The
Theosophical Path

Illustrated Monthly

Edited by Katherine Tingley

Volume I

July — December, 1911

Published by the New Century Corporation

Point Loma, California, U. S. A.

The Aryan Theosophical Press
Point Loma, California

Index to The Theosophical Path

VOLUME I

JULY — DECEMBER, 1911

ILLUSTRATIONS

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Front cover.

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THE PATH

THE illustration on the cover of this Magazine is a reproduction of the mystical and symbolical painting by Mr. R. Machell, the English artist, now a Student at the International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma, California. The original is in Katherine Tingley's collection at the International Theosophical Headquarters. The symbolism of this painting is described by the artist as follows:

The Path is the way by which the human soul must pass in its evolution to full spiritual self-consciousness. The supreme condition is suggested in this work by the great figure whose head in the upper triangle is lost in the glory of the Sun above, and whose feet are in the lower triangle in the waters of Space, symbolizing Spirit and Matter. His wings fill the middle region representing the motion or pulsation of cosmic life, while within the octagon are displayed the various planes of consciousness through which humanity must rise to attain to perfect Manhood.

At the top is a winged Isis, the Mother or Oversoul, whose wings veil the face of the Supreme from those below. There is a circle dimly seen of celestial figures who hail with joy the triumph of a new initiate, one who has reached to the heart of the Supreme. From that point he looks back with compassion upon all who still are wandering below and turns to go down again to their help as a Savior of Men. Below him is the red wing of the guardians who strike down those who have not the "password," symbolized by the white flame floating over the head of the purified aspirant. Two children, representing purity, pass up unchallenged. In the center of the picture is a warrior who has slain the dragon of illusion, the dragon of the lower self, and is now prepared to cross the gulf by using the body of the dragon as his bridge (for we rise on steps made of conquered weaknesses, the slain dragon of the lower nature).

On one side two women climb, one helped by the other whose robe is white and whose flame burns bright as she helps her weaker sister. Near them a man climbs from the darkness; he has money bags hung at his belt but no flame above his head and already the spear of a guardian of the fire is poised above him ready to strike the unworthy in his hour of triumph. Not far off is a bard whose flame is veiled by a red cloud (passion) and who lies prone, struck down by a guardian's spear; but as he lies dying, a ray from the heart of the Supreme reaches him as a promise of future triumph in a later life.

On the other side is a student of magic, following the light from a crown (ambition) held aloft by a floating figure who has led him to the edge of the precipice over which for him there is no bridge; he holds his book of ritual and thinks the light of the dazzling crown comes from the Supreme, but the chasm awaits its victim. By his side his faithful follower falls unnoticed by him, but a ray from the heart of the Supreme falls upon her also, the reward of selfless devotion, even in a bad cause.

Lower still in the underworld, a child stands beneath the wings of the foster mother (material Nature) and receives the equipment of the Knight, symbols of the powers of the Soul, the sword of power, the spear of will, the helmet of knowledge and the coat of mail, the links of which are made of past experiences.

It is said in an ancient book: "The Path is one for all, the ways that lead thereto must vary with the pilgrim."

[Pg 9]

THE PATH
The Theosophical Path
An International Magazine
Unsectarian and nonpolitical

Monthly Illustrated

Devoted to the Brotherhood of Humanity, the promulgation
of Theosophy, the study of ancient & modern
Ethics, Philosophy, Science and Art, and to the uplifting
and purification of Home and National Life

Edited by Katherine Tingley
International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma, California, U.S.A.

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The Secret Doctrine is the common property of the countless millions of men born under various climates, in times with which History refuses to deal, and to which esoteric teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of Geology and Anthropology. The birth and evolution of the Sacred Science of the Past are lost in the very night of Time.... It is only by bringing before the reader an abundance of proofs all tending to show that in every age, under every condition of civilization and knowledge, the educated classes of every nation made themselves the more or less faithful echoes of one identical system and its fundamental traditions—that he can be made to see that so many streams of the same water must have had a common source from which they started. What was this source?... There must be truth and fact in that which every people of antiquity accepted and made the foundation of its religions and its faith.—H. P. Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine, II, 794

KATHERINE TINGLEY, EDITOR

THE REBIRTH OF CHRISTIANITY:
by H. T. Edge, B. A. (Cantab.)

AMONG ideas which Theosophists have been proclaiming for many years, and which are now finding expression through other channels, though in piecemeal and modified form, are those connected with the Christ story and Christianity. Current Literature, in reviewing "The Christ Myth," by Professor Dr. Arthur Drews of Karlsruhe, says:

In essence the argument of the book is that all the main ideas of Christianity existed in the world prior to the birth of Christ, and that the hero of the New Testament is an imaginative conception rather than an actual personality. The opening chapters illuminate the history of the Messianic idea. This idea, Professor Drews contends, is rooted in Persia and Greece, as well as in the Jewish consciousness. The Persians dreamed of a divine "friend" or "mediator" who should deliver them in the eternal struggle between light and darkness, between Ormuzd and Ahriman. The Greeks conceived a mediatory "Word" or Logos which should come to the aid of human weakness and identify man with God. Even more strongly, among the Jews, persisted the thought that "a Son of God" must intercede with Jehovah in behalf of his people.

Such utterances as the above are growing common, both from without the churches and from within. People are beginning to realize that they have not made the most of their religious traditions; that there is more in them than they have so far gotten out of them. They suspect that the Gospel narratives contain valuable truths that have been missed. The Christ is not merely a personality, but also a symbol, as is shown by the above writer; a symbol of the Divine in Man, recognized by the world ages before the Christian era.

[Pg 12]

The importance of the Christian Gospel today consists in its power to help us to realize that we are Divine in essence, and to aid us on the Path or Way which leads to a realization of that Divinity. Is it possible that now, for the first time, after all these centuries, the real import of that Gospel is about to be grasped? that the age-long worship of a wrong ideal—that of the personal God and his rewards and punishments, his propitiations and forgivenesses—is about to depart and make room for a more virile and ennobling, as well as more rational and holier faith?

Is it possible that a Resurrection is in progress, a Resurrection of Christ from the tomb in which we have buried him?[1]

What we understand by a Resurrection of Christ is the Resurrection of the ancient but buried truth that Man is essentially Divine—to replace the idea that he is essentially evil. This latter idea emphasizes the lower side of man's nature and actually weakens his faith in the Divine Power. Having thus lost his faith, he assumes an attitude of expectation and deprecation, praying to an imaginary deity instead of invoking by action the real Divinity within.

Ancient symbology, to which the above writer refers as being substantially identical with that of the Christian Gospel, speaks of the "Father" and the "Son." By the word "Father" was understood the Supreme; the "Son" was the Word, the Divine life in Man, which turned him from an animal being to what he is. Through the Son we approach the Father; that is, man must invoke the power of his own Higher Self. Another ancient teaching, taught in fables as well as sacred allegories, is that only by acting can man invoke the Divine aid. The Divine gift to Man is the Will, and he himself is the only one who can exert it. The fable tells that a carter invoked Hercules to lift his cart out of a rut, and Hercules told him to put his own shoulder to the wheel. For Hercules means strength, and strength is invoked by exerting it. In the same way we have to assert our Divinity by acting in a Divine way; and it seems that the Gospels give us ample instructions.

It may be that this was after all the real message, and that those who gave it have been waiting all this time for man to get up off his knees and be somebody.

[Pg 13]

There are many religious gospels in the world, but they are all modifications of one great eternal gospel. That one gospel, clothed in many garbs, legendary, allegoric, theological, is the Drama of the Soul in its pilgrimage through life, its struggles with great adversaries, and its final victory. Christianity contains the same ancient wisdom; it has been covered over with accretions of theology and ecclesiasticism; it is now being disentombed. The process is a long and eventful one; for people cling fondly to old habits, and many still hope that they will be able to admit everything and yet set early medieval theology on the summit as the crowning revelation. The success with which they can do this depends upon what they can make of Christianity, for the less cannot contain the greater.

The personal Christ and the doctrine of the Atonement (in its familiar theological form) together constitute the rock on which there is most likelihood of a split. But this doctrine (that is, in its present form) will have to go, for it is inconsistent with the views of life that are now gaining ground. For one thing, it is not sufficiently international; it is too much like a gospel of salvation peculiar to Western civilization. Eastern religions are already amply provided with similar machinery in their own systems, and are not likely to give up their own for ours.

Again, the theological doctrine of Atonement includes the remission of sins, in the sense that the sinner is relieved from the consequences of his sins by a special act of intercession and vicarious suffering. It is useless for Christians to deny that such is the teaching, for it is expressly stated thus by eminent authorities whom we might quote; besides it is this very fact of remission that lends force to the appeal made to our weak desires and hopes; it is held up as a great advantage possessed by Christianity. This teaching is repugnant to our innate sense of justice, to our manliness, and to our best conceptions of Divine Wisdom. It is felt to be more in harmony with Law that man should work out the full consequences of all his acts, both good and bad, reaping the consequent joy and grief. The remission of sins does not mean an excusing from the penalty, but a purification of the man so that he will not commit any more sins. Man is justified, sanctified, and saved, by the Divine grace acting within and changing his heart—not by a propitiatory sacrifice and a mere formal act of belief.

And so the real doctrine of Atonement will have to take the place[Pg 14] of the other. The making one, or reconciliation, between the human soul and its Divine counterpart—that is the real Atonement. By it, man repudiates his false "self," and recognizes his real Self; deposes the animal nature from the throne of his heart and establishes the kingdom of righteousness therein. But in the world just now there is a mighty battle between powers that tend to enslave man and keep him down, and powers that tend to liberate him. The former will try to perpetuate theological dogmatism and man's fear of himself. The latter will ever strive to give him back his self-respect and faith in his own Divinity.

Christians love to speak of the greatness of their religion, but little do they realize how great it is. The Bible is printed in hundreds of millions, and enthusiastic evangelists place a copy in every hotel room; but it is a more precious treasure than they wot of. Enshrined within the verses of that strange literary compost, preserved in the misunderstood symbols of that religion, are records of the Wisdom-Religion, the world's eternal gospel of Truth. Its teachings can indeed "make us free," for they show us how to evoke the power of the "Word." Unless we can use our Will—the Spiritual Will, not the feeble, selfish, personal will—we cannot be saved; else would the Creator have his heaven furnished with rescued dummies. When Man was gifted with Divine prerogatives of Will and Intelligence, he was thereby made a responsible self-acting being; he must redeem himself by his own (God-given) volition, not lay aside his initiative in weak reliance on some other will.

And the Spiritual Will is of the Heart; and of the Heart also is Wisdom; yet man in his unredeemed state obeys the leading of the desires and the false images they breed in the imagination. Therefore he will remain enslaved to these desires and will fail to understand the meaning of life unless he cultivates the impersonal Divine life within him. The teaching of the Gospel is directed to showing us how to enter this Way. To the ignorant the Master speaks in parables; but "to you it is given to understand the mysteries of the kingdom." A priceless privilege, but how repudiated! If we would but carry out the injunctions of Jesus the Christ, instead of making his personality into a God—which surely he himself would never have wished—we should be worthier disciples and the greater gainers.

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THE interesting problem of the origin of Egyptian culture is still unsolved by archaeologists, though many new facts have been recently discovered which seem to be leading to something definite. Nestor L'Hôte said sixty years ago:

The further one penetrates into antiquity towards the origins of Egyptian art, the more perfect are the products of that art, as though the genius of the people, inversely to that of others, was formed suddenly.... Egyptian art we only know in its decadence.

M. Jean Capart, the eminent Belgian Egyptologist, Keeper of the Egyptian Antiquities at the Royal Museum, Brussels, supports that opinion, saying, in his recent work on Primitive Art in Egypt, that M. L'Hôte's conclusion was and remains legitimate.

Since L'Hôte's time fine works of art and astonishing beauty have been found in tombs of the Third Dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs, about whom nothing—or next to nothing—was known until lately; even the Fourth Dynasty, the so-called Pyramid Builders, being historically very obscure, no agreement as to their date having been come to yet. It is fairly decided that they lived more than four or five thousands years b. c. Maspero, speaking of some paintings of the extremely ancient Third Dynasty, says:

The Egyptians were animal painters of the highest power, and they never gave better proof of it than in this picture. No modern painter could have seized with more spirit and humor the heavy gait of the goose, the curves of its neck, the pretentious carriage of its head, and the markings of its plumage.

The human figure was also represented with great artistic skill at the same early period. Even then the characteristic full-faced eye in the profile face was a firmly established convention. We do not know the reasons for this, but it cannot have been accidental.

According to Dr. Petrie, the great Egyptian explorer, the commencement of the Egyptian civilization that we call classical, the Egypt of the Pharaohs with its hieroglyphs, its established style of art, its complicated religion and philosophy, dates back to not less than b. c. 5000. This would be the time of the First Dynasty. Think what that means! A stretch of splendid civilization before the beginning of the Christian era about five times as long as the period that has elapsed since the time of King Alfred to this day, a period which has included almost or quite all that we look upon as worthy[Pg 16] of consideration in our history! And yet back of Dr. Petrie's First Dynastic age we now find ourselves face to face with a prehistoric Egyptian civilization or civilizations of absolutely unknown age, possibly of a hundred thousand years duration. The one that immediately preceded the Dynastic or Pharaonic is supposed to be of Libyan origin.

The possibility at least of a civilization of a hundred thousand years' duration should offer little difficulty even to the most critical, now that we have found a well-formed skull and skeleton near London differing very little from the modern type of Englishman, and estimated to be at least 170,000 years old. Long ago H. P. Blavatsky said in The Secret Doctrine and elsewhere that some form of Egyptian civilization had existed for an immensely longer period than the archaeologists imagine, and Katherine Tingley has reasserted this most emphatically, saying that Egyptian civilization will be proved to be even older than the (historic) Indian.

Archaeologists have always felt a great and peculiar difficulty in comprehending the sudden appearance of the high culture of the first Dynastic periods. It is impossible to believe that Egypt's greatness arose full-fledged, without long preparation, and yet where are the evidences of development? M. Jean Capart, the Belgian authority referred to above, has devoted great attention to this problem, and his conclusions are of interest to the student of Theosophy. He considers it exceedingly probable that gradual invasions or colonizations of a highly cultured race broke into the simpler Egyptian civilization from the South or South-east. These people, coming from the "Land of the Gods," Punt, which is commonly supposed to be Somaliland, he thinks came originally from some Asiatic country, bringing with them their arts and sciences and religion. As they blended with the Libyan inhabitants of Egypt, who possessed their own distinctive civilization, they established their already formed culture, and the combination produced what we call the Dynastic or classic Egyptian civilization. This would explain the origin of the classic Egyptian forms on reasonable grounds, and furthermore would make it clear why the Egyptians had so many things in common with the Hindûs in matters of religion, such as the respect paid to the Cow as a symbol of Divine Power.

HALL OF COLUMNS, KARNAK, EGYPT

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

SYMBOLIC STATUE OF HORUS, SON OF OSIRIS AND ISIS
IN THE ACT OF PURIFYING A KING
MUSÉE NATIONAL DU LOUVRE, PARIS

H. P. Blavatsky, in Isis Unveiled, quotes the following from the ancient Hindû historian, Kullûka-Bhatta:

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Under the reign of Viśvâ-mitra, first king of the Dynasty of Soma-Vanga, in consequence of a battle which lasted five days, Manu-Vina, heir of the ancient kings, being abandoned by the Brâhmans, emigrated with all his companions, passing through Ârya, and the countries of Barria, till he came to the shores of Masra. (Vol. I, p. 627)

She adds:

Ârya is Eran (Persia); Barria is Arabia, and Masra was the name of Cairo, which to this day is called Masr, Musr, and Misro. (Ibid.)

Mitsraîm was the Hebrew name for the land of Cham, Egypt.

Dr. E. A. W. Budge, the learned Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities in the British Museum, says he believes that a series of carvings on the walls of the Temple of Edfû,

represent the invaders in prehistoric times, who made their way into Egypt, from a country in the East, by way of the Red Sea.... In later times the indigenous priesthoods merged the legendary history of the deified king of the "Blacksmiths" is that of Horus, the god of heaven in the earliest times, and in that of Râ which belonged to a later period.

The mythical story of Horus conquering Nubia and Egypt, with which Dr. Budge thinks the true story of incursion was blended, contains the significant assertions that the warriors of Horus, the "Blacksmiths," were armed with weapons of metal, and chains, and were expert builders.

According to the Theosophical records the Great Pyramid was built long before the fifth millennium b. c. There are many mysteries connected with that most stupendous work of man which have not yet been suspected by the Egyptologists, not the least of which is the problem of its date and its builder; but, so far as they go, the stories of Horus' invasion and M. Capart's luminous suggestions as to the origin of the Dynastic Egyptian civilization, are not inconsistent with the account of Kullûka-Bhatta; and in the light of the new discoveries of one or more prehistoric civilizations in the Nile Valley, it looks as if the teachings of Theosophy were being vindicated in a way that was not dreamed of by archaeologists in the days when H. P. Blavatsky opened a small window into the mysterious past of glorious Egypt.

[Pg 20]

A WRITER in a London weekly (Black and White) makes one or two points in reference to art that are worthy of notice. He says that it is nonsense to talk of art elevating the people, because it is itself the index of their condition. This is just one of those simple fallacies that contain a sufficient amount of the truth to make them misleading. Art is not an index of the condition of the people, but only of a very small part of the people; it would be more true to say that the popular appreciation of art is such an index; but it is not true to say or to imply that the condition of the people governs its range or scope. We are constantly met by the experience of art that is unappreciated by the people in whose midst it appears.

It is necessary to understand the complex nature of man and the vast range of human evolution to be able to see how one man may appear in a nation and display a degree of progress far in advance of his fellows, who also are all in varying stages of their long evolution. The progressed soul incarnates perhaps in a body just like those of the rest of the race, because it cannot get a better; and so it is not at once recognized as an older soul, and for want of right education the man himself may be unable to account for the difference between himself and his fellows of which he is conscious; and so, being unaware of his own inherent divinity and of his relation to his fellows, he may not recognize his responsibility to them as a natural leader, fitted by greater experience to show a light on the path of human progress, and required by Karma or by his kinship to his fellows, to use his experience, or his talents, or his genius, for their guidance rather than for his own glory.

Then passing to the subject of the recent sale of the famous Rembrandt to an American he very wisely points out that this is a private matter, and not in any way a national or an artistic point of interest. As said, the picture (not an English painting) was not in any sense a national possession, nor was it of any importance in the art-life of the nation that it should be added to the already large collection of the master's works now owned by the National Gallery. What the writer maintains is vital to a nation, is to encourage and to appreciate the art of its own day and of its own artists.

Now here we meet the deplorable parochialism that does duty for patriotism, and which is so utterly out of place in connexion with art;[Pg 21] for art is not national but universal, and, further, it is not modern or ancient, but again universal; so that an attempt to limit the sympathies of art-lovers to the products of their own age or of their own nation is bound to fail, and can only be tolerated as an antidote to an excessive worship of what is old or of what is foreign, these being matters of perhaps no consequence at all.

It is of course well that people should do the duty that lies nearest to hand first, and so if it be a duty to encourage, to endow, or to patronize art, that duty should begin at home. But this again is a very narrow way of looking at the matter. It is not at all essential that art should be national; on the contrary, art is universal and cannot be bound by any such limits. No barriers stand in the way of one who would admire a foreign painting; one may speak no language but one's own and yet find as much beauty, joy, and inspiration in foreign works of art as in those produced by men of one's own nationality. A visitor to a collection of works of art has to be told by a catalog, or he would not know, what country produced any particular work; so it is with music, and largely with architecture; indeed that which is of Art is universal: the national characteristics are limitations imposed by circumstances upon the free expression of the soul.

The soul of man is not eternally bound within the limits of one nation, but must, in the course of constant reincarnations upon earth, experience the limitations of many varying nationalities. It is bound to the great human family; and it may be, for a certain period, identified with a special group. Nations are evanescent, though family groups may survive, and though an artist may be intimately bound by many ties with the destinies of some one group or family or race, in its reincarnations and in its varying national appearances, yet the artistic part of his nature is just that higher part that rises beyond such limits and appeals to all humanity, and it is the higher part of human nature that responds to the appeal of art and disregards all other limitations, such as questions of time or place or nationality, rising to what is more broadly human or more divine in the nature of man. For "Brotherhood is a fact in nature," and the soul responds unconsciously to the call of the Soul in all nature and in all humanity in such degree as it is able to throw off for a time the temporary bonds of local conditions. So it is a matter rather of satisfaction to see works of art circulating around the world and awaking the deeper sympathies that tend to unite humanity.

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THERE is not a problem which perplexes human life that may not be loosened and solved by the aid of music. Based as it is upon the vibratory movements of Nature, and subject to rigid mathematical law and geometrical ratio, music represents an incorruptible and direct medium between the higher and lower natures of man. Its dynamical and spiritual power proceeds from the blend of its related vibrating numbers; which blend is that living force (within outward harmony) that electrifies the heart and mind and lifts the whole nature to the plane of soul. It is that living field of energy in which all numbers, all forces, all substances, are lost in the unity of least-common-multiple of all possible vibrations. It is the Veil of Isis.

No motion can take place without causing sound. This must be equally true of atomic and planetary movements, and all that lies between. All sounds that appear to the senses as different must obviously vibrate in some universal medium which permits movement and unifies their seeming diversity. It is the actual presence of such a medium in man which enables him to perceive that which music is the expression of. Notes and chords are merely alphabetical symbols. These are classified and combined to express ideas as truly as words are combined to convey the thought that lies beyond them.

It has been said that "The Universe is built by number." This is obvious truth when all natural forces and elements are conceived of as modes of vibration (as they actually are) blending and interblending in the universal etheric medium, according to the immutable law of harmonious ratios. Why should the etheric world be thought of as an abstraction or a far-off possibility? It is in reality a nearer thing in life than its comparatively trifling contents. All our thoughts and feelings move in it as their medium, and the process of self-conquest is nothing more than to live in this our universal home, and harmonize dissociated thoughts and feelings into musical symphonies.

This is not rhapsody, but sober common sense, as true for the field-laborer as for the philosopher. As we all live in and breathe the same physical atmosphere, so do we all think and feel in the same mental ether. This fact explains why "Brotherhood is a fact in nature." To accept this principle of Brotherhood as the point from which life is viewed is equivalent to mounting to the hill-top of life from which the surrounding scenery can be seen. Down in the valley a single wall can shut out the whole prospect.

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A text-book on chemistry may be consulted with profit as illustrating this fact. A few general principles or laws classify millions of separate facts into harmonious knowledge. The science of chemistry is also the science of true music. Schopenhauer speaks of music

as immediate and direct an objectivation or copy of the Will of the world as the world itself is, as the ideas are of which the universe of things is the phenomenon. Music is not the copy of the ideas, but a representation of the cosmical Will co-ordinate with the ideas themselves.

The literal truth of this statement is known by all who have had contact with that which creates, and breathes life into, a musical masterpiece. The audible notes and phrases are merely classified symbols which express something beyond them, just as the parts of a dynamo are adjusted as medium for the expression of the universal electrical power.

Music, in itself, is the universal life of Nature as she is in vibration. Every movement, from that of planet down to minute atom, emits tone. It is absurd to imagine that our octave of audible receptivity limits the universal fact. It can only do so for us. The refining and extension of receptive range of hearing must undoubtedly reveal the music which ever surrounds our self-imposed deafness. All discoveries and advances in knowledge are simply this: the unfolding of organs of receptivity in which some universal fact may reflect itself. All knowledge and power exist eternally. Man is the only variant (because of his power of choice) and he cripples himself in imagining that the revelation of limited organs of receptivity are equivalent to the universal fact.

Let us picture a great music hall in which an orchestra is performing. No matter what sounds proceed from the many instruments, their united tones vibrate through every particle of air in the building simultaneously. Sound waves may be many, but, every atom of air is participant in all these at one and the same instant. The atom therefore is the synthetic point of universal unity.

Man is an atom in that grand temple of music—the solar system. Through him passes every movement or sound propagated by planet or sun—and all the lesser movements to which they give rise. We actually participate in the total vibration of solar life, but are blind to this because the brain consciousness is attached to a few external sound waves and sets up a conscious focus amid these. A musician will tell us how easily the mind may select a single orchestral instru[Pg 24]ment and follow its melody to the exclusion of the adjacent parts. How truly this illustrates our separate personal lives! It is impossible to lose anything by detachment from the personal grooves to which so much importance is attached. We can only fall into That which gives the utmost blessing. That silence and solitariness which usually follow the storm of true effort, is the womb of fuller life. The old life has passed, the new not yet born, and we are apt to despond. But courage and patience will surely lead to living joy, for the new life dawns when the inner self is ready to receive it. Right thought, right feeling, and unending patience, will without doubt make all things clear, and from the heart will arise the total music of life, vibrating in tune with all that is.

IT is safe to say that science will never accept the astral body—by that name: at any rate not until philosophy accepts the prototypal Ideas of Plato.

Yet the evidence, if not for them, then for something discharging the same function and therefore after all for them—is irresistible.

One thinks first of the growth of living animal tissues in glass jars, demonstrated at the Rockefeller Institute. Removed from the body to which they belong and placed in nutritive fluids which they can absorb, they attain a size that would constitute them fatal diseases if they were in situ at home. They would in fact be malignant growths of highly organized types.

Why don't they grow to that size? Because "the nervous system" restrains them within the limit of usefulness. How does "the nervous system" know that limit? Has it a picture in its "mind," a plan according to which it works, according to which it variously restricts or encourages?

When some of the molluscs are cut in two each half grows the part it has lost, the head an after-part, the after-part a head. Two animals result, each exactly like the original. As the severed cells are called upon to perform and do perform new and unexpected work, what and where is the architectural plan by which they do it?

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The cells of a leaf have finished their growth. Now comes their work, the fixing of carbon from the air, transpiration, and so on. But cut off, say, a begonia leaf and place it on damp soil properly protected. It proceeds at once upon a wholly new program, sending down roots, sending up stalk, fresh leaves, and finally flower. It is obviously working according to a plan. When a germ cell or seed does that the problem can be concealed by talking about its chemical constitution and so forth. We are told that the seed behaves as it does because it is constituted by nature to do so, molecularly arranged for just that function. But the cells of the leaf were not arranged for that but for quite other functions. How come they to be able to stop their proper line of work and follow this one, generating not only leaves like themselves but all other parts of the plant including seeds?

We are of course pressing the problem of heredity, the persistence of racial and family type. But heredity is only a word that expresses the observed facts without a gleam of explanation.

The consciousness of the mollusc, as an individual, and that of the leaf on a lower plane, can be only sensational. They do not intelligently arrange and design what they are doing. But to ascribe it to molecular mechanism only, is no better than to say God did it. Either is such a form of mere words as unwise parents throw at a too questioning child to stop, without satisfying, its mind. No idea corresponds. The gap in conception remains exactly what it was.

When a chimney is blown down, the builder notes the gap and builds another. His mind contains a picture of what ought to be there.

An architect does not deliver the whole plan of his building to each of the workmen. Each follows his ordinary work, being merely told where to begin and when to stop. When all of them have done their part the building is complete.

Why may we not suppose that the cutting-in-two of a mollusc constitutes some such appeal to some intelligence somewhere in nature as the missing chimney constitutes to the builder? The force flowing in the cells of the injured animal is thereupon directed to the work unexpectedly required. Science now speaks freely of human "subconsciousness," meaning sub-mental consciousness in man. And it knows that that sub-mental consciousness can, when properly called upon (and also habitually on its own account), do reparative work upon the body whose method is not comprehensible to the man himself. [Pg 26]It is, within its limits, intelligent; it knows what it has to do and what it is wanted to do; and it commands the necessary forces—which are beyond the man's reach, owner of them as he may be or think he is.

This subconsciousness is embodied with the man, but is not the man and is not an ego. May it not be regarded as a part of nature-consciousness, focused in an organic body and with the intelligence necessary to do its work?

And it does not follow that the lower down the scale of mental intelligence is an organism, the lower down a parallel scale is this intelligence. What we call, when in our own bodies, the subconscious, may be just as fully present and just as intelligently at work, in the bodies of plants and animals.

If we say that the plan of repair and the plans of hereditary type are in the conscious intelligence of this diffused nature-mind, we are at any rate reasonably proceeding from the known and not glossing the unknown with mere words. The astral body of any plant or animal is its plan of structure in this nature-mind. It is subjective substance, just as is a picture in our own mind. And it contains the vital energy necessary for the guidance of the protoplasmic matter that will clothe it, an energy that guides but is not one of the physical forces. As an analogy from higher up the planes of being, conscience guides mental thoughts and desires but is not among their number nor of their nature. It is the divine-astral form or plan, of what the thinking man should be. On both planes the form and the guiding energy setting from it become the negative and positive aspects of one thing.

[Pg 27]

[Pg 28]

In 1887 William Q. Judge wrote of the Theosophical Society and H. P. Blavatsky as follows:

THE Society has had, like all sentient beings, its periods of growth, and now we believe it has become an entity capable of feeling and having intelligence. Its body is composed of molecules, each one of which is a member of the Society; its mental power is derived from many quarters, and it has a sensibility that is felt and shared by each one of us. For these reasons we think it is a wise thing for a person to join this body, and a wiser yet to work heart and soul for it.

And we would have no one misunderstand how we look upon H. P. Blavatsky. She is the greatest woman in this world in our opinion, and greater than any man moving among men. Disputes and slanders about what she has said and done move us not, for we know by personal experience her real virtues and powers. Since 1875 she has stood as the champion and helper of every Theosophist; each member of the Society has to thank her for the store of knowledge and spiritual help that has lifted so many of us from doubt to certainty of where and how Truth might be found; lovers of truth and seekers after spiritual knowledge will know her worth only when she has passed from earth; had she had more help and less captious criticism from those who called themselves co-laborers, our Society would today be better and more able to inform its separate units while it resisted its foes. During all these years, upon her devoted head has concentrated the weighty Karma accumulated in every direction by the unthinking body of Theosophists; and whether they will believe it or not, the Society had died long ago, were it not for her.

The following are extracts from an article also by William Q. Judge, written after H. P. Blavatsky's death:

That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego—the immortal self—a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame, a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals. The Lord of this body is nameless; dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go; but neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured. So our old friend and fellow-worker has merely passed for a short time out of sight, but has not given up the work begun so many[Pg 29]
[Pg 30]
[Pg 31] ages ago—the uplifting of humanity, the destruction of the shackles that enslave the human mind....

That she always knew what would be done by the world in the way of slander and abuse I also know, for in 1875 she told me that she was then embarking on a work that would draw upon her unmerited slander, implacable malice, uninterrupted misunderstanding, constant work, and no worldly reward. Yet in the face of this her lion heart carried her on. Nor was she unaware of the future of the Society. In 1876 she told me in detail the course of the Society's growth for future years, of its infancy, of its struggles, of its rise into the "luminous zone" of the public mind; and these prophecies are being all fulfilled.

Her aim was to elevate the race. Her method was to deal with the mind of the century as she found it, by trying to lead it on step by step; to seek out and educate a few who, appreciating the majesty of the Secret Science and devoted to "the great orphan Humanity," could carry on her work with zeal and wisdom; to found a Society whose efforts—however small itself might be—would inject into the thought of the day the ideas, the doctrines, the nomenclature of the Wisdom-Religion, so that when the next century shall have seen its seventy-fifth year the new messenger coming again into the world would find the Society still at work, the ideas sown broadcast, the nomenclature ready to give expression and body to the immutable Truth, and thus to make easy the task which for her since 1875 was so difficult and so encompassed with obstacles.

[Pg 32]

HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY
FOUNDRESS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

THE LEADERS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT
H. P. BLAVATSKY
KATHERINE TINGLEY WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

IN 1886, William Q. Judge, the pupil and colleague and afterwards the successor of H. P. Blavatsky, founded and edited The Path, the first American Theosophical magazine. After his death, this magazine was continued by his successor, Katherine Tingley, and was by her finally merged into and combined with a weekly magazine, published under the title of the Century Path. This has again given place to The Theosophical Path, thus distinctly calling attention to the teachings it promulgates and sets forth, while preserving the name "The Path" of the first American Theosophical Magazine.

The Theosophical Path in its first issue pays honor to both these great-hearted Teachers, H. P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge. All humanity owes them a debt of gratitude for pointing out once more the path of true progress and happiness. Through their self-sacrifice, even of their lives, "the pathway is once more seen to that realm where the Gods abide."

In the first issue of The Path, William Q. Judge wrote:

The solution of the problem, "What and Where is the Path to Happiness?" has been discovered by those of old time. They thought it was in the pursuit of Râja Yoga, which is the highest science and the highest religion—a union of both....

The study of what is now called "practical occultism" has some interest for us, and will receive the attention it may merit, but it is not the object of this journal....

True occultism is clearly set forth in the Bhagavad Gîtâ, where sufficient stress is laid upon practical occultism, but after all, Krishna says, the kingly science and the kingly mystery is devotion to and study of the light which comes from within. The very first step in true mysticism and true occultism is to try to apprehend the meaning of Universal Brotherhood, without which the very highest progress in the practice of magic turns to ashes in the mouth.

We appeal, therefore, to all who wish to raise themselves and their fellow creatures—man and beast—out of the thoughtless jog trot of selfish everyday life. It is not thought that Utopia can be established in a day; but through the spreading of the idea of Universal Brotherhood, the truth in all things may be discovered. Certainly, if we all say that it is useless, that such high-strung sentimental notions cannot obtain currency, nothing will ever be done. A beginning must be made, and it has been by the Theosophical Society. Although philanthropic institutions and schemes are constantly being brought forward by good and noble men and women, vice, selfishness, brutality, and the resulting misery, seem to grow no less. Prisons, asylums for the outcast and the magdalen, can be filled much faster than it is possible to erect them. All this points unerringly to the existence of a vital error somewhere. It shows that merely healing[Pg 33] the outside by hanging a murderer or providing asylums and prisons will never reduce the number of criminals nor the hordes of children born and growing up in hotbeds of vice. What is wanted is true knowledge of the spiritual condition of man, his aim and destiny. This is offered in Theosophical literature, and those who must begin the reform are those who are so fortunate as to be placed in the world where they can see and think out the problems all are endeavoring to solve, even if they know that the great day may not come until after their death. Such a study leads us to accept the utterance of Prajâpati to his sons: "Be restrained, be liberal, be merciful"; it is the death to selfishness.

In an article "A Year on the Path," Mr. Judge wrote, at the close of the first year of the magazine:

The question is always naturally asked, "What is the Path?" or "What is the Philosophy?" which is the same thing, for of course the following of any path whatever will depend upon the particular philosophy or doctrines believed in. The path we had in view is held by us to be the same one which in all ages has been sought by Heathen, Jew, and Christian alike. By some called the path to Heaven, by others the path to Jesus, the path to Nirvâna, and by Theosophists the path to Truth. Jesus has defined it as a narrow, difficult and straight path. By the ancient Brâhmans it has been called, "the small old path leading far away on which those sages walk who reach salvation"; and Buddha taught it was a noble four-fold path by which alone the miseries of existence can be truly surmounted....

The immortal spark has manifested itself in many different classes of men, giving rise to all the varied religions, many of which have forever disappeared from view. Not any one of them could have been the whole Truth, but each must have presented one of the facets of the great gem, and thus through the whole surely run ideas shared by all. These common ideas point to truth. They grow out of man's inner nature and are not the result of revealed books. But some one people or another must have paid more attention to the deep things of life than another. The "Christian" nations have dazzled themselves with the baneful glitter of material progress. They are not the peoples who will furnish the nearest clues to the Path. A few short years and they will have abandoned the systems now held so dear, because their mad rush to the perfection of their civilization will give them control over now undreamed of forces. Then will come the moment when they must choose which of two kinds of fruit they will take. In the meantime it is well to try and show a relation between their present system and the old, or at least to pick out what grains of truth are in the mass.

... A new age is not far away. The huge unwieldy flower of the 19th century civilization has almost fully bloomed, and preparation must be made for the wonderful new flower which is to rise from the old. We have not pinned our faith on Vedas nor Christian scriptures, nor desired any others to do so. All our devotion to Aryan literature and philosophy arises from a belief that the millions of minds who have trodden weary steps before ours, left a path which may be followed with profit, yet with discrimination. For we implicitly believe that in this curve of the cycle, the final authority is the man himself.

[Pg 34]

In former times the disclosed Vedas, and later, the teachings of the great Buddha, were the right authority, in whose authoritative teachings and enjoined practices were found the necessary steps to raise man to an upright position. But the grand clock of the Universe points to another hour, and now Man must seize the key in his hands and himself—as a whole—open the gate. Hitherto he has depended upon the great souls whose hands have stayed impending doom. Let us then together enter upon another year, fearing nothing, assured of strength in the Union of Brotherhood. For how can we fear death, or life, or any horror or evil, at any place or time, when we well know that even death itself is a part of the dream which we are weaving before our eyes.

Our belief may be summed up in the motto of the Theosophical Society, "There is no Religion higher than Truth," and our practice consists in a disregard of any authority in matters of religion and philosophy except such propositions as from their innate quality we feel to be true.

IN the Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture just issued, it is pointed out that conservation of the timber supply involves the co-operation of the public, the lumbermen, and the wood-consuming industries, as well as of the National Government. Forest conservation is not possible at the low prices of former days, and in general prices must advance before much can be done. Then the public must be prepared to accept new woods; the farmer must give up using cedar, white-oak, and chestnut posts; railroads must cease using white-oak ties; builders must accept other lengths and widths. Meantime the Government co-operating with Wisconsin University, has established a thoroughly equipped wood-testing laboratory at Madison, where many problems are being investigated, from the standpoints of forest conservation and commercial requirements.

In the valuable magazine American Conservation, for May 1911, it is stated that Argentina has a hundred million acres of wooded land, mostly quebracho and yerba tree, both in increasing demand. In Brazil there is about a thousand million acres of wooded land. There ruthless destruction cannot go on, as most concessions now require proper conservation of the rubber and other trees. Bolivia has quebracho, rubber, coca, cinchona, and other trees useful in the arts. The timber tracts of Colombia are practically unexploited. The slopes of Ecuador are richly wooded. The forests of Peru occupy about three hundred million acres, and its government has taken steps to ensure conservation, and contemplates experiment stations.

[Pg 35]

Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

SCENES FROM "THE AROMA OF ATHENS"
CENTRAL FIGURE IN FRONT PHIDIAS, BEHIND HIM PERICLES

[Pg 36]

Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

CENTRAL FIGURE PERICLES, ON THE LEFT PHIDIAS, ON THE RIGHT DIOCHARES

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Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

ATHENIAN SOLDIERS

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Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

SOCRATES AND HIS DISCIPLES

[Pg 39]

A NEW-OLD note in drama has been struck here on the Pacific Coast, which, we feel quite safe in prophesying, will be recorded in many histories. The English-speaking world has been fretting after some new inspiration. We are tired of imitating the Elizabethans; for the time being, that spring would seem to have run dry. What belongs to our own day peculiarly tends to be mere boisterous horseplay or flippant shallowness; vulgar both, and not in any way to be called art. What we have that is good, the work of a few writers, is not so startling in quantity or quality, nor so profoundly original, as to cause us to hope for a new great art period in our own or our children's day. And yet there has been the demand. The public has turned to strange well-springs and found the waters bitter, cloying, soon to run dry; the critics have filled their press columns, both here and in England, with clamorings, prognostications, hasty or timorous judgments, a sense of a great need and expectations. Decidedly the time is ripe for a new birth in the drama.

MEETS NEEDS OF THE TIME

Now the question arises, what needs must this new birth and order meet? Great art meets the needs of its time, sternly turning away from its mere wants; for that reason it is often rejected for awhile by a public clamorous after lower levels of things. Such a clamor we find in our own day after sensationalism—give us action, more action, say the managers; but is this a real need? The world is agog with action as it is; such a riot of action as one might imagine the Gadarene swine indulged in on their seaward last tumultuous journey. The motif is threadbare; we have torn it to tatters and it is time to turn to new modes. Personalism, too, is rampant and bears fruit in an ugly and jangled civilization. What is needed, then, is an art that shall be calm, dignified, beautiful, impersonal; a pointer to and promise of better ways of living.

One turns back to the great art of the Greeks with a sense of relief after all our modern, breathless, tom-tom beating. There we find beauty, calm movement, dignity, national, and not merely personal motifs; above all, an insistence on the higher and eternal verities. We need the Aroma of Athens on our modern stage; because it is precisely that that we need in our modern life.

PLAY DELIGHTED AUDIENCE

A few weeks ago Katherine Tingley presented a new play, The Aroma of Athens, at her Isis theater in San Diego, which struck all who saw it with profound surprise and delight. There was first the ideal poetic beauty of the setting, a thing unrealizable unless seen. The foremost of the London managers—men like Tree—have made a specialty of beautiful setting, astonishing the theatrical world with the splendor of their work in this line—and with its good taste. They have had enormous resources to draw upon, and have spared no expense[Pg 40] in time, money, or thought. It may safely be said that none of them has produced anything more beautiful than this Aroma of Athens; it may safely be said that none of them has produced anything so beautiful. One rubbed one's eyes in astonishment, wondering how such things could be, and concluded that Madame Tingley at Point Loma had greater resources to draw upon than are to be found in London, Paris, Berlin, or New York. It is a wonderful thing, prophetic of the time when the culture-metropolis of the world will be right here among us on the Pacific Coast. Madame Tingley long ago said that San Diego would be the Athens of America, and today this is far nearer than we dream. If one would learn what those greater resources of hers are, one must examine her teachings, one must look into that marvelous scheme of education of hers, the Râja Yoga system, which enabled, for example, those little children on the stage to be as graceful, as un-self-conscious as any figures on a Grecian vase. Have you seen children, young children, on the stage, do well, wonderfully well; and then, when the applause rolled in, do better still, remaining sublimely unconscious of the applause? We applauded these children and looked to see, as a matter of course, the aroma of Athens vanish in a series of smirks. But no; clapped we never so loudly, it made no difference to them. They played their Greek games; they were merry and classical; they were Grecian, unstilted, poetic, faery. One's mind went back to Keats' ode:

And the answer was: Athens, Periclean Athens in all her superb flawless beauty and splendor; yes, those were real Athenians; of whom we have read in Keats and Swinburne; that we have seen sculptured in the Elgin marbles. Here they were, in the flesh and blood; here was the heyday of historic beauty, shedding its supreme aroma on us; with these tones Plato and Aeschylus would have spoken; in this manner Phidias and Pericles would have moved. It was a revelation, a marvelous artistic realization—indeed, it is a shame to use such cant hackneyed phrases for a thing so beautiful, so august—and yet so completely natural and unstrained.

GREATER THINGS PROMISED

So much for its performance in a modern theater, but greater things are promised. If all this is true of a play which was first thought of ten days before it was presented—and that is the fact—what is not to be hoped from the new presentation of it on April 17, a presentation of which, we are told, the former ones were but little more than sketches, and which is to be given in a real Greek open-air theater?

The Greek theater at Point Loma, the first in America, was built by Madame Tingley in 1901. It has the true Greek setting, looking out over the sea. A wild cañon runs down from it seaward, full of miniature hills and precipices, among which, now visible and now unseen, winds the path by which the players enter or leave the stage. There will be torchlight processions under the moon new-[Pg 41]risen, moving along that path and over the broad stageplace; Greek chanting will be heard; real Greek music, and music with that ineffable something in it lacking in all, or nearly all, modern music, which suggests the hidden life of nature, the weird majesty of Delphi, of Nemesis, of the pipes of universal Pan; the very aroma of Sophoclean drama, plus an echo of that older and even more entrancing Greece,

When—

KINGDOM OF PAN UNCONFINED

One has long suspected that, with luck, one might well come upon a faun in the wild places of that cañon, at least in April, when the rains are newly over and the hillside a riot of bloom and delight. For indeed the kingdom of Pan is not confined; he has provinces here in California, and you may come upon the dales of Arcady in any of the four quarters of the world.

Were Pan or some legate of his to be piping far down the cañon, you would not fail to catch every note of it from every part of the auditorium in the theater; what is whispered on the stage is clearly heard on the topmost tier of seats. The place is a Wonder of the West if only for its marvelous acoustic properties. It has never been opened to the public before for a performance. And it should be remembered that Madame Tingley leaves nothing to chance; she stands out grandly independent in her art; leaves no detail to be excused by the generosity of the audience; permits nothing whatever of which you could say: "This is excellent—for amateurs; this is splendid—considering what a short time it has taken to get up." It may be quite safely affirmed that this presentation on April 17 will have a prominent place in all future histories of the drama.—San Diego Union, Friday morning, April 7, 1911.

[Pg 42]

THERE never was a play so difficult to appraise or criticise justly and intelligently as this one. One had read many press notices from expert dramatic critics, all of them enthusiastic; but when one came to see the performance, it struck one that the best of them were inadequate, wholly beside the point. And yet one sees the excuse for saying just as much as language can be stretched to express. If one did not put on the enthusiasm without stint or measure, one would convey a suggestion that the presentation was unworthy of enthusiasm; the truth being that enthusiasm is somehow unworthy of the presentation.

Since seeing it, one has been searching mind and memory for some means of accounting for its extraordinary effect. We have seen it put down to the beauty of the spectacle, harmony of colors, perfect natural setting, and so forth. It is true that one failed to find any jarring note in the acting; that the cañon, running down to the Pacific, seen through the pillars of the Greek temple there, is a piece of landscape thrilling in its beauty, for the like of which you must go to lands where nature is at her most beautiful, and where there are the relics of mighty builders of old, that give a focal point to the natural beauty, and an inspiration to all artists. It is true also that there was a perfect art in the color scheme of the dresses—an absolute justness, balance and harmony of colors in themselves exquisite; that one could imagine no improvement in the grouping; that the enunciation, movements, and gesticulations, were in all cases just, clear, simple, natural, and graceful. But I am convinced that one might see and hear all that, and come away conscious that there was more to be said. None of these things, either considered separately or en masse, are enough to account for the enthralling effect of the play.

Generally speaking, again, it is true that "the play's the thing." In this case I think it is not true. There is, in the ordinary sense, hardly any action or dramatic thrill. We underline dramatic, because thrill of some deeper and hitherto unexperienced kind there was; action too, there was—the action of a people on the World's stage; in that sense it was all one deep thrill, and the action of real life. But[Pg 43] the dialog was mainly philosophic discussion, deep thought, art criticism from the Greek standpoint—just, sound, basic, noble; but not fiery or dramatic, as we commonly understand the terms; and there was none of that brilliant play of wit which in some modern plays compensates for the lack of a plot.

Here indeed, you may say that plot there was none. The Athenians are holding their Flower Festival, to which the Satrap Pharnabazus is welcomed as a guest. He is desirous to learn the secret of Athenian brilliance, and one by one his hosts give utterance, in response, to the principles of Athenian art, philosophy, etc. While they are speaking, the herald of Sparta is announced; here there is, indeed, a central incident of most stirring dramatic effect in the declaration of the Peloponnesian War. Socrates prophesies the downfall of Greece, and the rise of a new Athens in the west of the world in after-ages; after which follows an effect which, for mystic beauty and thrill does certainly stand out, so that you do know exactly why you are moved by it—a procession of scarlet-draped women with torches, that comes winding up the cañon, through the temple, and across the arena through clouds and volumes of colored mist, a wonderful bit of Katherine Tingley's art work, an incident impressive to the last degree, which were it done just so on any stage in the world, and by any actors, would create a sensation. But indeed, it is safe to say that such an effect has never been produced before, on any stage in the world.

But be it noted that the enthralment of The Aroma of Athens began long before this; and that even this was rather a visual glory than a dramatic coup according to the received canons.

Of spectacular value, too, was the archaic dancing of the children; and let it be said that there was something about these children which is never to be seen on the stages of the world, nor with any other children than those of the Râja Yoga College at Point Loma. And yet, when one has said that they were perfectly classic, and at the same time perfectly merry and natural—one realizes that one has still barely begun to account for what happened.

One little woman who professed to have some knowledge of art, yet was quite unfamiliar with the period which the play presented, almost tearfully deplored the fact that the actors did not seem to pay any attention to the audience during the production. The fact that they did not do so was one of the charms of the whole presentation.[Pg 44] They were not playing a part but giving a most realistic presentation of life, and were, as they should have been, as if there were no audience. To those who saw the motif of the play, it would have been a blur if the players had shown any consciousness of the audience, or had in any way "played to the gallery" or for personal attention.

Item by item, one might mention everything that was seen or heard, and one would remain certain that however perfect and beautiful each might be in itself, and even however perfect might be the harmony of them as an ensemble, they yet were not enough to explain the total value: and that even if you were able to explain the total value artistically, from the standpoint of art as we understand the term, there would yet be a kind of value, an invoking of one's inner nature without words, which for lack of a better term one must call a spiritual value—not only moral, or mental—which would remain unexplained. In short, that there was here shown an element, a kind of value, which is wholly unfamiliar to the critics of the present day.

When we speak of the drama as an educational element, we conceive of its possible effects along artistic lines, or as setting forth moral principles, or high intellectual ideas. This play did all that, it is true; but it did all that, plus x; and what that x represents is not known in our present civilization—or at least, so one suspects. It produced a silence of the senses and of all personal voices within, an uplift and a reverent feeling: yes, a sense that one had been given a revelation of what the great mystics of the world have meant by the word spiritual. Deeper places in one's being were touched, than any that respond to the work of the greatest actors of the present or of recent times.

So that any enthusiasm, any praise, seems something like an insult. To speak of the Genius of the one that produced the play—Katherine Tingley—that too seems a kind of insult. We have not attached to the term genius, a breadth of meaning great enough to include the qualities necessary for the production of a result so unlike anything that has gone before.

We have seen it compared with the work of the premier actors of the age, and that to the advantage of the Point Loma production. The remark is not good criticism. The difference is not one of degree, but one of kind. No actor manager, probably, would have handled this play; none could produce, with any play of the greatest dramatists, results that so baffle description, so affect one's conceptions in those[Pg 45] parts of one's being that lie behind and deeper than formal mentality or imagination, or artistic appreciation. Perhaps Katherine Tingley could explain how it is done. I think no one else could.

It is delightful to hear that Mrs. Tingley is making plans for larger facilities for seating the people, as even with its present great size, the Greek Theater at Point Loma cannot meet the demands. It is whispered also that she has several more Greek and other plays in preparation, which in course of time will be presented in the Greek Theater, and possibly at her Isis Theater in San Diego as well.

THE PROLOG

Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

TABLEAUX FROM THE ILIAD AS GIVEN DURING THE PRESENTATION OF
"THE AROMA OF ATHENS," APRIL 17, 1911
PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.

Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

ANDROMACHE FAINTING ON THE WALLS OF TROY

Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

THE FUNERAL PYRE OF HECTOR

Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

PUPILS OF THE RÂJA YOGA COLLEGE, POINT LOMA, IN ATHENIAN FLOWER FESTIVAL

HAWTHORNE'S Blithedale Romance is a study of the psychology underlying the human relations that arise from the subtle inner feelings within the deepest and most diaphanous regions of the human heart.

With an incomparable delicacy and precision of touch, revealing the hidden framework of the underlying design, he clothes with apt speech these specter glimpses into the realm of human motive.

Pity 'tis that his glimpses into these depths should be clouded by the temperamental gloom of his own nature—always seeking justification of its own pessimism, always weaving despondent tragedies that the light of Theosophy would have transformed into inner victories in the midst of outward defeat. Yet he seems only to have penetrated to certain depths of gloom and doubt, and then to hesitate to take that one step deeper where forever dwells the light that dispels all shadows.

Like a modern Virgil he leads us to the brink of the deepest chasms, and then abandons us to our own intuitions. Possibly he saw farther into the depths than he could record in human speech—and so wrote on from romance to romance in search of the expression that forever eluded his pen.

[Pg 52]

I. Life

Pythagoras, the pure philosopher deeply versed in the profounder phenomena of nature, the noble inheritor of the ancient lore, whose great aim was to free the soul from the fetters of sense and force it to realize its powers, must live eternally in human memory.—H. P. Blavatsky

THIS world-famous Greek teacher of "the Heart Doctrine" was born about 580 b. c. on the island of Samos and died about 500 b. c. Before his birth it was prophesied to his father that a son was about to be born to him who would be a great benefactor of mankind. Some even went so far as to declare that Pythagoras was a human incarnation of Hyperborean Apollo.

It is related that when a mere youth he left his native city to begin a series of travels to the wise men of all countries, from the Hindûs and Arabs in the East, to the Druids of Gaul in the West. We are told that he spent twelve years in Babylon, conversing freely with the Magi, by whom he was instructed in all their Mysteries and taught the most perfect form of worship. He spent twenty-two years in Egypt as an intimate of the most learned hierophants, under whose tutelage he mastered the three styles of Egyptian writing, the common, the hieroglyphic, and the sacerdotal. He brought with him a personal letter of introduction to Amasis, the reigning Pharaoh, who forthwith wrote to the hierophants and requested them to initiate Pythagoras into their mysteries. Pythagoras first went to the priests of Heliopolis, but they, true to the inveterate Egyptian suspicion of foreigners, although hesitating to disobey Amasis openly, tacitly refused to initiate Pythagoras and advised him to go to the sacred school at Memphis, ostensibly because it was of greater antiquity than that of Heliopolis. At Memphis also he met with the same finesse, and was next sent to the school at Thebes, where finally under the most severe tests—tests which nearly cost him his life—he was fully initiated into the Egyptian Mysteries and thereafter had free access to the treasures of the hierophants.

