A PSYCHICAL JOURNEY
“How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of an inner joy.”
Saulus and Amoz advancing into the cave found it dry and capacious, and
also well lighted for some distance from the entrance. A long‐continued
cleft upward in the face of the rock freely admitted the outer air and
daylight, and also sunlight at certain hours. The walls on either side
gave evidence of previous human habitation, being marked with various
inscriptions, symbolic characters, and drawings. In the deeper recesses
the darkness increased, and various intricate passage‐ways opened into
curious ramifications and apartments of indefinite extent. The temperature
was comfortable, and the atmosphere pleasant.
“Behold a favored habitation already prepared for us!” said Amoz. “The
wisdom of the Voice is now made manifest!”
“Yea, of a surety it hath guided us to this place, and here we will
abide!”
Amoz returned for the camel, and soon led him to the entrance, where he
was unladen, and after a little delay a convenient place in the cave was
selected for him. Before the shades of evening fell everything was well
arranged for a stay of indefinite length.
The silence and seclusion seemed delightful, and even paradisaical to the
restless and depressed soul of Saulus. The world, with its unending
strifes and jealousies, its warring creeds and religious persecutions, and
all the surge and sweat of human passion, was far away.
Often, above all things, man needs a face‐to‐face interview with his real
self, in order that he may interpret the hidden springs of his own being,
sound the intricate deeps of his primal nature, study ideals, and survey
foundations. A life devoted entirely to the Objective, even if its ends be
worthy, lacks an understanding of those subjective mental and spiritual
reservoirs which is indispensable to harmonious development.
No one can avoid companionship. But objective personalities supply but a
small part of the innate craving for intimate good cheer and friendliness.
Whether or not consciously chosen, the ego must have a supremely close
communion with its own thought‐forms,—its veritable creations. As a
duplicate selfhood it is firmly linked to them. If man must carry this
secondary man with him, what sort of a character shall he be? His fellow‐
men, with whom he daily mingles, though seemingly near, are infinitely
distant when compared with his own self‐made mental environment,—his real
world.
Every man is like an artist who is sentenced to dwell with his own
pictures, so hung that they continually stare him in the face. But
especially when from choice or necessity one for a season turns aside from
his accustomed Objective, he finds intimate relationship with his
subjective structures of the past. He is forced to a careful inspection of
his own stored‐up images, and it is woeful if they frown upon him. All the
hates, envies, and antagonisms that he has ever projected are turned in
upon himself. They surround and threaten him, and their growls are
disquieting. He thought they had been sent away, but their accumulated
recoil was only postponed.
On the other hand, all the loves, harmonies, and hopes that have been sent
out, now possibly forgotten, rise up out of the misty deep and send back a
smile, and return affection with added interest. They are lived over
again.
“Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory.”
Heavens and hells are stored up in the chambers of the soul, and if
perchance diversion for a time may seem to bury them, their resurrection
and visitation surely follow in due course.
But as Saulus looked in upon himself, he found that he could increasingly
choose and control those things that should mentally dwell with him. With
all his cruel impetuosity of the past, his life had not been devoid of
good thoughts and deeds, and these he struggled to keep in review. But
vastly greater than all else, when the dark Past marshalled itself before
him, he turned to the Present God. How unlike was the God he found in
Horeb to the tribal Deity he had served in the Holy City! The difference
was in his own vision.
Often he would sit for hours with eyes closed and body relaxed, in silent
communion with the felt Presence. At such times he realized a positive
influx of sweetness and strength from the Universal, which thrilled him in
mind and body.
The crust of his former hardness was breaking up, and his soul was growing
childlike and plastic. The rigid dogmatism and intolerance in him, which
for so long had been impenetrable to the Spirit of Truth, were dissolving,
and love and wisdom were opened up, as water from a fountain whose seal
had been newly unloosed.
Saulus marvelled as much at the seeming change in his God as in the
transformation in himself. That Deity who had rejoiced in persecution, and
been angry and jealous, was now the Author of love, peace, and concord. It
was clear that his former concept of God had been but a telescopic
likeness of himself.
