-----

Footnote 171:

_Vide_ “The Soldier’s Daughter,” in this number, by the Rev. T. G.

Headley, and notice the desperate protest of this _true_

Christian, against the _literal_ acceptance of the “blood

sacrifices,” “Atonement by blood,” etc., in the Church of England.

The reaction begins: another _sign of the times_.

-----

Has the professor of the Science Faculty of Toulouse explained

anything by drawing attention to that which anyone can see? Of

course not. But if, in his ignorance of the esoteric meaning of the

allegory he has added nothing to human knowledge, he has on the

other hand destroyed faith in many of his pupils in both the

“_divine_ origin” of Christianity and its Church and helped to

increase the number of Materialists. For surely, no man, once he

devotes himself to such comparative studies, can regard the religion

of the West in any light but that of a pale and enfeebled copy of

older and nobler philosophies.

The origin of all religions—Judaeo-Christianity included—is to be

found in a few primeval truths, not one of which can be explained

apart from all the others, as each is a complement of the rest in

some one detail. And they are all, more or less, broken rays of the

same Sun of truth, and their beginnings have to be sought in the

archaic records of the Wisdom-religion. Without the light of the

latter, the greatest scholars can see but the skeletons thereof

covered with masks of fancy, and based mostly on personified

Zodiacal signs.

A thick film of allegory and _blinds_, the “dark sayings” of

fiction and parable, thus covers the original esoteric texts from

which the New Testament—_as now known_—was compiled. Whence, then,

the Gospels, the life of Jesus of Nazareth? Has it not been

repeatedly stated that no human, _mortal_ brain could have

invented the life of the Jewish Reformer, followed by the awful

drama on Calvary? We say, on the authority of the esoteric Eastern

School, that all this came from the Gnostics, as far as the name

Christos and the astronomico-mystical allegories are concerned,

and from the writings of the ancient _Tanaïm_ as regards the

Kabalistic connection of Jesus or Joshua, with the Biblical

personifications. One of these is the mystic esoteric name of

Jehovah—not the present fanciful God of the profane Jews ignorant

of their own mysteries, the God accepted by the still more

ignorant Christians—but the compound Jehovah of the pagan

Initiation. This is proven very plainly by the glyphs or mystic

combinations of various signs which have survived to this day in

the Roman Catholic hieroglyphics.

The Gnostic Records contained the epitome of the chief scenes

enacted during the mysteries of Initiation, since the memory of man;

though even that was given out invariably under the garb of

semi-allegory, whenever entrusted to parchment or paper. But the

ancient Tanaïm, the Initiates from whom the wisdom of the Kabala

(_oral tradition_) was obtained by the later Talmudists, had in

their possession the secrets of the mystery language, and it is _in

this language that the Gospels_ were written.[172] He alone who has

mastered the esoteric cypher of antiquity—the secret meaning of the

numerals, a common property at one time of all nations—has the full

proof of the genius which was displayed in the blending of the

purely Egypto-Jewish, Old Testament allegories and names, and those

of the pagan-Greek Gnostics, the most refined of all the mystics of

that day. Bishop Newton proves it himself quite innocently, by

showing that “St. Barnabas, the companion of St. Paul, in his

epistle (ch. ix.) discovers ... the name of Jesus crucified in the

number 318,” namely, Barnabas finds it in the mystic Greek I H T—the

_tau_ being the glyph of the cross. On this, a Kabalist, the author

of an unpublished MS. on the Key of Formation of the Mystery

Language, observes:—“But this is but a play upon the Hebrew letters

_Jodh_, _Chith_, and _Shin_, from whence the I H S as the monogram

of Christ coming down to our day, and this reads as יהש or 381, the

sum of the letters being 318 or the number of Abraham and his Satan,

and of Joshua and his Amalek ... also the number of Jacob and his

antagonist ... (Godfrey Higgins gives the authority for the number

608).... It is the number of Melchizedek’s name, for the value of

the last is 304 and Melchizedek was the priest of the most high God,

without beginning nor ending of days.” The solution and secret of

Melchizedek are found in the fact that “in the ancient Pantheons the

two planets which had existed from eternity (_æonic_ eternity) and

were eternal, were the Sun and the Moon, or Osiris and Isis, hence

the terms of _without beginning nor ending of days_. 304 multiplied

by two is 608. So also the numbers in the word Seth, who was a type

of the year. There are a number of authorities for the number 888 as

applying to the name of Jesus Christ, and as said this is in

antagonism to the 666 of the Anti-Christ.... The staple value in the

name of Joshua was the number 365, the indication of the Solar year,

while Jehovah delighted in being the indication of the Lunar

year—and Jesus Christ was both Joshua and Jehovah in the Christian

Pantheon....”

-----

Footnote 172:

Thus while the three Synoptics display a combination of the pagan

Greek and Jewish symbologies the _Revelation_ is written in the

mystery language of the Tanaïm—the relic of Egyptian and Chaldean

wisdom—and St John’s Gospel is purely Gnostic.

-----

This is but an illustration to our point to prove that the Christian

application of the compound name Jesus-Christ is all based on

Gnostic and Eastern mysticism. It was only right and natural that

Chroniclers like the initiated Gnostics, pledged to secresy, should

veil or _cloak_ the final meaning of their oldest and most sacred

teachings. The right of the Church fathers to cover the whole with

an epitheme of euhemerized fancy is rather more dubious.[173] The

Gnostic Scribe and Chronicler deceived no one. Every Initiate into

the Archaic gnosis—whether of the pre-Christian or post-Christian

period—knew well the value of every word of the “mystery-language.”

For these Gnostics—the inspirers of primitive Christianity—were “the

most cultured, the most learned and most wealthy of the Christian

name,” as Gibbon has it. Neither they, nor their humbler followers,

were in danger of accepting the dead letter of their own texts. But

it was different with the victims of the fabricators of what is now

called _orthodox_ and _historic_ Christianity. Their successors have

all been made to fall into the mistakes of the “foolish Galatians”

reproved by Paul, who, as he tells them (Galat. iii. 1-5), having

begun (by believing) in the Spirit (of Christos), “ended by

believing in _the flesh_,”—_i.e._, a _corporeal_ Christ. For such is

the true meaning of the Greek sentence,[174] “ἐναρξάμενοι Πνεύματι

νῦν σαρκι ἐπιτελεῖσθε.” That Paul was a gnostic, a founder of a new

sect of _gnosis_ which recognized, as all other gnostic sects did, a

“Christ-Spirit,” though it went against its opponents, the rival

sects, is sufficiently clear to all but dogmatists and theologians.

Nor is it less clear that the primitive teachings of Jesus, whenever

he may have lived, could be discovered only in Gnostic teachings;

against which discovery, the falsifiers who dragged down Spirit into

matter, thus degrading the noble philosophy of primeval

Wisdom-Religion, have taken ample precautions from the first. The

works of Basilides alone—“The philosopher devoted to the

contemplation of Divine things,” as Clement describes him—the 24

volumes of his _interpretations upon the Gospels_—were all burned by

order of the Church, Eusebius tells us (H. E., iv. 7).

-----

Footnote 173:

“The claim of Christianity to possess Divine authority rests on

the ignorant belief that the mystical Christ could and did become

a Person, whereas the gnosis proves the corporeal Christ to be

only a counterfeit Presentment of the trans-corporeal man;

consequently, historical portraiture is, and ever must be, a fatal

mode of falsifying and discrediting the Spiritual Reality.” (G.

Massey, “Gnostic and Historic Christianity.”)

Footnote 174:

This sentence analyzed means “Shall you, who in the beginning

looked to the _Christ-Spirit_, now _end_ by believing in a Christ

of flesh,” or it means nothing. The verb ἐπιτελοῦμαι has not the

meaning of “becoming perfect,” but of “ending by,” becoming so.

Paul’s lifelong struggle with Peter and others, and what he

himself tells of his vision of a Spiritual Christ and not of Jesus

of Nazareth, as in the _Acts_—are so many proofs of this.

-----

As these _Interpretations_ were written at a time when the Gospels

we have now, were not yet in existence,[175] here is a good proof

that the Evangel, the doctrines of which were delivered to Basilides

by the Apostle Matthew, and Glaucus, the disciple of Peter (_Clemens

Al._ “_Strom._” vii. 7, § 106), must have differed widely from the

present New Testament Nor can these doctrines be judged by the

distorted accounts of them left to posterity by Tertullian. Yet even

the little this partisan fanatic gives, shows the chief gnostic

doctrines to be identical, under their own peculiar terminology and

personations, with those of the _Secret Doctrine_ of the East. For,

discussing Basilides, the “pious, god-like, theosophic philosopher,”

as Clement of Alexandria thought him, Tertullian exclaims:

“After this, Basilides, the _heretic_, broke loose.[176] He

asserted that there is a Supreme God, by name Abraxas, by whom

Mind (_Mahat_) was created, which the Greeks call _Nous_. From

this emanated the Word; from the Word, Providence; from

Providence, Virtue and Wisdom; from these two again, Virtues,

_Principalities_,[177] _and Powers_ were made; thence infinite

productions and emissions of angels. Among the lowest angels,

indeed, and those that made this world, he sets _last of all_ the

god of the Jews, whom he denies to be God himself, affirming that

he is but one of the angels.”[178] (Isis Unv. vol. ii.)

-----

Footnote 175:

See “Supern. Relig.,” vol. ii., chap. “Basilides.”

Footnote 176:

It was asked in “Isis Unveiled,” were not the views of the

Phrygian Bishop Montanus, also deemed a HERESY by the Church of

Rome? It is quite extraordinary to see how easily that Church

encourages the abuse of one _heretic_, Tertullian, against another

_heretic_, Basilides, when the abuse happens to further her own

object.

Footnote 177:

Does not Paul himself speak of “_Principalities_ and _Powers_ in

heavenly places” (Ephesians iii. 10; i. 21), and confess that

there be _gods_ many and _Lords_ many (Kurioi)? And angels, powers

(Dunameis), and _Principalities_? (See 1 Corinthians, viii. 5; and

Epistle to Romans, viii. 38.)

