IV.

AUM symbolized as in unison with the attributes of the Trimurti, as the symbolic foundation of the elementary universe. This has a certain connection with figures Nos. 1 and 2 and 3.

The idea is to represent the mystic body of Brahman (neuter) and the ideal type of the Trimurti. The representation is of a four-handed cloud picture. A wreath of clouds forms the outline of the head which is without any tiara. Two suns indicate the eyes without lids, always open. This symbolism is also found in the Hebrew books, _e. g._ the Zohar. The nose and eyebrows are formed by a palm tree divided on the top, in the centre. This tree was considered as androgynous. The mouth is merely an opening in the clouds; from it emanate, four principal rays, the four-worlds of the Kabbalah. AUM is winged, Brahman (neuter) is not, for the latter is also AUM—Prana, the breath of the highest life and mystic carrier of the Will of Brahman (neuter). AUM is the bird of the Brahman Desire or Wish.

The four hands of AUM are holding the architypes of the four elements, fire, water, air, earth, in their height and depth. The lower are supporting the Himalayah Mountains, the mountains of the gods. From which comes the German Himmel _i. e._ Heaven. The linga yoni is shown as the symbol of all the creative and emanative powers which lie in the mystic cloud garment of AUM. In this figure are nearly all the principal symbols of the Brahmanical religious metaphysics.

The bond which unites Prakriti to Brahman (neuter) is Prana, the subtile body of Brahman, the form of the Being, the divine breath, the principle of the organism, the respiration so to say, of the Deity; in Sanscrit it also means “breath of man,” more correctly it is AUM, the first form of the creator, the Sun engendered before Time, the first Word (the Logos) which went from Its mouth, the ‘Hokhmah or Wisdom of the Kabbalah, when It prepared Its work, the creative Word. Prana and AUM are confounded in Maya, and as it, they have formed the Cow. AUM is the son of Maya as he is the son of Brahman (neuter), because Maya is Brahman. AUM is the first born Word or Logos of the Deity, the Memrah of the Jews, the Honover of the Persians, the origin of the Vedas. It has revealed and manifested all the emanated things, the so-called creation. It appeared before all things, and contains all qualities, all the elements, and is the name and body of Brahman (neuter), and consequently as infinite as It. The Will, Desire, Word is the master architect and creator of all the things. Brahma meditating upon the divine Word, therein found the primitive water, the common bond of all the creatures, the primitive fire, and the Trimurti of the Vedas, also the worlds and universal harmony of all the things. The image of AUM is the Cow, which is also a symbol of the universe. The universe was concealed and at first was hidden under the waters, and the waters were in Atma. These waters are those without any shores, all that which exists is water, and the water and AUM make but one; these primitive waters are the sea of Maya, the celestial ocean of all existence.

There are to be found further in this symbolical picture many other suggestions flowing from the Ancient Aryan or Hindu system. That system is believed to contain in germ all the others which have since arisen, as: the Hermetic, the Jewish, the Christian and others. Space, however, forbids a more extended explanation at present, and the student is recommended to study the four which have appeared in this magazine. ISAAC MYER.

THROUGH THE GATES OF GOLD.

The most notable book for guidance in Mysticism which has appeared since _Light on the Path_ was written has just been published under the significant title of “Through the Gates of Gold.”[185] Though the author’s name is withheld, the occult student will quickly discern that it must proceed from a very high source. In certain respects the book may be regarded as a commentary on _Light on the Path_. The reader would do well to bear this in mind. Many things in that book will be made clear by the reading of this one, and one will be constantly reminded of that work, which has already become a classic in our literature. Through the Gates of Gold is a work to be kept constantly at hand for reference and study. It will surely take rank as one of the standard books of Theosophy.

The “Gates of Gold” represent the entrance to that realm of the soul unknowable through the physical perceptions, and the purpose of this work is to indicate some of the steps necessary to reach their threshold. Through its extraordinary beauty of style and the clearness of its statement it will appeal to a wider portion of the public than most works of a Theosophical character. It speaks to the Western World in its own language, and in this fact lies much of its value.

