{"collection":"Theosophy","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/archive_org_v.341937/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/archive_org_v.341937","id":"archive_org_v.341937","license":"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","rights_basis":"archive_org_open:open_license:http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","source":"archive_org","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/v.341937","summary":"","tags":["Theosophy"],"text":"VOL. XXXIV, No. 1 \n\n\nNo. 133 \n\n\nFe.riod \n\n\nPUBLISHED BY \n\nTHE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nf \n\n\n\nThe Theosophical Quarterly \n\n\nSubscription price, $2.00 per annum \n\n\nPublished by The Theosophical Society \nat 64 Washington Mews, New York, N.Y. \n\n\nJanuary; April; July; October \n\nAddress all communications to P. O. Box 64, Station O, New York \n\n\nies may be obtained from and subscriptions may be sent to John \n3 Court, Charing Cross Road, London, W. C. 2 , England; or to \n\nBeaconsfield Road, Low Fell, Gateshead-on-Tyne England from \n\ners may be obtained. Annual subsription price, $2.00, postpaid. \n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. XXXIV, NO. 1 \nJanuary, 1937 \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS. \n\nFRAGMENTS. \n\nSEPTENARY MAN IN ANCIENT EGYPT. \n\nAN IMPERIAL HEREDITY. \n\nTHEOSOPHY AND ITS CRITICS. \n\nTHE ENGLISH WAY TO THE GOAL. \n\nWITHOUT CENSOR, VIII. \n\nREMARKS BY THE WAY...' \n\nWHAT ARE THE THEOSOPHISTS? By H. P. Blavatsky (Reprint) \n\nREVIEWS. \n\nCORRESPONDENCE. \n\nQUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. \n\nIN MEMORIAM: Mrs. Graves. \n\n\nsecond-class matter September 5. *923. at the Post Office at N \n179. \n\nCopyright, 1937. by The Theosophical Society \n\n\nThe \n\nTheosophical Quarterly \n\n\nVOLUME XXXIV \nJanuary, 1937\u2014 October, 1937 \n\n\n\nPUBLISHED BY \n\nTHE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY \nNEW YORK \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAndover-Harvard \nTheological Library \nCambridge, Mass. \n\n4 - 77 < 0 <ol \n\nHid \n\n\nThe Theosophical Quarterly \n\n\nSubscription price, $2.00 per annum; single copies, 50 cents. \n\nPublished by The Theosophical Society \nat 64 Washington Mews, New York, N. Y. \n\nJanuary; April; July; October \n\nAddress all communications to P. O. Box 64, Station O, New York \n\n\nIn Europe, single copies may be obtained from and subscriptions may be sent to John \nM. Watkins, 21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, London, W. C. 2, England, or to \nMr E H. Lincoln, 9 Beaconsfield Road, Low Fell, Gateshead-on-Tyne, England, from \nwhom all back numbers may be obtained. Annual subscription price, $2.00, postpaid. \n\n\n\n\na iiuvowr niCALi SULUIUTY \n\n\nUni^BmSlf 7r d u b, ' eCt \u00b0 f this S \u00b0 ciety is t0 form nucleus of a \nniversal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed sex \n\nP SUbs \u2018 diary \u00b0 biects are: The stud y of ancient and modern \nreligions, philosophy and sciences, and the demonstration of the importance \n\nI ntt f ^ i 6 inVe f tigati0n of the \"explained laws of nature and \nthe psychical powers latent in man. \n\n\n\nThe Theosophical Quarterly is the official organ of the original \nIheosophical Society founded in New York by H. P. Blavatsku \nW. Q. Judge and others , in 1875. \n\nWe have no connection whatsoever with any other organization \ncalling itself Theosophical formerly headed by Mrs. Besanl nor \nwith similar bodies , the purposes and methods of which are whollu \nforeign to our own. 9 \n\n\nEditors, The Theosophical Quarterly. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJANUARY, 1937 \n\n. T ! ie Thwsophtcal Society, as such, is not responsible Jor any opinion or declaration \nin tins magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained in an official document. \n\n\nThe One and the Many \n\nF ROM time immemorial philosophers have meditated upon the problem \nof the One and the Many. An intuition which is profound and sure, \n.... , lmpresses u P on the mind the fundamental truth that the Universe is an \nindivisible and partless unity; that the metagalaxy and the electron, the man \nand the infusorian, are in essence one and the same thing; that all evidences of \ndifference and separateness in Nature are illusions, distortions of the single \nReality, the One which can be neither multiplied nor fractioned. However \nanother intuition, no less certain than the first, brings the conviction that the \nmost real thing in the Universe is the individual; that diversity and multi\u00ac \nplicity are the most patent facts in experience; that a world in which there \nwould be no distinction of persons could not conceivably exist. \n\nIt is no wonder that the human mind finds in this apparent contradiction \nbetween two certitudes, a permanent source of irritation. The passion for \nconsistency may be, as Emerson suggested, a weakness of little minds- but \nsome of the largest minds which have left their imprint upon history have made \ndesperate efforts to explain how the world can be both indivisible and divisible, \nboth the One and the Many. The usual procedure has been to over-emphasiz^ \none of the certitudes and to under-emphasize the other. Thus, in certain syM \nterns\u2014like that of Spinoza, for instance\u2014the stress is laid upon the ultimate \nunity of all substance and consciousness. On the other hand, the Monadoloey \nof Leibniz represents the attitude of those who regard the production of indi\u00ac \nvidual entities as the only significant cosmic event. \n\nThe solution of the riddle can never be found by pure reason alone, for even \nthe purest reason can only draw inferences from the data of intuition and ex\u00ac \nperience. That is why the problem of the One and the Many is not merely a \ntechnical metaphysical question, a subject for endless scholastic debates. Per\u00ac \nhaps no final answer to it, in terms of human thought, ever will be found but \nit i*ertain that our understanding of its implications is, at every instant, meas- \n\n\nS \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n6 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nured by our experience of the way in which the One and the Many are blended \nand reconciled in our own selves. \n\nIt has been noted that Spinoza and Leibniz established their systems at the \nopposite poles of philosophical thought. Madame Blavatsky makes the fol\u00ac \nlowing comment upon them: \n\nSpinoza was a subjective , Leibniz an objective Pantheist, yet both were great philos\u00ac \nophers in their intuitive perceptions. Now, if these two teachings were blended to\u00ac \ngether and each corrected by the other\u2014and foremost of all the One Reality weeded \nof its personality\u2014there would remain as sum total a true spirit of esoteric philosophy \nin them; the impersonal, attributeless, absolute divine essence which is no \u201cBeing\u201d, \nbut the root of all being. Draw a deep line in your thought between that ever-incog- \nnizable essence, and the, as invisible, yet comprehensible Presence ( Mulapraknti ), or \nShekinah, from beyond and through which vibrates the Sound of the Verbum y and from \nwhich evolve the numberless hierarchies of intelligent Egos y of conscious as of semi\u00ac \nconscious, perceptive and apperceptive Beings, whose essence is spiritual Force, whose \nsubstance is the Elements and whose Bodies (when needed) are the atoms \u2014and our \ndoctrine is there {The Secret Doctrine , ed. 1888, I, 629). \n\nTwo Modes of Force \n\nWhether a man be a \u201cphilosopher\u201d or not, his knowledge of the Universe \nand of his individual self is determined, therefore, by the degree to which he \npersonally embodies the essence of his being and of all being, which is \u201cSpiritual \nForce\u201d. In this connection, it should be helpful to review briefly certain theo- \nsophical postulates concerning the nature of \u201cSpiritual Force\u201d. For instance, \nwe can test, by observation and experiment, the proposition that there is in \nNature only this one Force which, however, exhibits two modes of existence \nand action. In a certain sense, these modes may be illustrated by the centrif\u00ac \nugal and centripetal forces of physics. Wherever there is a centre of substance, \nsome sort of equilibrium is established between the energies generated within \nthe centre, and the energies generated in the surrounding space. Some inter\u00ac \naction between the two sets of energies is inevitable, as the one current is directed \noutward and the other presses inward towards the centre. \n\nWe quote from Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge , pp. 127-134: \n\nThough Newton\u2019s proposition that every particle of matter has the property of at\u00ac \ntraction for every other particle, is on the whole correct; and though Leibniz\u2019s proposi\u00ac \ntion that every atom is a universe in itself, and acts through its own inherent force, is \nalso true; yet both are incomplete. For man is also an atom, possessing attraction and \nrepulsion, and is the Microcosm of the Macrocosm. But would it be also true to say \nthat because of the force and intelligence in him he moves independently of every other \nhuman unit, or could act and move, unless there were a greater force and intelligence \nthan his own to allow him to live and move in that higher element of Force and Intel\u00ac \nligence? . . . Besides the force acting in matter there is also a force acting on matter. \n\n. . . All . . . differences in the objective world result only from the peculiarities of \ndifferentiation of matter on which the one free force acts, helped in this by that portion \nof its essence which we call imprisoned force, or material molecules. The worker within, \nthe inherent force, ever tends to unite with its parent essence without. . . . We are told \nthat it [a cycle of manifestation] begins when the imprisoned force and intelligence \ninherent in every atom of differentiated as well as of homogeneous matter arrives at a \npoint when both become the slaves of a higher intelligent Force whose mission is to guide \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n7 \n\n\nand shape it. It is the Force which we call the divine Free-Will, represented by the \nDhyani-Buddhas. When the centripetal and centrifugal forces of life and being are \nsubjected by the one nameless Force which brings order in disorder, and establishes \nharmony in Chaos\u2014then [the cycle of manifestation begins]. ... All growth depends \nupon the indwelling force, because on this plane of ours it is this force alone which acts \nconsciously. The universal force cannot be regarded as a conscious force as we under\u00ac \nstand the word consciousness, because it would immediately become a personal god. \nIt is only that which is enclosed in form, a limitation of matter, which is conscious of \nitself on this plane. This Free Force or Will, which is limitless and absolute, cannot \nbe said to act understanding^, but it is the one and sole immutable Law of Life and \nBeing. Fohat, therefore, is spoken of as the synthetic motor power of all the imprisoned \nlife-forces and the medium between the absolute and conditioned Force. It is a link, \njust as Manas is the connecting link between the gross matter of the physical body and \nthe Divine Monad which animates it, but is powerless to act upon the former directly. \n\nVortices in the Waters of Space \n\nIt should be remarked that Madame Blavatsky enunciated this theory of \nforce at a time when the mechanistic scheme of classical physics still dominated \nscientific thought. Ultimate reality was supposed to be condensed in a for\u00ac \ntuitous concourse of atoms in perpetual motion, and all states of matter and \nmind were assumed to be effects of atomic collisions and combinations. In \nother words, the real was identified with an infinitude of infinitesimal corpuscles, \nthe most limited entities of which the intellect could conceive. \n\nThe discovery of radio-activity and other developments have greatly altered \nthe orthodox scientific view of physical nature. Matter and radiation are now \ngenerally regarded as different phases of the same \u201csubstance\u201d. Atoms are \nno longer compared to unbreakable billiard balls. In the microcosm imagined \nby the ultra-modern physicist, the atoms are like galaxies of tiny stars emitting \nand receiving waves of energy. But also they are indistinguishable from these \nwaves. The \u201catom within the atom\u201d, the electron, in one aspect, seems to be \na tiny particle, but its electrical properties are most simply explained on the \nassumption that it actually \u201ctakes up the whole of space\u201d. It is impossible to \nsay where it begins and where it ends. \n\nIsolated bodies do not exist in Nature. There are vortices or eddies in the \n\u201cwaters of space\u201d. But a vortex is inseparable from its medium. It is part of \nsomething larger than itself. Lord Dundreary\u2019s bird which flocked by itself \nis no more impossible than an entity set apart from the Universe. The eddy \nand the ocean are in essence one and indivisible. \n\nSo it is in the human kingdom. Man, like the electron, has a dual nature. \n\u201cThe soul is buried in the body, as in a tomb\u201d, said Pythagoras. From one \npoint of view, the human being seems to be nothing but a limited personal self \nenclosed in a physical vehicle, localized in space and insulated in a small cycle \nof time. But this limitation is neither more nor less real than the eddy in the \nocean. In itself it is, as the sages of East and West have always taught, a maya , \na mirage, a phantasm, an illusion. The real man , again like the electron, \u201ctakes \nup th^whole of space\u201d. Such is the necessary deduction from the theosophical \naxiorn^at the essence of man is \u201cspiritual Force\u201d. His personal self and his \n\n\n\n\n8 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nbodily form have meaning and value, in so far as they embody and make self- \nconscious this \u201chigher intelligent Force . . . which we call the divine Free- \nWill\u201d. As we read in the Bhagavad Gita, \u201cThese finite bodies are said to belong \nto Him, the Eternal, the indestructible, unprovable Spirit, who is in the body.\u201d \n\nThe Semblance of a Second Nature \n\u201cThe One Self is all things and yet is no thing\u201d, says Plotinus. \u201cIt is just \nbecause no entity exists separately within it, that all entities can issue from \nit. As it is itself perfect and acquires nothing and has no need nor desire, it \nhas\u2014so to speak\u2014overflowed. This overflowing or emanation has produced \nthe semblance of a \u2018second nature\u2019.\u201d The great mystic proceeds to identify \nthis \u201csecond nature\u201d with the noetic principle, the highest attainable state of \nindividual consciousness. But though there is this steady stream of spiritual \nForce from above, there must be, as Madame Blavatsky indicates in the passage \njust quoted\u2019, a conscious response from below. The \u201cindwelling Force\u201d purify\u00ac \ning the personal nature, makes possible the transformation of the human ego \ninto \u201ca semblance of the second nature\u201d. This alchemical refinement is de\u00ac \nscribed as the specific task delegated to manas, the \u201cself-consciousness\u201d, the \n\u201csynthetic motor power of all the imprisoned life-forces\u201d in man, the assem\u00ac \nblage of all the magical potencies of reason, imagination, aspiration, will. \n\nThe Love of Truth \n\n\u201cThere is no Religion higher than Truth.\u201d The Pythagoreans defined their \nobjective as \u201cthe knowledge of the things which are\u201d. Certainly they did not \nmean that only savants and professors are fitted to enter the kingdom of heaven. \nThey pointed to the fact that the proper food of the soul is truth, which may be \nassimilated more simply by children or peasants than by many so-called phil\u00ac \nosophers. The lover of truth delights in the right use of reason, but he does not \nlove truth with the intellect alone. The intellect only mirrors the truths which \nwe have lived and enacted and made part of ourselves. Therefore, the love of \ntruth transforms the whole nature of man. It is the complete expression of the \nmanas, \u201cthe connecting link between ... the physical body and the Divine \nMonad\u201d. \n\nAn age may be judged by its attitude towards truth. Modern man, for ex\u00ac \nample, does not doubt that the major conclusions of physics concerning matter \nand energy are sound. He respects the principles of mechanics, the \u201claws of \nnature\u201d, tested by repeated observation of the actions and reactions of material \nbodies. However, outside the domain of \u201cgross matter\u201d, he tends to act and \nthink as if there were no principles. The modem mind is fascinated by \u201crela\u00ac \ntivity\u201d: by the truism that the appearance which the world wears is always \nrelative to the point of view of the observer. Let the observer change his posi\u00ac \ntion, it is argued, and truth will change with it. It is then easy to pass on to \nthe assumption that man can make or unmake truth to suit his appetites and \nprejudices. Anyone who would apply such a doctrine in his relations with \nphysical nature, would be classified as a lunatic. Why should we assume that \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n9 \n\n\nthere are not moral and spiritual laws to which we must conform in order to \nsurvive, as we must conform to the laws of matter? The presence of immutable \nprinciples upon all the planes of Nature is not disproved by the fact that our \nview of those principles is constantly varying. Chicago is west of New York \nand east of San Francisco, but that is no reason for denying that Chicago exists. \n\nSpiritual Realism \n\nAt the recent Harvard tercentenary of arts and sciences, Professor Etienne \nGilson of the University of Paris made a powerful appeal for the revival of \n\u201cspiritual realism\u201d, that is to say, of the mediaeval conception of a universal \ntruth independent of the human will, but open to exploration by the human \nreason. \n\nIn the conviction that there is nothing in the world above universal truth lies the \nvery root of intellectual and social liberty. Our only hope is therefore in a widely spread \nrevival of the Greek and mediaeval principle, that truth, morality, social justice and \nbeauty are necessary and universal in their own right. Should philosophers, scientists, \nartists make up their minds to teach it and, if necessary, to preach it in time and out of \ntime, it would become known again that there is a spiritual order of realities whose \nabsolute right is to judge even the State, and eventually to free us from its oppression. \n... I am alluding to the deeply rooted mediaeval conviction that though the various \nexpressions of truth unavoidably bear the marks of their local origins, truth itself, both \nin speculation and in the practical order, is not true for a certain civilization, nor for a \ncertain nation, but belongs to humanity as a whole. In short, truth is universal in its \nown right. . . . Coupled with their belief in the universal character of religious faith, \nthere was in those [mediaeval] scholars an equally strong belief in the universal character \nof rational truth. This part, at least, of their ideal could be fruitfully upheld and, if \nneed be, revived in our own days. The problem of religious unity essentially belongs \nto the theologians, but the problem of philosophical unity is in itself an essential philo\u00ac \nsophical problem, and unless philosophers tackle it, somebody else will solve it for them, \nprobably against them. . . . The sad fact is that after losing our common faith, our \ncommon philosophy and our common art, we are in great danger of losing even our \ncommon science and of exchanging it for State-controlled dogmas. Such a development \nwas to be expected. A good many years ago, the French philosopher Jules Lachelier \nmade the casual remark that the only conceivable form of democracy was theocracy \nand, he added, that very kind of theocracy which William Penn had once established \nin the forests of Pennsylvania. Despite its paradoxical appearance, that statement was \nfundamentally sound, in this at least, that as soon as men refuse to be ruled directly \nby God, they condemn themselves to be ruled directly by man; and if they decline to \nreceive from God the leading principles of their moral and social conduct, they are \nbound to accept them from the king or from the State or from their race or from their \nown social class. ... It is a natural temptation for everyone of us to coin a truth of \nhis own, made after his own image and likeness, so that its contemplation may give us \nat the same time the selfish pleasure of self-contemplation. We have so often thought, \nand written, and taught our students, that the discovery of truth is a personal affair, \nthat we have come either to think, or to make them believe, that truth itself is a per\u00ac \nsonal affair. Yet the most commonplace truth is infinitely better than a whole system of \nthe most original errors. Now is, perhaps, the time to remind ourselves and to teach \nothers the old Greek principle that unity is better than multiplicity. Not uniformity, \nwhich is the mere lack of diversity, but unity; that is to say the rational ordering of a \nmanifoi^reality. Do we believe that truth is one? Are we convinced that truth con\u00ac \nsists in^iding out an order where there is one, as in nature, and to put it where there \n\n\n\n\n\nIO \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nis none, or not enough of it, as in moral, social and political life? . . . What is the proper \nuse of reason? Mediaeval philosophers would answer that it consists in using it accord\u00ac \ning to its own nature, which is to judge things as they are. Every sound rationalism \nis at the same time a realism. In spite of their many differences, all varieties of [mis\u00ac \ncalled] idealism agree precisely in this, that things are what the human mind says them \nto be. Mediaeval realism, on the contrary, always stood firm on the Greek platform, \nthat the human mind is right, when it conforms to reality. \n\nA Link Between Man and the Cosmos \nIt is comparatively painless for anyone to seek and discover facts which are \nobjective and physical. Doubtless the exploration of the external world implies \nhard work and courage and patience. The veritable man of science sacrifices \ntime, comfort, sometimes life itself, to attain his goal. But he is not obliged to \nexperiment upon himself, to practice introspection, to dissect his own states of \nconsciousness, to observe his lower nature in all its hideousness without up\u00ac \nsetting his mental balance, to create in himself a real soul without losing his \nsense of identity. The knowledge of the scientist enables him to predict and \ndirect the processes of physical nature; but his science gives him no control over \nhuman passions. For better or for worse, he can transform the visible aspect \nof the earth. He does not undertake the far more difficult and dangerous task \nof transforming his own ego into the \u201csemblance of a second nature\u2019'. \n\nThough physical science, like every expression of truth, forges a link between \nman and the cosmos, this junction is not secure. Few would doubt that the \nprimum mobile of scientific discovery and invention has been a deep and abiding \nlove of truth. But the magnitude of their achievements on the physical plane \nhas tempted men of science to miscalculate their value to man. The truths \nwhich they have revealed and applied are an infinitesimal fraction of the total \nof the knowable in the Universe. We know so very little, for instance, about the \npowers and attributes of consciousness, about the subjective aspect of Nature. \nOne is even obliged to assume that we know less about the potentialities of \nhuman nature than our \u201cpre-scientific\u201d ancestors. A savage may understand \nbetter how to adapt his behaviour to the exigencies of moral and spiritual laws, \nthan the victim of civilization whose inner life is a vast anarchy, dominated by \na succession of desppts, as first one emotion and then another dominates his will \nand imagination. Our control of the external world, far from creating an en\u00ac \nduring connection between the physical body and the Divine Monad, has \nactually served to weaken the link already existing, by multiplying the occa\u00ac \nsions for self-indulgence and by intensifying the illusion of our self-sufficiency. \n\nThe Subordination of Reason to Desire \nAs Professor Gilson points out, the natural r 61 e of reason is to judge things \nas they are. But though this is \u201cnatural\u201d, experience testifies that, more often \nthan not, reason acts \u201cunnaturally\u201d. The overwhelming majority of mankind \npersistently use reason to justify their prejudices and vanities, to \u201cjudge\u201d \nthings as they are not. The trouble with most people, remarked Josh Billings, \nis not that they don\u2019t know anything, but that they know so many things that \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\naren\u2019t so. As an Indian philosopher might comment, the unregenerate manas \nis the slave of may a and avidya , of illusion and unwisdom. \n\nAs the least self-examination shows, reason in practice is subordinate to \ndesire. We think what we want to think. Theosophy explains mental activity \nas an interaction between the spiritual and animal \u201csouls\u201d in man. Thus there \nare two modes of manas , the higher gravitating towards buddhi , the pole of \naspiration and love of truth, the lower gravitating towards kama } the pole of \negotism and selfish desire. \n\nWe ought to think what is true, but we are at liberty to think what is false. \nWe can obey or defy the dictates of truth, the laws of Divine Nature to which \nin essence we belong. Our salvation or damnation depends upon our willing\u00ac \nness or refusal to unite the \u201cindwelling force\u201d of our personal selves with the \nfree and universal force of the Logos, the Self which \u201cis all things and yet is no \nthing\u201d, and which, according to Theosophy, has been personified and made \nincarnate in the Avatars as \u201cThe Way, the Truth, and the Life\u201d. \n\nThe Undermining of Character \n\n\u201cAs soon as men refuse to be ruled directly by God, they condemn themselves \nto be ruled directly by man.\u201d In terms of the theosophical interpretation of \nhistory, man must choose whether he would be governed by \u201cGod-instructed \nmen\u201d, by Adept Kings, or by creatures like himself, which is to say, by a steadily \ndeteriorating line of politicians. The choice which he has made explains the \ndiseases which afflict the modern state. Their name is legion,\u2014communism, \nfascism, racism, totalitarianism, collectivism, etc., etc. But the germs which \ncause various symptoms in various lands, all belong to the same family. The \nart of the demagogue is not of recent date. The successful politician knows \nhow to flatter the self-esteem of other men, and how to stimulate their envy and \ncupidity. His task has been greatly facilitated by modem means of communi\u00ac \ncation, by the press, the radio and the movies. Alcibiades and Antony could \nstampede a mob by shouting at them. To-day their successors can stampede \nnations. Someone has suggested that unless the human race develops some sort \nof immunity to the rapidly spreading virus of mass hypnosis, all hope for tl\u00a3 \npresent civilization must be abandoned. \n\nThe demagogue, like the coster in The Pirates of Penzance , may \u201clove to lie \na-basking in the sun\u201d when he is off duty. Probably very few of his kind, unless \nthey be conscious acolytes of the Black Lodge, cherish the deliberate purpose \nof undermining the characters of their victims. The point is that he wants to \nget power and to keep it, and the easiest and quickest way to his end is to dis\u00ac \ncover the ruling passion, the presiding weakness, in the lives of his countrymen, \nand to cultivate and increase it. One need only reflect upon the distinguishing \ncharacteristics of the various dictatorships or semi-dictatorships which have \na^gared in the world since the Great War, to recognize with what instinctive \nsffl the agitators in different countries have exploited the outstanding and \npeculiar vices of each nation. \n\n\n12 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nA Warning to Americans \n\nIt is not a pleasant exercise for an American to consider the vices which \nare the easiest to exploit within the boundaries of the United States. Never\u00ac \ntheless, it is a duty which no American who has any pride in his heritage should \nneglect. Fortunately there are some who are not utterly blind to what has been \nhappening. We cite some passages from \u201cThoughts Current\u201d, in The Atlantic \nMonthly (September, 1936), by Dr. Ernest M. Hopkins, President of Dartmouth \nCollege. Dr. Hopkins is frankly a critic of the New Deal, but his remarks have \na general significance because of his clear comprehension of the factors which \nare distorting and softening the qualities, formerly regarded as specifically \nAmerican. \n\nOne of the most sapient aphorisms of which I know is that it takes a tragic amount \nof time on the part of the wise to correct the mistakes of the merely good. The mis\u00ac \nfortunes of the present day may easily become catastrophes if the process is continued \nof dissipating our inheritances of courage, initiative, fortitude, and aspiration. Under \nthe impulses of these qualities, a struggling people organized the government and over\u00ac \ncame great difficulties to set up the principle that every man is entitled to an equal \nopportunity. To argue that the ideal has not been fully attained is not to demonstrate \nthat it has not been more fully attained in America than anywhere else in the world. \n... I would not be understood as arguing that society must not assume responsibility \nfor its natural dependents, or that concern should not be felt for, and necessary help \noffered to, its underprivileged members. Neither would I attach blame to the Adminis\u00ac \ntration for the gradual disappearance of qualities of resourcefulness among an increas\u00ac \ning number of our population in recent years, for which the sordid materialism of public \nthought in the past has been responsible. What I would assert is that, under the New \nDeal, dependency is being encouraged to the point where it is rapidly and needlessly \nincreasing, that the least desirable tendencies of a materialistic age are being accentu\u00ac \nated rather than diminished, and that by the exclusiveness of solicitude for the incapable \nat the expense of the capable, we are inducing a deterioration in our national character \nto a point little short of self-destruction. Particularly, I resent the extent to which the \nNew Deal has felt obliged to go, in soliciting support for its programme by reiteration \nto the public, and particularly to youth, of the misfortunes to which they are pictured \nas being subject. We are being made a people sorrowing in self-pity for ourselves. If \nenough people tell a man that he looks ill, he begins to feel his own unhappy symptoms. \nThe influence of suggestion is one of the most powerful forces in the world, and one of \nthe greatest misfortunes of the present day is the effect upon our people of having had \nsympathy forced upon them for conditions, the correction of which demanded but the \nexercise of due measures of intelligence and courage. The foundations of American \nsociety were laid by men who endured economic want and physical hardships, that \nthey might gain access to opportunities few in number and inconsiderable in importance \nas compared with those which to-day lie close at hand for all of us. There was no thought \nin their minds that the conditions of life ought to be anything but a challenge, or that \nthe rewards of life could be possessed except through valiant effort. They accepted the \nconditions and went their ways without dismay and without complaint, with definite\u00ac \nness of purpose and with high aspiration. Thus, from recognition of the fact that life \nmust be a struggle for men to profit most from it, arose a great people. \n\nThe Youth Movement \n\nThe Saturday Evening Post (November 7, 1936) published \u201cThe Youth Docu\u00ac \nment\u201d, by Mr. Garet Garrett. It provides confirmation at a crucial point of \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n3 \n\n\nthe argument that the American people are in danger of becoming a race of \nmoral idiots. Mr. Garrett has made a detailed study of the so-called \u201cyouth \nmovement\u201d in this country. He recalls the time when he was young and had \nto make his way without the help of social workers or politicians. He does not \ndeny the tribulations which the youth of his generation had to face and over\u00ac \ncome; but he refuses to admit that a way to any kind of success can be found \nwithout pain and trouble. Then he points to the multitudinous agencies which \nare dedicated to the purpose of caring for the young people of this country, of \nmaking life easy and comfortable for them, and which are continually explain\u00ac \ning how sorry everybody is for them and how sorry they ought to be for them\u00ac \nselves. He examined a copy of a bill introduced in the United States Senate \nto provide vocational training and employment between the ages of sixteen and \ntwenty-five, and read an account of the public hearings before the Committee \non Education and Labour. \n\nThose who appeared to bear witness for the Act [Mr. Garrett calculates the cost as \n\u201chardly less than $3,000,000,000 a year\u201d] were members of youth bodies, social-service \nworkers, representatives of union labor, Communists, and educators. . . . The editor \nof the Student Advocate told the senators that if they really wished to know how to re\u00ac \nstore peace and quiet in the schools and universities, . . . the way to do it was to \u201clegis\u00ac \nlate poverty out of existence.\u201d . . . The National High-School Secretary of the Ameri\u00ac \ncan Student Union asked the senators to consider how crucial a thing the matter of \nclothes or money for some recreation might be, and that hundreds of thousands of youths \nwere feeling inferior for want of these things, adding: \u201cIn terms of social maladjust\u00ac \nment, we are going to pay a heavy toll in later life for this.\u201d . . . Among other letters \nplaced in the record was one from a student, . . . saying she had lost her benefits from \nthe National Youth Administration because her marks averaged only C, asking what \nC\u2019s had to do with it, and ending: \u201cIn November when I vote, I will favour those candi\u00ac \ndates who have done most to further the betterment of my conditions.\u201d Lillian Rob\u00ac \nbins, head worker at the Hamilton House Settlement, said: \u201cThese boys need cigarettes, \nhair cuts, razor blades, that no relief budget includes. And they don\u2019t ask too much \nwhen they want a quarter for the movie and, perhaps, even another one for the girl \nfriend.\u201d The head worker at Madison House Settlement said: \u201cA despairing youth, \nbitter and disillusioned, seeks aid from its elected representatives. As one who has for \nthe past two years made somewhat of a study of youth\u2019s vocational problems, I can \nsay that aside from youth not having cigarette and movie money, the most vexing prob\u00ac \nlem is that of answering the query, What can I do?\u201d \n\nAs Mr. Garrett says, the first misfortune of contemporary youth \u201cwas to \nhave been bom at a time when the stem-parent principle, having failed in thq| \nhome, was failing also in government\u201d. His conclusion is that there is no solu\u00ac \ntion to a general youth problem, because there is in reality no such problem. \nEvery young person has a separate problem which sooner or later must be solved \non its own merits. Fortunately some of the boys and girls who are coming to \nmaturity, do clearly understand this fact. They are bravely trying to take their \nplaces as individuals in the world, and are resisting the attempts to herd them \ninto one more social caste whose only function is to hold up the government. \n\n\n4 ^ Immunity to Mass Hypnosis \n\nIn America, therefore, as elsewhere, the lower nature of the multitude is \n\n\n14 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nbeing subjected to a powerful, if incoherent, movement of collective suggestion \nor mass hypnosis. It appears that in America, at least at the present time, \nthe most successful method of demoralizing the citizen is to make him feel more \nand more pity for himself. \n\nHow can this tendency towards social and national mania be checked? \nWhere can one discover some counter-irritant which will distract our attention \nfrom ourselves and our troubles and give us immunity to mass hypnosis? Surely \nthe solution is near at hand. It is not to be sought in politics or in propaganda \nor in public works. The individual must find it for himself, within himself, \nusing the powers of the manas which are inherent in him, and potentially, as \nhas so often been said, link the individual soul with the Universal Soul. But \nfirst of all it is necessary to cultivate the faith that real knowledge exists and is \nattainable; that on all planes of being there are ruling principles of action which \nare immutable and everlasting. Let us keep \u201crelativity'\u2019 in its place. \n\nTherefore, let the individual seek to solve his own problem, whatever it may \nbe, seeking the truth, the principle, by obedience to which it can alone be solved. \nAs other individuals follow the same rule of conduct, he will learn of their ex\u00ac \nistence and will join his forces to theirs. Thus a real nucleus of collective aspira\u00ac \ntion may be formed, a group amalgamated not by mass hypnosis but by devotion \nto a common ideal. We believe that in this way and no other, civilizations are \nbom. It is the opposite of the way of regimentation and social planning. \n\nThe Evocation of God-Instructed Men \n\nIt has been said that a group of determined and loyal souls can generate the \npower to evoke a \u201cGod-instructed man\u201d, a representative of truth and wisdom, \nto guide and govern them. Such would seem to be the normal operation of \nthe Supreme Principle in which the One and the Many are made concordant. \nThe \u201cimprisoned force and intelligence inherent in every atom\u201d cannot act \nwithout some response from the \u201cone nameless Force . . . which we call the \ndivine Free Will\u201d. Too often the only response of which our acts are worthy \nis some catastrophe which shocks or pulverizes our personal natures. We shall \nbe wise to believe that the unpleasant occurrences which the Apocalypse de\u00ac \npicts are not all necessarily symbolical; that they may quite literally denote \nsome of the methods by which the Guardians of the Good Law correct and \ninstruct and regenerate the wayward souls of men. But we shall be wise to \nbelieve also that genuine aspiration and service of truth meet a thousand-fold \nresponse from those same Guardians. \n\nAccording to Theosophy the real man can have only one enduring purpose, to \n\nwhich all the accidents and incidents of his physical existence are subordinate,_ \n\nto arrive at the point in evolution where he becomes \u201cthe semblance of a second \nnature\u201d, where he constitutes himself a link between the One and the Many, \nbetween the impersonal and the personal self, between the Masters and the \n\u201clost generation\u201d of their children in the world. \n\n\nFRAGMENTS \n\n\nW E feel no scorn for the farmer-boy who, having laboured and saved, \nleaves his plough and goes to college, thence to the law school, and \nmakes for himself a career in a world far beyond that to which he \nwas bom. Why such contempt and condemnation for one who, also having \ntoiled and sacrificed, sets his soul where \u201cit has pastured with the stars upon \nthe meadow-lands of space\u201d? \n\nThe less gifted farmer-boy\u2019s brother, who derides his junior\u2019s ambition, is \nnot an object of our admiration, but of our pity. Yet those who decry the quest \nof the mystic, hold, surely, a no less invidious position. Lacking all real com\u00ac \nprehension of what is sought in each case, they stand equally condemned for \nignorance and narrow-mindedness. Reduced to its basic facts, the conscious\u00ac \nness of this type of intellectual worldling parallels that of the toiler of the fields. \nOne works with his hands and the other with his brains, but both are limited \nto the earth beneath their feet; and it is an inner sense of inferiority, and the \nenvy springing from that in a diminutive nature, which explains the attitude of \neach of them, and its bitterness. \n\nIt is time that these things were more widely understood. True, if the farmer- \nboy leave an old mother in loneliness and want, the right-minded will reverse \ntheir original sympathetic verdict; and, in the case of the mystic, with a swifter \njustice. But so jealously does spiritual life guard its sanctuary, that, whiW \nthe farmer-boy in such case may succeed, in spite of his selfishness, the mystw \nhas closed the door of possible attainment with his own hand, nor can he hope \nagain to open it, until, humbly and in deep repentance, he returns and pays \nthe debts he has dishonoured. For, at his initial step, he has violated the no\u00ac \nbility he seeks, and he is hurled back by the very Law he has invoked. \n\n0 my friends, my brothers, you who can only half believe, too dazzled, per\u00ac \nhaps, by the glory that calls you, not daring to trust yourselves to it, and fear\u00ac \ning its implications where the denizens of the Shadow cluster on its rim of \n\n\ni5 \n\n\n\n\ni6 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nLight,\u2014give yourselves, nevertheless, to the faith you can recognize even while \nyou do not possess it; confide in the vision you see, even if it only shine in the \neyes of another; plunge into that ocean of radiance, even though in the act it \nappear as annihilation, for there the Everlasting Arms will surround and sup\u00ac \nport you. Peter, too, walked on the waves of Galilee at the Master\u2019s bidding, \nuntil his faith failed him; when a Hand bore him up, and a tender reproof\u2014 \nO thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? \n\nYou also, my brothers as well, bound in your prejudices and self-imposed \nlimitations, with your pharisaical wisdoms and superiorities, thankful you are \nnot as these others (well you may be, we say, though for far other reasons); \nhalf-scientists, quarter-philosophers, tenth-metaphysicians, overgrown children, \nplaying with knowledge; yet with a pathetic sincerity that belies the empiricism \nyou cherish,\u2014you, also, my brothers, awake, for a judgment is coming, a judg\u00ac \nment on all you have built with such labour. Your \u201ctime\u201d has ended, another \nhas dawned. Do not sink with the ruin that must be when illusions are shat\u00ac \ntered and old errors crumble. The Powers that destroy will in mercy destroy,\u2014 \nnot the bolshevik madness that is Love\u2019s perversion while the sign of its presence; \nfor how is there shadow without light to reveal it? and you built the obstruction \nnow casting that shadow. \n\nSee at last the false from the true; step into the light, and work with the \nforce that will blast your creation. So perchance you may save the fruit of \nyour labour by its transformation. 0 my brothers, give ear: Mene, mene, \nTekel, Upharsin. Cav6 . \n\n\nSEPTENARY MAN IN ANCIENT \nEGYPT \n\n\n0 Thou Who hringest joy to them that labour , Who succourest them that are \ndiscouraged , Osiris of the Mystic Forms , fill our hearts , fill Thou our hearts .\u2014 \nPyramid Texts. \n\nI have come to give light in darkness , which is made light and bright by Me .\u2014 \nBook of the Dead. \n\nF AITH in the existence of \u201canother world\u201d, an invisible world lying all \nabout us, is one of the most ancient of beliefs, and closely connected with \nit is the deep-rooted conviction that man\u2019s perishable physical body is \nmerely the outer husk, or the vehicle for the immortal Self within. \u201cThe visible \nis ever present in the invisible, and the invisible in the visible\u201d, is very ancient \nWisdom indeed; a celestial assurance which is our heirloom from an incalculable \npast; a belief which the Lodge has never allowed to disappear entirely from the \nhearts of men. Always there have been the \u201cfew\u201d\u2014servants of the Lodge\u2014who \nhave sounded again and yet again these notes of the primitive harmony; Great \nSouls who have kept its reverberations still ringing in the world. As The Secret \nDoctrine tells us, it is one of the essential truths of occult philosophy: \u201cIt \nindicates the existence of things imperceptible to our physical senses which are \nof far greater importance, more real and more permanent, than those that \nappeal to these senses themselves.\u201d In every one of the earliest religions that \nwe know, in that of ancient Egypt perhaps more than in any other, we meet \nwith these twin beliefs in more or less definite form, and side by side with them is \na third: that to live at all, in any true sense, man must perpetually \u201cascend\u201d, \nthat life must be an unremitting \u201cclimb\u201d. This idea of spiritual existence by \nupward progress of the soul, is presented to us in endless allegory under which we \nsoon begin to recognize ancient and familiar alchemical formulae for soul trans\u00ac \nformation, these generally being found in fragments of the ritual. All are \nobviously of immemorial usage, Egyptian \u201cmagic\u201d, as we understand it to-da* \nbeing largely built upon them. The Secret Doctrine gives us a hint of their vast \nantiquity by saying that \u201cAlchemy had its birthplace in Atlantis during the \nFourth Race, and had only its renaissance in Egypt.\u201d The true secrets of \nalchemical metamorphism belonged, of course, to the Mysteries, but the \nMysteries must be lived, they cannot be imparted to the mind or interpreted by \nthe intellect. Therefore the many Chapters in the Book of the Dead , dealing with \nthese supernatural changes, are mostly incomprehensible to us. The central, \nguiding thought is, in general, this: while the gods are ever brooding over him, \nman must himself struggle upward from his lower nature where he now dwells, \nupw\u00bb the \u201cworld of light\u201d, his true home where all is \u201cpure gold\u201d. It was \n\n\n* \n\n\n\n\n\ni8 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nindividual effort that was needed, and the transforming fire of alchemy was the \nfervour of his own aspiration\u2014a fire which must never be allowed to grow cold \nor to be extinguished. In the Pyramid Texts, whole sections are given to emphasis \nupon this religious duty, such, for example, as \u201cThe Chapter of those who raise \nthemselves up\u201d, where, describing the resolute soul, it is written: \u201cHe ascends, \nhe lifts himself to the sky.\u201d This sacred fire had also its outward expression, \nfor the broad rays of the sun, streaming earthward, were regarded as the fiery \npathway up which the soul must pass \u201cas a flame before the wind to the ends of \nthe sky\u201d\u2014the mortal must be transfigured into the immortal; it was ascending \nstates of consciousness which mattered. \u201cI raise myself up, I renew myself, and \nI grow young again\u201d, we read in the Book of the Dead. \u201cI am Fire, the Son of \nFire\u201d, cries in ecstasy the soul which has attained. \n\nIt has been said more than once, that the Egyptian was the first among the \nearly people definitely known to us, to whom the conception of becoming was a \nreality; that the very heart of his creed was belief in transformation, and in \nancient Egypt this symbolical pathway up which man must climb to the \u201cplace \nof the gods\u201d was called a \u201cladder\u201d which, rung by rung, must be scaled. More\u00ac \nover, these rungs are often spoken of as parts of himself , parts of his physical \nbody (eyes, nose, mouth and so on), and this idea can only be comprehensible to \nus if these members are taken to signify his many principles. Thus it was \nvictorious moral and spiritual ascent which was implied, until complete victory \n(the topmost rung or highest principle) had been reached. But not every soul \nmaking the attempt, was successful\u2014we read of those unfortunate ones who lost \ntheir footing and fell when only half way up, and we are irresistibly reminded \nof what we are told in Light on the Path , about \u201cthe perilous ladder which leads \nto the path of life\u201d. \n\nNo student of Theosophy will be surprised when discovering that, in ancient \nEgypt, man was looked upon as composite; in fact he was definitely accounted \nseptenary, and we cannot understand the Egyptian belief in immortality, or the \nrelation between man and the gods, until we learn the full nature of man himself \nas the Egyptians conceived it. As a matter of fact, this manifold and con\u00ac \nglomerate nature, hidden as it was by man\u2019s single, outer appearance, was \nvery much the same as that of which we read in The Secret Doctrine and other \ntheosophical literature\u2014only the names are different, and they sound strange \nto us now. Each name had, of course, its definite connotation and its own \ninterpretative hieroglyph or group of hieroglyphs, giving the special definition \nof the principle in question, descriptive of the idea back of the name. There are \nseveral complications when endeavouring to make a fixed list of the human and \ndivine principles, this being largely due to the fact that during the thousands of \nyears through which Egypt passed, there were many introductions of new names \nas of new ideas, which somewhat obscured the original conceptions\u2014though \nthese were never really changed. \u201cThe Egyptian priests had forgotten much , \nthey altered nothing \u2019, as Madame Blavatsky tells us. The following list may \ntherefore be suggested. \n\nFirst there was the khat or physical body, the recognized vehicle in this visible \n\n\n\nSEPTENARY MAN IN ANCIENT EGYPT \n\n\n19 \n\n\nworld for all the others, and represented by a group of hieroglyphs and the sign \nof a man walking vigorously. \n\nThen the kaybet or \u201cshadow\u201d, which played a very important part in all \nancient beliefs. Obviously the kaybet stood for the Linga Sarira, and the sign for \nit was descriptive: a curious device like a small tent\u2014something which cast a \nprotective shade; and the kaybet was so integral a part of man\u2019s life on earth \nthat it was felt to be necessary, in the ritual, to sound a warning note for the \nbenefit of the deceased, cautioning him to be careful that the \u201cEater of the \nShadow\u201d in the after-death state, did not put an end to the possibility of further \nexistence either on earth or in the \u201cFields of Yarn\u201d\u2014Paradise. \n\nSekhem was force\u2014evidently Kama. The hieroglyphic sign was a particular \nform of sceptre. Sekhem (Kama) was therefore looked upon as the ruling power \nin the life of the average man. The literal translation of the word is \u201cto have \nthe mastery over something\u201d. \n\nAnkh , the crux ansata (always the sign of Life) would represent Prana were \nit not that it is used so much more in the universal sense (Jiva) that it is doubtful \nif the Egyptian looked upon it as one of the component parts of septenary man. \nThe Universal Power, the One God, was behind all manifestation to the Egyptian. \n\nIn the case of Lower Manas there were two aspects\u2014the Ba and the A b \u2014 \nwhich it seems must be considered together as two parts of the one principle. \nThe Ba was essentially the more human part\u2014the human soul able only with \ndifficulty to separate itself from life on earth, for it is shown as a small, human\u00ac \nheaded bird with very appealing, tiny hands: the soul forced apart by death \nfrom the body, but evidently reluctant to leave it, for it is often seen in papyri \nand on stelae as a disconsolate and earth-bound little wanderer, clinging to the \nmummy and evidently trying to re-enter and reanimate the dead body, though \nsometimes also, the Ba\u2019s less materialistic bias is represented as a free and happy \nlittle creature, flitting about unhindered. The Ab (very familiar to us in the \nfamous Judgment Scene before Osiris) was known as the heart of the deceased, \nand it may be considered as the will and intentions\u2014the conscience , in fact. Or \nit might be said that the Ba was the personification of Lower Manas, while the \nAb (more abstract) was the harvest resulting from the soul\u2019s inner and outer \nactivities diming life. These two aspects undoubtedly represented the upward \nand the downward tendencies of Lower Manas, and it is with the introduction \nof the Osirian Judgment (which appears at this point) that the first suggestion \nof duality shows itself. \n\nIt would be impossible to enter into all the intricacies of the great Judgment \nScene; volumes have been written about it, and it may be studied by anyone \nwishing to do so\u2014its symbolism, its significance, the religious ideas which it \nportrays and all the rest. The Papyrus of Ani is one of the most celebrated in \nthis respect, and probably furnishes us with the best example that we have. \nSuffice it to say that the human soul (the Ba and the Ab) of the man who has \njust died and who is seeking \u201cjustification\u201d for his deeds on earth, is conducted \nby Anubis, \u201cOpener of the Way\u201d, before the Tribunal in the Hall of the \u201cTwo \nTruttt^ or of \u201cDouble Justice\u201d, the Hall where, after an indispensable ceremony, \n\n\n\n20 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthe verdict either of redemption or of condemnation is pronounced. In the Hall \nsits Osiris on his Throne, and behind him stand both Isis and Nephthis\u2014again \nduality. Also two lesser goddesses. In front of Osiris is a great balance\u2014 \nscales composed of a long beam with two hanging pans in one of which the \nheart (Ab) of the deceased is placed; in the other, the feather of Truth (Maat). \nAnubis, holding the hand of the soul which is being brought to trial, stands at \nthe side of the scales where the heart is placed; at the other side stands Thoth \n(Hermes), the Scribe of the gods, ready to enter the result of the trial on his \ncelestial tablets. Nearby crouches a strange and fearsome animal known as the \n\u201cDevourer\u201d or the \u201cEater of the Dead\u201d. This monster, with the head of a \ncrocodile, hind quarters of a hippopotamus and fore quarters of a lion with long, \nsharp claws on its feet, turns its snout toward Osiris as though asking leave to \ndevour \u201chim who comes from the earth\u201d\u2014the Lower Manas, that part of man \nwhich is as yet \u201cunjustified\u201d. It would seem likely that this horrible creature is \nintended to represent the Kama Rupa, eager to get complete and final possession \nof the human soul. In the trial itself, the so-called \u201cNegative Confession\u201d \nplays a prominent part, the deceased declaring himself guiltless of this, that or \nthe other sin. He appears in large measure to conduct his own defence, which \nmight seem to be an easy way out of his difficulties, but the heart (conscience) \nmust speak the truth when standing before Thoth who is Wisdom itself, and in \nthe sacred presence of Osiris. There is no chance of escape from the responsibil\u00ac \nity for whatever sins have been committed. Then Anubis steps forward and tips \nthe scales to see what they will do. If they balance, the deceased is \u201cjustified\u201d; \nOsiris finds him Maa-kheru , \u201ctrue of voice\u201d; Thoth pronounces the magic words: \n\u201cHis heart is Maat\u201d, and the soul receives his heart back again: he is \u201cglorified\u201d \n\u2014fitted to pass on and again start the struggle upward from that point; while, \non the other hand, the \u201cunjustified\u201d dead are handed over to the \u201cDevourer\u201d, \nwhich means complete annihilation\u2014the final separation of the principles. \n\nSo we come to the dividing line (if we may so speak of it) in septenary man. \nHaving passed successfully through the Hall of Judgment, Lower Manas, \nregenerated and purified, passes upward to blend with the immortal part of man\u2019s \nnature; it is at this point that true consciousness begins. The Ka evidently \nbelongs to the plane of Higher Manas, though there is a deep mystery connected \nwith it which has never been solved by Egyptologists, and which has caused much \nspeculation and confusion among them. The Ka has often been spoken of merely \nas the \u201cdouble\u201d or \u201cshadow\u201d, suggesting the Linga S4rira. It is true that in \nmuch of the funerary sculpture (tomb and temple bas reliefs) the soul of the \nPharaoh whose birth is being recorded, is shown with a strangely exact counter\u00ac \npart which has come into the world with him; a duplicate shape; an apparent \nreplica of the human body, so that the idea of the Linga S&rira\u2014the astral \nmould of man\u2014is not without good reason. But at least in the early days, \nwhen all religious beliefs were so sharply cut, it was the Pharaoh alone who was \nrepresented with this \u201cdouble\u201d, besides which, the ritual, whence we generally \ngather more information than we do from the sculpture, gives to the Ka a \nsignificance, a power, which the theosophical conception of the Linga S&rira \n\n\nSEPTENARY MAN IN ANCIENT EGYPT \n\n\nwould by no means warrant. The Ka was of supernatural origin\u2014that is made \nclear in all that is said of it. Moulded from the \u201cdeified substance\u201d of the plane \nto which it belonged, it had a life of its own, and it was only by attaining to the \nsublime level of the Ka that man, consisting of the lower principles, could hope \nto reach to divine life. The Ka was an individual entity, a kind of enduring \npersonality, and if a man lost his Ka (got separated from his Ka) he was counted \nas dead. Speaking with more truth than he realized, Sayce writes: \u201cUntil \nthe person was bom, his Ka had no existence; while, on the other hand, it was \nthe Ka to which his existence was owed.\u201d Give to this a spiritual interpretation, \nand we have much light thrown on the meaning of the Ka. Once the Ka had \ncome into being, it was immortal; when the body died, the Ka continued to live \nan independent existence, conscious and alive. The hieroglyphic sign for the \nKa was very significant: two upraised arms\u2014upraised in adoration and worship. \n\nWhile the Ka was composed of \u201cdeified substance\u201d, the Akh was certainly \ndivine Intelligence\u2014Buddhi; and perhaps even more than the Ka, was considered \nto be a link between heaven and earth. It was represented by a tall crested \nibis, symbol of Thoth or divine Wisdom, and the word Akh itself meant \u201cshin\u00ac \ning\u201d, \u201cluminous\u201d, \u201cglorious\u201d. It was the most distinctly spiritual of all the \nprinciples of man save one, for the Akh, in its \u201crobe of fire\u201d, could mount to \nheaven and become united with the gods. It was often to be seen on early \nstelae carried within the aspiring arms of the Ka, as though together, blended, \nthese two principles could reach the final goal. \n\nThere remains something which was known as \u201cthe Abode of the gods\u201d, an \nall-inclusive principle which is given no specialized name. We are told little \nthat is definite about it, but it seems to have gathered together all the separate \nprinciples, to have encompassed them, to have permeated them. It was, of \ncourse, a state, not a place. It was Life. The object of man\u2019s whole existence \nhad been to reach and dwell in this seventh principle\u2014the place where dwelt \nthe gods; it was to this spiritual condition, this high state of consciousness that \nhe aspired; it was toward it that he had climbed the rough and perilous ladder \nof Life; it was to it, his goal, that he had \u201cascended\u201d. \n\nSuch seem to have been the divisions of septenary man, perhaps only dimly \napparent to the average student of Theosophy, certainly almost wholly dar^ \nand bewildering to most Egyptologists. It will hardly be supposed, howey \nthat the soul can have reached such a lofty state as this, without having pas \nthrough many ascending grades of initiations. Needless to say that nowhere in \nthe ancient ritual now available to us. do we find any long and detailed accounts \nof the greater initiation ceremonies\u2014they would never be given to the world in \nany such unveiled form. For one thing, they could be described only by those \nwho had passed through them, and this, of course, would never be done. No \none else would even dimly understand them. We have but the faintest glimpses \nof them now, and even then, only in case we are on the alert to seize every hint \nconcerning them; we have echoes from time to time, but only if we are intently \nfilling. The ancient ritual brings them to our notice by almost undecipherable \nalfl|ory, not otherwise. The soul must have become that which it seeks, before \n\n\n22 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nit can comprehend or even recognize the pearl of great price when at last it is \nfound. \n\nThere is nothing, however, to prevent us of to-day from using such imagination \nas we possess in endeavouring to decipher as much as we can of these most \nancient and obscure records of a past which reaches back almost beyond imagina\u00ac \ntion. We must realize, in the first place, that a description like the Osirian \nJudgment Scene spoken of above, should be looked upon from two different \npoints of view: that it describes an after-death experience common to all \nordinary men\u2014a lesser initiation that comes to every man who faces his own \nsoul at death; but that it also quite obviously points, though very guardedly, to \nfar higher ceremonies for those who can no longer be classed among the merely \naverage. All through the ritual of the Book of the Dead we come upon statements \nwhich arrest our attention but which are, alas, too often beyond our grasp save \nin a superficial way. Perhaps this is peculiarly so in the celebrated CXXVth \nChapter which is found complete in the Papyrus of Ani; or in such others as \n\u201cThe Raising of the Akh\u201d, or \u201cCausing a Flame to Arise\u201d, and so on indefinitely. \nOne can hardly open the Book of the Dead without coming upon some striking \nphrase (among the, to us, many meaningless phrases) which seems to spring \nfrom the page as something at least semi-comprehensible. To choose at random \namong many: \u201cMy soul shall not be fettered to my body at the gate of death. I \nshall enter in peace and I shall come forth in peace.\u201d Yet most Egyptologists \ndeclare that there is no evidence that the Egyptians believed in Reincarnation! \nOr, evidently affirmed by a soul who has reached the point where he no longer \nlives in time, but consciously lives in Eternity: \u201clam yesterday and to-morrow, \nand I have gained the power to be born a second time.\u201d But it is not only in the \nBook of the Dead that we are conscious of the buried occult treasure, for there are \nother, perhaps less well known works, and we have to try to do our own inter\u00ac \npreting, to the best of our poor abilities. In the Book of the Two Ways and the \nBook of the Gates (the titles so reminiscent of the Voice of the Silence as to make \nus eager to search for points of comparison) we are told of the fiery portals through \nwhich the candidate for initiation must pass; of the sea of fire which must be \ncrossed, and of huge caverns (reminding us of the long subterranean passages \nwhere, according to tradition, initiations were held)\u2014passages or caverns where \nlurked the terrible Apophis, \u201csymbol of human passions\u201d as The Secret Doctrine \ntells us. These ordeals are of such a varied nature, and they are so manifold, \nthat we wonder how the candidate ever emerged alive. But we must read this \nritual for ourselves and make our own discoveries and deductions, piecing \ntogether the fragments (a sentence here and a paragraph there), until the whole \nbecomes a little more intelligible to us. \n\nFor the clearest descriptive references that we can find concerning ancient \nEgyptian initiations, their solemnity and severity, we must, as usual, turn to \nThe Secret Doctrine or to Isis Unveiled. Here Madame Blavatsky tells us (also \nin fragments) of the initiations which took place within the Great Pyramid, \nwhich, we are assured, was built for that very purpose. If we look up every \nreference both to initiations and to Initiates, we shall find, as a result, an immense \n\n\n\nSEPTENARY MAN IN ANCIENT EGYPT \n\n\n23 \n\n\namount of information, though, of course, so scattered as to require much \npatience when endeavouring to make any kind of sequence. The hints we \nhave of the ceremonies are, however, graphic in the extreme, even though brief. \nWe are awed as we read. Among others, there is a beautiful description of the \ncandidate who, up to this point having successfully passed through all trials, is \nlaid (while plunged in a deep trance) upon a couch constructed in the form of the \nEgyptian Tau (a form of the Cross), this in its turn being placed in the \u201cbaptismal \nfont\u201d\u2014the Sarcophagus in the \u201cKing\u2019s Chamber\u201d\u2014and left there for two days. \nDuring the night of the approaching third day, the candidate is carried on this \ncruciform couch to the entrance of a gallery where, at a certain hour, the beams \nof the rising sun strike full upon his face\u2014the \u201cMystic Birth\u201d has taken place, \nand he himself rises \u201cdeified\u201d in a new and imperishable resurrection body. \nThere are not a few Egyptian bas reliefs which eloquently picture this dramatic \nmoment. A particularly fine example of Amenhotep III (XVIIIth Dynasty) \ncomes to mind. Horns and Thoth, the two Hierophants, stand beside him pour\u00ac \ning the Water of Life\u2014the Water of Purification\u2014over him, so that the two \nstreams, forming a cross above his head, fall upon his shoulders and into the \npalms of his hands, while they cry: \u201cAwake! Thy sufferings are allayed. \nStand up! Thou art triumphant. . . . The Great God speaks to thee.\u201d \n\nAfter which it is said in comment: \u201cHe drinks the running Water of the Stream \nof Life; he shines like a star in the sky.\u201d And referring to the indissoluble union \nbetween the soul and its Master, are added the words: \u201cThou shalt traverse \nEternity with joy, and with the praise of thy God who is in thee.\u201d \n\nHetep-en-Neter. \n\n\nHe who hath vanquished in thy name, 0 Lord , hath vanquished indeed. Yea, \nthere is a light about him; yea, there is a strength about him; for he lives not by \nhis own life, but by the uncreate life from Above . And as a bright star emeram \nin the evening sky, even so he shall shine forth from the Sacred Land upon We \nshadows of the unregenerate .\u2014 Book of the Ancient Days. \n\n\n\n\n\nAN IMPERIAL HEREDITY \n\n\nBAR, Emperor of India from 1556 to 1605, and one of the great rulers \n\n\n\nof the world, had an heredity worthy of his achievements. It included \n\n\nboth of the two great Asiatic conquerors. He was seventh in the direct \nmale line from Timurlane, and, through his great-grandmother, was descended \nfrom Genghis Khan as well. Where the hierarchical principle has not been \nbroken down and castes confused by democracy, it often happens that many \nof the qualities which a man has won by his own efforts in former lives, are \ntransmitted to him by Karma, as of right his, through the physical heredity \nof his new birth. Strictly speaking, it is not powers but tendencies that are \ntransmitted by heredity, tendencies which make the acquisition of particular \npowers easy or difficult. It is the task of each man, of each soul, to train his \nnew instrument himself in each new incarnation. But there are times when \nKarma can choose, for one who has earned it, a birth in which the hereditary \ntendencies, the family tradition of honour, and the noble example of immediate \nancestors, are all in harmony with the task of his soul. As the Bhagavad Gita \nsays: \u201cSuch a birth in this world is hard to attain\u201d. It would seem that \nAkbar attained it. He had the warrior qualities of his great ancestors. He had \nalso the chivalry, the generosity to a beaten foe, the love of beauty, of justice, \nand the personal fearlessness that were so marked in his grandfather Babur, \nand to a less extent, in his father Humayun. \n\nAll true religions are warrior religions, and he who seeks to know the truth \nand, consciously or unconsciously, to do the will of the Lodge in the world, has \nneed of the warrior spirit. Akbar gave his life to the search for truth and to the \neffort to achieve a noble ideal. As a boy, he pictured an India no longer torn \nby internal dissensions, petty kingdom warring against petty kingdom, race \nfighting race, the adherents of the religion dominant for the moment persecut\u00ac \ning those who did not believe as they did; but, in place of all this, an India at \npeace, united under one Emperor as Overlord, yet with each race free to develop \nits own genius under its own rulers, each man free to worship as his conscience \ndictated, according the same tolerance to others that he asked for himself. \nThis fundamental theosophical ideal, Akbar achieved in large measure. Pos\u00ac \nsessed at the beginning of his reign of only a comer of the Punjab, at his death \nhe ruled India from sea to sea, from Kabul on the north to the Deccan on the \nsouth. Where he ruled, there was justice, peace and tolerance. In Europe at \nthis same time, there were the religious wars, the Spanish Inquisition, and \nthe massacre of St. Bartholomew\u2019s Day. \n\nAkbar was great not only as a conqueror and administrator, but also as a \npatron of science, art and literature. It is to him that India owes the transla\u00ac \ntion into the popular tongue of many Sanskrit works including the Atharva \nVeda, the Ramdyana, the Mahabharata with the Bhagavad Gita, and many \n\n\n24 \n\n\n\nAN IMPERIAL HEREDITY \n\n\n25 \n\n\nothers. Akbar showed his sense of humour by setting one of the most narrow\u00ac \nminded and bigoted Mahometans at his court, to translating the Bhagavad \nGita. \n\nBut to students of Theosophy, Akbar is especially interesting because the \npassion of his life was not power or conquest, or even the accomplishment of \nhis dream for India; his passion was the search for religious truth. He sought \nit all his life and in many ways. One of his methods suggested a Theosophical \nSociety Branch meeting. It cannot be without significance that Madame \nBlavatsky included Akbar in the Theosophical Glossary, where one will look \nin vain for most of the great rulers of the world. She does not mention Rameses, \nAlexander, Caesar or Napoleon. Of Akbar, she writes: \n\n\u201cAkbar. The great Mogul Emperor of India, the famous patron of religions, \narts and sciences, the most liberal of all the Mussulman sovereigns. There \nhas never been a more tolerant or enlightened ruler than the Emperor Akbar, \neither in India or in any other Mahometan country.\u201d \n\nWhen a man, at the instance of a vision, accomplishes great good in the \nworld, we may be sure that behind him was the hand of the Lodge. When to \nthat vision are added mystical experiences and a passionate longing for the \ntruth, a longing as of a man seeking a treasure he has once had and lost, or of \nan exile yearning for his home, we may wonder if it is not the memory of a \nreal connection with the Lodge that has been trying to break through to his \nconsciousness. \u201cBy their fruits.\u201d Akbar accomplished great good. Perhaps \nhe was a ch\u00a3la who, before he incarnated, deliberately gave up the conscious\u00ac \nness of his Lodge connection that he might do his work in the world. Perhaps \nthat consciousness was in some measure regained before his death. Perhaps, \non the other hand, the conscious agent of the Lodge was not Akbar, but one \nwho stood back of him, possibly unknown to history, yet guiding and inspiring \nhim. \n\nAkbar\u2019s heredity is interesting, not only for the light it throws on his quali\u00ac \nties, but even more for the many splendid instances of courage, perseverance \nand self-sacrifice to be found in the annals of his ancestors.* His grandfather, \nBabur, \u201cthe lion\u201d, is one of the most fascinating, recklessly courageous and \njoyously romantic warrior princes in history. Babur began his career of con\u00ac \nquest when eleven years old, the accidental death of his father in a landslide \nleaving him sovereign of the tiny kingdom of Ferghana, famed for the lovel^ \nbeauty of its valleys and the speed and strength of its horses. Immediately on \nhearing of the death of his father, Babur sprang to the saddle to take over the \ndefence of his kingdom from three invading armies. The sword he drew then \nwas seldom out of his hand throughout the rest of his life. He had been brought \nup on stories of his great ancestor, Timurlane, and, as a boy, dreamed of re\u00ac \ncapturing his capital, Samarcand, then one of the great cities of Asia, and \nestablishing himself there on Timurlane\u2019s throne. There was no law of primo\u00ac \ngeniture among the Mahometans, and most of the descendants of Timurlane \nseem to have felt that they were by right entitled to any part of his vast empire \nthd^fiey could take and hold. Before Babur was fifteen, he assembled an army \n\n\n26 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nand took Samarcand, but could only hold it for a hundred days and then lost \nit, at which, boy as he was, he confesses he \u201ccould not help crying a good deal\u201d. \nThat mood did not last long. Two days after his defeat, he was challenging \none of his officers to a horse race. \n\nSubsequently, mainly as a result of an acute illness at a critical moment, \nBabur lost his own kingdom of Ferghana, and was for some years a fugitive, \nhiding among the loyal shepherds of his wild native hills. He did not cry then. \nThey were an indomitable race, the house of Timur, ever wringing victory from \nwhat seemed hopeless defeat. Learning that the Uzbek ruler of Samarcand \nhad left it on an expedition, Babur resolved on a bold stroke. With only two \nhundred and forty men, he made a dash for the city, scaled the walls in a sur\u00ac \nprise attack at night, overpowered the garrison, and by boldness and rapidity \ngave the citizens the impression that he was at the head of a large army. They \ndeclared for him, and he maintained himself there against all attacks for nearly \na year. Then once more he had to fly, and became a homeless fugitive, often \nin such dire poverty that even his servants had to leave him, not from disloyalty \nbut from absolute hunger. After several years of adventurous wandering, he \nsaw his chance, assembled a force, swooped down on Kabul, took it, and es\u00ac \ntablished himself as King. This was in 1504, when Babur, in spite of adventures \nenough to fill a long life, was not yet twenty-three years old. \n\nWe cannot follow him through the vicissitudes of the next twenty-two years. \nThey were many. He escaped alone from a mutinous army bent on his death; \nhe was left in the face of a powerful insurrection with but five hundred loyal \ntroops, and only saved his kingdom by his speed of action, brilliant generalship \nand personal intrepidity. He retook Samarcand, only to lose it for the third \ntime. Then he turned to India, took Delhi and established himself as Emperor \nthere\u2014not without homesick longing for the cool hills and lovely vales of his \nnative Ferghana. Warrior as he was, he loved beauty passionately. \u201cThis \nhardy soldier, this marvellous fighter, who swims every river he comes across \nastonishes us by his singular sensibility. A man could win his heart by his love \nof poetry as surely as by his swordsmanship. Was he flying from his enemies \nin bitter weather with a handful of followers? He would compose a few coup\u00ac \nlets as he rode, and his spirit revived as by magic. But it was his intense delight \nin the beauty of the world which made so large a part of his unquenchable \nzest in life. Was ever such a lover of flowers? His first thought in a newly \nacquired territory was to make a garden, himself superintending the dispo\u00ac \nsition of the beds and the leading of fresh runnels of water among them.\u201d 1 \nHis favorite poetry was that of the Sufi mystics. \n\nAs a soldier, Babur was absolutely fearless, almost to the point of reckless\u00ac \nness, swift and resolute in decision and action, a strict disciplinarian, loyal to \nhis friends, generous and chivalrous to a beaten foe. It was in gratitude for \nthe courtesy and consideration with which she and her family had been treated, \nthat the widow of a fallen Rajput chieftain presented Babur\u2019s son, Humayun, \nwith the famous Koh-i-Nur diamond. His chivalry was not always so requited. \n\n\n\u2022 Akbar, Binyon, page 27. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAN IMPERIAL HEREDITY \n\n\n27 \n\n\nAfter the conquest of Agra, Babur acted toward the widowed queen of his beaten \nfoe with the utmost respect, and, with princely generosity, assigned her a special \npalace and revenues of $350,000 a year. In return, through bribing his cook, \nshe very nearly succeeded in an effort to poison him. \n\nTogether with the splendid qualities that Babur transmitted to his descend\u00ac \nants, there was one that was to cost India dear, and that almost cost Babur \nhis empire,\u2014a tendency to drink to excess. Babur was always master of him\u00ac \nself in a crisis, but that was not true of some of his descendants. His son \nHumayun was reported to have been at times addicted to opium, which may \nhave accounted in part for the loss of his kingdom. Akbar fought and con\u00ac \nquered the family failing in himself, but it reappeared again in his sons and \ngrandsons, with tragic consequences. Babur himself yielded to it a few days \nbefore the critical battle that was to decide whether Rajput or Moghul was \nto be master of India. Weary of waiting for the Rajput army to attack, he \nspent several days drinking in his tent. An Afghan astrologer took the oppor\u00ac \ntunity to go up and down throughout the army, assuring the superstitious soldiers \nthat the omens were most unpropitious, and that defeat was sure. A large \nnumber of desertions followed and the morale of the entire army was shaken. \nBabur aroused himself. He says in his Memoirs that he had always resolved \n\u201cone time or another, to make an effectual repentance\u201d. He had a deep faith, \nand he determined to deserve help from Heaven by renouncing his besetting \nsin. As he himself records it: \n\nI said to myself, \u201cO, my soul \n\n(Persian verse) \n\nHow long wilt thou continue to take pleasure in sin? \n\nRepentance is not unpalatable\u2014taste it. \n\n(Turki verse) \n\nHow great has been thy defilement from sin! \n\nHow much pleasure thou didst take in despair! \n\nHow long hast thou been the slave of thy passions! \n\nHow much of thy life hast thou thrown away! \n\nSince thou hast set out on a holy war, \n\nThou hast seen death before thine eyes for thy salvation. \n\nHe who resolves to sacrifice his life to save himself \n\nShall attain that exalted state which thou knowest. \n\nKeep thyself far away from all forbidden enjoyments; \n\nCleanse thyself from all thy sins.\u201d \n\nHaving withdrawn myself from such temptation, I vowed never more to drink wine. \nHaving sent for the gold and silver goblets and cups, with all the other utensils used f^ \ndrinking parties, I directed them to he broken, and renounced the use of wine, purify!^ \nmy mind. The fragments of the goblets and other utensils of gold and silver I directed \nto be divided among the dervishes and the poor . 2 \n\nIn connection with what Babur says of purifying his mind, it is worth noting \n''that, soldier of fortune and occasional hard drinker though he was, he never \npermitted the slightest approach to grossness in the conversation of those \nabout him. \n\n\n* Memoirs of Babur, p. 354. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n28 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nThereafter, observing the universal discouragement and want of spirit in \nhis troops, Babur called an assembly of all his Amirs and officers and addressed \nthem: \n\nNoblemen and soldiers! Every man that comes into the world is subject to dissolu\u00ac \ntion. When we are passed away and gone, God alone survives unchangeable. \n\nWhoever comes to the feast of Life, must, before it is over, drink from the cup of Death. \nHe who arrives at the inn of Mortality must one day inevitably take his departure from \nthat house of sorrow\u2014the world. How much better it is to die with honour than to live \nwith infamy! \n\nWith fame, even if I die, I am contented. Let fame be mine since my body is Death\u2019s. \nThe Most High God has been propitious to us and has now placed us in such a crisis that \nif we fall in the field, we die the death of martyrs; if we survive we rise victorious, the \navengers of the cause of God. Let us, then, with one accord, swear on God\u2019s holy word, \nthat none of us will even think of turning his face from this warfare, nor desert from the \nbattle and slaughter that ensues, till his soul is separated from his body. \n\nThe spirit aroused in the army by this speech contributed much towards the \nvictory that followed. \n\nThe two armies met at Kanua a few days later, March 16th, 1527, in a battle \nthat ended all hope of Rajput supremacy in India. The reckless courage and \ndash of the Rajput cavalry could not make up for their lack of fire-arms. Ba\u00ac \nbur\u2019s artillery decimated their ranks and so reduced their numbers that at the \nclose of the day they could not stand against the charge of Moghul horsemen \nled by Babur himself. 3 The rout that followed broke the power of the Rajput \nconfederacy and left Babur without a serious rival. One is tempted to wonder \nwhat India would be to-day had the victory turned the other way, and Rajput \nrule been established under the supremacy of the Sesodia Princes of Mewar. \nThe Sesodia are the oldest ruling family in the world, tracing their descent \nfrom Rama himself, and with a marvellous record of heroism and chivalry \nbehind them. They still rule their ancient state, amazing visiting Englishmen \nby their charm and \u201cdivine manners\u201d. \n\nBabur had a deep faith in God and a firm conviction of the efficacy of prayer \nwhen accompanied by self-sacrifice. Three years after the victory of Kanua, \nhis eldest and deeply loved son, Humayun, was suddenly taken desperately \nill, with high fever and other symptoms that forced the royal physicians to \nreport that there was no hope for his life. Babur\u2019s own health must have been \nmagnificent. Only a few weeks before, though not pressed for time, he had \nridden one hundred and sixty miles in two days, swimming the Ganges twice \non the way, just for the joy of living. On hearing the physicians\u2019 report, he \ninstantly resolved to offer his own life in place of his son\u2019s. The few among his \nfriends who knew of his purpose, urged him to offer the great Koh-i-Nur dia\u00ac \nmond instead, but he brushed them aside, saying: \u201cCan any stone be weighed \nagainst the life of my son? I will pay with my own.\u201d \n\nGoing to his son\u2019s bedside, he walked three times around the bed, prayed \nwith passionate intensity, and then, his face radiant with joy, cried to those \npresent: \u201cI have borne it away. I have borne it away\u201d. \n\n1 Todd (Annals of Rajasthan, p. 356) says the Rajput defeat was due to the treachery of one of the Rajput \nleaders. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAN IMPERIAL HEREDITY \n\n\n29 \n\n\nWhatever modem materialism may say, the historic fact is indisputable \nthat Humayun\u2019s illness took a marvellous turn for the better and that within \na few hours he was pronounced out of danger. As he regained his strength, \nBabur sickened and, a few months later, died. \n\nWhat a splendid addition that incident makes to the annals of heroism! \nThis fearless, chivalrous warrior, still in the prime of manhood, full of the zest \nof living, a passionate lover of beauty, whether in nature, art or poetry, a lover, \ntoo, of courage, of danger and adventure, with the sceptre of India in his hand, \nits wealth and power at his feet, with everything to live for, deliberately giving \nhis life for the son he loved, and giving it with gladness and enthusiasm. His \nown view of death, he had written in his diary some years before: \u201cTo die with \nfriends is a nuptial\u201d. \n\nThe episode that led to his quoting that proverb is so characteristic that it \nis worth repeating. Babur and his escort, while crossing a high mountain \npass, had been caught in a violent blizzard accompanied by extreme cold. Some \nof the party discovered a small cave, capable of holding a few men, and took \nshelter there from the terrible wind, begging the Emperor to join them. He \nrefused, for he never willingly let his men endure hardships that he did not \nshare, a fact that had much to do with the splendid discipline in his armies. \nSubsequently he wrote in his diary: \n\nI did not go into the cave because this was in my mind: some of my men in snow \nand storm, I in the comfort of a warm house! the whole horde outside in misery, I \ninside sleeping at ease; that would be far from a man\u2019s act, quite another matter than \ncomradeship. What strong men stand, I will stand; for, as the Persian proverb says, \nto die with friends is a nuptial . 4 \n\nBabur died before he had had time to consolidate his power, leaving a task \nof great difficulty to his son. He further increased that difficulty by his dying \ninjunction to Humayun to take no drastic Action against his brothers, \u201ceven \nthough they deserve it\u201d. Humayun, generous and loyal, carried out his prom\u00ac \nise, to his great cost, as long as it was humanly possible. He had many of Ba\u00ac \nbur\u2019s fine qualities, but lacked his energy and swift decision. We have already \nnoted the report that he was at times addicted to the use of opium. It must \nhave been only at times, for there were long periods in his life when he showed \nthe fortitude in adversity, the heroic courage, the refusal to accept defeats \nfinal, that was so characteristic of his father. He had, too, his father\u2019s chi^fv. \nAn instance of this, indicating his ability to understand and enter into the \nRajput chivalric customs\u2014an ability which Akbar shared and which proved of \nimmense value to him\u2014is worth narrating. \n\nBabur\u2019s chief antagonist at the battle of Kanua had been the Sesodia Prince, \nSingram Sing, Ruler of Mewar, so that Humayun had little cause to love the \nSesodias. The great losses of the Rajputs at Kanua had seriously weakened \nMewar. It was invaded by the King of Gujarat, who, possessed of artillery \nserved by Portuguese artillerymen, had already conquered the neighbouring \nstate of M alwa, and hoped to add Mewar to his kingdom. Singram Sing had \n\n^^'aRfant of India, Waley. p. 237. \n\n\n\n30 \n\n\nTHE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ndied soon after the defeat of Kanua. His widow, Queen Kumavati, brave, \nclear-sighted and resourceful, like so many of the Rajput women, determined \nto appeal to the generosity of Humayun. He was the son of her husband's \ngreat foe, but brave men respect each other. 6 There is an old custom in Rajput \nchivalry under which any Rajputni, maiden, wife or widow, may, in time of \nperil, send her bracelet to her chosen cavalier, who, if he accept it, thereupon \nbecomes her \u201cbracelet-bound brother\u201d, bound to go to her assistance or forfeit \nhis honour. No breath of scandal ever touches this relationship. The cavalier \nneither expects nor receives any reward; he may not even see the object of his \nchivalrous devotion, in whose aid he risks or perhaps gives his life. Yet no \nhonour was more coveted by the Rajput noble than that of the bracelet. \n\nKumavati sent her bracelet to Humayun, who received it with every mani\u00ac \nfestation of pride in her trust, and returned word that henceforth he was \npledged to her service. Meanwhile the armies of Gujarat had closed around \nChitor, capital of Mewar. Humayun assembled an army and hastened to its \nrelief. Unfortunately, before he could reach it, the walls were breached by \nthe Gujarat artillery and the capture of the city the next day was seen to be \ninevitable. Kumavati led thirteen thousand Rajput women in slow procession \ninto a vast vault filled with gunpowder, and set it alight; the few remaining \nRajput warriors threw open the gates and charged into the foe, to die, sword \nin hand, to the last man. For the second time in its history, an invading army \nentering Chitor, found it a silent city of the dead. \n\nHumayun was too late to save Kumavati, his sister of the bracelet, but, \ntrue to his pledge, he drove out the invaders and re-established Kumavati\u2019s \nyoung son on the throne of his fathers, where his descendants rule to this day. \n\nIt would be interesting to know the real origin of the custom of the bracelet. \nThe chivalric codes may well have been founded by the Lodge itself, to train \nmen in selfless devotion to an ideal. When a man has once gained the power of \nsuch selfless devotion, it can then be turned and given to his Master, to whom \nit belongs. Devotion to a woman is one of the powerful forces that move men, \nand when purified of self and of all desire for any return, would be a step in \npreparation for chSlaship. There were somewhat similar customs in Provence \nwhen chivalry was at its height but, unfortunately, there they seem to have \ndegenerated rapidly. In Rajputana they remained pure. \n\nHumayun\u2019s position in India was greatly weakened by the disloyalty of \nhis brothers, so much so that, in 1540, ten years after his accession to the throne, \nhe was overwhelmingly defeated by the Pathan, Sher Shah, and, with only a \nfew faithful followers, had to flee northward to the desert, hotly pursued by \nhis enemies. For nearly a year he went from petty chieftain to petty chieftain, \nsheltered for a time and then forced to resume his flight by threatened treachery \nor by the approach of his enemies. His misfortune was not without its com\u00ac \npensation, for early in this period he met Hamida, the noble-minded and beauti- \nful daughte r of a Persian teacher of religion. She was only fourteen and her \n\n\n6 Rana Singram Sing, \nof one leg. and counted \nVol. 1. p. 358). \n\n\nKumavati\u2019s husband, had lost in battle at one time or another, one eye, one arm, the use \neighty sword or lance wounds in various parts of his body ( Annals of Rajasthan, Todd. \n\n\n\n\nAN IMPERIAL HEREDITY \n\n\n3i \n\n\nparents had regarded her as still too young to veil her face. It probably seemed \nan unimportant decision to them, but it affected the destiny of all India, for her \nunveiled beauty enraptured Humayun. He asked for her hand. Hamida\u2019s \nfather was at first strongly opposed to his lovely daughter\u2019s marrying a land\u00ac \nless fugitive, but it was a case of love at first sight on both sides, and in a few \ndays they were married. From that time, Hamida, who was to be Akbar\u2019s \nmother, accompanied Humayun in his exile. It was a very happy marriage, \nfor Hamida\u2019s nobility of character was as marked as her beauty. Two or \nthree months before the birth of Akbar, word was brought to Humayun, in the \nmiddle of the night, of the approach of a hostile body of cavalry intent on his \ncapture. Hurriedly mounting Hamida and the few faithful adherents left him, \non such horses or camels as could be found, they fled toward the desert. The \npursuit was so hot that Humayun\u2019s horse dropped dead from exhaustion. He \nmounted a camel until one of his followers, taking his own mother\u2019s horse, \ngave it to the king, and, placing his mother upon the camel, ran himself there\u00ac \nafter beside her on foot. \n\nHumayun, mounted once more, sent the women of the party on ahead, and \nturned back himself with all who were able to fight, so as to delay the pursuit. \nIn the darkness the two forces missed each other. In the morning, a group \nof twenty of Humayun\u2019s men fell in with a much larger body of the enemy. \nThey attacked with reckless courage and succeeded in killing the leader of the \npursuers. The rest fled. Humayun rejoined his party and continued across \nthe desert. The water holes they had counted on were dry, and for four days \nthey suffered terribly from thirst and intense heat. Some died and others went \nmad. During all this period, Hamida said not a word of her own anguish, \nbut showed the utmost solicitude fpr the suffering of the other members of the \nparty. They finally reached Amercote where the Rajah received them with \nall the courtesy due a sovereign. There, two or three months later, on Novem\u00ac \nber 23rd, 1542, Hamida gave birth to Akbar. He was first named \u201cThe full \nmoon of religion\u201d, Badru-d din, but this subsequently became Jalalu-d din \nMuhammad Akbar, the name by which he is known to history,\u2014Jalalu-d din \nmeaning, \u201cThe splendour of religion\u201d. \n\nIt was customary for a ruler, on the birth of an heir, to distribute rich gifts \nto his officers. Humayun had nothing to give, so he sent for a pod of musW \nbroke it and distributed a few seeds to each of his officers, saying: \u201cThis isWl \nthe present I can afford to make you on the birth of my son, whose fame will, \nI trust, be one day expanded over the world, as the perfume of this musk now \nfills this room.\u201d \n\nThe vicissitudes of Humayun\u2019s fortunes during the next twelve years sup\u00ac \nplied the growing Akbar with the same invaluable training through adversity, \nconstant peril and warfare, that fate had given to his father and his grandfather. \nHumayun was alternately king and fugitive. He took and lost, and retook \nand lost again, city after city. The child Akbar was twice captured by his \nenemies. The first time, when Akbar was scarcely a year old, Humayun was \nst^Jenly attacked by one of his brothers with a greatly superior force. With \n\n\n32 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nonly forty men, and so short of horses that he had to take Hamida behind \nhim on his own steed, Humayun just succeeded in escaping to the mountains. \nAkbar was captured and sent to Kandahar, where his aunt took excellent care \nof him, until, a year or so later, Humayun returned at the head of an army \nand recovered both the city and his son. He was captured again a few years \nafterwards when, during Humayun\u2019s absence, the city of Kabul was seized \nby Camran, another brother of Humayun, in a surprise attack. When \nHumayun returned and laid siege to the city, Akbar was deliberately exposed \non the ramparts in the line of Humayun\u2019s artillery fire. Needless to say, the \nartillery fire was stopped, but the city was taken without its aid, and Akbar \nwas restored to his father. \n\nIn spite of his reverses, Humayun, with his father Babur\u2019s indomitable re\u00ac \nfusal to accept defeat as final, found himself, after twelve years of fighting, in \na position to invade India in the hope of recovering the throne that had been \nhis father\u2019s and his own. Akbar, though only twelve, was of the age at which \nhis grandfather had successfully defended his kingdom of Ferghana, and was \nnow an experienced warrior. The Pathans outnumbered the Moghuls by \nmore than four to one, but Humayun was fortunate in having a very able \ngeneral, Bairam Khan, whose skilful generalship, and the impetuous courage \nof the boy Akbar, who, with Bairam, led the final charge of Moghul cavalry, \ngained a decisive victory; whereupon Humayun re-entered Delhi in triumph \nas Emperor. \n\nHe did not live to enjoy his triumph long. About six months after his victory, \nin January, 1556, he started to descend the outside stairway from his tower \nlibrary, where he had been reading, for he was a cultured scholar as well as a \nsoldier. The call to prayer sounded and Humayun paused to pray. On rising, \nhe slipped on the marble steps and fell some twenty feet to the ground. He \ndied in a few days from his injuries, and Akbar, at only thirteen, came into his \ninheritance. \n\nJ. F. B. Mitchell. \n\n\nThe law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power; but they who \ndo not the thing have not the power .\u2014 Emerson. \n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND ITS CRITICS \n\n\nI T was a young friend, fresh from graduate studies in a big university, who \nbegan it. \u201cYou Theosophists are as dogmatic as the Roman Catholics; \nyou swallow uncritically everything ever written by Blavatsky or Judge \nor the Quarterly contributors, as if they were the only people in the world \nwho ever knew anything.\u201d \n\nThe attack was so sudden and unexpected that his hearer gasped. Thrown \noff his guard and unable for a moment to rally his scattered wits, he began a \nfeeble defence: . . . must not confuse individual opinions with official pro\u00ac \nnouncements . . . imperfect exponents of Theosophy like himself ... re\u00ac \ngrets for occasions when, in the heat of argument, he had departed from his \nideal and had tried to force a point of view. . . . \n\nBut his foe was scornful of such subterfuges and advanced to the charge \nwith a final withering remark: \u201cIt isn\u2019t you I\u2019m talking about; it is the atti\u00ac \ntude of all the members of the Society. I despise that Quarterly.\u201d \n\nWell, well, this was getting interesting with a vengeance, and the victim, \nupon whose head the storm had descended, began to pluck up courage and \ncrawl out from the debris. He had had the awful feeling that ignorance and \nan undisciplined tongue might have misinterpreted and betrayed his Cause, \nbut now he found himself regarded as a worthy exemplar of an unworthy \nMovement, saturated with its faults of dogmatism, tarred with the same brush, \nfit only to be excluded from the society of the learned and cultured and \ncritical. \n\nSo the young man took himself off, evidently distressed that one whose \nearlier years had given some small promise of individual accomplishment, \nshould have surrendered his birthright of free opinion to H.P.B., and weakly \naccepted the dogmas of Theosophy. \n\nThe incident has its grimly amusing side, but behind its superficial humour \nthere stands a challenge, not to our self-justification, but to our understanding. \nWhat lay back of this man\u2019s explosion? He was no fool; on the contrary he \nwas outstanding in his keen intellect and his sincere, though often extreme, \nexpressions of opinions. Neither was he ignorant of theosophic teaching; he^ \nhad, in fact, at one time spoken of joining the Society. Fearless, intuitive, \npossessing a keen though mordant humour, a man of literary talent\u2014what \nhad he found in the Quarterly and in other theosophical writings to incense \nand antagonize him, and to lead to the criticism which he voiced? \n\nIf this were an isolated instance we might pass it off lightly as the explosion \nof a muddled mind impatient with the seeming paradoxes and subtilties of \nmetaphysical Theosophy, but, far from being exceptional, it voices the opinion \nof the greater part of the scholarly world toward Theosophy and The Theo- \nsoplucal Society. But the instance is not completely typical, and therein lies \n\n\n33 \n\n\n\n34 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nits significance and value to us. In fact it rises from a much higher level than \nthe ordinary stupid, ignorant hostility with which we are so wearyingly famil\u00ac \niar, and is a reaction with which every perfectionist system, whether Roman \nCatholic monasticism or ethical Theosophy, must often deal. \n\nFor the moment, however, we shall overlook the emotional aspect of the \ncriticism levelled at us by our friend, though we are well aware that when \npassion comes in at the door, reason flies out of the window. We shall assume \nthat it is the outcome of an unprejudiced analysis and a dispassionate study, \nand shall examine the imputation that Theosophy is a dogmatic teaching. It \nis an old charge and one which has, again and again, been dealt with in these \npages, but whose disproof seems to be a necessary cyclic phenomenon. \n\nDogma is defined by Webster as: A doctrine or body of doctrines of the\u00ac \nology and religion formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church \nor sect, especially the Roman Catholic sect; while the Standard Dictionary \nsays: Doctrine asserted and adopted on authority as distinguished from that \nwhich is the result of one\u2019s reasoning or experience. \n\nWe must suppose that the amazing attitude toward truth implied in these \ndefinitions is really held by intelligent people, inconceivable as it may be to us. \nFor we believe that it is through the method of science and not through dogma \nthat man attains knowledge, and the method of science is the method of \nTheosophy. \n\nFew scientists and fewer laymen concern themselves with basic principles, \nand, in consequence, ignorance and confusion are widespread as to the char\u00ac \nacter of the scientific field, the scientific method, and the nature of scientific \ntruth. The scientific field can be quickly delimited: in practice it is the field \nwhich can be contacted by the five senses, and the careful scientist suspends \njudgment regarding everything which transcends this sort of exploration. The \nscientific method is the method of research whereby, faced with a problem, \none previsions a possible solution, sets his senses, mind and will to the acqui\u00ac \nsition of data which conduce to establish or nullify his suspicion, and finally \nformulates his conclusions into a generalization which may serve as a guide to \nfurther research. Such is the process through which all scientific advance is \naccomplished, whether it be a demonstration of the constitution of the sun\u2019s \ncorona, or the structural formula of benzine. In every instance where the \nproblem takes the investigator outside the field of immediate sensuous con\u00ac \ntacts, and where delicately devised instruments must be employed to detect \nwhat the grosser human senses fail to record immediately, the validity of the \nexplanation is largely proportional to the number of independent lines of evi\u00ac \ndence which converge toward a single point. Scientific truth, then, is never \nabsolute in the sense implied by the word \u201cdogma\u201d. All scientific knowledge \nis tentative, and a hypothesis, a theory, and a law, differ only in the relative \namounts of evidential logic which may be marshalled in their support, and not \nat all in kind. If we aver that \u201cseeing is believing\u201d, it is only because we are \nseeing-animals, and rather naively prejudiced toward that particular form of \ntestimony. In strictness we ought rather to say: \u201cI see it, therefore it is not \n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND ITS CRITICS \n\n\n35 \n\n\nso.\u201d Indeed, apart from all epistemological theories, we know that in very \ntruth, when put to the proof, we reject the testimony of the senses in favour \nof reason and logic. Though the sun \u201crises and sets\u201d in every language, and \nthough it \u201cmoves south in winter and north in summer\u201d, our reason accepts \nalternative explanations which directly counter the assertion of the senses to \nthe contrary. Yet this which we accept so easily\u2014this \u201cfact\u201d of diurnal rota\u00ac \ntion or of annual revolution about the sun\u2014involves no small amount of care\u00ac \nful observation and difficult inductive reasoning. It is the logical outcome of \nnumerous lines of converging argument, and it most easily and satisfactorily \nexplains a certain set of physical phenomena. This, and no more, is what we \nmean by a scientific explanation. The solution is provisional, correct so far as \nit covers the known facts, but liable to be superseded to-morrow by an ex\u00ac \nplanation given in terms of deeper knowledge. Indeed we are in the very \nmidst of a scientific revolution which calls in question much of the older phys\u00ac \nics and reinterprets physical facts in terms of more recondite modes of exist\u00ac \nence. The Newtonian laws still hold upon their own plane\u2014the plane of 3- \nspace and time, from the study of whose seemingly invariable processes they \nwere formulated; but the newer principles, relating to a superior plane, reveal \nmore truly the nature of the laws themselves. \n\nBut does any man with the normal amount of brains accept as dogma, or \nas \u201cassertion on authority\u201d, the statement that the earth circles the sun an- \nually? No! We repeat that the statement is a tentative solution of a certain \nproblem toward which the available lines of argument appear to converge. \n\nThe element of faith enters into the system of science as it enters into the \nsystem of dogma. The scientist has complete faith in the integrity\u2014the \u201cin\u00ac \nfallibility\u201d if we will\u2014of the natural order: he believes that nature plays, \nsquare. Moreover he has faith in his predecessors as honest men who, never\u00ac \ntheless, were subject to errors of judgment and may have gone seriously awry \nin their interpretations of nature. A biologist who discovers living organisms \nin a supposedly sterile flask of culture media, will not generally jump to the \nrash conclusion that he has disproved the work of Pasteur and Tyndall; rather \nhe will look for a crack in the glass, or a loose cotton plug. Yet, on the con\u00ac \ntrary, there still remains the possibility that Pasteur and Tyndall were wrong, \nand that under exceptional conditions spontaneous generation might occur^ \nHad Clerk-Maxwell\u2019s impenetrable atom been accepted as \u201cinfallibly iu^ \npenetrable\u201d, it would never have been smashed. \n\nThe dogmatist, on the other hand, gives his faith not only to the revelation \nof truth through nature, but places it likewise and in the same supreme degree \nin the human mediator who enunciates the truth. This attitude, so it seems \nto science, is irrational and utterly unwarranted by historical experience. \nDogma has been overthrown time and time again and has been forced to re\u00ac \ntreat before the advance of rational thought. \n\nThe tendency to dogmatize seems to be inherent in human beings, who like \nto arrogate to themselves the attributes of the Absolute. Scientists are no \nmoreiree from the vice than are the theologians whom they often criticize so \n\n\n36 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nseverely, though they have less cloak for their sin. For, in theory, the scientist \nrepudiates dogma as a vice while the theologian extremist clings to it as a \nvirtue. \n\nThe method of science outlined above is the precise method of Theosophy \nin those reaches at least which are accessible to ordinary powers. If this re\u00ac \nmark be attributed to the writer\u2019s \u201cdogmatism\u201d, the possible critic can at \nleast give him the benefit of the doubt. He has been a member of The Theo- \nsophical Society for nearly a quarter of a century; he has read most of its liter\u00ac \nature; he is not wholly unfamiliar with its earlier expressions in history. \nSpeaking in the same critical sense with which he would review a work on \n\u201cProtoplasm\u201d or \u201cA History of Science\u201d, he avers that any man who accuses \nThe Theosophical Society, whose organ is the Theosophical Quarterly, of \ndogmatic teaching, is ignorant of the Society and its real teaching, is using \nwords loosely, or is either unconsciously or consciously dishonest. For many \nyears the writer, a teacher of science, has made but one distinction between \nthe two disciplines, and this distinction, a purely arbitrary and artificial one, \nis too tenuous to be maintained in practice. Physical science, as its name im\u00ac \nplies, deals only with physical things, while Theosophy carries its investigations \noutside the physical world. But the limitation of physical science which rests \nupon unfortunate historical misconceptions, is neither rational nor tenable. \nModem research has been forced to overpass it, and, in so doing, has swept \naside the last small difference which separates science from that aspect of \nTheosophy which is \u201cthe investigation of the unexplained laws of nature\u201d. \nThe reservation should be noted. Theosophy is more than an extension of \nscience, just as life includes more than the activity of the intellect, and it may \nbe that in the realm of the \u201cmore\u201d lies all that is of ultimate value to the race. \n\nWe have been told that Theosophy is an ancient system, and our own stud\u00ac \nies of ancient writings have confirmed the fact; that its principles were, in the \nfirst instance, wrested from nature by the severest sort of experimental meth\u00ac \nods and often at the cost of the lives of the researchers. It is evident that they \nwere formulated with algebraic brevity and precision by minds of no mean \norder of intelligence, and were given freely to younger students as guides to the \nsolution of this highly complex world-problem. Such students, with the same \nquality of faith in their predecessors as young scientists have in Newton, Dar\u00ac \nwin, Huxley, or in their immediate professor of chemistry, physics or biology, \ndiscovered that the principles \u201cworked\u201d, and that within the area where one \ncould test them deductively, they explained the facts of the world and of man \nbetter than any other known hypotheses. Thus generation after generation added \nits contribution to the mighty structure reared by those who preceded them. \nThey came to know that the \u201chead\u201d of Theosophy cannot be separated from \nits heart and its hand , and so, in good time, they came, perchance, to the \nfulness of the stature of men. But all this is only the attainment of truth \nthrough scientific research and the application of discovery to life with a kind \nof unshrinking integrity. \n\nAs to the transcendental levels of experience to which Theosophy points, \n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND ITS CRITICS \n\n\n37 \n\n\nand to whose reality we may be incapable as yet of offering either positive or \nnegative judgment, we shall be unworthy the name of scientists if we set aside \nthe positive testimony of so many honest men of the past, and try to make all \npossible experience conform to the littleness of our own minds and hearts. \nDogma lies in denial as well as in affirmation, and in so far as men rashly deny \nthe possibility of sure experience in supersensuous regions, their agnosticism \ncounts not a feather\u2019s weight in the face of logic and the mighty testimony of \nhistory. \n\nThus far we have taken our critic\u2019s imputation of dogma at its face value. \nWe have regarded it as an outcome of honest confusion which might be cleared \naway by patient explanation. Yet we know very well that our well-inten\u00ac \ntioned effort will avail nothing. For in truth we are dealing, not with honest \nconfusion, but with an emotional and irrational prejudice which blinds the \nmind, submerges the sense of justice, and leads to unconscious dishonesty. \nTo that far more serious aspect of the matter we shall now turn our attention. \n\nThe university trained man is exposed to an unfortunate environment which \ntends to cultivate and enhance the very qualities which are most inimical to \nsound judgment. For though widely proclaimed as the ideal of scholarship, \ndispassionate investigation is more honoured in the breach than in the observ\u00ac \nance. The virtues of sincerity and intellectual integrity are swept away on a \ntide of unworthy emotions, so that academic criticisms become notoriously \nand deplorably unfair, and provoke endless recriminations. The latest contri\u00ac \nbution to knowledge, all too often rushed into print to push its author and its \nschool into prominence, is scanned for its errors rather than its truths, and \nthough the hard-working editors of the learned journals do their best to keep \nfrom their pages the most glaring instances of childishness and insolence, \nwhich, allowed to stand, might well involve them in slander suits, their vigi\u00ac \nlance is not always sufficient to keep out sentences which reveal the temper of \nthe contributors. In private conversation, with the censor absent, the un\u00ac \nadorned wretchedness of the situation is revealed in its true colours. Scandal \nand malicious gossip are rife among \u201cintellectuals\u201d, and one soon learns that \nthe fair-fronted college catalogue and the learned journal are veritable whited \nsepulchres. \n\nThe effect of this tainted atmosphere on a man of mediocre abilities is \nterly pernicious. He becomes a fawning hypocrite and time-server in his own \ncamp, and a cowardly assassin of decent people who differ from him. This is \nthe sort of jackal which hounded H.P.B. and which continues to snap at Theos\u00ac \nophy. The Quarterly, for instance, challenges his vanity and that of his \nmasters on all the levels accessible to them. The theosophical metaphysics \nsuggests experience of a realm to which his kind pronounces entrance impos\u00ac \nsible; it holds up an absolute code of truth and right when he has returned a \nverdict in favour of the more convenient doctrine of the relativity of stand\u00ac \nards; it shows irritating evidence of insight into the weakness and illogicality \nof^is position; it speaks unwelcome and homely truths which he regards as a \nstanding affront. Unable to meet the challenge honestly, he resorts to the \n\n\n3\u00bb \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ncontemptible subterfuges of his kind\u2014dogmatic denial of facts, ridicule, ma\u00ac \nlicious slander, hypocritical deprecation and charges of plagiarism. Yet in \nthese charges, though he little suspects it, he only exposes the shame of his own \nnature and his incapacity either to appreciate or to understand that which \nis true and noble. Blind to substance, he judges only by form, and sets the \ncounterfeiter and mountebank higher than the honest workman. How should \nhe be able to understand that the articles in the Quarterly are the offerings \nof souls upon the altar. Simple or profound, springing from the shallows of \nknowledge or from the depths of great experience, clothed in homespun speech \nor in the sweet majesty of royal English prose, their quality removes them \nfrom his ken. They threaten the very foundations of his existence and he fears \nand hates them as the criminal fears and hates the secular law. \n\nThe men and women who write for the Quarterly make no claim to high \nscholarship or stylistic graces, yet we venture to say that writing neither for \ndisplay nor profit nor fame, but only with an earnest desire to set forth fit\u00ac \ntingly the beauty of that fragment of truth which they have perceived, their \nwork will still live when the scholarly treatises and doctoral theses will have \ncrumbled to dust. Heaven and earth have different standards of values, and \nimmortal life is of the substance, not the form. The Scribes and Pharisees \nwere learned doctors in their day, but they were not asked to record the New \nTestament. \n\nNow our young friend who despises \u201cthat Quarterly\u201d is not of this breed \nof wasters and time-servers, for, paradoxical as it may appear, he is an excel\u00ac \nlent theosophist temporarily in difficulties through colliding with a principle \nwhich Light on the Path puts in these words: \u201cFor these vices of the ordinary \nman pass through a subtle transformation and reappear with changed aspect \nin the heart of the disciple.\u201d His eyes are wide open to the unhappy nature \nof the university world. Saturated with the substance as well as the form of \nthe great masters of English literature, he dashes into battle prepared to strike \nmasterful blows for the glory of the faith which they upheld so valorously. \nA creative and meteoric soul, his erratic passage deflates successfully a con\u00ac \nsiderable number of academic windbags to the discomfiture of officialdom, \nthrows the social instruments out of adjustment, and leaves a long trail of \nsmouldering resentments in its wake. \n\nLet us suppose that our gay young blade\u2014this flail in the hands of the Lord \n\u2014runs up against the Theosophical Quarterly. Insensibly he has been \nlosing his faith in the sincerity and spiritual integrity of his fellow men. He \nfinds that his friends, even, are tainted with dogmatism, and with the un\u00ac \ncritical emotionalism of blind faith! Insensibly, too, he has been taking on \nthat subtle and dangerous opinion that \u201ceverybody is out of step but Jimmy\u201d. \nHe alone is sincere; he alone remains true to the faith of Shelley, Carlyle, Rus- \nkin, Emerson; he alone remains to carry the banner of a noble cause. Here is \na magazine full of pious platitudes; a mutual admiration society; a self-satis\u00ac \nfied group of Pharisees sentimentalizing about an insignificant Russian woman \nproved by a reputable scientific commission to have been a charlatan. Credu- \n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND ITS CRITICS \n\n\n39 \n\n\nlity! Cant! Superstition! Out upon them! He sharpens his lance and tilts \nwildly at the new dragon. All of which may be very good for him. Better a \nknight with a lance and a hobby, bound on a false quest, than a fat burgher \nrolling down Fifth Avenue in an expensive car. The knight is going to have a \nsorry spill in a rocky place. He does no harm to Theosophy and the jolt he \ngets will be salutary. He may even see stars, while the burgher will probably \ndie in bed in the luxury of a private hospital under the soft ministrations of \nchurch and science. \n\nSomeday, when maturity has brought a truer sense of values, he will come \nto see that all he had dreamed of the good, the true and the beautiful, all that \nhe had once thought to find among those who regard themselves as the guard\u00ac \nians of civilization and culture, was there before him for the taking, but, like \nmany another young Parsifal, he had cast upon it a psychic veil woven of his \nboy\u2019s prejudices, vanity, misunderstanding, resentment, rashness, presump\u00ac \ntion, and had then turned in wrath upon the creature of his own fashioning. \n\nTheoretically, he knows that the self which breaks out on lower levels in \nvulgar and shameful forms, is not exorcised and rendered inoffensive through \ndevotion to literary and humanistic studies. But theory is not knowledge, \nand faced with the devil of vanity tricked out in the blue robes of the angels, \nhe has seen fit to repudiate the real, and to choose the dearer way of blatancy \nand self-assertion rather than the better way of silence and self-sacrifice. He \nhas his reward in the applause of the hypocritical crew for whom he has un\u00ac \nconsciously been an instrument, and who promptly abandon him when the \ntide of opinion turns against him. It is a bitter lesson which many a young \ntheosophist has had to learn. \n\nWe have gone far afield to study a subtle manifestation of vanity\u2014not to \nshow our own superior virtue by contrast, but in order that we may deal ob\u00ac \njectively with a personal problem which our own wretched and cowardly shrink\u00ac \ning so often prevents us from investigating honestly. We have seen that the \nmagnificent qualities of spiritual insight, courage, intelligence and honesty \ncannot save a man from becoming a fool and a traitor so long as he permits \nthe devil of vanity to hold the central citadel of his life. His very virtues are \nmade the instruments of his undoing, and like artillery captured by an enemy, \nare turned against his friends. \n\nVanity, the vile snake of self! The very word comes from the Latin vanus,^ \nwhich means empty, void. The dictionary tells us to compare vacant, vanish^p \nvaunt. The word means: having no real substance or importance, idle, worth\u00ac \nless. unsatisfying. Other connotations revolve about a secondary meaning: \nproud of petty things or of trifling attainments, having a high opinion of one\u2019s \nown appearance or accomplishment with slight reason. Hence, in its primary \nmeaning, the word expresses the authentic nature of the lower self. Man \nliterally is made of vanity, of voidness and emptiness; his personality is only \na reflection of the true Individuality of the Soul; it possesses neither true exist\u00ac \nence nor independent life. Yet an image in a mirror is a something, and, in \naccord with the secondary meaning of the word, we may, if we choose, look \n\n\n40 \n\n\nTHE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nupon the lower nature as a reality, though one of trifling importance when set \nagainst the majesty of the Real Self. \n\nWhy should we endow this mirror image with our sense of self-identification; \nwhy do we pose to ourselves; why do we overvalue its trifling attainments and \nread into it falsely the attributes of a god? Perhaps because it is truly the \nblurred image of the Father, and, showing all its Father\u2019s Glory in relative \nexpression, must needs also reflect the quality of His Absoluteness and His \nBeauty. In the Scriptures we read that after the work of Creation was com\u00ac \nplete, God looked upon it\u2014looked upon His Own Image in the waves of space \n\u2014and \u201csaw that it was good\u201d. So likewise man, the little god, looks upon \nthe works of his personal hand or heart or brain and finds them very, very \ngood. In the fact itself there is no sin. The revelation of the Oversoul \nthrough man should indeed be a revelation of worth and beauty. Sin comes \ninto the world when the Creator is forgotten amid the glamorous delights of \nthe creation, and evil arises when the shadow endowed with delegated con\u00ac \nsciousness repudiates the Power which created it and seeks life in the things \nof emptiness and voidness. With evil, only the gods in their wisdom can deal, \nbut so long as the soul lives and hears the voice of conscience, it is our duty \nto stand by. The older student of Theosophy, taught by his own bitter experi\u00ac \nence, and struggling still in the coil of his own sins, comes to view with deep \nsympathy and understanding the troubles of his younger comrade, yes, even \nto the angry repudiation of Theosophy itself. Yet, aware of the issue at stake, \nhe must stand ready to throw the weight of his assistance on the side of the \nangels. To speak plainly is sometimes to risk all on a single cast of the dice. \nFor as his words probe to the citadel of vanity and pride, and pierce the scaly \ncoils of the old serpent, he must expect to witness the hiss of resentment and \nthe darting fang. He will be accused of dogmatism, lack of sympathy, theo- \nsophical Pharisaism, \u201ca cold, intangible hardness\u201d, and other variants of the \nsame theme. \n\nThere was once a man of great intellectual endowments who asked for guid\u00ac \nance in the spiritual life, and who was accorded the wonder of access to Mas\u00ac \nters themselves. He was treated with a marvellous tenderness and understand\u00ac \ning, given a protection which extended even to the frustration of a plot against \nhis life. Yet that man turned against the Masters, betrayed those who were \nhis associates in a great Cause, and started a chain of causation whose evil \nresults have stained the soil of India with blood. Why? Because, though \nat heart a kindly man, his pride of intellect would brook no slightest opposi\u00ac \ntion to his opinions. In certain letters which have been published one can \ntrace the slow disintegration of his character. First a slight pique and annoy\u00ac \nance that his plans for dominating his friends and \u201cruling occult Tibet\u201d are \ngently set aside, next a touch of jealousy that another is preferred to himself, \nthen irony and cheap sarcasm, suspicion, lying, dishonourable acts, mounting \nto bitter hatred and betrayal, till finally we read the terrible words: \u201cunder \nthe influence of the Brothers of the Shadow\u201d. \n\nSo, to a friend who despises \u201cthat Quarterly\u201d, we are bound at the least \n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND ITS CRITICS \n\n\n4i \n\n\nto protest against an evident misunderstanding. But if more be demanded of \nus\u2014and real friendship does demand more of us\u2014we are sometimes compelled \nto utter truths which no man likes to speak to another, and which no man \nas man, ought ever to speak to another\u2014truths which cut like a lash and make \nthe blood rise in the cheeks. Such is the demand which honest friendship and \nloyalty to our Cause make upon us, though, God knows, we should be pros\u00ac \ntrated in deep humility before the altar when we speak them. \n\nIn our better moments we glimpse something of the sorry tragedy and hate\u00ac \nfulness and devastating weariness of it all. We cling so fiercely to the scare\u00ac \ncrow rags of our superior virtues, our scholarly accomplishments, our technical \nskills, our worldly positions. We pay out our lives to feed a bloated pretender \non the throne. Can we not be honest enough to admit that our long service \nto this tawdry thing has brought us only the reward of dust and ashes? Some \nday we shall find strength to hurl from its place this incarnate insult to the \nWarrior Soul. When we have put away this unclean thing, we may be ad\u00ac \nmitted to the company of clean men, finding clean work to do, work of beauty \nand truth and creative joy that shall stand eternally built into the very ma\u00ac \nsonry of the Soul. \n\nR. \n\n\nAh, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a Heaven for ?\u2014 Robert \nBrowning. \n\n\nTo become earth is the creed of a moth; \n\nBe a conqueror of earth; that alone is worthy of a man. \n\nThou art soft as a rose. Become hard as a stone, \n\nThat thou mayst be the foundation of the wall of the garden! \n\nBuild thy clay into a Man, \n\nBuild thy Man into a World! \n\nIf thou art unfit to be either a wall or a door, \n\nSome one else will make bricks of thine earth .\u2014 Muhammad Iqbal. \n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ENGLISH WAY TO THE GOAL \n\n\nHe highest climbs who most loves .\u2014 Richard Rolle of Hampole. \n\nLove may reach to God in this life , but knowledge never .\u2014 The Divine Cloud. \n\nI N previous numbers of the Quarterly, the Spanish and the Sufi mystics \nhave been quoted at length as showing a profound understanding of what \nLove is and to what it leads. Both of these groups, by the heights to \nwhich they attained, are a frequent reminder of the statement that Manas \nstretches up to Mahat,\u2014in much the same way that a bird, soaring at an un\u00ac \nbelievable height, makes clearer our realization of the infinity that stretches \nbeyond. If we regard the Spanish and the Sufi mystics as on the mountain \ntop, penetrating with clear vision far into the blue above, then the mystics of \nEngland stand on the slopes, led on by faith in a future attainment,\u2014the \nfaith of intuition and insight, not the faith of mere hearsay. The two groups \nare different, much as a Gothic cathedral, with its grace and lightness and \nsoaring aspiration, differs from one of the early English parish churches with \nits massive strength and stability and rugged simplicity. It has been said \nthat the Spaniard is the man of passion, and the Englishman the man of ac\u00ac \ntion. Certainly the passionate Love which the Spanish mystics attained, \nlifted them \u201con the wrings of passion and desire\u201d totally out of themselves, to \nunion with a universal Force which they recognized as reality\u2014the Reality\u2014 \nand life thereafter lay for them in making themselves at one with that, in \nattaining a more and more permanent realization of it . 1 For the early English \ngroup, the approach was a different one. Someone has said that their uni\u00ac \nverse was the human heart. If they were, on occasion, lifted above their usual \nlevel, to them it was a vision; they did not (so far as one may generalize from \nthe records still available) see it as a new life, a new realm in which to live \nthereafter. Action, for them, followed another course. \n\nFourteenth century England saw a time of flowering in spiritual endeavour. \nMen embraced poverty and deprivation and became hermits, in the convic\u00ac \ntion that \u201cgreat is the hermit\u2019s life if it be greatly done\u201d. Women (and occa\u00ac \nsionally men) were walled up for life in little cells as anchorites, and the story \nof their inner achievement is told in such records as those of Juliana of Nor\u00ac \nwich and Margery Kempe of Lynn . 2 Of this general period, Richard Rolle of \nHampole, both for the force of his personality and for the influence he exerted, \nis perhaps the most representative of one aspect of the English way to the \ngoal. There is nothing metaphysical, nothing speculative, and little that is \nanalytical in his point of view. He has simple, practical common sense and \n\n1 As was said by Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, during a visit to the Vatican: \"Our mystics spoke from the \nlips of men the words of angels\u2019\u2019 (Ignatius Loyola, by Robert Harvey). \n\nJ For Margery Kempe, see inter alia. The Cell of Self-Knowledge. edited with an Introduction by Edmund G \nGardner. \n\n\n42 \n\n\n\n\nTHE ENGLISH WAY TO THE GOAL \n\n\n43 \n\n\nsanity; his feet are firmly on the ground. Where many of the Latin mystics \nhave been compelled deliberately to cramp their experience into conformity \nwith Church doctrine, Rolle\u2019s whole experience and that of his contemporaries \nseems to have been well within the bounds of strict orthodoxy. The extreme \nof this is found in Juliana of Norwich, whose revelations were so narrowly \ninterpreted by her mind, in conformity with her habitual meditation, as to \nmake them almost meaningless to anyone unfamiliar with the imagery and \nterminology of her own particular faith. It is quite possible that she herself \nrealized her lack of a broader comprehension, for she tells of pondering her \n\u201cshewings\u201d in her heart for fifteen years and more, always with the longing \nto know their real meaning, and finally to her spiritual understanding there \ncame the answer: \u201cWouldst thou learn thy Lord\u2019s meaning in this thing? \nLearn it well: Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love. What \nshewed He thee? Love. Wherefore shewed it He? For Love. Hold thee \ntherein and thou shalt learn and know more in the same.\u201d For the most part \nthis group seems to have had no conception of a steady upward growth from \nfinite to infinite, except in the light of the orthodox teaching that earth life is \na time of preparation; death a gateway; heaven a place where all is changed \nand all is possible. \n\nBut that Love was their means of attaining, whether in the present or in a \nfuture life, each of them realized. Among mystics the world over, there seems \nalwp^ys to be this intuitive recognition that Love is the central fact of existence, \nthe well-spring from which life itself is drawn. In each case the truth 6i it \ncomes to them as a message from the Unseen, unique in its form of expression \n\u2014a part of the whisper of the Genius of which The Song of Life tells. Walter \nHilton in his Scale of Perfection , one of the well-known works of this period, \nwrites: \u2018\u2018What is a man but his thoughts and his loves?\u201d The Love of the \nReal, however, he sees as a gift, the greatest of all gifts\u2014greater than the gift \nof prophecy or of working miracles or of great knowledge\u2014for it is God him\u00ac \nself. He makes a further statement which one little expects to find in the \nthought of that early century, one of those statements occasionally met with \nwhich were intended by their author only in a limited sense, but which, inter\u00ac \npreted with a trifle more latitude, carry one of the golden truths of Theosoj^iy. \nIt is the Christian Master, of course, whose name Hilton uses, but the stipwit \nof Theosophy would include other Masters also in the declaration that the \nMaster is love, the Master is grace, the Master is God. Even the first stir\u00ac \nrings of \u2018\u2018grace\u201d in the soul are the Master, but he is then \u2018\u2018very grossly and \nrudely felt\u201d. Then, as the soul advances, it is the same Master and none other \nthat is felt\u2014more spiritually and nearer to his Divinity. That Presence should \nbe known by experience rather than by any writing about it, \u2018\u2018for it is the life \nand the love, the might and the light, the joy and the rest of a chosen soul\u201d. \nHe sleeps in our heart as He did in the ship on the lake with his disciples. It \nis for us to waken him\u2014\u2018\u2018nevertheless, I believe thou sleepest oftener to Him \nMan He doth to thee; for He calleth thee full oft with His sweet, secret voice\u201d. \n\nTo Juliana of Norwich, the meaning of Love came somewhat differently: \n\n\n44 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nshe saw in one of her revelations a little thing the size of a hazel nut in the \npalm of her hand, and was told that it was the universe\u2014all that is. And \n\u201cI marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen \nto naught for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: \u2018It last- \neth, and ever shall last for that God loveth it.\u2019 And so All-thing hath the Be\u00ac \ning by the love of God.\u201d In The Divine Cloud , another book of this period \nand one of extraordinary penetration and wisdom, the unknown author, re\u00ac \nferring to Love, uses the phrase, \u2018\u2018a sudden stirring, and, as it were, an un\u00ac \nadvised and speedy springing up unto God, even as a spark fleeth fmn the coal\". \nRolle saw it in his simple, direct way: \u2018\u2018No rational soul can be without love; \nlove is the foot of the soul by which it is taken to heaven or hell.\u201d And he \ndid the thing indicated, with characteristic energy. Love of the highest, he \nknew, must be made paramount; all that hindered it must be abandoned. \n\nStable thy thought in His love, and keep out of thee all sins; cast away sloth; bear \nthee manfully in goodness, be debonair and meek to all men; let nothing bring thee to \nrage or envy, clothe thy soul fair, make therein a throne of love to God\u2019s Son, and make \nthy will as eager to receive Him as gladly as thou wouldst be at the coming of a thing \nthou Iovedst most of all things ... for His joy is that thou be fair and lovesome in His eyes. \n\nA passage from a book by Dean Inge 3 suggests, perhaps, the keynote of the \nEnglish method. \u2018\u2018It is most important that we should recognize the sacra\u00ac \nmental value of mere right action, even of the most commonplace kind. Not, \nof course, that the action itself has this value; it is valuable because it is the \nexpression of our habitual view of things and events and men and ourselves. \nOur habitual point of view is fatally incomplete unless it finds expression in \nhabitual action.\u201d Rolle, with the simplicity of an earlier age, expressed it: \n\u2018\u2018Not with going of feet are we turned to God, but with change of our desires \nand manners\u201d, and in his writings there are many passages showing how he \nmade application of this. Quoting at random: \u2018\u2018While thou eatest or drink- \nest, let not the memory of thy God that feeds thee pass from thy mind; but \npraise God and glorify Him in every morsel, so that thy heart be more in God\u2019s \npraising than in thy food, that thy soul be not parted from God at any hour.\u201d \n\u2018\u2018Be our souls strong in taking hard labours for God.\u201d \u2018\u2018Many love God while \nthey are in ease, and in adversity they grumble, and fall in so much sorriness \nthat scarcely may any man comfort them. . . . That is a catiff loving that \nany wealth of the world makes; but that loving is of much price, that no vio\u00ac \nlence of sorrow may do away.\u201d Francis Quarles\u2019s phrasing of a somewhat \nsimilar idea will suggest itself to many: \n\n.... draw near, \n\nShake hands with earth, and let your soul respect \nHer joys no further than her joys reflect \nUpon her Maker\u2019s glory; if thou swim \nIn wealth, see Him in all; see all in Him. \n\nSinkst thou in want, and is thy small cruse spent? \n\nSee Him in want; enjoy Him in content. \n\n* * * * \n\n_ Heaven\u2019s never deaf but when man\u2019s heart is dumb. \n\n* Studies of English Mystics. \n\n\nTHE ENGLISH WAY TO THE GOAL \n\n\n45 \n\n\n\u201cWhen that blessed Love is in a man\u2019s heart\u201d, wrote Rolle, \u201cit will not \nsuffer him to be idle.\u201d \u201cLove cannot be lazy.\u201d \u201cIt is shame if the sunbeam \nfind men idle in their bed.\u201d \u201cHe that is slow in God\u2019s service may not be \nburning in love.\u201d Sloth and losing of time were weaknesses which particu\u00ac \nlarly disturbed Juliana of Norwich,\u2014tempting her to despair, which she re\u00ac \ngarded as equally a sin; and The Divine Cloud stresses at considerable length \nthe matter of the right keeping of time. \u201cAll the time that is given thee, it \nshall be demanded how thou hast spent it, and it standeth thee in hand to \ngive a good account thereof.\u201d This is followed by a rather unexpected sug\u00ac \ngestion as to the means of atoning for misspent time: \u201cHe [the Master], by \nHis Godhead is the maker and giver of times. He, by His manhood, is the \ntrue keeper of time; and He, by His Godhead and manhood together, is the \ntrue Judge and asker of account for the spending of time. Knit thyself there\u00ac \nfore to Him by love and faith.\u201d \n\n\u201cGreat love he shews\u201d, wrote Rolle, \u201cthat never is irked to love, but ever \nstanding, sitting, going, or any other deed doing, is ever thinking on his love.\u201d \n\u201cHis refreshment is to think of Him.\u201d \u201cWhere is love?\u201d he asks. \u201cLove is in \nthe heart and in the will of man, not in his hand or in his mouth, not in his \nwork, but in his soul. For many speak good and do good, and many love not \nGod.\u201d And again, \u201cWhat is love? And I answer: Love is a burning yearn\u00ac \ning in God, with a wonderful delight and security. . . . Love is a life, coup\u00ac \nling together the loving and the loved. For meekness makes us sweet to God; \npurity joins us to God; love makes us one with God.\u201d \u201cLove is desire of the \nheart, ay thinking on that that it loves; and when it has that it loves, then it \njoys and nothing may make it sorry.\u201d \u201cLove is a virtue that is the Tightest \naffection of man\u2019s soul.\u201d \n\nAusterities, abstinence, discipline, Rolle welcomed, and with a vigour which \nmakes him for many people to-day almost synonymous with harshness and \nvehemence, though it was only the reverse side, so to speak, of the force and \nimpetuosity of the great love that was in the making. He never mistook aus\u00ac \nterities for holiness, merely holding that if \u201cdiscreetly\u201d used, they can help \nus to become holy. They have their work, just as pain and suffering have, \nfor \u201cin the heart where tears spring, there will the fire of the Holy Ghost be \nkindled\u201d. Referring to the earlier stages of the way, Rolle wrote one passage \nwhich is doubtless spiritual autobiography. In his case, of course, it was the \nMaster Christ whom he found, but in each creed, the world over, there is rec\u00ac \nord of a similar experience,\u2014the fact that the Master stands waiting aUMjch \nturn of the road. \n\nI ran about by poverty and I found Jesu poor-born into the world, laid in a crib, \nwrapped in swaddling clothes. I took the road of suffering and I found Jesu weary by \nthe wayside, tortured with hunger, thirst and cold, filled with reproof and blame. I sat \nby myself, fleeing the vanity of the world, and I found Jesu fasting in the desert and \npraying on the mountain-top alone. I ran by pain and penance, and I found Jesu, bound, \nscourged, given gall to drink, nailed to the cross, hanging on the cross, and dying on the \ncross. \n\n\n46 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nAs his love gained in depth and force, it took the form of a burning fire, as \n\u201cthou may fele thi fynger bym, if thou putt it in the fyre. But that fyre if it \nbe hot, is so delightable and wonderful that I cannot tell it.\u201d While expecting \nthe fulfilment of his love only after death, he found during earth life an \nabounding joy in the simple and stupendous fact of loving,\u2014burning as the \nseraphim in high heaven, as he expressed it, his mind walking among the an\u00ac \ngels to Christ his Beloved. \n\nThis delight which he has tasted in loving Jesu passes all knowledge and feeling. Truly \nI cannot tell a little point of this joy, for who can tell an unknown heat? Who lay bare \nan infinite sweetness? Certainly if I would speak of this joy unable to be told, it seems \nto me as if I should empty the sea by drops, and pour it all in a little hole of the earth. \n\nOne is reminded of those lines from Richard Crashaw, a century or so later. \n\nAetemall love! What \u2019tis to love thee well, \n\nNone, but himselfe, who feelse it, none can tell. \n\nBut oh, what to be lov\u2019d of thee as well, \n\nNone, not himselfe, who feeles it, none can tell. \n\nJoy and mirth and merriment are the terms Rolle uses most continually as \ndescribing his spiritual state as he advanced into the higher degrees of con\u00ac \ntemplation,\u2014also heat, sweetness and song. He tells of hearing, as he read or \nperformed his devotional exercises, a marvellous accompaniment both \u201cabove \nme\u201d and \u201cwithin me\u201d. It was not song in the ordinary sense of the word, \njust as his rhirth and merriment were not of the usual kind. In the old Eng\u00ac \nlish of Rolle\u2019s time (1290-1349), \u201cmerry\u201d meant \u201csweet\u201d; \u201cmirth\u201d meant \n\u201cpleasantness\u201d. Worldly mirth was one of the things which he declared killed \nLove. Likewise his \u201csong\u201d was prevented if he sang with other people. Both \nsong and mirth were of the soul, and the music that he heard he believed to be \nthat of the angelic choir. From what he writes it would seem that the over\u00ac \nwhelming joy of Love took tangible form \u2014audibly for him, just as for many \nothers it has done so visibly. \u201cLove sounds the Music of the Spheres\u201d, wrote \nthe Sufi poet. Rolle expresses it: \u201cOf the feast of heaven, sounds in his heart \na sweet note that makes him break out into voice of joying, for the wonderful \nsoftness of mirth and song in his soul, ... for in his thought he is taken in \nto the melody of angels praising God.\u201d \u201cThe memory of Jesus is as melody \nof music at a feast.\u201d \u201cWhen thou speakest to Him and sayst \u2018Jhesu\u2019, through \ncustom, it shall be in thy ear joy, in thy mouth honey, and in thy heart \nmelody.\u201d \n\nThe force and power of his inner experience, the completeness with which \nevery element of his strong nature was hurled into it, are again best indi\u00ac \ncated by his own really splendid characterization: \n\nO merry love, strong, ravishing, burning, voluntary, stalwart, inextinguishable, that \nbrings all my soul to Thy service, and suffers it to think of nothing but Thee. Thou \nchallengest for Thyself all that we live; all that we savour; all that we are. \n\nImplicit in that is a test of true virility which few, even among strong men, \ncould meet\u2014and it leads one quickly upward to its source, linking itself with \n\n\nTHE ENGLISH WAY TO THE GOAL \n\n\n47 \n\n\nthose words of a Master in the Gita , \u201cI am manhood in men\u201d. What an \noffering to be able to make to the high gods, and what a refutation to those \nwho regard all religious states as signs of a weak, anemic and rather fantastic \ntemperament! \n\nNo discussion of the English Way would be complete without mention of \nwhat might be termed the complementary method outlined in The Divine \nCloud (also published under the title, The Cloud of Unknowing). The identity \nof its author is still a mystery. His aim is the guidance and direction of other \nseekers for Truth,\u2014of men and women who were, one would judge, far ad\u00ac \nvanced on the path before coming to him, because his method, like that of \nShankara Acharya, would be both useless and dangerous without the previous \nacquirement of the \u201cfour qualifications\u201d as explained by Shankara in the open\u00ac \ning section of his Crest Jewel of Wisdom. Even then, as Shankara explained \nalso, the method would be misunderstood without the help of an experienced \nspiritual director,\u2014of one \u201cwho is full of intelligence, illuminated, skilled in \nknowledge and wisdom . . . fitted to teach the wisdom of the divine Self\u201d. \nNaturally the author of The Divine Cloud did not express himself with the \nscientific thoroughness of Shankara, but in his prologue (to quote Evelyn \nUnderhill\u2019s most valuable Introduction to her edition of the same book, called \nby her The Cloud of Unknowing 4 ) we find the warning \u2018\u2018that it shall on no \naccount be lent, given, or read to other men: who could not understand, and \nmight misunderstand in a dangerous sense, its peculiar message\u201d. \n\nInstead of seeking Light and Life and Love in the commonplace outer act, \nthe pupil of The Divine Cloud is instructed to turn wholly within, and to en\u00ac \ndeavour to break completely with all that is external. All that is required of \nthe beginner is to know that he is, which knowing, even the beasts possess. \nHe is to give no thought to his defects or his qualities\u2014quite the contrary. \nEverything regarding himself, his life and the world of creatures, is to be put \nbeneath him, wrapped in a \u2018\u2018cloud of forgetting\u201d. Then: \n\nLift thyself up as thou art, unto thy gracious God, without any curious considerations \nof the qualities that belong to thee, or to thy God. Knit thyself, by fervent desire of \nlove in grace and spirit, to the precious being of God in Himself. And though thy wanton \nwandering wits find no satisfaction in this manner of doing, yet quit it not. . . . There \nis nothing a man can do, bodily or ghostly [spiritually], that can bring him nearer to \nGod, or remove him further from the world, than this naked feeling and offering up of a \nman\u2019s blind being can do. \n\nThis, the author calls praying\u2014in the silence of pure spirit (a form of \nwhich has a special appeal for certain temperaments), as contrasted with the \npronouncing of words. As already suggested, neither is any thought to be \ngiven to the qualities of God. Just the simple word is, is all that we need \ndwell on as expressing His everlastingness and His infinitude. \n\nOffer therefore, all that thou art, as thou art, unto Him, as He is, who is the blissful \nbeing, both of Himself and of thee. By doing this thou shalt effectually, and in a won\u00ac \nderful manner, worship God with Himself. For that which thou art thou hast from Him, \nand He it is. \n\n\n\n\u2022 Published by John M. Watkins, London, 1912. \n\n\n\n4 8 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nIt is almost startling to find, in mediaeval England, anything so strongly \nsuggestive of the system of indrawal and transfer of self-identification which \nis the central feature of the Vedanta,\u2014startling, that is, until one remembers \nthat Christianity had come originally to England, not from Rome, but through \na line of teachers descending directly from John the Beloved Disciple; and \nuntil one remembers, further, that the tradition of the Christian Neo-platon- \nists, and their Eastern influence, embodied in the Mystica Thcologia of Diony\u00ac \nsius the Areopagite, had been brought within the reach of all educated men \nin western Europe when John Scotus Erigena translated the Mystica into \nLatin in the 9th century. Then, to quote again from Miss Underhill: \n\nAbout the middle of the 14th century, England\u2014at that time in the height of her \ngreat mystical period\u2014led the way with the first translation into the vernacular of the \nAreopagite\u2019s work. In Dionisc Hid Divirxite , a version of the Mystica Thcologia , this \nspiritual treasure-house was first made accessible to those outside the professionally \nreligious class. \n\nThis long-ago connection between East and West is referred to in a delight\u00ac \nful series of articles on an earlier group of English mystics, in the Quarter\u00ac \nlies of 1914 and thereabouts. In them a writer on the subject is quoted as \nsaying that the echoes of the Areopagite\u2019s treatises are heard in every mystical \nwriter since their appearance. It is evident, however, that The Divine Cloud \nis not a mere echo, and that its author, obviously a man of great spirituality, \nhad done as the \u201ccertain wise man\u201d of the Upanishads , who \u201cpierced the open\u00ac \nings inward\u201d and discovered the Way by actual experience. There are high \nspiritual levels, Theosophy teaches, which are the reservoir of all fundamental \ntruths, and he who can lift himself sufficiently near may draw down what he \ncan. As The Secret Doctrine expresses it: \u201cHe who is strong in the Yoga can \nintroduce at will his Alaya by means of meditation into the true nature of \nExistence.