More...

Book 1 Chapter 2, CAIPHULl

A DWELLER ON TWO PLANETS

OR

THE DIVIDING OF THE WAY

BY PHYLOS THE THIBETAN

The First Book

CHAPTER II

CAIPHUL

The Atlantean people lived under a government having the character of a limited monarchy. Its official system recognized an emperor (whose position was an elective one, and not in any sense hereditary) and his ministers, known by a name signifying "The Council of Ninety," and also known as "Princes of the Realm." All of these officers had a life-tenure in office, except in cases of malfeasance, which term was strictly defined and its provisions severely enforced; and from the operation of the law relating thereto, no exaltation of position was sufficient to secure exemption for offenders. No governmental positions were made elective, with the exception of one ecclesiastical office, and lesser positions in the public service were made appointive in all cases, the appointees being held to strict account by the appointing power, emperor or prince, who, for the use of this power was responsible to the people for the conduct of his placeholders. However, it is not the scheme of this chapter to discuss Poseid politics, but to describe the ministerial and monarchical palaces with which the nation furnished its elected officers, one for each prince, but for the emperor, three. In the main, the description of one of these buildings, both within and without, typifies that of any or all of the others, just as in the United States of America and other modern lands a governmental edifice is easily known to be such, by its general architectural features. A description therefore of one palace will serve a double purpose, that of presenting an idea of the most notable residence in the great Atlantean empire, since I will describe the main palace of the emperor; and, secondly, that of illustrating the prevailing style of governmental architecture in the period during which I resided in Poseid. Imagine, if it please thee, an elevation approximating fifteen feet in height,, ten times that figure in width, and that fifty times its height represents its length. External to the plane dimensions, on each of the four sides of the platform, which was of hewn blocks of porphyry, an easy flight of steps led from the lawns up to the top of the elevation. On the sides, these steps were divided into fifteen sections, while on the ends the divisions were only three, each being divided into lengths of fifty feet. Between the two sections nearest the corners each division consisted of a deep quadrangular recess, into and around which the stairs ran in uninterrupted continuity. The next, or third section, was separated from those on either side by a sculptured serpent of huge size, fashioned from sandstone and as faithful to life as art could make it. The heads of these immobile reptiles rested on the green sward in front of the stairs, while the bodies lay in full relief upon the staircases and reaching the top of the platform, wound about the massive columns which supported the pediments of the verandas of the superstructural palace erected upon the platform described, columns which formed a most imposing peristyle between the broad verandas and the steps. The succeeding division was a quadrangle in the steps, and the next, another serpent, and so around the building. It is hoped that this description is sufficiently perspicuous to give an idea of the tremendous parallelogram, encompassed with steps, guarded by monstrous ornamental, as well as useful, serpent forms, religious emblems, signifying not alone wisdom but also the appearance of a fiery serpent in the skies of the ancient earth, initiating the event of the separation of Man from God. Alternating with these forms were the recesses, relieving what would otherwise have been severely straight and wearisome lines. Surmounting this was the first story of the palace proper, its reptile-entwined peristyle holding aloft great veranda roofs, whereon were enormous vases holding earth to nourish all kinds of tropical plants, shrubs and many small varieties of trees, a luxuriant garden which perfumed the air, already cooled by numerous fountains playing in the midst. Above the first story, with its flower-filled porticos, arose another tier of apartments, surrounded by open galleries, the floors of which were formed by the roofs of those beneath. The third and highest tier of apartments had no verandas, although on all sides it had promenades, formed by the roof of the portico beneath. The same wild luxuriance of flowers and foliage rendered the stories of equal attractiveness. In all, song birds and birds of plumage were welcome guests, uncaged, but tame because they never received harm. Attendants, with blowguns to project noiseless darts, quietly destroyed all predatory species, as also they did-those which, having neither song powers, vivid coloring of plumage, nor the useful habits of insectivora to commend them, were therefore undesirable. Springing from the main roof of the palace arose graceful spires and towers, while the many jutting apartments, angles and groined arches, flying buttresses, cornices and multifarious architectural effects prevented any apparent heaviness in the design. Around the largest of the towers there extended from bottom to top a winding staircase, conducting to the rail-enclosed space on its summit, one hundred feet above the aluminum sheathing or roofing-plates of the palace. Agacoe palace was unique in the possession of this tower, differing thus from all other ministerial edifices. It may be explained that the tower had been erected as a memorial of the departure of a fair princess from the loving care of her imperial husband into Navazzamin, the shadowy land of departed souls, some centuries before my day. Such was the Agacoe palace. Its uppermost floor was in use as a great governmental museum; the middle was devoted to offices of the chief government officials, while the first flat was magnificently arranged and furnished for occupancy as the emperor's private residence. As not uninteresting, it may be noted that the yawning mouths of the stone serpents recently described served as doorways (of the usual size) to certain apartments in the basement, a fact which gives an accurate idea of the enormous size of these lithic saurians. The monsters were made with an eye to artistic proportion; their bodies were of carved gray, red or yellow sandstone, their eyes of sard, carnelian, jasper or other colored silicious stone, while fangs for their yawning mouths were made from gleaming white quartz, set on each side of the entranceway.

So much sawed and hewn stone forces the modern mind to wonder if the Atlanteans obtained the finished product through the unremitting toil of slaves, in which case we must have been a barbarous people, whose political autonomy was ever menaced by the uplifting forces of the social volcano which slavery always creates, or else we possessed peculiarly efficient stone-cutting machinery. This latter is the correct assumption, for our machinery for that purpose, like an almost infinite variety of other implements for every sort of service, was our pride amongst the nations. Let me here make an assertion, not for argument but to be understood in the light of subsequent chapters, namely, that if we as Atlanteans had not possessed this wide range of mechanical inventions and the inventive talent which gave us these triumphs, then neither would ye of this modern day have possession of a like creative ability, nor of any of the results of such genius. It may be that thou canst not understand the connection between the two ages and races whilst conning this statement; but as thou shalt draw nearer to the close of this history thy mind will recur to it with the fullness of comprehension.

Trusting that the effort has been successful to depict by words the appearance of Atlantean governmental edifices, let us next obtain an idea of the Caiphalian promontory, whereon was enthroned Caiphul, the Royal City, the greatest of that ancient day, within the limits of which resided a population of two million souls, unencompassed by walled fortifications. Indeed, none of the cities of that age were girt about with walls, and in this respect they differed from the cities and towns known to later historical epochs. To call my records of this Poseidic age history, is not exceeding fact, since what I relate in these pages is history derived from the astral-light records. Nevertheless, it precedes the histories handed down in manuscript, papyrus rolls and rock-inscriptions by many centuries, seeing that Poseid was no longer known in the earth when history's first pages were chronicled by the earliest historian using papyrus; nay, nor even yet earlier, when the sculptors of the obelisks of Egypt and the rock-inscribers of the temples cut pictorial histories in enduring granite. No longer known was Poseid, for it is to-day approaching nine thousand years since the waters of the ocean engulfed our fair land and left no sign, not even so much as was left of those two cities hidden away beneath lava and ashes and for sixteen centuries of the Christian era thought never to have had existence. Excavators dug away the scoriae from Pompeii, but from Caiphul no man can turn aside the floods of the Atlantic and reveal what no more exists, for were every day a century it were even so nearly three months of such lengthy days since the dread fiat of GOD went forth unto the waters:

"Cover the land, so that the all-beholding sun shall see it no more in all his course."

And it was so.

In preceding pages the promontory of Caiphul was described as reaching out into the ocean from the Caiphalian plain and as visible from a great distance at night because of the glow of light from the capital. For three hundred miles westward from Numea the peninsula projected outwards from the plain, averaging almost to its extreme cape. a breadth of fifty Miles and rising much like the chalk-cliffs of England directly from the ocean to a height of nearly one hundred feet to reach a plain almost floor-like in its evenness. On the point of this great peninsula was Caiphul or "Atlan, Queen of the Wave." Beautiful, peaceful, with its wide spreading gardens of tropical loveliness,

"Where a leaf never fades in the still, blooming bowers, And the bee banquets on thro' a whole year of flowers,"

its broad avenues shaded by great trees, its artificial hills, the largest surmounted by governmental palaces, and pierced and terraced by, the avenues which radiated from the city-center like spokes in a wheel. Fifty miles these ran in one direction, while at right angles from them, traversing the breadth of the peninsula, forty miles in length, were the shortest avenues. Thus lay, like a splendid dream, this, the proudest city of that ancient world.