Those of us who have been longing for some thing “practical” will find it here, while it will probably come into the hands of thousands who know little or nothing of Theosophy, and thus meet wants deeply felt though unexpressed. There are also doubtless many, we fancy, who will be carried far along in its pages by its resistless logic until they encounter something which will give a rude shock to some of their old conceptions, which they have imagined as firmly based as upon a rock—a shock which may cause them to draw back in alarm, but from which they will not find it so easy to recover, and which will be likely to set them thinking seriously.

The titles of the five chapters of the book are, respectively, “The Search for Pleasure,” “The Mystery of Threshold,” “The Initial Effort,” “The Meaning of Pain,” and “The Secret of Strength.” Instead of speculating upon mysteries that lie at the very end of man’s destiny, and which cannot be approached by any manner of conjecture, the work very sensibly takes up that which lies next at hand, that which constitutes the first step to be taken if we are ever to take a second one, and teaches us its significance. At the outset we must cope with sensation and learn its nature and meaning. An important teaching of _Light on the Path_ has been misread by many. We are not enjoined to kill out sensation, but to “kill out _desire_ for sensation,” which is something quite different “Sensation, as we obtain it through the physical body, affords us all that induces us to live in that shape,” says this work. The problem is, to extract the meaning which it holds for us. That is what existence is for. “If men will but pause and consider what lessons they have learned from pleasure and pain, much might be guessed of that strange thing which causes these effects.”

“The question concerning results seemingly unknowable, that concerning the life beyond the Gates,” is presented as one that has been asked throughout the ages, coming at the hour “when the flower of civilization had blown to its full, and when its petals are but slackly held together,” the period when man reaches the greatest physical development of his cycle. It is then that in the distance a great glittering is seen, before which many drop their eyes bewildered and dazzled, though now and then one is found brave enough to gaze fixedly on this glittering, and to decipher something of the shape within it. “Poets and philosophers, thinkers and teachers, all those who are the ‘elder brothers of the race’—have beheld this sight from time to time, and some among them have recognized in the bewildering glitter the outlines of the Gates of Gold.”

Those Gates admit us to the sanctuary of man’s own nature, to the place whence his life-power comes, and where he is priest of the shrine of life. It needs but a strong hand to push them open, we are told. “The courage to enter them is the courage to search the recesses of one’s own nature without fear and without shame. In the fine part, the essence, the flavor of the man, is found the key which unlocks those great Gates.”

The necessity of killing out the sense of separateness is profoundly emphasized as one of the most important factors in this process. We must divest ourselves of the illusions of the material life. “When we desire to speak with those who have tried the Golden Gates and pushed them open, then it is very necessary—in fact it is essential—to discriminate, and not bring into our life the confusions of our sleep. If we do, we are reckoned as madmen, and fall back into the darkness where there is no friend but chaos. This chaos has followed every effort of man that is written in history; after civilization has flowered, the flower falls and dies, and winter and darkness destroy it.” In this last sentence is indicated the purpose of civilization. It is the blossoming of a race, with the purpose of producing a certain spiritual fruit; this fruit having ripened, then the degeneration of the great residuum begins, to be worked over and over again in the grand fermenting processes of reincarnation. Our great civilization is now flowering and in this fact we may read the reason for the extraordinary efforts to sow the seed of the Mystic Teachings wherever the mind of man may be ready to receive it.

In the “Mystery of Threshold,” we are told that “only a man who has the potentialities in him both of the voluptuary and the stoic has any chance of entering the Golden Gates. He must be capable of testing and valuing to its most delicate fraction every joy existence has to give; and he must be capable of denying himself all pleasure, and that without suffering from the denial.”

The fact that the way is different for each individual is finely set forth in “The Initial Effort,” in the words that man “may burst the shell that holds him in darkness, tear the veil that hides him from the eternal, at any moment where it is easiest for him to do so; and most often this point will be where he least expects to find it.” By this we may see the uselessness of laying down arbitrary laws in the matter.

The meaning of those important words, “All steps are necessary to make up the ladder,” finds a wealth of illustration here. These sentences are particularly pregnant: “Spirit is not a gas created by matter, and we cannot create our future by forcibly using one material agent and leaving out the rest. Spirit is the great life on which matter rests, as does the rocky world on the free and fluid ether; whenever we can break our limitations we find ourselves on that marvellous shore where Wordsworth once saw the gleam of the gold.” Virtue, being of the material life, man has not the power to carry it with him, “yet the aroma of his good deeds is a far sweeter sacrifice than the odor of crime and cruelty.”