The cave at Horeb proved to be a most agreeable place of abode, and Saulus
found in his seclusion some of the happiest days of his life. Though the
evening experiences of weakness and trembling seemed to have become a
fixed habit, and scars and strains in soul and body were present as the
legacy of the past, there was a gradual gain of vigor. The expanding soul
was coming into a knowledge of its intrinsic divinity and oneness with the
Father, and this reflected and expressed a growing wholeness.
Amoz, with the camel, made some explorations in the adjacent region; and
about two hours distant, at a crossing of some of the more important
paths, he found a small station of a few huts, where supplies could be
replenished, and occasional communication had with the outside world.
But what was the world of the past to Saulus? It seemed as if he was
severed from everything that had gone before, and had built a new world
for himself. His own transformation was vastly greater than the change
from the Holy City to the cave. But he had no intention of becoming a
hermit. He would, for a time, gather his resources, and firmly knit the
sinews of his soul, in preparation for future conquests for the truth
among men. The mistakes and enmities of the past he would bury beneath a
mountain of love and good‐will which should brighten the world.
But what of past personal ties and obligations? First of all, what of
little Cassia? What of his ardent affection and faithful promises to her?
Was his love, which formerly was so consuming, yet alive and burning
brightly? Did she stand out in lifelike proportions in his new world, or
had her image largely faded out of his heart? What had she heard of him?
and what would she think?
There were hours when these and similar questions thrust themselves upon
Saulus with terrible force. The intense and all‐absorbing love of Cassia,
her unbounded confidence in him, and his former rapt devotion to her in
return, stood out before him in letters of fire.
One evening his period of suffering, which he had already named “a stake
in the flesh,” left him in a strange condition of unrest and uncertainty.
The thought of Cassia filled him with something like its old‐time
intensity. Questions crowded themselves upon him, and clamored for an
answer. But while the little maiden of the Sheepmarket still occupied a
very warm place in his heart, with it was mingled a peculiar sense of
ever‐widening distance.
He put himself on the witness‐stand,—
“Am I not a different Saulus from he who aforetime loved Cassia, and to
whom she was so devoted?”
“Has this new and larger love driven out my affection, or only for a time
overshadowed it?”
“Is she really fair and good, or did I deceive myself?”
“Can my love ever again be so all‐absorbing?”
Yes and no were both echoed as responses through the troubled mind of
Saulus. Opposing emotions marshalled themselves, and in confusing
alternation took possession of him. For a little time he forgot the cave
and all its associations in the fierce play of the contending forces.
But as the hours of the eventful evening wore away, the thought of Cassia
gained the ascendency. The very inscriptions of ancient lore upon the
walls seemed to melt into her name, and yield a fragrance of her
personality.
At length a peculiar quietude slowly settled upon him, but he felt that it
was not sleep. An unwonted lightness of soul and an ethereal consciousness
subtly crept in and possessed his senses. The solid walls of the cave
became unsteady, as if about to dissolve, but there was such a charming
naturalness in the change that it did not much surprise him.
“Surely I am not dreaming!”
“Of a verity, I believe that I am out of the body!”
“What lightness! what freedom!”
Soon he found himself standing beside his own prostrate form. He clearly
looked down upon the features—_his_ features! The eyes were lightly
closed, the lips slightly parted, and the breast rose and fell but feebly
with the movement of the breath. Otherwise the body was still.
“What a mystery!”
“Have I died?”
“No! that cannot be, for I—no, not I, for _I_ am here—but my body yonder
is manifestly animate. How easily _I_ can move!”
All feeling of strangeness soon wore off. Simply from force of desire he
rose in the air for a short distance, and looked down upon his material
counterpart as one would view a sleeping comrade. What wonderful liberty
and power before unknown! No wings were needed to move through the air as
he might choose.
