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VII –
Desenvolvimentos Espirituais
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IX – Uma
Nuvem de Testemunhas
(p. 107)
CHAPTER VIII
THE CELESTIAL OPENED
THE first physical manifestation received by me consisted in my wrist being
grasped by some invisible agency, while I was using my typewriter, and forcibly
guided over the keys, the words being presented simultaneously to my mind, but
only as they were being written. For the greater part of a page I sat and
watched while this continued, freely yielding my hand to the influence. Not only
was the grasp firm and strong, but the movement differed in character from my
own, very much as does the fingering on an organ differ from that on a
pianoforte. “This,” I said to myself, “must be what is meant by being a medium.”
It was the first disclosure to me of the existence of unseen intelligences able
to operate directly on the organism, and independently of the mind of the
individual. Not that my consciousness was set aside. I was in full possession of that; I was fully
aware of what was being written during the writing, but I did not originate it;
I accompanied it only. The passage thus written was the first half of the
address of
Soon after this, while sitting in my room one day and pondering the method of
the production of matter and organism, being the while in a very interior state,
I found myself gazing on a mass, resembling a thin grey cloud, of some tenuous
material, which
(p. 108)
revolved on its axis as if under impulsion
of some immanent and central force, the immediate place of which was luminous.
At the centre the movement was comparatively slow, but it quickened towards the
circumference, and in proportion as it quickened the mass became more dense and
opaque, until at the very edge it seemed to solidify and become converted into
matter, through the rapidity of the motion among its particles. It was only long
afterwards that I fully comprehended and recognised the value of this
experience. This was when we were told that all things are made of the Divine
Substance, which is the Divine Idea, and that matter is spirit made manifest by
motion. Coagulating exteriorly, it becomes in the outermost matter. So that “by
the gathering together,” or coagulation, “of her waters, the dry land” – earth,
body, matter – “appears,” as said in
Genesis I.
The experience I am about to relate was not only remarkable in itself, it was
remarkable as striking what proved to be the keynote of all our subsequent work,
the doctrine, namely, of the substantial identity of God and man. It had
suddenly flashed on my mind as a necessary and self-evident truth, the contrary
of which was absurd; and I seated myself at my writing-table to give it
expression for my book [England and Islam]. The hour was past
midnight, and all without was quiet, and my abstraction was unbroken and
complete, and so profound that I wrote some four pages without, as it seemed to
me, drawing breath; while the matter seemed to flow not merely from but through
me, without conscious mental effort of my own. I saw so clearly that I had no need to
think. In the course of the writing I
became distinctly aware of a presence as of someone bending over me from behind, and actively engaged in blending with and
reinforcing my mind. Being unwilling to risk an interruption to the flow of my
thought, I resisted the impulse to look up and ascertain who or what it was. Of
alarm at so unlooked-for a presence I had not a particle. Be it whom it might, the accord between us was as perfect as if it
had been merely a projection of my own higher self. I had never heard of higher
selves in those days, or of the possibility of such a
phenomenon; but the idea of such an explanation occurred to me then and there.
But this solution of the problem of my visitant’s personality was presently
dissipated by the event.
(p. 109)
The passage I had been writing concluded with these words: –
“The perfect man of any race is no other than the perfect expression in the
flesh of all the essential characteristics of the soul of that race. Escaping
the limitations of the individual man, such an one
represents the soul of his people. Escaping the limitations of the individual
people, he represents the soul of all peoples, or Humanity. Escaping the
limitations of humanity, but still preserving its essential characteristics, he
represents the soul of the system of which the earth is but an individual
member. And, finally, after climbing many a further step of the infinite ladder
of existence, and escaping the limitations of all systems whatever, he
represents – nay, finds that he is – the soul of the universe, even God Himself,
once ‘manifested in the flesh,’ and now ‘perfected through suffering,’
‘purified, sanctified, redeemed, justified, glorified,’ ‘crowned with honour and
glory,’ and ‘seated for ever at the right hand of the Father,’ ‘one with God,’
even God Himself.”
At this moment – my mind being so wholly preoccupied with the utterance, and all
that I saw it involved, as to make me oblivious of all else – the presence I had
felt bending over me darted itself into me just below the cerebral bulb at the
back of my neck, the sensation being that of a slight tap, as of a finger-touch;
and then in a voice full, rich, firm, measured, and so strong that it resounded
through the room, exclaimed, in a tone indicative of high satisfaction, “At last
I have found a man through whom I can speak!”
So powerful was the intonation that the tympana of my ears vibrated to the
sound, palpably bulging outwards, showing that they had been struck on the inner
side, and that the presence had actually projected itself into my larynx and
spoken from within me, but without using my organs of speech. I was conscious of
being in radiant health at the time, and was unable to detect any symptom of
being otherwise. My thought, too, and observation were perfectly coherent and
continuous, and I could discern no smallest pretext for distrust of the reality
of the experience. And my delight and satisfaction, which were unbounded, found
expression in the single utterance, “Then the ancients were right, and the Gods ARE!” so
resistless was the conviction that only by a divinized being could the wisdom
and power be manifested of the presence of which I was conscious. The words, “At
last I have found a man,” were incompatible with the theory of its being an
objectivation of my own particular
(p. 110)
ego, and, moreover, they indicated
the speaker as one high in authority over the race.
