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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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."

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KATHERINE TINGLEY, EDITOR

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:

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.

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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.

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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:

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 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.

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

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She adds:

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,

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.

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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

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.

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

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

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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:

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

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.

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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

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

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

[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.

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:

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

She also informs us that

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:

[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.

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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

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:

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

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 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]

[Pg 87]

KATHERINE TINGLEY, EDITOR

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

A writer in Records of the Past, says:

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:

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

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

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.

[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.

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.

[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.

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:

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.

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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 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:

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.

[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:

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."

[Pg 131]

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

He used to call admonishing, "feeding storks."

(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:

[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:

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

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.

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 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

"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 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: .