{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_76990/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_76990","id":"gutenberg_76990","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76990","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Spirit writings","Spiritualism","World War, 1914-1918 -- Miscellanea"],"text":"LAST LETTERS\nFROM THE LIVING DEAD MAN\n\n\n\n\n BY ELSA BARKER\n\n LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN\n WAR LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD\n MAN\n SONGS OF A VAGROM ANGEL\n LAST LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD\n MAN\n THE SON OF MARY BETHEL\n THE FROZEN GRAIL\n THE BOOK OF LOVE\n STORIES FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT\n FOR CHILDREN\n\n\n\n\n LAST LETTERS\n FROM THE\n LIVING DEAD MAN\n\n\n WRITTEN DOWN\n BY\n ELSA BARKER\n\n\n WITH AN INTRODUCTION\n\n\n\n NEW YORK\n MITCHELL KENNERLEY\n 1919\n\n\n\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY\n MITCHELL KENNERLEY\n\n\n\n\n PRINTED IN AMERICA BY\n J. J. LITTLE & IVES COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n\n INTRODUCTION 7\n\n LETTER\n\n I THE GENIUS OF AMERICA 49\n\n II FEAR NOT 54\n\n III THE PROMISE OF SPRING 61\n\n IV THE DIET OF GOLD 67\n\n V CONTINGENT FEES 71\n\n VI THE THREE APPEALS 74\n\n VII THE BUILDERS 76\n\n VIII THE WORLD OF MIND 88\n\n IX AMERICA\u2019S GOOD FRIDAY 95\n\n X THE CRUCIBLE 97\n\n XI MAKE CLEAN YOUR HOUSE 103\n\n XII LEVEL HEADS 109\n\n XIII TREES AND BRICK WALLS 112\n\n XIV INVISIBLE ARMIES 114\n\n XV THE WEAKEST LINK 118\n\n XVI A COUNCIL IN THE FOREST 123\n\n XVII THE IDEAL OF SUCCESS 140\n\n XVIII ORDER AND PROGRESS 147\n\n XIX THE FEDERATION OF NATIONS 155\n\n XX THE NEW IDEAL 159\n\n XXI A RAMBLING TALK 166\n\n XXII THE LEVER OF WORLD UNITY 171\n\n XXIII THE STARS OF MAN\u2019S DESTINY 179\n\n XXIV MELANCHOLY 182\n\n XXV COMPENSATORY PLAY 190\n\n XXVI THE AQUARIAN AGE 198\n\n XXVII THE WATCHERS 209\n\n XXVIII A RITUAL OF FELLOWSHIP 216\n\n XXIX RECRUITING AGENTS 218\n\n XXX THE VIRUS OF DISRUPTION 227\n\n XXXI THE ALTAR FIRE 235\n\n\n\n\n LAST LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD MAN\n\n\n\n\n INTRODUCTION\n\n\nTHIS book, the third and last of the Living Dead Man series, was\nwritten between February, 1917, and February, 1918. Then I lost the\nability--or perhaps I should say the inclination--to do automatic\nwriting.\n\nAs this third manuscript was shorter than the other two, I had supposed\nit to be a fragment which would probably never be finished; and it was\nnot until my publisher urged me to issue it _as_ a fragment that I\nread it all over for the first time and discovered that it was really a\ncomplete thing, an organic whole.\n\n\u201cPerhaps,\u201d I told myself, surprised and still half-incredulous, \u201cthere\n_is_ a divinity that shapes our ends.\u201d For had this book been\npublished when it was written, it would have seemed premature; now the\ngreater part of it is timely as yesterday\u2019s editorials.\n\nFor the benefit of those who have not read the earlier books of the\nseries, \u201cLetters From a Living Dead Man,\u201d 1914, and \u201cWar Letters From\nthe Living Dead Man,\u201d 1915, I will quote from the Introductions of\nthose books. In the first Introduction I said:\n\n \u201cOne night last year in Paris I was strongly impelled to take up a\n pencil and write, though what I was to write about I had no idea.\n Yielding to the impulse, my hand was seized as if from the outside,\n and a remarkable message of a personal nature came, followed by the\n signature \u2018X.\u2019\n\n \u201cThe purport of the message was clear, but the signature puzzled me.\n\n \u201cThe following day I showed this writing to a friend, asking her if\n she had any idea who \u2018X\u2019 was.\n\n \u201c\u2018Why,\u2019 she replied, \u2018don\u2019t you know that that is what we always call\n Mr. ----?\u2019\n\n \u201cI did not know.\n\n \u201cNow, Mr. ---- was six thousand miles from Paris, and, as we supposed,\n in the land of the living. But a day or two later a letter came to me\n from America, stating that Mr. ---- had died in the western part of\n the United States, a few days before I received in Paris the automatic\n message signed \u2018X.\u2019\n\n \u201cSo far as I know, I was the first person in Europe to be informed\n of his death, and I immediately called on my friend to tell her that\n \u2018X\u2019 had passed out. She did not seem surprised, and told me that she\n had felt certain of it some days before, when I had shown her the \u2018X\u2019\n letter, though she had not said so at the time.\n\n \u201cNaturally I was impressed by this extraordinary incident....\n\n \u201cBut to the whole subject of communication between the two worlds I\n felt an unusual degree of indifference. Spiritualism had always left\n me quite cold, and I had not even read the ordinary standard works on\n the subject....\n\n \u201cSeveral letters signed \u2018X\u2019 were automatically written during the next\n few weeks; but, instead of becoming enthusiastic, I developed a strong\n disinclination for this manner of writing, and was only persuaded to\n continue it through the arguments of my friend that if \u2018X\u2019 really\n wished to communicate with the world, I was highly privileged in being\n able to help him....\n\n \u201cGradually, as I conquered my strong prejudice against automatic\n writing, I became interested in the things which \u2018X\u2019 told me about the\n life beyond the grave....\n\n \u201cWhen it was first suggested that these letters should be published\n with an introduction by me, I did not take very enthusiastically to\n the idea. Being the author of several books, more or less well known,\n I had my little vanity as to the stability of my literary reputation.\n I did not wish to be known as an eccentric, a \u2018freak.\u2019 But I consented\n to write an introduction stating that the letters were automatically\n written in my presence, which would have been the truth, though not\n all the truth. This satisfied my friend; but as time went on, it did\n not satisfy me. It seemed not quite sincere.\n\n \u201cI argued the matter out with myself.... The letters were probably\n two-thirds written before this question was finally settled; and I\n decided that if I published the letters at all, I should publish them\n with a frank introduction, stating the exact circumstances of their\n reception by me.\u201d\n\nThe interest aroused by \u201cLetters From a Living Dead Man,\u201d which had\nbeen published simultaneously in London and New York, astonished me.\nRequests for translation rights began to come in, and I was flooded\nwith letters from all parts of the world. I answered as many as I\ncould, but to answer all was quite impossible.\n\nNow I will quote again, briefly, from the Introduction to the second\nvolume, \u201cWar Letters From the Living Dead Man,\u201d 1915.\n\n \u201cIn that first book of \u2018X\u2019 I did not state who the writer was, not\n feeling at liberty to do so without the consent of his family; but\n in the summer of 1914, while I was still living in Europe, a long\n interview with Mr. Bruce Hatch appeared in the \u2018New York Sunday\n World,\u2019 in which he expressed the conviction that the \u2018Letters\u2019 were\n genuine communications from his father, the late Judge David P. Hatch,\n of Los Angeles, California....\n\n \u201cAfter the Letters were finished in 1913, during a period of about\n two years I was conscious of the presence of \u2018X\u2019 only on two or three\n occasions, when he wrote some brief advice in regard to my personal\n affairs.\n\n \u201cOn the fourth of February, 1915, in New York, I was suddenly made\n aware one day that \u2018X\u2019 stood in the room and wished to write; but as\n always before, with one or two exceptions, I had not the remotest\n idea of what he was going to say. He wrote as follows:\n\n \u201c\u2018When I come back and tell you the story of this war, as seen from\n the other side, you will know more than all the Chancelleries of the\n nations.\u2019\u201d\n\nThen I went on to describe the process of my automatic writing, adding:\n\n \u201cNo person who had had even a minute fraction of my occult experience\n could be more coldly critical of that experience than I am. I freely\n welcome every logical argument against the belief that these letters\n are what they purport to be; but placing those arguments in opposition\n to the evidence which I have of the genuineness of them, the\n affirmations outweigh the denials, and I accept them. This evidence is\n too complex and much of it too personal to be even outlined here.\u201d\n\nThe second volume, which dealt with the war from the hidden side of\nthings, and predicted the victory of the Allies, aroused even more\ninterest than the first one. The flood of letters continued.\n\nIn 1916, at the kind insistence of Joyce Kilmer, I published another\nand different little book of automatic writings, \u201cSongs of a Vagrom\nAngel,\u201d the angel being the Beautiful Being described by \u201cX\u201d in the\nLiving Dead Man books. The \u201cSongs\u201d were charmingly received by the\ncritics. The whole book, with the exception of three of the songs, had\nbeen \u201cwritten down\u201d in twenty-two hours.\n\nIn the summer of 1916 I went to California, and it was there, in\nFebruary, 1917, that the writing of this third book began.\n\nBut I was growing more and more restive at the swamping of my literary\ncareer by automatic writings, and my mountainous correspondence left\nme less and less time for original work. Finally, in February, 1918,\nthe \u201cinner conflict\u201d culminated in a complete cessation of automatic\nwriting.\n\nThe artist in me had become exasperated. If the reader will permit\nthe exaggeration of the simile, I felt as a man might feel who was\ncaught between the jaws of a lion that was carrying him away into a\ntrackless jungle. Before March, 1914, I had been known as a poet and a\nnovelist; since 1914 my name had become known in more countries than\nI have counted as a \u201cpsychic,\u201d a medium of communication between the\nvisible and the invisible worlds. I was not sorry that I had published\nthe books, because so many people had written me that I had saved them\nfrom despair and even suicide; but I shrank from the publicity they\nbrought me. I have been nearly devoured by these books and the readers\nof these books. I felt, in February, 1918, that I had a right to say\nthat the incident was closed.\n\nBut that did not mean a cessation of correspondence. Suffering souls\nto whose letters the limitations of time and uncertain health (for I\nhad not been well since 1915) made it impossible to respond by return\nof post, would write again reproaching me with indifference to their\nsufferings. The situation had become inconceivable. And if I went out\nsomewhere for an hour or two of social \u201crest,\u201d I was surrounded by\npeople who wanted me to talk to them about the \u201cX\u201d books, about their\nown dead friends, and the possibilities of communication.\n\nI was torn by pity for those who were suffering, and after years of war\nnearly everyone was suffering; but I wanted to be at the front with\nthe Red Cross, and my health would not permit me to go. I could help\nvarious war committees, but I could not go to my tortured and beloved\nFrance--to be perhaps an added burden, should I break down altogether.\n\nThe only escape from this conflict was in abstruse studies, studies\nwhere pure mind can work. So I seriously took up Analytical Psychology,\nin which I had been mildly interested since 1915. Some fourteen hours a\nday for a year I studied, some of the time with a teacher, some of the\ntime alone. I burrowed under the theories of the three great schools,\nand synthesized them, after my fashion. I had rather an active mind to\nexperiment upon--my own. The \u201cresistances,\u201d so-called, had been broken\ndown by the teacher.\n\nOne of the things which appealed most to my reason was Jung\u2019s\ninsistence upon the psychological (and therefore practical) value of\nthe irrational. He says:\n\n \u201cThere is no human foresight nor philosophy which can enable us to\n give our lives a prescribed direction, except for quite a short\n distance. Destiny lies before us, perplexing us, and teeming with\n possibilities, and yet only one of these many possibilities is our\n own particular right way.... Much can certainly be attained by\n will-power. But ... our will is a function that is directed by our\n powers of reflection.... Has it ever been proved, or can it ever be\n proved, that life and destiny harmonize with our human reason, that\n is, that they are exclusively rational? On the contrary, we have\n ground for supposing that they are also irrational, that is to say,\n that in the last resort they too are based in regions beyond the\n human reason. The irrationality of the great process is shown by its\n so-called _accidentalness_.... The rich store of life both is,\n and is not, determined by law; it is at the same time rational and\n irrational. Therefore, the reason and the will founded upon it are\n only valid for a short distance. The further we extend this rationally\n chosen direction, the surer we may be that we are thereby excluding\n the irrational possibilities of life, which have, however, just as\n good a right to be lived. Aye, we may injure ourselves, since we\n cut off the wealth of accidental eventualities by a too rigid and\n conscious direction.... The present fearful catastrophic world-war has\n tremendously upset the most optimistic upholder of rationalism and\n culture.\u201d\n\nNow my rationally chosen \u201cline of life\u201d had been that of writing books\nof poetry, fiction and essays. But \u201caccidentalness\u201d cut in, and I wrote\nautomatically and published what I had written. That destiny, that\nsecond line of life, may also have been, for all we can prove to the\ncontrary, based \u201cin regions beyond the human reason.\u201d\n\nI should not like to say that my having led the way, in the spring of\n1914, for writers of dignified reputation to publish their automatic\nwritings might have been causally directed by the coming great need of\nthe world for spiritual consolation during the most awful holocaust in\nhistory. That would be pressing irrationality too far.\n\nBut that second line of life, as Jung would call it, came to its\ninevitable end with the last of this manuscript in February, 1918. The\ncause of that was also seemingly accidental. But as this Introduction\nis only an introduction, it is impossible to follow the course of all\nthe drops of water in the broad river that has flowed under my mental\nbridges during the last fourteen months.\n\nMy present line of life (and through the analysis of my dreams I have\nmeans of knowing what it is) points to the resumption of my original\nliterary work, poetry, fiction and essays, and to the exclusion, so\nfar as possible, of everything that would deflect me from that course.\n\u201cAccidentality\u201d will cut in from time to time, change of place and\ntherefore change of outlook, studies of all sorts, and legitimate\ndemands by that society of which I form a part; but I have done enough\nautomatic writing. Others will do it, if it must be done; and probably\nit must--because it is an outlet which it might be unsafe to stop up in\nthe present state of the race consciousness.\n\nOf course if I should feel strongly impelled to do automatic writing, I\nshould do it, trusting to that destiny which is another name for causes\nbeyond our comprehension; but it was the strength of my \u201cinner protest\u201d\nthat made me realize that I had gone far enough along that line.\n\nAs in the forewords to the former books, I state the psychological\nsituation of the moment, saying, \u201cso and so happened.\u201d The reader, as\nbefore, will interpret in his own way. This introduction indicates my\npoint of view in the month of April, 1919. Before the month of May,\n2019, I shall have solved the problem of survival, or demonstrated\n(without knowing it) that it is insoluble.\n\nThe more we know about all these things, the less likely we are to\nassume that we have the sum of all knowledge. We are like children,\ngroping among psychological lights and shadows.\n\nMy own belief in immortality seems ineradicable. I did not know that\nuntil it was tested out. But we must always remember that our personal\nbelief is not absolute evidence of the truth of what we believe--at\nleast until we shall have examined all the psychological roots of\nthe belief, and in the present state of our knowledge that is\nwell-nigh impossible. Our rational belief, if we have formed one for\nourselves and have not merely accepted uncritically the beliefs of our\npredecessors and associates, is merely our individual synthesis. But we\nmust not give an exaggerated value even to our own hard-won synthesis.\nThat also is a moving, an ever-changing, thing. Otherwise we should not\ngrow. When a man becomes fixed he begins to disintegrate.\n\nIn the first book of this series I stated the fact that I had never\nbeen interested in spiritualism. Consciously, I never had. Now, Dr.\nAlfred Adler, the head of what we may call the Ego School of analysis,\nsays: \u201cOften the negation is the assertion of an old interest that\nhas become unconscious.\u201d Yes.... My father was deeply interested\nin spiritualism, and I was born in an old house where ghosts were\nsupposed to walk. My mother was afraid of the subject. My father died\nwhen I was thirteen. I was always a little afraid of my father. The\nfirst time I met Judge Hatch I told him that perhaps he had been my\nfather in a \u201cformer incarnation.\u201d He smiled, and said, \u201cMaybe.\u201d\n\nNo microscopist had ever a greater interest in facts than I have. My\nscientific friends say, \u201cA scientist was lost in you.\u201d Other friends\nsay, \u201cYou are a great psychic.\u201d So there I found myself. In studying\nwith the scientific half the phenomena of the psychic half, I am able\nto unify them.\n\nThe _authority_ of the Church has been knocked from under us. We\nare adrift, we thinking humans of the early twentieth century, upon a\nsea of mind, stormtossed by winds of feeling. We were just beginning\nto believe in universal brotherhood--when universal war broke out. Our\nsteersman seemed to have been washed overboard. Everybody wants to take\nthe helm, distrusting his neighbor\u2019s judgment. Is it any wonder that\nbewildered souls by thousands turned to automatic writing, seeking for\nguidance, for something _authoritative_? In childhood our parents\nguided us. Later the Church guided us--or tried to. Then science guided\nus--a little too far. And in the reaction we turned inward, to find\n(sometimes) the unconscious more troubled than the conscious. But in\nthe Letters which follow there is no despair, only light and courage\nand hope.\n\nThere seem to be two main streams in us, the mental and the\ninstinctive. Bergson says, in his \u201cCreative Evolution,\u201d \u201cThere are\nthings which intelligence alone is able to seek, but which, by itself,\nit will never find. These things instinct alone could find; but it will\nnever seek them.\u201d\n\nIt was inevitable that modern psychology, with its constructive\ncuriosity, should turn its attention to the religious beliefs of the\npast and present. There was no other way of understanding what really\ngoes on in the minds of people. Some of these old beliefs proved,\non examination, to be scientifically tenable. For instance, the\nTheosophists (who got the idea from the Hindoos) tell us there are two\nstreams of evolution, the elemental and the human. Dr. C. J. Jung,\nthe head of the Swiss school of Analytical Psychology, divides the\nstream of \u201cenergy\u201d into two currents, one going forward and one going\nbackward. And this duality of will Bleuler calls \u201cambitendency.\u201d The\ndifference is chiefly a difference of phraseology and associations.\n\n\u201cAlways the pull of the opposites,\u201d I quote from the Letters which\nfollow. The present psychic wave which is sweeping over the world is\naccompanied by modern analytical psychology. Truth may lie in the\nsynthesis.\n\nBetween the credulity of those who believe everything purporting to\ncome from the other side of the veil, who accept every suggestion from\nanybody claiming to be \u201cpsychic\u201d who half-closes the eyes and says\ndreamily, \u201cYou will do so and so,\u201d--between this thirst for delusion\nand the materialists\u2019 denial that there is anything but matter and the\nfunctions of _matter_, there is also a middle ground.\n\nThe great pioneer of analytical psychology himself said, in a recent\nlittle volume on \u201cWar and Death,\u201d translated by Dr. A. A. Brill: \u201cIn\nthe unconscious every one of us is convinced of his own immortality.\u201d\nSuppose the unconscious should be right?\n\nAnd, by the way, between the statement of Christian Scientists, \u201cAll is\nlove,\u201d and the statement of the parent school of psychoanalysis, \u201cAll\nis libido,\u201d there is striking similarity.\n\nJung would say, \u201cAll is energy.\u201d Judge Hatch wrote, in a little\nbook published in 1905, \u201cWe postulate immortal Units of Force,\neach having the power to generate a constant but limited amount of\nenergy, and no two alike in quantity. Upon this force generation in\nthe unit, necessitated by law, do we base life. Life results from\nthe inter-dealing and inter-playing of these units among themselves\neternally, sometimes potential, again kinetic, each limited in the\namount of force generated, but unlimited in variety of motion,\nmanifestation or specialization.\u201d\n\nTruth may indeed be one, though the roads to it are many.\n\nFechner\u2019s assertion, that the dead live in us and so influence us, does\nnot require much stretching to fit the hypothesis that the entire past\nof the human race is contained in the deeper levels of the unconscious.\nIf we go deep enough in analysis that hypothesis is illustrated by\nstrange phenomena.