Chapter 5

From earliest Christian times the principal _doctrine_ based upon the Mysticism of the Neo-platonists and the Kabalists was what was called the [Greek: Gnosis], the Knowledge of the All, and the fundamental basis of this, as of all esoteric teaching from the beginning of History, was _Procreation_. From the first dawn of civilisation the "Great One" always had an enemy with whom he had to fight; having conquered, he married that enemy, and their offspring was Life or Duration. In the oldest forms, as in Persia and ancient Egypt, it was Light and Darkness, "Ormuz and Ahriman," "Osiris and Isis," the Light conquering Darkness, the Day conquering Night, resulting in Time and duration. In the Eleusinian Mysteries it was the "Sun and Earth" producing Vegetable Life, and in the [Greek: Gnosis] it was the "Ainsoph and Ignorance," resulting in True Knowledge or Everlasting Life.

In the Vesica Piscis (_vide_ frontispiece) we see two Equilateral Triangles formed on the same base, similar to what we found in the ground-plan of Chartres and other Gothic Cathedrals; these two triangles symbolised to the Mediaeval Builders the Divine and Human Natures of the Logos, the Word, the Creator; they are both procreated and enclosed in the Vesica; the one having the Apex pointed upwards, represented Divine or Spiritual Life, and in that I have placed the "Tetragrammaton," the Word or name of God (Jehovah), which, throughout the Jewish race for thousands of years, was held to be so sacred that they did not dare to utter it aloud. It was, at this time, depicted in the Equilateral Triangle, the symbol of the Logos, becoming thus the Masonic Word of the Middle Ages, and was probably used, exoterically, for purposes of recognition among members of the Great Building Societies, with the introduction of Gothic Architecture; but the _esoteric_ teaching, which was known only to the elite of the Craft and not by the Ordinary Operatives, was the mystical _procreation_ of that triangle, the doctrine of Spiritual or New Birth, symbolised by that mysterious figure which we have seen was the very foundation stone of Geometry, and therefore of Tectonic Art, the Head of all learning, and the great Secret of Gothic Architecture, called for esoteric purposes "Vesica Piscis." The Triangle, having the Apex pointing downwards, represented Human or Physical Life, and I have placed therein a representation of _sacrificial_ death, which we shall see was introduced, as a necessity, for the good of the Race.

As "everything in Heaven has its counterpart on Earth," so may we see, by introspection, that the _reflecting_ surface, the thin, physical film between the Human and Divine, is represented by that Base, and Human Life then becomes truly, as it should be, the reflection of the Divine.

One more glance through the Window at what I will call--

"The Mystery of the Apex."

The earliest forms of Life, the unicellular "Beings," whether animal or vegetable--for both divisions, if they can be said to be divided, have the same protoplasmic cell as basis of life--were, and are still, immortal except for accidents; they are not subject to natural death as we know it; they multiply by fission and not by "budding." It was only with the building up of cell upon cell into communities, and the advent of polycellular beings of greater and greater complexity of structure, that the "Wisdom" behind natural laws introduced death as an _adaptation_, to prevent monstrosities in the shape of mutilated specimens being perpetuated on the earth. Life is purely physical and, in conformity with the modes under which our physical senses act, has the appearance of tri-unity. As white light is seen to be composed of but three primary colours, as Music is based on the Triad, as Space is known to us in three dimensions only, and Geometry, "the Head of all Learning," is based upon the Circle, Square, and Triangle, so may we see life in its three primary aspects: the Animal, Vegetable, and Material. The last-mentioned aspect, though long suspected, from the investigation of Crystallography, to have in some mysterious way a common basis with the animal and vegetable, was not fully grasped until, in the last few years, we have been able to study in our laboratories the actual evolution, or more correctly devolution, of matter from one form to another; and as all plants and animals are found to be built up of the same identical protoplasmic cells, so are we now able to break down and analyse not only these cells but even the very structure of matter, and find that all substances are built up of exactly the same bricks, the different forms known to us as Elements being the _designs_ of the great Architect upon which each structure has been built; and these completed designs again are used and become the "ashlars" of the higher forms of plant and animal structure. As Evolution in the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms has given us Species, so in the Material it has developed Elements. The structures of animal and vegetable life are of comparatively recent formation, and are still apparently progressing in the direction of complexity, whereas the structures of matter appear to have long passed the stage of highest complexity, and the elements are now undergoing the retrograde process of being transformed, by radio-activity, from the more complex into simpler elements of lower atomic denominations--namely, having fewer bricks in each atom.

