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Title: Last letters from the living dead man
Author: Elsa Barker
Release date: October 5, 2025 [eBook #76990]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1919
Credits: Peter Becker, Laura Natal and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD MAN ***
LAST LETTERS
FROM THE LIVING DEAD MAN
BY ELSA BARKER
LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN
WAR LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD
MAN
SONGS OF A VAGROM ANGEL
LAST LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD
MAN
THE SON OF MARY BETHEL
THE FROZEN GRAIL
THE BOOK OF LOVE
STORIES FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT
FOR CHILDREN
LAST LETTERS
FROM THE
LIVING DEAD MAN
WRITTEN DOWN
BY
ELSA BARKER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
PRINTED IN AMERICA BY
J. J. LITTLE & IVES COMPANY
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 7
LETTER
I THE GENIUS OF AMERICA 49
II FEAR NOT 54
III THE PROMISE OF SPRING 61
IV THE DIET OF GOLD 67
V CONTINGENT FEES 71
VI THE THREE APPEALS 74
VII THE BUILDERS 76
VIII THE WORLD OF MIND 88
IX AMERICA’S GOOD FRIDAY 95
X THE CRUCIBLE 97
XI MAKE CLEAN YOUR HOUSE 103
XII LEVEL HEADS 109
XIII TREES AND BRICK WALLS 112
XIV INVISIBLE ARMIES 114
XV THE WEAKEST LINK 118
XVI A COUNCIL IN THE FOREST 123
XVII THE IDEAL OF SUCCESS 140
XVIII ORDER AND PROGRESS 147
XIX THE FEDERATION OF NATIONS 155
XX THE NEW IDEAL 159
XXI A RAMBLING TALK 166
XXII THE LEVER OF WORLD UNITY 171
XXIII THE STARS OF MAN’S DESTINY 179
XXIV MELANCHOLY 182
XXV COMPENSATORY PLAY 190
XXVI THE AQUARIAN AGE 198
XXVII THE WATCHERS 209
XXVIII A RITUAL OF FELLOWSHIP 216
XXIX RECRUITING AGENTS 218
XXX THE VIRUS OF DISRUPTION 227
XXXI THE ALTAR FIRE 235
LAST LETTERS FROM THE LIVING DEAD MAN
INTRODUCTION
THIS book, the third and last of the Living Dead Man series, was
written between February, 1917, and February, 1918. Then I lost the
ability--or perhaps I should say the inclination--to do automatic
writing.
As this third manuscript was shorter than the other two, I had supposed
it to be a fragment which would probably never be finished; and it was
not until my publisher urged me to issue it _as_ a fragment that I
read it all over for the first time and discovered that it was really a
complete thing, an organic whole.
“Perhaps,” I told myself, surprised and still half-incredulous, “there
_is_ a divinity that shapes our ends.” For had this book been
published when it was written, it would have seemed premature; now the
greater part of it is timely as yesterday’s editorials.
For the benefit of those who have not read the earlier books of the
series, “Letters From a Living Dead Man,” 1914, and “War Letters From
the Living Dead Man,” 1915, I will quote from the Introductions of
those books. In the first Introduction I said:
“One night last year in Paris I was strongly impelled to take up a
pencil and write, though what I was to write about I had no idea.
Yielding to the impulse, my hand was seized as if from the outside,
and a remarkable message of a personal nature came, followed by the
signature ‘X.’
“The purport of the message was clear, but the signature puzzled me.
“The following day I showed this writing to a friend, asking her if
she had any idea who ‘X’ was.
“‘Why,’ she replied, ‘don’t you know that that is what we always call
Mr. ----?’
“I did not know.
“Now, Mr. ---- was six thousand miles from Paris, and, as we supposed,
in the land of the living. But a day or two later a letter came to me
from America, stating that Mr. ---- had died in the western part of
the United States, a few days before I received in Paris the automatic
message signed ‘X.’
“So far as I know, I was the first person in Europe to be informed
of his death, and I immediately called on my friend to tell her that
‘X’ had passed out. She did not seem surprised, and told me that she
had felt certain of it some days before, when I had shown her the ‘X’
letter, though she had not said so at the time.
“Naturally I was impressed by this extraordinary incident....
“But to the whole subject of communication between the two worlds I
felt an unusual degree of indifference. Spiritualism had always left
me quite cold, and I had not even read the ordinary standard works on
the subject....
“Several letters signed ‘X’ were automatically written during the next
few weeks; but, instead of becoming enthusiastic, I developed a strong
disinclination for this manner of writing, and was only persuaded to
continue it through the arguments of my friend that if ‘X’ really
wished to communicate with the world, I was highly privileged in being
able to help him....
“Gradually, as I conquered my strong prejudice against automatic
writing, I became interested in the things which ‘X’ told me about the
life beyond the grave....
“When it was first suggested that these letters should be published
with an introduction by me, I did not take very enthusiastically to
the idea. Being the author of several books, more or less well known,
I had my little vanity as to the stability of my literary reputation.
I did not wish to be known as an eccentric, a ‘freak.’ But I consented
to write an introduction stating that the letters were automatically
written in my presence, which would have been the truth, though not
all the truth. This satisfied my friend; but as time went on, it did
not satisfy me. It seemed not quite sincere.
“I argued the matter out with myself.... The letters were probably
two-thirds written before this question was finally settled; and I
decided that if I published the letters at all, I should publish them
with a frank introduction, stating the exact circumstances of their
reception by me.”
The interest aroused by “Letters From a Living Dead Man,” which had
been published simultaneously in London and New York, astonished me.
Requests for translation rights began to come in, and I was flooded
with letters from all parts of the world. I answered as many as I
could, but to answer all was quite impossible.
Now I will quote again, briefly, from the Introduction to the second
volume, “War Letters From the Living Dead Man,” 1915.
“In that first book of ‘X’ I did not state who the writer was, not
feeling at liberty to do so without the consent of his family; but
in the summer of 1914, while I was still living in Europe, a long
interview with Mr. Bruce Hatch appeared in the ‘New York Sunday
World,’ in which he expressed the conviction that the ‘Letters’ were
genuine communications from his father, the late Judge David P. Hatch,
of Los Angeles, California....
“After the Letters were finished in 1913, during a period of about
two years I was conscious of the presence of ‘X’ only on two or three
occasions, when he wrote some brief advice in regard to my personal
affairs.
“On the fourth of February, 1915, in New York, I was suddenly made
aware one day that ‘X’ stood in the room and wished to write; but as
always before, with one or two exceptions, I had not the remotest
idea of what he was going to say. He wrote as follows:
“‘When I come back and tell you the story of this war, as seen from
the other side, you will know more than all the Chancelleries of the
nations.’”
Then I went on to describe the process of my automatic writing, adding:
“No person who had had even a minute fraction of my occult experience
could be more coldly critical of that experience than I am. I freely
welcome every logical argument against the belief that these letters
are what they purport to be; but placing those arguments in opposition
to the evidence which I have of the genuineness of them, the
affirmations outweigh the denials, and I accept them. This evidence is
too complex and much of it too personal to be even outlined here.”
The second volume, which dealt with the war from the hidden side of
things, and predicted the victory of the Allies, aroused even more
interest than the first one. The flood of letters continued.
In 1916, at the kind insistence of Joyce Kilmer, I published another
and different little book of automatic writings, “Songs of a Vagrom
Angel,” the angel being the Beautiful Being described by “X” in the
Living Dead Man books. The “Songs” were charmingly received by the
critics. The whole book, with the exception of three of the songs, had
been “written down” in twenty-two hours.
In the summer of 1916 I went to California, and it was there, in
February, 1917, that the writing of this third book began.
But I was growing more and more restive at the swamping of my literary
career by automatic writings, and my mountainous correspondence left
me less and less time for original work. Finally, in February, 1918,
the “inner conflict” culminated in a complete cessation of automatic
writing.
The artist in me had become exasperated. If the reader will permit
the exaggeration of the simile, I felt as a man might feel who was
caught between the jaws of a lion that was carrying him away into a
trackless jungle. Before March, 1914, I had been known as a poet and a
novelist; since 1914 my name had become known in more countries than
I have counted as a “psychic,” a medium of communication between the
visible and the invisible worlds. I was not sorry that I had published
the books, because so many people had written me that I had saved them
from despair and even suicide; but I shrank from the publicity they
brought me. I have been nearly devoured by these books and the readers
of these books. I felt, in February, 1918, that I had a right to say
that the incident was closed.
But that did not mean a cessation of correspondence. Suffering souls
to whose letters the limitations of time and uncertain health (for I
had not been well since 1915) made it impossible to respond by return
of post, would write again reproaching me with indifference to their
sufferings. The situation had become inconceivable. And if I went out
somewhere for an hour or two of social “rest,” I was surrounded by
people who wanted me to talk to them about the “X” books, about their
own dead friends, and the possibilities of communication.
I was torn by pity for those who were suffering, and after years of war
nearly everyone was suffering; but I wanted to be at the front with
the Red Cross, and my health would not permit me to go. I could help
various war committees, but I could not go to my tortured and beloved
France--to be perhaps an added burden, should I break down altogether.
The only escape from this conflict was in abstruse studies, studies
where pure mind can work. So I seriously took up Analytical Psychology,
in which I had been mildly interested since 1915. Some fourteen hours a
day for a year I studied, some of the time with a teacher, some of the
time alone. I burrowed under the theories of the three great schools,
and synthesized them, after my fashion. I had rather an active mind to
experiment upon--my own. The “resistances,” so-called, had been broken
down by the teacher.
One of the things which appealed most to my reason was Jung’s
insistence upon the psychological (and therefore practical) value of
the irrational. He says:
“There is no human foresight nor philosophy which can enable us to
give our lives a prescribed direction, except for quite a short
distance. Destiny lies before us, perplexing us, and teeming with
possibilities, and yet only one of these many possibilities is our
own particular right way.... Much can certainly be attained by
will-power. But ... our will is a function that is directed by our
powers of reflection.... Has it ever been proved, or can it ever be
proved, that life and destiny harmonize with our human reason, that
is, that they are exclusively rational? On the contrary, we have
ground for supposing that they are also irrational, that is to say,
that in the last resort they too are based in regions beyond the
human reason. The irrationality of the great process is shown by its
so-called _accidentalness_.... The rich store of life both is,
and is not, determined by law; it is at the same time rational and
irrational. Therefore, the reason and the will founded upon it are
only valid for a short distance. The further we extend this rationally
chosen direction, the surer we may be that we are thereby excluding
the irrational possibilities of life, which have, however, just as
good a right to be lived. Aye, we may injure ourselves, since we
cut off the wealth of accidental eventualities by a too rigid and
conscious direction.... The present fearful catastrophic world-war has
tremendously upset the most optimistic upholder of rationalism and
culture.”
Now my rationally chosen “line of life” had been that of writing books
of poetry, fiction and essays. But “accidentalness” cut in, and I wrote
automatically and published what I had written. That destiny, that
second line of life, may also have been, for all we can prove to the
contrary, based “in regions beyond the human reason.”
I should not like to say that my having led the way, in the spring of
1914, for writers of dignified reputation to publish their automatic
writings might have been causally directed by the coming great need of
the world for spiritual consolation during the most awful holocaust in
history. That would be pressing irrationality too far.
But that second line of life, as Jung would call it, came to its
inevitable end with the last of this manuscript in February, 1918. The
cause of that was also seemingly accidental. But as this Introduction
is only an introduction, it is impossible to follow the course of all
the drops of water in the broad river that has flowed under my mental
bridges during the last fourteen months.
My present line of life (and through the analysis of my dreams I have
means of knowing what it is) points to the resumption of my original
literary work, poetry, fiction and essays, and to the exclusion, so
far as possible, of everything that would deflect me from that course.
“Accidentality” will cut in from time to time, change of place and
therefore change of outlook, studies of all sorts, and legitimate
demands by that society of which I form a part; but I have done enough
automatic writing. Others will do it, if it must be done; and probably
it must--because it is an outlet which it might be unsafe to stop up in
the present state of the race consciousness.
Of course if I should feel strongly impelled to do automatic writing, I
should do it, trusting to that destiny which is another name for causes
beyond our comprehension; but it was the strength of my “inner protest”
that made me realize that I had gone far enough along that line.
As in the forewords to the former books, I state the psychological
situation of the moment, saying, “so and so happened.” The reader, as
before, will interpret in his own way. This introduction indicates my
point of view in the month of April, 1919. Before the month of May,
2019, I shall have solved the problem of survival, or demonstrated
(without knowing it) that it is insoluble.
The more we know about all these things, the less likely we are to
assume that we have the sum of all knowledge. We are like children,
groping among psychological lights and shadows.
My own belief in immortality seems ineradicable. I did not know that
until it was tested out. But we must always remember that our personal
belief is not absolute evidence of the truth of what we believe--at
least until we shall have examined all the psychological roots of
the belief, and in the present state of our knowledge that is
well-nigh impossible. Our rational belief, if we have formed one for
ourselves and have not merely accepted uncritically the beliefs of our
predecessors and associates, is merely our individual synthesis. But we
must not give an exaggerated value even to our own hard-won synthesis.
That also is a moving, an ever-changing, thing. Otherwise we should not
grow. When a man becomes fixed he begins to disintegrate.
In the first book of this series I stated the fact that I had never
been interested in spiritualism. Consciously, I never had. Now, Dr.
Alfred Adler, the head of what we may call the Ego School of analysis,
says: “Often the negation is the assertion of an old interest that
has become unconscious.” Yes.... My father was deeply interested
in spiritualism, and I was born in an old house where ghosts were
supposed to walk. My mother was afraid of the subject. My father died
when I was thirteen. I was always a little afraid of my father. The
first time I met Judge Hatch I told him that perhaps he had been my
father in a “former incarnation.” He smiled, and said, “Maybe.”
No microscopist had ever a greater interest in facts than I have. My
scientific friends say, “A scientist was lost in you.” Other friends
say, “You are a great psychic.” So there I found myself. In studying
with the scientific half the phenomena of the psychic half, I am able
to unify them.
The _authority_ of the Church has been knocked from under us. We
are adrift, we thinking humans of the early twentieth century, upon a
sea of mind, stormtossed by winds of feeling. We were just beginning
to believe in universal brotherhood--when universal war broke out. Our
steersman seemed to have been washed overboard. Everybody wants to take
the helm, distrusting his neighbor’s judgment. Is it any wonder that
bewildered souls by thousands turned to automatic writing, seeking for
guidance, for something _authoritative_? In childhood our parents
guided us. Later the Church guided us--or tried to. Then science guided
us--a little too far. And in the reaction we turned inward, to find
(sometimes) the unconscious more troubled than the conscious. But in
the Letters which follow there is no despair, only light and courage
and hope.
There seem to be two main streams in us, the mental and the
instinctive. Bergson says, in his “Creative Evolution,” “There are
things which intelligence alone is able to seek, but which, by itself,
it will never find. These things instinct alone could find; but it will
never seek them.”
It was inevitable that modern psychology, with its constructive
curiosity, should turn its attention to the religious beliefs of the
past and present. There was no other way of understanding what really
goes on in the minds of people. Some of these old beliefs proved,
on examination, to be scientifically tenable. For instance, the
Theosophists (who got the idea from the Hindoos) tell us there are two
streams of evolution, the elemental and the human. Dr. C. J. Jung,
the head of the Swiss school of Analytical Psychology, divides the
stream of “energy” into two currents, one going forward and one going
backward. And this duality of will Bleuler calls “ambitendency.” The
difference is chiefly a difference of phraseology and associations.
“Always the pull of the opposites,” I quote from the Letters which
follow. The present psychic wave which is sweeping over the world is
accompanied by modern analytical psychology. Truth may lie in the
synthesis.
Between the credulity of those who believe everything purporting to
come from the other side of the veil, who accept every suggestion from
anybody claiming to be “psychic” who half-closes the eyes and says
dreamily, “You will do so and so,”--between this thirst for delusion
and the materialists’ denial that there is anything but matter and the
functions of _matter_, there is also a middle ground.
The great pioneer of analytical psychology himself said, in a recent
little volume on “War and Death,” translated by Dr. A. A. Brill: “In
the unconscious every one of us is convinced of his own immortality.”
Suppose the unconscious should be right?
And, by the way, between the statement of Christian Scientists, “All is
love,” and the statement of the parent school of psychoanalysis, “All
is libido,” there is striking similarity.
Jung would say, “All is energy.” Judge Hatch wrote, in a little
book published in 1905, “We postulate immortal Units of Force,
each having the power to generate a constant but limited amount of
energy, and no two alike in quantity. Upon this force generation in
the unit, necessitated by law, do we base life. Life results from
the inter-dealing and inter-playing of these units among themselves
eternally, sometimes potential, again kinetic, each limited in the
amount of force generated, but unlimited in variety of motion,
manifestation or specialization.”