After leaving Egypt Pythagoras returned to Greece by way of Crete, where he descended the Idaean cave in company with Epimenides, the great Cretan prophet and seer, who in return for the removal of the plague at Athens in 596 b. c. accepted from the grateful[Pg 53] people only a branch of the sacred olive of Athena, and refused the large sums of money which were offered, because he declared that spiritual gifts can not be bought and sold. From Epimenides and Themistoklea, the Delphic Pythia, Pythagoras received further instruction. In the course of his travels he became an initiate not only in the mysteries of India, Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, and Gaul, but also in those of Tyre and Syria.

Pythagoras studied the various branches of knowledge, especially mathematics, astronomy, music, gymnastics, and medicine, and contributed very greatly to the development of these sciences among the Greeks, for he was a man both of singular capabilities and of great acquirements. His personal appearance was noteworthy. He was very handsome and dignified; regularly dressed in white, and wore a long, flowing beard. He never gave way to grief, joy, or anger, but was accustomed to sing hymns of Homer, Hesiod, and Thales, to preserve the serenity of his mind, and he was very eminent for his power of attracting friends. The religious element was predominant in his character, and his entire life was ruled by humanitarian and philanthropic motives. He was opposed to animal sacrifice, and on one occasion purchased a large draught of fish, which had just been caught in a net, and set them free as an object-lesson in kindness.

Pythagoras was a practical occultist, and is said to have understood the "language" of animals so as to be able to converse with them and tame even the most ferocious. It is said of him that upon one occasion he was seen and heard publicly speaking at far distant places both in Italy and in Sicily, on the same day, a physical impossibility. It is also stated that he healed the sick, had the power of driving away evil spirits, foresaw the future, recognized character at a glance, and had direct communication with the gods.

Finally at the age of nearly fifty, Pythagoras went to southern Italy or Magna Graecia, after an unsuccessful attempt to establish a society in his native city, and in 529 b. c. founded the Pythagorean Brotherhood and the School of the Mysteries at Crotona. He gained extensive influence immediately and attracted great numbers of all classes, including many of the nobles and the wealthy, so that the society grew with wonderful strides and soon similar schools were established at many other cities of Magna Graecia: at Sybaris, Metapontum, Tarentum, and elsewhere. Each of these consisted of three hundred members accepted under inviolable pledges of secrecy and[Pg 54] bound to Pythagoras and to each other by the most sacred of obligations.

The statement as to the death of Pythagoras, which occurred when he was about eighty, vary. One account says that he was banished from Crotona and fled to Metapontum where he died after a self-imposed fast of forty days. Another says that he was murdered by his enemies when the temple of the school at Crotona was burned to the ground, either by the nefarious Kylon who because of his unworthiness had been refused admittance to the Brotherhood and his wicked associate Ninon, or by the frenzied townspeople. At the same time similar persecutions in the other cities where the branch schools had been established resulted in the (supposed) murder of all but a few of the younger and stronger members, who succeeded in escaping to Egypt. Thereafter individual Pythagoreans, unorganized in Schools, which were everywhere successfully suppressed, continued to keep the light burning for centuries. The doubtful point is, whether the temple and the various assembly halls of the Pythagoreans were burned at the end of the Leader's life, or about a hundred years after his banishment and death by starvation. Telauges, his "son," is said to have succeeded his father as the Head of the shattered society, but little is known of him. It is significant that the Pythagorean Brotherhood and School of the Mysteries at Crotona flourished during the last twenty-five years of the sixth century B.C., the accepted date of its overthrow being about 500 b. c.

II. The School

It was a Pythagorean maxim that "everything ought not to be told to everybody." Therefore membership in the society was secret, silent, and guarded by the most solemn forms of obligatory pledges and initiations. Members were classified as Akousmatikoi or Listeners, Probationary Members, who did not live at the School, and Mathematikoi or Students, Accepted Members, who lived with their families at the central School of the Mysteries or at one of its branches. Probably the Mathematikoi were further divided into two classes: the Pythagoristae or exoteric members, and the Pythagoreans or esoteric members.

Practically any candidate of an upright and honest life was admitted at request as a Listener, but only the fit and the worthy were accepted as Students. Listeners, wishing to become Students, were forced to pass through a period of probation lasting from two to five[Pg 55] years, during which their powers of maintaining silence were especially tested as well as their general temper, disposition, and mental capacity. A good working knowledge of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, (the four branches of Pythagorean mathematics), was required preliminary to admission to the School. Only the most approved members were admitted to the Esoteric Section. Women were admitted (an innovation from the Greek standpoint). Among these Theano was the most distinguished. She had general supervision of the women.

The members were devotedly attached to their Leader and to one another. They were enabled to recognize other members even when unacquainted by means of their secret symbols, and it is recorded: "If Pythagoras ever heard that any one used symbols similar to his, he at once made him a companion and a friend." Unquestioning loyalty was given to the counsels of Pythagoras by his disciples, for whom the ipse dixit of the master settled all controversy, and the rank and admission of candidates depended solely upon the intuitive discernment of Pythagoras, who made all appointments.

The Students wore a special dress and had vows. They were trained to endure fatigue, sleep little, dress very simply, never to return reproaches for reproaches, and to bear contradiction and ridicule with serenity. The School of the Mysteries was a school of life, not a monastery. Pythagoras did not aim to have his disciples withdraw from active life, but taught them how to maintain a calm bearing and an elevated character under all circumstances. The intention was to train them to exhibit in their personal and social capacities a reflection of the order and harmony of the universe. The membership was international.

As it was a Pythagorean maxim that "friends should possess all things in common," new members upon entering the School handed over their personal possessions to the proper official who turned them into the common treasury. A student was at liberty to depart from the School at pleasure and at his departure he was given double his original contribution, but over his former seat was erected a tomb, funeral rites were performed, and he was ever afterwards referred to by the loyal members as deceased.

Purity of life was required and temperance of all kinds was strictly enjoined. All members ate at a common refectory in groups of ten, as at the Spartan syssitia. The diet was subject to a most careful[Pg 56] regulation and consisted largely of bread, honey, and water. Animal foods and wine were forbidden. It is stated also that beans were tabooed because of their indigestibility and tendency to produce agitated dreams.

Much importance was attached to music, and to the physical exercise of the disciples. Each day began with a meditation upon how it could be best spent and ended with a careful retrospect. The students arose before the sun, and after breakfast studied for several hours, with an interval of leisure, which was usually spent in solitary walks and silent contemplation. The hour before dinner was devoted to athletic exercises. In the course of the day there were mutual exhortations not to sunder the God in each and all but to preserve the union with the Deity and with one another. The students were accustomed to visit Pythagoras at night, and went to sleep with music.

In a subsequent article some of the main tenets of the Pythagorean Brotherhood will be outlined.

CURRENT literature, from the freshly printed book to the literary columns of the daily press, affords certain unique opportunities for reviewing woman's work in the light of past achievement and future promise. Take, for instance, the single factor of woman in poetry—where past centuries number their woman poets by the twos and threes, as the last generation has done by little more than the threes and fours, the present finds them springing up thicker than clover in a fallow field and in many cases with a sweetness and fragrance in their songs as of clover blossoms themselves.

To the thinking mind this has a certain significance as relating to the inner unseen tides of that spiritual awakening now so seeming near for all mankind. For what holds poesy at its heart holds music there, and harmony and rhythm and something of that divine potency that lies in number; and with Theosophy at our doors we do not need Plato to tell us that

rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements and making the soul graceful in him who is rightly educated.

[Pg 57]

The following are a handful of poems by women—most of them, significantly enough, by wholly or comparatively unknown writers—from among the last month's journals and papers, by no means a representative list, but just a few that found their way in the natural course to the study desk. Some compel attention because of the wholesomeness of sentiment and a certain honest openness in their delivery, others because of their musical lilt and flow, still others because of both. There are a few that may live, some that of a certainty will not and that yet have a value now. But that may be said of a hastily gathered handful of anything in its era.

They are typical of a surprisingly large class, while none of those whose poems are herewith quoted, with the exception of Edith M. Thomas, have so far written very much.

The first, by Angela Morgan in the Cosmopolitan, is a real Theosophical challenge, a veritable battle-cry, with something of the trenchant force and fire that flashes and thunders from out the lines of the old Beowulf:

[Pg 59]

Perhaps more musical and exquisite in its technic is the following (by Edith M. Thomas in the Century), yet one looks in vain for the note of positive assurance that sings and rings out of the poem just quoted. Now one expects in poetry something more than rhymed philosophy, of course, and sheer beauty of rhythm has more than once endowed paucity of thought with an almost immortality. But the content is important, none the less. In the preceding poem one feels a mighty conviction forcing its way through every limitation to the goal of expression. The work of the older and better known poetess is more clearly poetic—to those who know the path and know the way its Sphinx-like questionings evoke their own answer in the deeps of consciousness. To the many, however, the first poem must reveal more.

THE UNKNOWING

Here is a sweet touch from the Kansas City Star. The very name of the writer of it is so in keeping with tender dutifulness and so suggestive of clean-swept hearths and ministries to tiny, clinging[Pg 60] hands, that one wonders if it be not a pseudonym. A miniature "psalm of daily duty" is it:

And from the same paper another ringing note on the sacredness of the day's duty—but this is no psalm, rather a trumpet call, gorgeous, full, and technically so splendid that it suggests the ancients:

TODAY

Will you have music? Then read these, so different in content, so unlike in the touch, for one is threaded through with compassion and tenderness while the other is just a little note of joy in life, which might rise out of self as well as unself in certain not yet conscious natures.

CANDLEMAS

THE WAVES OF BREFFNY

The two following poems attack the same theme, a fruitful and varied one to lovers of Lomaland where the winter rains are the year's beneficence. But note the full rich lines of the work of the unknown writer, albeit the sonnet is of course the more difficult poetic form.

THE FOUNTAINS OF THE RAIN

RAIN

Nothing is worse than bad poetry, unless it be bad art of every kind, of which the world today is having a surfeit. That we find a greater abundance of wretched verse, however, than of wretched painting and sculpture, and that there are still those who think that the poet's equipment need consist of little more than an unbalanced emotionalism, we may attribute perhaps to the fact that the pen and ink are readier to hand with the majority than palette and brush or calipers and modeling tool. Conceit and ignorance, working together, have made "to write poetry" almost a reproach.

The remedy would seem to be to diffuse a few simple truths, such as that true poetry has nothing to do with emotionalism, nor senti[Pg 63]mentality, nor bad spelling, nor with metres that "interfere," like a clumsy horse's feet; and that where one in ten thousand who care for poetry may try to write it and succeed, the rest will fail and will neglect their proper duties besides. It is so in art, in literature generally, in music, in all things—the safe path is to drop the gleam and fire and fragrance of the soul-touch into one's life in the shape of a more courageous performance of the daily task, whatever it may be, and be content with that, which is the greatest thing in the world, anyway. If the Muse should decide to pick us out, willy nilly, she has ways of letting us know. Poesy has its technic, as has all art, and sentimental ignorance can never hope to pose as inspiration among those who know.

The real point to be emphasized is that this is part of a certain outreaching on idealistic lines of which the wholly remarkable work of the young women of the present generation in music, composition, painting, and sculpture, constitutes other parts. And this outreaching towards an art expression along various lines is so general, and is so differentiated in essence from the results of ordinary scholastic work or the general movement for the higher education of woman, that it cannot justly be ignored.

Few young women will, in the ordinary course, win a separate fame along the solitary path of pure art. Most of them, and most of those who come within the radius of the influence of their aspirations and their art work, will become wives, home-makers, mothers. Many more will become teachers, or are that now, wielding potent influence. It is these who will strike the keynote for the quality of atmosphere that is to shape, as it will surround, the generations yet unborn; and, because of that, the feeling and aspiration that many of the poems seen in our current journals disclose, is important and significant at this transitional time.

[Pg 64]

IN perhaps no department of thought has appreciation of the achievements of antiquity been more inadequate than in that of astronomy. This is all the more remarkable when we remember that many facts have been published and are accessible, amply sufficient to convince any unbiased student as to the hoary antiquity of the science; and also as to the fact that in the remotest times it was a science whose exactitude surpassed that of modernity because based upon immense periods of observation and a profound knowledge of the harmonious laws underlying celestial motions; in comparison with which knowledge our generalizations and mathematical triumphs pale into insignificance.

Such statements are hardly likely to meet ready acceptance from those who have not yet realized the immense antiquity of the human race, the cyclic rises and falls of nations and races coeval with vanished continents, and the fact that there were times when humanity had divine instructors in the arts and sciences. Yet without some recognition of these basic ideas it is hardly possible to comprehend even faintly the significance of some statements made in the Sûrya-Siddhânta—one of the oldest treatises on astronomy extant. There are many others—perhaps thousands—but they are not accessible at the present time, probably because they would be still less understood.

Another thing hardly likely to be appreciated in some quarters is the fact that on account of the intimate connexion between the facts of astronomy and cyclic laws affecting human destiny, this science for long ages was one of the sacred sciences, and its deeper mysteries were carefully guarded—as they are still, for that matter.

This last consideration throws an interesting light on the performance of Hipparchos (whom our text-books dub "the father of astronomy"), for he was not only silent as to the sources of his facts, but his data have been shown to be inconsistent with his methods, and are only explainable when calculated out on the principles enunciated in the Sûrya-Siddhânta. In short, he has been thus shown to have had access to Eastern sources of information, while at the same time some things were withheld.

This is but an instance of a policy which had been pursued for a very considerable period anterior to the time of Hipparchos. Just so much was given as would afford a stimulus for investigation; for[Pg 65] humanity entered upon novel and strenuous conditions some five thousand years ago, and has had to win for itself a new path in science, as in other departments of activity.

Key-notes are sounded, and instruction given, at cyclic periods; yet man must win his own path to knowledge, and guarded sources of information could not help him, until he prove himself morally as well as intellectually fitted to advance.

This brings us naturally to a survey of modern achievement in astronomy, and the conclusion is almost irresistible that it has reached a point where further light must come, if only the enthusiastic followers of this kingly science would raise their eyes from the mechanical skeleton they have built so laboriously, and realize that the universe is living and conscious—in the interstellar spaces, as well as in the little fiery-looking balls that float therein. We should remember that it is part of human destiny to enter into the wider consciousness which alone holds the master-clues.

The above conclusion is supported by the statement of Simon Newcomb that the unsolved problems of astronomy seem to increase with every year, instead of diminishing.

It is a curious reflection, in these days of "exact" science, that real exactitude can only be obtained, as in pure mathematics, by proceeding from universals to particulars, never from particulars to universals. Yet the latter method has perforce to be adopted when no other way is in sight. That it fails, is shown by the simple fact that few of the "elements" or "constants" in modern astronomy are exactly known. No tables have yet been constructed, based upon purely mathematical formulae, which represent the actual motions, say of the superior planets. Those in the Nautical Almanac are simply derived from such hypothetical formulae, with corrections found necessary by experience extended over what is an almost ludicrously insufficient term of years. We should like to see the astronomical formula in use which would show that the obliquity of the ecliptic, 23,000 years ago, was slightly more than 27°. No longer ago than August 1905 an eclipse of the sun began twenty seconds before the predicted time.

Fortunately our astronomers do not live in ancient China, or they might have been beheaded for this want of accuracy!

On the other hand, the achievements in the domain of theory during the last two centuries or less have been so remarkable that[Pg 66] it is to be hoped the methods and facts given in the Sûrya-Siddhânta may yet receive some attention from competent mathematicians, once they perceive their importance. The apparent discrepancies with modern facts, it may be pretty safely asserted, will be found to yield valuable results upon careful analysis.

Investigators will find that, contrary to the assumptions of some critics of Eastern chronology, a "year" does not mean a day, nor a month—although it is sometimes called "a day of the gods" in Eastern writings.

One of the first things to arrest attention in the Sûrya-Siddhânta is that in a "great age" of 4320 thousand years there are exactly forty revolutions of the Earth's apsides, one revolution of which occupies 108 thousand years. (Young's General Astronomy, § 199.) The line of apsides is the major axis of the Earth's orbit. Here we glimpse a basic connexion between the great cycles of time and the apsidal revolutions.

Let us quote a few aphorisms from Book I of this ancient work.

27. By their [the planets'] movement the revolution is accounted complete at the end of the asterism Revatî.

29. In an age the revolutions of the Sun ... are 4,320,000.

30. Of the Moon 57,753,336.

31. ... of Jupiter 364,220.

32. ... of Saturn 146,568.

33. Of the Moon's apsis 488,203. Of its node, in the contrary direction 232,238.

34. Of asterisms 1,582,237,828.

36. ... From rising to rising of the Sun are reckoned terrestrial civil days.

37. Of these there are in an age 1,577,917,828. Of lunar days 1,603,000,080.

From these figures we find the mean value of the sidereal year during a cycle of 4320 thousand years to be 0.002403 of a day longer than at present, which of course means that there are slow changes in the length of the orbital major axis.

There is a point worthy of attention regarding the asterism Revatî, to which these revolutions are referred, and which is thus seen to mark the origin of the Hindû movable zodiac. The precise star has either disappeared, or has not, so far, been publicly indicated. But the place of the origin was carefully calculated in 1883, and found to have a longitude of about 20.5 degrees. Again, from the numerous facts connected with the important epoch of 3102 b. c., which marked the beginning of the current cycle of 432,000 years (See Traité de[Pg 67] l'Astronomie Indienne et Orientale, by M. Bailly, M. Acad. Franç., 1787), its place was about five degrees westward of the other. This shows it to have a positive movement of 4´´ per year, giving one complete revolution in 324,000 years.

This proper motion, if that of an actual star, is of the same order of magnitude as that of many stars. It would perhaps be interesting to glance at the relation between stellar movements and the greater cycles dealt with in ancient astronomy, for all analogy would indicate revolution in orbits to be a general law; and moreover, probabilities would indicate that our system is not too remote from the center of the stellar system. Assuming the average cross speed to be twenty miles per second, stars at 7 light-years distance would make one revolution while the Earth's apsides made four. Those at 70 light-years, one in a "great age." Those at the estimated distance of the farthest visible stars, 5000 light-years, would perform a revolution in just one manvantara of 308 million years.

Doubtless all such revolutions are superposed on other lesser revolutions down to those known, as in cases of double stars, etc. And it may be suggested that there are not improbably a number of axes of revolution, or rather principal planes of revolution, having some harmonious mutual inclination.

In order properly to relate the above mean value of the sidereal year to its present value, we should have to know our place in this cycle of 4320 thousand years; and the same observation applies to the other figures. We may return to this point at another time, as the necessary data are given in the same work. The effect of stellar proper motions, already referred to, would have to be considered.

The figures for the Moon make the mean value of the sidereal month 1.103 seconds longer than its present estimated value.

Those for Jupiter make its mean sidereal period about a quarter of a day shorter than the present one of 4332.58 days; while those for Saturn come out 6.55 days more than the present period of 10,759.22 days.

The methods of calculation and tables connected with the Sûrya-Siddhânta were rigorously applied by M. Bailly to an observed interval extending from the epoch in 3102 b. c. to a certain moment on May 21, 1282 of our era, at Benares—a period of 4383 years and 94 days; and the mean place of the Moon thus found was less than a minute of arc different from that calculated for the same interval by[Pg 68] the modern tables of Cassini. An astronomy which could achieve a result like this by methods and tables at least five thousand years old, points to the enormous duration of some prior high civilization.

The precessional movement of 54´´, peculiar to the Sûrya-Siddhânta, being referred to "Revatî" with its 4´´ direct motion, gives 50´´, like ours.

It is as well perhaps to recall what Iamblichus states:

The Assyrians have not only preserved the memorials of seven and twenty myriads [270,000] of years as Hipparchos says they have, but likewise of the whole apocatastases [planetary sidereal periods] and periods of the seven rulers of the world. (Proklos on Plato's Timaios, Bk. 1.)

H. P. Blavatsky, commenting on this, says it is

about 850,000 years since the submersion of the last large island (part of the Continent), the Ruta of the Fourth Race, or the Atlantean; while Daitya, a small island inhabited by a mixed race, was destroyed about 270,000 years ago, during the glacial period or thereabouts. But the Seven Rulers, or the seven great Dynasties of the divine kings belong to the traditions of every great people of antiquity. (The Secret Doctrine, I, 651.)

She also informs us that

The chronology and computations of the Brâhman Initiates[2] are based upon the Zodiacal records of India, and the works of ... Asuramaya. The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught astronomy, among other things, to mankind. (The Secret Doctrine, II, 49.)

Thou wilt shew me the path of life.—Psalms, xvi. 11

NOTHING so stirs the heart with gratitude as the thought of the Great Souls who have opened the Path, who keep it open, and who guide the steps of the hungry searching multitude to its entrance. They have carved the way through the rock of matter. They have waded through the mires of delusion. They have cleared away the confusing and entangling underbrush of doubt. They have hewn down the mighty obstructions. With dauntless courage each one has destroyed the dragon which guarded the treasure from himself, thus inspiring all who follow. They have erected signposts all along the journey, and [Pg 69]with their hearts' blood have written thereon the messages which every pilgrim may read, and so avoid one step amiss. Not only this, but having achieved the goal, they have retraced their steps again and again, to direct the uncertain feet of the children of earth, to combat ignorance, vice, and injustice; to encourage, uplift, and teach. Though unseen in many times and places, it is they who keep the lights burning.

Terrible as are the difficulties, the discouragements, the disasters, which the human children encounter, it is the Great Souls who prevent them from being impossible; who ward off the clouds of despair lest they settle over the globe like a pall of darkness paralysing all effort. Without these Elder Brothers all would be lost in the labyrinth of matter, never finding the thread which could lead them out. But to be without them is inconceivable, unthinkable; for all must sometime find the Path and tread it. No means have been omitted to make it plain. All nature exists but to point the way. All experiences, all events, difficulties, disappointments, all good, as well as so-called bad fortune: all tend to the same issue. It has been described in every language of heart or head, that all, even the beasts of the fields, in some vague way, may hear and gradually understand.

One of those who has gone before and returned to show the path to others, said: "I am the Way." Another, with a different sidelight on the same truth, said: "Each man is to himself absolutely the way." For each one in traveling it, does so by passing through the mazes of his own personality, first as one blindfolded, then as one slowly awakening to its meaning, and finally as one consciously subduing and transmuting it. And when he has reached the goal, he becomes the way. His whole being is an expression, an exposition of the way—the mystic Path, which lies within and yet without; which is so far, and yet so near. Light on the Path expresses it as follows:

Seek out the way.... Seek it not by any one road. To each temperament there is one road which seems the most desirable. But the way is not found by devotion alone, by religious contemplation alone, by ardent progress, by self-sacrificing labor, by studious observation of life. None alone can take the disciple more than one step onward. All steps are necessary to make up the ladder. The vices of men become steps in the ladder, one by one, as they are surmounted. The virtues of men are steps indeed, necessary—not by any means to be dispensed with. Yet, though they create a fair atmosphere, and a happy future, they are useless if they stand alone. The whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter the way.

[Pg 70]

THAT San Diego has the greatest of futures before it, who shall deny? Katherine Tingley, Leader of The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, foresaw its destiny, saw its possibilities, fifteen years ago, and began forthwith to lay the foundations of peculiar greatness for it. There are thousands of cities in the United States, doubtless in Canada too, centers in all the new worlds established from Europe, that have before them a huge metropolitanism, and are to grow populous beyond the Old World capitals. Why not? The wind of increase bloweth where it listeth, and we can only safely prophesy change and reversion, change and reversion. Where the deserts are now, dwelt of old the builders of sky-scrapers; aeroplanes soared over lands the oceans cover; and Dreadnoughts floated and made war, perhaps, where now are Alps and Andes. Here is a land in its beginnings; many millennia lie before it in which to grow. We need the grand vision when we look out on the ages to be; only so can we sow the right seeds for their harvesting. We cannot tell what nations or cities are destined for high material greatness; probably there is room for every one to hope. But for San Diego a peculiar and more excellent fate is reserved, whose falling she may hasten by her clear-sightedness, or retard by her perversity; still, it lies before her. She is to be the City of Righteousness, the metropolis of the world's culture, the Mecca of distant generations of poets, artists, philosophers, and musicians. It is not mainly her own citizens who make this claim. They, with all their high ambitions, with all their golden dreams, are hardly alive to the great possibilities of the town.

In an age pre-eminently of material progress, it is natural to lay most stress on the material advantages of site, climate, etc. So there is no end to the writing on the Bay—the one bay between San Francisco and somewhere far away in Mexico—with all it offers for commerce and for strategy; or on the unwearying efforts of the sun; on the glorious hinterland, so rich and beautiful; or the new railway that is to open it up, and link San Diego with the east; on partial awakenings at Washington to the great strategic importance of this town, and the certainty that these partial awakenings must become whole-hearted and thorough some time, and bear fruit a thousandfold. Time, time, time—there is time for all these things. Innumerable palaces will be seen, surrounding this blue jewel of a bay; looking down on it from amidst exquisite parks and gardens on the [Pg 71]
[Pg 72]
[Pg 73]heights; there will be drives as famed as any in Switzerland or Italy. Nature herself has provided for this; and the tide of empire is rolling westward.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

VIEW OF SAN DIEGO WITH A GLIMPSE OF THE BAY
CORONADO IN THE DISTANCE

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

THE U. S. GRANT HOTEL, FROM THE PLAZA, SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

Time and again San Diego has been named with two cities of the Old World; and there is something instructive in either comparison. She is "the Naples of California," and again, "the Athens of the Pacific Coast." Cuyamaca has been likened to Vesuvius, and our bay to the Bay of Naples. Indeed, no doubt there is a physical resemblance. The conditions that made Naples are largely historic; but then they are largely climatic, and matters of situation, also. As for history, the history of San Diego lies before her. All historic conditions—Camorra, lazzaroni, plague, pestilence, national inefficiency, vice, and famine, or the blessings which are the reverse of all these—are the fruitage of one cannot say what tiny seeds sown, one cannot say when or how often. You take a child, and give it no training or bad training in its first years: it was the offspring of highly cultured parents, perhaps; but what disasters may not lie before it? On the other hand, you take a child, who has had no advantages, and give it a Râja Yoga training such as Katherine Tingley is giving to so many at Point Loma and elsewhere—such, in truth, as only Katherine Tingley knows how to give—and you need set no particular limits to the hopes you hold for that child's future. There is a great parallelism with this in the early years of a city or community.

Up and down the world there are a thousand cities, as was said, with huge material destinies lying before them, which by their very situation they will not be able to escape. But in how many cases have they not been without far foresight in their youth, to guard them against the perils of that most perilous time? "They sow their wild oats," we say; a phrase that is meant to cover a multitude of iniquities. One can no more cheat the Law with such an excusive expression, than one can write an I O U for one's debts, and comfortably thank God that one need think no more of them. He who has sown his wild oats may have gained a certain wisdom and experience out of the sufferings resultant from them; but he will never be the man he might have been. He will have lowered the whole of his possibilities, and can pay thereafter only so much per cent of his debt to the world and humanity.

Climate and situation might have prepared for San Diego only such a fate as that of Naples; and there are other elements of possible[Pg 74] danger as well, which it would require no ordinary wisdom and foresight to guard against. Indeed, have there not been revelations here and there in our cities, which should make us judge charitably the home of the Camorra? But now there are many thousands up and down the world who believe in San Diego; who cannot think she will fail or fall into gross error; who already look on her as a Mecca for their hopes; who know that she will shed light around the world. Reference is made, of course, to the great membership of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, which has its ramifications among all the peoples of the globe. For them, San Diego rose above the horizon when Katherine Tingley declared her intention, some fifteen years ago, to found the City of Learning, the World's Theosophical Headquarters, on the heights of Point Loma, within the city limits of San Diego. They had reason even then to know that what Katherine Tingley says she will do, is done; and they have had a million times more reason for that certainty given them since.

When this famous humanitarian came to San Diego, grass was growing in some of the streets there, where there should have been boulevards bustling with life. The old first "boom" had long since spent itself, helped to its grave by ready inimical hands; and there seemed no special reason for its resurrection. It was then that she made her promises. This little city of the quiet streets should come to be, not the Naples, but the Athens of the west. It should have population; it should have riches and commerce and splendor; it should flourish abundantly when its enemies had long since faded out and been forgotten; and all this was the very least and most insignificant part of its destiny. There should be a new and timelong age of Perikles here; new Phidian studios; new Groves of Akademe. Time—we must not be niggardly with that, perhaps; these things should not be in a day; but assuredly they should be.

It will be asked, on what grounds Katherine Tingley based these promises of hers. The answer is: on her own intentions with regard to the place; and on her knowledge of the laws that govern the growth of civic and national life. Is there no knowing the future? The farmer sows his seed under the impression that there is. He has cultivated the soil; plowed and fertilized it; now he can put the seed in with a certain confidence. Only it is not everybody that understands the preparing for these greater national or civic harvests.

It is safe to say that from that time the second great San Diego[Pg 75] boom dates. The Theosophical Center was started on Point Loma, and from the first has been attracting life to the city across the bay. This is not the place to give statistics as to the number of thousands of dollars that have been spent in San Diego each year; nor as to the amount of labor that has been employed. From the start it was enough to give the city that new impetus of life which was needed—a fact proven by the rise in the population from 17,000 to 50,000 in ten years.

Then came the founding of the Râja Yoga system of education, with its first and chiefest exemplification in the College on Point Loma. Do all our citizens realize what this has meant for the city? On merely material lines, for example? Not only from the eastern States, but from Europe and Asia as well, hundreds have made the pilgrimage to San Diego to investigate the Râja Yoga College and system on the Point. They have gone away and filled their own lands with the rumor of the fame of this wonderful new thing that has its Headquarters—at San Diego. The press of England, of Japan, of Germany, of Holland, of Sweden, have been made abundantly aware of the fame of this Theosophical Center—at San Diego. A Greek play is given in the open-air theater on Point Loma, San Diego—and we read critiques of it in the morning papers of Bavaria. We pick up a Tokyo magazine of current date, and find in it a picture of a group of children who are receiving their education at Point Loma, San Diego. Katherine Tingley landed in Liverpool in the summer of 1907; and the next morning's London papers teemed with accounts of her—pages of accounts of her—and of her colossal and beneficent undertaking at Point Loma, San Diego. And so on, and so on, and so on. With the best facilities in the world and a genius for advertising, and with the expenditure of millions, San Diego could hardly have advertised herself in the way that Mrs. Tingley, through her Theosophical work, has caused her to be advertised; and it has cost San Diego nothing.

But all this has been merely, or mainly, for the material advantage of the city. A man (or a place) may acquire a false fame, that he cannot or will not live up to; and he will be paid with contempt later, more oppressive than the obscurity he had at first. Mrs. Tingley has done more than this. She has laid down the lines, and labored without ceasing, for the real advance and benefit of the city. Is it nothing that San Diego should have in its core a Center such as this Theo[Pg 76]sophical one at Point Loma—a center where the higher life is being lived, where money is not the motive, where the greatest effort of the age is being made to uplift humanity? The greatest effort? Yes; because the one that knows best what must be done to attain success, and on what foundations in the nature of man this success must be based.

Consider her fame throughout the world; her fame as an orator, that will crowd the biggest halls in any city in Europe, and bring hundreds to the doors who cannot gain admission. There may be some other living Americans of whom as much can be said; but there are not many. How many visitors are attracted to San Diego yearly by Katherine Tingley's famous work at Point Loma, and because this world-renowned orator will certainly be speaking at the Isis Theater twice or three times, or perhaps more often, in each season? And what will be the result of these many speeches of hers, that so many thousands have heard?

The result may not be so visible yet that "he who runs may read"; neither is the result of the great fertilizing you gave your field—until the grain has sprouted, and the brown earth is covered with greenness. But the result is that seeds of coming greatness, in a real sense—seeds of a higher, cleaner, saner life—have been sown in the life and thought of the city. In time you shall see the harvest. It will be a clean city, such as Calvin, for example, strove to make of his Geneva; a city without stain or blemish, without saloon or redlight. Beyond that, it will be a city perhaps of many theaters, in which the highest, the most classical and beautiful of the world's dramas will be shown—and in which there will never be anything shown approaching the commonplace, the vulgar, the stupid. It will be a City Beautiful, a place of marvelous architecture, exquisite gardening. It will be a city whose press will be clean, elevating, unsensational, instructive; a press that will not lie nor slander nor touch personal themes; that will give the news, and not rake hell and the gutters, fact and fancy, for all kinds of nauseousness and nonsense; a press that will be a model to the press of the world. From all the world the best people will be sending their children to be educated here.

There is no limit to the high possibilities of San Diego—the high possibilities that Katherine Tingley has helped to make possible. How long, O San Diego, before these things shall be? It is for you to answer; it is for you to answer.

[Pg 77]

Established for the Benefit of the People of the Earth and all Creatures

OBJECTS

THIS BROTHERHOOD is part of a great and universal movement which has been active in all ages.

This Organization declares that Brotherhood is a fact in Nature. Its principal purpose is to teach Brotherhood, demonstrate that it is a fact in Nature, and make it a living power in the life of humanity.

Its subsidiary purpose is to study ancient and modern religions, science, philosophy and art; to investigate the laws of Nature and the divine powers in man.

H. P. BLAVATSKY, FOUNDRESS AND TEACHER

The present Theosophical Movement was inaugurated by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in New York in 1875. The original name was "The Theosophical Society." Associated with her were William Q. Judge and others. Madame Blavatsky for a time preferred not to hold any outer official position except that of Corresponding Secretary. But later, in 1888, she dissolved a Center in France and cancelled its by-laws, which action was afterwards formally ratified by the Executive Council of the Society. Referring to this she wrote in her English magazine as follows:

This settles the question of the actual right of the Corresponding Secretary—one of the founders—to interfere in such exceptional cases when the welfare and reputation of the Theosophical Society are at stake. In no other, except such a case, would the undersigned have consented or taken upon herself the right of interfering.

Later she assumed the Presidency of the British Section of the Theosophical Society. Further, in response to the statement published by a then prominent member in India that Madame Blavatsky is "loyal to the Theosophical Society and to Adyar," Madame Blavatsky wrote:

It is pure nonsense to say that "H. P. B. ... is loyal to the Theosophical Society and to Adyar"(!?). H. P. B. is loyal to death to the Theosophical cause and those Great Teachers whose philosophy can alone bind the whole of Humanity into one Brotherhood.... The degree of her sympathies with the Theosophical Society and Adyar depends upon the degree of the loyalty of that Society to the CAUSE. Let it break away from the original lines and show disloyalty in its policy to the cause and the original program of the Society, and H. P. B., calling the T. S. disloyal, will shake it off like dust from her feet.

All true students know that Madame Blavatsky held the highest authority, the only real authority which comes of wisdom and power, the authority of Teacher and Leader, the real head, heart, and inspiration of the whole Theosophical Movement. It was through her that the teachings of Theosophy were given to the world, and without her the Theosophical Movement could not have been.

BRANCH SOCIETIES IN EUROPE AND INDIA

In 1878 Madame Blavatsky left the United States, first visiting Great Britain and then India, in both of which countries she founded branch societies. The parent body in New York became later the Aryan Theosophical Society and HAS ALWAYS HAD ITS HEADQUARTERS IN AMERICA; and of this, William Q. Judge was President until his death in 1896.

To one who accepts the teachings of Theosophy it is plain to see that although Theosophy is of no nationality or country but for all, yet it has a peculiar relationship with America. Not only was the United States the birthplace of the Theosophical Society, and the home of the Parent Body up to the present time, but H. P. Blavatsky, the Foundress of the Society, although a[Pg 78] Russian by birth, became an American citizen; William Q. Judge, of Irish parentage and birth, also became an American citizen; and Katherine Tingley is American born. America therefore not only has played a unique part in the history of the present Theosophical Movement, but it is plain to see that its destiny is closely interwoven with that of Theosophy; and by America is meant not only the United States or even the North American continent, but also the South American continent, and, as repeatedly declared by Madame Blavatsky, it is in this great Western Hemisphere as a whole, North and South, that the next great Race of humanity is to be born.

ENEMIES OF PROGRESS

While the main object of the Society from the first was to establish a nucleus of Universal Brotherhood, there were some, we regret to state, who joined the Society from far different motives. Many were wholly sincere in their interest and efforts to benefit the human race, but as in other societies, so in this, there were a few who entered its ranks seeking an opportunity to gratify their ambition and love of power. Still others, in their carping egotism thought that they knew more than their Teacher, H. P. Blavatsky, and were jealous of that Teacher, and later of the one whom she left as her successor and Teacher in her place.

Thus it was that there were attacks from the very first against the teachings of Theosophy, but more than all against the one who brought again these teachings to the world—Madame H. P. Blavatsky—and on handing the guidance of the Theosophical Movement on to her successors they too have been subject to similar attacks from the forces of evil, whose very existence is threatened by the spread of the teachings of Theosophy, which are the teachings of truth.

Madame Blavatsky's mission was in part to tear down the materialism of the age on one hand, and dogmatic domination on the other, and this made for her many bitter enemies. It was not long before enmity and unbrotherliness met her on every side, and these culminated in a plan to overthrow the influence of Theosophy and discredit her before the world. It was in India, in 1884, that this plan unfolded. Two ingrates, (French people, man and wife) who had been befriended by Madame Blavatsky when they were starving and ragged, and who later attempted to blackmail some of the members of the Society, and confessed themselves to be bribe-takers, liars, and forgers, associated themselves with the Christian College of Madras, India, and sought to destroy Madame Blavatsky and her work. It was afterwards discovered—admitted by the missionaries themselves, and published in the Madras Mail—that these missionaries had agreed to pay a large sum of money to the above-referred-to people for letters of Madame Blavatsky. These letters, as was afterwards proven, were gross forgeries.

At the same time the Psychical Research Society sent out as its agent a young man who had just left college, to investigate and make a report. This young man, wholly inexperienced, had all his traveling expenses paid on his long trip of sight-seeing, and no doubt felt that he must make some report to warrant the large outlay for his expenses, and in order to earn his salary. The whole source of this young man's information, on which he based his report, was the testimony of the two people above referred to, who later confessed their fraud. Furthermore, the young man published as his own a drawing made by William Q. Judge of something that the young man had no possibility of seeing, as it did not exist in that state when the young man ar[Pg 79]rived in India. Nevertheless, the Psychical Research Society accepted the young man's unsupported testimony, without asking for any answer from Madame Blavatsky, nor did they ask her friends, but made their report solely on the testimony of two perjured ingrates, and of a young man, who appropriated the work of another as his own.

MADAME BLAVATSKY FOUNDS THE ESOTERIC SCHOOL
HER LIFE-LONG TRUST IN WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

In 1888, H. P. Blavatsky, then in London, on the suggestion and at the request of her Colleague, William Q. Judge, founded the Esoteric School of Theosophy, a body for students, of which H. P. Blavatsky wrote that it was "the heart of the Theosophical Movement," and of which she appointed William Q. Judge as her sole representative in America. Further, writing officially to the Convention of the American Societies held in Chicago, 1888, she wrote as follows:

To William Q. Judge, General Secretary of the American Section of the Theosophical Society:

My dearest Brother and Co-Founder of the Theosophical Society:

In addressing to you this letter, which I request you to read to the Convention summoned for April 22nd, I must first present my hearty congratulations and most cordial good wishes to the Society and yourself—the heart and soul of that body in America. We were several to call it to life in 1875. Since then you have remained alone to preserve that life through good and evil report. It is to you chiefly, if not entirely, that the Theosophical Society owes its existence in 1888. Let me thank you for it, for the first, and perhaps for the last time publicly, and from the bottom of my heart, which beats only for the cause you represent so well and serve so faithfully. I ask you also to remember that on this important occasion, my voice is but the feeble echo of other more sacred voices, and the transmitter of the approval of Those whose presence is alive in more than one true Theosophical heart, and lives, as I know, pre-eminently in yours.

This regard that Madame Blavatsky had for her Colleague William Q. Judge continued undiminished until her death in 1891, when he became her successor.

THE TRUE AND THE COUNTERFEIT

In giving even such a brief sketch as the present necessarily is of the objects and history of the Theosophical Society, it is nevertheless due to all honest and fair-minded people that an explanation should be given why there are small bodies of people here and there which are labeled Theosophical but which are in no way endorsed or recognized by the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society. These small bodies have sprung up from year to year in different parts of the world, and though in the aggregate their efforts and influence have been weak, they have nevertheless been more or less successful in misleading honest minds from the truth. It becomes a duty therefore to call attention to these matters and to give warning lest others be misled. In other words a distinction must be drawn between the true and the counterfeit.

Madame Blavatsky, in 1889, writing in her Theosophical magazine published in London, said that the purpose of the magazine was not only to promulgate Theosophy, but also and as a consequence of such promulgation, "to bring to light the hidden things of darkness." She further says:

As to the "weak-minded Theosophists"—if any—they can take care of themselves in the way they please. If the "false prophets of theosophy" are to be left untouched, the true prophets will be very soon—as they have already been—confused with the false. It is high time to winnow our corn and cast away the chaff. The Theosophical Society is becoming enormous in its numbers, and if the false prophets, the pretenders, or even the weak-minded dupes, are left alone, then the Society threatens to become very soon a fanatical body split into three hundred sects—like Protestantism—each hating the other, and all bent on destroying the truth by monstrous exaggerations and idiotic schemes and shams.[Pg 80] We do not believe in allowing the presence of sham elements in Theosophy, because of the fear, forsooth, that if even "a false element in the faith" is ridiculed, the latter is "apt to shake the confidence" in the whole.

... What true Christians shall see their co-religionists making fools of themselves, or disgracing their faith, and still abstain from rebuking them publicly as privately, for fear lest this false element should throw out of Christianity the rest of the believers.

The wise man courts truth; the fool, flattery.

However it may be, let rather our ranks be made thinner, than the Theosophical Society go on being made a spectacle to the world through the exaggerations of some fanatics, and the attempt of various charlatans to profit by a ready-made program. These, by disfiguring and adapting Occultism to their own filthy and immoral ends, bring disgrace upon the whole movement.—Lucifer, Vol. iv, pp. 2 & 3.

THE DUTY OF A THEOSOPHIST

In regard to the above it should be remembered that Madame Blavatsky wrote this in 1889 and had in view certain people who were advocating immoral teachings and practices in the sacred name of Theosophy, and it shows clearly what she would have done and what would be a Theosophical duty should ever a similar occasion arise. Thanks to the safe-guarding of the Theosophical Movement by the Constitution of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, such cannot ever arise in the Society itself, but just as there is no legal means of preventing anyone from calling himself a Christian however much his life may depart from the teachings and ideals of the Teacher whose name he so dishonors, so there is no means of preventing unworthy people from using the sacred name of Theosophy and giving out teachings or advocating practices which are absolutely contrary to the teachings of Theosophy as given first by our Teacher, H. P. Blavatsky, and later by her successors, William Q. Judge and Katherine Tingley.

It is a matter of great regret that we have to refer to these things, but although unpleasant it is nevertheless a duty. It is for the above-named reasons and to forestall misconception on the part of the public that we make mention here of those enemies to true Theosophy who sprang up not only outside but within the ranks of the Society. H. P. Blavatsky had her enemies and those who sought to discredit her not only before the public but before her own students; and so too William Q. Judge had his, and Katherine Tingley has hers also. In fact, was there ever a Teacher who came to do good and help humanity who was not maligned and persecuted?

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE ELECTED PRESIDENT FOR LIFE

In 1893 there openly began what had been going on beneath the surface for some time, a bitter attack ostensibly against William Q. Judge, but in reality also against H. P. Blavatsky. This bitter attack threatened to disrupt the whole Society and to thwart the main purpose of its existence, which was to further the cause of Universal Brotherhood. Finally the American members decided to take action, and at the annual convention of the Society held in Boston in 1895, by a vote of 191 delegates to 10, re-asserted the principles of Theosophy as laid down by H. P. Blavatsky, and elected William Q. Judge president for life. Similar action was almost immediately taken by members in Europe, Australia, and other countries, in each case William Q. Judge being elected president for life. In this action the great majority of the active members throughout the world concurred, and thus the Society was relieved of those who had joined it for other purposes than the furtherance of Universal Brotherhood, the carrying out of the Society's other objects, and the spiritual freedom and upliftment of Humanity.[Pg 81] A few of these in order to curry favor with the public and attract a following, continued among themselves to use the name of Theosophy, but it should be understood that they are not connected with the Theosophical Movement.

KATHERINE TINGLEY SUCCEEDS WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

One year later, in March 1896, William Q. Judge died, leaving as his successor Katherine Tingley, who for several years had been associated with him in the work of the Society. This Teacher not only began immediately to put into actual practice the ideals of Theosophy as had been the hope and aim of both H. P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge, and for which they had laid the foundations, thus honoring and illustrating the work of her illustrious predecessors, but she also struck a new keynote, introducing new and broader plans for uplifting humanity. For each of the Teachers, while continuing the work and building upon the foundations of his predecessor, adds a new link, and has his own distinctive work to do, and teachings to give, belonging to his own time and position.

No sooner had Katherine Tingley begun her work as successor, than further attacks, some most insidious, from the same source as those made against H. P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge, as well as from other sources, were inaugurated against her. Most prominent among those thus attacking Katherine Tingley were some referred to by Madame Blavatsky in the article above-quoted (pp. 79-80), who by their own actions had removed themselves from the ranks of the Society. There were also a few others who still remained in the Society who had not joined hands with the disintegrators at the time the latter were repudiated in 1895. These now thought it to their personal advantage to oppose the Leader and sought to gain control of the Society and use it for political purposes. These ambitious agitators, seeking to exploit the Society for their own ends, used every means to overthrow Katherine Tingley, realizing that she was the greatest obstacle to the accomplishment of their desires, for if she could be removed they expected to gain control. They worked day and night, stooping almost to any means to carry out their projects. Yet it seemed that by these very acts, i. e., the more they attacked, the more were honest and earnest members attracted to the ranks of the Society under Katherine Tingley's leadership.

KATHERINE TINGLEY GIVES SOCIETY NEW CONSTITUTION
SOCIETY MERGES INTO BROADER FIELD OF WORK

To eliminate these menacing features and to safeguard the work of the Theosophical Movement for all time, Katherine Tingley presented to a number of the oldest members gathered at her home in New York on the night of January 13th, 1898, a new Constitution which she had formulated for the more permanent and broader work of the Theosophical Movement, opening up a wider field of endeavor than had heretofore been possible to students of Theosophy. One month later, at the Convention of the Society, held in Chicago, February 18th, 1898, this Constitution was accepted by an almost unanimous vote, and the Theosophical Society merged itself into the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society. In this new step forward, she had the heartiest co-operation and support of the vast majority of the members throughout the world. Only a few were unable to accept the wider opportunity now afforded them and removed themselves from the ranks, seeking other fields in which to exploit their ambitious plans. The members were truly greatly relieved that the Constitution of the Society made it virtually impossible for[Pg 82] agitators to remain members. The Society in order to fulfil its great mission must necessarily be unsectarian and non-political, and any attempts to use it for political purposes would be subversive of its high aims and have always been discouraged by our Leaders. As the years went on, it appeared that there were still a few not yet prepared to co-operate fully in the broader interests of the Society, and these finally dropped out.

THEOSOPHY IN PRACTICE

It is of interest here to quote our Teacher's own words regarding this time. In an article published in the Metropolitan Magazine, New York, October, 1909, she says:

Later, I found myself the successor of William Q. Judge, and I began my heart work, the inspiration of which is partly due to him.

In all my writings and associations with the members of the Theosophical Society, I emphasized the necessity of putting Theosophy into daily practice, and in such a way that it would continuously demonstrate that it was the redeeming power of man. More familiarity with the organization and its workers brought home to me the fact that there was a certain number of students who had in the early days begun the wrong way to study Theosophy, and that it was becoming in their lives a death-like sleep. I noticed that those who followed this line of action were always alarmed at my humanitarian tendencies. Whenever I reminded them that they were building a colossal egotism instead of a power to do good, they subtly opposed me. As I insisted on the practical life of theosophy, they opposed still more. They later exerted personal influence which affected certain members throughout the world. It was this condition which then menaced the Theosophical Movement, and which forced me to the point of taking such action as would fully protect the pure teachings of Theosophy and make possible a broader path for unselfish students to follow. Thus the faithful members of the Theosophical Movement would be able to exemplify the charge which Helena Petrovna Blavatsky gave to her pupils, as follows:

"Real Theosophy is altruism, and we cannot repeat it too often. It is brotherly love, mutual help, unswerving devotion to truth. If once men do but realize that in these alone can true happiness be found, and never in wealth, possession or any selfish gratification, then the dark cloud will roll away, and a new humanity will be born upon the earth. Then the Golden Age will be there indeed."

Here we find William Q. Judge accentuating the same spirit, the practical Theosophical life:

"The power to know does not come from book-study alone, nor from mere philosophy, but mostly from the actual practice of altruism in deed, word, and thought; for that practice purifies the covers of the soul and permits the divine light to shine down into the brain-mind."

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

On February 18, 1898, at the Convention of the Theosophical Society in America, held at Chicago, Ill., the Society resolved, through its delegates from all parts of the world, to enter a larger arena, to widen its scope and to further protect the teachings of Theosophy. Amid most intense enthusiasm the Theosophical Society was expanded into the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, and I found myself recognized as its leader and official head. The Theosophical Society in Europe also resolved to merge itself into the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, and the example was quickly followed by Theosophical Societies in other parts of the world. The expansion of the original Theosophical Society, which Madame Blavatsky founded and which William Q. Judge so ably sustained, now called the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, gave birth to a new life, and the membership trebled the first year, and ever since that time a rapid increase has followed.

KATHERINE TINGLEY'S PRACTICAL HUMANITARIAN WORK
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT GIVES ASSISTANCE

In 1898 Katherine Tingley established the International Brotherhood League, the department of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society for practical humanitarian work, and under its auspices rendered aid to thousands of soldiers at Montauk after the close of the Spanish-American War. Later she took a relief expedition into Cuba, the United States Government affording[Pg 83] her free transportation for physicians, nurses, and supplies. Thus began her work in Cuba, which has resulted in the establishment of Râja Yoga Colleges at Santiago de Cuba, Santa Clara, and Pinar del Rio, and now in preparation at San Juan on the site of the famous battlefield which Katherine Tingley has recently purchased.

In these Colleges, besides the world-famous Râja Yoga College at Point Loma, a great educational work is being carried on in which are being taught the highest ideals of patriotism and national life in addition to the development of character and the upbuilding of pure-minded and self-reliant manhood and womanhood to the end that each pupil may be prepared to take an honorable self-reliant position in the world's work. Other school sites acquired by Mrs. Katherine Tingley are in the New Forest, England, and also on the Island of Visingsö, Sweden.

INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS AT POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA

In 1900 the Headquarters of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society were moved from New York to Point Loma, California, which is now the International Center of the Theosophical Movement. This Organization is unsectarian and non-political; none of its officers or workers receives any salary or financial recompense.

In her article in The Metropolitan Magazine above referred to, Katherine Tingley further says:

The knowledge that Point Loma was to be the World-center of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, which has for its supreme object the elevation of the race, created great enthusiasm among its members throughout the world. The further fact that the government of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society rests entirely with the leader and official head, who holds her office for life and who has the privilege of appointing her successor, gave me the power to carry out some of the plans I had long cherished. Among these was the erecting of the great Homestead Building. This I carefully designed that it might not stand apart from the beautiful nature about it, but in a sense harmonize with the sky, the distant mountains, the broad blue Pacific, and the glorious light of the sun.

So it has been from the first, so that the practical work of Theosophy began at Point Loma under the most favorable circumstances. No one dominated by selfish aims and ambitions was invited to take part in this pioneer work. Although there were scores of workers from various parts of the world uniting their efforts with mine for the upbuilding of this world-center, yet there was no disharmony. Each took the duty allotted him and worked trustingly and cheerfully. Many of the world's ways these workers gladly left behind them. They seemed reborn with an enthusiasm that knew no defeat. The work was done for the love of it, and this is the secret of a large part of the success that has come to the Theosophical Movement.

Not long after the establishment of the International Theosophical Headquarters at Point Loma, it was plain to see that the Society was advancing along all lines by leaps and bounds. Letters of inquiry were pouring in from different countries, which led to my establishing the Theosophical Propaganda Bureau. This is one of the greatest factors we have in disseminating our teachings. The International Brotherhood League then opened its offices and has ever been active in its special humanitarian work, being the directing power which has sustained the several Râja Yoga schools and academies, now in Pinar del Rio, Santa Clara, and Santiago de Cuba, from the beginning. The Aryan Theosophical Press has yearly enlarged its facilities in answer to the demands made upon it through the publication of Theosophical literature, which includes The Theosophical Path and several other publications. There is the Isis Conservatory of Music and Drama, the Department of Arts and Crafts, the Industrial Department, including Forestry, Agriculture, Roadbuilding, Photo-engraving, Chemical laboratory, Landscape-gardening, and many other crafts.

DO NOT FAIL TO PROFIT BY THE FOLLOWING

Constantly the question is asked, what is theosophy, what does it really teach? Each year the life and work of H. P. Blavatsky and the high ideals and pure morality[Pg 84] of her teachings are more clearly vindicated. Each year the position taken by William Q. Judge and Katherine Tingley in regard to their predecessor, H. P. Blavatsky, is better understood, and their own lives and work are seen to be actuated by the same high ideals for the uplifting of the human race. Each year more and more people are coming to realize that not all that goes under the name of Theosophy is rightly so called, but that there is a counterfeit Theosophy as well as the true, and that there is need of discrimination, lest many be misled.

