PART II.—THE CRESCENT. (continued 2)

496No wonder that the very meaning of the terms Chrestos and Christos, and the bearing of both on “Jesus of Nazareth,” a name coined out of Joshua the Nazar, has now become a dead letter for all with the exception of non-Christian Occultists. For even the Kabalists have no original data now to rely upon. The Zohar and the Kabala have been remodelled by Christian hands out of recognition; and were it not for a copy of the Chaldean Book of Numbers there would remain no better than garbled accounts. Let not our Brothers, the so-called Christian Kabalists of England and France, many of whom are Theosophists, protest too vehemently; for this is history (See Munk). It is as foolish to maintain, as some German Orientalists and modern critics still do, that the Kabala has never existed before the day of the Spanish Jew, Moses de Leon, accused of having forged this pseudograph in the 13th century, as to claim that any of the Kabalistical works now in our possession are as original as they were when Rabbi Simeon Ben Jochaï delivered the “traditions” to his son and followers. Not a single of these books is immaculate, none has escaped mutilation by Christian hands. Munk, one of the most learned and able critics of his day on this subject, proves it, while protesting as we do, against the assumption that it is a post-Christian forgery, for he says:

“It appears evident to us that the author made use of ancient documents, and among these of certain Midraschim or collections of traditions and Biblical expositions, which we do not now possess.”

After which, quoting from Tholuck (l. c. pp. 24 and 31), he adds:

“Haya Gaon, who died in 1038, is to our knowledge the first author who developed the theory of the Sephiroth and he gave to them the names which we find again to be among the Kabalists (Tellenik, Moses ben Schem Tob di Leon, p. 13, note 5); this doctor, who had intimate intercourse with the Syrian and Chaldean Christian savans, was enabled by these last to acquire a knowledge of some of the Gnostic writings.”

Which “Gnostic writings” and esoteric tenets passed part and parcel into the Kabalistic works, with many more modern interpolations that we now find in the Zohar, as Munk well proves. The Kabala is Christian now, not Jewish.

Thus, what with several generations of most active Church Fathers ever working at the destruction of old documents and the preparation of new passages to be interpolated in those which happened to survive, there remains of the Gnostics—the legitimate offspring of the Archaic Wisdom-religion—but a few unrecognisable shreds. But a particle of genuine gold will glitter for ever; and, however garbled the accounts left by Tertullian and Epiphanius of the Doctrines of the “Heretics,” an occultist can yet find even in them traces of those primeval truths which were once universally imparted during the mysteries of Initiation. Among other works with most suggestive allegories in them, we have still the so-called Apocryphal Gospels, and the last discovered as the most precious relic of Gnostic literature, a fragment called Pistis-Sophia, “Knowledge-Wisdom.”

In my next article upon the Esoteric character of the Gospels, I hope to be able to demonstrate that those who translate Pistis by “Faith,” are utterly wrong. The word “faith” as grace or something to be believed in through unreasoned or blind faith, is a word that dates only since Christianity. Nor has Paul ever used this term in this sense in his Epistles; and Paul was undeniably—an Initiate.

H. P. B.

(To be continued.)

497

Reviews.

“SPIRIT REVEALED.”^[182]

The new work by Captain Serjeant (New Dispensationist and Fellow of the Theosophical Society) is certainly what he describes it as being, the “book for the age,” if, at least, it be admitted that the age requires arousing. I have no hesitation in saying that no such book has before been presented to the public. It sounds forth like a trumpet to arouse the sleepers from their crass forgetfulness of every law of Brotherly Love and Spiritual Truth. One might almost imagine, in reading it, the sensation produced upon his contemporaries by Ezekiel, when first he gave forth his prophecies to a wondering world; or by Bunyan, when he startled the English of his time with the magnificent allegory of the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It is true that here and there whole passages are bodily transplanted from St John’s “Revelation,” but they are so marvellously dovetailed into the context that, without constant reference to the Apocalypse, it is almost impossible to say where the quotations begin and where they end. From a literary point of view this may be a fault; but if we recognise the one Spirit speaking through many voices we cannot deny that the same truth may call for repetition and expansion, and the same Spirit may emit again, with fuller details, what it has emitted before.

Were this an orthodox journal, I am aware that I dare not advance such tenets for fear the luckless editors should be deemed blasphemous by their subscribers. But Lucifer at least must allow that the Universal Spirit has not in the sacred books of olden times breathed its last words. Then, again, Captain Serjeant disclaims all personal responsibility for these utterances when he states that the very passages which the reader will find the most glowing in the fierceness of their heat, are not words conceived by his own personality, but given to him by processes well-known to Spiritualists as “direct” and “automatic” writing.

The root idea of the volume is that one Spirit permeates all men and all things, and that this Spirit is that of Wisdom, Love and Truth; yet that this Spirit is denied or hidden out of sight by its own children; and that not till it is again made manifest in the public affairs of the world, can mankind hope for that happiness which it is now vainly pursuing in every other direction save the right one, namely, within. The dedication of the book sounds the key-note of its contents; for it is inscribed to “Love, the Queen of Heaven; and to Faith, the Star of the Soul.” The inscription closes with the words “Follow after Love—Love never faileth,” and the reader is intentionally left to supply the third term, “God is Love.” It is in this conception of the Supreme that we shall find the whole meaning of the work. The words “God” and the “Father,” as also the “Mother” and “Christ,” are employed pretty freely; yet with this clue, we shall see that the writer believes in no personal Deity, but 498in one Universal Spirit, of whom each intelligence is a manifestation in the flesh, little though such being may show or know it.

It is impossible in a short review to touch upon all the striking features of “Spirit Revealed,” and I must, therefore, content myself with noticing but a very few, referring the readers of Lucifer to the book itself; for they will find in it a “Guide, Philosopher and Friend.”

The preface reminds one of a passage in Ezekiel too often forgotten. “And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered.” Captain Serjeant points out the necessity of a bond of union in these words:—

“The contentions amongst many religious sects have been to a considerable extent responsible for the rise, growth, and development of numerous societies of professed religious, as well as of an anti-religious character. Each and every one of these Societies possesses its own peculiar views on the Deity, as well as on life and death, and though the majority of the more enlightened of them have evidently the same fundamental principles underlying the teachings which they endeavour to inculcate in the minds of men generally, yet the manifest confusion generated by what are seemingly conflicting opinions, tends, unhappily, to increase the bewilderment and distrust experienced in connection with the truths of the Spirit throughout all classes of Society in the nineteenth century.”

He then proceeds to claim for his work that it “places in the hands of Christian Ministers” (Note, that he employs the word “Christ” continually in the sense of the divine Spirit within mankind) “many powerful weapons wherewith to establish and uphold the universal Church of the Living God.” The preface, which is conceived throughout in the most elevated style of address, concludes with an appeal to “all who, in their hearts, are ready and willing to labour loyally in the interests of their less enlightened fellow creatures existing in this ignorant, selfish, and love-starved world.”

After a brief Introduction, couched in a prophetic form, the writer deals with the nature of God, man, matter, the power of Spirit manifest in and through matter, the omnipresence of Spirit, the Intelligent Principle, and the Seven Rays of Truth. In these seven chapters is comprised what I may call the theoretical part of the book. The following quotations must suffice to show in what vein these world-riddles are worked out. “We are endued with two natures, one of which is human or mortal, and subject to chemical change, commonly termed dissolution or death; the other, immortal or spiritual, capable of adding to itself by an inherent power to comprehend the nature, qualities and capabilities of all created visible things, which comprehension signifies the reconversion of all material existences into true ideas.” “It is an absolute fact that everything is literal. To the spiritual man symbols are literal; they are indeed more literal than the natural man considers what he terms facts or realities.“ ”The ultimate atom is Spirit. Finite wills are points on which the Infinite Will acts, for no creature can will without being a manifestation of the Supreme Intelligence who first wills that it shall will.“

The subsequent portion of the book deals partly with an expansion of the general tenets laid down in these seven chapters, and their application to the present practical needs of the world; partly with prophetic utterances as to the 499near approach of an awakening of the peoples to their real position as members of one great Spiritual community. Under the first heading a very important document is presented to the world, being a form for enrolment in the “Universal Rights Support Association,” which if generally adopted in the true spirit would indeed herald the millennium. Under the second heading in Chapter XIII. a remarkable reading of part of the Apocalypse is given, commencing with the words from Daniel, “and at that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of the people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a Nation even to that same time: At that time the people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” Such words as these are not to be understood on the first reading, and indeed will probably meet with nothing but derision from many. Yet Lucifer will see in them another and a most powerful battery opened against the powers of darkness to wage war with which is his own chief mission.