All these material designs are more or less radio-active--namely, changing into other elements, but some, like radium, polonium, &c., are active to an extraordinary extent. Each molecule or atom may be looked upon as an _aperture_, more or less open, through which we have flowing the equivalent of what may be called a leak from the Infinite, the changing of one element into another being represented by the change of shape or activity of that aperture. Countless ages ago these apertures were, by evolution, growing more and more complex in shape, but when the limit of complexity was reached and the _Apex_ was passed, an adaptation, somewhat analogous to death in the animal and vegetable, must have come into play, with the result that these apertures are now becoming more and more simple in their shape and activity. The Infinite referred to above may be diagnosed by some as being in the fourth dimension of space, or it may even be comprised within the Ether of our known three dimensions, for the discovery of radio-activity has enabled us to see that Ether is not only as dense as iron, but millions of times denser than that metal, every cubic foot, or probably cubic inch, being capable of supplying millions of horse-power if it could only be tapped. A homely simile of this leak from the Infinite may be seen in a glass of aerated water, where an irregularity of surface, a crumb of bread, or a grain of sand becomes the means by which carbonic-dioxide escapes from the interstices of the water.

Radio-active substances then are really forges for forming new structures of matter or forms of energy, rather than quarries from which they are cut, and we seem to get a glimpse of the origin of life, perhaps itself the cause of "retrogression" in the material, coming through from the Reality, the Infinite beyond the physical Universe.

Life and its processes are well symbolised by a triangle, the base of which is the "Divide" between the Real and its reflections or shadows on the Material plane, and through which all energy percolates. One side of the triangle represents anabolism, or the process of building up, and the other katabolism, the process of breaking down, and at the Apex is the Mystical "Terror of the Threshold," the "Ainsoph" (_vide_ frontispiece), which introduced _sacrificial_ death to the Physical, as an adaptation in the evolution of, and for the good of, the Human race. With the death of the Physical, the rending of the Veil, as we have seen in View Two, all Shadows and Reflections disappear, and, in place of "seeing as through a glass darkly," the Soul has its true birth, and at last enters upon its heritage in the Divine Life, face to face with the Reality, the Good, the Beautiful, and the True.

VIEW FOUR

LOVE IN ACTION

In the preceding Views we have seen that Time and Space have no real existence apart from our physical senses; they are only modes or conditions under which those senses act, and by which we gain a very limited and illusory knowledge of our surroundings. Our very consciousness of living depends upon our perception of multitudinous changes in our surroundings, and our very thoughts are therefore also limited by Time and Space, because _change_ is dependent on those two limits, the very basis of perceived motion being the time that an object takes to go over a certain space; we must therefore look behind consciousness itself, beyond the conditioning in Time and Space, for the true reality of Being. We have seen that man is the offspring of two distinct natures--the Spiritual or Transcendental and the Material or Physical; the former is the Real, the latter is only a shadow. If we now try to consider the connection between these two natures, we have to recognise that, with all our advance in Knowledge during the last hundred years, we are indeed still as children playing with pebbles on the sea-shore, knowing neither why we are placed there, nor what those pebbles are, or whence they came. Though we seem ever to be discovering fresh truths concerning their relations one with another, when arranged in different patterns, built up into new forms, or split up into smaller fragments, we have to acknowledge (substituting thoughts for pebbles) that we are still only learning our alphabet and the simple rules of multiplication, addition, and division, which must be mastered before we can hope to take the real step towards understanding.

We are surrounded by mysteries; we are indeed a mystery to ourselves, we do not even know how the Physical Ego is connected with the physical world; how the sense organs, receiving the impression of multitudinous and diverse frequencies of different intensities, transmit them to the brain, and how the mind is able to combine all these impressions and form concepts. But by examining the Physical Universe, we seem to see clearly that the only Reality is the Spiritual, the Here, and the Now, that our real _Personality_ being Spiritual is independent of Space and Time limitations, and is therefore Omnipresent and Omniscient; it may indeed be not only connected with the Physical Ego of this World, but be in close working connection with other Physical Egos in the Universe, and may, in some wonderful process, through its affinity with the Great Spirit, be helping them to progress in other directions possibly quite beyond our power to conceive under the conditions we are accustomed to here.

A great forest tree forms each year a multitude of separate buds; each of these buds is an independent plant which has only a temporary existence and has no present knowledge of the other buds, but it is by means of all these buds and the leaves they develop, that the tree is nourished and increases from year to year. Still more wonderful is the fact that it is these temporary existences which, in accordance with the general law of life-production, form special "ovules," which we call seeds, each of which has the potentiality for growing up into a great forest tree, which, in its turn, is capable of pushing forth temporary existences in countless directions. We have, in the above process of creating a forest tree, a likeness on the Physical Plane to what I would suggest is the process not only of the creation of the Race, but, on the Transcendental Plane, the multiplication of permanent personalities by means of, or in connection with, the temporary and Space-limited Human Physical Ego.