Nothing more passed on that occasion; but a vivid impression was left with me
that my visitant belonged to the order of spirits called “Planetaries.”
But as I had then no knowledge of such beings, I put aside the question of his
identity for the solution which I trusted would come of further enlightenment.
This came in due time, as will be seen, and with the result of confirming the
impression given me at the time.
Meanwhile I found, by searching among the old Hermetists
with whom, and the existence of the science of Occultism, I now for the first
time became acquainted, and of whose writings there are many in the
Of the scientific possibility of the experience, it required but a very small
amount of thinking to convince me. For all that it was requisite to do was to
reflect that there are no scientific grounds whatever for assigning limits to
the tenuity of the substance which may serve as a
vehicle for consciousness, intelligence, and force. And in this I was confirmed
by finding that the Hermetists have always recognised
matter as subsisting under two modes, the fixed, in
which it is appreciable by the senses, and the volatile, in which it eludes the
senses.
Some years later, when I had made some
acquaintance with the Occultism of the Hindoos, I
found that they recognise the existence of an order of spirits whom they call Nirmâna-kâyas. These are men who have, while in the
earth-life, advanced so far in the elaboration of their inner principles as to
be able after death to remain at will within hail of the earth, in order to
influence and instruct persons who, while still in the body, are deserving and
accessible, they themselves voluntarily postponing their ascent towards Nirvâna
for that purpose.
The same voice accosted me again soon afterwards, but from without, as will be
told in its place. It was in connection with a remarkable and prophetic dream
received by my colleague [in November 1876] just after her return to
(p. 111)
this dream was given in the book [
On bringing it to me on the morning of its occurrence, she exclaimed as she
entered the room, “Oh, I have had such a terrific dream! It has quite shattered
me. And I have brought it for you to try and find its meaning, if it has one. I
wrote it down the moment I was able.” Her appearance fully confirmed her
statement. It alarmed me. This is the account: –
“I was visited last night by a dream of so strange and vivid a kind that I felt
impelled to communicate it to you, not only to relieve my own mind of the
oppression which the recollection of it causes me, but also to give you an
opportunity of finding the meaning, which I am still far too much shaken and
terrified to seek for myself.
“It seemed to me that you and I were two of a vast company of men and women,
upon all of whom, with the exception of myself – for I
was there voluntarily – sentence of death had been passed. I was sensible of the
knowledge – how obtained I know not – that this terrible doom had been
pronounced by the official agents of some new reign of terror. Certain I was
that none of the party had really been guilty of any crime deserving of death;
but that the penalty had been incurred through their connection with some
regime, political, social, or religious, which was doomed to utter destruction.
It became known among us that the sentence was about to be carried out on a
colossal scale; but we remained in absolute ignorance as to the place and method
of the intended execution. Thus far my dream gave me no intimation of the
horrible scene which next burst on me, – a scene which strained to their utmost
tension every sense of sight, hearing, and touch in a manner unprecedented in
any dream I have previously had.
“It was night, dark and starless, and I found myself, together with the whole
company of doomed men and women who knew that they were soon to die, but not how
or where, in a railway train hurrying through the darkness to some unknown
destination. I sat in a carriage quite at the rear end of the train, in a comer
seat, and was leaning out of the open window, peering into the darkness, when,
suddenly, a voice, which seemed to speak out of the air, said to me in a low,
distinct, intense tone, the mere recollection of which makes me shudder, – ‘The
sentence is being carried out even now. You are all of you lost. Ahead of the
train is a frightful precipice of monstrous height, and at its base beats a
fathomless sea. The railway ends only with the abyss. Over that will the train
hurl itself into annihilation. THERE IS NO ONE ON
THE ENGINE!’
“At this I sprang from my seat in horror, and
looked round at the
(p. 112)
faces of the persons in the carriage
with me. No one of them had spoken, or had heard those awful words. The
lamplight from the dome of the carriage flickered on the forms about me. I
looked from one to the other, but saw no sign of alarm given by any of them.
Then again the voice out of the air spoke to me, – ‘There is but one way to be
saved. You must leap out of the train!’
“In frantic haste I pushed open the carriage-door and stepped out on the
footboard. The train was going at a terrific pace, swaying to and fro as with
the passion of its speed; and the mighty wind of its passage beat my hair about
my face and tore at my garments.
“Until this moment I had not thought of you, or even seemed conscious of your
presence in the train. Holding tightly on to the rail by the carriage-door, I
began to creep along the footboard towards the engine, hoping to find a chance
of dropping safely down on the line. Hand over hand I passed along in this way
from one carriage to another; and as I did so I saw by the light within each
carriage that the passengers had no idea of the fate upon which they were being
hurried. At length, in one of the compartments, I saw you. ‘Come out!’ I cried. ‘Come out!
Save yourself! In another minute we shall be dashed to pieces!’
“You
rose instantly, wrenched open the door, and stood
beside me outside on the footboard. The rapidity at which we were going was now
more fearful than ever. The train rocked as it fled onwards. The wind shrieked
as we were carried through it. ‘Leap down!’ I cried to you. ‘Save yourself l It
is certain death to stay here. Before us is an abyss; and there is no one on the
engine!’
“At this you turned your face full upon me with a look of intense earnestness,
and said, ‘No, we will not leap down; we will stop the train.’
