is not connected with the specialty of plague-destruction. But those
doctors and other scientists who are devotedly going thither to save
the race from the horror that threatens it--to them shall be accorded
all the honors and glories of war _and_ of peace, for they have
consented, their higher selves have consented, that they be used in the
service of the world.
I have said before that the evil elemental beings fear the scientist;
and though the scientists fight this plague with material means, yet
the force of their will and of their unselfish purpose acts beyond the
material base of their operations, extending its influence even into
the invisible world of which their objective minds have no knowledge,
purifying it with vital air.
Yes, all honor to the scientists!
_April 26._
LETTER XXXII
JUDAS AND TYPHON
I HAVE spoken of the crucifixion through which the soul of the race is
passing. Now I want to speak of the Judas who betrayed that race for
thirty pieces of silver.
Reader of this book, whether you are a Jew, a Christian, a Hindoo or
a Mahometan, if you know anything at all about the initiatory process
of the soul, you must know that the gospel drama--be it historical
or legendary, whichever way you choose to take it--is a faithful
dramatization of the process of initiation.
And in that process the betrayal of Judas is an inevitable part.
Without it, the cup of bitterness would not be full, and the cup of
bitterness must be full for the soul of the race, the soul of the
individual, the soul of the Christ.
“My Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?” has been on the lips of many a
mangled soldier on this awful Calvary of the race.
The heavy cross has been borne all through the toilsome months of the
journey from Autumn to Spring, and now in the April time the race has
been nailed to the cross for the agony. The crown of thorns is on the
bleeding brows, the nails have pierced the hands and feet, the cup of
vinegar has been offered, and now on a million lips is the cry, “Eloi,
Eloi, lama Sabachthani!”
The betrayal of Judas was inevitable, as the deed of Typhon was
inevitable. Had it not been for Judas, the story would not be complete.
Had it not been for the act of Typhon in slaying Osiris, Horus the Son
could not have arisen.
And yet in the face of this I stand here--safe behind the veil of the
invisible, as some objectors will say--and advise the world to soften
the awful punishment of Judas, so far as lies in its power. For did not
that One himself say upon the cross, “_Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do_”?
Nothing in the Sermon on the Mount, nothing in the sacred records of
the East, nothing in the archives of the whole world can compare with
those ten words for grandeur and spiritual significance: “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do!”
They who now sin against the race, indeed know not _what_ they
do. They are drunk with the rage of destruction, maddened by the
sub-consciousness of their own guilt; but _what_ they do they
cannot know. Only the initiate souls among the Germans even vaguely
know what Germany has done.
And yet I say, forgive and pity them; for their office is a terrible
one, and their suffering will be great.
Fear not, when your blood relations are slain by thousands, and when
you feel yourself also slain by spiritual participation, _the good
must triumph in the end_, because the race is on its upward journey.
Its blood is not spilled in vain.
Did the human race not know, when it gave the sop to Germany in the
last conclave, that it was Germany who would betray it? The race knew.
And in that awful July the subconscious selves of men knew in their
sleep that the terrible trial was at hand. Do you remember? In many a
sensitive soul that drama was pre-enacted, before it was enacted on
this Calvary of the nations.
That Germany would betray the world was written in the soul of Germany;
but if the world should hate her with a continuing hate for that
betrayal, it would be a sore in the heart of the human race which would
ache for a thousand years. “Father, forgive them; for they know not
what they do.”
To admit the necessity of evil in the cosmic scheme is not to condone
evil. To forgive the sinner is not to minimize the sin. It is because
of the inability of the undeveloped mind to grasp the awful law of the
_balance of forces_ that the Guardians of the sacred knowledge
have been so reticent in their public utterances.
“It must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the
offense cometh,” has been repeated in thousands of churches; but the
latter half of the sentence has been understood far better than the
first half, “It _must_ needs be that offenses come.”
Being what she is, Germany could not help betraying the race to this
crucifixion. It was written that the human race would be betrayed, and
no nation could have done it but Germany.
Typhon was obliged to slay Osiris, by the very law of his being. And
now Isis, the great Mother, the Womanhood of the world, wanders
wailing up and down seeking for the fragments of the body of her
husband.
