A DWELLER ON TWO PLANETS

OR

THE DIVIDING OF THE WAY

BY PHYLOS THE THIBETAN

The Second Book

CHAPTER VI

AN INDIRECT ANSWER

An eminent author has said that "literary themes are necessarily limited; that authors can not create as a fiction that which has no counterpart in fact." And this is absolutely true. Literature is restricted to ringing the changes on love, hatred, hope, despair, greed, indifference, envy, the gamut of our human emotions, in short. When these are presented in their threefold aspects, tragedy, comedy, or serio-comic, the scale is run, and the only further variations possible are the lights or shadows of faintness or intensity of emotion.

Perhaps the thought arises that in this history some new phase will appear, that Theo-Christianity has some new phases to present. Such an idea is doomed to disappointment. Indeed, the occult will be found to exclude even certain potent earthly factors of literature, all those of the lower animal nature, because these have no place in human life. Envy, greed, hatred, have no place in a nature which is close kin to that soul of love, Jesus. Indifference, sloth, despair, these can have no room in a soul which scans so absorbing a vista as that open to Mol Lang, yet so loving a soul that, like Jesus and Gautama, perfect willingness existed to turn from such sublime reward in order that they might lead their least brethren thither also. You may say that such love as this is not animal when I say it is not human. Right. But it is spiritual; it is that love which only those know who have begun to tread the Path, knowing within the soul the advent of the Spirit. If any of you come to feel that You will not shrink, though karma demand you also to show that "greater love hath no man" than that he "give up his life for a friend," then brother, sister, you have known the birth of the Spirit within you. Blessed are you then.

No one can rightfully expect that by the relation of weird things I shall give him a half-hour's amusement; such is not my aim. This book is a work of love, done for a sacred purpose. The second coming of Christ is upon the world, not only as a time simultaneously arriving for all, but also unto each human soul as it becomes ready to receive Him in the heart, and do His work. He is at hand now in the sense that if you will open your soul to receive His spirit, He is there to enter in. Truly, of the moment He comes to His own no man can tell the day or the hour; yet I say, tarry not for Him as a man or an external spirit, but as the Christ Spirit entering into your very being. And He shall not wait to come an a man, but come as the Spirit of Divine Love, just so soon as you are ready to make that your rule of life; and as the Christ and Father are One, so therefore shall you that hear and attend be glorified, and presently arise, depart from tide world, and go unto the Life. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. Likewise He shall come as a person at the last.

I certainly have strange things to relate, but nothing weird, unreal or sensational. That which I say is from my Father, and can lead the earnest hearer into the Path whither the Christ led the way. What I say concerns a larger measure of life, Hesper, the planet of Divine Love. I hope to reveal some further idea than I have hitherto of the extent, kind and duration of occult life. Heretofore I have given only rules; now I give the result of faithfulness to them. I hope to show what a glorious being man becomes through heeding occult law, the law of the Spirit whereof I testify. Upward through all the ages, with never any descent, Man pursues still the glorious march which shall eventuate in making him one with the Father--more than man finite, Man infinite! Angelic!

But my pen is years ahead of my visit to Hesper. I must return to that time lest my words become merely words, erected like modem buildings, fourteen stories high.

My desire to investigate the occult truth did not diminish because of the rapid growth of my desire for a life more familiar. Yet ever and again I caught myself studying whether psychic truth might not be pursued where, ah! amidst--well, some set of conditions less rigorous to the animal instincts struggling within me, and setting me so far below my friends. As well hope to mix oil and water as to study the occult amidst unspiritual, earthly influence!

As preceptor, Sohma contented himself with telling me of principles, and not of marvels, lest in pursuing wonders I should lose sight of causes; the fruit of a tree is apt always to be more attractive to the ignorant than is the tree itself. Here is a chief truth in guidance to occult study: pay small heed to the marvels, or to magic, and all heed to laws, for the laws are the tree. The marvel worker is the least of the brethren, understanding not the laws of the rather to any profitable extent. Know the law, know the marvels incident; know not the law, but only the marvel, and you are not following Him, nor shall you inherit His kingdom, though you could do more magic then the Tchin, Mendocus, or even Mol Lang. It was their possession of least value; may you regard it likewise.

During a stroll in the garden, I asked Sohma concerning his remark that though I should be given the key to occult wisdom, I should not be taught details. "Sohma, you say details are omitted, and effects also, and only general laws are to he taught me. Now, my nature seems incapable of learning much in that way. I seem to feel a different method necessary, a method born of--of--" here I passed my hand across my brow in perplexity, for earth memories were not supporting me. "Well, I know not exactly what; I seem to have some vague idea of a past life, somewhere, in which other methods of learning were in use. I do not know now, brother. I am lost."

"No, not lost, Phylos; misplaced, ahead of thy common place in life. But thou makest reference to the analytical philosophy, which reasons from effects back to a common cause. It is not a sure process, as witness the status of chemical science in that vaguely remembered life of thine. Chemistry is a proud science, though handicapped by clumsy analytical processes. It cannot tell what a grain of sand is."

Suddenly my chemical learning returned to me, in obedience to Sohma's will, although the environing circumstances of its acquirement were prevented. But with the return of the knowledge itself I became immediately argumentative, and I replied to Sohma:

"Pardon me, but chemistry can tell that. Sand is silica, silicic acid, and it is composed of the element silicon and the oxygen of the air, in the proportion of two of the latter to one of the former."

"Precisely. But thou hast not really told anything; thou art as far from a finality as before. Thou sayest sand is composed of two primary elements?"

"Certainly."

"And being primary, cannot he reduced farther?"

"No, they cannot," I said, yet, remembering certain wonderful things I had already witnessed, I was beginning to he nervous.

"No! Art thou sure?" he queried, persistently; and I, both from a feeling of stubbornness which his manner aroused and a determination to be true to my science at, all hazards, replied:

"Assuredly!"

"Phylos, if it were not that thy stubbornness were tempered with an admirable fidelity to principle, I should say that wisdom will die with thee. But, my friend, thy system of chemistry, with its sixty-odd 'primal elements' and its 'monads, dyads, triads' and so on; its simples, binaries, tertiaries and the like numerous compounds, is nothing but a fine working hypothesis, well adapted to producing the result it has produced, but because it is not the whole chemical truth, not capable of ever attaining that wholeness of results which marks the sublime constitution of nature. So far from conducting to the truth these theories have just the opposite effect; they teach the multiformity of matter, whereas its unity is the truth. As I said, though, the chemists of the earth have a good working hypothesis, one which will do until the better method of truth is found."

Sohma paused, whereupon I asked what the better method was. He did not answer me in direct words, but instead he put before my mental vision a workshop, wherein were many kinds of instruments and machines in states either of completion or approaching completion, lying upon tables and benches. I saw here a clock, there watches, there again an old style typewriter; there were time locks and combination tools, besides many intricate mechanisms that even the sight of suggested no use for. At a little distance upon a table lay a confused mass of parts of machinery not put together. He said:

"Phylos, canst thou put these things together? In this pile are portions of clocks, typewriters, locks and so forth. Thou sayest thou art not a machinist, hence cannot deal with these things. These things are not unfamiliar to me, who am a machinist. With all the parts before thee thou couldst not construct a clock or other mechanism. But suppose thou shouldst take carefully apart a clock now in running' order, and study carefully all its relations, and do so by not one only, but by several of these instruments, then the whole would become familiar to thee, and while merely taking one clock apart would not be apt to teach thee, doing so by many would enable thee to put them all together again as they were. That is the process of analysis, deduction and synthesis; it is the same, practically, in physics, or in mechanics or chemics."

"But my friend," I said in dismay, "I cannot do these acts, not having opportunity to thus experiment."

"That is my point, Phylos. I will show thee the better method of which I spoke. Here before us is an invention of my own; practically I am its creator, and therefore do I understand it. Here also is another identical machine, but it is in separate state; its parts are a confused pile. Now thou knowest nothing of constructive mechanics; I do, and I will point out to thee the principal parts of the machine, which is in running order. Observe!"

Sohma went up to the machine, which stood, a marvel of mechanical beauty, its burnished brass and silver wheels, springs, cogs, chain belts, etc., showing through the quadrangular glass case. He spoke into the mouthpiece, explaining the machine to me the while. He said that he would remain near the mouthpiece, so that his words should be reported and printed and bound in book form. As he spoke he loosened a set screw. Then he said:

"A microphonic diaphragm sets strong currents of electricity in operation. These act only as my tones impinge on that vocal diaphragm, whereby, as thou seest, carbon discs close other circuits, and operate levers carrying type upon their extremities. Observe that this vocal diaphragm is made of sonant steel cords, like those of a piano, and there are of these just as many as experience has demonstrated that there are vocal tones and octaves. Hence there is in one alphabet just that number of letters, and our written language consists in the proper sequential arrangement of these letters, either type, if printed, or symbolic chirography, if written. Along with our spoken tones, then, if near such an instrument as this, we can 'utter' a printed volume. The congregate tones affect each its own chord; this in vibration compresses the carbon discs, sets going the instant electric current, the type lever does its work, the paper is carried a space forward and the next type strikes, and so on till the voice ceases utterance. The spacing between words, even, is automatically done, for, so long as one is talking connectedly there is a utilization made of the return of the carbon disc from its compressed active state, whereby a spring moves the paper carriage one space for every minor pause in the voice, and two for periods, but it is not sufficient for more than a double spacing motion. I am done speaking, nearly, and will move this lever up, thus releasing the stored force which arose from the motion of the parts, especially of the heavy balance wheel. No more printing will be done, but the reserve force will fold, cut and bind my speech, and when this is done, the last of the force stored, equal in all cases to the special work, is exhausted entirely by the ringing of a bell which signifies the end."

Though Sohma ceased to speak, the instrument still worked, and almost quicker than this sentence will be put in type, the bell rang and behold! Sohma's words in book form dropped into a little box at the end of the case. The instrument stood motionless in its case, and for the first time its compactness struck me; it was but eighteen inches high, by two feet in width and three in length, yet it had done all that marvelous work.

"Couldst thou take apart this instrument and put it together properly again?"--was the startling question, startling because I thought he intended me to do it! "No, my brother; but as its creator, knowing all its most obscure points, my comprehension of it and of other machinery, and of truths not mechanical as well, but scientific psychics, is a veritable spirit of knowledge, and observe-this spirit I will to enter into thy mind, at least so far as concerns this mechanism. Behold it and know it."

Strange to relate, I, who previously knew almost nothing of such things, seemed on the instant to understand the whole of the delicate apparatus, as a watchmaker does a watch. Sohma, perceiving this, said:

"Such, Phylos, is that key to all wisdom whereof I spoke. God, creator of all things whatever, shall one day enter into thee. Then thy spirit, which is a ray of His Spirit, shed into the darkness of life by Him, shall reunite with Him. And because He creates by constant Logos all things and states of Being, and is immanent in it all, knowing it all, so when He entereth thy soul, thou shalt know all things likewise, and, in less measure, truly, create also. Thou shalt know that, in chemical sense, only one element exists, operated upon by Force. Then all 'elements,' as thou knowest them, shall be seen to be but different speeds of the molecular formation of the One Element by varying degrees of the One Force, and light, heat, sound and all solid, liquid and gaseous substances will be seen to be different not in material, but in speed only.

"That knowledge underlies all life, physics, chemics, sonants, calories, chromatics, electrics and all and every possible aspect of nature. Such is the supreme law of God, and He is nature, though nature is not conversely God. Another law is that of compensation; may I tell thee of it?"

I replied that I should be but too glad to listen, for his words revealed God in all things, whether high or low. So he continued:

"This law, then, not only governs all matter, but that of which matter is the reflection, Spirit, and the soul realm. I need state but a single brief instance in material nature, the screw plane. As the plane of a screw is greater or less in its inclination, so will its action be either rapid or powerful, but never both at once. If the thread be slight in pitch, the screw bar will progress through its nut very slowly, but, as exerted in a screw press, the crushing force will be enormous. Vice versa; if the pitch be steep, the screw bar will progress rapidly, as to wit, the screw nail, which may be driven into wood with a hammer, and revolve as it goes in.

