held firmly to the ancient law of matrilineal descent. It is therefore 
certain that he owed his succession to the throne to the fact that he had 
married a princess of the Royal Line, thus establishing his claim. His 
first use of power was his conquest of the whole of upper Nubia, where 
the old frontier was pushed back to the fourth cataract, thus adding 
immense territory to the fast growing Empire. An inscription says of 
him : "He hath overthrown the chief of the Nubians ; the negro is help- 
less, defenceless in his grasp. He hath united the boundaries of his two 
sides, there is not a remnant among the curly-haired (an epithet for 
the negro), who come to attack him. . . . m He also made 

1 Except where otherwise indicated all the quotations which follow are from "Ancient 
Records." 



334 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

vast new conquests in Syria, where he left a stone boundary tablet as far 
north as the Upper Euphrates. The close of his reign, or more properly 
speaking the retirement of Thothmes I, has remained a complete mys- 
tery, which up to the present has never been solved, but when once more 
we get our fingers on the pulse of public affairs, we find ourselves in 
the midst of a strange family feud. It chanced that there was at this 
moment but one indisputable heir to the now vacant throne, but this was 
a woman, Hatshepsut, the sole living child of Thothmes I and his Royal 
Queen. Women, we know, had reigned alone before this, but it had 
seldom happened, and in general there seems to have been a strong prej- 
udice against it. There were also two sons by other, not royal, queens, 
these later becoming Thothmes II and the great Thothmes III. The 
first of these reigned for so short a time, and left comparatively so little 
mark, that he need not here be taken into account. There were now 
left in the arena two strikingly dominating personalities, warring against 
each other for the throne, and the events which followed must have been 
startling even in that world of abrupt surprises. Hatshepsut had grown 
into a brilliant and accomplished woman. An inscription says of her : 
"To look upon her was more beautiful than anything, . . . her 
form was like a god, she did everything as a god, her splendour was 
like a god; Her Majesty was a maiden beautiful and blooming, . . ." 
In addition to this she undoubtedly had the stronger claim, considering 
the law of matrilineal descent (her mother being, as she was, of the old 
family of Theban princes, the expellers of the Hyksos), and indeed the 
party of legitimacy was so powerful, that, woman though she was, she 
had by far the larger popular support. Also there was the fixed belief 
in her "divine birth" in other words she was the legitimate child of the 
Solar God. 

But Thothmes was a man of parts, a born leader of men, and though 
he was a young prince who could have had no particularly sanguine 
expectations as to his succession (because of his mother's inferior 
claim), he unmistakably inspired not only confidence but respect wherever 
he went. During his father's reign he had been placed in the temple 
of Karnak as a priest with the title of "prophet" the word prophet, 
however, in a case of this kind, not implying augury of any sort. But 
while he may have had no undisputed right to the throne, the strength 
of his claim lay in the fact that he was backed by the full weight of the 
priesthood of Amen, a thing, which no one, in those days of increasing 
priestly power, dared trifle with. 

So these two apparently irreconcilable foes stood and faced each 
other on the battle field, and the chances of victory were about equal for 
both. Then, as so often happens, Romance stepped in and cut the 
Gordian Knot. Prince Thothmes, perhaps with no great difficulty, won 
the hand of the Princess Hatshepsut, and through his wife he had at 
last an unquestionable right to the throne. But to make his claim beyond 




AKHNATON THK "IIKRETIC" 335 

all doubt, a highly dramatic note was added when on a feast-day in the 
Temple of Karnak, amid the silent wonder and awe of the assembled 
people, the priests of Amen, after carrying an image of their god with 
ceremonial pomp through the vast stone colonnades, declared Thothmes 
to be, by divine revelation, the chosen one of Amen. A long inscription 
on the walls of the temple, written by Thothmes after he had become 
King, describes this scene : "I was standing in the northern hypostyle, 
. the god made the circuit of the hypostyle on both sides of it, 
the heart of those who were in front did not comprehend his actions, 
while searching for my majesty in every place. On recognizing me, lo, 
he halted. ... I threw myself on the pavement, I prostrated my- 
self in his presence. He set me before his majesty (i. e. before the god 
himself) ; I was stationed at the "Station of the King." (The place in 
the Holy of Holies where the King stood for the performance of the 
prescribed state ritual. The placing of Prince Thothmes at this official 
"Station of the King" is a public recognition of him as King.) 
"Then they (the priests) revealed before the people the secrets in the 
hearts of the gods. . . . He (the god) opened for me the doors 
of heaven, he opened the portals of the horizon of RA. 2 I flew to 
heaven as a divine hawk, beholding his form in heaven. I adored his 
majesty. . . . RA himself established me, I was dignified with 
the diadems which were on his head, his serpent diadem rested upon my 
forehead. . . . " With a Royal Princess as his wife, and proclaimed 
King by divine sanction, the last impediments were swept away, and with 
a suddenness which proclaimed him to be a veritable man of destiny he 
leaped, as it were, at one bound from the comparatively low estate of a 
priest of the temple, to the loftiest position in the world of that day. 

But Thothmes, having won his right to the throne by marrying the 
real heir, had no intention of sharing it, and he soon pushed Hatshepsut 
to one side and took the reins of government into his own strong hands. 
He graciously permitted her to be called "Great Royal Wife" or "Great 
King's Wife" but she was allowed no power. The party of legitimacy, 
however, could not so easily be ignored, and ere long we find Hatshepsut 
not only co-regent but actually, in her turn, pushing Thothmes himself 
into the background. She became in fact the Pharaoh, and Thothmes 
went into temporary retirement. 

Hatshepsut is one of the most picturesque figures of ancient times. 
She must have been a woman of extraordinary energy and resourceful- 
ness, not merely because only a most masterful person could have suc- 
ceeded in throwing into the shade a man like Thothmes III, but also 
because, as it was almost unprecedented that a woman should reign alone 



2 In the translation of "Ancient Records" RA is written Re, according to the more modern 
custom, Amen is written Amon. But in order to keep a uniform method throughout, and to avoid 
confusion, we have taken the liberty of altering the spelling of these names to the older and 
more familiar forms which we have used in this series. 