“With these words you left me, and crept along the footboard towards the front
of the train. Full of half-angry anxiety at what seemed to me a quixotic act, I
followed. In one of the carriages we passed I saw my mother and eldest brother,
unconscious as the rest. Presently we reached the last carriage, and saw by the
lurid light of the furnace that the voice had spoken truly, and that there was
no one on the engine.
“You continued to move onwards. ‘Impossible!
Impossible!’ I cried. ‘It cannot be done. Oh, pray, come away!’
“Then you knelt upon the footboard, and said, ‘You are right. It cannot be done
in that way; but we can save the train. Help me to get these irons asunder.’
“The engine was connected with the train by two great iron hooks and staples. By
a tremendous effort, in making which I almost lost my balance, we unhooked the
irons and detached the train; when, with a mighty leap as of some mad
supernatural monster, the engine sped on its way alone, shooting back as it went
a great flaming trail of sparks, and was lost in the darkness. We stood together
on the footboard, watching in silence the gradual slackening of the speed.
When at length the train had come to a standstill, we cried to the passengers,
‘Saved! Saved!’
And then, amid the confusion of opening the doors and descending, and eager
talking, my dream ended, leaving me shattered and palpitating with the horror of
it.”
(p. 113)
The meaning was not for a moment doubtful to me. The passengers were the world
of to-day, and the regime which was hurrying them to destruction was the
Materialism which is fast sapping the very life of humanity by the rejection of
the ideal and spiritual, to the suppression of every principle and sentiment
that redeems and ennobles man. This was the precipice towards which the world
was unconsciously hurrying – the extinction of humanity – under the impulsion of
blind force, which Materialism alone recognises. And it is the stupidity of the
materialistic hypothesis that was implied by the absence of any intelligent
control. “There is no one on the engine!” No directing mind in the universe. And
to us it had been given to see the danger, and to avert it before the final
crash came. But not by stopping the engine. Nothing can save blind force from
dashing itself over the precipice and perishing in the void of its negations.
They, indeed, whom it is dragging with it to perdition
can be saved. But only by being detached from it. And
this was the mission assigned to us, and for which we had been associated
together. It was not to save ourselves merely, it was to save others, even the
world at large, at whatever risk to ourselves.
She listened silent but acquiescent, and when I had finished my exposition,
remarked, “To one the dreaming of dreams, and to another the interpretation
thereof. But the same spirit.”
Meanwhile our feeling was that we were living in “Bible times,” which in reality
had never ceased, nor ever do cease, except for those who are devoid of the
spiritual consciousness, and for these those times never begin and have no
existence. The revelation is perpetual, and the power to receive it is natural
to man, requiring no miracle. That he fails to receive it is through defect, not
of constitution, but of condition, being self-induced by his habits of life and
thought.
It was in reference to this dream that I was spoken to aloud the second time by
the voice which had spoken within me.
I had determined to include an account of this vision in the book on which I was
then engaged, England and Islam. And I was alone in my rooms, reading the
proofs of it, my mind being occupied solely with the letterpress, until I came
to the remark ascribed to me in the vision, as made in reply to her entreaty
that I would jump out with her to save ourselves, “No, we will not leap down; we
will stop the train.”
(p. 114)
At this moment the voice which shortly before had said to me, “At last I have
found a man through whom I can speak!” addressed me again, saying in a pleased
and encouraging tone, as if the speaker had been following me in my reading, and
desired to remove any doubts I might have of the reality of our mission – “Yes!
Yes! I have trusted all to you!” This time he spoke from without me, but
apparently quite close by. And among the impressions which at the same instant
were flashed into my mind, was the impression, amounting to a conviction, that
whatever might be the part assigned to others in the work of the new
illumination in progress, and the restoration thereby to the world of the one
true doctrine of existence, the exposition of its innermost and highest sphere,
the head corner-stone of the pyramid of the system which is to make the humanity
of the future, had been committed to us alone. And now, writing nearly twenty
years later, I can truly say that this conviction has never for a moment been
weakened, but, on the contrary, has gathered confirmation and strength with
every successive accession of experience and knowledge, and while cognisant of
and fully appreciating all that has taken place in the
unfoldment of the world’s thought during the interval.
Among the things impressed most strongly on me in connection with the experience
last related, was that, while the “You” comprised my colleague as well as
myself, she, as a special instrument of the Gods, was a part, and that an
essential part, of the trust with which I was charged.
Her enforced return to
The experience in question was as follows: – It was night, and I was alone and
locked in my chambers, and was writing at full speed, lest it should escape me,
an exposition of the place and
(p. 115)
office of woman under the coming
regeneration. And I was conscious of an exaltation of faculty such as might
conceivably be the result of an enhancement of my own mind by junction with
another and superior mind. I was even conscious, though in a far less degree
than before, of an invisible presence. But I was too much engrossed with my idea
to pay heed to persons, be they whom they might, human or divine, as well as
anxious to take advantage of such assistance. I had clearly and vividly in mind
all that I desired to say for several pages on. Then, suddenly and completely,
like the stoppage of a stream in its flow through a tube by the quick turning of
a tap, the current of my thought ceased, leaving my mind an utter blank as to
what I had meant to say, and totally unable to recall the least idea of it. So
palpable was its withdrawal, that it seemed to me as if it must still be
hovering somewhere near me, and I looked up and impatiently exclaimed aloud to
it, “Where are you?” At length, after ransacking my mind in vain, I turned to
other work, for I was perfectly fresh, and the desertion had been in no way due
to exhaustion, physical or mental. On taking note of the time of the
disappearance, I found it was 11.30 precisely.