"Now, in the soul realm, if a human being is content with the gradual, easy pitch of the Godward ascending plane of pure daily life, daily temptations to work in error, and too often fall, progress upward will be slow, but very sure. But, on the contrary, if eager to learn rapidly, it must meet in a few hours all the crushing force of temptations to err and to sin which the ordinary man meets distributed through many, many incarnations, covering ages, aye, aeonian time. In the one case the Father giveth sufficient of the daily bread of strength unto men to enable them to progress very slowly, but with certitude. In the other, all the splendid reserve of resistant force of a very God is needed, for all the power of Lucifer, that high nature spirit who was incarnate in the planet which disrupted into the solar asteroidal belt, upon the lapse, the failure of its Soul, all of his glorious power sufficed not to carry him to victory, so he fell. God-Christ in thee can alone win this struggle. Truly, no mere human, so long as he remains Man, can have such a temptation; not thyself, not Mol Lang, my father, hardly Gautama were subjected to such a severe test as was that sublime world soul, Lucifer, except relatively. I say relatively, for consider this: that if a fly or an ant be subjected to all it can endure, then its pain at that, point is as severe as that of a man at his breaking strain. But as Jesus and Gautama were tempted to the utmost and did not fail, therefore their victory was greater than Lucifer's failure, and when thou shalt come to a trial like his, thou'lt doubtless succeed; though, again, thou mayest fail. There is but one Guide; follow and win; follow not, and fail. It is a new conception to thee to learn there is an animating ego, a world spirit, inmateriated in each star, each planet, every stellar body, just as there is an individual soul in each human, animal or plant body. Yet this is true. True also it is that the spirits of men will progress; will face the supreme ordeal, and, if they pass victorious, will enter that long rest, heaven, devachan, call it as thou wilt, Nirvana. But that is not the end, for life had a beginning--it hath also an end. And the perfect human ego emerging eventually from Nirvana, that long devachan of all the incarnations, emerges not as Man; it does not live, but It Is, and Its post-viviant existence is a state of Being which no human mind could understand, except inferentially it do so through the knowledge that that state is to Life as the senior to the junior. But ere then is the trial of transfiguration; to it my father hath come, I have not. If we fail, then that is the second death, but meet it we must, humanity must. But it is long ere then, for it cometh not until the essaying soul be perfect, and be ready to leave the pupaceous state of Human Life, to be judged according to (its) works for Him who made it. Do I weary thee, Phylos?"

I replied that he did not, though it did seem that I grasped his meaning only to lose it again. None the less I was eager to have him go on, fancying I understood, just as every Person you or I know is fond of thinking his or her comprehension of abstruse subjects perfect. Sohma smiled and said in reply that, when he was done, all that I would have gained would be the psychic bent favoring my progress, for I was destined to forget the very ideas I fancied I was gaining. But he continued, observing that a favorable prejudice was a worthy thing, calling for his best effort for me.

"I wish thee to observe also this: that if thou thinkest the judgment day, when according to its works thy soul is arraigned by thy spirit, which is God in thee, if thou thinkest that because that day may be in remote aeons ere it come, and therefore thou hast ample time to lag, to err, I counsel thee it is a fatal mistake. For if at the great trial any man fail it is because day by day, as the lives were run, he neglected his chances, either by omission or commission. Then shall such suffer the second death, be cast into the 'lake of fire,' in other words, their Spirit will depart from the soul and go unto the Father, while the soul will be gathered into the sum of force, the 'Fire' element, that which is sum of all lesser force forms, out of which springeth life, heat and vibration. But this will not be until the erring one hath passed from his soul into his spirit. So the 'second death' is not of the sinner; it is the cutting off of all his, or her, spoiled work, and a chance to begin again, to build better; our Father damneth not His child, but only the imperfect work, the sinning soul. In our library thou canst see a book brought here to Hesper from the Earth, a book which speaketh of the order of the Rosicrux, wherein this supreme Fire is written of. 'Tis also that Fire once called in the Earth the Maxin.

"Phylos, thou wilt suffer the ordeal of the Crisis before other men; whether thou shalt succeed or fail no man knoweth save those who have passed heretofore."

When Sohma ceased speaking, I looked around me, and found that while the clocks and typewriters, and locks and various instruments, were gone, the vocal printer was not gone; it was an actuality, the rest only concepts which Sohma had willed me to see. My mind was not trained sufficiently well to continue on a special line of thought so long, and while I fancied that I possessed a clear idea of all my companion had said, and was pleased by the notion, yet had I tried at that moment to recollect his meanings, I should have been chagrined to find that I had nothing beyond vague ideas. Still, I did not try the experiment, but, content with the supposition of possession, my mind wandered to a new theme, and I asked Sohma if Hesperians had not found aerial vessels possible among so many triumphs. He turned toward me and looking behind me, smiled as he answered:

"I will leave Phyris to tell thee that; I must go elsewhere."

I was pleased at this new event, yet shyness at once asserted itself, and though vexed at this fact, my vexation seemed only to increase my diffidence. Taking, as I supposed, no notice of this diffidence, she said:

"We rarely go, except we go astrally. We care but seldom to avail ourselves of our aerial vessels; but we have them. It may be that thou, or shall I say 'you' to lessen thy--your--shyness of me?" and Phyris bent a pair of laughing eyes upon me, a gaze that, while it gave most delicious pleasure, effectually confused me, past recovery, I feared.

"Perhaps," she continued, after gently laughing at my piteous abashment, "perhaps you think we Hesperians can transport our physical bodies here and there by some occult process, or other. For instance, as all forms of matter are but divine ideas clothed in the One Substance, it is possible to disintegrate the material form, but preserve the psychic idea and transport that as other thoughts move, by effort of will, then rehabilitate it in matter. Thus it is, articles can be brought from the earth here to us. But if you think we can do this by our own bodies you err, for ourselves are the ideas embodied. Truly we can emerge from these bodies, and travel in one brief instant from one to any other star. But we can not have two corporeal bodies at once. If we leave the one we have, we can, by putting it in a cataleptic trance, leave it in fit state to reoccupy upon our return. But if we leave it and make around ourselves a new one, like in all respects to the other, and abide in it, the deserted temple will perish. We could do it; but we have no need to, and consequently do not. All about you is matter, every breath is matter, differing only from iron in its molecular speed. The air is matter; electricity is matter. I will show you. See, I wish a plate, several plates, cups, saucers, knives and forks, so I image them (imagio, I create) in the mental or psychic form. Do you see them? Eyes of Earth could not; thou hast for a time Hesperian vision."

Before me was a pile of delicate tableware, with the pattern upon each piece of a different kind.

"These articles are really only thought forms; no eye unable to perceive a thought could see them. But now look, I gather to myself the higher rate of speed, the extra force which makes air of the One Substance, and the force which I leave is just that of the various minerals of which I desire my ware to be 'made,' observe that one plate is a ruby, the real crystal aluminum; and another is a pearl, others are of various gem stones, as that cup and saucer, crystal carbon, diamond each one. On the Earth those dishes would be valued into the millions of dollars, yet here they are valued for their uses and their beauty only. Do you see, Phylos, I know the terms of your language and what ideas are conveyed by your words. But now I, like Sohma, must go, for I have a dinner to get, a use for my plates, cups and saucers, which I have made, as well as more yet to make. Quite like an ordinary mortal, you say? Indeed, and why not? Do you think an occultist is always rapt in abstruse speculations? You err, Phylos, you err, indeed. You may go into the library, where you may find something to interest you."

To the library, therefore, I went, and if you will, you may go with me, in a mental way, and see something of it. Do not object that these Hesperian objects were unreal, just because I have said that no one with ordinary terrestrial eyes could see any evidences of life on Venus. Reality does not necessarily imply terrene solidity.

At least forty thousand volumes lined the shelves; many of them were plainly, but some richly, bound. On my first introduction to this apartment I had found that the books on the shelves were all in the phonetic print of Hesper. But I saw on a table one whose cover bore in Anglo-Saxon in gilt letters the title and name of the publishers, and as I looked, for a brief time the memory power of Earth returned. The inscription was:

"A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE"
By Miss A. B. Edwards
Published by Longmans & Co. 1876

That volume had been brought all the many millions of miles across inter-planetary space along the "currents," just as Phyris had done when she "made" the tableware, only in the case of this book she had not created the thoughts in the book, but had disintegrated the matter, preserving the astral, the only reality about an object, and after bringing it from Earth to Hesper, had reclothed it in matter after its journey. I looked about, and found other volumes, one entitled:

"THE ROSICRUCIANS" By Hargrave Jennings.

I found copies of Milton's works, of Tennyson's earlier poems, of Moore, and a pile several feet high of other standard works; on top of all lay the "Essays of Emerson," upon which, as I gazed, appeared a piece of white paper, and as I looked, the words seemed to form as if precipitated from the air,

"Phylos, these books I have brought for you from the distant earth. I did so that you might contrast them with our Hesperian works. Finally, consider this: that we who are illumined by the Spirit of the Creator do little with books or such crude methods of learning, caring only for them as specimens of the work of souls on certain planes. To read them we have no need, no desire, they serve only as texts, for when we would learn, we retire within our souls and listen to the All Knowing Spirit."

That message was signed by Phyris. It was written in English. Written? No, precipitated, and as soon as I had read it, it disappeared as it had appeared, with no hand to remove it, no person save myself in the room. With its disappearance I also ceased to retain memories of the world whence I came. As I stood, considering what next to do, Phyris came in and said:

"Here is an invention by Sohma which will render thy delight greater; I know it is always great where books abound."

She picked up a book from Earth, Shakespeare, and placed it in an instrument which turned the pages automatically, and a strong electric light being cast on the visible pages, its beams reflected upon a metallic plate. Unseen wheels revolved within a case, and a voice issued from a funnel-shaped mouthpiece. To my pleasure I heard the reading of page after page of the great English literary gem, in appropriate tones for the various characters. While I listened, absorbed, Phyris withdrew, and it was some time ere I noticed her absence. I think I should then have gone in search of her, or of Sohma--Mol Lang had gone to a distance, on duty bent, leaving his body asleep in his room--but as I was about to go out of the library, a hand--a woman's hand, reached over my shoulder, and a soft voice said:

"Put these over your eyes."

It was Phyris, who gave me a seeming pair of spectacles. They were indeed spectacles which all the fortunes of earth could not obtain. How thoughtful she was of my pleasure! As I put them on, all the shelves of books disappeared, and a book being pieced in my hand, as I know from retrospection, for I did not know then, I found myself seemingly amid scenes of most familiar aspect. All the mental pictures conjured up by vivid perusal of Scott's famous poem, "The Lady of the Lake," all the voices of its characters became seen and heard, as if I were on the spot where all was said to have transpired. For the time I was transported by means of those magical eyespieces into the mental world of Walter Scott, which, while he wrote,

"Lay around him like a cloud,
A world he could not see."

except with the vision of the creative imagination.

The whole was presented in a few moments, for thought is swifter than the senses, and when the King threw his golden fetters over Malcom's neck and laid the chain in fair Ellen's hand, without waiting for the rest Phyris withdrew the wonderful spectacles from my eyes and said:

"These would banish material surroundings, and let the reader directly into the author's realms of imagery, whatever the book, but not whoever the reader, for only fine, developing human senses, none that are controlled by the animal, can enjoy the use of them. And this because they are a species of sensitive magnet, linking psychic facts but not material things. But there, I do not know much more about them, and you must ask father of them if you would learn more. I am only a girl, and must learn to be more ere I can assume to teach. And I should dislike to fail in offering you an explanation. Your good opinion of me would lessen, and that would be mortifying, for I treasure it--I, well, never mind," she said, as a delicate flush spread over her face, "come with me; I think it is well not to be too long a time amidst any one set of influences, as literary environs."

Much, aye, most that I saw in Hesper had been unfamiliar. But that delicate blush--it set me thinking, my own ideas meantime in a confused, ecstatic whirl. What did it mean? Did it denote reciprocal affection?

"It does in truth," she said, in reply to my unspoken query. "But the significance of it is beyond my knowledge. Thou, nay, you, see me a maid of not many years. Your love shall behold me a woman. Do I speak a riddle? Only time can solve it. You are with me, and I with you, and our ages differ not greatly. You have little understanding; I have more; both are imperfect, yet the Spirit shall make us whole. If I asked you now, 'What is will power?' you could not answer it truly. Yet I tell you, and my words shall sink deep, and guide you to me. I said erroneously that you are with me, and behold, you are so only in the sight of our Father in the beginning, but not now. Yet one day shall come, and when I shall ask, 'What is will?' you shall say of your own knowledge: 'Will is the fiat of consciousness.' If it be will of the animal soul, its result will be only a subjective thought which shall energize muscles to do an objective reality conforming to the subjective plan. If it be of the human soul, it will be of greater intensity and nobler, but still the brain, and through it the muscles, must render its fiat into material form. But if the will be the fiat of our Spirits, and trained, we shall say to any material force, 'Obey me,' and it shall obey. Because our Spirits are of our Father and one with Him, and the Will of the Spirit shall need no mediate brain nor muscle, but shall find every natural power its direct servant, and this is the faith whereof Jesus spoke. So, Phylos, my own, I have told you, and yet you, hearing, hear not. Why not? Because our Father is not yet manifest in you. But when you, having heard, understand, then shall we twain be one, for it is so written in the Book of Life."