At no point did Caiphul approach the ocean nearer than five miles. Though it had no walls, around the whole city extended a huge moat, three-quarters of a mile broad by an average of sixty feet in depth and supplied by the waters of the Atlantic. On the north side, a great canal entered the moat-a canal in which the outflowing waters of a large river, the Nomis, created an outgoing current of considerable swiftness. A current was thus naturally made to cause suction through the entire circle of the moat, of which the ocean supply entered at an ingress on the south side. In this manner efflux into the sea of all the drainage of the artificial circular island on which stood the city was allowed. Immense pumping engines forced fresh ocean water through large stone pipes and conduits all over the city, flushing the drains, furnishing motive power for all requisite purposes, for electric fighting and electric services of vast variety--but enough. Electric service? Electric power? Indeed we had deepest knowledge of this motor-force of the universe; we used it in countless ways which have yet to be rediscovered in this modern world of ours, and ways, too, which are every day coming more and more into recollection as men and women of that past age reincarnate in this.

It is not strange that thou art incredulous, my friend, when I speak of these inventions which thou hast considered the special property of to-day; but I speak from a knowledge born of experience, seeing that I lived then, and live now; lived not only in Poseid twelve thousand years ago, but also in the United States of America, before, during and after the War of the Secession.

We drew our electrical energies partly from the waves beating the ocean shores, more largely from the rise and fall of the tides; from mountain torrents and from chemicals; but chiefly from what might aptly be termed the "Night-Side of Nature." High-grade explosives were known to us, but our employment of them was of much wider range than thine. If thou couldst cause them substances gradually to yield up their vast imprisoned force without fear of an explosion, thinkest thou that thy machinery would long be propelled by clumsy, because ponderous, steam or electric engines? If a great steamship could dispense with its coal-bins and boilers and, instead have dynamite in an absolutely safe compound form yielding, from what a man could carry in a handbag, force sufficient to drive the ship from England to America, or to send a train six thousand miles, how long wouldst thou see steam enginery? Yet this was a power, and a least valued, one at that, which we--possibly you; certainly I--knew in the, Atlantean life. It will be again with thee, because Our Race in coming again from devachan to earth.

But not alone this resource of power was ours; indeed, it was our forces of the Night-Side as an alcohol-vapor motor is to thy steam-engine. The Night-Side forces--what are they? At this place I will answer only by a counter-question, namely: The force of Nature, of gravitation, of the sun, of light, whence is it? If thou wilt answer me, "It is of God," so then will I make answer that, likewise, Man is the Heir of the Father, and whatsoever is His, is also the Son's. If Incal is impelled by God, the Son shall find how his Father doeth this thing, and shall presently do likewise again, even as Man so once in Poseid. But greater things than these which we did might ye do; ye are now, ye were then; ye are Poseid returned, and on a higher plane!

The original object for which the great moat encircling the capital was excavated, had, since long centuries, been fulfilled. That purpose was purely maritime, in the days when ships had been used as carriers, before the later general use of aerial vessels; and it had served this purpose in such stead as to win for Caiphul its proud title "Sovereign of the Seas," a name retained even when the original uses of its moat had become a matter of history. When the better means of transportation had supplanted the old, then the ships, which for ten centuries bad graced all the seas and waterways of the globe, had been suffered to decay or had been converted to other uses. Only, a few sails now roved the waters, and those were merely pleasure craft belonging to novelty-loving people of leisure, who thus indulged their taste for sport.

This radical change was, however, no reason why the masonry quays of the one hundred and forty miles, more or less, of the moat should be allowed to go to destruction. This would have entailed the loss of valuable property through the encroachment of the unchecked waters, as well as the deterioration of the sanitary system of the city, besides which such a course would have destroyed the beauty of the moat and its environments. Therefore, in all of the seven centuries since we ceased to employ marine transportation, no sign of weakness had been suffered to menace this great length of masonry.

A marked feature of Caiphul was the wealth and rare beauty of its trees and tropical shrubbery, lining the avenues, covering the multitudinous palace-crowned hills, many of which had been constructed to rise two or even three hundred feet above the level of the plain. Trees and shrubs and plants, vines and flowers, annuals and perennials, filled the mimic canyons, gorges, defiles and levels which it had delighted the art-loving Poseidi to create. They covered the slopes, twined the miniature cliffs, the walls of buildings, and hid even the greater part of the steps which led a wide-sweeping banks to the edges of the moat, overlaying everything like a glorious verdant garment.

Perhaps the reader is beginning to wonder where all the people lived. Truly the query is well timed, and the answer will, I trust, prove interesting.

In the work of altering the configuration of the surface of the great promontory from that of a plain to the more beautiful variations of hills and their intervening depressions, the scheme pursued had been to make keyed-shells of rock, of enormous strength, in the form of terraces, and leaving arched passages wherever the avenues intersected such elevations, to fill in the interiors then remaining with a concrete of clay, rubble and cement carefully tamped. The exteriors were thereafter covered with rich soil on the levels and. terraced for the support of vegetable life of all kinds. These elevations covered many square miles of the level once existent, leaving little that remained as plane surface except the avenues, and not all of these, inasmuch an quite a number of the thoroughfares ascended the rise between the hills or followed the ascending bed of some canyon until they reached the ridge at the head of the latter. They then penetrated the divide and debouched upon the opposite side through an arched way, wherein tubes of crystal, absolutely exhausted of air, gave a continuous light derived from the "Night-Side" forces. The vertical faces and inclinations of the terraces, as well as the sides of the canyons, were made into rooms of varied and ample size. The entrances to these, and to the windows, were concealed under mimic hedges of rock, over which clambered vines and rock-loving plants, thus removing from view the stiff ugliness of the metallic casings underneath. These apartments were arranged in artistic suites for the accommodation of families. The metal sheathing with which they were lined prevented moisture within, while their position under the surface insured an even degree of temperature at all at seasons of the year. As these residences were designed and built by the government, the ownership was vested in the same power and the tenants acquired leasehold from the Minister of Public Buildings. The rental was merely nominal and only sufficient to keep the property in repair, furnish the expenses of the incandescent lighting and heating service, the water supply, and the salaries of the necessary officials to attend to these duties. All of this cost not above ten or fifteen per cent of an ordinarily skilled mechanic's wages. The mention of so much detail may be pardoned. for, were it omitted, only & vague and unsatisfactory conception of life in this antediluvian age would be acquired by the reader.

The great charm of thew residences lay in the fact of their retired situations, which prevented the dismal appearance of masses of angular houses, an effect of extreme ugliness seen in our modern days, but seldom, or never, in our Atlantean, cities. The result of this arrangement was that, to a beholder, looking from any high elevation, the city would have been conspicuous, to one accustomed to the modern atrocities of stone, brick or wood,. chiefly, for the absence of sky-piercing piles separated by narrow, dark, treeless and too often filthy tunnels, miscalled streets.. Here a hill, and there another and yet another until the eye counted them by score--there were, one hundred, and nineteen in all; here a lake, or there a. cliff with a lake, or wooded park at its foot; gorges of mimic grandeur, little forests, so regularly irregular; cascades and tumbling torrents, fed from the inexhaustible supply of fresh water belonging to the city, their banks and shores covered with those plants, trees, and shrubs that love contiguity to abundant water. Such, dear friends, would have been the scene presented to thine eyes, couldst thou have gazed on Caiphul with me; perchance thou didst. And yet, Caiphul was not devoid of houses built much after the modern fashion, for the city franchise to build neat mansions here and there in situations and styles calculated to add to the beauty of the scene was a privilege of which any one of means might avail himself, under official approval. Many did so. Museums of art, edifices for histrionic entertainment and other structures not designed for habitation were also in tasteful numbers.

I found, in going about the city, that the avenues, in certain instances, seemed to come to an abrupt termination in some grotto, whose interior was usually hung with stalactites pendent from the roof. Perhaps a slight turn occurred from the straight course, and thus prevented one from seeing through the grotto. In these places, shaded, high-tension, airless cylinder lamps cast a soft glow throughout the interior, making a moonlight effect very pleasing to one who came in from the brightness of the sunlight.

While, in the majority of cases, our people were accomplished equestrians, this mode of travel was not used except for physical culture and grace, electric transit being provided by the government. Indeed, the social reformers of these days of the Christian nineteenth century would have been in their ideal land had they been Caiphalians, and this because the government pursued the paternalistic principle so systematically as to have vested in itself the ownership of all the land, methods of public transit, and communications, in a word, all property, The system was a most beneficent one, which no Poseida wanted to see disused or supplemented by any other. Did a citizen desire, a vailx (airship) for any use, he applied to the proper officials, who were on duty at numerous vailx-yards throughout the city. Or, to cultivate the land, he applied to the department of Soils and Tillage. Perhaps it was desired to manufacture some product; the machinery was for lease at the nominal rate necessary to meet working expenses and the salary of the officers overseeing that portion of the public property. Let these samples suffice. Enough, that no political harmony exists in this modern time of the world like that which sprang from this paternalism on the part of our elected officials. Governmental paternalism is a thing regarded with jealousy and semi-alarm by modem republics. But it is to-day a different quality from what it was then. Ours was a paternalism closely watched and duly checked by the suffragists of the nation, and its life was essentially exponent of true socialistic principles.