In conclusion I can only add that, in my humble opinion, few men have shown such courage in facing the ridicule of society as Captain Serjeant, and that he has chosen to risk the forfeiture of a place in social circles to which his right is undeniable, rather than give way to the temptation to prophesy smooth things. He is one of the foremost in the New Dispensation movement, and a man whose working power must be enormous, if it be measured by the labours which he daily and voluntarily undertakes. His peculiar style of writing lays him open to the accusation of calling himself the coming Messiah. If his accusers would only meet him face to face, they would find that no man is humbler than he, and none is more fully conscious nor more loudly proclaims that “individuality is but an emanation from the one Great Spirit,” in which alone he recognises the true Christ, the Saviour of the world. He would tell them that in themselves is incarnate the Spirit of Wisdom, and that it only awaits its union with the Spirit of Love, to manifest itself as the Spirit of Truth. How little he values his own personality and his own well-being or fame, those who know him best can testify. If Theosophy is to be a living thing, and not a mere intellectual amusement, it is by such men as this that it must be followed. Were there many such the world would soon be freed from its misery, by the force of their united volition. Verily their reward is at hand.

William Ashton Ellis.

TRAITÉ ÉLÉMENTAIRE DE SCIENCE OCCULTE, par Papus.

Published by Georges Carré, 58, Rue St Audré des Arts.

This, the latest of the admirable publications now being issued by M. Georges Carré, under the auspices of “L’Isis,” the French branch of the Theosophical Society, deserves a hearty welcome at the hands of all students of Occultism, as it fulfils the promise of its title, which is high praise indeed.

The book is written and constructed on correct Occult principles; it contains seven chapters, three devoted to theory and four to the application and practical illustration of that theory.

After an eloquent introductory chapter, M. Papus proceeds to lead his readers by easy transitions into the mysterious science of numbers. This—the first key 500to practical Occultism—is at once the simplest and the most subtle of sciences. Hitherto there has existed no really elementary exposition of its primary, fundamental principles. And, as this science of numbers lies at the base of every one of those applications of occult science which are still to any extent studied, a knowledge of it is almost indispensable.

Astrology, Chiromancy, Cartomancy, in short, all the arts of divination, rest ultimately on numbers and their occult powers, as a foundation.

And yet, though the students of each of these several arts must, perforce, acquire a certain knowledge of numerical science, yet very few of them possess that knowledge in a systematic and co-ordinated form.

Of course M. Papus does not, and cannot, give anything like a complete textbook on the subject, but he does give, in clear language, the fundamental guiding principles of this science. Moreover, he illustrates the methods of numerical working, by numerous and well-chosen examples—an aid which is simply invaluable to the student who is making his first entrance into this field of study. In the third chapter these abstract formulæ are given as they relate to man, as an individual, and as a member of that larger whole, called humanity. This completes the purely theoretical portion of the book, and in the fourth chapter we are shown how these general principles work in their application.

Signs and symbols are proved to be the natural expressions of ideas in accordance with fixed laws, and the method is applied by way of illustration to the interpretation of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. The relation between number and form is shown as exhibited in geometrical figures, and M. Papus gives a clue to a subject which has puzzled many—the actual influence in life of names. This chapter is most enthralling, but lack of space forbids any detailed comments, for so much would have to be said.

Chapters five and six are almost equally interesting; full of lucid illustration and valuable hints to the practical student, they form almost a manual in themselves. But on one point M. Papus is certainly in error, though, since it is on a matter of history, its importance is relatively small. He attaches far too much weight to the Jews and to their national system of occultism—the Kabbala. True, that system is the most familiar in Europe; but it has been so much overlaid by a semi-esoteric veil, and additions and interpolations by Christian Occultists, that its inner grossness is lost sight of; so that students are apt to be led away from the truth, and to form erroneous conceptions as to the value and meaning of many symbols, the importance of which in practical work is very great. What esoteric knowledge the Jews possessed, they derived either from the Egyptians or the Babylonians during the captivity. Hence M. Saint-Ives d’Alvidre, his gigantic erudition notwithstanding, is altogether mistaken in the stress he lays on their knowledge, their place in history and their mission as a nation. This, however, is but a matter of small moment in a book, the practical value of which it would be difficult to over-estimate.

THE NEW WAGNER JOURNAL.

We have received from Mr. Geo. Redway, Publisher, 15, York Street, W.C., the prospectus of a new Journal, “The Meister,” which is about to be edited for the Richard Wagner Society by Mr. Wm. Ashton Ellis, author of “Theosophy 501in the Works of Richard Wagner” (Theosophical Society’s Transactions), and of “Richard Wagner as Poet, Musician and Mystic,” read before the Society of Fine Arts. As Mr. Ellis is a member of the Committee of the Wagner Society, and a member of Council of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society, we hope that prominence will be given to the esoteric side of Richard Wagner’s works; and for this hope we have justification not only in the pamphlets above alluded to but also in the words of the prospectus of the Meister. “Religion, Art, and Social Questions are in these works (Wagner’s) presented to his readers under novel aspects, and such as are of the greatest interest to a generation which is eagerly scanning the horizon for some cloud which may be the harbinger of refreshing rain long looked for to quench the thirst of the arid sands of Materialistic Science.”

The prospectus presents us with a specimen of the cover of the journal, designed by Mr. Percy Anderson, an artist who has already made a name for himself in other walks of the decorative art, and whose first attempt in this direction shows great power of broad effects of light and shade, and considerable expertness in symbolism. We hope in our next issue to review the first number of the Meister which, we understand, will appear on the 13th inst. It will be published for the present quarterly, at the subscription rate of 4s. per annum, but we trust that it may shortly become a full-fledged “monthly.”

NEW YEAR’S EVE.

All sound was hushed, except the sad sad bells,

Chanting their requiem o’er the dying year;

Alone I knelt beneath the watchful stars,

And held communion with my restless soul.

* * * * *

The Old Year died, the sad bells all were stilled,

And o’er a silent city, shone the pure cold moon.

Then unrestrained my soul poured forth its cry,

“O God Eternal, Changless, Sacred, O. M.

Let my past die with the Old Year to-night.

And when the joy-bells hail the New Year’s birth,

Let each sweet note waft up a pæan of praise,

Straight from a new-born Soul unto its Maker.”

* * * * *

The New Year dawned, madly the bells clashed forth

Beneath the stars, I still knelt on—in peace.

Katie Duncan King.

502

Correspondence.

AUTOCENTRICISM.^[183]

Man has made God in his own image. Taking his thoughts and passions, fears, hope and aspirations, with part thereof he endows his fellow-men, whose natures he knows only as figured and interpreted by his own, and thus he becomes a social being; with part thereof he inspires the inanimate world—“the sun, the moon, the stars, the sea, the hills, and the plains,” and thus he becomes a poet; “with the residue” he forms his God, and “falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my God.”

The first of these processes is legitimate, indeed necessary, for there is a foundation of unity in human nature, however diverse and complex are its varied developments; and the humanity which dwells in all can recognize itself under strange disguises.

