weaken the will, or to indulge the passions and emotions, in order to decide the matter, derange the mind, and send the individual to an asylum.
On the other hand, with individuals who lead a clean, cheerful, well-ordered life, these experiences may mean encouragement, confirmation, and progress toward the spiritual realm of being. They should be observed carefully, but not cultivated. They may serve as guide-posts and as mere incidents of a day’s journey.
The average popular cult to-day, as often in the past, where psychical phenomena are involved, results in converting the normal mental realm, the realm of normal self-consciousness, into a vaudeville performance; a mere “Variety Show,” where all due sense of proportion and relation is lost.
In place of the normal Individual Intelligence, sitting serenely on the throne of life and ruling his Kingdom with justice, wisdom and paternal love, the king joins the melee of acrobats and dancing girls, encourages the orchestra till, in a pandemonium of revelry, he puts out the lights, or in wild frenzy fires the building.
Sometimes it claims to “command success” by demanding it; or wealth without earning it; or health without regard to hygienic law; or by “taking a Mantram” to open the gates of heaven. Or again, by servile obedience to the freaks or dogmas of a “Leader” or “Official Head” and adulation ad nauseam, to gain admission to the “Elect.”
One and all of these, from first to last, tend toward Devolution. They are destructive, not constructive, in building character and true manhood and womanhood.
Again, the Monk or the devotee abandons society, becomes a recluse, flees into the desert or the mountain, subsists upon roots or herbs, sits in one posture till the joints of the body become fixed, holds the arms above the head till they become immovable, and the finger nails turn and grow through the palms of the hands; or sits gazing at the navel and repeating the word Om.
Indeed, it would seem that the ways and means to stop normal growth, constructive evolution and healthy living, had been well-nigh exhausted.
The enthusiast, the fanatic and the “easy mark” of to-day are seldom aware of any of these things, and so they are bled, fleeced, and exploited accordingly. “All is Mind!” “Great is Elijah!” or “Mrs.” Elijah, and Oahspe is his Prophet! while Babel reigns in the place of Natural Science.
The Theosophical Movement inaugurated in this country by H. P. Blavatsky in 1875, differed essentially and radically from all others; first, in placing ethics as the first stone in the foundation of a real knowledge of the nature of man. Its objects as concisely stated at the time were —
First: To establish a nucleus for a Universal Brotherhood of Man.
Second: To study ancient religions, philosophies and sciences, and determine their relations and values.
Third: To investigate the Psychical Powers latent in Man.
Hospitality to Truth from any source and under any name, was characteristic of the movement during the entire lifetime of the Founders.
Dogma was eliminated, Authority beyond facts and demonstrated truth denied, and Superstition regarded as only another name for ignorance.
While the facts and the demonstrations of Science were recognized, and given the largest hospitality, nevertheless, the “Secret Doctrine” and, in a broad sense, the whole movement was an effort to present to modern times, and particularly to the Western world, the most ancient and pure philosophy of old India, the Vedanta or “Wisdom-Religion.”
An immense work of rejuvenation has gone on in India, particularly in the establishment and maintenance of Schools for Girls, and in the relief of poverty and discouragement of the teeming millions.
An immense literature was created, not yet appreciated, except by students here and there, who found light, explanation, and encouragement in their studies of the mysteries of Nature and of life.
Since the death of the founders of the Society, in this country at least, only a few branches and fragments of the original organization now remain.
“Leaders” and “Official Heads” often wholly ignorant of the Philosophy, which colossal egotism and exploitation could hardly supply, have brought the very names “Theosophy” and “Brotherhood” into contempt and ridicule in many sections.
As some of these “official heads” are still in evidence, final results cannot now be formulated, and need not be here considered or forecast. The evidence is not all in.
Personally, I desire to record my great indebtedness and highest appreciation of a noble life and a magnificent work accomplished by one of the most remarkable and unselfish women known to history, and for the light and knowledge which she made accessible, and which I still hold, practically unchanged, but with the theorems of Natural Science, in place of the postulates of Philosophy as better fitting “the progressive intelligence” of the present time.
The two lines of presentation when clearly apprehended are not antagonistic, but supplementary. Their aims and purpose are the same.
CHAPTER IV
THE MEASURE OF VALUES
This is a very utilitarian age. Start almost any subject, propose almost any scheme, adventure, or investment, and the question is asked, “Will it pay?” The multitude are cautious; the lower stratum, the unsuccessful – the poor and the oppressed – are envious and often bitter and resentful; the successful are often reckless, dissipated, and proud.
I am not writing an essay on Economics, but on Ethics and Psychology; on the character, value, and use of the resources within ourselves; our real possessions. Here only may be found actual values.
I am not considering the “hereafter,” as to “rewards and punishments”; what gods, devils, angels, or men may do to us, here or hereafter; but what we may (if we choose) do for ourselves.
This question is practical to the last degree. Put the question, “does it pay?” and I answer: It pays like nothing else on earth; it is the only thing that is independent of time, place, or circumstance.
It concerns man’s actual possessions, of which nothing in “the three worlds” can ever dispossess him. I know of nothing so beneficent, in any concept of God or Nature, Providence or Destiny, as this birthright and opportunity of man, to build character, and be what he chooses to be.
He who knows his power, realizes his opportunity and utilizes his resources, may build a Palace of the Soul, in which he may dwell, literally, in a “kingdom of heaven.” And because God is the Architect, and Man the Contractor and Builder, working strictly to the “plans” and the designs, “that house shall stand.” It is founded on the “Rock of Ages.”
Did anyone ever know or see a noble character that was not built by the Individual himself, by personal effort, by self-control, by self-denial, by justice and kindness to others; often in the face of Poverty; often in spite of wealth; often in the face of sickness, pain and deformity; perhaps deaf and dumb and blind; and yet, like Helen Keller, the soul triumphant and glorified?
To-day, as I write, I went to the Crematory to see the dissolution of a poor, twisted, deformed, and tortured body of a woman past fifty, in which had dwelt a soul so serene, cheerful, and patient, that the beatitudes clustered around her, like doves in a garden of roses. It required no stretch of the imagination to determine what society she had entered. “Like seeks like,” and each “goes to his own place.” Her motive,