"THEOSOPHIST IS WHO THEOSOPHY DOES"

From the earliest days of the present Theosophical Movement has it been necessary to make this distinction, but there is one unfailing test expressed in the words of H. P. Blavatsky: "Theosophist is who Theosophy does." In the past many have been attracted to the ranks of the Society through motives other than those which lead, not only to the study of Theosophy, the Wisdom-Religion, but to the making of it a factor of purification of their daily lives; some seeking admission from motives of ambition or other self-interest, some for mere entertainment or for the acquirement of so-called "occult" powers—thinking they could gain the knowledge without the practice of Theosophy, the first step of which is altruism; and some from mere curiosity, hoping to find in Theosophy a new fad. The presence of such pseudo-Theosophists in the ranks has at times necessitated drastic action, and on one or two occasions reorganization of the whole Society in order that it might be held to its original high ideals and the lines on which it was founded. And though the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society is not for saints, the demand is made upon all who are in its ranks that there shall be a constant effort to live up to its high ideals of purity and altruistic endeavor, that there shall be practice and not mere theory, and that both by word and deed the lives of the members shall be an example to all men and especially to the young.

In certain cases as before referred to, those who have been removed from the ranks of the Society have with their associates formed small centers of their own, using the name Theosophy and to some extent the writings of Madame Blavatsky. This has caused confusion in the minds of some who look at things merely superficially, accepting the professions of people without regard to their motives or lives; and hence it is necessary from time to time to clear the air, as it were, and, sweeping away the veneer of mere profession, show the facts as they really are.

Counterfeits exist in many departments of life and thought, and especially in matters relating to religion and the deeper teachings of life. Hence, in order that people who are honestly seeking the truth may not be misled, we deem it important to state that the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society is not responsible for, nor is it affiliated with, nor does it endorse, any other society which, while calling itself Theosophical, is not connected with the International Theosophical Headquarters at Point Loma, California. Having a knowledge of Theosophy, the ancient Wisdom-Religion, we deem it as a sacred trust and responsibility to maintain its pure teachings, free from the vagaries, additions, or misrepresentations of ambitious self-styled Theosophists and would-be teachers. The test of a Theosophist is not in profession, but in action, and in a noble and virtuous life. The motto of the Society is "There is no religion higher than Truth." This was adopted[Pg 85] by Madame Blavatsky, but it is to be deeply regretted that there are no legal means to prevent the use of this motto in connexion with counterfeit Theosophy, by people professing to be Theosophists, but who would not be recognized as such by Madame Blavatsky.

It is a regrettable fact that many people use the name of Theosophy and of our Organization for self-interest, as also that of H. P. Blavatsky, the Foundress, and even the Society's motto, to attract attention to themselves and to gain public support. This they do in private and public speech and in publications. Without being in any way connected with the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, in many cases they permit it to be inferred that they are, thus misleading the public, and honest inquirers are hence led away from the original truths of Theosophy.

The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society welcomes to membership all who truly love their fellow men and desire the eradication of the evils caused by the barriers of race, creed, caste, or color, which have so long impeded human progress; to all sincere lovers of truth and to all who aspire to higher and better things than the mere pleasures and interests of a worldly life, and are prepared to do all in their power to make Brotherhood a living energy in the life of humanity, its various departments offer unlimited opportunities.

The whole work of the Organization is under the direction of the Leader and Official Head, Katherine Tingley, as outlined in the Constitution.

OBJECTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD LEAGUE

1. To help men and women to realize the nobility of their calling and their true position in life.

2. To educate children of all nations on the broadest lines of Universal Brotherhood and to prepare destitute and homeless children to become workers for humanity.

3. To ameliorate the condition of unfortunate women, and assist them to a higher life.

4. To assist those who are or have been in prisons to establish themselves in honorable positions in life.

5. To abolish capital punishment.

6. To bring about a better understanding between so-called savage and civilized races, by promoting a closer and more sympathetic relationship between them.

7. To relieve human suffering resulting from flood, famine, war, and other calamities; and, generally, to extend aid, help, and comfort to suffering humanity throughout the world.

Joseph H. Fussell
Secretary

Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society.

International Headquarters Point Loma, California.

BOOK LIST

OF WORKS ON
THEOSOPHY, OCCULTISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND ART

PUBLISHED OR FOR SALE BY

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY

INTERNATIONAL THEOSOPHICAL HEADQUARTERS
POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.

The office of the Theosophical Publishing Company is at Point Loma, California

It has no other office and no branches

FOREIGN AGENCIES

THE UNITED KINGDOM—Theosophical Book Co., 18 Bartlett's Buildings,
Holborn Circus, London, e. c., England

GERMANY—J. Th. Heller, Vestnertorgraben 13, Nürnberg

SWEDEN—Universella Broderskapets Förlag, Barnhusgatan, 10, Stockholm

HOLLAND—Louis F. Schudel, Hollandia-Drukkerij, Baarn

AUSTRALIA—Willans and Williams, 16 Carrington St., Wynyard Sq., Sydney, N. S. W.

CUBA—H. S. Turner, Apartado 127; or Heredia, Baja, 10, Santiago de Cuba

MEXICO—Samuel L. Herrera, Calle de la Independencia, 55 altos, Vera Cruz, V. C.

Order above from the Theosophical Publishing Company, Point Loma, California.
The following in other languages may be procured by writing direct to
the respective Foreign Agencies (see first page) for Book List and prices.

GERMAN

An ihren Früchten sollt Ihr sie erkennen—Wer ist ein Theosoph?—Was Theosophie über manche Punkte lehrt und was sie weder lehrt noch billigt
Ausbildung der Konzentration (von William Q. Judge).
Das Leben zu Point Loma (Katherine Tingley). Schön Illustriert. (Recommended)
Die Bhagavad-Gîtâ (nach der englischen Ausgabe von William Q. Judge).
Die Wissenschaft des Lebens und die Kunst zu leben
Echos aus dem Orient (von William Q. Judge).
Studien über die Bhagavad Gîtâ (William Q. Judge).
Theosophie Erklärt
Rückblick und Ausblick auf die theosophische Bewegung
Wahrheit ist mächtig und muss obsiegen!
Postkarten mit Ansichten von Point Loma

Theosophische Handbücher:

DUTCH

Die Bhagavad-Gîtâ: Het Boek van Yoga; with Glossary. Bound in morocco or paper
De Kleine Bouwers en Hun Reis naar Rangi; een Geschiedenis voor Kinderen door
R. N. (met illustraties van R. Machell)
De Oceaan der Theosophie (door William Q. Judge)
De Ridders van Keizer Arthur—Een Verhaal voor Kinderen, door Ceinnyd Morus
Drie Opstellen over Theosophie. In verband met Vraagstukken van den Dag
Echo's uit het Oosten; een algemeene schets der Theosophische Leeringen door William Q. Judge (Occultus)
Het Leven te Point Loma, Enkele Aanteekeningen door Katherine Tingley
Hoogere en Lagere Psychologie. Enkele Aanteekeningen door Katherine Tingley
(met Portret en Illustratie)
H. P. Blavatsky En William Q. Judge, De Stichters en Leiders der Theosophische Beweging (Leerling). pp. 42
Katherine Tingley, de Autocraat (De Geheimen van de Leer van het Hart)
Licht op het Pad (door M. C.) Bound in morocco or paper
Pit en Merg, uit sommige Heilige Geschriften, 1^e Serie
Inhoud: Theosophie en Christendom. "Niemand kan twee heeren dienen."
Iets Meerders dan de Tempel. Een Gezicht des Oordeels. De Mensch Jezus
Pit en Merg van de Eindigende en Komende Eeuw, en de daarmede in betrekking staande positie van Vrijmetselarij en Jesuitisme, door Rameses

Theosophical Manuals, Series No. 1

Theosophical Manuals, Series No. 2

No. 1 Psychometrie, Clairvoyance, en Gedachten-Overbrenging

SWEDISH

Den Hemliga Läran, 2 band (H. P. Blavatsky)
Nyckel till Teosofien (H. P. Blavatsky)
Astral Berusning, Devachan, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Brev, som hjälpt mig (William Q. Judge)
Den Cykliska Lagen, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Dolda Vinkar i den Hemliga Läran, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Dödsstraffet i Teosofisk Belysning. m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Reinkarnationsläran i Bibeln, Om Karma, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Studier över Bhagavad-Gîtâ (William Q. Judge)
Teosofiens Ocean (William Q. Judge)
Vetenskapen och Teosofien, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Övning i Koncentration (William Q. Judge)
Hemligheterna i Hjärtats Lära (Katherine Tingley och hennes lärjungar)
En Intervju med Katherine Tingley (Greusel)
Katherine Tingley, af M. F. N. (levnadsteckning)
Existenslinjer och Utvecklingsnormer (Oscar Ljungström)
Kan ett T. S. sakna morallag? (Protest möte)
Teosofi och Kristendom, Genmäle till Prof. Pfannenstill (Dr. G. Zander och F. Kellberg)
Asiens Ljus (Edwin Arnold)
Bhagavad Gîtâ, Hängivandets bok
Den Teosofiska Institutionen (Baker)
Frimureri och Jesuitvälde (Rameses)
Ljus på Vägen
Lotusblad, för barn
Lotussångbok, ord och musik
Râja Yoga, Om Själens Utveckling
Skillnaden mellan Teosofi och Spiritism
Stjärnan, Sago- och Poemsamling, för barn
Teosofiens Innebörd
Tystnadens Röst
Visingsö (Karling)

Teosofiska Handböcker
Enkelt och lättfattligt skrivna framställningar av Teosofiska läror
Klotband. Pris för varje bok, kronor 2.00

PERIODICALS

Subscriptions to the above five Magazines may be secured also through
The Theosophical Publishing Co., Point Loma, California, U. S. A.

Neither the Editors of the above publications, nor the officers of The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, or of any of its departments, receive salaries or other remuneration. All profits arising from the business of the Theosophical Publishing Co., are devoted to Humanitarian work. All who assist in that work are directly helping that cause.

THE PATH
The Theosophical Path
An International Magazine
Unsectarian and nonpolitical

Monthly Illustrated

Devoted to the Brotherhood of Humanity, the promulgation
of Theosophy, the study of ancient & modern
Ethics, Philosophy, Science and Art, and to the uplifting
and purification of Home and National Life

Edited by Katherine Tingley
International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma, California, U.S.A.

Man ought to be ever striving to help the divine evolution of Ideas, by becoming to the best of his ability a CO-WORKER WITH NATURE in the cyclic task. The ever unknowable and incognizable Kârana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart—invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through "the still small voice" of our spiritual consciousness. Those who worship before it, should to do so in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls;[3] making their spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to the Presence.—H. P. Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, page 280

The Theosophical Path

MONTHLY ILLUSTRATED

EDITED BY KATHERINE TINGLEY

NEW CENTURY CORPORATION, POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.

Application for entry as second class matter at the Post Office at
Point Loma, California, pending.
Copyright, 1911, by Katherine Tingley

[Pg 86]

Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

SCENE FROM "THE AROMA OF ATHENS," A GREEK DRAMA GIVEN AT POINT LOMA IN APRIL, 1911,
BY KATHERINE TINGLEY AND STUDENTS AT THE INTERNATIONAL THEOSOPHICAL HEADQUARTERS
CENTRAL FIGURES ARE: PHEIDIAS SEATED, PERIKLES STANDING

[Pg 87]

KATHERINE TINGLEY, EDITOR

I produced the golden key of Pre-existence only at a dead lift, when no other method could satisfy me touching the ways of God, that by this hypothesis I might keep my heart from sinking.—Henry More

THEOSOPHY AND MODERN SCIENTIFIC
DISCOVERIES: by Charles J. Ryan

THE attitude of the leaders of science and philosophy concerning the significance and probable causes of natural phenomena has greatly changed since 1888 when H. P. Blavatsky wrote her magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine. The comfortable feeling that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is ripe for our picking, or at least very nearly so, has largely disappeared with the widening of our perceptions gained through the surprising discoveries in physics, chemistry, psychology, etc., of the intervening period. Happily for the world, the truly leading minds of the present day in science and philosophy are escaping from the crass materialism into which they seemed to be sinking not so long ago; the "camp followers" are also catching up.

Paradoxically, and yet naturally, the more we have learned of Nature's methods, the less dogmatic we have become. The present, although a time of great fertility in the production of theories, is one of comparative modesty in the putting forth of assertions that such a thing cannot be, or that such another is against established laws and therefore not to be investigated. We are seeing something similar in the affairs of nations—new experiments in statecraft are being tried in apparently unlikely places.

The wisdom of the ancients is being more justly estimated; the cheap sneers against their scientific attainments are less often heard. The newest Chemistry regards the much-derided Alchemy more sympathetically; the latest Psychology finds that Mesmer was not the[Pg 88] complete fraud alleged by the materialism of the nineteenth century. A well-founded suspicion is arising that our own civilization is not on the rightest basis, and that it has neglected many of the sterling virtues of the past in favor of luxury and ease. The claims of the older religions of the world are more fully acknowledged as worthy of respect; the Theosophical idea is dawning upon the people of Christendom that they are not all foolishness.

In her presentation of the teachings of Theosophy, the ancient Wisdom-Religion, H. P. Blavatsky had to devote a large amount of time to a dissection of the dogmatic claims of the materialistic science of the nineteenth century. It was only natural, of course, that the leaders of scientific research, and a large number of the rank and file, just emancipated from the fetters of dogmatic theology, should have proclaimed their new theories of life in very positive terms, and should have attributed greater finality to them than now seems possible. In the latter quarter of the nineteenth century the reaction towards the negation of the spiritual was going too far, so it became part of H. P. Blavatsky's duty to show in what the materialistic hypotheses were as deficient as the superstitious dogmas they were trying to supplant, while admitting, of course, that as iconoclastic weapons of destruction they served a necessary purpose. And who can deny the far-reaching effect of her work. Almost every magazine article or book on advanced lines offers palpable traces of the ideas she had to bring to the attention of the Western world; not only the principles, but often the very expressions originated in the Theosophical literature, are becoming widely spread. The thinking world is rapidly—more rapidly than the earlier students of Theosophy dared to hope—reaching the place where some at least of the teachings of Theosophy will be accepted among the unprejudiced everywhere, as the only logical thing; when this is done we may reasonably expect further clues to the understanding of natural law, from the source whence H. P. Blavatsky drew her inspiration. At the present time it is the practical demonstration of the basic principles of Theosophy in conduct, such as is found in the lives of the Theosophical students under Katherine Tingley, that is the greatest need of humanity. There is plenty of theory; let us see it work out in the changed lives of the multitude.

It may prove interesting and not unprofitable to glance at a few of the recent developments on scientific and philosophic lines which are now moving in the Theosophical direction.

[Pg 89]

The enormous antiquity of man, which was until lately frowned upon severely, is now a perfectly safe subject to teach: man's residence on earth is no longer considered to be a matter of thousands of years but of hundreds of thousands. The "Englishman's" skeleton of the Thames valley of which we have lately heard so much is conservatively reckoned to be 170,000 years old, and the "Gibraltar woman" is believed to have flourished half a million years ago or more! Neither of these antique personages represents the "missing link" in the least. The English skull is well-developed and of modern type; the woman's is not quite so good. Well, from 4004 b. c.—until lately the supposed date of man's creation according to Western belief founded on false interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures—to the five or six hundred thousand years now accepted, is a big jump. It is bigger in proportion than that from the half million to the eighteen millions of years that man has been embodied, according to the Theosophical records, which yet has to be made. We shall probably not have to wait long to see a further extension of time demanded and granted.

It is noteworthy, and particularly interesting to students of Theosophy, that an increasing number of biologists are inclining to the belief that the human mind did not develop through an immensely protracted series of years, but that it came almost to its present perfection very quickly; that there was, in fact, a sort of incarnation of mind into the highest and most suitable animal form available. The famous Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, the "co-discoverer of Darwinism," uses many convincing arguments in favor of the high intelligence of "primitive" man. He says that

Our intellectual and moral nature has not advanced in any perceptible degree.

A writer in Records of the Past, says:

A further evidence of the high intelligence of primeval man is found in the manner in which he maintained himself against the swarms of monstrous and ferocious beasts by which he was surrounded. Not only did he hold his own against them, but even, so we are told, exterminated many of them. We must remember also that man achieved this astounding victory over these mighty animals by means of stone weapons, which were of the rudest possible character. His triumph therefore, was solely due to his wonderful intelligence.

The civilized inhabitants of modern India have not been able to exterminate the devastating tigers and snakes, etc., whose toll of human lives is still very heavy.

[Pg 90]

According to Theosophy, "primitive" man in Europe was as the successor of a highly civilized man who lived ages before on the sunken continent of Atlantis, passing through a cycle of degradation as a consequence of his abuse of his opportunities in previous incarnations. Though the cubic capacity of the skulls of the earliest primitive races, so-called, is about the same as that of modern races, the possession of a large brain does not imply that they had a high civilization. This can be seen clearly in the case of the Eskimo, who have even more capacious skulls than some highly civilized races. A low condition of life amid a people who possess good brain development means either the presence of undeveloped Egos of limited experience, or of those who are suffering disabilities in consequence of past wrong-doing. In either case they are necessarily using the physical vehicles provided by heredity. H. P. Blavatsky says the evil Karma (the influence set in motion by past actions) generated by the sins of the Atlanteans heavily handicapped those Egos when they reappeared on the newly-forming European and Asiatic (in part) continents, and prevented them for long ages from rising out of the primitive conditions in which they found themselves.

It is a fact that man's mind is an incarnation from something very different from the material plane; it comes into humanity from its own plane. The Theosophical teachings show how each of the complex "principles" or constituents which compose the human personality, the vehicle of the Immortal Ego, is derived from its own plane or source, i. e., the physical body from the material, molecular world; the body-center of passions and desires from the plane or world of Desire, Kâma-Loka; and so forth. This is fully explained in the Theosophical literature, especially, of course, in the writings of the Theosophical Leaders. It is a most important clue, leading to many practical consequences, owing to the better understanding it gives of the causes of many of our human sufferings, of the rationale of the death-process, of the spread of epidemics, both physical and mental, and so forth. Theosophy does not fall into the materialistic error of imagining that mind is the product of some jugglery of blind forces playing with the molecules of inert matter—that the less can be the origin of the greater. When our psychologists have learned how the mind comes from its own plane, evolving in its own way, and incarnating in material forms to help them on in their evolution, they will find a new sphere of research, and the text-books will have to be rewritten.

[Pg 91]

While the idea, now being dimly suspected by some anthropologists, that man's mind is not the result of a very long and slow development from the beast, is correct according to the records of Theosophy, we must remember that the incarnation of the "Manas" or Thinker, which made incomplete man into the perfect septenary he is today, took place long before the temporary decline of the "primitive" man after the disappearance of Atlantis. One eminent scientist at least, Professor F. Soddy, F. R. S., lecturer on physical chemistry and radio-activity at Glasgow University, has lately suggested that in his opinion some great civilization may have existed (long before the "primitive" Stone Ages) which ruined itself and descended into barbarism by the abuse of the power to disintegrate matter and so to release forces of terrible potency whose existence the discovery of the properties of radium has faintly revealed to us, but which we have, fortunately, not the slightest idea how to unloose. Theosophy tells us that something of the kind did happen; but the mind of man was even then long ages posterior to the time when the "Sons of Mind" settled into the forms which only then, properly, could be called mankind.

For many years the existence of hundreds of giant portrait-statues on the wild volcanic Easter Island, two thousand miles from the coast of South America, has been known, and their origin and meaning is still one of the greatest of the world's enigmas. What was the mysterious race that carved them? How is it that such works, which obviously required the presence of a large and intelligent population, should be found on such a small island, so far from the continental lands? Archaeologists in general seem to avoid the problem; certainly no adequate theory has been advanced by the recognized authorities to meet the case. H. P. Blavatsky gave us the key to the mystery when she briefly described parts of the pre-Atlantean continent of Lemuria: Easter Island is an Atlantean vestige of that really primitive land whose truly primeval inhabitants were of larger proportions than ourselves. Well, lately we have seen three or four articles in different American and other magazines discussing the problem and trying to explain it upon the very lines of the Theosophical teachings, no other being considered reasonable.

During the past ten years the trend toward the Theosophical interpretations of some of the most pressing astronomical problems has[Pg 92] been very marked. The re-opening of questions hither considered closed or else insoluble, has been an interesting feature of recent times. For instance, the belief that gravitation alone explained the movements of the stars has been seriously shaken lately, and, if we may venture to prophesy, it looks as if physics will have to return to the ancient and Theosophical acceptance of dual forces, attraction and repulsion—perhaps magnetic—to explain the new problem of astronomy, having found that gravitation is only a half-understood truth, as Theosophy teaches. In his inaugural address, Professor Bergstrand, newly appointed to the chair of astronomy at the university of Upsala, Sweden, made a special point of the fact that some utterly unknown force or forces besides gravitation must be operating to explain some of the newest discoveries in stellar physics. He was alluding particularly to the binding together of certain groups of stars in connected drifts across the depths of space. Several of such drifting collections of stars moving together across the vast depths of kosmos at equal speed are now known. There would not be anything so extraordinary in this, and nothing that might call for the postulate of some unknown law, but for the fact that in some cases members of the same star-group are found at far distant parts of the heavens separated from each other by many other stars drifting in various directions between them—our sun for one. What is the mysterious binding tie, and how may it be reconciled with the known action of gravitation? One of the fundamental principles in nature, according to Theosophy, is the Duality of manifested forces: in The Secret Doctrine H. P. Blavatsky treats of this very fully, plainly declaring that the other half of gravitation will have to be reckoned with before long by physical science in the West. In the East there is practical knowledge of it, among a chosen few.

The newest speculations about the processes of solar and planetary development from nebulae are bound to lead to the discovery of the truth of the Theosophical teaching that there is an archetypal world, a world of causes, lying concealed behind all manifested material forms. Once this is admitted by scientists, once a sane metaphysical basis for the universe is found logically necessary, there will be a great change in the way of looking at phenomena, including the problem of human life, and we know that what the most advanced thinkers proclaim will be followed before long by the great mass; see, for instance,[Pg 93] the strong effect the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection, incomplete and materialistic as it is, has already made in every department of modern thought. Of course the acceptance of a merely metaphysical foundation for the facts recorded by our ordinary senses does not mean the acceptance of the reality of a spiritual world; that is a far deeper problem, and has to be approached through the experience of the intuition, trained and untrained, but a long step will be made when it is thoroughly realized that the material plane is not the plane of ultimate causes.

According to one of the nebular hypotheses of today the collision of two suns, (dark and "dead" or otherwise) crashing into each other at tremendous speed, results in a vast nebula, in which, owing to the enormous heat produced, the atoms would be reduced to the state of "corpuscles," the root of matter on our plane, all alike, and without any of the characteristics of the elements, even in the most rudimentary form; there would be no metallic vapors, no gases, not even helium or coronium, nothing but the primitive corpuscular basis of matter. Then, as the nebula formed by the collision condensed and perhaps cooled, it would begin to rebuild its substance into the well-known elements, combinations would take place, and the evolution of a new solar system would be started. But now arises the important question: What causes the perfectly homogeneous or uniform "corpuscular" substance, the mass of sub-atoms of unknown nature, to perform the astonishing feat of transforming itself into the marvelous complexity we find even in the simplest star? The problem is similar to that of the egg. In a new-laid egg the great mass of its constituent materials is structureless, but in a short time of incubation the eggshell is completely filled with a most complicated living organism. Is it not clear that behind both nebula and egg there must be an archetype or model form, invisible to ordinary eyesight, which is being used as the pattern into which the simple materials are being woven? and that there are Builders, who know the plan and work it out in a conscious harmony that we call the correlation of "natural laws"? "Blind forces," "necessity," "unconscious laws," are meaningless terms which only disguise ignorance, or stave off the anti-materialistic and dreaded so-called "teleological" view that there must be "a Divinity that shapes our ends."

Theosophy offers as a fact, demonstrable from the very presence[Pg 94] within of the higher, divine nature, that men in time will attain the stature of Creative powers, Builders of future world-systems, just as the Higher Beings who are the guides and directors of the present evolution were once men and lower than men in past aeons. Evolution of men will not stop with the perfecting of the mental and moral nature; once the godlike nature of the Higher Self is admitted, it follows that there can not be a limit assigned beyond which man may not go.

There may be some truth in the collision-theory of the origin of certain nebulae; it seems to explain the sudden appearance of "temporary stars," at least; but, by its very nature, it cannot explain the origin of the universe of suns as a whole. Again, after each collision the speed of the new body formed from the material of the two colliding spheres would be less than their combined speed, because much or all of their motion would be arrested and transformed into the energy which would be needed to scatter their substance in all directions. If two equal bodies, moving at equal speed, met in a line joining their centers, the resulting nebula would have no motion at all. It has been pointed out that if the collision theory alone is relied upon to explain the structure of the universe it must fail, because during the infinity of past time a condition of absolute stagnation would have been attained, the universe would have "run down," nothing being left but one gigantic dead and dark globe!

In this idea of "running down" there is a paradox, which is apparent enough, and we need not trouble to follow it further. We have to seek a reasonable hypothesis—a theory such as Theosophy presents of a universe which can wind itself up again after it has finished its cyclic career—a theory which does not overlook the fact that the material cosmos is the manifestation of intelligent Mind. The impressive system which was worked out in the Orient (and before that elsewhere) ages ago, of the transformation of energies from visible to invisible planes under Cyclic or Periodic Law, the universality of alternations of manifestation and rest, clears up the primary difficulties of the case. It is to H. P. Blavatsky, the great Theosophist, that we are indebted for making this reasonable hypothesis clear. Fortunately, the time-spirit of science in this century is less atheistic than that of the nineteenth, and the broad principle of Theosophy, that there are great spiritual Beings, the glorious efflorescence of past ages of development, guiding and controlling the formation and maintenance of the worlds, is becoming the subject of serious consideration among[Pg 95] some of the most advanced thinkers, for the atheistic hypothesis that matter "runs itself" is almost at its last gasp.

In another subject, the nature of Light, many new and interesting speculations are being advanced as the result of the discoveries of the extraordinary properties of radium and the x-rays. To students of Theosophy these are significant, for H. P. Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine, goes deeply into the question whether light is an actual substance of some kind, or a mere undulation of an ethereal medium. She points out some of the difficulties of both theories, giving special attention to Sir W. Grove's celebrated lecture in 1842 wherein he considered he proved that light and heat must be affections of matter itself, and not the effects of an imponderable fluid—a finer state of matter—penetrating it. Sir Isaac Newton held to the Pythagorean theory that light was made of almost infinitely minute corpuscles, but the phenomenon of diffraction is supposed to have upset this. H. P. Blavatsky does not reject the wave theory as part of the explanation, but she contends that the ultimate causes of light, heat, and electricity must be sought in a form of matter existing in supersensuous states, states, though, "as fully objective to the spiritual eye of man as a horse or a tree to the ordinary mortal"; and, above all, that these forces and others are "propelled and guided by Intelligences." She devotes many chapters of the third part of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine to this subject, throwing an entirely new light upon it in its deeper bearings, and showing the enormous importance of a proper understanding of it if we are ever to learn our true relationship with the external universe. She says:

To know what light is, and whether it is an actual substance or a mere undulation of the "ethereal medium," Science has first to learn what are in reality Matter, Atom, Ether, Force. Now, the truth is, that it knows nothing of any of these, and admits it. (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I p. 482)

Since she wrote The Secret Doctrine, though hardly twenty-three years have elapsed, several discoveries in physics and chemistry have been made which have greatly modified the scientific view as to the nature of the atom, of the electric current, and of matter in general; all these modifications are leading straight in the direction of her teachings. It is even claimed that

Matter can vanish without return.... Force and matter are two different forms of one and the same thing.... By the dissociation of matter, the stable[Pg 96] form of energy termed matter is simply changed into those unstable forms known by the name of light, heat, etc. (Evolution of Matter, by Gustave Le Bon)

This leads to the startling suggestion that what is force on this plane may be substantial on another, and we are now seeing, as a result of the study of the x-rays, and the [alpha], [beta], [gamma] rays of radium, all of which can pass through ordinary matter with ease, a revival of the ancient and supposedly extinct theory held by Newton, and others before him, that light is a body composed of corpuscles—whatever they may be. Professor Bragg, of the Leeds University (England), has been investigating the problem with great care, with the result that he has come to the conclusion, as he announced to the members of the Royal Institution, London, the other day, that the "gamma" rays of radium and the x-rays are corpuscular, and not merely pulsations in the ether. He thinks they are probably electrons, corpuscles of negative electricity

which have assumed a cloak of darkness in the form of sufficient positive electricity to neutralize them.

It seems also that as ultra-violet light, which exists in ordinary sunlight, possesses many of the properties of the above rays, Professor Bragg may not be far wrong in his further suggestion that it also may be corpuscular in its nature. He asked, very pertinently, that if this light be corpuscular, why may not all other forms of light be so? When we recollect that the "corpuscles" themselves are a purely metaphysical concept, it is plain that science is moving rapidly towards a very different and far more reasonable and Theosophical idea of the universe than the materialistic one. Vivat!

THE Bridges of Paris are of distinctive interest and their very names suggest in part the fascinating panorama of French history and legend—Tolbiac, Bercy, Austerlitz, Sully, Marie and Louis Philippe, Notre Dame, Pont San Michel, Solferino, La Concorde, Alma, Iéna, Passy, etc. The Seine flows for seven miles through the city and is at its widest (nearly 1000 feet) at the extremity of the island called La Cité. This island communicates with the right bank of the Seine by the bridges of Notre Dame and Au Change. The latter, as is evident from the familiar device sculptured above the piers (see illustration), was built by the first Napoleon.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

PARIS: THE PONT AU CHANGE AND THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

PARIS AND THE SEINE

[Pg 97]

The Palais de Justice is located in La Cité and the Greek façade by Duc is considered one of the finest examples of this style in modern architecture.

From the Boulevard du Palais on the east it is separated by a magnificent eighteenth-century railing in wrought iron and gilt. On this side lie the Salle des Pas Perdus and the Sainte-Chapelle. The fine square tower known as the Clock Tower stands at the corner formed by the Quai du Mord and the Boulevard du Palais; and on the north side lies the Conciergerie prison with the dungeon once occupied by Marie Antoinette.—Gaston Meissas

International Theosophical Headquarters,
Point Loma, California

[Pg 98]

"USE with care those living messengers we call words." So said William Q. Judge, a very wise man.

The misuse of words seems a trifling matter to those who habitually misuse every function of mind and body; but the results of perversion are disastrous to body, mind, and soul. The misuse of terms, when not due to ignorance of their legitimate meaning, is in itself an indication of a perverted mind diseased by habitual misuse of the functions of both body and mind, which two are so intimately related as to share inevitably the consequences of right or wrong living.

The words we use and the way we use them are not mere accidents but are sure indications of our mental condition, and the mind and body are so mutually responsive that it is hard to say which affects the other and which is the affected one, for habits of body are induced by habits of mind and the mind in turn is influenced by the bodily condition resulting from those habits. With self-indulgence as the unfortunate rule of life, and with the ignorance of our own nature and of our relation to others, which is almost universal, it is not surprising that wrong living should be the general rule, and that misuse of the powers of mind and body should be so common; nor is it at all strange that there should be so much unhappiness in the world, nor need we marvel if people in these conditions should think that their sufferings, mental and physical, are due to everything except their own misconduct. And if men can not see that they are indeed the makers of their own sufferings, how shall they be able to realize their responsibility to others? With selfishness as the rule of life, and with ignorance of our interdependence, and of our intimate union one with another throughout the whole world, it is quite natural that we should feel little responsibility to others for the effects we produce in the world by the use or misuse of words: a responsibility that is increased by the spread of education and by the increase in the number of persons who read without thinking, and who take thoughts from books as they take water from a tap, unquestioning as to its quality. Pure water is now recognized as essential to health and is supplied in all civilized communities, but pure language and pure thought are left to chance; and while the supply of literature is as plentiful as the supply of water, the quality of our literature is not subject to the same scrutiny as is our water-supply, and the stream[Pg 99] of thought that flows through the channels of our publications is frequently contaminated by unhealthy and unwholesome matters. Purity of thought and purity of words are essential values, for words are embodied thoughts, and from thoughts spring deeds, and the deeds of man are his life.

The responsibility of writers and speakers has hardly yet been recognized; though illustrations of the dangers of trifling with essential values, or of misusing talents, or indeed of perverting from its right use any function, are actually supplied by some of our brilliant writers, who have recklessly and often ignorantly become apostles of mere degeneracy and powerful instruments for the demoralization of the people. Even those who see the evils scarcely seem to appreciate either the causes or the consequences of the corruption of literature and the confusion of language.

Some recent reviewers, however, have begun to question more closely the character of the influence exercised upon the world by some writers, whose works have excited general or special admiration, even calling some of them defaulters, for that, holding great talents, they have used the light they held to dazzle the eyes and to confuse the minds of others, so as to make them blind to the path of right living, which is virtue or morality.

One of these critics, Paul Elmer More, literary editor of the New York Evening Post, in a study of the influence of Walter Pater, distinctly suggests that the author confused the truth and in fact misrepresented history, reading his own desires and inclinations into the teachings of Plato in one case, and in another of doing the same for Christianity, making them appear to exalt sensuous beauty above spiritual beauty which is the soul of virtue; whereas Plato himself exclaims: "When anyone prefers beauty to virtue, what is this but the real and utter dishonor of the soul?" Mr. More suggests that Christianity is equally misrepresented by this brilliant writer, but in his perversion of the real meaning and purpose of true Christianity he is simply drifting with the tide of so-called Christian civilization, which has been, almost from its first appearance as a politically established religion, a clear departure from those teachings concerning the Christos in man, attributed to Jesus, the supposed founder of the system, and which in their original purity are identical with Universal Theosophy of which they are a part and upon which they are drawn.

Further, Mr. More suggests that the demoralizing effect of Pater[Pg 100] may have largely affected that brilliant apostle of decadence, Oscar Wilde, whose tragic collapse in the hour of his literary success drew attention to an evil whose ravages have ruined multitudes of lives and wrecked every civilization that has become tainted with the poison of perversion. For this man exalted perversion into a cult, his wit was entirely based upon it, his ethics steeped in it, and his own life wrecked by it. He himself shows that he was not unaware of the truth, at times, for he wrote:

And later, in that awful page of the tragedy of a fallen soul, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, there is a sort of blind recognition of the justice of Karma, which tolerates no perversion of Nature's order on any plane, coupled with a noble and generous plea for the removal of the unnecessary horrors of the prisons, in which we grind out the last vestige of man's inherent love of virtue, and crush the last buds of growth that the fallen soul may yet be able to put forth.

Here again was one, who exalted the beauty of the senses above the beauty of the soul, and so soiled the whole nature and so perverted the mind, which is the mirror of the man, that he produced a vortex of vice, in which all who entered were bewildered and lost their guiding star; in which many were utterly wrecked, and all defiled.

Professor Henderson in his critical interpretation of five authors, points out so much of the evil that one can only regret that his grasp of true psychology was not deep enough to enable him to make more clear the distinction between the spiritual soul and the animal soul (not to go further into the complex nature of the Soul), the great duality in man that is the clue to all these mysteries. With this key one feels that his study of Maeterlinck's philosophy would have become more luminous, for surely this is a case, in which an author continually confuses his audience, and perhaps also himself, by exalting the sensuous joys of the animal soul, and the emotions of the imagination, above the pure joy of true beauty, which is, as all poets, not only Keats, have seen, the same as truth. Keats himself may have known the difference, but his readers certainly must in most instances have[Pg 101] been misled and may have found in his lines a justification of their own indulgence of morbid tastes, for however morbid may be a man's condition he will still see beauty in pleasure of any kind, no matter how vile may be its source. We may endorse the axiom in the first line

but must protest against the fallacy in the next line

No! we need to know what we mean by beauty, and we need to know that the word conceals pitfalls innumerable for him who has no knowledge of the true nature of man, for one who thinks he is his body, and who believes his passions are the voices of his soul and who mistakes the intoxication of sensuality for spiritual illumination, lust for love, and perversion for genius. We need the teaching so clearly given in "The Two Paths" translated by H. P. Blavatsky from The Book of the Golden Precepts. We need to know that there is a chasm deep as hell between these two souls in man, and that when the higher nature is the slave of the lower then the man is in hell indeed; for as said by H. P. Blavatsky, there is no other hell than that of a man-bearing planet. Those who have stood on the brink of this hell with even partially opened eyes, know that the terrors of hell invented by churchmen are but as a comic interlude to the reality of horrors that life on earth holds for masses of humanity, and from which there is no escape except by the path of right living, based upon right perception of our own true nature, and discrimination between the higher and the lower nature in man, which is so often veiled by the false teachings of perverted minds. We need the truth to discriminate the spiritual beauty that is pure joy from the sensual beauty that intoxicates, blinds, and destroys the life—and we need the guiding power of pure altruism to make our writings useful to others and a full recognition of the responsibility of those who now so lightly use "those living messengers we call words."

[Pg 102]

NO question is agitating us more than that of how to educate our young people. We know there is something wrong about our achievements in education, but we are often mistaken as to where the fault lies. The commonest mistake is to confound principles with practice and to blame the former where perhaps it is the latter which is at fault. We fail to carry out certain plans, and we blame the plans and want to make a clean sweep of them; when perhaps inefficiency in applying them is what is really the matter. In fact, it is probably inefficiency, rather than wrong principles, that is the matter with our educational doings, as it is in the case of so many others of our doings. Before we condemn a method, we should ask whether that method is being given a fair trial. If we sweep away the system, without removing the general inefficiency, then the same failure will attend our efforts to apply any new system that may be devised. We shall have exchanged one evil for another.

There is more than one side to every question; but many of the utterances on the educational difficulty give only one side. The result is views that are extreme and ill-considered. Let us take a case.

Much of education is considered by some critics to be superfluous and wasted, for the reason that it seems to bear no immediate and visible fruit. Hence they wish to abolish it. Yet it is always possible that it may bear fruit after all, but not of the kind they are able to see. Take, for instance, the case of a girl of ordinary type, without any definite characteristics whether good or bad. She is sent to school and college. She is taught algebra and geometry, Latin and Greek, music and painting, with many other subjects. She is reasonably clever and absorbs all this with interest and ease. She leaves college—and never again opens a book. The whole is quietly forgotten with as much nonchalance as it was acquired. Is all the time and money and effort, on the part of pupil and teachers, wasted?

Or let it be a boy, who has been taught similar subjects, but takes up a calling in which they are not used. Is the instruction wasted? The question arises in various forms, of which these two cases may be taken as typical examples.

If it is true that the education thus given is really wasted, what folly could be greater than that of continuing to impart it! Yet we know that somehow the view taken is too extreme; that it is not in accordance with the fitness of things that work involving so much[Pg 103] zeal, enthusiasm, and other good qualities should fall fruitless; that people would not go on doing it if they did not have some intuition that the labor is not really in vain.

In short, may it not be possible that this is one of those cases in which a dilemma has arisen through the limitation of our knowledge of human nature and the laws of life; a dilemma resolvable by the wider knowledge shed by Theosophy? A knowledge of Reincarnation, the dual nature of man, and other related matters, clears up many of the enigmas of life, as for instance what becomes of all the abilities and experience which a man has garnered during life, when he dies. May not a similar knowledge shed light on the present problem also? If so, then our beliefs would be reconciled with our intuitions, and practices which logic has seemed to condemn might be vindicated in the light of fuller knowledge.

For one thing, a conviction of the continuity of individual existence beyond the grave, in other earth-lives, more or less similar to the present life, affects the whole question profoundly. For we may at once infer that knowledge accumulated now, but not immediately used, may be used later on. And indeed this idea quite agrees with what many analogies from Nature suggest. Youth is the time for study; maturer age brings other duties. Let us compare a lifetime with a day. In the morning a man studies many subjects; but after noon he shuts his books, never thinks of them again, and spends the remainder of the day in other occupations, followed by recreation and ending in sleep. Has his labor been wasted? Nay, for he will resume it next morning. Can we not apply this analogy to the case of the young person whose education has had, or seemed to have, no immediate practical result?

We thus see how limited views as regards the duration of life may influence the question. But there are other limitations in our views; let us see how these in turn may affect the question.

We are accustomed to pay too much attention to a man's capacity as a separate individual, and not enough to his capacity as a part of a whole. No being in the universe is entirely separate from other beings however much he may try to make himself so or imagine himself to be so. This is especially applicable to Mind. How much of our mind is our own? It has been argued that Mind is a kind of common atmosphere, in which all partake, and that thoughts are interchanged freely, the notion that they belong particularly to oneself being chiefly[Pg 104] an illusion. The more this is true, the more it must be true that in teaching one person we are in reality teaching many persons, teaching mankind in general. Does a teacher teach persons or minds? To him it often seems as if he were developing Mind, and the distinction of personalities is apt to disappear. Yet this attitude on his part may not be mere carelessness and indifference to the interests of his pupils; it may be founded on an intuitive perception of the fact that personality does not count for so much and that his pupils also have a collective capacity, an aggregate value, which counts for a great deal.

Another way in which we limit our outlook, and thus obtain a false perspective, is in regarding too intently the immediate (and, as we say, "practical") outcome of education. There is such a thing as a general education, an education not directed to any immediate or definite end, but having in view the general culture and refinement of the pupils. It is true, of course, that this argument can be used, and is used, to justify kinds of teaching which really are undesirable; it is true that in aiming at a general education, we may overdo the process; it is true that such overdoing puts a weapon into the hands of our opponents and goes some way towards justifying their arguments. But aside from these abuses, the principle itself remains true. There must be a certain amount of general culture, culture of a kind that has no immediate practical end in view.

Let us try to imagine the results of applying some of the wrongly called "practical" methods to an extreme degree. This boy is to be a shoemaker: teach him shoemaking and nothing else. This girl is to sew or cook: teach her sewing and cooking, but nothing else. At that rate society would become a world of machines, and general culture and love of knowledge would disappear.

Finally, to name a fourth limitation in our outlook, there is the error of mistaking the principle itself for its application, the system for the way in which it is carried out, the institution for the use that is made of it. Thus we often lay the blame in the wrong place. Before we sweep away a system, let us find out whether it is the system that is at fault or the application of it; otherwise we may find equally faulty results proceeding from any new system which we may adopt. Is it inefficiency which is at the root of the evil? If so, let us remedy the inefficiency and then it will be time to see about changing the system.

The education question, like so many other questions, is in a state[Pg 105] of chaos. Something is the matter, but people do not know just what it is. The suggested cures are many. Rash experiments are made. The remedies threaten to be worse than the disease. One thing seems generally agreed upon—that our education does not confer perfect efficiency. What we really need is a general education that will give efficiency in reading, writing, speaking, ciphering; in power of attention, memory, concentration; in adaptability, readiness of resource; obedience, order, self-command. No need to enumerate all the requirements; everybody knows what they are and what is needed. Efficient people are needed everywhere; but, above all, people with self-command and free from weaknesses. If we could but turn out this kind of product, much less in the way of technical schools would be needed; for such pupils would be so apt and teachable that they could readily master anything. The difficulties as to the nature of the curriculum, whether it should include Greek and Latin, and, if so, how much; what history should be taught, and how it should be taught; whether theoretical grammar should be taught, or whether the pupil should acquire grammar unconsciously from his reading—all these and many more problems would settle themselves, or at least our point of view concerning them would be altogether altered. As it is, most of these problems resolve themselves into the one problem of how to produce good fruit from a neglected tree. So long as the pupils have not been trained in the control of their faculties, moral and mental, it is difficult to teach them anything, no matter which method you adopt. And if they have been properly trained in their early years, the question of what to teach them sinks into comparative unimportance, because they will be able to make use of all their opportunities.

The root of the whole difficulty, therefore, is this: that people have no definite philosophy of life to serve as a foundation for efforts. With religious beliefs all undermined and mixed up, and nothing to take their place but various theories wrongly labeled "scientific," it is no wonder if folk should find themselves incompetent to solve the educational problem. We need to understand first what a man is and what is his destiny; we need to think of the Soul as having existed before it entered its present body, and as being destined to exist again after it has left that body. We need to know the difference between the higher and the lower nature in a person, and how the two are interblended. Then we should not have rash schemes which ignore this distinction and propose to let the lower nature run wild. We[Pg 106] should then know how to give the higher nature its freedom without letting the lower nature run wild.

It all comes to this: that tools are not of use without men to handle them; and that in our scheming we are trying to devise tools which will turn unskilled workmen into skilled. The primary factor in education is the man itself. The question begins at birth—even before birth. When the time comes, as come it must, when people will find themselves compelled by necessity to recognize the efficacy of Theosophy, then many problems will be solved. Theosophy means a getting back to simple yet profound truths—such simple truths as can be applied to any circumstances. These alone can grapple successfully with the problems.

THE Theseion, the so-called Temple of Theseus, in Athens, belongs to the second period of classical Greek architecture, which may be considered to have flourished between b. c. 470 and 338, the dates of the Persian war and the Macedonian supremacy. It is one of the most beautiful examples of the Doric order, and is more perfect than any other building we have of ancient Greece. It probably owes its excellent preservation to the fact that it was turned into a Christian church during the Middle Ages. It is made of the famous white Pentelic marble, which has changed, by lapse of time, to a lovely golden yellow hue. It greatly resembles the Parthenon, but covers a little less than half the area, and is not so exquisitely proportioned. The Theseion was erected a few years before the Parthenon, probably about b. c. 460. It is one hundred and four feet long by forty-five wide, and the columns are nineteen feet high. Like most of the finest Grecian buildings it does not depend upon mere size for impressiveness. From the remains of sculpture still existing the following subjects have been ascertained: The achievements of Theseus (whence the name); The Labors of Hercules; and the battle of the Athenians, the Lapithae, and the Centaurs. Fifty of the metopes (the squares into which the frieze is divided) were never adorned with sculpture, but were probably painted, for the Doric Temples are now known to have been painted both externally and internally. The groups in the pediments (the uppermost triangular portions) are entirely lost.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

TEMPLE OF THESEUS, ATHENS, GREECE

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

STOA, GYMNASIUM OF HADRIAN, ATHENS

[Pg 107]

A GOOD summary of some of the changes wrought in our views of history by recent archaeological research is afforded by an article on ancient history in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The article is written by Professor J. B. Bury, Regius Professor of Modern History in Cambridge University, and is contributed to The Sphere, the well-known London illustrated weekly.

During the past thirty years our knowledge of the beginnings of Greek history has undergone a transformation, which is associated with the now familiar names of Mycenae and Cnossus. Nearly all that was written on early Greece by Grote and the other brave men before Agamemnon—who is Schliemann—may now be safely left unread. The striking discoveries of Schliemann, however, at Mycenae, Tiryns, and Troy, did not revolutionize our view of pre-Homeric Greece, though they suggested a new perspective. It is the startling facts revealed by the Cretan exploration of Mr. Arthur Evans that have opened the door into a new world full of surprises—an unsuspected civilization reaching back through a period measured not by centuries but by millennia. The prolegomena to Greek history now consist of an entirely new set of facts and a new set of problems. At the same time we have been learning a great deal more about the old civilizations in the near East contemporary with this Aegean civilization which has sprung upon our vision like a magic castle built in a night. Our knowledge of Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria has become not only more extensive but clearer and more precise; and the importance of the Hittites in Asia Minor and Syria, though their own documents are still a sealed book, is emerging from obscurity.

One of the first thoughts that occur in connexion with the above is that we must still be careful about the statements of historians, whenever they tend to minimize or restrict; for, as they have altered their views before, so they may alter them again. We are bidden to throw our Grote into the waste-basket; but many will say that the claims made on behalf of that now despised scholarship were not lacking in positiveness. The views founded on this older scholarship have been made the basis for attacks on the views put forward and advocated by Theosophists; but now we find the opinions of scholarship revised, and altered more into conformity with some of the Theosophical views. Naturally, therefore, Theosophists infer that another thirty years will have witnessed yet further concessions on the part of scholarship; and they look forward to seeing all the statements of H. P. Blavatsky verified one by one as time goes on. They likewise conceded the apparent necessity, due to certain traits of[Pg 108] human nature which we all have, of assuming a positive and dogmatic attitude with each new step in discovery, regardless of the logic of the case which would bid one apply to the future the lesson of the past, and put forward with due modesty views that are liable to change.

Said H. P. Blavatsky, in the Introduction to The Secret Doctrine, published in 1888:

No one styling himself a "scholar," in whatever department of exact science, will be permitted to regard these teachings seriously. They will be derided and rejected a priori in this century; but only in this one. For in the twentieth century of our era scholars will begin to recognize that the Secret Doctrine has neither been invented nor exaggerated, but, on the contrary, simply outlined; and finally, that its teachings antedate the Vedas.

Other writers before H. P. Blavatsky, and from whom she quotes, had shown that the accessible facts of history, tradition, and archaeology, if interpreted in the light of a logic unbiased by preconceived opinion, demonstrate the extreme antiquity of civilization. But such writers have been regarded by the body of orthodox scholarship as cranks and paradoxists. In The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky gathers together the evidence referred to by these writers, adds much more collected by herself, and throws upon the whole the light of Theosophy. By means of the clues thus afforded, a consistent pattern is seen to pervade the apparently tangled skein, and the harmony between the Theosophical truths and the facts thus adduced strikes home to the unprejudiced mind with the force of conviction. To clinch the matter, living Theosophists can now point in triumph, as above said, to the admissions made by scholars since The Secret Doctrine was written—admissions which agree better with what H. P. Blavatsky said a quarter of a century ago than with their own utterances at that time.

It is seldom, indeed, whatever be the reason, that Theosophists have the pleasure of seeing H. P. Blavatsky's name and work mentioned in this connexion; though, as her works are still being issued and are readily available, it might seem strange that no mention should be made of them in connexion with matters so intimately related to the subjects of which they treat. The question as to whether scholars have read these works or not is debatable; but in either case Theosophists may find a source of gratification. For if scholars have read them, that at least is a tribute of respect, even though the indebtedness[Pg 109] be unacknowledged. While if they have not read them, the inference is that the teachings of Theosophy have been confirmed from an independent source.

In assuming the duties of a pioneer, H. P. Blavatsky was doubtless aware of the drawbacks incidental to such a rôle in the present age; but she seems to have been so wrapped up in the enthusiasm of her purpose as to have been somewhat reckless of the consequences to herself. This however is quite consistent with the known character of pioneers. But, though too much interested in their work to seek renown or even recognition, they doubtless achieve this unsought boon eventually; for the law of rebirth may bring them back to earth in time to see their own monuments and to realize that now their all-too-inconvenient personality has been removed by Time to a distance, their harmless name may be safely honored. H. P. Blavatsky was much derided; then ignored; her generosity was not appreciated; she was accused of the most impossible motives. But now many of her teachings are found to be true—not in archaeology alone, but in comparative religion, science, and several other fields. Shall we then expect amends? Ask the shades of Mesmer and Elliotson, the persecuted advocates of a since rediscovered treatment; of Dr. B. W. Richardson, who suffered for his ideas on "nervous ether," now being rehabilitated, but without amends to the author; or the shades of many another pioneer. We dare not expect too much of humanity in this age; few will be those whose generosity will allow them to make such amends; and even of these, fewer still will be those who will break the rule of silence that seems to bind the tongues of the well-disposed.

There are always some, however, who are more interested in knowing the truth than in vindicating any personal or orthodox point of view; people whose vision, thus unblinded, sees further and clearer; and to these it may occur that the teachings of The Secret Doctrine, thus far vindicated, may be worthy of attention in view of the natural inference that the rest of them will likewise be vindicated. The Theosophical teachings, reintroduced to Western civilization by H. P. Blavatsky, have been neglected by some and grotesquely travestied by others; but they contain the science and scholarship of the future—if that future but remain loyal to truth. Loyalty to truth can only result in its establishment—in the vindication of Theosophy. And the particular truths to be established in the present case—[Pg 110]the antiquity of civilization, the greatness of past humanity—are important in no mere academic sense. Medieval theology, much of whose spirit was inherited by scientific theorists, has belittled man and weakened his confidence in himself. The recognition of man's past achievements gives renewed hope for his future possibilities. Closely interwoven with the Theosophical teachings about the antiquity of civilization are the teachings about the Divine nature of Man. The Theosophical teachings are a consistent whole. Hence these wider views in archaeology, science, and religion, must tend to the widening of views concerning the nature of man and the destruction of old superstitions about his being born in sin or descended from the beasts.

