Part 9

How little men know of the unseen world surrounding them!

I recently followed you into a lecture room in New York that was even more crowded with invisible beings than with men and women. Your restlessness there had cause, as you well knew. The purpose of that meeting was to form a nucleus of a society of curiosity-seekers for investigating the unseen, for necromancy and ceremonial magic. Madness of madness! I heard one man express the determination that the proposed society should not, like the Society for Psychical Research, close its doors to the outside world; but that the society should invite _all_ who were interested in the investigation of the unseen, including the newspaper reporters. A press agent for the occult!

Let me describe a few of the auditors who were invisible to any in the room except one person:

A long lean hungry being with the face of a gargoyle and the stomach of an unfed leech yearned over the gathering. He was almost affectionate in his interest in one of the speakers.

Another, bloated and lethargic, had already fed himself since entering the room.

Another, frightened and tortured, was seeking an exit; but could not get outside the desire-aura of one of the participants in that orgy of curiosity.

Another, powerful and malignant, moved from place to place, selecting his future victims. _He_ will be present at the meetings of the society. He will try to keep it alive, for he knows of a fascinating possibility which I shall not record here.

Why do you go to such places?

_April 18._

LETTER XXVIII

THE GLORY OF WAR

I HAVE written of the beauty of peace; but I now want to write of the glory of war, for war has its glories. Anything that arouses man to the highest pitch of enthusiasm is glorious; for what is glory but a radiation of light, a burst of that life which is the Sun in man?

I regret this war. The suffering, the agony, the torment that I have seen and have felt through sympathy, have left their marks upon me; but had I remained in the safety of the neutral stars I should have missed the glory of the fight.

Man had grown too tame, without acquiring the virtues of tameness; but this war has served the purpose of the gods by hurling man into the primitive, the savage, where life had its roots, but from which the sap flows that will blossom later in such a faith as the world has never seen.

Suffering and joy are forever opposite and equal. Man may rest for a time in the neutral condition of a well-fed half-consciousness; but when the extremes of suffering and joy come to him, he is no longer half-conscious, but awake and alive, and glory shines round him.

Could the Masters have prevented this war? They could have retarded it; but the _causes_ were present in the hearts of men, in the invisible forces within them as well as outside them, and to have further delayed the explosion would have served no planetary purpose.

The men who are not dead are more alive than they were twelve months ago, and even the so-called dead are living-dead.

We pushed back the forces of evil, yes; but that was a part of the struggle, that was the struggle in our world.

Let me tell you the story of one man whom I knew in the days of peace. He was well-fed and half-asleep with prosperity, he prattled mild commonplaces about life, and ethics, and the duties of a citizen; but what did he really know of life, or of ethics, or of the duties of a citizen?

We will call him Johnson. He has been in this war some months, a fighter for England, and the integrity of England; and now when he speaks of life his speech has meaning, because life to him now is the opposite and mate of death. He feels enthusiasm for it, the glory of it shines round him.

Johnson had a son, an only child. Fathers will know what I mean.

In the great retreat in which Johnson was one of the leaders his son fell before his eyes--wounded but not dead. For one swift heart-beat the father turned to his boy ... then he went on with his command that otherwise would have been leaderless, leaving his only child to the tender mercies of an army drunk with the pitiless glory of conquerors.

Johnson will never again prattle commonplaces about life. He has learned the meaning of death, and of tortured uncertainty far worse than death.

_April 20._

(This letter was left unfinished--for no reason apparent to me.--Editor.)

LETTER XXIX

A FRIEND OF “X”

A MAN died yesterday with your name in his thoughts.

No, he was not a friend of yours, but someone you have never seen. Back in England last year he read the former book which I wrote through your hand, and was intensely interested in it. For months he wanted to meet you, but being a modest man he waited.

Then the war broke out, and he went with the army to Belgium.

Day and night since the first fighting he has been meditating the facts and possibilities of that book. Is there a future life continuous with that of earth? Can a man return as I claimed to return, and can he give to a woman still in the land of the living a record of his experiences among the dead? Had I really seen the things I reported, and did I go to the pattern world and the heaven world, where I saw the Saviour of men with a lamb on his arm, etc., etc.?

One thing this man never questioned, and that was the sincerity of the scribe. Of that he was convinced by instinct and by a kind of Anglo-Saxon chivalry difficult for the men of some races to understand.

