BF 311 F689s 1922 00450090R NLM D5003E07 D NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE SURGEON GENERAL'S OFFICE LIBRARY. Sectk No. 113, W. D.S. G. 0. No. <.%.yr-£ht/t3 NLM050032070 DUE TWO WEEKS FROM LAST DATE I NOV I 0 )m t NOV t• •«?■ N 251982 GPO 881473 The Source of Power THEODORE CLINTON FOOTE, Ph.D. mi ' Formerly of the Johns Hopkins University, Lecturer on Psychology; Rector of St. Davids, Roland Park, Baltimore The unspiritual man rejects these truths of the Spirit of God; to him they are sheer folly, he cannot understand them. And the reason is, that they must be read with the spiritual eye. I Cor. ii: 14. BALTIMORE WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY 1922 Copyright 1922 THEODORE CLINTON FOOTE Made in United States of America All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. COMPOSED AMD PRINTED AT THE WAVERLY PRESS By the Williams & Wilkins Company Baltimore, Md., U. S. A. JUL -3 1922 ^ a ©CI.Afi~7389 CONTENTS Introductory Chapters I. The Threefold Division of Man............................... 7 II. Consciousness................................................ 10 Part One. Body; Latent Consciousness I. Body and Intelligence........................................ 17 II. Where Does the Soul Come From?............................ 20 III. How Mind Can Affect Body................................... 26 IV. Intimations of the Subconscious.............................. 30 Part Two. Soul; Subconsciousness I. The Subconscious Mind....................................... 35 II. Suggestion.................................................... 38 III. Instincts. Intuition.......................................... 42 IV. Intuitive Deduction.......................................... 47 V. The Senses and Sensations.................................... 52 VI. Desire-Will................................................... 57 VII. Memory and Imaging Power.................................. 61 VIII. Telepathy.................................................... 66 IX. Kinetic Energy............................................... 72 X. Mental Healing............................................... 77 XI. Spiritism..................................................... 82 XII. Emotion...................................................... 88 XIII. Training of the Soul.......................................... 92 Part Three. Spirit; Intellect; Clear Consciousness I. Spirit. Self-Consciousness.................................... 101 II. Obligation-Will. Law........................................ 106 III. Sense-Percepts............................t................... 110 IV. The Function of the Intellect................................. 115 V. Association of Ideas........................................... 120 Part Four. Soul Spiritualized; Higher Consciousness I. Imagination.................................................. 125 II. Understanding. Intuition.................................... 130 III. The Emotions Spiritualized................................... 134 IV. The Kinship of the Soul...................................... 140 V. The Language of the Soul. Allegory.......................... 145 VI. The Life of the Soul. Faith.................................. 151 VII. Metaphysics.................................................. 156 VIII. The Will of the Spirit. The Great Choice.................... 161 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS 2*= CHAPTER I The Threefold Division of Man The threefold division a problem. Division into body and soul seems more obvious. Materialism ready to collapse. Exist- ence of spirit not capable of demonstration—it must be felt. Unity given by consciousness. Demarcation always hazy. Rationale of threefold division. One of the greatest masters of the spiritual life who tells us that his illumination was a direct revelation from God, divided man into body, soul and spirit. This division has been in all ages since his time, a problem seeking for a solution. No short and easy solution is possible, for if it was, it would have been found long ago. To the rather dull observer of phenomena a man seems to be a simple unit; a body that in some way can think. The materialist1 has for many generations gloried in the idea of the material nature of man. It is time for him to reconsider his position before the more than tottering edifice of his own creation comes crashing upon his head.2 Keener or less prejudiced observers have long since realized that we and our bodies are two distinct things. They/eeZ the existence of a soul and identify it with themselves. They find the common phraseology of the Bible and of current literature quite compre- hensible. "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" "This night shall thy soul be required of thee." And this is a true intuition; your soul is YOU. There is the mental body and the immortal soul. It seems quite simple and satisfactory. But perhaps we shall learn after awhile to be on our guard when anything having to do with soul seems simple. 1 There will be found in the back of this book a glossary, giving a defini- tion of many terms with which some readers may not be familiar. It also enables the writer to state explicitly in what sense he uses these terms. 2 Professor McDougall (Harvard), in his splendid book, "Body and Mind," 1920, has, with unanswerable logic, knocked out the last support of the positivist's theory, and any writer who denies the existence of an incorporeal soul must assume the proof of his position. 7 8 THE SOURCE OF POWER We realize this when we remember St. Paul's division. What then is the spirit? No one knows spirit empirically. We may know the mani- festation of spirit, but spirit itself is as intangible as thought or life. We speak of it but we can never grasp it through the in- tellect. Our surest approach to it is through feeling. There is no possible proof that can be conceived of whereby we can demonstrate it, and yet we believe in it. It is only spirit that knows spirit and it knows it spiritually. How then can we know of this threefold division: body, soul and spirit? Let us see. We sense in this division a logical order. We see an ascending scale with body at the bottom and spirit at the top. Is there anything that will give unity to this scale, anything that is possessed by all three, though in very different degrees, that will serve as a connecting link? May this link not be found in the idea of consciousness? The spirit then will possess this quality of consciousness in the highest degree, what may be called clear subconscious; the soul in a lesser degree, not always and often, quite seldom, rising above the subconscious; the body in a degree that may be called latent consciousness. It is not a contradiction in terms when we speak of latent consciousness, for these terms are relative, they express the way things seem to us. It is not a mere figure of speech when we say the body feels itself ill used, or that it cries out against pain. This will become clearer when our attention is turned to it in a later chapter. But we must be prepared to find everything intermingling. The reason why this division, body, soul and spirit, seems to us confused and lacking in definition, is for this very reason. It is in a way, as if we tried to divide body into head, trunk and limbs, and think of each as being able to exist by itself. The limbs get life from the trunk as does the head, and both trunk and limbs are filled with nerves that center in the brain. Not even to the anatomist are these divisions clear cut. They show the same qualities. So it is impossible to draw a line between body and soul, or soul and spirit. They shade one into the other. THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF MAN 9 When we compare ourselves with the lower animals, the spirit springs into recognition. When we compare ourselves with the common conception of an angel, the body appears gross and material. And while the threefold division is the true one, as becomes very evident on further study, the common notion of body and mind contains the chief distinction. The soul is the great underlying part in all physical manifesta- tion. It may be thought of as the principle of life, exhibiting itself in all nature, from the lowest forms of matter to the highest. It is a part of what philosophers call the anima mundi, the soul of the world. The spirit is that part where consciousness is clear. It is the intellect, the factor that studies phenomena, that adapts us to our environment, that trains the generic soul and impresses upon it personality, and that ultimately (under the guidance of a Christ Spirit) prepares it to understand, to choose, to possess and to enjoy, the ineffable bliss of immortal life. The truest conception of man, that is, the I, we use so often, would seem, then, to be that of a soul, with a body, and a spirit, bound together and unified by a line of life or consciousness. CHAPTER II Consciousness Illustrations of consciousness. How it appears to us. Semi-con- sciousness—only relative. Consciousness may appear as latent. Classification. Expansion of consciousness from childhood to maturity. It has no limits. Higher consciousness depends upon individual effort. Unconsciousness. Intuition of continuity. Everybody knows what is meant when we ask if a sick person is conscious. We mean, is he aware of what is going on around him; does he recognize people? If the answer is no, we have a strange feeling that in some way he is not here, that he has slipped away from us. We look at him in an entirely different way than if he were asleep and a touch would cause him to wake and know us. We get the feeling that a vital something is missing. We look closely to seek for other signs of life, but no other can take the place of that. Consciousness is the light of normal waking life; the knowledge that you are yourself, here and now, the recognition of your surroundings, the ability to command your mental faculties, to recall the past events of your life and to know how you feel. This is what is called clear or self-consciousness. At any moment it is impossible to distinguish this consciousness from life. They seem the same thing. If we always had this clear consciousness and there were no other states, psychology would be comparatively simple and life would lose much of its mystery.^ But suppose you wake up some morning in a strange room. You have slept soundly and are awakened by the sunlight and the birds. At first you do not know where you are and you experi- ence a thrill of happiness, you do not care who you are or where your are. You are like a person starting out in a new life, with no past. Then comes the rush of memory into the consciousness. You can place yourself now. Thoughts come, and perhaps some one thought seems seeking for recognition. It eludes you, then suddenly you have it. There is an early train to catch. Where 10 CONSCIOUSNESS 11 was that memory? Where were these thoughts? The light of consciousness had not fully illuminated your mind. So there are states of semi-consciousness. Something is lacking. Part of the memory may not appear, and you are vaguely con- scious of something important but you do not know what it is. Or something may be the matter. You wake up with a fever. Everything is vague. You cannot correctly interpret your sensa- tions. The person who comes in seems strangely unfamiliar. You seem to be on the water. The window curtain is a sail. You are told that you are in bed. You deny it. You are quite conscious of being in a boat. Where is the reality? This obscure or semi-consciousness seems like being not fully awake, or it is like dream consciousness, or it is delirium and there are hallucina- tions. The judgment that decides between truth and delusions is in abeyance. Or, again, suppose, when you wake up in a strange room, the memory does not come pressing into consciousness. You cannot tell your own name nor where you live. You do not recognize anyone and are completely at a loss what to do. Your conscious- ness seems clear but it has lost the past. You are without the old personality. Your father finds you and takes you home. Your family are strange to you. They tell you who you are but you have no consciousness of it. Are you that person? You begin at once laying in a store of new memories and new associations. Then suddenly you lose the new consciousness completely and you are your old self again, with all the old store of memories, and the second store of memories is gone. Evidently the first store of memories was not lost, but the con- sciousness of those memories was not a clear consciousness. So it is necessary to realize a new state or kind of consciousness, which is called subconsciousness. In our daily experience we find that the subconscious is only relatively such. Under certain conditions we can use the powers that we have no clear consciousness of at all. The conscious and the subconscious shade into each other and in our half waking states we can detect quite clearly the fantastic imagery of the subconscious. The judgment, the common sense, is only in the state of clear consciousness. 12 THE SOURCE OF POWER And even in the various organs and parts of the body there is a consciousness which is called latent consciousness in compari- son with that which has thought and memory and volition. A pin pricking any part of the body arouses this consciousness so that it screams with what the clear consciousness recognizes as pain. Normally we are quite unconscious of the processes of life within us. The above will serve to give some idea of the complexity of the subject. For practical purposes we may divide consciousness into four classes.1 First: Latent consciousness, as in cells of low forms of life, and also in the cells of the body. Second: Simple consciousness, as in more complex animals, includes instinct, an intelligence limited to the needs of the organ- ism, and some powers which will be referred to later on. In man this is commonly called subconsciousness. Third: Self-consciousness, or the clear consciousness of man. Fourth: Higher consciousness, which is developed voluntarily in the higher types of man. Perhaps the most important fact in regard to consciousness is the power which it has of unfolding and expanding. To this power there seems to be no limit. We can grasp this idea clearly if we note the expansion of consciousness in a child. The consciousness of the baby is of that simple kind which is the highest that is as yet attained by any of the lower animals. It even appears less than that of the calf that scampers across the yard a few hours after its birth. It is very much alive but it takes no notice, i.e., it is not conscious of any surroundings. It soon, however, becomes conscious of its environment and before long it shows by its first smile that it is conscious of well being. This quickly develops into a comprehension of meaning, which is the first step towards self-consciousness, the meaning of self. But this growth into self-consciousness occupies several years. The consciousness that he is himself and not any child is attained 1 This classification is based on that of Ouspensky, "Tertium Organum," 1920. CONSCIOUSNESS 13 about the school age, the time of mixing with other strange boys. From then on, the consciousness undergoes wonderful expansion of the notion of space, in studying geography and astronomy, and in time, in the study of history and geology. The next great jump comes with the development of sex con- sciousness. Carpenter, in his "Drama of Love and Death," has much to say of the wonderful changes that accompany this de- velopment, in the body as well as in the soul, and the consciousness expands to meet all these changes. This is the age when Jesus first expresses his consciousness of his Father. From this time on the consciousness expands with everything that is studied, every book that is read, every new place that is visited and every country that is traveled over. Business ex- pands it still further until in a high type of man it becomes a world consciousness. Except in the higher type of man or woman (everything from now on must be individual and voluntary) no further expansion takes place. It is only in one direction that expansion can take place and that is towards spirit consciousness. Many things point the way. Art, music, metaphysics, love, religion. Religion should be the very door and realization of the higher consciousness, but religion that is choked by dogma or humanitarianism gives but a feeble impulse toward the Spirit. In concluding this chapter there is a word to say about unconsciousness. Our clear self-consciousness is like a light that shines brightly and sometimes radiantly, but there is a shade— one might almost say an extinguisher—that often entirely ob- scures this light and for a time we seem to have no consciousness. Deep sleep and fainting accomplish this result. This shade ap- pears to be the body in certain conditions but we cannot clearly understand it. It may be simply a change from clear to subcon- sciousness. We have, however, a deeply rooted belief that the light of consciousness cannot be extinguished. This belief is a spiritual intuition and represents for many the eternal truth.2 2 The question of the continuity of consciousness is a metaphysical rather than a psychological consideration and will be referred to later on. PART ONE BODY; LATENT CONSCIOUSNESS CHAPTER I Body and Intelligence The body manifests ideal of the Creator. Anatomy and physi- ology not within scope of this book. Marvellous intelligence seen in body building. The sperm. The creation of cells. The body human and divine. The human body is the most marvellously beautiful creation in all the realm of the visible. Physiology cannot justly describe its wonders, nor art depict its charm. Nothing nobler, more expressive of conscious dignity, or more instinct with loveliness has ever been imagined than the body of that fortunate creature that is made in the image of its Creator. It is hard to say which is more worthy of admiration, the multi- complexity of the organism or its superb adaptation to the ends for which it is designed. The description of skeleton, muscle and organ, of brain, nerve systems and plexuses, of heart, arteries and veins, and other vital organs and their functions must be left to the anatomist and physiologist. They do not come within the scope of this book, except as they are the manifestation and vehicle of something that is far more surprising. For by far the most striking feature of the body, and that which does not appear to the observer, and that which materialistic science has ever refused to consider, is that every minutest particle of it is instinct with life and intelligence, quite apart from the mind and spirit that dwell in, and give unity to the organism. No adequate conception of the marvellous character of this intelligence can be formed unless we consider the development of the body from the microscopic germ and sperm from which it takes its origin. It is as if at this very beginning of the body an intelligence had been imparted to it which was commanded to build it according to a pattern most exquisitely impressed upon it. In all animal life there is nothing more remarkable than the per- sistent purpose which this intelligence shows in carrying out the design with which it is animated. In the almost infinite number 17 18 THE SOURCE OF POWER of outward forms in which this intelligence manifests itself and amidst an incredible variation in the individuals of any species, there is shown the most amazing fidelity to the archetypal idea of that species. And this is no blind intelligence which makes, as it were, a hit or miss try at the realization of an idea. Within the compass of its ability this intelligence acknowledges no defeat. It is not merely a generic or specific intelligence which works for the perpetuation of general forms, but it is an intelligence which recognizes the individual and responds to its needs. How else can we account for the claw which is developed to replace the one that an individual lobster has lost? How else can we explain the repeated production of new members which have been cut off from the body of a newt? The wounds which our bodies may receive are repaired, new tissue is created, new veins are developed, new nerves are extended, new skin is formed. Viewed from another aspect this intelligence is equally astound- ing. Consider for a moment the fertilized egg of a fish lying where the parent had deposited it. Is there any scientist alive that can tell or even imagine what step must first be taken to produce the fish that is to come from that egg? And yet that microscopic spermatozoon does not hesitate an instant. It knows precisely what to do next and it does it. But the materialistic scientist tries to conceal his chagrin by taking refuge in camouflaging expressions. This is the mystery of life. It is indeed. But if that same scientist knew as much as that microscopic germ knows the whole world would resound with praises of his unthinkable intelligence. Why then deny intelligence to the sperm? The human body originates in the union of the sperm and germ of its parents. This union is far from being a simple matter. The human mind can hardly grasp the complexity of the operation.1 But once begun there ensues a creative multiplication of cells compared with which the multiplication of the loaves by the Master is the simplest of miracles. This multiplying of cells never ceases until that organism has completed its allotted span. 1 See Carpenter's "Drama of Love and Death," Chapter II. BODY AND INTELLIGENCE 19 Each cell as it is created receives a separate intelligence. It is a living part of a living whole. But what is the intelligence of the whole? What is it that gives unity of purpose and action to the complex body? This we shall consider in the next chapter. In the present chapter it is the body as a whole, the wonder of its incredible physical perfections, externalizing a thought, could we but read it, that would reveal the mystery and the purpose of the universe. And so the body of man stands forth in all its complexity of organic detail, developed by a mind so singularly responsive to the will of its creator, so mysteriously conscious of the purpose and end of all that multiplication of cells, so splendidly endowed with an incomprehensible creative power, so superbly gifted with a sense of eternal charm and beauty, so human, so divine. CHAPTER II Where Does the Soul Come From? Ancient theories. Moneron described by Haeckel. Definition of Intelligence. No organs. Purposive action. Unity of com- plex organism. Coordination of cells. What this central intel- ligence does. This intelligence not located in brain. Why have brain and other organs? Development of brain and intellect. What for? Beginning of soul. Intelligence varies according to complexity. Not different in kind. Powers exhibited in ascend- ing scale. The soul of man. Where does it originate? Gap between organized and unorganized matter. Statement of McDougall. Man's pathway from the moneron to Christ. Note on materialism. The most ancient theory of the origin of the human soul is probably that which is known as traducianism. This theory takes into account the various points of similarity between a child and its parents which are due to heredity and holds that the soul passes from the parents to the offspring. It is the theory that harmonizes best with modern scientific opinion. Another ancient theory is called creationism. This is apparently the expression of repugnance to the naturalness—the brutal earthiness—of the former theory. It declares that the soul of each child is created by God and does not attempt to explain the hereditary traits. It is characteristic of Christian theology and is taught by the schoolmen. Each thinker must choose for himself, but in order to have a basis for an opinion it is necessary to study the manifestations of animal life in the earliest and simplest forms. Let us begin with the moneron described by Haeckel. This famous German materialist writes as follows :l The monera are the simplest of permanent cytods. Their entire body consists merely of soft, structureless plasson. However thoroughly we examine them with the most delicate chemical reagents and the strongest optical instruments, we find that all the parts are completely homogeneous. 1 The quotation is taken from Hudson as is the idea of its application. 20 WHERE DOES THE SOUL COME FROM 21 The monera are, therefore, in the strictest sense of the word, "organisms without organs;" or even in a strictly philosophical sense, they might not even be called "organisms," since they possess no organs, since they are not composed of various particles. They can be called organisms only in bo far as they are capable of exercising the organic phenomena of life, of nutrition, reproduction, sensation and movement. If we tried to con- struct, a priori, the simplest conceivable organism we should always be compelled to fall back upon such a moneron. The attention of the reader is particularly called to the following points: The one-celled organism exercises all the different kinds of activity which are found in higher animals. It can digest food and transform it into the substance of its body. It can exercise the power of tocomotion. It can feel and respond to stimuli. It can reproduce itself by segmentation. It can convey to each new creature the properties of the parent cell. Thus the single cell manifests all the powers necessary to the higher forms of life. Assimilation of food, locomotion, sensation and reaction, reproduction and heredity. If we think of these activities in a higher animal the unprej- udiced person will not deny that they exhibit intelligence. But how can we think of intelligence in connection with the moneron? Certainly if our notion of intelligence presupposes a conscious knowledge of what it is doing and why it is doing it, it is absurd to apply the word to such a creature. But if we define intelli- gence in its simplest form as the ability to adapt means to ends, i.e., to do purposive acts, it is illogical to deny it to any creature that can seek its food, select and appropriate what it needs, re- spond to external stimuli and hand down to its progeny one half of itself. Darwin, in "Vegetable Mould," p. 97, writes: "If worms have the power of acquiring some notion, however rude, of the shape of an object and of their burrows, as seems to be the case, they deserve to be called intelligent." It seems that the great naturalist was unwilling to accept his own conclusion and acknowledge that intelligence can exist apart from the brain. Attention is also called to the fact that the moneron has no organs. The intelligence it exhibits is not dependent upon a 22 THE SOURCE OF POWER brain, and its sensations are not localized in senses. The immense significance of these facts is not to be appreciated in a moment. The next step is to consider the coordination of cells in a com- plex organism. It is self evident that two cannot act in harmony unless some central unity has been established. The common thousand-legged bug would make but indifferent progress if no intelligence directed which legs were to move together. In reality its rapidity is astounding. The more one studies the lower forms of life the greater is his amazement. The segmentation by which the protozoa reproduce themselves is a tremendously complex process. The differentiation of form in the animalcula is incredi- ble. The same is true in the individuals of any species. The variations in color and texture of a butterfly's wing, coming as it does out of the repulsive, dirty slime that fills the pupa, are simply incredible. Let the materialists explain it as they will,2 the un- prejudiced mind cannot but recognize the intelligence shown in these phenomena. But this is far from all. Indeed it is quite impossible to enu- merate the varied manifestations of this intelligence. The sper- matozoon builds each individual body. The knowledge of a lobster that a claw is lost is only less remarkable than the power that replaces it. The power of the newt to rebuild parts of the organism that have been amputated points to an intelligence that is no hit and miss affair, no race inheritance that reproduces blindly a generic form, but one that has the purpose of building that individual and restoring the parts necessary to its perfection. We have spoken of intelligence in its simplest form, and we are accustomed to think of it as developing in higher animals. Whether or not this is a true idea, we can now give to this intelli- gence a more complete definition. It is a mental power, antece- dent to and independent of, reason, experience, or education, producing growth and development towards a definite end. After describing very inadequately what this intelligence can do the writer wishes to call attention again to the fact that it is not necessarily located in the brain. The experiments of Ham- 2 The reader is referred to a note appended to this chapter in which some points overlooked by materialists are considered. WHERE DOES THE SOUL COME FROM 23 mond referred to in chapter IX demonstrate this at least in the case of lower forms. The question then arises, why do we have brains if this intelli- gence can function without it? The answer to this logical query will run somewhat as follows. The lower forms of life exist in a very simple environment. They move comparatively little from the place where they came into existence. Their needs are few and their food is near at hand or they perish. The lower forms have only rudimentary brains if any at all. But such brains as they have are used by the mind to adapt the creature to its en- vironment to enable it to perform acts other than those pertain- ing to generic environment which does not take accident into account. For instance, the instinctive intelligence of a chicken serves admirably for the barnyard life, but its brain is intended to adapt it to a wider environment. It is frequently inadequate, as yet, to cope with the automobile. Now it is found that the brain, especially the cerebrum, develops exactly according to the needs of the animal and in response to its mental effort. It is clearly an evolution. The primitive man who uses tools and weapons has a much larger cerebrum than any animal. But the civilized European has developed, by the use of intellect, a far superior brain. Its use, however, in every instance, has been to adapt its possessor more perfectly to an ever widening and more complex environment. But for the purpose of this present inquiry, let us leave the brain and the intellect entirely out of consideration, and fix the attention on the intelligence, the subconscious mind that exists, as we have seen, apart from the brain. When did this mind, this soul, originate? For this mind is the soul, regarded apart from the complete organism we call man. There is nothing clearer than the difference between the or- ganized and the inorganic; that which is what it is because of the life within, and that which has no life; that which moves of itself and that which cannot; the tortoise and the stone. The clearness of the difference is as nothing to the vastness of it. Professor McDougall in "Body and Mind," p. 333, writes, The gap between the organic and the inorganic in nature is an immense one; the two kinds of material phenomena present fundamental differ- 24 THE SOURCE OF POWER ences and there is every appearance of the incoming of a new factor with the first living things. This new factor 'we understand to be life or soul. It is not a development of nor evolution from, anything that went before. It is a new factor which can owe its existence to nothing but the source of all life. We feel, as Ouspensky says, that "Every life is the manifestation of a part of some self-conscious whole." Beginning with the advent of life which manifests itself as growth and intelligence, we find that each creature from the moneron to man has this intelligence in a degree suited to its complexity but not differing in kind. It is also to be noted that there is always an intuitive perception of the laws of its being, deduction, however rudimentary, intelli- gence that directs growth and seeks to preserve life, memory, emo- tions, kinetic energy, and some sort of telepathic communication. This is the soul of man and these are its powers. The curious fact that the human embryo in its successive stages of development, is indistinguishable from that of lower forms of life, suggests the thought that every human soul must travel life's pathway from the moneron to Christ. NOTE Points overlooked in the materialistic thesis Although the intelligence of life in the lower organisms is denied by materialistic scientists, they are obliged, however, to explain the phenomena in some way. So these phenomena are ascribed to "behavior," and this is said to have been gradually acquired through the ages as a "race inheritance." Now there are two points in this explanation that are entirely overlooked. The first is, How did the organism exist before it acquired this behavior? These acts which are described as behavior are essential to the fife of the organism. Without the intelligence to seek its food no creature however simple in structure could survive. Without the intelligence to assimilate the food the organism would die. If it had intelligence to do these things at the start, why did it need to acquire the "behavior?" WHERE DOES THE SOUL COME FROM 25 These scientists cannot or will not realize that matter of itself has no such ability. It can do but one thing and that is to stay in one place until some outside force moves it. Hence unless there were intelligence enough to seek, appropriate and digest food, life could not last. And no life would now be on the earth if the first creatures had not had this intelligence. But the minds of the scientists abhor the idea of the first mani- festation of life on this globe. They seem to fancy that this is some one else's problem. The second point is this. Suppose it is race inheritance (which is of course a very real thing) that has taught a tree to send its branches to the sunny spots, and suppose this useful idea was stored up in the seed and the seed grew into a tree in a grove, and one branch had to grow a couple of yards longer than any other branch to get its leaves in the sun, how did it know where the sunny spot wast Is it to be supposed that this precise situation had been repeated until it became an inherited idea? Then why do not all trees develop one long branch? Or to take another case. A tree sends its roots a long distance to get into a drain pipe. How did it know this pipe was there? It is easy to fashion fine phrases like race inheritance and make them an excuse for exact thought, and willingness to accept a conclusion. But what can a scientists do who starts with the proposition that life can exist without intelligence? Oh, wonderful mind, that can believe that the life of a rose or a tree is a two- penny elixir in a test tube! What can it do but blunder along, until some really big man dares to say, This looks like intelligence and acts like intelligence—why, this is intelligence! And the scientific world will hail him as the discoverer of INTELLI- GENCE in life! Psychologists that study in the laboratory and the clinic would gain much by coming out into the open and seeing real life as it lives. Study roots. Find out why one may be twice as long as the others. CHAPTER III How Mind Can Affect Body The insolvable problem of the materialists. Their proposition is that body is matter which makes thought. They cannot explain how thought is received. Huxley an agnostic. The sense of reality dependent on the idea of hardness. The mind creates hardness as it does a ship. The nature of matter. Sense of hardness due to grossness of touch. The x-ray touch. Sight deceived by film production. Sense of material really lost. The reality of spirit and intelligence. Body instinct with life. Intelligence understands thought from the outside. In the preceding chapters we have presented to ourselves the human body as a complex organism of millions of cells, each with an intelligence and consciousness (latent) of its own, and possessing a central mind which has not only created this body but is still creating it and caring for its well being. We can truly say that the body is instinct with life. But we have no clear notion of this because we are accustomed to think of body as matter and therefore as quite distinct from life and thought and consciousness, and indeed in an entirely different category. The problem that we have before us now is how thought can affect matter. This is the great stumbling block of the materi- alists. How can so immaterial a thing as thought produce on matter a tangible effect? That it does so is evident. The mouth waters we say at the thought of certain food. The materialist tries to avoid the difficulty by insisting that the body produces thought. Their fundamental position is that the body is matter. They have some theory, mechanistic or other, to explain the fact of thought. They are forced to hold some such theory or admit the existence of spirit. This they positively deny. By this theory they explained how the brain manufactured, or squeezed out, thought,1 but how the thought of another could affect the brain-matter is quite another question. They did not venture 1 A German materialist in his bitter antagonism to anything spiritual, uses a crass expression that decency forbids one to quote. 26 HOW MIND CAN AFFECT BODY 27 to suggest that the brain sucked it in, they simply gave it up. Huxley was sincere enough to admit that after all the soul might exist, but he could not prove it, and called himself an agnostic. The main trouble lay in the sense of tremendous, objective, reality connected with matter, and the intangibility of thought. Let us see if we can find a solution of this problem in the modern scientific theory of matter. The first step will be to try to understand our ordinary notion of matter. We have a general idea that everything around us is matter, especially the hard things, such as rock, wood, iron, etc., but the idea also includes things like paper, water or gas. But when we ask ourselves whether each of these things is matter, or a form of matter, we find we have an idea of matter apart from these various forms. But has this notion any proof? Have we ever seen the smallest particles of matter apart from one of these forms? The answer is no. So far as any scientist has been able to find out there does not exist a gramme of matter that is not either wood or iron or whatnot. And yet materialistic science is built on the assumption that matter and force alone exist. But if we do not know matter apart from form, what do we really know? Let us acknowledge at once that whatever we know comes to us through one only source, our sense perceptions, which are interpreted by thought. And what does this tell us? That our thought knows these perceptions through the senses and pictures for us what we call, in a general way, nature. And it also adds to this picture a sense of reality, which we seem to attribute to the sense of hardness. It is then an idea conceived by our mind. Of this we are sure. We also know that our ideas are creative. The mind of man can create a ship. Let us illustrate this to ourselves. When we see an iron ship we know that the thought of it must first have existed in the mind of the builder. We know that he had thought out the problem of making iron float and we can see and recognize hundreds of ways in which he had adapted means of various kinds to produce the great end he had in view. The ship then is a visible manifestation of his idea, the expression of the idea formed by the imagination of the builder. 