The second process is innocent and elevating, so long as it is kept within just limits, and claims to reach results subjectively, not objectively, true.

The third process is inevitable at a certain stage of racial evolution, but beyond that stage becomes absolutely noxious and degrading, because it extols as truth that which conscience and reason have begun to condemn as untruth.

Dead are the Gods of Egypt, those supreme plutocrats, under whom costly mummification and burial in a sculptured tomb were the conditions of posthumous life, so that a poor man could by no means enter into the kingdom of Osiris. Dead are Jupiter, Apollo, Pallas, Aphrodite, the products and reflexes of Greek majesty, beauty and intellect; or, if not dead, they are immortalised only by the art of their human creators. Dead, or dying, as a power to be loved and feared, is that Jehovah who reproduces the cruelty, selfishness and stubbornness of the typical Jew, with his substratum of conscience, showing itself from time to time in a more or less wrong-headed zeal for righteousness.

In its infancy, every race unconsciously forms an ideal, and makes this ideal its God. As the race grows in civilisation the ideal is modified, and for some time the god continues to undergo corresponding changes, and is, so to speak, kept up to date. But increasing experience and knowledge bring increasing secularism of thought and feeling, and incapacitate the mind for reconstructing its Divinity. Religion loses its life-blood. In this stage, the DeityDeity is either an anachronism, incompatible with the highest instincts of his worshippers, and therefore holding them back morally and intellectually, or else he becomes a nonentity, an abstraction, which can have no influence on life and conduct. It is this effete conception which Dr. Lewins combats in the tract entitledentitled “Autocentricism, or the Brain Theory of Life and Mind.”

Man, in brief, is his own God. Saints and mystics, and all the most beautiful souls of all religions, have seen this truth as in a glass darkly. Christ expressed it in mystic form when he said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you,” and, “I and my Father are one.” But in Christ’s time Animism 503was so ingrained in human nature that it was impossible he could escape it.^[184] He had not the scientific data on which to found a true cosmology; and even had he possessed the data, he would have lacked the power to use them. Scientific habits of thought were necessarily alien to the mind of the Galilean peasant.^[185] He could feel rather than comprehend the unity of God, Man, and the World; but he could not know that this unity is centred in the thought-cells of the cerebral hemispheres, and that the Divine glory is the offspring of a material organism.^[186] Scientific synthesis can now give a solid basis to Christian and Buddhist mysticism, to Berkleyan and Kantian Idealism, by declaring that the brain is the one phenomenon which certifies itsits own nomenal existence. It thinks, therefore it is; it creates, therefore it exists. Yet Dualism is condemned, whatever stand-point we adopt. “For my main argument ... it matters not a jot or tittle whether you proceed on the nöetic or hyloic basis.basis. A European ought to take the latter, which admits of scientificscientific research and discovery. An Asiatic or African, who has not the genius for original realistic research, may safely be left to the former.”^[187] Beyond himself, no man can think. We are apt to be deluded by the exigencies of language, and to look upon “our” ideas, “our” imaginations, as in some way separable from ourselves; as possessions rather than components of the Ego. Yet nothing is clearer than that the sum of these sentient states actually constitutes the Ego, so far as it knows itself; and that a “dominant” idea, engrossing the attention to the exclusion of all others, is for the time absolutely identical with and equivalent to the mind which it is said to “rule.” For moments which are eternities, because the sense of time is abolished, the musician may be “absorbed in” or identified with his sonata, the poet with his verse, the mystic with his vision of the Divine Essence. “I am as great as God, and He as small as I,” sings Angelus Silesius; but we may rather say that in such states of rapture the relationsrelations of “great” and “small,” of “internal” and “external,” of “space” and “infinitude,” of “time” and “eternity,” are annihilated, and the whole universe fused into one point of light.

This feeling, rationalised and stripped of mystery, though not of wonder and solemnity, is the truth and life of Hylo-Idealism. Worship is done away with, not by iconoclasm, but by apotheosis. “By it we are, indeed, for ever and entirely relieved from the humiliating and overwhelming sense of human insignificance, thus making ourselves quite at home in the more than terrestrial grandeurs of the universe, in which our planet is but a sand-grain.”^[188]

In conclusion, I should like to recommend Dr. Lewins’s tractate, with its Introduction by Mr. Courtney, and its succinct and luminous Appendix by G. M. Mc., and also Mr. Courtney’s articles reprinted from “Our Corner” to the attention of all sincere souls. Hylo-Idealism, or “Autocentricism,” has the merit of not being negative merely, but also positive and constructive, substituting for the “renunciation” preached by Christ and Buddha, a perfect fulfilment of self, and conquering selfishness by self-expansion. It is thus especially potent in the fields of theoretical and practical ethics, indeed the central idea of Spinoza’s admirable and still unsurpassed analysis of the Passions is distinctly deducible from our thesis, though generally regarded as 504an excrescence rather than a natural growth from his own. Upon all this I cannot, at present, dwell, but must content myself with the bare indication of fields of thought and action which are “white already to the harvest.”

On the Nile, Dec. 1887.

C. N.

WHAT OF PHENOMENA?

To the Editors of Lucifer:

“I avail myself of your invitation to correspondents, in order to ask a question.

“How is it that we hear nothing now of the signs and wonders with which Neo-theosophy was ushered in? Is the ‘age of miracles’ past in the Society?

“Yours respectfully,

“*”

“Occult phenomena,” is what our correspondent apparently refers to. They failed to produce the desired effect, but they were, in no sense of the word, “miracles.” It was supposed that intelligent people, especially men of science, would, at least, have recognised the existence of a new and deeply interesting field of enquiry and research when they witnessed physical effects produced at will, for which they were not able to account. It was supposed that theologians would have welcomed the proof, of which they stand so sadly in need in these agnostic days, that the soul and the spirit are not mere creations of their fancy, due to ignorance of the physical constitution of man, but entities quite as real as the body, and much more important. These expectations were not realized. The phenomena were misunderstood and misrepresented, both as regards their nature and their purpose.

In the light which experience has now thrown upon the matter the explanation of this unfortunate circumstance is not far to seek. Neither science nor religion acknowledges the existence of the Occult, as the term is understood and employed in theosophy; in the sense, that is to say, of a super-material, but not super-natural, region, governed by law; nor do they recognise the existence of latent powers and possibilities in man. Any interference with the every-day routine of the material world is attributed, by religion, to the arbitrary will of a good or an evil autocrat, inhabiting a supernatural region inaccessible to man, and subject to no law, either in his actions or constitution, and for a knowledge of whose ideas and wishes mortals are entirely dependent upon inspired communications delivered through an accredited messenger. The power of working so-called miracles has always been deemed the proper and sufficient credentials of a messenger from heaven, and the mental habit of regarding any occult power in that light is still so strong that any exercise of that power is supposed to be “miraculous,” or to claim to be so. It is needless to say that this way of regarding extraordinary occurrences is in direct opposition to the scientific spirit of the age, nor is it the position practically occupied by the more intelligent portion of mankind at present. When people see wonders, nowadays, the sentiment excited in their minds is no longer veneration and awe, but curiosity.

It was in the hope of arousing and utilizing this spirit of curiosity that occult phenomena were shown. It was believed that this manipulation of forces of nature which lie below the surface—that surface of things which modern science scratches and pecks at so industriously and so proudly—would have led to enquiry into the nature and the laws of those forces, unknown to science, but perfectly known to occultism. That the phenomena did excite curiosity in the minds of those who witnessed them, is certainly true, but it was, unfortunately, for the most 505part of an idle kind. The greater number of the witnesses developed an insatiable appetite for phenomena for their own sake, without any thought of studying the philosophy or the science of whose truth and power the phenomena were merely trivial and, so to say, accidental illustrations. In but a few cases the curiosity which was awakened gave birth to the serious desire to study the philosophy and the science themselves and for their own sake.