\n\nIt is unwise, at the present time more than any other, even to try\nto take away man\u2019s belief in immortality. The world is too sad, too\nnear the ragged edge where personal uncertainty drifts into social\nirresponsibility. The psychic wave that is sweeping over the world,\nthough it is being carried to excess, as all overcompensations are,\nanswers nevertheless to a tremendous need. Credulity is the other end\nof doubt.\n\nDr. Smith Ely Jelliffe, in the Introduction to his translation of\nSilberer\u2019s \u201cProblems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism,\u201d says:\n\n \u201cMuch of the strange and _outr\u00e9_, as well as the commonplace,\n in human activity conceals energy transformations of inestimable\n value in the work of sublimation. The race would go mad without it.\n It sometimes does even with it, a sign that sublimation is still\n imperfect and that the race is far from being spiritually well. A\n comprehension of the principles here involved would further the spread\n of sympathy for all forms of thinking and tend to further spiritual\n health in such mutual comprehension of the needs of others and of the\n forms taken by sublimation processes.\u201d\n\nWilliam James defended the Christian Scientists. And Jung himself says,\nin one of his famous letters to Dr. Loy, \u201cEvery method is good if it\nserves its purpose, including Christian Science, Mental Healing, etc.\u201d\n\nDuring the last five years man has had such varied reasons for fearing\nobjective things that he has come to fear the subjective, perhaps even\nmore than during the Middle Ages.\n\nDr. H. W. Frink says, in his masterly book on \u201cMorbid Fears and\nCompulsions\u201d: \u201cThe biological function or purpose of fear is protective\nor preservative. Every one of us alive to-day owes his existence to the\nfact that his human and pre-human ancestors were afraid.\u201d\n\nNearly everyone is afraid of something. Sublime Jeanne d\u2019Arc was\nterribly afraid of the fire. (Perhaps she had been badly burned in\ninfancy, and the unconscious memory twisted and turned in the deeps of\nher pure soul. Perhaps, and perhaps ... for we shall never know.)\n\nWhen we really know what fear is, we shall have solved the mystery of\n\u201cthe one and the many\u201d that disturbed the cerebration of our ancestors.\nFear may be a momentary surging up of the ego\u2019s consciousness of\nits own helpless littleness before the immensity of the unknown and\nunknowable non-ego. The reckless courage of the soldier may be an\novercompensation, a triumphant sublimation--sometimes followed by\nreaction, secret or unconcealable, depending on the intensity.\n\nFor, as Silberer says, \u201cThe conflicts do not indeed lie in the external\nworld, but in our _emotional disposition towards it_; if we change\nthis disposition by an inner development, the external world has a\ndifferent value....\u201d\n\nMan is indeed his own cosmos, the microcosm of the macrocosm, to a\ndegree incomprehensible to one who has not intelligently studied (and\nin himself) the phenomena of \u201cprojection,\u201d and compensation including\nsublimation.\n\nThe great mystics of all ages, through introversion, having discovered\nthis and reduced it to a science, after their fashion, great modern\nscientists like Jung and Silberer have found their systems worthy of\nprofound study.\n\nWriting of mysticism, Professor Dwelshauvers of Brussels says:\n\n \u201cThe effects of mystic union are logical and coherent; a second\n quality of the acts of the order of grace is the positive character of\n the contribution, the increase which they bring to the psychic life of\n those who benefit by them.... The idea of God, the divine presence,\n or any other form of inspiration, is no more strange to the mind of\n the religious man than is for the _savant_ the sudden conception\n of a solution long sought for, or for the artist the vision of the\n work which he meditates and of which he pursues the construction\n with patience and tenacity.... Neither the invasion of the soul by\n God, nor the \u2018return\u2019 of the mystics, has any resemblance to mental\n disintegration.\u201d\n\nIt is not easy to get rid of God.\n\nWill you read what Jung says on this subject in the \u201cCollected Papers\non Analytical Psychology,\u201d edited by Dr. Constance E. Long:\n\n \u201cThe concept of God is simply a necessary psychological function....\n The _concensus gentium_ has spoken of gods for \u00e6ons past, and\n will be speaking of them in \u00e6ons to come. Beautiful and perfect as\n man may think his reason, he may nevertheless assure himself that\n it is only one of the possible mental functions, coinciding merely\n with the corresponding side of the phenomena of the universe. All\n around is the irrational, that which is not congruous with reason.\n And this irrationalism is likewise a psychological function, namely\n the absolute unconscious; whilst the function of consciousness is\n essentially rational.... Heraclitus, the ancient, that really very\n wise man, discovered the most wonderful of all psychological laws,\n namely, the _regulating function of antithesis_. He termed this\n enantiodromia\u2019 (clashing together) by which he meant that at some time\n everything meets with its opposite.... Man may not _identify_\n himself with reason, for he is not wholly a rational being, and never\n can or ever will become one. That is a fact of which every pedant of\n civilization should take note. What is irrational cannot and may not\n be stamped out. The gods cannot and may not die. Woe betide those men\n who have disinfected heaven with rationalism; God-Almightiness has\n entered into them, because they would not admit God as an absolute\n function.... Only he escapes from the cruel law of enantiodromia who\n knows how to separate himself from the unconscious--not by repressing\n it, for then it seizes him from behind--_but by presenting it\n visibly to himself as something that is totally different from\n him_.... He must learn to differentiate in his thoughts between\n what is the ego and what is the non-ego. The latter is the collective\n psyche or absolute unconscious.... In order to differentiate the\n psychological ego from the psychological non-ego, man must necessarily\n stand _upon firm feet_ in his ego-function....\n\n \u201cObviously the depreciation and repression of such a powerful function\n as that of religion has serious consequences for the psychology of\n the individual.... One period of skepticism came to a close with the\n horrors of the French revolution. At the present time we are again\n experiencing an ebullition of the unconscious destructive powers\n of the collective psyche. The result is an unparalleled general\n slaughter. That is just what the unconscious was tending towards.\n This tendency had previously been inordinately strengthened by\n the rationalism of modern life, which by depreciating everything\n irrational caused the function of irrationalism to sink into the\n unconscious....\u201d\n\n \u201cThere is indeed no possible alternative but to acknowledge\n irrationalism as a psychological function that is necessary and always\n existent. Its results are not to be taken as concrete realities (that\n would involve repression), but as _psychological realities_. They\n are realities because they are _effective_ things, that is, they\n are _actualities_.\u201d\n\nSo we need not be ashamed to admit that we pray! In this grim period of\nhistory, when the soul is face to face with itself and its brother as\nit has never been, we may speak with a greater simplicity than in the\nold conventionally-smiling days before the war. I pray--and so do you,\nwhoever you are, if only by groaning \u201cOh, God!\u201d when you suffer. Prayer\nis an instinct. Even an atheist will pray, if he finds himself beyond\nhuman aid. A friend of mine who was killed at the front used to take\nholy communion every morning, and he was doubtless a saner and better\nsoldier for it. One need not be a Roman Catholic to see the beauty of\nthat act of faith.\n\nWhether God be a \u201cdominant of the superpersonal unconscious,\u201d a\npsychological function, or a mathematical equation, makes not the\nslightest difference to me. As William James would say, \u201cHe works.\u201d\n\nAnd whether the souls of our dead live in us, as Fechner says, or\nwhether they are relics in the personal and collective unconscious, or\nwhether they are \u201cconcrete realities\u201d that can materialize by using\nastral and etheric substance, makes also not the slightest difference\nto me. If you could know how utterly I am at peace about this whole\nquestion!\n\nAnd many other differences appear, on close examination, to be mainly\ndifferences of viewpoint and phraseology. The \u201castral world\u201d of the\nTheosophists, medi\u00e6val and modern, corresponds to a certain level of\nthe unconscious. \u201cX\u201d says in one of the Letters which follow, written\nin 1917, that melancholy may be produced by the pressure of the unhappy\ndead who make us fear. If you locate the dead in the unconscious, which\nsurges up in moments of passivity, the dead will have the same effect.\n\nHaving given much of the leisure time of a laborious life to a study of\nthe theories and practices of mysticism and occultism, as formulated\nby many different schools, I could write volumes (if I had the\ninclination, which I have not) in tracing out the psychological roots\nand the relations between these things. My own unconscious is rich with\nsuch images. Some of the most striking parallels have not been written\nabout, so far as I know.\n\nAnd Jung seems to have covered, with the wide mantle of his\ncomprehension, even the frailties of those who believe in prophetic\ndreams. He says:\n\n \u201cThe unconscious possesses possibilities of wisdom that are completely\n closed to consciousness, for the unconscious has at its disposal not\n only all the psychic contents that are under the threshold because\n they have been forgotten or overlooked, but also the wisdom of the\n experience of untold ages, deposited in the course of time and\n lying potential in the human brain. The unconscious is continually\n active, creating combinations of its materials; these serve to\n indicate the _future path_ of the individual. It creates\n prospective combinations just as our consciousness does, only they are\n considerably superior to the conscious combinations both in refinement\n and extent. The unconscious may therefore be an unparalleled guide for\n human beings....\n\n \u201cThe unconscious must contain all the material that has _not yet_\n reached the level of consciousness. These are the germs of future\n conscious contents.\u201d\n\nHe seems to think that true prophecies are merely the result of\nsynthesis by the unconscious of tendencies (_whether in the personal\nor universal unconscious_) significant for future occurrences.\nReferring to Maeterlinck\u2019s \u201cinconscient sup\u00e9rieur,\u201d he says of the\nprophetic interpretation of dreams:\n\n \u201cThe aversion of the exact sciences against this sort of\n thought-process which is hardly to be called phantastic is only an\n _overcompensation_ of the thousands of years old but all too\n great inclination of man to believe in soothsaying.\u201d\n\nI am told that the hearing of voices in the hypnogogic state indicates\n\u201ca slight tendency to dissociation.\u201d Very well. Probably the voices\ncome from a deeper level than automatic writing, whatever the\ninspiration of automatic writing may be.\n\nNow while the things which \u201cX\u201d in the following letters advised\nAmerica to do, before America came into the war, were the very things\nwhich we did _after_ we came into the war and which we could not\nhave done except as war measures, our entrance was not written down as\na specific prophecy in these letters. Any startling prophecy has always\nhad a tendency to shake me out of the passive state in which automatic\nwriting is possible. _But_--during the weeks from February to\nApril, 1917, in the hypnogogic state preceding sleep, I several times\nheard, \u201cWe are coming into the war.\u201d Of course I did not write that\ndown in the manuscript, as _it was not a part of the manuscript_.\nWhat is heard is heard, what is written is written. I merely mention\nit as a curious phenomenon for it was probably the synthesis of the\n_deeper levels_ of my unconscious. It was certainly the tragic\nhope of my conscious mind; but the conscious alone would not have\nproduced a voice.\n\nIf anybody wonders that I should admit hearing hypnogogic voices,\nI can only say that I regard these things rather objectively and\nimpersonally. I never hear voices except when half-asleep. If my very\naccurate memory has not slipped a cog, William James used to talk\nfreely of his hypnogogic experiences. The more we know about our little\npersonalities, the less monstrously important they seem. And the\n\u201chearing of voices\u201d has more than once played a respectable r\u00f4le in\nhistory, before and after Moses.\n\nBut I do not imagine that I have any prophetic mission, nor do I feel\nin any hurry to \u201cunite myself with the ocean of divinity,\u201d nor feel any\nimpulse violently to turn my back upon the universal. There is a happy\nmean, which makes for efficiency in life, for health and understanding.\n\nI have touched upon analytical psychology in this Introduction because\nI am so constituted that I cannot publish this last volume of my\nautomatic writings without indicating my point of view, with the same\nfrankness as in former Introductions. Please do not blame science\nbecause I have not lost through the analytic process my instinctive\nbelief in individual immortality. I assure you it has not been the\nfault of science.\n\nIf anyone objects that I have only touched the threads of this great\nweb of psychology which lead towards the subject of this book, I can\nonly say that this foreword being by way of preface to this book, no\nother course was possible on account of the limitations of space and\nartistic relevancy.\n\nPsychology as a method of healing I leave to the physicians, who have\nwritten many books about it, containing bibliographies. And booksellers\nhave catalogues. Anyone interested can write to them.\n\nThis is by way of excusing myself from answering letters of enquiry. I\nhave unselfishly and laboriously written so many hundreds of letters!\nNow I want to write other things. The resolution of psychological\n\u201ccomplexes\u201d frees energy for sublimation in work. It frees ideas for\nuse in art.\n\nDr. Beatrice M. Hinkle, in the introduction to her translation of\nJung\u2019s \u201cPsychology of the Unconscious,\u201d says that \u201cthis psychology\nwhich is pervading all realms of thought ... seems destined to be a\npsychological-philosophical system for the understanding and practical\nadvancement of human life.\u201d\n\nSo, having found a well whose waters were refreshing, I note the\nfact--and pass on.\n\nThe train of thought which the reader has followed in this Introduction\nis the train of thought which led me--after some delay--to the\npublication of the book.\n\nI am glad that these \u201cLast Letters from the Living Dead Man\u201d are a call\nto courage, to restraint, to faith in the great and orderly future\nof America and the world, a call to all those positive qualities so\ngravely needed in these days of the rebuilding of Peace.\n\nFor I do not believe that Bolshevism, or any other form of lunacy, will\nfind foothold in the United States. A nation with universal suffrage,\nfor man and woman, certainly has no incentive for a resort to insane\ndestruction. In the last State campaign it was interesting to watch the\nreactions of women to the privileges and duties of suffrage. I watched\nit only in one party, the Democratic, but it was doubtless everywhere\nthe same. There was an added dignity, a sense of new responsibility,\nand always courtesy and real fellowship among the women and the men.\nIts happening to correspond in time with the Fourth Liberty Loan\ncampaign, and the printing of casualty lists, made it all the more\nsignificant. No, these level-headed, socially-responsible women will\nnever be swept away by collective insanity; and as the men who return\nfrom the front will return to these women, their mothers, wives and\nsisters, I do not think that we shall lose in peace what we have gained\nin war.\n\nAnd now--remembering always that this book was written between\nFebruary, 1917, and February, 1918--you may read the \u201cLast Letters from\nthe Living Dead Man.\u201d\n\n ELSA BARKER\n\nNew York, Easter Day, 1919.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER I\n\n THE GENIUS OF AMERICA\n\n\n _February 3, 1917._\n\nI WANT to write of America, land of my latest birth, land of the future.\n\nGreat is the road that the Genius of America may travel, and her feet\nhave already passed the early stages of it.\n\nThe Genius of America!\n\nEach land is watched over and its children guided--guided and moved--by\na Genius.\n\nWould you feel the Genius of America, go alone into the woods at\nnight, watch and listen and invoke. Perhaps the answer may come, its\nrecognition of you, your recognition of it.\n\nIf you are one of those who can hear the words which the Great Ones\nspeak in the silence, perhaps you will hear something with the ears of\nyour soul. If so, do not hasten to divulge the message, but treasure it\nin your heart; for that which is treasured in the heart can sometimes\nbe felt and understood by the hearts of others.\n\nIf you are one of those who will serve willingly, the secret of your\nheart may be shared in silence with those who can hear in the silence.\n\nThe hour approaches when the mission of this land may be manifested.\nThe hour approaches when the Genius of this land shall force its will\nupon this land. That will not be an easy task. So many wills have\nsought to wrest the reins from the guiding hand; so many eyes, looking\nin so many directions, have seen so many goals. But there is one will\nso strong that it can, when its hour is come, gather up the wills of\nmen as a strong wind gathers a mass of loosely-lying straws and sweeps\nthem along.\n\nYou know not the power of a will that has God behind it. You know not\nthe power of a purpose that has God behind it and the future before it.\nThose who get in the way of the Genius of this land will be broken,\nlike straws that would resist the wind.\n\nI have watched from my unseen place the labors of many. I have helped\nunseen with my faith to strengthen the hearts of many. I shall wait now\nunseen till the act of destiny is accomplished.\n\nYou who have followed me from my first gropings in the twilight of the\nnew life, before the clearness came; you who have followed me on my\njourneys among the battlefields, both in and above the world, follow\nme yet a little further, with your minds ajar for the entrance of the\ntruth I have to tell you, the advice I have to give you. For my advice\nis disinterested as the rain, and my truth is offered as freely as the\nlight.\n\nI have come a long way since I laid down my body a few brief years ago,\nyears of a crowded brevity, in which the world has moved as fast as I,\nand sometimes with more pain. For he who knows the purpose of his pain\ncan bear it better than the child who knows only that he suffers.\n\nI should have spoken to you before, but you would not let me. Child!\nWould you stand in the way with your personal wishes, and your\nshrinkings that are also wishes of a negative kind?\n\nBlocked by your will to avoid this labor, I sought another entrance;\nbut it was too much encumbered by prejudices and preconceived ideas,\nand all the litter of mental fragments that had accumulated through\nyears of residence in a creed-bound place. You who have dwelt but\nbriefly in many tents have no obstructions at your door, save such as\nare placed by your will, and those I now sweep away.\n\nI shall pass in and out, and speak to you as I choose.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER II\n\n FEAR NOT\n\n\n _February 8, 1917._\n\nDID I not tell you many months ago that the soul of Abraham Lincoln\nkept watch above this land that he died to save from disruption, and\nthat he would keep vigil until America should have passed through her\nnext great trial? You questioned then what that trial would be. Do you\nquestion now? And yet you do not know.\n\nSlowly the months have gone by, receding into the past. When, in the\nspring of 1915, you saw in vision the German Emperor in spiked helmet\nstanding opposite to Uncle Sam in his shirt-sleeves, did you not\nsuppose that it would come to this? You are wise to keep such visions\nto yourself.\n\nDo not fancy that this war will end without greater changes than the\nworld has ever known before. When I told you nearly two years ago that\nthe battle between the powers of good and evil had been won in the\ninvisible regions, I knew because my Teacher told me so; but do not\nbelieve that the new age can dawn without greater trouble and greater\nchanges than you can now imagine. Birth is change and birth is painful,\nand birth is bloody and exhausting. The pains that have gone before are\nonly the pains of labor.\n\nThe stars in their courses fight for the new race.\n\nI have written of the bloody fields of Europe. Now I would write of\nAmerica and her future, her near and her far future; for the sun is\napproaching the Eastern horizon and the dawn clouds are already tinged\nwith the coming day.\n\nAmerica, do not despair! Your destiny is assured. In the storms to\ncome, think of the freshness after the storm, when the ground shall\nsmell sweet and birds shall sing. For birds will sing to the children\nof the new age.\n\nIn the midst of changes there will come a lull. The world will say, \u201cIt\nis over, the old things will return, and all will be as before.\u201d But\nnothing will ever be exactly as it was before. In the lull you shall\ndraw breath, and make ready for other changes. Yes, many things will be\nchanged, even the hearts of men.\n\nThe world has known terror. Without experience of terror, without the\npoise that comes from the facing of terror undaunted, the world could\nnot face the future without failure. Is there anything now, after\nthirty months of war, that could surprise the world? Is there anything\nthat the world could not face?