336 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

in Egypt, she was able to play fast and loose with the strongest national 
traditions. Indeed, so far did her energy carry her, that the very word 
"majesty" which in Egyptian is always masculine, was put into the 
feminine form, and she is often represented in reliefs dressed as Pharaoh 
in man's attire, on her head the double crown of the North and South, 
and wearing the false long beard which is exclusively the sign both in 
hieroglyphs and statuary of Kingship as well as of Divinity. Ineni, the 
great official who served under so many reigns, speaks of her in glowing 
terms as : "The bow-rope of the South, the mooring stake of the South- 
erners, the excellent stern-cable of the Northland is she, the mistress of 
command, whose plans are excellent, who satisfies the two regions when 
she speaks" i.e. Upper and Lower Egypt. But being a woman and 
living in the age in which she did, active warfare was impossible for her, 
and her energies were therefore directed more towards the enterprises 
of peace than towards those of war. She spent much time and thought 
in rebuilding the semi-ruined temples of her ancestors, monuments which 
had been demolished during the Hyksos period. On the plain of Thebes 
she also built her own beautiful temple, dedicated to her god Amen. 

Hatshepsut's reign is full of extravagant achievements, the most 
striking of which was the expedition of a fleet of ships to the distant 
land of Punt, in order to bring back myrrh trees for the adorning of 
the front of her temple. This was in obedience to a vision. Hatshepsut 
tells us that one day, while praying, "at the steps of the Lord of Gods; 
a command was heard from the Great Throne, an oracle of the god him- 
self, that the ways of Punt should be searched out, that the highways of 
the myrrh-terraces should be penetrated." The account of this expedi- 
tion is given us in a series of reliefs and inscriptions, and they are such 
marvels of execution and so thrilling with life as to be quite unique at 
this period. The vessels, stout and well manned, went by the Red Sea, 
and returned laden "very heavily with marvels of the country of Punt; 
all goodly fragrant woods of God's land, heaps of myrrh-resin, with 
fresh myrrh trees, with ebony and pure ivory, with green gold of Emu, 
with cinnamon wood, . . . incense, . . . eye cosmetics, with 
apes, monkeys, dogs, and with skins of the southern panther, with natives 
and their children. Never was brought the like of this for any King 
who has been since the beginning." To celebrate the successful return 
of the expedition a magnificent festival was given, and the great Queen 
made a speech from the throne in which she re-affirmed that it was 
Amen-RA himself who "commanded me to establish for him a Punt in 
his house, to plant the trees of God's land beside his temple in his gar- 
den. . . . It is large for him, he walks abroad in it." 

In commemoration of the "first occurrence of the Royal Jubilee" 
Hatshepsut erected a pair of obelisks, the tallest up to that time ever 
quarried in Egypt, gorgeously overlaid with gold and silver which must 
have flashed like fire in the brilliant sunshine. She proclaims : "Hear 




AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 337 

ye! I gave for them of the finest electrum, which I had measured by 
the heket (about five litres), like sacks of grain. My majesty appointed 
the numbers more than the entire two lands had ever seen. The ignorant 
like the wise knoweth it." The total measure of precious metal used for 
this one purpose amounted to nearly twenty bushels. 

Maspero says of Hatshepsut : "She keeps nothing of the woman 
except the habit of speaking of herself in the feminine gender in the 
inscriptions," and indeed she seemed to have a thoroughly masculine grip 
of affairs, but, great as she was, she could hardly have held her position 
so long, especially against a man of her husband's calibre, had she not 
been entirely sure of the support of her party. With her death that 
party was dispersed, and Thothmes III stepped out once more from his 
long obscurity, to take full command of a situation which needed the 
utmost firmness. For Egypt's power in Asia had not yet been made 
unquestionably secure, and the Syrian provinces, conquered with so much 
difficulty by the founders of the dynasty, were but too eager to revolt. 
Thothmes, burning with impatience to re-open the Syrian campaigns so 
long suspended, hurled himself at the task with characteristic vigour and 
intensity. There now begins a long term of aggressive warfare, for 
Thothmes lived to be a very old man, and died almost literally in harness, 
as is the wish of all born soldiers. He had had to wait a long time to 
carry out his dreams of conquest, but at last his dreams were to come 
true. 

At the time of Hatshepsut's death then, the Asiatic provinces were 
in open rebellion, southern Palestine alone remaining true to Egypt. 
Kadesh, on the upper Orontes, was the centre of revolt. All Syria was 
a seething caldron of rebellion, and even the kingdom of the Mitanni, 
east of the Euphrates, was giving its help to the insurrection. Thothmes 
had a task before him which would have staggered a less audacious man. 
He rose, like the great warrior he was, to meet the danger. "The King 
himself, he led the way of his army, mighty at its head like a flame of 
fire, the King who wrought with his sword. He went forth, none like 
him, slaying the barbarians. . . ." We can imagine that the army, 
so long inactive during Hatshepsut's reign, needed a vigorous pulling 
together, but so intrepid was Thothmes that one fancies he would have 
started on his great enterprise with a handful of raw recruits, and have 
come out victorious by sheer gallantry and contempt of danger. 

