probably more accurately defined as the real person, the man himself,
the immortal being who inhabits for a time the physical body. The
development of this immortal self by an intellectual and moral and
religious progress is the real business of life,--the _raison d'etre_ of
man's sojourn on earth. There is no more important truth to be grasped
at the present time than that this culture and development of the
spiritual self, or this spiritualization of life, is in no sense a
matter of incantations and mysterious rites, but is only to be achieved
through faith in God, through prayer and the constant uplifting of the
spirit to the Divine. The inspiration of life lies in the unceasing
effort to unite all the conscious inner life with the Divine will and
guidance. The problem that presents itself to the instructors of the
deaf, dumb, and blind is in this development and liberation of the
spiritual self, that the psychic powers may, to some extent, take the
place of the outer senses that are closed. The physical mechanism of
communication with the visible world is defective, and that perception,
which is spiritual sight, must overcome blindness; that swift
recognition which is spiritual hearing must overcome deafness; and the
wonderful delicacy and intense keenness that these perceptions develop
in those with defective senses is itself an incontrovertible proof of
the reality of the inner spiritual being that for a time inhabits the
physical body. The observation of the deaf and blind leads one to see
that sight and hearing in all people vary in degree, and that a vast
number of people are partially defective in these senses, and that all
mankind are defective beyond a given point. There are vibrations too
fine to be detected by the human ear; and the sight of the eye is, as is
well known, entirely limited to a certain degree of distance even in
those whose eyesight is the keenest. Clairvoyance and clairaudience are
considered as abnormal and phenomenal gifts, and as in no way
conceivable, nor even desirable, as general and usual powers for every
one. Yet what are they but the sight and hearing of the spiritual man,
the development of the powers of the subtle body transcending those of
the physical body? This ethereal or psychic body is in correspondence
with the ethereal world. It is formed to be an inhabitant of that world
in which it finds itself the moment it is released by death. But if
sufficiently developed to take command, so to speak, while here, of the
will and the consciousness and all the mechanism of the physical body,
it then brings to bear upon practical, daily life all this infinite and
irresistible energy of the higher planes with which it is in receptive
relation. Then, whether in the body or out of the body matters little in
the responsive communion with those who have passed through death.
"Could the spiritual vision of the present man be unfolded but for a
moment, to realize the mighty forces of nature that will one day be at
his command, he would become dizzy at the contemplation of such wondrous
possibilities," says a recent writer. "The electro-magnetic energy that
holds worlds in their orbits, and neutralizes the power of gravitation,
is but one of those powers that awaits the growing genius of man to
utilize. The magnetic force is the attractive or centripetal power; the
electric force is the repellent or centrifugal power. A machine will be
invented, in the near future, that will combine these into a single
electro-magnetic force, and with this force the power of gravitation
will be neutralized. Then the world's traffic will be as readily carried
in the air as now it is upon the ground. The forces of the Universe
await only the dissipation of ignorance, selfishness, and greed to bless
and harmonize the world."
The outlook for the twentieth century in its grandeur; in the unfolding
and expanding powers of man, and the new and deeper insights into the
hidden forces of nature, can hardly be exaggerated. We stand on the
threshold of a new heaven and a new earth. The drama of life is to be
uplifted to a higher plane, to the realm of beauty and blessedness and
radiance and joy.
THE ETHEREAL REALM.
It is henceforth open to science to transcend all we now think we
know of matter and to gain new glimpses of a profounder scheme of
cosmic law.
--SIR WILLIAM CROOKES.
* * * * *
_We exist also in a world of ether;--that is to say, we are
constructed to respond to a system of laws,--ultimately continuous,
no doubt, with the laws of matter, but affording a new, a
generalized, a profounder conception of the Cosmos. So widely
different, indeed, is this new aspect of things from the old, that
it is common to speak of the ether as a newly-known environment. On
this environment our organic existence depends as absolutely as on
the material environment, although less obviously. In ways which we
cannot fathom, the ether is at the foundation of our physical
being. Perceiving heat, light, electricity, we do but recognise in
certain conspicuous ways,--as in perceiving the "X rays" we
recognise in a way less conspicuous,--the pervading influence of
ethereal vibrations which in range and variety far transcend our
capacity of response._
_Within, beyond, the world of ether,--as a still profounder, still
more generalized aspect of the Cosmos,--must lie, as I believe, the
world of spiritual life. That the world of spiritual life does not
depend upon the existence of the material world I hold as now
proved by actual evidence. That it is in some way continuous with
the world of ether I can well suppose. But for our minds there must
needs be a "critical point" in any such imagined continuity; so
that the world where life and thought are carried on apart from
matter, must certainly rank again as a new, a =metetherial=
environment. In giving it this name I expressly imply only that
from our human point of view it lies after or beyond the ether, as
metaphysic lies after or beyond physics. I say only that what does
not originate in matter or ether originates =there=; but I well
believe that beyond the ether there must be not one stage only, but
countless stages in the infinity of things._
--HUMAN PERSONALITY.