He was always talking to his trench-mates about the future life. He would sit smoking his pipe in silence and gazing off into space, and when other soldiers asked him what he was thinking of so busily, he would often say: “I am thinking of a book I read last summer, and wondering if it was true.” When they asked him what book he referred to, he would tell them about the Letters of a Living Dead Man, and quote to them whole sentences from it, and give them the outlines of its stories, and explain to them the philosophical propositions scattered through the book. Whole evenings have been taken up with these discussions.

You have not been to the wars, either as a soldier or as a nurse; but you have been to the wars.

It was a curious coincidence that that book should have been published only a few months before the greatest taking-off of human souls in the history of the world. Had you thought of that? I had not, until the Teacher pointed it out to me.

There was one question which particularly interested our friend who died yesterday with your name in his thoughts: the question whether, if he should go out of life at the hands of the enemy, he could prepare such a “little home in heaven” as we wrote about, for a girl whom he loved back in England; and if he should prepare it and wait for her, whether she would be true to him after his death, and meet him there in a few years, and dwell with him in the little home.

This young man had read certain writings of an American mystic on the theory of counterpartal souls, and he believed that in the girl back in England he had found his counterpartal soul, as I hinted of the man in my story who built the little home in heaven.

But no word of this did he speak to his trench-mates. To them he spoke about the other stories in the book, not about that one. It is curious that we never mention to others the favorite subject of our thoughts--that is, most of us do not.

Another thing in the book which interested our friend was the story of the woman in the invisible who made a journey into Egypt with her still-living husband. He used to wonder whether, if he should die, he could go in the spirit, as he said, to the little place in North Wales which he had once visited with his sweet-heart, and which they had selected as the future scene of their wedding journey.

One night he wrote her a long letter asking her, in case of his death, to go there this summer, and saying he would try to meet her there. Then after reflection he destroyed the letter, fearing it might make her sad.

When I saw about him a peculiar light which the indwelling spirit throws round its vehicle when that vehicle is about to be destroyed, I waited, knowing there would soon be work to do.

Suddenly I saw his body fall to the ground, and saw the tenuous bodies exuding themselves. I waited but a moment, then went forward and lifted the spirit out of the sleep into which it would have drifted. I breathed on the forehead of the astral--for astrals have foreheads, make no mistake about that--I breathed on the astral forehead of the man who had paid our book the compliment of thinking about it and about us in the last moment of his life.

He opened his eyes on my face.

“Hello, ‘X’!” he said. “I hoped you would meet me here. You’re a good fellow not to disappoint me.”

“Oh, I was always a good fellow!” I answered. “How did you know so quickly that you had come out?”

“Because I saw you.”

“And how did you know me?”

“By your photograph, which I saw in a magazine.”

“But do I still look like that old hulk?” I asked; for I rather pride myself on the recovery of a certain part of my original youth and beauty.

“Why,” he said, “you _do_ look like the photograph.”

“That is strange,” I replied. Then I remembered that my very knowledge of the man’s thoughts of me, as being the old Judge of the story, might have made my body transform itself to meet the demands of his recognition, even without the intervention of my will.

“Do you want to take a nap?” I asked, though there was no sleepiness in his eyes.

“No, thank you, ‘X.’ I should like to go to England. But perhaps you have something to do besides indulging my wants and wishes.”

I laughed.

“Your wants and wishes are just as important as mine,” I said. “I’ll go to England with you.”

We went.

Crossing the Channel we passed a transport laden with troops.

“I wish all those fellows knew as much as I do,” my friend said. “Maybe they would fight with renewed vigor if they could see what a good companion I have found out here.”

Do not be startled, you clergymen who say, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and draw solemn faces as you preside over the passing of souls! Do not be startled or shocked by the jolly conversation of my newly-arrived soldier-boy. He knew that he was with an old friend, and he knew also that death is no more sacred than life, and need not be any more solemn.

We went to call on a girl. I often went courting in my youth, but never did I feel more interest in such a visit than when I went with this soldier to see _his_ girl. The fact that she could not see us made no difference. I am used to that now.

She was combing her hair when we arrived, beautiful long hair, and on the mantel before her and under the mirror was a photograph of my friend. As her eyes rested on it lovingly, suddenly he passed between her and the photograph, and she cried out:

“Why, the eyes are alive!” and dropped the comb on the floor.

