Chapter 5

In contradistinction to that which repels, and disintegrates, it is attraction. Love is God, it draws elements together, and holds them in proper spheres. It centralizes and builds up. It is controlled by fixed laws; it is only "blind" to those who have not investigated its nature, and office unshrinkingly, with an eye to a complete understanding of its true function. Devoted humanitarians have shown us how to feed, exercise, and rest the physical system, in order to produce health. Ministers of the Gospel have taught souls the way of life ever-lasting. Professors of the various sciences and arts, useful and ornamental, have instructed the intellects of men, and now and then a woman; but with all these, the affections--the crowning--rather the integral element of all life and being, have had few, or no exponents who have ever attempted to treat them from any basis which can be called philosophical, or which could ever serve as a guide to one uninitiated in their occult phases.

The ordinary expression of this part of the nature, is a vampyrism which is constantly on the alert to see what, and how much it can gobble up for its own delectation. This is the lowest grade. It begins with the selfism of the individual, its manifestations are named lust. It seeks expression through the sensuous nature, but extends to the spirit and will.

O Love! What crimes are committed in thy name! What laying waste of true and tender hearts, what defacing of sweet bodies, fashioned and set up as temples of the spirit!

This vampyrism extends through every department of the affectional nature. It exists not only among men and women recognized as lovers, married or otherwise, but parents are ghouls to their children, and friends devour each other without stint. Attraction is that law which draws together two opposite elements or forces, positive and negative, or male and female. As the nature and attributes of a human being are multiform, so are the attractions, or loves, numerous. Ignorance of the laws which ought to control and adjust these loves, is the prime cause of all the misery and crime with which the earth is flooded. Two people of the opposite sex are attracted through the intellect on this plane, and realizing the limit of the law which draws them together, they could be admiring friends forever; but ignorant of their needs outside of this, they attempt to force a conjugal relationship which too often ends in dislike. Every grade of lust and love finds representation in the so-called marriage relation, as it stands today. Intellects and spirits without any bodies--worth mentioning--and gross mortal remains unvitalized by souls. The former class ignore the claims of the physical, and gather their robes together sanctimoniously indicating: "Avaunt, lest my purity be contaminated"; while the latter laugh their spiritual pride and fastidiousness to scorn. The war goes on between good and evil, whereas there is really no just ground for difference. All that is needed for the attainment of harmony and peace is a wise adjustment of these forces in individuals and in society.

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The growth of all true character must be slow and gradual. It is not enough that the soul perceives the beauty of a grand, moral life, it must also learn to live it humbly, earnestly and truly.

"IDEALS OF LOVE."

"Greater love hath no man than that he shall give his life for another," whether the scene be set upon the mimic stage, or on the broad theatre of the world. Heroic rescues, desperate efforts to save endangered lives, care of the battle-wounded or fatally diseased meet, from great and small, brutal and cultivated, deserved recognition, even to the extent of making the individual actors--so favored by the gods--famous, throughout the world.

The patient service of men and women to their families, of children to their parents, or of friends who rejoice in serving, that goes on all around us conforms so entirely with our established ideals of what is right and becoming, that it is unnoticed and wins no applause, but oftener only calls out from the recipient demands for further sacrifice.

In all such related service the real blessing comes to those who give far more than to those who receive. The operation of this law hallows all the relationships of this life, and must finally yield to the unselfish giver undreamed of compensations. Not here, perhaps, but in that sphere of being where love is indeed the fulfilling of the law, shall the patient givers, those who have served at love's altars, find themselves closely allied to the immortal ones, "who do his pleasure."

Love, garlanded, and adorned with all that wealth can bestow, enthroned in seats of honor, and social recognition is accepted as our ideal of what love should claim, and win from life; but I have looked into the faces of humble, patient toilers, and there I have seen that the sustaining influence with them was love, and have marvelled greatly over the compelling power of their ideals of love.

Remembering that foundations of love upon this earthly planet were, of necessity, laid in the selfish instincts of the race--a race as yet so undeveloped in all that "makes for righteousness"--we need not despair of the final outcome, and realization of its high behest to the children of men; for no expression of love, however mean in view of our own exalted ideals, but is, in reality, an effort towards something higher and better. The obdurate and selfish are unfolded, and taught by its painful misunderstandings, and awful tragedies.

