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INTRODUCTION 1

I THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF OCCULTISM 4

II THE PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE 15

IV THERAPY--ANCIENT AND MODERN 33

V THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM 44

VI COSMIC SYMBOLOGY 56

X THE LAW OF CYCLES 96

XX IN THE LUMBER ROOM 199

INTRODUCTION

"There is no end to the writing of books," we are told. Certainly it seems to be the fact that one book leads to another, and the many demands made upon me for explanations of points, problems and paradoxes, contained in some of my recent works, have induced me to a comprehensive effort in the present volume. Whether I shall have succeeded in throwing more light upon the dark problems of Occultism, or only in making confusion worse confounded, it is for the reader to judge. "All truth is paradoxical," says Laotze, the great philosopher of Quietism. In such case it were hard indeed to offer any argument which may be regarded as final and conclusive, and especially is this the case in reference to the debatable ground of Occultism.

Yet a very wise writer has said that nothing can be accepted as true which does not submit to a mathematical statement. This is a tacit confession of faith in the law of numerical ratios, the geometry of the universe which underlies all revelation. We cannot truly be said to know a thing until we have reduced it to a mathematical concept.

We may conveniently regard life as manifesting in three stages or degrees, namely, Principles, Causes and Effects. Our conscious relation to these three stages of life gives rise to Ethic, Philosophy and Science.

Science is what we know of the universe; philosophy what we think of it; ethic, how that thought affects our conduct. Thus the final appeal is to utility. The virtue of everything is in its use. Science, philosophy and ethic must eventually submit to the test of utility.

It is not for the sake of the mathematical statement, nor yet for the pleasure of abstract argument, but chiefly for the sake of utility that I have attempted this popular exposition of Occultism, for I think it deserves more attention than has hitherto been given to it.

The idea that Occultism serves any useful end in life may not at once appeal to the casual reader. The deeper thinker will, however, discern in any coherent system of thought, in any orderly statement of fact, a possible means of self-adjustment to the problems of life, howsoever dimly apprehended. To the categorical imperative of Kant--I must because I ought, but why ought I?--Occultism offers a very definite answer. It gives a cogent reason for all action, and may indeed be finally judged on its ethical value. It will not be found inadequate.

Purposive action has no value without free will in man. That "free will in man is necessity in play" is true only of those who are not divine conspirators. We are fated to the extent that we are ignorant of the cosmical and spiritual laws--the one order is a reflex of the other--by which the universe is upheld. We are culpable to the extent that we neglect those laws we know. Science has succeeded in harnessing many of the forces of Nature to the service of mankind. Philosophy will bring man into conscious relations with the laws governing his existence, and ethic will instruct him concerning their employment for the good of the race.

To the extent that we understand the laws of our being and use them for our personal benefit, and through ourselves for the good of all mankind, we become conspirators with the Divine Will, conscious co-operators towards "that one divine far-off event to which the whole creation moves," an apotheosis warranted by the trend of the physical and spiritual evolution of humanity, and prophetically indicated by the words: "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and worship."

As fragments in the fabric of a spiritual upbuilding, as detached observations of the law of universal harmony, as things of isolated interest, all conspiring to the founding of a single idea, these curiosities of Occultism are offered to those who are able to appreciate them.

SEPHARIAL.

Before one can enter intelligently into an understanding of Cosmic Symbolism, which underlies all occult science, it is necessary that he should have some well-defined conception of the meaning and purpose of Occultism. Otherwise he will occupy the position of one who moves in the dark, a slave to formularies and dogmas, following blindly where others lead and without any definite idea as to his destination.

Misconceptions regarding Occultism are very prevalent and are found to affect the thought of many who in their own walks are exceedingly learned. Occultism is a broad and comprehensive system of thought; a synthetic philosophy aiming at self-realization, and as much concerned in the practical development of the psychical and spiritual powers latent in man as in the study of those wider cosmical laws which hitherto have escaped scientific observation, but which are found to afford a ready explanation of man's embodied existence, and the wide and varied range of his faculties, aptitudes and individual characteristics.

If Occultism were merely a speculative system of thought regarding the hidden things of Nature, it could never find practical demonstration. If the occult were merely the "hidden," then R?ntgen rays, wireless telegraphy and metabolism would have been facts of Occultism at quite a recent date. In the first case it is confidently affirmed that Occultism, so far from being speculative, is capable of instant demonstration; and in the second case it anticipated the discoveries of Science by analogous psychical processes involved in the exercise of clairvoyance, psychometry, telepathy and hypnotism. Occultism is not indeed mainly concerned in the domain of physics, but rather in those immaterial forces which are at the back of all material forms, of those universal laws which find their reflection in the constitution and development of man and the cosmos to which he is immediately related.