Truth may indeed be one, though the roads to it are many.
Fechner’s assertion, that the dead live in us and so influence us, does
not require much stretching to fit the hypothesis that the entire past
of the human race is contained in the deeper levels of the unconscious.
If we go deep enough in analysis that hypothesis is illustrated by
strange phenomena.
It is unwise, at the present time more than any other, even to try
to take away man’s belief in immortality. The world is too sad, too
near the ragged edge where personal uncertainty drifts into social
irresponsibility. The psychic wave that is sweeping over the world,
though it is being carried to excess, as all overcompensations are,
answers nevertheless to a tremendous need. Credulity is the other end
of doubt.
Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe, in the Introduction to his translation of
Silberer’s “Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism,” says:
“Much of the strange and _outré_, as well as the commonplace,
in human activity conceals energy transformations of inestimable
value in the work of sublimation. The race would go mad without it.
It sometimes does even with it, a sign that sublimation is still
imperfect and that the race is far from being spiritually well. A
comprehension of the principles here involved would further the spread
of sympathy for all forms of thinking and tend to further spiritual
health in such mutual comprehension of the needs of others and of the
forms taken by sublimation processes.”
William James defended the Christian Scientists. And Jung himself says,
in one of his famous letters to Dr. Loy, “Every method is good if it
serves its purpose, including Christian Science, Mental Healing, etc.”
During the last five years man has had such varied reasons for fearing
objective things that he has come to fear the subjective, perhaps even
more than during the Middle Ages.
Dr. H. W. Frink says, in his masterly book on “Morbid Fears and
Compulsions”: “The biological function or purpose of fear is protective
or preservative. Every one of us alive to-day owes his existence to the
fact that his human and pre-human ancestors were afraid.”
Nearly everyone is afraid of something. Sublime Jeanne d’Arc was
terribly afraid of the fire. (Perhaps she had been badly burned in
infancy, and the unconscious memory twisted and turned in the deeps of
her pure soul. Perhaps, and perhaps ... for we shall never know.)
When we really know what fear is, we shall have solved the mystery of
“the one and the many” that disturbed the cerebration of our ancestors.
Fear may be a momentary surging up of the ego’s consciousness of
its own helpless littleness before the immensity of the unknown and
unknowable non-ego. The reckless courage of the soldier may be an
overcompensation, a triumphant sublimation--sometimes followed by
reaction, secret or unconcealable, depending on the intensity.
For, as Silberer says, “The conflicts do not indeed lie in the external
world, but in our _emotional disposition towards it_; if we change
this disposition by an inner development, the external world has a
different value....”
Man is indeed his own cosmos, the microcosm of the macrocosm, to a
degree incomprehensible to one who has not intelligently studied (and
in himself) the phenomena of “projection,” and compensation including
sublimation.
The great mystics of all ages, through introversion, having discovered
this and reduced it to a science, after their fashion, great modern
scientists like Jung and Silberer have found their systems worthy of
profound study.
Writing of mysticism, Professor Dwelshauvers of Brussels says:
“The effects of mystic union are logical and coherent; a second
quality of the acts of the order of grace is the positive character of
the contribution, the increase which they bring to the psychic life of
those who benefit by them.... The idea of God, the divine presence,
or any other form of inspiration, is no more strange to the mind of
the religious man than is for the _savant_ the sudden conception
of a solution long sought for, or for the artist the vision of the
work which he meditates and of which he pursues the construction
with patience and tenacity.... Neither the invasion of the soul by
God, nor the ‘return’ of the mystics, has any resemblance to mental
disintegration.”
It is not easy to get rid of God.
Will you read what Jung says on this subject in the “Collected Papers
on Analytical Psychology,” edited by Dr. Constance E. Long:
“The concept of God is simply a necessary psychological function....
The _concensus gentium_ has spoken of gods for æons past, and
will be speaking of them in æons to come. Beautiful and perfect as
man may think his reason, he may nevertheless assure himself that
it is only one of the possible mental functions, coinciding merely
with the corresponding side of the phenomena of the universe. All
around is the irrational, that which is not congruous with reason.
And this irrationalism is likewise a psychological function, namely
the absolute unconscious; whilst the function of consciousness is
essentially rational.... Heraclitus, the ancient, that really very
wise man, discovered the most wonderful of all psychological laws,
namely, the _regulating function of antithesis_. He termed this
enantiodromia’ (clashing together) by which he meant that at some time
everything meets with its opposite.... Man may not _identify_
himself with reason, for he is not wholly a rational being, and never
can or ever will become one. That is a fact of which every pedant of
civilization should take note. What is irrational cannot and may not
be stamped out. The gods cannot and may not die. Woe betide those men
who have disinfected heaven with rationalism; God-Almightiness has
entered into them, because they would not admit God as an absolute
function.... Only he escapes from the cruel law of enantiodromia who
knows how to separate himself from the unconscious--not by repressing
it, for then it seizes him from behind--_but by presenting it
visibly to himself as something that is totally different from
him_.... He must learn to differentiate in his thoughts between
what is the ego and what is the non-ego. The latter is the collective
psyche or absolute unconscious.... In order to differentiate the
psychological ego from the psychological non-ego, man must necessarily
stand _upon firm feet_ in his ego-function....
“Obviously the depreciation and repression of such a powerful function
as that of religion has serious consequences for the psychology of
the individual.... One period of skepticism came to a close with the
horrors of the French revolution. At the present time we are again
experiencing an ebullition of the unconscious destructive powers
of the collective psyche. The result is an unparalleled general
slaughter. That is just what the unconscious was tending towards.
This tendency had previously been inordinately strengthened by
the rationalism of modern life, which by depreciating everything
irrational caused the function of irrationalism to sink into the
unconscious....”
“There is indeed no possible alternative but to acknowledge
irrationalism as a psychological function that is necessary and always
existent. Its results are not to be taken as concrete realities (that
would involve repression), but as _psychological realities_. They
are realities because they are _effective_ things, that is, they
are _actualities_.”
So we need not be ashamed to admit that we pray! In this grim period of
history, when the soul is face to face with itself and its brother as
it has never been, we may speak with a greater simplicity than in the
old conventionally-smiling days before the war. I pray--and so do you,
whoever you are, if only by groaning “Oh, God!” when you suffer. Prayer
is an instinct. Even an atheist will pray, if he finds himself beyond
human aid. A friend of mine who was killed at the front used to take
holy communion every morning, and he was doubtless a saner and better
soldier for it. One need not be a Roman Catholic to see the beauty of
that act of faith.
Whether God be a “dominant of the superpersonal unconscious,” a
psychological function, or a mathematical equation, makes not the
slightest difference to me. As William James would say, “He works.”
And whether the souls of our dead live in us, as Fechner says, or
whether they are relics in the personal and collective unconscious, or
whether they are “concrete realities” that can materialize by using
astral and etheric substance, makes also not the slightest difference
to me. If you could know how utterly I am at peace about this whole
question!
And many other differences appear, on close examination, to be mainly
differences of viewpoint and phraseology. The “astral world” of the
Theosophists, mediæval and modern, corresponds to a certain level of
the unconscious. “X” says in one of the Letters which follow, written
in 1917, that melancholy may be produced by the pressure of the unhappy
dead who make us fear. If you locate the dead in the unconscious, which
surges up in moments of passivity, the dead will have the same effect.
Having given much of the leisure time of a laborious life to a study of
the theories and practices of mysticism and occultism, as formulated
by many different schools, I could write volumes (if I had the
inclination, which I have not) in tracing out the psychological roots
and the relations between these things. My own unconscious is rich with
such images. Some of the most striking parallels have not been written
about, so far as I know.
And Jung seems to have covered, with the wide mantle of his
comprehension, even the frailties of those who believe in prophetic
dreams. He says:
“The unconscious possesses possibilities of wisdom that are completely
closed to consciousness, for the unconscious has at its disposal not
only all the psychic contents that are under the threshold because
they have been forgotten or overlooked, but also the wisdom of the
experience of untold ages, deposited in the course of time and
lying potential in the human brain. The unconscious is continually
active, creating combinations of its materials; these serve to
indicate the _future path_ of the individual. It creates
prospective combinations just as our consciousness does, only they are
considerably superior to the conscious combinations both in refinement
and extent. The unconscious may therefore be an unparalleled guide for
human beings....
“The unconscious must contain all the material that has _not yet_
reached the level of consciousness. These are the germs of future
conscious contents.”
He seems to think that true prophecies are merely the result of
synthesis by the unconscious of tendencies (_whether in the personal
or universal unconscious_) significant for future occurrences.
Referring to Maeterlinck’s “inconscient supérieur,” he says of the
prophetic interpretation of dreams:
“The aversion of the exact sciences against this sort of
thought-process which is hardly to be called phantastic is only an
_overcompensation_ of the thousands of years old but all too
great inclination of man to believe in soothsaying.”
I am told that the hearing of voices in the hypnogogic state indicates
“a slight tendency to dissociation.” Very well. Probably the voices
come from a deeper level than automatic writing, whatever the
inspiration of automatic writing may be.
Now while the things which “X” in the following letters advised
America to do, before America came into the war, were the very things
which we did _after_ we came into the war and which we could not
have done except as war measures, our entrance was not written down as
a specific prophecy in these letters. Any startling prophecy has always
had a tendency to shake me out of the passive state in which automatic
writing is possible. _But_--during the weeks from February to
April, 1917, in the hypnogogic state preceding sleep, I several times
heard, “We are coming into the war.” Of course I did not write that
down in the manuscript, as _it was not a part of the manuscript_.
What is heard is heard, what is written is written. I merely mention
it as a curious phenomenon for it was probably the synthesis of the
_deeper levels_ of my unconscious. It was certainly the tragic
hope of my conscious mind; but the conscious alone would not have
produced a voice.
If anybody wonders that I should admit hearing hypnogogic voices,
I can only say that I regard these things rather objectively and
impersonally. I never hear voices except when half-asleep. If my very
accurate memory has not slipped a cog, William James used to talk
freely of his hypnogogic experiences. The more we know about our little
personalities, the less monstrously important they seem. And the
“hearing of voices” has more than once played a respectable rôle in
history, before and after Moses.
But I do not imagine that I have any prophetic mission, nor do I feel
in any hurry to “unite myself with the ocean of divinity,” nor feel any
impulse violently to turn my back upon the universal. There is a happy
mean, which makes for efficiency in life, for health and understanding.
I have touched upon analytical psychology in this Introduction because
I am so constituted that I cannot publish this last volume of my
automatic writings without indicating my point of view, with the same
frankness as in former Introductions. Please do not blame science
because I have not lost through the analytic process my instinctive
belief in individual immortality. I assure you it has not been the
fault of science.
If anyone objects that I have only touched the threads of this great
web of psychology which lead towards the subject of this book, I can
only say that this foreword being by way of preface to this book, no
other course was possible on account of the limitations of space and
artistic relevancy.
Psychology as a method of healing I leave to the physicians, who have
written many books about it, containing bibliographies. And booksellers
have catalogues. Anyone interested can write to them.
This is by way of excusing myself from answering letters of enquiry. I
have unselfishly and laboriously written so many hundreds of letters!
Now I want to write other things. The resolution of psychological
“complexes” frees energy for sublimation in work. It frees ideas for
use in art.
Dr. Beatrice M. Hinkle, in the introduction to her translation of
Jung’s “Psychology of the Unconscious,” says that “this psychology
which is pervading all realms of thought ... seems destined to be a
psychological-philosophical system for the understanding and practical
advancement of human life.”
So, having found a well whose waters were refreshing, I note the
fact--and pass on.
The train of thought which the reader has followed in this Introduction
is the train of thought which led me--after some delay--to the
publication of the book.
I am glad that these “Last Letters from the Living Dead Man” are a call
to courage, to restraint, to faith in the great and orderly future
of America and the world, a call to all those positive qualities so
gravely needed in these days of the rebuilding of Peace.
For I do not believe that Bolshevism, or any other form of lunacy, will
find foothold in the United States. A nation with universal suffrage,
for man and woman, certainly has no incentive for a resort to insane
destruction. In the last State campaign it was interesting to watch the
reactions of women to the privileges and duties of suffrage. I watched
it only in one party, the Democratic, but it was doubtless everywhere
the same. There was an added dignity, a sense of new responsibility,
and always courtesy and real fellowship among the women and the men.
Its happening to correspond in time with the Fourth Liberty Loan
campaign, and the printing of casualty lists, made it all the more
significant. No, these level-headed, socially-responsible women will
never be swept away by collective insanity; and as the men who return
from the front will return to these women, their mothers, wives and
sisters, I do not think that we shall lose in peace what we have gained
in war.
And now--remembering always that this book was written between
February, 1917, and February, 1918--you may read the “Last Letters from
the Living Dead Man.”
ELSA BARKER
New York, Easter Day, 1919.
LETTER I
THE GENIUS OF AMERICA
_February 3, 1917._
I WANT to write of America, land of my latest birth, land of the future.
Great is the road that the Genius of America may travel, and her feet
have already passed the early stages of it.
The Genius of America!
Each land is watched over and its children guided--guided and moved--by
a Genius.
Would you feel the Genius of America, go alone into the woods at
night, watch and listen and invoke. Perhaps the answer may come, its
recognition of you, your recognition of it.
If you are one of those who can hear the words which the Great Ones
speak in the silence, perhaps you will hear something with the ears of
your soul. If so, do not hasten to divulge the message, but treasure it
in your heart; for that which is treasured in the heart can sometimes
be felt and understood by the hearts of others.
If you are one of those who will serve willingly, the secret of your
heart may be shared in silence with those who can hear in the silence.
The hour approaches when the mission of this land may be manifested.
The hour approaches when the Genius of this land shall force its will
upon this land. That will not be an easy task. So many wills have
sought to wrest the reins from the guiding hand; so many eyes, looking
in so many directions, have seen so many goals. But there is one will
so strong that it can, when its hour is come, gather up the wills of
men as a strong wind gathers a mass of loosely-lying straws and sweeps
them along.
You know not the power of a will that has God behind it. You know not
the power of a purpose that has God behind it and the future before it.
Those who get in the way of the Genius of this land will be broken,
like straws that would resist the wind.
I have watched from my unseen place the labors of many. I have helped
unseen with my faith to strengthen the hearts of many. I shall wait now
unseen till the act of destiny is accomplished.
You who have followed me from my first gropings in the twilight of the
new life, before the clearness came; you who have followed me on my
journeys among the battlefields, both in and above the world, follow
me yet a little further, with your minds ajar for the entrance of the
truth I have to tell you, the advice I have to give you. For my advice
is disinterested as the rain, and my truth is offered as freely as the
light.
I have come a long way since I laid down my body a few brief years ago,
years of a crowded brevity, in which the world has moved as fast as I,
and sometimes with more pain. For he who knows the purpose of his pain
can bear it better than the child who knows only that he suffers.
I should have spoken to you before, but you would not let me. Child!
Would you stand in the way with your personal wishes, and your
shrinkings that are also wishes of a negative kind?
Blocked by your will to avoid this labor, I sought another entrance;
but it was too much encumbered by prejudices and preconceived ideas,
and all the litter of mental fragments that had accumulated through
years of residence in a creed-bound place. You who have dwelt but
briefly in many tents have no obstructions at your door, save such as
are placed by your will, and those I now sweep away.
I shall pass in and out, and speak to you as I choose.
LETTER II
FEAR NOT
_February 8, 1917._
DID I not tell you many months ago that the soul of Abraham Lincoln
kept watch above this land that he died to save from disruption, and
that he would keep vigil until America should have passed through her
next great trial? You questioned then what that trial would be. Do you
question now? And yet you do not know.
Slowly the months have gone by, receding into the past. When, in the
spring of 1915, you saw in vision the German Emperor in spiked helmet
standing opposite to Uncle Sam in his shirt-sleeves, did you not
suppose that it would come to this? You are wise to keep such visions
to yourself.
Do not fancy that this war will end without greater changes than the
world has ever known before. When I told you nearly two years ago that
the battle between the powers of good and evil had been won in the
invisible regions, I knew because my Teacher told me so; but do not
believe that the new age can dawn without greater trouble and greater
changes than you can now imagine. Birth is change and birth is painful,
and birth is bloody and exhausting. The pains that have gone before are
only the pains of labor.
The stars in their courses fight for the new race.
I have written of the bloody fields of Europe. Now I would write of
America and her future, her near and her far future; for the sun is
approaching the Eastern horizon and the dawn clouds are already tinged
with the coming day.
America, do not despair! Your destiny is assured. In the storms to
come, think of the freshness after the storm, when the ground shall
smell sweet and birds shall sing. For birds will sing to the children
of the new age.