The next morning failed to bring my thought back to me as I had hoped it would
do; but it brought instead an unusually early visit from my colleague, who was –
as I have said – staying at
“Such a curious thing happened to me last night,” she began, on entering the
room, “and I want to tell you of it and see if you can explain it. I had
finished my day’s work, but though it was late I was not inclined to rest, for I
was wakeful with a sense of irritation at the thought of what you are doing, and
at my exclusion from any share in it. And I was feeling envious of your sex for
the superior advantages you have over ours of doing great and useful work. As I
sat by the fire thinking this, I suddenly found myself impelled to take a pencil
and paper, and to write. I did so, and wrote with extreme rapidity, in a
half-dreamy state, without any clear idea of what I was writing, but supposing
it to be something expressive of my discontent. I had soon covered a page and a
half of a large sheet with writing, different from my own, and it was quite
unlike what was in my mind, as you will see.”
On perusing the paper I found that it was a continuation of my missing thought,
taken up at the point where it had left me,
(p. 116)
but translated to a higher plane, the
expression also being similarly elevated in accordance both with the theme and
the writer, having the exquisiteness so characteristic of her genius. To my
inquiry as to the hour of the occurrence, she at once replied, “Half-past eleven
exactly; for I was so struck by it that I took particular notice of the time.”
What I had written was as follows: –
“Those of us who, being men, refuse to accord to women
the same freedom of evolution for their consciousness which we claim for
ourselves, do so in consequence of a total misconception of the nature and
functions both of Humanity and of Existence at large. The notion that men and
women can by any possibility do each other’s work is utterly absurd. Whom God
hath distinguished, none can confound. To do the same thing is not to do the
same work; inasmuch as the spirit is more than the fact, and the spirit of man
and of woman is different. While for the production of perfect results it is
necessary that they work harmoniously together, it is necessary also that they
fulfil separate functions in regard to that work.”
This was the point at which my thought had failed me, to be taken up by her at
the same instant two miles away, without her knowing even that I contemplated
treating that particular theme, as I had purposely reserved it until I should
have completed the expression, hoping to give her a pleasant surprise, for it
was one very near to her heart. This is her continuation of it. It will be seen
that, besides complementing my thought, it responded remedially to her own mood: –
“In a true mission of redemption, in the proclamation of a gospel to save, it is
the man who must preach; it is the man who must stand forward among the people;
it is the man who, if need be, must die. But he is not alone. If his be the
glory of the full noontide, his day has been ushered in by a goddess.
(p. 117)
world! Without thee He could not have
been; but for thine impulse He could have worked no
mighty work. This shall be the history of all time; it shall be the sign of the
Christ. Mary shall feel; Christ shall speak. Hers the glory of setting His heart
in action; hers the thrill of emotion to which His power shall respond. But for
her He shall be powerless; but for her He shall be dumb; but for her He shall
have no strength to smite, no hand to help. It is the seed of the woman shall
bruise the serpent’s head. The Christ, the true Prophet, is her Child, her gift
to the world. ‘Woman, behold thy Son!’”
Such was the first intimation, and the manner thereof, given us of the truth
subsequently revealed in plenitude, – the presence in Scripture of a mystical
sense concealed within the apparent sense, as a kernel in its shell, which, and
not the literal sense, is the intended sense. As was later shown us in regard to
the story of the cursing of the fig-tree, that of the marriage in
This experience was a further demonstration to us of the reality and
accessibility not merely of the world spiritual, but of the world celestial
also. For the only explanation which would account for it was,
that it was due to some spiritual being, extraneous to ourselves, who, after
prompting me up to a certain point, had passed to her and inspired her with her
part of the utterance. Nor could we credit any source short of the Church
invisible with an interpretation so noble of the Scriptures of the Church
visible.
Nevertheless, while ascribing it to an extraneous source, the results so closely
resembled memory that even at this early stage of our initiation, and while
still without the smallest conception of such an explanation being possible, I
found myself speculating as to whether the modus might not consist in the uplifting of the
perceptive point of the mind to some interior region of one’s own system where
the knowledges already were which were thus obtained, – the function of the
overshadowing influence being not to impart fresh knowledge, but to enable one
to reach knowledge already possessed, or at least so to enhance faculty as to
enable one to discern truths previously unrecognised.
The following is an account of an experience which seemed to me to belong to the
former of these two categories, the impression being – as I wrote at the time –
irresistible that either I had been present at the event concerned, or that it
had been
(p. 118)
reproduced and impressed on my consciousness
by some one who had been present, and was transferring his memory to me. Though
the former only of these two hypotheses was at all conceivable, as I did not see
how the memory of one individual could be transferred to another.
Being seated at my writing-table, and meditating on the Gospel narrative, with a
strange sense of being separated by only a narrow interval from a full knowledge
of all that it implied, I found myself impelled to seek the precise idea
intended to be conveyed by the story of the woman taken in adultery. No account
that I had read of it had satisfied me, least of all that which was proposed in
the Ecce Homo of Professor Seeley, a book then recent and enjoying a
repute which filled me with a strong feeling of personal resentment. For his
account, especially of the feelings excited in Jesus by the sight of the accused
woman, revolted me by its ascription to Him of a sense of impropriety at once
monkish and conventional, and of a limitation of charity altogether incompatible
with the abounding sympathy which was the essence of his nature. It made Him
that most odious of characters, a prude.