I have not even now been so precise in details as to explain many of the most peculiar adjustments maintained between the political parent and its children, nor between labor and capital. But neither can I do so in these pages with any degree of propriety, because this is not a plea for readoption, in this age of the world, of methods pursued in that remote period. Yet, this much I can say, not inappropriately at this juncture, that Poseid had not in my day, the modem, yet also very ancient, annoyance of labor strikes, blocking capital and enterprise, starving the artisan, and causing more suffering on the part of the poor than such annoyances can ever bring to the doors of the rich. The secret of this immunity was not far to seek in a nation whose government was the voice of those people who possessed sufficient education to wield the power of franchise, and this, too, regardless of sex, because inborn in our national life was this principle: "An educational measuring-rod for every voter; the sex of the suffragist in immaterial." In such a nation, and under such a government, it were strange indeed if industrial inharmonies could long disturb social polity. The broad principle of equity between employer and employee governed in Poseid; it mattered not what a person did for another person, but the whole equation hinged on this question: Was some service performed by one person for another? If so, the fact that the service was or was not accomplished by physical labor counted for nothing. It might be equally a service deserving compensation whether it was a physical or a purely intellectual service; nor was it held to be important whether the employer represented (me or more individuals or the employee one or more people.

Our local enactments on the subject of industrial equity were complete and rather voluminous. While I care not to give in detail a reproduction of what may be termed labor law, a few excerpts are worthy of place. It will be well to preface these with a short history of their enactment, and thus show how, in that olden time, labor troubles quite similar, and fully as menacing to peace and order as any modern industrial upheaval, were finally and equitably settled.

On the "Maxin-Stone," to which legal code reference in full is made in the proper place, was found this vital seed of settlement of the fearful menace embroiling labor and capital, to wit:

"What time those who work for hire shall be oppressed, and shall rise in wrath to destroy their oppressor--lo! let their hand be stayed, that they shall obey Me. I say unto them: Harm not the person or the property of any man, not even though by that man -they be oppressed. For are not all brothers and sisters? Are not all children of one Father, even the nameless Creator? But this I command: That they destroy oppression. Shall things, which are less than man, rule over and oppress their masters? Seek diligently my meaning."

The students of ethics interpreted this command to mean that the oppressed industrial classes should not harm the oppressing capitalists nor their property. The rich classes were perhaps as much victims of circumstances as the poorer people; the remedy lay, not in blind anarchy, but in eradicating conditions. This was easy, if properly attempted. The oppressed were as a thousand to one of the oppressor. The majority of them held the elective franchise, and it was determined that, as the government was the people's servant, the proper method was to deal with the question at the polls, and not to employ violence against the rich. Therefore the call went forth amongst all the people to vote on the adoption of a code of industrial regulations and to vote its respectful submission to the Rai. Of the many articles and sections, I shall insert only those that are pertinent to modem times and troubles, so that if these selections are not articled and sectioned in consecution the reason is obvious.

EXCERPTS FROM THE POSEID LABOR LAWS.

"No employer shall demand of any employee any service outside of legal hours of work without extra remuneration."

"Sec. 4. These hours shall not be less nor more than nine in number for physical labor in any period of twenty-four hours; nor less nor more than eight hours for sedentary employments chiefly requiring intellectual exertion."

This statute allowed the two parties to a labor contract to arrange to suit themselves when the working hours were to begin or end, with reference to the first hour of the day, namely, the modern noon hour. In regard to wage matters, the law was very clear. It held that as mankind was. selfish by nature, that is, the lower nature, that he would operate on a basis of self-aggrandizement, the modern doctrine of "laissez-nous faire." Hence if be should not be actuated by the sense of duty to his fellowman to treat that man right, when right was not dictated by might, then the law must compel him to be. fair. It is in this that the modern Anglo-Saxon world, which is Poseid (and Suern) reincarnating, shows one mark of the slow but sure upward progress begotten of time; proves that although man moves, as does all else, sensate and insensate, in a circle, yet that circle is like a screw-thread, ever progressing around and around, but each time moving on a higher plane. Poseid must be compelled by its advanced minds to do what is fair towards the weak. America and Europe are growing willing to do rightly, fairly, because it is the part of duty. Thus we behold modern employers often doing of free will what the ancient Poseid did because of law, namely, sharing profits with their employees.

The law then having gone to the lawmakers, the suffragists decreed that the government should establish a Department of Commissary, the duties of which should be to collect all statistics concerning the food products of commerce, also concerning all textile fabrics necessary for clothing and, in brief, all articles necessary for the proper social maintenance of individuals. On these statistical reports was to be founded an estimate of the cost of all such necessaries, amongst which books were reckoned as mental food, and the cost of these things for a year was calculated. Upon this calculation, day's wages were estimated by dividing the annual cost into the number of days. This rate was decided anew every ninety days, as the cost of the chief staples was found to fluctuate, hence the rate was not wholly stable, and the wages of any given three months' term might probably differ from those of any previous quarter.

Let me quote:

"See. VII, Art. V. Employers shall divide the gross profits of business operations upon the following plan: The wage, salary or emolument of each employee shall be paid in the sum directed by the quarterly estimate of living cost determined by the Department of Commissary. From the remainder, the amount of six parts in each hundred on the capital invested shall be set aside. This increment shall be and represent the employer's net profits. From the remaining income the running expenses shall be deducted, and of any sum thereafter remaining, one-half shall be invested to provide annuities for sick or disabled, or assurance for the dependents of deceased employees. The remaining half shall be periodically distributed amongst the employees on. the basis of their various compensations.

"See. VIII, Art. V. The whole of a body of employees is only equal to the Superintendent thereof. The Superintendent is equal to all the underlings. Hence, employers, when not themselves managers of the business, shall pay to managers a salary equal to the combined wages of the subordinates."

Truly, these labor laws and other matters have a modern sound. But civilization in all ages, among all nations, is wont to express itself in ways which, if modern language be used to describe them, will seem almost identical; so that in ancient Atl and in modem America the term "strike" may be properly used to designate a labor revolt; the same principle characterizes all other phases; for from age to age the world makes but slow progress, and is to-day not as far advanced in its present sub-cycle, nor as civilized, as it was in olden Poseid. This may seem a hard saying, but it will presently be understood.

Such, in the main, were the chief features of the industrial world in Poseid. The old-time strikes and riots out of which these laws were born disappeared and peace took its sway. The change was beneficent, indeed, yet always the strong looked to see how they might evade the law, and though they did not succeed to a harmful extent, still the wish on their part entered the sum of karma. So when the modem world of the Christian epoch came to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly the last named, then began the reincarnation of this Poseid era, and for a time the tendency to oppression again came uppermost. But overriding this tendency now faintly appears the willingness to do right for the sake of right, which, as applied to industrial matters, has of very, very recent years been manifested--a sign of the evening afterglow of the last day, now near striking its last hour, telling of a spent age. I particularly refer to the greater willingness of man to treat his fellow rightly, without being forced thereto by legal enactments. Truly, it is, as yet, only done because it is found to pay; but it would never have been found to pay if the reincarnated rightwardness had not induced experiments in profit-sharing to be made, in hopes of exterminating the strike iniquity and with the idea of harmonizing society to be active in doing as it would be done by. Finally, strange and paradoxical as it may appear, this betterment is the direct child of the old-time rights extorted by might in Poseid, and to-day, reincarnated offspring of reincarnated oppression, as in Atlantis oppression sprang reincarnate from the grave of other ages gone before, previous to the wondrous memorial of Gizeh. But to more than mention this here would be to trench upon work given unto another by the Messiah; therefore only a hint can I give now, but more later. Suffice it then, that those were ages when man was struggling, with scarcely perceptible upward motion, from our fallen ancestry. Glory be to our Father that His children surely, if slowly, are by devious ways climbing His heights; many are their falls, but they shall rise again, not suffering the enemy to triumph.

It may be a seemingly inopportune intrusion, but I must here briefly describe the electro-odic transit system of Caiphul, and the other cities, towns and villages scattered throughout the empire and its colonies. The description is of the local transit-carriages only. On each side of every avenue was a broad tessellated pavement for pedestrians. A line of massive, bottomless stone vases in which throve ornamental shrubs and foliage plants stood upon the curb, and on either side of these was a metal rail, placed at a height of about nine feet, and supported upon davits similar to those from which ship-boats are swung. At regular distances other rails crossed these main runners, rails capable of being raised or lowered to form a switch-junction, a simple lever effecting this process. These rails served as cross streets, there being in comparatively few instances any paved street underneath the rails on any but the great radiate avenues. On the maps of the City Department of Transit these main and cross rails looked like the web of a garden spider. For each transit-district there were multitudes of carriages, having aut-odic mechanism, whereby they were made to speed at tremendous swiftness with their passengers; but collisions could not occur, as the conveying rods formed a double-track system.

• September 19, 2011
• 0
• Published in A Dweller on two Planets
• Written by LC Geerts

Book 1 Chapter 1, ATLANTIS, QUEEN OF THE WAVE.

