CHAPTER XIIITHE SEPARABLE SOUL IN FOLKLORE
Belief in a separable soul in man is virtually universal. Such belief is found amongst the lowest races, and in the few instances where it has not been clearly discovered it is admitted that it may still exist and be disguised by the native meaning of words or signs that escape the explorer.
The universality of this belief has often been urged as an evidence of its validity and proof of the soul’s existence.
Modern physical science deduces this belief from the phenomena of daily life and the analogies of individual experience, thus giving precedence to material causes for mental concepts, or universal ideas. This view is, I think, entitled to the most careful consideration, but it cannot once for all be admitted, nor is it consistent with the general theory and progress of evolution that the phenomenal stands to the noumenal, the actual to the ideal, as cause to effect. These two groups of experiences are alternate and coincident; and, as to priority, it is only the old question in a new form, as to which was first, the bird that laid the egg, or the egg that hatched the bird.
This distinction is particularly pertinent to thepresent subject, for the reason that by the method of modern physical science, in dealing with the belief in the existence of the soul, the whole of this universal belief is swept away. Its origin is found in the ignorance, superstition, and false analogies of barbarous races, and the inference is that the belief can only linger as a remnant of superstition among civilized men. This method prejudges the whole question, and (while it must readily be admitted that the opposite method equally prejudges it), my contention is for neither the one nor the other, but for the careful consideration and final blending of both. If at first sight these two theories, which form the basis of the working hypothesis of the materialist and the spiritist, seem paradoxical and wholly irreconcilable, with careful consideration and unbiased investigation of both sides of the problem the paradox will disappear.
With both the lowest and the highest races not only do we find the existence of belief in the existence of a separable soul in man, but of ghosts, gods, genii, a spirit of the air, and hierarchies of celestial and infernal beings.
In this regard, philosophers like Plato and Pythagoras, the intellectual giants of the human race, may be said to have elaborated and specialized the rude conceptions of the Fiji Islander, and to vie with him in peopling space with invisible entities and potencies. In spite of the dictum of science, the world, intelligent and ignorant alike, believes, and will continue to believe, in the reality of theunseen universe, and the Platonic doctrine of “emanation” and the “world of divine ideas” not only begin where modern physical science leaves off, but at this very point science either begs the question, or ignores it entirely.
How things come to be what they are, and to evolve as they do, science nowhere declares. It simply takes things as it finds them, and dubs the ultimate and antecedent causation theUnknowable. The philosophy of Plato, it is true, reaches at last the unknowable and the incomprehensible, but only after revealing another universe, the metaphysical and spiritual, entirely unknown to, or ignored or derided by the materialist.
It is, however, from this invisible realm that all visible things have come forth, the two being not only under absolute and universal law, but bearing everywhere definite analogies to each other. Hence Plato says, “God geometrizes.” Absolute mathematics determines the relations of atoms to suns, and the circulation of the blood in man to the revolutions of suns and solar systems.
A further general consideration remains to be noted before taking up the evidence of belief in the separable soul, and that is, the evolutionary life-wave of humanity on our earth.
The progress of man for some millions of years past has by no means been a straightforward climbing from barbarism to civilization. The wave of evolution has ebbed and flowed. While at one place man has slowly emerged from savagery, atanother he has as surely sunk to it. Continents and islands have risen from and again sunk to the bottom of the sea, bearing the races of men in their upheavals or descent, and cataclysmic and seismic or volcanic upheavals have blotted out in a day the accumulated progress of centuries. The poles of the earth have shifted with results to the life of the globe more awful than the imagination can portray. Bodies of people like our North American Indians represent the remains of many peoples, as in Russia or India to-day, fragments of many nationalities are being absorbed in one.
Bearing in mind, therefore, that owing to many causes a nation may descend to barbarism or disappear entirely, we shall find everywhere the fragments and decay of the old belief no less than the dawn of the new. A noble creed, or a philosophical concept of a highly advanced race, may exist as a transformed and degrading superstition with a race, or a fragment of a people, undergoing degeneracy.
Every religion known to man has gone through just this transformation. The tendency is innate and inevitable and no civilization or religion has ever yet been able long to resist it. If we bear this in mind we shall be less surprised at anthropogeneses, cosmogeneses or psychologies found sometimes among otherwise rude or savage peoples, and be better able to understand the incongruities and lack of symmetry in their evolution. It would beeasy to cite instances and draw comparisons at this point.
Bearing in mind, then, these general considerations underlying all interpretation, and nowhere more applicable than to our present subject, the following illustrations of belief in the separable soul, gleaned largely from Spencer’s “Descriptive Sociology,” may be of interest. It is drawn largely from the lower civilizations, as all are more or less familiar with the mythologies of the Greeks, Babylonians, Phœnicians, etc., all of which are accessible. The material available is embarrassing on account of its magnitude alone.
Oscar Peschel, in his “Races of Man,” says that “perhaps the Brazilian Botocudos, of all the inhabitants of the world, are most nearly in the primitive state, and yet,” he adds, “possibly we may be altogether mistaken in this regard, as their languages are very imperfectly known.”
