Transcendentalism is today the one subject which is demanding the greatest
attention. The race mind is beginning to think in words of transcendental
language rather than in the old law of science and philosophy, and all the
light of modern investigation centres round the one who declares himself a
transcendentalist.
We may say that a man is a scientist, a philosopher or a materialist, and
the world will know at once what we mean, but if we say that he is a
transcendentalist we leave an open doorway for investigation; there is
something yet to be learned about him, something that no one knows about
but himself.
Anyone can easily define a scientist, a philosopher and a psychologist,
but they halt in more or less indecision when they are asked to define a
transcendentalist, and it is only when we understand that a
transcendentalist is one who has extended his normal consciousness into
relationship with the deeper laws of the universe, so that he uses
naturally these laws and is perfectly familiar and at home in states of
consciousness which the rest of the world call supernatural, and with
which they are entirely unfamiliar, that we can come to a true definition
of the transcendentalist.
Transcendentalism has been a part of race unfolding since time began, and
will continue to be throughout all race evolution.
In the old civilization we studied the transcendentalist and
transcendentalism from an entirely different view-point than we do today.
Transcendentalism is a state of consciousness and man evolves into it out
of the natural states of his own mind. No one is to blame that he is, or
is not, a transcendentalist. He becomes one not alone because he wills to
become, but also because he is one with the divine law of creation and the
God-consciousness within him pushes him on through one state of unfoldment
to another.
There are two expressions of universal and finite mind, one is the
objective, the revealed, the apparent, and one is the subjective, the
concealed, the absolute.
The objective side of mind belongs to the surface consciousness of man,
and is in itself a distinct state of existence, it is bounded on every
side by its own laws, and commands its own obedience. The subjective side
of life belongs to the inner side of mind and is also a distinct state of
existence bounded by itself and the laws of its own kingdom, and without a
deep knowledge of universal law, man has little power of connecting these
two strong zones of consciousness.
Studying life in the light of our modern understanding, we find that man
passes by natural law through the objective, the surface zone, then on to
the subjective or inner zone, and then to a centralized position between
both zones where he lives, moves and has being in both zones, uniting the
laws of the two kingdoms into a new zone of consciousness, then using the
laws of both, he passes at will to the very edge of matter, and back to
the very center of the cosmic mind; standing here in life's master
position, he is lord of both zones. This middle zone of power and mastery
is the path of the modern transcendentalist, and the one who walks it and
lives in unification with its laws is the _modern transcendentalist_
of the new civilization. It has been written--
"_For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to
destruction, and many there be who go in thereat" because_
"_Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto
Life_."
We know today that this is true, for on the broad path of the objective
life man must pass through the law of change which destroys, that it may
create again and through which he is crowded on to seek the narrow path of
subjective senses which are built on the law of verities.
Man's first lessons are in the objective zone of mind, and he remains
positive in this zone until he masters its laws and the lessons which they
bring.
In this objective zone of mind we find the mass man of the old
civilization, he is in the _broad way_ of the surface consciousness,
and in his midst there dwells the specialized individuals who are
approaching the central zones of mind; they are called the scientist, the
physicist, the materialist, the agnostic, the mentalist, the reasoner, and
the atheist, all true and perfect for their type but all more or less
unconscious of the latent states of mind within themselves and the
universe to which they must some day respond.
As human consciousness intensifies through use, man finds himself passing
on through his surface zones to the concealed states of mind within
himself, "the narrow way," and slowly, almost unconsciously at first, he
begins manifesting the law of these zones. In these states of mind we find
the philosopher, the idealist, the emotionalist, the psychist, the
sensitive, the intuitionist, the revelator, the transcendentalist and the
seer.
Watching race evolution we see that the day of surface consciousness and
its power is waning only as it is controlled and manipulated through the
subjective states of man's mind. The hour for subjective research and
subjective introspection is at hand,--men have mastered the external world
and its laws, and are now following the cosmic urge which is pushing them
toward the center and away from the _apparent_ to the _absolute_
laws of life.