In the spring of the year, within a twelvemonth of his return to 
power as sole ruler, the expedition started. The combined enemy had 
taken up its position on the Plain of Esdraelon, occupying the strong- 
hold of Megiddo, and it was towards this objective that Thothmes 
advanced. The army got as far as the hill town of Yedem, some fifty 
miles north of the Dead Sea, but to push on to Megiddo, without making 
a weary detour, meant taking the army through a narrow defile in the 
mountains straight over the Ridge of Carmel. This was a perilous 





338 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

attempt, and Thothmes was advised by his officers to choose one of the 
safer lines of march. An unbroken account of what follows is found 
in the Annals inscribed on the walls of Karnak, and these are so graphic 
and throw such a light on the character of the Great King, and give 
such a picture of the times, that we cannot resist the temptation of 
quoting liberally. The warnings of his officers against the short cut do 
not at all daunt an ardent, impatient and energetic man like Thothmes, 
and refusing to accept offhand their advice, he calls a council of war: 
"His majesty ordered a consultation with his valiant troops, saying as 
follows : 'That wretched enemy, the chief of Kadesh, has come and 
entered into Megiddo; he is there at this moment. He has gathered to 
himself the chiefs of all the countries which are upon the water of 
Egypt' " i.e. subject to Egypt. Thothmes, however, not wishing to over- 
ride the judgment of his officers without weighing the matter well, asks 
for more detailed information than he has yet received as to the different 
approaches to Megiddo. He is told of two long and safe roads, but 
also of the shorter, dangerous mountain pass. The officers apparently 
see with some dismay that the King is considering the short cut, and 
they make a vigorous protest: "They spoke in the presence of his 
majesty, 'How is it that we should go upon this road which threatens 
to be narrow? While they come to say that the enemy is there waiting, 
holding the way against the multitude. Will not horse come behind 
horse, and man behind man likewise? (i.e. they will have to go single 
file). Shall our advance guard be fighting while our rear guard is yet 
standing yonder in Aruna, not having fought? There are yet two other 
roads, . . . ' Then with perhaps a tardy shame for their own 
timidity: <: 'Let our victorious Lord proceed upon the road he desires, 
but cause us not to go by a different road.' Then Thothmes, with 
magnificent self-reliance and daring, takes a mighty oath : " 'I swear 
as RA loves me, as my father Amen favours me, as my nostrils are 
rejuvenated with satisfying life, my majesty will proceed upon this road 
of Aruna (the mountain pass). Let him who will among you go upon 
those roads ye have mentioned, and let him who will among you come 
in the following of my majesty. Shall they think among those enemies 
whom RA detests: does his majesty proceed upon another road? He 
begins to be fearful of us, so will they think.' " On hearing these 
words the officers seem to catch some of the fire of their dauntless leader 
and King. "They spoke before his majesty: 'May thy father Amen, 
Lord of Thebes, presider over Karnak, grant thee life. Behold we are 
the following of thy majesty in every place whither thy majesty pro- 
ceedeth, as the servant is behind his master.' Then his majesty com- 
manded the entire army to march, . . . upon that road which 
threatened to be narrow. His majesty swore, saying: 'None shall go 
forth in the way before my majesty,' ... He went forth, at the 
head of his army himself, showing the way by his own footsteps ; horse 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 339 

behind horse, (they have entered the defile) his majesty being at the head 
of his army." After a sharp skirmish in the mountains, in which the 
Egyptians, only the vanguard being engaged, come off victorious, the 
rear guard is found to be in danger, and though Thothmes probably 
chafed at the necessary delay, he was persuaded by his officers to halt. 
"His majesty halted outside (i.e. at the far end of the pass), and waited 
there protecting the rear of his victorious army." Finally the last of 
the troops come safely through, and the entire army, reunited, pours 
out into the open. "Behold, when the front had reached the exit upon 
this road, the shadow had turned, (it was past mid-day) and when his 
majesty arrived at the south of Megiddo, on the bank of the brook of 
Kina, the seventh hour was turning, measured by the sun." They then 
prepare to encamp for the night on open ground : "Then was set up 
the camp of his majesty, and command was given the whole army, say- 
ing : 'Equip yourselves ! Prepare your weapons ! For we shall advance 
to fight that wretched foe in the morning.' Therefore the King rested 
in the royal tent, the affairs of the chiefs were arranged, and the pro- 
visions of the attendants. The watch of the army went about saying: 
'Steady of heart ! Steady of heart ! Watchful ! Watchful ! Watch for 
life at the tent of the King'/ ... On the day of the feast of the 
new moon, . . . early in the morning, behold, command was given 
to the entire army to move. . . . His majesty went forth in a 
chariot of electrum, arrayed in his weapons of war, like Horus the 
Smiter, Lord of Power, . . . while his father Amen strengthened 
his arms. . . . Then his majesty prevailed against them at the 
head of his army, and when they saw his majesty prevailing against them, 
they fled headlong into Megiddo in fear, abandoning their horses and 
their chariots of gold and silver. The people (evidently those inside 
the town), hauled them up, pulling them by their clothing, into this city; 
the people of this city having closed it against them. . . . Now if 
only the army of his majesty had not given their heart to plundering 
the things of the enemy, they would have captured Megiddo at this 
moment, when the wretched foe of Kadesh and the wretched foe of this 
city (the two kings of Kadesh and Megiddo are meant), were hauled 
up in haste to bring them into this city. The fear of his majesty had 
entered their hearts, their arms were powerless, his serpent diadem was 
victorious among them. Then were captured their horses, their chariots 
of gold and silver were made spoil; their champions lay stretched out 
like fishes on the ground. . . . The victorious army of his majesty 
went around counting their portions. The whole army made jubilee, 
giving praise to Amen for the victory which he had granted to his son 
this day, giving praise to his majesty, exalting his victories." Then 
Thothmes orders that the whole town shall be encircled and cut off from 
all communication with the outside world, and it finally surrenders : 
"Behold, the chiefs of this country came to render their portions, to do 



340 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

obeisance to the fame of his majesty, to crave breath for their nostrils, 
because of the greatness of his power, because of the might of the fame 
of his majesty." (It is on record that Thothmes treated the vanquished 
enemy with the utmost clemency). There then follows a long, detailed 
list of the spoils of war, an account of the gathering of the rich Syrian 
harvest, and a few minor statements. This ends the account of Thothmes' 
first great battle and siege, which was only the beginning of seventeen 
long years of Asiatic campaigning. The rout of the enemy in this first 
onslaught had been so complete, the combined wealth of the kings of 
Kadesh and Megiddo, falling into the hands of the Egyptians, had been 
such a blow, that before long most of Syria was ready to make terms, 
realizing that a master-hand was now at work to get back the lost pro- 
vinces. But Thothmes had only begun his dreams of conquest; terms 
were not what he had come for, he would have complete submission or 
nothing, and he merely continued his march northward with this object 
in view. Town after town gave way before him, and still, grimly, he 
marched north. At last, owing to the lateness of the season, he halted, 
content for that year with his gains. 

