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SCIENTIFIC KELIGION
"©as ei3iS''l^tiblid)Z
Sidjt uns Ijtnan."
— Faust.
SCIENTIFIC RELIGION
OR
HIGHER POSSIBILITIES OF LIFE AND PRACTICE
THROUGH THE OPERATION OF
NATURAL FORCES
BY
LAURENCE OLIPHANT
WITIf AX APPEXDIX BY A CLERGYMAX OF
THE CHURCH OF EXGLAXD
^Dublisi^ctJ for tfje Slut^or bg
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXXVIIl
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P E E r A C E.
In the last volume which I published, called 'Episodes in
a Life of Adventure,' I said in the concluding chapter that
the reason why I could not continue the records of my life
beyond the year 1865, was because my attention, which had
previously to that date been for some years directed to what
is called " spiritualism," now became absorbed in a new and
higher phase of investigation, which compelled me to abandon
the pursuits and ambitions of the life I was leading, and
retire from the world in order to surround myself by the
most favourable conditions I could find under which to " pro-
secute my researches into the more hidden laws which govern
human action and control events ; " and I went on to say,
that "although from time to time I have been suddenly
forced from retirement into some of the most stirring scenes
which have agitated Europe, the reasons which compelled
me to participate in them were closely connected with the
investigation in which I was engaged, the nature of which is
so absorbing, and its results so encouraging, that it would not
be possible for me now to abandon it, or to relinquish the
hope which it has inspired, that a new moral future is dawn-
ing upon the Imman race — one, certainly, of which it stands
much in need."
I did not then anticipate the possiljility of my Ijcing
2000142
vi • PREFACE,
SO soon called upon to publish my grounds for expressing
this hope; but during a withdrawal of five months last
summer, into the solitudes of Mount Carmel, I have felt
myself irresistibly impelled to write the following pages, and
they furnish the only answer I can give to my numerous
critics who are kind enough to regret that I should have left
the paths of diplomatic and political adventure " to wander
amidst the phantoms and mirages of the occult science."
Only those who have tried both are in a position to judge
where the phantoms and mirages really are. As, however,
access to books of reference, with which to support the con-
clusions at which I had arrived, was limited in so remote a
spot, it was necessary for me to come to England, and my
researches have more than fulfilled my expectations.
It has been impossible for me to do justice to the subject
without intruding my own personality to an extent which
would have been in the highest degree repellent to me, were
it not that the results reached, seem to me of such general
paramount importance as to supersede all other considera-
tions, and that the experimental process by which they
have been obtained, is a necessary prelude and explanation
of them.
Excepting, however, where personal allusions are unavoid-
able, I have dispensed with them ; while I earnestly trust
that, in some minds at all events, the convictions which are
here embodied as the result of long and arduous struggle and
effort, may meet with a response.
LAURENCE OLIPHANT.
April 1888.
POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE.
I FEEL impelled at the last moment to say one word with
regard to the conditions under which this book was written.
I had hesitated to do so until it was actually in the hands of
the binder ; but the problems of psychology are forcing them-
selves so strongly upon public attention, that I do not think
that any experience which may throw light upon them should
be withheld.
I became conscious on my arrival at Haifa last spring that
a book, the plan of which I could nut determine, was taking
form in my mind, and pressing for external expression, and at
once sat down to write it. I found the attempt to be vain ;
the ideas refused to arrange themselves, and I was strongly
impressed that they could not do so, unless I went to a
summer-house I have built in a remote part of Mount
Carmel, and made the room from which the spirit of my wife
had passed into the unseen, a little more than a year before,
my private study, religiously preserving it from intrusion. I
had no sooner taken my pen in hand under these circum-
stances, than the thoughts which find expression in the fol-
lowing pages were projected into my mind with the greatest
rapidity, and irrespective of any mental study or prearrange-
ment on my part, often overpowering my own preconceptions,
and still more often presenting tlie subject treated of in an
Vlll^ _ POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE.
entirely new light to myself. On two or three occasions they
ceased suddenly. I then found it was useless to try and formu-
late them l)y any effort of my brain, and at once abandoned
the attempt to write for the day. The longest interval of this
kind was three days. On the fourth I was again able to write
with facility, and though always conscious of the effort of
composition, it was never so severe as to cause me to pause
for more than one or two minutes.
At the same time there was nothing, so far as I could
judge, abnormal in my mental or physical condition. I was
unaffected by trifling interruptions, and the ideas as they pre-
sented themselves seemed to be my own mingled with others
projected from an unseen source, or new ideas struggling
with and overpowering old ones with force that I could not
resist. This must be my apology for a tone of authority
which I should otherwise have been reluctant to impart to
this book.
CONTENTS.
PAET I.
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
Revolutionary tendency of modern thought — Its bearing upon
theological dogma — Doubts and unsatisfied moral aspirations
the result of spiritual quickening — The impending psychic
crisis, and the moral and physical conflict which will result
therefrom — Organic changes in man now in progress, . . 1
CHAPTER I.
Uncertainty attending all revelation purporting to be divine —
Causes of this uncertainty^The responsilnlity of every man
as the final judge of revelation — None of the most ancient
revelations attempted to grapple with social and economic prob-
lems — Substitution almost immediately after Christ's death of
a desire for personal salvation, in lieu of the practice of daily
life inculcated by him — Theosophy, occultism, and mysticism,
offer no remedy for the world's malady — Nature of Biblical in-
spiration examined — Later inspirational writings, . . 10
CHAPTER II.
Recent examination into tlie nature of the forces latent in the
human organism — Hypnotic experiments in France, and the
Psychical Research Society in J]ngland, familiarising tlie scien-
tific mind with forces formerly ignored — Their origin in the
unseen universe — Fonner conception of matter modified by
recent discoveries — Sir Henry Roscoe on atoms — Inseparability
Vlll CONTENTS.
of matter and force — Dynaspheric force — Scientific facts valu-
able, conclusions misleading — Hypnotic expei'iments witnessed
by me in Paris — Hypnotism recognised by the medical faculty
in France as dangerous — Spiritual insight necessary to discover
the nature and origin of these forces, and to qualify the oper-
ator to deal with them, . . . . . .28
CHAPTER III.
The interlocking of the invisible atoms of the seen and unseen
worlds form a single system of animate nature — Glimpses into
the invisible, conditioned on the moral state of the observer —
Deatli a liberation of grosser atoms from those more sublimated
— Material particles, the vehicles of force, constantly assuming
new phases — Anima mundi — Interdependence of all created
nature — Psychical experience attending the composition of
" Sympneumata" — Duplex cerebral action — Vital atomic inter-
action between the living and the dead — Method of cerebral
impregnation — Inspirations which do not grapple with the earth-
malady, worthless — Christ, a radiative centre of healing force —
The discipline of absolute self-sacrifice essential as a preparation
to the highest inspiration — Defect in the Eastern systems of
asceticism, . . . . . . .49
CHAPTER IV.
Introduction to the House-book ; a treatise on domestic living, by
the late Mrs Oliphant — Reasons why households should be
formed to secure the advent of ideal good — Manner of life to be
neither lavish nor parsimonious — Reasons for this — Religion
now to be the possession of each man — All born to enact, what
was formerly taught — Family groups, a machinery for social
service — Necessity for the protection and nourishment of a
home — All artificial distinctions of rank, occupations, and
creeds abolished — Makers and maintainers of the family respon-
sible for its development — The qualities required for social re-
demption — All to stand in sympathy with the laws of society,
but not to be subjugated by them — Angelic co-operation with
men — Division of responsibilities — Assistance in labour —
Subordination to authority — Notes of expenditure, . . 64
CHAPTER V.
Insufiiciency of the natural reason as a guide to divine truth, be-
cause it cannot divest itself of the ideas of time and space —
CONTENTS. IX
Hence theology and science both blind guides — Man the arena
of conflictiag atomic forces — Transmutation of material forces
by conversion of moral particles — Methods and manifestations
of infestation — Atomic constitution of moral atmosphere —
Phenomena of heredity— Astrology — Will-force under specific
influence — Faith-healing — Elixir of life — Radiation of divine
life depends on magnetic conditions — Sufi'ering involved
thereby — Religion iiseless as a means to a personal end —
"World - regeneration to be accomplished by a radiation of
divinely inspired human affection — Inspiration threefold :
through union with God, man, and nature — Pollution of its
current threefold: by pride, by selfishness, by apathy — Its
force depends upon its concentration upon groups animated by
the same motive, ....... 84
CHAPTER VI.
History of the early Christian Church, a record of swift demoralisa-
tion ; partly owiag to desire to make converts, and partly to
the substitution of a future life for present practice— Conflict
between Rome and the East — Extinction of Gnostic sects de-
structive of mixch of the deeper truth — Compilation of the
present canon of Scripture untrustworthy — Apocryphal gospels
and epistles — "The teaching of the Twelve Apostles" — The
Book of Enoch — The Church of England on the verge of a
great moral revolution — The confessions of a parish priest —
Need of a reformed Christianity, .... 102
CHAPTER VII.
Moral pall which shrouds earth's surface — Deterioration of moral
atmosphere under invasion of Western civilisation — Christ's
Christianity diametrically opposed to that of the Churches —
False system of religious and secular education — Christendom :
its politics, commerce, and finance, all on an infernal basis-
Corruption of its Churches — Blindness and indifterence of so-
called Christians to the inconsistencies of their lives — Christian
ethics buried under anti-Christian dogmas — A quickening of
conscience taking place among the clergy — Canon Fremantle on
the " New Reformation," . . . . .117
CHAPTER VIII.
The effect of dogmatic theology upon modern thought — The preju-
dices which it excites — The conflict between science and reli-
X CONTENTS.
gioii to wliich it has given rise — Intolerance both of theologians
and men of science — Bigotry of the latter — Contradictions in
which they have become involved — Facts of nature, discovered
by superficial investigations, valuable — Empirical science in-
competent to arrive at the divine truths in nature — This can
only be achieved by development of inner faculties in man-
Hence all scientific conjectures and hypotheses worthless — Con-
flicting utterances and conclusions of Professors Huxley and
Tyndall illustrate this, . . . . . .131
CHAPTER IX.
Eeligious systems : their uses and abuses — Aspiration demands in-
spiration — Religions extracted from the husk, instead of the
kernel of revelation — Impossibility of demonstrating to the
superficial reason, truths discovered by the inner faculties —
Various channels and methods of inspiration — Development of
subsurface consciousness — Magnetic condition of unseen world
as related to ours — Attraction and repulsion depends on moral
atomic affinities — Groups in the unseen with which every indi-
vidual in the visible world is affiliated — So also with all
Churches, religions, and sects — Christian, Buddhist, Moslem,
and other religious organisations exist in the unseen, and in-
spire those here — Hence divergency of inspiration and religious •
intolerance, . . . . . . .143
CHAPTER X.
Force inconceivable except in connection with matter as a trans-
mitting medium — The psyche or " spiritual body," the abode of
the pneuma or "spirit" — Christ's birth and death established a
new atomic relation between the seen and the unseen — The or-
ganisms of the seen and the unseen man described — Their rela-
tion to each other, and the methods of their interaction — The
phenomena of spiritualism, occultism, hypnotism, telepathy,
faith-healing, and thought-reading accounted for and explained
under the operation of natural law — Phenomena unreliable as a
guide to truth— Craving for it unwholesome and attended with
danger — Insanity explained — Philosophy of death — Disease not
an unmixed evil — Popular ideas of heaven, hell, purgatory,
erroneous — Magnetic contact established between Christ and
the world, the channel of a new moral reconstructive potency —
The human and spiritual magnetic batteries now charged, and
the consummation at hand — Qualities refjuired in those who
would co-operate in bringing it about, . . . .159
CONTENTS. XI
CHAPTER XL
The relation of man towards God, Christ, and the unseen world,
here set forth, confirmed by the inner sense of the Bible — All
sacred books have their hidden sense — Teaching of the Kab-
balah and of the Fathers on this point — Inner sense of Christ's
teaching has been lost, and the symbols and externals alone re-
main ; hence superstition, bigotry, and hypocrisy — Frequent
allusions to the " mystery " in the New Testament — St Paul's
apprehension of it — The most ancient religions contain it in
their universal conception of God, as an infinite paternal and
maternal principle, pervading, animating, and sustaining all
things by the " Word "^Judaism, which was an improved ren-
dering of the Egyptian and Chaldean religions, contained it
concealed in the Mosaic law, of which Christ was the fulfilment
— Genesis composed and compiled under a most powerful in-
spiration — Mysticism : its uses and abuses, . . . 184
CHAPTER XII.
Masculine and feminine atomic elements — Sentient and non-sen-
tient atoms — The Deity of the Bible, as well as of former sacred
records, masculine and feminine — Effect of the divine mater-
nity on man — Revelation by the Spirit, which is feminine, a
personal one — This mystery contained in the hidden sense of
both Old and New Testaments, . . . . .201
PART II.
CHAPTER XIII.
The generation of universes — First chapter of Genesis descj-ibcs the
creation by emanation of a previous universe — Analysis of its
hidden meaning— The rebellion of Lucifer— Archangels or
Seraphim, ami arch-demons or Siddini — The first Adam, or
Adam Cadmon, . . . . . • .219
CHAPTER XIV.