As she ceased speaking we came into a plot of ground wherein grew the fruits for table use. Of these she gathered some, but of others desired, none were growing. Stooping, she drew on the soil a figure which looked familiar, although I could not tell where I had seen it previously. It was this ; and the reader will remember that it is the same that I described the Tchin as making when he caused the Vita Mundi to flame as he stood within it. It was also creative fire in Phyris hands, though it had not been so as exhibited by Quong. In the space Phyris planted seeds, and then, completing the symbol, the flames rose above the area sown.

"Behold, Phylos! If I have but the seed, the herb shall come forth after its kind. But if I have not the seed, my poor, human soul wisdom could not make that herb grow. Mol Lang could, being transfigured. Having seed, I can bring God's Viviant Fire to aid its germination--see! it sprouts; and again watch it--it grows visibly."

I was astonished to see, mounting up as fast as evening shadows lengthen, green tendrils, and buds unfolding even as the flowers of primula spring forth, flowers, blossoming, blossomed; seed scarps forming, formed; and the matured fruit hanging in clusters in the radiant flame of the Vita Mundi, as high as my head from the ground, where erst there had been but vacant soil. And this girl, who declared herself not a grown woman, exercising such magic as this and thinking it only ordinary! This was an inherent power of the Human Principle, my friends, and will be common to you also when you become developed in the Human. Earthly man is yet only in the initial of his humanity in a few favored cases, but is very largely in his animality. Most of mankind is merely animal, not human, save by courtesy. Yet the dawn of the glorious new era is at hand, and in its fullness of days Christ shall come again to it and enter into the hearts of his own; and it shall be the Father that shall enter, and by Messias. Be ye then prepared for the coming of the Spirit, for no man knoweth the day nor hour thereof.

A DWELLER ON TWO PLANETS

OR

THE DIVIDING OF THE WAY

BY PHYLOS THE THIBETAN

The Second Book

CHAPTER V

HUMAN LIFE ON VENUS

"It is good to be at home again," said Mol Lang. "I love my home because here are my friends, and here is the congenial atmosphere of spirituality. I see about me the environs of my last objective incarnation, this present. For me there is no more birth, and no death of the body except through transition of the Logos. Here I passed the ordeal of the crisis and am become androgynous, for in me now are the feminine and the masculine; I am whole, not half, and I and my egoic mate are one individual We twain are one, and have come unto the Spirit in the sense uttered by the Savior when He said, 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as thy Father is perfect.' And thou, my son Phylos, wilt surely come into this same glory, for by thy karma it is so fixed. Yes," said he, reverting to his first thought, "it is good to be at home."

The old man arose from his seat and paced with stately erectness up and down the veranda. "Old?" Yes, as earth counts age; for Pertoz he was just in early prime, not yet come to his two hundredth year by some forty-eight months. And age could never affect him more, for he was come to deathlessness; to bodily immortality. Of him, as of many, are the words of the beloved apostle, John. At that moment he was in his astral form, his physical body being in his sleeping-room, where he left it, in order to cross interplanetary space for me. Curious thought! An inhabitant of Venus able to visit earth at will! Yet it is not really difficult. It merely involves the leaving of the physical body and plane at one point, and entrance to the astral, or psychic plane. From this latter it is as easy to return to the state of cause at any point, be it Alcyone, chief of the "Pleiads, glittering in their eternal depths," or even further, beyond ken of the telescope, as it is to return to the place departed from. The whole difficulty is in leaving the physical plane at all, and for the advanced esoterist this is as nothing, because the normal state of his soul is always in the astral or psychic instead of the physical. The difficulty with a student is in the repugnance he feels to the thought of returning to an inferior state of being, like life on earth. But the Life of Love is: "I serve." So we return.

That we were in the astral, disembodied state was no hindrance to Phyris' perception of us, for like all Hesperians she had the sight of the soul as you have ordinary sight, a mere commonplace power. Her eyes, as indeed those of all souls on this high plane of being, have psychic clairvoyance as a normal possession, though not the less endowed with ordinary physical vision on this account. As in the long ago of Earth, her eyes were still the same clear, calm gray, the kind possessed by Jesus of Nazareth. They were windows for her pure soul, which seemed to be just behind them, gazing out. This slender, graceful girl was no devachanic ideal, although not gross enough to be visible to eyes used only to perception of objective, earthly states of matter; her sweet, grave demeanor, her light laugh at something said by Mol Lang, her perfection of physical life, all breathed the fact of her objective being, and bore evidence to the truth that her rule of life was obedience to the law. And yet I doubt if your eyes, my friends, could have seen her at all. No telescope will ever reveal human life on Venus; not that it is not there, but its forms are of the One Substance effected by a range of force rendering them imperceptible to earthly eyes. You will not think the air any less material, or electricity any less real, because your eyes cannot perceive them. Your eyes are very limited in their visual range; if the One Substance vibrates more or less rapidly than an exceedingly small length of time, producing correspondingly minute force wavelengths, your eyes cannot cognize such vibrations. It is the same with your ears and hearing. If your eyes and ears were not thus limited, you would see every sound and hear every sunbeam. Every rainbow would be vocal, while heat, which now you only feel, would furnish amazing wealth of sound and vision. So it is with the Hesperian people, their persons you could not see, their voices you could not hear, yet they would not be similarly limited in regard to your persons and voices. But so long as you fancy that because you have eyes you can see all that there is to be seen, and that your ears hear all that is worth hearing, so long will you depend on these organs, and gain that sort of false ideas of the Universe which must arise from entire ignorance of all except the tiny bit of creation you occupy. So long, too, will you depend on the telescope to reveal truths about other worlds; you will hunt for evidences of human life on the nearer planets, but you will never find any until you cease to expect that matter will reveal soul; it can not do it, for the finite can not reveal infinity. Turn it about; ask of the soul revealment of itself and of matter also, and all worlds will draw near to you, show their teeming vitality of life, and all nature will uncover such treasures as the hungry soul of science has never found before.

Phyris was able to look over all my past, over the other lives which I had yet to attain the power of re-collecting. She knew every deed, thought and motive of it all. Had she oared to examine this history? No fear existed in my mind, for I did not know of such a past myself, and my ignorance preserved my peace of mind. I did not try to analyze the reason for my eager desire to win this maiden's good opinion. If I had, I should have railed at myself for a presumptuous fool. As it was, I was happy in the knowledge of my purity of purpose.

Though dissociated from earth life, my soul development was but little more than before. Therefore, to me, Phyris seemed a sort of goddess; and to have estimated only as perfect human herself and her wondrous occult powers, would have been an impossibility with me. To have found that I was in love with her would have frightened me. I am glad that I was then prevented that thought. But deep in my soul it was true, nevertheless, and the leaven was working. Closer knowledge was not to have the effect of detracting from her exalted position; but it was to raise me to the understanding that these psychic powers were attributes of human nature, for in itself human nature is essentially godlike.

By the way, what is the mundane idea of God? You say that God is, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal. Very good. But the earthly idea of these things is very narrow. Conceptions can never rise higher than their source, hence God is, although a noble ideal, not nearly so great to the world as He is to Hesperus. Do you say that I am inconsistent, denying my own high claims for Man, and that I am virtually negativing the statement that conceptions can rise to the level of their source? I reply that the Father limits the height of the source. "What do I mean?" I mean that He speaks to the but partially developed human soul on the earth plane from the level of human principle in Himself, but from no higher plane. Hence, the terrene conception of Him is that of a perfect Person, all-powerful, ubiquitous, eternal, but a person; whereas He is impersonal. But to the Hesperian, God speaks of Himself and His works from the level of Spirit, which is above soul; it is the level of the Over-Soul of Emerson. I hope you will study that statement, for nothing I have said means more, is more important in all this book.

I have said that the earthly conceptions of omnipotence, omnipresence and eternity are narrow. It is true. The first means only the most extravagant exercise or suspension of known laws, but scouts the existence of fearful, wonderful, unknown laws. Omnipresence means to the non-occult mind a variety of vague, impracticable ideas, only the few recognizing it as immanency and constant self insertion and creation. Finally, eternity; the mind readily agrees to unlimited, endless time, yet is aghast at a mere decillion, almost refusing credence. Yet one is to the other as all to nothing. '

At the time I first met Phyris my ideas of God were similarly limited, and when I saw her exercise powers which no terrestrial man ever dreamed that even God could possess, I was truly aghast. Love her? Not then. Respect her, adore her, as a Hindoo does an image of his God, yes. But the seed was sown; its growth sure.

Mol Lang left me in the large parlor of his home, whither we three had gone, and when only Phyris was here besides myself, I immediately was constrained by a diffident fear of my gentle hostess. Although she soon dispelled this feeling, I nevertheless felt relieved when a young man entered and she introduced me to--

"My brother, Sohma."

As I looked upon the two, and remembered Mol Lang's appearance, I thought: "What splendid physique these people have, how graceful and perfect every line; it is as if the body were moulded upon the soul, and perfect in its every physical contact."

"Yes, thou art right in thy thoughts," said Sohma. He had replied to my thought, as Mol Lang and Phyris had: "Thou art right. We make our physical lives correspond to our rigid adherence to law, though that adherence is to us a second nature, not onerous, nor even in its exercise consciously applied. Excesses, intemperance, indulgence of that nature so pleasant to the animal senses, these have no attraction, but instead are utterly repugnant. Vegetarians strictly, never taking life for any selfish purpose, is it wonderful that our material frames conform to our soul shapes?"

"Truly not," I replied, "but in my case how could conformity to law change the appearance of an unhandsome maturity? My body is already grown, completed in obedience to laws not wisely nor very closely kept. I see you possessed of occult wisdom, but I am not, and find it hard to remember what I have heard of it; as for making the knowledge practical, impossible!"

"Phylos, my brother, the occult adept is born, not made. His or her knowledge. is from within, not from without. Unto thee shall be given the key of the Spirit, and behold, the All-Knowing will enter into thy soul, and though no man shall teach thee, neither any book, yet shalt thou become aware of all things, for all things are of our Father, and that is the Spirit. But ere the Spirit come in, the house must be swept, and, my brother Phylos, I would that thou wert not destined to endure this ordeal. Yet the occult that knoweth all things is born of many lives, and in these has been evil. Thou art so born; it is karma."

Mol Lang had now returned clothed in his material body, and I alone was in the astral, yet not solitary in the sense of loneliness, for my friends were not separated from me as a result of our diverse physical conditions. True, I could not array myself in material form, for I was in Venus, and my body was in a distant planet. This condition was the reverse of disability, however, for in going from place to place I had but to desire to be in the more distant, and I was there, though this power enabled me to have such freedom only in Hesper, and a sense of restriction consequently arose. Discontent was growing in my soul; I felt already a stranger on this high soul plane whereto my friends were born. Though I knew nothing of earth because my earthly self was in the Sach in the care of Mendocus, yet I had a most uncomfortable feeling of foreignness; a feeling that some other and previous condition, somewhere, was not strange, and I had a longing to be again in its familiar environment. Poor me!

A DWELLER ON TWO PLANETS

OR

THE DIVIDING OF THE WAY

BY PHYLOS THE THIBETAN

The Second Book

CHAPTER IV

PAYING LIFE'S REWARDS

"Phylos," said Mol Lang, "thou shalt now presently behold a man, all in a world of his own. He may not come to us, but we will go to him, and enter into perception of those things which he sees, and because we enter into his perception, therefore we shall be fellow spirits with him, not mere images of his conceptions. Then shall his environment seem as real to us as it does to him; nevertheless his world is (except for such visitors as ourselves, and those few, or perhaps many other souls who are on his identical plane) merely a world of him own conception; it exists not for him who is his neighbor, who will be, as we shall see, on a different psychic plane. Both persons will be existent in the Mansion of the Father, who thus giveth His beloved rest.

"Let us enter into the state of that man; he is an inventor from the world of cause, and all about him shall we find evidences of his inventive dreams, which here seem to be real to him. On earth, he in imagination beheld multitudes of his fellow beings using his adaptations of mechanical and natural forces. He had motor railways which were free to the public, none indisposed to pay were obliged to do so. And he had designs of coin, which the mint (owned by himself, as he had desired while on earth, so that he might correct abuses) minted free for use by the people. So also with all other things which he had hoped to see realized on earth. Yet he died without it, and coming to the world of effects, finds it all (to him only) a fact. We will walk across this plain to the grove yonder, a mile."

For some time after this we walked in silence, each content to note the beauty of the scenery. Gurgling brooks meandered through flowery meadows, groves dotted the perspective, while far away on the horizon was a line of blue hills. When we came to the grove designated by Mol Lang I saw that we were at a station, where cars of strange appearance stood on a network of tracks. People were coming and going past this central point in all directions. The cars had immense spidery wheels, many yards across. A light flight of metal stairs led to the top of a tower; the tower was also an elevator, so that while some people walked up, others were hoisted to the top, where, several rods from the ground, they stepped into the body of the car; then an engineer on the car manipulated certain machinery, and the immense wheels began to revolve, swifter, swifter, and yet swifter, until the great, light vehicle could be seen moving at an amazing speed across the country, up and down hill or around curves with equal facility.

