Chapter 3

Thoughts proceed from the visible mind and dreams from the invisible mind. The average waking mind receives and retains only a few of the lessons of life. It is largely filled with idle and incoherent thoughts that are soon forgotten. The same may be truly said of the dream mind. Many of our day thoughts are day dreams, just as many of our night dreams are night thoughts. Our day deeds of evil or good pierce or soothe the conscience, just as our night symbols of sorrow and joy sadden or please the objective senses. Our day's thoughts are filled with the warnings and presence of the inner mind and our night's thoughts are tinctured and often controlled by our external mind.

Some writer has said: ``Everything that exists upon earth has its ethereal counterpart.'' Christ said: ``As a man thinketh so is he.'' A Hindu proverb says: ``Man is a creature of reflection; he becomes that upon which he reflects.'' A modern metaphysicist says: ``Our thoughts are real substance and leave their images upon our personality, they fill our aura with beauty or ugliness according to our intents and purposes in life.'' Each evil thought or action has its pursuing phantom, each smile or kindly deed its guiding angel, we leave wherever we ignobly stand, a tomb and an epitaph to haunt us through the furnace of conscience and memory.

Closely following in the wake of our multiplying evil thoughts are armies of these ghastly spectres pursuing each other with the exact intents and purposes of the mind that gave them being. If we consider well these facts we will be forced into thinking our best thoughts at all times. Thoughts are the subjective and creative force that produces action. Action is the objective effect of thought; hence the character of our daily thoughts is making our failure or success of to-morrow.

The impersonal mind deals with all time and things as ever present. The objective mind is constantly striving to penetrate the spiritual realm, while the spiritual mind is striving to enter matter, hence our actions have their subjective counterparts and their subethereal counterparts. The universal mind, in harmony with the evolutionary plans and laws of the macrocosms, materializes through functions of the microcosm, imparting to each, with its routine of failure and success, its daily objectivity. The inner or passive dream mind may perceive the subjective types or antitypes many days before they objectify through the microcosm. Their meaning is often wrapt in symbols, but sometimes the actual as it occurs in objective life is conveyed. Our own thought images which have passed before the objective mind may be perceived by the clever mind reader, but those antitypes which are affecting our future, but which have none other but subjective existence, are rarely ever perceived by any one except by the power of the higher self or the spirit within. For this reason we are enjoined by the sages to study self. With the physical mind we only see physical objects, with the subjective mind we see only subjective objects. This was Paul's doctrine and it is the belief of the best psychic thought of this century. By means of our reason-- an objective process for divining the future--aided by mathematical and geographical data, we may outline the storm centers and the path of the rain days before they appear in certain localities. After eliminating all contingencies arising from clerical error and counteracting influence, the prognostication is sure of fulfilment. For centuries ahead the astronomer foretells the eclipse of the moon and the sun and the arrival of comets. He does not do this by crossing the borderland dividing the spiritual from the physical world. In a like manner the subjective forces operate upon their own planes and know very little even of their own corporal realm, just as our physical senses know little, if anything, of the soul or spiritual habitation. They know that by gross living the sense of conscience may be dulled, or that by right living it may be strengthened. In like manner the subjective mind perceives by its own senses certain invisible types of evil seeking external manifestations in the microcosm. It knows that these forms of error will work harm to the objective mind, and that if persisted in they will pervert all intercourse or interchange of counsel between the two factions of the man. In this there is no spiritual perception of physical objects, any more than there is in mundane life a sense perception of spiritual images and antitypes. The former only sees the forms that manifest on its plane, while the latter can note only those common to its sphere. Each may recognize and feel the violence or good that these manifestations will do to their respective counterparts, but we have no reason to believe that normal objective or subjective states have visional powers beyond their own plane. The mind of man acting upon the mind of the macrocosm will produce, according as he thinks or acts, antitypes of good or evil in the imagination of the world which is reflected upon the spiritual aura of the microcosm previous to taking on corporal form. While in this state they may be perceived by subjectivity, and thus the images seen are impressed on the dream mind during sleep, or on the passivity of the objective sense.

Evil or righteous acts recently committed will more acutely affect the present waking mind than those enacted at a more remote period. In a similar way future disaster or success which is soon to occur will impress the dream mind more vividly than those which are to transpire at a later date. But in the lives of all men there are past incidents which they will never forget, and which will never cease to fill their hearts with pride or remorse. So, too, in their distant future there are important events to transpire which are struggling through tumultuous infinitude to leave their ghastly or smiling impress upon the dream mind. If your mental states are passive you will receive the warnings. There are cases on record which show events have been forecast years ahead of their occurrence.

