Troward - Edinburgh

The
EDINBURGH LECTURES
ON MENTAL SCIENCE

By
Thomas Troward
Late Divisional Judge, Punjab
Author of "Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning"

THIS is the first of the "Edinburgh Lecture Series." Its purpose
is to indicate the natural principles governing the relation between
Mental Action and Material Conditions and thus to afford the student an
intelligible starting point for the practical study of the subject.
The late Professor William James of Harvard University, said of
it: "Far and away the ablest statement of that philosophy that I have
met, beautiful in its sustained clearness of thought and style -- a
really classic statement."

As a text book for the advanced student of Mental Science it has
no superior. The chapters are "Spirit and Matter." "The Higher Mode of
Intelligence Controls the Lower," "The Unity of the Spirit," "Subjective
and Objective Mind," "Further Considerations Regarding Subjective and
Objective Mind," "The Law of Growth," "Receptivity," "Reciprocal Action
of the Universal and Individual Minds," "Causes and Conditions,"
"Intuition," "Healing," "The Will," "In Touch with Subconscious Mind,"
"The Body," "The Soul," "The Spirit."

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The Edinburgh Lecture Series
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Fides et Amor Veritas et Robur

New York
Dodd, Mead and Company

Copyright, 1909 by Thomas Troward

The writer affectionately dedicates this little volume to his wife.

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FOREWORD.
--------
THIS book contains the substance of a course of lectures recently
given by the writer in the Queen Street Hall, Edinburgh. Its purpose is
to indicate the Natural Principles governing the relation between
Mental Action and Material Conditions, and thus to afford the student an
intelligible starting-point for the practical study of the subject.
T.T.
March, 1904.

I.
SPIRIT AND MATTER.

IN commencing a course of lectures on Mental Science, it is somewhat
difficult for the lecturer to fix upon the best method of opening the
subject. It can be approached from many sides, each with some peculiar
advantage of its own; but, after careful deliberation, it appears to me
that, for the purpose of the present course, no better starting-point
could be selected than the relation between Spirit and Matter. I select
this starting-point because the distinction -- or what we believe to be
such -- between them is one with which we are so familiar that I can
safely assume its recognition by everybody; and I may, therefore, at
once state this distinction by using the adjectives which we habitually
apply as expressing the natural opposition between the two --
living spirit and dead matter. These terms express our
current impression of the opposition between spirit and matter with
sufficient accuracy, and considered only from the point of view of
outward appearances this impression is no doubt correct. The general
consensus of mankind is right in trusting the evidence of our senses,
and any system which tells us that we are not to do so will never obtain
a permanent footing in a sane and healthy community. There is nothing
wrong in the evidence conveyed to a healthy mind by the senses of a
healthy body, but the point where error creeps in is when we come to
judge of the meaning of this testimony. We are accustomed to judge only
by external appearances and by certain limited significances which we
attach to words; but when we begin to enquire into the real meaning of
our words and to analyse the causes which give rise to the appearances,
we find our old notions gradually falling off from us, until at last we
wake up to the fact that we are living in an entirely different world to
that we formerly recognized. The old limited mode of thought has
imperceptibly slipped away, and we discover that we have stepped out
into a new order of things where all is liberty and life. This is the
work of an enlightened intelligence resulting from persistent
determination to discover what truth really is irrespective of any
preconceived notions from whatever source derived, the determination to
think honestly for ourselves instead of endeavouring to get our thinking
done for us. Let us then commence by enquiring what we really mean by
the livingness which we attribute to spirit and the deadness which we
attribute to matter.
At first we may be disposed to say that livingness consists in
the power of motion and deadness in its absence; but a little enquiry
into the most recent researches of science will soon show us that this
distinction does not go deep enough. It is now one of the
fully-established facts of physical science that no atom of what we call
"dead matter" is without motion. On the table before me lies a solid
lump of steel, but in the light of up-to-date science I know that the
atoms of that seemingly inert mass are vibrating with the most intense
energy, continually dashing hither and thither, impinging upon and
rebounding from one another, or circling round like miniature solar
systems, with a ceaseless rapidity whose complex activity is enough to
bewilder the imagination. The mass, as a mass, may lie inert upon the
table; but so far from being destitute of the element of motion it is
the abode of the never-tiring energy moving the particles with a
swiftness to which the speed of an express train is as nothing. It is,
therefore, not the mere fact of motion that is at the root of the
distinction which we draw instinctively between spirit and matter; we
must go deeper than that. The solution of the problem will never be
found by comparing Life with what we call deadness, and the reason for
this will become apparent later on; but the true key is to be found by
comparing one degree of livingness with another. There is, of course,
one sense in which the quality of livingness does not admit of degrees;
but there is another sense in which it is entirely a question of degree.
We have no doubt as to the livingness of a plant, but we realize that it
is something very different from the livingness of an animal. Again,
what average boy would not prefer a fox-terrier to a goldfish for a pet?
Or, again, why is it that the boy himself is an advance upon the dog?
The plant, the fish, the dog, and the boy are all equally alive;
but there is a difference in the quality of their livingness about which
no one can have any doubt, and no one would hesitate to say that this
difference is in the degree of intelligence. In whatever way we turn the
subject we shall always find that what we call the "livingness" of any
individual life is ultimately measured by its intelligence. It is the
possession of greater intelligence that places the animal higher in the
scale of being than the plant, the man higher than the animal, the
intellectual man higher than the savage. The increased intelligence
calls into activity modes of motion of a higher order corresponding to
itself. The higher the intelligence, the more completely the mode of
motion is under its control; and as we descend in the scale of
intelligence, the descent is marked by a corresponding increase in
automatic motion not subject to the control of a self-conscious
intelligence. This descent is gradual from the expanded self-recognition
of the highest human personality to that lowest order of visible forms
which we speak of as "things," and from which self-recognition is
entirely absent.
We see, then, that the livingness of Life consists in intelligence --
in other words, in the power of Thought; and we may therefore say that
the distinctive quality of spirit is Thought, and, as the opposite to
this, we may say that the distinctive quality of matter is Form. We
cannot conceive of matter without form. Some form there must be, even
though invisible to the physical eye; for matter, to be matter at all,
must occupy space, and to occupy any particular space necessarily
implies a corresponding form. For these reasons we may lay it down as a
fundamental proposition that the distinctive quality of spirit is
Thought and the distinctive quality of matter is Form. This is a radical
distinction from which important consequences follow, and should,
therefore, be carefully noted by the student.
Form implies extension in space and also limitation within certain
boundaries. Thought implies neither. When, therefore, we think of Life
as existing in any particular form we associate it with the idea
of extension in space, so that an elephant may be said to consist of a
vastly larger amount of living substance than a mouse. But if we think
of Life as the fact of livingness we do not associate it with any idea
of extension, and we at once realize that the mouse is quite as much
alive as the elephant, notwithstanding the difference in size. The
important point of this distinction is that if we can conceive of
anything as entirely devoid of the element of extension in space, it
must be present in its entire totality anywhere and everywhere -- that
is to say, at every point of space simultaneously. The scientific
definition of time is that it is the period occupied by a body in
passing from one given point in space to another, and, therefore,
according to this definition, when there is no space there can be no
time; and hence that conception of spirit which realizes it as devoid of
the element of space must realize it as being devoid of the element of
time also; and we therefore find that the conception of spirit as pure
Thought, and not as concrete Form, is the conception of it as subsisting
perfectly independently of the elements of time and space. From this it
follows that if the idea of anything is conceived as existing on this
level it can only represent that thing as being actually present here
and now. In this view of things nothing can be remote from us either in
time or space: either the idea is entirely dissipated or it exists as an
actual present entity, and not as something that shall be in the
future, for where there is no sequence in time there can be no future.
Similarly where there is no space there can be no conception of anything
as being at a distance from us. When the elements of time and space are
eliminated all our ideas of things must necessarily be as subsisting in
a universal here and an everlasting now. This is, no doubt, a highly
abstract conception, but I would ask the student to endeavour to grasp
it thoroughly, since it is of vital importance in the practical
application of Mental Science, as will appear further on.
The opposite conception is that of things expressing themselves
through conditions of time and space and thus establishing a variety of
relations to other things, as of bulk, distance, and direction,
or of sequence in time. These two conceptions are respectively the
conception of the abstract and the concrete, of the unconditioned and
the conditioned, of the absolute and the relative. They are not opposed
to each other in the sense of incompatibility, but are each the
complement of the other, and the only reality is in the combination of
the two. The error of the extreme idealist is in endeavouring to realize
the absolute without the relative, and the error of the extreme
materialist is in endeavouring to realize the relative without the
absolute. On the one side the mistake is in trying to realize an inside
without an outside, and on the other in trying to realize an outside
without an inside; both are necessary to the formation of a subtantial
entity.

II.
THE HIGHER MODE OF INTELLIGENCE CONTROLS THE LOWER.

WE have seen that the descent from personality, as we know it in
ourselves, to matter, as we know it under what we call inanimate forms,
is a gradual descent in the scale of intelligence from that mode of
being which is able to realize its own will-power as a capacity for
originating new trains of causation to that mode of being which is
incapable of recognizing itself at all. The higher the grade of life,
the higher the intelligence; from which it follows that the supreme
principle of Life must also be the ultimate principle of intelligence.
This is clearly demonstrated by the grand natural order of the universe.
In the Iight of modern science the principle of evolution is familiar to
us all, and the accurate adjustment existing between all parts of the
cosmic scheme is too self-evident to need insisting upon. Every advance
in science consists in discovering new subtleties of connection in this
magnificent universal order, which already exists and only needs our
recognition to bring it into practical use. If, then, the highest work
of the greatest minds consists in nothing else than the recognition of
an already existing order, there is no getting away from the conclusion
that a paramount intelligence must be inherent in the Life-Principle,
which manifests itself as this order; and thus we see that there
must be a great cosmic intelligence underlying the totality of things.
The physical history of our planet shows us first an incandescent
nebula dispersed over vast infinitudes of space; later this condenses
into a central sun surrounded by a family of glowing planets hardly yet
consolidated from the plastic primordial matter; then succeed untold
millenniums of slow geological formation; an earth peopled by the lowest
forms of life, whether vegetable or animal; from which crude beginnings
a majestic, unceasing, unhurried, forward movement brings things stage
by stage to the condition in which we know them now. Looking at this
steady progression it is clear that, however we may conceive the nature
of the evolutionary principle, it unerringly provides for the continual
advance of the race. But it does this by creating such numbers of each
kind that, after allowing a wide margin for all possible accidents to
individuals, the race shall still continue: --

"So careful of the type it seems
So careless of the single life."

In short, we may say that the cosmic intelligence works by a Law
of Averages which allows a wide margin of accident and failure to the
individual.
But the progress towards higher intelligence is always in the
direction of narrowing down this margin of accident and taking the
individual more and more out of the law of averages, and substituting
the law of individual selection. In ordinary scientific language this is
the survival of the fittest. The reproduction of fish is on a scale that
would choke the sea with them if every individual survived; but the
margin of destruction is correspondingly enormous, and thus the law of
averages simply keeps up the normal proportion of the race. But at the
other end of the scale, reproduction is by no means thus enormously in
excess of survival. True, there is ample margin of accident and disease
cutting off numbers of human beings before they have gone through the
average duration of life, but still it is on a very different scale from
the premature destruction of hundreds of thousands as against the
survival of one. It may, therefore, be taken as an established fact that
in proportion as intelligence advances the individual ceases to be
subject to a mere law of averages and has a continually increasing power
of controlling the conditions of his own survival.
We see, therefore, that there is a marked distinction between
the cosmic intelligence and the individual intelligence, and that the
factor which differentiates the latter from the former is the presence
of individual volition. Now the business of Mental Science is to
ascertain the relation of this individual power of volition to the great
cosmic law which provides for the maintenance and advancement of the
race; and the point to be carefully noted is that the power of
individual volition is itself the outcome of the cosmic evolutionary
principle at the point where it reaches its highest level. The effort of
Nature has always been upwards from the time when only the lowest forms
of life peopled the globe, and it has now culminated in the production
of a being with a mind capable of abstract reasoning and a brain fitted
to be the physical instrument of such a mind. At this stage the
all-creating Life-principle reproduces itself in a form capable of
recognizing the working of the evolutionary law, and the unity and
continuity of purpose running through the whole progression until now
indicates, beyond a doubt, that the place of such a being in the
universal scheme must be to introduce the operation of that factor
which, up to this point, has been conspicuous by its absence -- the
factor, namely, of intelligent individual volition. The evolution which
has brought us up to this standpoint has worked by a cosmic law of
averages; it has been a process in which the individual himself has not
taken a conscious part. But because he is what he is, and leads the van
of the evolutionary procession, if man is to evolve further, it can now
only be by his own conscious co-operation with the law which has brought
him up to the standpoint where he is able to realize that such a law
exists. His evolution in the future must be by conscious participation
in the great work, and this can only be effected by his own individual
intelligence and effort. It is a process of intelligent growth. No one
else can grow for us: we must each grow for ourselves; and this
intelligent growth consists in our increasing recognition of the
universal law, which has brought us as far as we have yet got, and of
our own individual relation to that law, based upon the fact that we
ourselves are the most advanced product of it. It is a great maxim that
Nature obeys us precisely in proportion as we first obey Nature. Let the
electrician try to go counter to the principle that electricity must
always pass from a higher to a lower potential and he will effect
nothing; but let him submit in all things to this one fundamental law,
and he can make whatever particular applications of electrical power he
will.
These considerations show us that what differentiates the higher
from the lower degree of intelligence is the recognition of its own
self-hood, and the more intelligent that recognition is, the greater
will be the power. The lower degree of self-recognition is that which
only realizes itself as an entity separate from all other entities, as
the ego distinguished from the non-ego. But the higher
degree of self-recognition is that which, realizing its own spiritual
nature, sees in all other forms, not so much the non-ego, or that
which is not itself, as the alter-ego, or that which is itself in
a different mode of expression. Now, it is this higher degree of
self-recognition that is the power by which the Mental Scientist
produces his results. For this reason it is imperative that he should
clearly understand the difference between Form and Being; that the one
is the mode of the relative and the mark of subjection to conditions,
and that the other is the truth of the absolute and is that which
controls conditions.
Now this higher recognition of self as an individualization of
pure spirit must of necessity control all modes of spirit which have not
yet reached the same level of self-recognition. These lower modes of
spirit are in bondage to the law of their own being because they do not
know the law; and, therefore, the individual who has attained to this
knowledge can control them through that law. But to understand this we
must inquire a little further into the nature of spirit. I have already
shown that the grand scale of adaptation and adjustment of all parts of
the cosmic scheme to one another exhibits the presence somewhere
of a marvelous intelligence underlying the whole, and the question is,
where is this intelligence to be found? Ultimately we can only conceive
of it as inherent in some primordial substance which is the root of all
those grosser modes of matter which are known to us, whether visible to
the physical eye, or necessarily inferred by science from their
perceptible effects. It is that power which, in every species and in
every individual, becomes that which that species or individual is; and
thus we can only conceive of it as a self-forming intelligence inherent
in the ultimate substance of which each thing is a particular
manifestation. That this primordial substance must be considered as
self-forming by an inherent intelligence abiding in itself becomes
evident from the fact that intelligence is the essential quality of
spirit; and if we were to conceive of the primordial substance as
something apart from spirit, then we should have to postulate some other
power which is neither spirit nor matter, and originates both; but this
is only putting the idea of a self-evolving power a step further back
and asserting the production of a lower grade of undifferentiated spirit
by a higher, which is both a purely gratuitous assumption and a
contradiction of any idea we can form of undifferentiated spirit at all.
However far back, therefore, we may relegate the original
starting-point, we cannot avoid the conclusion that, at that point,
spirit contains the primary substance in itself, which brings us back to
the common statement that it made everything out of nothing. We thus
find two factors to the making of all things, Spirit and -- Nothing; and
the addition of Nothing to Spirit leaves only spirit: x + o = x.
From these considerations we see that the ultimate foundation of
every form of matter is spirit, and hence that a universal intelligence
subsists throughout Nature inherent in every one of its manifestations.
But this cryptic intelligence does not belong to the particular
form excepting in the measure in which it is physically fitted
for its concentration into self-recognizing individuality: it lies
hidden in that primordial substance of which the visible form is a
grosser manifestation. This primordial substance is a philosophical
necessity, and we can only picture it to ourselves is something
infinitely finer than the atoms which are themselves a philosophical
inference of physical science: still, for want of a better word, we may
conveniently speak of this primary intelligence inherent in the very
substance of things as the Atomic Intelligence. The term may, perhaps,
be open to some objections, but it will serve our present purpose as
distinguishing this mode of spirit's intelligence from that of
the opposite pole, or Individual Intelligence. This distinction should
be carefully noted because it is by the response of the atomic
intelligence to the individual intelligence that thought-power is able
to produce results on the material plane, as in the cure of disease by
mental treatment, and the like. Intelligence manifests itself by
responsiveness, and the whole action of the cosmic mind in bringing the
evolutionary process from its first beginnings up to its present human
state is nothing else but a continual intelligent response to the demand
which each stage in the progress has made for an adjustment between
itself and its environment. Since, then, we have recognized the presence
of a universal intelligence permeating all things, we must also
recognize a corresponding responsiveness hidden deep down in their
nature and ready to be called into action when appealed to. All mental
treatment depends on this responsiveness of spirit in its lower degrees
to higher degrees of itself. It is here that the difference between the
mental scientist and the uninstructed person comes in; the former knows
of this responsiveness and makes use of it, and the latter cannot use it
because he does not know it.