As I meditated, and in following my idea I passed into a state which, though
highly interior, was not sufficiently interior for my purpose – for I wanted, so
to speak, to see my idea – a voice, audible only to the inner
hearing, yet quite distinct, said to me, “You have it within you. Seek for it.”
Thus encouraged, I made a further effort at concentration, when – to my utter
surprise, for I had no expectation or conception of such a thing – the whole
scene of the incident appeared palpably before me, like a living picture in a camera obscura,
so natural, minute, and distinct as to leave nothing to be desired, and, at the
same time, utterly unlike any pictorial representation I had ever seen of it.
Close before me, on my right hand, stood the Temple, with Jesus seated on a
stone ledge in the porch, while ranged before Him was a crowd of persons in the
costumes of the country and the time; each costume showing the grade or calling
of its wearer. Standing together in a group in front of Him were the disciples,
and immediately beside them were the accusers, who were readily recognisable by
their ample robes and sanctimonious demeanour; and quite close to Him, between
Him and them, stood the accused woman. As I approached the scene, moving
meteor-like through
(p. 119)
the air, He was in the act of lifting
Himself up from stooping to write on the ground, and I had a perfect view of His
face. He was of middle age, but, to my surprise, the type was that of a Murillo
rather than a Raffaelle, and the lower portion of the
face was covered with a short, dark beard. The expression was worn and anxious,
and somewhat weary. The skin was rough as from exposure to the weather. The eyes
were deep-set and lustrous, and remarkable for the tenderness of their gaze. One
of the apostles, whom I at once recognised by his comparative youthfulness as
John, though his back was towards me as I approached, was in the act of bending
forwards to read the words just traced in the dust on the pavement; and, as if
drawn to him by some potent attraction, I at once passed unhesitatingly into him
as he bent forward, and tried to read the words through his eyes. Their exact
purport escaped me; but the impression I obtained was that they were unimportant
in themselves, having been written merely to enable Jesus to collect and calm
Himself. For He was filled with a mighty indignation, which was directed, not
against the accused woman, but against the by-standing representatives of the
conventional orthodoxies, the chief priests and Pharisees, her sanctimonious and
hypocritical accusers, – those moral vivisectors through whose pitilessness the
shrinking woman stood there exposed to the public gaze, while her fault was so
brutally blurted out in her presence for all to hear; for her attitude showed
her ready to sink with shame into the ground, and afraid to look either her
accusers or her Judge in the face. He, her Judge, also has heard it, and knows
that they who utter it are themselves a thousandfold
greater sinners than she, inasmuch as that which she has yielded through
exigency either of passion or of compassion, has with them been a cold-blooded
habit engendered of ingrained impurity.
In contrast with them she stands out in His eyes an angel of innocence; and an
overwhelming indignation takes possession of Him, so that He will not at once
trust Himself to speak. His impulse is to drive them forth with blows and
reproaches from His presence, as once already He has driven the barterers from
the
(p.120)
expended upon
insensates
such as they, and exhortation would be vain. He will try sarcasm. So He raises
Himself up, and looks at them, very quietly, and even
assentingly. Yes, they are quite right; the law must be vindicated, and
so flagrant a sin severely punished. But, of course, only the guiltless is
entitled to inflict punishment on the guilty. Therefore He says, “He of you who
is blameless in respect of this sin, let him first cast a stone at her.” And
having said this, He stoops down again to write, this time to hide His smiles at
their confusion, the sight of which would but have incensed and hardened them.
What! No rush for ammunition wherewith to pound to death this only too human
specimen of humanity! What can be the meaning of the general move among these
self-appointed censors of morals? “They which heard Him, being convicted of
their own consciences, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto
the last.” No wonder they crucified Him when they got their chance. And no
wonder that most of the ancient authorities omit all mention of the incident.
Even of His immediate biographers only he records it who
is styled “the Beloved,” and whose name, office, and character indicate him as
the representative especially of the love-principle in humanity.
Such were the impressions made on me by this vision while it lasted, and written
down at the time. And so strong in me was the feeling that I could similarly
recall the whole history of Jesus, that I mentally addressed to the presences
which I felt, though I could not see, around me an inquiry whether I should then
and there begin the attempt. The reply, similarly given, was a decided negative
so far as that present time was concerned, but accompanied by an intimation that
our future work would comprise something of the kind; a prediction which, as
will be found, was duly fulfilled.
The
modus operandi of this experience continued long to perplex me, and only
ceased to do so when the time came for us to recognise as positive facts the
doctrines, first, of Reincarnation and the soul’s ability to recover, while in
the body, the memory of things learnt and experiences undergone in previous
lives, and to communicate of them to its owner; and, secondly, of the survival
of an indefinite period of the images of events occurring on the earth, in the
astral light, or memory of the planet, called the anima
mundi, which images can be evoked and beheld.