We do not claim that this book will prove an interpreter of all dreams, or that the keys disclosed will open to you all the mysteries of the future, or even all those surrounding your own personality, but by studying the definitions and the plane upon which they were written, you will be able, through the power of your own spirit, to interpret your own dreams. The combination of dream and dream influences are as infinite as the stars, or the combination of thought and number. They can only be classed and considered as such. They cannot be analyzed in detail or as a whole. In mathematics we have nine digits from which an infinite variety of combinations may be formed and solved by the deduction of the mind. Through them we may measure time, space, quality and quantity.

The symbol o and I exist by reason of _no thing_ and _some thing_ or death and life. The figure one is subject to illimitable expansion. It is without beginning in the infinite of number, as God is without beginning in the infinite of being. As with the vegetable kingdom, the tiny seed or acorn silently working its magical transformation into a plant or tree, and directing its destiny with marvelous intelligence through the torrid and frigid vicissitudes of the seasons; so is man without beginning in the infinitude of his own being or microcosm. Man is both a type and antitype. A type of what pre-existed in the imagination of the world, and an antitype of a future life yet to manifest itself on another plane where the incidents of the one will be subjective, as the events occurring in infancy or in other planes are now subjective. His dreams, thoughts and actions, and the influences that produce them and their multiplying combination, cannot be numbered or reproduced any more than you can number the leaves of the forest, or find two exactly similar units among them. Thus the full meaning or interpretation of dreams cannot be fully demonstrated through mental or even spiritual stereotypes. But by the intelligent use of this book you will be able to trace out almost any dream combination and arrive at the true nature of its portent.

A wise doctor, in preparing medicine for a patient, considers well his age, temperament and his present condition. So should the interpreter of dreams ponder well the mental state, the health, habits and temperament of the dreamer. These things no one can know so well as the dreamer himself. He, therefore, with the aid of this book, will be able to interpret his dreams by the light that is in him.

Man is the microcosm or a miniature world. He has a soul and mental firmament, bounded by the stellar dust and the milky way, and filled with the mystery of suns, satellites and stars. These he can study best by the astronomy of induction and introspection. He has also a physical plane, diversified by oceans, lakes, rivers, fertile valleys, waste places and mountains. All are in cosmic interdependency as they are in the macrocosm. Here rests the mystery of being--the grandest of subjects! The student is no less bewildered and awed than the geologist who gropes blindly through the seams of the earth searching for links in the infinite chain of knowledge, or the astronomer sweeping the heavens of the macrocosm in quest of new phenomena. The two planes are dependent upon each other. It is the smile or disease of the firmament that blesses or diseases the earth. It is likewise the impure firmament of the microcosm that diseases the body and soul. If it reflects the drought of thought or the various states of evil, deserts will enlarge, forest of infectious, venomous growth will form the habitation of lust and murder. Before great moral or physical revolutions or catastrophes occur, clouds will darken the horizon of the dream mind; storms will gather, lurid flames of lightning will flash their volatile anger; the explosive thunder will recklessly carry on its bombardment; bells will ring, strange knocking will be heard--symbols of a message-- phantom forms will be seen, familiar voices will call and plead with you, unknown visitors will threaten you, unearthly struggles with hideous giants and agonies of mind and body will possess you; malformations of the most hideous type will seize your vision; shrouded in sheets of a whitish vapor, evanescent specters, with pallid face and of warning countenance, will cling around you, and contagion and famine will leave their desolate impress upon the flower of health and in the field of plenty. Thus all of us would be nightly warned in our circle or miniature world if we would develop subjective strength to retain the impressions left upon our dream mind. But in spite of all reason and conscience-- in spite of the inductive knowledge received through our senses-- we go on from day to day, and step by step, feeding our soul on the luscious fruit of the outward senses, until the rank weeds of sefishness{sic} have choked out all other forces. Thus the soul is filled with thought images that assume the form of vicious animals, homely visaged fowls, rabid and snarling cats and dogs, leprous and virile serpents, cankerous lizards, slimy intestine worms, hairy and malicious insects. They are generated by greed, envy, jealousy, covetousness, backbiting, amorous longings and other impure thoughts. With the soul filled with this conglomeration of virus and filth, why doubt a hell and its counterpart condition, or expect the day or night to bring happiness? If evil thoughts will infest the soul with ravenous microbes, good thoughts and deeds will starve and suppress their activity, and create a heaven to supplant them. With this grand and eternal truth in view, man should ever think kindly of those about him, control his temper in word and action, seek his own, think the best of thoughts, study to relieve the worthy poor, seek solace in the depth of being, and let gentleness and meekness characterize his life. Then will he sow the seeds of a present and future heaven. His day thoughts and his night thoughts in harmony will point with unerring forecast to a peaceful end. Spiritual and helpful warnings will fall upon the dream mind, as gently as dew upon the flowers and as softly as a mother's kiss upon the lips of love. When our external lives are guided by the forces within, sweet are the words and messages from our own spirit; for those who are truly blessed are those who seek divine love through the channels of their inner world of consciousness.