“To the one who has lifted the golden latch the spring of sweet waters, the fountain itself whence all softness arises, is opened and becomes part of his heritage. But before this can be reached a heavy weight has to be lifted from the heart, an iron bar which holds it down and prevents it from arising in its strength.”

The author here wishes to show that there is sweetness and light in occultism, and not merely a wide dry level of dreadful Karma, such as some Theosophists are prone to dwell on. And this sweetness and light may be reached when we discover the iron bar and raising it shall permit the heart to be free. This iron bar is what the Hindus call “the knot of the heart!” In their scriptures they talk of unloosing this knot, and say that when that is accomplished freedom is near. But what is the iron bar and the knot? is the question we must answer. It is the astringent power of self—of egotism—of the idea of separateness. This idea has many strongholds. It hold its most secret court and deepest counsels near the far removed depths and centre of the heart. But it manifests itself first, in that place which is nearest to our ignorant preceptions, where we see it first after beginning the search. When we assault and conquer it there it disappears. It has only retreated to the next row of outworks where for a time it appears not to our sight, and we imagine it killed, while it is laughing at our imaginary conquests and security. Soon again we find it and conquer again, only to have it again retreat. So we must follow it up if we wish to grasp it at last in its final stand just near the “kernel of the heart”. There it has become an “iron bar that holds down the heart”, and there only can the fight be really won. That disciple is fortunate who is able to sink past all the pretended outer citadels and seize at once this _personal devil_ who holds the bar of iron, and there wage the battle. If won there, it is easy to return to the outermost places and take them by capitulation. This is very difficult, for many reasons. It is not a mere juggle of words to speak of this trial. It is a living tangible thing that can be met by any real student. The great difficulty of rushing at once to the centre lies in the unimaginable terrors which assault the soul on its short journey there. This being so it is better to begin the battle on the outside in just the way pointed out in this book and _Light on the Path_, by testing experience and learning from it.

In the lines quoted the author attempts to direct the eyes of a very materialistic age to the fact which is an accepted one by all true students of occultism, that the true heart of a man-which is visibly represented by the muscular heart—is the focus point for spirit, for knowledge, for power; and that from that point the converged rays begin to spread out fan-like, until they embrace the Universe. So it is the Gate. And it is just at that neutral spot of concentration that the pillars and the doors are fixed. It is beyond it that the glorious golden light burns, and throws up a “burnished glow.” We find in this the same teachings as in the Upanishads. The latter speaks of “the ether which is within the heart,” and also says that we must pass across that ether.

“The Meaning of Pain” is considered in a way which throws a great light on the existence of that which for ages has puzzled many learned men. “Pain arouses, softens, breaks, and destroys. Regarded from a sufficiently removed standpoint, it appears as a medicine, as a knife, as a weapon, as a poison, in turn. It is an implement, a thing which is used, evidently. What we desire to discover is, who is the user; what part of ourselves is it that demands the presence of this thing so hateful to the rest?”

The task is, to rise above both pain and pleasure and unite them to our service. “Pain and pleasure stand apart and separate, as do the two sexes; and it is in the merging, the making the two into one, that joy and deep sensation and profound peace are obtained. Where there is neither male nor female, neither pain nor pleasure, there is the god in man dominant; and then is life real.”

The following passage can hardly fail to startle many good people: “Destiny, the inevitable, does indeed exist for the race and for the individual; but who can ordain this save the man himself? There is no clew in heaven or earth to the existence of any ordainer other than the man who suffers or enjoys that which is ordained.” But can any earnest student of Theosophy deny, or object to this? Is it not a pure statement of the law of Karma? Does it not agree perfectly with the teaching of the Bhagavat-Gita? There is surely no power which sits apart like a judge in court, and fines us or rewards us for this misstep or that merit; it is we who shape, or ordain, our own future.

God is not denied. The seeming paradox that a God exists within each man is made clear when we perceive that our separate existence is an illusion; the physical, which makes us separate individuals, must eventually fall away, leaving each man one with all men, and with God, who is the Infinite.

