ANSWERS TO QUESTIONERS*

From G. M.

(1.) During sleep I have a feeling that I can fly by an intense act of will. I then do float in dream over the ground, my body seeming rigid. The force exhausts, then I have to descend. What is your explanation of this?

Answer. It is part of the effort of your inner man to demonstrate to your outer self the existence and action of unrecognized and unfamiliar forces, which every man has in him the latent power to use. Dreamless slumber is better.

(2.) In Theosophical books I find occult or magical phenomena referred to. I am disposed to reject these and consider their publication of a very questionable character in light of matter for the improvement of intelligent seekers after truth. Still I do not deny them, and hold myself open for conviction in any direc

tion.

Answer. Why then bother yourself with the phenomena of your dream state? The dream of flying is as much a phenomenon as any other that Theosophical literature contains. The proper attitude for true theosophists is not to be ready or anxious to bring conviction as to any phenomena to inquirers. Hence we cannot enter into proofs. We know personally that phenomena of a most extraordinary character have taken place, and are still occurring; we also agree with you that the constant publication of accounts of phenomena is unwise. Still it must sometimes be done, as some minds have to advance through the aid of these things.

We also know that the Masters who are behind the Theosophical Society have, in writing, condemned the thirst for phenomena made so often degrading, and stated that the Society ought to progress through its moral worth. One phenomenon can be seen by but a limited number of people, some of whom even will always doubt, and each one hearing of it afterwards will want a repetition for himself. Further than that, it would be certain to bring on a thirst for mere sight-seeing, resulting in a total forgetfulness of spirit. But, on the other hand, there are laws that cannot be guessed at without phenomena. And in each human being is a complete universe in which daily occur phenomena that should be studied. This is the proper realm for each student to investigate. for therein and nowhere else-is placed the gate through which each one must advance. ZADOK.

This article was first printed by William Q. Judge in The Path for April, 1888.

ON THE LOOKOUT

Century for October contains in a headliner story, "The Coming of the Terror," matter that should give all students of the occult abundant impetus to thought. The story is none too well told; it is its subject matter that makes the interest. It purports to chronicle ghostly and unexplicable death by violence to hundreds of people, creating a paralysis of terror in countrysides in England till the cause is spelled out to be a sudden frenzy of insects, birds and beasts, exciting them to raging rebellion against man. Two theories are presented to account for this sudden outburst of Teutonism in the subject animal kingdom. One is that hate is as contagious as any physical epidemic and that the madness of hate when it reaches a certain intensity among great masses of humans communicates itself to the lower kingdoms. The other suggestion is that the inferior kingdoms are for the most part the docile subjects of man, or timid before him, because of an instinctual recognition of the higher spiritual status of men; and, since man has succeeded in great part in convincing himself that he is nothing more than a rationalized animal, the subject beings have lost their reverence and are ripe for a Servile War against their rulers.

To those who respect the hints in the Secret Doctrine of the episodes of former Rounds and Races, and couple with them the doctrine of the continuity of consciousness and the rigid justice of Karma, the story in the Century is something more than imaginative fiction. Adding the memory of the Astral Light, its power of reflecting the images into incarnated beings of deeds long gone from earthly memory-and why should not the "muddy torrents of Kama Loka," the unexpiated evil deeds of the past, overwhelm the collective consciousness of the brute creation, as it is well-nigh overwhelming the moral balance of their older brother, man? Some phrases of the story are worth preserving for their mantramic quality: "You can't believe what you don't see; rather, you can't see what you don't believe.” "It is only by the inexplicable things that life can be explained. The only real path lies through the (so-called) blind alleys." "When I have to choose between the evidence of tradition and the evidence of a document, I always believe the evidence of tradition. Documents may be falsified and often are falsified; tradition is never falsified."

"The solution of the conflict between capital and labor awaits the recognition of the Law of Equal Reaction by both stockholders and employes. This law is that every act of ours reacts to our advantage or disadvantage according to whether it helps or harms all parties affected."

This quotation, if you please, is not from one of the Masters, nor yet from H. P. Blavatsky nor Wm. Q. Judge. It is the text paragraph, italics and all, from a confidential Bulletin sent by Roger W. Babson to all subscribers to "Babson's Service." These subscribers include nearly every large industrial, manufacturing, public service and banking concern in the country, not to speak of thousands of individual capitalists and investors in the United States and England. Mr. Babson is everywhere recognized as the most able student of practical economics living. Who can measure the effect of this statement and others like it, constantly urged as the fundamental basis of all true business prosperity? "Whoever," said H. P. B., "teaches Theosophy, preaches the gospel of goodwill; and conversely, whoever preaches the gospel of goodwill, teaches Theosophy." Mr. Babson, driven by the force of what he has seen and experienced in the field of modern business, and guided by the power of a reflective intelligence, is preaching the practice of Theosophy in the problems of business life-and he has the largest and most attentive audience of any single writer living. We know of no better working statement of the application of the Law of Karma to the most threatening of present-day problems than Mr. Babson has here formulated. And in all our

multitudinous observation of the efforts of the leaders of the day, we know of nothing so encouraging to the student of the great philosophy imparted by H. P. B., as this clear recognition and bold advocacy of the second fundamental proposition of Theosophy by an able and accredited business thinker. In the Preface to Isis H. P. B. said, "We labor for the brighter morrow," and while men like Mr. Babson are still rare in the world, the fact that they are to be found at all is at least a presage of the dawn of that "brighter morrow." "A few drops of water are not the monsoon-but they presage it."