On the battle line for a thousand miles those fragments are scattered.
Isis is indeed widowed.
And as man is the type of the great Archetype, so one man stands
this day as the type of the Betrayer, and that man is _Wilhelm of
Germany_.
The disease which long has eaten at his brain, a contributory cause
of his ego-mania, was the vulnerable spot, the spot unguarded between
the lamps of the magic circle of Europe, where the evil forces found
entrance. Verily, it shall be woe to him by whom this offense has come!
And in saying that the world must not hate the nation which Evil has
used as its servant, I am not advising sentimental weakness in the
final closing of this account. The world for its own protection must
make it impossible that Germany should ever repeat this betrayal. The
details I leave to the specialists, being a modest ghost, and speaking
from my safe retreat behind the veil of the invisible.
_April 27._
LETTER XXXIII
CROWNS OF STRAW
IN seeking to hold back the karma of Germany, I am not seeking to upset
the law of justice, the law of cause and effect. On the contrary.
Your studies in the law of karma have been but superficial if you have
not learned that time is a factor. Many a solvent firm would be thrown
into bankruptcy should all its creditors demand _at once_ full
payment of their accounts. The moral and financial indebtedness of
Germany is its awful karma. Give it a little time in which to adjust
itself to an entirely new way of thinking.
I listened to a discussion which you had with a friend the other
day[3] in regard to the hypothesis that Germany’s false assertion of
“_Deutschland über Alles_,” being so powerfully postulated, could
overcome facts; that the human race might be evolving into the era
of mind, and that a powerful concept, however false, might make facts
conform to it.
Let us see.
The idea that Germany and the Germans are superior to everything else
in the world lies so deep in the minds of that race that it will be
difficult to eliminate it.
As you yourself observed, there is another race known to history which
declared itself to be the chosen people of God, and for that arrogant
assumption is now scattered over the face of the earth, a homeless
people, no longer even a nation.
The attempt to create a thing by postulating it as already existent
is not new. Affirmation and denial are used with telling effect by a
modern school of thinkers, who disregard utterly the facts of nature.
Now when we disregard and deny the facts of nature, we may suspend
the operations of nature in ourselves to a certain degree and for
a certain time, or we may fail in so doing, and by reason of our
_consciousness_ of our failure become more than ever the puppets
of nature.
The Christian Science healer who fails to heal and honestly
acknowledges his failure, may go on asserting his power in the face
of that demonstrated failure, or he may become a complete doubter of
himself and of the claims of his science, or he may re-examine both in
the light of facts and become a real student of the mysteries of nature
and of mind.
Germany may take any one of these three courses when she has
demonstrated the old saying of the wisest of men, that they that take
the sword shall perish with the sword.
Did you ever try to convince a German of a fact which he denied? I see
that you have. Did your proof of his mistake convince him that he could
be mistaken? Probably not.
Now Germany has really made herself into a great nation by postulating
her greatness and superiority in all things. Her mistake consisted in
trying to prove it. In trying to prove a statement you tacitly admit
for the time that the opposite assumption may have some base, and if
you are not able to demonstrate your contention you are lost--unless
you are a German. A German convinced against his will is of the same
opinion still.
If facts do not bear him out, then facts are false. Now facts are not
false, and Germany is not superior in all things to every other nation
on earth. She may have more guns and more soldiers than two or three
of the other nations, that is a _fact_ which we gladly admit;
but superiority in guns and soldiers is only superiority in guns and
soldiers. It is not superiority in all things.
Germany has said in effect that might is right. Well, let her prove her
might, and we will then discuss the right of might.
Some years before I left the earth I was stronger than most men of my
acquaintance; but if I had on that ground knocked them down and taken
their watches, my own superior strength might have been useless to me
except to propel my six-foot body up and down a cell in the county
jail. I might have taken the watches, but I could not have kept them,
for my individual might would have been out-classed by the might of the
society in which I dwelt. So with Germany.
Most men consider themselves superior to their friends and
acquaintances, and are secretly annoyed that their friends and
acquaintances do not acknowledge it. But on the strength of that
supposed superiority they do not generally knock their neighbors down.
My assertion of my superiority to all other men and angels does not
make me superior to them in anything but fatuous conceit.