\u201d \n\nThe Eastern method, it will be remembered, makes a point of withdrawing \nthe sense of I-am-I, the sense of self-identification, from one after another \nof the powers and attributes and vestures of Self, \u201cas the pith is drawn from \nthe reed\u201d. In The Divine Cloud , not withdrawal, but positive attack seems to \nbe the means recommended\u2014by sheer force of will compelling the mind to \npush downward into the \u201ccloud of forgetting\u201d, every thought that presents \nitself. Even the familiar forms and subjects of meditation recommended by \nthe Church (no matter how lofty, up to the attributes of God himself), would \ninevitably, the author taught, lead the mind from one thought to another, \nand therefore downward, away from God and nearer to self. \u201cEverything \nthat thou thinkest upon, is above thee for the time, and between thee and thy \nGod: in so much that thou art so much the farther from God, or nearer to \nHim, as there are more or fewer things in thy mind besides God.\u201d The dis\u00ac \nciple must learn to live \u201cabove himself\u201d. As an aid, he is advised to make \nuse of some word to keep before him the ideal. First directing the aspiration, \nthe intention upward,\u2014 \n\nHave this intention, lapped up, folden in one word, and that of one syllable, for so it \n\n\nTHE ENGLISH WAY TO THE GOAL \n\n\n49 \n\n\nis better than two\u2014as for example this word \u2018God\u2019, or else this word \u2018Love*. . . . And \nfasten this word in thine heart, in such sort that it do never depart from thence, whatso\u00ac \never befall. This word shall be thy shield and spear, whithersoever thou go or ride, both \nin peace and war. With this word thou shalt beat at that cloud and darkness, that is \nabove thee. With this word thou shalt smite down all manner of thoughts, that press \nto molest thee, and keep them under the cloud of forgetting. \n\nIt was a century or so earlier, in the time of Francis of Assisi, that the spe\u00ac \ncial devotion to the Holy Name had been started on the continent. Rolle em\u00ac \nphasizes frequently the power that lies in the use of the name of Jesus. Walter \nHilton, in The Scale of Perfection , cautions against thinking that power lies in \nthe name itself, painted or written or spoken or held in imagination, urging \nthat one\u2019s whole thought turn to the Being, the Person whom the name sym\u00ac \nbolizes\u2014it is He we must keep in mind, \u201cthat is all goodness, endless wisdom, \nlove and sweetness, thy joy, thy glory, and thy everlasting bliss, thy God, \nthy Lord, and thy salvation\u201d. The practice must have been fairly wide\u00ac \nspread for the warning to have been warranted, so there is nothing singular in \nthe recommendation in The Divine Cloud; yet one is reminded immediately of \nthe similar use among mystics of the Far East, of the name of Rama and other \ndeities, also among Mohammedan mystics of the name of Allah\u2014one account \ntelling of its incessant repetition for seven years, until \u201cat last every atom of \nme began to cry aloud, \u2018Allah! Allah! Allah!\u2019 \u201d \n\nTo return to The Divine Cloud: the aspirant, in the course of his progress, \ncomes to realize that even the \u201cnaked sense of his own being\u201d is an impedi\u00ac \nment, a \u201clump\u201d of all that is undesirable, continually obtruding itself between \nhim and his goal. His next work is to eliminate that sense of being, and to \nlose it, so far as is possible in this life, in union with pure Being. As the Sufi \npoet expressed it: \n\nAll that is not One must ever \nSuffer with the Wound of Absence; \n\nAnd whoever in Love\u2019s City \nEnters, finds but Room for One, \n\nAnd but in oneness Union. \n\n\nHe must not w'ish to have no being, continues the western author, \u201cfor th \nwere a devilish madness and despite against God. But him listeth right ; \nto be, and he yieldeth very hearty thanks to God for the worthiness and gift \nof his being; though indeed he desire without ceasing that he might lack the \nwitting and feeling of his being.\u201d \n\nBeyond that point, what happens is no longer the disciple\u2019s concern: \u201cLet \nthe thing itself do with thee; let it lead wheresoever it listeth; let it be the \nworker, and thou be but the sufferer; do thou but only look on, and let. \nit alone; meddle thou not with it, as though thou wouldst help it, lest perad- \nventure thou marre all. Be thou but the tree and let it be the carpenter.\u201d \nIt is in the response from the other side then, that the subsequent fulfilment \n1 ^,\u2014one of the miracles of Love. \n\nuod is evermore ready to work this work in every soul that is disposed thereunto, and \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\nVIII. \n\nN O one thing made it more clear that the Germans had at last cracked, \nthan the tone of the letters which were taken from German dead and \nfrom German prisoners. Both letters written home and never sent, \nand those which had been received from family and friends at home, told the \nsame story. Through them all there ran a note of dissatisfaction, of discourage\u00ac \nment and criticism. The writers were war-weary, and wanted things to be \nover as soon as possible, no matter how it all came out; while the descriptions \nof privation and suffering within Germany itself, and of all that their families \nwere enduring, made it easy to see why the morale of the German troops had \nbroken. For the first time, to us, the end of the War was in sight; the ultimate \nresult was now certain, although it was not humanly possible to tell how long \nit would be before the final denouement. For these reasons there was an ela\u00ac \ntion at First Corps Headquarters, even greater than that inspired by the daily \nsuccesses of our troops and their splendid performance, although the com\u00ac \nmendation which we were receiving from the French at that time made us \nproud and relieved. We began to speculate as to future American operations, \nand as to where they would take place. Of one thing we were sure. If the \nenemy had cracked here, where we were, they had cracked elsewhere as well. \nFrom now on, we knew for a certainty, they would be given no respite. It \nwould be one Allied offensive after another, in which we should have our part; \nand time was to bear us out in our prognostications. \n\nBy the end of the fourth day after my arrival at Headquarters First Army \nCorps, near Epieds, the fighting had moved away from us, further to the north \nand toward the Vesle River, and Major General Liggett was impatient to \nfollow it up, and to move his First Corps Headquarters forward. His constant \naim was to keep his Corps Post of Command immediately behind his divisions, \nand as close to them as possible. But a modem corps headquarters cannot be \nmoved forward in battle until a place has been prepared in which it can function \nproperly. A good deal of space is required for the tactical sections of the staff \nalone, and these sections must all be close together, for obvious reasons. Com\u00ac \nmunicating wires, too, must be laid a little way underground, often under \nheavy shell fire, both forward to the headquarters of the divisions in line, and \nback to army headquarters, before a corps headquarters is ready to function \nas it must. So General Liggett was forced to wait, while advance parties sur\u00ac \nveyed the ground and cleared away wreckage in order to provide the space \nrequired, and while the Signal Battalion was engaged in laying the necessary \nwires. \n\nAt the start of the American participation in the Second Battle of the Marne, \nthe French had been distrustful of the ability of our higher staff command, \n\n\n52 \n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n53 \n\n\nand quite naturally, as the Americans were totally untried and inexperienced \nin this respect, and our general officers had never before had an opportunity, \neither in this War or in their previous experience at home, of doing more than \nwork out higher staff problems in theory and on paper. The able way, how\u00ac \never, in which Major General Liggett had handled the operations of our First \nArmy Corps from the very start of its participation in the fighting, had done \nmuch to relieve this feeling of the French, and to increase their confidence in \nthe ability of the Americans in respect to staff work. Early in the proceedings, \nthe exigencies of the situation had necessitated a change of axis, of direction, \nof the First Corps attack, always a difficult operation; the First Corps, attack\u00ac \ning first toward the east, had turned, until it was driving almost due north, \nand this change of axis had been effected with great skill. Town after town \nand village after village had been liberated by our advance, and the progress \nin the attack of our two Army Corps, then comprising the Sixth French Army, \nhad enabled the Tenth French Army on our left and the Fifth French Army \non our right to advance. General Liggett\u2019s Field Orders at that time were \nmodels of brevity and clearness. I remember particularly his constant insist\u00ac \nence that, except in an actual attack itself, the front lines should be lightly \nheld, with the concentration immediately behind them, and that machine guns \nand strong resistance points should never be attacked directly but always by \nenvelopment. It is easy to see how extremely wise and effective both of those \nprovisions were, eliminating as they did much futile loss of life, while at the \nsame time producing highly satisfactory results. His Field Orders were dated \naccording to the French system, in which the hours of the day were numbered \nfrom one to twenty-four, in order to avoid any possible confusion as to the time \nof their issue and of the operations ordered in them. They contained the usual \nfive paragraphs, outlining in sequence his estimate of the military situation, \nthe disposition of the enemy forces, the positions of our troops, the mission \nwhich was to be accomplished, and his orders as to how it was to be carried \nout. He believed in giving a subordinate commander his head, and in not \nholding him down with voluminous and detailed instructions. I can remember \none Field Order, the concluding paragraph of which simply said,\u2014\u201cYou will \npursue boldly and without delay\u201d; plenty of room, there, for individual ini\u00ac \ntiative and for adaptation to local conditions. \n\nOn the morning of August 5th the First Corps Headquarters moved to F&r^ \nen-Tardenois, where space had been prepared in a little group of houses on the \nextreme north-west edge of what remained of the town; these particular houses \nhad escaped shell-fire and were intact. But F&re-en-Tardenois itself was a \ncomplete example of what artillery demolition fire can do, as hardly a house in \nthe town had a roof left, and most of them were completely demolished. The \nwork of removing and of burying the dead had not been completed, and the \nplace was filled with the unforgettable stench of decaying human flesh. Fortu\u00ac \nnately, it soon began to rain, which cleared and freshened the air until this \nwork had been completed. We were under frequent shell-fire, particularly at \nnigl^and it was then, too, that the Boche planes, whenever the sky was clear. \n\n\n50 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ndoth what in him lieth and hath so done of long time before. . . . 1 hen will He sometimes \nperadventure send out a beam of His ghostly light, that shall pierce this cloud of un\u00ac \nknowing, between thee and Him, and shew thee somewhat of his secrets, which is not \nlawful, nor possible, for man to speak. Then shalt thou feel thine affections inflamed \nwith the fire of His love, far more than I can or may tell thee at this time, for of that \nwork, that belongeth to God only, I dare not take upon me to speak with my blabbering \nand fleshly tongue. And indeed, to speak shortly, though I durst do it, I would not. \n\nIn that he would not, the world is the loser, for where other books of spirit\u00ac \nual guidance show sagacity and insight and understanding of human nature, \nthis one adds certain qualities which suggest firsthand experience of a high \norder. For his silence, another reason is made plain in his advice to his pupils. \nHe would have the aspirant avoid all fancies and imaginings and counterfeit \nexperiences, and admonishes him to conceal deep in his heart all spiritual stir\u00ac \nrings or longings, endeavouring to hide them even from God himself. They \nwill of course, he adds, be known to God in any case, despite the efforts made, \nbut the very struggle to conceal them will help to bring one \u201cout of the gross\u00ac \nness of bodily feeling into the purity and depth of ghostly [spiritual] feeling\u201d. \nHis object is to create strong men, able to forge ahead with no indication of \nresponse from the other side. If spiritual experiences come, welcome them, \nbut \u201clean not too much on them, for fear of feebleness\u201d. As W. Q. Judge says \nin the Letters that have Helped me: \u201cYou are only carefully to note them, and \n\u2018do not exhibit wonder nor form association\u2019. \u201d \n\nSome readers may be wondering what connection there is between Mediaeval \nEnglish monks and Theosophy. Certainly the monks themselves laid no \nclaim to inclusion in theosophical ranks, as their vigorous denunciation of \nall outside their own faith made abundantly plain. Yet the connection is not \nremote. In certain of the early ages, monasticism served as the framework \nand supplied the guide posts along the Way, enabling men to reach the goal, \nto discover the inner world, hy faith , without other help than the drawing \npower from the other side. The Spanish mystics particularly (among thr, \nmost gifted in the Western world), rose to levels of consciousness where \nhighly occult faculties became operative, and achieved an interior transforma\u00ac \ntion of which they had little comprehension in their everyday minds. The \nEnglish mystics showed that, with no extraordinary gifts and in spite of nar\u00ac \nrowness of creed and personal limitations of various sorts, the separating wall \ncan be penetrated, the Divine fire be brought down, if the whole strength and \nforce and devotion of one\u2019s being be thrown into the effort. \n\nIn the present era, framework and method are both of necessity different. \nMadame Blavatsky gave her life to proving to an age of skepticism and un\u00ac \nfaith that, in the words of Light on the Path , the whole world is animated and \nlit, down to its most material shapes, by a world within it; that this inner \nworld is ruled by the law of love and brotherhood; that the beings who are at \nhome there (the efflorescence of the human race for ages past) are continually \nstriving to lift man from the living death which we call life; to awaken him \nto consciousness of divine faculties enabling him to live (as The Divine Cloud \n\n\nTHE ENGLISH WAY TO THE GOAL \n\n\n5i \n\n\nphrased it) \u201cabove himself\u201d. Madame Blavatsky gave to the West the knowl\u00ac \nedge by which man can become one with Divinity. A passage which she \nquotes in The Secret Doctrine in a different connection, applies equally well to \nthe teachings which she brought: \u201cThey seem almost to open vistas through \ninfinity, to endow the human intellect with an existence and a vision exempt \nfrom the limitations of time and space and finite causation, and to lift it up \ntoward a sublime apprehension of the Supreme Intelligence whose dwelling \nplace is Eternity.\u201d In less known theosophical writings, H.P.B. gives the \nrationale of the process achieved by the Spanish mystics. The English mystics \nbrought the possibility of it nearer to the average man. If, in our thought of \nthe subject, we can successfully separate the mystics and their inner experi\u00ac \nence from all that savours of a special creed or church or religious bent, it is \nclearly all a part of what the Middle Ages called the Great Work. According \nto theosophical teaching, opportunity for inner life and growth and advance\u00ac \nment exists for all men. With recognition of this fact, and co-operation, an \notherwise slow and painful journey may become transfigured, as all the mys\u00ac \ntics testify. \n\nJ. C. \n\n\nA man sees very far when he does not put himself in front of himself .\u2014 \nChateaubriand. \n\n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\nVIII. \n\nN O one thing made it more clear that the Germans had at last cracked, \nthan the tone of the letters which were taken from German dead and \nfrom German prisoners. Both letters written home and never sent, \nand those which had been received from family and friends at home, told the \nsame story. Through them all there ran a note of dissatisfaction, of discourage\u00ac \nment and criticism. The writers were war-weary, and wanted things to be \nover as soon as possible, no matter how it all came out; while the descriptions \nof privation and suffering within Germany itself, and of all that their families \nwere enduring, made it easy to see why the morale of the German troops had \nbroken. For the first time, to us, the end of the War was in sight; the ultimate \nresult was now certain, although it was not humanly possible to tell how long \nit would be before the final denouement. For these reasons there was an ela\u00ac \ntion at First Corps Headquarters, even greater than that inspired by the daily \nsuccesses of our troops and their splendid performance, although the com\u00ac \nmendation which we were receiving from the French at that time made us \nproud and relieved. We began to speculate as to future American operations, \nand as to where they would take place. Of one thing we were sure. If the \nenemy had cracked here, where we were, they had cracked elsewhere as well. \nFrom now on, we knew for a certainty, they would be given no respite. It \nwould be one Allied offensive after another, in which we should have our part; \nand time was to bear us out in our prognostications. \n\nBy the end of the fourth day after my arrival at Headquarters First Army \nCorps, near Epieds, the fighting had moved away from us, further to the north \nand toward the Vesle River, and Major General Liggett was impatient to \nfollow it up, and to move his First Corps Headquarters forward. His constant \naim was to keep his Corps Post of Command immediately behind his divisions, \nand as close to them as possible. But a modem corps headquarters cannot be \nmoved forward in battle until a place has been prepared in which it can function \nproperly. A good deal of space is required for the tactical sections of the staff \nalone, and these sections must all be close together, for obvious reasons. Com\u00ac \nmunicating wires, too, must be laid a little way underground, often under \nheavy shell fire, both forward to the headquarters of the divisions in line, and \nback to army headquarters, before a corps headquarters is ready to function \nas it must. So General Liggett was forced to wait, while advance parties sur\u00ac \nveyed the ground and cleared away wreckage in order to provide the space \nrequired, and while the Signal Battalion was engaged in laying the necessary \nwires. \n\nAt the start of the American participation in the Second Battle of the Marne, \nthe French had been distrustful of the ability of our higher staff command, \n\n\n52 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n53 \n\n\nand quite naturally, as the Americans were totally untried and inexperienced \nin this respect, and our general officers had never before had an opportunity, \neither in this War or in their previous experience at home, of doing more than \nwork out higher staff problems in theory and on paper. The able way, how\u00ac \never, in which Major General Liggett had handled the operations of our First \nArmy Corps from the very start of its participation in the fighting, had done \nmuch to relieve this feeling of the French, and to increase their confidence in \nthe ability of the Americans in respect to staff work. Early in the proceedings, \nthe exigencies of the situation had necessitated a change of axis, of direction, \nof the First Corps attack, always a difficult operation; the First Corps, attack\u00ac \ning first toward the east, had turned, until it was driving almost due north, \nand this change of axis had been effected with great skill. Town after town \nand village after village had been liberated by our advance, and the progress \nin the attack of our two Army Corps, then comprising the Sixth French Army, \nhad enabled the Tenth French Army on our left and the Fifth French Army \non our right to advance. General Liggett\u2019s Field Orders at that time were \nmodels of brevity and clearness. I remember particularly his constant insist\u00ac \nence that, except in an actual attack itself, the front lines should be lightly \nheld, with the concentration immediately behind them, and that machine guns \nand strong resistance points should never be attacked directly but always by \nenvelopment. It is easy to see how extremely wise and effective both of those \nprovisions were, eliminating as they did much futile loss of life, while at the \nsame time producing highly satisfactory results. His Field Orders were dated \naccording to the French system, in which the hours of the day were numbered \nfrom one to twenty-four, in order to avoid any possible confusion as to the time \nof their issue and of the operations ordered in them. They contained the usual \nfive paragraphs, outlining in sequence his estimate of the military situation* \nthe disposition of the enemy forces, the positions of our troops, the mission \nwhich was to be accomplished, and his orders as to how it was to be carried \nout. He believed in giving a subordinate commander his head, and in not \nholding him down with voluminous and detailed instructions. I can remember \none Field Order, the concluding paragraph of which simply said,\u2014\u201cYou will \npursue boldly and without delay\u201d; plenty of room, there, for individual ini\u00ac \ntiative and for adaptation to local conditions. \n\nOn the morning of August 5th the First Corps Headquarters moved to Fer^ \nen-Tardenois, where space had been prepared in a little group of houses on the \nextreme north-west edge of what remained of the town; these particular houses \nhad escaped shell-fire and were intact. But F&re-en-Tardenois itself was a \ncomplete example of what artillery demolition fire can do, as hardly a house in \nthe town had a roof left, and most of them were completely demolished. The \nwork of removing and of burying the dead had not been completed, and the \nplace was filled with the unforgettable stench of decaying human flesh. Fortu\u00ac \nnately, it soon began to rain, which cleared and freshened the air until this \nwork had been completed. We were under frequent shell-fire, particularly at \nnigl^and it was then, too, that the Boche planes, whenever the sky was clear, \n\n\n54 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nalso took a hand in the proceedings, and flew over us dropping bombs. Corps \nHeadquarters, however, was soon functioning as if it had been there for days, \nand my work as liaison officer proceeded much as before. Our mess was in a \nstable across the road from the Headquarters itself, and the wide doorway \nfaced towards the lines and the anchored observation balloons which fringed \nour front, and from which any unusual circulation behind the German lines \nwas reported,\u2014our artillery fire being directed accordingly. One day at \nluncheon I saw a balloon shot down by a Boche plane, which fired into the bag. \nThe observer jumped at once in his parachute, and the Boche, turning quickly, \ncame at him again, trying to machine-gun him as he swung there helpless, \nsettling slowly back to earth. His progress was sufficiently rapid, however, to \nprevent the Boche from carrying out his purpose, as the plane was forced to \nfly too low to manoeuvre, and the observer escaped, and landed safely a couple \nof fields away. We continued our luncheon while we watched this, not because \nwe were callous and hard-hearted, but because we had our own work to do, \nand our job was to get fed and back to it just as soon as we possibly could. \n\nI was billeted, with another officer, in a little two-story house about a quarter \nof a mile from Corps Headquarters. The roof had been entirely shot away \nso that the top story was open to the sky, but there was a ceiling over the lower \nfloor, and although it looked like a very precarious shelter, we thought that \nit would protect us from the rain and the elements after we had done some \namateur propping up at what appeared to be its weakest points. We lived in \nthis place, ostensibly together, for a week, in the back room on the ground \nfloor, although, as a matter of fact, we were never in our quarters except to \nsleep, and then not often at the same time. The Boche had committed his \nusual wanton acts of destruction in that little house. Curtains and bed cover\u00ac \nings had been tom to shreds; pictures had been bayoneted on the walls; bureau \ndrawers had been dumped on the floor and their contents trampled on and \ndestroyed; the furniture had been smashed and broken, and much of it had \nbeen thrown out of the rear windows and lay in the yard. The same conditions \nprevailed in most of the houses in the town which was still partly standing. \nBut the destmction was usually complete. Towards the end of my stay there, \nI saw two French women, peasants, slowly walking down our street. How \nthey got there, I cannot imagine, as no civilian population whatever was left \nin the town. Probably they had been in hiding somewhere near by, and, drawn \nby that love of home which is so strong in the French heart, they had begged \na ride on some Army truck, and had come back to what had once been familiar \nsurroundings, to see what was left. But there was not a single landmark they \ncould recognize. They walked down that street slowly, hesitatingly, as if they \nwere in a dream. Finally they stopped in front of a mass of rubble and plaster \n.and stones, the remains of what had once been a house, and gazed at it silently. \nThen I saw them counting, slowly, beginning at the end of the street, and \n\u2022checking one another. I saw them stop, after a little, and look at each other, \n\u2022speechless for a moment; then they clung together, weeping, rocking to and \nfro with choking, heart-rending sobs. There was nothing left. \n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n55 \n\n\nI slept on the floor of our billet, wrapped in blanket and overcoat, subject \nto the enemy interruptions which made night hideous. Some light housekeep\u00ac \ning had to be done, for, although a striker had been assigned to me, he had \nvarious other duties as well, and did not often show up, and never when he \nwas wanted. I utilized what spare moments I had, therefore, before turning \nin, in washing my own clothes, in my rubber tub, with highly-scented French \nsoap, which was all that I had. I remember, one evening, that I had com\u00ac \npleted this chore, and was out in the rear hanging my wash to dry on a line \nwhich I had rigged up, when a shell burst in a back-yard three or four houses \naway from us. I dove for our back-door just in time, and stayed in from then \non, leaving my wash to dry upon the ground, in spite of the urgings of my \nroom-mate, who did not wash at all where it did not show, and who had been \nenjoying the proceedings, and was hoping for a repetition of the performance if \nhe could only get me out into the yard again. Sleeping was largely a matter of \nbecoming accustomed to the noise and the confusion. I could see, as I lay on \nmy back waiting for sleep, the flash against the sky of the guns of the German \nbattery which was firing on us. Its four guns would fire in succession. I would \nhear the shell from number one burst down in the town. Number two would \nexplode nearer, to the left; impossible to tell exactly how near, however, and \nit was always a ticklish moment until number three had arrived, as it might \nprove to be right on us. If, however, it was past us, and to the right, it was \nperfectly safe, as far as that particular German battery was concerned, to turn \nover and to go to sleep, for, during the rest of the night that battery, fired \nwith methodical accuracy and with that unbelievable German stupidity, in \nceaseless repetition, would continue to drop shells in exactly the same places \nand to register at exactly the same intervals. \n\nAn unpleasant occurrence marked my stay in that billet. A young Lieuten\u00ac \nant, attached to First Corps Headquarters, had taken up his quarters in the \nfront room. One night, as I lay there about to go to sleep, I heard him come \nin, and then I heard a match struck. Then there was a pause as he lighted a \ncandle, and a line of light appeared under the door between the rooms. It \nwas strictly against all orders to show a light at night. There were Boche \nplanes right over us at that very moment, probably searching out the where\u00ac \nabouts of Corps Headquarters, and if that shaft of candle-light, then falling \nfrom our front window on to the roadway, had been seen from the air, the vi\u00ac \ncinity would have been bombed for the rest of the night, with a fair chance \nthat Corps Headquarters would have been obliterated. I rose, and, openu^H \nthe door, asked him why he was showing a light. He replied that he had bom \nordered up to the lines on some mission of reconnaissance, and that he was \ngetting his things together. I told him to put out the light, and to assemble \nhis possessions in the dark. The light was extinguished, and I went back and \nlay down again. After a short interval, the line of light again appeared under \nthe door. Thoroughly angry this time, I again went into his room, put out \nthe light myself, and asked him if he was not accustomed to obey an order \nwhen he received one. He replied that he had not understood that I was giving \n\n\n\n\n\n56 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nhim an order. I told him to understand that I had given him one, and to under\u00ac \nstand further that I would report the occurrence to G-3 in the morning (three \nseparate charges and specifications under the Articles of War were warranted), \nand in the meanwhile to get out of there as fast as he could, and I waited to \nsee him go. In the morning I dictated a statement covering the whole pro\u00ac \nceeding to one of the senior officers of G-3, signed it, and answered verbally \nvarious questions in regard to it. I was disturbed, for I was afraid that the \nwhole thing would be put down to an ordinary quarrel, or that the Lieutenant \nwould attempt to lie his way out, and then it would be a question of his word \nagainst mine. However, I heard nothing more about the occurrence, until the \nvery morning of my departure, when I was in the Chief of Staff\u2019s room, report\u00ac \ning myself out, and saying good-bye to General Craig. As I was about to leave, \nthe General turned to the Colonel who was Chief of G-3, and without looking \nat me, as if it were merely some piece of business which he had forgotten, in\u00ac \nquired incidentally whether Lieutenant Blank had gone. The Colonel replied \nthat he had been sent to the Seventy-seventh Division, and had been assigned \nto the 302d Ammunition Train, my old unit. It was General Craig\u2019s way of \ntelling me that I had been right, and that he had supported my action. There \nwas no time to try that kind of officer by a General Court Martial in the \nsurroundings in which we found ourselves; the only thing to do was to get rid \nof him. \n\nI had heard that the Seventy-seventh Division was in the rear of the Corps \narea, and that it was coming up to relieve one of the divisions in line. It was \nonly just two weeks since I had left the Division at Baccarat, but it seemed \nlike months, for I had been so busy and so much had happened in the interval. \nIn the meanwhile, the Division had been moving, and its presence near-by \nwas verified by the arrival daily at First Corps Headquarters of various mem\u00ac \nbers of the Division Staff, and of reconnoitering parties from the units which \nwere about to go into line. My former Colonel appeared on the scene one \nday in our familiar old Dodge car, accompanied by the new Adjutant and the \nSupply Officer, in quest of maps of the front, and I was able to get for him \nall of these that he required, and also to furnish him with other information \nwhich he wanted. A night or two later I saw my old Division march through \nF&re-en-Tardenois to go into line on an active front for the first time. I stood \nby the side of the road, in the shadow of a building, and watched them go by. \n\nI was able to recognize, even in the dark, some of the officers whom I knew, by \nthe way they walked and carried themselves. The platoons marched with \nlong intervals between, in order to minimize the effects of a bursting shell. \nThere was not a sound, except for the shuffling of feet in the road, the creaking \nof equipment, and an occasional grunt as some soldier shifted the position of \nthe pack on his shoulders. This was the last glimpse which I had of the Seventy- \nseventh Division during the War, for, while it was on the left flank of the First \nArmy line, in the Argonne Forest, during the Meuse-Argonne operation, my \nduties at that time never allowed me to get anywhere near the area of \nits operations. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n57 \n\n\nBy this time the Boche was digging in beyond the Vesle, and there were evi\u00ac \ndences of a reversion to stationary warfare. The First Corps Sector was about \nto be taken over by the Third American Corps, which had been fighting on \nour right, and First Corps Headquarters were about to be withdrawn. My \nrelations with First Corps Headquarters had been so thoroughly pleasant, and \nalways increasingly so, and my work there had been of such absorbing interest, \nthat it was with the greatest regret that I received a telegram over the Signal \nCorps wire on the morning of August 12th, ordering me to report back at once \nto First Army Headquarters at La Fertd-sous-Jouarre. I had been with First \nCorps Headquarters just under two weeks, but it seemed like very much longer \nthan that. It was a great privilege to have played even such a minor part in \nthe first operations of one of the large tactical units of our Army. But an \norder is an order, and I said my farewells, and left F&re-en-Tardenois within \nan hour after I had received the telegram. I shall never forget that drive \ndown the old Chateau-Thierry Salient, back to La Fertd-sous-Jouarre. Every\u00ac \nthing had been keyed to such a high pitch at the front, one had been living \nat such a high level of effort, that the sensation was that of coming down-hill, \nalthough the road was, for the most part, perfectly level. There was a feeling \nof leaving reality and of coming back to unreality; of sinking down again, and \nof leaving behind something which one did not want to leave. \n\nFor, there, one had been conscious of living in a rarefied atmosphere, of \nbeing lifted up, of functioning with an extraordinary alertness and awareness. \nOne\u2019s powers seemed capable of an indefinite expansion, of a sustained activity \nand efficiency in higher reaches of effort. It was not excitement alone that \nmade this possible; it was not the sense of danger, nor the absorbing interest \nin all that was taking place, nor the realization of the importance of the events \nin which one was participating, although without question each one of these \nfactors played its part. Rather was it a sure knowledge that, in the midst of all \nthe noise and turmoil and confusion and activity, unseen forces were guiding \nand directing, in this War which was their War. It was as if warriors were \npresent whom one did not see. The spiritual world not only seemed close by, \nat hand, but one felt in a certain sense actually within the borders of a different \nworld, living in reality, surveying with a surprising sort of detachment tte \nwhirl of daily events, at the same time that one played a conscious and ac#^ \npart in them. It was not something which one did oneself. It had nothing \nwhatever to do with one\u2019s own qualifications, or lack of them, except in so far \nas desire and motive may have helped to bring it about. It just happened. \nOne was gathered up, as it were, into a new world and functioned there. It \nwas quite simple. Later on in the summer, when I received letters from a \nfriend in the Movement, things which he said in them took on an added signifi\u00ac \ncance in the light of this experience. \u201cDo not forget your Companions. France \nis full of them, known and unknown. Do not forget either that no matter \nwhat happens, there is no such thing as separation for those who know Him,\u2014 \n\n\u00bb nk is in consciousness as well as in life. . . . Where you are must be thick \nangels. Not easy to feel them, I imagine, except at certain times and \n\n\n58 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nplaces. The terrific outer activity; the noise; the reaction of strained nerves,\u2014 \nmust make it difficult to feel, to see. But they surely are there. And all the \nold Saints of France must be leaning half way out of heaven to bless and cheer \nand sanctify. It is not far to lean, not there. To love that land is to love Him: \nHe has so completely made it His own.\u201d \n\nIt was easy to love that land. The very next day came an opportunity to \nsee a part of it that was new to me, and, therefore, full of new beauty. For \nwhen I arrived at La Fert6-sous-Jouarre, I found that Headquarters First \nArmy had packed up and moved, to a destination unknown. Only a few staff \nofficers were left, one of whom, a Colonel, instructed me to report to him at \nthe former Headquarters building early the next morning, and informed me \nthat I was to proceed overland with him by motor, under sealed orders, which \nwere not to be opened until we were en route. I went back to the same billet \nwhich I had occupied two weeks before, and asked the old man who lived there \nto take me in again for the night. Not only did he make no difficulty about it, \nbut the enthusiasm with which I was welcomed, as an old friend, bore striking \nwitness to the success of the American effort in the interval and to its effect \nupon the French. Upon the occasion of my former visit, I had been received \nsomewhat grudgingly and had been given a tiny room in an outbuilding in the \nrear. This time, however, my temporary host insisted upon giving me his \nformal guest room on the second floor, most attractively furnished with what \nappeared to be some really old pieces, and it was only with the greatest dif\u00ac \nficulty and tact that I was able to prevent him from opening a bottle of wine, \nin order that we might drink together to the continued success of the united \nFrench and American armies. I spent most of that evening in an estaminet \nin the town, in the company of an officer whom I knew and whom I met there \nentirely by chance, so afraid was I that, if I returned to my temporary home \nbefore the old man had gone to bed, the attack would be renewed. Early the \nnext morning, August 13th, we departed in a Staff car, six of us in all, and \nwhen we were once well on our way, the Colonel in charge informed us that \nour destination was Neufch&teau, whither the rest of First Army Headquarters \nhad already preceded us. This news was immensely interesting and stimulat\u00ac \ning, for it could mean only one thing, and that was, that the First American \nArmy was about to undertake its first independent operation as a tactical unit, \nand that, in view of where we were bound, this operation could be nothing else \nthan the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient. The animated discussion which \nensued upon the receipt of this news, however, did not prevent me from drink\u00ac \ning in the beauty of that French country side; my humble rank made it a matter \nof necessity that I should play a heavy thinking part in the milieu in which \nI found myself, so I listened, asked an occasional question, and concentrated \nupon the country through which we were passing. Our route lay well back \nof the front. We saw no troops at all, until well on in the afternoon. It was a \npeace-time France through which we passed, with no signs of the devastation \nof war. Through little towns we went, drowsy in the hot summer sun; past \na succession of those way-side Calvaries and Crucifixes which one sees all over \n\n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n59 \n\n\nFrance, which are such perpetual and welcome reminders. Through land \nunder cultivation, shimmering in the heat, where the sight of women and chil\u00ac \ndren working in the fields brought a momentary tightening of the heart and a \nrealization that, beneath the smiling surface, stem forces were at work. \nThrough forets and bois we went, cool and dark, and out again into open, roll\u00ac \ning lands. Over it all brooded what I liked to think of as the permanent spirit \nof France. Wars might come and end, might bring their changes and sorrows, \nbut would bring no change in this quiet and holy stillness, in this beauty which \nhad its power to assuage all sorrow and to convey a recompense. It brought \nhome to me something which my friend in New York had said in one of his \nrecent letters. He had been writing of his affection for \u201cthose hills and valleys \nwhich seem to be so saturated with the Master\u2019s benediction and love\u201d, and \nhad said that one was drawn to \u201cthe very soil of the place, because the soil \nseems to radiate an atmosphere which, so far as I know, is unique, and which \nis certainly full of the mystery and of the appeal of the divine kingdom\u201d. \n\nBut this charming and inspiring interlude was all too short. We reached \nTroyes in time for a late luncheon, and then went on again, passing through \nChaumont, the site of American General Headquarters, and reaching Neufch&teau \nearly in the evening. Headquarters First Army was in the Chateau on the \nhill, and there, after having settled myself in a billet in a street just below, -I \nreported the next morning. It did not take long to discover that our surmise \nhad been correct, and that the senior officers of the Staff, under the eye of \nGeneral Pershing who motored over constantly from Chaumont, were hard at \nwork on the plans for the St. Mihiel operation. At that stage of the proceed\u00ac \nings, however, there was nothing whatever for most of the junior officers to do. \nAt least, there was nothing as far as I was concerned. Every morning I re\u00ac \nported, and every morning I was told that I was not needed that day. I set\u00ac \ntled down, therefore, to a week of rest, caught up on sleep and on letters home, \nand spent much time with my strictly limited portable library. For social \ndiversions and for meals, there was always the Officer\u2019s Club, a very good one; \nNeufch&teau was so far from the front that, superficially, life there was rather \nmore like that in Bordeaux than the kind of thing which one might expect with \nan important American operation imminent. After two or three days, ty* \ninactivity began to pall. But that was always the way in the Army. Cro \nseemed to spend far more time in preparing for something, or in waiting for \nsomething, than one did in the actual doing of the thing itself when the time \ncame. The part of wisdom was to take advantage of a rest period when it hap\u00ac \npened to come, and to use it constructively; there was always plenty to medi\u00ac \ntate about, in every sense of the word. \n\nThis week spent in Neufch&teau, however, brought one experience that was \nnever to be forgotten. I knew, of course, that Domr^my was only a few kilo\u00ac \nmetres away, and I longed to go there, but I had no means of transportation, \nand, after debating the matter for some time, I came to the conclusion that I \nomhl not to make a personal request for the use of military transport, es- \npeSally as it was constantly in use. I had given up all hope of going there, \n\n\n6o \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nand was resigned, when one day, out of a clear sky, a captain on the Staff \ntold me that his colonel had offered him the use of a car for that morning, as \nit was not going to be needed, and he asked me if I would like to motor over \nto Domr^my with him. Nothing can ever persuade me that there was any ele\u00ac \nment of the accidental about this. The high gods had intervened. Moreover, \nI should not have cared to make that little pilgrimage with any chance acquaint\u00ac \nance, but it so happened that this captain was a man whom I particularly \nliked. It was a Sunday, and when we reached Domr^my we found a service \ngoing on in the village church, and we stepped inside and stood in the rear, to \nlisten. The village priest was preaching, with fire and vigour, and had reached \nin his discourse the point of violent denunciation of the Boche and of all his \nways; his sentiments were so sound, and he expressed himself with such em\u00ac \nphasis and such freedom, that I could have listened indefinitely with delight. \nWhen, after leaving, we walked a little way down the street, and, turning, \nfaced the home of the Maid, I had a sense of instantaneous recognition. I had \nnever seen that house before, not in this life. I had never even seen a picture \nof that house, to my knowledge. But when I looked, at the grey and ancient \nstones, at the tall tree which overshadowed it, I knew that I had been there \nbefore. There was not the vestige of a doubt about it. My companion must \nhave wondered why I hesitated so long at the gate, for it was a moment or \ntwo before I could recollect myself and go in. I was to have a similar feeling \nagain more than once in succeeding weeks, in that same part of France, within \na radius of a score or so of miles from that very spot. The atmosphere again \nand again seemed reminiscent and familiar; I felt at home, although I had \nnever been there knowingly before. Time and time again I wondered, as this \nfeeling recurred, whether I ought not to trust it implicitly. For it would not \nhave been beyond the bounds of belief, it would not have been in the least \nstrange, had I served in armed forces in that same country in the far and dis\u00ac \ntant past; it was entirely possible that, in the inscrutable working of Karma, \n\nI was again being involved, in some small way, in the movement of armies \nover familiar ground; I was back there, perhaps, to redeem some earlier mis\u00ac \ntake, I was being given an opportunity and another chance. \n\nAlthough we had fondly imagined that the American plans for the reduction \nof the St. Mihiel salient were still a profound secret, we were due for a rude \nawakening. We had inspected the church on the hill above Domr^my, where \nI had been interested in the murals, which were full of life and of some real \nfeeling, and we were about to depart, when we met the priest in charge just \noutside the door, and entered into conversation with him. After some pre\u00ac \nliminary remarks, he asked me when the American operation was to start. I \nassumed my blankest look, and inquired to what operation he referred. He \nreplied, that it was the one to come at St. Mihiel to which he had reference, \nand that all the countryside was looking forward with eagerness to our suc\u00ac \ncess. I looked puzzled, and told him that I knew nothing of any such plans, \nthat I was only passing through Domrdmy, but that I had seen no American \ntroop movements of any size or importance (they had not yet started) near \n\n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n61 \n\n\nthe front, and that I felt sure that what he had heard was merely one of those \nunfounded rumours that get around, and that it would be well not to put cre\u00ac \ndence in it, in order that his flock might not be disappointed. He smiled, a \npolite, enigmatic and disbelieving smile, and after further courteous inter\u00ac \nchange, we left him. He saw through me completely. I had merely confirmed \nwhat he had heard. Our very presence there, in a staff car, meant that more \nAmerican officers were arriving. As a matter of fact, the knowledge in regard \nto our future operations was pretty general. Later on, a colonel on the First \nArmy Staff told me that about this same time he had been in a theatre in Paris, \nand had heard our prospective St. Mihiel operation discussed by two midinettes \nwho were sitting behind him. This advance information of the general public \nwas probably not due to any lack of secrecy or care on the part of the Ameri\u00ac \ncans, but was undoubtedly arrived at in large measure by a process of deduc\u00ac \ntion. The Americans had made good at the Marne, they were ready now for \nan independent effort of their own in a large way, and that section of the line \nin the vicinity of St. Mihiel had always been universally recognized as the \nprobable future theatre of American operations. Added to this was the well- \nknown fact that, from the military point of view, as will be seen later, the reduc\u00ac \ntion of the St. Mihiel salient, menacing as it did on the flank any Allied opera\u00ac \ntion in the terrain immediately to the west and north, was an absolute strategic \nnecessity. \n\nOn the morning of August 20th, when I reported as usual at First Army \nHeadquarters, I was admitted to the Chief of Staff\u2019s office. General Drum \noutlined to me to some extent the plans for the St. Mihiel operation, and told \nme that the First American Army Corps was to take part. He said that the \nFirst Corps had been moving from the Vesle during the past week, and that \nits Headquarters was now at Saizerais, a little town northeast of Toul. He \ntold me that General Craig, the Chief of Staff, had asked to have me back \nagain with them for the St. Mihiel operation, and that, while he had intended \nto send me anyway, he was glad to have received this request. He then handed \nme the following letter,\u2014 \n\n\nHeadquarters First Army \nAmerican Expeditionary Forces, France, \n\nOffice of G-3 \n\nAugust 20, 1918. \n\nFrom: A. C. of S., G-3, 1st Army. \n\nlo: Captain-, Liaison Officer, Hq. 1st Army. \n\nSubject: Orders. \n\n1. You will proceed to the Headquarters, 1st Corps, reporting upon ar\u00ac \nrival to the Commanding General for duty as liaison officer, 1st Army. \n\n2. Your duties will consist of keeping these headquarters constantly \ninformed of the progress of operations of the 1st Corps and of all matters \nof interest to these headquarters. \n\n\nBy command of General Pershing: \nR. McCleave, \n\nColonel, General Staff, \nG-3. \n\n\n\n\n62 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nGeneral Drum told me that, as I could see from this letter, my duties would \nbe identically the same as they had been previously north of the Marne, and \nthat I should feel the advantage of the experience which I had gained there, \nand of my friendly relations with the First Corps Staff. He told me to go that \nafternoon, and to ask for the necessary transportation, and to say that it was \nat his order; he shook hands, and I saluted and departed. Packing did not \ntake long in the Army; after a quick and early lunch, I loaded myself and my \nbelongings on a Ford car, and started off, proceeding by way of Toul, which \nwas full of American troops. I arrived at Saizerais, which was really only a \nvillage, about the middle of the afternoon, but was unable to discover any \nsigns whatever of First Corps Headquarters, the only troops in evidence being \nsome elements of an American division which had just been relieved, and which \nwere on their way back to the rear of the Sector. As I was walking down the \nprincipal street, very much puzzled as to what to do next, I suddenly came \nface to face with General Craig, who had just arrived in a staff car. He told \nme that they could not possibly get into the place before the next day, and \nthat I had better go away and spend the night somewhere, and return the \nfollowing morning. I must have looked nonplussed, for he laughed, and said \nthat there was a town called Liverdun just below, where I could find a place \nto sleep. Accordingly, I started off again in my Ford, with nothing to do for \nthe next eighteen hours, in search of a place to do it in, and greatly cheered \nby my friendly little encounter with\u2018the General. \n\nLiverdun was situated on the top of a high hill overlooking the Moselle; in \nsome places the drop was sheer down to the river itself. The town was literally \ncrammed full of American troops. I went at once to the Billeting Officer, a \ngreatly harassed individual, who seemed to have so much on his mind that \nhe was unable to focus his attention on me at all until I had actually forced \nmy orders into his hand, at the same time standing over him, and explaining \nto him with some heat that I simply must have a billet for the night. He told \nme, with somewhat unnecessary emphasis, that he could not get another officer \ninto that town with a shoe horn, but relented slightly, after he had blown off \nsteam, and suggested that I should go to the Mairie and see what I could do; \nhe said that the school-room there was large and airy, and that, as far as he \nknew, it was unoccupied. No man can make bricks without straw. It was \neasy to see that he was at his wits\u2019 end, and others were crowding into his little \noffice on the same mission as myself. So, making a virtue of necessity, I climbed \nback into the Ford, and, after some difficulty, we found the Mairie. Leaving \nmy conveyance at the door, I entered, and, seeing no one, I made a personal \nreconnaissance of the situation. The school-room was all that had been claimed \nfor it, and the floor was clean although, being of stone, it was not so desirable \nfor sleeping purposes as it might have been. Before finally settling myself, \nhowever, I decided to investigate further, and started up the stairs. At the \ntop I met a French woman and two small children, who were all three survey\u00ac \ning my advent with surprised interest. Full of apologies for my intrusion, I \nexplained my predicament, and asked if I might be permitted to pass the night \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n63 \n\n\ndownstairs. The response was immediate and whole-hearted. Certainly! But \nshe could do better for me than that. Look, here was a bed-room upstairs \nwhich was unoccupied. It would give them much pleasure if I would make \nuse of it. It seemed too good to be true. I accepted the invitation with great \nthankfulness. My military chauffeur, if the driver of a Ford can be dignified \nby that name, carried up to my room what few personal possessions I needed \nfor the night, and I sent him off to shift for himself, with strict injunctions not \nto let my belongings out of his sight for a moment, and to sleep on the back \nseat of the car; I knew that he would find no difficulty in subsisting himself \nfor two meals in a town so full of troops. With true hospitality, I was invited \nto have supper with the family, but with the utmost tact possible I declined, \non the ground that I had immediate duties to perform which would not permit \nme to remain for the moment. It was impossible to tell how low the supply \nof food might be in a French family, close up to the front. Once they had \ntaken you in, all that they had was yours. I simply did not dare to risk it, on \naccount of the children. As I walked up the street, I met an officer whom I \nhad known for years in New York. Together we invaded a likely looking \nFrench domicile, and without great difficulty, and for a consideration which \nmore than replaced what we consumed, we persuaded the good woman of the \nhouse and her two grown daughters to cook some supper for us. \n\nIt was dark when we had finished, and we were just settling down for a talk \nand a smoke, when the alerte sounded. It was a clear night, and the Boche \nplanes had been sighted, on their way to shower their usual unwelcome atten\u00ac \ntions upon Nancy and Toul, and it was perfectly certain that they would let \ngo some bombs en route on any town as large as Liverdun. I thought with \nsatisfaction of the Mairie, a building with thick stone walls and solidly built, \nand decided to get home before the party started. The town was full of hurry\u00ac \ning forms, making for shelter. I ran down the street, and when I reached the \nMairie, I found, huddled together just inside the door, a score of white-faced \nand panting children, not one of whom was over fifteen years of age; some of \nthem were so small, that they had to be helped by the older ones; some were \nso young that they must have been doing this same thing, taking refuge from \nan enemy which made war on women and children, every clear night for prac\u00ac \ntically all of their lives. It made one see red. I thought of my kind Frencl^ \nwoman and of her two children, and wondered what they were doing, \nstarted up the stairs to see. The building was in complete darkness. As 1 \nneared the top of the stairs, I met them. She had in her arms the little girl, \nwho was sound asleep; in one hand she held a lighted candle, and with the \nother she grasped the hand of her little boy, who was so heavy with sleep that \nhe could hardly stand upright. It was still only a couple of minutes since \nthe alerte had first sounded. I asked where she was going, and she said to \nthe cellar. I took the candle from her, and the little boy, and, all together, \nwe made our way down two flights of stairs. There, in the middle of the cellar, \nwas an enormous stone furnace, with walls two feet thick. She opened the \ndootof the furnace, disclosing a heap of straw covered with a blanket, and in \n\n\n6 4 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthere she laid her little girl, still sound asleep; the boy crawled in through the \nopening and lay down beside her, and was oblivious to his surroundings in no \ntime at all. It was a most wonderful abri. Outside, the drop was sheer down \nto the Moselle, so that any bomb would explode far below. Only a direct hit \nwould do any damage. The mother told me that she had spent every clear \nnight in that cellar for four years. She said, however, that there were certain \nadvantages; usually many of the neighbours came in, and it was very sociable; \nperhaps they would come later, and I had better remain there. I thought, \nhowever, of that cool and home-like room upstairs, overlooking an inner walled \ngarden, and I decided to take a chance, although I assured her that I would \nreturn if it got too thick above later on. As a matter of fact, that particular \nraid was not a bad one. Several bombs were dropped, a few on the fringes \nof the town, but most of them landed in adjoining fields, and the rest of the \nnight was quiet. \n\nIn the morning the little family, in spite of all that I could say, insisted upon \ngiving me petit dtjeuner ,\u2014coffee without sugar or milk, bread without butter, \nand fruit. It was impossible to refuse. The small boy sat at the table with me, \nand acted as host with perfect courtesy. He showed me photographs of his \nfather, who was brancardier with the Armies, and who had been given the \nCroix de Guerre, and of whom he was obviously immensely proud. Soon the \ntime came for departure. I asked Madame if she would have the goodness \nto tell me the extent to which I was indebted to her for the accommodation \nwhich I had received; her kindness I felt that I could never repay. She refused \nabsolutely to hear of any payment whatever. No, the Americans had come to \nhelp and to aid France, and any little thing that one could do for them was \nas nothing. I finally succeeded in circumventing her, by persuading her to \nallow me to make gifts to each of the children, with which they might buy \nsome little souvenirs of my visit. Delighted, they then both insisted that \nthey should make me gifts in return. They disappeared into the garden for a \nspace, but soon returned, the boy with a paper bag full of mirabelles and the \nlittle girl with her arms full of flowers, which she proceeded to arrange in a \nbouquet. They accompanied me to the steps, where the Ford was awaiting \nme, the driver looking none the worse for having roughed it a bit for the night, \nand, as I drove away, all three, framed in the doorway, were waving hands and \nhandkerchiefs, and were calling after me all sorts of warm-hearted good wishes. \n\n\n{To be continued) \n\n\nCenturion. \n\n\nThe true secret of cheerfulness lies in forgetting yourself and your personal interests. \n\u2014Palau. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREMARKS BY THE WAY \n\n\nR EFERRING to the death of King George of England in last April\u2019s \nQuarterly, we concluded with these words: \n\nFor the example which he and Queen Mary set in their own home, as man and wife, \nas father and mother, it would be impossible to be too grateful. They hated immorality \nand vulgarity. One can only hope that the Queen will continue to exert the same in\u00ac \nfluence, unimpeded [not italicized originally]. \n\nEveryone must wish that the new King will leave as fine a record behind him. 1 o use \nan old-time expression: may he grow in grace as in wisdom and dignity, and live to be \nblest by his people as his father was before him. \n\nWe chose our words with care, realizing that it would require something of a \nmiracle if our prayer for Edward VIII were to be answered. His private record \nwas terribly against him, as was widely known in America after his visit some \nyears ago to Long Island and to the \u201cfast set\u201d there, when he left a trail behind \nhim which disgusted right-thinking Americans, and fully prepared the public \nfor the climax just passed. In brief, by placing his personal pleasure above his \nduty to his country, to the Throne, to his mother\u2014and to the ordinary decen\u00ac \ncies, he proved himself unfit and unworthy to be a King. His claim had always \nbeen that his private life was his own affair. No one\u2019s private life is his own \naffair, and the greater a man\u2019s position, the greater is his responsibility for the \nexample he sets and for the contagion of his behaviour. This is true not of \nKings only. Not so many years ago, first one and then another President of the \nUnited States Steel Corporation was forced to resign his office for \u201cprivate\u201d \nconduct deemed unbecoming in a man of that standing, with a public, though \npurely commercial, responsibility. Mere membership in a Church, in a Society, \nimposes a corporate obligation, super- or extra-personal. Under that head alone, \nno man is fit to be a King whose conduct and whose claims present the opposite \npoint of view. \n\nThe measure of a man\u2019s rights, whether as King or commoner, is the measure \nof his self-surrender. That is fundamental. If my position entitles me to re\u00ac \nspect, and my behaviour makes respect impossible,\u2014I do more than degrade \nmyself: I degrade my position. And Edward VIII degraded his position. He \ndragged the monarchical principle,in the mud. He wanted to marry a womdfc \nalready twice divorced, with both husbands living, whose last divorce wasV \nshock to those who have clung to the belief that the Courts of England could \nnot be swayed by \u201cinfluence\u201d (a verbatim report of the case was published \nhere); and he wanted to do this, on some basis or other, while still remaining \nKing. When told that this was impossible, he abandoned his duty for the sake \nof a transitory whim. More than a whim it cannot be. We prefer to say noth\u00ac \ning of the woman. She is forty. We leave it to our readers to decide what she \nwould have done if she had really loved him. That, for the moment, she has \ngreat influence over him, is obvious. How would a good woman, if she loved \n\n\n\n\n\n\n66 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nhim, have exercised her influence? La Dame anx Camillas answered that ques\u00ac \ntion long ago; so, in principle, did the old play, David Garrick. \n\nAs for him, he has proved himself heartless. In the long run, sons always \ntreat their wives as they treated their mothers. He has nearly broken his \nmother\u2019s heart, devoted to him\u2014a good mother, a good woman. He will never \nbreak his wife\u2019s heart (if she becomes his wife): that is self-evident. But he will \nturn this way and that, as the impulse seizes him,\u2014as he has turned from one \nto another for many years past,\u2014even their names known to everyone. The \nexact nature of his relations with these women, is unimportant. They were, in \nany case, passing infatuations. \n\nWe are outspoken for more reasons than one. Great principles are involved, \nand it would be impossible to make these clear without explicit statement of \nsome of the facts. But another and equally important reason is that sentiment \nis still being manufactured in his favour on the basis of this nasty scandal being \n\u201ca great love\u201d which it was unkind, if not a crime, to balk. And this is revolt\u00ac \ning, because love is a divine reality\u2014in this world, a divine possibility\u2014an ideal \nto be held sacred and inviolate by all of us; if not known, then at least believed \nin. A \u201cgreat love\u201d! That man and that woman, their pasts written on their \nfaces, their recent conduct an infallible indication of their natures! Self-seeking \nin any form is the antithesis of love. \n\nSentimentality is always dangerous, as it leads men (not to speak of women) \nto shut their eyes to any fact which does not accord with their emotional sym\u00ac \npathies. We cannot reach such people directly (they certainly do not read the \nQuarterly!), but we should like to ask what they would think of a professional \nsoldier who, in the midst of war, resigned his commission because he was \u201cin \nlove\u201d with some woman and was not allowed to keep her with him at the front. \nSuch a man would be a traitor to his country, and a disgrace to himself, and to \nthe woman,\u2014to any woman. Yet Edward accepted his King\u2019s commission on \nthe death of his father, and a King is on active service for life, at every minute \nof the day and night. \n\nThe woman announced that she was \u201cwilling\u201d, \u201cif such action would solve \nthe problem, to withdraw\u201d\u2014which left the situation exactly where it was, \nexcept that it should further have revealed her character and purpose, even to \nthe most stupid onlooker. But the underlying fact is that the outcome, in all \nbut form, was settled from the moment the King informed Mr. Baldwin \u201cof his \nintention to marry Mrs. Simpson whenever she should be free\u201d (the Prime \nMinister\u2019s words in the House of Commons). That was the end, as well as the \nbeginning, where Edward, as King, was concerned. Once his decision became \nknown\u2014and there was no concealing it\u2014he lost the respect of everyone who \nputs duty first in his own life; he had made such an exhibition of himself that \nit would have taken years to live it down, even if, during those years, his be\u00ac \nhaviour had been exemplary,\u2014almost impossible in his case, because his habits \nare set. And meanwhile the Throne would have been occupied by a man of \nwhom a widely-known American author, H. L. Mencken, at the height of the \ncrisis could write in these terms: \n\n\n\nREMARKS BY THE WAY \n\n\n67 \n\n\nThe natural sympathy which all of us poor fools have for one another should not be \nallowed to obscure the fact that, in the comedy now sinking so miserably into farce, his \nBritannic Majesty has acted very badly. The conflict in that comedy has not been \nbetween a romantic hero on the one hand and a cruel ogre on the other, but one between \na silly middle-aged boy and a pedagogue trying to recall him to his duty. . . . [The \nBritish people] find themselves confronted by a jazz baby\u2014wilful, petulant, irrespon\u00ac \nsible and preposterous. It is almost as if he had been caught robbing a hen-roost or \njoining a circus. . . . The people of the United States would have been quite as shocked \nif their President had revealed himself in the same character, and proposed to launch \ninto the same folly. \n\nThat the man thus indicted could be \u201ccharming\u201d and \u201ctactful\u201d when he \nwanted to be, has no bearing on the issue. The woman he wants to marry can \nbe charming and tactful when she wants to be, for all we know to the contrary; \nbut that would not affect her record, would have no bearing on her moral stan\u00ac \ndards, would not be sufficient to make her welcome in the homes of self-respecting \npeople. We know nothing against her but that which all the world now knows, \nor ought to know,\u2014which is more than enough; and by this time all the world \nknows or ought to know, enough of the man who was Edward VIII. \n\nHis farewell address, instead of putting him in a less unfavourable light, more \nthan justified the comment of The New York Times in a moderate and measured \neditorial (December 12th): \u201cThere was no glorious, even if losing, fight for a \nhigh principle. Personal and selfish interests were put above public duty.\u201d \n\n\nHowever, let us be thankful that, out of this deplorable affair, the peoples \nand the family which he dishonoured have come through unscathed, as all the \nworld recognizes, not without admiration. They were loyal to the Rightness \nthey perceived; they were steadfast; they faced their trouble with quiet \ncourage. \n\nOur deepest and most respectful sympathy goes out to Queen Mary. Every\u00ac \none in America would join in that. \n\nMay God bless, strengthen and sustain the new King and Queen. Long \nmay they reign. Everyone in America would join in that too. \n\n* * * \n\n\n* \n\n\nThe foundations of national glory are set in the homes of the people , and they will \nonly remain unshaken while the family life of our race and nation is strong , simple , \nand pure. \u2014 King George V. \n\n\nWe prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good and evil \nwhich gradually determines character .\u2014 George Eliot. \n\n\n\n\n\n\nWHAT ARE THE THE0S0PH1STS? \n\n\nA RE they what they claim to be\u2014students of natural law, of ancient and \n\nAA modern philosophy, and even of exact science? Are they Deists, Atheists, \nSocialists, Materialists, or Idealists; or are they but a schism of modem \nSpiritualism\u2014mere visionaries? Are they entitled to any consideration, as \ncapable of discussing philosophy and promoting real science; or should they be \ntreated with the compassionate toleration which one gives to \u201charmless enthusi\u00ac \nasts\u201d? The Theosophical Society has been variously charged with a belief in \n\u201cmiracles\u201d, and \u201cmiracle-working\u201d; with a secret political object\u2014like the \nCarbonari; with being spies of an autocratic Czar; with preaching socialistic \nand nihilistic doctrines; and, mirabile dictu, with having a covert understand\u00ac \ning with the French Jesuits, to disrupt modem Spiritualism for a pecuniary \nconsideration! With equal violence they have been denounced as dreamers, \nby the American Positivists; as fetish-worshippers, by some of the New York \npress; as revivalists of \u201cmouldy superstitions\u201d, by the Spiritualists; as infidel \nemissaries of Satan, by the Christian Church; as the very types of \u201c gobe - \nmouche \u201d, by Professor W. B. Carpenter, F.R.S.; and, finally, and most ab\u00ac \nsurdly, some Hindu opponents, with a view to lessening their influence, have \nflatly charged them with the employment of demons to perform certain phe\u00ac \nnomena. Out of all this pother of opinions one fact stands conspicuous\u2014the \nSociety, its members, and their views, are deemed of enough importance to be \ndiscussed and denounced: Men slander only those whom they hate\u2014or fear. \n\nBut, if the Society has had its enemies and traducers, it has also had its \nfriends and advocates. For every word of censure, there has been a word of \npraise. Beginning with a party of about a dozen earnest men and women, a \nmonth later its numbers had so increased as to necessitate the hiring of a public \nhall for its meetings; within two years, it had working branches in European \ncountries. Still later, it found itself in alliance with the Indian Arya Samaj, \n\n1 In our October, 1936. issue, we reprinted an article by Madame H. P. Blavatsky, which appeared originally \nin the last number of the magazine she then edited.\u2014the last number before her death, and the last in fact, be\u00ac \ncause, although in name it was continued, in spirit it expired. The article we now reprint, also written by H.P.B., \nappeared in tne first number of the first volume of Tht Theosophist, dated October. 1879,\u2014the first magazine she \nedited. It was her initial declaration of principles when she began her public work in India. Efforts to continue \na magazine under the same name, after she had retired from its editorship, produced a rattle as of dead men\u2019s \nbones,\u2014and her bones were not among them.\u2014 Editors. \n\n\n68 \n\n\n\n\n\nWHAT ARE THE THEOSOPHISTS? \n\n\n69 \n\n\nheaded by the learned Pandit Day&nund Saraswati Swami, and the Ceylonese \nBuddhists, under the erudite H. Sumangala, High Priest of Adam\u2019s Peak and \nPresident of the Widyodaya College, Colombo. \n\nHe who would seriously attempt to fathom the psychological sciences, must \ncome to the sacred land of ancient Aryavarta. None is older than she in eso\u00ac \nteric wisdom and civilization, however fallen may be her poor shadow\u2014modem \nIndia. Holding this country, as we do, for the fruitful hot-bed whence pro\u00ac \nceeded all subsequent philosophical systems, to this source of all psychology \nand philosophy a portion of our Society has come to learn its ancient wisdom \nand ask for the impartation of its weird secrets. Philology has made too much \nprogress to require at this late day a demonstration of this fact of the primo- \ngenitive nationality of Arydvart. The unproved and prejudiced hypothesis of \nmodern chronology is not worthy of a moment\u2019s thought, and it will vanish in \ntime like so many other unproved hypotheses. The line of philosophical he\u00ac \nredity, from Kapila through Epicurus to James Mill; from Patdnjali through \nPlotinus to Jacob Bohme, can be traced like the course of a river through a \nlandscape. One of the objects of the Society\u2019s organization was to examine \nthe too transcendent views of the Spiritualists in regard to the powers of dis\u00ac \nembodied spirits; and, having told them what, in our opinion at least, a portion \nof their phenomena are not , it will become incumbent upon us now to show \nwhat they are. So apparent is it that it is in the East, and especially in India, \nthat the key to the alleged \u201csupernatural\u201d phenomena of the Spiritualists \nmust be sought, that it has recently been conceded in the Allahabad Pioneer \n(August nth, 1879), an Anglo-Indian daily journal which has not the reputa\u00ac \ntion of saying what it does not mean. Blaming the men of science who, \u201cin\u00ac \ntent upon physical discovery, for some generations have been too prone to \nneglect super-physical investigation\u201d, it mentions \u201cthe new wave of doubt\u201d \n(Spiritualism) which has \u201clatterly disturbed this conviction\u201d. To a large \nnumber of persons, including many of high culture and intelligence, it adds: \n\u201cThe supernatural has again asserted itself as a fit subject of inquiry and re\u00ac \nsearch. And there are plausible hypotheses in favour of the idea that among \nthe \u2018sages\u2019 of the East . . . there may be found in a higher degree than among the \nmore modernized inhabitants of the West, traces of those personal peculiarities \nwhatever they may be, which are required as a condition precedent to \noccurrence of supernatural phenomena.\u201d And then, unaware that the cause \nhe pleads is one of the chief aims and objects of our Society, the editorial writer \nremarks that it is \u201cthe only direction in which, it seems to us, the efforts of \nthe Theosophists in India might possibly be useful. The leading members of \nthe Theosophical Society in India are known to be very advanced students of \noccult phenomena, already, and we cannot but hope that their professions of \ninterest in Oriental philosophy . . . may cover a reserved intention of carry\u00ac \ning out explorations of the kind we indicate.\u201d \n\nWhile, as observed, one of our objects, it yet is but one of many; the most \ni^krtant of which is to revive the work of Ammonius Saccas, and make various \nnations remember that they are the children \u201cof one mother\u201d. As to the tran- \n\n\n70 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nscendental side of ancient Theosophy, it is also high time that the Theosophical \nSociety should explain. With how much, then, of this nature-searching, God\u00ac \nseeking science of the ancient Aryan and Greek mystics, and of the powers of \nmodem spiritual mediumship, does the Society agree? Our answer is: with it \nall. But if asked what it believes in, the reply will be: \u201cas a body \u2014Nothing.\u201d \nThe Society, as a body, has no creed, as creeds are but the shells around spiritual \nknowledge; and Theosophy in its fruition is spiritual knowledge itself\u2014the \nvery essence of philosophical and theistic enquiry. Visible representative of \nUniversal Theosophy, it can no more be sectarian than a Geographical Society, \nwhich represents universal geographical exploration without caring whether \nthe explorers be of one creed or another. The religion of the Society is an \nalgebraical equation, in which so long as the sign = of equality is not omitted, \neach member is allowed to substitute quantities of his own, which better accord \nwith climatic and other exigencies of his native land, with the idiosyncrasies of \nhis people, or even with his own. Having no accepted creed, our Society is \nvery ready to give and take, to learn and teach, by practical experimentation, \nas opposed to mere passive and credulous acceptance of enforced dogma. It is \nwilling to accept every result claimed by any of the foregoing schools or systems, \nthat can be logically and experimentally demonstrated. Conversely, it can take \nnothing on mere faith, no matter by whom the demand may be made. \n\nBut, when we come to consider ourselves individually, it is quite another \nthing. The Society\u2019s members represent the most varied nationalities and \nraces, and were born and educated in the most dissimilar creeds and social \nconditions. Some of them believe in one thing, others in another. Some in\u00ac \ncline toward the ancient magic , or secret wisdom that was taught in the sanc\u00ac \ntuaries, which was the very opposite of supernaturalism or diabolism; others \nin modem spiritualism, or intercourse with the spirits of the dead; still others \nin mesmerism or animal magnetism or only in an occult dynamic force in na\u00ac \nture. A certain number have scarcely yet acquired any definite belief, but are \nin a state of attentive expectancy; and there are even those who call them\u00ac \nselves materialists, in a certain sense. Of atheists and bigoted sectarians of \nany religion, there are none in the Society; for the very fact of a man\u2019s joining \nit proves that he is in search of the final truth as to the ultimate essence of \nthings. If there be such a thing as a speculative atheist, which philosophers \nmay deny, he would have to reject both cause and effect, whether in this world \nof matter, or in that of spirit. There may be members who, like the poet \nShelley, have let their imagination soar from cause to prior cause ad infinitum , \nas each in its turn became logically transformed into a result necessitating a \nprior cause, until they have thinned the Eternal into a mere mist. But even \nthey are not atheists in the speculative sense, whether they identify the ma\u00ac \nterial forces of the universe with the functions with which the theists endow \ntheir God, or otherwise; for once that they cannot free themselves from the \nconception of the abstract ideal of power, cause, necessity, and effect, they \ncan be considered as atheists only in respect to a personal God, and not to the \nUniversal Soul of the Pantheist. On the other hand, the bigoted sectarian, \n\n\n\n\n\n\nWHAT ARE THE THEOSOPHISTS? \n\n\n7i \n\n\nfenced in, as he is, with a creed upon every paling of which is written the warn\u00ac \ning \u201cNo Thoroughfare\u201d, can neither come out of his enclosure to join the Theo- \nsophical Society, nor, if he could, has it room for one whose very religion for\u00ac \nbids examination. The very root idea of the Society is free and fearless \ninvestigation. \n\nAs a body, the Theosophical Society holds that all original thinkers and \ninvestigators of the hidden side of nature, whether materialists\u2014those who \nfind matter \u201cthe promise and potency of all terrestrial life\u201d\u2014or spiritualists, \nthat is, those who discover in spirit the source of all energy and of matter as \nwell, were and are, properly, Theosophists. For to be one, one need not neces\u00ac \nsarily recognize the existence of any special God or a deity. One need but \nworship the spirit of living nature, and try to identify oneself with it. To \nrevere that Presence , the invisible Cause, which is yet ever manifesting itself \nin its incessant results; the intangible, omnipotent, and omnipresent Proteus: \nindivisible in its Essence, and eluding form, yet appearing under all and every \nform; who is here and there and everywhere and nowhere; is All and Nothing; \nubiquitous yet one; the Essence filling, binding, bounding, containing every\u00ac \nthing; contained in all. It will, we think, be seen now, that whether classed as \nTheists, Pantheists or Atheists, such men are all near kinsmen to the rest. Be \nwhat he may, once a student abandons the old and trodden highway of routine, \nand enters upon the solitary path of independent thought\u2014Godward\u2014he is a \nTheosophist; an original thinker, a seeker after the eternal truth with \u201can \ninspiration of his own\u201d to solve the universal problems. \n\nWith every man that is earnestly searching in his own way after a knowledge \nof the Divine Principle, of man\u2019s relations to it, and nature\u2019s manifestations of \nit, Theosophy is allied. It is likewise the ally of honest science, as distinguished \nfrom much that passes for exact , physical science, so long as the latter does not \npoach on the domains of psychology and metaphysics. \n\nAnd it is also the ally of every honest religion\u2014to wit: a religion willing to \nbe judged by the same tests as it applies to the others. Those books, which \ncontain the most self-evident truths, are to it inspired (not revealed). But all \nbooks it regards, on account of the human element contained in them, as in\u00ac \nferior to the Book of Nature; to read which and comprehend it correctly, the \ninnate powers of the soul must be highly developed. Ideal laws can be per\u00ac \nceived by the intuitive faculty alone; they are beyond the domain of argument \nand dialectics, and no one can understand or rightly appreciate them tliro^A \nthe explanations of another mind, even though this mind be claiming a direct \nrevelation. And, as this Society, which allows the widest sweep in the realms \nof the pure ideal, is no less firm in the sphere of facts, its deference to modern \nscience and its just representatives is sincere. Despite all their lack of a higher \nspiritual intuition, the world\u2019s debt to the representatives of modern physical \nscience is immense; hence, the Society endorses heartily the noble and indig\u00ac \nnant protest of that gifted and eloquent preacher, the Rev. O. B. Frothingham, \nagainst those who try to undervalue the services of our great naturalists. \n\u201cTalk of Science as being irreligious, atheistic\u201d, he exclaimed in a recent lecture, \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n72 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ndelivered at New York,\u2014\u201cScience is creating a new idea of God. It is due \nto Science that we have any conception at all of a living God. If we do not \nbecome atheists one of these days under the maddening effect of Protestantism, \nit will be due to Science, because it is disabusing us of hideous illusions that \ntease and embarrass us, and putting us in the way of knowing how to reason \nabout the things we see. ...\u201d \n\nAnd it is also due to the unremitting labours of such Orientalists as Sir W. \nJones, Max Muller, Bumouf, Colebrooke, Haug, St. Hilaire, and so many \nothers, that the Society, as a body, feels equal respect and veneration for Vedic, \nBuddhist, Zoroastrian, and other old religions of the world; and a like brotherly \nfeeling towards its Hindu, Sinhalese, Parsi, Jain, Hebrew, and Christian mem\u00ac \nbers as individual students of \u201cself\u201d, of nature, and of the divine in nature. \n\nBorn in the United States of America, the Society was constituted on the \nmodel of its Mother Land. The latter, omitting the name of God from its \nconstitution lest it should afford a pretext one day to make a state religion, \ngives absolute equality to all religions in its laws. All support and each is in \nturn protected by the State. The Society, modelled upon this constitution, \nmay fairly be termed a \u201cRepublic of Conscience\u201d. \n\nWe have now, we think, made clear why our members, as individuals, are \nfree to stay outside or inside any creed they please, provided they do not pre\u00ac \ntend that none but themselves shall enjoy the privilege of conscience, and try \nto force their opinions upon the others. In this respect the Rules of the Society \nare very strict. It tries to act upon the wisdom of the old Buddhistic axiom, \n\u201cHonour thine own faith, and do not slander that of others\u201d; echoed back in \nour present century in the \u201cDeclaration of Principles\u201d of the Brahmo Samaj, \nwhich so nobly states that : \u201cno sect shall be vilified, ridiculed, or hated\u201d. In \nSection VI of the Revised Rules of the Theosophical Society, recently adopted \nin General Council, at Bombay, is this mandate: \u201cIt is not lawful for any \nofficer of the Parent Society to express, by word or act, any hostility to or \npreference for, any one section (sectarian division, or group, within the Society) \nmore than another. All must be regarded and treated as equally the objects \nof the Society\u2019s solicitude and exertions. All have an equal right to have the \nessential features of their religious belief laid before the tribunal of an im\u00ac \npartial world.\u201d In their individual capacity, members may, when attacked, \noccasionally break this Rule; but, nevertheless, as officers they are restrained, \nand the Rule is strictly enforced during the meetings. For, above all human \nsects stands Theosophy in its abstract sense; Theosophy which is too wide for \nany of them to contain but which easily contains them all. \n\nIn conclusion, we may state that, broader and far more universal in its views \nthan any existing mere scientific Society, it has, plus science, its belief in every \npossibility, and determined will to penetrate into those unknown spiritual \nregions which exact science pretends that its votaries have no business to ex\u00ac \nplore. And it has one quality more than any religion in that it makes no dif\u00ac \nference between Gentile, Jew, or Christian. It is in this spirit that the Society \nhas been established upon the footing of a Universal Brotherhood. \n\n\n\nWHAT ARE THE THEOSOPHISTS? \n\n\n73 \n\n\nUnconcerned about politics; hostile to the insane dreams of Socialism and of \nCommunism , which it abhors\u2014as both are but disguised conspiracies of brutal \nforce and sluggishness against honest labour;- the Society cares but little about \nthe outward human management of the material world. The whole of its \naspirations are directed towards the occult truths of the visible and invisible \nworlds. Whether the physical man be under the rule of an empire or a republic, \nconcerns only the man of matter. His body may be enslaved; as to his Soul, \nhe has the right to give to his rulers the proud answer of Socrates to his Judges: \nthey have no sway over the inner man. \n\nSuch is, then, the Theosophical Society, and such its principles, its multi\u00ac \nfarious aims, and its objects. Need we wonder at the past misconceptions of \nthe general public, and the easy hold the enemy has been able to find to lower \nit in the public estimation? The true student has ever been a recluse, a man \nof silence and meditation. With the busy world his habits and tastes have so \nlittle in common that, while he is studying, his enemies and slanderers have \nundisturbed opportunities. But time cures all and lies are but ephemerce. \nTruth alone is eternal. \n\nAbout a few of the Fellows of the Society who have made scientific discov\u00ac \neries, and some others to whom the psychologist and the biologist are indebted \nfor the new light thrown upon the darker problems of the inner man, we will \nspeak later on. Our object now was but to prove to the reader that Theos\u00ac \nophy is neither \u201ca new-fangled doctrine\u201d, a political cabal, nor one of those \nsocieties of enthusiasts which are born to-day but to die to-morrow. That \nnot all of its members can think alike, is proved by the Society having organ\u00ac \nized into two great Divisions\u2014the Eastern and the Western\u2014the former being \ndivided into numerous sections, according to races and religious views. One \nman\u2019s thought, infinitely various as are its manifestations, is not all-embrac\u00ac \ning. Denied ubiquity, it must necessarily speculate in one direction; and, \nonce transcending the boundaries of exact human knowledge, it has to err and \nwander, for the ramifications of the one Central and Absolute Truth are in\u00ac \nfinite. Hence, we occasionally find even the greatest philosophers losing them\u00ac \nselves in the labyrinths of speculations, thereby provoking the criticism of \nposterity. But as all work for one and the same object, namely, the disen- \nthrallment of human thought, the elimination of superstitions, and the dis\u00ac \ncovery of truth, all are equally welcome. The attainment of these objects, ak \nagree, can best be secured by convincing the reason and warming the entil\u00ab \nsiasm of the generation of fresh young minds, that are just ripening into ma\u00ac \nturity, and making ready to take the place of their prejudiced and conservative \nfathers. And, as each\u2014the great ones as well as small\u2014have trodden the \nroyal road to knowledge, we listen to all, and take both small and great into \nour. fellowship. For no honest searcher comes back empty-handed, and even \nhe who has enjoyed the least share of popular favour can lay at least his mite \nupon the one altar of Truth. \n\n1 These italics are ours. Not within The Theosophical Society, but outside its ranks, are self-styled Theos- \nophists who write of Soviet Russia as if it were a Star of Hope for mankind, and who, in England especially, \nattempt to reconcile the principles of Theosophy with political tenets which H.P.B. condemned as \"insane dreams . \nSuch people choose to forget, presumably, that in India, while she was still suspected of being a Russian spy. \nH.P.B. published her magazine. The Theosophist, with a deep mourning border when Alexander II was murdered \nb^he Nihilists in 1881. They forget, or may not know, that although she became a citizen of the United States, \nsl^^fcnained passionately loyal to the Russian Czardom to the day of her death.\u2014 Editors. \n\n\n\n\nThe Dhammapada, translated from the Pali, with an Essay on Buddha and the \nOccident , by Irving Babbitt; Oxford University Press, 1936; price, S2.00. \n\nThe late Irving Babbitt was an uncompromising champion of the so-called \nclassical tradition. He believed that man achieves his destiny by the exercise \nof an inflexible will, by the rigid control of mind and body, by the restraint \nof emotion and desire. In an admirable book, Rousseau and Romanticism , he \npointed to the dangers which threaten the modem Occident, because its domi\u00ac \nnant philosophy of life disregards these ancient virtues. Self-discipline is in\u00ac \ncompatible with self-expression, in the contemporary sense of this term. Pro\u00ac \nfessor Babbitt loathed the \u201cromantic movement\u201d which in its modem form \nbegan with the Renaissance and which has been primarily responsible, as he \nthought, for three of the outstanding characteristics of modern civilization,\u2014 \nmaterialistic rationalism, utilitarianism, and sentimentality. \n\nProfessor Babbitt seems to have become interested in Gautama Buddha \nbecause that great religious teacher can indeed be regarded as a supreme ex\u00ac \nponent of the classical tradition at its best. The Dhammapada , one of the \nclearest and simplest of scriptures, lays special emphasis on the need for con\u00ac \nstant vigilance and wakefulness. Its central theme is the power of right will \nand right thought to transform the mortal into the immortal. Professor Bab\u00ac \nbitt turned to the Buddha, with almost religious ardour, as the living proof \nof the doctrine that only he who \u201chas forsaken and utterly eradicated all the \nappetites\u201d of the personal man, can become veritably human, \u201cthe noble, \nthe hero, the great seer, the conqueror, the impassible, the sinless, the \nawakened\u201d. \n\nThe \u201cEssay on Buddha and the Occident\u201d may be read with profit by every \nserious student of Buddhism. It really illumines certain aspects of the Indian \nMaster\u2019s life and teaching. Professor Babbitt understood his subject better \nthan many Buddhists. He even noted a factor which Mr. Charles Johnston \noften stressed,\u2014that the Buddha\u2019s sayings reveal an exquisite sense of humour. \nA few citations will illustrate Professor Babbitt\u2019s point of view. \n\n[ I he Buddha] does not hope, like Rousseau and the sentimentalists, to unify life in \nterms of feeling; nor again, after the fashion of philosophers like Hegel, to unify it in \nterms of intellect. The unification that Buddha seeks is to be achieved by the exercise \nof a certain quality of will that says No to the outgoing desires with a view to the substi\u00ac \ntution of the more permanent for the less permanent among these desires, and finally \n\n\n74 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n75 \n\n\nto the escape from impermanence altogether. His assertion of this quality of will is \npositive and empirical to the last degree. . . . The Western student is likely to be re\u00ac \npelled by Nirvana, but is almost invariably attracted by the prominence Buddha gives \nto love or compassion. Buddhist love can, however, like Nirvana, be understood only \nin connection with the special form of activity which is put forth in meditation. It \ndoes not well forth spontaneously from the natural man but is, like Christian charity, \nthe supernatural virtue par excellence. The current confusion on this point is perhaps \nthe most striking outcome of the sentimentalism of the eighteenth century, and of the \nemotional romanticism of the nineteenth century that prolonged it. This confusion \nmay be defined psychologically as a tendency to substitute for a superrational concen\u00ac \ntration of will, a subrational expansion of feeling. How many persons, for example, \nexalt the \u201clove\" of St. Francis who, in their total outlook on life, are almost inconceiv\u00ac \nably remote from the humility, chastity and poverty from which, in the eyes of St. \nFrancis himself, that love was inseparable! ... In general, a collateral benefit of any \ncomprehension one may achieve of Buddha, is that it will help one to a better under\u00ac \nstanding of Christ. One will be less likely to confound him with the humanitarian \nphantom that has for several generations past tended to usurp his place. . . . Every\u00ac \nthing will be found to hinge finally on the idea of meditation. This idea has suffered a \nsteady decline in the Occident, along with the transcendent view of life in general, in \nthe passage from the mediaeval to the modern period. Yet it is not certain that religion \nitself can survive unless men retain some sense of the wisdom that may, according to \nDante, be won by sitting in quiet recollection. \n\nIn truth, every real religion is a \u201creligion of the will\u201d. The current supposi\u00ac \ntion that Christianity is a form of sentimental humanitarianism is far more \nblasphemous, in the reviewer\u2019s opinion, than many types of \u201catheism\u201d. This \nbasic fact Professor Babbitt recognized and enunciated as clearly as possible. \nHowever, there are other attested spiritual facts which he did not perceive. \nHe did not comprehend, for example, that devils as well as angels can medi\u00ac \ntate; that the black magician uses the will to suppress the \u201coutgoing desires\u201d \nand to direct the movements of the mind. It is said that the difference between \nthe Bright and Dark Powers, between white and black magic, is a difference \nof motive. The black magician kills out all sentiments save one,\u2014the love \nof self; but the Masters have not suppressed the \u201coutgoing desires\u201d on the \nspiritual plane. Professor Babbitt rightly distinguished between a divine \ncompassion for all creatures, and the subrational pity (so often a mode of self- \npity) which anyone may feel in the presence of another\u2019s pain or distress. But \nthe Masters\u2019 compassion and love are their most \u201cimmediate states of cofl \nsciousness\u201d. If it were not so, as both the Buddha and the Christ have testified \nno power in heaven or earth could induce them to incarnate in the world of un\u00ac \nregenerate humanity. \n\nWe believe that Professor Babbitt did not rightly discern at this point be\u00ac \ntween the immortal and the mortal. This may explain his complete failure to \nunderstand the ecstasies of the Neoplatonists and the raptures of Christian \nsaints. He confused Bhakti Yoga with maudlin emotion. The \u201cextravagant \ntheosophy\u201d of Mahayana Buddhism seemed to him nothing but a perversion \nof the original Buddhist tradition. He did not recognize the essential differ\u00ac \nence between Lao-Tze and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The reader of this ex- \ncdfcnt treatise will be wise to refrain from accepting too readily Professor \n\n\n76 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nBabbitt\u2019s very unsatisfactory identification of pantheistic mysticism with \n\u201cprimitivistic revery\u201d. \n\nThere is another important factor which, like almost all writers on religious \norigins, Professor Babbitt overlooked. The Buddha and the Christ brought a \nmessage which had a meaning for all men. But, as has been stated, their spe\u00ac \ncific mission was not to found a Church, but an Order of Disciples. When \ninterpreting the discipline they taught, the need of the individual and his \nstage of development, must always be considered. V.S. \n\n\nContendings of the Apostles , translated from the Ethiopic manuscripts in the \nBritish Museum, by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge; Oxford University Press, 1935; \nprice, $4.25. \n\nThe book is an abridgment in a handy, one-volume form, of the much larger \nwork by the same translator, published at the close of the last century. It \ntells of the life and work of each of the twelve Apostles (Matthias being chosen \nto replace Judas Iscariot) and of Paul, from the time they started on their \npreaching mission, to the martyr-death which each eventually suffered. In \nmanuscript form it dates only from mediaeval times, but many of the stories \noriginated close to the time of Christ, some being similar in style and subject \nmatter to the biblical narrative, with the same convincing quality; others being \nwritten by young disciples eager to paint in heightened colour the miraculous \npower of their particular teacher, while still others have the characteristic \nexaggerations of legend. Whether fabulous or not, the stories leave one with \na sense of having been with real people, of having had a view of the Apostles \nas their close associates knew them, and of the stupendous difficulties they \nsurmounted. \n\nOf that early group, Paul alone stands out as a man of unusual greatness, \nand stories centring about his name all show his admirable resourcefulness, \ntremendous force and great valour. In one story suggestive of his own state\u00ac \nment that he became all things to all men, he is shown approaching a great \nand beautiful pagan city, and meeting Peter and Andrew who are coming \nsadly away because the gates are locked and strangers are not only forbidden \nto enter but are stoned at sight\u2014lest some of those sorcerers, the followers of \nthe Nazarene, may gain access and corrupt the people. \u201cAnd when St. Paul \nheard these words from them, his mind woke up like a lion that roareth to \nrend prey.\u201d Continuing alone toward the city, he meets two men who tell \nhim that their trade is the making of sacerdotal robes, and that they are on \ntheir way to sell to priests in the temple of Artemis, within the walls. Quick \nto seize his opportunity, Paul says he has come \u201cout of a temple\u201d, he is a priest, \nrobes are iust what he is seeking, and he will buy what they have. In this \nnew garb, he has no difficulty in passing the keepers of the gates\u2014is escorted \nin with honour, in fact. He goes straight to the authorities, startling and im\u00ac \npressing them by announcing that he is from the temple of the king and has \nbeen sent with a message from the gods. He then prophesies the coming of \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n77 \n\n\ntwo followers of the Galilean, and when told that they had already come that \nmorning but had been driven away with stones, he shows great anger and \nurges that soldiers be sent immediately to bring them in under arrest. Like \nwildfire, the rumour spreads through the city that a messenger from the gods \nhas arrived, and a multitude gathers. The scene is highly dramatic\u2014the \nvast temple with its expectant throng; Paul in his pagan regalia, placed on a \nthrone of honour; and \u201cseated in a low place at his feet\u201d, a council of magis\u00ac \ntrates and governors. Before them the soldiers suddenly appear, dragging \nPeter and Andrew in chains. The latter gaze in amazement at Paul, appar\u00ac \nently gone over to the enemy and himself bringing accusation against them \nand conducting their cross examination. With great sternness, Paul compels \nthem to \u201cconfess\u201d who they are, whence they come, and exactly what are the \nbeliefs with which they are disturbing the nations. He plays his part superbly, \nand through that day and the next, they are \u201cmade\u201d to tell the Gospel story \nand to work miracles\u2014in a word, given just the opportunity they coveted to \nreach the people of the city. At length, Paul pronounces their sentence: they \nare required to raise from the dead a young nobleman who has just died oppor\u00ac \ntunely. If they fail, they are to die by fire, but if they succeed, the city will \ncease from its worship of idols (such has been the effect of the trial on the popu\u00ac \nlace), and turn to the God of the Christians. \n\nThere are many points one would like to touch on\u2014as for instance, a letter \nfrom Dionysius the Areopagite to Timothy saying, \u201cI was not present at Peter\u2019s \ndeath for I had gone away with Paul my master\u201d\u2014and telling with heartfelt \ngrief and lamentation of the deaths of both these revered leaders of their work. \nAt that period, celibacy was apparently a sine qua non of embracing the faith, \nand the emphasis both on that and on the violent adverse reaction it aroused \namong non-believers is one of the most insistent features of every story, making \ndisagreeable reading at one or two points. But for the most part the stories \nare of absorbing interest. There is one beautiful legend, in which Andrew \nand his two disciples find, by the seashore, a ship which is manned, although \nthey do not know it, by angels, and of which the Lord JeSus himself is captain. \nThe conversation during the voyage, full of courtesy and gentle humour, gives \na rare picture of the Master Christ as his close followers doubtless knew hiu| \nduring earth life. He questions his passengers at some length regarding t nlm \nmission and beliefs, and Andrew gravely assures him that if he will sell his \nship and give the price to the poor and needy, and remain with them, he (the \nLord) will be enabled to do the great works they are doing. At the end of the \nvoyage, the Master continues with them into circumstances where his very \npresence requires miraculous power, and Andrew suddenly turns on him with, \n\u201c \u2018Tell me, O Man, whence comest thou? Whom and what dost Thou worship? \nAnd what is Thy faith which hath brought Thee to do these wonderful things?\u2019 \nAnd our Lord Jesus smiled at Andrew, and said unto him, \u2018Why are your hearts \nthus covered over? Lift up your eyes, and know Me\u2019; and thereupon our Lord \na^eared unto them in the form in which they used to know Him.\u201d \n\nShortly after the Resurrection, the Apostles met to draw lots, determining \n\n\n7\u00ab \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nin which country each should do his missionary work. Each of them in his \nown way then showed his utter weakness, facing with fear and dread that \ngoing forth into the unknown, that certainty of ignominy and death. It is a \nsignificant scene, because by contrast it makes all the more unmistakable the \ntrue source of the strength and power and magnificent courage which was \npoured into the work through these same men, subsequently. They quickly \nlearned that the Master was, as he had promised, nearer than hands and feet; \nthat they could call upon him in every need with the certainty of his instant \nresponse\u2014sometimes only spiritually, but very often visibly, to them and to \nsome of those about them. In reliance on him they could draw on his power, \nwhether to work miracles or (greatest of all miracles, perhaps) to fill their own \nweak natures with the invincible courage that could sweep all obstacles before \nit. For many readers of the Quarterly, this constitutes the chief value of the \nbook, perhaps\u2014the impression it conveys of the Christian Master, living and \nvital and powerful, watching over his work and incessantly guiding and re\u00ac \ninforcing it. J.C. \n\n\nSpeak to the Earth: Wanderings and Reflections among Elephants and Moun\u00ac \ntains , by Vivienne de Watteville; Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, New \nYork, 1935; price, $3.00. \n\n\u201cSpeak to the Earth and it shall teach thee\u201d, is written in the Book of Job. \nGood conversation depends upon the interchange of ideas, not upon the ability \nof one protagonist to carry on an endless monologue. The earth replies to him \nwho questions her with sympathy, and Miss de Watteville is one of those in\u00ac \ntelligent and inquiring souls who have something worth while to ask and who \nlisten to earth\u2019s profound answer. She is evidently a very extraordinary person. \nShe combines heroic intrepidity with a wide culture and great feminine charm, \nand her adventures are not only interesting and exciting in themselves, but it is \nher reaction to them which delights the reader. \n\nThe biographical notice on the dust-cover of the book tells us that she was \nbrought up by her father in the forests of Norway and taught the lore of the \nwoods. Later, she went with him on an expedition to East Africa to collect \nskins of wild animals for the Berne Museum. On this safari her father was \nkilled by a lion. Some years after, she was filled with a longing to return to \nAfrica, this time not to kill the animals, but to know them better and to enter \ninto the mystical life and consciousness of Nature. She went out to Nairobi \nand obtained permission to camp and photograph in the Masai Game Pre\u00ac \nserve. The first part of her book is a description of her experiences there, \nwith only the native boys and bearers, photographing and observing the ani\u00ac \nmals; the second part gives an account of her camp on Mt. Kenya and her \nascent of the peaks. \n\nThe game preserve is full of birds and animals, elephants, rhinoceroses, \nantelopes and man-eating lions. One of the most delightful episodes in the \nbook is Miss de Watteville\u2019s contest of roaring with the lions. \n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n79 \n\n\nAfter dinner that evening, I took up an empty petrol tin (used for heating the bath \nwater) and practised roaring into it . . . when, to my amazement, two lions actually \ngrunted in answer. I grunted hack and again they answered, coming nearer and nearer \ntill just beyond the embers they suddenly broke out into a tremendous roar. Next to \nmy puny effort it was magnificent and deafening, and I roared again with all my lungs \nto encourage them. Then they roared in concert till the air thrilled and shook with \nvibrations, and the glorious waves of sound rippled out into the night and were held to \nthe last echo in the amphitheatre of the rocks. . . . Lions in the wild state roar only \nafter they have fed, never when they are hunting and I could detect no anger in them. \n\nI believed that they roared in perfectly friendly contest one against the other, glorying \nin the sound for its own sake. Their attitude towards me was one of good-humoured \namusement, and with that kindly superiority of the pro, they were showing me how it \nreally should be done. \n\nThere is a lovely passage in which the authoress describes her realization \nthat, no matter how much she loved the animals, they would never trust her \nuntil she had transformed herself. \n\nAnd while I sat and watched the elephants now peacefully feeding in the glad sun\u00ac \nshine, and pondered the folly of my quest, something that I had read years ago came \ninto my head. It was the theory (it came, I think, in a book on theosophy) that animals \ncan see auras. I had thought little about it at the time, but now it threw a light on my \ndarkness bright as a revelation. Achievement depended on no external miracle or magic. \n\nIt was much simpler than that, so simple, in fact, that I had overlooked it. The means \nhad been put into my own hands, for\u2014taking the theory of auras as a working hypothesis \n\nit was I myself who must become something different. ... I saw now, that I had \napproached my goal from the wrong angle and that I was altogether unworthy of it. \n\nNew vistas opened before me, and I suddenly understood that my desire for friendship \nwith the animals committed me to something far greater and deeper than itself. Yet \nthe two things were so inseparable that it was only by pursuing the greater that I could \nencompass the less. . . . And this power of the spirit was not something one could \nhave, but something one might become. There were no half measures. To come into \nclose spiritual harmony with all Nature (and mankind) demanded the supreme sacrifice \ncontained in the five words: Leave all and follow Me. The saints alone have found \nthe way; or perhaps many have fleetingly beheld it, but only a handful of rare \nand chosen natures have had the hardihood and courage, the faith, and, above all, the \nreckless and immeasurable love to follow it. To these the perfect communion with \nNature came naturally. \n\nLater, when Miss de Watteville was camping on the slopes of Mt. Kenya, \na terrific forest fire broke out, and only by the most strenuous efforts could^^fc \nshe and her few black boys save their lives and a little clearing. In this oasi^^r \nwere gathered many little creatures, birds, mice, chamelions and deer to which \nshe gave food and water. \n\nGoing back to civilization after so many adventures, physical and spiritual, \nshe writes: \n\nIt seemed to me that, as when you march all day in the heat and the dust and have \nyour reward in the brief beauty of the sunset that transmutes the very dust itself, so \nthis quest of solitude\u2014which may sometimes be a lonely ordeal\u2014is rewarded a thousand\u00ac \nfold by its rare and fleeting visions. For a little moment all is simplicity; the mists roll \nup, revealing the peaks serene and strong before you. \n\nIt was those visions that I wanted above all else in the world to bring back and to \n\n\n\n8 o \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nshare; for at the root of all our lives is a great and terrifying loneliness, from which first \nor last there is no escape. \n\nYet by going out to meet it halfway, one discovers that its terrors are illusory. Soli\u00ac \ntude is an ally, there is nothing to fear, for truly \u201cNature never did betray the heart \nthat loved her.\u201d . . . Nature may be a cruel contradiction\u2014life for ever warring \nagainst life\u2014but her ultimate message is the friendship of God. Secure in that friend\u00ac \nship we cannot be afraid. Life is the glorious experiment, and Death the great ad\u00ac \nventure, when the mists shall at last lift long enough for us to see clearly. \n\nSt.C. LaD. \n\n\nModern Alchemy , by Dorothy M. Fisk; D. Appleton-Century Company, \nLondon and New York, 1936; price, Si.75. \n\nAlchemy may be defined as the art of transmuting the elements. Less than a \ncentury ago it was classified among the exploded superstitions of the dark \nages. To-day, as Miss Fisk points out, transmutation is an established fact. \nOne fundamental supposition of the mediaeval alchemists has become a work\u00ac \ning hypothesis of modem chemistry and physics. It is now assumed as a matter \nof course that the ninety-two elements of the periodic system are modes or \nvariations of a common \u201csubstance\u201d. However much their respective atoms \ndiffer in mass or structure or complexity, the chemist does not doubt that \nthey contain the same basic components. The specific quality of an element \nis defined by the number and arrangement of these basic components of its \natoms. Transmutation becomes, therefore, theoretically possible in the meas\u00ac \nure that the number and arrangement of protons, electrons, etc. within an atom \ncan be changed. The discovery of radio-activity proved that such a transfor\u00ac \nmation is continuously occurring in nature; and in recent years the process \nhas been successfully imitated in the laboratory. Experiment has actually \nreached the point where new elements, unknown in any natural state, have \nbeen produced. \n\nMiss Fisk traces the history of this modem alchemy with admirable clarity \nand simplicity and with a minimum of mathematical digression. In many \nrespects, it is the most readable popularization of subatomic physics which \nhas come to our attention. The student of Theosophy finds an added interest \nin the chapter on ancient and mediaeval alchemy. She is exceptionally fair to \nthe professors of the Divine Art. For example, she writes: \n\nWe may point to the ancient alchemist gloating optimistically over his few grains of \nyellow metal. Of what use was he? Was his effort justified? The briefest survey of \nhis achievements yields an unqualified assent. He evolved the science of chemistry, \nhe was the founder of medicine, the forerunner of the physicist. \n\nMiss Fisk suggests that alchemy originated in Egypt as a form of metallurgy, \nand was in particular concerned with \u201cthe colouring and plating of metals, \nthe dyeing of cloth, the production of alloys and imitation precious stones, \nand the doubling of gold . She does not consider the possibility that the \nphilosopher's stone and the elixir of life may, indeed, be realities in Nature, \nand that base metals may have been actually converted into gold by methods \nbeyond the ken of the modern scientist. The modern scientist bombards the \n\n\n\n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n81 \n\n\nhearts of atoms with rays and corpuscles. But what does he know of the ra\u00ac \ndiant energy which may be released and directed by the trained imagination \nand will? \n\nMiss Fisk seems to be unaware of the evidence that ancient alchemy was. in \nits superior aspect, a psychological science. What was the real concern of \nParacelsus, for instance? Was it chemistry or medicine, or was it the truly \ndivine art of co-operating with Divine Nature in the formation of an immortal \nsoul? In the higher forms of alchemy, the unregenerate personality of man was \nsymbolized by the \u201cbase metal\u201d which can be transmuted into \u201cgold\u201d, that i$, \ninto the form and substance of the perfect man, the image and likeness of God. \n\nS.L. \n\n\nEmerson Today , by Bliss Perry, Professor of English Literature, Emeritus, \nHarvard University; Princeton University Press; price, $2.00. \n\nThe contents of this volume were originally delivered as lectures at Princeton \nUniversity, during 1931. As might be expected from a book with that academic \npedigree, it is scholarly, moderate and urbane in its point of view, and it has \n\u201ca dash\u201d of culture. Unfortunately, it resembles too closely the hundreds of \noil paintings annually displayed at our national salons L Until the admission a \nfew years ago of modernist daubers, a visitor at the salons could always count \nupon seeing a craftsmanlike exhibit. The painters had learned to draw, colour, \nand compose; they were conscientious and by no means freakish. But when a \nhumble visitor had thus enumerated the many excellencies of the canvases, \nwith disappointment he was compelled to acknowledge that the painters them\u00ac \nselves usually had nothing to say. No inspiration breathed from that expanse \nof picture-covered walls; no vitality pulsed there. There was workmanship of \nwhich one need not be ashamed, there was good taste, usually, as also an atmos\u00ac \nphere of refinement; but the creative impulse had had no part in the conception \nof those varied scenes. So with this volume. For all its good qualities, it has \nnothing to say; it has no contagion to communicate to any new generation \nthat knows not Emerson. \n\nAs the title suggests, the volume is a revaluation. A revaluation of Emerson \nwas made by Matthew Arnold in the past century, forty years after his youth\u00ac \nful fervour over the new literary star upon the American horizon, forty year&i \nafter leaving Balliol College \u201cand that sweet city with her dreaming spires*-!,^ \nforty years after \u201cthe great town\u2019s harsh, heart-wearying roar\u201d had drowned \nthe tinkle of Oxford sheep bells; Thyrsis (Clough) had died, and Arnold him\u00ac \nself, turning from shepherd\u2019s life, had become a man of the world. But he \nwas the son of Arnold of Rugby, and so virile was that father\u2019s example\u2014of \nmilitant righteousness\u2014and so vital the seed that father sowed, that the world, \ndisappointment, and death could not quench the light that had been trans\u00ac \nmitted to pupils and son. No one at Oxford ever did read Emerson much, \nwrites Professor Perry, save Arnold, Clough, and their \u201cset\u201d (p. 115); which \nis to say that, prepared by the intense vitality of Dr. Arnold\u2019s character, his \npupi^and son took their next step in becoming ardent admirers of Emerson; \n\n\n\n82 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nothers, not so prepared, continued life as clods, unmindful of the American \nsage. Emerson\u2019s voice had set vibrating the eternal strings stretched upon \nMatthew Arnold\u2019s instrument, and though the town\u2019s harsh roar did drown \ntinkling sheep bells, against the majestic tones of eternal silence it could not \nprevail\u2014those forty, and more, noisy years were lost as indistinguishable \nmoments and motes. The lofty sentences of the American \u201cman of soul and \ngenius\u201d had fixed themselves in Arnold\u2019s memory. When he came, at 60, to \nrevalue the friend of his 20th year, it was not with \u201cdisillusioned\u201d eyes that he \nlooked back upon the hero of early days; on the contrary, he reinforced the \nfervour of youth with the conviction of age sitting serene and detached in its \njudicial chair. \n\nThe generation of to-day comes to the reading of Emerson\u2014if it come\u2014un\u00ac \nprepared by the earnest, domestic environment of seventy-five years ago. \nLacking such preparation, present-day readers may find Emerson particularly \ndifficult. No better introduction to Emerson is as yet to be had than Arnold\u2019s \nessay. The publishers of Emerson, if they were men of educative aims, would \ncertainly incorporate that essay as a preface to Emerson\u2019s writings. For Arnold \nhad some definite things to say, and he said them with conviction, with moving \neloquence, with lyrical charm. C. \n\n\nAncient Life in Mexico and Central America , by Edgar L. Hewett; The Bobbs- \nMerrill Company, New York, 1936; price, $4.00. \n\nDr. Edgar Hewett is President of the Schools of American Research of the \nArchaeological Institute of America, and Professor of Archaeology in the Uni\u00ac \nversities of New Mexico and of Southern California. His book is the most \ninteresting of the many which have appeared in recent years on the subject of \nlife in Mexico and Central America, ^nd is distinguished by its elevated point \nof view,\u2014its \u201cculture\u201d. Culture is precisely what Dr. Hewett would wish to \nbe distinguished for. He is one of the very few modem archaeologists who \nunderstand what it means, and it is of the culture, the accumulated inner \nattainments of the American Indian that he writes. He opens his book by saying: \n\nWe have in ancient culture-centres of America\u2014the Southwest, Mexico, Central \nAmerica, Peru\u2014an aboriginal people of numerous languages and general similarity in \nculture type and somatic character, surviving from what must seem to them in retro\u00ac \nspect a Golden Age. They are so non-mechanically minded as to be considered a \u201cback\u00ac \nward race\u201d by their masters. They actually possess as mature a culture of the esthetic- \nreligious type as the world has produced, and, though stunned by the impact of a ruthless \nand barbaric conqueror, the European, they are holding on in the face of appalling dis\u00ac \naster, stolidly keeping alive their sacred fires from which the soul of a race may be re\u00ac \nkindled; unconsciously living the heroic life. . . . Finally, let it always be kept in mind \nthat in writing on ancient America the objective is not history of civilization y but culture \nhistory; that what is aimed at here is an interpretation of the Indian race, not in terms \nof European civilization , but in terms of Indian culture. \n\nDr. Hewett points out that in the Americas the archaeologist has a magnif\u00ac \nicent field for study, because there exist not only monuments, but Indians \n\n\n\nCORRESPONDENCE \n\n\n83 \n\n\nfrom whom he may learn to understand the ancient life. He deplores the \n\u201claboratory\u201d and \u201cMuseum\u201d type of science. \n\nWe have in America too many pyramided errors that writers of our mechanically- \nminded race have erected by reading into ancient phenomena scientific and mechanical \nachievements unthinkable to the mystically-minded Indian. What disillusionment if \nwe could call up the spirits of ancient Indian priests and get some real information! . . . \nA generation has been wasted on unworkable nomenclatures, and the subject has been \nmessed up with new cultures for every change of diet or habitat: Corn complex, Salmon \nculture, Basket Makers, Pit House people, Slab House people, Fumarole people! Why \nnot in recent American history the Baked Bean culture, the Pot Likker people, the \nGreat American Pie culture, the Sod House people, the Frame Shack people, the Tin \nLizzie age? \n\nDr. Hewett describes the state of mind of the \u201cDirt\u201d archaeologist (and it \nis his own state of mind) in terms with which all true students of history must \nsympathize. \n\nHe . . . has the patience of Job derived from contemplation of the long procession \nof the ages, has boundless faith in and admiration for his remote ancestors, and believes \nthat man learns mainly by experience. . . . He has little use for the forward-looking \nperson who does not know his past. He believes that the true progressive is one who \nknows what has and has not worked in human experience, and is guided thereby. He \nviews every \u201cnew deal\u201d with a critical eye, for history has been largely a succession of \nnew deals. That is what gives the archaeologist so much to do. Russia, Italy, Germany, \nChina, are all getting new deals at the present time. Archaeologists look forward eagerly \nto their future opportunities there. The American Indian got a new deal when Columbus \nlanded on these shores. \n\n\nOf course, all was not sweetness and light when Columbus and Cortez reached \nthe Americas. The Incas, whether with high talk of ideals or with unadorned \nforce, had regimented the Peruvians into the \u201ctotalitarian\u201d state of ants. \nThe Mayas were decimated by civil war and pestilence, and the Aztecs were \ngiven over to black magic and bloody superstitions. However, the solution of \nthese problems might have come from within, in accordance with the racial \ngenius, had the Indians been left to settle them unconquered. We cannot \nquote all of Dr. Hewett\u2019s interesting comments, but it can easily be seen that \nhe has much of value to contribute to what many writers make a very dusty, \nsubject. St.C. LaD. \n\n\nCORRESPONDENCE \n\nTo the Editors of the Theosophical Quarterly: \n\nIn Notes and Comments (July, 1936) reference was made to M. Jean Cou- \ntrot\u2019s De Quoi Vivre. M. Coutrot kindly expressed his interest in what was \nsaid there, but raised the objection that I had completely misrepresented his \nthought. He also enclosed a pamphlet entitled Des Dangers du Dogmatisme , \nthe author of which, M. Roger du Teil, states that my failure to understand \nM. C^Ltrot is due to dogmatism. \n\nA eyeful study of M. Coutrot\u2019s book obliges me to conclude that I did not \ntreat him fairly, and I request this opportunity to make such amende honor - \n\n\n\n8 4 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nable as is necessary. First, however, it is necessary to make clear that dog\u00ac \nmatism is not involved in the issue. A student of Theosophy does not conceive \nhimself to be the \u201csole custodian of the truth\u201d, as M. du Teil affirms. The \ntheosophical conception of Nature is, at first, merely a working hypothesis, \nand can be nothing more for the individual until and unless he proves it by \nexperience and observation to be true. Its only claim to respect and attention \nis its reasonableness. It is logical, coherent and consistent; and it is in accord \nwith what we have already experienced and observed. \n\nDe Quoi Vivre is a very remarkable work, covering an enormous field and \nrevealing an immense and varied curiosity and erudition. With many of M. \nCoutrot\u2019s conclusions one can agree without qualification. For example, his \nexposure of the fallacies of Marxian dialectics is so complete that only the fanat\u00ac \nical socialist could fail to be impressed. In general, M. Coutrot seems to be at \nhis best in the economic field, where he states with admirable clarity the causes \nof the conflict between capital and labour. The great need, as he specifies, is \nfor intelligent co-ordination, and he proposes a \u201cco-ordinated economy, not a \ndirected economy\u201d (p. 213, seq.). In other words, his argument is that the \nrepresentatives of each industry should act on their own responsibility to \nharmonize production and distribution, and that such control should not be \nleft primarily to the State. Furthermore, M. Coutrot points out that tech\u00ac \nnological improvements do not necessarily reduce the total of employment. \nOn the contrary, in spite of the \u201ctechnocrats\u201d and their friends, employment \nshould normally increase as production increases, because each technological \nadvance implies a greater demand for raw and fabricated materials and a de\u00ac \nvelopment of new \u201cservices\u201d and distributive agencies. \n\nAs was stated in Notes and Comments , M. Coutrot distinguishes two proc\u00ac \nesses in human history, the additive and the non-additive , the former being \nrepresented by the action of reason which accumulates its discoveries from \ngeneration to generation, the latter by the activity of the emotional nature, \nwith its constant oscillations between sensibilities with opposite polarities, \nsuch as pleasure and pain, zest and fatigue, elation and depression, etc., etc. \nHe is a devotee of what one might call the religion of the reason, and in my \nopinion becomes too enthusiastic on this theme. It is quite meaningless to \nattribute to reason a \u201cpre-excellence among the human faculties\u201d. As M. \nCoutrot admits, reason can only act upon the data provided by intuition. \nIt is at least as important to cultivate the power of intuition as to refine the \nprocesses of logic. What is of supreme moment is that man should develop \nas a complete being; that all his potentialities of reason, imagination, percep\u00ac \ntion, will, desire, love should be actualized in their purest and most concordant \nforms. \n\nIn my previous reference to M. Coutrot\u2019s philosophy I unintentionally mis\u00ac \nrepresented his attitude towards the \u201cundulatory aspect of the Universe\u201d. I \nexaggerated his own exaggerated admiration for the reason as a thing-in-itself. \nHe does not pretend, as I fear I suggested, that the non-additive factors of \nhuman nature can or ought to be suppressed. On the contrary, he adopts \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCORRESPONDENCE \n\n\n85 \n\n\nthe hypothesis that there must always be alternating sensibilities in conscious\u00ac \nness; that our creative powers depend upon \u201cirrational\u201d elements for their \nbirth and exfoliation; that pain is as necessary to growth as joy; that reason \ncannot stand alone. He speaks of the need of \u201csafeguarding the indetermina\u00ac \ntion of the future\u201d, by taking every measure to keep the \u201ccreative sensibility\u201d \nintact, and he criticizes the sterility of much so-called social planning which \ntakes no cognizance of the unconceived powers latent in the human being. I \nhope that M. Coutrot will accept my apology for having mis-stated his posi\u00ac \ntion on this point. \n\nHowever, at this point also, M. Coutrot and the present writer must part \ncompany. By all means, let us try to foresee and to control the impact of \ncyclic law upon our consciousness. But what is to be the nature and purpose \nof this control? Which is our motive, to adapt ourselves to Nature or to adapt \nNature to the whims of our own self-will? In a chapter on \u201cA Mysticism of the \nFuture\u201d, M. Coutrot virtually asserts that the human species \u201cin fieri\u201d should \nbe elevated as an object of worship to the position formerly occupied by the \nUniversal and Eternal Divinity. Although he recognizes that \u201cthe individual \nalone has a concrete existence\u201d, the whole trend of his thought is towards the \nimmolation of the individual to the abstraction of a species, Homo Sapiens. \nIndividuals have value, as it were, in so far as they are the building-blocks of \nthe species. \n\nTherefore, I believe that I was not unjust when I selected M. Coutrot\u2019s \nwork as an example of a certain irreverence towards Nature. M. Coutrot \nrefers to man on several occasions as \u201ca fragment of Nature\u201d. Why assume, \nthen, that the part is greater than the whole? He speaks of lelan , sans dontc \naveugle , qui nous a port 6 jusqu\u2019oii nous sommes (p. 262). How does he know \nthat the creative force in greater Nature is blind, and what does he mean by \n\u201cblind\u201d? He asks: \u201cWhat God can we invoke other than that which is \nbeing made in ourselves and by ourselves, under the aegis of Minerva [i.e. \nof reason]?\u201d (p. 281). But why does he overlook the transcendent aspect of \nthe universal natura naturans which overshadows both the human and the non\u00ac \nhuman? Doubtless man is free to create himself, but M. Coutrot approxi\u00ac \nmates the dangerous assumption that man is free to create himself in any \nimage which may casually please his fancy. Nature sets the limits and the \nlaws in obedience to which man and all creatures realize the forms proper to^ \nthem. This is not a dogma but a deduction from observation and experience \n\nThe human species, as it is evolving upon this planet, is an extraordina^ \nproduction of Nature. But have, we the right to suppose, like certain astron\u00ac \nomers, that terrestrial man is the only entity of his kind in the Universe, or to \npredicate that there are no superhuman kingdoms in the whole of space? The \nmost perfect of human beings, those like the Christ and the Buddha, who \nhave most completely expressed and synthesized the potentialities of the hu\u00ac \nman species, have been precisely those who have revealed the possibility that \nat the climax of his \u201cself-creation\u201d man becomes something more than man. \n\nAuthor of \u201cNotes and Comments\u201d (July, 1936). \n\n\n\nQuestion No. 398. \u2014 Why is inspiration spoken of as coming from without? I thought it came \nfrom within. \n\nAnswer. \u2014It is often helpful to go back to the original meanings of words. In the Latin, \nthe word was inspirare , in- in, plus spirare , to breathe; to breathe into or upon. What is it \nthat breathes upon us? The Holy Spirit, in Christian terms; the force and power and reality \nof the spiritual world. Why does it breathe upon us? Because we have greatly desired that \nit should, because we have asked and prayed that it should, because we have reached out and \nhave wanted it enough; because, too. we have tried to prepare ourselves, to make ourselves \nworthy and fit for that in-breathing. It comes to us from without, but it cannot come at all \nuntil we are ready within, through our own effort, to receive it. C.R.A. \n\nAnswer. \u2014Granting that the inspiration be spiritual, what is the difference between \n\u201cwithin\u201d and \u201cwithout\u201d? T. \n\nAnswer. \u2014Inspiration comes when spirit speaks to spirit. We should seek it in the depths \nof our own souls, for through the soul we are in touch with the spiritual world and with the \ngreat beings who dwell there. They may speak directly to the soul, so that what they say \nwells up from the deepest and innermost part of ourselves. Or it may be our own souls that \nspeak and inspire us. But surely inspiration also comes from without. There is a wealth of \ninspiration in the theosophical books of all ages, in the records of heroic actions, in nobility \nof character, in nature, in music, in a thousand ways and places. Everything, to exist at all, \nmust contain something of the spirit, and is thus a door to the whole spiritual world, the source \nof inspiration. We should seek inspiration wherever we go, whatever we do. J.F.B.M. \n\nAnswer. \u2014Inspiration is a divine gift, an external influence directly exerted by Spirit upon \nthe soul of man,\u2014external in the sense that it is outside the present field of personal con\u00ac \nsciousness. Between this external influence and aspiration\u2014man\u2019s inner spiritual response\u2014 \nthere are reciprocal emanations. In one of the Fragments it is said, \u201cAll loving, unselfish \nthought expended, returns as inspiration,\u2014inspiration to higher and better work\u201d. . . . Also, \nperhaps, it might be helpful to consider the matter in terms of a Jacob\u2019s ladder, with, instead \nof angels ascending and descending, aspiration ascending and returning as inspiration. \n\nG.M.W.K. \n\nAnswer. \u2014Almost everyone must have been occasionally inspired by the words and deeds \nof another; by some book, or a lovely scene. The word \u201cinspire\u201d means \u201cbreathe into\u201d, sug\u00ac \ngesting the induction of some new element into one\u2019s consciousness, whether from inner or \nouter planes. C.M.S. \n\nAnswer. \u2014Theosophy regards man as an emanation of the Divine. As Light on the Path \nsays: \u201cWithin you is the light of the world\u2014the only light that cdn be shed upon the Path\u201d. \nBut man has created barriers\u2014\u201cthe gates and windows of his soul are blurred, and blinded \nand darkened, and no knowledge can come to him\u201d, until he removes the barriers which he \nhimself has created. \n\n\n86 \n\n\nQUESTIONS AND ANSWERS \n\n\n87 \n\n\nGenuine inspiration comes from above, from the Master at the head of our Ray. Theosophy \nteaches that we are open to divine influences, through our hearts, our minds, our souls; that \n\u201cthere is no bar or wall where man the effect ceases and God the cause begins\u201d. The real \nworld and those who dwell in it are constantly striving to attract man\u2019s attention to real \nthings. But even a Master is powerless to influence an individual, as such, until that indi\u00ac \nvidual turns his attention towards the real world. Most people are animated mainly by the \npromptings of \u201celementals\u201d, such as vanity, ambition, self-love, self-indulgence, etc., which \ndominate the personality. They are seeking inspiration to do their will and to obtain what \nthey want for their own selfish purposes. Inspiration from the real world reinforces the divine \nwill for mankind. We must induce it by setting up the proper conditions for its reception, and \nthen it comes to us as a free gift. It never fails to be given to those who seek it. \n\nG.H.M. \n\nQuestion No. 399 .\u2014It has been said that \u201caspiration returns as inspiration\". How are we \nto carry this out? \n\nAnswer. \u2014\u201cAs a man thinks, so he is.\u201d In response to the promptings of the soul, we \nmust turn our attention toward the life of the soul and away from the concerns and demands \nof the personality. If this attitude is maintained and a current started towards the real world, \na return current is induced. First, the imagination must be used to create a mould,\u2014a definite, \nconcrete picture of our ideal. Then the Master helps us to fill this mould as we bring the will \ninto play by bending all our energies toward the fulfilment of our ideal. G.H.M. \n\nAnswer\u2014 Aspiration will return as inspiration when aspiration has been put into action, \nwhen, so far as we are able, we live up to, or at least toward, that to which we aspire. \n\nJ.F.B.M. \n\n\nQuestion No. 400. \u2014Should we live ut> to our own conception of right and wrong, or to another's \nconception of what is right or wrong for us? \n\n\nAnswer\u2014 Our understanding of the art and science of life is limited and fragmentary. \nTherefore, while trying to do the best we know how, we should be anxious continually to \nreadjust our ideas, and to raise our standards. Often it is our lower natures that resent the \nstandards others hold up for our consideration; self-will hates to be interfered with. \n\nC.M.S \n\n\nAnswer \u2014We should live up to the highest conception of right and wrong, of which for the \ntime being we are capable. But are we going to remain satisfied with our present conception, \nare we going to assume that it is the highest possible for us? There can be no finality about \nour view of right and wrong, for, as we grow in inner ways, as we reach out for fuller under\u00ac \nstanding and for more intelligent obedience, our whole ideal is raised. \n\nHelp in right seeing, in right discrimination, comes from the spiritual world, if we will only \nask for it, and then listen. But if we go about asking everyone whom we happen to meet whal ( \nwe ought to do about this thing or that\u2014we all know those who do so\u2014our last state will be \nworse than our first. Perhaps, however, we are so fortunate as to have some friend whom we \nrevere and respect, and who is far in advance of us in all ways of inner perception and attain\u00ac \nment. We cannot ask such a friend what we ought to do; we should be reminded that \u201cthe \nduty of another is full of danger\u201d. But we may be told, if we ask, what principle is involved, \nand so be enabled to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, through the higher \nconception which we have thus been enabled to grasp. C.R.A. \n\n\nAnswer. \u2014We should never, in any circumstances, do what we believe to be wrong, no \nmatter what others may say or do. It would be wise, however, to realize that as yet we can \nsee only a small part of our own ideal, our Master\u2019s vision of what he wishes us to become \nand do; and we should welcome more light from any source. Others can often show us some \n\n\n88 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\naspect that we had not seen for ourselves, but which, when pointed out, we instantly recognize \nas truly our ideal. We ought also to realize that all of us are blind at some spot, where some \none else, perhaps more experienced than we, sees clearly, and we should act on his vision until, \n\nv obedience to it, our own power of discrimination has developed to the point where we see \nor ourselves that it is right. It is only by living the life that one can know the doctrine. There \nare many times when the only way to gain a deeper knowledge of our Master\u2019s vision for us, \nis to live by faith, in advance of our present perception of it. J.F.B.M. \n\nAnswer.\u2014 We should never stoop to the adoption of lower standards than our own, or do \nan> t nng which we ourselves know to be wrong. In order to learn self-reliance we should use \ne\\ er> means in our power to sharpen our perception of the good and evil within our own \nnatures. A pre-requisite is absolute honesty with ourselves in testing our motives, our reac- \ntions and their causes. It is easier for most people to see the faults of others than their own, \nw 1 e in many cases self-love prevents recognition, admiration, and emulation of superior \nqualities in others. An honest, determined effort to seek the Truth, wherever it may be found, \nU1 * t , US \u00b0 U ^ r . u ^ our own self-admiration and complacency, and lead us to adopt \n\nanother s standard of right and wrong when we find our own faulty or incomplete. \n\nG.H.M. \n\n\nNOTICE \n\n\u2122 e J ef L U ' ar \u2018he New York Branch of The Theosophical Society are held on \n\ntemate Saturday evenings, at 64 Washington Mews, which runs from the east side of Fifth \n\nftnZ 6 ; T m ( et r Eighth Street and Was hinston Square, North. No. 64 is the first \n\n&\u00a3\u00a3%\u00a3\u00a3\u00a3 the \" 0rth Side 0f the MeWS - The \u00ab\"* \u00ab* Ha-Mst \n\nDuring the present Quarter, there will be meetings on,\u2014 \n\nJanuary 9th and 23rd \nFebruary 6th and 20th \nMarch 6th and 20th. \n\nare^nNewYbrk em vfs r t ^ ** t0 attend these \"Stings whenever they \n\nN Y rk Vls,tors wh \u00b0 may be interested in Theosophy are always welcome. \n\n\nIN MEMORIAM. \n\nALICE GRAVES \n\nAn old and valued member of The Theosophical Society- \nSecretary of the Norfolk Branch, England. \n\nDied, 4th November, 1936 \n\n\n\n\n* \n\n\n\n\n> \n\n\nSTANDARD BOOKS \n\nBlavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled, Vols. I AND \u201e \n\nkey to theosophy CoMmTB te one book . \n\nSecret Doctrine, The\", *Voiis\". i \"and\" II and Index. 1 \u00b0 xh ' 3 50 \n\nTheosophical Gloss\u2122?* 8 \u201d ,n \u00b0 ne h \u00b0\u00b0 K without \"bJect-ite *v\u00ae \"iso \n\n1 FANS ACTIONS OF THE BlaVATSKY fnnrtJ.doth, 2,25 \n\nVoice of the Silence.. LoDGE .doth, 2 .go \n\nUave - Fragments, Volume I.fabric, 1.00 \n\nVolume II. . boards, 1.50 \n\np. \u201e \u00bb i i T Volume III.,.*.\u2019 . boaras, 1.50 \n\nwfiufj .Letters to Friends!.. . \n\nara, Katherine. Abridgment of thp ri.board*, 1.75 \n\nJohnston, Charles. Bhagavad Gita \u00a3 f Doctrine \u2022 \u2022 cloth, 3.00 \n\n~ T .Translated, annotated; cloth, i e2 5 \n\nCrest Jewel of Wisdom, The limp Ieat her, 1.75 \n\nd Upanishad s, The, Volume I. .doth, i .25 \n\n3 YoGA Sut *AS..\u2018-N..paper, .60 \n\nSONG OF Life, The .Translated, annotated; cloth, 1.25 \n\nJudge, William Q. Bhagavad Gita .Edi\u2019tli.\" 7 . . ,T# \n\nCulture of Concentration ..^ ted * doth( \u2022\u201c\u2018her, 1.50 \n\nLchoes from the Orient . .paper, ,25 \n\nLetters That Have Helped Me Volume t tt -\u2022\u2022\u2022paper. .25 \n\nOcean of Theosophy * H, each, .doth, i\u00aboo \n\nv ^wi TANJ a LI ? Yoga Aphorisms. .. . *-oo \n\nKeightley, Archibald. Theosophy as an Tnfi V * V. cIoth \u00bb *\u00aboo \n\nLa Dow, Stanley V. Plotinus. Influence in Life paper> . 20 \n\nMitchell, Iienry Bedinger. Meditation Sijecial' -Vi*;' -paper - * 5 \u00ae \nMitcS j OP F C R L \u00ae?? BTY AND *Lheosophy, P TPhe . 20 ; paper . \n\nvIlue .. - C0LLEG ' ATE Education and Standa^\" \n\n\nOF \n\n\n\u2022paper, \n\n\nSinnett, A. P, Esoteric Buddhism . . . .. \n\nOccult World, The . .cloth, *. a \n\nlorrey, Ray E. Science and its Function In\u2019 . doth ' 2 * B \n\nWalker, E. D. Reincarnation n Education -paper, .5 \n\nIdyll of the White Lotus. .. doth, 1.7 \n\nLight on the Path. cloth, 1.3 \n\nThrough the Gates of Gold. leather, .8 \n\n.doth, 1.2 \n\nthe quarterly book department, \n\nP. O. Box 64, Station O, New York. \n\n\nshads; Letters Tha? Have Helo^Me : u\u201d?OT tJpani- \n\nables of the Kingdom; The Song of Life; Though the r Ph &L T i? e *\u00bb* \n\nPhilosophical : Abridgment of the Secret Doctrine- i n d \u2019 Voice of the Silence. \n\nPiotinuSiRein carnation; The Secret Doctrin^fStainRelwJ^r^ Key ^^sophy; \nTransactions; Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Iauc * on Religion; Theosophical Glossary; \n\nTh yll Th the Lo\u2018us; < Me^tatkmf 1 f^CkmdTworid < Th\u201dfw\u00b0 tericBudd hism; \nThe Theosophical Society and Thwsophy W \u00b0 rld: ^ ol Theosophy) \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVOL. XXXIV, No. 2 \n\n\nAPRIL, 1937 \n\n\nFounded by B. P. Blavatsky at Dew York In 1875 \n\n\nHE Society does not pretend to be able to establish \n\n\nat once a universal brotherhood among men, but \nJL only strives to create the nucleus of such a body. \nMany of its members believe that an acquaintance \nwith the world's religions and philosophies will \nreveal* as the common and fundamental principle \nunderlying these* that \u201cspiritual identity of all Souls with the \nOversoul 99 which is the basis of true brotherhood; and many \nof them also believe that an appreciation of the finer forces \nof nature and man will still further emphasize the same idea. \n\nThe organization is wholly unsectarian, with no creed* \ndogma* nor personal authority to enforce or impose * neither \nis it to be held responsible for the opinions of its members* \nwho are expected to accord to the beliefs of others that \ntolerance which they desire for their own. \n\nThe following proclamation was adopted at the Conven\u00ac \ntion of the Society* held at Boston* Apri\u00a3 1895 : \n\n\u201cThe Theosophical Society in America by its delegatesand \nmembers in Convention assembled* does hereby proclaim \nfraternal good will and kindly feeling toward all students of \nTheosophy and members of Theosophical Societies where ver \nand however situated* It further proclaims and avers its \nhearty sympathy and association with such persons and \norganizations in all theosophical matters except those of \ngovernment and administration* and invites their cor\u00ac \nrespondence and co-operation. \n\n\u201c To all men and women of whatever caste*creed, race, or \nreligious belief, who aim at the fosteringof peace* gentleness* \nand unselfish regard one for another* and the acquisition of \nsuch knowledge of men and nature as shall tend to the eleva\u00ac \ntion and advancement of the human race, tt sends most friendly \nSheeting and freely proffers its services. \n\n*** hand ? with aU religions and religious bodies whose \n\n\nPUBLISHED BY \n\n\nTHE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY \n\n\nApplications for membership should be \nSecretary T. S., P. O. Box 64, Station \n\n\naddressed to the \nO, New York. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Theosophical Quarterly \n\n\n\n\nSubscription price, $2.00 per annum; single copies, 50 cents \n\nPublished by The Theosophical Society \nat 64 Washington Mews, New York, N.Y. \n\nJanuary; April; July; October \n\nAddress all communications to P. O. Box 64 , Station O, New York \n\n\nIn Europe, single copies may be obtained from and subscriptions may be sent to John \nM. Watkins. 21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, London, W. C. 2, England; or to \nMr. E. H. Lincoln, 9 Beaconsfield Road, Low Fell, Gateshead-on-Tyne, England from \nwhom all back numbers may be obtained. Annual subscription price, $2.00, postpaid. \n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. XXXIV, NO. 2 \nApril, 1937 \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS. PAGE \n\nFRAGMENTS. 91 \n\nTHEOSOPHY AND DEMOCRACY.. I0 \u00b0 \n\nESOTERIC DISCIPLESHIP. 102 \n\nREMARKS BY THE WAY. 115 \n\nWITHOUT CENSOR, IX.\u2019 \u2019 \u2019 \u2019 \u2019' .. 121 \n\nEDUCATION THROUGH THE ARTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS lit \n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME GHOULS... 136 \n\nTHE BEATRICE OF DANTE (Reprint) . 142 \n\nREVIEWS. . 154 \n\nCORRESPONDENCE. . 165 \n\nQUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. . 171 \n\nT.S. ACTIVITIES; Notices . 1 ^ 4 \n\n. 176 \n\n\nAc,of& J \" 8 ^\u201d d \u00ab , \u201c ma \u201c\" September s. IM 3 . .t the Pott Office .1 New York. N. Y\u201e under 1 \n\nCopyright. 1937, by The Theosophical Society \n\n\n1 1 \u00bb\\ \n\n\nTHE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY \n\nThe principal aim and object of this Society is to form the nucleus of a \nUniversal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex \ncaste or colour. The subsidiary objects are: The study of ancient and modern \ne igions, philosophies and sciences, and the demonstration of the importance \nof such study; and the investigation of the unexplained laws of nature and \nthe psychical powers latent in man. \n\n\nThe Theosophical Quarterly is the official organ of the original \n1 heosophical Society founded in New York by II. P. Blavatsky \nW. Q. Judge and others, in 1875 . \n\nWe have no connection whatsoever with any other organization \ncalling itself Theosophical, formerly headed by Mrs. Besant, nor \nwith similar bodies, the purposes and methods of which are wholly \nforeign to our own. \n\nEditors, The Theosophical Quarterly. \n\n\nA \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAPRIL, 1937 \n\nThe Theosophical Society , as such , is not responsible for any opinion or declaration \nm this magazine , by whomsoever expressed , unless contained in an official document. \n\n\nDesire, Function, Organism \n\n\nACCORDING to Lamarck\u2019s famous axiom, \u201cDesire precedes function, \nh\\ and function precedes organism\u201d. In other words, a living* organ is an \nexpression, in terms of substance , of a physiological activity; and a physi\u00ac \nological activity is an expression, in terms of force , of a state of consciousness. \nAs Theosophy postulates, consciousness, force and substance are three insep\u00ac \narable aspects of the One Reality. A state of consciousness tends, by the law \nof its being, to seek expression, formulation, embodiment; this desire cannot be \ndissociated from the energy which enables it to express itself, or from the matter \nwith which it clothes itself in concrete and explicit form. \n\nLamarck\u2019s axiom explains why the giraffe has a long neck, why the tiger has \nclaws, why fish swim in the sea and birds fly in the air. It also suggests a reason \nwhy man does not go on all-fours, like his mammalian brethren. However, it is \nnot fashionable to-day in biological circles to take Lamarck seriously. Con\u00ac \ntemporary professors of the science of life more often seem to assume that the \nopposite of his axiom is true, that organism precedes function, and function \nprecedes desire. \n\nIt is evident that after an organ has been formed, its structure cannot be \nmodified without affecting its function, and a disorder in function is reflected \nas a disorder in consciousness. The experience of illness and fever indicates h mr \norganism may be said to precede function, and function to precede desire. B^f \na diseased organ engenders confusion in the mind, what is the ultimate cause of \ndisease? The student of Theosophy can conceive of only one conclusive answer, \n\u2014that disease, like health, is a production of Karma. To translate this idea \ninto Lamarckian terminology, a corruption of desire precedes a corruption of \nfunction, and a corruption of function precedes a corruption of organism. Doc\u00ac \ntors of medicine would be wise to test this hypothesis, that every physical ail\u00ac \nment is caused originally by a spiritual ailment, by a lesion in consciousness; \nthat a disease represents the effort of the soul to purge itself of poison, the body \n\n\n\n\n- \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n92 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nserving for this purpose as a channel or drain-pipe. As for disease germs: it \nhas been suggested that they are the product, not the cause, of morbid condi\u00ac \ntions. In any case they can flourish only in unhealthy and \u201cpredisposed\u201d \nblood. \n\nMolecular Decadence \n\nBiologists have speculated on the possibility that some diseases at least may \nbe caused by the misbehaviour of certain molecules of the cell-nucleus which \nnormally reproduce and sustain life in the tissues. These molecules, the so- \ncalled genes, are of course hypothetical entities. Like protons and electrons, \nthey are images in the scientific mind, nor is there the slightest possibility that \nthe scientific eye will ever see them objectively. The gene was invented to \nexplain the vagaries of heredity in fruit-flies. The utmost that can be said in \nfavour of its real existence is that every activity of the living cell is ultimately con\u00ac \ntrolled by invisible agents. If we so choose, we may call those agents genes, but \nthat does not mean that they are actually physical molecules. Their alleged \nfunctions suggest to a student of Theosophy that their constitution might be \nmore adequately described as astral. \n\nHowever, whether the gene be a tiny particle of physical matter or a centre \nof vital force, biologists have discovered an apparent connection between the \ndisintegration of a cell-nucleus, and the formation of the filterable viruses which \nare the apparent cause of infantile paralysis, influenza, yellow fever, and other \npainful and destructive diseases. The filterable virus is as invisible as the gene, \nand must not be confused with the bacteria which can be observed through the \nmicroscope. What it is in its proper nature, we do not know. The current \ntheory is that, like the gene, it is a very complex molecule of living or semi\u00ac \nliving matter. \n\nWe quote from Harper s Magazine (February, 1937), \u201cWhere Life Begins\u201d, by \nGeorge W. Grey. \n\nGenes are the atoms of heredity. Nor is that all. Recent findings bring evidence of a \nstill more fundamental role. Experiments show that the injury of genes may be a very \nserious catastrophe. The loss of certain genes means death. This suggests that the \ngene\u2019s function in the cell activities is not merely to control heredity but also to control \nlife. We know genes only as they operate in the closely correlated team-work of the \nchromosomes. But suppose a gene should get separated from its fellows. Imagine one \nof these living molecules adrift in the cell fluid, a wanderer, could it function independ\u00ac \nently? If so, with what effect? Several years ago B. M. Duggar, of the University of \nWisconsin, speculated on this possibility. Dr. Duggar suggested that a lone gene might \nbe a destructive agent. He pointed to the filterable virus. Might not the virus be \nsimply a gene on the loose? \n\nThe Dual Action of the Life-Force \n\nStudents of Theosophy are familiar with the doctrine that the life-force, \nprana , has a dual action on this plane; that it is the carrier of both bane and \nblessing, and the cause of death as well as of life. A few citations from The \nSecret Doctrine should make this clear. In addition, they indicate the key to \nthis mystery, pointing to the fundamental fact that physical life is a manifesta\u00ac \ntion of a conscious purpose which exists in Nature before any of its expressions \n\n\n\n\"\\T O'T'T? O AMT^ PHA A A /TT? TvT'T'C \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS 93 \n\ncome into being. As we read in the Rig Veda , \u201cDesire first arose in It, which \nwas the primal germ of mind\u201d. The duality of the life-force is, therefore, at\u00ac \ntributable to the duality of consciousness in its manifested condition. As the \n\u201cprimal germ of mind\u201d takes form under the impulsion of desire, it assumes \ntwo aspects, showing forth the opposite poles or potencies of Nature, spirit and \nmatter, light and darkness, good and evil. Reflected upon the plane of physical \nexperience, these two contrasted potencies become agencies of organic creation \nand destruction, the sources of life and death. \n\n[Theosophists and occultists] recognize a distinct vital principle independent of the \norganism \u2014 material, of course, as physical force cannot be divorced from matter , but of a \nsubstance existing in a state unknown to Science. Life for them is something more than the \nmere interaction of molecules and atoms. There is a vital principle without which no molec\u00ac \nular combinations could ever have resulted in a living organism, least of all in the so- \ncalled \u201cinorganic\u201d matter of our plane of consciousness. . . . From Gods to men y from \nWorlds to atoms, from a star to a rushlight, from the Sun to the vital heat of the meanest \norganic being\u2014the world of Form and Existence is an immense chain, whose links are all \nconnected. The law of Analogy is the first key to the world-problem . . . {The Secret \nDoctrine , ed. 1888, I, 603-604). \n\nScience teaches us that the living as well as the dead organism of both man and animal \nare swarming with bacteria of a hundred various kinds, that from without we are threat\u00ac \nened with the invasion of microbes with every breath we draw, and from within by \nleucomaines, aerobes, anaerobes, and what not. But Science never yet went so far as to \nassert with the occult doctrine that our bodies, as well as those of animals, plants, and \nstones, are themselves altogether built up of such beings; which, except larger species, \nno microscope can detect. . . . The same infinitesimal, invisible lives compose the atoms \nof the bodies of the mountain and the daisy, of man and the ant, of the elephant and of \nthe tree which shelters him from the sun. Each particle\u2014whether you call it organic \nor inorganic\u2014 is a life. Every atom and molecule in the Universe is both life-giving and \ndeath-giving to that form, inasmuch as it builds by aggregation universes and the ephem\u00ac \neral vehicles ready to receive the transmigrating soul, and as eternally destroys and \nchanges the forms and expels those souls from their temporary abodes. It creates and \nkills; it is self-generating and self-destroying; it brings into being and annihilates, that \nmystery of mysteries\u2014the living body of man, animal, or plant, every second in time and \nspace; and it generates equally life and death, beauty and ugliness, good and bad, and \neven the agreeable and disagreeable, the beneficent and maleficent sensations. It is that \nmysterious Life, represented collectively by countless myriads of lives, that follows in \nits own sporadic way, the hitherto incomprehensible law of Atavism; that copies family \nresemblances as well as those it finds impressed in the aura of the generators of ejflro \nfuture human being. . . . We are taught that every physiological change, in ad<|00n \nto pathological phenomena; diseases\u2014nay life itself\u2014or rather the objective phenomena \nof life produced by certain conditions and changes in the tissues of the body which allow \nand force life to act in that body; that all this is due to those unseen Creators and \nDestroyers that are called in such a loose and general way, microbes (I, 260-263). \n\nAs the second principle of the universal Soul and Vital Force in Nature, it [i. e. nervous \nether or animal vitality] is intelligently guided by the fifth principle thereof (I, 538, note). \n\nThis fifth principle is the \u201cManifesting Mind, whose essence, in its dual \nnature, is the Cause of all terrestrial phenomena\u201d (I, 604). \n\nOne may draw this conclusion, that as we think, so we are; that the quality \n^jkour states of consciousness determines whether the life-force acts within us to \nBuild or to destroy, to create or to disintegrate. \n\n\n94 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nThe Virus of Vulgarity \n\nA \u201cgene on the loose\u201d is a helpful conceit, for it suggests an entity that has \nisolated itself from the whole to which it properly belongs. Its destiny sym\u00ac \nbolizes the fate of the human entity in whom selfish desire has virtually sup\u00ac \npressed all aspiration towards union with a superior order of being. It illustrates \nthe degeneration of creative power into something toxic and noxious. \n\nIf we apply the law of analogy, it is apparent that the unregenerate human \npersonality corresponds to a \u201cgene on the loose\u201d. Whenever our field of con\u00ac \nsciousness is filled with private whims and fancies and concerns, whenever we \nlook towards no horizon beyond the range of self-interest and self-love, we \ncease to sustain and to reproduce our real life. Thus our states of consciousness \ncan become viruses poisoning whatever they encounter. The whole body of a \ncivilization can be so infected by these human viruses that, for the sake of future \nhumanity, Nature removes it from existence by slow or rapid death. \n\nAmong the many toxic \u201cmolecules\u201d which are corrupting the body of our \nown civilization, not the least potent is the virus of vulgarity. Its deadly qual\u00ac \nity is too often not clearly perceived. Vulgarity is by its very nature a process \nof degradation, implying a progressive incapacity to recognize truth and beauty \nand nobility, denoting an ever-increasing attachment to the false and ugly and \nignoble. In its extreme form, vulgarity is the affirmation that man exists merely \nto satisfy his bodily appetites and to feed his vanity and self-esteem. If anyone \ndoubt this, let him reflect upon the more brutal expressions of the most de\u00ac \nveloped modem art, the art of advertising. Even the most casual observation \nof the advertisements in the New York subway reveals the sordid futility of \nstates of consciousness which can only reflect images of physical comfort and \nemotional excitement. \n\nMachiavelli is the classic type of the cynic who has lost all faith in the better\u00ac \nment of the human being, and who seeks to raise himself above others by ex\u00ac \nploiting their vices and weaknesses. Such a person, if successful, might ulti\u00ac \nmately become a black magician, a veritable scourge of the race. Perhaps there \nis some cause for satisfaction that our contemporary Machiavellis are so vulgar \nthemselves that they cannot separate themselves from the mass, no matter how \nhard they try. \n\nOne of the New York newspapers recently carried a full-page advertisement \nof a \u201csuccess book\u201d, entitled How to Win Friends and Influence People , which \nhas become a \u201cbest seller\u201d. A brief excerpt reveals its tone and purpose. \n\nProfessor John Dewey, America\u2019s most profound philosopher, says the deepest urge \nin human nature is the \u201cdesire to be important\u201d. Remember that phrase, \u201cthe desire to \nbe important\u201d. It is a gnawing and unfaltering human hunger. It was this desire that \nled the uneducated, poverty-stricken grocery clerk, Abraham Lincoln, to study law; \nthat inspired Dickens to write his immortal novels. It makes you want to wear the \nlatest styles, drive the latest car, and talk about your brilliant children. ... If people \nare so hungry for a feeling of importance, imagine what miracles you and I can achieve \nby giving them honest appreciation. The rare individual who honestly satisfies this \nheart-hunger will hold people in the palm of his hand. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n95 \n\n\nIt is feeble and trite. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to state more clearly \na thoroughly vulgar ideal, an ideal worthy of the \u201caverage man\u201d beloved by \npoliticians. It should help one to realize that all self-seeking is essentially base \nand crass; that the human personality separated from the soul, like the gene on \nthe loose, is a \u201cmicrobe\u201d. Incidentally, one notes, as an illustration of the \ntendency to seek the lowest possible motive for every act, the typical assumption \nof the modernistic philosopher that the greatest as well as the meanest of man\u00ac \nkind are equally incapable of generosity, since all alike can only be inspired by \nthe \u201cdesire to be important\u201d. Such a notion properly belongs to the same order \nof culture as the endorsements of soaps and cigarettes by members of the so- \ncalled upper classes. \n\nThe Two Natures of Man \n\nAs has been suggested, the dual action of the life-force is intimately con\u00ac \nnected with the dual nature of \u201cManifesting Mind\u201d. This is not, indeed, an \nabstract or academic question, for it can be studied and analyzed by every man \nwho observes the behaviour of his own \u201cmanifesting mind\u201d, and the effects of \nhis thoughts upon his bodily functions. \n\n\u201cTwo souls, alas, dwell in my bosom\u201d, cries Goethe\u2019s Faust. No fact of ex\u00ac \nperience can be more self-evident than the division of consciousness which \ncharacterizes human nature in its unredeemed condition. In a magnificent \npassage Pascal points to the splendour and misery which co-exist in man, and \nwhich continuously interact in the drama of his life . 1 \n\nWe desire truth, and we find only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and we find only \nmisery and death. We are incapable of not wishing for truth and happiness, and we are \nincapable of either certitude or happiness. This desire has been left us, in part to punish \nus, in part to make us realize from whence we have fallen. . . . What a chimsera then is \nman! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, \nwhat a marvel! Judge of all things, witless worm; casket of truth, sewer of incertitude \nand error; glory and refuse of the universe. . . . Know, then, prideful man, what a \nparadox you are to yourself. Humble yourself, impotent reason; be silent, idiot nature; \nlearn that man infinitely surpasses man, and learn from your Master your true condi\u00ac \ntion, of which you are unaware. Listen to God! \n\nOriginal Sin and the Fall of Man \n\nWhat is the answer given by God to the riddle of the sphinx, the mystery of \nthe human entity, half animal and half divine? Pascal, speaking as a devout \nJansenist but also as a mystic, recalls the catastrophe of the original sin which \nwas the cause of man\u2019s fall from his first perfection. \n\nIf man had never been corrupt, he would, in his innocence, enjoy with assurance J^th \ntruth and felicity; and if he had never been anything but corrupt, he would have ndffilea \nof truth nor of beatitude. But, hapless men that we are, more wretched than if tnere \nwere no grandeur in our condition, we have an idea of happiness, and we cannot attain \nto it; we feel an image of truth, and we possess only the lie; we are incapable of being \nabsolutely ignorant, and of knowing certainty, so manifest is it that we have been in a \ndegree of perfection from which we have unfortunately fallen. . . . These foundations, \nsolidly established on the inviolable authority of religion, teach us that there are two \n\n1 The translation of the following excerpts from the Penstes and the My stir e de Jtsus, is by Mr. Morris Bishop, \nthe author of Pascal, the Life of Genius. \n\n\n\ng6 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nequally constant truths of the faith: one, that man in the state of creation or of grace \nhas risen above all nature, has been rendered as if like unto God, participating in His \ndivinity; the other, that in the state of corruption and sin, he has fallen from that estate \nand has been rendered like unto beasts. \n\nWhat is the distinguishing mark, the brand, of the fallen man? He is \u201conly \ndisguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. \n\n. . . His life is but a perpetual illusion.\u201d As a Buddhist would say, he is ob\u00ac \nsessed by the \u201cheresy of separateness\u201d. The creature loses consciousness of his \nidentity of essence with the Creator and conceives of himself as thinking, willing, \nacting by his own independent and inalienable power. Thus, in the last analy\u00ac \nsis, all, or almost all, of our defilement is traced to vanity. \n\nVanity is so anchored in the heart of man, that a soldier, a soldier\u2019s servant, a cook, a \nporter, vaunts himself and would fain have his admirers; and the philosophers themselves \ncovet them; and those who write against vanity wish the fame of having written well; \nand their readers wish the fame of having read them. I who write have perhaps that \ndesire; and perhaps those who will read this. \n\nRedemption and Union \n\nAs self-centred ness marks the fallen man, so self-giving marks the man who \nhas been touched by grace and who has found the royal road to salvation. But \nas Pascal insists, a return to the lost paradise would be impossible, if the Di\u00ac \nvinity had not become incarnate as Christ, the Perfect Man, setting an example \nfor the faithful, and, by the conquest of sin and mortality in his Person, making \nit possible for his disciples to conquer in their turn. In union with the Divine \nMaster, the duality of human nature disappears, and man becomes a unified \nbeing, a veritable individual soul. Nor is that union as far away as we fancy. \nPascal, meditating upon Gethsemane, heard the Master speak these words: \n\n\u201cConsole thyself; thou wouldst not be seeking me, if thou hadst not already \nfound me.\u201d \n\nThe Universal Theme of the Fall and the Redemption \n\nNo theologian has stated the fundamentals of the orthodox Christian dogma \nmore clearly and more beautifully than Pascal. But these fundamentals are \nnot peculiar to Christianity. All the world-religions develop variations upon \nthis basic theme of the fall of man through sin, and his redemption through \ndivine aid. In Buddhism, for example, the origin of suffering is linked with the \nbirth and growth of the illusion of the \u201cpersonal idea\u201d, the separate self, as the \nend of suffering depends upon the birth and life of the Buddha both as an \nAvatar, an incarnation of the Logos, and as the immortal being, the spark of \nthe Eternal, which is the essence of every man. The Mysteries of Egypt and \nGreece, as even classical scholars are beginning to recognize, represented in \ndramatic form the descent of the soul into Hades, the land of the shadow of \ndeath, and the divine sacrifice which makes possible the re-ascent of the soul to \nthe abode of the Immortals. This Mystery tradition has exercised a profound \ninfluence upon occidental thought through the medium of the Platonic phi\u00ac \nlosophers; and it was repeated by Dante. The three phases of the epic of human \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n97 \n\n\nexistence\u2014the Inferno, the Purgatorio, the Paradiso\u2014were not discovered by \nthe great poet. They were known before the beginning of what we call history. \n\nThe universality of the doctrine indicates that it is in fact a basic tenet of \nTheosophy, the Wisdom-Religion, the Logos Doctrine of the Great Lodge, the \nprototype and source of the teachings of all the Masters and Sages who have \nguided the evolution of the races of mankind. Therefore, it may be argued that \nthe real truth and depth of the Christian version of the fall and the redemption, \ncan only be understood in so far as this is interpreted in terms of Theosophy. \n\nThe Eternal War \n\nThe scope of the subject is so vast and its aspects so numerous and so varied, \nthat only a fragment of it can be considered here. The inquiring student is \ninvited to consult The Secret Doctrine , especially Volume II, which is almost \nentirely devoted to this theme. \n\nIt is significant that Theosophy primarily conceives of the fall and the re\u00ac \ndemption in terms of warfare. Also it presents human history as an integral \npart of cosmic history. The victories and defeats of man are episodes in a war \nwhich is co-extensive and co-etemal with the universe. \n\nThe \u201cFair\u2019 is a universal allegory. It sets forth at one end of the ladder of Evolution \nthe \u201crebellion\u201d, i. e. the action of differentiating intellection or consciousness on its \nvarious planes, seeking union with matter; and at the other, the lower end, the rebellion \nof matter against Spirit, or of action against spiritual inertia. ... In the original alle\u00ac \ngory it is matter\u2014hence the more material angels\u2014which was regarded as the con\u00ac \nqueror of Spirit, or the Archangels who \u201cfell\u201d on this plane. \u201cThey of the flaming sword \n(or animal passions) had put to flight the Spirits of Darkness.\u201d Yet it is the latter who \nfought for the supremacy of the conscious and divine spirituality on Earth and failed, \nsuccumbing to the power of matter {The Secret Doctrine , II, 62). \n\nIt has been said that the first two chapters of Genesis give an accurate alle\u00ac \ngorical interpretation of the esoteric doctrine of creation. Even a cursory read\u00ac \ning suggests that they preserve the record of the two great \u201crebellions\u201d. First \nthere is the description of the triumphant penetration of the creative Spirit, the \ndivine consciousness and purpose, into chaos and matter, the zone of unwisdom \nand unconsciousness. \u201cAnd God saw everything that He had made, and, be\u00ac \nhold, it was very good.\u201d Then follows the counter-attack of matter against the \nspiritual power, the insurgence of man \u201cformed of the dust of the groundJi \nagainst the laws of Divine Nature, the expulsion from Paradise. \n\nThere is the universal and \u201cimpersonal\u201d descent of spirit into matter which \nhas been described as a periodical necessity, a recurrent function of eternal \nNature. The potentialities latent in matter are thus quickened to life, finally \nripening into what would seem to be the quintessence of materiality, the \u201canimal \nsoul\u201d, kama } the complex of instincts and desires which constitutes man\u2019s legacy \nfrom the lower kingdoms of Nature. The fall of man may be said to occur, \nwhen the \u201chuman soul\u201d, manas , the ray of spiritual being which constitutes his \nreal identity, entering into contact with the \u201canimal soul\u201d, not only fails to \ntransmute it into a true image of the spiritual, but, on the contrary, is itself \ncantured, enslaved, and vampirized by the animal. Thus is created what Ploti- \n\n\n9 8 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nnus calls the suntheton , the lower personality, the self-conscious combination of \nhuman and bestial powers, the monstrous phantasm of sinful man which \nawakened the horror of Pascal. \n\nThe Army of the Spirit \n\nIt has been noted that Theosophy describes the whole of existence as an \nincessant combat between spirit and matter, light and darkness, consciousness \nand unconsciousness, force and inertia, good and evil. This combat does not \nend with the rebellion of matter against spirit, with the fall of man, with the \n\u201cfailure\u201d of the \u201cArchangels who fought for the supremacy of the conscious and \ndivine spirituality on Earth\u201d. However, as the warfare continues, it changes \nits form, becoming increasingly individual, interior and conscious. Doubtless, \nall the kingdoms of Nature are constantly in a state of war, but man\u2019s battles \nmust be fought on planes of consciousness where the mineral, the plant and the \nanimal can scarcely be said to exist. As it is the lower personality, the suntheton , \nwhich leads the attack against the human soul, so it is the human soul, the \n\u201cHigher Ego\u201d, which must lead the counter-attack against the lower \npersonality. \n\nHere again Theosophy confirms the testimony of the world-religions, but \nbroadens its significance. It is possible for us to win the fight, because it has \nalready been won by the great hierarchy of our predecessors. During every \ncycle there have been \u201cGods\u201d who have vanquished legions of \u201cTitans\u201d. \u201cAnd \nthere was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; \nand the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their \nplace found any more in heaven.\u201d At the one pole, there is the struggle between \nthe Gods and the Titans; at the other pole, there is the struggle between con\u00ac \nscience and selfish desire in the heart of a child. But the child who obeys con\u00ac \nscience is a comrade of the God; and the victory of the God makes lighter the \nordeal of the child. \n\nAccording to Theosophy, the redemption of mortal man would be almost \ninconceivable if the elect of mankind, the Masters of the Great Lodge, those \nwho by valiant effort have liberated their own souls, were not present in the \nworld to help stricken humanity. The supreme religious leaders, the Christ \nand the Buddha and others who have incarnated and lived among men, have \ngiven living proof that the spirit in man can subdue and transform his animal \nnature. Thus one may think of the Masters as officers in the Army of the Spirit. \nNo man can enlist under their command without becoming in some degree the \nrecipient of their victorious power. \n\nThe Correspondence Between Racial and Individual Experience \n\nEverything in the Universe follows analogy. \u201cAs above, so below\u201d; Man is the mi\u00ac \ncrocosm of the Universe. That which takes place on the spiritual plane repeats itself \non the Cosmic plane. Concretion follows the lines of abstraction; corresponding to the \nhighest must be the lowest; the material to the spiritual (The Secret Doctrine, I, 177). \n\nIt is the theosophical tradition that the fall of man was a racial catastrophe, \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n99 \n\n\nan historical calamity, which gravely altered the course of human evolution. \nThe exact dates are not given, but one is led to assume that this most terrible \nof tragedies occurred millions of years ago. Since that time, in cycle after cycle, \nat appointed intervals, there have been incarnations of Avatars or Saviours, of \nemissaries from the Great Lodge who have laboured to arrest the spiritual \ndecline of the various races. \n\nBut for the mystic, the fall and the redemption are individual as well as \nracial experiences. Their stages and episodes are continuously enacted and re\u00ac \nenacted within himself. There, within his field of consciousness, spirit and \nmatter incessantly attack and counter-attack. There he is daily tempted to \nre-commit the original sin. The divine sacrifice which can release his soul from \nbondage, is not a remote event but an ever-present challenge and inspiration. \nHow could it be otherwise, if man be, indeed, the mirror of the Universe? We \ncan never begin to understand the mystery of man, unless we recognize that racial \nand individual experience correspond to each other; that objective history and \nsubjective biography repeat the same processes and illustrate the same principles. \n\nModern Improvements and Real Progress \n\nThe doctrine of the dual nature of man, and of the struggle between spirit \nand matter, is almost absent from the consciousness of modem man. The \nChurches which preserved it in the West for nearly two thousand years, have \nceased to emphasize it, so great is their fear of unpopularity. Science in general \ndenies its truth. Through a tragic misunderstanding, the theory of organic \nevolution has been interpreted to mean that man has only an animal ancestry; \nthat all his qualities are animal derivatives, more or less sublimated. \n\nStudents of Theosophy have been accused of blind indifference to the salu\u00ac \ntary possibilities of scientific progress. They have been very unjustly accused \nof contempt for the power of the reason to improve the lot of man. It is not \nunderstood that they do not lack respect for the reason. But they believe the \nreason to be effective only when its operations are based upon sound intuition \nand tested experience. The duality of unredeemed human nature has been \nattested by the experience of uncounted centuries. No inventions of science, \nno economic theory, no sociological dream, no legislation, can possibly cure the \nsuffering of humanity, as long as this duality lasts. Its persistence implies thd \nactive existence of vicious and futile desires, of psychic viruses. Truly, \u201cDesii? \nprecedes function, and function precedes organism.\u201d If mankind in its present \ncondition were transferred en masse to some paradise, that paradise would very \nsoon become a hell; for the desires of man as at present constituted could only \nproduce an organism adapted to life in some hell. \n\nThe student of Theosophy should be free from the modem delusions con\u00ac \ncerning progress. He should know from his own experience that real progress \ndepends solely upon the ability of individuals to discover the path to redemp\u00ac \ntion and union. True happiness is independent of modem improvements, of \nphysical and political and economic changes. It is the heritage of him who \nfigh^for the supremacy of the conscious and divine spirituality on Earth\u201d. \n\n\nFRAGMENTS \n\n\nT HE new outpouring of life has come with the spring. From their hid\u00ac \nden depths, the forces of manifestation are brought forth to express \nthemselves in the beauty of leaf and flower and song. What must not \nbe the wonder of those depths, that their outermost appearance has such love\u00ac \nliness! Yet, if not rightly understood and used, this outflow will mean loss and \ndissipation, since the desire for sensation has, in unregenerate nature, centrif\u00ac \nugal force and not centripetal. \n\nSo Nature\u2019s spring, which was intended as a picture of the inner life, and thus \nto lure us more surely to its seeking, has been turned by the disobedient will of \nman to his own destruction,\u2014intent upon the reflection, he has lost, alas! all \nknowledge of the Reality from which it came. God forgive us that we take his \nchoicest gifts to build a wall between ourselves and him. \n\n\n\u201cUntil the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the moun\u00ac \ntain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense\u201d, says the Spouse in the Canticle, \nthe disciple to his Master. Until the shadows of ignorance and blindness have \nbeen dispersed by the radiance of the Sun of our souls, we shall dwell, in the \nheights of our being, upon the remembrance of what our Lord has done for us, \nwho threw a bridge across the chasm of sin (himself that bridge), which makes \npossible, even now, our passage to Eternal Life; for myrrh signifies remem\u00ac \nbrance: and with the frankincense of prayer we shall commune with him, seek\u00ac \ning the vision of his face, and the illumination of his will, that our poor, barren \nheights may become a Mount of Transfiguration, where, though smitten to the \nground as the Apostles of old, we may yet behold the glory that is to be when \nthe times of struggle and tribulation shall have passed. \n\n\nO that this spring-time might be an inner spring-time to our souls, that we \nmight fling wide open the prison doors behind which our true selves languish, \nleading them forth into the fair garden which our hearts shall then have become, \n\u201ca fountain of gardens, a well of living waters\u201d, radiant with the sunshine of \nthe Master\u2019s presence, an Eden where the Lord God himself may walk in the \ncool of the evening. \n\n\nioo \n\n\n\n\n\nFRAGMENTS \n\n\nIOI \n\n\nLet us dwell upon the picture of what this could mean for us, how transformed \nlife would be, how the cares and trivialities would fall into their proper places \nas the clay of our garden soil, or the fertilizers for our flowers,\u2014all, all to be \nused for ends of usefulness and beauty, and so the import of them growing, with \nthe plants they nourish, clearer, day by day. \n\nWhat would it not mean to the Master to find our bleak hill-sides turned into \nluxuriant bloom, places of refreshment where he could rest from his unremitting \ntoil? We reflect too seldom, I fear, that his spring-time waits on our choked \nminds and stony, unproductive hearts. He gives the opportunity, the tools, \nall needed equipment; he has provided the fullest reward of our labour; but we \nshall find these on the Mountain of Myrrh and on the Hill of Frankincense; \nand while we prefer to dwell in the Valley of Desolation we cannot lament our \nempty hands and our unprofitable lives. \n\n\nEaster for us was made possible, by the Easter won for us when, long past, \nin Palestine, that day broke, and the shadows fled away; and Easter for him \nwill be\u20140 heart, what miracle to give him Easter!\u2014when we, having likewise \npassed the darkness of Calvary, by his grace, meet him in the dawn-lit Garden \nwhich we have dug and planted. \n\nWhat shall we care then for the tender flush in the sky, the whispering wind, \nthe fragrant dew, or yet the angelic presences:\u2014Rabboni! Master! \n\n\nCav\u00a3. \n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND DEMOCRACY \n\n\nI T IS our custom, at the opening meeting of each season, to speak of the \nSociety itself, and of the principles upon which it was founded and which \nhave guided its conduct through the more than sixty years of its existence. \nOur theme is to be the same to-night, but a question which has been sent us \nmakes it possible to set it forth against a contrasting background. The ques\u00ac \ntion is: Why is The Theosophical Society opposed to the ideas of Democracy? \n\nThe Society\u2019s Freedom \n\nThis question renders its first service when we perceive that, as it stands, it \nis not susceptible of an answer. The Theosophical Society, as such, can neither \noppose nor approve the ideas of Democracy; nor is there any member who has \nthe authority to speak for it in such matters. If we regard Democracy as a \nform of government or social theory, we are estopped by the By-law that no \nmember may involve the Society in political disputes, nor promulgate any \ndoctrine as that advanced by the Society; while if\u2014as sometimes appears\u2014 \nDemocracy be regarded as a kind of new religion, which modern enlightenment \nhas substituted for the superstitions of the past, then we are equally estopped \nby the provision that every member has the right to believe or disbelieve in \nany religious system or philosophy. The Society has \u201cno creed, dogma, nor \npersonal authority\u201d to impose, and its members \u201care expected to accord to \nthe beliefs of others that tolerance which they desire for their own\u201d. The \nquestion, as phrased, is based upon a false assumption, which contravenes \nboth the fundamental and essential freedom of the Society and the open plat\u00ac \nform which it has steadily maintained and which our constitution demands. \nWe must go behind the phrasing, therefore, before we can deal with it. \n\nThe Theosophic Attitude: The Reality Behind Words \nThis is the second service the question renders. It presents, in a trivial but \nspecific instance, a need which inheres in all human intercourse, and which our \nstudy of Theosophy has so emphasized that in all our discussions we try con\u00ac \nsciously to meet it. It is the need to look through words and phrases and \nsymbols to their intent in their user\u2019s mind, and to the reality to which they \npoint. The failure to do this, the naive and lazy habit of dealing with \nwords as though they were no more than the letters which spell them, fixed \nand final for all men in the meaning they have (at the moment) for oneself, \naccounts for the confusion, cross-purposes and superficiality of much ordinary \nconversation and philosophic debate. Each man must, of necessity, look at \nlife and reality from his own angle of approach, and. must interpret what he \nsees in term s of his own experience. His words are but the symbols of elements \n\n1 From the headings of an opening address before the New York Branch of The Theosophical Society. \n\n\n102 \n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND DEMOCRACY \n\n\n103 \n\n\nin that experience. They can be, for him, nothing else. They are sign-boards \nthat point back, through his memories, to things met in his past, in likeness or \ncontrast to which he seeks to explain his present concern. Only as we take \nour stand sympathetically beside him, can we see as he sees; and only as we \nbring to memory experiences that are akin to his, can his words mean to us \nwhat they mean to him, and our talk be in the same tongue. The readiness \nto put oneself in one\u2019s fellow\u2019s place, the search for sympathetic points of agree\u00ac \nment as the basis on which all conversation must rest, the confidence that, \nin every view honestly held, beneath all error, there must be some element of \ntruth, and that that truth is of moment to us\u2014this is the typical theosophical \nattitude that we endeavour always to maintain, and which we wish these meet\u00ac \nings invariably to manifest. \n\nLet us strive to look, therefore, beyond the phrasing of this question to the \nquestioner\u2019s intent. Perhaps it was something like this: Why does the study of \nTheosophy seem so often to lead to the rejection of the ideas of Democracy? \n\nTo make as good a case for the question as we can, would it not seem that \na body, whose first stated object is the formation of a nucleus of universal \nbrotherhood, without distinction of race or creed or caste, upon whose free \nand open platform all members meet on a basis of equality, where all views \nmust be considered on their own merits, without regard to their source and \nwithout the support of any other authority than that which inheres in truth,\u2014 \nwould it not seem that our Society should be of all organizations the most \ndemocratic? \n\nPerhaps, indeed, it is so; let us not too hastily prejudge the matter before \nwe have examined it. Perhaps the \u201cideas of Democracy\u201d, which our presenta\u00ac \ntion of Theosophy is held to oppose, may be false ideas. We wish that the \nquestioner were here to make more clear just what ideas he means, for of late \nyears many have been given that name which would not have been so called \na generation ago. But our theme, after all, is not Democracy, but Theosophy \nagainst a background of Democracy, and we must be content if we can outline \nthe central figure in broad strokes, even if we leave the background vague and \nshadowy. \n\n\nDemocracy Looks Horizontally: Theosophy Looks Up \nT he word \u201cDemocracy\u201d is a compound of the two Greek words, demos , \nmeaning the crowd or people in the mass, and kratos , power, or its exercise as \ndominion or rule, so that the literal and primary meaning, as we all know, is \nthe condition of affairs when the ruling power is given over to the crowd or to \nthe mass of the people collectively. Generally speaking, its outlook is hori\u00ac \nzontal , confined to a single level, where, it is the convention to assume, one \nfinds oneself and all mankind. This has become the secondary meaning of the \nword, the obliteration or ignoring of all differences between men, the con\u00ac \nsideration of oneself and all others as mere units in the mass. It negatives all \nidea ofjin upward look, or the recognition of any authority inhering in a higher \norder oTOeing than one\u2019s own. \n\n\n104 \n\n\nTHE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\n\u201cBrotherhood\u201d, on the other hand, often regarded as the basis of Democracy, \nnecessitates for its comprehension just this upward look which Democracy \nrefuses. It is the bond between children of the same parents, and it is mean\u00ac \ningless save as we look to those parents. It exists between those who recognize \nthe same superior authority. No man is a brother who is not first a son. \n\nThe two words Democracy and Brotherhood, therefore, actually imply \ntotally different directions of outlook, different standpoints and centres of \nreference, and different motives and bonds of union. The word \u201cTheosophy\u201d, \neven more than the word Brotherhood, emphasizes this difference. It, too, is \ncomposed of two Greek words, Theou and sophia , divine wisdom, or the wisdom \nof God. In the first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul uses the word as an attri\u00ac \nbute of Christ: \u201cChrist the power of God and the wisdom of God\u201d (I, 24). The \nvery name of our Society is thus an assertion of Divinity. It points to a power \nand a wisdom which are more and greater than man\u2019s, yet from which man can \ndraw, and where authority and dominion inhere. It is precisely because stu\u00ac \ndents of Theosophy have learned to look up to this transcendent, overshadow\u00ac \ning Wisdom and Power, and to open themselves to its guidance and rule, seek\u00ac \ning brotherhood through the realization of a common fatherhood, that they \ncannot accept as satisfactory, or as having any real and solid substance, the \nflat, two-dimensional concept of being, which sees only a single level of life \nand would confine all power and authority to it. \n\nHere we have the answer to our question. Our Society is, of necessity, pri\u00ac \nmarily and persistently concerned with that vertical, spiritual dimension of \nbeing to which its name and principal objects alike point, but to which Democ\u00ac \nracy (in its ordinary connotations) must, for self-preservation, as persistently \nshut its eyes. Its \u201cflat-land\u201d philosophy can neither assimilate nor endure the \nrecognition of higher levels, and the Society\u2019s unremitting effort to demonstrate \nthese, could scarcely escape being thought hostile. Yet there is no surer way \nto the heart of the Theosophical Movement, in thought and feeling and work, \nthan to lay firm hold upon this fundamental principle,\u2014that it involves always \na vertical dimension and action\u2014a height and depth and solidity, an origin \nand end, purposes, loyalties and obediences, potentialities and capacities, \nwhich Democracy, looking only to a thin surface, wholly ignores or denies. \n\nAn Added Dimension \n\nThe added dimension which Theosophy thus imparts to our view of life and \nof all things, is the key to its understanding and to the difference between it \nand the materialistic, and literally superficial, thought of our age. The differ\u00ac \nence is like looking up from a map, drawn on the flat surface of a sheet of paper, \nto see the scene itself before one, in all its three-dimensional reality, with its \nhills and valleys, its sunlight and the drifting shadows of clouds, its perspectives \nand far horizons,\u2014and everywhere the miracle of life. Theosophy includes \nwithin itself all sciences and philosophies, but, while accepting all their positive \ncontributions to man\u2019s knowledge, it sees them as no more than flat sections in \nthe solid substance of reality. It embraces, also, all religions; but not for the \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND DEMOCRACY \n\n\n105 \n\n\npurpose of opposing them one to the other, or of trying to find their origins \nin \u201cnature worship\u201d, or in the \u201ctaboos and superstitions\u201d of savagery. Rather \ndoes it show us how, looking through the different imagery and symbolism of \ndifferent times and races, we may see, in all, the same eternal truths of the \nlife of the soul and its relation to the overshadowing Spirit. It gives unity to \ndiversity, and in simplicity reveals depth within depth of meaning. Always it \ngives more; it never makes less. It vitalizes, validates, makes real. \n\nDemocracy Made Valid: the Theosophic Method \nThese may seem sweeping statements, but they are easily tested. Let us, as \nan example, see what Democracy becomes when we add to it the vertical dimen\u00ac \nsion it has rejected, but upon which Theosophy always insists. Let us look \nup and see, brooding over mankind, Divine Wisdom\u20147 heousophia \u2014the Truth, \nthan which \u201cno religion is higher\u201d. We may choose what image we will for it: \nthe Over Soul of Emerson, the One Mind into which all individual minds are \ninlets; or think of it as the Logos of St. John; or as the Platonic Trinity of the \nTrue, the Good, the Beautiful; or as that \u201cTrue Sun\u201d, of the Indian Gayatri, \n\u201cfrom Whom all proceed, to Whom all must return\u201d; or as the Sun-disk, pic\u00ac \ntured in the glyphs of Tel-el Amarna, from which rays come down to man, \nending in hands that give and receive gifts. Let us assume that all men in \nour Democracy look up to such a Father in the Heavens\u2014as the seers and \nsages of every race and age have looked\u2014seeing there the author of their be\u00ac \ning, and believing that those rays, which reach down to them, are rays of Truth \nand Wisdom, bearing the authority of Truth. If then, any question were to \narise, affecting the whole group, and each man, putting all prejudice and self- \ninterest aside, were to strive honestly to make his mind an inlet of the Divine \nMind, his view would be that facet of the Truth whence his own ray of light \ncame to him. It would, of course, be no more than a fragmentary view, but it \nwould none the less be true; and because the Truth is one, when all these frag\u00ac \nmentary views were put together, none rejected but each in its own proper \nplace, they would make one whole,\u2014the Father\u2019s Truth and Will. Then, in\u00ac \ndeed, the \u201cvoice of the people\u201d could be the \u201cVoice of God\u201d; Democracy, \nrecognizing and subordinating itself to divine authority, would become, in \nfact, a Brotherhood; and the method of Democracy would be the Theosophic \nMethod ,\u2014the method through which, in the studies and discussions of our \nSociety, Truth is sought. ^ \n\nWe need not point out how different is the actual democratic proceduM \nand result. Not Pilate, but the multitude, condemned the Christian MastCT. \nOn his behalf, Pilate appealed to the people, and the \u201cvoice of the people\u201d \n\u201ccried out the more exceedingly\u201d, crucify him; release unto us Barabbas. \n\nAll teaching of religion has for long been prohibited in our public schools. \nThere is no thought of Divine Authority, as such, but only of human opinion. \nNeither the Divine Will nor the wholeness of Truth is sought, but the clash of \nopposing prejudices and the partisan dominance of a faction over the whole. A \npeople is like a nursery of children who can be united either from above or from \n\n\nio6 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nbelow; either in love and obedience to their parents, or in unanimous surrender \nto the promptings of mischief; but who otherwise, left only to forces emanating \nfrom their own plane, will bicker and quarrel, until the strongest bully among \nthem imposes his tyranny and silences their complaints. The unity, in which \ndiversity is reconciled, is never on the same plane as the diversity. The only \ntrue basis of union is in a common loyalty to something beyond self: love of a \nparent, or love of a Cause, put above self and in which self is lost. Men come \nto realize it in common labour and suffering and self-giving, in war and in \nsacrifice; never in self-seeking. \n\nThe Authority of Truth the Bulwark of Freedom \n\nProfessor Etienne Gilson of the University of Paris, speaking at the Harvard \ntercentenary, emphasized the crying need of our time for the universalism and \nabsolutism that marked the Middle Ages, upholding \u201ca spiritual order of re\u00ac \nalities whose absolute right it is to judge even the State, and eventually to free \nus from its oppression\u201d. He quoted the French philosopher Jules Lachelier, \nas having remarked that \u201cthe only conceivable form of Democracy was Theoc\u00ac \nracy\u201d, and, he added, \u2018\u2018that very kind of Theocracy which William Penn \nhad once established in the forests of Pennsylvania\u201d. \u2018\u2018Despite its paradoxical \nappearance\u201d, Professor Gilson continued, \u2018\u2018that statement was fundamentally \nsound in this at least, that as soon as men refuse to be ruled directly by God, \nthey condemn themselves to be ruled directly by man; and if they decline to \nreceive from God the leading principles of their moral and social conduct, \nthey are bound to accept them from the king, or from the State, or from their \nrace, or from their own social class. . . . Against the encroachments of the \ntotalitarian State, our only conceivable protection, humanly speaking at least, \nis in a powerful revival of the Mediaeval feeling for the universal character of \nTruth\u201d. \n\nIt is this universal and absolute character of Truth that Theosophy stresses. \nIn it, and in it alone, it recognizes an absolute and ultimate authority to which \nit renders whole-souled, devoted loyalty and obedience, finding, in the measure \nof man\u2019s obedience to the behests of Truth, the measure of his freedom\u2014of \nmind and spirit, and even of the body. Our Society has \u2018\u2018no authority to en\u00ac \nforce or impose\u201d precisely because all authority is in Truth itself\u2014in the Divine \nWisdom which it would have all its members seek and serve. \n\nRelativity and Reality \n\nThe Theosophical Method not only reconciles Theocracy and Democracy \n(Theocracy, let it be understood, not priestcraft), it reconciles also relativity \nand absolutism. It grants immediately that each man\u2019s view can be but partial, \nhis outlook being relative to where he stands, so that what one man, at one \ntime, may see in one way, another man or another time may see quite differ\u00ac \nently. This is the basic postulate of the theory of relativity, which, like all \nhalf-truths, if left to stand alone, becomes the most misleading of falsehoods. \nUntold harm has been done by the false inferences drawn from it in the realms \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND DEMOCRACY \n\n\n107 \n\n\nof religion and ethics, as when it is argued that as different ages and peoples \nhave seen Goodness and Truth and Beauty in different guise, so that the moral \nstandards at one time and place have not been those of another, therefore \ngoodness and morality themselves are relative to man\u2019s opinion, man-made, \nwithout other reality or authority than that which man himself gives to them. \nThe exact opposite is the fact, and a fact which the Theosophic Method makes \nclear. A man-made thing is like a picture thrown upon a screen. All those \nwho can see it at all, see the same thing, because it exists only on the surface \nwhere it has been projected, without solid substance of its own. Whatever, \non the other hand, is existent in its own right, as part of the solid substance of \nreality, will, by that very fact, of necessity show different sides or aspects of \nitself when approached from different angles. Relativity of aspect, therefore, \nis not a denial but an affirmation of absolutism of being, and this Theosophy \nnever lets its students forget. The Theosophic Method of welcoming all views \nland rejecting none, makes this relation between the relative and the real start\u00ac \nlingly apparent. For though the wholeness of Truth can never be confined in \na single formula, nor be reflected in more than one aspect from a single mind, \nyet when views from different angles are put together, as here in our meetings, \na synthesis is formed which is far richer than any one of them alone. The \nmethod is like that of the stereoscope, whose lenses, permitting us to view \ntogether the flat photographs taken from slightly different angles, give us the \nsame impression of depth and perspective that one has in looking at the original \nitself. \n\nNot the least of the advantages of this revelation of reality\u2019s many-sidedness, \nis that it forces us to recognize that however much we see, more is hid from us. \nWe never know what the shrubbery may conceal, nor what may lie beyond \nthe hill. \n\n\nThe Ethical Spirit \n\nWhat we have said may serve also to make clear the nature of the Ethical \nSpirit which emanates from and breathes through Theosophy. It is absolute, \nimpersonal, descending from above, as far beyond the reach of man to modify \nto his wishes, as are the configurations of the stars. Like them, the ethical \nlaw is something which man sees clearly only when he looks up, turning his \neyes away from the world and shutting out its glamour; not something to be \ndiscovered in a sideways look to his interests or to his fellows. It has no kin\u00ac \nship with expediency. It brooks no compromise. It is indifferent to your \nassent or dissent. Unmoved, unalterable, calm and serene, it reveals itself as \nitself, the Law of the Soul\u2019s life. We disobey it at our peril; but it neif^r \nthreatens us nor promises us reward. It does not look to us at all, but looks \nup, and is what it is in the same obedience to what is above it, that we, if we \nwould live, must render to it. It is not only Theousophia , Divine Wisdom, it is \nTheoudunamis, Divine Power. It is \u201cthe Word\u201d, which we must \u201cmake flesh\u201d. \nIt is Truth. \n\nBut also it is Beauty; and though when we look to it through the storm- \n\n\nio8 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nclouds of our own crossed wills and denied desires, it seems to us stem and cruel \nin its aloof imperatives, when we look, with single eye and heart, to it itself, \nwe see it as Beauty,\u2014beauty that needs no other compulsion than its own \nloveliness to make us follow it. Here, as always, the real can only be described \nin paradox. Of the two opposites, both are true, both must be taken. \n\nUprightness in full Literalness \n\nWe cannot separate the ethical spirit of Theosophy from the religious life \nto which it leads, and neither can be understood save as the consequence and \noutgrowth of the vertical look and vertical movement which characterize \nTheosophy. Through this motion, spirit and matter are knitted together, so \nthat matter embodies spirit, and spirit, incarnating in matter, animates, \nquickens and transforms it. As our eyes open to this, the whole world becomes \ntransformed. A new heaven and a new earth are made. In everything, in the \nhumblest and simplest and most familiar, we see the life of the spirit, and \nspiritual significance and values. \u201cUprightness\u201d takes on a richer, literal \nmeaning as the alignment of the whole character to the vertical movement of \nlife; and to \u201cuprise\u201d has restored to it its connotations of rising from sleep and \nresurrection from the dead. \n\nLittle by little, mind, heart and will all follow this vertical movement. The \nstudent, always looking up to what is above him, his heart drawn by its beauty, \nhis mind held by its truth, his will obedient to its good, striving to serve and \nembody it, grows little by little into its likeness; as \u201cthe mind is dyed the colour \nof its thoughts\u201d, the heart \u201cunited to what it loves\u201d, the will \u201cassimilated into \nthat upon which it feeds\u201d. \n\nIt is here that those who have to stand up and speak the truth that is in \nthem, suffer the shame of knowing that all their faults cry out against that \ntruth to make it seem a lie. They perceive themselves, and know that all \nmust perceive them, \u201cfar off in the region of unlikeness\u201d. And yet their truth \nis the truth. Theosophy, loved and lived, has transformed and does trans\u00ac \nform them, daily working its miracle of quickening the dead and waking the \nconsciousness from its drugged dreams of self. We are different, and know \nthat we are different, because of Theosophy. Force and form and conscious\u00ac \nness are three aspects of one thing. To change one is to change all; and when \nwe learn to look up and to open ourselves, even in the least degree, to the Divine \nWisdom and the Divine Power, even our outer form and the expression of our \nface, change. Looking up, reaching up, loving up, we grow up. \n\nThe Theosophic Life \n\nIt is this \u201cuprightness\u201d, in the full, literal derivation of the word, this change \nfrom the horizontal to the vertical in the direction of our interest, attention, \nmotives and the whole range of our activities, that marks the essential differ\u00ac \nence between the theosophic life and the life of the man of the world. That \ndifference has far-reaching consequences,\u2014too far-reaching to permit us to do \nmore than point to them. But before we attempt even that, it will be well \n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND DEMOCRACY \n\n\n109 \n\nto note that though the theosophic attitude and method may properly be re\u00ac \ngarded as pertaining to and characteristic of The Theosophical Society as such, \nthe ethical spirit and religious life of Theosophy can be no part of the Society\u2019s \nouter procedure or organism, but must breathe through and animate it only \nas they are incarnate in the lives of the individual members. Thus, in speak\u00ac \ning of them, we are passing beyond the Society itself to the wider realm and \nnew world which Theosophy opens to its disciples, but which all members of \nthe Society are as free to reject as to accept. \n\nIf it be entered, then, as we have said, there is experienced a literal conver\u00ac \nsion, the whole life being turned about through a right angle into a direction \nand dimension of which you have been scarcely conscious before. All being \nis one, yet so marked is this change, that you seem to be denizens of two dis\u00ac \ntinct worlds, and your life and work and consciousness to be a linkage between \nthe two,\u2014between the world of matter and of spirit, between the realized and \nthe potential, between the manifest actualities all about you, and the unmani\u00ac \nfest ideal, which nevertheless is only unmanifest here with us, while shining in \nthe heavens in its own light, and that light already penetrating to our dim \neyes. As we intend upon it, perception leads to reception and passes into \ninspiration, and inspiration into action,\u2014that we be not disobedient unto the \nheavenly vision. From action comes clearer vision, and renewed and stronger \ninspiration, better directed and more efficient acts. \n\nThus the wheel is set in motion of cyclic interchange from plane to plane. \nEverything visible begins to tell us of the greater invisible that lies behind it \nand which it, in part, foreshows. Every material thing is seen as the crystalli\u00ac \nzation of a spiritual thing, a vehicle of a spiritual gift. All becomes alive. In \nthe daily round of duty we perceive that the highest potencies may be served, \nand our days become transformed,\u2014as a task performed with one we love is \nlit by love. In beautifying a room, Beauty itself may be served, and, with the \nBeautiful, the True and the Good. To seek perfection in the smallest detail is \n\u2014or may be\u2014to worship the Perfect and to strive to make it incarnate and \nmanifest on earth as it is in heaven. \n\nWe say it may be this, for there is a counterfeit of it which vanity and self\u00ac \nworship can put forth. At every point we must remember, as Mr. Judge used \nto say, that \u201cmany a Blackie wears a blue coat\u201d. Light on the Path tells us, \n\u201cit must be the Eternal that draws forth your strength and beauty, not desire \nfor growth\u201d,\u2014nor any thought of self. We must have perceived that there is \na better service open to us than that of self; and in that service of what is fafl \nabove self, self becomes insignificant. In its end, in the ch\u00a3laship to which the \ntheosophic life ultimately leads, self is lost, and all of life assumes that repre\u00ac \nsentative and ambassadorial capacity, inseparable from whole-souled devotion, \nsuch as that to which St. Paul pointed when he wrote, \u201cI live, yet not I but \nChrist liveth in me\u201d. \n\nFrom its very outset, however, the theosophical life combines both the con\u00ac \ntemplative and the active sides of the religious life. They are shown to us as \ntwo halves of one whole, as necessary to each other as the systole and diastole \n\n\nno \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nof the heart, or the alternate inbreathing and outbreathing of the breath. But \nthe contemplative life comes first and must be the foundation of the active \nlife,\u2014as thought must be the foundation of speech, right perception the basis \nof right action, and as the servant must listen to his Lord\u2019s commands before \nhe can obey them. It includes the love and service of one\u2019s fellow man, but \nthat love and service are rooted in a love and service of something far above \none\u2019s fellow man. To paraphrase the Upanishads, not for love of man is man \ndear, but for love of the Supreme is man dear. Or, in Christian terms, it is \nthe service of his children for love of the Master. It was not without purpose \nthat in Christ\u2019s teaching the love of God was put first, and love of one\u2019s neigh\u00ac \nbour came second and as a derivative of the first. Love of God inevitably \nflows down and expresses itself in love of one\u2019s neighbour; but love of one\u2019s \nneighbour does not of necessity rise to love of God, for our neighbour, like our\u00ac \nselves, has two sides to his being. Therefore, when the order of these two \ncommandments is reversed, it is common for the love of God to be lost, and \nhumanitarianism degenerates into a mere worship of material comfort, which, \natrophying the spiritual nature, acts to the degradation and not to the en\u00ac \nnobling of mankind. This is to be seen on every side to-day. Like Democ\u00ac \nracy, its false sentimentalism is but a consequence of the materialism which \nsees nothing in life or in man but the one flat level of his animal existence. \n\nTheosophic Doctrines \n\nFrom what was said of the absolute freedom of the Society, it should be \nwholly clear that those doctrines which characterize Theosophy as a philosophic \nsystem are no more forced upon our members than the doctrines of Christianity \nor Buddhism or of any other of the great religions. The theosophic doctrines \nare, moreover, in no way original with the Society. Each and all of them may \nbe found elsewhere, though not always in a form so easily recognizable. It is \nthrough the Society, however, that a knowledge of them has been spread in \nthe western world, for in the early days of our Movement they could find scant \nhearing in Europe or America. Yet to one who himself believes in them, it \nseems inevitable that the majority of our members, having had the opportunity \nto study them, should have come to believe in them too; and, above all, that \nanyone who has entered into the theosophic life, must almost of necessity have \ncome to think in such, or similar, terms. But whether that be so or not, it is \neasy to see how natural and logical the vertical orientation of life makes these \ntheosophical doctrines appear; and there is the old saying that he who lives \nthe life shall know the doctrine. \n\nThe Doctrine of Correspondences: As Above So Below \nWere it not that the universe is somehow all of one piece, understanding \nof it would be impossible. The doctrine of correspondences, or analogy, which \nthe student of Theosophy learns to use as a guide in his thinking, is, in fact, a \nnecessity in any theory of knowledge that would permit the human conscious\u00ac \nness to reflect the greater life of which it is a part. It is implicit in all science, \nand exemplified in such modern hypotheses as represent the atom as a solar \n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND DEMOCRACY \n\n\nhi \n\n\nsystem in miniature. It is set forth succinctly in the phrase that man is the \nmicrocosm of the Macrocosm, but with equal clearness in the statement in the \nBook of Genesis that God created man in his own image. This is not a dark \nsaying for anyone who has learned to look up to the Divine Wisdom, and who \nstrives to open himself to the transforming action of the Divine Power. He \nhas learned to see all life as an incarnation of Spirit, and he perceives that in \nhimself and in all about him, life attains its purpose just so far as that incarna\u00ac \ntion is complete, and the outer vehicle made a perfect expression and mani\u00ac \nfestation of its own spiritual ray and divine model,\u2014just so far, in other words, \nas it verifies and fulfils the law, \u201cas above so below\u201d. This law places in our \nhands a key to the understanding of mysteries otherwise wholly beyond our \nken, a key which we can use. Do we puzzle over the relation of spirit to matter, \nor of the inner world of consciousness to the outer world of objects and of acts? \nWhat is that relation in ourselves? How does thought pass into speech and \nact? How, from the world of the potential, is the actual brought forth? \n\nAs the spark, stroked from a cat\u2019s fur, is the same in essence as the lightning flash \nthat illumines the heavens, so, in the little, we may read the secret of the great. \n\nReincarnation and Karma \n\nOr let us consider the doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma. They do but \nextend over death, the same laws of cause and effect, and of cyclic alternation \nbetween opposing phases, that we observe everywhere in life. Everywhere \nthere is such alternation as that of death and life. Why then should we think \nof death alone as final, not to be followed again by life? There is a time of \nsowing and a time of reaping, but from the reaping comes the seed for a new \nsowing. Winter and summer; day and night; waking and sleeping; inbreathing \nand outbreaking; the unuttered thought finding expression in speech and act, \nand returning again to silent contemplation. Everywhere there is this inter\u00ac \nchange between the inner and the outer, this cyclic passage from the world \nbeyond our senses to the visible world of material form and manifestation. \nEverywhere, once we have learned to look up, we perceive incarnation and \nreincarnation\u2014of our thought, our purpose, our ideal, ourselves. And this is \ntrue because neither thought, nor purpose, nor ideal, nor self, nor anything \nthat is, is ever wholly incarnate. Always there is more than that which, in \nany moment, is revealed. Each new day finds us a new man, different from \nthe old in the further assimilation of experience, yet one with the old. We \nsink to sleep at night, the senses folded, nor is there any going forth of conscious\u00ac \nness to manifest itself in act; and in the morning wake, to take up again ke \nunfinished task, to enter again the environment and relationships we Iwe \nourselves created through the past. We should never think to limit the law of \ncause and effect to a single day. Nor should we speak of the \u201caccident\u201d of \nwaking in the same room in which we went to sleep. It is quite clear to us \nthat the morning greetings we receive from those about us are not uncoloured \nby the intercourse we had with them the day before. Do men gather grapes of \nthorns, or figs of thistles? Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. \n\n\nI 12 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nFew of those who quarrel with the doctrine of reincarnation\u2014still fewer of \nthe many more who ignore it\u2014have ever squarely faced the difficulties and \ncontradictions that are immediately involved in its denial. Yet it is those \nvery contradictions which account for much of the delusion, rebellion and \nbitterness of our times. Taught by Democracy to reject the vertical dimen\u00ac \nsion of life, and to look only to a material standard of values\u2014their views, \nand their thought of themselves, confined to the short span of a single life\u2014 \nmen see only injustice in the inequalities of birth and fortune, and therefore \nstrive to tear down, in hate and envy, all above them. In so doing they are \nbut trying to realize in fact the dead level of equality that has been taught \nthem as democratic theory and their inherent right. No more false and sub\u00ac \nversive doctrine could be preached, yet we hear it promulgated to-day from \npositions of highest trust. \n\nIt is fortunate that such a levelling can never be made, for it would be sub\u00ac \nversive of far more than civilization and personal freedom. Accomplished, it \nwould mean death, for life, as we have seen, is always a cyclic passage from \none level to another. In the name of human justice\u2014wholly misunderstood, \ntravestied, made blind where its sight should be keenest\u2014it would, could it be \nproduced, strangle in its inception every movement of Divine Justice, and of \nDivine Mercy as well. \n\nThe twin doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation make wholly impossible \nany thought of uniformity as desirable. The infinite diversity of life\u2014of con\u00ac \nsciousness, of form, of powers and capacities, of opportunities and limitations, \nof strength and weakness and knowledge and ignorance\u2014all these things speak \nto us of the untrammelled freedom of life to fit the outer environment to each \nneed, however momentary, of the evolving soul. The student of Karma sees \nthe whole outer world of manifestation\u2014of circumstances and relationships, \nof success and failure and happenings of all kinds\u2014as a magic mirror, which \nreflects back to the soul that which emanates from it and which it itself is. \nAnd the magic of this great mirror is this: that these reflected rays, coming \nback to the soul, are for ever acting to further the soul\u2019s progress in its \nevolutionary path, or to press it back to the right way, when it wanders \nfrom it. Thus they both reveal deficiencies and make them good, give \nwarning of a disturbed balance and restore it. We make mistakes, and \nfrom them come pain that we must bear and consequences that we must \naccept and face. But as these are studied, it is seen that in the right use \nof the consequences is the corrective needed by the nature that made the \nmistake. At every moment, in every relationship, perfect justice and perfect \nmercy are attained to the measure that the outer environment and hap\u00ac \npenings are plastic and mobile, free to rise and fall from any level, uncon\u00ac \nfined to any uniformity, but always exactly fitting the inner needs of the \nevolving soul. \n\nWould it be a merit in a hat and dress shop, if it kept but one size and style \nof hat and dress, which all men and women and children were forced to wear, \nwithout regard to the size and shape of their heads, their height or weight or \n\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND DEMOCRACY \n\n\n113 \n\n\nage? No more would it be a merit in the world, which provides the vesture \nof souls, were all human lots to be the same. \n\nThe effect of the doctrine of Reincarnation is no less than that of Karma \nin altering our attitude to our personal fate, and not only in reconciling us to \nit, but in leading us to enter into it fully and completely. As we look about us, \nwe see on every side, men trying to escape from their lives, seeking distraction, \nto \u201ckill time\u201d, to find substitute activities for what are properly their own. \nThat is not to what Theosophy leads. Enabling us to see a life-time as but a \nday, preceded and to be followed by others, till the whole gamut of \u201cweather\u201d \nand the seasons is complete, it causes us to try to learn to the full, from each, \nthe lesson its special features provide. No man would wish all his days to be \nsoft with ease, his powers never called forth to their utmost limit, his endur\u00ac \nance and his manhood never proved. There is that in the spirit which seeks \nand welcomes difficulty, danger, struggle and hardship. There is a time for \nlabour and a time for rest, for pleasure, and for pain. These times are not in \nour own hands, and we live wisely and well not by shunning either, nor by \ntrying to take either out of its appointed season, nor by seeking to blend the \ntwo into one drab neutral tone, but by meeting each manfully and using it to \nthe full as we come to it. As Light on the Path shows us, the disciple does not \nexpect or seek, as does the man of the world, an easier, better lot for himself \nthan for others. His resolve is to use all lots for the attainment of his purpose. \n\nServants of an Enduring Purpose \n\nThere is another factor that operates here. To make our own the ethical \nspirit of Theosophy, is to cease to live for self or for motives that are limited, or \neven affected, by death. Instead, in looking to Divine Wisdom, the True, the \nGood, the Beautiful, we become the servants of eternal purposes, using the \ninfinite variety of life\u2019s changing means, all to the one unchanging end. In \nthis we are reaching toward inner maturity. The unity of our purpose imparts \na like unity to the diversity of our days. Long views become possible, knitting \ndays and months and years together. We see past, present and future, our \npast lives and all that are to come, all in their relation to the one purpose that \nruns through them,\u2014what each contributes to it, how the accomplishment in \neach becomes the starting point for the next. This liberates us from the dominion \nof fate and of the present. We no longer lose our identity in the changfl^f \nparts we are called upon to play. We no longer take our colour, or thought of \nourselves, from our circumstances\u2014as though the self were different because, \nfor the moment, it is rich or poor in worldly goods\u2014but pass through all circum\u00ac \nstances ourselves, true to what we are within ourselves, whether our outer \nr61e be that of slave or king. No work, no lot, is ever thereafter beneath the \ndisciple, for he has reached the point where he is able to do all as it should be \ndone, whole-heartedly, because of that to which it leads; but, because of that \nto which it leads, detached and unaffected by it. \n\n\nMasters: the Brotherhood of the Great of Soul \nnally, as at once the polar opposite of Democracy and its perfect fulfil- \n\n\n\n\n\n\n114 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nment, Theosophy leads us to the recognition of the great Lodge of Elder Brothers \nof mankind. \n\nWhen we have learned to look up, in the new dimension of being which \nTheosophy has opened to us, we find \u201cno bar or wall\u201d to stop our gaze, \u201cwhere \nman, the effect, ceases and God, the cause, begins\u201d. As the infinite immensity \nof the heavens is not dark but filled with light, whose rays stream unbroken \nfrom the furthest stars even to ourselves, so the void which men imagine be\u00ac \ntween themselves and the Supreme, is not void but filled with a descending \nhierarchy of spiritual life. Call the great beings who embody that life what \nyou will\u2014Planetary Spirits, Dhyan Chohans or Lords of Light, Avatars or \nMahatmas; or Thrones and Principalities and Powers, Messiahs or Archangels \nor Prophets,\u2014they are there, and it is through them, down that great Jacob\u2019s \nladder, that life and light and spiritual consciousness come to us. We do not \nstand in the van of evolution, advancing without chart or plan into the un\u00ac \nknown. As there was no beginning to being, so there is no \u201cvan\u201d to evolution. \nLife, emanating from the Godhead, returns again to it, the serpent swallowing \nits tail, in endless procession of cycles. Before us are our Elder Brothers. The \nideal toward which we strive, perceiving it gleaming for us far ahead, has been \nembodied, even as we desire to embody it; and it is from its embodiment in our \ngreat predecessors that it shines for us and draws us. \n\nThis is the truth of the spirit, the celestial mechanism of being; but it is \nfar more than that. It is concrete, personal reality,\u2014as we become aware \nwhen we ourselves, through the theosophic ethics and the theosophic life, be\u00ac \ncome consciously concerned with the things of the spirit and its incarnation. \nDo we imagine that the great souls of the past, the saints and seers and sages, \nwho have attained to Divine Wisdom and embodied it, giving their hearts and \nlives to the aiding of mankind,\u2014do we imagine that they have been snuffed \nout by death, or that their purposes have changed because of death? They \nstill live, still labour for mankind, still link it to its greater destiny, still look \nup to their \u201cFather in the Heavens\u201d, and for love of Him still serve those whom \nHe has given them. They are not abstractions, not ghosts, \u201cwhether in the \nbody or out of the body\u201d. They are living men, to be known, by those who \nare ready, as men,\u2014as friend and teacher and Master. They have been met in \nParis and London and New York, as well as in the deserts of Egypt, the Alps, \nor the inaccessible fastnesses of the Great Lodge in the Himalayas. \u201cKnowl\u00ac \nedge exists and is obtainable\u201d. Man is neither fatherless nor friendless, and \nwhen the ch\u00a3la is ready, he finds his Master waiting for him. \n\nIt is to that great Lodge of Masters, of \u201cjust men made perfect\u201d, that our \nSociety owes its origin and its knowledge of Theosophy; and wherever we may \nbe in the great sweep of evolution, be we young souls or old, ignorant or learned, \nrich or poor in things of the world or of the spirit, it is to that living Brother\u00ac \nhood of our Elder Brothers that the theosophic attitude and method, the theo\u00ac \nsophic spirit and the theosophic life, all act to draw us. \n\nHenry Bedinger Mitchell. \n\n\nESOTERIC DISCIPLESHIP \n\n\nI T is difficult to write on the occult side of life without placing temptation \nin the way of a certain type of unprepared reader. To toy with such ex\u00ac \npressions, for instance, as spiritual growth and progress, is dangerous, \nfor they tend towards self-glorification. This warning is particularly addressed \nto those who have allowed themselves to become dazzled by the glamorous \npsychism which so many confuse with spiritual insight. Psychic faculties come \nas a blessing only when they fulfil a spiritual need. As the consummation of an \nunlawful ambition, they are pure temptation,\u2014temptation that has not been \nresisted. It is well, however, to remember that temptation can be a man\u2019s \ngreatest spiritual need, for it presents the opportunity of resistance, and re\u00ac \nsisted temptation becomes a mighty blessing. It is an occult maxim that no \nman is ever tempted beyond the strength of his will to resist, if he chooses so to \nexercise that will. Hence a man\u2019s surest protection is a strong and powerful \npurpose to find and to do the will of God. Such a purpose is neither will nor \ndesire, but is a soul-hunger bom out of spiritual evolution, and has become as \nessential an attribute of some men as weight is of iron. It cannot and does not \nkeep a man from stumbling off the path into the morass of self, but it does not \nleave him there, for always it points steadily away towards God. Without \nsuch an unbending purpose, man had better leave psychism strictly alone, and \ngive his attention instead to that other and more practical side of occultism \nknown as \u201cmetaphysical\u201d or abstract thought. \n\nLike psychism, abstract thought develops its own peculiar temptations which \nhe will do well to heed but which are, generally, of a more natural and whole\u00ac \nsome order than are those of psychism. Unlike psychism, it develops, not \nspiritual illumination itself, but the capacity to receive such illumination. The \nfact that the more widely known schools of \u201cmetaphysical\u201d thought possess \nlittle spiritual insight, does not alter the more significant fact that they con\u00ac \ntinually bring individuals face to face with the \u201cDweller on the threshold\u201d. It \nis not capacity, however, but only the steadfast purpose towards God which \nenables the wayfarer to pass that unholy beast and enter into the light of spirit\u00ac \nual illumination. The struggling soul is forced to choose between the right- \nand the left-hand turns of the path. In one direction lies that manifested love \nwhich is oneness with God the Father and with man the brother, and in tl^ \nother direction lies separation\u2014self\u2014selfishness. At the very point of dema^ \ncation, ready to lead him one way or the other, stands his conception of the \n\u201cI am\u201d consciousness, the divine man as opposed to the mortal. Has he, with\u00ac \nout realizing it, sought to expand his ego to the proportions of God-Almighty, \nor has he, in true humility, attempted to surrender his mortal limitations and \n\n1 The author of this article is not a member of The Theosophicat Society. His approach to Theosophy and his \nterminology being somewhat different from our own. we believe his restatement of truths so often expressed in our \npages, will prove of interest to our readers.\u2014 Editors. \n\nIT 5 \n\n\n\n\n\n\nn6 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nallow himself to be absorbed into, to become one with, God the Father? In \nthe beginning the point of difference is very subtile, very dim\u2014so dim in fact \nthat the spiritual babe can only judge surely by the fruit of the tree. \n\nWhat are some of the fruits of error? Always they manifest as some more or \nless subtle form of self or separation. Many \u201cmetaphysicians\u201d, for instance, \nseek in the name of expediency or truth or love, to use Cosmic Law to gain for \nthemselves health or wealth or power; do in short seek to exploit God for their \nown personal benefit. It is not by thinking of himself that mortal man can \napproach the Father, but by forgetting himself. He must lose his life if he would \nsave it, and this must be done spontaneously, without mortal contriving. Even \nas he condemns \u201cmortal mind\u201d, he fails to perceive that he uses that same mor\u00ac \ntal mind in the effort to demonstrate Cosmic Law. Divine mind could not seek \nsuch demonstration, since it is already a spontaneous and continuous demon\u00ac \nstration of such law. \u201cSeek ye first the Kingdom of God (spiritual conscious\u00ac \nness) and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.\u201d \nHe perceives the illusionary nature of evil, but he fails to discern clearly the \ncause behind it; fails to realize that mortality is the unforgivable sin. Just so \nlong as he continues to nurse that utterly false sense of separation\u2014that Satanic \nlie\u2014just so long will its offspring \u201cself\u201d continue to be the beast that bars the \nway to God. Though he may use his affirmations to drug into submission one \nerroneous little effect after another, they will continually spring forth anew so \nlong as he fails to destroy that which breeds them. \n\nIt is important, however, to remind oneself that error is only the reverse side \nof truth. The blacker it seems, the more glorious is the truth it camouflages. \nMultitudes of people have turned towards the painful awakening which lies to \nthe left. Each of these many souls perhaps cherishes or will cherish this expe\u00ac \nrience as his greatest blessing. Who but the \u201cProdigal Son\u201d can best appre\u00ac \nciate the Father from whom he has been so painfully separated? Man first \nconceives the possibility of the true, then believes it and at the last perceives \nit. This true perception, however, comes only through that great and vibrant \nexperience which initiates the disciple into the very fringe of the White Broth\u00ac \nerhood itself. If, then, you are still a prodigal son, be not dismayed, for it is \nyour glorious destiny to experience this awakening. \n\n\nHow can a sound civilization spring from the loins of a people who are con\u00ac \nstantly ready to sell that civilization to the highest bidder? Let us take the \nliquor interests, for example. Have they not bid in the finest we have both in \nart and technical resources, and prostituted them to the spread of the drink \nhabit? In particular, one well done advertisement pictures a wholesome- \nappearing group of young people drinking beer, with a campus scene for a \nbackground. The tragic thing about this picture is not the beer, but the sinister \nhypocrisy or psychic dynamite which seeks to enter the back way of our con\u00ac \nsciousness and surround this drink with a halo of good taste and respectability. \n\nThe expert who planned this advertisement thinks of it as the fine art of \n\n\nESOTERIC DISCIPLESHIP \n\n\n117 \n\nsuggestion. In reality it is twin to the dark arts of the Middle Ages. We our\u00ac \nselves commonly call it propaganda, and in the Orient it is known as black \nmagic. In truth this advertisement is but a single isolated example of that \ngreat volume of publicity which has worked to make our people mental slaves. \n\nIf you think this indictment is too melodramatic, meditate a moment on the \nself-evident dishonesty of the advertisement and consider how typical it is of \nthe insidious influences which permeate society through and through. Influen\u00ac \ntial schools exist solely to turn out exponents of this art of suggestion. Every \ncorporation has its corps of men trained to get possession of the other man s \nmind, not to help him, but to exploit him. Little wonder then that every great \nfaith has set its face dead against this kind of magic. \n\nWhy do we as a people fall victims so easily to such propaganda? It is be\u00ac \ncause we are already enslaved; are already the victims of the less obvious side \nof this very same thing. Out of past propaganda have arisen our varied \nsystems of thought. It has moulded our social structure, with its accumulation \nof precedents and habits, into its present form. Propaganda for us has, in truth, \nbecome the world, and this world has exploited us with the hard grip of authority. \n\nTo surrender our souls to this authority\u2014this mortality\u2014is to give up our \nspiritual identity; to number ourselves among the dead. When the world begins \nto smother us; when we feel ourselves slipping, we sometimes seek to escape \nthrough religion, and all too often we find there only another authority mas\u00ac \nquerading as the truth that sets one free. Of course we cannot escape the world \nby substituting one form of authority for another. We must substitute the truth \nfor the world, and we can find the truth only by seeking for God the Father in \nthe inmost recess of our own soul, as the Master bade us do two thousand or \nmore years ago. \n\nIf you will do this, if you will only try to do this, you will discover a very \nwonderful thing. You will find that the world on which you have relied is false \nand artificial; is in short a colossal lie. You will actually perceive this as you \nperceive the rising sun. You will perceive that the world is identical with the \nidea of separation\u2014the Satanic lie. You will perceive that every discord which \nerects a wall between man and man is a manifestation of this sense of separation, \nof which the personal self is the concrete embodiment. 2 Most wonderful of all, \nyou will discover that in escaping the world, you have fulfilled the law; have \nbecome subject to the only genuine authority there is,\u2014the reality of your \noneness with God the Father. \n\nHarmonious things unite us in an unbreakable bond. The common love of \nbeauty, for instance, which draws a crowd to an art exhibit, cannot be jj|\u00a3- \nsolved by a material cause as could the mere co-operation of a labour union. \nThe labour union symbolizes that type of brotherhood which is a union of \nselfish, or in any case material interests. The other symbolizes that spiritual \nbrotherhood in which separation disappears. It has been pointed out that \nthough a cup of sea water is individual to itself, it is in its essential attributes \n\n\nj The duality of the universe in its manifestation is so evident, with good and evil as an outstanding \u2018\u2018pair of \nopposites\", that it is all the more necessary to emphasize the underlying, invisible Unity.\u2014 Editors. \n\n\n\nn8 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nnot separate from the ocean, or from another cup of sea water. All, for instance, \nhave the same specific gravity and the same chemical content. Separation is \nthe road towards the annihilation of individuality. Every step on the path trod \nby the Master breaks down a barrier. With shame we realize what a fool\u2019s \nparadise we proud and arrogant mortals have lived in, for we cannot escape \nthe fact of our own being. Even as we erect our walls of personal superiority, \nwe are dependent on the appreciation of our fellows in which to reflect our ego; \nelse we smother. We perceive that Divine love must ever carry within itself \nthe element of sacrifice; that God the Father, being all in all, cannot receive \nbut must give; can only pour his life into the myriads of forms that make up \nthis objective world; that this sacrifice of the infinite to the finite is Divine love \nin action. All the pain of sacrifice belongs to the limited or mortal. For the \nlimited to further limit or sacrifice itself for others, seems like death, and it \nresists desperately. It is not until we open our soul to the infinite life of the \nFather that we transform the pain of sacrifice into joy. \n\nHaving perceived that worldly authority is indeed a false god, we no longer \nidentify true teaching with it. Instead, with a profound sense of safety, we \nrecline in the arms of love, knowing that the Father could never trust the \nspiritual welfare of one of his children to the mortal mercy of another; that no \northodox or intellectual interpretation has the spiritual right to lay the hand \nof authority upon us, save to show us the spurious nature of authority itself. 3 \n\nJesus had no \u201cbeliefs\u201d. His strength did not lie in a group of convictions, \nbut in his actual perceptions. He knew. Having submerged his humanity in a \ndivine individuality, he perceived all things with the same finality with which \nwe selfishly perceive the things affecting our own persons. However, no soul \ncan appropriate the truth for another. Perceiving this, Jesus informed his \ndisciples it was expedient that he go away in order that the Holy Ghost (truth) \nmight come and lead them into all truth. Actually his dazzling and objective \npresence stood between them and the full inward perception of the truth neces\u00ac \nsary to their complete unfoldment. Although he had spoken often of the truth, \nJesus had made little public effort to expound it. Instead, his whole ministry \nhad been one long, strong effort to lead people into a way of life that would \ndevelop the spiritual grace to realize the Father for themselves. \n\n^Nevertheless the conception of Master and disciple is a true conception, \nalthough the sole purpose of the relationship is to help the pupil towards the \n\n\nAs the popular attitude toward religion has become increasingly sceptical, or increasingly indifferent, the recog\u00ac \nnition of worldly or external authority in religious matters has diminished proportionately. Instead, the authority \nof science is accepted as wellmgh absolute. Hence, as people no longer worry about their souls but only about \ntheir bodies, the priest has been supplanted by the doctor, whose verdicts are regarded as final. Superstition has \nmerely transferred its allegiance. \n\nIt is not only in scientific matters, however, that people accept authority credulously. In America especially, \na lingering inferiority complex\", the origin of which is easily traced, and which manifests itself at times as national \nboastfulness, has resulted in an extravagant respect for the opinions of professional critics of art, music, and litera- \n*ure. I he man who distrusts his own judgment of books, probably with reason, will join in praise of some much \nadvertized best seller which, in many cases, is both trashy and unclean, but which has been lauded to the skies \nby reviewers, whose motives are not always untainted, and whose intellectual and moral background in any case, \nis likely to be as shallow and uncultured as that of the man who accepts their opinions with respect. The same \nis tan; in the domain of art and music: people are afraid of what others (their own children particularly) will \nthink <pf them, and are mortally afraid of not being \"in the swim\"; from which it follows that good and honest \nsouls, in spite of their better instincts, will admire some crazy statue or lunatic painting, and will \"enjoy\u201d the \nworst of insults to their ears for no better reason than that \"authorities\" have proclaimed these psychic sloughings \nas the latest revelation of the world s intelligentzia. \n\nIt is to be hoped that students of Theosophy are on their guard against this type of mass suggestion.\u2014 Editors. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nESOTERIC DISCIPLESHIP \n\n\n119 \n\nsame attainment as the Master\u2019s. The spiritual humility of Jesus contained not \nthe slightest hint of servility. Rather it consisted of the clear perception that \nthe lowliest beggar along the wayside possessed the same franchise to live in \nGod\u2019s universe as the noblest soul who walked the way; that each and every \none of us can stand face to face with the highest Archangel in heaven and de\u00ac \nclare our will to go direct to the Father for our truth. Piercing through the \ndisciple\u2019s mask of personality, the Master perceives his actual spiritual condi\u00ac \ntion, and throws around him those circumstances most favourable to his un- \nfoldment. One might spend endless hours teaching the mechanics of swimming \nto a small boy, or, if he be that kind of boy, one might throw him bodily into the \npool and he would immediately swim very well. In every faith those who have \nattained have endured a soul-shattering experience somewhat analogous to this. \nBeset by seemingly supernatural situations that seem to him unique, the dis\u00ac \nciple is unable to turn to his fellows for help. Apparently deserted by his very \nGod, he does finally, in agony and desperation, turn inwards, and there in the \nsecret place of his own soul finds his saviour, the Christ, in whom we are all one. \nDid not Jesus on the cross cry out, \u201cMy God, my God, why hast thou forsaken \nme\u201d, and did not the Christ in his physical incarnation symbolize the evolution \nof humanity? \n\nIn the world of religious organizations and denominations, and in the minds \nof countless individuals, there are innumerable personifications and objective \nconceptions of Jesus. There can be only one conception of Christ, however, \nfor if we perceive Christ at all, we perceive the truth which is enduring and \nchangeless. In the same way there can be only one true conception of man, of \nthe real man, created in God\u2019s image. Our task is to perceive the real self of \nour brother through the eyes of Christ; through the understanding of love. \nThere is only one such man. 4 \n\nIt is an absolute fact that those who truly desire to do so, can perceive the \ntruth. But genuine desire is a spontaneous hunger of the soul, and cannot be \ngenerated by human foresight. Many desire to perceive the truth as a means \nto an end; the acquisition of health and wealth, for instance, or to gain virtue \nor power, or out of plain curiosity. How many reach for the truth as a flower \nreaches for the sunlight! Intellect can inform us that there is a threshold to be \ncrossed; can even carry us to that threshold; but only that earnest faith and \npurpose, stressed by the Master, can carry us across and through the fearful \nshadows of the unknown. Spiritual illumination always follows, never precedes \nthis experience. And whence comes so courageous a faith? It comes from the \nabsolute awareness that having put our hand to the plough, to look back \nbe retreat, away from God; and to the unfolding soul this would see \nannihilation. \n\nEvil is the manifested effect of the sense of separation, the spiritual lie. If \nwe could rise far enough above it, could view it from a sufficient distance, we \n\n4 Compare the Avatamsaka-Sutra: \"Child of Buddha, there is not even one living being that has not the wisdom \nof the TathAgata. It is only because of their own vain thoughts and affections that all beings are not conscious \nof this. ... I will teach them the holy Way;\u2014I will make them forsake their foolish thoughts, and cause them to \nsee that the vast and deep intelligence which dwells within them is not different from the wisdom of the very \nBuddha.\"\u2014 Editors. \n\n\n\n\n120 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nshould perceive its apparently destructive nature transformed through Divine \nwill into a constructive purpose. As the unforgivable sin and source of all lesser \nerrors, separation presents to man a marvellous opportunity\u2014the chance to \nescape its sway, the escaping being creation. How can a child realize its mother \nuntil she has absented herself? How can we become sons of God until we have \nwalked through the darkness of separation? Goodness is more than innocence; \nit is purity plus experience; it is Divine self-realization. Faith, hope, courage, \nall those steps up which we lift ourselves towards Christ, are something more \nthan three lovely aspects of the human soul. They are a bright and shining \npromise, our blessed assurance of that which is to come, for without fruition \nthey would be dead and meaningless things. They are the vine which in eternity \nshall flower into perfect love and realization and into utter fearlessness. \n\nThe dauntless whistle of the small boy hurrying through the dark, is no less a \nmanifestation of God\u2019s love in action than is the ascending prayer of the mar\u00ac \ntyred saint. We are each one of us a little child. Our affirmations of truth are \nthe spiritual whistles with which we bolster up our own hope, faith, and courage. \nYet these noble qualities of the human soul can, in themselves, only lead us to \nthe threshold of our destiny. \u201cThis mortal must put on immortality\u201d, said the \ngreat Apostle. We press onwards towards that Godlike transfiguration in which \nfaith, hope, and courage become their own absolutes: divine love, realization, \nand fearlessness. Only in the peace of the Father can we finally rest, for the \npeace of God is truth itself. \n\nH.C.B. \n\n\nI will ascend \n\nInto my Father's room , and through the courts \nBelow , for ever seeking , I will pass , \n\nTo brush the skirts of Inspiration \nAnd touch the sleeves of Memory. \n\n0 great and gracious Father , hear and condescend \nTo guard , to cherish , to enlighten me. \n\n\u2014The Prayer of the Emperor Ching (Confucius). \n\n\n\nREMARKS BY THE WAY \n\n\nT HERE would be no need to refer again to the abdication of Edward \nVIII if that tragic event had not exposed a failure, in some quarters, \nto understand an elementary principle of right and wrong. This failure, \nor, rather, this example of moral blindness, found expression in severe criticism \nby certain people in England and America of the Archbishop of Canterbury\u2019s \nbroadcast Address of December 13th, 1936, dealing with \u201cthe change of \nrulers in Britain and the Empire\u201d. The Address was characterized as un\u00ac \ncharitable, unchristian, and as the equivalent of \u201chitting a man when he\u2019s \ndown\u201d. Incidentally, we do not know in what sense the former King can be \nconsidered as \u201cdown\u201d. He was not kicked out; he left of his own accord, and \nin spite of the protests and pleading of his family, his official advisers, and of \npractically all his people. \n\nHowever, to enable our readers to consider the matter intelligently, we \nshall first cite the opening passages of the Archbishop\u2019s Address,\u2014the passages \nthat provoked criticism: \n\nDuring the last ten days we have seen strange things. Very rarely in the long course \nof its history has this nation passed through a week of such bewilderment, suspense and \nanxiety. Within twenty-four hours one King went and another King came. Yet there \nhas been no confusion, no strife, no clash of parties. Truly, this has been wonderful \nproof of the strength and stability of the throne. It has been even more striking proof \nof the steadiness of the people of this country and those throughout the empire. It seems \nas if a strong tide of instinct rather than seasoned thought, flowing deep beneath the \nsurface-eddies of excitement, has borne them through the rapids of the crisis. \n\nIt is right to be prQud of the way in which the nation has stood the test. Yet let there \nbe no boasting in our pride. Rather let it pass into humble reverent thankfulness for this \nrenewed token of the guidance of the nation\u2019s life by an over-ruling providence and God. \n\nWhat pathos, nay what tragedy, surrounds the central figure of these swiftly moving \nscenes. On the eleventh day of December, 248 years ago, King James II fled from \nWhitehall. By a strange coincidence, on the eleventh day of December, last week, King \nEdward VIII, after speaking his last words to his people, left Windsor Castle, centre of \nall the splendid traditions of his ancestors, and his throne, and went out an exile. In the \ndarkness he left these shores. \n\nSeldom if ever has any British sovereign come to the throne with greater natural gifts \nfor his kingship. Seldom if ever has any sovereign been welcomed by more enthusiastic \nloyalty. From God he had received a high and sacred trust. Yet by his own will he has \nabdicated\u2014he has surrendered that trust. With characteristic frankness he has told us \nhis motive. It was craving for private happiness. \n\nStrange and sad it must be that for such a motive, however strongly it pressed upo* \nhis heart, he should have disappointed hopes so high and abandoned a trust so great. \nEven more strange and sad is it that he should have sought his happiness in a manner \ninconsistent with Christian principles of marriage, and within a social circle whose stand\u00ac \nards and ways of life are alien to all the best instincts of his people. Let those who \nbelong in this circle know that to-day they stand rebuked by the judgment of the nation \nwhich had loved King Edward. \n\nI have shrunk from saying these words. But I have felt compelled for the sake of sin\u00ac \ncerity and truth to say them. \n\n\n2 T \n\n\n\n122 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nNext, after praising the former King\u2019s earlier years of \u201ceager service , the \nArchbishop added: \u201cIt is remembrance of these things that wrings from our \nheart the cry, \u2018the pity of it, Oh, the pity of it!\u2019 \u201d \n\nHe then spoke of Queen Mary in terms of great admiration and respect; \nreferred to Prime Minister Baldwin as \u201cthe other person who earned our grati\u00ac \ntude\u201d; assured his listeners, on the strength of personal knowledge, \u201cof many \nyears of friendship\u201d, that the new King, George VI, has \u201chigh ideals of life \nand duty, and will pursue them with quiet steadfastness of will\u201d as his father \ndid before him; spoke of Queen Elizabeth\u2019s grace and charm, \u201cand her bright \nand eager kindness of heart\u201d, and then, recalling the nation to religion, prayed \nthat the Coronation, which will consecrate the King and his Kingship \u201cto the \nservice of the most high God\u201d, would be \u201caccompanied by a new consecration \nof his people to the same high service\u201d, so that both King and people \u201cacknowl\u00ac \nedge their allegiance to God, and dedicate themselves to seek first His kingdom \nand His righteousness\u201d. \n\nEdward\u2019s avowed motive for abdicating, as the speaker said, was the \u201ccrav\u00ac \ning for private happiness\u201d (words italicized by us in the quotation): preferring \nhis pleasure to his duty, he abandoned his duty. That abandonment of duty \ninevitably compelled the Archbishop of Canterbury, \u201cPrimate of All Eng\u00ac \nland\u201d, to perform his own, which was to leave no excuse for doubt as to the \nmoral principles involved, and to see to it that his \u201cflock\u201d was not left in igno\u00ac \nrance of the real issues. \n\nEvery member of the Church of England has been taught the Catechism, \nand has learned that a part of his obligation to his Neighbour is \u201cto do my \nduty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call me\u201d. Open \ndefiance of that elementary principle compelled the Archbishop to say what \nhe thought about it, especially as the defiance came from a man who had been \n\u201ccalled\u201d to be England\u2019s King,\u2014especially, too, as the Archbishop must realize \nthat half the woes of the world are due to the same cause: the abandonment \nof duty, to parents, to wife or husband, to children, to associates, to country, \nfor the sake of some imagined gain or pleasure. \n\nWe hold no brief for the Archbishop, one way or the other; but we believe in \nfair play, and feel bound to say that we greatly admired his Address, for its \ndirectness, its courage, its charity, its good taste. It expressed exactly what \nthe circumstances demanded, and was, in our opinion, most timely. \n\nHow account for the criticism it aroused ? \n\nIn the first place there are those who adopt the attitude that all moral offences \nshould be ignored or condoned; that even when a man admits he has stolen \nor murdered, it is uncharitable to call him a thief or a murderer. Some humani\u00ac \ntarians thus pervert the idea of Brotherhood. But the humanitarian, who \nattributes to man an origin entirely animal, necessarily finds it almost im\u00ac \npossible to recognize evil, no matter how obvious to others, and is logically \nforced to condone the little that he recognizes,\u2014except the evil of those who \nboth see it and refuse to condone it. \n\nAs to the so-called Christians who have upbraided the Archbishop for his \n\n\nREMARKS BY THE WAY \n\n\n123 \n\n\nunchristian behaviour on this occasion,\u2014whatever their ideal, it certainly is \nnot Christ; for if ever there were a master of invective, denunciation, and \nscorching irony, he was that master,\u2014a Master whose infinite tenderness, \nand whose love of all things godlike, can alone account for his unsparing con\u00ac \ndemnation of evil and evil-doers. Those who claim to be his followers, and \nwho do not revere that splendour of his nature, take as their ideal, we fear,\u2014 \nthemselves. \n\nThe second explanation of these attacks on the truth-telling Archbishop, \ncompels us to be as frank in regard to English peculiarities as the Quarterly \ninvariably is when dealing with those nearer home. To be of service to others, \nwe must see, first ourselves as we are, and then must see others as they are,\u2014 \ntruly. So, while the world is full of praise, and with reason, for the superb \nway in which the British Empire met, dominated, and came out all the stronger \nfor, its betrayal by Edward, it is our duty to speak of the emotional reaction \nwhich followed the relief felt when he had finally removed himself, and when \nthe Duke of York had quietly stepped into his place as George VI. \n\nThis emotional reaction\u2014fortunately it was not widespread\u2014brought to \nthe surface the sentimentality which invariably affects, and at times controls, \nEnglish public opinion. It masqueraded on this occasion, as so often in the \npast, in the guise of \u201cgood sportsmanship\u201d. The rule of the ring, \u201cDon\u2019t hit \na fellow when he\u2019s down\u201d, applied regardless of common-sense and of justice, \nled to the pro-German sentiment, and to the revulsion against France, which \ncaused England to shut her eyes to German re-armament, while she allowed \nher own army, navy, and air force to sink into a state of \u201cinnocuous desue\u00ac \ntude\u201d: This lasted for years. Friends of England in this country\u2014the Quar\u00ac \nterly among them\u2014groaned at her obstinate blindness. Not until Germany\u2019s \nreoccupation of the Rhineland in violation of the Versailles Treaty, and Italy\u2019s \nrape of Abyssinia, did England come to her senses. That is history. \n\nThe same streak of sentimentality threatened for a day or two, during the \nfirst week of December, to mislead England as to the issue really involved in \ntheir King\u2019s desire to marry Mrs. Simpson. Thanks to the skill of Stanley \nBaldwin, that danger was passed, and when Edward at last stepped down, \nand his brother was on the throne, the whole nation breathed a sigh of intense \nrelief, not with wild rejoicing, as at the time of the Armistice, but almost \nprayerfully, as though the Empire had survived some agonizing test of her \nspirit,\u2014as she had, for if sentimentality had won, it would have meant the \nend of England. \n\nQuickly, however, among the weaker, less steadfast element, came the reac\u00ac \ntion from this feeling of relief: pity for the man instead of pity for his soul. \nSuch people had not realized the enormity of his offence. They did not want \nto realize it. They wanted the luxury of feeling \u201ccharitable\u201d. So, when the \nArchbishop spoke as he did, their sentimentality vented itself against him. \n\n\u201cFrom all evil and mischief; from sin; from the crafts and assaults of the \ndevil\u201d, and especially from sentimentality, Good Lord , deliver us. \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\nIX. \n\n\nHE St. Mihiel salient lay between the Moselle and the Meuse, and was \n\n\n\nroughly in the form of a triangle, with the points at Pont-^-Mousson, \n\n\nSt. Mihiel and Verdun. The western face of the salient ran along the \nthickly wooded heights of the Meuse, while the southern face, following the \nheights of the Meuse to the east, crossed the plain of the Woevre. Within the \nsalient were two commanding heights, Loupmont and Montsec, from which, \nand from the heights of the Meuse, one can see the entire plain, with its forests, \nlakes and swamps, and these three points constituted important observation \nstations for the enemy. For almost four years the Germans had been in prac\u00ac \ntically undisputed possession of the St. Mihiel salient, save for several earlier \nFrench attacks which had been repulsed. Since then, the Germans had held \nthe salient largely with second rate troops, but they had greatly strengthened \nits natural defensive features by extended field fortifications, and by a network \nof barbed wire entanglements which ran along the entire front. From the out\u00ac \npost system, with its concrete dug-outs and machine gun emplacements, run\u00ac \nning back to the rear of the salient, were several defensive positions, the last of \nwhich was the Hindenburg Line, which extended across the base of the salient \nand formed the main defence. Back of the Hindenburg Line were other defence \npoints, and in the rear were the permanent fortifications of Metz and Thion- \nville. From the German point of view, these great field fortifications, within \nthe salient, protected Metz and the Briey Iron Basin, and were a constant \nthreat on the flank to any major operation which the French might project in \nLorraine. The salient had been more than a threat; it had greatly hampered \nthe French in the defence of Verdun. It would always have been a threat on \nthe flank to any Allied offensive, either to the east or to the west of the Meuse, \nwhich might have had as its objective the cutting of the German railroad lines \nof communication between Sedan and M\u00a3zi\u00a3res, the key of their whole system \nof supply and of transport in the east. The reduction of the St. Mihiel salient \nwas, therefore, a strategic necessity, before further Allied offensive operations \ncould be started in that vicinity. \n\nThe original plan called for an attack in depth by the First American Army, \nwith full exploitation of whatever success was gained, the purpose being, once \nthe salient had been eliminated, to pierce if possible the main Hindenburg Line, \nand to go as much further as circumstances and conditions might permit. A \nstill larger American offensive, however, on the Meuse-Argonne front was pro\u00ac \njected, to follow immediately after the St. Mihiel operation, and it was de\u00ac \nsirable that this second offensive should start as soon as possible. Moreover, \nthe rainy season began usually about the middle of September; once it started, \nthe plain of the Woevre would become flooded, many of the roads would be \n\n\n124 \n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n125 \n\n\nimpassable, and military operations could only be conducted under great diffi\u00ac \nculties. In view of these factors, therefore, the original plan for the St. Mihiel \noperation was modified, the time for its inception was advanced, and the objec\u00ac \ntive was limited to merely pinching out the salient itself and to rectifying the \nline, thus clearing the way for the immediate larger operation which was pro\u00ac \nposed, and freeing the Paris-Nancy railroad and the roads north from St. Mihiel. \nThe main American attack was to be against the south face of the salient, where \nthere were fewer natural features to be overcome, while our secondary attack \nwas to be made simultaneously from the west, these two operations converging \nupon a definite point within the salient itself. The element of surprise was \nessential to the success of such an operation. The sector had been quiet for a \nlong time. For some days, however, before the operation started, there had \nbeen more than the usual activity within the salient, and it was discovered from \nprisoners and deserters that the enemy was moving his artillery out of the \narea, and that apparently he was expecting an American attack. It seems \nprobable that the German High Command, while not aware of either the size \nor the extent of the proposed American operation, had perfected their plans to \nwithdraw to the Hindenburg Line in the event of heavy pressure. It seems \nequally probable that they were taken by surprise when our attack actually \nstarted, and that they had not believed it to be imminent. They started to \nwithdraw as soon as our offensive developed, but it was then too late. \n\nThe concentration of our corps and divisions in preparation for the battle \ndevolved upon the First Army General Staff, and, because it was the first time \nthat Americans had been engaged in an operation of such magnitude, it was \ncarried out with great care. The troop movement was most complicated, as \nmany of the First Army units, arriving from the west via Bar-le-Duc, crossed \nthe line of march of other units proceeding northwards. This unavoidable \ncrossing of columns was eliminated by the issuance, by First Army Headquar\u00ac \nters, of complete march tables for all units, which specified the roads to be \nused, the halts, and the exact locations of all moving units at certain designated \nhours. Troop movements on the roads were made only at night, and, in spite \nof the activity, at no time did the general appearance of the First Army sector \nchange, nor were there signs of any increased circulation in our area; this may \nwell have accounted for the disbelief by the Germans, in spite of their general \nuneasiness, that an attack in force was imminent. The moving troops bi^# \nouacked during the day in forests, or sheltered in billets, where they would be \nunobserved, resuming their movement after dark, either by truck or by march\u00ac \ning. The First Army Staff, in view of the inactive character of the St. Mihiel \nfront, had also an immense amount of other work to accomplish in a short time, \ncovering the installation of telephone and telegraph wires, the construction of \nrailroads, quartermaster supplies, hospitalization and evacuation of the wounded \nto the rear, and the ammunition supply. In view of the fact that the Meuse- \nArgonne operation was to start so soon after the completion of the attack at \nSLMihiel, and that the First Army Staff was working at the same time on the \npflfcs for this second American offensive, actually issuing orders before the \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n126 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nattack started for the early withdrawal from St. Mihiel of certain corps and \ndivisions, and for their movement to this new front, it is easy to imagine the \nterrific pressure and activity at First Army Headquarters. \n\nWhen I again arrived at Saizerais on the morning of August 21st, after having \nspent the previous night at Liverdun, I found that First Corps Headquarters \nhad moved in, and had assumed command on that day of the Eighty-second \nand the Ninetieth American Divisions, which were already in line on that front, \nreceiving their sector training. Saizerais was about ten kilometers south of \nPont-^-Mousson. The First Corps had taken over about seventeen kilometers \nof line, in a sector which, for a long time past, had been a quiet one. The gen\u00ac \neral atmosphere of First Corps Headquarters was, therefore, far more peaceful \nat the time of my arrival than had been the case when, at Epieds, north of the \nMarne, I had first reported for duty in the middle of an active offensive. Saize\u00ac \nrais was a small village, with a civilian population consisting wholly of old men, \nwomen and children, their main occupation being the cultivation of the fields \nand the tilling of the soil. While the houses and buildings were in bad repair, \nand while the whole appearance of the place bore mute testimony to the dis\u00ac \nintegrating effects of four years of war, and to the continual upheaval and \nconfusion produced among the population by the constant presence during that \nperiod, either in the village or in its vicinity, of troops on their way to or from \npositions in the line, there was little actual destruction visible, in spite of the \nclose proximity to the Front. The French inhabitants seemed cheerful and \nhappy, and went about their daily duties in a regular and ordered way. The \nsame \u201cgentlemen\u2019s agreement\u201d on both sides not to start anything, which had \nobtained in the Vosges, had been in force here, so that for a long time past the \nremaining civilians had been undisturbed. Nor did this peaceful atmosphere \nand generally quiet appearance of things change for some days. At first our \ntroops, coming in for the offensive, were in the rear of the Corps Sector and \nwere not in evidence. As they neared the front area, they concealed themselves \nin woods and forests in the daytime, until, as the First Corps Sector filled up \nwith troops, all available wooded tracts anywhere near the front lines were \npermanently occupied by American units. It was at night that the activity \ntook place. Then, all the roads were full of marching columns and of convoys \nof trucks and of trains, proceeding as rapidly as possible to the concealed posi\u00ac \ntions designated for them for the next day, and their advance took place without \na sign of a light of any kind and with a minimum of noise. The final disposi\u00ac \ntions were not made until just before the attack started; the artillery, heavily \ncamouflaged, went into position only a couple of days beforehand, while the \noutposts and the forward lines continued to be held, up to the night of the \nattack itself, by the same units which had been continuously in line, in order \nto preclude the possibility of the Germans finding out, through prisoners cap\u00ac \ntured in trench raids, the presence on their front of new American divisions. \nHowever, in spite of all our precautions and of this carefully preserved tranquil \nouter appearance, the Germans, through some sixth military sense, became \nincreasingly restless as time went on. They did not resort to artillery bom- \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n127 \n\n\nbardment, for they did not want to start trouble for themselves in case their \napprehensions proved groundless, but they became quite active in their efforts \nto take prisoners, and they made every effort to acquire fresh information from \nthe air, especially after dark, searching out the Corps Sector in an effort to \nlocate anything that looked like a major headquarters or a concentration of \ntroops, and to spot any night circulation in the area, dropping bombs wherever \nthey thought there might be an ammunition dump, and more than once proving \nsuccessful in this last effort. \n\nFirst Corps Headquarters were located in some small houses and in several \ncorrugated iron shacks, all close together, on the extreme fringe of the village, \nand were connected by our Signal Corps wires with the front and the rear. It \nwas only nine days since I had left the First Corps Staff at F&re-en-Tardenois. \nBut things move rapidly in war-time, and I was delighted to find myself once \nmore with this same group, so many members of which had done much, north \nof the Marne, to help make my efforts there more effective. At Saizerais I found \nthe same atmosphere of general co-operation and of helpfulness, and everyone \nwas already hard at work. Any organization, whether in war or in peace, takes \nits tone from those at its head, and the spirit at First Corps Headquarters was \na living testimony to the high character and ability, as well as to the personal \nqualities, of both Major General Liggett and of Brigadier General Craig, his \nChief of Staff. Here, at Saizerais, I found new encouragement and help in the \nperson of General Liggett\u2019s aide, whom I had known only slightly during my \nprevious tour of duty with this Staff, a man from civil life of about my own \nage, who was proving himself exceedingly adaptable and able in an important \njob. The extent to which, in war-time, a General\u2019s aide may be of value de\u00ac \npends entirely upon the man himself; there is no limit, and there was none in \nthis case. Altogether, I was looking forward with the keenest anticipation to \u00ab \nall that was to take place during the next three weeks, and felt reasonably con\u00ac \nfident, in view of my congenial surroundings and of my experience with similar \nduties such a short time before, that I might be of some real service. \n\nFor the moment, it was largely a question of troop movement, and with the \narrangements for this I had nothing to do personally, as it was all worked out \nbetween the appropriate sections of the Staff at First Army and at the First \nCorps. As the troops began to move up the Corps Sector, however, towards \nthe front lines, it became my duty independently to advise First Army Head\u00ac \nquarters of their positions, and to verify that they were on schedule, and to \nconvey at the same time any observations that seemed pertinent. Later, wh&m \nthe attack itself had actually started, I was to report constantly during the da^^ \nand as soon as received, all information which came in to G-3, the Operations \nSection, covering the progress of the attacking divisions and the changes in the \nsituation, not only on the First Corps Front, but on the front of the Fourth \nAmerican Army Corps on the left. \n\nFor the first two nights at Saizerais, I slept on the floor in an old stable. I \nthen secured a billet in the tiny house of a Frenchman, aged about seventy-five, \nbut hale and hearty, who was sacristan of the village church, and with him I \n\n\n128 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nremained for the rest of my stay. His hut, for it was little more, had no second \nstory, and contained only three rooms. He occupied the room in the front, on \nthe street; the middle room, which was without windows, was a combination \nkitchen and living room, with a large fireplace; the room in the rear, the window \nof which opened on the barn-yard, was mine. When I arrived, the old man took \nme to my quarters, and explained that this had been his wife\u2019s room; she had \ndied only a few months before, and he had left all her things just as they had \nbeen on the day of her death, because, he felt, she would have wished it so. \nHe inquired whether he should remove any of them, in order that I might have \nmore room, but I hastily assured him that it would not be in the least necessary, \nand that I would take the utmost care to see that nothing whatever was dis\u00ac \nturbed. What he said was quite true. On the walls were some obviously family \npictures. There, behind a curtain, were hanging her clothes and her dresses. \nSome books, mainly devotional, were on a shelf, together with a few vases and \npieces of china. In a comer, on the wall, was a crucifix, with a prie-dieu below \nit, and hanging on a nail between were the beads she had used for so many years. \nFrom merely looking at that room and its contents, one could almost picture \nthe character of the life which its occupant had lived. Poverty and hard work \nand days of toil had filled that life, but so had the love of things beautiful and \nreal, and it had been animated by religious devotion and by the ties of strong \nfamily affections, and, I could not doubt as I saw the tears in the eyes of the \nold man, it had been crowned by long years of mutual love and trust, of mutual \nwatchfulness and care. \n\nI grew quite fond of my old man before I left him. I went to his church, as \nhe suggested, and prayed there, and I used his wife\u2019s prie-dieu more than once \nfor my own devotions, and told him so, and he seemed glad. In the daytime, \nhe worked in the fields, in spite of his age, with his married daughters, whose \nhusbands were at the front. Sometimes, however, in the evenings, when I \nreached \u201chome\u201d before he had retired, and when it was raining and chilly, we \nwould start a fire in the kitchen, and would talk together for a while. Fire\u00ac \nwood was very scarce in France during the War. My host, however, had \nsucceeded in securing possession of a thick beam of wood about ten feet long \n(it was shorter before I left), and we obtained our results by sticking one end \nof the beam into the fire-place and by starting a blaze under it until the beam \nitself had caught. After that, it was plain sailing. All that we had to do to \nkeep the fire going was to push the beam forward from time to time; when we \nhad had enough, we pulled the beam out, and, in the interest of economy, kicked \nout the blaze. My old man remembered perfectly when the Germans were in \nFrance in 1870. I wish that I could recall some of his reminiscences. They are \ngone now, I am afraid, after this long lapse of time. But I do remember that \nhe told me that the sale Boche of to-day was the same then; that frightful atroci\u00ac \nties had been committed by the invaders in 1870, and that people had forgotten \nthose facts now, there being so few left who, like himself, could actually remember \nwhat had taken place. His was an interesting and lovable character, but living \nwith him, I felt, was living pretty close to the soil. Immediately behind the \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n129 \n\n\nhead of my bed, in the barn-yard, was the manure pile, the French peasant\u2019s \npatent of nobility (it was thought in the A. E. F. that a peasant\u2019s wealth was \nappraised in terms of the size of this landmark), which emitted at all hours of the \nday and night a penetrating and stimulating aroma. The floor of my room was \nthree feet or so below the level of the barn-yard. Contrary to the custom in \nrural France, I always left my window open. Returning in the middle of the \nday upon one occasion, soon after my arrival there, to secure some papers which \nI needed, I found a dozen chickens scuttling about the floor of my room. The \ncow-shed was on the other side of the thin partition along which my bed was \nplaced, and the one cow was moored by a chain to a staple on the other side of this \nwall. Ignorant of this, I went peacefully to sleep on my first night in residence, \nbut awoke shortly afterwards, considerably startled, and trying to remember \nwhere I was and to imagine what was going on, for I could hear the clanking of \na chain and the sound of deep, heavy breathing almost in my ear. All that had \nhappened was, that the cow had become stiff from much lying down, and had \nmerely decided to ease herself by standing up for a while, all of which had in\u00ac \nvolved much pulling at the staple, and what were apparently some deep-breath\u00ac \ning exercises on her part. \n\nBusy and absorbed as I was in the preparations for the minor part which I \nexpected to play in the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient, it had never occurred \nto me that any change was at all likely to take place which would affect my \nstatus. I was surprised and startled, therefore, in the middle of the afternoon of \nSeptember 2nd, to receive orders to report at once in person at Headquarters \nFirst Army, which had recently moved from Neufch&teau to Ligny-en-Barrois, \nfrom which town the St. Mihiel operation was to be conducted. I called up G-3 \nat First Army, and inquired from one of the junior officers there whether I was \nbeing sent for merely to receive additional instructions, or whether I was to \ncome back to Headquarters permanently. Apparently he knew all about it, \nfor, while he was guarded in his remarks, he told me that I was leaving the \nFirst Corps for good, and that General Drum had a new job for me at Army \nHeadquarters itself. I felt the same familiar, obstinate stiffening of resistance \nwhich I always felt when my plans were unexpectedly changed for me, or when \nI was prevented from doing something which I wanted very much to do; I had \nset my heart upon being with the First Corps during this operation. However, \nthis time it did not take me as long as usual to overcome my feelings, possibly \nbecause, in this instance, I had to move at once and to move quickly. I hurried \naround, reported to the Chief of Staff my new instructions, obtained the neces\u00ac \nsary transportation, bade a hasty farewell to such officers as were about, and \npacked my belongings. I remember that my washing was rescued from a \npeasant woman, who was in the very act of pounding it against a stone in the \nstream into which such drains as there were in the village all emptied, and that \nit lay, a wet heap, on the floor of my car during that trip of something over \ntwenty miles. By the time I had started it was evening, and we drove with all \npossible speed, for not only did I wish to reach Ligny in time to receive my new \ninstruJfcns that night, if possible, but I also wanted to arrive before darkness \n\n\ni3o THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nfell. Driving at night in France in war-time, without lights, on crowded roads, \nwas no treat; it was usually done at full speed, on the crown of the road, on the \ntheory that the faster one is going when one strikes another vehicle, the better \nchance one probably has. It was dark, however, before we had gone half way, \nand I arrived in an entirely strange town in pitch blackness. The Military \nPolice directed me to Headquarters, where I found a message at G-3 to the \neffect that I was to report to General Drum the first thing next morning. I \nmanaged to secure a billet in the town; was received by a stout, elderly female \nwho did not seem at all glad to see me at that late hour; was given a room on \nthe very top of the house, the worst possible place in the event of an air raid, \nand went supperless to bed. \n\nOn the following morning, September 3rd, General Drum told me that he \nhad sent for me because the First Army Message Centre had not been function\u00ac \ning properly, and that he wanted me to take hold and to put it on an efficient \nbasis. He informed me that the officer formerly in command of the Message \nCentre had been relieved, and that I was to take his place; that I would find \nthings in much confusion, but that it was imperative that everything should be \nstraightened out with a minimum of delay and that the Message Centre should \nbe so thoroughly reorganized that it would function without a hitch from then \non, as it constituted an essential element in the working of the entire First Army \nHeadquarters. He told me to assume command at once; to make a survey that \nday of the situation as I found it, effecting at once any minor changes of organi\u00ac \nzation which I thought desirable, and to make a report to him again as early \nas possible on the next day, this report to include any suggestions or recom\u00ac \nmendations which had occurred to me. \n\nThe First Army Message Centre, which at that time was included in G-3, \nthe Operations Section of the General Staff, was responsible for the speedy, \nsecret and accurate transmission of all Field Orders, Troop Movement Orders, \ndispatches, official correspondence, and all communications connected with the \nFirst Army. The Message Centre received such documents, reports and letters \nnot only from the General Staff of the First Army, but also from General Head\u00ac \nquarters American Expeditionary Forces, from French G. H. Q., and from the \nHeadquarters of the Armies on our right and on our left, and at once routed \nthese various communications to their proper destinations, delivering them to \nthe indicated Section of the General Staff within First Army Headquarters \nitself by messenger, and transmitting them by motor-cycle courier whenever \nthey were addressed either to units operating under First Army command or to \nother units and headquarters outside the First Army Area itself. In addition, \nthere was, of course, a constant flow of similar communications and reports from \nthe Army Corps and Divisions within the First Army, designated either for speci\u00ac \nfied Sections of the First Army Staff or for destinations outside the First Army \nArea, and these also had to be immediately sorted out and delivered by what\u00ac \never method was appropriate. There was also a return flow of messages, dis\u00ac \npatches and reports from the First Army General Staff back to those higher \nheadquarters from which the First Army was receiving its orders, instructions \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n131 \n\nand information. At that time the personnel of the Message Centre, which was \nlater increased, consisted of another captain and of about a dozen other officers, \nof whom two were French; of about thirty non-commissioned officers, field \nclerks, interpreters and privates; and of about twenty-five motor vehicles, \nincluding Ford cars, Ford trucks, motor-cycles and motor-cycle side-cars, with \nthe necessary chauffeur personnel to operate them. \n\nThe Message Centre was located in what had formerly been a small private \nbank in Ligny-en-Barrois, and the long counter in the front was exceedingly \nwell adapted for the sorting and re-routing of the dispatches and documents \nas they were received. The enlisted men used as messengers to other depart\u00ac \nments of the Headquarters sat in a row on a bench opposite this counter. The \nroom in the rear, formerly used by the bank manager as his private sanctum, \n\nI at once turned into a headquarters for myself, having there with me the three \nofficers under me who were highest in rank, as my second in command and \ngeneral assistants. It did not take very long to discover that General Drum \nhad put it mildly when he had said I should find things in much confusion. \nChaos reigned. Dispatches and communications which should have been \ndelivered forty-eight hours previously were still lying about. Others, which \nhad come in that day, were piled in heaps on the counter. There was no system \nat all. As nearly as I could make out, the previous incumbent had been trying \nto deliver dispatches direct to units moving on the road down to regiments, an \nimpossible thing to achieve. Without having asked for the march tables, which \nwould have enabled him to determine their approximate positions, he had \nsimply sent couriers out with general instructions to find the units, and in many \ncases the dispatches had been brought back undelivered, while others had \nbanked up at the Message Centre in the meanwhile, resulting in further delay \nall along the line. It took only a short period of investigation to reveal the fact \nthat I was up against the stiffest job in my military experience, and I knew very \nwell that, if the mess was not straightened out at once, I should be blamed per\u00ac \nsonally for the shortcomings of my predecessor. But of far more importance \nthan mere personal considerations was the fact that the jumping-off hour for \nthe St. Mihiel offensive was only nine days off. There was a time limit to the \nactual work of reorganization. I felt that this work must be completed within \nforty-eight hours. That would still allow a week before zero hour, and I thought \nthat, granted increasing efficiency and accelerating speed of transmission eacl^ \nday, it would not only be possible to catch up on back work, but also actuaUjr \nto advance matters to the point at which all combat headquarters would have \nreceived final orders, not at the last moment, but well ahead of time. I realized, \nhowever, that if I were to follow my first impulse, and were to start to attend \nto details myself, I should be lost. It was a case of allotting all details to sub\u00ac \nordinates, and of retaining a proper perspective of the whole organization and \nproblem, keeping myself free to give the necessary impetus and to impart the \ndriving power needed at this point or the other. I worked hard all that day, \nand until late that evening, with short stops for food, and by the time I felt \ntre^to go to bed, leaving my second in command on the job for the night\u2014the \n\n\n132 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nMessage Centre was open and functioning both day and night\u2014I felt that I \nhad at least made a beginning at bringing order out of chaos. \n\nCertain fundamentals were obviously wrong, however; that was clear. When, \nas I had been directed, I made a report to General Drum on the following morn\u00ac \ning as to the extent to which I had been able to make progress, I told him that \nI thought it was going to prove impossible to continue to deliver orders and \ndispatches to individual units as far down as regiments. I suggested that the \npresent system be adhered to in respect to all units just entering the First Army \nArea, but that, once they had entered the area of the army corps under the \ncommand of which they were to operate, the headquarters of that particular \narmy corps should from then on be held responsible for the transmission of all \norders and dispatches to the divisions and corps troops within its own sector. \nI told General Drum, however, that, even if this system was adopted and even \nif, as a result, I had a smaller volume of dispatches to handle than at present, it \ndid not seem to me, in view of the necessity for speed, and of the possibility of \nunexpected and immediate demands for service, that the First Army Message \nCentre had sufficient motor transport to function under pressure as he would \nwish, and I asked for six more motor-cycles and the necessary chauffeur per\u00ac \nsonnel to drive them. General Drum listened to these suggestions without \ncomment, asked various questions, made certain observations and remarks, \nand told me to come back to see him the following morning. \n\nI spent another hectic twenty-four hours, during which it seemed to me that \nsome further progress in straightening things out and in speeding things up \nwas made. I found that my subordinates were, almost all of them, an able lot; \nthey had lacked direction and organization, and they were prepared to work to \nthe limit once they knew what it was that they had to do. The next day, when \nI reported, General Drum handed me copies of two Army Orders which, he said, \nhad just been issued. One of them embodied the suggestion which I had made, \nthat, thereafter, the First Army Message Centre was to deliver dispatches \nonly to the headquarters of army corps, and that those headquarters were to be \nresponsible from that date for the further transmission to their own component \nunits. The second Order required certain specified divisions under First Army \ncommand to send to the Message Centre First Army the additional motor trans\u00ac \nport and personnel for which I had asked. This immediate and whole-hearted \nsupport took my breath away. I must have shown my relief and my pleasure, \nfor General Drum laughed, and told me to carry on as I was doing, and that if \nthere was anything at First Army Headquarters which I needed in the way of \ninformation or to help me in my job, to ask for it, and to say that he had said \nthat I could have it, and to tell him about it afterwards. \n\nHard work is easy, when one\u2019s superior affords co-operation and backing like \nthat, and when one is given one\u2019s head. I went at things harder than ever, \ngreatly encouraged, but knowing , then, that things were going to work out,\u2014 \nand they did, although that next week is still something of a nightmare in retro\u00ac \nspect. I secured a large map of the area of the First Army front, and pinned it \nto the wall in the back room. Whenever an incoming courier gave us informa- \n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\ni 33 \n\n\ntion as to the temporary whereabouts of some unit which was moving in, a pin, \nwith a piece of paper indicating the name and number of the organization, the \ndate, and the hour, was stuck in at the corresponding point on the map. This \nmap was kept up to the minute from other sources of information as well, and \nbecame a fairly accurate index of the moving troops. I really ran a sort of \nBureau of General Information in addition, as officers of all ranks, from generals \ndown, would drop in as they went through, or arrived at, Ligny-en-Barrois, \nwith all sorts of questions, and, in turn, I picked up a great deal of helpful infor\u00ac \nmation from these sources. General Drum made several visits of inspection; \nhe walked about, surveyed my dispositions and arrangements, asked questions, \nbut made no comments. I remember that, upon the occasion of his first visit, \nI was using the telephone, and that I tried to rise and stand at attention, but \nthat he walked rapidly up to my improvised desk, put his hand on my shoulder \nand pressed me back into my seat, and kept it there until I had finished, saying \nthen that he had not come to interrupt me in my duties. Absence of any com\u00ac \nment on his part was enough for me; if things had not been going well, he would \nhave told me so on the spot. \n\nThose few days were exceedingly hectic, but, little by little, we could see that \nour efforts were bearing fruit and that results which we wanted were beginning to \nappear; we breathed more freely, but drove ahead as hard as ever. The only \nbright spots were meals. I was at the G-3 Mess, at which there was one other \ncaptain and one major, the others all being colonels and lieutenant-colonels. \nWe juniors were somewhat oppressed at first by so much rank, and were in\u00ac \nclined to keep ourselves in the background, but our superiors would not stand \nfor any \u201cspeak when you are spoken to\u201d attitude on our part, and quickly made \nit clear by their geniality and humour that, during meals, we were all on a man \nto man basis. The conversation at mess was exceedingly interesting; everyone \ntalked shop from start to finish, and cleared information, and I learned a great \ndeal at each meal that was of the greatest help to me in my duties, although, \nthrough General Drum, I was receiving copies of all orders and memoranda as \nthey were issued in order that I might know all that was going on. At meals, \nhowever, I often heard of decisions in advance, and was able to anticipate the \nissue of the actual order in the arrangements which I made at the Message \nCentre, and so to save time. The hard work for the staff at an army head\u00ac \nquarters in the field comes well in advance of the actual start of an attack. On \nthe last day, and as zero hour approaches, there is less and less to do. Finally \nthe point is reached at which everything possible has been done, until reports \nfrom the attacking corps and divisions begin to come in. I was surprised when \nthis short let-down came, but it gave one a breathing spell, and now that it was \ntoo late to retrieve any mistakes or omissions, I awaited with absorbed interest \nthe results of the next two or three days. \n\nAt this point, a brief account of the actual operation at St. Mihiel may be of \ninteres^^On August 30th the First American Army had taken command of \nthe tropin the Woevre, having in line, from right to left, the First American \nArmy Corps, the Fourth American Army Corps, the Second French Colonial \n\n\n134 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nCorps, and the Fifth American Army Corps. The main attack was delivered \nby our First and Fourth Corps on the southern face of the salient, our Fifth \nCorps made the secondary attack against the western face, while the French \nCorps made supporting advances on the flanks of our Corps and executed a \nholding attack at the tip of the salient. The total strength of the First Amer\u00ac \nican Army, including all corps and army troops as well as all combat units, \nwhen the battle started, was about 550,000 Americans and 110,000 French \ntroops. Preceded by an artillery preparation which lasted for four hours, the \nattack on the southern face started at 5 a.m. on the morning of September 12th, \nand the secondary attack commenced three hours later, in a light rain and mist. \nBy afternoon our attacking troops on the southern face were beyond the objec\u00ac \ntives scheduled for them, and by nightfall they had reached at many points the \nobjectives allotted for the second day. Our progress on the western face was \nnot so rapid, but by the early morning of September 13th our Fifth Corps had \nblocked the roads leading out of the salient on the west, and by dawn of the \n13th, elements of our Fourth Corps had effected a junction at Vigneulles with \nour Fifth Corps units, and the salient was closed. Our general advance was \ncontinued on the 13th, and by the end of that day the final objectives set for \nthis operation had been attained. Further limited offensive operations were \ncontinued by our First Army Corps, and, during the next three days, local \noperations continued along the entire front and several enemy counter-attacks \nwere repulsed, while our troops consolidated their new positions for defensive \npurposes, and preparations went forward for the withdrawal of divisions and of \ncorps troops for the Meuse-Argonne operation. In view of the disorder with \nwhich the enemy was retreating, it is extremely likely that exploitation of our \nsuccess at this point would have resulted in further material progress. But the \noperation had recovered about two hundred square miles of French territory, \nand nearly 16,000 Germans had been captured as well as several hundred enemy \nguns. All menace to the prosecution of the Meuse-Argonne offensive from this \nsource had been eliminated. Above all, the success of the St. Mihiel operation \nhad greatly cheered our Allies. They could depend upon us now, they felt, and \nthey were much encouraged, while the Boche was correspondingly depressed \nand was increasingly apprehensive as to what further trouble this new American \nArmy might cause for him from then on. \n\nThe progress of our First Army Corps in this offensive had been of absorbing \ninterest to me personally, in view of what I had known of the advance plans \nwhich had been made at those Headquarters up to the time of my de\u00ac \nparture, and of the fact that I had expected to be with them throughout this \noperation. Major-General Liggett had handled the concentration before the \nbattle and the conduct of the Corps operations with great skill and vigour. \nThe First Corps had in line, from right to left, the Eighty-second, Ninetieth, \nFifth and Second American Divisions, with the Seventy-eighth American Divi\u00ac \nsion in reserve. The First Corps rested its right on Pont- 4 -Mousson. The \nentire Army line pivoted on the Eighty-second Division on the extreme right; \nthis division, however, was only called upon to make a demonstration to the \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\ni3S \n\n\neast of the Moselle and to threaten the enemy position there. In the pre\u00ac \nliminary bombardment, 831 guns were used on the First Corps front. By noon \non September 12th the Second Division, on the left flank of the First Corps, \nhad taken the heights to the north of Thiaucourt. The Ninetieth Division and \nthe right of the Fifth Division were held up that day by a strong enemy force \nin the Bois-le-Pr6tre; during the following night, however, the enemy withdrew, \nand our units moved forward. On September 14th and 15th, the First Corps \nhad continued its progress, until the lines were stabilized, after a total advance \nof ten kilometers on a front of twelve kilometers, during which many field pieces \nand machine guns, together with engineer and ordnance depots, as well as about \n5,000 prisoners, were captured. The positions attained became at once a very \ndirect threat to the German fortified area of Metz. The total strength of the \nFirst American Army Corps at St. Mihiel, consisting as it did of 6,177 officers \nand 168,120 men, was greater, as General Liggett has pointed out in one of his \nbooks, than Meade\u2019s and Lee\u2019s combined forces at the Battle of the Wilderness \nin our Civil War. \n\nNo account of the St. Mihiel operation, as far as I am concerned, would be \ncomplete without the addition of those comments upon it which my friend in \nthe Movement in New York made in letters to me written immediately after\u00ac \nwards, and which follow:\u2014\u201cWe are thanking Heaven that the American troops \n\nhave done so well, though, as-remarked the other day,\u2014\u2018Considering that \n\nAmerica is at present the centre of His work, it would be strange if the deciding \nfactor were not to come from here.