Thus while it seeks to demonstrate some unexplored facts in Nature, it also offers a coherent system of thought in which those facts find appropriate places, and so in effect it affords an ethical basis for all action which is more comprehensive than any system which is the outcome of an insular sociology or a national religion. Its peculiar value as a body of teaching lies in its inclusiveness and catholicity, its freedom from dogma, and its wide suggestiveness. While offering a definite system of cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis, it seeks only to throw new light on old truths, being entirely constructive and in no sense controversial. Unlike orthodox Science and Religion, however, Occultism does not ignore the facts of man's psychic and spiritual experience. Rather it makes use of these as links which bring us into relations with that greater world and that higher life which for Science has no interest and for Religion no certain meaning. Thus when Science repudiated the Chaldean account of the Genesis, Religion was left with no ground upon which it could convict Science of error! The Occultist remains wholly unaffected by the incident, not because he is either unscientific or irreligious, but because the Book of Genesis is for him as true to-day as when it was written. It is the work of Occultists, and only Occultists can rightly apprehend it.

But so far we have only the ascending arc of physical evolution, which in effect found its apotheosis in the production of giant human forms, fitted to the great struggle for existence with the saurians and pachyderms and all that mammoth life, both vegetable and animal, by which it was environed. "There were giants in the earth in those days." Nature had done her utmost in the production of colossal forms of animal life, she had expended all her strength.

The criterion of consciousness is response to stimulus. It is to be seen in chemic action, in vegetation and in animal life. If the Day's-eye were not conscious of the sunrise it would not open its petals. You may call it automatism, a reflex of the chemic action of light. You will be wiser if you call it consciousness of light, and so spare yourself the trouble of pushing the question back indefinitely, for somewhere or other you must admit response to stimulus and there you must posit consciousness.

To the Occultist the universe is a symbol and every part of it is symbolical. Although essentially an Idealist he does not attempt the r?le of those visionaries who would argue the universe out of existence. He may call it elusive but not an illusion, for his own existence depends on his consciousness of the world about him and his well-being upon the degree to which he understands and observes the laws of that universe of which he is an integral part. For if it be said that the world has no existence apart from our consciousness, it may with equal truth be said that our consciousness has no existence apart from the world to which it is related. What we understand as the laws of the universe are formulated in terms of our thought, but inasmuch as the laws of thought are imposed on us by existence, it is clear that we do not ourselves impose cosmic laws, but we merely apprehend them. It is not in the Idealistic sense that the universe is a symbol, but in the real sense of it being the embodiment or out-realizing of the Supreme Life and Mind. As symbol the universe is the revelation of all time, of the past and the future; the repository of all history, the source of all prophecy, the synthesis of actuality. That Consciousness which is simultaneously immanent in all the universe is called the Universal Mind. The Platonic definition of God as "That whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is illimitable" comes as nearly to this conception of the Divine Mind as it is possible for words to compass. Man is a centre of consciousness in the Divine Mind from the time that he realizes his spiritual existence, a soul investing a cell in the Brain of the Grand Man. As such he becomes subject to the higher spiritual laws of Being and enters into the Divine Conspiracy. The evolving monads circulate and finally become impounded in one or another of the various organs of the Grand Man, in agreement with their several states of evolution, passing from one to another of them during the successive incarnations of the Deity. In his effort to reach a higher sphere of consciousness and activity, a wider sphere of influence and a greater measure of free will, man comes to realize that obedience to the law of his being is the means of attainment. Thus every man is a law unto himself, and the truly wise are they who are able to say in all consciousness: "Thy will be done." For human safety and happiness are only assured by devotion to the highest good, and this is the occult view of the dependence of mankind on an all-seeing and beneficent Spirit "in whose service is perfect freedom."

Occultism, therefore, whether consisting in the development and exercise of one's individual psychic powers, in systematic and impartial inquiry as to evidence of these powers in others, or in the pursuit of such studies as astrology, kabalism, yoga, hypnotism, etc., reaches out from such vague beginnings into regions of thought and aspiration that transcend the average mind and are seen to culminate, in specialized cases, in the attainment of powers which may be called miraculous and of attributes that are truly godlike.