If a Christian Scientist with a broken leg asserts that he has not a
broken leg, it does not change the fact. The strength of his assertion
may work in the direction of curing the defect--granted. It often does.
The conceit of Germany has called out her energy and made her material
present superior to her material past; but that cannot place her “over
all,” unless she convinces the world of it, and the world accepts an
inferior place. Germans are not convincing advocates, because they
always arouse opposition by overstating the facts in their favor, and
in disputing the facts against them.
So little do they understand the critical minds of the more critical
races, that they try to convince by mere assertion, and so prejudice
their case from the start.
One service Germany will have done the world; she will have hardened
it. It is a tragic service, and one that will turn against herself.
Many a parent by his blind brutality has made his son a greater brute
than he. Many a man by wounding a friend has been stabbed to the soul
in return. The friend may be harder than before, but has he profited?
Perhaps. Experience is an asset. Man grows by pain as well as by
pleasure. If the brutality of Germany makes the races of Europe more
vigorous, they are the gainers--not Germany. The Doctor who gives too
bitter medicine is sent about his business, sometimes without his fee.
There was once a “mental” scientist who declared that it was not
necessary for his daughter to practice the piano; that all she needed
to do was to affirm that she was a pianist, and she would be one.
Germany is in the position of the daughter who had acted on that
teaching, and has become the horror of the neighborhood. She is in
danger of being dispossessed as a public nuisance.
Also an aggregation of individuals making one assertion do not
necessarily have an effect in proportion to their numbers.
Do you remember what I wrote you about white and black magicians, that
two who worked together for good had the power of four, and that two
who worked _together_ for evil had only the power of one and a
half? Now what is Germany working for in this combined effort? Solely
for _herself_--exactly like the black magician.
So deep has the German conceit sunk into the German soul, that they
really believe that in occupying and enslaving other countries they
would be doing them a favor. No, I am not exaggerating. I have heard
Germans make that humorless statement.
Lunatic asylums are full of men who assert that they are kings, and an
occasional inmate declares himself the King of kings. These patients
are even more fully convinced than are the Germans, who assert their
kingship. If assertion alone can transcend fact, these men are kings.
Are they? To themselves they are, and the Germans are just as surely
“over all” as are the straw-crowned kings in the asylums.
It is useless to argue with a king in a straw crown. He has an
irresistible argument--his crown. Can you not see it? If you do not
salute, he turns his back and walks away.
But even a king in a lunatic asylum may be cured and restored to a
sane equality with his peers. That is what I hope for Germany. That is
what the Masters hope--for Germany stands high in the record-book of
the Masters. A king in a straw crown has not lost his soul through his
false assertion of kingship. He is an immortal son of God. His spirit
is as genuine as yours or mine. His error is only temporary, and is
generally caused by brooding too long over imagined wrongs and slights.
Not unlike Germany.
When this idea of superiority began to fester in the minds of that
noble people, they were not a great nation. They felt their wrongs and
the slights put upon them. The only escape for their wounded egoism was
into the world of the mind, where assertion has free play. They turned
their backs and plaited their straw crowns. They were kings, and anyone
who did not see it was unworthy of the honor of their friendship.
Then, their madness having taken a violent form, came the great doctor,
War, and confined them in a relatively narrow space; but the small
people they knocked down in their first attack of violence still lie
prostrate from the blow. The heirs of these kings will have to pay
damages. The law of nations is even more just than the laws of men.
Who dares to say that a State has no morals? Is a State spiritually
inferior to a man? No more than a Planetary Spirit is inferior to a
State. There is a cosmic morality, and whoever goes against it--whether
a State or a man--will meet the day of reckoning. Karma is a law.
_April 29._
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: The following clauses of this paragraph, not being clear
in the original, were rewritten by me.--_Editor._]
LETTER XXXIV
THE SYLPH AND THE FATHER
PASSING yesterday along the line where the great French army stands
before its powerful opponent, and marking the spirit of courage and
aspiration which makes it seem like a long line of living light, I saw
a familiar face in the regions outside the physical.
I paused, highly pleased at the encounter, and the sylph--for it was a
sylph whom I met--paused also with a little smile of recognition.