\u2019. And they do carry more force than they \nrealize. It is not merely youth and vitality and freshness. And that is why \nthe tragedy would have been so appalling if America had not got in the War.\u201d \n\u201cSplendid news from or of the First American Army. You can imagine how \nglad we are, for so many different reasons. Someone once said that the Master \nnever has less than a score of major ends in view, when he acts. I can see at \n\nleast how the-is directly concerned, not only now, but in years to come. \n\nAmerica has much to learn from France, but America has one gift to make to \nFrance, the setting of which is now being fashioned by American soldiers. We \nhave of course guessed for several weeks\u2014it seems like months\u2014that Foch\u2019s \nbig blow would be delivered by the American Army in the Metz neighbourhood. \nAnd I did not think he would wait for next year. He will surely keep things \nmoving, now he has started them.\u201d \n\n\n(To be continued) \n\n\nCenturion. \n\n\nEDUCATION THROUGH THE ARTS \nIN SECONDARY SCHOOLS \n\n\n\nHE Yoga Sutras define Dharana as the \u201cbinding of consciousness to a \n\n\ncertain region\u201d, and regard it as the first of three successive steps in \n\n\nmeditation. As a subject for study in secondary schools, meditation \nwould be out of place, even in the hands of a qualified teacher; but its import\u00ac \nance as a means to attaining discipleship, and the only means, leads a theos- \nophist who is engaged in the work of educating, to consider what faculties are \nmost concerned in this first step; what subjects among those prescribed, best \ntrain these faculties; and how these subjects can be used as preliminary prepara\u00ac \ntion for a realization of the goal when aspiration for it awakens. \n\nThere are certain fine qualities of mind and character to whose cultivation \nall good schools devote themselves. All courses in all departments contribute \nto this, provided that the school sustains this ideal in its life and atmosphere, \nand the individual teacher responds to this pressure, and is aware of the special \nfunction of her subject and its use for these ends. The training of the mind \nmore naturally suggests itself as an important element in all branches of learn\u00ac \ning, and most school subjects have this in view. The value of an active, well- \ntrained mind cannot be minimized, for articulate, clear thinking acts as check \nand balance. Yet the \u201cwhole man\u201d is concerned, and the mind goes only a \npart of the way towards the preparatory steps we are contemplating. The im\u00ac \nportance of training the emotions, the heart and the imagination, is not so fully \nunderstood, is therefore not so consciously sought; the means to this training \nare not so well developed and practised; and the subjects which are recognized \nas especially concerned with them must give them such delicate handling, and \napproach them so indirectly, that the mind often usurps their place and they \nactually receive very little attention. \n\nIt is generally said that the fine arts are the product of feeling and imagina\u00ac \ntion, and are the truest and most complete expression of the spirit of any age; \nthat the inner spirit impresses itself in most lasting and vital form on poetry, \nmusic, painting, sculpture and architecture, and that any century when reason \nwas dominant did not create beauty. Attention to these subjects, wherever the \nspirit that animates them is sincere and of high quality in whatever mood, \nshould be one very effective way of creating similar moods. Especially in the \nformative years of the secondary school, when the feeling for beauty begins to \nawaken, they should be used to the full for the formation of discriminating \nstandards of taste and the reaction of these standards on character. Observa\u00ac \ntion over a long period of years has brought convincing proof of the efficacy of \nsuch teaching. Pupils move on into the wider opportunities of college or of life \nwith a keen perception, ready to respond to the finest thing within reach in \n\n\n136 \n\n\n\nEDUCATION THROUGH THE ARTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 137 \n\n\nmusic, painting, literature and drama. Their elders, therefore, parents and \nteachers, cannot escape the immense responsibility of accepting for them no \nsubstitutes for the best. When they learn to know and love the best in these \nspecial fields of the imagination, with their life-enhancing power, vulgarity on \nall planes will lose its appeal. The eye and the ear, their sensitiveness and \nsoundness, are the only medium we know for gathering impressions which fur\u00ac \nnish us with the material for all psychic 1 and higher psychic experience. Edu\u00ac \ncating them to differentiate among these forms of experience, must be supremely \nworth time and effort. \n\nAll the arts are equally open to this use, though music, especially singing, \nshould perhaps come first. It is more completely immaterial, is more directly \nthe product of emotion, acts more directly to kindle a like feeling, and requires \nno analysis to accomplish this. Singing, then, should form as large a part of a \ncourse of study as time permits, and should make many informal connections. \nIt is as natural an impulse as speaking or walking, yet as a people we do not \nsing, and do not often hear good singing except in concert and opera. As we are \nconfronted by an endless choice of songs, good, bad and indifferent, produced \nin every period, it is all-important that the songs be chosen and directed by a \nlover of music, whose taste has been formed by hearing much good music; who \nis not deceived by the prestige of great names or a lack of any name, but who \nfeels sincerely fine and varied rhythmic patterns and interesting flow of melody. \nGood music appeals to an innate faculty and arouses the best that is in us: true \nfeeling, sincerity and depth, courage, tenderness, humour, gaiety; not senti\u00ac \nmentality and personal, superficial excitement and emotional strain which are \nexpressed through cheap, insistent stresses and tiresome, shallow tunes. If good \nfundamental musical training is provided, we may preserve an open mind toward \nthe modem musical forms. Such training develops a capacity for judgment that \nwill lead the young modern musician to select the good and original among the \nnew forms, though this must not claim too much of the scant time which the \nsecondary school, and especially the college preparatory school, can devote to \nsinging. \n\nFolk-music provides ideal material for school singing. It is sometimes called \nthe \u201cwild-flower\u201d of music in its fresh artlessness, and like the wild-flower it \noften has a formal beauty, which makes it excellent art and fundamentally \nsound in developing good taste in music and a love of singing. It often competes \nwith that superlative interest in sports, and gives fine exercise to body as well as \nspirit. Folk-songs are becoming more readily available through collections of \nEnglish folk-songs by Cecil Sharp, and French songs by Weckerlin. To read the \nlife of Cecil Sharp by A. H. Fox Strangeways is to make the acquaintance of an \nartist and lover of his country, who endured for most of his life extreme ill-health \nand every discomfort of hard, unremitting travel, so that he might gather and \npreserve this heritage and true expression of his own people. He found thou- \nsands of so ngs that had never been sung out of their native environment, and \n\n1 \u201cPsychic\u201d: used here in its true sense of \u201crelating to or connected with the soul or spirit\u201d. Students of The\u00ac \nosophy frequently use the same word to signify the astral consciousness, or unreal world of fancy: so the passage \nmust not be misunderstood.\u2014 Editors. \n\n\n\n138 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nhad never been noted or written down, in many parts of England, and among \nthe mountain people of our southern states. By his integrity in noting and re\u00ac \ncording, he has performed an invaluable service; by his courtesy and under\u00ac \nstanding he won the hearts of people of every sort, and brought back a hearten\u00ac \ning belief in the unspoiled and endearing qualities and the grace of manner of \nthese mountain people. To make the acquaintance of a man like Cecil Sharp, \ntrue musician and scholar, is one of the unsought privileges of adventure into \nthis interesting field of study. Among genuine folk-music are the lovely carols \nwhich so enhance the spirit of Christmas singing. Especially the French carols \nhave, in both words and tunes, a direct, unsentimental expression of simple, \nalmost homely religious feeling. Perhaps the disciple with the Virgin and \nLazarus did reach the shores of Provence as the legends say, and some spiritual \ndeposit came to light here. There are also many beautiful songs composed \nin the spirit of folk-song from Schubert\u2019s time on, some suitable for group sing\u00ac \ning, and some which should be heard again and again until they are stored in \nmemory. \n\nThe eye of the singing teacher should not pass too casually over the words \nto which tunes are sung. They are often unpoetic, and lower the tone of a \ncharming tune. Again, there must be someone able to judge of the choice of \nwords, their rhythmic beauty, and their spirit and meaning, so that spirit, \nwords and melody may be harmoniously joined. How inevitably and naturally \nthe principle of the hierarchy appears in this constant need of guidance! The \nintensive study of poetry as an end in itself, as well as for the light it sheds on \njudgment of the words of a song, giving it real importance through recitals, \nalways results in a growth in taste, and almost always leads to the feeling among \nthose who recite that it will be an inexhaustible resource. It is really an exciting \nexperience to anyone interested in the education of the inner faculty of taste, to \nsee how the choice of poems improves as the years pass; to find a girl who is \nsearching for something that expresses her utmost reach, choose Hecuba\u2019s lines \nin The Trojan Women where she performs the funeral rites over the young child\u2019s \nbody as it lies across her knees; or to hear from young lips \u201cI wandered lonely as \na cloud\u201d, or \u201cLittle lamb who made thee?\u201d Walter de la Mare\u2019s Come Hither is \neasy reading for a lover of poetry, and such inviting reading in both choice of \npoem and comment, that it can hardly fail to awaken the love if a lover shows \nthe way. Poetry instils a love of nature, appeals to our intuitive faculties. \n\u201cThe poets are the truth-tellers. They cannot deceive.\u201d The poetry that is \nclearly inspired, and so is beyond a purely mental interpretation, is the first \nintimation of mystic experience and points that way. \n\nDrama, too, is a most fruitful occupation for youth, and requires nothing but \ntime and opportunity to encourage it. It would sweep all other work out of the \nfield if that were allowed. Good plays for high school age are quite difficult to \nfind. They may be gay and young, but must be really innocent, refreshing and \nspirited in their humour. Great drama like Shakespeare has to be adapted and \nshortened to hold the enthusiastic attention even of loving parents, but this can \nbe well done and is most rewarding, with really profound reactions in the char- \n\n\nEDUCATION THROUGH THE ARTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 139 \n\n\nacter and outlook of those who take part and in the young audience. Macbeth , \nRomeo and Juliet , As You Like It , and Winter's Tale are among the plays that \nleave impressions and can be attempted as complete plays; excerpts from other \nplays provide excellent memory work, and are often pure Lodge wisdom and \nnothing less. A group of young students, against the advice though not the \nprohibition of a timid faculty, presented Cyrano de Bergerac and later a wisely \nadapted version of Peer Gynt. In their reactions these plays are not merely \nromance. They evoke the power to grasp the elements of character in its re\u00ac \nsistance to the forces that prey upon the will. \u201cTo watch a character develop \nfrom the first flashes of contact in .the actor\u2019s mind to the final moment when the \ncharacter steps on the stage in full possession of the actor, whose personal self \nlooks on somewhere in the background, is to be present at a great mystery. No \nwonder the ancient dramas were initiation ceremonies, if we can see it so, an \ninitiation into what Emerson calls \u2018the empire of the real\u2019.\u201d \n\nMany recent plays given in New York and very generally through the coun\u00ac \ntry, have a significance that is definitely religious, or give a powerful and re\u00ac \ngenerating commentary on life. Among them are Thomas d Becket , Joan of \nArc , Ethan Frome and an increasing number of Shakespeare\u2019s plays. Graduates \nof secondary schools which have stimulated interest and taste in the higher \nforms of the theatre art, may be left to themselves to seek entertainment in the \nbetter class of plays, rather than in the demoralizing and trivial. Robert Ed\u00ac \nmond Jones expresses an ideal and hope for the new generation: \n\n1 here are young people in this country who will really create for the theatre of their \ntime, who will bring something into existence that has never existed before. A few. Not \nmany. 1 he theatre will be fortunate if it can claim a half-dozen of them. But it is this \nhalf-dozen to whom we look to lift our common experience into a higher region, a clearer \nlight. We do not want shrewdness, or craftiness, or adroitness from them. We have \nenough of mechanism in the theatre and more than enough. Let them go beyond this: \nlet them give us the sense of the dramatic moment, the immortal moment. \n\n1 hink of the moment. All that has ever been in this moment; all that will be in this \nmoment. Both are meeting in one living flame, in this unique instant of time. This is \ndrama; this is theatre\u2014to be aware of the Now. But how is one to become aware? \nsomeone may ask. I answer, listen to the poets. They can tell you. ... I will give \nyou an example from Hamlet: \n\n\u2022 \u201cO good Horatio, \n\nIf thou didst ever hold me in thy heart \nAbsent thee from felicity awhile.\u201d \n\nAbsent thee from felicity awhile. Here are some of the most beautiful words ever written \nin the English language. But this is not all. The words are a plain record of fact. Ham\u00ac \nlet, drawing his last breath as he spoke them, was not interested in phrase-making, \nnor was Shakespeare. Hamlet did not think of an exquisite phrase at that moment. \nHe spoke out of a real vision of felicity, immortal. He saw the clear light, the happy \nforms. He called it felicity. He did not invent; he did not create; he saw and reported. \n\n. . . Poets know what they see is true. If it were not so they would have told you. \n\nWith such vision and leadership in the theatre, why should we not embody \nin drama the wisdom and aspiration of our time, as Greek poets in the drama of \ntheir daift? \n\n\ni4o THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nLast and most difficult in relation to taste are painting, sculpture and archi\u00ac \ntecture ; yet they directly exact so much clear thinking that they ought to be as \nfundamental in education as geometry and science; by a certain measured beauty \nthey appeal to the mind as well as to the imagination and the heart. The study \nof the history of these arts is profitable but is not what is meant here. In the \nbeginning it is a handicap, for knowing about pictures before knowing them, \nloads the mind with information before the eyes have learned to see, and clouds \naesthetic vision. Unfortunately there are very few average homes that contain \ngood art; the ideal school in supplying this lack must use tact and suggestion \nrather than arbitrary pronouncements. Pictures gain much by hanging on well- \nproportioned walls, for space-relations affect the emotions by reacting on the \nnervous system in ways not very well understood. They are further enhanced \nby a background pure in tone, not drab or dead even though there is no sharply \ndefined colour scheme. Appreciation also increases by changing their position \nfrom time to time, so that the eyes may not become indifferent. From earliest \nyears children enjoy pictures. If pleasure in good pictures can be fostered \nwithout dimming enthusiasm, a natural and wholesome growth in taste de\u00ac \nvelops, from observing at first hand the contrast between the poor and the good; \nthe good and the very good; a natural growth, for when the best is continually \npresent in the surroundings, the choice eventually is right. The faculty of right \nchoice is innate, and needs only time and opportunity. \n\nPaintings and reproductions are chosen from modern and earlier art periods, \nby persons of judgment, for their beauty of significance, design and colour, and \nwith care for their suitability. Naturally, sentimental art, merely pretty faces \nand scenes, superficial religious pictures, and all decadent forms of a spoiled and \nperverted taste are barred. The work of artists in any period who precede a \ntoo complete ease and fulness of expression, in general speaks the most power\u00ac \nfully to the imagination. Therefore the austere beauty of the Charioteer of \nDelphi, and the Mourning Athena, becomes ultimately more moving than the \nimmediate satisfactions of the Venus of Melos; given time, Giotto will displace \nMurillo and Andrea del Sarto; the paintings of men of genius before Raphael \ninduce a finer reaction than some of Raphael himself. Duccio and other Sien\u00ac \nnese painters are vastly more religious than modem religious painters, who are \noften mawkish and shockingly superficial. A fascinating reality distinguishes \nthe Holbeins, and the early French and Flemish portraits of kings and \ncommoners. \n\nOne becomes aware of these contrasts in the past, and in the same way, \nmodem art is judged on its merits and in relation to its spirit and its own achieve\u00ac \nments and discoveries. Recent water-colour paintings of the young American \nIndians are far more stimulating, even to little children, than the modem \nthoroughly realistic illustrations and sophisticated drawings, and they set the \nchildren to drawing and painting too. The landscapes and figures of C 6 zanne \nare as sound in their constructive beauty and truthfulness as Bach\u2019s music. If \nsensitiveness to fine colour is ever to be instilled in human beings, these early \nyears are the most impressionable and the most promising. Fortunately the \n\n\n\nEDUCATION THROUGH THE ARTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 141 \n\n\ninventiveness of our own times and the effort to achieve fine colour, texture \nand cheapness in fabrics, should create a superior colour sense. One may see \nsigns of this already in clothes and pillows, hangings and wall-paper everywhere. \n\nWe may accept without need of proof, the theory that evolution to a higher \nstate of consciousness lies in part in a growing desire to see and hear the best, \nand that every accretion, especially in this young generation, helps to drive out \nsatisfactions with inferior things, and so elevates the character, and creates the \nhabit of choosing wisely upon which the Upanishads lay such stress. Good art \nis always sincere, is always simple, has always involved sacrifice, often poverty, \nintense application and an inward spiritual fire. Making these contacts for \nchildren by surrounding them with what is lasting in its beauty, beckoning \nthem up and on, must be worth the time of teachers who are theosophists and \nespecially dedicated to this service, but who, in point of honour, aside from good \nteaching, the disciplines of academic studies and social life, must depend largely \non such means to establish standards in character, and on the contagion of their \naspiration to associate only with the best. For they may not use the name \nTheosophy; are denied all forms of propaganda. They may not mention Karma; \ntalk too freely about consciousness; and only in rare cases speak of such subjects \nas reincarnation, and only when the subject has been brought up first by some\u00ac \none else, as in the sixth book of Vergil\u2019s Aeneid , where the doctrine of the Logos \nand reincarnation are quite fully treated. Then we may welcome the chance, \nover and over with successive generations, to explain and enlarge on these sub\u00ac \njects, and rejoice to find that the passing years make them more and more \neligible for legitimate teaching and more susceptible to complete elucidation. \n\nThe contagion by example of what one loves and believes in, and its power to \naffect the character, of course rests absolutely on a basis of what one has assim\u00ac \nilated so that it has become part of himself. No eye or ear is so quick to detect \na false note and patter as that of youth. Belief in these arts as a means to \nspiritual growth, and the conscious though not obvious use to this end, must \ncome from a profound conviction that they do serve this end. There are many \nopenings to the lower w r orld, and so in those subjects sanctioned for education, \nmost closely related to spirit and most expressive of it, to care and care con\u00ac \ntinually for the best, is a form of \u201cbinding the consciousness to a certain region\u201d \nand should lead step by step to the ultimate goal of full understanding. \n\n\nV. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\nHE Lenten season had just begun when we next met. It was natural, \n\n\n\ntherefore, to discuss the benefits and evils of repentance. What is the \n\n\nuse of it? Is not \u201cforward-looking\u201d, creative imagination more profit\u00ac \nable? We appealed to the Ancient. \n\n\u201cHow can you accomplish anything, spiritually, without it?\u201d he countered. \n\u201cIf I blunder to the injury of others, is my sincere regret, and my expression of \nit, waste of time? Whenever we sin\u2014which means, whenever we violate spirit\u00ac \nual law in thought or act\u2014we injure the Master whose child we are, as well as \ninjuring our fellows. That being the case, we are morally obligated to examine \nourselves that we may learn why we went astray, and how, so that we may \nresolve not to commit the same fault again. Otherwise we go through life \nlearning nothing, and shall go out of it worse off than when we came into it, \nbecause we shall have thrown away our Karmic (that is, God-given) oppor\u00ac \ntunities. A man could spend his life exploring the cities and nations of the \nearth, and not gain a thing in any real sense. Gain is the increase we take with \nus when we die, and the only increase we can take with us consists of an im\u00ac \nproved character, a stronger will, a greater devotion, a clearer consciousness of \nour real self, of the real world and of the Lodge of Masters and of our own \nMaster.\u201d \n\n\u201cBut what is the use of wallowing in a conviction of sin?\u201d someone asked. \n\n\u201cNone whatever!\u201d the Ancient agreed, smilingly. \u201cThere are, of course, \nthose who use what they call their repentance as a pretext for self-parade; there \nare others who, without being guilty of that particular vulgarity, become so \nwrapped in gloom, so self-centred, because of their sins, that their so-called \nrepentance does them more harm than good. In these cases the \u2018repentance\u2019 \nis simply an exhibition of the two poles of vanity; in the latter case, of wounded \nvanity. Unless we use repentance as a spring-board to bounce us, as it were, \naway from wrong to right, away from negativeness to positive and hopeful \neffort, we shall have failed utterly to understand its meaning or its value; and \nits value in the spiritual life is immense,\u2014it is or should be one of our most \npowerful aids, providing us with a stimulus, an incentive, for ever-increasing \neffort. \n\n\u201cIs there one of us who, looking back at his life since he first heard of Theos\u00ac \nophy\u2014even at the past week\u2014does not see that he has wasted his time and his \nopportunities to a deplorable extent? To brood over this would be weakening \nand foolish; but we are still alive; we still have to-day and perhaps to-morrow. \nLet us then make up Jot lost time ,* let us work, meditate, pray, as we have never \ndone before; let us use our realization of failure as it should be used,\u2014for \nconstructive ends. \n\n\u201cConsider your waste of mental and nervous energy, the lack of purpose and \n\n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\ni 43 \n\n\ncontrol of most of your daily thinking\u2014that it is not thinking, but mere drift\u00ac \ning, usually about yourself, or with T as centre and end. Consider how you \nhave squandered your emotions on trivialities, \u2018what torments of grief you \nendured from evils which never arrived\u2019, instead of using your emotions as \ngenerators of aspiration and of spiritual power. Then, from this realization\u2014 \nand unless the realization be keen and full of remorse, it will not help you\u2014 \ndraw the determination to waste such wealth no more, but to control the direc\u00ac \ntion of a force which is strong enough to stop the beating of your heart, and \nwhich is strong enough, also, to lift you to the gates of Paradise. \n\n\u201cWhat did the Prodigal Son do when he had returned to his Father? Did \nhe spend the rest of his days weeping and wailing in a corner? No! At first, \nhe was bowed to the earth, was moved to the depths of himself, by an over\u00ac \nwhelming sense of his Father\u2019s love and generosity; but then pulled himself \ntogether, and resolved to make it his one remaining purpose in life to atone \nfor his past sins and selfishness. Day after day, and all day, he would seek \nopportunities (let us hope with tact and discretion!) to serve his Father,\u2014 \nwhat is more, to serve his older brother, who had not, as you will remember, \nreceived him with open arms. \n\n\u201cHave not we too wasted our \u2018goods\u2019, our \u2018substance\u2019, with riotous living? \nNot perhaps in a material sense, but, without any question, in an inner and \neven more important sense: for, once more, what use have we made of our \nminds, of our emotions, of our imaginations? Have we not wasted them; and \ndid we not derive every energy we possess, in essence , from our spiritual Father? \n\n\u201cA student of Theosophy who looks upon repentance as a relic of an out\u00ac \nworn creed, has failed to understand the A. B. C. of Occultism and of spiritual \nprogress.\u201d \n\n\u201cBefore we drop the subject\u201d, interjected one of our editors, \u201cmay I please \nsuggest that we ought also to study the story of the Prodigal Son, of the Phari\u00ac \nsee and Publican, and other parables, as the greatest works of art that have \ncome down to us from the past? Their brevity, their simplicity, their Greek \npurity, fill me with increasing awe. They are vivid as nothing else in literature \nis vivid; but they are more than perfect literature: they are music and sculpture \nand architecture and painting, all in one. The Master created the thing\u2014saw \nit, heard it, as a living thing, compact in form and with infinite significance, \nwhile he put it into words. We should try, as we read them, to see as he saw, \nto feel as he felt. We shall fail in that, of course; but the effort in itself should \nbring us nearer to the heart of their mystery. If there were no other evidence \nof his divine greatness, the parables alone would prove that he was a Master \nof the Great Lodge.\u201d \n\n\u201cI, also\u201d, said the Student, \u201cshould like to add a postscript, as it were, to the \nAncient\u2019s remarks, although mine is intended merely to stress his statement \nthat the emotions are a far greater force, both constructively and destructively, \neven on the material plane, than most people realize, while on inner planes \ntheir power necessarily is a thousandfold more dynamic. Without any inter\u00ac \nvention of our will, the emotion of fear, or that of danger, leads to a physiologi- \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n144 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ncal revolution which profoundly affects every part of us; for the blood is hur\u00ac \nriedly driven from all our internal organs, except the heart, lungs and brain, \nand dispatched to the muscles of our limbs and trunk; our stored-up reserves \nof starch are hurriedly converted into soluble sugar, with which the blood \nbecomes charged; the blood itself becomes curiously modified, so that it more \nreadily clots; the heart beats more quickly and strongly, and all feeling of fatigue \ndisappears. Where is the drug, or where the surgeon\u2019s tool, that can in a minute \neffect such a miracle as this? But I cut out a review of a book by Dr. H. Rob\u00ac \nerts, entitled Euthanasia and other Aspects of Life and Death , published by \nConstable, and have it in my pocket. It is from this that I get my information, \nand will now read directly from what the author says: \n\nThe series of automatic and immediate adaptations is by no means purposeless. It is \nexactly calculated to make efficient the essential self-preservation response to the fear- \nprovoking situation in the primitive environment in which this machinery developed. \nWhether flight or fight were expedient, it is in the muscles that the blood would be \nneeded; and, for the work which they would be called upon to do, they would need all \nthe fuel they could get. The advantage of the increased coagulability of the blood in \ncase of physical injury is obvious. \n\nAll this takes place as a spontaneous consequence of an emotion. In the light of these \nfacts, he would be rash who would set narrow limits to the possibilities of faith or any \nother emotion. The success of the old \u201ccharmers\u201d, who often caused such crude ma\u00ac \nterial objects as warts to disappear in a night, is a standing challenge to unimaginative \n\u201cscience\u201d. At the same time, all experience goes to suggest that there are limits to the \ncapacity of the spontaneous and unconscious forces within us. \n\nIt is not a question of distinction between visible structural changes and what are \ncalled functional disturbances. Nothing could be more visible than a wart; and those \ncauses which can cause a rush of blood to the face when we blush, or to the muscles \nwhen we are afraid; which can increase the beat of the heart or cause it to stop; which \ncan lead to enlargement or atrophy of important glands; can obviously play a very im\u00ac \nportant part in the restoring of health and the healing of wounds. \n\n\u201cTranslate that in terms of the psychic body, and see where you arrive! \nAbove all, as the Ancient suggested, remembering that our fears, and a sense of \ndanger, are impossible except as effects of an active imagination, let us try to \nrealize what wonders could be effected if we were to use our imaginations de\u00ac \nliberately, in order to arouse right instead of wrong or wasteful emotions: as he \nsaid, they would indeed lift us to the very gates of Paradise.\u201d \n\n\u201cWe ought to be as careful of our imaginations as women used to be of their \nhonour\u201d, commented the Philosopher; \u201cfor the imagination creates forms, \nand a form, thus created, draws to itself that Kamic force which we describe as \nan emotion or \u2018feeling\u2019, the intensity of which determines the life-cycle, long or \nshort, of the form. All of us carry around with us an astral picture gallery of \nthese living forms, which are vitalized further by every similar feeling we sub\u00ac \nsequently have, and which control to a large extent our after-death experience \nand our future incarnation. Further, this collection of mental pictures strongly \naffects the people with whom we come in contact, either for good or ill, so that \nresponsibility for our \u2018mind-bom sons\u2019 is far-reaching, both now and, Kar\u00ac \nmically, hereafter. \n\n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\nMS \n\n\n\u201cI have avoided the use of the word \u2018desire\u2019, and have spoken, instead, of \n\u2018feeling\u2019, because horror, or that intense repulsion which is the opposite of \ndesire, will vitalize a mental picture almost as strongly as will attraction to it. \nThat is why we can be haunted for weeks, consciously, by some hideous sight, \nor by some vile thing of which we have read,\u2014while the effect of the vitalized \nimage will remain with us, perhaps unconsciously, for as long as we live, and \nlonger. This is why control of our imagination\u2014of the content of our aura\u2014 \nis of such immense importance. After an image has been created, much of the \nmischief has been done; we must learn to inhibit the least movement of our \nimagination, ab initio.\" \n\n\u201cThis is interesting\u201d, remarked one of our visitors. \u201cI wish you would give \nme some illustration of what you have just said.\u201d \n\n\u201cSuppose\u201d, was the reply, \u201cthat you are being driven in an automobile, and \nthat a taxi-cab, \u2018against the lights\u2019, comes whirling round a comer. If you will \nwatch your reactions closely (this illustration, by the way, is not original; it \nwas used at a New York Branch meeting), you will find that you feel the worst \nof the nervous shock after the danger is over; then, perhaps, your heart will \nalmost stand still. Examining yourself still more closely, you will find that \nyour view of the on-rushing taxi was instantaneous; that your imagination \nhad no time in which to \u2018get going\u2019 until the taxi had just missed you, and you \nhad a free second in which to form a mental picture of what might have hap\u00ac \npened. It is this mental picture that gives you the shock. Put it to the test. \nYou will undoubtedly have plenty of opportunities! The next time such a \nthing happens, jump on your imagination and throttle it with your will, the \nmoment you see the taxi approaching; keep it stiff and cold for a minute or \ntwo after the danger has passed. You will not feel any shock. Then, for ex\u00ac \nperimental purposes, relax your grip. Your imagination will give a sigh of re\u00ac \nlief, and in a flash you will feel what might have been, and the shock. That \nmerely illustrates, of course, why, in other and far more important respects, \nwe need to gain control over the incipient movements of our imagination.\u201d \n\n\u201cYour psychic picture gallery\u201d, the same visitor now objected, \u201csounds to \nme like a cross between Mme. Tussaud\u2019s Chamber of Horrors and Sinbad\u2019s \nOld Man of the Sea. Is there no way of escape?\u201d \n\n\u201cMy picture gallery!\u201d the Philosopher laughed. \u201cYou are not flattering; \nbecause there is no need to assume that everybody\u2019s picture gallery is full of \nevil or horrible things; they may be full of very lovely and noble things: they \nought to be. And at the worst\u2014to answer your question\u2014there is a way of \nescape; for if we have, figuratively speaking, painted pictures in the past which \nare not what they ought to be, we can paint new pictures over the old,\u2014and, \nthank heaven, in that inner world the new pictures, if opposite in their nature \nto the old, will not only obliterate but will disintegrate our earlier work. \n\n\u201cBut all that I have said so far was intended to serve primarily as an intro\u00ac \nduction to my theme, which is, that so much of modern literature obtrudes \nsubjects, descriptions, incidents, which are grossly insulting to every woman \nreadeflfcmd which are revolting to every decent man,\u2014matters of sex, handled \n\n\n146 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nin a way that is coarse, and needlessly, wantonly brutal. Even perversions of \nsex are flung in one\u2019s face as if one lived on terms of intimacy with the most \ndegraded and degrading aspects of what these writers falsely pretend is human \nnature. Time after time I have wanted to recommend some book to the readers \nof the Quarterly, having found that it contained much of interest or of value, \nand then have remembered some vile passage, or several of them, which I had \nresented bitterly, which had turned me completely against the author, and \nwhich made it impossible to pass on his book even to the men among my friends, \nwhile, as to the women among them, if I had done such a thing they could only \nhave felt that I regarded them as so lacking in refinement, as so battered and \nbenumbed morally, as so impervious where they ought to be most sensitive,\u2014 \nthat their self-respect must have compelled them never to speak to me again. \nThe right kind of woman, whether young or old (for age does not necessarily \ncoarsen them, thank God), instinctively shrinks from the knowledge of evil, \nwhile her father, brothers, husband, if they be the right kind of men, con\u00ac \nsciously do their utmost to protect her from the taint which that knowledge \ninflicts. She knows inevitably, and ought to know, that there is evil in the \nworld, and that sex is horribly misused in many ways; but her purity violently \nrejects the approach of any picture of such things, and she instantly turns from \nthe materials, as it were, out of which such pictures are made. She will not \nallow herself to become contaminated; she values herself and her own soul far \ntoo highly. A married woman and perhaps the mother of a family, she is not \ninnocent in the ordinary sense, but she is morally clean, she is pure, and, be\u00ac \ncause she loves purity and reverences love, she hates impurity with all her \nwomanhood, with all her heart, with all her strength. \n\n\u201cAn author who writes a book of the kind to which I refer, implicitly damns \nhis mother, his sisters, his wife, and all the other women of his acquaintance, \nfor he assumes they will read his book with pleasure. In other words, he be\u00ac \nlieves they are just as \u2018tough\u2019 as he is. And perhaps they are; but it is insulting \nto assume that they are; it is disloyal to announce publicly that they are,\u2014 \nwhich is what he does when he writes a book, avowedly for popular consump\u00ac \ntion, and to be read by women as well as by men, the contents of which violate \nevery canon of good taste, and which cannot fail to disgust any woman of any \nclass who has preserved some sense of delicacy in matters concerning sex.\u201d \n\n\u201cBut is it not true that, To the pure, all things are pure\u2019?\u201d asked another of \nour visitors. \n\n\u201cIt is not true\u201d, was the immediate response. \u201cI know of few proverbs that \nare more misleading. To the pure, impure things are vile, and they are recog\u00ac \nnized at a glance, for the pure have preserved that \u2018sense\u2019 intact. A child of \nsix is innocent rather than pure, and can read things, let us say in the Old Tes\u00ac \ntament, without any understanding whatever. A child of that age is constantly \nreading things that are not understood. Once there is even a glimmer of com\u00ac \nprehension, the same passages will be read, either with instinctive repulsion \nand immediate transfer of attention (the reaction of innate purity), or with \ncuriosity and an effort to \u2018find out some more\u2019 (which is the reaction of innate \n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\ni 47 \n\n\npruriency). In that case, the dictionary is consulted, the imagination is stimu\u00ac \nlated,\u2014and you have the beginning of a psychic picture gallery of the worst \nkind, one result of which will soon be the desire to experiment, followed by \nmoral perversion.\u201d \n\n\u2018\u2018But some women\u2014women doctors, trained nurses, social workers and \nothers\u2014are compelled to give their attention to all kinds of evil, and in con\u00ac \nsiderable detail. Would you condemn them as necessarily impure?\u201d \n\n\u2018\u2018Of course not. A good woman may be cursed with a degenerate, depraved \nhusband, and may yet preserve her purity. But at what cost, and with what \ndreadful suffering,\u2014not only directly, but, as she will realize, from the inevi\u00ac \ntable soiling of her own mind. Remember that, as always, it is the motive that \ncounts. Children need to be watched intelligently, and a mother ought to be alive \nto certain possibilities, a sufficient understanding of which should, if anything, \ntend to strengthen her love of purity and her loathing of sin. The performance \nof duty produces its own prophylactic. Further, a mother who has kept her\u00ac \nself \u2018unspotted from the world\u2019, will refuse to know more than she actually \nneeds to know for the right performance of her duty. \n\n\u2018\u2018Few more scathing things can be said of a girl than, \u2018There is nothing she \ndoesn\u2019t know\u2019,\u2014and the remark never is made except with disgust, even to-day, \nwhich suggests that at least a memory of the ideal persists. \n\n\u2018\u2018But leave women out of it entirely; my point is that even if novels, rem\u00ac \niniscences, books of travel, and so forth, were written for men only, indecency \nleaves a trail of slime which is morally poisonous. In some cases it is introduced \ndeliberately to supply \u2018spice\u2019 for the perverted appetites of readers; it \u2018sells \nthe book\u2019: in other words, the publisher assumes the r61e of Pandarus,\u2014and \nshould be ostracized accordingly. Some day he will be\u2014if the best in our \ncivilization is to survive. There are authors, however, from whom this sort of \nthing flows spontaneously. A number of comparatively recent books by Amer\u00ac \nican and English newspaper correspondents, or by Secret Service agents, re\u00ac \ncounting their experience in Russia during the revolution\u2014a subject in itself \nof real interest\u2014are made odious by their parade of illicit sex \u2018adventures\u2019. \n\nThe same is true of certain current War books, otherwise admirable. All these \nare cases of downright indecency. There are authors, however, who do not \nparade their immoralities, and who may be innocent of them, but whose atti- ^ \ntude toward such things makes it impossible to recommend their books, much 0 \nas, in other respects, one would like to do so. For example: Rom Landau\u2019s \nSeven , the general tendency of which is religious and almost theosophical, drags \nits readers into the perverse filthiness of Berlin\u2019s night life during the infla\u00ac \ntionary period in Germany, and concludes, under this head: \u2018Berlin taught me \nbroadmindedness in matters of sex\u2019. What the author means by \u2018broadmind\u00ac \nedness*\u2014toleration of such hideous evils\u2014is further revealed by his comment \nwhen travelling by train in Japan: \u2018I liked the lack of prudishness when at \nnight men and women undressed in the Pullman car without doors or curtains, \nand behaved with a natural grace that our own absurd codes of shame have \ndest^Jed\u2019. If a man\u2019s mother and sisters and wife refuse to undress in public, \n\n\n\n148 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nand the man tells them that their refusal is not due to natural and proper mod\u00ac \nesty, but to an \u2018absurd code of shame\u2019,\u2014that man, in my opinion, has been \n\u2018born too soon in human shape\u2019, and I am as certain as I live that Madame \nBlavatsky and Judge, both of whom were rigid in these matters, would agree. \nNot only are the most absolute moral integrity and purity essential in Occultism; \nthey are fundamental in the theosophic life. In fact, refinement, delicacy of \nfeeling, in matters of sex, and good taste in any reference to the subject, are \nsupreme tests of a true as opposed to a perverted Theosophy. This, inci\u00ac \ndentally, is one of the directions in which Adyar has proved itself to have gone \nhopelessly astray. \n\n\u201cThe more coarse the taste of to-day, the greater the obligation of Theos- \nophists to uphold the higher and better standards of the past. We must \ncome out into the open and protest, individually as well as collectively, against \neverything that is indecent and low in current literature. \n\n\u201cWe shall be met, doubtless, with the statement\u2014as a pretext for verbal \nlicentiousness\u2014that the Elizabethans and early Georgians were \u2018down-right \nand honest\u2019 in these respects, while the reticence of the Victorians was \u2018mealy- \nmouthed and hypocritical\u2019. \u2018We\u2019, it will be said, \u2018prefer the former\u2019. But the \nfacts are that while the Elizabethans and early Georgians had many admirable \nqualities, and were superior to us in some ways, they were coarse in speech, \nwhich was a defect, not a virtue, and that the Victorians recognized this, and \nevolved to a higher level, leaving that defect behind them, just as they grad\u00ac \nually left behind them the drunkenness which had been such a disgusting feature \nof fashionable life in earlier days. We are not obliged to imitate the worst in \npast ages; if imitate we must, let us imitate the best. Why pick from the civili\u00ac \nzation of Greece, for instance, whatever was depraved and debasing, and imitate \nthat, instead of what was beautiful in her art and noble in her great dramatists? \nThe answer is obvious: it is only the depraved who do so. \n\n\u201cNot long ago, the attention of a New York publisher was called to a par\u00ac \nticularly offensive passage in one of his books. His reply was: \u2018That passage \nsells the book\u2019. On that basis, and in comparison, the liquor business must \nrank as elevating! But was the man right? The book in question was inter\u00ac \nesting and worth-while, except for some half-dozen pages, and perhaps would \nhave sold at least as well without them as with them. Trash undoubtedly is \nsold on the strength of interspersed salaciousness. But think of those three \nvolumes of reminiscences by Lord Frederic Hamilton\u2014 The Vanished Pomps of \n\\ esterday , 7 he Days Before Yesterday , and Here , There , and Everywhere \u2014which \nhave run into twenty-five or more editions, and are still in demand: there is \nnot an unclean word or suggestion, direct or indirect, in one of them.\u201d \n\n\u201cHe happened to be a gentleman\u201d, said the Ancient, dryly. \n\n\u201cWith the inference that the dirt-mongers are nothing of the kind\u201d, the \nPhilosopher added. A fair inference,\u2014and a fact. Universal education is \nresponsible for much. Women, however, are among the worst offenders. I \ntried to read Gone with the Wind , simply because it is a \u2018best seller\u2019 of which \never a million copies have been sold already\u2014which means at least five million \n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\n149 \n\n\nreaders\u2014and I wanted to know what kind of book can interest the American \npublic to that extent. It is not easy to speak of the result. It is one of the \nmost revolting books I have ever read: it is bad. It is all the worse for being \nwell and vividly written. The story centres in a woman who is morally rotten, \nand whose abominable feelings and motives are described in detail. The foul \nlanguage of a drunkard is recorded with pornographic verisimilitude. Some \nof the Elizabethan dramatists were coarse enough, goodness knows; but they \nspared you the psychology of the thing; they did not drag you into the filth \nof the psychic substrata; they were not bad. In terms of art, the book presents \nan utterly false view of life. The only decent people in it are weaklings or \ndupes. To be able to read it with pleasure, implies either a moral void, or a \nsecret craving for the worst forms of sensual stimulation. The harm done by \nsuch books is incalculable. The mind-images they create will fill the world \nwith horrors,\u2014for mind-images must spill over into this world in one form or \nanother; sooner or later all of them will incarnate here.\u201d \n\n\u201cWe certainly need a war\u201d, commented the Historian, \u201cand a war that will \nshake both men and women to the depths; either a war or some frightful pesti\u00ac \nlence, that will bring every man and woman in the country face to face with \ndeath as an immediate, overwhelming probability.\u201d \n\n\u201cIt makes it easier to understand why the Dark Powers are trying to divert \nour minds with Social Reform\u201d, said the Student, thoughtfully. \u201cPersonal \nambition in high places falls an easy prey to the bait of popular approval, and \nto smother the real issue, the moral issue, the eternal issue, under a blanket of \npolitical claptrap in the guise of humanitarianism,\u2014would undoubtedly be a \nclever move on the part of the powers of evil.\u201d \n\n\u201cWhat do you mean by the \u2018eternal issue\u2019?\u201d asked a visitor. \u201cIs not justice \nthe supreme issue always?\u201d \n\n\u201cYes; but God\u2019s Justice, not man\u2019s. The eternal issue is, whether the soul \nof man shall survive and finally triumph, or not. Moral corruption destroys \nthe soul. If this nation is becoming morally degenerate and corrupt, it is in \nsuch terrible danger that, in comparison, nothing else matters. The Dark \nPowers, therefore, would do their utmost to divert attention from the spiritual \nand real danger, to issues which can be made to appear important and, if pos\u00ac \nsible, \u2018ethical\u2019, but which actually are material, transitory, and of quite minor \nsignificance.\u201d \n\n\u201cHave the professional reviewers called attention to the immoralities of \nGone with the WindV \u2019 someone asked. \n\n\u201cSo far as I am aware, No; but one thing most professional reviewers (like all \nordinary people) really fear, is being ridiculed as prudish. Moral cowardice is \nan almost universal failing.\u201d \n\n\u201cI suspect that lack of self-confidence has much to do with it also\u201d, sug\u00ac \ngested the Ancient. \u201cWhen \u2018all the world\u2019 praises, most people hesitate to con\u00ac \ndemn; they mistrust their better instincts; they are afraid to commit themselves. \nBut tH^igain, of course, is only another form of vanity,\u2014a morbid fear of \nbeing mistaken. Probably, in the majority of cases, toleration of evil was ac- \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\n150 \n\nquired\u2014was indeed cultivated\u2014one step at a time, until now the readers of \nsuch books have become indurated, callous. They began by telling themselves \nthey must not be old-fashioned or puritanical, when some word or incident in a \nbook offended them, and they gradually ceased to \u2018register\u2019 offence. They forget \nthat in this as in all other directions, eternal vigilance is the price, not only of \nliberty, but of safety; for what often happens is, not induration so much as \nenjoyment of depravity by proxy; and that is pernicious: it kills the soul.\u201d \n\n\u2018\u2018The Student mentioned Lord Frederic Hamilton\u2019s reminiscences as having \nan immense sale\u201d, the Historian now said; \u2018\u2018but we should not forget Kipling; \nhe uses words occasionally which the Victorians would not have used\u2014and \nI think they were right\u2014but he was clean all the way through, and there is \nno author living whose books are in such world-wide and constant demand. \nWhen he has to refer to a nasty subject, he does it with decency. In his re\u00ac \ncently published Something of Myself , he mentions incidentally, and without \nany detail, the perversities so often met with in boys\u2019 schools, which were un\u00ac \nheard of in his own, and says that, talking it over long afterwards with the \nHeadmaster, the latter stated that \u2018his one prophylactic against certain un\u00ac \nclean microbes was to send us to bed dead tired\u2019. Imagine the pages of re\u00ac \nvolting incident and detail, and brutal language, into which the up-to-date \nauthor would have plunged, revelling, as he covered the same subject!\u201d \n\n\u2018\u2018Why limit your criticism to books?\u201d asked the same visitor. \u2018\u2018The stage \nand the \u2018Movies\u2019 are often just as bad.\u201d \n\n\u2018\u2018I know they are, and I came prepared, to a limited extent, for that too\u201d\u2014 \nwhereupon the Philosopher produced a newspaper cutting. \u2018\u2018At a hearing in \nWashington the other day, before the House Immigration Committee, the \nnewspapers reported testimony that \u2018the American girl was the greatest \u2018\u2018strip \ntease artist of them all, and that \u201cstripping\u201d was a typically American art.\u2019 \nThe New York Times added: \n\nStrange as it may seem , Mr. Minsky told the committee, \u201cthese strip tease artists \nhave to be trained and schooled. They have to be taught rhythm in a manner syn\u00ac \nchronous with the music. They are taught to strip and unclothe by specialists in the \natmosphere and lighting of the stage.\u201d \n\n\u201cNo need to comment on that, I imagine. \n\nBut as I started this general subject, let me reply to your question about \nlimiting criticism chiefly to books,\u2014that not even for readers of the Quarterly \nam I prepared to spend an evening witnessing scenes such as I have just indi\u00ac \ncated, in a psychic atmosphere which would asphyxiate a goat. It is bad enough \nto feel obliged to look through a \u2018best seller\u2019 like the one I named: that is as far \nas I am prepared to go. If people seek salaciousness, they must have it,\u2014and \ntake the consequences. Warnings would be wasted, and might even whet an \nappetite already so far depraved.\u201d \n\n\"Now for the signs of promise\u201d, said the Recorder. \u201cWe know that behind \nthe blackest sky, the sun still shines, and that often through chinks between \nclouds, we are reminded of its hidden radiance. It is vitally necessary to do \nwhat we can to prevent darkness being mistaken for light, coarse for \u2018honest\u2019 \n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\n151 \n\nspeech, retrogression for progress; and we must fight to the end against the \nsmug self-satisfaction which regards this age as the culmination of human \nachievement,\u2014realizing, as we do so, that those who love the things of dark\u00ac \nness will call us scolds, reactionaries, and kill-joys. Especially are we likely to \nhear this from the young people, for in some ways they are innocent,\u2014though \nthey would hate to be thought so. Youth necessarily lacks experience\u2014not \nalways of evil, alas, but certainly of its consequences\u2014and is, therefore, all the \n^nore inclined to be cock-sure of itself. We must have patience with it; we were \nonce like that ourselves! And there is a crying need for remonstrance, which we \nmust off-set by pointing out that what we urge is reaction from evil, from debase\u00ac \nment, to the heights of spiritual attainment,\u2014to those magnificent possibilities \nwhich Theosophy, from the far past and throughout history, reveals as within \nman\u2019s compass, as offered for his conquest, even now, by the Divine compassion. \nIt is because he might be so great, that man\u2019s defilement is so terrible. \n\n\u201cPerhaps I should lead off with what struck me as a favourable omen, and as \na hint of little-suspected prevision and superintendence. I refer to the publi\u00ac \ncation in the March Scientific American (of all places) of an article on \u201cThe \nProblem of the Holy Shroud\u201d by a Professor of Biology who believes in its \nauthenticity. On pages 148 and 162, there are reproductions of the form and \nface imprinted on the shroud, supposed to be that of Christ, which cannot \nfail to impress those older students of Theosophy who are familiar with other \nportraits of other Masters, and who will recognize the \u2018family\u2019 resemblance. \nThe shroud has been in the custody of the House of Savoy since 1453, and was \ntransferred from Chamb<h*y to Turin in 1578. It was not photographed until \n1898, when something of a sensation was caused by the discovery that the \nimage on the linen was a negative, with lights and shadows inverted, which \nphotography of course rectified. So far as I am aware, a negative image, in a \nphotographic sense, was unknown in remote centuries; but apart from that, \nno one with any knowledge of Pre-Raphaelite art (and the authenticity of the \nportrait was discussed in 1389) could possibly believe that it was the work of \nan early painter. The wounded but majestic face is stamped with the effects \nof dreadful suffering\u2014with all the grief and torture of the Passion. The nega\u00ac \ntive image shows none of this. Why was it that the revelation of the face was \nmade impracticable until 1898, and that only now has it been brought to popu\u00ac \nlar attention in this country\u2014for very few people in the English-speaking \nworld can have so much as heard of the exhaustive monograph on the subject, \nin French, published in Paris in 1929, under the title, Le Saint-Suaire de Turin. \nWhy now? And can the inherent inhibitions and their final removal have been \nforeseen at the time of Christ\u2019s death and burial? But I must refer you to the \nScientific American , for, without seeing the photographs, it is not easy to appre\u00ac \nciate the significance of the event. Students of Theosophy particularly should \nbe interested, because they will realize that the precipitation of the image on \nthe linen shroud could have been effected even without the chemical processes \nwhich explain it to the satisfaction of the author of the article. \n\n\u201cNow for other good omens.\u201d \n\n\n152 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\n\u201cOmen or not\u201d, responded the Student, \u201can article by Roger W. Babson, \nthe well-known statistician, in the March number of The Commentator , is most \nrefreshing. More than that, it is a real ray of light in a distressingly dark \nworld. His title is: \u2018Beware of the Boom!\u2019 He points out that the bigger the \nboom, the deeper the depression which always follows it. Plenty of people \nare saying that: but listen to this: \n\nWe are the dictators of our own destiny. Our destiny, however, whether happiness \nor misery, must be evolved in accordance with fundamental principles. If the coming \nperiod is to be anything sounder than a \u201crake's progress\u201d, business must not sheer away \nfrom the line of normal growth. We are squarely set for a boom and there is but one \nprotection against its becoming unwieldy\u2014and that is a spiritual revival. The sure \nsafeguard against degeneration is regeneration\u2014that alone. I believe there is a fair \nchance that this may come. Therefore I continue to be optimistic. . . . \n\nIt is easy to understand why it is hard to guard against a boom. The seeds of the \nrecklessness and greed that breed booms are not strewn from without. They germinate \nwithin the human mind. Only as the hearts of our people are cleansed of evil can we hope \nto avoid falling into evil. A permanent economic revival depends upon an immediate \nspiritual revival. Furthermore, let me add that I believe this may be in the cards. \n\n\u201cMy emphasis, which the Recorder will please reproduce in italics, is not in \nthe original; but the entire article is on those lines. Could anything be more \nsatisfactory in a secular magazine? By the way, other articles in the same \nissue of The Commentator , on \u2018The Labour Lobby\u2019, by George Sokolsky, and \n\u2018Russia A Government of Gunmen\u2019, by Joseph Shaplen, also are promising \nsigns, and deserve wide attention.\u201d \n\nThe Recorder now asked the Historian what he could contribute under this \nhead. \n\n\u201cI find considerable comfort in the way England has been behaving\u201d, the \nHistorian replied. \u201cShe stood the test of Edward\u2019s abdication wonderfully, \nas everyone recognizes, and gained strength of purpose and clearer vision from \nthat moral victory. Almost at once there was a subsidence of Pacifism. On \nChristmas Eve, the London Times , in an editorial entitled \u2018Peace on Earth\u2019, \nstruck the key-note of much that has happened since. I will read you the few \nsentences which give the substance of it: \n\nIf Christ applauded the man who did not resist injury done to himself, He never com\u00ac \nmended those who stood by in passive acquiescence while injury was done to others. \nHe praised a soldiers faith with no hint that his was an unworthy calling. Pacifist \ndoctrine, when translated from generalities into concrete terms, requires us to believe \nthat European nations were wrong when they used force to resist the Moslem invasion, \nand that fidelity to the teaching of Christ would have been best shown by permitting \nthe unresisted extermination of Christianity. \n\n\u201cShortly afterwards, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in an address to his \ndiocesan conference, declared: \u2018The use of force by the State was the ministry \nof God for the protection of the people. (Cheers.) If that were true of the \nState in its domestic relations, it was equally true for the State in its inter\u00ac \nnational relations. It all depended on the motive or intention with which it \nwas used.\u2019 \n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\niS3 \n\n\n\u201cStill later, on February 5th, the Bishop of London protested that \u2018the real \ndangers to the peace of the world to-day are pacifists. If we had taken the \nviews of pacifists in 1914, either the German Emperor or Hitler would now be \nin Whitehall. The German plan was first to swallow France and then to go on \nto Great Britain.\u2019 He added: \u2018I should have thought that Ethiopia would \nhave cured every pacifist in the world.\u2019 \n\n[American pacifists will please note.\u2014 Editors.] \n\n\u201cThen came the huge credit voted by Parliament for national re-armament. \n\n\u201cI see in all of this, both a return to right principles, and a new willingness \nto face the facts. England is no longer shutting her eyes and living on vain \nhopes. England, so to speak, has gone back to work. May not a corresponding \nchange of heart take place here?\u201d \n\n\u201cWell\u201d, said the Philosopher, \u201cmiracles still happen. I, for one, should not \nbe alive to-day\u2014in any case should not be spiritually alive\u2014if it were not for a \nprolonged series of miracles, to which I have not been in the least entitled. So \nit is not for me to question the possibility of a miraculous change in the situa\u00ac \ntion here. Members of The Theosophical Society can in any case do their \nutmost, from day to day, to make divine intervention possible. Faith will \nmove mountains. Everywhere there are well-intentioned people, as well as \npeople who, like Babson, realize that a spiritual revival would save us; but \nthere are very few who, with that degree of understanding, have the faith and \nwill which call down from heaven the passionate sympathy of the Just,\u2014of \nthose \u2018just men made perfect\u2019 whose will is God\u2019s will, and who, therefore, are \ncreators in their own right,\u2014not \u2018out of nothing\u2019, true, but out of the sacrifices \noffered them by the unselfish, trusting, aspiring hearts of otherwise ordinary \nmen. If there were enough of these\u2014not many, but enough\u2014our nation, now \ndestroying itself, might be turned from its greed and pruriency, vulgarity and \nself-satisfaction, to the ideals of George Washington, which we were intended \nto follow, and infidelity to which is the cause of all our troubles.\u201d \n\nT. \n\n\n\n\nLet us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the \nhands of God .\u2014 George Washington. \n\n\n\n\nTHE BEATRICE OF DANTE \n\nFROM A THEOSOPHIC POINT OF VIEW * 1 * * * \n\n\nO NE of the most interesting things in the history of intellectual develop\u00ac \nment, is to note the manner in which certain ideas crop up here and \nthere in different ages and different countries, seemingly without con\u00ac \nnection, and yet bearing the marks of unmistakable family likeness. And as \nthe summits of the highest mountains resemble each other closely, and in all \ncountries the towering pinnacles of snow and ice catch the first gleams of sun\u00ac \nrise upon their dazzling brows, and glow with the rose of sunset long after the \nlower world is dark, so it is with the greatest minds. They rise above the gen\u00ac \neral level of the race, to receive the first glimpses of the eternal light, and in all \ncountries and all ages, Wisdom is their common portion. Especially is this to \nbe noted of the seers of the world, of those who use their spiritual insight rather \nthan their intellectual owteight, and of these was Dante\u2014as he himself said of \nAristotle\u2014\u201cmaster of those who know\u201d. Dante is said to have belonged to the \nOrder of the Templars, to that body of men acknowledged by all to have been \nreared in the utmost refinement and culture of the day, men imbued, through \ntheir travels and residence in the East, with much of its mystic learning and \nhidden secrets. The religion of the Templars has long been known to have been \nno tissue of childish absurdities and superstitious practices, but to have rep\u00ac \nresented that advanced thought which in an age of persecution it was most \nnecessary to conceal. Rightly considered, says Wilcke (the great German au\u00ac \nthority on the subject), their secret doctrine was nothing more than Protestant\u00ac \nism in general and rationalism in particular. But we are told that the Temple \nsignified the Wisdom-religion, handed down in secret from remote antiquity, \nand even Ozanam, the principal Roman Catholic writer upon Dante, declares \n\n\n\u2018This article by Miss Katharine Hillard is reprinted from Lucifer, of August 15th and September 15th. i8or. It \nhad been read by the author, prior to its publication, before the Aryan T. S. of New York. \n\n1 TK; W ^\u00b0u d !f d n m November, 1915. was an old and greatly valued member of The Theosophical Society. \n\n^ a \u00a5 ?\u00a3 S V n \u00a3 ul ? 1 M d Dante s ^olar. Her translation of the II Convito into English (Kegan Paul. Trench & Co., \njf 1 r f^ ,zed as perhaps the best. Member of a prominent Brooklyn family (Mr. Seth Low, \nfnr 1 \u00b0! tmiversity, later, a reform Mayor of New York, was her cousin), she lived \n\nM met Bla vatsky in London in 1887; returned to the United States; became a devoted \n\niwi M ' an * d did everything in her power to assist him in his work, continuing her loyal and active \n\nmembership m the Society to the day of her death.\u2014 Editors. \n\n\n154 \n\n\n\n\n\nTHE BEATRICE OF DANTE \n\n\ni55 \n\n\nthat the plan of the Divine Ccnnedy closely follows the outlines of an initiation \ninto the Egyptian mysteries. \n\nHowever this may be, it is at least true, as Ozanam says further, that \u201cmystics, \nby a certain divine intuition which they had no leisure to verify, often had a \npresentiment of certain natural laws whose complete revelation was reserved \nfor subsequent ages. ... In mysticism a great power was given to the heart \nover the mind, and the imagination held the keys of the heart; thence a real \nneed, a constant habit, of allegorical expressions and legendary allusions. Con\u00ac \ntemplative, ascetic, symbolical, such has mysticism ever been, and it has left \nits triple seal upon the philosophy of Dante.\u201d \n\nScience has found in that philosophy, the germ of many of the most modern \nideas in physiology, more than a hint of the laws of gravity and attraction, a \nforeknowledge of a western continent, and a theory of morals far in advance of \nDante\u2019s age. He was accused of heresy many times, as a Ghibelline and a Tem\u00ac \nplar, both before and after his death, and Cardinal del Poggetto was with diffi\u00ac \nculty restrained from exhuming his lately buried remains and having them \npublicly burned as those of a heretic. \n\nMany authors, English, French, Italian, have held similar views as to Dante\u2019s \nsecret connection with the Templars, and about 1835, Vecchioni, President of \nthe Supreme Court of Naples, tried in vain to be allowed to publish a book on the \nDivine Comedy in which he proposed to show that a treasure of primitive wisdom \nhad been handed down by the Egyptian priests who transmitted its secrets to \nthe initiated alone, by means of a secret language; that this language passed \nwith the mysteries into Greece, was employed by the early poets, and then \nadopted by the philosophers, especially by Plato; from Greece it was trans\u00ac \nmitted to Italy, and handed down to the time of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, \nwho used it in their works; and finally, that the Divine Cmnedy was arranged \nafter the plan of a Taletes, or initiation to the mysteries, ending in the Eposis \nor vision of the Divine. This secret language, or rather conventional use of \nlanguage, was taught by grammarians , Grammar being the first of the seven \nmystic sciences known as the Trivium and Quadrivium , and defined as the art \nof expressing a thing with two meanings. \n\nI have no time to go into the history of heresy in the Middle Ages, but it is a \nsignificant fact, that Catharism , generally identified with the religion of the \nTemplars, is said to be derived, not from a Greek, but from an Indian word, \nthe name of a river and of a people. The Brahminical white thread was used \nas a girdle by both Catharists and Templars. \n\nLoiseleur, the great French authority on the Templars, says that they be\u00ac \nlieved in a Divine Spirit, as opposed to the organizer of matter and the creator \nand preserver of the world, and that they were closely connected with the sect \nof the Enchetes or worshippers of Lucifer. Here we recognize the old opposition \nof Spirit and Matter, and the dawning recognition of the formula Demon est \nDeus inversus. Heckethom, in his Secret Societies of All Ages , speaking of the \nCatharists-says that in their chivalric orders, the degrees, at first three, after\u00ac \nwards hedfe seven, and at the time of their presumed fusion with the Albi- \n\n\n156 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\ngenses, the Templars, and the Ghibellines, thirty-three. We know , at least, \nthat Dante was a Ghibelline, and thirty-three, the number of the degrees in \nMasonry, is the number upon which he bases the structure of the Divine Com\u00ac \nedy . \u201cThe statutes of the Catharists closely resembled those of the Templars , \ncontinues Heckethorn, \u201cand their clothes were of the same three colours with \nthose of Beatrice, and the three circles in Paradise\u201d, i.e ., red, white and green, \nthe colours of the Trinity. \n\nThe idol Baphomet, that the Templars were accused of worshipping, repre\u00ac \nsented the head of an old man with a flowing white beard, undoubtedly identi\u00ac \ncal with the Ancient of Days or the White Head of the Kabbala, a symbol of the \nDeity. The name signifies the baptism of wisdom , and corresponds to the Abraxas \nof the Gnostics, often represented under the same figure, surrounded by four \nstars, and beheld as the sun. Dante uses Cato in the Banquet (iv, 28) as a symbol \nof the Deity, and describes him in the Purgatory (c, I) as an old man with a long \nwhite beard, surrounded by the four consecrated stars, which shone so brightly \nupon his face that the poet beheld him as the sun. \n\nOne of Dante\u2019s French critics speaks of the Pagan characteristics of the In\u00ac \nferno; of the many occult elements of the Purgatorio, where we have all the \ntests of initiation, both ancient and modem; of the many heretics and heathen \nin the Paradiso ; of the fact that Virgil and Statius, Dante\u2019s guides, are both \npagans, and that St. Bernard, to whom is given the part of third hierophant, \nor high priest, was the compiler of the rules of the Templars. \n\nMany authors, as I have said before, have pointed out the resemblance be\u00ac \ntween the course of the Divine Comedy and the old initiations, but we must not \nforget that, while to the profane these mysteries represented the story of a \nhero\u2019s descent into hell and subsequent ascension into heaven, and, to the scien\u00ac \ntist, the progress of the sun through the signs of the Zodiac, to the more en\u00ac \nlightened they typified the regeneration of the soul. The Masonic initiation \nfor instance, exoterically represents the murder and resurrection of Hiram, the \narchitect of Solomon\u2019s Temple, and the assassins slay him at the west door, \nbecause the sun sets in the west. They are twelve in number, to correspond \nwith the signs of the Zodiac, and they bury the body and mark the spot with a \nsprig of acacia (emblem of immortality) to typify the new vegetation to follow \nthe sun\u2019s resurrection. The body of Hiram is discovered on the seventh day, \nto symbolize the renewed life of the sun in the seventh month, and can only be \nbrought to life by \u201cthe lion\u2019s grip\u201d, because the sun\u2019s full strength is attained \nwhen he enters Leo (July). \n\nThis is the astronomical key, but we are told that to all significant myths, \nthe keys are seven. We are also told that the building of Solomon\u2019s Temple \ntypified the acquirement of the Secret Wisdom, and that this is why it is said \nto have been reared without sound of hammer or axe. All initiations follow \nthe same general lines. Beginning with the death of the old man , they symbolize \nre-birth, accompanied by the baptism of Lethe, or the forgetfulness of evil, \nand Eunoe, or the reception of good, followed by resurrection, or ascension to \nthe higher life. The neophyte\u2019s entrance to the new life is almost always made \n\n\nTHE BEATRICE OF DANTE \n\n\ni57 \n\n\nthrough a narrow crevice, from which the initiate emerges, as from the gates of \nbirth. Such passages still exist in the old crypts of many cathedrals, as well \nas in the Great Pyramid, and when Dante leaves Hell, he emerges through a \nnarrow crevice in the rock, from which he first beholds the stars. \n\nThe Freemasons of to-day proudly claim descent from the Templars, and \nthere are many singular coincidences in Dante\u2019s poem with portions of the \nMasonic symbolism. It would take too long to go through the whole story of \nthe regeneration of the soul, which Dante himself tells us to be his subject, its \nmystical sense; \u201cthe passage of the holy from the slavery of present corruption \nto the liberty of the eternal glory\". Some of the most striking resemblances, \nhowever, are found in the description of the gate of Purgatory, led up to by \nthree steps, at whose top stands an angelic warder with a naked sword, to de\u00ac \nmand of the poet who he is, and where is his escort. In fact, the whole descrip\u00ac \ntion of his passage through the seven circles of Purgatory, with its two baptisms, \nand the vision of the glorified Beatrice, or Divine Wisdom, at the end, corre\u00ac \nsponds most closely, as has been said, to the old Taletes. So in the Paradiso, \nwith its voyage from star to star, there are many symbols recalling the Masonic \ntemple with its starry roof. Reghellini (who wrote a book on Masonry as the \nresult 0f the Egyptian religions) was so impressed by these resemblances, that he \ndeclared Dante an initiate of the Kabbalistic and Rosicrucian orders. King, \nin his book on The Gnostics and their Remains, says that the 18th canto of the \nPurgatory is \u201creplete with the profoundest symbolism, which the Freemasons \nclaim for their own\u201d. To confirm these statements, it is enough to speak of \nDante\u2019s use of such symbols as the imperial eagle, the mystic ladder, the rose \nand cross, the pelican, the supper of the Lamb, the three pillars of Faith, Hope, \nand Charity; of symbolic colours, letters, and geometric figures\u2014the point, the \ncircle, the triangle, the square; the trampling of crown and mitre under foot by \nthe neophyte; the invoking of Divine vengeance on the destroyers of the Temple; \nthe choice of St. Bernard, organizer of that Order, as High Priest. \n\nTo all these coincidences in the Divine Comedy, the other works of Dante\u2019s \ngreat trilogy, the Vita Nuova (or New Life), and the Convito (or Banquet), supply \neven more ample confirmation, and it seems to me strange that any one familiar \nwith the character of the man, his age, and his studies, could fail to see the mys\u00ac \ntical element to be the uppermost in all. Lest this should be missed in the New \nLife, in spite of his efforts to make it plain, Dante wrote the Banquet, a philo\u00ac \nsophical work in prose, especially intended to explain and corroborate his other \nworks; and he also wrote to Can Grande a much-neglected letter about the \nDivine Comedy, in which he tells him that this book, like all other books, can be \nunderstood, and ought to be interpreted, in four ways, the literal, the allegorical, \nthe moral, and the mystical; and moreover he is careful to inform us that the \nliteral is not necessarily the historical, but may be only \u201ca beautiful fiction\u201d. \n\nThe Vita Nuova, or story of Dante\u2019s New Life, has been too much studied \nfrom the historical point of view, and the Beatrice of that \u201cbeautiful fiction\u201d \nconsidered as a real person. Of course, there is no time to go fully into this \nmuch-vexed question; suffice it to say that we know that a Beatrice Portinari \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n158 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nexisted, but we have only the authority of Boccaccio for her identification with \nthe Beatrice of Dante, who nowhere names any family or any place in his book; \nand that Boccaccio is an exceedingly untrustworthy chronicler, all his dates \n(which are very few) being at variance, either with Dante\u2019s, or with history, \nwhile all Dante\u2019s dates in the Vita Nnova are mystical combinations of the \nnumber 9. The usual number of degrees in the secret societies is 33, the num\u00ac \nber Dante uses in the Divine Comedy. In the mediaeval associations at least, \nthese degrees were denoted by a series of odd numbers, and when the man was \nborn again and rose to the new life , these numbers were called years. The third \ndegree, for instance, was called the 9th year. Dante\u2019s story of his New Life \ndescribes his meeting Beatrice (the \u201cgiver of blessings\u201d) for the first time when \nhe was nine years old, and though he sees her often after that, it is nine years \nbefore their second meeting, when for the first time he hears her speak. Now \nin the third degree, the neophyte (then said to be nine years old) \u201cbeholds the \nlight\u201d, symbolized by a fair woman, with whom he is said to fall in love. \u201cBe\u00ac \nholding the light\u201d consisted in seeing the sacred symbols and hearing them \nexplained. The two mystic baptisms of Lethe and Eunoe signified purification , \nor death to sin, and manifestation , or rebirth in purity. Manifestation was per\u00ac \nformed in two ways,\u2014by showing the symbols to the neophyte, and by explain\u00ac \ning their meaning to him, and was therefore the same process as \u201cbeholding the \nlight\u201d, or \u201cfalling in love with Madonna\u201d. This ocular inspection and oral \ninstruction were called \u201cthe eyes and mouth\u201d (or smile) of Madonna, and con\u00ac \nstituted her first and second beauty. \n\nIn his New Life , as I have just said, Dante at the age of nine, sees Beatrice, \nand nine years later, hears her speak. And when he meets her in Purgatory, \nafter her death, she wears a veil, through which he can only see her glorious \neyes , and then she throws it off, and he discovers her second beauty , her smile, \n\u201cthe splendour of the living Light Eternal\u201d. \u201cNot in mine eyes alone is Para\u00ac \ndise\u201d, says Beatrice to him, further on. \n\nIn the Banquet , Dante explains that by the eyes of his lady he means the \ndemonstrations of Wisdom, and by her second beauty , her smile, that intuitive \nconviction whereby we perceive Wisdom as without any veil. \n\nSuch mystical dates as Dante uses all through the New Life occur in almost \nall the writings of the mediaeval poets, and these coincidences, if they are noth\u00ac \ning more, are very striking. The Holy Week is almost always made the turning- \npoint of their lives and of their loves. As Dante chooses it for the time of the \nCommedia , so Boccaccio takes it for the Decameron , and dates his mystical work \nFilocopo on Holy Saturday. He first meets his Fiammetta \u201cin a temple\u201d, on \nHoly Saturday, while Petrarch meets Laura \u201cin a temple\u201d on Good Friday, at \n\u201cthe first hour of the day\u201d; she is bom on Good Friday, and she dies on Good \nFriday, \u201cat the first hour of the day\u201d. Camoens, and several of the Troubadour \npoets, describe themselves as falling in love on Good Friday, and their ladies, \nlike Laura, all die on Good Friday, many of them, like Laura and Beatrice, \u201cat \nthe first hour of the day\u201d. The degree already described as \u201cbeholding the light\u201d \nor \u201cfalling in love with Madonna\u201d, was given at \u201cthe first hour of the day\u201d, and \n\n\nTHE BEATRICE OF DANTE \n\n\ni59 \n\n\nwhen the light was withdrawn again, in the last degree, it was said to disappear, \nor \u201cMadonna died\u201d, at \u201cthe first hour of the day\u201d. \n\nDante then begins the story of his New Life by saying that he was nine years \nold when first the glorious lady of his mind appeared before his eyes, even she \nwho was called Beatrice (the giver of blessing) by many who did not know it \nto be her name. She was not quite nine, and when he saw her, the spirit of life, \nwhich hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart, trembled violently, \nand said to him (in Latin): \u201cHere is a deity stronger than I, who, coming, shall \nrule over me\u201d. And the animal soul, dwelling in the lofty chamber whither all \nthe sensitive spirits carry their perceptions, was filled with wonder, and speaking \nmore especially unto the spirits of vision, said: \u201cYour beatitude hath now been \nmade manifest unto you. . . . And Love many times commanded me to go in \nsearch of this very young little angel\u201d, continued Dante, \u201cwherefore many \ntimes in my childhood did I go in search of her, and saw her to be of such \nnoble and praiseworthy bearing, that certainly to her might be applied these \nwords of the poet Homer, \u2018She seemed not the daughter of mortal man, but of \nGod\u2019.\u201d \n\nNevertheless, it was nine years to a day after their first meeting before Dante \never heard her speak, and then she only saluted him as she passed him in the \nstreet. It is after this second meeting that the poet\u2019s love makes such havoc \nwith his bodily health, that his friends, noting his weakness, ask him: \u201cBy \nwhose help has Love done this?\u201d \u201cI looked in their faces smiling\u201d, says Dante, \n\u201cand spake no word in return\u201d. And then, seeing Beatrice across a church one \nday, he notices a gentle lady midway between them, and makes, in his pretended \ndevotion to her, a \u201cscreen\u201d for his love to Beatrice, by this means keeping his \nsecret for some months and years. Now the love of a boy of 18 or 20, whose \nonly demonstration had been one salutation to his lady in the street, scarcely \nneeded such concealment, and yet when this lady left the city, Love named to \nhim another \u201cscreen\u201d, and this second pretended devotion was so well enacted \nthat people gossiped of it, and accused him of vicious conduct, so that when \nnext Beatrice met him, she denied him her most sweet salutation, in which lay \nall his beatitude. \n\nPassing over his glimpse of Beatrice at a wedding (where none but married \nladies were wont to go) and the account of the death of her father (the only \nrealistic incident in the book), we come to Dante\u2019s mention of his severe illness, \non the ninth day of which he has a vision of Beatrice as dead, in many respects \nlike the vision of her in Purgatory. Following this dream, comes his description \nof his last meeting with Beatrice in life, as she passes by him preceded by that \nlady Joan, whom he compares to St. John, going before the True Light, saying, \n\u201cI am a voice crying in the desert: prepare ye the way of the Lord\u201d. And then \nDante declares that Beatrice should be called Love. \n\nThe narrative of the New Life abruptly breaks off soon after this, with the \nnews of the passing away of Beatrice, which news comes to Dante as he is \nwriting a sonnet in her praise. \u201cThis happened\u201d, he says, \u201cat the first hour of \nthe ninth day of the ninth month (according to Syrian reckoning) of that year \n\n\n\ni6o \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nof the thirteenth century in which the perfect number {ten) was nine times \ncompleted.\u201d And one reason why nine plays so conspicuous a part in her his\u00ac \ntory, he tells us, is, that all the nine heavens were in the most perfect harmony \nat her birth, but \u201cthe more subtle and infallibly true reason is, that she was a \nmiracle whose sole root was the blessed Trinity\u201d. \n\nAt this point the story of the Banquet comes in (as Dante said he intended \nthat it should) to help out and corroborate the New Life. In both books the \nidea is the same, and it is a curious fact that neither in them nor in the Divine \nComedy (except once where the rhyme necessitates it) does the poet ever use \nthe word death in connection with Beatrice. Two years after she had been made \n\u201ca citizen of the Eternal Life\u201d, Dante says in the Vita Nuova, he first beheld \nat a window a gentle lady, who so comforted him with her pitying glances, that \nhe thought of her with too much pleasure. By this gentle lady, he tells us in \nthe Banquet , he meant Scholastic Philosophy, and for the next two years and a \nhalf he devoted himself to this branch of learning. \n\nBut in spite of its attractions, and those of the active life of soldier and states\u00ac \nman that soon followed, the love of his first ideal was still latent in the soul of \nthe poet, and as the Banquet proceeds, Dante shows us how far beyond all science \nand all morality is the Divine Philosophy or Eternal Wisdom, which is full of \nall peace, and whose dwelling-place is that Quiet Heaven where the soul is at \nrest with the Supreme. So at the end of the New Life he has a vision, about \nthe ninth hour, of the glorified Beatrice, clothed in that sanguine raiment in \nwhich she first appeared to him, and seeming as young as when he first saw her. \nAnd remembering the past, he grieves to think that he has ever been led aside \nby any other love, and all his thoughts return to centre upon their first beati\u00ac \ntude. And he has another vision of Beatrice receiving homage \u201cbeyond that \nsphere of widest range\u201d, the Primum Mobile; that is, within the Quiet Heaven \nof Divine Wisdom and Peace. And after that other vision embodied in the \nDivine Comedy , he resolves to say no more of this blessed one till he can more \nworthily treat of her. \n\n\\\\ hen Dante next meets Beatrice, on the summit of the Mount of Purgatory \n(in that terrestrial Paradise, explained by the Fathers of the Church to mean \nthe contemplative life), she says to him with keen irony, \u201cHow didst thou deign \n(being lost in the pride of learning) to come unto this Mount?\u201d And turning \nto her attendant Virtues, she continues: \u201cNot only by the influence of the stars \nat his birth did this man receive great intellectual power, but also by special \ngift of Divine grace did he become such in his new life that everything good \nwas possible to him. I revealed myself to him in his youth, and for some time \nled him with me in the right way, but ... as I ascended from flesh to spirit \nand beauty and virtue increased in me, I became less dear to him, and he turned \nto pursue those false images of good that never fulfil their promises. . The \nlaw of justice would be violated, should he pass Lethe without tears and re\u00ac \npentance.\u201d And when he has repented, confessed, and undergone the double \nbaptism of water and fire, Beatrice leads the poet upward from heaven to \nheaven, until St. Bernard guides him to the final Vision of the Divine. \n\n\nTHE BEATRICE OF DANTE \n\n\n161 \n\n\nIn the New Life , the Banquet , and the Divine Comedy , the descriptions of \nBeatrice are almost identical with those of Wisdom in the various books of \nthe Bible and the Apocrypha, which Dante was so fond of quoting, and he \nidentifies Beatrice continually with Love, with Wisdom, and therefore with the \nLogos. In the New Life he declares her to be identical with Love , and in the \nBanquet he writes: \u201cWherefore it is written of this eternal Love which is Wis~ \ndom, \u2018He created me from the beginning before the world, and I shall never \nfail\u2019 (Eccles. xxiv, 9). And in the Proverbs of Solomon (viii, 23) she, Wisdom, \nsays, \u2018I was set up from everlasting\u2019. And in the beginning of the Gospel of \nJohn her eternity is openly declared.\u201d \n\nFrom these and many other passages quoted or assimilated by Dante, we \nsee the deep hold that the Gnostic ideas had taken upon his mind, and the v \nclose resemblance that his Wisdom (here and in many other places identified \nwith the Logos and the Second Person of the Trinity) bears to that spiritual \nintuition, or secret Knowledge of Divine things, common to mystics of all ages. \nThe highest Good, beyond which there is nothing to aspire to, Dante tells us, \nis that blessedness (or beatitude) which follows the exercise of the soul in con\u00ac \ntemplation 2 . He has a vision of this beatitude as a child, he loses it for awhile \nin the busy whirl of the active life, the pursuits of the world, the cares of the \nstate and the family, the duties of the soldier, the studies of the poet, the artist, \nthe musician, and the scientist (for the many-sided Dante was all these), but \nat last the vision of the higher life, as he had seen it when a boy, came back to \nhim, and he returned to the love of Divine Wisdom, that \u201csplendour of the \nliving Light Eternal\u201d. \n\n\u201cAnd thus it appears\u201d, says Dante, in the Banquet , \u201cthat our beatitude, that is, \nthis felicity of which we are speaking, we may first find imperfectly in the active \nlife, that is, in the exercise of the moral virtues, and then almost perfectly in the \ncontemplative life, that is, in the exercise of the intellectual virtues; which two \noperations are unimpeded and most direct ways to lead us to the supreme \nbeatitude that cannot be obtained here below.\u201d \n\nThe schoolmen of Dante\u2019s time, who based their philosophical speculations \nupon the system of Aristotle, defined the intellect as the capability of receiving \nabstract ideas, the possibility of understanding, in short, and therefore this was \ncalled the \u201cpossible intellect\". It was compared to a mirror, and ideas to the \nreflections therein, and Aristotle was the first to recognize that as this faculty \nbore the same relation to pure conceptions that the sense of sight does to visible \nthings, it was necessary to admit also the existence of an active principle which \nshould stand to this in the relation of light to the sense of vision. This principle \nAristotle called the \u201cActive Intelligence \", and in the union of this with the \nPossible Intellect , is consummated, he said, the act of pure comprehension. \nThis Active Intelligence is universal, immortal, perpetual; \u201cthe intellectual life \nthrough her is the greatest beatitude to which man can aspire; indeed, it marks \nhim more than man, divine\u201d. So that Dante was following his master closely \nwhen he wrote: \u201cIn every noble soul is its own virtue, and the intellectual and \n\n\n1 Identical with the \"Concentration\u201d of Patanjali.\u2014 Author. \n\n\n\n\n\n162 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nthe divine\u201d, and again in the Banquet , when he speaks of mind as \u2018\u2018that cul\u00ac \nminating and most precious part of the soul, which is Deity\u201d (Banquet, iii, 3). \n\nDante, then, in identifying Beatrice with the Logos, with \u201cthat eternal Love \nwhich is Wisdom\u201d, identifies her with that principle that Theosophists would \ncall Buddhi , or Spiritual Wisdom, the vehicle by which the Supreme (or Atma) \nenters into and illuminates the mind of man. For to Dante, who followed \nclosely the system of Aristotle, ideas corresponded to things seen; the intellect \nto the sense of sight; and the intelligence or intuition (\u201cthat most precious part \nof the soul which is Deity\u201d) to the light by whose aid alone the sense of sight \ncan perceive visible things. \u201cIn every noble soul is its own virtue, and the \nintellectual, and the divine\u201d, and so (while realizing that all such divisions are \n- but varying aspects of the Consciousness, not different entities), Dante divides \nthe soul into life , which is one in all things (corresponding to Prana) ; into \nfeeling , which includes desire and passion (corresponding to Kama ); and into \nreason (or Manas) which he divides into the higher and lower, the imaginative \nand creative, and the reasoning or logical faculties. \u2018\u2018And thus\u201d, he says, \u2018\u2018the \nsoul partakes of the Divine nature in the form of sempiternal Intelligence\u201d \n(which we should call Buddhi ), \u2018\u2018because the soul, by virtue of this sovereign \npower, is so ennobled and set free from matter, that the Divine Light, as in \nthe angels, can shine through her\u201d. \u2018\u2018And this Divine Wisdom\u201d, says Dante, \nquoting from the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon , \u2018\u2018is the brightness of the \nEverlasting Light (or Atma), the unspotted mirror of the majesty of God\u201d. \n\nThere could scarcely be a closer parallel with the theosophic ideas than this, \nand many more such passages could be cited, both from Dante\u2019s prose and his \npoetry. No less significant is that chapter of the Banquet (iv, 21) wherein he \nexplains the conditions necessary to growth in spiritual knowledge as they have \nbeen so often explained to us, the absoluteness of the law that when the vessel \nis ready, it will be filled, and that if some are made to honour and some to \ndishonour, as St. Paul says, it is because they have made themselves fit for \nsuch various use. If a man purify his soul, \u2018\u2018he shall be a vessel unto honour, \nsanctified, and meet for the Master\u2019s use, and prepared unto every good work\u201d \n(2 Tim. ii, 21). \n\n\u201cAnd if it happen\u201d, says Dante, \u201cthat by the purity of the receiving soul the \nintellectual virtue be absolutely separate and free from any corporeal shadow, \nthen the Divine goodness multiplies in that soul, as in a thing worthy to receive \nit; and further, it multiplies in the soul endowed with this intelligence according \nto her capacity of reception. . . . And some are of opinion that if all these powers \nshould co-operate in the production of a soul according to their most favourable \ndisposition, the Deity would descend upon that soul in such fulness that it \nwould be almost another God incarnate\u201d ( Banquet, iv, 21). \n\nNot all the poetry and philosophy of mysticism embodied in Dante\u2019s New \nLife, however, were sufficient to convince the world at large that it was the \nhistory of a soul that he was writing, and not that of a lover, and so in the \nBanquet (begun even before the New Life was finished, and left uncompleted at \nthe poet\u2019s death), he tried to be even more explicit. In the first part he declares \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE BEATRICE OF DANTE \n\n\n163 \n\nhis object in writing the Banquet to be twofold; firstly, to set forth certain \nteachings which he could give in no other way; and secondly, to clear himself \nfrom the infamy of being held subject to such passion as those who read his \nCanzoni (lyrics) might consider to possess him, whereas not passion but virtue \nwas their moving cause. \u201cAnd I say that Love held discourse within my mind, \nthat it might be understood that this Love was bom of the noblest part of our \nnature, that is, of Truth and Virtue, and also to exclude any false opinion of \nme, by which my love might be suspected of being a sensuous delight\u201d. . . . \n\u201cBy my lady\u201d, he says again, \u201cI always mean that Philosophy treated of in the \npreceding Canzone\" \u2014that is, Philosophy identified there with Wisdom, \u201cwhich \nexists above all in God, because in Him is supreme Wisdom, and supreme Love, \nand supreme Power, which cannot exist elsewhere, except as it proceeds from \nHim. Therefore the Divine Philosophy is of the Divine Essence, because in \nHim can be nothing added to His Essence; and she is most noble, because the \nDivine Essence is most noble: and she exists in Him perfectly and truly, as it \nwere by eternal wedlock.\u201d \n\nTherefore I think, we may conclude, from Dante\u2019s own words, that his Bea\u00ac \ntrice was the light of Divine Wisdom first made manifest to him in his youth, \nthen for a time obscured by the shadows of the world, to shine out more clearly \nthan ever as he neared the end of his mortal pilgrimage. He spent the last \nnineteen years of his life in loneliness and exile, occupied with his greatest work, \nthe Divine Comedy , and writing at the same time the Banquet , a prose exposi\u00ac \ntion of his philosophy, full of hints as to the hidden meaning of his symbolism, \nso often and so grossly misunderstood. To a man whose thoughts continually \nsoared above the earthly plane, whose very features bore such marks of pro\u00ac \nfound study and profound sorrow, that the Florentine women pointed at him \nas he passed, and said: \u201cThere goes the man who has seen Hell\u201d; to a regen\u00ac \nerated soul who had chosen the contemplative life as his beatitude, what need \nwas there of earthly ties? There is no occasion, I think, to stigmatize the wife \nof Dante as unworthy of him, because he did not send for her to join him in \nhis exile: he had become a wandering ghost, wrapped in visions of another world, \nlong before his body was laid to rest in the ancient city of Ravenna. \n\n\u201cAnd since God is the source of our soul\u201d, says the great poet and seer in \nhis last work, \u201cand has made it like unto Himself, therefore this soul desires \nabove all things to return to Him. . . . And because her knowledge is imper\u00ac \nfect, because she has neither experience nor learning, things of little value seem \ngreat to her, and therefore she begins by first desiring them. . . . Wherefore \nwe may see that one desirable thing stands before the next one to the eyes of \nthe soul, almost like a pyramid; for at first the smallest thing hides all the \nrest, and is, as it were, the point of the ultimate subject of desire, which is God, \nstanding at the base of all\u201d ( Banquet , iv, 12). \n\n\u201cTherefore\u201d (says Dante again, in his book on the Monarchy) \u201cthe ineffable \nProvidence of God proposes to man two aims; the one the beatitude of this life, \nwhich consists in the operation of his peculiar faculties, and is represented by \nthe tcrre^al paradise: the other the beatitude of the eternal life, which con- \n\n\n164 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nsists in the fruition of the Divine aspect, to which human goodness cannot \nascend if not aided by the Divine light, and this is what is meant by the celestial \nparadise. To these two beatitudes, as to diverse conclusions, we must arrive \nby different ways.\u201d And again, in the Paradiso: \n\nAll natures, by their destinies diverse, \n\nTend more or less close to their origin; \n\nHence they move onward unto different ports \nO'er the great sea of being; and each one \nWith instinct given it, which bears it on. \n\nKatharine Hillard, F.T.S. \n\n\nI have aforetime seen at the opening day , the eastern sky all rosy red, and the \nother parts of the heavens adorned with a beautiful serenity, and the face of the sun \nrise shadowed, so that , tempered by mist, the eye for long could endure it. \n\nThus in a cloud of flowers, which arose from angelic hands, and showered down \nagain within and without, a Lady appeared to me, crowned with olive over a veil of \nsnowy white, and, under a green mantle, clad in hue of living flame. \n\nAnd my spirit, now that so long a time had passed, was not, though trembling, \nbroken down by awe in her presence; and, without having further knowledge of her \nwith my eyes, through some occult virtue that went out from her, felt the great potency \nof the ancient love. \n\nAs soon as smote upon my sight that high virtue which already had transfixed me \nwhile I was as yet a boy, I turned me to the left with the confidence of a little child \nwho runs to his mother when he is afraid or when in trouble , to say to Virgil: Less \nthan a drop of blood is left in me that does not tremble; I know the token of the \nancient flame .\u2014Dante (Purgatorio XXX). \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n\n1 \n\n\nAtew \u00a3*6/e Evidence , by Sir Charles Marston, F.S.A.; Fleming H. Revell Co., \nNew York; price, $2.00. \n\nIn reading this book, we are once more impressed by the immense amount of \nlight thrown, by means of archaeological research, upon what have long been \nconsidered very hazy and questionable traditions. In some of the so-called \ncritical methods of the past few generations, there has been a marked tendency \nto discredit many of the ancient records which have been preserved and which \nhave come down to us; to relegate them, rather contemptuously, to the realm \nof \u201cfairy tales\u201d\u2014as though \u201ceven fairy tales\u201d had no foundation in truth! \nBy means of very painstaking investigation, comparison and analysis, Sir \nCharles Marston, long known to us in connection with excavations in Palestine \nin company with Professor Garstang, has given us striking proof of the reality \nof certain events referred to in the Bible\u2014events, the actual occurrence of \nwhich has been under dispute\u2014and his conclusions are based on very con\u00ac \nvincing archaeological data known but recently. Professor Garstang, for \nmany years in charge of the excavations at Jericho and other ancient cities, has \ndiscovered, after careful and systematic work, much testimony as to the correct \nchronology of the Old Testament from the Exodus onward, and as a result of \npottery-dating (the modem archaeological method), has been able to establish \nthe true date of the conquest of Jericho by Joshua. He places it more than \ntwo centuries earlier than has hitherto been supposed. \n\nThis readjustment of dates\u2014throwing backwards by two hundred and \ntwenty odd years many of the former calculations\u2014does not, however, affect \nPalestine and its history only. It has re-staged, as it were, one of the oldest \nof historical and archaeological mysteries. The date of the Exodus has long been \na matter of dispute, and until very recently it was generally placed in the XIXth \nDynasty, Rameses II being thought the Pharaoh of the Oppression, with \nMemeptah, a weaker follower, as the Pharaoh of the Exodus. But where, \nthen, was the all-powerful \u201cdaughter of Pharaoh\u201d who found the infant Moses \nin the bulrushes, and who befriended him throughout so many troublous years? \nThere is no known woman of the XIXth Dynasty who would seem capable of \nhaving assumed this prominent r 61 e. Now, however, with this revision of \ndates on thoroughly sound, archaeological evidence, we find ourselves moving \nin the gre^^VIIIth Dynasty, with Thothmes III as the Pharaoh of the Op- \n\n165 \n\n\n* \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n166 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\npression, his successor Amenhotep II, as the Pharaoh who (after a prolonged \nstruggle with Jehovah) finally let the Children of Israel go, and the gifted and \nimperious Princess Hatshepsut, direct descendant of the old Theban royal \nline which gave her a unique right to the throne, as the long-sought \u201cPharaoh\u2019s \ndaughter\u201d. All the known facts, as well as the human characteristics which \nhave become so familiar to us, now corroborate the statements of the Old \nTestament. It was only the supposed date which made the reconciliation \ndifficult\u2014though why the truth was not earlier accepted is hard to under\u00ac \nstand, for Josephus, even though usually scoffing at Manetho\u2019s dating, has \ndefinitely given the name of the mysterious Princess as \u201cThermuthis\u201d, and \nit does not take much imagination to reacj. into this name that of Tahutimes or \nThothmes, with the first three of whom she was so closely associated. It will \nbe remembered that Hatshepsut was the daughter of Thothmes I, and was the \nreal heir to the throne, hence her far-reaching influence; that she married \nThothmes II who died soon after, and then the mighty Thothmes III (half \ncommoner), and that many years of struggle for supremacy between these \ntwo ensued, Hatshepsut, because of her \u201cdivine birth\u201d, usually managing to \nretain her royal ascendency. Therefore, so long as Hatshepsut lived, Moses \nwould have had a powerful protector. She was a remarkable woman in every \nway, as all the records show. Is it possible that, as she bent over the lonely \nbaby in his little \u201cark\u201d hidden among the reeds by the river bank, she recog\u00ac \nnized something unusual about him\u2014the future Initiate which The Secret \nDoctrine tells us he was? Was that, perhaps, part of the mystery of his claim \nupon her? There are many questions as to that first meeting and the later \nconnection which one would like to have answered. When she died, the \u201cOp\u00ac \npression\u201d by the great but uncompromising Thothmes III would have begun, \nand the Exodus, so difficult of accomplishment, would finally be forced under \nAmenhotep II,\u2014by no means a weakling, however, as the obstinate holding \nout against the several plagues would indicate. There is one curious fact which \nwould seem to accord with the dating of the plagues at this period of Egyptian \nhistory. Readers of the Quarterly (January, 1935), may remember that \nthere is a well-known and very interesting record of Thothmes IV, now recog\u00ac \nnized as the son of the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Thothmes IV came to the \nthrone unexpectedly; he was not the original heir, but his elder brother had \ndied prematurely. Could we, perhaps, connect this death with the last of the \nplagues: the death of every \u201cfirst born\u201d in the land? We do not wish to make \nSir Charles Marston responsible for the suggestion, but there can be no doubt \nthat the unlooked-for coming to the throne of the young Prince Thothmes is \ngiven a more prominent place in the ancient annals than such an occurrence \nusually receives. \n\nThe facts put forward in this book are in general most interesting. We \ncannot help feeling, however, that there is an unnecessary amount of repeti\u00ac \ntion of statements and of references\u2014repetition which is confusing rather than \nelucidating, as an over-supply of material to work on is invariably confusing \nuntil well sifted. \\\\ e also feel that some of the philosophizing is without war- \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n167 \n\n\nrant, such, for instance, as the part concerning the evolution of religion, and \nthe statement in regard to Dr. Langdon\u2019s \u201cdiscovery\u201d that monotheism always \nprecedes polytheism. This is not an attempt to throw discredit upon Dr. \nLangdon\u2019s monumental work, Semitic Mythology; but to claim that he discovered \na fact which Theosophy has taught throughout the ages, seems to us to reveal \na very limited knowledge of the subject, and all that has been written upon it. \nThere are other portions of the book with which students of Theosophy will \nnot agree, but there is so much in it of valuable information, that anyone even \nmoderately versed in Bible history or study, will find it very helpful. \n\nT.D. \n\n\nThe Nineteenth Century and After , March, 1937; London; price, 35. \n\nWe call attention to this issue of the well-known English magazine because \nit contains an article by Nesta H. Webster, entitled \u201cMarie Antoinette: A \nSlandered Queen\u201d, which many readers of the Quarterly will wish to read. \nMrs. Webster disposes effectively of the Fersen legend, and deals with the \npseudo-historian, Herr Stefan Zweig, as he deserves. We despise slanderers, \nwhether of the living or the dead, and we despise them all the more when their \nvictim is a woman, and when they assume, like Zweig, that stories against her \nmust be true because they are nasty. There is not a shadow of evidence to \nsupport such accusations against Marie Antoinette, any more than there is in \nthe case of the murdered Empress of Russia. On the contrary, all the evidence, \nand all the human probabilities, exonerate them completely. Herr Zweig goes \nso far as to ignore the existence of Mrs. Sullivan, and Fersen\u2019s avowed relations \nwith her, as he knows it would be impossible to reconcile these with his defama\u00ac \ntion of the Queen. It is not easy to account for this malignant dishonesty (and \nthere are others besides Zweig). \u201cOr is it,\u201d as Mrs. Webster asks, \u201cas Ovid \nrecorded two thousand years ago in his Tristia , that illicit love is a \u2018best seller\u2019? \nThus it must be invented where it never existed in order to commend books \nof small intrinsic worth to the jaded palates of the patrons of lending libraries? \nOr is it that enemies of monarchy, of Christianity, and indeed of European \ncivilization, inflamed with hatred against all that commands reverence, all that \nis hallowed by tradition, hurl themselves against this woman as symbolical of \nthat superiority they have vowed to destroy?\u201d \n\nThe subject concerns members of The Theosophical Society, whose motto is, \n\u201cThere is no Religion higher than Truth\u201d, because, if it be true, as Mrs. Webster \nstates, that a film of Marie Antoinette is shortly to be produced, it is almost \ncertain that the \u201clove interest\u201d will be a sensational version of the Fersen myth, \nas sponsored by Zweig and his compares, \u2014in which case it will be the duty and \nprivilege of all of us to protest against the vulgarization of a great tragedy, and, \nin the name of truth and fair-play and decency, to defend the honour of the \nmartyred ^^een. \n\nCalumny of the dead should be punished as a crime. T. \n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\n168 \n\nMediaeval Legends of Christ, by A. S. Rappoport, Ph.D.; Charles Scribner\u2019s \nSons, New York, 1935; price, $3.00. \n\nThere are, or course, more reasons than one for reading legends, but readers \nwho are drawn by the title of this book to seek in it spiritual food, have dis\u00ac \nappointment in store. It contains a fair number of legends, gathered from a \nmoderate variety of sources, but the compiler has retold them in his own lan\u00ac \nguage\u2014at the sacrifice of beauty, flavour, individuality. Those who love the \nBiblical phraseology, and who are familiar, for instance, with the priest named \nZacharias who walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, \nmay recognize him with difficulty when presented as \u201cthe husband of the in\u00ac \nfant\u2019s aunt\u201d. Similarly, tales from French, Old English or whatever sources, \nwhen divorced from their original quaint form and setting and clothed in the \nsame infelicitous garb, seem rather like a group of little orphans. \n\nWhen motifs, originating perhaps in pagan antiquity, recur among different \npeoples and widely divergent faiths, the compiler, in explanation, offers nothing \ndeeper than the assertion that religious ideas and myths and legends \u201cwander \nall over the world\u2014they are carried hither and thither like light leaves by the \nbreeze, from the East to the West and from the West to the East\u201d. The whole \nfabric of Mediaeval religious life seems not even to be glimpsed by him, nor the \nlong, slow growth of legendary lore through devotion, aspiration and loving \ncontemplation. The measure of his understanding is perhaps indicated in his \nobservation that, \u201cInstead of reasoning and collecting facts, the religious mind \nin legend can dream pleasantly and be instructed as well as entertained\u201d. What\u00ac \never the merits of the book, its aftermath is: Why gather flowers at all, if in\u00ac \nsensible to their beauty and perfume, and impervious to the message they \nbring? J.C. \n\n\nLa Penste et le Mouvant, by Henri Bergson; Librairie F\u00a3lix Alcan, Paris; \nprice, $1.00. \n\nIn our opinion, Bergson is one of the very few philosophers of the twen\u00ac \ntieth century whose work will survive. During the decade before the World \nWar, when his influence was at its height, his power as a moulder of ideas was \ninternational in scope. There can be no doubt that this influence was, on the \nwhole, beneficent. Bergson exposed the inadequacies and fallacies of the \nmechanistic materialism which had become the \u201corthodox\u201d doctrine of so many \nschools. He re-affirmed the existence of Spirit, the significance of conscious\u00ac \nness as the only fact in Nature, the certainty of which is incontestable. Using \nthe evidence assembled by the biologists themselves, he demonstrated that \nevolution is a creative process in which man can participate, if he so will. He \nre-stated the function of the philosopher,\u2014which is, not to invent abstract \nsystems without reference to concrete events, but to meditate upon experi\u00ac \nence. It is a fact that an existent thing can only be known through an experi\u00ac \nence of it. . . . This experience bears the name of \u2018intuition\u2019 when its object \nis Spirit. . . . This metaphysical experience is akin to that of the great \nmystics.\u201d \n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n169 \n\nWith the exception of two introductory chapters, \u201cThought and Motive \nForce is a collection of essays and lectures dating from 1903 to 1923. Many \nchapters are quite technical, dealing with subjects which can scarcely interest \nthe general reader. In particular, Bergson returns again and again to the \nproblem of time. He discovered, or rather re-discovered, a truth, which should \nalways be self-evident: that mathematical time\u2014the \u201cdivided time\u201d of our \nclocks is an invention of the mind; that real time or duration is continuous \nand indivisible, since it is inseparable from the Han vital , the stream of con\u00ac \nsciousness, the universal creative energy. But he assumes too readily that \nthere can be no Being apart from flux and change. He questions the validity \nof the ancient doctrine that all time, all transition is \u201ca moving image of Eter\u00ac \nnity , for he seems to believe that this \u201cEternity\u201d is a mathematical term \ncorresponding to nothing outside the intellect. However, the reality of the \nEternal, of immutable and timeless Being, is a fundamental proposition of all \ngreat metaphysical traditions. It is legitimate to regard it, not as an arbitrary \nassumption of the intellect, but as a deduction from actual \u201cmetaphysical \nexperience\u201d. \n\nIt may be argued that \u201cmetaphysical experience\u201d is the basis of the unify- \ngeneralizations by which classical philosophy has under various forms rep\u00ac \nresented the inner oneness of the Universe. The Ideas of Plato, the One of \nPlotinus, the Substance of Spinoza, the undivided Self of the Vedanta, point \nto the possibility, nay the certainty, that the unmanifested essence of Nature, \nas well as its manifested ever-changing form , can become an object of real \nknowledge. In Greek mythology, Chronos, the lord of things temporal, is the \noffspring of Uranus, the everlasting Heaven. \n\nBergson s tendency to question the truth within these magnificent concepts \nmay be partly explained by the fact that their content becomes barren when \nthe \u201cmetaphysical experience\u201d which justifies them is not perpetually re\u00ac \nnewed. The Hegelian idealism of the nineteenth century was as void of life \nand meaning as the materialism which it opposed. It might even be said that \nthe materialists were closer to the truth because they at least had some con\u00ac \ntact with experience, however limited it might be, whereas the idealists were \nfor the most part only playing with ideas as a pure mathematician plays with \nformulae. Bergson\u2019s principal aim seems to have been to induce both the ideal\u00ac \nist and the materialist to repeat the experiment of Descartes, to recover the \nimmediate vision of reality. When the mind is crowded with lifeless ideas, \nit would seem that its only salvation is a return to experience, which implies \na tentative rejection of all that it thinks it knows, a vigorous investigation \nof the sources of all conceptions. It is interesting to note that the philosophers \nof France have through the centuries been especially active as defenders of \nthis experimental method of approaching truth.- One need only mention \nDescartes, Pascal, F^nelon, Maine de Biran. \n\nBergson acknowledges a particular indebtedness to a French philosopher of \nthe nineteenth century, Ravaisson. Ravaisson was one of the most remark\u00ac \nable men of his time, although he is unfortunately little known outside France. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n170 \n\n\nTHE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nTherefore, the essay on his work which is included in the present volume is of \nexceptional value and interest. One is impressed by the theosophical trend of \nRavaisson\u2019s thought. Two citations from Bergson\u2019s essay should make this \nclear. In the first, reference is made to Ravaisson\u2019s little treatise on \u201cHabit\u201d. \n\nThe author actually presents here his philosophy of nature. What is nature? How \nare we to represent its inner being? What does it hide under the regular succession of \ncauses and effects? Does it hide something, or can it be reduced, in the last analysis, to \na wholly superficial complex of movements which work into one another mechanically? \nIn conformity with his principle, Ravaisson seeks the solution of this general problem \nby means of a very concrete intuition, the intuition of our own mode of being when we \ncontract a habit. For a \u201cmotor habit\u201d, once contracted, is a mechanism, a series of \nmovements which determine one another: it is that part of us which is inserted in nature \nand which coincides with nature; it is nature itself. Moreover, our inner experience \nshows us in every habit an activity which has passed, by insensible degrees, from con\u00ac \nsciousness to unconsciousness, from the voluntary to the automatic. Is it not under this \nform, as an obscured consciousness and a dormant will, that we should represent nature? \nHabit thus provides the living demonstration of this truth that mechanism is not self- \nsufficient: it is, so to speak, only the fossilized residue of a spiritual activity. \n\nThis is an admirable example of reasoning from the known to the unknown, \nand also of seeking in consciousness, in the inner world, the explanation of the \nmaterial and the external. Incidentally, it recalls the antithesis between pu- \nrusha and prakriti, between the spirit and its vesture, which is the central theme \nof the Sankhya system of ancient India, and which is so familiar to all readers \nof the Bhagavad Gita. \n\nIn a complementary passage, Bergson illustrates Ravaisson\u2019s analogy be\u00ac \ntween the exfoliation of the Universe and the creative act of the artist. \n\nIf life be a creation, we should be able to represent its analogy with the creations which \nwe can observe, that is, with those which we accomplish ourselves. In artistic creation, \nfor example, the material to be used\u2014words and images, forms and colours, rhythms and \nharmonies seems to be spontaneously set in order under the impulsion of the idea which \nit must express, attracted, as it were, in some way by the charm of a superior ideality. \nIs there not an analogous movement, a state of fascination, which we should attribute to \nthe material elements when they are organized in living beings? In the view of Ravaisson, \nthe force which originates life is of the same nature as that of persuasion. But whence \ncome the materials which have undergone this enchantment? To this question, the \nhighest of all, Ravaisson replies by revealing in the original production of matter a move\u00ac \nment which is the inverse of that which occurs when matter is organized. If organiza\u00ac \ntion be like an awakening of matter, matter may be only the spirit falling to sleep. It is \nthe last degree, the shadow of an existence which has attenuated itself and, so to speak, \nemptied itself of its content. If matter be \u201cthe base of natural existence, the base from \nwhich\u2014by that continuous progress which is the order of nature, passing from degree \nto degree, from kingdom to kingdom\u2014all returns to the unity of the spirit\u201d, inversely, we \nshou d represent at the beginning a distension of the spirit, a diffusion in space and time, \nwhich constitutes materiality. The infinite Thought \u201chas annulled some part of the \nplenitude of its being, in order to draw forth from this, by a kind of awakening and \nresurrection, all that exists.\u201d ... 'I hus the Universe is presented to us as the external \naspect of a reality which, seen from within and known as it is in itself, appears to us as a \ntree gift, as a great act of generosity and love. \n\n\nS.V. \n\n\nCORRESPONDENCE \n\n\n171 \n\nFaiths and Fellowship (World Congress of Faiths, London, 1936), with Fore\u00ac \nword by Sir Francis Younghusband; J. M. Watkins, 21 Cecil Court, London, \n1937; price, 155. \n\nThis volume contains addresses by representatives of the different faiths of \nthe world,\u2014by men such as Dr. Suzuki, Sir S. Radhakrishnan, Professor J. \nEmile Marcault, Mr. S. I. Hsiung, A. Yusuf Ali, Professor Berdiaeff, S. N. Das \nGupta, Sir Abdul Qadir, and others, with a resume of the discussions, together \nwith a report of the public meetings held in London as part of the proceedings. \nThe Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda is President of the Congress, which will \nmeet again this year, July 23rd to 27th, at Oxford, England. \n\nThe addresses, and the discussions which followed, are of great and lasting \ninterest. The Congress met on the understanding that no religion should be \nregarded as exclusively true, but as complementary one to the other, and as \nmutually contributory to World Fellowship. We hope to revert to the contents \nlater, but mention the book now, as we have been asked to announce the meet\u00ac \ning at Oxford in July. The publisher, Mr. J. M. Watkins, is to be congratulated \non the admirable appearance of his volume. H. \n\n\nCORRESPONDENCE \n\nTo the Editors of the Theosophical Quarterly: \n\nI happened to pick up a copy of the Quarterly for January, 1937, in the \nLibrary, and noticed that you are friends with all religions; but on page 73 \nyou say, \u201cUnconcerned about politics; hostile to the insane dreams of Socialism \nand of Communism, which it abhors\u201d. That seemed a bit odd to me because \nthe Federal Council of Churches has a socialist programme, which it appears \nnow to be making an integral part of its religion\u2014\u201cto bring the Kingdom of \nGod on earth\u201d, as they say. Therefore, if you are hostile to Socialism, you are \nhostile to Protestant Christianity, because socialism is basic to Protestant \nChristianity at least in the United States. Personally I do not blame you for \nbeing hostile to Socialism, but it does seem a bit contradictory. \n\nI was interested to read about Theosophy in the encyclopaedia. The Quar\u00ac \nterly says that you have no creed or dogma, but the basic principles as an\u00ac \nnounced by H.P.B. certainly are \u201capriorism\u201d\u2014quite. That means as a neces\u00ac \nsary consequence\u2014dogma. I have studied some of the beliefs current in India, \nand what I read of Theosophy is indeed suggestive of India. Perhaps in the \nQuarterly it might have been more clearly expressed by saying that Theos\u00ac \nophy has dogma and plenty of it, but its dogma is not insisted upon for mem\u00ac \nbership\u2014much as is the case with the more liberal Christian churches. \n\nTheosophy is primarily interested in finding the \u201ctruth\u201d. That is what all \nChristians want, except those who believe that they already have it! But if \nyou will pardon the observation, the method of \u201capriorism\u201d does not appeal to \nme to be ^yalid method. Certainly that of Kant was not. But I will say \nthat the method Theosophy uses is as good as that of the more liberal Christian \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n172 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nchurches\u2014but not more so. However, it seems to me problematical in the \nextreme, if Theosophy ever will find the \u201ctruth\u201d, any more than will Christianity. \n\nCertainly the lore of the East does not seem as likely to be fruitful of results \nas does the thought of Hegel, Berkeley, Hume and Hobbes among the moderns, \nor of the little appreciated Cameades among the ancients. Perhaps that has \nsomething to do with the reason why Theosophy has divided into East and \nWest branches. However, I do not condemn esoteric thought ipso facto; it \nwould depend upon what that esoteric thought is. No, I could not agree with the \ncollege boy, who was disgusted with the Quarterly, and I hope you will excuse \nthe liberty of expressing some views anent Theosophy, as merely a superficial \nobserver. A Reader. \n\n\nReply \n\n1. That which seems to the writer of the foregoing letter \u201ca bit contradic\u00ac \ntory\u201d, is the result of a two-fold misunderstanding. First, neither the Theo- \nsophical Quarterly nor the Society of which it is the official organ, has any \nconnection with any Church, whether Protestant, Roman, Buddhist or other. \nSecond, the Federal Council of Protestant Churches in America speaks for a \nsection only of Protestant Christianity, that is, for the radical, humanitarian \nelement in Protestantism, which reverses the teaching of Christ by giving \nlove of our neighbour priority over \u201cthe first and great commandment\u201d,\u2014 \nlove of \u201cthe Lord thy God\u201d, the result of which reversal is to treat man\u2019s per\u00ac \nsonal comfort as of primary importance, and to regard his relations with the \nspiritual world and his own soul, as the result, not the cause, of his environ\u00ac \nment. Fortunately for America, there are still great numbers of Protestants \nwho do not fall into this crude error, and who do not believe that mankind \ncan be legislated into the kingdom of heaven. \n\n2. Articles in encyclopaedias are often written by doctrinaires whose knowl\u00ac \nedge is clouded by their bias as well as by their sense of superiority. Articles \non Theosophy in the Encyclopcedia Britannica are superficial, and in many \nimportant respects, misleading. It is more profitable to read a book by a \nTheosophist, such as The Ocean of Theosophy , by William Q. Judge. Echoes \nfrom the Orient , also by Judge, serves as an admirable introduction to the \nsubject. \n\nTheosophy relies as much upon the a posteriori as upon the a priori method. \nIt is not content to reason from cause to effect, or from universals to particulars, \nbut insists upon the need to \u201cprove all things\u201d by verifying deductions in \nthe light of experience. For example, while it is legitimate to postulate the \nexistence of the soul, and to believe in it, the student of Theosophy considers \nit his duty to seek within himself the evidence which will turn his belief into \nknowledge. It is one of the basic principles of Theosophy that knowledge is \nobtainable. \n\n4. It is not stated in the Quarterly or elsewhere that Theosophy is without \ndogma, but that the Society as such has \u201cno creed, dogma, nor personal au- \n\n\n\nCORRESPONDENCE \n\n\ni 73 \n\n\nthority to enforce or impose\u201d. The writer of \u201csome views anent Theosophy\u201d \nis quite correct in saying that \u201cTheosophy has dogma and plenty of it\u201d. See- \ning that Theosophy is the ancient Wisdom Religion from which all other reli\u00ac \ngions were derived, it necessarily has dogmas, which, after all, simply means \nthat it has doctrines. \n\n5. It is important, however, to distinguish between Theosophy as Divine \nWisdom, \u201ceternal in the heavens\u201d, and Theosophy as indicated in the writings \nof Madame Blavatsky, Judge and others. It is impossible to do more than \nindicate Divine Truth in human terms. Knowledge is obtainable, but only \nby becoming the Truth that is. Reason can guide us, as Virgil guided Dante, \nbut only to the threshold of knowledge, after which, vision\u2014direct experience \n\u2014leads the way to Union. In the same way, Christianity will not \u201cfind\u201d the \ntruth; it is the Truth, like all the great religions. But this eternal Truth could \nbe expressed in symbols and in parables only, as in the mystery of the divine \nlife and death and resurrection, and Christians (though hardly any realize it) \ncan find the whole Truth in no other way than by union with Christ, who is \nthe Way, the Truth, and the Life,\u2014the source, if they use it, of their ultimate \nimmortality. \n\n6. It is not usual to bracket such divergent thinkers as Hegel, Berkeley, \nHume and Hobbes, but, in the light of Theosophy, which reconciles so many \nseeming contradictories, all of them may be studied with advantage as repre\u00ac \nsenting visible rays in the spectrum of Truth; Cameades too, for that matter, \nthough we should soon outgrow the stage at which a philosophy of scepticism \nis helpful; a cathartic is not a diet. \n\n7. We are glad to receive criticisms of Theosophy or of the Quarterly, \nand are much obliged to our correspondent for the opportunity he provides \nto remove misconceptions under which others of our readers may have laboured. \n\nThe Editors of the Theosophical Quarterly. \n\n\nLet not thy peace depend on the tongues of men; for , whether they judge well of \nthee or ill , thou art not on that account other than thyself .\u2014 Thomas A Kempis. \n\n\nNot in the clamour of the crowded street , \n\nNot in the shouts and plaudits of the throng , \n\nBut in ourselves are triumph and defeat. \n\n\u2014Longfellow. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nQuestion No. 401. \u2014It is said that we have the faults of our virtues. Could this be illustrated? \nHave we also the virtues of our faults? \n\nAnswer. \u2014We may be determined and persevering; we must take care not to become \nobstinate and opinionated. A man of aggressive courage may become rash, and so jeopardize \nall for which he is striving. In being charitable to the weaknesses of others, we may be over\u00ac \ncome with sentimentality. And so on. Every fault in us has, as its opposite, a corresponding \nvirtue, into which that fault can be changed. But we only have these virtues potentially, \nuntil we have done something about it; until we have recognized the need for their attain\u00ac \nment, have desired in our hearts their attainment above all things, and have set our faces \nand have aligned our wills to that end. C.R.A. \n\nAnswer. \u2014An article by Mr. Griscom, entitled \u201cVanity\u201d, in the Theosophical Quarterly \nfor January, 1919, gives an illuminating table of virtues, faults and sins. The article states: \n\u201cEvery spiritual quality has its defective operation or negative aspect, and its polar opposite. \nA defective operation or negative aspect of a virtue is a fault. Its polar opposite is a sin.\u201d \nMr. Griscom gave as examples of this: humility (virtue), pride (fault), vanity (sin). Again: \nlove (virtue), indifference (fault), self-love (sin). \n\nThe virtues of most of us are only partially developed, are shot through and through with \nsome form of self, and are at best but a pale reflection of those of a Master. We are able to \nrecognize virtues but dimly through the veils of our personalities. Mr. Griscom\u2019s definition \nof a fault, therefore, should prove helpful in enabling us to discover not only what are some \nof our faults, but of which of the virtues they are the \u201cdefective operation or negative aspect\u201d. \nIf the ideal of perfection exemplified in our own individual Master is kept constantly before \nus, and an honest and determined effort made to obey the admonition, \u201cMan know thyself\u201d, \nwe shall become more keenly aware of our faults, and at the same time sharpen our perception \nof the virtues we have perverted. Such a practice would also help us to purify our motives, \nand assist us in avoiding the danger of thinking that the possession of a virtue in and of itself \nis necessarily of any real merit. Our ideal should be to regard the elimination of faults and \nthe acquisition of virtues as aids in making us better instruments for the work of Masters. \n\nG.H.M. \n\nAnswer, \u2014We have powers, which are faults or virtues in accordance with the way in which \nthey are used and our purpose in using them. That which springs from self-love, or is directed \nto its gratification, is a fault. The same power used for an end other than self, a purpose of \nrighteousness, becomes a virtue. Our task is to transform all our faults into virtues, to re\u00ac \nclaim the force we have locked in them, and to use it for the Masters\u2019 purposes. Timidity, \nfor instance, is a fault, but prudence, and the power to estimate risks accurately, are virtues. \nRecklessness is a fault, but the power to \u201cdare the impossible\u201d, to run any and all risks, with\u00ac \nout a thought of the danger, when duty or the service of one\u2019s cause demands it, is a virtue \nessential to manliness. All our powers are divine in origin. Perhaps we might say that a \n\n\n174 \n\n\nI \n\n\nQUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 175 \n\nvirtue is the habit of using a given force for the purposes of the soul; a fault is the habit of \nperverting it to the use of the personality. J.F.B.M. \n\nQuestion No. 402. \u2014Is there any advantage in choosing work which n goes against the grain \u201d, \nif one can find some congetiial occupation which would not involve neglect of an obvious duty? Do \nnot people do best the work they enjoy? \n\nAnswer. \u2014The wording of the question is obscure. Does one put the finding of a congenial \noccupation first, and make the performance of obvious duties incidental to it? Why should \none choose work simply because it \u201cgoes against the grain\u201d, when it has nothing to do with \nany obvious duty? \n\nOnce we have set our faces towards ch\u00a3laship, there cannot possibly be any more congenial \noccupation, there is nothing we can enjoy more, than the performance of our duties, or those \nthings which we are able to recognize as duties, at the point at which we find ourselves. At \nthat stage, all our duties may not be obvious. We shall have to ask ourselves, \u201cIs this not a \nduty?\u201d As we seek, we shall find. As we grow, as our performance improves, new duties will \nbe added unto us, new privileges, new opportunities for service. After a while, we shall not \nhave time to look for congenial occupations. Nothing will be congenial but the doing of that \nwhich is our duty. There will be no time, no desire, for anything else. \n\nFinally, we shall find ourselves asking, \u201cIs this a duty? Will the Work be aided or bene\u00ac \nfited in any way by my interesting myself in it? Of what real, practical value is it to the \nMovement?\u201d If it fails to measure up in these terms, we discard it, whether it is congenial, \nor whether it goes against the grain. Nor, if it is the latter, need we fear that we are missing \nsome opportunity for inner growth and development. If we are wholeheartedly trying to \nexpand an ever-widening field of duties, we shall find, in their very multiplicity, enough of \nthose which go against the grain to afford us ample opportunity for hardening and toughening \nour moral fibre. Nor will it be for long that they will \u201cgo against the grain\u201d, once we realize \nthe opportunity that they present. C.R.A. \n\n\nAnswer. \u2014Let us, first, get our planes straightened out. Man is a creature of dual nature; \nhe has a Higher Self and a lower self, the latter created by himself through his misuse of divine \nforce. This lower self is essentially selfish, and grasps at, and clings to, whatever it finds con\u00ac \ngenial. These two natures within man are in constant conflict, man\u2019s immortality depending \non the Higher Self regaining its sovereign authority over his whole nature. Hence it is safe \nto surmise that the Higher Self and the lower self are not, necessarily, in accord as to congenial \noccupations. The probability is, that usually they are at variance on the subject. The lower \nself seeks to have its own will. The Higher Self is concerned with the will of the Father, and \nwith training the whole nature to be an instrument for carrying out the Father\u2019s work. Any \noccupation furthering that work would be congenial to the Higher Self, no matter how it might \ngo against the grain of the lower self. It would be part of the training of the latter. Of course, \nit may be a duty, sometimes, to do work that the lower self finds congenial, which allows the \nexercise, for the sake of others, of some talent one has developed in the past. However, it \nshould be clear that against-the-grain work can create new talents, which, added to previous \nacquirements, can make us more useful for any task which may be set by the Father. The \nanswer to life is not to be found in what is congenial or enjoyable to the lower self, but in how \nbest to develop new talents which, through the Higher Self, are placed at the disposal of the \nFather. G.M.W.K. \n\n\n\nAnswer. \u2014The application of common-sense is the best solution of such problems. If it is \na question of the best means of earning a living, it would clearly be wrong and also foolish \nnot to select one which would best promote the discharge of that duty, regardless of whether \nor not it \u201cwent against the grain\u201d. In the case of an aspirant for ch61aship, any harmless act \nof self-dis^J^ne, self-imposed, would be fruitful,\u2014that is, so long as it is not carried out at \nthe expensrof others. G.H.M. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTICE OF CONVENTION \nThe Theosophical Society \n\n\nTo the Branches of The Theosophical Society: \n\nMews T New n Yo U rk ***** be held at 6 <' Washi ^ ton \n\n2 LTl- u? d y ' Apnl 2< * th - > 937 , beginning at 10:30 a. m. \n\nTbeseXt \u201c\"iT \u00ab \u00bb \u201c\" d \u2014* \n\nwho is resident in New York or is to attend th r ' t0 ^ \u00b0 ffi ^ er \u00b0 T member of the Society \n\n\u2014 \u2022> \"*\u00bb>\u00bb.:\u00ab\u00a32r\"\u201c Th \u201c \u201c \u00ab\u25a0\u201c \u2022>\u00bb \n\n?\u25a0ter*,, t. s. iw \n\nby a complete list of officers and member^ \u00b0\u2018th W \u00b0 rk an< * should be accompanied \n\nstatement of the numW7*^' X s \u20191 T\u2122 ** \u00b0 f als \u00b0 a \n\nand time of Branch meetings , , unng the year; also a record of the place \n\n4. Members-at-trgeltviSto Tend tc ^ \u2018 he ? S ' by April '*\u25a0 \n\nhers, whether delegates or not, will be welcome \u00b0 n \u00b0 n SCSS10ns; an <* all Branch mem- \n\nto to. w Ur*\u201d \u00b0' y ~\u2018- ,h ' - d ~ \"< *\"\u25a0 C\u00bb\u2122*ton \u00ab \n\nb \u2018 \"\u2122< \u201c * W *tohtt\u00bb \n\nI. E. Perkins, \n\nSecretary, The Theosophical Society, \n\nFebruary 15th, 1937. \u2018 U * Box 64 \u2019 Station 0 , New York, N. Y. \n\n\nNOTICE OF MEETINGS \n\nThe regular meetings of the New York Branch nf nru \n\nalternate Saturday evenings, at 64, Washington Mews which S \u00b0 C ' ety are held on \n\nAvenue, midway between Eighth Street and Washington Sn , f . rom the \u00ab*t side of Fifth \nsud,\u00b0 east of Fifth Avenue, on the north side ofthe Mews T N \u00b0' 6 < is tha first \n\neight, and close at ten o'clock. There will be meetings oT \u201cs 5 begin at half 'Past \n\nOut-of-town members of the Societ^arT 'C j\u2019 ^ ay ISt ' \n\n\u2022to to New Veto. Visitore .he he totted to'** \n\n\nSTANDARD BOOKS \n\nBlavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled, Vols I Ann ti \n\nK>v Tn m Complete in one book **. doth - *12.50 \n\nKey to Theosophy. ... .doth, 7.50 \n\nSecret Doctrine, The, Vols. I and' n'i\u2122 . cIoth > 3 50 \n\nTheosophical Glos^rT\u201d in \u00b0\u201c book \u2019 withont *\u00bbWect-tod\u00ab VitaS: \n\nC.ave. Fragments, Volume i . fabric, \n\nVolume II .boordB, \n\nn . ,, . Volume .. k*\u2122*. \n\nu?n ar \u00a3 oh . n - Lbtters to Friends .board*, \n\nHillard, Katherine. Abridgment of thr r\u00bb.board*, \n\nJohnston, Charles. Bhagavad Gita* 5? CR f T Doctrink - doth, \n\n\u201e _ .Trandated, annotated: doth, \n\n^rest Jewel of Wisdom The ,imp leath * r . \n\nGreat Upanishads, The, Volume I . . . \n\nParables of the Kingdom The .doth, \n\nPatanjali\u2019s Yoga Sutras...... .'