And the passage which will surely be widely misunderstood is that in “The secret of strength.” “Religion holds a man back from the path, prevents his stepping forward, for various very plain reasons. First, it makes the vital mistake of distinguishing between good and evil. Nature knows no such distinctions.” Religion is always man-made. It cannot therefore be the whole truth. It is a good thing for the ordinary and outside man, but surely it will never bring him to the Gates of Gold. If religion be of God how is it that we find that same God in his own works and acts violating the precepts of religion? He kills each man once in life; every day the fierce elements and strange circumstances which he is said to be the author of, bring on famine, cold and innumerable untimely deaths; where then, in The True, can there be any room for such distinctions as right and wrong? The disciple, must as he walks on the path, abide by law and order, but if he pins his faith on any religion whatever he will stop at once, and it makes no matter whether he sets up Mahatmas, Gods, Krishna, Vedas or mysterious acts of grace, each of these will stop him and throw him into a rut from which even heavenly death will not release him. Religion can only teach morals and ethics. It cannot answer the question “what am I?” The Buddhist ascetic holds a fan before his eyes to keep away the sight of objects condemned by his religion. But he thereby gains no knowledge, for that part of him which is affected by the improper sights has to be known by the man himself, and it is by experience alone that the knowledge can be possessed and assimilated.

The book closes gloriously, with some hints that have been much needed. Too many, even of the sincerest students of occultism, have sought to ignore that one-half of their nature, which is here taught to be necessary. Instead of crushing out the animal nature, we have here the high and wise teaching that we must learn to fully understand the animal and subordinate it to the spiritual. “The god in man, degraded, is a thing unspeakable in its infamous power of production. The animal in man, elevated, is a thing unimaginable in its great powers of service and of strength,” and we are told that our animal self is a great force, the secret of the old-world magicians, and of the coming race which Lord Lytton foreshadowed. “But this power can only be attained by giving the god the sovereignty. Make your animal ruler over your self, and he will never rule others.”

This teaching will be seen to be identical with that of the closing words of “The Idyll of the White Lotus”: “He will learn how to expound spiritual truths, and to enter into the life of his highest self, and he can learn also to hold within him the glory of that higher self, and yet to retain life upon this planet so long as it shall last, if need be; to retain life in the vigor of manhood, till his entire work is completed, and he has taught the three truths to all who look for light.”

There are three sentences in the book which ought to be imprinted in the reader’s mind, and we present them inversely:

“Secreted and hidden in the heart of the world and the heart of man is the light which can illumine all life, the future and the past.”

“On the mental steps of a million men Buddha passed through the Gates of Gold; and because a great crowd pressed about the threshold he was able to leave behind him words which prove that those gates will open.”

“This is one of the most important factors in the development of man, the recognition—profound and complete recognition—of the law of universal unity and coherence.”

CONSIDERATIONS ON MAGIC.

We hear a good deal nowadays and are likely to hear still more of occult science. In this regard we may as well accept the inevitable. All things have their day, and all things revolve in cycles; they come and go, and come again, though never twice the same. Even our very thoughts conform to this universal law. The life, the teachings, and the fate of Pythagoras are involved in mystery, but the fate of the schools which he established and of the followers who succeeded him are matters of history. The slaughter of the Magi stands over against the abuses and abominations which were perpetrated in their name, and doubtless by many styling themselves Magicians.

It is not the object of this brief paper to attempt to define magic, or elucidate occult Science as such, but rather to suggest a few considerations which are of vital import at the present time, equally important to those who utterly deny to magic any more than an imaginative basis, as to those who convinced of its existence as a science, are, or are to become investigators. In both the publications and conversations of the day, frequently occur the expressions “black magic,” and “white magic” and those who follow these studies are designated as followers of the “_left hand path_,” or the “_right hand path_“. It ought to be understood that up to a certain point all students of magic, or occultism, journey together. By and by is reached _a place where two roads meet_, or where the common path divides, and the _awful voice from the silence_, heard only in the recesses of the individual soul utters the stern command: ”_Choose ye this day whom ye will serve._” Instead of black and white magic, read, black and white _motive_.