In the midst of changes there will come a lull. The world will say, “It
is over, the old things will return, and all will be as before.” But
nothing will ever be exactly as it was before. In the lull you shall
draw breath, and make ready for other changes. Yes, many things will be
changed, even the hearts of men.
The world has known terror. Without experience of terror, without the
poise that comes from the facing of terror undaunted, the world could
not face the future without failure. Is there anything now, after
thirty months of war, that could surprise the world? Is there anything
that the world could not face?
Oh, remember that you are immortal, and that you who go out of life
will come back again, strengthened by the rest in the invisible! For a
change of place is a rest of consciousness. To those whose nerves are
weary, wise doctors prescribe a change. A rest in the invisible worlds
is more refreshing than a summer in the mountains. Do not fear death. I
passed through death, and I am more rested now than a strong man in the
morning. I would not go back to my old body. When I want a body again I
shall build a new one. I know the process of building, having built so
many before.
Be joyous with me. A wise man once said that only the unendurable is
tragic. The world, and the souls of the world, can endure the change
that is coming. Have not wars prepared them for it? That is why wars
had to be.
America is rich. Her vaults are full of gold, her mines are full of
ore, and her fresh soil is full of richness. Shall she fear a future
in which labor can procure all things for the body, and faith can
procure all things for the soul? The history of this land is a history
of faith. Did not Columbus start across the trackless ocean, led only
by the star of his faith? Did not your ancestors follow, led by their
faith in the future? The past has gone back to God, it is safe as a
dead man; but the future is coming to you, and your faith shall make it
sure.
Fear naught. In the early days of this land your forefathers slept in
quiet, though the red man lurked in the forest, and hunger lurked in
the failure of harvests, and men and children could only be winter-warm
when trees had been felled for fuel. Now you fear famines of coal? The
earth is heavy with coal. You fear famines of wheat, when your muscles
grow fat for lack of exercise. They who came first to this land had
varied reasons for fear, but you have no reasons for fear. Labor is
sweet. The child who makes labor of play can vouch for the truth of
that saying. Can you not then make play of your labor? When I was a
child I built houses of blocks. I longed to be building. I dug ditches
in the garden. I made boats of chips and sailed them on a puddle. I
planted seeds.
And learning? In the libraries of the world and in the brains of men
is stored the learning of the ages. The new age will not lack the
archives of all ages. Though paper is less enduring than parchment, it
will last over into the new age. Fear not.
By hints I convey to your mind that many changes will come. What then?
All progress is change. Go out with it to meet the future, with a smile
on your face and a song on your lips. The future wears a rose in its
buttonhole, as your Vagrom Angel would say.
LETTER III
THE PROMISE OF SPRING
_February 17, 1917._
WHEN you learn to think of life as a whole, of which you are a part
containing in yourself the potentialities of the whole, then you
will look upon these great changes with joy. The One must sometimes
sacrifice itself to Itself, and by elimination secure a new lease of
life. The whole--call it the race, or the earth-spirit, or what you
will--may grow too fat and lazy, as a man may grow too large to move
about with ease, and then by war among the organs, by fever, fasting or
remedies, the equilibrium is restored, and he starts again a new man,
ready to face the future.
Grim, does it seem? But who told you that the purposes of life were
always smiling? In the deeps of the earth and in the deeps of man are
dark substances.
The cold of winter is a hardship for those who expose themselves to the
elements; but winter is the ebb-tide of that changing sea of life whose
flood-tide is the summer. Rhythm, always rhythm.
I would not have you discouraged by the winter of the race, for the
spring will come and the roses will bloom again. March winds! They are
followed by April showers and Mayflowers. We are now in February.
When the skies are dark and the snows fall, we gather round the fire
and think of the future, when the flowers shall bloom again and green
grass shall cover the earth and birds shall sing in the trees. The sun
“crosses the line” in March when the winds blow, and enters the sign
of the Ram, and the Zodiac is traversed again by the great light-giver
the Sun. Do you shiver and grow afraid when the Equinox approaches?
The soul, too, has its winter of materialism and its ideal spring.
I have looked at the world from the outside, and I see no cause for
despair. I have looked at the soul from the inside, and I see great
cause for rejoicing.
You look forward to the end of the war, but the soul must battle to the
end of its journey. So long as the soul is cased in matter there will
be wars enough, for the greatest struggles are the soul’s struggles
with itself. I have told you this before. Sometimes it goes out to
fight, sometimes it goes in; the sword will not rust in the scabbard.
Think less of yourself and think more of the race. You lose the vision
of the whole by regarding too closely the parts, by regarding too
closely yourself that is only one of the parts. Think of yourself as
the race, and think of the race as yourself; then yourself becomes the
race, and the race becomes yourself; “the Universe grows I.”
There was once a God so great that the cells of his body were minor
gods. You may become so great that the cells of your body will be glad
to sacrifice themselves to your welfare. By renouncing the will to
live, you may make yourself immortal. By renouncing the will to joy,
you may become joyous.
Once I desired to be a great man. Now when I only desire that Man shall
be great, I have increased in stature myself.
Once I desired to be loved; but now when I love for love’s sake and not
for my own sake, I am loved by a multitude. Surely I found my life by
losing it, and the words of the Master were justified.
I look down at the world as I once looked down at my garden. I see that
the grass is sprouting and I know that seeds are in the ground. I have
planted seeds in the hearts of men that shall germinate and reach up
towards the sunshine, for I had faith in the spring.
For a while I have left Europe to itself, and have come back to the
land I love best. I have journeyed from State to State, and have
watched the wills of our legislators. They too are aware that a Force
is at work through them. They feel the responsibility of their place,
they feel themselves as moving parts of the great whole whose name is
America. The Flag is the symbol of their consecration.
I have walked in the woods, where the spirits of the land fore-gather
for counsels which the newspapers do not report. They too are aware of
their consecration. They strengthen you with their faith. When I lived
as a man in America I did not know America. To know the meaning of home
we must wander.
I am all for unity now. Do not let yourselves be weakened by fear of
the parts. America is a whole, and as a whole she must work. To fuse
these many races together is the mission of the present hour. Do not
lend your hearts to division.
I see a great leader of men who shall arise in this land. His mission
will be the union of races. He will be a teacher and a prophet.
LETTER IV
THE DIET OF GOLD
_March 10, 1917._
THE very influences that now tend to disrupt this country will later
draw it together. The many will find their meeting-point in the One.
That idea of national unity must be fostered, even to the extent of
patient tolerance of racial temperaments. Those who are in the process
of being separated from their old race and amalgamated with the new
race, feel the strain of the change. It irritates them and their
blood protests, even when their wills bid them forge new bonds for
themselves. Few “hyphenated Americans” would be willing to go bodily
back to their old allegiance.
America is the most interesting of all countries, and we who see it
from this side of the airy frontier see it in historical perspective.
The view that is nearest to our point of view is that of your present
Chief Executive. His eyes are far-seeing. He anticipates the clearer
sight that will one day be his, when he has finished his work.
Our country is suffering at this moment, in March, of the year of our
Lord nineteen hundred and seventeen, from an indigestion of gold. You
have swallowed more gold than you can assimilate, and your organs are
congested. If to restore the equilibrium, some of this gold should be
regurgitated, by war or by other means, do not in the weariness that
follows fancy that the nation is going to die.
Do not be shocked by my figures of speech. I want to get into your
consciousness an understanding of facts and conditions as they exist.
You cannot feed on gold. “Gold is a medium of exchange.” When it is
merely hoarded it has lost its relation to life. A miser nation is a
sadder subject for contemplation than a miser man, with his long claws
and his gloating eyes. He may think, the miser man, to secure himself
from the dangers of the future by amassing gold for its own sake. A
miser nation may think that by amassing gold for its own sake it can
save itself from the financial dangers threatening the world after
these years of war.
But the miser, known as such, is in danger of being robbed and
murdered. And the miser nation is in danger of being attacked and
looted by other nations.
You Americans want to be generous to the homeless and foodless people
of Europe; but your generosity has not yet deprived of one square meal
the hundred-million-headed being that is America.
I do not care so much what you do with your gold. But I care much what
you do with your food. You are not alchemists that you can make gold
potable. You are humans with delicate stomachs. Even a hen will not lay
eggs for you unless she is well fed. If she protests, you can punish
her by eating her; but the luckiest break of her wish-bone will not
produce for you another hen. Better conserve her labor power by gifts
of grain, and have your eggs for breakfast and for hatching. She has
periods of laziness when she wants to sit still; but put a few of her
own eggs under her, and watch for results. Later I shall tell you of
other but no less practical ways of ensuring a supply of breakfasts.
LETTER V
CONTINGENT FEES
_March 10, 1917._
TO-DAY I heard that a certain rich man (unmindful of the camel and the
needle’s eye), supposing that the letters from this Living Dead Man had
been profitable to you, that there was “money in them,” was considering
the question of whether he should financially back a medium who
stood ready to declare that she was in communication with me, that I
repudiated the books written through you, and stood sponsor for certain
manuscripts written “through” her, as my only genuine messenger to the
world.
I join in your laughter, at your supposed “profitable” investment in
the securities of the other world, and at the eagerness to get aboard
a sea-of-ether-worthy ship exhibited by people who have not paid their
fare.
I may as well tell you now that this country and some others are
scattered over with supposed “communications” from me. It would seem
that my writing arms are as numerous as the feet of a centipede. It
would also seem by the style of some of these supposed communications,
by their contents and their contradictions, that I have as many minds
as Indra has eyes.
Even the elementals of the ouija board do not contradict themselves so
frequently as these amanuenses make me contradict myself. I think you
will have to trademark me.
After the serious nature of my recent letters, it relaxes me to jest.
If you include this letter in the book, please head it “Contingent
Fees.”
LETTER VI
THE THREE APPEALS
_March 11, 1917._
I STAND outside the world and look inside the hearts of men. I see more
than I saw when I was a man among them. Had I then looked as deep into
my own heart as I now look into theirs, I should have seen the hearts
of my fellow beings reflected in my own, for we differ from one another
as one insect differs from another. There are differences between
insects.
I look into your hearts, O men! and this is what I see: Ideals and
hypocrisy, self-interest and altruism, hunger and satiety.
Shall I, in offering advice, appeal to your ideals, your
self-interest, or your hunger? The opposite three would never spur you
to action along the lines I would have you spurred.
LETTER VII
THE BUILDERS
_March 22, 1917._
I HAVE promised to offer you advice as to how you may restore your
equilibrium. Use much of this superfluity of gold in rebuilding
devastated Europe. Give her credits and give her food. You who can work
in the fields, raise food to feed Europe. You who can build, give the
labor of your hands wherever it is needed. You who are discontented
here, go back to that Europe which gave you birth. By so doing you will
give yourselves a new point of view, and you will give yourselves a new
interest. A new interest is a new lease of life.
Make sacrifices. In saying that, I have two objects in view, the
effect on the world and the effect on yourselves.
To work for the ideal is sometimes more practical than to work for what
is called the real.
When I tell you to rebuild Europe, you can take it as ideal advice
or practical advice, depending on your point of view. It is ideal
because Europe needs rebuilding; it is practical because just now
and for a time to come America needs to get her mind on something
outside herself. We give that advice to individuals when they are too
self-centred. There is so much discontent and so much uncertainty that
anything which can catch and hold the attention of masses of men, which
can make them forget themselves, may enable them to be used by the
Genius of the race, which works for the welfare of the race as a whole.
Lend your money to Europe, and do not ask usurious interest. Yes, you
can take interest, for money has earning power, and the laborer--even
the laborer Gold--is worthy of his hire. But help by your generous
lendings at low interest to lessen the awful burden of taxation for the
people of Europe, which makes also for discontent and discouragement.
Go to Europe, many of you, that you may see what war does to a country,
what it might do to your country should you selfishly expose yourselves
to a desire on the part of outsiders to take from you by force that
which you have so skilfully acquired.
Go, that you may see and feel, as you can only see and feel face to
face, the spirit of self-sacrifice and national devotion which has
animated the people of Europe in this long war. They have found their
souls, but you have not yet found your soul.
There are engineers in this country who are less needed here than they
will be needed in Europe. There are specialists in all the branches
of science who are more needed there than here. We have specialists
enough. We can spare a few of them.
Build ships. Build more ships. Keep the men occupied. Give them
an objective. Do not let them brood. An idle brain is the devil’s
workshop. If you have not work enough, make work. There are things
enough to be done. Build ships.
Now in regard to your management of railroads and other public
utilities. The day for government control was heralded when the threat
of a strike came that would have, if put into effect, blocked the
wheels of the nation. All those public utilities whose blocked wheels
could threaten the national life and the movements of men should
be managed by the government. This is not socialism, or any other
_ism_. You who have stock in them, do not take alarm. A way can be
found that will satisfy you.
Think of the good of the whole, for you who are a part cannot prosper
without the welfare of the whole. This is not cant. It is a sort of
race biology. I look down and see you as a great being, and I prescribe
for you as a being, a race-unity, not as a few individuals here and
there. The cells in the body of the race-being must all be working
together. Get a unit of consciousness, as a race. Yield yourselves to
the consciousness of the race-unit. Be as individual as you please, but
be individual parts. Get into balance with other individuals, positive
and negative.
Make the rebuilding of Europe an objective point. Make it possible for
many discontented workers to go to work in Europe. You may say that the
armies of Europe, when released from military service, will furnish
workers enough; but there cannot be too many. There is a double object
in this: the object of getting work done, and that of the psychological
effect upon the worker.
I wish I could get into your minds by infusion the state of
consciousness that is mine. I wish I could make you see that separation
is death and that unity is life.
I have spoken of government control of railroads, but that is only
the beginning. There should be governmental handling of food. Begin
gradually, one thing after another. It is the destiny of the world to
go in that direction. You cannot block the wheels of that chariot.
_Serve if you hope to survive_ would be a good motto. You cannot
survive if you do not serve--all of you. I like that figure of the cell
which is a part of the race-being. It is the way I see you.
Just a word about nervous diseases. Yes, it is related to what I have
been saying. When at last the let-up comes after the unnatural strain
of war, the minds of men in going back, or in attempting to go back to
their normal state, may find themselves unable immediately to adjust
to the changed conditions. For a long time the brains of men and women
have been stimulated by the coffee of concerted action; when they are
thrown back on themselves they may relax too much.
Or, on the other hand, an unnatural excitement may drive them into
all kinds of excesses. Have you ever seen victims of mania who could
not rest, who had lost the ability to rest? They walk up and down,
and drum with their feet, and clench their hands. So many men and
women may be, after this war. There is certain to be an excess of love
excitement, and work is a good panacea for that complaint.
Then again, after years of war, years in which many have not known in
the morning whether they would be alive at night, they may retain the
habit of dread. They may fear to rest and fear to relax. Thus they may
welcome any excitement, as a substitute for the stimulus to which they
have been accustomed.
That is another reason why I would send Americans to labor with the
laborers of Europe. Not that the American working man is phlegmatic,
far from it; but with his mind unaccustomed to fear anything, except
the loss of his job and consequent hunger, he will have an effect
of confidence and hope on those around him. The American likes to
feel that he is leading, and in what better way can he indulge that
propensity than in leading his associates to hope?
You have no idea--you cannot have an idea--of the great depression that
will follow this war for a short while. It will be the relaxation,
the letting go. Always after war the ebb-tide is followed by great
activity; but it is that ebb-tide which we have to consider.
You in America will feel it. You have become accustomed to seeing gold
flow towards these shores. When the stream lessens, you will have to
combat the tendency to fear that lessening. Panics are like personal
fear, intensified by mass.
The world is drawing close together, and what influences a part
influences the whole.
After the war will also come an opening of the psychic senses of men,
everywhere. This, while good in itself, may become an added danger.
Prophets, true and false, will arise everywhere, with many remedies for
the diseases of souls and of bodies.
If I may make another suggestion, it would be that those who have
psychic awakening should think twice before proclaiming the fact. It
is a new sense that is coming into manifestation; but as the opening
of the eyes in an early stage of evolution probably revealed as many
dangers as blessings, so the new sense will reveal dangers. Do not try
to close the new sense, but do not be carried away by it. Remember that
it will be practically general, and like every new sense it will be
defective for a long time. It will reveal false things as well as true.
If a man opened his eyes for the first time upon a harmless tree, he
might mistake it for a monster.
Restraint in all things, moderation in all things, even in the
laudable desire to action. Weigh and measure. Prove before accepting
anything--prove by reason and by intuition if you cannot wait for proof
by practice. Weigh and measure what I say, as well as what the wildest
new prognosticator says. Discourage hysteria. A wave of hysteria is
likely to sweep over the world.
As revolution follows revolution, the startled inhabitants of the world
may tell themselves that nothing in the universe is stable, that all is
going to destruction, and that as they cannot save themselves from what
seems to be universal chaos, they may as well get all the pleasurable
excitement possible out of the passing moment. Restraint, restraint!