He now began the reorganizing of the conquered territory, replac- 
ing the faithless kings by ones who were more likely to prove loyal, 
and, showing himself to be a true statesman, he allowed these princes to 
rule as they pleased so long as they paid the tribute money regularly. 
His wisdom did not stop here, however, for, wishing to build up a 
permanent and sound Empire, he had their eldest sons sent to Thebes 
to be educated, so that when they, in their turn, became rulers they would 
already have formed close personal ties with Egypt itself. Thothmes 
now returned to Thebes, having accomplished all this within the space 
of six short months. His first act on reaching home was to present three 
captured towns and a dazzling array of treasures taken from the enemy, 
to his father Amen: "My majesty presented to him (Amen) gold, 
silver, lapis-lazuli, malachite, copper, bronze, lead, colours, emery in great 
quantity, . . ." Also hundreds of slaves, herds of cattle, poultry: 
"My majesty formed for him flocks of geese to fill the sacred pool, for 
the offering of every day, ... I took for him numerous fields, 
gardens and ploughed lands, of the choicest of the south and north, and 
made fields in order to offer him clean grain." Thothmes also made 
"divine offerings of four great obelisks," and he multiplied each and all 
of the temple offerings to a point never even dreamed of before this time : 
"as an increase of that which was formerly." This was the beginning 
of the vast fortune of Amen at Karnak to which we called attention 
farther back, and which was soon to outgrow the wealth of all other 
temples. 

During the next nineteen years seventeen were spent in Syrian cam- 
paigns, and year after year the Empire spread farther north into Naharin, 
"the land of the two rivers," i. e. the country between the Orontes and 



AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 341 

the Euphrates, and stretching up into Asia Minor. After ten years of 
fighting Thothmes was able to do what no former Pharaoh had accom- 
plished, he crossed the Euphrates into Mitanni and set up his boundary 
tablet on the east side, "he set up a tablet east of the water." Indeed, 
he had already done what none of his forefathers had done before him, 
he had met the united forces of the Syrian rebels, whereas his fathers 
had conquered them singly. His fame was now so great that even the 
King of far-off Babylon wished to be on good terms with the mighty 
conqueror, and sent him gifts of lapis-lazuli. The Kheta too, a powerful 
people of Asia Minor (probably the Hittites), sent gifts. 

His work was now thoroughly organized. As soon as the spring 
rains in Syria had ceased, he marched thither and for six months made 
his strong arm felt in his provinces there, and each year, when he returned 
from his Syrian campaign, he spent the remaining six months in a tour 
of inspection of Egypt itself, keeping his provincial officials in whole- 
some awe of him, preventing them from oppressing his people by illegal 
taxation, suppressing corruption wherever it reared its head. Nubia also 
demanded his constant attention. He built and restored temples in thirty 
different places, 3 and he personally organized the management of the 
state temple of Amen at Karnak, advising the priests as to the best use 
of its growing fortune, and exhorting them to be true to the life 
to which they had dedicated themselves : "Behold, my majesty made 
. every law and every regulation . . . for my father Amen- 
RA, Lord of Thebes, presider over Karnak." Speaking to the priests 
he says : "Be ye vigilant concerning your duty, be ye not careless con- 
cerning any of your rules; be ye pure, be ye clean concerning divine 
things, take heed concerning matters of transgression, guard your heart 
lest your speech . . . (word lost) every man looking to his own 
steps therein. . . ." Even in his rare moments of relaxation he 
was busy designing vessels to be used in the temple services. This was 
apparently one of his hobbies. His Vizier, Rekhmara, a man of much 
distinction and coming of a long line of state officials, writes of him: 
"Lo, his majesty knew that which occurred ; there was nothing which he 



3 The two obelisks in London and New York are from Heliopolis, and were erected to 
celebrate one of his jubilees. We should like to take this occasion to explain a statement which 
was made in an earlier article of this series. This statement was to the effect that of all the 
temples and monuments dedicated at Heliopolis to the Sun, only one Xllth Dynasty obelisk 
had been "recovered." But this does not really convey the intended impression, for, as a 
matter of fact, there are many monuments, inscriptions, etc., from Heliopolis, scattered far 
and wide, beginning with early, and continuing down to very late times. It would be nearer 
our intended meaning to say that of all the monuments which are still in situ, only one has been 
recovered, the Xllth Dynasty obelisk referred to. It is practically certain, however, that 
many temple remains at Heliopolis, lie buried under the rich alluvial soil which has been for 
ages deposited in the Delta, making such indispensably fertile ground that no grant for exca- 
vating is easily obtained from the Egyptian Government. It looks as though archaeology would 
continue to play a subordinate role to agriculture, and that we shall, in consequence, never 
know what lies just below the surface of the earth, hidden under the waving wheat and the 
thick, sweet clover. 



342 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

did not know, ... he was Thoth in everything, there was no 
affair which he did not complete." 

The people of Thebes had long ago forgotten that their great King 
had once been a humble priest of Amen. They not only saw the mighty 
monuments he erected, but they saw, also, the emissaries from far dis- 
tant lands, who came and went, whispering the story of Egypt's power; 
they saw stately Phoenician galleys sailing majestically up the Nile laden 
with cargoes of rich stuffs, precious metals, cunningly wrought, from 
Cyprus, Crete and the ^Egean Islands; fine horses for the Pharaoh's 
use, and all the yearly tribute sent from the provinces both in the south 
and the north. The wealth which thus poured into Egypt was beyond 
anything ever seen before, and well might the people be proud of their 
King who had done all this. 