Humboldt rescued the Caribs from such an impeachment and declares that their language “combines wealth, grace, strength, and gentleness. It has expressions for abstract ideas, for Futurity, Eternity, and Existence, and enough numerical terms to express all possible combinations of our numerals.” It might be noted in passing that it was these same Brazilian natives that the Portuguese settlers sought to decimate by spreading smallpox and scarlet fever amongst them, as the English colonists in Tasmania shot the natives when they had no better food for their dogs.
Hariot says that “many of the Indian natives of North and South America believe that the soul, after its separation from the body, enters into a wide path crowded with spirits which are journeying toward a region of eternal repose. They have to cross an impetuous river on a trembling wicker bridge which is very dangerous.”
Some Greenlanders believe that the soul can go astray out of the body for a considerable time. Some believe that they can leave their souls at home when going on a journey, and others believe in the migration of souls.
Belief in the soul and a future state is universal among the Indians of North America. All are familiar with the tradition of the “Happy Hunting Ground.” With them the future life is patterned after the present.
Schoolcraft says that the Chippewas believe that there are duplicate souls, one of which remains with the body, while the other is free to depart on excursions during sleep. After death the soul departs to the Indian Elysium and a fire is kept burning on the newly-made grave for four days, the time required for the soul to reach its destination.
The Dakotas stand in great fear of the spirits of the dead, who they think have power to injure them, and they recite prayers and give offerings to appease them.
The Mandans, according to Schoolcraft, have anticipated Prof. Lloyd’s Etidorhpa, even to the beautiful maiden. They believe that they were thefirst people created on the earth, and that they first lived inside the globe. They raised many vines, one of which having grown up through a hole in the earth, one of the young men climbed up until he crawled out on the bank of the river where the Mandan village stands. (Jack and the bean stalk.) The young man returned to the nether world and piloted several of his companions to the outer world, and among them two very beautiful virgins. Among those who tried to get up was a very large and fat woman, who was ordered by the chiefs to remain behind. Her curiosity prompted her secretly to make the trial. The vine broke under her weight and she was badly hurt by the fall, but did not die, and was ever after in disgrace for having cut off all communication with the upper world. Those who had already ascended built the Mandan village, and when these die they expect to return to the nether world from which they came. They also believe the earth a great tortoise, and have a tradition of a universal deluge.
The Indians of Guiana believe in the immortality of the soul, as do also the Arawaks. The Brazilians are said by Spix and Martins to have had no religious belief whatever before mingling with the civilized races. The Guaranis believed in a soul which remained in the grave with the body.
The Patagonians believe in a country of the dead which they call Alhue Mapu and they kill the horses of the deceased in order that their owner may ride in Alhue Mapu.
From the beliefs of the Negritto and Malayo-Polynesian races, I glean the following: The Fuegians believe in a superior being, and in good and evil spirits, in dreams, omens, signs, etc. Fitzroy says he could not satisfy himself that they had any idea of the immortality of the soul.
The Veddahs believe in the guardianship of the spirits of the dead, who visit them in dreams and minister to them in sickness, and they have ceremonies of invocation.
Eyra says some at least of the Australians believe in the existence and separability of the soul.
The Tasmanians believed in a future life as a tradition of a primitive religion, and Bonwick says they conversed with the spirits of the dead.
The New Caledonians believe that white men are the spirits of the dead, and that they bring sickness. They believe that the soul on leaving the body goes to the Bush, and every fifth month they have a “spirit night” or “grand concert of spirits.” The gods of the New Caledonians are their ancestors, whose relics they keep and idolize.
The Fijians believe in a separable soul, and dying is by them described by the same terms as sunset.
Belief in a future state among them is said by Siemann to be universal. In Fiji heaven the inhabitants plant, live in families, fight, and so repeat the incidents of life on earth. They believe that the spirit of men, while still alive, may leave the body and trouble other people when asleep.
The Sandwich Islanders believe that the spiritof the departed hovers about his former home, appears to his relatives in dreams, and they worship an image which they believe to be in some way connected with the departed. They regard the spirit of one of their ancient kings as a tutelar deity, and the king and the priest were believed to be descended from the gods.
The Tahitians believe in a separable soul which, on leaving the body, is seized by other spirits and conducted to the state of night, where it is by degrees eaten by the gods. A few escape this fate, while others, after being three times eaten, become immortal.
The Tongons believe that the human soul is the more ethereal part of the body and that it exists in Bolotoo in the form and likeness of the body the moment after death.
The Samoans believe that the spirits of the dead have power to return and to cause disease and death in other members of the family, hence all are anxious to part with the dying on good terms.
The New Zealanders believe that during sleep the mind leaves the body, and that dreams are the objects seen during its wanderings. They believe in two separate abodes for departed spirits, the sky, and the sea, and that the abodes of souls are to be approached only down the face of a steep precipice—Cape Maria Van Dieman.