Yet when we come to examine the claims of modern Science, or what popularly goes by that name, we find that it is largely hypothetical and that sciences which are usually known as "exact" are by no means so.

The theory of what is called the attraction of gravitation is one of the scientific facts which have recently been abandoned as unsatisfactory. It is found that the theory of "attraction" does not answer to the facts as experimentally determined. Theories that are inelastic are apt to be negatived by the discovery of new facts or modified beyond recognition by extended observations. The Earth itself is a huge magnet whose radial influence extends some fourteen feet beyond its surface, and this fact has to be taken into account in all local magnetic observations.

The permeability of matter was a fact that had been under scrutiny for a long time before the discovery of the R?ntgen rays. Sir David Brewster notes the passage of carbon through solid wood by means of electric fluid, and by an electric current an acid may be separated from its sodium base and passed through dilute syrup of violets without changing the colour of the vegetable solution. The question then arises, in what form was the carbon in the one case and the acid in the other when they passed through the respective media? Obviously their atomic vibrations were temporarily raised in such degree by electrical action as to change them from their normal characters. I suggest to psychologists that something of the same or a similar nature may occur in the case of individuals when acting under the influence of hypnotism or spiritual afflatus, ecstasy, etc. The question is whether they can be rendered permanent effects.

Up to the present day Science has ignored psychology and opposed the claims of psycho-therapeutics. Medical science other than that depending on surgery will soon find that the process of readjustment in the human organism rendered necessary by the rapidly changing conditions of modern civilization and the opening-up of new centres of activity in the mind-sphere of the world, will present a new series of pathological conditions to which the prescriptions of the Pharmacopoeia are altogether inadequate. The psychic origin of disease will have to be admitted and provided against. The x-factor in human pathology which defies the action of drugs and evades the scalpel, call it by what name we may, will increasingly assert itself, and medical men will have perforce to take it into their counsels, make friends with it and get to understand its vagaries. The plurality of worlds and the habitability of the other planets in the solar system, taught by Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C., has received a certain speculative recognition by astronomers, notably Camille Flammarion, Richard Proctor, Schiaparelli and Sir Robert Ball, in recent years. It was affirmed as fact by that remarkable man of science and inspiration, Baron Swedenborg. But in a contemporary issue of the journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Prof. Aitken, of the Lick Observatory, states, as the result of his researches, that the Moon is a dead world, with the exception perhaps of low forms of vegetable life sustained by water vapour exuding from the Moon's interior; Mercury gets seven times as much heat as the Earth and keeps the same face towards the Sun, offering the alternative of an eternal night or an equally unending tropical heat and daylight, from which it is not protected by any atmosphere. Venus, having many characteristics similar to the Earth, is admitted to be problematical, since it is not yet decided whether its day and year are equal or not. If they are, then it is uninhabitable. Mars has a rare atmosphere, and there is not enough water on the planet to fill an American lake. It has a low temperature, and there may be vegetable and animal life there, but no beings of intelligence. The "canals" may be natural or artificial canals or merely earthquake markings. Jupiter is a semi-sun, its development is in a state of chaos, and it is probably gaseous throughout with matter distributed as on the Sun, there being no defined surface or crust. Saturn resembles Jupiter, but probably is not so far advanced, and it is even less fitted for human habitation than Jupiter.