Then, as the truth flashed through her mind, she said, very solemnly:

“My dear, if it is really you, and if you have come to me in this strange way, know that I love you and shall always love you, and that I will meet you in heaven.”

Then she sat down in a little chair and began to cry.

I left him with her; but I shall return occasionally to see how my charge is getting along, and by and by I shall teach him some of the lessons on which his future welfare depends. I do not wish him to return to the neighborhood of the battlefields. Why should he? He has served, and has earned his reward.

Perhaps later I may tell you something more about the man who died with your name--and mine--in his thoughts.

_April 24._

LETTER XXX

THE ROSE AND THE CROSS

MORE and more I am charmed and amazed by that one whom we call the Beautiful Being. I shall never understand it, for its ways are not our ways.

Yesterday it passed over the battlefield again, and I should have written when I came to you a few hours afterward had I not pitied your weariness. Do not be discouraged. Sometimes the Masters of Compassion may seem to their servants to have no compassion; but they know, as the servants cannot know, that the hardest road leads up the highest mountain, and that there is rest at the top.

The Beautiful Being passed over the battlefield. Imagine a rose in a cannon’s mouth, a bird singing in the heart of an earthquake, a pearl in a landslide, an angel in hell.

You know not the meaning of the word battlefield. Yesterday thousands died in the awful uproar. Noise! noise! noise!--till the nerves shrieked with pain and despair seized the soul. To go out of life in that seething maelstrom is generally to pass into another seething maelstrom, hotter and noisier than the one left behind.

How can I write of war so as to spare your feelings? The great Teachers are not trying to spare your feelings. They want you to feel and feel, till the very force of the wave of feeling carries you high on the shore of Adeptship. And they want you to think and think, till the irresistible cold of logic freezes _self_ out of you. Ice and fire!

If you shrink from knowing what the soldiers of the nations have suffered that you may be free, you are unworthy of that freedom. Do not shrink from suffering. The husk of the seed must be broken before the sprout can appear.

In dying for their country, those souls in the hell of battle are giving birth to the new time. In suffering with them, your souls are giving birth to the new in yourselves. Do not look for joy while humanity is in travail, unless you can find the joy in suffering. Yes, I know the time when first, and through whom, that grand idea found lodgment in your consciousness. It is the secret of great souls in this hour of the world’s pain.

If you suffer till you can suffer no more--then the poles shift, and the _joy_ of suffering illuminates the soul. Then the beautiful being in yourself hovers over the battlefield where the lesser self has been slain.

There is a beautiful being in every one of you, the bird that sings in the heart of the earthquake, the rose that nestles in the hot mouth of the cannon, the pearl that cannot be crushed by the landslide, the angel that illumines hell.

All the normal feelings of the human heart are intensified at this time. No one is the same as before the war burst--no one, anywhere in the world. The soul of humanity is in travail. This incarnation of humanity is turned against itself, and rends itself. The heart of humanity is an abyss, into which humanity had grown too blind to look, so the blazing torches of the guardians of good and evil have been thrust into the abyss, and all the drowsing dwellers therein have been suddenly, rudely awakened.

Oh, hearts of earth, do not fall asleep again! Pity and love one another, for the pain of one is the pain of each, and over the battlefield of the suffering race the Beautiful Being hovers.

Humanity is the One, and humanity is the many, and all together you may come into the inheritance of your Father which is in heaven.

You are familiar with the symbol of the Rose-Cross. Not until the hard wood is driven through your four limbs, in the pain of your shocked and wounded nerves, can the great red rose of love unfold its perfumed petals upon your breast, between the arms of the cross.

The human in you is the pain of the cross, the divine in you is the perfume of the rose, and you yourself, you human _and_ divine, are the Rose-Cross.

If you shrink from the splintering pain of the wood as it claims you for its own, you cannot smell the perfume of the rose which also claims you for its own.

Do not refuse the great initiation, O humanity of the races! Do not hide yourself in the dungeon of fear when the great Initiator comes!

On the awful cross of war shall blossom the red rose of the new race. On the cross of each mortal form _may_ blossom _its_ red rose.