A DWELLER ON TWO PLANETS

OR

THE DIVIDING OF THE WAY

BY PHYLOS THE THIBETAN

The First Book

CHAPTER I.

ATLANTIS, QUEEN OF THE WAVE.

"Why not?" I asked myself, pausing amidst the snow on the mountain, there so far above the sea that the Storm King was ever supreme, even while summer reigned below. "Am I not an Atlan, a Poseid, and is not that name synonymous with freedom, honor, power? Is not this, my native land, the most glorious beneath the sun? Beneath Incal?" Again I queried:--"Why not, aye, why not strive to become one amongst the foremost in my proud country?"

"Poseid is the Queen of the Sea, yea, and of the world also, since all nations pay tribute of praise and commerce to us--all emulate us. To rule in Poseid, then, is not that virtually to rule over all the earth? Therefore will I strive to grasp thc prize, and I will do it, too! And thou, O pale, cold moon, bear witness of my resolve"--I cried aloud, raising my hands to heaven--"And ye also, ye glittering diamonds of the sky."

If resolute effort could insure success, I usually achieved whatever end I determined to attain. So there I made my vows at a great height above the ocean, and above the plain which stretched away westward two thousand miles to Caiphul, the Royal City. So high was it, that all about and below me lay peaks and mountain ranges, vast in themselves, but dwarfed beside the apex whereon I stood.

All around me lay the eternal snows; but what cared I? So filled with the new resolve was my mind--the resolve to become a power in the land of my nativity--that I heeded not the cold. Indeed, I scarce knew that the air about me was cold, was chill as that of the Arctic fields of the remote north.

Many obstacles would have to be surmounted in the accomplishment of this design--for truly, what was I at that moment?

Only a mountaineer's son, poor, fatherless; but, the Fates be praised! not motherless! At thought of her, my mother, miles away, down where the perennial forests waved, where snow seldom fell; while I stood on the storm-kissed summit, alone with the night and my thoughts--at the thought of my mother my eyes grew moist, for I was only a boy, and often a sad enough one, when the hardships which she endured arose to mind. Such reflections were but added incentives to my ambition to do and to be.

Once more my thoughts dwelt on the difficulties I must encounter in my struggle for success, fame and power.

Atlantis, or Poseid, was an empire whose subjects enjoyed the freedom allowed by the most limited monarchical rule, The general law of official succession presented to every male subject a chance for preferment to office. Even the emperor held an elective position, as also did his ministers, the Council of Ninety, or Princes of the Realm--offices analagous to those of the Secretarial Portfolios of the American Republic--its veritable successor. If death claimed the occupant of the throne, or any of the councillors, the elective franchise came into activity, but not otherwise, barring dismissal for rnalfeasance in office, a penalty which, if incurred by him, not even the emperor was exempt from suffering.

The possession of the elective power was vested in the two great social divisions, which embraced all classes of people, of either sex. The great underlying principle of the Poseid political fabric might be said to have been "an educational measuring-rod for every ballot-holder, but the sex of the holder, no one's business."

The two major social branches were known by the distinctive names of "Incala" and "Xioqua," or, respectively, the priesthood and scientists.

Do my readers ask where that open opportunity for every subject could be in a system which excluded the artisans, tradespeople, and military, if they happened not to be of the enfranchised classes? Every person had the option of entering either the College of Sciences, or that of Incal, or both.

Nor was race, color or sex considered, the only prerequisite being that the candidate for admission must be sixteen years of age, and the possessor of a good education obtained in the common schools, or at some of the lesser seats of collegiate learning, as the Xioquithlon in the capital city of some one of the Poseid States, as at Numea, Terna, Idosa, Corosa, or even at Marzeus' lower college, Marzeus being the principal art-manufacturing center of Atl. Seven years was the allotted term of study at the Great Xioquithlon, ten months in each year, divided into two sub-terms of five months each, devoted to active work, and one month allowed for recreation, half of it between each session. Any student might compete in the annual examination exercises, held at the end of the year or just preceding the vernal equinox. That we recognized the natural law of mental limitation will be obvious from the fact that the course of study was purely optional, the aspirant being at liberty to select as many, or as few topics as were agreeable, with this necessary proviso:--that only possessors of diplomas of the first class could be candidates for even the humblest official position. These certificates were evidence of a grade of acquirement which embraced a range of topical knowledge too great to be mentioned, otherwise than inferentially, as the reader proceeds. The second-grade diploma did mot confer political prestige, except in the matter of carrying with it the voting privilege, although if a person neither cared to be an office holder, nor to vote, the right to instruction in any educational branch was none the less a gratuitous privilege. Those, however, who only aspired to a limited education, with the purpose of more successfully pursuing a given business, as tuition in mineralogy by an intending miner, agriculture by a farmer, or botany by an ambitious gardener--had no voice in the government. While the number of those unambitious ones was not small, none the less the stimulus of obtaining political prestige was so great that not above one in a dozen of the adult population was without at least a secondary diploma, while fully one-third had first-grade certificates. It was owing to this, that the electors found no scarcity of material for filling all elective positions under the government.

Some uncertainty is possibly left in the mind of the reader as to what constituted the difference between priestly and scientific suffragists. The only essential difference was that the curriculum at the Incalithlon, or College of Priests, embraced, in addition to every high-grade feature taught at the Xioquithlon, also the study of a wide range of occult phenomena, anthropological and sociological themes, to the end that graduates in the sciences might have the opportunity of fitting themselves to minister to any want, which men of less erudition and less comprehension of the great underlying laws of life might experience, in any phase or condition. The Incalithlon was in fact the very highest, most complete institution of learning which the world knew then, or--pardon what may seem to be, but is not, Atlan conceit--has known since; and for that matter, will know for centuries to come. As such an exalted educational institution, students within its halls must needs possess extra zeal and determined willpower in order to pursue, and secure graduation certificates from its board of examiners. Few indeed had found life extended enough to enable them to acquire such a diploma; possibly not one in five hundred of those who made honorable exit from the Xioquithlon--itself an institution not second to the modern Cornell University.

As I pondered, there amidst those mountain snows, I decided not to attempt too much, but a Xioqua I determined to be, if any possible chance existed; although I scarcely hoped for the possession of the eminence conferred by the title of Incala, I vowed that I would make an opportunity to compete for the other, if no occasion presented otherwise. To obtain the proud distinction would require, in addition to arduous study, the possession of ample pecuniary means to furnish the expense of living, and the maintenance, at its highest, of an unfaltering energy of purpose. Whence could I hope to obtain all this? The gods were believed to help the needy. If I, a lad of not yet seventeen summers, who had a mother looking to me for support and the necesaries of life, with nothing that could aid me to attain my aspirations except native energy and will, might not be placed in that category, then who were the needy? Methinks there should be no more evidence of dependence necessary, and it were indeed proper in the gods to extend aid.

Filled with such reflections as these, I climbed yet higher towards the top of the sky-piercing peak, near the apex of which I stood, for the dawn was not far distant, and I must be. on the highest stone to greet Incal (the sun) when He conquered Navaz, else He--chief of all the manifest signs of the great and only true God, whose name He bore, whose shield He was--might not favorably regard my prayer. No, He must see that the supplicating youth spared no pains to do Him honor, because it was for this purpose only that I had climbed alone, amidst these solitudes, up that trackless steep of snow, beneath the starry dome of the skies.

"Is there," I asked myself, "a more glorious belief than this which my country-folk hold? Are not all Poseidi worshipers of the Great God--the one true Deity--who is typified by the blazing sun? There can be nothing more sacred and holy." So spake the boy whose maturing mind had grasped the really inspiring exoteric religion, but who knew of none other, deeper and more sublime, nor was he to learn of it in the days of Atla.

As the first glance of light from behind His shield stole through the dark abyss of night, I threw myself prone in the summit snows, where I must remain until the God of Light was entirely victorious over Navaz. Triumphant at last I Then I arose, and making a final profound obeisance, retraced my steps down that fearful declivity of ice, and snow, and barren rock, the latter black and cruelly sharp, thrusting its ridges through the icy coat, showing the ribs of the mountain which stood, one of the peerless peaks of the globe, thirteen thousand feet above the level of the sea.

For two days all my efforts had been to reach that frigid summit and cast myself, a living offering, on its lofty altar, thus to honor my God. I wondered if He had heard and noted me. If He had, did He care? Did He care enough to direct His vice-regent, God of the mountain, to aid me? To the latter, without knowing why, I looked, hoping in what may seem a blind fatuity, for him to reveal a treasure of some sort, or--

What is that dull metallic glint in the rock whose heart my. iron-shod alpenstock had lain bare to the rays of the morning sun? Gold! O Incal! It is so! Yellow, precious gold!

"O Incal," I cried, repeating His name, "be thou praised for returning answer so quickly to Thy humble petitioner!"

