From the pale light of diamond stars,
From the quietude of dreamless night,
Into the grayness and the formless mist,
Comes the first whisper, the first murmur
Of Life awakening.
Merges then the dim outline and the shadow,
Floating nothings, pregnant with the promise
Of the coming birth of Morning.
Gradually, slowly, silently,
The shapes resolve themselves
And grow less misty and more huge;
The grayness becomes less gray;
And, as it so becomes, the horizon
Erstwhile faint and indistinct,
Slowly as a line appears, not sharp,
But blended with both earth and sky.
A sleepy twitter from the birds, the first call
Of mate to mate; the faint, soft rustle
Of the leaves, the vapor rising from the earth--
All betoken the oncoming.
The ghostly outlines of the forms
Are clearer now; and the vivid streamers
Of the eastern sky change to the white light
Of the advancing Morn.
Now approach the fuller tones of nature:
Insistent the notes of the tiny feathered ones,
And from the nests and branches come
The piping calls to morning quest.
Now the silver white takes on the faint
Tinging of the purple glow.
The purple to a blue transforms itself;
The gnomes of dawn are hard at work
Transmuting the base metal into finer gold.
As distant fire, urging on the horses of wild Fear
Mounts higher and more high,
So Apollo urges on his horses, and the golden gleam
Of his chariot heralds itself
To follow after.
The horizon blazes with the power of Light--
More red and fiery grows the hue;
A point appears, a rim, an arc
Of coppery luster; then
Glowing with the radiance of the parent Life
The Sun!--And Day is born.
H. P. BLAVATSKY AND THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
In 1887 William Q. Judge wrote of the Theosophical Society and H. P.
Blavatsky as follows:
The Society has had, like all sentient beings, its periods of growth,
and now we believe _it has become an entity_ capable of feeling and
having intelligence. Its body is composed of molecules, each one of
which is a member of the Society; its mental power is derived from
many quarters, and it has a sensibility that is felt and shared by
each one of us. For these reasons we think it is a wise thing for a
person to join this body, and a wiser yet to work heart and soul for
it.
And we would have no one misunderstand how we look upon H. P.
Blavatsky. She is the greatest woman in this world in our opinion,
and greater than any man moving among men. Disputes and slanders
about what she has said and done move us not, for we know by personal
experience her real virtues and powers. Since 1875 she has stood as
the champion and helper of every Theosophist; each member of the
Society has to thank her for the store of knowledge and spiritual help
that has lifted so many of us from doubt to certainty of where and
how Truth might be found; lovers of truth and seekers after spiritual
knowledge will know her worth only when she has passed from earth;
had she had more help and less captious criticism from those who
called themselves co-laborers, our Society would today be better and
more able to inform its separate units while it resisted its foes.
During all these years, upon her devoted head has concentrated the
weighty Karma accumulated in every direction by the unthinking body of
Theosophists; and whether they will believe it or not, the Society had
died long ago, were it not for her.
The following are extracts from an article also by William Q. Judge,
written after H. P. Blavatsky's death:
THAT which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego--the
immortal self--a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the
mortal frame, a short period of rest before one reassumes another
human frame in the world of mortals. The Lord of this body is
nameless; dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come
and go; but neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless,
unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured. So
our old friend and fellow-worker has merely passed for a short time
out of sight, but has not given up the work begun so many ages
ago--the uplifting of humanity, the destruction of the shackles that
enslave the human mind....
That she always knew what would be done by the world in the way of
slander and abuse I also know, for in 1875 she told me that she was
then embarking on a work that would draw upon her unmerited slander,
implacable malice, uninterrupted misunderstanding, constant work, and
no worldly reward. Yet in the face of this her lion heart carried her
on. Nor was she unaware of the future of the Society. In 1876 she told
me in detail the course of the Society's growth for future years, of
its infancy, of its struggles, of its rise into the "luminous zone" of
the public mind; and these prophecies are being all fulfilled.