Experience has taught the leaders of the movement that the vast majority of professing Christians are absolutely precluded by their mental condition and attitude—the result of centuries of superstitious teaching—from calmly examining the phenomena in their aspect of natural occurrences governed by law. The Roman Catholic Church, true to its traditions, excuses itself from the examination of any occult phenomena on the plea that they are necessarily the work of the Devil, whenever they occur outside of its own pale, since it has a lawful monopoly of the legitimate miracle business. The Protestant Church denies the personal intervention of the Evil One on the material plane; but, never having gone into the miracle business itself, it is apparently a little doubtful whether it would know a bona-fide miracle if it saw one, but, being just as unable as its elder sister to conceive the extension of the reign of law beyond the limits of matter and force, as known to us in our present state of consciousness, it excuses itself from the study of occult phenomena on the plea that they lie within the province of science rather than of religion.

Now science has its miracles as well as the Church of Rome. But, as it is altogether dependent upon its instrument maker for the production of these miracles, and, as it claims to be in possession of the last known word in regard to the laws of nature, it was hardly to be expected that it would take very kindly to “miracles,” in whose production apparatus has no part, and which claim to be instances of the operation of forces and laws of which it has no knowledge. Modern science, moreover, labours under disabilities with respect to the investigation of the Occult quite as embarrassing as those of Religion; for, while Religion cannot grasp the idea of natural law as applied to the supersensuous Universe, Science does not allow the existence of any supersensuous universe at all to which the reign of law could be extended; nor can it conceive the possibility of any other state of consciousness than our present terrestrial one. It was, therefore, hardly to be expected that science would undertake the task it was called upon to perform with much earnestness and enthusiasm; and, indeed, it seems to have felt that it was not expected to treat the phenomena of occultism less cavalierly than it had treated divine miracles. So it calmly proceeded at once to pooh-pooh the phenomena; and, when obliged to express some kind of opinion, it did not hesitate, without examination, and on hearsay reports, to attribute them to fraudulent contrivances—wires, trap-doors and so forth.

It was bad enough for the leaders of the movement, when they endeavoured to call the attention of the world to the great and unknown field for scientific and religious enquiry which lies on the borderland between matter and spirit, to find themselves set down as agents of his Satanic Majesty, or as superior adepts in the charlatan line; but the unkindest cut of all, perhaps, came from a class of people whose own experiences, rightly understood, ought certainly to have taught them better: the occult phenomena were claimed by the Spiritualists 506as the work of their dear departed ones, but the leaders in Theosophy were declared to be somewhat less even than mediums in disguise.

Never were the phenomena presented in any other character than that of instances of a power over perfectly natural though unrecognised forces, and incidentally over matter, possessed by certain individuals who have attained to a larger and higher knowledge of the Universe than has been reached by scientists and theologians, or can ever be reached by them, by the roads they are now respectively pursuing. Yet this power is latent in all men, and could, in time, be wielded by anyone who would cultivate the knowledge and conform to the conditions necessary for its development. Nevertheless, except in a few isolated and honourable instances, never was it received in any other character than as would-be miracles, or as works of the Devil, or as vulgar tricks, or as amusing gape-seed, or as the performances of those dangerous “spooks” that masquerade in séance rooms, and feed on the vital energies of mediums and sitters. And, from all sides, theosophy and theosophists were attacked with a rancour and bitterness, with an absolute disregard alike of fact and logic, and with malice, hatred and uncharitableness that would be utterly inconceivable, did not religious history teach us what mean and unreasoning animals ignorant men become when their cherished prejudices are touched; and did not the history of scientific research teach us, in its turn, how very like an ignorant man a learned man can behave, when the truth of his theories is called in question.

An occultist can produce phenomena, but he cannot supply the world with brains, nor with the intelligence and good faith necessary to understand and appreciate them. Therefore, it is hardly to be wondered at, that word came to abandon phenomena and let the ideas of Theosophy stand on their own intrinsic merits.

MR. MOHINI M. CHATTERJI.

To the Editors of Lucifer.

Will you kindly afford publicity in the pages of Lucifer to the enclosed letter I have just received from Mr. Mohini M. Chatterji who has been staying for a few months at Rome, with English friends, on his way back to India.—Yours very truly,

A. P. Sinnett.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE LONDON LODGE OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

Sir,—I understand that among the members of your Society there is a rumour to the effect that I have joined the Roman Catholic Church, which has caused much annoyance to my friends and also to myself. I beg therefore that you will do me the justice to make it known that the rumour is entirely false and that I have no desire to join any Christian Church.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

Mohini M. Chatterji.

Rome (Italy), January 30th, 1888.

To the Editors of Lucifer.

On behalf of the members of the London Lodge, I beg to state that the rumour referred to in Mr. Mohini’s letter emanated from two acquaintances of his belonging to the Romish Church, who themselves derived their information from the R. C. priesthood. As for the members of the L. L. they never believed in this report.

Bertram Keightley, Hon. Sec.

507

CORRESPONDENCE

[The editors have received the two following letters—one from the learned Founder of Hylo-Idealism, the other from a gentleman, a casual correspondent, of whom they know absolutely nothing except his most extraordinary way of expressing his thoughts in words and terms hitherto unheard by ordinary mortals. Both take the editors to task for using their undeniable right of criticism and editorial judgment. As Lucifer, however, is a magazine sui generis, and as its policy is the greatest possible tolerance and fairness to all parties concerned, it will abstain from its legal prerogative of leaving the letters without reply or notice. Lucifer hands them over, therefore, to the “Adversary,” to be dealt with according to their respective merits. The editors have never pretended to an “understanding of Hylo-Idealism” nor do they entertain any such rash hope for the future. They belong to that humble class of mortals who labour to their dying day under the belief that 2 × 2 = 4, and can by no means, even hylo-idealistic, make 5. “C. N.”’s letter placed the new “philosophy” in an entirely different light; firstly, because it is written in good English, and because the style of the writer is extremely attractive; and secondly, because at least one point has now been made clear to the editors: “Hylo-Idealism” is, like modern spiritualism, the essence of transcendental materialism. If in Mr. Huxley’s opinion Comte’s Positivism is, in practice, “Catholicism minus Christianity,” in the views of the editors of Lucifer Hylo-Idealism is “Metaphysics minus psychology and—physics.” Let its apostles explain away its flagrant contradictions, and then Lucifer will be the first to render justice to it as a philosophy. Meanwhile, it can only acknowledge a number of remarkably profound thoughts that are to be found scattered in independent solitude throughout the letters of Dr. Lewins (Humanism v. Theism) and others, and—no more.]

re HYLO-IDEALISM.

To the Editors of Lucifer.

Perhaps space may be found in the February or other early issue of your 508interesting and suggestive serial for the present curt communication. In a footnote of your January number I am coupled with Mr. H. Spencer as being more Atheist than Moleschott and Büchner—to say nothing of such compromising and irresolute scientists as Darwin, Huxley, and Co. Now, that atheistic or non-animist standpoint is the pivot on which my whole synthesis revolves; and is, I contend, the burning problem at this epoch—ethical and intellectual—of the human mind—thoroughly to establish on certain concrete, rational and scientific data, that is to say—not on the Utopias of Speculation and Metaphysics. My principle is exactly that of Kant (inter alios) when he formulates the “Thing in Itself.” But we have only to study the short and handy “Critique of Kant,” referred to in your columns—by Kuno Fischer, translated by Dr. Hough, to see how fast and loose that “all-shattering” metaphysician played with his all-destructive theme. Not only does he entirely reverse it and its corollaries in his critique of the “Practical Reason,” and of “Judgment,” but also in the second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason” itself, in which originally, as its corollary, or rather concomitant, he, like myself, only on less sure premises, disposes of God, the Soul (Anima or Vital Principle), and Immortality—that is of another “personal” life after death. I hold with Lucretius, Epicurus, and others in ancient and modern times, of whom Shelley is a typical case, that no greater benefit can be bestowed on humanity than the elimination from sane thought of this ghastly and maddening Triune Spectre. God alone is quite “l’infame” Voltaire dubs the Catholic Church. Looking through Nature “red in tooth and claws” to its pseudo Author, we must expect to find a Pandemon. For any omnipotent Being who, unconditioned and unfettered in all respects, “willed” such a world of pain and anguish for sentient creatures, must be a Demon worse than mythology has fabled of Satan, Moloch, Mammon, or other fiends. It must be noted that in the classic Pantheon, the Fates, or Fatal Sisters, are “above” all the Immortals of Olympus, including Jove himself—a 509saving provision quite inadmissible in modern Monotheism, which endows its Divinity^[189] with absolute omnipotence and fore-knowledge.