Again, as the human mind forms a thought, clothes it in physical language, and sends it forth in such a form as not only affects our material sense of hearing, but conveys to the hearer the very thought itself, so the whole Physical Universe is a temporary and Space-limited representation of the Reality which is behind, is in fact the materialisation of the Will or Thought of the Great Spirit. The "taking root" or advent of the Spiritual to the genus homo, made it possible for man to interpret the Good, Beautiful, and True in the phenomena of nature, and, as we, by studying these materialisations, gain knowledge of the Reality, and our personalities become real powers, so may we at length approach the point where we may feel that we are thinking, or having divulged to us, the very thoughts of God; and, though it may never be possible in this life to form a full conception of the Reality, we may, I think, even with our present state of knowledge, aspire to understand the messages conveyed to us in some of the multitudinous forms, under which these thoughts are presented to us, and I propose giving an example of this later on in this View.

Once more, in the case of a picture, it is possible, by examining and comparing a number of certain short lines in perspective, to discover not only the position occupied by the Artist, but also the point to which all those lines converge; so by examining and combining certain lines of Thought on the Physical Plane, and following them as far as we can with our present knowledge towards the point where our Ideals of the Good, Beautiful, and True intersect, we may reach the position from which we may be able to form, although through a glass darkly, even a conception of the Great Reality, and therefore of Its Offspring the Transcendental Ego, and its connection with the Universe.

As the whole of Nature is the temporary and Space-limited manifestation of the Reality, so the individual Physical Ego is the manifestation in Time and Space of the Transcendental Ego or true Personality. The Physical Ego is its transient expression and has no other use beyond this life. Each Physical Ego helps, or should help forward, the general improvement of the Race towards perfection. Each generation should come into being a step nearer to the Spiritual, until it can be pictured that at the final consummation, there will be nothing imperfect, no shadow left; the full complement of Spiritual Personalities being complete in the Great All-Father.

Do we not then see clearly that the Physical Ego, comprised in what we call "I am," "I perceive," "I think," "I conceive," "I remember," is transient, and has only to do with the progress of the Race? It is the Shadow or Image in the Physical Universe of that Personality which Transcends Time and Space. Take away a small portion of the Brain, the organ of the Mind, and Memory is wiped out, remove the greater part of it and the manifestation of the Physical Ego is destroyed; though the body is as much alive as before, there is apparently nothing left but the physical life, which it has in common with all animals, plants, and probably, as strongly suggested by late discoveries in Radio-activity, even with what is called inorganic matter. The Brain, and therefore the Ego, is not a necessity for Physical life; this is clearly seen in the lower forms of life--it would be difficult to point out the brain of a Cabbage or an Oak Tree.

In the last forty years we have entered upon a new era of religion and philosophy; we hear no more of the old belief that the study of scientific facts leads to atheism or irreligion; we begin to see that Religion and Science must go hand in hand towards elucidating the Riddle of the Universe, and such a change enables us even to aspire to show, as I now propose to do, that it is possible, by examining certain phenomena in Nature, to reach that point where we may feel that we are listening to and understanding, though through a glass darkly, what may be called the very Thoughts of the Great Reality. I will take for examination the subject most intimately connected with the title of this View--namely, the nature of the growth of the Transcendental Personality, upon what that growth depends, and how we may understand that the attainment to Everlasting Life is dependent upon that growth.

I have already pointed out in View Two that the Transcendental Personality, being Spiritual, and therefore akin to the Great Reality, may be said to have no free-will of itself. Its will or influence must always be working towards perfection in the form "Let Thy Will, which is also my will, be done"; the efficacy of its influence with the Great Reality depends on its growth or nourishment by the knowledge of the Good, Beautiful, and True ever bringing it more and more nearly into perfect touch or sympathy with the All-loving. The power of prayer therefore depends upon two conditions; it must be in the form of "Let thy Will be done," and that which prays must be capable of making its petition felt, by having already gained a knowledge of what that Will is. I am, of course, not referring to that form of prayer which, alas with so many, seems to be the attempt to get as much out of the Absolute as is possible, with the least amount of trouble.