Her aim was to elevate the race. Her method was to deal with the
mind of the century as she found it, by trying to lead it on step by
step; to seek out and educate a few who, appreciating the majesty
of the Secret Science and devoted to "the great orphan Humanity,"
could carry on her work with zeal and wisdom; to found a Society
whose efforts--however small itself might be--would inject into the
thought of the day the ideas, the doctrines, the nomenclature of the
Wisdom-Religion, so that when the next century shall have seen its
seventy-fifth year the new messenger coming again into the world
would find the Society still at work, the ideas sown broadcast, the
nomenclature ready to give expression and body to the immutable
Truth, and thus to make easy the task which for her since 1875 was so
difficult and so encompassed with obstacles.
[Illustration: HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY FOUNDRESS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL
SOCIETY]
[Illustration: THE LEADERS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT H. P. BLAVATSKY
KATHERINE TINGLEY WILLIAM Q. JUDGE]
THE PATH--SOME WORDS OF WILLIAM Q. JUDGE
In 1886, William Q. Judge, the pupil and colleague and afterwards the
successor of H. P. Blavatsky, founded and edited _The Path_, the first
American Theosophical magazine. After his death, this magazine was
continued by his successor, Katherine Tingley, and was by her finally
merged into and combined with a weekly magazine, published under
the title of the _Century Path_. This has again given place to THE
THEOSOPHICAL PATH, thus distinctly calling attention to the teachings
it promulgates and sets forth, while preserving the name "The Path" of
the first American Theosophical Magazine.
THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH in its first issue pays honor to both these
great-hearted Teachers, H. P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge. All
humanity owes them a debt of gratitude for pointing out once more the
path of true progress and happiness. Through their self-sacrifice, even
of their lives, "the pathway is once more seen to that realm where the
Gods abide."
In the first issue of _The Path_, William Q. Judge wrote:
The solution of the problem, "What and Where is the Path to
Happiness?" has been discovered by those of old time. They thought it
was in the pursuit of Râja Yoga, which is the highest science and the
highest religion--a union of both....
The study of what is now called "practical occultism" has some
interest for us, and will receive the attention it may merit, but it
is not _the_ object of this journal....
True occultism is clearly set forth in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, where
sufficient stress is laid upon practical occultism, but after all,
Krishna says, the kingly science and the kingly mystery is devotion to
and study of the light which comes from within. The very first step in
true mysticism and true occultism is to try to apprehend the meaning
of Universal Brotherhood, without which the very highest progress in
the practice of magic turns to ashes in the mouth.
We appeal, therefore, to all who wish to raise themselves and
their fellow creatures--man and beast--out of the thoughtless jog
trot of selfish everyday life. It is not thought that Utopia can
be established in a day; but through the spreading of the idea of
Universal Brotherhood, the truth in all things may be discovered.
Certainly, if we all say that it is useless, that such high-strung
sentimental notions cannot obtain currency, nothing will ever be done.
A beginning must be made, and it has been by the Theosophical Society.
Although philanthropic institutions and schemes are constantly being
brought forward by good and noble men and women, vice, selfishness,
brutality, and the resulting misery, seem to grow no less. Prisons,
asylums for the outcast and the magdalen, can be filled much faster
than it is possible to erect them. All this points unerringly to the
existence of a vital error somewhere. It shows that merely healing
the outside by hanging a murderer or providing asylums and prisons
will never reduce the number of criminals nor the hordes of children
born and growing up in hotbeds of vice. What is wanted is true
knowledge of the spiritual condition of man, his aim and destiny. This
is offered in Theosophical literature, and those who must begin the
reform are those who are so fortunate as to be placed in the world
where they can see and think out the problems all are endeavoring
to solve, even if they know that the great day may not come until
after their death. Such a study leads us to accept the utterance of
Prajâpati to his sons: "Be restrained, be liberal, be merciful"; it is
the death to selfishness.