The Dyaks have great difficulty in distinguishing sleep from death. They believe that the soul during sleep goes on an expedition of its own, andsees, hears, and talks. They believe in spirits, omens, and in all that occurs in dreams as real and literally true.
The Sumatrans believe in spirits and superior beings, and are said to have a vague idea of the immortality of the soul, and the Malays believe in spirits, good and bad, and seem to have a vague idea of a separable soul.
The Mexicans believed in a separable soul, and distinguished three different abodes for it after death.
Landa says the people of Yucatan have always believed more firmly in the immortality of the soul than other people, though they were less advanced in civilization. They believed that after death there would be a better life, which the soul would enjoy after its separation from the body. They worshiped their dead kings as gods. The mythology of the people of Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua is extensive and complicated and their National Book, the Popol Vuh, possesses intense interest for the student. There can be no doubt that these people believed in a separable soul, as did also the Chibchas.
It was the belief of the ancient Peruvians that the soul leaves the body during sleep, and that the soul itself cannot sleep, but that dreams are what the soul sees in the world while the body sleeps. Waitz says they believed in the transmigration of human souls into the bodies of animals.
In the case of the Arabians the primitive belief,which was Sabianism, has been altered far less by Mohammedan invasion than most persons suppose. Burton says Mohammed and his followers conquered only the more civilized Bedouins, and Baker says that the Arabs are unchanged, and that the theological opinions which they now hold are the same as those which prevailed in remote ages, and of this belief the soul and its immortality formed a part.
In general the Hill Tribes of India share in the universal belief in the soul, in spirits, gods, and devils, though of many of these tribes little is really known in modern times.
Nearly all our North American Indians (I can find no exceptions) bury objects with their dead, such as food implements, jewelry, etc., and kill the horses of the deceased that he may ride in the Happy Hunting Ground.
With the Carib’s death his wife and captives were killed, and food utensils, etc., were buried with him.
A curious custom prevailed with some Brazilian tribes. After burying food, utensils, arms, etc., with the body, a month after death the body was disinterred, put in a pan over a fire, the volatile substances driven off, the black residue reduced to powder and mixed with water and drunk by the company.
The Patagonians bury all the possessions of the deceased with the body.
With the Hottentots, widows lose one joint ofa finger as an offering to the deceased husband every time they re-marry.
With the Kaffirs, the hut and utensils of the deceased are burnt. The East Africans offer prayer to the dead.
The Congo people bury ornaments, utensils, arms, etc., and embalm the body after one or two years. The body of the chief must be carried in a straight line from the hut to place of burial, and if trees or huts impede the passage, they are cut down.
The Coast Negroes bury property with the body and have a ceremony like an Irish wake, as do also the Abyssinians.
With the Ashantis, gold dust and utensils are buried and human sacrifices occur.
The wives of the Fijians are strangled that they may attend their lords in the new country.
The people of Malagasy bury in vaults 10×12, and 7 feet high, and put in a large quantity of property.
With the ancient Mexicans, wives, slaves, concubines, and chaplains were slaughtered to attend the deceased.
The Arabs fasten the camels to the grave of their master.
The Todas cremate the dead and slaughter the whole herd of buffalo belonging to him, in order to secure them to him in the after life.
I have by no means given a complete category of the primitive and barbarous peoples who believe in a separate soul, and who believe in a futurestate much like the present and in conformity with that belief bury arms, ornaments, and utensils with the dead or place them on the grave, and who slaughter horses, camels, wives, slaves, etc., in order that the deceased may retain his possessions. How far these customs extend in case of the death of woman I do not know, but as with most of these people the women are regarded as chattels of the males, the case is doubtless very different.
Now as to the origin of these beliefs and customs, their causes naturally fall into two categories, the physical and the metaphysical. Modern biological science regards the whole question from the physical side almost exclusively, and facts and experiences that belong largely or exclusively to the metaphysical realm are warped out of their natural order to fit the theory of interpretation.
Every savage observes not only that he casts a shadow, but that shadows attend all inanimate objects that stand so as to intercept the light, and as shadows move as do objects that gives rise to the idea of animation. Hence we have genii, dryads, naiads, ghosts, angels, demons, etc. To fortify this belief we have echoes, which give voice to animate and inanimate objects. Movement and voice are the universal accompaniment of animation.
The part played by the breath, and its sudden cessation at death, are believed to contribute to the belief in invisible existences.
The beating of the heart, and its cessation at death, adds another link to the chain of phenomena,going to show thatsomethingleaves the body at death. This may be the origin of the sacrifice of the hearts of captives to the gods, or to a deceased warrior or chief as with the ancient Mexicans, with the belief that the heart is the seat of the soul, and the soul of the captive or victim shall attend the departed chief in the other world.
But the most important place should doubtless be assigned to dreams as giving rise to belief in the world of spirits. Dreams are universal amongst men, and animals like the dog also dream.
Most if not all primitive people are also aware that fasting promotes dreaming, and while many of them practice long fasting, partly, no doubt, to increase fortitude and bodily endurance, in very many cases it is known to be practiced for the purpose of promoting dreams. Beyond this voluntary fasting there is the enforced fast due to famine or the scarcity of food.