While archaeology will naturally endeavor to go as slow as it can and to keep its discoveries well in hand, so to say, digesting them and incorporating them with the body of orthodox academic opinion, it is nevertheless true that it will be obliged to give way and expand its borders. For one thing, there are many explorers investigating in different fields; and these, in their theories, do not exhibit such uniformity and conformity as might be desired. One archaeologist will make admissions which others are not willing to make, because these particular admissions do not damage his own particular theory. Thus, taking all together, many admissions are made; the errors tend to cancel one another; the truth tends to add itself up. Another factor is what may be called "newspaper archaeology." The Sunday editions and the popular illustrated magazines familiarize the public with the latest discoveries and most advanced theories; and they frequently go a little too fast for the authorities. But what these popular accounts lack in accuracy they make up in freedom from prejudice.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

MONUMENT OF DE LESSEPS, PORT SAID

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

HIGH RELIEF FROM THE ALBERT MEMORIAL, LONDON
A GROUP OF ARCHITECTS

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

PANEL FROM THE ALBERT MEMORIAL

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

ANOTHER PANEL FROM THE ALBERT MEMORIAL

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

PORTION OF DECORATIVE FRIEZE FROM THE ALBERT MEMORIAL

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

CONTINUATION OF DECORATIVE FRIEZE FROM THE ALBERT MEMORIAL

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THE first illustration represents a group of architects of modern, or comparatively modern times; the majority are British. This, and the four other groups which follow, are from the high-relief or frieze on the pedestal of the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, London, and were executed by J. B. Philip, about forty years ago.

Although the immense sum of $600,000 was lavished upon the monument to Prince Albert, the estimable consort of Queen Victoria, the memorial has never been regarded as a satisfactory work of art. The general design has some original and interesting features, but the structure is overloaded with gilding and mosaic, and the execution is mechanically rather than aesthetically distinguished. The statue of the Prince himself is inadequate, and the large groups of figures representing the Four Quarters of the World, Industry, etc., though they may have passed muster in the mid-Victorian period of the '60s and '70s, are not up to the artistic standard of today. London has been singularly unfortunate in the quality of its public monuments, and it is to be feared that the new Memorial to Queen Victoria which has just been unveiled, will not raise the average.

There are one hundred and nine figures on the pedestal, a large portion of which are shown in our illustrations. They include painters, poets, architects, sculptors, and some heroes and reformers. They are of far greater interest from the historical associations they arouse than from their artistic quality.

The seated figure in the center of the first illustration is the famous Sir Christopher Wren, (1632-1723) the builder of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and pre-eminently the most distinguished British architect who has flourished since the Gothic period. He was one of the most original geniuses of the Renascence. Wren had an extraordinary field for his talents opened to him by the immense destruction caused by the Great Fire of London in 1666, and he was certainly the right man in the right place. Not only did he rebuild St. Paul's Cathedral but fifty other London churches. Up to date, St. Paul's is the largest and finest Protestant Cathedral in the world. Though open to criticism in some of its minor details and constructive arrangements, it is allowed to stand foremost among buildings of its class in Europe, St. Peter's possibly excepted.

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Standing beside Wren is Inigo Jones, one of the first and most highly accomplished English architects of the Renascence. His fame chiefly rests upon his design for the palace of Whitehall, commanded by James I. The Banqueting Hall was the only part actually carried into execution. A window of this splendid building is still pointed out as the fatal one from which Charles I stepped to the block.

Vanbrugh, standing behind Wren, was the latter's famous pupil. He built Blenheim, the seat of the great Duke of Marlborough. To the right of Inigo Jones is Mansart or Mansard, the French architect whose memory is immortalized in the "Mansard roof," which he invented. Palladio and Vignola, to the extreme right, were Italian Renascence architects whose influence upon the classic revival was very great in England and France; the Palladian style being particularly followed in the former and that of Vignola in the latter country. A striking group of buildings was erected by Palladio in Vicenza, Italy, in the sixteenth century, which became the model on which a large proportion of the Renascence work in England was based.

Of the modern English architects on the left, Sir Charles Barry is the most notable. He was among the first to depart from the fashion so long prevalent of introducing Greek and Roman forms into every building of importance, and was one of the pioneers of the Gothic revival of the nineteenth century, a century without a distinctive style of its own. He designed the British Houses of Parliament, which, in spite of some weaknesses, is a striking building with an eminently picturesque sky-line.

The kneeling figure at the right of the second illustration is the great art reformer Giotto, (1276-1336) the admirable Florentine who liberated the art of painting from the stiff Byzantine traditions which had been dominant for many centuries. He exercised a lasting influence upon the arts in every part of Italy, and thereby, upon the whole western world. Carved in low relief as a background are the Dome and Campanile of Florence Cathedral, the latter being a masterpiece proving that Giotto had supreme ability as a builder in addition to his skill with the brush.

Seated beside Giotto is Arnolfo di Lapo, a successor of the celebrated Niccolo Pisano, one of the few great sculptors of the Gothic period. On Giotto's left is Brunelleschi (1377-1446), sculptor and architect. To him we owe the completion of the great Dome of Florence Cathedral, which is unequaled for beauty though not so high as[Pg 113] several later ones. He is also noted for his treatment of the "rusticated" work on the Pitti Palace, Florence.

William of Wykeham, a great man in many walks of life, is famous in architecture for the nave of Winchester Cathedral (of which he was bishop), one of the finest examples of the Perpendicular style existing. Bramante, the next figure, (1441-1514) was the first architect of the present St. Peter's at Rome, a position afterwards held by Peruzzi, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Bramante built many palaces in Rome; his style was simple and dignified, and he adhered as far as possible to the classical forms.

Sansovino (1479-1570) is best known for his picturesque Library of St. Mark, Venice. San Gallo was another of the splendid galaxy of Florentine architects of the Renascence. Vignola, at the extreme left, was one of Michelangelo's successors in the building of St. Peter's; but unfortunately he altered the design in such a way that the great dome of Michelangelo cannot be seen from the front except at a great distance. On Vignola's right stands Delorme, the favorite architect of the French king Henri II; he is remembered chiefly as the first designer of the Palace of the Tuileries.

The third picture contains, among others, the portraits of some famous English, German and French architects of the later Middle Ages. Erwin von Steinbach (died 1318) is famous for his magnificent west front of Strasburg Cathedral, of which, unfortunately, one of the magnificent openwork steeples was never finished. The Abbé Suger was the patriotic adviser of the French kings Louis VI and VII, and was justly celebrated for his efforts for the welfare of the poorer classes at a time when their interests were generally disregarded (twelfth century).

Anthemius, to the right of the Abbé, was the great Grecian architect and mathematician who designed for Justinian (A. D. 532) the daring and original plans of St. Sophia at Constantinople. He is credited with knowing the ancient secret of making "burning-glasses" (magnifying glasses) which was not rediscovered for hundreds of years. He is also said to have understood the making of gunpowder, and the application of steam as a motive power.

The seated figure to the left in the fourth illustration is the great painter, sculptor and architect, Michelangelo. At his right are Torrigiano, his early rival, who is famous for the fine carvings on the tomb of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey; Gian di Bologna (1524-1608), [Pg 114]a follower of Michelangelo, and Bandinelli, another rival whom he soon outdistanced. Next to Peter Vischer, (died 1524), one of the early bronze workers in Nürnberg, renowned for his tomb of St. Sebald in that city, is the erratic, bloodthirsty, gallant, and most eminent of all metal-workers, Benvenuto Cellini. His Diana of Fontainebleau, and Perseus of Florence, are his finest large works, but he principally devoted himself to smaller articles such as chased vases, etc. His autobiography is one of the most delightfully naïve "human documents" existing. In the background is a model of the Perseus.

The next seated figure is Jean Goujon, (1530-1572) one of the restorers of French sculpture as an independent art; he is well known for his decoration of the Louvre. Beside him is the martyr-artist Bernard Palissy (1499?-1589), who after sixteen years of incessant and unremunerated labor discovered a pure white enamel ground for pottery which was suitable for the application of decorative art. He was reduced to the extremity of poverty before he made his great discovery, even having to burn his furniture to feed his furnaces. But as soon as his animal sculpture in pottery became famous and prosperity began to shine upon him, he became the victim of religious persecution. Charged with being a Calvinistic preacher, it was only by the aid of powerful friends who admired his genius that he escaped for some years, and finally he was thrown into the Bastile, where he perished.

In our last illustration Michelangelo is at the extreme right. At his left stands Donatello (1386-1468) the forerunner of the greatest of the Florentines, and probably the next best known name in Italian sculpture. His most famous works are in low relief, but several of his full-sized statues, such as the St. George in Florence, are very fine. Luca della Robbia, (seated,) and Ghiberti were almost contemporary with Donatello, and, next to Michelangelo, these three are perhaps the greatest glory of Florence in sculpture. Luca della Robbia invented the process of enameling terra cotta; his groups of Singers at Florence are his most famous work. Ghiberti is chiefly known by his wonderful bronze gates to the Baptistery at Florence. Looking over Donatello's shoulder is Andrea Verrocchio (1432-1488), painter and sculptor, a follower of Donatello, and the teacher of the universal genius Leonardo da Vinci.

Niccolo Pisano, the third figure from the left is of earlier date than those hitherto mentioned. He was architect, sculptor and paint[Pg 115]er; under the inspiration of his genius sculpture was revived in Italy, and every branch of art was influenced. Imitation of nature in place of conventionalism was introduced. He is one of the few really great sculptors of the Gothic period; he may be considered really to be the forerunner of the Renascence. His most famous work, the marble pulpit in the baptistery at Pisa, was finished in 1260.

I

ONE has been reading a fairy-tale of our own day, which has made a great stir in literary and dramatic circles, and it has given rise to certain ideas as to canons of criticism. Its name, and its author's, do not matter; there will be more freedom if they remain unmentioned.

What a charm is here! Millions of colors that never were in the rainbow nor the sea-shell; a subtle, exquisite loveliness—which yet, in the after-taste—somehow repels. Always mystery; what we call inanimate things waking to life (as they should do, indeed, in any right-minded fairy-tale); a sense of mutable, inconsequent horizons, over which no sun has ever risen or set. And, as there should be in fairy-tales, a kind of esotericism glimmering through; a meaning concealed yet obvious. Yet there is fairy gold and fairy gold. The best kind has the aspect of a petal or a pebble; but with the dawn, lo, some diamond or magical tiara. We are a little doubtful that this moon-wan opalescence will not turn out to be only a good worthy piece of Birmingham-ware. Withal, there are fine notes at the end, that touch deep centers in us; for these one can but be duly and truly thankful.

There are certainly two methods of imagination; and we find them shown forth excellently in fairy literature. By that we mean all mythology; every tale wherein non-human or magical agents play their part. It will include a good part of our poetry; Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, Poe, and Tennyson all dipped into it at times, or moved habitually among its haunted valleys.

There are two roads running out from our actual world, and they run through two separate Fairy-Lands. You shall go out by your[Pg 116] front door when the sun is shining, and come upon the one of them. It leads through a wood of daffodils—Wordsworth's and Shakespeare's daffodils—in whose company you will find yourself strangely exultant: these are they that "take the winds with beauty"; hence their jocundity and infectious mirth. Alive? Why, certainly; and wise also—only perhaps you shall not yet be allowed to pry too curiously into their counsels. All the flowers are alive in this fairyland; and they all have their own secrets, which are sunbright and beneficent. Sunbright, or sundark like the hyacinth—but still beneficent: poppy and mandragora are not allowed to grow here.

As you ride on, you shall still feel the shining of the sun and the vigor of the wind; or perhaps there will be sweet intimate grayness of clouds, or perhaps the sweetness of rain. Rain or wind, you will feel the touch of either on your face, and smell the earth-scent. There is one valley there, where the sky is always clouded and windy; the sedge is withered on the lake there, and no birds sing. But for that, you might mistake it at first for a place in the other fairyland, because of the haggard and woe-begone knight-at-arms you are to meet with, "alone and palely loitering." Keats came to this valley, and heard his whole story from him: it was this knight-at-arms who met La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

Like everything else in this fairy-land, it is true; in this case the beauty of its truth is awful. For you are not to suppose there are no tragedies enacted here: there are as many as there are in the world. There are a thousand wanderers in the valleys and on the mountains, who would lure you away from the sunlight and the rain. Here, often and often, it is written: "Look not behind, or thou art lost." Yet no ruin can come upon you that is not definitely evitable: one holds one's fate in one's own hands, and need fear nothing but himself.

In another hundred of fairyland, your road runs by over windy wolds of rye and barley, and down past the island in the river where dwells the Lady of Shalott. While she weaves her web, finding her whole delight in the pictures, note that the sun or the moon is still shining; afterwards, when she has turned and the curse has come upon her, the low skies are raining ever so heavily. By the presence of the sun and moon and wind and rain, by the earth-smell and the water-song, you shall know that you are in the fairyland of the Right Hand, and that everything about you is true. The story of the[Pg 117] Lady of Shalott true? Why, yes; a million and a million times. A tragedy again; fairyland is full of tragedies. Yet she need not have left the web, need not have seen the bloom on the water-lilies, need not ever have looked down to Camelot.

And how nearly a tragedy is this scene too—of Titania, poor lady, falling in love with the Ass! For, if you go far enough, you shall come upon Oberon and his court; you shall find sweet Bully Bottom also, strangely wandered from his own world, and with that queer, inevitable headpiece clapped upon him. What else should he wear, in fairyland? As was said, everything is so desperately true here; and sage and simple are alike to come by their own. Should you stray here, no silk hat has potent enough magic of the modern to protect your respectability: a wandering wind will whisk it away, and you will appear in crown or ass-head, according to your merits; or perchance in a dinted, war-worn helmet, or wearing a garland of oak or laurel or bay. No one may wear any colors but his own in fairyland.

There are innumerable provinces here, reigned over by innumerable potentates; but you are to look for sun and moon and wind and rain in all of them. Perseus and Theseus and Herakles; Roland and the good knight Charlemain; Cuchullain and the Red Branch; the men of the Emperor Arthur, and Oisin and Oscar and Finn—they are all here; here are fought Moytura, Fontarabbia, Camlan. Ulysses flies the Island of Calypso anew; and Odin comes anew into the Hall of the Dwarfs. There is always a feast at Gwalas in Penfro; and the door that looks out towards Aberhenfelen and Cornwall is flung wide by Heilyn again and again—tragedy of tragedies; no one had opened that door until then, from the time the sea and the sky and that old palace were made. But hark! it is the scream of a real seagull that is blown down the hall. Innumerable are the beauties and wonders and sorrows of this region; and they are all true, true, true: you can hear the natural winds and waves always, and taste the salt of natural wind-driven spray.

Yet in a sorrowless Italy here, Saturn still is reigning: and here

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listening to the sweet pipings of Pan: for the Golden Age has not faded and you may come on Brugh-na-Boinne and the Hills of Arcady and the Island of the Appletrees; you may come on all the haunts of Plenydd, Alawn, Angus, Baldur, and Apollo.

II

So much, then, for the Fairyland of the Right-hand, as we may call it; there is also a Left-hand fairyland, however; and its character and denizens are altogether different.

You come to it by a road that never goes out of doors. I suspect that you lock and bar your study door, and draw the curtains, and make fearfully sure of your solitude. Then you sally forth by uncanny gateways, and come where never hay was mown. There is light there, especially at first; but the end is a dreadful darkness. The light is of a kind, indeed, that never was on land or sea; but we may be thankful for that. Our lands and seas are the wholesomer for the lack of it.

At first it is not all so different, as to let us see at once we are in no hallowed region. There is beauty, and color; but the beauty is neither from the sun nor from the moon, and the color from no dawn nor sunset, from no sky nor sea. Shifting mists may give place to a dazzling Moorish palace, or to a peasant's cottage inhabited by the dead. Mirth or sadness may lurk in such dwellings; but beware of any intimacy with them: you cannot tell what fair seeming masks the ghoul. There is no order nor established nature of things, nothing you can depend on. The fig grows on the thistle; but any hunger is better than to eat it; vines and figtrees are prolific of innumerable thorns. Gorgeous blooms prophesy only of doom and impending horror. That is, when you have journeyed some little while. At first, perhaps, they will tell no tale but of sweetness and fragrance for the senses. Luxurious poppies are on every roadside, haunted with night and dreams: but beware of the whitest lily, the deepest rose; besides these the poppies are but flower children innocent of guile.

Very early on the way to this fairyland, you shall come to Xanadu, where Kublai Khan decreed his stately pleasure-dome. A beautiful place? Yes, but mark; here Alph, the sacred river runs "through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea." There is much wonder in that; but also darkness, and—incipient terror. Your true and right-hand fairyland, "bards in fealty to Apollo hold." It is all "in the Face of the Sun and the Eye of Light."

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For a lone reminder of better things, the forests of Xanadu do inclose sunny spots of greenery; but the heart of the place! It is "as holy and enchanted as e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon lover." Heavens! is that your mark of holiness? They do not so reckon it in the right fairyland, where the tragedies are effects flowing from causes. And the beauty of the place? "The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves":—a scintillant mirage, a sensuous unreal efflorescence of phantasmagoria; and midst it all, "ancestral voices prophesying war."

Christabel, Genevieve, and The Ancient Mariner all belong to this fairyland; the first two near the hither frontier, and the last much farther in. For one has to note how beauty wanes as the sun-known horizons recede, and how its place is taken by a new kind of harmony, a chiaroscuro of keen terror and gloom. This also holds one, as beauty does; indeed, plays on the emotion with a more compelling, because wilder and louder, touch. So we call the pictures and poems of the left-hand fairyland also beautiful, also works of Art. Some day I think we shall be wiser; our critics will use a deeper discrimination. Beauty is not that which most stirs the emotion, but that which most stirs it in a certain way. There is the evolutionary urge upward to be considered; what works against that has no real right to the name of beauty. You are to note here, that the further one travels in this dark fairyland, the more Wonder transforms itself into horror. Wonder went with us all through the bright realm, and grew from the mere wizardry of flowers and mountains, into the atmosphere of majesty that surrounds the soul and the judgments of Spiritual Law. The wizard-glow in the woodlands waxes, and resolves itself into one of the elder gods. But in the other case, the Daughter of Glamor that leads us is like the Gwrach y Rhibyn in the Celtic tales; subtly luring and exquisite at first, she turns into a fearful terrifying hag, and he who accompanies her does well if he escapes with his reason.

Glamor fills both regions; the one, a clean natural magic; the other, not so decadent in the beginning, as to be wanting in some few waning rays of the sun. In either case, it is partly the sense of a certain depth in the things seen or heard; you know that the words of the poem or story stand for something more than is actually spoken. Fairy dwellings again; the grass-grown hillock that melts and reveals itself a palace of the Immortals. In the poetry of the Right-hand [Pg 120]Fairyland, this is precisely what we find; beautiful is the seen, but infinitely more beautiful and grander that which it symbolizes or indicates. In that magical country, there is nothing not quickening with ancient truth, and all the dramas enacted are leaves out of the diary of the human soul. Hence the many tragedies, the many fallings of fate, dooms that flow out of deeds done or undone. But in the other, we find none of this. There, the esotericism is poorer than the outward form. Fate is fate there, no longer Karma. At the best there may be some moral taught; yet even then, it is doubtful if the lesson will be of supreme value. It will not equal in weight the great superstructure of art raised over it; as if one should sack the caves of the whole sea, to find some not too-precious stone. It will be an after-thought, a gem added, an excuse; not the seed and reason of the whole work. More often, it will be some mere allegory of the passions, void of truth in the deeper sense; or the deliberate esotericizing of a Sandford-and-Mertonism. Yet these will be the very best the left-hand fairyland has to offer; go a little further in, and you have simply riot on the planes of delirium. Coleridge's Genevieve and Keat's Belle Dame will point the difference. There is something of the same color and mystery, even a parallelism in the subject-matter of the two poems: but the first is mere sound and beauty, signifying nothing, and the second a picture of the fate of one who has been lured away by passion from the true paths of the Soul. They are surely wrong, who ascribe to Coleridge the originality, and say that Keats followed him. The truth is that the two are not comparable; Keat's voyagings were to the right hand, Coleridge's, here, to the left.

And the last places in the witch-land? The House of Usher rears itself gauntly beside its tarn there, and incontinently and dreadfully falls. It is an "ultimate dim Thule," reached by a road haunted only of evil angels. It is the home of decay, horror, and death; there is a godless phosphorescence about it.

But, you say, did not Dante wander there, and Milton? No. Whither they went, they went armed in the uprightness of spiritual strength. They made their hells somber, terrible, august; not glamorous or attractive. In Malebolge and Pandemonium alike, there is a certain stability also, a procession of cause and effect; there are horrors, but they are not inconsequential; they take their place in a definite scheme of things. And here is a literary touchstone; both[Pg 121] Milton and Dante wielded that supreme quality of style which is called the Grand Manner, so that the mere boom and march of their verses arouses the feeling of heroism, of titan strength: a thing it was never given the decadents and drug-fed to do. Dante had his safe guide and teacher with him; as he walked through the wonders and terrors of hell, he himself was the thing most aloof and wonderful. Unscathed he might pass to his meeting with Beatrice, and walk with her in heaven as majestically, as he had walked with Virgil through hell. Milton, too, with all his limitations, remains a thing majestic for our vision; poet or politician, he is still the armed and terrible warrior of God. In his characteristic and later mood, he seeks never beauty, but always righteousness; indeed, his chief fault is that he lost sight of any unity in the two. Comus and Lycidas will show us from what fairyland he had graduated, to take part in the stern earthly labors of his prime.

But here is the mark of the later Coleridge, and of all true wanderers in the fairyland of the left. When they see him, "All should cry Beware, beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair." Yes—in one of his moods. But what when the inspiration had passed; when the turbulent dark glory that held them had waned from before his eyes; when the Dead Sea Fruit of his fairyland had withered, and left him to be nourished with filth and cinders? Then, too, wholesome men cry Beware!—but of a victim of opium, a morphiomaniac, or one sodden with cocaine; a poor wreck of a man, at sight of whom if you close your eyes, it will not be in "holy dread," but in mere sorrow and pity.

Poor Coleridge! it was laudanum, and not honey-dew or the milk of Paradise that inspired him. And perhaps we might trace all that part of the literature of wonder which comes from the dark, left-hand fairyland, to drugs; which would remove from the category of genius many a name that figures there now.

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A METAL is fixed and crystallized light, said H. P. Blavatsky—and was laughed at. Light was not then, nor is it yet, substantive, but a mode of motion—of the ether and of matter. The days when it was substantive and corpuscular, the days of Newton, had gone by.

But there are several indications of their return—with additions, the additions warranting H. P. Blavatsky's definition of a metal.

A crystal of metal consists of molecules, and they of the still smaller atoms. Each atom, in its turn, is made of the still smaller electrons or corpuscles. If these either are light, or are made of even smaller bodies which are, the definition is justified. This is the suggestion, or contention, of Professor Bragg, developed at a recent lecture delivered before the English Royal Institution.

Light is regarded as a spreading etheric pulsation, waves in ether. We have it as the visible seven colors from red up to violet, and beyond visibility as the ultra-violet. Still higher etheric pulses, according to the usual theory, are the x-rays. Professor Bragg applies his new corpuscular theory to the last alone, though he suggests that it also includes the ultra-violet rays—in which case it must include all the rest. He thinks the x-rays corpuscular because of a certain behavior; but the ultra-violet rays have the same behavior—and no one doubts their continuity with the lower rays down to—and far below—the red. What is the behavior on which the argument rests?

The term x-rays or kathode rays, as popularly used, covers three kinds of emanation in the tube or from radium. The first and grossest ingredient is ordinary matter, whirling atoms of the element helium. The next and finer, the intermediate, is electrons, corpuscles. The third and finest is x-rays proper, hitherto considered as merely etheric pulses. Professor Bragg calls them gamma rays, restricting the other term, x-rays, for other rays of properties so nearly the same that he includes them in the same argument.

When gamma (or x-) rays fall on an atom of matter they cause it to discharge one or more of its electrons or corpuscles, the intermediate of the three emanations popularly included under the term x-rays. In this connexion they are called beta rays.

The professor points out that when gamma (or x-) rays produce this discharge from an atom

[Pg 123]

the beta rays to a large degree continue the line of motion of the gamma rays, as if the latter pushed them out of the atoms; and, lastly, that the number of the beta rays depends on the intensity of the gamma rays.

The gamma ray, entering an atom, pushes out a corpuscle, a beta ray, and takes its place. It behaves, in fact, as if it were itself a corpuscle, and the word ray is not well descriptive either of it or the beta. Nor can it be a mere ether-pulse. The professor suggests that it is a corpuscle, an electron, which has had the ordinary negative charge of electricity proper to electrons neutralized by a positive. Then he proceeds:

Many insist that my neutral corpuscle is too material, and that something more ethereal is wanted, for it appears that ultra-violet light possesses many of the properties of x- and gamma rays.... They propose therefore a quasi-corpuscular theory of light, gamma and x- rays being included.... The light corpuscle which is proposed is a perfectly new postulate. It is to move with the velocity of light ... and to be capable of replacing and being replaced by an electron which possesses the same energy but moves at a slower rate, and, of course, it has to do all that the old light waves did. The whole situation is most remarkable and puzzling.

So at this rate matter consists of molecules, as before; which consist of atoms, as before; which consist of electrons, as before—but may also in part or altogether consist of still more ethereal corpuscles which are light.

It is but a step to the suggestion that the electrons consist of light corpuscles, standing to them as they stand to the positive or negative atom of matter. Then metals will be crystallized light.

But whence the light corpuscles? How did they manage to get born in space? An answer to this question means a step-over from science into metaphysics. If and when we have reached the last line of matter we must begin to consider consciousness.

Intellectual light, spiritual light—we think we are using only metaphors in those phrases. Possibly we are not. Physical light may be the last stage of higher lights. If physical light is divine thought-energy appealing to our sense, it may have passed down through higher stages at which it appeals only to mind and heart and spirit.

If we think of Cosmic Spirit as pulsing its will and thought into that passive and uniform essence which will afterwards become active and differentiated matter, condensing and precipitating it into centers for evolutionary work, we must surmise that it is these intensely conscious centers that will subsequently be suns. Science would say that[Pg 124] this condensation would already involve the liberation of heat, that the new center must at once be hot. But that is only true of condensing matter as we know it, matter which already contains latent energy. But the kind of matter we are considering now is what will become matter, has no possessions nor qualities till these are conferred on it by divine ideation and will. A sun at its first stage would be luminous only to a spiritual cognition—that is, it would be charged with, and radiating, divine ideation. At the very first it would not be even that; it would be but a receiving center—for divine thought and will.

But at last would come its first heart-beat, so to speak. Some of the aggregated substance would be pulsed out to the surface charged with accumulated energy, dissipated as corpuscular light. And now it would fall within the range of human vision. It is illuminating not only to sense but to mind; for it contains mind; and not only to mind but to spirit; for that also it contains.

Theosophy teaches that the sun's envelopes do not contain the terrestrial elements in their terrestrial condition. It is their antetypes that are alone there, transient, in perpetual aggregation on the inner side of the envelope (towards the solar nucleus), in disintegration as light on the outer. And this light, charged with divine ideation—septenary—has the power on earth of building elements like to, but lower down than, those found in the sun's envelopes—and of destroying them. The planets owe the elements they have to the formative power in the solar light; rather say the keynotes of the elements they have, according to which keynotes the elementary matter aggregates. Besides that every molecule is crystallized and fixed light, it contains as its soul some of that light in its highest or first state. And so has every cell, every compound of cells, every living thing. If we had another kind of spectroscope we could find their antetypes too on the sun. Every cell and molecule contains latent what in man has begun to manifest—that self-consciousness which is a direct reflection of the absolute Self-consciousness of that point or center which is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere because the universe has a limit nowhere. That self, latent or manifest, has in man and molecule its first or highest embodiment in a layer or envelope of light in its first or highest condition. As we say, Âtman is enshrined in Buddhi.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

A FAMILY GROUP: JULIUS KRONBERG, THE FAMOUS ARTIST
MADAME SCHOLANDER, HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW, A WELL-KNOWN SWEDISH THEOSOPHIST
AND MR. KRONBERG'S CHILDREN. STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

"EROS": PAINTING BY JULIUS KRONBERG

[Pg 125]

[Suggested on first seeing the painting by Julius Kronberg, entitled Eros]

I LOOKED into the depths and saw amid the writhing forms that filled the abyss, a running stream of fire that flowed among them, and seared and shriveled some and twisted others into strange shapes, but still itself preserved its own undying energy insatiate. A monster that devoured its devotees, for at times I seemed to see it as a being having a form defined though monstrous. It fascinated me, and, as I looked longer and more intensely it took form more definite, with a strange beauty, wild and weird, yet strangely potent to attract and hold the gazer in the spell of admiration that bewildered all the mind, and fired the sense with strange thrills and throbbings of unsatisfied desires, vague but intense, painful yet so seductive that the mind, bathed in oblivion of former joys, craved only the consuming kiss of that fierce flame. The form was superhuman, but as yet I saw no face nor knew to what to liken the strange shape, so wild and yet so strangely human that it seemed a part of me when first I looked. But in a little while I knew that I was but a part of it—scarce even that, a shadow looking towards a light that must consume it. I fought against the fascination that seemed as if it would absorb my soul and scorch my mind and sweep my body into its seething vortex of undying fire; and as I fought to hold myself against the influence, it seemed as if it, that living fire, took form and features and became the image of a God with wondrous eyes that glowed as do the embers of the fire when burning clear with caverns of throbbing radiance and unresting palpitations, flushing and gleaming, or sinking into momentary dulness like a sulky face swept by a passing cloud of temper. But strange and fascinating as it was, that beauty seemed to be unable to define itself; there was a want that left in the beholder a wild yearning, in itself so keen as to appear the most intense delight mingled and tinged with woe unutterable. And then I knew that this on which I gazed was a reflection of some higher thing, an image only on the waves of that deep ocean in which the world and all things corporeal float formless and uncreate until the creative fire of Eros pierces its depths, and awakening all its energies into activity, mirrors itself upon the seething vortex of illusion.

Each one who looks into the depths shall see this image; they who have no heart to search the depths of beings shall feel the fire within their veins and hail the presence of a God and feed the flame with[Pg 126] their own substance, giving their lives in acts of impious sacrifice to the consuming fires of the lower world, responsive to the passions that so insistingly demand the tribute of self-immolation on the altar of desire.

And from his place beside the throne on high the God of Love looks down and sees the distorted image of himself torturing, deceiving, and destroying all who fall beneath the spell of his pervading magic, while tears of pity for the woes of men fall silently; and he waits, divinely patient, for the hour when man shall rise from his long dream of passion, and turning his eyes up towards the Sphere of Light, shall know that he too is divine. Then shall man recognize the God of Love who stands beside the throne and call to him to show the path by which he can regain his place and once more sit upon the throne of his divinity and rule within the kingdom of the soul, the soul of all humanity.

VISITORS at Point Loma who learn something of the high moral tone of the Râja Yoga College here and of the way in which the young people are protected from evil influences, are much impressed with these educational conditions, as desirable as they are unique. Compared with the average youth's environment, which modern life keys to an ever-increasing pitch of excitement, self-indulgence, and artificiality, the serene, disciplined, natural life of the Point Loma young folk makes an atmosphere of quite another world. Even the keenest critics admit this.

The judgment, however, becomes so colored by the prevailing customs and ideas and the critical minds are so skeptical from previous failures in fulfilment, that even friendly visitors are prepared to find a flaw somewhere. So it is not surprising to hear them say: "Well, there is something wonderful here and it is the right way to live; but how will it be with these young people when they leave the school and go out to meet the unknown temptations of ordinary life? How will they stand the test?"

[Pg 127]

That question touches the point wherein the Râja Yoga method differs from prevailing educational systems, in training the pupil, not for examination day, but for practical life.

In analysing temptations of any kind they may be traced to a common root: the promise of giving the tempted more power—the power to feel more, to think more, to do more. This proffered power is the naturally alluring counterfeit of that conscious inner sense which longs to be more.

First take the physical appetites which so often develop a mastery of the thoughtless or deliberately indulgent. The normal sense of taste enlarges the feeling of pleasure, and agreeable food stimulates the body's latent nutritive forces to an output of strength and action. Usually the desire of the alcoholic and drug habitués is not primarily for the taste of the drink or the drug but for the coveted feeling of attainment that they (apparently) give, the temporary, apparent return of waning poise and power. Even when unable to stand steadily, the inebriate is convinced of his own strength and importance by the feeling of energy and largeness he has recklessly lashed into an outgoing, aimless tide of exhausting sensation. The maudlin type finds himself the central figure of a fictitious emotional sphere, while the ambitious but incompetent man basks in the pleasing delusion of his own wealth and dignity. The craving for stimulants and sedatives grows with the indulgence which weakens the will, shatters the nerves, dulls the mind, and debases the spirit. The wretched habitué feels a vital lack of selfhood and clutches at even a passing furlough for his mutilated and chaotic sense of identity.

The sense of smell is not only intensified by favorite odors, but these recall and vivify other scenes and sensations. A fragrant flower may suggest a realm of beauty and poetry and sweetness. Savory odors appeal to the sense of taste and the appetite becomes the means of still further arousing one through the memory and imagination. The degenerate nature enjoys even offensive odors as the means of making him more alive to the possibilities of his degenerate world. A dog's markedly developed olfactory sense is not attracted by aesthetic odors as he smells impartially at everything, and follows up—tempted, if you will—those odors that make him more aware of his canine capacity for sensation and action: that, in short, make him more of a dog.

The auditory sense is also the gateway to a larger range of feeling [Pg 128]and power. The savage responds to his own defiant war-cry, and the small boy dilates with his noisy activities, as the refined expand under nature's finished rhythm of sound and the tones of inspiring music.

The eye also lights up old and new scenes of thought and feeling and the characteristic sensations are reflexly stimulated whether one seeks an exciting round of changing pictures or chooses more beautiful and useful things, whether the higher or the lower nature is appealed to, it is the larger sense of power to feel or to think or to know that is the attraction of vision.

The sensual appetites are impelling because the creative quality upon the physical plane counterfeits the unity of masculine and feminine principles in the final perfection of human consciousness. The attraction of the sexes depends upon an awakening not only to the qualities of the opposite, but also to an exaltation of the lover's sense of his or her own manhood or womanhood. Exercised merely for gratification the lower appetites fill the indulger's world with insistent desires, capable of leading to degrading depths. But when the creative energy is consciously expended along the uplifting lines of noble and altruistic endeavor it arouses in all the auto-creative sense of power, which, reproductive in its own right, has the satisfying sense of attainment. Unselfish love so far awakens the higher nature to its own richness and strength and beauty that its royal impulse to give would sacrifice the personal self in protecting and idealizing the beloved.

The temptations of ambition spring from a love of power—the power of knowledge, of courage, of beauty, of strength, of influence—those things which arouse the possessor to an enlarged or intensified sense of himself. That the ruling personal ambition too often sacrifices the greatest elements of the nature to obtain the gratification of seeming greatness does not discount the fact of the Real Self which sacrifices its lesser desires to be great.

Back of all counterfeits must be the genuine coin to give the false its spurious value. So beyond the many byways of sense and sensation wherein humanity seeks to feel and to think and to do more there is the sunlit highway of the natural soul-life wherein one grows more conscious of his divine power and possibilities. Normal growth during incarnation is not found in a repeated round of sensational climaxes, but in a progressive journey with an ever-expanding horizon[Pg 129] where the soul dominates the nature forces within and without the body. The child who learns to know the divine reality of his dual nature inevitably comes to find that "pleasure within himself" that is satisfying in its expansive sense of power and beauty and largeness.

That the child is incapable of realizing so profound a truth as that of his divine origin is questioned by a world psychologized with centuries of false teachings of natural depravity, etc. But in the teaching of the dual nature in the Râja Yoga training that calls upon the higher side to master and utilize the force of the lower impulses, the reality of innate power becomes the satisfying keynote of daily life. In the plastic period of child growth, he should be spared the usual external distractions while acquiring the habit of looking within to "find himself." Protection from the taint of artificial life is no more enervating than the suitable care the gardener gives to seedlings while they take firm root for future growth and resistance.

Temptation can only tempt where there is lack and longing. One who has learned how to live in the fulness and richness of the reality can easily estimate the worth of any imitation, familiar or unknown. Theosophy does not haggle over theological minutiae. It broadly asserts that the divine man incarnating becomes dual in nature. Râja Yoga training confidently challenges the indwelling soul to come forth and declare itself.

[Pg 130]

III. The Teachings

AS Pythagoras met with the immemorial fate of the world's great teachers, many fantastic distortions of his teachings were published; some of them, in his name by his enemies, for the express purpose of bringing his teachings into disrepute; and many things were imputed to him which he certainly never said or did. Probably he did not commit any of his teachings to writing, but it is certain that his disciples memorized his sayings and treasured them as the oracles of the Deity. He had two forms of teaching: one public or exoteric, and one private or esoteric. It is noteworthy that wherever his teachings prevailed, sobriety and temperance displaced licentiousness and luxury, for the distinguished Pythagoreans were men of great uprightness, conscientiousness, and self-control, capable of devoted and enduring friendships.

(a) exoteric teachings

The public teachings of Pythagoras consisted principally of practical morals of the purest and most spiritual type and emphasized the virtues of self-restraint, reverence, patriotism, sincerity, conscientiousness, uprightness, truth, justice, and purity of heart. He insisted upon the highest ideals of marriage and of parental duties, and always exerted his influence to suppress wars and dissensions. He was the first to apply the term philosopher or lover of wisdom to himself, as a substitute for the earlier term sage, for he said: "The Deity only is wise; men at their best are merely lovers of wisdom." He was also the first to use the word kosmos or "order," as applied to the universe. He used to say:

Drunkenness is synonymous with ruin.

No one ought to exceed the proper quantity of meat and drink.

Strength of mind depends upon sobriety, for this keeps the reason undiverted by passion.

In answer to the question, "When may I indulge in the pleasures of passion?" he replied: "Whenever you wish to be weaker than your Self."

Never say or do anything in anger.

Virtue is harmony; health, the Universal Good.

[Pg 131]

He urged his disciples not to kill animals, because he declared that they have a right to live, as well as men.

It is the part of a fool to attend to every opinion of all men, above all to that of the mob.

Do what you believe to be right, whatever people think of you. Despise alike their censure and their praise.

Add not unto your grief by discontent.

Do not speak few things in many words, but many things in a few words.

Either be silent, or speak words better than silence.

It is hard to take many paths in life at the same time.

Youth should be accustomed to obedience, for it will thus find it easy to obey the authority of reason.

Men should associate with one another in such a way as not to make their friends enemies, but to make their enemies friends.

We ought to wage war only against the ignorance of the mind, the passions of the heart, the distempers of the body, sedition in cities, and ill-will in families.

No man should deem anything exclusively his own.

Every man ought so to train himself as to be worthy of belief without an oath.

He used to call admonishing, "feeding storks."

Philosophers are seekers after truth.

The discourse of a philosopher is vain, if no passion of man is healed thereby.

Choose the best life; use will make it pleasant.

Man is at his best when he visits the temples of the gods.

A man should never pray for anything for himself, because he is ignorant of what is really good for him.

Do not the least thing unadvisedly.

Advise before you act, and never let your eyes

The sweet refreshings of soft slumber taste,

Till you have thence severe reflections passed

On th' actions of the day from first to last.

Wherein have I transgressed? What done have I?

What duty unperformed have I passed by?

And if your actions ill on search you find,

Let grief, if good, let joy, possess your mind.

This do, this think, to this your heart incline,

This way will lead you to the Life Divine.

. . . . . .

This course, if you observe, you shall know then

The constitution both of gods and men.

And now from ill, Great Father, set us free,

Or teach us all to know ourselves in Thee.

The noblest gifts of heaven to man are to speak the truth and to do good. These two things resemble the works of the Deity.

[Pg 132]

Place intuition as the best charioteer or guide for thy acts.

Possess not treasures except those things which no one can take from you.

Be sleepless in the things of the Spirit, for sleep in them is akin to death.

Each of us is a soul, not a body, which is only a possession of the soul.

The tyrant death securely shalt thou brave,

And scorn the dark dominion of the grave.

The greatest honor which can be paid to the Deity is to know and imitate Its perfection.

The wise men say that one community embraces heaven and earth, and gods and men and friendship and order and temperance and righteousness; for which reason they call this whole a kosmos or orderly universe.

Of all things learn to revere your Self.

Likeness to the Deity should be the aim of all our endeavors. The nobler, the better the man, the more godlike he becomes, for the gods are the guardians and guides of men.

There is a relationship between men and gods, because men partake of the Divine Principle.

You have in yourself something similar to God; therefore use yourself as the Temple of God.

Be bold, O man! Divine thou art.

Truth is to be sought with a mind purified from the passions of the body. Having overcome evil things, thou shalt experience the union of the immortal God with the mortal man.

(b) the esoteric teachings

(1) Symbols

The esoteric teachings of Pythagoras, which he called "the Gnosis of Things that Are," or "the Knowledge of the Reality," so far as they can be gathered from the extant fragments, dealt with (1) Symbols, (2) Number, that is, the inner meaning of arithmetic and geometry, (3) Music, (4) Man, and (5) the Earth and the Universe. In his esoteric teachings Pythagoras gave out the keys to the system of practical ethics outlined in his exoteric sayings. Such of his public utterances as were called Symbols were mere blinds, capable of several interpretations with several distinct and highly important meanings attached to them. H. P. Blavatsky, speaking of these, says:

Every sentence of Pythagoras, like most of the ancient maxims, had (at least) a dual signification; and while it had an occult physical meaning expressed in its words, it embodied a moral precept.

[Pg 133]

It is no mere coincidence that many of the maxims were and still are current among widely separated nations. The following are examples of some Pythagorean Symbols together with their possible meanings as moral precepts:

"Do not devour your heart": that is, do not consume your vitality in futile grief.

"Do not devour your brain": that is, do not waste your time in idle thoughts.

"When you are traveling abroad, turn not back, for the furies will go with you": that is, do not dally or cry over spilt milk but hasten to accomplish whatever you have begun; otherwise you will fail, and remorse and sorrow will thereafter attend you.

"Do not indulge in immoderate laughter": that is, restrain the unstable parts of your nature.

"Do not stir fire with a sword": that is, do not return angry words to an angry man, for "hatred ceaseth not by hatred but by love—this is an everlasting truth."

"Turn away from yourself every sharp edge": that is, control your passions.

"Nourish nothing which has crooked talons or nails": that is, cultivate only kindliness of disposition.

"Help a man to take up a burden but not to lay it down": that is, by toils and sorrows men are strengthened.

"Do not step above the beam of the balance": that is, live a life of perfect justice.

"Spit not upon the cuttings of your hair or the parings of your nails": that is, even trifles are important.

"Destroy the print of the pot in the ashes": that is, correct all mistakes.

"Put the shoe on the right foot first but put the left foot first into the bath-tub": that is, act uprightly and honestly, washing away all impurities.

"Look not in a mirror by lamplight": that is, do not be misled by the phantasies of the senses, but be guided by the pure, bright light of spiritual knowledge.

"Transplant mallows in your garden but eat them not": that is, cultivate spirituality and destroy it not.

"Do not wear a ring": that is, philosophize truly, and separate your soul from the bonds of the body.

[Pg 134]

"When the winds blow, give heed unto the sound": that is, when the Deity speaks, attend closely.

"When you rise from bed, disorder the covering, and efface the impression of the body": that is, when you have attained unto wisdom, obliterate all traces of your former ignorance.

"Leaving the public ways, walk in unfrequented paths": that is, lead a spiritual, not a worldly, life.

"Do not offer your right hand lightly": that is, do not make pledges which you cannot or will not keep, and do not divulge the Mysteries to those who are unfit and uninitiated.

"Do not receive a swallow into your house": that is, do not disclose the Mysteries to one who is flighty and unstable.

"Speak not about Pythagorean concerns without light": that is, do not assume to be a teacher until you have become a student.

"When treading the Path divide not": that is, truth is one but falsehood is multifarious; choose that philosophy in which there is no inconsistency or contradiction.

"Above all things learn to govern your tongue when you follow the gods": that is, learn the power of silence.

"Disbelieve nothing admirable concerning the gods or the divine teachings": that is, the Deity is perfect justice and perfect love; "the Divine wisdom is the science of life, the art of living."

"Do not cut your nails while sacrificing": that is, in praying, remember even those who are most distant.

"Sacrifice and worship unshod": that is, approach the Mysteries with a reverent heart.

"Entering a temple, neither say nor do anything which pertains to ordinary life": that is, preserve the Divine, pure and undefiled; the divine science cannot be judged by the ordinary standards of human opinion.

"Enter not into a temple negligently nor worship carelessly, not even though you stand only at the doors": that is, seek the Divine wholeheartedly without reference to personal advantage, no matter however humble your position.

"Approach not gold in order to gain children": that is, beware of all teachers who barter the things of the Spirit; "by their fruits ye shall know them."

"Inscribe not the image of the Deity on a ring": that is, do not think of the Supreme as either finite or personal.

[Pg 135]

(2) Number

The esoteric teachings of Pythagoras in regard to number dealt principally with the significance of arithmetic and geometry, and emphasized the importance of the application of number to weights and measures. He was the first to explain the multiplication table to the Greeks. The leading idea of his system was that of the Unity in Multiplicity. Therefore the Pythagorean concept of harmony was based upon the relationship of the One and the Many, the idea of the One in Many and the Many in One—"as above, so below." By number Pythagoras meant not merely figures, but regulated motion or vibration, rhythm, law, and order; for he made number equivalent to intelligence. He said:

Number is that which brings what is obscure within the range of our knowledge, rules all true order in the universe and allows of no errors.

He assumed, as first principles, the numbers and the symmetries existing in them, which he called harmonies. He taught:

Virtue is a proportion or harmony. Happiness consists in the perfection of the virtues of the soul, the perfect science of numbers. Nature is an imitation of number.

Pythagorean arithmetic was concerned especially with the first ten digits, which were "hieroglyphic symbols, by means of which Pythagoras explained his ideas about the nature of things." He taught that unity, the monad or one, is no true numeral, for one multiplied any number of times by itself always equals one; that is, unity unlike the true numerals, has not an infinite series of varying powers, for its square, cube, and other powers, are one and all equal to one, the first term of the series. Another peculiarity, which proves unity not to be a true numeral, is its indivisibility into whole numbers.

The monad is God and the good, which is the origin of the one and is itself Intelligence. The monad is the beginning of everything. Unity is the principle of all things and from Unity went forth an infinite or indeterminate duality, the duad, which is subordinate to the monad as its cause.

Pythagoras taught that the duad, the first concept of addition, was the first true figure and regarded the one as a symbol for the Primitive Unity or the Deity, the Absolute, behind and above the indeterminate or infinite duad, which symbolized chaos or spirit-matter. The triad or the three, the monad plus the duad, symbolized the Divine, the Heavenly, as opposed to the Earthly.

[Pg 136]

The Pythagoreans say that the All and all things are defined by threes; for beginning, middle, and end constitute the number of all and also the number of the triad.

The tetrad or the four exists in two forms, its actual form the quaternary or the four, the symbol of Earth as opposed to Heaven, and its potential form, the tetraktys, which contains in germ the sum total of the universe, manifested and unmanifested, the Pythagorean dekad or ten, thus, 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10. The tetraktys, therefore, was regarded as a very sacred symbol. The pentad or number five, symbolized man. The senary or number six, is, of course, composed of two threes, and was regarded as an abbreviation for the alpha and omega of evolutionary growth. The hebdomad or number seven, is the perfect number, par excellence, symbolizing both heaven and earth. In the words of H. P. Blavatsky

The ogdoad or 8 symbolizes the eternal and spiral motion of the cycles, and is symbolized in its turn by the Caduceus (or herald's staff of Hermes). The nine is the triple ternary, reproducing itself incessantly under all shapes and figures in every multiplication. The ten or dekad brings all these digits back to unity and ends the Pythagorean table.

"It is," Pythagoras says, "the starting point of number."

Passing from the arithmetic to the geometry of Pythagoras, Plato's statement that "God geometrizes" is undoubtedly Pythagorean in origin, for it is said that Pythagoras perfected geometry among the Greeks, and the two well-known theorems that the triangle inscribed in a semi-circle is right-angled, and that the square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the sides, are still associated with his name. Pythagoras taught:

From the monad and the duad proceed numbers; from numbers signs; from signs lines, of which plane figures consist; from plane figures solid bodies. The Kosmos is endued with life and intellect and is of a spherical figure.

From one point of view, One corresponds to the dot or point, Two to the line, Three to the plane, and Four to the concrete solid. The dekad was represented geometrically in the form of a tetradic equilateral triangle of ten dots, with one dot at the apex, and four along the base line, thus . This shows graphically how the tetraktys as 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, contains potentially the dekad. This ten-dot triangle filled out by lines becomes an equilateral triangle, with the dot at the apex and at the center remaining as generating-points for[Pg 137] adjacent figures, and especially as the centers of circles, inscribed in and circumscribed about the original triangle.

The principal plane geometrical figures known to have been explained by Pythagoras are the circle in its three forms: one with the center unmarked, the second with a dot at the center, and the third with the diameter drawn: ; the triangle: the square: ; the pentagram, or five-pointed star: ; and the hexagram, the six-pointed star or so-called Pythagorean Pentacle: .

The circle was called by Pythagoras "the most beautiful of all plane figures" and in its form with the center unmarked, corresponding to the monad or the one in arithmetic, was placed in a category by itself. The circle with a dot at its center corresponds to the duad, the triangle to the triad, the square to the tetrad in its actual as opposed to its potential form, which is that of the tetradic dotted triangle, as previously explained, the potential equivalent of the decad. The pentagram or five-pointed star corresponds to the pentad, and the hexagram to the senary. The circle with its diameter indicated the actual dekad or 10 (for we no longer write the one within the circle to represent ten) as opposed to the potential equivalent of the dekad, the tetraktys. In his solid geometry Pythagoras taught that "the sphere was the most beautiful of all solid figures," and in its form corresponding to the monad, it was classed by itself. Pythagoras explained that both the earth and the kosmos were spherical in shape, and added that the universe was made up of five basic solid figures, which were built up from the triangle and the square: namely, the cube; the tetrahedron; the octahedron, a figure with its eight sides formed by equal equilateral triangles; the dodecahedron, a figure with twelve faces formed by regular pentagons; and the icosahedron, a figure composed of twenty equal and similar triangular pyramids whose vertices meet at the center of a sphere, which is supposed to circumscribe it.

(3) Music

Turning to Pythagoras' teachings in regard to music, which he regarded as a very important help in controlling the passions, it is said that he was the first to teach the Greeks the tonic relations of the musical scale, and invented for them the monochord, a one-stringed[Pg 138] instrument, used in measuring the musical intervals. Upon these relations he built his celebrated doctrine of the Harmony or Music of the Spheres, that is, that the heavenly bodies, composing our solar system, in the course of their rotations emit the notes of the scale. H. P. Blavatsky and the ancients explain this by saying that Pythagoras called

a "tone" the distance of the Moon from the Earth; from the Moon to Mercury ½ a tone, thence to Venus the same; from Venus to the Sun 1½ tones; from the Sun to Mars a tone; from thence to Jupiter ½ a tone; from Jupiter to Saturn a tone; and thence to the Zodiac a tone; thus making seven tones, the diapason harmony. All the melody of nature is in those seven tones and therefore is called "the Voice of Nature."

Pythagoras declared that the harmony of the spheres is not heard by the ordinary human ear either because it has always been accustomed to it from the beginning of life, or because the sound is too powerful for the capabilities of the physical ear. In substantiation of this theory it is interesting to note that modern science expresses the intervals of music by proportions similar to those which mark the tonal distances of the planets.

(4) Man

Self-contemplation was strongly insisted upon and played a most vital part in the Pythagorean training. To his esoteric section Pythagoras taught the immortality of the soul, its pre-existence, and its rebirth; karma; and the septenary constitution of man, partially veiled, it is true, under the form of a triple division of the soul into animal, human, and divine parts.

There is a doctrine whispered in secret that man is a prisoner, who has no right to open the door and run away. The gods are our guardians.

The soul is a harmony and the body its prison.

We choose our own destiny and are our own good or bad fortune.

Rash words and acts are their own punishment.

We are our own children.

Intentional perversions of the teachings of Pythagoras, mere travesties of his ideas, are plainly evident in what has come down to us in regard to his belief in metempsychosis. Thus we are told that his enemies circulated the story that Pythagoras had declared that one of his relatives had passed into a bean, a vicious joke based on the fact that beans were excluded from the Pythagorean diet. Another[Pg 139] similar malicious fiction about Pythagoras is thus referred to by Xenophanes, a contemporary philosopher.

That Pythagoras, himself, did not believe in transmigration after such fashion, is shown quite plainly by the following statements of Hierocles, the Neo-Platonist in his commentary upon the Golden Verses of Pythagoras:

If through a shameful ignorance of the immortality of the human soul, a man should persuade himself that his soul dies with his body, he expects what can never happen; in like manner he who expects that after death he shall put on the body of a beast and become an irrational animal because of his vices, or a plant because of his dulness and stupidity—such a man, I say, acting quite contrary to those who transform the essence of man into one of the superior beings, is infinitely deceived and absolutely ignorant of the essential form of the soul, which can never change; for being and continuing always man, it is only said to become God or beast by virtue or vice, though it cannot be either the one or the other.

The following quotations give us true representations of Pythagoras' ideas on pre-existence and rebirth.

Pythagoras regarded rebirth as a gradual process of purification and taught that the soul by reason of nobility of character gained by struggles upon earth was destined to be exalted eventually into far higher modes of life. "Imagination," he explained:

is the remembrance of precedent spiritual, mental, and physical states, while fancy is the disorderly production of the material brain.

[Pg 140]

Man is perfected first by conversing with gods, which he can do only when he abstains from evil and strives to resemble divine natures; secondly, by doing good to others, which is an imitation of the gods; thirdly, by leaving the mortal body.