Those poor souls who expect everything from this life, whose ideals are bounded by their own selfishness, who have never discovered that God is Love, and that only through love, purified, exalted and idealized can any of his earthly children ever reach to any conscious relationship with our Father in Heaven, and who, failing to realize even their low ideals, pass on from one experience to another vainly searching for the realization of what their dimly perceived intuitions of love constantly assure them should be theirs--for even such as these there must be a final redemption; for, like one of old, they have "loved much," and the sins of a vast ignorance are at last condoned by God's all pervading, untiring, illimitable law of love.

O ye! who labor for humanity's uplifting; O weary workers in the homely ways of the unskilled in every relationship of life, unrecognized by your fellows be ye of good cheer! As the circling waves of a calm lake spread wider, and more widely from a center disturbed by some heavy substance, so shall your least word, or thought of pure, unselfish love, from your overburdened lives, reach out and diffuse an influence throughout the universe of God, and become a part of the life immortal!

Love, and love alone creates the desire for immortality, lifts up and renews the oft fainting faith, the faltering, changeful hope, and perpetuates the expectations of the restoration of beloved companions, the reunion of families, and friends. It inspires the spirit, and seals the brokenhearted to the service of "ideal love." It leads the human soul onward, and upward, until it triumphs, at last, over this life's defeats and losses, and its manifold despairs.

Undeterred by the alarms of war, the wails of the diseased and famine-cursed, and the violent protests of the oppressed, and misery-steeped unfortunates of this plane of being, the "Prince of Peace" is calling together his scattered forces. The beacon lights shine along the high places where dwell the exalted, and powerful ones of earth, and glimmer faintly from the lowlands, where the dire enemies of mankind--ignorance and superstition--are, at last, learning that God, the true God, loves, and cannot hate.

The "ground-swell" of the "ideal love" cannot be resisted, nor overborne by any competing power in the universe, and with ever-increasing force and power to conquer all of earth's conditions of unrest, and dissatisfaction, born of false ideals, it will sweep resistlessly on, until it is merged in God. The recognition of the homogeneity of the race, and the "Fatherhood of God," shall bring the longed for fulfillment of the ancient prophecy of "Peace on Earth, and good will to Man."

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The priests endowed the gods with vices which they knew to be popular among their rich and powerful patrons.

THE NEEDS OF WOMAN.

Women need any and all disciplines which teach them self-justice. There are many noble and good women who allow their whole lives to be picked away from them by demands upon their time and strength which come to them under the guise of duties. Viewed from a higher standpoint, they are not duties, in that they conflict with the great underlying principle of self-justice. This is the pivotal idea of a true religion; for it is impossible to be true, to be just to others save as we are so to ourselves, and while no character can be perfected, except through the fiery ordeal of an entire self-abnegation, there is a higher, and a holier life in store for those who have the strength, and the courage to plant their feet upon this God-given and eternal law of justice to self.

It is comparatively easy to gird one's self for the conflict which is apparent, nearly all women souls are equal to that heroism; but it is in the daily round of the household, in relation to the church, and to society, or to the professions where women need to watch most jealously the weakness of self-sacrifice. Women have had the beauty of "unselfishness," and "amiability" dinned into their ears for so long that there is no depth of degradation, or of abnegation of true womanhood to which they will not descend for the sake of being so considered by those whose interest it is to keep them where they virtually endorse the vices of others by their own lack of self-justice. While we must grope along until we understand the wickedness of this, and until we outgrow that weakness, let us be ready for, and equal to the hour which shall give us the laurels of the victor. And why not laurels? Has it not been uttered by the mouth of inspired prophecy that the "last shall be first," and that "the stone rejected by the builders shall yet be the head of the corner?" It rests with us, individually, to represent that truthfulness, and faithful adherence to the justice due to womanhood which shall yet crown her with rejoicing.

To this end women must begin to gather in those pearls of unselfish devotion and self-abnegation which they have been so recklessly casting under the feet of ignorance and beastliness.

It is blessed for lovely and loving woman to bestow bountifully from the richness of her nature. But every grace has its complement, and the complement of this, for the present, is the greater blessing of conserving herself until she knows her power as an individual, and thoroughly comprehends what is due to her dignity and worth.

MAN VERSUS WOMAN.