It will be noticed in many of the cases cited how much stress is laid on the phenomena of dreams and how literally they are interpreted.
Among civilized races and those wise in philosophy dreams play a very important part, and are classified as monitorial, prophetic, etc., etc. The habit in modern times of regarding dreams as altogether fantastic and unreal, is unscientific. In the mingling of the real and the apparently unreal, in the dream state, while the experience itself is always real to the dreamer, lies undoubtedly thesource of many beliefs that influence the lives of men.
Dreaming must be regarded as one of the states of consciousness, and hence, of whatsoever stuff dreams are made, they represent an actual experience of the individual. No greater mistake can be made than the belief that no experience is real save that which brings us in contact with gross matter through the agency of the five senses. The world of ideas and the creations of the imagination are in fact no more evanescent than matter itself. Here impermanency differs only in time. All in time pass away.
I hold that dreams, in general, show more clearly the nature of the soul, and the experiences of the waking state show the office of the bodily organism, and that eachon its own planeis as valid as the other.
In other words, “the soul is such stuff as dreams are made of.” It does not hold true, nor need it, that the experiences in dreams shall be true and valid on the physical plane, though this is often the case, or that the experiences of the physical plane shall be literally repeated in dreams, which, nevertheless, frequently happens.
It is an undeniable fact that the experiences of the conscious ego in man compass the subjective no less than the objective planes of being. That the subjective avenues should be closed when the ego is functioning on the physical plane through the bodily organs by aid ofthe senses, is quite as remarkable as that the physical avenues should be closed when in dreams, or trance, or syncope, or under anaesthetics, the ego functions on the subjective planes.
I hold, therefore, that here, more than anywhere else, is the source of not only belief in the existence of the soul, but of the relatively uniform conceptions everywhere attained. The common experience of man on the one plane is as easily accounted for as on the other, and individual experience differs no more widely in the one case than in the other. So also is the persistence of the human type, or thegenus, involved in the one case no less than in the other.
All the agencies recognized in modern evolution tend to elevation only through differentiation, and even the “eternal cell” of Weismann fails in explaining permanency of form through any physical transmission. When atavism and degeneracy are admitted as factors, as they certainly must be, the perpetuity of the human species fails from physical causes alone.
I hold the idea of a separable soul to be innate in the human consciousness, as a necessary deduction from the experience of the continuity of self-consciousness which compasses both the objective and subjective states. This deduction from experience occurs whenever the evolving ego has advanced sufficiently above the animal plane to reason on its own experience, and for this reason the belief in the separable soul is universal.
It is no more strange that the experience of the individual should be modified by traditions and the beliefs of others regarding, for example, the dream state, than that the experience of the individual should in like manner be modified or shaped by traditions and the ceremonies and usages of others on the physical plane. The bond of unity and that of diversity have one common root in humanity. What we need for larger knowledge is, I think, a recognition of the breadth and sweep of human experience. To stop either ignoring or quibbling over one-half of all our actual experience.
The inner world of thought and being is really the habitat of the soul, while the physical body, like the diving-bell, enables us to explore and gain experience on another plane which otherwise must remain to us forever unknown.
The limitations of space and time are unknown to us in dreams. These are the limitations of the fleshly casket. The consciousness of freedom, the absence of pain and sorrow even under great trial, are often experienced in the dream state. The range and character of experience in the subjective state is modified, and held in check by that of the physical plane, and the correspondence of an emotion to an idea, or of an act to a thought, ought to give us the key to the two sets of experiences and reveal the underlying basis of equilibrium.
A universal fact and a common experience argue a universal nature. Like conditions everywhere come from like causes. These are neitheraccidental nor incidental, nor are they left to the caprice of savages, nor to that of the more advanced civilizations.
It is not at all strange that a common experience should result in a universal belief. The range of experience and varying vicissitudes of life on the outer physical plane differ as widely as do those of the dream plane, and the conscious identity of the individual is equally preserved on both planes.
I hold that here lies the origin of belief in the existence of a soul in man, separable from the body, and the confines of matter, space, and time, in an actual experience of every individual. The beating of the heart, the phenomena of respiration, the cessation of these at death, and the shadows cast by man and inanimate bodies serve as connecting links between the experiences of the individual on the subjective and objective planes of being.
The dream state and the experiences thence derived are subjects for psychological science to investigate. The experiences allotted by du Maurier to “Peter Ibbetson” are not altogether fantastic and unwarranted, as the records of somnambulism and hypnotism abundantly prove. When we remember that nothing deserving the name of Psychology or Psychic Science exists in the western world to-day, we need not wonder why men eminent for investigations in other departments prove themselves novices and dogmatists here.
The folklore, the traditions, and the mythologyof dreams would form a very interesting subject for discussion. It is true that the literature of the subject is fantastic, mixed with fable and often altogether unreliable; but these difficulties offer no more formidable bar to scientific investigation than many another problem already classified and formulated for systematic study.