Second chapter of Genesis describes creation by emanation of our
world — Analysis of its hidden meaning — The birth of bi-
sexual man— Ancient beliefs in liis androgynous nature — Story
of his fall — And separation into two distinct sexes — Structural
changes consec^uent thereon, . . . . • 229
xii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV.
The origin of evil — Mixed conditions in the genesis of earth —
Evolution of the first forms of life, under the opposing influ-
ences of Seraphim and Siddim— The Garden of Eden — Man's
mission — Method of its accomplishment — The earth-malady
caused by the pollution of its sex-life — Its purification possible
— Nature of the struggle for purity thus involved, . . 243
CHAPTER XVI.
The first period of the race — Esoteric sense of the conflict between
Cain and Abel — The mark of Cain — The introduction of
physiological birth — Of polygamy — The fate of the Lamech
races — Invasion of the planet by the Siddim — Their mixed
progeny— The Book of Enoch — The deluge — Earliest cosmo-
gonic traditions— The golden age, .... 256
CHAPTER XVII.
The Noachic race — The guardians of the mystery — Transmitted to
the Abramic— Magnetic conditions of the Holy Land — The
Divine Trinity of the early religions — Analogy of the religion of
Accad with that of the Jews — The secret contained in the law
of Moses— The fulfilment of the law— Effect of modern criti-
cism on Judaism, . . . . . • .271
CHAPTER XVIII.
The mission of the Jews— The mystery of the Divine Feminine con-
fided to them — The vision of Isaiah — The Divine Feminine
enfolded in Christ — The method of His birth — Jewish belief in
the Messiah — The Virgin Mary — Nature of the descent of the
feminine principle — Covenants with the Jews — Reasons why
they should recognise in this principle their Messiah, . . 290
CHAPTER XIX.
The true position of woman — The false position assigned her by
civilisation — Her new fvmctions in life — The descent of the
Divine Feminine through her — The co-operative struggle of the
sexes for purity — Woman's rights — The true higher education
of woman, ...... 314
CONTENTS. Xlll
CHAPTER XX.
Method of the descent of the Divine Feminine — And of its recep-
tion by woman — The Sympneiima — Introduction of the Divine
Feminine into the world, through the birth, life, death, resur-
rection, and ascension of Christ — The outpouring on the dis-
ciples on the Day of Pentecost — The sympneumatic conscious-
ness, ........ .326
CHAPTER XXI.
The sympneumatic descent — Its infernal simulation — The func-
tion of bisexual atoms — Contact with pneumatic centres —
Social conventionalities impede male and female co-operation —
Insane delusions — The relation of Christ to man through woman
illustrated by St Paul — Kabbalistic interpretations, . . 340
CHAPTER XXII.
The twelfth and thirteenth chapters of the Book of Revelation in-
terpreted — The effect of Christ's mission to earth upon the
upper invisible region of our world — Concealment of the Divine
Feminine — The two witnesses — The functions of John the Bap-
tist — His relation to Christ — Temporary triumph of the Infer-
nal Feminine — The Beast, Anti-Christendom, or the Gentile
Church — The mark of the Beast, the false cross — Man's pres-
ent relation to Christ, ...... 362
CHAPTER XXIII.
The fourteenth and following chapters of Revelation interpreted —
Collision on earth between the sympneumatic and anti-sym-
pneumatic forces — Catastrophic changes in consequence — The
fate of the Siddim — The triumph of the saints — The Second
Advent, and the descent of the Bride — Recapitulation, . . 379
Appendix I., extracts from the Kabbalali, .... .391
Appendix II., by a Clergyman of tlie Cliurch of England, . 401
EEEATA.
Page 165, line 2 from top, /or "dialectric" read "dielectric.
!r 235, line 2 from foot, for " Salvine " read " Salome."
PAET I.
SCIENTIFIC RELIGION;
OR,
HIGHER POSSIBILITIES OF LIFE AND PRACTICE
THROUGH THK
OPERATION OF NATURAL FORCES.
INTRODUCTION.
REVOLUTIONARY TENDENCY OF MODERN THOUGHT — IT.S BEARING UPON
THEOLOGICAL DOGMA — DOUBTS AND UNSATISFIED MORAL ASPIRA-
TIONS THE RESULT OF .SPIRITUAL QUICKENING — THE IMPENDING
PSYCHIC CRISIS, AND THE MORAL AND PHYSICAL CONFLICT WHICH
WILL RESULT THEREFROM — ORGANIC CHANGES IN MAN NOW IN
PROGRESS.
It would be supertiuous here to do more than cursorily
allude to the remarkable moral and intellectual movement
which has characterised the la.st half-century; it has been
resumed in the literature of the jubilee year. The great
])roblems of life are assuming a new form, as the theo-
logical landmarks are gradually fading away beneath the
Hood of light which has been let into them by theological
research, antiquarian discovery, scientific investigation, and
])Sychiciil ]»henomena ; and men in their trouble arc. peering
earnestly into the new region whicli is being thus illumin-
ated, for a new order which they may substitute for the old
— some vital tnitb-]»rincipl(' wliicli sliall conduce to a purer
A
2 • SCIENTIFIC KELIGION.
ami nobler social life; for, though the dogmas crumble away
one after the other, and the dry-rot of ecclesiasticism be-
comes daily more apparent, the religious instinct is more
quickened than ever, and in proportion as men under its
intluence emancipate themselves from what they now per-
ceive to be the ignorance, prejudice, or superstition of a dark
age, do their aspirations strain after something higher and
better, while their belief in the possible realisation of ideals,
hitherto deemed unattainable, grows stronger. Nevertheless,
this yearning for, and searching after, higher truth by the
more advanced minds of the age, is attended by a conscious-
ness of unrest and anxiety, often almost amounting to a vague
feeling of alarm. There is a sense of chaotic surroundings,
of unstable footing, of shrinking from the plunge into the
unknown ; and many of the weaker sort, after going a little
way, become troubled as to their own future, and — deficient
in such a love for humanity as should induce them to dare all
for its sake, and in such a faith in God as should lift them
out of all personal anxieties — they scramble back into what
they were brought up to believe was an ark of personal
safety. There they find comparative rest among those whose
consciences have not yet been stirred to any perception of the
fearful inconsistencies of their conduct ; who distinguish be-
tween things religious and things secular ; who are content to
profess in pulpit and in pew on Sunday, moral axioms which
they openly violate in almost every act of their daily lives,
and who do this in all good faith, in the sincere belief that
they are pleasing God, and following the example of their
Lord and Master Jesus Christ, and will win for themselves
heaven thereby. It is because they are in this morally dark-
ened condition — the result mainly of fear of punishment and
hope of reward — that they shrink appalled from the con-
elusions of modern investigations, and refuse to receive any
light which should pierce into the gloomy nooks and musty
corners of their most unchristian creed, and which should force
upon them an investigation into the errors of their present
faith, and into the reasons why they are utterly unable to
carry out in their daily conduct, and not merely to pro-
nounce with their lips, the moral teachings of their nom-
inal Master.
ECCLESIASTICISM AND SCIENCE. 3
In strong contrast with these is the class who live under
the full blaze of the light to which I have alluded, but who
are morally unaffected by it. "It is a useful light," they
say, "for looking into the past, — it has even some interest
materially with regard to the present, — but it is useless so
far as the future is concerned. It has been valuable as
showing us the extent of our ignorance, and in revealing
to us the many delusions in which we have been living, but
it conveys no other truth to us ; on the contrary, it presents
to us insoluble problems with more distinctness than before,
and it has no power of penetrating these for others, further
than it penetrates them for us. The limit of our range of
vision under its influence must necessarily be the limit of
theirs, and inasmuch as all that it shows us is that we
don't know more than it shows us, (which is very little,
because it does not penetrate below the surface of things, or
beyond what we call the ' material '), therefore, what is im-
penetrable surface for us must be impenetrable surface for
everybody else, and what we call the material must be mate-
rial for everybody else, and we refuse to admit that any-
body can see further or have more light than we have." The
analog}' does not seem to occur to such persons, that some
people are naturally more short-sighted than others, and are
obliged to wear spectacles ; did they not refuse to admit that
spectacles exist for facilitating such internal vision as I am
about to describe, they might possibly be furnished with
them. In the meantime, there is far more hope for this class
than for the one with which I liave contrasted it, for though
" the light that is in them is darkness," they have the hon-
esty to say so, — moreover, the light is in them unconsciously
to themselves, and may burst out at any moment; but the
others, more especially in the countries where the Greek
or Ptoman Catholic religions prevail, have created their own
darkness out of the l)igotries, the superstitions, ignorance,
and cruelty of ages, and they wrap it round them and call
it light.
Tliere is another class, again, who are not troubled l)y the
problems of life ; who consider that the pursuit of pleasure,
fame, or wealth is the sane, laudable, and reasonable occupa-
tion of a liuman being, inasmuch as, for aught they know,
4 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
they may have no continuity of existence beyond this life.
They ordinarily profess so-called Christianity, nevertheless,
as a matter of convenience, but differ from the ardent votaries
of that cult, in that they are governed by an enlightened
selfishness as to the present, instead of as to the hereafter.
They also are in a more hopeful condition than these lat-
ter ; for their consciences are torpid, not perverted, and are
therefore more susceptible to the electric shock of the
divine touch.
Far be it from me to say, however, that there are not
thousands still embedded in existing forms of ecclesiasticism,
who are daily becoming more highly sensitised morally ; whose
aspirations are as noble, whose loves are as pure, whose mo-
tives are as disinterested, as those of any of the earnest and
devout truth-seekers and unbelievers in the popular theology ;
but this is in spite of its dogmas, not in consequence of them.
Such men have always existed in the period immediately pre-
ceding reform in any religion, but they have always had the
masses of their co-religionists against them ; and indications
of an approaching schism of a far more profound character
than any of which we have any historical record since the
disciples were first called Cliristians at Antioch, are apparent
to those who watch the spiritual horizon. To them a cloud
bigger than a man's hand is visible above it.
For the processes of the divine quickening are moving
steadily forward, generating vital impulses which will prove
uncontrollable to those who come under their influence, and
suggesting an irresistible instinct for aggregation. Upon all
classes, and in diverse countries, taking no account of race,
or creed, or colour, does this new life descend ; and as those
who are stirred by it move, do they recognise their aiSinity to
others similarly affected, and the magnetic attraction which is
inherent in the vivifying principle, draws them together, at
present slowly and athwart obstacles that would seem insur-
mountable — for in the early stages the recipients of this life
feel weak and bewildered. Crushed by the weight of dry
bones around tliem and above them, their first struggles are
feeble and misdirected ; they know not in which direction to
look for help ; the old deadness seems still to chain them to
the spot where they first felt the vital touch, and yet they long
NEW VITAL IMPULSES. 5
above all things to leave it. Progress they feel is impossible
in the midst of the old surroundings. The atmosphere feels
charged with mephitic vapour, which sometimes appears even
to interfere with the ordinary respiration. There is a sensa-
tion of struggle between the new life and the old, and the po-
tency of the descending vigours seems at times as though it
would destroy the outer bodily frame. It is the putting " the
new wine into the old bottles," but the new wine takes no
account of the condition of the bottle. Often it bursts it, and
the spirit, vitalised and released, leaves its earthly shell, to
carry on, from another vantage-point, the same work for
humanity on this globe, which would have been allotted to it
in its fleshly tabernacle.
It would be hopeless, however, to attempt to give any com-
plete description of the mode of operation of this new life-
principle, for in no two cases are the phenomena which attend
its descent into the human organism similar in their manifes-
tation, while each who has been conscious of its influence has
a varied experience to recount.
With some, as I have said, it produces what may be called
a life-and-death struggle ; with others the physical organism
does not suffer, while the mor^l anguish is acute ; with some
it is sudden, and seems to overwhelm and paralyse by the
intensity of the shock; with others, it steals over them so
slowly and so gradually — the preparation for its reception has
been spread over so long a period of time — that there is com-
paratively little suffering, as the first perception of the change
which is being operated dawns upon the consciousness. Sooner
or later, however, spiritual suffering must ensue, though this
varies much in degree, depending on moral conditions which
it is not necessary now to enter upon. The main point upon
which I wish to insist is the fact, with regard to which I have
had abundant evidence during the last quarter of a century
— and not I alone — that a spiritual wave is at present rolling
in upon tlie world of a character unprecedented in its past
history ; that it is daily gathering force, and is already crest
high. Before very long it will break ; and the object of tliis
book is to prepare men's minds for a crisis in the history of
tlie phiiiet wliich cannot, I think, be very long deferred, but
which will take a very different form from tliat wliich is
6 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
\isually anticipated ; for it is anticipated — anticipated in all
the existing forms of religion, down to those which may
almost be called heathen superstitions — anticipated by a
dumb instinct in the minds of men who cannot be said to
have any religion. It is in the air ; and only those of a pecu-
liarly dense and unsusceptible temperament are absolutely
without consciousness of it. It will be a moral rather than
a physical crisis ; and its tendency will be (to use a Scriptural
expression) to separate the sheep from the goats, and to bind
together, in a way which no Churches have ever succeeded in
doing, those who fight for the Powers of Light against those
who fight for the Powers of Darkness. It will sweep away
the present ecclesiasticisms, and substitute for them a re-
ligion in which there shall be " one body that hath many
' members, and all the members of that one body, being many,
' shall be one body. So also is Christ. For by one spirit we
' shall all be baptised into one body, whether we be Jews or
' Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and we shall all be
' made to drink into one Spirit." ^ Now this one body can
only be created, under the influence of that one vitalising
principle to which I have already referred, by the strenuous
co-operation and ardent effort of those who are conscious that
they have received it, and the effort to create it will entail
a struggle of stupendous proportions with the corrupt prin-
ciple to which the misery and degradation of the world has
been due. It is this struggle which will be so critical for the
human race, for it involves an issue of inconceivable magni-
tude, and must be carried on under conditions which will
develop many new and terrible experiences, and call into
operation laws which have been more or less hidden from
scientific investigation, though of late years these have been
dimly perceived, and in a superficial manner experimented
upon by some of the first scientific men in Europe. In a
word, it will be a psychical rather than a physical conflict,
though I do not mean to say that the ordinary weapons of
so - called " civilised warfare " will not be called into re-
quisition.