Footnote 178:

Tertullian: “Præscript.” It is undeniably owing only to a

remarkably casuistical, sleight-of-hand-like argument that

Jehovah, who in the _Kabala_ is simply a Sephiroth, the third,

left-hand power among the Emanations (Binah), has been elevated to

the dignity of the _One_ absolute God. Even in the Bible he is but

one of the _Elohim_ (See Genesis, chapter iii. v. 22. “The Lord

God” making no difference between himself and others.)

-----

Another proof of the claim that the Gospel of Matthew in the usual

Greek texts is not the original gospel written in Hebrew, is given

by no less an authority than S. Jerome (or Hieronymus). The

suspicion of a conscious and gradual _euhemerization_ of the Christ

principle ever since the beginning, grows into a conviction, once

that one becomes acquainted with a certain confession contained in

book ii. of the “Comment. to Matthew” by Hieronymus. For we find in

it the proofs of a deliberate substitution of the whole gospel, the

one now in the Canon having been evidently re-written by this too

zealous Church Father.[179] He says that he was sent toward the

close of the fourth century by “their Felicities,” the Bishops

Chromatius and Heliodorus to Cæsarea, with the mission to compare

the Greek text (the only one they ever had) with the Hebrew original

version preserved by the Nazarenes in their library, and to

translate it. He translated it, but under protest; for, as he says,

the _Evangel_ “exhibited matter _not for edification, but for

destruction.”_[180] The “destruction” of what? Of the dogma that

Jesus of Nazareth and the _Christos_ are one—evidently; hence for

the “destruction” of the newly planned religion.[181] In this same

letter the Saint (who advised his converts to kill their fathers,

trample on the bosom that fed them, by walking over the bodies of

their mothers, if the parents stood as an obstacle between their

sons and Christ)—admits that Matthew did not wish his gospel to be

_openly written_, hence that the MS. _was a secret_ one. But while

admitting also that this gospel “was written in Hebrew characters

and _by the hand of himself_” (_Matthew_), yet in another place he

contradicts himself and assures posterity that _as it was tampered

with, and re-written by a disciple of Manicheus, named Seleucus_ ...

“the ears of the Church properly refused to listen to it.”

(_Hieron._, “Comment. to Matthew,” book ii. chapter xii., 13.)

-----

Footnote 179:

This is _history_. How far that _re-writing_ of, and tampering

with, the primitive gnostic fragments which are now become the New

Testament, went, may be inferred by reading “Supernatural

Religion,” which went through over twenty-three editions, if I

mistake not. The host of authorities for it given by the author,

is simply appalling. The list of the English and German Bible

critics alone seems endless.

Footnote 180:

The chief details are given in “Isis Unveiled,” vol. ii pp.

180-183, _et seq._ Truly faith in the infallibility of the Church

must be _stone-blind_—or it could not have failed being killed

and—dying.

Footnote 181:

See Hieronymus: “De Viros,” illust. cap. 3; Olshausen: “Neuen

Test.,” p. 32. The Greek text of Matthew’s Gospel is the only one

used or ever possessed by the Church.

-----

No wonder that the very meaning of the terms _Chrestos_ and

_Christos_, and the bearing of both on “Jesus of Nazareth,” a name

coined out of Joshua the _Nazar_, has now become a dead letter for

all with the exception of non-Christian Occultists. For even the

Kabalists have no original data now to rely upon. The _Zohar_ and

the Kabala have been remodelled by Christian hands out of

recognition; and were it not for a copy of the Chaldean _Book of

Numbers_ there would remain no better than garbled accounts. Let not

our Brothers, the so-called Christian Kabalists of England and

France, many of whom are Theosophists, protest too vehemently; for

_this is history_ (See Munk). It is as foolish to maintain, as some

German Orientalists and modern critics still do, that the Kabala has

never existed before the day of the Spanish Jew, Moses de Leon,

accused of having forged this pseudograph in the 13th century, as to

claim that any of the Kabalistical works now in our possession are

as original as they were when Rabbi Simeon Ben Jochaï delivered the

“traditions” to his son and followers. Not a single of these books

is immaculate, none has escaped mutilation by Christian hands. Munk,

one of the most learned and able critics of his day on this subject,

proves it, while protesting as we do, against the assumption that it

is a post-Christian forgery, for he says:

“It appears evident to us that the author made use of ancient

documents, and among these of certain _Midraschim_ or collections of

traditions and Biblical expositions, which we do not now possess.”

After which, quoting from Tholuck (l. c. pp. 24 and 31), he adds:

“Haya Gaon, who died in 1038, is to our knowledge the first author

who developed the theory of the Sephiroth and he gave to them the

names which we find again to be among the Kabalists (Tellenik, Moses

ben Schem Tob di Leon, p. 13, note 5); this doctor, _who had

intimate intercourse with the Syrian and Chaldean Christian savans_,

was enabled by these last to acquire a knowledge of some of the

Gnostic writings.”

Which “Gnostic writings” and esoteric tenets passed part and parcel

into the Kabalistic works, with many more modern interpolations that

we now find in the _Zohar_, as Munk well proves. The Kabala is

Christian now, not Jewish.

Thus, what with several generations of most active Church Fathers

ever working at the destruction of old documents and the

preparation of new passages to be interpolated in those which

happened to survive, there remains of the _Gnostics_—the

legitimate offspring of the Archaic Wisdom-religion—but a few

unrecognisable shreds. But a particle of genuine gold will glitter

for ever; and, however garbled the accounts left by Tertullian and

Epiphanius of the Doctrines of the “Heretics,” an occultist can

yet find even in them traces of those primeval truths which were

once universally imparted during the mysteries of Initiation.

Among other works with most suggestive allegories in them, we have

still the so-called _Apocryphal Gospels_, and the last discovered

as the most precious relic of Gnostic literature, a fragment

called _Pistis-Sophia_, “Knowledge-Wisdom.”

In my next article upon the Esoteric character of the Gospels, I

hope to be able to demonstrate that those who translate _Pistis_ by

“Faith,” are utterly wrong. The word “faith” as _grace_ or something

to be believed in through unreasoned or blind faith, is a word that

dates only since Christianity. Nor has Paul ever used this term in

this sense in his Epistles; and Paul was undeniably—an INITIATE.

H. P. B.

(_To be continued._)

=Reviews.=

---

“SPIRIT REVEALED.”[182]

-----

Footnote 182:

By Captain Wm. C. Eldon Serjeant. Published by Geo. Redway, York

Street, Covent Garden. Price 7s. 6d.

-----

The new work by Captain Serjeant (New Dispensationist and Fellow of

the Theosophical Society) is certainly what he describes it as

being, the “book for the age,” if, at least, it be admitted that the

age requires arousing. I have no hesitation in saying that no such

book has before been presented to the public. It sounds forth like a

trumpet to arouse the sleepers from their crass forgetfulness of

every law of Brotherly Love and Spiritual Truth. One might almost

imagine, in reading it, the sensation produced upon his

contemporaries by Ezekiel, when first he gave forth his prophecies

to a wondering world; or by Bunyan, when he startled the English of

his time with the magnificent allegory of the “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

It is true that here and there whole passages are bodily

transplanted from St John’s “Revelation,” but they are so

marvellously dovetailed into the context that, without constant

reference to the Apocalypse, it is almost impossible to say where

the quotations begin and where they end. From a literary point of

view this may be a fault; but if we recognise the one Spirit

speaking through many voices we cannot deny that the same truth may

call for repetition and expansion, and the same Spirit may emit

again, with fuller details, what it has emitted before.

Were this an _orthodox_ journal, I am aware that I dare not advance

such tenets for fear the luckless editors should be deemed

blasphemous by their subscribers. But LUCIFER at least must allow

that the Universal Spirit has not in the sacred books of olden times

breathed its last words. Then, again, Captain Serjeant disclaims all

_personal_ responsibility for these utterances when he states that

the very passages which the reader will find the most glowing in the

fierceness of their heat, are not words conceived by his own

personality, but given to him by processes well-known to

Spiritualists as “direct” and “automatic” writing.

The root idea of the volume is that _one Spirit_ permeates all men

and all things, and that this Spirit is that of Wisdom, Love and

Truth; yet that this Spirit is denied or hidden out of sight by its

own children; and that not till it is again made manifest in the

public affairs of the world, can mankind hope for that happiness

which it is now vainly pursuing in every other direction save the

right one, namely, _within_. The dedication of the book sounds the

key-note of its contents; for it is inscribed to “Love, the Queen of

Heaven; and to Faith, the Star of the Soul.” The inscription closes

with the words “Follow after Love—Love never faileth,” and the

reader is intentionally left to supply the third term, “God is

Love.” It is in this conception of the Supreme that we shall find

the whole meaning of the work. The words “God” and the “Father,” as

also the “Mother” and “Christ,” are employed pretty freely; yet with

this clue, we shall see that the writer believes in no _personal_

Deity, but in one Universal Spirit, of whom each intelligence is a

manifestation in the flesh, little though such being may show or

know it.

It is impossible in a short review to touch upon all the striking

features of “Spirit Revealed,” and I must, therefore, content myself

with noticing but a very few, referring the readers of LUCIFER to

the book itself; for they will find in it a “Guide, Philosopher and

Friend.”

The preface reminds one of a passage in Ezekiel too often forgotten.

“And they were _scattered_, because there is no shepherd: and they

became meat to all the beasts of the field, _when they were

scattered_.” Captain Serjeant points out the necessity of a bond of

_union_ in these words:—

“The contentions amongst many religious sects have been to a

considerable extent responsible for the rise, growth, and

development of numerous societies of professed religious, as well as

of an anti-religious character. Each and every one of these

Societies possesses its own peculiar views on the Deity, as well as

on life and death, and though the majority of the more enlightened

of them have evidently the same fundamental principles underlying

the teachings which they endeavour to inculcate in the minds of men

generally, yet the manifest confusion generated by what are

seemingly conflicting opinions, tends, unhappily, to increase the

bewilderment and distrust experienced in connection with the truths

of the Spirit throughout all classes of Society in the nineteenth

century.”