Robert Lewins, M.D.

HYLO-IDEALISM.

To the Editors of Lucifer.

I have to thank you for your kind insertion of my note on above in January issue of the Magazine.

I have not the slightest desire to quarrel with your prefaced comments on my style of writing. It seems to you to be “turgid,” and you take advantage of some unkind epithets lately dealt out to Theosophy in the Secular Review to return the compliment to me with interest added. Be it so. It would seem but fair to, let me say, compliment those, and those only, who have directly complimented you; but I have no wish, as I have just said, to find fault with any comment on Hylo-Idealism or on the methods of its advocacy. All criticism is, I know, received by the excogitator of the system with thanks, and, save that both he and I think your note re “Theobroma” not a little at fault (for explanation I refer you to the well-known Messrs. Epps), I can say the same for myself.

I can see, however, in spite of the raillery with which you honour us, that a right understanding of Hylo-Idealism—I beg pardon, High-low Idealism—is still very far from being yours. Why, in a recent issue of Lucifer the old difficulty of, as I call it, the “Coincident assumption of Materiality” is started as if it had never before been thought of. It is, in point of fact, fully dealt with in my “Appendix” to the “Auto-Centricism” pamphlet, which has already passed under your review! It is not worth while to enter once more upon this point; suffice it then to say, in addition, that I explained it also, at full length, to a Theosophical writer—Mr. E. D. Fawcett—in the Secular Review, some months ago. He had started the same venerable objection, but after my reply, he so far honoured me as not to return to the charge. Let him do so now, and then a Theosophical attack and a Hylo-Ideal defence will be before you. But, really, it is no argument against my position to extract some half-dozen lines of my writing from a contemporary and to follow this soupçon with three printer’s “shrieks.”

I shall wait with interest the promised letter from “C. N.,” placing Hylo-Idealism in a “new and very different light,” as you say. This is something quite new. Dr. Lewins, C. N., and I have, none of us, 510been able, hitherto, to find any material difference between our several presentations of the system.

I have the honour to be, Mesdames,

Your most obedient servant,

G. M. McC.

TO DR. LEWINS, AND THE HYLO-IDEALISTS AT LARGE.

The several learned gentlemen of the above persuasion, who have honoured Lucifer with their letters and articles, will please to accept the present as a collective Reply. Life is too short to indulge very often in such lengthy explanations. But “une fois n’est pas coutume.”

In “coupling” Dr. Lewins’ name with those he mentions—especially with Mr. Herbert Spencer’s—the Editors had assuredly no intention of saying anything derogatory to the dignity of the founder of Hylo-Idealism. They have called the latter system—its qualification of Idealistic notwithstanding——“atheistical,” and to this Dr. Lewins himself does not demur. Quite the contrary. If his protest (against a casual remark made in a footnote of two lines!) means anything at all, it means that he feels hurt to find his name associated with the names of such “compromising and (in atheism) irresolute scientists as Darwin, Huxley, and Co.” What is it that our erudite correspondent demurs to, then? Just that, and nothing more. His prefixed adjectives refer to the half-heartedness of these gentlemen in the matter of atheism and materialism, not surely, to their scientific achievements. Indeed, these illustrious naturalists are timid enough to leave half-opened doors in their speculations for something to enter in which is not quite matter, and yet what it is they do not, or do not wish to know.

Indeed, they derive man, his origin and consciousness, only from the lower forms of animal creation and the brutes, instead of attributing life, mind and intellect—as the followers of the new System do—simply to the pranks played by Prakriti (the great Ignorance and Illusion) on our “diseased nervous centres”—abstract thought being synonymous with Neuropathy in the teachings of the Hylo-Idealists (see Auto-Centricism, p. 40). But all this has been already said and better said by Kapila, in his Sankhya, and is very old philosophy indeed; so that Messrs. Darwin and Co. have been, perhaps, wise in their generation to adopt another theory. Our great Darwinists are practical men, and avoid running after the hare and the eagle at the same time, as the hare in such case would be sure to 511run away, and the eagle to be lost in the clouds. They prefer to ignore the ideas and conceptions of the Universe, as held by such “loose,” and—as philosophically expressed by our uncompromising opponent—“all-shattering metaphysicians as Kant was.” Therefore letting all such “metaphysical crack-brained theories” severely alone, they made man and his thinking Ego the lineal descendant of the revered ancestor of the now tailless baboon, our beloved and esteemed first cousin. This is only logical from the Darwinian standpoint. What is, then, Dr. Lewins’ quarrel with these great men, or with us? They have their theory, the inventor of Hylo-Idealism has his theory, we, Metaphysicians, have our ideas and theories; and, the Moon shining with impartial and equal light on the respective occiputs of Hylo-Idealists, Animalists, and Metaphysicians, she pours material enough for every one concerned to allow each of them to “live and let live.” No man can be at once a Materialist and an Idealist, and remain consistent. Eastern philosophy and occultism are based on the absolute unity of the Root Substance, and they recognise only one infinite and universal Cause. The Occultists are Unitarians par excellence. But there is such a thing as conventional, time-honoured terms with one and the same meaning attached to them all—at any rate on this plane of illusion. And if we want to understand each other, we are forced to use such terms in their generally-accepted sense, and avoid calling mind matter, and vice versâ. The definition of a materialised “Spirit” as frozen whiskey is in its place in a humouristic pun: it becomes an absurdity in philosophy. It is Dr. Lewins’ argument that “the very first principle of logic is, that two ‘causes’ are not to be thought of when one is sufficient;” and though the first and the ultimate, the Alpha and the Omega in the existence of the Universe, is one absolute cause, yet, on the plane of manifestations and differentiations, matter, as phenomenon, and Spirit as noumenon, cannot be so loosely confused as to merge the latter into the former, under the pretext that one self-evident natural cause (however secondary in the sight of logic and reason) is “sufficient for our purpose,” and we need not “transcend the proper conditions of thought” and fall back upon the lower level of “lawless and uncertain fancy”—i.e., metaphysics. (Vide “Humanism v. Theism,” pp. 14, 15.)