In an article "A Year on the Path," Mr. Judge wrote, at the close of
the first year of the magazine:
The question is always naturally asked, "What is the Path?" or
"What is the Philosophy?" which is the same thing, for of course
the following of any path whatever will depend upon the particular
philosophy or doctrines believed in. The path we had in view is held
by us to be the same one which in all ages has been sought by Heathen,
Jew, and Christian alike. By some called the path to Heaven, by others
the path to Jesus, the path to Nirvâna, and by Theosophists the path
to Truth. Jesus has defined it as a narrow, difficult and straight
path. By the ancient Brâhmans it has been called, "the small old path
leading far away on which those sages walk who reach salvation";
and Buddha taught it was a noble four-fold path by which alone the
miseries of existence can be truly surmounted....
The immortal spark has manifested itself in many different classes
of men, giving rise to all the varied religions, many of which have
forever disappeared from view. Not any one of them could have been
the whole Truth, but each must have presented one of the facets of
the great gem, and thus through the whole surely run ideas shared by
all. These common ideas point to truth. They grow out of man's inner
nature and are not the result of revealed books. But some one people
or another must have paid more attention to the deep things of life
than another. The "Christian" nations have dazzled themselves with the
baneful glitter of material progress. They are not the peoples who
will furnish the nearest clues to the Path. A few short years and they
will have abandoned the systems now held so dear, because their mad
rush to the perfection of their civilization will give them control
over now undreamed of forces. Then will come the moment when they must
choose which of two kinds of fruit they will take. In the meantime it
is well to try and show a relation between their present system and
the old, or at least to pick out what grains of truth are in the mass.
... A new age is not far away. The huge unwieldy flower of the 19th
century civilization has almost fully bloomed, and preparation must
be made for the wonderful new flower which is to rise from the old.
We have not pinned our faith on Vedas nor Christian scriptures, nor
desired any others to do so. All our devotion to Aryan literature and
philosophy arises from a belief that the millions of minds who have
trodden weary steps before ours, left a path which may be followed
with profit, yet with discrimination. _For we implicitly believe that
in this curve of the cycle, the final authority is the man himself._
In former times the disclosed Vedas, and later, the teachings of
the great Buddha, were the right authority, in whose authoritative
teachings and enjoined practices were found the necessary steps to
raise man to an upright position. But the grand clock of the Universe
points to another hour, and now Man must seize the key in his hands
and himself--as a whole--open the gate. Hitherto he has depended upon
the great souls whose hands have stayed impending doom. Let us then
together enter upon another year, fearing nothing, assured of strength
in the Union of Brotherhood. For how can we fear death, or life, or
any horror or evil, at any place or time, when we well know that even
death itself is a part of the dream which we are weaving before our
eyes.
Our belief may be summed up in the motto of the Theosophical Society,
"There is no Religion higher than Truth," and our practice consists
in a disregard of any authority in matters of religion and philosophy
except such propositions as from their innate quality we feel to be
true.
SAVING FOREST WASTE: Note by a Student
In the Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture just issued, it
is pointed out that conservation of the timber supply involves the
co-operation of the public, the lumbermen, and the wood-consuming
industries, as well as of the National Government. Forest conservation
is not possible at the low prices of former days, and in general prices
must advance before much can be done. Then the public must be prepared
to accept new woods; the farmer must give up using cedar, white-oak,
and chestnut posts; railroads must cease using white-oak ties;
builders must accept other lengths and widths. Meantime the Government
co-operating with Wisconsin University, has established a thoroughly
equipped wood-testing laboratory at Madison, where many problems are
being investigated, from the standpoints of forest conservation and
commercial requirements.
In the valuable magazine _American Conservation_, for May 1911, it
is stated that Argentina has a hundred million acres of wooded land,
mostly quebracho and yerba tree, both in increasing demand. In Brazil
there is about a thousand million acres of wooded land. There ruthless
destruction cannot go on, as most concessions now require proper
conservation of the rubber and other trees. Bolivia has quebracho,
rubber, coca, cinchona, and other trees useful in the arts. The
timber tracts of Colombia are practically unexploited. The slopes of
Ecuador are richly wooded. The forests of Peru occupy about three
hundred million acres, and its government has taken steps to ensure
conservation, and contemplates experiment stations.