He then proceeds to claim for his work that it “places in the hands

of Christian Ministers” (Note, that he employs the word “Christ”

continually in the sense of the divine Spirit within mankind) “many

powerful weapons wherewith to establish and uphold the universal

Church of the Living God.” The preface, which is conceived

throughout in the most elevated style of address, concludes with an

appeal to “all who, in their hearts, are ready and willing to labour

loyally in the interests of their less enlightened fellow creatures

existing in this ignorant, selfish, and love-starved world.”

After a brief Introduction, couched in a prophetic form, the writer

deals with the nature of God, man, matter, the power of Spirit

manifest in and through matter, the omnipresence of Spirit, the

Intelligent Principle, and the Seven Rays of Truth. In these seven

chapters is comprised what I may call the theoretical part of the

book. The following quotations must suffice to show in what vein

these world-riddles are worked out. “We are endued with two natures,

one of which is human or mortal, and subject to chemical change,

commonly termed dissolution or death; the other, immortal or

spiritual, capable of adding to itself by an inherent power to

comprehend the nature, qualities and capabilities of all created

visible things, which comprehension signifies the reconversion of

all material existences into true ideas.” “It is an absolute fact

that _everything is literal_. To the spiritual man symbols are

literal; they are indeed more literal than the natural man considers

what he terms facts or realities.“ ”_The ultimate atom is Spirit._

Finite wills are points on which the Infinite Will acts, for no

creature can will without being a manifestation of the Supreme

Intelligence who first wills that it shall will.“

The subsequent portion of the book deals partly with an expansion of

the general tenets laid down in these seven chapters, and their

application to the present _practical_ needs of the world; partly

with prophetic utterances as to the near approach of an awakening of

the peoples to their real position as members of one great Spiritual

community. Under the first heading a very important document is

presented to the world, being a form for enrolment in the “Universal

Rights Support Association,” which if generally adopted in the true

spirit would indeed herald the millennium. Under the second heading

in Chapter XIII. a remarkable reading of part of the Apocalypse is

given, commencing with the words from Daniel, “and at that time

shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the

children of the people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such

as never was since there was a Nation even to that same time: At

that time the people shall be delivered, every one that shall be

found written in the book.” Such words as these are not to be

understood on the first reading, and indeed will probably meet with

nothing but derision from many. Yet LUCIFER will see in them another

and a most powerful battery opened against the powers of darkness to

wage war with which is his own chief mission.

In conclusion I can only add that, in my humble opinion, few men

have shown such courage in facing the ridicule of society as Captain

Serjeant, and that he has chosen to risk the forfeiture of a place

in social circles to which his right is undeniable, rather than give

way to the temptation to prophesy smooth things. He is one of the

foremost in the New Dispensation movement, and a man whose working

power must be enormous, if it be measured by the labours which he

daily and voluntarily undertakes. His peculiar style of writing lays

him open to the accusation of calling himself the coming Messiah. If

his accusers would only meet him face to face, they would find that

no man is humbler than he, and none is more fully conscious nor more

loudly proclaims that “individuality is but an emanation from the

one Great Spirit,” in which alone he recognises the true Christ, the

Saviour of the world. He would tell them that in _themselves_ is

incarnate the Spirit of Wisdom, and that it only awaits its union

with the Spirit of Love, to manifest itself as the Spirit of Truth.

How little he values his own personality and his own well-being or

fame, those who know him best can testify. If Theosophy is to be a

living thing, and not a mere intellectual amusement, it is by such

men as this that it must be followed. Were there many such the world

would soon be freed from its misery, by the force of their united

volition. Verily their reward is at hand.

WILLIAM ASHTON ELLIS.

-----------------------

TRAITÉ ÉLÉMENTAIRE DE SCIENCE OCCULTE, par PAPUS.

Published by Georges Carré, 58, Rue St Audré des Arts.

This, the latest of the admirable publications now being issued by

M. Georges Carré, under the auspices of “L’Isis,” the French branch

of the Theosophical Society, deserves a hearty welcome at the hands

of all students of Occultism, as it fulfils the promise of its

title, which is high praise indeed.

The book is written and constructed on correct Occult principles; it

contains seven chapters, three devoted to theory and four to the

application and practical illustration of that theory.

After an eloquent introductory chapter, M. Papus proceeds to lead

his readers by easy transitions into the mysterious science of

numbers. This—the first key to _practical_ Occultism—is at once the

simplest and the most subtle of sciences. Hitherto there has existed

no really elementary exposition of its primary, fundamental

principles. And, as this science of numbers lies at the base of

every one of those applications of occult science which are still to

any extent studied, a knowledge of it is almost indispensable.

Astrology, Chiromancy, Cartomancy, in short, all the arts of

divination, rest ultimately on numbers and their occult powers, as a

foundation.

And yet, though the students of each of these several arts must,

perforce, acquire a certain knowledge of numerical science, yet very

few of them possess that knowledge in a systematic and co-ordinated

form.

Of course M. Papus does not, and cannot, give anything like a

complete textbook on the subject, but he does give, in clear

language, the fundamental guiding principles of this science.

Moreover, he illustrates the methods of numerical working, by

numerous and well-chosen examples—an aid which is simply invaluable

to the student who is making his first entrance into this field of

study. In the third chapter these abstract formulæ are given as they

relate to man, as an individual, and as a member of that larger

whole, called humanity. This completes the purely theoretical

portion of the book, and in the fourth chapter we are shown how

these general principles work in their application.

Signs and symbols are proved to be the _natural_ expressions of

ideas in accordance with fixed laws, and the method is applied by

way of illustration to the interpretation of the Emerald Tablet of

Hermes Trismegistus. The relation between number and form is shown

as exhibited in geometrical figures, and M. Papus gives a clue to a

subject which has puzzled many—the actual _influence_ in life of

_names_. This chapter is most enthralling, but lack of space forbids

any detailed comments, for so much would have to be said.

Chapters five and six are almost equally interesting; full of

lucid illustration and valuable hints to the practical student,

they form almost a manual in themselves. But on one point M. Papus

is certainly in error, though, since it is on a matter of history,

its importance is relatively small. He attaches _far_ too much

weight to the Jews and to their national system of occultism—the

Kabbala. True, that system is the most familiar in Europe; but it

has been so much overlaid by a semi-esoteric veil, and additions

and interpolations by Christian Occultists, that its inner

grossness is lost sight of; so that students are apt to be led

away from the truth, and to form erroneous conceptions as to the

value and meaning of many symbols, the importance of which in

practical work is very great. What esoteric knowledge the Jews

possessed, they derived either from the Egyptians or the

Babylonians during the captivity. Hence M. Saint-Ives d’Alvidre,

his gigantic erudition notwithstanding, is altogether mistaken in

the stress he lays on their knowledge, their place in history and

their mission as a nation. This, however, is but a matter of small

moment in a book, the practical value of which it would be

difficult to over-estimate.

-----------------------

THE NEW WAGNER JOURNAL.

We have received from Mr. Geo. Redway, Publisher, 15, York Street,

W.C., the prospectus of a new Journal, “THE MEISTER,” which is about

to be edited for the _Richard Wagner Society_ by Mr. Wm. Ashton

Ellis, author of “Theosophy in the Works of Richard Wagner”

(Theosophical Society’s Transactions), and of “Richard Wagner as

Poet, Musician and Mystic,” read before the Society of Fine Arts. As

Mr. Ellis is a member of the Committee of the Wagner Society, and a

member of Council of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society,

we hope that prominence will be given to the esoteric side of

Richard Wagner’s works; and for this hope we have justification not

only in the pamphlets above alluded to but also in the words of the

prospectus of the MEISTER. “Religion, Art, and Social Questions are

in these works (Wagner’s) presented to his readers under novel

aspects, and such as are of the greatest interest to a generation

which is eagerly scanning the horizon for some cloud which may be

the harbinger of refreshing rain long looked for to quench the

thirst of the arid sands of Materialistic Science.”

The prospectus presents us with a specimen of the cover of the

journal, designed by Mr. Percy Anderson, an artist who has already

made a name for himself in other walks of the decorative art, and

whose first attempt in this direction shows great power of broad

effects of light and shade, and considerable expertness in

symbolism. We hope in our next issue to review the first number of

the MEISTER which, we understand, will appear on the 13th inst. It

will be published for the present _quarterly_, at the subscription

rate of 4s. per annum, but we trust that it may shortly become a

full-fledged “monthly.”

[Illustration: decorative separator]

NEW YEAR’S EVE.

All sound was hushed, except the sad sad bells,

Chanting their requiem o’er the dying year;

Alone I knelt beneath the watchful stars,

And held communion with my restless soul.

* * * * *

The Old Year died, the sad bells all were stilled,

And o’er a silent city, shone the pure cold moon.

Then unrestrained my soul poured forth its cry,

“O God Eternal, Changless, Sacred, O. M.

Let my past die with the Old Year to-night.

And when the joy-bells hail the New Year’s birth,

Let each sweet note waft up a pæan of praise,

Straight from a new-born Soul unto its Maker.”

* * * * *

The New Year dawned, madly the bells clashed forth

Beneath the stars, I still knelt on—in peace.

KATIE DUNCAN KING.

=Correspondence.=

---

AUTOCENTRICISM.[183]

-----

Footnote 183:

“Autocentricism; or, the Brain Theory of Life and Mind,” being the

substance of letters written to the Secular Review (1883-4). By

Robert Lewins, M.D. “The New Gospel of Hylo-Idealism, or Positive

Agnosticism.” By Herbert L. Courtney.

-----

Man has made God in his own image. Taking his thoughts and passions,

fears, hope and aspirations, with part thereof he endows his

fellow-men, whose natures he knows only as figured and interpreted

by his own, and thus he becomes a social being; with part thereof he

inspires the inanimate world—“the sun, the moon, the stars, the sea,

the hills, and the plains,” and thus he becomes a poet; “with the

residue” he forms his God, and “falleth down unto it, and

worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou

art my God.”

The first of these processes is legitimate, indeed necessary, for

there is a foundation of unity in human nature, however diverse and

complex are its varied developments; and the humanity which dwells

in all can recognize itself under strange disguises.

The second process is innocent and elevating, so long as it is kept

within just limits, and claims to reach results subjectively, not

objectively, true.