-C'V;..P*p\u00abr, \n\nSong of Life, The .iruwlated, annotated; doth. \n\nJudge, William Q. Bhagavad Gita.eh;'^.' 'i\u2019d '. pap \u201c> \n\nCulture of Concentration .*\" lted; oU \u201c h * \u00bb\u2022\u00bb* leather, \n\nEchoes from the Orient .paper, \n\n, r . Patanjali\u2019s Yoga Aphorisms. .doth, \n\nKeighdey Archibald. Theosophy as an'Tn^ V * V. cteth . \n\nLaDow, Stanley V. Plotinus e Life paper, \n\nMitchell, Henry Bedinger. Meditation\" IV-I-. . \n\nmhSTf'b s T e \" anb 2 *. \n\nvIlue '. . '.. .. . .\u00b0. L . L . E . GU . TB . Eoucat,on and Standards \n\nSinnett, A. P. Esoteric Buddhism. . \n\nOccult World, The .doth, \n\nIdyll of the White Lotus. doth. \n\nLight on the Path . cloth, \n\nThrough the Gates of Gold .leather, \n\n.doth, \n\n\n2.25 \n\n2.50 \n1.00 \n\n1.50 \n1.50 \n1.50 \n1.T5 \n3.00 \nlo25 \n1.75 \n1.25 \n1.50 \n\n.50 \n\n1.25 \n\n\u202275 \n\n1.50 \n\n\u202225 \n\n\u202225 \n\n1.00 \n\n1.00 \n\n1.00 \n\n\u202220 \n\n\u202250 \n\n\u202250 \n\n\u202220 \n\n\n.10 \n\n2.50 \n\n2.50 \n\n.50 \n\n1.75 \n\n1.35 \n\n.85 \n\n1.20 \n\n\nTHE QUARTERLY BOOK DEPARTMENT, \n\nP. Q. Box 64, Station 0, New York. \n\n\nab>e.ofth.iangd^^^^^ \n\nPhilosophical: Abridgment of the Secret Doctrmp* t \u2022 t* -i ,ce \u00b01 the Silence. \n\nPlotinus; Reincarnation; The Secret Dn^n?\u00b0T tI n le \u2019 ,V\u00b0 ve ^l; Key to Theosophy* \nTransactions; Patanjali\u2019s YogaSutras! Ta baon Religion; Theosophical GkJSry; \n\ntt\u00ab MM BMU*, \n\nThe Theojanhical Society and TWphy \u00b0 CCult World i ^ Ocean of Theosophy: \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nL. XXXIV, No. 3 \n\n\nFounded by R, p. Blavafsky at llew York In 1875 \n\n\n|HE Society does not pretend to be able \n\n\n, \u00ab--- -v ioviv to establish \n\nat once a universal brotherhood among men, hot \nonly strives to create the nucleus of such a body. \n\ny \u00b0* Its members believe that an acquaintance \nwith the world s religions and philosophies will \nreveal, as the common and fundamental principle \n\n\nunderlying these, that \"spiritual identity of 7l SoukSX \n\nW L C t \u201c% ba3isof *\u00ab* brotherhood, and man! \n\nof nature 4 and mTnwill stillf\u00abXr emKie^Ls^eyeS \n\ndovIi e n^\u201c^?.\u201c \u201c L \" h ?L ,jr . sectarian, with no creed. \n\n\nmmmwm \n\nfraternal goodwill andttSCxT does h . ereb y proclaim \nTheosophy and members of d te m l - Tc^. aU stod entsof \nand however sitSK It fufc\u2122'. 1 f 00 * 4 *\" wherever \nhearty sympathy S ^ avers its \n\norganisations inwall theosoohirlf sucfl Persons and \n\ngovernment and administration nia t te * s except those of \n\"\u25a0\u00ab*<\u00bb and \u00a3%%\u00a3\u00a3* \u201c<* \u00ab\"*\u00ab* tbeir cor. \n\nreligious (wlietwho'almat'thc iosterina CreetJ ' r 7 ce ' \n\nand unselfish regard one for peace, gentleness# \n\nsuch knowledge of men and nature as'shafi SV. Cq *t ^ of \ntion and advancement of the human * S * enc * f\u00b0 the eleva- \n\u2022\u2022^WaiidlrMlyprofferstevS SendS \u201c 0St\u00a3f i e ndly \n\narodifKted tothepurif&o^of ^religious bodies whose \n\nwisdom upon whatever pW ^ searchers after \n\nmeanspursued, it \u00ab and \u00bb,fir l d V whatever righteous \n\n\nPUBLISHED BY \n\nTHE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Theosophical Quarterly \n\n\nSubscription price, $2.00 per annum; single copies, 50 cents \n\nPublished by The Theosophical Society \nat 64 Washington Mews, New York, N.Y. \n\nJanuary; April; July; October \n\nAddress all communications to P. O. Box 64 , Station O, New York \n\n\nIn Europe, single copies may be obtained from and subscriptions may be sent to John \nM. Watkins, 21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, London, W. C. 2, England; or to \nMr. E. H Lincoln, 9 Beaconsfield Road, Low Fell, Gateshead-on-Tyne, England, from \nwhom all back numbers may be obtained. Annual subscription price, $2.00, postpaid. \n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. XXXIV, NO. 3 \nJuly, 1937 \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS. \n\nFRAGMENTS. \n\nTHE CORONATION. \n\nTHE STONE OF DESTINY. \n\nMAN, THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS. \n\n\u201cMAN, KNOW THYSELF\". \n\nFOLLOW UP!. \n\nT.S. ACTIVITIES: Convention Report; Letters op Greeting \nREVIEWS. \n\nQUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. \n\n\nPAGE \n\n\u2022 i79 \n. 191 \n\n\u2022 i93 \n\n\u2022 i 97 \n\n. 200 \n. 209 \n. 2T2 \n\n\u25a0 215 \n\n\u25a0 255 \n263 \n\n\nAct of March 3, 187^\u00b0\" \u00b0 laS3 matter September 5, 1933, at the Post Office at New York, \n\n\nin. Y., under the \n\n\nCopyright, 1937, by The Theosophical Society \n\n\nof such study; and t h * * sciences \u00bb and the demons c . ,ent an <* modern \n\n\n\n\u00bbVLt % ,A A \n\n~US \n\n*\"*\u2022'\u00bb~ - \u2014*. tmf.5%% \n\nE \"\u00b0\u201d' T \" \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ^COMMENTS \n\n\nJ ULY, 1937 \n\n-, -. \n\n7 * they tffl use it, it is nSSS- fn PhyS1 . aStS - In the sen se in which \nnot an indivisible unit but a congeriesVf ^ at \u00b0 m \u201d \u00b0 f moder n science is \n\nasT\"h P r t0nS \u2019 eleCtr0ns \u2019 P os itrons, neutrraT etc ^ TheSC infinitesimal en- \nas a whole as the ce]ls of ^ organ . sm are Ut r r \u00b0^ , e t c -are related to the atom \n\ney are, as it were, organs or parts of a lar \u00b0 116 1Vlng body as a whole \nroyt Although they are saidTo differ 2T \u201c d ^ be Cached \n\ni t !\u00b0 n ' 1S quite impossible to visualize them \\ ^ maSS and structu re and \nlook like if they could be sufficiently maraud\u2019/ ' maglne what they would \n^d^ eyes - An electron, for instance Z 2 k T t0 . See them with our \npparent contradictions. It is both a clot of m n 6 deScnbed by a series of \nelectricity; it is both a particle and a wavicle-T^ ^ 3 Charge of negative \nalso takes up the whole of space The dt \u2019 l \u00b0 CCUpies a g ive n position and \ntempted to believe that the physical atom wither? SpeCtator is sometimes \na mathematical phantom, incapable of existence outs d IS nothing but \n\nThe electron itself may be as unsubstantial 1 T* \u00ae SClentific intellect. \n\n1 IS alleged to explain are concrete enough f * \u2022 rearn \u2019 but the facts which \nactivity and transmutation, it has been manifesTthaT rt, ^i d ' SCOvery of mdio- \nof matter is not as simple as the nineteenth celt ultlmate cons titution \ne , As Madame Blavatsky suggested fifty v ^ matenallsts fancied it to \nsubstance and force. cannoTbe SSefshTS'S ^ 3nd \nthe definition of light as a vibration in some h V oo w TV example > tba t \nthat physical light is the visible emanation or i f her IS inadequate; \n\nin its proper nature is invisible and inrnm ? je i Ctlon a substance which \nnot developed the \"sixth sense^chr^lt i^S^ \" ^ We ba - \ncontemporary physicists have reached a simihrV ' Strange \u201c h may seem, \n\n- \u00bb t , i8h , ** \n\n179 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\ni8o \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nhas been necessary to postulate forms of matter which are quite inconceivable, \ninasmuch as they bear little or no resemblance to any of the forms within the \nrange of our sensation or imagination. \n\nWe should not be surprised or shocked, if at least one new \u201cfundamental \nparticle\u201d of matter were \u201cdiscovered\u201d each year. The latest of these revela\u00ac \ntions occurred at the April meeting of the American Physical Society. Certain \nvery ingenious experiments with the so-called \u201ccosmic rays\u201d have convinced \nDrs. J. C. Street and E. C. Stevenson of Harvard that at least 80 per cent of \nthis radiation reaching sea level is composed of corpuscles of a type hitherto \nunrecognized. We quote from The New York Times , April 30, 1937. \n\nThe particles, it was stated by Professor H. A. Bothe of Cornell University, may be \na fundamental atomic entity that does not occur at all on the earth, constituting a cos\u00ac \nmic wanderer from an entirely different world, where matter is differently fashioned \nthan in our own corner of the cosmos. Ever since the discovery of the cosmic rays, the \nmost penetrating form of radiant energy so far observed in the universe, leading scien\u00ac \ntists have attempted to determine their nature. One school held that they were primarily \nphotons, resembling light. X-rays and gamma rays from radium. The other school \nheld that they were largely composed of the same type of electrical particles of which \nall matter in the universe is constituted, namely electrons and protons, which are, re\u00ac \nspectively, the atomic particles carrying definite units of negative and positive electricity. \n... It turns out that fully 80 per cent of the most penetrating components of the cos\u00ac \nmic ray, namely, those so powerful that they can penetrate the earth's atmosphere to \nreach sea level, is definitely not photons, but neither is it protons or electrons, or any\u00ac \nthing else known on earth or so far observed throughout the vastness of the cosmos. \nIn fact, nobody knows what the particles are, except that they are fundamental and \nthat they carry a unit of electrical charge equal in magnitude to that of the electron or \nproton. The charges on those observed so far have all been negative. ... It is in \ntheir mass that these new particles differ from the electron, the proton and tlie positron, \nthe three other electrically charged fundamental building blocks of matter. They are \nheavier than the electron but much lighter than the proton. \n\nVisible and Invisible Nature \n\n\u201cThe things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen \nare eternal.\u201d The mode of substance which we call physical matter is a local \nand transitory phenomenon in the great universe. The immeasurable reaches \nof interstellar space seem to be literally \u201cformed of radiance\u201d, augoeides \u2014 if \nwe may borrow the term used by Philo of Alexandria to serve as a name of the \nmanifested Divinity. A physical body, whether it be a star or an atom, appears \nto be nothing but a modification or limitation of the universal radiance, emerg\u00ac \ning for an instant from the \u201cocean of light\u201d and then receding into its unfathom\u00ac \nable depths. Thus \u201cforce\u201d crystallizes into \u201cmatter\u201d, and \u201cmatter\u201d dissolves \ninto \u201cforce\u201d. Such is the view of Nature, the imago mundi , suggested by the \nrecent experiments and speculations of physicists and astronomers. It is in\u00ac \nteresting that the most advanced scientific theories concerning the constitution \nof matter can actually be illustrated by a quotation from St. Paul. As jar as \nthey go, in certain aspects, they resemble the occult hypothesis mentioned in \nThe Secret Doctrine\u2014 that real or ^/-matter is not an object of mortal percep\u00ac \ntion; that there is a fundamental difference \u201cbetween manifested and unmani- \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n181 \n\n\ntested Matter, between Pradhana, the beginningless and endless cause, and \nPrakriti, or the manifested effect\u201d (ed. 1893, I, 595). \n\nOne Great Barrier to Scientific Progress \n\nHowever, it is only too evident that these modem theories do not go very \nfar. They take us to the boundaries of the invisible, and there they stop. The \nphysicist is compelled to admit that matter can exist in forms so unlike those \nwhich we experience through our senses that we cannot imagine them. He \ncan conceive of no method of representing them other than that of the higher \nmathematics which is specially designed for the logical development of concepts \nbased upon axioms or postulates that are in themselves contradictory or unintel\u00ac \nligible. Doubtless, mathematical invention has a definite place among the \nactivities of the human intelligence. Not infrequently, as in the science of \nelectrodynamics, it may greatly stimulate the imagination and guide the experi\u00ac \nments of the laboratory physicist. But it is necessary to realize that mathe\u00ac \nmatics per se can never reveal the veritable nature of anything. There is only \none way truly to understand a thing, and that is to experience it. Why does \nthe visible and transient seem more intelligible to the average mortal than the \ninvisible and enduring? Because he is in constant contact with the visible; \nbecause it is the persistent object of his senses and provides the forms of his \nimagination. Concentrating upon the activities of the body, identifying him\u00ac \nself with the body, he erects a barrier between the visible and the invisible, a \nbarrier which only he can destroy. \n\nOne great obstacle to scientific progress to-day is this deep-seated habit of \nregarding the things which are seen as more concrete, more actual, than the \nthings which are not seen. Therefore, although men of science recognize in \nthe abstract that the subtile substance within physical matter is more lasting, \nmore fundamental, than physical matter itself, in the concrete they know only \nthe physical, and conceive of the subtile only in so far as it impinges upon or \noverflows into the physical. What is needed is the development of a new sense \nwhich will bring direct perception of the substance which is \u201cformed of radi\u00ac \nance\u201d. Why must we assume that our little gamut of sense-experience includes \nthe whole range of the possibilities of objective consciousness? We have not \neven fully developed the physical senses which we have. Certain insects, for \ninstance, see infra-red or ultra-violet colours to which we are blind. \n\nThe Kabalists taught that above or within the outer body or \u201cshell\u201d of the \ncosmos, there is a series of \u201cworlds\u201d\u2014astral, archetypal, spiritual, divine\u2014each \nwith its characteristic inhabitants and states of matter. Moreover, they pro\u00ac \nclaimed the accessibility of these inner spheres, affirming that he who follows \nto the end the proper course of training can discover their reality for himself \nand learn their nature at first hand. In other words, invisible Nature can be \nmade visible, the abstract can be made concrete, the inconceivable can be made \nconceivable. \u201cThere are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial.\u201d What \nappea^pnmaterial and metaphysical at one stage of evolution, may appear \nmaterial and physical at another. In one sense, it might be said that the conver- \n\n\n182 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nsion of the divine and spiritual into the objective and actual is the subject- \nmatter of occultism. \n\n\nThe Extension of Vision \n\nWhat the modem scientist utterly fails to understand, is that our experience \nof Nature is conditioned by our moral and spiritual development. The course \nof training to which the ancient Kabalists referred, is not merely intellectual. \nIt is a training of the will as well as of the mind; above all, it is a training of \nthe heart, involving the purgation and transformation of the whole emotional \nnature. The Albigensian mystics aptly called it the gai savoir , the \u201cgay sci\u00ac \nence\", the art of spiritual love. Before we can enter into the invisible cosmos \nand dwell there, we must fall in love with the source of our real life, with the \nHigher Self, the Heavenly Father, the Master, who reigns in that unseen world \nand who is the perfect embodiment of its laws. We read in Through the Gates \nof Gold: \n\nThe man who is strong, who has resolved to find the unknown path, takes with the \nutmost care every step. He utters no idle word, he does no unconsidered action, he \nneglects no duty or office however homely or however difficult. But while his eyes and \nhands and feet are thus fulfilling their tasks, new eyes and hands and feet are being \nborn within him. For his passionate and unceasing desire is to go that way on which \nthe subtile organs only can guide him. . . . This state is possible to man while yet \nhe lives in the physical; for men have attained it while living. It alone can make actions \nin the physical divine and true (pp. 99, seq). \n\nOne may infer, that the scientist must remain indefinitely at the threshold \nof the invisible unless he extends his vision and thereby makes visible what is \nnow invisible. And he can accomplish this extension only by transforming \nhimself, by making himself over in the image of the augoeides , of that which is \n\u201cformed of radiance\u201d. Becoming himself a centre of radiant, creative con\u00ac \nsciousness, all the radiance in Nature which is cognate to him will become as \nobjective, as sensible as the simplest physical form is now to any of us. But \nuntil he achieves this self-transformation, until he has engendered within him\u00ac \nself the characteristics of the worlds within the physical, how can those worlds \never mean anything more to him than a mathematical formula ? \n\nAccording to the theosophical doctrine of \u201ccosmogenesis\u201d, the evolution of \nmatter at every point in space proceeds pari passu with the evolution of spirit \nor consciousness. Each great cycle or Round, is said to develop \u201ca nature and \na humanity in what may be spoken of as one aspect of Nature\u201d. Thus gradu\u00ac \nally, through the long succession of ages, the Elements and the creatures which \nlive in and by them have been brought to their present stage of unfoldment; \nnor is there the slightest reason to believe that the exfoliation of the invisible \ninto the visible has come to an end. \n\nI he qualities, or what is perhaps the best available term, the characteristics of matter, \nmust clearly bear a direct relation always to the senses of man. Matter has extension, \ncolour, motion (molecular motion), taste and smell, corresponding to the existing senses \nof man, and the next characteristic it develops\u2014let us call it for the moment \"Perme\u00ac \nability\u201d\u2014will correspond to the next sense of man, which we may call \"Normal Clair- \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n183 \n\n\nvoyance\u201d. ... It will only be in the next, or Fifth, Round that the fifth Element, \nEther\u2014the gross body of Akasha, if it can be called even that\u2014will, by becoming a \nfamiliar fact of Nature to all men, as Air is familiar to us now, cease to be, as at present, \nhypothetical. . . . And only during that Round will those higher senses, the growth \nand development of which Akasha subserves, be susceptible of a complete expansion. \nAs already indicated, a partial familiarity with the characteristic of matter\u2014Perme\u00ac \nability\u2014which should be developed concurrently with the sixth sense, may be expected \nto develop at the proper period in this Round. But with the next Element added to \nour resources, in the next Round, Permeability will become so manifest a characteristic \nof matter, that the densest forms of this Round will seem to man\u2019s perceptions as obstruc\u00ac \ntive as a thick fog, and no more ( The Secret Doctrine , I, 272, 278). \n\nThe evolution of matter and spirit are thus represented as inseparable as\u00ac \npects of a single undivided process. According to our measure of time, it is a \ngradual progression, requiring for its fulfilment hundreds of billions of years. \nBut it is a tenet of Theosophy that the individual need not wait until greater \nlove and wisdom and power cvme to him , as to others, in the ordinary course of \nnature. By devotion and determined, unselfish effort, he can seize his heritage, \nat least in part, here and now, reaching, far in advance of the majority, the \ngoal which is reserved in some distant future for humanity as a whole. \n\nMan and His Environment \n\nFrom these broad cosmological principles certain practical corollaries may \nbe deduced. If the cosmic Elements and the forms of matter be the objective \ncounterparts of the forms of spirit, the environment in which any individual or \ngroup of individuals is placed at any given moment, invariably reflects the \nqualities of the consciousness of the individual or group. The environment, \nof course, includes all the circumstances of existence, physical and psychic, \neconomic and social and cultural. \n\nIn Hindu philosophy there is frequent reference to Kundalini Sliakti , \u201cthe \nuniversal life-principle which everywhere manifests in Nature. . . . This is \nthe power which brings about that \u2018continuous adjustment of internal relations \nto external relations ,\u2019 which is the essence of life according to Herbert Spencer, \nand that \u2018continuous adjustment of external relations to internal relations ', \nwhich is the basis of transmigration of souls ... in the doctrines of the ancient \nHindu philosophers\u201d ( The Secret Doctrine , I, 312). \n\nThe modem mind can understand how and why the creature must adapt \nitself to its environment. Much stress is laid by biologists upon adaptability* \nto external relations as the first requisite of success in the struggle for existence, \nthe fittest who survive being the organisms which adjust themselves most \nadequately to surrounding conditions. It is less easy to conceive of the way \nin which the creature actually moulds and changes the environment to suit \nits varying needs. Certainly civilized man acts definitely enough upon the \nphysical world, altering the aspect of the earth by means of his arts and sci\u00ac \nences, turning deserts into gardens and gardens into deserts. Civilized man, \ntherefore, lives partly in an environment of his own making, but life under \nsuak artificial conditions tends to become increasingly difficult, and at last in- \n\n\n\n\n184 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nsupportable, for neither body nor soul can adapt itself to an existence which \ncontradicts both natural and spiritual law. \n\nThe \u201ccontinuous adjustment of external relations to internal relations\u201d, is \na more subtile action. Its mechanism, its modus operandi , is largely hidden \nfrom us, for it is the expression of a creative power which few, indeed, use \nconsciously. As the above quotation suggests, it is the basis of reincarnation \nand karma, of re-birth and liberation. We may identify it with the mysterious \nagency which selects the time, the place, the family in which a child is bom, \nwhich gives the body its life and personality, working always to hasten the \nhour when a sound mind in a sound body will receive and respond to an incarnat\u00ac \ning soul. We may identify its action also with our physical separation from an \nenvironment as the result of having become completely detached from it in\u00ac \nteriorly. Ceasing either to love or to hate it, and, instead, cheerfully accepting \nit, an environment literally drops off. \n\nHow many people in the modem world attach significance to the fact that \nthey are placed by Nature in one geographical, economic and social situation, \nrather than another? Most of us spend our lives moving or trying to move, \nliterally and figuratively, from place to place. We are obsessed by the notion \nthat if we could only be somewhere else our lives would be both happier and \nmore brilliant. Or, if we cannot move about, we have the impulse to change \nthe appearance of our environment, so that we may at least have the illusion \nof being elsewhere. All this restlessness would seem to be a perversion of Kunda- \nlini, \u201cthe universal life-principle\u201d. It may be assumed that it is the mission \nof the incarnating soul to transform the personality and the body with which \nit is brought into contact; that by so doing it will inevitably, though more \nslowly, transform the whole environment which encompasses it. But such a \nchange must take place from within outwards , first inwardly and subjectively, \nthen externally and objectively, following the lines of exfoliation invariably \ntraced by Nature in all her works. From one point of view, our native en\u00ac \nvironment, whether it be a palace or a slum, is divinely ordained, first to stimu\u00ac \nlate the soul to embody itself, and then to be itself transmuted into a more \nappropriate abode for the soul. \n\nThe Improvement of Social Conditions \nThe existence of social evils and maladjustments, of desperate poverty co\u00ac \nexisting with the vulgar display of wealth, is a persistent commentary upon the \nfailure of the vast majority of mankind to evolve beyond an elemental stage of \nconsciousness. The few who have perfected themselves, the Masters, are said \nto remain near at hand, to postpone indefinitely their own individual progress, \nbecause they cannot contemplate without anguish the blind wanderings of \nthe great orphan, Humanity\u201d. They are ready for any sacrifice, if thereby \nthey can lift some of the burden of Karma from the races of men. As they \nthemselves have testified, what they need most of all is a following in the world. \nThey need disciples, living among men, but absolutely devoted to the Masters\u2019 \npurposes. As has been said so often, a growing body of disciples, in the world \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n185 \n\nbut not of the world, constitutes a channel through which \u201cthe universal life- \nprinciple , represented by the Masters, can pass downwards and outwards, \nrightly adjusting external relations to internal relations. \n\nA student of Theosophy ventures to suggest that practically all the panaceas \nof economists and social reformers, of which we hear so much to-day, are as un\u00ac \nsubstantial as a vacuum. And why? Because whatever may be their other \nmerits, they take no cognizance of spiritual law or of spiritual ends. They \nfail to show the least comprehension of the only way in which enduring social \namelioration can be brought about, which is, by creating within the undiffer\u00ac \nentiated body of society a stable nucleus of noble and enlightened individuals. \nReformers habitually begin at the wrong end, where mankind has begun and \nfailed so many times before. They are always trying to alter the environment \nwithout altering human nature and, first of all, their own natures. This is not \nremarkable when it is recalled how many of them have derived their inspiration \nfrom Karl Marx. \n\nAn illustration of this modernistic delusion is offered by a recent pronounce\u00ac \nment by Professor John Dewey of Columbia University. Addressing a convoca\u00ac \ntion of the American College of Physicians, he proposed that the old phrase, \n\u201ca sound mind in a sound body\u201d should be changed to \u201ca sound human being \nin a sound human environment\u201d. He argued that the change in aims and \nmethods which would be necessary to achieve such an ideal \u201cwould mean \nmore than most of us can estimate\u201d. By a \u201csound environment\u201d Professor \nDewey meant in particular, as the context makes clear, the social conditions \nwhich produce reasonably happy human beings\u201d. All this sounds innocent \nand amiable enough, until one remembers that Professor Dewey delivered his \nspeech en route from Mexico City where he had served on a committee formed \nto determine whether Trotzky is as bad as Stalin says he is. Anyone addicted \nto that sort of futility must have strange ideas concerning the nature of reason\u00ac \nable happiness. \n\nIndeed, Professor Dewey is a typical representative of the intelligentzia , of \nthe caste of intellectuals who are limited to relatively harmless pursuits \nduring the more healthy phases of national cycles, but who become active and \nprominent during periods of economic or social confusion. The philosophes of \nthe eighteenth century, dreaming of the \u201crights of man\u201d, also professed that \ntheir goal was the reasonable happiness of the human race; but the environ-' \nment which their \u201cidealism\u201d finally produced was certainly not what most \nof them had expected. It was the Reign of Terror, the dreadful Karma of \nwhich still weighs upon the soul of France. To-day, Professor Dewey and his \ncompanions may generally be found on the so-called left or radical side in \nevery controversy which involves the basic principles of civilization. Most of \nthem are utterly illogical when they express opposition to Nazi or Fascist \nstandards, for the regulation of happiness, as they conceive it, implies a totali\u00ac \ntarian state which would decree and enforce the redistribution of wealth, the \ncontrol of prices and wages, the regimentation of social relationships, the sup\u00ac \npression of what is individual and spontaneous in religion and education, in \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\ni86 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nscience and art. That is what they want, if we may judge by what they say. \nWhat they will get is another matter. The student of history can draw his \nown conclusions. \n\nThe point is that Theosophy does clearly reveal the distinction between an \nunsound and a sound environment. Nothing outside Paranirvana is ideal, but \neveryone bom into the world is wise to assume that the environment where \nhe is placed by Nature is sound. This truth is accepted as axiomatic by the \ndisciple who sees the hand of the Master in every event, great or small; but \nwhy should one doubt that the ordinary man, or the bad man, or even the \ndevil clothed in human shape, is equally placed in the best of all possible \nsettings for his ultimate transformation\u2014or for his ultimate elimination, since \nNature labours to destroy as well as to upbuild? \n\nThe state where one is placed by Nature is easily discovered. It is the state, \nexalted or mediocre or lowly, where one is detained by duty, by loyalty, by \nresponsibility to others, by common-sense. In contrast to the jargon of econo\u00ac \nmists and psychiatrists, these remarks may sound like platitudes; but that may \nbe because so few ever really try to test them in daily life. It seems so much \nsimpler to change the state of Nature to suit our desires of the moment, to cure \nsqualor and filth by tearing down old tenements and building new ones, to make \neveryone rich by confiscating the assets of all who are not yet bankrupt, to \nincrease wisdom by multiplying the facilities of free education. But sordid\u00ac \nness, destitution and ignorance cannot be removed by outward means alone. \nWhen the general consciousness of mankind becomes pure, deep, enlightened, \nthen, and not before, the Golden Age will return, social problems will cease \nto exist, and, incidentally, such a thing as \u201csocial-mindedness\u201d will be incon\u00ac \nceivable. Meanwhile, whenever we attempt forcibly to alter \u201cexternal rela\u00ac \ntions\u201d without reference to \u201cinternal relations\u201d, all that can be accomplished \nis a temporary dislocation. Sooner or later, Nature re-asserts itself and moves \ntowards the restoration of the lost equilibrium. This process of readjustment \nhas been defined as an aspect of Karma. It reveals one of the meanings of \npain. \u201cSuffering is instruction\u201d, remarked an ancient sage. It brings proof \nthat a beneficent power, greater than our self-will, is affecting our consciousness. \n\nThe Power of Regeneration \n\nIt has long been known that the principle of readjustment operates in vege\u00ac \ntable and animal tissues to replace as far as possible any part which has been lost \nor mutilated. The simplest example of this regeneration in the animal body is \nthe healing of a slight cut in the skin. By some method which the biological \nmechanists are altogether unable to explain, the little wound is healed, a new \nskin grows over it, and the original pattern is restored with no sign that it had \never been disrupted. Among the lower animals the faculty of self-repair is \nmuch more developed. If a sponge be minced and the resulting mixture be \nforced through a cloth filter, drops of the debris, under proper conditions, will \ngrow into new sponges. Remarkable possibilities are opened up, when one \nreflects upon this organic law. It explains, for example, the growth of the \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n187 \n\n\nscion upon the stock in plant grafting. The horticulturist takes advantage \nof the healing force of Nature. It is now evident that the science of \u201cgrafting\u201d \ncan also be practised upon animals, and at the annual meeting of the National \nAcademy of Sciences it was suggested that within a century biology may be \nable to produce \u201ccomplete new individuals from any part of another individual.\u201d \nThis was the signal for the popularizers of science to hint that the time may \ncome when the individual who has grown tired of his body will build himself \na new one and move into it. To be fair, this idea was not seriously put forward \nby any official biologist. \n\nHowever, Professor Oscar Schotte of Amherst College reported some remark\u00ac \nable experiments, illustrating once more the eccentricity\u2014to use a mild word\u2014 \nof the scientific imagination. He planted bits of embryonic tissue in living \nanimals, and observed that these tissues developed in their hosts the organs \nwhich they would have normally developed in the course of embryonic growth. \nThey even stimulated the growth of sets of neighbouring organs which had \nbeen supposed to lie outside their zone of influence. Thus, after removing a \ntadpole\u2019s tail which would have resprouted at once if left alone, Professor \nSchotte \u201cgrafted\u201d upon the injured tissue \u201cseeds\u201d from the \u201chead-region\u201d of \nthe egg. The tail stopped growing, and a new head appeared in its place. We \nhave gone into these painful details, because they exemplify what is, in our \nopinion, a characteristic attitude of the scientific mind towards the mysteries \nof Nature. Although the man of science is trained to observe with care and \nto measure with exactitude, too often he seems to be impelled by some inner \ndemon to miss and to distort the sense of what he sees. \n\nThe universal power of regeneration is not merely the force which repairs the \nbody from instant to instant. It is the efficient cause of evolution itself, re\u00ac \nproducing the same organic pattern in an ascending series of species, in ever \nmore subtile form. If we really understood and worked with it, we might indeed \nbuild for ourselves new and better minds and bodies. We might regain a power \nwhich the lower orders have not entirely lost, and which was, according to \ntheosophical science, the normal possession of the first semi-ethereal human \nraces. \n\nThis is the mysterious process of the transformation and evolution of mankind. The \nmaterial of the first forms . . . was drawn or absorbed into, and thus became the comple\u00ac \nment of the Forms of the Second Race. . . . The Race never died. Its \u201cMen\u201d meltecL \ngradually away, becoming absorbed in the bodies of their own \u201cSweat-born\u201d progeny? \nmore solid than their own. The old Form vanished and was absorbed by, disappeared \nin, the new Form, more human and physical. There was no death in those days of a \nperiod more blissful than the Golden Age; but the first, or parent, material was used \nfor the formation of the new being, to form the Body and even the inner or lower Princi\u00ac \nples or Bodies of the progeny (The Secret Doctrine , II, 128). \n\nCertainly we shall not be co-operating with Nature, if we bring into existence \na shoal of monsters with duplicate or displaced organs. A tadpole with a head \nat each end actually reminds one of the \u201cbright new worlds\u201d and \u201cmanaged \neconomies\u201d of the social reformers who have an uncontrolled propensity for \nputting heads where tails ought to be, and vice versa. Unfortunately, the \n\n\ni88 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nproduction of two-headed tadpoles is worse than futile; it is, in essence, like all \nkinds of vivisection, a sin against Nature, an infraction of the law of the unity \nof life. Man, the custodian of the earth, has positively no right to use even \ntadpoles as subjects of cruel or grotesque experiment. The knowledge which \nhe acquires by such means will return to plague him some day. \n\nThe Causes of Social Strife \n\nThe psychiatrist has to a great extent taken the place of the priest in the \nmodem world, especially, it would seem, in the great cities of the United States. \nThe unfortunate go to him for help and comfort. He is compelled by pro\u00ac \nfessional duty to play the r 61 e of mentor to the human soul. Such a task de\u00ac \nmands the exercise of such exalted powers of mind and heart that only a Master \ncan perform it perfectly. Does the psychiatrist reveal any sense of the over\u00ac \nwhelming responsibility which he has assumed ? \n\nWithout doubt, there are all kinds and conditions of psychiatrists. Some \nare little better than the Freudian psychoanalysts, as anyone can judge by \nthe coarse materialism which colours all that they say and write. Many are \ngood and sincere men, dedicated to the purpose of relieving human pain, and \noften gifted with the intuition which is bom of sympathy. Nevertheless, \neven the best of them are handicapped by their education. Their view of \nhuman nature is conditioned by an arbitrary and artificial classification of its \ncomponent parts. No one can use their terminology without confusing his \nmind. Moreover, there is no place for the soul in their system. The higher \nqualities of man are generally defined as \u201cemergences\u201d from the primitive \nand the unconscious, when they are not cynically dismissed as the survivals of \nthe taboos of savages. There is practically no recognition of the validity of \nspiritual and mystical experience which testifies to the duality of human nature \nas at present constituted, this duality being the effect of the blending of two \nstreams of consciousness in man, the animal and the divine. But how can \nanyone effectively aid the souls of men, if he does not even believe that a soul \nexists? \n\nThe limitations of psychiatry are revealed in a recent address by Dr. C. \nMacfie Campbell before the American Psychiatric Association. He suggested \nthat the psychiatrist could find the causes of social unrest and labour troubles \nin the frustration of individual satisfactions under modem conditions. Much \nthat he had to say is of interest and value; but this only brings out more clearly \nthe insufficiency of his diagnosis. \n\nIn his patients the psychiatrist may see the importance of lack of status, of a feeling \nof inferiority, of frustration, of self-expression, of dehumanized personal human rela\u00ac \ntions, boredom, envy, depressive preoccupations. When these responses of the indi\u00ac \nvidual life are subject to the astounding amplification observed in group phenomena, \na community is divided against itself, labour unrest and class war take the place of \nfriendly social co-operation. For the solution of these problems, or for the amelioration \nof the situation, a clear grasp of the human factors is essential. ... In labour conflicts, \nwhere the discussion is officially about hours and wages or forms of organization, the \nurge for power in the protagonists of the two sides, the results of early conditioning, of \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n189 \n\nunresolved conflicts, of present tensions, may have much to do with the intransigent \nattitude which foments trouble, neglects friendly approaches; while the response of the \nless articulate members of the group can only be understood if we know the actual con\u00ac \nditions of their life and are sensitive to the needs of human nature and the results of its \nfrustration. The insight into the laws of human nature gained by the psychiatrist is \nof practical importance for the conduct of every human life. ... In the muddled state \nof human affairs, blind, instinctive and unconscious forces will continue to be operative, \nbut it is our task to see that rational considerations play an increasingly important \nrole. Foremost among these considerations is sound knowledge of the component forces \nof human nature and of the forces at play in group life. \n\nWe do not doubt that in very large measure the world-wide disturbances of \nto-day may be traced to frustration. But frustration of what? There are in\u00ac \nnumerable forces of human nature which seek expression in envy, vanity, \nsensuality, arrogance, ambition, and the like. These forces are always frus\u00ac \ntrated to some extent; otherwise any sort of human life on any terms would \nbe impossible. But few people have the character to discipline themselves, to \ncheck their own \u201cself-expression\u201d, and this beneficent function is performed by \nthe karmic law adjusting internal to external relations. The environment in \nwhich we are cast, saves us from sudden and irrevocable insanity. \n\nHowever, there is one type of frustration which is prevalent to-day and \nwhich is indeed responsible for our woes. It is the frustration of the soul and \nits growth. Doubtless, many human entities, perhaps the vast majority, have \nnot evolved to the stage where the soul ceases to be a mere potentiality and \nbecomes a living reality; but Nature respects the potential as well as the actual. \nIf the universe exists for purposes of soul, any deviation from this general \ndirection of evolution, at any point, must be regarded as vain and evil. What \nright have we to expect that we can escape disorder, anarchy and decay, if we \nfrustrate the purposes of soul ? \n\nThus the psychiatrist, dwelling upon the evils of repression, does not rightly \nunderstand, in our opinion, that there is a right and a wrong repression. Too \noften, the repression which he condemns is the natural and proper check im\u00ac \nposed by the physical and social environment upon the exuberance of the \nanimal personality. In so far as this lower personality is released from its \ninhibitions, the growth of the spiritual consciousness, the real man, is checked. \nTherefore, whatever solution there may be to the labour problem, it can only \nbe found upon terms favourable to the soul. Certainly there must be an appeal \nto the reason; but the reason alone can achieve nothing. It can only act upon \nthe data provided by experience or by fancy. However, all men except the \nwholly depraved are capable of some response to the demands of \u201cimmaterial\u201d \nideals,\u2014loyalty, honour, self-sacrifice. But to be really effective, these de\u00ac \nmands must be presented by leaders who themselves embody loyalty, honour, \nself-sacrifice. In this way, and not otherwise, the world-religions were bom. \nAnd does not a religion die when its adherents cease to incarnate the truths \nwhich they preach? What the modem man needs beyond anything else is a \nreligion, a renewed belief, however crude, in the superior reality of an invis\u00ac \nible, immaterial world. If psychiatrists truly understood the problem, they \n\n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\n190 \n\nwould have no other objective than to lead the men of the Occident back to the \nreligion which is native to them. They would labour day and night to make \nthemselves true exemplars of the doctrine of the Master Christ. \n\nFaith in an Orderly Way of Life \n\n\u201cThe wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but \ncanst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is \nbom of the spirit.\u201d \n\nMen needlessly strain themselves in the vain effort to create by their own \nefforts,\u2014as if of themselves, with their own power, they could invent any\u00ac \nthing whatsoever. It is the universal Spirit, the Mysterium Magnum , which \ncreates in man as it creates in Nature. All that we can do is to make ready \nour natures for the reception of the Spirit. The ancient Chinese well under\u00ac \nstood this simple law. As their scriptures so often affirm, the dignity of the \nhuman being depends upon the measure of his awareness that he participates \nin an existence infinitely greater than his own; that his acts only have value in \nso far as they are responses to intimations of the Master-Soul, the Tao, the \nGreat Nature, from which he cannot separate himself in thought without being \novertaken by sterility and death. \n\nIt is pleasant to know that the soul of China has not wholly withdrawn from \nthat land of tragedy. Mr. George E. Sokolsky, writing in the New York Herald- \nTribune (April 19, 1937), speaks of an experience which awakens memories of \nthe Zen teachers, of the Analects , of the Tao-Teh-King. \n\nI once visited a Buddhist monastery on an island of the Yangtze River off Soochow. \nThe abbot was a most unusual man, learned, keenly understanding. I see his red beard \nbefore me as I write, the round, full Chinese face in a red beard. Not the red of the \nScandinavians, but a different red, which one occasionally meets among Chinese. He \nand I were worried about the revolutions and the civil wars and the slaughter of human \nbeings to improve their lot. And we could not understand how it was making life better \nfor them to kill them off and rape their women and sell their girls into slavery. And \nhe led me to the southern tip of the island, and there the Yangtze swishes about the \nrocks with swiftness, and he told me to sit and to listen to the river. And he said that \nif I would learn to think of nothing, the sound of the river would wash my brain. . . . \nAnd at first I thought that he was a superstitious priest, but I tried what he said. And \nin time I learned to let the swish of the river carry me away with it and it did wash my \nbrain. For it came to me there on Chin Shan that we rush on like the Yangtze and we \nmake a great noise, but the rocks stay in their place and do not move. And when we \nshall have ceased to make our noises, the rocks will still be there. And the strongest of \nrocks is faith in an orderly way of life. \n\n\u201cFaith in an orderly way of life\u201d,\u2014or, as a student of Theosophy would say, \nfaith in life designed by a Master Designer, which provides the ideal means, at \nevery stage, for the attainment of life\u2019s, and therefore of its Designer\u2019s, purpose. \n\nMisery begins when the Designer\u2019s purpose is ignored that self-will may be \ngratified. Misery culminates when, as the fruit of self-assertion, we lose faith \nin the existence, even, of a divine Designer. Real happiness begins when we \nalign our wills with the Designer\u2019s Will. It culminates when we meet him \nface to face. \n\n\nFRAGMENTS \n\n\n\nT HE air is full of Voices these days for all who have faith, and will listen. \nThe Writing on the Wall is there in letters of flame for all who have \nthe eyes to see, and will look upon it. But louder and louder grows \nthe din of the world to drown these Voices, while the skies darken, and the false \nlights glare the more, to hide the mysterious Hand that is writing. Yet it con\u00ac \ntinues to write, undisturbed and implacable; the mystic characters are forming \nday by day; and the Voices call insistently, beseechingly, that man will attend \nand take warning. \n\nThe hour of need has never lacked its true Daniel,\u2014the Lodge sees to that; \nthough to-day the alien prophets, crying Lo here and lo there, are all that the \ndistracted herd seems able to follow,\u2014some in one direction, some in another, \nclashing and colliding, as, drunken and dazzled, they are goaded by the Brothers \nof the Shadow to their doom. \n\nHe who will stand aside for one short breathing-space can see the situation \nclearly, simply with the eyes of his mind. He who has separated himself from \nthe herd, even though he be as yet without attainment, will see and hear far \nmore. The Writing and the Voices will be plain to him, though their surface \nmeaning only may be all he understands. But he will realize that they have \ndepth upon depth of meaning, through the Seven Layers to the heart of the \nsacred Inner Three. Furthermore, to him who has separated himself from the \nherd, the Master is at hand, so that he knows there is plan and guidance \nin the midst of the tumult and storm. And for him who has steadfastly abided \nby th$ Four Rules, the Master is \u201cconsciously at hand\u201d, some outline at least \nof his plan is visible, the Writing tells its story, the Voices are obeyed and \nunderstood. \n\n\nFor in his place and degree, like all the Masters beyond him, he has died to \nhimself and to the world for love of the Masters\u2019 Cause, that, in the inner world \nof which he has now made himself an integral part, no matter how small, he \nmay live under those \u201claws of order\u201d which he no longer desires to break, but \nwithin whose grip of iron he is determined to come. Thus he partakes of the \nlife and seclusion of the Masters, entering into that service which is indeed \nsublime, \u201cif only from the character of those who share it\u201d,\u2014the Masters \n\n191 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n192 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthemselves. His object is a divine object. As Light on the Path tells us: \u201cHe \nlooks neither for pleasure nor pain, asks for no heaven, and fears no hell. . . . \nHe lives now not in the world, but with it\u201d, for his life is \u201chid with Christ in \nGod\u201d. \n\nTherefore the Voices receive his close attention, the interpretation of them \nbecomes a chief occupation and duty, that he may impart such of the interpre\u00ac \ntation as those about him will suffer him to utter. Thus also of the Writing on \nthe Wall, though its meaning be so dreadful to the unwilling hearts for whose \ninstruction it is given. \n\nWhat he tells will be rejected save perhaps by a handful, who may, however, \nwhile attentive to-day, turn against him to-morrow (was not the Beloved, for \nwhom he labours, despised and rejected?). For this he must at all times be \nprepared, never dismayed nor swayed from his purpose because the follower of \none hour has become the persecutor of the next, but humbly thankful, if even \none of the many he reaches will listen, to his soul\u2019s salvation, and in turn be \nTorch Runner in the Great Race of the Mysteries. \n\n* * * * * * * \n\nIs it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? What is there in life save the Voices, \nthe Writing on the Wall, and the Great Lodge from which they come? \n\nCav\u00a3. \n\n\nTHE CORONATION \n\n\nBlow trumpet! he will lift us from the dust. \n\nBlow trumpet! live the strength , and die the lust! \n\nClang battle-axe , and clash brand! Let the King reign. . . . \nThe King will follow Christ , and we the King , \n\nIn whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. \n\nFall battle-axe , and clash brand! Let the King reign. \n\n\nTennyson, \u201cThe Coming of Arthur\u201d. \n\n\nHE Theosophical Quarterly is an international, not an American \n\n\n\nmagazine. It is \u201cthe official organ of the original Theosophical Society \n\n\nfounded in New York by H. P. Blavatsky, W. Q. Judge and others, in \n1875\u201d, and is published for the equal benefit of the Society\u2019s membership through\u00ac \nout the world. Further, it is of the essence of Theosophy that \u201cwhat affects \none, affects all\u201d, which means among other things that events, and especially \ntheir causation or repercussion on inner planes, whether these events take place \nin England, France, Germany, or China, directly affect and concern our entire \nmembership. Provincialism of any kind is incompatible with the spirit and \npurpose of Theosophy. \n\nThis will explain in part why we reprint the leading editorial, entitled \u201cThe \nLord\u2019s Anointed\u201d, from The Times of London of May 13th,\u2014the day following \nthe Coronation of England\u2019s King and Queen. Many of our readers will have \nheard the service in Westminster Abbey as broadcast by wireless, and will \nhave been impressed by its solemnity and spiritual significance. It was not a \nshow; it was a reality, as The Times editorial recognizes. It was a world event \nin the deepest sense. \n\nEditorial comment in The New York Times , on the other hand, revealed the \nregrettable habit of judging all things with Broadway as background; and, \non Broadway, the Taj Mahal would look \u201cover-done\u201d. There are , however, \nother backgrounds, other traditions, other atmospheres, other worlds, and, \nfortunately, there are still some New Yorkers who realize this, and are glad. \n\nStudents of Theosophy, wherever situated, will have interpreted the Corona^ \ntion, and all that led up to it, in the light of this fundamental truth:\u2014that no \none can begin to understand what is taking place outwardly, without keeping \nalways in mind the eternal struggle between good and evil, between the White \nand the Black Lodge; nor without recognition of the ceaseless efforts of the \nWhite Lodge to further the spiritual progress of nations as of individuals. \nThe British Empire, during the past seven months, has passed through a grave \nmoral crisis: it was compelled to choose, and it chose rightly. The crowning \nof Edward, and of the influences to which he had become subject, would have \n\n\n\ni93 \n\n\n\n\n\n194 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nElizabeth was a victory for our Masters,\u2014for the Powers of Light. It was a \ndim sense of this victory, for their share in which the people of the Empire \ndeserve endless praise, that accounts for the depth and warmth of their re\u00ac \njoicing, and for the universal feeling that the service in the Abbey was the \nclimax of a tragic but infinitely beneficent release, was the visible and superb \nsign of an inward and far-reaching triumph. \n\nOnce more, may the divine blessing rest upon and support the King and \nQueen who, at any cost to themselves, put their duty to God and to their coun\u00ac \ntry first.\u2014 Editors. \n\n\nTHE LORD\u2019S ANOINTED \nFroyn \u201cThe Times \u201d, London , May 13th , 1937. \n\nWith festal pomp coming down from the days of King Edgar and from dim\u00ac \nmer aeons beyond, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth have been conse\u00ac \ncrated to the service of their Empire. The King has been acclaimed by his \npeople; he has sworn to defend their laws; he has been solemnly anointed into \nhis mysterious dignity; he has received glowing emblems that only an anointed \nKing may hold or wear; he has been lifted into his Throne and so taken posses\u00ac \nsion of his kingdom; his prelates have sworn him fealty and his lay lords have \nbecome his men \u201cof life and limb and of earthly worship\u201d. A tumult of loyal \nenthusiasm, rising in sonorous crescendo through months of preparation, reached \nits climax yesterday in the cheering of such crowds as no event in history has \nassembled before, in fanfares of trumpets, in peals of bells, in salvos of the great \nguns at the Tower. Yet at the heart, in the time-mellowed grey stillness of \nthe Abbey, there was silence. As the golden canopy was held over King Ed\u00ac \nward\u2019s chair, and the Archbishop went in under it to the King, bearing the \nconsecrated oil, as into a tabernacle, it seemed that those two men were alone \nwith God, performing an act greater than they knew, more solemn than any \nperson present could hope to understand. Upon the great congregation who \nwatched the ancient rite performed, on the same holy ground where their \nancestors had seen the unction of so many English Kings, there could not but \ndescend some of the feeling of those same ancestors, that a man who had sat \nin that chair and passed through that experience must rise up something other \nthan he had been. \n\nFor, with an obstinate unanimity beyond the power of republican rationalism \nto touch, men in all ages have associated the idea of kingship with the idea of \nthe Divine. Melchizedek, King of Salem, who was a priest of the most high \nGod, the mysterious primitive figure that haunts the imagination of the Middle \nAges with the dream of a harmony of flesh and spirit in the domain of politics, \nwe know now to be a conception common to all the races of mankind. Wherever \nmen have formed societies there are or have been Kings; and the King, when \nfirst he appears, is a man who draws his strength from powers outside human \nlife, yet draws it not for himself. Because he is in mysterious communion with \nforces greater than man, his life is the life of the tribe; for his people he lives, \n\n\n\nTHE CORONATION \n\n\ni95 \n\n\nand for his people sometimes he must sacramentally die. European kingship \nhas travelled far out of the remote world in which these ideas were conceived; \nin England its character has been translated and retranslated, it had at one \ntime been rationalized almost out of existence, before it took on the Imperial \nand federal significance it bears to-day. \n\nAnd yet, whatever may have been the forces making for the survival of the \nThrone at different phases of its long history, nothing is more remarkable \nthan that now, when by common consent it is more firmly established than \never before, it reposes upon almost the same body of sentiments out of which \nthe idea of monarchy sprang. George VI, anointed, crowned, and enthroned, \nis become a sacramental, even a sacrificial, man, in one sense set apart from \nhis fellows, but in a far deeper and more ancient sense made one with them \nas never before. Like the magical Kings of remote pre-history, he has become \nthe mortal vessel of an immortal idea; and the idea is the life of his people. \nBecause the life of every subject has communion with the King\u2019s consecrated \nlife, they are enabled to feel themselves one organism, and believe that the \nunity is sacred. More than this: because many peoples draw this vivifying \ninspiration from the life of one King, they are enabled to realize themselves as \na single living body, and the soul of an Empire is preserved after all the visible \nlinks between its parts have been relaxed. For in the last resort that which \nmost surely commands human allegiance is not an abstraction but a man. \nThis is the truth upon which the Christian faith is built; and in the Coronation, \nwhere the King becomes the Lord\u2019s anointed, Christus Domini , its two expres\u00ac \nsions, religious and secular, are visibly fused into one. \n\nSuch a community of sentiment between the present and the far past might \nbe interpreted in very different ways. To some, no doubt, it seems no more \nthan an outworn superstition, cumbering the paths of progress. A more \nprofound view will see evidence that kingship is not an administrative device \nsuitable only to a particular age and level of civilization, but that it corresponds \nto some permanent instinct in human nature itself, and so is capable, in Lord \nBryce\u2019s words, \u201cof satisfying the need men have to find a consecration for \nPower and a tie which shall bind them together and represent the aspirations of \ncollective humanity.\u201d avOpuTrog perpei tt dvra. Not decaying superstition, but \nliving humanism, demands that monarchy shall be Divine. This refreshment^^ \nof the idea of monarchy from the first fount of its being allows the sanctity^r \nof kingship to remain entirely distinct from the totality of power. Despotism, \nsuch as England knew in the Tudor age, is an intermediate phase of the idea, \nwhich is foreign both to its infancy and to the maturity we now see. To-day, \nlike our remote ancestors, we do not attribute to a King a Divine right to rule, \nbut a Divine duty to live, and to live a representative life. Purists in the last \nweeks have objected to the popular name of yesterday\u2019s great ceremony, saying \nthat its essence is in the unction, and not in the imposition of the Crown. Yet \nthere is deep meaning, though perhaps an accidental one, to be traced in the \ncommon name. It is a right instinct that seizes upon the Crown as the pre- \nemijgnt emblem of all the emblems that were yesterday bestowed upon the \n\n\n\n\n196 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nKing. The symbol of power, older in our English tradition than the Crown, \nis the Rod of Justice, which survives among the regalia as the Sceptre with the \nCross, and in another shape as the Orb. This, great and noble as its meaning \nis, has not for centuries been regarded as the principal part of the King\u2019s in\u00ac \nvestiture. The Crown has a far greater hold on the imagination; and the mil\u00ac \nlions who heard yesterday the words with which the Archbishop put it upon \nKing George\u2019s head must have noticed that there was no mention of authority \nand power. It is the Crown of glory and righteousness, the Crown of princely \nvirtues, to be associated with a right faith and manifold fruits of good works. \nIt stands indeed for everything that makes the King both the exemplar and \nthe epitome of the life of all the peoples who are linked together by his name. \n\nIt is this sense of the representative character of the Monarchy that makes \nthe Coronation of the Queen so necessary and so moving a part of the great \nrite. She has little or no share in her husband\u2019s authority\u2014the beautiful gesture \nof Queen Elizabeth yesterday, when, crowned and sceptred, she made a deep \nobeisance to the enthroned King on her way to her own Throne, reminded all \npresent that she is one of his subjects. But in his life as representative of his \npeople she has an equal share, recognized for nearly a thousand years, since \nSt. Dunstan first provided an office for the crowning of the Queen. Hers is \ndescribed as the Crown of glory, honour, and joy; through her the life of the \nKing is completed, and made a true microcosm of the life of his peoples. The \nmany who still hear the voice of King George V, diffidently describing himself \nas \u201cin some sort the head of this great family\u201d, will understand how much the \nKing\u2019s life of honour and joy in the circle of his own home enhances his quality \nas the hallowed representative of the national aspirations. \n\nYet, while that which was personal to the King ranged so far beyond the \nidea of mere authority, yesterday\u2019s ceremony, taken as a whole, remains a \nbenediction upon power. There breathes through all the august ritual a sense \nof how sublime and awful is the \u201cendless adventure\u201d of governing men. There \ncome moments to all engaged in that adventure when their calling seems no \nmore than a petty scuffle of selfish factions, a sordid huckstering over the mere \nmaterial means of life, even an ignoble personal rivalry for place and power. \n\u201cWhat shadows\u201d, cried Burke in a moment of political disillusion, \u201cwhat \nshadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!\u201d To such moods of pessimism \nthe great solemnity of the Coronation is the answer. Confortare , says the \nancient antiphon over the crowned King: \u201cBe strong, and play the man.\u201d \nThis vocation of politics is the noblest of all human callings; its business is not \nwith the market-place but with the stars; it is still what it was to Plato, to \nSt. Augustine, to Sir Thomas More. Its purpose is no less than the building \nof the City of God. To that exalted task King and people have been conse\u00ac \ncrated together. A vow has been made that binds all who exercise any degree \nof political authority\u2014that binds, therefore, every subject of the King. In \nredeeming it the responsibility rests upon all; but it is the King\u2019s part to be at \nthe centre, uniting in his hands all the threads of the Imperial endeavour, \ncounselling all, interpreting all the parts of his Empire to one another. \n\n\nTHE STONE OF DESTINY \n\n\nT HE pageantry of the recent Coronation has placed strikingly before a \nworld little mindful of it, the insignia of royalty, and to some extent \ntheir symbolism,\u2014a symbolism handed down, in essence though with \nmany modifications, from a remote antiquity, when the monarch was recognized \nas mediator between his people and the Supreme King from whom alone all \npower is derived. Referred to less frequently than other emblems, but with \na past that extends, symbolically at least, back to the dawn of creation, is the \nso-called Stone of Destiny, which lies beneath the Coronation chair in West\u00ac \nminster Abbey. \n\nIn all stones there is more than meets the eye,\u2014which is true, of course, of \nevery material object, but which needs to be remembered especially in the \ncase of stones, because they are regarded almost universally as devoid of con\u00ac \nsciousness and even of life. Naturally, they are not all alike: there are stones \nand stones, differing not only in substance, but in endowment, attainment, \nand significance. For they are creatures, long antedating anything we now know \nas of the vegetable or animal kingdoms, while their stored-up experience, or \naccumulation of psychic impressions, because so slowly acquired, by far out\u00ac \nlasts the races of men. \n\nThe student of Theosophy sees all things as living things. All matter is \nalive. Its different forms are expressive of different aspects of the spirit. The \ndegree of what we call its materiality is the degree to which, in it, the spontaneity \nand freedom of Divine Life on the one hand, and of personal self-will on the \nother, have been surrendered in fidelity to a particular loyalty, and have thus \nbecome fixed. In that, as Bergson pointed out, matter is like habit, which is \nthe relatively fixed and predictable way in which we now act, without need \nfor conscious volition, as the result of choice and will consciously exercised and \nreiterated in the past, in accordance with some desire or quality of our being, \nto which we yield dominance and of which the habit becomes an external ex\u00ac \npression. So all forms of matter express some quality of spirit; and their fixed \nand predictable response to given conditions, the attribute of matter which \nmakes science possible and which, too often, makes us think of material things \nas dead, reveals their undeviating fidelity to the ray of spirit which formed \nthem. In this, the mineral kingdom is closer to the spiritual than is either \nthe vegetable or the animal. The image it reflects is clearer, because less over\u00ac \nlaid and confused with extraneous impressions; and, in consequence, those who \ncan read the hearts of stones find them books of spiritual truths. Above all, \nthey tell of the quality of loyalty, the supreme attribute of the spirit\u2014and of \nevery true King. \n\nThe symbology of stones is a study in itself. We read in Isaiah (28; v. 16): \n\u201cTherefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation \n\n\n197 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\n198 \n\na stone, a tried stone, a precious comer stone, a sure foundation\u201d; and in Reve\u00ac \nlation (2; v. 17): \u201cTo him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden \nmanna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, \nwhich no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it\u201d. \n\nMadame Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine devotes an entire section (Vol. \nII, pp. 341-349; ed. 1888) to the subject of stones, dealing at length with the \nrocking or Logan stones; the clacha-brath , the \u201cDestiny or judgment-stone\u201d \nof the Celts; the divining-stone, or \u201cstone of the ordeal\u201d, and the oracle stone; \nthe moving or animated stone of the Phoenicians; the rumbling stone of the \nIrish; the ophite stones described in a poem on Stones attributed to Orpheus. \nReferring to the Stone of Destiny, or Coronation Stone, she says (p. 342): \n4 \u2018It is also known that the famous stone at Westminster was called liafail \u2014 \n\u2018the speaking stone\u2019\u2014which raised its voice only to name the King that had to \nbe chosen. Cambry {Monuments Celtiques) says he saw it when it still bore \nthe inscription: \n\n\u201c l Ni fallot fatum , Scoti quocumque locatum \nll Invenient lapidem , regnasse tenentur ibidem' \n\nSome say that this inscription was engraved on a brass plate attached to the \nstone; others, that it was cut into the stone itself. The Latin has been trans\u00ac \nlated as follows: \n\nIf fates go right, where\u2019er this stone is found, \n\nThe Scots shall monarchs of that realm be crowned. \n\nIn the \u201cOfficial Souvenir Programme\u201d of the Coronation, Sir Gerald Wollas\u00ac \nton, Garter Principal King of Arms, writes: \n\nA word may here be said of that most venerable relic, King Edward\u2019s Chair. It is \nmade of oak of an architectural [Gothic] design, the feet being formed of four sejant \nlions, and is attributed to the time of Edward I [1239-1307]. But this structure was \ndesigned to contain a far more ancient and famous object, known as the Stone of Scone, \nwhich forms its seat. It is a block of reddish sandstone and, if the legends about it are \nto be believed, is the stone on which the Patriarch Jacob laid his head at Bethel [and saw \n\u201ca ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the \nangels of God ascending and descending on it\u201d], its subsequent migrations ending in its \nremoval from Spain to Ireland by Simon Brech, who was crowned upon it there 700 \nyears before the Christian era. There certainly was a stone corresponding to it in Ireland, \npreserved on the Hill of Tara, possibly as a stone used for purposes of consecration \nin that country. The Irish called it the Stone of Destiny, due to its alleged power of \nemitting an oracular sound to show the legitimacy of Royal descent. It may well have \nbeen taken from Ireland to the West of Scotland, early in the Christian era, by the \nsettlers from Ireland who established themselves in that country [it is more likely, as \nmany authorities assert, that in the sixth century, in a war of conquest, it was taken to \nthe island of Iona, where St. Columba is said to have pillowed his head upon it at the \ntime of his death in 597], for it certainly existed in that part of Scotland long before \nthe ninth century, when it was removed by King Kenneth from Dunstaffnage to the \nAbbey of Scone. In Scotland the stone was accorded the same veneration, including \nthe tradition that its possession was essential to the preservation of regal power. At \nScone all the Kings of Scotland were crowned upon it until the year 1296, when Edward \nI brought it to England and left it as an offering of conquest at the Shrine of Edward \nthe Confessor in Westminster Abbey. There it has ever since remained, and has been \nused for the crowning of almost every successive Monarch of our land. \n\n\nTHE STONE OF DESTINY \n\n\n199 \n\n\nNote how fitting is this stone as a symbol of the test for royal legitimacy. \nKingly power can only rest on rock-like fidelity to that spiritual hierarchy, \nlinking heaven and earth, of which Jacob dreamed. Only as that ladder rises \nthrough the King\u2019s person, is he legitimately King; only by virtue of his own \nobedience and loyalty to the King of kings, can he command the obedience of \nhis people. Note, too, how, despite the obvious corruption of the legend, caused \nby the interblending of different local interpretations of it, the history that is \nascribed to the stone follows the course of kingly power which it symbolizes. \n\nThere are different traditions as to the way in which this stone was conveyed \nto Ireland from Palestine. MacKenzie, in his Royal Masonic Cyclopedia (1877, \np. 698), says: \n\nThe legend is, that Adam possessed this stone while in the Garden of Eden, and that \nhe used it as an altar, and carried it with him on his emergence into the world, and Seth \nreceived it from him. Noah preserved it in the ark, and left it on Mount Ararat, where \nAbraham found it. His grandson Jacob took it with him in his flight to his uncle Laban \nin Mesopotamia. . . . The history of the stone here becomes very indistinct, but one \nlegend asserts that Jeremiah, escaping with a Jewish princess, took it to Spain, and \nthence it was brought to Ireland [where the Jewish princess is said to have married a \nKing of Ulster], and that one of the Dalriad Kings conveyed it to Scotland. . . . \n\nAccording to another tradition, recorded in The Coronation Stone , by G. \nAlbert Rogers, the Patriarch Jacob carried the stone to Egypt when Joseph \ncommanded his brethren to bring their father to the Court of the Pharaoh; \nMoses took it with him in the Exodus; it was used as the comer stone in Solo\u00ac \nmon\u2019s temple and was always called \u201cJacob\u2019s stone\u201d, after which, at the time \nof the Babylonish captivity, the Prophet Jeremiah took it first to Egypt, then \nto Spain, and finally to Ireland. \n\nThe stone itself, disregarding the chair, is about twenty-six inches long, by \nsixteen and three-quarters, by ten and a half inches in depth,\u2014a red sandstone \nblock. It would seem that geology might throw some light on its place of origin, \nbut here again, authorities differ, for while there is stone like it in Scotland, \nthere is also stone like it on the shores of the Dead Sea, no great distance from \nBethel. Judging by what H.P.B. says in The Secret Doctrine about other \u201cstones \nof mystery\u201d, it seems likely, however, that the Stone of Destiny came originally \nfrom one of the great submerged continents, probably from Atlantis, and that \nit was used for oracular purposes many thousands of years before the days of 1 \nJacob. That it has ceased, for the present, to serve as an oracle, is not surpris\u00ac \ning in view of the blank amazement, or laughter, with which such \u201cfantastic \nnotions\u201d would be received to-day. Even now, speak to it with the faith that \nit hears and might answer,\u2014and perhaps it would; though the probability \nis that only on great occasions, and for great purposes, with the faith of many \nto evoke and hear it, would the voice of the far past be heard again. Possibly, \nif England continues to respect her own traditions, and to respect, though \nblindly, her Coronation Stone, the time will come (in the distant future, we fear) \nwhen its voice will be heard: \u201cBehold the Adept-King for whose coming you \nhav^crayed!\u201d \n\n\nFrere servant. \n\n\nMAN, THE MEASURE OF ALL \nTHINGS \n\n\nBrahmcL is Self , Vishnu is Self , Indr a is Self , S/imz ts Self, all this world is Self; \nnothing is but Self. . . . Like the ether , stainless , undivided , unperturbed , *m- \nchanging , /ree within and without , a/cwe, owe, f/ze Se//, //ze Supreme Eternal; \nwhat else is there to know? \u2014ShAnkara Acharya. \n\n41 y^AN is the measure of all things.\u201d According to the occult principle of \nl\\/l un ^ versa ^ analogy, the human being is the microcosm of the macro\u00ac \ncosm ; all the attributes of divinity can become his attributes; he who \ntruly knows himself, knows God. The most persistent theme of theosophical \nliterature is the perfectibility of man. \u201cBe ye therefore perfect, even as your \nFather which is in heaven is perfect.\u201d The Secret Doctrine records the evidence \nthat human nature can be transmuted into the form of its paradigm, which is \nthe Divine Self, the Eternal. \n\nThe principle of universal analogy does not fit into the conventional moulds \nof modem thought. The prevailing conception of man\u2019s place in Nature pro\u00ac \nvides no space for the soul nor for any cosmic prototype of the soul. Life itself \nis regarded as an incidental by-product of a vast inanimate process. The idea \nof a consciousness diffused throughout Nature, present even in the inorganic \nkingdom, is almost unintelligible to the modem mind. Such a concept seems to \ncontradict the whole testimony of physical science. \n\nPhysical science is a system of calculation which has been developed during \nthe past three centuries to a marvellous degree of efficiency. It is based upon \nthe simple observation that physical Nature, in its most obvious aspects , behaves \nlike a machine. Outside the organic kingdoms, the motion of material bodies \nappears to be uniformly automatic. It conforms to certain general \u201claws\u201d, and \ncan be charted, predicted, controlled. It is not astonishing that the scientist \nshould study by preference the vast field of the determinable in Nature, for his \nprimary function is to calculate and to direct the course of events\u2014so far as \nthis is possible\u2014thus increasing man\u2019s power to constrain the brute forces of \nthe earth. \n\nThe extraordinary success of the scientist in enlarging the field of the de\u00ac \nterminable, has blinded many to the fact that his methods of calculation do not \napply to modes of motion which are not uniformly automatic. This explains \nwhy biology, medicine and psychology, as well as sociology and economics, are \nrelatively so ineffective and so inexact. They represent vain attempts to adapt \nthe formulae of physics and mathematics to living things. Even in the lowliest \norganisms, life generates movements which are incalculable. Who knows how \nor when or why a hen will cross a road? Doubtless, life has its own \u201claws of \n\n\n200 \n\n\n\nMAN, THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS \n\n\n201 \n\n\nmotion\u201d corresponding to the \u201claws of motion\u201d of inorganic matter, but they \nare incomparably more subtile, more plastic, more flexible, like the laws of \ncomposition in the arts. There is in the modem world no science of \u2018\u2018life\u2019s \nmotion\u201d, nothing, for instance, which resembles the Indian science of karma , \nthe knowledge of the ways in which the principle of \u2018\u2018cause and effect\u201d operates \non the various planes of consciousness. The principal \u2018\u2018achievement\u201d of modem \npsychology and sociology has been to weaken men\u2019s faith in the moral and spirit\u00ac \nual science of ancient and mediaeval Europe, the product of centuries of expe\u00ac \nrience; nor has anything been put in the place of what has been destroyed. \n\nCuriously enough, the least materialistic of the sciences to-day are those \nwhich deal with matter in its most inorganic states, at the subatomic level which \nunderlies the evolution of molecular forms. Madame Blavatsky predicted that \nphysicists would be compelled by the progress of experiment to revise their \nconceptions of the ultimate constitution of substance. Not long after her death \na series of discoveries, beginning with that of radio-activity in uranium and \nradium, began to reveal a new world within the visible shell of gross matter. \nIn this new world the fundamental principle seems to be \u201cuncertainty\u201d. It \ncannot be pretended that the behaviour of the electron, for instance, is auto\u00ac \nmatic and mechanical. One can only assume what will probably happen. For \nall practical purposes, this probability is virtually equivalent to certainty, for \nby the \u201claw of averages\u201d every motion tends to recur periodically according to a \nrelatively fixed pattern. The analogy with human and animal habits is ap\u00ac \nparent. The subatomic particle or wavicle actually behaves, in its own \ninfinitesimal domain, like an organism endowed with an inalienable spark of \n\u201cfree-will\u201d but conditioned by its \u201cexperience\u201d to repeat indefinitely the same \nresponses to the same stimuli. * \n\nThere are other similitudes between the subatomic and the organic. The \nuniverse within the atom is in itself neither form nor force, neither matter nor \nradiation. Certain physicists compare it to a void, an abyss, a state of primor\u00ac \ndial emptiness,\u2014like the sunyata of Mahayana Buddhism or the chaos of Orphic \ntheogony; also like the chasm which we feel when we try to look into our \u201csub\u00ac \nconscious\u201d. What, then, is the substance which seems to occupy this space? \nIt is not physical, as we understand the physical. It is as elusive, as intangible \nas thought. By virtue of its own momentum, by virtue of the real love of truth \nwhich has been put into it, science seems to have passed the borders of th^ \nphysical and to have come into contact with things of an astral or semi-astrar \nconstitution. However we may venture to represent the astral, it suggests a \nmode of substance as fluidic, as transformable, as empty per se , as the stuff of \nwhich dreams are made. It may be compared to a mirror reflecting states of \nconsciousness, alternately or even simultaneously, as force and form, as \u201cwavicle\u201d \nand \u201cparticle\u201d. Its basic principle might well be called \u201cuncertainty\u201d, although \nas this principle exfoliates, it assumes an increasingly certain \u201cphysical\u201d aspect, \na limitation, an enduring shape, a habit. \n\nUltra-modern physicists are making desperate efforts to define the incon- \nenuties of subatomic motion in mathematical terms. A whole new branch of \n\n\n202 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nmathematics, which a cynic might describe as the calculus of the incalculable, \nhas been devised. Some explanations, as has been suggested, are more difficult \nto understand than the things which are being explained. Perhaps, the ultimate \nentities of subatomic Nature are essentially inexplicable, in any mathematical \nsense, because they are in esse living things, atoms of consciousness. This is \nsuggested by the \u201cuncertainty\u201d which is the root of their existence. Our inner, \nsubjective experience testifies that wherever there is uncertainty in Nature, \nthere is present a will which freely chooses, however infinitesimal the field of \nchoice may be. \n\nWill science, which has apparently touched the fringe of the astral in Nature, \ndiscover the psychic potencies within or beyond the astral, perhaps even the \nKingdoms of the Elementals obscurely designated in Rosicrucian fragments? \nIt is said that these arcana can only be penetrated by the wisest and most in\u00ac \ntrepid of mankind; that they are too intimately linked with the inner destiny \nof man to be understood and controlled by anyone who neither understands \nnor controls himself. The science of real Nature advances pari passu with the \nscience of man. One must have realized what is potential within the human \nself, before one can unveil the forms of consciousness which the visible body \nof the universe, according to tradition, both symbolizes and conceals. \n\nScientists have weighed and measured millions of human and animal bodies, \nliving and dead, have analysed their contents and catalogued their physio\u00ac \nlogical actions and reactions. But as Madame Blavatsky remarked, biologists \nas a class attribute no specific properties to the life which animates the organisms \nthey dissect. They consistently leave the factor of life out of their theories and \nformulae, and in general still cling to the mechanistic hypothesis which has been \ndiscredited in physics as a final explanation even of inorganic causation. \n\nMadame Blavatsky, testifying from her own experience, insisted upon the \nreality of psychic and spiritual powers in man that cannot be interpreted in \nterms of any science which limits its research to his physical organs and func\u00ac \ntions, without reference to any soul or vital principle. The simplest fact of con\u00ac \nsciousness a thought, an emotion, a volition, a sensation\u2014contradicts the \nwhole thesis of mechanistic materialism. But because the mind is apt to take \nno notice of ordinary details of life, she drew attention to the world-wide and \nage-long evidence of extraordinary psychic and spiritual experiences,\u2014ranging \nfrom table-tipping, \u201cmaterializations\u201d of ghosts, and magnetic cures, to the \nhighest expressions of mystical exaltation, the immediate perception of divine \npowers both transcendent and immanent. Science, she asserted, could not \nignore this evidence without disloyalty to the ideal of truth which it professes. \nIt is useless to affirm: Let truth prevail, though the heavens fall\u201d, and then to \nrefuse even to consider the possible existence of any fact which threatens to \nupset one\u2019s preconceived notions as to what can or cannot exist. \n\nIn recent years there have been signs of increasing dissatisfaction among \nbiologists as to the state of their science. The doctrine of emergent evolution, \nGeneral Smuts theory of Holism, the late Professor Osborn\u2019s \u201cenergy concep\u00ac \ntion of heredity, represent efforts to devise \u201cworking hypotheses\u201d which take \n\n\nMAN, THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS \n\n\n203 \n\n\ninto account the phenomena which distinguish the organic from the inorganic \nin Nature. Particular notice should be taken of a recent book by Dr. Alexis \nCarrel. 1 Dr. Carrel, speaking as a practical physician, does not hesitate to \naffirm that medicine, in spite of all its apparent triumphs, \u201chas been paralyzed \nby the narrowness of its doctrines\u201d; that the average medical man reveals an \nabysmal ignorance concerning the real nature of the human being. The most \nimportant knowledge which we can possess is the knowledge of ourselves; but \nas he points out, scientists by preference choose almost any other topic, and even \nwhen they ostensibly specialize in the study of man, they actually limit their \nexperiments to the body, as if man were nothing but a body. It is the dominant \nmotif of Dr. Carrel\u2019s book that a true science of man includes the investigation \nof all human activities, the mental, moral and spiritual, as well as those which \nwe define as the purely physical. In brief, man should be studied as a whole. \n\nIt is said that Dr. Carrel\u2019s criticisms have awakened various reactions among \nhis colleagues. At least, no one can assert that he is an upstart. His official \ncredentials are unimpeachable. After a distinguished career in France, he \njoined the research staff of the Rockefeller Institute. He won the Nobel Prize \nin 1912 and the Nordhoff-Jung Cancer Prize in 1931. He is universally recog\u00ac \nnized as one of the greatest living surgeons. \n\nHe suggests that our ignorance of ourselves is partly due to the nature of our \nminds. The conditions of human existence on earth enforce a state of constant \nstruggle against the gross energies of Nature. Man must dominate his physical \nenvironment or perish as a physical entity. As Bergson has demonstrated, our \nhabitual modes of thought have been evolved, like our bodies, under the mould\u00ac \ning influence of \u201cnatural selection\u201d. The mind tends to form a conception of \nthe world, best adapted to enable us effectively to calculate and control our \naction upon the world or its action upon us. Whenever this is possible, it isolates \nfrom the complex of experience certain simple data which provide us with the \ninformation that we need in order to act, or to direct physical energies, existing \noutside our bodies, to act for us. Certainly, the mind is capable of other con\u00ac \ncepts, for it reflects upon the whole of experience; but because physical expe\u00ac \nrience seems more vivid and more concrete to the average mortal than any \nother, the racial mind tends to draw most of the subject-matter of thought \nfrom the data of sense-perception. This racial proclivity has reached a sort \nof climax in the applied science and material progress of the modem world. \nThe formulation of certain \u201claws of nature\u201d has revealed nothing of what \nNature is in itself, but it has immeasurably extended the dominion of the human \nmind over \u201cmatter\u201d. It is unnecessary to emphasize the \u201cwonders of science\u201d, \nfor this is a favorite theme of the newspapers. We understand better than \never before during the present historical cycle how to harness and direct the \nforces of the physical world where we have to live. \n\nUnfortunately, by an excessive concentration upon the phenomena of inor- \ngani^Nature, where calculation is easy and certain, the modem mind has over- \ncharPi itself with images of machines and automata. Dr. Carrel has no illu- \n\n\n1 Man the Unknown, by Alexis Carrel; Harper & Brothers; New York. 1935; price $3.50. \n\n\n\n204 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nsions regarding the dangers latent in this simple fact that we know so much \nabout the substance which is \u201cdead\u201d and so little about the living. \n\nThe sciences of inert matter have made an immense progress, while those of living \nbeings remain in a rudimentary state. The slow advance of biology is due to the con\u00ac \nditions of human existence, to the intricacy of the phenomena of life, and to the form of \nour intelligence, which delights in mechanical constructions and mathematical abstrac\u00ac \ntions. The applications of scientific discoveries have transformed the material and \nmental worlds. These transformations exert on us a profound influence. Their unfor\u00ac \ntunate effect comes from the fact that they have been made without consideration for \nour nature. Our ignorance of ourselves has given to mechanics, physics, and chemistry \nthe power to modify at random the ancestral forms of life. Man should be the measure \nof all. On the contrary, he is a stranger in the world that he has created. He has been \nincapable of organizing this world for himself, because he did not possess a practical \nknowledge of his own nature. Thus, the enormous advance gained by the sciences of \ninanimate matter over those of living things is one of the greatest catastrophes ever \nsuffered by humanity. The environment born of our intelligence and our inventions is \nadjusted neither to our stature nor to our shape. . . . The only possible remedy for this \nevil is a much more profound knowledge of ourselves. ... In bringing to light our true \nnature, our potentialities, and the way to actualize them, this science will give us the \nexplanation of our physiological weakening, and of our moral and intellectual diseases. \nWe have no other means of learning the inexorable rules of our organic and spiritual \nactivities, of distinguishing the prohibited from the lawful, of realizing that we are not \nfree to modify, according to our fancy, our environment and ourselves. Since the natural \nconditions of life have been destroyed by modern civilization, the science of man has \nbecome the most necessary of all sciences (pp. 27-28). \n\nThere is a fatal law from the operation of which no previous civilization has \nescaped. Both in the animate and in the supposedly inanimate worlds, certain \nlimitations are imposed by Nature. When these limitations are transgressed, a \nmonstrosity is produced, a lusus naturae, an entity relatively over-developed in \nsome functions and under-developed in others. But Nature has no place for \nmonsters and freaks. If they cannot be \u201ccured\u201d, they are destroyed. Every \ncivilization which has left a record has ended by becoming a deformity. Instead \nof making manifest the real nature of man, it has denatured him. In spite of \nwhatever glory it may have achieved, it was erased from the surface of the \nearth, and the human race subsided into a \u201cdark age\u201d during which it slowly \nrecovered its vitality and resumed a natural mode of life. Dr. Carrel\u2019s diagnosis \nof the mental and moral state of the average modem man suggests that our \npresent civilization has already entered its monstrous phase and may soon be \nnpe for destruction. \n\nMoral sense is almost completely ignored by modern society. We have in fact sup\u00ac \npressed its manifestations. All are imbued with irresponsibility. Those who discern \ngood from evil, who are industrious and provident, remain poor and are looked on as \nmorons. The woman who has several children, who devotes herself to their education, \ninstead of to her own career, is considered weak-minded. If a man saves a little money \nfor his wife and the education of his children, this money is stolen from him by enter\u00ac \nprising financiers; or taken by the government and distributed to those who have been \nreduced to want by their own improvidence and the short-sightedness of manufacturers, \nbankers, and economists. . . . Robbers enjoy prosperity in peace. Gangsters are pro\u00ac \ntected by politicians and respected by judges. They are the heroes whom children ad- \n\n\nMAN, THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS \n\n\n205 \n\n\nmire at the cinema and imitate in their games. A rich man has every right. He may \ndiscard his ageing wife, abandon his old mother, rob those who have entrusted their money \nto him, without losing the consideration of his friends. . . . Sexual morals have been \ncast aside. Psychoanalysts supervise men and women in their conjugal relations. There \nis no difference between wrong and right, just and unjust. . . . Ministers have rational\u00ac \nized religion. They have destroyed its mystical basis. But they do not succeed in \nattracting modern men. In their half-empty churches they vainly preach a weak moral\u00ac \nity .. . (pp. 152-153). \n\nThe loss of faith in God, even in an anthropomorphic God, has immeasurably \nimpoverished the concept of Nature. We have little respect for natural forms \nor for natural processes of growth. Whenever it is possible to do so, we alter \nnormal functions and impose an artificial direction upon them. There is evi\u00ac \ndence that even our staple foods have become artificial. \u201cMass production has \nmodified the composition of wheat, eggs, milk, fruit, and butter, although these \narticles have retained their familiar appearance\u201d (p. 116). It is by no means \nimpossible that many of the degenerative diseases from which civilized man \nsuffers are related to the abnormalities of a civilized diet. The digestive, cir\u00ac \nculatory and nervous systems are not adapted to foodstuffs produced, like our \nultra-modem eggs, through the over-stimulation of organic processes by chem\u00ac \nical and physical agencies never present in a state of nature. \n\nIt is useless to pretend that we can become anything which we want to be\u00ac \ncome. Man cannot adequately be conceived apart from his real potentialities. \nThese are rich enough to warrant our abandoning without regret the search for \npotentialities in him which by the very nature of things cannot be there. It is \nvain and dangerous, for instance, to fancy that there is no fundamental differ\u00ac \nence in aptitudes between the sexes. \n\nIgnorance of . . . fundamental facts has led promotors of feminism to believe that \nboth sexes should have the same education, the same powers, and the same responsi\u00ac \nbilities. In reality, woman differs profoundly from man. Every one of the cells of her \nbody bears the mark of her sex. The same is true of her organs and, above all, of her \nnervous system. Physiological laws are as inexorable as those of the sidereal world. \nThey cannot be replaced by human wishes. We are obliged to accept them just as they \nare. Women should develop their aptitudes in accordance with their own nature, with\u00ac \nout trying to imitate the males. Their part in the progress of civilization is higher than \nthat of man. They should not abandon their specific functions (p. 90). \n\nThe failure to recognize the physiological and psychological laws which de\u00ac \ntermine all human possibilities, is responsible for all the Utopian dreams which \nare ravaging our civilization as they have ravaged the civilizations of the past. \n\nAlthough physicians, educators, and hygienists most generously lavish their efforts \nfor the benefit of mankind, they do not attain their goal. For they deal with schemata \ncontaining only a part of the reality. The same may be said of all those who substitute \ntheir desires, their dreams, or their doctrines for the concrete human being. These the\u00ac \norists build up civilizations which, although designed by them for man, fit only a mon\u00ac \nstrous image of man. The systems of government, entirely constructed in the minds of \ndoctrinaires, are valueless. The principles of the French Revolution, the visions of Marx \nand Lenin, apply only to abstract men. It must be clearly realized that the laws of \nhuma\u00aeMations are still unknown. Sociology and economics are conjectural sciences\u2014 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n206 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthat is, pseudo-sciences. Thus, it appears that the environment, which science and tech\u00ac \nnology have succeeded in developing for man, does not suit him, because it has been \nconstructed at random, without regard for his true self (pp. 26-27). \n\nWe must discover our potentialities. Students of Theosophy will sympathize \nwith much, if not all, that Dr. Carrel has to say upon this subject. \n\nMan consists of all his actual and potential activities. The functions which, at cer\u00ac \ntain epochs and in certain environments, remain virtual, are as real as those which con\u00ac \nstantly express themselves. The writings of Ruysbroeck the Admirable contain as many \ntruths as those of Claude Bernard. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage and the \nIntroduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine describe two aspects, the former less \nfrequent and the latter more usual, of the same being. The forms of activity considered by \nPlato are more specific of our nature than thirst, hunger, sensual appetite, and greed. \nSince the Renaissance, a privileged position has arbitrarily been given to certain aspects \nof man. Matter has been separated from mind. To matter has been attributed a greater \nreality than to mind (pp. 119-120). \n\nThe suggested remedy is, therefore, to study man as a whole, to test every \nexperience upon every plane of one\u2019s own being, to examine without prejudice \nthe possibility that various experiences recorded by other men, perhaps in other \nages or upon other continents, may be none the less real because one has not \nknown them oneself. Dr. Carrel reveals a truly extraordinary tolerance and \nbroad-mindedness. He believes in telepathy and clairvoyance, in the cures at \nLourdes, in the power of prayer, in the divination of truth by super-sensuous \nintuition, in the reality of the Mystic Way. In some ways, his arguments recall \nthose of Madame Blavatsky, since she also argued that the existence of super\u00ac \nnormal powers in human consciousness cannot be explained by any science of \nman which does not pass beyond the analysis of his physical body and its func\u00ac \ntions. Dr. Carrel even favours an interpretation of spiritualistic phenomena \nwhich, as far as it goes, is not dissimilar to the hypothesis proposed in early \ntheosophical literature. \n\nThe medium believes himself to be inhabited by the spirit of the deceased. He may \nreveal to the experimenters some details known only to the dead man, and the exactness \nof which is verified later. According to Broad, these facts could be interpreted as indi\u00ac \ncating the persistence after death, not of the mind, but of a psychic factor capable of \ngrafting itself temporarily upon the organism of the medium. This psychic factor, in \nuniting with a human being, would constitute a sort of consciousness belonging both to \nthe medium and to the defunct. Its existence would be transitory. It would progres\u00ac \nsively break up and finally disappear (pp. 264-265). \n\nHe nowhere expresses himself clearly upon the subject of personal immor\u00ac \ntality of a higher order than that envisaged by most spiritualists. The most \nthat he dares say is that we do not know where our true spatial and temporal \nfrontiers are, that sometimes \u201cpersonality seems really to extend beyond phys\u00ac \niological duration\u2019\u2019 (p. 264); that each one of us, while living, is \u201ccertainly far \nlarger and more diffuse than his body\u201d (p. 258). \n\nPerhaps his hesitation at this point is not wholly due to scientific caution. \nAdmirable as is his exposition of human potentialities, it would seem that he \ninvents a premature generalization when he defines\u2014quite tentatively, it is \n\n\nMAN, THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS \n\n\n207 \n\n\ntrue\u2014soul and body as inseparable aspects of one entity. The whole question \nis, what is meant by these terms, \u201csoul\u201d and \u201cbody\u201d. His studies in mysticism \nmight have suggested the idea that there are several \u201csouls\u201d and several \u201cbodies\u201d. \nIn particular, he might revise his somewhat disparaging opinion of the great \nHindu mystics, if he seriously investigated the basis for their threefold and \nsevenfold divisions of man. It may be granted that wherever there is conscious\u00ac \nness, it is related to some state of substance, to some material vehicle, subtile \nor gross. The modes of consciousness, which immediately depend upon the \ngross physical body for their manifestation, must disappear when the body dies; \nbut according to the experimental science of the Upanishads, for example, there \nare other modes of consciousness which do not immediately depend upon the \nphysical body and which survive its death, although their activity may, in a cer\u00ac \ntain sense, be suspended until, by the operation of Karma and of cyclic law, a \nnew physical body is bom in which they can reincarnate. Many students of \nTheosophy have accepted this theory, which incidentally was not limited to \nIndia, since it was clearly expounded by Pythagoras and Plato. It is logical \nand rests upon well-attested experience. \n\nHowever, the essence of the ancient Indian science of consciousness is the \ndoctrine of the identity of the Real Self of man with the Eternal. As the Vedanta \nteaches, the Atman and the Brahman are one. \u201cThis is the meaning, this the \nfinal word of the teaching of wisdom: the individual life is the Eternal, the whole \nworld is the Eternal; to be established in the secondless Eternal is liberation; \nthis too the Scriptures declare\u201d ( The Crest Jewel 0] Wisdom [ Vivekachuda - \nmani\\ t 480). \n\nAccording to the doctrine of the One Self, the true man is not his body, not \nhis mind, not even what some religious people have imagined to be the \u201cim\u00ac \nmortal soul\u201d. \u201cThe destruction of the body, the sense-powers, the life-breath, \nthe mind, is as the destruction of a leaf, a flower, a fruit; but the Self stands \nfirm as the tree.\u201d The Self is immanent in every atom but is also removed from \nall the accidents and purgations of conditioned existence. One of the titles of \nthe Real Self is \u201cthe disinterested spectator\u201d. Only he who has realized his \nessential being, who knows by immediate experience that he is that eternal Self, \ncan be described as the Immortal, the Master, the Mahatma, the \u201cGreat Soul\u201d. \nHowever, it may be suggested that the Self is always present to our conscious\u00ac \nness, though we recognize it not, for it is the power that makes manifest the \npurpose which presides over every motion of life and which reveals in every \nevent the meaning which can be found by those who diligently search. \n\nStudents of Theosophy who attempt to make the doctrine of the One Self the \nguiding star of their lives, find in it the supreme expression of the maxim that \nman is the measure of all things. This man is the Master, he who has embodied \nthe Essence of Nature in his individuality, and who is immortal because the \nEssence of Nature, the Logos, with which he is one, is immortal. Madame \nBlavatsky brought to the world the testimony that such men are not metaphysical \nabstractions, that they exist as living witnesses to the divine potentialities of \nhumanity. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n208 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nDr. Carrel is, perhaps, not far removed from the doctrine of the One Self, when \nhe meditates upon the cause and quality of true greatness. \n\nBetween certain individuals and nature there are subtile and obscure relations. Such \nmen are able to spread across space and time and to grasp concrete reality. They seem \nto escape from themselves and also from the physical continuum. . . . Like the great \nprophets of science, art, religion, they often succeed in apprehending in the abysses of \nthe unknown, elusive and sublime beings called mathematical abstractions, Platonic \nIdeas, absolute beauty, God (p. 262). \n\nOnly men of the superior order, only \u201cGod-instructed men\u201d can save our \ncivilization from shipwreck, if indeed it be worth saving. The most that we can \ndo is to act and to plan as intelligently as possible and to pray for their coming. \nDr. Carrel\u2019s last chapter, \u201cThe Remaking of Man\u201d, in our opinion, falls below \nthe general level of the book, because he takes up there an idea which he has \neffectively refuted, the idea that all would be well if the government of the world \ncould be turned over to a high commission of scientists. It is true that these \nscientists would be unlike any others of whom we have ever heard. They would \nassemble all the facts of human history in all its phases from the biological to \nthe mystical, and would then almost automatically pronounce sound judgments \nand issue edicts which the masses would almost automatically obey. At least, \nsuch is the impression which his argument leaves. Such an ideal is, of course, \nUtopian in the extreme. Scientists of that species simply do not exist, nor is it \nconceivable that the human race can be renovated by any number of edicts \nthough they emanated from God Himself. The whole experiment, assuming \nthat it could even be launched, would terminate in one more planned economy; \nand the world has at present all the planned economy that it can endure. \n\nThis does not imply that one does not sympathize with Dr. Carrel\u2019s funda\u00ac \nmental ideal of forming body and mind \u201caccording to natural laws, and not to \nthe prejudices of the various schools of educators\u201d (p. 286). One agrees in \nprinciple with his assertion that minds capable of understanding those laws \nexist. But such minds cannot be formed by the discipline of modem science \nalone. Indeed, certain current scientific practices, such as the inoculation of \nanimals with vimses, lead not to spiritual knowledge but to black magic. One \nknows the laws of subtile Nature by direct experience of their action in one\u2019s \nown consciousness. One knows the Real by becoming real oneself. \u201cThus says \nthe Scripture.\u201d There is no other way. Doubtless, the \u201cGod-instructed man\u201d \nmust know all that is known to the modem scientist; but in addition he must \nbe a saint, a sage, a creative genius of the first magnitude, for it is part of his \nfunction, not the least important part, by the force of his love and compassion \nto create in the hearts of other men the desire to know themselves and to reno\u00ac \nvate themselves. The builders of real civilizations cannot be manufactured in \nany academy. We do not understand the law of their coming. One may sur\u00ac \nmise, however, that they would come even at this late date, if they were sin\u00ac \ncerely invited. S.V.L. \n\n\nKNOW THYSELF\u201d \n\n\n\u201cMAN, \n\n\nAT the Theosophical Convention of 1936, the above was one of the texts \n/A upon which was based the Report of the Committee on Resolutions. \n\nA companion text was: \u201cMan is the Mirror of the Universe\u201d. That \naddress contained matter of vital importance to students of Theosophy who \nare eager to promote the aims and objects of the Society, and especially to \nthose who aspire to discipleship, because, as the speaker said, \u201cdiscipleship of \nany degree is impossible except on the basis of my texts\u201d. \n\nThe speaker referred to \u201cMr. Judge\u2019s oft-repeated statement that everything \nin life and in nature should be interpreted in the light of the seven principles\u201d, \nand then suggested that it would be simpler, for the present purpose, to think \nof the upper triad as the immortal part of man, and of the lower quaternary as \nthe personality, and continued: \u201cMan being the mirror of the universe, we find \nthat the hierarchy which he is by nature (before he has perverted his nature), \nreflects the hierarchical principle which is manifest everywhere in the universe \naround him, except where, as in himself, he has turned things upside down; \nfor the vast majority of men, instead of being governed by the immortal part \nof themselves, are governed by the personality,\u2014which means that they are \ngoverned by their own mob, by their own demos\u2014their elemental inclinations \nand desires. This is why man is the demos-controlled animal which he is to-day, \nand why the whole world is in a state of such deplorable confusion. The hier\u00ac \narchical principle, inherent in Nature both seen and unseen, was intended to \ninspire and guide the evolution of man as of all else.\u201d Later the speaker said: \n\u201cThis doctrine of the higher and lower nature of man, and of a similar duality \nthroughout the manifested universe, needs to be emphasized by all students of \nTheosophy. . . . Because of this duality in manifested Nature, so marked in \nman,\u2014necessarily his life, and the life of the universe itself, is a ceaseless con\u00ac \nflict, with the corollary that conflict is not an evil, but is essential to health and \ngrowth. The most terrible of all conflicts, because incessant, age-long, is that \nbetween the Powers of Light and those of Darkness,\u2014between the White Lodge \nand the Black, fighting for the souls of men. That most people no longer believe \nin the Devil, who was, after all, the symbol of a dreadful realitv, a synthetic \nrepresentation of the Powers of Darkness, is a victory for them for which they \nhad long been working.\u201d \n\nHow many of those who heard that address, or who read it in the published \nreport of the Convention, have made any serious or determined effort to act \nupon it? And yet, we must believe that that message\u2014that appeal\u2014was made \nbecause of a great need. The present cycle of indrawal emphasizes the urgency \nof that need. In this Black Age, or Kali Yuga, the sincere, determined efforts \nof a very few can count for infinitely much. As Mr. Judge says in Letters that \nhave Helped Me\\ \u201cKali Yuga by its very nature, and terrible, swift momentum, \n\n\n\n\n209 \n\n\n\n210 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\npermits one to do more with his energies in a shorter time than in any other \nYuga. But heavens, what a combat!\u201d Therefore, that Convention address \nwas not only an appeal, it was a challenge. \n\nIt has been said that, considering the indrawal now taking place, we should \nbecome more and more concerned with inner things. In other words, the com\u00ac \nbat to which we are urged is an inner conflict between the Self (the immortal \npart of us) and the self (the personality). How many of us are aware of any \nstruggle taking place? If there is no struggle, then we may be sure that we have \nsurrendered, lock, stock and barrel, to the enemy! Or, perhaps, we have been \nunwilling to give up our illusion that the personality is something lovely to \ncontemplate because we have spent so much time, attention and effort in build\u00ac \ning up this false image of ourselves, until it appears to us as an angel of light, \ninstead of the ugly, hideous thing it is. One of the favourite tricks of the lower \nnature is to prevent us from being absolutely honest with ourselves. Few men \nare. The average man finds it easier to live in desires. Inertia, sheer laziness, \nare potent weapons of the lower nature. Yet, if a man will but look within, \nand not blind his eyes to the light of the soul, his search will be rewarded. If \nhe has come to recognize that the hierarchical principle was intended to inspire \nand guide his evolution, he will endeavour increasingly to bring his thoughts, \nhis desires, his aspirations and efforts under the guidance of the immortal part \nof him. Once this step is taken, he will recognize his personality for what it is: \n\u201cthe snake of self\u201d, which is his own worst and, in reality, his only enemy. \n\nAll that has been said in the foregoing has been repeated in theosophical \nliterature so often, in so many different ways, that it is to be feared the constant \nrepetition has in some cases deadened the understanding of its deep significance. \nThere is also a danger that some students of Theosophy have unconsciously \nbeen influenced by the general disbelief of the present day in the Devil, who \nwas \u2018\u2018the symbol of a dreadful reality, a synthetic representation of the Powers \nof Darkness\u201d. If so, they should realize that they have contributed, to that \nextent, to the magnitude of the victory of the Black Lodge over the world. \nThis tragic fact is an illustration of the way in which we may unconsciously be \nbetraying the Cause to which we have dedicated our lives. Oh! that each one \nof us could be brought to realize more keenly than we have ever done the fact \nthat our lower nature, the thing which we have nursed and fostered so assid\u00ac \nuously, will turn and rend us; that it is, in fact, fighting for its own life, which \nit maintains by feeding upon the spiritual qualities which all of us possess, but \nwhich we have allowed it to pervert and misuse. Realization of this truth can\u00ac \nnot fail to result in serious efforts to curb the lower nature, which will then \nbecome restive, and will fight,\u2014for it must not be imagined that it will surren\u00ac \nder without a life-and-death struggle. Even a rat will fight when cornered, as \nanyone who has ever had any experience with rats can testify. This \u2018\u2018rat\u201d of a \nlower nature will do the same. \n\nA competent general knows from experience that in planning a campaign he \nmust first study the terrain, the strength and disposition of the opposing forces. \nHe is aware that his opponent is wily; knows his antagonist\u2019s weak as well as \n\n\n\u201cMAN, KNOW THYSELF\u201d \n\n\n2 11 \n\n\nstrong points, and will therefore dispose his forces so as to guard against ambush \nand surprise attacks. All rules of civilized or uncivilized warfare are as nothing \nto our inner enemy, who will employ any tactics, any deceit, any means what\u00ac \never, to gain his ends. In this warfare, no quarter is asked or given; therefore, \nthe would-be disciple must both study his enemy, and be \u2018\u2018on sentry go\u201d every \nminute. Above all, he should be aware of the spiritual forces which he already \nhas at his command, and the immeasurable reinforcements which may be sent \nhim in case of need. It is all too common for people to think of \u2018\u2018the spiritual \nworld\u201d, the \u2018\u2018upper triad\u201d, the \u2018\u2018spiritual hierarchy\u201d, as something above us, \nto which we vaguely and more or less blindly appeal. We should be conscious \nof the spiritual qualities which we already possess and are constantly using. \nThe Buddha, when asked what needed to be done, in order to develop the \n\u2018\u2018iddhis\u201d, or powers of the soul, replied that, among other things, we should \nlearn \u201cto see through things\u201d. All of us are closer to the spiritual world, and \nour life is closer to the life of the soul, than we realize. The good qualities we \npossess, and all of us have at least a few, are part of the immortal in us. What \nwe need to do is to realize that this spiritual life is close to our every-day life \nand consciousness, and that we use the qualities of the soul constantly. By \nlearning to \u201csee through things\u201d, as the Buddha advised, we shall learn to dis\u00ac \ncriminate between these higher qualities and the perversions which our per\u00ac \nsonalities have made of them. \n\nThe cycle of indrawal is an opportunity provided for gaining greater realiza\u00ac \ntion of the need to employ these qualities of the soul more intelligently, more \nconstantly and determinedly, in order to draw closer to the centre and source \nof spiritual life for each one of us\u2014our own Master. In this mortal combat \nwe can invoke the aid of all the heavenly host; our reinforcements will be those \nof the Great Lodge itself; every power of the spiritual world will be aiding us. \n\nH.G. \n\n\nIt is not the weeds that choke the grain; it is the negligence of the cultivator .\u2014 \nConfucius. A \n\n\nBeware of moods and ill-humour; to give way to these is to impair our strength \nof will and even our mental powers. \u2014T. Pesch. \n\n\n\n\nFOLLOW UP! \n\n\nS TUDENTS of Theosophy are accustomed to think in terms of cyclic law, \nor indeed, if such is not their custom, they have at least had their atten\u00ac \ntion drawn to the need to do so. \u201cIf the trumpet give an uncertain sound, \nwho shall prepare himself for battle?\u201d Forty-three years ago our leader, W. \nQ. Judge, waged in London, almost single-handed, his Homeric battle against \nthe forces of darkness. Staying alone, in the house of enemies, from the 5th \nto the 19th July, 1894, he fought the combined forces of treachery, malevolence, \nspite, betrayal; answered the charges levelled against him, and defended the \nCause of the Masters, not in his own right but by their power. Because he \nwon, we, as a Society, are alive to-day. The following year, on July 5th, 1895, \nthe few loyal members who remained in London, separated themselves from the \ntreacherous \u201cParent Society\u201d, and re-organized the T.S. in Europe on the \nlines laid down at the Boston Convention earlier in the year. Thus the \u201cTheo- \nsophical Bridge\u201d between East and West was maintained and strengthened, \nthat Bridge which is also a gateway \u201cfor egos who incarnate in the silent work \nof making a new Race\u201d. 1 \n\nTen years before the \u201ctrial\u201d in London, in the summer of 1884, the great \nattack had been launched by the Psychical Research Society, an attempt to wreck \nthe patient, constructive work of the T.S. since its foundation. From both \nattacks the Work itself emerged the stronger, more fitted to stand the strain of \nrepeated conflict in the years to come. \n\nThe very name of H.P.B. sounds the lion note, H.P.B., \u201cadept in all the \nnoble arts of righteous war\u201d. 2 Think of her, and one can almost hear the roll \nof the drums that reverberate through the first books of the Bhagavad Gita , the \nPandu army drawn up for battle, Krishna standing in his great chariot, Arjuna \nsinking down in despondency at the thought of slaying his own kindred; then \nthe rousing words of the Warrior Lord, \u201cArise, 0 son of Kunti, gird thyself for \nthe fight\u201d. Only six years ago, in July, the T.S. celebrated the centenary of the \nbirth of the founder of the T.S. 3 She had spent the last years of her heroic \nwarfare in Europe, dwelling in London since 1887,\u2014years which saw her greatest \noutput of literary and other work, leaving as lasting records The Secret Doctrine , \nKey to Theosophy , Voice of the Silence , Theosophical Glossary. With reference to \nher stay in London, she stated in a letter 4 that she was going to \u201cgalvanize a \ncorpse\u201d which would later turn to destroy her; but she predicted that America \nwould prevail. Her birthday, coming in July, reminds us that this month is \ndedicated to all Warriors, radiant in the light of the Sun at its Zenith, illumined \nby the rays of the Lion of Judah, sacred of old to Mithras the Mediator. In \n\n1 See Theosophy. Vol. XI, 1896-1897. P- 262, \"On the Future\", by W. 0 - Judge; reprinted from Lucifer, 1892. \n\n* Thus described by W. 0 - J. in the Path. \n\n\u2022See Theosophical Quarterly, Vol. XXIX, July, 1931. \n\n4 See Irish Theosophist, Vol. Ill, May, 1895. \n\n\n212 \n\n\n\n\nFOLLOW UP! \n\n\n213 \n\n\nthe midst of the chaos and darkness of this world the Warriors fight, as in the \nrealms of light, fight to win their true place in the ranks of the Lodge, and when \nthey have won it, fight all the harder to maintain their position. Les combats de \nla vie sont incessants; guerre en soi y guerre pour sot , defense aux autres , soutien des \nblesses , sus an mal } a Vennemi lucifdrien tant de fois triomphant. 6 \n\nJust twenty-three years ago, in the summer of 1914, the inner warfare was \nbrought to a focus in the outer War in which allied European nations were \ninstantly involved in hand-to-hand conflict with the powers of evil; and be\u00ac \ncause of the consistent appeal of the leaders of the T.S. in America, the U. S. A. \nwon, at long last, her right and privilege to fight on the side of the armies of the \nLord. In that warfare men found themselves, for in them arose again all the \ntraditions of the knighthood of old. Through the horror and darkness of fight\u00ac \ning conditions in this century, they could yet discern the lighted trail of the \nQuest of olden times. In them rose up, to fight and to conquer, the courage of \nthe warriors of old,\u2014bronze-clad Persians, Assyrians with winged lion for em\u00ac \nblem, ancient Egyptians, worshippers of the Sun-god Ra, Indian Rajputs, Chinese \nand Japanese warriors who see death in the clouds and defy it. In them arose \nthe valour of all the European fighting nations, Greek hoplites, Roman legion\u00ac \naries, Gallic men-at-arms, Celtic warriors, Norsemen and Danes, Vikings from \nover the sea. In them was reborn the spirit of the ancient Phoenicians, Etrus\u00ac \ncans, Pelasgians, the explorers, adventurers, colonizers, on to the days of the \nPilgrim Fathers and the heroic early settlers in northern America. In them \nwas renewed the ancient chivalric code, from the times of the Arab and Moorish \nconquerors, through the days of the Crusades and of mediaeval chivalry,\u2014the \nfighting spirit of Templars and Knights, of the captains who fought under Joan \nof Arc (and her Leaders), the generals who conquered under Napoleon the Em\u00ac \nperor. The true fighters in the great War were fashioned of the same steel that \nhas hardened every soldier to endure, at all times, in all climes, in the scorching \nsun of desert wastes, in the bleak cold of frozen wilderness. In their thousands \nthey fought and died, and left their earthly vesture on every battlefield, their \nfinest memorial those words of Thucydides: \u201cThe whole earth is the sepulchre \nof heroic men . . . their story is not graven only in stone ... it abides every\u00ac \nwhere without visible symbol . . . woven into the stuff of other men\u2019s lives.\u201d \\ \n\nIn our days the warfare continues, more pressing than ever; and we have \nlearned to be afraid of eloquent words that find no corresponding response in con\u00ac \nsistent action, steadfastly maintained on a level with the ideals set up. As to \nthis it is written: \u201cFirst the ideal . . . and then the daily trudge onward, when \nthe splendour has faded from view, but is all the more closely wrapped round \nthe heart. . . . Let us hold to a religion which, while it exults in being the secret \nof enthusiasm and the inspiration of heroism, is daring and Divine enough to \nfind its climax in the commonplace .\u201d 6 Within the commonplace is to be found \nthe battleground of daily life, with every opportunity for adventure and chiv- \nalry. But we must needs learn to restrain, check, direct all false impulses, \n\n* ChrllMnt, by Mme. Adam. \n\n\u2022 George Adam Smith. \n\n\n214 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nremembering that by patience alone we may \u201cpossess our souls\u201d. That patience \ncan only be won at the cost of heroic self-sacrifice, looking ever to the example \nand leadership of the Masters of Wisdom, the Warrior Lords, who are the living \npattern of all true chivalry, of the Knighthood of the Cross. It is their call \nwhich resounds through the ages: what is the response from soldier-hearts ? \n\nOh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! \n\nOur God is marching on. \n\nSo the War-cry is \u201cForward\u201d, where the banner moves on, borne aloft by the \nStandard-Bearers of the Lodge. Across the sacred oriflamme shines out, in \nletters of fire: \u201cUpward and onward for evermore\u201d! Companions of old have \nresponded to that call. Once a fellow-worker of Mr. Judge, who understood \nthe need to rally to the defence of the leader, wrote of the fact that the sword \n(which is kept sheathed in the case of every personal attack) must be instantly \nunsheathed to defend a Companion. \u201cSuch was the ethical code of the steel- \nclad seekers for the Holy Grail, and of the mailed Templars . . . who fought \n\u2018under the red cross of the Four Powers of the Hidden Majesty\u2019.\u201d In that Sign \nshall we conquer, for it is the watch-word of brotherhood given by H.P.B. in \nher Convention message of 1889. * 7 \n\nThe ancient sign, the Master\u2019s accolade, is given to those who earn it by right \nof conquest. \u201cThrough this sign hast thou conquered\u201d, the holy letters I.H.S. \n(the sign on the Labarum, the standard with eagle as emblem) 8 belong to the \nBrothers of the Light, who have fought and won and still fight on. \u201cThe Cross \ndescends from the sun and covers the whole earth. In that sign shall each man \nconquer, raising himself by the ladder of light within him and without him. \n\n. . . The square gives place to the X and all is light.\u201d 9 \n\nHow shall we conquer, children of dust and earth and sin? Even by that \nknowledge that we are sons of God, children of the light, when at last we have \nthe courage to claim and hold our inheritance. How shall we win, single- \nhanded against the forces of evil arrayed against us? Not single-handed indeed, \nsingle-hearted is the word, in the ranks of the Fellowship which is one army \nunder the Warrior Lord. In that unity is our strength, to fight and fall and \nfight again; relying on that \u201cunited spirit of life\u201d, which is our only true self, \nwe may at last win through to victory for Him. \n\nDraw near together, none be last or first, \n\nWe are no longer names, but one desire, \n\nW ith the same burning of the soul we thirst, \n\nAnd the same wine to-night shall quench our fire. 10 \n\n\n7 Reprinted in the Theosophical Quarterly. January. 1934. \n\n\u2022 See Theosophical Glossary. \n\n\u2022 Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods, by J. S. M. Ward. \n\n10 Newbolt: Sacramenlum Supremum. \n\n\nMiles C. \n\n\n\n\n\n1 J \n\n\nCl \n\nm \n\nfT \n\nIES 1 \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE \nTHEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY \n\n\nMorning Session \n\nThe Annual Convention of The Theosophical Society was called to order at \n64, Washington Mews, New York' at 10.30 o\u2019clock, on Saturday morning, \nApril 24th, 1937, by Mr. Hargrove, Chairman of the Executive Committee, who \nserved as Temporary Chairman of the Convention. A Committee on Cre\u00ac \ndentials was appointed, consisting of Mr. H. B. Mitchell, Miss Perkins, and \nMr. Kobbd, to confer and report at once. \n\nAddress of the Temporary Chairman \n\nMr. Hargrove : While the Committee is at work, it is my privilege to wel\u00ac \ncome you to our Convention. It should be much more than an official or per\u00ac \nsonal welcome. We assemble in the name of the Masters of the Great Lodge, \nand, in will and desire, in order to serve them; and we must keep that objective \nconstantly before us while we meet, because some of us learned years ago, \nthat that which is said here, if it be said with conviction, with understanding, \nfrom the heart, and above all for their sakes rather than for our own,\u2014carries \nfar indeed. We are not speaking only to a group of members and delegates. \nBecause of what that group represents, because of the way in which it is sup\u00ac \nported by the Lodge,\u2014every word and every thought and aspiration, going \nforth from this place on this occasion, reaches throughout the world\u2019s atmos\u00ac \nphere. And we have an advantage, in a sense, over Masters, since we, for them, \nare speaking on the level of those in hell. We are in direct contact with the \nworld, and in so far as, in these moments, we can overcome the world within \nourselves; in so far as the past year\u2019s efforts, and this occasion, lift us above \nourselves, to that extent we can be sure of reinforcement, and of the trans\u00ac \nmission of what is truly said and felt to every mind and heart on earth that \nis in the least degree open to the truth. \n\nIn the nature of things, it is an immense pleasure once more to greet you. \nOld faces, familiar faces, which we are ever-increasingly glad to see again; \nnewer faces, equally welcome\u2014because while all represent the present, there \nare some who can speak for the past, and others who are the promise of the \n\n215 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n2 l6 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nfuture. And I want to repeat what I said once before on a similar occasion; \nI want to remind the newer members of the Parable of the lord of the vineyard \nand his labourers. You will remember that those who were called to service \nlate, were treated exactly as those who had borne the burden and heat of the \nday. It must of necessity be true that the longer we have been in the Move\u00ac \nment, the more gladly shall we welcome those who, because of their devotion, \nbecause of their self-forgetfulness, develop within themselves the spiritual \nperception that will enable us to look up to them. There can be no organiza\u00ac \ntion anywhere in which the older members would more thankfully give place \nto the new. So it will not be for lack of encouragement if the newer members \ndo not make good; not for any conscious lack of helpfulness on our part if one \nor two or three or many do not force their way through to that place where \nthey will know of a certainty that the inner world is the real world, and that \nMasters always have, and still do, guide this Movement along the way it \nshould go, for the purpose for which it was founded, until at last its work is \ndone. \n\nOnce more, then, on behalf of the Executive Committee, I welcome you. \n\nThe Report of the Committee on Credentials was then called for, presented, \nand accepted; next, Mr. H. B. Mitchell was elected Chairman of the Convention, \nand Miss Perkins and Miss Chickering, Secretary and Assistant Secretary. \n\nAddress of the Chairman \n\nThe Chairman: Each of us speaks here for himself. It is our custom to \nput that on record at the beginning of our proceedings, so that the freedom of \nthe Society shall be in no way impaired. Yet each one who speaks here must \nfeel that he is speaking for something far greater than himself or his fellows, \nfor more, even, than the Society, which explicitly stands uncommitted by what \nhe says. He feels that he is speaking in the presence of, and under the pressure \nof, the Wholeness of Truth, of which his own truths and his fellows\u2019 are but \nfragments,\u2014under the pressure of that guidance which, as Mr. Hargrove has \nsaid, has never failed the Society; in the presence of the great Lodge of Masters \nfrom which that guidance comes. It is this overshadowing of the imperfect \nby the Perfect, this sense of the whole that inheres in the part, this sure knowl\u00ac \nedge that Truth exists, changeless and eternal, and that the inner world is at \nhand,\u2014it is this which is my theme to-day. \n\nThree Questions , and Their Answer \n\nIt is my theme because in it is the answer to three questions which I asked \nmyself, as I thought of what the great founders of our Society would wish said \nat this Convention. The first was: What, of all the gifts the Theosophical \nMovement has brought us, do we most desire to make sure will be passed on \nunimpaired to our successors? The answer to that question would tell us what \nshould be most emphasized here, among ourselves, when we consider our duty \nas the trustees of those gifts. \n\nThe second question was: What, among all the manifold needs of the world, \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n217 \n\n\nis its most crucial need? That would tell how we should speak to that need, \nin the knowledge that here, year after year, is repeated the miracle of the loaves \nand the fishes, so that the power of what is said is multiplied a thousand times \nbecause it is said here, and because of what is focussed here and flows out from \n\n\nhere to the world. \n\nAnd finally, the third question: What is it that makes these Conventions so \npeculiarly dear to us, setting them apart from ordinary gatherings and confer\u00ac \nences of friends and comrades, so that, for many of us, the Convention of the \nSociety is the culmination of the year? That would show us where to look, \nand what to keep constantly in mind, that we might make the best use of the \n\n\nday. \n\nThe answer to all three questions is the same, and is found in the conscious\u00ac \nness of the power and the presence of Eternal Truth, and the power and the \npresence of its Servants, the Lodge of Masters. Of all the gifts the Theosophical \nMovement has brought us, none is more inclusive, more potent to reproduce \nfrom within itself all else that we have received, than our knowledge of the \nMasters. Of all the needs of the world to-day, none goes deeper, none is more \nsorely needed, than to regain its lost recognition of the existence and supreme \nauthority of the unchanging Truth. And in that dual recognition which we \nhave, of the Perfect in which our imperfect is upheld, of the Whole of which we \nare but parts, is the secret of the sympathy and understanding, the close, dear \ncomradeship, that we find here. \n\nChange Lays not her Hand upon Truth \n\nTheosophy has given us this awareness of the inner world which both inter\u00ac \npenetrates and transcends the visible world of our physical senses, and which \nis lit everywhere and for ever by the unfading Light of the Spirit, moved only \nby what is itself moveless, changing only to reveal more of the changeless \nTruth. Yet it has no name. We are faced by that problem whenever we try \nto talk of the Real, which gleams beyond us and draws forth our love and \nworship. Call it God, call it the Platonic Trinity of the Good, the True, the \nBeautiful, call it Theosophy, or the Eternal Wisdom, or the Perfect, or what \nyou will,\u2014but know that it is there. Know that there is a Completeness in which \nour incompleteness is made whole; that above all change, is the Changeless; \nabove all opinion, is the immutable, inviolable Truth; that \u201cChange lays not \nher hand upon Truth\u201d. \n\nWe do not need, to-day, to remind ourselves that we live in a world of change. \nOn every side we hear of the \u201cnew\u201d this and the \u201cnew\u201d that, and looking in \nvain for former things, are told that they have passed away. But the more \nrapid and radical the change, the more vital it is that we should remember \nceaselessly that we live equally in a world of Truth, the same yesterday, to-day, \nand to-morrow, and that, in the swirling flux of the temporal, we should hold \nsteadfastly to the Eternal. \n\nOur Motto and Seal \n\n\u201c^fc^re is no religion higher than Truth.\u201d All that I am saying might be \nsaid as a commentary upon our motto and seal, as we see them there on the \n\n\n2 l8 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nshield above Mr. Judge\u2019s bust. In the centre of the seal is the crux ansata, or \nankh y the symbol of immortal life, the spark of the Eternal individualized in \nthe soul. Around it are the interlaced triangles, the symbol of the \u201cever be\u00ac \ncoming\u201d and of manifestation, through which life evolves,\u2014the triangles \npointing up and down, forward and backward, linking spirit and matter, the \npast and the future, the already formed and the potential that is yet unborn. \nAnd around that again, circumscribing the world of duality and change, is the \nsymbol of the Changeless, the circle of Eternity, the serpent swallowing its \ntail, in which the end is as the beginning, and alpha and omega are one, uniting \nthrough the Wheel of the Law. Thus the Eternal is both the centre and the \ncircumference of the temporal. It is both immanent and transcendent; both \nthe source and goal of change. The long evolution of life is the action of the \nChangeless Perfect drawing to itself and its own perfection its imperfect \nfragments. \n\nEvolution: the Response of the Imperfect to the Perfect \n\nI should like to make this as clear as I can, and to that end we may consider \na contrast presented by pictures in the two museums on opposite sides of Central \nPark, in this city. On the western side is the American Museum of Natural \nHistory, in whose Hall of Man are exhibited modem, imaginative paintings of \n\u201cprimitive\u201d humanity, purporting to represent reconstructions, made in accord\u00ac \nance with the evolutionary theories of our western anthropologists, from some \nfragments of skull or jaw-bone found buried in deep-lying strata of the earth. \nAll of us are familiar with such pictures. Typically, they show a more or less \nhuman figure, unkempt, as animals are not, but with a wholly brutish expres\u00ac \nsion, coming forth, club in hand, from a cave; and the notable thing about \nthem, to any student of Theosophy, is that, in thus making the body human \nand the face brutish, the artist has reversed the attributes of flesh and spirit, \nso as to represent degenerating, not evolving, humanity. For the body, the \nvesture, of any living thing is woven of its past; but the expression of its counte\u00ac \nnance is the stamp of its spirit and the forecast of its future. Primitive man, \nif such there ever was, may have had the body of a brute, but in his eyes would \nhave been the aspiration which made him human. The museum\u2019s \u201chistory\u201d \nis fiction. \n\nOn the other, the eastern, side of the Park is the Metropolitan Museum of \nArt, where we may see some of the earliest surviving records of man\u2019s own \naccount and picture of himself. What they show us is the human soul in worship \nand in prayer. The murals from the tombs of Egypt are not the oldest records, \nbut they are typical; for however deep we dig, wherever we find man telling \nof himself in art, he tells of his religion. He paints himself with hands uplifted \nto his gods,\u2014his vision of the Perfect, to whom he, imperfect, owes worship \nand obedience; in whom is the power to uphold and save, or, in judgment, to \ncondemn and destroy. In that worship and obedience is the moving power of \nevolution, so far as it acts from within and not merely from without through \nthe pressure of necessity. The ability to grow is the ability to surrender what \nis, for the better that may be, and, so far as it is a conscious or willed process, \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n219 \n\n\nit is dependent upon a love that forgets self wholly, in its desire to serve the \nobject of its worship. The whole story can be read in the eyes of a dog; and it \nis the same story that the art of ascending man is for ever trying to tell of his \nown indwelling spirit. Here \u201cart\u201d is history. The two museums have reversed \ntheir r61es. \n\nThe Perfect in the Imperfect: the Whole Immanent in its Parts \n\nI hope to return later to a consideration of growth, as symbolized in the \nintertwined triangles of our seal, but I am immediately concerned with the \nChangeless Perfect which circumscribes it and which is reflected at its heart. \nIt is always the Perfect that supports the imperfect. It is only through the \nEternal that the temporal can be, even for its time. In the philosophy of the \nMiddle Ages, the philosophy which Dante illumined, there is an illustration \nwhich we may borrow, for it is entirely in accord with our most modem science. \nIt is drawn from the universe of light. Our sight is but the capacity to receive \nand respond to light. All that we see, when we see anything at all, is some \nmodification of universal light. As we look around this room and see one \nanother\u2019s faces, or the beauty and varied colouring of the flowers, we are seeing \nlight and only light,\u2014seeing in each only what each has been able or willing to \ntake to itself and assimilate of the wholeness of light poured out upon it. It \nis the same light, whole and lacking nothing, that is given to all; but one reflects \nit in this form, and another in that; one as red, another as yellow, another as \nblue. Yet we see them at all only because each is, however limited, still some \nfacet of light,\u2014because of the Perfect Whole which is immanent in the im\u00ac \nperfect fragment. \n\nThat is the first lesson our illustration should make clear. There is a second, \nequally important. Whence comes the light, by which we see these flowers \nand each other? It is not of the earth. It is of the sun. It is solar light, heavenly \nlight. It is light from beyond the world that alone enables us to see the world. \nIf we reject the light of heaven, we reject all vision of earth. Earth becomes \ndark to us; and in the deepening twilight where sight fails, fancy becomes its \nsubstitute, with its will-o\u2019-the-wisps of false hope and its ghosts of baseless \nfear. \n\nThat which is true of human sight is correspondingly true of the human \nintellect, which is but the capacity to receive and respond to the universal \nthought. Whatever we think, we think with divine intelligence, as we see \nwith divine light. We open our minds to elements which we strain from the \nuniversal mind, rejecting other elements, to which we are impervious, or which \nwe are unwilling to accept. By these selections and rejections our thought, \nbeing made partial, is constantly falsified; but nevertheless it is always a frag\u00ac \nment of the divine thought,\u2014no matter how distorted, or even perverted. We \nthink only with the thought of God; and in our thought God thinks. In every \nactivity of the finite, there is the Infinite supporting it. \n\nThis is as true of love as of sight and thought. It is \u201cfrom above\u201d, and \ncannot survive if separated from what is above. Particulars can be linked only \nby universals. The brotherhood of man exists only through the fatherhood of \n\n\n\n\n220 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nGod; and if the love of God be not in our love for any man, then is that love \nnot love, but either fancy or self-seeking. To shut out the divine is to shut out \nthe human. \n\nWorship and Growth \n\nAs we gain clearer recognition of this relation of the temporal to the Eternal, \nso that the Perfect is seen always both circumscribing and supporting the im\u00ac \nperfect, and immanent and active in its heart, we find it clarifying our view \nof all life\u2019s processes. This is notably true in the whole field of religious philos\u00ac \nophy, though we can only pause to point to it here. Faith, hope and love are \nthree aspects of the response evoked in the imperfect by its vision of the Per\u00ac \nfect,\u2014these three, and the humility, which is their basis, in the perception of \nself as the imperfect. From them comes obedience, the free-willed obedience \nwhich is the turning of the imperfect to the Perfect, so that its judgments be\u00ac \ncome commands. As the intent of any act inevitably serves as the standard \nby which the result is judged, so the Perfect, by being the Perfect, inevitably \njudges and presses upon the imperfect, both from within and from without,\u2014from \nthe Perfect immanent within us, as aspiration and the voice of conscience; \nfrom the Perfect transcending us, as the Divine Will we worship. This ceaseless \njudgment and pressure of the Perfect, and the response which the imperfect \nmakes to it, are the moving power of growth and evolution,\u2014as we said before, \nand as our seal symbolizes. \n\nThe two triangles represent the two sides of our nature, the higher and the \nlower; broadly speaking the good and the bad, but good and bad because the \none points up and forward in line with the drawing, the attraction, of the Per\u00ac \nfect, and the other points down and back, against that drawing, toward the \nimperfect to which we cling. Thus the one symbolizes the past and matter, \nand the pull of the body. The other tells us of what we see beyond and above \nus, the vision which we worship and to which we aspire in love and emulation. \nThe point of this triangle is for ever breaking through the base of the other, \nfor ever breaking through the base of what has been formed (whether it be \nthe vesture of our thought and hopes and desires, or the physical body that \nclothes the soul), necessitating \u201creforming\u201d and \u201credressing\u201d of what has been \nformed and clothed imperfectly. He who worships finds the object of his \nworship always compelling such growth and change. It speaks with the voice \nof authority. Its revelation of itself, in response to the appeal of worship, \nbrings ceaseless judgment and condemnation,\u2014showing us to be \u201cfar off, in \nthe region of unlikeness\u201d. But also it brings faith and hope in the possibility \nof drawing nearer, of transforming self, through love and obedience, into the \ncloser likeness of what we love. Always it is the Eternal that draws us forth. \nIt is through worship that life has risen. Do not let us think that man alone \nworships. All life worships. Can we see a flower grow, and not see its worship? \nOr a mountain? Or a tree at dawn? At the heart of all is the spark of the \nEternal, being drawn back in worship to its Source. \n\nThis is true of all life, but of ourselves something more is true. How is the \nEternal conceived by us? As we ponder that question, we come to see that \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n221 \n\n\nit is not worship of the Perfect in an abstract or general sense that leads us \nforward, but in the particular and very concrete sense of hero-worship,\u2014for \nour clearest revelation of the Perfect is in perfect Man. We know what courage \nmeans through those who are courageous; we know what truth is, through \nthose who seek it and conform their lives to it. It is the \u201cGreat of Soul\u201d, the \nMahatmas, who, through their incarnation of the Perfect, reveal it to us, inter\u00ac \npreting for us what lies deep in our hearts, and who have thus led mankind \nalong the long road it has travelled. It is they, our Elder Brothers, who lead \nus to-day. \n\nThe closer union with our fellows, the enhanced inspiration and resolve, the \nsense of coming home, that we feel in these Conventions, are all due to the \ndrawing nearer to the Masters which we here achieve, as we concern ourselves \nwith their work and will, putting aside our own worldly affairs. Our personal \npreoccupations veil the inner light, as the clouds that form in the earth\u2019s atmos\u00ac \nphere veil the sun; and when these are put away, and the light of the Perfect \nshines through, we experience more consciously and keenly all the action of the \nPerfect upon the imperfect, such as we have discussed. Therefore where the \nMasters are, we are closest to our fellows. Where they are, the light is clearer \nby which we see; the power stronger by which we act. For the Masters are the \nlinks which unite us to the Perfect, and which unite us, also, to those we love. \n\nThe World Without Worship \n\nWe turn away from what Theosophy has given us and look out upon the \nworld. The contrast between what we see there and what we find here in this \nroom, is sharp,\u2014nowhere more sharp than in the world\u2019s lack of that sense of \nthe overshadowing Perfect which fills our hearts and minds. We look upon a \nworld that has lost the habit and the supporting power of worship; lost, as we \nsaid before, its recognition of the existence and supreme authority of Eternal \nTruth. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth \nhis handiwork, but our generation has been taught to close its eyes and ears. \nBy law, our public schools are forbidden to teach religion. Our science has \nexplicitly limited its field to those aspects of nature that can be described with\u00ac \nout reference to purpose or significance. Thus, in the common thought of the \nday, man\u2019s sentient life has been isolated from the rest of being, and that life, \nand its inherent though deep-buried awareness of the moral law, have been \nleft without the support of reason rooted in universal truths. Modem man\u2019s \nmyopic eyes no longer focus beyond the limits of his man-made world. In \nconsequence, he sees no limit to that world, nothing to prevent his doing with \nit what he pleases; nor does he know how narrow and insecure it has become, \nfor he has no longer any independent standard by which to measure it. He \nhas given economics the place of religion, and, looking only to the earth, has \nsubstituted his material and personal desires for the judgment of the Perfect in \nBeauty, Holiness and Truth. \n\nTwo things have resulted which it concerns us to note. The first is that \nwhich our illustration showed we must expect. In shutting out the light from \nbeyonJ^le world, man has become unable to see the world, and, in the failure \n\n\n222 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nof sight, he follows the ignis fatuus of fancy. The whole of life is falsified, and \nwords, phrases, pictures, projected by our desires and our fears\u2014psychic counter\u00ac \nfeits of every kind\u2014are substituted for reality. \n\nPsychic Substitutes for Truth \n\nIt would not be fitting to take time to-day to expand this aspect of my theme, \nbut it is important that we should, in our own thinking, be ceaselessly alert to \nreject such counterfeits, for they are all about us and are offered us as genuine \nevery day. Think, for example, of the \u201cmovies\u201d, and their pictures of love, \nmarriage, business, pleasure, crime. Nothing is portrayed as it is; nor even \nas the author or director believed it to be; but rather as he believed the \u201cmasses\u201d \nfancy it to be, or desire or fear it to be. We can\u2014and if we have any respect \nfor our own mental integrity, we do\u2014stay away from the \u201cmovies\u201d; but the \nsame counterfeit presentments crowd upon us through the press, not only in \nthe tabloids, but in periodicals and books that purport to express no opinion \nof their own, but to confine themselves to impartial summaries of facts. One \nsuch, a weekly of wide circulation through our whole country, now displays \neach week upon its cover a photograph of \u201ctimely interest\u201d. One week it was \nof an air raid on Madrid,\u2014fireworks and wrecked buildings in the background, \nand a pitiful mother with her baby in the foreground. Another week it was a \nphotograph of a \u201cdog\u2019s toilet\u201d,\u2014a dog being manicured and brushed by a \nliveried maid and valet. Again, it was a \u201ctramps\u2019 encampment\u201d, comic clowns \naround a fire. Not one of these photographs was genuine. All were posed in \na studio. Not one of them was even pointed at reality; for it cannot be sup\u00ac \nposed that the photographer honestly thought that, in becoming homeless, \na man became a clown and gained access to a theatrical wardrobe for his clothes. \nNor can he have thought that his \u201cdog\u2019s toilet\u201d represented routine in the \nhomes of the rich. No, he neither tried to depict the facts, nor his own concept \nor interpretation of the facts. He tried, instead, to imagine how the facts \nmight lie reflected and distorted in the minds of the \u201cmasses\u201d, and to reflect \nthese reflections back to them, their falsities posed as truth. So does popular \neducation confirm prejudice and ignorance, and substitute the counterfeit for \nthe real. Love, marriage, poverty and riches, virtue and vice, are our neigh\u00ac \nbours in the city or the country, to be known as they are, in their concrete \nreality, without the intermediary of letters. Yet the thought of the day is \nbased largely upon the falsehoods and psychic counterfeits of fiction. We are \nnot endorsing Plato\u2019s judgment that he would banish poets from his Republic, \nsince they are but imitators of imitations of the Real, but is there not that in \nour own experience which gives warrant for it ? \n\nThere is the classic example of Mr. Wells\u2019s Outline of History. He criticizes \nencyclopaedias of universal history as lacking the unity of having been \u201cpassed \nthrough one single mind\u201d. His own history has been so passed; and because \nthe mind through which it has been strained, and from which it is reflected \nback to us, is, in its conceit and sentimentality and materialism, impervious to \nany recognition of a Perfect transcending his own concept of himself, not only \nis the picture he presents a psychic reflection from a warped and distorting \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n223 \n\n\nmirror, but the very substance of it has been poisoned and made venomous. \nSo is the thought of our times ceaselessly poisoned. \n\nOr again, consider how spurious are the abstractions and generic terms which \nwe substitute for concrete reality in our theorizing. \u201cThe labouring man\u201d, \nwho probably labours less than most of us here, and for whom laws are asked \nto make him labour even less. The \u201cliberal\u201d, who stands pre-eminently for \nnarrow restriction and compulsion. But the list is endless, and anyone may \ncontinue it for himself. Our first point is made if it is clear that, on every side, \nthe world, having rejected the Divine, has lost its hold upon the real, and now \ndeals, instead, with psychic counterfeits. \n\nThe Turning Backward 0f Desire \n\nThe second point we have to note is that, as man ceases to worship, he ceases \nto grow. Evolution turns back upon itself when, in the loss of the vision and \ndesire for the Perfect, the power that moved the imperfect is cut off, and there \nis nothing to counteract the dead weight of the past. Then man, lacking, as \nwe saw, any standard of value external to himself, chooses \u201cthe dearer\u201d rather \nthan the better , and, thus choosing, abandons himself to degeneracy and \ndecay. This is a truth to which theosophic literature returns again and again. \nSo Death speaks, in the Katha Upanishad, \u201cThe better is one thing, the dearer \nis another thing; these two bind a man in opposite ways. Of these two, it is \nwell for him who takes the better; he fails of his object who chooses the dearer.\u201d \nSo Christ bade his disciples, \u201cBe ye therefore perfect, even as your Father \nwhich is in heaven is perfect\u201d. But it is the world, and not themselves, that \nmen now wish to alter; not Christ, would they follow, but the Persian poet, \n\u201cTo grasp this sorry scheme of things entire . . . shatter it to bits, and then \nremould it nearer to the heart\u2019s desire.\u201d But the heart\u2019s desire clings to the \npast and to satisfactions which, having served their turn, should now be held \nin check that they may give place to new. To follow them is to turn back- \nward. \n\nSelf-Preservation Sought in Subordination to the Divine \n\nWe spoke of this a year ago, in connection with Dr. Carrel\u2019s finding, as a \nphysiologist, that the advances in science and civilization, enabling man to \navoid hardship and indulge his desires, have corrupted and enfeebled his entire \norganism. The same conclusion has been reached from the psychological \napproach by Dr. Henry C. Link, Director of the Psychological Service Centre \nin New York, as the result of his study of the lives and problems of thousands \nof people whom he had been called upon to advise. But Dr. Link\u2019s outstanding \ncontribution is his demonstration that the primary cause of the ailments and \nmaladjustments, little and big, which afflicted these people and robbed them of \nhappiness, was their rejection of religion; and that in the return to religion and \nthe subordination of self to its discipline and truths, lay the road to their cure. \nThe Return to Religion is the title of his book. He tells us that he and his wife \nhad both been educated out of religion by their college and professional train\u00ac \ning, and forsome twenty years had congratulated themselves upon their emanci\u00ac \npation ai^uperiority to it, until, little by little, he realized that it was precisely \n\n\n224 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthe counsels of religion which he, as scientist and specialist, was daily prescribing \nto those who consulted him. When he realized this, he was forced to conclude \nthat he should take his own medicine. He does not pretend that he is in love \nwith religion. He tells us frankly that he goes to church because he hates to go \nbut knows that it does him good. He is much like a man who, having jilted a \ngirl when he heard she had lost her fortune, returns to marry her when he \nlearns the report was unfounded and that she is still rich. The thirsting heart \nof the mystic will find little of its own within the book, tut every honest intellect \nwill find direct, outspoken honesty, and truths too little recognized, which, \nonce faced, can neither be disputed nor ignored. He tells us that no discovery \nof modem science is more important or more sure than psychology\u2019s proof \nthat self-sacrifice and discipline are essential to self-realization and happiness; \nand though other interests (including the necessity of earning a living) may \ncompel such subordination of self, only religion embodies the principle as the \nmajor premise of a normal life. He exhibits the folly of our western glorification \nof the intellect at the cost of the \u201cdisintegration of the basic values which \nmake the intellect worth having\u201d, so that \u201cthe vice of education\u201d produces \n\u201cfools of reason\u201d, who, unable and unwilling to reform themselves, seek, as a \nsubstitute, to reform the world. We may grant that the argument is directed, \nparadoxically, to self-interest, above which religion should lift us; but for that \nvery reason it is the kind of argument suited to a fortune-hunting generation \nwhich has thrown religion away. We should be able to use many of his con\u00ac \nclusions in our own work, and it is a hopeful sign that the book should have \nbecome a \u201cbest seller\u201d, as did Dr. Carrel\u2019s. \n\nSelf-Preservation Sought in the Denial of the Divine \n\nWe have, however, to contrast it with another \u201cbest seller\u201d, Mathematics \nfor the Million , by Lancelot Hogben. Of the author, M.A., D.Sc., Fellow of the \nRoyal Society, and Professor of Social Biology in the University of London, I \nknow no more than what Who's Who and his own books reflect; but that is \nenough for our purpose. A very clever student at Cambridge, where Bertrand \nRussell\u2019s influence is strong, he appears to have formed his mind in the essen\u00ac \ntially shoddy school of thought which puts mere cleverness above all else. That \nschool includes men of many professions, but they are alike in their arrogance, \nintolerance and bitterness. Knowing themselves to be clever, and early winning \nscholastic recognition, but failing to receive other rewards commensurate with \ntheir concept of their deserts, their dissatisfaction does not prompt them to \nseek to change themselves, but makes them rabid to change the world. Above \nall, they are rabid against religion and any idea of a Perfect, with its inevitable \nimplication of a standard of worth to which they do not conform. They are to \nbe left as they are, and the world changed to satisfy them* as they are. In \nthem, evolution is to reach a dead end. \n\nFrom the time of Egypt and of Greece, the perfection of the relations of form \nand of number which Mathematics reveals, has been read by men as a reflection \nof the perfection of the Eternal, which gives meaning and value to the imperfec\u00ac \ntion of the temporal. Dr. Hogben will have none of this, and devotes the \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n225 \n\n\nopening pages of his book to its ridicule, as the invention of a priestcraft which, \nhe would have us believe, now as then, is always striving to keep knowledge \nand power away from \u201cthe people\u201d. Throughout the volume, no matter what \nbe the process or principle he expounds, it is first stripped of all that can en\u00ac \nnoble, and then is made the carrier for his materialistic philosophy and propa\u00ac \nganda for social change. It comes to us as an English forerunner of what the \nNazi Ministry of Propaganda must have had in mind, when they announced \nthat, in the future, German science must be made subservient to the doctrines \nof the German state. It is this which has made me think it of sufficient im\u00ac \nportance to mention here. Dr. Link, in discussing the deleterious effect of most \nmodem education upon the formation of personality, excepted mathematics as \nthe one school-subject which acted favourably, and contained within itself a \nstandard of perfection and a rigour of discipline which inculcated precise, sus\u00ac \ntained and closely knit habits of thought and work. It is just this standard \nof perfection and rigour of discipline, which Dr. Hogben employs all his in\u00ac \ndisputable cleverness and skill to destroy. As we said earlier of Mr. Wells\u2019s \nOutline of History , so we must say of this book of Dr. Hogben\u2019s, which Mr. \nWells unstintingly commends: it is a great and noble theme, degraded, poisoned \nand made venomous by having been passed through an envenomed mind. \n\nThe Call to Battle , the Call of the Eternal to the Temporal \n\nThere we may leave these two books. Each appeals to man\u2019s self-interest: \nthe one, to seek satisfaction by changing the self; the other, by changing every\u00ac \nthing but the self. The one aspires to subordinate and merge itself in what \nis above itself; the other, to subordinate all things to what it, itself, already is. \nOn the plane of man\u2019s thought of his own self-interest they confront one an\u00ac \nother. Unimportant though they would otherwise be, on that plane they \nmay illustrate for us the intertwined and opposing triangles of our seal, sym\u00ac \nbolizing the age-long conflict involved in evolution and growth, which is not \nother than the conflict between the White and the Black Lodge. \n\nIn that conflict this Society, founded by the Masters of the White Lodge, \nhas its part to play. And thus from this Convention, as from all that have been \nheld, whether it be heard and recognized or not, goes forth a call to arms and \nbattle. It is the call of the Eternal to the temporal. When we point to the \ncircle of the Infinite, in which the end and the beginning are the same, we are \nnot looking to something that can excuse inaction and inertia, or a mere clinging \nto the old. We are pointing, rather, as we have reiterated, to the dynamic \npower which moves the universe, the action of the Perfect upon the imperfect \nwhich compels ceaseless change, and to which we must respond if we would \nlive. Behold, I make all things new. Thus spake the Christ, the Power of \nGod and the Wisdom of God. Only by that divine action, only as it is renewed \nfrom within itself, can our Movement survive. It is a call to the new, a call \nto youth. Youth is not asked to put its new wine into old bottles\u2014the form \nas well as the substance will be new\u2014but it is asked to remember that the \ngrapes, from which its new wine is to be pressed, must be grown by its labour \nand sacrifice^day, as by its fathers\u2019 labour and sacrifice in the past. There \n\n\n226 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nwill be no grapes, no harvest and no wine, unless it be the Changeless that \nguides and circumscribes the change. \n\nIn the Presence of the Eternal \n\nSo we, too, end as we began, with the knowledge pressing on us that here, in \nthis Convention, we stand in the presence of the Eternal. As members of this \nSociety, founded by the Masters to serve the Truth which they serve, than \nwhich \u201cno religion is higher\u201d, we stand before them. In them, and in that \nservice, in their warfare to which they call us, we may find the Truth their \nTruth\u2014perfect, immutable, and whole, and the Truth shall make us free. \n\nThe Chairman then called for the report of the Secretary T. S. \n\nReport of the Secretary T. S. \n\nMiss Perkins: I have the honour to submit the following Report: \n\nBranch Activities \n\nAll the Branches report an encouraging year, and as we shall find ample \nevidence of this in their letters of greeting to be read this afternoon, I shall \nnot attempt to indicate in this report the special lines followed by each Branch: \nthe fruit of the year\u2019s endeavour is embodied in their letters to the Convention. \nAll speak of the marked unity and solidarity among Branch members, and \nsome connect this, directly, with their increasing sense of obligation to keep \nalive in the world the principles and ideals of Theosophy,\u2014to give them in\u00ac \ncarnation through personal and united effort. The cessation of the New York \nBranch Reports is felt to be a distinct loss, but our members couple with their \nregret, sincere gratitude to the memory of Miss Dodge for the service she had \nso long rendered by the preparation of them. Serious illness among Branch \nofficers has forced members of several Branches to stand shoulder-to-shoulder \nin carrying out their plans for the year, and two Branches have suffered serious \nloss: the Arvika Branch, Sweden, in the death of its President, Mr. J. E. Jons- \nson, who was infusing new life and energy into its work; the Norfolk Branch \nof England, in the death of Mrs. Graves, so well known to us all by her annual \naccount of activities there. The new Secretary writes: \u201cOur Branch has suf\u00ac \nfered much sorrow in the recent death of Mrs. Graves, its devoted Secretary \nfor a quarter of a century\u2014ever since the time of its foundation. Her loyal \nyears of service are a part of the inheritance of the Branch, nor can its members \nfeel that she is absent from their work, though she has passed on to join the \nranks of those who axe fighting on the further side.\u201d The Branches in Europe \nhave continued to contribute to some Allied Relief Fund the amount they \npaid the Society in dues prior to 1929, and the Society has again received, from \none of its members, as yearly since 1929, a special donation that more than \nreimburses the Treasury for the sum thus diverted from it. \n\nThe Theosophical Quarterly \n\nThe widening influence of our magazine is reflected in communications re\u00ac \nceived from non-members who read it in the libraries. When launching the \nQuarterly in July, 1903, Mr. Clement A. Griscom set forth its purposes in \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n227 \n\n\nan editorial announcement, in the first paragraph of which he said: \u201cIt has no \nplans that are not fluidic and subject to change with changing conditions\u201d; he \nconcluded with this challenge, \u201cMembers should consider it a duty to send in \nquestions they want answered\u201d. His plans, however, were so well laid and so \ncomprehensive that the growth of the magazine in these 34 years represents \ntheir fulfilment rather than a change of direction or method. To-day, good \nquestions are even more in demand. It must be evident also, that since death \nhas taken from us more than one older student whose contributions to the \nmagazine were constant and varied, loyal support on our part requires our best \neffort to supply suitable material. If every member who has ever written an \narticle for the Quarterly were to make it a matter of conscience to prepare \nanother for submission by August 1st, the labour of the Editors would surely \nbe lessened, and the gratitude of our membership given very practical expres\u00ac \nsion. It should be added, however, that response to this suggestion would in\u00ac \ncrease instead of lessen the labour of the Editors, if manuscripts submitted \nrequire much correction and revision. Whenever possible, a contributor should \nask some friend who has had experience of writing for publication, to criticize \nand clarify his article before he sends it to the Quarterly. \n\nBook Department \n\nThe business of supplying standard theosophical books has been conducted \nas usual by the Quarterly Book Department, an organization that provides \nits own capital, but operates solely for the purpose of carrying out the plans of \nthe Society. During the year, several of its publications have been reprinted, \nwhich is evidence of sustained interest in the fidelity with which they interpret \nancient scriptures, and represent the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and \nMr. Judge. \n\nSecretary's Office \n\nWhen additional assistance was needed this winter, two of our younger \nmembers, of the latest generation so to speak, volunteered for service, having \nprepared themselves by special training in office requirements; the prospect \nis that they will soon be able to attend to the distribution of our magazine \nand books. Other New York members, whose aid is gratefully acknowledged, \nare co-operating as usual; and the Assistant Secretary, to whom we are all \ndeeply indebted for her full report of Convention proceedings, is always ready \nto help. \n\nIt would be gratifying if more general use were made of our \u201cTravelling \nLibrary\u201d, a modest collection of standard books on Theosophy that can be \nsent by mail to members and inquirers. There is no charge for the loan of \nthese books and the procedure is very simple. It is also possible to lend bound \nvolumes of the early numbers of the Quarterly, which few members possess, \nand of the oldest theosophical magazines, in which H.P.B. and Mr. Judge fought \nthe battles of the Movement, giving at the same time much instruction in \npractiq|| applications of Theosophy. Would not our isolated members-at- \nlarge oestimulated and encouraged by such reading,\u2014by companioning those \nleaders in their trials and their victory? Distant members frequently ask if \n\n\n228 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nsome of the work of the Secretary\u2019s Office could not be sent to them. This is \nseldom possible, but may I suggest that typing magazine envelopes, tying up \nbook parcels, writing letters, can accomplish little for the Movement when \ndone as ends in themselves; but, wherever we may be stationed, we contribute \nto its success if we have at heart Ruskin\u2019s motto: \u201cThere is no action so slight \nthat it may not be done to a great purpose, nor is any purpose so great that \nslight actions may not be so done as to help it much.\u201d \n\nNo account of the year could be concluded without mention of the older \nstudents, trained and trusted by Mr. Judge, who stand at the centre of our \nactivities and under whose guidance it is our great privilege to serve, ap\u00ac \nprenticed to him through them. When occasion requires, they are quick to see \nhow errors may be rectified and generous in indicating the origin of our mis\u00ac \ntakes, whether in motive, understanding or method. Thus helping us to feel \nafter the will of Masters who stand behind the Movement, they make us lower \nlinks in that great hierarchical chain that stretches beyond our boldest imagin\u00ac \ning. Gratitude to them wells up wherever members are gathered to-day, but \nhow is the Society to express this; that is, how put it into action? To-day, the \nT. S. begins a new year; it would be well started if, here in the presence of our \ncomrades, seen and unseen, and of the \u201cGreat Companions , each heart were \nto record an unalterable resolution that the high mission of the Society shall \nbe fulfilled. \n\nRespectfully submitted, \n\nI. E. Perkins, \n\nSecretary , The Theosophical Society . \n\nThis report was unanimously accepted \u201cwith the sincerest thanks of the \nSociety to the Secretary\u201d, who, in turn, requested the Chairman to express \nthe thanks of the Secretary to the Society for the privilege of serving it. The \nReport of the Executive Committee was then called for. \n\nReport of the Executive Committee \n\nMr. Hargrove: The only official act that the Chairman of the Executive \nCommittee needs to report, is that we found it necessary to cancel the charter \nof a Branch in central Europe. Personal dissensions (trivial and inexcusable) \namong its members, reduced it to a condition in which it ceased in the real \nsense to be connected with The Theosophical Society. It became the duty, \ntherefore, of the Executive Committee to confirm officially that which the \nmembers of the Branch had already done; so the charter was withdrawn. It \nis just as well, perhaps, for all of us to remember that the same action would \nbe taken in the United States, without a moment\u2019s hesitation, if any Branch, \nanywhere, were to get itself into a similar condition. \n\nIt has always been understood that in the report of the Executive Com\u00ac \nmittee there is more than the surface of events to be dealt with. We have to \nreport to you something of our experience during the previous year, something \nof our hopes, and something of the need of the Society. Professor Mitchell \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n229 \n\n\nhas already indicated clearly that perhaps the greatest need of the Society is \na clearer realization of the inner world as the world of fact; a clearer realization \nthat our external world is merely a world of effects, of shadows. \n\nThis can be considered under various heads. Perhaps the first, because the \nsimplest, realization that we need to strengthen, is of a truth stated many \nthousands of times in the course of the Society\u2019s history, namely that \u201cthoughts \nare things\u201d; that we are at least as responsible for our thoughts as for our acts. \n\nI doubt whether many of us have more than a theoretical belief in that truth. \nFor instance, do we, if we find ourselves entertaining thoughts of depression \nor of discouragement, expel them because of the realization that they might \nbe just enough to tip some unbalanced person into a condition of absolute \ndespair and possibly of suicide? In other words, do we really believe and \nact upon the belief that thoughts are things and things of tremendous power? \nThoughts, because they are unseen, do not seem to us, perhaps, to be so very \nreal. What I want to suggest to you is that throughout the universe, in fact \nand not only in theory, it is invariably the unseen force that is more powerful \nthan the visible. \n\nThat, of course, is a vast subject in itself, and I am not going to talk about \nit this morning. My subject will be: is the spiritual world a reality for us? \nAnd I am going to suggest a test: if the spiritual world were a reality for us, \nlife would be full of romance, of poetry; all things would be full of wonder. Let \nus then ask ourselves: is my life a thing of romance and poetry and wonder? \nAlack and alas, in most cases, it is not, and it is our own fault, because we, as \nstudents of Theosophy, have every reason to be convinced, when we do not \nknow, that the spiritual world is real, that the spiritual world is here. \n\nI was asked recently whether it was not easier, in the very early days of the \nMovement, when H.P.B. was here, when Judge was with us,\u2014whether it was \nnot easier then to make contact with that world than it is to-day. The ques\u00ac \ntion was based upon a misunderstanding. It was based upon the supposition \nthat there is an actual difference between conditions then and now, when in \ntruth there is only an appearance of difference. Let me give you an instance \nof what I mean. It was at Avenue Road, at the Blavatsky Lodge, in 1888 or \nthereabouts, and Madame Blavatsky was still very much alive. A visitor \nbegan to talk about his own ideas on life and so forth, until H.P.B. suddenly \nturned on him with some blistering comment and the statement that people \ncame to those meetings to listen to her views, and not to those who wished to \nair their own. It might well be said that to-day our procedure in similar circum\u00ac \nstances would be different, since we have an \u201copen platform\u201d and so forth. \nBut would the difference, after all, be real? Suppose that at one of our Branch \nmeetings in New York, a visitor were to proclaim the blessings of Bolshevism, \nfree love, or some other horror. I should be sorry indeed if we could not dis\u00ac \npose of him with at least something of H.P.B.\u2019s finality and promptitude! We \nshould not do it in the same way, but we should, I am confident, be uncompromis\u00ac \ningly, flat-footedly truthful,\u2014as she was, for the truth is that people were \nnvited to the Blavatsky Lodge to listen to her views. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n232 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nBlavatsky and \u201cThe Secret Doctrine \u201d,\u2014all tending to show how close the Masters \nthen were to outer events and persons, though no closer then, he reiterated, \nthan they always have been and always will be.] \n\nFrom the beginning of history there has been knowledge of the Great Ones, \nof Masters, though knowledge even of their existence has increasingly dwindled, \nespecially in Europe and America. It is part of our function to keep that \nknowledge alive, and the knowledge, too, that there are more kinds and degrees \nof consciousness, a greater \u201cdiversity of creatures\u201d, on planes both above and \nbelow this world, than there are on earth, or than egocentric humanity dreams \nof. Christianity, in theory, recognizes many classes or grades of angels; Hindu\u00ac \nism, always more detailed, believes there are three hundred and thirty millions \nof devas, or \u201cshining ones\u201d\u2014good, bad, or indifferent\u2014and innumerable other \nhierarchies of invisible beings or creatures, some, exalted in nature, others, \nprimitive,\u2014irrespective of hosts of human souls and conscious astral \u201cleav\u00ac \nings\u201d. And while it is distinctly unfashionable in so-called Christian countries, \neven among the clergy, to believe in devils,\u2014logic insists that, in a world of \nduality, devils must off-set angels, just as surely as heat and cold are unthink\u00ac \nable unless both exist. \n\nAt the last meeting of the New York Branch, Colonel Wise was telling us \nabout experiences during the Great War, of those who had seen the invisible, \nas it were, and the great Archangel Michael. Some of you may have been \nreminded of the story in the Old Testament about Elisha and his servant, sur\u00ac \nrounded by the armies of the King of Syria. Elisha prayed that the eyes of the \nyoung man might be opened (it is a pity, perhaps, that a similar prayer could \nnot be answered here this morning,\u2014and yet, who knows!), and they were \nopened, and, behold, on all the hills around, he saw the armies of the Lord, \n\u201chorses and chariots of fire\u201d,\u2014the legions of angels that we hear of in the New \nTestament also. \n\nAt that same meeting of the New York Branch, a question was asked about \nthese soldiers of the other world. In reply I suggested that many of those \nwho had been killed in the War formed part of that army; but the underlying \ntruth is that the great Archangels\u2014special ch\u00a3las in the Lodge\u2014are the Cap\u00ac \ntains of legions which at one period of history are seen as angels; at another \nperiod, as men in armour; at another, like men clothed as in the Great War. \nIt is not the form that counts; all that concerns us is the inner reality,\u2014which \nis, that there are legions of angels, of warrior devas , and that some of those \nwho die in battle are drawn, because of their complete self-giving, into the ranks \nof these legions. So it is that whenever men are lifted out of their littleness \ninto the greatness of self-forgetfulness, they are likely to see something of that \nworld of reality, and to share in the work and consciousness of those who dwell \nthere. \n\nOnly a day or two ago it happened that I came across a collection of letters \nfrom men who had served and died under the British flag in France. Those \nof them who had consciously and gladly surrendered their lives in advance\u2014 \nwho had become indifferent to death, not because they were tired of life, but \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n233 \n\n\nbecause they had thrown their lives overboard for love of a Cause which they \nrecognized as the Cause of God\u2014such men remind us once more that all we \nneed, if we would get into touch with the everlasting verities, is the conquest \nof self for love of that which transcends self. In terms of the inner life, pure \npassion of love is the reward of self-discipline, and pure passion of love means \nUnion. \n\nI shall quote from the letters of one of these men only,\u2014\u201cBilly\u201d Grenfell, \nson of Lord Desborough. His elder brother Julian, poet as well as soldier, \nhad been killed already. Trying to console his mother for their loss, the younger \nson wrote: \u201cJust one word of blessing and good hope. I know how strong you \nhave been and will be. How can we feel anything but serenity about our darling \nJulian, whether the trumpets sound for him on this side or the other.\u201d (The \nreference of course is to the passage in Pilgrim's Progress , where Mr. Valiant- \nfor-Truth \u201cPassed Over\u201d, \u201cand all the trumpets sounded for him on the other \nside\u201d.) And then, shortly afterwards\u2014he was twenty-five, and was going to \nbe killed in a few weeks: \u201cThe more I think of darling Julian, the more I seem \nto realize the nothingness of death. He has just passed on, outsoared the \nshadow of our night, \u2018here where men sit and hear each other groan\u2019, and how \ncould one pass on better than in the full tide of strength and glory and fearless\u00ac \nness. So that there is no interruption even in the work which God has for him. \nOur grief for him can only be grief for ourselves. How beautiful his poem is. \n[\u201cInto Battle\u201d, which ends: \u201cBut Day shall clasp him with strong hands, \nAnd Night shall fold him in soft wings.\u201d] It perfectly expresses the unity and \ncontinuity of all created things in their Maker. I pray that one-tenth of his \ngay spirit may descend on me.\u201d That was in June, 1915; then, finally, writing \nto his parents, and showing once more\u2014which is our lesson\u2014how self-forget\u00ac \nfulness lifts to a higher consciousness and to a vivid recognition of reality: \n\u201cDarling Julian is so constantly beside me, and laughs so debonairly at my \nqualms and hesitations. I pray for one-tenth of his courage. All love to every\u00ac \none.\u201d \n\nI shall not attempt a better conclusion than that young man\u2019s splendid note \nof certainty and promise. \n\nThe Report of the Executive Committee having been accepted with thanks, \nthe Chairman, who had previously been authorized to appoint the usual three \nstanding Committees, announced the following: \n\nCommittee on Resolutions: Mr. Hargrove, Mr. Miller, Dr. Hohnstedt. \n\nCommittee on Letters of Greeting: Mr. J. F. B. Mitchell, Dr. Clark, Mrs. Regan. \n\nCommittee on Nominations: Mr. Auchincloss, Mr. Saxe, Miss Hohnstedt. \n\nAfter the announcement of Convention activities, adjournment was voted \nuntil 2.30 p. m. \n\nAfternoon Session \n\nThe session opened with the report of the Treasurer T. S., and when this \nreport had been accepted with the thanks of the Convention, the report of the \nCommittee on Nominations was called for. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n234 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nReport of the Committee on Nominations \nMr. Auchincloss nominated for the Executive Committee, Mr. Miller to \nsucceed himself; Mr. LaDow, to succeed Mr. Harris, whose term expires; also, \nas Secretary T. S., Miss Perkins, with Miss Chickering as Assistant Secretary; \nfor Treasurer, Mr. H. B. Mitchell, with Mr. Kobb6 as Assistant Treasurer. \nIt was voted that the Secretary of the Convention be instructed to cast one \nballot for the election of officers as nominated, and that the Committee be \ndischarged with thanks. \n\nThe Chairman added that it was a matter of great regret to the Executive \nCommittee that the retiring member, Mr. Harris, owing to his distant residence, \nhad been prevented from coming to New York, and therefore prevented from \ntaking the active part in the work of the Committee which Mr. Harris felt \nthat all its members should take. The Society was very much indebted to \nMr. Harris for his invariably sympathetic understanding of the needs of the \nsituation. At the same time it was with very sincere pleasure that the Com\u00ac \nmittee welcomed Mr. LaDow to its membership. \n\nThe report of the Committee on Resolutions was then called for. \n\nReport of the Committee on Resolutions \nMr. Hargrove: Mr. Chairman , Fellow Members: With your permission I \nshould like to begin by making one or two things clearer than I think I made \nthem this morning when comparing the methods of the Lodge, and the oppor\u00ac \ntunities of members, to-day, with the methods and opportunities of the past. \nAs all of you know, there was an outflow of force from the Lodge, down to this \nplane, from 1875 onwards. The tide turned as the century drew to its close. \nDuring the outflow, physical phenomena of all kinds\u2014including objective \nmeans of communication\u2014were \u201cnormal\u201d. Incidentally, it was the play of \nthose forces that tore H.P.B.\u2019s body to pieces. \n\nWhen the tide turned, and the force indrew, members had the opportunity \nto indraw with it, and thus to be carried with the back-flow, up toward the \nLodge: they could, as it were, hold on to the tail of the kite. This means \nthat collectively, as a Society, we are much closer to the Lodge now, than \nwe were in 1890. The spiritual average of our membership to-day is higher \nthan it was at that time, or in 1900. There is, for one thing, a far better under\u00ac \nstanding of the fundamental theosophic truth that self in some form or other \nis the supreme obstacle in the way of human progress, of service, of discipleship. \nAnd there ought to be a better understanding of that truth, seeing that it has \nbeen hammered into us incessantly during the intervening forty years! \n\nIt follows from all of this that although Masters could and would use ma\u00ac \nterial means, such as precipitated letters, if to-day there were need to do so, \nthe existence of such a need would be a grave reflection on our membership: \nit would be a disgrace. The power of Masters is exactly the same as it was; \nthey could do now all that they ever did,\u2014but, to use a crude illustration: \nif you can make people hear in a normal tone of voice, why shout at them! \nAnd the fact is that our membership, all round the world, does \u201chear\u201d: the \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n235 \n\n\nQuarterly, for instance, when interpreting some outstanding event in the light \nof theosophic principles, does not need to argue to convince the large majority \nof our members, who, almost invariably, have been thinking along the same \nlines already, and find in the Quarterly the confirmation, and perhaps also \nthe clarification, of what their own intuition, their own inner light, had enabled \nthem to sense or perceive. \n\nNow for the Committee on Resolutions: as a committee we have no formal \nresolutions to recommend, but there are certain ideas that we should like to \nsuggest for your consideration, involving, perhaps, personal resolves, as well \nas ways in which the work of Masters can be furthered in the world. \n\nMuch has been said in the Quarterly and at our Branch meetings in criti\u00ac \ncism of democracy. This has been done to counteract the tendency to think \nthat there is only one country on the face of the earth that is governed on \nscientific and enlightened principles,\u2014that country being the United States \nof America. It is not wholesome for people to labour under such delusions. \nNo one should infer, however, that we, as individuals or as a Society, want to \nintroduce another form of government, whether Monarchical or Fascist or \nNazi. We do not want a Hitler or a Mussolini in Washington\u2014still less a \nStalin\u2014and what is more, we do not want a totalitarian state, which avowedly \nis their common aim. The totalitarian state, according to its advocates, means \nthis: \u201cNothing outside or above the State, everything within and for the \nState\u201d. That may sound harmless enough, but in practice, as you know, it \nmeans that the State assumes control of every human activity, and, the indi\u00ac \nvidual existing solely for the benefit of the State, it means that your children \nexist solely for its benefit, and that the State assumes control of their education, \nboth in the primary school and in college; that the State must control the \nreligious or irreligious training of your children, and must control your own \nreligion and its expression. What would become of The Theosophical Society \nand of our literature if we were living in a totalitarian state! Democracy \nhas become synonymous with demagogy; but we have no desire to get out of \nthe frying pan into the fire, and, in America and England and some other places, \nwe still have religious liberty. \n\nEvery government reflects the character of its people. We have in this \ncountry at present, not only what we deserve as a nation (you and I may think \nwe deserve something better, and I hope we do!), but also what the natiom \nwants. The chief desire of the majority is to spend without self-restraint? \nthey will not save. They will work at their own gait for high wages, in order \nto spend freely; but if they cannot get high wages, they stop working and \ndemand \u201cRelief\u201d, and get it\u2014because they have votes. As a coloured man \nsaid to me not long ago,\u2014Why should he work six days a week when his friends \non Relief worked only three, or at the most four, and were paid enough to \nenable them to \u201cgo see places\u201d during their spare time? Watching games of \nbase-ball was his dream of the perfect life. \n\nDemocracy at its best, even under a limited monarchy as in England, is a \nmanshift, a stop-gap, until we can get something better. What is that some- \n\n\n\n\n23 o THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nHaving recalled one of Madame Blavatsky\u2019s more humourous aspects, it is \nas well to recall the serious,\u2014to speak of her marvellous devotion. From six \no\u2019clock in the morning until six at night, writing every minute except for a \nbrief interruption for lunch; in great pain most of the time, suffering as she was \nfrom a complication of internal disorders. It was magnificent, and the only \nconceivable explanation is her passionate devotion to her Master. Something \nfor us to remember; something to imitate, so far as that is possible for frailer \nmortals like ourselves. She was heroic. \n\nIn other ways also, she showed her nearness to the heart of the Lodge. The \nday before she moved from Lansdowne Road to the house in Avenue Road, \nthe Countess Wachtmeister took her for a drive in Hyde Park. When she \nreturned, Mrs. Cooper-Oakley and Mrs. Cleather were in the drawing room. \nH.P.B. came into the room, apparently in a passion. She was in a passion, \nbut it was a passion of grief. Limping up and down the room, her rheumatism \ncrippling her, with the tears pouring down her cheeks, she exclaimed: Not \none Soul among them! Not one!\u201d Not one Soul had she seen among all those \npeople, driving, as fashionable people used to drive in those days, \u201cround the \nPark\u201d. That sort of distress cannot be simulated. It was genuine. She felt \nit to the very depths of herself\u2014compassion, echoing the compassion, the sor\u00ac \nrow of her Master who, perhaps, had helped her to see as she had never seen \nbefore, the condition and need of those people. \n\nMore than once I have been asked to recommend a book that describes truly \nthose early days of the Society, and the days that followed when Judge was still \nwith us. Documents deal with the surface of events only, and the surface is \noften misleading. People have written about Judge who never set eyes on him; \nothers have written about him only to condemn him, thus for ever condemning \nthemselves. The motive of too many people when writing about the dead is \nto display their own superiority. In any case, there is no book that we can \nrecommend. Yet, if you should meet people who know of your interest in \nTheosophy, and who speak of Count Witte\u2019s criticisms of H.P.B., or of the \ncriticisms of the viperish Margot Tennant, Lady Asquith, it is well to keep \ncertain facts in mind. \n\nThe facts are that in 1890 both Judge and H.P.B. brought suit for libel \nagainst the \u201cNew York Sun\u201d, which was at that time one of the leading news\u00ac \npapers in the United States\u2014brought suit for libel because the \u201cSun\u201d had \npublished an attack on H.P.B. by Dr. Elliott Coues, which the \u201cSun\u201d had \nendorsed. As usually happens, the case dragged along. The \u201cSun\u201d, chal\u00ac \nlenged, began to hunt for evidence to support its case,\u2014and you will realize \nthat a powerful newspaper does not retreat easily or in a hurry. Hunting \neverywhere for confirmation of the accusations brought against H.P.B., dis\u00ac \ncovering, incidentally, that the Report of the Society for Psychical Research \ncontained no real evidence whatever,\u2014in 1892 they gave it up in despair, and \npublicly retracted the charges they had endorsed, at the same time publishing \na laudatory article by Judge about H.P.B. \n\nCount Witte and Lady Asquith and others of their kind, libelled H.P.B. \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n231 \n\n\nwhen she and Judge were dead, and when nobody could sue them; they re\u00ac \npeated in safety the charges withdrawn by the \u201cSun\u201d under threat. So all \nyou have to do is to remember and state the facts. And do not imagine that \nthe \u201cSun\u201d retracted willingly. In the spring of 1894, I was in New York. \nJudge asked me to accompany him to the office of the \u201cSun\u201d. He wanted \nthem to publish an article he had written about the Convention shortly to be \nheld in San Francisco. We were shown into the editorial sanctum. The editor \nknew Judge and at once referred to the suit for libel, exclaiming against the \nidea of his asking any favour of them. Judge replied serenely that that was \nall of the past, and that he was offering some interesting news which he was \nwilling to give to the \u201cSun\u201d exclusively. The upshot was that Judge got what \nhe wanted. But that the retraction of 1892 had been made grudgingly, and \nthat the memory of it still rankled, was obvious. Once more then, there is no \nneed to argue about details: the action of the \u201cSun\u201d disposes of all serious \naccusations against H.P.B. \n\nI am drawing on the past, because I want so greatly to emphasize the reality \nand nearness of the inner world, and at the same time to insist that it is not \nonly just as real, but even nearer than in the old days of which I speak. Many \nof you have read or heard most of these things before, but others have not. \nIn any case it is hard work for those who have to concentrate their attention on \nbusiness for the greater part of every day, to escape from being drowned in the \nmire of material life; for them, the inner and real world is likely to become \ndiaphanous and remote; they need to be reminded of happenings which speak \nin material terms of that near-by but usually invisible Kingdom. No need, \nthank heaven, for the same things to happen in the same way to-day, since \nincreasing indrawal has lifted the Movement whole stages closer to the Lodge. \nIn those days, the consciousness of members was so far out of tune with Lodge- \nconsciousness, that the Masters had to lean down, as it were, and shout to \nmake themselves heard, and, even so, with small chance of being understood. \nAsk yourself: were Hume and Sinnett, vain and self-opinionated, closer to \nthe spiritual plane, merely because they received letters from Masters, than \nmany humble and comparatively unknown members of the present time? The \nquestion answers itself. \n\nI am going to draw on the experience of the Countess Wachtmeister. I do \nnot see how anyone can doubt the honesty of that old woman. (She has been \ndead for years.) She was the wife of the Swedish Ambassador in London. Her \nfather was French, her mother English, of distinguished family on both sides. \nHer husband died. She heard of Theosophy and became a member of the \nSociety. I am indebted to her for information which was helpful in the early \ndays of my membership. In 1894 I travelled with her from London to San \nFrancisco. She did not understand Judge; followed Mrs. Besant, but became \ndisillusioned and left the Adyar Society, never losing her faith, however, in \nH.P.B. She made mistakes, but, as I have said, was honest. \n\n[The^peaker then related stories of the early days of the Society, some of \nthem forded by the Countess Wachtmeister in her Reminiscences of H. P. \n\n\n236 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthing better? \u201cGod-instructed men\u201d: yes, let us never cease to pray for God- \ninstructed men to rule the nations. But before we can get them we must not \nonly want them, but earn them; and the majority of people at present are very \nfar indeed from wanting anything of the kind. \n\nIt is important that members of the Society should understand these matters, \nbecause it is their mission to understand, and never to be carried away by \npopular sentiment. They must think for themselves. They must see the evils \nof our present system, but must not rush off toward something even worse \nthan the evils which already afflict us. They must realize that it will take time \nto improve the government of nations, for the reason that it is going to take \ntime, much time, to improve the character of the men to be governed. As I \nhave already said, governments reflect the nature of their people. Hitler \nmay have a few critics in Germany, but what did Germany want before Hitler \ncame into power? Germany wanted to assert itself again as the victorious \nruling nation of the world. It wanted to assert once more, Might regardless \nof Right. It was Germany\u2019s moral obliquity that called Hitler into being, \nand that has kept him where he is; for just as the Kaiser was an expression \nof what the German people wanted prior to 1914, so Hitler is an expression of \nwhat the German people hope for now. \u201cOur religion is Germany\u201d, as their \n\u201cYouth Leader\u201d proclaims. \n\nNaziism, Fascism, are the logical expression of national self-assertiveness, \nof a hectoring, bullying spirit and purpose; but it is the spirit that creates \nthe form: the form, at most, can only reinforce the spirit. The monarchical \nform is as adaptable, and as responsive to a nation\u2019s real desire, as any other. \nKarma takes care of that; and we have seen quite recently in England that \nKarma, through its many agents, seen and unseen, can act quickly, as well \nas with \u201cthe inexorable fatality of years\u201d. Hence the form of government is \nof secondary importance; the form is a response, and, as it were, takes care \nof itself. This should again help us to realize the folly, of which so many \u201cre\u00ac \nformers\u201d are guilty, of imagining that because, in America, a Constitution, \na President, a Senate, a House of Representatives and so on, \u201cwork\u201d, some\u00ac \nhow,\u2014our form of government is suitable for the Filipinos or for the people \nof China. I say \u201csuitable\u201d; but there are many who believe that our system \nwould cure the world\u2019s ills everywhere. They do not understand that one \nman\u2019s meat may be, and often is, another man\u2019s poison. \n\nAnother, though closely allied subject, upon which members of the Society \nmight helpfully bring sanity to bear, is that of British rule in India. The in\u00ac \nfluence of American public opinion on that of Great Britain is great,\u2014and un\u00ac \nfortunate in many ways. It reinforces the radical and unintelligent; it cheapens \nthe tone of society and of much of the English press; it provides justification \nfor those who\u2014not only in England but all over the world\u2014are victims of the \nget-rich-quick obsession. America is a very big country, and many people \nare impressed by bulk. Consequently, when considering the problem of India, \nthere has been a tendency in England to argue: We must give India Home \nRule, for otherwise America will say we are Imperialistic (the same charge \n\n\nOF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION 239 \n\n, _Indian Masters, reported in 7 he Occult \n\n\n239 \n\n\nreport \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n237 \n\n\nwhich, in America, is constantly brought against France). I do not mean that \nEngland, without the influence of America, would have seen the Indian problem \nclearly. On the contrary, uninformed provincialism there as here, because \nit believes in the democratic theory, wants to apply it universally without \nregard to differences of race, tradition, or actual need. What I do mean is \nthat American public opinion has been used by the deluded in England as a \nweapon against those who know better,\u2014who know India, and who know that \nthe application there of the Home Rule panacea would result in irretrievable \ndisaster. If members of the Society will acquaint themselves with the facts, \nas they easily can, they could do much to neutralize the propaganda cease\u00ac \nlessly carried on in this country by paid agitators from India, by the Irish \nelement here, and, on general principles, by our large German population. \n\nArticles in American magazines and newspapers occasionally remind us of \nthe undoubted truth that a subjugated people, a people that is kept in sub\u00ac \njection by foreign troops, is in a very evil plight; apart from other considera\u00ac \ntions, people, in such circumstances, are likely to become liars, hypocrites, \nsycophants. But beware of false inferences from sound premises; beware, in \nthis case, of the inference that it must be harmful to the natives of India to be \nsubject to British rule. The reading of a book such as that by General Mac- \nMun, entitled Turmoil and Tragedy in India , would be enough in itself to \nshow the absurdity of this and many other current misconceptions. India \nhas a more diversified population than that of Europe, and while Europe, in \nname, is of one religion, India has two main religions, Mohammedanism and \nHinduism (ignoring the innumerable sub-divisions), and these two are in\u00ac \nherently more antagonistic than, let us say, Brahminism and Roman Catholi\u00ac \ncism. Of its population of over three hundred and fifty millions, about seventy \nper cent are Hindus, and twenty-two per cent Mohammedans; but the latter \nare war-like, which the immense majority of Hindus are not. For hundreds of \nyears before the English acquired possession of India, the country was governed \nby Moslem rulers. \n\nThe practical question is: what would happen if British troops were with\u00ac \ndrawn from India? What happened there, immediately after the Great War, \nwas not noticed in America; too many other things were going on at the same \ntime. Briefly, the Afghans, who are Mohammedans, invaded India from \nthe North\u2014as India always has been invaded; and if it had not been for British \ntroops, and the loyalty to the British Raj of the vast majority of Moham\u00ac \nmedans in India, the Afghans, aided by their co-religionists, would have con\u00ac \nquered and looted the country. In 1921-1922, the Mohammedan Moplahs \non the Malabar Coast were stirred up by the Ali brothers (Mohammedan \n\u201cnationalists\u201d, differing from Gandhi only in method), and attacked their \nHindu neighbours with indescribable ferocity, skinning them alive being a \nfavour^e expression of their disapproval. I cannot even hint at their treatment \nof Hitfhlwomen: it was unspeakable. On the other hand, the Hindus are \nequally excitable, and can be equally savage, when their bitter hatred of the \nMohammedans can be vented with some likelihood of success. In other words, \n\n\n\n\n238 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nwhen lecturers and writers on the subject inform us that if India were inde\u00ac \npendent, her people would live together like brethren, our knowledge of the \nfacts should be sufficient to warrant immediate and flat denial. \n\nThere are great Indian patriots among the Masters of the White Lodge: what \ndo they want? What did H.P.B. say about it? Her Master was a Rajput. \nHe set her to work to bring about a better understanding between the different \nraces and religions of India; he, like the other Masters, wanted the English \nwho lived there to see, beneath the surface of Hinduism, of Mohammedanism, \nof the Zoroastrianism of the Parsis,\u2014the eternal truths of Theosophy which \nare common to all the great religions, Christianity included; he wanted the \nmore thoughtful natives to accept the Master Christ as a brother of the Master \nKrishna, of Gautama Buddha, and of the other world saviours; he wanted \nIndia to profit from the best in the life of the West, and the West to benefit \nfrom the hoarded wisdom of the East. He did not want the Bhagavad Gita \nto take the place of our Bible, but he knew that we should understand our \nBible better if we studied it afresh in the light of the Gita , as so many of us \nhave done. He wanted right brotherhood, not a flat and ridiculously impossible \nequality; he wanted right appreciation, both ways, with clear recognition of \nthe evil as well as the good. And the last thing in the world that he wanted, \nor that any Master wanted, was to see the British withdraw from India. Masters \nknew well and sympathized deeply with the troubles of the Indian peasant; \nbut they also knew that these troubles were due in far greater measure to the \npeasants\u2019 co-religionists, the money-lender and the landlord, than to any act \nor failure of the British Raj. The British members of the Indian Civil Service \n\u2014the men actually in touch with the native population of all classes\u2014are \nprobably the most intelligent, most sympathetic, most unselfish, and least \nmercenary of any group in the world performing similar functions. If these \nmen were replaced by Indian Nationalists, all that can be said is: Heaven \nhelp the rest of the native population! The Great Lodge above all else is sane \u2014 \nrepresents, in fact, all the sanity there is in this world\u2014and, in addition, takes \nvery long views. Its plans for the far-distant future of India, hundreds of \nyears hence, we do not know; but we do know that Home Rule, and the elimi\u00ac \nnation of British control, are not what it wants now: no Indian patriot with \nsense, wants that. Gandhi has emotions, unlimited ambition, and considerable \ncunning, but is destitute of sense. \n\nThere are two outstanding reasons why members of the Society should do \nwhat they can to help India in the right way, which is, as I have said, by off\u00ac \nsetting the tale of her unreal grievances with the tale of her many real blessings. \nThe first reason why we should do this is our immense debt to India, and es\u00ac \npecially to Indian Masters, for our understanding of Theosophy. It was Indian \nMasters who were responsible primarily for the founding of the Society and \nfor the work of H.P.B. and Judge. The second outstanding reason why we \nshould do what we can to help India, is that India has suffered so grievously \nat the hands of pseudo-Theosophists, beginning with Hume and culminating \nin the person of Mrs. Besant. It was Hume, as you know, who had that very \n\n\n\n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n239 \n\n\nearly correspondence with one of the Indian Masters, reported in The Occult \nWorld. Proceeding on the supposition that he, a scientifically-minded Eu\u00ac \nropean, necessarily knew more than any Oriental, except, perhaps, within \nnarrowly prescribed limits, he decided finally that Masters were a myth, and \nproceeded to organize the Indian National Congress, which has represented \nthe worst of India from that day to this. It was vociferous on behalf of Indian \nNationalism, and many years later, in 1917, as a reward for her violent cam\u00ac \npaign against \u201cBritish misgovernment\u201d, the Congress elected Mrs. Besant \nits President. She filled the entire Indian press with her clamour, doing an \ninfinity of harm. She avowedly tried to stir up discontent\u2014always an evil \nthing to do, except against self\u2014and as this is never difficult among the poor and \nignorant, nor among half-educated failures, of which India is full, she met \nwith the popular success for which her insane love of power had always craved. \nWhether under the influence of Chakravarti or of Leadbeater, she was the curse \nof the Theosophical movement and, in India, turned that movement over, \nroot and branch, to the worst enemies of the White Lodge. We, of course, \nwere not even remotely responsible for what she did; but she did it in the guise \nof Theosophy, and we must do everything in our power to remove the stigma \nfrom our good name. \n\nYet another way in which members of the Society can further the purposes \nof the Lodge, is through the Protestant churches, especially in America. The \nProtestant churches have a wonderful opportunity to serve the Master Christ, \nbut too often are dis-serving him. True and deep devotion will, in time, pro\u00ac \nduce enlightenment, but such devotion is very rare, and, in its absence, a right \nphilosophy is essential. Unfortunately, the clergy constantly reveal that their \nphilosophy of life is thoroughly materialistic; they have no grasp whatever \nof fundamentals, no recognition of causes,\u2014the result being that (like so many \nmembers of the medical profession) they believe the removal of effects, of \nsymptoms, as, for instance, by means of \u201csocial legislation\u201d, should be the \nchief field of their endeavour. In other words, their diagnosis is superficial, \nmechanistic, and entirely opposed to the principles and practice of Christ. \n\nHow many of them realize, and preach, that the besetting sin of this country \nis and always has been, greed? I am not an authority on American history, \nbut those who have studied it, and who were bom in the midst of it, so to speak, \ntell me that most of the people who came here originally did so to \u201cimprove \nthemselves\u201d,\u2014to make money more easily and rapidly than they could in \nEurope. Some came seeking religious liberty; some were commissioned to \ngovern the other colonists; but the large majority came (and still come) for the \nreason I have stated. Then, to further this primary purpose, slaves were \nimported, as the cheapest form of cheap labour: greed again. Later, when \nslavery was abolished, the lowest grade of labour was imported from Europe, \nand this, imported for selfish reasons, before long organized its own selfishness \nand greed so effectively that to-day it practically controls the government, \nnot for the benefit of the country, but for its own class purposes. There have \nbeen periods in history, as everyone knows, when employers were in control, \n\n\n\n\n\n\n240 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nand when\u2014as in the early days of mechanization, say in 1840 labour was \nshamefully exploited. Carlyle will never allow us to forget that. But the \ntide has turned so completely that greed, still the dominant motive, and always \nirrational, has now become a sort of religion in the C. I. 0 . and in its less noisy \nbut equally selfish rival, the American Federation of Labour. \n\nThis is obvious to everyone who sees the situation dispassionately. But \nhow many of the clergy point to Labour organizations as rivalling the worst of \n\u201cTrusts\u201d in greed and selfishness? Whether their failure to do so is due to \nintellectual blindness or to moral cowardice, the fact remains that the clergy, \nwith few exceptions, are not performing what ought to be their function, namely, \nto guide their people into the way of truth. \n\nBut while, in that respect, unthinking sentimentality, and a materialistic \nphilosophy, may account for their inability to recognize facts as facts, their \nsilence on the subject of many current \u201cbest sellers\u201d among novels, is even \nless excusable. It is the duty of a clergyman, a minister, to keep himself in\u00ac \nformed as to the habits of his congregation, and when \u201call the world\u201d is read\u00ac \ning some book, he should know that his own people are likely to join the pro\u00ac \ncession, and, if he finds such a book to be indecent and corrupting, he should \nsay so. His own perception of such things may have been blunted; but this, \nin a religious teacher, would be the worst of condemnations. On the other \nhand, he may see clearly, but may fear that, if he speaks the truth, he will \nempty his pews,\u2014will be derided as old-fashioned, as narrow, as \u201cnot a man \nof the world\u201d (and it is the tragic longing of many of the clergy, especially of \nthe younger among them, to be considered \u201cmen of the world\u201d). In that case, \nthey are untrue to their Faith. Has not the preaching of the Cross always \nbeen considered by \u201cthem that perish\u201d, foolishness? They need encourage\u00ac \nment, perhaps,\u2014and it is for us, as members of The Theosophical Society, to \nsupply it whenever we can, chiefly by the example of fearless denunciation \nof all that is vile in literature and in the habits of contemporary life. H.P.B., \nmany years ago, laid that charge upon us in her article, \u201cIs Denunciation a \nDuty?\u201d \n\nAbove all else, what needs to be impressed upon the Protestantism of to-day \nis that the purpose of life is spiritual; that comfort and health and enjoyments, \nand other things which the world desires, are of no importance whatever in \ncomparison with man\u2019s first duty as their own Catechism defines it, namely, \nour duty \u201ctowards God\u201d. Our materialistic Protestantism now sees \u201cmore \nleisure\u201d as the supreme desideratum. What use is made of the leisure men \nhave already? \u201cLeisure\u201d, to the vast majority of people, means: \u201cI have \nnothing to do; I am free to enjoy myself!\u201d No duty to God; no duty to man,\u2014 \nthank goodness! But let us be fair: are we entirely satisfied with the way \nwe use our leisure (if we have any) ? And if not, what can be expected of those \nwho have never heard of Theosophy? It is character that determines whether \nleisure is harmful or helpful\u2014leisure is neither good nor evil in itself; and char\u00ac \nacter is the product of man\u2019s attitude toward changeless spiritual values,\u2014 \ntoward spiritual qualities which it is the purpose, the sole purpose, of man\u2019s \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n241- \n\n\nexistence to manifest and embody. Let us seize every opportunity to declare, \nby our own attitude rather than in words, that Christianity, like Theosophy, \nis a revelation of the spiritual purpose of life. \n\nFinally, so as to deprive ourselves of the excuse that for us the \u201csmall old \npath\u201d is too difficult; that we are not fit, and that the call of the Lodge for \nhelpers must be answered by others,\u2014let me remind you of the statement in \nThe Cloud of Unknowing : \u201cFor not what thou art nor what thou hast been, \ndoth God regard with his merciful eye,\u2014but what thou wouldst be\u201d. There, \nindeed, is provided a sure footing and a new hope for all of us: it is not what \nwe were, or are, but what we want to be and are striving to be, that the Lodge \nregards,\u2014and accepts. This does not mean a sentimental pious wish that in \nsome far-off day\u2014the further off the better, perhaps\u2014we may become ch 61 as; \nit means a real longing and a real effort. Granting these\u2014no matter how \u201cun\u00ac \nworthy\u201d the longing and effort may be\u2014they will be seen and loved and wel\u00ac \ncomed, and all the powers of the spiritual world will strive to strengthen the \neffort and increase the desire. Full of that conviction, how can we fail to go \nforward hereafter with a new hope and new determination, no longer fussing \nover our failures, no longer thinking about ourselves, but seeing Life as a gift \nwithin our reach, for us to grasp and make our own, for love of the Giver of \nthis as of all good gifts. \n\nThat is part, at least, of the message of Theosophy, as the Lodge declared it \noriginally and still declares it; and that is part of the message we can carry \nwith us from this Convention: that one and all can make a new start, with out\u00ac \nstretched arms of welcome just ahead. \n\nThis report having been accepted with thanks, the report of the Committee \non Letters of Greeting was called for. \n\nReport of the Committee on Letters of Greeting \n\nMr. J. F. B. Mitchell, after speaking of the great interest with which \nthese letters had already been read by officers of the Society, read them aloud \nfor the benefit of the Convention, interrupted by frequent applause. In calling \nfor a motion to accept the report, the Chairman said that thanks were due, \nnot only to the Committee for presenting the letters, but especially to the \nwriters for conveying to us so vividly their thought, their feeling, and almost \ntheir presence here with us. This motion having been unanimously carried, \ndelegates were invited to address the Convention. \n\nMiss Hohnstedt, who was called upon first, said that the Cincinnati Branch, \nconfronted with the world\u2019s increasing unrest, had decided that the best anti\u00ac \ndote would be to study once more, Light on the Path. This had been done, \nthe speaker quoting its four unnumbered rules with the comment: \u201cI think \nwe have all tried to embody that in our lives this season.\u201d \n\nDr. Hohnstedt then spoke of the opposition which Madame Blavatsky \nhad to face during the last quarter of the last century, referring to her as \u201cintel- \n\n\n\n\n242 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nlectually and spiritually a giant\u201d. Many of our early writers, he said, such as \nSinnett, had approached Theosophy from a mental standpoint, without inner \nperception. What we need is to arouse our intuition that we may reach the \nspiritual world. \u201cLive the life and thou shalt know the doctrine. Unless we \ndo that, all our efforts will be fruitless.\u201d \n\nMr. Oberlander, also from Cincinnati, expressed gratitude for all that \nTheosophy had done for him, and for its preservation \u201cin its purity down to \nthis day\u201d. \n\nMrs. Regan (Providence) recalled that at the previous Convention much \nhad been said to the effect that if the Movement were to continue, it must \nproduce ch\u00a3las, and that this must have led us to further study of ch\u00a3laship and of \nits laws. So she had re-read the third volume of Fragments , on the 28th page \nof which she had found parts of a letter from a Guru to his ch\u00a3la, which she \nquoted. She called particular attention to one of the rules suggested, \u201cbeware \nof impatience\u201d, saying that if this or any other of the rules were made the \nsubject of meditation and of real effort for a single day, much knowledge would \nbe gained of the spiritual quality involved, with the realization that the de\u00ac \nvelopment of one such quality compelled the exercise of some aspect or element \nof all the others. She concluded by quoting the closing sentence of the letter: \n\u201cIf you can do that while fighting for my cause, and aid those with you so to \ndo, I can do anything.\u201d \n\nMiss Husby, on behalf of the Pacific Branch, Los Angeles, said she felt \nthat she had been commissioned by the members to come to the Convention \nas an act of devotion, to place upon its altar the frankincense and myrrh of \ntheir love and aspiration, that they might share in both its joy and pain. In \nthinking of the pain, she had thought of Saint Joan of Arc, who, when the \nvehicle was burned away, had entered into the heart of her Lord, so that grace \nflowed from her into the channels which he had made years before. So it could \nbe hoped that we, to the extent that we permitted our personalities to be burned \naway, might be permitted to enter into the mystical body of the Lodge, whence \nflows a spiritual impulse through all the ancient mystical veins of the world. \n\nMr. A. GonzXlez Jimenez then read a paper in which, after reviewing the \nearly issues of Lucifer and The Path , as conducted by H.P.B. and Judge, he \nurged that no one aspect of the truth should be over-emphasized, and applied \nthis to the subject of cyclic law. He quoted Zoroaster: \u201cOne moment of Eternity \nis of as great consequence as another moment, for Eternity changes not, neither \nis one part better than another part\u201d. \u201cCycles\u201d, he continued, \u201care the clock \nof time, and time is an ephemeral display of intercepting clouds on the screen \nof Brahma. . . . Our categoric imperative as a centre of solar theosophy is to \nexalt humanity to the divine state; to galvanize its creeds and destinies, to \nmove it theosophically, awaking it to the consciousness of its inherent immor\u00ac \ntality, not to burden it with more theories, more theologies\u2014the age of fossils \nis past. Our mission is to beat with the rhythm of the eternal Sun; to love man \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n243 \n\n\nfor love of God. We are told that it is inconceivable what each one of us can \naccomplish for his own people, for the country where he was born: he is a \ntrue lightning-rod. But in every other country are also centred our mutual \nproblems, and in their struggles, our collective future is, more or less, decided. \nWe are the only league of nations. ... We are\u2014or ought to be\u2014the knight\u00ac \nhood of God, and our canons take account of every idle word, condemn mental \ninertia, and regard discouragement or indolence as treason. . . . \n\n\u201cAnd what is it that the Masters most wish that we ask of them? Assuredly \nit is that we should desire them to dwell in our hearts, to let the Warrior fight \nwithin us, pulsate in us: that we shall come back to them. The solution of \nall problems; the royal road of progress; the possession of wisdom. \n\n\u201cThis is the tragic cry of all the Avatars, of all the Emissaries of Love, of all \nthe sons of Father Sun. It is for this that they came\u2014in order to be practical \nexponents, not to teach doctrines: each of them came to live a life, a life which, \nif emulated by us, will lead us to where it led him. The law which formed the \nheart of the teacher forms the heart of the pupil. . . . \n\n\u201cIf real work is to be accomplished by us, we ought to labour in step with and \nin the rhythm of the Solar Heart, the Theosophical Movement, to synchronize \nour breath with the great Breath, the Lodge. This Breath, all of it, courses \nthrough the heart of our Master. He is the Lodge. And when we worship \nhim all the gods are satisfied: the genius in us, he, and the Logos are but rhythms \nof the Eternal. . . . Each time we make a new start in this direction, we make \nthese things and ourselves new. In the history of the soul the prodigal son \nmust perforce return to the house of his father. Let us definitely make the \nnew start! Let us make ourselves new, setting our hearts on the Everlasting: \nthe heart of our Master.\u201d \n\nMr. Alvarez Perez presented the greetings of the Venezuela Branch, which \nwas happy in having four delegates at the Convention, and reported upon the \nwork in his country. As national conditions had compelled everyone to define \nhis political position, so they had felt a like inner compulsion to take their place \ndefinitely in the ranks of the right or wrong, and to this end had given much \ntime to the practice of self-examination. They were resolved to proceed with \ntheir spiritual task, asking of the Lords of the Lodge the graces of wisdom and \nof final perseverance, that the link, forged before Judge\u2019s death, should be kept \nunbroken, in fulfilment of the desperate cry of their beloved H.P.B., the titular \npatron of their Branch. \n\nThe Branch desired particularly to express its gratitude for all the help re\u00ac \nceived from their co-workers, visible and invisible, and their best thanks for \nthe clarion call of the Quarterly. \n\n* \n\nDr. Urbaneja and Mr. Augusto Jimenez, the two other delegates from \nVenezuela, added their greetings, and expressions of their gratitude for having \nbeen enabled to attend the Convention, and also for all the help given the work \nin Venezuela by the parent Society in New York. Reference was made to the \nterrible conflict in Spain\u2014to which Mr. Alvarez Perez had also referred and \n\n\n244 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nwhich came close home to all the Latin races\u2014and the hope was expressed that \nthrough all the tragic loss and suffering, righteousness might in the end be \nstrengthened, and the cause of the White Lodge thus prevail. \n\nTwo members from Central Europe were then called upon, one of whom \nspoke of the difficulties that confronted members of the Society in that part \nof the world, and of the debt they owed to their fellows in America, and espe\u00ac \ncially to the Quarterly, for the aid which enabled them to recognize the truth \nas otherwise they could not possibly have done. They prayed that from the \nConvention they might take back added strength to fight a good fight for the \nMasters\u2019 Cause, and concluded by giving thanks for their presence \u201chere in our \nFather\u2019s house\u201d. \n\nAfter greetings from Captain Hamlen on behalf of Mrs. Hamlen and him\u00ac \nself, the Chairman explained that Dr. Torrey had been kept away by illness, \nand called upon some of his former students to represent him. \n\nMr. Politella said that, comparing the status of our Society with that of \nmovements which pervert spiritual principles to material and emotional ends, \nit became apparent that the world is immersed in psychic dreams, and that \nthe activity of the devils of illusion had never been more widespread. The \nquestion then arose: are we to shout Theosophy from the housetops, thus com\u00ac \npelling attention? But the answer to that must be No,\u2014not when the cycle is \nin its present phase of indrawal; the wise husbandman does not sow his seed \non frozen ground. To-day, more than ever before, the problem is a personal \nand an individual problem, and to-day more than ever it would seem that we \nare called in particular to embody in our lives two of the principles of the Bud\u00ac \ndha\u2019s Noble Eightfold Path: to cultivate right views, and, supplementary to \nthat, right conduct\u2014right views in the sense of proper discrimination, so as to \ndistinguish the light from the shadow, the real from the unreal, and, seeing \nwhat is our task, to embody it completely in our own lives. The way and the \ntruth come first, and when they have been perceived intellectually, then by \nsheer force of character and sheer love of the Master, they must be made con\u00ac \ncrete in acts. To-day more than ever, the salvation of humanity depends upon \nthe salvation of the individual. Only by our cultivation of right views and right \nconduct are we able to transform and to elevate \u2019the lives of our brothers and \nof humanity. Theosophical brotherhood really means the little leaven that \nleavens the whole lump. \n\nMr. Cross, referring both to Dr. Torrey\u2019s absence and to the statement, in \nmany of the letters of greeting, that the writers would be at the Convention \n\u201cin spirit\u201d, said that, in his mind, the effect had been to bring up the question \nof the reality of the spiritual world, a question he believed answered by our \nown experience as members of The Theosophical Society, a body in which we \ncan centre our own consciousness, live with its life, and share the aspirations \nof all its members. The spiritual world had been described as a plane of con\u00ac \nsciousness to which anybody can raise himself, and he was sure that all of us \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n245 \n\n\nmust have had the experience of thinking of fellow-members and then, some\u00ac \nhow, of feeling our own enthusiasm and efforts reinforced, to the better per\u00ac \nformance of our duties. The spiritual life, therefore, is a real thing, and ought \nto be part of our daily consciousness, to be utilized to the best of our intelli\u00ac \ngence for the Masters\u2019 Cause. \n\nMr. Clark and Mr. A. H. Fisher were also called upon, the former re\u00ac \nferring to Longfellow\u2019s \u201cPsalm of Life\u201d, and the latter to the need for a great \npurgation of the minds and hearts of men\u2014perhaps some collective and dread\u00ac \nful experience that would cause them to go down on their knees in humble \nprayer for divine aid, realizing that the human intellect alone is insufficient \nto solve the world\u2019s problems and to meet its needs. But if the world is to be \nbrought to the realization that divine aid is obtainable, it is essential that the \nlink between the world and the Masters be kept unbroken, through the So\u00ac \nciety\u2019s aspiration toward noble ideals, its passion for perfection, and its faith \nthat truth exists and can be found. \n\nMr. Miller, Chairman of the New York Branch: It is indeed a joy to see \nthese younger members with us, sharing our enthusiasm and, I am sure, in \ntheir hearts responding to the romance of the call which comes to all who \nattend these Conventions. \n\nIn thinking of this Convention, I thought of that of last year, and re-read \nsome of the addresses then made. I have especially in mind the address upon \nthe ancient maxims, Man know thyself, and, Man the mirror of the universe,\u2014 \nin which was pointed out the misunderstanding of the world to-day over the \ndual nature of man, and the failure to realize that duality means struggle, and \nthat the secret of success in the spiritual life lies in warfare which must be \ncontinually waged. \n\nIn the New York Branch this winter, we discussed the added dimension \nwhich Theosophy brings to life, the descent of spirit into matter, and the power \nof Theosophy to transform our lives and all our thought. The power of thought \nitself was emphasized and explained, leading us to see that one of the greatest \nservices we can render the Movement, was expressed by St. Paul: Whatso\u00ac \never things are true: whatsoever things are venerable: whatsoever things are \njust: whatsoever things are pure: whatsoever things are lovely: whatsoever \nthings are of good report, think on these things. \n\nMr. Smith being called upon, thought enough had been heard from Dr. \nTorrey\u2019s students, and that he would now follow the advice a wise man had \ngiven to youth: \u201cTo talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone on what is said \nin company, to distrust one\u2019s own opinion and to value others\u2019 who deserve it\u201d. \n\nMr. W. S. Fisher, referring to one of the addresses of the morning session, \nsaid that the need for a spiritual awakening might have been expressed as the \nneed for a rejuvenescence of the spiritual life, as that word is used in biology to \ndescribe the method of cell rejuvenation in which the cell wall completely \nbreakflfcmd what is within is freed. It seemed to him to be necessary for the \n\n\n246 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ncontinuance of the Society that our personal cell wall should break, and that \nwhat is within should thus be liberated. He believed there is no better means \nto this end than gratitude, because gratitude breaks down those barriers of self \nwhich keep us from being of value to the Movement. Everyone must have \nexperienced, at least in some small measure, the truth of this, and thus have \nknown the wave of warmth and sympathy and union that comes from a deep \nsense of gratitude. To-day he, and many others, were saying \u201cThank you\u201d, \nand with the words were experiencing both the feeling of gratitude and its gifts. \n\nDr. Clark: The Bible tells us to offer unto God the sacrifice of praise and \nthanksgiving. Why that word, \u201csacrifice\u201d? \u201cSacrifice\u201d means that which \nhas been made holy. We have profaned praise and thanksgiving by offering \nthem to self. On Convention Day, our complete dependence upon the Masters \nought to be clear; it ought to be easier for us to offer them, not a sacrifice in the \nordinary sense, but overflowing praise and thanksgiving. \n\nMr. LaDow: Mr. Chairman, I wish to express my gratitude for the honour \nconferred on me by my election to the Executive Committee. I can conceive \nof no deeper responsibility than that which rests upon its members. \n\n\u201cThoughts are things.\u201d I think it was said that a thought of depression may, \nby contagion, cause someone far away to collapse completely. But our thoughts \nmay influence others, not only instantaneously but after the lapse of many years. \nI have been reading a book on the history of French Free Masonry during the \n18th century. The author rightly detests the particular form of Masonry \nwhich produced the Grand Orient. He points out that the horrors of contemporary \ndemocracies and dictatorships are natural developments of the subversive ideas \nwhich were cultivated in the 18th century lodges. Fortunately we can have \ntrue ideas, true thoughts, and can thus plant a beneficent seed which will in\u00ac \nevitably grow and bring forth good fruit in the world. \n\nMr. Auchincloss: Each year the Convention of the Society follows very \nclosely after Easter, and it is fortunate for us that this is so. For what happens \nis, that we carry forward the inspiration, the inner renewal and the Resurrec\u00ac \ntion that is Easter, and then Convention confirms and expands it, through \nthe contact with Reality that comes at this time. \n\nThe inspiration that we get from Easter comes often, it seems to me, from \nthe consideration of some incident, of something that was said, in those last \nfew days before the Crucifixion. Take, for instance, that scene in the upper \nroom, after the Last Supper, when the Master Christ was talking with his \ndisciples. He had just said to them that, if they had known him, they would \nhave known his Father also. And Philip turned to him and said,\u201c Lord, show \nus the Father, and it sufficeth us.\u201d \n\nLooking for a sign. We have been talking this winter at the meetings of \nthe New York Branch of the descent of spirit into matter. And there, in that \nupper room, those disciples had in their midst, Life Incarnate; yet, in spite of \nall that had been said to them, in spite of all that they had been told,\u2014still, \nthey wanted proof, still they wanted a sign. \n\n\n247 \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\nSlow of heart, as we are slow of heart. For we, too, are constantly wanting \na sign. Externalized as we are, immersed in material things, thinking too much \nin material terms, we are constantly scanning the horizon of the material world \nfor a sign, a proof, that the spiritual world is \u201cworking\u201d. We are constantly \nexpecting (although we should not perhaps put it to ourselves in just those \nwords) material rewards of some kind or other, as a result of the inner effort \nwe are making,\u2014as a sign, a proof, that our inner effort has the approval of the \nspiritual world, that the spiritual world is behind us and with us. And there \nshall no sign be given us,\u2014not in that way. \n\nHow shall we recognize Life Incarnate when it is in our midst? Not through \nany outer sign, but through recognition on the inner planes, within our own \nhearts. It is there that perception, penetration lie. We must quicken our \nhearts. And we cannot quicken our hearts as long as they are divided. We \ncannot quicken them until our identification with the spiritual world is com\u00ac \nplete; until we have gone all the way in our self-surrender to it; until we are \nno longer living amidst outer events, but, instead, are living within outer events, \nand are finding at the heart of them, Life. \n\nMr. Kobb\u00a3: We are particularly fortunate at this Convention. When I \nsay that, I do not refer to the remarks of this morning. To those remarks I \nshall come presently. At the moment, I allude to all of the young members \ngathered here to-day, the youth in our Movement; some of them having con\u00ac \ntributed orally to our discussion, and all of whom have joined us in mind and \nin heart,\u2014those who have embraced the Cause in their youth, and who, some \nday, must take up what we have in our hands and carry it forward, and must \nstrive for what we are striving for. \n\nLast year, a call was made for chglas. Although, this year, no such call \nwas made in so many words, yet, the appeal for chfilas was sounded even deeper \nthan it was a year ago, in all the Chairman of the Executive Committee had to \nsay this morning. Perhaps, to-day, the call is deeper because the need is greater, \ngreater by a year. \n\nWhy is it that call has not been answered more completely? Though this \nmay be but one of several reasons, is it because, when it comes to spiritual \nthings, our ideas and objectives are too general and indefinite? Often, at the \nNew York Branch meetings, we speak of the purpose of life. It is expressed \nin one or another way,\u2014let us say, to serve the Great Lodge of Masters, or to \nhelp to raise the conscious level of humanity. Are not such expressions rather \ngeneral, somewhat indefinite, when considered against the specific call made \nlast year, that a specific need might be fulfilled? \n\nI am going to rest the blame on our old enemy, the lower self, because the \nvery thing that self would like to have us do, is to continue to be general and \nindefinite in our spiritual objectives. Such indefiniteness suits its purpose, \nfor it enables it to keep its hold over our thoughts and acts, to piece out its \nexistence for so many more years or centuries as the case may be; and so long \nas we are living more in the lower than in the Higher Self, it is impossible for \n\n\n248 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthe objective of ch\u00a3laship to be realized. The lower self has no power of \ncreation. It is a perversion, and, as such, it has only the power of per\u00ac \nversion: to take that which is created and turn it so that it works against its \nown original life, thereby killing the very thing which we want to have come \nto pass. \n\nSo my message is, that we take more to mind and to heart what was said \nat the Convention last year about the need for ch\u00a3las, and what was said this \nmorning, on the same subject, in a much deeper sense; that we try to raise the \nconsciousness from the level of the lower self, the perversion, and to bring it \nnearer and nearer into union with the Higher Self, the creative Self within us, \nthe Self that functions in the creative world. Thus, we shall give the Masters \nof the Great Lodge an opportunity to help us in answering the call that has \nbeen made, to help us in fulfilling the specific need of that call. Let us make \nour objective one-pointed this year. We know what it is. \n\nThe Convention then heard with much pleasure and interest from Mr. \nKobb\u00a3, Jr., Mr. Russ, Jr., and Mr. Miller, Jr. \n\nMrs. Lake, of Providence, being called upon, referred to the heavy responsi\u00ac \nbility placed upon us in the realization that we must control not only our acts \nand words, but our thoughts, and spoke of the encouragement and incentive \nwhich went with it, since right thought has such an immense carrying force, \nand might reach in its effects to the uttermost parts of the world. \n\nMrs. Rose (Providence) wished to voice her gratitude to the Quarterly. \nHaving recently been reading old numbers, it seemed to her they were a gold \nmine of help and inspiration, and that no matter what may happen in the \nfuture, we should always have in them the guidance needed for our work. \n\nMr. Brush, reviewing the evolution of life through some of its lower forms, \nspoke of the analogy of our own lives, especially of our inner lives, adding: \n\u201cIn the years to come, when our own power of sacrifice, our own faith, our \ncourage may be tested as never before, we who are here to-day know that the \nconditions necessary for our own next step in evolution will be supplied. How\u00ac \never difficult or however obscure those conditions may at times seem, we know \nthat nature and the Lodge will do their part. May we do ours!\u201d \n\nMr. Saxe: The fundamental desire of every member of the Society must \nbe to help others. Theosophy teaches us to regard people, not as bodies nor as \npersonalities, but as souls. In order to help the soul we must attain to soul- \nconsciousness. In other words, we must rise above the personal consciousness. \nWhen we succeed in that, when we are able to stand firmly on that higher \nlevel, then we shall be able to give other souls the real help they so greatly \nneed, and which very few can give. It is to this end that our constant warfare \nwith the personality is waged. \n\nWe are here to-day because, from the very inception of the Movement, there \nhave always been some members, who, having attained to soul-consciousness, \nwere able to exercise soul-powers: the power of perception, by which they \ncould perceive the needs of our soul, and point out the way for us; the power \n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n249 \n\n\nof communication, enabling them to communicate truth, aspiration, and the \njoy of the spiritual world; energizing in some degree our higher wills. \n\nIt is now our turn to effect this transfer of consciousness, through conquest \nof the personal self. Shall we not resolve to redouble our efforts, win this fight, \nand so become worthy of being called Theosophists! \n\nColonel Wise spoke of General Washington as having been far more than \na great soldier and statesman, and then explained something of the occult \nsignificance of American history. \n\nMr. J. F. B. Mitchell: Our first thought at Convention is always the wish \nto express our gratitude for the privilege of being here. The tremendous im\u00ac \nportance of the Convention, and the way in which right thinking here may \naffect the entire world, were spoken of this morning. We ought, by every means \nin our power, to bring that truth home, to force ourselves to realize the potency \nof our thoughts and acts. It is hard to do. One feels very small and unworthy, \nand it is not easy to realize that, because of our connection with the Movement, \ngreat issues may turn on what we think, or do, or feel. \n\nYet great issues do turn on what seem very little things. England has an \nempire in North America to-day because someone, whose name is not even \nknown to history, knew a path up which, perhaps, it had been his duty to \nclimb, and so he could guide others up it, up to the Heights of Abraham and \nthe conquest of Quebec. He did not have to bq a great general or a great any\u00ac \nthing else. All that he had to do was to know and to point out a path. All \nthat is asked of us is that each one should climb his own path to his own heights, \nand the Lodge can then do the rest. \n\nYears ago, shortly after the war, a friend told me of an experience he had \nhad. Though he had not been able to go to the front, he felt deeply and wanted \nto do all he could to help. On the morning of one particular day he resolved \nto offer all that he did, with the intention of helping the Allied cause. At the \nclose of the day, as he went back over it in prayer, it seemed mostly failure \nand that he had done very little. As if in answer, the words came across his \nmind: Yes, it was very, very little, but look. Then two pictures, one a young \nFrench wife holding her child, and the other a charging poilu, with a German \nrifle aimed at his forehead. Something touched the rifle, deflecting the muzzle \na fraction of an inch. It took very little force, but the bullet that had been \naimed at the poilu\u2019s forehead, harmlessly grazed his temple. Masters can do \nso much if we will but provide a little. \n\nThe light has been given to us to carry into the future. The day will \ncome when men are going to pray, with all that is in them, for some one, some\u00ac \nthing, to take them out of the mess which they have made for themselves \nand the world. When that time comes, shall we have held in the world the \nknowledge that there are God-instructed men who may be evoked, so that \nthe passionate longing of the world may be focussed on evoking them? Or \nmust men grope blindly in the dark, not knowing what they seek, nor that it is \nobtainable? \n\n\n250 \n\n\nTHE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nLast year at the Convention, reference was made to the many thousands in \nthe great war who, lifted above themselves by their passionate love of their \ncause, had given their lives with gladness, with a self-immolation that had \nbrought their feet to the Path of Ch\u00a3laship, to which, in their next life, they \nmight be bom. How the Masters must long to have those men tread that path, \nlong to give them the reward they so completely earned. It may be that it is \nin our hands to determine whether they shall receive their reward or not. Is \nthe knowledge of ch\u00a3laship, the fact of ch\u00a3laship, to be in the world as a living \nreality when they come back? Each one of us can do something to give those \nmen what they have earned. We may offer our effort, with the prayer that \nsomeone may attain. \n\nMr. Hargrove (In response to a question from the Chair as to whether \nthe Committee on Resolutions had anything further to report before it was \ndischarged): Merely to thank Mr. Kobbd for having made it unnecessary \nfor me to repeat exactly the same words that I used last year! Also a reminder \nthat it is not oiily outer events, such as war, that help us to rise above ourselves, \nbut every real love, every real aspiration. Anything and everything we can \ndo to deny self, to push self aside, to recognize it for what it is, will bring us \nthat much nearer to the time when we shall attain that state of consciousness \nwhich means,\u2014cMlaship. \n\nDr. Hohnstedt: Before we close, I wish to make a motion extending our \nthanks to the New York Branch for the courtesy and kindness they have shown \nus; also to the officers of the Convention; also our thanks to the Editors and \ncontributors to the Quarterly. \n\nThis motion having been seconded and unanimously passed, and the Com\u00ac \nmittee on Resolutions having been discharged with thanks, the Convention \nwas adjourned. \n\nIsabel E. Perkins, \n\nSecretary of Convention. \n\nJulia Chickering, \n\nAssistant Secretary of Convention. \n\n\nLETTERS OF GREETING \n\nAylsham, England. \n\nTo the Secretary T.S.: Once more our thoughts must turn towards Convention; indeed I \ndo not see how they can help doing so, and this carries all our most ardent good wishes and \nfriendly greetings to fellow-members who will soon be assembled in it. Our Norfolk Branch \nprepares, by a month\u2019s study, for Convention, and I know that each member endeavours to \nkeep the day itself as free from outer concerns as possible, so I hope, and believe, that we \nare able to be closely united with you in spirit, and to bring our own little contribution to \nConvention. \n\nEach year as the Convention Reports come to us, they seem to be deeper, more momentous, \nand a year\u2019s study of them does not suffice to teach us all the lessons they hold for us. Each \nyear also the whole world situation seems to become more desperate, more hopeless, and I \nhave been asking myself what we, who have the great privilege to be members of the T.S., \ncan do to help the world and the Masters\u2019 work for it. In a book-review I read not long ago \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n251 \n\n\nit was stated that the author considered civilization had become so corrupt, so degenerate, \nthat it was hopeless to try and reform it; that it would have to be swept away in order that \na fresh one might grow up in its place. Certainly the outlook on all sides, in every land, is \ndark indeed, and mankind seems to be rushing headlong towards the abyss, but I cannot \nfeel that we should take a despairing view of it, for to do so would be to doubt the Masters, \nwho for countless years have formed the \u201cGuardian Wall\u201d that has protected humanity \nfrom the most terrible fate. Again and again they have saved it, and their hands can be \nstrengthened to do so again; but we their poor servants must do our share in helping them \nin their great and wonderful work. \n\nHow can we do so? A study of the Convention Reports answers that question, for again \nand again in them the call has gone out for more ch\u00a3las, for men and women who can rise \nabove themselves until they become instruments that the Masters can use, for their work \nhere in the world. We must provide them, for if we do not, that work might be gravely en\u00ac \ndangered, and such a thought is intolerable. The only real obstacles are discouragement \nand inertia. We may not all be able to become ch\u00a3las in this life, although if we had the \nwill we could all accomplish chdlaship, but we can all try,\u2014try with every atom of will, de\u00ac \nvotion and determination there is in us, try for love of the Masters and in ardent gratitude \nfor all we owe them; and if we ourselves fail, our efforts may carry others over the threshold. \nAlso we can be a centre of contagion for good in the world, not so much by what we do, as \nby what we are. As we are told in one of the beautiful \u201cFragments\u201d, the little spark in our \nown heart may become a beam of light that, reaching out, may enlighten the heart of another \nand kindle a spark in it, until from one to another the whole world becomes aflame. \n\nIn spite of all appearances I am convinced that there are many, many men and women \nwho long for the light, who are groping their way towards it, and everyone of us can help \nthem find it, and in so doing help the Masters. So I ardently hope and pray that this Con\u00ac \nvention may indeed be blest, may be the greatest ever held, and that the outcome of it may \nbe a real increase of recruits for the Lodge, of chfilas filled not only with love and devotion \nbut with knowledge and understanding. \n\nEspoir Bagnell, \n\nPresident, Norfolk Branch . \n\nTo the Secretary T.S.: Throughout this month of April, our thoughts will often turn in \nthe direction of Headquarters, in preparation for Convention, as we think, with much grati\u00ac \ntude, of the fact that we are permitted once again to take part, in heart and intention, in the \ncoming Convention, and that the \u201cPowers that be\u201d have permitted it once again to be held \nwhile the \u201clines of communication\u201d remain open, as they have been maintained in unbroken \nsequence since the foundation of the Society. \n\nAs we follow the cyclic processes of Nature, and rejoice in the renewal of life at this time \nof the year, we can join also in \u201call Nature\u2019s wordless voice\u201d which \u201cariseth to proclaim\u2014 \nJoy unto ye, 0 men of Myalba\u201d,\u2014at this time when we celebrate the Christian festival of \nEaster, coinciding (in older times) with the Greek celebration of the Mysteries. Yet we \nknow that in the T.S. Movement, cyclic law has provided that a reverse direction should \nrule the trend of our policy, at this time. Instead of renewal of outer life, we have the indrawal \nwhich belongs to this cycle. I wonder whether, in the last year, there has been further under\u00ac \nstanding of what the indrawal means, for all of us. We have to guard constantly against \nthe danger of allowing our thought to be coloured by any negative or inert view of the present \ncondition. Patanjali defines that Indrawal as \u201cdisengaging the powers from their entangle\u00ac \nment in outer things, and their return to the quality of consciousness\u201d. Only as we stead\u00ac \nfastly practise the detachment which is enjoined on us, even from those outer helps in the \nWork which have meant so much to us in former times, can we hope to penetrate more deeply \ninto the true meaning of consciousness, and enlarge our experience of the inner realms which \nawait our exploration. We can understand that only the most vigorous, positive and forceful \neffort will enable us to do this, and to correspond whole-heartedly with the plan of the higher \n\n\n252 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nWe have to learn to discern the word of command within ourselves, and for this, much \nstillness is required, and a steadfast determination not to allow anxiety or restlessness to ob\u00ac \nscure our vision or impede our action. \n\nSo, once again at Convention time we greet you, in union with the brotherhood, in the \nname of the Masters who allow of our assembling. \n\nHope Bagnell, \n\nSecretary , Norfolk Branch. \n\n\nDenver, Colorado. \n\nThe Virya Branch sends Greetings to the Convention, and a loving message of appreciation \nof all the service so unceasingly offered by those who are bearing \u201cthe burden and heat of \nthe day\u201d. \n\nMary Kent Wallace, Secretary. \nAnne Evans, President. \n\n\nLos Angeles, California. \n\nTo the Members in Convention Assembled: Our delegate, Miss Ruth Husby, will convey \nour warmest and most heartfelt greetings; and so what we now write should be taken as sup\u00ac \nporting her, as well as supplementing whatever she may be inspired to say when in the Con\u00ac \nvention atmosphere. \n\nRecently, whilst looking forward to Convention, and wondering or thinking of what its \natmosphere might be like this time, of the great Ones who, in some form or other, we are told, \nattend every year, who for the most part create its atmosphere; there came vividly to mind, \nIsrael\u2019s great Adept of old as he entered, for a similar brief space, the still more rarified atmos\u00ac \nphere of the Lodge itself, to receive the instructions from his Master for the freeing of Israel\u2019s \nerstwhile captive people, much as we now may do for the redemption of our own. But, as \nwe know, first of all there came the gentle but imperative reminder, \u201cPut off thy shoes from \noff thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground\u201d, as if in that all-else-exclud\u00ac \ning moment, Moses had forgotten to do so; again much as we, in the figurative sense, may \nforget, if in the joy or deep satisfaction of once more coming together, intimately and in per\u00ac \nson, or no less closely in thought and feeling though situated at a distance, we fail ever so \nlittle to remember Those to whom we owe our Conventions, and who again will be there in \nsome form or other, so their life-giving and sustaining, strengthening and inspiring presence \nmay be felt. \n\nOr, it seemed, it may be just their gentle but firm remonstrance, or stem reproof, that \nmany of us will feel,\u2014whatever our short-comings, or mere \u201cpersonal-self\u201d wants, or our flinch\u00ac \ning and squirming under the pressure of things at times (our real and immediate need in \nany case) might call forth in that way. Yet, even this would not matter, however hard it \nmight hit, if only for the time being we can get rid of these our cumbersome \u201cshoes\u201d. \n\nWith every best wish from us all, while thanking you for your own, \n\nThe Pacific Branch, \n\n_ W. H. Box, President. \n\n\nNewcastle-on-Tyne, England. \n\nTo the Members of The Theosophical Society in Convention Assembled: On behalf of the \nmembers of the Newcastle-on-Tyne Branch, I have much pleasure in conveying to you our \nheartiest greetings and good wishes. We were glad to receive the notification that the Con\u00ac \nvention would be held once again, as in former years, for we feel that it is one more oppor\u00ac \ntunity to receive the Masters light and guidance, and one more opportunity to express our \ngratitude and thankfulness. We shall therefore be with you in heart and mind as we gather \nat our special meeting on this momentous occasion. For who knows what may be the mes\u00ac \nsage this time. \n\nIt has been said that occultism demands heroism,\u2014of the sort which is totally unaware \n\n\n\n\n\nREPORT OF THE ANNUAL CONVENTION \n\n\n253 \n\n\nof itself, as such, and which is not a momentary flash of excitement, but the inflexible purpose \nwhich seizes upon all things as means to the Masters\u2019 ends. \n\nHere, surely, is opportunity of the widest scope\u2014something that we can all individually \npractise and embody. It would seem that as we do this, strength and stability and vision \nwill result. It will be the kind of contribution to the Cause that will ensure a rocklike struc\u00ac \nture of the Society, a powerful expression of spiritual force, and a definite challenge to the \npowers of evil in the world. \n\nWe need to be positive for good, active for righteousness, that all lower things have neither \npart nor lot in our make-up; that, in short, we shall be so consumed with love for the Masters \nand all they stand for, that our whole weight and influence will be placed on their side and \nat their service. Giving ourselves wholeheartedly in this way, what possibilities do we not \nprovide? As we can stand the pressure which the fulcrum must undergo to be of any service, \nthe Masters' work in the world can be so much more extended and increased. \n\nWhat then have we done about the clarion call for ch\u00a3las during the past year? Has it \nbeen unheeded, or has something towards its realization been accomplished? We surely \nwant above all to keep the link unbroken, and this cannot be unless the portals of the inner \nworld are entered. We would therefore pray that on the flood-tide of this Convention, and \nall the effort that has led up to it, someone may attain, and rejoice the hearts of us all, but \nparticularly those to whom its significance is more fully understood. \n\nE. Howard Lincoln, \nPresident. \n\n\nOslo, Norway. \n\nTo the Secretary T.S.: We shall surely have our meeting on Convention Day,\u2014and you will \nhave in the enclosed extract of my annual address to the Branch, as well as in the Report \nsent by our Secretary, a testimony that in soul and heart we are with you. \n\nWith sincere thanks, as always, for all the care we receive, and to all who are working for \nTruth and Righteousness, not in the abstract only, but daily, hourly, and concretely, as we \nhave experienced for so many years in the work of our Headquarters,\u2014we send our greetings, \nas well as to all members in Convention assembled. \n\nOn behalf of the Oslo Branch T.S., \nHenning Dahl, Chairman. \n\n\nSouth Shields, England. \n\nTo the Members of The Theosophical Society Assembled in Convention: The members of the \nSouth Shields Branch are with you in spirit and purpose and send you their fraternal greet\u00ac \nings. To the editors and writers of the Theosophical Quarterly we offer our sincere thanks \nfor their inspiring articles. May you all receive a blessing from the Lodge of Masters that \nwill radiate through the whole Society and stem the tide of destruction that has been let \nloose over the world. May we have the strength and courage to live up to the teachings \nwe have received and are receiving daily through the Society, and may we respond to the \nefforts of the Elder Brothers on our behalf. We are going through a testing period, and we \npray that all will survive the crisis that appears to be close upon us, with added strength for \nthe Masters\u2019 Cause of Theosophy. \n\nThomas Mackey, \nSecretary. \n\n\nToronto, Canada. \n\nOnce again Toronto Branch takes pleasure in sending Greetings to their Fellow-Members \nin Convention assembled and elsewhere throughout the world. \n\nWe should like to send special thanks to those who make possible the Quarterly. We \nwonder if there is another magazine published anywhere that is so beloved as it is. \n\nAt times when the immensity of the task undertaken by The Theosophical Society is real- \n\n\n\n\n\n254 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nized, one is appalled by the thought of the little one is able to do; yet, knowing that it is in \nhuman hearts that the work has to come to fruition, it is quite obvious that we can best \nhelp by seeing to it that our own hearts respond, and then endeavour to shape our lives so \nthat they may make manifest in some measure, the results for which the Society is working. \n\nFor the Toronto Branch , \n\nAlbert J. Harris, Secretary. \n\n\nOklahoma City, Oklahoma. \n\nTo the Secretary T.S.: It is always a privilege to receive a letter from Headquarters; there \nis in them\u2014without the specific reminder in words\u2014the feeling of a link unbroken between \nus who are, perhaps, far away, and that Spiritual Centre which I often think of as Home, or \nReality,\u2014and to be aware of Reality is certainly of very great importance to humanity to-day. \n\nI am very sorry that I shall not be able to attend Convention,\u2014in person. Surely, I shall \nbe there in spirit and in thought. Even that is to me a great privilege; for the blessings of \nthe spirit will go forth from that Convention to all whose hearts are tuned to the Powers \nthere manifested. \n\nPerhaps some think we should refrain from expressing our sense of appreciation to those \nwho do so much for us on the higher planes of life, and for the blessing of their presence at \nthese Conventions. I do not. If we truly appreciate the work, or the character of any person \nin life, why should we not try to express our gratitude and our love, while we are alive,\u2014 \nbefore it is too late? And so, I am glad to offer my poor expressions of appreciation to them \nnow, \u2014glad, and proud to feel the inspiration of their noble living in these days of severe test, \nwhen most of the world seems determined to rush into the bottomless pit of selfishness and \nmateriality. \n\nIt would do my heart good to be permitted to meet, face to face there at Convention, those \nwho have so long borne the brunt of the fight for the spiritual awakening of Humanity. Would \nyou very kindly convey to them my love and my heartfelt gratitude. \n\nWm. E. Mullinax. \n\n\nThe greatest interest was shown by delegates and members in the reading of Letters of \nGreeting; comment was made, later, that the stillness of the attention given was even more \nof a tribute than the frequent applause. The letters included, in addition to the foregoing, \ngreetings from Miss Eleanor Evans (England); Miss Anna Fjaestad, President of the Arvika \nBranch (Sweden); Mr. Joseph Whitney Ganson (New York); Mr. Plinio (Italy); Mr. W. G. \nRoberts, President of the Middletown Branch (Ohio); Mr. Fred\u2019k A. Ross, President of the \nWhitley Bay Branch (England); Mr. and Mrs. Schoch (Brazil); Mr. Percy W. Ward, Secre\u00ac \ntary of the Gateshead Branch (England); telegram from Miss Evans, President, and Miss \nWallace, Secretary of the Virya Branch (Colorado); cablegram from Mrs. Bagnell, President, \nand Miss Bagnell, Secretary of the Norfolk Branch (England); cablegram from the Venezuela \nBranch of Caracas. Other letters from abroad were read, and most appreciatively received, \nbut are not acknowledged or quoted in the open pages of the Quarterly for the reason that \nunusual conditions in some parts of the world might make this inconsiderate and inexpedient \n(see the Quarterly, July, 1934; page 33). \n\n\nWhosoever strives hard and grips tight , \n\nThe two worlds are illumined by him. \n\n\u2014Muhammad Iqbal. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Return to Religion , by Henry C. Link, Ph.D.; The Macmillan Co., New \nYork; price, $1.75. \n\nThe increasing sale of this book, since its publication a year ago, is one of \nthe cheering signs which we may set against those that sadden us. It has had \nthe best kind of sale, building up, first slowly, then more and more rapidly as \nits merits became known, till it now appears in all the lists of \u201cbest sellers\u201d, \nand has reached a total of over a hundred thousand copies. This is a notable \nresponse to any work of sanity and wisdom, and the book is marked by both; \nbut to see the odds against them, in the world to-day, we have only to set these \nhundred thousand copies against the one million, three hundred thousand of \nGone With the Wind , sold by the same publisher within the same time. \n\nDr. Link had been robbed of his religion, as are so many students, by his \ncollege and professional training. He returns to it, not because of affection, or \nbecause he has become converted to all the doctrines of his own or any other \nchurch, but because he cannot escape the logical compulsion of his own scientific \nfindings of its necessity and value. He writes as a practising psychologist (he \nis the Director of the Psychological Service Centre in New York) who has, \nin the past twenty years, been called upon to study the life histories, and pre\u00ac \nscribe for the ailments and maladjustments, of some four thousand men and \nwomen. His book, he tells us, is less autobiographical than distilled from the \nbiographies of his patients, and its outstanding lesson is that no discovery of \nmodem science is more important or more sure, than the proof, which all such \npsychological studies yield, that self-sacrifice and discipline are essential to \nself-realization and happiness; and that, though other interests often compel \nthe sacrifice of present satisfactions for a more distant goal, \u201conly religion em\u00ac \nbodies this principle as the major premise of a normal life in all its aspects\u201d. \n\nDr. Link\u2019s chapter-headings cover a wide range, from playing bridge and \ndancing and the bringing up of children, to the achievement of happiness and \nthe abundant life. His observation is keen, and he states his conclusions fear\u00ac \nlessly and with vigour. In his chapters, for example, on \u201cFools of Reason\u201d \nand \u201cThe Vice of Education\u201d, he points out that our educational system \u201chas \nbeen a glorification of the intellect and a corresponding disintegration of the \nbasic values which make intellect worth having\u201d. He finds \u201cno body of evi\u00ac \ndence in the whole field of psychology that proves any definite growth of char- \n\n\n\n\n255 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\n256 \n\nacter or personality as a result of higher education in its generally accepted \nforms\u201d (p. 145). \u201cThe liberal mind\u201d, the creation upon which modem educa\u00ac \ntion chiefly prides itself, is, in fact, probably its \u201cmost damaging single aspect\u201d, \nfor in most cases, \u201cliberalism\u201d, as seen in Dr. Link\u2019s analysis, \u201cis the result of \nan indiscriminate releasing of a person from the traditions and restraints of the \npast without substituting an adequate set of restraints or ideals for the future\u201d. \nBut though Dr. Link does not hesitate to expose fallacy and folly, his book is \nfar from being merely destructive. His concern is always to point out the \nway to betterment of personal character in all its manifold relationships. We \nheartily commend the book to our readers. B. \n\n\nOrpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement , by W. K. C. \nGuthrie; Methuen & Co. Ltd., London; price ios.6d. \n\nDuring the sixth century B.C., the age of Pythagoras, there was a notable \nrenaissance of mysticism and asceticism in the Greek world. In particular, \nthere was a widespread development of certain myths and ritualistic exercises \nwhich the ancients defined by the general term, \u201cOrphic\u201d. The devotees of \nOrphism claimed a sort of apostolic descent from the Thracian hero, Orpheus. \nTheir enemies, including Aristotle, branded them as fanatics or charlatans. \nThere is the authority of Philoponus and Cicero for supposing that Aristotle \ndenied the existence of Orpheus and attributed the authorship of the Orphic \nscriptures to Onomakritos, an alleged forger and adventurer of the sixth century. \nWe have italicized the word \u201calleged\u201d, for it is possible that Onomakritos \nmay have had access to a tradition unknown to Aristotle. It is conventional \nfor the hostile critics of a great religious movement to impute its origin to \nforgery and fortune-seeking. A student of Theosophy, examining what is left \nof the Orphic poems, and considering the long history of the Orphic cults, can \nscarcely doubt that they were based upon real spiritual experience. Indeed, \nthe Orphic Mysteries were accepted at their face-value by the Pythagorean \nand Platonic philosophers from Empedocles to Proclus and Olympiodorus, \ncovering a period of a thousand years. It is also manifest, at least to the present \nreviewer, that a force of this magnitude could only have been generated through \nthe creative activity of some very great individual. Why should one not identify \nthis man of genius with the Orpheus of Greek legend, the bard and seer and \nmagician, who was slain by the barbarians to whom he had brought an intima\u00ac \ntion of the divinity latent in man? In this connection, it is interesting to recall \nthat \u201cesoteric tradition identifies him [i.e. Orpheus] with Arjuna, the son of \nIndra and the disciple of Krishna\u201d ( Theosophical Glossary , p. 225; also cf. \nFive Years of Theosophy , pp. 266, seq.). \n\nMr. Guthrie\u2019s book does not make light reading, but it is of great value to \nany serious student of the subject. He is a tireless and painstaking scholar. \nHe has made easily available the epigraphical evidence which had hitherto \nbeen known only to specialists in this field. He has also brought together \nand co-ordinated the direct and indirect references to Orphism in classical \n\n\n\n4 \n\n\nREVIEWS 257 \n\nliterature. Thus he is able to describe what seem to have been the main out\u00ac \nlines of the Orphic doctrine in its exoteric form. There were certain basic \nmyths symbolizing the creative and regenerative powers in the universe and \nin man. Such was the story of the Divine Son, Dionysos, whose body was \ntorn asunder and devoured by the Titans, the unregenerate children of the \nEarth. Zeus blasted them with the heavenly fire, and from their ashes were \nborn the races of men who thus commingle in their natures both divine and \nbestial elements. The celestial spark, the fragment of Dionysos, constitutes \nthe higher self of man, and it is this which is fated to reincarnate in a series of \nphysical bodies until the titanic part of the nature has been altogether purified \nand transformed. The sacrifice of Dionysos, therefore, atones for the evil and \nthe unwisdom which made that sacrifice necessary at the dawn of the great \ncycle of manifestation. Incidentally, the martyrdom of Orpheus, the repre\u00ac \nsentative of Dionysos, reflects and corresponds to the martyrdom of the god. \n\nMr. Guthrie seems to be quite free from many preconceptions of the \u201cGolden \nBough\u201d school; but in our opinion he fails to solve the real meaning of the \nDionysiac myth. It is far from being unique. The Mysteries of Egypt and \nGreece were based upon the repetition, in many forms, of the same fundamental \ntheme of sacrifice and re-birth. Dionysos is the brother of Osiris, Prometheus, \nAdonis, Attis, Persephone. His counterparts have existed in India and in Pre- \nColumbian America. He may be compared to the Logos of St. John\u2019s Gospel. \nBut Mr. Guthrie does not see the significance of these analogies and similitudes. \nHe imagines that the Dionysiac myth was in the first instance an invention of \nbarbarians; that it was an effort of the primitive mind to discover some sort of \ndivine precedent for certain orgiastic and bloody rites. Many centuries later, \nit is assumed, the civilized Greeks appropriated the myth but endowed it with \nvarious spiritual connotations which would have bewildered and confounded \nthe savages who had devised it. Mr. Guthrie seems to have been unduly im\u00ac \npressed by the overworked hypothesis that civilized religions are \u201csublima\u00ac \ntions\u201d of the dreams of savages; that mythology originates as a \u201crationalization\u201d \nof totemism and taboo. But there is ample evidence that the savages studied \nby anthropologists are as far removed from the genuine primitive state as we \nare. Their societies are almost always extremely complex, often exhibiting \nsymptoms of advanced decadence. Civilization in decay becomes savagery. \nWe need not search history to confirm this truth- It is being illustrated to-day \nbefore our very eyes. \n\nThe myth of Dionysos may have absorbed many gross and alien elements \nduring hundreds or thousands of years; but anyone who has the least sympathetic \nunderstanding of the universal Mystery teaching, can still recognize the noble \nand sublime essence of the legend. Naturally the form of the Mystery teaching \nmust have varied with times and places. Each race has its specific talents and \nlimitations. Orpheus adapted his genius to the mountaineers of prehistoric \nThrace. He was not addressing the sophists of Athens. \n\nIn our opinion, the most valuable chapter in this book takes up the question \nof the mkitionship between \u201cOrpheus and other Greek Religious Thinkers\u201d. \n\n\n\n\n258 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nMr. Guthrie suggests that Anaximander, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Plato, and \nother philosophers were deeply influenced by Orphic doctrines. In some in\u00ac \nstances, their indebtedness is explicitly recognized; but often when there is \nno direct reference to Orphism, there is a manifest affinity between their thought \nand the Orphic mythology. \n\nIf we understand it correctly, Mr. Guthrie\u2019s interpretation of the \u201cmyths\u201d \nof Plato is in accord with the theosophical exegesis of all \u201ctrue myths\u201d. \n\nIn his own work Plato uses myth for two main purposes. In the first place it is his \nhabit to take a myth . . . and use it to support or corroborate his own strict deduc\u00ac \ntions. . . . The second purpose of myth in Plato ... is to provide some sort of ac\u00ac \ncount of regions into which the methods of dialectical reasoning cannot follow. 1 hat \nthere are such regions he fully admits. It is a part of his greatness to have confessed \nthat there are certain ultimate truths which it is beyond the powers of human reason to \ndemonstrate scientifically. Yet we know them to be true and have to explain them as \nbest we can. The value of myth is that it provides a way of doing this. We take account \nof myth not because we believe it to be literally true, but as a means of presenting a \npossible account of things which we know to exist, but must admit to be too mysterious \nfor exact scientific demonstration. Examples of these mysteries are free will and divine \njustice, and in speaking of these Plato makes free use of the Orphic myths. His own \nattitude towards them he makes clear, for example at the end of the myth in the Phffdo \n(114^/): \u201cNow to maintain that these things are just as I said would ill befit a man of \ncommon sense; but that either this or something similar is the truth about our souls \nand their dwelling-places, that (since the soul has been proved to be immortal) does \nseem to me to be fitting, and I think it is a risk worth taking for the man who thinks \nas we do.\u201d * L. \n\n\nDiversity in Holiness , by R. H. J. Steuart, S.J.; Sheed & Ward, New York, \n1937; price, $2.00. \n\nA first glance at the book arrests the attention, for such outstanding figures \nas Saint Ignatius Loyola, Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Teresa of Lisieux \nare grouped with a number whose lowly, or retired lives make them almost \nunknown to the world at large\u2014Brother Lawrence, Saint Benedict Joseph \nLabre, Saint Bernadette Soubirous. \n\nThis unusual selection is coupled with a no less unusual treatment. It is a \nbiography of twelve saintly people, but with the facts of external life reduced to the \nbarest essentials, and the emphasis given entirely to the inner life,\u2014the particular \nway in which each of the twelve saw the light, and the wholly diverse ways in \nwhich each expressed it in his life. As the title indicates, it is their diversity \nfor which they are chosen. Of each of the twelve lives it can be said, \u201cIt is the \nsame journey to the same City, but with a new map to travel by.\u201d \n\nSympathy and understanding characterize the book, together with vigour \nand directness, and an atmosphere as of a room well aired and sunned. The \npresentation of St. Benedict Joseph Labre is indicative. Instead of a wealth \nof details, morbid and often repellent, about the austerities of the saint, so few \nexternal facts are given that the reader unacquainted with that life is, in part, \nleft guessing. The author\u2019s comment, in essence, is: \n\nThe life of one who without compromise or any sort of reckoning with the opinion, \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n259 \n\n\nexperience, or example of anyone, puts into literal practice one of the fundamental \nprinciples of the Christian teaching. Such a life gives a shock to our complacency, it \ncomes as a splash of chilly reality upon the warm comfort of our spiritual adjustments, \nit breaks like a raucous shout into the harmonies to which we have tuned the claims of \nthe spirit and the flesh. . . . He is not proposed to us for our literal imitation\u2014the \npoverty of Christ Himself, who had not where to lay His head, touched no such depths \nas his. His relation to the level of Christian practice on which we may, and should, \nfollow Christ to perfection, is somewhat as that of pure virgin gold to the same precious \nmetal made practicable for use. \n\nThe author himself sees holiness as greatly desirable, compellingly attractive, \nand his purpose is to show it in that light to his readers. Furthermore, \u201cHoli\u00ac \nness really means no more than a task which God has laid upon us all and \nwhich, therefore, all of us have to attempt. . . . The saint is nothing more \nexceptional than a \u2018whole man\u2019\u2014what our Lord commanded us all to be.\u201d \n\nThe love of God, which to many seems so remote and puzzling a thing, is really the \ntruest expression of ourselves: we are not \u201cwhole\u201d until the whole of our love is given \nto Him: our affections are missing their aim until they find Him. Hence, to be filled \nwith the love of God is not to induce upon ourselves something out of the natural order, \nbut to restore to us the true bent of our nature: not to form us into something that we \nare not, but to re-form us into something that we really are but from which, unhappily, \nwe have become distorted. \n\nWhere a life is characterized by extreme simplicity (as with some of the \nlesser saints), or by totally uninspiring surroundings, he sees it as bringing \nholiness closer home to us, placing it more nearly within the reach of the average \nman. \n\nSince Christ made His own the ordinary life of man, and for thirty years of His life \nshowed Himself to be the Beloved Son of His Father by no greater thing than fidelity \nto the duties of ordinary human life, there is no excuse left us for lamenting our lack of \nopportunity. . . . To serve God truly does not mean to try to be someone else than our\u00ac \nselves, nor even to be ourselves but in other circumstances than those that we have, but \nto aim at being the best that we can be as and where we are. \n\nAs suggested already, the value of the book lies as much in the author\u2019s \ninterpretation as in the biographical material. Many passages could be quoted \nto advantage, but one more will suffice, giving the author\u2019s comment on the \nAbb6 Huvelin\u2019s spiritual joy in the midst of suffering: \n\nChrist has said that if we come to Him\u2014are one with Him\u2014our burden will be light \nand our yoke sweet: they will not cease to be a burden and a yoke, and our poor nature \nwill still suffer grievously under them, but our oneness with Him will lift us into a world \nof new values in which the most inveterate contradictories are reconciled, lightness with \nheaviness, sweetness with bitterness, sorrow with joy. We shall learn there that grace \nis not an anaesthetic, quite the contrary, but that it not only gives a strength which \nenables us to do and to suffer what is difficult and painful, but transmutes such difficulty \nand such pain into what, for want of a better word, we must call their opposites. It is, \nas it were, our participation in the mystery of the Incarnation\u2014the infinite bliss of \nGod, and all the sorrows of man, in the one God-man. \n\nJ. c. \n\n\n\ne same book, we were especially impressed by \n\n\nthe author\u2019s introduc- \n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\n260 \n\ntion to the life of the Cur6 d\u2019 Ars. This of his statements first: \u201cGod is the truth \nin all that is true, the beauty in all that is beautiful, the goodness in all that \nis good\u201d; then the inevitable corollary: \u201cArt for art\u2019s sake, or wisdom for \nwisdom\u2019s sake, are no less delusive as ideals than those which the coarsest \nsensualist sets before himself; for art and knowledge and all that in our dif\u00ac \nferent ways we apprehend as good, are so for Christ\u2019s sake, or they are false \ngoods.\u201d Oriental students of Theosophy may prefer to put the name of Krishna \nor of Buddha, or the more abstract idea of the Atman, in the place of Christ; \nbut the principle remains the same, and it is a principle which, with few excep\u00ac \ntions, the world has never accepted. \u201cIt will, no doubt, sound over-exacting \nto some if one says that the test of all excellence in all domains of human achieve\u00ac \nment is whether it \u2018shows Christ\u2019 or does not; but what escape is there from \nthat conclusion? For there are two camps only, Christ\u2019s and Antichrist\u2019s, \nand, as between the two, neutrality is impossible. . . . Again and again, if we \nare to be loyal to that call, we shall have to set our teeth and say, \u2018It is not \ntrue, it is not beautiful, it is not good, because it is not Christ\u2019. Christianity is \nof its very nature challenging and intransigent. ...\u201d \n\nWhat is true of Christianity is true of any religion that is treated seriously, \nand not as a mere ornament. Students of Theosophy, translating the author\u2019s \nrealization into any language or terminology that will suit themselves and \ntheir hearers, should make it part of their mission to act upon, and then to \npromulgate, the same eternal principle of thought and conduct. N. \n\n\nMathematics for the Million , by Lancelot Hogben, F.R.S.; W. W. Norton & \nCo., New York; price, $3.75. \n\nThis book has been enthusiastically commended by H. G. Wells, Julian \nHuxley, and Bertrand Russell. Those who like these propagandists may like \nthe book. It bears to mathematics the same relation that Mr. Wells\u2019s Outline \nof History bore to history, that is, approximately nine parts of Mr. Wells to one \npart of history. Dr. Hogben has been similarly successful in prostituting a noble \nsubject to the propagation of his materialistic and envenomed social philosophy. \nThe book is clever, popular and thoroughly poisonous. B. \n\n\nPascal: The Life of Genius , by Morris Bishop; Reynal and Hitchcock, New \nYork, 1936; price, $3.50. \n\nUnlike some of his contemporaries, Mr. Bishop does not try to \u201cdebunk\u201d \none more great figure of the past. His attitude towards his hero is sympa\u00ac \nthetic and respectful. The opening words of the first chapter sound the keynote \nof this admirable book. \n\nBlaise Pascal was, simply, one of the greatest men that have ever lived. Having made \nthe discovery of mathematics at the age of twelve, at sixteen he wrote a treatise on \nconic sections which is the herald of modern projective geometry. At nineteen he in- \n\n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n261 \n\n\nvented, constructed, and offered for sale the first calculating machine. He gave Pascal's \nlaw to physics, proved the existence of the vacuum, and helped to establish the science \nof hydrodynamics. He created the mathematical theory of probability, in a discussion \nof the division of gamblers\u2019 stakes. His speculations were important in the early de\u00ac \nvelopment of the infinitesimal calculus. After a night of religious revelation, when \nhe was but thirty-one, he abandoned science, returning to it only to solve, as a diversion \nfrom the toothache, the problems of the cycloid. Espousing the religious principles \nof the Jansenists, he wrote in their defence, the Lettres provinciates , a controversial weapon \nwhich has not yet lost its edge. His prose style, novel in its strong simplicity, determined \nthe shape and character of the French literary language. He devised a new method \nof teaching reading. ... In the lucid moments of cruel illness, he wrote his Pensees , \nin preparation for an apology for Christianity, thoughts which have affected the mental \ncast of three centuries, thoughts which still stir and work and grow in modern minds. \nHe died at 39. . . . Here is the mind of genius, one of the authentic geniuses in human \nrecords. , \n\nMr. Bishop has made a careful study of the grand sikcle , the great century \nduring which Pascal and so many other men of genius appeared in France. \nBut it is his object to prove that Pascal\u2019s greatness passed beyond the bound\u00ac \naries of time and space. For instance, he is able to demonstrate that Pascal\u2019s \nstruggle against the Jesuits was an episode in a warfare which is as old as civiliza\u00ac \ntion, and which continues unabated to-day. The man who \u201ctakes thought\u201d, \nand who insists upon uncompromising obedience to principle, can never live \nat peace with the time-server and the politician. Pascal was, first and fore\u00ac \nmost, a passionate devotee of truth and righteousness. His chief defect, as \nMr. Bishop suggests, was his pride, his libido excellendi. He had little patience \nwith folly and stupidity. Like Epictetus whom he so deeply admired, he did \nnot make sufficient allowance for the \u201cdreamlike feebleness which fetters the \nblind race of mortals\u201d. One may recognize that his enemies, the Jesuits, had \na certain pity for the weak and sinful, a certain tolerance and gentleness which \nPascal and his associates at Port-Royal lacked. But it is stimulating and in\u00ac \nspiring to recall the existence of a man who affirmed without equivocation that \ntruth is superior to falsehood and can be distinguished from it. The relatively \nhigh civilization of the seventeenth century is indicated by the fact that Pascal\u2019s \nworks became almost immediately \u201cbest sellers\u201d. One wonders whether in the \ntwentieth century he could easily find a publisher. \n\nIt is regrettable, in our opinion, that in one passage Mr. Bishop utilizes the \npseudo-science of psycho-analysis in an attempt to explain Pascal\u2019s contempt \nfor human passions. He admits that he is dragging in an hypothesis, and takes \nthe precaution of quoting Pascal\u2019s own warning: \u201cTo make an hypothesis an \nevident truth, it is not enough that all the phenomena should follow.\u201d \n\nDoubtless, every animal instinct can be transformed or \u201csublimated\u201d into its \nspiritual counterpart; but this transmutation is most adequately explained as \nthe normal effect of the triumph of spirit over matter. The soul incarnating in \nthe body can and should change the nature of the body. Such is in essence the \ndoctrine of divine grace which was taught by Pascal and which is so clearly \nexplained by Mr. Bishop. S.V.L. \n\n\n262 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nDamien The Leper , by John Farrow; Sheed & Ward, New York, 1937; price, \n\n$2.00. \n\nMr. Farrow\u2019s book contains nothing which may not be found in other books \nabout Father Damien, but it is written with great understanding of, and rever\u00ac \nence for, the heroic priest. Surely, one cannot read the story of his life too \noften. Father Damien went voluntarily to the leper colony of Molokai, in the \nearly days, and was the first person to work for the betterment, physical and \nspiritual, of these hopeless outcasts. As a result of his efforts, carried on alone \nfor many years, under conditions almost too horrible for description, the state \nof lepers over the whole world has been radically changed. Everyone interested \nin \u201cgood works\u201d should read the story of Father Damien. They will learn \nfrom it that the silent, unremitting charity and sacrifice of one individual, \npractically unknown and unassisted, without influence or money, can produce \nan effect upon the history of civilization, and accomplish reforms beyond the \ndreams of the political social-worker, although he may be provided with billions \nand with official backing. The body of Father Damien has been taken back \nto Belgium to be honoured by his native country. The Catholic Church, as a \nfirst stage in his canonization, has declared him \u201cBlessed\u201d. He sought no such \nrecognition or honour, and would, doubtless, be very embarrassed by them. \n\nThe Hawaiian lepers were fond of music, and Father Damien formed an \norchestra and a chorus of singers. They composed some songs in their language, \none of which Mr. Farrow quotes: \n\nWhen, oh when shall it be given to me \nTo behold my God? \n\nWhen, \n\nOh, When shall the captivity of my wretched soul \nCease in this strange land where, night and day, \n\nWeeping, \n\nWeeping alone is my portion; \n\nWhen, oh when shall I leave this valley of sorrow, \n\nWhere the only bread I eat is my continual tears? \n\nWhen, oh when shall I see my well-beloved Lord? \n\nPrince of the Heavens is he, \n\nGuardian of my soul, my Hope, my Saviour, \n\nMy All. . . . \n\nSt.C. LaD. \n\n\nPreserve proportion in your reading. Keep your view of men and things exten\u00ac \nsive .\u2014 Thomas Arnold. \n\n\n\nQUESTIONS \n\n\nWHKBi \n\nJBB \n\n\n\n\nANSWERS \n\n\n^\u2022W \n\n\nQuestion No. 403 .\u2014At Convention it was said that, if the spiritual world were for us a reality, \nlife for us would be full of romance, poetry and wonder, and that if it is not, it is our own fault. \nMuch as I should like to do so, I do not see romance in my life. How can I begin ? \n\nAnswer. \u2014What motive do wc carry into our daily life and living? Is success in all the \nouter activities in which we are engaged, an end in itself, or a means to an end? Do we care \nwhether or not actual success comes, as long as we do our part with all that is in us, and with the \nright motive? Do we know, in fact, whether our effort has been successful or not? Can we \nsee far enough ahead, can we take sufficiently long views, to be able to tell where the result of \nour effort is going to fit in, where it may contribute to some far-seen result towards which the \nLodge has been working? \n\nWith what are we identifying ourselves? With the objectives of our own narrow-seeing and \nwith the interpretations of our own slow hearts? Or with the gallantry and bravery of the \nLodge, with its daring and its far-flung vision, with the wonder of its compassion and its \nlove? C.R.A. \n\nAnswer. \u2014There are many ways of beginning to extract romance from life. One of these is \nby deciding what form of romance we covet:\u2014whether it be such imaginative power as trans\u00ac \nformed Cinderella\u2019s pumpkin into the coach which carried her to the Prince, such loyalty as \nRoland\u2019s in serving his King, or such day-by-day tenacity of purpose as transported Columbus \nto a New World. Then, with retrospective study of our lives, we can determine which type \nof romance actually has been present at any given time. By compulsion of the will and love \nof the Immortal we can set ourselves to recapture the romance, but at a higher point on the \nspiral, a point where we find it transmuted into spiritual reality. The very door of heaven is \nwide open before us. It is indeed our own fault if its romance, poetry and wonder do not \nfill our lives. G.M.W.K. \n\nAnswer.\u2014 Romance is of the soul, which means, among other things, that it is dependent \nupon one\u2019s purpose and motive. What is your purpose in life, and what the motive back of \nwhat you do? There is no romance in working for oneself. There may be infinite romance in \nthe dullest work, if it be done from love and offered to one\u2019s Master for his cause, to bring \nnearer the coming of Adept kings on earth. It is romance to give oneself absolutely to a \ncause that can command and is worthy of the uttermost devotion of our hearts. It is to such \na cause that the Masters call all who will listen, and there is no one, no matter what the cir\u00ac \ncumstances of his life, who cannot aid in their battle against darkness and evil. Every man \nwho fights against the evil in his own heart and in the world around him, who stands for \nprinciple against expediency or self-indulgence, strikes a blow in that battle, and there is no \none who is not called upon to do that. \n\nWhat do you think of as romance? To find it, use your imagination to see the truth beneath \nits outer, commonplace appearance. See yourself as what you are, the soul, incarnated to \nreconquer its heritage, that it may be devoted to the service of its exiled King. See yourself, \n\n263 \n\n* \n\n\n\n264 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\nthe soul, with an infinite past, rich in experience and adventure, seeking to recover the know 1 \nedge of itself and of its goal, seeking, like Columbus, to find a new world, the spiritual wor c, \nits age-old home, and to find again its friends of ancient days and comrades of many wars. \nThink of romance as it has been seen on earth, and then ask yourself whether that is not only \na pale reflection of the actual, living romance of the soul. J.F.B.M. \n\nAnswer. \u2014It may not be possible to perceive the romance and poetry of events in which \none takes part while they are taking place; the pressure may be too great. At the time, one \nmay be conscious only of struggle or combat. The mountain climber is often wholly occupied \nwith the difficulty and the peril of his undertaking, until finally he reaches the summit. Then \nhe is exhilarated, joyous. He realizes the poetry and romance of his achievement. So with us \nand our day. If we regard it, not as an opportunity for personal enjoyment, or as a threat \nof boredom, but as a field for self-conquest and for service, if we try to dedicate it to the Soul, \nwe shall be moving in the right direction, and shall soon have at least an inkling of the poetry, \nromance and wonder of the spiritual world. C.M.S. \n\nAnswer. \u2014Three men looked at a sunset. One said: \u201cHurry up; I want my supper.\u201d \nAnother said: \u201cGorgeous; quite worth painting.