The external evolution of form is complete for this hour; men go down into
the bowels of the earth, they sail the seas, they mount the air on wings,
and the external world has seen "the son of man coming in clouds of glory"
and now the eternal man must have his hour, and come in "trailing robes of
power and brightness," to pour new revelation through the external world
and its laws.
Books, paintings, pictures, science, music have all had their day in
external exaltation, and now the attention of man is mounting higher and
turning inward; the study of the surface and sub-consciousness has been
transferred, and while part of the world's eyes are yet peering through
the microscope at the _sub-life_ and plenty are looking at the laws
of life around them, the transcendentalist with these truths locked fast
in his mind, is turning to the undiscovered states within himself, and is
everywhere launching out into the unfathomed states of the supra-mind of
man.
Man has evolved like a planet through the stone age of mind and today with
the planet in the vibratory zone of water and _air_ he has risen with
it into the transcendent states of his own being.
Many transcendentalists are living so naturally in the beginning
manifestations of the supra-mind that they hardly recognize them as
uncommon and the world is becoming peopled with a race of supra-men and
supra-women who are using the subtle laws of the transcendentalists of the
past, but not using them _alone_, or in _hidden cloisters_, or
through separate states of living, but using them as simple human
attributes of their own mind, and using them in the common marts of the
surface life with more real understanding than did the olden
transcendentalist in his specialized separated environment, assisted by
_secluded study_ and _special opportunities_.
The modern transcendentalist is a post graduate of the surface
consciousness, and uses it as simply a wireless machine with which he
registers his deeper perceptions, and with it links himself and his
revelation naturally to the natural world. He stands in natural communion
with both zones, and in this communion with deeper laws he attains a
supra-power, he walks his human pathway in human form, but he manipulates
his surface life with the power born of his supra-wisdom.
The modern transcendentalists form the corner-stones of the new
civilization. "For the new age will come quickly to its birth when this
His world, will know itself divine" and in this new civilization the mass
man will have for his surface consciousness, the deep subtle union of both
zones, and the specialized teacher, leader and messenger of this new age,
will forge ahead on the great white way of prophecy and seership which is
born from the union of the finite and infinite mind.
To the mind of the old civilization this will not seem true, for it is
still in the swaddling clothes of its old inheritance; in the thoughts of
the past, man and God, matter and spirit, finite and infinite have been so
long divorced and separated that it will be found difficult to accept the
union of incense and worship and reverence in the same breath with the
real, the apparent and the formed, but this is the hour for higher
prophecy, and that hour when the "lion and the lamb shall lie down
together."
To those who are really able to read the signs of the times, human
consciousness everywhere offers the greatest proof of this truth, for
looking with eyes that can see, we find that every individual is in
possession of eight distinct states of consciousness with which he can
operate in the subjective and objective zones.
There may be still greater stretches of the human mind into union with the
universal which the oncoming races will discover, but that there are eight
distinct levels of mind activity many know because they have touched them
and know them within themselves.
Some minds are active in one, some in two, some in three, and some in
four, and some are more or less distinct in all.
The mass man of the new civilization is awake in the _third_ and
_fourth_ dimensions of his mind, and those in higher reaches are
awake in the _fifth_ and _sixth_, a few are in the _seventh_ and
_eighth_, but the rank and file are familiar to some degree with all
these states.
The first or surface mind of man is in itself only cell consciousness,
touched by man's own intellect, and it is known as _instinct_, his
second expression of mind is known as _reason_, the third is
_emotion_ or _feeling_, and the fourth is instinct, reason and
emotion blended into one, and called _intuition_. The fifth and sixth
are above the plane of thought and feeling and includes them in a still
higher intensification; here thinking ceases and _registration_ is
the law, and here is where _revelation_ is born. The seventh and
eighth are still supra reaches of man's mind, and include the union or
surface consciousness with the higher states, in which the brain becomes
the wireless machine, through which flashes of divine wisdom comes; this
is called _Prophecy_ and _Seership_ and this is the product of
the "mirror-mind."