The third process is inevitable at a certain stage of racial

evolution, but beyond that stage becomes absolutely noxious and

degrading, because it extols as truth that which conscience and

reason have begun to condemn as untruth.

Dead are the Gods of Egypt, those supreme plutocrats, under whom

costly mummification and burial in a sculptured tomb were the

conditions of posthumous life, so that a poor man could by no means

enter into the kingdom of Osiris. Dead are Jupiter, Apollo, Pallas,

Aphrodite, the products and reflexes of Greek majesty, beauty and

intellect; or, if not dead, they are immortalised only by the art of

their human creators. Dead, or dying, as a power to be loved and

feared, is that Jehovah who reproduces the cruelty, selfishness and

stubbornness of the typical Jew, with his substratum of conscience,

showing itself from time to time in a more or less wrong-headed zeal

for righteousness.

In its infancy, every race unconsciously forms an ideal, and makes

this ideal its God. As the race grows in civilisation the ideal is

modified, and for some time the god continues to undergo

corresponding changes, and is, so to speak, kept up to date. But

increasing experience and knowledge bring increasing secularism of

thought and feeling, and incapacitate the mind for reconstructing

its Divinity. Religion loses its life-blood. In this stage, the

Deity is either an anachronism, incompatible with the highest

instincts of his worshippers, and therefore holding them back

morally and intellectually, or else he becomes a nonentity, an

abstraction, which can have no influence on life and conduct. It is

this effete conception which Dr. Lewins combats in the tract

entitled “Autocentricism, or the Brain Theory of Life and Mind.”

Man, in brief, is his own God. Saints and mystics, and all the most

beautiful souls of all religions, have seen this truth as in a glass

darkly. Christ expressed it in mystic form when he said, “The

Kingdom of Heaven is within you,” and, “I and my Father are one.”

But in Christ’s time Animism was so ingrained in human nature that

it was impossible he could escape it.[184] He had not the scientific

data on which to found a true cosmology; and even had he possessed

the data, he would have lacked the power to use them. Scientific

habits of thought were necessarily alien to the mind of the Galilean

peasant.[185] He could _feel_ rather than _comprehend_ the unity of

God, Man, and the World; but he could not know that this unity is

centred in the thought-cells of the cerebral hemispheres, and that

the Divine glory is the offspring of a material organism.[186]

Scientific synthesis can now give a solid basis to Christian and

Buddhist mysticism, to Berkleyan and Kantian Idealism, by declaring

that the brain is the one phenomenon which certifies its own nomenal

existence. It thinks, therefore it is; it creates, therefore it

exists. Yet Dualism is condemned, whatever stand-point we adopt.

“For my main argument ... it matters not a jot or tittle whether you

proceed on the nöetic or hyloic basis. A European ought to take the

latter, which admits of scientific research and discovery. An

Asiatic or African, who has not the genius for original realistic

research, may safely be left to the former.”[187] Beyond himself, no

man can think. We are apt to be deluded by the exigencies of

language, and to look upon “our” ideas, “our” imaginations, as in

some way separable from ourselves; as possessions rather than

components of the Ego. Yet nothing is clearer than that the sum of

these sentient states actually _constitutes_ the Ego, so far as it

knows itself; and that a “dominant” idea, engrossing the attention

to the exclusion of all others, is for the time absolutely identical

with and equivalent to the mind which it is said to “rule.” For

moments which are eternities, because the sense of time is

abolished, the musician may be “absorbed in” or identified with his

sonata, the poet with his verse, the mystic with his vision of the

Divine Essence. “I am as great as God, and He as small as I,” sings

Angelus Silesius; but we may rather say that in such states of

rapture the relations of “great” and “small,” of “internal” and

“external,” of “space” and “infinitude,” of “time” and “eternity,”

are annihilated, and the whole universe fused into one point of

light.

-----

Footnote 184:

“Autocentricism,” &c., p. 10.

Footnote 185:

_Christ_—A Galilean peasant! [ED.]

Footnote 186:

Nor does Dr. Lewins _know_: assumption is no proof. [ED.]

Footnote 187:

“Autocentricism,” &c., p. 33.

-----

This feeling, rationalised and stripped of mystery, though not of

wonder and solemnity, is the truth and life of Hylo-Idealism.

Worship is done away with, not by iconoclasm, but by apotheosis. “By

it we are, indeed, for ever and entirely relieved from the

humiliating and overwhelming sense of human insignificance, thus

making ourselves quite at home in the more than terrestrial

grandeurs of the universe, in which our planet is but a

sand-grain.”[188]

-----

Footnote 188:

Ibid, p. 19.

-----

In conclusion, I should like to recommend Dr. Lewins’s tractate,

with its Introduction by Mr. Courtney, and its succinct and luminous

Appendix by G. M. Mc., and also Mr. Courtney’s articles reprinted

from “Our Corner” to the attention of all sincere souls.

Hylo-Idealism, or “Autocentricism,” has the merit of not being

negative merely, but also positive and constructive, substituting

for the “renunciation” preached by Christ and Buddha, a perfect

fulfilment of self, and conquering selfishness by self-expansion. It

is thus especially potent in the fields of theoretical and practical

ethics, indeed the central idea of Spinoza’s admirable and still

unsurpassed analysis of the Passions is distinctly deducible from

our thesis, though generally regarded as an excrescence rather than

a natural growth from his own. Upon all this I cannot, at present,

dwell, but must content myself with the bare indication of fields of

thought and action which are “white already to the harvest.”

On the Nile, _Dec._ 1887.

C. N.

--------------

WHAT OF PHENOMENA?

_To the Editors of_ LUCIFER:

“I avail myself of your invitation to correspondents, in order to

ask a question.

“How is it that we hear nothing now of the signs and wonders with

which Neo-theosophy was ushered in? Is the ‘age of miracles’ past

in the Society?

“Yours respectfully,

“*”

“Occult phenomena,” is what our correspondent apparently refers to.

They failed to produce the desired effect, but they were, in no

sense of the word, “miracles.” It was supposed that intelligent

people, especially men of science, would, at least, have recognised

the existence of a new and deeply interesting field of enquiry and

research when they witnessed physical effects produced at will, for

which they were not able to account. It was supposed that

theologians would have welcomed the proof, of which they stand so

sadly in need in these agnostic days, that the soul and the spirit

are not mere creations of their fancy, due to ignorance of the

physical constitution of man, but entities quite as real as the

body, and much more important. These expectations were not realized.

The phenomena were misunderstood and misrepresented, both as regards

their nature and their purpose.

In the light which experience has now thrown upon the matter the

explanation of this unfortunate circumstance is not far to seek.

Neither science nor religion acknowledges the existence of the

Occult, as the term is understood and employed in theosophy; in the

sense, that is to say, of a super-material, but not super-natural,

region, governed by law; nor do they recognise the existence of

latent powers and possibilities in man. Any interference with the

every-day routine of the material world is attributed, by religion,

to the arbitrary will of a good or an evil autocrat, inhabiting a

supernatural region inaccessible to man, and subject to no law,

either in his actions or constitution, and for a knowledge of whose

ideas and wishes mortals are entirely dependent upon inspired

communications delivered through an accredited messenger. The power

of working so-called miracles has always been deemed the proper and

sufficient credentials of a messenger from heaven, and the mental

habit of regarding any occult power in that light is still so strong

that any exercise of that power is supposed to be “miraculous,” or

to claim to be so. It is needless to say that this way of regarding

extraordinary occurrences is in direct opposition to the scientific

spirit of the age, nor is it the position practically occupied by

the more intelligent portion of mankind at present. When people see

wonders, nowadays, the sentiment excited in their minds is no longer

veneration and awe, but curiosity.

It was in the hope of arousing and utilizing this spirit of

curiosity that occult phenomena were shown. It was believed that

this manipulation of forces of nature which lie below the

surface—that surface of things which modern science scratches and

pecks at so industriously and so proudly—would have led to enquiry

into the nature and the laws of those forces, unknown to science,

but perfectly known to occultism. That the phenomena did excite

curiosity in the minds of those who witnessed them, is certainly

true, but it was, unfortunately, for the most part of an idle kind.

The greater number of the witnesses developed an insatiable appetite

for phenomena for their own sake, without any thought of studying

the philosophy or the science of whose truth and power the phenomena

were merely trivial and, so to say, accidental illustrations. In but

a few cases the curiosity which was awakened gave birth to the

serious desire to study the philosophy and the science themselves

and for their own sake.

Experience has taught the leaders of the movement that the vast

majority of professing Christians are absolutely precluded by their

mental condition and attitude—the result of centuries of

superstitious teaching—from calmly examining the phenomena in their

aspect of natural occurrences governed by law. The Roman Catholic

Church, true to its traditions, excuses itself from the examination

of any occult phenomena on the plea that they are necessarily the

work of the Devil, whenever they occur outside of its own pale,

since it has a lawful monopoly of the legitimate miracle business.

The Protestant Church denies the personal intervention of the Evil

One on the material plane; but, never having gone into the miracle

business itself, it is apparently a little doubtful whether it would

know a _bona-fide_ miracle if it saw one, but, being just as unable

as its elder sister to conceive the extension of the reign of law

beyond the limits of matter and force, as known to us in our present

state of consciousness, it excuses itself from the study of occult

phenomena on the plea that they lie within the province of science

rather than of religion.

Now science has its miracles as well as the Church of Rome. But, as

it is altogether dependent upon its instrument maker for the

production of these miracles, and, as it claims to be in possession

of the last known word in regard to the laws of nature, it was

hardly to be expected that it would take very kindly to “miracles,”

in whose production apparatus has no part, and which claim to be

instances of the operation of forces and laws of which it has no

knowledge. Modern science, moreover, labours under disabilities with

respect to the investigation of the Occult quite as embarrassing as

those of Religion; for, while Religion cannot grasp the idea of

natural law as applied to the supersensuous Universe, Science does

not allow the existence of any supersensuous universe at all to

which the reign of law could be extended; nor can it conceive the

possibility of any other state of consciousness than our present

terrestrial one. It was, therefore, hardly to be expected that

science would undertake the task it was called upon to perform with

much earnestness and enthusiasm; and, indeed, it seems to have felt

that it was not expected to treat the phenomena of occultism less

cavalierly than it had treated divine miracles. So it calmly

proceeded at once to pooh-pooh the phenomena; and, when obliged to

express some kind of opinion, it did not hesitate, without

examination, and on hearsay reports, to attribute them to fraudulent

contrivances—wires, trap-doors and so forth.