III.
THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT.

WE have now paved the way for understanding what is meant by
"the unity of the spirit." In the first conception of spirit as the
underlying origin of all things we see a universal substance which, at
this stage, is not differentiated into any specific forms. This is not a
question of some bygone time, but subsists at every moment of all time
in the innermost nature of all being; and when we see this, we
see that the division between one specific form and another has below it
a deep essential unity, which acts as the supporter of all the several
forms of individuality arising out of it. And as our thought penetrates
deeper into the nature of this all-producing spiritual substance we see
that it cannot be limited to any one portion of space, but must be
limitless as space itself, and that the idea of any portion of space
where it is not is inconceivable. It is one of those intuitive
perceptions from which the human mind can never get away that this
primordial, all-generating living spirit must be commensurate with
infinitude, and we can therefore never think of it otherwise than as
universal or infinite. Now it is a mathematical truth that the infinite
must be a unity. You cannot have two infinites, for then neither would
be infinite, each would be limited by the other, nor can you split the
infinite up into fractions. The infinite is mathematically essential
unity. This is a point on which too much stress cannot be laid, for
there follow from it the most important consequences. Unity, as such,
can be neither multiplied nor divided, for either operation destroys the
unity. By multiplying, we produce a plurality of units of the same scale
as the original; and by dividing, we produce a plurality of units of a
smaller scale; and a plurality of units is not unity but multiplicity.
Therefore if we would penetrate below the outward nature of the
individual to that innermost principle of his being from which his
individuality takes its rise, we can do so only by passing beyond the
conception of individual existence into that of the unity of universal
being. This may appear to be a merely philosophical abstraction, but the
student who would produce practical results must realize that these
abstract generalizations are the foundation of the practical work he is
going to do.
Now the great fact to be recognized about a unity is that,
because it is a single unit, wherever it is at all the
whole of it must be. The moment we allow our mind to wander off
to the idea of extension in space and say that one part of the unit is
here and another there, we have descended from the idea of unity into
that of parts or fractions of a single unit, which is to pass into the
idea of a multiplicity of smaller units, and in that case we are dealing
with the relative, or the relation subsisting between two or more
entities which are therefore limited by each other, and so have
passed out of the region of simple unity which is the absolute. It is,
therefore, a mathematical necessity that, because the originating
Life-principle is infinite, it is a single unit, and consequently,
wherever it is at all, the whole of it must be present. But
because it is infinite, or limitless, it is everywhere, and
therefore it follows that the whole of spirit must be present at
every point in space at the same moment. Spirit is thus omnipresent
in its entirety, and it is accordingly logically correct that at
every moment of time all spirit is concentrated at any point in
space that we may choose to fix our thought upon. This is the
fundamental fact of all being, and it is for this reason that I have
prepared the way for it by laying down the relation between spirit and
matter as that between idea and form, on the one hand the absolute from
which the elements of time and space are entirely absent, and on the
other the relative which is entirely dependent on those elements. This
great fact is that pure spirit continually subsists in the absolute,
whether in a corporeal body or not; and from it all the phenomena of
being flow, whether on the mental plane or the physical. The knowledge
of this fact regarding spirit is the basis of all conscious spiritual
operation, and therefore in proportion to our increasing recognition of
it our power of producing outward visible results by the action of our
thought will grow. The whole is greater than its part, and therefore,
if, by our recognition of this unity, we can concentrate all
spirit into any given point at any moment, we thereby include any
individualization of it that we may wish to deal with. The practical
importance of this conclusion is too obvious to need enlarging upon.
Pure spirit is the Life-principle considered apart from the matrix in
which it takes relation to time and space in a particular form. In this
aspect it is pure intelligence undifferentiated into individuality. As
pure intelligence it is infinite responsiveness and susceptibility. As
devoid of relation to time and space it is devoid of individual
personality. It is, therefore, in this aspect a purely impersonal
element upon which, by reason of its inherent intelligence and
susceptibility, we can impress any recognition of personality that we
will. These are the great facts that the mental scientist works with,
and the student will do well to ponder deeply on their significance and
on the responsibilities which their realization must necessarily carry
with it.

IV.
SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE MIND.

Up to this point it has been necessary to lay the foundations of
the science by the statement of highly abstract general principles which
we have reached by purely metaphysical reasoning. We now pass on to the
consideration of certain natural laws which have been established by a
long series of experiments and observations, the full meaning and
importance of which will become clear when we see their application to
the general principles which have hitherto occupied our attention. The
phenomena of hypnosis are now so fully recognized as established
scientific facts that it is quite superfluous to discuss the question of
their credibility. Two great medical schools have been founded upon
them, and in some countries they have become the subject of special
legislation. The question before us at the present day is, not as to the
credibility of the facts, but as to the proper inferences to be drawn
from them, and a correct apprehension of these inferences is one of the
most valuable aids to the mental scientist, for it confirms the
conclusions of purely a priori reasoning by an array of
experimental instances which places the correctness of those conclusions
beyond doubt.
The great truth which the science of hypnotism has brought to
light is the dual nature of the human mind. Much conflict exists between
different writers as to whether this duality results from the presence
of two actually separate minds in the one man, or in the action of the
same mind in the employment of different functions. This is one of those
distinctions without a difference which are so prolific a source of
hindrance to the opening out of truth. A man must be a single
individuality to be a man at all, and, so, the net result is the same
whether we conceive of his varied modes of mental action as proceeding
from a set of separate minds strung, so to speak, on the thread of his
one individuality and each adapted to a particular use, or as varied
functions of a single mind: in either case we are dealing with a single
individuality, and how we may picture the wheel-work of the mental
mechanism is merely a question of what picture will bring the nature of
its action home to us most clearly. Therefore, as a matter of
convenience, I shall in these lectures speak of this dual action as
though it proceeded from two minds, an outer and an inner, and the inner
mind we will call the subjective mind and the outer the objective, by
which names the distinction is most frequently indicated in the
literature of the subject.
A long series of careful experiments by highly-trained observers,
some of them men of world-wide reputation, has fully established certain
remarkable differences between the action of the subjective and that of
the objective mind which may be briefly stated as follows. The
subjective mind is only able to reason deductively and not
inductively, while the objective mind can do both. Deductive reasoning
is the pure syllogism which shows why a third proposition must
necessarily result if two others are assumed, but which does not help us
to determine whether the two initial statements are true or not. To
determine this is the province of inductive reasoning which draws its
conclusions from the observation of a series of facts. The relation of
the two modes of reasoning is that, first by observing a sufficient
number of instances, we inductively reach the conclusion that a certain
principle is of general application, and then we enter upon the
deductive process by assuming the truth of this principle and
determining what result must follow in a particular case on the
hypothesis of its truth. Thus deductive reasoning proceeds on the
assumption of the correctness of certain hypotheses or suppositions with
which it sets out: it is not concerned with the truth or falsity of
those suppositions, but only with the question as to what results must
necessarily follow supposing them to be true. Inductive reasoning, on
the other hand, is the process by which we compare a number of separate
instances with one another until we see the common factor that gives
rise to them all. Induction proceeds by the comparison of facts, and
deduction by the application of universal principles. Now it is the
deductive method only which is followed by the subjective mind.
Innumerable experiments on persons in the hypnotic state have shown that
the subjective mind is utterly incapable of making the selection and
comparison which are necessary to the inductive process, but will accept
any suggestion, however false, but having once accepted any suggestion,
it is strictly logical in deducing the proper conclusions from it, and
works out every suggestion to the minutest fraction of the results which
flow from it.
As a consequence of this it follows that the subjective mind is
entirely under the control of the objective mind. With the utmost
fidelity it reproduces and works out to its final consequences whatever
the objective mind impresses upon it; and the facts of hypnotism show
that ideas can be impressed on the subjective mind by the objective mind
of another as well as by that of its own individuality. This is a most
important point, for it is on this amenability to suggestion by the
thought of another that all the phenomena of healing, whether present or
absent, of telepathy and the like, depend. Under the control of the
practised hypnotist the very personality of the subject becomes changed
for the time being; he believes himself to be whatever the operator
tells him he is: he is a swimmer breasting the waves, a bird flying in
the air, a soldier in the tumult of battle, an Indian stealthily
tracking his victim: in short, for the time being, he identifies himself
with any personality that is impressed upon him by the will of the
operator, and acts the part with inimitable accuracy. But the
experiments of hypnotism go further than this, and show the existence in
the subjective mind of powers far transcending any exercised by the
objective mind through the medium of the physical senses; powers of
thought-reading, of thought-transference, of clairvoyance, and the like,
all of which are frequently manifested when the patient is brought into
the higher mesmeric state; and we have thus experimental proof of the
existence in ourselves of transcendental faculties the full development
and conscious control of which would place us in a perfectly new sphere
of life.
But it should be noted that the control must be our own
and not that of any external intelligence whether in the flesh or out of
it.
But perhaps the most important fact which hypnotic experiments
have demonstrated is that the subjective mind is the builder of the
body. The subjective entity in the patient is able to diagnose the
character of the disease from which he is suffering and to point out
suitable remedies, indicating a physiological knowledge exceeding that
of the most highly trained physicians, and also a knowledge of the
correspondences between diseased conditions of the bodily organs and the
material remedies which can afford relief. And from this it is but a
step further to those numerous instances in which it entirely dispenses
with the use of material remedies and itself works directly on the
organism, so that complete restoration to health follows as the result
of the suggestions of perfect soundness made by the operator to the
patient while in the hypnotic state.
Now these are facts fully established by hundreds of experiments
conducted by a variety of investigators in different parts of the world,
and from them we may draw two inferences of the highest importance: one,
that the subjective mind is in itself absolutely impersonal, and the
other that it is the builder of the body, or in other words it is the
creative power in the individual. That it is impersonal in itself is
shown by its readiness to assume any personality the hypnotist chooses
to impress upon it; and the unavoidable inference is that its
realization of personality proceeds from its association with the
particular objective mind of its own individuality. Whatever personality
the objective mind impresses upon it, that personality it assumes and
acts up to; and since it is the builder of the body it will build up a
body in correspondence with the personality thus impressed upon it.
These two laws of the subjective mind form the foundation of the axiom
that our body represents the aggregate of our beliefs. If our fixed
belief is that the body is subject to all sorts of influences beyond our
control, and that this, that, or the other symptom shows that such an
uncontrollable influence is at work upon us, then this belief is
impressed upon the subjective mind, which by the law of its nature
accepts it without question and proceeds to fashion bodily conditions in
accordance with this belief. Again, if our fixed belief is that certain
material remedies are the only means of cure, then we find in this
belief the foundation of all medicine. There is nothing unsound in the
theory of medicine; it is the strictly logical correspondence with the
measure of knowledge which those who rely on it are as yet able to
assimilate, and it acts accurately in accordance with their belief that
in a large number of cases medicine will do good, but also in many
instances it fails. Therefore, for those who have not yet reached a more
interior perception of the law of Nature, the healing agency of medicine
is a most valuable aid to the alleviation of physical maladies. The
error to be combated is not the belief that, in its own way, medicine is
capable of doing good, but the belief that there is no higher or better
way.
Then, on the same principle, if we realize that the subjective
mind is the builder of the body, and that the body is subject to no
influences except those which reach it through the subjective mind, then
what we have to do is to impress this upon the subjective mind
and habitually think of it as a fountain of perpetual Life, which is
continually renovating the body by building in strong and healthy
material, in the most complete independence of any influences of any
sort, save those of our own desire impressed upon our own subjective
mind by our own thought. When once we fully grasp these considerations
we shall see that it is just as easy to externalize healthy conditions
of body as the contrary. Practically the process amounts to a belief in
our own power of life; and since this belief, if it be thoroughly
domiciled within us, will necessarily produce a correspondingly healthy
body, we should spare no pains to convince ourselves that there are
sound and reasonable grounds for holding it. To afford a solid basis for
this conviction is the purpose of Mental Science.