Amoz, wide awake, was sitting quietly near the dim lamp, but saw nothing
unusual, believing that Saulus was asleep. Though the little lamp gave but
a feeble light, the cave, to Saulus, seemed filled with a soft but
brilliant illumination. Considering the unwonted powers and resources at
his command, he was surprised at his own lack of surprise. His senses were
extended and sublimated to a wonderful degree. He then tried to attract
the attention of Amoz, but received no recognition. Not to be baffled, he
took hold of him, and finally shouted in his ear, but with no effect.
Then Saulus began to wonder. He could see and hear, but not be seen or
heard. He moved about the cave and made some further exploration, and
found that the solid walls were no obstruction. They were not solid. He
could not only see through them, but pass through.
Then the thought of Cassia, which had been so strongly present before,
again became uppermost. But something of the same uncertainty within
himself regarding her still remained.
Realizing that desire was all that was now needed for propulsion, he came
to a sudden determination.
“I will go up to the Holy City, and once more behold Cassia, and all the
things that I left behind.”
With the speed of thought, he left his own body, Amoz, and the cave behind
him, and passed out from the mountain over the desert, and on, on,
unerringly, by the power of simple volition. Space and time were
limitations of the past.
How “cabbin’d, cribb’d, and confined” is man when weighted down with the
little load of dust which he has picked up, moulded, and for a brief
season carried about! To him chasms of time and space are wide and
unbridgable, and he travels his little round with barriers on every hand,
and an ever‐present sense of servitude.
But it is not the grosser body _per se_ which is so much his real
encumbrance as his false consciousness concerning it. He is steeped in a
prevailing and ever‐ruling materialism. He is enslaved because he is
ignorant of the laws of his own independence. He not only lives in the
thought that it—the body—is I, but also bows in subjection to those ever‐
varying conditions, which with chameleon‐like accuracy shadow forth, in
exact expression, the quality of his past composite of thought. The
consciousness which he has carelessly or ignorantly taken on, both
racially and individually, makes it his tyrannical master. Sometimes,
smarting under its rule, he has turned and denounced it as bad, and hence
a gloomy and destructive asceticism. This is no less a mistake than a
garish and overwrought materialism.
Everything is useful, and everything _good_, when not misplaced. Evil is
therefore not made up of the real quality of things, but of their
misplacement in the mind of man. But the very misplacement is educative.
So rapidly as the human mentality through evolutionary friction is
rectified, the whole cosmos falls into line. Then the nothingness of evil,
as an entity, will be made manifest. At present it is the name of a
condition of relativity.
Psychical experiences, unshackled by the supposed necessary limitations of
body in past ages, having been exceptional, have been counted as
supernatural, abnormal, or only imaginary. The present age, with its
scientific spirit, its broad toleration, and its recognition of the reign
of law in every realm, increasingly finds that they are merely subtle
links or aspects of the Universal Order. When their causation is traced,
their normality observed, and their utility understood, the weirdness and
seeming abnormity which have been put upon them will be removed from the
human lens, and the true place and use of uncommon phenomena become
evident. So long as they are regarded as strange, uncanny, or in some
degree unsound in scope or tendency, they are made gratuitously harmful
through the quality of thought concerning them.
With desert and mountain left behind in his flight, Saulus found himself
at the portal of the Sheepgate of the Holy City, ready to enter.(12)
* * * * * * * * * *
The city lamps flickered here and there, the gates were still open, and
the throng passing in and out as was wont. The shifting panorama of people
of various races, dialects, and costumes, pouring through the massive
arched portal with the general din and confusion, were all so familiar,
that Saulus almost forgot himself in the midst of an environment so long
habituated. He stood for a few moments in a retired corner, striving to
recall the strange thread of his eventful past, and then joined the
current which was entering the city. His sense of ethereal lightness
continued, and he walked by mere easy desire without effort. Quickening
his pace, he accidentally came in sharp contact with a Roman guard who had
charge of the gate, and who was rapidly going in the opposite direction to
order it closed for the night. He involuntarily stopped to apologize, but
was momentarily surprised to find himself utterly unrecognized. Then,
halting for a moment, he surveyed his own bodily proportions, and they
seemed as usual. But anon a sense of his newly recognized powers flashed
upon him, and he passed on without further hindrance or obstacle.