28 THE SOURCE OF POWER True enough, you say, but the workmen constructed the ship out of materials that are hard and impenetrable, and very unlike a thought. Now this is the real gist of the question. Matter is hard and impenetrable and thought is etherial and intangible. Matter may be the result of an idea in the mind, as the ship is, but both are hard things and thought is impalpable. Let us take up, once for all, this sensation of hardness. Does it exist in the thing or in the mind? We can illustrate it with a piece of steel. Science has something very wonderful to tell us about this piece of steel. It is composed of atoms which are small beyond any human power of observation. Each atom is composed of etheric particles or electrons which are in perpetual motion about the center which is thought to be light. These particles are so small that the distance separating them, in comparison with their size, is as great as from the earth to the sun. The number of particles in each atom and the speed of their revolutions are thought to determine the character of the atom, whether it is iron, wood, gold, etc. What becomes then of the sense of hardness? It is evidently due to the grossness of our sense of touch. Had we a touch as delicate as the x-ray we should perceive no hardness at all, and our sense of matter would seem the flimsiest pretext of an idea. Moreover the same result would be obtained if we considered the question in relation to the sense of sight instead of feeling. A film production does not deceive us because we are mentally aware of its unreality. But we can imagine such a production so perfect that if we did not know it beforehand as a film we might easily be deceived. If now, in addition to the deception of our eyes we were not able to prove it unreal by our touch, how should we ever know the real from the unreal? This question of matter has been considered at some length not only to show how scientific investigations are shaking the foundations of materialism, but also because we are all likely to find the sensation of hardness confusing to our thought of spiritual things. We depend so much upon touch and sight, in judging what is real and what is not real, that spirit, the one eternal reality, stands little chance of any recognition at all. HOW MIND CAN AFFECT BODY 29 The question of this chapter, how mind can affect body, is quite a simple one when we learn to realize that the body is instinct with life and intelligence. Not a cell of the body is without this intelligence, not a nerve that does not respond to the slightest stimulus, and receive orders from the central intelligence as to what is to be done. The mind, the central intelligence, has not the slightest difficulty in conveying its directions to any part of the body. How then is it different with a thought from the outside? We do not have to think of this thought as making creases in the gray matter of the brain! No wonder the Positivist gave up the prob- lem ! The human spirit it is that thinks, and a thought sent to it is spiritually understood; we cannot express it otherwise. We speak of the mouth "watering," and we do not stop to think what it means. The flesh of which those glands are formed cannot act without an intelligence that understands, and a response that produces a physical effect. That they do act is indeniable. Hence there is in them an intelligence capable of responding to the sense percept of smell, and even to the thought conveyed by the word of another. The answer to the question with which this chapter deals may be stated as follows. The organism, which we call the body is instinct with life and permeated by an intelligence that has not only the power to direct all the actions of the body, but also to receive and understand thoughts which come from other intelli- gences like itself. CHAPTER IV Intimations of the Subconscious Three states of consciousness. The conscious or intellectual mind. The subconscious mind. Phenomena we are not conscious of causing. Balancing, digesting, healing, feeling, dreaming, sleep- walking, doing things from habit. Dreams not consciously re- called are lost. Incredible things done without consciousness. Intimation of the subconscious. The subconscious mind means those intelligent powers within us that are possessed in potentiality by all the lower orders of the animal world. In the very lowest it exists as latent consciousness. In the higher as latent or simple consciousness. In man also it is still for the most part latent and simple, but through study re- sulting in expansion of consciousness it is ever pressing toward self-recognition. Even in the most highly organized of the animals whose consciousness has been stimulated by contact with man, it is possible that there may be a glimmering of self. The powers of the mind, like intellect and reason, which we are clearly conscious of possessing, belong to the conscious mind and will be studied in due course as we rise in the scale of consciousness. But if the subconscious mind is, as its name implies, below the threshold of consciousness, how do we know that we possess such a mind at all? We become aware of the existence of the subconscious mind because of certain phenomena not caused by the conscious mind. They are well known but not so commonly understood. Let us examine a few such phenomena. How do we balance ourselves in walking? How do we digest food, heal wounds, feel happy, remember, dream, walk in our sleep, do things from habit? Now the most cursory examination of these phenomena will convince us that we do them but are not conscious of how we do them; therefore they are not the work of the conscious mind. A baby a year old with no self-conscious mind at all, has usually mastered the problem of keeping the center of gravity within the oblong square formed by its feet, and having mastered this law 30 intimations of the subconscious 31 proceeds to add to it the laws of energetic propulsion and of momentum. Having learned these laws with marvellous accuracy it can run and jump without once breaking them. Years after- wards, when tho self-conscious mind is struggling with the facts of physics, it will learn these laws slowly and painfully. We often fail to appreciate the little ironies of nature. But then a calf does all this and more the day it is born. How do we digest food? We may see food digest in a test tube in a laboratory, but that experiment is performed by a conscious mind, and no conscious mind performs the act of digestion within us. It is one thing to tell what is done and it is quite another thing to do it without knowing it. How do we heal wounds? The words have a strange sound. We are inclined to say we do not heal wounds. Something else does, Nature, God. There is a complete realization of our uncon- sciousness of doing anything. It is the same in regard to the doc- tor. He cannot heal other persons' wounds and he knows it. There are two thoughts that make us aware that we do the healing. First, there are cases on record where wounds refused to heal until the patient actively willed it. And if we digest food why should it seem any greater thing to heal wounds? Anyway, we can plainly see one thing: the power that heals wounds acts without our consciousness of it. How do we feel happy? One may say that this is the secret of the good. But even the good have only part of the secret. They have discovered the conditions and can provide them at any time, which is all they need to know, but they do not so easily come to understand how the happiness comes. How do we dream? One can easily find out how to remember dreams. You must recall them the moment you are awake and impress them on your mind as you would the details of a picture you had only a momentary glimpse of. If you do not do this you will retain only the fact of having seen the picture, that you had a dream. Now this conscious fact ought to teach us something. That dream had no conscious existence until you gave it one. Until you impressed it consciously on your mind it was only the "stuff that dreams are made of," and that was unconscious stuff. 32 THE source of power When once impressed on the conscious mind it shares the reality that such facts have. But this matter cannot be put aside quite so easily. You say, if the dream was a subconscious affair, how is it that I am con- scious at times that I am dreaming? That is the sort of question that proves that we have intellect, and it points to that mysterious shading of the outskirts of the consciousness that prevents our giving it definition, to use the word in the photographer's sense as well as the philosopher's. It points to the fact of a shadowy borderland between the waking state of clear consciousness and the sleeping state of unconsciousness. It is the door to the subcon- scious, the key that unlocks the mystery of how the conscious mind can affect the subconscious, of which more anon. How do we walk in our sleep? Perhaps you are one of the for- tunate ones who do not. But you surely know of those who do. The writer was waked up one night by his father in the front hall while trying to put his feet into the sleeves of an overcoat. How had he seen to walk safely along the halls and stairs? Cer- tainly not with conscious sense or he would not have been found attempting a senseless act. But somnambulists frequently do in- credible things. They have been known to walk with eyes closed; to get out of windows and walk along the eaves of a house; to turn and retrace their steps and enter the window again with evident unconsciousness of danger. They saw without eyes. Height meant nothing to them. They had purpose and volition without self-consciousness. We all know that we can do much better work when we are not self-conscious. How do we do things from habit? At the risk of wearying the reader, let me point out that the things we do habitually we do subconsciously. Few persons without previous preparation can tell how they get dressed. Yet no one hesitates when engaged in that operation. And so of scores of other most familiar things. It seems then that we have clear intimations of a subconscious life going on within us. A mind functioning quite differently from our conscious mind and possessing ways of arriving at laws and of applying them, of seeing, of feeling no fear, of preparing emotional states, of picturing, of experiencing a succession of events, etc., that the conscious mind has to study laboriously. Thus only can one get any conception of the subconscious mind. PART TWO SOUL; SUBCONSCIOUSNESS CHAPTER I The Subconscious Mind Conception of subconscious mind a growth. The soul of the world differentiated into individuals. Duality. Great intelli- gence exhibited without conscious volition. Interaction of two minds. Illustrations. Subconscious mind acts from suggestion. Manifestations to be looked for in overlooked phenomena. The endowments of subconscious mind. The conception of the subconscious mind is attained only by degrees, and necessarily so because it lacks clear definition. It tends to mingle with the corporeal as when the body seems to melt with intense emotion. It is always pressing upward into conscious existence, asserting a right which nobody will feel like denying it who has studied its wonderful capacities. It even goes higher still and in the pure light of the spirit reveals the power of transmuting its earthly emotions into heavenly attributes. In view of what has already been pointed out—the creative power of building and sustaining the bodies of all living things with an intelligence and purpose that our minds can hardly grasp—the subconscious mind seems to be the great soul of the world, differentiated into individuals and manifesting itself ac- cording to the capabilities of each species. It is, as it were, part and parcel of the ocean of life that ebbs and flows through all existence, sometimes hardly distinguishable from unorganized matter, sometimes rising to crests of splendid intelligence. But when we speak of the conscious mind and the subconscious mind, ought we to think of two minds or of a single mind mani- festing itself in two ways, in two states? To the writer the last seems the true hypothesis, although it must be confessed that the phenomena constantly suggest duality. If this is borne in mind, it makes little difference how we speak of it. The least confusing way is the best for each thinker.1 1 There is a curious duality running through all nature, as the writer of Ecclesiasticus (42:15) puts it, "All things are double one against another." 35 36 the source of power Let us go on then with the thought of the last chapter. The conscious mind in us is studyingthe subconscious. In the phenom- ena of sleep-walking we find that there are things done without consciousness that seem to demand very great intelligence and judgment. And there were in these phenomena purely muscular acts that were performed unconsciously. Now everyone knows that there are muscles that we cannot control by the will, such as those which function in digestion and in the action of the heart, although these latter can be consciously stimulated or retarded. There are also muscles which act volun- tarily as well as involuntarily, like those of the eyelids and facial muscles. This is the reason why we can read things in the face. The involuntary, uncontrolled expression is the result of the in- voluntary emotions. The whole body at times expresses dejection or the reverse, and this power of the subconscious mind to control these muscles prepares us for what often happens in times of great emergency, when this mind springs into supreme control and acts with inconceivable rapidity, accuracy and intelligence, in saving our very lives. Anyone who runs an automobile realizes that the controlling power tends to become subconscious. The idea of duality in the mind is largely due to a kind of inter- action which takes place between the conscious mind and the sub- conscious. At the same time we perceive that the ideal is a synchronous action which is apparently frequently realized. The conscious mind is evidently perfectly known to the subconscious, and because of this it is able to influence and control it by sugges- tion. On the other hand, the conscious mind must be in a state of extreme passivity if it is to get the slightest glimpse of the contents of the subconscious. This passive state exists in the condition of semi-consciousness when we are half awake. There is an amusing incident of a monk, who, in the half awake state in which he found himself when aroused for matins at a very early hour of the morning, was conscious of one mind anathematizing him for getting into such a fife, while the other was calmly anticipating the enjoyment of the service. The writer recently had a curious and instructive ex- perience. Awaking in a state of terror from a particularly horrid nightmare he took his subconscious mind severely to task for getting him into such a painful condition. The mind immediately THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 37 responded by casting the blame upon the conscious mind for haying allowed itself to suggest a similar situation while waking. This excuse was accepted for a few moments, but on becoming thoroughly awake it was realized that no such imagining had been indulged in. The accusation was apparently false. The reason- ing power of this mind is clear. It is constantly acting from sug- gestion, hence suggestion had caused the nightmare. Perhaps it was right. We do not realize all that is suggested to the subcon- scious mind, a flash of imagination, the words of others, the thought that passes and is forgotten—any of these might have served as a suggestion. One does not like ideas of this kind any more than one likes to think of giving an account of every idle word. Perhaps this is the account. There is another incident that illustrates the dual character of the mind. A person who allowed himself to be frequently hypno- tized for experimental purposes has assured the writer that he was often plainly conscious of two minds, one of which seemed better than the other. We may put down then what we have discovered about the subconscious mind. It is usually hidden from our observation and we must seek its manifestations in the apparently insignificant and generally over- looked phenomena of daily life. The writer is more and more convinced that all the riddles of the universe are veritably holding out their key to us had we only the sense to see it. The subconscious mind is one of the greatest realities that we know of. It is endowed with immense intelligence and creative power. It is possessed of instinct or intuition of bodily needs and knows what to do in vital emergencies, and acts with a rapidity and skill that the conscious mind has never attained. It reasons intuitively but has no sense of the truth or falsity of its premises, accepting these without question from the conscious mind. It works in harmony with the conscious mind in all habitual acts and renders many things possible, as, for example, playing the piano, that would otherwise be impossible. It is the seat of the emotions. It acts, we feel. Finally it is the child of the con- scious mind so far as obedience goes and is amenable to every suggestion made to it. What a wonderful thought this is'—and what a terrifying thought! CHAPTER II Suggestion All acts of subconscious mind due to suggestion. Responsibility for suggestion. Powers of subconscious mind. Assumes another personality. Definition of suggestion. Dream fantasy. Abso- lute belief in the thing suggested. Blindness produced. Hypno- tism. Illustrations. Insensibility to pain produced by sugges- tion. Hypnosis places conscious mind in abeyance. Moral risk prevented by moral principles acting as potent suggestions. Hypnotism to be avoided by amateurs. Suggestion the key to many phenomena. The subconscious mind is always amenable to suggestion. Except for the one function of creating, maintaining and pre- serving the well being and, indeed, the very life of .the body—a most potent suggestion, impressed upon it in a manner we can only speculate upon—the subconscious mind does nothing that is not suggested to it by our own conscious mind or that of another. A strange and bewildering fact! A fact of such far reaching import in the physical, intellectual and moral spheres, that few would choose to assume the responsibility were it not forced upon them. It becomes more and more clear as we study the subconscious mind that it is like a docile and credulous child with wonderful potentialities of intelligence, intuition, memory, feeling, energy and self expression but no will, no initiative. Its powers seem to have no limits of time or space, and there is no sense of personality. It believes what it is told without question. It assumes without a qualm any personality that is suggested to it. It is the child playing it is someone else with positive conviction—but only when the mistress is away, when the conscious mind is in abeyance. It will be the purpose of the following chapters to prove that these statements are true. We begin with the fact of suggestibility which was discovered by Liebault in 1866. His school is still to be found at Nancy. The universality of this law was enunciated by Hudson some 38 SUGGESTION 39 thirty years ago as The Law of Psychic Phenomena, which he applied in explaining mental healing and the phenomena of spiritism. It is well to understand just what is meant by suggestion. Hudson defines it as the power in man to control by purely mental processes the functions and conditions of a human personality. Its chief subject is the subjective (subconscious) mind which is amenable to suggestion in sleep as well as when the body is awake. From this it is easy to explain the fantastic imagery of dreams which are largely influenced by peripheral stimuli and by auto suggestions; and the lack of any criterion, by which to test the truth of the impressions, gives rise to the vagaries and absurdities by which dreams are so often characterized. The amazing credulity of the subconscious mind and also the power of suggestion to affect the senses, are well shown by Mc- Dougall in "Body and Mind." A person in the hypnotic state was told that his left eye was blind. He was immediately unable to see with that eye. In this case it was possible to prove that the man was not making believe. The man did not know the exact angle at which an object advanced from behind on the left side would come into vision of the right eye. The experimenters did, and were thus able to prove that the blindness of the left eye was not feigned. It must be understood that hypnotism is itself the result of the suggestion that the subject is asleep. This sleep differs in no re- spect from natural sleep except that it is induced, and that there is rapport between the sleeper and the hypnotizer. Let us take a typical stage experiment that was witnessed in a western town. The hypnotist had invited men to come up to the stage in a small theatre. The men who responded had never seen the hypnotist before. They sat down and were soon put to sleep by the man suggesting to them that they were getting sleepy, they could not keep their eyes open, they were asleep. The man then said, "Now you are going to wake up and go fishing. There are the rods." The men immediately stood up, went for the imaginary rods, came down to the footlights and commenced fishing in the orchestra, the man having previously pointed out that there was the water. They went through, with the air of 40 THE SOURCE OF POWER perfect reality, all the process of fishing, baiting their hooks, getting their lines tangled and untangling them, pulling up fish, jumping to catch them as they flopped about, and all with the jocularity that devotees exhibit. It is clear that the mere suggestion produced the apparent reality of rods, water, bait, fish, etc., in the minds of the hypnotized men. In the same way a man may be intoxicated by the sugges- tion that water is whisky, and be restored to soberness by whisky with the suggestion that it will produce that effect. If it is sug- gested that a man is a dog, he thoroughly acts the part and is quite likely to bite anyone who irritates him. This state is not a passing one but lasts until the suggestion is removed by another suggestion. Very deep sleep can be produced by hypnotism and in this cataleptic condition the body is entirely insensible to pain. Im- mediate danger and very concentrated attention, as in an officer leading soldiers in an attack, or an orator who is taxing his mind to the limit, produce a hypnotic insensibility to pain. The soldier shot in battle experiences no pain. There is an anecdote of Henry Clay whose attention could not be distracted by the insertion of a pin into the flesh while he was speaking. With regard to insensibility to pain there seems to be but one conclusion to be drawn, and that is that hypnosis produces a loss of clear consciousness. When it is a deep state, there is a total abeyance on the part of the conscious mind and nothing is remembered that happens during this condition. Yet in this condition a person may be very active physically and mentally. He is not using the conscious mind or he would recall what hap- pened afterwards, as he does in partial hypnosis. Furthermore it cannot be denied that he is conscious of himself in the character that has been forced upon him. There seems to be but one solu- tion to the problem. The subconscious is abte to function as a conscious mind, under the influence of suggestion. Now the sub- conscious mind does not seem to function through the brain, as we shall see in considering Intuition. Therefore it cannot be af- firmed with certainty that a person loses consciousness because the brain does not function. SUGGESTION 41 A good deal used to be said about the moral risk that persons incurred when they submitted to hypnotism. It has been proved, however, that any attempt to make them act contrary to the deeply rooted principles of their moral nature inevitably destroys the hypnotic state and awakens them to a normal condition. The explanation is that the moral principles are the constantly repeated suggestions of a lifetime and are stronger than any adverse sug- gestion. It is here that we can get an idea of faith as a lifelong suggestion of the truths of religion, not to be readily destroyed by the doubt of the conscious mind. Hypnotism is one of the keys to the subconscious mind and there are others that need not be mentioned. In the hands of experts they may do no harm but they are things to be avoided and let alone. They all tend to undermine the moral character and to weaken the personality. It is hoped that the points brought out in this chapter will be thoroughly grasped because they are essential to the understanding of psychic phenomena, especially those observed in mental healing, spiritism, dual personality, etc. CHAPTER III Instincts; Intuition Inspiration does not dispense from the need of education. Instinct and intuition defined. Cannot be habit in the first instance. Illustrations. Reason in a baby. Prodigies show intuitive knowledge of laws of numbers, music, measuring, direction, time. Illustrations. Instinct in a spermatozoon. Instinct not located in brain. Hammond's experiment. Clairvoyance. Clairaudience. The intelligence of the subconscious mind is not of a magical nature. Knowledge must be acquired. This knowledge is the fruit of hard work in education and training done by the applica- tion of the conscious mind. Nothing can take the place of this. Reason must be trained to act with accuracy, and the memory must be stored with facts. No doubt there comes an inspiration and a vision to the artist, the musician, the inventor and others that exercise a creative power, but in no case does it enable them to dispense with preliminary training and acquired technic. No person by mere cultivation of the subconscious mind can become an artist, nor will it enable the ignoramus to speak like a Webster, or invent like an Edison. Inspiration puts no premium on lazi- ness any more than prayer does. Having made this rather comprehensive statement, the atten- tion is now invited to what may prove a unique exception to the law, which, as above stated, ought to be quite satisfactory to the most materialistic thinker. Yet there is a fallacy in the statement. No doubt there comes an inspiration and a vision. No material- ist should admit this for an instant yet he cannot deny it. In- spiration and vision do indeed come. Whence they come is a question with which in this chapter we are not concerned. It is enough to know that they come. If we speak of the experiences of daily life, we may call this inspiration; but in explaining the intelligence of the great world of the living, below the grade of man, we call it instinct. 42 instincts; intuition 43 How shall instinct (or intuition, which is the name we give it in man) be defined? It seems to be an ability to apprehend and know the laws of nature, according to the needs of the organism in which it resides, anterior to and independent of education, experience or reason. It cannot be habit nor use-inheritance. This was pointed out in the note at the end of Chapter II. This instinct which appears with the first life is as McDougall has pointed out, the coming in of a new factor. It is an effect of which the cause is unseen. But having appeared in the world, it at once sets up its own chain of causation. Let us consider some illustrations among the lower animals. The commonest phenomena in this connection are the bird building its own nest, the wonderful knowledge of how to fly which is so puzzling to the inventors of aeroplanes, the incredible per- formances of ants and bees with which Fabre and Maeterlinck have made us familiar, the homing instinct in pigeons which is also seen in the Newfoundland fishermen, the snakes which, through a labyrinth of grass and leaves, can make a bee line to their holes, the calf, which knows how to use four legs and defy the law of gravitation the day it is born, and the baby that knows how to suck but must learn how to blow. This last illustration is only seemingly in the right category (of animals), for the child has hardly begun to show intuition before it exhibits a reasoning power to which animals have not yet attained. How else can we explain the confusion in the baby's mind between a watch and a large button on a cloak, or between a clock and the round, ticking instrument that registers the temperature. We have called this instinct intelligence because it knows how to adapt means to ends. But do not confuse intelligence with intellect. All the more highly organized animals show very remarkable intelligence. The bird, for example shows this intelli- gence in the making of a nest. As it works in towards the center it shows a discrimination between the rough and the soft. It likes hair, yet it will accept substitutes. But what seems more remarkable still is how it selects the place, how it knows where to build. Its spontaneous song of joy, is this an intelligent act? 44 THE SOURCE OF POWER If we take up one example after another in this way we become convinced that intelligence pervades the living world. The mani- festation of an unacquired and un-worked for intelligence is still more evident in those exceptional persons whom we call geniuses. How did they become able to do without education what no amount of education would enable them to do? Let us consider what we call prodigies. Zerah Colburn, at the age of six years and with no knowledge of arithmetic except the ten digits, could give in a few seconds the 16th power of 8, for example, a number beginning with 281 trillions. Many can re- member the "Lightning Calculator" who could add a column of figures more rapidly than the eye can take in the figures. The normal action of the eye can be estimated by comparing it with the ability to see the rain as individual drops standing still, when illuminated by a flash of lightning. It is curious, unexpected, and therefore instructive, to note that the power exhibited by a prodigy tends to decrease and disappear when the attempt is made to educate him. He does not know how he does it. The same intuition is exhibited by musical prodigies. The instance of Blind Tom is especially in point because he was an idiot and had no mind which could be educated. There are those who can measure the acres in a field by simply walking across it like Buxton. There are those who have intuition of orientation, or direction, as the fishermen referred to above. There are those who have intuition of time and can wake up at any hour which they choose to impress on their subconscious mind. The French philosopher, Jouffroy, writes, I have this power in perfection, but I lose it if I depend on anyone calling me. In this latter case my mind does not take the trouble of reasoning the time. In the former it is necessary that it do so, other- wise the phenomena are inexplicable. Every one has or can make this experiment. Jouffroy attributes this power to reason instead of intuition, but has overlooked the fact that a dog can exercise the same power and the dog certainly does not reason. The writer has known of a dog that might be sleeping in the afternoon but never failed to wake up in time to meet his master at the station. instincts; intuition 45 Bernheim, the successor of Liebault at Nancy states in "Sug- gestive Therapeutics:" If a somnambulist is made to promise during sleep (hypnotic) that he will come back on such and such a day, at such and such an hour, he will almost surely return on the day and at the hour, although he has no remem- brance of his promise when he wakes up. This experiment has been successful when the interval has been stated as so many seconds. It takes some time to digest these facts. The attention of the reader has already been called to the incredible intuition of the microscopic sperm that knows exactly what to do and does it. The writer is well aware that the material- istic biologist says we have no right to call this an exhibition of intelligence. The reply is, no one has a right to call that phe- nomenon "behavior," which if exhibited by a scientist would be called the quintessence of intelligence! In connection with intuition it is interesting to note some ex- periments made by Surgeon General Hammond in Washington some sixty years ago. He took out the brain of a frog and found that it would still perform instinctive acts, such as swimming, stopping and beginning again. The bird under like circum- stances could still fly and make a landing. A snake with its head cut off went straight to its hole. The surgeon was not trying to locate the seat of instinct, if there be any such seat, but he cer- tainly proved incidentally that it did not function through the brain. In this connection the question of clairvoyance and clairaudience may be considered. The former, of which there are many cases on record, is the power to see things without the use of the eyes. The latter is the same thing in the case of hearing. Judge Troward in his book, "The Law and the Word," narrates that while sitting in his study in London he seemed to find himself in an unknown locality, and beheld, among other things, a Latin inscription on a ruined abbey which he memorized. Later on he happened on the same abbey which he at once recognized and found the in- scription. There are many interesting details.1 1 The reader will find St. John 1:48 in point. 46 THE SOURCE OF POWER An ac count will be found in "The Widow's Mite" by Funk, of a Captain Aylsbury, who, when a boy, was nearly drowned in landing on the island of Bally, Java, and in his great peril called out "Mother" several times. Later on when he returned to his country home in England, he found that his mother and sisters had been conscious of the cry and were much moved by it. Whether these phenomena are to be explained by intuition or otherwise, they fall under its definition, i.e., of knowledge ac- quired otherwise than by the senses or by reason. The writer is aware that this chapter might be more effective if considerably expanded but feels that the data given will prove sufficient for those who like to think. CHAPTER IV Intuitive Deduction The power in a thought. Consequences of a thought. How we know them. The syllogism. The mind does not use them. De- ductions are intuitive. Fallacies are not in the intuition but in the premises. Falsity in premises not seen by dull intellects. Illustration. Intellect takes time, intuition is immediate. In- tuition a faculty of subconscious mind. False suggestions taken for true. Illusion taken for reality. Misery and sickness due to false suggestion. The practical use of intuitive deduction. What it will do for you. In each and every thought there lies a certain potentiality of expansion and more extended expression. This may not be clear at first, because we have been accustomed to look upon thought as the conscious reaction of the mind to some stimulus, it may be a leaf of a tree, the aroma of coffee, or another thought. We have tried to persuade ourselves (if we have reasoned about it at all) that this thought has only a shadowy existence if any. We have been too often blind to the fact of a potency in thought, a potency that manifests itself in consequences. We have been strangely slow to realize that if a thought of any human mind could convulse the world, then every thought of every mind has a potency in pro- portion to its scope. This power which characterizes thought is creative. It may result in a steam engine, an aeroplane, a missionary, a suicide, or only a pleasurable or disagreeable feeling. There is no thought that has not some power, be it ever so trifling. Thought is a real thing and has to be reckoned with. The way thought manifests its power is by producing conse- quences. This chapter has to do with the discovery of how we know the consequences which each thought contains potentially. How they are brought into conscious recognition, or, as we have been accustomed to express it, how conclusions are deduced from them. 47 48 THE SOURCE OF POWER In the past—and we must not forget that the last two centuries have witnessed an intense struggle to realize everything in terms of matter or energy—in the past the mind has been conceived of as a sort of mechanical contrivance by which these conclusions were obtained. It was ascertained that the ordinary mind was a defective machine, which in some way was liable to turn out false conclusions. It was thought that this errancy resulted from false processes or methods of thinking, and an elaborate system called logic was invented to correct this defect by outlining the proper way to reason. It was conceived that the mind having come into possession of general truths by induction or otherwise, was able, when some particular fact presented itself, the statement of which contained a concept in common with the general truth, to draw a conclusion by a method similar to that of factoring and cancellation in arithmetic. It was assumed that the mind reasoned in this way by forming syllogisms. But the fact had to be recognized that the mind has a surprising and disconcerting way of jumping at conclusions, and passing from one to another with a swiftness that renders the notion of forming syllogisms extremely improbable and really absurd. Moreover the mind loathes syllogisms as every spontaneous mind does grammar. It is impatient of artificialities. It wants results and wants them immediately. And it gets them immediately. Those who try to believe that the mind forms syllogisms, as it were unconsciously, and reasons by this process, should consider the fact that a child reasons and draws correct conclusions with no knowledge of syllogisms. If he had been unknowingly using them he might at least be supposed to recognize them when, in later years, he unhappily studies about them. Instead of that they are utterly strange to him, he gets not one particle of help from them, and his innocent soul forgets them as soon as possible. So much good does the study of logic do anyone so far as the drawing of conclusions is concerned! It is in vain that the logician points to the many fallacies that the mind falls into. Logic is intended to correct and prevent INTUITIVE DEDUCTION 49 these fallacies. Very good. But logic is a method of reasoning. It is not reason, much less is it judgment. Now the fallacies that lead to false conclusions are not found in the way we gain the con- clusion but in some subtle falsity in the premises. Logic was not intended to discover the truth or falsity of statements. The power that judges of the truth or falsity of a statement is the Reason. This faculty in man is not omniscient, but one whose power develops by education, and hence its judgments are not infallible. For example, when the reason is brought to bear on the state- ment that "things that increase wealth are desirable," and cannot see the falsity of it and goes on to conclude that therefore selfish- ness is desirable, that person's reason has committed an error. It is moreover not an error of logic (though logic may serve to point it out and name it) but it is a dullness of the reason, a lack of acuteness in the mind, that can only be bettered by education. The logician admits this and yet he cannot see that the mind obtains its conclusions—makes its deductions—not by syllogisms or any other mechanical process but by intuition. Time may be needed to scrutinize the quality of the statements whether they are true or false or only conditionally true, but the conclusion drawn never hangs in the air. You know the conclusion im- mediately because it is given by intuition. This intuitive power of arriving at or deducing conclusions be- longs to the subconscious mind. We are not conscious of how we obtain a conclusion. We see it plainly enough, or perhaps we only feel its truth, but how we know that it is a proper conclusion from the given truth cannot be explained. The logician may crank his machine awhile and give us a proof that it is true, but we do not need it. We knew it was true from the start. This is Intuitive Deduction. The subconscious mind draws deductions with great skill and accuracy. But it is most important to bear in mind that it does not take cognizance of the truth or falsity of the statements from which the deduction was made. Conclusions can be as correctly drawn from false as from true thoughts. Sophistry and logic are boon companions. 