I know a lady of very superior ability, the mother of a prominent jurist, who all her life has had distinct premonitions of many calamities and coming events, and there are those who dream true in every community. Fantasies, nightmare, dreams from indigestion and delirium, form a separate class where the dreamer is entangled in the meshes of the bodily functions.
Here fasting, either voluntary or enforced, comes in, and drugs known to the remotest times are found to promote and to determine the character of dreams. There are furthermore processes of mental gymnastics whereby the thinker withdraws himself from the bodily avenues of sense and functions at will on the subjective plane of being.
“When then,” said Socrates, in thePhædo, “does the soul light on the truth? for when it attempts to consider anything in conjunction with the body, it is plain that it is led astray by it.”
“And surely,” he continues, “the soul reasons best when none of these things disturb it, neither hearing, nor sight, nor pain, nor pleasure of any kind, but it retires as much as possiblewithin itself,taking leave of the body, and as far as it can, notcommunicating or being in contact with it,it aims at the discovery of that which is.”
I hold that the most valuable triumphs of science in the future lie in the realm of psychology, and that by no means the least important contribution in this direction will come from the study of Folklore, of which belief in the separable soul, and the phenomena and universality of the dream state must form a very important part.
One final consideration is suggested not without some degree of hesitation and diffidence. If there be a soul in man destined to continued existence, and if in any case perfection is the goal of evolution as formulated by Herbert Spencer for a future residue of the human race, then this soul in its essential elements is without beginning in time.
Pre-existence and evolution necessitate repeated re-embodiment on the physical plane, and the continuity of self-consciousness in man I hold to be the proof of life without beginning or end.
Viewed in this light, dreams and all subjective experiences in man must mingle reminiscences of the soul with the experiences of the present life, and the theory of innate ideas assumes a purely scientific form. We hence arrive at the intuition of the soul to account for universal belief. The experience of Socrates and the Fiji Islander agree as to the subjective plane as perfectly as in regard to the beating of the heart. They differ only in degree of evolution.
CHAPTER XIVFROM CONFUSION TO CONSTRUCTION
A concise and detailed review of the past, in the long journey of man toward civilization and independent self-knowledge, has not been herein attempted. Only hints, here and there, and the barest outline have been undertaken.
If, however, the intelligent student will follow these clews, he will find a mass of material and abundant evidence to corroborate the general thesis.
Every great religion has had its Avatar, its Redeemer, itsChristos.
Each of these religions has adapted from its predecessors and transformed the old, in whole or in part, to suit the conditions and apparent needs of the time.
Each of these revivals of religion has been instituted on account of the abominations of a dominant priesthood and the poverty and degradation of the masses. What was at first claimed and instituted as a Divine Revelation for the elevation and happiness of the whole people, has openly and shamelessly degenerated into enslavement of the masses and the creation of a despotic and arrogant class who enslaved both body and soul in the name of Religion.
Priest, Prince, and Potentate generally, united to terrorize through force, and by superstition and fear, in order to retain their power.
The reaction has invariably resulted from economic conditions, as in the case of the Protestant Reformation, when the gold sent to Rome through the shameless sale of Indulgences, threatened to impoverish the whole of Northern Europe, and Princes broke allegiance to the Priesthood in desperate self-protection.
Then, and then only, came sufficient protest and Reformation.
The religionist is apt to regard and designate Science as “profane,” and Religionper se, as essentially “holy.”
Nothing can be really considered “holy” that does not elevate, encourage, and inspire the whole human race and promote the Brotherhood of Man. Whenever any religion fails to do this it becomes indeed a profanation of holy things.
The only religion that ever became the inspiration of a whole people, so far as history records, was that of Christna, with the teeming millions of India. Buddhism was driven out of India by the powerful and unscrupulous Brahmans, and took refuge in Ceylon, Thibet, and adjacent provinces.
The religion of Jesus met a similar fate from the Jews and the Roman governors, until Pagan Rome adapted and transformed it on the principle of dominance and exploitation inherent in the genius of the Latin Race.
Since which time no one will pretend to claim that the Religion of Jesus has ever dominated the human race or any large part of it.
Rome to-day no more represents the religion of Jesus than the Brahmans of to-day represent that of Christna, or Buddha, or the religion of the Vedas.
Nothing is so amazing to-day as that the intelligence of the present age fails to recognize this fact.
All of these religions of the past have adapted their teaching to the multitude through parable and allegory. Nothing in literature can be found more beautiful and inspiring, and at the same time comprehensible to the commonest intelligence, than Christna’s “Parable of the Fisherman.”
Christna and Buddha, like Jesus, taught to their disciples a “Secret Doctrine,” apprehensible only to the few. “To you it is given to know the mysteries,” but to others, who are without, it is not given.
It can readily be proven from at least a half score of the early Church Fathers (see page 70et seq.of the author’s “Mystic Masonry”), that the early church practiced “Initiation,” patterned after those of the Gnostics, Therapeutia and the Mysteries of Egypt, and divided their neophytes and postulants into three degrees, as in Blue Lodge Masonry to-day.