* * * * *
The glorious consummation toward which organic evolution is tending
is the production of the highest and most perfect psychical
life.--JOHN FISKE.
The recognition of the untold force of thought is productive of
marvellous results and opens as unlimited possibilities as the discovery
and the increasing application of the power of electricity. The force of
thought--the most intense potency in the universe--has always existed,
as has that of electricity. It only awaited recognition. Telepathy is
just as entirely the manifestation of a law as is gravitation; and
gravitation existed long before it was recognized. The entire question
of the conduct of life is included in the true development and right use
of thought. The entire problem of achievement, of success, lies in it.
The supreme end of all religious teaching is the culture of right
thought. It is the power that determines all social relations, all
opportunities for usefulness, and all personal achievement. The right
thought opens the right door. There is absolutely no limit to its power,
and each individual may increase and strengthen his grasp of it and
develop it to an indefinite and unforeseen degree. One actual method of
the use of thought is to use it, creatively, for the immediate future.
The time that is just before one is plastic to any impress. It has not
yet taken form in events or circumstances, and it can, therefore, be
controlled and determined. One may sit quietly and alone for a little
time at night, calling up all his thought force, and by means of it
create the next day. The events of the day will follow the impression
made by the thought. One can thus will himself, so to speak, with the
successful currents. He can create his atmosphere and environment, and
can open wide the portals of his life to beauty and happiness.
The law of telepathy is as supreme in the spiritual universe as are the
laws of gravitation and attraction in the physical universe. The law
that holds the constellations in their courses is not more in absolute
evidence than that which governs the flashes of perception between two
persons in a finer and more subtle communication than words, spoken or
written, could possibly convey. But while there is no law more
universally and impressively in evidence, there is also no law so
totally unformulated, so entirely, it would seem, outside the domain of
conscious recognition and will. One endeavors to send a telepathic
message to his friend--and no impress is made. Again, when he has made
no effort at all, nor even thought of trying, the telepathic message is
received. The magnetic sensitiveness of the spirit to thought currents
is astounding. It has long seemed to many persons that the very air
conveyed messages--and so it does. One may "call up" another, in either
this world or in the ethereal world, at any time, simply by directing to
him a strong current of thought. The thousand little things generally
ranked as coincidence are really illustrations of this law. One thinks
intently of a friend whom, perhaps, he has not met, or heard from, for
years, and, presto, a letter, or the person himself appears. One can
settle misunderstandings, convey counsel, entreaty, instruction, or
comprehension,--all by the quality of the thought he sends forth. All
this is a part of the phenomena of spiritual life. We must not make the
mistake of imagining we become spiritual beings only by death. We are
spiritual beings now and here, and our real life is, even in the
present, in the spiritual world, and carried on by means of spiritual
forces. Everything which is intellectual and moral is of the spirit.
Such men as Edison and Tesla and Marconi are dealing with the higher
spiritual forces. When Cyrus Field laid the Atlantic cable, it was a
work of the spiritual rather than of the physical world. So are the vast
works of commerce, of transportation, of building, the discovery of new
countries, and the promulgation of the higher civilization in every
form. We must not regard spiritual life as limited to mere religious or
devotional rites and ceremonies. These have their place, and an
important one; but they are included among a thousand other things that
make up the life of the spirit. Man is primarily and permanently a
spiritual being, and only incidentally and temporarily a physical being.