Thothmes was an old man, probably well over seventy, when the 
last serious uprising in Naharin took place. One last united effort to 
throw off the yoke of Egypt was made by the subject princes there, but 
so swift and severe was their punishment that never again, as long as 
the great Pharaoh lived, did they dare raise their heads in revolt. For 
one last time in Asia the old King received in state the tribute sent him 
by the now thoroughly subdued tributary princes : "slaves, horses, gold 
and silver dishes, vases of Keftyew (Crete), genuine lapis-lazuli, spark- 
ling stones, beautiful costly stones of this country, bronze suits of 
armour, weapons of war, . . ." and then for the last time he 
returned to Egypt, having left his Asiatic provinces on a firm basis. 
Twelve years more of life were ahead of him, and these twelve years 
were devoted to constant activities in Nubia and at home. We are loath 
to blame him if he looked with some satisfaction on what he had accom- 
plished, but he protests more than once that the records of his deeds 
are in strict accordance with truth, and that they were performed 
as an offering to his God : "I swear as RA loves me, as my father Amen 
favours me, all these things happened in truth. ... I have not 
written fiction as that which really happened to my majesty; I have en- 
graved the excellent deeds. . . . My majesty hath done this from 
desire to put them before my father Amen, as a memorial forever and 
ever," or again, "I have not uttered exaggeration in order to boast of 
that which I did, saying, 'I had done something' although my majesty had 
not done it. I have not done anything against which contradictions 
might be uttered. I have done this for my father Amen, because he 
knoweth heaven and he knoweth earth, he seeth the whole earth hourly." 

One is tempted to linger long and affectionately over the romantic 
life and achievements of this great Pharaoh, who was so vivid, so fear- 
less, so real, and only once again, at a later date, did Egypt see anything 
like his equal in military prowess. He is the first great military hero 
recorded in history, "the world's first Empire builder," immortal because 




AKHNATON THE "HERETIC" 343 

of the greatness of his exploits, simple because of the greatness of his 
soul. 

At last at a ripe age, the seasoned old warrior died, after a reign 
of fifty-four years. "Lo, the King completed his life-time of many 
years, splendid in valour, in might and in triumph; from year 1 to year 
54, third month of the second season, the last day of the month under 
the majesty of King Menkheperra (one of the throne names of Thothmes 
III) triumphant. He mounted to heaven, he joined the sun; the divine 
limbs mingled with him who begat him." During his long reign he had 
welded together, by sheer force of character, and unlimited energy and 
statesmanship, the earliest great Empire known in recorded history; an 
Empire which stretched from northern Syria southwards to the fourth 
cataract of the Nile. Breasted writes of him : "From the fastnesses 
of Asia Minor, the marshes of the upper Euphrates, the islands of the 
sea, the swamps of Babylonia, the distant shores of Lybia, the oases of 
the Sahara, the terraces of the Somali coast and the upper cataracts of 
the Nile the princes of his time rendered their tribute to his greatness. 
. The inevitable chastisement of his strong arm was held in 
awed remembrance by the men of Naharin for three generations. His 
name was one to conjure with, and centuries after his Empire had 
crumbled to pieces it was placed on amulets as a word of power." 

HETEP EN NETER. 

(To be continued) 



If we cannot live at once and alone with Him, we may at least live 
with those who have lived with Him; and find, in our admiring love for 
their purity, their truth, their goodness, an intercession with His pity 
on our behalf. To study the lives, to meditate the sorrows, to commune 
with the thoughts, of the great and holy men and women of this rich. 
world, is a sacred discipline, which deserves at least to rank as the fore- 
court of the temple of true worship, and may train the tastes, ere we 
pass the very gate, of heaven. We forfeit the chief source of dignity 
and sweetness in life, next to the direct communion with God, if we do 
not seek converse with the greater minds that have left their vestiges 
on the world. J. MARTINEAU. 



THE DAWNING OF A SOUL 



THE Monastery stood by the living spring, at one edge of the 
marsh. The marsh was somewhat lessened by the meadow land, 
reclaimed by the untiring toil of the monks. Save for this stray 
haven of peace, all else savoured of devastation and desolation. 
Man's fury, or man's sloth, had made the valley unlovely and all but 
uninhabitable. The stripped granite hills bore little verdure or foliage. All 
was grey, or grim, or grimy, except where the Monastery farms and 
gardens bloomed, like some stray but glorious rose, by the side of a 
dusty trail across a forbidding desert. What if the buildings were small 
and lacking in comforts. Physical ease was never the goal of Benedict's 
faithful. 

The Abbot was listening to a report from one of the Bailiffs. They 
were figuring how to make the stores carry over until the harvests were 
garnered. Through the door shot a dishevelled little figure. The boy's 
chest was heaving, his breath came in sibilant pants. In a clenched, 
blackened, little fist something was clasped. "O, Father Abbot," he 
gasped, "please, please, may I see your Reverence for just a minute?" 
The ascetic, aristocratic face was illumined with a smile of gracious 
welcome. The Bailiff looked shocked. Yet the stern, wise enforcer of 
the Founder's rigorous Rule ignored the seeming breach of etiquette 
and canon. A quick glance towards the Bailiff sent that worthy man 
out of the room, and the Abbot turned to the boy, with eyes that gently 
asked a question, though no sound came from the chiselled lips. 

"O pardon me, Father Abbot, but I must go back with Brother 
Hob, right off, and if I did not see you now, I won't see you for a long, 
long time." Then the boy's pent-up emotion threatened to overwhelm 
him. He stopped to fight back the flooding tears. As he struggled for 
self-mastery the Abbot waited in a silence and a stillness that were 
sympathy embodied. 