Now many have received, and are receiving, accessions of
the special potency which shall enable them to engage in this
■* Romans xii. 4. 5 ; 1 Corinthians xii. 12, 13.
PSYCHIC CONFLICT. 7
warfare, without any due conception of its nature. They are
conscious of a moral disturbance within them, of new ex-
periences which they shrink from alluding to, and of which
in some instances they even entertain a certain feeling of
dread. Sometimes new light dawns upon them, relieving them
of moral perplexity — at others, new sensations stir their ner-
vous centres ; they rise at times to conditions of exaltation
which fill them with joy for which there is no adequate ex-
ternal cause, or sink into profound depths of despondency
equally unaccountable. They may even be treated for hys-
teria by their doctors, wlio are none the less profoundly
puzzled to know wliat hysteria is, and totally in the dark
on the subject. All these are indications that they are being-
subject to the influences which are about to make war against
each other in human organisms, and that the moment has
come when those who know, or tliink they know, what these
signs of the times mean, should not be deterred from throw-
ing whatever light may have been vouchsafed upon it, by
the hostile criticism of the majority — whose intelligence, by
reason of their organic denseness, is still beclouded upon the
subject. But before attempting to do this, it is expedient
that I should explain how this light may be gained ; for rays
are shot athwart the spiritual firmament from opposing direc-
tions — lurid rays from below, flickering rays of many colours
and from many diverse quarters. To no human being has it
ever been given to transmit untainted the white ray that issues
from the throne of the Most High, for our world could not
bear the fierceness of its splendour. All revelation wliich
proceeds from the invisible must be relative in its value, all
inspiration imperfect. It behoves us, therefore, to consider,
in our searcli after divine truth, liow we are to judge of the
value of revelation, and to arrive in our minds at a definite
idea of what we mean by " inspiration."
I shall endeavour in the following pages to discuss the
functions and cliaracteristics of those subtle atomic forces in
nature, which are now attracting increased attention on the
l)art of the learned and the thouglitful, — show liow they act
upon man morally, intellectually, and pliysically ; or, in otlier
words, in what sense they stimulate his aspirations, control
liis inspirations, and aff'ect liis l)odily liealtli, — and consider
8 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
further their practical bearing upon those biological and theo-
logical theories and problems which tend at present to confuse
liis religious instinct, and cloud his perceptions of the beauti-
ful, the good, and the true.
Finally, I will offer the solution of those problems and
theories which, under tlie operation of these forces, has been
revealed to me.
] would only say in conclusion, that it would not be right for
any man, desiring to know whether this inspiration is true or
not, to begin by believing it after the manner of the Churches :
no belief can stand in these days that is not based upon the
evidence of personal experience. These are not things that
one man can prove to another ; all he can do is to say, that
in all cases where certain experiments have been faithfully
made, they have been attended with the same results. It is
left to each to make them or not, as he chooses ; but I should
be highly culpable, — having tested them in my own person,
having seen them tested in the persons of others, and having
received what I feel to be a strong internal direction to place
before others the conclusion at which I have arrived, — to allow
myself to be deterred from doing so by any sense of my own
incapacity to do justice to so great a theme — which is pro-
found — by any fear of the hostility or ridicule which it may
excite, or by any anticipation of failure to reach the hearts
of those to whom it is addressed. The issues are with God,
and His servants know not the word disappointment, for they
are incapable of reading His designs. Only this they know,
that the slightest hesitation in obeying what they believe to
be a divine impulse, produces a suffering more intense than
any consequences which may accrue to them from the world.
If, in my attempt to exhibit the dangers to which moral pro-
gress is exposed l)y the present methods of theology and
science, and their antagonism to each other, I have spoken
more hardly of the two classes engaged in these pursuits than
the circumstances seem to warrant, it has not been from any
want of the deepest respect for good men wherever they are
to be found, or however much in error they may appear to
me to be.
Error is only dangerous when it is aggressive — and to
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 9
meet error of this description, when one is convinced by
one's own personal experience that it is error, a certain
attitude of aggression seems to be imposed upon one ; but
it is consistent with an entire tolerance and charity for
individuals, and is, in fact, only applicable to those who are
thoroughly honest and in earnest, even if their earnestness
be misdirected.
10
CHAPTER I.
uncertainty attending all revelation purporting to be divine
— causes op this uncertainty — the responsibility of every
man as the final judge of revelation — none of the most
ancient revelations attempted to grapple with social and
economic problems — substitution almost immediately after
Christ's death of a desire for personal salvation in lieu op
THE practice OP DAILY LIFE INCULCATED BY HIM — THEOSOPHY,
OCCULTISM, AND MYSTICISM, OFFER NO REMEDY FOR THE WORLD'S
MALADY — NATURE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION EXAMINED— LATER IN-
SPIRATIONAL AVRITINGS.
The main cause of religious difference at all times has arisen
from the attempt to define the indefinable, and this has neces-
sarily involved the use of terms either not susceptible of
accurate definition, or for which none could be found by com-
mon consent.
By the use of precise terms, on the exact meaning of which
everybody was agreed, angry theologians would have often
been saved the disagreeable duty — imposed upon them, as
they believed, by their consciences and their love for God
and their fellows — of fiying at each other's throats, and many
stumbling-blocks would have been removed from the path
of earnest truth-seekers. This latter daily increasing class
refuse to be satisfied with ancient theological formulae and
unproven hypotheses. The fact that they happen to be
born in a country in which a certain form of faith has pre-
vailed for a certain number of centuries, is no longer a con-
vincing reason that that form of faith must be the right
one. They have gone back in their investigations, behind
what has been considered the only sacred record of divine
truth, to see what the most ancient peoples believed before
INSPIRATION NOT INFALLIBLE. 11
that record was compiled ; for they remember that it is
written therein, " In the beginning was the Word," and
that the great Teacher said, " Before Abraham was, I am ; "
and they know that before Abraham was, mighty nations
existed, with their aspirations after God and their w^orship
of Him, and that He must therefore have revealed Himself
to them in some form or other long before the law was given
to the Jews. They have gone forward in their investigations
into the domain of psychical science, and have encountered
phenomena which tlirow new light upon the faith of their
childhood, and which force upon them considerations which
seem to increase their responsibilities to a degree unknown to
a previous generation. Wlien so much doubt is cast upon
the old belief, when so many new possibilities for belief
of another kind are springing into existence, it becomes a
matter of supreme importance to consider the processes by
which God has revealed Himself to man, and to estimate
the values which are to be attached to those processes.
Ilevelation purporting to be divine has always come through
human instrumentality, and it has differed according to the
race, country, moral condition, and temperament of the trans-
mitting medium, and the people to whom it was addressed.
Whatever may subsequently have been -the view of the
disciples concerning the greatest teachers that the world has
seen, as to their superhuman natures, there was nothing to
distinguish tliem, as far as we know, in outward appearance,
from other men. They depended for their authority on their
words and on their acts ; so their words were considered in-
spired, their acts miraculous. The disciples of the founders
of all tlie principal religions of the world, have appealed to
the wonders that their masters could perform, as an evi-
dence of the truth of their teaching; and it is only since
modern investigation has ventured into the regions of the
psychical and the occult, that men are beginning to perceive
that thaumaturgy i)0ssesses no value as an evidence for or
against moral truth, and that tlie word " miracle " is mislead-
ing, if by that term is implied a violation of the laws of
nature ; as is also the term " inspiration," if by that word is
implied an infallible communication to man from God.
It does not fallow from this, liowever, that God does not
12 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
comniiiiiicate with man, and that the coininunications do not
receive strong confirmation, to the recipient of them, through
the operation of laws whicli have hitherto been concealed
from the ordinary man, of a nature whicli he, ignorant of
these laws, might term miraculous. It was not to be won-
dered at that in an age when tlie intellect had not been
divorced from the affections to the extent that it is now, and
when the emotional and intuitive faculties were more highly
developed, the tendency was towards superstition, and towards
the recognition, in the exercise of occult powers, of the direct
intervention of a Divine Being, and in the utterances of men
thus gifted, of the voice of God.
The tendency of modern philosophy is to react to the
exactly opposite extreme ; to deny the existence of occult
powers altogether, and to consider the most lofty utterances
of men nothing more than the result of chemical changes
in their brains, which thus inspire the ideas which they put
into words.
The truth will be found to be between these two ex-
tremes ; and this imposes upon us the consideration, which is
vital to those engaged in the pursuit of divine knowledge,
of the real meaning of inspiration.
No attempt, so far as I am aware, has ever been made by
theologians to analyse the process by which the will of God
is conveyed to the mind of man with such certainty that the
human recipient shall not be mistaken as to the divine source,
and that his fellow-men should not be mistaken as to the
claims of the human recipient. It always resolves itself into
this — that each man must himself be the supreme judge and
arbiter of whether what is so conveyed, is, or is not, a com-
munication from God. This is a fearful responsibility laid
upon every man ; and yet how few realise that there can
be no higher test of inspiration for any man than he is
himself: from this position there is no escape. If he at-
tempts to shirk the responsibility by saying, " I will accept
in this matter the teaching of the Church in which I was
born," he only increases it ; for he then becomes the final
judge of the claims of the Church in which he was born to
decide upon what is and what is not divine inspiration ; and
in determining to abdicate his own right to judge, in favour
AUTHORITY AND RESPONSIBILITY. 13
of another authority, upon him alone rests the responsiljility
of deciding upon the competence of that authority. It is
thus that God lays upon each one of us the obligation of find-
ing out truth for ourselves.
It will probably be urged that this obligation is incompat-
ible with the multifarious duties of daily life — that it would
be unreasonable to expect that the masses in their ignorance,
in their struggle for existence, and the absorbing cares which
it involves, should devote themselves to theological research,
should study the sacred records of all religions, and that each
unit should decide for himself or herself, upon the respective
claims of revelations professing to be divinely inspired. If
divine truth were to be discovered by a study of " divinity,"
in the sense in which that term is used among Christian
theologians, or by contemplation, as enjoined by the religions
of the East, the task would indeed be hopeless, and the ob-
jection would Ije unanswerable ; but I propose to show that
it is not a question of judging of rival existing inspirations,
but of every man receiving his own message for himself in a
fuller manner than he can obtain it from any book or from
any pulpit ; and that in proportion as he is prepared to make
every sacrifice in order to receive it, will he gain strength to
fulfil his daily round of duties even to their most minute de-
tails. The days of bibliolatry and of priestcraft are draw-
ing to an end ; for with the descent of the divine vital
])rinciple to which I have alluded in the last chapter — and
which the Cliurches call the Messiah — into every man's
organism who opens himself to receive it, will he rise out of
ecclesiasticisms, with their forms and ceremonies, into " the
liberty wherewith Clirist has made him free."
It must not be concluded from this, however, that the Bible
and the Churches have not been of inestimable value to hu-
manity, while they have no less been the cause of sanguinary
wars and bitter persecutions. Without venturing to question
the divine methods of operation with man, or to enter upon
any attempt of an exposition of the laws l)y which those
methods are governed, we can recognise in the sacred litera-
ture whicli lias inspired tlie world witli its religious senti-
ment, however crude or distorted, tlie divine attiutus ; and in
its varied forms of worship, tlie most powerful restraining
14 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
iuHuence which their adherents were capable of obeying in
their daily lives. In all cases the sacred record and the
sacred rites, with the functions of the ministry, were adapted
to the moral and intellectual condition of those for whom
they were intended. It is because these moral and intel-
lectual conditions have undergone such vast changes during
this century, that the book and the Churches which have
guided and controlled the nations of the West so long, must
be interpreted and renewed by the light of fresh revelations,
and by a more direct outpouring of the divine vitality upon
human organisms than they have been heretofore prepared
for, — revelations, the truth of which each man can test for
himself, and which will rest on the experiences which he
himself must make in his search after them ; for the time
has arrived when he refuses any longer to put his conscience
in the hands of a priest, or unintelligently to accept dogmas
because he was taught them in his childhood, or to blind
himself to the anomalies and inconsistencies which certain
doctrines involve, and which are so faithfully reflected in the
daily lives of those who profess them.