V.
FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE MIND.

AN intelligent consideration of the phenomena of hypnotism will
show us that what we call the hypnotic state is the normal state
of the subjective mind. It always conceives of itself in
accordance with some suggestion conveyed to it, either consciously or
unconsciously to the mode of objective mind which governs it, and it
gives rise to corresponding external results. The abnormal nature of the
conditions induced by experimental hypnotism is in the removal of the
normal control held by the individual's own objective mind over his
subjective mind and the substitution of some other control for it, and
thus we may say that the normal characteristic of the subjective mind is
its perpetual action in accordance with some sort of suggestion. It
becomes therefore a question of the highest importance to determine in
every case what the nature of the suggestion shall be and from what
source it shall proceed; but before considering the sources of
suggestion we must realize more fully the place taken by subjective mind
in the order of Nature.
If the student has followed what has been said regarding the presence
of intelligent spirit pervading all space and permeating all matter, he
will now have little difficulty in recognizing this all-pervading spirit
as universal subjective mind. That it cannot as universal mind
have the qualities of objective mind is very obvious. The universal mind
is the creative power throughout Nature; and as the originating power it
must first give rise to the various forms in which objective mind
recognizes its own individuality, before these individual minds can
re-act upon it; and hence, as pure spirit or first cause, it
cannot possibly be anything else than subjective mind; and the fact
which has been abundantly proved by experiment that the subjective mind
is the builder of the body shows us that the power of creating by growth
from within is the essential characteristic of the subjective mind.
Hence, both from experiment and from a priori reasoning, we may
say that where-ever we find creative power at work there we are in the
presence of subjective mind, whether it be working on the grand scale of
the cosmos, or on the miniature scale of the individual. We may
therefore lay it down as a principle that the universal all-permeating
intelligence, which has been considered in the second and third
sections, is purely subjective mind, and therefore follows the law of
subjective mind, namely that it is amenable to any suggestion, and will
carry out any suggestion that is impressed upon it to its most
rigorously logical consequences. The incalculable importance of this
truth may not perhaps strike the student at first sight, but a little
consideration will show him the enormous possibilities that are stored
up in it, and in the concluding section I shall briefly touch upon the
very serious conclusions resulting from it. For the present it will be
sufficient to realize that the subjective mind in ourselves is the
same subjective mind which is at work throughout the universe giving
rise to the infinitude of natural forms with which we are surrounded,
and in like manner giving rise to ourselves also. It may be
called the supporter of our individuality; and we may loosely speak of
our individual subjective mind as our personal share in the universal
mind. This, of course, does not imply the splitting up of the universal
mind into fractions, and it is to avoid this error that I have discussed
the essential unity of spirit in the third section, but in order to
avoid too highly abstract conceptions in the present stage of the
student's progress we may conveniently employ the idea of a personal
share in the universal subjective mind.
To realize our individual subjective mind in this manner will help us
to get over the great metaphysical difficulty which meets us in our
endeavour to make conscious use of first cause, in other words to create
external results by the power of our own thought. Ultimately there can
be only one first cause which is the universal mind, but because it is
universal it cannot, as universal, act on the plane of the
individual and particular. For it to do so would be for it to cease to
be universal and therefore cease to be the creative power which we wish
to employ. On the other hand, the fact that we are working for a
specific definite object implies our intention to use this universal
power in application to a particular purpose, and thus we find ourselves
involved in the paradox of seeking to make the universal act on the
plane of the particular. We want to effect a junction between the two
extremes of the scale of Nature, the innermost creative spirit and a
particular external form. Between these two is a great gulf, and the
question is how is it to be bridged over. It is here, then, that the
conception of our individual subjective mind as our personal share in
the universal subjective mind affords the means of meeting the
difficulty, for on the one hand it is in immediate connection with the
universal mind, and on the other it is immediate connection with the
individual objective, or intellectual mind; and this in its turn is in
immediate connection with the world of externalization, which is
conditioned in time and space; and thus the relation between the
subjective and objective minds in the individual forms the bridge which
is needed to connect the two extremities of the scale.
The individual subjective mind may therefore be regarded as the
organ of the Absolute in precisely the same way that the objective mind
is the organ of the Relative, and it is in order to regulate our use of
these two organs that it is necessary to understand what the terms
"absolute" and "relative" actually mean. The absolute is that idea of a
thing which contemplates it as existing in itself and not in
relation to something else, that is to say, which contemplates the
essence of it; and the relative is that idea of a thing which
contemplates it as related to other things, that is to say as
circumscribed by a certain environment. The absolute is the region of
causes, and the relative is the region of conditions; and hence, if we
wish to control conditions, this can only be done by our thought-power
operating on the plane of the absolute, which it can do only through the
medium of the subjective mind. The conscious use of the creative power
of thought consists in the attainment of the power of Thinking in the
Absolute, and this can only be attained by a clear conception of the
interaction between our different mental functions. For this purpose the
student cannot too strongly impress upon himself that subjective mind,
on whatever scale, is intensely sensitive to suggestion, and as creative
power works accurately to the externalization of that suggestion which
is most deeply impressed upon it. If then, we would take any idea out of
the realm of the relative, where it is limited and restricted by
conditions imposed upon it through surrounding circumstances, and
transfer it to the realm of the absolute where it is not thus limited, a
right recognition of our mental constitution will enable us to do this
by a clearly defined method.
The object of our desire is necessarily first conceived by us as
bearing some relation to existing circumstances, which may, or may not,
appear favourable to it; and what we want to do is to eliminate the
element of contingency and attain something which is certain in itself.
To do this is to work upon the plane of the absolute, and for this
purpose we must endeavour to impress upon our subjective mind the idea
of that which we desire quite apart from any conditions. This separation
from the elements of condition implies the elimination of the idea of
time, and consequently we must think of the thing as already in
actual existence. Unless we do this we are not consciously operating
upon the plane of the absolute, and are therefore not employing the
creative power of our thought. The simplest practical method of gaining
the habit of thinking in this manner is to conceive the existence in the
spiritual world of a spiritual prototype of every existing thing, which
becomes the root of the corresponding external existence. If we thus
habituate ourselves to look on the spiritual prototype as the essential
being of the thing, and the material form as the growth of this
prototype into outward expression, then we shall see that the initial
step to the production of any external fact must be the creation of its
spiritual prototype. This prototype, being purely spiritual, can only be
formed by the operation of thought, and in order to have
substance on the spiritual plane it must be thought of as
actually existing there. This conception has been elaborated by Plato in
his doctrine of archetypal ideas, and by Swedenborg in his doctrine of
correspondences; and a still greater teacher has said "All things
whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received
them, and ye shall receive them." (Mark xi. 24, R.V.) The
difference of the tenses in this passage is remarkable. The speaker bids
us first to believe that our desire has already been fulfilled,
that it is a thing already accomplished, and then its accomplishment
will follow as a thing in the future. This is nothing else than a
concise direction for making use of the creative power of thought by
impressing upon the universal subjective mind the particular thing which
we desire as an already existing fact. In following this direction we
are thinking on the plane of the absolute and eliminating from our minds
all consideration of conditions, which imply limitation and the
possibility of adverse contingencies; and we are thus planting a seed
which, if left undisturbed, will infallibly germinate into external
fruition.
By thus making intelligent use of our subjective mind, we, so to
speak, create a nucleus, which is no sooner created than it
begins to exercise an attractive force, drawing to itself material of a
like character with its own, and if this process is allowed to go on
undisturbed, it will continue until an external form corresponding to
the nature of the nucleus comes out into manifestation on the plane of
the objective and relative. This is the universal method of Nature on
every plane. Some of the most advanced thinkers in modern physical
science, in the endeavour to probe the great mystery of the first origin
of the world, have postulated the formation of what they call "vortex
rings" formed from an infinitely fine primordial substance. They tell us
that if such a ring be once formed on the minutest scale and set
rotating, then, since it would be moving in pure ether and subject to no
friction, it must according to all known laws of physics be
indestructible and its motion perpetual. Let two such rings approach
each other, and by the law of attraction, they would coalesce into a
whole, and so on until manifested matter as we apprehend it with our
external senses, is at last formed. Of course no one has ever seen these
rings with the physical eye. They are one of those abstractions which
result if we follow out the observed law of physics and the unavoidable
sequences of mathematics to their necessary consequences. We cannot
account for the things that we can see unless we assume the
existence of other things which we cannot; and the "vortex
theory" is one of these assumptions. This theory has not been put
forward by mental scientists but by purely physical scientists as the
ultimate conclusion to which their researches have led them, and this
conclusion is that all the innumerable forms of Nature have their origin
in the infinitely minute nucleus of the vortex ring, by whatever means
the vortex ring may have received its initial impulse, a question with
which physical science, as such, is not concerned.
As the vortex theory accounts for the formation of the inorganic
world, so does biology account for the formation of the living organism.
That also has its origin in a primary nucleus which, as soon as it is
established, operates as a centre of attraction for the formation of all
those physical organs of which the perfect individual is composed. The
science of embryology shows that this rule holds good without exception
throughout the whole range of the animal world, including man; and
botany shows the same principle at work throughout the vegetable world.
All branches of physical science demonstrate the fact that every
completed manifestation, of whatever kind and on whatever scale, is
started by the establishment of a nucleus, infinitely small but endowed
with an unquenchable energy of attraction, causing it to steadily
increase in power and definiteness of purpose, until the process of
growth is completed and the matured form stands out as an accomplished
fact. Now if this be the universal method of Nature, there is nothing
unnatural in supposing that it must begin its operation at a stage
further back than the formation of the material nucleus. As soon as that
is called into being it begins to operate by the law of attraction on
the material plane; but what is the force which originates the material
nucleus? Let a recent work on physical science give us the answer; "In
its ultimate essence, energy may be incomprehensible by us except as an
exhibition of the direct operation of that which we call Mind or Will."
The quotation is from a course of lectures on "Waves in Water, Air and
AEther," delivered in 1902, at the Royal Institution, by J. A. Fleming.
Here, then, is the testimony of physical science that the originating
energy is Mind or Will; and we are, therefore, not only making a logical
deduction from certain unavoidable intuitions of the human mind, but are
also following on the lines of the most advanced physical science, when
we say that the action of Mind plants that nucleus which, if allowed to
grow undisturbed, will eventually attract to itself all the conditions
necessary for its manifestation in outward visible form. Now the only
action of Mind is Thought; and it is for this reason that by our
thoughts we create corresponding external conditions, because we thereby
create the nucleus which attracts to itself its own correspondences in
due order until the finished work is manifested on the external plane.
This is according to the strictly scientific conception of the universal
law of growth; and we may therefore briefly sum up the whole argument by
saying that our thought of anything forms a spiritual prototype of it,
thus constituting a nucleus or centre of attraction for all conditions
necessary to its eventual externalization by a law of growth inherent in
the prototype itself.

VI.
THE LAW OF GROWTH.

A CORRECT understanding of the law of growth is of the highest
importance to the student of Mental Science. The great fact to be
realized regarding Nature is that it is natural. We may pervert the
order of Nature, but it will prevail in the long run, returning, as
Horace says, by the back door even though we drive it out with a
pitchfork; and the beginning, the middle, and the end of the law of
Nature is the principle of growth from a vitality inherent in the entity
itself. If we realize this from the outset we shall not undo our own
work by endeavouring to force things to become that which by
their own nature they are not. For this reason when the Bible says that
"he who believeth shall not make haste," it is enunciating a great
natural principle that success depends on our using, and not opposing,
the universal law of growth. No doubt the greater the vitality we put
into the germ, which we have agreed to call the spiritual prototype, the
quicker it will germinate; but this is simply because by a more
realizing conception we put more growing-power into the seed than we do
by a feebler conception. Our mistakes always eventually resolve
themselves into distrusting the law of growth. Either we fancy we can
hasten it by some exertion of our own from without, and are thus
led into hurry and anxiety, not to say sometimes into the employment of
grievously wrong methods; or else we give up all hope and so deny the
germinating power of the seed we have planted. The result in either case
is the same, for in either case we are in effect forming a fresh
spiritual prototype of an opposite character to our desire, which
therefore neutralizes the one first formed, and disintegrates it and
usurps its place. The law is always the same, that our Thought forms a
spiritual prototype which, if left undisturbed, will reproduce itself in
external circumstances; the only difference is in the sort of prototype
we form, and thus evil is brought to us by precisely the same law as
good.
These considerations will greatly simplify our ideas of life. We
have no longer to consider two forces, but only one, as being the cause
of all things; the difference between good and evil resulting simply
from the direction in which this force is made to flow. It is a
universal law that if we reverse the action of a cause we at the same
time reverse the effect. With the same apparatus we can commence by
mechanical motion which will generate electricity, or we can commence
with electricity which will generate mechanical motion; or to take a
simple arithmetical instance: if 10 / 2 = 5, then 10 / 5 = 2; and
therefore if we once recognize the power of thought to produce any
results at all, we shall see that the law by which negative thought
produces negative results is the same by which positive thought produces
positive results. Therefore all our distrust of the law of growth,
whether shown in the anxious endeavour to bring pressure to bear from
without, or in allowing despair to take the place of cheerful
expectation, is reversing the action of the original cause and
consequently reversing the nature of the results. It is for this reason
that the Bible, which is the most deeply occult of all books,
continually lays so much stress upon the efficiency of faith and the
destructive influence of unbelief; and in like manner, all books on
every branch of spiritual science emphatically warn us against the
admission of doubt or fear. They are the inversion of the principle
which builds up, and they are therefore the principle which pulls down;
but the Law itself never changes, and it is on the unchangeableness of
the law that all Mental Science is founded. We are accustomed to realize
the unchangeableness of natural law in our every day life, and it should
therefore not be difficult to realize that the same unchangeableness of
law which obtains on the visible side of nature obtains on the invisible
side as well. The variable factor is, not the law, but our own volition;
and it is by combining this variable factor with the invariable one that
we can produce the various results we desire. The principle of growth is
that of inherent vitality in the seed itself, and the operations of the
gardener have their exact analogue in Mental Science. We do not
put the self-expansive vitality into the seed, but we must sow
it, and we may also, so to speak, water it by quiet concentrated
contemplation of our desire as an actually accomplished fact. But we
must carefully remove from such contemplation any idea of a strenuous
effort on our part to make the seed grow. Its efficacy is in
helping to keep out those negative thoughts of doubt which would plant
tares among our wheat, and therefore, instead of anything of effort,
such contemplation should be accompanied by a feeling of pleasure and
restfulness in foreseeing the certain accomplishment of our desires.
This is that making our requests known to God with thanksgiving
which St. Paul recommends, and it has its reason in that perfect
wholeness of the Law of Being which only needs our recognition of it to
be used by us to any extent we wish.
Some people possess the power of visualization, or making mental
pictures of things, in a greater degree than others, and by such this
faculty may advantageously be employed to facilitate their realization
of the working of the Law. But those who do not possess this faculty in
any marked degree, need not be discouraged by their want of it, for
visualization is not the only way of realizing that the law is at work
on the invisible plane. Those whose mental bias is towards physical
science should realize this Law of Growth as the creative force
throughout all nature; and those who have a mathematical turn of mind
may reflect that all solids are generated from the movement of a point,
which, as our old friend Euclid tells us, is that which has no parts nor
magnitude, and is therefore as complete an abstraction as any spiritual
nucleus could be. To use the apostolic words, we are dealing with the
substance of things not seen, and we have to attain that habit of mind
by which we shall see its reality and feel that we are mentally
manipulating the only substance there ultimately is, and of which all
visible things are only different modes. We must therefore regard our
mental creations as spiritual realities and then implicitly trust the
Law of Growth to do the rest.