(p. 121)
The expression which I had used, “too human specimen of humanity,” was an
adaptation of the expression, “inhuman specimen of humanity,” which had recently
been applied by Mr. Gladstone to the Turkish power, as I conceived very unjustly
and unwisely. Unjustly, because there was little to choose on the score of
inhumanity between
The attraction which the Apostle John had for me presently found
this further expression. I was reading chapter X of the Book of Revelation, being the while in a
deeply introspective mood, but perfectly calm and critical withal, when, on
coming to the verse describing the “little book” which was so sweet in the taste
and so bitter in the digestion, a strange tremor came over me, such as I had
never before experienced, accompanied by the feeling that I had, somehow, a
strong personal interest in the utterance. And then, while engaged in analysing
the sensation and wondering to what it was due, a whole chorus of several
voices, audible to the inner hearing, exclaimed in accents of jubilation, “Yes!
Yes! You wrote that, and it refers to your present work!” Fearing it might be
but an echo of some idea latent in my own system, and being unaware of the
nature of the personalities which thus addressed me, I refrained from attaching
any value to the statement. But the impression remained with me that at heart it
was in the spirit of John that I was to work, and that the perfection and
success of the work would be according to the measure in which I did so.
The health of my colleague was again causing us much anxiety, and medical advice
was accordingly sought. Besides the propinquity of the river, the distance from
her hospital-work told against her, and her domestic conditions were the reverse
of hygienic and otherwise uncongenial, especially as regarded the preparation of
her food. November was hardly over when I received a letter from A. saying, “I
have just had a letter from Nina. What a terrible account she gives of herself!
(...) Will you write and tell me exactly what the doctor said about her? She
tells me he had a long talk with you after seeing her.”
“Active mischief at the apex of the left lung; complete renunciation
of study; and a winter in the
(p. 122)
were the diagnosis and advice of one
of the most esteemed physicians in
Meanwhile experiences crowded on us, a full account of which is neither
practicable nor necessary. The most striking and important were those which
occurred to myself. They came, not in response to any attempt to obtain
phenomenal manifestations, or any desire therefor, but
purely in the course of the intense direction of my mind towards the spiritual
and essential in respect of truth; and, though eagerly welcomed when they came,
were altogether unsought for and unexpected. One of the most striking was as
follows. It had been impressed upon me to describe the type of woman whom a
character such as that of Jesus might be expected to have had for mother. In
this view I wrote, using my typewriter: –
“It must be a woman whose ‘virginity’ consists in the total subordination in her
of the physical to the moral and spiritual nature; one absolutely unselfish, in
that it never occurs to her to have a wish of her own but what was baaed on the
welfare of her husband and children; one, in fact, such as some of us have known
among our English wives and mothers; – women who have been so perfect in all the
relations of their lives that they never seemed to want anything on their own
account, but, in that boundless love of which woman is the special
representative on earth, subordinate themselves without effort to the good of
those about them, until, by sinking themselves far below the man in respect of
the things of the flesh, they rise as far above him in respect of those of the
spirit. Who better than I, who am doubly the son of such an
one, should know how to describe them?”
I said “doubly,” because I had in my mind two women, who stood out for me from
all others I had ever known. One was my own mother, and the other one whom I had
been wont to regard as my spiritual mother for the influence she had exercised
over the moulding of my own character. It was from her that I had drawn the
heroines of my two novels, the “Mary” in The
Pilgrim and the Shrine, and the “Margaret” in Higher
Law, my design being to exhibit what I conceived to be a perfect type
(p. 123)
of womanhood under the opposite conditions, in
the one, of a happy, and in the other of an unhappy, marriage. She was Mary
Margaret Woolley, wife of the first Principal of the
University of Sydney, at which place she was living at the time of which I am
writing; and came later to be a most dear and valued friend of my colleague.
During the writing of the passage above cited my mother’s image appeared
unmistakably before me. Not, as the event proved, her
mental image merely, but her actual spiritual self. For at the moment of my
completing the sentence, and almost before I had time to recognise that I was
not alone, her well-remembered tones struck on my ears in the most unmistakable
manner, and in a voice that anyone might have heard, calling me by the endearing
diminutive she had ever used for me, and exclaiming, “O Eddie! Eddie! We have
found each other at last!” No use was made of my organs for this utterance. She
spoke from without, standing close by me on the right. But the next instant she
flung herself upon me in an all-pervading embrace in which we seemed to mingle
together into one, and gave way to a violent burst of joyous sobbing and crying,
causing the tears to stream from my eyes. Profoundly affected as I was, my
intellectual faculties were even more on the alert than my emotional feelings.
And I was occupied in examining intently a phenomenon so strange as that of a person discharging tears and sobs
without being himself a party to them. On her part it was an immense and
unrestrained burst of gladsome weeping. It was daytime, and I could not see her
so distinctly as I otherwise should have done, and as I had seen my father, or
the other presence by which she was accompanied, but I was aware of there being
two, herself and what was impressed on me as being an attendant guardian spirit.
The time came when we learnt that such a return of the true soul is possible,
but occurs only on very solemn occasions, and that one of the proofs that it is
indeed the true soul and not the mere phantom is the power to speak aloud to the
outward hearing.
Such an experience, vouchsafed on such an occasion, seemed to me to imply high
sanction for my rejection of the physical meaning ordinarily attached to the
story of the Nativity. The actual significance of that story, and the scientific
definition of the doctrine symbolised in it, were reserved for future
disclosure, being given in plenitude when the time came. There
(p. 124)
was one other occasion when I was
addressed aloud by my mother’s voice, which I will relate in its place.