The reason why the inspirations upon whicli the most
ancient religions were founded, so often contradicted them-
selves and each other, and why their prophets so often pro-
phesied falsely, was because they had lost sight of the great
truth, that the highest inspiration comes through physical as
well as intellectual service for the race ; for the laws which
govern the transmission of moral potency into man, are so
interwoven with tliose which control the development of his
physical energies, and the purest life influxes are so con-
ditioned on the equal distribution of its currents through the
physical, affectional, and intellectual human systems, that
the undue expansion of any one of these at the expense of
the others, must of necessity distort the ultimate manifesta-
tion, whether in word or deed. Hence we find that with all
the beauties of the earliest religious expressions, there is the
fatal defect of unpracticality. Not one of them attempts a
radical, political, social, and industrial reform with the hope
of striking at the root of the world's evil.
The most ancient religious records which exist are the
Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Accadian and earliest Ve-
ANCIENT EELIGIONS. 15
dantic liyniiis, which contain mythical accounts of the struggles
of divinely inspired heroes with the Powers of Darkness ;
symlwlising in mystical language the cosmogony of the world
and the progress of the human soul towards perfection ; con-
cealing, in images incomprehensible to the people, many truths
of deep spiritual import, the true meaning of which have
only been partially retained by the initiated. In them may
be traced analogies to the mysteries concealed in the Druid,
Chaldean, Persian, Jewish, Greek, and other ancient minor
religious communities ; but while some of these incul-
cated morality of tlie highest character, and while even those
among them which ultimately degenerated into the worship
of many gods, retained in their essence the worship of the
one true God, they did not grapple with the social and
economic problems of life. They made no attempt to con-
struct society upon a basis which should enable men to give
practical effect to it in their daily lives. With the suppres-
sion of the mystical sects in the early Christian Church, and
with the inauguration upon a substantial basis of the present
system of Christian ecclesiasticism, about the close of the
second century after Christ, the so-called " heresies," which
were the legacy that oriental mysticism had bequeatlied to
the West, gradually faded ; and with them some of the dee])
internal truths which they contained, notwithstanding their
many errors and exaggerations, were lost. Henceforward re-
ligion in the West became, not the repository of occult know-
ledge of mysteries more or less diA-ine, but a system by which
men were assured of their escape from eternal torments, and
their safe passage to endless joys. While incidentally pure
life and right conduct were enjoined, it was only as a means
to this end ; and as it was evident that no man could by his
(Avn efforts win the immortal crown for whicli all were striv-
ing, tliey were consoled by the further assurance that this
was already achieved for those who would believe that God
had sacrificed Himself (or His Son who was Himself) on tlie
cross for tlie purpose. The whole tendency of this teaching
was to fix men's minds far more intensely upon the future
than upon the present; and as its cardinal principle in re-
gard to the future was the selfish attiiiument of cvc^rlast-
ing bliss, it followed as a ii;itunil consequence in most
16 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
cases, that their object in the present life was to secure
to themselves earthly happiness, or, if they feared that
this might injure their eternal wellbeing, to lead them
into asceticism.
This religion of selfishness lias practically stimulated com-
petition for the acquisition of money, because it is considered
the chief ingredient of that earthly happiness ; and the result
has been a steady progress in the arts both of peace and war,
and that strange compound of vast accumulations of wealth,
of hideous depths of misery, poverty, and degradation, of
luxury and squalor, of gigantic industrial and commercial
enterprise, of huge standing armies and most formidable in-
ventions for the destruction of human life, of rapid means
of communication, of extraordinary intellectual activity, of
international rivalries, jealousies, and lust of territory, and
of universal competition, inciting to new forms of dishonesty,
and new impulsions to hate, which goes by the name of
" Christian civilisation." So far from there being any tend-
ency in this outcome of so-called Christianity to build up
society, its whole scope is toward its disintegration, and we
are at this day trembling on the verge of a social revolu-
tion, which even physically as well as morally threatens to
explode it.
The consequence is that the increasing hold which their
material interests have acquired over men's minds, combined
with the progress which has been made in external science,
to the utter exclusion of all knowledge except tliat based on
what they can see and feel, has produced a materialistic
movement, which the Churches — to which indirectly it was
prmiarily due — are utterly unable to stem, except in those
parts of Eastern Europe where the people are still immersed
in the grossest ignorance and superstition ; and here it is only
a matter of time.
The result of nearly 1900 years of Christianity is, that if
Christ were to appear in the flesh in Christendom He would
be unable to find a follower ; for His literal moral teaching
is practically ignored, and He could certainly not call Him-
self a Christian. He would be more at home among the
people of His own race, for they only crucified Him once, but
the Christians crucify Him daily. As, however, no human
]
RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 17
invention could extinguish the vitality of the seed which He
planted in the world during His short term of existence upon
it, the nature of which will be discussed later, the civilisation
which calls itself by His name has still more divine life in
it than the relative barbarism of the East. Under its influ-
ence alone is woman seeking her true position, though she
has not yet found it ; and in Christendom alone is there a
burning desire on the part of a growing class of men and
women, to rise out of the sham into the realisation of the
true Christianity, to embody the ideal life at any personal
sacrifice, and to spare neither money nor energy, fame nor
position, if so be that by their efforts they might contribute
towards laying a single stone of the foundations of a social
system in which the relations of man to woman, and of man
to his fellow -man, should be divinely regulated, and which
should be built upon the corner-stones of sex-purity and
mutual co-operation.
Hence it is that the Eastern races, with their mystical
religions which neither terrify nor bribe, have lagged behind
so-called Christendom. They have neither risen so high nor
fallen so low ; they have not conceived of new virtues nor
invented new vices, for they had no spurs to goad them in
either direction ; they continue to treat sacred things with a
genuine reverence and respect, while hypocrisy may be con-
sidered a Christian speciality ; and, excepting so far as they
liave been influenced by the education introduced by their
conquerors, they live in the daily moral practice of their
ancestors. At the same time it is probable, to judge from
their sacred books, that the general standard was higher
when tliey were written ; for men in tlie ancient times were
evidently more open to occult influences than they have been
in these more recent centiiries, and it was doubtless this fact
which produced tliat tendency to mysticism whicli proved in
the end highly detrimental to moral, intellectual, or material
progress. For already in the Vedantic period we find the
practice of asceticism enjoined as essential to the mystical
union of man with God ; while Buddha, despite his intense
sympathy for the sufferings of humanity, can suggest nothing
better to his disciples than to practise self-liypnotisation by
sitting under a bo-tree, and induce pious contem]ihition by
li
18 SCIENTIFIC KELIGION.
keeping their eyes fixed on the tips of their noses. So in the
fiftli century we hear of Christian mystics gazing at their
stomachs until they saw the liglit of Tabor issuing. The
consequence of the special diet and of the solitary practices
tlnis enjoined, was naturally to lead to trance obsession, which
resulted in an inspiration that has proved of no earthly benefit
to the human race, and which finds expression among its
votaries in England, in such specific directions for obtaining
a knowledge of divine truth as these —
" Hold fast to that which has neither substance nor ex-
' istence.
" Listen only to the voice whicli is soundless.
" Look only on that which is invisible alike to the inner and
' the outer sense." ^
Doubtless a chief fascination of mysticism with a large
class of minds was the phenomenal development of certain
faculties which men acquired, in the degree in which they
succeeded in overcoming all natural appetites, and divinely
implanted human instincts : the power of levitation, of sup-
pressed respiration for incredil^le periods, of control over
material substances, and of performing many other wonders,
was calculated to impress the ignorant, and invest them with
supernatural attributes and authority, which, in spite of the
unselfishness that they practised theoretically, was gratify-
ing to the natural man.
Those who deny the possibility of such jjlienomena can
satisfy themselves on the subject by personal experiment,
provided always that they have faith. Let any English
philosopher, who is ready to make the necessary sacrifice,
begin by accepting the hypothesis as possible that he can
upset the laws of gravitation and sit in the air, or otherwise
perform so-called miracles ; let him go to India and sit for
ten or fifteen years under a bo-tree, staring most of the time
at one object ; let him live on nothing but lentils and water,
with perhaps a little fruit, avoid all contact with his fellow-
man, practise constantly holding his breath, and sleep as little
as possible ; it will not be long before he will pass occasion-
ally into states of semi-consciousness to external things, which
he will plainly distinguish from sleep, and if he does not die
^ Light on the Path, p. 22.
ASCETICS AND MYSTICS. 19
in the process (which he probably will not do if his faith is
strong enough), he will find himself at last developing forces
undreamed of in his philosophy. Until he has done so he is
not in a position to deny the existence or the extent of poten-
cies which are latent in the human organism, in the face of
the testimony of those who have investigated these phenomena
on the spot, and of such well-known instances as that of the
" burying fakir " ; upon whom the experiment was officially
conducted with every possible precaution by the Government
of India.
There has never been much difficulty in recruiting the
ranks of ascetics in India ; and in proportion as they pass
beyond this life into the other, and increase in numbers
there, does their action upon this world become more power-
ful. Hence it is that we have seen within the last few years
a movement in the direction of ancient oriental mysticism,
which would not have been possible did not a very powerful
society exist in the invisible world, which has taken advan-
tage of the increased attenuated condition of the odylic sphere
of this one to make an inroad into it. At the same time, the
revival of mysticism on its old lines, at this period of the
world's history, is not possible. Had it nothing to contend
against but materialism and ecclesiasticism, the struggle might
not be unequal ; but there is another spiritual descent taking
place more powerful than that which has developed into
theosophic, hermetic, spiritualistic, and occult societies, and
which, though working silently and apparently slowly, is none
the less surely gathering its forces, not merely in the unseen
world, but in the organisms of men and women in this one.
As the heat which this new life generates, and the light
which streams from it, warms and irradiates the world, the
latest scientific theory will share the fate of the oldest
theological superstition, or the newest fashion of mysticism
and the evolution of man from amcebie, his eternal punish-
ment in torments, in spite of the attempt of God to save
him from them by suffering death, and the journey yet in
store for him through successive "rounds," before he can
hope to reach Nirvana, will all alike be relegated to the
limbo of exploded fallacies ; for a divine science will be
built upon the cUhrin of that which is purely human and
20 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
superficial, a divine religion replace that which has been
degraded by man's inventions, and divine mysteries supersede
those which have been derived from sources more or less
impure. The reason why this will be so is, that the growing
desire to find truth will lead men to seek from God their own
inspirations, and in the degree in which that desire is sincere
and absolutely disinterested, they will find themselves mag-
netically attracted to each other by an impulse of co-operation
in its pursuit, and will discover that mutual unselfish service
is the first condition of the highest internal illumination :
provided always that the mind is kept entirely free from
prejudice or preconceived opinions ; that the affections are
emancipated from the thraldom which is imposed by ties
of race, country, or family, in order that they may be
bestowed freely upon humanity ; and that, while it may be
necessary for them to live in the world, they have internally
dissevered themselves from it so completely, that they are
uninfluenced by its public opinion, totally unaffected by its
censure, and absolutely indifferent to its praise, with which,
indeed, it is extremely improbable that they would be
favoured.
In order to make clear the nature of this new inspiration,
it will be necessary to describe its mode of operation, and
discuss and contrast it with the old. The reason why old
inspirations were defective, and the religions founded upon
them degenerated so rapidly into superstitions, was because
an equilibrium was not maintained between the physical,
intellectual, and emotional functions — in other words, between
body, soul, and spirit. Prophets were generally poets, often
dreamers, rarely thinkers, never workers. It was to intensify
this faculty of peering into the future, or, in other words, of
looking into the world of substance — of which, though invis-
ible to us, this is merely the shadow — and, by perceiving what
was happening there, foretelling what would happen here
(time being merely relative to our shadowy present, and
having no real existence in itself), that they developed ex-
clusively one side of their nature. But inasmuch as when
they saw visions and dreamed dreams, they were in special
conditions differing from those of other men, partly the
result of heredity or constitutional temperament, and partly
METHODS OF INSPIRATION. 21
induced by fasting and self-liypnotisation, it was impossible
for them to know whether what they saw, or what was im-
pressed upon them during these states, was real or phantas-
magoric. The unseen world teems with intelligences, whose
action upon this one is very direct, and is governed by laws,
most of which are hidden from us, and those which are
known, imperfectly known only to the few, and not yet
comprehensible to the many. A man thus open to that
world, becomes a point of attraction, round which in^dsible
hosts cluster, some with the desire of infusing into his mind,
or presenting to his internal vision fallacies, or pictorial rep-
resentations of them, others with the desire of protecting
him against these malignant attempts to deceive, and of con-
veying to him images of truth. In other words, the powers
of light and the powers of darkness war over him. But
inasmuch as the laws which govern the projection of these
impressions or images upon the mind, mainly depend upon
the condition of the recipient, just as the representation con-
veyed to a photograph-plate depends upon the method with
which that plate has been prepared, as well as upon the con-
ditions of light, exposure, and so forth, so it is evident that
upon no two different people would it be possible for those
in the invisible world to cast precisely the same impression,
because no two people are precisely similar in constitution
and temperament, nor could they possibly prepare them-
selves, as photographic plates are prepared, so as to be in
exactly the same state of receptivity.