I see women afraid to bear children because of the uncertainty of
the morrow. I see men afraid to marry because of the uncertainty of
domesticity. I see farmers hesitate to plant because of the uncertainty
of the harvest. Again I say, be not afraid.
If you sow, you shall reap. If you marry, you shall build a home. If
you have children, the race will protect them--and you are a part of
the race.
Restraint! Fearlessness!
LETTER VIII
THE WORLD OF MIND
_March 24, 1917._
I WISH that more people of sane, sound mind would experiment in
telepathic communication. I know there is any amount of uncoordinated
and half-serious playing with phenomena; but with scientific accuracy
of observation and scientific precision in recording data, not only
the body of _sensible_ literature on these subjects would be
increased, but the habits of careful observation and precision in
reporting supernormal facts would be developed in the experimentalists.
You who write for me, continue to make and to record experiments. You
are almost too cautious, but most persons are not cautious enough.
Explain the necessary conditions of passivity and activity between
those working together. Though the best results are often obtained
by you alone, yet the testimony of one person is not so convincing
as the testimony of several who have witnessed and taken part in the
same phenomena. But you are right in hesitating to take on the psychic
conditions of insincere and merely curious people who would like to
work with you.
The great difficulty with most persons is that they cannot make
themselves sufficiently negative _for the time being_. When the
experiments are over they can and should become equally positive. They
can shift from one pole to the other, and they must do so if they wish
to preserve their physical health and balance.
But bear in mind that the influences from this side are good and bad,
even as the influences in the world are; and if you feel that any
“presence” is hostile, at once banish it and become positive. After any
approach by an undesirable influence, you should not for some hours let
yourself become negative. Go for a walk, or attack some difficult piece
of work, or read a book that demands mental activity in order to grasp
its meaning.
You live in a sea of mind, as well as in a psychic sea; they
interpenetrate, and they interpenetrate with the physical; but in
working through and with them, keep them as distinct as possible.
I work more and more in the mental world, and less and less in the
astral; but the majority of my readers will not know exactly what I
mean by that statement. There is a greater difference between the
astral and the mental than there is between the astral and the physical.
Do not despise the astral. Its dynamics are of colossal import. But
cultivate more and more the purely mental, because the astral in all of
you is developed beyond the mental.
In my former writings I have told you something of the dangers of the
astral. Now I want to tell you some of the more obvious dangers of the
mental.
Those who learn that they can create in mind need to develop a sense
of responsibility. They are too reckless in demonstrating their
power. Remember that as you go up in the planes of being you get into
subtler and subtler regions, and strength increases with the degree of
subtlety--not the reverse, as you would naturally suppose.
One of the greatest temptations of the mental world is that of the
creation of falsehoods. By stating that which is not true, you project
into the realm of mind a picture that has a certain permanency. It may
deceive others, but in time it will deceive you, its creator. Those who
speak falsely cannot perceive truth. Those who create false pictures
in the mental world will be deceived by those very pictures; they will
reap the effects of the causes they have set up.
Have you not known people who were always being deceived by their
“friends”? They are generally those who have left deceiving pictures
behind themselves. There are people who cannot discriminate between the
false and the true. They deceive and are deceived. Those who deceive
are always deceived, whatever their supposed intellect may be.
And I would say to those to whom I now suggest experiments with
clairvoyance and telepathy, that if they have planted the seeds of
falsehood they will reap a harvest of deceptive appearances. Test
yourselves in that way, you who believe yourselves to be sincere. You
may learn something of value regarding your own karma. (Yes, I will
use Theosophic or Indian terms when they express my meaning. Those
who re-write the Oriental philosophies in western terms can pass for
original only with the ignorant.)
What the new race needs most of all is truth. Modern science is
preparing the world for the fearless facing of truth. The man who toils
over a microscope that he may observe and record some _fact_ in
nature, is more the servant of God than the man who with sanctimonious
face tells his fellow creatures what they must _not_ do; for his
work at least is positive in its results.
There are too many “thou shalt nots”; too few “I shalls.”
The new race will develop a wide tolerance. It will discourage
undesirable things more by ignoring them than by attacking them. By
attacking a thing we give it power.
Work more and more in the world of mind. The results in the physical
will be immense.
LETTER IX
AMERICA’S GOOD FRIDAY
_April 6, 1917._
IT is past midnight. It is Good Friday. Momentous decisions for the
world and for all time are heavy in the souls of men.
On the day that this day stands for, in the long ago, a man (who
was also a god) stood forth alone for the ideas of love and human
brotherhood. At last, after all these years, the thing for which he
died may be realized. But there was a crucifixion on that Friday,
centuries ago.
I have brought you from a far-away shore that you might witness a great
struggle in the souls of men. You have arrived at a centre.[1]
To-day, in thousands of churches throughout Christendom, prayers will
be offered to the god-man who died that the god in man might live.
To-day in millions of hearts the cross will be set up.
It is so still here at midnight, at a few minutes past midnight on this
day of days.
Christianity has arisen, and presses forward to Golgotha to witness an
event.
Pray! Prayer is the affirmation by the soul of its unity with the One.
War is the affirmation of the soul of its separateness from many.
Love your enemies. It is the only way that you can conquer them.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: I had arrived in New York a few hours before after a long
sojourn in California.]
LETTER X
THE CRUCIBLE
_April 12, 1917._
LET us speak a little of this initiation through which the race is
passing. Always the trials precede the attainment.
When these wars are over there will be a new world, for the souls
of men will have been baptized with the fire and the blood. America
must have her part in it. To her also must come the trials and the
attainment. Watch and pray.
Some day I will send you back to commune with the soul of the Old
World--some day _we_ will send you back. It is another Europe you
will find, a Europe tried by fire, and some of it will be fine steel,
and some of it will be clinkers in the furnace, for the fire proves the
metal, and separates the metal from the slag.
From before the war to this day, the battles of the earth have been
enacted also in your soul, the blood and the fire, the pain and the
travail. You too have passed through the fiery furnace.
Long ago, when you identified your soul with the soul of the world,
you took upon yourself the trials of the world, the initiatory trials.
You also called down upon yourself the weight of your old karma, the
effects of the causes you had set up through the ages. That you are at
rest for a time means only that you have worked yourself free from a
little of the load. Had you not done it now, you would have had to do
it in the future. Rejoice for every trial that brings you nearer to the
goal. And this I say for all men.
If I speak of the world now, instead of that part only that we call
America, it is to identify the part with the whole. If I speak of you
personally, it is to identify you with the whole.
Back in that Europe to which you will go, you will find two classes,
those who have become fine steel, and those who have become refuse. You
will know the one from the other.
They will welcome you back, for you have passed through the fire with
them. They will welcome your country, too, for it now turns its face to
the fire.
Be not discouraged by dismal prophecies. Man does not live by bread
alone. If you have less to eat, your bodies will grow finer. If you
have more to do, your minds and spirits will expand. Few of you work to
your full capacity. The unit of force that is man may generate much
energy, drawing it up from the deeps of himself at the call of need or
of will.
Work harder now. Once I told you to rest more, but the laborers are
called to the vineyard. The hour of rest will come again, when the day
draws near its close.
In entering into the war, my country, put away all rancor, and fight
for the right in which there is no rancor. Hate not. The hour for hate
is past. (I say this, knowing that Hate and Fear, the mother of Hate,
will come and challenge your souls.)
I do not hate, and I do not fear, and I shall stay with you until the
day draws to its close. Are you sorry now that you let me speak again?
When fear comes to your house, I will speak to you of courage. When
hate shall menace you, I will turn it into love. I have found the
Philosopher’s Stone that can transmute base metals into gold.
Hate will be turned to love in this land where the Eagle cries. Listen
to the cry of the Eagle. It is a free bird, and it flies high. Its
message has only been hinted at, in the years that have yet been
numbered. The Eagle will teach freedom. They will listen--across the
sea.
America is indeed the melting-pot of nations. I can find no better
figure of speech. The German-American who is loyal to America now,
who hides the tragedy in his heart behind a brave face, may also come
through the furnace fine steel.
I am glad you know that they suffer. Hold the loyal ones in your heart,
with all other loyal Americans. So you will help in the process of
melting. To some of them the tragedy will open the doors of initiation.
Their loyalty to a pledge is a finer trial than the fire of a
battlefield. Those who are loyal must not be made pariahs. Of those who
are disloyal I say nothing, but leave them to the Law.
The initiatory process! It has the earth in its grasp. There are those
whom you love that it has in its grasp, too. They suffer, as you have
suffered. But they shall find peace.
LETTER XI
MAKE CLEAN YOUR HOUSE
_May 4, 1917._
DO you know that the human race is being weighed in the balances? Work
and pray that it may not be found wanting.
We who dwell in the clear light of that world which is to you the Other
World, can see the handwriting on the wall.
The world has been too dishonest. In an honest world, could this war
have been? In the world that is to come, nation will not distrust
nation, nor man distrust man. But now distrust is a necessary part of
the human equipment. You may trust--but not too far. You may love your
neighbor--but not too much. You may do to your brother as you would
have him do to you--but not all the time.
America was built on a foundation of ideals; but there is too much of
the mud of personal seeking mixed with the good clay of your bricks.
You washed away with your blood one plague-spot, that of slavery; but
there is another plague-spot you have got to wash away. Will you do it
with the free water of good will, or will you do it again with your
blood? I wait to see.
Do not say that the world’s troubles are over, because America has
come into the war. The world’s troubles are not over. When the war is
over--the greater war--make clean your house, O America!
There is no other civilized country where the premiums upon dishonesty
are so high.
Can you buy a pound of butter and be certain that you get sixteen full
ounces? Can you buy a pound of meat and be sure that the scales are
true?
A new race is being born. Begin with those children, and teach them
honesty before you teach them geography--honesty with the parents,
honesty with each other, honesty with themselves. “As the twig is bent
the tree inclines.”
When I was a little boy I was taught that George Washington could not
tell a lie. I had an ideal of George Washington. I wanted to emulate
him. And so when I was a man I sought truth. I looked for it on the
surface of the ground, and also in deep wells. Once I spent years
in the wilderness trying to find truth in myself. I remained in the
wilderness until I found it. Had I not found it, I should have left my
bones there.
You need a new set of copy-book maxims. If the boy who writes “Honesty
is the best policy” at school in the morning, sees in the afternoon his
father trying to trade a balky horse for a good roadster, he wonders
if his teacher is fooling him. The disillusionment of children is
tragic with menace for the coming State. I would rather see reproach
in the eyes of an Adept Teacher than in the eyes of a child. If I fail
my Teacher I do not hurt him seriously, if I fail my child I hurt him
irreparably.
You must face the fact that the life of America is going to be
reorganized.
You have wondered why I have not written of late. I have been busy,
studying America. I have seen much that I can tell you, and much that
I cannot tell you--yet. For I want you to be quiet. You could not be
quiet if you knew as much as I know.
It has been said that necessity knows no law. Forget it not, you
war-profiteers who would corner the world’s necessities. Remember that
a cornered animal is dangerous, and a cornered necessity has hoofs and
horns.
There is a disease that has no name among the doctors--the disease of
colossal possessions. Its symptoms are a voracious appetite for more
possessions, and a phobia lest possessions should be lost. It is worse
than neuralgia and indigestion combined to disturb the rest of the
victim.
I long to see a hundred million and more people living in peace and
plenty in America.
Fanatics prattle about the confiscation of great fortunes. I do not
care so much what you do with your fortunes. But I care much what you
do with your land and your food, and I care more what you do with your
men and women and little children.
Do not get into a panic, I pray you. A panic is worse than a quicksand
to get into. Keep calm. The country is in no danger, if it does not
lose its head.
LETTER XII
LEVEL HEADS
_May 15, 1917._
DO not get excited, you Americans. If you keep your heads, you will
come through this all right. If you lose your heads, you may lose much
besides--you may lose more than you can win back in a hundred years.
I am not excited. I have not lost my head. (Yes, I still have a head,
and hands and feet. If I should try to live out here without hands
and feet, the adjustment to that unaccustomed condition would have
a reactionary effect upon my head. I am not experimenting in the
elimination of my members.)
You see a country now, Russia, that is making the experiment of living
without its head. No nation can continue as a nation without a head,
and a level one. Even the most extremely republican, democratic,
socialistic, or any other kind of a nation must have a head. A
completely anarchistic aggregation of people could not be called a
nation. Its land would be only a geographical section populated with
units, and such units unrelated to other units might as well be ciphers.
Do not be impatient because I write seldom at present. I am rather
busy. I shall always come when I have something that must be said.
A change is coming in America. Quite a change has already come about,
has it not?[2]
This country is great, this country is strong, this country is
adaptable. It can adjust itself to change. The people of this country
have not been slaves for a long time. The people of Russia have been so
many kinds of slaves that their reaction to freedom is unexpected by a
free world. Wait! Do not lose your heads about this matter.
I do not object to there being a few persons who know that I am writing
with you again. They cannot affect me, save to encourage me with their
interest.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: It was about this time, if I remember rightly, that many
of our wealthy men began working for the government at one dollar a
year.]
LETTER XIII
TREES AND BRICK WALLS
_May 16, 1917._
YOU fear lest the dismal prophecies of world-disaster, of cataclysm,
of the destruction of half the human race which you hear from many
sources, may tend to discourage the world.
Remember that hope springs eternal in the human breast. And if the
minds of men are familiar with the idea of cataclysm, they will more
readily adjust themselves to lesser changes.
Read the Old Testament. The most dismal prophecies were not verified,
but changes came.
Some of the “independent ministers” of America are more violent than
Jeremiah. But they help indirectly--in accustoming the minds of men to
the idea of change.
If panics come--and they may--refuse to be panic-stricken.
If violence comes--and it may--refuse to be violent.
If discouragements come--and they will--refuse to be discouraged.
When your brains become over-heated, look steadily at the trees. They
will quiet you. If there are no trees in your neighborhood--why, look
at a brick wall in moments of excitement. A brick wall is a soothing
spectacle. It stands steady, unless moved from without.
LETTER XIV
INVISIBLE ARMIES
_May 23, 1917._
MANY of the soldiers out here who have become fully awake and
self-conscious are striving to bring about those ends for which they
gave their lives on earth. There are thus soldiers working on both
sides of the war and on this side of the veil. Immediately after the
change many of them fight each other; but they soon learn that they can
do more effective work by giving attention to their comrades in the
flesh. They can soothe and inspire and instruct.
We are forming an army out here. There is no lack of recruits. America
must be saved, and few of you know how much America has to be saved
from. But we know--we who have watched the world for the last two years
and three-quarters.
It is not so terrible to die. It is really far more terrible to be born.
The army that we are recruiting here is made up of men of all ages--all
ages in this life, I mean. Yes, there are women also in our army. There
are some veterans of the Civil War and veterans of the War with Spain.
Over the regiments and divisions of this army there are commanders,
as over the armies of earth. Otherwise the work would lack unity of
purpose. Ours is mostly a volunteer army, though conscription is not
unknown among us.
You wonder what I mean? Do you not suppose that we can call a soul from
a useless occupation and give him useful labor? We can and do, daily.
We have even recruited largely from the old and native Americans, the
red skinned hunters and warriors who remain in such large numbers in
the neighborhood of the earth. There is work which they only can do.
There are many kinds of work and a great variety of workers.
I come and go, from coast to coast. I know what is doing on the shores
of the Pacific, in the Atlantic States, on the Gulf of Mexico, and
the Middle and Rocky Mountain States are familiar ground to me. I am
renewing my youth in this period of activity. I am working for my
country. I am in training, too.
Why do you smile? There is a training of the mind and the will that is
more effective than any training of the physical body--quicker and more
effective. Then too the astral body can be trained to a high degree of
efficiency and elasticity. Surely I need not tell you this.
And I am training others. We old fellows can be very useful in a time
like this. I am glad now that I came out _when_ I did, that I went
through my novitiate while the world was still at peace and there was
leisure for many things which now I should not have time for. I had a
delightful holiday. I hunted through the wilds of the invisible, and
fished in the waters of space; but now I am back at my work again.
LETTER XV
THE WEAKEST LINK
_June 2, 1917._
THERE are in the archives of the Masters of Wisdom certain data
relative to the past and future of this country which would make
interesting reading could they be published in the newspapers at this
time of national crisis.
America is aware of her mission of democracy; but she is not aware
of another mission equally potent--that of making the world safe for
spiritual culture. I do not mean religion, as the word is ordinarily
used; but I mean the culture of the spirit of love--such ideas of love
as the world has inadequately grasped from the teachings of Jesus
of Nazareth, grasped and let fall again because those ideas were too
warm to be comfortably held by hands cooled in the material labors of
selfishness.