The student of occultism is rushing on his destiny, but up to a certain point that destiny is in his own hands, though he is constantly shaping his course, freeing his soul from the trammels of sense and self, or becoming entangled in the web, which, with warp and woof will presently clothe him as with a garment without a seam.

If early in the race he finds it difficult to shake off his chains, let him remember that at every step they grow more and more tyrannical, and often before the goal is reached where the ways divide, the battle is lost or won, and the decision there is only a matter of form. That decision once made is irrevocable, or so nearly so that no exception need be made. Man lives at once in two worlds: the natural and the spiritual, and as in the natural plane he influences his associates, and is in turn influenced by them, so let him not imagine that in the spiritual plane he is alone. This will be a fatal mistake for the dabbler in magic, or the student in occultism. Throughout this vast universe, the good will seek the good, and the evil the evil, each will be unconsciously _drawn to its own kind_.

But when man faces his destiny in full consciousness of the issues involved, as he must before the final decision is reached, he will be no longer unconscious of these influences, but will recognize his companions: companions, alas! no longer, _Masters_ now, inhuman, pitiless; and the same law of attraction which has led him along the tortuous path, unveils its face, and by affinity of evil, the slave stands in the presence of his master, and the fiends that have all along incited him to laugh at the miseries of his fellow men, and trample under his feet every kindly impulse, every tender sympathy, now make the measureless hells within his own soul resound with their laughter at him, the poor deluded fool whose selfish pride and ambition have stifled and at last obliterated his humanity.

Blind indeed is he who cannot see why those who are in possession of arcane wisdom, hesitate in giving it out to the world, and when in the cycles of time its day has come, they put forth the only doctrine which has power to save and bless, UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD, with all that the term implies.

There may be those who have already in this new era, entered the left-hand road. But now as of old, “by their works ye shall know them”. To labor with them is in vain. Selfishness, pride and lust for power are the signs by which we may know them. They may not at once cast off disguise, and they will never deceive the true Theosophist. They can nevertheless deceive to their ruin the ignorant, the curious, the unwary, and it is for such as these that these lines are penned, and the worst of it is, that these poor deluded souls, are led to believe that no such danger exists, and this belief is fortified by the so-called scientists, who are quoted as authority, and who ridicule everything but rank materialism. Yet notwithstanding all this, these simple souls flutter like moths around the flame till they are drawn within the vortex. It is better a million times, that the proud, the selfish and time-serving should eat, drink and be merry, and let occultism alone, for these propensities unless speedily eradicated, will bear fruit and ripen into quick harvests, and the wages thereof is death, literally the “_second death_”.

The purpose of Theosophy is to eradicate these evil tendencies of man, so that whether on the ordinary planes of daily life, or in the higher occult realms, the Christ shall be lifted up, and draw all men unto him.

“Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn.”

The Christs of all the ages have preached this one doctrine: Charity and Brotherhood of Man. To deny the law of charity is to deny the Christ. The Theosophical Society is not responsible for unveiling to the present generation the occult nature of man. Modern Spiritualism had already done this; nor is the responsibility to be charged to the Spiritualists, for these unseen forces had revealed themselves in the fullness of time, and many millions had become convinced, many against their wills, of the reality of the unseen universe. These things _are here_, and neither crimination, or recrimination is of any use. The responsibility therefore, rests entirely with the individual, as to what use he makes of his opportunities, as to his purposes and aims, and as he advances in his course, involved in the circle of necessity, he influences whether he will or no, those whose spheres of life touch at any point his own. _As ye sow, so shall ye also reap._ By and by the cycle will close and both the evil and the good will return like bread cast upon the waters. This is a law of all life.

Imagine not that they are weak and vacillating souls who enter the left-hand road: Lucifer was once a prince of light, admitted to the councils of the Most High. He fell through pride, and dragged downward in his fall all who worshiped the demon pride. This is no foolish fable, but a terrible tragedy, enacted at the gates of paradise, in the face of the assembled universe, and reënacted in the heart of man, the epitome of all. Only Infinite pity can measure the downfall of such an one, only Infinite love disarm by annihilation, and so put an end to unendurable woe, and that only when the cycle is complete, the measure of iniquity balanced by its measure of pain. Occultism and magic are not child’s-play, as many may learn to their sorrow, as many visitants of dark circles have already and long ago discovered. Better give dynamite to our children as a plaything, than Magic to the unprincipled, the thoughtless, the selfish and ignorant. Let all who have joined the Theosophical Society remember this, and search their hearts before taking the first step in any magical formulary. _The motive determines all._ Occult power brings with it unknown and unmeasured responsibility.