What security and immunity!
He could see and hear everything, but did not attract attention, and could
not if he would. Following the well‐worn thoroughfare, he soon came to the
inn, and turned and entered. He passed by Almon, who with some companions
were in the courtway, and continued to the family apartment, but seeing
nothing of Cassia he ascended to the roof, thinking that she might be in
her wonted corner. The moon was shining brightly, and every well‐known
object stood out in bold relief, but Cassia was not there. Then he
bethought himself that she was presumably in her own apartment. He hurried
down the stairway, where every step was like an old acquaintance, and
coming to the entrance, easily passed in without any movement of the
closed door.
* * * * * * * * * *
Cassia was seated upon a low divan, and near by, upon a small table, stood
a lamp which had burned out for lack of oil. But, as in the cave, a
strange soft light made everything clear to Saulus.
Her lithe, shapely form was wrapped in the ample folds of an easy
_négligé_ robe, and her long tresses fell behind in careless profusion
over her comely white neck. She sat with one hand pressed against her
childlike face, which was paler than was wont, her elbow resting upon the
small table at her side. Her downcast eyes were swollen and red from
weeping, her heart beating quickly, and a long‐drawn sigh escaped from her
lips as Saulus entered. He was distressed by her changed appearance. The
happy smile which formerly played upon her delicate features had been
replaced by a sorrowful, drawn expression, and the erstwhile full ripe red
lips, so carelessly parted, were pale and compressed.
“How changed! Is this really you, Cassia dear?”
He seated himself by her side, and taking her hand in his, pressed it to
his lips, and then, with a reverent air, gave her a kiss upon the
forehead. She felt it not. Then he gazed into her eyes, hoping in vain
that once again there might be reflected some image of himself.
Her manner was abstracted, and soon, with deep emotion, she began talking
to herself,—
“O my Saulus! Where art thou? and what evil hath befallen thee? Behold thy
Cassia weeps for thee and cannot be comforted. Shall I mourn thee as
dead?”
Saulus listened in agony, but could not make his presence known. Every
word cut him to the heart.
“I will not believe the tidings that have come to me. Some say that thou
hast become a lunatic, and some that thou wast smitten by the sun and
died, and others that thou hast joined the hated Nazarenes. Peradventure
they are all lies! O Saulus! I am persuaded that thou art still faithful.
I wot not but that thou art sick or in peril! O Saulus! why dost thou not
return?”
Then she arose and paced to and fro in the little apartment, and Saulus
beseechingly followed her. She spoke once more,—
“O my loved one! I feel almost that thou art here! Something like thy
sweet breath came upon my cheek! Nay! my imagination doth deceive me!”
Then she sat down and buried her face in her hands, and burst into fresh
weeping.
Saulus could endure the scene no longer. Thrilled and overwhelmed, he
withdrew in like manner as he had entered. In the effort to calm himself
he visited some of the other apartments.
After satisfying himself that his father, mother, and Rebecca were no
longer in the Holy City, he again ascended to the roof and sat down, if
possible to quiet his distress. Soon he grew more peaceful. He looked up
into the starry firmament, far above the local and temporary scenes of
turmoil and disappointment, and stillness came into his soul. The
intensity of that which had been near and present was merged into a living
sense of the broad, the Real, and the Universal. The personal affection
which had been so narrowly centred, was submerged in a love that was all‐
embracing.
With a tranquil feeling of strength and inclination, and without any
conscious passage of time, he found himself again in the cave at Horeb,
and everything as he had left it. He sought his quiet, prostrate form,
with which he had all the while been connected by an invisible spiritual
cord, and with a quick but indescribable pang repossessed his corporeal
frame, opened his eyes, and sat upright.