Do you recall in my former book the story of a sylph, Meriline, who
was the companion and familiar of a student of magic who lived in the
_rue de Vaugirard_ in Paris?
It was Meriline that I met above the line of light which shows to
wanderers in the astral regions where the soldiers of _la belle
France_ fight and die for the same ideal which inspired _Jeanne
d’Arc_--to drive the foreigner out of France.
“Where is your friend and master?” I asked the sylph, and she pointed
below to a trench which spoke loud its determination to conquer.
“I am here, to be still with him,” she said.
“And can you speak to him here?” I asked.
“I can always speak with him,” she answered. “I have been very useful
to him--and to France.”
“To France?” I enquired, with growing interest.
“Oh, yes! When his commanding officer wants to know what is being
plotted over there, he often asks my friend, and my friend asks me.”
“Truly,” I thought, “the French are an inspired people, when the
officers of armies ask guidance from the realm of the invisible! But
had not _Jeanne_ her visions?”
“And how do you gain the information desired?” I asked, drawing nearer
to Meriline, who seemed more serious than when we met some years before
in Paris.
“Why,” she answered, “I go over there and look around me. I have
learned what to look for, he has taught me, and when I bring him news
he rewards me with more love.”
“And do you love him still, as of old?”
“As of old?”
“Yes, as you did back there in Paris.”
“Time must have passed slowly with you,” said the sylph, “if you call a
few years ago ‘as of old’.”
“Are a few years, then, as nothing?”
“A few years are as nothing to me,” she replied. “I have lived a long
time.”
“And do you know the future of your friend?” I asked.
A puzzled look came over the face of Meriline, and she said, slowly:
“I used to know everything that would happen to him, because I could
read his will, and whatever he willed came to pass; but since we have
been out here he seems to have lost his will.”
“Lost his will!” I exclaimed, in surprise.
“Yes, lost his will; for he prays continually to a great Being whom he
loves far more than me, and he always prays one prayer, ‘Thy will be
done!’ It used to be his will which was always done; but now, as I say,
he seems to have lost his will.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “it is true of the will as was once said of the
life, and he that loses his will shall find it.”
“I hope he will find it soon,” she answered, “for in the old days he
was always giving me interesting things to do, to help him achieve the
purposes of his will, and now he only sends me over there. I don’t like
_over there_!”
“Why not?”
“Because my friend is menaced by something over there.”
“And what has his will to do with that?”
“Why, even about that, he says all day to the great Being that he loves
so much more than me, ‘Thy will be done’.”
“Do you think you could learn to say it, too?” I asked.
“I say it after him sometimes; but I don’t know what it means.”
“Have you never heard of God?”
“I have heard of many gods, of Isis and Osiris and Set, and of Horus,
the son of Osiris.”
“And is it to one of these that he says, ‘Thy will be done’?”
“Oh, no! It is not to any of the gods that he used to call upon in his
magical working. This is some new god that he has found.”
“Or the oldest of all gods that he has returned to,” I suggested. “What
does he call Him?”
“Our Father who art in heaven.”
“If you also should learn to say ‘Thy will be done’ to our Father who
is in heaven,” I said, “it might help you toward the attainment of that
soul you were wanting and waiting for, when last we met in Paris.”
“How could our Father help me?”
“It was He who gave souls to men,” I said.
The eyes of the sylph were brilliant with something almost human.
“And could He give a soul to me?”
“It is said that He _can_ do anything.”
“Then I will ask Him for a soul.”
“But to ask Him for a soul,” I said, “is not to pray the prayer your
friend prays.”
“He only says----”
“Yes, I know. Suppose you say it after him.”
“I will, if you will tell me what it means. I like to do what my friend
does.”
“Thy will be done,” I said, “when addressed to the Father in heaven,
means that we give up all our desires, whether for pleasure or love or
happiness, or anything else, and lay all those desires at His feet,
sacrificing all we have or hope for to Him, because we love Him more
than ourselves.”
“That is a strange way to get what one desires,” she said.
“It is not done to get what one desires,” I answered.
“But what is it done for?”
“For love of the Father in heaven.”
“But I do not know the Father in heaven. What is He?”