It was bad enough for the leaders of the movement, when they

endeavoured to call the attention of the world to the great and

unknown field for scientific and religious enquiry which lies on the

borderland between matter and spirit, to find themselves set down as

agents of his Satanic Majesty, or as superior adepts in the

charlatan line; but the unkindest cut of all, perhaps, came from a

class of people whose own experiences, rightly understood, ought

certainly to have taught them better: the occult phenomena were

claimed by the Spiritualists as the work of their dear departed

ones, but the leaders in Theosophy were declared to be somewhat less

even than mediums in disguise.

Never were the phenomena presented in any other character than that

of instances of a power _over perfectly natural though unrecognised

forces_, and incidentally over matter, possessed by certain

individuals who have attained to a larger and higher knowledge of

the Universe than has been reached by scientists and theologians, or

can ever be reached by them, by the roads they are now respectively

pursuing. Yet this power is latent in all men, and could, in time,

be wielded by anyone who would cultivate the knowledge and conform

to the conditions necessary for its development. Nevertheless,

except in a few isolated and honourable instances, never was it

received in any other character than as would-be miracles, or as

works of the Devil, or as vulgar tricks, or as amusing gape-seed, or

as the performances of those dangerous “spooks” that masquerade in

séance rooms, and feed on the vital energies of mediums and sitters.

And, from all sides, theosophy and theosophists were attacked with a

rancour and bitterness, with an absolute disregard alike of fact and

logic, and with malice, hatred and uncharitableness that would be

utterly inconceivable, did not religious history teach us what mean

and unreasoning animals ignorant men become when their cherished

prejudices are touched; and did not the history of scientific

research teach us, in its turn, how very like an ignorant man a

learned man can behave, when the truth of his theories is called in

question.

An occultist can produce phenomena, but he cannot supply the world

with brains, nor with the intelligence and good faith necessary to

understand and appreciate them. Therefore, it is hardly to be

wondered at, that _word_ came to abandon phenomena and let the ideas

of Theosophy stand on their own intrinsic merits.

--------------

MR. MOHINI M. CHATTERJI.

_To the Editors of_ LUCIFER.

Will you kindly afford publicity in the pages of Lucifer to the

enclosed letter I have just received from Mr. Mohini M. Chatterji

who has been staying for a few months at Rome, with English friends,

on his way back to India.—Yours very truly,

A. P. SINNETT.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE LONDON LODGE OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

SIR,—I understand that among the members of your Society there is a

rumour to the effect that I have joined the Roman Catholic Church,

which has caused much annoyance to my friends and also to myself. I

beg therefore that you will do me the justice to make it known that

the rumour is entirely false and that I have no desire to join any

Christian Church.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

MOHINI M. CHATTERJI.

ROME (Italy), _January 30th, 1888_.

------------------

_To the Editors of_ LUCIFER.

On behalf of the members of the London Lodge, I beg to state that

the rumour referred to in Mr. Mohini’s letter emanated from two

acquaintances of his belonging to the Romish Church, who themselves

derived their information from the R. C. priesthood. As for the

members of the L. L. they never believed in this report.

BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY, Hon. Sec.

=CORRESPONDENCE=

[The editors have received the two following letters—one from the

learned Founder of Hylo-Idealism, the other from a gentleman, a

casual correspondent, of whom they know _absolutely nothing_

except his most extraordinary way of expressing his thoughts in

words and terms hitherto unheard by ordinary mortals. Both take

the editors to task for using their undeniable right of criticism

and editorial judgment. As LUCIFER, however, is a magazine _sui

generis_, and as its policy is the greatest possible tolerance and

fairness to all parties concerned, it will abstain from its legal

prerogative of leaving the letters without reply or notice.

LUCIFER hands them over, therefore, to the “ADVERSARY,” to be

dealt with according to their respective merits. The editors have

never pretended to an “understanding of Hylo-Idealism” nor do they

entertain any such rash hope for the future. They belong to that

humble class of mortals who labour to their dying day under the

belief that 2 × 2 = 4, and can by no means, even hylo-idealistic,

make 5. “C. N.”’s letter placed the new “philosophy” in an

entirely different light; firstly, because it is written in good

English, and because the style of the writer is extremely

attractive; and secondly, because at least one point has now been

made clear to the editors: “Hylo-Idealism” is, like modern

spiritualism, the _essence of transcendental materialism_. If in

Mr. Huxley’s opinion Comte’s Positivism is, in practice,

“Catholicism _minus_ Christianity,” in the views of the editors of

LUCIFER Hylo-Idealism is “Metaphysics _minus_ psychology

and—_physics_.” Let its apostles explain away its flagrant

contradictions, and then LUCIFER will be the first to render

justice to it as a philosophy. Meanwhile, it can only acknowledge

a number of remarkably profound thoughts that are to be found

scattered in independent solitude throughout the letters of Dr.

Lewins (Humanism _v._ Theism) and others, and—no more.]

_re_ HYLO-IDEALISM.

To the Editors of LUCIFER.

Perhaps space may be found in the February or other early issue of

your interesting and suggestive serial for the present curt

communication. In a footnote of your January number I am coupled

with Mr. H. Spencer as being more Atheist than Moleschott and

Büchner—to say nothing of such compromising and irresolute

scientists as Darwin, Huxley, and Co. Now, that atheistic or

non-animist standpoint is the pivot on which my whole synthesis

revolves; and is, I contend, the burning problem at this

epoch—ethical and intellectual—of the human mind—_thoroughly_ to

establish on certain concrete, rational and scientific _data_, that

is to say—not on the Utopias of Speculation and Metaphysics. My

principle is exactly that of Kant (inter alios) when he formulates

the “Thing in Itself.” But we have only to study the short and handy

“Critique of Kant,” referred to in your columns—by Kuno Fischer,

translated by Dr. Hough, to see how fast and loose that

“all-shattering” metaphysician played with his all-destructive

theme. Not only does he entirely reverse it and its corollaries in

his critique of the “Practical Reason,” and of “Judgment,” but also

in the second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason” itself, in

which originally, as its corollary, or rather concomitant, he, like

myself, only on less sure premises, disposes of God, the Soul (Anima

or Vital Principle), and Immortality—that is of another “personal”

life after death. I hold with Lucretius, Epicurus, and others in

ancient and modern times, of whom Shelley is a typical case, that no

greater benefit can be bestowed on humanity than the elimination

from sane thought of this ghastly and maddening Triune Spectre. God

alone is quite “l’infame” Voltaire dubs the Catholic Church. Looking

through Nature “red in tooth and claws” to its _pseudo_ Author, we

must expect to find a _Pandemon_. For any omnipotent Being who,

unconditioned and unfettered in all respects, “_willed_” such a

world of pain and anguish for sentient creatures, must be a Demon

_worse_ than mythology has fabled of Satan, Moloch, Mammon, or other

fiends. It must be noted that in the classic Pantheon, the Fates, or

Fatal Sisters, are “above” all the Immortals of Olympus, including

Jove himself—a saving provision quite inadmissible in modern

Monotheism, which endows its Divinity[189] with absolute omnipotence

and fore-knowledge.

ROBERT LEWINS, M.D.

-----

Footnote 189:

Deuce, _i.e._, Devil, is the synonym of _Deus_.

-----

---

HYLO-IDEALISM.

To the Editors of LUCIFER.

I have to thank you for your kind insertion of my note on above in

January issue of the Magazine.

I have not the slightest desire to quarrel with your prefaced

comments on my style of writing. It seems to you to be “turgid,” and

you take advantage of some unkind epithets lately dealt out to

Theosophy in the _Secular Review_ to return the compliment to me

with interest added. Be it so. It would seem but fair to, let me

say, compliment those, and those only, who have directly

complimented you; but I have no wish, as I have just said, to find

fault with _any_ comment on Hylo-Idealism or on the methods of its

advocacy. _All_ criticism is, I know, received by the excogitator of

the system with thanks, and, save that both he and I think your note

_re “Theobroma”_ not a little at fault (for explanation I refer you

to the well-known Messrs. Epps), I can say the same for myself.

I can see, however, in spite of the raillery with which you honour

us, that a right understanding of Hylo-Idealism—I beg pardon,

_High-low_ Idealism—is still very far from being yours. Why, in a

recent issue of LUCIFER the old difficulty of, as I call it, the

“Coincident assumption of Materiality” is started as if it had never

before been thought of. It is, in point of fact, fully dealt with in

my “Appendix” to the “Auto-Centricism” pamphlet, which has already

passed under your review! It is not worth while to enter once more

upon this point; suffice it then to say, in addition, that I

explained it also, at full length, to a Theosophical writer—Mr. E.

D. Fawcett—in the _Secular Review_, some months ago. He had started

the same venerable objection, but after my reply, he so far honoured

me as not to return to the charge. Let him do so now, and then a

Theosophical attack and a Hylo-Ideal defence will be before you.

But, really, it is no argument against my position to extract some

half-dozen lines of my writing from a contemporary and to follow

this _soupçon_ with three printer’s “shrieks.”

I shall wait with interest the promised letter from “C. N.,” placing

Hylo-Idealism in a “new and very different light,” as you say. This

is something quite new. Dr. Lewins, C. N., and I have, none of us,

been able, hitherto, to find any material difference between our

several presentations of the system.

I have the honour to be, Mesdames,

Your most obedient servant,

G. M. McC.

TO DR. LEWINS, AND THE HYLO-IDEALISTS AT LARGE.

The several learned gentlemen of the above persuasion, who have

honoured LUCIFER with their letters and articles, will please to

accept the present as a collective Reply. Life is too short to

indulge very often in such lengthy explanations. But “une fois n’est

pas coutume.”

In “coupling” Dr. Lewins’ name with those he mentions—especially

with Mr. Herbert Spencer’s—the Editors had assuredly no intention of

saying anything derogatory to the dignity of the founder of

Hylo-Idealism. They have called the latter system—its qualification

of _Idealistic_ notwithstanding——“atheistical,” and to this Dr.