Still the further problem confronts us: How shall we consciously and
intelligently control telepathic communication as we now control our
communication by speech, letters, or telegrams? A curious instance of
unconscious and unaccountable telepathy is the following: There were two
individuals who had never met, but who held some mutually antagonistic
conceptions of each other,--conceptions that were, too, perhaps more or
less mutually erroneous, and this condition had lasted over a prolonged
period of time. Then one of these persons had the experience of waking
in the night, simply engulfed in an overwhelming wave of tender and
compassionate feeling toward the other: seeing, as if with spiritual
vision, a nature unstrung, hardly responsible, and one that invited only
the most infinite tenderness and care. This wave of new and perfectly
clear perception was like a magnetic trance. It was an hour of absolute
spiritual clairvoyance, and the evidence was furnished by a letter
received, the next morning, from a mutual friend, which entirely
substantiated and corroborated the telepathic impression that had been
experienced in the night. Now the scientific question is: From whence
did this impression proceed? Was it direct telepathy between the two
persons concerned? Was it a clairvoyant reading of the letter that was
en route during the night? Who can decide? The special point here is
that these most vivid and intense experiences are largely, if not
entirely, encountered unconsciously. They suddenly--come. One asks for
them--and they do not come? Now how are we to pluck out the heart of the
mystery?
The moment one realizes himself as a spiritual being, belonging by right
to the spiritual world; one whose true interests are in and of that
realm, and to whom communion with the Divine is the very breath of
existence, the one elixir of life, that moment he asserts himself
aright. From that hour his life becomes a significant factor in true
progress. Prayer may be a formal and ceremonial act, and mean nothing:
it may be the absolute surrender of one's soul to the Divine, when it
enters behind the veil into the very glory of God. This spiritual truth
is closely linked with certain scientific facts. The scientists have
theories of inner ether by means of which psychic power is conveyed and
which translate it into action, as the wire translates the electric
current to express a message. A scientist asserts a new theory that
there are no varying states of ether, but that all space is filled with
matter in various states of vibration; and that what we had heretofore
called air and ether is simply all one substance in degrees of lower and
higher range. It is conceivable that this latest idea may approximate to
the truth more than any previous theory. No one has yet discovered those
forces of nature by means of which sense relates itself to spirit. There
is certainly some great law, still unrecognized and unformulated, which
acts, and which is acted upon by human beings, irrespective of any
physical means; but why these laws sometimes do and sometimes do not
produce given results, no one can tell. There are other existing laws in
the physical world that transcend scientific scrutiny. The marvellous
results of chemical combinations, the miracle nature of electricity and
all its phenomena, fade into absolute nothingness beside the higher
marvels of the action of spirit. The crude and merely approximate truth
must be that in each human being is a part of the divine being; that
this divine element may be nurtured and strengthened by living in its
native atmosphere of spiritual life,--in the atmosphere of peace, joy,
and love; and that this potency of God and of man, so far as he relates
himself to God, can act upon that substance that fills all space; that
this substance, whether it be ether, or whether it be matter
differentiated in degree of vibration, is intensely susceptible, in the
most infinitely delicate way, to thought, which acts upon it as physical
force can act on physical matter. To realize intelligently one's
relatedness to God, and one's own power over this subtle matter,
whatever it be that fills all space, is to arise in newness of life. It
is to realize one's self as a spiritual being, here and now, and an
inhabitant of the spiritual world. It is to realize that one's relation
to the physical world is a merely incidental thing,--a fact that has its
purpose, its responsibilities, as a phase of development, and which it
is most important to use aright; but which is inevitably transient.
Day-dreams, the habitual meditations that go on of themselves in the
mind, are prophecies and potencies. They are the creative factors of
future states. "Out of the heart are the issues of life."
It is a question of degree,--so much love, so much force to act upon
outer affairs. He who finds his currents of thought verging to the
unkind, the ungenerous, the inimical; whose mind, in its unconscious
action, is in a discordant state, fretting at circumstances, or
persons,--is doing himself the gravest injury. He is creating, on the
unseen side, which is the most potent and determining side, conditions
which he must live out sooner or later.
It would seem, if one may judge from the data of telepathic experiences,
that the power belongs to the sub-conscious self, or, as we may prefer
to call it, to the spiritual self, and does not relate itself to the
conscious intellectual life and the conscious will. If this deduction is
true--what then? Can we not relate our consciously intelligent life to
our unconscious spiritual life? Not only, indeed, that we may, but that
we must,--for it is the next step in spiritual advancement.