“He is the Source and the Goal of the being of your friend. He is the
One that your friend will re-become some day, if he can forever say to
Him, Thy will be done.”
“The One he will re-become?”
“Yes, for when he blends his will with that of the Father in heaven,
the Father in heaven dwells in his heart and the two become one.”
“Then is the Father in heaven really the Self of my friend?”
“The greatest philosopher could not have expressed it more truly,” I
said.
“Then indeed do I love the Father in heaven,” breathed the sylph, “and
I will say now every day and all day, ‘Thy will be done’ to Him.”
“Even if it separates you from your friend?”
“How can it separate me from my friend, if the Father is the Self of
him?”
“I would that all angels were your equal in learning,” I said.
But Meriline had turned from me in utter forgetfulness, and was saying
over and over, with joy in her uplifted face, “Thy will be done! Thy
will be done!”
“Truly,” I said to myself, as I passed along the line, “he who worships
the Father as the Self of the beloved has already acquired a soul.”
_April 29._
LETTER XXXV
BEHIND THE DARK VEIL
ONE night, when the roar of battle was still, and the rays of the full
moon shone down upon trampled mud, and man-filled trench, and tender
spring-green growing things and soft-hued flowers, I met face to face a
powerful being in a dark mantle who passed along the line of war with
slow, majestic steps.
Seeing me he paused, and I paused also, struck by the grace of his tall
form and the royal air of him. His face was veiled.
“Who are you,” he said, “who walk here at this hour as if in
meditation?”
“I am a man much given to meditation,” I replied, “and this hour seems
fit for it.”
“And what was the subject of your meditation?”
“The war below us.”
“And what was the course of your thoughts, which my appearance
interrupted?”
“My thoughts were of peace,” I said, “and they were full of questions
as to how the carnage of this war might be made to cease.”
“Your questions were in order,” the majestic being answered. “Perhaps I
can be of help to you.”
“Will you not unveil?” I suggested, “for I like to see the faces of
those with whom I hold converse.”
He threw back a fold of the dark covering of his head, revealing a face
which I know not how to describe. Power and evil were blent in it, and
a strange beauty, both superhuman and subhuman. The face was marked as
if by an eternity of pain and struggle; but in the eyes was a light of
will which startled me by its force.
“Who are _you_?” I asked.
“What matter who I am?” he replied. “I am one who can solve the problem
of your meditations.”
“You do not look like an angel of peace,” I said, “but rather like one
who has seen much war of his own making.”
“It is for that reason that I am competent to speak of peace. What do
the peaceful know of peace? Only the warrior knows the meaning of that
word.”
“I will listen,” I said, “to whatever you have to say; for I recognize
that you know something of the Law.”
“I am one of the executors of the Law,” he answered, “and I have a plan
for bringing peace to the world.”
“Will you state that plan?”
“It is for that I came out here to meet you,” he said.
“And how did you learn of me?”
“I know all the strong workers and many of the weak ones. You are a
powerful worker.”
“Truly you do me too much honor,” I said, “for I am only a humble
soldier in the army of the Law’s executants.”
“The modesty of the great,” he observed, while he eyed me closely to
see the effect of his words.
“Whoever you are,” I said, “and I perceive that you are something
unusual, know that my interest in my own stature is no longer paramount
with me.”
“It is for that reason that you may be used in the interest of peace.”
“Continue,” I requested.
He regarded me for a time with brilliant, questioning eyes, and then he
asked:
“You are weary of war, of the labor of war?”
“I am weary with my sympathy for those who suffer.”
“And you would like to end their suffering?”
“It seems to me at times,” I said, more to myself than to him, “that I
would gladly give my life, if by so doing I could shorten the horrors
down here.”
“Your life? And what do you mean by your life!”
“I mean my consciousness of freedom, my freedom of consciousness.”
“A good definition of the life of such as you,” he observed. “And would
you really sacrifice that life for the world?”
“Most gladly, if by so doing I could save the world.”
“It might be possible,” he said.
“Will you speak more plainly?” I demanded. “You seem to me to be
feeling your way to some statement of importance.”
“What can be more important,” he returned, “than the sacrifice of such
a life as yours for the world?”
“Go on.”