Lewins himself does not demur. Quite the contrary. If his protest

(against a casual remark made in a footnote of two lines!) means

anything at all, it means that he feels hurt to find his name

associated with the names of such “compromising and (in _atheism_)

irresolute scientists as Darwin, Huxley, and Co.” What is it that

our erudite correspondent demurs to, then? Just that, and nothing

more. His prefixed adjectives refer to the half-heartedness of these

gentlemen in the matter of atheism and materialism, not surely, to

their scientific achievements. Indeed, these illustrious naturalists

are timid enough to leave half-opened doors in their speculations

for something to enter in which is not quite matter, and yet what it

is they do not, or _do not wish_ to know.

Indeed, they derive man, his origin and consciousness, _only_ from

the lower forms of animal creation and the brutes, instead of

attributing life, mind and intellect—as the followers of the new

System do—simply to the pranks played by _Prakriti_ (the great

Ignorance and Illusion) on our “diseased nervous centres”—_abstract

thought_ being synonymous with _Neuropathy_ in the teachings of the

Hylo-Idealists (see _Auto-Centricism_, p. 40). But all this has been

already said and _better said_ by Kapila, in his _Sankhya_, and is

very old philosophy indeed; so that Messrs. Darwin and Co. have

been, perhaps, wise in their generation to adopt another theory. Our

great Darwinists are practical men, and avoid running after the hare

and the eagle at the same time, as the hare in such case would be

sure to run away, and the eagle to be lost in the clouds. They

prefer to ignore the ideas and conceptions of the Universe, as held

by such “loose,” and—as philosophically expressed by our

_uncompromising_ opponent—“all-shattering metaphysicians as Kant

was.” Therefore letting all such “metaphysical crack-brained

theories” severely alone, they made man and his thinking _Ego_ the

lineal descendant of the revered ancestor of the now tailless

baboon, our beloved and esteemed first cousin. This is only logical

_from the Darwinian standpoint_. What is, then, Dr. Lewins’ quarrel

with these great men, or with us? They have their theory, the

inventor of Hylo-Idealism has his theory, we, Metaphysicians, have

our ideas and theories; and, the _Moon_ shining with impartial and

equal light on the respective occiputs of Hylo-Idealists,

Animalists, and Metaphysicians, she pours material enough for every

one concerned to allow each of them to “live and let live.” No man

can be at once a Materialist and an Idealist, and remain consistent.

Eastern philosophy and occultism are based on the _absolute unity_

of the Root Substance, and they recognise only one infinite and

universal CAUSE. The Occultists are UNITARIANS _par excellence_. But

there is such a thing as conventional, time-honoured terms with one

and the same meaning attached to them all—at any rate on this plane

of illusion. And if we want to understand each other, we are forced

to use such terms in their generally-accepted sense, and avoid

calling mind matter, and vice versâ. The definition of a

_materialised “Spirit”_ as frozen whiskey is in its place in a

humouristic pun: it becomes an absurdity in philosophy. It is Dr.

Lewins’ argument that “the very first principle of logic is, that

two ‘causes’ are not to be thought of when one is sufficient;” and

though the first and the ultimate, the Alpha and the Omega in the

existence of the Universe, is one absolute cause, yet, on the plane

of manifestations and differentiations, matter, as phenomenon, and

Spirit as noumenon, cannot be so loosely confused as to merge the

latter into the former, under the pretext that one self-evident

natural cause (however secondary in the sight of logic and reason)

is “sufficient for our purpose,” and we need not “transcend the

proper conditions of thought” and fall back upon the lower level of

“lawless and uncertain fancy”—i.e., metaphysics. (_Vide_ “Humanism

_v._ Theism,” pp. 14, 15.)

We have nothing whatever, I say it again, against “Hylo-Idealism”

with the exception of its compound and self-contradictory name. Nor

do we oppose Dr. Lewins’ earlier thoughts, as embodied in “C. N’s”

“HUMANISM _versus_ THEISM.” That which we permit ourselves to object

to and oppose is the later system grown into a _Bifrontian_,

Janus-like monster, a hybrid _duality_ notwithstanding its forced

mask of Unity. Surely it is not because Dr. Lewins calls “Spirit—a

_fiction_” and attributes Mind, Thought, Genius, Intellect, and all

the highest attributes of thinking man to simple effects or

functions of Hylo-zoism, that the greatest problem of psychology,

_the relation of mind to matter_, is solved? No one can accuse “The

Adversary” of too much tenderness or even regard for the conclusions

of such rank materialists as the Darwinians generally are. But

surely no impartial man would attribute their constant failure to

explain the relations of mind to matter, and the confessions of

their ignorance of the ultimate constitution of that matter itself,

to timidity and irresoluteness, but rather to the right cause:

_i.e._, the _absolute impossibility of explaining spiritual effects

by physical causes_, in the first case; and the presence of that in

matter which baffles and mocks the efforts of the physical senses to

perceive or feel, and therefore to explain it, in the second case.

It is not, evidently, a desire to _compromise_ that forced Mr.

Huxley to confess that “in strictness we (the Scientists) know

nothing about the composition of matter,” but the _honesty_ of a man

of science in not speculating upon what he did not believe in, and

knew nothing about. Does J. Le Conte insult the majesty of physical

science by declaring that the creation or destruction, increase or

diminution of matter, “_lies beyond the domain of science?_”[190]

And to whose prejudices does Mr. Tyndall pander, he, who once upon a

time shocked the whole world of believers in spiritual existence, by

declaring in his Belfast address that in matter alone was “the

promise and potency of every form and quality of life” (just what

Dr. Lewins does) when he maintains that “the passage _from the

physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of_ CONSCIOUSNESS

_is unthinkable_,” and adds:

“Granted that a definite thought and a molecular action in the

brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual

organ nor apparently any rudiments of the organ, which would

enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from one to the other.

They appear together, but _we do not know why_. Were our minds and

senses so expanded, strengthened and illuminated, as to enable us

to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable

of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their

electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately

acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling,

we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem. ‘How

are these physical processes connected with the facts of

consciousness?’ The chasm between the two classes of phenomena

would still remain intellectually impassable.”[191]

-----

Footnote 190:

“_Correl._ of _Vital with Chem. and Physical Forces_.” Appendix.

Footnote 191:

“Fragments of Science.”

-----

To our surprise, however, we find that our learned

correspondent—Tyndall, Huxley & Co., notwithstanding—has passed the

_intellectually impassable_ chasm by modes of perception,

“anti-intellectual,” so to speak. I say this in no impertinent mood;

but merely following Dr. Lewins on his own lines of thought. As his

expressions seem absolutely antiphrastic in meaning to those

generally accepted by the common herd, “anti-intellectual” would

mean with the Hylo-Idealists “anti-spiritual” (spirit being a

_fiction_ with them). Thus their Founder must have crossed the

impassable chasm—say, by a hylo-zoistic process of perception,

“starting from the region of rational cogitation” and not from “that

lower level of lawless and uncertain fancy,” as Theosophists,

Mystics, and other _hoi polloi_ of thought, do. He has done it to

his own “mental satisfaction,” and this is all a Hylo-Idealist will

ever aspire to, as Dr. Lewins himself tells us. He “cannot deny that

there may be _behind_ (?) nature a ‘cause of causes,’[192] but if

so, it is a god who hides himself, or itself, from mortal thought.

Nature is at all events vice-regent plenipotentiary, and with _her_

thought has alone to deal.” Just so, and we say it too, for reasons

given in the footnote. “There is a natural solution for everything,”

he adds. “Of course, if there be no ‘cause,’ this solution is the

arrangement and co-ordination of invariable sequences in our own

minds ... rather than an ‘explanation’ or ‘accounting for’

phenomena. Properly speaking we can ‘account for’ nothing. _Mental

satisfaction_—unity between microcosm and macrocosm, not the search

after ‘First Causes.’ ... is the true chief end of man.” (Hum. _v._

Theism, p. 15.)

-----

Footnote 192:

We Theosophists, who do not _limit_ nature, do not see the “cause

of causes” or the _unknowable_ deity _behind_ that which is

limitless, but identify that abstract Nature with the deity

itself, and explain its visible laws as secondary effects on the

plane of Universal Illusion.

-----

This seems the backbone of Hylo-Idealistic philosophy, which

thus appears as a cross breed between Epicurianism and the

“Illusionism” of the Buddhist Yogachâras. This stands proven

by the contradictions in his system. Dr. Lewins seems to have

achieved that, to do which every mortal scientist has hitherto

failed, firstly, by declaring (in Hum. _v._ Theism, p. 17) the

whole objective world—“_phenomenal_ or _ideal_”,[193] and

“everything in it _spectral_” (Auto-Centricism, p. 9), and yet

_admitting the reality of matter_. More than this. In the

teeth of all the scientific luminaries, from Faraday to

Huxley, who all confess to knowing NOTHING of matter, he

declares that—“Matter organic and inorganic _is now fully

known_” (Auto-Centricism, p. 40)!!

-----

Footnote 193:

We call the _noumenal_—the “ideal.”

-----

I humbly beg Dr. Lewins’ pardon for the rude question; but does he

really mean to say what he does say? Does he want his readers to

believe that up to his appearance in this world of matter, thinking

men did not know what they were talking about, and that among all

the “Ego Brains” of this globe his brain is the one omniscient

_reality_, while all others are empty phantasms,or _spectral_

balloons? Besides which, matter cannot surely be _real_ and _unreal_

at the same time. If _unreal_—and he maintains it—then all Science

can know about it is that it knows _nothing_, and this is precisely

what Science confesses. And if _real_—and Dr. Lewins, as shown,

declares it likewise—then his _Idealism_ goes upside down, and

_Hylo_ alone remains to mock him and his philosophy. These may be

trifling considerations in the consciousness of an _Ego_ of Dr.