\n\nOh, remember that you are immortal, and that you who go out of life\nwill come back again, strengthened by the rest in the invisible! For a\nchange of place is a rest of consciousness. To those whose nerves are\nweary, wise doctors prescribe a change. A rest in the invisible worlds\nis more refreshing than a summer in the mountains. Do not fear death. I\npassed through death, and I am more rested now than a strong man in the\nmorning. I would not go back to my old body. When I want a body again I\nshall build a new one. I know the process of building, having built so\nmany before.\n\nBe joyous with me. A wise man once said that only the unendurable is\ntragic. The world, and the souls of the world, can endure the change\nthat is coming. Have not wars prepared them for it? That is why wars\nhad to be.\n\nAmerica is rich. Her vaults are full of gold, her mines are full of\nore, and her fresh soil is full of richness. Shall she fear a future\nin which labor can procure all things for the body, and faith can\nprocure all things for the soul? The history of this land is a history\nof faith. Did not Columbus start across the trackless ocean, led only\nby the star of his faith? Did not your ancestors follow, led by their\nfaith in the future? The past has gone back to God, it is safe as a\ndead man; but the future is coming to you, and your faith shall make it\nsure.\n\nFear naught. In the early days of this land your forefathers slept in\nquiet, though the red man lurked in the forest, and hunger lurked in\nthe failure of harvests, and men and children could only be winter-warm\nwhen trees had been felled for fuel. Now you fear famines of coal? The\nearth is heavy with coal. You fear famines of wheat, when your muscles\ngrow fat for lack of exercise. They who came first to this land had\nvaried reasons for fear, but you have no reasons for fear. Labor is\nsweet. The child who makes labor of play can vouch for the truth of\nthat saying. Can you not then make play of your labor? When I was a\nchild I built houses of blocks. I longed to be building. I dug ditches\nin the garden. I made boats of chips and sailed them on a puddle. I\nplanted seeds.\n\nAnd learning? In the libraries of the world and in the brains of men\nis stored the learning of the ages. The new age will not lack the\narchives of all ages. Though paper is less enduring than parchment, it\nwill last over into the new age. Fear not.\n\nBy hints I convey to your mind that many changes will come. What then?\nAll progress is change. Go out with it to meet the future, with a smile\non your face and a song on your lips. The future wears a rose in its\nbuttonhole, as your Vagrom Angel would say.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER III\n\n THE PROMISE OF SPRING\n\n\n _February 17, 1917._\n\nWHEN you learn to think of life as a whole, of which you are a part\ncontaining in yourself the potentialities of the whole, then you\nwill look upon these great changes with joy. The One must sometimes\nsacrifice itself to Itself, and by elimination secure a new lease of\nlife. The whole--call it the race, or the earth-spirit, or what you\nwill--may grow too fat and lazy, as a man may grow too large to move\nabout with ease, and then by war among the organs, by fever, fasting or\nremedies, the equilibrium is restored, and he starts again a new man,\nready to face the future.\n\nGrim, does it seem? But who told you that the purposes of life were\nalways smiling? In the deeps of the earth and in the deeps of man are\ndark substances.\n\nThe cold of winter is a hardship for those who expose themselves to the\nelements; but winter is the ebb-tide of that changing sea of life whose\nflood-tide is the summer. Rhythm, always rhythm.\n\nI would not have you discouraged by the winter of the race, for the\nspring will come and the roses will bloom again. March winds! They are\nfollowed by April showers and Mayflowers. We are now in February.\n\nWhen the skies are dark and the snows fall, we gather round the fire\nand think of the future, when the flowers shall bloom again and green\ngrass shall cover the earth and birds shall sing in the trees. The sun\n\u201ccrosses the line\u201d in March when the winds blow, and enters the sign\nof the Ram, and the Zodiac is traversed again by the great light-giver\nthe Sun. Do you shiver and grow afraid when the Equinox approaches?\n\nThe soul, too, has its winter of materialism and its ideal spring.\n\nI have looked at the world from the outside, and I see no cause for\ndespair. I have looked at the soul from the inside, and I see great\ncause for rejoicing.\n\nYou look forward to the end of the war, but the soul must battle to the\nend of its journey. So long as the soul is cased in matter there will\nbe wars enough, for the greatest struggles are the soul\u2019s struggles\nwith itself. I have told you this before. Sometimes it goes out to\nfight, sometimes it goes in; the sword will not rust in the scabbard.\n\nThink less of yourself and think more of the race. You lose the vision\nof the whole by regarding too closely the parts, by regarding too\nclosely yourself that is only one of the parts. Think of yourself as\nthe race, and think of the race as yourself; then yourself becomes the\nrace, and the race becomes yourself; \u201cthe Universe grows I.\u201d\n\nThere was once a God so great that the cells of his body were minor\ngods. You may become so great that the cells of your body will be glad\nto sacrifice themselves to your welfare. By renouncing the will to\nlive, you may make yourself immortal. By renouncing the will to joy,\nyou may become joyous.\n\nOnce I desired to be a great man. Now when I only desire that Man shall\nbe great, I have increased in stature myself.\n\nOnce I desired to be loved; but now when I love for love\u2019s sake and not\nfor my own sake, I am loved by a multitude. Surely I found my life by\nlosing it, and the words of the Master were justified.\n\nI look down at the world as I once looked down at my garden. I see that\nthe grass is sprouting and I know that seeds are in the ground. I have\nplanted seeds in the hearts of men that shall germinate and reach up\ntowards the sunshine, for I had faith in the spring.\n\nFor a while I have left Europe to itself, and have come back to the\nland I love best. I have journeyed from State to State, and have\nwatched the wills of our legislators. They too are aware that a Force\nis at work through them. They feel the responsibility of their place,\nthey feel themselves as moving parts of the great whole whose name is\nAmerica. The Flag is the symbol of their consecration.\n\nI have walked in the woods, where the spirits of the land fore-gather\nfor counsels which the newspapers do not report. They too are aware of\ntheir consecration. They strengthen you with their faith. When I lived\nas a man in America I did not know America. To know the meaning of home\nwe must wander.\n\nI am all for unity now. Do not let yourselves be weakened by fear of\nthe parts. America is a whole, and as a whole she must work. To fuse\nthese many races together is the mission of the present hour. Do not\nlend your hearts to division.\n\nI see a great leader of men who shall arise in this land. His mission\nwill be the union of races. He will be a teacher and a prophet.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER IV\n\n THE DIET OF GOLD\n\n\n _March 10, 1917._\n\nTHE very influences that now tend to disrupt this country will later\ndraw it together. The many will find their meeting-point in the One.\nThat idea of national unity must be fostered, even to the extent of\npatient tolerance of racial temperaments. Those who are in the process\nof being separated from their old race and amalgamated with the new\nrace, feel the strain of the change. It irritates them and their\nblood protests, even when their wills bid them forge new bonds for\nthemselves. Few \u201chyphenated Americans\u201d would be willing to go bodily\nback to their old allegiance.\n\nAmerica is the most interesting of all countries, and we who see it\nfrom this side of the airy frontier see it in historical perspective.\nThe view that is nearest to our point of view is that of your present\nChief Executive. His eyes are far-seeing. He anticipates the clearer\nsight that will one day be his, when he has finished his work.\n\nOur country is suffering at this moment, in March, of the year of our\nLord nineteen hundred and seventeen, from an indigestion of gold. You\nhave swallowed more gold than you can assimilate, and your organs are\ncongested. If to restore the equilibrium, some of this gold should be\nregurgitated, by war or by other means, do not in the weariness that\nfollows fancy that the nation is going to die.\n\nDo not be shocked by my figures of speech. I want to get into your\nconsciousness an understanding of facts and conditions as they exist.\n\nYou cannot feed on gold. \u201cGold is a medium of exchange.\u201d When it is\nmerely hoarded it has lost its relation to life. A miser nation is a\nsadder subject for contemplation than a miser man, with his long claws\nand his gloating eyes. He may think, the miser man, to secure himself\nfrom the dangers of the future by amassing gold for its own sake. A\nmiser nation may think that by amassing gold for its own sake it can\nsave itself from the financial dangers threatening the world after\nthese years of war.\n\nBut the miser, known as such, is in danger of being robbed and\nmurdered. And the miser nation is in danger of being attacked and\nlooted by other nations.\n\nYou Americans want to be generous to the homeless and foodless people\nof Europe; but your generosity has not yet deprived of one square meal\nthe hundred-million-headed being that is America.\n\nI do not care so much what you do with your gold. But I care much what\nyou do with your food. You are not alchemists that you can make gold\npotable. You are humans with delicate stomachs. Even a hen will not lay\neggs for you unless she is well fed. If she protests, you can punish\nher by eating her; but the luckiest break of her wish-bone will not\nproduce for you another hen. Better conserve her labor power by gifts\nof grain, and have your eggs for breakfast and for hatching. She has\nperiods of laziness when she wants to sit still; but put a few of her\nown eggs under her, and watch for results. Later I shall tell you of\nother but no less practical ways of ensuring a supply of breakfasts.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER V\n\n CONTINGENT FEES\n\n\n _March 10, 1917._\n\nTO-DAY I heard that a certain rich man (unmindful of the camel and the\nneedle\u2019s eye), supposing that the letters from this Living Dead Man had\nbeen profitable to you, that there was \u201cmoney in them,\u201d was considering\nthe question of whether he should financially back a medium who\nstood ready to declare that she was in communication with me, that I\nrepudiated the books written through you, and stood sponsor for certain\nmanuscripts written \u201cthrough\u201d her, as my only genuine messenger to the\nworld.\n\nI join in your laughter, at your supposed \u201cprofitable\u201d investment in\nthe securities of the other world, and at the eagerness to get aboard\na sea-of-ether-worthy ship exhibited by people who have not paid their\nfare.\n\nI may as well tell you now that this country and some others are\nscattered over with supposed \u201ccommunications\u201d from me. It would seem\nthat my writing arms are as numerous as the feet of a centipede. It\nwould also seem by the style of some of these supposed communications,\nby their contents and their contradictions, that I have as many minds\nas Indra has eyes.\n\nEven the elementals of the ouija board do not contradict themselves so\nfrequently as these amanuenses make me contradict myself. I think you\nwill have to trademark me.\n\nAfter the serious nature of my recent letters, it relaxes me to jest.\n\nIf you include this letter in the book, please head it \u201cContingent\nFees.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n LETTER VI\n\n THE THREE APPEALS\n\n\n _March 11, 1917._\n\nI STAND outside the world and look inside the hearts of men. I see more\nthan I saw when I was a man among them. Had I then looked as deep into\nmy own heart as I now look into theirs, I should have seen the hearts\nof my fellow beings reflected in my own, for we differ from one another\nas one insect differs from another. There are differences between\ninsects.\n\nI look into your hearts, O men! and this is what I see: Ideals and\nhypocrisy, self-interest and altruism, hunger and satiety.\n\nShall I, in offering advice, appeal to your ideals, your\nself-interest, or your hunger? The opposite three would never spur you\nto action along the lines I would have you spurred.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER VII\n\n THE BUILDERS\n\n\n _March 22, 1917._\n\nI HAVE promised to offer you advice as to how you may restore your\nequilibrium. Use much of this superfluity of gold in rebuilding\ndevastated Europe. Give her credits and give her food. You who can work\nin the fields, raise food to feed Europe. You who can build, give the\nlabor of your hands wherever it is needed. You who are discontented\nhere, go back to that Europe which gave you birth. By so doing you will\ngive yourselves a new point of view, and you will give yourselves a new\ninterest. A new interest is a new lease of life.\n\nMake sacrifices. In saying that, I have two objects in view, the\neffect on the world and the effect on yourselves.\n\nTo work for the ideal is sometimes more practical than to work for what\nis called the real.\n\nWhen I tell you to rebuild Europe, you can take it as ideal advice\nor practical advice, depending on your point of view. It is ideal\nbecause Europe needs rebuilding; it is practical because just now\nand for a time to come America needs to get her mind on something\noutside herself. We give that advice to individuals when they are too\nself-centred. There is so much discontent and so much uncertainty that\nanything which can catch and hold the attention of masses of men, which\ncan make them forget themselves, may enable them to be used by the\nGenius of the race, which works for the welfare of the race as a whole.\n\nLend your money to Europe, and do not ask usurious interest. Yes, you\ncan take interest, for money has earning power, and the laborer--even\nthe laborer Gold--is worthy of his hire. But help by your generous\nlendings at low interest to lessen the awful burden of taxation for the\npeople of Europe, which makes also for discontent and discouragement.\n\nGo to Europe, many of you, that you may see what war does to a country,\nwhat it might do to your country should you selfishly expose yourselves\nto a desire on the part of outsiders to take from you by force that\nwhich you have so skilfully acquired.\n\nGo, that you may see and feel, as you can only see and feel face to\nface, the spirit of self-sacrifice and national devotion which has\nanimated the people of Europe in this long war. They have found their\nsouls, but you have not yet found your soul.\n\nThere are engineers in this country who are less needed here than they\nwill be needed in Europe. There are specialists in all the branches\nof science who are more needed there than here. We have specialists\nenough. We can spare a few of them.\n\nBuild ships. Build more ships. Keep the men occupied. Give them\nan objective. Do not let them brood. An idle brain is the devil\u2019s\nworkshop. If you have not work enough, make work. There are things\nenough to be done. Build ships.\n\nNow in regard to your management of railroads and other public\nutilities. The day for government control was heralded when the threat\nof a strike came that would have, if put into effect, blocked the\nwheels of the nation. All those public utilities whose blocked wheels\ncould threaten the national life and the movements of men should\nbe managed by the government. This is not socialism, or any other\n_ism_. You who have stock in them, do not take alarm. A way can be\nfound that will satisfy you.\n\nThink of the good of the whole, for you who are a part cannot prosper\nwithout the welfare of the whole. This is not cant. It is a sort of\nrace biology. I look down and see you as a great being, and I prescribe\nfor you as a being, a race-unity, not as a few individuals here and\nthere. The cells in the body of the race-being must all be working\ntogether. Get a unit of consciousness, as a race. Yield yourselves to\nthe consciousness of the race-unit. Be as individual as you please, but\nbe individual parts. Get into balance with other individuals, positive\nand negative.\n\nMake the rebuilding of Europe an objective point. Make it possible for\nmany discontented workers to go to work in Europe. You may say that the\narmies of Europe, when released from military service, will furnish\nworkers enough; but there cannot be too many. There is a double object\nin this: the object of getting work done, and that of the psychological\neffect upon the worker.\n\nI wish I could get into your minds by infusion the state of\nconsciousness that is mine. I wish I could make you see that separation\nis death and that unity is life.\n\nI have spoken of government control of railroads, but that is only\nthe beginning. There should be governmental handling of food. Begin\ngradually, one thing after another. It is the destiny of the world to\ngo in that direction. You cannot block the wheels of that chariot.\n\n_Serve if you hope to survive_ would be a good motto. You cannot\nsurvive if you do not serve--all of you. I like that figure of the cell\nwhich is a part of the race-being. It is the way I see you.\n\n\nJust a word about nervous diseases. Yes, it is related to what I have\nbeen saying. When at last the let-up comes after the unnatural strain\nof war, the minds of men in going back, or in attempting to go back to\ntheir normal state, may find themselves unable immediately to adjust\nto the changed conditions. For a long time the brains of men and women\nhave been stimulated by the coffee of concerted action; when they are\nthrown back on themselves they may relax too much.\n\nOr, on the other hand, an unnatural excitement may drive them into\nall kinds of excesses. Have you ever seen victims of mania who could\nnot rest, who had lost the ability to rest? They walk up and down,\nand drum with their feet, and clench their hands. So many men and\nwomen may be, after this war. There is certain to be an excess of love\nexcitement, and work is a good panacea for that complaint.\n\nThen again, after years of war, years in which many have not known in\nthe morning whether they would be alive at night, they may retain the\nhabit of dread. They may fear to rest and fear to relax. Thus they may\nwelcome any excitement, as a substitute for the stimulus to which they\nhave been accustomed.\n\nThat is another reason why I would send Americans to labor with the\nlaborers of Europe. Not that the American working man is phlegmatic,\nfar from it; but with his mind unaccustomed to fear anything, except\nthe loss of his job and consequent hunger, he will have an effect\nof confidence and hope on those around him. The American likes to\nfeel that he is leading, and in what better way can he indulge that\npropensity than in leading his associates to hope?\n\nYou have no idea--you cannot have an idea--of the great depression that\nwill follow this war for a short while. It will be the relaxation,\nthe letting go. Always after war the ebb-tide is followed by great\nactivity; but it is that ebb-tide which we have to consider.\n\nYou in America will feel it. You have become accustomed to seeing gold\nflow towards these shores. When the stream lessens, you will have to\ncombat the tendency to fear that lessening. Panics are like personal\nfear, intensified by mass.\n\nThe world is drawing close together, and what influences a part\ninfluences the whole.\n\nAfter the war will also come an opening of the psychic senses of men,\neverywhere. This, while good in itself, may become an added danger.\nProphets, true and false, will arise everywhere, with many remedies for\nthe diseases of souls and of bodies.\n\nIf I may make another suggestion, it would be that those who have\npsychic awakening should think twice before proclaiming the fact. It\nis a new sense that is coming into manifestation; but as the opening\nof the eyes in an early stage of evolution probably revealed as many\ndangers as blessings, so the new sense will reveal dangers. Do not try\nto close the new sense, but do not be carried away by it. Remember that\nit will be practically general, and like every new sense it will be\ndefective for a long time. It will reveal false things as well as true.\nIf a man opened his eyes for the first time upon a harmless tree, he\nmight mistake it for a monster.\n\nRestraint in all things, moderation in all things, even in the\nlaudable desire to action. Weigh and measure. Prove before accepting\nanything--prove by reason and by intuition if you cannot wait for proof\nby practice. Weigh and measure what I say, as well as what the wildest\nnew prognosticator says. Discourage hysteria. A wave of hysteria is\nlikely to sweep over the world.\n\nAs revolution follows revolution, the startled inhabitants of the world\nmay tell themselves that nothing in the universe is stable, that all is\ngoing to destruction, and that as they cannot save themselves from what\nseems to be universal chaos, they may as well get all the pleasurable\nexcitement possible out of the passing moment. Restraint, restraint!\n\nI see women afraid to bear children because of the uncertainty of\nthe morrow. I see men afraid to marry because of the uncertainty of\ndomesticity. I see farmers hesitate to plant because of the uncertainty\nof the harvest. Again I say, be not afraid.\n\nIf you sow, you shall reap. If you marry, you shall build a home. If\nyou have children, the race will protect them--and you are a part of\nthe race.\n\nRestraint! Fearlessness!\n\n\n\n\n LETTER VIII\n\n THE WORLD OF MIND\n\n\n _March 24, 1917._\n\nI WISH that more people of sane, sound mind would experiment in\ntelepathic communication. I know there is any amount of uncoordinated\nand half-serious playing with phenomena; but with scientific accuracy\nof observation and scientific precision in recording data, not only\nthe body of _sensible_ literature on these subjects would be\nincreased, but the habits of careful observation and precision in\nreporting supernormal facts would be developed in the experimentalists.