{illust. caption = A DIAGRAM GIVING THE THEORY OF THIS BOOK, AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MICROCOSM AND THE MACROCOSM.

FRAGMENTARY THOUGHTS FROM DREAM REALMS:}

Man is a little circle or world composed of the infinitesimal atoms thrown off from the great circle or parent world, and fitting into his place in the zone of life. If in the revolutions of the great circle he catches more material he increases his circle to objective or subjective growth: if he absorbs spiritual or mind atoms as they fall from the great body of creative source, he enlarges or contracts his own circle according to the assimilation of the food he receives from the parent.

It is optional with man to obtain spiritual or material manna as it is disseminated throughout existence. To feed on material diet alone, contracts and distorts the circle of the man; but a full comprehension of the needs of the circle, a proper denial of supply to some of the compounds, together with a tender care of other parts, will round out the whole into a perfect physical and mental circle of life.

Dissentious and conflicting results should be avoided in computing the length and breadth of the compounded circle of man's individual world. Objective life is one of the smallest compounds in real life.

Dream life is fuller of meaning and teaching of the inner, or God life, than is the exterior life of man. The mind receives education from communing with the dream composition in the great circle. Consult with your whole nature or circle before beginning a serious work; partial consultations, or material advice only, often brings defeat of objects sought, when a true home counsel would have brought success and consequent happiness.

Man should live in his subjective realms and study more his relation to other compositions or circles; thus fructifying and making beautiful his own world through intercourse with others who have worked in the great storehouse of subjectivity, and who have climbed already from the basement into the light of spiritual sunshine.

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A FEW QUESTIONS AND SUBJECTIVE ANSWERS REGARDING DREAMS.

QUESTION.--What is a dream?

ANSWER--A dream is an event transpiring in that world belonging to the mind when the objective senses have withdrawn into rest or oblivion.

Then the spiritual man is living alone in the future or ahead of objective life and consequently lives man's future first, developing conditions in a way that enables waking man to shape his actions by warnings, so as to make life a perfect existence.

Q.--What relationship is sustained between the average man and his dreams?

A.--A dream to the average or sensual person, bears the same relation to his objective life that it maintained in the case of the ideal dreamer, but it means pleasures, sufferings and advancements on a lower or material plane.

Q.--Then why is man not always able to correctly interpret his dreams?

A.--Just as words fail sometimes to express ideas, so dreams fail sometimes in their mind pictures to portray coming events.

Q.--If they relate to the future, why is it we so often dream of the past?

A.--When a person dreams of past events, those events are warnings of evil or good; sometimes they are stamped so indelibly upon the subjective mind that the least tendency of the waking mind to the past throws these pictures in relief on the dream consciousness.

Q.--Why is it that present environments often influence our dreams?

A.--Because the future of man is usually affected by the present, so if he mars the present by wilful wrongs, or makes it bright by right living it will necessarily have influence on his dreams, as they are forecastings of the future.

Q.--What is an apparition?

A.--It is the subjective mind stored with the wisdom gained from futurity, and in its strenuous efforts to warn its present habitation-- the corporal body--of dangers just ahead, takes on the shape of a dear one as the most effective method of imparting this knowledge.

Q.--How does subjectivity deal with time?

A.--There is no past and future to subjectivity. It is all one living present.

Q.--If that is so, why can't you tell us accurately of our future as you do of our past?

A.--Because events are like a procession; they pass a few at a time and cast a shadow on subjective minds, and those which have passed before the waking mind are felt by other minds also and necessarily make a more lasting impression on the subjective mind.

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Q.--To illustrate: A person on retiring or closing his eyes had a face appear to him, the forehead well formed but the lower parts distorted. Explain this phenomenon?

A.--A changed state from perfect sleep or waking possessed him.

Now, the man's face was only the expression of his real thoughts and the state of his business combined. His thoughts were strong and healthy, but his business fagging, hence his own spirit is not a perfect likeness of his own soul, as it takes every atom of earthly composition perfectly normal to reproduce a perfect spirit picture of the soul or mortal man. He would have seen a true likeness of himself had conditions been favorable; thus a man knows when a complete whole is his portion. Study to make surroundings always harmonious. Life is only being perfectly carried on when these conditions are in unison.

HOW TO DEVELOP THE POWER TO DREAM.