While the great mass of mankind to-day are incapable of apprehending these genuine mysteriesof life, and of the individual soul of man, it is doubtful if any civilization ever existed where so many were willing and capable of understanding them as are found here in America to-day.
The reason for this and the growth of intelligence have already been outlined.
A new race is slowly forming here, designated by the ancient Wisdom as the “Fifth Race,” and called theManasic, the growth of Intelligence, or “Mind.”
It is above all things important that with this development ofMindthere should also develop that ofBuddhi, or Loving Kindness, the essential element in the Universal Brotherhood of Man; a thing largely overlooked in the modern theory of Evolution, and ignored, or set at naught by Romanism by its dogmas, anathemas, and persecutions. Instead of the brotherhood of man, she has exhibited the cruelty and rapacity of devils. (Establishment of Roman Catholic Caste.)
This all-around development of the whole man, as essential to human evolution, is everywhere insisted upon by all the great Masters of antiquity, and is illustrated and exemplified in the genuine Greater Mysteries.
Hence, the saying in Kabala, “The wickedobeythe law throughfear; the wisekeepthe law throughknowledge.” The Saviors all preached and practiced the “Good Law,” and obedience to legal mandates.
The explanation usually given of an Avatar bythe ancient Masters, as “a descent, embodiment, or incarnation ofVishnu,” who is not only the “Preserver,” but the “Rejuvenator” of mankind, is rather ablind, and was an interpretation given to the common people, or the “profane.”
All things—even heaven and earth—pass away, and all things are renewed.
This renewal, or regeneration, through the constructive principle of evolution, is “designed” to be continually on higher and still higher planes.
It is not the range of experience, nor the growth of intelligence alone, that elevates man, but the progressive and constructive growth of the soul, from the physical toward the spiritual plane of Being.
This actual growth means Knowledge, Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge of the Law, Obedience to its Commands, and Realization of its Rewards.
This Constructive Psychology is thegrowth of the Soul.
Man passes, therefore, from the age of Fable, Superstition, and Fear, to the age of Faith and Obedience, and finally to that of actual Knowledge.
Thisage of Knowledge—not for all of mankind, but for a larger number who are worthy and well-qualified, duly and truly prepared than was ever known at one time before—has at last dawned.
The question is continually asked, “Why do the Masters of Wisdom Conceal their Knowledge?”
The only adequate answer is that so few areready, willing, and able to receive it in the right way, and to use and not abuse it.
Those who deny that any such knowledge has ever existed, or exists to-day, or can exist, had better waste no time over it. They cannot alter it, nor destroy it, as their predecessors have tried to do for ages, often murdering or crucifying all who were even suspected of possessing it. They might as well try to destroy the law of gravitation, or imagine that by murdering the foremost mathematician of the day that they had destroyed the science of mathematics. I am speaking ofKnowledgeof Spiritual things.
A new Avatar, therefore, is not simply an individual, though many individuals may understand and exemplify it—the Initiated, the Illuminati—and one man may lead in representing it.
To call it “the descent and embodiment, or Incarnation of Vishnu,” in a metaphysical sense, the Spirit (generically), that renews, rejuvenates, transforms, and regenerates, is by no means an empty metaphor.
In the same sense we speak of the “Genius of Greece,” or of Rome, or of Civilization.
Theideais composite, and represents an underlying anduniversal principle and potency.
But after all metaphor and generalization, each Avataric movement centered around an individualMan, and thisManembodied the principle and undertook the special work of an evangel, orChristos, or “Avatar,” amongst men.
Not only have there been many Avatars, and many Buddhas, but when we realize the meaning of these terms and the mysteries they represent, we discover that while it may be the special mission of one, like Christna, or Buddha, or Jesus, to undertake the work of enlightening and redeeming any age; there are other Masters, or Illuminati, engaged in other work, on different planes, to promote the same general results.
The result with each of the great Saviors of mankind has been, that the common people, or the priesthood, have eventually either crucified or deified them.
In the case of Jesus they have done both. Eight separate and deliberate attempts have already been made to assassinate the present representative of the School of Natural Science, who was educated in the order of the Illuminati, and delegated by that Order to present these great truths to the world to-day.
This individual is only in the broadestmetaphysicalsense (as already defined), an Avatar, which, as shown, is acomposite idea,focusedin andrepresented byan individual man or teacher.
The work of this Master is to instruct, to exemplify, and to demonstrate, the ancient Wisdom on Scientific lines, in keeping with the needs, the opportunities, and the scientific spirit of the present age.
He does not preach to the multitude in parables. He undertakes to instruct the few who are readyand qualified to receive such instruction, and who will properly use and not abuse it, and he does this “without money and without price”; “without the hope of fee or reward.” (Herein is the Avataric Spirit of Freemasonry.)
What his reward will be with the rabble, or with the “money changers,” he knows too well, but to such as he, fear is unknown.
I am speaking notforhim, butofhim, after the blessed privilege of seven years of the most intimate association, and such co-operation as I have been capable of giving.