\n\nYou who write for me, continue to make and to record experiments. You\nare almost too cautious, but most persons are not cautious enough.\n\nExplain the necessary conditions of passivity and activity between\nthose working together. Though the best results are often obtained\nby you alone, yet the testimony of one person is not so convincing\nas the testimony of several who have witnessed and taken part in the\nsame phenomena. But you are right in hesitating to take on the psychic\nconditions of insincere and merely curious people who would like to\nwork with you.\n\nThe great difficulty with most persons is that they cannot make\nthemselves sufficiently negative _for the time being_. When the\nexperiments are over they can and should become equally positive. They\ncan shift from one pole to the other, and they must do so if they wish\nto preserve their physical health and balance.\n\nBut bear in mind that the influences from this side are good and bad,\neven as the influences in the world are; and if you feel that any\n\u201cpresence\u201d is hostile, at once banish it and become positive. After any\napproach by an undesirable influence, you should not for some hours let\nyourself become negative. Go for a walk, or attack some difficult piece\nof work, or read a book that demands mental activity in order to grasp\nits meaning.\n\nYou live in a sea of mind, as well as in a psychic sea; they\ninterpenetrate, and they interpenetrate with the physical; but in\nworking through and with them, keep them as distinct as possible.\n\nI work more and more in the mental world, and less and less in the\nastral; but the majority of my readers will not know exactly what I\nmean by that statement. There is a greater difference between the\nastral and the mental than there is between the astral and the physical.\n\nDo not despise the astral. Its dynamics are of colossal import. But\ncultivate more and more the purely mental, because the astral in all of\nyou is developed beyond the mental.\n\nIn my former writings I have told you something of the dangers of the\nastral. Now I want to tell you some of the more obvious dangers of the\nmental.\n\nThose who learn that they can create in mind need to develop a sense\nof responsibility. They are too reckless in demonstrating their\npower. Remember that as you go up in the planes of being you get into\nsubtler and subtler regions, and strength increases with the degree of\nsubtlety--not the reverse, as you would naturally suppose.\n\nOne of the greatest temptations of the mental world is that of the\ncreation of falsehoods. By stating that which is not true, you project\ninto the realm of mind a picture that has a certain permanency. It may\ndeceive others, but in time it will deceive you, its creator. Those who\nspeak falsely cannot perceive truth. Those who create false pictures\nin the mental world will be deceived by those very pictures; they will\nreap the effects of the causes they have set up.\n\nHave you not known people who were always being deceived by their\n\u201cfriends\u201d? They are generally those who have left deceiving pictures\nbehind themselves. There are people who cannot discriminate between the\nfalse and the true. They deceive and are deceived. Those who deceive\nare always deceived, whatever their supposed intellect may be.\n\nAnd I would say to those to whom I now suggest experiments with\nclairvoyance and telepathy, that if they have planted the seeds of\nfalsehood they will reap a harvest of deceptive appearances. Test\nyourselves in that way, you who believe yourselves to be sincere. You\nmay learn something of value regarding your own karma. (Yes, I will\nuse Theosophic or Indian terms when they express my meaning. Those\nwho re-write the Oriental philosophies in western terms can pass for\noriginal only with the ignorant.)\n\nWhat the new race needs most of all is truth. Modern science is\npreparing the world for the fearless facing of truth. The man who toils\nover a microscope that he may observe and record some _fact_ in\nnature, is more the servant of God than the man who with sanctimonious\nface tells his fellow creatures what they must _not_ do; for his\nwork at least is positive in its results.\n\nThere are too many \u201cthou shalt nots\u201d; too few \u201cI shalls.\u201d\n\nThe new race will develop a wide tolerance. It will discourage\nundesirable things more by ignoring them than by attacking them. By\nattacking a thing we give it power.\n\nWork more and more in the world of mind. The results in the physical\nwill be immense.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER IX\n\n AMERICA\u2019S GOOD FRIDAY\n\n\n _April 6, 1917._\n\nIT is past midnight. It is Good Friday. Momentous decisions for the\nworld and for all time are heavy in the souls of men.\n\nOn the day that this day stands for, in the long ago, a man (who\nwas also a god) stood forth alone for the ideas of love and human\nbrotherhood. At last, after all these years, the thing for which he\ndied may be realized. But there was a crucifixion on that Friday,\ncenturies ago.\n\nI have brought you from a far-away shore that you might witness a great\nstruggle in the souls of men. You have arrived at a centre.[1]\n\nTo-day, in thousands of churches throughout Christendom, prayers will\nbe offered to the god-man who died that the god in man might live.\nTo-day in millions of hearts the cross will be set up.\n\nIt is so still here at midnight, at a few minutes past midnight on this\nday of days.\n\nChristianity has arisen, and presses forward to Golgotha to witness an\nevent.\n\nPray! Prayer is the affirmation by the soul of its unity with the One.\nWar is the affirmation of the soul of its separateness from many.\n\nLove your enemies. It is the only way that you can conquer them.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: I had arrived in New York a few hours before after a long\nsojourn in California.]\n\n\n\n\n LETTER X\n\n THE CRUCIBLE\n\n\n _April 12, 1917._\n\nLET us speak a little of this initiation through which the race is\npassing. Always the trials precede the attainment.\n\nWhen these wars are over there will be a new world, for the souls\nof men will have been baptized with the fire and the blood. America\nmust have her part in it. To her also must come the trials and the\nattainment. Watch and pray.\n\nSome day I will send you back to commune with the soul of the Old\nWorld--some day _we_ will send you back. It is another Europe you\nwill find, a Europe tried by fire, and some of it will be fine steel,\nand some of it will be clinkers in the furnace, for the fire proves the\nmetal, and separates the metal from the slag.\n\nFrom before the war to this day, the battles of the earth have been\nenacted also in your soul, the blood and the fire, the pain and the\ntravail. You too have passed through the fiery furnace.\n\nLong ago, when you identified your soul with the soul of the world,\nyou took upon yourself the trials of the world, the initiatory trials.\nYou also called down upon yourself the weight of your old karma, the\neffects of the causes you had set up through the ages. That you are at\nrest for a time means only that you have worked yourself free from a\nlittle of the load. Had you not done it now, you would have had to do\nit in the future. Rejoice for every trial that brings you nearer to the\ngoal. And this I say for all men.\n\nIf I speak of the world now, instead of that part only that we call\nAmerica, it is to identify the part with the whole. If I speak of you\npersonally, it is to identify you with the whole.\n\nBack in that Europe to which you will go, you will find two classes,\nthose who have become fine steel, and those who have become refuse. You\nwill know the one from the other.\n\nThey will welcome you back, for you have passed through the fire with\nthem. They will welcome your country, too, for it now turns its face to\nthe fire.\n\nBe not discouraged by dismal prophecies. Man does not live by bread\nalone. If you have less to eat, your bodies will grow finer. If you\nhave more to do, your minds and spirits will expand. Few of you work to\nyour full capacity. The unit of force that is man may generate much\nenergy, drawing it up from the deeps of himself at the call of need or\nof will.\n\nWork harder now. Once I told you to rest more, but the laborers are\ncalled to the vineyard. The hour of rest will come again, when the day\ndraws near its close.\n\nIn entering into the war, my country, put away all rancor, and fight\nfor the right in which there is no rancor. Hate not. The hour for hate\nis past. (I say this, knowing that Hate and Fear, the mother of Hate,\nwill come and challenge your souls.)\n\nI do not hate, and I do not fear, and I shall stay with you until the\nday draws to its close. Are you sorry now that you let me speak again?\nWhen fear comes to your house, I will speak to you of courage. When\nhate shall menace you, I will turn it into love. I have found the\nPhilosopher\u2019s Stone that can transmute base metals into gold.\n\nHate will be turned to love in this land where the Eagle cries. Listen\nto the cry of the Eagle. It is a free bird, and it flies high. Its\nmessage has only been hinted at, in the years that have yet been\nnumbered. The Eagle will teach freedom. They will listen--across the\nsea.\n\nAmerica is indeed the melting-pot of nations. I can find no better\nfigure of speech. The German-American who is loyal to America now,\nwho hides the tragedy in his heart behind a brave face, may also come\nthrough the furnace fine steel.\n\nI am glad you know that they suffer. Hold the loyal ones in your heart,\nwith all other loyal Americans. So you will help in the process of\nmelting. To some of them the tragedy will open the doors of initiation.\nTheir loyalty to a pledge is a finer trial than the fire of a\nbattlefield. Those who are loyal must not be made pariahs. Of those who\nare disloyal I say nothing, but leave them to the Law.\n\nThe initiatory process! It has the earth in its grasp. There are those\nwhom you love that it has in its grasp, too. They suffer, as you have\nsuffered. But they shall find peace.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XI\n\n MAKE CLEAN YOUR HOUSE\n\n\n _May 4, 1917._\n\nDO you know that the human race is being weighed in the balances? Work\nand pray that it may not be found wanting.\n\nWe who dwell in the clear light of that world which is to you the Other\nWorld, can see the handwriting on the wall.\n\nThe world has been too dishonest. In an honest world, could this war\nhave been? In the world that is to come, nation will not distrust\nnation, nor man distrust man. But now distrust is a necessary part of\nthe human equipment. You may trust--but not too far. You may love your\nneighbor--but not too much. You may do to your brother as you would\nhave him do to you--but not all the time.\n\nAmerica was built on a foundation of ideals; but there is too much of\nthe mud of personal seeking mixed with the good clay of your bricks.\n\nYou washed away with your blood one plague-spot, that of slavery; but\nthere is another plague-spot you have got to wash away. Will you do it\nwith the free water of good will, or will you do it again with your\nblood? I wait to see.\n\nDo not say that the world\u2019s troubles are over, because America has\ncome into the war. The world\u2019s troubles are not over. When the war is\nover--the greater war--make clean your house, O America!\n\nThere is no other civilized country where the premiums upon dishonesty\nare so high.\n\nCan you buy a pound of butter and be certain that you get sixteen full\nounces? Can you buy a pound of meat and be sure that the scales are\ntrue?\n\nA new race is being born. Begin with those children, and teach them\nhonesty before you teach them geography--honesty with the parents,\nhonesty with each other, honesty with themselves. \u201cAs the twig is bent\nthe tree inclines.\u201d\n\nWhen I was a little boy I was taught that George Washington could not\ntell a lie. I had an ideal of George Washington. I wanted to emulate\nhim. And so when I was a man I sought truth. I looked for it on the\nsurface of the ground, and also in deep wells. Once I spent years\nin the wilderness trying to find truth in myself. I remained in the\nwilderness until I found it. Had I not found it, I should have left my\nbones there.\n\nYou need a new set of copy-book maxims. If the boy who writes \u201cHonesty\nis the best policy\u201d at school in the morning, sees in the afternoon his\nfather trying to trade a balky horse for a good roadster, he wonders\nif his teacher is fooling him. The disillusionment of children is\ntragic with menace for the coming State. I would rather see reproach\nin the eyes of an Adept Teacher than in the eyes of a child. If I fail\nmy Teacher I do not hurt him seriously, if I fail my child I hurt him\nirreparably.\n\nYou must face the fact that the life of America is going to be\nreorganized.\n\nYou have wondered why I have not written of late. I have been busy,\nstudying America. I have seen much that I can tell you, and much that\nI cannot tell you--yet. For I want you to be quiet. You could not be\nquiet if you knew as much as I know.\n\nIt has been said that necessity knows no law. Forget it not, you\nwar-profiteers who would corner the world\u2019s necessities. Remember that\na cornered animal is dangerous, and a cornered necessity has hoofs and\nhorns.\n\nThere is a disease that has no name among the doctors--the disease of\ncolossal possessions. Its symptoms are a voracious appetite for more\npossessions, and a phobia lest possessions should be lost. It is worse\nthan neuralgia and indigestion combined to disturb the rest of the\nvictim.\n\nI long to see a hundred million and more people living in peace and\nplenty in America.\n\nFanatics prattle about the confiscation of great fortunes. I do not\ncare so much what you do with your fortunes. But I care much what you\ndo with your land and your food, and I care more what you do with your\nmen and women and little children.\n\nDo not get into a panic, I pray you. A panic is worse than a quicksand\nto get into. Keep calm. The country is in no danger, if it does not\nlose its head.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XII\n\n LEVEL HEADS\n\n\n _May 15, 1917._\n\nDO not get excited, you Americans. If you keep your heads, you will\ncome through this all right. If you lose your heads, you may lose much\nbesides--you may lose more than you can win back in a hundred years.\n\nI am not excited. I have not lost my head. (Yes, I still have a head,\nand hands and feet. If I should try to live out here without hands\nand feet, the adjustment to that unaccustomed condition would have\na reactionary effect upon my head. I am not experimenting in the\nelimination of my members.)\n\nYou see a country now, Russia, that is making the experiment of living\nwithout its head. No nation can continue as a nation without a head,\nand a level one. Even the most extremely republican, democratic,\nsocialistic, or any other kind of a nation must have a head. A\ncompletely anarchistic aggregation of people could not be called a\nnation. Its land would be only a geographical section populated with\nunits, and such units unrelated to other units might as well be ciphers.\n\nDo not be impatient because I write seldom at present. I am rather\nbusy. I shall always come when I have something that must be said.\n\nA change is coming in America. Quite a change has already come about,\nhas it not?[2]\n\nThis country is great, this country is strong, this country is\nadaptable. It can adjust itself to change. The people of this country\nhave not been slaves for a long time. The people of Russia have been so\nmany kinds of slaves that their reaction to freedom is unexpected by a\nfree world. Wait! Do not lose your heads about this matter.\n\n\nI do not object to there being a few persons who know that I am writing\nwith you again. They cannot affect me, save to encourage me with their\ninterest.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 2: It was about this time, if I remember rightly, that many\nof our wealthy men began working for the government at one dollar a\nyear.]\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XIII\n\n TREES AND BRICK WALLS\n\n\n _May 16, 1917._\n\nYOU fear lest the dismal prophecies of world-disaster, of cataclysm,\nof the destruction of half the human race which you hear from many\nsources, may tend to discourage the world.\n\nRemember that hope springs eternal in the human breast. And if the\nminds of men are familiar with the idea of cataclysm, they will more\nreadily adjust themselves to lesser changes.\n\nRead the Old Testament. The most dismal prophecies were not verified,\nbut changes came.\n\nSome of the \u201cindependent ministers\u201d of America are more violent than\nJeremiah. But they help indirectly--in accustoming the minds of men to\nthe idea of change.\n\nIf panics come--and they may--refuse to be panic-stricken.\n\nIf violence comes--and it may--refuse to be violent.\n\nIf discouragements come--and they will--refuse to be discouraged.\n\nWhen your brains become over-heated, look steadily at the trees. They\nwill quiet you. If there are no trees in your neighborhood--why, look\nat a brick wall in moments of excitement. A brick wall is a soothing\nspectacle. It stands steady, unless moved from without.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XIV\n\n INVISIBLE ARMIES\n\n\n _May 23, 1917._\n\nMANY of the soldiers out here who have become fully awake and\nself-conscious are striving to bring about those ends for which they\ngave their lives on earth. There are thus soldiers working on both\nsides of the war and on this side of the veil. Immediately after the\nchange many of them fight each other; but they soon learn that they can\ndo more effective work by giving attention to their comrades in the\nflesh. They can soothe and inspire and instruct.\n\nWe are forming an army out here. There is no lack of recruits. America\nmust be saved, and few of you know how much America has to be saved\nfrom. But we know--we who have watched the world for the last two years\nand three-quarters.\n\nIt is not so terrible to die. It is really far more terrible to be born.\n\nThe army that we are recruiting here is made up of men of all ages--all\nages in this life, I mean. Yes, there are women also in our army. There\nare some veterans of the Civil War and veterans of the War with Spain.\nOver the regiments and divisions of this army there are commanders,\nas over the armies of earth. Otherwise the work would lack unity of\npurpose. Ours is mostly a volunteer army, though conscription is not\nunknown among us.\n\nYou wonder what I mean? Do you not suppose that we can call a soul from\na useless occupation and give him useful labor? We can and do, daily.\n\nWe have even recruited largely from the old and native Americans, the\nred skinned hunters and warriors who remain in such large numbers in\nthe neighborhood of the earth. There is work which they only can do.\nThere are many kinds of work and a great variety of workers.\n\nI come and go, from coast to coast. I know what is doing on the shores\nof the Pacific, in the Atlantic States, on the Gulf of Mexico, and\nthe Middle and Rocky Mountain States are familiar ground to me. I am\nrenewing my youth in this period of activity. I am working for my\ncountry. I am in training, too.\n\nWhy do you smile? There is a training of the mind and the will that is\nmore effective than any training of the physical body--quicker and more\neffective. Then too the astral body can be trained to a high degree of\nefficiency and elasticity. Surely I need not tell you this.\n\nAnd I am training others. We old fellows can be very useful in a time\nlike this. I am glad now that I came out _when_ I did, that I went\nthrough my novitiate while the world was still at peace and there was\nleisure for many things which now I should not have time for. I had a\ndelightful holiday. I hunted through the wilds of the invisible, and\nfished in the waters of space; but now I am back at my work again.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XV\n\n THE WEAKEST LINK\n\n\n _June 2, 1917._\n\nTHERE are in the archives of the Masters of Wisdom certain data\nrelative to the past and future of this country which would make\ninteresting reading could they be published in the newspapers at this\ntime of national crisis.\n\nAmerica is aware of her mission of democracy; but she is not aware\nof another mission equally potent--that of making the world safe for\nspiritual culture. I do not mean religion, as the word is ordinarily\nused; but I mean the culture of the spirit of love--such ideas of love\nas the world has inadequately grasped from the teachings of Jesus\nof Nazareth, grasped and let fall again because those ideas were too\nwarm to be comfortably held by hands cooled in the material labors of\nselfishness.\n\nAmerica has laid up for herself in the regions beyond the physical a\ndebt--an obligation that is not by any means a treasure in heaven, but\nwhich, when the debt is paid, may be a real spiritual treasure. I refer\nto the armies of souls who once occupied this land as free owners, and\nwho were expelled and disinherited by the expanding civilization which\ngrew up in the place of wigwam and hunting-ground.\n\nThose souls, many of them, desire to return. Many have already\nreturned, and unless some way is open for them to live again the free\nlife to which they were accustomed in the past, they will tend to\nbecome a destructive force. They cannot be eliminated so easily now,\nwhen they wear white bodies and claim citizenship with you. They are\nscattered from shore to shore of this wide land. You can tell them\nby their eagle eyes and their high cheek bones, by their free gait\nand their love of freedom. They are hard to restrain in factory and\ncounting-house. They are clerks with a difference and laborers with a\ndream. Many of them have found entrance into the sun-lighted world as\nthe children of European immigrants, for they find it easier to enter\nthe blood of certain other races than the blood of the Anglo-Saxon, for\nall the Anglo-Saxon love of freedom.