By our separation from the Deity, we lost the wings which raised us towards celestial beings and were thus precipitated into the region of death where all evils dwell. By putting away earthly passions and devoting ourselves to virtue, our wings will be renewed and we shall rise to that existence where we shall find the true good without any admixture of evil.

The soul of man being between spirits who always contemplate the Divine Essence and those who are incapable of contemplating it, can raise itself to the one, or sink itself to the other.

Every quality which a man acquires originates a good or bad spirit, which abides by him in this world and after death remains with him as a companion.

Pythagoras taught that man is a microcosm, a compendium of the universe, with a triple nature, composed of (1) an immortal spirit, the Spiritual Soul, intuitive perception, the Nous, a portion of the Deity; (2) a human intelligence, the Human Soul, the rational principle, the Phren; and (3) the sensitive irrational nature, the Animal Soul, the seat of the passions and desires, the Thymos. The Nous and the Thymos, he stated, are common to man and the lower animals, but the Phren, which in its higher aspect is immortal, is peculiar to man.

The immortal mind of man is as much more excellent than his sensitive irrational nature as the sun is more excellent than the stars.

The physical body is but a temporary garment of the soul, into which "the Nous enters from without." "The sense perceptions are deceptive."

The principle of life is about the heart, but the principle of reason and intelligence in the head.

Pythagoras added that at death the ethereal part of man freed from the chains of matter is conducted by Hermes Psychopompos, the Guide of Souls, into the region of the dead, where it remains in a state according to its merit until it is sent back to earth to inhabit another body. The object of rebirth is gradually to purify the soul by successive probations, until finally it shall be fitted to return to the immortal source whence it emanated.

(5) The Earth and the Universe

It is well-known that the ideas expressed by Plato in his Timaeus, the dialog which he named after his Pythagorean teacher, are derived[Pg 141] almost entirely from Pythagorean sources. Therefore it is probable that Pythagoras taught about the earlier continents, which were destroyed alternately by fire and water, and in particular about the legends of Atlantis, including the account of an Atlantean invasion of Greece about 10,000 years b. c. before the Greeks lived in the Greek lands—an invasion which was repelled by the inhabitants of prehistoric Athens, who were akin to the ancient Egyptians.

In regard to our solar system, Pythagoras knew not only that the earth is spherical, but also taught that the sun, likewise spherical, not the earth, is the center—a theory rediscovered more than 2000 years later by Copernicus and Galileo. Pythagoras also explained the obliquity of the ecliptic, the causes of eclipses, that the morning and evening star are the same, that the moon shines by light reflected from the sun, and that the Milky Way is composed of stars. He held that "the Universe has neither height nor depth but is infinite in extent," that

there is a void outside the Universe into which the Universe breathes forth and from which it breathes in,

and that

the Universe is brought into being by the Deity and is perishable so far as its shape is concerned, for it is perceived by sense, is therefore material, but that (its Essence) will not be destroyed.

Pythagoras declared that all nature is animate, for

Soul is extended through the nature of all things and is mingled with them

and he believed in one Deity, ruling and upholding all things.

There is One Universal Soul diffused through all things—eternal, invisible, unchangeable; in essence like Truth, in substance resembling Light; not to be represented by any image; to be comprehended only by the Nous; not, as some conjecture, exterior to the Universe, but in itself entire, pervading the sphere which is the Universe.

From this One Universal Soul proceed Spiritual Intelligences, above, below, and inclusive of man; the subtle ether out of which they are formed becoming more and more gross, the further it is removed from the divine Source. He classified these Hosts or Hierarchies of Spiritual Intelligences into gods or major divinities, daemones or lesser divine beings of good and bad natures, and thirdly heroes or disembodied human souls, "immortal minds in luminous bodies," in[Pg 142] position intermediate between men and the daemones. He declared "the whole air is filled with souls."

H. P. Blavatsky says:

In the Pythagorean Theurgy these hierarchies of the Heavenly Host and the gods were expressed numerically.

The Pythagoreans believed that the forces of nature were spiritual entities. They taught that there are ten spheres formed by the Heavenly bodies, those of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the fixed Stars, the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, and the Counter-earth or the Antichthon, about which little has come down to us but which is presumably connected with "the riddle of the Eighth Sphere." Furthermore the Pythagoreans taught that there were ten cardinal pairs of opposites or ten antithetical principles, which constitute the elements or Stoicheia of the Universe, namely, (1) the limited and the unlimited; the finite and the infinite; (2) the One and the Many; (3) light and darkness; (4) good and bad; (5) rest and motion; (6) the masculine and the feminine; (7) the straight and the crooked; (8) the odd and the even; (9) the square and the oblong; and (10) the right and the left.

IF a spectrum be thrown on a blackboard with a lantern, in a dark room, one end will be violet and the other red, to the ordinary eye. If a plain photographic sensitized plate is placed against the blackboard so as to receive the spectrum on its central portion during a suitable exposure and is then developed, fixed, and replaced in its original position, the result shown is remarkable. At the red end the plate is unaffected; the orange and yellow and green are scarcely recorded; the blue and violet are well represented, but the part of the plate most affected is that beyond the visible violet far into the "darkness" of the blackboard.

Here is a sensitive surface or substance which can "see," as though brilliantly lighted, a surface which to the ordinary eye is invisible, but, on the other hand, has some difficulty in seeing the red and yellow, which the eye can see quite plainly. Needless to remark [Pg 143]that this is why a true red or yellow light is "safe" for ordinary plates and for dark-rooms. On the other hand it would be possible to have a dark-room which would be to the plate a very light room indeed, being filled with these invisible rays beyond the violet end of the spectrum.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

VISINGSBORG CASTLE, VISINGSÖ, SWEDEN

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

THE CANAL, TROLLHÄTTAN, SWEDEN

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

HIGH SLUICE AND PALACE OF INDUSTRY, AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND
(At Amsterdam a stone arch bridge is called a sluice)

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

PALACE OF INDUSTRY, AMSTERDAM

And yet there are some eyes which can plainly distinguish the fact that a substance or surface is giving off these powerful rays, invisible to less sensitive eyes. Perhaps this is one of the thousands of little forerunner facts which testify to the increase of sensibility prophesied by H. P. Blavatsky for this present century.

Now if a solution of one per cent of sulphate of quinine, one centimeter thick, is used in a glass cell before a lens or plate it may delay the exposure by perhaps six times the normal time, thus showing that of our photographs taken under ordinary conditions on ordinary plates we have been accustomed to accepting as true pictures reproductions of the invisible, although much of that invisible coincides with the visible, since these rays are emitted by so many substances.

But a false standard has been established unconsciously in our minds. Where blue skies should be, we are content to see a pure white in a photograph. Where reds and yellows abound we expect altogether too dark a representation, as with grass and green trees.

The quinine light-filter (aesculine, extracted from the horse-chestnut, serves as well) absorbs or is largely opaque to these rays and such a filter is much used now with specially sensitized plates to allow the colors to be reproduced in monochrome in truer relation. A yellow filter will also absorb some of the visible blue. The glass of the lens too is responsible for the absorption of a proportion of these rays. By an action not yet understood the dyeing of plates with certain dyes renders the silver in them far more sensitive to the various colors in the green, yellow, and red of the spectrum.

Is it not probable that silver has the power of sensing these rays so keenly, while the human eye, for reasons best known to the human mind, has had and lost that power, but may be now beginning to regain it? Such a recovery is not made without strain and natures that can begin to sense these invisible rays must either strengthen and purify themselves to the utmost degree possible or suffer what dry leaves suffer in the flames, a burning out of the particles that are not tuned to withstand the red fire that burns them. Hence the theosophical [Pg 144]reason for purity and strength, first, last, and all the time, in preparation for the burning fiery flames of added sensitiveness which come and have come quite soon enough for us to prepare against rather than seek.

Knowing what is now known of the efficacy of light in curing certain affections, especially the violet and blue light, is it too early to suggest that much of the power of quinine is due to the body being saturated with this "colorless" dye and so cutting off light which the constituents of the body are not strong enough to bear without their balancing power being impaired, and so leaving the battlefield at the mercy of inimical fever forces?

Tropical travelers are warned not so much to use quinine after attack, but to saturate the body (with minute doses) commencing several days before entering the dangerous zone.

In spite of endless fraud and humbug and "fake" photography, it has long been suspected that the invisible can be photographed. As shown, we have never been doing anything else in our photography except photographing much of the invisible. Without saying that it has or has not been done, we may well ask if it is really so difficult to imagine that much of what inhabits the "seeming void" may be made visible to the lunar surface of the plate?

Professor Wood's experiments on the lines of photography by invisible rays are of absorbing interest. Not only has he made interesting photographs of objects by means of the invisible violet rays, but also by means of the invisible rays below the red end of the spectrum. And he shows one very interesting result of photographing Chinese white by these ultra-violet rays—as though the pigment were a pure black! This illustrates the fact long known to photo-engravers' artists that Chinese white is a bad white to use except in a mixed tint. The Chinese white cuts off so much of this invisible chemically-active "white" as to appear gray even to an ordinary plate's "lunar eye."

Another startling result is that by the ultra-violet light a man's shadow may entirely disappear when he is photographed in sunlight. One wonders if the strange Eastern "superstitions" as to shadows and men without shadows do not have a real scientific basis. Perhaps R. L. Stevenson's little child who rose so early that his "naughty little shadow had stayed at home ... and was fast asleep in bed," could tell us.

[Pg 145]

THE word "heredity" is one that is much conjured with nowadays, so that it is important to understand its meaning and import. In so far as its meaning covers facts ascertained by reliable observation, and correct inferences therefrom, we must be prepared to accord the word the respect which in that case it deserves; but in so far as it may stand for imperfect observations and the faulty theories inferred therefrom, we must be equally prepared to apply scrutiny and reserve.

One thing we find is that the word is frequently used, even by accredited authorities on biology, in a variable sense; in the course of an argument the word has two or more distinct meanings, and the arguer does not seem to be aware of the variation. This of course indicates a nebulosity in the reasoning and leads to confusion and wrong conclusions. For instance, in a particular case, where a lecturer is reported, we find that he uses the word (1) in the sense of "the fact that organic cells reproduce their kind," and (2) in the sense of "some power or faculty in virtue of which they reproduce their kind." These two senses are quite distinct, and would have been given separate heads in a dictionary; to ignore the distinction in an argument both arises from and creates confusion.

But let us at present consider the second meaning—that of some power or property in virtue of which an organic cell can reproduce its kind. Biology, within its present scope, must confine itself to admitting the existence of this power and to tracing its workings. The source of the power lies outside the field of ordinary biological research. For, granted that physical matter is actuated by an agency, that agency must be immaterial; or at least, if material, then material in another sense than that in which physical matter is material. Now biologists may claim that this phase of the subject does not concern them; and that point we should be willing to concede in all cases where the investigations were confined to their appropriate limits—that is, to the limits appropriate to a confessedly limited science. But what we often actually find is that theorists overstep these limits and assume an attitude of positiveness and authority to which (by the logic of their own admission) they are not entitled. We even find proposals to base legislation upon biological theories; and there is the danger that in small self-governed communities such experiments may actually be carried into effect. When it comes to this therefore we are[Pg 146] justified in inquiring more jealously into the credentials of biology; for we do not readily concede the right to be governed by people who have confessed that certain vital phases of their subject do not concern them.

Hence, however the case may stand as regards merely theoretical science, when there is an attempt to apply theories to matters of government and public policy, the restrictions become a matter of vital importance. If we are to achieve successful results in applied biology, then we must positively know something about these mysterious potencies which lie behind matter and which many biologists say do not concern them; for these forces actually exist and count, whether biologists understand them or not; and though they may be ignored on paper, their effects cannot be ignored.

That which lies behind matter is mind—something well known to our experience but not definable in terms of space. The mental aspect of heredity is far more important than the merely physical. The bearing of this truth upon the question of race-improvement and the elimination of degenerate types is important. In paying so much attention to the physical side of the question we are ignoring the important factors and exaggerating those of lesser importance.

In agriculture, attention to the soil is all very well and necessary; but attention to the nature of the seed planted is generally considered as counting for a good deal in determining the nature of the crop to be reaped. Biological theorists are flooding us with schemes for improving the soil in which the human plant grows; and very excellent some of these schemes are. But what about the seeds of the human plant? Nay more; we have not even exhausted the question of the soil; for besides the physical soil, is there not the mental soil? In short, an abundance of factors enter into the question, all of which are of vital import, yet of which but a few fall under the attention of biological theorists.

Heredity includes the two factors of innate potentiality and environment; but the former, since it escapes the observation of physical science, is minimized in favor of the latter. There is an attempt to make environment account for the whole set of phenomena; as though the nature of the crop depended entirely upon the soil and not at all upon the nature of the seed.

In the question of parental transmission the same considerations apply. While it is true that the offspring derives many of its characteristics [Pg 147]from its parents, and others from its surroundings, we know that parentage and environment cannot explain everything. There is another factor; and this factor is what corresponds to the seed in our illustration from agriculture. In fact it is the innate character of the individual. For of a man's character, part is due to parentage and environment and part is inherent in the individual himself. The character is the resultant of these two components. The influence of this inherent factor is seen in families, where, though all the children have the same parents, the characters may be widely different. We are aware that an attempt is made to explain this fact by saying that the different children have combined the characteristics of the parents in different proportions; but this is not an explanation of the cause, but merely a restatement of the problem in another form.

Into the processes of generation and birth there enter many different factors, each of which calls for study, if we would know the truth and arrive at safe and practical conclusions. Even plants and animals have what may be called vital souls or monads, which, working behind physical matter, cause it to grow and develop. In the case of man there is still more, for such a process would produce merely an idiot. There is the human Soul, and this has its own character and destiny—its Karma—brought from its previous lives. This Karma is a potent determining influence in heredity, and it operates much more powerfully in some individuals than in others, this depending upon the stage of development which the particular Soul has reached.

The principle of heredity, as defined by most biologists, is incomplete and needs the Theosophical teachings to complete it. It is often wrongly supposed to conflict with the Theosophical teachings, but so far as it conforms to facts it cannot do this. Theosophists may find themselves unable to accept all the speculations of biologists, but they can never have any quarrel with the facts.

In biological and anthropological works, in quasi-scientific or quasi-sociologic novels by immature and frequently morbid thinkers, and to some extent even in stage plays, we see the speculations of theorists brought forward as the basis for proposed social polities; and bad indeed would be our case should such experimenters ever attain the influence they covet. Frightful doctrines regarding marriage and parentage, inhuman suggestions as to the treatment of malefactors and weaklings, and other horrors, now growing familiar,[Pg 148] will readily suggest themselves to the reader. And as these signs spring from a misuse of science, which science itself seems unable to prevent; while no religious organization seems competent to deal with the problem; the importance of teachings which really can tell us something about our own nature is evident. But it is not of new dogmas that we speak; the teachings referred to are of the nature of demonstrations. When anyone is shown something which he did not before perceive, and recognizes it for a truth, and makes effectual use of it, then he is satisfied and needs not inquire into its authenticity. The purpose of Theosophy is to demonstrate the laws of human nature and nature in general. Its appeal is to the understanding.

IT has frequently been maintained that ancient nations, some of whose art-works remain to us, knew secrets in metallurgy which have been lost and not yet recovered by us; and that in this way they were able to make bronze tools as hard as steel, or harder, to make metals which would not corrode, etc. Where one has a wish to prove that ancient races did not possess such knowledge, there is a conflict between theories and facts, resulting in attempts to find an explanation which will solve the dilemma. But where one has no reason for desiring to represent the ancients as not being so endowed, the facts present no difficulty. On the one hand we have monuments of the hardest stone, elaborately engraved with deep and accurate intaglio. On the other hand we know that many ancient civilizations were of extremely long duration, and that surviving offshoots of these great civilizations show a remarkable skill in many arts and industries. There is an a priori probability that many processes were known which have not yet been rediscovered; and the fact that these architectural and sculptural remains exist merely increases that probability.

With regard to incorruptible bronze, the following, which is condensed from the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (Britain), is interesting.

Figures of the Buddha are found in the north of Siam in great numbers, on the sites of ancient temples which have been crumbling[Pg 149] for centuries, leaving the figures standing amid the forest trees. The interesting thing about these figures is the perfect condition of the bronze after centuries of exposure to tropical suns and rains.

This bronze is called by the natives "samrit"—the perfect or auspicious alloy—and its composition for a long time remained a secret, until, according to the American Consul at Bangkok, a few years ago the formula was discovered in an old Siamese manuscript belonging to the late King of Siam. The following is a translation:

Take twelve ticals (one tical is equal to one half-ounce avoirdupois) weight of pure tin, melt it at a slow fire, avoiding bringing it to red heat. Pour two ticals weight of quicksilver, stir until the latter has become thoroughly absorbed and amalgamated, then cast the mixture in a mold, forming it into a bar. Take one catty in weight (eighty ticals) of refined copper and melt it; then gradually incorporate with it the amalgam, keeping in the meantime the fused mass well stirred. When this has been done, throw into the crucible a sufficient quantity of ashes obtained from the stems of the bua-bok (lotus) creeper so as to cover the molten metal. Remove the dross with an iron ladle. The metal remaining is samrit bronze.

It is surely easy to understand that many such formulas might have been known and never hit upon since. The possibilities in the way of making alloys are endless, especially when it comes to using ingredients or reagents other than metals. It would be strange indeed if an industrious, highly intelligent, and very patient people, working for ages, inspired by enthusiastic motives, should not have discovered many things which are unknown to us whose history is so recent and whose records have been so largely concerned with less peaceful arts.

The largest flower in the world is said to be Rafflesia, a native of Sumatra. It is composed of five round petals of a brickish color, each measuring a foot across. These are covered with numerous irregular yellowish white swellings. The petals surround a cup nearly a foot wide, the margin of which bears the stamens. The cup is filled with a fleshy disk, the upper surface of which is covered with projections like miniature cows' horns. When empty, the cup will hold about twelve pints. The flower weighs about fifteen pounds, the petals being three-quarters of an inch thick.

. . . . . .

[Pg 150]

Quite a field of discovery lies open in connexion with photography by invisible light, for it can reveal objects whose existence was not suspected, especially on the moon and other celestial bodies. The photograph is taken through a quartz lens coated with silver, which is impenetrable to visible light but not to ultra-violet rays. White flowers come out black, and a glass porch looks as if made of sheet-iron. A man standing in the sunlight was seen to have no shadow, which shows that the ultra-violet rays do not come directly from the sun but are present in diffused light.

. . . . . .

It is often desirable, in delicate scientific measuring, to convey a cool beam of light to a small scale which is to be read; and one clever device for doing this is to send the light along a glass rod. It might be thought that the light would escape through the sides of the rod and that it would therefore be necessary to coat them with some opaque substance; but this is not the case. Light does not pass through glass when it strikes the glass very obliquely. If we look very obliquely at a sheet of glass, we do not see the objects on the other side of it, but we see the reflection of those on the same side as that from which we look; the glass acts as if it were silvered. This is what is known as "total reflection"; and in accordance therewith the beam cannot escape through the sides of the rod. Thus the rod acts like a tube along which the light, as though a fluid, runs; rather a suggestive fact in connexion with currents and transmission generally.

. . . . . .

Now that we know of radium emanation, we have a scientific explanation of the difference between natural curative waters when drunk at the spring and the same waters after being bottled and exported. Things may be chemically identical, and yet different—a reflection that should help to prevent us from becoming too dogmatic. This discovery about mineral waters has led to the invention of what may be called "artificial genuine waters"; they are mineral waters artificially impregnated with radium emanation. These have been used curatively with success. Following their use came that of radium baths, and then radium air-baths and radium inhalers. Patients can be put into a room whose air is impregnated with emanation, or they can inhale through a nozzle connected with a bottle. One naturally wonders how many more influences there may be in nature which have not yet been detected, and how many hygienic beliefs are con[Pg 151]sequently based on imperfect knowledge. What happens to the fresh air after it has been drawn into a building, heated in an apparatus, and distributed? Chemically the same it may be, but it differs a good deal in its effects from the air outside. And there is the question of prepared foods; is it enough that they be chemically the same as the natural product?

. . . . . .

The devising of new luxuries is of doubtful advantage; for not only is luxury itself enervating, but it is often not even achieved, for our needs and susceptibilities increase with their satisfaction.

Soon it will not be necessary to have any circulation in your feet; nor to use warm foot-gear or warm your feet at the fire. The carpet on which you tread will itself be warm; or if it is not, you can make it so in a moment by merely pressing the ubiquitous and indispensable button in the wall. Stoop down and examine this magic carpet; it looks just like any ordinary unpretending piece of floor-furniture. But unravel some of its threads and you will find that they contain that all-pervading nerve of modern life—a wire. Upon a woolen thread is wound a tape made up of fine strands of nickel wire; over this again goes more wool, and so the wire is made invisible and flexible. A cord ending in a plug connects the carpet with the wall or the lighting fixture. One would think there was risk of the carpet going up in a puff of blue smoke; nor is one much reassured by the statement, in a scientific paper, that "when overheated, the resistance rises and cuts down the current, so that an automatic regulating action is given which prevents overheating." The rise of resistance would increase the quantity of heat generated, whereas the lessening of the current strength would only reduce the quantity of heat in the proportion of the square root of the diminution in current strength.

. . . . . .

A new method of chemical analysis has been discovered by Sir J. J. Thomson. It makes use of the Crookes vacuum tube, which, as is well known, consists of a glass vessel containing a residuum of air or other gas in a highly rarefied state. A platinum wire is sealed into each end of the tube, each wire connected with an electrode within the tube. A high-potential electric current is transmitted across the rarefied gas, being carried by the particles, which, owing to the rarefaction, have a greater freedom of movement. When these charged particles strike the walls of the tube or an obstacle placed in their[Pg 152] path they produce beautiful luminous effects. Professor Thomson, in his new method of analysis, pierces the negative electrode with a tube of very fine bore, and it is found that the charged particles of gas pass through this tube into the space behind, where they will produce luminosity on a screen in their path. Now, as is known, these particles can be deflected from their straight path and caused to take curved paths by certain electric and magnetic methods. But the amount of deflection so produced varies according to the mass and velocity of the particle. Professor Thompson has so arranged the experiment that the amount of deflection produced in the various particles present is indicated by the spot at which they strike the screen. If they proceeded in a straight path, they would strike the screen in the center; the more they are deflected, the further from the center is the point at which they strike. This affords a means of analysing the composition of the gases present; but it is also necessary to take into account the fact that the amount of deflection depends not only on the mass and velocity of the particles but upon the amount of electric charge they are carrying. But this merely multiplies or divides the results by integral quantities.

It was found by these experiments that no matter what gas was being examined, hydrogen was always present, and also carbon, nitrogen, and mercury; mercury would be likely to be present in the air of a laboratory. In examining marsh gas (CH₄), besides curves corresponding to marsh gas, carbon, and hydrogen, there were found other curves which by calculation would correspond to CH, CH₂, and CH₃, compounds which are not known to the chemist and which must be momentary transition stages in the decomposition of marsh gas.

This method of analysis is rapid, can be performed with minute quantities, and is not hindered by the presence of impurities, for these register themselves without interfering with the other elements.

Two prophecies by H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine were that chemistry and biology were the twin magicians of the coming time, and that it would soon be admitted by men of science that the Occult teaching is true—that every cell, atom, and speck in the universe is alive.

The microscopic germ is every day pushing more to the front and threatening to elbow the mere molecule out of the field. Even familiar chemical reactions will not come off if nothing else but the chemicals concerned is present; there has to be something to start the reaction,[Pg 153] something electrical or who knows what. So we are told. Any day we may expect to hear that the electrons are alive; at any rate they are pretty lively and capable for "dead" things.

Bacteria are not all deadly or even maleficent. There are bacteria that are good for us, necessary for our existence. The human body can be described as made up of minute organisms. Disease means that the destructive ones have prevailed over the constructive; but when there is a proper balance of the two sorts we are healthy.

And now we learn that some of the beneficent bacteria shine—emit light—a sure token of their saintly character! But they do not merely absorb it and give it out again like some chemicals and phosphorescent bodies; they create their own light. "Fiat Lux," they say, et lux fit. This light, too, is without heat, wherefore it is the most economical light possible. When we create light we create with it enough heat to run a hell, and all this represents waste. The most efficient electric filament, it is said, gives only 5% of the energy in the form of light. The luminous bacteria must have a nutritive substance and oxygen. They abound most in sea-water, and on the Pacific Coast the sea at certain seasons is a magnificent spectacle at night, each wave shining with a soft bright light of undefinable colors. But they can be experimented with in the laboratory. Photobacterium phosphorescens is obtained from the herring, duly fed and bottled, and can be used to read by. A scientific magazine shows a photograph of a picture of Lord Lister most appropriately illuminated by bacteria which are contained in glass tubes near the picture.

Light has been regarded mainly as a means of vision; but it is evidently more than this. In ancient science it is spoken of as one of the creative powers. In physics we recognize it as among the active transforming forces. We can regard it either as a form of energy or as a form of matter—these amounting to little more than alternative points of view. Behind the various phenomena classed as "light" lies their ultra-physical cause—the being, the thing-in-itself. When we speak of light as illuminating the mind or emanating from the source of inspiration, we are commonly held to be employing a figure of speech, a metaphor. But we might as well turn the matter around and regard the scientific use of the word light as a metaphor.

There are various kinds of light. Moonlight may be mistaken for the light of the sun by some creatures that have not seen the latter; also there are owls and bats which prefer it. Candles prove a source[Pg 154] of destruction to ignorant moths. The lowliest germs, as we see, can emit a certain luminosity; even decaying matter shines. And so there are various kinds of light in the world of mind; but best of all is the sunlight.

LINNAEUS in one of his works relates an experience he had in the finding of noble metals by means of the divining-rod, and does it in the simple good-humored way that marks all his writings and makes them such delightful reading. He says:

The divining-rod is a curious contrivance, and people will have us believe that the rod can tell where metals are hidden. Now and again my secretary would take a twig of hazel forked evenly at one end and would amuse the company with it. This happened also at this place, one person concealing his silver snuff-box, another his watch, here and there in the bushes, and in most cases the secretary found them. Now I had never believed in the divining-rod and did not like to hear it mentioned. It provoked me that it should be recommended in this way, and I imagined that my friends and my secretary were in collusion to deceive the company. So going to a large field north of the barn, I cut out a piece of turf, placed my little purse in the hole, and covered it up so carefully that nobody could see the least trace of it. My own mark was a great ranunculus growing near the place, and there was no other tall flower in the whole field. When all was arranged I went back to the company, told them that I had concealed my purse in the field, and asked the secretary to find it with the help of his divining-rod. If he found it, then I would believe in the rod, so sure was I that no mortal but myself knew the place where the money was.

The secretary was delighted with such an opportunity to make me think better of the rod which I used always to ridicule; and the company too were most anxious to watch this master-test. The secretary searched for a long while, a full hour at least, and my host and hostess and I had the pleasure of seeing the rod work in vain; and as we did not get the money back, the rod was held up to ridicule.

At last I repaired to the spot with the intention of recovering my purse, but only to find that our rod-walkers had trampled down all the grass by their perambulations. Not a trace was left of my ranunculus, and I was compelled to search for my money with the same uncertainty as the rod. I felt no inclination [Pg 155]to bet a hundred crowns on the rod, for all of us were engaged in a vain search which provoked both irritation and amusement. Finally I had to give it up, but the baron and the secretary asked me to tell them the place approximately, which I did. The wicked rod, however, refused to strike and pointed to a place right opposite. Finally, when all of us were tired of it, and I most of all, the secretary stopped at a place quite far from the one I had indicated, saying that if the purse was not there it would be useless to try to tell the place. I did not care to seek, as it was not at all in this direction that I had (as I thought) placed the purse. But Baron Oxenstjerna lay down upon the ground and put his fingers around the little piece of turf where the money was lying!

Thus the rod was right that time, and gave me back the money I should otherwise have lost. This is fact. If I see more such instances, I suppose I must believe what I do not want to believe. For it is quite different from the magnet and attraction between iron and iron; that a hazel twig can tell me the place where noble metals are—to that neither our outer nor our inner senses consent. Still I am not settled as to the divining-rod; yet I will not venture to bet as many crowns on it another time.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

I. THE HEAD OF A CAÑON, POINT LOMA: A STUDY OF COLOR AND SHADE

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

II. ENTRANCE TO A CAÑON, POINT LOMA: A VIEW OF SINGULAR BEAUTY

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

III. ANOTHER STRIKING VIEW IN A LOMALAND CAÑON
"Spirit that formed this scene ...
These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own...."

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

IV. WHERE THE CAÑON LEAVES THE DAYLIGHT
The last glimpse of bay and mountains before descending 150 feet.
At the bottom it is chill and damp, the sky a blue ribbon.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

V. IN THE HEART OF THE CAÑON
Though too large for the camera, every foot of the rock's surface
is interesting and beautiful to the eye.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

VI. A CAÑON, POINT LOMA; VIEW FROM ABOVE

POINT LOMA is an age-old peninsula at the extreme south of southern California, close to the Mexican border, "Table" and "Tent" mountains in old Mexico forming part of the unsurpassable view across San Diego Bay. It is situated between the thirtieth and thirty-fifth parallels of latitude (N.), about half way between the latitudes of Gibraltar and Cairo. It runs within a few points of due south from the mainland and is roughly wedge- or pennant-shaped, its eastern curve forming the western shore of San Diego Bay, its rocky west receiving the impact of "the league-long rollers" of the Pacific. Except on the eastern sand flats there is probably not five hundred yards of the main road along the Point that is either level or straight, but up and down it goes from level to level, winding in and out along the contours of the ridge. From the ridge the sides fall away in slopes, terraces or cliffs. On the flats on the eastern side are Roseville and La Playa and the government coaling station, quarantine station, and military fort. The western side is mainly abrupt cliffs fifty to sixty feet high, affording descent to the shore in few places, and hollowed with caves.

The major surface formation of Point Loma is a friable sandstone containing clays, gypsum, marls, pebbles, and a curious reddish[Pg 156] iron nodule varying in size from a small pea to a large marble. This occurs in great quantities and is apparently of igneous origin, though whether volcanic or meteoric is not known.

On both sides of the ridge deep cañons have been washed out by the rains and here and there are irregular amphitheaters as if a former cave had fallen in. Such a spot is shown in illustration No. I, the characteristic washing of the adobe face of the break being very picturesque, giving wonderful light and shade and color effects in the brilliant sunshine. The prevailing color is a rich brown, shading from gold to red, which seems to complement the intense blue of the sky. The shrubs and vines add every gradation and "tone" of green. Wild flowers, ferns, and cacti abound in these cañons, and many of the shrubs are aromatic, not only beautiful to the eye when in bloom, but a fragrant balsam to the sense of smell. Large owls and hawks nest in inaccessible places, living on the prolific smaller fauna; and a large tufted-eared wild cat has been met with.

The cañons on the west side are tame and uninteresting compared with those on the east. Here many a delightful outing can be had, with a spice of adventure in negotiating difficult ascents and descents, needing agility and a quick strong frame and muscles; or, if one does not possess such, the help of those who do. In some of the most difficult places niches have been cut with a hatchet, making the climb fairly easy.

Every few yards the character of these cañons alters, revealing views of the most varied beauty. One such is shown in illustration No. II, the entrance to one of the cañons: the silver sand of the bottom, the varied greens of the scrub, the rich red-gold-brown of the cliffs with the green chaparral peeping over, all flooded with golden sunshine almost palpitating with vibrant life, and over all the bluest blue sky, make a feast of color which must be seen to be appreciated. Or again, as in illustration No. III, there is rugged and savage grandeur recalling Whitman's words:

Many of the finest views cannot be photographed because they recede deep, deep out of the light of day. This can be seen by the[Pg 157] center foreground of illustration No. IV, the detail of which is quite lost in a veritable yawning gulf. Here one catches the last glimpse of the bay and the distant mountains before descending in five or six stages some one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet. At the bottom it is so narrow that one has to work his way along sideways. It is damp and chill and earthy down there, the sky a narrow ribbon of blue away up, and one emerges later feeling like an emancipated troglodyte.

Or as shown in illustration No. V—which is a view of the rock face on the right-hand side of No. IV, about half-way down—the scene is too large for the camera, while every foot of it is interesting and beautiful to the eye: "no jutty, frieze, buttress nor coign of vantage" but hath its festoon of vines, clump of ferns, or mass of wild flowers, while the flat rock is stained and mottled with lichens—sage green, old gold, brown, red; and only in such a place could mere light and shade work such magic: fairy towers, demon caves, faces in the rock—grotesque, fantastic, weird, beautiful, majestic, are the tricks of sunshine in this miniature cataclysmic playground of nature.

The cañons are full of surprises. At one place—a winding defile between bare rocks, just wide enough for one to scramble through—the members of a party while near enough to converse, are invisible to each other because of the sudden turnings and doublings of the crack every few feet. Some of the cañons open out almost imperceptibly from others. Perhaps a rest will be called on the silver sand of some opening. The older members of the party wish to drink in the beauty of the surroundings. The younger ones work off superfluous energy—scaling the sides, exploring the branchings, or making a toboggan of some thirty feet or so of loose sand-slide. After a while someone will say: "It is time to return." So we retrace our steps and after proceeding a little way, if there be a newcomer in the party he is likely to say: "I don't remember this on the way down; it is altogether different." Being told that it is another cañon, he will say: "When did we enter it?"

So we climb up and out again another way, someone perhaps climbing up on another's shoulders and then hauling the rest up; and within about two hours of starting out we are back home again, braced and exhilarated by the exercise, refreshed and inspired by the unique and varied beauty of these Lomaland cañons.

[Pg 158]

Founded at New York City in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky, William Q. Judge and others
Reorganized in 1898 by Katherine Tingley
Central Office, Point Loma, California

The Headquarters of the Society at Point Loma with the buildings and grounds, are no "Community" "Settlement" or "Colony." They form no experiment in Socialism, Communism, or anything of similar nature, but are the Central Executive Office of an international organization where the business of the same is carried on, and where the teachings of Theosophy are being demonstrated. Midway 'twixt East and West, where the rising Sun of Progress and Enlightenment shall one day stand at full meridian, the Headquarters of the Society unite the philosophic Orient with the practical West.

MEMBERSHIP

in the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society may be either "at large" or in a local Branch. Adhesion to the principle of Universal Brotherhood is the only pre-requisite to membership. The Organization represents no particular creed; it is entirely unsectarian, and includes professors of all faiths, only exacting from each member that large toleration of the beliefs of others which he desires them to exhibit towards his own.

Applications for membership in a Branch should be addressed to the local Director; for membership "at large" to G. de Purucker, Membership Secretary, International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma, California.

OBJECTS

THIS Brotherhood is a part of a great and universal movement which has been active in all ages.

This Organization declares that Brotherhood is a fact in Nature. Its principal purpose is to teach Brotherhood, demonstrate that it is a fact in Nature, and make it a living power in the life of humanity.

Its subsidiary purpose is to study ancient and modern religions, science, philosophy, and art; to investigate the laws of Nature and the divine powers in man.

H. P. BLAVATSKY, FOUNDRESS
AND TEACHER

The present Theosophical Movement was inaugurated by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in New York in 1875. The original name was "The Theosophical Society." Associated with her were William Q. Judge and others. Madame Blavatsky for a time preferred not to hold any outer official position except that of Corresponding Secretary. But all true students know that Madame Blavatsky held the highest authority, the only real authority which comes of wisdom and power, the authority of Teacher and Leader, the real head, heart, and inspiration of the whole Theosophical Movement. It was through her that the teachings of Theosophy were given to the world, and without her the Theosophical Movement could not have been.

BRANCH SOCIETIES IN EUROPE AND INDIA

In 1878 Madame Blavatsky left the United States, first visiting Great Britain and then India, in both of which countries she founded branch societies. The parent body in New York became later the Aryan Theosophical Society and HAS ALWAYS HAD ITS HEADQUARTERS IN AMERICA; and of this, William Q. Judge was President until his death in 1896.

It is important to note the following:

In response to the statement published by a then prominent member in India that Madame Blavatsky is "loyal to the Theosophical Society and to Adyar," Madame Blavatsky wrote:

It is pure nonsense to say that "H. P. B. ... is loyal to the Theosophical Society and to Adyar" (!?). H. P. B. is loyal to death to the Theosophical CAUSE and those Great Teachers whose philosophy can alone bind the whole of Humanity into one Brotherhood.... The degree of her sympathies with the Theosophical Society and Adyar depends upon the degree of the loyalty of that Society to the CAUSE. Let it break[Pg 159] away from the original lines and show disloyalty in its policy to the cause and the original program of the Society, and H. P. B., calling the T. S. disloyal, will shake it off like dust from her feet.

To one who accepts the teachings of Theosophy it is plain to see that although Theosophy is of no nationality or country but for all, yet it has a peculiar relationship with America. Not only was the United States the birthplace of the Theosophical Society, and the home of the Parent Body up to the present time, but H. P. Blavatsky, the Foundress of the Society, although a Russian by birth, became an American citizen; William Q. Judge, of Irish parentage and birth, also became an American citizen; and Katherine Tingley is American born. America therefore not only has played a unique part in the history of the present Theosophical Movement, but it is plain to see that its destiny is closely interwoven with that of Theosophy; and by America is meant not only the United States or even the North American continent, but also the South American continent, and, as repeatedly declared by Madame Blavatsky, it is in this great Western Hemisphere as a whole, North and South, that the next great Race of humanity is to be born.

MADAME BLAVATSKY FOUNDS THE
ESOTERIC SCHOOL; HER LIFE-LONG TRUST
IN WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

In 1888, H. P. Blavatsky, then in London, on the suggestion and at the request of her Colleague, William Q. Judge, founded the Esoteric School of Theosophy, a body for students, of which H. P. Blavatsky wrote that it was "the heart of the Theosophical Movement," and of which she appointed William Q. Judge as her sole representative in America. Further, writing officially to the Convention of the American Societies held in Chicago, 1888, she wrote as follows:

To William Q. Judge, General Secretary of the American Section of the Theosophical Society:

My dearest Brother and Co-Founder of the Theosophical Society:

In addressing to you this letter, which I request you to read to the Convention, summoned for April 22nd, I must first present my hearty congratulations and most cordial good wishes to the Society and yourself—the heart and soul of that body in America. We were several to call it to life in 1875. Since then you have remained alone to preserve that life through good and evil report. It is to you chiefly, if not entirely, that the Theosophical Society owes its existence in 1888. Let me thank you for it, for the first, and perhaps for the last time publicly, and from the bottom of my heart, which beats only for the cause you represent so well and serve so faithfully. I ask you also to remember that on this important occasion, my voice is but the feeble echo of other more sacred voices, and the transmitter of the approval of Those whose presence is alive in more than one true Theosophical heart, and lives, as I know, pre-eminently in yours.

This regard that Madame Blavatsky had for her colleague William Q. Judge continued undiminished until her death in 1891, when he became her successor.

Madame Blavatsky, in 1889, writing in her Theosophical magazine published in London, said that the purpose of the magazine was not only to promulgate Theosophy, but also and as a consequence of such promulgation, "to bring to light the hidden things of darkness." She further says:

As to the "weak-minded Theosophists"—if any—they can take care of themselves in the way they please. If the "false prophets of Theosophy" are to be left untouched, the true prophets will be very soon—as they have already been—confused with the false. It is high time to winnow our corn and cast away the chaff. The Theosophical Society is becoming enormous in its numbers, and if the false prophets, the pretenders, or even the weak-minded dupes, are left alone, then the Society threatens to become very soon a fanatical body split into three hundred sects—like Protestantism—each hating the other, and all bent on destroying the truth by monstrous exaggerations and idiotic schemes and shams.

We do not believe in allowing the presence[Pg 160] of sham elements in Theosophy, because of the fear, forsooth, that if even "a false element in the faith" is ridiculed, the latter is "apt to shake the confidence" in the whole.

... What true Christians shall see their co-religionists making fools of themselves, or disgrace their faith, and still abstain from rebuking them publicly as privately, for fear lest this false element should throw out of Christianity the rest of the believers?

The wise man courts truth; the fool, flattery.

However it may be, let rather our ranks be made thinner, than the Theosophical Society go on being made a spectacle to the world through the exaggerations of some fanatics, and the attempt of various charlatans to profit by a ready-made program. These, by disfiguring and adapting Occultism to their own filthy and immoral ends, bring disgrace upon the whole movement.—Lucifer, Vol. iv, pp. 2 & 3

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE ELECTED PRESIDENT
FOR LIFE

In 1893 there openly began what had been going on beneath the surface for some time, a bitter attack ostensibly against William Q. Judge, but in reality also against H. P. Blavatsky. This bitter attack threatened to disrupt the whole Society and to thwart the main purpose of its existence, which was to further the cause of Universal Brotherhood. Finally the American members decided to take action, and at the annual convention of the Society held in Boston in 1895, by a vote of 191 delegates to 10, re-asserted the principle of Theosophy as laid down by H. P. Blavatsky, and elected William Q. Judge President for life. Similar action was almost immediately taken by members in Europe, Australia, and other countries, in each case William Q. Judge being elected President for life. In this action the great majority of the active members throughout the world concurred, and thus the Society was relieved of those who had joined it for other purposes than the furtherance of Universal Brotherhood, the carrying out of the Society's other objects, and the spiritual freedom and upliftment of Humanity. A few of these in order to curry favor with the public and attract a following, continued among themselves to use the name of Theosophy, but it should be understood that they are not connected with the Theosophical Movement.

KATHERINE TINGLEY SUCCEEDS
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

One year later, in March 1896, William Q. Judge died, leaving as his successor Katherine Tingley, who for several years had been associated with him in the work of the Society. This Teacher not only began immediately to put into actual practice the ideals of Theosophy as had been the hope and aim of both H. P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge, and for which they had laid the foundations, thus honoring and illustrating the work of her illustrious predecessors, but she also struck a new keynote, introducing new and broader plans for uplifting humanity. For each of the Teachers, while continuing the work and building upon the foundations of his predecessor, adds a new link, and has his own distinctive work to do, and teachings to give, belonging to his own time and position.

No sooner had Katherine Tingley begun her work as successor, than further attacks, some most insidious, from the same source as those made against H. P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge, as well as from other sources, were inaugurated against her. Most prominent among those thus attacking Katherine Tingley were some referred to by Madame Blavatsky in the article above-quoted (pp. 159-60), who by their own actions had removed themselves from the ranks of the Society. There were also a few others who still remained in the Society who had not joined hands with the disintegrators at the time the latter were repudiated in 1895. These now thought it to their personal advantage to oppose the Leader and sought to gain control of the Society and use[Pg 161] it for political purposes. These ambitious agitators, seeking to exploit the Society for their own ends, used every means to overthrow Katherine Tingley, realizing that she was the greatest obstacle to the accomplishment of their desires, for if she could be removed they expected to gain control. They worked day and night, stooping almost to any means to carry out their projects. Yet it seemed that by these very acts, i. e., the more they attacked, the more were honest and earnest members attracted to the ranks of the Society under Katherine Tingley's leadership.

KATHERINE TINGLEY GIVES SOCIETY
NEW CONSTITUTION

SOCIETY MERGES INTO BROADER FIELD

To eliminate these menacing features and to safeguard the work of the Theosophical Movement for all time, Katherine Tingley presented to a number of the oldest members gathered at her home in New York on the night of January 13th, 1898, a new Constitution which she had formulated for the more permanent and broader work of the Theosophical Movement, opening up a wider field of endeavor than had heretofore been possible to students of Theosophy. One month later, at the Convention of the Society, held in Chicago, February 18th, 1898, this Constitution was accepted by an almost unanimous vote, and the Theosophical Society merged itself into the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society. In this new step forward, she had the heartiest co-operation and support of the vast majority of the members throughout the world.

THEOSOPHY IN PRACTICE

It is of interest here to quote our Teacher's own words regarding this time. In an article published in The Metropolitan Magazine, New York, October, 1909, she says:

Later, I found myself the successor of William Q. Judge, and I began my heart work, the inspiration of which is partly due to him.

In all my writings and associations with the members of the Theosophical Society, I emphasized the necessity of putting Theosophy into daily practice, and in such a way that it would continuously demonstrate that it was the redeeming power of man. More familiarity with the organization and its workers brought home to me the fact that there was a certain number of students who had in the early days begun the wrong way to study Theosophy, and that it was becoming in their lives a death-like sleep. I noticed that those who followed this line of action were always alarmed at my humanitarian tendencies. Whenever I reminded them that they were building a colossal egotism instead of a power to do good, they subtly opposed me. As I insisted on the practical life of theosophy, they opposed still more. They later exerted personal influence which affected certain members throughout the world. It was this condition which then menaced the Theosophical Movement, and which forced me to the point of taking such action as would fully protect the pure teachings of Theosophy and make possible a broader path for unselfish students to follow. Thus the faithful members of the Theosophical Movement would be able to exemplify the charge which Helena Petrovna Blavatsky gave to her pupils, as follows:

"Real Theosophy is altruism, and we cannot repeat it too often. It is brotherly love, mutual help, unswerving devotion to truth. If once men do but realize that in these alone can true happiness be found, and never in wealth, possession or any selfish gratification, then the dark cloud will roll away, and a new humanity will be born upon the earth. Then the Golden Age will be there indeed."

Here we find William Q. Judge accentuating the same spirit, the practical Theosophical life:

"The power to know does not come from book-study alone, nor from mere philosophy, but mostly from the actual practice of altruism in deed, word, and thought; for that practice purifies the covers of the soul and permits the divine light to shine down into the brain-mind."

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

On February 18, 1898, at the Convention of the Theosophical Society in America, held at Chicago, Ill., the Society resolved, through its delegates from all parts of the world, to enter a larger arena, to widen its scope and to further protect the teachings of Theosophy. Amid most intense enthusiasm the[Pg 162] Theosophical Society was expanded into the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, and I found myself recognized as its leader and official head. The Theosophical Society in Europe also resolved to merge itself into the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, and the example was quickly followed by Theosophical Societies in other parts of the world. The expansion of the original Theosophical Society, which Madame Blavatsky founded and which William Q. Judge so ably sustained, now called the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, gave birth to a new life, and the membership trebled the first year, and ever since that time a rapid increase has followed.

INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS AT
POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA

In 1900 the Headquarters of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society were removed from New York to Point Loma, California, which is now the International Center of the Theosophical Movement. This Organization is unsectarian and non-political; none of its officers or workers receives any salary or financial recompense.

In her article in The Metropolitan Magazine above referred to, Katherine Tingley further says:

The knowledge that Point Loma was to be the World-center of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, which has for its supreme object the elevation of the race, created great enthusiasm among its members throughout the world. The further fact that the government of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society rests entirely with the leader and official head, who holds her office for life and who has the privilege of appointing her successor, gave me the power to carry out some of the plans I had long cherished. Among these was the erecting of the great Homestead Building. This I carefully designed that it might not stand apart from the beautiful nature about it, but in a sense harmonize with the sky, the distant mountains, the broad blue Pacific, and the glorious light of the sun.

So it has been from the first, so that the practical work of Theosophy began at Point Loma under the most favorable circumstances. No one dominated by selfish aims and ambitions was invited to take part in this pioneer work. Although there were scores of workers from various parts of the world uniting their efforts with mine for the upbuilding of this world-center, yet there was no disharmony. Each took the duty allotted him and worked trustingly and cheerfully. Many of the world's ways these workers gladly left behind them. They seemed reborn with an enthusiasm that knew no defeat. The work was done for the love of it, and this is the secret of a large part of the success that has come to the Theosophical Movement.

Not long after the establishment of the International Theosophical Headquarters at Point Loma it was plain to see that the Society was advancing along all lines by leaps and bounds. Letters of inquiry were pouring in from different countries, which led to my establishing the Theosophical Propaganda Bureau. This is one of the greatest factors we have in disseminating our teachings. The International Brotherhood League then opened its offices and has ever been active in its special humanitarian work, being the directing power which has sustained the several Râja Yoga schools and academies, now in Pinar del Rio, Santa Clara, and Santiago de Cuba, from the beginning. The Aryan Theosophical Press has yearly enlarged its facilities in answer to the demands made upon it through the publication of Theosophical literature, which includes The Theosophical Path and several other publications. There is the Isis Conservatory of Music and Drama, the Department of Arts and Crafts, the Industrial Department, including Forestry, Agriculture, Roadbuilding, Photo-engraving, Chemical laboratory, Landscape-gardening, and many other crafts.

DO NOT FAIL TO PROFIT BY
THE FOLLOWING

Constantly the question is asked, what is theosophy, what does it really teach? Each year the life and work of H. P. Blavatsky and the high ideals and pure morality of her teachings are more clearly vindicated. Each year the position taken by William Q. Judge and Katherine Tingley in regard to their predecessor, H. P. Blavatsky, is better understood, and their own lives and work are seen to be actuated by the same high ideals for the uplifting of the human race. Each year more and more people are coming to realize that not all that goes under the name of Theoso[Pg 163]phy is rightly so called, but that there is a counterfeit Theosophy as well as the true, and that there is need of discrimination, lest many be misled.

Counterfeits exist in many departments of life and thought, and especially in matters relating to religion and the deeper teachings of life. Hence, in order that people who are honestly seeking the truth may not be misled, we deem it important to state that the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society is not responsible for, nor is it affiliated with, nor does it endorse, any other society, which, while calling itself Theosophical, is not connected with the International Theosophical Headquarters at Point Loma, California. Having a knowledge of Theosophy, the ancient Wisdom-Religion, we deem it as a sacred trust and responsibility to maintain its pure teachings, free from the vagaries, additions, or misrepresentations of ambitious self-styled Theosophists and would-be teachers. The test of a Theosophist is not in profession, but in action, and in a noble and virtuous life. The motto of the Society is "There is no religion higher than Truth." This was adopted by Madame Blavatsky, but it is to be deeply regretted that there are no legal means to prevent the use of this motto in connexion with counterfeit Theosophy, by people professing to be Theosophists, but who would not be recognized as such by Madame Blavatsky.

It is a regrettable fact that many people use the name of Theosophy and of our Organization for self-interest, as also that of H. P. Blavatsky, the Foundress, and even the Society's motto, to attract attention to themselves and to gain public support. This they do in private and public speech and in publications. Without being in any way connected with the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, in many cases they permit it to be inferred that they are, thus misleading the public, and honest inquirers are hence led away from the original truths of Theosophy.

The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society welcomes to membership all who truly love their fellow men and desire the eradication of the evils caused by the barriers of race, creed, caste, or color, which have so long impeded human progress; to all sincere lovers of truth and to all who aspire to higher and better things than the mere pleasures and interests of a worldly life, and are prepared to do all in their power to make Brotherhood a living energy in the life of humanity, its various departments offer unlimited opportunities.

The whole work of the Organization is under the direction of the Leader and Official Head, Katherine Tingley, as outlined in the Constitution.

OBJECTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL
BROTHERHOOD LEAGUE

1. To help men and women to realize the nobility of their calling and their true position in life.

2. To educate children of all nations on the broadest lines of Universal Brotherhood and to prepare destitute and homeless children to become workers for humanity.

3. To ameliorate the condition of unfortunate women, and assist them to a higher life.

4. To assist those who are or have been in prisons to establish themselves in honorable positions in life.

5. To abolish capital punishment.

6. To bring about a better understanding between so-called savage and civilized races, by promoting a closer and more sympathetic relationship between them.

7. To relieve human suffering resulting from flood, famine, war, and other calamities; and, generally, to extend aid, help, and comfort to suffering humanity throughout the world.

Joseph H. Fussell, Secretary

BOOK LIST

OF WORKS ON
THEOSOPHY, OCCULTISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND ART

PUBLISHED OR FOR SALE BY

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY

INTERNATIONAL THEOSOPHICAL HEADQUARTERS
POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.

The office of the Theosophical Publishing Company is at Point Loma, California

It has no other office and no branches

FOREIGN AGENCIES

THE UNITED KINGDOM—Theosophical Book Co., 18 Bartlett's Buildings,
Holborn Circus, London, e. c., England

GERMANY—J. Th. Heller, Vestnertorgraben 13, Nürnberg

SWEDEN—Universella Broderskapets Förlag, Barnhusgatan, 10, Stockholm

HOLLAND—Louis F. Schudel, Hollandia-Drukkerij, Baarn

AUSTRALIA—Willans and Williams, 16 Carrington St., Wynyard Sq., Sydney, N. S. W.

CUBA—H. S. Turner, Apartado 127; or Heredia, Baja, 10, Santiago de Cuba

MEXICO—Samuel L. Herrera, Calle de la Independencia, 55 altos, Vera Cruz, V. C.

Order above from the Theosophical Publishing Company, Point Loma, California.
The following in other languages may be procured by writing direct to
the respective Foreign Agencies (see first page) for Book List and prices.