The time has come in the era of progress when humanity begins to realize
its spiritual development. All the signs of the times point it out. The
discoveries of higher laws constantly being made, are an impressive
attestation that register the movement. With the new century came in
Tesla's discovery of the vacuum tube and its wonderful light; and hardly
a week later came the announcement of the discovery of a perpetual light
found by a certain chemical combination placed in a glass globe, which,
when the air was exhausted and the globe sealed, would burn as long as
the globe lasts. The discoverer claims that there is but one force in
all nature,--that of vibration; that all space is pervaded by matter,
which is energy. Certainly the world is on the eve of new revelations,
and life is to be lifted up, even here and now, to the Divine plane.
Perhaps the most practical counsel in the way of determining one's own
future control of these telepathic conditions is conveyed in the words:
"Begin now the eternal life of trustful consecration and sanctified
service, consciously drawing your innermost life from God."
This absolute personal control of each man over his own future lies in a
twofold power: the one being that integrity, moral purpose, aspirations,
have a creative power of the most potent character; and the other being
in that one attracts to himself the spiritual companionship and
sympathetic co-operation of just such quality as his own. There is an
objection, often made to the faith in the companionship and communion
with those in the Unseen,--that only those of a lower order in the life
beyond death are attracted into the sphere of this world. Nothing could
be more remote from the truth. One might as well refuse all social
intercourse with those in this world, on the plea that if he have
companionship at all it would be of a lower order, and therefore he will
have none. Now the order of one's companions and associates depends on
himself. If he is noble and exalted, he does not attract nor is he
attracted to the base and the unworthy: and only more deeply and
unfailingly does this law hold true in the realm of spirit. One attracts
to himself from the unseen world companionship of the same order and
quality as that of his own spirit, with the exception that in proportion
to the purity of his aspiration does this quality of companionship come
to him of a still higher order than his own. Thus one creates his own
world. He need not abjectly feel that he must accept sorrow, trial,
defeat, and disaster at the moment, because compensation somewhere
awaits him. The law of transmutation supersedes the law of compensation.
One may bring to bear, at the moment, the potent force that transforms
all: that changes dullness into radiance, trial into joy, depression
into exaltation. And how? Simply by bringing to bear on the events and
conditions of the hour the intense and creative potency of spiritual
power. By means of this we shall certainly gain those "new glimpses of a
profounder scheme of cosmic law" to which Sir William Crookes refers and
which his vision discerns as open to science.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A Scientific Fact.]
It is a scientific fact that any vibration set up in the ether persists
to an unlimited degree, communicating itself to that which is in
correspondence with its rate of vibration. This, of course, is the
explanation of the phenomena involved in wireless telegraphy, and is
equally the explanation of the phenomena involved in telepathy. At a
meeting of the Society of Arts in May of 1901, Professor Ayrton,
commenting on Marconi's system, said that we "are gradually coming
within thinkable distance of the realization of a prophecy he had
ventured to make four years before, at a time when, if a person wanted
to call to a friend he knew not where, he would call in a very loud
electro-magnetic voice, heard by him who had the electro-magnetic ear,
silent to him who had it not. 'Where are you?' he would say. A faint
reply would come, 'I am at the bottom of a coal mine, or crossing the
Andes, or in the middle of the Atlantic.' Or, perhaps, in spite of all
the calling, no reply would come, and the person would then know that
his friend was dead. Think of what this would mean, of the calling which
goes on every day from room to room of a house, and then think of that
calling extending from pole to pole,--not a noisy babble, but a call
audible to him who wants to hear, and absolutely silent to all others.
It would be almost like dreamland and ghostland,--not the ghostland
cultivated by a heated imagination, but a real communication from a
distance, based on true physical laws."
Yet even this speculation fails to keep pace with the advance of truth,
for there is no death, in the sense in which Professor Ayrton refers to
it here, as a state of unconsciousness which no message can reach, and
from which no reply can come. On the contrary, that transformation we
call death is a condition of far more intense consciousness, of being
far more alive and far more responsive to the call and the thought. We
are learning to realize the literal truth of the phrase in the Bible,
"dead in trespasses and sins." So far as one is in sins and faults and
defects he is dead. Spiritual vitality is in goodness alone. So far as
one endeavors to follow after righteousness, to achieve and live in
truth, honor, and love, he is alive; so far as he fails in this he is
dead, and this, quite irrespective of the fact as to whether he is in or
out of his physical body. This present world has its dead people walking
around, it is true: eating, drinking, dressing, travelling, taking part
in the average activities of daily life, but dead, all the same, or, at
most, only partially alive,--the "dead souls," as Gogol well terms them.