We have nothing whatever, I say it again, against “Hylo-Idealism” with the exception of its compound and self-contradictory name. Nor do we oppose Dr. Lewins’ earlier thoughts, as 512embodied in “C. N’s” “HUMANISM versus THEISM.” That which we permit ourselves to object to and oppose is the later system grown into a Bifrontian, Janus-like monster, a hybrid duality notwithstanding its forced mask of Unity. Surely it is not because Dr. Lewins calls “Spirit—a fiction” and attributes Mind, Thought, Genius, Intellect, and all the highest attributes of thinking man to simple effects or functions of Hylo-zoism, that the greatest problem of psychology, the relation of mind to matter, is solved? No one can accuse “The Adversary” of too much tenderness or even regard for the conclusions of such rank materialists as the Darwinians generally are. But surely no impartial man would attribute their constant failure to explain the relations of mind to matter, and the confessions of their ignorance of the ultimate constitution of that matter itself, to timidity and irresoluteness, but rather to the right cause: i.e., the absolute impossibility of explaining spiritual effects by physical causes, in the first case; and the presence of that in matter which baffles and mocks the efforts of the physical senses to perceive or feel, and therefore to explain it, in the second case. It is not, evidently, a desire to compromise that forced Mr. Huxley to confess that “in strictness we (the Scientists) know nothing about the composition of matter,” but the honesty of a man of science in not speculating upon what he did not believe in, and knew nothing about. Does J. Le Conte insult the majesty of physical science by declaring that the creation or destruction, increase or diminution of matter, “lies beyond the domain of science?”^[190] And to whose prejudices does Mr. Tyndall pander, he, who once upon a time shocked the whole world of believers in spiritual existence, by declaring in his Belfast address that in matter alone was “the promise and potency of every form and quality of life” (just what Dr. Lewins does) when he maintains that “the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of CONSCIOUSNESS is unthinkable,” and adds:

“Granted that a definite thought and a molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ nor apparently any rudiments of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from one to the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened and illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding 513states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem. ‘How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness?’ The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable.”^[191]

To our surprise, however, we find that our learned correspondent—Tyndall, Huxley & Co., notwithstanding—has passed the intellectually impassable chasm by modes of perception, “anti-intellectual,” so to speak. I say this in no impertinent mood; but merely following Dr. Lewins on his own lines of thought. As his expressions seem absolutely antiphrastic in meaning to those generally accepted by the common herd, “anti-intellectual” would mean with the Hylo-Idealists “anti-spiritual” (spirit being a fiction with them). Thus their Founder must have crossed the impassable chasm—say, by a hylo-zoistic process of perception, “starting from the region of rational cogitation” and not from “that lower level of lawless and uncertain fancy,” as Theosophists, Mystics, and other hoi polloi of thought, do. He has done it to his own “mental satisfaction,” and this is all a Hylo-Idealist will ever aspire to, as Dr. Lewins himself tells us. He “cannot deny that there may be behind (?) nature a ‘cause of causes,’^[192] but if so, it is a god who hides himself, or itself, from mortal thought. Nature is at all events vice-regent plenipotentiary, and with her thought has alone to deal.” Just so, and we say it too, for reasons given in the footnote. “There is a natural solution for everything,” he adds. “Of course, if there be no ‘cause,’ this solution is the arrangement and co-ordination of invariable sequences in our own minds ... rather than an ‘explanation’ or ‘accounting for’ phenomena. Properly speaking we can ‘account for’ nothing. Mental satisfaction—unity between microcosm and macrocosm, not the search after ‘First Causes.’ ... is the true chief end of man.” (Hum. v. Theism, p. 15.)

This seems the backbone of Hylo-Idealistic philosophy, which thus appears as a cross breed between Epicurianism and the “Illusionism” of the Buddhist Yogachâras. This stands proven by the contradictions in his system. Dr. Lewins seems to have achieved that, to do which every mortal scientist has hitherto failed, firstly, by declaring (in Hum. v. Theism, p. 17) the whole objective world—“phenomenal 514or ideal”,^[193] and “everything in it spectral” (Auto-Centricism, p. 9), and yet admitting the reality of matter. More than this. In the teeth of all the scientific luminaries, from Faraday to Huxley, who all confess to knowing NOTHING of matter, he declares that—“Matter organic and inorganic is now fully known” (Auto-Centricism, p. 40)!!

I humbly beg Dr. Lewins’ pardon for the rude question; but does he really mean to say what he does say? Does he want his readers to believe that up to his appearance in this world of matter, thinking men did not know what they were talking about, and that among all the “Ego Brains” of this globe his brain is the one omniscient reality, while all others are empty phantasms,or spectral balloons? Besides which, matter cannot surely be real and unreal at the same time. If unreal—and he maintains it—then all Science can know about it is that it knows nothing, and this is precisely what Science confesses. And if real—and Dr. Lewins, as shown, declares it likewise—then his Idealism goes upside down, and Hylo alone remains to mock him and his philosophy. These may be trifling considerations in the consciousness of an Ego of Dr. Lewins’ power, but they are very serious contradictions, and also impediments in the way of such humble thinkers as Vedantins, Logicians, and Theosophists, toward recognising, let alone appreciating, “Hylo-Idealism.” Our learned correspondent pooh-poohs Metaphysics, and at the same time not only travels on purely metaphysical grounds, but adopts and sets forth the most metaphysical tenets, the very gist of the PARA-metaphysical Vedanta philosophy, tenets held also by the Buddhist “Illusionists”—the Yogachâras and Madhyamikas. Both schools maintain that all is void (sarva sûnya), or that which Dr. Lewins calls spectral and phantasmal. Except internal sensation or intelligence (vijnâna) the Yogachâras regard everything else as illusion. Nothing that is material can have any but a spectral existence with them. So far, our “Bauddhas” are at one with the Hylo-Idealists, but they part at the crucial moment. The New School teaches that the Brain (the originator of consciousness) is the only factor and Creator of the visible Universe; that in it alone all our ideas of external things are born, and that, apart from it, nothing has real existence, everything being illusion. Now what has that Brain, or rather the material its particles and cells are composed of, distinct in it from other matter that it should be rendered such honours? 515Physically, it differs very little indeed from the brain stuff and cranium of any anthropoid ape. Unless we divorce consciousness, or the EGO, from matter, one materialistic philosophy is as good as the other, and none is worth living for. What his Brain-Ego is, Dr. Lewins does not show anywhere. He urges that his “atheistic or non-animist (soulless) standpoint is the pivot” on which his “whole synthesis revolves.” But as that “pivot” is no higher than the physical brain with its hallucinations, then it must be a broken reed indeed. A philosophy that goes no further than superficial Agnosticism, and says that “what Tennyson says of Deity may be true, but it is not in the region of natural cogitation; for it transcends the logical Encheiresis naturæ“ (Hum. v. Theism)—is no philosophy, but simply unqualified negation. And one who teaches that ”savants, or specialists, are the last to reach the summa scientiæ, for the constant search after knowledge must ever prevent its fruition” (ibid), cuts the ground himself under his feet, and thus loses the right, not only to be considered a man of science, but likewise his claim to the title of philosopher, for he rejects all knowledge. Dr. Lewins, quoting Schiller, “to the effect that truth can never be reached while the mind is in its analytic throes,” shows the poet-philosopher saying that:—“To capture the fleeting phantom he (the analyst) must fetter it by rules, must anatomatise its fair body into concepts, and imprison its living spirit into a bare skeleton of words”—and thus brings this as a prop and proof of his own arguments that we need not trouble ourselves with the “cause of causes.” But Schiller believed in spirit and immortality, while the Hylo-Idealists deny them in toto. What he says above is accepted by every Occultist and Theosophist, simply because he refers to the purely intellectual (not Spiritual) analysis on the physical plane, and according to the present scientific methods. Such analysis, of course, will never help man to reach the real inner soul-knowledge, but must ever leave him stranded in the bogs of fruitless speculation.

The truth is, that Hylo-Idealism is at best QUIETISM—only on the purely material plane. “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” seems its motto. Dr. Lewins tells us that he holds his views with Epicurus. I beg leave to contradict again. Epicurus insisted upon the necessity of making away with an unphilosophical, anthropomorphic deity— a bundle of contradictions—and so do we, the Theosophists. But Epicurus believed in gods, finite and conditioned in space 516and time, still divine when compared to objective ephemeral man: again, just as we, Theosophists, believe in them.