Man, living entirely in his physical nature, goes on and on in the gratification of the senses until he becomes satiated, and "blasé," and there is nothing satisfactory left for him upon the sensuous plane. Then he either crystallizes into a hard, selfish being, or plunges still deeper into the slough of sensuality from which Divine Love alone can rescue him. This power is most often manifested by woman, the natural law-giver and redeemer. For ages man has projected his selfish human will into all the affairs of life, thus setting aside the higher law. In the love relations he has specially dominated woman, reversing the divine order of nature, and thus killing out all possible inspiration, and consequent happiness. Everywhere he has set up his own lustful desires as the rule and right of life in his relationship to woman, destroying the spiritual sacrament of marriage; and by his selfishness and greed of power, he has reduced her to a condition of prostitution. He outrages the helpless ones who have confided their honor, and their lives to his keeping, and the law--the vile, cursed, man-made law--upholds him in this slaughter of all that should make his heaven of trusting love. The wails of the wronged ones--specially those who suffer in the marriage relation--go up incessantly to God, and the woe of the children who, through these conditions, have inherited only animal love and instinct is enough to drown the "music of the spheres."

Parenthood being one phase of unfoldment, each individual must at some period of incarnation exercise this important function. To the uses of reproduction, the animal love with its blustering activities of expression, is, rightly understood, adjusted. But above and beyond this is the spiritual union which brings forth children of the mind, the fruitage of the soul, manifest in noble thoughts and brave deeds. Every expression of love, however crude and animal, is an impulsion of the flesh-enveloped soul toward the source of all love, and however distasteful one may seem, to such as have evolved a spiritual consciousness, and the demand for soul satisfaction, it cannot be ignored.

Through the pain of satiety, of disease, or suspended activity of the love nature, the ego at last senses its need of God. It comes to know that nothing less than divine love can ever satisfy this demand of the heart. The constant tendency of the inspired human being is to extremes. The "golden mean" is the "high water mark" of real cultivation. We have on one side the suppression of the ascetic, and at the other end of the line the abandonment of the debauchee--both sinful and false because extreme, both casting a reproach upon the laws of God as outworked in, and through nature. The ascetic, seeing the harmful results to the soul attending the usual unlimited, and undisciplined expression of nature which man accords to his supposed necessities, draws the line by cutting off all surplus of physical supplies and, stifling the cries of passion, retires into a cave or cell, and into himself, thus totally ignoring all the necessary activities attending the development of this planet and of the human race. He may thus reach a high altitude of purely spiritual perception; but it is, after all, a sublimated selfishness. His example is of no benefit to the world's workers. He is not of those who think and feel, and who are in the way of divulging esoteric knowledges to the quest of the vast army of earnest seekers after light upon these underlying laws of human life.

For the control by man of the love, and the life of woman there is a cut-and-dried sentiment and an enforced law concerning the segregated exercise of a natural function. By her acceptance, or rejection of this onesided "morale," is woman judged pure or impure, blessed or cursed, as the case may be. If this rule could be enforced equally upon both sexes, if there were not two distinct sets of moral laws, one for man, and quite another for woman, there would be no such injustice. As it is, there is but one way left open for woman. She must develop the power and will to be a law unto herself, regardless of the suspicion, and brutality of man, and with this also indifference to the foolness and the weak protest of her fellow slaves--women. These are "long, long thoughts." Ages must elapse ere the males of our kind will have evoluted up to a status where they will see that through justice to woman alone can they secure to themselves any degree of worthy, or lasting happiness, or satisfaction.

NATURAL CRUELTY OF THE UNDEVELOPED.

The most unaccountable phase of the minds of the leaders of religions has been their persistent effort to make their fellow beings wretched and miserable instead of glad and happy. We expect savagery from the Comanchee Indians and other primitive tribes and races; but from self-styled Christians the history of their cruelties is astounding. It is pure devil worship--that is what it is--if they but knew it.

One of the beautiful plans of theologians and priests for scaring half-witted people into their individual folds has been telling them that they were in danger of committing the most dreadful of all sins, the "sin against the Holy Ghost." The utterly "unpardonable sin" of all sins. This blasphemous, fiendish proposition has frightened numbers of half-baked folks, and they have pestered their small modicum of brains over this mysterious say-so of priests and parsons even to the point of committing suicide, or of landing themselves in lunatic asylums.

THE WORST SIN.

The much speculated over "sin against the Holy Ghost," the so-called "unpardonable sin" is the sin that men and women commit against _themselves_; for the most holy of all ghosts, or spirits, is that portion of God--the universal Spirit--embodied in their own separate personalities, and it is only "unpardonable" in that it sets the soul back from its possible and intended progress toward its ultimate perfection.