America has laid up for herself in the regions beyond the physical a
debt--an obligation that is not by any means a treasure in heaven, but
which, when the debt is paid, may be a real spiritual treasure. I refer
to the armies of souls who once occupied this land as free owners, and
who were expelled and disinherited by the expanding civilization which
grew up in the place of wigwam and hunting-ground.
Those souls, many of them, desire to return. Many have already
returned, and unless some way is open for them to live again the free
life to which they were accustomed in the past, they will tend to
become a destructive force. They cannot be eliminated so easily now,
when they wear white bodies and claim citizenship with you. They are
scattered from shore to shore of this wide land. You can tell them
by their eagle eyes and their high cheek bones, by their free gait
and their love of freedom. They are hard to restrain in factory and
counting-house. They are clerks with a difference and laborers with a
dream. Many of them have found entrance into the sun-lighted world as
the children of European immigrants, for they find it easier to enter
the blood of certain other races than the blood of the Anglo-Saxon, for
all the Anglo-Saxon love of freedom.
A time may come when these now foreign-blooded primitive Americans will
instinctively rebel against the restraining influences that have held
them, when they will seek to live over again the old life of nature,
even though they have to take it as the kingdom of heaven is said to
have been taken.
There is coming a time when love will be needed in this land as it has
never been needed before, when “live and let live” must become a law as
well as a phrase. Those who long for freedom with Nature can be given
that freedom. Conditions may be hard in the great cities.
I am not trying to instill fear into the American heart. On the
contrary, I am trying to insure you against fear.
Not long could the wheels of civilization stop turning. But they could
stop--for a wink of the Cosmic Eye.
America is going to be saved, and saved in the hour of her greatest
danger. What will her greatest danger be? You must think that out for
yourself.
Learn to see through the eye of the Planetary Spirit. Your view is too
narrow. Where your library stands on shelves is for you the centre
of things; but the centre of things is in the heart, and hearts are
everywhere. If you think about the race and not about yourself, your
heart will be magnified; you will see with the eyes of the heart, and
he who sees with the eyes of the heart is wiser than historians or
intellectual prophets.
The world must be made safe for love. All men must be provided for in
the scheme of the future, all men and women and little children. It
is not safe to disregard any, for a chain is as strong as its weakest
link, and every link must be made strong.
LETTER XVI
A COUNCIL IN THE FOREST
ONE night, to repose my soul from the labors I had undertaken, I
retired to a pine forest upon the earth, in one of the New England
States. Thinking to be alone, I had sought the place; but no sooner
had I drifted into meditation than a strange sound fell upon my ears.
It was not like the sounds of earth, it was more subtle yet more
penetrating; and I knew that I was listening to a song (if you may call
it a song) by some of my fellow sojourners in the region beyond the
sunlight.
Suddenly with a rush they leaped past me into the clearing, and forming
in a circle, they waited. Then I saw a light that was not of earthly
origin, the light of a campfire, and I knew that I had been surprised
by a band of Indians who were preparing to hold some rite of their old
religion.
Though I had not been invited to their ceremony, neither had I invited
them to intrude upon my contemplation, so I remained and watched them.
(Yes, there is less secrecy out here, for the reason that there is
greater understanding and greater tolerance.)
Soon I was looking on at a strange dance. All in a circle they swung
round and round the blazing fire, singing and leaping. I did not know
the meaning of the words they sang; but I could read their minds by the
thought-images they formed, and I knew that they were celebrating the
date--reached by what lunar reckoning I knew not--of some great Indian
massacre in which they had taken part a hundred or two hundred years
ago.
And the impulse of their dance, the motive power of it, was hatred of
the white man who had scattered them and driven them away from their
old hunting grounds.
Shocked, yet fascinated by this inner glimpse at the souls of the
American aborigines, I watched them.
Though I am not skilled in magic rituals, I soon perceived that there
was form and method in this dance, method and form and a hostile
purpose.
They were, by exciting themselves and by fixity of thought, trying to
excite a scattered company of men in these United States--men of a low
grade of intellect but of psychic temperament--to deeds of violence and
destruction.
“So that is the way they do it!” I thought.
Then I drew a veil around my thoughts, that they might not be perceived
by the beings before me. Yes, I can do that, and so can many men upon
the earth.
I could smell the keen fresh odors of the pine grove, and I could feel
the rising wind as it swept across the clearing; for the wind seemed to
respond to their call and to offer its forces to them. You must know
that the elements are impersonal, though semi-personalities inhabit
them, and that the elements _and_ these semi-personalities can be
used and guided, for purposes good or evil, by any being who has gained
that peculiar power in one or many lives.
And looking off in the distance, I could see that the wind as it swept
along carried the thoughts and passions of these long dead men, these
souls that by reason of their downward tendencies had not broken away
from the attraction of matter, the astral gravitation that makes so
many souls earth-bound.
Still looking off and projecting my consciousness in a way I have
learned to do, I saw the influence of this magic ritual of revenge
and menace as it touched the minds of men far scattered. I saw
their thoughts take on suddenly the tinge of hatred, hatred for the
civilization in which they had failed to realize their personal desires.
And I knew that on that night and on the morrow, and at intervals for
many days, deeds of violence would be committed, that property would be
destroyed, and men of order threatened.
My heart was sad, for I had not understood before how real was the
danger to my country in these times of crisis from the karma the old
settlers had made. Of course they believed they were doing right in
ridding themselves and their adopted land from the simple but complex
natives, whose civilization was older than the civilization of Europe,
and who had loved this land as only those can love a land who have
known the freedom of its spaces.
When the magic dance was over, and one by one and two by two the
communicants slipped away among the shadows, I strode forward into
the circle to have speech with any who should willingly respond to my
desire for acquaintanceship.
Suddenly I found myself face to face with a majestic chieftain, wearing
one of those long feather bonnets whose every feather marks some deed
of daring or achievement. (What a splendid custom was that! What an
incentive to action! Truly among the red men, deeds won a feather in
the cap.)
His face was like that of a hawk, and his eyes were bright with an
inner fire, that intensity of feeling and thought commingled which
marks the leader and master of men and him alone.
And I said to him in the forms of thought, for I knew no word of his
old language:
“I have been an unintentional witness to your ceremony this evening.
Will you enlighten me further as to its purpose? for I see that it was
directed towards the land of breathing men.”
With a sweep of his authoritative arm he dismissed the few of his
companions who had not already moved away among the trees, and we two
were alone together.
“I come as a friend,” I said, seeing that he hesitated.
And the word was true; for I saw that whatever harm he mistakenly
sought to accomplish, in his soul was the consciousness of justice,
that fundamental balance between right and wrong, that proposition
of law, which when native in the mind gives it dignity and attracts
respect. This was no dabbler in aboriginal and nasty sorcery, but a
kind of priest of retribution, a tribal demi-god who might perhaps some
day be made constructive and not destructive, an instrument of the
great Genius of America of which I have spoken in a former letter, the
Weaver of Destiny who has our land in charge.
We measured each other with the eyes, and I cast aside the veil that I
had before drawn around my thoughts, that he might see me mind to mind
and realize that I respected and to a degree understood him.
“You have seen what you have seen,” he observed.
“And you do not resent my presence?”
“No.”
The fresh odor of the pine grove was keen in my senses, and my
new-found companion threw back his head with a splendid motion as if to
drink it in.
“Freedom is good,” he said, “and the land was ours.”
So I perceived that by excusing himself and his associates he had
perceived that I accused them. Then I knew that I could really commune
with him mind to mind, and I was glad; for I ever seek to extend the
range of my knowledge and to form acquaintance with those of sturdy
will.
“But the land is free to all the world,” I said, “to you and to me, and
to those of both our races.”
“We do not see it so,” was his reply.
“But,” I insisted, “are we not now, you and I, enjoying it in freedom?”
It is difficult to translate in words the rapid give and take of our
thoughts, the pictures that flashed back and forth between us, as I
strove with kindliness and will to make him understand that the welfare
of his race did not call for the destruction of mine.
I told him--and the idea was so new to him that, lacking words, I had
to draw my story on the canvas of thought in the minutest detail--how
the soul that leaves the earth for a time returns to it in another
form. And I explained how hundreds upon hundreds of his people, and the
most advanced among them, had already come back in material form to
that America they had loved before, that they wore white bodies, and
could only be distinguished from other white men by the keenness of
their eyes, their gait, and certain peculiarities of speech and manner.
He followed my story with astonished, almost painful, intensity; for he
knew, with that inner knowledge which on this side of life is almost
impossible to deceive, that I spoke honestly and believed that which I
told him.
“And do you not deceive yourself?” was his inevitable question.
Then I told him of those recent and former lives of my own which I most
vividly remember, and cited proofs that I did not deceive myself.
“But what a life is that of the white man for one of my people?” he
demanded.
Then he flashed me picture after picture of the simple white man’s
life in America, the schoolhouse with the choking-hot stove and the
bad air, the house and home with closed doors and windows, the
“meeting-house” where a droning or a noisy preacher prated of things he
did not understand, to others who believed or did not believe that they
believed him. He held up before me as for ridicule the clothing of the
white man in the lower walks of life, the confining and uncomfortable
shoes, the binding trousers, the ugly hat that makes bald the head, and
the collar. The one he pictured was a paper collar, soiled and wilted
at the edges.
Then he showed me--as if to prove the breadth of his observations--an
office in a city, with the clerks seated upon stools and bent with
aching backs over ledgers that contained figures, figures, long lines
of figures that were the symbols of the white man’s wampum, which
seemed so trivial when made the principal occupation of a soul that
had rejoiced in the red man’s forest.
“And is it for this that they come back to their native land?” he asked.
“But the soul must gain all experience,” I said.
The idea seemed new to him, and he pondered it with knitted brows.
“Why should the soul gain all experience?” he asked.
“That it may return to its God rich in knowledge,” I replied.
“Its God.” At that thought the strange eyes of him lighted, though his
face remained immobile.
“Yes,” I said, “for your God and my God are both God.”
“There are many gods,” he replied. “There is the Great Spirit, and
there are the others.”
“In the centre of each of them,” I assured him, “there is a spot, a
core of the heart that is the same in all, that exists everywhere, and
in every heart is one, that knows no division; and that centre is also
in your heart and mine and in that of our respective Gods.”
“Did you learn that in one of those hot schoolhouses?” he asked.
“No. I did not learn it even when I was an old man upon the earth,
but after I came out here. On earth I rather prided myself on my
separateness.”
“Then one can learn new religions out here?” he asked, in surprise.
“If one finds a teacher,” I replied.
“But what need is there of _new_ religions?”
“There is,” I said, “in the core of every religion also that central
spot where all are one. And there is in all races,” I pursued, for I
saw that he watched with half-belief, “there is in all races a core
of unity. The red man is the brother and not the permanent enemy of
the white man. So why should you injure the descendants of those who
followed what they believed to be right in extending their holdings in
this land long ago?”
“But I was not seeking to injure them for injury’s sake.”
“Then I misunderstood the purpose of your magic song.”
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “You caught the feeling of my children, who cannot
see beyond feeling. My purpose is only to destroy the present to make
way for the old life.”
“But the present is always a stage,” I said, “on the highroad
that leads to the future. And my people reincarnated, and yours
reincarnated--or so many of them as are ready to go on--shall go on
together and in this land. They will form, with those who join them
from beyond the seas, a new race. And thanks to the labors of a few
among the white men who have studied and appreciated the traditions
and civilization of the red man and sought to save them from utter
obliteration, the old forest lore will become a part of the inheritance
of that new race which is to grow out of the union of yours and mine
and the others. And for a part of every year, when the life of the new
race is adjusted, the boys and girls and men and women will go out to
the wilds and enjoy the freedom of the tent and the society round the
campfire, and we shall be brothers--real blood-brothers--at last, and
all the old wounds shall be healed. Can you not recognize me as your
brother?”
He nodded his head.
“And will you not spread among your people the glad tidings of the new
race, in all of whose possessions they will share?”
We stood long looking in each other’s eyes, and I told him more than I
could record here if I held the use of your pencil for many hours. In
the end he understood me.
It is my belief that he will spread the story among his people, and
that one danger will be lessened thereby, to some degree, for the
children of the new race.
LETTER XVII
THE IDEAL OF SUCCESS
_June 23, 1917._
PUT fear out of your hearts. The future will give you no greater
lessons than you can master. It is not well to know the future in
complete detail. Had the world known during the last ten years all it
would be obliged to suffer in this war, would it have made the progress
it has made in art, science and commerce? No. Every thought would have
been haunted.
You may say that the weaker races (and the stronger ones) would have
made better preparation. But a part of this lesson has been not to
delay inevitable preparation, and to know in future that a nation
which idealizes war and is mostly army, has not cultivated that ideal
and that army solely for its own amusement.
If you want to understand national life and individual life, you must
look for their dominating ideals. An ideal is a tendency.
What is the dominating ideal of America? Summed in a word, it is
success, is it not? Now America is in a great war, and you may be sure
that she will leave nothing undone that can make for success in that
war, as she has left nothing undone that could make for success in
business.
Take your own case. What are your dominating ideals and tendencies? You
would say, off-hand, work and study and intellectual companionship,
would you not? Very well. As to work, do not fear a future in which
good work is pretty sure of at least a living wage. Study? There will
always be books to feed your hunger for reading. Companionship? There
are too many lonely souls in the world for you ever to be lonely.
What else? You lift your pencil and think.... That is about all, is it
not?
Now let us return to America. America is not--has not been--a warlike
nation, except when threatened by injustice, to herself or others. Will
she lose this war? I think not.
But there will be complexities regarding the end of this war.
I want to refer to something I said in a recent letter, that we were
organizing on this side of the airy frontier for work for the future of
America.
I have spoken of the Genius of this land, a composite entity you may
call it, if your imagination is not equal to the task of seeing that
you--all of you--are cells in the body of the Genius of America.
Now the Genius of this land has glorious purposes, and she uses
you--all of you--for her purposes, as you use the cells of your body,
as you are using at this moment the aggregation of cells that form the
hand with which you hold your pencil.
In registering yourselves at the call of your country, you are
affirming your acceptance of the office of cells in the great body of
her. Some of you she must sacrifice in the war for the welfare of the
whole, as every day cells die and are born in the body of man, the
microcosm.
Extend the idea to the whole human race, and the figure will be still
more apt. The genius of the race is suffering now. The process will
ultimate in a more perfect health.
You perhaps protest that many of those who are dying are the flower
of the race, the young, the fitted to survive. But do you not remember
that their souls survive? The essential part of them is not lost, but
set free for a greater work. Have you considered that earth-life may be
the dream, and the life after death the waking? Sages have considered
it before you, and accepted the possibility.
Out here we are hopeful, and very busy. It is because I am so busy that
I come to you only occasionally. Do not hurry me, for I do not hurry
you.
We have problems to solve out here. As I have said, one of our problems
is the great number of Indian souls, red men souls, who went out of
life with resentment and revenge in their hearts for the elimination of
their race by the white man in America.
Somehow we must placate them, and enlist them on your side. Otherwise
they may be a dangerous element for the future. Some of them would like
to see your civilization destroyed, as theirs was destroyed, and a few
of them are strong enough to do real harm.
The best way to make an enemy harmless is to understand his peculiar
qualities, to learn something from the frankness of his enmity, to turn
away evil by letting it go off at a tangent. But the Indian souls are
not famous for their frankness. Even with me they sometimes conceal
their resentment--deep, fundamental--at the “theft,” as they feel it,
of the land where they once roamed in freedom.
I advise America to cultivate the free life of the open. I have advised
you in a former book that the old woodcraft should be resuscitated and
taught to the children. There may come a time when the rudiments of
this knowledge will be useful to many of you.
Great changes are coming in the world, a period of adjustment to new
conditions. There is a restless element in all adjustment, and national
restlessness is like that of puberty; it needs to be minimized by
healthful outdoor play, or by work which masquerades as play.
The future will take from the present those elements that are most
important for survival.
Do not fear that we shall return to the Dark Ages. Oh, no. We are going
into a Light Age. It is only twilight now.
LETTER XVIII
ORDER AND PROGRESS
_July 18, 1917._
OUR purpose is to make the changes that must come, come gradually. We
want to avoid sudden changes.
You in the world have no faint idea of the influence and power we can
wield on our side. We can speak to the minds of men without their
knowing whence the ideas come. They think, when a sudden idea comes
into their minds, that they have evolved it; but _sudden_ ideas
generally come from outside. (I put one in your mind this morning, then
ran away before you could recognize me. Why did I run away? Because I
wanted you to use your own judgment.)
Just at present we are trying to encourage America as to her
future--_her orderly and peaceful future_, after peace is declared
in Europe.