"Let us take a ride," quoth Semla. So we walked up the spiral stairs, and there found a pleasant man in uniform, who asked if we would pay or not.

"Yes," said Mol Lang, "I will, but my friends will not." Thereupon he produced a coin of gold, and while the official was making the entry in his book, Mol Lang handed the coin to me to look at, and I saw that it bore a face of a man, and around the edge the superscription:

"MERTON FOWLER, THE PEOPLE'S FRIEND."

"What conceit!" thought I, whereupon Mol Lang smiled slightly, took the coin from me and paid it over. The official asked where we would go, and for answer Mol Lang said: "To the Falls." The official knew of no such place, but said that he would put us on a car, the engineer of which would know. He conducted us to a car on the other side of his platform, and having entered, we were soon speeding away like an arrow for swiftness. The stops which we made were numerous, all for the purpose, so the engineer explained, of complying with Merton Fowler's rule that all who rode on his cars must inspect his many inventions. The variety of these was bewildering to me, and so many of them seemed to be in operation solely for the purpose of demonstrating peculiar mechanical principles, that I will not consume space for description. At length, after traveling across half a world as it seemed, though not taking a tedious amount of time, we arrived at a splendid group of buildings. Then the engineer confessed that he knew nothing of the Falls, except that he had heard his master speak of them as existing. He would go to him. Accordingly the car ran up before an edifice which looked like an office, and there he put us in charge of another person with directions to take us to Merton Fowler.

That gentleman we found in a palatial environment, where things were of great beauty, but where all seemed to be mechanical contrivances, and to exist for that great underlying principle of the designer, the systematization of his knowledge, and the putting of it to more or less utilitarian uses. It was a very paradise for a machinist, but I was not a machinist, and it fatigued me. The number of people was amazing. Mol Lang said that not all of these were mere ideals of that prolific mind, Fowler, but that on the contrary, many of them were real personifications, a few of whom were media like ourselves, but the majority "dead," that is, disembodied souls who were on the same plane of invention and realization as the real mind in control, Merton Fowler. He was the chief here, the others similars. I asked where the Falls were situated, and the inventor, Fowler, replied that a certain author of his acquaintance lived there, and had the pleasure of listening to a mammoth pipe organ made for him by the inventor, "By myself! All men whatever," said this egotist, "are beneficiaries of mine, and recognize me as the chiefest of human kind, and greatest of all living people!"

I turned away in contempt of such mammoth conceit and vanity, and as we left Mol Lang said:

"That man is arranging his concepts of a Christless life as gained on earth. When all is assimilated, he will recarnify on earth, and from his early childhood self-conceit and self-admiration will be his ruling characteristics. In his last life on earth he sowed the seeds of the one to come. Here, he enjoys the growth of those seeds. Here, too, will the harvest mature, and when all gather, he will take it to earth again to replant. Thou mightest ask what good cometh of perpetuating such vanity. I would reply: 'First, 'tis the law of God. Secondly, out of his future egotism will arise self-confidence.' His spirituality of temperament is large, his animal qualities well balanced and strong, and the good of all his conceit will manifest itself next as a governor of those forces which will lead men forward. Ere he died on earth he was a retiring man, timid, feeling himself never appreciated. When he next appears there will be a strong soul, and a leader of men to higher levels of life."

"Truly," I said, "all things under the hand of God work together for good!"

The Falls were in the devachanic realm of an author, who, while on earth, was a very pleasing writer, albeit extravagantly hopeful in his imaginative excursions and thought plays. This was, indeed, doubtless the reason of his popularity as an author. His mind dwelt on the sublime in nature, and on the good, the true, and the beautiful. Here in his heaven he lived his books, and found all about him the characters, the emotions, the delicate imagery and the sublime beauty which made his pages seem real to their readers, and over which tears of sympathy were shed by most perusers. To him also, these things, figments of his imagination when penned, were here become what his desire had always painted, realities, and he enjoyed the seeming actuality, nor knew it but as a dream of his life's nighttime. "Of what use, since it was only a dream?" I answer: these glorious creations of the imagination all make for that high spirituality, that keen sympathy of soul which shall soon bring about the universal Brotherhood of Mankind; it shall dawn with the dawning of the new century, creedless, boundless, asking nothing of any affiliate except high, unfaltering aspiration and action. And this author, who has been in his soul-home these many centuries, shall be one of its prophets, recarnified.

We found the Falls in a vast gorge, deep as the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas river. It connected two great lakes of rare loveliness; not the Scottish lakes or Lake Champlain are more beautiful, though either were as great as Nyanza. Over a cliff half a mile high, and in the form of a double horseshoe, each more than a mile wide, were two magnificent falls of the river, separated in the center where the middle points of the two curves met, by an island. From this cliff rose three tall conical needles of rock, up, up, up into the air, over a thousand feet each one. Around each was a spiral stairway chiseled in the enduring granite of the stream, and from top to top of each swung a suspension bridge. From the one overhanging the falls run two suspension bridges swung on great cables, miles long, reaching as they did the shores on either side of the river by a diagonal course. I felt sure that the inventor, Merton Fowler--would have conceived no such bridge, because his mechanical training would have told him such lengthy bridge-cables would break from their own weight. But this author, who was no engineer, saw no such difficulty, and consequently his concept found no bar to execution in his imagination. As it was not objective, but subjective, it existed for him, and as we were temporarily on his plane, and perceiving through. his senses, we also saw them and found them real; and to all on his plane they were real, subjectively real. But earthly eyes could not have seen them, for they see nothing except objective realities. And both states are real, but to those on the respective planes only. If the things of the spiritual are foolishness to the natural man, so are the things of the natural world too the devachanee. But I digress. The myriads of people, creations of the author's mind, used his bridge; they lived in a Utopia of his creation, and the whole was a very heaven. It all nurtured his spirituality, his reverence for God, his constructive sense even, as well as his sense of sublimity. His soul has almost assimilated the whole of these "steps toward God" and it is almost ready to recarnify as one of the deeply artistic, constructive, reverential souls of earth; one of the nobly beautiful, Godward turning leaders of the race. Is he not a worker for the Father? "By their works ye shall know them." And while and because he leads, he himself will draw nearer, with every passing hour to God; nearer to Nirvana, that glorious resting time of all the lives, out of which the spirit of man shall wake to find itself more than Man, find itself one of these sublime World-Spirits whose glittering forms fill the skies of night! Or servers of the Father in some other untellable way.

The fact must be sufficiently obvious that the life between the grave and the cradle, life in the world of effects, is a life of assimilation of results due to causes set in operation while on earth, the world of causality. It is the character-forming realm, where effects are so arranged as to present them as causes in the succeeding earth life; not in the shape of segregate influences, but as traits of character, giving rise to well-defined policies in life on the part of individuals. Like attracts like, and if parents have certain influences governing their lives at critical times, the soul in devachan, which is perforce seeking rebirth on earth, will seize the opportunity presented of finding Its similars, similars at that time, though perhaps at that time only, like itself, but never so before, possibly never to be so again; suffice it if there be a concordant trinity at the time. There is no accident, no chance, in the Universe; all is immutable law, cause and effect. Zerah Colburn, whose precocity in mathematics whilehe was yet a little boy amazed the world, did not inherit his powers of calculation. Mozart did not inherit what neither of his parents possessed, though it is true that the maternal mind did provide attractive mental similarity by her own love for music, prenatally experienced. Atavism has been invoked to explain these cases of infantile precocity when it has been well known that neither parent had the traits which seem to have been passed to the offspring. But atavism will not wholly suffice. The question of heredity is a deep one; parents are moved by special influences, and children of that time are souls attracted from devachan to their mental similars. Such was the young Zerah Colburn: such the infant prodigy, Mozart. Zailm Numinos might have told you that Colburn was a noted Atlantean mathematician had he not neglected it in his history of Atl. And Mozart was Aleman the poet and lyrist of Spartan Greece.

Night seemed to be coming on; the air was pleasantly cool, and we found ourselves, after a long sail on a lovely body of water, standing on a shore whose sands and pebbles were of agate. Bamboo fringed the lake margin, and many graceful houses in quiet nooks dotted the varied landscape. The country bore some resemblance to the land of Japan, and indeed we found that we were in the concepts of an American who had resided for many years in Japan ere his entrance to devachan.

We went into a spacious veranda of a house of fine appearance, which in architectural style was a general combination of things, most comfortable. Contrary to Japanese customs, we found easy chairs instead of mate or rugs, and in these chairs we took seats, Mol Lang saying we would be welcome to do so. Ere long a servitor in Japanese costume appeared and placed a table before us, and upon it laid covers for five persons. Presently a handsome, elderly man, with a young girl, who, I judged, was his daughter, came out of the residence, and exchanged salutations with us, after the manner of true gentlefolk. This was as Mol Lang afterward explained, the real ego about whose imagery all things in this place clustered. The lake, the tropical vegetation, the remodeled Japanese people whom we met, in short, all effects here, were arranged in accord with this man's ideals. In them he saw realized his dreams of a quiet, care-free, hospitable life, and because he saw them, we also saw them, for Mol Lang had insinuated our perceptions into this man's soul plane. With him we partook of a generous supper. Liquors were not on his table, nor could any have been found in all that soul land, for the man was a total abstainer. Of course, the people whom he believed he saw, and who, for him, resided in this, his country, used no liquors more than he, for they were either his imagination's concepts, or, if real individuals, were in sympathy with the master mind, else they had not been there with him. But all this he knew not any more than one who in slumber dreams, knows at the time that the vivid dream personages and places exist solely for himself. Sometimes, truly, a night dreamer really goes away with another harmonious soul, the two being real souls on a psychic journey, it being no dream, but a fact.

This man, in all of his princely extravagance, his artistically beautiful buildings, the richness of raiment of the people whom he conceived, the statues, fountains, groves, all, things, was but quaffing imagined joys, wholly unconscious the while that they were subjective creations. They were all conceived for a single purpose, pursuit of which formed his chief joy, that of caring for the happiness of his daughter. She was his idol, his joy, the reason for being, he would have said. And she was a pretty girl, though not to my mind beautiful. She was engaging, witty, well educated, and accomplished. But I have seen many such, and thought of her as only one of hundreds I had known. We were invited to stay indefinitely in this home, and, upon Mol Lang's suggestion, accepted the offer. Days passed rapidly in this paradise, of which our host's home was the central attraction. He had great parks, and gave splendid entertainments to scores of happy people. His house was a palace in itself. The libraries, the art gallery, with thousands of fine paintings, all this, and more, made life so pleasant that several months bad elapsed ere our party of three bade him adieu. In it all we saw that the gay life was for the sake of the daughter, and held little pleasure for the father. The art gallery, too, was added to his home for her sake. The libraries were for both, and, as he said, he thought he took more pleasure in books than she did; to him books were sacred treasures. But it was in music that his soul found ecstatic rest. Such divine melodies and such exquisite technique and feeling as he exhibited in his rendition of fine music I had never even dreamed of, much excellent music as I had heard. It was as the fable of Orpheus come true. Hour after hour he played for me, while Semla was away with Mol Lang, and my soul responded in a thrill which swept it with sublime joy, until it seemed as if my being had become a personless, throbbing, sobbing stress of harmony, that could flee on the winds and set the souls of men pulsing, beating in unison! I knew that the player was a companion to me in it all. We were two souls on the same plane, reaping identical experiences.

At last a day came when Mol Lang said: "My friends, let us go hence, for other things claim our attention. A few hours here must suffice us. We will go where the daughter of this man really is."

My friend had, I thought, spoken of the months of our tarrying in this paradise in a figurative sense when he said "a few hours." But he had not; it was really only a few hours as the people on earth had counted the same interval through which we had so recently passed. Time is, after all, only R measure of so much done by or to him who experiences its lapse; myriads of people have lived a whole century during ten minutes of other people's time. Mol Lang's remark about our being ready to go where the daughter really was I could not comprehend at the time, nor did I know for years, all because my own astral had been left behind in the Sakaza on earth; I had no means of comparison of ideas. The place I was in was the only place existent for me; that is, it and the country of the author and that of the inventor, Fowler. These I knew of, and for them a memory shell had been formed by me as I went through them; not that I was conscious of such a process of creation; I was only aware of the memories which were retained for me, and which seemed part of myself. But Mol Lang explained only that the American really had not his daughter with him, but only his ideal of her ever before him.

On our departure we went down to the lake and got into a boat, and as we traveled, somehow it seemed as if, without my knowing just how or when, we had left the boat and the lake, and were in a garden, walking amidst a profusion of flowers. It was unaccountable, but did not particularly surprise me nor long occupy my attention. No one is ever astonished at anything in the psychic realm.