Right well did the Abbot know the boy even though the boy might 
easily have believed that his Superior had hardly had the time or the 
energy to spare, to keep him in mind. To one not a child it would have 
been unbelievable that, with his record, he could still serenely trust 
that the Abbot held him in his heart. The whole Monastery knew him. 
His crude, untamed spirits had disturbed many a contemplation. His 
uncontrolled fidgets and rude postures had often put a discordant note 
into the Oratory Services. Work had been hampered by his sloth or 
his thoughtlessness. Justly had he been called the stray sheep of the 
flock. He had fastened himself upon Father Leo, when that saintly 
monk (may God rest his soul) had been off, down the Valley, on the 
Monastery's affairs. Few knew that, when even Father Leo's miraculous 

344 




THE DAWNING OF A SOUL 345 

patience showed stress, the Abbot himself would intervene to save the lad 
from earned expulsion. Yet the time came when the Head, as well as 
Father Leo, were forced to conclude that so unbroken a colt could not 
be kept in the home paddock. Hence Egbert, called ''Little Brother Ego" 
by some of the monks, who sensed that his faults were rooted in his 
thorough self-absorption and its follower sejf -indulgence, had been 
sent to work with the lay-Brothers in the outlying quarry, where his 
daily labour was in its kitchen garden. 

It is to be supposed that some such review passed through the Abbot's 
mind, while he waited in gracious dignity for his small suppliant to 
begin. Well may it be called a supposition, any speculation as to what 
was in the Abbot's thoughts! For no man, be he monk or layman, 
would dare to say with surety that he reads a mind so attuned to high 
and holy thinking. It were enough indeed to seek to fathom the wisdom 
within the spoken word, and to strive to follow therefrom. 

The boy spoke : "You know, Father Abbot, how my dear Father 
Leo" the shrill voice broke "how my dear Father Leo wanted me 
to be a good gardener for our Lord and raise things for the quarry 
kitchen? Come last springtide, just about when St. Michael took him 
to our Lord" (here tears suffused his eyes) "I pledged holy St. Benedict 
I would be a good boy for Father Leo's sake. And, when he went, 
I prayed I could have something to show, before his day came back 
again. It is to-day as Father Abbot knows?" The Abbot bowed his 
head, with the courtier's grace he had never lost. 

"I got afraid I could not do it. But I kept up praying for a miracle 
to happen. You know, Father Abbot, you told us miracles do happen, 
if we have faith?" Again that courtly bow of acquiescence. "I prayed, 
and I prayed, and I prayed, and look ! it has happened !" The 
clenched fist unclasping, a blackened hand was thrust forth, palm upper- 
most. On its moist and dirt-encrusted surface lay a battered, bedraggled, 
limp little flower. "I raised it all by myself. It bloomed yesterday and 
I begged Brother Austin to let me bring it to you. The turnips have 
died, but Father Abbot, I have really and truly raised something, all 
by myself except for the help of our Lord, and great St. Michael, and 
holy St. Benedict, and all the holy saints. Now I am going to be a real 
gardener, and then I may come back here and to you, Father Abbot ?" 

Beauty of love was in the Abbot's face, as he leaned over, with 
eyes kindling, to inspect the proof of the miracle. 

"This would please dear Father Leo," he said. "But, my son, you 
must not forget that to be a real gardener, and so to earn your way back 
here, where we want you to be, you must raise the turnips as well." 

"I am going to, Father Abbot, now that I know how much our 
Lord helps." 

"Does my son really wish to succeed?" In exultation over the 



346 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Abbot's love for him, forgetting due reverence, the boy nodded an 
affirmative reply. 

"Then, Egbert, you must learn to do all the little things that you 
are told to do, and to do them well. Each one of those little things 
counts. Every one of the little things must be done. The little things 
must be done out of the garden, as well as in it. For example: does 
my son ever stop to remember that letting his face get so dirty will help 
to let the weeds crowd his garden? and that my son does not wish, I 
know." 

The dirt-laden hand shot to the wet face, increasing the disaster 
thereon. 

The Abbot continued : "Will you not stay for Recreation, so the 
House may know of your success? I give leave." 

"Thank you, Father Abbot, thank you," stammered the boy; then 
added, anxiously "but ought I to? I told Brother Austin I would go 
back on the first wain that is just leaving, but I could take the second, at 
sundown, if your Reverence says I may?" 

"You are right, my son, to think that you should do as you were 
told, no matter what tempts you. That is true obedience, and would 
please Father Leo as much as your flower. So, go ; and may the blessings 
of the Master and of St. Benedict be upon you." 

With an awkward genuflexion, beneath the uplifted hand, the boy 
backed to the doorway. The threshold crossed, he rushed forth, passing 
the still scandalized porter, by whom he had so recently darted, to hurl 
himself upon the slow-moving ox-cart, starting off for the hills and the 
quarry. 

As he lay on the straw, rocked by the roll , of the rumbling wain, 
ignoring, boy-fashion, its lurchings and joltings, Egbert dwelt in ecstasy 
upon the interview. How pleased Father Abbot had been ! How happy 
he had made him ! How happy it would make Father Leo. Tears 
came into his eyes once more, as he offered a prayer for the repose of 
the soul of that loving and beloved Superior. As Egbert thought of 
Father Leo he began to stop thinking of himself. Father Leo had taught 
him that thoughts are things Real Things. To a boy's vivid fancy this 
had come to be real. He grew to know that Thought-things came to him. 
The Thought-things that wanted to help him he called his "Visitors." The 
Thought-things that led him wrong, Father Leo had called "Imps of 
Satan"; he had warned the boy that they might seem the better and 
the kindlier. He had tried to teach the child that he was in very truth 
"a child of God". He had begged Egbert not to let the Devil abduct 
him, to bring him up as the Devil's slave. He had told Egbert that the 
choice lay with him, as did the choice of which Thought-things should 
companion him. 

All this Egbert knew. He knew too, that his body and his mind 
were his enemies helpers of the Imps of Satan. Yet it was so often 




THE DAWNING OF A SOUL 347 

hard to realize that what hurt his body, or his mind, or his pride, really 
did not hurt him, but often helped and protected him. The hurt was 
so vivid he would forget who was hurt. So it was that he, or whatever it 
was that then felt that it was he, would fear the coming of the "Visitors", 
when they brought reproof, just as he feared the Fathers and the Brothers 
when caught in outer wrong-doing. He would pray for help against the 
friendly Imps and that he might learn to welcome the more austere 
Visitors, though still he feared them became uncomfortable when they 
approached his mind. 