\n\nA time may come when these now foreign-blooded primitive Americans will\ninstinctively rebel against the restraining influences that have held\nthem, when they will seek to live over again the old life of nature,\neven though they have to take it as the kingdom of heaven is said to\nhave been taken.\n\nThere is coming a time when love will be needed in this land as it has\nnever been needed before, when \u201clive and let live\u201d must become a law as\nwell as a phrase. Those who long for freedom with Nature can be given\nthat freedom. Conditions may be hard in the great cities.\n\nI am not trying to instill fear into the American heart. On the\ncontrary, I am trying to insure you against fear.\n\nNot long could the wheels of civilization stop turning. But they could\nstop--for a wink of the Cosmic Eye.\n\nAmerica is going to be saved, and saved in the hour of her greatest\ndanger. What will her greatest danger be? You must think that out for\nyourself.\n\nLearn to see through the eye of the Planetary Spirit. Your view is too\nnarrow. Where your library stands on shelves is for you the centre\nof things; but the centre of things is in the heart, and hearts are\neverywhere. If you think about the race and not about yourself, your\nheart will be magnified; you will see with the eyes of the heart, and\nhe who sees with the eyes of the heart is wiser than historians or\nintellectual prophets.\n\nThe world must be made safe for love. All men must be provided for in\nthe scheme of the future, all men and women and little children. It\nis not safe to disregard any, for a chain is as strong as its weakest\nlink, and every link must be made strong.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XVI\n\n A COUNCIL IN THE FOREST\n\n\nONE night, to repose my soul from the labors I had undertaken, I\nretired to a pine forest upon the earth, in one of the New England\nStates. Thinking to be alone, I had sought the place; but no sooner\nhad I drifted into meditation than a strange sound fell upon my ears.\nIt was not like the sounds of earth, it was more subtle yet more\npenetrating; and I knew that I was listening to a song (if you may call\nit a song) by some of my fellow sojourners in the region beyond the\nsunlight.\n\nSuddenly with a rush they leaped past me into the clearing, and forming\nin a circle, they waited. Then I saw a light that was not of earthly\norigin, the light of a campfire, and I knew that I had been surprised\nby a band of Indians who were preparing to hold some rite of their old\nreligion.\n\nThough I had not been invited to their ceremony, neither had I invited\nthem to intrude upon my contemplation, so I remained and watched them.\n\n(Yes, there is less secrecy out here, for the reason that there is\ngreater understanding and greater tolerance.)\n\nSoon I was looking on at a strange dance. All in a circle they swung\nround and round the blazing fire, singing and leaping. I did not know\nthe meaning of the words they sang; but I could read their minds by the\nthought-images they formed, and I knew that they were celebrating the\ndate--reached by what lunar reckoning I knew not--of some great Indian\nmassacre in which they had taken part a hundred or two hundred years\nago.\n\nAnd the impulse of their dance, the motive power of it, was hatred of\nthe white man who had scattered them and driven them away from their\nold hunting grounds.\n\nShocked, yet fascinated by this inner glimpse at the souls of the\nAmerican aborigines, I watched them.\n\nThough I am not skilled in magic rituals, I soon perceived that there\nwas form and method in this dance, method and form and a hostile\npurpose.\n\nThey were, by exciting themselves and by fixity of thought, trying to\nexcite a scattered company of men in these United States--men of a low\ngrade of intellect but of psychic temperament--to deeds of violence and\ndestruction.\n\n\u201cSo that is the way they do it!\u201d I thought.\n\nThen I drew a veil around my thoughts, that they might not be perceived\nby the beings before me. Yes, I can do that, and so can many men upon\nthe earth.\n\nI could smell the keen fresh odors of the pine grove, and I could feel\nthe rising wind as it swept across the clearing; for the wind seemed to\nrespond to their call and to offer its forces to them. You must know\nthat the elements are impersonal, though semi-personalities inhabit\nthem, and that the elements _and_ these semi-personalities can be\nused and guided, for purposes good or evil, by any being who has gained\nthat peculiar power in one or many lives.\n\nAnd looking off in the distance, I could see that the wind as it swept\nalong carried the thoughts and passions of these long dead men, these\nsouls that by reason of their downward tendencies had not broken away\nfrom the attraction of matter, the astral gravitation that makes so\nmany souls earth-bound.\n\nStill looking off and projecting my consciousness in a way I have\nlearned to do, I saw the influence of this magic ritual of revenge\nand menace as it touched the minds of men far scattered. I saw\ntheir thoughts take on suddenly the tinge of hatred, hatred for the\ncivilization in which they had failed to realize their personal desires.\n\nAnd I knew that on that night and on the morrow, and at intervals for\nmany days, deeds of violence would be committed, that property would be\ndestroyed, and men of order threatened.\n\nMy heart was sad, for I had not understood before how real was the\ndanger to my country in these times of crisis from the karma the old\nsettlers had made. Of course they believed they were doing right in\nridding themselves and their adopted land from the simple but complex\nnatives, whose civilization was older than the civilization of Europe,\nand who had loved this land as only those can love a land who have\nknown the freedom of its spaces.\n\nWhen the magic dance was over, and one by one and two by two the\ncommunicants slipped away among the shadows, I strode forward into\nthe circle to have speech with any who should willingly respond to my\ndesire for acquaintanceship.\n\nSuddenly I found myself face to face with a majestic chieftain, wearing\none of those long feather bonnets whose every feather marks some deed\nof daring or achievement. (What a splendid custom was that! What an\nincentive to action! Truly among the red men, deeds won a feather in\nthe cap.)\n\nHis face was like that of a hawk, and his eyes were bright with an\ninner fire, that intensity of feeling and thought commingled which\nmarks the leader and master of men and him alone.\n\nAnd I said to him in the forms of thought, for I knew no word of his\nold language:\n\n\u201cI have been an unintentional witness to your ceremony this evening.\nWill you enlighten me further as to its purpose? for I see that it was\ndirected towards the land of breathing men.\u201d\n\nWith a sweep of his authoritative arm he dismissed the few of his\ncompanions who had not already moved away among the trees, and we two\nwere alone together.\n\n\u201cI come as a friend,\u201d I said, seeing that he hesitated.\n\nAnd the word was true; for I saw that whatever harm he mistakenly\nsought to accomplish, in his soul was the consciousness of justice,\nthat fundamental balance between right and wrong, that proposition\nof law, which when native in the mind gives it dignity and attracts\nrespect. This was no dabbler in aboriginal and nasty sorcery, but a\nkind of priest of retribution, a tribal demi-god who might perhaps some\nday be made constructive and not destructive, an instrument of the\ngreat Genius of America of which I have spoken in a former letter, the\nWeaver of Destiny who has our land in charge.\n\nWe measured each other with the eyes, and I cast aside the veil that I\nhad before drawn around my thoughts, that he might see me mind to mind\nand realize that I respected and to a degree understood him.\n\n\u201cYou have seen what you have seen,\u201d he observed.\n\n\u201cAnd you do not resent my presence?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\nThe fresh odor of the pine grove was keen in my senses, and my\nnew-found companion threw back his head with a splendid motion as if to\ndrink it in.\n\n\u201cFreedom is good,\u201d he said, \u201cand the land was ours.\u201d\n\nSo I perceived that by excusing himself and his associates he had\nperceived that I accused them. Then I knew that I could really commune\nwith him mind to mind, and I was glad; for I ever seek to extend the\nrange of my knowledge and to form acquaintance with those of sturdy\nwill.\n\n\u201cBut the land is free to all the world,\u201d I said, \u201cto you and to me, and\nto those of both our races.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe do not see it so,\u201d was his reply.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d I insisted, \u201care we not now, you and I, enjoying it in freedom?\u201d\n\nIt is difficult to translate in words the rapid give and take of our\nthoughts, the pictures that flashed back and forth between us, as I\nstrove with kindliness and will to make him understand that the welfare\nof his race did not call for the destruction of mine.\n\nI told him--and the idea was so new to him that, lacking words, I had\nto draw my story on the canvas of thought in the minutest detail--how\nthe soul that leaves the earth for a time returns to it in another\nform. And I explained how hundreds upon hundreds of his people, and the\nmost advanced among them, had already come back in material form to\nthat America they had loved before, that they wore white bodies, and\ncould only be distinguished from other white men by the keenness of\ntheir eyes, their gait, and certain peculiarities of speech and manner.\n\nHe followed my story with astonished, almost painful, intensity; for he\nknew, with that inner knowledge which on this side of life is almost\nimpossible to deceive, that I spoke honestly and believed that which I\ntold him.\n\n\u201cAnd do you not deceive yourself?\u201d was his inevitable question.\n\nThen I told him of those recent and former lives of my own which I most\nvividly remember, and cited proofs that I did not deceive myself.\n\n\u201cBut what a life is that of the white man for one of my people?\u201d he\ndemanded.\n\nThen he flashed me picture after picture of the simple white man\u2019s\nlife in America, the schoolhouse with the choking-hot stove and the\nbad air, the house and home with closed doors and windows, the\n\u201cmeeting-house\u201d where a droning or a noisy preacher prated of things he\ndid not understand, to others who believed or did not believe that they\nbelieved him. He held up before me as for ridicule the clothing of the\nwhite man in the lower walks of life, the confining and uncomfortable\nshoes, the binding trousers, the ugly hat that makes bald the head, and\nthe collar. The one he pictured was a paper collar, soiled and wilted\nat the edges.\n\nThen he showed me--as if to prove the breadth of his observations--an\noffice in a city, with the clerks seated upon stools and bent with\naching backs over ledgers that contained figures, figures, long lines\nof figures that were the symbols of the white man\u2019s wampum, which\nseemed so trivial when made the principal occupation of a soul that\nhad rejoiced in the red man\u2019s forest.\n\n\u201cAnd is it for this that they come back to their native land?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cBut the soul must gain all experience,\u201d I said.\n\nThe idea seemed new to him, and he pondered it with knitted brows.\n\n\u201cWhy should the soul gain all experience?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cThat it may return to its God rich in knowledge,\u201d I replied.\n\n\u201cIts God.\u201d At that thought the strange eyes of him lighted, though his\nface remained immobile.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I said, \u201cfor your God and my God are both God.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are many gods,\u201d he replied. \u201cThere is the Great Spirit, and\nthere are the others.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the centre of each of them,\u201d I assured him, \u201cthere is a spot, a\ncore of the heart that is the same in all, that exists everywhere, and\nin every heart is one, that knows no division; and that centre is also\nin your heart and mine and in that of our respective Gods.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you learn that in one of those hot schoolhouses?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cNo. I did not learn it even when I was an old man upon the earth,\nbut after I came out here. On earth I rather prided myself on my\nseparateness.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen one can learn new religions out here?\u201d he asked, in surprise.\n\n\u201cIf one finds a teacher,\u201d I replied.\n\n\u201cBut what need is there of _new_ religions?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is,\u201d I said, \u201cin the core of every religion also that central\nspot where all are one. And there is in all races,\u201d I pursued, for I\nsaw that he watched with half-belief, \u201cthere is in all races a core\nof unity. The red man is the brother and not the permanent enemy of\nthe white man. So why should you injure the descendants of those who\nfollowed what they believed to be right in extending their holdings in\nthis land long ago?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I was not seeking to injure them for injury\u2019s sake.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen I misunderstood the purpose of your magic song.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cYou caught the feeling of my children, who cannot\nsee beyond feeling. My purpose is only to destroy the present to make\nway for the old life.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the present is always a stage,\u201d I said, \u201con the highroad\nthat leads to the future. And my people reincarnated, and yours\nreincarnated--or so many of them as are ready to go on--shall go on\ntogether and in this land. They will form, with those who join them\nfrom beyond the seas, a new race. And thanks to the labors of a few\namong the white men who have studied and appreciated the traditions\nand civilization of the red man and sought to save them from utter\nobliteration, the old forest lore will become a part of the inheritance\nof that new race which is to grow out of the union of yours and mine\nand the others. And for a part of every year, when the life of the new\nrace is adjusted, the boys and girls and men and women will go out to\nthe wilds and enjoy the freedom of the tent and the society round the\ncampfire, and we shall be brothers--real blood-brothers--at last, and\nall the old wounds shall be healed. Can you not recognize me as your\nbrother?\u201d\n\nHe nodded his head.\n\n\u201cAnd will you not spread among your people the glad tidings of the new\nrace, in all of whose possessions they will share?\u201d\n\nWe stood long looking in each other\u2019s eyes, and I told him more than I\ncould record here if I held the use of your pencil for many hours. In\nthe end he understood me.\n\nIt is my belief that he will spread the story among his people, and\nthat one danger will be lessened thereby, to some degree, for the\nchildren of the new race.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XVII\n\n THE IDEAL OF SUCCESS\n\n\n _June 23, 1917._\n\nPUT fear out of your hearts. The future will give you no greater\nlessons than you can master. It is not well to know the future in\ncomplete detail. Had the world known during the last ten years all it\nwould be obliged to suffer in this war, would it have made the progress\nit has made in art, science and commerce? No. Every thought would have\nbeen haunted.\n\nYou may say that the weaker races (and the stronger ones) would have\nmade better preparation. But a part of this lesson has been not to\ndelay inevitable preparation, and to know in future that a nation\nwhich idealizes war and is mostly army, has not cultivated that ideal\nand that army solely for its own amusement.\n\nIf you want to understand national life and individual life, you must\nlook for their dominating ideals. An ideal is a tendency.\n\nWhat is the dominating ideal of America? Summed in a word, it is\nsuccess, is it not? Now America is in a great war, and you may be sure\nthat she will leave nothing undone that can make for success in that\nwar, as she has left nothing undone that could make for success in\nbusiness.\n\nTake your own case. What are your dominating ideals and tendencies? You\nwould say, off-hand, work and study and intellectual companionship,\nwould you not? Very well. As to work, do not fear a future in which\ngood work is pretty sure of at least a living wage. Study? There will\nalways be books to feed your hunger for reading. Companionship? There\nare too many lonely souls in the world for you ever to be lonely.\n\nWhat else? You lift your pencil and think.... That is about all, is it\nnot?\n\nNow let us return to America. America is not--has not been--a warlike\nnation, except when threatened by injustice, to herself or others. Will\nshe lose this war? I think not.\n\nBut there will be complexities regarding the end of this war.\n\nI want to refer to something I said in a recent letter, that we were\norganizing on this side of the airy frontier for work for the future of\nAmerica.\n\nI have spoken of the Genius of this land, a composite entity you may\ncall it, if your imagination is not equal to the task of seeing that\nyou--all of you--are cells in the body of the Genius of America.\n\nNow the Genius of this land has glorious purposes, and she uses\nyou--all of you--for her purposes, as you use the cells of your body,\nas you are using at this moment the aggregation of cells that form the\nhand with which you hold your pencil.\n\nIn registering yourselves at the call of your country, you are\naffirming your acceptance of the office of cells in the great body of\nher. Some of you she must sacrifice in the war for the welfare of the\nwhole, as every day cells die and are born in the body of man, the\nmicrocosm.\n\nExtend the idea to the whole human race, and the figure will be still\nmore apt. The genius of the race is suffering now. The process will\nultimate in a more perfect health.\n\nYou perhaps protest that many of those who are dying are the flower\nof the race, the young, the fitted to survive. But do you not remember\nthat their souls survive? The essential part of them is not lost, but\nset free for a greater work. Have you considered that earth-life may be\nthe dream, and the life after death the waking? Sages have considered\nit before you, and accepted the possibility.\n\nOut here we are hopeful, and very busy. It is because I am so busy that\nI come to you only occasionally. Do not hurry me, for I do not hurry\nyou.\n\nWe have problems to solve out here. As I have said, one of our problems\nis the great number of Indian souls, red men souls, who went out of\nlife with resentment and revenge in their hearts for the elimination of\ntheir race by the white man in America.\n\nSomehow we must placate them, and enlist them on your side. Otherwise\nthey may be a dangerous element for the future. Some of them would like\nto see your civilization destroyed, as theirs was destroyed, and a few\nof them are strong enough to do real harm.\n\nThe best way to make an enemy harmless is to understand his peculiar\nqualities, to learn something from the frankness of his enmity, to turn\naway evil by letting it go off at a tangent. But the Indian souls are\nnot famous for their frankness. Even with me they sometimes conceal\ntheir resentment--deep, fundamental--at the \u201ctheft,\u201d as they feel it,\nof the land where they once roamed in freedom.\n\nI advise America to cultivate the free life of the open. I have advised\nyou in a former book that the old woodcraft should be resuscitated and\ntaught to the children. There may come a time when the rudiments of\nthis knowledge will be useful to many of you.\n\nGreat changes are coming in the world, a period of adjustment to new\nconditions. There is a restless element in all adjustment, and national\nrestlessness is like that of puberty; it needs to be minimized by\nhealthful outdoor play, or by work which masquerades as play.\n\nThe future will take from the present those elements that are most\nimportant for survival.\n\nDo not fear that we shall return to the Dark Ages. Oh, no. We are going\ninto a Light Age. It is only twilight now.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XVIII\n\n ORDER AND PROGRESS\n\n\n _July 18, 1917._\n\nOUR purpose is to make the changes that must come, come gradually. We\nwant to avoid sudden changes.\n\nYou in the world have no faint idea of the influence and power we can\nwield on our side. We can speak to the minds of men without their\nknowing whence the ideas come. They think, when a sudden idea comes\ninto their minds, that they have evolved it; but _sudden_ ideas\ngenerally come from outside. (I put one in your mind this morning, then\nran away before you could recognize me. Why did I run away? Because I\nwanted you to use your own judgment.)\n\nJust at present we are trying to encourage America as to her\nfuture--_her orderly and peaceful future_, after peace is declared\nin Europe.\n\nYou may as well know that there are many out here who are anxious about\nthe future of the world. All men do not cease to worry when they have\nleft their bodies. There are many here who think the world is going to\nsmash. They always had that fear in life whenever things seemed to go\nwrong; and now they are no less inclined to accept every perplexity as\nan omen of failure and confusion.\n\nAll over America there are men and women--and many of them are in\npulpits and on platforms--who are croaking away about the destruction\nof society following this war. Bless your troubled hearts! Society is\nnot going to be destroyed. Some elements in society will be gradually\ndone away with, and good riddance to them! But society has made too\ngreat advance, in mechanical and intellectual ways, to permit its\nstructure to be pulled from beneath its feet.