The rose marks the balance between the East and the West, between the rising and the setting sun, between the human and the divine. The arms of the cross extend to infinity, its feet are buried in the substance of eternity, its head is among the angels and the gods, and the heart of the rose is everywhere. It is in every heart of all these myriads who shrink at the touch of the hard wood.

I hear every day the shrieks of those who are making the vicarious atonement for the race. When they lie mangled on the battlefield, the arms of the cross are being driven through their quivering flesh, and the petals of the rose are unfolding in their hearts.

They are dying for love at the hands of hate, for love and hate are opposite and omnipresent. Their love for their country is their call to the atonement, their at-one-ment with the God who established the law of the East and the West, the Height and the Depth, the opposing forces of Love and Hate. They have accepted the sacrifice. For them shall be the resurrection and the life, after their sojourn among the dead, their sojourn in hell.

They shall appear to the Magdalen at the door of the sepulchre, the one whose sins were forgiven because she loved much, and who shall call the disciples to give them the tidings of great joy.

The soul of the world is the risen Christ, and the disciples rejoice at the tidings.

How can I withhold from you the great event which Time has ushered in?

For thirty pieces of silver the soul of the world was sold, and the Judas of the world has given the kiss of betrayal with the name of God on his lips, and the Roman soldiers are already dividing the garments.

Pontius Pilate has washed his hands of the issue, and his wife weeps in her chamber at the disregarding of her dream. The priests of the Sanhedrim are wagging their heads with satisfaction, but the veil of the Temple of Humanity is rent from top to bottom.

How could you receive the message if you had not suffered, O listener at the door of Time? Who would believe you, had you not grasped the truth of the atonement? Until the wood of the cross had been driven through your limbs, the rose could not blossom, O world in travail at this hour!

Be still, and know that God is God. In the stillness of perception the petals begin to open, and joy steals over the heart, and the heart swells with the expanding joy, till every fibre of the cross is alive and tingling with the joy at the heart of the rose, and the fragrance sweetens the world.

And the Beautiful Being, a ray of the Holy Spirit, hovers over the Calvary of the battlefield.

_April 25._

LETTER XXXI

A SERBIAN MAGICIAN

IT is a long road from the sacrifice of the Rose-Cross to plague-stricken Serbia, but that is the road you take with me this morning.

There is a reason why that country has been most susceptible to the astral germs of disease, that a loathesome being of which I wrote you in a former letter spewed forth into the upper world.

Long ago in the mountains of Serbia there dwelt an evil magician, a man whose studies in the deeper sciences were undertaken solely for the intellectual and selfish pleasure which he found in them. He had progressed so far beyond the normal human consciousness that he had no worldly ambitions. To him the world was but a despicable place to escape from, and the people of the world were insects beneath his notice, save only as he could use them for his purposes.

He considered himself a kind of god, and so diligent were his selfish labors that had he devoted his knowledge to the good of the human race from which he sprang, he might really have become a kind of god. But selfish and evil beings need never aspire to godship. At most they can take but a step beyond the human. The grub may become a butterfly, but if it hates the sunlight and the air of the higher regions, its wings had better not have grown.

This man, this selfish magician, had learned that by certain magical formulæ he could call to himself beings of the elements, and that by the aid of these invisibles he could create astral beings which, while themselves soulless, he could energize with his own force.

Now the turn for real and active evil which marked a certain stage in his life, came about in this way:

He had found what seemed to him a secure retreat among the mountains, he had prepared and magnetized the neighborhood of his hut so that it was a centre of astral force, and his right to the undivided possession of that spot was one of the ideas which he energized for his own protection.

Now the owner of the mountain where the magician lived discovered that the neighborhood of his hut was a good place for hunting the wild animals of that region, and soon the quiet of the magician’s studies was broken by the reports of the guns of the hunters, who even crossed with their despised bodies the very circle which the magician had prepared for his own use.

This proved that he was not a very high magician, for had he made that centre for a work having as object the benefit of humanity, members of that humanity could not have profaned it. The retreats of the Masters of Compassion are secure against intrusion.

In his rage and disappointment he called down curses upon the hunters and upon all the region roundabout, and by his evil magic he created beings who should execute his curses. He created them upon the earth and in the air above and in the region below the surface of the earth, and to each he allotted a task with fearful penalties for disobedience. His use of the power he had gained was a use _positively forbidden_ by the Law under which the real Masters work.