It was a city garden, and, situated on an eminence, the residence of the owner commanded the view of a great city, extending in all directions. The house was evidently the home of a person of refinement, and while evidences of wealth were numerous, these seemed to be adjuncts of comfort, instead of a display of riches. No person could long be amidst the influences of that home, to which Mol Lang admitted us, without feeling that the owner believed herself to have a great and sacred mission in life.

"This is the daughter,, said Mol Lang. "The girl whom we saw in the other home was the daughter, as the father imagined her to be when he died, leaving her at that age. See how different is the woman from his conception of her. I bring thee here that thou mayest see what difference exists between the devachanic concepts of the soul and the objects conceived of. It illustrates the saying that 'heaven is what we make it.'

At that moment a lady entered the room, evidently on business; her manner was full of power. She seemed not to perceive us, and after a little I coughed slightly to attract her attention. Mol Lang smiled in amusement, as he! said:

"Phylos, thou mightest cough long, and she would not know of thy presence. Why? Because we are temporarily on the earth, and I have given thee power to see earthly conditions, that is, while we are on the earth, for it might be all about us yet if we were in a different psychic condition, the earth would not be near, but vastly remote from us. This lady has not yet come to the change called death. She is one who labors to place woman on the proud basis of independence, proud, because rightfully hers. But woman will never attain to it until she does so by self-effort; nothing is won worth the having except by self-effort. When she so wins it, she will be by the side of man, not above him, for woman is not man's superior; neither below him, for she is not his inferior; but beside him, for man and woman are equal in all things. It will be a blessed day for humanity when this time comes. This lady and her sister workers are now guiding those dwellers of the earth who have not such clear understanding of the needs of the times; and they will succeed, more or less, during this century, but not brilliantly, since no great reform, nor anything greatly good, can succeed in any century, decade or year nominated by the number nine. Hence, human hopes will wax on wane, will seem to go forth to victory, but will meet only failure until the new century. Darkest of all the years will that be which is just before the dawn. This brave leader we see here will see Hope set in that last year like a star in the west, and she will die then, despairing, though hoping, with prophetic Mackay, that 'Ever the truth comes uppermost, and ever is justice done.'"

For a considerable time after this we were silent, for Mol Lang seldom spoke without definite cause, and it now served his purpose better to be silent. I spoke next:

"What good can it be, what good can be achieved through such bitter disappointment? Such heartache?"

"That which cometh ever from all things. 'Man never is, but always to be blest,' is wholly true. And it is not from the hopes we are able to bring to realization in earth life that our devachan, our heaven, is made; but from those hopes, longings, aspirations and determinations which through life are our dearest desires because we have never been able to satisfy them. They have the most happy heaven whose high-soaring souls have ever been forced to be content with the mere view of Caanan from their mountain lookouts. Let no poor, disappointed soul on earth mourn because of life's unsatisfied longings, for we do not know to-day whether we are busy or idle. In times when we have thought ourselves indolent, we have afterward discovered that much was accomplished and much was begun in us. These beginnings are fruitful, indeed, for they bestow upon us our longed-for aspirations, 'over there' if we will, in His way."

During this discourse of Mol Lang I had glimpses of the whole, both of earth and of heaven. A thing which struck me with a feeling of peculiar anguish was that that gentle soul who thought he lived for his daughter, really had not that daughter with him, but only his self-created image of her. I had not thought of the fact that even on earth we do not have our friends, but only our concepts of them; that our supposed friend may really be our secret enemy, but if we know it not we remain happy in our ignorance. Mol Lang observed the feeling on my part and said, as he turned and placed an arm around me as we walked onwards:

"Phylos, beloved son, feel not so! When the day cometh when this lady shall enter the devachanic life, then whenever and wherever she has ideals and concepts like those of her father, or he like hers, then will they two be really together, 'two souls with but a single thought.' It is the same on earth; only identity of thought makes nearness of souls. As the grand march of souls following after Christ draw nearer unto God, those planes where all souls are together in the thought and concept will be the planes mainly occupied by humanity, till at the glorious last, none shall be apart from any other, or from the Father."

The room and its earnest worker had faded from view. Instead of it we found that in front of us was a monastic edifice, set on a lofty mountain peak which arose from a lake. Dim vistas of water, of wooded shores and silvery, shadowy isles were in perspective, Over the tower which rose from the monastery was a flashing crescent of purple light. I asked what place we were now come to. The answer was:

"The Lunar Temple, a part of devachan, but having nothing to do with the moon. Here, where many occult students come after laying aside the earthly body, is a holy place of rest. Here are many theosophic adepts and neophytes; they saw then with eyes of spirit, hence had then, as now, much the same concepts of life; devachan to them is not, therefore, on the same plane as with other mortals, any more than their objective life was. Here Semla takes leave of us, to appear no more on earth until after fifty centuries of mundane time. He will then incarnate, not as a Tchin, but as a member of the American Nation of that far distant day, because his life has been mostly spent in that land this time. But now he enters into rest he has earned; this is his devachan."

There, under the flashing purple light from the monastic tower, Semla took his leave, invoking upon us the peace of the Father.

Through ability conferred by Mol Lang, I had seen the nature of the life after death. For a few moments my soul was able to compare the newly gained knowledge with my old time ideals of nature. I thought, "If all this is but a dream, what is a dream? If this which seems real matter is not such--"

"Nay, my son," interjected Mol Lang, as I thought upon the nature of matter, "this is real matter. Why, what is matter, dost thou think? Matter is a One Substantiality, having not a single quality which any human sense can cognize. But force also is one of the creations of the Father. And force hath two polarities, the positive and the negative, absolute opposites. Now man on earth hath certain senses; seven are these senses: sight, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting, intuition, and one innominate. These last are not yet evolved, for the fullness of days is not come; the Fifth Day is; but the Sixth and the Seventh are not. With the last, man becometh greater than he hath ever been. Only they that have ears that hear shall solve this saying. Five senses cognize the positive dynamic affections of matter by Force, and behold, man senseth the earth and some of the stellar bodies. But all these are of the positive, and hence are in the Father's Mansion of Cause. These five senses are what the Apostle Paul called the 'Natural mind.' But 'In my Father's house are many mansions.' And this, which is the briefer life after the grave, is His Mansion of effects, and it is the result of matter affected by negative force. Here the first five senses call all things pertaining to devachan 'mere dreams'; even wise Hamlet asks, 'What dreams may come?' But I say unto thee, both earth (cause) and devachan (effect) are material; both due in their every phenomena to force, but either state is cognizable only by senses special to it. Man in one hath five special senses, and these know the earth, but call heaven a dream; and Man in the other hath other seven special senses, and these know of devachan, but call earth a dream. Yet both states are really material, and similarly, both are unreal except to the Father. So Man is constantly dying from the one state and being born in the other, back and forth, and only that state where he is is real to him at any time. Myriad times does he repeat the process, incarnifying and discarnifying, and each time of rebirth on the earth finds him ever on a higher plane, until at last the concrete condition miscalled life is over, and the conditionless 'long devachan' (Nirvana) is attained. Then man and his Father are together and at-one. Man came from God; unto Him must he go. But only a few have done this as yet, and of these Jesus Christ of Beth-le-hem is so far the only One who can truly say, 'I and my Father are one.'"

Mol Lang had no desire that I should continuously retain the memories of the experiences just passed through; the separate facts were to become quite as unknown as if never observed. All was solely for the purpose of surrounding my soul with influences calculated to force me upward and onward, out of earth life, or desire for it, until at last I would come to realize that I had known something higher, and must return to the plane of the spiritual nature. Yes, the word is MUST.

After leaving Semla, with the new life open to him, Mol Lang and myself sought the lake, and after taking our seats on a bit of sandy shore, I asked questions as to the appearance of the scheme of creation to occult perceptions. It seemed to me that life must have a wider significance to him than to me.

"Phylos, it hath. Grand as the vision of life seemeth to the ordinary man, made up, as it is, of his few years on earth supposedly followed by unending existence in heaven, to me it is infinitely more sublime than even earth's loftiest vision can present it! Man's ideas are full of error; they involve the childishness of admitting that in the life on earth the multitudes who 'make in their dwellings a transient abode' are in the course of such a finite time, able to set in motion infinite causes which shall be carried out in psychic effects eternally. Only through the Great Master are any so able.

"I have so willed, my son, that the features of this visit to devachan shall be withdrawn from thee, and thou wilt remember them only as a vague, delightful dream, which shall have influence in leading thee to the pinnacles of the Father and the summits of the soul. It is easy to erase these memories; I have but to disassociate the astral body here formed by thine experiences, and thou wilt thereafter know this state only when that astral shall control thee as its medium. I will take thee to mine own home in Hesper, and there thou wilt come to know my son, whose name is Sohma, and my daughter Phyris. Yet that knowledge also will I dissociate, after the time of it, and thou wilt forget it all; yea, even me wilt thou forget, and know only through the same mediumship, because thy karma orders for thee long years yet to come on earth, and atonement for evil works which have cried unto God for redress, lo! a century of centuries, and longer. Christ hath said: 'One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.' Save thou be re-leased to Him.

"But thou hast asked a question. Hear the answer: I sow a seed, and it shall grow, and blossom and fruit, and though the sower be forgotten, the plant will not be. Thou wilt remember my words forever, nor forget them for one hour, for such is my will, yet forget me wholly.

"Besides the heavenly world, there are many more which are imperceptible to men. Yet matter and force compose them all. Many of them are worlds of Cause, but no merely human being is in them, nor can any earthly sense cognize them or know of them. They are peopled, but by beings of whom some are good, and some are evil; in the sight of the Eternal Cause, relatively good or evil. That which exists under laws inimical to man is evil to man, though not in itself evil. But these 'mansions' are set apart from one another that they may not interfere. There is that which is astray, but in itself not evil, for in all the creation there is no evil eternal, for God is perfect.

"The worlds of human life are seven in number; yet four of them are invisible, unknowable to earthly senses, and this not because of remoteness, but the kind of force-affection of their constituent matter. Mankind occupies but one planet at a time, for like its present dwelling place (earth) the human race is but a letter in the Divine Library of Being. To be exact, the more advanced, occult souls do inhabit Venus, which I have called Hesper, and which was by the ancients of the Earth termed 'The Garden of the Hesperides.'

"Yes, Phylos, life does mean more to me than to thee. I look at its stately march, and I see the battalion of being wherein I am but a corporal, progressing around its appointed seven spheres, whereof only Mars, the Earth and Venus are matters which terrene perception can know; I see the human race progressively incarnating on each of its peculiar planets as it goes, every individual ego about eight hundred times, approximately, on each world each time the race comes to it, which is seven times also, making forty-nine world-carnate epochs. Each ego thus hath incarnation and discarnation periods to the number, more or less, of forty thousand. It is in these, that beginning as an irresponsible creation, far from human, as thou wouldst define the word 'human,' and ending as a Perfect Man entering into Nirvanic rest, that the scheme of the Eternal Uncreated Father is perfected. Yea, verily, man sins, but as his incarnations progress, he atones for every jot, every tittle. Karma is penalty for evil doing, and it is the law of God; it knows no abatement of payment, accepts no vicarious price, but is faithful gaoler over that prison which is life-action; whoso is cast therein shall not come out till every farthing is paid. Beware, then, of doing wrong, for thou must bear the penalty, only thou. Verily, life is long enough to make payment; 'tis better to have none to make!

"We go now to a view of the truth that the spirit came from the Father, and returneth to Him after it hath fulfilled the law and the prophets; it liveth in the worlds of cause a short span, but in those of effect a long span, for passivity is to activity as about eighty to one, and the lives are many, strung like beads on the one cord of the individual ego.

"Lastly, the ego coming from the Father hath no sex; it is not man, neither woman, but sexless. When it entereth upon life it becometh double, so that in the earth there is a man, and there is a woman, and though the bodies and the animal souls and the human souls be different in the twain, yet behold, their spirit is one and the same. Now sometimes the two, being of one spirit, are also husband and wife. Yet more often, they are not, for the age of harmony is not yet at hand. But it is of such singleness of spirit that the Bible saith, 'What God hath joined, let no man put asunder.' There is no man who could, if he would, so sunder. But that saying is not of the carnal marriage, but of the spirit unit only. And the latter hath no lust. But when the twain shall, after the millions of years which lie between the non-esoteric Christian and Nirvana, come to know all the law of life, then will the union be as it was before the separation. Thou canst not really comprehend the truth now, but when thou shalt at last be done with earth life, thou wilt then recall it and know. And knowing it, thou wilt then tell the world of it. But not now. Now is this true: Mates in the Lord can not know each other as such, until they both will to live after the rule of His Highway. And the latter hath nothing carnal. 'Straight is the Gate and narrow is the Way that leadeth unto Life, and few there be that find it.' Until they find it they find not each other; neither release from incarnation in the flesh."