We see therefore that as between the teaching of Pythagoras and that of Prof. Aitken there is a great gulf fixed. It will probably be bridged by a little freer use of the scientific imagination that Prof. Huxley extolled. The great American astronomer has argued humanity out of existence in a manner so complete as to warrant the instant dismantling of the statue of Bruno by the Vatican. But alas for the shortcomings of dogmatic science, we have not yet been told how or why the Earth alone is favoured by the presence of humanity. We are left to speculate upon the question as to what has become of the Moon's humanity, supposing this dead orb was once alive and afforded habitable conditions. We are left wondering why conservative Nature evolved the planets Neptune and Uranus--which "are so far away from the Sun that its light and heat can hardly be effective in protecting life upon them, even should life in any way originate there"--if they are never to come within the life-belt limit of the solar rays! These vapourings are altogether unworthy of the name of Science, and are, in their way, as fanciful and speculative as any of the superstitions of a primitive religion. Who gave the astronomer to know that man as we see him is the only sort of humanity or intelligent being that can exist? It is open to him to remark that even should there be forms of intelligent life on other planets we should not recognize them as human. That is beside the mark; we do not recognize the human by its form, we do not confound the man with the animal part of him; and we may even speak of discarnate humanity. In every possible way we protest that articulate language, which infers articulate thought and intelligence, is the criterion of the human, and in this category we include for sociological reasons all that are of human generation, whether intelligent and articulate or not. Of the "infinite variability" of God as expressed in Nature, the astronomer takes no count. Here on this globe of ours we find the human persisting in temperatures varying from over + 150? to - 30?, and we have no reason for suggesting that the power of adaptation to environment is at the maximum in this world. Violent ophthalmia and even madness would result in us if "the earth's green livery" were suddenly and permanently changed to red. But a very little alteration in the chemical constitution of the vitreous fluid in the eye would render us immune from these evils, and we have every reason for thinking that were such a colour-change to take place, Nature would not be long in adapting herself to the new conditions. But she would first be sure that they were likely to be permanent, for although very amicable, the old lady is extremely cautious and prudent! What we know as solar light and heat have no existence outside the earth's atmosphere, and even within it they only have the values that our sensation-consciousness gives to them; so that all we can scientifically assume in regard to those planets that have no atmosphere is that their humanities, if they have any, must be physiologically different from man as we know him. We cannot argue that he does not exist or that he cannot exist on them.

The sum of the matter is this, we have need of a Religion that is scientific, and equally of a Science that is religious. What we do not positively know we may logically infer, but we have to guard ourselves against the tendency to take the inference for fact and to dogmatize about things which are wholly unrelated to our personal experience. The many curious observations I shall have occasion to make in the course of these pages are so remote from general experience and so far removed from scientific scrutiny as to belong to the category of things called "occult," and it was therefore expedient that the reader should have a fairly clear idea that all the statements of orthodox science do not rest upon the immovable rock of observed fact, and for this reason are not so well founded as many of the conclusions of occult science. It is advisable also that the reader should discern between the theoretical value of a statement and its experimental value. Many things which appear reasonable will not respond to test, and others that seem unreasonable are found nevertheless to be true.

An instance of this is to be seen in what is called the Modern Miracle. A miracle, it should be understood, is not supernatural. We have no reason for prescribing limits to Nature's powers. A miracle is simply an abnormal manifestation of those powers, and hence something to be wondered at. The case in point is that of Miss Dorothy Kerin, who on the night of Sunday, the 18th February, 1912, being bedridden with advanced tuberculosis, concomitant disease of the kidneys, and finally suffering from loss of sight and speech, together with some signs of aphasia, was suddenly and miraculously cured entirely of all ailments, and when medically examined was pronounced to be absolutely free from tubercle bacillus, or any other form of morbid disease, and to be in complete possession of all her faculties and normal bodily functions. The evidence is unassailable and the facts beyond dispute. We have to arrange our thought and modify our therapy to accommodate these facts.

Dorothy Kerin was born on the 28th November, 1890, in London, her father being Irish. She received an ordinary middle-class education in a private school, and would have gone on the stage, where her sister, Norah Kerin, has achieved considerable success, but for the break in her health.

"Dorothy Kerin is convinced that her remarkable recovery of apparent health is literally 'a miracle.'

"Her account of the angelic vision, which on Sunday night restored her sight, hearing and strength and left her painless, happy and 'feeling better than I ever felt in my life before,' may be ascribed to hysteria by sceptics, but, whatever the cause, the facts of her recovery are beyond dispute.

"Dr. Frederick Norman, of Brixton, her physician, is, of course, deterred by professional etiquette from public discussion of her case.

"'He did not consider on Saturday that she could possibly remain alive more than a day or two. The girl had been in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, St. Peter's Home for Incurables at Kilburn, and other institutions, but was sent home finally as a hopeless case two years ago.

"'She has not stood up for five years, and latterly was blind and deaf and utterly weak, taking only occasional doses of brandy and other stimulants.'

"Dr. Norman has been compelled to safeguard his patient. No fewer than sixty people saw her yesterday, but such a reception has now been stopped. A perfectly healthy girl could not stand the constant excitement of receiving visitors eager to interrogate her. Three days ago, it must be remembered, she was in an advanced stage of consumption.

"For breakfast yesterday Miss Kerin ate wheat-meal porridge, bacon and tomatoes, and drank two cups of coffee. A beefsteak was cooked for her lunch.

"'A fortnight ago,' said her mother, 'Dolly could not call things by their proper names, and often did not know us. Bread was "soft, white stuff," fish was "white stuff with needles in it," nut-milk chocolate she asked for as "lumpy sweet."