\u201d The third said nothing, but for him the \nsoft clouds were the shadows of angels\u2019 wings, the glory and the radiance were the far-flung \nsplendour of his Master\u2019s heart,\u2014all of it a veil between himself and the Promised Land, a veil \nwhich he tried to pierce, that he might leave his own heart where he wanted it to be. And, \nthough he said nothing, he thought much: If earth can display such beauty, what of the \nbeauty which this reflects! \n\nSo they returned to their homes, the third man to a tired woman and to peevish children; \nbut, as he met them, he felt their need, and rejoiced that he had brought power from behind \nthe sunset to see them as souls, and to lift them, if only a very little way, toward the peace of \na better world. X.Y.Z. \n\n\nAnswer. \u2014Romance? Look at your life again; look beneath its surface. There is your \npartner; you cut his throat once, centuries ago, because you thought he had swindled you, \nwhen in fact he had not. And now you blame him for being suspicious! There is the girl who \nwill not have you: you did have her once, in the distant past, and she betrayed you. May \nit not be that, having half repented then of her betrayal, her instinct tells her she would betray \nyou again,\u2014and that, instead of weeping, you should sing and be thankful? You have a \nyounger brother and sister, whose mutual dislike makes your life miserable. Well, in Egypt, \nwhen they were not brother and sister, you arranged a marriage between them, for your own \ngood reasons; and then they were miserable. Would you wash your hands of it so soon? \n\nYou do not call this \u201cromance\u201d? But at least your life is not common-place: it is drama, \nas all life is. You insist upon romance! Then what of this? There was once a great Master \nwhom you thought you loved. When the hour of his trial came, you fled from him, and, for \nfear of scornful faces, hid in a cellar. He was killed,\u2014but is still alive, and from that day to \nthis has sought you, offering you his love, labouring ceaselessly to save you from yourself \nwhile, life after life, as then, you have fled him, \u201cdown the nights and down the days . . . down \nthe arches of the years\u201d, though he, \u201cwith unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace\u201d still \npursues: \u201cLo, all things fly thee, for thou flyest Me! . . . clasp My hand, and come!\u201d Is \nthere not wonder in that? \n\nYou say this is tragedy, not romance; but, even so, you can transform it into romance this \nmmute by swiftly turning and running to him,-you, the insignificant, the less than nothing \nthus crowning that Great One with victory,\u2014re-affirming his victory daily bv vour miiet \ndetermined efforts to do all things for love of Him. q \u2019 \n\nNothing has ever happened to you that was not an opportunity, was not part of his nlan \nto raise you from the dust to the level of the Sons of God. Look at your life afresh- is the \nno romance in it? Is it not all romance? ' t> o re \n\n1 .R.S. \n\n\nVOL. XXXIV, No. 4 OCTOBER, 1937 \n\n\n\n\n,WJEWb.\\< -i ufN*. 136 I \n\n\nSTANDARD BOOKS \n\nBlavatsky, H. P. In gJSgft \n\nt t\u2019xtxt to TttfOSOPHY .\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022cloth, 3.50 \n\nSecret Doctrine, The, Vols. i and II and Index. .... .doth, *7, so \nbBCRET LKX7TK1 , ju one book, without \u2022object-index volume, 7.50 \n\nTheosophical Glossary... \n\nTransactions of toe Blavatsky Lodge.<*>\u201c\u25a0 \n\nVoice of the Silence. \n\nCave, fragments. Volume \u00ab \n\nVolume III. boRrd f\u2019 \n\nP^rard lohn LETTERS TO FRIENDS.board*, 1.75 \n\nHillard, Katherine. Abridgment ok the Secret Doctrine, .doth. s.oo \n\nJohnston, Charles. Bhagavad Gita .Trandated, \\\u00b0% \n\nCrest Jewel or Wisdom, The. .. \n\nGreat Upanishads, The, Volume I.<*>\u201c>\u2022 *\u2022\u201c \n\nJ udgeTwUHarn^Q. ^hagaVad Gita! !!!!!Edited; doth. lMi l\u00abth\u00ab, i.bo \n\nCulture of Concentration. % \n\nLettm 3 F T^at T Hato B Helped Me, Volume I and II, each. .doth, 1.00 \n\nOcean of Theosophy .?oth, 1.00 \n\nPatanjali\u2019s Yoga Aphorisms ... cloth \u00bb \n\nKeightley, Archibald. Theosophy as an Influence in Life papa. .20 \n\nI aDow. Stanley V. Plotinus .\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022.\u2022;\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022\" \u2022 \u2022P ap \u00ae r * \n\nMitchell, Henry Bedinger. Meditation, Speoal edition, .ao, paper, .so \n\nTHEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AND THEOSOPHY, THE..paper, .1 \n\nMitchell, J. F. B. Collegiate Education and Standards of^ \n\nSinnlu.T ri ' eVoVerk B^msM............. \u2022*\u00a3 JJJ \n\nTorrey^Ray E\u2122Science and its Function in Education.... paper, .50 \n\nWalker, e/d. Reincarnation.///////////////.V.S xm \n\nIdyll of the White Lotus. .leather, .85 \n\nLight on the Path. \u2022 \u2022 ...'.W\u2019.\u2019.W .. -doth, 1.20 \n\nThrough the Gates of Gold. \n\nTHE QUARTERLY BOOK DEPARTMENT, \n\nP. a Box 64, Station O, New York. \n\n\nDevotional: Bhagavad G^a^Cr^t Jc*\u00a3lof ^ priSis^i^ton the Path-*Thenar* \nStaiwSfiSSSlRSK Life; Through the Gate\u2019, of Gold; Voice of theSilence. \n80 .... , , noetrine; Id. Unveiled; Key to Theosophy; \n\nsL\u00a3t Doctrine; Talkson Religion; Theo\u00bbphicd Glooary; \n\nTransaction*; Patanjali\u2019s Yoga Sutras. . n AAMnrrt . \n\nThe TheoRhical Society and Theosophy. \n\n\n\"Society and Theosophy. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVOL. XXXIV, No. 4 OCTOBER, 1937 \n\n\nWXWeAv \n\nfBOIflDlC \n\n\nFounded by U. P. Blavatsky at flew Vork In l$75 \n\n\npretend to be able to establish \n\n\nHE Society does not \n\n\nT at once a universal brotherhood among men, but \nonly strives to create the nucleus of such a body, \ni i n \u25a0 \u25a0 Many of its members believe that an acquaintance \n\nEPPS with the world's religions and philosophies will \n\u25a0-S8--I reveal, the common and fundamental principle \n\n\u00abn<ferlvin 2 these, that \"spiritual identity of all Souls with the \nOversoul \u201d which is the basis of true brotherhood J and many \nof them also believe that an appreciation of the finer forces \nrf nature and man will still further emphasize *e same idea. \n\nThe organization is wholly unsectarian, with no creed, \ndosrma. nor personal authority to enforce or impose? neither \nis it to be held responsible for the opinions of its \u201cembers, \nwho are expected to accord to the beliefs of others that \ntolerance which they desire for their own. \n\nThe following proclamation was adopted at the Conven\u00ac \ntion of the Society, held at Boston, April, 1895 s . \n\n\u2018\u2018The Theosophical Society in America by its delegates and \nmembers in Convention assembled, does hereby proclaim \n\n\nTheosophy and members of Theosophical Societies wherever \nand however situated. It further proclaims and avers its \nhearty sympathy and association with such persons and \norganizations in all theosophical matters except those ot \n\n\norganizations in all theosophical matters cxcepi ui \n\ngovernment and administration, and invites their cor\u00ac \nrespondence and co-operation. \n\n\u201cTo all men and women of whatever caste, creed, race, or \nreligious belief, who aim at the fostering of peace, gentleness, \nand unselfish regard one for another, and the acquisition ot \nsuch knowledge of men and nature as shall tend to the eleva\u00ac \ntion and advancement of the human race, it sends most friendly \ngreeting and freely proffers its services. \n\n\u201cIt joins hands with all religions and religious bodies whose \nefforts are directed to the purification of men's thoughts and \nthe bettering of their ways, and it avows its harmony there\u00ac \nwith. To all scientific societies and individual searchers after \nwisdom upon whatever plane, and by whatever righteous \nmeans pursued, it is and will be grateful for such discovery \nand unfoldment of Truth as shall serve to announce and con\u00ac \nfirm a scientific basis for dhics. \n\n\u201cAnd lastly, it invites to its membership those who, seek\u00ac \ning a higher life hereafter, would learn to know the path to \ntread in this,\" \n\n\nPUBLISHED BY \n\nTHE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY \n\n\nApplications for membership should be addressed to the \nSecretary T. S., P. O. Box 64, Station O, New York. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Theosophical Quarterly \n\n\nSubscription price, $ 2.00 per annum; single copies, 50 cents \n\nPublished by The Theosophical Society \nat 64 Washington Mews, New York, N.Y. \n\nJanuary; April; July; October \n\nAddress all communications to P. O. Box 64, Station O, New York \n\n\nIn Europe, single copies may be obtained from and subscriptions may be sent to John \nM Watkins, 21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, London, W. C. 2, England, or to \nMr. E. H. Lincoln, 9 Beaconsfield Road, Low Fell, Gateshead-on-Tyne, England, from \nwhom all back numbers may be obtained. Annual subscription price, $2.00, postpai . \n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. XXXIV, NO. 4 \nOctober, 1937 \n\nPAGE \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS. z6 7 \n\nFRAGMENTS. 280 \n\nYOU. 281 \n\nTEMPTATION. 2 9 i \n\nWITHOUT CENSOR, X. *94 \n\nVINCENT VAN GOGH. 3\u00b08 \n\nAPPEAL OF THEOSOPHY. 3*5 \n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME. 3 W \n\nA TALK WITH MY BRAIN (Reprint). 333 \n\nREVIEWS. 338 \n\nQUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 349 \n\nINDEX. 351 \n\n\nEntered as second-class matter September 5. 1923. at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the \nAct of March 3, 1879. \n\n\nCopyright, 1937, by The Theosophical Society \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI \n\n\n\n\nX \n\n\n\n\n\n\nOCTOBER, 1937 \n\n\nThe Theosophical Society , as such , is not responsible for any opinion or declaration \nin this magazine, by whomsoever expressed , wn/ess contained in an official document. \n\n\nThe Law of Retribution \n\nKarma ... is the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, \nthe metaphysical Samskara, or the moral effect of an act committed for the attain\u00ac \nment of something which gratifies a personal desire. There is the Karma of merit \nand the Karma of demerit. Karma neither punishes nor rewards, it is simply the \none Universal Law which guides unerringly and, so to speak, blindly, all other laws \nproductive of certain effects along the grooves of their respective causations. When \nBuddhism teaches that \u201cKarma is that moral kernel {of any being) which alone \nsurvives death and continues in transmigration\" or reincarnation, it simply means \nthat there remains nought after each personality but the causes produced by it, causes \nwhich are undying, i. e., which cannot be eliminated from the Universe until re\u00ac \nplaced by their legitimate effects, and wiped out by them, so to speak, and such \ncauses, unless compensated during the life of the person who produced them with \nadequate effects, will follow the reincarnated Ego, and reach it in its subsequent \nreincarnation until a harmony between effects and causes is fully established (Theo\u00ac \nsophical Glossary, p. 161). \n\nI N St. Paul\u2019s words: \u201cBe not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a \nman soweth, that shall he also reap.\u201d Such is the law, and man is as in\u00ac \ncapable of changing it as he is of abolishing by edict or legislation the fact \nthat he has lived, that he has a past. Every act, moral or immoral, good or^^h \ndefinitely affects, for better or for worse, the circumstances of our lives ancRhe \ncourse of our existence. The law of retribution or Nemesis is as much a part \nof Nature as the law of gravitation. Like the law of gravitation, it may be said \nto act blindly, because it is inexorable and can be neither gainsaid nor mollified \nby any conceivable argument. \n\nIt is well to begin by accepting Nemesis, as the Greek tragic poets accepted \nit, in its unadulterated rigour. Nemesis is, indeed, only one aspect of \u201cthe one \nUniversal Law\u201d. Karma signifies much more than the execution of justice. \n\n267 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n268 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nNevertheless, it is a sign of human dignity to recognize that sorrow and tragedy \nand frustration are not accidents of heredity and environment, but are the \nproper effects of causes generated by us in this or an earlier life. Although the \nmodern mind may try to deny or ignore the actuality of evil and sin, it is none \nthe less an experienced fact that evil and sin exist; nor is there any escape from \nthem save by the turning of the heart, by the act of will which our ancestors \ndescribed by the word, repentance. But how can one turn away from an evil \nto which one is blind? \n\nThe colloquy between the Master Christ and the repentant thief illustrates \nthis theme and offers a perpetual subject for meditation. Unless a man admits, \nin some degree, his karmic debt and resolves to pay it in full, God Himself \ncannot arrest his descent into hell, although the Infinite Compassion of Divine \nNature may withhold for long periods the full consequences of his misdeeds, \nmultiplying the opportunities for repentance. So God causes His sun to shine \nupon the just and the unjust. \n\nSome Delusions of the Clergy \n\nOne ventures to suggest what should be one function of the priest. The true \npriest does not sit in judgment on other men, but in so far as his vocation is \nreal and not assumed, he seeks to become in some way an intermediary between \nhis Master and those who are blinder than himself. Thus he can bring light to \nthe surrounding darkness, helping men to realize the cause of their miseries, \nleading them by his own example to the point where they despise the mode of \nlife which has produced their present condition, where they determine to amend \ntheir conduct. \n\nIn brief, the priest should minister to the soul. For that purpose he needs \nthe spirit of self-surrender, an uncompromising devotion to his Master and his \nMaster\u2019s work. If he have knowledge and wisdom as well as devotion, so much \nthe better. But he can perform his work without wealth or power or worldly \nprestige. He is not called to be a politician or an economist or a \u201ccheer-leader\u201d. \nAny activity which subordinates the needs of the soul to the demands of the \nflesh, should be alien to him. \n\nAt the present time, a goodly number of the clergy, Catholic as well as Protes\u00ac \ntant, are playing at social revolution. Some may be guilty of crude ambition, \nusing their alleged spiritual office to strengthen\u2014as they fancy\u2014their worldly \nposition, or their \u201cinfluence\u201d. Others may merely desire to be on the side of \nthe majority, fearing that they will lose everything if they do not at once join \nthe party which threatens the old order. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence \nthat the vast majority are moved by genuine sympathy for physical distress \nand poverty. The trouble is that their sympathy is larded with sentimentality \nand with gross misunderstanding of the real issues involved. However good \ntheir intentions, they are proving the inadequacy of their faith in \u201cGod, the \nsoul and immortality\u201d. Whether they realize it or not, they are deserting the \ncharge which they accepted at ordination. They are neglecting the cure of \nsouls under the pretence that no soul can be saved until the body which it in- \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n269 \n\n\nhabits enjoys security and even luxury in an Utopian environment. In fairness, \nit must be admitted that they were not prepared for a spiritual office by their \neducation. We do not know what is the curriculum of studies in most theo\u00ac \nlogical seminaries, but in some at least, the principal subjects seem to be eco\u00ac \nnomics and international politics and popular science. There is a science of \nspiritual law. Where is it taught to-day, and how many are competent to \nteach it? \n\nWe quote from a report of the National Conference of Jews and Christians: \n\nReligious activity in strike zones has ranged from opinions voiced in sermons to such \npractical steps as feeding strikers and adjudicating disputes. C.I.O., the sit-down strike, \nlocal law officers, the Federal Government, all come in for a share of praise and blame by \nclergymen, but the large majority of opinion has been in favour of labour\u2019s efforts to win \ncollective bargaining rights. The clergy have been generally on the side of labour. . . . \n\nIn Pittsburgh, the Catholic Radical Alliance, after investigating the claims of both em\u00ac \nployers and employees in the Loose-Wiles and Heinz plant strikes, supported the strikers, \nand brought Catholic laymen to swell the picket lines. . . . Dr. Howard M. Wells, \nPresbyterian minister of Cleveland, declared that the militia had been brought to Cleve\u00ac \nland by a reactionary steel management to break the strike. . . . The active interven\u00ac \ntion of a committee of ministers in Gadsden, Ala., drew a sharp rebuff from local law \nofficers. Growing interest on the part of clergymen in the industrial situation is clearly \nevidenced by the number of resolutions approved in recently held conventions of reli\u00ac \ngious bodies. \n\nThere are many exceptions. All the clergy have not joined the rebellion \nagainst law and order, as the authors of this report are obliged reluctantly to \nadmit. But the facts are none the less scandalous. Have these so-called Min\u00ac \nisters of the Gospel utterly forgotten the injunction: \u201cRender therefore unto \nCaisar the things which are Caesar\u2019s, and unto God the things that are God\u2019s\u201d? \nThey might profitably recall the example of John Wesley. Wesley doubtless \nhad limitations and shortcomings, but, as has been suggested, he did more than \nany other individual to save England from the contagion of the French Revo\u00ac \nlution. Such an accomplishment was possible because he stirred to life, even \namong the most brutalized elements of English society, the conviction that the \ndemands of the soul are more pressing than those of the body. There is no evi\u00ac \ndence that Wesley approved of the \u201clabour conditions\u201d of eighteenth-century \nEngland. They were, indeed, more inhuman and harsh than anything which^ \nour most imaginative social workers can depict. But Wesley realized the trut^r \nso widely neglected to-day, that the outer reflects the inner, that economic \nconditions are the effects of spiritual conditions and can only be veritably \nchanged for the better by the cure of souls. \n\n\nThe Twelve Nidanas \n\nWe read in the Maha-Vagga, one of the Buddhist Pali scriptures: \n\nHaving attained Buddhaship, the Buddha, the Blessed One, was dwelling at Uruvela. \nThen for seven days the Blessed One sat at the foot of the Bo-tree experiencing the bliss \nof liberation. During the first watch of the night he meditated upon the Twelve Nidanas f \nthe Causes of Existence, forward and backward: \n\nunwisdom (avidya) depends the impulse towards incarnation ( samskara ); on the \n\n\n270 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nimpulse towards incarnation depends the sense of being a separate self ( vijnana ); on the \nsense of being a separate self depends personality ( namarupa ); on personality depend the \nsense-organs ( chadayatana ); on the sense-organs depends feeling ( sparsha ); on feeling \ndepends perception ( vedana)\\ on perception depends desire for sensation ( trishna ); on \ndesire for sensation depends attachment ( upadana ); on attachment depend the modes of \nexistence (bhava); on the modes of existence depends birth ( jati ); on birth depend old \nage and death ( jaramarana ), sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief and despair. Thus does \nthe entire aggregate of misery arise. \n\nHut when unwisdom fades out, the impulse towards incarnation ceases; when the \nimpulse towards incarnation fades out, the sense of being a separate self ceases; when \nthe sense of being a separate self fades out, personality ceases; when personality fades \nout, the sense-organs disappear; when the sense-organs disappear, feeling ceases; when \nfeeling fades out, perception ceases; when perception fades out, desire for sensation \nceases; when desire for sensation fades out, attachment ceases; when attachment fades \nout, the modes of existence cease to be; w hen the modes of existence cease to be, there \nis no birth; when there is no birth, there is a cessation of old age and death, sorrow, lamen\u00ac \ntation, misery, grief and despair. Thus does the entire aggregate of misery come to an \nend. \n\nThe nidanas or stages of Karma have been converted into a sort of rigid \nformula by the Hinayana School. Partly under Hinayana influence, partly \nbecause of their native materialism, many Orientalists have attributed to the \nBuddha a mechanistic view of Nature which led him to affirm that man\u2019s moral \nlife is subject to the same inflexible determinism that prevails in the domain of \nphysics and mechanics. This represents a serious misunderstanding of the whole \npurport of the Buddha\u2019s teaching. He explained at great length that it is not \nthe apparently good or evil deed itself which sets the karmic process in motion, \nbut the intent, the state of consciousness behind and within the deed. He com\u00ac \npared the fruition of our action to the growth of a plant from a seed. \n\nIt is like seed, brethren, which is uninjured, undecayed, unharmed by wind or heat, and \nis sown on fertile soil; if then rain fall in due season, then will that seed attain to growth \nand increase. In exactly the same way, brethren, when a man\u2019s deeds are performed \nthrough covetousness or hatred or infatuation, wherever his personality may be, there \nthose deeds ripen, and wherever they ripen, there he experiences the fruition of those \ndeeds, be it in the present life, or in some subsequent one (Anguttara-Nikaya ). \n\nThe Fruition of Unwisdom \n\nMoreover, the Buddha was not speaking of remote metaphysical contingen\u00ac \ncies, but of events within the range of every human experience. We are con\u00ac \nstantly enacting the nidanas within ourselves. It is instructive to follow the \neffects of any emotion or thought or outer act, to observe how the series of \nevents successively unfolds one nidana after another, almost always terminat\u00ac \ning, as we know too well, in some form of dissatisfaction or sorrow or despair. \nWe cannot study ourselves without studying the \u201ccauses of existence\u201d. In the \ndegree that he identifies himself with his lower personal nature, with the \u201cself\u201d \nof his average moments, every man is a fruition of unwisdom. \n\nUnwisdom, avidya , is sometimes used as a synonym for maya , the magical \npower of cosmic illusion which makes the One appear as the many. In this \nsense, avidya is not necessarily a cause of evil and misery, for it is only by means \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n271 \n\n\nof limitation and differentiation\u2014the One Self reflected in the atom, God in \nman that Pure Spirit can attain self-consciousness. But the Buddha seems \nto have used the term to denote in particular the common root of egotism and \nsensuality in man. It is, as it were, the source of \u201coriginal sin\u201d, the \u201csubcon\u00ac \nscious\u201d seed which is transformed into self-will and personal desire and phantasy. \nBecause of avidya , we surround ourselves with delusions, imagining the real to \nbe unreal and the unreal to be real. \n\nKarma is blind only in the sense that it invincibly tends to bring to fruition \nevery seed of consciousness. In every case, the punishment fits the crime, but \nthe justice of this divine retribution is not adequately symbolized by our human \nlaws; for Karma is indeed the Good Law, meting out to man the consequences \nof his deeds in the way which is most likely to awaken him to a realization of \nhis own sin and unwisdom, and always holding before him the possibility of \nrepentance and consequent liberation from the \u201cchain of causation\u201d. Only \nself-will prevents us from recognizing that \u201cthe entire aggregate of misery\u201d is \nnot the meaningless round that it seems to be. As Theosophy teaches, the \nGood Law is administered by agents, by divine hierarchies and powers, specifi\u00ac \ncally for mankind by the Lodge of Masters, by those who are called \u201cLords of \nKarma\u201d because they have learned for themselves the lesson of Karma, because \nthey have \u201cburned the seed of unwisdom with fire and have scattered it to the \nwinds . It is a fundamental tenet of the doctrine that the divine host itself \ncannot force or change the human will. Man must choose misery or bliss for \nhimself. All that the agents of the Good Law can do is to impress him through \nevents, leaving him to self-generated pain and despair, if necessary, in order \nto reveal the vanity and danger of his course. This \u201cinstruction\u201d assumes a \nunique form for every individual, since his needs cannot conceivably be iden\u00ac \ntical with the needs of any other individual. We can postulate certain general \nprinciples denoting various modes of karmic action; but only a Lord of Karma \ncan foresee how the law of retribution will affect a particular person under par\u00ac \nticular conditions. \n\nIf the Christian clergy were capable of studying Buddhism with detachment \nand without invidious comparisons, they would, in many instances, for the first \ntime acquire some real understanding of the teaching of their own Master. The \ntruths taught by the Buddha are identical in essence with those taught by the \nChrist; only the method and form of expression differ; and as the knowledge^ \nof our native literature is enriched by the study of other languages, so the^ \nknowledge of the Christian doctrine is enriched by the study of the thoughts \nand acts of other Masters. Students of Theosophy can testify that when an \nidiom has become almost meaningless through lifeless repetition, its sense can \nbe recovered by recognition of the truth for which it stands, as this truth has \nbeen formulated in other idioms. \n\nFor example, if some of our radical clergymen had any conception of the \nBuddhist teaching concerning Karma, they would have recognized that the \nMaster Christ taught the same doctrine in other terms. Only a Lord of Karma \ncan have the right to pronounce the words which so often accompanied his \n\n\n\n\n\n272 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nacts of healing: \u201cThy sins be forgiven thee\u201d. In any event, if these clergymen \nbelieved in a real law of retribution, they would not try to cure poverty and \nmisery by encouraging men to increase and fortify still further their \u201cunwisdom\u201d, \nnor would they imagine that all the evils of the world can be removed by \u201ccol\u00ac \nlective bargaining\u201d and the \u201cliquidation\u201d of \u201creactionaries\u201d. \n\nThe Possibility of Liberation \n\nIt is necessary to remind ourselves that unwisdom, though \u201cbeginningless\u201d, \ncan yet be brought to an end. As has been suggested, the nidanas may be said \nto exist for the purpose of destroying their \u201cfirst cause\u201d, avidya. The fruition \nof unwisdom is so unbearable that at last the sufferer may be inclined to turn \ntowards repentance, if only because he can conceive of nothing worse than his \nactual condition. And this act of turning should mark the beginning of the \nend of unwisdom, the first step upon the path to liberation from the \u201ccircle of \nnecessity\u201d. \u201cStrait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, \nand few there be that find it.\u201d \n\nHowever, it can be found and has been found. The bonds of Karma fall \naway when the lesson of bondage is learned, inasmuch as these fetters only come \ninto existence for the correction of the soul. In the last six cantos of the Purga- \ntorio , Dante symbolizes what may be described as an initiation of the soul, \nwhereby it enters into positive knowledge that bliss and perfect freedom are \nproper to its nature. At the summit of the Mount, in the Earthly Paradise \nwhere man dwelt before the fall, the poet comes to a stream of pure water. On \nthe far bank he sees the Lady Matilda, whose presence awakens the memory \nof a Golden Age,\u2014\u201cwhere and what Proserpina was in the time her mother \nlost her, and she lost the spring\u201d. Matilda explains that the river which di\u00ac \nvides them \u201cis called on the one side Lethe, on the other Eunoe.\u201d \u201cOn this \nside it descends with a virtue which takes from men the memory of sin; on the \nother, it restores the memory of all good deeds.\u201d It is only after he sees Beatrice \nand she rebukes him for his reluctance to face his sins\u2014so that he confesses \nthem with shame\u2014that he is drawn through the water by Matilda, and then \nsees Beatrice, Divine Wisdom, \u201cunveiled\u201d. \n\nAt the same time, another mystery is revealed to Dante, that the flowers of \nParadise \u201chave such virtue that they impregnate the air which in its original \nmotion scatters that essence abroad, . . . and were this understood, it would \nnot then seem a marvel yonder [on earth] when some plant takes root there \nwithout manifest seed.\u201d Even so, as has been said, from inner and superior \nworlds can be wafted potencies of good which are not the karmic \u201cseeds\u201d of \nany acts of man or earth. Does this not suggest one meaning of the Vicarious \nAtonement, made manifest whenever a Master or an Avatar, like the Buddha \nor the Christ, appears in bodily form among mortal men? \n\nAll the vicissitudes of experience take on a new aspect when they are seen as \nepisodes in a process designed by Divine Nature for the purpose of releasing \nthe soul from the prison where it has condemned itself to live. We cannot hope \nto taste Lethe or Eunoe until, like Dante, we face our sins, the causes of our \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n273 \n\n\nvicissitudes, and are \u201cstung with the nettle of repentance\u201d. By no other means \ncan we escape from our self-generated delusions. Therefore, in the strict mean\u00ac \ning of the word, all Karma is good Karma. Karma may assume the most ter\u00ac \nrible, the most horrendous appearances, but its true name, given by the Buddha, \nis the Good Law. Like Yama, the God of Death, in the Katha Upanisltad , the \nGood Law reveals that supreme agony may become the gateway of regeneration. \n\nActive and Passive Spirit \n\nThe term \u201cSpirit\u201d is so general and abstract that it has come to mean almost \nanything or nothing. Here again we may learn much from the study of ancient \nIndian scriptures. The working hypothesis of the true Vedanta of Shankara, \nfor instance, is that Spirit is Real Being as It is in Itself. It is summed up in \nthe equation: \u201cThe Atman and Brahma are one\u201d, that is, the true Self of every \nindividual being is an undivided part of the Great Self of the Universe, the \nspiritual man is inseparable from God. This is a magnificent metaphysical \naffirmation, but it is also something more, for it suggests the mystical attitude \nof heart which the individual must maintain in order to gain liberation and \nenlightenment. The Self in the individual becomes aware of its identity with \nthe One Self of all Nature by responding to the constant presence of that One \nSelf within it and above it. The individual and the Universal may thus be \nsaid to be related to one another as the passive and active aspects of an indi\u00ac \nvisible unity. \n\nHowever, between the Absolute Self of all that is, and the individual human \nentity, there is an infinite gulf of mystery which the consciousness of man as he is \ncould never span in a thousand thousand ages. \u201cYou will enter the light, but you \nwill never touch the flame.\u201d There is boundless consolation in the theosophical \ntestimony that this gulf is in reality filled by a host of active divine beings, by \nan unbroken hierarchy of \u201ccreators\u201d and \u201cbuilders\u201d, representing all the stages \nof the Spirit in its active , liberated, enlightened condition between the Absolute \nand mortal man. Thus although the Spirit in mortal man is still passive, clouded \nby a film of unwisdom, it can be translated into an active condition by conscious \nunion with the particular active ray of divine light of which it is a prolongation. \n\u201cSome plant takes root there without manifest seed.\u201d The individual finding \nhis Heavenly Father, his Master, in the inner world, can become in his pi \na Lord of Karma, instead of its subject. \u201cI have said, Ye are gods; and amof \nyou are children of the most High.\u201d \n\nThe Embodiment of the Spirit \n\nThere is a false asceticism, especially in the East, which is based upon the \nassumption that all manifestation is unqualifiedly evil; that the great Universe \nitself would never have come into being if there had not been a pre-existing \ndark and violent purpose in the first nature of things which demanded and \nachieved expression. This pessimism, which was popularized for the modem \nWest by Schopenhauer, seems to have been partly based upon a distortion of \nIhc doctrine of Karma as this was set forth in the Buddhist and other scrip- \n\n\n274 THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\ntures. If it were true, the logical course of the human soul would indeed be to \nseek annihilation. \n\nBut even our limited observation of Nature reveals that it cannot possibly \nbe true. We are speaking of purposes and processes infinitely beyond the ca\u00ac \npacity of our feeble understanding; but surely experience bears witness to the \nfact that our human nature, fallen and degraded though it be, is not solely the \nembodiment and fruition of unwisdom. Unwisdom is there, but also there is \nwisdom, potentially if not actually. However, this wisdom remains passive \nunless it be made manifest, unless it be embodied, clothed in substance, made \nvisible, endowed with form. \n\nMahayana Buddhism expresses our experience of the twofold quality of mani\u00ac \nfestation by the doctrine of the alaya. The alaya is the anima mundi , the Soul \nof the World, present in its integrity both in the Universe as a whole and in \nevery atom or part thereof in each stage of development. It is compared to a \ngranary containing seeds of every kind and description, all of which are des\u00ac \ntined to germinate in due season. There are the seeds, the skandhas , of all past \nillusions and misdeeds and failures, and there are the seeds of all possible future \nattainments of divinity. It is another version of the Parable of the Sower. \nThe tares must grow, for otherwise they can never be uprooted; but the whole \nof space and time constitute the field where the good grain can put forth the \nform which is latent in it. In the terminology of the Platonists, the Universe \nexists for the purpose of making visible that which is invisible, of incarnating \nin every creature the archetype, the idea in the Divine Mind, which it is des\u00ac \ntined to show forth. \n\n\nProgress and Catastrophe \n\nThese considerations seem to be pertinent to a theme much discussed to-day \n\u2014the nature of progress and the possibility of catastrophe in some future, near \nor remote. Two recent books deal directly with this subject. Both are inter\u00ac \nesting and stimulating to thought, although their conclusions, which are quite \ndifferent, leave at least one reader with a sense of deep dissatisfaction. The \nauthors are like most physicians, who know that their patients are sick, but \nunderstand neither their disease nor its cure; we cannot refrain from expressing \nthe regret that they have not studied Theosophy. \n\nProgress and Catastrophe 1 is an eloquent protest against the nineteenth-cen\u00ac \ntury assumption that progress in Nature and man is virtually identical with \nchange; that we cannot help improving and increasing in happiness and wisdom \nbecause it is an intrinsic quality of all things that they must continuously grow \nmore excellent in every way from day to day. This naive optimism, which \nincidentally denies any freedom of the human will, appears to have been based \nupon the extraordinary series of scientific discoveries and inventions which \ntransformed the outer conditions of human life during the past century. As \nMr. Casson points out, it took no note of two fundamental facts. It did not \n\n1 Progress and Catastrophe, an Anatomy of Human Adventure , by Stanley Casson, Fellow of New College, Oxford; \nHarper & Brothers. New York and London, 1937* \n\n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n275 \n\n\nrecognize that the study of history reveals no continuous progress, but rather \nan alternation of civilization and barbarism. Moreover, the prophets of in\u00ac \nevitable progress utterly failed to realize that scientific invention can destroy \nour alleged comforts and luxuries at least as easily as it can create them. Poison \ngas and the air bomber are as much the products of \u201cscience\u201d as the telephone \nand the telescope. \n\nThe general idea of progress . . . was derived from the extremely popular expositions \nof evolution made by Darwin and Huxley. ... I he ancient Greeks had no word at all \nby which we can translate the term. \u201cDo you believe in progress?\u201d would to them have \nbeen a question wholly devoid of sense. . . . They knew that with change could come \nimprovement and amelioration; but they also knew that such improvement could be \nachieved only by immense human experiment and labour; there was no immutable force \nwhich willed that mankind should always move onwards, improving inevitably as the \naccumulated wisdom of one generation was added to that of the next. ... I he Greeks \nknew that it is only by the untiring efforts of one generation that the sins of the preceding \ngeneration could be wiped out, and then, even so, you had no more than a fair start \ntowards something better. . . . That progress does in fact occur on occasions nobody \nbut a fool would deny. That it is cumulative and inevitable no one but an idiot would \naccept. What we have to find out is whether the advance of one period is ever really \nindebted to the progressive discoveries of that which preceded it, whether we advance \nonly to retire, or advance five steps to slide back only three. ... If progress is to \nachieve anything at all beyond a mere unlearning of the lessons of the past and beginning \nagain, ... it must be a snow-ball movement by which little is lost and something \nalways added. \n\nMr. Casson proceeds to review the evidence from the point of view of the \narchaeologist. The most durable material progress seems to have been made \nby the earlier races of man before the dawn of the historical civilizations. The \nart of making fire, the invention of the plough, the domestication of animals, the \nfoundation of the arts and handicrafts, the development of metallurgy, rep\u00ac \nresent achievements which have persisted even during the darkest of the ages \nwhich have followed. On the other hand, both the material and the spiritual \naccomplishments of the great civilizations which preceded our own, have been \nfar more fragile. The urban societies and the empires, the religions and sciences \nand arts, the refinements and graces, of Sumeria and Egypt, of Greece and \nRome, passed away, leaving nothing but heaps of stone and scattered frag\u00ac \nments, and a more or less mutilated body of traditions. A new civilization has \nbeen erected upon the vast ruin of antiquity, but to-day this edifice i^Pireat- \nened with a wider and more colossal catastrophe than that which reauced to \nnaught the power and prestige of Rome. \n\nWhat is the cause of this mortality of civilization? Mr. Casson suggests \nthat in general the disease which attacks and ultimately undermines highly \norganized societies is \u201cthe splitting up of a homogeneous whole into warring \nparts . . . the rivalry within a unit of certain of its elements, the warring of \nhealthy and unhealthy germs within the blood-stream, the great disease of \n.humanity that always reduces it to impotence and decay.\u201d The remedy which \nhe proposes is internationalism, although he is most vague as to what he means \nI by that term or how he expects his dream can be realized. He admits that \n\n\n276 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthis is a \u201cslender hope\u201d, and the hope grows even more slender when it appears \nthat it depends almost wholly upon the support of \u201cthe despised student, re\u00ac \nsearcher, professor, the non-political worker in science, the arts and literature\u201d. \n\nThe Source of Civilization \n\nAt this point Mr. Casson leaves us, and we leave his book not much wiser \nthan we were before. We grant that decomposition is one of the symptoms of a \ndying culture, but what is the cause of decomposition? And as for \u201cthe non\u00ac \npolitical worker in science, the arts and literature\u201d, he has already done damage \nenough to the fabric of our civilization without being invited to do more. Mr. \nCasson violently disapproves of current \u201canti-intellectual\u201d developments in \nRussia, Germany and Italy; but communism, nazism and fascism were, in the \nfirst instance, products of the minds of \u201cprofessors\u201d and \u201cbrain-trusters\u201d. The \npolitician reaps what the \u201cintellectual\u201d sows. \n\nThe Source of Civilization 2 proposes an answer to the question, What is the \ncause of social decomposition? Mr. Heard notes the same phenomenon repeat\u00ac \ning itself in the old age of civilizations, the same \u201csplitting up of a homogeneous \nwhole into warring parts\u201d. The diagnosis and the cure which he suggests are \noriginal and provocative. With a great deal of his argument one must unquali\u00ac \nfiedly agree, although his final deductions are vitiated by the fanatical pacifism \nwhich colours his whole thought. \n\nMr. Heard develops the thesis, that the older school of evolutionists totally \nmisunderstood \u201cnatural selection\u201d and the \u201csurvival of the fittest\u201d; that it is \nnot the strong and the tough who survive through the aeons of organic evolu\u00ac \ntion, but the gentle and the meek. The dinosaurs were moving fortresses, armed \nlike dreadnaughts for offence and defence, but they perished miserably, whereas, \nhe argues, the obscure and tiny but more intelligent and adaptable ancestors of \nthe mammals persisted into the Tertiary. The mammals in turn developed \nraces of \u201cimperialists\u201d, the Baluchitherium, the mammoth and the mastodon, \nthe sabre-toothed tiger. The mammals who still thrive to-day are for the most \npart pygmies in comparison with the giants of the past, but they are sensitive, \nalert, awake. It is obvious to Mr. Heard and, we believe, to many others, that \nsurvival is not specifically reserved for those creatures which have sought se\u00ac \ncurity by means of undue specialization of their offensive and defensive func\u00ac \ntions, or which have sought relief from pain by becoming callous and numb. \nTwo primary factors of success seem to be the ability to keep the organs and \nfunctions sufficiently generalized, and the retention and intensification of \nsensitiveness. \n\nNow that it seems clear that all Life has advanced only so far as it has retained sensi\u00ac \ntiveness, and that it has been destroyed when it has lost that power of feeling and suffer\u00ac \ning, we can see how such a Natural History makes a Natural Philosophy, and man\u2019s \nvalues show themselves to be no longer biologically immoral but a natural development \nof such a growing, essential power of feeling and finally of sympathy. Man has not to \n\u201cdefy the cosmic process\u201d\u2014certainly a hopeless and biologically unsound procedure. \n\n\n* The Source of Civilization, by Gabriel Heard ; Harper & Brothers, New York and London, 1937. \n\n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n277 \n\n\nHis task is consciously to avoid losing his power of feeling and awareness, to keep on \ncasting the skin of his mind and the callus on his emotions, to avoid the danger of safety \nand security and to dare, to dare, and yet again to dare to understand and sympathize. \n... As we view life to-day, in the lightning-flash moment of self-consciousness, what we \nsee then is all fishes, all amphibians, all reptiles, all mammals, except man, no longer \nprogressing. The curve of their potentiality has ceased to rise. . . . Only one still \nclimbs\u2014man. \n\nParenthetically, we wonder whether anyone is competent to affirm without \nqualification that, in the real plan of Life, whatever it is, all fishes, etc. are \nclassified as failures. What is Nature\u2019s definition of a failure? \n\nThe Loss of the Power of Co-operation \n\nMr. Heard is convinced that the same law of the survival of the meek and \nsensitive operates in the evolution of civilizations; that the calamities which \nvisited the societies of the past and which threaten our own may be attributed \nto the appearance of violence and brutality in human relations. He insists, as \nif he had never heard of cannibals, that the vices which impel men to rob and \nmurder one another are by-products of civilization. It is his theory that \ncivilization suddenly \u201cemerged\u201d a few thousand years ago when \u201cman \nmade at one time somewhere in the Middle East an integrated series of dis\u00ac \ncoveries which completely revolutionized his life\u201d. This \u201cmutation\u201d is alleged \nto have greatly accelerated man\u2019s mental development, and also to have \nmade him for the first time conscious as an individual apart from a group. Up \nto that time, Mr. Heard thinks, men lived together in amity because their \ninstinct to co-operate with one another was not inhibited by the development \nof personal self-consciousness which accompanies the growth of reason. \n\nOur problem ... is to see now at what stage of development man lost his inherent \npower of co-operation, and had to seek for some conscious way of preserving a compli\u00ac \ncated and elaborating society. It is clear that stage corresponds to the period in his \npsychic evolution when he attained self-consciousness. After that he must do delib\u00ac \nerately what till then he had done without thought. \n\nYoga Versus the Police Power \n\nMr. Heard blames the Sumerians and the Egyptians for setting all their suc\u00ac \ncessors the example of trying to hold together their social organizations by the \npower of the sword, that is, by the police power, by using armed force to sup\u00ac \npress the rebel within and to repel the enemy without. By contrast he pomh \nto the recently discovered civilization of Mohenjo Daro in the Indus Valley \nwhich, according to his very free interpretation of a few archaeological data, \nwas the principal source of the spiritual genius that has flowered through the \ncenturies in India. The Indus culture, he imagines, succeeded where all others \nhave failed, because its units were bound together not by physical force but \nby the practice of various forms of yoga , graduated in some way according to \nthe caste and capacity of the citizens. It is not surprising that he should be a \nlittle indefinite as to the methods used, but his main argument is clear enough. \n\u201cYoga solves the problem of the self-divided individual, that of the individual \n\n\n\n\n\n\n278 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nand society, and that of consciousness and Life and indeed the universe, through \nthe single solution of making the individual learn how to achieve knowledge of \nhis extra-individuality.\u201d It solves the problem of \u201cthe growing fissure between \nself-consciousness and the subconscious\u201d in which, as he suggests, is buried \nthe instinct or intuition which makes us aware of the fundamental unity of all \nsouls. If yoga were universally practised, so Mr. Heard concludes, there would \nbe no criminals and therefore no police, and in particular there would be no \nwar, which Mr. Heard dislikes as completely as he misunderstands it. This, \nafter all, is only another way of saying that what the world needs is to be con\u00ac \nverted from sin and self to God. With that, we most certainly agree. \n\nProgress and Cyclic Law \n\nIt is evident that a general practice of real yoga , of real union with the divine \nsource of human consciousness, would transform the earth. It is quite prob\u00ac \nable that the ultimate aim of the Great Lodge for humanity is to raise mankind \nto the point where such a practice will be as natural as any physical function. \nThe traditions recorded in The Secret Doctrine actually confirm Mr. Heard\u2019s \nsupposition that the first civilizations were united by yoga , though this Golden \nAge seems to have been centred elsewhere than in the \u201cMiddle East\u201d and to \nhave elapsed not a few thousand years but millions of years ago. \n\nWe live now, however, in Kali Yuga, the Age of Iron. The Morning Star has \nfallen into matter and corruption. Yoga no longer acts as a social binding force, \nand the \u201cheresy of separateness\u201d has taken its place. Such is the fact, and \nwe must face it in order to learn what it means. In the first place, we may be \ncertain that the real Yogis, the Lords of Karma, the Masters of the Great Lodge, \nwould spread the teaching of true yoga far and wide in the world if any conceiv\u00ac \nable good could come of it. But it is only too obvious that men would use the \nteaching merely to turn it into a ghastly perversion. The proof of this is that the \nforms of yoga which are still prevalent in the world, like the hatha yoga and \nthe tantric magic of modern India, are themselves ghastly perversions of the \ntrue. Does Mr. Heard understand what we conceive to be the first principle \nof the true yoga, that it unites the yogi not with the subconsciousness which is \nmore or less common to all men, but with the superconsciousness which the \nHigher Self of man shares with his divine progenitors? \n\nBefore man can resume the practice of divine union, he must learn many \nsimpler things. Both progress and catastrophe begin to be intelligible, if we \nadopt the hypothesis that civilizations as well as individuals die and reincarnate \nin response to the cyclic or rhythmic law which governs all processes in Nature. \nPeriodically, without any beginning or end which can be conceived, the hidden \nand invisible are transformed into a nature which is manifest and visible, and \nagain the manifest and visible are re-dissolved into the hidden and invisible. \nBut is it not the special property of this Age of Iron in which we live, that all \nthe seeds of our alaya, the best as well as the worst, have full opportunity for \ngermination and growth? Even the normal man of the Golden Age which is \npast, was doubtless endowed with a goodness which we can scarcely imagine,. \n\n\nNOTES AND COMMENTS \n\n\n279 \n\n\nbut the seed of unwisdom must have been within him, even if latent. We may \nassume that the normal man of the Golden Age which is in the future, will not \nonly have increasingly incarnated his spiritual genius, but that in him unwisdom \nand the chain of nidanas will have \u201cfaded out\u201d and ceased to be. We may be \ncertain that no one will reincarnate to enjoy the felicity of that paradise, unless \nhere and now he takes advantage of the fruition of unwisdom, of its full mani\u00ac \nfestation, deliberately uprooting it and casting it into the fire. \n\nThe slayer of unwisdom is sensitive, gentle, compassionate, but he cannot be \na pacifist in the presence of evil. The spiritual man, he who embodies his proper \ngenius, is of warrior caste. He wars first of all against his own lower self, but \nwhenever Karma makes it possible, whenever it is his business, he defends \nthose who are unjustly and brutally attacked; nor does he hesitate to take the \nsword against the enemies of the Spirit in man, because perchance he may die \nby the sword. A student of Theosophy is without excuse, if he be blind to the \nelementary distinction between righteous and unrighteous warfare. He cannot \ndesire to acquire a \u201csensitiveness\u201d which would make him incapable of laying \ndown his life for a friend. \n\n\nTo be humble is to forget oneself at all times for others , without ever becoming \naware of this self-forgetfulness .\u2014 Lavater. \n\n\n0 \n\nSome sleep when they should keep awake, afid some forget when they should \nremember; and this is the very cause why often , at the resting-places , some pilgrims \nin some things come off losers .\u2014 Bunyan. \n\n\n\n\nFRAGMENTS \n\n\nN OT long since Haru told me this story. \n\nA soldier lay dying in the Moroccan desert. The fight, a mere \nskirmish, was over, the enemy beaten off, and the members of his \ntroop had not found him in the place where he had fallen. The hot desert sand \nwas under him, the pitiless desert sun beat on him where he lay. His wounds \nmade every breath an agony, but a greater suffering still was his thirst. And \nhe was alone. \n\nBut was he alone? No; through the fever and the pain and the mercifully \nincreasing weakness, he felt a presence beside him. First it was like a shadow \nthat warded him from the sun, then as a cool breath of air; and the coolness \nlay upon his mouth like water from a mountain stream, and he had a vision of \nsnow-clad heights, and he heard the sound of the mountain torrent which seemed \nto wash over him and bathe his wounds. Then the sound of the water had a \nvoice\u2014O that voice! He could not hear what it said, he was far too weak for \nthat; but it was healing and benediction, it was the love of all his loved ones \nmingled together, but above and beyond anything he had ever known before. \nAfter that strong arms pillowed his head, and the voice came closer and closer \nuntil he fell asleep in wonder and perfect peace. \n\nSo he woke up presently in heaven, that soldier, in his heaven, where was all \nhe had ever longed for. But he was dissatisfied. \u201cGive me\u201d, he said, \u201cthe \ndesert sands, and the burning sun, and the wounds and the thirst, that I may \nhave again that presence beside me and hear that voice\u2014that voice is what I \nwant, and what it was saying to me that I do not know.\u201d And so, Haru told \nme, he broke through, out of his heaven, so great was his desire for that which \nhe had lost, and he found the Master who had ministered to him. \n\nMeanwhile his comrades, searching for it, came upon his body, and marvelled \nat the look of rapture stamped Upon its face. They brought it home for rev\u00ac \nerent burial, and grieved at his sad end\u2014so young, and full of promise (how \ncould they know!), and some at home grieved long. \n\nThus it is that things look one way this side Earth, and another way beyond \nit. Cav\u00a3. \n\n\n280 \n\n\n\nVHTT \n\n\nYOU \n\n\nFrom Ptolemy to Copernicus \n\n\nI \n\n\nOU are, indisputably, the most illuminating object that you can choose \nfrom the whole universe for your attention and study. There is no other \n\n\n\nA thing that it is so important for you to understand, none other that you \ncan observe more intimately, none that you already know so much about, yet \nnone where your knowledge is so inadequate\u2014where wider horizons open upon \nvaster tracts of unexplored and untraversed country. \n\nIt does not in the least matter whether you like or dislike yourself, you have \nnone the less to live with yourself, \u201cwith, from, in, and by\u201d, yourself, the whole \nablative case. Nor do you escape from yourself in any of the other cases. In\u00ac \ndeed some preliminary notion of the extent of yourself, as a subject for reflection, \nmay be gained by running through the declension of yourself\u2019, nominative, geni\u00ac \ntive, dative, accusative and vocative, as well as ablative. Of what verbs, tran\u00ac \nsitive and intransitive, are you the subject? Of what are you possessive? Of \nwhat are you the origin? What comes to you? What sort of things, for example, \ndo people talk to you about? And why? What acts upon and affects you? \nHow do you comport yourself as object, not subject; when you are the anvil, \nnot the hammer? (And how about the negatives of these questions? What \ndoes not affect you? And why?) How do you address yourself? To what \nform of call do you respond? What accompanies you? What goes from you? \nWhat dwells in you? What environment, mental, physical and moral, have \nyou made for yourself, or accepted as yours? \n\nYou are the centre of your universe. As you move, the horizon moves\u2014the \nboundary between the visible and the invisible. You are always in the exact \nmiddle of things. There, from the very point where you stand, radiate all the \ndirections of space, north and south and east and west and up and down. Where \nyou are, there, at that precise instant of time, is the juncture of \u201cthe paj|kwith \n\u201cthe future\u201d, linked through the mystery of \u201cthe present\u201d. That m^Kry is \nwith you always, wherever you go, wherever you look. In you all opposites \nlink and are conjoined. In you their opposition comes to a head. You are at \nonce subject and object, actor and acted upon, thinker and thing thought, \nconcrete actuality and unrealized potentiality, good and evil, variable and \nunchanging, wise and foolish, bound and free, naked and revealed to all the world, \nyet clothed about and hidden even from yourself. To attempt to enumerate \nthe contradictions and antinomies you present, is to face a list worse than \nWhitman\u2019s observations from a ferryboat, or Homer\u2019s catalogue of ships, which \neven pedagogues permit the student to skip; but here you cannot skip them, \nfor they are of your very nature, and at every moment you have to deal with \n\n\n\n282 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthem. How, then, is self-knowledge possible in the face of such contradictions? \nWhat are you to make of these congeries of opposites? \n\nThe answer is simple. You are to make yourself of them,\u2014recognize that \nyou are made of them, that you are always in the middle of things, linking dis- \nsimilars, linking opposites. \n\nYou have always known this about yourself. It is part of the primary data \nof everyone\u2019s everyday observation, and all of these data are so familiar that \nthey no longer excite the naive wonder and inquiry which they deserve, and \nwhich are a sure road to increased self-knowledge. It does not matter with \nwhat fact of observation you begin, or how you reflect upon it. When you \nstand on a primary fact, you are like a man standing at the north pole: to move \nat all is to move south. Only after you have made your initial move, do other \ndirections become possible to you. You cannot even go wrong, until you go. \nBegin, therefore, to go. Consider at random, just as they occur to you, some \nof the obvious and immediate consequences of the marvellous central position \nyou perceive yourself to occupy in this miraculous universe. For example: \n\nFirst, no matter what adjective you apply to yourself, it is only half a truth. \nYou may equally apply the opposite. It appears a futile undertaking, there\u00ac \nfore, to seek self-knowledge through adjectives. Instead of gratifying your \nvanity by contemplating your wisdom, or relieving your feelings by objurgating \nyour unwisdom, you will best serve truth by keeping in mind that you are at a \npoint where wisdom is on one side and unwisdom on the other, and that you \nlink the two. \n\nSecond, there is no adjective which does not apply to you, no quality with \nwhich you are not in contact. This means that there is no quality, no power, \nin all the universe, upon which you may not draw. \n\nThird, you are equally your past and your future, for you link the two. It is \nimpossible to overemphasize the practical importance and potency of this reali\u00ac \nzation. You are not only the trivial and contemptible thing you have exhibited \nto the world in these past years, you are equally the secret aspirations of your \ninmost heart, the as yet unmanifested potentialities of the far, far distant \nfuture. All you would like to be you are , and there is nothing at all to prevent \nyour claiming this aspect of yourself and acting upon it. You may begin from \nthis moment, and end the false concept of yourself which you have permitted \nto paralyse you. \n\nFourth, \u201cBegin\u201d? \u201cEnd\u201d? These words contrast with the fundamental \nperception that you are always in the middle of everything, always linking \nwhat has been with what is to be. What can a \u201cbeginning\u201d or \u201cending\u201d mean \nto you? To what, in your actual experience, do they apply? \n\nThey certainly do not apply to you yourself. You have nowhere in your \nconsciousness a memory of a beginning to your own being\u2014nor of an end to it. \nSo far as you believe it had a beginning or will have an end, your belief is either \nassumption or inference. It is not, and cannot be, a primary fact of observa\u00ac \ntion. Professor Hocking has recently called attention to the fact that if there \never had been a beginning to your being, a first instant of consciousness which \n\n\nYOU \n\n\n283 \n\n\nthus had a future but no past, it would, by this fact, have been a totally dif\u00ac \nferent kind of instant from that which you now know as linking the past and \nfuture. So far as the naive facts of your own experience testify, you must have \nbeen in order to be. In like manner, to be involves continuing to be. You need \nnot lean too heavily upon this argument. You have followed it sufficiently if \nyou realize that \u201cbeginnings\u201d and \u201cendings\u201d are artificial importations into \nany consideration of your own being,\u2014importations drawn, it would appear, \nfrom your notions of the external world. \n\nThus you say a river \u201cbegins\u201d in a lake and \u201cends\u201d in the ocean; school \n\u201cbegins\u201d at nine o\u2019clock and \u201cends\u201d at three. But as a matter of fact the lake \nis fed by springs, and these by rain, and the rain is the descent of water drawn \nby the sun from the ocean. Thus your thought of a beginning and ending for \nthe river is really the result of an artificial limiting of your attention to a mere \nsection of a process that is actually circular, without beginning or end. Similarly \nwith school: it re-opens at nine o\u2019clock, and does but suspend its formal sessions \nat three. There is all the home work to be done after three; all the preparation \nthat came before nine. Nowhere have you ever met a first session of a first \nschool, or a last session of a last school, neither a real beginning nor a real end\u00ac \ning to school. It is clear that you often give the name of a \u201cbeginning\u201d to what \ncan be identified as an emergence from the invisible (like the river from under\u00ac \nground springs); or as recurring cycles or reincarnations of previous existences \n(like the school). Behind or within every beginning or ending is something \nwhich does not begin or end. \n\nIn these last reflections you have taken more than one step away from your \nstand upon the primary data of observation of yourself; and though, as we have \nseen, the first step must be right, the second may be wrong, and therefore all \nthat you should here assert with positiveness is that you are faced with certain \nquestions, which you may note for your fifth point as follows: \n\nFifth, what in yourself and your life is without beginning or end? And what \nis the real nature of what appears as beginnings and endings? Do you habit\u00ac \nually, or even once in a very long while, seek to discern between the mortal and \nthe immortal as they enter into your own experience? And is there any more \nimportant discrimination that you can think of to practise? \n\nRandom samplings such as these\u2014haphazard reflections upon a single pri\u00ac \nmary fact of observation\u2014may suggest how rich is the field for exploration \nwhich your own being offers; but only as they are co-ordinated can they give \nyou true self-knowledge, enabling you to turn haphazard living into the^afcnce \nor conscious art of life. The best they do in themselves is to give you^mts of \nself-information. As you co-ordinate these bits of information, you make knowl\u00ac \nedge of them. As you use this knowledge, consciously and deliberately, in your \nconduct, you deepen it into experience and lift experience to consciousness, so \nthat both knowledge and experience are ready and available as wisdom for the \nguiding of your will. Your problem is, therefore, not only the gaining of self\u00ac \ninformation, but also the co-ordinating of it into self-knowledge. \n\nIt should not surprise you if this, at first, appear complicated and difficult. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n284 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nHow could it be otherwise when your being is so manifold and rich? You have \nbeen made in the \u201cimage\u201d of God. You are the \u201cmicrocosm\u201d of the Macrocosm, \nthe \u201catom\u201d in which the whole universe integrates itself, the \u201cheir of all the \nages\u201d. Even when you are the heir to a single member of a single generation\u2014 \nthe storybook uncle whom you never knew, but who leaves you all his posses\u00ac \nsions\u2014you expect to encounter complications. When you open his desk you \nare confronted with a mass of miscellaneous papers to which (not having known \nyour uncle) you have no clue,\u2014old maps, old title-deeds, old mortgages, old \naccounts of receipts and expenditures, insurance policies, bills of sale and ex\u00ac \nchange, correspondence acrimonious and friendly, names you have never heard \nand of whose possessors you know nothing, save that they are obviously impli\u00ac \ncated in your inheritance. You take these papers up, one by one, and do not \nknow where to put them down again. Your great need is for some idea of their \nrelation to one another, some scheme for classifying and filing them, so that \nrelated things may be brought into their fitting relations and help to interpret \none another. You face the same sort of situation, and the same immediate \nneed, when you make your first serious effort to examine your heritage from \n\u201cthe ages\u201d. You find charts, but you are not sure to what they are charts; \ntitle-deeds to vast possessions and high powers, compromised by manifold \nmortgages to old self-indulgences, so that you cannot tell what equity remains, \nreceipts and expenditures from sources and for ends you are not able to identify. \nYour pressing need is for an intelligent filing system, a summary inventory of \nthe estate, which will enable you to order the chaos of uncorrelated facts. \n\nFortunately, such a system is ready at hand to all students of Theosophy. In \nits teaching you have a skeleton plan into which you can fit the separate bits of \nself-information as your observation of yourself yields them to you. It gives \nyou the colours and the outline of the completed picture of the jig-saw puzzle \nwith which you are working, and one by one, as you pick the pieces up, it en\u00ac \nables you to identify them and to put them in their proper place. Thus, if you \nhave had your Theosophy in mind, you have recognized that the basic fact, \nsome of whose consequences we sampled\u2014the fact of observation that you \nwere always in the middle of things, linking opposites\u2014was but an illustration \nof the first fundamental principle of the Secret Doctrine, that the unity of \nBeing, of your being and of the universe, can manifest itself only through duality. \n\nTheosophy, whatever else it is describing, is always describing you,\u2014your \nheritage and nature, your possibilities and powers, your fate and future. That \nis what its doctrine of correspondences necessitates. \u201cAs above, so below.\u201d \nThe \u201cseven principles of man\u201d are your seven principles, seven aspects under \nwhich to view and classify the activity and phenomena of your own daily (and \neternal) life. The \u201crounds and races\u201d, the cycles of evolution through which \nhumanity as a whole has passed, are reproduced, and can be traced as clearly, \nin your own individual and conscious development. The Mahayugas, of Pralaya \nand Manvantara, are imaged in the alternation of your nights and days. When \nyou leave your office in the afternoon, and return again in the morning, you are \nfollowing a miniature cycle which, on its own plane and in its own way, reflects \n\n\nYOU \n\n\n285 \n\n\nthe greater cycle of reincarnation through death and birth. All that Theosophy \ntells you of the latter can be translated into terms of the former, and there \nidentified. In their correspondences, watching the transformations that take \nplace in the \u201ccomplex\u201d of mood and thought and will which is uppermost in \nyour personal consciousness, you can parallel, in your own first-hand observa\u00ac \ntion, the teaching of the separation of the principles at death, the fading out of \nsome, the consolidation of others, the assimilation of experience, the return to \n\u201cincarnation\u201d, and the gathering of the skandhas that await you on the thresh\u00ac \nold. The greetings of your office staff, the mail upon your desk, the temper \nthat you bring to the new day\u2019s work, all set before you lessons of Karma. The \n\u201clittle\u201d, which each hour\u2019s experience reveals within yourself, is of one piece \nwith the \u201cGreat\u201d. The little is the apex of a cone which broadens to the Great \nwithout limit as it rises, as an electric spark is a thunder bolt in miniature. \n\nThe Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis of Theosophy are thus equally your \ngenesis, and Theosophy gives you the clue or scheme you need in order to co\u00ac \nordinate and make an intelligible whole of your separate and fragmentary \nobservations of yourself. It places in your hands an inventory of the estate, \nand shows you what you must do to enter into your inheritance. \n\nII \n\n\u201cTo enter into your inheritance.\u201d \u201cHeir of the Ages.\u201d To the man in the street \nsuch phrases seem mere literary figures of speech when applied to his ordinary \nhuman nature. But for you, to whom self-observation and Theosophy unite to \nbring self-knowledge, they have a concrete and personal significance, behind \nwhich loom momentous questions that you are beginning to perceive, and that \nmust sooner or later be faced. For with knowledge comes responsibility, and once \nyou have become conscious of anything, it can never again be with you as though \nyou were unconscious of it. To \u201cforget\u201d is not the same as not to have known, \nand you cannot even forget at will. No small part of the tragedy of life is caused \nby the fact that when you are dealing with consciousness and knowledge, you \nare dealing with irreversible processes. But you may turn this fact equally to \nyour advantage, and use it to confirm a resolution which might otherwise waver \nand fail. The insight which you have gained closes certain doors behind you, \neven as it opens others. There can be no going back to what was possible for \nyou in ignorance. Having learned of your heritage, you must either cl^^or \nreject it. Your way lies forward. \n\nConsider further, therefore, what is involved in any inheritance, the acquiring \nof any possessions, be they small or great. To whatever extent you make them \nyours, to a corresponding extent you become attached to them. If you have a \ndog on a chain, he also has you on a chain, and just what that connection is \ngoing to mean may depend upon the end from which it is viewed, and whether \nyou or the dog is the stronger. There is no right without its duty, no possession \nwithout its obligation. That is a consequence of the duality which, as you saw, \nentered into all the manifested universe, though its application to possessidns \nhas been obscured by the present-day tendency to consider these merely in terms \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n286 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nof money\u2014which, if they only had it, the thoughtless assume, they could \nspend as they chose, without responsibility or accountability to anyone. It is a \ngrave error, for money is a power, and you are accountable to Divine Law for \nthe use you make of every power; but it need not concern you now, for it is \nquite clear that your heritage from \u201cthe ages\u201d is not something fluid and free, \nlike money, but something which, like real estate, is involved in manifold ways \nby old and present usage, and which requires constant upkeep. To come into \npossession of such real estate, means that, as its master, you become obligated \nto represent or meet its needs, responsible for it. You can fulfil that responsi\u00ac \nbility or neglect it, but you cannot be without it. You can never be unconscious \nof the fact that your actions must now be viewed in the light of this responsi\u00ac \nbility, and not only from the standpoint of your personal will or whim. You \ncan no longer refer everything to the single centre of yourself. There is another \npoint, outside yourself, to which reference must be made; and whereas at the \none point, the centre in yourself, you appeared free to do as you chose, it is clear \nthat at the other point, in the responsibility for your inheritance, your personal \npreferences are quite without pertinence. There you must act not for yourself, \nbut for the estate,\u2014in a representative, not a personal capacity. \n\nIt is no light matter, therefore, to awake to the realization that you, in actual \nfact, are the heir to far-reaching powers and possessions. The difference it must \nmake in your life is clear enough when the powers are political or the possessions \nphysical. It is one thing to be Mr. FitzAlan-Howard. It is another to come \ninto the title as Duke of Norfolk, premier duke and earl, responsible for some \n50,000 acres of English land. Benjamin Franklin, as representative of the \nAmerican Colonies in London, or as United States Minister at Paris, could not \nact and speak as though he were merely a private citizen of Philadelphia. But \nthe most radical and momentous difference between the new state and the old \nis the profound metaphysical and philosophic difference between one and two,\u2014 \nwhich is, in essence, the difference between the unmanifest and the manifest; \nbetween consciousness limited to self, and consciousness open to all Being. In \ncomplete self-centredness, you have, as you saw, but one point for reference, \nwhereas in accepted responsibility for any possession you have another; and \nthese two points give you a line of reference , which one point does not, and thus \ngive meaning to direction , and enable you to determine directions and to guide \nyour life. To complete self-centredness not even conscience is possible; but \nonce you care for any other thing than self, or assume responsibility, and straight\u00ac \nway conscience walks beside you, go where you will. Perhaps in this you glimpse \nsomething of the purpose of existence, of the going out of Being which is the \nmanifested universe, and will see, too, how the conditions of everyday, worka\u00ac \nday, human life\u2014a man\u2019s need to earn his bread by toil, his job, his wife and \nchildren\u2014all act to take him out of self and to lead him to his heritage of the \nSpirit. \n\nIll \n\nDoes it seem strange that, starting from the perception that you are always \nat the centre of your universe, you should have been led to see that the great \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nYOU \n\n\n287 \n\n\ndesideratum for yourself and for all men is a centre other than yourself ? That \nyou can gain direction for your life only by subordinating it? It is part of the \nparadox of duality from which nothing in manifestation can escape. Turn \nback once more to that initial apprehension of yourself as linking opposites. Of \nwhat order and nature were those opposites? Were they peculiar to you? Were \nthey personal or universal? \n\nThere were, for example, the divisions of time and space. You make your \nown division; but time and space themselves are not peculiar to you. Where \nyou are, determines what is past and future, what is up and down, or east and \nwest, for you. But time and space are shared by all men. You link the flesh \nand the Spirit, with their powers and limitations. You determine the point of \nlinkage; but is the Spirit or the flesh limited to you? Can there be such a thing \nas a personal truth, one which permits of proprietary rights? If it be yours in \nthe exclusive sense, if you own it or created it or invented it, can it be true? \nIs not the Spirit one? Is there not \u201cone mind common to all individual men\u201d, \ninto which and into all of which all individual minds are inlets, and all men \nhave access? Or if you look to your body, in what sense is it \u201cyours\u201d? The \nevolutionists will tell you that it has been slowly developed through generation \nafter generation of lives. Theosophy tells you the same, but shows you how \nit has been developed\u2014the flesh having been slowly drawn up by the action of \nthe Spirit incarnating and reincarnating, to manifest itself more and more \ncompletely in vehicles it fashions to that end. \n\nIn truth, what you call yourself and consider personal, is but what you draw \nfrom the universal. As a plant lives and grows where earth and air and water \nmeet and receive the light and heat of the sun, so do you live and grow through \nthe conjunction of universals. That which you deem most intimate and per\u00ac \nsonal\u2014as your sense of selfhood or your capacity to transcend self in love\u2014is, \nin fact, most universal. Inanimate things touch each other on their peripheries, \nbut animate beings meet in their central core, where lives the divine spark \nthat makes them animate. \n\nAppeal still again to self-observation. Look into your own being, examine \nall your attributes and qualities, all the pairs of opposites conjoined in you, and \nask of each: Is this my Self? To each such question you will have to answer: \nNo; these things clothe the Self, cluster around the Self, show forth and hide \nthe Self; but the Self, itself, lies above and beyond them. Nowhere short of the \nSupreme can you find the Self. Your own Being gives you these answeg; but \nso does the Being of all men. In these questions you have been follaAng an \nage-old catechism, set forth equally in the Upanishads and in The^lond of \nUnknowing , in the dialogues between Krishna and Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita , \nand by Dionysius the Areopagite in his treatise On Divine Names. But it is only \nhalf the chela\u2019s catechism. The other half is to acknowledge that all things \ncome from the Supreme, that naught is foreign to the Self. Thus Krishna re\u00ac \nveals himself to Arjuna: \u201cI am the Self . . . dwelling inwardly in all beings; \nVerily I am the beginning, and the middle, and the end also of beings ... I \nam the word of those that speak ... I am all consuming Death; I am the \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n288 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nbirth of things that shall be, I am honour, grace, voice among things feminine; \nand memory and wisdom and firmness and patience . . . the fire of the fiery; \nI am victory and decision; I am the goodness of the good.\u201d \n\nSo, too, Dionysius tells us that the Divine Names, like the angels in Jacob\u2019s \nvision, mount the ladder from earth to heaven, through detachment and nega\u00ac \ntion of the things of earth, but descend from heaven to earth in affirmation of \nthe divine essence of all things that are\u2014which earth too often thinks its own. \n\nIn little and in great your being reveals this truth. There is nothing in you \nthat is not drawn from the Divine; nothing in you, which, having been drawn \nand limited and stamped with your separate, personal stamp, is not, by that \nfact, set over against the Divine as something from which you must detach \nyourself if you would rise to the Supreme. For you, too, must mount the ladder \nto heaven, rung by rung, reaching up to the one above only to leave it behind \nyou as it is attained. Each good, to which you now aspire as an end, can \nremain a good only as it becomes a means through which you pass, and which \nyou leave behind for the greater good that it makes visible beyond. In that \ncharacteristic you have an unfailing hallmark of the Spirit, in the contempla\u00ac \ntion of which a new meaning may emerge for you as to that ceaseless adoration \nwhich is the office of the heavenly host,\u2014their unremitting outpouring of them\u00ac \nselves in love and worship of the Eternal Godhead, constituting the dynamic \npower that moves all the worlds and the whole process of manifestation. \n\nIn the inspiration that quickens your will to action, in the truth which moves \nyour thought to speech, Spirit descends anew into matter, to reveal itself, and \nto reveal, too, that it transcends its revelation. At first hand, within your own \nconsciousness, you may watch the whole process of incarnation by which it \nclothes and manifests itself in the familiar symbols of your experience. Thus \nclothed and manifested, you have, in thoughtless presumption, called it yours; \nbut it is yours only as a responsibility and trust are yours. It is something \nwhich commands you, not something which you can command. You have no \npower to affect Truth, but only to be affected by it. It is it, not you, that must \nbe master. To accept title to the gifts of the Spirit, to enter into your divine \ninheritance and estate, you must, in turn, give yourself to it. You must serve \nit; not ask that it should serve you, nor think that you can any longer be free \nmerely to serve yourself. The centre of your life lies now beyond you. \n\nIV \n\nThere is no mental habit which will defeat self-knowledge more surely than \nthat of using words without clear recognition of the meaning you attach to \nthem; for this habit substitutes words for things, and thus takes your inquiries \nout of the world of facts into the world of shadows. Be quite sure, therefore, \nthat you know just what you mean when you use such phrases as \u201ccentre of \nconsciousness\u201d, or \u201ccentre of your life\u201d. You are, obviously, not using centre \nin a spatial or physical sense. Perhaps, if you were, you might hold that your \ncentre of consciousness was physically situated in your brain, so that you looked \nout level through your eyes. But you can think this only if you imagine your \n\n\nYOU \n\n\n289 \n\n\nhead as a hollow dome; you cannot really picture your consciousness, or any \ncentre of selfhood, as located in a kind of blood-soaked sponge which is your \nbrain; and you must ultimately reject any physical location for it. Certainly \nthere has been no thought of physical location in the way you have used \u201ccen\u00ac \ntre\u201d here. You have been looking, instead, to something in the world of senti\u00ac \nment and thought, as you might say that a mother \u201ccentred\u201d her life in her \nchildren. You would mean by this, not only that they were her dominant \ninterest and concern, but also that it was to them, and to their welfare, that she \nautomatically referred everything else. She would instinctively look at life \nfrom their standpoint and see it in terms of what would be advantageous or \nprejudicial to them. They would be her centre of reference. \n\nTo say, therefore, that \u201cthe centre of your life now lies beyond you\u201d, is to \nsay that you no longer automatically look at things and events from the stand\u00ac \npoint of self, but from a standpoint beyond self, and as they may affect some\u00ac \nthing beyond your personal affairs. The result is a transformation and simpli\u00ac \nfication of outlook comparable to the change from Ptolemaic to Copemican \nastronomy, when the sun, instead of the earth, was made the centre of reference. \nIt involved no change in the observed facts. The stars and planets still rose \nand set in their accustomed places, still were to be found in the courses charted \nfor them ages before. But those charts could now be redrawn, not as compli\u00ac \ncated by being viewed from a moving, variable earth, but with reference to the \ncentral sun, which draws and holds the earth and all the planets, and which itself \nranks with the \u201cfixed\u201d stars. In such reference, what had been the complicated \ninterweaving of cycles and epicycles, with cusps and nodes that represented \ninexplicable approaches and recessions in the planetary paths, became such \nordered revolutions round the sun as the earth itself described. It was a far \nsimpler system, and in that, at least, more beautiful. \n\nSo can your own life become more simple and more beautiful. It is far sim\u00ac \npler and far better to ask what is right, than what is expedient; what is just, \nrather than what you would like; to move in obedience to a gravitation that is \nthe law of heaven, rather than to attempt to make others revolve around your\u00ac \nself. You will see your fellow-man more truly when you trace his course in ref\u00ac \nerence to the Eternal Verities, instead of in relation to your own temporal posi\u00ac \ntion; when you value him for what he can do for the Theosophical Mo^nent \nand the Great Lodge of Masters, rather than for his capacity to prorq^B^your \npersonal preferment, or for the favour or disfavour he shows to you. \n\nBut to make the astronomical parallel a true one, you will have to go beyond \nthe common, limited and materialistic view of the Copemican theory, which \npictures the sun as though it were but that focus of physical matter which is \nseen in the sky, separated from the earth by vast distance. Instead of this, you \nmust recognize that the sun is, in fact, the whole globe of its radiating, life- \ngiving, life-sustaining, light and heat and subtile magnetism, within which \nradiant globe the whole earth\u2019s orbit is. The failure to recognize this has ob\u00ac \nscured the profound philosophical significance of the Copemican view, which \nshows man to be a denizen of the sun no less than of the earth, and which thus,. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n290 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nquite literally, reveals to him his inheritance in a whole new world which he had \nnot thought of as his. In like manner, when your self-knowledge has brought \nyou to see that the centre of your life lies in the Divine Life above you, that \nCentre will be known to you, not as distant, but as embracing, surrounding and \nvivifying you, even as the sun embraces and vivifies the earth, and a new world \nwill open to you. Nor is the newly recognized Centre of that new world a mere \nabstract point of Spiritual Being, a mere focus whence radiates Spiritual force; \nit has also a being like your own human being,\u2014even as the sun has a physical \ncore. Your Centre is your Master. It is in his dual nature, which is both \nhuman and divine. From this point on, your self-study must pass into study \nof him. In his being is personified all that should now rule, and in time become \npersonified, in yours. His radiance surrounds and supports your every move\u00ac \nment. He is your link with the Supreme, the only Self you can desire to serve \nor have. He is your Way, your Truth, your Life. In him you live and move \nand have your being. And yet\u2014he is more human than you, in that his \nhumanity is divine. \n\nHenry Bedinger Mitchell. \n\n\nWhen a man opposes me , he awakes my attention , not my anger. . . . The cause \nof truth ought to be the comtnon cause of both of us .\u2014 Montaigne. \n\n\nNothing can keep you,\u2014not fate , nor health , nor admirable intellect; none can \nkeep you , but rectitude only , rectitude for ever and ever !\u2014 Emerson. \n\n\n\n\nTEMPTATION \n\n\nT HOSE of us who would really meditate must surely confess that it \nis the most difficult, nerve-racking, heart-rending task we ever \nattempted (I speak only of and for neophytes). When that oft-evaded \nhour arrives when the subject should be our sins, do not all beginners find \nthemselves pronouncing easy absolution at this point or that, or am I the only \none? It is without doubt the easiest way to meditate on sin. In the obvious \nsurface sense we do not steal or lie,\u2014at least we do not steal; we are not envious \n\u2014though perhaps?\u2014 no , positively we are not envious; we very certainly (and \nthis is a pet absolution) are not and never have been cruel. Toward this par\u00ac \nticular enormity we can take the attitude of a detached archangel with a lor\u00ac \ngnette,\u2014which is the signal for suspicion to awake. If we are brave enough \nand honest enough to push past this homemade and spurious comfort, a strange \nand daunting experience awaits us\u2014thus I have been told and thus I have \nfound. At this point, if the angels are looking out for us, we may hear behind \nus a vague murmur\u2014a still small voice\u2014but looking back we see no burning \nbush, no following Shepherd, no indulgent friend. Quiet though the voice, it \nis that of indictment and not of absolution. We see a long horrific road stretch\u00ac \ning back into the guilty past, and down it, dogging our complacent steps, limp \nthe victims of our persistent cruelty\u2014those piteous ghosts, our own creation \nand no other. Flash-light after flash-light turns on them as they pass\u2014\u201cAll \nthe dead that ever I knew, going one by one and two by two\u201d\u2014and ours to \nwatch and remember. Sleeping memories awake and rush backward like a \nreversed moving picture. Is it possible that we exclaimed to tremulous age \nso soon to leave us: \u201cMust you lose your spectacles forty times a day?\u201d Let \nthe saddening of that kind tired face be your retribution now. Need we have \nsnubbed that excited baby rushing with a flower\u2014\u201cIt is nothing but a horrid \nweed\u2014throw it away.\u201d Here is the maid from whose white exhaustion we \ndemanded that last effort. And here the impertinent shop-worker, worn to \nthe verge of hysteria and carried over it by our insistence. And the little dr^- \nmaker who spoilt the dress while fighting weary discouragement, and for \nour chilly civility was harder to bear than a good honest scolding. It is pos\u00ac \nsible to be a monster of cruelty without wiping off that benevolent smirk. \nTruly, \u201cthe sins of each of us have blackened the faces of those about us\u201d. \n\nSuch a vision is a terrible experience, and fortunate are we if it come early, \nthat our spiritual effort may be made from a basis of shrewd self-distrust; for \nit takes much honesty, humour and common-sense to obey the injunction \n\u201cknow thyself\u201d. The hymn says, \u201cThy kind and searching glance can scan \nthe very wounds that shame would hide\u201d. Great love is implied in the insist\u00ac \nence that we scan with Him\u2014that we push past the small lapses, the veni- \nalities we are so complacently ready to answer for,\u2014the \u201cOh yes, I know I \n\n\n291 \n\n\n\n292 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nhave my faults\u201d, and begin to know that we also have our crimes. If we har\u00ac \nbour within us every potentiality of evil\u2014and don\u2019t we?\u2014the sooner we develop \na spiritual inferiority complex the better, and ruthless courage in meditation is \nthe royal path,\u2014the surest way to keep that \u201cI am not as others\u201d out of our \nconvictions,\u2014the only way to save ourselves from battening on comfortable \nlies. Then, turning to the Master, one can say, \u201cI do not begin to suspect how \nbad I am, but You know. Disclose me to myself with loving caution or I shall \nperish of despair.\u201d \n\nOnce I had a dear funny brother. He passed through life, as so many of his \ncountrymen do, with a jocular avoidance of the deep places of life, which only \nserved to prove to those who loved him his unreconciled awareness of them. \nIn his case the jocularity was so witty, and the avoidance so sensitive, that \nlove thrived on them. We faced many trials together and now and again our \neyes met with mutual recognition\u2014\u2018\u2018another storm\u201d, \u2018\u2018a new exile\u201d, \u2018\u2018a fresh \nheartbreak\u201d; and in his imposed silence we met the weather. He had been a \nbrilliant student, piling up honours and honourable mentions while still very \nyoung. In middle life he said to me with characteristic gravity under the fun \n\u2014\u2018\u2018Do you know I thought I was an infant prodigy till I was forty, then I sud\u00ac \ndenly came to and realized that I was only a fairly good run-of-the-mill engi\u00ac \nneer after all.\u201d It is easy to repeat this error on the spiritual plane. In this \ngreat surge of new life we ride high upon emotion and we mistake entertain\u00ac \nment for growth. Many of us never \u2018\u2018come to\u201d on any plane, and we need \nnot linger here over the horrors of that complacency. Adolescence is easily \nconvinced of supremacy, and although a sense of humour and a frank family \nwill work miraculous cures for the lucky, those who remain in their trance \nwill torment us from the cradle to the grave with the poor fit of their assump\u00ac \ntions. They need to meditate, and that is the one thing they will never do. \n\nWith wondering awe one turns to the world\u2019s great classical meditation on \ntemptation. For forty days and forty nights the Master fasted and was \u2018\u2018an \nhungred\u201d, and then the devil\u2014a genius in the choice of times and seasons\u2014 \ncame, and tempted Him, and was ignominiously worsted. He was \u2018\u2018tempted in \nall things like as we are, yet without sin\u201d. We can never again say that no \none understands us\u2014He understands us\u2014He drained the cup that every lip \nmust touch, and flung it contemptuously away. \n\nThe strange story must mean just what it says, and temptation is not merely \na malicious soliciting to evil. One said to me, \u2018\u2018Don\u2019t speak of the Lord\u2019s \nPrayer, I detest it! Imagine to yourself a loving father deliberately \u2018leading\u2019 \nhis children into temptation\u201d; and I knew that though I had given some \nlove to that prayer, I had given little thought. The Lord\u2019s Prayer is human\u00ac \nity\u2019s prayer, for all sorts and conditions of men; it means one thing for you \nand another for me; it speaks for the child, the sinner, and the saint; for the \nch\u00a3la, the Mahatma, and, I suspect, for the Dhyan Chohan. The neophyte \ncries, \u2018\u2018Take the gentle way, O Lord. Remember that I am but dust.\u201d The \nsaint welcomes with courage the trial of his faith, and the ch 61 a \u2018\u2018thinks it all \njoy\u201d to be led into temptation. A great reward is promised to these\u2014\u2018\u2018the \n\n\nTEMPTATION \n\n\n293 \n\n\ntrial of your faith worketh patience\u201d\u2014patience wnth life, with others, with \noneself. \n\nThe temptation in the wilderness was very real. We read, not of the haughty \nrepudiation of evil by a great spiritual being, but of a man, and a starving \nman at that, \u201ctempted like as we are\u201d. Those unhesitating answers came in a \nwhisper but they came like pistol shots. The devil must have been astonished \nwith a great astonishment. A starving man to refuse the bread-line, a man \ndown and out, to spurn the heady draught of lower psychic supremacy! Then \nhe remembered the predestined mission of the man before him\u2014that in the \nlong future He was to \u201ctake up His Power and reign\u201d, and he was clever enough \nto make use of the Man\u2019s own holy dream. \u201cWhy wait for ignominy and \ndeath and weary cycles of defeat? Worship me, and your dream is realized \nand the kingdoms of the earth are yours.\u201d Not otherwise have the Hitlers \nand the Mussolinis of all time been lured. But now the Master\u2019s tone changes. \nHe utters a short sharp speech of dismissal as to an impertinent subordinate, \n\u201cGet thee behind me, Satan\u201d. The rest is beautiful. We hear the rhythmic \nbeat of great wings, and the stony place is splendid with angels. With in\u00ac \neffable tenderness, with love unspeakable, \u201cthey minister unto Him\u201d. \n\nL.S. \n\n\n\u201cShe is an awful trial \u201d, said the Boy. \n\n\u201cI believe it \u201d, said the Man; \u201cso is God .\"\u2014 Book of Memories. \n\n\nHave no unreasonable expectations where others are concerned. The as^an \nnever forgive the rose-bush for not bearing thistles. \u2014T. Pesch. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\nX. \n\n\nPON completion of the St. Mihiel operation, the First American Army \n\n\n\nheld a front from the Moselle River to a point southeast of Verdun. \n\n\nIn preparation for the second great American offensive on the Meuse- \nArgonne front, this line was extended, first to the north of Verdun, and then \nto the western edge of the Argonne Forest. This gave the First American Army \na front of ninety-four miles, or, as General Pershing has pointed out, about one- \nthird of the active part of the line from the North Sea to the Moselle. At the \nsame time that the First American Army attacked on this new front, offensives \nby the British and French Armies between us and the Sea were to take place, \neach army driving forward as rapidly as possible. The general plan of this \nunited Allied offensive contemplated advances at indicated points, which \nwould form salients in the enemy\u2019s line. These salients would threaten his \nforces, then exposed on the flanks, and would compel their withdrawal to new \nlines in the rear, after which the Allied operations would be repeated. There was \nto be no respite for the enemy. The object of the Allied High Command was \nto force him, through a series of sledgehammer blows along that long line, either \nto scatter his reserves and so to weaken his general defence, or to concentrate \nhis reserves at vital points and so greatly to endanger the remainder of his line. \nThe most vital point of all was his chief artery of supply, his main railroad line, \nwhich ran through Carignan, Sedan and M6zi\u00a3res, and which paralleled his \nfront. It was essential, in order to maintain his Armies in Northeastern France, \nthat he should keep this railroad intact and in his possession. As long as he \ncould hold at this point, Allied offensives to the west, even if successful, would \nnot necessarily be conclusive. If, however, this main line of communication \nand supply should be broken, he would lose his hold on all territory occupied \nin Northern France, and if it should be broken before he had withdrawn his \nArmies from France and from Belgium, he would be entirely unable either to \nsupply or to evacuate them, and his rout would be complete. He must hold \nat all costs at the eastern end of his long line, and he knew it. It was this key \npoint, this pivot of the whole German line to the Sea\u2014the Sedan-Carignan \nrailroad\u2014which was the objective of the First American Army, and it was \nopposite the front of the First Army that the enemy ultimately concentrated \nhis remaining strongest divisions and displayed the most tenacious and desperate \nresistance. 1 \n\nThe terrain opposite the front of the First American Army was ideal for \ndefensive fighting, and with a full realization of this and of the paramount \n\niIt should be understood that each of the Allied armies\u2014American, British. French\u2014may have been inclined in \nretrospect to believe that the German resistance on its front was more tenacious and desperate than elsewhere; and \nthat the American army was not backward in this respect, either in thinking or declaring it.\u2014 Editors. \n\n\n294 \n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n295 \n\n\nimportance of making their line of communication practically impregnable, \nthe Germans had busied themselves, during their long occupancy of this sector, \nin strengthening its natural advantages by an elaborate and complete series of \nfield fortifications. Their main permanent defensive positions consisted of \nfour lines, which extended from in front of Metz along the entire Western \nFront; these lines were widely separated opposite Paris, but they converged \nand were relatively close together in front of the German line of interior com\u00ac \nmunications which was now the American objective. Along the entire Meuse- \nArgonne front the enemy had the advantage of numerous commanding positions \nfrom which he could pour cross artillery fire on an attacking force and enfilade \nit, and the many woods and forests constituted natural defences as well. In \naddition, he had built innumerable dugouts and concrete machine-gun em\u00ac \nplacements, and had dug successive lines of intermediate trenches extending \nfrom his front lines back to his main defensive positions, while everywhere he \nhad further strengthened himself with masses of barbed-wire entanglements. \nThe Boche knew that he must resist to the last at this vital point, if it was ever \nthreatened, and he had made his dispositions accordingly. \n\nThe First American Army was to attack in conjunction with General Gou- \nraud\u2019s Fourth French Army on the left, and this joint offensive was based \nupon the same strategical principle as that of the general Allied offensive. The \ntwo Armies joined at the Argonne Forest. A thrust, for instance, by our First \nArmy east of the Forest, by threatening the left flank of the enemy\u2019s position \nin front of the Fourth French Army, would force his retirement at that point. \nIt was identically the same principle\u2014that of forcing salients into the enemy\u2019s \nlines and so exposing him to attack on his flanks\u2014which was employed locally \non the entire First Army front as well in overcoming strong enemy resistance \npoints, which could not hold out when our troops had passed them on the \nflanks and continued to drive onward. The successive movements forward, \nwhether of the various Army Corps within the First Army, or of the First Army \nand of the Fourth French Army acting in conjunction, would have the inevi\u00ac \ntable effect of forcing a withdrawal of hostile resistance and of throwing the \nenemy back. This strategical principle proved successful in the actual conduct \nof the offensive itself, although impeded and delayed from time to time by the \nstrength of the enemy resistance and by other factors as well. \n\nThe new front of the First American Army had been held for some time by \nthe Second French Army, with Headquarters at Souilly, on the Sacred Road \nthat led to Verdun, and in our take-over of the area and in our preliminary \nreconnaissance of the enemy positions, we were greatly assisted by the Secadfc \nFrench Army Staff, which knew all of the Boche dispositions, and conceOTa \nstrong points, from its long experience in this area. The French helped us, too, \nin the earlier movement of American troops into the new battle area, while we \nwere still occupied at St. Mihiel. This troop movement of ours was a staff \noperation of considerable magnitude, and was carried out with great skill and \nsecrecy (up to the opening of the attack, the Boche still thought that our next \nmajor drive would be against Metz) and was the subject of favourable and \n\n\n\n\n\n296 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\neven enthusiastic comment on the part of the British and French. In view of \nthe fact that the jump-off for the Meuse-Argonne offensive took place just \nfourteen days after the start of the St. Mihiel operation, and that some of the \ndivisions which participated in the earlier battle were used again at once, this \nfavourable comment was not undeserved. Our concentration for the Meuse- \nArgonne operation involved the movement of three army corps headquarters \nwith their corps troops, of fifteen divisions, and of several thousand army \ntroops. Approximately 600,000 American troops were moved into the First \nArmy sector, and, as in the St. Mihiel operation, all troop movements were \nmade at night, either by rail, by motor transport or by marching. When the \nmovement, in addition, of supplies, ammunition, and hospital equipment is \nconsidered, over roads and railway lines that were entirely inadequate for the \nconduct of operations on such a scale, our effort showed without question that \nthe First Army Staff had been learning rapidly under the pressure of immediate \nnecessity, and had developed in a short time a high degree of efficiency. This \nwas due in large measure to the character of the men on the First Army Staff. \nThey recognized their own inexperience, and from the first had sought advice \nand instruction from the French, who had learned from years of fighting, and \nthe handling of huge armies, the very things our officers needed and were anxious \nto know. \n\nIn an earlier article it was possible to comment briefly upon the strategical \naspect of the St. Mihiel operation, and even to give some account of the tactical \nworking out of the actual battle itself. This was possible because, even allow\u00ac \ning for local operations at the end when the line was stabilized, the battle was \nnot prolonged for more than five days. But the Meuse-Argonne offensive is \nanother story. It is not possible, it is not within the scope of a series of articles \nsuch as these, to describe in detail a battle which lasted for forty-seven days; \nwhich consisted of two distinct successive operations and of five separate phases; \nand which involved a battle front of twenty-four miles in length,\u2014a battle \nin which the First American Army, consisting at one time of over one million \nmen, penetrated thirty-two miles to the North and fourteen miles to the North\u00ac \neast before the Armistice terminated hostilities; a battle in which the enemy, \nthrowing in against our troops his picked divisions, in order to defend his vital \npoint on the Western Front, finally brought against our First Army one-fourth \nof his entire remaining strength; a battle which so forced him to make use of \nall his remaining resources that the German delegates, who came to Marshal \nFoch to beg for an Armistice, told him that they no longer had any divisions in \nreserve, that every division that they had was actually in line. It is not possible \nhere to describe military operations of such magnitude. They are a matter of \nhistory, they are on record elsewhere. I shall only add, in order to emphasize \nthe relative size of this military effort of ours, a brief comparison of the First \nAmerican Army in this operation with the Union Army in the Wilderness Cam\u00ac \npaign in our Civil War. In our First Army, in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, a \ntotal of 1,200,000 Americans were engaged, together with 140,000 French \nunder American command, while approximately 2417 guns were employed. \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n297 \n\n\nThe total strength of the Union Army at the Wilderness was 148,834 men, \nand approximately 300 guns were used. The actual weight of the ammunition \nfired in the Meuse-Argonne offensive was greater than that used by the entire \nUnion forces during the four years of the Civil War. \n\nA day or two after the completion of the St. Mihiel operation, General Drum \nsent for me and told me that, in preparation for the conduct of the offensive, \nHeadquarters First Army was about to open an Advance Post of Command \nat Souilly. He said that the main Headquarters would continue to function at \nLigny-en-Barrois until this operation on the Meuse-Argonne front had been \ncompleted, after which, I gathered, the First Army was to conduct another \noffensive further to the West. Apparently at that time our High Command \ndid not anticipate that it would be necessary to devote more than two or three \nweeks to the operations on the Meuse-Argonne front. Obviously, as those \noperations proceeded, as difficulties developed, and as the stubborn resistance \nof the Boche intensified, a complete change of plan took place, involving an \nextension of the American front in the direction of the Vosges instead of toward \nthe West, and the creation of the Second and Third American Armies to operate \nin that area. This plan evolved to the point of organizing the Second American \nArmy and its participation in the final drive which took place in those last few \ndays immediately preceding the Armistice; the cessation of hostilities then \nprevented its further development. But when the Advance P. C. of the hirst \nAftny was opened at Souilly, some time in the third week in September, its \npersonnel consisted in the main of those members of the Staff who were directly \nengaged in the active conduct of operations, and it was not until the offensive \nhad begun to slow down that, little by little, additional personnel was shifted \nfrom Ligny to Souilly, until practically the entire Staff was functioning in \nSouilly, with only its less important divisions in the rear. General Drum told \nme to proceed to Souilly, and to open there an Advance P. C. of the Message \nCentre, taking with me such personnel and transportation as I considered \nnecessary. I remained at Souilly for nine weeks, instead of for the shorter \nperiod which was indicated at the time of my departure; and during the first \npart of the Meuse-Argonne operation, and until further personnel was ordered \nforward from our rear echelon, the Advance Post of the Message Centre at \nfjouilly handled over twice the volume of dispatches with one-third the per\u00ac \nsonnel that had been available at Ligny-en-Barrois. \n\nIn compliance with General Drum\u2019s instructions, I surveyed the situation in \nregard to my Bureau of the Staff\u2014the corresponding section of the staff ina \nFrench Army headquarters was called the Bureau de Courier\u2014made the neqjp- \nsary dispositions and arrangements to ensure co-operation and co-ordinanon \nwith the First Army plan, left my second in command in charge at Ligny-en- \nBarrois, and departed by motor for Souilly on September 21st, five days \nbefore the start of the Meuse-Argonne operation. The Message Centre was \nnow \u201cecheloned in depth\u201d, as it had a third section as far back as Neufchdteau, \nresponsible for the receipt and distribution of the latest military maps, which \nwere received and, in some cases I think, printed in that town. Bar-le-Duc, \n\n\n\n298 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthrough which the road to Souilly passed, was seething with activity and was \nfull of American officers, although, it being daytime, there was no sign of the \ntroops to which they were attached and which were en route to the forward \nareas. Souilly was a typical French village; the main road ran straight through \nthe place, and from it a few streets branched off at right angles and terminated \nin the fields. The Headquarters of the Commanding General First Army \nwas in the Maine, a large stone building on the main road; the Operations \nSection of the General Staff was in wooden buildings grouped together in the \nimmediate rear, while the other Sections of the Staff were all within two or \nthree minutes\u2019 walk. The Message Centre was housed in a wooden shack \nwith a corrugated iron roof, which was located immediately beside the Mairie \nand directly on the main road. Up to the time of the advent of the First Army \nStaff, Souilly, as I have said, had been the Headquarters of the Second French \nArmy. The French Staff had evolved most complete arrangements for moving \ntheir Headquarters underground, in the event of heavy shelling or bombing, \nso that it could continue to function without being disturbed in case of necessity. \nFar down below the surface of the ground, and reinforced on top with concrete \nso that they were entirely protected from even a direct hit, were corridors with \nconnecting offices, sleeping quarters and cooking facilities, complete with \nelectric lighting and a battery of telephones, while the ventilation, for some \nreason which I was never able to discover, was excellent. We never, as a matter \nof fact, were forced to take advantage of these superior arrangements, but it \nwas a comfort all the same to know that they were there in case of need. \n\nAt about this time the Message Centre was taken from under the sheltering \nwing of G-3, the Operations Section of the General Staff, and was placed under \nthe direct command of General Drum, the Army Chief of Staff, thus giving me \nthe proud distinction of commanding an independent and separate section \nof the Headquarters, although the smallest and the least important. At the \nsame time, the functions of the Message Centre were somewhat amplified. \nThe Army Code Room, responsible for the receipt and transmission, and for \nthe decoding and coding, of all secret messages and despatches, was placed \nunder the supervision and command of the Message Centre, which became \nresponsible for the immediate distribution and transmission of such telegrams. \n\nIf I remember correctly, there were in the Code Room two American and two \nFrench officers, together with a couple of field clerks, and while I was not re\u00ac \nsponsible for the accuracy of their work, and was only concerned with the \ntransmission of results, the code experts always showed me all messages in \nthe clear, either before or after they had done their job. These messages were \nmost interesting, coming as they did in cipher from Marshal Foch; from General \nHeadquarters, A. E. F.; from General Bliss at the Supreme War Council; from \nour liaison officers with the various French and British Armies and Higher \nHeadquarters; sometimes from Sir Douglas Haig; and occasionally, when \nGeneral Pershing was definitely known to be at Souilly, from Washington. \nThrough my opportunities of inspecting these messages I was able, not only \nto keep track of orders and instructions from \u201chigher up\u201d affecting the conduct \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n299 \n\n\nof operations by the First Army, but also to glean information from time to \ntime in regard to the progress of events, both military and political, outside our \nown area. At about this time, too, several officer couriers were added to the \nMessage Centre Staff. They were used for the transmission, in duplicate, of \nsecret Field Orders or urgent communications to the commanding generals \nof the larger French and American field units. An officer courier would be \nsent by one road, while a second one would be dispatched at the same time \nby another route to the same destination, each carrying identical messages, so \nthat, in case one failed to arrive for any reason, there was still number two to \nrely upon. Callers continued to drop in upon us in force at the Message Centre, \nas they had at Ligny-en-Barrois. Officers from the Corps and Division Staffs \nwould come, in quest of information, and while they were trying to pump me, \nand asking questions to which I did not know the answers, I was usually able \nto extract from them some bit of news which proved useful. \n\nFive days was not a very long time in which to do all that had to be done before \nthe offensive started. My first impulse, metaphorically speaking, was to take \noff my coat and go at it. But by this time I had had several opportunities of \nobserving how the French Staff officers handled themselves when they arrived \nat a new place, and I took a leaf out of their book. I had noticed that the \nvery first thing with which they concerned themselves was the establishment \nof their mess, and in settling themselves in their sleeping quarters. Then, \nand then only, did they start on their official duties. At first I was disposed \nto be rather critical of this apparent absorption in creature comforts, if they \ncan be called that in the field, but I speedily realized that this attention to \nthe machinery of living came from a wisdom bom of long experience. They \nhad been at the War for a long time. They knew that the body did better \nwork when it was rested and fed. They knew that at times there would be \nlong intervals between rest and food. All the more reason, when a brief oppor\u00ac \ntunity came, that they should secure a little of one or the other, that all possible \narrangements which would facilitate this should be perfected in advance. \nParenthetically, I admired intensely the systematic way in which the French \nStaff officers did their work. Our own Staff, through no fault of their own, \nwere new at the job, and were so conscientious and so anxious to succeed that, \nwhen they had finished a hard day, and everything that they could do h^Lbeen \ndone, and it was too late to change or correct anything, they would \u00ab|ht up \nand sit around and go over it all again, in the endeavour to catch some mistake. \nBut when a French officer was through, he was through. He stopped at that \npoint. He shut his mind off his work, if only for a few minutes. He did not \nwait around for some important message that was expected in an hour or so to \ncome in. He took a nap, wherever he was quartered, subject to instant call. \nWhen the message arrived, he was rested and at his best. His duties in con\u00ac \nnection with that message, when it came, might take several hours, but they \nwere performed with greater vigour and accuracy because of that short respite. \nIt was no slothful giving way to love of comfort. It was plain common sense. \nSo, emulating their example, my first act upon arriving at Souilly, after seeing \n\n\n\n\n\n300 \n\n\nTHE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nwhere my staff and my men were to be quartered and fed, was to find out where \nI was to exist myself, and to move in. At Souilly the Message Centre, now \nbeing an independent command so to speak, had its own mess, and I presided \nat the head of the table in the midst of my own official family. I missed very \nmuch the interesting conversation of the galaxy of colonels who had adorned \nthe G -3 Mess at Ligny-en-Barrois, but I must confess that, in these new sur\u00ac \nroundings, the table talk was relieved from that feeling of restraint which the \npresence of superior rank imposes, and this freedom resulted at times in a con\u00ac \nsiderable flow of real humour. \n\nI was quartered in a wooden shack five minutes\u2019 walk from the Message \nCentre. The only two articles of furniture in my room were a bed and a stove, \nbut they were the two essentials that really mattered. For several days after \nmy arrival I was forced to do my own valeting, as the last of a constant suc\u00ac \ncession of strikers 2 had been left behind at Ligny, and no other was available. \n\nI was missing the services of an orderly, simply because it took so much of my \ntime to clean my own leathers and to attend to my equipment. I had no time \nto spare, and I was wondering what I could do about it, when, one afternoon, \nMajor Willard Straight, who was on the First Army Staff, dropped in to see \nme. He died, shortly after, of influenza. I had been working hard, and I re\u00ac \nmember his remarking that I looked as if I ought to be in bed. I told him \nthat I was as right as rain, but I groused about the inconvenience of having no \nstriker, and expatiated upon the qualities of my old retainer in the Seventy- \nseventh Division, saying I felt sure, if only I had him at Souilly, that I should \nbe able to take better advantage of such opportunities for rest as came along. \nThe Major at once replied that, if that was my only trouble, he would have the \nman transferred from the Seventy-seventh Division to Headquarters First \nArmy, and assigned to the Message Centre. That act of kindness should \nhave been enough, but I realized that my hollow appearance was working won\u00ac \nders, and I thought that I had better get all that I could while the going was \ngood, so I asked the Major if it would be possible to transfer at the same time \nfrom my old regiment a certain Lieutenant, who, I knew, possessed exactly \nthe qualities which were needed in my Department at that particular juncture. \nThe Major replied that it would be easy, and in the course of a few days the \nLieutenant and my striker arrived together. I welcomed the latter almost \nwith open arms, and from then on I received every possible personal attention; \nhe had, in fact, no other duties than to look out for me, although nominally \nhe was carried on the roster in his old grade of cook. He was invaluable. My \nshack burned down shortly afterwards. I was occupied during the early part \nof the proceedings, so that when I finally reached the scene, there was nothing \nleft but a blazing ruin. I felt really discouraged, imagining that all my equip\u00ac \nment and personal belongings had gone up in smoke, and that all that I had \nleft was what I had on, and wondering how many days or weeks it would be \nbefore I could get to Paris to refit, and what I should do meanwhile. Sud\u00ac \ndenly my faithful striker appeared, perspiring at every pore, and presenting a \n\n\n* Military servants. \n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n301 \n\nmost unmilitary appearance owing to the absence of his shirt. After saluting \npunctiliously, his broad Irish face broke into a grin, and he pointed to a heap \nin the middle distance, well out of range of sparks and covered with blankets. \nHe had seen the fire start, and, having no duties, had left them at top speed \nand, running to the scene of action, had dragged all my property out to safety, \nat some personal risk and inconvenience. He invariably had in his possession \nabout one hundred francs of my money, with strict injunctions always to buy \ncigarettes for me whenever an opportunity offered, as sometimes there were \nlong intervals between the arrival of quartermaster consignments, and there \nwas always danger of a personal shortage. Each enlisted man was allowed \nto buy two packages of cigarettes at a time, and no more. One day my striker \npresented me with eight packages at once. I asked him how he had managed \nit, and he replied that he had gone back to the rear end of the waiting line \nfour times, but that on the occasion of his presenting himself at the window \nfor the fifth consecutive time, the Quartermaster Sergeant had recognized him \nand had asked him if he was about to start a store. Small wonder that I was \noverjoyed to have back again as my personal retainer one in whom the qualities \nof resourcefulness and devotion were united to so great an extent. Moreover, \nit was an added pleasure to hear from him, upon his arrival at Souilly, that, \nafter my departure from my regiment, my former Colonel had made him his \nown striker, and that my late commanding officer had given way to the most \nintemperate language when he had read the First Army order announcing the \ntransfer, feeling sure as he did that the man was going back to me, and knowing \nthat he could do nothing about it. \n\nDelighted as my striker was to be back again with me, this was far from \nbeing the case with the Lieutenant who had arrived with him. This Lieutenant \nwas a mere boy then. He had been perfectly happy in his work with troops, \nand was overwhelmed at being taken from them and put on staff duty. Within \na couple of hours after his arrival he asked for an interview, and, after saying \nthat he appreciated the promotion, he broke down, and with tears streaming \ndown his face implored me to send him back to his men; he had been so fond of \nthem all, he said, and thought that they had liked him. While all this was \nreally touching, and did him great credit from one point of view, it was most un\u00ac \nmilitary. A touch of severity seemed indicated, and it brought him around. \nWhen he had quieted down, I reminded him that, of the entire First Army \nStaff, probably the great majority, if it were simply a question of atonal \nchoice, would infinitely prefer service with troops to their present assignments; \nthat it was not a question of choice, but of necessity; that men possessing \ncertain qualifications, of which he was one, were needed on the Staff in order \nthat the troops should be able to function properly, and that men went without \nquestion, sinking personal preferences, wherever their superiors thought that \nthey could serve for the greatest benefit to all concerned. I told him that, in \nregard to himself, he would have to trust to my judgment, and that I would \nnot send him back to his old unit, even if it were possible to do so; that time was \npressing, and that I wished to outline at once his new duties. I immediately \n\n\n- \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n302 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ngave him so much work to do, that he had no more time in which to be \u201chome\u00ac \nsick\u201d, and in the course of a few days he was cheerful and happy again, and \nturned out to be one of the best of my subordinates, as I knew he would. Later \non, after the Armistice, I recommended him for promotion to captain, and a \nletter from him, received after my return to the United States, told me that \nhe had obtained his step. \n\nPreparations for the start of the offensive had been rapidly pushed, and the \nMessage Centre, keeping pace with the other Sections of the Staff, had been \ngoing full speed ahead. The officer, a Lieutenant Colonel, commanding the \nBureau de Courier at the Headquarters of the Fourth French Army on our \nleft, came over to Souilly to see me, as it was necessary to cover, both in the \nFrench and American Armies, through General Orders, certain details in regard \nto the courier service, and it was essential that the wording in both Orders \nshould be identical. It was to ensure this that he had called, accompanied by \nan interpreter. They entered my room together, and the French Colonel ad\u00ac \ndressed me in rather broken English, apologizing for his lack of fluency in \nthat tongue; quite soon, however, he began speaking in French. I replied, to \nthe best of my ability\u2014it was in a curious mixture of early governess and late \n\u201cA. E. F.\u201d French\u2014and after we had conversed for several minutes, the Colonel \nmade a typically French gesture of superb politeness, and told the interpreter \nthat he need not remain. Nothing could have been better calculated to set \nme at my ease, and to increase my fluency, if not my accuracy. The truth was, \nthat the French Colonel saw that he himself had enough English to make a go \nof things, in case my French broke down; that was why he had tried it out \non me at the start. We remained in conference for some time, and finally \nparted with mutual expressions of satisfaction and of esteem, but I was im\u00ac \nmensely relieved, not only a day or so afterwards, but upon similar occasions \nlater on, when I compared the French and American Army Orders as actually \nissued, and found that they said the same thing. \n\nThe offensive opened on the morning of September 26th, about a year and \na half after the United States had entered the War. The attack started at \n5:30 a. m., after an artillery preparation lasting three hours. The First Army \norder of battle, from the Moselle on the right to the Argonne Forest on the left, \nwas as follows:\u2014Fourth American Army Corps, Second French Colonial Corps, \nSeventeenth French Corps, Third American Army Corps, Fifth American \nArmy Corps, and First American Army Corps. My former unit, the Seventy- \nseventh Division, was on the left flank of the Army, facing the Argonne Forest. \nNo advance was intended on the line from the Moselle to the Meuse. The \nattack was to be on the front from the Meuse to the Argonne, where our Third, \nFifth and First Corps were operating, with nine divisions in line. It is difficult \nto refrain from describing the progress made, the various phases and incidents \nof absorbing interest, for, as one thinks about it, even after all these years, the \nfloods of memory are released and it all comes surging back again; one re\u00ac \ncaptures the details, the excitement, the breathless interest of those hectic \ndays. But all those events of the immediately succeeding weeks must be passed \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n303 \n\n\nover, up to the 16th of October, when Major General Liggett, then promoted \nto Lieutenant General, took command of the First Army, Lieutenant General \nBullard at the same time being promoted to command the newly formed Second \nAmerican Army with a front from the Moselle to Fresnes-en-Woevre, while \nGeneral Pershing himself assumed direction of the First American Group of \nArmies. It will be possible, perhaps, in a later article, to give a brief account of \nthe American effort in that last phase, and in the days immediately preceding \nthe Armistice. \n\nLate one night I was sent for by General Drum to report to him in the Com\u00ac \nmanding General\u2019s room on the second floor of the Mairie, as he wished to give \nme certain instructions personally. This room extended the entire depth of \nthe building, and along the unbroken surface of one of the walls was an im\u00ac \nmense military map of the First Army front, which showed in detail the char\u00ac \nacter of the terrain in which our troops were operating. Hills, forests, swamps, \nstreams, and altitudes were clearly indicated, so that, for the expert reader of \nmilitary maps, it was possible to stand facing that wall and actually to see , \nin the mind\u2019s eye, the natural features of the country itself and the character \nof the positions in which our troops were located. These positions had been \nbrought up to the minute from the evening reports of the Army Corps, and \nwere indicated on the map by markings in charcoal and by pins. The utmost \nquiet and stillness prevailed. The windows were heavily draped with black \ncurtains, to shut in any vestige of light. A confidential field-clerk was working \nat a noiseless typewriter in a far comer of the room. General Drum sat at his \ndesk, upon which were several telephones, while General Liggett, his hands \nin his pockets and a cigar in his mouth, was walking slowly up and down in \nfront of the great map, stopping from time to time and standing motionless \nwhile he contemplated some given point on that long line and studied the \nsituation there. I knew that he could visualize the terrain, and the actual \nsituations in which the troops found themselves, almost as vividly and as ac\u00ac \ncurately as if he had been on the spot in person. There was an atmosphere of \nintense concentration in that room, of nervous tension, but also there was a \nfeeling of complete detachment, as if one were lifted up, above and beyond \nthe play of great forces which it was possible to see there in that proper perspec\u00ac \ntive and with that quiet judgment and one-pointedness of mind which were \nessential if those forces were to be properly aligned and set in motion. I^ramed \nimpossible to believe that, in the stillness of that room, with its atm^^ere of \nunhurried awareness, the movements and the action of an army of over one \nmillion men were being directed. \n\nI saluted as I entered, and stood motionless by the door until, in a minute \nor two, General Drum beckoned to me to come over to him; General Liggett \nhad not even turned his head at my entrance, so complete were his absorption \nand concentration. I stood by General Drum\u2019s desk, and he began in a low \nvoice to give me the instructions which he had in mind. He had not proceeded \nfar when General Liggett turned and said, \u201cHugh, come over here\u201d. I re\u00ac \nmained standing where I was, and watched the two generals as they walked \n\n\n\n\n_ \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n304 \n\n\nTHE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nup and down together in front of the great wall map, conversing in low tones, \nand sometimes standing side by side in absolute silence as they studied the \nsituation at some particular point. Finally, General Liggett pointed to a \nspot on the map where there was a depression on our front and where our for\u00ac \nward line was not even and continuous. I saw General Drum nod his head, \nand heard him ask one or two questions; then he came, walking quickly, back \nagain to his desk. He took up the telephone and asked for the Headquarters \nof one of our Army Corps, and the connection was practically instantaneous. \nI started to withdraw out of hearing, but he motioned with his free hand for \nme to stand where I was. He then gave the command, briefly, tersely, that a \ncertain Brigade on the front of that Army Corps was to move forward at once \na matter of half a mile, in order to rectify the line, so that the front should be \naligned and continuous when the moment came, two or three hours later, for \nagain moving forward. He indicated the exact position on the map which \nthat Brigade was to occupy when its forward movement had been completed, \nlistened for a moment or two to confirm that his order had been thoroughly \nunderstood, laid down the receiver of the telephone, resumed in concise words \nhis instructions to me at exactly the point at which he had broken off ten min\u00ac \nutes before, waited for a moment to be sure that I had understood, and then \nnodded his dismissal. From that quiet, still room there had gone the command, \nfirst to Army Corps, from there to Division, then to the Brigade Headquarters \nin question, that between seven and eight thousand men should move from \nthe positions where they had dug themselves in for the night, should forge \nforward in spite of enemy resistance, receiving such artillery support as was \nnecessary, until their presence on a rectified line ensured flank protection for \nthe units on their right and left, and the general strengthening of the whole \nfront when the time came for the unified movement forward. No doubt in \nthat Brigade there was much grousing, many bitter complaints, much criticism \nof the Staff, when the order was received. Everything was quiet on their im\u00ac \nmediate front. They had made good progress that day. Why could they not \nbe let alone? Why were they called upon again for further effort, and in ad\u00ac \nvance of the time when they already knew that further effort would be re\u00ac \nquired? The answer was, because they could only see the situation on their \nown immediate front. It seemed quiet and satisfactory. But they, concen\u00ac \ntrated at one point, could not see, from the larger perspective, the fault that \nlay in the very nature of their position; could not realize that, to remain where \nthey were, would threaten the security and the progress of other elements, and \nwould jeopardize the evenly developed movement forward of our united forces. \nIt remained for the High Command, with its powers of perspective, with its \nknowledge of the inter-relation of all the elements composing the whole, to see \nthis, and to call upon them for that immediate and additional effort at a given \npoint which would ensure the later co-ordination and even progress of our \nadvance. \n\nThis incident made a profound impression upon me, at first only from the \nmilitary standpoint. I had had an opportunity\u2014as I had had before more \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n3\u00b07 \n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR 305 \n\nthan once on a smaller scale at Headquarters First Army Corps north of the \nMarne, when General Liggett had been in command there\u2014to see the working \nof the machinery from the inside, as it were. It was of absorbing interest, for \none who had been only a civilian a few months before, to witness the handling \nof army corps and divisions, to watch brigades moved about on the map as \nif they had been platoons. The smooth and efficient working, the watchfulness \nand ability, the close mutual understanding of the High Command, aroused \nmy admiration. I realized, as I thought it over, that these two men, and others \ncommanding the Army Corps and the Divisions, would go down in our history \nas great generals; that I was watching the making of military history. Im\u00ac \npossible, too, not to catch, in the midst of the tension, the atmosphere of con\u00ac \nfidence and of sureness, of determination and of iron will. As has been so \noften said, an army takes its tone from those at its head; if the morale and \nability at headquarters are high, all of the component units in turn catch fire, \nare imbued with the same spirit. I could sense this leaven working in our First \nArmy. I had been able to see half-trained troops change in character, and \nbegin to produce results equal to those of our veteran divisions. The whole \nFirst Army, staff and line, was evolving rapidly, gaining daily in efficiency, \nand the impelling power was coming from those two men whom I had seen in \nthat quiet room. \n\nAs I thought further about this incident, however, it began to assume a far \ndeeper significance, a more profound meaning. In an earlier article I have \nsaid that the military life, the military order, seemed, of all human institutions, \nto be the nearest in its forms and essence to the spiritual hierarchy, to the life \nand order of the spiritual world. It is easy to see that this is true in certain \nfundamentals. If a man would grow in inner ways, if he would render that \nservice to his Master which alone makes growth possible, and which real growth \nin its turn passionately demands, it is essential that he should possess the \nqualities and the attributes of the soldier,\u2014fortitude, endurance, dashing \ncourage, the fighting spirit. Like the soldier, he must sink all thought of self \nin loyalty to a Cause; he must not only forego ease and comfort, he must gladly \nwelcome hardship. He must obey, he must grow in obedience, until, jyflonger \nobeying blindly\u2014as he was forced to do at first because he knew^o other \nway\u2014his obedience becomes intelligent, rendered so by his own increasing \nvision, by his own deepening understanding. In our effort to accentuate this \nlikeness between the inner life of the individual who is striving for self-mastery, \nfor spiritual growth, and the life of the soldier, we constantly use military \nanalogies, we express our comparisons in military parallels. When we speak \nof watchfulness, we do so in terms of the sentry at his post. When we would \nemphasize fortitude, endurance, we speak of holding the front line trenches. \nContempt of danger, the necessity of maintaining ceaseless contact with the \nenemy, we compare to being always on the firing line. When we would impress \nthe need for obedience, we direct attention to the fundamental fact, and rightly \nin such circumstances, that unquestioning obedience is the first duty of the \nsoldier, as it is in the inner life. These military parallels and analogies are apt \n\n\n3\u00b06 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nand expressive; they are effective in making vivid the problem and in solving \nit; they are inspiring in their implications. Parenthetically, I often think \nthat they would be more effective, more true to the problems actually facing \na soldier, if they were less negative, couched less often in terms which imply \nstationary warfare, the warfare of the trenches, even garrison life, and if they \nwere expressed more frequently in terms of the warfare of movement, in the \nlanguage of the attack. That is the kind of inner warfare, I believe, in which \nthe Lodge wishes us to engage. I cannot for a moment think that the Masters \nwant us, in that warfare, ever to reach the point at which we must dig in, \neither because we can go no further forward, or to prevent ourselves from \nbeing swept back. It is the attack that they want, always the attack. So, \ninstead of the sentry at his post, with its implication of negative watchfulness, \nI like to think of the outpost, flung forward when a battalion attack is consoli\u00ac \ndating for a further effort, actively alert to sense every movement of the enemy, \nto find that weak spot at which further attack will be most effective. Forti\u00ac \ntude, endurance, it seems to me, mean to the soldier, not holding a front line \ntrench, but lying out in the open under shell fire, waiting until it lifts so that \nhe can go forward again. The thick of the fight conveys to him no implication \nof a stationary firing line; he sees himself, with bayonet fixed, going forward \nwith his comrades, following the barrage, until they come to grips hand to \nhand. In the attack, he does not have to be urged to obedience; he is trying \nactively, then, to co-operate, with all that is in him. It is the spirit of the \nattack that clears the air. that makes all things new and vital. It is in this \nspirit that we should go forward ourselves, in our inner warfare. It is in similes \nand comparisons, in military analogies of this aggressive nature, that we should \ndraw the parallel between the inner life, the warfare of the spirit, and the life \nof the soldier, in order that their likeness may be accurate and clear. \n\nAll these things have to do with the inner life of the aspirant for ch\u00a3laship \nwho, we will say, is in process of attainment. When, however, he has in some \nmeasure attained; when he is aware that, at last, certain definite qualities \nhave developed within him to such a point that he can consciously control \nthem, make considered practical use of them, in the development of his own \ninner attack,\u2014what then? The old similes and comparisons take on for him, \nin addition to their former truth, a new and deeper significance. He sees the \nmilitary life, and the life and order of the spiritual world, more truly at one \nthan ever before. He sees himself at length in command of forces within him\u00ac \nself, which before were untrained and unruly, but which now he can use, can \nswing, at will. He sees himself in the position of a general, of the commander \nof an army; he knows that he can consciously use one inner quality to rein\u00ac \nforce another, to relieve pressure upon another, as an army commander causes \nhis divisions and brigades to be moved about in an offensive. He begins to \nunderstand something of the strategy and of the tactics of the inner life. A \nwhole new field of action, a new viewpoint, opens up, based always upon the \nfundamental qualities inherent in the soldier, dependent always for continuity \nand development upon the retention and further growth of those soldierly \n\n\n\n\nWITHOUT CENSOR \n\n\n307 \n\n\ncharacteristics. If, up to this point, he has developed in the spirit of the attack, \nit is in that same spirit that he will approach his new opportunity. He will \nappraise his own inner position, his weaknesses and his strong points, with the \nsame quiet detachment, with the same perspective, as the army commander \nwho, at headquarters, surveys the positions of his divisions and brigades, and \nthose of the enemy. He will redouble his effort to strengthen some inner weak\u00ac \nness, to move it up into line with his other qualities, so that he may not be \nweakened at points at which he has already made progress. He will look \ndown upon the field of battle from above, as it were, consciously in control of \nhis forces, now able to obey with intelligence the promptings of the High Com\u00ac \nmand, because once he obeyed blindly in utter self-giving. He will never \nwaver in attack, even when he seems for the time to have met a check, for \nthere is no such thing as defeat or repulse in that warfare when the great Com\u00ac \npanions are leading and directing, and when our will is at one with theirs, and \nour only thought is to serve their purposes. \n\nCenturion. \n\n\n(To be continued) \n\n\nBlessed is he that truly loves and seeketh not love in return. . . . Blessed is he that \nserves and desires not to be served. Blessed is he that doeth good unto others and \nseeketh not that others do good to him .\u2014 Little Flowers of St. Francis. \n\n\nGentleness and cheerfulness . . . they are the perfect duties. ... If your morals \nmake you dreary , depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say \u201cgive them up\" for \nthey may be all you have , but conceal them like a vice , lest they spoil th^foes of \nbetter and simpler people. \u2014R. L. Stevenson. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVINCENT VAN GOGH \n\n\nI N thinking back over the many years of the Quarterly\u2019s life, I can re\u00ac \nmember no article devoted entirely to the work of an artist, though we \nare assured over and over again that the Lodge works throughout all the \nfields of human endeavour, and with special directness in those arts and sciences \nwhere inspiration is made possible by aspiration and concentration. The \nreason is not far to seek; the work of a painter can scarcely be translated into \nwords; it must be seen to be appreciated and understood, and to try to explain \nit without examples at hand, is a futile waste of effort. \n\nBelieving this, I am making no attempt at a critical analysis of the art of \nVincent van Gogh; for the purpose in mind it will be best to accept the high \nevaluation placed upon it by the connoisseurs and museums of the world, as \nwell as the popular acclaim which was accorded the recent exhibition of his \ncollected work as it toured the larger cities of America, from New York to \nSan Francisco. It is a tardy recognition, for he died, penniless and artistically \nunknown, more than forty-seven years ago. There is, however, at our disposal \nmuch material concerning the man himself, for perhaps no artist, unless it be \nWilliam Blake, has left such a full account of both his outer and his inner life, \nin his own letters, and in conversations recorded in the volumes written by his \nfriends and critics. It is because these documents seem to reveal a guidance \nwhich bears a theosophical interpretation, and because aims and ideals are \nnearer the world of ultimate causes than any concrete manifestations, that this \nstudy is offered to the Quarterly. \n\nI think it should first of all be noted that the years of his activity lay within \nthe very significant last quarter of the nineteenth century, and that he was a \npart of the art movement which at that time succeeded in breaking through \nthe hide-bound rules and prejudices of the academic schools. The great cycles \ninitiated by the men of the Renaissance and the Dutch masters had been fairly \nrounded out, and for a long time past the underlying principles sought and \npractised by a Michael Angelo or a Rembrandt, with toil and concentrated \ndevotion, had been turned into superficial formulas whose results were sterile \nand ever-weakening repetitions. The first stirring can be traced to the English \nConstable, but it was left to the strongly original group of French Impres\u00ac \nsionists to revolutionize and revivify the world of art by their discovery of \nnew laws which set all Europe and even America by the ears. With Manet \nand Monet among the leaders, stultifying preconceptions were swept away \nin favour of a fresh vision, and surprising theories of light and colour and the \nlaws of optics were frankly stated in canvas after canvas which are to-day \nthe classics of an era. Naturally some of the lesser men followed mere will-o\u2019- \nthe-wisps or partial truths, and inevitably there were also the charlatans and the \nseekers after notoriety. \n\n\n308 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVINCENT VAN GOGH \n\n\n309 \n\n\nVincent van Gogh was bom in 1853 at Zundert in Brabant, where his father \nwas the revered pastor of the village church, and his home, gently ruled and \nfilled with a sturdy brood of which he was the eldest, was happy and normal. \nThe boy was from the first intensely devout, and long religious discussions \nfilled the hours while he with his brother Theo, as constant companion, ranged \nthe fields and heaths of the country-side in untrammelled freedom. To Theo, \nVincent was already the seer and prophet he was always to remain, and when \none day while resting by the mill-brook they solemnly promised each other to \nwork and strive for good and the service of the world, it was a true pledge, \nnever lightly disregarded by either of them through all the changes and vicis\u00ac \nsitudes of the years to come. \n\nThe fair prospect of a prosperous and congenial life together, stretched in\u00ac \nvitingly ahead, for in the less immediate family circle were the Brothers van \nGogh, the most famous art dealers in Europe, who were ready to welcome \ntheir brilliant and studious nephews into the firm. Vincent was scarcely sixteen \nyears old when he proudly entered their employ at the Hague Branch; a natural \nlover of art, he was familiar with all the masterpieces which his uncles had \ncollected for their private enjoyment as well as for commercial purposes, \nand he quickly became a trusted and valued salesman. It was by a natural \nstep upward on the ladder of foreseen success that he arrived, before he was \ntwenty years old, at the London house as a representative of the firm. \n\nHis letters from England during the first year were rapturously happy. In \nspite of his professional standing, he was blessed with scarcely an ounce of \ncritical acumen, and everything that he could label as morally \u201cgood\u201d came as \ngrist to his mill\u2014great pictures and sentimental trash, great music or hymn\u00ac \nsinging at the Moody and Sankey revivals, great ladies who frequented the \nshop, or his landlady\u2019s coquettish daughter, were all equally a part of the \nglamour of his days. It would have seemed from his letters as though he might \nhave gone on along the pleasant paths of least resistance for ever, when suddenly, \nout of the blue, came the thunder-clap of his first sorrow, and the whole course \nof his life was changed, definitely and for ever. The love affair with the little \ncoquette, which had really touched the depth of his ardent heart, was brought \nby her to a wantonly cruel ending, and his immediate reaction reveals the \nvery mainsprings of his true character and foreshadows the response ha would \nmake to all the future crises of his career. Not for a moment did IijmI nn of \ncasting the blame on any save his own quite blameless head; he w^simply \nbowed with a sense of his unworthiness, and he plunged into the throes of \nsearching self-examination to discover the faults which had made him un\u00ac \nacceptable; with Christ as the perfect pattern and example, he would strive to \nrenounce all selfish desires, and he would root out all the traces of evil which \nhe could discover. Some of this could be managed unobtrusively, he thought, \nthrough personal sacrifice and prayer, but his business life would be more \ndifficult, for that involved other people; however, that too must be purified, \nand he resolved to bring better judgment to bear and to be scrupulously honest \nwith the picture-buying public. He forthwith began to explain convincingly \n\n\n\n\n\n\n3io \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nto the fine ladies who were ready to empty their purses at his uncle\u2019s shop, \nhow worthless and trashy were the paintings of their choice. Such financially \nruinous tactics could obviously not be brooked even in a Vincent van Gogh, \nso when he proved impervious to practical remonstrances, the door of the \nLondon house was firmly closed behind him. There was an unsuccessful at\u00ac \ntempt to reinstate him in the Paris branch, but by that time he knew that he \ncould never again treat art as a commodity, and he turned away from all the \nglittering prospects of that world without hesitation or a backward glance of \nregret. His one over-mastering desire was to throw himself into some work, \nany work, where he could serve God in one-pointed devotion, free from all \ncompulsion to compromise with his conscience. He made the first trial of \nthis new life as a sort of curate-teacher in an English school, working merely \nfor his board and lodging; but, finding that he was hardly worth even that \npittance to the head-master, he returned to Holland with a fixed determination \nto study theology and follow in his father\u2019s footsteps. No one believed him \ncapable of the arduous scholastic training, and their doubts were quickly justi\u00ac \nfied. An attempt to qualify in a less demanding institution for the training of \nsimple Evangelists, also ended in defeat, but under the auspices of these Breth\u00ac \nren he gained permission to go as a missionary to the miners of a stark bleak \nregion called the Borinage, where all the ills of hunger and cold and direst \npoverty were rife. Perhaps for the only time in his life he was here able to \npour out the whole content of his compassionate heart, and to feel the \nreturn of genuine gratitude and love. In every possible way he shared his \npeople\u2019s lot, giving away, bit by bit, all the extra comforts accorded his position \n\u2014his better bedding, his more ample food and warmer clothing, till the poorest \namong them was no worse off than he; he even darkened his face so that he \nshould not seem apart or aloof from his smoke-begrimed parishioners. He \nwrote to Theo: \u201cIf I could stay here for three years, learning and teaching, I \nshould have something to say worth the hearing, of that I am convinced.