We feel sorry to have to say unpleasant truths. The Founder of Hylo-Idealism is evidently a marvellously well-read man, his learning is great and undeniable; and, we have always had an instinctive respect for, and sympathy with, thinkers of his calibre. But, we have been sent pamphlets and books on Hylo-Idealism for review, and one would be truant to his duty to conceal one’s honest and sincere views on anything. Therefore, we say that, contradictions and inconsistencies in the Hylo-Idealistic system apart, we find in it a mass of ideas and arguments which come forcibly home to us, because they are part and parcel of the Eastern Idealism. Our premises and propositions seem to be almost identical in some respects, but the conclusions we come to disagree in every point, the most important of which is the true nature of matter. This, which “has been fabled as ‘Spirit,’” writes Dr. Lewins in 1878, “is really merely the ‘vis insita’ of matter or ‘nature’—the latter a misnomer if creation or birth is a delusion, as it must be on the hypothesis of the eternity of matter.”

Here the Doctor speaks evidently of “Spirit” from the Christian stand-point, and criticises it from this aspect. And from this stand-point and aspect he is perfectly right; but as wrong from those of Eastern philosophy. Did he but view Spirit, as one with eternal matter, which, though eternal in esse is but finite and conditioned during its periodical manifestations, he would not so materialise its vis insita—which is vis vitæ but when applied to individual manifestations, the living subjects of illusion, or animated bodies. But this would lead us too far, and we must close the subject with one more protest. There is a casual remark in “Humanism v. Theisms” to the effect (on the authority of Ueberweg) that “the early Greek thinkers and Sages were Hylo-Zoists.” Aye, learned Doctor; but the early Greek thinkers understood Hylo-Zoism (from “Hyle” primordial matter, or what the greatest chemist in England, Mr. Crookes, has called “protyle” undifferentiated matter, and “Zoe,” life) in a way very different from yours. So are we, Theosophists and Eastern Occultists, “Hylo-Zoists”; but it is because with us “life” is the synonym both of Spirit and Matter, or the One eternal and infinite Life whether manifested or otherwise. That Life is both the eternal Idea and its periodical Logos. He who has grasped and mastered this doctrine completely 517has thereby solved the mystery of Being.

“The Adversary.”

P.S.—We have in type a very excellent article by Mr. L. Courtney, which could not find room in this present number, but will appear in March. In it, the writer says all that he can possibly say in favour of Hylo-Idealism, and that is all one can do. Thus, Lucifer will give one fair chance more to the new System; after which it will have gained a certain right to neither answer at such length, nor accept any article on Hylo-Idealism that will go beyond a page or so.—“A.”

518

INTERESTING TO ASTROLOGERS.

ASTROLOGICAL NOTES—No. 4.

To the Editor of Lucifer.

Question, at London, 1887, March 2nd, 6.8 p.m. What will be the duration of quesited’s life?

Though the preceding figure showed that my relative would recover from his illness,^[194] yet it was obvious that the end could not be far distant; and I drew the present figure for the minute of the impression, to interrogate the stars.

The following are the elements of the figure:—

Cusp of 10th house 14 ♊.

— 11th house 21 ♋.

— 12th house 22 ♌.

— 1st house 17° 45’ ♍.

— 2nd house 10 ♎.

— 3rd house 9 ♏.

Planets’ places are:

♆ 25. 13. 15 ♉.

♅ 11. 37. 30 R. ♎.

♄ 15. 46. 30 R ♋.

♃ 5. 41. 30 R ♏.

♂ 23. 50. 45 ♓.

☉ 11. 52. 19 ♓.

♀ 3. 10. 30 ♈.

☿ 29. 36. 15 ♓.

☽ 8. 28. 15 ♊.

Caput Draconis 27. 21. 38 ♌.

⨁ 14. 20. 56 I.

As in the previous figure the 6th house is the quesited’s 1st, and the 1st house is his 8th. As the time of the question was after sunset, ☿ ruling ♏ by night was lord of his 8th, and ♅ ruling ♒ by night was lord of his 1st. The aspect of the significators is ☿ 167° 58’ 45” ♅, separating from the Quincunx and applying to the Opposition. The Quincunx is, like the Conjunction and Parallel, convertible in nature, being good with benefics and evil with malefics, and when a benefic and malefic are thus joined, the stronger rules. It was therefore in this case doubly evil, as the significators were separating from one evil aspect and applying to another 519though not within orbs of either. As ☿, the applying planet, was in a common sign, and is an angle of the figure, each degree signified a week; and as 12° 1′ 15´´ were wanted to complete the opposition, the critical period was shown to be a fraction over 12 weeks, or May 25th.

Danger to life was also shown by Cauda Draconis in quesited’s 1st house; by ☉ in quesited’s 1st afflicted by a very close Quincunx of ♅ lord of his 1st, ♅ moreover receiving ☉ in his Detriment, and ☉ receiving ♅ in his Fall; and by ☽, lady of quesited’s 6th, posited in his 4th, and afflicted by a rather close Quartile of ☉ posited in his 1st, ☉ moreover receiving ☽ in his Anti-triplicity (sit venia verbo). Nevertheless, as the significators were not actually in any evil aspect, ☿ moreover receiving ♅ in his Triplicity, and being almost out of ♓ his Fall and Detriment, and the Detriment of ♅; ☽, lady of his 6th, and posited in his 4th, applying to a Trine of ♅ lord of his 1st; and ☿ lord of his 8th applying to Conjunction with ♀ lady of his 4th, ♀ moreover receiving ☿ in her exaltation;—all this denoted that May 25th would be the time, not indeed of certain death, but of imminent danger, the beginning of the end.

⨁ being in the 4th house of the figure, almost on the cusp, denoted a legacy to my father.

The actual result was as follows: After having been for some time in fair health, considering his age and recent illness, he was suddenly taken ill and in great danger on the night of May 27th, and on the morning of May 31st was in articulo mortis, and given up by his two physicians. From this, however, he rallied; relapsed on the night of July 6th; rallied again; but died on July 19th at 8.30 a.m., after a sudden seizure of only 15 minutes’ duration, and my father received a legacy under his will.

The quesited suffered much in his last illness from cough and dyspnœa. The certificate of death was—“Primary: emphysema, morbus cordis. Secondary: thrombus, syncope.” With this may be compared ♄ in ♋, having dignity in quesited’s 8th house, and afflicting ♅ lord of quesited’s 1st. ♄ in ♋ denotes “phthisis, ulceration in lungs, obstructions and bruises in breast, ague, scurvy, cancer, and cough.”

Nemo.

Transcriber’s Note

Some longer stories and articles are continued from number to number of the publication. Where the continued text appears in this volume, the ‘to be continued’ note a the bottom of each section is linked to the next. On occasion, the promised continuation is not to be found in thi text, and no link is provided.

On p. 236, the footnote now numbered 56 was referenced both in the title of the review and on the repetition of that phrase in the body of the review. The first of these has been removed as redundant. On occasion, diacritical marks in foreign words were not printed, and have not been added here.

The copious quotations give rise to the occasional puzzle with quotation marks, which make it difficult to say what the authors intended. Where there is no simple resolution, the text is given here as printed. The problematic paragraphs appear on p. 151, p. 164, p. 179, p. 205, p. 277, p. 295, p. 305.

Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected as noted below.

The references are to the page and line in the original. Where the page is printed in columns, ‘L’ and ‘R’ refer to the left and right columns. Those referenced with three numbers indicate the page, footnote and line within the note. Since footnotes have sometimes been moved to follow a paragraph, all references are to their position in the printed text.

3.1.2 How art thou [f]allen from Heaven Restored.

20.1 in which the Zoroast[r]ian Mitra Inserted

22.1.1 tha[t] John saw Restored.

22.2.9 it literally means ‘to howl.’[”] Added.

38.4 I have p[re/er]suaded my aunt Transposed.

44.16 chapters of the Bha[ga]vadgita Inserted.

51.1 self-contained and harmonious within[.] Added.

55.31 the high plateaux of Central Asia[.] Added.

55.40 some amount of injustice in it[.] Added.