I am not now talking of apparitions and elemental forms,
or of phenomena, such as that of the transfiguration on the
mount, or the appearance of Christ to His disciples after the
resurrection, — these belong to a class of manifestation which
appeal to tlie external senses. The conditions incidental to
deep insight and lofty inspirations are, moreover, totally dif-
ferent from those known to ordinary " spirit mediums," who,
finding themselves appropriately constituted, use the faculty
they possess, in the case of those who are unprincipled, either
as a source of profit, a means of imposture or amusement, or,
in the case of those who are honest and well-principled, as
a means of convoying such imperfect im})ressions from the
other world as they think may benefit this one ; but dur-
22 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
ing forty years of modern "Western spiritualism these have
rarely proved of any practical value, from the fact that
those obtaining them hardly ever go through the long and
painful ordeals which are a necessary preparation for the
reception of the higher truths.
Thus all prophets and seers who have at any time given
such spiritual light to the world that men have felt the
divine element in it, and incorporated their teaching into
their sacred books, have been almost invariably recluses and
anchorites, and one may almost add, that in the degree in
which they have been so, have their utterances been obscure
and unintelligible to the common herd ; on the other hand,
those who have conveyed moral teaching in language which
contained such an element of divine life in it, as to pro-
duce upon men the impression that they were inspired, have
been, more or less, thinkers and workers — as, for instance,
in the case of Christ the carpenter, and Paul the tent-maker.
It is evident that the latter was conscious of different pro-
cesses during composition — one in which he says, I speak this
of myself ; and the other, where the projection on his mind
was so strong that he attributed it to the Lord. This was
not to be wondered at, when we consider how pure and full
of a lofty spiritual impulse his moral teaching often was.
Not knowing the laws which govern inspiration, it was nat-
ural, when he felt a noble sentiment projected into his mind,
which did not seem to emanate from it spontaneously, that
he should attribute it directly to God — being ignorant of the
fact that all divine perceptions are only allowed to reach us
from the Infinite through the channels provided for it, and
that these are angelic, and can only imperfectly convey to
us conceptions which have to be tempered, as they descend,
to meet the imperfect condition of the human instrument
through which they are transmitted ; this human instrument
being tainted by all sorts of impurity, warped by all manner
of prejudice, seeing them only as through a glass darkly, with
all the original brightness of their lustre dimmed, and with
the reflection of his own personality cast strongly upon them.
In the case of Paul and the other apostles, many of their
finest utterances were no doubt directly inspired by Christ, and
to this was due the extraordinary effect that they produced.
PROPHETS AXD SEERS. 23
The readiness of meu open to these impressions to attribute
them all to the one Divine Source, receives striking illustra-
tion from the dispute which took place between the prophets
Hananiah and Jeremiah, in the 28th chapter of Jeremiah, in
wliich they both prophesy " in the name of the Lord " ; and
Jeremiah charges Hananiah with prophesying falsely, predict-
ing his death the same year as a punishment.^ One denuncia-
tion of prophets who prophesied falsely is so remarkable- that
I will quote it : " And the word of the Lord came unto me,
' saying, Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel
' that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of
' their own hearts. Hear ye the word of the Lord ; thus saith
' the Lord God ; Woe unto the foolish prophets, tliat follow
' their own spirit, and have seen nothing ! Israel, thy pro-
' phets are like the foxes in the deserts. Ye have not gone up
' into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of
' Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. They
' liave seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith
' it ; albeit I have not spoken. Therefore thus saith the Lord
' God ; Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore,
' behold, I am against you, saith the Lord God."
One of the remarkable features of inspirational writings or
utterances of this description is the absolute certainty of the
medium that the divine authority of his message is indis-
putable.
In the case of the prophets of Israel, it is evident that
the poor Jews must often have been in a serious dilemma
to know which to believe between those who claimed to be
the spokesmen of God, and, as such, denounced the others
as liars ; and this is rendered still more complicated by the
fact that in some instances the Deity Himself , is said to have
lied througli them — as in the scene witnessed by Micaiah, in
the 22d chapter of 1st Kings, when the prophet says : " I saw
' the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven
' standing by Him on His riglit liand and on His left. And
' the Lord said. Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up
' and fall at Ramoth-Gilead ? And one said on this manner,
' and another said on that manner. And there came f(»rth a
' spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will jiersuade
' .Jeremiah xxviii. - Ezekiel xiii.
24 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith ? And he
' said, I will go forth, and I will he a lying spirit in the mouth
* of all his prophets. And He said, Thou shalt persuade him,
' and prevail also : go forth, and do so. Now therefore, be-
' hold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all
' these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concern-
' ing thee."
That Micaiah should in a trance, or even in a state of
hypnotic consciousness, have had represented to him, by the
spirits who had attached themselves to his organism, a scene
such as the one above described, is perfectly possible, — that
he should honestly believe that he had seen a vision of the
Almighty sitting on His throne, discussing with attendant
angels how He should lure to his destruction a king with
whom He was displeased, and attain this object by command-
ing a spirit to infest and lie through His prophets, is an evi-
dence of a very debased mediumistic condition. Such a rep-
resentation of God's methods of dealing with man, could only
have been conveyed to the consciousness of one whose own
moral and intellectual condition was of a very low order, and
by spirits who were themselves of a low order. It is a re-
markable fact that the mass of professing Christians, even of
the present day, will believe in the truth of this monstrous
picture of the prophet's subsurface consciousness — which re-
flected the images appropriate to it, as projected through the
agency of spirits also appropriate to it — and will believe, fur-
ther, in the psychical invasion of the prophets of Ahab by
spirits under superior direction, who ridicule the idea that
direct action by similar spirits, not only uj)on the subsurface
consciousness, but upon the external minds of men, is as
possible now as it was three thousand years ago ; for the
laws which govern our relations with the unseen world are as
immutable as the laws which operate in this one, and noth-
ing can be more trivial or shallow than the contention that
what is possible at one period of the world's history is impos-
sible at another.
The presentation of the Deity by the Jewish prophets, is
really constructed by spirits out of the j^revailing human con-
ception of Him at the time, and is utterly irreconcilable with
the instincts of a more enlightened age. It has ever been the
SYMBOLISM. 25
tendency of men in their different religions to reverse the
situation, and create God after their own image. At the same
time, their prophetic presentations are not to be cast aside as
worthless, because in their literal and external meaning they
are often revolting. Behind them there is generally an in-
ternal sense, which, owing to the crude and untutored moral
condition of those through whom such communications came,
and of those to whom they were addressed, it was not pos-
sible to convey in terms which the transmitter or receiver
either could understand or appreciate. Hence the deepest
religious truths have had to be conveyed through symbols
and images, and this has given rise to mysticism, and to the
existence of a class of men who were supposed to vmderstand,
and who doubtless often in some measure did understand,
their inner meaning, and who were called " Initiates."
It is evident that as the rational faculties are developed
and brought to bear upon impressions projected upon the
subsurface consciousness in the manner above described, the
question must always arise in the mind of their recipient,
if he is thoroughly honest, as to their origin and trustworthi-
ness ; and in the degree in which his moral nature is purified
and elevated, and his humility prominent, will he shrink
from daring to assert that he can recognise them as the direct
verbal utterances of tlie Great Almighty. Certainly others
should shrink from asserting, as many do assert, not merely
that these prophets and apostles speak with the divine voice,
but that it has been personally revealed to them that they
did so ; for it must always come to this, either in the first or
second degree, and that every word written was suggested lit-
erally by God. It is to be remarked that this claim was not
made by the early Church. Indeed it would scarcely be
credible that Pliilemon, for instance, when Paul returned his
runaway slave Onesinius, with a note asking him to receive
him back, and told him to make a memorandum of the
amount of any money lie might be indebted to him, ])ut it
down to his (Paul's) account, and get a lodging ready for liini,
should have imagined, as Christians do now, that this epistle
was dictated by God.
What is true is, that the canon l)()th of the Jewish and
Christian Scripture is full of inspirational writing, and the
26 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
same may be said of the sacred records upon which the other
great religions of the world are founded ; this inspirational
writing goes back two thousand years before Moses, to the
mythological literature of that most ancient people the
Accadians, to the funereal ritual of the Egyptians, to the
earliest Vedas, to the Buddhist Suttas, and the Zend-Avesta
of the Persians, and the sacred books of other religions,
and is strongly exhibited in the Jewish and early Christ-
ians' writings, some of which are called apocryphal, but
which were rejected by those who met to decide by the
light of their own private judgment, what was and what
was not divine inspiration, because they conflicted with cer-
tain theological dogmas to which they were attached, and
which were the cause of a good deal of hard lighting
both before and since. It has continued from that time to
the present, when an unprecedented development of this
description of literature has taken place.
There is a sense in which all writing may be considered
inspirational, and in ordinary parlance is said to indicate
genius, as in the cases of such poets as Shakespeare, Milton,
Goethe, and Dante : but I am alluding here rather to those
who believed themselves to be channels of divine revelation,
or at all events of ideas projected from supermundane source,
sometimes by means of mere impressions, sometimes by words
which were quite audible to their inner hearing, or by rep-
resentations which were quite visible to their inner sight;
or by phenomena which they recognised as abnormal, and
which differed entirely from the effort of ordinary literary
compositions. Among many such since the early Christian
epoch may be mentioned Mohammed, Hamze, Jacob Boehmen,
St Martin, George Fox, Ann Lee, and Swedenborg; and in
our own time the works of T. L. Harris, Andrew Jackson
Davis, Joseph Smith the prophet of the Mormons, Eliphaz
Levy, the Marquis of St Yves, Madame Blavatsky, the authors
of 'The Perfect Way,' 'Light on the Path,' 'The Mother,
the "Woman clothed with the Sun,' ' The Plying Roll,' ' The
Book of Life,' ' Geometrical Psychology,' and sundry theoso-
phical, spiritualistic, and other publications, which are daily
becoming more numerous. Besides these, many persons are
guided largely in their own lives by private writings, which
INSPIRATIONAL WRITINGS. 27
they receive either automatically or under impression, and
in which they place absolute confidence. It is this fact
which renders it of such great importance that some method
of testing the relative values of these prodvictions should
be arrived at, for already many trusting and earnest souls
have been led by them into difficult and devious paths,
in their desire to find some solid standing-ground amid the
quicksands by which they are surrounded.
28
CHAPTEE II.
RECENT EXAMINATION INTO THE NATURE OF THE FORCES LATENT IN
THE HUMAN ORGANISM — HYPNOTIC EXPERIMENTS IN FRANCE, AND
THE PSYCHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY IN ENGLAND, FAMILIARISING
THE SCIENTIFIC MIND WITH FORCES FORMERLY IGNORED — THEIR
ORIGIN IN THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE — FORMER CONCEPTION OF MAT-
TER MODIFIED BY RECENT DISCOVERIES — SIR HENRY ROSCOE ON
ATOMS — INSEPARABILITY OF MATTER AND FORCE — DYNASPHERIC
FORCE — SCIENTIFIC FACTS VALUABLE, CONCLUSIONS MISLEADING —
HYPNOTIC EXPERIMENTS WITNESSED BY ME IN PARIS — HYPNOTISM
RECOGNISED BY THE MEDICAL FACULTY IN FRANCE AS DANGEROUS
— SPIRITUAL INSIGHT NECESSARY TO DISCOVER THE NATURE AND
ORIGIN OF THESE FORCES, AND TO QUALIFY THE OPERATOR TO
DEAL WITH THEM.
"WiTHix the last few years an increasing amount of attention
has been directed to an examination of those forces connected
with the human organism, which for more than half a cen-
tury have been vaguely known under the name of magnetic,
whose existence even under this general term science has
been reluctant to recognise ; or, if unable altogether to deny
the fact that such forces did exist, it has shrunk from
investigating them, lest it should be seduced away from
the ground which it terms positive, but which might per-
haps be more appropriately styled negative. As, however,
these forces gained power under the new conditions which
are invading the race, they forced themselves upon the
notice of the world in general with such persistence, that
it was no longer possible for them to be excluded from the
range of scientific research, and as an evidence of this we
have experiments of the leading medical practitioners in
France, recording the result of their observations, in a monthly
PHENOMENA OF HYPNOTISM. 29
periodical started for the purpose ; ^ and of the two schools
devoted to this subject, one, directed by Dr Charcot in Paris,
and the other by Professor Bernheim at Nancy ; while in
London the Psychical Eesearch Society has sprung into ex-
istence, which, though hesitating and timid in its conclusions
so far, refusing to recognise these forces as conditioned by the
unseen, is still too daring for the stolid and conservative in-
stinct of British science in general. The result has been that
both in France and England these investigations have led to
wide divergences of opinion as to the mode of operation
of these forces : in France, between the schools of Paris and
Nancy; and in England, between the Psychical Eesearch
Society and the body of members who dissent from its con-
clusions. Nevertheless the phenomena which have resulted
from all this inquiry and experiment have been of the utmost
importance, as familiarising the scientific mind with the ex-
istence of forces which were formerly ignored, of compelling
it to try and account for their modes of operation, and of
becoming speedily aware in the attempt, of tbe exceeding
shallowness of its own acquirements, and of its incapacity to
deal systematically with vital energies, which are as capricious
as they are inexplicable in their manifestations. As illustra-
tions of organic human potency, however, they have proved
invaluable. It is no longer possible to deny the fact of what
is termed telepathy, or to refuse to admit that, when certain
conditions have been established between two organisms, one
can be made subject to the other in thought and act, not-
withstanding the most powerful effort on the part of the
subjected organism to resist the subtle influence projected
upon it by the other. The patient is compelled to perform
every act and to say every word that may have been either
silently or orally suggested — in other words, becomes com-
pletely controlled Ity the operator. This is an instance of
human psychical inspiration. The reason why there is no
regularity in the manifestations, and why the form they will
take can never be predicated — except where the conditions
have long Ijeen established Ijetween the same two organisms
' Revue <le rHyimotisine : exporimental et thdrapeutique. Psycliologie.