The Council of Nicea and the Council of Constantinople are the actual sources of modern Christianity, for the "authenticity" of the Gospels of Christendom has no other basis than the dicta of these Councils. Since the sixth century the sects of the Christian religion have depended upon authority, and not upon inspiration. It is therefore, to the thoughtful observer, of a significance that cannot be measured, that the Convocation of the Bishops of the Church of England has recently, by a large majority, reached the decision to expunge from the Psalter those passages which invoke a ruthless divine vengeance and which are filled with imprecations. The Psalter is that portion of the Psalms which is embodied for Church purposes in the Book of Common Prayer. The use and acceptation of the portions of the Scriptures therein contained have been obligatory on the part of priest and laity since the time of Henry VIII. The Book of Psalms is a portion of the Bible, and as such is perhaps the most quoted portion of the Old Testament. While the selections in the Book of Common Prayer are not in the words of the so-called "authorized" or James' version, but are taken from the earlier translation of Cranmer, they are translations of the same texts and embody essentially the same meaning and spirit as the revised versions. The changes were approved by both Houses of Convocation with no important opposition, and involve the elimination of the whole of the 58th Psalm and of certain verses from nine others. To our mind this step marks the beginning of the end of Christianity as an exclusive religion and of the Bible as a book of exclusive revelation, for this action proceeds from within one of the largest, most influential and most austere of the Christian bodies themselves, and not from without. The London Telegraph considers that it connotes an important change in the evolution of religion and says,

"A momentous change is made when one of the great Churches of Christendom resolves to declare to the world, by an alteration in services sanctioned with the use and authority of centuries, that it is not for Christianity to preach the joy of vengeance, or to pray that men may go down into the pit of destruction and find none to pity them.

It is only in the life-time of men not yet old that the Churches have learned to resign the claim to invoke the thunders of Divine vengeance on all who cannot share their faith."

The churches have not yet learned to resign their claims either to Divine vengeance in their behalf, or Divine authority for their mission; would that they had! But if they are learning to be ashamed of their God and His imprecations, and to disown them, other learning is possible and probable.

The Telegraph goes on to say that "there have, indeed, all down the ages, been divines of many a creed who chose to preach and live by love, not fear, but they have spoken for themselves, and often under the stigma of heresy and excommunication," but neither the Telegraph nor these divines realize the logical irreconcilability of their creed and their actions. The creeds of Christendom are based on fear and authority. If love and devotion are taken as the criterion of life, then the creeds are false. "Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” If the gospel of love and devotion is to triumph, Christianity as exemplified in Christendom must go, and is, in fact, trembling

to its fall before our eyes. One momentous evidence we have just commented on. Another can be seen in the Rev. Geoffrey Gordon's book, Papers from Picardy. This divine finds that "the soldier's belief in God is often expressed in language which, intellectually, is fatalistic... Even for the trained intellect, this line between fatalism and a trustful belief in an allprotecting Providence is not easy to draw. . . . For myself, I have no great admiration for this emergency religion of the trenches. It is based on fear, and fear is a shifting foundation. I cannot believe that a religion in which fear plays a large part can be very acceptable to God." In all of which the Rev. Geoffrey is confounding his own creed and not that of the soldiers only. If his statements are true as regards fatalism, how much more true are they as regards the sects of Christendom? Would he deny that in them, also, "fear plays a large part," a very large part indeed? To be consistent he should have "no great admiration for the emergency religion" of the sects, his own included. Another observer, Charles Bird of Clark University, writing in The American Journal of Psychology, draws the same conclusions as Rev. Gordon, though from another basis. He says,

"The soldier's personal relation to a higher power has undergone a tremendous change. Not all, but the majority of the men become fatalists. .. Their whole experience seems to negate the ideas they have of God and goodness. Although they continually display many virtues such as unselfishness, sacrifice of personal safety, and kindness, these are never connected with Christianity."

Fatalism, with its inherent defects due to foreshortened perception, is nevertheless far nearer the truth than any sectarian Christian ideas, for it is a perception, however limited, of the workings of Karma. It is the difference between falsehood and error; the one has to be destroyed; the other needs only further enlightenment, and that the teachings of Theosophy can supply.