Mol Lang arose after this long discourse, wherein he had briefly described the works of God. He said:

"I have answered thee. Come, let us go hence, and thou shalt know my son, and my daughter, and my home."

He laid his hand upon my brow, and I seemed to sleep; when I was again conscious we were in an immense garden, and before us I saw a house which at once impressed me as being a real home. This I say because somehow occult study had seemed foreign to home life and influences. How entirely compatible the two are will appear nearer the end of this history.

I found on acquaintance with it that it bore out my first impressions perfectly, for it was the most genuine home that could well exist, and typified all human life in this world of Cause, Hesper. It was a home of human glorified beings, of occult students incarnate in exalted causal life.

Do you ask me how any portion of the human race came to be so far in the van as the Hesperian contingent? The answer is that their septune natures had been so far perfected by the trials to which the study of occult adeptism subjects its initiates, that they had become enlightened, responsible beings; they had drunk of the cup concerning which Jesus inquired of the children of Zebedee if they had the ability to drink it. and in consequence there had come to them the keys to that realm of spirit which no natural mind can understand. They had learned the sevenfold character of their natures, that man is a composite being, having seven principles, viz. the I AM, or ego; the body of the spirit, or spirit-body; the human soul; the animal soul; the astral reflection of the two lowest principles, by name, vital force and the earthly body thereby animated. Thus far, I regret to say, the mass of mankind is not developed much beyond its animal soul; a minority have the human soul shining forth; but only occult adepts have the Sixth or spirit-body developed, while none of whom the world knows except Jesus and Buddha are perfect in the Spirit of the Father.

With Mol Lang I stood, looking upon his home in Venus, the world to which Terre's children will come, leaving it deserted until another round shall return them, although on a higher plane, that of perfect love, "the greatest thing in the world." But now Hesper is the planet of this Christlike love, its home in the course of nature and man's development. Ye will not all come, alas!

"Phylos," said Mol Lang, "my son is of nearly thine own number of years; my daughter Phyris is of the same age as thyself. Both will tell thee of occult truths, as I have done, yet they nor I, nor aught but the intuitions from thine own Godgiven Spirit can teach thee. If a soul hath not in itself perception of God and His works, no man can teach it, for having ears to hear and eyes to see, he heareth and seeth, but comprehendeth not. To me it is given of God to show thee and tell thee of those things which many prophets and righteous men have desired to see and to hear, but have not. Blessed are thine eyes, for they see, and thine cars, for they hear. Yet, nevertheless, thou wilt go again to earth and wilt forget, and restlessly long for a better state, yet shalt not find it again for long years. O Phylos, my son, would that thou couldst even now know! But karma pursueth thee, seeking repayment. And karma shalt have its dues, and thou wilt then go free. Let us pray unto God now, for I speak no more of these things; I have spoken already. Hereafter Phyris shall tell thee and show thee in my place."

Then, in that Hesperian garden, we knelt together, and Mol Lang repeated that eloquent voice of the ages, so old, yet ever new, the prayer of our Savior. I think tears were in our eyes when we arose. Turning, I beheld a lovely woman.

"Phyris, my child, he is come! Phylos, this is my daughter, of whom I told thee."

It had so surprised me to hear a man who had so much of what untaught fancy calls Godlike power speak of his children, that Mol Lang had said to me in comment:

"Phylos, thinkest thou that because I have wisdom which thou bast conceived only God to possess, that I am not human? My son, I am more wholly and truly human because thus near unto God. But the mass of people on earth are not fully developed even yet in the human principle; their lives, actions, passions, are centered in the Fourth or animal soul, and only the more exalted are come to the development of the human within them. When mankind shall come fully into its humanity, then Earth can no more be its planet; they must come here. Bear in mind ever, that all thou seest in Hesper is but human, and so thou wilt know more of what Man is, how glorious a being he is. Man is only partially human, and not filled with the Father, nor come into his Spirit body, and he must therefore marry and live in marriage, else the race would cease to reincarnate. Each ego must pay its debts. But many will die debtors to Him."

We three, father, daughter, and myself, went into one of the wide porticos of the brown Parthenon like mansion, and sat down, being where we could see over the profusion of flowers in the great gardens. So beautiful was the scene, both near and far, that I was content thus to remain, unmoving. Here was no devachan, no scene of effects, but an active life in a world of cause.

This life differed from that upon earth in being broader, more perfect, more glorious than terrene conditions can produce in the present round. Ordinary life in Hesperus is all that the highest form of life can be on earth; and thus has all the wonderful development which exists in the midst of the secret occult brotherhoods of Earth. It is impossible to express adequately what perfection of physical life exists in Hesperus. But it is a perfection of the physical nature, amid ideal surroundings, all of which prepare the animal man to work for the human man, and he for the Spirit man, the I AM, or ego. Thus does the ego progress through matter. Is it not a sublime thought that reincarnation does not mean transmigration of souls? The first leads man ever up; the other, which is false, even in theory, merely a perverted notion of the first, might mean progress, but more often would mean retrogression, and in all this Universe there is no retrogression. Reincarnation is but a chance to expiate the errors of life, chiefest of which is not overcoming and containing self. Will ye not pay? Then are ye doomed!

A DWELLER ON TWO PLANETS

OR

THE DIVIDING OF THE WAY

BY PHYLOS THE THIBETAN

The Second Book

CHAPTER III

TAKE THEREFORE NO THOUGHT FOR THE MORROW

When I awoke, rich, delicate perfumes, and the low hum of voices greeted my still slumberous senses. On opening my eyes, I found that Quong was by my side, having either remained while I slept, or returned before I roused. In the center of the room, sitting on the floor, I saw about a dozen people, each clad in a long gray robe. Quong had one of these robes on his person, and to my astonishment, I found myself attired in like manner. A high caste Thibetan, two Hindoo pundits and an Egyptian were, excepting Quong, the only foreign brethren, the remaining persons being American and English. The Egyptian was to the Sakaza what the Grand Master is to a Masonic fraternity. Understand that he was not a teacher in the sense that a professor in a college is an instructor. He was in himself more of the Way, more of the Truth, more of the Life of God than any other present. And hence, as in himself the highest plane, he stood before the rest as a pinnacle each might study, and rise unto. This man alone was standing.

Perceiving that I had awakened, Quong said:

"Let us seat ourselves in the circle, brother, that the ceremonies of the evening may commence."

When seated we formed two in a circle of ten persons, arranged in a ring in the center of the chamber, our hands clasped on either side by our neighbors, and so around the circle. In its center stood the brazen censer, and beside it the Grand Master. Presently this person began to speak in the best of English, giving a clear, concise statement of the wisdom-religion of the Lothinians. He disclaimed the idea that anything which was performed under occult law could be a miracle, and declared that no miracle had ever yet taken place in the world, because a miracle would be a contravention of law, and what was a violation of law but evil? It being evil, Jesus the Christ would have been the last ever to have worked one. Not a man or woman, it was asserted, and it is true, comprehends how these laws operate, or understands anything of their nature, unless such man or woman is an occult student. The world of science is more ignorant of these mysterious forces of Nature than even the sect styled "Spiritualists," for these do comprehend a little, but so very, very little as to expose them to fearful dangers, handling as they do forces so terrible when abused that their field of operation might well give pause to the wisest ere they trod therein. Yet science soon shall know, following the Cross-Bearer.

Beyond admitting me to free hearing of what was said and done, no notice other than salutatory courtesy was paid me; that is, I was not invested with any membership degrees; no degrees can be conferred, for each is in self the degree represented. But the Adept, as I clearly perceived, had spoken so personally direct that I knew he addressed me. This was when he said:

"There is within this sacred place of meeting one who hath studied deeply; studied as scientific modernism contemplates all life, and ever hath the study filled him with melancholy, yea, even despair. He hath questioned of the stars, 'What art thou?' and no reply hath been given beyond that which astronomy, ever returns, 'Worlds, suns, blazing orbs, mighty beyond power of mentality to conceive.' And of the grass, and it hath said, 'I am of cells aggregated and vitalized by the spirit of nature.' The animal hath replied, but in Darwinian terms: 'I am a form evolutionized, and come up from protoplasm.' Man has he seen to be at the apex of animal life, and so he says of himself: 'Lo! there is naught but at one end the simple cell; at the other a complexity of cells aggregated. But to me the world and all its forms speak of action, and eternity; but of the immortality of man, of a soul or a spirit, or of God, nay, no word! Death ends all!' O my brother! speaketh not this joy, these griefs of thine, to thee of aught but magnetic vibration? Art thou blind to the message of God that the 'vibratory' joy or grief or 'unconscious cerebral action,' where by thou comest to a given knowledge, is but the method of thy life? And the animal, saith it not: 'Lo! I am a soul, and this animal body is fit tool for my soul powers, which, if they increase beyond the power of the tool to express, force me (the ego controlling) to cast it aside and seek a fitter tool in a body suited to my progress.' And saith not man to thee: 'O brother in darkness, I am at the apex of animal life, truly; in my admirably adapted physical body is a fit tool to prose cute to the utmost any and all material processes. It brings me to the wall of all physical life, and behold! it enables me, the ego, to reach the top of this wall, and find that I am a spirit, not a vital stone. And because of my sight, I will leave behind the pursuit of materiality for that of spirituality, and go even unto my Father's house, where are many mansions (conditions) of spirit, but where matter breaketh not in to corrupt nor steal the treasures.' Who hath asked, let him hear me. I have spoken. May peace be with thee."

I thought my friend Quong was speaking in a humorous vein when he said that the Adept, whose name was Mendocus, had not so much as opened his lips, or used his vocal organs at all. Not so, however; I was mistaken. Quong read my thought, and said:

"Nay, my brother, not in jest! Each of us has heard Mendocus, and to each it seemed that his national tongue was used; to me, my own; to you and five others, Anglo-Saxon; to the Hindoo pundits, their tongue. Because Mendocus spoke from his soul unto ours is the reason of this seeming paradox."

I thought at once of my Bible, which was a treasure to me above all other books, and of the passage wherein it is written:

"'Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language."

In answer to the unspoken thought, Mendocus, the Adept, turned to me and said:

"Verily, they spoke unto the souls of that multitude; it was no miracle, but law. The Bible is sound occult doctrine so far as the matter in it has escaped the revisers, and worse than revisers, the Roman Catholic interpolators and twisters of its truths. Thou doest well to read it; I have read it through eighty-seven times."

Here another brother joined with the remark: "The hearers and the speakers were to each other as a perfectly attuned violin to its bow, every string ready to respond to the least master-touch."

To this Mendocus added:

"They heard the speakers as thou heardst me, not with ears, for no aerial connection is needed between souls in sympathy, but the consciousness of what was said existed as does the consciousness of one's own thoughts; thou needst not speak thy thoughts that thine ears may convey to thy consciousness what 'thoughts thou thinkest. Neither are thine ears of more use in comprehending me. Yet because the thoughts did not originate in thy brain, but in mine, and so were external to thine, inner consciousness, therefore thou didst suppose that thou heardst me with thine ears, when it was thy soul which understood, for my voice I used not."

I now understood in the light of the mind-reading power which these students had revealed, why no question had been put to me concerning my life, my thoughts or will in regard to affiliation with themselves; they knew these things, through this ability, without asking.

Mendocus, Master, now requested attention from all present, and then made an invocation to God and to all occult initiates in this world and elsewhere in the universe. At the conclusion of this petition, he slowly raised his right hand, whence, after half a minute, he dropped it to his side and bowed his head. The wonderful light commenced to wane and, simultaneously with its disappearance, a blinding flash of light seemed to dart from the ceiling overhead, striking the censer by his side. Then succeeded that inky blackness which follows the midnight flashing of the lightning of heaven; but it was not destined to last very long. Soon in the deep darkness there was a noticeable lightening which continued to increase until the whole interior of the Sagum was illumined by a lurid glow which rendered every object clearly visible. Like the other, it seemed not to emanate from any particular point, but as if the entire atmosphere were like red-hot iron, self luminous. The next instant I observed that the faces of the Lothins had assumed an exceedingly ghastly hue, bloodless in appearance as are the countenances of dead men. Their pallor was soon explained, however, when my eyes fell on the brazen censer standing in our midst. The gaze of every brother was fixed with unwavering intensity upon a small globe of blue fire which rested on the firepan. I noticed also that the self-luminosity of the atmosphere was gone, and that the light from the blue globe cast shadows. Although in size it was not larger than a filbert, yet its intensity counteracted the luridness of the air. It was beautiful in the extreme, but not dazzling. On the contrary it was cool and calm, resting the eyes. Evidently the light was the same as the positive flaming of the Vis Naturae with which I had seen the Tchin envelop himself. It trembled and quivered like a globule of molten, boiling metal.

