Part 3

I would not have you discouraged by the winter of the race, for the spring will come and the roses will bloom again. March winds! They are followed by April showers and Mayflowers. We are now in February.

When the skies are dark and the snows fall, we gather round the fire and think of the future, when the flowers shall bloom again and green grass shall cover the earth and birds shall sing in the trees. The sun “crosses the line” in March when the winds blow, and enters the sign of the Ram, and the Zodiac is traversed again by the great light-giver the Sun. Do you shiver and grow afraid when the Equinox approaches?

The soul, too, has its winter of materialism and its ideal spring.

I have looked at the world from the outside, and I see no cause for despair. I have looked at the soul from the inside, and I see great cause for rejoicing.

You look forward to the end of the war, but the soul must battle to the end of its journey. So long as the soul is cased in matter there will be wars enough, for the greatest struggles are the soul’s struggles with itself. I have told you this before. Sometimes it goes out to fight, sometimes it goes in; the sword will not rust in the scabbard.

Think less of yourself and think more of the race. You lose the vision of the whole by regarding too closely the parts, by regarding too closely yourself that is only one of the parts. Think of yourself as the race, and think of the race as yourself; then yourself becomes the race, and the race becomes yourself; “the Universe grows I.”

There was once a God so great that the cells of his body were minor gods. You may become so great that the cells of your body will be glad to sacrifice themselves to your welfare. By renouncing the will to live, you may make yourself immortal. By renouncing the will to joy, you may become joyous.

Once I desired to be a great man. Now when I only desire that Man shall be great, I have increased in stature myself.

Once I desired to be loved; but now when I love for love’s sake and not for my own sake, I am loved by a multitude. Surely I found my life by losing it, and the words of the Master were justified.

I look down at the world as I once looked down at my garden. I see that the grass is sprouting and I know that seeds are in the ground. I have planted seeds in the hearts of men that shall germinate and reach up towards the sunshine, for I had faith in the spring.

For a while I have left Europe to itself, and have come back to the land I love best. I have journeyed from State to State, and have watched the wills of our legislators. They too are aware that a Force is at work through them. They feel the responsibility of their place, they feel themselves as moving parts of the great whole whose name is America. The Flag is the symbol of their consecration.

I have walked in the woods, where the spirits of the land fore-gather for counsels which the newspapers do not report. They too are aware of their consecration. They strengthen you with their faith. When I lived as a man in America I did not know America. To know the meaning of home we must wander.

I am all for unity now. Do not let yourselves be weakened by fear of the parts. America is a whole, and as a whole she must work. To fuse these many races together is the mission of the present hour. Do not lend your hearts to division.

I see a great leader of men who shall arise in this land. His mission will be the union of races. He will be a teacher and a prophet.

LETTER IV

THE DIET OF GOLD

_March 10, 1917._

THE very influences that now tend to disrupt this country will later draw it together. The many will find their meeting-point in the One. That idea of national unity must be fostered, even to the extent of patient tolerance of racial temperaments. Those who are in the process of being separated from their old race and amalgamated with the new race, feel the strain of the change. It irritates them and their blood protests, even when their wills bid them forge new bonds for themselves. Few “hyphenated Americans” would be willing to go bodily back to their old allegiance.

America is the most interesting of all countries, and we who see it from this side of the airy frontier see it in historical perspective. The view that is nearest to our point of view is that of your present Chief Executive. His eyes are far-seeing. He anticipates the clearer sight that will one day be his, when he has finished his work.

Our country is suffering at this moment, in March, of the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventeen, from an indigestion of gold. You have swallowed more gold than you can assimilate, and your organs are congested. If to restore the equilibrium, some of this gold should be regurgitated, by war or by other means, do not in the weariness that follows fancy that the nation is going to die.

Do not be shocked by my figures of speech. I want to get into your consciousness an understanding of facts and conditions as they exist.

You cannot feed on gold. “Gold is a medium of exchange.” When it is merely hoarded it has lost its relation to life. A miser nation is a sadder subject for contemplation than a miser man, with his long claws and his gloating eyes. He may think, the miser man, to secure himself from the dangers of the future by amassing gold for its own sake. A miser nation may think that by amassing gold for its own sake it can save itself from the financial dangers threatening the world after these years of war.