His plan and motive seem to be to get as much as possible of this knowledge of the soul, and of spiritual things, to the attention of the “progressive intelligence of the present age,” in order that it may become exemplified and diffused among all classes, and for the benefit of the whole human race.
We have passed the age of fable, and of blind faith, and have come to the age of fact and law.Kali Yugameans the Iron Age.
As two natures, the physical and spiritual, meet and mingle in the constitution of man, so do his faculties, capacities, and powers mingle and function on the two planes, the physical and the spiritual, though very largely on the former, with the great majority in any age or time.
There is implanted in the very foundation of man’s being the idea or the consciousness of a separable soul. It would seem to be an intuition,for with nearly every people of which we have any knowledge, no matter how near the animal plane, the belief or the folklore of a separable soul exists, in many cases held to be separable during life, and in most cases believed to survive the death of the physical body. (See folio editions of Herbert Spencer’s “Descriptive Sociology,” and Chapter XIII, herein.)
It has generally been held by scientists and commentators, that this intuition, or belief, results largely from dreams.
To say that dreams, in general, are mere fantasies, or the results of imagination, and have no real basis in consciousness, is folly; for dreams are of many kinds, and present great varieties.
They are, moreover, both reminiscent and prophetic, sometimes moving like any other conscious experience, from fact to fruition, and in others, we are unable to relate them to any other conscious experience.[1]
Hypnosis and Telepathy are related to the same states, so much so, that the modern scientist has been constrained to coin two new terms to avoid endless repetitions, viz.: “subliminal” and “supraliminal” states of consciousness.
Bearing in mind all these subjective states and experiences, including the whole range of so-called mediumship, thetheoremof the Masters and adepts of all ages may be made exceeding plain.
[Footnote 1: For a very valuable and suggestive treatise on “Sleep,” see F. W. H. Myers “Human Personality,” Chap. IV.]
It consists in thedominance of the Willover all conscious states.
This is theAlphaand theOmega—the principle, the potency, and the act—of Mastership.
The mind of the Master no longer drifts in a boundless sea of fantasy, but with rudder and compass, he guides his ship whithersoever he would go.
This does not mean that there are not still degrees and related states and conditions of consciousness in his experience.
It does mean, however, that all these states and conditions, with all his faculties, capacities, and powers, areco-ordinated, not only in hisawarenessof them as a whole, but in the exercise of each and its relation to the others, dominated by his own Will.
He has “Mastered” them, and can incite or repress them, while they can no longer dominate him. Can the reader imagine such a degree ofSelf-Control?
This, however, is but the beginning, as the “Secret of Power,” and by no means the end.
Controlling the phases and forms of consciousness, there comes next the determination to extend their boundary and torefine and elevate the powers of the Soul.
In the first case, that of co-ordination, the ancient Wisdom admonishes the student orchelato “make the mind one pointed, like a light burning in a quiet place.” Light a candle and put it in a cornerwhere no draught can reach it, and the flame will seem as though cut out of solid fire, and “one pointed.”
It is at the point of refining and elevating the individual consciousness that Ethics or Morals come in. It is just at this point also that thePathis determined.
What our ancient Brothers called “the power of Will and Yoga”—self-control—mayignore Ethics. Here the paths separate, and are called “the Right-hand Path” and “the Left-hand Path,” determining the “White” and the “Black Magician,” about whom so much is said in all ancient scriptures and traditions regarding “Sorcery” and “Black Magic,” of which Egypt and Rome and Modern Mediumship and Hypnotism, are illustrations.
Thesupreme importanceof this natural division or “parting of the way” reveals the real and final reason why the Masters of the “right-hand path” conceal their knowledge from the profane and reveal it only after an ethical formulary has been learned and once for allingrained.
The “Thugs” of India are no more an idle dream nor a bugaboo to frighten children and old women than are the Mafia and the Roman Jesuit to-day.
In Egypt the time came when these “Black Magicians” dominated the people and drove out those of the right-hand path who built the great pyramid and gave to Egypt the wisdom and glory of its prime.
The consciousness and power of these evil men, however, was limited to the lower planes. Whenever they wished to transcend these lower planes they were powerless. Hence arose theSibyl; young boys or virgins were hypnotized, and being pure, they could thus be inducted into a somewhat higher plane. (See Mabel Collins’ “Idyll of the White Lotus.”)
Margrave, in Bulwer’s “Strange Story,” is a fine picture of an “adept of the left-hand path.” He would sacrifice the whole human race in order to gain his personal and selfish ends, just as would “Mother Church” to-day.
The Master of the White Lodge would readily lay down his life for the benefit of his fellowmen. Herein is the vital difference.
Here lies the meaning and the complete antithesis represented byChristosandSatan. Both names are generic and Avataric, and yet, may be personified.
This elevating and refining process to which I have referred is not a matter of sentiment or emotion, but a matter of fact, with a definite, scientific formula.