Such absolute silence reigned, not even a sound of breathing being audible--that I turned a quick glance on my friends. Except for the glitter in their eyes as they gazed on the blue light, every one would have seemed only a perfect but non-vital semblance of a human being. Then my gaze reverted to the! object which centered the common attention. It had been growing, and, now of a size of half a dozen inches, was gloriously beautiful. Although I had seen no human agency concerned in its creation, yet I felt that it was produced by the occult knowledge of which I had witnessed so many other manifestations. Mind over matter. Marvelous, novel, all this to me, but I knew it was not miracle, although magical. "What is magic?" do you ask? Magic is the comprehension of laws not ordinarily possible to grasp by means of physical experiment, because their phenomena in general lie higher than the physical realm, just a little lower than mental or psychic operations, and partaking of the last to a major extent.

As I watched the blue globe, I gradually became en rapport with the mental condition of the Lothins about me. Instead of wondering what were to be the perfected dimensions and what the object of this glowing ball, I contentedly watched it, with a sense of perfect knowledge of its ultimate size and use. But this intuition aroused in my mind no train of disturbing conjecture. I thought of nothing, absolutely nothing, taking no thought for the morrow, or the next moment. My intelligent friend, try this once; try to think of nothing; to have no thought, not even the one that you are not thinking. I doubt your success in the attainment of such a state of mind; but if you are, happily, successful, you will remember to the end of your allotted years on earth how great was the sense of rest, of peace, of perfect joy, felt, not thought of, in that moment. Could you attain and then retain such a mental state for half an hour, you would become clairvoyant and clairaudient during that time, and both see and hear across the leagues of earth; aye! and be conscious of futurity, so that a prophecy then made by you would be found to come true in every detail, though in scope was over years mounting to centuries. You must perceive, then, what a beautiful condition the Lothins enjoy: thc whole present, and each way, from the present almost to eternity, is theirs to know. These states of mind are protracted with them, and in the quiescence which is theirs at such times, they find themselves en rapport with the architect of the world, and know His ways. Like Job are they then: hearing of Him by the hearing of the ear, their eyes also behold Him. Some few of God's works they can do, many more of them they can understand, laying the line on the foundations of the earth; entering the springs of the sea, knowing where light hath its way, and the place of darkness and the bounds thereof; yea, in this still time of their souls God opens to them even the gates of death, through which they go and return. But though they know all this, and so friend, might you, too, yet it is because the Creator shows them the paths unto the place thereof; and He will show you if you enter the occult door through which Christ has gone unto the Father. Follow Him, and greater things than these shall ye do.

Mendocus, Master, now perceived that the lurid glow of the atmosphere had been neutralized by the light of the blue sphere, which, full twelve inches through, rested motionless in completion, its glorious, radiant center of entrancing loveliness. He raised his hand slightly, as if giving an unspoken command. Upon this the sphere of light rose to a height of perhaps eight feet from the floor, where it hung without visible means of support. Again the hand waved in command, and the sphere moved horizontally over our heads to a point about fifteen feet from the center of the chamber. Here it was permitted to remain. Although every one present was intuitively aware of all that was about to occur, I will describe every incident for the benefit of my readers. Following the pure blue light came a sphere of intense indigo color upon the brazier, its process the same as that of its predecessor, and when complete it was assigned position thirteen feet from its neighbor, on the same eight-foot plane. Next came a sphere of violet, of equally intense brilliancy, differing only in color, not size. Then followed a globe of pure red, then one of orange, another of pure yellow, and lastly one of glorious green. Every one was at the same height from the floor, and equidistant, approximately, from its neighbors. Any attempt at describing the extreme beauty of these iris-hued spheres would indeed The futile, as they hung, motionless, above our heads.

Once again the Master gave silent order, and the spheres began to move horizontally around their common center. Slowly at first, gradually the speed increased until persistence of vision presented them to the sight as a great circle of light ninety feet in circumference; nevertheless the orbital revolution did not in any degree merge the colors into becoming white light. And now an additional feature of beauty was presented: as the seeming ring sped around, from each of its compound globes a shaft colored like its parent was simultaneously projected horizontally to the center, when, from the junction a. perpendicular column of light of purest white went forth, up-ward and downward, the one to the great quartz crystal in the ceiling overhead, the other to the carpet of gray below, for the censer had been removed from underneath. Thus was presented the spectacle of an enormous wheel, axle, spokes and rim, revolving at great speed, and all formed of imponderable light. Though it rested on the carpet, there was no scorching, for this was but Viviant Fire, positive, not the negative Vis Mortuus. Buddhism symbolizes the latter element as "Siva," the destroyer; it is the Fire of Death, the one wherein I had seen the moth perish and the stone disappear. There is an esoteric Buddhism as well as an exoteric, or religion of the masses, and the names of Siva and Vishnu, which to the exoterist are names of personal Gods, of the Destroyer and the Preserver respectively, are to the esoterist merely the terms distinguishing the obverse and reverse aspects of Nature, that is, growth and satiety, change and destruction.

Would power like this of the Lothins ever be mine? It seemed to me that if Mendocus, Master, had come to such wisdom, he, being but a man, could not do more than I--we were both souls. The wondrous temple in the heart of the mountain; the lighting of the darkness; the lifting of the great stone at the entrance; the Vis Viva and the Vis Mortuus; all this that I had seen and was to see, was only the work of men who had, in their calmness of soul and purity of heart and body, done these things because the Christ-Spirit, in the pure of heart, is perfect human and extends unto the Father. Could I not hope to attain the power of doing likewise? I asked myself, and knew that I could, for I was then in the peace of clairvoyance. Yet I saw not all that must intervene, not all the events of the nearer future, nothing of them, in fact, but only the more distant perspective of my soul's destiny.

"Verily," said Mendocus, "but not now, not until a time of trial be past. To thee, as to all other occult neophytes, will come moments of darkest doubt. and thy very soul will weep in the agony of despair. No, thou wilt not doubt the truth of hermetic wisdom at any time, but thine ability to acquire it only. Study, then, the principles of truth, not its phenomena only. For its own sake it is more to be desired than its works, though usually less attractive to neophytes. Thy doubts will be born of an imperfect conception of thine own self, a want of perception of symmetry; giving undue proportion to certain facts, and upon finding these of less importance than thy conception of them originally painted, thy heart will fail thee, for in themselves they are great, and if comparison declares them small, what power shall grasp the greater? Then will it be that thou wilt fear thou art but finite, and these things infinite, and thou wilt say to thy soul: 'My weakness is to these things as packthread wherewith to draw leviathan.' But this is not so, for no creature is more than the Creator, and thou art of the Father and joint Creator with Him. What shall prevail? Only Faith like that of the Spirit who overlighteth Jesus and all them that triumph over time. Woe unto thee if thou shall faint while buffeting the billows of doubt. Miserable indeed is the lot of such a one, for, debarred from. the society of the Brothers because, of his faint heart, he is yet possessed of a knowledge of something purer, better, higher than the ordinary ambitions of humanity. After his glimpse into the greater possibilities of his being, he disdains to resume his former sense-relations with the world. He can not descend to the world's level, nor raise his fellowman to his own height. So through the rest of his life on earth he is alone. My friend, there is no solitude so drear as he hath who is in the world, but not of it. Wilt thou venture onwards, braving this peril? At this point there is yet a chance of return without incurring the danger which follows when further advanced. Set not thy hand to the plow if thou canst not go to the end of the furrow; it is long and difficult to follow. The world hath not so hard a task as this to impose in all its power. I offer thee option."

Mendocus now watched me as I pondered the proposition. I felt that I could not in any event resume the old life; within me the fire was already alight, and the Sword of the Lord had cut off the old from the new, so that I felt it was between me and the past. No; "Onward, Christian Soldier," must be my song leading to victory. I was decided in my mind, though I had not as yet said so; but I had no need to utter aloud my decision, although, forgetting this fact, I was about to do so, when Mendocus said:

"Thou hast, then, decided to go onward. I am sorrowful because of it. For though thou shalt come forth at last as gold burned in the fire, yet the ordeal confronting thee is fierce. But I will not allow that thy feet go alone; for that were unwise.

I will so do for thee that the step be not irretrievable, lest it perchance be as I fear. O, Brother! I fear me woe is thine!"

After this decision I was required to take vows of secrecy, whereby I was bound not to reveal any part of what I should learn in any manner which might give the hearer of my words practical use of what I told him. I might drop a hint which might be followed as a clue to the Voiceless Silence where blooms the Flower of Life; but, beyond a hint, my friend, I can tell you nothing. Of hints I have given many. Nor, were I to disregard my word, and divulge secrets of immediate working value, would you thank me. No, rather would you curse me. Why? Suppose we wit an instance: Suppose I were to reveal the secret of the Vis Mortuus, would you thank me? It is, remember, that force which may be projected in all its fatal strength to any distance and which is personified in the famous poem, "The Destruction of Sennacherib," in the line:

"The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast."

Suppose I revealed that secret? How long would it be ere the world would find that the unscrupulous amongst men were using it to work undetectable murder? And its uses are many besides, for it is the principle in nature which governs transmutation, disintegration, decay, destruction, death. All these, but never does it build anew; it is Siva, the Destroyer. Used aright, it is a beneficent force, for without it there would be no progress in nature, because no change could occur--there could not even be retrogression, but utter stagnation. Its sign is . Much as that means to me, it can be but a hint to you. Study it if you will, and one day it shall be revealed to you. In reason you can no longer ask why occult matters are so imperatively secret, for it must be evident that this fair earth would be made by the unscrupulous into a very hell of misery and crime, were they not thus secret. For a time those who chose to subvert their knowledge would seem to thrive and prosper, even though the world about them suffered. But subversion of the law is violation, and the penalty at last visited is in tenfold degree upon those who went most astray in their blindness and sin. It would cause them to curse the giver of such wisdom. Nine-tenths of the people of this world are unable to govern themselves well; they cannot in saneness expect to be made sharers of such awful knowledge as Siva represents. Men and women are really not following the Christ until every part of their own nature is held in an iron grasp of merciless subjection to high principles. But study, my friends, study. Christianize the money power of this world, so that capital shall not work harm to men but good, and from good thus born the karma of the world will lead to the goodness of heart which gives calmness of soul; in that calmness your study will bear fruit, and then it will not be a mockery, in seeming, of your hopes for me to say "Study!" I rejoice in those earnest workers whose motto is: "Look up, not down; look out, not in; look forward, and not back, and lend a hand." Only this: the occult student gazes in, and not out! But these are not esoterists. Their name shall one day be great in the world, and though you who desire to study and know occult truths now may not see your hopes fruit in your present incarnation, yet in coming lives you will grasp these truths which elude you at present. Follow Him.

Before me, Mendocus, Master, had opened a view of life so radically different from the old, restless existence, that my heart grew warm, regardless of his prophecy that bitter woe was perhaps to be my portion ere I could enter the haven of my desires. The fact was that my optimistic nature deceived me with a hope that somehow I could manage to avoid the threatened sorrow, and, having escaped its menace, could go happily onward. Alas, poor me! I knew nothing of karma, and in that day knew nothing of Zailm of Poseid. Else, had I known, I would have trembled when the Master expressed his fears for my sake. I saw before me a great ocean of wisdom, flashing in the light of truth, its horizon defined only by the voyager's temporary inability to go farther, its depth measurable only by that of the Universe. Free from the dogmatism of cramping creeds and of superstition, that ocean reaches out into the eternity which enshrouds the stars as well as the dust in mystery, that mystery which veils the Creator from the created, veils it from the joint Creator, man, too, just so long as his soul shall lean to creation instead of to the Creator, his Father. Veils it until the aeons of time shall be swallowed up in eternity--beyond the stars, Earth, Venus, and Mars, when man shall cease to be man in becoming more than man, and Life the Less be gathered into Nirvana, sum of all the, parts. I repeat it, sum of all the parts, for it is not in any wise that horrible cessation of being which Sanscrit scholars have interpreted the word "Nirvana" to mean. They have misconceived the facts; it is not the end of life, except Life the Less, any more than the statement "God is nothing" (that is, not one thing, but the sum of all things) should be construed as a denial of the being of God, the Eternal Father of Life.

A change had come over the Master. Up to the present his attention had been that of one controlling a process. Now, with his back to the shaft of the wheel of light, he stood beside the censer, looking upward, his gaze like that of one beholding a sight pleasing, yet absorbing. At last he bowed his head and said:

"Welcome Mol Lang, friend and brother!"

I saw no one, but was aware that the person addressed could not be one of the Sach. Mendocus, Master, turned to the brazier by his elbow and struck it lightly with his outspread fingers, whereupon the fire pan became red hot. Then he thrust his hand into a pouch depending from his waist and drew it out filled with a white powder, which he cast on the fire plate, producing a dense white smoke. I regarded this as a mere ceremonial offering of incense, and thought it savored of superstition, for I had now lost my intuitive perceptive power, and could only depend on conjecture. This idea was scarcely formed ere abandoned, for the cloud of smoke rapidly took the human form, into which the solid appearance of genuine personality was introduced as the incense consumed, until upon the glowing stand stood a man of commanding presence.