But the miser, known as such, is in danger of being robbed and murdered. And the miser nation is in danger of being attacked and looted by other nations.

You Americans want to be generous to the homeless and foodless people of Europe; but your generosity has not yet deprived of one square meal the hundred-million-headed being that is America.

I do not care so much what you do with your gold. But I care much what you do with your food. You are not alchemists that you can make gold potable. You are humans with delicate stomachs. Even a hen will not lay eggs for you unless she is well fed. If she protests, you can punish her by eating her; but the luckiest break of her wish-bone will not produce for you another hen. Better conserve her labor power by gifts of grain, and have your eggs for breakfast and for hatching. She has periods of laziness when she wants to sit still; but put a few of her own eggs under her, and watch for results. Later I shall tell you of other but no less practical ways of ensuring a supply of breakfasts.

LETTER V

CONTINGENT FEES

_March 10, 1917._

TO-DAY I heard that a certain rich man (unmindful of the camel and the needle’s eye), supposing that the letters from this Living Dead Man had been profitable to you, that there was “money in them,” was considering the question of whether he should financially back a medium who stood ready to declare that she was in communication with me, that I repudiated the books written through you, and stood sponsor for certain manuscripts written “through” her, as my only genuine messenger to the world.

I join in your laughter, at your supposed “profitable” investment in the securities of the other world, and at the eagerness to get aboard a sea-of-ether-worthy ship exhibited by people who have not paid their fare.

I may as well tell you now that this country and some others are scattered over with supposed “communications” from me. It would seem that my writing arms are as numerous as the feet of a centipede. It would also seem by the style of some of these supposed communications, by their contents and their contradictions, that I have as many minds as Indra has eyes.

Even the elementals of the ouija board do not contradict themselves so frequently as these amanuenses make me contradict myself. I think you will have to trademark me.

After the serious nature of my recent letters, it relaxes me to jest.

If you include this letter in the book, please head it “Contingent Fees.”

LETTER VI

THE THREE APPEALS

_March 11, 1917._

I STAND outside the world and look inside the hearts of men. I see more than I saw when I was a man among them. Had I then looked as deep into my own heart as I now look into theirs, I should have seen the hearts of my fellow beings reflected in my own, for we differ from one another as one insect differs from another. There are differences between insects.

I look into your hearts, O men! and this is what I see: Ideals and hypocrisy, self-interest and altruism, hunger and satiety.

Shall I, in offering advice, appeal to your ideals, your self-interest, or your hunger? The opposite three would never spur you to action along the lines I would have you spurred.

LETTER VII

THE BUILDERS

_March 22, 1917._

I HAVE promised to offer you advice as to how you may restore your equilibrium. Use much of this superfluity of gold in rebuilding devastated Europe. Give her credits and give her food. You who can work in the fields, raise food to feed Europe. You who can build, give the labor of your hands wherever it is needed. You who are discontented here, go back to that Europe which gave you birth. By so doing you will give yourselves a new point of view, and you will give yourselves a new interest. A new interest is a new lease of life.

Make sacrifices. In saying that, I have two objects in view, the effect on the world and the effect on yourselves.

To work for the ideal is sometimes more practical than to work for what is called the real.

When I tell you to rebuild Europe, you can take it as ideal advice or practical advice, depending on your point of view. It is ideal because Europe needs rebuilding; it is practical because just now and for a time to come America needs to get her mind on something outside herself. We give that advice to individuals when they are too self-centred. There is so much discontent and so much uncertainty that anything which can catch and hold the attention of masses of men, which can make them forget themselves, may enable them to be used by the Genius of the race, which works for the welfare of the race as a whole.

Lend your money to Europe, and do not ask usurious interest. Yes, you can take interest, for money has earning power, and the laborer--even the laborer Gold--is worthy of his hire. But help by your generous lendings at low interest to lessen the awful burden of taxation for the people of Europe, which makes also for discontent and discouragement.