You may as well know that there are many out here who are anxious about
the future of the world. All men do not cease to worry when they have
left their bodies. There are many here who think the world is going to
smash. They always had that fear in life whenever things seemed to go
wrong; and now they are no less inclined to accept every perplexity as
an omen of failure and confusion.
All over America there are men and women--and many of them are in
pulpits and on platforms--who are croaking away about the destruction
of society following this war. Bless your troubled hearts! Society is
not going to be destroyed. Some elements in society will be gradually
done away with, and good riddance to them! But society has made too
great advance, in mechanical and intellectual ways, to permit its
structure to be pulled from beneath its feet.
Do not worry. Watch out, but do not worry. As Abraham Lincoln once
prevented this country from being territorially divided and thus
weakened, so he and others are now working to prevent a spiritual
division that would be even more disastrous.
No, we are not going to see your useful inventions and your structures
that the future has need of, cast into the rubbish heap by reckless
violence and extravagance. What is useful must be conserved. What is
useless for the future can be made over into something useful.
Humanity has not been in the habit of taking sudden jumps. It has put
one foot regularly before the other, and gone ahead rather steadily.
The way of man in the past has been to improve and make over, rather
than suddenly to discard its institutions, or even its garments.
Only that which is really worn out is cast away. And our financial
system, and our social system in general, will be improved and _not
discarded_. Did you think we were going back to wampum? Oh, no!
There _is_ a strong pull from this side, and from those who
inhabited your continent, to simplify the life in America. But America
is no longer isolate. She has now taken her place in the republic of
nations.
Some of the souls who used to be American Indians would like to see
America resume wigwams and campfires, because those souls want to come
back, and they dread the complexity of modern American life. But there
are teachers here--and some of them red teachers--who can instruct the
souls behindhand in adaptability.
I have told you that there is an influence tending to draw America
backward. But I have not told you to be panicky regarding the fact.
There are reactionaries--even in your world.
The influence from this side is subtle. But the majority here who
desire to lead the world, desire to lead it forward and not back.
_The world will go forward._
Yes, the souls you call the “departed” are organizing themselves. They
realize that their influence can be more effective if it has a purpose
and a program. For a time after the war began there was great confusion
out here, but things are becoming more orderly. Minds are becoming
more united. Many of us who have common sense and some measure of
political judgment give most of our time to lecturing here and there,
wherever we can draw a crowd together. That is one reason why you have
seen me so seldom of late. I have been busier than ever before. Knowing
that a time is coming soon when I can rest from my present labors, I am
using my strength as fast as I generate it. For those whom I convince
that America and other countries are going forward--_must_ go
forward to greater activity--seek to convince others in their turn.
No lecturer on earth ever had so busy a month as I have had this last
month. I have spoken to hundreds several times every day, going from
place to place, from State to State, from city to city. I can speak in
San Francisco in the morning, in New York at noon, in New Orleans at
two o’clock, in Butte, Montana, in the evening. I am not limited to
railway time-tables, nor do I pay my fare.
Believe me, we are going to save America, and we are going to save the
world. For the Masters are behind us, and they will not let the world
be destroyed.
I should not like you to know how near it has been to destruction more
than once during the last three years. But the forces of premeditated
evil against which we fought so long have been scattered now, and
though they have not been destroyed, their effect has been greatly
lessened. What we have reason to fear now is the unwisdom of those who
believe they wish good to the world--_the unwisdom of fanatics and
agitators and fuss-budgets_ of all sorts, stirring up confusion and
darkening counsel with their unpractical and conflicting ideas.
Order, order, order! That is what the world must strive for in the
period of reaction which will follow this war. The reaction must be
reckoned with; but it will be only a brief rest of overwearied hearts,
who will again begin building.
It is in that building period that I hope for America, because she will
be less tired than the other members of the great world brotherhood.
But in America at that time there will be a danger. I tell you that,
lest you be taken unawares and relax your attention.
Be watchful, but not over-anxious.
And trust the Masters of Life somehow to lead you through.
LETTER XIX
THE FEDERATION OF NATIONS
_August 9, 1917._
THE time has now come for America to get out into the world and take
her place in the federation of nations. Let her unite with England in a
strong bond, and thereby she can keep the peace of the world.
The isolation of America in the past has been in line with her destiny;
it was necessary for her to develop to her present state of power
without interruptions, or the influence of international complications
upon her statesmen. Free and alone, she has not had to become a part
of the great and creaking machine of international diplomacy and
intrigue. But now she is independent, and, politically speaking,
her character is formed. You may say that America has attained her
majority, and is entitled to vote in the councils and elections of the
world.
She has much to do for both France and England, as they have both
done so much for her in the past. They have formed her culture and
influenced her spirit; now she will influence their spirit.
When you read the other day of the work which our soldiers are doing in
France, helping in many little ways in the villages and on the farms,
your heart glowed with pleasure; you remembered what I said to you
before America came into the war, that our men were to go to France and
to work, work, work for the upbuilding of France.
That is only the beginning. More and more will our men work over
there, during and after war.
Soon there will come a call for a new kind of work--new for us.
There is deep meaning in this bringing together of the nations for a
common cause. From that, there is only a step to the bringing together
of _all_ nations for _one_ cause.
The force of revolt in the world must spend itself, as the force of
race hatred has spent itself--for it is already spent. The continuation
of the war will be practically without the rage of the beginning. We go
on because it is our job, and even in New York now there is no longer
the fierceness of two years ago. And in England it is lessened, and
in France it is lessened, and in Germany it is lessened. War has now
become a task like any other, to be gone through with. When it no
longer seems worth while, it will stop.
The question of America’s part in the federation of states interests me
now.
LETTER XX
THE NEW IDEAL
_August 19, 1917._
SINCE Germany evolved her idea of flamboyant nationalism and tried
to foist it upon the world in imperial fashion, the world has grown
skeptical of the national fetish. It will believe in the good
intentions of no nation or race that flaunts its perfections in the
face of friend or enemy.
America, as she grows more and more sure of her high destiny, must also
grow more modest. She must realize herself as one of the sister states
in the great commonwealth of nations, and the eagle will take lessons
in voice culture. As a quiet voice can make itself heard in a medley
of noises where a screaming voice would be inaudible, so must America’s
voice become deep and quiet.
She is paying for her place in the councils of the world. Let her voice
be heard by reason of its dignified and restrained accents.
A great change is taking place in Europe, in its conception of the
American character. Hitherto France has known the American tourist,
and the uprooted American who lived there in preference to his own
country. Now France is learning something about the American man in his
workaday, playaday, fighting and loving, living and dying sublimity.
She has rubbed her eyes as she watched him, wondering if she were
awake. She has recognized a new type. She does not understand it yet,
but she wants to understand it. There is a new and disturbing warmth
now at the heart of France for this new brother from across the seas.
She sees (for she is subtle) the crudity of him as measured by her more
artificial standards. But she sees also the grandeur and chivalry of
him, as compared with her old idea of the foreigner.
Ah, America and Americans! You are on trial now in the courts of the
world’s judgment as you have never been before. My heart is aglow as
I see our boys go out into the larger world, carrying with them the
clear outdoor spirit of the American plains and woodlands. When I see
the eyes of the sublime and pain-chastened French grow deep and warm as
they rest upon our boys, I am so proud of them! I forget that I also
am uprooted, having left the land of my birth for the regions beyond
death.
In the councils at the ending of the war and after the war, may the
modesty of greatness restrain America from any suggestion to France or
England that she saved them from destruction. I clasp my hands--to you
they would be shadowy hands--together with excess of emotion, as I pray
for the guidance of America in the councils that are to come.
Modesty--let that be the watchword.
The soul of France is aflame with gratitude, the soul of France is
aflame with love. The hearts of the French people in the night grow
warm and their eyes grow wet as they whisper to themselves, “Les
Américains! Les Américains!”
Oh, be mindful of the love you have won!
I would die all over again a thousand times rather than see my
Americans disappoint their French brethren in this crisis of the
world’s life.
You wonder why I say nothing of England? Ah! England knows you already.
England has known you long. You cannot surprise England. She knows you
as the mother knows her son or daughter; but to the French you are a
mystery, a mystery that has come to help, an angel in a khaki shirt and
a slouch hat and a strange voice.
Don’t you understand?
She prays for you. She would pray to you if she were not so shy in her
love. There is a new strange wonder in her eyes, and a sweet thrill all
over her.
Oh, exalt the brotherhood of nations--that never before realized ideal!
You cannot take away from a boy who has grown up in a free world the
deep-rooted idea that America is and ever must be free. In years gone
by the sons of this soil have died for freedom, freedom for themselves,
freedom for the black man. Now they fight and die for the freedom of
the world.
Do you know what it means to be free? Only the self-restrained man is
free, for lawlessness is not freedom. Lawlessness is always in leash to
passions tyrannical.
In the new America that I see just over the edge of the horizon
(for my eye reaches farther than yours), there will be room for the
fullest development of the individual idea, while the idea of social
responsibility will make it stable. Hitherto individuality has run
rampant. Witness the hoarding of food by a few, while many go without.
Watch the clash and struggle of each interest to take some advantage
for itself out of this tragic opportunity.
Before the war is ended the hearts of men must work in harness with
their minds. The old generation is dying off, the generation whose
initiative girdled the continent with railroads, spurred by the hope
of personal gain. The new men who will follow the old “captains of
industry” will glimpse a new ideal.
I am told by one who knows more than I that the men who have made
industrial America, by their foresight and initiative, were guided and
inspired by Beings who used them and their ambitions for world purposes
beyond their comprehension.
LETTER XXI
A RAMBLING TALK
_November 15, 1917._
I AM not in a literary mood to-night, so I may talk in a rambling way.
I wonder if you know the seriousness of the enterprise which America
has undertaken. You think you do. But before the matter is all threshed
out at the end you may have surprises in store.
Do not worry about your things in London. London is large, and a good
many bombs can fall without destroying any great portion of it.
Yes, I say emphatically again what I said some two years and a half
ago, that there will be internal troubles in Germany--and in other
places, too. The world is going to be made over. Do not be afraid. The
making over of the world will not hurt you.
Humanity is so afraid of change! The race has gone through many
changes--some of them in prehistoric times--more dramatic than the
present change. Humanity has a long history, and little of it is
recorded in books that you can read.
Yes, the world will be united, and the world will be cut up. That
sounds like a paradox, perhaps.
As I am resting to-night, I may take the liberty of being disconnected.
You ought always to live in a quiet place like this, a little remote
from the centre of things. You do not belong in the bustle and crowd
downtown, either in New York or any other large city. All those who
have developed their inner senses should live a little apart. That
does not mean that they should all become hermits; but they should live
in the outskirts. When you feel a desire for the crowd you can go down
into it.
Tell ---------- not to worry because this book is going slowly. You are
not working against time. The world will go on, and you will go with
it. Make no mistake about that. The world is going very fast. All these
new “psychic” books are an evidence that the world is going fast. A few
years ago no publisher would have issued them.
I do not wonder that your head swims a little.
You have been impressed by “losing” so many personal friends since
the war began, friends whose deaths seemed unconnected with the war.
But they are of those who could not adjust to the new world that is
coming. Their Silent Watchers are taking them out. You each have a
Silent Watcher, a something, a part of you that is above and beyond
you, yet which is the most real of all the parts of you.
The Watchers of the universe are watching more intently than usual.
Your own is watching you as well as the world. It will give you notice
when any important action is necessary.
It seems as if the world had adjusted itself to the idea that the dead
_may_ speak with the living. But that is only the beginning of
knowledge.
When the worst of the war is over, and men begin to adapt themselves
to peace, they will try to know themselves. And they will discover
that their bodies and souls are only parts of them, that they exist on
as many planes of being as there are planes of matter and of subtler
substance, and that each of these selves is as real as the personality
they see in the mirror. They will learn to form links between them, to
build bridges of communication. Finally they will become consciously
complete beings.
Joy is coming back to the world some day, such joy as the world has
never known. You will one day be glad to be alive again, and I mean all
of you.
Do not fret because you have to remain in America. At the moment
America is a good place in which to be. The world is opening its
eyes at the efficiency of America. She is setting an example that
her friends will be ashamed not to follow. Some day she will set the
highest example of all.
LETTER XXII
THE LEVER OF WORLD UNITY
_November 19, 1917._
DO you not see that the unifying influence of America is already being
felt in the war? Do you not see how America, through the President of
the United States, is drawing the Allies together? That is her destiny,
to assemble all nations in a brotherhood of democratic freedom and
mutual helpfulness. This demand of President Wilson for a council, for
unified action in prosecuting the war, is one of the most significant
events in history. For the first time a group of friendly nations
may really work as one, putting aside all personal jealousies and
fears--for a great world end.
It is the lever of world unity which shall lift the burden of
wastefulness that heretofore has cost the world half the fruits of its
labor.
Oh, nations of Europe, do not fear the great free land across the
waters! She wants nothing of you, save now the privilege of helping you
to save yourselves, and in the future to work with you for the ideals
that will make you all strong.
The Anglo-Saxon race must again be like one family, though in two
houses; but bye and bye, when America shall have amalgamated her
foreign residents with herself in one indissoluble race, she will still
be your sister, O Britain! and you two shall counsel together for the
further enlightening of the world.
Sometimes I go high in the etheric regions and look down upon the
earth, so high that the horizons bound one hemi-sphere after another.
The horizons of time are also thus expanded, and I see ahead of and
behind the present hour. I see the causes that have brought the world
to its present _impasse_. You will have to remove the wall that
separates you from the age of enlightened brotherhood.
You have read about the golden age of the past. Did you think it was a
fanciful story, to amuse children in the fire-light? I tell you it will
sometime be realized again, and on this earth--now rent by hatred and
war.
You must retain all you have won from the mines of the earth and from
the activity of your own brains. Inventions and arts, they will all
have their place in the new age that is coming, and hitherto unimagined
art and science will add further to the glory and comfort of life. It
will be the fault of your own folly and blindness if you lose anything
of value to the soul. The soul needs matter as matter needs the soul.
Because we look forward to an age without hatred and wasteful division,
we do not look forward to an age of idleness and inertia. Limitless
will be the opportunities for genius, for talent, for ambition.
The greatest aristocracy of earth is the aristocracy of mind and soul,
and mind and soul will be cultivated. The education of the future will
be not only practical but humanistic; nothing will be thrown away
that makes for beauty or for thought. The treasures of dead languages
will not be thrown into the dust-bin. After the labor necessary to
provide for the material wants of the world, time will be left for
art and beauty and scholarship, for social discussion and religious
exaltation. The mystic also will have his place.
Three years ago I would not have dared to prophesy a _happy_
outcome for this tragic fracas. More than two years ago I told you that
the battle had been won in the regions above the earth--won by the
powers of good, who labor for the welfare of mankind. How _can_
you doubt? If the war had ended two years ago, the world might have
gone on more or less as it went before. But now it can never go back to
the old selfish ways. In the need that will follow the war the races
will help one another; they will turn to one another as brothers and
sisters turn.
Never lose faith that out of this tragedy will come the guerdon of the
world’s desire. I see it, I live for it (for I live more vitally than
you); and that you may see and live for it also I struggle against the
lightness of my present body, that has a tendency to carry me away from
the dense regions where you suffer and pray, you men of earth.
You who have followed me from those early days when I wrote you letters
from the lower astral world, describing as a traveller in a strange
country the things I had seen; you who followed me through the hells
of astral turmoil during the early months of the war, follow me yet a
little further. I will show you the way as it has been shown to me.
And you will walk in that way, though stumbling at first and groping
for the thread of purpose through the labyrinth of reconstruction, in
the days that shall be called days of peace. For perfect peace will
not come at once. You will have to work for it, as you have worked
for triumph in war. But if you have faith, you will ride the stormy
waters into the haven of a new earth. And a new heaven will spread
above the earth, for heaven is largely peopled from below; it recruits
its population from below. No new angels are being created now. The
outgoing Breath rests, and the indrawing Breath is about to begin.
You who have practised “yogi breathing” know how difficult it is to
hold the breath _out_ for more than a short time. It can only be
done by force of will. The tendency is to return, as the tendency in
the race is to return towards the Source from which it came. It is
therefore I say that you cannot retard, save for a little while, the
flow of the race-breath towards harmony and peace and love.
This struggle of men with each other in the selfishness of separation
is like the struggle of the yogi not to inbreathe--the young and
inexperienced yogi; for the wise one breathes at stated intervals, and
knows when the period is full.
The race knows. It will follow the law of the outflow and inflow. You
cannot prevent it. So yield yourselves to the current that would carry
you back to God.
It will not be a hurried journey, for the inflowing breath is measured
too. There will be time for labor and for rest, and to gather flowers
by the way.
Do you fear the return to God, however slow it may be? I who have
tasted death know there is nothing to fear; and I who have tasted the
new life tell you there is everything to hope.