GERMAN

An ihren Früchten sollt Ihr sie erkennen—Wer ist ein Theosoph?—Was Theosophie über manche Punkte lehrt und was sie weder lehrt noch billigt
Ausbildung der Konzentration (von William Q. Judge).
Das Leben zu Point Loma (Katherine Tingley). Schön Illustriert. (Recommended)
Die Bhagavad-Gîtâ (nach der englischen Ausgabe von William Q. Judge).
Die Wissenschaft des Lebens und die Kunst zu leben
Echos aus dem Orient (von William Q. Judge).
Studien über die Bhagavad Gîtâ (William Q. Judge).
Theosophie Erklärt
Rückblick und Ausblick auf die theosophische Bewegung
Wahrheit ist mächtig und muss obsiegen!
Postkarten mit Ansichten von Point Loma

Theosophische Handbücher:

DUTCH

Die Bhagavad-Gîtâ: Het Boek van Yoga; with Glossary. Bound in morocco or paper
De Kleine Bouwers en Hun Reis naar Rangi; een Geschiedenis voor Kinderen door
R. N. (met illustraties van R. Machell)
De Oceaan der Theosophie (door William Q. Judge)
De Ridders van Keizer Arthur—Een Verhaal voor Kinderen, door Ceinnyd Morus
Drie Opstellen over Theosophie. In verband met Vraagstukken van den Dag
Echo's uit het Oosten; een algemeene schets der Theosophische Leeringen door William Q. Judge (Occultus)
Het Leven te Point Loma, Enkele Aanteekeningen door Katherine Tingley
Hoogere en Lagere Psychologie. Enkele Aanteekeningen door Katherine Tingley
(met Portret en Illustratie)
H. P. Blavatsky En William Q. Judge, De Stichters en Leiders der Theosophische Beweging (Leerling). pp. 42
Katherine Tingley, de Autocraat (De Geheimen van de Leer van het Hart)
Licht op het Pad (door M. C.) Bound in morocco or paper
Pit en Merg, uit sommige Heilige Geschriften, 1^e Serie
Inhoud: Theosophie en Christendom. "Niemand kan twee heeren dienen."
Iets Meerders dan de Tempel. Een Gezicht des Oordeels. De Mensch Jezus
Pit en Merg van de Eindigende en Komende Eeuw, en de daarmede in betrekking staande positie van Vrijmetselarij en Jesuitisme, door Rameses

Theosophical Manuals, Series No. 1

Theosophical Manuals, Series No. 2

No. 1 Psychometrie, Clairvoyance, en Gedachten-Overbrenging

SWEDISH

Den Hemliga Läran, 2 band (H. P. Blavatsky)
Nyckel till Teosofien (H. P. Blavatsky)
Astral Berusning, Devachan, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Brev, som hjälpt mig (William Q. Judge)
Den Cykliska Lagen, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Dolda Vinkar i den Hemliga Läran, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Dödsstraffet i Teosofisk Belysning. m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Reinkarnationsläran i Bibeln, Om Karma, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Studier över Bhagavad-Gîtâ (William Q. Judge)
Teosofiens Ocean (William Q. Judge)
Vetenskapen och Teosofien, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Övning i Koncentration (William Q. Judge)
Hemligheterna i Hjärtats Lära (Katherine Tingley och hennes lärjungar)
En Intervju med Katherine Tingley (Greusel)
Katherine Tingley, af M. F. N. (levnadsteckning)
Existenslinjer och Utvecklingsnormer (Oscar Ljungström)
Kan ett T. S. sakna morallag? (Protest möte)
Teosofi och Kristendom, Genmäle till Prof. Pfannenstill (Dr. G. Zander och F. Kellberg)
Asiens Ljus (Edwin Arnold)
Bhagavad Gîtâ, Hängivandets bok
Den Teosofiska Institutionen (Baker)
Frimureri och Jesuitvälde (Rameses)
Ljus på Vägen
Lotusblad, för barn
Lotussångbok, ord och musik
Râja Yoga, Om Själens Utveckling
Skillnaden mellan Teosofi och Spiritism
Stjärnan, Sago- och Poemsamling, för barn
Teosofiens Innebörd
Tystnadens Röst
Visingsö (Karling)

Teosofiska Handböcker
Enkelt och lättfattligt skrivna framställningar av Teosofiska läror
Klotband. Pris för varje bok, kronor 2.00

PERIODICALS

Subscriptions to the above five Magazines may be secured also through
The Theosophical Publishing Co., Point Loma, California, U. S. A.

Neither the Editors of the above publications, nor the officers of The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, or of any of its departments, receive salaries or other remuneration. All profits arising from the business of the Theosophical Publishing Co., are devoted to Humanitarian work. All who assist in that work are directly helping that cause.

THE PATH
The Theosophical Path
An International Magazine
Unsectarian and nonpolitical

Monthly Illustrated

Devoted to the Brotherhood of Humanity, the promulgation
of Theosophy, the study of ancient & modern
Ethics, Philosophy, Science and Art, and to the uplifting
and purification of Home and National Life

Edited by Katherine Tingley
International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma, California, U.S.A.

The philosophy that teaches selflessness contains the balm for the pain and suffering of today. False ideas, false ambitions, inharmonious methods of living, selfishness, and an unbrotherly spirit, are accountable for the unhappiness and dissatisfaction....

Humanity has long wandered through the dark valley of bitter experiences; but the mountain heights are again seen, suffused with the glow of dawn and the promise of a new Golden Age, and a pathway is once more shown to that realm where the gods still abide.

Katherine Tingley

The Theosophical Path

MONTHLY ILLUSTRATED

EDITED BY KATHERINE TINGLEY

NEW CENTURY CORPORATION, POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.

Entered as second-class matter July 25, 1911, at the Post Office at Point Loma, California
under the Act of March 3, 1879
Copyright, 1911, by Katherine Tingley

[Pg 164]

Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

SOUTH-WEST CORNER OF THE GREEK TEMPLE IN THE GREEK THEATER
INTERNATIONAL THEOSOPHICAL HEADQUARTERS, POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA

[Pg 165]

KATHERINE TINGLEY, EDITOR

There is but one Eternal Truth, one universal, infinite and changeless spirit of Love, Truth, and Wisdom, impersonal, therefore, bearing a different name in every nation, one Light for all, in which the whole Humanity lives and moves and has its being.—H. P. Blavatsky

THE NEW CYCLE: Extracts from an Article Written by H. P. Blavatsky, the Foundress of the Theosophical Society, for the first number of "La Revue Théosophique," 1889

THE principal aim of our organization, which we are laboring to make a real brotherhood, is expressed in the motto of the Theosophical Society: "There is no religion higher than truth." As an impersonal Society we must be ready to seize the truth wherever we find it, without permitting ourselves more partiality for one belief than for another. This leads directly to a logical conclusion. If we acclaim and receive with open arms all sincere truthseekers, there can be no place in our ranks for the bigot, the sectarian, or the hypocrite, enclosed in Chinese Walls of dogma, each stone bearing the words "No admission." What place indeed could such fanatics occupy in them, fanatics whose religions forbid all inquiry and do not admit any argument as possible, when the mother idea, the very root of the beautiful plant we call Theosophy is known as—absolute and unfettered liberty to investigate all the mysteries of nature, human or divine!

With this exception the Society invites everyone to participate in its activities and discoveries. Whoever feels his heart beat in unison with the great heart of humanity; whoever feels his interests are one with those of every being poorer and less fortunate than himself; every man or woman who is ready to hold out a helping hand to the suffering; whoever understands the true meaning of the word "Egoism"; [Pg 166]is a Theosophist by birth and by right. He can always be sure of finding sympathetic souls among us.

We have already said elsewhere, that "Born in the United States the Theosophical Society was constituted on the model of its mother country." That as we know, has omitted the name of God from its Constitution, for fear, said the fathers of the Republic, that the word might one day become the pretext for a state religion: for they desired to grant absolute equality to all religions under the laws, so that each form would support the State, which in its turn would protect them all. The Theosophical Society was founded on that excellent model....

Each Body, like each member, being free to profess whatever religion and to study whatever philosophy it prefers, provided all remain united in the tie of solidarity or Brotherhood, our Society can truly call itself a "Republic of conscience."

Though absolutely free to pursue whatever intellectual occupations please him the best, each member of our Society must, however, furnish some reason for belonging thereto, which amounts to saying that each member must bear his part, small though it be, of mental or other labor for the benefit of all. If one does not work for others one has no right to be called a Theosophist. All must strive for human freedom of thought, for the elimination of selfish and sectarian superstitions, and for the discovery of all the truths that are within the comprehension of the human mind. That object cannot be attained more certainly than by the cultivation of unity in intellectual labors. No honest worker, no earnest seeker can remain empty-handed; and there is hardly a man or woman, busy as they may think themselves, incapable of laying their tribute, moral or pecuniary, on the altar of truth....

In the present condition of the Theosophical history it is easy to understand the object of a Review exclusively devoted to the propagation of our ideas. We wish to open therein new intellectual horizons, to follow unexplored routes leading to the amelioration of humanity; to offer a word of consolation to all the disinherited of the earth, whether they suffer from the starvation of soul or from the lack of physical necessities. We invite all large-hearted persons who desire to respond to this appeal to join with us in this humanitarian work. Each co-worker, whether a member of the Society or simply a sympathizer, can help. We are face to face with all the[Pg 167] glorious possibilities of the future. This is again the hour of the great cyclic return of the tide of mystical thought in Europe. On every side we are surrounded by the ocean of the universal science—the science of Life Eternal—bearing on its waves the forgotten and submerged treasures of generations now passed away, treasures still unknown to the modern civilized races. The strong current which rises from the submarine abysses, from the depths where lie the prehistoric learning and arts swallowed up with the antediluvian Giants—demigods, though with but little of mortality—that current strikes us in the face and murmurs: "That which has been exists again; that which has been forgotten, buried for aeons in the depths of the Jurassic strata may reappear to view once again. Prepare yourselves."

Happy are those who understand the language of the elements. But where are they going for whom the word element has no other meaning than that given to it by physics or materialistic chemistry? Will it be towards well-known shores that the surge of the great waters will bear them, when they have lost their footing in the deluge which is approaching? Will it be towards the peaks of a new Ararat that they will find themselves carried, towards the heights of light and sunshine, where there is a ledge on which to place the feet in safety, or perchance is it a fathomless abyss that will swallow them up as soon as they try to struggle against the irresistible billows of an unknown element?

We must prepare ourselves and study truth under every aspect, endeavoring to ignore nothing, if we do not wish to fall into the abyss of the unknown when the hour shall strike. It is useless to leave it to chance and to await the intellectual and psychic crisis which is preparing, with indifference, if not with crass disbelief, saying that at the worst the flowing tide will drive us all in the course of nature towards the farther shore; for it is far more probable that the tidal wave will cast up nothing but a corpse. The strife will be terrible in any case between brutal materialism and blind fanaticism on the one hand, and philosophy and mysticism on the other—mysticism, that veil of more or less translucency which hides the eternal Truth.

But it is not materialism that will gain the upper hand. Every fanatic whose ideas isolate him from the universal axiom that "There is no religion higher than Truth" will see himself by that very fact rejected, like an unworthy stone, from the Archway called Universal Brotherhood. Tossed by the waves, driven by the winds, reeling in[Pg 168] that element which is so terrible because unknown, he will soon find himself engulfed....

Yes, it must be so, it cannot be otherwise when the chilly and artificial gleam of modern materialism will disappear for want of fuel. Those who cannot form any idea of a spiritual Ego, a living soul and an eternal Spirit within their material shell (which owes its very existence to these principles); those for whom the great hope of an existence beyond the grave is a vexation, merely the symbol of an unknown quantity, or else the subject of a belief sui generis, the result of theological and mediumistic hallucinations—these will do well to prepare for the serious troubles the future has in store for them. For from the depths of the dark, muddy waters of materiality which hide from them every glimpse of the horizons of the great Beyond, there is a mystic force rising during these last years of the century. At most it is but the first gentle rustling, but it is a superhuman rustling—"supernatural" only for the superstitious and the ignorant. The spirit of truth is passing over the face of the waters, and in dividing them, is compelling them to disgorge their spiritual treasures. This spirit is a force that can neither be hindered nor stopped. Those who recognize it and feel that this is the supreme moment of their salvation will be uplifted by it and carried beyond the illusions of the great astral serpent. The joy they will experience will be so poignant and intense that if they were not mentally isolated from their body of flesh, the beatitude would pierce them like sharp steel. It is not pleasure that they will experience but a bliss which is a foretaste of the wisdom of the gods, the knowledge of good and evil, of the fruits of the tree of life.

But although the man of today may be a fanatic, a sceptic, or a mystic, he must be well convinced that it is useless for him to struggle against the two moral forces at large today engaged in the supreme contest. He is at the mercy of these two adversaries and there is no intermediary capable of protecting him. It is but a question of choice, whether to let himself be carried along on the wave of mystical evolution, or to struggle against this moral and psychic reaction and so find himself engulfed in the maelstrom of the rising tide. The whole world, at this time, with its centers of high intelligence and humane culture, its political, artistic, literary, and commercial life, is in a turmoil; everything is shaking and crumbling in its movement towards reform. It is useless to shut the eyes, it is useless to hope that anyone can[Pg 169] remain neutral between the two contending forces; the choice is whether to be crushed between them or to become united with one or the other. The man who imagines he has freedom, but who, nevertheless, remains plunged in that seething caldron of foulness called the life of Society—gives the lie in the face of his divine Ego, a lie so terrible that it will stifle that higher self for a long series of future incarnations. All you who hesitate in the path of Theosophy and the occult sciences, who are trembling on the golden threshold of truth—the only one within your grasp, for all the others have failed you one after the other—look straight in the face the great Reality which is offered you. It is only to mystics that these words are addressed, for them alone have they any importance; for those who have already made their choice they are vain and useless. But you Students of Occultism and Theosophy, you well know that a word, old as the world though new to you, has been declared at the beginning of this cycle. You well know that a note has just been struck which has never yet been heard by the mankind of the present era; and that a new thought is revealed, ripened by the forces of evolution. This thought differs from everything that has been produced in the nineteenth century; it is identical, however, with the thought that has been the dominant tone and key-stone of each century, especially the last—absolute freedom of thought for humanity.

Why try to strangle and suppress what cannot be destroyed? Why hesitate when there is no choice between allowing yourselves to be raised on the crest of the spiritual wave to the very heavens beyond the stars and the universes, or to be engulfed in the yawning abyss of an ocean of matter? Vain are your efforts to sound the unfathomable, to reach the ultimate of this wonderful matter so glorified in our century; for its roots grow in the Spirit and in the Absolute, they do not exist, yet they are eternally. This constant union with flesh, blood, and bones, the illusion of differentiated matter, does nothing but blind you. And the more you penetrate into the region of the impalpable atoms of chemistry the more you will be convinced that they only exist in your imagination. Do you truly expect to find in material life every reality and every truth of existence? But Death is at everyone's door, waiting to shut it upon a beloved soul that escapes from its prison, upon the soul which alone has made the body a reality; how then can it be that eternal love should associate itself absolutely with ever-changing and ever-disappearing matter?

[Pg 170]

But you are perhaps indifferent to all such things; how then can you say that affection and the souls of those you love concern you at all, since you do not believe in the very existence of such souls? It must be so. You have made your choice; you have entered upon that path which crosses nothing but the barren deserts of matter. You are self-condemned to wander there and to pass through a long series of similar lives. You will have to be contented henceforth with deliriums and fevers in place of spiritual experiences, of passion instead of love, of the husk instead of the fruit.

But you, friends and readers, you who aspire to something more than the life of the squirrel everlastingly turning the same wheel; you who are not content with the seething of the caldron whose turmoil results in nothing; you who do not take the deaf echoes of the dead past for the divine voice of truth; prepare yourselves for a future of which you have hardly dared to dream unless you have at least taken the first few steps on the way. For you have chosen a path, although rough and thorny at the start, that soon widens out and leads you to the divine truth. You are free to doubt while you are still at the beginning of the way, you are free to decline to accept on hearsay what is taught respecting the source and the cause of truth, but you are always able to hear what its voice is telling you, and you can always study the effects of the creative force coming from the depths of the unknown. The arid soil upon which the present generation of men is moving at the close of this age of spiritual dearth and of purely material satisfaction, has need of a divine symbol, of a rainbow of hope to rise above its horizon. For of all the past centuries our Nineteenth has been the most criminal. It is criminal in its frightful selfishness, in its scepticism which grimaces at the very idea of anything beyond the material; in its idiotic indifference to all that does not pertain to personal egotism—more than any of previous centuries of ignorant barbarism or intellectual darkness. Our century must be saved from itself before its last hour strikes. This is the moment for all those to act who see the sterility and folly of an existence blinded by materialism and ferociously indifferent to the fate of the neighbor; now is the time for them to devote all their energies, all their courage to the great intellectual reform. This reform can only be accomplished by Theosophy we say, by the Occultism of the Wisdom of the Orient. The paths that lead to it are many; but the Wisdom is one. Artistic souls foresee it, those who suffer dream of it, the pure in heart know it.[Pg 171] Those who work for others cannot remain blinded to its reality, though they may not recognize it by name. Only light and empty minds, egotistical and vain drones, confused by their own buzzing will remain ignorant of the supreme ideal. They will continue to exist until life becomes a grievous burden to them.

This is to be distinctly remembered, however: these pages are not written for the masses. They are neither an appeal for reforms, nor an effort to win over to our views the fortunate in life; they are addressed solely to those who are constitutionally able to comprehend them, to those who suffer, to those who hunger and thirst after some Reality in this world of Chinese Shadows. And for those, why should they not show themselves courageous enough to leave their world of trifling occupations, their pleasures above all and their personal interests, at least as far as those interests do not form part of their duty to their families or others? No one is so busy or so poor that he cannot create a noble ideal and follow it. Why then hesitate in breaking a path towards this ideal, through all obstacles, over every stumbling-block, every petty hindrance of social life, in order to march straight forward until the goal is reached?

Those who would make this effort would soon find that the "strait gate" and the "thorny path" lead to the broad valleys of the limitless horizons, to that state where there is no more death, because one has regained one's divinity. But the truth is that the first conditions necessary to reach it are a disinterestedness, an absolute impersonality, a boundless devotion to the interests of others, and a complete indifference to the world and its opinions. The motive must be absolutely pure in order to make the first steps on that ideal path; not an unworthy thought must attract the eyes from the end in view, not one doubt must shackle the feet. There do exist men and women thoroughly qualified for this whose only aim is to dwell under the Aegis of their divine Nature. Let them, at least, take courage to live the life and not conceal it from the eyes of others! The opinion of no other person should be taken as superior to the voice of conscience. Let that conscience, developed to its highest degree, guide us in the control of all the ordinary acts of life. As to the conduct of our inner life, we must concentrate the entire attention on the ideal we have proposed to ourselves, and look straight ahead without paying the slightest attention to the mud upon our feet.

Those who make this supreme effort are the true Theosophists.

[Pg 172]

THE London Times' South American Supplement (May 30) contains the first half of an article on the ancient people of Peru, in which the writer speaks of the gigantic works in masonry wrought by a people who lived there ages before the Incas. Being on the wrong side of the Andes for fertility, these people built the enormous irrigation systems which still exist; and the writer asks why they did not cross the Andes to the well-watered slopes and plains on the east. The extent to which they had explored their own country and its mountain heights proves that the other country should have been within their grasp. Yet they took all this trouble to make the western slopes fertile.

The answer given is—that in those days perhaps there was no land to the east of the Andes.

The writer then goes on to speak of the ancient continental distribution of land, of Atlantis, of the connexion between South America and Australasia, etc., in a way that is now growing familiar. People whose opinions are of weight are coming to see that the true explanation of the ancient American civilizations, as well as those of such isolated spots as Easter Island, with its marvelous statues, is to be sought along these lines. At the same time the subject has afforded a fertile field for cranks and others who pin their various fads or new gospels thereto. The latter, however, cannot last, but the truth is eternal. The myths will be exploded, but the actual facts as to past history will be proved.

In The Secret Doctrine H. P. Blavatsky sums up all the available speculation and information on the subject of these ancient continents and weaves it into consistency by applying to it the keys of the Wisdom-Religion. There is little doubt that her writings have contributed largely, in more or less direct ways, to many of the other published utterances on the question.

It is maintained, and with reason, by Theosophists, that the statements of H. P. Blavatsky refer to actual facts and must therefore one day be verified. The history of discovery and speculation since she wrote has already done much to confirm this conviction. But as her teachings with regard to the ancient continents are inseparably bound up with her statements as to the ancient races of mankind, and indeed [Pg 173]with the Theosophical teachings in general, it follows that these also will be confirmed.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

LOOKING EASTWARD OVER PART OF THE GROUNDS OF
THE INTERNATIONAL THEOSOPHICAL HEADQUARTERS, POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

LOMALAND CAÑON AND HILLSIDE

The great importance of this enlarged knowledge about the human race and its history is that it so enlarges and ennobles our view of human life. Before the light of knowledge all narrow dogmas fade away. The errors of theology, the mistakes of scientific theory, our inadequate sociological ideas—all these must fade in the light which will be shed when the Theosophical teachings are more fully recognized. And all this remarkable progress in archaeology may be welcomed as one of the signs.

The publication to which reference has been made speaks of other countries of South America, but seems unable to do so without mentioning their antiquities. The Aztecs of Mexico, the Aymarás of Peru, come in for notice. The ancient people of Peru present analogies to the Egyptians, Babylonians, Indian peoples, Polynesians, and Malays, it is said; and some writers have theories about their connexion with Jews and Chinese. It is easy to see that speculation, left to itself, runs amuck among the theories.

The same writer, Comyns Beaumont, concludes his article on the ancient Peruvians in the issue for June 27, and says that:

Central America, as the "Enterprise" or "Easter Divide," a large submarine ridge, indicates, was connected to the Pacific Continent. On the other side Central America was connected in the East with the Mediterranean by another continental mass that spread across the Atlantic Ocean, and of which today the Antilles, Azores, Canaries, and the Atlas Mountains in Morocco are the existing remains. Peru also was a member of this vast continental system. Apart from the evidence of geological strata, confirmation of this is obtained from the study of sea fauna. The marine deposits of Peru, Chile, and Ecuador belong to the same genus as those of Central America, and to find the corresponding genus elsewhere one must search in the Mediterranean. Precisely, therefore, as Europe, Asia, and Africa possess a continuous land connexion, at the epoch when the Peruvians were in the forefront of civilization there existed a world which comprised the regions of the Mediterranean (then very different from nowadays), the lost Atlantic Continent, Central America, and Peru, and the lost Pacific Continent which embraced lands not only in the Pacific Ocean, but continued to where the Indian Ocean now washes the shores of Africa, India, and Mesopotamia.

Thus a step is made in the fulfilment of H. P. Blavatsky's prophecy that the present century would witness a recognition of many of the teachings she outlined in her writings.

But there is still much to be done. And not the least important[Pg 174] point is to distinguish carefully between the "Sons of Light" and the "Sorcerers" among the mighty men of these perished lands. There was a true Wisdom and a false knowledge; and H. P. Blavatsky never fails to discriminate between those who preserved the light and those who fell into darkness. The Easter Island statues, for instance, she describes as resembling the sensual type of the Atlantean sorcerers rather than that of the "Buddhas" (so-called) of the Bamian colossi. The writer in the Times Supplement calls the Easter Island statues "Turanian," employing thereby such familiar classifications as he finds to hand; and in any case he distinguishes them from that higher type loosely designated by the term "Aryan." This "Turanian" type he finds also in Chaldaea, India, Central America, etc., and alludes to their habit of building pyramids.

Finally he shows how inadequate are the speculations of many anthropologists as to the antiquity of man. Human bones disintegrate after a comparatively short time; so that the few we find are such as have been accidentally preserved. And these ancient civilizations tend to disprove the conventional theories of human evolution—which theories, however, change from year to year.

GREAT attention is being paid nowadays to the collecting of old folk-songs in such countries as Ireland, Wales, and England; and there has been much discussion raised as to the nature and origin of a folk-song, properly so called. The subject is one of considerable interest, because it leads one to a point where the known and visible things melt away, and forces and influences of a deeper nature are at work. These may be called spiritual and formative; there is a hand guiding, but no one can see any hand; there is a creative mind at function, but it is not the mind of any human being.

In Wales one can still see the genuine folk-song coming into being; one can still watch, more or less, the processes incidental to its birth. In that country, poetry was never held to be a mere string of words that you could repeat as if you were reading an article from the newspaper; conversational methods of utterance are kept for conversation,[Pg 175] or for the lower levels of prose, and there is a peculiar chant used for verse. The poem is born with a music of its own; and if it have no such music innate in it, and inseparable from its words, then for all its rhymes and scansion it is no poetry. So in speaking their poems the bards give full value to this music, using a kind of chant which is called "hwyl." The word means simply "sail"; the idea being that the inner music of the poem swells and extends and drives along the words, as the wind will fill and drive the sails of a ship. The method is perfectly natural; the least introduction of artificiality into it is absolutely damning: there you would get the desolating thump, thump, thump, of the motor boat instead of the free flow of the winds of heaven.

As regards the musical scale, this hwyl is mainly monotonous; there is another kind or direction of scale in it, depending on the varying vowel sounds, which, though you chant them upon one musical note, have a certain rise and fall in them proper to themselves. If one imagines the scale of do, re, mi, fa, and the rest as being in a vertical line; then this scale of a, e, i, o, oo, etc., would fall horizontally; we can think of no better way of making a likeness for it. The richness of the vowels will make the music, and therefore the poetry. One can see this by comparing two lines, both popularly supposed to be poetry.

there is no music in that, and if one should attempt to put the hwyl into it, he would be guilty of the sin of untruth, which is the greatest of the crimes against poetry, according to the ancient doctrine of the bards.

And one would be guilty of the same sin, should one repeat that lifelessly, and without the hwyl that existed around the mind of Keats before the line took verbal form, and out of which magical and alchemic element it was precipitated.

The bard, then, chants his poem, and the words are noted down, and pass from mouth to mouth; and as they pass, the horizontal scale takes on gradually some coloring of the vertical scale, and the chant becomes more and more a tune. The process is natural, and dependent upon no brain-mind; no composer gets to work upon it, and no one inserts in it consciously any ideas of his own. The Dorian mode,[Pg 176] which (we quote from Mrs. Mary Davies, an authority on Welsh music) has a minor third as well as a minor seventh; and the Aeolian or la mode, in which the third as well as the sixth and seventh are minor, are still largely in use in Wales; and we believe that these two modes represent a stage in the passing of the chanted poem, or the chant of the poem, into the full-fledged folk-tune. For one will sometimes hear an air which, in the printed collections is given in the arbitrary modern major or minor scales, sung a little differently, according to these older modes; and it would appear that all or nearly all the well-known Welsh national tunes have passed through such or similar stages.

It is here worthy of note that the Welsh hwyl—which is used not only in poetry, but in all the higher levels of prose as well, particularly in pulpit rhetoric—is not found, we believe, elsewhere in Europe, at any rate as a popular custom (for all poets chant and do not say their verses); but it is to be heard in Morocco, along the coast of Northern Africa, in Arabia, Persia, and throughout the East; where also certain of these older modes of music, such as the Dorian, are said to be in vogue to some extent. We imagine that the chant and the music-modes both vary as they go eastward; but it is a gradual growth or differentiation, not an abrupt change. The Persian poet, chanting his Hafiz, and the Welsh preacher, giving out the hymn, have much more in common with each other than either has with the modern conventional drawing-room reciter.

And then there is the national air, the last stage in the growth of that which began with some village bard's arrangement of his deep vowels and diphthongs. Long ago the words were forgotten, or lost all connexion with the tune they gave birth to; because at a certain stage the harpers took the tune up, and sang whatever words to it they might make up for the occasion. Such a tune as All through the Night, for example, would set out with such and such a bard on his wanderings. He would come to a wedding, and play it there, singing extempore verses to it filled full of joy and merriment. Then he would come to a house where there might be one newly dead; and his tune would again be called for; now it would be a dirge laden with mystical wailing and the joy that hides behind wailing. At the village fair it would appear as a dance; in the house of the warward chieftain it would ring and clamor with all the pomp and surging and uplift of the old wild, Quixotic, ridiculous wars. There would be different[Pg 177] songs for it on each occasion; one hardly troubled much with the preservation of them, for song was a thing that a gentleman could call upon himself for at any time. Why keep the songs you sang today, when tomorrow you would surely sing other songs as good? Poetry was of all things the cheapest and most general where every other man, as you might say, was a poet.

One hears this kind of thing at the present day. Very few of the Welsh national tunes have any traditional words to them. If there is any special song attached to this tune or that, it will probably be the work of Ceiriog, who may be called the Robert Burns of Wales, or of some individual bard in the last two or three centuries, who sang such and such words to the tune on such an occasion, or in whose tragic or amusing history those words and that tune blended were pivotal, and have passed into a popular tradition.

Generally speaking, the words sung to all these airs are what are called Pennillion—hen bennillion, old verses; a kind of traditional folk-poetry arising no one knows from whom, and commemorating popular wisdom, historical events, personal peculiarities and eccentricities of long dead countryside celebrities, the beauties and delights of this or that locality, and so on. There will be war-songs, love-songs, dance-songs, dirges and nature-songs; a pennill on the three best dancers of Wales, and a pennill on the three prized things of three neighboring villages: the yews of Bettws, the bridge at Llandeilo, the sacred well at Llandybie. Unnumbered are these pennillion; perhaps more many than the tunes themselves to which they may be sung.

II

THE old Welsh choirs and singing-parties—and they still do it, though of course foreign music, both the work of the great composers and the ribald stuff of the music halls, is making grand inroads—the old choirs would delight to take such and such a tune for the work of their evening, and sing song after song to it, now a dance, now a war-song, and now a dirge, one after the other; and whichever kind of song they might be singing, you would say that that tune was composed as, and could inevitably be, only suitable for that. You would say that, of course, by its very structure it would be impossible for it to be anything but martial; there was the very pride and beat of war in it; no blood could keep still, no feet forget to march at the sound of it. And then you would change your mind, and know that it could[Pg 178] never be anything but a dirge; there as obviously the whole secret of sorrow in it; you were at one, hearing it, with everyone who might be mourning for their dearest dead; and you too, with them, were initiated into marvelous hopes and superhuman certainties and joy—carried out of time wherein men die, into that timelessness wherein they neither die nor are born. And that too would pass, and the singers would bring you into careless summer-evening merriment, and for the life of you, there was no keeping your feet from the shaking and wandering of dance.

One hears the multifold music of the world; the innumerable rhythms and variations of melody; combinations and intricacies many as the thoughts in the minds of terrestrial beings. And of those thoughts themselves, there will be all manner of ranks and no democratic equality. Some will be clansmen, so to say, in the house of merriment, others in the house of grief; mere commonalty of the mind, wearing at any time all the badges of their clan. These are cheap, every-day wayfarers, and stir the same emotion, or bring the same colorlessness, into whatever mind they may enter and whenever they may enter it. Others will be chieftains and tribal leaders, entering with greater circumstance, and imposing a larger subjection. Good or evil, they too bear always their own colors; grief will be grief and joy will be joy; love will be love, and hatred never anything but hatred, of the emotions that follow in their train.

But there are some few archetypal thoughts that you cannot so docket and always rely upon. They are the kings and high bards, standing beyond the limitations of tribe and sept. They will come in what insignia and royal robings they may choose, and rouse up gladness or sorrow, stillness or militancy according to their will. Such thoughts are those of death, of duration, of humanity, of compassion. You have spoken no true nor final word on death, when you have proclaimed him the king of terrors; though indeed, the thought of august death comes often in sorrowful and terrible disguise. Yet behind that dark regalia, what serenity, what unstirred meditative calm, what "peace that passeth all understanding," lie hidden! Compassion, too, comes doubly robed in the purple; dark with the sorrow that is in pity; glowing with the regality and gladness of unity with universal life. It is at once the martial conqueror of the world, boundless in hope and exultation; the sweet ministrant of the wounded, and the mourner at the graves of the fallen.

[Pg 179]

I think that there are expressions of music that correspond to these supernal and superpersonal thoughts; and that they are in fact simple tunes, and that many of them must be to be found in the folk-music of all nations. They are, as it were, archetypal patterns of song, root rhythms, sprung absolutely from the fountains of feeling, where feeling has not yet been diversified into all its countless forms of pain and delight. I think that the most beautiful of the Welsh airs fall into this class, or into that other corresponding with what we have called the tribal leaders of the thought plane. The Marches of the Men of Harlech, of Glamorgan or Meirionydd—indeed every district in Wales seems to have had its own war-tune in the ancient days—these are always distinctly martial, and there is no possibility of mistaking them or of making them anything else. Y Galon Drom, Anhawdd Ymadael, Morfa Rhuddlan and a thousand others, again, are always dirges; to Gyrru'r Byd o'm Blaen, or to Pwt ar y Bys, you would never dream of doing anything but dance. All have with them a certain distinction and aristocracy in their own kind: about folk-music there is nearly always a bearing and a value, and vulgarity is impossible to the bulk of it. But beyond and higher than these there are those archetypal tunes which stir the source of whatever feeling they may be directed towards; one might mention perhaps Llwyn On the Ash Grove, as a good example. There are hundreds of them among the Welsh airs.

Now the whole point of our inquiry is this—what was the creative or directing mind that brought these things to be? It was not the bard who first chanted the song; it was no one of the thousands of singers who modified and modified it as they passed it on, until presently the fixed tune was evolved, and changes and modifications ceased. These were all instruments in its evolution; but there was also an evolver. For it was brought, if indeed it is a primeval and radical thing, to no haphazard conclusion. The music that you make up is one thing; the music of the spheres is another: though it might happen indeed, that sitting down to compose, there should be revealed to you a measure from the music of the spheres. No doubt that would have happened occasionally—probably only occasionally—with the great transcendent geniuses of music: but then, there was no great transcendent genius, neither Wagner nor Bach nor Beethoven, concerned in the making of the folk-tune. We can posit the soul of Beethoven, wrapt up into the universal soul, hearing immortal immeasurable[Pg 180] things, and after, producing some fragment of them in a sonata or a symphony! But what soul was it here, who heard the rhythm and measure of the star-music, and what the mountains are singing in their hearts to make them eternal, and the song that drives the rivers and the rain, and the bardic carol of the sun, and the ineffable yearning of the souls of men, upward towards their divinity and evolutionary destined grandeur—who heard, and set all these things bleakly and magnificently down in the folk-song? I will not apologize for speaking of the folk-song and the sonata in one breath: of the gods also are the mountain and the pansy.

Do we not see here the working of a Soul greater than that of any individual; the soul of the nation; the God that is this people or that? His compositions are marked by a unity, as are those of any composer: you can tell an Irish Air at a hearing, or a Welsh Air. And He, or It, reveals through them greater and deeper things than are known to any individual among his people; ancient memories that they may have wholly forgotten; aspirations after spiritual glories which not one of them may have ever foreseen or hoped for. So all the deepest things that are in the national consciousness may be poured through the playing of these composerless compositions; and we cannot doubt that they remain a most potent link between the people and its hidden divinity.

MORE than one-fourth of Sweden is occupied by that vast wilderness, Lapland. It is a remnant of archaic nature; its majestic snow-crowned peaks are all of the very oldest geological structure. In primeval times it was a compact mass of rock-ground; but time, with the aid of water and ice, has formed a network of valleys between the remaining ranges and peaks, and great lakes receive the melting snow and preserve its crystalline purity, mirroring the snow-capped giants; from them the water seeks its way to the sea by numerous mighty rivers, winding around the towering masses and making many a daring leap down gorges in foaming and roaring and whirling play.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

SKERFE, LAPLAND, SWEDEN
Photo by L. Wästfelt Jokkmokk.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

THE RAPA VALLEY, LAPLAND, SWEDEN
Photo by L. Wästfelt Jokkmokk.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

THE RAPA VALLEY, LAPLAND, SWEDEN
Photo by L. Wästfelt Jokkmokk.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

LAJDAURE, LAPLAND, SWEDEN
Photo by L. Wästfelt Jokkmokk.

It is a wilderness of singular beauty and serene atmosphere, and one who has once tasted of its life will ever thereafter feel the longing [Pg 181]for its grandeur and silence; for where can man feel the pulse of real life better than in places like this where the eternal snow protects the original purity of Nature? It has been found that the farther north one passes, the more alive become the soil and rock, radiating life in such abundance that it can often be actually seen as a kind of electric discharge. In summer-time, there is no vegetation like that around and above the Polar Circle, no colors and fragrance of flowers like those to be found in the sanctuary of these remote valleys where human foot so seldom intrudes. And where can one witness such interplay between Earth and its outer atmospheric layers, manifesting in all the varied phenomena of northern lights and mystic, trembling color-screens? One could sometimes fancy himself in the very forecourt of a grander mode of existence.

H. P. Blavatsky tells us in The Secret Doctrine that these mountain ranges were part of previous great continents occupied by earlier great races of humanity. What have they not witnessed? At one time in far-past aeons, enjoying a tropical climate, fertile soil, and a golden human life in all the bounteousness of Nature; at another, resting for ages below the water, or stripped of their luxuriant garb by a mighty ice-cover. Truly the history of it all is written somewhere and somehow even now; and as one treads the archaic rock-ground in a solitude that seems teeming with life, one begins to understand something of the language of the great silence around, and to feel the presence of the ancient past.

Since prehistoric times the Lapps, with their nomadic herds of reindeer, have been the warders of this pristine land. But like most ancient remnants of human races they are at present rapidly disappearing, and the "Sons of the Sun," as the Lapps call themselves, have had to give up much of their ground to the children of the present civilization. Lapland is entering upon a new era; railroads have already found their way across the wastes to bring its immense reserves of iron-ore out to the world; its waterfalls are being harnessed in the service of man; and its natural resources utilized in many novel ways. Though at the same latitude as southern Greenland, its climate is by no means so forbidding; it is, moreover, undergoing a slow but sure change which seems to be one of the causes why the reindeer are dying out. Evidently there are mighty forces at work, rendering hitherto shielded places on Earth accessible to our civilization as a preparation for a new phase of life awaiting all humankind.

[Pg 182]

THE natural gift for music which during recent years is so frequently found in very young children of all civilized nations, is a phenomenon that has given rise to much speculation on the part of active theorists. However, the "brain molecule" scientists have been significantly silent on that—to them—perplexing question, and so have the other doctors of learning who explain every human quality on a theory of "hereditary transmission." Nor does the "gift of God, or Holy Spirit" theory explain this wonderful but most natural manifestation of the progress of the human soul.

No theory will account for these and other gifts in children, that has not for its basis knowledge of the natural growth from one life to another—reincarnation.

When we reflect how diligently the smallest accomplishment must be earned before we can call it our own, and how delightfully secure we are in its possession when once we have attained to it, the question is then more like this: May it not be that a musical prodigy is after all the Soul himself that has labored through many lives on earth with ceaseless diligence, following its aspirations and love for music, and is now earning the fruitage thereof?

Many people say: "Oh! I am so fond of music"; but they never go to a concert or to an opera; nor are they any more fond of music in reality than of hearing themselves talk, because the beginning of music is to them the sign to begin a conversation quickly. To the majority music scarcely yet exists.

There are some people who have a quiet love for music; they go unobtrusively to places where good music is made, listen with attention, and go home in a serene, satisfied mood. Such persons, from their youth on, embrace every opportunity to hear music in high and low places; they look longingly at the instruments displayed in music-stores and, perchance, in the hours that others devote to rest or folly, they plod away for years unaided, practising on some unsuitable instrument. No one pays particular attention to such a budding artist. Perhaps he himself is not aware that his judgment grows better, riper, keener; that the finer distinctions of music are becoming to him sharply defined and thus satisfactory to his consciousness; his ear, too, waxes critical at dissonances, and his very soul also[Pg 183] delights in the musical gems, in the flowing rhythms and harmonies.

The long weary days that are drowned for the multitude in an ocean of sensation, do not exist for the person who is deeply, truly, interested in music. Such a one may not hear music for days or weeks, nor have any particular melody running through his brain; but in his sub-conscious mind there is such a reservoir of harmonies that flow and flow all the time, making him thoughtful, meditative, happy. He laughs or sighs like other people, but there is something besides, that shows in his countenance or manner, something that one instinctively feels is lofty; perhaps it is music running through his blood, singing all the while.

There are some who by Karma's decree have a father or a mother who recognize a little talent for music in the child and let him be taught, and by encouragement promote his musical development. This is like bestowing a priceless treasure on the one so favored, for now he enters upon the realm of one of the mysteries of the Eternal.

Once begun, there is no end. On and on goes the progress, revealing with each step an ever-widening horizon of beauty, love, happiness.

The musician goes inward, ever inward. All is being transformed and remodeled in his soul. The tears are music, the joys are music, the whole world is music; men and women are like harps on which to play; he can sway them from one extreme mood to another; and he?—he really owns the world, never to lose it!

On the other hand there are some who practise on a musical instrument for hours every day. Years roll by, but there seems to be no progress made, at least there is no appreciation of progress at the hands of other persons. Still, the musicians belonging to this class do not seem to be discouraged. They may grow old the while, but never relax in their aspirations. What for? Think you, perhaps, that all this one-pointedness, this expenditure of energy to attain to an ideal, will be lost when the man dies? Not so! Nothing is ever lost. Nature preserves everything. Every single effort leaves its imprint upon the soul in which the result finally inheres. When such a life has come to its end the people may say: "Poor musician! he labored all his lifetime and accomplished nothing!" But see! when a boy suddenly appears who at the age of eight years can play an instrument, surmounting the most difficult technique with great ease, almost as if he had known it before he commenced—what then? We begin to look around for the hereditary connexion; and here we see quite often that[Pg 184] neither his parents nor cousins or any relations have or had any trace of such talent.

How comes it then that the prodigy can do this without having to learn it like other people? May it not be that he has really learned it at some time, in another life and stored it away in his soul, and now, he simply manifests most naturally what is his own?

Truly, artists are not made out of nothing. They are made out of all these things that they previously, diligently and persistently, labored for. Every bit of it, every feeling, every emotion, and every touch of the heart, of the head, and of the hand that they now manifest is of their own making, without any miracle or extraneous grace. Thus is Genius for music cultivated.

WHEN the fragments still left of Scandinavian mythology, scattered in the Icelandic sagas and tales, are carefully put together, they give a grand picture of the history of Earth and Man from the first dawn of the present great Day of evolution. Clear and scientific in the broad outlines, they will some day surely prove a gold-mine of useful knowledge for future researches into the past. Nor do they stop with the history of the past and its blending with the present, but go farther and picture the destruction of life as we know it in a purifying fire, and show how a new earth arises from the sea, whereon a new and lasting Golden Age will be enjoyed by Gods and men.

When Earth had assumed its shape and was ready to receive living beings, the Creative Wisdom permeated the elements and in the ensuing fermentation the cow Audumla appeared. Licking the salt rocks she liberated from the life-germs of the various elements a great and beautiful being endowed with a divine spirit. He became the father of the Gods who rule and protect the world of Man in this cycle.

Drops of venom from the Fount of Frost grew to another being, the giant Ymer, who nourished by Audumla's milk brought into being various giants, some good, but many evil and horrible. Among the good are the wise Mimer, the guardian of the Fount of Wisdom at[Pg 185] one of the three roots of the world-tree, Yggdrasil; and the three Norns, Urd, Verdande and Skuld—Urd, the Norn of the Present, being the guardian of the Fount of Life at another of Yggdrasil's roots.

Odin knew his mighty task as chief ruler of human life in this cycle. But he was not yet perfect and felt himself lacking in strength; therefore he went to Mimer to drink from the Fount of Wisdom. None, not even the Gods, can, however, win this precious drink without proving his worthiness, and here at the very outset we meet with the great example of self-sacrifice. Odin gave up himself to his greater Self, remained for "nine days and nights" in Yggdrasil without food or drink, looking inward to the roots of things, listening to the mystic song out of the depth. Purified and prepared, he was allowed to drink from the water of Wisdom and learned from Mimer nine wonderful and potent songs. And Odin grew henceforth rapidly in knowledge and creative power.

Presiding over the Gods and the various hierarchies in Nature he then began to make Earth a fitting habitation for man. That done, Odin visited Midgard with his two brothers, Höner and Lodur, and there on the shore they found two trees, "powerless and without destiny." Lodur loosened them from their connexion with earth, giving them power to move and act from inner impulses, and made them images of the Gods; Höner endowed them with a human Ego, having consciousness and will; and finally Odin gave them the most precious gift, the spirit.

In the childhood of the Earth men long lived in a golden age of unbroken peace, knowing of no evil. But there came a time when two beings among the giants, both adopted by the Gods as members of the Asgard family, appeared among men tempting them to evil things, the man Loke, and the woman Gullveig (the golden way, or stream), Gullveig being the worse. To strengthen the good in human hearts, enlighten them and prepare them for coming days of strife, the Gods sent to Midgard as Teacher Heimdall, the Shining One, the God of the pure and most sacred fire. He brought with him many things not before seen in Midgard, and as the ruler of the people he instructed them in cultivating the soil, in sowing the seed he had brought, and in preparing bread; in carving and forging, spinning and weaving, cutting runes and reading. He taught them how to tame animals for domestic use, to build houses and to form families and communities;[Pg 186] also the use of weapons in protection against animals. And further he informed them of the rules laid down by the Norns for a righteous life, and of the names and functions of the Gods. He showed them how to build altars and temples for worship, and brought to them the pure and undefiled fire produced by friction, the only one worthy of burning in the shrine of the Gods; and then he taught them the sacred songs that ever since have sounded from the lips of men in praise of divine powers.

But even now Gullveig began her wanderings among men and secretly taught them runes and songs which counteracted Heimdall's teachings. When the Gods became aware of this, they had her burned; but her heart was proof against fire. Loke found it, and swallowing it he brought into the world the monster-wolf Fenris, which feeds on all the evil thoughts and feelings among men.

Gullveig soon incarnated again and continued her ways unrecognized for a long period. When discovered she was burned a second time, Loke again finding her heart and giving life to the giantess of pestilence, Leikin. The same thing happened a third time, and then was born the Midgard-Snake, destined to grow rapidly and finally to encircle the whole earth.

While Gullveig spread ruin in human life, Loke caused enmity and strife among the powers of nature and even among the Gods. Many were the resulting wars in Asgard, besides the constant warfare against the giants; and always they were followed by wars in Midgard. At last the Gods were divided to such a degree that Odin, rather than cause the death of many of his nearest kin, left Asgard and the guidance of humanity in the care of the Vaner Gods, who otherwise presided over the regular course of the processes of Nature. When the giants learned this they thought it a fit time to gain supremacy not only over Midgard but even over Asgard itself. Odin knew this in good time, through his power of prevision, and he issued from his retreat "far in the East" to warn the Vaner Gods and offer them assistance. The fearful resulting war united the Gods once more, after which Odin was freely offered the high seat in Asgard, where, purified and perfected by experience and adversity he now rules with wisdom until the last day of the cycle.

Heimdall "died" in Midgard before the golden age was over, and he was followed by his son Sköld-Borgar. His son, Halfdan, became the first king, and led the people in all the battles that followed[Pg 187] in the new age, while constantly overshadowed by the Gods. On the other side the chief was Od-Svipdag, a most heroic and valiant champion. War after war raged, one of them being so frightful that a new generation had to grow up before new armies could be collected.

Svipdag is a most remarkable character, who journeys to the Underworld and obtains the "avenging sword" which nothing can resist, not even the hammer of Thor. The fate of the world seems to depend on his mind, when at the critical moment his love for the Goddess Fröja turns his steps to Asgard, in order to make peace with the Gods. He then lives mostly in Asgard with Fröja and is sent by the Gods on many difficult journeys, even to the Underworld to find whether Balder, the God of purity, who had died when strife came into the world, could not return from his safe retreat near the Fount of Wisdom.

The great Ice period is described as coming in Halfdan's days, the people being obliged to leave the Northern countries for more southern climes. But when the ice at last receded they went back step by step northward, fighting continual battles. Halfdan at last dies by Svipdag's sword, and is followed by his brave son, Hadding. And thus we reach the present age, which is depicted as one of supreme darkness. Seldom nowadays the Gods appear before men, for they are few who by a righteous and sincere life keep the link unbroken with the regions in the crown of Yggdrasil. The evil is increasing all the time; men have forgotten their divine birth, and they prostitute their divine powers. Yet above the veil of darkness the Gods rule as ever, helping wherever there is an opportunity; while elves and dwarfs and all the other nature sprites continue to fulfil their duties in the economy of nature, although no longer seen by men.

Much is said about the process of death. Man is made up of six principles, and death is a purification whereby the higher and purer elements, after passing through the second death, go to the bliss of the presence of the Gods. If man in life has developed his "inner body" by noble living, then he passes easily through the trials and the judgment of the Gods. If not, then he is held down by the demons of passion and lust and meets torture and suffering.

Of Reincarnation there is little in the form of direct statement, probably partly because carefully removed in Christian times, and partly because it forms an integral part of the whole conception of life found in all ancient sagas. Some of the heroes are, however, named[Pg 188] in more than one incarnation, showing the same soul in different garments. The noblest and the worst reincarnate almost immediately; for others some time has first to elapse.

In the efflorescence of time the hour will at length arrive for Ragnarök, the great purifying battle and fire, when evil will be destroyed in the final war between good and evil. The Gods assemble with their faithful, Odin leading, majestic, calm and wiser than ever, knowing that he and most of the Gods will have to buy the victory with their lives. The different groups on both sides are pictured with matchless boldness and vividness, and we see how each has to meet his fate. Odin is killed by the Fenris Wolf; Thor kills the Midgard Snake, but falls dead from its venom. The giants who have possessed themselves of the "avenging sword" use it in the battle, but at the same moment their fate is sealed. For this sword was so forged that if swung by a giant it would destroy the giant world.

At the close of the fearful battle the very foundations of the earth seem to tremble. Fires rise towards heaven, and amid flame and smoke and destruction—the Gods still living—Odin's sons Vidar and Vale, and Thor's sons Magne and Mode, ride to the Underworld, to Balder's peaceful land, where neither death nor destruction are.

And the old earth finally sinks into the sea, dissolved into slag and ashes. The flames die. The air is purified by the fire, the sky is bluer than ever. From the sea arises a new earth, covered with luxuriant vegetation. It is the regions of the Underworld near the Founts of Wisdom and Life, the lands of Mimer and Urd, that now appear. Those founts, so long nearly dry, again flow copiously, and Yggdrasil is fresh and green. The days of golden life return to Gods and men. Balder assumes full sway, and the new earth is peopled from the two races who have been spared for that purpose, living in purity unstained along with Balder during the age of darkness. Even animals have been spared in the same way and enjoy the new Day. It is the happy Day of Balder the Pure and Righteous.

But even this is not the final scene, according to the Northern mythology. A mightier Being than even Balder will come after him, descending upon a still higher and more purified earth. It is the unnamed God whose servant Urd is, One whose spirit blendeth with all living things by virtue of the Fount of Wisdom—an omnipotent God, a God bringing highest peace, who will then "establish a worship that will endure forevermore."

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

RUINS OF THE DIPYLON GATE OF ANCIENT ATHENS

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

ANCIENT ATHENIAN TOMBS ALONG THE SACRED WAY

[Pg 189]

THE Dipylon or "Double Gate" (so named because it consisted of an inner and an outer gateway, separated by a court), was the principal entrance of classical Athens at the west end of the city. Probably, it was built under Perikles' directions on the site of the still older Thriasian Gate, but the extant remains which are shown in the accompanying illustration belong to a somewhat later alteration. The gateway itself, because of its size and position (it was at the lowest point of the city walls) was surrounded by massive fortifications. The inner wall with the upright stone, marking one of the boundaries of the Outer Ceramicus or ancient Potters' quarters just outside the city, was built by Themistokles, but the outer wall shown in the illustration was probably added by Perikles. About sixty yards to the west of the Dipylon, that is to the right of the illustration, is a smaller gateway, which is thought to be the Sacred Gate, used for the exit and entrance of the Procession of Mystics during the celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

In ancient times three roads lined with tombs led from the Dipylon, namely, the Road to the Academy, the Sacred Way leading to Eleusis, and the Road to the harbor, the Peiraeeus. Along the Road leading to the Academy were buried those who had died fighting for their country on land and on sea. The public burials were made at the end of each campaign, when the bones of the slain were placed in coffins of cypress wood, one coffin for each of the ten Athenian tribes, and an empty one, serving symbolically for the burial of those whose bodies could not be recovered. Citizens and strangers alike were permitted to join in the procession, and as the coffins were lowered, a speaker publicly appointed ascended a lofty pulpit and delivered an oration in honor of the dead.

Thukydides says:

The public cemetery is situated in the most beautiful spot outside the walls and there the Athenians always bury those who fall in war; but after the battle of Marathon the dead in recognition of their pre-eminent valor were interred on the field.

It was here in the winter of 431 b. c., while delivering his immortal funeral oration that Perikles declared:

[Pg 190]

It is difficult to say neither too little nor too much. I do not commiserate the parents of the dead: I would rather comfort them. Those men may be deemed fortunate who have gained the greatest honor. To you who are sons and brothers of the departed I see that the struggle to emulate them will be an arduous one. The dead have been honorably interred and it remains only that their children should be maintained at the public charge until they are grown up; this is the solid prize with which, as with a garland, Athens crowns her sons, living and dead.

The tombs of many of the most famous figures in Greek history were in this public cemetery, including those of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, the Tyrannicides; Kleisthenes, the Law-giver; Perikles, the greatest Athenian Statesman; Thrasybulos, the Liberator, who overthrew the Thirty Tyrants; Chabrias; Phormio; Konon and Timotheus, father and son, "second only to Miltiades and Kimon for their brilliant feats"; and Lykurgos, the son of Lykophron, the Athenian orator and statesman, who finished the Dionysiac Theater in stone and built the Docks at the Peiraeeus.