50 THE SOURCE OF POWER Hence, look to the truth of the thought and you may stake your life on the conclusion. All this is of the utmost importance in understanding the work- ing of the subconscious mind. It may truly be looked upon as a mechanism (in respect to deduction) of the most marvellous accuracy, but if you suggest a falsehood to it, it will not know it, but will work out the simple logical conclusions. Take as an illustration the case of the hypnotized men, in whom, through the sleep of the conscious mind, the lower mind had sprung into consciousness. They were told they were going fishing, which was a false statement. But note how quickly they draw the first conclusion. To fish one needs rods. So with each step. They knew by intuitive deduction exactly what to do. The fact that it was an illusion has nothing to do with the truth of the deductions. The illusion of the whole affair does not and cannot enter their mmds. This fact is exceedingly instructive. It was the sub- conscious mind of the hypotized men that was deluded. They could not see the illusion because the only REALITY for them was the thought impressed upon them. In the same way we may think of the thought behind the manifestations we call Nature, as the great reality. The things that stand for it often seem illusory. The subconscious mind lacks entirely the criteria by which we judge of reality. It believes implicitly everything it is told. It takes your statement as a true proposition and at once arrives at every logical deduction to be drawn from it. One illustration is as good as a hundred, but the curious reader will easily find many more. It may be noted that if the subconscious mind acts on the false thoughts that are impressed upon it by constant iteration there ought to be many evidences to be seen of this in the lives around us. If not to this cause, to what other cause can we attribute the misery and suffering that often come into the lives of good people? They must be attributed to the ignorance that causes false thoughts whether in health or morals. There is, however, a wonderful and practical use to be made of this power of intuitive deduction. It is within the reach of any- INTUITIVE DEDUCTION 51 one, but very few persons know anything about it. It will do anything for you that can be done by deduction. It is only necessary that you should have clearly in mind the truth you wish to develop, the idea you wish to expand, and then submit it to the subconscious mind to do it for you. But, as Jouffroy says, you must have faith in it or it will not take the trouble, and you need not expect that it will supply you with information you are too lazy to acquire for yourself. Also you must give it time to act, when you are not confusing it by your conscious thoughts. This time will be usually at night. We have all heard of the advantage of sleeping over a thing. But it is not necessary for you to wait till night if you are able to attain perfect passivity, letting go of everything, as it were, meditating without conscious reasoning. The night time is also subject to interruption, if your mind is excited by thoughts urging in another direction. But given the right conditions which anyone may learn by practice, the subconscious mind will solve problems for you. It is particularly keen in mathematics. It will work out an orderly arrangment of subject matter; it will suggest illustrations; indi- cate corollaries; and greatly expand the scope of the questions submitted to it. It will point to conclusion after conclusion with irrefutable logic and only stop with the ultimate deduction. But remember! It does not know the truth or falsity of any proposi- tion you give it. The whole fabric it creates may be utterly lacking in verity. But if you start with a truth that worthily enlists your keenest interest the result will surpass all expectations. CHAPTER V The Senses and Sensations Animal senses like our own. Phenomena sensed or perceived, not thought about. Definition of sensing or perception. Three facts to be clearly grasped. How percepts seem to animals, one associated with another, as smell with food. Animals can grasp only individual things. No idea of common noun. No plurals. Tax on memory. Everything seen on a plane. No idea of "inside." Everything moving. Everything separate. No idea of a whole. Allied to sensing of external phenomena are sensations produced by internal phenomena, as pain, pleas- ure, etc. If we are ever to get an idea of that spiritual part of ourselves which we commonly call intellect, we must try to sense things as the animal does. The animal senses are physically like our own. Some little creatures may not have all five; some kinds have extraordinary development of touch, like the mole and insects with antennae. Others have remarkable keenness of sight, like the birds, and still others seem to depend chiefly on smell. No creature has all five equally developed. It is evident that absolutely all that animals know of what is outside of them comes through the senses. There is no power within to help them as is the case with man. Animals do not know, strictly speaking, they sense or perceive. It is true that the higher animals seem to have something like knowledge—the dog seems to know about the bones he has buried—and it is just such facts as these that make classification so difficult. But any knowledge even approaching to our knowldege would be sure to show itself in unmistakable ways. When a dog winks at you, for example, when burying a bone, it will be time to put him in a different class. In other words the animal does not think about what he is doing or what he is looking at or what he is smelling. He has pictures and that is all. 52 THE SENSES AND SENSATIONS 53 This power of "sensing" or perception may be defined as the ability to become aware of things outside themselves by means of the senses. It carries with it no conception of what the things are, nor how they are, (i.e., as parts of a whole), much less of why they are, but only that they are. In a treatment of psychology like that of the present book, it is hardly necessary to go into sense-perception as the older books do. It is enough to realize three things with distinctness: 1. The external sensory, the body organs where the sensory nerves terminate and form, as it were, surface receiving stations. Here takes place the contact, or what we suppose to be contact with what is not ourselves. 2. The portions of brain matter which are the inner receiving stations of the sensations—the messages carried by the nerves. 3. An intelligence within us that receives these messages and is conscious of them as sense-percepts. In speaking thus, in an offhand way, of this intelligence, we must not fail to realize that it is something of which we cannot form the slightest conception, and in the presence of which the scientist must bow in awe. It is the eternal mystery of mind. These sense-percepts embrace light, darkness, color, shape, sound, feeling, sensations varying from hard to soft, wet to dry, rough to smooth, sharp to dull, warm to cold, etc., and various sensations of taste and smell. But these abstract terms are forever beyond an animal. From these sensations'—these various qualities perceived through the senses—we picture the world around us, the great outside, the not-I. We must try to realize how percepts appear to animals and to babies. A tree is outline and color, so is a rock, a building, a river. There may be associated with this picture a sensation of hardness, or wetness, or motion. The flower (and many things odorless to us) are sensed by smell as well as outline and color. There is no form to the tree but only outline. No notion of thick- ness but only a curving plane surface. Sight reveals nothing but surfaces and directions, and these surfaces are associated with other things such as objects moving, giving food, affording a place to lie down, giving sensations of pleasure or pain. Many things are sensed as associated with food, as the dinner bell with 54 THE SOURCE OF POWER us and equally with the dog. A smell of fish galvanizes a cat; it means pleasant food. So the cackle of a hen to a hawk. So we see that surfaces, sounds, odors, etc., are sensed as things outside associated chiefly with the satisfaction of a sensation of hunger. Now to help us in our further consideration (in chap. Ill, 3) it is necessary to understand several points clearly. These are, that animals sense things (1) as individual objects; (2) as plane surfaces with no idea of what is meant by "inside," and (3) as separate things with no possible notion of what is meant by parts of a whole. That animals sense objects only as individual things is evident when we consider what it means to do otherwise. To have any notion of a tree except as an individual tree, it would be necessary to have the power of comparing one object with another, selecting points they have in common, all peculiarities being noted and put aside, and forming a concept that would embrace many trees or all trees. It can be shown that any creature that could do this would be able to talk. So we must conclude that no animal senses anything otherwise than as a single separate thing. To a dog one tree would be "bow", the next "bow-wow," the third "bow-wow-wow," and so on. It is impossible for it to have an idea of a common noun like tree. It is equally impossible for it to conceive of a plural noun. There is no power to classify and put two objects in the same class. From this it will be seen that the memory of an animal is im- mensely more burdened than ours. The dog that has buried something under a cherry tree gets no help from that fact. He remembers the place unrelated to anything else and goes straight to it. It is thought that a dog shows signs of age when its mind will take in no more. It loses track of things and appears dull. The second point is that animals sense things as plane surfaces and have no idea of what is meant by "inside" or what we call the third dimension. It cannot get any idea of solid bodies. It is well to ask ourselves how we get the idea, inasmuch as we never see inside! The animal cannot understand perspective. It sees things as though there were no perspective. Perspective is a curious ap- pearance about things—the way they look, we say—but not the THE SENSES AND SENSATIONS 55 way they are. The mind of man has learned to make allowance for this, in a drawing of a cube the sides are not equal. If they were drawn equal it would not look Hke a cube. This deception is seen in the converging of the rails of a railroad as one looks along them, or in the sudden, remarkable diminishing or falling together of the end of a train as you watch it speed by and recede from you. Its eventual disappearance in a point is another illusion. The mind "corrects" these appearances, you know they are illusions. But the animal has no such power of correcting what he sees. The dog, for example, lives in a world of constant motion. Every time he moves motion starts up everywhere. We have all noticed the curious relative motion of the trees or buildings as we dash by in a train. So it is as the dog runs. The trees nearest him rush past him, those farther off are changing their positions, the farthest away seem to be going with him, nothing is still. Even walls and fences move. Remember that the dog knows nothing of perspective and so when he looks towards the corner of a house he sees both sides stretching out and making a straight wall. As he runs toward the corner the sides seem to run away from him and when he reaches it it is a wall no longer but simply an upright. So he can get no idea of three dimensions. He runs along one wall and at the corner suddenly finds it running off in another direction, and so on till he finds himself where he started. The problem of a hunter coming back to the point he started from is quite a different thing. The hunter knew of the possibility of walking in a circle (or he might know it) but failed to notice that he was doing so. The dog knows nothing of circles or walls that enclose anything. And if he feels surprise at finding himself at the spot he started from, it may lead some day to the dog's acquiring a consciousness of an inside. Surprise—a sense of the wondrous—is a plain indication that the consciousness is ready to expand and take in the new. The dog does not know the inside even when he is in it. Sup- pose there is a field fenced in and having a gate in the middle of one side. The dog will run along the fence until he reaches the gate. For a moment he may experience a strange sensation of being about to grasp the unknown idea of "within." But turning 56 THE SOURCE OF POWER into the gate he sees the fence again on the inside and continues to follow lines—no nearer to the "within." Why can he not see that he is really inside though he does not know it? Because to realize that he was inside, he would have to understand what inside meant and this is what he cannot grasp. The dog must liberate himself from the idea that what he sees and senses really exists, and get a consciousness of the incorrect- ness of his perceptions of the world about him. Then may come the idea of a new, real world that exists in quite other forms. The third point is that animals sense each thing as something quite different and separate from every other thing. There is no idea of a thing being a part of another thing. There is no notion of a whole with parts. So with the walls of a house. To a dog each one seems some- thing different, running off in a different direction. The coming back to the remembered starting point is inexplicable because it cannot get the idea of the inclosed space. It seems as if its kennel would give it the idea, but it does not. He follows the wall on the inside just as on the outside and is no nearer the idea of an inside. The reason is that the idea of "inside" cubic contents is a mental idea. These considerations of the limitations of an animal should be very clearly grasped. They are our limitations apart from intel- lect. It is from such facts that we learn what the intellect is and how it has adapted us to our environment. If there be another environment in another world than this, that has so to speak more dimensions than this, as this, for us, has more than the animal world, the door to that world is not to be found by hunting for it, but in the sense of the wondrous! Before leaving the subject of sensing phenomena it is necessary to notice that all phenomena are not external to our bodies. They seem external only to our consciousness. Many sensations arise within us which are sensed by us as outward things but not by the senses. Such things are pleasure, pain, heat, as in fever, etc. These are sensations and correspond to our feelings. They are known immediately by the consciousness. CHAPTER VI Desire-Will Idea of will confused. Will divided into desire-will, obligation- will and spirit-will. Will in animals determined by bodily desires. The strongest desire is the will. Strong will and weak will. Higher acts of will traceable to desire. The idea of puritan moralist. Expediency. Glimmering of moral ideas in animals. Sense of obligation. The will is a confused and hazy subject in the minds of many persons because of the diverse uses of the word. It is the power of choice, it is the expression of choice, it is a desire, a whim, a determination, a last testament, etc. It is also a summing up of the entire man in the supreme choice. We have to do in this book with only the first and last sense. When we begin to study the will we find that every kind of choice it is in our power to make will arrange itself under one of three heads. It will be an act of animal will, moral will or spirtual will, corresponding to our three spheres of consciousness: the purely animal consciousness, the consciousness that recognizes moral obligation and that which realizes itself as spirtual—sons of God. We have noticed before that anything that has to do with consciousness, life or soul, will not submit to any clear cut divi- sions. It is out of the question to see either class clearly defined, that is, to find a man that is all animal with no morals, another that is a moral being with no animal desires, or a third that has attained a spirit consciousness so completely as to be totally free from the Law. We remember that the great Apostle said this and we do not doubt its ultimate attainment, but we speak of the ordinary experience. We may tabulate this as follows: 1. Desire-will. Choosing to do a thing for the simple gratifica- tion of body or mind. The strongest desire becomes the will. 2. Obligation-will. A choice seemingly contrary to desire, recog- nizing an obligation (a law, or the will of another person), a moral 57 58 THE SOURCE OF POWER obligation as differing from expediency, an idea of duty, expressed by "ought." 3. Spirit-will. The consciousness of union with a supreme spirit and entire surrender of all other will. Each of these three wills will be considered in a chapter by itself. The question of freedom of will scarcely obtains in the first divi- sion, but applies mainly to 2 and 3. Freedom in 2 means the ability to accept or reject the spirit within, as the source of moral law, the feeling of the obligation to do right. In 3 consists the great choice, and freedom of will means the ability to accept or reject the spirit (not as the source of obligation, but) as God Himself, the acceptance or rejection of the Divine Spirit, and immortal life "in the Spirit." When we consider what the origin of will is we get an illuminat- ing and unifying idea. It must have its origin in the animal for there is no apparent fine of division between the animal and man. When the difference appears, it is not one of will. The animal has an unmistakable will. It is strong and weak, stubborn and wilful, just as man's will is. It is vacillating and fickle, domi- neering and masterful. What is this will in an animal? It is simply the expression of its desire for something. It may be food that it sees and appropriates if it can. It may be the first place in the food fine at the kitchen door, it may be the corn in a for- bidden field, it may be the bird in an unguarded cage or it may be just a place in the sun. The origin of will seems to be found in the desire for the gratifi- cation of bodily wants. It is therefore a Desire-Will. It has nothing moral about it, no question of right or wrong, no question of freedom of choice. The determining factor in an animal's will is simply one of power. It is expressed not by ought but by can. It is a very simple proposition. If it wills to take a run it takes it, if it is not shut up. You can do the same if you have the opportunity. It is the same desire showing itself in will and action. Choice enters in always but is determined by desire, the strongest desire is the will. A dog desires a run with its master. It encounters the scent of a rabbit and signals it with a cry. There is a choice between the two courses. If the desire to follow the rabbit is desire-will 59 stronger than the desire to be with its master it will follow the scent. Who cannot realize the fascination of it! If otherwise, it resigns one pleasure for the other. Is it any wonder that we love a dog that will do that? And the winsome way it has of doing it! There is no idea of duty, and we are rather glad of it. Why should duty be such a disagreeable word? Duty is one of the strong, noble ideas in fife, and one of the horridest—to the recipient! Did he do this because he liked me and wanted to do it, or because he felt he had to—he owed it to me? Why judge others? Duty is not disagreeable, it is we that are unloving and selfish. Animals show strong and weak wills. The strong will is not merely the expression of the greatest strength. We know about the lion's share, but some wills are strong in their persistency, the untiring lying in wait for the opportunity. When transferred into the moral sphere and exercised in malam partem this becomes malice. There are weak wills, animals that readily obey; the will is broken. The domineering will is always present among dogs; there is no peace nor cessation of bullying till the weaker have all kissed the paw of the stronger. Probably it is the same among all species. And it must have been like this among primitive man. It is so now in a more or less genteel way. There are many things that move the will that seem different but they are all traceable to desire. Even the highest acts of will are prompted by the loftier desires. But there are some moralists who will not see it in this fight. There must be no pleasure, no delight, in an act or it is a low, base thing. The only admirable thing with these ultra-spirits is the spectacle of a man crossed and crucified in every innocent pleasure, willing, painfully and with torturing effort, to be what a loving Father made him to be! What a devil of a nature such a man must have! The chief consideration that moves the will (quite apart from morals) is expediency. The thing that will get you the most, put the most money in your pocket. The materialists of the last two centuries have tried to see in expediency the source of all moral ideas. And this miserable travesty on all that is good and holy 60 THE SOURCE OF POWER is not dead yet. They do not venture to say that one loves his mother for what he can get out of it (this would be inexpedient!). But they say "Honesty is the best pohcy!" The appeal to the pocket! But can we say that there is no moral glimmering in the life of an animal? It seems impossible to draw the line. The herd and pack with laws that are rigidly enforced certainly point to the beginnings of a moral law. The thing that is done not from pure bodily desire but from obligation. The emergence of the idea of duty. CHAPTER VII Memory and the Imaging Power Memory of subconscious mind perfect. Not proved. Cannot be requisitioned. Locke's distinction between memory and recol- lection. The latter belongs to the conscious mind. Recollec- tion seems to depend on association of ideas. Difference between recollection and memory emphasized by Hamilton and Beasley. Illustrations. Instance of memory from Coleridge. Indelible impressions not consciously remembered. Question of identity. Personality racial. "Consciousness of kind." Impressed per- sonality—Individuality dependent on memory. Analogy of house and basement to distinguish memory from recollection. The imaging power. Not true imagination. The memory of the subconscious mind is thought to be perfect, and there is much that lends itself to such a belief, although it cannot be proved. The deeper recesses of its memory can only be partially sounded, and this only under abnormal conditions. The repression of the subconscious mind by the conscious, as some would put it, is jealously complete. Or it may be that the con- scious effort to remember is the main reason why we are not able to. The subconscious mind seems to resent anything like requisition and only opens its stores when we are thinking of something else. There are phenomena that suggest such an idea. Let us begin with Locke, in "Concerning the Human Under- standing," i, p. 213: When an idea again recurs without the operation of a like object on the external sensory, it is remembrance; if it be sought after by the mind and with pain and endeavor found and brought again into view, it is recollection. The distinction between memory and recollection is funda- mental; the latter belonging to the conscious, the former to the subconscious mind. With regard to recollection there seems to be little of importance to note. The expression, "Committing to memory" is a significant phrase and a true idea, but practically is explained as making a sufficiently strong impression on the 61 62 THE SOURCE OF POWER visual or auditory sphere of the brain cortex that the words or sounds can be consciously recalled at will. This explanation of the method is unproved and unconvincing but the ability can be acquired. The success of the undertaking is thought to depend upon concentration and sensitiveness. Another explanation is given in the chapter on the association of ideas, which may be nearer the truth. Interesting experiments are described in McDougalTs "Body and Mind." Unfortunately many persons make no distinction between recollection and memory, though Locke,1 Sir Wm. Hamilton and Beasley point it out with precision and illustration. Beasley gives the testimony of experts showing that the insane, whose conscious mind is in abeyance, are able to recite whole pas- sages which they could not recollect when in a normal condition. Hamilton, also, testifies that under abnormal conditions patients could recite passages in unknown tongues that were never within the grasp of the conscious memory. If we are normal we are only very dimly if at all conscious of the vast stores of memory, and, when abnormal, our exhibition of subconscious memory cannot be afterward recalled. So we must take the testimony of experts. Coleridge2 gives a curious account of a servant girl, who, when suffering with fever, repeated long passages of Hebrew and Greek, of which languages she knew not even the names when normal. A doctor investigated this case and found that, many years before, the woman had been a maid in the house of a learned pastor who was accustomed to walk back and forth in a hall com- municating with the kitchen reading aloud in these languages. The very passages repeated by the patient were found in the pastor's books. It may be regarded as practically certain that the subconscious mind is so sensitive that the least incident, thought, or word, is indelibly impressed upon it. Surely this is a wonderful thing, no less comforting when we think of the vast amount of material we have painstakingly stored away and which plays its part in making us what we are, than it is disquieting when we consider the 1 Lectures on Metaphysics, p. 474. 2 Biographia Literaria, 1847, I, 117. MEMORY AND THE IMAGING POWER 63 things we would fain not remember. The Bible hints at the possi- bility of these memories being blotted out in the minds of those who deserve this mercy. We cannot recall many things, and are apt to think ourselves other than we are. There is to be noted in this connection the important part that memory plays in the question of identity. The consciousness of personality is that of the race. It is the sociological "consciousness of kind," the consciousness that all men have, and perhaps all the consciousness possessed by the lower types. Higher types impress self on this personality. It is the self that has done this or that, that knows this or that, etc., that is, the self is defined in terms of a complex of memories, not alone of things but of thoughts, aspirations, ideals, etc., and out of this complex emerges the individuality. Memory is the distinguishing factor of individuality and we cannot imagine continuity of con- sciousness without memory. Let us conclude this chapter with an analogy which may help to fix in the mind the distinction between memory and recollection and also to image in a crude way the conscious and the subcon- scious states. We may imagine we are living, each one of us, in a large house all on the ground floor, but having a basement. We are surrounded by all the objects of our everyday fife. Some of the objects are things, some are thoughts. Whatever is in our ordinary consciousness is there. We have only to glance at them to see them distinctly. There are, however, so many objects there that some are hidden by others. But they are there, and we have only to concentrate our attention on them to see them. Now frequently it happens that we look for something that we know was there and yet now we cannot find it. We then, as it were, summon an attendant and send him to the basement to find it for us. The basement, which is only dimly lighted, contains everything in replica that the house has, or ever had—things that have been long disused, and have been, as it were, crowded out of the living floor and gradually gone into storage below, to give place for new objects. 64 THE SOURCE OF POWER In the house everything is arranged in fairly good order and we can see everything without much difficulty, just as we can books in a reading room, the others are "stacked" below. It is quite possible that there may be cellars still lower down containing things used in a previous life, if there be any such thing, but as we cannot recall anything clearly enough to send for it, we practically know nothing about it. The doors, if there be any, are not visible. But still we must recognize the possibility of these basements and cellars being opened up some day—illumi- nated by consciousness now latent—and of our being able to see again all the things there and know them for our own. Now the living floor represents, of course, our clear, self-con- sciousness, and we have a sense of the reality and truth of what we see in it. The weather, our home life, our friends, the details of our occupation, our recreations, our books, our store of used facts, our thoughts, our feelings, etc., for years back are all there, and also many constantly used bits of knowledge hke the tables of arithmetic, dating back scores of years, and a few odds and ends that consciousness has often played upon, selected in some way we do not clearly comprehend from the experience of all our past life. Sometimes, in this extensive collection we do not see at once what we want, but we hunt for it among things of its own kind, things in some way associated with it in thought, and we often find it. This is recollection. The basement below, which is dimly lighted, is our simple consciousness, our subconscious mind. When we think of any- thing but cannot find it in the house, we discover that the attend- ant (about whom we know nothing) has been despatched below to try and find it. In many cases he returns with it and hands it to us unexpectedly when we may be engaged with something else. Quite often this attendant brings us a thought we were not con- scious of seeking, sometimes very opportunely, and we receive it gratefully. This is pure memory. We sometimes go down into the basement ourselves, semi- conscious only of what we find there, in the twilight of wakefulness. Everything seems to lack order and sensible grouping, and there is no sense of truth and reahty about them. There is no sense of MEMORY AND THE IMAGING POWER 65 time there, and all the past, our past, lies as it were heaped up in one spot. For all we know, the future may be there too, not absolutely defined but conditionally, depending on our free will to render it fixed, to make it an irrevocable present. The dim perception of things in this basement is like that of dreams. But when we go above again we find we can recall some things quite vividly for a time, and if we make this effort at once we can even restore some things to the house again. This picture may help some persons to get a clearer idea of our complex selves. Closely connected with memory is the faculty of seeing things with the mind. The subconscious mind displays this imaging power in dreams and day dreams. It is a very curious experience. You realize your attitude of not apparently willing or making these pictures—sometimes most lifelike—and of not knowing what will come next. You must be very passive—no conscious thought or reasoning—just seeing. This is the wonderland of children. They live in it, but we grown ups can enjoy it too if we learn how. Do not confuse this imaging power with the imagination. Im- agination is a ship sailing into the unknown, but you are invariably at the tiller. CHAPTER VIII Telepathy Telepathy and kinetic energy last powers to be recognized. Amaz- ing problems solved by telepathy. Unreasonable to deny truth of phenomena. Why scoffed at. Telepathy not a power of conscious mind. Testimony of Hudson (1893) and McDougall (1920). Typical example. Telepathy through three minds. Another example. Storehouse of memory drawn on. Sweden- borg. Messages sent at death. Messages by planchette. The powers of the subconscious mind that have been the last to obtain recognition are telepathy and kinetic energy. The latter will occupy our attention in the following chapter. In dealing with these faculties we recognize many of the phe- nomena as those associated with mental healing and spiritism. A careful consideration will be accorded to these subjects because of the important place they hold in the thought and literature of the day. Telepathy is now recognized by many as the key to a number of amazing problems. How the mind can effect tangible results at great distances, how a person can learn things he has no ap- parent means of finding out, how he can tell you things about yourself that even you do not know, how he can reveal facts that are not remembered by anyone living, how a person can answer the question of another without its ever having been expressed, and without even knowing what the question is; these and many other astounding feats are being performed today. Either this, or we must refuse to believe the deliberate statements of highly intelligent and trained observers. Let us make no mistake about this. It is just as reasonable to deny the existence of radium as the actuality of these phenomena. The reason why many exceptionally intelligent persons scoff at such facts is not only because they are astounded by them but because they do not know of the existence of the powers that make them possible. 66 telepathy 67 We say to the materialistic skeptic that thought transference is no more incredible than that a picture of a prize fight should have been sent from Annapolis to Malmaison by wireless. But we sense his pitying shrug. "We know wireless, and we know etherial waves." Granted. But we also know thought and— etherial waves. Some people know everything when they have a theory! But whether we have any theory for it or not, the transference of thought from one subconscious mind to another is too well established to be denied. The sender of such a conscious thought of course, knows it. His subconscious mind also knows it and despatches it—how, we cannot tell. It may be by etherial thought waves. At any rate it is done. Now no one claims that this message is received by the conscious mind of the recipient. It is received by his subconscious mind, an4 may never be known by his conscious mind. He may be completely unaware of the existence of the thought at all. And yet it may affect him through the action of his subconscious mind, and be only known in its results. As long ago as 1893, Hudson1 writes of the phenomenon of telepathy as follows: The first proposition is, that there is inherent in mankind the power to communicate thought to others independently of objective means of com- munication. The truth of this general proposition has been so thoroughly demonstrated by the members of the London Society for Psychical Re- search that time and space will not be wasted in its further elucidation. For a full treatment of the subject the reader is referred to "Phantasms of the Living," in which the results of the researches of that Society are ably set forth by Messrs. Edmund Gurney, F. W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore. It is confidently assumed, therefore, that the power of tele- pathic communication is as thoroughly established as any fact in nature. As recently as 1920, Professor McDougall of Harvard repeats substantially the same statement. If any reasonable man feels that the fact of telepathy is still open to question, he should inquire into the basis upon which the larger part of his knowledge rests. Absolute conviction for many comes only through experience. 1 "Law of Psychic Phenomena," p. 176. 