Mddecine Legale. Miiliides Mentales et Nerveunes. Kedacteur en chef Ducteur
Edgar Berillon.
30 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
— is because no two organisms are exactly alike, and there-
fore tlie vital energies which animate them, and are con-
ditioned by them, must always differ ; and as those vital
energies do not originate in the organism, which is merely a
transmitting medium through which they operate in nature,
the original projecting influence is not the human operator
acting from his own initiative, but acting in unconscious
relations with an unseen operator.
To those who are sceptics, chiefly through their ignorance
of these matters, I may point the analogy of the past, when
electric forces, now even with their laws laid down with hard
and fast lines, were fields of untrodden research, captivating
to a few, the scorn of many, and a danger for all.
It may be said that it is begging the question to say that
these forces originate outside of ourselves, or, in other words,
that we are not our own source of life, and that outside of
us there is an unseen world. There is no way of proving
that this is so to those who reject, and in many instances
reasonably reject, the ordinary phenomena of spiritualism,
unless such persons are prepared to train the will and subject
the whole nature, physical, moral, and intellectual, to the
severe and painful discipline by which their subsurface con-
sciousness may be opened, and their interior faculties de-
veloped. But those — and they are the majority — who have
no difficvilty in assenting to the proposition that the life-
principle which sustains and animates the visible world, is
derived from a source outside of it, which we call God, and
that this life-principle animates other worlds beside ours,
both visible and invisible, will have no difficulty in further
perceiving the possibility which has been assumed in the
most ancient religions of the world, and is a fundamental
doctrine of Christianity. This invisible world, whether it be
called heaven and hell, or goes by some other name, is
peopled with intelligences, hosts of whom have formerly in-
habited this one, and whose influence may still be felt here.
This is a fact of my own personal experience, as palpable to
me as my own existence and that of the liuman beings by
whom I am surrounded in the flesh, and it is confirmed by
thousands of others ; still, by the majority it is as yet only
believed in theoretically, if believed in at all.
THE UNSEEN WORLD. 31
But a belief in it is absolutely essential to the belief that
inspiration of any kind is possible, unless we hold that there
is only one kind of inspiration — that which comes from God
direct — and then we are in the dilemma of having to account
for the fact that those who claim to speak in His name often
denounce each other as not speaking really in it — of having
to accept as the divine voice that which falls so very far
below our ideal of what the di^'ine voice should be, and of
having to find a source for the inspiration of false prophets.
But if, on the other hand, we accept the ordinary religious
assumption, founded doubtless on more than mere theory,
that we are in contact with invisible beings, whose existence
is recognised in the Christian Scriptures, where they are
called sometimes " ministering spirits," sometimes " angels,"
and sometimes " devils," we need have no difficulty in admit-
ting the possibility, according to the Bible the certainty, of
our being influenced by them for good or for evil, as easily
as by the people by whom we are surrounded ; and this will
be still further simplified when we come to consider what
the substance we call matter really is, and what spirit is, and
how they are allied with those forces which are put into
operation through suggestion. Here modern scientific re-
search is beginning, in spite of itself, to cut adrift from its
old moorings, and to come to our aid, for it has arrived at the
conclusion that " impenetrability " in a sense formerly em-
ployed, cannot now l)e properly applied to any form or con-
dition of matter with which we are familiar ; all bodies being-
made up of molecules separated from each other by distances
greater than their supposed dimensions, — a mass of iron, for
instance, is not the solid impenetral^le tiling it was thought
to be, but an aggregation of particles that are not in contact,
but are free to move, and that are in unceasing motion.
What would have happened to an unscientific man who
should have ventured to state this years ago ?
Professor Clerk tlms enunciates his conception of the state of
motion in wliicli are the molecules of tlie most solid matter :
" Visible l)odies, api)iirently at rest, are made of parts, each of
' which is moving witli the velocity of a cannon-ball, and yet
'■ never departing to a visil)le extent from its mean place." ^
^ Can >f fitter 'J'hink ? a Problem in P.iycliics. Biogen Series.
32 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
In a recent paper on atoms, molecules, and ether waves,
Professor Tyndall makes the following statement: "When
' water is converted into steam, the distances between the
' molecules are greatly augmented, but the molecules them-
' selves continue intact. We must not, however, picture the
' constituent atoms of any molecules as held so rigidly as to
' render intestine motion impossible. The interlocked atoms
' have still liberty of vibration. The constituent atoms of
' molecules can vibrate to and fro millions of millions of
' times in a second. The atoms of different molecules are
' held together with varying degrees of tightness, they are
' tuned as it were to notes of a different pitch. The vibra-
' tions of the constituent atoms of a molecule may under cer-
' tain circumstances become so intense as to shake the mole-
' cules asunder ; most molecules, probably all, are wrecked
' by internal heat, or, in other words, by intense vibratory
' motions."
Electricity, for instance, will tear these molecules to pieces.
This is not the case, however, with atoms, which science so
far asserts to be indestructible. Upon them electricity has
no effect ; and Sir Henry Eoscoe tells us that " a hydrogen
' atom can endure unscathed the inconceivably fierce tempera-
' ture of stars presumably many times more fervent than our
' sun — as Sirius and Vega." Indeed the address of the presi-
dent of the British Association at Manchester is full of most
interesting facts, as bearing upon the atomic theory, at which
I have arrived from a very different source than from any
investigation into the researches of Dalton, Prout, Huggins,
and others, but which those researches seem in a most re-
markable manner to confirm. We are told that, " in the
' mind of the early Greek, the action of the atom as one sub-
' stance, taking various forms by unlimited combinations, was
' sufficient to account for all the phenomena of the world."
And this is true when we divest our minds of all idea of
space, which only exists relatively to our senses, and which
it is impossible to imagine limited. Our present experience
has already got to the vanishing-point of size in so far as
these atoms are concerned ; ^ and I am quite ready to admit
^ Professor Roscoe goes on to say that " modern research has accomplished,
' as regards the size of the atom, at any rate to a certain extent, what Dalton
THE ATOMIC THEORY. 33
that " it does seem miraculous that chemists should now be
' able to ascertain with certainty the relative position of atoms
' so minute that millions upon millions can stand upon a
' needle's point ; " and, what is still more wonderful, that
they should have discovered that each element possesses
distinct capabilities of combination — some a single capacity,
some a double, some a triple, and others again a fourfold
capacity for combination.
The importance of this fact will appear in the remarks
I am about to make, and we are further told that " the
number of carbon compounds far exceeds that of all other
elements put together, for these combinations not only pos-
sess four means of grasping other atoms, but these four-handed
carbon atoms have a strong partiality for each other's com-
pany, and readily attach themselves hand in hand to form
open chains or closed rings, to which the atoms of other ele-
ments join, to grasp the unoccupied carbon hand, and thus to
yield a dancing company in which all hands are locked to-
gether. Such a group, each individual occupying a given
position with reference to the others, constitutes the organic
molecule. When in such a company the individual members
change hands, a new combination is formed." It must be re-
membered that, small though these atoms be, nature may
contain others as small again, for all science can know to
' regarded as impossible. Thus, in 1865, Loschmidt, of Vienna, by a train of
' reasoning which I cannot now stop to explain, came to the conclusion that the
' diameter of an atom of oxygen or nitrogen was 1-1 0,000,000th of a centimetre.
' With the liighest known magnifying power we can distinguish the 1 -40,000th
' part of a centimetre ; if now we imagine a cubic box, each of whose sides has
' the above length, such a box when filled with air will contain from 60 to 100
' millions of atoms of oxygen and nitrogen. A few years later William Thom-
' son extended the methods of atfjmic measurement, and came to the conclusion
' that the distance between the centres of contiguous molecules is less than
' l-5,000,000th and greater than l-l,000,000,000th of a centimetre ; or, to put
' it in language more suited to the ordinary mind, Thomson asks us to imagine
' a droj) of water magnified up to the size of the earth, and then tells us tliat
' the coarseness of the graining of sucli a mass would be something Ijetwecn a
' heap of small sliot and a heap of cricket-balls. Or, again, to take Clifford's
' illustration, you know that our best microscopes magnify from 6000 to 8000
' times ; a microscope which would magnify that result as niucli again would
' show the molecular structure of water. Or again, to put it in another form,
' if we 8upjK)He tliat the minutest organism we can now see were provided with
' equally i)owerful microscopes, these beings would be able to see the atoms."
C
34 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
the contrary ; and that, in fact, when once the principle is
conceded of the important bioh3gical factor wliich these atoms
represent, there is no limit to the solutions which they may
offer of phenomena which are now repudiated as impossible,
or are a cause of perplexity to those who credit them. We
learn from the distinguished authority I have already quoted,
" that the phenomena of vegetation, no less than those of the
' animal world, have during the last fifty years been placed by
' the chemist on an entirely new basis." Yet science was as
full of prejudices then as it is now. It is safe to predict that
before another fifty years have passed, another basis will be
found, for no basis is sound which does not take into account
the forces which are active in what is called the unorganised
world ; and to do this involves the passage of a chasm, which
all l)ut a few enthusiastic materialists of the grosser sort pro-
nounce to be impassable. Sir H. Eoscoe says : " It is true
' there are those who profess to foresee that the day will arrive
' when the chemist, by a series of constructive efforts, may
' pass beyond albumen, and gather the elements of lifeless
' matter into a living structure. Whatever may be said re-
' garding this from other standpoints, the chemist can only
' say that at present no such problem lies within his province.
' Protoplasm, with which the simplest manifestations of life
' are associated, is not a compound, but a structure built up
' of compounds. The chemist may successfully synthetise any
' of its component molecules, but he has no more reason to
' look forward to the synthetic production of the structure
' than to imagine that the synthesis of gallic acid leads to the
' production of gall-nuts."
The advance of science during the last fifty years has at
all events proved to us that our previous conception of
matter was entirely erroneous, and must undergo a com-
plete change ; and that the further it attempts to follow up
matter into the new region thus opened, the greater the diffi-
culty becomes. Professor Helmholz tells us " that the elec-
' tricity which permeates all matter, and is like an envelope
' to all its atoms, is itself apparently composed of atoms, only
' infinitely finer than any others ; " and Professor Maxwell
talks of particles of electricity, and says that an electric
current consists " of files of particles," — one theory being
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE. 35
that the passage of a current of electricity is a vibration or
revokition of particles, each particle being a group of particles
revolving upon themselves.
There are many elements in nature which are called
imponderable, simply because at present hydrogen is the
lightest thing we can weigh — in other words, they are not
really imponderable, but only imponderable as far as we
have got. This is admitted, and is illustrated by Mr Crookes
in what he calls "the fourth state of matter," a form and
condition vastly more rarefied than the lightest substance
known — so we pass from the solids, which were formerly
called matter, to liquids, from liquids to gases, from gases
to electricity and magnetism, from these to aeriform or radi-
ant matter ; for we learn from Ganot's 'Elements of Physics '
that "that subtle, imponderable, and eminently elastic fluid
' called the ether, distriljuted through the entire universe, per-
' vading the mass of all 1)odies, the densest and most oj)aque
' as well as the lightest and most transparent, is composed of
' atoms, and not merely do the atoms of bodies communicate
' motion to the atoms of the ether, but the latter can impart
' it to the former. Thus the atoms of bodies are at once the
' sources and the recipients of motion. All physical pheno-
' mena referred thus to a single cause are but transformations
' of motion. . .
" In the present state of science we cannot say whether the
' forces in nature are properties inherent in matter, or whether
* they result from movements impressed on the mass of subtle
' and imponderable forms of matter through the universe.
' The latter hypothesis is, however, generally admitted."
This and many other like points can never be settled until
we realise that our external senses are not tests upon which
we can rely for anything — being mere organs for the trans-
mission of sensations, which are conditioned not upon what
things really are, but upon what they appear to us to be.
