MY JOURNEY TOWARDS THE END OF EARTH BEGINS.--THE ADEPTS'
BROTHERHOOD.
My companion did not attempt to watch over my motions or in any way to
interfere with my freedom.
"I will for a time necessarily be absent," he said, "arranging for our
journey, and while I am getting ready you must employ yourself as best
you can. I ask you, however, now to swear that, as you have promised,
you will not seek your wife and children."
To this I agreed.
"Hold up your hand," he said, and I repeated after him: "All this I most
solemnly and sincerely promise and swear, with a firm and steadfast
resolution to keep and perform my oath, without the least equivocation,
mental reservation or self-evasion whatever."
"That will answer; see that you keep your oath this time," he said, and
he departed. Several days were consumed before he returned, and during
that time I was an inquisitive and silent listener to the various
conjectures others were making regarding my abduction which event was
becoming of general interest. Some of the theories advanced were quite
near the truth, others wild and erratic. How preposterous it seemed to
me that the actor himself could be in the very seat of the disturbance,
willing, anxious to testify, ready to prove the truth concerning his
position, and yet unable even to obtain a respectful hearing from those
most interested in his recovery. Men gathered together discussing the
"outrage"; women, children, even, talked of little else, and it was
evident that the entire country was aroused. New political issues took
their rise from the event, but the man who was the prime cause of the
excitement was for a period a willing and unwilling listener, as he had
been a willing and unwilling actor in the tragedy.
One morning my companion drove up in a light carriage, drawn by a span
of fine, spirited, black horses.
"We are ready now," he said, and my unprecedented journey began.
Wherever we stopped, I heard my name mentioned. Men combined against
men, brother was declaiming against brother, neighbor was against
neighbor, everywhere suspicion was in the air.
"The passage of time alone can quiet these people," said I.
"The usual conception of the term Time--an indescribable something
flowing at a constant rate--is erroneous," replied my comrade. "Time is
humanity's best friend, and should be pictured as a ministering angel,
instead of a skeleton with hour-glass and scythe. Time does not fly, but
is permanent and quiescent, while restless, force-impelled matter rushes
onward. Force and matter fly; Time reposes. At our birth we are wound up
like a machine, to move for a certain number of years, grating against
Time. We grind against that complacent spirit, and wear not Time but
ourselves away. We hold within ourselves a certain amount of energy,
which, an evanescent form of matter, is the opponent of Time. Time has
no existence with inanimate objects. It is a conception of the human
intellect. Time is rest, perfect rest, tranquillity such as man never
realizes unless he becomes a part of the sweet silences toward which
human life and human mind are drifting. So much for Time. Now for Life.
Disturbed energy in one of its forms, we call Life; and this Life is the
great enemy of peace, the opponent of steadfast perfection. Pure energy,
the soul of the universe, permeates all things with which man is now
acquainted, but when at rest is imperceptible to man, while disturbed
energy, according to its condition, is apparent either as matter or as
force. A substance or material body is a manifestation resulting from a
disturbance of energy. The agitating cause removed, the manifestations
disappear, and thus a universe may be extinguished, without unbalancing
the cosmos that remains. The worlds known to man are conditions of
abnormal energy moving on separate planes through what men call space.
They attract to themselves bodies of similar description, and thus
influence one another--they have each a separate existence, and are
swayed to and fro under the influence of the various disturbances in
energy common to their rank or order, which we call forms of forces.
Unsettled energy also assumes numerous other expressions that are
unknown to man, but which in all perceptible forms is characterized by
motion. Pure energy can not be appreciated by the minds of mortals.
There are invisible worlds besides those perceived by us in our
planetary system, unreachable centers of ethereal structure about us
that stand in a higher plane of development than earthly matter which is
a gross form of disturbed energy. There are also lower planes. Man's
acquaintance with the forms of energy is the result of his power of
perceiving the forms of matter of which he is a part. Heat, light,
gravitation, electricity and magnetism are ever present in all
perceivable substances, and, although purer than earth, they are still
manifestations of absolute energy, and for this reason are sensible to
men, but more evanescent than material bodies. Perhaps you can conceive
that if these disturbances could be removed, matter or force would be
resolved back into pure energy, and would vanish. Such a dissociation is
an ethereal existence, and as pure energy the life spirit of all
material things is neither cold nor hot, heavy nor light, solid, liquid
nor gaseous--men can not, as mortals now exist, see, feel, smell, taste,
or even conceive of it. It moves through space as we do through it, a
world of itself as transparent to matter as matter is to it, insensible
but ever present, a reality to higher existences that rest in other
planes, but not to us an essence subject to scientific test, nor an
entity. Of these problems and their connection with others in the unseen
depths beyond, you are not yet in a position properly to judge, but
before many years a new sense will be given you or a development of
latent senses by the removal of those more gross, and a partial insight
into an unsuspected unseen, into a realm to you at present unknown.