Lewins’ power, but they are very serious contradictions, and also

impediments in the way of such humble thinkers as Vedantins,

Logicians, and Theosophists, toward recognising, let alone

appreciating, “Hylo-Idealism.” Our learned correspondent pooh-poohs

Metaphysics, and at the same time not only travels on purely

metaphysical grounds, but adopts and sets forth the most

metaphysical tenets, the very gist of the PARA-metaphysical Vedanta

philosophy, tenets held also by the Buddhist “Illusionists”—the

_Yogachâras_ and _Madhyamikas_. Both schools maintain that all is

void (_sarva sûnya_), or that which Dr. Lewins calls spectral and

phantasmal. Except internal sensation or intelligence (_vijnâna_)

the Yogachâras regard everything else as illusion. Nothing that is

material can have any but a _spectral_ existence with them. So far,

our “Bauddhas” are at one with _the_ Hylo-Idealists, but they part

at the crucial moment. The New School teaches that the Brain (the

originator of consciousness) is the only factor and Creator of the

visible Universe; that in _it_ alone all our ideas of external

things are born, and that, apart from it, nothing has real

existence, everything being illusion. Now what has that Brain, or

rather the material its particles and cells are composed of,

distinct in it from other matter that it should be rendered such

honours? _Physically_, it differs very little indeed from the brain

stuff and cranium of any anthropoid ape. Unless we divorce

consciousness, or the EGO, from matter, one materialistic philosophy

is as good as the other, and none is worth living for. What his

Brain-Ego _is_, Dr. Lewins does not show anywhere. He urges that his

“atheistic or _non-animist_ (soulless) standpoint is the _pivot_” on

which his “whole synthesis revolves.” But as that “pivot” is no

higher than the physical brain with its hallucinations, then it must

be a broken reed indeed. A philosophy that goes no further than

superficial Agnosticism, and says that “what Tennyson says of Deity

_may_ be true, but it is not in the region of natural cogitation;

for it transcends the logical _Encheiresis naturæ_“ (Hum. _v._

Theism)—is no philosophy, but simply _unqualified negation_. And one

who teaches that ”_savants_, or specialists, are the last to reach

the _summa scientiæ_, for the constant _search_ after knowledge must

ever prevent its _fruition_” (ibid), cuts the ground himself under

his feet, and thus loses the right, not only to be considered a man

of science, but likewise his claim to the title of philosopher, for

he rejects all knowledge. Dr. Lewins, quoting Schiller, “to the

effect that truth can never be reached while the mind is in its

analytic throes,” shows the poet-philosopher saying that:—“To

capture the fleeting phantom he (the analyst) must fetter it by

rules, must anatomatise its fair body into concepts, and imprison

_its living spirit_ into a bare skeleton of words”—and thus brings

this as a prop and proof of his own arguments that we need not

trouble ourselves with the “cause of causes.” But Schiller believed

in spirit and immortality, while the Hylo-Idealists deny them _in

toto_. What he says above is accepted by every Occultist and

Theosophist, simply because _he refers to the purely intellectual_

(not Spiritual) _analysis_ on the physical plane, and according to

the present scientific methods. Such analysis, of course, will never

help man to reach the real _inner_ soul-knowledge, but must ever

leave him stranded in the bogs of fruitless speculation.

The truth is, that Hylo-Idealism is at best QUIETISM—only on the

purely material plane. “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we

die,” seems its motto. Dr. Lewins tells us that he holds his views

with Epicurus. I beg leave to contradict again. Epicurus insisted

upon the necessity of making away with an unphilosophical,

anthropomorphic deity— a bundle of contradictions—and so do we,

the Theosophists. But Epicurus believed in gods, finite and

conditioned in space and time, still _divine_ when compared to

objective ephemeral man: again, just as we, Theosophists, believe

in them.

We feel sorry to have to say unpleasant truths. The Founder of

Hylo-Idealism is evidently a marvellously well-read man, his

learning is great and undeniable; and, we have always had an

instinctive respect for, and sympathy with, thinkers of his calibre.

But, we have been sent pamphlets and books on Hylo-Idealism for

review, and one would be truant to his duty to conceal one’s

honest and sincere views on anything. Therefore, we say that,

contradictions and inconsistencies in the Hylo-Idealistic system

apart, we find in it a mass of ideas and _arguments_ which come

forcibly home to us, because they are part and parcel of the Eastern

Idealism. Our premises and propositions seem to be almost identical

in some respects, but the conclusions we come to disagree in every

point, the most important of which is the true nature of matter.

This, which “has been _fabled_ as ‘Spirit,’” writes Dr. Lewins in

1878, “is really merely the ‘_vis insita_’ of matter or ‘nature’—the

latter a misnomer if creation or birth is a delusion, as it must be

on the hypothesis of the eternity of matter.”

Here the Doctor speaks evidently of “Spirit” from the Christian

stand-point, and criticises it from this aspect. And from this

stand-point and aspect he is perfectly right; but as wrong from

those of Eastern philosophy. Did he but view Spirit, _as one with

eternal matter_, which, though eternal _in esse_ is but finite and

conditioned during its periodical manifestations, he would not so

materialise its _vis insita_—which is _vis vitæ_ but when applied to

individual manifestations, the living subjects of illusion, or

animated bodies. But this would lead us too far, and we must close

the subject with one more protest. There is a casual remark in

“Humanism _v._ Theisms” to the effect (on the authority of Ueberweg)

that “the early Greek thinkers and Sages were Hylo-Zoists.” Aye,

learned Doctor; but the early Greek thinkers understood Hylo-Zoism

(from “_Hyle_” _primordial_ matter, or what the greatest chemist in

England, Mr. Crookes, has called “protyle” _undifferentiated

matter_, and “_Zoe_,” life) in a way very different from yours. So

are we, Theosophists and Eastern Occultists, “Hylo-Zoists”; but it

is because with us “life” is the synonym both of Spirit and Matter,

or the ONE eternal and infinite LIFE whether manifested or

otherwise. That LIFE is both the eternal IDEA and its periodical

LOGOS. He who has grasped and mastered this doctrine completely has

thereby solved the mystery of BEING.

“THE ADVERSARY.”

P.S.—We have in type a very excellent article by Mr. L. Courtney,

which could not find room in this present number, but will appear in

March. In it, the writer says all that he _can_ possibly say in

favour of Hylo-Idealism, and that is all one can do. Thus, LUCIFER

will give one fair chance more to the new System; after which it

will have gained a certain right to neither answer at such length,

nor accept any article on Hylo-Idealism that will go beyond a page

or so.—“A.”

------------------------------------

INTERESTING TO ASTROLOGERS.

ASTROLOGICAL NOTES—No. 4.

_To the Editor of_ LUCIFER.

QUESTION, at London, 1887, March 2nd, 6.8 p.m. What will be the

duration of quesited’s life?

Though the preceding figure showed that my relative would recover

from his illness,[194] yet it was obvious that the end could not be

far distant; and I drew the present figure for the minute of the

impression, to interrogate the stars.

-----

Footnote 194:

NOTE.—This was shown by the preceding figure; a weak aspect in

horary astrology can only symbolize a weak result. Hence, though

the weakly good semisextile was sufficient to indicate

convalescence from a self-limited disease like pneumonia, yet it

did not denote complete restoration to health. Had the

significators been applying to a Trine, I should have judged not

only convalescence from the acute attack, but a continuance of a

vigorous old age.

-----

The following are the elements of the figure:—

Cusp of 10th house 14 ♊.

— 11th house 21 ♋.

— 12th house 22 ♌.

— 1st house 17° 45’ ♍.

— 2nd house 10 ♎.

— 3rd house 9 ♏.

Planets’ places are:

♆ 25. 13. 15 ♉.

♅ 11. 37. 30 R. ♎.

♄ 15. 46. 30 R ♋.

♃ 5. 41. 30 R ♏.

♂ 23. 50. 45 ♓.

☉ 11. 52. 19 ♓.

♀ 3. 10. 30 ♈.

☿ 29. 36. 15 ♓.

☽ 8. 28. 15 ♊.

Caput Draconis 27. 21. 38 ♌.

⨁ 14. 20. 56 I.

As in the previous figure the 6th house is the quesited’s 1st, and

the 1st house is his 8th. As the time of the question was after

sunset, ☿ ruling ♏ by night was lord of his 8th, and ♅ ruling ♒ by

night was lord of his 1st. The aspect of the significators is ☿ 167°

58’ 45” ♅, separating from the Quincunx and applying to the

Opposition. The Quincunx is, like the Conjunction and Parallel,

convertible in nature, being good with benefics and evil with

malefics, and when a benefic and malefic are thus joined, the

stronger rules. It was therefore in this case doubly evil, as the

significators were separating from one evil aspect and applying to

another though not within orbs of either. As ☿, the applying planet,

was in a common sign, and is an angle of the figure, each degree

signified a week; and as 12° 1′ 15´´ were wanted to complete the

opposition, the critical period was shown to be a fraction over 12

weeks, or May 25th.

Danger to life was also shown by _Cauda Draconis_ in quesited’s 1st

house; by ☉ in quesited’s 1st afflicted by a very close Quincunx of

♅ lord of his 1st, ♅ moreover receiving ☉ in his Detriment, and ☉

receiving ♅ in his Fall; and by ☽, lady of quesited’s 6th, posited

in his 4th, and afflicted by a rather close Quartile of ☉ posited in

his 1st, ☉ moreover receiving ☽ in his Anti-triplicity (_sit venia

verbo_). Nevertheless, as the significators were not actually in any

evil aspect, ☿ moreover receiving ♅ in his Triplicity, and being

almost out of ♓ his Fall and Detriment, and the Detriment of ♅; ☽,

lady of his 6th, and posited in his 4th, applying to a Trine of ♅

lord of his 1st; and ☿ lord of his 8th applying to Conjunction with

♀ lady of his 4th, ♀ moreover receiving ☿ in her exaltation;—all

this denoted that May 25th would be the time, not indeed of certain

death, but of imminent danger, the beginning of the end.

⨁ being in the 4th house of the figure, almost on the cusp, denoted

a legacy to my father.

The actual result was as follows: After having been for some time in

fair health, considering his age and recent illness, _he was

suddenly taken ill and in great danger on the night of May 27th, and

on the morning of May 31st was in articulo mortis, and given up by

his two physicians_. From this, however, he rallied; relapsed on the

night of July 6th; rallied again; but _died on July 19th_ at 8.30

a.m., after a sudden seizure of only 15 minutes’ duration, _and my

father received a legacy under his will_.