Keep the mind clear and as free from material rubbish as is possible and go to sleep in a negative condition (this will, of course, have to be cultivated by the subject). A person can, if he will, completely relax his mind and body to the receptive mood required for dreams to appear as realities, or true explanations of future events.

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To dream you are conversing with a dead relative, and that relative endeavors to extract a promise from you, warns you of coming distress unless you follow the advice given. Disastrous consequences could be averted if minds could grasp the inner workings and sight of the higher or spiritual self. The voice of relatives is only that higher self taking form to approach more distinctly the mind that lives near the material plane. There is so little congeniality between common or material natures that persons should depend more largely upon their own subjectivity for true contentment and pleasure.

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DREAMS EXAGGERATED.

The will is suspended during sleep, so the dream mind is more a prey to excitability than the waking mind.

Thus when images appear upon the dream vision they are frequently distorted into hideous malformations that fill it with fear and excitement.

CONTRARY DREAMS.

The constant dwelling of the mind upon certain things distorts their shapes upon subjectivity, thus throwing dreams in exactly opposite channels to the waking reality. Yet the dreamer always feels a sense of being awake in dreams like these, and on awakening experiences no recuperation of mind or body after such contrary dreams, Sleep is not fully sustained while the dreamer is held by material ideas in the subjective state.

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WHEN DREAMS ARE LESS PRESCIENT.

The cessation of the organs to perform healthful functions converts a man into a different person, and dreams while in this state would have no prophetic meaning, unless to warn the dreamer of this disorganization of his physical system.

Dreams are symbols used by subjectivity to impress the objective or material mind with a sense of coming good or evil. Subjectivity is the spiritual part of man. The soul is that circle of man lying just outside the gross materiality and partaking largely of it. All thoughts and desires enter first the soul or material mind and then cast themselves on the spirit. Frequently the soul becomes so filled with material or present ideas, that the spiritual symbols are crowded out, and then it is that dreams seen to be contrary. Material subjectivity, that is, all thoughts and ideas emanating from material sources, go to make up this circle; then the mind catches up the better thoughts of this section and weaves them into a broader and more comprehensive power, sustaining the owner in his own judgment.

And still another circle is formed of the finer compound of this, which is spiritual subjectivity, or the highest element of intelligence reached by man. [This circle is ``the spiritual man'' and relates in substance to the spiritual soul of the macrocosm or universe. It becomes strong or weak as we recognize or fail to recognize it as a factor of being. The process of spiritual development is similar to that of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The trees on the outer rim of the forest are more capable of resisting the wind than those more to the center, by reason of their exposure to storms; the roots have penetrated with double strength far into the earth, and the branches are braced with toughened bark and closely knitted ligaments.

The same may be said of the animal kingdom. The mind is developed by vigorous exercise just as are likewise the muscles of the body. The more these are cultivated by drawing from their parental affinities in the macrocosm, the more knowledge or power they take on. Thus as a man simulates in thought and action an ape, a tiger, a goat, a snake or a lamb he takes on their characteristics and is swayed by like influences to enmity, meekness, covetousness and avariciousness. To illustrate further. If he is cunning he draws on the fox of the microcosm and becomes, in action and thought, like that animal. If selfishness survives, the hog principle is aroused from its latent cells in the microcosm and he is dominated by material appetites. In a similar way he may perceive the spiritual in himself. Nature's laws, with all their numberless and intricate ramifications are simple in their harmony of process and uniformity of purpose when applied to the physical and ethical developments of man.]

Possibilities for inner improvements or expansions rest with material man. If he entertains gross desires to the exclusion of spiritual germs, he will dwarf and degrade higher aspirations, and thus deprive subjective spirituality of her rightful possessions.

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Nature, in compounding the materials for the creation of the deaf man, inadvertently dropped the ingredient sound, hence making an imperfect being; and sound, being thus foreign to his nature, he can only be approached by signs even in dreams. Subjectivity uses nature's forces, while a normal person uses dreams to work on his waking consciousness. As it is impossible to use with effect a factor which a man does not naturally possess, a deaf man rarely ever dreams of sound, or a blind man of light.

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TWO DREAMS ARE NEVER THE SAME, NOR ARE TWO FLOWERS EVER ALIKE.

Whatever symbol is used to impress the dreamer is the one which is likely to warn him more definitely than any other. No two persons being ever in the same state at the same time, the same symbols would hardly convey identical impressions; neither will the same dream be as effective in all cases of business or love with the same dreamer.

A person's dream perception wavers, much as it does in waking hours. You fail to find the same fragrance in the rose at all times, though the same influences seemingly surround you; and thus it is that different dreams must be used for different persons to convey the same meaning.