Science, to be true, must not be human but divine, and
those who would searcli into the secrets of nature, must
begin by searching into the mysteries of God, from wlioni it
emanated. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all other tilings sliall be added to you;"
and this kingdom, we are told, is "within us." Alen have
36 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
begun at the wrong end to work up to the Unknowable
through the external manifestations of its power, by the aid
of their own limited faculties of reason and observation,
while they have failed to enlist in the quest the most power-
ful faculty of all, an instinct directed by love for God and
humanity.
I do not mean to imply that scientific men are surpassed
by any other men in the pureness and nobleness of their aims
and aspirations, but that few of them have perceived that
there is no such thing as physical science apart from religion,
and that external nature should be read as a sacred record
of divine mysteries of which they would become the high
priests. It would be necessary to assume the hypothesis of
an intelligent Author in thus seeking to turn the pages of
His book of nature, but scientists made a greater demand
upon their imagination than that in their latest assumption
as to the origin of man : it now behoves them to develop
within themselves the faculty of understanding these pages
of nature, by submitting to the ordeals of absolute self-
sacrifice and personal discipline of the affections, which
shall leave that love paramount which furnishes the key to
all knowledge. It is this mistaken attitude of the scientific
mind in general, which makes it necessarily blind to the per-
ception of the highest truths, whether moral or physical. A
highly eminent member of the scientific fraternity sounds no
uncertain note on the subject. " Anatomically," he says, " we
' find no provision in the nervous system for the improvement
' of the moral, save indirectly — through the intellectual —
' the whole aim of development being for the sake of intel-
' ligence. Historically, in the same manner, we find that the
' intellectvial has always led the way in social advancement,
* the moral having been subordinate thereto. The former
' has been the mainspring of the movement, the latter pas-
' sively affected. It is a mistake to make the progress of
' society depend on that which is itself controlled by a
' higher power." ^
Is there no provision in the nervous system for the senti-
ment of love, except indirectly through the intellect ? Wlien,
with its passionate longing, it sweeps through the human
^ Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. ii. p. 360.
CHEISTIAN CIVILISATION". 37
organism, does it not carry away any feeble barriers that the
intellect may have erected to stay its course ? — unless,
indeed, some still stronger moral impulse restrains it, and
then it is not intellect, but conscience, or the operation of a
higher love. In point of fact, whatever it may be anatomi-
cally, intellect is the sport of the passions, their slave and
obedient servant, to carry out their behests ; but as it is
impossible to anatomise either the emotions or the intellect,
or to push research beyond the cerebrum, any attempt to
formulate their relations to each other by an analysis of the
nervous system of man, must inevitably at present lead to
confusion and error. The best proof that this is so, is to
be found in what Professor Draper calls the " social advance-
ment " at which we have arrived. If inventions by which
wars can be conducted on a scale of more wholesale slaughter
than history records, and explosions can be effected wliich
will cause greater destruction in a moment than could for-
merly be accomplished in a week ; if frauds can be perpetrated
by which more money can be legally acquired by a financial
operation in a day, and more innocent victims ruined than
was formerly possible in a lifetime ; if science, to use his
own words, has given rogues such discoveries as "would
' suggest to the evil-disposed the forging of bank-notes, the
' sophisticating of jewellery, and be invaluable in the utter-
' ing of false coinage ; " if more squalor, poverty, misery, and
seething vice is now collected on a given area than we have
ever heard of in ancient times ; if the grinding of labour
by capital has so exasperated the working classes that the
social fabric of what is called " Christian civilisation " is
threatened from its basis ; if the unparalleled ingenuity in
crime, extravagance in luxury, and the deliberate repudiation
in daily practice of the moral teaching of Christ, are an evi-
dence of " social advancement " and of intellectual supremacy,
— and if these are the conclusions to wliich a study of the
anatomy of tlie human frame leads its students, then the
sooner the science of physiology is swept off the face of
the earth the better, and the cerebrum abandoned as fur-
nishing the highest source of human inspiration.
But, indeed, it is not tlie fault of physiology that its pro-
fessors go so wide of the mark, but of the prejudices and
38 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
preconceptions with which they approach it. If scientific
men woukl only confine themselves to recording facts, their
researches would be in the highest degree valuable — as in-
deed they are — in the cause of divine truth. It is when
they come to forming hypotheses, and arriving at conclusions,
that they so terribly mislead those who are unable to dis-
criminate between those facts, and the fallacies of their de-
ductions from them, and they thus work irreparable injury
to the cause they most wish to serve.
Modern science, then, having reached the vanishing-point
of matter, and there stuck hopelessly befogged, and unable to
decide whether it generates force, in which case it might be
called ponderable force — or is only acted on by force, in which
case the force that acts upon it must also be material, or it
would have no transmitting medium ; and having also decided
that matter can never touch matter, every atom being pre-
vented from doing so by its own " dynasphere " (nobody knows
what a dynasphere is made of) ; and being further satisfied
that " the atomic abyss is as unfathomable as the interstellar
space is immeasurable," — leaves us there to scramble out of
it as best we may. But it has carried us along far enough
for our purposes, for it has given us a new conception of
matter, and one which, if we could divest our minds com-
pletely of the definition which we received of it from science
before it knew better, we might still use. This, however, is
scarcely possible, and would be too misleading. Though it
is scientifically admitted that matter is in gases and ether,
in light and heat, as well as in solids and liquids, and that
it pervades all known forces — electric, magnetic, galvanic,
odylic, or by whatever name they may be called — and that, in
fact, nothing has yet been discovered of which we can assert
that no matter is there, not even the interstellar spaces, or the
atomic dynaspheres themselves, it is evident we can conceive
of no limit to it, either in time or space, for it is indestruc-
tible as well as illimitable. In other words, it is infinite and
eternal ; and as we cannot conceive of the Deity being out-
side of what is infinite and eternal. He also must be in this
sense material — an idea which seems to crop out, though
perhaps not consciously to himself, in Mr Norman Lockyer's
suggestion that the varied forms of matter, simple and com-
I
MATTER IN MOTION. 39
plex, are but presentations of diversified properties, of tem-
porary conditions of that which is essentially one and the
same for ever. Another scientific writer remarks that " the
' physical thing whicli energises and does work in and upon
' ordinary matter, is a separate form of matter infinitely refined
' and infinitely rapid in its vibrations, and thus able to pene-
' trate through all ordinary matter, and to make everywhere a
' fountain of motion, no less real because unseen. It is among
' the atoms of the crystal and the molecules of living matter ;
' and whether producing locked effects or free, it is the same
' cosmic thing, matter in motion, which we conceive as mate-
' rial energy, and with difficulty think of as only a peculiar
' form of matter in motion."
The physical thing which is here described as a separate
form of matter, and as being " able to penetrate through
all ordinary matter, and to make everywhere a fountain of
motion, no less real because unseen," is nothing more nor less
than what we have been in the habit of calling spirit, when
we wished to separate it from what is termed above " ordinary
matter " : mind is also composed of this extraordinary matter,
so is will, so is every emotion ; but in order to avoid confu-
sion, it would be well to find a specific designation for it.
Jacob Boehmen calls it " heavenly substantiality," and Sweden-
borg " natural and spiritual atmospheres composed of discrete
substances of a very minute form."
Mr Crookes has invented the word protyle, which may pos-
sibly convey the desired idea ; and Professor Coues calls it soul-
stuff or biogen ; while occultists call it astral fluid. The most
remarkaljle illustration of the stupendous energy of atomic
vibratory force is to he found in that singular apparatus in
Philadelphia, which for the last fifteen years has excited in
turn the amazement, the scepticism, the admiration, and tlie
ridicule of those who liave examined it — called " Keely's
Motor." Already more than £50,000 have been expended
u])on it, and so far it lias not been possible to render it com-
mercially available. Hence, in the practical land of its ori-
gin, it has popularly been esteemed a fraud. I liave not
examined it personally, but I believe it to be based upon
a sound j^rinciple of dynamics, and to be ])robably the
first of a series of discoveries destined to revolutionise all
40 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
existing mechanical theories, and many of the principles
upon which tliey are founded. Mr Keely has discov-
ered that such a change can be effected by vibration, in the
atoms of which the atmosphere is composed, that what he
terms " atmospheric disintegration " can be produced, which
has the effect of liberating a subtle essence, the nature of
which has still to be determined, and which he believes to be
"inter-atomic." The energy it possesses is so great that it
exercises a pressure of 25,000 lb. to the square inch, and in
the engine which he has just constructed for traction purposes,
develops a force of 250 horse-power. All this is achieved
without the introduction of any extraneous motive power, the
whole apparatus being so constructed that the liberation of
this tremendous agency from its atmosj^heric prison-house
can be effected by the vibrations produced by a tuning-fork.^
Those who are sufficiently unprejudiced to connect the bear-
ings of this discovery, of what must be dynaspheric force,
with phenomena which have hitherto been regarded as super-
natural by the ignorant, will perceive how rapidly we are
bridging over the chasm which has always divided the seen
from the unseen, and obliterating the distinction between
what has erroneously been called matter, and what has no
less erroneously been called spirit.
From this we may infer that the dynaspheres of the atoms
cognisable by science themselves contain atoms, which are in
their turn surrounded by dynaspheres, and so on ad infinitum,
and that this dynaspheric force is the agent of those phe-
nomena of hypnotism, spiritualism, telepathy, and occultism
generally, which are now puzzling the more advanced students
of philosophy, and inquirers of the type of the Psychical Ee-
search Society. This force it is which, passing through the
organism of the operator into the hypnotised patient, controls
his will, and inspires his words and acts ; and in order to do
this, it has to penetrate the atoms of the ordinary matter
which compose the fleshly particles of the visible frames of
both. It can now easily be understood how, when another
class of operators intervene, who have " shuttled off this mor-
tal coil," but who none the less live in the so-called spiritual
^ See the ]5ritish Mercantile Gazette, 15th February 1887, and the Scientific
Arena, Dr Wilford Hall. — Ed.
DYNASPHERIC FORCE. 41
bodies composed of this supersensuous material force, which
are still invisible to the great majority of people, though by
no means so to all, their influence can be more powerfully
exercised than if they still remained in the flesh; for the
finer atoms of which they are composed, are not encrusted
with those coarser particles which we see, and with which the
finer particles are interlocked. It is the relationship which
these two varieties of atoms bear to each other, which regu-
lates and controls all organic phenomena, and which suggests
the cause of effects that have been heretofore considered
unaccountable. Here we have the secret of that magnetic
attraction and repulsion which we call love or hate, sympathy
or antipathy, and of all the varieties of sentiment which we
produce upon our neighbours and they upon us. We express
this truth unconsciously when we say of a man that he
makes " a certain impression " upon us, the impression being
literally produced by the impact of one variety of atoms upon
another variety. So, in the emotions of anger, joy, sorrow,
&c., the varieties and movements of atoms are as infinite
which compose these emotions, as those are which go to com-
pose our ideas, and which Mr Herbert Spencer defines as the
result of " the liberation of certain forces produced by chem-
ical action in the brain." As he admits that these forces have
their origin in the unknowable, and are not generated in the
brain itself, and as these cannot exist without atoms as a
transmitting medium, he is not so far from the solution of
the mystery of the metamorphosis which takes place between
the forces which he calls physical, and those which he calls
mental, as he himself supposes.
" How this metamorphosis takes place," he says, " how a
' force existing as motion, heat, or light can become a mode
' of consciousness ; how it is possible for aerial vibrations to
' generate the sensations we call sound, or for the forces liber-
' ated by chemical changes in the brain to give rise to emotions,
' — tliese are mysteries wliicli it is impossible to fathom." l>ut
when once we perceive that the aerial vil^rations consist of
movements of atoms which make the tune in the case of
music, and tlie words in tlie case of speech, and that they
in turn receive their impact from other atoms l)ehind them
which suggest tlie tune or the thouglit, which again receive
42 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
theirs in like manner, and so on np the scale of the universal
consciousness to the source of all consciousness ; and that
by their impact on the atoms of what we term " ordinary
matter," they affect these atoms in our nerve-centres, and so
convey sensation, emotion, and thought to the brain, there
is bottom found to the unfathomable, so far as this particu-
lar mystery is concerned : we no longer make chemical
changes in our brains responsible for the ideas which they
give forth, but we (ypen the avenues to inspiration, which
would otherwise be closed to it, and in opening those avenues
afford ourselves the possibility and the hope of fathoming
other mysteries besides this one.
When once we have clearly grasped the idea that physical,
mental, and emotional forces are all material, and that their
varied manifestations are conditioned by the varieties of
which they consist, and of endless combinations and permu-
tations which may be produced by those atoms, resulting in
effects as infinitely varying, and all correlated to each other,
and possessing conserved energies of undreamt-of potency,
science will have a field before it in which discoveries tran-
scending human imagination lie buried; but the spots in
which they are concealed are holy ground, upon which no
profane foot dare tread — mysteries which the ancients pro-
tected from profanation by their mysticism, and to which
the moderns have blinded themselves by their scepticism.