[Illustration: Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and
Engraving Dept. SCENES FROM "THE AROMA OF ATHENS" CENTRAL FIGURE IN
FRONT PHIDIAS, BEHIND HIM PERICLES]
[Illustration: Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and
Engraving Dept. CENTRAL FIGURE PERICLES, ON THE LEFT PHIDIAS, ON THE
RIGHT DIOCHARES]
[Illustration: Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and
Engraving Dept. ATHENIAN SOLDIERS]
[Illustration: Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1911 Lomaland Photo. and
Engraving Dept. SOCRATES AND HIS DISCIPLES]
"AROMA OF ATHENS" STRIKES NEW NOTE IN THE DRAMA. Katherine Tingley to
Open Greek Theater to the Public: Unrivaled Natural Scenery: Marvelous
Acoustics. Notes by a Dramatic Critic
A new-old note in drama has been struck here on the Pacific Coast,
which, we feel quite safe in prophesying, will be recorded in many
histories. The English-speaking world has been fretting after some new
inspiration. We are tired of imitating the Elizabethans; for the time
being, that spring would seem to have run dry. What belongs to our
own day peculiarly tends to be mere boisterous horseplay or flippant
shallowness; vulgar both, and not in any way to be called art. What
we have that is good, the work of a few writers, is not so startling
in quantity or quality, nor so profoundly original, as to cause us
to hope for a new great art period in our own or our children's day.
And yet there has been the demand. The public has turned to strange
well-springs and found the waters bitter, cloying, soon to run dry; the
critics have filled their press columns, both here and in England, with
clamorings, prognostications, hasty or timorous judgments, a sense of a
great need and expectations. Decidedly the time is ripe for a new birth
in the drama.
MEETS NEEDS OF THE TIME
Now the question arises, what needs must this new birth and order
meet? Great art meets the needs of its time, sternly turning away from
its mere wants; for that reason it is often rejected for awhile by a
public clamorous after lower levels of things. Such a clamor we find
in our own day after sensationalism--give us action, more action, say
the managers; but is this a real need? The world is agog with action
as it is; such a riot of action as one might imagine the Gadarene
swine indulged in on their seaward last tumultuous journey. The motif
is threadbare; we have torn it to tatters and it is time to turn to
new modes. Personalism, too, is rampant and bears fruit in an ugly and
jangled civilization. What is needed, then, is an art that shall be
calm, dignified, beautiful, impersonal; a pointer to and promise of
better ways of living.
One turns back to the great art of the Greeks with a sense of relief
after all our modern, breathless, tom-tom beating. There we find
beauty, calm movement, dignity, national, and not merely personal
motifs; above all, an insistence on the higher and eternal verities. We
need the Aroma of Athens on our modern stage; because it is precisely
that that we need in our modern life.
PLAY DELIGHTED AUDIENCE
A few weeks ago Katherine Tingley presented a new play, _The Aroma
of Athens_, at her Isis theater in San Diego, which struck all who
saw it with profound surprise and delight. There was first the ideal
poetic beauty of the setting, a thing unrealizable unless seen. The
foremost of the London managers--men like Tree--have made a specialty
of beautiful setting, astonishing the theatrical world with the
splendor of their work in this line--and with its good taste. They have
had enormous resources to draw upon, and have spared no expense in
time, money, or thought. It may safely be said that none of them has
produced anything more beautiful than this _Aroma of Athens_; it may
safely be said that none of them has produced anything so beautiful.
One rubbed one's eyes in astonishment, wondering how such things
could be, and concluded that Madame Tingley at Point Loma had greater
resources to draw upon than are to be found in London, Paris, Berlin,
or New York. It is a wonderful thing, prophetic of the time when the
culture-metropolis of the world will be right here among us on the
Pacific Coast. Madame Tingley long ago said that San Diego would be the
Athens of America, and today this is far nearer than we dream. If one
would learn what those greater resources of hers are, one must examine
her teachings, one must look into that marvelous scheme of education of
hers, the Râja Yoga system, which enabled, for example, those little
children on the stage to be as graceful, as un-self-conscious as any
figures on a Grecian vase. Have you seen children, young children,
on the stage, do well, wonderfully well; and then, when the applause
rolled in, do better still, remaining sublimely unconscious of the
applause? We applauded these children and looked to see, as a matter
of course, the aroma of Athens vanish in a series of smirks. But no;
clapped we never so loudly, it made no difference to them. They played
their Greek games; they were merry and classical; they were Grecian,
unstilted, poetic, faery. One's mind went back to Keats' ode:
"What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?"