There are bodies and atmospheres to fit each transcendent state of mind,
and the transcendentalist can suspend any, or all of his states of mind,
one after another, and pass into direct atonement with any level with
which he wishes to function; he can at will live in a new world, and speak
with a new tongue, and fill his surface mind with a glory not its own,
"but which it had with Him before the world was."
These new states of mind in action extends man's world into the wider
reaches of the universal and adds to him new levels of wisdom and power.
There are reaches of intelligence far below and beyond the common
intelligence as the microscope and the telescope have shown, and at the
fourth and fifth dimension of consciousness man dispenses with all
material aids and uses the adjustments of his own being. He has found the
eyes, the cars, and the understanding of the supra-self, and by suspending
his surface mind through concentration and meditation he can enter any
sphere of thought at will and be in the land of clairvoyance,
clairaudience, and in the astral and atmospherian, or pass farther out and
register in his surface brain the wonders and laws of etherian, and
celestial worlds. He is at one with the world of the sensitive, the
impressionist and the medium, and in the deeper states of vision he can
see and read the memory tablets of the universe. In the higher
registrations he becomes cosmo-voyant and cosmo-audient, he can see and
hear through space and through ethers as the common eye looks through air.
These are not special gifts from God, but simply the gifts man gives
himself through the conscious use of what is already in his possession.
The power to extend sight and hearing far above and below the so-called
senses is latent within every individual and when the point of
transcendental development is reached he uses it naturally.
There are some people who can see birds in the air, ships at sea, stars in
the sky, while others standing beside them see only empty space. Just so
there are many everywhere on life's pathway who can extend their normal
vision and hearing to such an intensified vibratory rate that it not only
includes all the things of the physical plane but the things of the finer
ethers.
The transcendentalist standing on the streets of New York can extend his
vision and look at a street or building in Chicago or Cairo or London,
while the surface man alongside of him can scarcely read the signs on the
other side of the street.
The modern transcendentalist does only what the surface man does--he looks
to see and brings one hundred percent of his vision to bear upon his
desire, while the surface man has less than ten percent of himself in
action and that _only_ on one plane.
There are enough people on the planet today who can use these deep states
of mind, and induce the extended vision and hearing at will to make it
more than a mere hypothetical conclusion; there are X-ray beings among us
who have come into contact with a great fundamental principle both within
and without themselves.
The time will come in the near future, when the operator with the Roentgen
ray will stand beside his machine and look with wide open eyes and find
the X-ray in his own vision, and will work unlimited by the bondage of his
material machine.
Comparing the modern transcendentalist and his pathway with that of the
olden transcendentalist with his ascent of travail and pain, we find a
profound satisfaction in the picture of power, peace and love of the
modern supra-man.
The pathway of the elder supra-man was one of crucifixion, self-denial,
renunciation, affliction, poverty, disease and self-mortification. He
found the steps to the higher consciousness and its power only through
slow self-conquest and comradeship with pain, and this was the inheritance
he handed down through the centuries. To think in terms of mystical wisdom
meant human denial of all sentient life. Unification was bought through
total consecration to the subjective and the absolute, in which the
diverse could have no part.
Today "we are free where our sires were serfs, we can see where He left
them blind," and we know that God-consciousness is man's immortal
birthright and that the son of man must somewhere on his pathway become
the son of God, and as he passes on in his unfoldment he will contact
every atom of God-mind in all lines of expression, and from the world of
matter he will turn in time naturally to those levels of mind which lead
him into reverence, illumination and worship, and through this he finds
the whole of life.
Man in his immersion into cosmic consciousness puts forth profound tests
of his oneness and faces life in larger and larger proportions, and as he
ascends he carries all with him, so that he can give back to all a
profound and heroic response.
Every man is transcendent when the hour dawns for his transcendent self to
tremble into action.