Go to Europe, many of you, that you may see what war does to a country, what it might do to your country should you selfishly expose yourselves to a desire on the part of outsiders to take from you by force that which you have so skilfully acquired.

Go, that you may see and feel, as you can only see and feel face to face, the spirit of self-sacrifice and national devotion which has animated the people of Europe in this long war. They have found their souls, but you have not yet found your soul.

There are engineers in this country who are less needed here than they will be needed in Europe. There are specialists in all the branches of science who are more needed there than here. We have specialists enough. We can spare a few of them.

Build ships. Build more ships. Keep the men occupied. Give them an objective. Do not let them brood. An idle brain is the devil’s workshop. If you have not work enough, make work. There are things enough to be done. Build ships.

Now in regard to your management of railroads and other public utilities. The day for government control was heralded when the threat of a strike came that would have, if put into effect, blocked the wheels of the nation. All those public utilities whose blocked wheels could threaten the national life and the movements of men should be managed by the government. This is not socialism, or any other _ism_. You who have stock in them, do not take alarm. A way can be found that will satisfy you.

Think of the good of the whole, for you who are a part cannot prosper without the welfare of the whole. This is not cant. It is a sort of race biology. I look down and see you as a great being, and I prescribe for you as a being, a race-unity, not as a few individuals here and there. The cells in the body of the race-being must all be working together. Get a unit of consciousness, as a race. Yield yourselves to the consciousness of the race-unit. Be as individual as you please, but be individual parts. Get into balance with other individuals, positive and negative.

Make the rebuilding of Europe an objective point. Make it possible for many discontented workers to go to work in Europe. You may say that the armies of Europe, when released from military service, will furnish workers enough; but there cannot be too many. There is a double object in this: the object of getting work done, and that of the psychological effect upon the worker.

I wish I could get into your minds by infusion the state of consciousness that is mine. I wish I could make you see that separation is death and that unity is life.

I have spoken of government control of railroads, but that is only the beginning. There should be governmental handling of food. Begin gradually, one thing after another. It is the destiny of the world to go in that direction. You cannot block the wheels of that chariot.

_Serve if you hope to survive_ would be a good motto. You cannot survive if you do not serve--all of you. I like that figure of the cell which is a part of the race-being. It is the way I see you.

Just a word about nervous diseases. Yes, it is related to what I have been saying. When at last the let-up comes after the unnatural strain of war, the minds of men in going back, or in attempting to go back to their normal state, may find themselves unable immediately to adjust to the changed conditions. For a long time the brains of men and women have been stimulated by the coffee of concerted action; when they are thrown back on themselves they may relax too much.

Or, on the other hand, an unnatural excitement may drive them into all kinds of excesses. Have you ever seen victims of mania who could not rest, who had lost the ability to rest? They walk up and down, and drum with their feet, and clench their hands. So many men and women may be, after this war. There is certain to be an excess of love excitement, and work is a good panacea for that complaint.

Then again, after years of war, years in which many have not known in the morning whether they would be alive at night, they may retain the habit of dread. They may fear to rest and fear to relax. Thus they may welcome any excitement, as a substitute for the stimulus to which they have been accustomed.

That is another reason why I would send Americans to labor with the laborers of Europe. Not that the American working man is phlegmatic, far from it; but with his mind unaccustomed to fear anything, except the loss of his job and consequent hunger, he will have an effect of confidence and hope on those around him. The American likes to feel that he is leading, and in what better way can he indulge that propensity than in leading his associates to hope?

You have no idea--you cannot have an idea--of the great depression that will follow this war for a short while. It will be the relaxation, the letting go. Always after war the ebb-tide is followed by great activity; but it is that ebb-tide which we have to consider.

You in America will feel it. You have become accustomed to seeing gold flow towards these shores. When the stream lessens, you will have to combat the tendency to fear that lessening. Panics are like personal fear, intensified by mass.

The world is drawing close together, and what influences a part influences the whole.

After the war will also come an opening of the psychic senses of men, everywhere. This, while good in itself, may become an added danger. Prophets, true and false, will arise everywhere, with many remedies for the diseases of souls and of bodies.