If now we carefully examine the Phenomena around us, we make the extraordinary discovery that this power to influence is the very basis of survival and of progress throughout the universe. In the organic world all Nature seems to be praying in one form or another, and only those that pray with efficacy, based upon the above two conditions, survive in the struggle for existence. The economy of Nature is founded upon that inexorable law the "Survival of the Fittest"; every organism that is not in sympathy with its environment, and cannot therefore derive help and nourishment from its surroundings, perishes. Darwin tells us that the colours of flowering plants have been developed by the necessity of attracting the bees, on whose visits depends the power of plants to reproduce their species; those families of plants which do not as it were pray to the bees with efficacy, fail to attract, are not therefore fertilised, and disappear without leaving successors. Flowers may also be said to be praying to us by their beauty, or usefulness, and in some cases, as with orchids, by their marvellous shapes. We answer their prayer by building hot houses and tending them with care, because they please us, and therefore we help them to live; while, on the contrary, those plants that have not developed these qualities are not only neglected, but, in some cases, as with weeds, we take special trouble to exterminate them, because their existence is distasteful to us.

Charles Darwin also tells us that Heredity and Environment are the prime influences under which the whole Organic World is sustained; in other words, every organism has implanted in it by heredity the principle of life, but the conditions under which it will be possible for that life to expand and come to perfection, rest entirely upon its power to bring itself into harmony with its environment. This principle of life does not come naked into the world, it is fortified by heredity, with power gained by its parents in their struggle for existence, and in their persistence to get into sympathy with their environment. The knowledge they gained, by this struggle, they have handed down to their offspring, and given it thereby the possibility of also gaining for itself that knowledge of, and power to get into sympathy with, its environment, upon which its future existence will depend. So may we not see that in the Spiritual World, these two conditions dominate, and that it is only by the clear comprehension of their reality that we can understand how all-important it is for the soul to bring itself nearer and nearer into harmony with its environment, the Spiritual, and how the efficacy of prayer depends upon the Knowledge of what is the Will of God?

We have received from our Spiritual Father the principle of Everlasting Life, and the aspirations which, if followed, will enable that life to expand and come to perfection; but, as in the case of physical organism, the gift is useless unless we elect to use those aspirations aright, and gain thereby a knowledge of our Spiritual Environment, which alone can bring us into sympathy with the Great Reality. Without this "Knowledge of God," we can see by analogy on the Organic Plane that Everlasting Life is impossible--we are as weeds and shall be rooted out. This is no figment of the imagination, it seems to be the only conclusion we can come to if Nature is the work of Nature's God, and Man is made in the image (spiritual) of that God. Herbert Spencer came to the same conclusion when defining everlasting existence. He says: "Perfect correspondence would be perfect life; were there no changes in the environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there would be Eternal Existence and Eternal Knowledge" (_Principles of Biology_).

The power of influence, by sympathetic action, may also be seen in another direction; consider the fact that if we are in a room with a piano and we sing a certain note, say E flat, we not only hear that note coming back from the piano, but, if we examine the strings, we find that all the E flats are actually vibrating in sympathy, because they are in perfect harmony with the note given out by the voice; but none of the other strings are responding because they are out of harmony. With this simile in mind, let us consider the curious fact that a moth always lays its eggs on that particular plant upon which the caterpillars, when they hatch out of these eggs, must feed. The study of the Life History of Insects has always been of great interest to me, as I firmly believe that we are on the verge of a great discovery, and that the first indications are being revealed to us through the investigation of the Biology of Insects. Some of you may, perhaps, have watched this progress of ovipositing, as I have done, and noticed how the female moth will hover in a peculiar way over different plants, but does not alight until she comes to a plant near akin to the one she is seeking. She then alights, but remains, on tip-toe as it were, with legs outstretched and wings quivering, and soon mounts again into the air; it is only when she alights on the proper food plant that she shows unmistakably that she knows her quest is ended and her eggs are laid. This particular plant has no other attractions for her, she takes her food irrespectively from any other flower which secretes honey, and yet, when she is ready to fulfil her destiny, she is unerringly drawn towards that particular plant which must be the food of her offspring. What is this wonderful sense? We call it instinct, a name which is made to cover all other senses in the lower animals, of which we have no cognisance ourselves. Let us take our own senses as a guide: we find that they are all based on the appreciation of frequencies, of greater or less rapidity, by means of organs specially adapted to vibrate in sympathy with those pulsations, and thus we gain knowledge of external things. Two tuning forks or two organ pipes when vibrating close to each other, give out a pure musical note when they are in perfect harmony, and they then have, as it were, "rest" together; but when one is put even slightly out of harmony, there is, in place of a pure musical note, a rise and fall of sound in heavy throbs, strangely characteristic of "quarrelling"; in fact, discord and "unrest."