REINCARNATION.

The objections to the acceptance of a belief in the law of reincarnation are based upon the imperfect teaching, and the consequent inadequate understanding of the laws controlling such experiences.

Some of the reasons for disbelief are utterly illogical. For instance, one view is this: "I never want to come back to this earth after I once leave it." The fact is, that there could be no return to today's recognized conditions of life. If one were to return to this planet and become reembodied, he would find himself in some other country, and under such entirely changed conditions that he would be totally unconscious of being on the same world where he had formerly lived. Then, again, the law of vibration is so immanent in material things, the changes are so constantly undermining conditions and setting up quite others that if one were to return in one hundred or even in fifty years, it could not be the same, and that person could not be in any way subject to the same conditions, or to the same experiences.

Furthermore, it is nature's wise and provident law that there is hardly ever any memory of any previous life here. Still, after the soul has passed through many lives and has accumulated great knowledge, a vast consciousness which can not be laid aside, there come to individual souls faint gleams of memories of past experiences which, if heeded or understood, might become helpful and instructive, if not altogether consoling.

There has never been a time when the needs of humanity have so reached the great spiritual overlords of this planet as at present. Or, that those needs have been so responded to by the return to earth of wise, and godlike spirits as now. Many of these have sought to approach humanity through personal reembodiment in the flesh. It would be well for the world if, instead of cramming the brains of children with effete ideas and superstitions, the messages of these wise ones could be listened to and heeded.

A thorough understanding of the laws of reembodiment, so far as we can know them, entirely refutes the belief and the feeling of the injustice of the Creator towards any human being. The law of evolution carries the soul along from one expression of life to another giving to each individual the opportunity to accumulate such knowledge, and to grow such character as shall finally bring it to a state of perfection. The discrepancies in human life are largely external. The millionaire, envied by less fortunate beings, may be far below the poor, struggling laborer in point of real unfoldment of soul. And again, people so favored in this material experience of life may be forced by the very nature of existence to return into humble conditions to learn the real lessons of life here.

We are not the arbiters of our own destiny, and the sooner we conceive the idea of non-resistence to fate, realize that our lives are guided by unerring law, and simply set ourselves to trying to understand the meanings of our experiences, and to trying to wring from each one all that it is intended to teach us, seeking to learn from it all that we possibly can in order that we may not be forced to be taught the lessons over again, the better for our growth and happiness.

This earth, our birth place, our kindergarten school, and the university from which we must each graduate, having once received us, can never let go its hold upon one of its children until this final result is attained. Over and over again, the lives of all who belong to this planet pass into the invisible realms of Nature to rest from the sordid and wearisome experiences of material life, and again return to seek out further growth and understanding, until the final culmination is reached. The soul is hurried on through its experiences of departing and returning, until earth has no further lesson, no further service to perform. Then, indeed, it may graduate and ascend to its place among the gods.

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Newly-embodied souls might be considered as raw material flung out upon the sea of life to be ground and polished by experience, and grown into a semblance of perfection befitting the "children of God."

PROCESSES OF REINCARNATION.

Spirit has no consciousness on the material plane, except through the vibratory action of the human brain, the mortal mind. The individual ego gathers up from each incarnation--if it is true to itself--some knowledge, some wisdom, and stores it away in the spirit brain. Its experiences cover every opportunity to understand, from lowest to highest, all that any single one in the whole human family has ever known. This is the justice of the great Creator. The king today has been in some previous life an oppressed laborer, and if he could for a moment lay aside his egotistical pride of power and place, he might remember and know how 'tis himself. Men and women of thought, of great character have returned from each separate incarnation, for rest from the destroyed physical, loaded like the honey bee with the results of labor and effort.

When the practised soul familiarizes itself with the newly-born, fleshly tabernacle it is to inhabit and use for a long or a short time, it broods over the unconscious being, and at the first indication of intelligence, pours into the human brain-cells its own spiritual life, and what thus comes in is there to stay. The growth of the child, the development of the individual, depends mostly upon the capacity of the brain to receive and adjust this knowledge and inspiration to its use upon the earth plane upon which it is to live, the place, the environment in which it is to learn its next needed lessons.

The soul, the ego, thus placed, is bound and shackled by its human heredity. This is inevitable, it has no choice as to its lineaments or figure. It in a sense bears the "sins of the world"; it can in no way separate itself, really, from the whole human family.