68 THE SOURCE OF POWER A typical example of telepathy is narrated and vouched for by Hudson. A traveling friend on his way to Florida wrote to Hud- son to ask him to arrange to show him some psychic phenomena when he passed through Washington. With some difficulty a meeting was arranged with a gentlemen who had psychic powers but was sensitive about having them known. The traveler ar- rived in the evening and was taken to the man by Hudson. On his entering the room the psychic came forward to be introduced and immediately said, "I understand you are on your way to Florida. I am not a prophet but I will venture to say that you will not go to Florida tomorrow." The traveler was a trifle nettled and affirmed that he should certainly go as he had planned. Several interesting experiments were then made and the former remark was forgotten. However, when the traveler returned to his hotel he found a telegram from his family physician announc- ing his wife's serious illness and requesting his immediate return. He returned at once. The next day Dr. Hudson saw the psychic and asked him for an explanation. The gentleman replied that as soon as he had met the man he found that he knew of the wife's sudden illness and on the strength of that knowledge he ventured to make a prophecy. This incident is exceedingly instructive and contains in it an explanation of the most mysterious and apparently inexplicable phenomena. It shows that the wife had sent her husband word by telepathy that she was ill and wanted him with her. This message, quite unknown to the recipient, was in his subconscious mind. He not being en rapport with the subconscious, i.e., not being a psychic, was entirely unconscious of the important fact. Had he gone to sleep without receiving the telegram, he might have dreamed of the illness of his wife or had some premonition of it, some uneasi- ness he could not explain, that might have led to his telegraphing to see if all was well. The psychic acquired the important news by telepathy (mind reading) as soon as he saw the man. He must get en rapport with him, however, and then he gets only this bit of information which the traveler's subconscious mind took this way of bringing to conscious knowledge. Psychics are not aware of anything one does not want them to know. In this way the TELEPATHY 69 message passes through three minds before it came to light: the wife's, the husband's and the psychic's minds—subconscious minds. Another excellent instance of telepathic thought passing through three minds is narrated by Hudson. A traveling telepathist and her husband visited Washington and gave a series of public ex- hibitions in which persons in the audience were asked to write a question on a paper, sign their name and put the paper in their pocket. The wife, who was on the stage in a hypnotic state, would then read out the name on the paper in the pocket and answer the question. Dr. Hudson did not go to the meeting himself but transferred to a friend the name of a card by telepathy and asked the friend to see if the woman could read the thought which had been transferred to his mind. The friend did not know the name of the card, but wrote a question asking what card was in his mind and put the paper in his pocket after signing his name. The hypnotized woman read the name but said she could not see the card clearly. She saw red spots. After resting awhile and being hypnotized again she said it was still confused but appeared to be the nine of diamonds. The friend conveyed the answer to Dr. Hudson and learned that the card that had been telepathed by him was the ten of diamonds. Now if you add to the facts brought out in these examples, two facts that have been established about the subconscious mind, first, that intimate friends and especially members of a family unconsciously share their thoughts with one another, and have this subconscious knowledge in common (a matter of every day experience in many families), and secondly, that all past experience is treasured up in each subconscious mind and can be drawn on under certain conditions, if you take these two facts in connection with the message passing through three minds, you will be able to see how many seemingly impossible phenomena can be under- stood. It must be remembered that distance is nothing between friends. The distance between the wife and the husband is no hindrance. Space and time are seen not to exist for the sub- conscious mind. Another incident will serve to illustrate the power of the sub- conscious mind to draw from the storehouse of memory. It is 70 THE SOURCE OF POWER narrated of Swedenborg who was a great psychic, that he learned, while stopping at a friend's house, that the man's father had died without telling his son where he had kept an important paper. Swedenborg was able to read this information in the son's mind and described the hiding place of the paper in an old desk. The desk had been searched many times but the information given them by Swedenborg enabled them to discover the secret hiding place and find the paper. The son had shared the father's sub- conscious mind. One thing that has helped to add mystery to this subject is that many telepathic messages have seemed to come from persons after they were dead, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, at the time of death. It is a fact that it is impossible to say just when a person dies. A leading physician recently made the state- ment that the skin was alive a week after the apparent death and could be used for grafting. Now this being the case, it often happens that telepathic messages seem to have been sent after death. There are thou- sands of cases where the desire to communicate the fact of death has been so strong that the person was able to materialize a body that was visible to relatives at great distances. It was found that the death took place at the time or shortly before the appearance was seen. This fact makes it possible to understand how mes- sages have been received from persons at the moment of death. There is nothing uncanny about these facts, they are simply unfamiliar. Some of the most convincing truths of telepathy are obtained by means of the planchette which writes or points to letters or figures. The writer has witnessed some instructive experiments where the board has answered mental questions asked by persons whose fingers were not touching it. When one has seen this done time after time conviction is forced upon the most skeptical mind. One of the best instances of this kind was where a mental question was asked, which, it transpired afterwards, neither of the opera- tors was able to answer. It took an hour or more to get the an- swer but at last, as though grudgingly, it was written—the name of a Greek philosopher. TELEPATHY 71 Another time it predicted the day of a child's birth at least eight months before the event. One of the remarkable things it would do was to point to num- bers so rapidly that they could scarcely be taken down. The numbers were found to correspond to the alphabet and a sentence was given in that way. It would be a rather remarkable person who could do that with the conscious mind. The operators could not and had no idea what the numbers meant until the truth dawned upon them. Such feats are nothing to the sub- conscious mind. The last two incidents seem to illustrate subconscious action rather than telepathy but the essential principles stated above will no doubt enable the reader to find the solution of many problems. CHAPTER IX Kinetic Energy Power to produce motion apart from objective application of force. The power that moves muscles of body. Absurd to expect motion without energy. Muscular movement analysed. Only moved by mind. Voluntary and involuntary movement. Can the subconscious mind move things outside of the body? Experi- ments with planchette. Faith necessary. Slate writing. Table tipping. Power apparently unlimited. The most curious and extraordinary power of the subconscious mind and yet the commonest, the least understood and yet at the same time the best known, is kinetic energy. Kinetic energy may be defined as the power to produce motion by the simple action of the will, apart from any objective applica- tion from any force whatsoever. A typical example of kinetic energy (for the sake of illustration) would be to will a chair to move towards you and have it obey your will. The exhibition of it in slate writing, table tipping, levitation, planchette or ouija board, etc., has been splendidly ridiculed and effectively discredited. It has been, and still is, much scoffed at, but only by the thoughtless, because everyone uses it in a most astonishing manner whenever he moves a muscle of his body! Of course, the movement of muscles is one of those obvious things that every child knows about. It is muscular contraction. Simply a property that muscles have. But what makes them contract? And what makes them do it at the command of an intelligent mind? Does it not seem pretty clear that the term "muscular contraction" is nothing but a blind ■—a sort of refuge that the mind seeks in order to escape the fatigue of thought? Think of it. Do things move by themselves? We know how easily a rubber band can be stretched, and how it will contract of its own accord. Lay one down before you and watch it do either of these things. A silly idea? Then what shall we think of those persons who say that flesh is so different from rubber that it can 72 KINETIC energy 73 move by itself? But it does, you say. Well, watch it when it is separated from a living mind. But precisely how do muscles move? You may think of the motion but nothing happens. Then you move it and it contracts at once, but there is no distinction that thought can discover between willing to move it and moving it. We may go back to the idea already spoken of in detail, that there is an intelligence in the body that originally built it, and constructed the whole wonderful mechanism of muscles that the anatomist describes so patiently and admirably and you are inevitably led to the conviction that only that intelligence that made the muscles can move them. We can make a plain statement then, with some confidence: The muscles of the body move when the subconscious mind moves them and they never move at any other time, any more than a rubber band does* Of course we do not understand how spirit exercises this power, but we cannot deny that it does it. We see it in the motions connected with metabolism, we see it in the beating of the heart, and we are glad to admit that the mind that exercises this power never sleeps nor loses consciousness. The subconscious mind moves any muscle of the body at its own pleasure, and it commonly moves a certain set of muscles in response to our conscious desire. We cannot distinguish between these two acts but we know there are many muscles that do not respond to the request of the conscious will. We further know that even the latent consciousness of the cells can use this power and cause involuntary twitching of the skin, goose flesh and creeping sensation. A curious thing is kinetic energy. But suppose we concede this power to move muscles. The question still remains, can it act on anything outside the body? Must we admit this as the moving power in the phenomena re- ferred to above? Among those who have studied these phenomena all but. the extremely incredulous have already done so. Kinetic energy is most easily tested by the movement of the planchette or ouija board. The planchette is a heart shaped, thin piece of wood with two gliders, such as are used under the legs of chairs, under the larger end, and a pencil inserted in a 74 THE SOURCE OF POWER slightly slanted hole near the pointed end. This instrument affords the simplest means we know of by which the subconscious mind can produce motion outside of the body. Let us put out of our minds for the time, any thought of the intelligence exhibited in what is drawn, written or pointed to. The question now is, whether or not the board will move without being moved by the muscles. This can be easily tested. There is hardly a family in which there are not two persons, at the lightest contact of whose finger tips the board will move. The elbow should not rest on the table. The conditions under which this movement takes place are patience and faith. As to the first, the body seems to need training in order freely to transmit this power, and as to the faith, Jouffroy says, the subconscious mind will not take the trouble to work for those who do not believe in it. But we must note again that nothing that has to do with mind is simple. If it were, all the facts about it would have been tabu- lated long ago. So do not be surprised to find that there is another factor that must be reckoned with. A skeptic is often able by the power of adverse suggestion to limit the power of another's subconscious mind. One of the greatest psychics of his day, Mr. Bishop, who had read hundreds of messages sealed in envelopes, was unable to read the number on a bank note which Labouchere had offered to give him on that condition. The London editor had com- pletely inhibited Bishop's power by the public expression of incredulity in the headlines of his journal. Many children when dared to attempt some feat have failed because of this expressed doubt. By far the most striking instance of the inhibiting effect of unbelief is to be found in the Gospel statement that Jesus was unable to perform cures when among his scoffing townsfolk. But to return to the planchette. When the necessary condi- tions are present, it will move, even though it makes no intelligible lines. To those who touch it, it seems alternately to push towards and draw away from them. You may touch so lightly that any communication of muscular power is precluded. It seems at KINETIC ENERGY 75 times to be actually moving without contact. Perhaps it will some day, when we learn more of the secrets of kinetic energy. The Master moved fish into the net of his disciples, and promises us like power, even to moving mountains, when we should have learned the secret of applying faith. He was too wise to commit such power to those who would use it in the slightest degree unwisely. Herein is contained the secret, but it is only for those who prove themselves worthy. The writer is well aware that these are the things that excite the ridicule of the "wise and prudent," but let it be so now. The phenomenon of slatewriting is a less common exhibition of kinetic energy and one that can be produced only by a highly endowed psychic. The bit of pencil between the slates writes when the psychic touches the outside of the slate. Professor Zollner of Leipsic tells of most remarkable exhibitions of kinetic energy; so remarkable indeed that he was thought to be insane by those who did not know him. The idea is amply refuted by by the fact that he continued for years to hold his chair in the university. Table tipping is a quite common manifestation of this power. It is, like the planchette, a parlor amusement. Disregard entirely the question of the intelligence that is shown by the motions and center the attention on the fact of the motion. Unquestionably the inanimate table does move, and that without the slightest exercise of muscular force. This kinetic energy has never been tested to the limit. A table will successively stand on two legs and then on one leg, and no strength exerted on the elevated portion of the table will bring it down to the floor. The table will break first. There are many persons who can exert this power feebly. Those who can exercise a stronger power can cause a piano to rise. One hesitates to go further. It is suggested to the incredulous that they find persons who can manifest this power and witness it for themselves. The great increase in physical power shown by the delirious, the insane, those in danger of losing their lives, those in demoniacal rage, etc.. is apparently due to the same energy. There are apparently no limits to the power of kinetic energy. 76 THE SOURCE OF POWER A power that can cause the levitation of a table is not different in kind from that which can move a mountain, or any other feat you choose to imagine. It is only different in degree. It seems unnecessary to apply the facts stated above to the phenomena adduced by spiritists. The readers can easily do this for themselves. Spiritists have ceased to place any special significance on these phenomena. CHAPTER X Mental Healing Four questions. 1. Can healing be accomplished? Proof. 2. Can it be done by our own suggestion? 3. How is this suggestion made? Question of reality. 4. Can we heal others? Distance means nothing. Method alone is essential. Knowledge of laws removes skepticism. Medicine often helpful and necessary. The Master worked in accordance with physical laws. Truth of narrative proved. Examination of St. Mark. 5. Why kept secret? Suggest health. When we approach the subject of mental healing there at once present themselves four clearly defined questions: Can it be done at all? Can it be done by us? And if so, how? A fourth ques- tion is not far off: can it be done for others? 1. We may be quite convinced, let us say theoretically, to placate the doubters, that there is within us, inherent in the very cells of our organism, an intelligence that has built it step by step to its present state. A mind, if you will, that has created this body and owns it, and, with the spirit that has come to it we know not whence, makes up the human soul with its threefold division. However firmly we may be convinced of this, the question arises, can this mind do other than adhere blindly to the original purpose set before it? Must it not be limited in its action to the develop- ment of that marvellous plan, as marvellously impressed upon it, the impulse of the primal urge towards outward expression, that has been the form of whatever life and growth it manifested? Can this mind within us take one step that was not planned for it in advance? Can it heed the call of the human soul, the master mind, the conscious ruler of its destinies, and do a single thing that it would not otherwise have done? Can it respond to the voice, the inspiration, of the spirit within, and make the face less sensual, the expression less arrogant or even one line less severe? The question has partly answered itself. These changes can be produced and we have seen them come. But these changes are intangible—we feel them rather than see them. Are there plain, unmistakable, physical changes in the flesh that can be produced by the inner mind? There are. 77 78 THE SOURCE OF POWER Think what happens when the body is wounded. But this healing, you say, is not consciously produced. Are there effects that are produced by the conscious mind? Professor Bernheim tells of several experiments that demon- strate this. He describes putting a stamp on the back of a patient telling him that it was a plaster to produce a blister, and the blister was actually produced. He narrates several cases where by means of suggestion and nothing else he caused the nose to bleed at a set time the next day, the patient not being consciously aware of the suggestion. He caused bloody stigmata. He marked the person's name on the skin with a blunt instrument and, by suggestion, caused the lines to bleed. There are countless experiments that demonstrate the power and willingness of the inner mind to produce physical changes. It may be asked concerning the whole question of healing, why is it necessary to suggest health to the subconscious mind if that mind has been originally charged to keep the body well? It is because we are constantly making or listening to suggestions of sickness. Think what a staple of conversation disease is and all its symptoms! Even when this folly has been done away, there is a fear of sickness of which many persons are conscious who nevertheless think they have faith! 2. We have been considering effects produced in the body at the suggestion of another person, a physician of wide experience. Can we ourselves produce them in our own body? A simple and sufficient demonstration of the power of our own suggestion to produce physical effects is given in the following case. A person after eating some highly seasoned meat was led to the conviction that his Chinese cook had used other flesh than lamb in its preparation. He was at once taken violently sick, a physical effect that left no room for doubt. The next day when the cook appeared he proved that he had used lamb and nothing else. Had the person eaten the vermin, that might have produced the effect, but as it was, the thought produced it. Symptoms of almost any disease can be produced by suggestion, e.g., total or partial paralysis, fever, high pulse and temperature, chills, severe pains, etc. MENTAL HEALING 79 3. It has already been shown how the effect is produced. It is by potent suggestion to the subconscious mind to do the thing required, or rather, that it has already been done. This mind, we must remember, is in some aspects the docile, obedient, unques- tioning mind of a child. A child falls down; we immediately tell it that it is not hurt and it finds that this is the case. The child's mind has received the suggestion and removed any painful con- sequence. Very wonderful results have been produced in this way simply by suggestion. To cure a headache one makes the suggestion that the pain is going away, and repeats the suggestion until a change for the better is noticed. It is then asserted confidently that the headache is gone! Then think no more about it. If you have faith it will disappear. There are, of course, troubles that require medicine, but any trouble that does not, will yield to suggestion. It some- times takes time. At first sight all this seems like make-believe, an illusion, a kind of absurd magic. It is hid from the "wise and prudent" and revealed unto babes. But why doubt? Remember the case of the men who were told that they were going fishing. The sub- conscious mind will believe the suggestion even if, to the conscious mind, it seems foolish. This is one of the curious, unfamiliar, laws of the subconscious mind that seems to shake our sense of reality. Perhaps the sphere of reality has been misconceived by us, because our education and training has, as it were, limited the "real" to the things perceived through the five senses. This, again, seems to the hard headed hard to receive. The whole question of reality will give much food for meditation. The seen, we are told, is passing, the unseen is eternal. 4. Can we extend the scope of mental healing to include others? This has already been shown. It is easier to do than to heal ourselves, because our conscious mind by doubt, can negative and destroy any suggestion we can give ourselves. In the case of others, this condition can be partly removed by not letting them know about our effort to heal them. The time to try it is when they are asleep. With ourselves the best time is the interval between waking and sleep—at least until faith is stronger. Try to remove headache in yourself. Try to secure a quiet, painless, rest for another. One can soon learn to have faith. 80 THE SOURCE OF POWER Distance makes no difference. The message sent by telepathy will reach farther than that sent by wireless. A well read person will wish to ask a question at this point. He knows that all the ancient religions and mysteries claimed the power to heal and did heal. Also the Indian medicine man healed. Why then is it necessary to know anything about the subconscious mind and its laws? The answer is, it is not necessary. All that is necessary is that the healer should know how, and the sick person have faith in his method. But we are living in an age of skepticism. All that is unseen seems unreal, and it is hard to have faith in the unseen. For this reason the rationale of mental healing, appealing to our "scientific consciousness," is a great help. It is easier to believe when we have an idea how it is done. This same reason adds much to the efficacy of medicines. Medicines will not be rejected nor undervalued by anyone who has thought deeply on the subject of mental healing. There are not many of them, it is true, but those we have are evidently designed to do a specific work. They are, as it were, a special food required by the body under certain conditions, and it is an un- warranted act that savors of presumption to reject them in favor of a faith that, God knows, is weak enough. This is no reason, however, why one should take medicine without the advice of a trained physician. It may be of interest to read what Hudson says of his own experiences thirty years ago. After narrating a cure of rheuma- tism, Hudson continues, Of course, this may have been a coincidence, but a hundred such coinci- dences will not happen in succession without a single break; and more than a hundred experiments have been made by this process by myself and two other persons, and not a single failure has thus far been experi- enced, when the proper conditions have been observed. The diseases successfully treated were: rheumatism, neuralgia, dyspepsia, bowel troubles, sick headache, liver troubles, chronic bronchitis, partial paralysis and strabismus. If anyone will take the trouble to examine the Master's recorded heahngs in the light of our present knowledge, his faith will be MENTAL HEALING 81 much strengthened, not only in the method of heahng itself but also in the Master himself who worked according to scientific laws that the world remained in ignorance of for over nineteen hundred years. He knew the laws but he only taught his disciples the method. For example, let us look at the account in St. Mark 5:35 of the raising of the daughter of Jairus, as noted by Hudson. The Master first inspires the father with faith, He forbad the unbeliev- ing crowd to accompany them, He took with him apostles who believed, He excluded the skeptical from the house, knowing the disastrous influence of doubt, He inspired faith and hope by saying the girl was not dead, by these words He suggested faith to the girl's soul, and did the same by taking her hand. Then he spoke the word of command. No one but the Master knew that these were the necessary conditions. The narrative itself could not have been written if it had not been true. Finally the Master charged them strictly to tell no one. How strange! One would think this the very thing to herald abroad. This command was frequently given and no satisfactory explana- tion has been found. But in the light of our present knowledge the reason is clear. The skeptical would have been sure to suggest doubt as to the performance of the cure and a relapse might have followed. Physicians do well to take warning. Their patients often have relapses. In concluding this chapter it may be noted that it is easier to keep well than to get well. Therefore it is wise to make frequent suggestions of health to yourself and to others. Get rid of the debasing superstitions that surround the subject of health. Observe the laws of health, for no law can be broken with impunity. Discover for yourself how little food will suffice. Do not be afraid to tell of your good health—the very sound helps. Never talk of your bad feelings—the very words do harm. CHAPTER XI Spiritism What proofs would demonstrate spirit communication? Sketch of development of spiritistic investigation. The Rochester rap- pings. Intelligence in messages. Triviality. Fraud. Physi- cal scientists take up the problem. Knowledge as proof aban- doned. Psychologists enter the field. Telepathy discovered. Memory of subconscious mind. Spirit photographs. Question of identity—Materializations. Explanation suggested. No proof of "spirits" possible. Feeling alone produces conviction. The very first thing to be considered, one would think by those who are interested in the attempt to prove the possibility of communicating with the spirits of the departed, would be the clear, definite statement of what would constitute such proof. The writer has never seen or heard of any attempt to do this. One of the latest books on the subject, Randall's "The New Light on Immortality" alludes to it in only a hazy way. There is perhaps a reason. It may be that the reason the proofs have not been already formulated is because the whole problem has been slowly growing in men's minds. There may be another reason. There was a time when the Rochester rappings seemed a con- clusive proof and sufficient evidence. Many, on the strength of the evidence became spiritists.1 But when it was discovered that intelligence was shown by these noises, the question took on a wider aspect. Intelligence is a sign of mind. The question became a fascinating one and the possibilities seemed very great. The next step lay in the recognition of the triviality of the so-called messages. People recognized intelligence but they repudiated the idea that it was the intelligence of their loved ones. Also the thought was in many minds that it was a shocking thing to traffic in sentiment. 1 The use of the term Spiritualist for the more logical Spiritist is a sign of the materialistic thought of the day. 82 SPIRITISM 83 The absolute conviction of the medium that the message came from some one else played a notable part in producing con- viction, especially among those who knew the medium personally. It must be remembered that mediums are brought up in the atmosphere of spiritism. The constant suggestion of a spirit control is made to the subconscious mind from youth up, and no other idea can enter their minds. It is to them an unquestioned reality and their sincerity in most instances cannot be doubted. It becomes a religion of the most sacred kind. At this time it was recognized that the spiritistic phenomena had a surprising way of lending themselves to fraud and deception. This was a serious setback. As a result of this—to test the thing out—some leading scientists whose minds were stimulated by the problem were led to take an active part in these investigations. In consequence of their trained powers of observation and keen intellect, certain definite facts were established beyond reasonable doubt. The facts have been considered in previous chapters. But though the phenomena were practically admitted the ques- tion of proof of the influence of spirits remained as hazy as ever. If a letter were written automatically by a pencil held in the hand, where is the proof that it was not done by the person holding it? If a letter were written by a bit of pencil between two ab- solutely innocent slates locked together, what then? Certainly a power was demonstrated, but whose? Kinetic energy was practically an unknown thing. With admirable keenness the scientists came back with a new idea. One cannot help a mark of appreciation of the adroit intelligence of the scientific mind when confronted by a real problem! The seeker of a message must not know the thing he is asking for. The fact must not be known by anyone present. So the ques- tioner asks what an absent member of his family is doing at that very moment. A quite unexpected answer is given and it proves to be true! The experiment is repeated several times to exclude the possibility of coincidence (which mathematicians have re- duced to a law). The true information is forthcoming. 84 THE SOURCE OF POWER Another very fine point was made by the scientific investigator. The questioner must get information that nobody living knows but which can be proved true. For instance information is given by a "departed spirit" that he had borrowed money years before from a certain man (always well known to the seeker) but who, on being approached, denies any knowledge of the debt, but on looking it up in his books finds that the statement of the "spirit" is true. He had loaned the money and forgotten it. At this point of the investigation the odds seemed to be all on the side of the spiritist. The scientific investigator gloated over his success and several of them embraced spiritism. But not all. The few investigators that were left called for the help of the psychologist and continued their work. It is a curious fact that most of the learned investigators were physicists—men that could tell you all about atoms and electrons, the unreleased forces of nature and the fourth dimension. But now mind specialists came into the game, and soon unearthed some remarkable facts. Among others, that telepathic communications were constantly taking place between the subconscious minds of intimate friends. A person did not need to know that he knew a fact in order to have a psychic read it in his subconscious mind. And furthermore the mystery of memory was investigated and it was proved that a person's memory possessed facts buried too deep to be recalled, which could yet be drawn from their hiding place by a psychic, and even from the mind of a person to whom they had at some time been telepathically communicated. All these things are very strange. They can, no doubt, stand considerable more investigation, but they have about them a certain air of probability that even the confirmed spiritists are unable to deny. A proof of this statement may be gathered from the fact that they are now trying to discover some method of identification other than the knowledge disclosed in the message. The knowledge can be explained by psychic laws and therefore is worthless as a proof of "spirits." But the whole question of identity is proving to be a nut that is hard to crack. What is identity? A signature will establish it at a bank. But a slate writing psychic can reproduce your signature from your mind. SPIRITISM 85 A photograph serves for a detective. But the "spirit photo- graphs" have been altogether too vague to count for much. It must be admitted however that there is room for investigation as to whether there is any such thing. If there be such a thing, it must be admitted by the spiritists themselves that the whole history of this investigation suggests the probable discovery of a new fact in the realm of physics or psychology. What is to be said of the vague something in the way of pose, tricks of manner, habits of expression, etc., that serve to identify a person among his intimate companions? It must be admitted that they would help greatly in the identification of a person who had been disfigured so that his face was unrecognizable. They are things which would defy imitation. But it seems to be forgotten that if the inquirer had an intimate knowledge of these marks so as to be able to recognize them, they could also be repro- duced by the medium from his mind. There is still another phenomenon that may have weight in this inquiry. That is materialization. It is difficult to deny the statements of scientific investigators that figures have been materialized by psychics.2 One of them, known as Katie King, was for three years like a member of the household of Sir Wm. Crooks, the scientist who tells about her. At first she refused to go more than a few steps from the medium who lay in a deep trance during the manifestations. By degrees, seemingly as she gained confidence in the scientist, she went into an adjoining room and played with the children. But she never seemed to lose consciousness of the medium. At first also, she could not stand light. The attempt to endure light caused the medium to give signs of pain. Light vibrations seemed to have the effect of disintegrating her body as heat vibrations would disintegrate normal bodies. The medium could not stand any light except that of phosphorus. Whenever the scientist went near the medium, Katie hovered around and disappeared at any attempt to see them both at once. Katie seemed interested in the problem and after several unsuccessful efforts to remain materialized, she succeeded. The scientist on two or three occasions felt them both at the same time * See "The Widow's Mite," by Funk, p. 413. 86 THE SOURCE OF POWER and saw them by the phosphorous lamp. Katie appeared and disappeared at will, and all at once in full view, clothes and all. In appearance she bore a slight resemblance to the medium (who was a girl of fifteen), but was strikingly different in height, shape, color of hair and eyes. Also her pulse was regular but differed considerably from the medium's in rapidity. She Was dressed in a white Grecian costume very different from the medium's con- ventional street garb. Her body was to all appearances a normal, human body. When held in the arms, as she allowed herself to be on one occasion, there was a complete sense of naturalness. This account has been given in rather much detail, not because it is unfamiliar and very strange, but in order not to slur over what there seems to be no explanation for. Katie's intense solicitude for the medium seems to point to a vital identity between them as if she were a thought of the medium's and in some mysterious way had borrowed substance and vitality from her. At any rate there is no possible theory of Katie's being a dis- carnate spirit that will not demand quite as much credulity. The reader will recall the appearances of Jesus after the resur- rection, the tangible body, the instant disappearance of the body, and the garments, and their reappearance. The materialization described above, and two others quite as remarkable, belong in a class by themselves. They must not be confused with the many phantom appearances of persons, which have been seen in many hundreds of cases, sometimes when dying, often when in health, sometimes when they willed it and again when the person was unconscious of it. To conclude this too protracted discussion. It appears evident after what has been said that the reason why spiritists do not start by defining what phenomena will prove their theory, is because there are no such phenomena conceivable by the human mind. As has been pointed out before, spirit can only be known spiritually. It is essential to thought to predicate the existence of spirit, but we must not forget that it cannot be demonstrated by begin- ning with phenomena. This is not because of our incredulity but because of our finiteness. SPIRITISM 87 To attempt to prove "spirits" by logic is in vain. The spiritists are caught on the horn of a dilemma. Their general proposition, to be true, should be stated as follows: Whatever is not done by the living is done by the dead—or by some other agency. This is the horn on which they stick fast. But if they would give up investigating phenomena and confess that it is by feeling that we realize spirit the world will agree with them. Our only approach, our sole apprehension of spirit is through feeling. This it is which has produced what spiritists call their conviction. Christians call it faith. CHAPTER XII Emotion Emotion is the moving of the Soul. I feel, therefore I am. A complete state of mind. Differs from feeling. Where located. Effect of anger. We are glad because we smile. Emotion con- sidered from standpoint of animal. No moral aspect. Emotion connected with instincts of self-preservation, reproduction and worship. Effect on animals of contact with man. Children not better animals. Possession of Spirit the distinguishing mark of man. It is difficult to speak of mind or spirit because it is an intan- gible, unimaginable thing or substance. One does not know what terms to employ. The Bible says the Spirit moved upon the face of the waters. We say we are moved to do a thing. The word emotion embodies the same idea. There is nothing about us so characteristic of mind or soul as emotion. It is the soul, the subconscious mind, that moves and the result is emotion. This is never absent from conscious states. Descartes' cogito, ergo sum, might well be rendered, I feel, there- fore I am. Emotion then is a complete state of mind, a state of conscious- ness and not a psychic element of a state. It has been the custom to confuse emotion with feeling, but the two things are not the same. They bear the relation of an object, and the way it effects an observer. Your soul moves with anger and the observer (yourself) is affected with a feeling of anger. We cannot consciously make or unmake an emotion, although words and acts associated with an emotion tend to produce and strengthen it. It comes and passes. But we can control the feeling. It is the emotion which gives rise to the feeling. The emotion is a complete state. If it is especially associated in us with any part of the body, that part is the region of the solar plexus. The ancients were quick to perceive this and connected emotion with the entrails. The Bible speaks of bowels of com- passion, figuratively transferred to the heart. 