If in the secret councils of the soul, where no eye can see, and no thought deceive that divine spark conscience, we are ready to forget self, to forego pride, and labor for the well-being of man, then may the upright man face his destiny, follow this guide and fear no evil. Otherwise it were far better that a millstone were hung about his neck, and he were cast into the depths of the sea. PYTHAGORAS.

TEA TABLE TALK.

The Tea Table has had a sensation!

Do you remember the case of “Chalanka”? He was the “Fallen Idol,” in Anstey’s book of that name, and played the very deuce with people and bric-a-brac alike. There’s a deal of truth in that clever little satire, and the author shows up the elementals quite correctly without in the least suspecting it.

The Chalanka of the Tea Table arrived very demurely one winter afternoon, per Adams Express, in a promising box which bore the mark of a great china firm and contained as well, securely moored in its harbor of cotton wool, a tea-pot which the Tea Table pronounced “Adorable” were it not smashed. Nothing else was near this brittle loveliness save and except Chalanka. To all appearances he was a pencil sketch of the head of a young Brahmin of high caste, folded in the typical turban. The drawing is powerful and the subtle sidelong glance of the eyes to the extreme left has one peculiarity, viz: if you come round from behind the picture on the extreme right, the eyes meet you equally, and so from any position. I cannot escape that dark and searching gaze. Still, one would say there was nothing dynamic about a sketch, and yet the tea-pot arrived literally crushed to pieces within its perfect casing, and the indignant ladies, with the acumen of their sex, soon spotted Chalanka and held him responsible. Presently I noticed that everyone had a more or less sidelong glance in return for his, towards where he glowered from an étagère on which we had put him, and in the course of the social hour I collected these remarks upon him.

_The Professor_, sauntering up.—“H-m. Who have we here? The fellow has a beautiful face and—the devil’s in it!”

_Sue._ “Goodness! who’s that? Makes me feel like when I step down in the dark.”

_The Mother._ “That man’s face is not human.”

_The Widow._ “I have it! I wondered what Chalanka made me think of. Don’t you know that thing in the Bible about ‘the serpent that listeneth not to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely?’” (The Widow was wiser than she knew.)

_The Student._ “You ladies always go in for poetry. Now he looks to me as if he said,—‘Get me if you can, my boy; if you don’t, _I’ll get you_!’” Great sensation and nervous shivers from the ladies, followed by instant demands for the lamp. The maid who brings it being observed to fix a fascinated gaze on Chalanka, is asked what she thinks of him. After a little urgency she replies. “That gentlemaen’s so sad, ain’t he? I do’n’ know, he’s unnatr’al like. Seems like there’s somethin’ he can’t get over.” Flings her apron over her head suddenly, and breaks from the room. Apologizes later and says “nerves is in her family” but always thereafter calls Chalanka “that gentleman,” as for instance; “I couldn’t bring meself to dust that gentleman.” Or, “I knocked that gentleman down but he ain’t hurt.”

Now the curious fact about the above remarks is this: A fellow F. T. S. felt impelled to draw one night. As he did so, a mist gathered near him, and gradually this Brahmin stood plainly before him, just as the sketch shows him, with his magnetic gaze which affects everyone who sees him. Many callers come into the room where the 5 by 8 drawing stands inconspicuously, surrounded by all the Heaven-only-knows-what, of modern decoration, but the Tea Table has yet to see the person who does not comment upon Chalanka with a baffled sense of mystery. The artist, a student well up in such matters and a man of unimpeachable veracity, knew his strange visitor for an elemental who assumed that shape to attract attention, the artist knowing many Hindus and thinking often of them.