"Visitors" now began coming towards Egbert's mind, as he lay 
out-stretched on the straw. This, as customary, made him uneasy. He 
sat up. Often, at the quarry, he would seek refuge from the Visitors 
by physical activities. These activities were usually unplanned, impulsive, 
ill-considered. They sometimes got him into trouble. But even trouble 
might prove a relief from the pressure of the Visitors, relief from what 
his elders might have described as the "gnawing tooth of conscience." 

Egbert sat up. He kept still for a moment. He deliberately thought 
hard, and with love, of the Abbot and of Father Leo. Then his glance 
began to roam out over the open sides and end of the wain. Automatically 
he was calculating where to drop off, that he might run, run, run, until 
his tired body would still his working brain and close the doors of his 
mind to the Visitors. But it was as if he heard Father Leo's, "Keep 
still ! Think it out !" once more. The memory that he really did wish 
to please the Abbot came over him like a power. He took up a less- 
besmirched corner of his tunic and scrubbed his face. Then, and it 
was for the first time in his life, he turned in his mind and, so-to-speak, 
went forward to meet his Visitors. 

The thought that first came towards him suggested to Egbert a 
kindly steadying Presence, that somehow seemed to say without using 
words or sounds : "You know you really do like us. You know we 
are friends, and servants of Father Leo, and the Father Abbot, and that 
we only want to help you. You know that you really want to be what 
they want you to be. Let us help you. You know that you can trust 
us, because we want you to do what they want you to do. You can tell 
us from the Imps, because they want you to do what Father Leo and the 
Father Abbot do not want you to do. You know that we are really 
your friends. Let us help you. Father Abbot loves you. You know 
that. You know that St. Benedict loves him. You know that the 
Founder and our Lord heard Father Abbot bless you in Their name. 
Nothing can hurt you unless you want to let it hurt you." 

The boy's body was still and erect. In his heart a silent plea formed 
"Help me to please our Lord and Father Abbot." 

A second Visitor approached his mind. "Do not be afraid. Fight 
with the bright sword of obedience. But to fight, you must know when 
and how to use that sword. Turn from the sloth of disobedience. 



348 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

Think where you have been wrong, or what you have done that is wrong, 
however little, or however right it may seem. Make it look the wrong 
that you know it to be. Do not fear to hunt down your faults. Drag 
them out where you can see them. The Devils fear the light of the 
truth. They hide in the darkness. They hide behind excuses. Drag 
them out. You can take hold of them anywhere that you see a fault. 
Pull them out wherever you can take hold of them. As Father Leo 
used to say : 'Keep still ! Think it out !' " 

Egbert sat still. He thought as he had never thought before. He 
went back over his interview with the Father Abbot. He had broken the 
rules, when he darted past the porter. "But I was in a hurry to tell 
Father Abbot what would please him," he began in self-defence. The 
unseen second Visitor seemed to wave a bright, though invisible, sword. 
In silence Egbert's heart answered : "Yes, it would have pleased him 
more had I remembered the rules." 

Then an Imp forced his way in, just to whisper: "But the Father 
Abbot knew what you meant, and he told you that your face was dirty." 
Hands clenched themselves. The boy's eyes suffused as his sense of 
mortification arose. Again it seemed as if the bright sword flashed. The 
Imp was gone. "But the Abbot does love me. The Abbot does want 
to help me. Why did he say that? Please, good Visitor, help me!" 
There was a darkness of silence that seemed overwhelming. Only the 
picture of the bright, flashing sword remained. Then, in memory, 
emerged the voices of Father Leo, then of the Father Abbot, then of all 
the Fathers who had striven to teach him. They seemed to sound together, 
like an orison in Choir : "You know. You do know. You need no more 
help. Use what you know." 

A boyish hand struck out and down, in sudden determination. "I 
do know," Egbert said aloud, and then talked on in outer silence. "The 
Abbot wants to fit me to please our Lord and St. Benedict, as well as 
himself. That means that I ought to want my face to be clean and to 
do every one of the little things. Why ! They are like the stones from 
the quarry. Each one is needed to build the church. If Brother Austin 
forgot one stone the church would not be right. I cannot be right unless 
I do every little thing." 

Then the boy laughed out ; so merrily that the stolid oxen quickened, 
and the plodding Brother with the goad-stick looked back in surprise. 
"Why, good Visitor," Egbert thought, "you are right. You are right. 
I am a quarryman building a church. Weeding in my garden; saying 
the offices ; keeping the hours ; doing my lessons ; observing silence ; obey- 
ing my Superiors; thinking of others; these all are stones that I can 
cut in my own quarry. And I won't have to wait until I am big and 
strong. I can go aquarrying right now all by myself." 

Then a third Visitor seemed to come, unformed to the eye of the 
mind, yet a Presence of light and grace : "Not all by yourself," it said. 




THE DAWNING OF A SOUL 349 

"You can do nothing by yourself. You can only work in your quarry 
if you will let our dear Lord be your Master Quarryman." 

Blankness swept over the boy. Then came fear, as if an Imp had 
struggled in. "But our Lord is so big, so great, so busy. He won't 
have time." The Imp was gaining form, when the third Visitor pressed 
in : "The Father Abbot is big and great and busy does he not love you ? 
May he do more than the Master whom he serves and loves? The 
Abbot trusts our Lord to take care of him and the Monastery. Wont 
our Lord love and help a child of his Abbot?" 

Back into Egbert's memory swept all he had heard from the Fathers, 
of our Lord, and His life, and His love, and His Passion. Soon all 
the memories were of the Passion. A wave of sympathy for Him and 
His loneliness swept over the boy like a flame. "Would He really like 
it, if I tried to do my little things for Him?" 

The third Visitor gave no answer, but once again the boy seemed to 
hear, though there was no sound : "Keep still ! Think it out !" Convic- 
tion came, displacing doubt. The boy turned up his face to the sky : 
"Dear, dear Lord," he prayed, "please, please help me to do my little 
things for Thee." Then to the third Visitor he gave himself and all 
his consciousness. Nothing took shape or form, but he felt he shared 
her love for her Master; shared her agony to give Him pleasure. It 
was joy. It was pain. It was peace. 