The quesited suffered much in his last illness from cough and

dyspnœa. The certificate of death was—“_Primary_: emphysema, morbus

cordis. _Secondary_: thrombus, syncope.” With this may be compared ♄

in ♋, having dignity in quesited’s 8th house, and afflicting ♅ lord

of quesited’s 1st. ♄ in ♋ denotes “phthisis, ulceration in lungs,

obstructions and bruises in breast, ague, scurvy, cancer, and

cough.”

NEMO.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note

Some longer stories and articles are continued from number to number

of the publication. Where the continued text appears in this volume,

the ‘to be continued’ note a the bottom of each section is linked to

the next. On occasion, the promised continuation is not to be found

in thi text, and no link is provided.

On p. 236, the footnote now numbered 56 was referenced both in the

title of the review and on the repetition of that phrase in the body

of the review. The first of these has been removed as redundant. On

occasion, diacritical marks in foreign words were not printed, and

have not been added here.

The copious quotations give rise to the occasional puzzle with

quotation marks, which make it difficult to say what the authors

intended. Where there is no simple resolution, the text is given

here as printed. The problematic paragraphs appear on p. 151, p.

164, p. 179, p. 205, p. 277, p. 295, p. 305.

Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been

corrected as noted below.

The references are to the page and line in the original. Where the

page is printed in columns, ‘L’ and ‘R’ refer to the left and right

columns. Those referenced with three numbers indicate the page,

footnote and line within the note. Since footnotes have sometimes

been moved to follow a paragraph, all references are to their

position in the printed text.

3.1.2 How art thou [f]allen from Heaven Restored.

20.1 in which the Zoroast[r]ian Mitra Inserted

22.1.1 tha[t] John saw Restored.

22.2.9 it literally means ‘to howl.’[”] Added.

38.4 I have p[re/er]suaded my aunt Transposed.

44.16 chapters of the Bha[ga]vadgita Inserted.

51.1 self-contained and harmonious within[.] Added.

55.31 the high plateaux of Central Asia[.] Added.

55.40 some amount of injustice in it[.] Added.

60.6 Count Tolstoi considers it nec[e]ssary Inserted.

67.2 in [leasurely] fashion _sic_

69.13 in the Villa Torcello[.] Added.

72L.33 my books been par[a/o]died Replaced.

75L.55 by [C/G]. H. Pember Replaced.

79R.43 But as LU[FIC/CIF]ER hopes shortly to deal Transposed.

74R.15 [“]That the first human beings Added.

80R.33 [“]The famous cynic, Cratus, Removed.

84.41 his theosop[h]ical views. Inserted.

85.19 the social respectabili[l/t]y it panders to Replaced.

87.40 [innoculated] with vice, _sic_

87.41 in his subsequent life[.] Added.

104.44 it grew importunate[.] Added.

116.8 the Hindu philosophical tenet[.] Added.

122.24 if he changes his a[l/t]titude Replaced.

122.33 that marriage is consummated.[”] Added.

124.32 [“]Not one would have the courage Added.

131.3 By [C/G]. H. Pember, M.A. Replaced.

132.32 by such cavalier treatment[.] Added.

134.12 this [insistance] upon the letter _sic_

147.29 are pearls of wisdom[.] Added.

147.32 of the Ros[i]crucians Inserted.

152.28 ‘the Great Goddess[’] Added.

152.29 in the minds of Theosophists.[”] Added.

158R.43 is the day[-]house of ♅ Inserted.

164.6 members of that society who[ who] always find Removed.

172.15 and a benefic[i]ent power Removed.

179.3.12 principle of the Theosophists,[)] Added.

185.35 all occupied with [“/‘]Fou;[”/’] Replaced.

195.22 clos[e] to the great fire Restored.

204.45 Life-renewal and Life-tran[s]mission inserted.

201.26 draw it from you[r] own beautiful soul! Added.

205.38 and is himself examined of no man.[”] Added.

206.1 not for my life, assuredly[,/.] Replaced.

206.13 because it can give _me_[,] pleasure. Removed.

206.17 I am surr[r]ounded with a whole world Removed.

206.31 may be made comfortable.[”] Added.

209.36 within his soul.[”] Removed.

218.44 most wonderfull[l]y Removed.

217.23 aim of this work[,] the bias of the writer Added.

224.33 the irrational[i]ty Inserted.

226.40 the p[h]yschic-astral and the divine-astral Removed.

230.11 in[ ]dulge in the practice Removed.

233.3 before the seventee[n]th century Inserted.

233.27 cons[e]quently the great cry Inserted.

236.27 pheno[nem/men]a of modern spiritualism Transposed.

256.7 the lustre of the firma[n/m]ent Replaced.

260.38 uplifted to his were Fleta’s eyes[.] Added.

261.17 but [eat] nothing more _sic>_

263.39 pushed the door open[,/.] Replaced.

265.38 a passionate and adoring eagerness[.] Added.

273.59 [l]ife of the Spirit Restored.

278.44 the only one to see me[,/.] Replaced.

283.15 repugnant to a belie[t/f] in this law Replaced.

284.31 in a position to apprecia[i/t]e Replaced.

292.17 as in the Jubilee[e] coinage Removed.

292.28 The question of what interpreta[ta]tion Removed.

293.68.2 (1 Corinthians xi, 11.[)] Added.

296.7 or [“/‘]problematical[”/’] Mahatma?” Replaced.

299.29 since it beg[u/a]n by a “play of words,” Replaced.

301.1.5 the Word of Truth, th[e] _Makheru_ of Egypt. Restored.

301.1.6 The preserved mummy was the bod[y] Restored.

301.15 [“]χρηστός ἑστιν επι τους,” Added.

302.16 and even by unbelievers,[”] _sic_

302.1.1 [“]Christianus quantum interpretatione Added.

303.2.3 or devoted to oracul[e/a]r services Replaced.

304.25 “the son of Iaso or _Ieso_, the [“]healer,” Removed.

305.4 of this rema[r]kable form. Inserted.

305.36 with [“/‘]oil that was taken from the wood Replaced.

305.37 he is called the Christ:[”/’] Replaced.

305.41 also as the Horus of both sexes.[”] Added.

305.2.1 for in[t]itiation into the Greek Removed.

306.34 the name of the Christ as the e[n/m]balmed Replaced.

mummy

306.47 With the Greek [t]erminal _s_ Restored.

307.30 our Christology is mummified mythology.” Removed.

309.2.1 [“]The word שיה _shiac_, Removed.

310.19 ([“]λεγόμενος,” surnamed “χρηστος.”) Added.

303.3.3 [(]here Socrates is the _Chréstos_) Added.

303.4.12 circle and solar year,[”] _sic_

311.36 tran[s]gress> that law? Inserted.

313.1 while parasit[i]es eat slowly Removed.

317.9 in the [mechanicism] of the Universe _sic_

317.13 pessimism is ro[u/o]ted in the recognition Replaced.

322.29 and that _[“] system_ Added.

326.22 from any obligatory duty.[”] Removed.

326.28 thrown the blame and responsibi[i]lty Removed.

327.55 whether in[ it] its dead letter, Removed.

330L.14 having di[r/s]burdened our heart Replaced.

332L.18 they disarm cri[c/t]icism Replaced.

333R.61 even altars unto Baal[”] Added.

334R.51 [“]where the women wove hangings for the Added.

grove”

335L.44 and the [“]Kaivalyanita.” Added.

334L.29 and by the famine....[’/”] Replaced.

349.32 knew that man to be a savage[.] Added.

351.36 recognised it as his own room[,/.] Replaced.

360.23 it was exceedingly solid and well fastened[.] Added.

361.20 [“]I may not readily understand you. Added.

366.13 were all in all to us![”] Added.

367.27 that reigneth over all![”] Added.

372.23 cannot subsist witho[n/u]t the spiritual force Inverted.

373.42 have themselves an organic form[,/.] Replaced.

375.8 —probably many[.] Added.

386.25 should he meet him in Heaven[,/.] Replaced.

387.25 [me] Ambrose’s sword _sic_ ?

389.34 [“/‘]thou> must be Replaced.

390.19 as you shall hear.[”] Added.

404.11 vegetable forms [a]s well? Restored.

406.30 from not[—/-]living matter.[’]” Replaced/Removed.

407.1.1 [“]missing link” Restored.

409.47 (actual or possible)[”] Added.

411.3 the root of [uo/ou]r present constitution Transposed.

412.19 in accepting the doct[r]ine of Atonement Inserted.

413.16 the[,] Church wishes the truth, Removed.

417.19 and transfer it [to ]the shoulders Inserted.

434.29 an hono[n/u]rable reputation Inverted.

436.1.14 to the [‘]Lord’ for a burnt-offering Restored.

437.19 must be the _d[’]evil_ worship _sic_

447.35 they were set in[.] Added.

447.27 which was habitual with him[.] Added.

450.2 learned to surrender his love.[”] Added.

456.14 follow and s[ie/ei]ze her thoughts Transposed.

469.7 [“]No one said aught Added.

472.3.1 [“]breaks through the Brahmarandra _sic_

474.5 three-fold r[h]ythm Inserted.

477.7 it would never [h/b]e his. Replaced.

477.27 by personal craving or desire[.] Added.

481.10 the quickest violet[.] Added.

484.10 the very ar[ô/o]ma of our thoughts Replaced.

486.5 the i[n]diosyncrasies of a nation Removed.

490.12 “Faith is the key of Christendom,[’/”] Replaced.

494.41 only a coun[f/t]erfeit Presentment Replaced.

495.23 _but for destruction_.[”] Added.

502.35 the Deit[r]y is either an anachronism, Removed.

502.39 in the tract entitle[s/d] “Autocentricism, or Replaced.

the Brain Theory of Life and Mind.”

503.10 which certifies it[s] own nomenal existence. Added.

503.13 the nöetic or hyloic basis[.] Added.

503.14 admits of sci[e]ntific research Inserted.

503.28 such states of rapture the relatio[u/n]s Replaced.