88 EMOTION 89 Emotion is evidently a most fundamental thing and in its effects we see the working of a power that affects at will every portion of the body in most remarkable ways. This power can be no other than the subconscious mind which built and con- trols the functions and sensations of the body. How readily this is seen in the emotion of anger! The body tingles, the muscles are tense. The involuntary muscles of the face are contorted. It occasions involuntary fear in those who witness it. It urges to expression in word and deed. The emotion of anger gives rise in oneself to the feeling of anger. This can be controlled, but if it is not, if words are allowed to burst forth, the anger is increased by the words. If not further controlled and acts are even so much as thought of, the emotion reaches a climax, the brain is inflamed, the strength is often remarkably augmented, the body passes out of control, the brute emerges. The psychological paradox, that we are angry because we speak angry words, or are glad because we smile, is thus explained. As angry words gave occasion to the emotion of anger, so the act of smiling calls up, as it were, the emotion of pleasure and the reaction is a feeling of gladness. It is readily seen how any consideration of emotions and feelings becomes colored by moral sentiments. In reading the above each one of us has been conscious of the thought, we ought to control our feelings. This is the moral sphere and is not to be considered in this chapter. We need to study the emotions quite apart from morals; we must adopt the standpoint of the higher animals, if we are to get an unbiassed idea of them. The expression just used, "The brute emerges," fills us with a vague horror. Let us get away from this idea. Let us look at the emotions as they exist in animals that cannot sin, that have no moral nature. It has been said that the emotions are outgrowths of the great, universal instincts of self preservation, reproduction and worship. Certainly the elemental emotions of anger, hatred, selfishness, greed, passion, love, fear, etc. are evidently necessary to the continuance of animal life. An animal must be protected from an enemy by hatred and anger. Its life depends upon such a 90 THE SOURCE OF POWER degree of anger that fear is overcome, and the animal, if it can skilfully utilize the augmented strength that is placed at its disposal, downs its enemy; if it cannot, it at least "dies game." It is simply an incident of physical life. There is no possible place for the notion that anger and hatred ought to be controlled, there is absolutely no moral side at all. It is the same with selfishness and greed. They are to us repellant notions, but in the animal they are admirable qualities wisely designed. But designed for what? For one purpose only—to prolong life, to further a plan of which the animal is totally unaware, to produce a finer animal. And that is all. So passion is seen to conduce to the same end. It is to be viewed quite apart from any ideas that civilization has given rise to. It is associated only with the cunning and prudence that ensure attainment. Love of offspring in an animal is not a sentiment. It is an urge to protect, to foster, to nourish. It is not something that it may show or not as it pleases, but something that it does precisely as it hunts its food. If it sacrifices its life for its offspring, it does it exactly as it sacrifices its life to get food. In like manner it can be seen that the fear that causes an animal to skulk, to indicate submission, as a dog puts its tail between its legs at a clap of thunder, or the crashing down of a tree, is no other than the instinct to save its skin. There is no possible notion of the great unknown. Some persons consider fawning as elementary worship. It must be noted that there is room for the study of the effect on animals of the contact with man. The writer has already indicated a willingness to believe that each species of animal has possibilities of expansion in knowledge and perhaps even in consciousness—an approximation to self consciousness—just as we see a remarkable power of development in flowers and vegetables. But this is only surmised as a possibility which nature stories should not make too much of unless children are to be taught a false conception of animals that confuses in their minds the most important idea that life has for us. The child is a little animal but it is something vastly more. If it does not clearly grasp the distinction, if it thinks it must be better EMOTION 91 than the animals, the whole idea is lost. No animal can be better than another in the moral sense. Each animal is perfect as it is. The child may never hope to be perfect in the moral sense, and why? Because the child has something we have not yet seen in animals, and that is a spirit. With the advent of man came the advent of spirit and the advent of the moral life. The spirit that is intellectual and moral is the grand mark of distinction between the animal and man. The highest animal, being without a spirit, is a brute, the lowest man, having a spirit, is a moral being created in the image of his Maker. Man is not to be looked upon as the highest animal, he is a new order. The gift of a spirit has not simply augmented what an animal possesses, but made a different being, and made possible the new creation within us. It has not yet been clearly recognized that the distinction between the animals and man is not a physical one nor is it a question of intelligence, but it is that man has a spirit. It is the spirit alone that makes man a moral being. Huxley, with a mind that has seldom been equalled, was able to maintain his position of agnosticism in regard to the spirit in any con- troversy that was based on physical arguments. He put to rout the ablest thinkers who espoused the side of religion. But when he was met by the argument that he could not justify his use of the simple expression "I ought" without recognizing the spiritual nature of man, he brought the controversy to an end. The writer has not seen any answer by Huxley. He was unable to deny it, and to admit it meant retracting his whole position. The transmuting of the brute emotions in the crucible of the higher consciousness of spirit will be discussed in a later chapter. CHAPTER XIII The Training of the Soul All powers of subconscious mind possessed by animals. No power to misuse. Moral evil of man comes from within. How does it originate? Whence comes the moral aspect? Primitive stand- ards. Moral developed from mental. Race inheritance. Acci- dents as moral evils. Obligation to train the soul. Dependent upon suggestion. Thought affects matter. Symptoms of disease caused. Suggestion of goodness. Adverse suggestion. Un- belief. Need of faith. Insanity, Monomania, Obsession, etc. We have now considered one by one all the powers of the subconscious mind or the soul of man. All these powers are possessed by animals according to the needs of their organism. We have also seen that there is no sin in an animal. They cannot use any power they have for any purpose but the one for which it was intended. They have no ability to grasp the idea of an obligation that runs contrary to their desires.1 There is nothing in an animal that corresponds to moral evil, e.g., murder. Where then did this moral evil originate? The Master answers this question in St. Mark 7:23, "All these evil things come from within." But this does not help us to understand the origin of evil, so let us shape the question differently and ask, How did this moral evil originate? The first thing to note is that it is not the thing itself, not the act, that we are inquiring about, but the aspect of it that makes it a moral evil. This statement needs no proof, if you realize that all these acts that the Master enumerates are done by animals and are not moral evils. Let us take two of the worst moral evils as an illustration: murder and selfishness. In the animal life and, indeed, in that of primitive man, the killing of another was often the only way by which the instinct of self preservation could manifest itself. In the same way selfishness can be seen to be absolutely essential 1 Note, however, emergence of this idea in the chapter on the obli- gation-will. 92 THE TRAINING OF THE SOUL 93 if the evolution of the species through the survival of the fittest was to go on. Go through the Hst of evils in your mind and you will see that they were at one time virtues necessary to existence in a primitive environment. This can be still seen among the head hunters of Borneo. The "best man" from their standpoint is the one who has taken the greatest number of heads. But a new idea was emerging among these people. The head hunters of Borneo have attained a standard of morals which does not permit the killing of a fellow tribesman. The significance of this is obvious. An idea of murder has been acquired—murder as a moral evil. A similar process is going on with regard to selfish- ness among ourselves, but it has not attained as yet a very admirable development. Now what we call a standard of morals is the evident result of an evolution of moral ideas under the influence of the human spirit. In some places it is high and in others it is low. The spirit sheds light, but this light encounters many difficulties in penetrating the darkness of men's minds. The darkness of one man's mind does not comprehend the light that already shines in the mind of another.2 It is clear that the Master has pointed out a great truth. Moral evils are mental evils, they originate in the mind. Racial3 habits of thought are inherited. They are hidden in the subconscious mind, and when they emerge into consciousness, if the standard of morals has become higher, they appear morally wrong. This serves to account for the otherwise inexplicable evil thoughts and detestable suggestions that trouble the conscience of the best of persons. There are other evils such as accidents, etc., that may some day be considered moral evils, inasmuch as they are due to the failure to avoid them. The promise is, "There shall no evil happen unto thee." How far is a person responsible for carelessness, or neglect to know and understand the laws of nature which are all of them God's laws? •St. John 1:5. * That these memories are racial and not individual is due to the im- personal character of the subconscious mind. This is seen in a hypnotized person on whom any personality can be impressed by suggestion. 94 THE SOURCE OF POWER We are told that if the laws of God are in the mind, a man will not have accidents.4 We have now arrived at an understanding of the origin of evils. They come out of the subconscious mind, the soul. It need not shock us to learn this fact for we have already seen that the soul (without the light of the spirit) has no ability to judge of the truth. It believes implicitly everything it is told. From this fact we can realize the tremendous responsibility that devolves upon us to train and educate the soul. To appreciate this truth still more fully we have to remember that the subconscious mind has no initiative. It is always depen- dent upon suggestion for guidance. Furthermore it is always being guided (whether intentionally or not) by the positive or negative suggestions we make to it. Initiative and volition can be impressed upon it by ourselves, as the original initiative to build our bodies was impressed upon it by God, whose thought we are intended to express. This initiative is constantly being impressed upon the mind by ourselves, as when we purpose to walk. Everyone has noticed that if we are absent minded we are apt to walk past the place where we intended to stop. It is so in all habitual acts. If we are absent minded we find ourselves wondering what to do next— the mind had gotten to the end of its orders. It is necessary, in the next place, to understand that thought affects matter. A physical demonstration of this is seen in the biometre of Baraduc which registers in degrees the force that proceeds out of the body and this effect is increased or decreased by volition.8 By the power of thought, diseases may be caused or at least distressing symptoms of disease. There is an authentic instance of an ignorant man who produced by thought a case of appendi- citis on the left side. Of course it was not appendicitis, but the inflammation was real enough to require the care of a physician. So bread pills have a real effect if the person taking them believes them to be a medicine. Violent emotions produce bodily effects, as do despondent and melancholy thoughts—effect 1 Psalm 37:31. 1 Troward's "Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science," Ch. xiv. THE TRAINING OF THE SOUL 95 which are best neutralized by wholesome and joyous thoughts. There is no manner of doubt that belief in health produces health, and adverse thought, or suggestion, or fear, or even idle talk of disease, is a real agency in producing disease. "As a man thinketh so is he." We have now seen that evils come from the subconscious mind, which has no power of itself to judge of truth and no initiative that is not impressed upon it. Besides this we have noted the power of the mind to produce real effects by thought. It now remains for us to find out how we must educate and train the soul. In the first place goodness and truth must constantly be im- pressed upon the soul by suggestion. This is the function of religion in man's true development, and the soul of man feels this imperative need in a vague reaching out after something to worship. In the next place it is equally important to understand the power of adverse suggestion and to guard against it. Unbelief, which some people talk of so lightly, is not and can never be a neutral thing. It is one of the most positive forces for evil there is in the world. It has the power to destroy, to annihilate. It renders of no effect the efforts of the physician to restore health—to cure the very condition it has itself brought about. It can go further and inhibit the divine power from accomplishing in us any good results. The effect of adverse suggestion and aggressive unbelief has already been shown by its power to render psychic powers un- availing. So it was with the Master's miracles. He clearly understood the evil of an atmosphere of doubt, and yet how few realize the danger of reading skeptical books or listening to sugges- tions of unbelief. The writer has in mind many other subjects than that of religion. The health is thus undermined, faith in oneself is weakened, the success of whatever one has undertaken is endangered. The need of faith in these things cannot be too strongly empha- sized. The stupidity that fails to recognize it has itself to blame for failures that might easily have been avoided. The potency of suggestion, especially the adverse suggestion of something that is feared, can hardly be overestimated. It is the 96 THE SOURCE OF POWER chief, if not the only, cause of the evils and miseries with which the world is so filled. Much of what we call heredity can easily be accounted for by suggestion. Parents who have some dreaded disease, tuberculosis or insanity, in the family, are able to produce it in their children by the suggestion of fear. Nothing but active faith and suggestions of immunity can counteract such adverse suggestion. It is one of the chief uses of the conscious mind to make these wholesome suggestions to the subconscious mind. No doubt the time will come when the normal man will use both the conscious and the subconscious mind synchronously. Some powers of the subconscious mind are now capable of use: suggestion, intuitive deduction, memory, the emotions and kinetic energy, are able to work, in part at least, along with the conscious mind. But any unwise attempt to force the subconscious mind to act in response to the conscious mind is liable to be followed by very serious consequences. It is absolutely necessary that the conscious mind should dominate, or some degree of insanity is at once evident. Common sense, rationality and judgment are essential to what we call sanity (that is, adaptation to a worldly environment), and these powers are not in the subconscious mind. Hence it is that when they are not able to function, through disease of the brain or any other cause, the symptoms of insanity are at once seen. These symptoms (apart from the lack of rationality) are: an acute, abnormal intelligence; memory, imagination, augmented strength, uncontrolled emotions, etc. All of these are subconscious powers. Genius or prodigious powers of any kind are so far abnormal as they are accompanied by any diminution of common sense. Obsession, melancholia, monomania, fascination, infatuation, etc., as well as demoniacal possession, exhibit the symptoms of insanity and indicate the subjugation or abdication of the con- scious reason and judgment. There is no reason why the symptoms of insanity cannot be voluntarily produced by suggestion. Undue concentration of mind that is not relieved by systematic exercise and diversion into recreative channels, certainly works harm and tends to mono- mania. Brooding over real or fancied wrongs may easily upset the normal control of the reason and judgment. THE TRAINING OF THE SOUL 97 Unwise practices such as these apparently injure the brain and prevent its normal functioning. These are pathological cases and should be immediately referred to the alienist. It is, however, evident that everyone has it in his power to preserve the normal adjustment of the conscious and subconscious mind by the avoidance of the abnormal, especially in emotional states. Thus, by shunning doubt and all adverse suggestions of possible evil, as well as by wholesome suggestions of faith in the good and beautiful, the mental balance that is so essential to happiness and well being may be preserved and strengthened. This chapter needs no apology in a scientific book. The shelves groan with books that tell facts. What one needs in this world of ours is to know what facts mean—how they are of con- sequence to us—why we have been led to find them out. » PART THREE SPIRIT; INTELLECT; CLEAR CONSCIOUSNESS CHAPTER I Spirit; Self-consciousness No clear divisions. Spirit cannot be known by mind or senses. May be felt—grasped by intuition. Life not a quality—it cre- ates qualities. Life is spirit. Universal spirit. Manifests itself as consciousness and intelligence. Latent consciousness. Illustrations. Not conscious of self. Why we love intelligence. Power to know thoughts of another. The world of meanings. The world of hidden meanings—of unexpressed thought. In entering on our third division of our subject the first thing to note is that it is not a division but an aspect. There is no division in the indivisible spirit. It has often been noted that everything that has to do with ourself lacks clear definition. The boundary line is always hazy and confused. Body seems clear enough—but it repairs itself. Where does the soul begin? The unity is more striking than the parts. We should have learned a lesson by this time that everything is spirit, ultimately, or the idea of spirit is incomprehensible. The idea of Spirit is not incomprehensible but it cannot be known by the senses nor yet by the mind. It can only be felt- grasped by the intuition. As the great Apostle says, the truth of the spirit is spiritually discerned. But cannot the intellect grasp the idea of spirit? For an answer you have only to think what the intellect has been able to do all these centuries with the idea of life or consciousness. Absolutely nothing at all. After tedious years of weary struggling with the thought of life, the mind of man finds itself where it began. Life is life. That is the sum of attainment. But life is the supreme reality that manifests in everything around us. This we know. Let us start with what we know. When we take the first step forward and ask, Is life a quality or condition that belongs to things? we feel that we can answer no. Qualities may change like the colors of leaves or the ugliness of a grub, but the tree lives on and the butterfly evolves a beauty instead. Life is not a quality but the thing itself. When it departs the thing vanishes. 101 102 THE source of power Life is the thing itself. It gives the thing its body, its form. It creates these. It is not hard to see what the mind is driving us towards. There is no longer any alternative. Life must be spirit. So it is that our intellect compels us to assume that behind all the manifestations of life that make up our world there is spirit. We have used the word behind because everything seems to conceal spirit. But it expresses no true notion: for spirit is an essence that cannot be divided and so it is in and through ourselves and everything we see. "In Him we live and move and are." It is indeed a bewildering thought. Jesus tells us that God is spirit, and the Apostle tells us that God is all and in all. There is no more profound thought than this! In the beginning of this book it was stated that consciousness, as we know it, exists in four states or forms. The latent con- sciousness is that which we know of in the cells of our bodies. It can be aroused, but normally it is only known in the wonderful intelligence that the cells manifest. It may be observed in the branches of a tree that grow towards the light and seek a spot among other branches that is open to the sun; in the "feelers" of a grapevine that reach out for a distant support, and in the clema- tis that interlocks. How stupid to think that matter can do intelligent acts without some kind of consciousness! Now what is this consciousness? To be conscious of a thing is to be aware that it is there, that it exists. Let us apply this to the branch of a tree. It must be aware that there is a place where the sunlight will strike its leaves or it would not grow in that direction. You may often see a branch all out of proportion to the symmetry that each tree seeks for itself, especially the lower branches of fruit trees. So with the grape feeler. It reaches out and grasps a support that does not touch the vine at any point. How did it know it was there? If this is "chance," or "behavior," or some "unknown property of matter," or perchance a "spirit from the vasty deep"—(it is certainly an unkind spirit to the materialist!)—why then, this is what consciousness is. It is being aware of a thing, but it does not mean that you know you are aware of it. To know you are spirit; self-consciousness 103 aware of it means two steps in consciousness. The first is being aware, and the second is knowing it. This may seem subtle but it is a very common experience. You are quite aware that you are reading words but you need not have thought of yourself as reading. That is to be self-conscious. So with these phenomena of latent consciousness. The branch cannot think about itself, nor the feeler—it just feels. So the cells of the body or of any living thing do not think of themselves, they simply feel, or in other words they have consciousness but not consciousness of themselves. It is the same with the simple consciousness which we call subconsciousness. The animal is abundantly conscious, but it is of pleasure or pain, hunger or some other desire, never of self. We cannot imagine a cow or even a monkey having the conscious- ness of being a fine animal. That is just what we miss in them. Compared with us they are only a kind of living toy. There is something in us that they do not satisfy. This something in us is our consciousness of self, our clear consciousness. We know, and we know we know. This is what we prize in a companion. He knows himself and is conscious of knowing himself and me and all things of life and the thoughts of others in books and art and music, the amusing things and the serious things; the painful thoughts that we avoid, the tender thoughts that we approach with intuitive reverence, the wondrous thoughts that cause us to look into the soul of our companion to seek the response that words cannot express. What a wonderful thing is this consciousness of self! Of course he knows, but as Omar says, he knows, HE KNOWS! This clear consciousness of self and of what we are thinking gives us the ability to think of things in relation to ourselves and to other things. We can use ideas as the artisan uses things, and this faculty in us we know as intellect as distinguished from pure intelligence. But, wonderful and astonishing as all this is in this world of ours—so material, to the naive—there is yet some- thing still more marvellous and admirable. It is quite plain to us why we love an intelligent and thoughtful companion. We love the encounter of thought with thought, the flash of wit, the instant repartee, the grasp of the hidden 104 THE SOURCE OF POWER meaning and the mirroring of the thought in the face. But one thing is lacking. He is silent and his expression tells us nothing. What is he thinking? This is the one thing we are never sure of. No matter what he says, what does he think? If we only had the power of knowing what a person is thinking! Truly a wonderful power that would be; so fascinating, so helpful, so important, so salutary'—to each! The study of human consciousness makes it quite certain that this power is attainable. We all have flashes of it from time to time, not as a deduction from anything said, and not as sensed from the expression but as pure intuition. Knowledge from the blue, as you might say. The thought you seek to read is, no doubt, in your own sub- conscious mind, but you cannot read it there. Unquestionably there are those who can, who have this psychic power of knowing the thought received by telepathy. The Master evidently used this power. Why should we not all use it? He as much as said that we could. Can we acquire this power by cultivation without injury to the normal balance of mental power? It would certainly seem that we can. The writer is not pre- pared to set forth any rules or method for obtaining this power but he can state very definitely the principle that makes it certain. The law of consciousness is that of continual unfolding to receive new knowledge. The best illustration is that already described— the unfolding consciousness of a child. As the petals of a rose unfold to receive light, so the consciousness unfolds to receive the light of knowledge. And it not only increases in adaptability to grasp, but it expands in scope. One may not only expand to receive the tangible things of life, but also the thoughts that persons have had about these things. This shows the ability to pass into an entirely new world. From the world of palpable objects to the world of thought objects. The naive get no further. But it is possible to pass into a world where we can see for ourselves meanings that are not on the surface, not plainly thrust at us. These may be the hidden ideas that are called jokes. Some persons are slow to arrive at the consciousness of them—too slow to laugh in time. The consciousness can expand but you spirit; self-consciousness 105 must give it time. In this world we have passed from the thing to the meaning of it, from the phenomenal to the noumenal. Is there still another world into which we can be born? Is there a world where the phenomenal no longer exists, where all is noumena, meaning, thought? There certainly is such a world into which the the consciousness of the higher type of man has already entered—the world of the unexpressed thought. Here it is that we come face to face with the thing we are seeking, the expansion of consciousness necessary to enable us to know the unexpressed thought in the mind of another. And there is hope that we may eventually obtain this power. Indeed there is abundant proof that we have it now, but our consciousness of it has not passed into the state of clear consciousness. It is still subconscious, though at times we are aware of the thought. That is the very process we have gone through in the other worlds of consciousness and there can be no doubt that our consciousness is able to enter into and be conscious of itself in this new world. In concluding this chapter the main thought to have in mind is that of the spirit within us. It is this spirit that is conscious, as it is this spirit that is life. The law of the spirit is that of constant growth and we know this growth as the expansion of consciousness. CHAPTER II Obligation-Will; Law Law is a principle that must be obeyed. Unconsciousness of laws attained by obeying them. St. James' law of liberty. Il- lustration of child learning to walk. Moral laws not different. Learning the law. Effects of breaking laws. Ignorance gives no immunity. The law of repentance available in moral sphere. Recognition of obligation to keep the law. Origin of moral ideas seen in human relationships. Westermarck. Creation of a new kind of desire. Limitation of freedom of choice. In considering the desire-will it was seen that even in the animal stage there comes a consciousness of law other than what we commonly call a law of nature. A law is a principle that must be obeyed. It is enforced by a penalty that it carries with it. Only human laws can be evaded with anything approaching to impunity. An invaluable lesson is to be learned from observing the animal in relation to the laws of nature, or, more accurately, the laws of that animal's nature. It knows these laws by intuition and never breaks them. Now the lesson is to found in the perfect unconsciousness of the laws on the part of the animal. The laws really hem the animal in on every side, but it is quite unconscious of any limitations. It has a sense of perfect freedom. It is able to do anything or everything it wants to do. It has "looked into the perfect law of liberty and continues therein"—and is blessed with freedom. What is the reason of this? The answer is that the animal obeys every law perfectly and is therefore unaware of its existence. It is as free as if there were no law. This may seem a paradox. A disappointing one, if you had hoped for some easy way of escaping the law. That is an utter impossibility. But by keeping the law you really escape it, that is, any consciousness of it. We all do this to some extent and the opportunity is before each of us to follow out St. James' idea in everything. Let us see. It has already been pointed out that the act of walking and running involves rather a complex process. One must obey to a 106 obligation-will; law 107 nicety the laws of equilibrium, propelling energy and momentum. These laws seem rather limiting to the baby—you can understand it by trying to walk on stilts. But once learned the laws are completely overlooked. The child that skips and runs and jumps evidently exercises perfect freedom. This you say is a physical law—it is the moral laws that inhibit. But there is no real difference. If you are willing to be punished over and over again for the infraction of moral law, you are the child that falls every few steps and never learns to walk. But surely there are moral laws that you keep and are conscious of. These are the laws of decency, truthfulness, or courtesy—to strangers, at least. This last opens up the consciousness to the complexity of motives, but as a rule, one does not feel hampered by these laws. Make it the same with every moral law and you will have perfect freedom. Obey every law of the spirit and you will not know there is a law in the universe. "Against such there is no law." We have been considering the idea of law and have seen that it is an inexorable principle that, in every sphere of life, dogs the footsteps of human beings hke the tyrant that it is, demanding absolute obedience or exacting the pound of flesh. So seems the stern master to the trembling child. But having learned with diligence and good will the "musts" of school life, they are straightway forgotten and a delightful sense of freedom and at- homeness fills the child's heart. Later on the dreaded master is seen to be the most helpful and willing of friends. What a transformation! Yet this is the exact manner in which every law manifests itself. It is indeed inexorable. Do not imagine that any amount of praying can alter in one jot or tittle the working of the law. Ig- norance is no reason for expecting immunity. Look at all the sick, the maimed, the halt, the blind, and behold the proof. It is precisely the same in the purely moral and spiritual spheres although the devastating effects of infraction of the law are not so apparent to the eye. If ignorant breaking of the law has such effects, what must be the effect of a wilful and presumptuous act! 108 THE SOURCE OF POWER But, we ask, is there no mercy, no forgiveness? There is indeed! But only in the way of applying another law that serves to neutralize the effects of the former. Stop a moment for an illustration. Surely there is no law more inexorable than that of gravitation, yet with a balloon or aeroplane it is rendered in- operative, or, to state it more accurately, the very law itself is specialized by intelligence so that its ill effects are avoided. The law of medicine in the same way utilizes the law of assimilation in the body to overcome the ill effects of a poison. And it is precisely the same in the moral sphere. Breaking of the law inevitably produces a moral fall, but the operation of repentance intervenes and saves you from the downward crash. What is this law of repentance? The law of repentance is the humble recognition of the obligation to keep the inexorable moral law, and the first step in that direc- tion. We come, then, to the consideration of the sense of obliga- tion. How do we get it? At the end of the working out of the desire-will among animals it was noted that the observance of the law of the herd or pack points to the beginning of a new nature in us. This nature is a moral nature. It is no longer the recognition of desire only as a determining motive, but it is the perception or intuition of another motive that often runs contrary to bodily desire. This motive is the sense of obhgation to observe a law created by the relations we bear to others of our kind. No animal fives to itself and no man lives to himself. Certainly necessary laws are created by the fact of association and the penalty of breaking these laws creates a sense of obhgation to keep them. This sense of obligation is in the moral sphere which the spirit within us creates and the laws themselves are moral laws. Attention must be called to the fact that this moral sphere exists in the minds of many as a thing quite apart from religion, or the spiritual sphere. The moral laws do not need a divine revela- tion to call them into existence, and it is helpful to consider them in the purely natural light. The consideration of a higher obliga- tion is taken up in its logical place. The truth of the above is amply demonstrated by the study of the origin of morals among primitive peoples. The monumental obligation-will; law 109 work of Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, is full of very instructive facts. Primitive peoples who have no clear conception of a moral Being are yet wonderfully appreciative of moral ideas. In many instances, especially in regard to family relations, duty to parents or friends, the standard of morals is more admirable than that among many civilized peoples. We must not, of course, deny the trend toward the higher relations that the spirit renders possible, but no more can we deny that morals exist apart from any objective revelation. The code is there but it is a natural code. The sense of obligation is there but it is a sense created by human relationships. We find ourselves then at the end of this investigation. The obligation-will is the recognition of a moral law that has developed along with the race development. It is the confession of the obligation to keep this law whether it runs with or counter to our bodily desires. It is the acquiring of a new kind of desire, that is no longer determined by questions of bodily gratification, but rather by a certain mental or spiritual gratification. As in the desire-will the ultimate decision is the resultant of two or more bodily desires on the one hand and the sense of obligation on the other. Still the resultant of desires. The question of freedom of will has to do with the education, training and previous limitations through heredity, of each indi- vidual. The intelligent person recognizes the conditions and acts with freedom. The less intelligent, in whom animal desires are not clearly distinguished from moral obligation, will act with relatively less freedom. If he becomes more enlightened and reviews his past actions, it will seem to him that he was unable to see clearly what his decision meant, and in this sense his free- dom was limited. The chapter on the spirit-will will serve to complete a con- sideration that is only seen to be adequate when the various steps are taken as a whole. CHAPTER III Sense-Percepts The confused boundaries of conscious states. Man in a dungeon. The senses are the wires of communication with the outside world. Three things must be grasped: the external sensory; the brain receiving stations; the intelligence that interprets the sensations. The perception of qualities apart from things. The mental concept. The mind of the vast majority is content with the individual thing. The few delight in the concept. Three schools of thought founded on the interpretation of sense- percepts. Materialism. Pure idealism. Critical idealism. Eternal verities. In the last two chapters we have passed out of the haziness of the simple animal consciousness into the clear human conscious- ness, from the subconscious to the self-conscious. We lose much, however, if we fail to note the confused boundaries of all conscious states, the impossibility of saying (as the scientist always wants to say) this is this and that is that, even to the admission that this is that—the sublimated essence of Brahman—the foretaste of freedom from all limitations, the earnest of that day when "the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." But let us come back to earth. If we think of a man shut up in a dungeon with five telegraph wires connecting him with the outer world, we have an analogue of the soul of man imprisoned in a grosser substance, receiving over the nerves the news of the world around, and not the news only but every least particle of knowledge he has ever acquired. In studying this subject some persons have confessed to the stifling sensation of the dungeon. The eyes, giving the sense of distance and space, make the imprisonment less oppressive. The blind are the real shut-ins. In a treatment of psychology like that of the present book, it is hardly necessary to go into sense perception as the older books do. It is enough to recognize three things with absolute distinctness: 110 SENSE-PERCEPTS 111 1. The external sensory, the body organs where the sensory nerves terminate and form as it were surface receiving stations. Here takes place the contact or what we suppose to be contact with what is not ourselves. 2. The portions of brain matter which are the inner receiving stations of the sensations—the messages carried by the nerve wires. 