LETTER XXIII
THE STARS OF MAN’S DESTINY
_November 24, 1917._
HAS it occurred to you that the powers that have in charge the progress
of the world may be obliged to use methods repugnant to your desires,
in order to accomplish inevitable purposes at the time when they are
due? Man, by rebelling against the tendencies of cosmic progress, may
retard it--for a time; but when the wave rises high enough it will
carry him along against his will, and inevitable effects are produced
in spite of his rebellion.
Take this war. The hour had struck on the world clock when races of
men should work together for a common purpose. They rebelled in their
fear that each would not get his share of world benefits; so the world
was attacked by a common enemy, and the races have _had_ to
unite for a common purpose, that of preserving civilization from the
destruction that threatens it.
Could this war have been prevented? By prevision, yes. But no one with
influence enough to be heard respectfully had that prevision. Those who
stand high in the world’s regard have generally so concentrated upon
their individual work and their individual ambitions, that they have
lost the ability to see impersonally and to see the world as a whole.
Some can see as a whole the tendencies of their own country; few can
see the world tendency.
And I tell you now that if, when this universal war is ended, the
races do not recognize the necessity to unite in a federation for the
good of all, there will be after forty years little left of all that
has been accomplished during that marvellous nineteenth century which
saw material progress equalling that of the preceding two thousand
years.
Can man not see the stars of his destiny without being struck on the
head with a hammer? If man will not work for the good of the whole,
then the whole has to be threatened. It is so threatened now, if you
could see it.
LETTER XXIV
MELANCHOLY
_December 23, 1917._
I WANT to write about melancholy, not the depression produced by bad
digestion or pressure on the nerves, but that cloud of darkness that
sometimes descends upon the most brilliant mind and the stoutest heart,
making them for a while useless for any purpose--except that of drawing
knowledge from the experience of melancholy itself.
Not all sadness originates in the heart that is sad, and fear, the
basis of melancholy, may be suggested to a soul on earth by a soul
beyond the earth. You do not realize what a cloud of dissatisfied and
fearful souls this holocaust has let loose in the invisible regions;
they flock round the sensitive souls upon the earth, longing to “tell
their troubles,” longing for sympathy and help. They are no more
self-reliant than many in your world whose very presence depresses a
stronger fellow being.
Now whenever you feel that cloud of melancholy, stop and ascertain
the cause. You have observed the workings of suggestion. If you
find nothing in your environment or circumstances to fill you
with hopelessness, would it not be safe to assume--unless you are
bilious--that the cloud gathered elsewhere and merely descended upon
you?
The student who hopes some day--though maybe many lives in the
future--to achieve adeptship, may as well begin now to control and
direct his thoughts and feelings.
You need not be melancholy unless you want to be. There are texts,
mantras, adages, even copy-book maxims you can recall and meditate
upon, that will drive away the worst fit of the blues. Here are a few:
Pleasure and pain are opposite expressions of one force.
I am a part of God, and no harm can overtake God.
What is the truth hidden in this well of discontent?
If I go deep enough into this midnight earth, I shall come out on the
other side where the sun shines.
I was happy yesterday, and I am still I.
A frightened dog will never scare away a robber.
If all these ills befall me, it will be an exercise of power to conquer
them.
--Not very profound, perhaps; but you can write better ones if you
wish. I am merely illustrating one process of shaking off the burden of
dread.
Why should you men dread anything? Even death is only dreadful when you
are afraid of it.
The Masters enjoy difficulties. They are the acid that tests the gold
of their mastership.
And speaking from a lower plane, there is pleasure in doing any
difficult thing. Why, in the writing of a big novel there is more
actual work, mental and physical, than in overcoming some great
misfortune. It is less work to go out and overcome a threatened
misfortune than it is to write a short story.
How anybody in good health and with even ordinary ability can yield to
melancholy is a question for a philosopher.
I am not talking now of grief for dead friends, or for false friends,
which grief is far worse; but of the fear of some imaginary disaster
which in all probability will never happen.
The surest way to attract disasters is to imagine them. You can create
almost anything if you imagine it strongly enough--even joy and courage.
A Master once told me that the control and exorcism of melancholy was a
greater test of power than the control of desire.
Both often come from outside, are suggested to the receptive, passive
mind. Now the Master entertains only those suggestions that can
strengthen his purposes. If you have a friend who makes you courageous
by his very presence, cultivate his society. If you have a friend who
makes you melancholy, either teach him better or get rid of him; send
him to a doctor.
What is the use in our talking about occult power if we have not power
over our moods? Practise on moods. As an exercise, some time when you
are active, force yourself to be lazy. When you are lazy and not tired,
force yourself to be active. Natural fatigue should not be pressed too
far, it is a mere reaction; but indolence is not fatigue. It is in the
physical what melancholy is in the mental.
As another exercise, when your mind circles round and round something,
switch it off as you would switch off an electric light. Turn and think
of something else. You can do it.
And, by the way, one of the best cures for melancholy is an hour of
mathematical calculations. I defy anybody to be melancholy in the arms
of geometry or trigonometry. Why? You cannot think in mathematical
terms and of yourself at the same time. People always think of
themselves when they are melancholy.
But you tell me that you became melancholy the other day in thinking
about a friend who had lost her job. Think again. By wondering what you
could do for this friend and whether you could afford it, you began to
fear.... Is it not so?
You may be sad because a friend is in trouble, but you cannot be
melancholy for anybody but yourself.
Another can make you melancholy by making you morbid and fearful.
Our thoughts are so chained to our ego that it is difficult for
them to escape for long. But are you ever melancholy when creating
imaginatively a scene in a book? Could you be melancholy while figuring
the “polar elevation” of a planet, or computing one of those converse
“primary directions”? I see you smile. When you are engaged with
figures you forget yourself. Now take my advice. When auto-suggestion
is powerless to conquer melancholy, draw up an astrological figure in a
low latitude with that table of oblique ascensions that I saw you using
yesterday, and work out the converse primaries and the longitude of
Vulcan.
You remind me that when on earth I had small interest in astrology. But
I am talking about mathematical calculations.
LETTER XXV
COMPENSATORY PLAY
_February 1, 1918._
I HAVE looked in on you occasionally during the last few weeks, pleased
with your resting for a time.
The ambitious and energetic are prone to underestimate the value of
occasional idleness. You cannot run even a machine all the time without
oil and rest. Neither can the most vigorous engineer-soul run its brain
and body too long without letting them cool. The farmer knows when to
let a field lie fallow.
“After the war” it is to be hoped that the soldiers who have worked so
long at one labor--that of war--may be given a period of compensatory
play, doing nothing, before being replaced in the hive of industry. Let
them enjoy the breezes and the perfume of idleness for a little time;
the reaction from that rest will send them back into the workshops with
renewed desire for activity. If the world has to get along with less
for a few weeks, that will not hurt the world.
In the years to come there will be more rest and recreation in
America. In Europe there is going to be some degree of fatigue after
this war, and America can easily hold her own if she carries a lower
steam-pressure.
The idle hours are sometimes as valuable as those that are spent in
labor. It is in so-called idle hours that we meditate, get acquainted
with ourselves, build air castles, which are working-plans for our
edifice of the future. Day dreams are good. I had a day dream during
my life, and it was really the working-plan for the future I am
building now. I wanted to get back something I had lost, and I have got
it back. You wonder what it was? I do not mind telling you. In a former
life I went far along the road towards mastership. Then once upon a
time I slipped back a long way. My day dream was to recover that lost
ground, and I have recovered much of it out here.
If I had not left the world with that day dream vivid in my
consciousness, I should not have made the progress and the recovery I
have made.
I was talking the other day with an old friend--a very dear old
friend--who came out here a year or two ago, and she and I agreed that
the day dreams we had dreamed together were among the most valuable
products of our recent life.
She is revelling in the recovery of her own lost ground, and she
will run me a good race as the years go on. Yes, one can race across
recovered ground of adeptship.
My friend said laughingly the other day that she had made more plans
since coming out here than she could execute in a long while.
“Take your time,” I advised, “in the execution. You have all eternity.”
She looked at me in the old way I remember so well, and said:
“Time may be made for slaves, but eternity is made for masters.”
She too is glad that she came out. She had done one kind of work long
enough, and is now enjoying another.
Is she helping me, you wonder? Well, no, unless you count the pleasure
of our renewed association as a help. Why should she help me, or I
her? Our work is our own.
You in the world should help each other when you can; but out here we
of equal stature help each other by _being_. That is a good help,
though, the being together sometimes.
What a wonderful expression, by the way, “being together”! What poetry!
Not working together, nor playing together, but simply being. You
must often have felt that joy when with a loved friend. Words are not
necessary for that enjoyment. Words often lessen the enjoyment by the
very effort of uttering them. Effortless being! Even the birds enjoy
it, and the rose could give you valuable secrets of that joy.
In the world I have heard busybodies say of a beautiful woman that she
did nothing. What of it? A rose does not run a sewing-machine, or
write books.
Joy is coming back to the world. It has been long absent. Being for its
own sake has taken on new meanings in the minds of those who are glad
to be still alive.
To have passed through all the perils of a long war and still to “be” a
living man is something to make the soul wonder.
The men who have fought in this war from the beginning should not be
crowded too hard when at last they can stretch their limbs in the
hammocks of peace. They have earned the right. As they spin their
soldier yarns, gaze at them with respect. They passed through the
shadow of death for you. That God has retained them among the active
cells of His body is because He has need of them still; but it does not
mean that they should go on working for you every minute. Suppose you
work for them for a while. When they are rested they will join you in
your labor.
Last night I listened to two soldiers talking, and this is what they
said to each other:
“What will you do, John, when it’s all over?”
“I’ll lie in the bath tub an hour every morning, in the warm, soft,
soapy water; and in the afternoon I’ll call on one dear girl after
another, and drink tea, and listen to their talk. And what will you do?”
“Oh, I’ll just look at my wife and hold her hand.”
Idle talk, you think? That depends upon what you mean by idle talk. To
me that talk was immensely significant.
Soon after our little skirmish with Spain I remember hearing an active
woman say of her husband that he had never been good for anything since
he came back from Cuba.
“Well,” I said, “he was good for a lot in Cuba.”
The Spanish-American war! A fly beside an elephant, as compared with
this war.
And the German is tired, too. You may not have to overwork yourself to
keep up with him after the war.
LETTER XXVI
THE AQUARIAN AGE
_February 2, 1918._
YOU have wondered why the Masters speak now of the interests of the
common man, while in former times they said little about them. But do
you not know that when the need for a thing is come, the work of the
Masters with the world is to urge the world in the direction of its
destiny?
You have read of the iron age, the golden age, etc., and that the
golden age follows the iron. You may have wondered how two states so
utterly dissimilar could be juxtaposed. Now between the iron age and
the golden age there is a period of transition, a period short as
compared with one of the great ages, for example the longest one, the
golden, which is given as one million, seven hundred and twenty-eight
thousand years.
I have not visited you this evening to announce that the golden age
is immediately at hand. Oh, no! But we approach the termination of a
minor cycle, and the period of transition from the present state of the
world to the next[3] will be of about one thousand years. That is to
say, this period of one thousand years will bring us to the middle of
what is called the Aquarian age, for the half of one of these lesser
Zodiacal periods is approximately of that length.[4]
What is the Aquarian age? You know the humanitarian nature of Aquarius.
You also know the characteristics of the planet Uranus, to which
Aquarius is now attributed. Well, the inference is obvious. We shall
have an Aquarian world, and a world where things will go after the
manner of that strange and abrupt planet Uranus.
The old-fashioned world is passing away, the Jupiterian world, and we
are entering upon a period of change, political, social, religious and
personal. There is going to be an attempt at a federation of states, a
federation of souls. Nothing but this war could have effected it--with
the suddenness characteristic of that mysterious planet Uranus.
In the later Aquarian age the creative will of man will have such
scope as the world has not dreamed of. It will be set free from the
limitations which have held it. When all men are assured of a means of
livelihood, how free they will be in _mind_! The freedom of the
past in a free country like America is nothing like the freedom which
the new age will usher in.
When education is really universal, the moral as well as the mental
will be trained, and new ideas will have room to develop in the
developing brain.
Be not afraid, O world! Three years ago, even we who see far out here
had grave doubts for the future of your planet. But the great Masters
always told us that the world would pass through its period of trial,
still poised on its old axis, and that the _forces which make for
order would triumph over the forces which make for disorder_. Have
you not noticed in the psychic world a lessening of strain? Have you
not noticed an absence of the hostile and adverse beings that in the
early months of the war seemed to threaten the earth and you and all
men with a triumphant malice? That is a straw which shows the way of
“the winds that blow between the worlds.”
I am glad you are a keen observer of psychic states. That faculty of
observation will be of use to you in the years that are to come. Those
who cannot adjust to new conditions will pass out for a time and return
later with the fresh outlook of children, to take up their experience
in the new age.
There will be much rebellion in the beginning. Things are not so stable
as they _seemed_ four years ago. The war has proved that they were
not really stable.
The wave of psychic research that is now sweeping across the world will
wear thin the veil between the visible and the invisible. More and
more men and women will live in two worlds at the same time; for the
two worlds occupy the same space, and their differences are differences
of consciousness, of vibration, the latter including a difference in
states of matter.
Men will grow more magnetic under the influences that will play upon
them. They will affect each other more and more, and that is one reason
why greater freedom will be necessary. With the greater sensitiveness
which the new time will bring, it will be more difficult for large
families to live together a common life. While the tendency is for
all mankind to be one family in sympathy, more and more it will be
recognized that each man requires privacy for his best development. The
tyranny of the family will give place to freedom _in_ the family.
Strip family life of its tyranny and it may be very charming.
The sensitive and highly charged beings of the new age would explode
if they should be obliged to sit every evening round the family
“centre-table,” listening to the maunderings of the least progressive
among them, who by reason of greater age assumed the right to lay down
the law. This does not mean that children will not honor their parents;
but under the new dispensation parents will honor their children’s need
for the individual life, and will give it to them--thereby securing
their own freedom.
The freedom of the later Aquarian age will be manifest in the mind.
“Heresy” will cease to exist; the word will become obsolete.
The sin against the Holy Ghost will be understood as the attempt to
enchain the will of another.
Great friendliness will result from this mutual tolerance. We hate only
those whom we fear, and in a tolerant world there will be few seeds of
hatred.
All men will study; the school is only the first stage of study. When
man becomes his own schoolmaster he makes great strides.
What you know of art, music and literature can give you but a vague
idea of what these arts will become in the age that is to follow. Take
the catchwords of the immediate past, impressionism, for example. It
will be applied to all the arts.
Science is only in its swaddling-clothes. Aquarius is a sign of
air, the old books tell us, and the air holds many secrets which
you must take for your own, not only secrets of transportation but
psychological secrets. The airplane and psychical research grew up
together.
You have not taken the last redoubt of electricity. That also has
treasures for you. When you can draw _that_ from the air where it
hides from you and laughs, you will have little need of coal, and the
miners can leave the bowels of the earth and play in the sunshine of
the heights.
Inventions! I see in the “pattern world” I told you about in my first
book many things that would puzzle you down here. New fabrics will
be worn before many years, and the patient silkworm will not be the
aristocrat it now is.
The human ego is coming into its own. When it loses selfishness it will
find itself. That is not a paradox for its own sake, but the statement
of a psychological fact.
The seeming chaos will take form, and in it you will find new
beauties. I will not conceal from you the knowledge that many will use
the word chaos during the reconstruction period. But be at peace. The
formless shall take on form. The clairvoyance that is developing in man
will help him to see, where the eyes of his old faith would have been
blind. He will trust the future and trust his brother, and will not be
deceived. The intuition of the soul will point man to the substance
which he needs for his well-being. Behind and within the air is the
ether, which is substance, which is God. And man will take it for
his uses, with the consent of God, who joys in giving Himself to His
children.
As I said before, the Masters urge the world along in the direction
of its destiny; but they are too wise to hurry it. They see the face
of the cosmic clock, and they wake the world at the hour of the new
sunrise. We are blest in being their servants.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Still far short of the golden age, probably.--E. B.]
[Footnote 4: This does not correspond exactly with the popular Hindoo
reckoning. But automatic writings are what they are. I can cut out
repetitions, etc., but I cannot re-write, add to, or distort.--E. B.]
LETTER XXVII
THE WATCHERS
_February 3, 1918._
I STOOD one day before a great soul that had renounced the rest in
heaven, and questioned him as to the work that called us loudest. What
do you think he said?
“_Labor with those who fear for the future._”
“Are there so many, then, who look forward with apprehension?” I asked.
“All those who think and see and have responsibilities are
apprehensive,” he replied.
Then I wandered here and there about America, looking in upon all sorts
of men and a few women. And I read in their minds a great uncertainty.
“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” I thought so intensely
_at_ them that many responded with a hopeful smile.