Down in the snow I knelt, uncovering my head out of gratitude to the God of All Being, the Most High, whose shield, the sun poured forth his glorious rays. Then I looked again on the treasure. Ah, what a store of wealth was there!

As the quartz rock splintered beneath my excited strokes, the precious metal held it together, so thickly did it vein its matrix. Sharp edges of the flinty stone cut my hands, so that the blood flowed from half a dozen places, and as I grasped the icy quartz which did the deed, my bleeding hands froze fast upon it-a union of blood and treasure! No matter! and I tore them loose, unheeding the pain, so much was I excited.

"O Incal," I exclaimed, "Thou are good to Thy child in so liberally bestowing the treasure which shall enable a realization of his resolution, ere the heart hath opportunity to grow faint through long-deferred hope."

I loaded into my capacious pockets all that I could stagger under, selecting the richest and most valuable pieces of the gold quartz. How should I mark the spot, how find it again? To a born mountaineer this was no hard task, and was soon accomplished. Then onward, downward, homeward, joyfully I swung, with light heart, if heavy load. Over these mountains, indeed not two miles from the base of my treasure peak, wound the emperor's highway to the great ocean, hundreds, of miles away on the other side of the Caiphalian plains. This causeway once reached, the most fatiguing part of the trip would be over, although but one-fifth of the entire route would yet have been traversed.

To give some idea of the difficulties encountered in scaling or descending this giant mountain, I must remark that the final five-thousand feet of the ascent could be made by only one tortuous route. A narrow gorge, a mere volcanic fissure, afforded foothold of the most precarious character, all other parts of the peak being insurmountable cliffs. This meager support existed for the first one thousand feet. Above this point the cleft ceased. Near its upper end a small cave existed, rather higher than a man's stature, and capable of holding perhaps twenty people. In the farther end of this rocky room was a hole--a crack wider horizontally than in the perpendicular. Entering this crevice by crawling, serpent-fashion, the venturesome explorer would find that for several hundred paces he must needs descend a rather sharp incline, albeit the crevice in the first dozen steps so widened, or heightened, that a more or less upright posture could be assumed. From the end of its descending course it twisted and again increased in size so as to form a tunnel, ascending by tortuous windings, its walls affording sufficient support to make the climbing safe, although pursued upward at an angle of about forty degrees, while in some parts an even greater degree of perpendicularity marked the passage. In this way an upward climb of thirty odd hundreds of feet was accomplished, the sinuosities of the route greatly increasing the distance covered in a vertical rise. This, reader, was the sole method of reaching the summit of the highest mountain of Poseid, or Atlantis, as thou callest the island-continent.

Arduous as was its passage, there was more than enough room in this dry old chimney, or water-course, whichever it was, Chimney it certainly had been, originally, though now water-worn to such an extent as to render the idea of its igneous formation, de novo, merely conjectural. At one part of its course this long hole widened into a vast cavern. This led away at right angles from the chimney, and down, down, until far in the bowels of the mountain--thousands of feet it seemed in the dread darkness--he who ventured so far found himself on the brink of a vast abyss, which had no visible side except that on which he stood; beyond this, further progress was impossible except for winged things, as bats, and bats were there none in that awful depth.

No sound came back from its frightful chasm, no brightness of torches had ever revealed its other shore--nought was there but a sea of eternal inky blackness. Yet here were no terrors for me; rather a fascination. While others may have known of the place, I had never found a companion with enough temerity to brave the unknown, and stand by my side on the horrid brink, where I had stood, not once only but several times in days gone by. Three times I had been there, impelled by curiosity. On the third occasion I had leaned over the edge to seek a possible further descent, when the stone upon which I was--a huge basaltic block--loosened from its place, fell, and I barely escaped with my life. I fell, and for several minutes sounds of its descent came echoing back to where I stood; my torch went with it, and far adown the depths its sparks gleamed like fire-flies as it struck projecting points of the rock, ere it finally disappeared. I was left in that deep darkness, weak from my great peril, to make my way up and out-if I could. If not, then to fail and die. But I succeeded. Thenceforth I had no curiosity to explore that unknown gulf. Through the chimney which led past the upper end of this abyssmal cavern--between the upper end of the outer fissure in the cliff and the summit's side, five, or six hundred feet below the apex of the mountain--I had been many times; often had I been over the spot where a chance blow of my staff revealed the golden treasure, yet never found the precious store until I had asked Incal for it, urged by the pressing burden of my necessities. Is it strange that I felt absolute faith in the religious belief of my people?

It was into the dark chimney that I had to go when I left the snowy summit--out of the sunlight and fresh air, into dense blackness, and a slightly sulphurous atmosphere, but if I left the morning brightness, I also left the fearful cold of the external air, for inside the tunnel, if dark, it was warm.

At last, I came into the small room at the head of the thousand-foot crevice which would take me to the easier slopes of the lower and middle third of the mountain. In that room I paused. Should I return for another load of auriferous rock? Or should I go directly on my homeward way? At length I turned and retraced my steps. With the noon hour I stood once more beside my treasure spot. Then down again with my second load, till the weary toil ceased almost--for I was standing then at the entrance to the great cavern, four hundred feet from the little room at the head of the outer crevice--four hundred feet of pretty steep climbing. After a moment's pause I resumed the short but sharp ascent, and was soon in the little room, with only a dozen feet at most between myself and the free air. Sinuous, the long tunnel was, considered as a whole, yet it had some passages as straight, as if cut by tools along a line. The four hundred feet, more or less, which separated the room where I stayed my steps, from the entrance proper of the cavern, was such a straight stretch, and perhaps on that account as difficult to traverse as any part of the whole tunnel. Indeed it would have been impossible, except for its rough sides affording some slight foothold. Had the place been light, instead of filled with the blackness of darkness, I could have seen directly into the cavern from the apartment in which I was resting. The warm air induced me to sit or rather lie down at this point, even though I could not see, and so, as I rested there, I ate a handful of dates and sipped a little of the melted snow-water which my water-skin contained. Then I stretched myself out to sleep in the warm air.

flow long I slept I did not know, but the awakening--ah! the terror of it! Blasts of air so hot as to almost scorch, swept over and past me, laden with stifling fumes, and sending back a hoarse murmur as they rushed up the passage to the summit. Howling, groaning noises came up on the fervid breath from the abyss, mingled with the sound of tremendous explosions and deafening reports. Above all other causes for terror was a glow of red light reflected from the walk of the cavern, into which I found I could look with unobstructed freedom, and through whose depths shone flashes of red and green and blue, and every other color and tint, gases on fire, For a time, fright held me fast, so that without power to move I remained gazing into the awful hell of the blazing elements, I knew that the light and heat, both momentarily increasing, and the stifling vapors, the noise and the quivering of the mountain, all pointed but one and the same meaning--active volcanic eruption. At last, the spell which numbed my senses was broken by my catching sight of a spurt of molten lava which dashed up the intervening passage, projected a number of feet therein by an explosion within the cavern behind, Then I rose up and fled--fled across the floor of the little room and crawled with insane energy of haste through the horizontal entrance, which seemed never so low as that moment! I had forgotten that I carried gold in my pockets, and the fact only came back when I felt the retarding weight of the precious rock. But with the exertion to escape came a certain degree of calmness, and the restored presence of mind bade me not throw away the treasure. Reflection convinced me that the danger, although impending, was probably not immediate. So that I again crawled back into the little room and taking a sack which I had left there, filled it with all the ore I could carry. I undid a leather thong from my waist--a cord forty feet long--and looping one end to a point of rock, at the upper end of the crevice, I lowered the sack to the other extremity of the small cord, and then climbed down after it. Shaking the loop from the rock above, I repeated the performance again and again as I descended. In this way I reached the bottom of the crevice with the larger portion of my two loads of ore. From this point onwards my route my along the crest of a rocky ridge, not very wide, but sufficiently so to form an easy path.

I had just started along this ridge when I looked back over the way I had come. At that instant, a shock of earthquake occurred that almost sufficed to throw me to the ground, and out of the little cave, where I had slept, shot a puff of smoke, followed by a red gleam--lava. Downwards it splashed, a fiery cascade, and a most glorious sight in the gathering darkness, for the sun was not yet set. The entire mountain was west of the ridge on which I stood, and it being near night, my position was in deep shadow.

Out along the ridge I fled, leaving my sack of gold and much that was in my pockets in the safest place that I could choose, high above the bottom of the gorge, along which the. lava must flow. At a safe distance I paused for rest arid scanned the fiery torrent leaping down the gorge, now some distance away On my right, but in plain sight. "At least," thought I, "I have as much gold-rock--more metal than rock, it appears--left in my pockets yet, as I shall find myself well able to carry, now that the strength, born of excitement, is fled. So that even if I get not that I left behind, I have a great store of wealth. Therefore, Incal be praised!" How entirely inadequate to meet the expenses of seven years at college--and that college at the capital of the nation, where expenses were higher than elsewhere--were the twenty pounds, approximately, of gold-quartz, my inexperience could not tell me. That it was a greater treasure than I had ever possessed in my life, or even seen at one time, was an undeniable fact; therefore I was content.