What do you suppose it is that tells the story of this silent, watchful face, even to the incurious? Does some odic fluid inhere in it, or does the clue rest with the akasic vibrations from it? In consequence of its arrival, conversation has turned to coincidences, and from this I have collected the following items of interest:

A. “I dreamed the other night that I had a talk with a fellow student; next day he told me he dreamed same night—that I came and said: ‘I’m tired of your nonsense; you must get serious.’ That was just what I dreamed I had said to him myself. So when Father died; four times my Brother and I dreamed on the same night that we saw Father and talked with him on the same subject.”

C. “Three times I dreamed of getting a letter in a blue envelope, each time I received one such next day. Dreamed one night of reading _Sun_ paragraph that a new gun shield had come out to shield artillery men. Next morning’s _Sun_ had the exact paragraph. I had never previously thought of gun shields. Another night I dreamed I was in a town all on fire. Next morning’s _Sun_ had an account of the burning of Little Rock, Ark.”

W. had some second sight in his family. One night when twelve years old, in Roumania, as he lay down in his bed, on looking towards the foot of the bed saw in the bright gaslight the head and shoulders of a beautiful child. He was very much frightened: his brother, who was with him saw nothing. A few years later W. emigrated to the U. S., married later in life, and his first child, a boy, grew up to be the exact image of the vision which had gone out of his mind until the developed features of the child reproduced it. The same lad when 11, desired a dictionary, but could not find it after much search. The same night he dreamed that he got up and took it from a certain other shelf: looked the next morning and there it was.

Several curious instances of thought sent ahead have also been sent in to the Tea Table, where persons seemed to see some one they knew and in a few moments met a member of that family.

Some one suggested that the sketch might represent a black magician, (Dugpa) and the mother asks me what such a man really was. I had just been reading a Hindu MSS on this subject and I was able to explain, vide its able pages, as follows: As the Yogi is a person busied in converting his lower nature into higher, so the Dugpa endeavors to sink all his higher elements and changes them gradually into lower ones. He might remain in our earth life until the last spark of ethical nature or kindly emotion had been transmitted into love of evil for its own sake. He would then presumably go to any of the lower states from the eighth to the thirteenth. We know well, as Sinnett has put it for us, that “nature sets no trap for any of her creatures,” and so it happens that having been long immersed in the lower spheres, our Dugpa might once more ascend into the realms of light and begin to develop his higher nature. Many will ask whence the impulse is derived, if the ethical nature was completely destroyed. From the great law-giver; from Karma! In such a case, if there remained but a small balance of good Karma in his favor, even though it were at the very moment of his descent, he could necessarily rise again, (sooner or later,) until he had exhausted it, for the _lex parsimonae_ of nature gives every possible chance for the recovery of lost ground. These opportunities are said to occur whenever one or more items of the balance of good Karma have ripened, and often when the momentum of the lower nature was for the time exhausted, and he could no longer descend. In this view it will be seen that we only receive from time to time a part of our deserts. The whole bulk of our Karma does not fall at once, but is distributed throughout the series of lives. When a man goes into the extreme of occultism unadvisedly however, the resistance he encounters is apt to draw down the whole weight of Karma at once. If the balance is in his favor then great is the power for his benefit, otherwise he is crushed and fails. He has then an additional opportunity of choice along with his race, when the race period of choice occurs, as it will in the next round, we are told. In the fourth chapter of the Koran occurs a confirmation of the occult teaching as regards this distribution of deserts. “Covet not that which God hath bestowed on some of you preferably to others. Unto the men shall be given _a portion_ of what they shall have gained, and unto the women shall be given _a portion_ of what they shall have gained.”

“Well, Sir,” said the professor, “I should like to know the exact rationale of this Karmic process. Why does a student professing chelaship draw down the bulk of his Karma?”

“There are many who want to know quite as much as you do,” I replied. “All they have to do is to study the operations of cyclic law for themselves. And mind, if you dig for ore, you bring down other things in the debris, while if a miner hands you a lump, you’re not much more of a miner than you were at the start. You will find these laws represent perfect, equilibrated Justice.”

“Humph! I’m rather like the man in a recent novel, who said: ‘who am I that should yearn to deal out strict Justice? I never got it, thank God!’”

The fact is, Justice is a gun too heavily loaded for the use of man; its backward kick is more than I like to think of. JULIUS.

POETICAL OCCULTISM.