So complete was the union in this pure and holy devotion that the 
boy forgot all else. He did not know when he fell back, asleep. He 
hardly knew when the lay-Brother waked him. He tried to bring the 
loveliness back. All that remained was the sense of peace; a state of 
quietude. The best he could do, in terms of memory, was to recall the 
second Visitor. Yet the help of the third Visitor seemed, somehow, to 
remain. He felt that he wanted to use the offered sword of obedience. 
"It is the little things that count." Then "Brother Hob," Egbert cried, 
as he sprang down from the wain, "I will put the oxen in their byre, and 
get their feed and water." 

The lay-Brother stood, alert for action, suspicious by experience, 
while the boy drove off the cattle, freed from the wain. Any moment 
he expected to see a little figure shoot into the darkness, with mischievous 
laughter, while the steers blundered off, astray. But, no the procession 
went on straight to the byre. And soon the creaking of the well sweep 
was heard; the splashing of pouring water; and the shuffling of stagger- 
ing small feet. 

The lay-Brother moved on towards the Refectory, murmuring, as 
he crossed himself : "They do say as how the good Lord still works His 
miracles." 

BROTHER SCRTBUS. 



TAO=TEH=KING 



AN INTERPRETATION OF LAO TSE'S BOOK OF THE WAY AND OF 
RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

V. 

36. That which contracts has surely expanded. 
That which grows weak has surely been strong. 
That which fades has surely been bright. 

That which grows poor has surely been endowed with gifts. 

This is both hidden and revealed. 

The gentle triumphs over the hard; the weak triumphs over the 
strong. 

The fish should not leave the depths; the strong arm of the kingdom 
should not be shown to the people. 

THE sense seems to be exactly that of the proverb, "What goes up 
must come down". It is a contrast between the world of the 
Eternal and the external world of the "pairs of opposites", where 
all things change and endure not ; where moth and rust doth cor- 
rupt, and where thieves break through and steal. 

As to what follows, it is, say the commentators, a doctrine hidden 
from the foolish, but revealed to the wise. The Way, which is gentle, 
triumphs over that which is hard ; the Way, which seems weak, triumphs 
over the strong. 

Then comes a quaint conceit of Celestial humour: "While it is in 
the soft element, water, the fish is safe; on the hard element, earth, 
it comes to grief. In the same way, the Master governs without the dis- 
play of external force." 

37. The Way follows non-action, yet accomplishes all things. 

If kings and princes follow the Way, all beings will turn to 
righteousness. 

If, after they have turned, they wish again to go astray, I shall 
hold them back through that simple Being which is without name. 

The simple Being which has no name should not even be desired. 

The absence of desire brings peace. 

Then the kingdom becomes righteous of itself. 

As was earlier pointed out, this Chinese teaching of non-action 
(wu wei) is exactly the doctrine of the Bhagavad Gita: "Who works, 
putting all works on the Eternal, giving up attachment, is not stained 
by sin, as the lotus leaf by water. ... He who is united, giving up the 

350 






TAO-TEH-KING 351 

fruit of works, wins perfect peace; the ununited, attached to the fruit 
of his works, is bound by the force of his desire" (V, 10, 12). 

The Chinese commentator works the matter out methodically. Long 
after the people have turned toward righteousness, he says, affections 
and desires will begin to stir again in the bottom of their hearts, and 
virtue will wane. But the holy man in good time perceives this grave 
defect and checks it in its first beginnings. With the help of that 
which is simple and unnamed, the Way of the Spirit, and through 
detachment, he checks the first stirrings of passion. But if one should 
seek the Way with desire, this is still desire; therefore the Way must 
not be sought with desire. When the Way is no longer sought with 
desire, perfect quietude of heart is attained, and when desire has ceased 
in the heart, righteousness comes of itself. When freedom from desire 
has spread throughout the kingdom, the kingdom becomes righteous of 
itself. 

Or, to give the same thought a Western turn : We must seek God for 
God's own sake, not for His gifts. 

Or we may cite the words attributed to a Master: "Is there none 
who will serve me gratis?" 

38. Those who have the highest righteousness do not consider that 
they are righteous; therefore they are righteous. 

Those of lesser righteousness never forget that they are righteous; 
this is why they are not truly righteous. 

Those who have the highest righteousness act righteously without 
thinking of righteousness. 

The men of lesser righteousness are consciously righteous. 

Those who have supreme humanity act rightly without thinking of 
humanity. 

Those who weigh human rights practise them self-consciously. 

Those who follow formalism practise it, and the people do not 
respond; then they use force to make formalism effective. 

This is why men become self-consciously righteous after they have 
lost the Way; they become self-consciously humane after they have lost 
righteousness; they concern themselves with the rights of man after 
they have ceased to be humane; they become formalists after they have 
lost the sense of the rights of man. 

Formalism is only the outer bark of uprightness and sincerity; it 
is the beginning of disorder. 

False wisdom is but the barren flower of the Way and the principle 
of ignorance. 

Therefore the great man cleaves to the substance and ignores mere 
surfaces. 



352 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY 

He honours the fruit and leaves the barren flower. 
Therefore he takes the one and rejects the other. 

We have here a descending scale: The Way (Tao) ; self-conscious 
righteousness; what we may call humanitarianism ; concern over the 
rights of man ; and a lifeless formalism. But, at the distance of twenty- 
five centuries, it is not easy to catch the exact shades of Lao Tse's 
meaning. 

To begin with the first sentence : "Those who have the highest 
righteousness do not consider that they are righteous" : we may cite, as 
a parallel : "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness 
of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom 
of heaven" ; or that other saying, with its fine irony : "Joy shall be in 
heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and 
nine just persons which need no repentance." Or we may quote the 
saying that there is nothing more contemptible than self-conscious 
heroism. 

One of the Chinese commentators has this to say of the closing 
sentences of this section : "The holy man penetrates all beings by the 
aid of a marve