A belief in an overruling Providence is necessary to most, indeed to all men, the sole difference being that men of widest knowledge require a Deity of power more nearly approaching infinity than do those of lesser experience; so those who realize the boundlessness of life, recognize a God of whom their conceptions are projected almost to omnipotence, compared to the conceptions which satisfy the ordinary human mind. Whether, then, the deity worshipped be a stone or a wooden idol, some inanimate form, or a Supreme Spirit of androgynous nature, it matters little. Those Beings--who order the course of events, executing the karmic law of the Eternal God, see the faith in mortal hearts, and suffer not that that law shall ever take its course in sternness, untempered by mercy. If trust in the idol, or the animate "god," or in the Supreme Spirit of God, should be allowed to perish because of the withering forces of sorrow and despair, then would human goodness tremble for safety and for continuation of its being. Such a catastrophe could not harmonize with God, hence, under the law, can never be allowed.

So with my belief in Incal, a belief shared by my country-people. Incal was a purely spiritual conception, and aside from the Eternal Cause, which no mind of any age of the world can sanely doubt, was existent only in the minds of his worshippers. And the faith was a noble one, one that tended to high morality, nourishing faith, hope and charity. What then though the personal Incal, symbolized by the shield of the blazing sun, was inexistent except in the brains of men? Our Poseid concept stood for us in the place of the Spirit of Life, Parent of all. That was enough to insure observance of the principles which it was supposed pleased Him best.

Surely the angels of the Most High Uncreated God, ministering then, as now, to the children of the Father, looked on the belief as it lay enshrined in my heart, and in the hearts of my fellowmen and women, and said, as they ministered: "Be it unto thee according to thy faith." The angels, beholding the hope that was in me too excel among men, had chastened me with fear as I fled from the burning mountain, but there came no disaster.

Onward I ran, as speedily as the nature of the path would permit. I had life and gold; wherefore I praised Incal as I went. And the Spirit of Life was merciful, for I was not to know how insufficient for my needs was my treasure until the sting of disappointment was removed because of having found a more abundant provision. For several miles my course lay along the knife-edged back of the ridge. In many places awful gulfs yawned beside the path, so near that I had need of my hands to aid my feet. Sometimes these cliffs extended along both sides of the trail, forming it into a narrow parapet. I was grateful for small mercies and thanked Incal that the god of the mountain bestirred himself not in the form of earth-throes while I was in those perilous situations. At a distance of three miles from the starting place my, path led me along the brink of a frightful precipice, while above reared the wall of a second cliff. Only the light of the burning mountain now illumined my steps. Here it, was that, as I climbed cautiously downward towards the basaltic brink, a heavy shock threw me upon my knees and almost sent me into the gulf. An instant later a dull boom filled the air with an insistent intensity of sound, and I looked back in affright. A huge spout of fiery smoke was rushing skywards, mingled with stones large enough to be seen at the distance I was from the spot. Below the brink where I clung, an awful grinding and crashing was going on; the earth trembled fearfully, and repeated shocks caused me to grasp the rock., in desperate fear of being thrown over the edge. Off there in front, the gorge which lay at my feet once skirted other ridges and spurs of the peak. Once, for a while, these ridge., and spurs had been; now they were not! I gazed upon a scene of awful and confusing turmoil, lit by the volcanic glare just sufficiently to be perceptible. The solid hills and rocks seemed tossing and unstable as the waters of the ocean and they rose and fell in a horrid swell, grinding and crashing in genuine pandemonium. Over all, volcanic ashes sifted in a thick, ceaseless shower, while dust and volcanic vapors filled the air and hung like a funeral pall over a seemingly perishing world.

Finally the mad uproar and sickening motion ceased; only the steady glow from the still-flowing lava and an occasional throe of earthquake telling the Plutonic tale. But I remained lying on the ledge, faint and ill. Gradually the lava stopped running, and the light went out; the shocks came only at long intervals, and a peace as of death filled all the region, while the silent gray ashes sifted down, covering the stricken land. Darkness reigned. I think I must, for a time, have been unconscious, for when I stirred I was aware of a sharp pain in my head; putting up my hand I felt a warm, wet oozing from a place which smarted at the touch. I felt about and found a jagged stone which had fallen from the cliff above and struck me. Further motion proved the wound was not serious, and I sat up. Already the dawn was coming and, faint with pain, hunger and cold, I again lay down to await broad day.

What a different scene rising Incal shone upon, in place of that of the previous morn! When I looked at the, proud peak, the red light of the sun showed that one full half of it had been riven away and swallowed up in "some mysterious cavern." Aye, truly,

"Mountains rear to heaven their head in their bald and blackened cliffs,
And bow their tall heads to the plain."

Nearer by, where other ridges had been, and where the awful reeling of the cliffs had occurred, right at my feet, indeed, no more was any rocky spire, nor peak, nor cliff there forever! Instead was a great lake of steaming water, whose thither shores were veiled by the softly settling ashes and clouds of steam condensed by the cold air a fine misty rain, the weeping of the stricken globe over its recent agony! Hushed, was all the noise; quieted, the trembling; ceased, the fervid streaming of the lava.

That part of the ridge where I had lain had escaped, for the most part, the general rending. But even it had suffered, so that the path ahead of me, which I had been accustomed to travel in my trips to the peak, was gone, a huge block of probably thousands of tons weight having slidden into the pit below, making absolute erasure of the path, which had crossed that very place. I sought another and, in climbing about in the dull light, came to a part of the ridge which lay on the far side from the sun, which, as yet, was not more than two perilously narrow ledges, lakes of hot water below, impassable steeps overhead, suddenly a dull red bar of light shone athwart my course! Looking for its source, I saw that the light streamed through a wide crack in the beetling cliff above. The bottom of this crack was not far below me and, instead of becoming narrowed out, had a floor as wide as any part of the fissure, as if all above that point had been forcibly slidden, or "faulted," to one side undoubtedly the real explanation. I lowered myself to the level of this floor and, finding the crevice sufficiently wide, stepped into it, heedless of the fact that at any moment fresh convulsions of the volcano might close the cleft and crush me as between the faces of a vise. I did think of this possibility but, Poseid-like, put aside fear by reflecting that I was trusting in Incal, who would do whatever was good for me.

The stricken cliff showed, here and there, veins of quartz with porphyritic sheaves, forming ledges running through the granite masses. Clear to the top, this narrow cleft extended, and though really some two or three feet wide, its height made it appear very narrow. As I paused, filled with delight at the idea that on both sides of me my eyes rested on virgin rock never exposed to the gaze of any man since earth began, I noticed that which set my pulses bounding with wild joy--right by my side, but a little in front, was a vein of yellow, ocherous-looking rock in which I saw many maculations of whitish, harder rock, which appearance was due to quartz bodies torn apart by the same shock which formed the cleft. These maculae were thickly dotted with nuggets of native gold and with argent mineral. The ductility of the precious metals was exhibited in curious effects, the gold and silver being drawn out from the smoothly fractured surface into wires, which in some cases were a number of inches long. Again the faintness of hunger left me, and the pain of my aching head-wound was temporarily forgotten, as I chanted a hymn of gratitude to my God. Gone was the towering peak; destroyed was the sole route of access to the lofty summit which man's foot might traverse; but here, after the war of the subterranean fires was over, here was a greater treasure, nearer home, easier to reach--the excitement of joy was too great a strain on my nerves, already so weak, and I fainted! But youth is elastic and the health of those who are without vices wonderfully buoyant. I soon recovered consciousness and was wise enough to make my way home without stopping to waste further strength, knowing that my mountaineering instinct would be an infallible guide to my subsequent return.

I felt, in taking counsel of my mother, that her belief that I could not work the mine alone was based on actuality. But whom should I trust to aid me and take an honest share of the wealth so obtained as, recompense?

Enough, is it not, that I found the necessary help? Certain professed friends entered into a co-partnership with me and, for the privilege of retaining the remainder of the proceeds, allowed me one-third of the profits, agreeing to do this without requiring any labor from me; and, with some demur, also agreeing to my demand that no part of the ownership should be vested in anybody but myself. I caused them to sign a paper to that effect and to seal it with the most inviolable sign possible in Poseid, namely, to make their signatures with their own blood. We all three did thus. So much formality I insisted upon for the reason that the suspicion was irrepressible that these men proposed to claim that they themselves were the discoverers of the treasure, and that I had, per consequence, no right to any of it. To-day I know that this was the case. I know that the proviso in the contract declaring that the whole mine which they, my partners, worked in the then current year was the inalienable property of Zailm Numinos, was all that prevented the intended robbery. This stipulation made no reference to the discoverer, as such, but did state in incontrovertible terms that in the possessor of that name was vested the title to the property. I would have had, in the event of a difference arising between us, no necessity to prove how I became owner of the mine; no claim that some person other than myself was the discoverer would avail the would-be defrauders, for whosoever was the first to find the lode, the fact remained that I was the owner, and possession in this event meant every advantage through the law. At least, so it seemed to my ignorance. My associates were not so ignorant. They knew that the contract was worthless because executed in violation of the law. The day came when I knew all. I knew in later times that the laws of Poseid made every mine a tithepayer to the empire, and that a mine worked without acknowledgment of this legal lien was liable to confiscation. It was apparent, also, that if my partners had not allowed themselves to be swayed by avariciousness into keeping secret the whole agreement, and also by working in the mine, thus rendering themselves participators in an infraction of the law, that they would have become the legally recognized owners, simply through furnishing information concerning my acts to the nearest governmental agent. But I did not know these things at the time and the other two thought it discretion to keep silence, for the reason that they were not aware of anything excepting the fact that they were violation statutory enactments of no seeming importance. Thus was the secret kept for a later revealment.