3. An intelligence within us that perceives these messages and is conscious of them as sense-percepts. In speaking thus in an off-hand way of this intelligence, we must not fail to realize that it is something of which we cannot form the slightest conception, and in the presence of which the scientist must bow in awe. It is the eternal mystery of spirit. These sense percepts embrace light, darkness, color, shape, sound, feeling, sensations varying from hard to soft, wet to dry, rough to smooth, sharp to dull, warm to cold, etc., and the various sensations of smell and taste; but no knowledge of such abstract terms as have just been used to refer to them. From these sensa- tions these various qualities perceived through the senses, we know, imagine or picture the world around us, the great outside, the not-I. The above is repeated from II, 5, for the sake of clearness. It is hard for sophisticated adults to realize how a new object appears to a child. There is a perception of certain sensations which later on are abstracted or considered apart from the object. For example, it is small, white, hard, smooth, fragrant, sweet, flavored,—a peppermint. But this is not all. You at once observe some reaction in the child not due to any of the quahties just stated. The child likes it. The quahty of likableness is something quite apart from any- thing imparted by the senses. It is mental not phenomenal. No creature can like anything without some sort of mind. Take another set of qualities. The object is large, upright, partly hard and dark colored, partly wavy in outline with small, thin shapes that are green in color—a tree. The qualities are sense percepts, the tree is a mental idea. This idea is impossible to animals. Let us see what this mental idea is. It is that of a thing possessing these qualities, a whole made up of various 112 THE SOURCE OF POWER parts. Connected with it are ideas we call strength, beauty, reahty, etc. This mental idea is something which applies to a large variety of particular objects of the same general kind, and is our concept of tree. Do not fail to notice that this mental idea or concept is an entirely different thing from the tree itself. Its reahty, if it has a real existence, is noumenal or spiritual and not phenomenal, it is in the mind and is not what you see and touch. That is the particular tree from which comes a variety of sense percepts as we have seen. The concept, tree, is within you, in your mind, and you have never perceived it with your senses and never can do so. Now the mind, the spirit within us, is the most wonderful thing we know of. In the larger part of mankind the mind is quite content with the superficial grasp of things, the individual tree. With part of it, as the prophet says, the man cooks his food— utility first—and the rest of it he makes into a God to take care of him—some hope for the future! Then there is a smaller part of mankind that likes the concept, the idea and thought of a thing. It enables him to talk more intelligently, to think more closely, to express himself beautifully in art and poetry. But the highest type of mind is not content with this. It is ever pushing on towards a wider consciousness. It does not like the hmitations forced on it by the senses. It objects to the mere suggestion of the command, Thus far and no further shalt thou go! What do we know about a tree really? We have the concept of it in our mind. We perceive it through the senses, it is some- thing that affects our skin surface in some way. So does the thought of the uncanny—a ghost—it makes us creep. The ghost has no existence except in the mind. How do we know that the tree has? We butt our heads against it and we have a very decided sensation that we accept as reality. It is all very well to talk of abstract qualities, but abstract qualities do not raise a bump on your forehead. There is a decided something then that you cannot see, and that something we decide to call matter. Then there is something in you that made you able to hit the tree as hard as you did. That something is quite real and we call it force. Outside of these nothing seems real. SENSE-PERCEPTS 113 Here we have the phenomena upon which our ancestors in the seventeenth century built up a school of philosophy and called it Positivism. Nothing exists except matter and force. Thought, concepts, beauty, inspiration, are things to be explained by some kind of mechanistic theory. A blow makes you see stars but they do not exist as matter or force, hence they are the product of the machine we call the brain. A chemical reaction may explain thought. A drink gives you surprising ideas. Later on you have them no longer. In this way the positivist reasoned. A leading exponent of this materialistic philosophy is Hobbs. But the mind and soul of the higher type of man could not endure it. It revolted at the notion that mother love was a manufactured article like orange extract. Moreover it missed "the dear, familiar ghost." So the mind went on speculating and the pendulum swung to the other extreme. What is this "matter" anyway but a sensa- tion of hardness? What is a bump on your forehead but a pass- ing phenomenon? Who has ever seen matter or force? What is a thing in itself? Deprive a person of all sense preception and everything outside of himself would cease to exist. Take away, abstract, the various qualtities (sense percepts) of a book and where is the book? The idea alone would be left. You think you see and hear and feel but you never can know a thing as you know yourself to be thinking. What we call the world about us is nothing but a complex of ideas, and has no existence apart from the mind. This is the philosophical school that was founded by Berkeley, and is know as pure Idealism. But again the mind of man rebelled against this extreme as it did against that of materialism. The mind missed the sense of reality in phenomena, which was lost in pure idealism. It revolted at the nothingness that was left after abstracting the qualities of a thing. There is a very terrible "horror of great darkness" that pervades this idea. It is the "outer darkness" of the parables. The spirit confesses an invincible demand to feel beneath it the "everlasting arms." There must be something real, strong, eternal, under all phenomena or the spirit collapses in sheer terror. 114 THE SOURCE OF POWER And so there sprung up a saner idealism. There is, there must be, reality; an underlying substance; or God himself is a mere ab- straction! This philosophical school is the Critical Idealism, of which Kant is the leading exponent. With this interpretation of sense percepts the great thinkers of the day are more and more finding themselves in harmony. It satisfies the demand for reality, and, at the same time, it frees that idea from the grossness that denies or excludes the notion of spirit. It opens up a splendid vista of possibilities toward which the expanding consciousness of man is ever pressing. It takes the things of sense and transmutes them into eternal verities. CHAPTER IV The Function of the Intellect The human spirit, as Intellect, distinguished from subconscious mind. Possibility of perversion. Evil spirits. The Christ Spirit. Powers of intellect. Induction. Deduction, a power of the subconscious mind. Concept forming. Classification. Curiosity prompting to the solution of problems. Mathematics a vast method. The concept an algebraical sign. Bucke. Use of symbols. Higher consciousness acquired through pure mathematics. In Part I, Chapter IV, a brief reference was made to emergence of Intellect and the function which it performs in adapting the crea- ture to its environment. In animals it is the brain function and has but feeble development. The intellect in man is distinguished from the subconscious mind, by the possession of clear consciousness of self. It per- ceives a world external to itself and adapts the soul to this world. It has the faculty we call common sense (the knowing what to do in various situations), which the subconscious mind, knowing things only in a generic, impersonal way, is quite destitute of. This intellect is the human spirit. It has the ability to dis- cover, by inductive reasoning, the laws of nature, and to apply this knowledge in promoting the general welfare. It also has the power of discovering problems and sets itself to solve them, often the higher problems of life. It points the soul to loftier possibilities that lie before it and encourages it to struggle against sense desires. In this aspect it is possible for the human spirit to suffer a horrible perversion—to choose the side of sense, and by the exal- tation of human intellect and human pride to deny the existence of good and become an evil spirit. That there are such malign spirits is beyond doubt. They strengthen themselves by union and form the powers of Darkness. They will not acknowledge the Eternal Good, nor submit themselves to it. Ultimately, we believe, they will comprehend the Light and cease to rebel; but 115 116 THE SOURCE OF POWER after how many aeons of fruitless struggle, who can tell? "That they all may be one" is a prayer that must be answered. After all it is not so strange. The spirit of man is a human spirit. Its potentialities are immense, but it must first realize this in order to be influenced by it. It is keen enough intellectually, but this does not prevent it from reveling in the gratification of animal desires and adding to them a baseness that was impossible in the animal. But the human spirit aspires, and it cannot forgive itself for not following up that aspiration by study until it finds the reali- zation of vision in the Christ Spirit. The power—the only power—that can prevent the perversion of the human spirit is the Christ Spirit. It was for this sole purpose that it came into the world—to lighten the darkness of the human spirit. There are many who, for a time, prefer darkness to light be- cause they do not understand the light. They try to see with the human eye and it can only be seen with the spiritual eye. "The unspiritual man rejects these truths of the Spirit of God; to him they are 'sheer folly,' he cannot understand them. And the reason is that they must be read with the spiritual eye." I Cor. 2:14. Moffat. But, to take up the powers of the human spirit. It reasons by induction in discovering the laws of nature. Induction first takes the facts presented by sense perception and, comparing one with another and noting similarities and dissimilarities, it selects those which are alike in qualities, or uses, or function and proceeds to form a generalization or law that things that have such qualities will function in such a way. It may be illustrated very simply although the process is most complex. There are several kinds of ivy. Two that are much alike are the common woodbine and the poison oak. The latter is distin- guished from the former by having three leaves and always some- where leaves with an inflamed, pimply appearance, and by being poisonous. Hence the general law that the three leaved ivy with a curious inflamed appearance is poisonous to the skin. Again comparing the states of water, still, flowing, etc., with the facts of relative elevation, the mind arrives at the generalization that water always flows down hill. THE FUNCTION OF THE INTELLECT 117 This is induction. The complement of it is Deduction. For example. If water flows down, then the mouth of a river is lower that the source. The process of deductive reasoning which is constantly used in mathematics as well as in the daily affairs of life, is apparently not an intellectual process but an intuitive one. The axiomatic truths that underlie the deductions of mathematics and logic are certainly known by intuition and are not susceptible of proof. The conclusion deduced from given premises is arrived at in the same way. The use of syllogisms is a method by which the accuracy of the process may be demonstrated. Deduction, which was considered in Part II, Chapter IV is an intuitive act and be- longs to the subconscious mind. In this way all the laws of nature that we know have been dis- covered and the facts of science have been classified. The forming of a concept—the common nouns of a language—is much the same process. The facts that are observed in the case are not things but qualities, which the mind abstracts, i.e., thinks of as apart from the object which possesses them, and by compari- son and selection, chooses those which are common to a group, discarding those which are accidental or those which are not possessed by all the group, and sums up these qualities in a name— a concept—which will apply to the entire group. It is not meant, of course, that this is a conscious process, but rather an analysis of what is done unconsciously. In reality a child receives various sensations at different times, out of which comes the perception of an individual thing, that house. And afterwards follows the perception of other houses, and out of these varied perceptions ultimately emerges the idea of house—the concept. If this idea is analysed, however, it is found to include qualities which are common to all houses. No doubt the first concepts are imperfect, but are improved later. When we have learned all the qualities the concept is perfect. For example: A thing which possesses the following qualities, viz., a round face, figures from 1 to 12, moving hands, ticking, stationary, is called a clock. The quality of time telling might be added but it is not a sense percept. Clock is a mental idea, a concept. It has 118 THE SOURCE OF POWER never been seen. To be seen, it must have qualities that make it individual, that differentiate it from every other clock in the world. This clock and no other. Add a few qualities and you narrow the concept, e.g., take away the qualities that distinguish an oak tree and your concept will denote all trees. From this it is only a step to the great classification of science. Take the few qualities that are possessed by all animals and they make the concept animal kingdom. Add a few qualities and you have a concept called order. A few more qualities will give the genus and thus are formed the concept of species, of family, etc. These ideas of generalization, concept, order, genus and species are fundamental to thought and without them there could be no science, no language and no thought. It has been noted that the intellect seeks out problems to solve, and for many this is one of the keenest pleasures. This curiosity points to the acquisition of knowledge and may serve one's life in more than one sense. In no other field has the intellect of man worked with keener relish than in mathematics. Mathematics has not only been an end in itself but also the mind's most efficient ally in the solution of other questions. It is a vast method developed down to the finest point, whereby gigantic problems and almost incompre- hensible enigmas can be solved on a single sheet of paper. It is worth thinking of, for few persons go beyond algebra and geometry. It has already been remarked that without concepts there could be no language. There would of course be the expression of ideas by words referring to individual things alone and comparable to the cries and sounds produced by the higher animals. To express such an idea as "tree," meaning any tree, it would be necessary to enumerate all the qualities that oaks, pines, poplars, etc., have in common, and so with all the other common nouns—a task that would somewhat discourage the garrulous. The use of terms to denote many qualities by one word immensely simplifies the ex- pression of thought, and the better and higher concepts we have the deeper into a subject can the thought penetrate. Now this is precisely what algebra, trigonometry and calculus do for mathematics. "A word (i.e., the concept) is the alge- THE FUNCTION OF THE INTELLECT 119 braical sign of the thing," as Bucke says in "Cosmic Conscious- ness," p. 12. If an astronomer were to work out a problem by arithmetic he would cover reams of paper with figures in order to obtain results that by higher mathematics he could get on the back of an envelope. The brain of the Australian bushman is almost as large as Herbert Spencer's because, to obtain his meagre results he has to use a tremendous number of very simple thought processes, that might have been accomplished by a few higher concepts. A peculiar and noteworthy fact about mathematics is its tend- ency to pass into the higher fields of speculative thought. In- deed it is not a tendency but a necessity. In pure mathematics one deals with imaginary quantities, ideas that cannot be ex- pressed except by symbols, variables of space and time that lead into a region of more dimensions than three, where infinity itself is treated as a factor. It is the irony of truth that the stronghold of all that is most practical in life—the very stamping gound of materialism—should lead us willy nilly into the unknown—the Spiritual. The aim of this chapter has been to show how the human spirit by the exercise of pure intellect points the consciousness to the possibilities of expansion in regions of thought hitherto unknown. Finally there is another power of the pure intellect, which like that already mentioned is not mixed with any moral considera- tions or emotional element. This is the Judgment, or judicial reason. It is that power that passes judgment on the truth or falsity of any proposition that is made to it. This house is conveniently arranged or it is not. It presupposes the exercise of the reason in weighing arguments for or against, and when it is given, it rests upon reasons that appear the weightiest. This power of judgment is in constant use and our judgment is good or bad, as we are by training able to weigh with discrimina- tion the reasons upon which it rests. Judgment should be cold and impartial; for, the moment any considerations of expediency or self interest enter in, it ceases to be judgment and becomes a biased opinion, the mere expression of a desire. CHAPTER V Association of Ideas Recollection distinguished from memory. Law of association of ideas. Illustrations. Association of ideas among cultivated people. Receptivity. Concentration. Action of mind uncer- tain. Two things easier to recall than one. Subconscious memory used unconsciously. The word the symbol of the idea. Order of words. Elegance. In Part II, Chapter VII on memory, a quotation was given from Locke which distinguished clearly between memory and recol- lection. When an idea recurs without anything occuring to sug- gest it, it is memory; "if it be sought after by the mind, and with pain and endeavor found, and brought again into view, it is recollection." Recollection therefore, is not a spontaneous act of the sub- conscious mind as is memory, but the labored process of con- scious intellect. It is recalling something that has entered the consciousness and passed out of it. The notion that an idea makes an impression on the brain is evidently false, for in that case there would be something tangible, as it were, by which to recall it. But no such means exist. Yet there is a means by which ideas can be recalled or they would be lost to voluntary use. The investigation of the question has led to the discovery of a power of the conscious mind, which is called the association of ideas. This association is of many different kinds: some logical, some of sound, some causal, some fanciful and some that defy classification. To illustrate these in their order: to associate spring with flowers is logical, Estabrook with Esther is sound, stove with heat is causal, shade with ghost is fanciful, Alexander's battle at Issus with the date 333 (the three s's in Issus) does not submit to easy classification. And yet this last is for many the easiest way to remember dates. These fines of association have been referred to somewhat at length because the various "memory-systems" are based upon these ideas. The more irrational the association, the more likely 120 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 121 it often is to serve your turn. A speaker has stated that having divided his discourse into so many heads he placed, mentally, one head on each of the church spires in his neighborhood and had no difficulty in recalling it when it was needed. Each person per- haps has some special facility which he can discover for himself. In general the association of ideas is the means by which we recollect, the strings attached to ideas by which we bring them back. There are hundreds of associations which are common to all cultivated people. Scrooge is associated with Dickens and several other ideas. We have associations with the great names of history which the mention of serves to recall. Each individual has innumerable special associations of his own. It is easy to see what a leading part they play in our thought. How are these associations formed? It is very true that at times we are much more receptive or interested than at others and recall quite easily whatever is said or done. At times we are like a sensitized plate in a camera and retain the minutest details. It is said that we need to concentrate our attention if we wish to remember, and it undoubtedly helps in the mastery of a sequence of ideas, but often the chief things that you recall are that you concentrated at such a time and in such a place and that is all. The action of the mind is uncertain and unequal. Some can remember readily what they have studied; others recall little that they study but all that they hear. Some never forget a name they have written, and many find certain names always difficult to recall. To some the surest way to for- get a thing is to commit it to writing; the mind having unburdened itself, as it were, loses the power to recall. Another curious and unexplained power of the mind is the ability to recall two things more easily than one, even when there is no association other than that of coincidence. You do not recall one thing by the other but each by the two. For example: You remember the spelling of a word because some person cor- rected your mistake. It made an impression on you, you say; yes, and what is that? It is quite possible and likely that the true memory—the per- fect memory of the subconscious mind that never has and never can forget the least thing—plays a larger part in our ordinary 122 THE SOURCE OF POWER thought than we realize. We are all familiar with the way things have of simply appearing in our consciousness even when most unsought and undesired. In speaking rapidly we make no effort as a rule to recall words; they simply are there when we need them. And if one fails us it usually is found in a moment—unless we become conscious of self. Now it is just this consciousness of self that always prevents us from getting en rapport with the subconscious mind. And so it would seem that the subconscious mind helps us, especially in remembering and in intuitive reasoning, much more than we are conscious of. The ideal condition towards which we are all evolving is un- doubtedly that of being able to use both minds synchronously, as the Master did. We have now considered how the mind recalls or remembers the words necessary for our ordinary use in thought or conversa- tion. It is not so often that the idea is missing, but it seems to hang in the air until the word, the symbol that expresses it, is found. The idea of order which is closely connected with the use of words in speech is an intuition that belongs to the genius of a people. Some races instinctively put the verbal idea at the beginning and others at the end of a sentence. Language is a living thing, however much grammarians may butcher it, cutting it up and dissecting it as though it were a cadaver. Language is to express thought and has no other primary pur- pose, unless it be to conceal it! It is just as valid in the slums as it is at the queen's table. Millions more people speak American than the language we write. It seems to express meaning and what more is it for? It is not elegant, you say. Let us leave it to Petronius, the magister elegantiarum. Not elegant? Just what do you mean by that? PART FOUR SOUL SPIRITUALIZED; HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS CHAPTER I Imagination The upward journey of the soul. Imagination. Definition. Day dreams. Realm of the enchanted. Likeness to dreams of sub- conscious mind. Representation of past. New scenes. Con- ditions of others. Sympathy. Invention. Creative power. New ideas. Imaginary wonders. Jules Verne. Problems for the intellect. The Nautilus. The idea, the seed, grows into the sense reality. Growth in the subconscious mind. Imagination seeks new ideas, in music, in art. New forms sought. Cubism. The soul seeks freedom from limitations, in form and words. Expansion found in Allegory and Symbol. With this chapter we enter the final division of our subject. It is no longer the naive and childlike soul that claims our atten- tion—that subconscious mind whose faculties we have been study- ing—nor yet the intellectual mind, the human spirit that adapts us to our environment, that tries to solve our problems and chastens the soul with ideas of moral rectitude. We now see the subconscious mind illuminated by the divine spirit as well as the human, recognizing dimly its eternal destiny and joining with the clear consciousness in an expansion into the realm of the higher consciousness. Imagination hangs in the air, as it were, over the boundary fine between that which is and that which may be. It is not a mere imaging-power which is satisfied with the picture alone, but starting therefrom, it wings its eternal flight over the clouds of conscious reality into the blue of eternal possibility. Imagination may be defined as the soul's creative faculty of representation in consciousness, of scenes, conditions and ideas, (by picture, symbol or other artistic expression), and therein seeking a new expansion and realization. In day dreams and fancies, dear to the human soul, imagination is the common and cherished heritage of all who have learned to use it. Many of the poorest in earthly comforts and artistic environment pass a delightsome existence in the enchanted palaces of the genii, ensorcelled by the witchery of imagination. Under no conditions does the soul come closer to eternal realities than in those charmed moments when it glimpses the world of the wondrous. 125 126 THE SOURCE OF POWER How plain it is that in dreams the soul exercises a magic power, capable of breaking through the material and sensuous limitations of the chrysalis and expanding its glorious wings in the world of spiritual realities, the door to which, in its waking consciousness, it seeks with bhnd impotence! And yet we must not overlook the fact that the irrecoverable opportunities of time and sense, in which if anywhere, our school- ing must take place, are too easily spent in profitless pleasure. But if imagination can find and bring back to sordid earth an inspiration that realizes itself in the homely expression of love and sincerity and faith towards those around us, who can say that it was in vain? The representation in consciousness of past scenes, the father's blessing, the mother's love, the sister's devotion, the brother's fidelity, is one of the choicest benefactions of life. In the same way, by the creative representation of new scenes, the imagination beckons the soul to adventure or points to new possibilities. Thus the soul is moved, emotions are stirred and also passions are excited. The warning is obvious! It must be remembered that the soul knows no harm in this; the senses are not corrupt; it is the spirit that refuses enthrall- ment to the senses. The subconscious mind developes with equal ease the scene that is too alluring and the scene that is inspiring. The spirit can readily conquer by substituting the helpful for the harmful. One of the most important exercises of the imagination is that of presenting to ourselves clearly and definitely the conditions of other people; their hardships, their pleasures, their trials, their limitations, so far as we can know them. Hinton, in "A New Era of Thought," p. 2, suggests the em- ployment of a cube made up of 27 small cubes. Set it before you, and beginning with each cube in turn, realize in consciousness its exact relation to all the other cubes. Thus we acquire an expansion of consciousness which is useful in many ways; it helps us to get rid of the fancied ability to live apart from the mass, which even- tually manifests itself in the terror of an unregretted death. One of the imperative needs of fife is the knowledge that pro- duces sympathy with others. Separateness is the negation of a primal law, and like all negation it produces nothing but evil. IMAGINATION 127 It is the great curse of civilized society, and in its essence it is the "outer darkness" of the parables. A democracy cannot exist without coherence in its parts. No portion or class can stand aloof, nor can it afford to neglect for a day the means that will bring about sympathy, one with another. It is thought that children excel in imagination, and it is true that their minds run riot in fields that produce delectation and take them out of themselves. But the trained imagination is utterly foreign to them. One must learn to present to themselves the conditions of others and their exact position in the cube of human welfare. Else there will be only ignorance and selfish egoism. For this reason, if for no other, imagination should be a daily exercise in schools. But the really fascinating quality in imagination is its creative power, that which leads to invention, the realization in fact of new ideas. In this aspect it is the very matrix of progress, the port of entry for unheard of wonders from a land of dreams. In this way the imagination works on the very plane of creation. It is not the human intellect that supplies the ideas, however effec- tively it can be trained to work them out. The ideas are intui- tions from the fountain head of all inspiration and truth, the great Soul that functions in art and music, and whose echoes haunt the writer and the poet. And yet the door of the imagination is open to the lowliest mind that seeks for entrance. The writer knows of a boy who (years before aeroplanes were thought of), fashioned for himself, of material that lies ready for all minds to use, an airship most cosily and conveniently designed with powerful engines of some- what hazy description, but with a steering wheel as good as any, and in this ship he made most wonderful and enchanting voyages every day, in the course of his long walk home from school. Nothing real could have been half so fascinating. To such a boy Jules Verne is the master writer. Many, no doubt, are well aware of the thrills produced by that conjurer of the imagination. Who has not journeyed with Hector Servidac into the illimitable abysses of space? Who, has not dreamed of the weird perils of the Mysterious Island? Who has not longed with emotion for the thrilling adventures of the Nautilus! The 128 THE SOURCE OF POWER creative imagination, you say, in its wildest flights. So it seemed. But what have we in the submarine but the idea realized in the fact! Thus the imagination produces the idea and the intellect works out the plan and the mechanical skill produces the material fact. The imagination creates the seed, which is the necessary beginning of all outward manifestation. The soil in which the seed de- velopes and grows is the subconscious mind. It is here that miracles are performed, powers are exercised of which we can give no adequate description, growth takes place—that marvellous creation, as it were, ex nihilo—that causes the glimmering of today, to be, tomorrow, the all potent thought that stupefies the world. So it was with Morse, with Edison, with the Wrights, with Marconi—the fruit of a generation—and so it will be to the end of time. No danger of dearth in the course from which intuitive ideas flow; they will ever be for those who supply the receptivity— for him whose imagination wings its daring flight the nearest to the sun. It is the same story in music and art. The creative imagination is ever seeking new forms in which to express itself, new modes of manifestation. It is not in bizarre disregard of the laws of art that originality is found. That is the refuge of the uninspired. But in recognizing the law and finding that the alchemy of the soul can discover new specializations, new expansions,—it is thus that intutition manifests itself and the divine enters into the human. So it was with Bach, with Wagner, with DeBussy. The true in art never shocks; it charms and overpowers the mind with a creative splendor that is beyond all words. It is the divine spark in the soul that knows its own. When the creative imagination has expressed itself, when the entrancing melodies, the ineffable harmonies, have penetrated to the very center of the soul, we do not turn to a critic to ask if this is real music—we worship, if there is anything in us hke that. The spiritual man hears what the dull hears, but with the spiritual ear he hears what the soul of the dull cannot perceive. It may be there, he says, but I do not hear it. The soul must grow and expand towards the infinite Beauty, thus it will begin to hear. IMAGINATION 129 There is no doubt a religion for the dullest souls, a matter of rites and symbols that are dimly understood; but for those whose souls have expanded to receive the divine in music or in art, who comprehend however feebly the oneness of all Beauty and Truth, who find they know intuitively that this is what makes life the divine thing it is—for these, the heavenly gates have already opened, the world of the wondrous is theirs. In art it is Michael Angelo that most enkindles the imagination —the human irradiating the divine. If one could stand besides such an artist, the dullest would realize that again a new factor was manifesting in the world—the intuition of the soul's language. It was not the mere embodiment of an idea in the perfection of physical beauty—Praxiteles and many another unknown sculptor have given us that. It was not the striking portrayal of a human soul as in Rodin's Le Penseur. But it is the eternal allegory of God in man. The loftier imagination is ever seeking, seeking, new forms of manifestation with an inerrant intuition that they must exist. The struggle often seems to us fantastic and bizarre as in cubism and futurism. The critic senses a lack of meaning. If it were there, he says, why is it not one and the same for each observer? But this is too obvious to be valid. The parable, the allegory, has as many meanings as a diamond can have facets. No two eyes catch the same gleam. One sees one meaning and one another— and some none at all. This is what an allegory is for! And so we reach the highest plane of creative imagination. It is the soul seeking emancipation from all limitations. Time and space? What are they to the navigator of the air who sees the earth as a ball! Material form? What is this to one through whose very body may be passing the intelligence of a marconigram! Words? Ah, yes. The poverty of language to express the emo- tion of the soul! The brutality of the most exquisite words! Oh, for the genii to bring us a precious vessel in which a lover may send his soul to his beloved! For the thoughts of the spirit words are worse than useless. They distort, they conceal, they limit, hopelessly. The imagina- tion seeks a celestial algebra with which to solve the problems of the infinite. Allegory and symbolism are the language of the future. CHAPTER II Understanding; Intuition Definition of understanding. Relation to intuition. Intuition of axiomatic truths. Axioms of logic. I and Not-I. Arith- metic. 2 plus 2 equals 4. Mathematics. Axioms only con- ditionally true. Meridians parallel by definition. Intuition of Life. Consciousness, Intelligence, Growth. The meanings of things. Meaning of value. Understanding may be defined as the power of knowing the meaning of things without the help of reason. It is clearly expanded by education and thought, for the child has this power potentially only. In this sense, understanding is one of the ways in which intuition manifests itself. It is a smaller sphere of a greater sphere. The commonest manifestation of understanding is seen in the intuitive grasp of the axioms that a child first encounters in the study of mathematics. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The whole is equal to the sum of its parts. Parallel fines never meet. In logic, the distinction between the I and the not-I, that a is a and a is not b, is grasped intuitively. In arithmetic 2 plus 2 is equal to 4. This seems capable of proof, but in reality it is not. You enumerate, 1, 2, 3, 4, and you think you have proved it, but you have only shown that 4 is the fourth figure in the series. The idea of 4 including the 1, 2, 3 is intuitively grasped. But here is a subtle thought in connection with mathematical axioms that is very suggestive. They are only conditionally true. Parallel hnes do not meet, if the surface is a plane surface. Parallel lines are lines that go in the same direction. Apply this to the sphere of the earth's surface. Meridians are hnes running from north to south. They are therefore parallel by the definition, but in fact they meet at the poles. The same may be shown of other axioms. You may object to this illustration on the score that lines running east and west, i.e., lines of latitude do not meet. 130 understanding; intuition 131 But there are only two directions on the earth's surface. East and west are only relative directions like right and left. Evidently the whole idea of direction is artificial and elusive. It is well to bear in mind that if the plane of consciousness con- ditions the truth of our axioms, there may be none of them that hold good on a higher plane. This in itself might easily render it impossible for spirits on a higher plane to communicate intelligibly with us on the earth plane. Some of the Bible statements that seem distorted and out of focus may be explained in this way. Understanding and intuition are our only resources when we come to the consideration of eternal realities. What is the mean- ing of Life, Consciousness, Intelligence and Growth? Viewed from our finite standpoint the first three do not affect us as dif- fering in any way that can be expressed in words. They are like stars that are so far away that they have no parallax. We can- not get an angle by which to differentiate them. It is of course possible to think of consciousness as the eyes, and intelligence as the mind of life but the distinction is superficial, it does not help. Growth is only apparently different; it contains the idea of becoming, of expansion, of creation, but otherwise it is a complete mystery. Let us think next of the intuition of meaning. To the naive mind it seems absurd to say that things are other than they seem, or that we do not know what we think we know. Such a mind is proud of always calling a spade a spade. It is willing to admit that "all that glitters is not gold," but does not realize that this insight had to be slowly and painfully acquired. That is the practical side of it, the caution, the wordly prudence, the knowledge that even the smartest are fooled occasionally, this can be learned. But the wider generalization, the idea that things have meanings, noumena, that are often very far removed from the first "common sense" aspect of them, meanings, often, in quite another world from the apparent meaning, that things can look and feel to be one thing and yet be something totally different—this wider generalization cannot be proved but must be attained by intui- tion. The naive mind is incapable of grasping it. 132 THE SOURCE OF POWER For example. To a primitive man in a primitive environment the picture engraved on a bank note may have a meaning and a pictorial value, but the meaning of the bank note apart from this naive notion is incomprehensible. Tell him he holds in his hand years of happiness, and he turns it Over skeptically—he sees no years. The ideas have nothing in common, are incommensurable. How many days are there in a quart! To the naive mind a home is a house, a place with walls and roof, representing so much money. A beautiful idea? Why, yes, if you look at it from that standpoint, but he was cheated in the paint! Tell him it is a cross section of heaven and he does not understand. Tell the child he is living in human society and he looks around curiously. Tell him that time is money and he looks blankly at the clock. The business man, however, has grasped that idea. But tell him that knowlege is life and he confesses that he never understood poetry. What we have to learn is, that the inconceivable thing may be the most real of all. That the thing we are unconscious of may seem not to exist. That the thing we cannot grasp at all today, that seems most unreal, even absurd, may become the one great conscious reality of tomorrow. That we can never be sure we know the real meaning of anything. The consciousness reaches out and grasps a little more each day —a new meaning that things have. The youth is sure he knows what life is. Its surge is unmis- takable. The man knows all that, but life to him is quite another thing. Why tell the youth of it? His consciousness of meaning has not reached the stage of expansion necessary to grasp it. He would be a very wise youth if he did not utterly deny it. The older man smiles at the cocksureness of the younger, and talks of incomprehensible things. He sees visions that overwhelm him in a sea of emotion. He cannot grasp them clearly, he cannot understand, but he feels. It is the meaning of spirit that is dawning on his consciousness. The "cross section of heaven" no longer seems absurd, it is the great truth—the other, the naive, idea was a mere illusion. He is conscious of new meanings in everything. The flowers! He always admired them, preferring one to another from his sense of understanding; intuition 133 beauty, but now they are quite other than they were. He wants to cherish—to kiss them, grasping for a strange, illusive sense of communion, of kinship. They are beings like himself. So with the trees. They have a totally different meaning, a conscious- ness, a life, an intelligence, oneness with himself. Finally there is the understanding of value. What is a thing worth? What would you give for it? What would another give for it? Values are constantly fluctuating. In everyday life there is always a market value for most things. Your note may have little value of its own but if such a firm "underwrites" it, it acquires value. If the government underwrites it, it has as much value as anything of the kind can have. But values that fluctuate are not real. A stroke is able to wipe them out. Change of conditions turns gold to dross. Is this all the meaning value has? Yes, if it is a question of what the hard headed call the real things. But a thousand times NO, if one's real world is the inner world! The child that has spent precious moments of its fife in gather- ing a bouquet of wild flowers and brings them all wilted in its hot, little hand and offers them as a token of what it has no words to express—this simple act at once clears up your ideas of value, of priceless value! In the inner world values do not fluctuate. Here alone you find eternal realities! Nature may do her worst, governments may go to smash, but the real values cannot change. Were it otherwise life would be worse than a mockery. "Skin for skin,"1 says Satan, "yes, all that a man hath will he give for his life." And why? For no other reason than that here we have the rock bottom of value. But again why? If life is so infinitely precious why should he value it so lightly as to lay it down for those he loves, for his country, even to save his integrity? The answer is plain. Every man in the depth of his soul knows intuitively that all life is one, ineffable and eternal. This is the one great reality. This is the one priceless value! 1 Professor Haupt explains these skins as the various externals (as the different skins of an onion) that protect the precious life within. CHAPTER III The Emotions Spiritualized The animal emotions good—unmoral. The struggle of the spirit against the flesh. Victory gives peace. Spiritualized emotions serve the spirit primarily. Emotions that divide and unite. Illustrations. Pure and impure. Use of the emotions in deter- mining the will. Will always desire. Only emotion can conquer emotion. Intellect and Reason stir emotion. Emotions as organs of knowledge. Extract from Ouspensky. Knowledge gained from emotions. Fear. Anger. Hate. Friendship. Love the chief source of knowledge. A deity or a demon. Love is one. God is Love. Love creates. Birth of the idea. Functions as intuition of the wondrous. The subject of this chapter demands a book for its adequate consideration and therefore only a suggestive treatment can be given here. It will be divided into the spiritualizing of the emotions, their use in relation to the will and as organs of knowledge. 1. The object of the previous chapter on the emotions was to show their origin in the animal and to emphasize the fact that no notion of right and wrong,, no moral idea, is inherent in them. The animal is a purely emotional creature. We are wont to see our thoughts in them but they are not there. They always do what is right for them to do. No perversion is possible. It is thus that the Apostle describes the spirtual man set "free from the law of sin and death." It is between these extremes that the battle of life is fought—the interval of man's moral evolution. This battle is between the spirit which makes man a moral creature, and the flesh which man's intellect enables him to mis- use. The fight for supremacy is between the spiritualized emo- tions and the animal emotions. Whatever man may have been in his earliest condition, we know of none so primitive that the battle is not already on. The idea of morals has already developed. Gluttony. Sensuality, Drunken- ness and Greed have already leaped into existence from the inno- cent desires of the animal and restraint is seen as a necessity to 134 THE EMOTIONS SPIRITUALIZED 135 social life. From this necessity springs law, and the sense of obligation. Restraint is also sensed as necessary in some way to happiness, and from this comes the moral precepts of religion and the sense of sin and shame. When the battle is won by the spirit, order succeeds to chaos and peace to struggle. Disarmament takes place. The rule of the spirit is gentleness and love, the body is satisfied and docile. What, then, is a spiritualized emotion? It is one which can serve the spirit as well as the flesh. It is not the ascetic idea that the flesh is evil and must be killed; it is the Christian idea that the desires of the flesh are legitimate and good but they must always minister to the spirit. With this idea in mind it will be seen that the emotions fall into two classes: those which divide and separate man from man, and are thus contrary to the unity of spirit; and those which tend to union and produce oneness. The emotions that come in the first class are such as pride, rage, jealousy, hatred, envy, etc. These minister to selfishness and constantly tend to disrupt society. They can only be thought of spiritually as, pride in others, a mother's pride in her son, anger at injustice done to others, jealousy as emulation, envy of spiritual attainments, etc. Under the second head would come humility, compassion. sympathy, friendliness, happiness, peace, love, etc. These al- ways unite. It can readily be seen from what natural emotions they have sprung: humility from fear, sympathy and compassion from suffering, friendliness from consciousness of kind and need of others, happiness and contentment from bodily comfort, peace from security, love from sensuality, etc. Another fundamental quality of spiritualized emotions is purity, that is, they must not be mixed. All emotions can be pure and impure. For example, humility to curry favor, sympathy that expresses superiority, friendliness to excite jealousy, and love whose end and aim is sensuality, are all mixed and impure. Purity is not inconsistent with plenty to eat and drink (for these things are good gifts from the Most High), but they are primarily to minister to the spirit's joy and wondering love. 136 THE SOURCE OF POWER 2. The use of the emotions which has been already referred to is their function in determining the will. The emotions give rise to desires and the will is the expression of the strongest desire. Many writers on the will have tried to see in it a separate faculty, and much has been said about strengthening the will as though a person might thereby become able to do what he did not want to do. This seems to be the result of loose thinking. More careful study makes it plain that the will is the resultant of desires. A weak will is one which fluctuates between desires. A strong will is one which goes straight on to the accomplishment of desire. One may take three illustrations in an ascending scale of motive. The desire to escape punishment, stronger than the desire to gratify appetite (Low). The desire to please others or to overcome selfishness, stronger than the desire for self gratification (Higher). The desire to be led by the Christ Spirit overcomes, obliterates and frees from any lower desire (Highest). One hears such expressions as will dominating passion, reason asserting itself against desire, etc., but it always a desire to be true to principles of honor that dominates passion, or a desire to escape the consequences pictured by the reason that asserts itself against the lower desire. It is only emotion that can conquer emotion. Intellect and reason by the aid of imagination influence the will only by producing stronger emotions. 3. Another use of the emotions, which is not well understood and will repay any thought given to it, is as means of acquiring knowledge. Emotions are not given us merely for the sake of feeling though that is the common notion of them. They are our surest approach to spiritual things. They are the ground in which intuition grows. If a person had no emotions you could never understand him; you would say that you never feel that you know him. The person in whom you discover the same emotion you have yourseK is at once known to you. What your own emotion has taught you about yourself you know about him. It is difficult to express it in words but the knowledge is there. The importance of the emotions ought not to surprise us, for they are not mere functions of the soul, they are the soul. Psy- chology is chiefly concerned with them. The following from Ouspensky makes this still clearer. THE EMOTIONS SPIRITUALIZED 137 To understand the psychology of play, it is necessary to experience the emotions of the player; to understand the psychology of the hunt it is necessary to experience the emotions of the hunter; the psychology of a man in love is incomprehensible to him who is cold and unfeeling; the state of mind of Archimedes when he jumped out of the bathtub is incom- prehensible to the staid citizen, who would look upon such a performance as a sign of insanity; the feeling of the globe trotter, delightedly breath- ing in the sea air and sweeping with his eyes the wide horizon is incompre- hensible to the sedentary stay-at-home. The feeling of a believer is incomprehensible to an unbeliever, and to a believer the feeling of an unbeliever is quite as strange. Men understand each other so imperfectly because they live always by different emotions. And when they feel similar emotions simultaneously, then and then only do they understand one another. The proverbial philosophy of the people knows this very well: "A full man does not understand a hungry one," it says: ' A drunk- ard is no comrade for a sober man." "One rogue recognizes another."1 This writer who has leaped into prominence among English speaking people in the last year, goes on to point out (as does also Wm. James) that alcohol has the effect of producing emotional states that are sufficiently alike in different persons to cause an illusion of mental understanding and good fellowship. It also, for the time being, creates an illusion of deeper understanding through the emotions, which is comparable to the effect of music. Let us try to see the emotions as organs of knowledge. The emotion of fear teaches us many things. Why some people are humble. As the saying goes/'they know which side their bread is buttered on." As good a reason as any if one cannot appreciate the truth. It is the fear of hunger and cold that causes most people to work. The fear of reptiles gives us some insight into the nature of things. The fear of a man who can crush your earthly hopes is very instructive. Anger and hate are able to teach us what we can scarcely learn from any other source: that for all our vaunted civilization and culture, our intellectual and religious attainments, we find the brute within us checked by the slenderest of chains. Desolation, misery and irreparable harm are able to overthrow not only the soul's peace but that of the family, the nation, the world. The knowledge of the animal nature is an index of the gulf that must be spanned to reach the spiritual. Values are vastly augmented. ^'Tertium Organum," p. 225. 138 THE SOURCE OF POWER Again the emotion of friendship teaches us that we need others; solitude is not for long; loyalty is noble and fine; there is some- thing more enduring than sex—often stronger than kin, and so on. This is not new knowledge, but it is traced to a new source—the emotions. So with compassion. A mine of treasure that promises well is worthy of deeper delv- ing. Well then, know thyself, as Socrates was often saying. But what is more important than that, is the knowledge of God and the opening up of our possibilities as His sons. For this we must study the emotion of love. Love is the strongest motive power in the world. The richest, the most powerful, the wisest, have sacrificed everything for love, and will continue to do so to the end of time. The world revolves about this emotion—not more wonderful than it is terrible. "In relation to life it is a deity, sometimes benevolent, but never sub- servient to us, never consenting to serve our purposes. Men strive to subordinate love to themselves, to warp it to the uses of their every day mode of life, and to their soul's uses; but it is im- possible to subordinate love to anything., and it mercilessly re- venges itself upon these little mortals who would subordinate God to themselves and make him serve them."2 Because they have too often debased love, men strive to divide it, and assign to God a sentiment less vital and less powerful. If men debase it, it is still a deity, and they are bound by invisible chains to a demon of their own creation, and in the end this demon demands the life of its slave. The pagan world serves this demon. The Christian world, confused by the influx of pagan ideas, has been unable to clarify its notions. It blesses and curses with the same breath. There is but one hope, to recognize that love is of God. Its origin is not in us. How could we create that which creates us? How could the world produce that which directs its every act? This is all the result of loose thinking or of no thinking. Even a dull mind must grasp the fact that all creative activity in human life is the result of love in its various spheres. It is divine, then, and it must be so honored, for in the exalting of it human nature is exalted. 1 Ouspensky, p. 165. THE EMOTIONS SPIRITUALIZED 139 He that is greatest among you let him be your minister, the Master said, and love stands ever ready to minister to those who are teachable. All that is ideal and intuitive in our souls, all that strives to create, to bring ideas to birth, receives its energy from love. It is in no mere figurative sense that it beautifies and gilds the commonplace in life and casts its glamour over all the world. Love is said to be blind, but it is only that it may see the farther. Unable to behold defects it perceives the ideal. It acknowledges a new vision of untold loveliness. It seeks to pene- trate the phenomena of earth and glimpse the deity beneath. It forgets the dulness of material things in the splendor of the im- material. It awakes to the reahty of a new life, a world of radiant light, at whose very portals it stands. It is the world of the wondrous, and that light is the source of all light and love. CHAPTER IV The Kinship of the Soul Subconscious mind a stranger in the world of sense. The mind that adapts to environment is not the soul. Imagine a person bereft of the five senses. What his consciousness would be. The soul's world is that of living souls. Its expansion. Reali- zation of self in higher consciousness. Kinship with God. The narrow way. No expansion possible to naive. Doubt sug- gested to soul by inconsistent life. Power of suggestion. The negations are the only realities of the dull. Faith acquired by suggestion. Faith and works. Nothing is plainer from the study of the subconscious mind than the fact that it is a stranger to the environment of earth. It is not a question of possible acclimatization but of the impossibility of naturahzation. This is the most important and far reaching thought that this book contains and it will be developed in this chapter. The subconscious mind, in the first place, lacks the very one thing and the only thing that could make it at home in this world of phenomena and sense, and that is the power to classify and order the phenomena about us or to grasp what the senses have to tell. We have a faculty that can accomplish both of these results, but it is the intellect, a power of the conscious, "objective" mind, and is not a part of the soul at all. The writer begs that the reader will try to grasp clearly the idea of the soul as existing, as it were, in a world, an environment, of its own. Suppose that all of our five senses were for a time com- pletely taken away, so that we were cut off absolutely from any contact or communication with the world around. It would per- haps be a terrifying experience to see nothing, feel nothing, smell nothing, taste nothing! The chief use of the mind—that of sensing and understanding the world around—would be inopera- tive. The mundane intellect would be stupefied. An unparal- leled isolation would be experienced. The consciousness of the outside, the Not-I, would be reduced to that of the plant or even 140 THE KINSHIP OF THE SOUL 141 the mineral. We would be, as we say, thrown back upon our- selves. What would that consciousness be? There is no doubt that we would have a perfectly clear con- sciousness of ourselves and of our feelings and emotions. The soul is quite at home in its emotional states. It would know itself to be released from pain and from any concern as to the world around. It would merely remember it as something which had at one time been present to its consciousness, but was so no longer. It would know intuitively what it wished to know; it would be able to receive communications from other subconscious minds by telep- athy; it would be able to exercise kinetic energy and move about if it chose; it would "see" as somnambulists see; and it would be able to contemplate preparations for burial with entire indifference. This last experience is on record. Now the point is this. The subconscious mind, the soul, would have no sense of irretrievable loss. Past experience through the information given by the mind's sense-percepts would seem like a dream. The real thing would be its emotional states; love that reached out to all living things as never before; intuition and intelligence that, unhampered by the illusions of sense, exulted in the unseen verities; and above all the serene contemplation of its own immortal existence as a spark of the eternal Flame. This is not an attempt to picture a continued condition. No doubt it would pass at once into active and loving cooperation with all other souls. But the thought is this. The soul would feel no desire for the phenomenal world and all its material activities; its kinship is with the living, the immortal ones like itself, those whom it has known and loved, and all others whom it loves as portions of itself, as parts of the great whole. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon us that the higher type of men love this world because of the thought that they find expressed in it and the beauty that appeals to their aesthetic sense and the activity that fires the imagination. All this is worth while. But how long would anyone elect to stay in this beautiful environ- ment if every other human soul were taken away? Such a question as this emphasizes as nothing else can that the interest, the kinship; the very soul of the soul, is forever bound up in life and love, and the illimitable possibilities of their expan- sion in knowledge, in illumination and in joy. 142 THE SOURCE OF POWER But it is necessary that the soul should be trained until it has expanded to the realization of its true self, exactly as the child must be. Whenever and wherever that dawn of realization comes, the soul will see itself as in the field, feeding swine and hungering for the husks. Then it comes to the knowledge of the Father, the Father's home, the servants among whom, the lowliest, it craves a place, in recognition of the years wasted in ignorance. Then comes the wonder of sonship and union with the Father. These are the men and women of the higher type of conscious- ness. This is the pathway of expanding consciousness by which they have reached their present state. Every soul must eventu- ally tread that narrow way for there is no other entrance to the Realm. But for the present the souls of the naive are eating the husks with more or less contentment—not quite as merrily as the swine. To understand why this is so we must recall constantly the great law of all soul phenomena, the power of suggestion. The chapter on suggestion should be indelibly impressed upon the mind, for on suggestion all depends. Make no mistake about this. If you suggest, by the constant thought and action of your life, that the world you see is all there is to see, then for you this is the absolute and only truth. We must remember that the deductive reason of the soul runs every thought to its logical conclusion. A man may deceive himself with the idea that he believes in God though no action of his life is done as a result of that belief. Not so the soul. Belief in God can mean but one thing to the soul, and that is absolute obedience. And if it sees no such obedience, but only obedience to the ideas of the world, of society or merely appetite, then the only conclusion is that there is no God. The soul in its present condition does not know it is being deceived. Remember the fishermen! If the unreality of God is thus impressed upon the soul, one may go harmlessly to church, one may utter credos that have no point of contact with real life, one may say prayers whose tinkle merely gratifies for the moment a passing sense of propriety, one may do some act of kindness as the animal licks its kin, one may listen attentively to discourses that move the feelings with a transient THE KINSHIP OF THE SOUL 143 mysterious rapture, one may even read the grand allegories of scripture and think he has an inkling of the meaning, but all in vain! Such a soul has no place for God. God is merely an idea that lacks the potency of the genius of Aladdin. What does he count for in such a life—in the face of the constant suggestion of his non- existence? If there be a God, He must be everything, or He is nothing. He must be in everything, or He is nowhere. Every- thing is His thought, every least movement is His movement, every beauty is His beauty, for He is all in all. Only the negations are ours! The negation of health is disease; the negation of hap- piness is misery; the negation of good is evil; the negation of hfe is death. But to the naive soul, on the contrary, these are the great realities—these are the pitiful clink of coin. And it is the mind itself that has made them so! The constant, never ceasing sugges- tion that has deluded the soul. It lives in death. So great is the power of suggestion! It is only from extremes that we get clear ideas. The picture drawn above is no doubt an extreme, but the soul is only affected by strong suggestions. An adverse suggestion of doubt neu- tralizes one of Faith. What we believe we do. The potent suggestion of kinship with God is neutralized by failure to act accordingly. But this suggestion is the only means of introducing into the soul that harmony which produces beauty and supplies the condi- tions necessary for growth. Nothing more is needed to prove the divine origin than its utter barrenness in an atmosphere of doubt. All growth ceases, expansion is impossible. As well expect a rose to bloom in an icy temperature. It has already been pointed out that faith is the factor that makes healing possible. It has also been shown that in the ab- sence of faith, doubt is always exercising its destructive influence. We cannot observe neutrality and hope to stay as we are because neutrality is doubt. So if we would make progress in the higher consciousness it can only be accomplished by faith in the soul's kinship with the Divine Spirit. In this atmosphere its growth is often rapid and its expansion in consciousness cannot be mistaken. 144 THE SOURCE OF POWER Faith can often be strengthened by suggesting belief to the soul, the subconscious mind. This is the thing the soul loves as we can plainly see in the glad faith of a child. Like the child it attends earnestly to such suggestions. It is no poetic notion that faith is the life and breath of the soul; it is a scientific truth that anyone can demonstrate for himself. The Gospel is full of proof of this. The Master taught it by healing but it was not for this that He came into the world. "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." And the soul expands and responds in an instant, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." What a world of meaning there is in that. The soul in its earthly environment catches a glimpse of a possibility too great for words. It feels no power but it asks for it and immediately it is there. It is the great underlying lesson of all progress, "Ask and ye shall receive." Suggest faith to the soul as the Master did and instantly the soul responds. Then there is the man whose faith was so little that his cure was only partial, but what was accomplished gave greater faith and completed the good work. So we greatly help ourselves by noting the first signs of what we are striving for and so leaping on to its attainment. But faith and works must go hand in hand. The realization of divine kinship must be accompanied by the will to show it forth in every act of life. If the study of psychology makes anything plain it is that a suggestion to the subconscious mind is entirely negated by acts contrary to the suggestion. What we do weighs more heavily than what we say. Faith in its fullness is only given to those who merit it. CHAPTER V The Language of the Soul—Allegory The subconscious mind requires an atmosphere of faith. It is a stranger in a materialistic world. Its language is allegory. What it is. Emerson. Allegory expresses more than words. Limitation of words. Children love allegories. Fairy tales. Characteristic of subconscious mind. Telepathy expresses thought in allegory. Hudson's experiments. Planchette. Al- legory expresses more than one meaning. Parables. Meaning purposely concealed. Why? To await receptivity. To inspire worthiness. Faith ineffectual without worthiness. The attempt was made in the last chapter to show that the sub- conscious mind of man is not at home in an environment of material phenomena. It has no senses with which to grasp and understand such surroundings as the intellect, the conscious mind, has. The intellect, until it has learned better, takes the world of sense at its surface value. The subconscious mind with its intuitive power strives to teach the intellect to look below the surface, but succeeds only with those who try to develop a higher consciousness. The subconscious mind is pure spirit, but, like everything else that is subconscious, it is subject to the law of suggestion. If the intellect, in spite of a consciousness that something is wrong, refuses to suggest to the soul faith in the unseen, the soul eventu- ally perishes. What this means will be considered in the next chapter. What is important now, is to make clearer that the soul, the subconscious mind, is a stranger in a strange land. One of the first things we notice in such a stranger is his foreign tongue. Is it true of the subconscious mind that it uses a language which is not the patois of those who pride themselves on always calling a spade a spade, who "never understood poetry?" It has already been pointed out that genius is a power to use the subconscious mind in a manner that is only possessed by the few. The most common (and often the least recognized) use of this 145 146 THE SOURCE OF POWER power is to be found among orators and speakers who, for the clothing of their thought, are able to trust to the inspiration of the moment. The great orators have realized that in speaking they lost all consciousness of their surroundings, were even immune to bodily sensations, and had at their bidding a wealth of illustration in facts and imagery that they could not command at other times. This is an evident use of subconscious powers. It is really the soul that is speaking and it is this element that casts its spell over other souls. There is then a language of the subconscious mind and this is allegory. Emerson, in "Miscellanies," p. 32, says, The moment our discourse rises above the ground line of familiar facts, and is influenced by passion or exalted by thought, it clothes itself in images.....Hence, good writing and brilliant discourse are per- petual allegories. Let us consider then what an allegory is, and see that it is a demand of the subconscious mind. 1. Allegory is an attempt to express, in a figurative way, what words, in their literal sense, are unable to express. Words are the vehicles made by the conscious intellect to ex- press its thoughts. It is certainly a significant fact that there should be thoughts for which there are no words! If they are thoughts of the intellect why has it not made words for them? Or are they thoughts of the soul? Language is a living thing, no doubt, but words are like the cells of this living thing; vital at first, then losing their meaning, falling down as it were, and having to be replaced. The curious thing about words is that they are not elastic, but are always being narrowed and contracted, always being specialized. See what has happened to such words as catholic, moral, pure. It is true that a few seem to be elastic like good, bad, nice, etc., but it is not a true elasticity but a stretching that has rendered them useless. Again, words tend to convey to each person a few meanings that are in some way the result of his particular education and an index of his mental calibre. They do not mean the same thing to all, and you never are sure that your idea is grasped, unless you talk of commonplaces. Ordinarily we do not feel this limitation, but if we try to talk to children or seek to convey a loftier thought, the want of suitable words is keenly appreciated. THE LANGUAGE OF THE SOUL 147 In this emergency the soul comes to our relief and suggests vehicles of thought that are like pictures of which the earthly in- tellect often completely fails to grasp the meaning. This is a method of expression which confronts the reader of the Bible in almost every verse. Words like shepherd, water, pil- grim, vine, etc., are stories in themselves. It is for this reason that children, whose vocabulary is small, must be talked to in allegori- cal words. These words excel in elasticity. There are meanings and meanings. The child, whose intellect is undeveloped but whose soul is on the surface, is delighted as with something in its own sphere. Fairy stories contain the same element. Some never care for them; some lose their appreciation of them, the subtle value has evaporated; others find them growing in meaning and reality. Nature is a fairyland ever increasing in reality and unreality. The soul is a fairy, but let it beware of the hob-nailed heel of the giant, Common Sense! His first denial of fairyland shows him for the murderer he is. How does the child know any difference (if difference there be) between faith in fairies and faith in spirit? But how do we know that allegory is the soul's language? Of course, if the soul is a stranger and a pilgrim in earth's environ- ment and finds our mundane forms incapable of expressing super- mundane thought, the statement is a priori sound. But the communications of the subconscious mind are expressed by telepathy. Is there to be found in such communications the element of allegory? The answer is yes. Allegory is not only to be found there but it is exceedingly hard to get the subcon- scious mind to use anything else. Dr. Hudson, the pioneer in such investigations, gives a series of experiments1 that anyone can try for himself. He would blindfold himself while sitting with his family and have them secretly select a card from a pack and set it up in plain sight and concentrate their minds upon it while he would try to read in his subconscious mind the card which he received from their minds by telepathy. 1 "Evolution of the Soul," p. 188. 148 THE SOURCE OF POWER To do this one must become en rapport with his own subcon- scious mind and (apart from hypnotism) this condition is most easily attained in the period of semi-consciousness which precedes sleep. Dr. Hudson accomplished his end on several occasions, and was able to tell the name of the card. One of the chief difficulties that he experienced was that of retaining the rapport when the name of the card began to come to him. The natural excitement of the experiment tended to make him wide awake. Now the most interesting feature of these experiments was the fact that the card was always expressed allegorically. He never just saw the plain card, but always some figurative expression of it. For instance if the card were the ten of diamonds, he would begin by seeing a real diamond, and then another and finally would be able to count ten of them, but not arranged as the spots on the card. Again, if the card were one of spades, he would see some- thing which he slowly recognized as a garden implement, a spade. (The irony of it! that the very symbol of crass reality should lend itself to such a use!) The same allegorical method of expression is quite characteristic of the planchette. It hates above all things to use literal terms. Liverpool is meatpool, Chicago is porktown, Norfolk is northpeople. Anything but the plain word. A submarine is a submersible craft, the people in the room are the assembled throng. Once it expressed a desire to stop; when urged to keep on it said, you'll be sorry; when still teased, it rapidly sketched a grave with a fine headstone, and hurried to the bottom to write, Here lies the whole bunch! It delights in drawing pictures; frequently it happened, when apparently through and about to give it the looked for name, it hurries back and puts in an eyeglass with perfect accuracy, or continues for several minutes to elaborate some curls. Asked what a certain farmer was doing it drew a cow with someone milking it; what a woman was doing, it drew a kitchen range with all the modern appliances. It is always whimsical. The writer could go on for pages with illustrations of the use of allegory that have happened under his own eye, though not through his participation, except it were mentally by telepathy. It is always the allegorical element that is so striking; simple questions, often asked mentally, receive a figurative or recondite THE LANGUAGE OF THE SOUL 149 answer. In these cases above mentioned the allegorical element is plainer than the need for it, unless it be the nature of the soul so to express itself. We must remember, too, that allegories, hidden meanings, are only understood by the soul. The conscious mind senses only the surface meaning. 2. But allegories are not merely to express what words will not; they are to enable one to express more than one meaning at once. Allegories are like bulbs which have two or more coats to pro- tect and conceal the inner heart. Perhaps the best known of allegories in English is "Pilgrim's Progress." The literal story can hardly be described as one of breathless interest. The figurative meaning which is forced on one from every possible angle is too obvious. What naive minds Bunyan had in view! But the mystical meaning gives food for thought. So it is with the parables. The master mind is plain. One listens with never flagging interest, for there is always something new. It is not the wisdom of the Master alone that is so admirable in providing such vehicles for His teaching, but the method as well. He is not speaking to the intellect of His hearers, but to their souls, and so he uses the soul's language—allegory. The meaning of the parables will never be clear because there is always a deeper meaning hidden from the casual student. In secret, we are told, the Master explained the Parables to His disciples. But all He gave them, if we may judge from the two instances narrated, was a simple figurative meaning. At the same time He told them the time was coming when He should no longer speak to them in parables but would show them plainly of the Father. That time did not come as they expected. Just before He left them we find them with the same sluggish understanding. But in the last of St. Luke we are told that He opened their minds to "understand the scriptures." There was then something be- neath all He had imparted. 