With these wider reaches of consciousness the modern transcendentalist
finds the larger LIFE and the true way of living, and in this brings the
new message of the "One life in all and through all" into the mass mind,
and the new song of joy and thanksgiving into their hearts. He is never
sad, never agonizing, never renouncing; he has made contact with all life
and through this with the universal joy; there is no denial, no
separateness,--there is "no more crying," he conquers and ascends not
through separateness but through increasing degrees of union. He lives in
glad comradeship with God, in joy and perfected self-expression, both in
the objective and in the subjective world.
The ancient transcendentalist was always sad, always separate, always
worshipping in beatific loneliness, in seclusion and renunciation of the
world; the modern supra-man passes from end to end of the pole of being
and stops at any point and functions normally. "He stands and works, then
kneels and prays." He is lord of the outside external world and partaker
of all its divine joys and pleasures, and he is lord of all the deeper
reaches of subjective consciousness within himself and the absolute in
which he lives, and he brings out from these deeper levels all the
intensified power of illumination and revelation, and pours it over his
daily pathway illumining it with a glory not its own.
Many olden transcendentalists lived on in entranced states of divine
wisdom with diseased flesh and bodies that shrieked with pain, while they
mortified and rejected that divine wisdom. The modern transcendentalist
brings all his God-consciousness to bear upon his flesh and raises it to
the transcendent heights of his own mind and heals it until bone and
muscle and tissues gleam and scintillate with a new found beauty and
youth.
The olden transcendentalist dragged on in barren cells and dreary poverty
in order not to divert his glorified vision of the formless by the beauty
of the _ever present form_; the modern transcendentalist brings his
higher laws into play, conquers his poverty and commands around himself
the beauty and luxury and freedom of the world of form, and it speaks to
him in matchless raiment, luxuriant flowers, gems, material comforts and
soft ease. He lives in rapturous companionship with the glory and beauty
and majesty of God in the world _He has projected from Himself_, and
with this beneath him, he can rise to the very pinnacle of infinite
selfhood.
The olden transcendentalist, ascending into the transcendental heights of
his own mind, ascended alone, and from these obscure heights he shed his
wisdom back upon the evolving race; he was pioneer in the lands of cosmic
consciousness and the first revelator of the path; he showed the race that
the path was there to tread, and his messages have fallen as a benediction
on the race mind even while he himself bought his wisdom with pain,
renunciation and suffering built from the limited recognition of his own
mind.
The path winds onward and upward still, but the feet of those climbing it
today are led by still waters and in the paths of righteousness. They are
no longer in the part but are in the middle of the Divine Channel of
God-consciousness. To know _one_ part was the mission of the _past_;
to know _all parts_ and join them in a divine unity is the mission of
the _present_.
The modern transcendentalist does not love life less, he loves it more!
The world is alive with a new majesty; the passing multitude, the passing
face, every human attribute of life calls forth from him a deeper
interpretation; he walks out into the race mind, and with the power of a
new word, and a new touch heals it from its infirmity. He does in truth
give "absent treatments," and his word is accomplished; the old diseased
flesh transmutes in answer to his command. He speaks to the barren walls
of poverty and they stretch away into stately halls, for he knows that
wherever man posits his consciousness, substance must gather round it; his
new words of power and majesty fall like a benediction on the heart of the
listening multitudes, and they turn round to face a new tomorrow with a
new hope born of a larger understanding.
The transcendentalist walks often in our midst; sometimes he assumes the
simplicity of a child to disguise the larger stretches of power within
him, but he is out upon the pathway strong and beautiful, wholly replete
with promises of perfection, doing the work of the human.
There is a royal road from _appearance_ to _reality_, from
_objective_ to _subjective_, from the limited to the absolute.
Difference is merging into one _great white way_ through which the
new civilization is thronging, led by the intensified vision of the
supra-minds.
Unity has carried man above all things of human law, and he has found that
Mighty Force of which all is a part, and he is out into the land of "naked
visions" and _knows_.
He dwells securely upon the height and has ceased the long fight with the
objective half of himself; he is one with matter because he has
transcended and absorbed it; he is centralized in the formless and
spiritualized in the formed, and can say from the level of his own Christ
consciousness:
"_I and my Father are one."
"All that my Father hath is mine_."