Yes, I can win response from many people when I think strongly enough
in their company.
The faith of one great soul out here has helped many to stand steady
when the winds blew strong against them. He knows that America cannot
fail of her destiny; but that she may not take a wrong tack, he would
guide the hand and brush the mists from before the eye of the skipper.
There are often mists before the path of the “ship of State” in these
grey days. When Wilson took over the railroads, what courage was there!
When all is over there will be many to criticize and blame him; but
criticism and blame are ever the rewards of those who depersonalize
themselves and labor for the good of their country or the world. The
man who is great enough to cast his personality overboard is not hurt
by criticism. It is only the personality that can be hurt. The soul
stands serene and pure above the adverse storms.
I do not advise all men to disregard their personality. Only those who
bear great responsibilities may safely become impersonal. The small
man, the undeveloped man, could not persuade his soul to take the place
of his lesser self. For the soul must be persuaded to descend and
dwell in the personality. Most souls are only partially incarnated.
The higher self of most men dwells above and apart. It is their
Silent Watcher; but it seldom acts save to warn and save. It leaves
the lesser self to acquire experience and learn its lessons through
suffering and joy, through success and failure. But when the man has so
far evolved that his acts become of more than personal significance,
then the soul may descend and truly guide and influence the man, for
the designs of the soul are ever beyond the personal. It is a conscious
part of the great whole, a conscious part of God whom it worships and
serves, however the lower self may be immersed in trivialities and
blasphemies.
In any man who has not lost his soul the Higher Watcher has an
interest. For the Watcher is One and he is many. He is your link with
God, Oh, men! He is your link with immortality.
You do not meet him merely by dying, for you may dwell long in the
astral and lower mental world before meeting him face to face. But if
you can ascend after death to the higher regions, you will find him
there waiting for you. You may bring to him all the fine fruits of your
recent life, and he will enjoy them with you.
I have met my soul face to face; but I am unable to remain in the
higher regions in peaceful contemplation of his beauty while there is
so much work to be done for the races on earth as calls to me now. Bye
and bye I shall re-ascend; but when I go to heaven for a long sojourn
you will hear from me no more.
Yes, I too have seen your soul. But I need not describe its face to
you, who see it better than I. Cling to it. The failure of mortal
friendship has no power to shatter the faith of one who can reach to
his own Silent Watcher. And the soul of the faithless friend is pure
as his own, and understands all things. Friendships, like loves, are
made in heaven, and true friendship cannot die. Its roots are deep in
waters of eternity. It is deathless as the Ygdrasil, and its roots are
also above and its branches below.
But it is better to fail in business than to fail in friendship.
If a man is great and strong enough, he may draw down his soul to dwell
with him wherever he may be. Then the man is a whole man, he is an
adept. Lincoln is such a man, such a soul. He has become one with his
Higher Watcher, and the two that are one can work even in the regions
of the astral. But such a marriage of heaven and earth is uncommon, as
adepts are uncommon.
Your father in heaven is one with the Father, and if you are really one
with your father in heaven he can dwell with you even on earth.
The higher souls of men are closer to men now than they have been
for ages. The doors have been opened. Grief and terror and pain and
devotion to ideals of duty have raised the race of men in three and
a half years as it could not have been raised in a hundred years of
peace. If the race falls back now, it will be a lost opportunity. But
the race will not fall back.
LETTER XXVIII
A RITUAL OF FELLOWSHIP
_February 8, 1918._
I HAVE been waiting for you half an hour, as you sat sewing a seam and
thinking of your friends in France. It warms the heart now to think of
France. The tie between the two great republics is being drawn closer
and closer.
Shall I tell you an occult secret? The French mixed their blood with
ours long ago, and we have loved them ever since. We are now mixing our
blood with the blood of France, and France will love us in the days
that are to come.
It is a ritual of fellowship, that mixing of blood. English and French
and Americans and Italians, Irish, Scotch, and all the others. Is
there not a foundation for brotherhood? The blended blood cries from
the ground for love.
I see in the eyes of the French their feeling for our men as they march
by, or help in the little ways to which American boys are accustomed.
Never again will they look upon us as queer people from beyond the sea.
We have travelled in their country and spent our money and swaggered
and talked through our noses; but now we are living and dying with
them, and we are brothers of mixed blood.
Yes, go back to France when you can. They always loved you because you
loved them, but now you will see that they also love your native land.
LETTER XXIX
RECRUITING AGENTS
_February, 1918._
FOR a day or two after America declared that a state of war existed, I
spent most of my time in going about this country, studying conditions
in both worlds. Even before that survey I had a general idea of how
matters stood in those worlds; but I wanted to freshen my memory, for I
had a great idea. Many times during my life on earth I had told myself
that I had a great idea, and sometimes I put it into execution, and
sometimes I failed in doing so. But this time I was determined there
should be no failure.
When I had seen from my survey that the materials were all at hand, I
sought out a great man, spirit, or whatever you choose to call him.
Then together we mapped out our campaign. Here are the main points of
it:
Conservation--where the negative forces should be applied.
Construction--with our positive forces.
Coordination--with the synthetic forces.
We marshalled a group of those strong-minded, strong-willed men and
women who had been out here long enough to know not only their way
about, but how to impress their thoughts upon material-bodied men and
women. These were dispatched here and there, to think, think, think, in
the neighborhood of senators and congressmen, chiefs of industry and
members of the general public. The burden of their impressed thought
was conservation of food, conservation of expenditure, conservation of
all material that would be needed for the activities of war.
Others who were filled with a great love for the land of their latest
birth, America, went about in bands instilling their patriotic
enthusiasm into the hearts and minds of those millions who had too
long taken America as a matter of course. They sang patriotic songs,
and though they could not be heard by the ears of earth, the spirit of
their singing could be felt, and they accomplished much.
Then others, the wisest among old leaders of men, were busy in quelling
disorder, in suppressing discontent with the war. Wherever a group of
wild-eyed, peace-prating “idealists” got together to talk twaddle,
there was one or more of these unseen auditors to put the brakes on
responsive enthusiasm to the dangerous principles enunciated.
I will not bore you by giving all the details of this plan of help
which we labored to make effective. But there were enrolled more than
one million beings out here who have pledged themselves to serve until
their services are no longer required. That may not seem to you a great
number to help invisibly a nation of more than one hundred millions;
but one to every hundred is enough among the active workers, for each
is free to choose assistants among those younger in earth experience.
To the one who acted as our commander-in-chief, the generals of this
auxiliary army made reports, and many were the strange orders he gave
them. But no one questioned his wisdom, and the results have proved it
over and over.
One time when I wanted to go North, he sent me to the South, and in
Mobile I learned why my course was changed.
It is a wonder that the legislators at the various capitols have not
“seen ghosts” during the last months. Perhaps they have. But men are
becoming accustomed to the idea of us now. That is one of the good
results of the war. In looking across the border for their loved ones,
they may encounter the Teachers, even the angels of their loved ones,
and be enlarged in mind.
I had an amusing experience in the city of ----. There is a “pacifist”
there who has a considerable influence among the members of a certain
set, and I found that when he began one of his “philosophic” talks to
one or more persons, for he has not lectured publicly, I could bewilder
him by speaking in his ear and answering his questions in a way that
made him wonder. For, strange to say perhaps, he could hear me. But
not believing in the possibility of communication between the worlds,
he thought he was having “clairaudient hallucinations,” and consulted
a doctor who told him that he had been brooding too much about the
war. The doctor, who was not a pacifist, advised our friend to take up
ornithology.
Yes, he is young--and will be young for many incarnations.
We have also done our share of recruiting. Those who were later called
by the draft were merely encouraged; but there were others who needed
only the dream we sent, or the thought we whispered, to move them in
the right direction; and when a young man’s country is at war, the
right direction is generally towards the nearest recruiting station.
There was a boy in ---- who had been reading about France and the
fighting in France with a tightening at the heart, a tightening of
horror. He feared the draft. He was not a husky fellow. His labors as
bookkeeper in a bank had not developed his leg muscles, and he had a
capricious digestion. So he told himself that he would be a failure as
a soldier.
But one time when in sleep he came out into our world, I met him and
invited him to take a stroll with me. Do you think I took him to a
battlefield? Oh, not! I took him to an exercise ground. You may wonder
how I could do that at night; but it chanced that he had fallen asleep
in the daytime. And I made it easy for him to see down into the world
he had temporarily left--to see the exercise ground. It interested him.
And next day the labor over the ledger seemed duller and more
monotonous than usual. And he overheard a girl say to a friend at the
paying teller’s window, that a sallow faced clerk was not her ideal of
a man, that she liked the soldier boys.
When he went for a walk after banking hours, I went along with him, and
drew his attention to some marching soldiers who had a good band. The
boy went home and looked at himself in the mirror and found that he was
sallow, and he reminded himself that he was a clerk.
So he enlisted.
You may wonder why I took so much trouble to gather one uninteresting
young man into the fold of Uncle Sam’s army, when we had so many
subordinate workers at that business. But I had known the boy’s father
twenty years before, and something he had said influenced _me_
towards a decision that enlightened my whole after life.
When that boy returns he will be no longer sallow-faced, and he will be
a hero--not a clerk.
I like to pay my debts.
LETTER XXX
THE VIRUS OF DISRUPTION
_February 16, 1918._
“FREEDOM with self-restraint and social responsibility” would be a good
motto for Americans in the years that are before them.
The underground and overground propaganda of Bolshevism, Anarchism,
etc., inspired and fed by the forces of destruction, can be
successfully combated by the spirit of order, of restraint, of
responsibility to the body politic.
The end of this war will not be the end of confusion. The world-soul
has been inoculated with the virus of disruption, and it will need
the wills of millions working together for a common end to expel the
poison and restore the body of humanity to health and security.
America as we know it was born of protest against oppression, and the
love of liberty, father and mother, positive and negative, in the
old days. If now the protest against oppression degenerates into the
protest against all restraint, and if the love of liberty degenerates
into the love of license, then I may tell you that those who cannot
govern themselves have to be governed from outside.
The human race is passing through a period of initiation. The morally
weak and the weak of will are always in danger of being carried away.
The spirit of destruction finds them ready tools with which to work its
will.
The kingdom of heaven is not immediately at hand, and full seven years
will be needed to _settle the consciousness_ of mankind after the
shaking-up it has received. The dregs, as usual in such cases, have
risen and diffused themselves throughout the fluid of the cup.
If there were only a dozen people in the United States who understood
or could be made to understand the _occult forces_ behind the
present universal unrest, and if those twelve could work together with
unity of purpose, some here, some there, with the pen, the voice and
the will, under a leader, those twelve might lead the people out of the
wilderness. But where are they? Every leader knows that in unity is
strength.
And I may mention the opposite law, that in disunity is disintegration.
Bolshevist and anarchist! Finding the world not to their liking, and
being unable to adjust to environment so as to satisfy their love of
power, or their love of ease, these people have devoted themselves to
destroying the society in which they are unsuccessful. They believe
themselves right. There is so much of the divine in almost the worst
man, that he has to believe he is working for the right even when he
is working evil. It is necessary for a murderer to justify his act in
order to do it, unless he is swept away by blind passion, and then he
seeks to justify passion itself.
The heart of man is superior to the brain of man. Almost anyone can
feel a good impulse; but the man who can think independently of his
passions is rare and isolate. Popular education does not mean universal
reasoning power. But popular education is the beginning; it is the seed
out of which will grow the tree of world-intellect.
I have told you of the reign of love that is at length to comfort the
hearts of mankind; but I have not told you that it is coming to-morrow
or the next day.
If you can get away from the personal and the temporary, and see life
and the movements of cycles in perspective, you will see how temporary
unrest is only a stage by the way.
He who adjusts to environment adjusts even to unrest. Remember that.
The supple tree feels the wind, but its roots cling tight to the soil
and the rock of individuality.
Be like the supple tree, America. In the wind that sweeps across the
world, cling tight to the soil of freedom and the rock of _social
responsibility_. You can save the world if you do not lose your hold
on the soil and the rock that have steadied and sustained you.
The anxious eyes of a Europe in conflagration are turned in your
direction, your friends with hope, your enemies with dread. When you
threw the weight of your strong young body into the scales of justice,
you changed the destiny of the world. Yes, it was your destiny to do it.
All you who have studied “occultism,” which merely means knowledge too
profound to be understood by the material-minded,--you who have studied
occultism know that to the candidate for initiation come trials and
tests, and that without them he cannot go on. Think of the human race
as a candidate for initiation. If your mind is developed beyond the
minds of your fellows--you, and you, and you--do not forget that you
are united to them by an indissoluble bond. You cannot break away from
the race. You may rise above it as the Master does, or sink beneath
it as the lost souls do; but the link between you and those other
fragments of God can only be broken at your peril.
The Master works for the race, knowing well that he cannot safely
ignore it. Even if he made himself equal with the gods and desired to
build a world of his own, he would have to take the substance for it
from the common reservoir of substance. If like a spider he could spin
his world-web from himself, he would have to eat the common substance
to sustain himself in his power.
You may as well love the race, for you cannot escape it altogether.
Even if you rise and dwell in the thin air of the kingdom of the mind,
you will feel the wind-currents from your fellows above and below. Some
will deny this, but I have made the test.
I recently sought a high place for rest. But the needs of the world
pulled me back.
The greatest need of the world for the next few years will be the
knowledge of the law of conservation. Retain, O world! the treasures
you have labored for throughout the centuries, and discard only the
worn-out garments and utensils. The wooden plough and the wooden shoe
are no longer needed in a wisely ordered world; but the sciences and
the arts you will need, and the Gothic cathedrals you destroy can never
be replaced.
LETTER XXXI
THE ALTAR FIRE
_February 18, 1918._
ALWAYS the pull of the opposites! In all the talk of internationalism,
let us not forget nationalism. The enemy of the present hour made
great use of it, but he did not reckon with its opposite. It is not
true internationalism to support spies as commercial agents in all the
countries of earth.
America of all nations is best fitted to carry on her standards: Each
for all, and all for each.
But in her love for other races, for other nationalities, let her not
forget to strengthen and uphold her own.
“My Country, ’tis of Thee!” As that sentiment grows ever stronger in
your heart, so will your justice to other nations make you recognize
that their countries are of them. For your country was not built upon
the idea of world domination, but of freedom--for yourselves and for
all men.
Your president has been called a maker of phrases. That is good. A man
who can make phrases that shall carry themselves around the world can
influence the thought of the world.
“To make the world safe for democracy.” Those words will go down the
centuries.
You Americans who love the storied lands of Europe, do not
underestimate this land that gave you birth. It is great as the
greatest now, and its clock has not yet struck twelve noonday. It is
still morning in America. The present day American is the ancestor of
the man of the Sixth Race. From many stocks he will spring, and his
blood will be blended from that of all the races which have preceded
him. He will be unique in his qualities. No man of the older races can
imitate him, for his consciousness will be his own.
A man is not, as you have so often said, so many pounds of flesh and
bone and blood and sinew, but a man is a state of consciousness. It is
because you recognize their state of consciousness as being themselves,
that men and women reveal themselves to you.
If--or when--you go back to Europe to live, do not forget your country.
Do not remain too long away from it, lest you lose touch with that
unique consciousness which shall flower in the Sixth Race.
Yes, a great art will grow up in America. After another fifty years it
will be ripe. Let us hope it will not begin to rot thereafter, but like
a sound American apple preserve its solidity for a long time.
This war is good for America. It is not well for a race to have so
great a material success without some pain and struggle. It is pain
that mellows the heart.
America has not yet found her soul, but she will find it. Those
Americans who are now broken-hearted are finding their souls.
France found her soul a long time ago, and she is now finding her
divinity. Would she have found it but for suffering? The Christ upon
the cross is greater than the Christ at the marriage supper in Cana of
Galilee.
If I had not wanted you to write this book, I should have sent you
back to London, that you might experience the strain of air raids and
insufficient food. I should have sent you back to France, that you
might see and touch and minister to the wounded.
Though you have endured the strain of the astral world at war, you have
not yet seen and touched and tasted the agony of physical suffering
that the women of France have seen and touched and tasted. But you
cannot live and suffer in too many worlds at once.
Do you not think that our American boys who are fighting now in France
will be greater for the experience--whether they live or die? Life
in material form is not the only life, and those who make the great
sacrifice will gain more than they lose. It is sublime to die for an
ideal. “To make the world safe for democracy.”
America is better known to Europeans now than she has been before. Many
of you will go and come, as you have done in the past; and a few of
you will vitalize the mutual understanding between America and Europe.
But you can do that only by glorifying your own nationality in your
hearts. I do not mean flaunting it. Let it burn as an altar fire, in
the secret temple of your being.
THE END
=TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES=
Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced
quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and
otherwise left unbalanced.
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
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