3. Allegories, therefore, are intended not only to teach but to conceal. There is always the occult meaning that is intended for the few. Why is this? To the unthinking mind this seems furthest removed from the intention of the Master. Why should He conceal the simple 150 THE SOURCE OF POWER truths He came to teach? And yet they were concealed, as we have noted. Moreover the great Prophet (Is. 6:9) was sent by the Holy Spirit to proclaim this very thing. Go and tell this people, You will hear and hear but never understand, You will see and see but never perceive! For the heart of this people is obtuse, Their ears are heavy of hearing, Their eyes they have closed, Lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they understand with their heart and turn again, And I cure them. Evidently these words are of the deepest import because they are quoted six times in the New Testament. One of the reasons for this use of allegory the Master gives us in the words, "I have still much to say to you, but you cannot bear it just now." The soul must expand in order to receive the deeper truth. That we do not understand all the mysteries of Spirit is partly due to our own lack of receptivity. It is also partly due to our unworthiness. This is the second reason for the use of allegory. To conceal the truth from the unworthy. Lest they see, and hear, and under- stand, and be healed. The person who wishes to make any progress in the study of the soul—its powers and its possibilities—will do well to take heed. The Master makes wonderful statements and holds out promises that pass understanding; assurances of power to do and to have that would make the possessor great beyond words to tell. Two things only are necessary. The first is faith, without wh;ch the grander powers of the soul are locked up as in a vault. "All things are possible to them that believe." The second is worthiness. We get nothing without working for it. The higher type, for whom the day is dawning, are those who are ready to give thought and time to the expansion that must take place before spiritual truths can be grasped. And then as truth dawns it must be lived. But no one is kept long waiting! The giver is most generous; seek aright and you find at once. Faith is easy when you learn to do. CHAPTER VI The Life of the Soul: Faith Religion comes to science to learn what faith is. Failure of faith as taught by religion. Psychology defines it. Adverse sug- gestion of inconsistent life. Powers of the soul conditioned by faith. Faith alone can give life. Five propositions. The soul not you but only yours. How it can become you. Kinship with spirit. Becoming one with the Christ Spirit. Union ef- fected by the Holy Spirit. The new personality is spiritual. The soul accepts it. "I and my Father are one." Vital faith is life. It is a fact of curious and pathetic irony that religion which has for centuries flouted God's truths under the name of science, should be obliged to come to science to learn the meaning of faith. It is now nearly two millenniums that Christianity has been taught in the world and not one-half is Christian. Moreover, thousands who have accepted it are leaving it for anything that seems to offer hope. There is but one possible reason that will account for this. Chris- tianity as it has been taught fails to give what it promises. In popular phrase it does not "deliver the goods." Those who have old wine do not ask for new. How has it failed? Again there is but one answer. Faith as it is taught is a coun- terfeit article. The Christian's cheque is not honored by the heavenly bank. Faith, as taught, is counterfeit in both degree and land. It believes only part, and it conceives of faith as a sentiment and not an act. Real faith believes everything and does everything. It is here that psychology defines the nature of faith. In the preceding chapters it has been absolutely shown that the subconscious mind is very sensitive to suggestion and receives and acts on everything that is suggested to it. Now these sug- gestions are only potent when one has faith in the subconscious mind, and makes it no adverse suggestion of doubt. But why should he suggest doubt, if he has faith? It is not done intention- ally, but it is done by actions that belie the faith. 151 152 THE SOURCE OF POWER For example: A person suggests to the subconscious mind faith in health. But if, at the same time, he talks or thinks of disease as a possibility and dreads it as though it might happen to him, this is the strongest kind of adverse suggestion; it negatives completely the faith expressed; it becomes the potent suggestion, and the dreaded diseases are sure to be produced. The only faith that is worthy of the name is that which finds its echo in every act of life. Faith which does not consistently mani- fest itself in acts of love and blessing is really a suggestion of evil, and evil is bound to follow. All the powers of the soul are conditioned by faith. Faith in health and the power to heal produces health. Faith in telepathy enables one to heal others and to convey to them com- fort and peace. Faith in kinetic energy places it at your com- mand. Faith in intuitive deduction gives you wonderful power in clearness of thought and reasoning. Faith in memory enables you to depend upon it. Faith in happiness and love overcomes misery and fear. Faith in the Christ Spirit sets free from the law of sin and death. And this brings us to the subject of our consideration, that the life of the soul is Faith. This is not primarily a religious truth but a scientific axiom. On what does it depend? It depends on the following five propositions: 1. The subconscious mind, the principle of Life, is immortal, but it is also impersonal. As such, it is ours only for this life. 2. It is impossible to impress upon it a purely human per- sonality. 3. It is possible to impress upon it a higher spiritual personality. 4. The human spirit through union with the Christ Spirit by the Spirit of love can become a spiritual personality. 5. This spiritual personality can be impressed on the subcon- scious mind, the soul. Let us give a brief consideration to these propositions. 1. We have seen that the subconscious mind is the grand prin- ciple of life that pervades the universe. It is a shocking dullness on our part to imagine that anything but this could have built up our body from a microscopic germ and can so wonderfully order all its intricate functions. But the subconscious mind is abso- THE LIFE OF THE SOUL: FAITH 153 lutely impersonal, as has been plainly pointed out. The hypnotist can impress upon it by the power of suggestion any personality he pleases. Your subconscious mind, then, is not you, but only yours for the period of this life, It is indeed immortal (for how can life itself die?), but unless during our lifetime we have, with all our faith, impressed upon it a personality that can survive the dissolu- tion of the body, we, as individuals, will cease to exist. This is what the Master means by saying that the person without faith perishes (St. John 3:17). The soul that was loaned to you be- comes one with the all pervading life, or it is loaned to someone else. 2. The soul cannot be impressed with an earthly personality that will survive death. All that is seen is transient. The senses perish as organs of flesh. The subconscious mind knows nothing of them except, as it were, by hearsay! It acknowledges no kin- ship with the flesh. It is pure, eternal, spirit and, as subconscious mind, it is impersonal. It is yours, to serve you most wonder- fully to the last, but it is not you; and it never can become an earthly person. The power of suggestion may deceive the soul for a time but not forever. At death it would recognize its kin- ship with the Source of life and the earthly personality of the human spirit would cease to exist. 3. But the kinship of the subconscious mind renders it most sensitive to spiritual things. Everyone has noticed this whether he understood or not. What happens when one hears of some simple act of loving sacrifice? Even the dull soul responds with a flood of emotion, and often the body itself is moved, the eyes are suffused with moisture. This kinship of the soul with the spiritual is our only hope. It is possible to impress upon it a higher spiritual personality, but it must be one which lives only for spiritual things and stands ready to cheerfully give up the body at a moment's notice. Where can such a personality be found? 4. It was for the very purpose of giving us this opportunity that the Christ Spirit came into bodily relation with our sense world. Our human spirit, our intellect is quite capable of ap- preciating our finiteness, our lack of commensurability with any- 154 THE SOURCE OF POWER thing eternal, and thus realizing the greatness of the opportunity. It can also understand the means by which it can be grasped. What we need to do is to change our earthly personality into a spiritual personality and this can only be accomplished by attain- ing oneness with the Christ Spirit. It must become one with our spirit, so that our spirit no longer functions as an earth spirit, but recognizes in it a mind that is not its own. In the same way the human will is supplanted by the Christ will, which becomes our spirit-will. Now the only way in which this can be effected is by bringing to bear on us the law of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love, whose chief work is that of unifying. The philosophical state- ment of these fundamental truths must not delude us into thinking that we understand how this is accomplished. It is only through the spirit that we can understand the working of the spirit. But the main thing is that it can be accomplished. It is first an act of the intellect grasping the thing to be done. Then there is an act of faith that it can be done and an expansion of consciousness that seems to lay hold of and feel the spiritual reality. And finally there is the deliberate choice of spirit and the letting go of the things of the flesh. In some such way the wonder is accomplished and the Christ Spirit has become one with our spirit. A new creature has come into existence and the emotions spring forward to receive it. Temptations become inoperative; the law of sin ceases to bind; there is nothing to condemn those that are one with the Christ Spirit. 5. It is thus that we acquire a new personahty. We recognize it as no longer our old self. The Apostle saw it plainly, it is "not I but Christ." He saw that he was no longer in the flesh but in the spirit. He was one with Christ. The spirit in him called out, "Father!" "I and my father are one." He realized in himself the allegory of the Vine and the Branch. If a son, an heir. "All that I have is Thine." A stupendous miracle of faith! Thus we attain the spiritual personality that is akin to the sub- conscious mind within us. This personafity can be impressed THE LIFE OF THE SOUL: FAITH 155 upon the subconscious soul and it gladly receives it. The Apostle calls it "putting on Christ." Now we have the Life principle not only in the soul but in the spirit. For such a person there is no death, there is only the putting off of the flesh. The immortal soul is not only yours but you. Immortality has already begun. "The believer has eternal life." So we have seen that the fife of the soul is faith. But it is no mere assent to a thing as true. This sort of faith has no power; it cannot lay hold on spirit; it cannot appropriate a single promise. The vital faith is a life. The spirit is no longer timid. If it is a son of the Most High, if it is a branch of the Real Vine, if it is one with Christ as He is with the Father, then it dares to say, "I and my Father are one!" Anything short of this is the fatal doubt that the subconscious mind grasps in a moment and accepts as the real suggestion. Nor does the spirit lack humility. It knows too well the power of illusion, the tremendous force of the argument of the senses against the very existence of spirit. It is fain to gasp with the almost despairing father, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." The vital faith is a life. If the spirit is filled with blessings, it is that it may always be blessing others; if it overflows with love, it is that it may show love in every thought, in every word, in every action, and nothing but love. And so the astounding thing becomes a fact. The soul imparts its wondrous powers of intuition, and every day the spirit sees deeper into spirit, the spiritual becomes the only reahty, the higher consciousness beholds oneness in all things, and God is all in all! CHAPTER VII Metaphysics Metaphysics—beyond physics. Matter and thought. Two infini- ties impossible. No matter without form, hence finite. Uni- versal Spirit, impersonal. First cause. Intelligence can only express itself according to capacity of organism. Man the limit of complexity. The self-conscious mind begotten by the sub- conscious, as Christ by the Father. The moral life—the Holy Spirit. Love the bond of union. Body spiritualized. St. Paul's dualism. Evil a negation. Metaphysical axioms. As physics describes and explains the construction of the universe, the outward manifestations or phenomena that the sciences deal with, so metaphysics (beyond physics) strives to explain that which lies behind, under and through these phe- nomena and has caused them. When we study the phenomena of nature such as rocks, trees, minerals, etc., our senses give us an impression of something vary- ing in hardness which we call matter and we get the idea that all we see is a manifestation of matter under different forms. There are also phenomena of an entirely different character such as life which appears to produce matter, and thought which acts upon matter not only in ourselves but in other persons. Now in the endeavor to think back to the beginning of things we first realize that there could have been no beginning of things. This realization comes to us as an axiom, something which is not sus- ceptible of proof except that the mind cannot conceive of the opposite statement being true, i.e., that there was a beginning. In the same way our intuition informs us that there can be no end. In other words existence is and must be infinite and no limitation in time or space is conceivable. This being the case the question arises which of these two phenomena that we are conscious of is infinite? Is matter infi- nite? Is thought or life infinite? Or are they both infinite? Here again we must appeal to our intuition for these things cannot be demonstrated. 156 METAPHYSICS 157 Taking the last question first we can say at once that both things cannot be infinite because in that case one would be limited by the other and would therefore be finite. The infinite can have no limitation whatever. If, then, both matter and thought cannot be infinite, we will consider whether matter can be. Matter, as has been already pointed out, is only known to us as manifested under certain forms. We cannot conceive of mat- ter apart from some form such as rock, wood, etc. Hence matter is always limited by form and consequently cannot be infinite. And so we are forced to the conclusion that only thought or life or spirit is eternal and infinite. If, then, spirit is infinite it must be the cause of all other forms of existence. It helps us to grasp the idea if we realize that our thought has been the cause of many of the forms we see around us. The house we live in, the table we eat at, the chair we sit in, are all examples of a thought that has caused a certain phenomenon or manifestation. These phenomena moreover are constantly under- going changes of form as when a house burns down or a chair wears out. We are forced to the conclusion, then, that the only thing which is infinite and can exist apart from form or any other limitation is spirit. We must begin then with spirit. Now while we cannot think of a time when spirit began to exist, we can conceive of a time when it had not manifested itself in outward phenomena. In such a way we catch the idea of a universal, all-pervading essence or being or spirit that fills all infinity. The helplessness of language to express a thought like this ought to put us on our guard against words. They all tend to limit and so they contradict the idea of infinite spirit. The first consideration that suggests itself in regard to this universal spirit is that it must be impersonal inasmuch as, being all in all, it underlies all manifestations and phenomena including our own personalities. This underlying spirit is the life of all organized matter. It is the soul and intelligence that builds all organisms and gives them 158 THE SOURCE OF POWER their form. It is the subconscious mind of man. So the imper- sonal spirit expresses itself as life which is ever ready to manifest itself in growth whenever the necessary conditions are present. Whenever and wherever spirit and life manifest themselves we always find intelligence which seems to be exactly adapted to the needs of the organism which it has built. These organisms, however, are capable of development and it is because of this capacity that the process of evolution from lower to higher forms becomes possible. Now as the distinction between lower and higher forms is essentially one of intelligence, it seems nearer the truth to think of this intelligence as always one and the same but limited in its power of expression by the organism in which it manifests. Even the simplest organism exhibits an intelligence which does not differ in kind from the highest intelligence that we can imagine. Hence it seems to be the development of the organism that enables the intelligence to manifest itself in higher degrees. In the highest animals the highest degree of intelligence is manifested that is possible when consciousness exists only in its simple state. The human organism appears to have reached the highest stage of complexity, and in order that intelligence may have greater scope for expression a new element appears in the form of clear or self- consciousness. The animals, from very low forms up, have possessed brains which have functioned according to their needs in connection with the senses, but not as organs of intellect, unless certain ex- traordinary instances are to be taken as pointing to this higher development. But in man the brain has greatly expanded and furnished him with an organ through which a self-conscious spirit can function as intellect. Whence comes this self-conscious human spirit? Apparently there is but one answer to this question. It has been generated or begotten by the universal spirit in each man in order that the intelligence may express itself in still higher degrees. It is now able to grasp the meaning of things and to discern under the phenomena of nature the thought which they express. The possession of the human spirit has also opened to man a new world of moral possibifities. It has given him a new field of METAPHYSICS 159 development in which he is able to employ all his highest faculties in a struggle to overcome what he now recognizes as lower. But whence comes the desire to overcome the flesh and not to be ruled by its appetites? Surely the human spirit has of itself no such aspiration. The intellect and imagination do not antagonize the flesh but gladly minister to its further exploitation. The intellect does indeed discover certain limits of gratification be- yond which it is inexpedient to go, and thus lays down for the wise man a law of moderation, a purely utilitarian or stoical re- straint that conduces to the greatest degree of worldly happiness and success. But whence comes the desire for a happiness which is in its essence unworldly, a desire to give rather than to get, to minister rather than to be ministered to? To answer this question it is necessary to recognize the existence of a Spirit which is in no sense worldly, which is from above and points to unknown possibilities, but which is, nevertheless, akin to our human spirit. This Spirit indeed corresponds to our human spirit and is begotten of the great universal, all-pervading, life- spirit which, as we have seen, underlies all the phenomena of the universe and gives them substance. Moreover as in the natural man it is not hard to discover that certain emotions, such as friendship and love, produce union, so we recognize in the universe a Spirit of love and a bond of peace and union which enables the human spirit (if it will receive it) to become one with the Christ Spirit—the logos, the Word, the Mind of the universal Spirit. The union of the human spirit with the Christ Spirit through the bond of love is thus effected and the result is the impressing a personality upon the impersonal soul—the subconscious mind— which is in its essence immortal. The part becomes one with the whole. The ocean of divine life and love flows into the drop. The effect of this union on the body is not to kill anything that is natural but rather to spiritualize the emotions and appetites. Even hatred of evil and jealousy of good are apphed to the divine Being. This truth was not grasped fully by the great Apostle and most of his references to the body and its desires seem to be prompted by a dualism which could not recognize anything but evil in the flesh. St. Paul's pagan learning, his not having seen 160 THE SOURCE OF POWER Christ in the flesh and witnessed His participation in feast and festivity, his exaltation of the idea of sacrifice which God rejected, his consequent reading into the Christian religion of a doctrine of the Cross which is in strange contrast with the Master's teach- ing—these causes produced a lack of harmony in the Apostle's teaching which have tended to obscure the joy and freedom that come from the spiritualized emotions and appetites. And so we arrive at a wholly satisfactory idea of Christian metaphysics. The universal, all-pervading spirit, which the Master teaches us to call the Father, begets the Christ Spirit, which differentiates the eternal substance into the innumerable forms under which we perceive the manifestation of life. "With- out Him was not anything made that was made." The Holy Spirit of love which binds into one the Father and the Son, brings about in us the same union of the soul with the Christ Spirit by spiritualizing the emotion of love. Thus the whole creation is not diverse but essentially one. In such a scheme of the universe evil as a real existence can hold no permanent place. Evil is the result of the separation from good. It is a negation. It cannot become positive. As sickness has no existence as soon as health prevails, so evil and fear cease to exist in the presence of goodness and love. They flee away as darkness before light. Their temporal effects are real enough but they need not exist, and they do not exist for those who dwell in the spirit and are freed from the law of sin and death. In thinking on metaphysical lines it is helpful to bear in mind certain truths which will solve many of the problems which at first seem obscure. The most important to remember are: that evil is a negation of good; that as is the part so is the whole and as is the whole so is the part; as is the seen so is the unseen; all spirit and life are one in essence; life and consciousness are ever pressing toward higher degrees of manifestation; the impersonal spirit is always capable of receiving a personality and God acts to you according to the idea you have of Him; and finally, the human soul partakes of individual immortality by having im- pressed upon it the personality of the Christ, or, as the Apostle well expresses it, by "putting on Christ." CHAPTER VIII The Will of the Spirit Three aspects of will. Desire-will. Obligation-will. Will of the Spirit. The struggle with the flesh. The impotence of moral law. The victory of the Spirit. No law for the spiritual. How attain it? By asceticism? Never! Distinction between the fleshly and the spiritual use of things. Joy-Gaiety-Freedom- Contentment, the four corners of God's Realm. Men love dark- ness. The Spirit must will. Why the soul has passed through aeons of evolution. To fit it for the irrevocable choice. Good or Evil. What the Great Choice means. The wonderful prom- ises. The naive cannot understand. The man with cosmic consciousness enters into the Realm of God. There are three aspects of the will. There is the animal will with no morality, simple desire-will; there is the human will, with a sense of moral duty, the obligation-will; and there is the higher will of the spiritualized man, the choice of eternal good, the will of the spirit. To the animal it is said, Follow your desires, you cannot go astray. To the naive man it is said, Obey your sense of obliga- tion, whatever your intellect tells you is right; thus will you have a clear conscience. To the spiritualized man it is said, There is but one possible choice, that between good and evil; choose goodness and you are among the blessed. To the animal, were it able to understand, the situation is a simple and a happy one. There are no aspirations, no confusions, no doubts. To the naive man there are no aspirations; there is a sense of the unfolding of consciousness to a nobler possibility; there is a struggle between the flesh and the spirit in the battle field of the soul; there are confusions of ideas of right and wrong, intellectual doubts and changing moral standards, subtle casuistries that dis- tract and darken the spirit; there is the distressing confession of impotence; "What I would not, that I do." Even so fine a 161 162 THE SOURCE OF POWER soul as that of the Apostle,1 until the light dawned upon him, was fain to acknowledge, "I cannot understand my own actions." To the spiritual man all is light and simplicity and joy. A new law has entered in and taken possession of the soul. The clouds of intellectual morality, the miserable uncertainties of hair-splitting discussion, the foregone conclusion of never understanding your own actions—all this is absolutely done away. But how? By being set free. "The law of the spirit brings the life which is in Christ Jesus, and that law has set me free from the law of sin and death." The child has learned to walk and is set free from the hampering law of equilibrium. Walk in the Spirit, and you will not know there is a moral law. "Lead the life of the Spirit; then you will never satisfy the passions of the flesh." "There is no law for those that are in Christ." This is certainly a clear idea, and yet to many the realization of it seems dark and enigmatic. Of course you say, if I kill all the desires of the flesh I shall be rid of many temptations. But can I? You certainly cannot! And if you tried you would be condemning the Creator for having implanted in you evil desires. Asceticism is absolutely futile. As the Apostle says himself, "Listen to Paul." As you died with Christ to the Elemental Spirits of the world, why live as if you still belonged to the world! Why submit to rules and regu- lations like "Hands off this" "Taste not that" "Touch not this!" referring to things that perish by being used? These rules are determined by human precepts and tenets; they get the name of wisdom with their self- imposed devotions, with their fasting, with their rigorous discipline of the body, but they are of no value, they simply pamper the flesh! Col. 2:20-23. What then, you say, is everything allowable? So says the Apostle, but note well! There is a sharp distinction drawn between desires that merely minister to the flesh and have no spiritual side, (these are passions), and desires that are capable of spiritual exaltation. Even the food and drink of the body are among these, if they are received "with thanksgiving." They thus draw us closer to the loving source of joy and comfort and goodness. 1 A careful study of Romans 7:15 to 8:17 will help wonderfully in clear- ing up this confusing subject. Use Moffatt's New Testament. THE WILL OF THE SPIRIT 163 "Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full." The fruit of the spirit is joy and gaiety—"joy and great gladness"— freedom and contentment—"free from the law of sin and death"— These are the four corners of the Realm of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. But some men love darkness rather than fight, the Master says. They will not come to the light and rid themselves of the debasing ideas of the flesh, the naughtiness of the world. They are timid, dreading lest they lose something, and thus they lose everything. All is lost—including honor and love and immortahty! "All is dark!" cried Voltaire as he passed into the unknown. Ah, yes. It requires an act of the will—the will of the spirit. It is like one who knows not that he can swim, but with the courage of faith takes the irrevocable plunge into the dark waters—only to lose himself and find his better self in the ocean of God's love. It is clearly for the great choice that the soul, when first it was born into the primeval world was so richly endowed with divine powers: intelligence that cannot be distinguished except in degree from the omniscience of God; energy that is one with the divine omnipotence; and thought that, in its ignorance of time and space, is the exact parallel of omnipresence. It is for this that the subconscious mind, the soul, has arisen from its lowly state step by step through the phenomena of sense to the noumena of spirit. For this that the puny intellect, the human spirit, was given it to guide it away from the "idols of the cave"— the exaltation of the things of sight and feeling—to the riddles of the world, and, if for no other reason than its inability to solve them to point to the region of higher consciousness. And finally, it is for the making of this one Great Choice that the Christ Spirit has made its abode with our human spirit, to lighten its darkness, to point to the value of life; and the Holy Spirit has come with all its quickening powers to open the spiritual eye to the truth, to supersede all lesser means of attainment in the intuitive knowledge of the Most High, the recognition of the oneness of life in all its manifestations, and the Love that embraces all. But just what is this Great Choice? 164 THE SOURCE OF POWER To the animal there is only a choice between one desire and another. It does not look up. To the naive man the highest possible choice is to put aside the body which to him is corrupt, and obey an obligation which passes with him for something called God. If he ever looks up, it is only to be dazzled by a light that makes him unable to see distinctly his dearly loved "realities." But to the higher type of man who stands, as it were, behind the scenes, recognizing the symbol for what it is worth, and for whom the true reality is the meaning of art, of music, of life, the Great Choice lies at his very door and must be made. Will he recognize the supreme source of all Beauty and Harmony and Love, will he apprehend the oneness of all, and himself as a part of the great Whole—a spark of the eternal Flame, a drop of the ocean of Love? Or will be cling to separateness, the negation of the oneness of all good, the denial of the only solution of fife's mystery? Herein is the Great Choice. It is no silly question of belief in this or that human creed, still less is it a matter of rites and dog- mas, nor even of religion as the world senses it, but it is a conviction that the soul is a portion of the universal and indivisible Spirit that fills the universe; that it is, it always has been and always will be; that it is one with everything in heaven and on earth; that in it is no darkness for it walks in the light of life. Furthermore it is a childlike acceptance of the promises of the Father: "My son, you and I are always together, all that I have is yours." (St. Luke 15:31.) "Ask and the gift will be yours, seek and you will find, knock and the door will open to you; for everyone who asks receives, the seeker finds, the door is opened to anyone who knocks." And so on for pages. But the worldling is skeptical. The door is opened but he does not enter in. He dares not let go for an instant of his precious "realities." The Master looks at him pityingly and encourages him: "Seek God's Realm and his goodness, and all that will be yours over and above." But the naive cannot understand it. "For the heart of this people is obtuse, their ears are heavy of hearing, their eyes they have closed." Well said the prophet. They will not let go of their two-by-four world. They are hope- less, and "the door is closed." THE WILL OF THE SPIRIT 165 But for the higher type of men, who have attained something of the higher consciousness, the door is opening wider and wider— the door of the world of the wondrous! And they are entering in day by day in scores and hundreds. They are making the Great Choice. They are saying to themselves, "I am Spirit, I am one with the eternal Spirit. I am a branch of the real Vine. All that my Father has is mine, for I and my Father are one." And so the will of the spirit makes its choice. And at once there well up in the soul the waters of eternal life, for immortality has already begun. The hidden loveliness of the world around—the meaning of it all—overwhelms him. The ravishing harmonies of music and color transport his soul into the sphere of undying beauty. Love and goodness are the very breath of his life and joy and gaiety make their abode with him forever. He has made the Great Choice. He has entered the Realm of God and all things are his. GLOSSARY (Containing words some readers may not know, and also words the writer wishes to define for his own sake.) Agnostic—One who believes that God cannot be known. All knowledge is limited to experience. Invented by Huxley. Allegory—The figurative treatment of a subject not expressly mentioned, under the guise of another having analogous properties or circum- stances. Anatomy—The science of the bodily structure of animals discovered by dissection. Animalcula—Microscopic aquatic creatures of varied forms. Archetype—An original pattern or model. Calculus—A highly systematic method of treating a variety of problems by a peculiar system of algebraical notation. Imaginary quantities and infinity are used. Catalepsy—An abnormal state of coma, or unconsciousness, resembling sleep, with peculiar muscular rigidity of the limbs. Cerebrum—Commonly the front section of the brain recognized as the chief organ of the mind. Concept—A general notion; a complex of characters. "Thinking is knowl- edge by means of concepts." Kant. Consciousness—The recognition of existence. It need not be self-con- scious nor introspective. Cosmic Consciousness—A consciousness of the universe or the sum of things. Creationism—The doctrine that God immediately creates out of nothing a new soul for each individual of the human family, while for the human body there was but one creative fiat. Critical Idealism—An idealism that recognizes reality apart from the mind. Cytode—An organism with the value of a simple cell but possessing no distinct nucleus. Empirical—Derived from experience or experiments. Evolution—The process of unfolding. The doctrine of the derivation of all existing forms of life from a few simple forms or from one. Genus—Kind. Group. In zoology ranking next above species. Generic—Comprehending a number of like things. Germ—The first rudiment, the simplest recognizable condition, of a living thing. In Carpenter, the contribution of the female. Heredity—The influence of ancestors, the transmission of qualities or characteristics, mental or physical, from parents to offspring. 167 168 GLOSSARY Humanitarianism—The doctrine that benevolences or philanthropy form the sum of man's duties. Hypnotism—An abnormal mental condition characterized by insensibility to most impressions of sense, with excessive sensibility to some im- pressions, and an appearance of total unconsciousness, artificially induced, by concentrating attention on some bright object, or on the operator. Mental action and volition are under the control of the operator. An artificial catalepsy, an induced sleep. Idealism—The metaphysical doctrine that the real is of the nature of thought; that all reality is in its nature psychical. Imagination—The faculty of presenting to consciousness obj ects other than those at the time produced by the senses. Higher powers exercised in poetry, art, etc. Induction—The process of drawing a general conclusion from particular cases. Inorganic—Not having the organism that characterizes living bodies. Instinct—An innate intelligence of the laws of its organism, exercised with- out conscious knowledge. See intuition. Intellect—The sum of the cognitive faculties except sense and imagination. Intelligence—Knowledge, adapted to the needs of the organism, which is antecedent to and independent of education, experience, or reason. In lower forms this intelligence does not imply conscious knowledge. Intuition—Direct cognition. Comprehension of truths and ideas inde- pendently of education, experience and reason. See Intelligence. Latent Consciousness—The consciousness of cells. Manifestation of life without knowledge of self. Materialization—The act of assuming a material form. Materialism—The denial of the existence in man of an immaterial sub- stance which alone is conscious, distinct and separable from the body. Materialist—One who denies spirit in man or in the universe. Metaphysics—The science of the inward and essential nature of things. Used by Kant to mean the science of God, freedom and immortality. Mind—That which feels, wills and thinks, the ego, the soul, the sub- conscious mind. Moneron—Haeckel's name for protozoans of the simplest character. Organism—An individual having organs or members which partake of and depend upon a common life which originally produced it. Perception (sense)—The faculty by which we know external objects through the senses. Person—A human soul with body and spirit. Personality—The self-conscious human spirit with intelligence and volition. Individuality adds to this the distinguishing marks of body, mental and moral qualities, and memory. GLOSSARY 169 Phenomenon—That which is manifest, sensible, evident, implying that we have eyes, ears, etc., with which to perceive it. Physiology—Science of vital power—natural philosophy. Plexus—An interlacing of nerves or vessels. The chief one, located back of the stomach, called the Solar Plexus, is thought to be the seat of the emotions. Positivist—A person who is content with description of phenomena. Protozoon—Primordial or first formed cell animals. Psychology—Science of mind, or conscious-subject, or spirit, or self, or ego. Sir Wm. Hamilton. Metaph. viii. Pupa—The second or quiescent stage of insect undergoing metamorphosis. Purposive—Having aim or purpose—accomplishing some end. Rapport—Harmony, affinity. En rapport—in harmonious psychic relation. Schoolmen—Scholars of xii and xiii centuries—the chief being St. Thomas Aquinas, d. 1274. Segmentation—Reproduction by division into segments. Specific—Pertaining to a species. Spermatozoon—Sperm, a microscopic body, the vital element in fertiliza- tion. Spirit—The principle of life—incorporeal, immaterial being. Spiritism—The belief that disembodied spirits do communicate with the living through agency of mediums. Subconscious Mind—The universal, impersonal spirit underlying all manifestations of life. Subconsciousness—'Mental processes without consciousness of self or conscious in a feeble degree—or not always. Substance—That which exists by itself—hence essentially spirit. Suggestion—Insinuation of belief or impulse into the mind of the subject by any means, usually by word or telepathic thought. Symbolism—The expression of thought by use of symbols—a pictorial allegory. Traducianism—The theory that both body and soul are propagated by and handed down from parents to offspring. JUi 1 8 1922 NLM050032070