"It has been ordained that a select few must from time to time pass over
the threshold that divides a mortal's present life from the future, and
your lot has been cast among the favored ones. It is or should be deemed
a privilege to be permitted to pass farther than human philosophy has
yet gone, into an investigation of the problems of life; this I say to
encourage you. We have in our order a handful of persons who have
received the accumulated fruits of the close attention others have
given to these subjects which have been handed to them by the
generations of men who have preceded. You are destined to become as they
are. This study of semi-occult forces has enabled those selected for the
work to master some of the concealed truths of being, and by the partial
development of a new sense or new senses, partly to triumph over death.
These facts are hidden from ordinary man, and from the earth-bound
workers of our brotherhood, who can not even interpret the words they
learn. The methods by which they are elucidated have been locked from
man because the world is not prepared to receive them, selfishness being
the ruling passion of debased mankind, and publicity, until the chain of
evidence is more complete, would embarrass their further evolutions, for
man as yet lives on the selfish plane."
"Do you mean that, among men, there are a few persons possessed of
powers such as you have mentioned?"
"Yes; they move here and there through all orders of society, and their
attainments are unknown, except to one another, or, at most, to but few
persons. These adepts are scientific men, and may not even be recognized
as members of our organization; indeed it is often necessary, for
obvious reasons, that they should not be known as such. These studies
must constantly be prosecuted in various directions, and some monitors
must teach others to perform certain duties that are necessary to the
grand evolution. Hence, when a man has become one of our brotherhood,
from the promptings that made you one of us, and has been as ready and
determined to instruct outsiders in our work as you have been, it is
proper that he should in turn be compelled to serve our people, and
eventually, mankind."
"Am I to infer from this," I exclaimed, a sudden light breaking upon me,
"that the alchemistic manuscript that led me to the fraternity to which
you are related may have been artfully designed to serve the interest of
that organization?" To this question I received no reply. After an
interval, I again sought information concerning the order, and with more
success.
"I understand that you propose that I shall go on a journey of
investigation for the good of our order and also of humanity."
"True; it is necessary that our discoveries be kept alive, and it is
essential that the men who do this work accept the trust of their own
accord. He who will not consent to add to the common stock of knowledge
and understanding, must be deemed a drone in the hive of nature--but few
persons, however, are called upon to serve as you must serve. Men are
scattered over the world with this object in view, and are unknown to
their families or even to other members of the order; they hold in
solemn trust our sacred revelations, and impart them to others as is
ordained, and thus nothing perishes; eventually humanity will profit.
"Others, as you soon will be doing, are now exploring assigned sections
of this illimitable field, accumulating further knowledge, and they will
report results to those whose duty it is to retain and formulate the
collected sum of facts and principles. So it is that, unknown to the
great body of our brotherhood, a chosen number, under our esoteric
teachings, are gradually passing the dividing line that separates life
from death, matter from spirit, for we have members who have mastered
these problems. We ask, however, no aid of evil forces or of necromancy
or black art, and your study of alchemy was of no avail, although to
save the vital truths alchemy is a part of our work. We proceed in exact
accordance with natural laws, which will yet be known to all men.
Sorrow, suffering, pain of all descriptions, are enemies to the members
of our order, as they are to mankind broadly, and we hope in the future
so to control the now hidden secrets of Nature as to be able to govern
the antagonistic disturbances in energy with which man now is everywhere
thwarted, to subdue the physical enemies of the race, to affiliate
religious and scientific thought, cultivating brotherly love, the
foundation and capstone, the cement and union of this ancient
fraternity."
"And am I really to take an important part in this scheme? Have I been
set apart to explore a section of the unknown for a bit of hidden
knowledge, and to return again?"
"This I will say," he answered, evading a direct reply, "you have been
selected for a part that one in a thousand has been required to
undertake. You are to pass into a field that will carry you beyond the
present limits of human observation. This much I have been instructed to
impart to you in order to nerve you for your duty. I seem to be a young
man; really I am aged. You seem to be infirm and old, but you are
young. Many years ago, cycles ago as men record time, I was promoted to
do a certain work because of my zealous nature; like you, I also had to
do penance for an error. I disappeared, as you are destined to do, from
the sight of men. I regained my youth; yours has been lost forever, but
you will regain more than your former strength. We shall both exist
after this generation of men has passed away, and shall mingle with
generations yet to be born, for we shall learn how to restore our
youthful vigor, and will supply it time and again to earthly matter.
Rest assured also that the object of our labors is of the most laudable
nature, and we must be upheld under all difficulties by the fact that
multitudes of men who are yet to come will be benefited thereby."