I come to an experience the solemnity and importance of which cannot be
overestimated, whether as regards its own nature or as regards its bearing on
our work. At the time of its occurrence I had never heard of it as a fact coming
within human cognition; nor, although several times alluded
to in the Bible, had the accounts of it ever found a response in my own
consciousness. Hence when it came it was entirely without anticipation or
previous knowledge even of its possibility. The experience in
question, and the manner of its coming, were these: –
I had observed that when I was following an idea inwards in search of its
primary meaning, and to that end concentrated my mind upon a point lying within
and beyond the apparent concept, I saw a whole vista of related ideas stretching
far away as if towards their source, in what I could only suppose to be the
Divine Mind; and I seemed at the same time to reach a more interior region of my
own consciousness; so that, supposing man’s system to consist of a series of
concentric spheres, each fresh effort to focus my mind upon a more recondite
aspect of the idea under analysis was accompanied and marked by a corresponding
advance of the perceptive point of the mind itself towards my own central sphere
and radiant point. And I was prompted to try to ascertain the extent to which it
was possible thus to concentrate myself interiorly, and what would be the effect
of reaching the mind’s ultimate focus. I was absolutely without knowledge or
expectation when I yielded to the impulse to make the attempt. I simply
experimented on a faculty of which I found myself newly possessed, with the view
of discovering the range of its capacity, being seated at my writing-table the
while in order to record the results as they came, and resolved to retain my
hold on my outer and circumferential consciousness, no matter how far towards my
inner and central consciousness I might go. For I knew not
whether I should be able to regain the former if I once quitted my hold of it,
or to recollect the facts of the experience. At length I achieved my
object, though only by a strong effort, the tension occasioned by the endeavour
to keep both extremes of the consciousness in view at once being very great.
(p. 125)
Once well started on my quest, I found myself traversing a succession of spheres
or belts of a medium, the tenuity and luminance of
which increased at every stage of my progress, just as I had observed in the
vision above described, of the revolving cloud; the impression produced being
that of mounting a vast ladder stretching from the circumference towards the
centre of a system, which was at once my own system, the solar system, and the
universal system, the three systems being at once diverse and identical. My
progress in this ascent was clearly dependent upon my ability to concentrate the
rays of my consciousness into a focus. For, while to relax the effort was to
recede outwards, to intensify it was to advance inwards. The process was like
that of travelling by will power from the orbit of Saturn to the Sun – taking
Saturn as representing the seventh and outermost sphere of the spiritual kosmos, and the Sun its central and radiant point – with the
intermediate orbits for stepping-stones and stages, I trying the while to keep
both extremes in view. Presently, by a supreme, and what I felt must be a final,
effort – for the tension was becoming too much for me, unless I let go my hold
of the outer – I succeeded in polarising the whole of the convergent rays of my
consciousness into the desired focus. And at the same instant, as if through the
sudden ignition of the rays thus fused into a unity, I found myself confronted
with a glory of unspeakable whiteness and brightness, and of a
lustre so intense as well-nigh to beat me back. At the same instant, too,
there came to me, as by a sudden recollection, the sense of being already
familiar with the phenomenon, as also with its whole import, as if in virtue of
having experienced it in some former and forgotten state of being. I knew it to
be the “Great White Throne” of the seer of the Apocalypse. But though feeling
that I had no need to explore further, I resolved to make assurance doubly sure
by piercing, if I could, the almost blinding lustre, and seeing what it
enshrined. With a great effort I succeeded, and the glance revealed to me that
which I had felt must be there. This was the dual form of the Son, the Word, the
Logos, the Adonai, the “Sitter on the Throne,” the first formulation of
Divinity, the unmanifest
made manifest, the unformulate formulate, the unindividuate individuate, God as the Lord, proving by His
duality that God is Substance as well as Force, Love as well as Will, feminine
as well as masculine, Mother as well as Father.
(p. 126)
Overjoyed at having this supreme problem solved in accordance with my highest
aspirations, my one thought was to return and proclaim the glad news. But I had
no sooner set myself to write down the things thus seen and remembered, than I
found myself constrained to maintain regarding them the strictest silence, and
this even as regarded my fellow-worker; and all that I was permitted to say at
that time was, that under a sudden burst of illumination I had become absolutely
aware of the truth of the doctrine of the Duality in
Unity of Deity to which that in Humanity corresponds, both alike being twain in
one. On seeking the reason for the reticence thus imposed on me, I learned that
the stage in our work had not yet come when it could be given to the world,
either with safety to myself or with advantage to others; and it was necessary
that my colleague receive no intimation in advance of any experiences which were
to be given to her – of which this experience was one – in order that her mind
might be wholly free from bias or expectation. Only so would our testimony have
its due value as that of two independent witnesses.
The promise was duly fulfilled, as will appear when we come to that part of our
narrative. And it was from our joint experiences that the account given of the
vision of Adonai in Lecture IX of The Perfect Way was written.
Meanwhile I lost no time in examining the various accounts given in the Bible of
the same experience, and was not a little struck by the relation in Exod. XXIV, 9-11,
in which it is stated, as if in token of the extraordinary power of the
spiritual battery with which Moses had surrounded himself, that no less than
seventy of his initiates were able to receive the vision without magnetic
reinforcement by the imposition of their master’s hands. Pursuing my researches,
I found that the same vision has always been a recognised experience of mystics
in all times and places, and that for them also the form beheld was dual, the
only reason why this is not specified in the translations of the Bible being
that, apparently unknown to the translators, the names for God themselves imply
the duality expressly declared in Gen. I, 26, 27.