\u201d \nHe did remain there for three years, but not as a preacher, for the Brethren, \nhearing of his unprecedented methods, sent officers to investigate, and he \nwas dismissed with a grave reprimand for his unorthodox sermons and his un\u00ac \nconventional behaviour. \n\nHe began to draw. In a letter to his brother who was now high in the good \ngraces of \u201cGoupil and van Gogh\u201d, we read: \u201cOften I am drawing late into the \nnight to strengthen the thoughts raised by the aspect of things here\u2014the dark \nminers, the weary women, and the little huts with the friendly lights shining \nthrough the windows. The dark thorn-hedges against the snow look like black \ncharacters on white paper, like the pages of the Gospel. ... If some one has, \neven for a short time, taken a free course at the great University of Misery, \nand has paid attention to the things he sees with his eyes and hears with his \nears, he will end in Believing.\u201d He begs for prints by Millet and Rembrandt \nfor \u201ca great picture speaks more and speaks more clearly than even Nature \nherself. One must learn to read, to live, to see; there is something of Rem\u00ac \nbrandt in the Gospels and something of the Gospels in Rembrandt, if only \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVINCENT VAN GOGH \n\n\n311 \n\none sees in the right way; and there is something too of Shakespeare in Rem\u00ac \nbrandt. My God, how beautiful and mysterious Shakespeare is! his language \nand style are like an artist\u2019s brush quivering with fervour.\u201d He copied over \nand over again the prints of \u2018\u2018The Sower\u201d and \u2018\u2018The Reaper\u201d, but not slavishly; \nhe used them rather as models, much as he did the living figure, and the re\u00ac \nsults were van Gogh\u2019s rather than Millet\u2019s. \n\nToward the end of his third year in the Borinage, he writes: \u2018\u2018Theo, I must \nhave instruction; I can go no further alone; some advanced artist would be as \none of God\u2019s angels to me\u2014I say it in all seriousness and without exaggeration.\u201d \nAnd from this time forward there was no doubt of his objective, art possessed \nhim, and with all the force of his nature he pressed toward the mark; he would \nat all costs learn to draw, to subdue his clumsy and unmanageable hand till \nit would do his bidding; he would master perspective and anatomy, and above \nall he would cherish the salt and savour within his soul, so that when the hour \nshould strike\u2014as strike it surely would\u2014he would have \u2018\u2018wisdom and power, \npower which is the best wisdom\u201d, to answer the call. From 1881 to 1885 there \nwas an unremitting grind, whether at the Academy of Brussels, on the open \nmoors, in his little menage at the Hague, or (for very short spells) as the pupil \nof some well-known painter of the day. Anton Mauve gives an amusing and, we \nfeel sure, typical glimpse of him: \u2018\u2018He seemed as modest as a worm, listened \ndevoutly to all I said, was grateful and industrious\u2014and then suddenly, \u2018No\u2014 \nNo, Mauve, that\u2019s not the way at all\u2019, and my studio knew him no more\u201d. \nMillet, Rembrandt and Delacroix were the teachers before whom he never \nfailed to bow, and from them he learned all that could be taught to one who was \nso essentially a law unto himself, with the necessity laid upon him to work \nout his own salvation in fear and trembling before the Lord. \n\nThe winter of 1885 he spent with his parents, impelled by a desire to paint \nthe farmers and weavers of Neunen, his father\u2019s new parish. He was in a fury \nof work; he longed to paint fifty of these human faces, and then fifty more, \nthat he might create the one head that contained them all\u201d. His brush was \nlike a plough in his hand, with which he dug out the hollow planes and deep \nfurroughs of their rugged features. In the spring he painted a large picture \nwhich he called \u2018\u2018Die Ardappeleters\u201d; it was shaggy and rough, thafrM well \nknew; but it had a certain life of its own, it was at any rate the best^could \ndo, and he sent it to Theo, who was a very important person indeed at the \nGoupil galleries. Theo wrote to him immediately, praising his brother\u2019s advance \nin drawing and composition, but scoffing at the dullness of the colour and \ntelling him in glowing terms of the new Parisian artists and their brilliant \npalette. In response, Vincent held up the example of his heroes, Rembrandt \nand Delacroix; but his self-confidence was shaken, and by February of the \nnext year he had yielded to his brother\u2019s importunities and the two were living \ntogether high up on Montmartre. \n\nIn the entresol of the Goupil gallery, where Theo was permitted to exhibit \nthe work of \u2018\u2018the wild men\u201d, Vincent met all the most revolutionary heralds of \nlight and air and vibrating pigments. To his eyes the pictures were incredible. \n\n\n312 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ncontradicting all his most cherished beliefs; but his utter modesty saved him \nboth from the Scylla of complete confusion, and the Charybdis of hasty refuta\u00ac \ntion. Although bewildered and amazed, he sat at the feet of the exponents \nof all the strange and conflicting theories, observing everything, and listening \nwith all the attention he could summon to the wordy battles which raged when\u00ac \never two or three of them met together. The one prop common to them all \nwas the newly discovered excellence of the Japanese prints which could be \npicked up at the book-stalls for a few sous, and over which he pored for hours \non end. \n\nHis own work was pronounced hopelessly heavy, dark and over-emphasized; \nso for weeks and months on end he tortured himself with efforts to force his \ntalents into the new moulds, to stamp out his powerful rhythms which pre\u00ac \ncluded delicacy of handling, and to substitute primary colours for his browns \nand greys. To his chagrin he seemed totally incapable of mastering the new \nharmonies; he and Theo both realized that he was losing all his individuality \nfor no apparent gain whatsoever, and on one particularly dark day he knew \nthat he was through with Paris and all its sophistications, and with the same \nfinality with which he had left Goupil, had left the Borinage, had left Holland, \nhe knew that he must leave this city of changes and touch again the constant \nlife of the earth. Almost at random he chose Arles as his destination, im\u00ac \npelled by a longing for the sunshine and simplicity of the south. He arrived \nin February, 1887, and stepped into a new world. It was as though scales \nhad dropped from his eyes, and chains from his spirit, and he had entered \nfull-fledged into the freedom of his own creative genius; his long apprentice\u00ac \nship was over, and he could now rally the forces of every experience among \nthe miners and peasants and the artists of Paris, into a synthesis which was \nwholly and uniquely himself. \n\nEverything about him cried aloud to be painted; the pulsing life of the city \nsquares, the bright uniforms of the Zouaves, the rich beauty of the Arlesian \nwomen; and there was need and use for every line of the gay new palette which \nhe had so painstakingly acquired. Outside the town the almond trees were \nladen with masses of pink bloom, and he dared not pause for a moment lest \nthey should vanish away; he finished ten pictures in as many days, rushing \nearly each morning to the city gates, paintbox in hand and a fresh canvas \nunder his arm, the inhabitants gazing curiously as the red-headed creature \nraced past. At night he returned exhausted; ravenous too, and therefore ra\u00ac \ntioning himself with extreme care, for he wanted to conserve every ounce of \nstrength, and later in the evening he took stock of the day\u2019s work. While he \nwas actually painting, it did not seem to him that he thought at all, it was as \nthough Nature were standing over and above him, and he was simply the tool \nof an irresistible impulse which controlled the rhythm of his incisive brush\u00ac \nstrokes and guided the co-ordination of his masses,\u2014just as the words of a \npoet are lifted beyond his own comprehension on the wings of inspiration. He \nwas puzzled about the connection between this dynamic power, and his own \nhand which did the work, but he was pleased that it had taken shape, for he \n\n\nVINCENT VAN GOGH \n\n\n313 \n\n\nknew it to be the inherent, organic life of his creation. Sometimes he could \ncorrect a bit here or there, but not unless he was able to feel the same unifying \nrhythm under whose spell it had been formed and bound into this thing of \nvital tensions. As a thinker he was a disciple of Rembrandt and Delacroix, \nand as a draughtsman he had schooled himself so that visual exactitude was as \none of the Ten Commandments; but now a new element, organic Junction , \ndominated him and became all-important, so that he could say, \u201cI will paint \na portrait of my chair\u2014no, rather I will paint its dependability\u201d; he ceased \nto paint trees, but, instead, growth, tree-like existence; instead of blossoms, \nbloom itself. Colour, too, took on a new attribute and became a spiritual \nquality. When he had painted a portrait of one of his friends as true to factual \nappearance as he possibly could, he said, \u2018\u2018Now comes the reality! the blond \nhair shall be enhanced to a marvellous pale yellow, the dull wall behind shall \nbe changed to a deep blue extending into infinity, and the head shall seem as \nmysterious and as luminous as a star suspended in space\u201d. \n\nWeek after week through the burning heat of summer, he painted as though \nin a trance, and the pile of his canvases mounted so rapidly that he had to \nrent a house to contain them. It was a lovely house, all pure white inside \nexcept for the rich red of the tiled floors, and outside it was yellow like the sun \nitself, and it awakened memories of a dream he and Theo had cherished, as \nthey wandered over the fields of Brabant, of a brotherhood of saintly men, \nten of them perhaps, who should live together and work for good. In Paris \nthey had talked it over again; only now it was to be a brotherhood of artists\u2014 \n\u2018\u2018for were not artists the only true seekers after God, in a Godless world?\u201d \nHere it might really come to pass, here in his beautiful house; and as a be\u00ac \nginning he invited Gauguin, who was said to be ill and quite penniless, to come \nand share its hospitality. It was a disastrous experiment, hastening if not \nactually causing his first seizure of insanity. Overwrought by the heat of \nthe sun and by the might of his creative effort, the cynical gibes of this giant \namong painters, whose words and voice pierced like a dagger, could not be \nsanely borne, and madness, temporary but complete, descended upon him, \nand his guest departed with a cold-blooded indifference which we are under \nno compulsion to condone, even though Vincent, the all-forgiving, gives the \nexcuses for such a course. The thought of the days which followed, when he \nlay alone and self-wounded, the door barricaded against a horde of little i^ians \nwho shouted rhyming insults through the windows, can scarcely be endured \nby the mind. The protection of the asylum to which he was removed upon \nthe request of the citizens of Arles, was welcomed as a very haven of rest; \nthere, for the next two years, and until just a few months before his death, \nhe remained, grateful to \u2018\u2018the kindly warden with the face of a beast of prey\u201d \nwho insured a safety that allowed him to paint, whenever his health permitted. \nBetween seizures he was perfectly sane, guarding with jealous care his self- \ncontrol, which meant control of his brush and the freedom of the smiling garden, \n\u2014the subject of one of his last and greatest pictures. There was a gentle accept\u00ac \nance of his condition, and a calm content that even Theo, who knew him as no one \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n314 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nelse ever did, could scarcely understand; Theo too was an artist at heart, and \nthrough the inextricable blending of their natures had lived a life of keen cre\u00ac \native realization of his brother\u2019s genius, and had been lifted by it above all \nthe drudgery of his days at Goupil\u2019s. He believed beyond all doubting that \ndown there in the south had lived the master of modem times, who had brought \nthe \u201cfurioso\u201d of Michael Angelo into the world of to-day, and had carried for\u00ac \nward the tenets of impressionism to a new sublimation. But he knew also \nthat great as were Vincent\u2019s paintings, the man himself was still greater, and \nit had been his share of the work to guard the conditions of life so that the \ninnocence and purity of its aims could be preserved. The demands and the \nneeds had been difficult, of necessity, for it was no easy matter to keep such \npurity unsullied, as it had to be in order that Vincent could see God in Nature \nand in man, and could be given the power to express it in the only way possible \nfor him, through the language of his art. \n\nFor none of us perhaps is the man or his life or his painting easy of compre\u00ac \nhension; but there are certain verses which come involuntarily into one\u2019s \nthoughts, not quite to be grasped by the mind, but conveying a sense that, \nhidden in the mystery of their wisdom, are the questions and the solution of \nthe tragedy and the triumph that was Vincent van Gogh. \n\nBy whom impelled flies the forward-impelled Mind? By whom compelled does the \nfirst Life go forth? Who in sooth, is the Bright One who compels sight and hearing? \n\nThat which they call the Hearing of hearing, the Mind of mind, that is the Life of life, \nthe Sight of sight. Setting this free, the Wise going forth from this world become \nimmortal. \n\nE.A. \n\n\nNo man is free who is not master of himself .\u2014 Epictetus. \n\n\nTo the clear eye, the smallest fact is a window through which the Infinite may be \nseen .\u2014 Huxley. \n\n\n\n\nAPPEAL OF THEOSOPHY \n\n\nT HERE is a tendency in the world to-day to disguise , that is, to take \nfrom the past, various ideas and systems\u2014some having reasonable \nmerit, but others having proved definitely pernicious in former times\u2014 \nto give these ideas and systems new names, and to label them as original with those \nwho now advance them. The claim for their adoption, or for forcing them \nupon humanity, is that they are modem, and meet circumstances such as \nnever existed before in the world. Under this head, we can do no better, per\u00ac \nhaps, than to quote from Sir Thomas Browne: \u201cLive by old Ethicks and the \nclassical Rules of Honesty. Put no new names or notions upon Authentick \nVirtues and Vices. Think not that Morality is Ambulatory; that Vices in one \nage are not Vices in another; or that Virtues, which are under the everlasting \nSeal of right*Reason, may be Stamped by Opinion.\u201d In the light of that warn\u00ac \ning, contrast the method by which so many old ideas and systems are being \nfoisted upon mankind under false labels, with the way in which Theosophy \nwas brought to the Western world, and the claims made for it. \n\nMadame Blavatsky, the accredited Messenger of the last century from the \nGreat Lodge of Masters, brought Theosophy to the Western world. No claim \nwas made for it as being new or modem. Madame Blavatsky did not call for \nits adoption because it originated with her. Instead, she revived ancient truths; \ntruths drawn from the sages of old, the Ancient of Days, the same yesterday, \nto-day, to-morrow: changeless, immutable, regardless of the surface flux and \nflow down the centuries. If there were any merit in presenting something as \nnew or modem, it would seem that the Great Lodge of Masters would have \nhad its Messenger do it. Furthermore, if one takes a walk with a companion, \none should know who he is, his credentials, and whither he is bound; it is dan\u00ac \ngerous to venture forth with an impostor. So, from the standpoint of ordinary \ncommon sense, Theosophy should have an appeal to-day, though its real appeal, \nthat which adds height and depth to man\u2019s view of life, far transcends its appeal \nto common sense. \n\nTheosophical philosophy points to the fundamental Unity back of apparent \ndiversity, and shows that manifestation is not continuous, but periodical, \ncyclic. There is the cycle of great outbreaking, and that of great int^phing. \nThese periods of manifestation, known as Manvantaras in Hinduism; stretch \nendlessly into the past and endlessly forward into the future, with periods of \nrest, Pralayas, in between. Life is eternal, beginningless and endless. Spirit \nnever was not, and never will cease to be. At the beginning of each Manvan- \ntara, the Supreme, the One, bestirs itself, so to speak, and sends forth light or \nlife. This life descends plane by plane, each plane being a reflection of the \nplane next above, till it reaches down to the mineral kingdom; and even below \nthat, we are told, though few are aware, as yet, of kingdoms below the mineral. \n\n\n3i5 \n\n\n\n316 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nThen it turns, ascends back to the Source, carrying with it the fruits of the \nexperience gained during manifestation. Back of this conception of height and \ndepth, which Theosophy makes so vivid, there always is Unity, the unity of a \ncommon spiritual source; for man, the unity of all souls with the Over-soul. \nSo it has been said that life proceeds from Unity, through diversity, and back \nto Unity. \n\nVery briefly, that is the picture of life which Madame Blavatsky revived for \nthe Western world. A picture showing force, inspiration, coming down to man, \nwhich is his to use and to give back again; a lesser cycle, as it were, described \nwithin the Great Cycle: from inspiration, to experience, and back to inspiration. \nConsidering the magnificence of it, man might ask himself, \u201cWhere do I fit \ninto it, poor little creature that I am,\u2014into that tremendous sweep of height \nand depth?\u201d \n\nThese tenets drawn from the sages of old, were not matters of speculation \nwith them. They were principles of life which they lived and experienced, and, \nby so doing, attained immortality. They are laws of the growth* of the soul, \nwhich, if used and followed, will lead to attainment, just as they have, and \nalways will. Surely, if that is the case, Theosophy was not brought to the \nWestern world merely for man\u2019s intellectual entertainment, or for his emotional \nindulgence; but, undoubtedly, in the hope and belief that these laws of the \nsoul would be read and studied, tested and lived, here in the West by man as \nhe is. How? Where to begin? Theosophy calls attention to the value of \ncorrespondences, asks man to look about him and seek correspondences, which \nhe, in turn, can apply to himself. Acting on this advice, let us quote from \nIsis Unveiled , and follow a clue growing out of the words quoted: \u201cNature is \ntriune; there is a visible, objective nature; an invisible, in-dwelling and energiz\u00ac \ning nature, the exact model of the other, and its vital principle, and above \nthese two, Spirit, source of all forces, alone, eternal, and indestructible. The \nlower two constantly change; the higher third does not.\u201d The passage calls \nto our attention that man, also, is triune; with body, soul, and, brooding over \nand illuminating these, immortal Spirit. \u201cWhen the real man [or soul,] succeeds \nin merging himself with the latter, he becomes an immortal entity.\u201d \n\nWith this statement in mind, if we consider the vegetable kingdom, we \nfind, there, examples of the natural law of growth, from within outward; each \nspecies pressing toward the fulfilment of its kind, and thus fulfilling its destiny \nin the great evolutionary sweep of life. Take the rose for instance, as it un\u00ac \nfolds, gradually, to full bloom. There is, first, the stem; then, the leaf; the bud; \nand, at last, the radiant beauty of the flower itself. When we come to man, \nhowever, we have to reckon with mind and free will, with his self-conscious \npower of choice. Though it is by exercising this power in making wrong choices \nthat man has degraded himself, nevertheless, it is through the proper exercise \nof this power that he can fit himself into his rightful place in the evolution of \nthe soul; that he can properly apply this body of laws of soul-growth, knowledge \nof which Madame Blavatsky revived for the West; that he can, in short, grow \nas the flower grows,\u2014exfoliate. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAPPEAL OF THEOSOPHY \n\n\n3 i 7 \n\n\nThere are various ways in which the correspondence suggested by the quota\u00ac \ntion from Isis Unveiled may be used to the profit of the soul. However, in \nthe light of his power of choice, an apt correlative is found in the realm of con\u00ac \nduct. In this connection, the late Lord Moulton drew some pertinent and \nhelpful distinctions. He was not, primarily, a philosopher, a scientist, or a \nmoralist. Rather, he was a man of action, and Great Britain\u2019s Minister of \nMunitions during part of the World War. In an address, delivered before the \nAuthors\u2019 Club of London, Lord Moulton spoke of three domains of conduct. \nFirst, the domain of positive, man-made law, which must be obeyed. Next, \nthe domain of free choice, where we claim and enjoy (or think we enjoy) com\u00ac \nplete freedom,\u2014as in choosing from a menu what to order in a restaurant. \nBetween these two, Lord Moulton placed what he termed the domain of \u201cobedi\u00ac \nence to the unenforceable\u201d, in which there rules neither positive law nor absolute \nfreedom. As Lord Moulton emphasized, this third domain is the large and \nimportant one which lies between \u201ccan do\u201d and \u201cmay do\u201d, where there ought \nto be obedience to the sway of duty, fairness, courtesy, courage, honour, good \ntaste, and all those qualities which, combined, comprise nobility, and which \nare expressions of the \u201cdraw\u201d of the Divine Will acting upon and within us. \n\n* Here, then, is a clue to a method of using theosophical tenets as practical \naids in making daily, hourly, minute-by-minute choices, which will tend to \nthrow the weight of imagination and will on to the side of Divine Will; as aids \nin helping man, in his present sphere of circumstances, self-consciously to be\u00ac \ncome an integral part in the great purpose and plan of evolution. Regardless \nof his social status, there always is a best choice to be made in every event \nwhich presents itself. If he cannot discover that, at least he can base his de\u00ac \ncisions on moral right and wrong. Moral right is a step toward spiritual right. \nToo often, however, during his busy hours, those hours spent in earning his \ndaily bread, man thinks he must be over-shrewd, and, in a sense, must circum\u00ac \nnavigate principles, if he is to maintain his business success. \n\nRecently, the writer had the pleasure and privilege of meeting the president \nof a company which deals in a certain important commodity. He was so im\u00ac \npressed with the man and the general atmosphere of his office, that, later, he \nmade inquiries about him. It developed that in 1928, the president of the \ncompany in question attended a conference in Holland, at which certain pro\u00ac \nposals were made in connection with the marketing of the particular com\u00ac \nmodity. He stated at the conference that if these proposals becan^teffective, \nthe price of the product would drop to a mere fraction of the currei4flxiotation; \nthat this would prove embarrassing, perhaps ruinous, to many companies in \nthe field. Despite his protests, the conference found in favour of the proposals. \nHe returned home to his company, of whose capital stock he owned sixty thou\u00ac \nsand shares. As he had information which, for the time being, was not available \nto other stockholders of his company, nor to those who might purchase his own \nstock in the open market, he deemed it unfair to sell his shares; so he held them, \ndoing all he could to prepare the affairs of the company so as to meet and with\u00ac \nstand the shock he knew was coming. It was met admirably. To-day, the \n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\n318 \n\ncompany is prosperous, and he, its president, has surrounding and supporting \nhim, a loyal and united group of stockholders, directors, and employees. That \nis one of thousands of ways of practising \u201cobedience to the unenforceable\u201d. \n\nAs man tries to incorporate in his life this body of testimony, drawn from \nthe sages of old, and revived by the Lodge Messenger of the last century, surely \nhe will not be left to enter and travel alone the \u201csmall old path\u201d leading toward \nimmortality. How could he be a solitary wayfarer, when we consider Theos\u00ac \nophy, whence it came and who brought it? As he tries to live according to \nthese laws of the soul, tries to make choices on the side of nobility, bringing \nhimself nearer to merging with the ideal, he sets up a claim upon all who have \nlived, and do live, by the same code. Not a personal claim, in the ordinary \nsense of the word, but one which is much deeper and more lasting: the claim \nwhich Light on the Path speaks of as the claim of co-nature. \n\nG.M.W.K. \n\n\nThink of God more frequently than you breathe .\u2014 Epictetus. \n\n\nWhen we consider peace in and of itself , we realize that it is neither a saintly \nhabit nor a virtuous action. It is to the soul what health is to the body. As health \nis not a distinct quality , but a harmonious equilibrium of bodily strength and feel- \nings t so also peace results from the order that reigns in the soul .\u2014 R. P. Riondel. \n\n\n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\nT HE Recorder was at his wits\u2019 end. Then, suddenly, an \u201cinspiration\u201d: \n\nWhat have you been reading?\u201d he asked, apparently addressing his \nquestion to a row of superb lilies, planted along an edge of woodland. \nAll day long it had been cruelly hot,\u2014almost intolerable in town, and even here, \nin semi-country, hot enough to scorch the grass and to give every growing thing \na consuming thirst. So, as the direct rays of the sun were now cut off by inter\u00ac \nvening trees and rising ground, one who loved these growing things and felt \ntheir silent suffering, was watering them for dear life, \u201cthat the Master might \nnot suffer when he saw them\u201d, while we, inexpert, certain either to drown them \nwith too much or to tantalize with too little, sat and watched and talked,\u2014 \nwhich, as some would say, is the way of men. But the Recorder, determined to \nget something out of it, perhaps for shame of the love and zeal he witnessed, \nnot only repeated his question, but turned directly to the Historian for answer. \n\n\u201cSome books on recent history\u201d, was the response. \u201cWhat is more, I have \nbrought them with me: three books on the Abdication and Coronation; first, \nCoronation Commentary , by Geoffrey Dennis; second, King Edward VIII: An \nIntimate Biography , by Hector Bolitho; third, The Magic of Monarchy , by \nKingsley Martin, editor of the English New Statesman and Nation. Of the last, \nour friend who is watering over there, in spite of intense fatigue, as if the fate \nof the world were the issue\u2014and God knows, perhaps it is\u2014of the last of my \nthree books our friend remarked after reading it: \u2018Heaven help England if there \nare many men of that kind injecting their venom into unthinking minds!\u2019 For \nit is the aim of the author to \u2018debunk\u2019 the best in English tradition. His thesis \nis\u2014implied when not explicit: \u2018All this Coronation business is childish flum\u00ac \nmery; a King is no better than I am; they made a little tin god of George V, \nwhich created an impossible situation for Edward VIII, and it is the job of all \nclear-seeing, sensible, glamour-proof men like myself, to enlighten the public \nbefore they make a little tin god of George VI.\u2019 There always have been \nmen\u2014Bernard Shaw is one of them\u2014who cannot endure the idea that any \nhuman being should be considered superior, by birth, position, or character, to \nthemselves. By some of these men, disparagement, direct or indir^fcecause \nit relieves the pangs of their envy, comes to be regarded as a mX. The \neditor of the New Statesman and Nation is of that kind. Fortunately, while he \ndoes his best to be poisonous, the cheapness of the man and of his envy is so \ntransparent, that no one who reads his book, unless suffering already from the \nsame moral disease, could fail to be disgusted. Readers of the Quarterly can \njudge for themselves. In our last (July) issue, we reprinted an editorial, en\u00ac \ntitled \u2018The Lord\u2019s Anointed\u2019, from the London Times. That editorial naturally \naroused the resentment of a man with the mission of Mr. Martin. So, in an \neffort to drag things down to his own plane, he writes of it: \u2018If the Times leader- \n\n\n\n320 \n\n\nTHE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nwriter had been dealing with his subject in an antiquarian instead of a reveren\u00ac \ntial spirit, the natural title for his article would have been \u201cGeorge Barley\u00ac \ncorn\u2019\u201d\u2014because, \u2018anthropologically considered, the Coronation is a piece of \nmagic, a magic ceremony carried out by the medicine-man, with the King as \nhero and victim, designed to bring fertility and prosperity\u2019, \u2018the same ritual \nthat is used when Kings are crowned in Fiji, and when royal chiefs ascend the \nthrone in darkest Africa\u2019. What a mental content! One ought to feel sorry \nfor him\u2014and in a way I do. The stars he never sees; he sees mud. These \nself-satisfied illuminati, with the anthropological superstitions of forty years \nago still serving as their stand-by, who have not yet waked to the fact that \nblood sacrifices and so forth, instead of being the origin of religious ritual (Ma\u00ac \nsonic included), were the degenerate and perverted remains, from long ante\u00ac \ncedent civilizations, of spiritual truths which the Greater Mysteries revealed \nand the Lesser Mysteries dramatized,\u2014these unhappy envious deceive no one \nexcept themselves, while the only people they delight are men and women of \ntheir own circle. It surprises me that a publishing firm like that of Thomas \nNelson, should have lent itself to that sort of propaganda. \n\n\u201cThe first book I named, Coronation Commentary , is different. It was written \nto sell, and for no other purpose. Its author writes for the man in the street, in \n\u2018journalese\u2019,\u2014in short, snappy (what a word!) sentences. \u2018We demand\u2019, he \nsays, \u2018a damnably high standard of personal morality from these people\u2019, i.e., \nfrom English Royalty. Quite obviously, Rumania is where he belongs. But it \ncertainly is not on this account that the former King Edward VIII has brought \nan action for libel against both author and publisher in England. The para\u00ac \ngraph that gave particular offence is said to have been this: Baldwin, it was \nwhispered, \u2018would never be taking so strong a line unless there were other things\u2019; \nand the author lists them: \u2018Things done and said in his infatuation; his lover\u2019s \nprodigality; his shrill King\u2019s rage against those who denied her to him. In \nmoments of recourse to other sources of courage [insert Dutch, as being implied] \nas well. In hours of erratic, or erotic, obstinacy. Things left undone, in his \ninfatuation. Duty neglected. Papers held up. Papers curiously, neo-Kaiser- \nishly, annotated. . . .\u2019 Personally, I suspect that the paragraph which really \nprecipitated the folly of Edward\u2019s action for libel was one which referred to the \nwoman; this: in the opinion of his subjects, \u2018for Queen of England an itinerant \nshop-soiled twice-divorcee with two ex-husbands living was not good enough \u2019. \nThe characterization might well have jarred on a man whose own perceptions, \nat that point, were at least temporarily in \u2018occultation\u2019. \n\n\u201cAs might have been expected, such a book, for a brief period, became a \nbest seller in America. I do not recommend it, either for information or en\u00ac \ntertainment. The tinsel tarnishes even as you look at it, though basically, when \nhe deals with the former King, the man sees straight. \n\n\u201cMy third book, King Edward VIII , by Hector Bolitho, is of a different kind. \nIt is a serious account and study of Edward\u2019s life, from early youth to the day of \nhis Abdication, and it traces, with some degree of frankness, the causes of his \nmoral degeneration and collapse. The author is a New Zealander, but has lived \n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\n321 \n\n\nfor years in England, at Windsor, and has written a number of books, including \na well-known Life of the Prince Consort, entitled Albert the Good. He accom\u00ac \npanied the former King on more than one of the latter s Empire and foreign \ntours. This close association with the subject of the author\u2019s study, ties his \nhands in at least one important respect, because, while not a guest, he was in \nany case \u2018permitted\u2019 to accompany the Prince (as Edward then was), and \nwould doubtless feel bound not to draw on his personal observations, made \npossible only by his privileged position. His code in such matters would be \ndifferent from that of a man like Linton Wells, the much-travelled American \nnewspaper correspondent, of the \u2018good fellow\u2019 type, who, in his autobiography, \nBlood on the Moon , rather features his own heavy drinking and his own ability \nto stand up under it, and to whom it seems quite natural, therefore, to mention \nincidentally that the Prince \u2018danced every afternoon and evening, imbibed \nfreely of his favourite tipple, which is whiskey-soda\u2019, aboard the Berengaria , \nwhen Wells accompanied him on the Prince\u2019s last visit to America,\u2014the Long \nIsland visit of painful memory. Wells writes: \u2018My memories of association with \nH.R.H. are pleasurable for he treated me with splendid consideration. I ate and \ndrank, talked and walked with him and listened to his stories and with each pass\u00ac \ning day grew to like him more.\u2019 The two men had much in common; but habits \ngrow on some people. In any case, Bolitho, as I have said, is of a very different \ntype, and while expressing admiration for qualities which the Prince revealed \nin earlier years, such as his modesty, simplicity, and unfailing consideration for \nothers, he does not hesitate to speak of \u2018the strange changes which came before \nhis abdication, when he seemed to turn against his own kindly instincts\u2019. His \nfather\u2019s strong disapproval of the Prince\u2019s intimacy with Mrs. Simpson (and \nwhat father or mother would not have disapproved!), simply made him \u2018secretive, \nstubborn and more self-willed than ever\u2019. Later, during his brief reign as \nEdward VIII,\u2014 \n\nIt seemed that his judgment was no longer calm and, instead of finding peace and \ngrace in his infatuation [for Mrs. Simpson], he found only a means of bringing distress \nto his staff and disappointment to the servants who had always found him, in the past, \nto be a considerate and friendly master. He became a piteous figure as he estranged \nhimself from those who served him and who had respected him. Some who saw him \nmurmured that there was a fault in his reason, and they wondered how far he was bring\u00ac \ning his country to peril. \n\n\u201cIt so happens\u201d, the Historian continued, \u201cthat I can confirm, frq^nde- \npendent sources, the statement I have just read to you, for I have thebest of \nreasons to believe that his temper became ungovernable, not, perhaps, when \ndealing with Baldwin, the Prime Minister, but in his relations with his staff\u2014 \nmen of his own age, who for years had been his intimate friends. These men \nwere not stem moralists (far from it, in some cases), but, because they were his \nfriends, they almost certainly intimated that he was making a fool of himself, \nthereby bringing upon themselves explosions of uncontrolled fury. \n\n\u201cThe author makes it clear that the Prince\u2019s decay was gradual, and did not \nculminate until after the intimacy with Mrs. Simpson, a year or two before the \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n322 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ndeath of his father, George V,\u2014whose end was, in my opinion, undoubtedly \nhastened by grief over this entanglement, which, even then, had become a \nscandal in informed circles. As early as 1925, however, self-will and self-indul\u00ac \ngence had done much of their work of destruction. Bolitho says that the Prince, \non his way back from the Argentine, wrote to his father that if he were not \nallowed to follow his own way thereafter, he would renounce his rights and \nsettle in one of the Dominions. Bolitho adds: \n\nThe tragedy of his isolation had already begun. His stubbornness was alleviated by \nhis great charm, his sympathy and his desire to do what was right. But he discounted \nhis powers by turning from advice and whenever possible, playing a lone hand. His \nscattered experience of men had not taught him the value of quiet conference, and his \nrestlessness and superficial view of human nature still debarred him from realizing the \ndifference between popularity and respect. \n\n\u201cHe still desired \u2018to do what was right\u2019; but it does not take long for con\u00ac \nstantly indulged self-will to reach the stage at which whatever I want is right. \nIt is largely because Edward\u2019s dtbacle, properly understood, is a universal warn\u00ac \ning, that it seems worth while to refer to his case at some length and to take \nadvantage of Bolitho\u2019s study. Older students of Theosophy have hurled them\u00ac \nselves in vain against similar threatened downfalls, so they ought to know the \nsymptoms, from first to last; but is there one of us who can wisely count him\u00ac \nself safe, at any stage and at any age, from disasters at least as fatal? Truly, \n\u2018the way to be safe is never to feel secure\u2019. \n\n\u201cIt is still suggested occasionally in the American press\u2014although, as Bolitho \nsays, it is \u2018a crazy view\u2019\u2014that Baldwin, the Archbishop of Canterbury and \nothers, conspired to get rid of Edward as King, and forced his abdication upon \nhim; but anyone who reads the speeches of those men at the time of Edward\u2019s \naccession, cannot fail to see that Baldwin sincerely believed that the shock of \nKing George\u2019s death, and Edward\u2019s new responsibilities, would cause a change \nof heart and of behaviour, while the Archbishop spoke more cautiously, with \nlittle hope and less enthusiasm,\u2014the explanation being that George V had called \nupon the aged Prelate, as an old family friend, to support his own ineffective \nremonstrances against Edward\u2019s intimacy with Mrs. Simpson. The appeal and \nprotest of a devoted father, as well as his own, having failed, the Archbishop \ncould not possibly have felt very hopeful, although he continued bound in duty \nto serve and support him so far as he could. \n\n\u201cNo one conspired against Edward VIII; he conspired against himself; he \nmade his own position impossible; he everlastingly disgraced himself in the eyes \nof all right-thinking men. That Baldwin, the Archbishop, and, for that matter, \neveryone in England who knew the facts, breathed a deep sigh of relief when at \nlast they were rid of him, goes without saying: they were inexpressibly thankful \nthat he had removed himself .\u201d \n\n\u201c A-propos de rieri', the Student now remarked, \u201cit was reported in the Amer\u00ac \nican press, the New York Times included, not long after the former King had \njoined Mrs. Simpson in France, but a few weeks before the \u2018marriage\u2019, that he \nhad abandoned the use of whiskey at her behest, and was limiting himself to \n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\n323 \n\n\nwine and beer; and this statement seems to have been given out by their host, \nMr. Rogers, who was acting as their intermediary with the newspaper men who \nstill swarmed in attendance.\u201d \n\n\u201cFor a variety of reasons, all of them more or less obvious\u201d, the Historian re\u00ac \nplied, \u201cI do not see that that affects the fundamentals of the situation in the \nleast. As a matter of fact, some of the worst moral failures I have ever known, \ndue primarily to self-will and its indulgence, have been those of total abstainers.\u201d \n\n\u201cAnother book, which devotes a long and very interesting chapter to the \nAbdication, is Ordeal in England , by Sir Philip Gibbs\u201d, the Philosopher volun\u00ac \nteered. \u201cThe chapter is entitled, \u2018The Crisis of the Crown\u2019. It is graphically \nwritten, by a reporter of conversations and impressions who is an expert at \nthat sort of thing, and who related the reactions, day by day during the Crisis, \nof men he met in all walks of life in England. It is a really valuable record, and \nshows how splendidly sane and sound and free from sentimentality, the almost \nuniversal reaction was. On all sides, in clubs, among young men of the Air \nForce, waiters in hotels, girl accountants,\u2014the verdict was, \u2018We believed in \nhim\u2014and he\u2019s let us down. We gave him our loyalty and he\u2019s let us down: \nhe\u2019s a quitter.\u2019 When it was all over, Gibbs says, \u2018something else happened in \nthe English mind*. \n\nIt was anger. It was not anger because the King had got into trouble with a married \nwoman, nor anger because the King\u2019s friends seemed to be a poor lot\u2014according to the \nArchbishop [who was right]\u2014nor anger because he wished to marry \u2018beneath him\u2019, as \nsome of them said, but anger because he had \u2018chucked his job\u2019. \n\n\u201cThen Gibbs quotes: \u2018He preferred that damn woman to England and the \nwhole blinking Empire. He ought to have held on to his job, even if it meant \nchucking that wench\u2019\u2014though I doubt, incidentally, whether \u2018wench\u2019 was the \nterm employed. Crude language in any case; yet it does not alter the essential \nfacts to say: he had to choose between self-indulgence and duty, and he chose \nself-indulgence. Such an old, old story: he wanted to be happy in his own way, \nregardless of all else.\u201d \n\nSaid an Old Member: \u201cThis notion that some people have, that their right \nto personal happiness is entitled to precedence over everything else, including \ntheir most solemn obligations, always reminds me of General Ludlow\u2019s story of \nTalleyrand and the young man, who, in excuse for something he had done, pro\u00ac \ntested: Mats il me faut vivre! (But I must live!). Jeune homme , je yumois pas \nla ntcessitt (Young man, I do not see the necessity), was the bitid^but all- \ncomprehensive reply.\u201d \n\n\u201cVery much to the point\u201d, the Philosopher agreed; \u201cand a good summary of \nwhat seems to have been the instinctive reaction in England. It is Gibbs him\u00ac \nself, in his book, who supplies the sentimentality, and doubtless he represents \nothers besides himself,\u2014a small minority; but all his books are like that. \n\n\u201cThis is a change of subject, but now that I have mentioned Gibbs\u2019s book, I \nmay as well finish with it. Ordeal in England is, primarily, a wail over England\u2019s \nre-arming, and a plea to the British people to believe that Hitler\u2019s intentions \nare purely pacific. England\u2019s re-arming, he says, invites war, which is the \n\n\n324 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nexact opposite of the truth, for as every man of intelligence in Europe knows, \nif it had not been for England\u2019s sudden awakening after Italy\u2019s Ethiopian \nbrigandage, and for the readiness of Parliament to vote practically unlimited \nfunds for the immediate strengthening of the Army, Navy and Air force, Europe \nwould have been a shambles many months ago. The talk of statesmen, the \nhysterical appeals of Pacifists, and the fatuous refusal of British governments \nto look facts in the face, had made peace almost impossible: Europe was top\u00ac \npling on the edge of the precipice. The instant England announced her de\u00ac \ntermination to re-arm, Hitler and Mussolini drew back, almost sobered, while \nthe rest of Europe, for the first time in years, dared to hope that these two wolf\u00ac \nlike neighbours would perhaps think better of it,\u2014would in any case think \ntwice before precipitating a conflict the outcome of which, thanks solely to Eng\u00ac \nland's re-armament , would now be doubtful. \n\n\u201cAs to Gibbs\u2019s assurance that Hitler seeks peace and pursues it,\u2014what is \nthe matter with such people, supposed to be educated, that they write, and \nurge others to act, as if they were totally ignorant of history? Explain it as \nyou choose\u2014either on the theory that Germany is a megalomaniac, or the \nvictim of a persecution complex, or a plain bandit, even as the Afridis are ban\u00ac \ndits\u2014the fact remains that she has invaded France time after time, with fire \nand sword and wanton, monstrous outrage, and that it is as certain as the rising \nof to-morrow\u2019s sun that she will do so again, just as soon as Hitler\u2019s General \nStaff give him the signal. For the moment, he does want peace; but that is solely \nbecause he is not quite ready for war. As against that, England and France \nwant peace, just as ardently as the United States wants it. \n\n\u201cGibbs advocates a method of preventing war which is chimerical,\u2014a sort of \nimproved League of Nations, \u2018a new Commonwealth of Nations\u2019, with an Inter\u00ac \nnational Police to enforce the decrees of a supreme Court of Justice and \nEquity. Suppose, for instance, that this had been in effect when \u2018sanctions\u2019 \nproved ineffective to prevent Italy\u2019s seizure of Ethiopia. Germany, having a \nprivate understanding with Italy, to their mutual advantage, would have re\u00ac \nfused to participate, no matter how bound by treaty; England, France, the other \nEuropean nations, would have been called upon, presumably, to send contin\u00ac \ngents\u2014where? To land in France and invade Italy vi 4 the Alps? Russians, \nBelgians, Poles, Scandinavians, Englishmen, Frenchmen, fighting fraternally \nside by side under a single command! Whose command? Supposedly, some \nBulgarian or Dutch general would be elected, so as to preserve \u2018neutrality\u2019! \nAnd the preceding election: can you imagine the wire-pulling, the intrigue, the \nbitterness? Remember that the electors\u2014the representatives of the nations \nand the controlling authority\u2014would be men like our Senators, who represent \nour own different States. Do we not know enough of what this means to realize \nthe impossibility of obtaining unbiased decisions ? And even if each representa\u00ac \ntive were capable of ignoring the selfish interests and the clamour of his own \nnation, and could rise above racial prejudice and his political instincts,\u2014if there \nwere honest difference of opinion, as there well might be over China in present \ncircumstances, how could you expect English or French contingents to fight \n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\n325 \n\n\nin a cause which the government, and people back of them, believed to be unjust \nand wrong? It must be remembered also that the burden of any such Police \nduty would fall on the British Navy and French Army, which are now free to \nact as the conscience and judgment of their own nation may decide. Is it likely \nthey would willingly surrender their right to decide why and for what they are \nprepared to die? Can any sane American wish to place our naval and military \nforces at the disposal of a committee in Geneva, presided over by De Valera or his \nequivalent, and consisting of a Turk, a Spaniard, a Serb, a Rumanian, a Portu\u00ac \nguese, a Russian, a Chinaman, a Brazilian,\u2014even if Senator Borah, or another \nof his kind, were on the committee also? The idea is absurd; and yet Gibbs \nand others, in most respects rational, are advocating it as practicable. At best \nit is a psychic, and therefore perverted anticipation, of that far-off day when \nhigh ch\u00a3las will be Kings of the different nations, presided over by their Adept \nEmperor. \n\n\n\u201cMeanwhile we have to face things as they are, and especially human nature \nas it is,\u2014which is the factor Gibbs ignores. If we do this, we shall realize that \nwhile all civilized people hate war as a barbarous method of settling disputes\u2014 \nand it was Sherman, a great soldier, who said that \u2018War is Hell\u2019\u2014so long as there \nare armed freebooters and housebreakers in the world, the honest people, the \ncivilized, must be prepared to fight for their lives; otherwise they would be \nexterminated, and only the brigands would survive. If this would make for \nhuman progress, or for the coming of God\u2019s Kingdom on earth,\u2014I give it up. \nIn any case, the vast majority of mankind know better; so of necessity we shall \nhave wars until the righteous inherit the earth. In fact, the reign of the \nAdept Emperor can only come as the result of his victory in a war such as the \nworld has never known. We have read of the \u2018white horse\u2019, \u2018and he that sat \non him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him; and he went forth con\u00ac \nquering and to conquer\u2019; and he was called \u2018Faithful and True, and in right\u00ac \neousness he doth judge and make war\u2019. It will indeed be a long time before \nevil is extirpated, and before nations will joyfully accept, with faith, the control \nof presiding Wisdom. Meanwhile, evil and unscrupulous men will make wars \ninevitable and necessary, unless as I have said, the righteous surrender right\u00ac \neousness,\u2014which Heaven forbid.\u201d \n\nThere could be no questioning that conclusion, so the Recorder turned to tl \nStudent: \u201cAnd what have you been reading?\u201d he asked. The Student repli \nthat as there had been discussion recently in the \u201cScreen\u201d of one or more con\u00ac \ntemporary \u201cbest sellers\u201d, he had decided to read one that is now out of date, \nbut which is still frequently mentioned for its outstanding merit, namely, A \nPassage to India , by E. M. Forster, first published in America in 1924. \n\n\u201cAs a rule I dislike novels\u201d, he said, \u201cpreferring records of actual, instead of \nimaginary life\u2014preferring biographies and autobiographies to fiction. But A \nPassage to India is remarkable in more ways than one. The author convinces \nyou that his characters are real people, even when they do or say idiotic things. \nIt is brilliantly written, full of humour, and of fine irony unspoiled by malice. \nAs seems to be inevitable in a modern novel, the author occasionally uses ex- \n\n\n\n\n326 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\npressions which are needlessly explicit; he could have conveyed his meaning\u2014 \nas Thackeray or George Eliot or Scott or other greater novelists would have \ndone\u2014just as well, without flinging the thing in one\u2019s face. I cannot help asking \nmyself in such cases: Does he talk that way to his daughters, or to the daughters \nof his friends ? However, this book is refinement itself in comparison with best \nsellers of more recent date; and the real fault that I find with it is that it is \nmisleading as a picture of life. \n\n\u201cThe story revolves around the relations of English officials and other English \npeople, resident in India, with the educated natives, chiefly Mohammedan. In \nthe first place, all the author\u2019s native characters are Bengalis, and the large \nmajority of his readers will not realize\u2014and he in no way helps them to realize \n\u2014that Bengalis differ as widely from Punjabis or Kashmiris as Bretons from \nProvencals, or as a typical New York Catholic differs from his co-religionist of \nLouisiana. In other words, while he emphasizes the difference in nature be\u00ac \ntween Mohammedans and Hindus, he is misleading in so far as he implies that \nall Mohammedans are more or less like his Bengali Mohammedans; and we \nrepeat that while both Bretons and Provencals are Roman Catholic, their char\u00ac \nacters are as far apart as the poles. I say this in defence of the best in India, \nbecause Bengal does not represent the best. \n\n\u201cIn the second place, his English in India, both men and women, are com\u00ac \nmon, ill-bred, pretentious, and, as individuals, would be as insufferable in \nEngland as he shows them to be in India. In brief, they are cads. Why depict \npeople of that kind as if they were fairly representative of the average? Life \nis not like that. There are gentle people\u2014even saints and heroes\u2014as well as \nsycophants and bullies. The author, obviously trying to be fair to the English \nresidents and to the educated natives alike, actually is unfair to both. Yet his \nspirit and purpose are fair, so that his unintentional unfairness does not offend. \nHe is detached; he tells the truth as he sees it; and he is genuinely an artist. \nFurther, while he is probably a Liberal in the English sense, and therefore would \nbe mildly horrified by what I regard as the lesson or moral of his book, that \nlesson, as I see it, clearly is: Indians of all creeds and races, practically without \nexception, recognize and honour an aristocrat, and would accept his benevolent \ndespotism gladly. Democracy in any form is foreign to the instinct, genius, and \ntradition of the Indian peoples. Chaos would result\u2014to some extent has already \nresulted\u2014from the attempt to introduce English (American?) theories of gov\u00ac \nernment into a country built on totally different lines. The attitude let us say \nof the late Duke of Northumberland to his tenants, should be trained into those \nyoung Englishmen who aspire to become members of the Indian Civil Service. \nA College should be established in England, under Government auspices, for \nthat purpose, with another in India to provide finishing instruction. Students \nshould be taught, not only two or three Indian languages, such as Hindustani, \nPunjabi, Pushtu, etc., but the good points in Indian religions and philosophies, \nwhile re-inforcing their original faith in Christianity (Indians respect adherence, \nouter as well as inner, to an inherited religion. Kitchener in India, was punc\u00ac \ntilious in Church attendance). \n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\n327 \n\n\n\u201cTo treat all Indians alike, is to insult most of them. Naturally, none should \nbe treated with discourtesy. On the contrary, part of the training of every \nmember of the Indian Civil Service should include a course in manners, with \ninstruction in those shades of difference in the manner to be used when dealing \nwith different types of native. The manners of the late Maharana of Udaipur, a \nRajput, who traced his descent from the Sun, which means from the gods, are \nsaid to have been so perfect that he filled Viceroy after Viceroy with secret or \navowed envy. Nothing short of that should be accepted as the ideal for those \nwho govern India. The Indian does not resent superiority. On the contrary, \nhe admires, even reveres it. What he does resent, and pardonably, is an assump\u00ac \ntion of superiority when this has no foundation in fact. \n\n\u201cI concluded, however, that to expect anything really satisfactory, really \nworth-while, in any best seller, would be foolish on the face of it, seeing that \nit must have appealed both to the professional critics and to the mob. So I shall \nnot carry my investigation further, but shall leave the dead to bury their dead.\u201d \n\n\u201cBut you admire Kipling\u201d, someone objected, \u201cand he, at one time, was a \nbest seller.\u201d \n\n\u201cI do admire him\u201d, the Student replied, \u201cbut Kipling wrote a lot of trash as \nwell as masterpieces. He was a prolific writer, and, in the early days, avowedly \nground out \u2018pot-boilers\u2019 because he needed the money,\u2014as, for instance, to help \nhis parents: the best of motives. One of the most worth-while things he ever \ndid, A Book of Words , consisting of addresses he gave shortly before and during \nthe Great War, brimming over with his accumulated wisdom, will never he a \nbest seller: most people would think it dull.\u201d \n\n\u201cWell, what else have you read\u201d, prodded the Recorder when the Student \npaused. \n\nThe response was a laugh, and then: \u201cI can\u2019t run on for ever! But one other \nbook I should like to mention,\u2014the Vie de J 6 sus, by Francois Mauriac. The \nauthor, as a member of the French Academy, is necessarily a man of letters of \nhigh standing and considerable fame. He is a brilliant writer, and draws a \nvivid and in some ways daring picture of the Master\u2019s life and death in Palestine. \nI say daring, because, although Mauriac is a practising and devout Catholic, \nhe thinks for himself, and does not scruple to depart from orthodox interpreta\u00ac \ntion when he feels like it. Perhaps that is why my edition of his book does not \ncontain the customary Nihil Obstat , etc. of his Church. This does not Man \nthat I think he is always right when he departs from customary interpretaWns. \nHe is quite obviously wrong in certain cases, as, for instance, in his statement \nthat while the Master had, at times, taught his disciples in secret, he preached \nthe Sermon on the Mount to the multitude. You will remember Matthew\u2019s \nexplicit statement that the Master, seeing the great multitudes who had fol\u00ac \nlowed him from Galilee, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan, went up \ninto a mountain, and that, \u2018when he was set\u2019, his disciples came to him; where\u00ac \nupon he taught them, saying \u2018Blessed are the poor in spirit\u2019, and so forth. This \nis not without importance, because \u2018the duty of another is full of danger\u2019, as the \nGita says, and counsels of perfection are likely to lead the man-in-the-street \n\n\n328 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nto feel that religion demands the impossible. The Sermon on the Mount was \naddressed to would-be disciples, and to their successors for ever. \n\n\u201cReverting, however, to the general character of Mauriac\u2019s book\u201d, the Stu\u00ac \ndent resumed, \u201cit would be difficult to praise it too highly. The author de\u00ac \nserves our particular gratitude for having portrayed Christ as human,\u2014not as \nthe \u2018pale Galilean\u2019, but as human and virile. Further, he realizes clearly, as \nvery few in his Church realize, that Christianity is Christ, and that ritual, \nceremony, even the Sacraments, are nothing except as means to an end, that \nend being the love of Christ. Quoting, \u2018Abide in my love . . . that my joy \nmay remain in you\u2019, he comments: \u2018What need had these men, his disciples, to \nunderstand more than that? The whole of the New Law is contained in one \nword\u2014the word more profaned than any other in all the languages of earth\u2014 \nthe one word: love.\u2019 That such a book has had an immense circulation in \nFrance, is one of the hopeful signs of the times.\u201d \n\n\u201cWhich reminds me\u201d, said the Recorder, baiting his hook with care\u2014it had \nbeen such an exhausting day, and no one wanted to talk\u2014\u201cit is quite some time \nsince the \u2018Screen\u2019 reported comment on the international situation. Perhaps \nyou\u201d, turning to the Wanderer, \u201cwill be good enough to supply it\u201d. \n\nThe Wanderer, not often with us diming recent years, began by saying that \nthe surface confusion is so great\u2014the wrong nations often representing right \nprinciples and so forth\u2014that he did not believe anyone short of an Adept could \nsee the real tendencies until they could be reviewed in retrospect. \u201cConsider, \nfor. example, the case of Italy and Abyssinia,\u2014and I know something of Abys\u00ac \nsinia\u201d [there are very few countries of which the Wanderer does not know \n\u2018something\u2019]\u2014\u201call that was visible on the surface a year or two ago was the \nunspeakable outrage perpetrated by Italy against an unarmed people led by \ntheir Emperor,\u2014a man of superior character and a sincere patriot; and what \nwas seen on the surface was seen truly, so jar as it went. What was not seen \nwas the purpose of the Lords of Karma as it is becoming evident to-day. First, \nhowever, consider the facts of the situation prior to the d&nouement : on the \none hand Italy, whipped by Mussolini into the attitude of a roaring lion \u2018seek\u00ac \ning whom he may devour\u2019; on the other hand, Abyssinia, a congeries of dif\u00ac \nferent peoples and races, nominally governed by an Emperor, who was, unfor\u00ac \ntunately, quite unable to control the majority of his deputies,\u2014men occupying \nthe position of feudal Barons with absolute authority in remote regions. Many \nof these men spent their lives plotting against the Emperor in the hope of fight\u00ac \ning their way to the throne. The country was a sink of iniquity, dirt and disease. \nThe Emperor knew it; was anxious to institute reforms, including the abolition \nof slavery, but had at his disposal no central army able to cope with the armed \nforces of his recalcitrant Barons. From the international standpoint, the \ncomplicating feature of the situation was that most of the border \u2018Barons\u2019 were \nmarauders (the history of Wales and Scotland should make this understand\u00ac \nable), for whose incursions into neighbouring territory the Emperor was held \nresponsible. Alleged, or real, incursions into Italian territory constituted the \npretext used by Mussolini for his invasion and gas-bombing conquest. \n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\n329 \n\n\n\u201cAware of all those facts, and of many more; foreseeing the inevitable out\u00ac \ncome of the fighting, I suspect that the Lords of Karma also foresaw how Italy, \nas a result of her triumph, would be bled white, while the Abyssinians, in nearly \nall cases, would benefit. For their own protection the Italians are compelled to \nbuild roads, to drain swamps, to enforce hygienic measures against the horrible \ndiseases of the country, as well as to maintain an army of occupation and in\u00ac \nnumerable skilled and semi-skilled labourers,\u2014all at immense cost, both in \nmoney and in man-power (the toll in disease will be fearful), and without hope \nof return for a number of years. That Italy cannot afford it, and that her people \nare finding the burden of taxation almost unendurable, is known to everyone. \nFurther, if Italy were involved in a European war, her-troubles in Abyssinia \nwould be increased tenfold, not only because of the difficulty of supplying her \ntroops there, but because the Abyssinians would almost certainly regard Italy\u2019s \nembarrassments elsewhere as their opportunity to rebel. In brief, Italy, in my \nopinion, is and will remain the loser, as she deserves, while the Abyssinians, in \nappearance the victims, will gain at Italy\u2019s expense. They will gain in every \nway. The Abyssinian Church, for instance, was degenerate; its priests were \nself-satisfied, lethargic, exclusive, uneducated: it will wake them up, and do them \na world of good to come into competition with the Church of Rome, backed, as \nthat is, by the civil and military authorities. The Abyssinian priests made no \neffort whatever to convert the lower, conquered races, who form a majority of \nthe population, and among whom the vilest forms of black magic were practised \nwith impunity. The Italian missionaries will certainly wish to check that, and, \nsolely because they will be supported by the military, they may meet with \nsuccess. \n\n\u201cIn a sense, therefore, Abyssinia needed to be invaded, needed just what she \nhas got,\u2014and could not have been subdued by Italy unless that need had ex\u00ac \nisted. But this does not exonerate Italy in the least. The whole principle \ninvolved is made beautifully clear by the Christian Master: \u2018It must needs be \nthat offences come; but woe to that man [or nation] by whom the offence \ncometh.\u2019 \n\n\u201cThe lesson is invaluable if we will take it to heart; it enables us to realize \nthat Right, not Might, always triumphs in the end. Not that it should soften \nour indignation when wrong is done\u2014far from it; but it should enable us to \nadore the beauty and the balance of divine Law; to see how the Lords of Karma \nperpetually bring good out of evil, how the perpetrators of injustice^nd outrage \nreap their punishment, and how their victims are compensated. ( 4 /b often men \nwithout understanding and of little faith, are tempted to cry aloud, \u2018O God, if \ntruly you are God, interfere you must, prevent this evil you must, for otherwise \nno man can believe any more in the loving or righteous governance of things!\u2019 \nThey expect to understand from day to day,\u2014to see as God sees! A very little \nhumility would teach them better. The most fleeting glimpse of the divine \npurpose\u2014which is the divine compassion\u2014must fill the heart with wonder and \nwith worship.\u201d \n\n\u201cIs there a statesman anywhere in the world, calling himself a Christian\u201d, \n\n\n33 \u00b0 \n\n\nTHE 0 S 0 PHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthe Student asked, \u201cwho really believes in his Master as Ruler, and who strives \nto learn and to carry out his purposes? None that I know of. Partly from \nvanity, but chiefly from lack of faith and in some cases from despair, they have \nconcluded that they and they alone must solve the world\u2019s problems, and thus, \nso far as they can, have taken the Rulership into their own hands, out of his. \nHence the frightful confusion.\u201d \n\n\u201cWhat of the situation in China?\u201d someone asked the Wanderer. \n\n\u201cOn the one hand, an utterly demoralized people, most of them without the \nleast idea of what is going on, the vocal element among them aping American \nways (Columbia University responsible for much of it), with a large admixture \nof Moscow\u2019s philosophy and Russian gold, despising the ways of their an\u00ac \ncestors,\u2014hopelessly degenerate. On the other hand, Japan: ambitious, arro\u00ac \ngant, unscrupulous, but rightly hating Bolshevism, and rightly convinced that \nif she does not take control, Russia will. If you could isolate Japan and China, \nyou might urge with reason, \u2018Let them fight it out; it is their business, not ours\u2019. \nUnfortunately, thanks to Science and to the elimination of time and space, in \nlarge measure, as controlling factors, you cannot isolate Japan and China: \ntheir quarrel has become the quarrel of political parties within both France and \nEngland\u2014the Right (Conservative) favouring Japan, the Left (Radical) \nfavouring China, partly because Hitler and Mussolini, inherently wrong, are \nright in their detestation of Bolshevism, and must, therefore, support Japan. \nEngland would like to prevent the destruction of Shanghai and of her immense \ncommercial interests, but cannot do this effectively as it would mean sending \nmore of her fleet into Asiatic waters than is possible, considering the standing \nthreat of Germany in the North Sea, and of Italy in the Mediterranean. Talk \nabout a muddle! But was it not foretold, ages ago, that confusion would be \nthe outstanding characteristic of Kali Yuga, the present Age of Darkness? \n\n\u201cRemembering that Russia at one extreme, and Germany and Italy at the \nother, now represent the opposite poles on the same plane of exactly the same \nevil; remembering that you cannot back either China or Japan without backing \neither one or the other of those manifestations of the devil,\u2014what have you \nto choose between ? Now you will see why I spoke of Abyssinia first, for no mat\u00ac \nter which way the moral balance may seem to tip between the widespread con\u00ac \ntending forces, with less responsible nations, such as England and the United \nStates, caught, as it were, between the devil and the deep sea, we may be cer\u00ac \ntain that the Lords of Karma, ever at work, will bring good out of it, will see \nthat justice is done, and that from all these tribulations will arise cause for \nthanksgiving and praise. Meanwhile, if those in authority in England, France, \nand America, would do from day to day the thing that is obviously right in \nitself, with less thought of expediency and more of principle,\u2014they would be \nless likely to get in the way of divine justice. \n\n\u201cSpain? Spain is less of a problem. The government now operating from \nValencia, the supporters of which are described as \u2018Loyalists\u2019 in the American \npress, is Bolshevist seasoned with a considerable sprinkling of Anarchist. Their \nopponents, the \u2018Rebels\u2019 under Franco, represent the more decent element in \n\n\nON THE SCREEN OF TIME \n\n\n33 i \n\n\nSpain,\u2014a mixed lot of Royalists, Fascists, Constitutionalists, with all others \nwho prefer old-fashioned law and order to the bloody despotism of the Com\u00ac \nmunists and the hell-let-loose of the Anarchists. Anyone with knowledge of \nthe facts must hope that Franco will win,\u2014though it is lamentable that he was \nobliged to call on Moroccan troops to aid him, and to accept the active help of \nMussolini and, to a lesser extent, of Hitler. It seems, however, as if a clear-cut \nissue anywhere in the international field, were at present against the rules of \nthe game,\u2014as if the terms of the struggle between the White Lodge and the \nPowers of Evil required a sufficient element of confusion to mislead those who \nare inclined, if not anxious, to be misled. In that respect, the World War made \nthe choice so easy that it ought to have been inevitable; the day for that has \npassed: the choice now involves a test of right perception.\u201d \n\n\u201cBut have not both \u2018Loyalists\u2019 and \u2018Rebels\u2019 been equally cruel?\u201d asked one \nof our visitors. \n\n\u2018\u2018No\u201d, the Wanderer answered: \u2018T can assure you that has not been the case. \nBoth sides have been cruel, but much of the cruelty of the \u2018Rebels\u2019 has been in \nretaliation for the unspeakable and fiendish cruelties of their Bolshevist op\u00ac \nponents, whose deliberate outrages on nuns, crucifixion of priests, and so forth, \nhave naturally driven the followers of Franco, most of whom are Catholics, to \na state not unlike that of some of the early American settlers when retaliating \nagainst the Indians for their barbarous treatment of white men\u2014and women\u2014 \nwhen the Indians had them in their power. It then became a case of: \u2018Torturers! \nNow we\u2019ll show you l* Yet the truth of course is that the Spaniards, throughout \nhistory, have shown themselves to be abnormally cruel, not only in days when \nthat was common, but in their successive civil wars since 1812, when they first \nbegan to play with \u2018Liberal\u2019 Constitutions. That Bull-fights should be their \nnational sport reveals all that is necessary under that head. See the blood-lust \nsurge into a young woman\u2019s eyes as she watches one of these prolonged butch\u00ac \neries, and you will never forget it.\u201d \n\n\u2018\u2018How do you account for such cruelty? Spain has produced great saints.\u201d \n\n\u2018\u2018In a sense, the very fact you have mentioned accounts for the cruelty. Are \nnot all evils the perversion of spiritual powers? The great Spanish saints and \nmystics, such as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, revealed the spiritual \npotentiality of their race. They were passionate in their devotion j&d self\u00ac \ngiving, and yet were able to combine this with common sense and marvellous \nrestraint. When that potentiality fails to manifest at the spiritual pole, and is \nabsorbed by the animal nature and thus perverted, the passion easily becomes \nferocity, and the self-restraint, cold and calculating cruelty. They are a people \nof extremes; they are saints or devils. They have turned Spain (not for the first \ntime) into a hell such as Dante saw and pictured; let us hope that, as a result \nof their self-inflicted torment, they will ultimately rebound to \u2018the things that \nbelong unto their peace\u2019,\u2014ages hence I fear, for this, as it is not the first, will \nnot be the last of their fratricidal struggles.\u201d \n\n\u2018\u2018Very interesting as an explanation,\u2014as a philosophical explanation\u201d, com\u00ac \nmented the same visitor, perhaps rather dryly. \u2018\u2018But meanwhile? If I were an \n\n\n332 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nEnglish naval officer, I should object to being torpedoed by unknown submarines \nin times of \u2018peace\u2019, and if I were of the mercantile marine, I should expect the \nnavy of my country to protect my ship, or help me to go armed against pirates.\u201d \n\nNow the Wanderer is a mystic\u2014with connections; but because he is a real \nmystic, he is quite unlike the type that usually goes by that name. There was \na Lion of the tribe of Juda\u2014no longer of Juda\u2014and the Wanderer belongs to \nthat ilk. Very quietly, then, he replied to our visitor\u2019s hint of impatience: \n\n\u2018\u2018That is a simple matter, if handled properly. We have been trying, through \nour own channels, to get the British Admiralty to see the situation in simple \nterms. They leave too much to the diplomatists, who rely on conferences and \ntalk. All that the Admiralty needs to do is to announce, quite casually, that \nuntil further notice the British submarines in the Mediterranean will be \u2018con\u00ac \nfined to barracks\u2019, as it were,\u2014will not leave the harbours of Malta, Gibraltar, \nand so forth; then drop a broad hint to the French (nothing in writing) to do \nlikewise. Such an announcement might catch the attention of Italy; might \nmake her wonder \u2018what was up\u2019, might make her very cautious. Then, as soon \nas all British and French submarines have been accounted for, the Admiral in \ncommand of the Mediterranean fleet should give oral instructions to every \nunit under him to scour the sea and to sink any and every submarine sighted \nor heard, duly reporting to him on the nature of the preceding attack made \nor threatened or anticipated (do you understand me?). In any case, those in \ncommand of the units would not be slow to understand, and would act, and write \ntheir reports, accordingly. One or two submarines \u2018missing\u2019 would be enough; \nthere would be no more trouble; there would be peace, perfect peace: every \nsubmarine in that big sea would stay at home.\u201d \n\n\u2018\u2018But the loss of life!\u201d expostulated another of our visitors, more by habit \nthan anything else. \n\n\u2018\u2018The crews of one or two submarines\u201d, the Wanderer replied tranquilly: \u2018\u2018it \nis their business to die, not to live; and they would die in a good cause, for they \nwould have been instrumental in preventing the horrors of a European war \ninvolving, probably, the death by poison gas of thousands of women and chil\u00ac \ndren. \u2018Do unto others as you would be done by.\u2019 Surely, if you had the oppor\u00ac \ntunity to prevent such major horrors, you would be glad to be one of those, thus \ndrowned sacrificially?\u201d \n\nOur visitor looked doubtful. The Wanderer smiled. \u2018\u2018Dying\u201d, he said, \u2018\u2018is \nof small importance; we have died so many times already. What is of supreme \nimportance is how and why we die. The Lord takes care of the rest.\u201d \n\nT. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA TALK WITH MY BRAIN \n\n\nO NE day it occurred to me that there were several matters that I needed \nto discuss with my brain, and at the first convenient opportunity \nwhen I was alone, I brought them up: \n\nYou do not seem to apprehend your proper position. You should under\u00ac \nstand that you have no independent life apart from me, or at least a temporary \none only, and that your real interests and mine are identical. You seem to \nthink and act as if you were a personage apart from me, with your own life to \nlead, and a fixed determination to do as you see fit. You insist upon your \nown ways, and these are often bad ways. You think what you believe to be \nyour own thoughts, but which are really only wavelets from the ocean of thought \nthat flow into your sphere. You refuse to take the trouble to control yourself \nin your thinking, so as to consider only your duty and what I may give you \nto think about. You are obstinate, you are confirmed in many evil habits, \nand above all you are lazy. It is time that you acquired some appreciation of \nthe seriousness of existence and of your own special responsibilities. My brain \nlistened to all this with more attention and patience than usual. Not once \ndid it wander off on sQme flight of fancy, or become absorbed by some passing \nthought-form. But its reply was not so satisfactory. \n\nIf, it said, I have no life apart from you, if I am but your slave and instru\u00ac \nment, why is it necessary for you to appeal to me to do what you want, and \nwhat I do not like? Why don\u2019t you use the powers which you say you possess, \nand compel me to obedience? I make my instrument, the physical body, do \npretty much what I want. It has no will of its own. If I leave it for an instant \nit sleeps, or becomes what is called unconscious, and is but a lupp of useless \nclay. I have none of the trouble with it, that you, who claim me\u2019lsyour instru\u00ac \nment, seem to have with me. Why is it? I do not believe what you say. I \nbelieve I am an entity, with an existence independent of yours. \n\nI replied sorrowfully that I very sincerely regretted hearing such a state\u00ac \nment from him after all my labours to convince him to the contrary, for every \n\ni This article by \"G. Hijo\u201d, a nom de plume of Clement A. Griscom, is reprinted from The Theosophical Forum \nof March, 1900 (vol. V, No. xi, p. 202). The Forum preceded the Quarterly as mouthpiece of The Theosophica \nSociety. \n\n\n333 \n\n\n\n\n334 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ntime he took this attitude the breach between us was widened and made more \ndifficult to close; and once again I had to explain that our interests were really \nidentical in this matter, and that those interests were to bring about a closer \nunion, until finally we became one, our mutual consciousness merged, as it \nwere, into a single, elevated, powerful and efficient whole; this again being but \na ray or offshoot of the Absolute Consciousness comprising all things. So long \nas he thought of himself as a thing apart, so long was he setting up a barrier \nseparating him from any higher life. If he persisted in such an attitude, when \ndeath withdrew the cohesive force now keeping us together, he would find \nhimself deserted and alone, with nothing ahead of him but a monotonous and \nperhaps painful existence for a longer or shorter period, until such inherent \nforce as was stored up in him, became exhausted. Then, I said, he would go \nout like a candle that has burned to a finish. On the other hand an identification \nof his interests with mine, a surrender of his bad habits, of his egoism and \nselfishness, would mean that upon death, instead of having his own life to lead \nuntil exhausted, he would go with me, as a part of me, to other planes of exist\u00ac \nence, there to complete and assimilate the experiences of the past life, before \nbeginning yet another life on earth. This was his only chance for immortality. \nAs for my not being able to coerce him in such a matter, while it might be a \nsaving of force and energy and time, in one sense, if I could, yet in another \nit would be defeating the very object of evolution itself. It was necessary \nfor me to acquire experience on all planes of existence. Before I could leave \nany plane behind it was necessary that I should have conquered that plane \nand all that pertains to it; that I should be its master, and the master of all in \nit. He had spoken of his control of the body. It was true. The purely physical \nbody was in many ways his slave, although it was far from being absolutely \nmastered, as it still had some appetites and desires not yet fully controlled. \nBut it was not he who had made this conquest; it was I, through him. And \nnow I had also to control him, to have him subject to my will, to do with him \nwhat I liked, to silence him entirely when necessary, before I could pass on to \nother planes. I must be master of his plane, the mental plane; and the trouble \nlay in his not realizing that it was also to his best interests to help along this \nconquest which was a necessary part of his and my evolution. Again I ex\u00ac \nplained that he was but an instrument given me to enable me to express myself \non the mental plane, that his life and power and force were but what he derived \nfrom me, and that I was responsible for the use he made of these, and was \nbenefited or injured by the addition he made to the stock of our common \nexperience during this life. I knew that the very idea of his being controlled \nwas repugnant to him, that it seemed like the complete surrender of his indi\u00ac \nviduality for ever, but I had already explained that this was not really so and \nthat as a matter of fact his only hope of immortality was through just this \nprocess, and I reminded him of the mysterious saying of the Master, that he \nwho would find his life must lose it. \n\nThe strain of continuous attention here became too great to be borne, and \nmy brain relaxed his effort and floated off in a maze of inconsequent and useless \n\n\nA TALK WITH MY BRAIN \n\n\n335 \n\n\nthoughts. There was nothing for me to do but to wait patiently until he again \nrecovered control of himself, and in the meantime I watched the panorama. \nHe began as follows: \n\nThat was a queer saying; but wasn\u2019t it St. Paul who said that? I don\u2019t \nremember, never could remember quotations from the Bible. I wish I could \nhave an experience like St. Paul\u2019s and have a voice out of the sky tell me what \nto do. It would be so much easier. I wonder if I should be alarmed. I don\u2019t \nbelieve I should. What was that? Oh! only a creak of the furniture. How \nit made my heart jump. I suppose it shows that my nerves are not fit for any \n\nreal experience. I wonder if B- hears internally? I notice he seems to \n\nbe looking at nothing sometimes, with his attention fixed upon something in\u00ac \nside. It must be great to hear internally. But then I suppose I should hear \nlots of things I didn\u2019t want to. I should hate to be told to give up smoking; \nI don\u2019t believe I would though, as smoking is said to keep away the elementals, \nand all occultists seem to smoke. I wonder if they are told to. I wish I had \nsome more of that Virginia tobacco, it was the best I ever smoked. I did enjoy \nit last night after dinner. The dinner was pretty good, too, only the cook \nalways spoils the mutton. That currant jelly was out of our own garden. I \nwish Thomas would grow more vegetables; they are so much better fresh than \nfrom the stores. That reminds me that I must buy some collars. I wish I \nhad lots of money and then I would send someone to get me all the different \nkinds and I would not have to take any trouble. It must be lovely to be so \nrich that you do not have to think of these things. They are so degrading and \nthey take up time that you might be devoting to higher things. That reminds \nme that I was getting a lecture from inside. I wonder where we were? Oh! \nyes, he had just said something about a quotation from St. Paul,\u2014or was it \nJesus? I don\u2019t remember which, oh! yes\u2014 . At this point the wandering \nattention of my brain was controlled and I resumed. \n\nYou have just given as fair an example of the way you spend most of your \nleisure time as one could wish. You can never expect to succeed in occultism \nor even in any worldly pursuit until you have better control of yourself and \nhave acquired some powers of concentration and attention. You would like \nto hear internally. How can you expect to do so when you cannot keep your \nattention on your own thoughts for two minutes consecutively, let alone listen \nwith the absorption and attention necessary to hear the still small voice of \nthe Silence. You may be sure the inner Powers will not waste their time with \nyou so long as you are likely to wander off in a perfectly aimless way ii ife \nmiddle of their discourse. Of course I was assuming that you were sufficiently \npurified to be able to reflect the things of the spirit at all. I do not believe \nyou are, so long as your untrammeled thoughts turn naturally to yourself, and \nto your own comfort and aggrandizement, to being rich and prosperous. It \nshows that you are far from that condition of spiritual unselfishness that will \nalone enable you to communicate with higher planes. \n\nBut to return to the subject we were discussing before your attention wan\u00ac \ndered. I will tell you something you ought to know. After a period of rest \n\n\n336 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nbetween two lives, I am projected, automatically as it were, into physical \nexistence. I am incarnated in the environment to which I am entitled on \naccount of my previous efforts; and you, my brain, are a part of my environ\u00ac \nment. You are one of the conditions that circumscribe and limit me, and it \nis my duty to endeavour to control and purify you. Only so can I wholly \nexpress myself on the physical plane. You, in this life, are what you are, en\u00ac \ntirely owing to the use or misuse I made of my brains in previous lives, and \nmy brain in my next life will reflect the result of this. If, therefore, I maintain \na continual effort to reform and soften you; if I mould you to my higher will; \nif I do my whole duty by you, you enter into my being as an integral part of \nit, and when next bom anew my new brain will have that much less power to \nlimit me, and will of itself be a better and finer instrument. \n\nRemember that I who am speaking to you now am not some external spiritual \nforce or entity, but a part of yourself to which you must try permanently to \njoin yourself. My consciousness now is the sum total of the imperishable \nresults of all my previous lives. Of course there is more in me than can express \nitself to you, or through you, but only so much as can express itself through \nyou can be conscious on this plane. What I am on other planes you will never \nknow until you become pure enough to reflect those planes, and this can only \ncome about through long-continued and constantly sustained effort. Some day \nI may explain to you the internal processes and changes that take place as a \nresult of these efforts, but even this most elementary fact in occultism you \ncould not yet fully understand. It is enough for me to say now that it has \nto do with the formation of the body of the mind. At present, however, I want \nyou to understand the real relationship that exists between us, who are yet \nbut two parts of the same. I am so absolutely responsible for you, in such a \nfull sense of those words, that you can apprehend the idea but in part. You \ndo not think an idle thought, nor receive an impression, nor create an impulse \nto action or to inaction, nor feel a desire, or the lack of a desire, that I am not \nfully responsible for. Sooner or later I njust pay for your mistakes, for your \nlaziness, for your carelessness, and for your sins. You will readily see, there\u00ac \nfore, that your actions are of paramount importance to me, and never for one \ninstant will I relax my efforts to guide and control you. You may die before \nthis is completed, in fact you surely will before it is perfectly done, and then \nI must begin the fight again with another brain, where we left off, until finally \nthe battle is won. And great will be the reward of the personality in which \nthis process is measurably completed, for it will become as one with the Divine, \nwill in fact be a divine man among men. You see, therefore, what is the situa\u00ac \ntion. Sooner or later, you, or some other brain that I shall obtain hereafter, \nmust complete this process of purification and self-abnegation. Nor must \nyou think that of you only, is required this sacrifice; I also in a higher sense \nmust some day kill out all idea of separateness, and must merge my conscious\u00ac \nness in the Universal Consciousness. But before I can do this I must have \ncompleted my evolution up to the plane where this is required; and until I \nam master of all planes below, until I am clothed with all the powers of nature, \n\n\nIALK WI in MY rSK 2 \\li\\ \n\n\n337 \n\n\nI may not knock at the door of the larger life. Do you wonder then that I am \nincessant in my demands, and that my patience is as that of the gods; that \nfailure discourages me not, nor does success exhilarate? I have Eternity before \nme for the task, and were it not for the urgings of suffering and the desire to \nbe able to help others, I might let the slow but sure processes of evolution \ntake their course, and not attempt to force the fighting. But the sorrow and \npain and evil in the world appeal to me. I have suffered too, and I know what \nit is. I desire, therefore, with an intensity of desire of which your puny will \nis incapable, to do something to help raise the burdens of the world. There \nis no other way than this. Purify and elevate your own instrument, and then \nassist the eternal Powers of good to purify and elevate all others. There is \nyour destiny, if you have the courage to grasp, and the endurance to hold on \nto it. Choose, therefore! Will you seize your divine heritage as is your in\u00ac \nalienable right, or will you drift aimlessly down the stream of life, of no use \nto yourself or to anyone else in the universe, to perish miserably at the end \nof your allotted years? \n\nThe continued attention and sympathetic attitude of my brain had per\u00ac \nmitted a little gleam of spiritual fire to descend from higher planes, and I spoke \nwith an earnestness and force that were not without influence. \n\nThere does not seem to be much choice, answered my brain. \n\nThere is but one choice possible in the end, I replied, but many prefer to \npostpone the choosing. All must some day begin the climbing of the ladder of \nlife, and the sooner it is begun the sooner the weary journey is ended. But \nbe not deceived. It is not a path of roses, but a dreary march, and for a long \ntime there will be no end in sight. But the summit is there and can be reached, \nand then,\u2014peace! We were silent for a time, each busy with his own thoughts, \nand then my brain asked what it should do. \n\nObey me, I said. I am what some men call your conscience, what others call \nyour soul, and what the mystics of all ages have called by various names, divine \nfire, inner light, intuition. I shall tell you to do many difficult things, the \nchief of which will be your duty, but I shall not lead you astray for I am an \ninfallible guide. The more you obey me, the better can I help you. The better \nyou serve me, the more can I assist you. Remember always that in the words \nof one of the Great Ones, the light is much more anxious to reach you than \nyou are anxious to reach the light. I will never desert you and will always \nstand ready with all the advice and encouragement that can be given you. \nI will be as tender and as loving as a mother with her first-bom, and as inflexible \nas justice. You will suffer the torments of hell and you will have the reward \nof the blessed. You must care neither for wealth nor poverty^pleasure nor \npain, happiness nor sorrow, praise nor blame, sickness nor lieajjh, and I will \nteach you to read the hearts of men, and will lay open before'^u the inner\u00ac \nmost secrets of nature. You may go down unknown to your grave, but you \nwill awake to eternal life. Your life will be one of anguished striving, but the \nend is illimitable peace. Choose you, therefore, for the moment will pass, and \nthe opportunity be lost. \n\nAnd my brain answered gravely, Do with me what you will. \n\nG. Hijo (Clement A. Griscom). \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWorship , by Evelyn Underhill; Harper & Brothers, New York, 1937; price, \nS3.50. \n\nReligion, to students of Theosophy, is, as has often been said, the greatest of \nthe experimental sciences. There is need for faith, else the experiments will \nnever be performed; but the saints\u2014who became saints because they had a \nlove that commanded the needed faith and courage\u2014all are at one in their \ntestimony of the results. Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened \nunto you. For no other single fact in the whole history of human conscious\u00ac \nness, is the evidence more consistent than for the reality and transforming power \nof mystical experience. \n\nIt is twenty-six years since Evelyn Underhill\u2019s Mysticism was first published, \ncalling attention, as The Theosophical Society had long done, to this unanimity \nof testimony, and analyzing the experience upon which it was based. It was a \nbrilliant performance by a very able intellect. But in the intervening years, \nMiss Underhill\u2019s work has become more than that. She has sought stead\u00ac \nfastly. Year after year has seen the publication of some new study or series \nof addresses, bearing its own evidence of a seeking heart as well as of a questing \nmind; and as these are reviewed in sequence, they manifest a development \nwhich, on its own plane and in its own way and degree, tells as surely of the \nresponsive action of the spirit as any argument she advances in her texts. Dry \nbones have been breathed upon, and, in consequence, her later work expresses a \nbreadth of understanding sympathy, and carries an inspiration and incentive, \nwhich the initial volume lacked. Her whole approach to her subject has become \nmore theosophic,\u2014as witness the following passages, taken from the Preface \nof the book before us: \n\nSome of the friends and fellow-students who have read these chapters have been \ninclined to blame me for giving too sympathetic and uncritical an account of types \nof worship which were not their own. It has been pointed out to me that I have failed \nto denounce the shortcomings of Judaism with Christian thoroughness, that I have \nleft almost unnoticed primitive and superstitious elements which survive in Catholic \nand Orthodox worship, that I have not emphasized as I should the liturgic and sacra\u00ac \nmental shortcomings of the Protestant sects. But my wish has been to show all these \nas chapels of various types in the one Cathedral of the Spirit; and dwell on the particular \nstructure of each, the love which has gone to their adornment, the shelter they can \noffer to many different kinds of adoring souls, not on the shabby hassocks, the crude \npictures, or the paper flowers. Each great form of Christian cultus is here regarded, to \n\n338 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n339 \n\n\nuse an Ignatian simile, as a \u201ccontemplation to procure the love of God\": for its object \nis to lead human souls, by different ways, to that act of pure adoration which is the \nconsummation of worship. \n\nThe fact that each of these types has its particular short-comings, that each tends \nto exaggerate one element in the rich Christian complex at the expense of the rest, that \nall are liable to degeneration and are seldom found in their classic purity, is merely \nwhat our human contingency would lead us to expect. Yet in spite of all this, in every \nform of worship\u2014even the least adequate\u2014the positive element, man\u2019s upward and \noutward movement of adoration, self-oblation and dependence, exceeds in importance \nthe negative element which is inevitably present with it. For the positive element is \nalways a response to some aspect of Reality, some incitement of God, however dimly \nunderstood and imperfectly obeyed. The negative element is the effect of our creaturely \nsituation; immersed in the world of things, yet endowed with a certain capacity for \nthe world of eternity. 1 hus a certain confusion between the sensible signs by means \nof which we worship, and the supra-sensible truths they represent, attends all man\u2019s \nefforts to embody the deep and delicate realities of his spiritual life. Therefore in each \ntype of worship here studied, I have tried to find these realities, and bring them into \nrelief; to interpret as much as I am able, and to criticize as little as I can. It is only too \neasy to recognize and denounce the barbarous aspects of sacrifice, or the magical tenden\u00ac \ncies which dog sacramental religion; but this simple exercise tells us nothing worth \nknowing about worship. \n\nSo far, we have the familiar attitude and approach of The Theosophical \nSociety; but then there follows a sentence which no student of Theosophy could \nhave written: \u201cWhat matters is the fact that under these unpromising appearances \nwe can discern the humble beginnings of man's response to the attraction of God; the \nbirth of Faith , Hope and Charity \n\nThe publishers advertise this study of worship as Miss Underhill\u2019s most \nimportant work since Mysticism . It is not less noteworthy as an intellectual \nachievement, for the whole range of Christian worship\u2014ritual and symbol, \nsacrament and sacrifice, liturgical and prophetic, personal and traditional\u2014has \nbeen unified within the purview of a consistent philosophy. The first part of \nthe book is devoted to making clear that philosophy; the second part to illus\u00ac \ntrating it, through a review of Jewish and early Christian worship, and suc\u00ac \ncessive chapters devoted to the main Christian denominations, from the Ortho\u00ac \ndox and Catholic to the Society of Friends. Worship is defined, in its deepest \nsense, as the response of man to the Eternal, or, since all natur^orships, as \nthe response of the creature to the Eternal. It is thus in all its fonflittheocentric, \nnot something which originates in man as a subjective development, but man\u2019s \nresponse to something which he perceives pre-existing above and beyond him. \nMiss Underhill insists upon this throughout the book\u2014as, indeed, through all \nher books. Thus she writes: \n\nThat awed conviction of the reality of the Eternal over against us, that awareness of \nthe Absolute, that sense of God, which in one form or another is the beginning of all \nworship, whether it seems to break in from without, or to arise within the soul, does \nnot and cannot originate in man. It comes to him where he is, a message from another \norder; God disclosing Himself to and in His creation \u201cby diverse portions and in diverse \nmanners\u2019\u2019 conditioned by the limitations of the humble creature He has made. It is \nin fact a Revelation, proportioned to the capacity of the creature, of something wholly \n\n\n\n\n340 \n\n\nTHE0S0PHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nother than our finite selves, and not deducible from our finite experience: the splendour \nand distinctness of God. Therefore the easy talk of the pious naturalist about man's \napproach to God, is both irrational\u2014indeed plainly impudent\u2014and irreverent; unless \nthe priority of God\u2019s approach to man be kept in mind. \n\nThis throws into sharp contrast the assumption, implicit in the sentence we \nitalicized in the passage quoted earlier, that religion evolves from the false \nto the true, that magic and sacrifice mark the birth and childhood of religion, \nrather than its degeneracy, and that from them are bom Faith, Hope and \nCharity. This is the fallacy of The Golden Bough , and for it no evidence of any \nkind is anywhere adduced. However well established the doctrine of evolution \nmay be held to be, as applying to our natural bodies, we cannot argue from \nthe body to the spirit; and even of the evolution of the body it is falsified, and \nfar too greatly simplified, when it is viewed as proceeding in one continuous, \nunbroken ascent, unmarked by cyclic tides that rise and fall and rise again. \nWriters on religion, ignorant of the theosophic teaching of the law of cycles, \nhave been far too uncritical in their acceptance of evolutionary theory; and \nMiss Underhill\u2019s lapses in this constitute one of the few false notes that jar us \nin her work. There is nothing in the flesh which can explain or give birth to \nthe spirit; nor is there that in falsity which can explain or give birth to truth. \nIn the things of religion, the current flows the other way. Miss Underhill \nwould, we believe, be prompt to agree to this, yet often, as we have seen, she \npermits herself expressions that tacitly assume the contrary. It is the kind of \nerror from which Theosophy would have saved her. B. \n\n\nMy Horse Warrior, by Lord Mottistone; Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., Lon\u00ac \ndon; price, 55. \n\nLord Mottistone is better known as General Jack Seely, the ever popular \ncommander of the Canadian cavalry during the Great War; author of Fear and \nBe Slain. \n\nIf anyone loves horses, he should read My Horse Warrior, for he will then \nappreciate and love horses as he never did before. If anyone has had no oppor\u00ac \ntunity to love horses, for lack of acquaintance with them, he should read this \nbook to fill his soul with a new vision of nobility, courage, devotion. General \nSeely rode Warrior all through the War, and really loved him\u2014a love which the \nhorse returned a hundred-fold, with an intelligent valour such as any human \nmight envy. \n\nA magnificent character , is one way to sum it up; with the charm, the vivid \npersonality, of a horse who will go down to history as a Prince among his kind. \n\nThe author concludes: \u201cIt is my dream that those who read this book may \nvow never to beat a willing horse. . . . Let there be one cruel blow from a \ngrown-up man, and you have ruined the horse\u2019s fine soul and spirit for ever.\u201d \nA purpose and a principle with which every Theosophist will sympathize with \nall his heart. \n\nBut now, having praised the book as it deserves, there is all the more reason \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n34i \n\n\nto protest against the author\u2019s habit of whitewashing and praising the Germans \non every possible occasion. He speaks of Richthofen, the famous German air\u00ac \nman, as \u201cperhaps the bravest on either side of that most gallant band of flying \nmen\u201d. Comparisons in any case are odious; but, apart from that, why give the \npalm to Richthofen rather than to the Frenchman, Guynemer, or to any one of \na dozen English airmen who, in terms of bravery\u2014perhaps not of skill\u2014could \nnot have been surpassed? We know the answer to our question,\u2014otherwise we \nshould not have asked it: the author is a victim of that deplorable convention\u00ac \nality (sentimentality and vanity are at the root of it), peculiar to many Eng\u00ac \nlishmen, which leads them to suppose that the \u201cdecent\u201d thing to do, after you \nhave thrashed a burglar, is to offer him a drink; later, to speak of him as a \n\u201cplucky chap and first-class scrapper\u201d; and, perhaps, finally\u2014especially if you \nnearly got the worst of it\u2014to turn him loose, regardless of your neighbours. Spur\u00ac \nious \u201cgood sportsmanship\u201d,\u2014and vicious, because it cloaks itself in that guise. \n\nSome time after the war, says the author, he met Prince Rupprecht of Ba\u00ac \nvaria, and learned that this ruthless agent of \u201cfrightfulness\u201d, who was respon\u00ac \nsible for some of the worst atrocities committed in France during the German \ninvasion, had on one occasion noticed a group of horsemen galloping toward \nhim on reconnaissance. The author, on Warrior, had led them, and, because \nPrince Rupprecht \u201cremembered the episode\u201d, and because \u201cgood sportsman\u00ac \nship\u201d, when referring to a defeated(?) enemy, is interpreted as calling for the \n\u201cHave a drink\u201d attitude,\u2014the author concludes: \u201cSome day I hope he will \ncome here and renew acquaintance with my old horse\u201d (\u201chere\u201d, meaning the \nauthor\u2019s home!). \n\nThis sort of thing is direct encouragement of evil; it invites men like Prince \nRupprecht\u2014and there are plenty of him in Germany\u2014to do \u201cnext time\u201d as \nthey did before, and worse if that be possible. If no one cares, if no one remem\u00ac \nbers, if unrepented \u201cfrightfulness\u201d is disregarded by men like Lord Mottistone, \nwhat chance have the Germans to learn that such conduct does not pay? It is \nworse than that: how can a man with any depth to him\u2014by which we mean, \nwith any real love of what is noble and hatred of what is brutal and vile\u2014how \ncan that man be willing so much as to touch the hand of a Pru^e Rupprecht? \nGerman soldiers, in many cases, were carrying out orders; bd^the men who \ngave those orders, the men, like Prince Rupprecht, who commanded German \narmies, have no such excuse, and ought to be ostracized by all \u201cgood sportsmen\u201d \nto the end of time, unless and until they repent of the evil that is in them and of \nwhich they were notoriously guilty. T. \n\n\nLe Crtpuscule de la Monarchie\u2014Louis XVI et Marie Antoinette , by Louis \nMadelin; Librairie Plon, Paris, 1936; price, Fes. 18. \n\nM. Madelin\u2019s earlier publications on the period of the French Revolution \nhave won for their author a name needing no introduction. The present volume \nis noteworthy for the skill with which it gathers together the very numerous \ncauses of the Revolution, weighs the relative importance of each, and presents \n\n\n\n342 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nthe whole picture of the last years of the monarchy in illuminating perspective. \nThe present-day group of historians in France is doing much to eliminate mis\u00ac \nunderstandings caused by those of the older school whose practice it was to \nstress some one aspect of the great whole at the expense of all else, leaving the \nimpression that except for one \u201cchief\u201d cause or another, the Revolution would \nnever have occurred. M. Madelin weaves together the complicated network \nof causes with a sense of balance and proportion which gives the reader increas\u00ac \ning confidence in his judgment. \n\nAn unusual approach is adopted, in that the period just prior to the Revolution \nis presented through the lives of its principal actors\u2014Turgot, Necker, the King, \nthe Queen. Valuable analyses of character, and of the interests, motives, theories \nand weaknesses which comprised the lives of these four persons, throw much \nlight on the frenzied time leading up to the crisis. \n\nAnother outstanding feature of the book is its recognition of the inherent \nnecessity of discipline and authority as the basis for national life. To-day\u2019s \npopular fallacy that a world free from restraint or repression would proceed to \nevolve in blissful peace, finds no place in this author\u2019s thought. Turning to the \nreign of le Roi Soleil , he sees its power based on the tacit recognition, from mon\u00ac \narch to humblest plowman, of the truth enunciated by Descartes that all order \nis bom of the triumph of will over passion, and of reason over nature. With \nthe Regency, of course, came the inevitable swing of the pendulum\u2014an extreme \nand far-reaching reaction\u2014and under Louis XV, the expulsion of the Jesuits \n(to whom the author refers as \u201cthose resolute defenders of the principles of dis\u00ac \ncipline\u201d, and one of the last forces of resistance to the pressure of intellectual \nand moral disorder), marked what some keen observers, even then, recognized \nas the beginning of revolution. \n\nTogether with other contemporary historians, Madelin regards the long\u00ac \nstanding abuses of the Government and the \u201coppression\u201d of the people, much \ndecried by writers of the past, as not so serious in kind or degree but what they \ncould have been, under a strong sovereign, readily corrected by gradual reforms, \n\u2014providing philosophy (which in that day had no other aim or meaning than \nto throw off the yoke of authority) had not already sapped the nation and, in \nweakening all authority, struck at the throne itself. The mass of the French \npeople, he claims\u2014and he is not alone in this view\u2014were devoted whole-heart\u00ac \nedly both to the monarchy and the monarch, with no thought of their over\u00ac \nthrow, but Louis XVI was unable and unwilling to exert authority, and that \nalone could have averted catastrophe. To Louis, the King of France was the \nfather of his people, full of solicitude and forbearance, rather than a leader or a \ncommander. \u201cGod forbid\u201d, he said, when the Revolution was upon him, \u201cthat \na single man perish for my quarrel\u201d. It was not \u201chis quarrel\u201d, observes Mad\u00ac \nelin\u2014it was the royal authority which he was called upon to vindicate. Else\u00ac \nwhere, in speaking of the vital need in that day for a really great man as King, \nhe adds, \u201cbut it would have been necessary in addition that this King should be \nable to rely upon a nation as respectful of the throne and of the authority of \nthe sovereign as had been the France of Louis XIV\u201d. J.C. \n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n343 \n\n\nThe Menace of Japan , by T. O\u2019Conroy; H. C. Kinsey & Company, New York; \nprice, $3.00. \n\nProfessor O\u2019Conroy spent fifteen years in Japan as a teacher. He married a \nJapanese woman. His publishers say: \u201cDuring his long stay in the country, \nProfessor O\u2019Conroy lived in a circle almost exclusively Japanese. To all out\u00ac \nward appearances he adopted their way of living. He became a 100 per cent \nShintoist and Japanese. Indeed, even to-day, he has been unable to throw off \ncompletely the cloak of Orientalism that he assumed for the purposes of his \nwork.\u201d Professor O\u2019Conroy writes of himself: \u201cI claim to be the greatest living \nauthority on Japan in either hemisphere. I am not boasting. I know the \nJapanese as no other \u2018barbarian\u2019 on earth.\u201d His book has been banned in Japan, \nand if for no other reason than one of good taste, this would seem justifiable. \nHis \u201c100 per cent\u201d Shintoism was indeed a cloak, a borrowed and ill-fitting gar\u00ac \nment. He is unable to understand the nature of Japanese patriotism, despite \nhis cheerful announcement that, during the Great War, \u201cPatriotism got even \nme!\u201d If it did, it soon dropped him. \n\nProfessor O\u2019Conroy sees clearly that the racial consciousness and life of the \nJapanese are inseparable from their age-long tradition of Shinto thought, and \nthat their awareness of this has been developed since 1868. He seems to think, \nhowever, that the basic beliefs of Shinto are superstitions, and that the \u201cNeo- \nShintoism\u201d of to-day fosters a self-satisfied and aggressive spirit which is a \nmenace to the world. As a matter of fact, all Japanese are Shintoists by birth, \nbut Shinto is declared not to be a religion. A Shintoist can be a Christian, a \nBuddhist or a Confucianist, and some find it possible to be all of these at once. \nShinto is the veneration of the Supreme Spirit, of the Gods, of the Emperor as \ntheir descendant and representative, and of the spirits of the ancestors. Per\u00ac \nhaps one might say that it is the veneration of all spirit wherever found, as \npart of the Supreme Being. \n\nThe Menace of Japan opens with a quotation from a lecture by Mr. Bunichi \nHorioka: \n\nNow it is our oldest and strongest belief that the Empire of Japan was originally en\u00ac \ntrusted by Ameterasu-O-Mi-Kami, who is known as the Sun Goddess, to her descendants, \nwith the words: \u2018\u2018My children, in their capacities of Deities, shall rule it.\u201d Th^^as the \norigin of the Imperial Family. \n\nThe Emperor has always remained the embodiment of the nation\u2019s relation\u00ac \nship with the Gods. This conception of the King as the incarnation of the \nnational consciousness, and the bridge to its Divine Rulers, is as old as the history \nof man. According to the traditions of all the races, men were first ruled by Divine \nKings, then by Heroes, and finally by men. But these men ruled because they \nwere the agents of the Gods. The Pharaohs of Egypt descended, theoretically, \nfrom the Gods. The Emperor of China was the Son of Heaven. The Kings of \nEurope were such by Divine Right, a doctrine whose meaning is now completely \nmisunderstood in Europe. If this doctrine is preserved by the Japanese, they \nmay well be proud of their superiority, for it has almost disappeared from the \nrest of the world because of the materialism of the age. Men no longer desire to \n\n\n344 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\ndiscipline their wills to a higher law. They refuse to recognize any superior to \nthemselves among men, or any connection with a spiritual hierarchy. The masses \nof men are always ruled by someone, and when they evoke a leader from their \nown level they are ground into a race of slaves. If they had any recognition of \nthe spiritual hierarchy or reverence for it, the Divine Kings could begin to rule \nthem again by fostering in them the free development of their own higher natures. \n\nIf Professor O\u2019Conroy is incapable of understanding the basic ideas of Shinto, \nhis comments on Buddhism are equally unillumined. He concedes that \u201cBud\u00ac \ndhism has left many foot-prints on the path of time, spiritual ( sic ), art, poetry, \nand above all the recognition that the higher animal, the human being, is different \nfrom a dog, in that it has the thing called soul.\u201d We should have thought that \nBuddhism recognized the soul in every atom of being. He has this to say of \nZen Buddhism: \n\nZen has fed the military mind since the Komakura (sic) period when the usurper \nYoritomo was in power. . . . The sect asks that its believers spend certain times in \nconcentration. This is achieved by sitting in small cold rooms bare of any furniture. \nThe concentrator sits on the ground in orthodox Buddhist fashion, with his right toes \nhigh up on his left thigh and his left toes high up on his right thigh; the hands are folded \ndeeply. He takes up this position opposite a blank wall and stares at this for some hours. \nGradually in this manner his mind is relieved of all thought, and after repeating this \nprocess, involving the eradication of the imaginative faculty, for several years, on and \noff that is, he presumably develops into a fairly good soldier. Here I should point out \nthat although the modern Japanese army was fashioned by German and French officers, \nthey can fairly claim to have perceived this necessary adjunct, or rather subjunct, to \nthe mental equipment of a soldier before the nations of the West. \n\nIt seems scarcely necessary to give any further example of Professor O\u2019Con\u00ac \nroy\u2019s abysmal ignorance and prejudice. His chapter on the position of women \nin Japan is appalling. All who know the Japanese women speak of them with \nunqualified admiration. They have become saints, apparently, without reform\u00ac \ning the men. Perhaps that is the best way to start. Western women for a long \ntime have tried to reform the men first, and neither sex, so far, has an over\u00ac \nwhelming majority of saints. \n\nWe leave his book with the unhappy feeling that Western materialism is more \nmenacing to the world than Japanese Jingoism. St.C.LaD. \n\n\nMother Marianne of Molokai, by L. V. Jacks; The Macmillan Company, \nNew York; price, $2.00. \n\nThis is the life-history of a noble-hearted woman, who dedicated herself, in \ncompany with others of her Order, to the service of the lepers of Molokai. \nThe book is not only a record of what she herself accomplished, but is also a \nmonument to the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, New York, who took part \n(and still take part) in her work. Readers of the Quarterly, always inter\u00ac \nested in genuine and sincere efforts to ameliorate the sufferings of humanity, \nare sure to regard this book with sympathy. The first part of it tells us briefly \nabout Mother Marianne\u2019s youth, about the early years of her religious life, \n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n345 \n\n\nand the beginnings of her volunteer work among the lepers of Honolulu. The \nremainder is given to an account of her life on Molokai Ahina itself\u2014on deso\u00ac \nlate \u201cgrey\u201d Molokai where, after thirty years of hard and devoted labour, she \ndied, in 1918, at the age of eighty-three. \n\nIt is now close upon half a century since the world in general first began to \nhear (chiefly through the sympathetic pen of Robert Louis Stevenson), of \nFather Damien\u2019s heroic struggles there; but we do not know so much about \nMother Marianne. Her first arrival on Molokai was a few months only before \nFather Damien\u2019s death, after which, much of the responsibility for his work \namong the leper men and boys fell upon her capable shoulders, in addition to \nher own work among the leper women and children. It is hard to imagine \nwhat life on Molokai must have been like in those early days, before the work \nof the Missions had been well organized. Most of us think of the lepers exiled \nby the Hawaiian government to that dreary, nightmare spot, as pathetically \neager for help of any kind\u2014eager to be nursed, cheered, guided. This was by \nno means the universal attitude, often quite the reverse. Many of them had \nfor long been living \u201cin grisly silence,\u201d up on the mountainsides, in ruinous, \nill-kept shanties set in lonely little clearings. In the rank vegetation, hot and \nmotionless under a tropic sun, these poor creatures had become \u201cas wild as \npanthers\u201d. They shunned all religious and civilizing influences, and violently \nresented efforts to help them, preferring to continue the old habits of vice of \nevery kind into which they had fallen. Many were the conspiracies for the \nmurder of their would-be benefactors. But Mother Marianne was an un\u00ac \nusually energetic and forceful woman, and she managed the difficulties of her \nposition with great tact and wisdom; her quiet, firm voice brought instant \norder and discipline into any precarious situation; the most turbulent, the \nmost rebellious were immediately brought into line by her \u201cicy sternness\u201d in \nmoments of danger, and she smilingly faced the ingratitude of those whom she \ntried so faithfully to help. In reading the accounts of the plots hatched by \nthe unhappy victims of this terrible disease, we get the impression that in\u00ac \ngratitude may, perhaps, be one of its not uncommon symptoms. Many of us \nwill remember the Bible story of the amazing ingratitude shown to the Master \nChrist when he healed ten lepers at the same time, and when one only returned \nto express gratitude for his release. \n\nThe book seems to us somewhat fragmentary in form, and at times almost \ndisjointed, as though the author had had difficulty in getting together and in \narranging his data in a convincing manner; but as a record of human fortitude,^\u00ae \nwide-reaching charity, homely good sense and unfailing intelligence, it is deeply ^ \ninteresting. T.D. \n\n\nThoughts on Death and Life , by William Ernest Hocking; Harper and Brothers, \nNew York and London, 1937; price, $3.00. \n\nProfessor Hocking explains that his purpose is \u201cnot to prove immortality, \nnor to disprove it\u201d, but \u201cto shake ourselves out of sophistication about it\u201d. In \n\n\n\n346 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nspite of this somewhat negative aim, his work may actually have a more posi\u00ac \ntive and beneficial effect upon many minds than would be the case if it were a \nsimple and uncompromising statement of faith. It is a fact that many, per\u00ac \nhaps most, people to-day think of immortality, when they think of it at all, \nas impossible, because \u201cscience\u201d has proved it to be impossible. With admir\u00ac \nable clarity, Professor Hocking exposes the complete inadequacy of materialis\u00ac \ntic arguments against the existence and the survival of the soul. There is no \nreason in the nature of things, as he shows, for the dogmatic assumption that \n\u201cto one mind there is one and only one body\u201d; nor are we obliged to postulate \nthat the physical world to which our bodies belong is the only possible world in \nthe great Universe. Professor Hocking has performed an invaluable service in \nshowing that it is a sign of intellectual weakness to deny any possibility of \nimmortality for the human being. \n\nHowever, faith is a positive expression of the will, and cannot be generated \nin consciousness merely by intellectual argument. It must rest upon some \nintuition of reality, however dim and however confused. We agree with Pro\u00ac \nfessor Hocking that the experiments of spiritualism are valueless as evidence, \nbut we do not agree that \u201cthe problem of the survival of death by human per\u00ac \nsons is an empirical problem for which we have no empirical evidence\u201d. There \nis testimony in all the great scriptures of the world-religions that certain indi\u00ac \nviduals, like the Christ and the Buddha, have experienced and proved the fact \nof immortality in their own persons. \u201cWe feel and know that we are eternal\u201d, \nsaid a great philosopher, and there is no human soul which is incapable of \nrealizing that feeling and that knowledge for himself. Otherwise the age-long \nfaith in immortality would be unintelligible. Professor Hocking himself tacitly \nrecognizes this fact in his illuminating distinction between \u201cthe self within the \nworld\u201d and \u201cthe self which hovers over experience, the inclusive, observing and \njudging self\u201d. \n\nFor the sake of brevity, we may refer to these two aspects of the self ... as two \nselves: the self which is within the world, and the self which contemplates the world \nfrom a point not within the world, and in this sense includes the world. We might desig\u00ac \nnate these two selves (invidiously) as the selves of the lower level and of the upper level, \nor (inaccurately) as the observed and the observing selves. We might better call them \nthe \u201cexcursive\u201d and the \u201creflective\u201d selves. The word \u201cexcursive\u201d simply implies that \nthe self-within-the-world is a self of behaviour, entangled in affairs; and that these affairs \nhave the value of excursions, in the sense that they report their results back again to the \ncentre from which the foray issued. If consciousness were a stream, it would go on and \non with no attachments and no re-issuings; but as a series or system of excursions, each \none launched under a working hypothesis subject to revision, we understand that it has \nits returns, its incessant new beginnings with equally incessant accumulation of mean\u00ac \ning. The reflective self, behind scenes, is the constant judge, guide, initiator of this \nexcursive activity. . . . Thus the reflective self, drawing its hints from the experience \nof a multitude of excursions, gives back to history always more than it receives. And \nthe self which it makes is a self which it alone has conceived. If this account of decision \nis true, the terms freedom and creativity applied to human action have a certain literal \nforce. The self gives actuality to possibilities; and it has first made these possibilities. \n... It would presumably remain something, and viable, even if the dated self it had \nbuilt were obliterated. Death would then have a further meaning. Death would mean, \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREVIEWS \n\n\n347 \n\n\nfor the reflective self . . . separation from it [the dated self]\u2014release from its growing \nburden. . . . Death would also mean the persistence of the maternal prowess of the \nreflective self within which lie germs of other gestations. Hence it would not neces\u00ac \nsarily mean loss of individuality, nor of sensation, nor of body, nor of objects. \n\nAlthough Professor Hocking may be unaware of the fact, he has actually \nprovided a text which might serve for a discussion of the theosophical doctrines \nof Karma and Reincarnation. Why should the \u201creflective self\u201d\u2014the Reincar\u00ac \nnating Ego, as we may call it\u2014send forth a new \u201cexcursive self\u201d, a new \u201cper\u00ac \nsonality\u201d, into another, presumably \u201chigher\u201d world, until it has exhausted \nthe possibilities of constructive experience here upon this earth? It is indeed \nthe theosophical tradition that there are higher worlds or planes inhabited by \nsubtiler bodies than the gross envelopes which we know; but the path to these \nsuperior levels of experience can only be entered when the lessons of our present \norder of physical existence are thoroughly learned. Incidentally, in the theo\u00ac \nsophical teaching, there is no implication that individual consciousness, more or \nless active, does not exist between incarnations. \n\nIt is impossible to mention all the excellent features of this book. For ex\u00ac \nample, a broad field for meditation is suggested by Professor Hocking\u2019s state\u00ac \nment that \u201cthe immediate feeling of life touches no limit either of beginning or \nend\u201d. There is also deep significance in his conclusion: \n\nIt appears then that the meaning of human life suggested by biology lies outside the \nsphere of biology. 1 he \u201cends of Nature\u201d which mentality must somehow aid, if it is \nto have any place in biological theory, are pseudo-ends so long as Nature is assumed to \n\nbe unconscious.The metaphysics which we have been using is not that of emergent \n\nevolution, but more nearly that of Aristotle in his dictum that the nature of things is \nbest seen in their completion, rather than in their apparent origins. From which follows \nan ancient intuition, that in the nature of things life is deeper than matter, and mind \ndeeper than life. c t \n\n\nBeyond Normal Cognition , by John F. Thomas, with foreword by Professor \nWm. McDougall; Bruce Humphries, Boston; price, $3.50. \n\nWe mention this book for the benefit of those who doubt, or who wish to \nconvince others, that telepathy and clairvoyance are scientifically verified nat\u00ac \nural phenomena. The work on which the study is based was carried on at \nDuke University under university supervision. Most of the records analyzed \nwere \u201cabsent sittings\u201d, that is, were taken when the person who alone knpr \nthe facts was some thousands of miles distant. The Scientific American , itWs \nreview of the book, says: \u201cTelepathy and clairvoyance hypotheses seem by \nthese studies to be validated\u201d. We are duly grateful for the concession; but \nwhy \u201chypotheses\u201d? This \u201cresearch\u201d either established certain facts, or it did \nnot. If it did, an attempted explanation of the facts might properly be de\u00ac \nscribed as hypothetical: not the facts themselves. But modem psychology is \nincapable of an explanation, and always will be,\u2014until it condescends to adopt, \nas working hypotheses, the explanations advanced by Madame Blavatsky, \nwhich she derived from the present-day custodians of the Hermetic and Oriental \n\n\n\n348 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nsecret teaching. In brief, when it comes to explanation, more was known on \nthese subjects in ancient Egypt than all the scientific psychologists in Europe \nand America combined will learn in a hundred years,\u2014and their laughter at such \na suggestion will be proof of their present ignorance. None the less, we welcome \nthis book, and admire the courage of its authors in braving the contempt of all \nthe smaller minds among their scientific confreres. They dare to go on record \nfor the facts. X.Y.Z. \n\n\nMiracles and Adventures: An Autobiography, by M. A. St. Clair Stobart; Rider \nand Co., London; price, 8s. 6d. \n\nWe found this book tiresome, for more reasons than one. It was advertized \nas a wonderful account of the Serbian Retreat during the Great War. It is \nnothing of the sort. It is an over-detailed account of what the author did, day \nby day, during that retreat, and while she undoubtedly showed splendid cour\u00ac \nage and extraordinary endurance, her avowed motive in large measure was to \ndemonstrate that she (a suffragette) was in many manly ways, better than \nmost men; and as she, a married woman, was the mother of two children, and \nhad thus performed a feat of which no man is capable, it seems to the reviewer \nthat she might have been content to let it go at that. We have yet to hear of a \nman, outside of an asylum, who thought he had a mission to prove himself as \ngood as, or better than, women in womanly occupations; but while that remark \nhas point, it is a point which women of Mrs. Stobart\u2019s type, do not seem able \nto appreciate. \n\nIt was suggested also in the advertisement that this autobiography contained \nmuch of occult experience. It contains none. The author is a Spiritualist. \nSpiritualism, she says, is \u201cclearly authorized by the Bible. . . . The prophet \nSamuel, who was called a prophet of the Lord, had appeared at the stance held \nby King Saul with the medium of Endor. Jesus himself had communicated \nwith the spirits of Moses and Elijah, and but for the psychic vision of Paul on \nthe road to Damascus, it is doubtful whether the world would ever have heard \nof the Christian religion.\u201d This levelling-down of Masters and Initiates to the \nstatus of mediums, will not, we are thankful to say, appeal to students of The\u00ac \nosophy. On the contrary, it will tend further to convince them that Spiritual\u00ac \nism, as H.P.B. said, is a degradation of occultism, and that mediumism throws \nthe door wide open to witchcraft, to black magic, and to other prostitutions of \nspiritual realities. S.M.A. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nQUESTIONS \n\n\n\n\n*wssmS \n\n\nANSWERS \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nQuestion No. 404 .\u2014Is it possible for anyone to develop any talent? Is not the total absence \nof a given talent an indication of a definite limitation? \n\nAnswer. \u2014It is a question of what we want, and of how much we want it and why, and of \nwhether we take sufficiently long views. The total absence of a given talent might well be a \ndefinite limitation, as far as this life is concerned. But we have all seen qualities of character \ndevelop, in one lifetime, to an astonishing extent. Assume that talents are the result of de\u00ac \nvelopment of character, and that we desire some particular talent, not for our own use, but \nfor the service of the Masters. It should be possible for us, through our effort and through \nthe help which we might receive because of our motive, to possess, in a future life, that talent \nwhich we desire and which we now lack. C.R.A. \n\nAnswer. \u2014We do not realize the efficacy of the power available to us, for we pervert, scatter \nand waste it. If we would marshal our forces, properly direct and concentrate them, we could \ndevelop any talent, in shorter or longer time and to a degree. There is ample proof of this in \nthe world about us. For example, may we not have heard, or perhaps have met, some person \nwho delights us because of his diction and enunciation, and have learned how lacking in those \nfaculties he was previously? In a real sense, there is no such thing as the total absence of a \ntalent. Potentially, all talents are available to all men; but, by continued misuse of force, \noriginally Divine, and by frittering away energy, talents have become atrophied. It is we who \nhave placed limitations upon ourselves. Speaking from a higher and truer point of view, the \nabsence, so-called, of a talent, is a finite limitation only. In the infinite, there are no limitations. \nIt is our task to enter the Eternal and to dwell there, not losing hold \u201con the calm Spirit that \ndwells within\u201d. When we shall have obtained and held that position, the infinite gifts of the \nEternal will be offered to us, gifts which must include any and every talent we may need in \nserving the behests of Spirit. G.M.W.K. \n\nAnswer.\u2014 The question seems to ignore Reincarnation. Man is potentially divine, and is \ncapable of infinite development. \u201cThere are the powers of all Nature before you; take wh^ \nyou can.\u201d The possession of any given talent in one incarnation is the fruit of effort to devejjl \nit, not in one, but, perhaps, in many previous incarnations. The motive behind developnSm \nof any talent is love for what it expresses, and an ardent desire to possess it, which in turn has \nresulted in intense effort and sheer hard work to develop it. The lack of a talent is evidence of \nfailure to employ the means necessary to acquire it, and should be acknowledged as such. It \nshould not be viewed negatively as a limitation which one is compelled to accept; neither \nshould one conclude that there is nothing that one can do about it. Man\u2019s limitations are \nself-imposed, self-created. An earnest student of Theosophy would do well to waste no time \nin vain regrets over the lack of any talent, but rather to examine himself as to his motives\u2014 \nwhether they are prompted by vanity or envy of others\u2014and to use this means of self-study in \norder to promote development of character, and thus to try to discover what is the lesson \nwhich the Masters wish him to learn in this particular incarnation. G.H.M. \n\n\n349 \n\n\n\n35 \u00b0 \n\n\nTHEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY \n\n\nAnswer. \u2014It is possible for anyone to develop any talent in timegivensufficientdesire \nand willingness to sacrifice for it. The time, however, may be several Ufe-times. There are \nno limits to the potentialities of the soul, and it has often been said that there are no powers \nin the universe that we are not destined ultimately to wield. There are, however, obvious \nlimitations to any particular personality. A blind man, for example, cannot lean.to paint m \nthat incarnation. He must wait to develop a new instrument that can see. We shall be wise \nto study ourselves, and to realize our limitations as they exist at any given moment We \nshall be most unwise to accept any existing limitation as permanent Qualit.es and abihties \nwhich have been developed in former lives and which are unknown to us may be brought to \nmanifestation by effort, or by a comparatively slight spiritual advance. If the proper per- \ntormance of ourduties, or the need of others, call for the development of .particularquality \nwe may be sure that we have the power to develop it. We must also have developed sufficient \nunderstanding to be trusted to use wisely any quality which will enhance our ability to serve. \nTo accept a limitation as permanent, is self-indulgent laziness To maintain a constant \nstruggle to surmount it, is a victory in itself, no matter how little progress we may seem to \nmake. \n\nAnswer.-A11 powers and talents are inherent in the Soul and can be developed but not \nnecessarily in this life. The apparent absence of a talent is due to Karma, probably to neg \nor misuse in a past life. Also, we share the Karma of the family into which we are born which \nmay mean certain pronounced traits, or lack of them. We have the talents we need for th.s \n\nlife. What use are we making of them? That is the mam question. C.M.b. \n\nAnswer\u2014 Rajas (desire or passion) having dwindled in \u201cAnglo-Saxons\" to attacks of the \nfidgets, the dominant characteristic of most of us is (amor,-inertia, laziness I have no talent \nfor that\u201d, usually means that we have not really tried and do not want to take pains Amiel \nsaid: \u201cDoing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for latent, is \neenius \u201d Yet even genius is said to be \u201can infinite capacity for taking pains . \n\nB i n brief- do not let \u201clack of talent\" serve as an excuse for laziness. If it be your duty to draw, \nor write, or speak in public, or drive an automobile, you can learn to do it, and can learn to \ndo it well if prepared to pay the price of taking pains. \n\nAnswer.\u2014 There is a difference between old souls, and what H.P.B. called \u201cbaby egos|'. \nDire need in previous incarnations has usually compelled the former to exert themselves in \nwidely diversified directions,-which means latent capacities in all those directions Its; \u00ab \nwill evoke the capacity. The limitations of \u201cbaby egos', on the other hand, are real though \nthis is no excuse either for laziness or discouragement: there is the cheering thought tha^ even \na pig can be taught to dance. \n\n\nNOTICE \n\nThe regular meetings of the New York Branch of The Theosophical Society will be held \nthroughout the winter and spring at 64, Washington Mews (between Washington Square and \nEast Eighth Street), on alternate Saturday evenings, beginning at half-past eight and closing \nat ten o\u2019clock. Branch members will receive a printed announcement giving the dates. I he \nsame announcement will also be mailed to non-members who send their names to the Secre\u00ac \ntary T S P O Box 64, Station O, New York. Out-of-town members of the Society are in\u00ac \nvited to attend these meetings whenever they are in New York, and visitors who may be \ninterested in Theosophy are always welcome. \n\n\nINDEX TO VOLUME XXXIV \n\n\nAppeal of Theosophy; G.M.W.K . \n\nE. A . \n\nBeatrice of Dante, The; Katharine Hillard . \n\nH.P.B . \n\nCav6 . \n\nCenturion . \n\nCoronation, The. \n\nCorrespondence. \n\n. . \n\nMiles . . \n\nEducation Through the Arts in Secondary Schools; 1 \n\nEnglish Way to the Goal, The, J. C . \n\nEsoteric Discipleship; H.C.B . \n\nFollow Up!; Miles C . \n\nFragments; Cavt . \n\nFrfoe servant . \n\nGris com, Clement A. ( G . Hijo t ) . \n\n. . \n\n. . \n\nHillard , Katharine . \n\nImperial Heredity, An; J. F. B. Mitchell . \n\nIn Memoriam. \n\nG.M.W.K . \n\nS.V.L . \n\n\n. 3 i 5 \n\n. 3\u00b0 8 \n\n. i 54 \n\n. 68 \n\n. . . 15, 100, 191, 280 \n\n.52, 124, 294 \n\n. i 93 \n\n.83, 171 \n\n. 42 \n\n. 212 \n\n. 13 6 \n\n. 42 \n\n. 115 \n\n. 212 \n\n. ... 15, 100, 191, 280 \n. i 97 \n\n. 333 \n\n. 209 \n\n. i 7 \n\n. 154 \n\n. 24 \n\n. 88 \n\n. 315 \n\n. 200 \n\n\n\u201cMan, Know Thyself\u201d; H.G . \n\nMan, the Measure of All Things; 5. V. L \n\nMitchell , Henry Bedinger . \n\nMitchell , J. F. B . \n\nNotes and Comments. \n\nOn the Screen of Time; T . \n\n\n209 \n\n200 \n\n\n\n5, 91, 179, 267 \n.142, 319 \n\n\n\n\nAnswers. 86 ' U4. 2631 349 \n\n.65, 121 \n\nRe'prints\": \"\"Beatrice of Dante, The; Katharine Hillard.. \n\nTalk With My Brain, A; G. Hijo (Clement A \nWhat Are The Theosophists?; H.P.B . \n\n\nQuestions and \nRemarks by the Way \n\n\n. i54 \n\nGriscom ). 333 \n\n. 68 \n\n\n\n35i \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n3 \n\n\n3$2 INDEX TO VOLUME XXXIV \n\n. .. 33 \n\n^Ancient Life in Mexico and Central America; Edgar L. Hewett . 82 \n\nBeyond Normal Cognition; John F. Thomas. .. . 347 \n\nContendings of the Apostles; trans. by Sir E. A. Walks Budge . 7 \n\nCr^puscule de la Monarchic, Le; Louis Madelin . 3^ \n\nDamien The Leper; John Farrow .' \n\nDhammapada, The; irons, by Irving Babbitt . 7 * \n\nDiversity in Holiness; R . H. J. Steuart , S. J . \n\nEmerson Today; Bliss Perry . \n\nFaiths and Fellowship. , fi7 \n\nMarie Antoinette: A Slandered Queen; Nesta H_ Webster . \n\nMathematics for the Million; Lancelot Hogben , F.R.S . 20 \n\nMediaeval Legends of Christ; A. S. Rappoport, Ph . \n\nMenace of Japan, The; T. O\u2019Conroy -. \u25a0\u25a0\u25a0 . 343 \n\nMiracles and Adventures; M. A. St. Clair Stobart . ^ \n\nModem Alchemy; Dorothy M. Fisk . \n\nMother Marianne of Molokai; L. V. Jacks . 344 \n\nMy Horse Warrior; Lord Mottistone . 34 \n\nNew Bible Evidence; Sir Charles Marston, F.S.A . 5 \n\nOrpheus and Greek Religion; W. K. C. Guthrie . * \n\nPascal: The Life of Genius; Morris Bishop . \n\nPensife et le Mouvant, La; Henri Bergson . \n\nReturn to Religion, The; Henry C. Link, Ph.D . 55 \n\nSpeak to the Earth; Vivienne de Watteville -\u2022 \u2022 \u25a0\u25a0\u25a0 . \n\nThoughts on Death and Life; William Ernest Hocking . 345 \n\nWorship; Evelyn Underhill . ^ \n\nSeptenary Man in Ancient Egypt; Hetep-en-Neter . *7 \n\nStone of Destiny, The; Frkre servant . \n\nL.S ... \n\nTalk With My Brain, A; G. Hijo (Clement A. Griscom) . 333 \n\nTheosophy 1 and Democracy '; Henry Bedinger Mitchell .. \u2022 \u2022 \n\nTheosophy and Its Critics; . . .'.'.'. 88 , ' 176 ,' \u00ab S , 35 \u00b0 \n\nT. S. Activities . I42> 3ip \n\n. . \n\n_ . .... 308 \n\nVan Gogh, Vincent; E. A . 6 \n\n. . \n\n68 \n\nWhat Are The Theosophists?; H.P.B .. \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022' \n\nWithout Censor, VIII, IX, X; Centurion .52. 124 . 294 \n\nYou; Henry Bedinger Mitchell . 2 \n\n\nSTANDARD BOOKS \n\n\nBlavalsky, H. P. 1m J\u00bb|^ \u201c\"\".V.::: \n\nKKcnoS of\u00b0toe R Blavatsky Lodge.\u2022<*\u00ab>, 2.50 \n\nVoice of tee Silence . \"\u201cWHSi JS \n\nCave. Fragments. Volume I . bM i.bo \n\nVolume III . \n\nssa \n\nJohnston, Charles. Bhagavad Gita .Trandatad, \n\nCrest Jewel op Wisdom, The.... \n\nGreat Upanishads, The, Volume I.\u2019 0 \n\nParables of the Kingdom, The.\u2014 \n\nPatanjali\u2019s Yoga Sutras .TnuwUted, \u201c aotated: ^ i \u201c \n\njudfi S e W wliliam n Q. Bhagavad Gita. V..'. Edited-, doth. l.\u00bb, leath\u00ab. i.bo \n\nCulture of Concentration. \n\nLetters F ^ia/Have Helped Me, Volume I and II, each. .doth. 1.00 \n\nKeightley. 1 Archibald. Theosophy as an Influence in Life papa, .20 \n\nMitchell S Henry Bedinge\u2122 Meditation ! Sp^iai edition, .ao, papa, .bo \n\n1 Theosophical Society and Theosophy, The .....papa, . \n\nMitchell, J. F. B. Collegiate Education and Standards of \n\nValue ..... ..\u00bb\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022 \u2022 \u2014 .\u201d * * *' 7.7.7 * doth! 2.M \n\n\nSinnett, A. P. Esoteric Buddhism \"-y/.Z\u2019SSi \n\nTorreSTay E.* L Science and'it's Function in Education. .. .paper, .50 \n\nWalker, E. D. Reincarnation .V.V.\u2019.V.dS i\u201d \n\nIdyll of the White Lotus. ' \".leather, .85 \n\nLight on the Path.. . ...doth, 1.20 \n\nThrough the Gates of Gold. \n\n\nTHE QUARTERLY BOOK DEPARTMENT, \n\nP. 0 . Box 64, Station O, New York. \n\n\n\nDevotional: Bhagavad Gita: Cr at \n\nS abl\u00ab rfttfSjftSRt\u00ab\u00ab of Life; Through the Gatiof Gold; Voice of the Silence. \n\nTransaction!; Patanjali\u2019s Yoga Sutras. \u201e ,, \n\nTta Ocean of^eo^phy\u2019: \n\nmhe Theosophical Society and Theosophy. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWht tE^eosiopfncal ^ocietp \n\nFounded by B. P* Blavatsky at Hew Vork in 1875 \n\n\n_; j be able to establish \n\nuniversal\u201cbtothethood among men, but \n, lu v.w.U> the nucleus of such a body, \nits members believe that an acquaintance \nreligions and philosophies will \nand fundamental principle \n\n\n-\u201c\\HE Society does not pretend to \n\nat once a i- \n\nonly strives to create \nMany of its \n\n'ffiEfflwiuj] w ith the world s \nunderlying these, that sp^t brotherhood* and many \n\n2 *%*% loteUeve2\u00bbtS appreciation of the finer forces \n$ natur/anJ 3 man will still further emphasize thesamesde*. \n\u00b0* tl, organization is wholly unsectarian, with no creed, \n\nSsMaesrwSa \n\n\nmembership should be addressed to the \n\nBox 64, Station O, New York. \n\n\nApplications for","title":"The theosophical quarterly. Vol.34","tradition":"Theosophy","translated_text":null,"word_count":196047}