VII.
RECEPTIVITY.

IN order to lay the foundations for practical work, the student must
endeavour to get a clear conception of what is meant by the intelligence
of undifferentiated spirit. We want to grasp the idea of intelligence
apart from individuality, an idea which is rather apt to elude us until
we grow accustomed to it. It is the failure to realize this quality of
spirit that has given rise to all the theological errors that have
brought bitterness into the world and has been prominent amongst the
causes which have retarded the true development of mankind. To
accurately convey this conception in words, is perhaps, impossible, and
to attempt definition is to introduce that very idea of limitation which
is our object to avoid. It is a matter of feeling rather than of
definition; yet some endeavour must be made to indicate the direction in
which we must feel for this great truth if we are to find it. The idea
is that of realizing personality without that selfhood which
differentiates one individual from another. "I am not that other because
I am myself" -- this is the definition of individual selfhood; but it
necessarily imparts the idea of limitation, because the recognition of
any other individuality at once affirms a point at which our own
individuality ceases and the other begins. Now this mode of recognition
cannot be attributed to the Universal Mind. For it to recognize a point
where itself ceased and something else began would be to recognize
itself as not universal; for the meaning of universality is the
including of all things, and therefore for this intelligence to
recognize anything as being outside itself would be a denial of
its own being. We may therefore say without hesitation that, whatever
may be the nature of its intelligence, it must be entirely devoid of the
element of self-recognition as an individual personality on any
scale whatever. Seen in this light it is at once clear that the
originating all-pervading Spirit is the grand impersonal principle of
Life which gives rise to all the particular manifestations of Nature.
Its absolute impersonalness, in the sense of the entire absence of any
consciousness of individual selfhood, is a point on which it is
impossible to insist too strongly. The attributing of an impossible
individuality to the Universal Mind is one of the two grand errors which
we find sapping the foundations of religion and philosophy in all ages.
The other consists in rushing to the opposite extreme and denying the
quality of personal intelligence to the Universal Mind. The answer to
this error remains, as of old, in the simple question, "He that made the
eye shall He not see? He that planted the ear shall He not hear?" -- or
to use a popular proverb, "You cannot get out of a bag more than there
is in it;" and consequently the fact that we ourselves are centres of
personal intelligence is proof that the infinite, from which these
centres are concentrated, must be infinite intelligence, and thus we
cannot avoid attributing to it the two factors which constitute
personality, namely, intelligence and volition. We are therefore brought
to the conclusion that this universally diffused essence, which we might
think of as a sort of spiritual protoplasm, must possess all the
qualities of personality without that conscious recognition of self
which constitutes separate individuality: and since the word
"personality" has became so associated in our ordinary talk with the
idea of "individuality" it will perhaps be better to coin a new word,
and speak of the personalness of the Universal Mind as indicating its
personal quality, apart from individuality. We must realize that
this universal spirit permeates all space and all manifested substance,
just as physical scientists tell us that the ether does, and that
wherever it is, there it must carry with it all that it is in its own
being; and we shall then see that we are in the midst of an ocean of
undifferentiated yet intelligent Life, above, below, and all around, and
permeating ourselves both mentally and corporeally, and all other beings
as well.
Gradually as we come to realize the truth of this statement, our eyes
will begin to open to its immense significance. It means that all
Nature is pervaded by an interior personalness, infinite in its
potentialities of intelligence, responsiveness, and power of expression,
and only waiting to be called into activity by our recognition of it. By
the terms of its nature it can respond to us only as we recognize it. If
we are at that intellectual level where we can see nothing but chance
governing the world, then this underlying universal mind will present to
us nothing but a fortuitous confluence of forces without any
intelligible order. If we are sufficiently advanced to see that such a
confluence could only produce a chaos, and not a cosmos, then our
conceptions expand to the idea of universal Law, and we find this
to be the nature of the all-underlying principle. We have made an
immense advance from the realm of mere accident into a world where there
are definite principles on which we can calculate with certainty when
we know them. But here is the crucial point. The laws of the
universe are there, but we are ignorant of them, and only through
experience gained by repeated failures can we get any insight into the
laws with which we have to deal. How painful each step and how slow the
progress! AEons upon aeons would not suffice to grasp all the laws of
the universe in their totality, not in the visible world only, but also
in the world of the unseen; each failure to know the true law implies
suffering arising from our ignorant breach of it; and thus, since Nature
is infinite, we are met by the paradox that we must in some way contrive
to compass the knowledge of the infinite with our individual
intelligence, and we must perform a pilgrimage along an unceasing Via
Dolorosa beneath the lash of the inexorable Law until we find the
solution to the problem. But it will be asked, May we not go on until at
last we attain the possession of all knowledge? People do not realize
what is meant by "the infinite," or they would not ask such questions.
The infinite is that which is limitless and exhaustless. Imagine the
vastest capacity you will, and having filled it with the infinite, what
remains of the infinite is just as infinite as before. To the
mathematician this may be put very clearly. Raise x to any power you
will, and however vast may be the disparity between it and the lower
powers of x, both are equally incommensurate with x^n. The universal
reign of Law is a magnificent truth; it is one of the two great pillars
of the universe symbolized by the two pillars that stood at the entrance
to Solomon's temple: it is Jachin, but Jachin must be equilibriated by
Boaz.
It is an enduring truth, which can never be altered, that every
infraction of the Law of Nature must carry its punitive consequences
with it. We can never get beyond the range of cause and effect. There is
no escaping from the law of punishment, except by knowledge. If we know
a law of Nature and work with it, we shall find it our unfailing friend,
ever ready to serve us, and never rebuking us for past failures; but if
we ignorantly or wilfully transgress it, it is our implacable enemy,
until we again become obedient to it; and therefore the only redemption
from perpetual pain and servitude is by a self-expansion which can grasp
infinitude itself. How is this to be accomplished? By our progress to
that kind and degree of intelligence by which we realize the inherent
personalness of the divine all-pervading Life, which is at once
the Law and the Substance of all that is. Well said the Jewish rabbis of
old, "The Law is a Person." When we once realize that the universal Life
and the universal Law are one with the universal Personalness, then we
have established the pillar Boaz as the needed complement to Jachin; and
when we find the common point in which these two unite, we have raised
the Royal Arch through which we may triumphantly enter the Temple. We
must dissociate the Universal Personalness from every conception of
individuality. The universal can never be the individual: that would be
a contradiction in terms. But because the universal personalness is the
root of all individual personalities, it finds its highest expression in
response to those who realize its personal nature. And it is this
recognition that solves the seemingly insoluble paradox. The only way to
attain that knowledge of the Infinite Law which will change the Via
Dolorosa into the Path of Joy is to embody in ourselves a
principle of knowledge commensurate with the infinitude of that
which is to be known; and this is accomplished by realizing that,
infinite as the law itself, is a universal Intelligence in the midst of
which we float as in a living ocean. Intelligence without individual
personality, but which, in producing us, concentrates itself into the
personal individualities which we are. What should be the relation of
such an intelligence towards us? Not one of favouritism: not any more
than the Law can it respect one person above another, for itself is the
root and support for each alike. Not one of refusal to our advances; for
without individuality it can have no personal object of its own to
conflict with ours; and since it is itself the origin of all individual
intelligence, it cannot be shut off by inability to understand. By the
very terms of its being, therefore, this infinite, underlying,
all-producing Mind must be ready immediately to respond to all who
realize their true relation to it. As the very principle of Life itself
it must be infinitely susceptible to feeling, and consequently it will
reproduce with absolute accuracy whatever conception of itself we
impress upon it; and hence if we realize the human mind as that stage in
the evolution of the cosmic order at which an individuality has arisen
capable of expressing, not merely the livingness, but also the
personalness of the universal underlying spirit, then we see that its
most perfect mode of self-expression must be by identifying itself with
these individual personalities.
The identification is, of course, limited by the measure of the
individual intelligence, meaning, not merely the intellectual perception
of the sequence of cause and effect, but also that indescribable
reciprocity of feeling by which we instinctively recognize
something in another making them akin to ourselves; and so it is that
when we intelligently realize that the innermost principle of being,
must by reason of its universality, have a common nature with our own,
then we have solved the paradox of universal knowledge, for we have
realized our identity of being with the Universal Mind, which is
commensurate with the Universal Law. Thus we arrive at the truth of St.
John's statement, "Ye know all things," only this knowledge is primarily
on the spiritual plane. It is not brought out into intellectual
statement whether needed or not; for it is not in itself the specific
knowledge of particular facts, but it is the undifferentiated principle
of knowledge which we may differentiate in any direction that we choose.
This is a philosophical necessity of the case, for though the action of
the individual mind consists in differentiating the universal into
particular applications, to differentiate the whole universal
would be a contradiction in terms; and so, because we cannot exhaust the
infinite, our possession of it must consist in our power to
differentiate it as the occasion may require, the only limit being that
which we ourselves assign to the manifestation.
In this way, then, the recognition of the community of
personality between ourselves and the universal undifferentiated
Spirit, which is the root and substance of all things, solves the
question of our release from the iron grasp of an inflexible Law, not by
abrogating the Law, which would mean the annihilation of all things, but
by producing in us an intelligence equal in affinity with the universal
Law itself, and thus enabling us to apprehend and meet the requirements
of the Law in each particular as it arises. In this way the Cosmic
Intelligence becomes individualized, and the individual intelligence
becomes universalized; the two became one, and in proportion as this
unity is realized and acted on, it will be found that the Law, which
gives rise to all outward conditions, whether of body or of
circumstances, becomes more and more clearly understood, and can
therefore be more freely made use of, so that by steady, intelligent
endeavour to unfold upon these lines we may reach degrees of power to
which it is impossible to assign any limits. The student who would
understand the rationale of the unfoldment of his own possibilities must
make no mistake here. He must realize that the whole process is that of
bringing the universal within the grasp of the individual by raising the
individual to the level of the universal and not vice-versa. It is a
mathematical truism that you cannot contract the infinite, and that you
can expand the individual; and it is precisely on these lines
that evolution works. The laws of nature cannot be altered in the least
degree; but we can come into such a realization of our own relation to
the universal principle of Law that underlies them as to be able to
press all particular laws, whether of the visible or invisible side of
Nature, into our service and so find ourselves masters of the situation.
This is to be accomplished by knowledge; and the only knowledge which
will effect this purpose in all its measureless immensity is the
knowledge of the personal element in Universal Spirit in its reciprocity
to our own personality. Our recognition of this Spirit must therefore be
twofold, as the principle of necessary sequence, order or Law, and also
as the principle of Intelligence, responsive to our own recognition of
it.

VIII.
RECIPROCAL ACTION OF THE UNIVERSAL
AND INDIVIDUAL MINDS.

IT must be admitted that the foregoing considerations bring us to the
borders of theological speculation, but the student must bear in mind
that as a Mental Scientist it is his business to regard even the most
exalted spiritual phenomena from a purely scientific standpoint, which
is that of the working of a universal natural Law. If he thus simply
deals with the facts as he finds them, there is little doubt that the
true meaning of many theological statements will become clear to him:
but be will do well to lay it down as a general rule that it is not
necessary either to the use or understanding of any law, whether on the
personal or the impersonal side of Nature, that we should give a
theological explanation of it: although, therefore, the personal quality
inherent in the universal underlying spirit, which is present in all
things, cannot be too strongly insisted upon, we must remember that in
dealing with it we are still dealing with a purely natural power which
reappears at every point with protean variety of form, whether as
person, animal, or thing. In each case what it becomes to any individual
is exactly measured by that individual's recognition of it. To each and
all it bears the relation of supporter of the race, and where the
individual development is incapable of realizing anything more, this is
the limit of the relation; but as the individual's power of recognition
expands, he finds a reciprocal expansion on the part of this intelligent
power which gradually develops into the consciousness of intimate
companionship between the individualized mind and the unindividualized
source of it.
Now this is exactly the relation which, on ordinary scientific
principles, we should expect to find between the individual and the
cosmic mind, on the supposition that the cosmic mind is subjective mind,
and for reasons already given we can regard it in no other light. As
subjective mind it must reproduce exactly the conception of itself which
the objective mind of the individual, acting through his own subjective
mind, impresses upon it; and at the same time, as creative mind, it
builds up external facts in correspondence with this conception. "Quot
homines tot sententiae": each one externalizes in his outward
circumstances precisely his idea of the Universal Mind; and the man who
realizes that by the natural law of mind be can bring the Universal Mind
into perfectly reciprocal action with its own, will on the one hand make
it a source of infinite instruction, and on the other a source of
infinite power. He will thus wisely alternate the personal and
impersonal aspects respectively between his individual mind and the
Universal Mind; when he is seeking for guidance or strength he will
regard his own mind as the impersonal element which is to receive
personality from the superior wisdom and force of the Greater Mind;
and when, on the other hand, he is to give out the stores thus
accumulated, he must reverse the position and consider his own mind as
the personal element, and the Universal Mind as the impersonal, which he
can therefore direct with certainty by impressing his own
personal desire upon it. We need not be staggered at the greatness of
this conclusion, for it follows necessarily from the natural relation
between the subjective and the objective minds; and the only question is
whether we will limit our view to the lower level of the latter or
expand it so as to take in the limitless possibilities which the
subjective mind presents to us.
I have dealt with this question at some length because it affords the
key to two very important subjects, the Law of Supply and the nature of
Intuition. Students often find it easier to understand how the mind can
influence the body with which it is so intimately associated, than how
it can influence circumstances. If the operation of thought-power were
confined exclusively to the individual mind this difficulty might arise;
but if there is one lesson the student of Mental Science should take to
heart more than another, it is that the action of thought-power is not
limited to a circumscribed individuality. What the individual does is to
give direction to something which is unlimited, to call into
action a force infinitely greater than his own, which because it is in
itself impersonal though intelligent, will receive the impress of his
personality, and can therefore make its influence felt far beyond the
limits which bound the individual's objective perception of the
circumstances with which he has to deal. It is for this reason that I
lay so much stress on the combination of two apparent opposites in the
Universal Mind, the union of intelligence with impersonality. The
intelligence not only enables it to receive the impress of our thought,
but also causes it to devise exactly the right means for bringing
it into accomplishment. This is only the logical result of the
hypothesis that we are dealing with infinite Intelligence which is also
infinite Life. Life means Power, and infinite life therefore means
limitless power; and limitless power moved by limitless intelligence
cannot be conceived of as ever stopping short of the accomplishment of
its object; therefore, given the intention on the part of the
Universal Mind, there can be no doubt as to its ultimate accomplishment.
Then comes the question of intention. How do we know what the intention
of the Universal Mind may be? Here comes in the element of
impersonality. It has no intention, because it is
impersonal. As I have already said, the Universal mind works by a
law of averages for the advancement of the race, and is in no way
concerned with the particular wishes of the individual. If his wishes
are in line with the forward movement of the everlasting principle,
there is nowhere in Nature any power to restrict him in their
fulfilment. If they are opposed to the general forward movement, then
they will bring him into collision with it, and it will crush him. From
the relation between them it results that the same principle which shows
itself in the individual mind as Will, becomes in the universal mind a
Law of Tendency; and the direction of this tendency must always be to
life-givingness, because the universal mind is the undifferentiated
Life-spirit of the universe. Therefore in every case the test is whether
our particular intention is in this same lifeward direction; and if it
is, then we may be absolutely certain that there is no intention on the
part of the Universal Mind to thwart the intention of our own individual
mind; we are dealing with a purely impersonal force, and it will no more
oppose us by specific plans of its own than will steam or electricity.
Combining then, these two aspects of the Universal Mind, its utter
impersonality and its perfect intelligence, we find precisely the sort
of natural force we are in want of, something which will undertake
whatever we put into its hands without asking questions or bargaining
for terms, and which, having undertaken our business, will bring to bear
on it an intelligence to which the united knowledge of the whole human
race is as nothing, and a power equal to this intelligence. I may be
using a rough and ready mode of expression, but my object is to bring
home to the student the nature of the power he can employ and the method
of employing it, and I may therefore state the whole position thus:--
Your object is not to run the whole cosmos, but to draw particular
benefits, physical, mental, moral, or financial into your own or someone
else's life. From this individual point of view the universal creative
power has no mind of its own, and therefore you can make up its mind for
it. When its mind is thus made up for it, it never abrogates its place
as the creative power, but at once sets to work to carry out the purpose
for which it has thus been concentrated; and unless this concentration
is dissipated by the same agency (yourself) which first produced it, it
will work on by the law of growth to complete manifestation on the
outward plane.
In dealing with this great impersonal intelligence, we are dealing
with the infinite, and we must fully realize infinitude as that which
touches all points, and if it does, there should be no difficulty in
understanding that this intelligence can draw together the means
requisite for its purpose even from the ends of the world; and
therefore, realizing the Law according to which the result can be
produced, we must resolutely put aside all questioning as to the
specific means which will be employed in any case. To question this is
to sow that very seed of doubt which it is our first object to
eradicate, and our intellectual endeavour should therefore be directed,
not to the attempt to foretell the various secondary causes which will
eventually combine to produce the desired result, laying down beforehand
what particular causes should be necessary, and from what quarter they
should come; but we should direct our intellectual endeavour to seeing
more clearly the rationale of the general law by which trains of
secondary causes are set in motion. Employed in the former way our
intellect becomes the greatest hindrance to our success, for it only
helps to increase our doubts, since it is trying to grasp particulars
which at the time are entirely outside its circle of vision; but
employed in the latter it affords the most material aid in maintaining
that nucleus without which there is no centre from which the principle
of growth can assert itself. The intellect can only deduce consequences
from facts which it is able to state, and consequently cannot deduce any
assurance from facts of whose existence it cannot yet have any knowledge
through the medium of the outward senses; but for the same reason it can
realize the existence of a Law by which the as yet unmanifested
circumstances may be brought into manifestation. Thus used in its right
order, the intellect becomes the handmaid of that more interior power
within us which manipulates the unseen substance of all things, and
which we may call relative first cause.