\n\nDo not worry. Watch out, but do not worry. As Abraham Lincoln once\nprevented this country from being territorially divided and thus\nweakened, so he and others are now working to prevent a spiritual\ndivision that would be even more disastrous.\n\nNo, we are not going to see your useful inventions and your structures\nthat the future has need of, cast into the rubbish heap by reckless\nviolence and extravagance. What is useful must be conserved. What is\nuseless for the future can be made over into something useful.\n\nHumanity has not been in the habit of taking sudden jumps. It has put\none foot regularly before the other, and gone ahead rather steadily.\nThe way of man in the past has been to improve and make over, rather\nthan suddenly to discard its institutions, or even its garments.\nOnly that which is really worn out is cast away. And our financial\nsystem, and our social system in general, will be improved and _not\ndiscarded_. Did you think we were going back to wampum? Oh, no!\n\nThere _is_ a strong pull from this side, and from those who\ninhabited your continent, to simplify the life in America. But America\nis no longer isolate. She has now taken her place in the republic of\nnations.\n\nSome of the souls who used to be American Indians would like to see\nAmerica resume wigwams and campfires, because those souls want to come\nback, and they dread the complexity of modern American life. But there\nare teachers here--and some of them red teachers--who can instruct the\nsouls behindhand in adaptability.\n\nI have told you that there is an influence tending to draw America\nbackward. But I have not told you to be panicky regarding the fact.\nThere are reactionaries--even in your world.\n\nThe influence from this side is subtle. But the majority here who\ndesire to lead the world, desire to lead it forward and not back.\n_The world will go forward._\n\nYes, the souls you call the \u201cdeparted\u201d are organizing themselves. They\nrealize that their influence can be more effective if it has a purpose\nand a program. For a time after the war began there was great confusion\nout here, but things are becoming more orderly. Minds are becoming\nmore united. Many of us who have common sense and some measure of\npolitical judgment give most of our time to lecturing here and there,\nwherever we can draw a crowd together. That is one reason why you have\nseen me so seldom of late. I have been busier than ever before. Knowing\nthat a time is coming soon when I can rest from my present labors, I am\nusing my strength as fast as I generate it. For those whom I convince\nthat America and other countries are going forward--_must_ go\nforward to greater activity--seek to convince others in their turn.\nNo lecturer on earth ever had so busy a month as I have had this last\nmonth. I have spoken to hundreds several times every day, going from\nplace to place, from State to State, from city to city. I can speak in\nSan Francisco in the morning, in New York at noon, in New Orleans at\ntwo o\u2019clock, in Butte, Montana, in the evening. I am not limited to\nrailway time-tables, nor do I pay my fare.\n\nBelieve me, we are going to save America, and we are going to save the\nworld. For the Masters are behind us, and they will not let the world\nbe destroyed.\n\nI should not like you to know how near it has been to destruction more\nthan once during the last three years. But the forces of premeditated\nevil against which we fought so long have been scattered now, and\nthough they have not been destroyed, their effect has been greatly\nlessened. What we have reason to fear now is the unwisdom of those who\nbelieve they wish good to the world--_the unwisdom of fanatics and\nagitators and fuss-budgets_ of all sorts, stirring up confusion and\ndarkening counsel with their unpractical and conflicting ideas.\n\nOrder, order, order! That is what the world must strive for in the\nperiod of reaction which will follow this war. The reaction must be\nreckoned with; but it will be only a brief rest of overwearied hearts,\nwho will again begin building.\n\nIt is in that building period that I hope for America, because she will\nbe less tired than the other members of the great world brotherhood.\nBut in America at that time there will be a danger. I tell you that,\nlest you be taken unawares and relax your attention.\n\nBe watchful, but not over-anxious.\n\nAnd trust the Masters of Life somehow to lead you through.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XIX\n\n THE FEDERATION OF NATIONS\n\n\n _August 9, 1917._\n\nTHE time has now come for America to get out into the world and take\nher place in the federation of nations. Let her unite with England in a\nstrong bond, and thereby she can keep the peace of the world.\n\nThe isolation of America in the past has been in line with her destiny;\nit was necessary for her to develop to her present state of power\nwithout interruptions, or the influence of international complications\nupon her statesmen. Free and alone, she has not had to become a part\nof the great and creaking machine of international diplomacy and\nintrigue. But now she is independent, and, politically speaking,\nher character is formed. You may say that America has attained her\nmajority, and is entitled to vote in the councils and elections of the\nworld.\n\nShe has much to do for both France and England, as they have both\ndone so much for her in the past. They have formed her culture and\ninfluenced her spirit; now she will influence their spirit.\n\nWhen you read the other day of the work which our soldiers are doing in\nFrance, helping in many little ways in the villages and on the farms,\nyour heart glowed with pleasure; you remembered what I said to you\nbefore America came into the war, that our men were to go to France and\nto work, work, work for the upbuilding of France.\n\nThat is only the beginning. More and more will our men work over\nthere, during and after war.\n\nSoon there will come a call for a new kind of work--new for us.\n\nThere is deep meaning in this bringing together of the nations for a\ncommon cause. From that, there is only a step to the bringing together\nof _all_ nations for _one_ cause.\n\nThe force of revolt in the world must spend itself, as the force of\nrace hatred has spent itself--for it is already spent. The continuation\nof the war will be practically without the rage of the beginning. We go\non because it is our job, and even in New York now there is no longer\nthe fierceness of two years ago. And in England it is lessened, and\nin France it is lessened, and in Germany it is lessened. War has now\nbecome a task like any other, to be gone through with. When it no\nlonger seems worth while, it will stop.\n\nThe question of America\u2019s part in the federation of states interests me\nnow.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XX\n\n THE NEW IDEAL\n\n\n _August 19, 1917._\n\nSINCE Germany evolved her idea of flamboyant nationalism and tried\nto foist it upon the world in imperial fashion, the world has grown\nskeptical of the national fetish. It will believe in the good\nintentions of no nation or race that flaunts its perfections in the\nface of friend or enemy.\n\nAmerica, as she grows more and more sure of her high destiny, must also\ngrow more modest. She must realize herself as one of the sister states\nin the great commonwealth of nations, and the eagle will take lessons\nin voice culture. As a quiet voice can make itself heard in a medley\nof noises where a screaming voice would be inaudible, so must America\u2019s\nvoice become deep and quiet.\n\nShe is paying for her place in the councils of the world. Let her voice\nbe heard by reason of its dignified and restrained accents.\n\nA great change is taking place in Europe, in its conception of the\nAmerican character. Hitherto France has known the American tourist,\nand the uprooted American who lived there in preference to his own\ncountry. Now France is learning something about the American man in his\nworkaday, playaday, fighting and loving, living and dying sublimity.\nShe has rubbed her eyes as she watched him, wondering if she were\nawake. She has recognized a new type. She does not understand it yet,\nbut she wants to understand it. There is a new and disturbing warmth\nnow at the heart of France for this new brother from across the seas.\nShe sees (for she is subtle) the crudity of him as measured by her more\nartificial standards. But she sees also the grandeur and chivalry of\nhim, as compared with her old idea of the foreigner.\n\nAh, America and Americans! You are on trial now in the courts of the\nworld\u2019s judgment as you have never been before. My heart is aglow as\nI see our boys go out into the larger world, carrying with them the\nclear outdoor spirit of the American plains and woodlands. When I see\nthe eyes of the sublime and pain-chastened French grow deep and warm as\nthey rest upon our boys, I am so proud of them! I forget that I also\nam uprooted, having left the land of my birth for the regions beyond\ndeath.\n\nIn the councils at the ending of the war and after the war, may the\nmodesty of greatness restrain America from any suggestion to France or\nEngland that she saved them from destruction. I clasp my hands--to you\nthey would be shadowy hands--together with excess of emotion, as I pray\nfor the guidance of America in the councils that are to come.\n\nModesty--let that be the watchword.\n\nThe soul of France is aflame with gratitude, the soul of France is\naflame with love. The hearts of the French people in the night grow\nwarm and their eyes grow wet as they whisper to themselves, \u201cLes\nAm\u00e9ricains! Les Am\u00e9ricains!\u201d\n\nOh, be mindful of the love you have won!\n\nI would die all over again a thousand times rather than see my\nAmericans disappoint their French brethren in this crisis of the\nworld\u2019s life.\n\nYou wonder why I say nothing of England? Ah! England knows you already.\nEngland has known you long. You cannot surprise England. She knows you\nas the mother knows her son or daughter; but to the French you are a\nmystery, a mystery that has come to help, an angel in a khaki shirt and\na slouch hat and a strange voice.\n\nDon\u2019t you understand?\n\nShe prays for you. She would pray to you if she were not so shy in her\nlove. There is a new strange wonder in her eyes, and a sweet thrill all\nover her.\n\nOh, exalt the brotherhood of nations--that never before realized ideal!\n\nYou cannot take away from a boy who has grown up in a free world the\ndeep-rooted idea that America is and ever must be free. In years gone\nby the sons of this soil have died for freedom, freedom for themselves,\nfreedom for the black man. Now they fight and die for the freedom of\nthe world.\n\nDo you know what it means to be free? Only the self-restrained man is\nfree, for lawlessness is not freedom. Lawlessness is always in leash to\npassions tyrannical.\n\nIn the new America that I see just over the edge of the horizon\n(for my eye reaches farther than yours), there will be room for the\nfullest development of the individual idea, while the idea of social\nresponsibility will make it stable. Hitherto individuality has run\nrampant. Witness the hoarding of food by a few, while many go without.\nWatch the clash and struggle of each interest to take some advantage\nfor itself out of this tragic opportunity.\n\nBefore the war is ended the hearts of men must work in harness with\ntheir minds. The old generation is dying off, the generation whose\ninitiative girdled the continent with railroads, spurred by the hope\nof personal gain. The new men who will follow the old \u201ccaptains of\nindustry\u201d will glimpse a new ideal.\n\nI am told by one who knows more than I that the men who have made\nindustrial America, by their foresight and initiative, were guided and\ninspired by Beings who used them and their ambitions for world purposes\nbeyond their comprehension.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXI\n\n A RAMBLING TALK\n\n\n _November 15, 1917._\n\nI AM not in a literary mood to-night, so I may talk in a rambling way.\n\nI wonder if you know the seriousness of the enterprise which America\nhas undertaken. You think you do. But before the matter is all threshed\nout at the end you may have surprises in store.\n\nDo not worry about your things in London. London is large, and a good\nmany bombs can fall without destroying any great portion of it.\n\nYes, I say emphatically again what I said some two years and a half\nago, that there will be internal troubles in Germany--and in other\nplaces, too. The world is going to be made over. Do not be afraid. The\nmaking over of the world will not hurt you.\n\nHumanity is so afraid of change! The race has gone through many\nchanges--some of them in prehistoric times--more dramatic than the\npresent change. Humanity has a long history, and little of it is\nrecorded in books that you can read.\n\nYes, the world will be united, and the world will be cut up. That\nsounds like a paradox, perhaps.\n\nAs I am resting to-night, I may take the liberty of being disconnected.\nYou ought always to live in a quiet place like this, a little remote\nfrom the centre of things. You do not belong in the bustle and crowd\ndowntown, either in New York or any other large city. All those who\nhave developed their inner senses should live a little apart. That\ndoes not mean that they should all become hermits; but they should live\nin the outskirts. When you feel a desire for the crowd you can go down\ninto it.\n\nTell ---------- not to worry because this book is going slowly. You are\nnot working against time. The world will go on, and you will go with\nit. Make no mistake about that. The world is going very fast. All these\nnew \u201cpsychic\u201d books are an evidence that the world is going fast. A few\nyears ago no publisher would have issued them.\n\nI do not wonder that your head swims a little.\n\nYou have been impressed by \u201closing\u201d so many personal friends since\nthe war began, friends whose deaths seemed unconnected with the war.\nBut they are of those who could not adjust to the new world that is\ncoming. Their Silent Watchers are taking them out. You each have a\nSilent Watcher, a something, a part of you that is above and beyond\nyou, yet which is the most real of all the parts of you.\n\nThe Watchers of the universe are watching more intently than usual.\nYour own is watching you as well as the world. It will give you notice\nwhen any important action is necessary.\n\nIt seems as if the world had adjusted itself to the idea that the dead\n_may_ speak with the living. But that is only the beginning of\nknowledge.\n\nWhen the worst of the war is over, and men begin to adapt themselves\nto peace, they will try to know themselves. And they will discover\nthat their bodies and souls are only parts of them, that they exist on\nas many planes of being as there are planes of matter and of subtler\nsubstance, and that each of these selves is as real as the personality\nthey see in the mirror. They will learn to form links between them, to\nbuild bridges of communication. Finally they will become consciously\ncomplete beings.\n\nJoy is coming back to the world some day, such joy as the world has\nnever known. You will one day be glad to be alive again, and I mean all\nof you.\n\nDo not fret because you have to remain in America. At the moment\nAmerica is a good place in which to be. The world is opening its\neyes at the efficiency of America. She is setting an example that\nher friends will be ashamed not to follow. Some day she will set the\nhighest example of all.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXII\n\n THE LEVER OF WORLD UNITY\n\n\n _November 19, 1917._\n\nDO you not see that the unifying influence of America is already being\nfelt in the war? Do you not see how America, through the President of\nthe United States, is drawing the Allies together? That is her destiny,\nto assemble all nations in a brotherhood of democratic freedom and\nmutual helpfulness. This demand of President Wilson for a council, for\nunified action in prosecuting the war, is one of the most significant\nevents in history. For the first time a group of friendly nations\nmay really work as one, putting aside all personal jealousies and\nfears--for a great world end.\n\nIt is the lever of world unity which shall lift the burden of\nwastefulness that heretofore has cost the world half the fruits of its\nlabor.\n\nOh, nations of Europe, do not fear the great free land across the\nwaters! She wants nothing of you, save now the privilege of helping you\nto save yourselves, and in the future to work with you for the ideals\nthat will make you all strong.\n\nThe Anglo-Saxon race must again be like one family, though in two\nhouses; but bye and bye, when America shall have amalgamated her\nforeign residents with herself in one indissoluble race, she will still\nbe your sister, O Britain! and you two shall counsel together for the\nfurther enlightening of the world.\n\nSometimes I go high in the etheric regions and look down upon the\nearth, so high that the horizons bound one hemi-sphere after another.\nThe horizons of time are also thus expanded, and I see ahead of and\nbehind the present hour. I see the causes that have brought the world\nto its present _impasse_. You will have to remove the wall that\nseparates you from the age of enlightened brotherhood.\n\nYou have read about the golden age of the past. Did you think it was a\nfanciful story, to amuse children in the fire-light? I tell you it will\nsometime be realized again, and on this earth--now rent by hatred and\nwar.\n\nYou must retain all you have won from the mines of the earth and from\nthe activity of your own brains. Inventions and arts, they will all\nhave their place in the new age that is coming, and hitherto unimagined\nart and science will add further to the glory and comfort of life. It\nwill be the fault of your own folly and blindness if you lose anything\nof value to the soul. The soul needs matter as matter needs the soul.\nBecause we look forward to an age without hatred and wasteful division,\nwe do not look forward to an age of idleness and inertia. Limitless\nwill be the opportunities for genius, for talent, for ambition.\n\nThe greatest aristocracy of earth is the aristocracy of mind and soul,\nand mind and soul will be cultivated. The education of the future will\nbe not only practical but humanistic; nothing will be thrown away\nthat makes for beauty or for thought. The treasures of dead languages\nwill not be thrown into the dust-bin. After the labor necessary to\nprovide for the material wants of the world, time will be left for\nart and beauty and scholarship, for social discussion and religious\nexaltation. The mystic also will have his place.\n\nThree years ago I would not have dared to prophesy a _happy_\noutcome for this tragic fracas. More than two years ago I told you that\nthe battle had been won in the regions above the earth--won by the\npowers of good, who labor for the welfare of mankind. How _can_\nyou doubt? If the war had ended two years ago, the world might have\ngone on more or less as it went before. But now it can never go back to\nthe old selfish ways. In the need that will follow the war the races\nwill help one another; they will turn to one another as brothers and\nsisters turn.\n\nNever lose faith that out of this tragedy will come the guerdon of the\nworld\u2019s desire. I see it, I live for it (for I live more vitally than\nyou); and that you may see and live for it also I struggle against the\nlightness of my present body, that has a tendency to carry me away from\nthe dense regions where you suffer and pray, you men of earth.\n\nYou who have followed me from those early days when I wrote you letters\nfrom the lower astral world, describing as a traveller in a strange\ncountry the things I had seen; you who followed me through the hells\nof astral turmoil during the early months of the war, follow me yet a\nlittle further. I will show you the way as it has been shown to me.\nAnd you will walk in that way, though stumbling at first and groping\nfor the thread of purpose through the labyrinth of reconstruction, in\nthe days that shall be called days of peace. For perfect peace will\nnot come at once. You will have to work for it, as you have worked\nfor triumph in war. But if you have faith, you will ride the stormy\nwaters into the haven of a new earth. And a new heaven will spread\nabove the earth, for heaven is largely peopled from below; it recruits\nits population from below. No new angels are being created now. The\noutgoing Breath rests, and the indrawing Breath is about to begin.\nYou who have practised \u201cyogi breathing\u201d know how difficult it is to\nhold the breath _out_ for more than a short time. It can only be\ndone by force of will. The tendency is to return, as the tendency in\nthe race is to return towards the Source from which it came. It is\ntherefore I say that you cannot retard, save for a little while, the\nflow of the race-breath towards harmony and peace and love.\n\nThis struggle of men with each other in the selfishness of separation\nis like the struggle of the yogi not to inbreathe--the young and\ninexperienced yogi; for the wise one breathes at stated intervals, and\nknows when the period is full.\n\nThe race knows. It will follow the law of the outflow and inflow. You\ncannot prevent it. So yield yourselves to the current that would carry\nyou back to God.\n\nIt will not be a hurried journey, for the inflowing breath is measured\ntoo. There will be time for labor and for rest, and to gather flowers\nby the way.\n\nDo you fear the return to God, however slow it may be? I who have\ntasted death know there is nothing to fear; and I who have tasted the\nnew life tell you there is everything to hope.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXIII\n\n THE STARS OF MAN\u2019S DESTINY\n\n\n _November 24, 1917._\n\nHAS it occurred to you that the powers that have in charge the progress\nof the world may be obliged to use methods repugnant to your desires,\nin order to accomplish inevitable purposes at the time when they are\ndue? Man, by rebelling against the tendencies of cosmic progress, may\nretard it--for a time; but when the wave rises high enough it will\ncarry him along against his will, and inevitable effects are produced\nin spite of his rebellion.