DEAR EDITOR: The following Poetical Occultism may be of interest. FROM THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE “BANQUET” OF DANTE.

“As the Philosopher (Aristotle) has said at the beginning of “Metaphysics,” all men naturally desire to know. The reason of this may be, that everything by an impulse of its own nature, tends towards perfection; therefore, since knowledge is the ultimate perfecting of our soul, in the which consists our ultimate felicity, we are all by nature filled with this desire. None the less are many deprived of this most noble perfection, by divers causes, which, acting upon man from within and from without, remove him from the estate of knowledge * * * Manifest is it, therefore, to him who considereth well, that there are but few who can attain to that estate desired of all, and that almost innumerable are they who are forever famishing for this food. Oh! blessed are those few that are seated at the table where the bread of the angels is eaten, and miserable are they who feed in common with the sheep! But because every man is by nature a friend to every other man, and because every friend is grieved by the necessities of him he loves; so they who are fed at so lofty a table, are not without compassion toward them whom they see wandering in the pastures of the brutes, and feeding upon acorns. And because compassion is the mother of benevolence, therefore always liberally do they who know, share of their great riches with the truly poor, and are like a living fountain, whose waters slack the thirst of nature before named, (for knowledge). And I, therefore, who do not sit at the blessed table, but have fled from the pasture of the herd, and at the feet of those who are seated there, gather up what they let fall, and who know the miserable life of those whom I have left behind me, moved to mercy by the sweetness of that which I have gained little by little, and not forgetting myself, have reserved something for these wretched ones, which I have already, and for some time, held before their eyes, making them thereby all the more desirous of it.” Yours, K. H. ROME, ITALY, _Nov., 1886_.

UNIVERSAL UNITY.

[READ AT A MEETING OF THE FIRST THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF CINCINNATI, O.]

’Tis said they who the starry heavens watch Spending their time in silent contemplation And view the worlds and systems moving round Become so filled with peace and perfect trust That unto them life, death, grief, care and fear Are almost naught. So, I, a long time past Having passed my time in watching night by night The stare move in their orbits; and my days In making out their past and future course One August night, while that the quiet moon Flooded tree and bush, and vale and hill-top Stream, and bank and spire and roof with light And whistling and rustling leaves added Their voices to the myriad sounds Of insect life, fell fast asleep. And then I saw the moon swinging slowly to and fro, And round our Sun the earth and other satellites Revolving ceaselessly. And as they moved I heard a sweet melodious sound And felt a soft and mellow light And still I saw our Sun with other suns All circling round one common central point All these centres round some other centre circling. The sound increased till all things seemed but sound The light increased till all things seemed but light The heat increased till all things seemed but heat And then I felt my soul beat rapturously Against the throbbing pulsing central life. From thence I felt the light, the heat, the sound, The life, the love, the peace pass out unceasingly. From thence I knew all life to flow. And passing out I knew all life was part of it, and it of life; I knew that I was it, and it was I; That sound and light, and life, and I and it were one That life and death and tree and bush and stream And bank and flower and seed and it are one Then there passed into my soul, a perfect, Great content. And rising from my sleep, I passed into my life a happy man. HENRY TURNER PATTERSON.

Copyright, 1887.]

* * * * *

A delicious fragrance spreads from the Leaders of the World over all quarters, a fragrance by which, when the wind is blowing, all these creatures are intoxicated.—_Saddharma-Pundarika._

OM.

FOOTNOTES:

[170] _Bagavad-Gita, ch. 15._

[171] Compare the “Elixir of Life” in _The Theosophist_.

[172] This has nothing whatever to do with so-called “stigmatization”: the latter being merely the result of a strong imagination upon a weak body.

[173] “That which was from the beginning.” etc.—John. Epistle I, i.

[174] I Cor. xv.

[175] _Light on the Path._

[176] Vedanta.

[177] It is known that in Ireland and other places, many peasants possess words whose sound can thrill a man and make a horse unmanageable. [ED.]

[178] Vedanta.

[179] _Light on the Path._

[180] See Fiske, Stuart, _et al._

[181] Emerson.

[182] On sound, P. 54.

[183] Vedanta.

[184] Idem.

[185] Through the Gates of Gold: a Fragment of Thought. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1887. Price, 50 cents.