IX.
CAUSES AND CONDITIONS.

THE expression "relative first cause" has been used in the
last section to distinguish the action of the creative principle in the
individual mind from Universal First Cause on the one hand and
from secondary causes on the other. As it exists in us, primary
causation is the power to initiate a train of causation directed to an
individual purpose. As the power of initiating a fresh sequence of cause
and effect it is first cause, and as referring to an individual purpose
it is relative, and it may therefore be spoken of as relative first
cause, or the power of primary causation manifested by the individual.
The understanding and use of this power is the whole object of Mental
Science, and it is therefore necessary that the student should clearly
see the relation between causes and conditions. A simple illustration
will go further for this purpose than any elaborate explanation. If a
lighted candle is brought into a room the room becomes illuminated, and
if the candle is taken away it becomes dark again. Now the illumination
and the darkness are both conditions, the one positive resulting from
the presence of the light, and the other negative resulting from its
absence: from this simple example we therefore see that every positive
condition has an exactly opposite negative condition corresponding to
it, and that this correspondence results from their being related to the
same cause, the one positively and the other negatively; and
hence we may lay down the rule that all positive conditions result from
the active presence of a certain cause, and all negative conditions from
the absence of such a cause. A condition, whether positive or negative,
is never primary cause, and the primary cause of any
series can never be negative, for negation is the condition which arises
from the absence of active causation. This should be thoroughly
understood as it is the philosophic basis of all those "denials" which
play so important a part in Mental Science, and which may be summed up
in the statement that evil being negative, or privation of good, has no
substantive existence in itself. Conditions, however, whether positive
or negative, are no sooner called into existence than they become causes
in their turn and produce further conditions, and so on ad
infinitum, thus giving rise to the whole train of secondary causes.
So long as we judge only from the information conveyed to us by the
outward senses, we are working on the plane of secondary causation and
see nothing but a succession of conditions, forming part of an endless
train of antecedent conditions coming out of the past and stretching
away into the future, and from this point of view we are under the rule
of an iron destiny from which there seems no possibility of escape. This
is because the outward senses are only capable of dealing with the
relations which one mode of limitation bears to another, for they are
the instruments by which we take cognizance of the relative and the
conditioned. Now the only way of escape is by rising out of the region
of secondary causes into that of primary causation, where the
originating energy is to be found before it has yet passed into
manifestation as a condition. This region is to be found within
ourselves; it is the region of pure ideas; and it is for this reason
that I have laid stress on the two aspects of spirit as pure thought and
manifested form. The thought-image or ideal pattern of a thing is the
first cause relatively to that thing; it is the substance of that
thing untrammelled by any antecedent conditions.
If we realize that all visible things must have their origin
in spirit, then the whole creation around us is the standing evidence
that the starting-point of all things is in thought-images or ideas, for
no other action than the formation of such images can be conceived of
spirit prior to its manifestation in matter. If, then, this is spirit's
modus operandi for self-expression, we have only to transfer this
conception from the scale of cosmic spirit working on the plane of the
universal to that of individualized spirit working on the plane of the
particular, to see that the formation of an ideal image by means of our
thought is setting first cause in motion with regard to this specific
object. There is no difference in kind between the operation of first
cause in the universal and in the particular, the difference is only a
difference of scale, but the power itself is identical. We must
therefore always be very clear as to whether we are consciously
using first cause or not. Note the word "consciously" because, whether
consciously or unconsciously, we are always using first cause; and it
was for this reason I emphasized the fact that the Universal Mind is
purely subjective and therefore bound by the laws which apply to
subjective mind on whatever scale. Hence we are always impressing
some sort of ideas upon it, whether we are aware of the fact or not, and
all our existing limitations result from our having habitually impressed
upon it that idea of limitation which we have imbibed by restricting all
possibility to the region of secondary causes. But now when
investigation has shown us that conditions are never causes in
themselves, but only the subsequent links of a chain started on
the plane of the pure ideal, what we have to do is to reverse our method
of thinking and regard the ideal as the real, and the outward
manifestation as a mere reflection which must change with every change
of the object which casts it. For these reasons it is essential to know
whether we are consciously making use of first cause with a definite
purpose or not, and the criterion is this. If we regard the fulfilment
of our purpose as contingent upon any circumstances, past,
present, or future, we are not making use of first cause; we have
descended to the level of secondary causation, which is the region of
doubts, fears, and limitations, all of which we are impressing upon the
universal subjective mind with the inevitable result that it will build
up corresponding external conditions. But if we realize that the region
of secondary causes is the region of mere reflections we shall not think
of our purpose as contingent on any conditions whatever, but shall know
that by forming the idea of it in the absolute, and maintaining that
idea, we have shaped the first cause into the desired form and can await
the result with cheerful expectancy.
It is here that we find the importance of realizing spirit's
independence of time and space. An ideal, as such, cannot be formed in
the future. It must either be formed here and now or not be formed at
all; and it is for this reason that every teacher, who has ever spoken
with due knowledge of the subject, has impressed upon his followers the
necessity of picturing to themselves the fulfilment of their desires as
already accomplished on the spiritual plane, as the indispensable
condition of fulfilment in the visible and concrete.
When this is properly understood, any anxious thought as to the
means to be employed in the accomplishment of our purposes is
seen to be quite unnecessary. If the end is already secured, then it
follows that all the steps leading to it are secured also. The means
will pass into the smaller circle of our conscious activities day by day
in due order, and then we have to work upon them, not with fear, doubt,
or feverish excitement, but calmly and joyously, because we know
that the end is already secured, and that our reasonable use of such
means as present themselves in the desired direction is only one portion
of a much larger co-ordinated movement, the final result of which admits
of no doubt. Mental Science does not offer a premium to idleness, but it
takes all work out of the region of anxiety and toil by assuring the
worker of the success of his labour, if not in the precise form he
anticipated, then in some other still better suited to his requirements.
But suppose, when we reach a point where some momentous decision has to
be made, we happen to decide wrongly? On the hypothesis that the end is
already secured you cannot decide wrongly. Your right decision is as
much one of the necessary steps in the accomplishment of the end as any
of the other conditions leading up to it, and therefore, while being
careful to avoid rash action, we may make sure that the same Law which
is controlling the rest of the circumstances in the right direction will
influence our judgment in that direction also. To get good results we
must properly understand our relation to the great impersonal power we
are using. It is intelligent and we are intelligent, and the two
intelligencies must co-operate. We must not fly in the face of the Law
by expecting it to do for us what it can only do through
us; and we must therefore use our intelligence with the knowledge that
it is acting as the instrument of a greater intelligence; and
because we have this knowledge we may, and should, cease from all
anxiety as to the final result. In actual practice we must first form
the ideal conception of our object with the definite intention of
impressing it upon the universal mind -- it is this intention which
takes such thought out of the region of mere casual fancies -- and then
affirm that our knowledge of the Law is sufficient reason for a calm
expectation of a corresponding result, and that therefore all necessary
conditions will come to us in due order. We can then turn to the affairs
of our daily life with the calm assurance that the initial conditions
are either there already or will soon come into view. If we do not at
once see them, let us rest content with the knowledge that the spiritual
prototype is already in existence and wait till some circumstance
pointing in the desired direction begins to show itself. It may be a
very small circumstance, but it is the direction and not the magnitude
which is to be taken into consideration. As soon as we see it we should
regard it as the first sprouting of the seed we have sown in the
Absolute, and do calmly, and without excitement, whatever the
circumstances may seem to require, and then later on we shall see that
this doing will in turn lead to further circumstances in the same
direction until we find ourselves conducted step by step to the
accomplishment of our object. In this way the understanding of the great
principle of the Law of Supply will, by repeated experiences, deliver us
more and more completely out of the region of anxious thought and
toilsome labour and bring us into a new world where the useful
employment of all our powers, whether mental or physical, will only be
an unfolding of our individuality upon the lines of its own nature, and
therefore a perpetual source of health and happiness; a sufficient
inducement, surely, to the careful study of the laws governing the
relation between the individual and the Universal Mind.

X.
INTUITION.

WE have seen that the subjective mind is amenable to suggestion by
the objective mind; but there is also an action of the subjective mind
upon the objective. The individual's subjective mind is his own
innermost self, and its first care is the maintenance of the
individuality of which it is the foundation; and since it is pure spirit
it has its continual existence in that plane of being where all things
subsist in the universal here and the everlasting now, and consequently
can inform the lower mind of things removed from its ken either by
distance or futurity. As the absence of the conditions of time and space
must logically concentrate all things into a present focus, we can
assign no limit to the subjective mind's power of perception, and
therefore the question arises, why does it not keep the objective mind
continually informed on all points? And the answer is that it would do
so if the objective mind were sufficiently trained to recognize the
indications given, and to effect this training is one of the purposes of
Mental Science. When once we recognize the position of the subjective
mind as the supporter of the whole individuality we cannot doubt that
much of what we take to be the spontaneous movement of the objective
mind has its origin in the subjective mind prompting the objective mind
in the right direction without our being consciously aware of it. But at
times when the urgency of the case seems to demand it, or when, for some
reason yet unknown, the objective mind is for a while more closely en
rapport with the subjective mind, the interior voice is heard
strongly and persistently; and when this is the case we do well to pay
heed to it. Want of space forbids me to give examples, but doubtless
such will not be wanting in the reader's experience.
The importance of understanding and following the intuition cannot
be exaggerated, but I candidly admit the great practical difficulty of
keeping the happy mean between the disregard of the interior voice and
allowing ourselves to be run away with by groundless fancies. The best
guide is the knowledge that comes of personal experience which gradually
leads to the acquisition of a sort of inward sense of touch that enables
us to distinguish the true from the false, and which appears to grow
with the sincere desire for truth and with the recognition of the spirit
as its source. The only general principles the writer can deduce from
his own experience are that when, in spite of all appearances pointing
in the direction of a certain line of conduct, there is still a
persistent feeling that it should not be followed, in the
majority of instances it will be found that the argument of the
objective mind, however correct on the facts objectively known, was
deficient from ignorance of facts which could not be objectively known
at the time, but which were known to the intuitive faculty. Another
principle is that our very first impression of feeling on any
subject is generally correct. Before the objective mind has begun to
argue on the subject it is like the surface of a smooth lake which
clearly reflects the light from above; but as soon as it begins to argue
from outside appearances these also throw their reflections upon its
surface, so that the original image becomes blurred and is no longer
recognizable. This first conception is very speedily lost, and it should
therefore be carefully observed and registered in the memory with a view
to testing the various arguments which will subsequently arise on the
objective plane. It is however impossible to reduce so interior an
action as that of the intuition to the form of hard and fast rules, and
beyond carefully noting particular cases as they occur, probably the
best plan for the student will be to include the whole subject of
intuition in the general principle of the Law of Attraction, especially
if he sees how this law interacts with that personal quality of
universal spirit of which we have already spoken.

XI.
HEALING.

THE subject of healing has been elaborately treated by many writers
and fully deserves all the attention that has been given to it, but the
object of these lectures is rather to ground the student in those
general principles on which all conscious use of the creative
power of thought is based, than to lay down formal rules for specific
applications of it. I will therefore examine the broad principles which
appear to be common to the various methods of mental healing which are
in use, each of which derives its efficacy, not from the peculiarity of
the method, but from it being such a method as allows the higher laws of
Nature to come into play. Now the principle universally laid down by
all mental healers, in whatever various terms they may explain it, is
that the basis of all healing is a change in belief. The sequence from
which this results is as follows:--the subjective mind is the creative
faculty within us, and creates whatever the objective mind impresses
upon it; the objective mind, or intellect, impresses its thought upon
it; the thought is the expression of the belief; hence whatever the
subjective mind creates is the reproduction externally of our beliefs.
Accordingly our whole object is to change our beliefs, and we cannot do
this without some solid ground of conviction of the falsity of our old
beliefs and of the truth of our new ones, and this ground we find in
that law of causation which I have endeavoured to explain. The wrong
belief which externalizes as sickness is the belief that some secondary
cause, which is really only a condition, is a primary cause. The
knowledge of the law shows that there is only one primary cause,
and this is the factor which in our own individuality we call subjective
or sub-conscious mind. For this reason I have insisted on the
difference between placing an idea in the sub-conscious mind, that is,
on the plane of the absolute and without reference to time and space,
and placing the same idea in the conscious intellectual mind which only
perceives things as related to time and space. Now the only conception
you can have of yourself in the absolute, or unconditioned, is as
purely living Spirit, not hampered by conditions of any sort, and
therefore not subject to illness; and when this idea is firmly impressed
on the sub-conscious mind, it will externalize it. The reason why this
process is not always successful at the first attempt is that all our
life we have been holding the false belief in sickness as a substantial
entity in itself and thus being a primary cause, instead of being merely
a negative condition resulting from the absence of a
primary cause; and a belief which has become ingrained from childhood
cannot be eradicated at a moment's notice. We often find, therefore,
that for some time after a treatment there is an improvement in the
patient's health, and then the old symptoms return. This is because the
new belief in his own creative faculty has not yet had time to penetrate
down to the innermost depths of the sub-conscious mind, but has only
partially entered it. Each succeeding treatment strengthens the
sub-conscious mind in its hold of the new belief until at last a
permanent cure is effected. This is the method of self-treatment based
on the patient's own knowledge of the law of his being.
But "there is not in all men this knowledge," or at any rate not such
a full recognition of it as will enable them to give successful
treatment to themselves, and in these cases the intervention of the
healer becomes necessary. The only difference between the healer and
the patient is that the healer has learnt how to control the less
self-conscious modes of the spirit by the more self-conscious mode,
while the patient has not yet attained to this knowledge; and what the
healer does is to substitute his own objective or conscious mentality,
which is will joined to intellect, for that of the patient, and in this
way to find entrance to his sub-conscious mind and impress upon it the
suggestion of perfect health.
The question then arises, how can the healer substitute his own
conscious mind for that of the patient? and the answer shows the
practical application of those very abstract principles which I have
laid down in the earlier sections. Our ordinary conception of ourselves
is that of an individual personality which ends where another
personality begins, in other words that the two personalities are
entirely separate. This is an error. There is no such hard and fast
line of demarcation between personalities, and the boundaries between
one and another can be increased or reduced in rigidity according to
will, in fact they may be temporarily removed so completely that, for
the time being, the two personalities become merged into one. Now the
action which takes place between healer and patient depends on this
principle. The patient is asked by the healer to put himself in a
receptive mental attitude, which means that he is to exercise his
volition for the purpose of removing the barrier of his own objective
personality and thus affording entrance to the mental power of the
healer. On his side also the healer does the same thing, only with this
difference, that while the patient withdraws the barrier on his side
with the intention of admitting a flowing-in, the healer does so with
the intention of allowing a flowing-out: and thus by the joint action of
the two minds the barriers of both personalities are removed and the
direction of the flow of volition is determined, that is to say, it
flows from the healer as actively willing to give, towards the patient
as passively willing to receive, according to the universal law of
Nature that the flow must always be from the plenum to the
vacuum. This mutual removal of the external mental barrier
between healer and patient is what is termed establishing a
rapport between them, and here we find one most valuable
practical application of the principle laid down earlier in this book,
that pure spirit is present in its entirety at every point
simultaneously. It is for this reason that as soon as the healer
realizes that the barriers of external personality between himself and
his patient have been removed, he can then speak to the sub-conscious
mind of the patient as though it were his own, for both being pure
spirit the thought of their identity makes them identical,
and both are concentrated into a single entity at a single point upon
which the conscious mind of the healer can be brought to bear, according
to the universal principle of the control of the subjective mind by the
objective mind through suggestion. It is for this reason I have
insisted on the distinction between pure spirit, or spirit
conceived of apart from extension in any matrix and the conception of it
as so extended. If we concentrate our mind upon the diseased condition
of the patient we are thinking of him as a separate personality, and are
not fixing our mind upon that conception of him as pure spirit which
will afford us effectual entry to his springs of being. We must
therefore withdraw our thought from the contemplation of symptoms, and
indeed from his corporeal personality altogether, and must think of him
as a purely spiritual individuality, and as such entirely free from
subjection to any conditions, and consequently as voluntarily
externalizing the conditions most expressive of the vitality and
intelligence which pure spirit is. Thinking of him thus, we then make
mental affirmation that he shall build up outwardly the correspondence
of that perfect vitality which he knows himself to be inwardly; and this
suggestion being impressed by the healer's conscious thought, while the
patient's conscious thought is at the same time impressing the fact that
he is receiving the active thought of the healer, the result is that the
patient's sub-conscious mind becomes thoroughly imbued with the
recognition of its own life-giving power, and according to the
recognized law of subjective mentality proceeds to work out this
suggestion into external manifestation, and thus health is substituted
for sickness.
It must be understood that the purpose of the process here described
is to strengthen the subject's individuality, not to dominate it. To
use it for domination is inversion, bringing its appropriate
penalty to the operator.
In this description I have contemplated the case where the patient
is consciously co-operating with the healer, and it is in order to
obtain this co-operation that the mental healer usually makes a point of
instructing the patient in the broad principles of Mental Science, if he
is not already acquainted with them. But this is not always advisable
or possible. Sometimes the statement of principles opposed to existing
prejudices arouses opposition, and any active antagonism on the
patient's part must tend to intensify the barrier of conscious
personality which it is the healer's first objective to remove. In
these cases nothing is so effective as absent treatment. If the
student has grasped all that has been said on the subject of spirit and
matter, he will see that in mental treatment time and space count for
nothing, because the whole action takes place on a plane where these
conditions do not obtain; and it is therefore quite immaterial whether
the patient be in the immediate presence of the healer or in a distant
country. Under these circumstances it is found by experience that one
of the most effectual modes of mental healing is by treatment during
sleep, because then the patient's whole system is naturally in a state
of relaxation which prevents him offering any conscious opposition to
the treatment. And by the same rule the healer also is able to treat
even more effectively during his own sleep than while waking. Before
going to sleep he firmly impresses on his subjective mind that it is to
convey curative suggestion to the subjective mind of the patient, and
then, by the general principles of the relation between subjective and
objective mind this suggestion is carried out during all the hours that
the conscious individuality is wrapped in repose. This method is
applicable to young children to whom the principles of the science
cannot be explained; and also to persons at a distance: and indeed the
only advantage gained by the personal meeting of the patient and healer
is in the instruction that can be orally given, or when the patient is
at that early stage of knowledge where the healer's visible presence
conveys the suggestion that something is then being done which could not
be done in his absence; otherwise the presence or absence of the patient
are matters perfectly indifferent. The student must always recollect
that the sub-conscious mind does not have to work through the
intellect or conscious mind to produce its curative effects. It is part
of the all-pervading creative force of Nature, while the intellect is
not creative but distributive.
From mental healing it is but a step to telepathy, clairvoyance and
other kindred manifestations of transcendental power which are from time
to time exhibited by the subjective entity and which follow laws as
accurate as those which govern what we are accustomed to consider our
more normal faculties; but these subjects do not properly fall within
the scope of a book whose purpose is to lay down the broad principles
which underlie all spiritual phenomena. Until these are clearly
understood the student cannot profitably attempt the detailed study of
the more interior powers; for to do so without a firm foundation of
knowledge and some experience in its practical application would only be
to expose himself to unknown dangers, and would be contrary to the
scientific principle that the advance into the unknown can only be made
from the standpoint of the known, otherwise we only come into a confused
region of guess-work without any clearly defined principles for our
guidance.