The means having been forthcoming, the removal of my residence from the country to the city of the Rai was next in order. Our farewell to the old mountain home and our installment in the new one in Caiphul will be passed over in silence.

• September 19, 2011
• 0
• Published in A Dweller on two Planets
• Written by LC Geerts

A Dweller on two Planets, Preface

A DWELLER ON TWO PLANETS

OR

THE DIVIDING OF THE WAY

BY PHYLOS THE THIBETAN

AMANUENSIS' PREFACE

By permission of the Author, whose letter addressed to me, follows as his preface herein, and to meet the natural inquiry and satisfy, so far as any personal statement from me will, any honest inquiring mind, I humbly appear in order briefly to give the major facts concerning the writing of this--even to me--very remarkable book.

I am an only child of Dr. and Mrs. Oliver, who for many years have resided in the State of California.

I was born in Washington, D. C., in 1866, and brought to the State by my parents two years later. Prior to commencing the writing of this book, in 1884, my education had been comparatively limited, and extended to a very slight knowledge of the subjects herein treated.

My father, a well-known physician, died a few years ago, my mother surviving him. Both were daily witnesses of most of the circumstances and facts surrounding the writing of this book. But further than to state this, I do not think myself called upon to introduce my family into the work, nor, in fact, myself, except in so far as it is meet for me to stand forth and do my personal part as the amanuensis.

I feel that I am mentally and spiritually but a figure beside the Author of the great, deep-searching, far-reaching and transcendent questions presented in the following pages; and I read and study them with as much interest and profit, I imagine, as will any reader. At the same time I feel with no sense of the natural pride of an Author of such a book, that it is a work of unselfish love, and will help to the betterment of an upward-struggling world, searching ever for more light, and feed the hungry for knowledge of the great mystery of life and of the ever evolving soul, through Him who said--"I AM THE WAY; FOLLOW ME."

In these days of doubt, materialism, and even rank atheism, it requires all the courage I possess to assert, in clear unequivocal terms, that the following book, "A DWELLER ON TWO PLANETS," is absolute revelation; that I do not believe myself its Author,--but that one of those mysterious persons, if my readers choose to so consider him, an adept of the arcane and occult in the universe, better understood from reading this book, is the Author. Such is the fact. The book was revealed to me, a boy, and a boy, too, whose parents were mistakenly lenient to such a degree that he was allowed to do as he chose in most things. Not lacking in inclination to study, but very lacking in will-power, continuity and energy, I gained little in educational triumphs, and was pointedly criticised by my teacher as "lackadaisical, even lazy." Hence, when a little past seventeen years of age, "Phylos, the Esoterist," took me actively in charge, designing to make me his instrument to the world, that profound adept showed what seems to me a rare faith, for I was without any solid education, as generally so considered, was minus any special religious trend, and for my sole commendation, had willingness, love of the remarkable, and an uncolored mind.

For a year my occult preceptor educated me by means of "mental talks," and to such a point was my mind occupied by the many new thoughts with which he inspired me, that I paid no heed to my environment, worked automatically, if at all, studied and read not, and scarcely heard those who addressed my exterior senses. Then it was that my father determined to stop my "approaching imbecility," as he called it; for I had avoided explanations, and had said nothing of the talks with my mystic preceptor, whom even I had never seen but a few times. To parental pressure I yielded, and told my--to me--divine secret. To my relief it was not scouted, but after a long narration to both parents, they expressed a desire to hear the mysterious stranger also. This he would not grant, but permitted me to quote his words, talks and addresses, and at length I became so proficient that I could repeat what he said almost as fast as he spoke to me.

A circle was formed at home, consisting at first of my parents, W. S, Mallory (now of Cleveland, Ohio), and myself, as hearers, and Phylos as teacher. Later Mrs. S. M. Pritchard and Mrs. Julia P. Churchill were present. This was in Yreka, Siskiyou Co., Cal., early in the eighties, where the MS. was commenced in A. D. 1883-4, but was finished in Santa Barbara County, California, A. D. 1886, where it has ever since remained in the manuscript, at the command of the author.

It will have added interest to many who love, or have become interested in CALIFORNIA, to know that within full view of Shasta, one of her loftiest mountain peaks, this book was begun and almost finished under the inspiration of that spirit of nature which speaks ever to those who, listening, understand.

How the Author differs from us common mortals, and how, by his occult methods, he possesses the power to dictate--"reveal"--as he has done and still does, may be better known by perusal of his remarkable record, set forth in this book--his personal history.

In 1883-4, A. D., in sight of the inspiring peak of Mount Shasta, the Author began to have me write what he told me, and, curiously enough, he dictated the initial chapter of "Book Second" first of all. Other chapters, both preceding and succeeding, were given at intervals of a few weeks, or even months, sometimes only a sheet or two, at others as high as eighty letter-size sheets being covered in a few hours. I would be awakened at night by my mentor and write by lamplight, or sometimes with no light, but in darkness. In 1886 the main work, as I remember it, was done. Then he had me revise it, under his supervision, and this work was as erratic as the other. In fact, the whole thing was as if he had the MS. already prepared when first he began dictation, and was indifferent as to what portions were written first, so only all were written. Had I been a medium in the sense usually understood by the believers in spiritualism, as I understand it, the writing would have been automatic, and I would not have been forced to clothe his converse so largely in my own language, and in that case no revision would have been necessary. But I was always conscious of every surrounding, quite similar, in fact, to any stenographer--with this lack of equality to such an amanuensis--that I was not then a shorthand reporter. Realizing how useful in taking my preceptor's teachings the possession of this art on my part would be, I learned to write stenographically, although never an expert.

Twice was the work revised, twice he had me go over this erratically written MS., which, as I have said, was mainly written backward. So strangely was it given that I had almost no idea of what it was, or with what it dealt. On one occasion, when I had written over two hundred sheets, mostly backwards, i. e., the sentences rightly last coming first, so fast and mixed that I had no idea of its sense, he bade me burn it without even reading it. This I did, and to this day I have little idea of what those pages contained, or why he had me destroy them; nor will he tell me. The book was finished in A. D. 1886, though for the purpose of publication the MS. has been thoroughly edited by a literary expert, that any error therein due to my own limitations and mistakes in transmission as amanuensis, should be eliminated.

In the year 1894 the manuscript as finished in 1886 was typewritten in duplicate by Mrs. M. E. Moore of Louisville Kentucky, and she has had possession of one of said copies ever since up to midsummer, 1899. The Moore copy has never been changed by even a letter since it was written, evidence whereof has been judiciously preserved. Said manuscript was copyrighted by me in 1894, and owing to an addition to the title, again in this, the year 1899.

During all this time I have not been permitted. nor able, to have it published. In the interval many of the things spoke of in the shape of scientific and mechanical rediscoveries spoken of in the book, have been brought to pass. The high attainments of the Atlanteans, lost for thousands of years following as the result of the engulfment of their great continent, have been and are rapidly being brought to light and utility; bearing out the prediction of the Author.

Witness the discovery recently of the Roentgen or "X-ray," not even dreamed of in 1886, yet in the book you will find a long treatise concerning "Cathodicity" and the amazing powers of the "Night Side of Nature," of such practical use to and so well understood by the people of that wonderful age. Also note wireless telegraphy; it, too, is herein, scattered all through and referred to in this book, precluding the possibility of interpolation. Again, regarding there being but "One Energy" and but "One Substance," now beginning to find able champions and general scientific acceptance, in place. of passing it by as a chimera for the elementary hypothesis so long held by chemists. This also is an integral part of this book; though it is not more than two years since an article appeared in Harper's Magazine seriously advancing this belief of fin-de-siecle science as a novelty. These are but major examples of what was set forth in "A DWELLER ON TWO PLANETS" in 1886, together with many more predictions of the immediate oncoming of what the Author terms rediscovery of the secrets buried with Atlantis; and it is promised that we. as Atlanteans returning, are going beyond her fallen greatness, and that by slow, synthetic steps, we are coming up to surpass even those wonderful attainments, as the ever expanding and growing mind and soul of man climbs ever higher in the rounds of his evolution.