Under the title heading "Reincarnation" the following item appeared in the "Lancer's" column in the Los Angeles Times of October 28th. It is in part so good, and in part so fantastical, that we reprint it here for the readers of THEOSOPHY:

Another correspondent asks me to settle the question of reincarnation for him. Do I believe in it? For his part he doesn't quite.

Oh, yes. I do. As surely as I believe in anything. Who of us as children has not been haunted by queer memories? I am certain I have been here before, and certain I shall come again. It is such a logical process of development. Most of the imperfect lives we live here below could not surely fit us for residences in Heaven, no matter how fanatical our goodness. Besides, there is something utterly appalling about new souls being created by the million every day for thousands of years-we should be too utterly cheap to be worth saving. It is much more reasonable to suppose that we shall have a succession of experiences, nationalities, adventures and developments by which our soul will always profit in logical progress.

I think, too, that our next incarnation will usually be that of the thing we treated the most ill, or held in the most scorn. Thus a man that does not play fair with women will certainly be a very unfortunate woman in his next incarnation. The man who tortures animals will probably have an opportunity to feel what it is like himself—and so on. It is such a reasonable way of making the punishment fit the crime.

I know a lot of wives who are going to be henpecked husbands next time, and a lot of bullies who will be humiliated wives. A lot of drivers who will be horses, a lot of people who will be cats and dogs. Of course no human being ever was an animal, nor will any human being ever become one in the future, whatever courses of life and conduct

he may follow. It is correct to say, for instance: that aspect of consciousness now operating through this human body once operated through lower forms; but "once a man always a man" is a true saying. The process of evolution does not operate backwards! Those humans who abuse animals will, however, undoubtedly receive their just deserts through the animal kingdom, as karmic adjustments-for Law and not sentiment rules the world.

The last half of the nineteenth century saw a host of book worms industriously boring their way through the theological rubbish heaps of the past and emerging with the theory that all religions are in their origin phallic. Such writers as Campbell, Inman, General Furlong, Hargrave Jennings and others could see nothing but the sexual, and mostly the perverted sexual, in the symbols and literature of the religions of India, of Egypt, of Greece, and of Judaism, as well as Christianity. They paralleled in their methods, in the use of the critical faculty, the accustomed routine of the scientists, who find the origin of man in the simian kingdom, and the "beginnings" of all life in protoplasmic cells "composed of almost pure albumen with a trace of lime." Most of these volumes are now respectfully arranged in undisturbed layers in the quiet coigns of libraries, where they sleep their last sleep in quite the same fashion as the "remains" of proud generations are superposed in the family vaults of "christian" cemeteries. Occasionally, for exigent or class or caste reasons the vaults are opened, either for additional incumbents, or for removals. Some such occasion as this, we presume to assume, inspired the publication of Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races, by “Sanger Brown, II., M. D.," by the press of Richard G. Badger, Boston. It is a thin (Oh, thrice appropriate adjective) treatise of 144 pages inclusive of Index and Bibliography, and is an attempt to study primitive religion "for the light it sheds upon mental disorders." Reasoning coherently, we fear it will not be long till some Sanger Brown, Third, arises in his puissance from the clinic and shows us that all sanity traces back to and is derived from some one or another of the various primitive forms of mania, particularly from religious and sex manias; that knowledge traces back to and is derived from ignorance; that light is a chemical by-product of darkness. Why not? Does not mind arise from the molecular action of the brain cells? Is not Spirit a gas produced by matter? Does not Life depend on form? And, finally, is this not a "mad world, my masters?" Q. E. D. Yet even Dr. Brown has his lucid intervals, as for instance on page 33, where his studies lead him to the statement that the primitive people "are quite without sex consciousness. Their motives are at once both simple and direct, and they are doubtless sincere. Much misunderstanding has arisen by judging such primitive people by the standards of our present day civilization. Sex worship only became degraded during a decadent age." And again, p. 71, "The union of the sexes typifies the divine Sakti, or productive energy, in union with the procreative power as seen throughout nature." P. 77-8: "the union of Persephone with Bacchus, the sun-god, is an idea special to the mysteries and means the union of humanity with the god-head, the consummation aimed at in the mystic rites. Hence, in all probability the central teaching of the mysteries was Personal Immortality, analogue of the return of the bloom to plants in Spring." Very primitive, all this; very phallic; impure and suggestive as a child with her "primitive and phallic" love and care for her dolls. It does not occur to Dr. Brown that the individual pervert afflicted with "mental disorders" has become so through decadence and misuse of the procreative faculty, once considered sacred and divine; any more than it occurred to the Inmans, Furlongs and Jennings that the collective "mental disorders" miscalled religions have become decadent and perverted through the same cause; and that the cure consists in returning to the source from which the "primitive peoples" drew an undefiled religion and an absence of "sex consciousness."