XII.
THE WILL.

THE Will is of such primary importance that the student should be on
his guard against any mistake as to the position which it holds in the
mental economy. Many writers and teachers insist on will-power as
though that were the creative faculty. No doubt intense will-power can
evolve certain external results, but like all other methods of
compulsion it lacks the permanency of natural growth. The appearances,
forms, and conditions produced by mere intensity of will-power will only
hang together so long as the compelling force continues; but let it be
exhausted or withdrawn, and the elements thus forced into unnatural
combination will at once fly back to their proper affinities; the form
created by compulsion never had the germ of vitality in itself
and is therefore dissipated as soon as the external energy which
supported it is withdrawn. The mistake is in attributing the creative
power to the will, or perhaps I should say in attributing the creative
power to ourselves at all. The truth is that man never creates
anything. His function is, not to create, but to combine and distribute
that which is already in being, and what we call our creations are new
combinations of already existing material, whether mental or corporeal.
This is amply demonstrated in the physical sciences. No one speaks of
creating energy, but only of transforming one form of energy into
another; and if we realize this as a universal principle, we shall see
that on the mental plane as well as on the physical we never create
energy but only provide the conditions by which the energy already
existing in one mode can exhibit itself in another: therefore what,
relatively to man, we call his creative power, is that receptive
attitude of expectancy which, so to say, makes a mould into which the
plastic and as yet undifferentiated substance can flow and take the
desired form. The will has much the same place in our mental machinery
that the tool-holder has in a power-lathe: it is not the power, but it
keeps the mental faculties in that position relatively to the power
which enables it to do the desired work. If, using the word in its
widest sense, we may say that the imagination is the creative function,
we may call the will the centralizing principle. Its function is to
keep the imagination centred in the right direction. We are aiming at
consciously controlling our mental powers instead of letting them hurry
us hither and thither in a purposeless manner, and we must therefore
understand the relation of these powers to each other for the production
of external results. First the whole train of causation is started by
some emotion which gives rise to a desire; next the judgment determines
whether we shall externalize this desire or not; then the desire having
been approved by the judgment, the will comes forward and directs the
imagination to form the necessary spiritual prototype; and the
imagination thus centred on a particular object creates the spiritual
nucleus, which in its turn acts as a centre round which the forces of
attraction begin to work, and continue to operate until, by the law of
growth, the concrete result becomes perceptible to our external senses.
The business of the will, then, is to retain the various faculties
of our mind in that position where they are really doing the work we
wish, and this position may be generalized into the three following
attitudes: either we wish to act upon something, or be acted on by it,
or to maintain a neutral position; in other words we either intend to
project a force, or receive a force, or keep a position of inactivity
relatively to some particular object. Now the judgment determines which
of these three positions we shall take up, the consciously active, the
consciously receptive, or the consciously neutral; and then the function
of the will is simply to maintain the position we have determined upon;
and if we maintain any given mental attitude we may reckon with all
certainty on the law of attraction drawing us to those correspondences
which exteriorly symbolize the attitude in question. This is very
different from the semi-animal screwing-up of the nervous forces which,
with some people, stands for will-power. It implies no strain on the
nervous system and is consequently not followed by any sense of
exhaustion. The will-power, when transferred from the region of the
lower mentality to the spiritual plane, becomes simply a calm and
peaceful determination to retain a certain mental attitude in spite of
all temptations to the contrary, knowing that by doing so the desired
result will certainly appear.
The training of the will and its transference from the lower to the
higher plane of our nature are among the first objects of Mental
Science. The man is summed up in his will. Whatever he does by his own
will is his own act; whatever he does without the consent of his will is
not his own act but that of the power by which his will was coerced; but
we must recognize that, on the mental plane, no other individuality can
obtain control over our will unless we first allow it to do so; and it
is for this reason that all legitimate use of Mental Science is towards
the strengthening of the will, whether in ourselves or others, and
bringing it under the control of an enlightened reason. When the will
realizes its power to deal with first cause it is no longer necessary
for the operator to state to himself in extenso all the
philosophy of its action every time he wishes to use it, but, knowing
that the trained will is a tremendous spiritual force acting on the
plane of first cause, he simply expresses his desire with the intention
of operating on that plane, and knows that the desire thus expressed
will in due time externalize itself as concrete fact. He now sees that
the point which really demands his earnest attention is not whether he
possesses the power of externalizing any results he chooses, but of
learning to choose wisely what results to produce. For let us not
suppose that even the highest powers will take us out of the law of
cause and effect. We can never set any cause in motion without calling
forth those effects which it already contains in embryo and which will
again become causes in their turn, thus producing a series which must
continue to flow on until it is cut short by bringing into operation a
cause of an opposite character to the one which originated it. Thus we
shall find the field for the exercise of our intelligence continually
expanding with the expansion of our powers; for, granted a good
intention, we shall always wish to contemplate the results of our action
as far as our intelligence will permit. We may not be able to see very
far, but there is one safe general principle to be gained from what has
already been said about causes and conditions, which is that the whole
sequence always partakes of the same character as the initial cause: if
that character is negative, that is, destitute of any desire to
externalize kindness, cheerfulness, strength, beauty or some other sort
of good, this negative quality will make itself felt all down the line;
but if the opposite affirmative character is in the original motive,
then it will reproduce its kind in forms of love, joy, strength and
beauty with unerring precision. Before setting out, therefore, to
produce new conditions by the exercise of our thought-power we should
weigh carefully what further results they are likely to lead to; and
here, again, we shall find an ample field for the training of our will,
in learning to acquire that self-control which will enable us to
postpone an inferior present satisfaction to a greater prospective good.

These considerations naturally lead us to the subject of
concentration. I have just now pointed out that all duly controlled
mental action consists in holding the mind in one of three attitudes;
but there is a fourth mental condition, which is that of letting our
mental functions run on without our will directing them to any definite
purpose. It is on this word purpose that we must fix our whole
attention; and instead of dissipating our energies, we must follow an
intelligent method of concentration. The word means being gathered up
at a centre, and the centre of anything is that point in which all its
forces are equally balanced. To concentrate therefore means first to
bring our minds into a condition of equilibrium which will enable us to
consciously direct the flow of spirit to a definitely recognized
purpose, and then carefully to guard our thoughts from inducing a flow
in the opposite direction. We must always bear in mind that we are
dealing with a wonderful potential energy which is not yet
differentiated into any particular mode, and that by the action of our
mind we can differentiate it into any specific mode of activity that we
will; and by keeping our thought fixed on the fact that the inflow of
this energy is taking place and that by our mental attitude we
are determining its direction, we shall gradually realize a
corresponding externalization. Proper concentration, therefore, does
not consist of strenuous effort which exhausts the nervous system and
defeats its own object by suggesting the consciousness of an adverse
force to be fought against, and thus creating the adverse circumstances
we dread; but in shutting out all thoughts of a kind that would disperse
the spiritual nucleus we are forming and dwelling cheerfully on the
knowledge that, because the law is certain in its action, our desire is
certain of accomplishment. The other great principle to be remembered
is that concentration is for the purpose of determining the
quality we are going to give to the previously undifferentiated
energy rather than to arrange the specific circumstances of its
manifestation. That is the work of the creative energy itself,
which will build up its own forms of expression quite naturally if we
allow it, thus saving us a great deal of needless anxiety. What we
really want is expansion in a certain direction, whether of health,
wealth, or what not: and so long as we get this, what does it matter
whether it reaches us through some channel which we thought we could
reckon upon or through some other whose existence we had not suspected.
It is the fact that we are concentrating energy of a particular kind for
a particular purpose that we should fix our minds upon, and not look
upon any specific details as essential to the accomplishment of our
object.

These are the two golden rules regarding concentration; but we must
not suppose that because we have to be on our guard against idle
drifting there is to be no such thing as repose; on the contrary it is
during periods of repose that we accumulate strength for action; but
repose does not mean a state of purposelessness. As pure spirit the
subjective mind never rests: it is only the objective mind in its
connection with the physical body that needs rest; and though there are
no doubt times when the greatest possible rest is to be obtained by
stopping the action of our conscious thought altogether, the more
generally advisable method is by changing the direction of the thought
and, instead of centering it upon something we intend to do,
letting it dwell quietly upon what we are. This direction of
thought might, of course, develop into the deepest philosophical
speculation, but it is not necessary that we should be always either
consciously projecting our forces to produce some external effect or
working out the details of some metaphysical problem; but we may simply
realize ourselves as part of the universal livingness and thus gain a
quiet centralization, which, though maintained by a conscious act of the
volition, is the very essence of rest. From this standpoint we see that
all is Life and all is Good, and that Nature, from her clearly visible
surface to her most arcane depths, is one vast storehouse of life and
good entirely devoted to our individual use. We have the key to all her
treasures, and we can now apply our knowledge of the law of being
without entering into all those details which are only needed for
purposes of study, and doing so we find it results in our having
acquired the consciousness of our oneness with the whole. This
is the great secret: and when we have once fathomed it we can enjoy our
possession of the whole, or any part of it, because by our recognition
we have made it, and can increasingly make it, our own. Whatever most
appeals to us at any particular time or place is that mode of the
universal living spirit with which at that moment we are most in touch,
and realizing this, we shall draw from it streams of vital energy which
will make the very sensation of livingness a joy and will radiate from
us as a sphere of vibration that can deflect all injurious suggestion on
whatever plane. We may not have literary, artistic, or scientific skill
to present to others the results of our communings with Nature, but the
joy of this sympathetic indrawing will nevertheless produce a
corresponding outflow manifesting itself in the happier look and
kindlier mien of him who thus realizes his oneness with every aspect of
the whole. He realizes -- and this is the great point in that attitude
of mind which is not directed to any specific external object -- that,
for himself, he is, and always must be the centre of all this galaxy of
Life, and thus he contemplates himself as seated at the centre of
infinitude, not an infinitude of blank space, but pulsating with living
being, in all of which he knows that the true essence is nothing but
good. This is the very opposite to a selfish self-centredness: it is
the centre where we find that we both receive from all and flow out to
all. Apart from this principle of circulation there is no true life,
and if we contemplate our central position only as affording us greater
advantages for in-taking, we have missed the whole point of our studies
by missing the real nature of the Life-principle, which is action and
re-action. If we would have life enter into us, we ourselves must enter
into life -- enter into the spirit of it, just as we must enter into the
spirit of a book or a game to enjoy it. There can be no action at a
centre only. There must be a perpetual flowing out towards the
circumference, and thence back again to the centre to maintain a vital
activity; otherwise collapse must ensue either from anaemia or
congestion. But if we realize the reciprocal nature of the vital
pulsation, and that the outflowing consists in the habit of mind which
gives itself to the good it sees in others, rather than in any specific
actions, then we shall find that the cultivation of this disposition
will provide innumerable avenues for the universal livingness to flow
through us, whether as giving or receiving, which we had never before
suspected: and this action and re-action will so build up our own
vitality that each day will find us more thoroughly alive than any that
had preceded it. This, then, is the attitude of repose in which we may
enjoy all the beauties of science, literature and art or may peacefully
commune with the spirit of nature without the aid of any third mind to
act as its interpreter, which is still a purposeful attitude although
not directed to a specific object: we have not allowed the will to relax
its control, but have merely altered its direction; so that for action
and repose alike we find that our strength lies in our recognition of
the unity of the spirit and of ourselves as individual concentrations of
it.