60.6 Count Tolstoi considers it nec[e]ssary Inserted.

67.2 in [leasurely] fashion sic

69.13 in the Villa Torcello[.] Added.

72L.33 my books been par[a/o]died Replaced.

75L.55 by [C/G]. H. Pember Replaced.

79R.43 But as Lu[fic/cif]er hopes shortly to deal Transposed.

74R.15 [“]That the first human beings Added.

80R.33 [“]The famous cynic, Cratus, Removed.

84.41 his theosop[h]ical views. Inserted.

85.19 the social respectabili[l/t]y it panders to Replaced.

87.40 [innoculated] with vice, sic

87.41 in his subsequent life[.] Added.

104.44 it grew importunate[.] Added.

116.8 the Hindu philosophical tenet[.] Added.

122.24 if he changes his a[l/t]titude Replaced.

122.33 that marriage is consummated.[”] Added.

124.32 [“]Not one would have the courage Added.

131.3 By [C/G]. H. Pember, M.A. Replaced.

132.32 by such cavalier treatment[.] Added.

134.12 this [insistance] upon the letter sic

147.29 are pearls of wisdom[.] Added.

147.32 of the Ros[i]crucians Inserted.

152.28 ‘the Great Goddess[’] Added.

152.29 in the minds of Theosophists.[”] Added.

158R.43 is the day[-]house of ♅ Inserted.

164.6 members of that society who[ who] always find Removed.

172.15 and a benefic[i]ent power Removed.

179.3.12 principle of the Theosophists,[)] Added.

185.35 all occupied with [“/‘]Fou;[”/’] Replaced.

195.22 clos[e] to the great fire Restored.

204.45 Life-renewal and Life-tran[s]mission inserted.

201.26 draw it from you[r] own beautiful soul! Added.

205.38 and is himself examined of no man.[”] Added.

206.1 not for my life, assuredly[,/.] Replaced.

206.13 because it can give me[,] pleasure. Removed.

206.17 I am surr[r]ounded with a whole world Removed.

206.31 may be made comfortable.[”] Added.

209.36 within his soul.[”] Removed.

218.44 most wonderfull[l]y Removed.

217.23 aim of this work[,] the bias of the writer Added.

224.33 the irrational[i]ty Inserted.

226.40 the p[h]yschic-astral and the divine-astral Removed.

230.11 in[ ]dulge in the practice Removed.

233.3 before the seventee[n]th century Inserted.

233.27 cons[e]quently the great cry Inserted.

236.27 pheno[nem/men]a of modern spiritualism Transposed.

256.7 the lustre of the firma[n/m]ent Replaced.

260.38 uplifted to his were Fleta’s eyes[.] Added.

261.17 but [eat] nothing more sic>

263.39 pushed the door open[,/.] Replaced.

265.38 a passionate and adoring eagerness[.] Added.

273.59 [l]ife of the Spirit Restored.

278.44 the only one to see me[,/.] Replaced.

283.15 repugnant to a belie[t/f] in this law Replaced.

284.31 in a position to apprecia[i/t]e Replaced.

292.17 as in the Jubilee[e] coinage Removed.

292.28 The question of what interpreta[ta]tion Removed.

293.68.2 (1 Corinthians xi, 11.[)] Added.

296.7 or [“/‘]problematical[”/’] Mahatma?” Replaced.

299.29 since it beg[u/a]n by a “play of words,” Replaced.

301.1.5 the Word of Truth, th[e] Makheru of Egypt. Restored.

301.1.6 The preserved mummy was the bod[y] Restored.

301.15 [“]χρηστός ἑστιν επι τους,” Added.

302.16 and even by unbelievers,[”] sic

302.1.1 [“]Christianus quantum interpretatione Added.

303.2.3 or devoted to oracul[e/a]r services Replaced.

304.25 “the son of Iaso or Ieso, the [“]healer,” Removed.

305.4 of this rema[r]kable form. Inserted.

305.36 with [“/‘]oil that was taken from the wood Replaced.

305.37 he is called the Christ:[”/’] Replaced.

305.41 also as the Horus of both sexes.[”] Added.

305.2.1 for in[t]itiation into the Greek Removed.

306.34 the name of the Christ as the e[n/m]balmed mummy Replaced.

306.47 With the Greek [t]erminal s Restored.

307.30 our Christology is mummified mythology.” Removed.

309.2.1 [“]The word שיה shiac, Removed.

310.19 ([“]λεγόμενος,” surnamed “χρηστος.”) Added.

303.3.3 [(]here Socrates is the Chréstos) Added.

303.4.12 circle and solar year,[”] sic

311.36 tran[s]gress> that law? Inserted.

313.1 while parasit[i]es eat slowly Removed.

317.9 in the [mechanicism] of the Universe sic

317.13 pessimism is ro[u/o]ted in the recognition Replaced.

322.29 and that [“] system Added.

326.22 from any obligatory duty.[”] Removed.

326.28 thrown the blame and responsibi[i]lty Removed.

327.55 whether in[ it] its dead letter, Removed.

330L.14 having di[r/s]burdened our heart Replaced.

332L.18 they disarm cri[c/t]icism Replaced.

333R.61 even altars unto Baal[”] Added.

334R.51 [“]where the women wove hangings for the grove” Added.

335L.44 and the [“]Kaivalyanita.” Added.

334L.29 and by the famine....[’/”] Replaced.

349.32 knew that man to be a savage[.] Added.

351.36 recognised it as his own room[,/.] Replaced.

360.23 it was exceedingly solid and well fastened[.] Added.

361.20 [“]I may not readily understand you. Added.

366.13 were all in all to us![”] Added.

367.27 that reigneth over all![”] Added.

372.23 cannot subsist witho[n/u]t the spiritual force Inverted.

373.42 have themselves an organic form[,/.] Replaced.

375.8 —probably many[.] Added.

386.25 should he meet him in Heaven[,/.] Replaced.

387.25 [me] Ambrose’s sword sic ?

389.34 [“/‘]thou> must be Replaced.

390.19 as you shall hear.[”] Added.

404.11 vegetable forms [a]s well? Restored.

406.30 from not[—/-]living matter.[’]” Replaced/Removed.

407.1.1 [“]missing link” Restored.

409.47 (actual or possible)[”] Added.

411.3 the root of [uo/ou]r present constitution Transposed.

412.19 in accepting the doct[r]ine of Atonement Inserted.

413.16 the[,] Church wishes the truth, Removed.

417.19 and transfer it [to ]the shoulders Inserted.

434.29 an hono[n/u]rable reputation Inverted.

436.1.14 to the [‘]Lord’ for a burnt-offering Restored.

437.19 must be the d[’]evil worship sic

447.35 they were set in[.] Added.

447.27 which was habitual with him[.] Added.

450.2 learned to surrender his love.[”] Added.

456.14 follow and s[ie/ei]ze her thoughts Transposed.

469.7 [“]No one said aught Added.

472.3.1 [“]breaks through the Brahmarandra sic

474.5 three-fold r[h]ythm Inserted.

477.7 it would never [h/b]e his. Replaced.

477.27 by personal craving or desire[.] Added.

481.10 the quickest violet[.] Added.

484.10 the very ar[ô/o]ma of our thoughts Replaced.

486.5 the i[n]diosyncrasies of a nation Removed.

490.12 “Faith is the key of Christendom,[’/”] Replaced.

494.41 only a coun[f/t]erfeit Presentment Replaced.

495.23 but for destruction.[”] Added.

502.35 the Deit[r]y is either an anachronism, Removed.

502.39 in the tract entitle[s/d] “Autocentricism, or the Brain Theory of Life and Mind.” Replaced.

503.10 which certifies it[s] own nomenal existence. Added.

503.13 the nöetic or hyloic basis[.] Added.

503.14 admits of sci[e]ntific research Inserted.

503.28 such states of rapture the relatio[u/n]s Replaced.