The public tombs which once lined the Road to the Academy seem to have been almost entirely destroyed, but many of the private tombs along the Sacred Way may still be seen in situ. Some of these, which have been well preserved (thanks to the fact that they were covered by a huge mound in 86 b. c. when the Roman Cornelius Sulla was besieging Athens), are shown in the second illustration.

O the great benefactor who points the Way! To Triptolemus have all men erected temples and altars, because he gave us food by cultivation; but to him who discovered truth, and brought it to light and communicated it to all—not the truth which shows us how to live but how to live well—who of you has built an altar for this, or a temple, or has dedicated a statue, or who worships God for this?—Epictetus

THE final stitches are taken in the little garment which has stood for the evening's duty. It is folded and laid aside, to fill on the morrow a need as impersonal as the service that need inspired, silent tribute to a system of work so practical and so perfect in its conservation of energy that the world is already clamoring at Lomaland gates to be let into the secret. A pile of loved books—very tiny ones, The Voice of the Silence, the Bhagavad-Gitâ, Patañjali, and the rest—lies beside the sewing-basket, jostling the newspaper, which, because of the temporary need of another, at present has to be given room. But I brush it aside[Pg 191] to take up one of the little writings—any one of them, from cover to cover, would hardly make up a newspaper page—thankful that if the frothy and distempered bilge-water of current crime and gossip does have to lie before me, I do not have to drink of it; grateful that even in the present heyday of lower psychological influences I am free to drink what I will, free to pick my associates from among the immortals—if I choose. And so we parry, and give and take, question on my part and answer on his—small wonder that H. P. B. paid tribute to his philosophy and W. Q. J. to his life, this grand old Roman whose company for an hour any one would be proud to have—Epictetus!

This, a tribute to the Helpers of Humanity by one who was humbly, yet with the courage of Hercules, trying to fire the mind of his age with the torch-gleam of a true philosophy of life—Theosophy in fact, but adapted to the conditions of his time, a fevered and cruel time, though with gleams of nobility and spiritual splendor here and there.

What a picture comes before one of this brave old Roman Socrates, banished in his last years from Rome by the Emperor Domitian—for the crime of being a philosopher! And then another picture—of the Epictetus as the Rome of Nero knew him, young but never strong, weakly, lame, the abused slave of Nero's profligate secretary; allowed by his owner to study philosophy because it chanced to be the fashion in wealthy Rome to number wise men among one's "possessions" as one numbered cocks and fine horses; Epictetus, a slave, often in chains, tortured at his master's whim—but a Torch-bearer of the Truth!

Although a disciple of Rufus, the great Stoic teacher of the time, Epictetus himself claiming no superiority to his teacher whom he lovingly quotes, the conviction forces itself upon one that the latter bathed in a wider ocean of truth than that of Stoicism as a doctrine. He quotes Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, far more than Zeno; he had no part in the tolerance of many Stoics to the idea of suicide. And we hear him down the ages fulminating against the Academics, the Epicureans, the Skeptics; declaring the Godhood, the Divinity, of man; immortality, the higher law, man's obligation to study human nature in its duality; Karma, the power of the Spiritual Will, the[Pg 192] royal road to happiness; and man's obligation to integrity, fidelity, compassion, reverence, gratitude, trust, love, wisdom and a noble use of power. What was he banished for? what is it that he said?

If Caesar should adopt you, no one could endure your arrogance; to know, then, that you are the son of Zeus—will you not be elated?... You are a superior thing; you are a portion separated from the Deity; you have in yourself a certain portion of Him. Why then are you ignorant of your own noble descent? When you are in social intercourse, when you are exercising yourself, when you are engaged in discussion, know you not that you are nourishing a god, that you are exercising a god?

But give me directions, you say. Why should I give you directions? Has not Zeus given you directions? What directions, what kind of orders, did you bring when you came from Him? To keep what is your own; not to desire what is not your own. Fidelity is your own, and integrity, and modesty and virtue; for who can take these things from you? who, excepting yourself, can hinder you from using them? Having such promptings and commands from Zeus, what kind do you still ask from me? Am I more powerful than he, am I more worthy of confidence?

If you would make anything a habit, do it; if you would not make it a habit, do not do it.... So with respect to the soul: when you have been angry you must know that not only has this evil befallen you, but that you have also increased the habit, and in a manner increased the habit thrown fuel on the fire.... For he who has had a fever, and has been relieved from it, is not in the same state that he was before, unless he has been completely cured. Something of the kind happens also in diseases of the soul. Certain traces and blisters are left in it, and unless a man shall completely efface them, when he is again lashed in the same places, the lash will produce not welts but sores.

It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are. Therefore, when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. For what purpose? you may say. Why, that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.... Hercules, when he was being exercised by Eurytheus, never deemed himself wretched; but fulfilled courageously all that was laid upon him. But he who shall cry out and bear it hard when he is being exercised by Zeus, is he worthy to bear the scepter of Diogenes?

The philosopher's school, ye men, is a surgery; you ought not to go out of it with pleasure but with pain, for you are not in sound health when you enter: one has dislocated his shoulder, another has an abscess ... another a headache. And shall I sit and utter to you little thoughts and exclamations, that you may praise me and go away, one with his shoulder in the same condition as when he entered, another with his head still aching, and a third with his fistula or his abscess just as they were? Is it for this that young men quit home and leave their parents and friends, their kinsmen and property, that they may say to you,[Pg 193] Wonderful! when you are uttering your exclamations? Did Socrates do this, or Zeno, or Cleanthes?

Diogenes well said to one who asked from him letters of recommendation, "That you are a man he will know as soon as he sees you; and he will know whether you are good or bad if he has, through experience, the skill to distinguish the good and the bad; but if he has not, he would not know though I were to write him ten thousand times." For it is just the same as if a drachma asked to be recommended to a person. If he is skilful in testing silver, he will know you (the drachma) for what you are. We ought then in life to be able to have some such skill as in the case of silver coin, that we may be able to say, like the judge of silver, Bring me any drachma and I will test it.

When Florus was deliberating whether he should go down to Nero's spectacles, and also perform in them, he asked Agrippinus for advice, and Agrippinus said, Go down. But why do you not go down? said Florus; and Agrippinus replied, I do not even deliberate about the matter; for he who has brought himself to calculate the value of external things, is very near to those who have forgotten their own character.

But if I do not take part, I shall have my head struck off. Go then, said Agrippinus, and take part; but I will not. Why? Because you consider yourself to be only one common thread in the tunic; it is then fitting for you to take thought how you shall be like the rest of men. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful.

Katherine Tingley said recently in one of her intimate talks on the subject of the individual responsibility of students in being given the opportunity to bring a deeper than the common touch into the production of The Aroma of Athens:

We are just now at a strange point in the cycle and in many ways are linking ourselves with the past.

May not one evidence of this be an easier recognition of the Theosophic Light that has been passed from hand to hand down the ages? Many have been its disguises, many and strange the lamps holding it, often obscured it has been, again nameless—but ever the one Light, the one Flame, shining upon and enlightening all men.

[Pg 194]

Students of The Secret Doctrine and of ancient teachings such as those of Pythagoras, the Kabala, and the sacred books of different races and epochs, are often puzzled by the frequent references to Number, and to elementary plane forms like the circle, triangle, and square. It may be surmised that these symbols refer to meta-physical forces of various orders concealed within the "atom" and within nature generally. For nature is built, obviously enough, upon some internal principles of structural harmony. Without discussing the many avenues of thought suggested by a study of the five regular solids, the main features of these forms may be briefly summarized.

In the first place, they may be all considered as generated by Twelve Points on the surface of the Sphere, at equal adjacent distances, or by six diameters of the sphere mutually inclined at angles whose tangent is 2, the number of the octave in music. Joining each of the twelve with every other point, we have 66 lines, of which 36 are internal. Six of the latter being diameters, there remain 30, intersecting at 20 points, which give the 30 edges of the internal dodecahedron. The 30 outer, or external lines of the 66, form the edges of the icosahedron.

Joining one set of alternate corners of the Dodecahedron by 12 lines, a cube appears. So far, there are 33 points defined, including the center of the sphere. Joining opposite corners on each Cube-face by 12 lines, two interlaced tetrahedrons appear. These define, by their intersection, 6 new points and 12 new lines forming the Octahedron, beautifully poised in the heart of the Sphere.

Thus only 39 points, including the central point, are needed to define the Pythagorean solids, only one solid form being repeated, the Tetrahedron, which in fact is seen to repeat itself ten times. For between the interlaced Tetrahedron corners and the eight faces of the included Octahedron, eight smaller Tetrahedrons are seen.

The interlaced Tetrahedrons suggest the origin of the plane symbol—the interlaced triangles; but the full beauty of the symbol does not appear until we notice that the axis of symmetry of the Tetrahedrons coincides with the diagonal of the Cube, and that the orthographic projection of all these on a plane perpendicular to the diagonal gives a perfect hexagon with the interlaced triangles in the center.[Pg 195] The interlaced Tetrahedrons—one a reflection of the other—in fact define the eight corners of the Cube. The Tetrahedron is "3," and the Cube is "4" (or 6). So we see one way in which the "three fall into the four," and why it is a septenary, and a decad, as well as a three, or a four, according to the various aspects and interrelations considered of the electric, rotary, magnetic, or vibratory forces symbolized by the various lines.

Science has already reached the speculation that the hypothetical carbon "atom" has a tetrahedronal form. Let us look at this Tetrahedron with the eye opposite the middle of an edge and in line with the center. The two opposite edges now form the Cross, composed of two equal lines, but separated by a space. One is reminded of an electric wire, and a magnetized needle placing itself at right angles to, although at some distance from, the current in the wire. Thus the opposite edges, whether as rotational vectors or in some other way, indicate a connexion with the dual forces of attraction and repulsion. The Tetrahedron, a triangular pyramid, may be a Fire-symbol. In any case the following passage is suggestive:

When the molecules of salt, clustering together, begin to deposit themselves as a solid, the first shape they assume is that of triangles, of small pyramids and cones. It is the figure of fire, whence the word "pyramids"; while the second geometrical figure in manifested nature is a square or a cube, 4 and 6; for, "the particles of earth being cubical, those of fire are pyramidal" truly—(Enfield). The pyramidal shape is that assumed by the pines—the most primitive tree after the fern period. Thus the two opposites in cosmic nature—fire and water, heat and cold—begin their metrographical manifestations, one by a trimetric, the other by a hexagonal system. For the stellate crystals of snow, viewed under a microscope, are all and each of them a double or treble six-pointed star, with a central nucleus, like a miniature star within the larger one. (The Secret Doctrine, II, 594.)

The number Five penetrates the whole system of the Five solids in a remarkable way. Thus there are 24 pentagons visible, and by joining other corners of the Dodecahedron, Five Cubes are seen, which of course produce Five Octahedrons, and twice that number of principal interlaced Tetrahedrons. Five has been said to be the Number of Life.

Confining ourselves to one rectangular system, we find Four axes of symmetry for the Tetrahedrons and Three for Cube and Octahedron. Thus there are really 73 principal lines in the complete system defined by the 39 points. A study of the three principal orthographic[Pg 196] projections shows that the circle should be divided into 3, 4, 5, 6, parts, and the products of these, or 360 degrees. Certain angles are found in abundance, such as 36, 60, 72, 90, 108, 144; and their combinations and products by 10 and 12, and their multiples, give figures bearing a strong resemblance to the various cyclic periods of eastern chronology. Periodic orbits are vibrations on a large scale.

Twice the perimeter of an Icosahedron-face divided by the perimeter of a Dodecahedron-face is 3.1416, the value of π used in all ordinary scientific and constructional work.

The actual error is so small that if both were accurately made of copper at the same temperature, the Icosahedron-face would only have to be brought rather more than one degree Fahrenheit below the temperature of the other for the π value to be absolutely correct. Accuracy of this sort is unattainable outside of specially equipped laboratories. So the Pythagorean solids may be said to "square the circle."

LET us imagine a romance, such as most people must have heard, wherein some royal child is stolen away and reared amidst peasants in ignorance of his birth; and where some wise man comes and reveals to the youth the secret of his parentage. The young man forthwith steps out from his lowly life, and clothed in a new self-respect, begins to acquit himself worthily of his origin and destiny.

Thus has Theosophy declared to outcast humanity, "Thou art the king's son"; and in proof it has referred him to his ancestry. This is why H. P. Blavatsky, pointing out in the skein of history certain clues which scholars have hitherto overlooked, started that greater enthusiasm for archaeology which since her day has already borne such wonderful fruit.

In a dark age there is the danger that man might forget his divine origin altogether. The revelations of archaeology confirm the teachings of Theosophy that before the dark age of our historical period set in, there were brighter ages; and by showing what man has been, they are indicating what he may again be in the future.

[Pg 197]

The epochs and durations of the various ages are not uniform all over the earth, so that it cannot be said that the black age began, for the earth generally, at any definite time. The ancient Hindûs have their own chronology, showing the dates of the different ages for their race. We find in a very ancient work, the Vishnu-Purâna, a prophecy of the characteristics of Kali-Yuga or the "Black Age," from which the following extracts are taken:

Then property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification. Earth will be venerated but for its mineral treasures; the Brahmânical thread will constitute a Brâhman; external types (as the staff and red garb) will be the only distinctions of the several orders of life; dishonesty will be the (universal) means of subsistence; weakness will be the cause of dependence; menace and presumption will be substituted for learning; liberality will be devotion; simple ablution will be purification; mutual assent will be marriage; fine clothes will be dignity.... Amidst all castes, he who is the strongest will reign over a principality thus vitiated by many faults.—iv, ch. xxiv. (From H. H. Wilson's translation, vol. iv, pp. 226-228.)

Some of these details may be thought to apply more to the East, some to the West; we can surely recognize many of the characteristics of our own civilization. What is particularly striking is the way in which things which we regard as inevitable qualities of human nature are here spoken of with horror and classed among the iniquities. And there are signs in our contemporary literature that some of the standard human frailties are now being exalted into virtues. One of the signs of decadence mentioned is the fact that passion will be regarded as the sole bond of union between the sexes. And we have philosophers who would persuade us that passion is and always has been and always will be the bond of union! For some writers, passion, even in its most material form, is the origin and supreme fact of all union. Here, then, is the danger—that having allowed our ideals to drag down our practices, we afterwards suffer our practices to drag down our ideals, thus descending by a continuous and periodical process of leveling down.

It seems as if the saying that "property alone will confer rank" has some meaning for us today, as also the phrase "wealth will be the only source of devotion." What is said about falsehood in litigation reflects no discredit on our jurisprudence, but surely it describes much of what occurs in practice. That about the mineral treasures of earth[Pg 198] is very true; for we consider people simpletons when they fail to tear out the bowels of their homeland in order to coin them into "the only source of devotion." When the ancient scribe says that dishonesty will be the means of subsistence, he may seem to be going too far; but what does he mean by dishonesty? If it includes every form of insincerity and injustice, the statement may not be too extreme after all. The question, "Shall I do as the others do or let my family starve?" becomes every day more difficult to answer.

"Menace and presumption will be substituted for learning." This may allude to the fact that most people argue for the purpose of pushing their own ideas, losing their temper and resorting to tricks in order to attain this end; and that the attainment of knowledge is so often subordinated to the desire to compel assent or gain notoriety. "Liberality will be devotion," may be better understood if we substitute the word "munificence," as applying to large donations to churches and also to the prevalence of the charity of the purse rather than the charity of the heart.

A difficult subject to speak upon, in view of the mental chaos reigning today, is the hint that there can be higher motives for marriage than mere mutual attraction or worldly convenience. The quotation gives a rebuke to those who, seeing no farther back than the Black Age, argue that there never have been any higher ideals of marriage. We may point to the ancient Egyptian religion as an instance of a culture that is free from the erotic element; while in the quotation given above the erotic idea is expressly condemned. Clearly, then, that idea belongs to the age of decadence. The word "love" having now become practically useless from its association with passion, we must seek our clue to the real meaning of marriage in the word "duty." Regarded as a sacred rite involving vows of unselfishness and self-restraint, undertaken only in sober earnestness and with a vision undimmed by the colored mists of selfish romance, marriage might take its place among the blessings instead of among the problems of life.

In days when philosophicules try to define honor in terms of vanity, and devotion in terms of self-interest, it is beneficial to receive from antiquity a hint that may help us to understand that honor and devotion are the breath of the Soul. Pretended reformers, claiming a superior acumen and to be quite grown-up and out of leading-strings, may dissect before us the animal nature of man, pointing out[Pg 199] its sordid details and requesting us to believe that these represent our entire endowment. Some prominent writers, whose outlook upon life has somehow suffered from unfortunate circumstances, would have us accept depravity and neurotic conditions as inevitable concomitants of human nature; and, profanely invoking Freedom, they recommend open license as a means of purity! Signs like these justify one in thinking that the Black Age is casting the shadow of its pinions over the firmament of modern thought; and we are grateful for the smallest hint of the possibility of an age free from the all-absorbing morbidity and itching self-consciousness that seem to dominate every department of inquiry.

Will society ever again be so constituted that honor and reverence and duty shall be a universal atmosphere, a currency in which all share, a life-force that flows from man to man, a common possession in the maintenance of whose integrity all are involved—as we are now all involved in the maintenance of commercial credit and the upkeep of standards of outer respectability? Can we imagine a society wherein no man would dare to sully the purity of this inner atmosphere by any unworthy thought? If so, then we might call honor and morality real existences instead of mere abstractions; these words might then convey the genuine qualities they were meant to denote, instead of the spurious imitations which they now seem to stand for in the minds of those who try to express them in terms of selfishness and passion. It is well to think that such things have been upon earth; and it is easier thus to account for some of the deeds of antiquity whose signs remain. It is easier to see in religion the faint echo of a former knowledge and conduct, than to interpret it as an outgrowth of fear and charlatanry. We need a greater faith in human nature.

[Pg 200]

THE statue of Neshoron, of which we give an illustration, is a very fine example of the work of the XXVIth Dynasty (b. c. 666 to 528). This was a period of great prosperity for Egypt, after long years of depression. Rawlinson says:

The entire valley of the Nile became little more than one huge workshop, where stone-cutters and masons, bricklayers and carpenters, labored incessantly. Under the liberal encouragement of the king and his chief nobles, the arts recovered themselves and began to flourish anew. The engraving and painting of the hieroglyphs were resumed with success, and carried out with a minuteness and accuracy that provoke the admiration of the beholder. Bas-reliefs of extreme beauty and elaboration characterize the period. There rests upon some of them "a gentle and almost feminine tenderness, which has impressed upon the imitations of living creatures the stamp of an incredible delicacy both of conception and execution." Statues and statuettes of merit were at the same time produced in abundance.

Under King Psametik I, the first king of the XXVIth Dynasty, a semi-Libyan devoid of Egyptian prejudices, foreigners, especially Greeks, were encouraged to settle in the Delta and to establish commercial relations on a large scale—a hitherto unheard-of innovation. The effect of this was a great change in the character of the Egyptians, perhaps not for the better. A mercenary army was enlisted, and the beginning of Egypt's downfall and subjugation drew nigh. In the reign of Apries (Uah-ab-Rā, the "Pharaoh Hophra" of Jeremiah xliv, 30) an unsuccessful attempt was made to restore the greatness of the ancient Egyptian empire. Apries, or Hophra, finding the Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was unable to reduce Phoenicia to subjection, concluded a treaty with Zedekiah, king of Judah, in b. c. 588, promising him assistance if he would help him to attack the Babylonians. The war that followed resulted in the capture and destruction of Jerusalem, and the transfer of the Jews to Babylon. Apries failed to protect Zedekiah, though he appears to have done his best. He retreated before the victorious Babylonians, and with the fall of Palestine, the two great powers of Babylon and Egypt became conterminous. Within a few years Nebuchadnezzar had conquered Egypt, making it a tributary kingdom.

The statue of Neshoron is remarkable for the realism shown in the treatment of the face, which is obviously an excellent portrait. The feet are also treated in a naturalistic manner, but the rest of the figure is more conventional in accordance with the prevailing custom.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

STATUE OF NESHORON, A DIGNITARY UNDER KING APRIES
LOUVRE MUSEUM, PARIS

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

THE HOUSE OF LORDS, LONDON

[Pg 201]

THOUGH such an important chamber, the House of Lords is only forty-five feet wide, forty-five feet high, and ninety feet long, yet it is very well adapted to its purpose. There is none of the crowding from which the House of Commons suffers when all the members wish to be present at some important debate. Like the rest of the Palace of Westminster, the House of Lords is built in the Tudor-Gothic style, but it does not date back to the fifteenth century. The old House of Parliament, a patched-up and unimposing building, was almost completely destroyed in 1835—an important service to architecture being rendered thereby—and the new one was commenced upon the same site in 1840. It took twenty-seven years to build and it is generally admitted, in spite of many weaknesses, to be a worthy home for "the Mother of Parliaments," and the most impressive modern Gothic building in Europe. One important though indirect result of the fire which burned down the old Parliament House was that public competition, almost unknown in England, was adopted as the safest way to obtain a good design. Sir Charles Barry, the architect, was greatly helped by the famous Pugin in the superintendence of the detail, which, as can be seen in the plate, is well-designed and executed, for modern work. Of course no modern imitation-Gothic possesses the life and vigor of the old; there is a mechanical feeling about it which can never be avoided in some degree; there is want of spontaneity, a rigidity and formal correctness, which is entirely absent in the old work. The House of Peers and the King's Apartments occupy the western portion of the palace; the House of Commons the eastern.

Being so new, there are few important historical associations connected with the House of Lords, and in recent times the most thrilling scenes in parliamentary life have taken place in the other House, where the expression of the emotions has always been allowed freer play, and where the Government of the day has to meet its strongest opponents in debate, but a very impressive ceremony takes place when the Sovereign in person opens Parliament. He then takes his seat on the throne, which can be seen in the plate, and reads his speech from it before a brilliant audience. The British monarchy being a constitutional one, this speech is, of course, really an outline of the policy of the Ministry in office, and it usually says very little.

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The composition of the members of the House of Lords consists of Lords spiritual (Bishops), and Lords temporal. The latter include the five dignities of Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, and Baron. No new dignity has been created since the time of Henry VI, when the rank of viscount was established. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth there were only fifty-nine temporal peers, but the present number is about ten times as many. The principle under which a peer holds his seat is in the main the hereditary one, but there are a few peerages which are bestowed for life only. The peers who are judges, sitting as a judicial tribunal, constitute the Supreme Court of British Law, and the presiding peer of the whole House, the Lord Chancellor, is a lawyer, and always belongs to the party of the government in power. The Lord Chancellor's seat is known as the Woolsack; this peculiar term comes from a period in Elizabeth's reign when wool was the staple industry of England and its export was forbidden; sacks of wool were kept in the Chamber of Peers to remind them of its importance.

RICHARD WAGNER'S autobiography, just published to the world at large, though it does not include the last twenty years of his life when he had attained success, has made a great stir among all who are interested in the study of human nature. It is an amazing self-revelation, and, from the Theosophical standpoint, a striking example of the duality of man. The popular conception of Wagner is amply confirmed by this "human document." But why should we waste our time, and perhaps feed our own sense of self-righteousness injudiciously, by dwelling on the failings of genius? Have not the great men given us, in their immortal works, that which is really worthiest of remembrance? Whatever his personal shortcomings were, Wagner never failed in his loyal devotion to his ideal in music-drama; he dared everything and suffered greatly in his protracted efforts to lead the incredulous world to listen to his novel and glorious revolutionary forms, which he knew to be superior to those of his time. The soul behind stands out in his immortal music, high above the limitations of his personality, for there was that in[Pg 203] him which had listened to the music of the spheres and which lived serenely apart from the jar and jangle of the petty life. That it is possible for an inspired Soul in touch with the Realities to force its way through all kinds of difficulties, even the greatest—the incarnation in a hindering personality—and to deliver its message of living beauty to men, seems to be the principal lesson this ill-advised autobiography teaches. It would have been better perhaps that it had never seen the light, for there are not many who have the understanding of the complex nature of man, the higher and the lower, which alone can interpret so unusual a character.

* * * * *

The spirit of revolution was in the air of Europe when Wagner was meditating upon the imperfections of the grand opera of his youth. He says, "The spirit of revolution took possession of me once forever." In 1842 The Flying Dutchman was brought out in Dresden, and in 1845 Tannhäuser appeared and set all musical Europe by the ears. For the rest of his life, till 1882, Wagner was at war with his fellow musicians and critics. His keen perception of natural beauty and artistic fitness is shown in the following passage from his Life:

One solitary flash of brightness was afforded by our view of the Wartburg, which we passed during the only sunlit hour of this journey. The sight of this mountain fastness, which from the Fulda side is clearly visible for a long time, affected me deeply. A neighboring ridge further on I at once christened the Hörselberg, and as I drove through the valley pictured to myself the scenery for the third act of my Tannhäuser. The scene remained so vividly in my mind that long afterwards I was able to give Despléchin, the Parisian scene painter, exact details when he was working out the scenery under my directions.

* * * * *

The death of Felix Mottl came as a sudden blow to all music lovers. It was known for a little while that the great Viennese conductor was in bad health, but not that he was dangerously ill. He was only fifty-five. His reputation was made at an early age; in 1885 he was conducting Tristan at Baireuth. Mottl was virtually the last of the great conductors who had received the true Wagnerian tradition by personal contact with the great composer. He was also distinguished among German conductors of his time by his liking and understanding of French music, and for the success with which he conducted French music before the most discriminating Parisian audiences. He was well known in New York; where his conducting of the Nibelungen Ring series made a profound impression. His[Pg 204] remains were cremated. At his funeral in Munich no clergy were present, but Richard Strauss gave an eloquent address.

* * * * *

"There are women in Boston," says the Boston Herald, "who are undoubtedly as good violinists as some of the younger members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and perhaps better. But the old prejudice that woman is necessarily inferior to man and for the same work should receive less pay, is still to be reckoned with." Miss Maud Powell is perhaps the only American woman violinist who has reached the highest success in this country, but there are many others who have spent many years at the best European Conservatories and who are quartet and solo players of distinction, and yet while a male violinist of fair quality can find employment, it is often difficult for women of equal ability to be admitted into the best orchestras. They have to become teachers, or to give up.

* * * * *

Paderewski's eloquent patriotic address at the Chopin Centenary Festival has just been translated into English. He says: "Music is the only art that actually lives. Her elements, vibration, palpitation, are the elements of life itself." The great pianist is repeating exactly what Katherine Tingley said many years ago. In her Râja Yoga system of training, music is given a prominent position, and the effect upon the character has been very marked. To produce the best results and to avoid the undesirable ones which the ordinary musical training sometimes engenders, great discrimination in the method of teaching is necessary. In the Râja Yoga system of education music is taught in such a way that the interest is sustained without the egotism and vanity of the pupil being stimulated. Can this be said of musical training in general?

* * * * *

France is certainly the land of great opportunities. A café singer, M. Couyba, who, fifteen years ago was earning a precarious salary at a Montmartre restaurant by singing his own songs, is now Minister of Commerce in the new French cabinet.

[Pg 205]

AMONG features of the Chinese calendar we find:

The connexion of the five planets and the sun and moon in a septenate called the Seven Regulators, with a corresponding septenary week, and in some cases a sabbath marked as inauspicious for doing work.

The Ten Celestial Stems, representing the Father Heaven or masculine principle.

The Twelve Earthly Branches, representing the Mother Earth or feminine principle; also standing for the twelve houses of the zodiac, which are of uneven size, and are denoted by symbolic animals.

The year is lunar, but its commencement is regulated by the sun, the new year falling on the first new moon after the sun enters Aquarius.

These features are supposed to have been "introduced," mostly from Chaldaea; but whether the Chinese got them from the Chaldees or the Chaldees from the Chinamen, the question as to how and by whom they were originated remains the same.

The subject of ancient calendrical systems is extensive, and no speculation can be of much account which has not been prefaced by an examination of the various systems. It would be pertinent, for instance, to see what is known about the calendars which have came down to us from the ancient Central Americans. These evince an accurate knowledge of the periods of the celestial movements, together with knowledge of another kind; for the Mexicans had both a civil and a sacred year. The former was 365 days, with 13 added every 52 years; the latter 260 days, with 13 months of 20 days each, each month divided into 4 weeks of 5 days each.

It is evident that the entire system from which all these various ancient systems of computation were derived was complex and profound, and that it comprised a mathematical knowledge having sound reason at the bottom of it, but whose keys have not yet been discovered. The competency of the computers is shown by their ability to ascertain with exactitude all natural cycles, such as those of the solar year and the eclipses, when such was their purpose; and this relieves them from the imputation that their secret and sacred years were due to ignorance and mal-observation. These cycles were not due to ignorance, but to a knowledge and a purpose which remains to be discovered by research free from both theological and scientific bias.

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The septenate of planets is of course a very familiar symbol in ancient lore; the number seven was recognized as the principal key-number in cosmic architecture. The reason why the sun and moon are included among the number of planets is not due to ignorance; and it is evident that such an alleged ignorance is not compatible with the knowledge displayed in other particulars. It was due to the fact that the real septenate of planets was esoteric, an item of arcane knowledge, and that when the septenate was mentioned exoterically, the place of two secret planets had to be supplied, the sun and moon being introduced for this purpose.

The question whether the number of zodiacal signs was originally twelve or ten receives a suggestive hint from the fact that in the above calendar both a denary and a duodenary were used. The ten and the twelve are combined in some of these calendars by taking their least common multiple, 60, and using that number to designate a period of 60 years. Ten and twelve are likewise said to be combined by addition in the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

From such gleanings of archaic science as are accessible to us, we may infer that it consisted largely in a marvelous application of fundamental mathematical principles to mensuration and the measurement of time. The computers, so far from being ignorant experimenters, were very brainy people, as we find some of their descendants to be still. The still unexplained existence of the very ancient Âryan Hindû astronomy of the Sûrya-Siddhânta and other works, proves that, when exact calculation of natural cycles was the object, the calculators were fully as competent as ourselves. We must infer, then, that their secret and sacred cycles were based on the like competence and not upon ignorance.

As to mathematics, there are some who think that our great progress in that science may represent merely a partial recovery of what was known before; and that logarithms and the calculus may be but a fraction of what has been known. And there is much yet to be found out as to the relation between numbers and dimensions. It is hardly to be expected, however, that a culture so recent as our own should have reached the point that must have been attained by civilizations of such duration as those of the past.

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ELEUSIS is sacred as one of the last, and to us best known, spots where the Ancient Mysteries survived in publicly recognized form until the days when corruption and dogmatism caused their withdrawal. The name wakes an echo in the recesses of our consciousness, for do we not belong to the same humanity as that which flourished when the Mysteries were recognized and venerated?

In considering the Mysteries we must choose between two hypotheses. Either the whole thing was a delusion and a fraud, or the Mysteries held and could impart knowledge inaccessible to the outsider and since departed from among men. To maintain the former theory we must discredit our own judgment and invalidate all human testimony on any subject whatever, by supposing that whole nations and ages of competent and highly cultured people were deluded. As so well argued by Thomas Taylor, relatively to the ancient oracles (Century Path, Sept. 25, 1910), such a theory is altogether preposterous. The only thing which stands in the way of our admitting in this particular case the true value of evidence is our own foolish vanity and juvenile insularity as regards the merits of our own culture. We are reluctant to admit that anything we do not know can be knowledge; any one who contradicts us must be wrong. A fine attitude to take! Yet of late years our confidence has somewhat wavered. For one thing we have found that our scientific universe is not so complete as we once thought it was and that we have merely been exploring an anteroom; but now we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast unexplored region. For another thing, we find a few little difficulties arising in connexion with the management of the affairs of civilized life, which makes us a little mistrustful of the efficiency of our knowledge. Little details like physical health bother us; there are insurrections of vice we cannot quell; our religion is decaying; our philosophy is composed mostly of doubts and questionings.

The Mysteries of Eleusis date from times to us prehistoric; but our historians have at last been forced to admit that the period of Grecian civilization covered by our history books was but the tail end of a period equal in culture and antiquity to those of Egypt and Chaldaea. The rites consisted of the Greater and the Lesser Mysteries, the former celebrated between harvest and seed-time, the latter in the spring. The inner teachings were kept secret by effectual means; for[Pg 208] the public there were "dramas," in which the exoteric teachings were symbolically presented. The institutions of all past times were based on what filtered out through many channels from the veiled Mysteries. The Drama can be traced back through the plays of Aeschylus and the choric dances in honor of Dionysus to the exoteric rites of the Mysteries. Our own religious symbolism is derived therefrom: our term "Christ," our sacraments, our Cross, etc., etc. The Mysteries are the eternal root of religions. For the gateway of knowledge is Man's own inner faculties, by which, when purified, he comes into direct relation with the mysteries of the Unseen. Hence the preliminary requisite for the candidate was always purification; his attainments were conditioned on his success in that respect.

It is even so today; for none but the pure, who have given guarantees of unselfishness and integrity, can attain. Those who lust after knowledge without having thus earned the right to it fall into delusions—of which also the world today is not without illustrations. So great is the power of these words, "Mysteries" and "Eleusis," in the inner consciousness of man, that they are even now used by "magicians" as part of the paraphernalia which, together with rabbits and top-hats, they carry about in their carpet bags as a means of relieving the idle of some of their spare cash.

If anybody today thirsts after knowledge the old way is still open. He can either belong to οἱ πολλοί, the crowd, or seek to enrol himself of the elect. But the latter dignity is not a matter of privilege. He can neither be admitted nor refused, except according to his qualifications. The desire to join a movement for uplifting humanity is the key that will open the first door. Students of Theosophy will find that that condition has always been made essential; see H. P. Blavatsky's writings, as also those of her successors, W. Q. Judge and Katherine Tingley. He who desires to be initiated into the mysteries of his own Soul must first purify his heart and mind. Thus alone can he distinguish between the false and the true. Otherwise he must go by the erring light of his fallible judgment and accept teachings on the authority of the teachers. But the man who relies on the guidance of his own pure motives will not be imposed upon and will follow only such teachings as give him the light he seeks.

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

PART OF THE RUINS OF ELEUSIS

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

HAINES, ALASKA

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

AN ALASKAN VALLEY

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

AN ALASKAN GLACIER

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THE stupendous effects of ice in ages long gone by have been elaborately studied by geologists, who have given us fascinating descriptions thereof. The enormous power of ice as an agent in transforming the land is shown by the study of its doings at the present day. Much has been done in this direction in the Alps, but in America we have Alaska, which, besides the prospects of material resources which it holds out to the future, is already affording a fine field for the observer of nature. Here we may see glaciers at work; and though the action of the ice-sheet at its bottom is hid from view, what goes on at the advancing margin is evident from year to year, and even from day to day. All the phenomena of moraines, the pushing forward of rocks and trees, the damming up of valleys to form lakes, the scraping up of boulder-clay, the rounding-off of the rocks, etc., may be witnessed; together with many details that could not easily have been inferred from a study of the sites of past glaciation. One of the most interesting of these effects is the way in which the glacier acts indirectly through the force of the huge waves it produces when it enters a river. Vast blocks from the ice-front fall off with a splash and send up a wave and a series of waves that sweep over the bank and into the forest beyond, achieving more erosion than ever rain or river did. The greater erosive effects follow on brief sudden movements.

In the National Geographical Magazine (Washington) for June, 1911, there is a most interesting article recording the field-studies of the National Geographical Society in Alaska. Many of the glaciers which they studied had advanced during the last year or two, and others had been retreating. The reasons why some should advance while others retreat were not satisfactorily determined, and further study must precede a decision in this respect. But earthquakes, of which there were twenty-six days in September, 1899, are assigned a chief rôle. The effect of an earthquake was to produce a sudden advance and great but brief transformations.

One of the largest glaciers in Yakutat Bay, the Nunatak, had changed a great deal since the year before. It had advanced decidedly, different parts of its front having come out 700 to 1000 feet up to June 17, 1910. From 1890 to 1909 the Nunatak Glacier receded steadily, going back over two miles and a half in this time.... The forward movement commenced between July 6, 1909 and June 1910. This was due to the accession of unusually large quantities of snow to the reservoirs of this glacier by avalanches during the twenty-six days of severe earthquakes of September, 1899.

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The size of glaciers is illustrated by the following description:

On the lower Copper River is Childs Glacier, which is seriously threatening to destroy a steel railway bridge just completed. The rate of forward motion in Childs Glacier increased during the winter of 1909-10 so that part of the margin of the glacier changed its forward movement from nothing to two and as much as eight feet a day.... Childs Glacier is ten to twelve miles long, not much over a mile wide in the mountain valley, but it widens to over three miles in Copper River Valley.

Its front is a precipitous white wall 250 to 300 feet high, and is swept at the base by Copper River....

In August, 1909, Childs Glacier was advancing at about its normal rate—four feet a day at a point near the north side and perhaps six or seven feet a day in midglacier. The melting and the many icebergs discharged from the terminal cliff at that time just about balanced this advance, so that the front of the glacier remained in about the same place.... During the winter and early spring of 1909-10, however, the glacier began to advance more rapidly, buckling up the ice of the frozen river. In June 1910 the ice-front had moved forward from 920 to 1225 feet, narrowing the river to 400 or 500 feet.

Every time the ice cliff was sufficiently undercut by the river, great masses of ice would cascade down the front, raising a gigantic wave in the river.... During the advance the waves washed up over a bank five to twenty-five feet in height and rushed back 100 or 200 feet into the alder thicket. Ice blocks, up to ten tons in weight were thrown in among the trees. Stones a foot or two in diameter were hurled into the thicket. Alders nine to eleven inches in diameter were stripped of leaves and bark and bent backward or broken off short, or uprooted or buried beneath the gravel and boulders and macerated trunks of other trees.

The river bank, which was cut back some in the preceding year was in 1910 being fairly eaten up by the iceberg waves which crossed the river, fifty to sixty feet by actual measurement having been removed along the bank of the stream facing the glacier.

It was a rare opportunity to see the visible forward movement of Childs Glacier into the forest. A series of lobes developed, though some of them were not persistent, and at the end of these lobes the day-to-day changes were most pronounced. Ice blocks were sliding down the frontal slope some of them being rolled many feet into the forest; trees were overturned, turf and grass were ploughed up and carried on the ice of the glacier. Yet one saw and heard little of a spectacular nature while traversing the ice-front. It was an irresistible steady movement, but slow, as the movement of the hour hand of a clock is slow. As impressive as anything was to find tons of ice resting where one stood to take a photograph the day before, or to find some great tree, 100 years old, prone on the ground with the butt beneath the glacier, where the day before the tree was upright with the ice just touching it.

A whole grove ... was overturned between 1909 and 1910, ... practically not a tree remaining which was not overturned or leaning. Peat bogs were rolled[Pg 211] up in great bolsters five or six feet high. Isolated trees in the peat were pushed forward a hundred feet or more without being overturned.... In the bay east of Heather Island marine deposits with shells are being pushed up above sea-level.

On the east margin of the glacier a lake was formed where there was only a marginal stream.

It is evident that in ice we have an agent which in the past has played a great part in cosmic changes and cataclysms, and may do so at any time in the future. When we consider the changes in climate to which the earth is believed to be liable, owing to certain cyclic changes in the gearing of its revolving pinions, the conviction becomes stronger. It is now generally admitted that the words "Ice Age" or "Glacial Age" should be spelt with a final s indicating the plural number; for if there was one there were many. What we study in the north of America and Europe is the effects of the last, or the last few, of these periodic phenomena.

"For in Him we live and move and have our being."—St. Paul

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HIS hearers agreed that the pastor of their ultra-fashionable church had transcended himself that Sunday morning. This was no small praise, for his trained mind and wide experience, his analysis of men, his delicate wit, his eloquence, and the fervid poetry of his prayers made the congregation regard his ordinary efforts with patronizing pride. When he began with the beatitudes, in clear, resonant tones, his voice seemed to radiate a grateful calm through the softly lighted interior. Then he painted a graphic picture of the compensations of unselfish work and sacrifice, artistically coloring the whole theme with the glow of noble peace which comes to those who give themselves generously.

There was a responsive awakening in the cultured, ennuied minds of his high-bred audience which was like wine to the speaker. The interest which he had aroused reacted as a pungent mental stimulus. The very air seemed to scintillate with new thoughts which he swiftly grasped and clothed in vivid words.

My Lady Luxury, who had played the game of "slumming" for diversion, breathed a little deeper in her faultless gown. The commonplace creatures of work and weariness had never seemed quite the same kind of flesh and blood as the members of her exclusive set. The poor were interesting enough as authors' types or artists' models but she had not supposed they had any of the finer feelings. She assumed that the narrow ugliness of their lives could be no trial since they had never known anything else. How skilfully the minister was analysing things. After all, there was some comfort in religion when a man could preach like that. If the homely struggles of the weary, dulled mothers and fathers of poverty and toil had these compensating pleasures of sacrifice, they could not complain. It really was an indifferent matter, then, whether one gave alms or not, though of course, the fashionable charities ought to be sustained. She was not stirred to taste the higher sense of sacrifice so well described, but a complacent feeling of the fitness of things came over her. How absurd the less fortunate were to think this an unjust world. The toilers' backs were fitted to their burdens as hers was meant for soft purple and fine linen. This was not exactly what the minister was saying, but it suited her to regard him as the author of her translation.

The members of the pulpit committee in their pews secretly congratulated [Pg 213]themselves upon their foresight in having selected this candidate. The demands of the position were exacting, but he was equal to them—even his physique fitted the pulpit admirably. His culture and learning were a credit to even this patrician parish, which believed in having the best that money could procure.

Down the central aisle was the clear-cut, immobile face of a financier whose opinions in the money world were never discounted. His keen eyes rested upon the speaker in admiration. Personally he played the game of gold so intensely he forgot to calculate what life meant to the individuals who composed "the market." He was rather hypnotized with his own success: but he recognized his peer in this man who ruled in his own world of thought. Why, he was making the game of life appear so vivid and real that the whole financial play grew dull and artificial beside it. The listener's quick eye noted the alert, interested faces around him. Ah, it were indeed a great thing so to play upon the minds of men and women as to win this tribute of silent, rapt attention. The eloquent voice aroused in him no impulse of envy or of aspiration; but his own ability inwardly saluted this master of words who could so paint the atmosphere with sound.

A gratified flush crept into the minister's face as he looked over the audience. Was this not ready proof of the compensations of work? He had put his mind's best effort into this sermon, and there was not one in the great church who was not touched, mentally.

That sense of the unreality of the market-place followed the financier after the artistic music had ended the service. Later in the day he wandered along the country roads in the spring sunshine, thinking of the sermon. How dramatic it all had been and how perfect a performance! It seemed a part of the fresh spring day as the inviting green fields melted into his reverie and he followed the path with careless strides.

The wind gently stirred the branches and a delicate shower of fragrant petals fell at his feet, while a strangely familiar odor filled the air with its long-forgotten charm. Apple blossoms! How sweet they were! With delicious subtlety the perfumed breath from the boughs filled him with its own ethereal magic. Nature was playing a glorious game of sound and color and form and fragrance. Deep in his slumbering heart something stirred and fluttered and sprang up at the first touch of this enchantment. The power in the fragile petals swept the sordid earth from under his feet. The dear old apple[Pg 214] orchard of his boyhood was before him. Again he stood upon the threshold of joyous, strong, young life. The taste of sweet belief in an untried world was on his lips, the wine of high impulse tingling in every nerve. The harmony of life's song thrilled him into vibrant sympathy with its purity and beauty and his heart glowed with the faith which only youth knows.

Oh that he might crystallize the wondrous meaning of this perfumed vision of unfolding life into sound or color or form that would make the dreary world of men feel that this, this was the reality! His pulses throbbed with a longing for toil and struggle and sacrifice—no effort was too great, no price too much to pay, if only he might help to voice this living poetry. He would valiantly espouse this cause of beauty until mankind's glad belief should liberate the truth imprisoned in a selfish world. No lesser ambition should lure him from the task: this was the only thing worth while. Other champions might prove more able, and he might sadly fail; but oh, how he longed to lose himself in the glory of the attempt.

With uncovered head the financier stood disciple-wise among the trees. Long and deeply he drank of the redolent air, feasting his eyes upon the marvel of perfectly tinted petals and countless buds of promise still brighter in their tender curves. It was all too subtle for analysis, yet his heart recognized the meaning of the message so strangely sweet and strong. What revelation lay at the heart of this unfoldment, with its touch of the eternal spring which sleeps beneath all forms! Oh the power and inspiration and the rare, old-time enchantment of returning apple-blossoms!

[Pg 215]

SOKRATES was born in 469 b. c. and was put to death in 399 b. c. at the age of seventy. He grew to manhood among the splendors of the Periklean Age; took an active and honorable part in the Peloponnesian War; saw the Long Walls, extending from Athens to its harbor, Peiraeeus, destroyed at the blast of Lysander's trumpet, and displayed the fearlessness and nobility of his nature during the Reign of Terror when the Thirty Tyrants ruled at Athens. Finally he was accused of heresy and was condemned by his fellow-citizens to drink the hemlock—the immemorial fate of great believers, to be condemned for unbelief by unbelievers.

Three dialogs of Plato depict the last month of his master's life, the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo. The Apology is a reproduction of the extemporaneous defense made by Sokrates at his trial. The Crito is a discussion between Sokrates and his old friend Kriton on the subject: Would it be right and just for Sokrates to accept Kriton's proffered assistance and escape? The Phaedo is a most beautiful and inspiring account of the last day of Sokrates' life, when in prison surrounded by a few devoted disciples, in discussing the nature and destiny of the soul he avowed his belief in its immortality, its pre-existence, and its rebirth.

The personality of Sokrates was strikingly unique. He was unusually robust and strong, capable of enduring fatigue and hardship to a surprising degree. He went barefoot throughout the year, even when campaigning at Potidaea and among the severe snows of Thrace. The same clothing sufficed him in winter as in summer. His diet was simple and temperate, and "he used to say in jest that Circe transformed men into hogs by entertaining them with an abundance of luxury, but that Odysseus through his temperance was not changed into a hog." Nevertheless, at festivals and banquets when joviality and indulgence were in order, Sokrates was able to outdo all the others. He consciously limited the number of his wants and repressed all artificial tastes. He was just, moderate, and above all independent in thought and action, absolutely regardless of danger when confident that he was acting rightly. His features were extremely ugly and grotesque: his nose was flat, his nostrils large, his lips thick, his eyes bulging; so that his companions jokingly compared him to the mythical old Satyr, Silenus. He purposely avoided politics and never held any[Pg 216] public office until 406 b. c., when for a single day, as chairman of the Prytanes, he presided at a meeting of the Popular Assembly and refused to put to vote the unconstitutional proposal that the victorious generals of Arginusae be condemned collectively and be executed for their alleged neglect of duty. Heedless of threats and protests, at the greatest personal risk Sokrates persisted in his noble refusal to listen to the clamor of the mob. He was so law-abiding, such an advocate of peace and stranger to violence, so diligent in the performance of the duties of an upright man and of a brave and righteous citizen, that despite his many enemies he was never summoned to appear in court until in his seventieth year he was accused of atheism and impiety. He was pre-eminently a teacher of ethics, a preacher of morality, a defender of right, an earnest believer in duty. He is the Prophet of Reason, who "more than any other one of the great teachers of religion sought to sanctify the mind and to give to common sense a sacramental power."

Three peculiarities mark Sokrates as a loyal member of that splendid band of brothers who possess that wisdom which in all ages, entering into noble souls, makes them prophets and reformers. First, he passed his long life teaching in contented poverty, and devoted all his energy to pointing out piety, self-control, and justice to all, young and old alike. Secondly, he was of a deeply sensitive, religious nature, and firmly believed that he had a divine mission to perform under the inspiration of his Daemon or Higher Self. Thirdly, he was intellectually original both in choice of subject and in method of teaching. Plato calls him "a cross-examining God."

His lecture-room was the street; his auditors were shoemakers, tanners, sailors, and other craftsmen; his philosophy was for the market-place. His disciples were young men whose minds he had quickened and whose lives he had elevated. He aimed to prick the bubble of pretension everywhere.... To Sokrates the precept inscribed on the Delphian temple, "Know thyself," was the holiest of all texts.

He accepted no salary for the instruction he gave and refused the many rich gifts which were offered to him, spending the entire day in conversing with all who cared to listen to him, treating without any distinction rich and poor, never withholding his assistance from any one who consulted him in the spirit of truth. As his words were both interesting and instructive, some regularly attended him in public, and these were commonly called his disciples of students, although neither[Pg 217] Sokrates nor his personal friends used the terms teacher and disciple because of the disrepute then attached to them as a result of the mercenary and casuistical teachings of the Sophists. Early in the morning Sokrates frequented the public walks, the gymnasia, and the schools. Then later, between nine and ten, he went to the market-place, when it was most crowded.

Sokrates' power of meditation was developed very exceptionally. Frequently for hours at a time the strength of his inner life made him entirely oblivious to the outer world. In proof of this it is recorded that while he was a soldier at Potidaea

One morning he was thinking about something which he could not resolve; and he would not give it up but continued thinking from early dawn until noon—there he stood fixed in thought; and at noon attention was drawn to him and the rumor ran through the wondering crowd that Sokrates had been standing and thinking about something ever since the break of day. At last, in the evening after supper, some Ionians out of curiosity (I should explain that this was not in winter but in summer), brought out their mats and slept in the open air that they might watch him and see whether he would stand all night. There he stood all night as well as all day and the following morning; and with the return of light he offered up a prayer to the sun and went his way.

Two nights before he died, when the date of his execution was not known by him or his friends, it was revealed to him by a vision "in the likeness of a woman, fair and comely, clothed in white raiment, who called out and cried: 'O Sokrates, the third day hence, to Phthia shalt thou go.'" Sokrates also declares:

In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams that "I should make music." The same dream came to me sometimes in one form and sometimes in another but always saying the same or nearly the same words: "Make and cultivate music," said the dream. And hitherto I imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has always been the pursuit of my life and is the noblest and best of music.

Also, Sokrates heard even in childhood a divine voice, which all through his life acted as a restraining influence whenever he was about to take a false step. This never urged him to adopt any particular line of action but always served as a prohibitory warning. He heard it not only on great but also on small occasions when it frequently prevented him from continuing what he had begun to say or do. Later writers refer to this as the Daemon or Genius of Sokrates, but he always spoke of it as a "Divine Sign, a Prophetic Voice," and obeyed it implicitly, referring to it publicly and familiarly to others. It had[Pg 218] continually forbidden him to enter public life, and after he was indicted it forbade him to take any thought of what he should then do or say, bidding him to trust that all would come out for the best. So completely, he tells us, did he walk with a consciousness of this bridle that whenever he felt no check he was confident that all was well. His enemies asserted that this belief was an offensive heresy, an impious innovation on the orthodox creed, atheistic and immoral. Hence they accused him of not worshiping the recognized gods but of introducing new and false divinities of his own. The truth is that Sokrates believed in One Divine Life, the One in All and the All in One, while he did not deny the existence of the popular gods but declared that the popular conceptions were erroneous and imperfect.

To appreciate the mission of Sokrates, the message he had to deliver, it is necessary to refer to the Oracle of Delphi, in which Apollo proclaimed to Chaerephon, an intimate friend and enthusiastic follower, that Sokrates was the wisest of all men of his time. This declaration exerted a very great influence upon the subsequent life of Sokrates in that it caused him to inquire continually, What is wisdom? and made him not only a philosopher but a religious reformer as well. In the words of Cicero: "Sokrates labored to bring philosophy from heaven to earth."

Sokrates taught:

There is no better way to true glory than to endeavor to be good rather than to seem so.

A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong—acting the part of a good man or of a bad. For wherever a man's place is, whether the place he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace.

The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

Let every man be of good cheer about his soul, who has ruled his body and followed knowledge and goodness in this life; for if death be a journey to another place and there all the dead are, what good can be greater than this? Be of good cheer about death and know this of a truth that no evil can happen to a good man either in life or after death.

To want as little as possible is to make the nearest approach to the Deity.

Knowledge is the food of the soul.

We ought not to retaliate and render evil for evil to any one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. Neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off[Pg 219] evil by evil is ever right. Act toward others as you would have others act toward you. Forgive your enemies, render good for evil, and kiss even the hand that is upraised to smite.

Grant me to be beautiful in soul and may all I possess of outward things be at harmony with those within. Teach me to think wisdom the only riches.

If thou wouldst know what is the wisdom of the gods and what their love is, render thyself deserving the communication of some of those divine secrets, which may not be penetrated by man and which are imparted to those alone who consult, adore, and obey the Deity.

Sokrates, speaking of his life-work, says:

In this research and scrutiny I have been long engaged. I interrogate every man of reputation. I prove him to be defective in wisdom but I can not prove it so as to make him sensible of the defect. Fulfilling the mission imposed upon me, I have established the veracity of the god (Apollo), who meant to pronounce that human wisdom is of little reach and worth; and that he who like Sokrates feels most convinced of his own worthlessness as to wisdom is really the wisest of men, for the truth is, O men of Athens, the Deity only is wise. My service to the god has not only constrained me to live in constant poverty and neglect of political estimation, but has brought upon me a host of bitter enemies in those whom I have examined and exposed, while the bystanders talk of me as a wise man because they give me credit for wisdom respecting all the points on which my exposure of others turns.