XIII.
IN TOUCH WITH SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND.

THE preceding pages have made the student in some measure aware of
the immense importance of our dealings with the sub-conscious mind. Our
relation to it, whether on the scale of the individual or the universal,
is the key to all that we are or ever can be. In its unrecognized
working it is the spring of all that we can call the automatic action if
mind and body, and on the universal scale it is the silent power of
evolution gradually working onwards to that "divine event, to which the
whole creation moves"; and by our conscious recognition of it we make
it, relatively to ourselves, all that we believe it to be. The closer
our rapport with it becomes, the more what we have hitherto
considered automatic action, whether in our bodies or our circumstances,
will pass under our control, until at last we shall control our whole
individual world. Since, then, this is the stupendous issue involved,
the question how we are to put ourselves practically in touch with the
sub-conscious mind is a very important one. Now the clue which gives us
the right direction is to be found in the impersonal quality of
sub-conscious mind of which I have spoken. Not impersonal as lacking
the elements of personality; nor even, in the case of individual
subjective mind, as lacking the sense of individuality; but impersonal
in the sense of not recognizing the particular external relations which
appear to the objective mind to constitute its personality, and having a
realization of itself quite independent of them. If, then, we would
come in touch with it we must meet it on its own ground. It can see
things only from the deductive standpoint, and therefore cannot take
note of the inductive standpoint from which we construct the idea of our
external personality; and accordingly if we would put ourselves in touch
with it, we cannot do so by bringing it down to the level of the
external and non-essential but only by rising to its own level on the
plane of the interior and essential. How can this be done? Let two
well-known writers answer. Rudyard Kipling tells us in his story of
"Kim" how the boy used at times to lose his sense of personality by
repeating to himself the question, Who is Kim? Gradually his
personality would seem to fade and he would experience a feeling of
passing into a grander and a wider life, in which the boy Kim was
unknown, while his own conscious individuality remained, only exalted
and expanded to an inconceivable extent; and in Tennyson's life by his
son we are told that at times the poet had a similar experience. We
come into touch with the absolute exactly in proportion as we withdraw
ourselves from the relative: they vary inversely to each other.
For the purpose, then, of getting into touch with our sub-conscious
mind we must endeavour to think of ourselves as pure being, as that
entity which interiorly supports the outward manifestation, and doing so
we shall realize that the essential quality of pure being must be good.
It is in itself pure Life, and as such cannot desire anything
detrimental to pure Life under whatever form manifested. Consequently
the purer our intentions the more readily we shall place ourself en
rapport with our subjective entity; and a fortiori the same
applies to that Greater Sub-conscious Mind of which our individual
subjective mind is a particular manifestation. In actual practice the
process consists in first forming a clear conception in the objective
mind of the idea we wish to convey to the subjective mind: then, when
this has been firmly grasped, endeavour to lose sight of all other facts
connected with the external personality except the one in question, and
then mentally address the subjective mind as though it were an
independent entity and impress upon it what you want it to do or to
believe. Everyone must formulate his own way of working, but one
method, which is both simple and effective is to say to the subjective
mind, "This is what I want you to do; you will now step into my place
and do it, bringing all your powers and intelligence to bear, and
considering yourself to be none other than myself." Having done this
return to the realization of your own objective personality and leave
the subjective mind to perform its task in full confidence that, by the
law of nature, it will do so if not hindered by a repetition of contrary
messages from the objective mind. This is not a mere fancy but a truth
daily proved by the experience of increasing numbers. The facts have
not been fabricated to fit the theory, but the theory has been built up
by careful observation of the facts; and since it has been shown both by
theory and practice that such is the law of the relation between
subjective and objective mind, we find ourselves face to face with a
very momentous question. Is there any reason why the laws which hold
good of the individual subjective mind should not hold good of the
Universal Mind also? and the answer is that there is not. As has been
already shown the Universal Mind must, by its very universality, be
purely subjective, and what is the law of a part must also be the law of
a whole: the qualities of fire are the same whether the centres of
combustion be great or small, and therefore we may well conclude these
lectures by considering what will be the result if we apply what we have
learnt regarding the individual subjective mind to the Universal Mind.
We have learnt that the three great facts regarding subjective mind
are its creative power, its amenableness to suggestion, and its
inability to work by any other than the deductive method. This last is
an exceedingly important point, for it implies that the action of the
subjective mind is in no way limited by precedent. The inductive method
works on principles inferred from an already existing pattern, and
therefore at the best only produces the old thing in a new shape. But
the deductive method works according to the essence or spirit of the
principle, and does not depend on any previous concrete manifestation
for its apprehension of it; and this latter method of working must
necessarily be that of the all-originating Mind, for since there could
be no prior existing pattern from which it could learn the principles of
construction, the want of a pattern would have prevented its creating
anything had its method been inductive instead of deductive. Thus by
the necessity of the case the Universal Mind must act deductively, that
is, according to the law which has been found true of individual
subjective mind. It is thus not bound by any precedent, which means
that its creative power is absolutely unlimited; and since it is
essentially subjective mind, and not objective mind, it is entirely
amenable to suggestion. Now it is an unavoidable inference from the
identity of the law governing subjective mind, whether in the individual
or the universal, that just as we can by suggestion impress a certain
character of personality upon the individual subjective mind, so we can,
and do, upon the Universal Mind; and it is for this reason that I have
drawn attention to the inherent personal quality of pure spirit
when contemplated in its most interior plane. It becomes, therefore,
the most important of all considerations with what character we invest
the Universal Mind; for since our relation to it is purely
subjective it will infallibly bear to us exactly that
character which we impress upon it; in other words it will be to us
exactly what we believe it to be. This is simply a logical inference
from the fact that, as subjective mind, our primary relation to it can
only be on the subjective plane, and indirectly our objective relations
must also spring from the same source. This is the meaning of that
remarkable passage twice repeated in the Bible, "With the pure thou wilt
show thyself pure, and with the froward thou wilt show thyself froward"
(Ps. xviii., 26, and II. Sam. xxii., 27), for the context makes it clear
that these words are addressed to the Divine Being. The spiritual
kingdom is within us, and as we realize it there so it
becomes to us a reality. It is the unvarying law of the subjective life
that "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he," that is to say, his
inward subjective states are the only true reality, and what we call
external realities are only their objective correspondences. If we
thoroughly realize the truth that the Universal Mind must be to us
exactly according to our conception of it, and that this relation is not
merely imaginary but by the law of subjective mind must be to us an
actual fact and the foundation of all other facts, then it is impossible
to over-estimate the importance of the conception of the Universal Mind
which we adopt. To the uninstructed there is little or no choice: they
form a conception in accordance with the tradition they have received
from others, and until they have learnt to think for themselves, they
have to abide by the results of that tradition: for natural laws admit
of no exceptions, and however faulty the traditional idea may be, its
acceptance will involve a corresponding reaction upon the Universal
Mind, which will in turn be reflected into the conscious mind and
external life of the individual. But those who understand the law of
the subject will have no one but themselves to blame if they do not
derive all possible benefits from it. The greatest Teacher of Mental
Science the world has ever seen has laid down sufficiently plain rules
for our guidance. With a knowledge of the subject whose depth can be
appreciated only by those who have themselves some practical
acquaintance with it, He bids His unlearned audiences, those common
people who heard Him gladly, picture to themselves the Universal Mind as
a benign Father, tenderly compassionate of all and sending the common
bounties of Nature alike on the evil and the good; but He also pictured
It as exercising a special and peculiar care over those who recognize
Its willingness to do so:-- "the very hairs of your head are all
numbered," and "ye are of more value than many sparrows." Prayer was to
be made to the unseen Being, not with doubt or fear, but with the
absolute assurance of a certain answer, and no limit was to be set to
its power or willingness to work for us. But to those who did not thus
realize it, the Great Mind is necessarily the adversary who casts them
into prison until they have paid the uttermost farthing; and thus in all
cases the Master impressed upon his hearers the exact correspondence of
the attitude of this unseen Power towards them with their own
attitude towards it. Such teaching was not a narrow
anthropomorphism but the adaptation to the intellectual capacity of the
unlettered multitude of the very deepest truths of what we now call
Mental Science. And the basis of it all is the cryptic personality of
spirit hidden throughout the infinite of Nature under every form of
manifestation. As unalloyed Life and Intelligence it can be no
other than good, it can entertain no intention of evil, and thus all
intentional evil must put us in opposition to it, and so deprive us of
the consciousness of its guidance and strengthening and thus leave us to
grope our own way and fight our own battle single-handed against the
universe, odds which at last will surely prove too great for us. But
remember that the opposition can never be on the part of the Universal
Mind, for in itself it is sub-conscious mind; and to suppose any active
opposition taken on its own initiative would be contrary to all we have
learnt as to the nature of sub-conscious mind whether in the individual
or universal; the position of the Universal Mind towards us is always
the reflection of our own attitude. Therefore although the Bible is
full of threatening against those who persist in conscious opposition to
the Divine Law of Good, it is on the other hand full of promises of
immediate and full forgiveness to all who change their attitude and
desire to co-operate with the Law of Good so far as they know it. The
laws of Nature do not act vindictively; and through all theological
formularies and traditional interpretations let us realize that what we
are dealing with is the supreme law of our own being; and it is on the
basis of this natural law that we find such declarations as that in
Ezek. xviii., 22, which tells us that if we forsake our evil ways our
past transgressions shall never again be mentioned to us. We are
dealing with the great principles of our subjective being, and our
misuse of them in the past can never make them change their inherent law
of action. If our method of using them in the past has brought us
sorrow, fear and trouble, we have only to fall back on the law that if
we reverse the cause the effects will be reversed also; and so what we
have to do is simply to reverse our mental attitude and then endeavour
to act up to the new one. The sincere endeavour to act up to our new
mental attitude is essential, for we cannot really think in one way and
act in another; but our repeated failures to fully act as we would wish
must not discourage us. It is the sincere intention that is the
essential thing, and this will in time release us from the bondage of
habits which at present seem almost insuperable.

The initial step, then, consists in determining to picture the
Universal Mind as the ideal of all we could wish it to be both to
ourselves and to others, together with the endeavour to reproduce this
ideal, however imperfectly, in our own life; and this step having been
taken, we can then cheerfully look upon it as our ever-present Friend,
providing all good, guarding from all danger, and guiding us with all
counsel. Gradually as the habit of thus regarding the Universal Mind
grows upon us, we shall find that in accordance with the laws we have
been considering, it will become more and more personal to us,
and in response to our desire its inherent intelligence will make itself
more and more clearly perceptible within as a power of perceiving truth
far beyond any statement of ot that we could formulate by merely
intellectual investigation. Similarly if we think of it as a great
power devoted to supplying all our needs, we shall impress this
character also upon it, and by the law of subjective mind it will
proceed to enact the part of that special providence which we have
credited it with being; and if, beyond the general care of our concerns,
we would draw to ourselves some particular benefit, the same rule holds
good of impressing our desire upon the Universal Subjective Mind. And
if we realize that above and beyond all this we want something still
greater and more enduring, the building-up of character and unfolding of
our powers so that we may expand into fuller and yet fuller measures of
joyous and joy-giving Life, still the same rule holds good: convey to
the Universal Mind the suggestion of the desire, and by the law of
relation between subjective and objective mind this too will be
fulfilled. And thus the deepest problems of philosophy bring us back to
the old statement of the Law:-- Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye
shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. This is the
summing-up of the natural law of the relation between us and the Divine
Mind. It is thus no vain boast that Mental Science can enable us to
make our lives what we will. We must start from where we are now, and
by rightly estimating our relation to the Divine Universal Mind we can
gradually grow into any conditions we desire, provided we first make
ourselves in habitual mental attitude the person who corresponds to
those conditions: for we can never get over the law of correspondence,
and the externalization will always be in accord with the internal
principle that gives rise to it. And to this law there is no limit.
What it can do for us to-day it can do to-morrow, and through all that
procession of to-morrows that loses itself in the dim vistas of
eternity. Belief in limitation is the one and only thing that causes
limitation, because we thus impress limitation upon the creative
principle; and in proportion as we lay that belief aside our boundaries
will expand, and increasing life and more abundant blessing will be
ours.

But we must not ignore our responsibilities. Trained thought is far
more powerful than untrained, and therefore the more deeply we penetrate
into Mental Science the more carefully we must guard against all
thoughts and words expressive of even the most modified form of
ill-will. Gossip, tale-bearing, sneering laughter, are not in accord
with the principles of Mental Science; and similarly even our smallest
thoughts of good carry with them a seed of good which will assuredly
bear fruit in due time. This is not mere "goodie, goodie," but an
important lesson in Mental Science, for our subjective mind takes its
colour from our settled mental habits, and an occasional affirmation or
denial will not be sufficient to change it; and we must therefore
cultivate that tone which we wish to see reproduced in our conditions
whether of body, mind, or circumstance.

In these lectures my purpose has been, not so much to give specific
rules of practice as to lay down the broad general principles of Mental
Science which will enable the student to form rules for himself. In
every walk of life, book knowledge is only a means to an end. Books can
only direct us where to look and what to look for, but we must do the
finding for ourselves; therefore, if you have really grasped the
principles of the science, you will frame rules of your own which will
give you better results than any attempt to follow somebody else's
method, which was successful in their hands precisely because it was
theirs. Never fear to be yourself. If Mental Science does not teach
you to be yourself it teaches you nothing. Yourself, more yourself, and
yet more yourself is what you want; only with the knowledge that the
true self includes the inner and higher self which is always in
immediate touch with the Great Divine Mind.

As Walt Whitman says:-- "You are not all included between your hat
and your boots."
---------
The growing popularity of the Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science
has led me to add to the present edition three more sections on Body,
Soul, and Spirit, which it is hoped will prove useful by rendering the
principles of the inter-action of these three factors somewhat
clearer.

XIV.
THE BODY.

SOME students find it difficult to realize that mental action can
produce any real effect upon material substance; but if this is not
possible there is no such thing as Mental Science, the purpose of which
is to produce improved conditions both of body and environment, so that
the ultimate manifestation aimed at is always one of demonstration upon
the plane of the visible and concrete. Therefore to afford conviction
of an actual connection between the visible and the invisible, between
the inner and the outer, is one of the most important points in the
course of our studies.

That such a connection must exist is proved by metaphysical argument
in answer to the question, "How did anything ever come into existence at
all?" And the whole creation, ourselves included, stands as evidence to
this great truth. But to many minds merely abstract argument is not
completely convincing, or at any rate it becomes more convincing if it
is supported by something of a more concrete nature; and for such
readers I would give a few hints as to the correspondence between the
physical and the mental. The subject covers a very wide area, and the
limited space at my disposal will only allow me to touch on a few
suggestive points, still these may be sufficient to show that the
abstract argument has some corresponding facts at the back of it.

One of the most convincing proofs I have seen is that afforded by the
"biometre," a little instrument invented by an eminent French scientist,
the late Dr. Hippolyte Baraduc, which shows the action of what he calls
the "vital current." His theory is that this force, whatever its actual
nature may be, is universally present, and operates as a current of
physical vitality perpetually, flowing with more or less energy through
every physical organism, and which can, at any rate to some extent, be
controlled by the power of the human will. The theory in all its
minutiae is exceedingly elaborate, and has been described in detail in
Dr. Baraduc's published works. In a conversation I had with him about a
year ago, he told me he was writing another book which would throw
further light on the subject, but a few months later he passed over
before it was presented to the world. The fact, however, which I wish
to put before the reader, is the ocular demonstration of the connection
between mind and matter, which an experiment with the biometre affords.

The instrument consists of a bell glass, from the inside of which is
suspended a copper needle by a fine silken thread. The glass stands on
a wooden support, below which is a coil of copper wire, which, however,
is not connected with any battery or other apparatus, and merely serves
to condense the current. Below the needle, inside the glass, there is a
circular card divided into degrees to mark the action of the needle.
Two of these instruments are placed side by side, but in no way
connected, and the experimenter then holds out the fingers of both hands
to within about an inch of the glasses. According to the theory, the
current enters at the left hand, circulates through the body, and passes
out at the right hand, that is to say, there is an indrawing at the left
and a giving-out at the right, thus agreeing with Reichenbach's
experiments on the polarity of the human body.

I must confess that, although I had read Dr. Baraduc's book, "Les
Vibrations Humaines," I approached the instrument in a very sceptical
frame of mind; but I was soon convinced of my error. At first, holding
a mental attitude of entire relaxation, I found that the left-hand
needle was attracted through twenty degrees, while the right-hand
needle, the one affected by the out-going current, was repelled through
ten degrees. After allowing the instrument to return to its normal
equilibrium I again approached it with the purpose of seeing whether a
change of mental attitude would in the least modify the flow of current.

This time I assumed the strongest mental attitude I could with the
intention of sending out a flow through the right hand, and the result
as compared with the previous one was remarkable. The left-hand needle
was now attracted only through ten degrees, while the right-hand one was
deflected through something over thirty, thus clearly indicating the
influence of the mental faculties in modifying the action of the
current. I may mention that the experiment was made in the presence of
two medical men who noted the movement of the needles.

I will not here stop to discuss the question of what the actual
constitution of this current of vital energy may be -- it is sufficient
for our present purpose that it is there, and the experiment I have
described brings us face to face with the fact of a correspondence
between our own mental attitude and the invisible forces of nature.
Even if we say that this current is some form of electricity, and that
the variation of its action is determined by changes in the polarization
of the atoms of the body, then this change of polarity is the result of
mental action; so that the quickening or retarding of the cosmic current
is equally the result of the mental attitude whether we suppose our
mental force to act directly upon the current itself or indirectly by
inducing changes in the molecular structure of the body. Whichever
hypothesis we adopt the conclusion is the same, namely, that the mind
has power to open or close the door to invisible forces in such a way
that the result of the mental action becomes apparent on the material
plane.

Now, investigation shows that the physical body is a mechanism
specially adapted for the transmutation of the inner or mental power
into modes of external activity. We know from medical science that the
whole body is traversed by a network of nerves which serve as the
channels of communication between the indwelling spiritual ego, which we
call mind, and the functions of the external organism. This nervous
system is dual. One system, known as the Sympathetic, is the channel for
all those activities which are not consciously directed by our volition,
such as the operation of the digestive organs, the repair of the daily
wear and tear of the tissues, and the like. The other system, known as
the Voluntary or Cerebro-spinal system, is the channel through which we
receive conscious perception from the physical senses and exercise
control over the movements of the body. This system has its centre in
the brain, while the other has its centre in a ganglionic mass at the
back of the stomach known as the solar plexus, and sometimes spoken of
as the abdominal brain. The cerebro-spinal system is the channel of our
volitional or conscious mental action, and the sympathetic system is the
channel of that mental action which unconsciously supports the vital
functions of the body. Thus the cerebro-spinal system is the organ of
conscious mind and the sympathetic is that of sub-conscious mind.

But the interaction of conscious and subconscious mind requires a
similar interaction between the corresponding systems of nerves, and one
conspicuous connection by which this is provided is the "vagus" nerve.
This nerve passes out of the cerebral region as a portion of the
voluntary system, and through it we control the vocal organs; then it
passes onwards to the thorax sending out branches to the heart and
lungs; and finally, passing through the diaphragm, it loses the outer
coating which distinguishes the nerves of the voluntary system and
becomes identified with those of the sympathetic system, so forming a
connecting link between the two and making the man physically a single
entity.

Similarly different areas of the brain indicate their connection with
the objective and subjective activities of the mind respectively, and
speaking in a general way we may assign the frontal portion of the brain
to the former and the posterior portion to the latter, while the
intermediate portion partakes of the character of both.

The intuitional faculty has its correspondence in this upper area of
the brain situated between the frontal and posterior portions, and
physiologically speaking, it is here that intuitive ideas find entrance.