In a previous chapter belief in the existence AND SEPARABILITY OF THE HUMAN SOUL HAS BEEN SHOWN to be virtually universal, and in some cases, even with people of very low development, the belief is held that the soul may be separated from the body and reunited again during life.
This is, however, abelief, and proves nothing astofact,science, andlaw, beyond the existence of the belief, with all the appurtenances, concomitants, and subjective experiences of individuals thereunto belonging.
We thus arrive at the realtheoremas a cold psychological problem.
Can the existence and separability of the soul of man, during his physical embodiment on earth, and its survival of the death of the physical body, be scientifically demonstrated as afact?
If so, then the principles involved, the methods employed and the wholemodus operandimust be capable of exact, scientific formulation, the same as any other theorem of science.
Furthermore, granting that this is true, and that it can be done according to exact formulary, the value, the effect of such a demonstration upon the character and the normal faculties, capacities, and powers of the individual who undertakes and accomplishes such a demonstration, must be revealed and taken fully into account.
Does it elevate or degrade him? Is it in line with normal evolution, and therefore, potentially the birthright, and finally, through spiritual evolution, the higher destiny of all men?
Nor is this all. The effect of the existence of such Knowledge and of its teaching, upon communities, as a substitute for blind superstition, credulity, or belief, must also be taken into account.
It may thus be seen how much even beyond the merefactof demonstration, is included in this transcendentproblem; this question of all ages, “If a man die, shall he live again?” or, “Does the real man ever die at all?”
Now it is a demonstrated fact, proven in every case of a genuine Master, and held inviolable in the “Greater Mysteries” of every age and time, that the ethical question above raised, as to the effect upon individuals and society,comes first, and is made atestof the “first step” in the way of demonstration.
This is the meaning of the oft repeated quotation, the candidate for initiation must first be “worthy and well-qualified, duly and truly prepared.”
This comprises and constitutes the “Lesser Mysteries,” as in the School of Pythagoras, viz.: the instruction of the neophyte in ethics or morals.
Nor is this instruction sufficient in any case. The candidate must himself demonstrate that he has absorbed, apprehended, and utilized such instruction by “Living the Life.”
In other words, it must have become so ingrained in his character as to govern absolutely all his acts and impulses to action, i.e., automatic, habitual, and natural.
In the School of Natural Science this comprises and constitutes the “Ethical Section of the General Formulary.”
In the School of Pythagoras we are informed that students sometimes remained for years in the “outer court,” and sometimes they failed entirely and hopelessly, and went back to the outer world.Whereupon a white stone was erected to their memory as though they were dead. They were indeed, for the time being, dead to the School.
This fully answers the ethical question as to the effect of this real knowledge on the individual and on mankind.
The real Master sees to it that all that precaution can provide, or human wisdom can suggest, is done to insure beneficentuseof the knowledge gained.
It is here that “degrees” in initiation become a necessity. Every step, or passage of the candidate from a lower to a higher degree, is marked and determined finally and solely by his “proficiency in the preceding degree.”
The question of Morals, or the ethical effect, therefore, is pre-determined, and as far as possible, solved first.
But even with all this wise precaution, the unprepared and the unqualified have sometimes entered the outer courts; and when compelled at last to reveal their character, have turned to rend their teachers, and have done their utmost to destroy the School and demoralize mankind.
If these moral renegades could only realize themeaning to themselvesof thus entering the “Left-hand Path” of devolution and of starting voluntarily “down the deep descent,” as portrayed in Dante’s “Inferno,” or in Ahrinzeman, they would, indeed, hesitate long before “turning to the left,” for inevitable destruction lies that way.
Here lies the scientific explanation of the “Fallof Lucifer,” portrayed in some form in the pantheons and mythologies of every philosophy and religion known to man.
The ordinary “sinner” may yet possess an “average” of all the virtues, and the ordinary “saint” an “average” of all the vices. Concerning these it was said, “I would have you either hot or cold, but because ye are neither hot nor cold, I have spewed you out of my mouth.” No lukewarm soul ever entered the Kingdom of Heaven.
But a time at last comes when the soul of man, enmeshed in the “lusts of the flesh and the deceitfulness of riches,”must make his choice. Herealizesthat he can no longer “serve two masters.” He will make his choice knowingly, deliberately, and voluntarily. Happy and blessed will be he if with his whole soul, and with every impulse of his being, he declares, “I know not what others may do,but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
If there are real Masters (and there are), they have to work under both Natural and Divine Law, and in strict harmony with the higher evolution of the whole human race.
It is only a low, feeble, and undeveloped intelligence that finds God and Nature at cross-purposes.
He who has found “the place of peace,” harmonized his own nature, purified his own life, and elevated all his desires and aspirations, has discerned the “harmony of the morning stars,” and caught the symphony of the heavenly hosts. Inother words, he is already functioning on the Spiritual Plane.
This would seem to make clear the ethical problem raised, the stress placed upon it, and how it is met and answered by every genuine Initiate throughout the ages.
It has to be solvedfirstin each individual case. Only “he wholives the lifeshall know the doctrine,” or advance to power.