To all earnest, though perhaps skeptical inquirers, I may say that the evidence as to this book being finished in 1886, and before the latter-day discoveries became known, abundantly exists and can be clearly established, to clear away any cobwebs that might otherwise find lodgment in their minds and prevent them from accepting the book for what its Author claims--the truth.

Upon the ability of the perusers to so accept this book as history and not fiction, much depends, in lighting up the Path for their souls. I am rather in expectation of another work, but whether I will have it, or some other amanuensis will got it, I do not know. If it come as promised, it will be one for the inner eyes of those who profit by this work, and seek yet more of the counsel which will place their feet firmly on the "Narrow Way of Attainment."

In writing as such amanuensis, I am always conscious of the presence calling himself Phylos, whenever he chooses to come to me, and sometimes I see as well as hear and speak with him, though vision is rare. Clairvoyance and clairaudience would account for this. I hear--and speak or write--what is said as I am directed. Often, after being shown the mental picture, I am left largely to express it in my own language, At such times I am as fully conscious of my surroundings as at any other time, though I feel lifted as into a Master's presence, and gladly do for him the work of an amanuensis. If the good counsel and loving care I have personally received from my wise friend had been faithfully and persistently remembered and followed, instead of so largely slighted or forgotten, as often to almost fade from my memory during big absence, I should undoubtedly have been a better example than I feel that I am of the grand lessons he sets forth in this book.

I have never represented myself to any person, nor to the public as possesing mediumistic or any other quality, nor have I ever used the same at any person's request, for love or money. Whatever my talents or qualities in these things may be, they have only been used as a sacred gift. With such influences as have surrounded me in this work, I can gratefully and truly say that I have never been tempted to do otherwise, if I could; and have ever received exceedingly more good than I feel that my services have returned.

Now the question arises, do I believe this Book? Unhesitatingly, Yes. There may be points that I can accept only on faith, like any other reader, feeling that a day will come when, if I shall be faithful, I will be instructed by the Spirit to which he testifies. There certainly will be criticisms from some as to the manner of the writing of this MS., and as to the truth of my statements regarding it, as there has so often been by those who prefer to believe that all such claims are but author's fictions. I have come to personally know the truth of some of the things mentioned in this book, in the course of the fifteen years that I have had in this connection. I have. had many experiences, mentally confirmatory at least, either of the direct statements of the author, or tending to strengthen the absolute confidence which I feel in him I reverence so deeply. I have often, even as "Christian" in "Pilgrim's Progress," fallen. But the Path is there. Does the sun cease to shine because fogs obscure it? Then is it not for us to follow the Path, forgetting persons, and looking to the spirit, as we read Phylos' Book?

F. S. OLIVER.

LETTER FROM PHYLOS, AUTHOR OF THIS HISTORY.

January, 1886.

Today, my brother, the masses of humanity on this planet are awakened to the fact that their knowledge of life--the Great Mystery--is insufficient for the needs of the soul. Hence a school of advanced thought has arisen, whose members, ignorant of the mysterious truth, yet know their ignorance and ask for light. I make no pretenses when I say that I--Theochristian student and Occult Adept--am one of a class of men who do know, and can explain these mysteries. I, with other Christian Adepts, influence the inspirational writers and speakers through an ability to exert the control of our trained, and therefore more powerful, minds over theirs, which are enormously less so. Hence, when the people ask for bread, our media give it to them. Who are these, our media? They are all men or women, in churches or out, who bear witness of the Fatherhood of God, the Sonship of Man, and the Brotherhood of Jesus with all souls, irrespective of creeds or ecclesiastical forms. Because these, our writers and speakers, have wrought for human good, so shall, and so does, good come to themselves, bread from the waters. It is proper that the leaders of the mental van should receive generous remuneration. And they do. But at this point enters a different phase. Observing the cry for more light, more truth; observing also how great is the recompense, up springs the imitator, who have no light of inspiration, no conception of the real truth, not of the laws of the Eternal. What does he? Watch! With a pen whose shaft is imitation, and whose point is not of the gold of fact, but of the perishable metal of selfish greed, this person writes. He dips his pen into the ink of more or less thrilling sensationalism, muddy with the dirt of immorality and nastiness, and he draws a pen picture illumined by the tallow-dip of lust and corruption. There is in his work no lofty aim to inspire his readers; he deals with the lowest aspects of life, and, ignorant of the inexorable penalty for sin, has no expiation to demand of his characters. While a little allured by brilliant word-painting, the reader goes to the end, he is conscious ever that the cry of his soul for the bread of infinity has been answered not even by a stone, but by a handful of mud! No good purpose is thus subserved; nothing taught of the real laws or philosophies of life; it drags down, but never elevates. Whoso shall utter thus, upon them shall come retribution, and they shall be judges upon themselves, and executioners also, out in the open sea of the soul, where their own spirit will have no mercy for the misdeeds of the soul. Other imitators there may be, who, fired with a genuine desire to do good, will mimic intuitional utterances, and, however poor the work, yet if the animus has been to do good, in the measure of that resolve shall the Most High judge that whatever is for good is not for evil. But let them beware who, for money or profit, are tempted to give stones or mud!

And now, my brother, I have another subject to speak upon. Readers of my book, "Two Planets," may consider awhile over those passages concerning the sin of the Princess Lolix and of Zailm, the legal nephew of the Emperor Gwauxln. They may say that the mention of this fact, though liable to occur as one of the varied experiences of life, is nevertheless out of place in a book whose aim is highly moral. But I ask those who know my work, is it? Is it inexcusable to speak of those grave but common crimes if the author can treat them as examples of broken law, and earn place the working of such law so clearly before this unthinking world that men and women will be afraid to break it, fearful of the penalty, which can in no wise be evaded? I think it unjustifiable to keep silence under such circumstances. I have, so far from overdrawing the estimate of the penalty of crime, not given the entire expiatory picture. I know whereof I speak, for this, my brother, is my own life history, and words have no power to depict the utter misery which the exaction of the punishment has caused me! If but one soul shall be saved like misery, and similar or equal sin, or less or more error, then am I content. I have sought to explain the great mystery of life, illustrating it with part of my own life history, extracts which cover years reaching into many thousands; and the greatest of all Books has been my text. I add not thereto nor take away, but explain. Peace be with thee. *

* Revelations, XXII, 18-19; also I. Tim. VI., 3-12.

PHYLOS.

Addendum:--I feel myself vastly indebted to many bright writers and authors for numerous quotations of which I have availed myself, without making credit at the time; it is impossible to render this award to every individual by name, hence I must do so concretely, just as the world finds itself forced to express its aggregate gratitude, not by words of laudation, but by shaping its life in conformity to the noble Precepts in poetry and in prose, devised to humanity as the legacy of all the ages. As the world is helped, so has my work been; I hope I have returned help for help.

Sincerely, PHYLOS.

A MARVELOUS PREDICTION.

The preface is mine to say what may properly please me. It was so given me by the Author.

A subject not specifically treated by Phylos in his book, but not forbidden me by him, I feel it almost due the public to give here, most especially as it was told me by him while I was summering in Reno, Nevada, in the year 1886. I at that time embodied it in a short story, which I dated, but more to the point, read to a young lady friend, Miss S. This fact she can testify as being fact, for it was partly written under her eyes, was criticised by herself, sister and mother, and, climax, was written upon paper bought for the purpose from her father's drug and book store.

Phylos stated to me then that inside fifty years, considerably inside, he thought, mundane scientists would have discovered and applied electric forces to the astronomical telescope. Just how, he did not state, although he did give ample enough de. tails so that one familiar with those subjects probably would have been able to seize upon and work out the idea to a successful issue. He said that electric currents unimpressed with vibrations such as produce sound, heat and light, until resisted, would be superadded to the light vibrations constituting the image beheld through the telescope. This would be accomplished through the media of well-known so-called chemical elements, whose then unrecognized higher powers remained to be discovered.

The result was described to me as awe-inspiring and marvelous past earthly dreams. Thus, he stated, that upon sung and stellar bodies so distant that hundreds of them only (even in this A. D. 1899) seem as a faint speck through the most powerful modern telescopes, to this electrostellarscope would, by proper amplification of the electro-luminous waves be made so plain to earthly vision that objects not visible to the unaided earthly sight would be easily perceptible on the most distant stellar body, however remote from the mundane beholder.

Further, Phylos says that he did not embody this subject in his book, because Atlantis did not know of it, despite her marvelous scientific attainments. Hence it will be no "rediscovery," but a distinct step in advance of anything that Earth has known--Solomon at last outreached, so far as his time-honored saying applies to our planet, at least.

Respectfully,

THE AMANUENSIS, FREDERICK S. OLIVER

Los Angeles, October 11, 1899.

• September 19, 2011
• 0
• Published in A Dweller on two Planets
• Written by LC Geerts