These at first are more or less unformed and generalized in character,
but are nevertheless perceived by the conscious mind, otherwise we
should not be aware of them at all. Then the effort of nature is to
bring these ideas into more definite and usable shape, so the conscious
mind lays hold of them and induces a corresponding vibratory current in
the voluntary system of nerves, and this in turn induces a similar
current in the involuntary system, thus handing the idea over to the
subjective mind. The vibratory current which had first descended from
the apex of the brain to the frontal brain and thus through the
voluntary system to the solar plexus is now reversed and ascends from
the solar plexus through the sympathetic system to the posterior brain,
this return current indicating the action of the subjective mind.

If we were to remove the surface portion of the apex of the brain we
should find immediately below it the shining belt of brain substance
called the "corpus callosum." This is the point of union between the
subjective and objective, and as the current returns from the solar
plexus to this point it is restored to the objective portion of the
brain in a fresh form which it has acquired by the silent alchemy of the
subjective mind. Thus the conception which was at first only vaguely
recognized is restored to the objective mind in a definite and workable
form, and then the objective mind, acting through the frontal brain --
the area of comparison and analysis -- proceeds to work upon a clearly
perceived idea and to bring out the potentialities that are latent in
it.

It must of course be borne in mind that I am here speaking of the
mental ego in that mode of its existence with which we are most
familiar, that is as clothed in flesh, though there may be much to say
as to other modes of its activity. But for our daily life we have to
consider ourselves as we are in that aspect of life, and from this point
of view the physiological correspondence of the body to the action of
the mind is an important item; and therefore, although we must always
remember that the origin of ideas is purely mental, we must not forget
that on the physical plane every mental action implies a corresponding
molecular action in the brain and in the two-fold nervous system.

If, as the old Elizabethan poet says, "the soul is form, and doth the
body make," then it is clear that the physical organism must be a
mechanical arrangement as specially adapted for the use of the soul's
powers as a steam-engine is for the power of steam; and it is the
recognition of this reciprocity between the two that is the basis of all
spiritual or mental healing, and therefore the study of this mechanical
adaptation is an important branch of Mental Science. Only we must not
forget that it is the effect and not the cause.

At the same time it is important to remember that such a thing as
reversal of the relation between cause and effect is possible, just as
the same apparatus may be made to generate mechanical power by the
application of electricity, or to generate electricity by the
application of mechanical power. And the importance of this principle
consists in this. There is always a tendency for actions which were at
first voluntary to become automatic, that is, to pass from the region of
conscious mind into that of subconscious mind, and to acquire a
permanent domicile there. Professor Elmer Gates, of Washington, has
demonstrated this physiologically in his studies of brain formation. He
tells us that every thought produces a slight molecular change in the
substance of the brain, and the repetition of the same sort of thought
causes a repetition of the same molecular action until at last a
veritable channel is formed in the brain substance, which can only be
eradicated by a reverse process of thought. In this way "grooves of
thought" are very literal things, and when once established the
vibrations of the cosmic currents flow automatically through them and
thus react upon the mind by a process the reverse of that by which our
voluntary and intentional indrawing from the invisible is affected. In
this way are formed what we call "habits," and hence the importance of
controlling our thinking and guarding it against undesirable ideas.

But on the other hand this reactionary process may be used to confirm
good and life-giving modes of thought, so that by a knowledge of its
laws we may enlist even the physical body itself in the building up of
that perfectly whole personality, the attainment of which is the aim and
object of our studies.

XV.
THE SOUL.

HAVING now obtained a glimpse of the adaptation of the physical
organism to the action of the mind we must next realize that the mind
itself is an organism which is in like manner adapted to the action of a
still higher power, only here the adaptation is one of mental faculty.
As with other invisible forces all we can know of the mind is by
observing what it does, but with this difference, that since we
ourselves are this mind, our observation is an interior
observation of states of consciousness. In this way we recognize
certain faculties of our mind, the working order of which I have
considered at page 84 [Chap. XII]; but the point to which I would now
draw attention is that these faculties always work under the influence
of something which stimulates them, and this stimulus may come either
from without through the external senses, or from within by the
consciousness of something not perceptible on the physical plane. Now
the recognition of these interior sources of stimulus to our mental
faculties, is an important branch of Mental Science, because the mental
action thus set up works just as accurately through the physical
correspondences as those which start from the recognition of external
facts, and therefore the control and right direction of these inner
perceptions is a matter of the first moment.

The faculties most immediately concerned are the intuition and the
imagination, but it is at first difficult to see how the intuition,
which is entirely spontaneous, can be brought under the control of the
will. Of course, the spontaneousness of the intuition cannot in any way
be interfered with, for if it ceased to act spontaneously it would cease
to be the intuition. Its province is, as it were, to capture ideas from
the infinite and present them to the mind to be dealt with at its
discretion. In our mental constitution the intuition is the point of
origination and, therefore, for it to cease to act spontaneously would
be for it to cease to act at all. But the experience of a long
succession of observers shows that the intuition can be trained so as to
acquire increased sensitiveness in some particular direction, and the
choice of the general direction is determined by the will of the
individual.

It will be found that the intuition works most readily in respect to
those subjects which most habitually occupy our thought; and according
to the physiological correspondences which we have been considering this
might be accounted for on the physical plane by the formation of
brain-channels specially adapted for the induction in the molecular
system of vibrations corresponding to the particular class of ideas in
question. But of course we must remember that the ideas themselves are
not caused by the molecular changes, but on the contrary are the cause
of them; and it is in this translation of thought action into physical
action that we are brought face to face with the external mystery of the
descent of spirit into matter; and that though we may trace matter
through successive degrees of refinement till it becomes what, in
comparison with those denser modes that are most familiar, we might call
a spiritual substance, yet at the end of it it is not the intelligent
thinking principle itself. The criterion is in the word "vibrations."
However delicately etheric the substance its movement commences by the
vibration of its particles, and a vibration is a wave having a certain
length, amplitude, and periodicity, that is to say, something which can
exist only in terms of space and time; and as soon as we are dealing
with anything capable of the conception of measurement we may be quite
certain that we are not dealing with Spirit but only with one of its
vehicles. Therefore although we may push our analysis of matter further
and ever further back -- and on this line there is a great deal of
knowledge to be gained -- we shall find that the point at which
spiritual power or thought-force is translated into etheric or atomic
vibration will always elude us. Therefore we must not attribute the
origination of ideas to molecular displacement in the brain, though, by
the reaction of the physical upon the mental which I have spoken of
above, the formation of thought-channels in the grey matter of the brain
may tend to facilitate the reception of certain ideas. Some people are
actually conscious of the action of the upper portion of the brain
during the influx of an intuition, the sensation being that of a sort of
expansion in that brain area, which might be compared to the opening of
a valve or door; but all attempts to induce the inflow of intuitive
ideas by the physiological expedient of trying to open this valve by the
exercise of the will should be discouraged as likely to prove injurious
to the brain. I believe some Oriental systems advocate this method, but
we may well trust the mind to regulate the action of its physical
channels in a manner suitable to its own requirements, instead of trying
to manipulate the mind by the unnatural forcing of its mechanical
instrument. In all our studies on these lines we must remember that
development is always by perfectly natural growth and is not brought
about by unduly straining any portion of the system.

The fact, however, remains that the intuition works most freely in
that direction in which we most habitually concentrate our thought; and
in practice it will be found that the best way to cultivate the
intuition in any particular direction is to meditate upon the
abstract principles of that particular class of subjects rather
than only to consider particular cases. Perhaps the reason is that
particular cases have to do with specific phenomena, that is with the
law working under certain limiting conditions, whereas the
principles of the law are not limited by local conditions, and so
habitual meditation on them sets our intuition free to range in
an infinitude where the conception of antecedent conditions does not
limit it. Anyway, whatever may be the theoretical explanation, you will
find that the clear grasp of abstract principles in any direction has a
wonderfully quickening effect upon the intuition in that particular
direction.

The importance of recognizing our power of thus giving direction to
the intuition cannot be exaggerated, for if the mind is attuned in
sympathy with the highest phases of spirit this power opens the door to
limitless possibilities of knowledge. In its highest workings intuition
becomes inspiration, and certain great records of fundamental truths and
supreme mysteries which have come down to us from thousands of
generations bequeathed by deep thinkers of old can only be accounted for
on the supposition that their earnest thought on the Originating Spirit,
coupled with a reverent worship of It, opened the door, through their
intuitive faculty, to the most sublime inspirations regarding the
supreme truths of the universe both with respect to the evolution of the
cosmos and to the evolution of the individual. Among such records
explanatory of the supreme mysteries three stand out pre-eminent, all
bearing witness to the same ONE Truth, and each throwing light upon the
other; and these three are the Bible, the Great Pyramid, and the Pack of
Cards -- a curious combination some will think, but I hope in another
volume of this series to be able to justify my present statement. I
allude to these three records here because the unity of principle which
they exhibit, notwithstanding their wide divergence of method, affords a
standing proof that the direction taken by the intuition is largely
determined by the will of the individual opening the mind in that
particular direction.

Very closely allied to the intuition is the faculty of imagination.
This does not mean mere fancies, which we dismiss without further
consideration, but our power of forming mental images upon which we
dwell. These, as I have said in the earlier part of this book, form a
nucleus which, on its own plane, calls into action the universal Law of
Attraction, thus giving rise to the principle of Growth. The relation
of the intuition to the imagination is that the intuition grasps an idea
from the Great Universal Mind, in which all things subsist as
potentials<, and presents it to the imagination in its essence rather
than in a definite form, and then our image-building faculty gives it a
clear and definite form which it presents before the mental vision, and
which we then vivify by letting our thought dwell upon it, thus infusing
our own personality into it, and so providing that personal element
through which the specific action of the universal law relatively to the
particular individual always takes place.* Whether our thought shall be
allowed thus to dwell upon a particular mental image depends on our own
will, and our exercise of our will depends on our belief in our power to
use it so as to disperse or consolidate a given mental image; and
finally our belief in our power to do this depends on our recognition of
our relation to God, Who is the source of all power; for it is an
invariable truth that our life will take its whole form, tone, and color
from our conception of God, whether that conception be positive or
negative, and the sequence by which it does so is that now given.

In this way, then, our intuition is related to our imagination, and
this relation has its physiological correspondence in the circulus of
molecular vibrations I have described above, which, having its
commencement in the higher or "ideal" portion of the brain flows through
the voluntary nervous system, the physical channel of objective mind,
returning through the sympathetic system, the physical channel of
subjective mind, thus completing the circuit and being then restored to
the frontal brain, where it is consciously modelled into clear-cut forms
suited to a specific purpose.

In all this the power of the will as regulating the action both of
the intuition and the imagination must never be lost sight of, for
without such a central controlling power we should lose all sense of
individuality; and hence the ultimate aim of the evolutionary process is
to evolve individual wills actuated by such beneficence and
enlightenment as shall make them fitting vehicles for the outflowing of
the Supreme Spirit, which has hitherto created cosmically, and can now
carry on the creative process to its highest stages only through
conscious union with the individual; for this is the only possible
solution of the great problem, How can the Universal Mind act in all its
fulness upon the plane of the individual and particular?

This is the ultimate of evolution, and the successful evolution of

the individual depends on his recognizing this ultimate and working
towards it; and therefore this should be the great end of our studies.
There is a correspondence in the constitution of the body to the
faculties of the soul, and there is a similar correspondence in the
faculties of the soul to the power of the All-originating Spirit; and as
in all other adaptations of specific vehicles so also here, we can never
correctly understand the nature of the vehicle and use it rightly until
we realize the nature of the power for the working of which it is
specially adapted. Let us, then, in conclusion briefly consider the
nature of that power.

* See my "Dore' Lectures."

XVI.
THE SPIRIT.

WHAT must the Supreme All-originating Spirit be in itself? That is
the question before us. Let us start with one fact regarding it about
which we cannot have any possible doubt -- it is creative. If it
were not creative nothing could come into existence; therefore we know
that its purpose, or Law of Tendency, must be to bring individual lives
into existence and to surround them with a suitable environment. Now a
power which has this for its inherent nature must be a kindly power.
The Spirit of Life seeking expression in individual lives can have no
other intention towards them than "that they might have life, and that
they might have it more abundantly." To suppose the opposite would be a
contradiction in terms. It would be to suppose the Eternal Principle of
Life acting against itself, expressing itself as the reverse of what it
is, in which case it would not be expressing itself but expressing its
opposite; so that it is impossible to conceive of the Spirit of Life
acting otherwise than to the increase of life. This is as yet only
imperfectly apparent by reason of our imperfect apprehension of the
position, and our consequent want of conscious unity with the ONE
Eternal Life. As our consciousness of unity becomes more perfect so
will the life-givingness of the Spirit become more apparent. But in the
realm of principles the purely Affirmative and Life-giving nature of the
All-originating Spirit is an unavoidable conclusion. Now by what name
can we call such an inherent desire to add to the fulness of any
individual life -- that is, to make it stronger, brighter, and happier?
If this is not Love, then I do not know what else it is; and so we are
philosophically led to the conclusion that Love is the prime moving
power of the Creating Spirit.

But expression is impossible without Form. What Form, then, should
Love give to the vehicles of its expression? By the hypothesis of the
case it could not find self-expression in forms that were hateful or
repugnant to it -- therefore the only logical correlative of Love is
Beauty. Beauty is not yet universally manifested for the same reason
that Life is not, namely, lack of recognition of its Principle; but,
that the principle of Beauty is inherent in the Eternal Mind is
demonstrated by all that is beautiful in the world in which we live.

These considerations show us that the inherent nature of the Spirit

must consist in the eternal interaction of Love and Beauty as the Active
and Passive polarity of Being. Then this is the Power for the working
of which our soul faculties are specially adapted. And when this
purpose of the adaptation is recognized we begin to get some insight
into the way in which our intuition, imagination, and will should be
exercized. By training our thought to habitually dwell upon this
dual-unity of the Originating Forces of Love and Beauty the intuition is
rendered more and more sensitive to ideas emanating from this supreme
source, and the imagining faculty is trained in the formation of images
corresponding to such ideas; while on the physical side the molecular
structure of the brain and body becomes more and more perfectly adjusted
to the generating of vibratory currents tending to the outward
manifestation of the Originating Principle. Thus the whole man is
brought into unison with himself and with the Supreme Source of Life, so
that, in the words of St. Paul, he is being day by day renewed after the
image of Him that created him.

Our more immediately personal recognition of the All-originating Love
and Beauty will thus flow out as peace of mind, health of body,
discretion in the management of our affairs, and power in the carrying
out of our undertakings; and as we advance to a wider conception of the
working of the Spirit of Love and Beauty in its infinite possibilities,
so our intuition will find a wider scope and our field of activity will
expand along with it -- in a word we shall discover that our
individuality is growing, and that we are becoming more truly ourselves
than we ever were before.

The question of the specific lines on which the individual may be
most perfectly trained into such recognition of his true relation to the
All-embracing Spirit of Life is therefore of supreme importance, but it
is also of such magnitude that even to briefly sketch its broad outlines
would require a volume to itself, and I will therefore not attempt to
enter upon it here, my present purpose being only to offer some hints of
the principles underlying that wonderful three-fold unity of Body, Soul,
and Spirit which we all know ourselves to be.

We are as yet only at the commencement of the path which leads to the
realization of this unity in the full development of all its powers, but
others have trodden the way before us, from whose experiences we may
learn; and not least among these was the illustrious founder of the Most
Christian Fraternity of the Rosicrucians. This master-mind, setting out
in his youth with the intention of going to Jerusalem, changed the order
of his journey and first sojourned for three years in the symbolical
city of Damcar, in the mystical country of Arabia, then for about a year
in the mystical country of Egypt, and then for two years in the mystical
country of Fez. Then, having during these six years learned all that
was to be acquired in these countries, he returned to his native land of
Germany, where, on the basis of the knowledge he had thus gained, he
founded the Fraternity R. C., for whose instruction he wrote the
mystical books M. and T. Then, when he realized that his work in its
present stage was accomplished, he of his own free will laid aside the
physical body, not, it is recorded, by decay, or disease, or ordinary
death, but by the express direction of the Spirit of Life, summing up
all his knowledge in the words,

"Jesus mihi omnia."

And now his followers await the coming of "the Artist Elias," who
shall bring the Magnum Opus to its completion.

"Let him that readeth understand."