From the time of my receiving this vision there was a new meaning for me in what
is probably the grandest verse in all Scripture, if not in all literature, that
in
Rev. XX, 11,
in which the seer says, “And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it,
from whose face the earth and heaven fled away; and
(p. 127)
there was found no place for them.” It
was not that there was any disappearance of creation by reason of its change of
place; but that the perceptive point of the mind of the seer himself had
transcended the sphere of the manifest, and penetrated to that of the
unmanifest, where creation is not. He was in the within of space, the
arché or “fourth dimension,” whence
returning outwards and downwards he would find creation where he had left it, as
I did.
There was another point of identity which I recognised as subsisting between my
own experiences and those of the mystics generally. This was the suspension of
the ordinary respiration during the ecstasy or trance state and the substitution
for it of an internal respiration, as if by the breathing of a distinct
personality within and other than the physical organism. This condition would
continue for an hour or even longer, according to the period of abstraction and
the degree of its intensity. Not that the inner personality in question was that
of some being other than and foreign to myself. Rather was it – as I found
myself concluding – my own inner and substantial, as distinguished from my outer
and phenomenal self; that which Aristotle calls the
entelecheia; the self which, when finally
perfected, constitutes the “Christ within” of St. Paul; being the spiritual and
substantial individuality engendered within the physical and phenomenal
personality, and representing, therefore, the rebirth of the man on a plane
transcending the material.
There were also seasons, and these not unfrequent,
during this period of my initiation, when I found myself in a condition of the
real nature of which I seemed to find an explanation only when I came upon the
writings of the foremost of all the great Neoplatonic
school of mystics, Plotinus.
This was a condition in which the enhancement of power, physical and mental, was
so extraordinary, as to make it seem that it was only necessary to will or to
speak to work some great miracle, whether of healing or of destroying. It was
not in the least as if one were possessed and filled by something other than
one’s proper self; but as if that self, instead of but partially animating the
organism, had descended into it in plenitude, completely suffusing it with the
spirit, to the indefinite enhancement of every faculty, one effect of which was
to suggest the idea that the spiritual part of man does not, as a rule, reside
within the man, except to a very limited
(p. 128)
extent, but hovers over him, descending
into him in varying measure according to circumstances. Such were my experiences
of the state which I supposed to be that described by Plotinus, as “being united with his God,” meaning that
portion of the Deity which is allotted to any particular individual, the
microcosmic God within, as distinguished from the macrocosmic God without.
But, as I learnt by careful observation, close as such union may be, it involves
no suppression of the self, or loss of individuality. The mere external
personality, indeed, may suffer effacement, but the substantial and permanent
individuality, the true self, becomes by such union indefinitely enhanced and
reinforced, whether the union occur by means either of descent from above, or of
ascent from below, the latter being the condition in which the individual
expands into the universal without loss of individuality.
Of such kind were the experiences which, when the time came for us to receive
the long-lost gnosis which underlay the works sacred scriptures and religions,
enabled us to recognise it as indefeasibly true, and founded in the nature of
being. It interpreted us to ourselves, by finding response in ourselves. Among
its utterances was the following: –
“As God is at the heart of the outer world, so also is God at the heart of the
world within thee.
“When the God within thee shall be wholly united to the God without, then shall
thou be one with the Most High.
“Thy will shall be God’s will, and the Son shall be as the Father.”
With like alacrity we recognised the erroneousness of that view of Nirvâna,
which identifies it with the mergence of the individual in the universal to the
loss of his individuality, when we were told that instead of all re-becoming
one, the one becomes many, the end of evolution being not the absorption of the
individual in God, but the individuation of God. The only absorption that takes
place is that of the externality of the individual in the divine in himself, by means of the indrawal
of the circumference into the centre, of the nether into the upper, to the
divinisation of the whole system. (1)
(p. 129)
On one occasion, during a period when my consciousness was thus largely indrawn
to my centre, it was given to me to see gamboling
around me a group of spirits, diminutive and grotesque, being compounded of a
variety of animal forms, assumed apparently without regard to congruity, the
heads by no means matching the bodies. These, I was led to suppose, were some of
the physical consciousnesses or “spirits” of my system, which were taking
advantage of my indrawal to detach themselves, and
indulge in objective manifestation.
FOOTNOTES
(128:1) In England and Islam, Edward Maitland
says: “The aspiration of the Buddhist is not towards extinction. Man seeks for
some assurance that he is not merely a product or function of Nature, and
partaker of her evanescence, but has in him an immortal principle whereby he may
claim relationship, if not identity, with the eternal source of all secondary
existence. To be ‘one’ or at one ‘with God’ is the goal of the aspirations of
the souls of all men; and their various religions represent but the various
methods whereby men seek to attain the assurance of that union. Attaining
conviction of the essential identity of the spirit of which humanity is the
sensible expression, with the animating spirit of the universe, the soul of man
is content” (p. 23). “The ‘Nirvâna’ preached by Buddha was no more annihilation
than was the ‘heaven’ of Christ. Man could no more return to ‘nothing’ in
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