Death
Its Relation to Life. Its Immortality. Its loving purpose. Its Relation
to Evolution.
“To die, to sleep,—To sleep! perchance to dream! ay there’s the
rub.”—Shakespeare.
In preceding chapters I have so frequently made the statement that life
and death are one and the same, that it seems almost superfluous to
say another word on the subject. But I am willing, even at the risk of
seeming pedantic, to re-state the argument, which is not only simple and
easy of comprehension, but at the same time both scientific and rational.
Without desiring to enter upon the realm of metaphysics in this book, it
will be sufficient to say that we use the term Life in its fullest sense,
and not in the restricted one of consciousness. Consciousness itself
being but one expression of life.
Two Irishmen walking along a road came upon a turtle. It had been
decapitated and its head lay some distance away from its body. “Begorra,”
says Pat, “he’s dead sure enough. His head’s cut off.” Mike picked up
a stick and punched the turtle’s feet, who immediately withdrew them
inside his shell. “No,” says he, “he’s aloive. See him move.” “You’re
a fool Mike,” says Pat. “He’s dead I tell you. Don’t you see his
head’s cut off.” “He’s aloive,” said Mike, “you can see him move.” The
argument became heated, Mike insisting that a dead turtle couldn’t move,
and Pat being equally insistent that no turtle with his head cut off
could be alive. The matter was about to be referred to the Irishman’s
court of last resort, when a Dutchman, passing along, an armistice was
established, and the matter referred to him for decision. The Dutchman
examined the turtle and discovered it had been killed in a supposedly
most effective manner by having its head cut off. Mike’s test with the
stick, however, revealed the ability on the part of the turtle for pretty
lively activity. He then arose and delivered himself, “Gentlemen, dot
turtle iss dead all right,—but it don’t know it.”
Every area of being,—of the universe, is eternally alive. It doesn’t
always KNOW it.
We repeat, there is one—can be but one—Be-ing. This being is not mind,
nor its product matter. Ether is only a refined form of matter. Mind is
adjudged to be a still more refined form of that same matter. But being
is Substance. You may call it Spirit (or meaning) or you may call it God.
Paul called it Faith, and said “by it and of it the worlds were made.”
We call it Electricity. Every infinitesimal electron of this substance,
as we have stated, is by-polar or sexual. Attracting and repelling,
embracing and separating. This eternal, inherent or natural law of their
being is Life,—energy, activity. The resultant of these activities:—the
worlds and all that in them is.
Suppose a great mass of type moved by an inherent, automatic, continuous
impulse. Its integral component letters forever arranging themselves
into words, phrases, sentences, etc. For illustration: The letters
E-V-I-L create the word Evil. Rearrange the same letters and your
word Evil disappears and the word L-I-V-E, Live, appears, or is born,
created, evolved, whatever. The energy, the auto-activity would be one
and the same. The disintegration and disappearance of one word, and the
re-adjustment of letters and appearance or creation of another word being
equally the resultant of the same letters, with their same inherent
energy and impulse. You might call one part of the process Creation and
another part Destruction, but the process is one and continuous. Your
division is merely hypothetical, or assumed. What is destroyed? The
letters remain, and their inherent energy or impulse remains—all there
was at any time.
The integral, component particles—electrons—of the one only eternal
substance, are the letters comprising the universe. Their inherent,
automatic, eternal energy, activity—Life—forever spelling out words
and sentences, etc., that go to make up the Book of Life. They arrange
themselves as earthquake or pestilence, famine, murder, birth, disease,
old age, death, sunshine, flowers, music, painting, sculpture, art,
laughter, tears, whatever. What are these terms but names for the varied
activities of life? Life is all there is. What is called death is equally
life. Life and death are the two impulses of this one universal force.
In certain of its phenomena, now classified as electrical, this dual
impulse is noted and its action is called “closing the circuit” and
“breaking the circuit.” This same dual impulse or tendency to embrace
and separate—embrace and separate—obtains throughout the entire cosmos,
proving the universality of electrical action. Ether, fire, air, water,
earth, sound, sensation, light, form, color, smell, food, thought are all
known to be modes of motion—rates of vibration. Motion of what? Rate of
vibration of what?—Of the infinite, integral, component electrons of the
one universal substance.
All movement, or action, or impulse, is in a straight line, and in a
circle. The movement in a straight line is the repulsion, the departure,
the separation. Motion in a circle is the attraction, the return, the
embrace. This is polarity. This is sex. This is Eternal Life. This
is Eternal Death. The Two Immortals—or the One (bi-polar, bi-sexual)
Immortal.
We repeat, all the substance there is is Electricity. All the force there
is, therefore, is electrical. There being but one substance—synthetic
being—all force must be electrical. This electrical force is a unit, but
has two impulses, positive and negative, attraction and repulsion.
All organic forms contains these impulses. For illustration, take a
human entity. The positive we call man, the negative woman. Through
the embrace of certain electrons thrown off from the organism of each
(physiologically termed the spermatozoa of the male and the fecundating
fluid of the female), there is established the basis of a future organism
for manifesting consciousness and conscious or intelligent activity. A
journey is begun. Life and death are one and move side by side. Their
eternal impulse ever active. If what is called harmony or health prevails
a vigorous entity is evolved and continued. When the negative tendency
or inharmony prevails in this continued struggle for supremacy, beyond a
certain limit, the organism becomes de-harmonized, dis-eased, disabled,
unconscious, disintegrated. Such is this restless energy we call life.
The circuit completed, life and death (the positive and negative
impulse), move together side by side, but the tendency to break the
circuit—as well as to close the circuit—always obtains. When this occurs
there is a re-adjustment of conditions, out of which new forms of life
appear.
There can be no antagonism in a unit. There is only a restless energy and
impulse to effect changes; to continue the work of creation or evolution.
I want my readers to recognize death as a friend, and not as so many
regard him, an enemy. He has been and is our constant companion—he is
ourself, and is entitled to fuller and kinder recognition. We scandalize
death and caricature and abuse him, not realizing that we are abusing
ourselves. When the tired organism craves only rest, how readily we
should welcome his loving embrace. We cannot love life without loving
death, as they are one and inseparable, being the unit—which is all
there is. What is true of this ceaseless energy or electrical impulse
as manifested in organic forms, is also true in inorganic forms. It
generates all vegetables, and fruits and flowers, giving them beauty
and fragrance and flavor. And we note the same spherical growth in all,
demonstrating the electrical nature of all creation. Each cell is rotated
into form by this dual impulse. We see the same spherical formation in
our forests.
The same “dissolution” or change takes place in in-organic as in organic
life. As the “speck” or decayed spot appears on the apple we know the
circuit has been broken and the negative tendency becoming the stronger.
Everywhere, everything is the circle, and everywhere the tendency to
break that circle or circuit. In the celestial bodies called worlds, it
is the same as in the flower. Astronomers agree that there is an ultimate
limit to the so-called “life” of all planetary bodies. This is true.
They have been evolved and devolved for aeons and aeons of time. And the
eternal electrical impulse and energy will continue its sport of creation
and of destruction throughout the ages yet to be.
Life is. Without beginning—without duration—without ending. Such is the
meaning of the word Eternity.