If I may make another suggestion, it would be that those who have psychic awakening should think twice before proclaiming the fact. It is a new sense that is coming into manifestation; but as the opening of the eyes in an early stage of evolution probably revealed as many dangers as blessings, so the new sense will reveal dangers. Do not try to close the new sense, but do not be carried away by it. Remember that it will be practically general, and like every new sense it will be defective for a long time. It will reveal false things as well as true. If a man opened his eyes for the first time upon a harmless tree, he might mistake it for a monster.

Restraint in all things, moderation in all things, even in the laudable desire to action. Weigh and measure. Prove before accepting anything--prove by reason and by intuition if you cannot wait for proof by practice. Weigh and measure what I say, as well as what the wildest new prognosticator says. Discourage hysteria. A wave of hysteria is likely to sweep over the world.

As revolution follows revolution, the startled inhabitants of the world may tell themselves that nothing in the universe is stable, that all is going to destruction, and that as they cannot save themselves from what seems to be universal chaos, they may as well get all the pleasurable excitement possible out of the passing moment. Restraint, restraint!

I see women afraid to bear children because of the uncertainty of the morrow. I see men afraid to marry because of the uncertainty of domesticity. I see farmers hesitate to plant because of the uncertainty of the harvest. Again I say, be not afraid.

If you sow, you shall reap. If you marry, you shall build a home. If you have children, the race will protect them--and you are a part of the race.

Restraint! Fearlessness!

LETTER VIII

THE WORLD OF MIND

_March 24, 1917._

I WISH that more people of sane, sound mind would experiment in telepathic communication. I know there is any amount of uncoordinated and half-serious playing with phenomena; but with scientific accuracy of observation and scientific precision in recording data, not only the body of _sensible_ literature on these subjects would be increased, but the habits of careful observation and precision in reporting supernormal facts would be developed in the experimentalists.

You who write for me, continue to make and to record experiments. You are almost too cautious, but most persons are not cautious enough.

Explain the necessary conditions of passivity and activity between those working together. Though the best results are often obtained by you alone, yet the testimony of one person is not so convincing as the testimony of several who have witnessed and taken part in the same phenomena. But you are right in hesitating to take on the psychic conditions of insincere and merely curious people who would like to work with you.

The great difficulty with most persons is that they cannot make themselves sufficiently negative _for the time being_. When the experiments are over they can and should become equally positive. They can shift from one pole to the other, and they must do so if they wish to preserve their physical health and balance.

But bear in mind that the influences from this side are good and bad, even as the influences in the world are; and if you feel that any “presence” is hostile, at once banish it and become positive. After any approach by an undesirable influence, you should not for some hours let yourself become negative. Go for a walk, or attack some difficult piece of work, or read a book that demands mental activity in order to grasp its meaning.

You live in a sea of mind, as well as in a psychic sea; they interpenetrate, and they interpenetrate with the physical; but in working through and with them, keep them as distinct as possible.

I work more and more in the mental world, and less and less in the astral; but the majority of my readers will not know exactly what I mean by that statement. There is a greater difference between the astral and the mental than there is between the astral and the physical.

Do not despise the astral. Its dynamics are of colossal import. But cultivate more and more the purely mental, because the astral in all of you is developed beyond the mental.

In my former writings I have told you something of the dangers of the astral. Now I want to tell you some of the more obvious dangers of the mental.

Those who learn that they can create in mind need to develop a sense of responsibility. They are too reckless in demonstrating their power. Remember that as you go up in the planes of being you get into subtler and subtler regions, and strength increases with the degree of subtlety--not the reverse, as you would naturally suppose.

One of the greatest temptations of the mental world is that of the creation of falsehoods. By stating that which is not true, you project into the realm of mind a picture that has a certain permanency. It may deceive others, but in time it will deceive you, its creator. Those who speak falsely cannot perceive truth. Those who create false pictures in the mental world will be deceived by those very pictures; they will reap the effects of the causes they have set up.

Have you not known people who were always being deceived by their “friends”? They are generally those who have left deceiving pictures behind themselves. There are people who cannot discriminate between the false and the true. They deceive and are deceived. Those who deceive are always deceived, whatever their supposed intellect may be.