\n\nTake this war. The hour had struck on the world clock when races of\nmen should work together for a common purpose. They rebelled in their\nfear that each would not get his share of world benefits; so the world\nwas attacked by a common enemy, and the races have _had_ to\nunite for a common purpose, that of preserving civilization from the\ndestruction that threatens it.\n\nCould this war have been prevented? By prevision, yes. But no one with\ninfluence enough to be heard respectfully had that prevision. Those who\nstand high in the world\u2019s regard have generally so concentrated upon\ntheir individual work and their individual ambitions, that they have\nlost the ability to see impersonally and to see the world as a whole.\nSome can see as a whole the tendencies of their own country; few can\nsee the world tendency.\n\nAnd I tell you now that if, when this universal war is ended, the\nraces do not recognize the necessity to unite in a federation for the\ngood of all, there will be after forty years little left of all that\nhas been accomplished during that marvellous nineteenth century which\nsaw material progress equalling that of the preceding two thousand\nyears.\n\nCan man not see the stars of his destiny without being struck on the\nhead with a hammer? If man will not work for the good of the whole,\nthen the whole has to be threatened. It is so threatened now, if you\ncould see it.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXIV\n\n MELANCHOLY\n\n\n _December 23, 1917._\n\nI WANT to write about melancholy, not the depression produced by bad\ndigestion or pressure on the nerves, but that cloud of darkness that\nsometimes descends upon the most brilliant mind and the stoutest heart,\nmaking them for a while useless for any purpose--except that of drawing\nknowledge from the experience of melancholy itself.\n\nNot all sadness originates in the heart that is sad, and fear, the\nbasis of melancholy, may be suggested to a soul on earth by a soul\nbeyond the earth. You do not realize what a cloud of dissatisfied and\nfearful souls this holocaust has let loose in the invisible regions;\nthey flock round the sensitive souls upon the earth, longing to \u201ctell\ntheir troubles,\u201d longing for sympathy and help. They are no more\nself-reliant than many in your world whose very presence depresses a\nstronger fellow being.\n\nNow whenever you feel that cloud of melancholy, stop and ascertain\nthe cause. You have observed the workings of suggestion. If you\nfind nothing in your environment or circumstances to fill you\nwith hopelessness, would it not be safe to assume--unless you are\nbilious--that the cloud gathered elsewhere and merely descended upon\nyou?\n\nThe student who hopes some day--though maybe many lives in the\nfuture--to achieve adeptship, may as well begin now to control and\ndirect his thoughts and feelings.\n\nYou need not be melancholy unless you want to be. There are texts,\nmantras, adages, even copy-book maxims you can recall and meditate\nupon, that will drive away the worst fit of the blues. Here are a few:\n\nPleasure and pain are opposite expressions of one force.\n\nI am a part of God, and no harm can overtake God.\n\nWhat is the truth hidden in this well of discontent?\n\nIf I go deep enough into this midnight earth, I shall come out on the\nother side where the sun shines.\n\nI was happy yesterday, and I am still I.\n\nA frightened dog will never scare away a robber.\n\nIf all these ills befall me, it will be an exercise of power to conquer\nthem.\n\n--Not very profound, perhaps; but you can write better ones if you\nwish. I am merely illustrating one process of shaking off the burden of\ndread.\n\nWhy should you men dread anything? Even death is only dreadful when you\nare afraid of it.\n\nThe Masters enjoy difficulties. They are the acid that tests the gold\nof their mastership.\n\nAnd speaking from a lower plane, there is pleasure in doing any\ndifficult thing. Why, in the writing of a big novel there is more\nactual work, mental and physical, than in overcoming some great\nmisfortune. It is less work to go out and overcome a threatened\nmisfortune than it is to write a short story.\n\nHow anybody in good health and with even ordinary ability can yield to\nmelancholy is a question for a philosopher.\n\nI am not talking now of grief for dead friends, or for false friends,\nwhich grief is far worse; but of the fear of some imaginary disaster\nwhich in all probability will never happen.\n\nThe surest way to attract disasters is to imagine them. You can create\nalmost anything if you imagine it strongly enough--even joy and courage.\n\nA Master once told me that the control and exorcism of melancholy was a\ngreater test of power than the control of desire.\n\nBoth often come from outside, are suggested to the receptive, passive\nmind. Now the Master entertains only those suggestions that can\nstrengthen his purposes. If you have a friend who makes you courageous\nby his very presence, cultivate his society. If you have a friend who\nmakes you melancholy, either teach him better or get rid of him; send\nhim to a doctor.\n\nWhat is the use in our talking about occult power if we have not power\nover our moods? Practise on moods. As an exercise, some time when you\nare active, force yourself to be lazy. When you are lazy and not tired,\nforce yourself to be active. Natural fatigue should not be pressed too\nfar, it is a mere reaction; but indolence is not fatigue. It is in the\nphysical what melancholy is in the mental.\n\nAs another exercise, when your mind circles round and round something,\nswitch it off as you would switch off an electric light. Turn and think\nof something else. You can do it.\n\nAnd, by the way, one of the best cures for melancholy is an hour of\nmathematical calculations. I defy anybody to be melancholy in the arms\nof geometry or trigonometry. Why? You cannot think in mathematical\nterms and of yourself at the same time. People always think of\nthemselves when they are melancholy.\n\nBut you tell me that you became melancholy the other day in thinking\nabout a friend who had lost her job. Think again. By wondering what you\ncould do for this friend and whether you could afford it, you began to\nfear.... Is it not so?\n\nYou may be sad because a friend is in trouble, but you cannot be\nmelancholy for anybody but yourself.\n\nAnother can make you melancholy by making you morbid and fearful.\n\nOur thoughts are so chained to our ego that it is difficult for\nthem to escape for long. But are you ever melancholy when creating\nimaginatively a scene in a book? Could you be melancholy while figuring\nthe \u201cpolar elevation\u201d of a planet, or computing one of those converse\n\u201cprimary directions\u201d? I see you smile. When you are engaged with\nfigures you forget yourself. Now take my advice. When auto-suggestion\nis powerless to conquer melancholy, draw up an astrological figure in a\nlow latitude with that table of oblique ascensions that I saw you using\nyesterday, and work out the converse primaries and the longitude of\nVulcan.\n\nYou remind me that when on earth I had small interest in astrology. But\nI am talking about mathematical calculations.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXV\n\n COMPENSATORY PLAY\n\n\n _February 1, 1918._\n\nI HAVE looked in on you occasionally during the last few weeks, pleased\nwith your resting for a time.\n\nThe ambitious and energetic are prone to underestimate the value of\noccasional idleness. You cannot run even a machine all the time without\noil and rest. Neither can the most vigorous engineer-soul run its brain\nand body too long without letting them cool. The farmer knows when to\nlet a field lie fallow.\n\n\u201cAfter the war\u201d it is to be hoped that the soldiers who have worked so\nlong at one labor--that of war--may be given a period of compensatory\nplay, doing nothing, before being replaced in the hive of industry. Let\nthem enjoy the breezes and the perfume of idleness for a little time;\nthe reaction from that rest will send them back into the workshops with\nrenewed desire for activity. If the world has to get along with less\nfor a few weeks, that will not hurt the world.\n\nIn the years to come there will be more rest and recreation in\nAmerica. In Europe there is going to be some degree of fatigue after\nthis war, and America can easily hold her own if she carries a lower\nsteam-pressure.\n\nThe idle hours are sometimes as valuable as those that are spent in\nlabor. It is in so-called idle hours that we meditate, get acquainted\nwith ourselves, build air castles, which are working-plans for our\nedifice of the future. Day dreams are good. I had a day dream during\nmy life, and it was really the working-plan for the future I am\nbuilding now. I wanted to get back something I had lost, and I have got\nit back. You wonder what it was? I do not mind telling you. In a former\nlife I went far along the road towards mastership. Then once upon a\ntime I slipped back a long way. My day dream was to recover that lost\nground, and I have recovered much of it out here.\n\nIf I had not left the world with that day dream vivid in my\nconsciousness, I should not have made the progress and the recovery I\nhave made.\n\nI was talking the other day with an old friend--a very dear old\nfriend--who came out here a year or two ago, and she and I agreed that\nthe day dreams we had dreamed together were among the most valuable\nproducts of our recent life.\n\nShe is revelling in the recovery of her own lost ground, and she\nwill run me a good race as the years go on. Yes, one can race across\nrecovered ground of adeptship.\n\nMy friend said laughingly the other day that she had made more plans\nsince coming out here than she could execute in a long while.\n\n\u201cTake your time,\u201d I advised, \u201cin the execution. You have all eternity.\u201d\n\nShe looked at me in the old way I remember so well, and said:\n\n\u201cTime may be made for slaves, but eternity is made for masters.\u201d\n\nShe too is glad that she came out. She had done one kind of work long\nenough, and is now enjoying another.\n\nIs she helping me, you wonder? Well, no, unless you count the pleasure\nof our renewed association as a help. Why should she help me, or I\nher? Our work is our own.\n\nYou in the world should help each other when you can; but out here we\nof equal stature help each other by _being_. That is a good help,\nthough, the being together sometimes.\n\nWhat a wonderful expression, by the way, \u201cbeing together\u201d! What poetry!\nNot working together, nor playing together, but simply being. You\nmust often have felt that joy when with a loved friend. Words are not\nnecessary for that enjoyment. Words often lessen the enjoyment by the\nvery effort of uttering them. Effortless being! Even the birds enjoy\nit, and the rose could give you valuable secrets of that joy.\n\nIn the world I have heard busybodies say of a beautiful woman that she\ndid nothing. What of it? A rose does not run a sewing-machine, or\nwrite books.\n\nJoy is coming back to the world. It has been long absent. Being for its\nown sake has taken on new meanings in the minds of those who are glad\nto be still alive.\n\nTo have passed through all the perils of a long war and still to \u201cbe\u201d a\nliving man is something to make the soul wonder.\n\nThe men who have fought in this war from the beginning should not be\ncrowded too hard when at last they can stretch their limbs in the\nhammocks of peace. They have earned the right. As they spin their\nsoldier yarns, gaze at them with respect. They passed through the\nshadow of death for you. That God has retained them among the active\ncells of His body is because He has need of them still; but it does not\nmean that they should go on working for you every minute. Suppose you\nwork for them for a while. When they are rested they will join you in\nyour labor.\n\nLast night I listened to two soldiers talking, and this is what they\nsaid to each other:\n\n\u201cWhat will you do, John, when it\u2019s all over?\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll lie in the bath tub an hour every morning, in the warm, soft,\nsoapy water; and in the afternoon I\u2019ll call on one dear girl after\nanother, and drink tea, and listen to their talk. And what will you do?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, I\u2019ll just look at my wife and hold her hand.\u201d\n\nIdle talk, you think? That depends upon what you mean by idle talk. To\nme that talk was immensely significant.\n\nSoon after our little skirmish with Spain I remember hearing an active\nwoman say of her husband that he had never been good for anything since\nhe came back from Cuba.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d I said, \u201che was good for a lot in Cuba.\u201d\n\nThe Spanish-American war! A fly beside an elephant, as compared with\nthis war.\n\nAnd the German is tired, too. You may not have to overwork yourself to\nkeep up with him after the war.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXVI\n\n THE AQUARIAN AGE\n\n\n _February 2, 1918._\n\nYOU have wondered why the Masters speak now of the interests of the\ncommon man, while in former times they said little about them. But do\nyou not know that when the need for a thing is come, the work of the\nMasters with the world is to urge the world in the direction of its\ndestiny?\n\nYou have read of the iron age, the golden age, etc., and that the\ngolden age follows the iron. You may have wondered how two states so\nutterly dissimilar could be juxtaposed. Now between the iron age and\nthe golden age there is a period of transition, a period short as\ncompared with one of the great ages, for example the longest one, the\ngolden, which is given as one million, seven hundred and twenty-eight\nthousand years.\n\nI have not visited you this evening to announce that the golden age\nis immediately at hand. Oh, no! But we approach the termination of a\nminor cycle, and the period of transition from the present state of the\nworld to the next[3] will be of about one thousand years. That is to\nsay, this period of one thousand years will bring us to the middle of\nwhat is called the Aquarian age, for the half of one of these lesser\nZodiacal periods is approximately of that length.[4]\n\nWhat is the Aquarian age? You know the humanitarian nature of Aquarius.\nYou also know the characteristics of the planet Uranus, to which\nAquarius is now attributed. Well, the inference is obvious. We shall\nhave an Aquarian world, and a world where things will go after the\nmanner of that strange and abrupt planet Uranus.\n\nThe old-fashioned world is passing away, the Jupiterian world, and we\nare entering upon a period of change, political, social, religious and\npersonal. There is going to be an attempt at a federation of states, a\nfederation of souls. Nothing but this war could have effected it--with\nthe suddenness characteristic of that mysterious planet Uranus.\n\nIn the later Aquarian age the creative will of man will have such\nscope as the world has not dreamed of. It will be set free from the\nlimitations which have held it. When all men are assured of a means of\nlivelihood, how free they will be in _mind_! The freedom of the\npast in a free country like America is nothing like the freedom which\nthe new age will usher in.\n\nWhen education is really universal, the moral as well as the mental\nwill be trained, and new ideas will have room to develop in the\ndeveloping brain.\n\nBe not afraid, O world! Three years ago, even we who see far out here\nhad grave doubts for the future of your planet. But the great Masters\nalways told us that the world would pass through its period of trial,\nstill poised on its old axis, and that the _forces which make for\norder would triumph over the forces which make for disorder_. Have\nyou not noticed in the psychic world a lessening of strain? Have you\nnot noticed an absence of the hostile and adverse beings that in the\nearly months of the war seemed to threaten the earth and you and all\nmen with a triumphant malice? That is a straw which shows the way of\n\u201cthe winds that blow between the worlds.\u201d\n\nI am glad you are a keen observer of psychic states. That faculty of\nobservation will be of use to you in the years that are to come. Those\nwho cannot adjust to new conditions will pass out for a time and return\nlater with the fresh outlook of children, to take up their experience\nin the new age.\n\nThere will be much rebellion in the beginning. Things are not so stable\nas they _seemed_ four years ago. The war has proved that they were\nnot really stable.\n\nThe wave of psychic research that is now sweeping across the world will\nwear thin the veil between the visible and the invisible. More and\nmore men and women will live in two worlds at the same time; for the\ntwo worlds occupy the same space, and their differences are differences\nof consciousness, of vibration, the latter including a difference in\nstates of matter.\n\nMen will grow more magnetic under the influences that will play upon\nthem. They will affect each other more and more, and that is one reason\nwhy greater freedom will be necessary. With the greater sensitiveness\nwhich the new time will bring, it will be more difficult for large\nfamilies to live together a common life. While the tendency is for\nall mankind to be one family in sympathy, more and more it will be\nrecognized that each man requires privacy for his best development. The\ntyranny of the family will give place to freedom _in_ the family.\nStrip family life of its tyranny and it may be very charming.\n\nThe sensitive and highly charged beings of the new age would explode\nif they should be obliged to sit every evening round the family\n\u201ccentre-table,\u201d listening to the maunderings of the least progressive\namong them, who by reason of greater age assumed the right to lay down\nthe law. This does not mean that children will not honor their parents;\nbut under the new dispensation parents will honor their children\u2019s need\nfor the individual life, and will give it to them--thereby securing\ntheir own freedom.\n\nThe freedom of the later Aquarian age will be manifest in the mind.\n\u201cHeresy\u201d will cease to exist; the word will become obsolete.\n\nThe sin against the Holy Ghost will be understood as the attempt to\nenchain the will of another.\n\nGreat friendliness will result from this mutual tolerance. We hate only\nthose whom we fear, and in a tolerant world there will be few seeds of\nhatred.\n\nAll men will study; the school is only the first stage of study. When\nman becomes his own schoolmaster he makes great strides.\n\nWhat you know of art, music and literature can give you but a vague\nidea of what these arts will become in the age that is to follow. Take\nthe catchwords of the immediate past, impressionism, for example. It\nwill be applied to all the arts.\n\nScience is only in its swaddling-clothes. Aquarius is a sign of\nair, the old books tell us, and the air holds many secrets which\nyou must take for your own, not only secrets of transportation but\npsychological secrets. The airplane and psychical research grew up\ntogether.\n\nYou have not taken the last redoubt of electricity. That also has\ntreasures for you. When you can draw _that_ from the air where it\nhides from you and laughs, you will have little need of coal, and the\nminers can leave the bowels of the earth and play in the sunshine of\nthe heights.\n\nInventions! I see in the \u201cpattern world\u201d I told you about in my first\nbook many things that would puzzle you down here. New fabrics will\nbe worn before many years, and the patient silkworm will not be the\naristocrat it now is.\n\nThe human ego is coming into its own. When it loses selfishness it will\nfind itself. That is not a paradox for its own sake, but the statement\nof a psychological fact.\n\nThe seeming chaos will take form, and in it you will find new\nbeauties. I will not conceal from you the knowledge that many will use\nthe word chaos during the reconstruction period. But be at peace. The\nformless shall take on form. The clairvoyance that is developing in man\nwill help him to see, where the eyes of his old faith would have been\nblind. He will trust the future and trust his brother, and will not be\ndeceived. The intuition of the soul will point man to the substance\nwhich he needs for his well-being. Behind and within the air is the\nether, which is substance, which is God. And man will take it for\nhis uses, with the consent of God, who joys in giving Himself to His\nchildren.\n\nAs I said before, the Masters urge the world along in the direction\nof its destiny; but they are too wise to hurry it. They see the face\nof the cosmic clock, and they wake the world at the hour of the new\nsunrise. We are blest in being their servants.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 3: Still far short of the golden age, probably.--E. B.]\n\n[Footnote 4: This does not correspond exactly with the popular Hindoo\nreckoning. But automatic writings are what they are. I can cut out\nrepetitions, etc., but I cannot re-write, add to, or distort.--E. B.]\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXVII\n\n THE WATCHERS\n\n\n _February 3, 1918._\n\nI STOOD one day before a great soul that had renounced the rest in\nheaven, and questioned him as to the work that called us loudest. What\ndo you think he said?\n\n\u201c_Labor with those who fear for the future._\u201d\n\n\u201cAre there so many, then, who look forward with apprehension?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cAll those who think and see and have responsibilities are\napprehensive,\u201d he replied.\n\nThen I wandered here and there about America, looking in upon all sorts\nof men and a few women. And I read in their minds a great uncertainty.\n\n\u201cSufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,\u201d I thought so intensely\n_at_ them that many responded with a hopeful smile.\n\nYes, I can win response from many people when I think strongly enough\nin their company.\n\nThe faith of one great soul out here has helped many to stand steady\nwhen the winds blew strong against them. He knows that America cannot\nfail of her destiny; but that she may not take a wrong tack, he would\nguide the hand and brush the mists from before the eye of the skipper.