And the answer was: Athens, Periclean Athens in all her superb flawless
beauty and splendor; yes, those were real Athenians; of whom we have
read in Keats and Swinburne; that we have seen sculptured in the Elgin
marbles. Here they were, in the flesh and blood; here was the heyday
of historic beauty, shedding its supreme aroma on us; with these tones
Plato and Aeschylus would have spoken; in this manner Phidias and
Pericles would have moved. It was a revelation, a marvelous artistic
realization--indeed, it is a shame to use such cant hackneyed phrases
for a thing so beautiful, so august--and yet so completely natural and
unstrained.
GREATER THINGS PROMISED
So much for its performance in a modern theater, but greater things are
promised. If all this is true of a play which was first thought of ten
days before it was presented--and that is the fact--what is not to be
hoped from the new presentation of it on April 17, a presentation of
which, we are told, the former ones were but little more than sketches,
and which is to be given in a real Greek open-air theater?
The Greek theater at Point Loma, the first in America, was built by
Madame Tingley in 1901. It has the true Greek setting, looking out over
the sea. A wild cañon runs down from it seaward, full of miniature
hills and precipices, among which, now visible and now unseen, winds
the path by which the players enter or leave the stage. There will be
torchlight processions under the moon new-risen, moving along that
path and over the broad stageplace; Greek chanting will be heard; real
Greek music, and music with that ineffable something in it lacking
in all, or nearly all, modern music, which suggests the hidden life
of nature, the weird majesty of Delphi, of Nemesis, of the pipes of
universal Pan; the very aroma of Sophoclean drama, plus an echo of that
older and even more entrancing Greece,
"Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady,"
When--
"Liquid Peneus was flowing
And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,
Speeded by Pan's sweet pipings."
KINGDOM OF PAN UNCONFINED
One has long suspected that, with luck, one might well come upon a faun
in the wild places of that cañon, at least in April, when the rains are
newly over and the hillside a riot of bloom and delight. For indeed the
kingdom of Pan is not confined; he has provinces here in California,
and you may come upon the dales of Arcady in any of the four quarters
of the world.
Were Pan or some legate of his to be piping far down the cañon, you
would not fail to catch every note of it from every part of the
auditorium in the theater; what is whispered on the stage is clearly
heard on the topmost tier of seats. The place is a Wonder of the
West if only for its marvelous acoustic properties. It has never
been opened to the public before for a performance. And it should be
remembered that Madame Tingley leaves nothing to chance; she stands out
grandly independent in her art; leaves no detail to be excused by the
generosity of the audience; permits nothing whatever of which you could
say: "This is excellent--for amateurs; this is splendid--considering
what a short time it has taken to get up." It may be quite safely
affirmed that this presentation on April 17 will have a prominent
place in all future histories of the drama.--San Diego _Union_, Friday
morning, April 7, 1911.
SOME NOTES ON "THE AROMA OF ATHENS" As given in the Greek Theater,
Point Loma, on Saturday Morning, April 22, 1911; With the Prolog to the
Play: by Kenneth Morris
There never was a play so difficult to appraise or criticise justly and
intelligently as this one. One had read many press notices from expert
dramatic critics, all of them enthusiastic; but when one came to see
the performance, it struck one that the best of them were inadequate,
wholly beside the point. And yet one sees the excuse for saying just
as much as language can be stretched to express. If one did not put on
the enthusiasm without stint or measure, one would convey a suggestion
that the presentation was unworthy of enthusiasm; the truth being that
enthusiasm is somehow unworthy of the presentation.