The vital truth of immortality is to be immortal now, to-day; to be
spiritually alive, spiritually conscious, and with this achieved,
whether in or out of the body is immaterial. That becomes a mere detail
of no special significance. Given the condition of spiritual vitality,
and the electro-magnetic call would receive its reply from the friend
who had "shed" his body.
Sir William Preece, in a recent address before the Royal Society,
remarked:--
"If any of the planets be populated (say Mars) with beings like
ourselves, having the gift of language and the knowledge to adapt
the great forces of nature to their wants, then if they could
oscillate immense stores of electrical energy to and fro in
electrical order, it would be possible for us to hold
communication, by telephone, with the people of Mars."
It is hardly a bolder or more startling speculation to contemplate the
establishment of intelligent and definite communication with Mars than
it would have been, a half-century ago, to contemplate communication
across three thousand miles of ocean without visible means. An evening's
observation of the heavens, made recently through the great telescope of
the Naval Observatory in Washington, revealed, in one of its phases, a
sunrise in the moon. One gazed at the dark edge of a mountain range to
see it suddenly grow light; to see the illumination increase both in
area and intensity, precisely like a sunrise over a mountain range here
on earth. The spectacle was as suggestive as it was sublime. It brought
the observer into a new relation to the universe. The sun that lights
the earth was then rising on the moon. One realized a new conception of
the unity of the solar system.
Now it is this unity in the universe that scientists are everywhere
affirming. This is the new note in science, and it is only one aspect of
this truth to realize that wireless telegraphy and telepathy are both
manifestations of the same principle,--that of setting up a magnetic
disturbance in the ether, by utilizing the electricity in etheric
currents. Thought is the most potent form of energy, and given the
conditions of a certain _rapport_ between two minds, and the result is
the same as that discerned and verified by Marconi, in setting up two
instruments that are attuned to each other.
In the end telepathy will take entire precedence of all other forms of
communication. It will supersede the telegraph, the telephone, the
cable, and wireless telegraphy. It will serve every demand, public and
private. Distance will interpose no obstacle or difficulty, for thought
overcomes space and time.
We are spiritual beings here and now. We are living in a spiritual
universe. We are entering in more and more to the grasp and knowledge of
spiritual appliances, and we can only say, reverently, that "it doth not
yet appear what we shall be."
Is thought, itself, photographed on the ether? Does the vibration of the
spoken word linger in the place where it is uttered? The question cannot
but recur to one after recognizing phenomena that, apparently, point to
this solution,--when, for instance, a caller comes, and, taking the
chair of a preceding guest, repeats, substantially, the same words that
the other had spoken regarding some subject or event. This is something
that frequently occurs. Just what is the explanation? Do thoughts
register themselves magnetically on the air, and is this magnetic
writing perceived, unconsciously, by one sensitive to it? The question
is certainly one of curious interest.
Again, are the daily occurrences of life pre-destined? How far do we
make our own life? How far is it made for us? An individual was led in
dreams one night through rooms that seemed to have granite walls, to be
very bare, cold, and vast. The next evening he was leaving on a journey,
and did start; but after he had taken his seat in the palace car, the
discovery of a mistake caused him hastily to leave the train before it
started, and return. In consequence of the mistake discovered he was
obliged to seek a certain official in a great granite building, whose
interior had, heretofore, been entirely unknown to him. Entering it,
his way led through the same cold, vast, bare rooms that the preceding
night in dreams he had traversed. Now the mistake that delayed his
journey and brought about these results was not even his own mistake,
but one made by another person. Was all this series of events--trifles
of no importance in themselves, but very curious in their
combination--foreordained? and if not, how was it that they were partly
perceived, in the passive state of sleep, twenty-four hours before they
occurred? It often seems true that the spirit, in the unconscious
condition of sleep, has a certain clairvoyance, and looks out beholding
and reporting to the consciousness the immediate future; but if the
events it reports were not already formed, how could they be seen? The
question involves many psychic complexities.