\n\nThere are often mists before the path of the \u201cship of State\u201d in these\ngrey days. When Wilson took over the railroads, what courage was there!\nWhen all is over there will be many to criticize and blame him; but\ncriticism and blame are ever the rewards of those who depersonalize\nthemselves and labor for the good of their country or the world. The\nman who is great enough to cast his personality overboard is not hurt\nby criticism. It is only the personality that can be hurt. The soul\nstands serene and pure above the adverse storms.\n\nI do not advise all men to disregard their personality. Only those who\nbear great responsibilities may safely become impersonal. The small\nman, the undeveloped man, could not persuade his soul to take the place\nof his lesser self. For the soul must be persuaded to descend and\ndwell in the personality. Most souls are only partially incarnated.\nThe higher self of most men dwells above and apart. It is their\nSilent Watcher; but it seldom acts save to warn and save. It leaves\nthe lesser self to acquire experience and learn its lessons through\nsuffering and joy, through success and failure. But when the man has so\nfar evolved that his acts become of more than personal significance,\nthen the soul may descend and truly guide and influence the man, for\nthe designs of the soul are ever beyond the personal. It is a conscious\npart of the great whole, a conscious part of God whom it worships and\nserves, however the lower self may be immersed in trivialities and\nblasphemies.\n\nIn any man who has not lost his soul the Higher Watcher has an\ninterest. For the Watcher is One and he is many. He is your link with\nGod, Oh, men! He is your link with immortality.\n\nYou do not meet him merely by dying, for you may dwell long in the\nastral and lower mental world before meeting him face to face. But if\nyou can ascend after death to the higher regions, you will find him\nthere waiting for you. You may bring to him all the fine fruits of your\nrecent life, and he will enjoy them with you.\n\nI have met my soul face to face; but I am unable to remain in the\nhigher regions in peaceful contemplation of his beauty while there is\nso much work to be done for the races on earth as calls to me now. Bye\nand bye I shall re-ascend; but when I go to heaven for a long sojourn\nyou will hear from me no more.\n\nYes, I too have seen your soul. But I need not describe its face to\nyou, who see it better than I. Cling to it. The failure of mortal\nfriendship has no power to shatter the faith of one who can reach to\nhis own Silent Watcher. And the soul of the faithless friend is pure\nas his own, and understands all things. Friendships, like loves, are\nmade in heaven, and true friendship cannot die. Its roots are deep in\nwaters of eternity. It is deathless as the Ygdrasil, and its roots are\nalso above and its branches below.\n\nBut it is better to fail in business than to fail in friendship.\n\nIf a man is great and strong enough, he may draw down his soul to dwell\nwith him wherever he may be. Then the man is a whole man, he is an\nadept. Lincoln is such a man, such a soul. He has become one with his\nHigher Watcher, and the two that are one can work even in the regions\nof the astral. But such a marriage of heaven and earth is uncommon, as\nadepts are uncommon.\n\nYour father in heaven is one with the Father, and if you are really one\nwith your father in heaven he can dwell with you even on earth.\n\nThe higher souls of men are closer to men now than they have been\nfor ages. The doors have been opened. Grief and terror and pain and\ndevotion to ideals of duty have raised the race of men in three and\na half years as it could not have been raised in a hundred years of\npeace. If the race falls back now, it will be a lost opportunity. But\nthe race will not fall back.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXVIII\n\n A RITUAL OF FELLOWSHIP\n\n\n _February 8, 1918._\n\nI HAVE been waiting for you half an hour, as you sat sewing a seam and\nthinking of your friends in France. It warms the heart now to think of\nFrance. The tie between the two great republics is being drawn closer\nand closer.\n\nShall I tell you an occult secret? The French mixed their blood with\nours long ago, and we have loved them ever since. We are now mixing our\nblood with the blood of France, and France will love us in the days\nthat are to come.\n\nIt is a ritual of fellowship, that mixing of blood. English and French\nand Americans and Italians, Irish, Scotch, and all the others. Is\nthere not a foundation for brotherhood? The blended blood cries from\nthe ground for love.\n\nI see in the eyes of the French their feeling for our men as they march\nby, or help in the little ways to which American boys are accustomed.\nNever again will they look upon us as queer people from beyond the sea.\n\nWe have travelled in their country and spent our money and swaggered\nand talked through our noses; but now we are living and dying with\nthem, and we are brothers of mixed blood.\n\nYes, go back to France when you can. They always loved you because you\nloved them, but now you will see that they also love your native land.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXIX\n\n RECRUITING AGENTS\n\n\n _February, 1918._\n\nFOR a day or two after America declared that a state of war existed, I\nspent most of my time in going about this country, studying conditions\nin both worlds. Even before that survey I had a general idea of how\nmatters stood in those worlds; but I wanted to freshen my memory, for I\nhad a great idea. Many times during my life on earth I had told myself\nthat I had a great idea, and sometimes I put it into execution, and\nsometimes I failed in doing so. But this time I was determined there\nshould be no failure.\n\nWhen I had seen from my survey that the materials were all at hand, I\nsought out a great man, spirit, or whatever you choose to call him.\n\nThen together we mapped out our campaign. Here are the main points of\nit:\n\nConservation--where the negative forces should be applied.\n\nConstruction--with our positive forces.\n\nCoordination--with the synthetic forces.\n\nWe marshalled a group of those strong-minded, strong-willed men and\nwomen who had been out here long enough to know not only their way\nabout, but how to impress their thoughts upon material-bodied men and\nwomen. These were dispatched here and there, to think, think, think, in\nthe neighborhood of senators and congressmen, chiefs of industry and\nmembers of the general public. The burden of their impressed thought\nwas conservation of food, conservation of expenditure, conservation of\nall material that would be needed for the activities of war.\n\nOthers who were filled with a great love for the land of their latest\nbirth, America, went about in bands instilling their patriotic\nenthusiasm into the hearts and minds of those millions who had too\nlong taken America as a matter of course. They sang patriotic songs,\nand though they could not be heard by the ears of earth, the spirit of\ntheir singing could be felt, and they accomplished much.\n\nThen others, the wisest among old leaders of men, were busy in quelling\ndisorder, in suppressing discontent with the war. Wherever a group of\nwild-eyed, peace-prating \u201cidealists\u201d got together to talk twaddle,\nthere was one or more of these unseen auditors to put the brakes on\nresponsive enthusiasm to the dangerous principles enunciated.\n\nI will not bore you by giving all the details of this plan of help\nwhich we labored to make effective. But there were enrolled more than\none million beings out here who have pledged themselves to serve until\ntheir services are no longer required. That may not seem to you a great\nnumber to help invisibly a nation of more than one hundred millions;\nbut one to every hundred is enough among the active workers, for each\nis free to choose assistants among those younger in earth experience.\n\nTo the one who acted as our commander-in-chief, the generals of this\nauxiliary army made reports, and many were the strange orders he gave\nthem. But no one questioned his wisdom, and the results have proved it\nover and over.\n\nOne time when I wanted to go North, he sent me to the South, and in\nMobile I learned why my course was changed.\n\nIt is a wonder that the legislators at the various capitols have not\n\u201cseen ghosts\u201d during the last months. Perhaps they have. But men are\nbecoming accustomed to the idea of us now. That is one of the good\nresults of the war. In looking across the border for their loved ones,\nthey may encounter the Teachers, even the angels of their loved ones,\nand be enlarged in mind.\n\nI had an amusing experience in the city of ----. There is a \u201cpacifist\u201d\nthere who has a considerable influence among the members of a certain\nset, and I found that when he began one of his \u201cphilosophic\u201d talks to\none or more persons, for he has not lectured publicly, I could bewilder\nhim by speaking in his ear and answering his questions in a way that\nmade him wonder. For, strange to say perhaps, he could hear me. But\nnot believing in the possibility of communication between the worlds,\nhe thought he was having \u201cclairaudient hallucinations,\u201d and consulted\na doctor who told him that he had been brooding too much about the\nwar. The doctor, who was not a pacifist, advised our friend to take up\nornithology.\n\nYes, he is young--and will be young for many incarnations.\n\nWe have also done our share of recruiting. Those who were later called\nby the draft were merely encouraged; but there were others who needed\nonly the dream we sent, or the thought we whispered, to move them in\nthe right direction; and when a young man\u2019s country is at war, the\nright direction is generally towards the nearest recruiting station.\n\nThere was a boy in ---- who had been reading about France and the\nfighting in France with a tightening at the heart, a tightening of\nhorror. He feared the draft. He was not a husky fellow. His labors as\nbookkeeper in a bank had not developed his leg muscles, and he had a\ncapricious digestion. So he told himself that he would be a failure as\na soldier.\n\nBut one time when in sleep he came out into our world, I met him and\ninvited him to take a stroll with me. Do you think I took him to a\nbattlefield? Oh, not! I took him to an exercise ground. You may wonder\nhow I could do that at night; but it chanced that he had fallen asleep\nin the daytime. And I made it easy for him to see down into the world\nhe had temporarily left--to see the exercise ground. It interested him.\n\nAnd next day the labor over the ledger seemed duller and more\nmonotonous than usual. And he overheard a girl say to a friend at the\npaying teller\u2019s window, that a sallow faced clerk was not her ideal of\na man, that she liked the soldier boys.\n\nWhen he went for a walk after banking hours, I went along with him, and\ndrew his attention to some marching soldiers who had a good band. The\nboy went home and looked at himself in the mirror and found that he was\nsallow, and he reminded himself that he was a clerk.\n\nSo he enlisted.\n\nYou may wonder why I took so much trouble to gather one uninteresting\nyoung man into the fold of Uncle Sam\u2019s army, when we had so many\nsubordinate workers at that business. But I had known the boy\u2019s father\ntwenty years before, and something he had said influenced _me_\ntowards a decision that enlightened my whole after life.\n\nWhen that boy returns he will be no longer sallow-faced, and he will be\na hero--not a clerk.\n\nI like to pay my debts.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXX\n\n THE VIRUS OF DISRUPTION\n\n\n _February 16, 1918._\n\n\u201cFREEDOM with self-restraint and social responsibility\u201d would be a good\nmotto for Americans in the years that are before them.\n\nThe underground and overground propaganda of Bolshevism, Anarchism,\netc., inspired and fed by the forces of destruction, can be\nsuccessfully combated by the spirit of order, of restraint, of\nresponsibility to the body politic.\n\nThe end of this war will not be the end of confusion. The world-soul\nhas been inoculated with the virus of disruption, and it will need\nthe wills of millions working together for a common end to expel the\npoison and restore the body of humanity to health and security.\n\nAmerica as we know it was born of protest against oppression, and the\nlove of liberty, father and mother, positive and negative, in the\nold days. If now the protest against oppression degenerates into the\nprotest against all restraint, and if the love of liberty degenerates\ninto the love of license, then I may tell you that those who cannot\ngovern themselves have to be governed from outside.\n\nThe human race is passing through a period of initiation. The morally\nweak and the weak of will are always in danger of being carried away.\nThe spirit of destruction finds them ready tools with which to work its\nwill.\n\nThe kingdom of heaven is not immediately at hand, and full seven years\nwill be needed to _settle the consciousness_ of mankind after the\nshaking-up it has received. The dregs, as usual in such cases, have\nrisen and diffused themselves throughout the fluid of the cup.\n\nIf there were only a dozen people in the United States who understood\nor could be made to understand the _occult forces_ behind the\npresent universal unrest, and if those twelve could work together with\nunity of purpose, some here, some there, with the pen, the voice and\nthe will, under a leader, those twelve might lead the people out of the\nwilderness. But where are they? Every leader knows that in unity is\nstrength.\n\nAnd I may mention the opposite law, that in disunity is disintegration.\n\nBolshevist and anarchist! Finding the world not to their liking, and\nbeing unable to adjust to environment so as to satisfy their love of\npower, or their love of ease, these people have devoted themselves to\ndestroying the society in which they are unsuccessful. They believe\nthemselves right. There is so much of the divine in almost the worst\nman, that he has to believe he is working for the right even when he\nis working evil. It is necessary for a murderer to justify his act in\norder to do it, unless he is swept away by blind passion, and then he\nseeks to justify passion itself.\n\nThe heart of man is superior to the brain of man. Almost anyone can\nfeel a good impulse; but the man who can think independently of his\npassions is rare and isolate. Popular education does not mean universal\nreasoning power. But popular education is the beginning; it is the seed\nout of which will grow the tree of world-intellect.\n\nI have told you of the reign of love that is at length to comfort the\nhearts of mankind; but I have not told you that it is coming to-morrow\nor the next day.\n\nIf you can get away from the personal and the temporary, and see life\nand the movements of cycles in perspective, you will see how temporary\nunrest is only a stage by the way.\n\nHe who adjusts to environment adjusts even to unrest. Remember that.\nThe supple tree feels the wind, but its roots cling tight to the soil\nand the rock of individuality.\n\nBe like the supple tree, America. In the wind that sweeps across the\nworld, cling tight to the soil of freedom and the rock of _social\nresponsibility_. You can save the world if you do not lose your hold\non the soil and the rock that have steadied and sustained you.\n\nThe anxious eyes of a Europe in conflagration are turned in your\ndirection, your friends with hope, your enemies with dread. When you\nthrew the weight of your strong young body into the scales of justice,\nyou changed the destiny of the world. Yes, it was your destiny to do it.\n\nAll you who have studied \u201coccultism,\u201d which merely means knowledge too\nprofound to be understood by the material-minded,--you who have studied\noccultism know that to the candidate for initiation come trials and\ntests, and that without them he cannot go on. Think of the human race\nas a candidate for initiation. If your mind is developed beyond the\nminds of your fellows--you, and you, and you--do not forget that you\nare united to them by an indissoluble bond. You cannot break away from\nthe race. You may rise above it as the Master does, or sink beneath\nit as the lost souls do; but the link between you and those other\nfragments of God can only be broken at your peril.\n\nThe Master works for the race, knowing well that he cannot safely\nignore it. Even if he made himself equal with the gods and desired to\nbuild a world of his own, he would have to take the substance for it\nfrom the common reservoir of substance. If like a spider he could spin\nhis world-web from himself, he would have to eat the common substance\nto sustain himself in his power.\n\nYou may as well love the race, for you cannot escape it altogether.\nEven if you rise and dwell in the thin air of the kingdom of the mind,\nyou will feel the wind-currents from your fellows above and below. Some\nwill deny this, but I have made the test.\n\nI recently sought a high place for rest. But the needs of the world\npulled me back.\n\nThe greatest need of the world for the next few years will be the\nknowledge of the law of conservation. Retain, O world! the treasures\nyou have labored for throughout the centuries, and discard only the\nworn-out garments and utensils. The wooden plough and the wooden shoe\nare no longer needed in a wisely ordered world; but the sciences and\nthe arts you will need, and the Gothic cathedrals you destroy can never\nbe replaced.\n\n\n\n\n LETTER XXXI\n\n THE ALTAR FIRE\n\n\n _February 18, 1918._\n\nALWAYS the pull of the opposites! In all the talk of internationalism,\nlet us not forget nationalism. The enemy of the present hour made\ngreat use of it, but he did not reckon with its opposite. It is not\ntrue internationalism to support spies as commercial agents in all the\ncountries of earth.\n\nAmerica of all nations is best fitted to carry on her standards: Each\nfor all, and all for each.\n\nBut in her love for other races, for other nationalities, let her not\nforget to strengthen and uphold her own.\n\n\u201cMy Country, \u2019tis of Thee!\u201d As that sentiment grows ever stronger in\nyour heart, so will your justice to other nations make you recognize\nthat their countries are of them. For your country was not built upon\nthe idea of world domination, but of freedom--for yourselves and for\nall men.\n\nYour president has been called a maker of phrases. That is good. A man\nwho can make phrases that shall carry themselves around the world can\ninfluence the thought of the world.\n\n\u201cTo make the world safe for democracy.\u201d Those words will go down the\ncenturies.\n\nYou Americans who love the storied lands of Europe, do not\nunderestimate this land that gave you birth. It is great as the\ngreatest now, and its clock has not yet struck twelve noonday. It is\nstill morning in America. The present day American is the ancestor of\nthe man of the Sixth Race. From many stocks he will spring, and his\nblood will be blended from that of all the races which have preceded\nhim. He will be unique in his qualities. No man of the older races can\nimitate him, for his consciousness will be his own.\n\nA man is not, as you have so often said, so many pounds of flesh and\nbone and blood and sinew, but a man is a state of consciousness. It is\nbecause you recognize their state of consciousness as being themselves,\nthat men and women reveal themselves to you.\n\nIf--or when--you go back to Europe to live, do not forget your country.\nDo not remain too long away from it, lest you lose touch with that\nunique consciousness which shall flower in the Sixth Race.\n\nYes, a great art will grow up in America. After another fifty years it\nwill be ripe. Let us hope it will not begin to rot thereafter, but like\na sound American apple preserve its solidity for a long time.\n\nThis war is good for America. It is not well for a race to have so\ngreat a material success without some pain and struggle. It is pain\nthat mellows the heart.\n\nAmerica has not yet found her soul, but she will find it. Those\nAmericans who are now broken-hearted are finding their souls.\n\nFrance found her soul a long time ago, and she is now finding her\ndivinity. Would she have found it but for suffering? The Christ upon\nthe cross is greater than the Christ at the marriage supper in Cana of\nGalilee.\n\nIf I had not wanted you to write this book, I should have sent you\nback to London, that you might experience the strain of air raids and\ninsufficient food. I should have sent you back to France, that you\nmight see and touch and minister to the wounded.\n\nThough you have endured the strain of the astral world at war, you have\nnot yet seen and touched and tasted the agony of physical suffering\nthat the women of France have seen and touched and tasted. But you\ncannot live and suffer in too many worlds at once.\n\nDo you not think that our American boys who are fighting now in France\nwill be greater for the experience--whether they live or die? Life\nin material form is not the only life, and those who make the great\nsacrifice will gain more than they lose. It is sublime to die for an\nideal. \u201cTo make the world safe for democracy.\u201d\n\nAmerica is better known to Europeans now than she has been before. Many\nof you will go and come, as you have done in the past; and a few of\nyou will vitalize the mutual understanding between America and Europe.\nBut you can do that only by glorifying your own nationality in your\nhearts. I do not mean flaunting it. Let it burn as an altar fire, in\nthe secret temple of your being.\n\n\n THE END\n\n\n\n\n =TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES=\n\nSimple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced\nquotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and\notherwise left unbalanced.\n\nPunctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a\npredominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they\nwere not changed.","title":"Last letters from the living dead man","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":31123}