Whatever be the danger and obloquy which I may incur, it would be monstrous indeed, if having maintained my place in the ranks as an hoplite under your generals at Delium and Potidaea, I were now from fear of death or anything else to disobey the oracle and desert the post which the god has assigned to me, the duty of living for philosophy and cross-questioning both myself and others. And should you even now offer to acquit me, on condition of my renouncing this duty, I should tell you with all respect and affection that I will obey the god rather than you and that I will persist until my dying day in cross-questioning you, exposing your want of wisdom and virtue and reproaching you until the defect be remedied. My mission as your monitor is a mark of the special favor of the gods to you and if you condemn me it will be your loss; for you will find none other such. Perhaps you will ask me, Why cannot you go away, Sokrates, and live in peace and silence? This is the hardest of all questions for me to answer to your satisfaction. If I tell you that silence on my part would be disobedience to the god, you will think me in jest and not believe me. You will believe me still less, if I tell you that the greatest blessing which can happen to man is to carry on discussions every day about virtue and those other matters which you hear me conversing, when I cross-examine myself and others and that life without such examination is no life at all. Nevertheless so stands the fact, incredible as it may seem to you.

I certainly have my enemies [the Pharisaical party and the High Priests of orthodoxy] and these will be my destruction if I am destroyed; of that I am certain; not that Meletos, nor yet Anytos, but the envy and detraction of the[Pg 220] world, which has been the death of many more—there is no danger of my being the last of them.

Later, after his condemnation, he added:

And I prophesy to you, my murderers, that immediately after my death, punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose; far otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers of you than there are now. For if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are mistaken—that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter to the judges who have condemned me.

How true have the last twenty-three centuries proved these words to be! How many deaths and ruined lives have been accomplished by that same spirit of intolerance! It led the way from Gethsemane to Golgotha. It is responsible for the death of the martyrs in all ages. It lighted the fagots that consumed the bodies of Giordano Bruno and Joan of Arc. Yes, and hundreds of others. How just is the praise with which the Saint Mark of Sokrates ends the Memorabilia of his master:

Of those who know what sort of a man Sokrates was, such as are lovers of virtue continue to regret him above all other men even to the present date, as having contributed in the highest degree to their advancement in goodness. To me, being such as I have described him, so pious that he did nothing without the sanction of the gods; so just, that he wronged no man even in the most trifling affair, but was of service in most important matters to those who enjoyed his society; so temperate that he never preferred pleasure to virtue; so wise that he never erred in distinguishing the better from the worse, needing no counsel from others but being sufficient in himself to discriminate between them; and so capable of discovering the character of others, of confuting those who were in error and of exhorting them to virtue and honor, he seemed to be such as the best and happiest of men would be.

[Pg 221]

Sokrates was early canonized as a Christian Saint, and Professor John Stuart Blackie (1808-1895) "Scotland's greatest Greek scholar," has taken the idea of his Latin refrain in the following poem from a rosary by an early Christian father beginning "Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis:"—"O, Sainted Socrates, pray for us."

O SANCTE SOCRATES, ORA PRO NOBIS!

* * * * *

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

SOKRATES AND SENECA
(Berlin Museum)

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

AVENUE OF ROYAL PALMS, CUBA

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

CUBAN COUNTRY SCENE

FLORIDA PALMETTOS
ONE-HALF MILE AVENUEA CASUARINA AVENUE
TREES 13 YEARS OLD

ROYAL POINCIANA HOTEL, PALM BEACH, FLORIDA
Photos by Puffer, New York and Palm Beach

[Pg 223]

THE writer recently made a visit to a section of the country that still retains much of its own distinctive individuality and charm, most delightful in these days, when the various widely-differing regions of our vast commonwealth seem to be trying to become as much alike as possible, and the very word provincial is a name of scorn. We left New Orleans in the early morning and much time was consumed in crossing the Mississippi on a ferry. Soon after reaching the other side, the sugar plantations began, and our way lay through mile after mile of brown furrowed fields stretching, as flat as the sea, to the distant river levee, the only high ground in sight. What a glorious scene it must be in the spring, when the young green cane begins to sprout, or in the fall, when it stands drawn up full height, waiting to be cut! It is an extremely wet country, full of countless ditches and trenches, and there is something about the flat land and straight, intersecting canals that reminds one of Holland. As the train swept through one plantation after another, we could see in the distance, gleaming white homesteads, set in little islands of green live-oaks, cut off by a fence from the spreading sea of bare fields. Each plantation had its sugar-house, lifting four or five tall smoke-stacks in air, and its laborers' quarters—quite a little village of cabins or cottages, and sometimes, we ran close enough to see old-time darkies in actual red bandannas, staring at the train.

There is a class of French "poor whites" in this region, called "Cajins"—a corruption of "Arcadians"—and they are indeed a forlorn remnant of those unfortunate exiles who wandered all the way from Nova Scotia to the bayous of Louisiana. The writer's memory reverted in a flash to the fields of Grandpré, which she had visited only last summer, and to the vision of the lonely well-sweep and straggling line of ancient French willows, which once bordered the vanished village street. Strange to say, there is a noticeable resemblance between the flat, inlet-threaded meadows of the Minas Basin and the winding bayous around us. Occasionally the plantations would give way to swamps, where palmettos, bamboos, and cypresses with their weirdly beautiful trailing moss, were growing out of a watery, glassy floor, and it was hard to realize that if drained, these marshes would be quite as good soil as the rest. We saw a[Pg 224] solitary hunter, gun in hand, standing on a bit of tree trunk in the bog; how he could have gotten there without a boat or else wings, is a mystery.

The house at which we visited, realized in every way one's ideal of what an old plantation home should be. It is an immense square building with double galleries, tall white columns and green shutters; it faces the Mississippi, which, however, cannot be seen from the ground floor on account of the levee. The architecture is of engaging simplicity—four large rooms, each exactly twenty-five feet square, upstairs and down, with a hall eighteen feet wide between. At the rear is a long wing, perhaps a later addition, with the inevitable and delightful gallery around it. The house contains many treasures of beautiful antique workmanship and mementos of a by-gone time. Our hostess pointed with pride to an immense pair of glass candle shields, about two feet high, which had belonged to her grandmother. They stood on each side of the mantelpiece, over tall silver candlesticks, whose flame they could protect from all possible draughts. We slept in a high four-poster bed, with a canopy, lined with red pleated cloth, like the inside of a mushroom, which would have done credit to a lady of the ancient régime.

Though the sugar-making season was over on our host's plantation, he took us to one in the neighborhood that was still in operation. The equipment was of the most up-to-date kind—great iron claws to rake the cane from the cars to a sort of traveling trough, called a conveyor, which carries it up to the chopper: from whence it travels through several crushers until all the juice is squeezed out and the remaining pulp is as dry as tinder. This is carried off to be used as fuel or fertilizer. The cane juice goes from one boiling vat to another, being purified with lime and sulphur, and refined again and again, smelling more and more delicious at every stage of its progress. We watched the syrup being changed to sugar by a very interesting centrifugal process, and then shaken into barrels. Two barrels at a time were placed upon metal plates, and by means of an electric current, were made to dance gaily, shaking down the sugar as it fell until it was firmly packed. It was an absurd sight, and the writer was reminded at once of dancing furniture at a spiritualistic séance. We were surprised to learn that one-third of the ground has to be planted in corn to supply the stock; the crops are rotated so as to allow sugar-cane for two successive years, then corn the third, etc.

[Pg 225]

Our host and hostess and their family were true types of southern hospitality. The occasion of our visit was a wedding, and the old house was crowded to its utmost capacity, with new guests arriving on every train. Yet there was no stir of nervous excitement: everything moved with a tranquil gaiety, and we felt a delightful sense of informality as if we were a part of the household. Perhaps the strongest sense-impression which remains with the writer, is the memory of waking in the early morning and looking out, at the dawn-flushed sky beyond the white pillars of the verandah and the gray Spanish moss draping the live-oak trees. That tender, peaceful moment, full of color and soft brightness, seemed to seal upon the mind something of the poetry and the romance of the old South.

JUST where the river Rhine narrows and inclines, making a drop of five feet which causes the water to flow more swiftly, towers the Rock of the Lorelei, four hundred and fifty feet high and nearly perpendicular, at the base of which sunken rocks form a whirlpool in the rapidly flowing stream. At the top of the high rock in olden days, so the legend runs, a maiden sat and sang, and as she sang she combed her golden hair. And her song was so full of magic that boatmen on the river below, falling under the spell of her enchantment, as they listened to the song, forgot the dangers of the whirling waters and were dashed to pieces on the sunken rocks underneath.

Is the tale of the Lorelei a mere poetical personification of the whirlpool and rocks? If so, how account for the tale being universal? Who does not know the story of Ulysses and the Sirens? Virgil's Harpies had the faces of maidens, but ended in foul feathers and talons. And so with many another destructive enchantress in ancient myth. People seem to have loved to trace out in the topography of their native land its analogies with that internal region wherein the Soul goes its pilgrimage. In every land there were sacred mountains, healing founts, caves of the Sibyl, rocks of the Lorelei, etc. The eternal drama of the human Soul has been allegorized again and again, always with the same features, though the topography is changed to suit the race and time. Every man knows the luring enchantress, [Pg 226]for who has not been seduced by the captivating charms of promised pleasure, only to be mocked and punished?

And why these cheating experiences of the Soul? Are they the chiding hand of a God or the mocking malice of a fiend; or are we the sport of a Chance whose utter indifference outclasses alike the wrath of deity and the malice of devil? The answer is a commonsense one. Life is not a cradle of down nor a pleasure-garden. It is a drama full of incident, an enterprise full of adventure, a world full of people. In it we find the helper and the adversary; and if there are sirens and wicked giants, there are also the meed of victory, the bride won, the warrior's home-coming. Life is worth while, for the triumphs it contains; and it is because we aspire to the triumphs that we engage in the fights, though our lower nature, the mere varlet, may cry out at the discomfort. The Dragon, once defeated, becomes our ally.

If we would win beauty and truth, we must not seek in them mere balm for the senses, but rise in our strength and be worthy of them. What is worth having is not to be had for the taking.

Tarry not in the pleasure grounds of sense, heed not the sweet voices of illusion, thou who aspirest to wisdom—say the ancient teachings. It is the illusion produced by the senses and desires that we have to overcome, if we would not be dashed on the rocks of the Lorelei.

LORELEI

(Heinrich Heine)

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

THE ROCK OF THE LORELEI

Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.

THE WESTERN FOUR-TOED SALAMANDER
(Batrachoseps attenuatus)

[Pg 227]

THE Batrachians occupy a place between the reptiles proper and the fishes. They are distinguished from the fishes by the possession of paired limbs furnished with four fingers and a thumb, and though their early days are passed beneath the water, breathing like fishes through their gills, yet when fully grown, almost without exception they breathe through well-developed lungs. There is a superficial resemblance between the reptilian lizard and the batrachian newt or salamander, and they are often confounded together in the popular mind. True reptiles, however, are easily distinguished from batrachians by their overlapping scales, quite different from the smooth moist skins of the latter. Reptiles breathe as we do by expanding the ribs and drawing the air into the hollow thus formed; but batrachians, lacking ribs, are obliged to swallow their air, and a glance at a toad or a salamander will reveal the incessant palpitation of the throat as the air is forced into the lungs. Reptiles are hatched, or born, as the case may be, perfect copies in miniature of their parents and never go through the tadpole stage. Batrachians are divided into two groups: the Salientia (or Jumpers), and the Urodela. The Salientia (or Jumpers) comprise the frogs and toads; and the Urodela include the numerous tribes of newts, water-dogs, efts, and salamanders.

The illustration shows one of the lowliest of the order of Urodela, the western four-toed salamander (Batrachoseps attenuatus). The legs are ridiculously small in comparison to the long, unwieldy body. That the tail is fat and cylindrical is only to be expected, because being a terrestrial salamander, it has no need of a flat tail for swimming like the water-haunting newts. Probably the bulky tail serves as a store of nourishment in reserve for use in time of famine, as does the hump of a camel under similar circumstances. Here at Point Loma these odd creatures may be found under stones in the damp cañons. In the absence of pools they cannot pass through the tadpole stage under water and so the various phases of tadpole transformation are gone through while in the egg. The males are glossy black; but the female figured in the picture has a light brown skin with irregular blotches of flesh color on the tail.

A male once captured by the writer exhibited a curious case of mimicry. He coiled up just like a rattlesnake and looked so venomous[Pg 228] and threatening as to inspire terror in anyone who was unaware of his utter powerlessness to do an injury.

The abnormal humidity of the air enables this delicate animal to survive the rainless months of summer, and probably he never ventures from his shelter till the sun goes down and the dew provides a little moisture. The mere contact of his skin with a dewy surface would probably be as refreshing as a draught of water to a thirsty man; but the salamander, like the frog, does not drink: he simply "blots up" his water through the skin.

Thus the four-toed western salamander passes his uneventful days and nights. His pleasures are few and simple and his sorrows correspondingly light.

According to Theosophy, the inner Essence of every creature in this broad universe either is, was, or prepares to become, man; but the mind staggers in the attempt to conceive the enormous stretches of time before such dull, inert, insensitive beings will arrive at the human stage. But pain is a grand stimulant and spur to advance, and perchance when the salamander gets eaten by a snake or a stoat, he gains as compensation for the pangs of death some slight promotion to a higher order of batrachians in his next rebirth! So mote it be.

[Pg 229]

"NOW we know the real man," is the usual comment when some heretofore respectable citizen is convicted of forgery and sent to jail: "Now we know his real character."

Do we?

A fire breaks out in the prison and the forger reveals himself a hero, risking life without a second's hesitation for the rescue of his jailer or fellow-prisoners.

Do we now know his "real character"?

Later on, his confinement, throwing him in upon himself, provides opportunity for the manifestation of a marked vein of poetry, and from his prison he issues a volume which at once takes high rank in the literature of the day.

Some will now put away their moral standard of measurement, produce another, and remark that the "real man" after all turns out to have been a poet.

You can photograph half of a man's face, right or left, throw the picture over upon itself and get a whole face composed of two lefts, and another of two rights—often quite different.

We judge character in that way, taking any one aspect of it upon which we choose to dwell or which alone we see, and of that one constructing a whole. Thus the same man viewed by various knowers of him is a philosopher, a sharp lawyer, a skilful amateur actor, or an ever-ready helper and friend in times of trouble or perplexity. To his cook he may be solely a grumbler, and to his son at school a supply-machine whose crank is not always easy to turn.

To come back to the prisoner. The "respectable citizen" was evidently not the whole of him. Under stress he revealed the weakness and dishonesty which led to the forgery. Environment, the temptation, brought them to the surface. We need not say that his character changed. Nevertheless, as we all know, a change of character is possible—so thorough that after emergence from prison no stress of temptation and no assurance from discovery would provoke another theft. On the other hand we cannot conceive of his change from a hero into a coward, nor hardly of his loss of the poetic vein. Environment—the fire and the conditions of prison life—brought those traits out too. But, once out they are out.

Being in search of the essence of character, the really "real man,"[Pg 230] we cannot accept anything which may vanish or be surmounted, nothing which in the normal course of individual evolution, gone far enough, will for certain be surmounted. No man is essentially a thief, but he may be essentially a hero or a poet or both.

Consider the question in the light of evolution, the evolution of each of us. We sometimes make imaginary pictures of the ripened humanity of the far future, a noble flower of which there are as yet but indications of the bud. Let us add another touch. Let us recognize in that far humanity, however godlike, ourselves. Many, many births and lifetimes and deaths lie between this and that for all of us. But the lines of continuity are unbroken. It is we ourselves who shall be that splendid and radiant humanity. The evolution of the human race means the evolution of the present members of the human race. We shall "meet each other in heaven" because we are always children of the earth that will be that heaven.

We note that some qualities, such as a tendency to theft, have every encouragement to vanish. Sooner or later, in one or another lifetime, they bring about so much disgrace and pain or are found so incompatible with an ever increasing love of right and inner peace, that they are cast out and away, are outgrown and done with. The last dirty fiber is ripped out of the ever perfecting pattern.

On the other hand the germs of some other qualities will have a constant and in the long run irresistible tendency to grow, root and branch.

Shall we say "real character" of traits destined to grow or of those destined to disappear? So far we only use the words of so much as we can see of a man: a poor enough application. We talk of the "respectable citizen," and behold a thief. In the next change the thief "turns out to be a hero"; and whilst we are admiring the hero we are invited to read a volume of poetry.

We had better restrict the words "real character" to that which time shall at last unveil and develop, to the permanent germs and their ripened product; not to the spores and fungi which, however noticeable now, will sometime be entirely cleaned away. There is no thief; there are men who thieve—at present, but who will cease to do so. There are poets and heroes; for these men will not only not cease to create and do, but will create and do more and more worthily as they go forward through time to the great light. There are some men whom no stress of temptation would force into theft. Are there any[Pg 231] men in whom no circumstances would evoke some smallest gleam of heroism?

Still we are not clear about real character. For there some qualities, for example courage and love of the race and sensitiveness to the supernal light, which time will perfect in all men. We must put aside all the elements, however splendid, in whose possession men will resemble each other and seek for what will be peculiar to each. Within the unity of essence, apart from common sensitiveness to the great light, there will be essential diversity. And it is to this finally appearing individuality, this uniqueness of each, that the words "real character" properly belong. In a few men only has this germ of true individuality yet achieved much manifestation.

The end of man, said Carlyle, is not a thought, were it the noblest, but a deed.

The aphorism cries aloud for completion. What sort of a deed would be that which had no thought behind it? The end of man is a deed faithfully manifesting a worthy "thought," and the mere writing down of a thought is often its sufficient and only possible manifestation. Even the careful nurture of a thought may be a deed. The universe is the ideation of the divine getting itself written down on the face of substance. Man's entire business is to aid that, to make manifest as much of the divine, the light, as he can come at or get aware of in his inner conscience or consciousness. If he constantly tries to live in that way, the divine will presently take turns and come at him. Inspiration is the final reward of aspiration. But the light has a separate and special ray or aspect of itself in store for each man, so that the whole of it can only shine through all men.

There is a part of the divine essence unborn as yet into the world, unmanifest. And there is a part of it which men and gods have wrought into the manifest, each according to his nature and comprehension of his duty. From the highest to the lowest departments of human life this way of work is possible, to search out duty and do it.

But "duty" has here a very full meaning. The soul of the Beethoven searches, and is illumined by, the divine essence, whatever his name for it or thought of it. Then he renders it or manifests it for the world. The craftsman might search it as he designed a wall-paper; he who did so, who worked that he might manifest it for men, would find his invention grow ever richer and readier. The divine has no one kind of manifestation or inspiration. The mother might search[Pg 232] it to learn the highest ways of conduct with her children, not even waiting for their birth; and their souls would in time show her what she had done for them. The gardener might thus work among his flowers and would find in them a new responsiveness. There is no one who has not some work which can be fruitfully done in this spirit of bringing forth for the world. This use of will in no metaphoric sense is the real magic. When all men and women work in this way the world will begin to be for the first time an expression of the divine plan, governed—through them and of their will and choice—by the divine. By that time work will have been raised to its highest terms and there will be modes of work as inconceivable to us now as the work of Beethoven to a savage. Each of us will have found his work—that is, will have found that aspect of the divine which he is uniquely constituted to deliver forth to the rest. No one can be spared. All will need all the others. All will stand unveiled as artists, creators, or showers-forth or thinkers-out of something good and necessary for the work of their fellows. We have ourselves made life dark and work monotonous, stifled the latent or nascent craftsman or thinker in ourselves and the others, and created forms of work that should never have been to do at all. Now we must live them through and be thankful that some few, the thinkers, the musicians, the poets, the artists, have in some sort broken through into a corner of their heritage and can serve us and lighten our lives and make the day nearer when we too can break through.

Here then is what we may mean by "real character." It is the veiled creator or shower-forth. No man is what he seems. He is waiting for his own nature, and the divine in nature is waiting for him, to give him the ray he alone can transmit. Neither Händel nor Beethoven could have given us the music of the other; and the music of both was made possible by every bit of divine-serving and divine-revealing work that was ever done since man began. That principle holds throughout, in small and great. The humblest work, if it have one ray of the divine put into it, helps the whole world for all time to come. And no work need lack that ray, no life need lack such work.

[Pg 233]

"Life of Leonardo da Vinci"
by Professor Osvald Sirén
—
by Carolus

WE have just received another important work from the indefatigable and accomplished pen of Professor Osvald Sirén, PH. D., of the Stockholm University. It is a study of Leonardo da Vinci's life and work, a most complete and thorough monograph of 468 pages, magnificently illustrated by hundreds of full-page and smaller reproductions, the majority taken from Leonardo's pictures, sketches and diagrams; the rest are mostly from the works of other painters which throw light upon the special points discussed; there are also some pleasing views of places referred to. The first edition consists of 700 numbered copies, beautifully printed on thick paper, and is in all respects but one a perfect example of what such a book should be; the one thing lacking is an index to the subject-matter and illustrations. This can easily be remedied in the next edition, for there is no doubt that another will immediately be called for, as the work will be invaluable to all lovers of art who wish to read the latest and most complete analysis of Leonardo's career and to learn the results of the most recent research. This edition is, of course, written in Swedish, but we understand that in response to the demand, it will soon appear in other languages, and so be made accessible to a much larger public. Dr. Sirén has spent a long time in Italy and elsewhere studying everything connected with Leonardo and his contemporaries, and this volume is largely the result of his original researches. It has been very favorably received by the most competent Swedish critics.

The monograph is founded upon a series of lectures lately given in the University of Stockholm (in which Dr. Sirén occupies the chair of Art-history) and it has been the author's aim to show the great master as he appears in his works and writings, with as little of the "personal equation" of the writer visible as possible—to make Leonardo tell his own story—but at the same time, one cannot help feeling and approving of the warm glow of appreciation which inspires every word Dr. Sirén writes about his hero. His admiration for the master seems to have influenced his style, for there is a greater simplicity and clearness, and a more easy flow of words and sentences than we have observed in previous works from his able pen.

The book is arranged in four main sections. The first consists of extracts from the famous Italian art-historian, Vasari's almost contemporary life of Leonardo, translated into Swedish and freely commented upon and greatly expanded by Dr. Sirén. Many illustrations are given showing Leonardo's extraordinary knowledge of mechanics, engineering, architecture, fortification, anatomy, etc. Dr. Sirén finally demolishes one of our pet illusions, i. e., that Leonardo died in the arms of Francis I of France, by showing that King Francis was at St. Germain-en-Laye, attending the birth of a son, at the moment when Leonardo was breathing his last at Cloux in Touraine. It appears this was one of Vasari's occasional "decorations of the truth" for the sake of picturesqueness. Another myth was that Leonardo prostrated himself at the feet of the church at his last hour with tears and cries of repentance for the independence of thought for which he had consistently stood. In this connexion it is noteworthy that he studiously avoided introducing halos or nimbuses round the figures in his religious pictures! Neither is there more than one example of the cross in any of his undoubted works, and that may have been added by another hand afterwards. His[Pg 234] object was plainly to accentuate the simple human and natural side in everything that he touched. Even the head of the Christ in The Last Supper has no radiance; the Teacher is painted just as he might have been seen by ordinary vision. The distinction of Leonardo's sacred figures depends upon the superior beauty and majesty of expression and bearing. This was a very daring innovation on Leonardo's part.

The second portion of Dr. Sirén's learned volume treats of Leonardo's pictures and sculptures in more detail; his scientific work is sufficiently dealt with in the earlier part of the volume, for after all, his fame depends mainly upon his standing as an artist. Special chapters are devoted, respectively, to the work of his youth: The Adoration of the Magi, the Madonna among the Rocks, The Last Supper, The Battle of the Standard, Leda and the Swan, John the Baptist, St. Anne, and his studies for equestrian statues, etc.

Dr. Sirén strongly accentuates the fact that Leonardo's leading motive was Movement. While he rivaled Michel Angelo in form, Titian and Giorgione in color, and Raphael in composition, his greatest efforts were concentrated upon the true rendering of life and action. His brilliant effects of light and shade, for which he was particularly noted, were skilfully used to emphasize the impression of vital energy which he felt to be the principal object of the true painter's art.

Dr. Sirén has most carefully weighed the evidence concerning the rival claims of the two or three replicas of the Virgin among the Rocks, one of which is in London and the others in Paris and Copenhagen, and he conclusively establishes the authenticity of the one in the Louvre, Paris. That one, the famous Vierge aux Rochers, is by far the most satisfactory in composition, and the faces and figures of the children are much more beautiful than those of the others. The one in the National Gallery, London, is by Ambrogio Preda, who was a close imitator of Leonardo. The figures have nimbuses in that one, but not in Leonardo's. Dr. Sirén illustrates his argument with a large number of plates.

With respect to The Last Supper at Milan, it is satisfactory to learn that Professor Cavenaghi, who has just finished a long and extremely careful scientific examination of the work, has proved that it is far better preserved than was believed. It turns out that very little indeed has been repainted; the heads are quite untouched, and though greatly damaged and obscured in places, we really are able to look at the actual work of the master. This has been a great surprise to the artistic world.

The third part of the book deals with Leonardo's personality, and several good portraits of him are given. It is to be regretted that there is not one surviving that was taken when he was young, for it is related of him that he was almost divinely beautiful. In his old age his countenance is very impressive. Dr. Sirén discusses the moot question of Leonardo's alleged visit to Oriental countries, and he throws the weight of his opinion in favor of the journey. Certainly it is difficult to see how Leonardo could have given such accurate descriptions unless he had been to the places and undergone certain experiences. There are many gaps in his life which are yet unfilled by reliable evidence. When one reflects upon the extraordinary character and knowledge of the great man it seems not unlikely that he spent some time in the East receiving instruction which it was impossible to get in Europe.

The fourth part consists of a translation into Swedish of his Treatise on Painting, and it gives, as Dr. Sirén says:

[Pg 235]

a glimpse of a section through a soul-life filled with all that is possible or thinkable for a human being, of observation of nature, of experience of the world, of search for truth, and passion for beauty. One lays the treatise down with the grateful and humble feeling that one has stood before one of the greatest of our race, has met his eye and heard him speak.

We may learn almost more about him from this work and from his sketches than from his pictures, for as Dr. Sirén says:

What Leonardo painted and carved constitutes only a small part of his creative activity, a fragment of that great soul's universality.... Many of his designed works never reached expression ... others were left half done, and those which were carried out, have, moreover, in no small degree, had the misfortune to be destroyed or corroded and defaced by time. Many of Leonardo's most important works which are spoken of by the old writers, seem to have disappeared without leaving a trace. The great work of his prime, The Last Supper, is little more than a shadow of what it once was, and the powerful monumental composition of his old age, The Battle of the Standard, was only carried out in paint to a partial degree, and now can only be studied through imperfect copies. The stately equestrian statues which truly denoted the culminating point of that branch of art did not reach final material expression either, and only live in rough sketches and sundry imitations, while of the noble architectural projects for domed cathedrals, for mausoleums and palaces, for entire towns, not even one has come to anything.... The art historian has to trust to preparatory studies, to copies or imitations, to reports, in order to get an idea of the appearance and quality of the works of the master.... For analysis we have to lean on sketches when the finished work fails us. It cannot indeed be denied that herein lies a deplorable limitation and a special difficulty in the way of popularizing his work, but perhaps the limitation is not so great as many are inclined to assume. A great musical composer's preludes and fantasias may contain the beautiful motives of the entire symphony, even if the instrumentation is incomplete and the execution imperfect.... Leonardo has been placed before us as an ideal man, because his life and work are stamped by a sovereign balance which in our time is so greatly coveted and so rarely obtained.

To the degree that the author has succeeded in letting Leonardo express himself, free from all fanciful embellishments and arbitrary hypotheses—speaking to the reader through his own words and art—he will consider his mission fulfilled and his work to possess something more than temporary value.

There is no doubt that Dr. Sirén has done this and more than this, and we must heartily congratulate him upon the production of a most valuable contribution to the literature of art. It may interest our readers to know that engrossed as he is in his labors for the cause of the higher intellectual education, Dr. Sirén is able to find time to work strenuously for the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society of which he is a very active member.

Note. Just as this is going to press the startling news has arrived that Leonardo's great masterpiece, the so-called Mona Lisa, has been stolen from the Louvre, an almost unprecedented event. Its recovery will be anxiously awaited by the whole art-loving world of the two continents.

[Pg 236]

The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society
Founded at New York City in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky, William Q. Judge and others
Reorganized in 1898 by Katherine Tingley
Central Office, Point Loma, California

The Headquarters of the Society at Point Loma with the buildings and grounds, are no "Community" "Settlement" or "Colony." They form no experiment in Socialism, Communism, or anything of similar nature, but are the Central Executive Office of an international organization where the business of the same is carried on, and where the teachings of Theosophy are being demonstrated. Midway 'twixt East and West, where the rising Sun of Progress and Enlightenment shall one day stand at full meridian, the Headquarters of the Society unite the philosophic Orient with the practical West.

MEMBERSHIP

in the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society may be either "at large" or in a local Branch. Adhesion to the principle of Universal Brotherhood is the only pre-requisite to membership. The Organization represents no particular creed; it is entirely unsectarian, and includes professors of all faiths, only exacting from each member that large toleration of the beliefs of others which he desires them to exhibit towards his own.

Applications for membership in a Branch should be addressed to the local Director; for membership "at large" to G. de Purucker, Membership Secretary, International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma, California.

OBJECTS

THIS brotherhood is a part of a great and universal movement which has been active in all ages.

This Organization declares that Brotherhood is a fact in Nature. Its principal purpose is to teach Brotherhood, demonstrate that it is a fact in Nature, and make it a living power in the life of humanity.

Its subsidiary purpose is to study ancient and modern religions, science, philosophy, and art; to investigate the laws of Nature and the divine powers in man.

H. P. BLAVATSKY, FOUNDRESS
AND TEACHER

The present Theosophical Movement was inaugurated by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in New York in 1875. The original name was "The Theosophical Society." Associated with her were William Q. Judge and others. Madame Blavatsky for a time preferred not to hold any outer official position except that of Corresponding Secretary. But all true students know that Madame Blavatsky held the highest authority, the only real authority which comes of wisdom and power, the authority of Teacher and Leader, the real head, heart, and inspiration of the whole Theosophical Movement. It was through her that the teachings of Theosophy were given to the world, and without her the Theosophical Movement could not have been.

BRANCH SOCIETIES IN EUROPE AND INDIA

In 1878 Madame Blavatsky left the United States, first visiting Great Britain and then India, in both of which countries she founded branch societies. The parent body in New York became later the Aryan Theosophical Society and HAS ALWAYS HAD ITS HEADQUARTERS IN AMERICA; and of this, William Q. Judge was President until his death in 1896.

It is important to note the following:

In response to the statement published by a then prominent member in India that Madame Blavatsky is "loyal to the Theosophical Society and to Adyar," Madame Blavatsky wrote:

It is pure nonsense to say that "H. P. B. ... is loyal to the Theosophical Society and to Adyar" (!?). H. P. B. is loyal to death to the Theosophical CAUSE and those Great Teachers whose philosophy can alone bind the whole of Humanity into one Brotherhood.... The degree of her sympathies with the Theosophical Society and Adyar depends upon the degree of the loyalty of that Society to the CAUSE. Let it break[Pg 237] away from the original lines and show disloyalty in its policy to the cause and the original program of the Society, and H. P. B., calling the T. S. disloyal, will shake it off like dust from her feet.

To one who accepts the teachings of Theosophy it is plain to see that although Theosophy is of no nationality or country but for all, yet it has a peculiar relationship with America. Not only was the United States the birthplace of the Theosophical Society, and the home of the Parent Body up to the present time, but H. P. Blavatsky, the Foundress of the Society, although a Russian by birth, became an American citizen; William Q. Judge, of Irish parentage and birth, also became an American citizen; and Katherine Tingley is American born. America therefore not only has played a unique part in the history of the present Theosophical Movement, but it is plain to see that its destiny is closely interwoven with that of Theosophy; and by America is meant not only the United States or even the North American continent, but also the South American continent, and, as repeatedly declared by Madame Blavatsky, it is in this great Western Hemisphere as a whole, North and South, that the next great Race of humanity is to be born.

MADAME BLAVATSKY FOUNDS THE
ESOTERIC SCHOOL; HER LIFE-LONG TRUST
IN WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

In 1888, H. P. Blavatsky, then in London, on the suggestion and at the request of her Colleague, William Q. Judge, founded the Esoteric School of Theosophy, a body for students, of which H. P. Blavatsky wrote that it was "the heart of the Theosophical Movement," and of which she appointed William Q. Judge as her sole representative in America. Further, writing officially to the Convention of the American Societies held in Chicago, 1888, she wrote as follows:

To William Q. Judge, General Secretary of the American Section of the Theosophical Society:

My dearest Brother and Co-Founder of the Theosophical Society:

In addressing to you this letter, which I request you to read to the Convention, summoned for April 22nd, I must first present my hearty congratulations and most cordial good wishes to the Society and yourself—the heart and soul of that body in America. We were several to call it to life in 1875. Since then you have remained alone to preserve that life through good and evil report. It is to you chiefly, if not entirely, that the Theosophical Society owes its existence in 1888. Let me thank you for it, for the first, and perhaps for the last time publicly, and from the bottom of my heart, which beats only for the cause you represent so well and serve so faithfully. I ask you also to remember that on this important occasion, my voice is but the feeble echo of other more sacred voices, and the transmitter of the approval of Those whose presence is alive in more than one true Theosophical heart, and lives, as I know, pre-eminently in yours.

This regard that Madame Blavatsky had for her colleague William Q. Judge continued undiminished until her death in 1891, when he became her successor.

Madame Blavatsky, in 1889, writing in her Theosophical magazine published in London, said that the purpose of the magazine was not only to promulgate Theosophy, but also and as a consequence of such promulgation, "to bring to light the hidden things of darkness." She further says:

As to the "weak-minded Theosophists"—if any—they can take care of themselves in the way they please. If the "false prophets of theosophy" are to be left untouched, the true prophets will be very soon—as they have already been—confused with the false. It is high time to winnow our corn and cast away the chaff. The Theosophical Society is becoming enormous in its numbers, and if the false prophets, the pretenders, or even the weak-minded dupes, are left alone, then the Society threatens to become very soon a fanatical body split into three hundred sects—like Protestantism—each hating the other, and all bent on destroying the truth by monstrous exaggerations and idiotic schemes and shams.

We do not believe in allowing the presence[Pg 238] of sham elements in Theosophy, because of the fear, forsooth, that if even "a false element in the faith" is ridiculed, the latter is "apt to shake the confidence" in the whole.

... What true Christians shall see their co-religionists making fools of themselves, or disgrace their faith, and still abstain from rebuking them publicly as privately, for fear lest this false element should throw out of Christianity the rest of the believers?

The wise man courts truth; the fool, flattery.

However it may be, let rather our ranks be made thinner, than the Theosophical Society go on being made a spectacle to the world through the exaggerations of some fanatics, and the attempt of various charlatans to profit by a ready-made program. These, by disfiguring and adapting Occultism to their own filthy and immoral ends, bring disgrace upon the whole movement.—Lucifer, Vol. iv, pp. 2 & 3.

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE ELECTED PRESIDENT
FOR LIFE

In 1893 there openly began what had been going on beneath the surface for some time, a bitter attack ostensibly against William Q. Judge, but in reality also against H. P. Blavatsky. This bitter attack threatened to disrupt the whole Society and to thwart the main purpose of its existence, which was to further the cause of Universal Brotherhood. Finally the American members decided to take action, and at the annual convention of the Society held in Boston in 1895, by a vote of 191 delegates to 10, re-asserted the principle of Theosophy as laid down by H. P. Blavatsky, and elected William Q. Judge President for life. Similar action was almost immediately taken by members in Europe, Australia, and other countries, in each case William Q. Judge being elected President for life. In this action the great majority of the active members throughout the world concurred, and thus the Society was relieved of those who had joined it for other purposes than the furtherance of Universal Brotherhood, the carrying out of the Society's other objects, and the spiritual freedom and upliftment of Humanity. A few of these in order to curry favor with the public and attract a following, continued among themselves to use the name of Theosophy, but it should be understood that they are not connected with the Theosophical Movement.

KATHERINE TINGLEY SUCCEEDS
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

One year later, in March 1896, William Q. Judge died, leaving as his successor Katherine Tingley, who for several years had been associated with him in the work of the Society. This Teacher not only began immediately to put into actual practice the ideals of Theosophy as had been the hope and aim of both H. P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge, and for which they had laid the foundations, thus honoring and illustrating the work of her illustrious predecessors, but she also struck a new keynote, introducing new and broader plans for uplifting humanity. For each of the Teachers, while continuing the work and building upon the foundations of his predecessor, adds a new link, and has his own distinctive work to do, and teachings to give, belonging to his own time and position.

No sooner had Katherine Tingley begun her work as successor, than further attacks, some most insidious, from the same source as those made against H. P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge, as well as from other sources, were inaugurated against her. Most prominent among those thus attacking Katherine Tingley were some referred to by Madame Blavatsky in the article above-quoted (pp. 159-60), who by their own actions had removed themselves from the ranks of the Society. There were also a few others who still remained in the Society who had not joined hands with the disintegrators at the time the latter were repudiated in 1895. These now thought it to their personal advantage to oppose the Leader and sought to gain control of the Society and use[Pg 239] it for political purposes. These ambitious agitators, seeking to exploit the Society for their own ends, used every means to overthrow Katherine Tingley, realizing that she was the greatest obstacle to the accomplishment of their desires, for if she could be removed they expected to gain control. They worked day and night, stooping almost to any means to carry out their projects. Yet it seemed that by these very acts, i. e., the more they attacked, the more were honest and earnest members attracted to the ranks of the Society under Katherine Tingley's leadership.

KATHERINE TINGLEY GIVES SOCIETY
NEW CONSTITUTION

SOCIETY MERGES INTO BROADER FIELD

To eliminate these menacing features and to safeguard the work of the Theosophical Movement for all time, Katherine Tingley presented to a number of the oldest members gathered at her home in New York on the night of January 13th, 1898, a new Constitution which she had formulated for the more permanent and broader work of the Theosophical Movement, opening up a wider field of endeavor than had heretofore been possible to students of Theosophy. One month later, at the Convention of the Society, held in Chicago, February 18th, 1898, this Constitution was accepted by an almost unanimous vote, and the Theosophical Society merged itself into the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society. In this new step forward, she had the heartiest co-operation and support of the vast majority of the members throughout the world.

THEOSOPHY IN PRACTICE

It is of interest here to quote our Teacher's own words regarding this time. In an article published in The Metropolitan Magazine, New York, October, 1909, she says:

Later, I found myself the successor of William Q. Judge, and I began my heart work, the inspiration of which is partly due to him.

In all my writings and associations with the members of the Theosophical Society, I emphasized the necessity of putting Theosophy into daily practice, and in such a way that it would continuously demonstrate that it was the redeeming power of man. More familiarity with the organization and its workers brought home to me the fact that there was a certain number of students who had in the early days begun the wrong way to study Theosophy, and that it was becoming in their lives a death-like sleep. I noticed that those who followed this line of action were always alarmed at my humanitarian tendencies. Whenever I reminded them that they were building a colossal egotism instead of a power to do good, they subtly opposed me. As I insisted on the practical life of theosophy, they opposed still more. They later exerted personal influence which affected certain members throughout the world. It was this condition which then menaced the Theosophical Movement, and which forced me to the point of taking such action as would fully protect the pure teachings of Theosophy and make possible a broader path for unselfish students to follow. Thus the faithful members of the Theosophical Movement would be able to exemplify the charge which Helena Petrovna Blavatsky gave to her pupils, as follows:

"Real Theosophy is altruism, and we cannot repeat it too often. It is brotherly love, mutual help, unswerving devotion to truth. If once men do but realize that in these alone can true happiness be found, and never in wealth, possession or any selfish gratification, then the dark cloud will roll away, and a new humanity will be born upon the earth. Then the Golden Age will be there indeed."

Here we find William Q. Judge accentuating the same spirit, the practical Theosophical life:

"The power to know does not come from book-study alone, nor from mere philosophy, but mostly from the actual practice of altruism in deed, word, and thought; for that practice purifies the covers of the soul and permits the divine light to shine down into the brain-mind."

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

On February 18, 1898, at the Convention of the Theosophical Society in America, held at Chicago, Ill., the Society resolved, through its delegates from all parts of the world, to enter a larger arena, to widen its scope and to further protect the teachings of Theosophy. Amid most intense enthusiasm the[Pg 240] Theosophical Society was expanded into the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, and I found myself recognized as its leader and official head. The Theosophical Society in Europe also resolved to merge itself into the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, and the example was quickly followed by Theosophical Societies in other parts of the world. The expansion of the original Theosophical Society, which Madame Blavatsky founded and which William Q. Judge so ably sustained, now called the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, gave birth to a new life, and the membership trebled the first year, and ever since that time a rapid increase has followed.

INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS AT
POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA

In 1900 the Headquarters of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society were removed from New York to Point Loma, California, which is now the International Center of the Theosophical Movement. This Organization is unsectarian and non-political; none of its officers or workers receives any salary or financial recompense.

In her article in The Metropolitan Magazine above referred to, Katherine Tingley further says:

The knowledge that Point Loma was to be the World-center of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, which has for its supreme object the elevation of the race, created great enthusiasm among its members throughout the world. The further fact that the government of the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society rests entirely with the leader and official head, who holds her office for life and who has the privilege of appointing her successor, gave me the power to carry out some of the plans I had long cherished. Among these was the erecting of the great Homestead Building. This I carefully designed that it might not stand apart from the beautiful nature about it, but in a sense harmonize with the sky, the distant mountains, the broad blue Pacific, and the glorious light of the sun.

So it has been from the first, so that the practical work of Theosophy began at Point Loma under the most favorable circumstances. No one dominated by selfish aims and ambitions was invited to take part in this pioneer work. Although there were scores of workers from various parts of the world uniting their efforts with mine for the upbuilding of this world-center, yet there was no disharmony. Each took the duty allotted him and worked trustingly and cheerfully. Many of the world's ways these workers gladly left behind them. They seemed reborn with an enthusiasm that knew no defeat. The work was done for the love of it, and this is the secret of a large part of the success that has come to the Theosophical Movement.

Not long after the establishment of the International Theosophical Headquarters at Point Loma it was plain to see that the Society was advancing along all lines by leaps and bounds. Letters of inquiry were pouring in from different countries, which led to my establishing the Theosophical Propaganda Bureau. This is one of the greatest factors we have in disseminating our teachings. The International Brotherhood League then opened its offices and has ever been active in its special humanitarian work, being the directing power which has sustained the several Râja Yoga schools and academies, now in Pinar del Rio, Santa Clara, and Santiago de Cuba, from the beginning. The Aryan Theosophical Press has yearly enlarged its facilities in answer to the demands made upon it through the publication of Theosophical literature, which includes The Theosophical Path and several other publications. There is the Isis Conservatory of Music and Drama, the Department of Arts and Crafts, the Industrial Department, including Forestry, Agriculture, Roadbuilding, Photo-engraving, Chemical laboratory, Landscape-gardening, and many other crafts.

DO NOT FAIL TO PROFIT BY
THE FOLLOWING

Constantly the question is asked, what is theosophy, what does it really teach? Each year the life and work of H. P. Blavatsky and the high ideals and pure morality of her teachings are more clearly vindicated. Each year the position taken by William Q. Judge and Katherine Tingley in regard to their predecessor, H. P. Blavatsky, is better understood, and their own lives and work are seen to be actuated by the same high ideals for the uplifting of the human race. Each year more and more people are coming to realize that not all that goes under the name of Theosophy [Pg 241]is rightly so called, but that there is a counterfeit Theosophy as well as the true, and that there is need of discrimination, lest many be misled.

Counterfeits exist in many departments of life and thought, and especially in matters relating to religion and the deeper teachings of life. Hence, in order that people who are honestly seeking the truth may not be misled, we deem it important to state that the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society is not responsible for, nor is it affiliated with, nor does it endorse, any other society, which, while calling itself Theosophical, is not connected with the International Theosophical Headquarters at Point Loma, California. Having a knowledge of Theosophy, the ancient Wisdom-Religion, we deem it as a sacred trust and responsibility to maintain its pure teachings, free from the vagaries, additions, or misrepresentations of ambitious self-styled Theosophists and would-be teachers. The test of a Theosophist is not in profession, but in action, and in a noble and virtuous life. The motto of the Society is "There is no religion higher than Truth." This was adopted by Madame Blavatsky, but it is to be deeply regretted that there are no legal means to prevent the use of this motto in connexion with counterfeit Theosophy, by people professing to be Theosophists, but who would not be recognized as such by Madame Blavatsky.

It is a regrettable fact that many people use the name of Theosophy and of our Organization for self-interest, as also that of H. P. Blavatsky, the Foundress, and even the Society's motto, to attract attention to themselves and to gain public support. This they do in private and public speech and in publications. Without being in any way connected with the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, in many cases they permit it to be inferred that they are, thus misleading the public, and honest inquirers are hence led away from the original truths of Theosophy.

The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society welcomes to membership all who truly love their fellow men and desire the eradication of the evils caused by the barriers of race, creed, caste, or color, which have so long impeded human progress; to all sincere lovers of truth and to all who aspire to higher and better things than the mere pleasures and interests of a worldly life, and are prepared to do all in their power to make Brotherhood a living energy in the life of humanity, its various departments offer unlimited opportunities.

The whole work of the Organization is under the direction of the Leader and Official Head, Katherine Tingley, as outlined in the Constitution.

OBJECTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL
BROTHERHOOD LEAGUE

1. To help men and women to realize the nobility of their calling and their true position in life.

2. To educate children of all nations on the broadest lines of Universal Brotherhood and to prepare destitute and homeless children to become workers for humanity.

3. To ameliorate the condition of unfortunate women, and assist them to a higher life.

4. To assist those who are or have been in prisons to establish themselves in honorable positions in life.

5. To abolish capital punishment.

6. To bring about a better understanding between so-called savage and civilized races, by promoting a closer and more sympathetic relationship between them.

7. To relieve human suffering resulting from flood, famine, war, and other calamities; and, generally, to extend aid, help, and comfort to suffering humanity throughout the world.

Joseph H. Fussell, Secretary

BOOK LIST

OF WORKS ON
THEOSOPHY, OCCULTISM, RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND ART

PUBLISHED OR FOR SALE BY

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY

INTERNATIONAL THEOSOPHICAL HEADQUARTERS
POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.

The office of the Theosophical Publishing Company is at Point Loma, California

It has no other office and no branches

FOREIGN AGENCIES

THE UNITED KINGDOM—Theosophical Book Co., 18 Bartlett's Buildings,
Holborn Circus, London, e. c., England

GERMANY—J. Th. Heller, Vestnertorgraben 13, Nürnberg

SWEDEN—Universella Broderskapets Förlag, Barnhusgatan, 10, Stockholm

HOLLAND—Louis F. Schudel, Hollandia-Drukkerij, Baarn

AUSTRALIA—Willans and Williams, 16 Carrington St., Wynyard Sq., Sydney, N. S. W.

CUBA—H. S. Turner, Apartado 127; or Heredia, Baja, 10, Santiago de Cuba

MEXICO—Samuel L. Herrera, Calle de la Independencia, 55 altos, Vera Cruz, V. C.

Order above from the Theosophical Publishing Company, Point Loma, California.
The following in other languages may be procured by writing direct to
the respective Foreign Agencies (see first page) for Book List and prices.

GERMAN

An ihren Früchten sollt Ihr sie erkennen—Wer ist ein Theosoph?—Was Theosophie über manche Punkte lehrt und was sie weder lehrt noch billigt
Ausbildung der Konzentration (von William Q. Judge).
Das Leben zu Point Loma (Katherine Tingley). Schön Illustriert. (Recommended)
Die Bhagavad-Gîtâ (nach der englischen Ausgabe von William Q. Judge).
Die Wissenschaft des Lebens und die Kunst zu leben
Echos aus dem Orient (von William Q. Judge).
Studien über die Bhagavad Gîtâ (William Q. Judge).
Theosophie Erklärt
Rückblick und Ausblick auf die theosophische Bewegung
Wahrheit ist mächtig und muss obsiegen!
Postkarten mit Ansichten von Point Loma

Theosophische Handbücher:

DUTCH

Die Bhagavad-Gîtâ: Het Boek van Yoga; with Glossary. Bound in morocco or paper
De Kleine Bouwers en Hun Reis naar Rangi; een Geschiedenis voor Kinderen door
R. N. (met illustraties van R. Machell)
De Oceaan der Theosophie (door William Q. Judge)
De Ridders van Keizer Arthur—Een Verhaal voor Kinderen, door Ceinnyd Morus
Drie Opstellen over Theosophie. In verband met Vraagstukken van den Dag
Echo's uit het Oosten; een algemeene schets der Theosophische Leeringen door William Q. Judge (Occultus)
Het Leven te Point Loma, Enkele Aanteekeningen door Katherine Tingley
Hoogere en Lagere Psychologie. Enkele Aanteekeningen door Katherine Tingley
(met Portret en Illustratie)
H. P. Blavatsky En William Q. Judge, De Stichters en Leiders der Theosophische Beweging (Leerling). pp. 42
Katherine Tingley, de Autocraat (De Geheimen van de Leer van het Hart)
Licht op het Pad (door M. C.) Bound in morocco or paper
Pit en Merg, uit sommige Heilige Geschriften, 1^e Serie
Inhoud: Theosophie en Christendom. "Niemand kan twee heeren dienen."
Iets Meerders dan de Tempel. Een Gezicht des Oordeels. De Mensch Jezus
Pit en Merg van de Eindigende en Komende Eeuw, en de daarmede in betrekking staande positie van Vrijmetselarij en Jesuitisme, door Rameses

Theosophical Manuals, Series No. 1

Theosophical Manuals, Series No. 2

No. 1 Psychometrie, Clairvoyance, en Gedachten-Overbrenging

SWEDISH

Den Hemliga Läran, 2 band (H. P. Blavatsky)
Nyckel till Teosofien (H. P. Blavatsky)
Astral Berusning, Devachan, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Brev, som hjälpt mig (William Q. Judge)
Den Cykliska Lagen, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Dolda Vinkar i den Hemliga Läran, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Dödsstraffet i Teosofisk Belysning. m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Reinkarnationsläran i Bibeln, Om Karma, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Studier över Bhagavad-Gîtâ (William Q. Judge)
Teosofiens Ocean (William Q. Judge)
Vetenskapen och Teosofien, m. m. (William Q. Judge)
Övning i Koncentration (William Q. Judge)
Hemligheterna i Hjärtats Lära (Katherine Tingley och hennes lärjungar)
En Intervju med Katherine Tingley (Greusel)
Katherine Tingley, af M. F. N. (levnadsteckning)
Existenslinjer och Utvecklingsnormer (Oscar Ljungström)
Kan ett T. S. sakna morallag? (Protest möte)
Teosofi och Kristendom, Genmäle till Prof. Pfannenstill (Dr. G. Zander och F. Kellberg)
Asiens Ljus (Edwin Arnold)
Bhagavad Gîtâ, Hängivandets bok
Den Teosofiska Institutionen (Baker)
Frimureri och Jesuitvälde (Rameses)
Ljus på Vägen
Lotusblad, för barn
Lotussångbok, ord och musik
Râja Yoga, Om Själens Utveckling
Skillnaden mellan Teosofi och Spiritism
Stjärnan, Sago- och Poemsamling, för barn
Teosofiens Innebörd
Tystnadens Röst
Visingsö (Karling)

Teosofiska Handböcker
Enkelt och lättfattligt skrivna framställningar av Teosofiska läror
Klotband. Pris för varje bok, kronor 2.00

PERIODICALS

Subscriptions to the above five Magazines may be secured also through
The Theosophical Publishing Co., Point Loma, California, U. S. A.

Neither the Editors of the above publications, nor the officers of The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, or of any of its departments, receive salaries or other remuneration. All profits arising from the business of the Theosophical Publishing Co., are devoted to Humanitarian work. All who assist in that work are directly helping that cause.

THE PATH
The Theosophical Path
An International Magazine
Unsectarian and nonpolitical

Monthly Illustrated

Devoted to the Brotherhood of Humanity, the promulgation
of Theosophy, the study of ancient & modern
Ethics, Philosophy, Science and Art, and to the uplifting
and purification of Home and National Life

Edited by Katherine Tingley
International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma, California, U.S.A.

Among many ideas brought forward through the Theosophical Movement there are three which should never be lost sight of. Not speech, but thought, really rules the world; so, if these three ideas are good let them be rescued again and again from oblivion.

The first idea is, that there is a great Cause—in the sense of an enterprise—called the Cause of Sublime Perfection and Human Brotherhood. This rests upon the essential unity of the whole human family, and is a possibility because sublimity in perfectness and actual realization of brotherhood on every plane of being are one and the same thing.

The second idea is, that man is a being who may be raised up to perfection, to the stature of the Godhead, because he himself is God incarnate. This noble doctrine was in the mind of Jesus, when he said that we must be perfect even as the Father in Heaven. This is the idea of human perfectibility. It will destroy the awful theory of inherent original sin which has held and ground down the western Christian nations for centuries.

The third idea is the illustration, the proof, the high result of the others. It is, that the great Helpers of Humanity—those who have reached up to what perfection this period of evolution and this solar system will allow—are living veritable facts, and not abstractions cold and distant. They are, as our old H. P. Blavatsky so often said, LIVING MEN. These Helpers as living facts and high ideals will fill the soul with hope, will themselves help all who wish to raise the human race.

Let us not forget these three great ideas.

William Q. Judge