"'Now she can bath herself and is not an invalid at all. Often during her long illness her temperature went up to 105.'

"Miss Kerin shakes hands firmly, and her palm has a touch that is quite normal. Scores of doctors have already sought permission to see her. The history of her case is well known to the profession.

"The Rev. A. J. Waldron, vicar of the adjoining parish of St. Matthew's, Brixton, visited her yesterday and is making arrangements to have her moved at once to a nursing home, where she can have privacy and quiet, with country air.

"Miss Kerin has no hectic flush, and declared yesterday that she did not feel a bit tired. But there is little doubt she requires careful supervision to prevent any relapse."

I am informed by her brother, Mr. G. Kerin, that during her illness, and especially during the later stages, when her normal faculties showed signs of decline, that Miss Kerin developed some super-normal powers. She was able, for instance, to give an accurate account of incidents happening in connection with her brother while at a distance from home. The greatest care had to be observed by those in the house when speaking of her, as she could always hear what was said in another room, although she appeared deaf to those who spoke aloud in her presence. There is, in fact, evidence that she developed the telesthesic sense during the later stages of her illness, but also that she lost this faculty just before her recovery.

Dr. Forbes Winslow was of opinion that the cure was due to auto-suggestion. It appears to me a singular conclusion. One can understand neurasthenia, paralysis and other nervous disorders being amenable to auto-suggestion, and in fact these are the cases which most readily respond to such action. But that a young girl whose mind is perfectly resigned to what she believes to be a mortal disease, and even suffering gladly the inscrutable ordinances of a beneficent Providence, should after five years of such suffering suddenly auto-suggest that there is no organic disease in her body and that she was never better in her life, seems to me to invest the term "auto-suggestion" with a meaning and significance it has never yet held. We have to remember that here there is the certified presence of a virulent organic disease with concomitant functional disorders. Can Dr. Winslow advance other instances of voluntary auto-suggestion which have instantly cured morbid diseases? Yet we are asked to believe that the girl auto-suggested an angelic presence, a voice that spoke to her, hands that touched her, and the surpassing miracle of instant destruction in her body of all disease germs, the restoration of all functional powers and the entire clearing of the system of effete tissues. Then why did she not do so five years earlier, before her forces had been undermined by a wasting disease, and when the will-to-be was stronger in her than it can possibly have been at the last hour? We shall soon be asked to believe that Miss Kerin auto-suggested the disease itself. Another instance of your scientific mind, which lacks the humility necessary to say: "I do not know," and plunges into the most absurd speculations to explain what it does not understand. The mental attitude of that atheist who bowed his head and wept in the presence of the Unknown commands our instant respect and approval, but this foolish theorizing by reputable men of science is only pitiable. And theories in regard to this particular case are not lacking, for we have in turn hypnotic suggestion , collective mental therapeutic action, answer to prayer, and spirit-healing.

As to collective mental therapy, the same objection is raised as in the case of auto-suggestion. If operative at all in a case of organic disease, it would be more readily efficacious in the early stages, when supported by a reasonable expectancy, than at the last, when all hope had been abandoned. It is true that for some five years prayer had been consistently made on behalf of the patient, and we have certainly no means of proving that this sustained effort was not instrumental in the recovery. But we do know that no mention was made of it by the angelic visitor. The Presence did not say: "We have heard the prayers of the people," or that it came in answer to prayer. The theory of spirit-healing is by far the most reasonable explanation. It accounts for the facts without, however, explaining the means by which the cure was effected.

That it is a perfect instance of organic metabolism everybody must admit. Exactly similar cases are difficult to find, and in effect Dr. Ash, who undertook the study of the case after the cure had been performed, is thereby able to give us a most interesting account of what he regards as a unique medical experience. The Lourdes miracles are, as far as I know, all of a nervous character. They pertain to cases where functional disorders arise from nervous corrosion without lesion. Even where there is lesion there may come a time when nervous contact is complete and an instantaneous cure is possible. But in the present case we have deep-seated organic disease of a chronic nature, the existence of morbid tissue and whole tracts of the lungs ruined by the action of noxious germs. So far as our experience goes it would seem that the term "miraculous intervention" fits this case as well as any other that can be offered, and certainly better than many that have been applied to it. It is an old and well-worn term, of a sort to vex the scoffer, but when it comes to a matter of sticking on labels to cover our ignorance of methods, we can at least count upon the willing aid of modern science.

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