Some men seem to be not of any distinctive nationality but very citizens of the world, or, even more largely, representatives of the race, and one feels that they might be of this world or of any other capable of supporting human life. Such was the man before us. He was addressed by Mendocus as, Mol Lang, of Pertoz, and though I knew no such country, I unquestioningly accepted this appellation.

His deepset eyes, under massive brows, and a head of similar contour to that of the philosopher Socrates; his snowy hair and long, white beard, together with a soldierly erectness of person, made Mol Lang, the Pertozian, the very personification of occult wisdom, from my point of view; nor was I far wrong. His turban, which in fact was blue, mottled with brown, seemed, chameleon like, to assume different colors as the varicoiored spokes of the wheel of light passed by, not through him, but he through them. He wore a long, gray robe, depending from the shoulders and belted at the waist. On his feet, of goodly, delicate shape, were sandals.

The Pertozian stooped and put his hand on the shoulder of the Master, making some remark, the import of which I did not catch, then stepped to the floor with a light bound, and with Mendocus went to the divan and sat down, engaging in an earnest conversation, which they held secret from the knowledge of the others. Do you ask where our clairaudient, mind-reading ability was, that this converse should have been unknown to any of us? Unless one who knows that mind readers present are apt to exercise their ability desires to have them share his thoughts, they can not. He preserves as an almost unconscious habit the mental desire of having his thoughts remain impenetrable, and to such a will no human power can pierce the barrier it sets.

At length they returned to our circle, and Mendocus seated himself with us. The visitor then said:

"Though the men of Lothus have known others of my fellow Pertozians, few heretofore have known me; none, indeed, but thy Master. I am come to induct one of thy number into the land of the departed, while another I take home with myself.

To you, Lothins, I need not say that the body is like unto a coat, to be put off or on at pleasure-by those who know how. I say this only for him known in the world as Walter Pierson, but unto me is Phylos. And some day the world will bear of him as Phylos the Thibetan, yet shall he not reside in Thibet in Asia, but shall be so called because he shall for a time live on the soul plane of the occult Adepts of Thibet. Unto thee, then, Phylos, I say when thou shalt be free of thy mundane body, then if thou wouldst go to any sphere of heaven, unto Neptune, or any planet or star, thou hast but to desire such transference of thyself, and it is accomplished. Wilt thou go with me this night, which is now nearly morning"

Where was this I was asked to go? I knew not clearly whether he meant the soul realm, or in fact just where he did mean to go. But my faith was strong, and I replied:

"Whither thou goest, I go also, for I have faith in thee that thou wilt do me no hurt."

The faith inspired in that hour by the gentle dignity and kindly love I saw beaming from those deepset, calm gray eyes, has known in all these subsequent years no cause for regret; nor for the action which my faith then inspired me to make, has this heart any but a feeling of supreme thankfulness that the Christ-Spirit then put it into my soul to have that faith. I fancy I bear some reader, timid at the prospect of trying the unknown, which might for all I knew at the moment include my corporeal death, saying: "How came it that you felt so sure of Mol Lang; did you not fear he was a devil?" No, I did not, for I was under the protection of goodly men, into whose midst no demon could enter more than night can reign beneath the noonday sun. At least one of my protectors (Mendocus) had arrived at a finality so far as earth's present cyclic age can teach; the physical nature had no secrets from him; but the illimitable realms of the Father hold many "mansions" besides the universe of matter and the house of light, or the dwelling place of darkness. In this mansion of the material universe nothing remained for Mendocus to gain; he stayed but to give. Death had no power over him; he was supra-mundane, and until himself otherwise elected, he must live; only the word of God (the true Logos) by himself invoked could "loose the silver cord." Would you, protected by such an one, fear demoniacal influences? One other query of the multitude you may desire to ask, I will answer. You inquire how these highly favored ones of God can be certain of the truth of their intuitive perceptions, and I answer: the man who lives in his spiritual nature does not believe, but knows that his being is one with God the Father, the Great Parent. And his spirit speaks by the voice of intuition, informing him by a single flash of that which otherwise he would be long years in learning by external methods of investigation, if, indeed, externality could ever impart the knowledge. His spirit gives him from its own source, the Father, an effortless, instantaneous perception of facts, principles and things. I am reminded of the words of Mol Lang to me in this connection: "Phylos, some day thou wilt comprehend this: Earth is a letter in a seven-fold alphabet; the stellar universe is but one book; its pages truly are myriad, its chapters legion, yet, besides this book, the library of the Creator is of endless number."

It occurred to me that we were the ones who should thank our visitor, and he not thank us at the conclusion of his remarks, for it seemed to me a lecture of wonderful power. A few minutes later he turned to me and said:

"Phylos, art thou ready to go with me now?"

I replied affirmatively, as did Quong, whom the visitor called Semla, when the same question was put to him.

Gravely the Brethren arose and took the hands of the Tchin in their own, as one by one they said to him, as to one going into a far country to return not for years, and perhaps not forever, "Semla, may the peace of God attend thee evermore; fare thee well." Then Mendocus, Master, said: "Semla, my peace I give unto thee."

I noted the difference in valedictory, and at another time asked of Mol Lang and received the explanation that while the Brethren could not give peace, not yet themselves perfectly possessing it, Mendocus, Master, having it himself could give it, especially to one who, like Semla, was so near its attainment. To all these Semla said, quietly:

"Peace do I wish thee."

To me no such farewells were accorded, for they said, "We shall see thee here again." This to me was unpleasant, in the frame of mind I was in, but I concealed my feelings as well as I was able, and replied as kindly as they spoke. Then Mol Lang said, "Come."

He started forward to the door of the Sagum, and I should have followed without looking back, had it not seemed as it some one touched me. Imagining that some Brother wished to speak with me and had thus called my attention, I turned and saw that which will never fade from the tablets of memory! Lying on the long, soft silk of the carpet was a human form. Looking more closely I saw that this was my own physical form, my body, my materiality, in short. In the act of raising it from the recumbent position were four of the brethren, two on each side. Others were doing a similar act for the corporeal shell of Semla. It was my consciousness that something was being done to my earthly body which f had mistaken for a touch. It had not occurred to me that I was divested of my mortal casket, so easy had been my disembodiment.

"Death is, after the agony of illness for those long sick, as easy and pleasant an experience," said Mol Lang, in answer to my mental reflection. "If thou wert not to re-enter thy corporeal body again, this would be death for thee," he added.

I was so greatly amazed at this last phenomenon that I stood still, saying nothing, as I watched the bodies being removed from the main apartment and laid on couches in a smaller room. Mol Lang then remarked:

"Essentially this is death. Behold then, body death is but a casting aside of the grosser forms of life, which have served their purpose. As thou wilt return, this is not absolutely death for thee. Semla will not return. His body is therefore dead. When real death takes place, the gross body is cast off, and the sword of the Lord cuts it off, and Siva takes possession of it and distributes it to the elements, in order that Vishnu may receive it for new uses from Brahm ○ the Creator. Then the soul is free for a great length of time, compared to that spent on earth. Though the astral shell can come into spiritualistic circles and manifest through mediums, yet the I AM comes not into any earthly condition until it returns for reincarnation; and then always on a higher, never on a lower plane of progress, still exists a penalty of sin, or, what is the same thing, incomplete severance of one's self from desires for earthly experiences. Will ye prefer Earth to Life?

"We go not immediately to mine own home, but into that realm where those go who have died from earth into devachan, that is, heaven, or the 'Summerland' of the 'Spiritualists,' or the 'Land of the Obb River,' or, again, to 'that bourne from whence no traveler returns.' Phylos, the sect known as 'Spiritualists' are in error when they speak of 'spirit communion' and regard it as they do, for no ego returns out of devachan except it be forced, and this is harmful and vastly unjust to the ego. The astral soul and animal principle may thus return, but the I AM never. To the latter there is no past earth state; mind, I do not say for it, but to it. That is, it has no consciousness of anything earthly or of anything occurring on the earth. We can go to them, but they can not come to us. Let us, then, go."

The mind works quickly, and ere we had reached the bronze door, my consciousness had mastered the truth that death is not in itself agony; that it brings no startling changes, and does not invest the soul born into the hereafter with any wonderful power of foresight. In fact, there is but freedom given from the earthly body, and a few concomitant powers bestowed; nothing remarkable, considering that earth has no more hold on the soul. I speak of those who in mundane decession seek disenthralment from earth, having but little love for its conditions, though much love for its children. Such as these have worked for their brethren and accumulated a good and high karma which takes them away from the prisoning conditions of earth.

Mol Lang here interrupted my reflections, saying:

"One thing else; let us leave thy second self, that part of thee which perceives earthly things and preserves earthly memories. This in order that no disturbing comparisons may arise between that state into which thou goest and the earth behind thee, which thou shalt not see more than they can who really die. But between thee and earth will I preserve a vital link formed of thy second natural principle, so that it shall not be death to thee."

Then he said: "I believe I have no further use for this transient form."

Had an uninitiated observer then been present, the astonishing, not to say terrible, spectacle would have been presented to him or her of a man dissolving into smoke, for Mol Lang liberated the bonds of his smoke-form and it floated away in formless cloud.

Mol Lang laid his hand on my head, and as he took it away I no more remembered anything of the world. I dimly saw before me the bronze door of the Sagum; I knew that Mol Lang opened it, and that we three stepped forth, not into the long hall of the temple, but into an open expanse of green, sunlit meadow or prairie land. But it was no surprise, for I remembered nothing of any special features of earth life: I only knew that I was I, and that I was in a pleasant land; it was much like a vivid dream; no one in viewing a dream landscape is conscious of any other belonging to and seen only in waking hours; the faces in dreams are natural, not novel, not strange, and when seen are not compared with those known during wakefulness, for knowledge of the latter state is blotted out during sleep.

Mol Lang spoke:

"Thou hast come through the portal; lo! physical nature and laws do not reign here; they reign in the objective world, but not here, for this is the subjective world, in no sense physical or existent, nor perceptible to senses belonging to matter. Yet it is real, for Spirit is real, and subjective states, no less than objective ones, are born of the Spirit of the. Father. This is another of the Mansions in His House. It is farther from the earth than the farthest star of the sky, because in no wise of material nature. Things of earth to the inhabitants of this world are but dreams, and vice versa. To either, the other seems unreal. This we are in is the 'Far away home of-the soul.'"

I listened to Mol Lang and had ears to hear, so that I understood. Earth, of which he spoke, was vague, and knowledge of it as an almost forgotten dream. And the vagueness was because that principle of my terrene nature which was the seat of earthly sensing, and of memories of things perceived, was left with the body, This principle might visit a spiritist medium and it would be called me. Yet it would not be me, but my shell, my link of connection between my spirit and my corporeal body. Friend, you will agree that an author is reflected in his autobiography; but that book is not the author. No more is that which has its "actions, passions, beings, use and end" in the body the MAN. Yet that book may live and guide men to action. So may the astral shell of a man or woman who is dead. And the vitality of the medium may galvanize that shell so long as its influence governs any living earthly man or woman. Hence we see the phenomena of the "circles" of believers in spirit communion. There is no return of the ego (the I AM) to circles, neither communion from their plane down, though sometimes from your plane up to theirs. And yet you persist, my spiritist friends, in saying that I am in error. You say that what I call "shells" can not be such because they tell of events after death. Yes; they do, I admit. And they do because they are but records of the ego which for a few brief moments at death is sometimes highly prophetic, and sees forward over every detail, frequently for coming centuries. Or again, the departing soul catches a glimpse of its own self-conceived devachan, and the record of this is imparted to the shell, which carries such views to the spiritist medium. Witness the often absurd description given of the character of the "spirit-world," and that through honest mediums, too. They give none of CHRIST, save where two or three are gathered in His name.

Mediumship is true; its ordinary explanation is false. The medium goes into a trance, his or her vital force is transferred to the "control" which is but a shell, and not the true spirit or ego. Then the hearers enjoy a "communication." Like a reader of a book of record is that medium; events of the past are retold, and more or less accurate prophecies made; the shell lives for the nonce a galvanic life, just as Poe lives anew in the person of an elocutionist rendering "The Raven," from the rostrum. Just so long as the "Commentaries" influence mankind, just that long will the "spirit" of Caesar control mediums; and while the Book of Mormon retains its hold on the deluded masses of Utah, so long will the "Prophet Joseph Smith" influence sensitives. But I grow prolix. Let us therefore turn to the world of effects, and see what it presented to our psychic perceptions. Will you come with us and see what we three saw as we went forth across the plain which confronted us at the door of the Sagum?