Though from what has been said we may vaguely perceive
where these treasures of divine knowledge lie hid, no man
can furnish another with a sure key to them. That is to
be found by each who would learn the secrets of wisdom,
only in his own heart ; and it is by an effort of his affections,
and not by one of his brain, that he can fit this key to the
lock of knowledge. So long as he stands perched on the in-
tellectual pedestal upon which it is his ambition to tower,
the admired of all beholders, so long will he search in vain
for that hidden treasure which his soul longs after, and
continue to cast reflections upon the intelligence of his pre-
decessors, if not upon his own, by exhibiting to the world
the shallowness of many of those scientific conclusions upon
which their greatness at the time was founded. Let him
then beware of intellectual effort in this direction, unpre-
DANGERS OF HYPNOTISM. 43
pared by the necessary preliminary moral training and dis-
cipline to make it.
Science is already responsible for having put dynamite,
roburite, melanite, and other destructive explosives into
the hands of the vicious and cruel ; and its manifold
inventions have facilitated the perpetration of various
kinds of crime ; while it has already, panic-stricken, begun
to perceive that the therapeutic advantages which may
accrue from hypnotism, are more than counterbalanced by
the fearful dangers which it involves. M. Liegois ^ tells us
that it would be difficult to find twenty persons among
the patients of Dr Liebault who could resist a criminal
assault. Ladame writes ^ : " Personne ne doute plus au-
' jourd'hui de la possibilite pour une femme de subir les
' derniers outrages pendent le sommeil hypnotique ; et le
' Docteur Cullerre dans son interessant volume ^ ecrit que
* c'est la une des liypotheses le moins susceptible d'objections
* serieuses parmi toutes celles qui pourraient etre presentees."
In the 'Archives de I'Anthropologie Criminelle, et des
Sciences Penales ' of March 1886, p. 188, is narrated the case
of a girl in which the operator produced a blister upon her
arm, as well as stigmata, by simple hypnotic suggestion ;
and by the same means Professors Beaumis and P)ernheim
retarded or accelerated the circulation of the blood, and the
pulsations of the heart to suit themselves, the experiment
being recorded on a sphygmograph, and the evidence remains
in the traces still existing made by the instrument, the con-
clusion being finally arrived at that, as by an act of will the
vital functions could be so powerfully acted upon, they might
by the same act of will be arrested altogether, and death
would ensue. In the case of a woman with child, abortion
could be produced by the same means. " Je ne parle pas,"
continues ]\Ions. Toureaux, who was a witness, and sometimes
an actor in these experiments, " de I'idee du suicide qu'il
' serait facile d'infliger u quelque individu. L'obsession de
' Liegr)iM, professeur h la facultd de dntit de Nancy. I^e la suggestion
hypnotique danw cei? rajiiKirtw avec le di-oit criniinel et le droit civil. Nancy :
1885.
^ L'Hypnotisme et la Medicine l^egale. Dr Ladame.
' Culture Magnetism. PariH : 188G.
44 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' la mort ne cesserait en ce cas qu'avec le dernier instant
' la victime. La justice n'a-t-elle done point a se soucier de
' de tons ces mysteres." A suggestion is, for instance, made
to a subject, who is a perfectly honest, well-principled girl,
to steal a jewel at the same hour on the following day, the
method to avoid suspicion being also pointed out. This she
does with great dexterity, following the instructions exactly.
She first denies the theft, then is made to admit it, and finally
to write to the judge of the district accusing a third person
of the theft by naming him in a letter of her own com-
position, and signed by herself. When she was in her normal
condition she was entirely unconscious of the whole episode ;
though while the patient is in this hypnotic state there is
nothing usually to indicate to an ordinary observer anything
abnormal. Experiments have also been made to discover
how long hypnotic suggestion retains its influence over a
patient, and Professor Beaumis has succeeded in having a
suggestion realised 172 days after he had made it — from the
14th July 1884 to the 1st of January 1885.^
Instances of all kinds, some of them even more remarkable
than the above, could be quoted, for new developments are
every day occurring, all tending, however, in the same direc-
tion, and all going to show that there is no limit to the danger
with which society is threatened from this source.
When I was in Paris in February 1887, I went to the
Salpetriere, wliere some of the most remarkable of Dr Char-
cot's experiments have been made, and witnessed the stage
through which they were passing, and the phenomena that
were being exhibited, and which Dr Charcot classifies under the
three heads, lethargic, cataleptic, and somnambulic, including
them all in " Le grand Hypnotisme." The operator on the
occasion of my visit was Dr Babinski, the patient a girl of
about twenty, partially paralysed on one side. On being
seated in a chair, and her elbow pressed for a few seconds
by Dr Babinski, she passed at once into the lethargic state,
and became insensible to all surrounding impressions of sight,
sound, or touch, but not rigid. In fact she presented some-
what the appearance of a limp corpse, and on a limb being
^ Beaumis. Le Soinnambulisme Provoque : Etudes Psychologiques, p. 233.
Paris: 1886.
HYPNOTIC EXPERIMENTS. 45
raised it fell immediately. By simply opening her eyes, she
was thrown into a cataleptic state, and her limbs remained
in any attitude in which they were placed. She continued
perfectly deaf, and though her eyes were open, they appa-
rently received no visual impression ; she was not rigid, but
on a muscle being touched it stiffened, while a pass immedi-
ately released it. Sensation could be transferred to the para-
lysed side from the other by closing the eye on that side ;
the side which was formerly sensitive now became perfectly
insensible to pain, while the slightest prick of a pin could
instantly be felt on the other. Sensation could thus be trans-
ferred from one side to the other by opening the right or left
eyes ; when both eyes were closed she fell back into the
lethargic condition ; when both were open, insensibility re-
mained in the paralysed side ; on the forehead being briskly
rubbed for a few seconds, she passed into the somnambulic
state. In this condition she could see and hear, and in fact
seemed thoroughly herself, excepting that she had lost all
power of will, and was open to suggestion. When told there
was a potato on the end of the nose of a gentleman who was
present, she was for a moment inclined to deny it, but
gradually the expression of her face changed, and assumed
one of mingled horror and amazement, and she finally burst
into a fit of violent laughter, and admitted that she did see
a potato there. She was then told that she had a glass of
champagne in her hand, and ordered to drink it, on which
she lifted her empty hand to her mouth, and went through
all the action of swallowing a highly satisfactory liquid. She
sneezed violently on being told that slie was sniffing smelling-
salts. Closing her eyes threw her instantly into the lethargic
state, and opening them, into the cataleptic. On electricity
being applied to the risible muscles, she expanded into a
sweet smile ; she clenched her fists, and her features were con-
vulsed with rage when it was applied to her frontal muscles ;
and when it was applied to those on her chin, her lips and
nostrils curled into an expression of profound contempt. On
another ]nitient being introduced and thrown into the som-
namlmlic state, tlie two were ]»laced back to l)ack with a
high screen between them, a large magnet being put on tlic
table in close proximity. The actions performed by one were
46 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
tlien exactly reproduced by the other, although they were
(|uite im'isible to one another. If the muscles of one were
made rigid by a touch, the muscles of the other became rigid
sympathetically. If the hands of one were raised, the other
raised her hands. The action of the magnet and the electric
battery on the patient was an interesting demonstration of the
intimate relations which exist between the atoms of electric
and magnetic forces outside tlie organism and those in it.
Dr Babinski informed me that it was difficult to obtain the
reproduction of each other's motions by patients in the
absence of the magnet in close proximity. The effect upon
me of being present while scientific men are exploring these
forces in this reckless manner, is very much what it would
1)6 if I was hunting for something in a powder-magazine with
a man who did not know there was any powder there, and
held a naked candle in his hand. That they themselves,
however, recognise how great is the danger, is proved by the
efforts that are being made to bring it under the action of
the law, and render it penal for anybody to grope into these
mysteries in the dark, except those who are supposed to be
professionally qualified to do so. In Denmark it has already
been rendered penal.^ The result of the dabbling by amateurs
into these phenomena, and the fashion of making hypnotisa-
tion an after-dinner amusement, has been to increase the
annual percentage of patients to the Salpetriere to a very
great extent, which I was told at the time, but the amount of
the percentage has slipped my memory. The defence of those
^ Since the ab<ive was written, an article has appeared in the ' Eveuement '
of the 1st November 1887, upon hypnotic suggestion, narrating an interview
between Dr Luys and Dr WuIiFs, in which it remarks — ■" Our free will, our
' honour, our very existence, are menaced ; and it is in the name of society and
' of morality that medical men implore justice to act implacably against those
' who speculate upon public curiosity, by making use of practices which to-day
' form part of medical study, and the usurpation of which should bring them
' under the arm of the law."
But the knowledge of these forces on the part of medical men is very much
what it was with regard to electricity in its early days. Their ignorance of
their real nature and proximate source is as great as that of the amateurs
they denounce.
For a full account of the experiments and the conclusions so far arrived at
bj- the medical profession in France, the reader is referred to a work recently
published, called 'Animal Magnetism,' by Alfred Binet and Charles F6r6i
Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.
RESULTS ACHIEVED. 47
who are using it as a therapeutic agent is, that in a certain
class of diseases it is attended with very beneficial results ;
but we have no means of knowing how much injury it inflicts
in other ways — how liypnotic suggestion charged with the
moral or immoral magnetisms of the operator, may taint the
purer magnetisms into which they are projected, and with
which they commingle, or what subtle interchanges of the
vital principle take place. Unless an operator be absolutely
free from any physical or moral taint — and which of us can
say that he is ? — some of that taint must perforce exist in the
material atoms which he projects into the organisms of the
patients, even though he may cure them physically.
"We are experimenting with a factor more powerful and
dangerous than any explosive, of the nature and properties of
which we know scarcely anything beyond the fact tliat with
it we can destroy not only the physical bodies, but the moral
natures of those accessible to its influence, by a mere act of
volition.
Many instances are cited by the French doctors in which
they have succeeded in changing the whole characters of
their patients — some of them have been quoted by Mr
Frederick Myers in a recent article,^ — and converted de-
graded, vicious, and uncontrollable criminals into respectable
members of society. The converse process is equally pos-
sible. Who is fit to be intrusted with such powers ? and
how can we prevent them from being universally practised ?
Therefore it is that I say we are on the threshold of a moral
convulsion, the like of which the world has never seen, which
it is too late now to attempt to avert, but which may be mit-
igated by the proper application of that science to which it
will have been so largely due. But its professors must rise
from being mere empirics to being seers ; and this they can
never do so long as they refuse to recognise the direct action
upon every human being in the world, of influences eman-
ating from one which is not cognisal^le to their most super-
ficial and external senses. Once let them assume the hy-
pothesis that a Deity may possibly exist — by no means a
more strained one than the transnnitation of species — and
that they can arrive at such close internal union with Him,
' "Multiplex Personality" — 'Nineteenth Century."
48 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
as to receive interior illumination from Him, and the very
effort to attain union will lead them into the channel provided
for its communication, and unfold to them the phenomena of
a world which no spectroscope can reveal. It is no longer
a matter of dealing with rocks, or beetles, or gases, but with
the whole moral life of men, who are leaving the superficial
ground upon which they may possibly have done more good
than harm, but are not permitted to rush in where angels
fear to tread, without a warning voice being raised of the
tremendous responsibility that they are incurring, and the
fearful catastrophe they are precipitating.
This is no longer a question of what has been called physi-
cal science, but it is a question of moral science of the most
profound importance ; and he who would become a professor
of moral science — with which physical science is inseparably
interwoven, the two combined constituting divine science —
must first reconcile himself with the Divinity, and make
those experiments upon himself, under divine guidance, which
are necessary to qualify him to experiment upon others.
49
CHAPTER III.
THE INTERLOCKING OF THE INVISIBLE ATOMS OP THE SEEN AND UN-
SEEN WORLDS FORM A SINGLE SYSTEM OF ANIMATE NATURE —
GLIMPSES INTO THE INVISIBLE, CONDITIONED ON THE MORAL STATE
OF THE OBSERVER — DEATH A LIBERATION OF GROSSER ATOMS FROM
THOSE MORE SUBLIMATED — MATERIAL PARTICLES THE VEHICLES OF
FORCE CONSTANTLY ASSUMING NEW PHASES — ANIMA MUNDI — INTER-
DEPENDENCE OF ALL CREATED NATURE — PSYCHICAL EXPERIENCE
ATTENDING THE COMPOSITION OP SYMPNEUMATA — DUPLEX CEREBRAL
ACTION — VITAL ATOMIC INTERACTION BETWEEN THE LIVING AND
THE DEAD — METHOD OF CEREBRAL IMPREGNATION — INSPIRATIONS
WHICH DO NOT GRAPPLE WITH THE EARTH MALADY WORTHLESS —
CHRIST, A RADIATIVE CENTRE OF HEALING FORCE — THE DISCIPLINE
OF ABSOLUTE SELF-SACRIFICE ESSENTIAL AS A PREPARATION TO
THE HIGHEST INSPIRATION — DEFECT IN THE EASTERN SYSTEMS OF
ASCETICISM.
Investigations of modern science into the nature and pro-
perties of what has heretofore been termed " matter," and the
experiments which have been made with material physical
forces upon the human organism, as illustrated by the phe-
nomena of hypnotism, have afforded us a basis upon which to
argue, that a world may exist composed of material forces
which are of too subtle a nature for us to cognise with
our present external senses ; and that if that world is
peopled with material beings appropriate to it, there may
be such an affinity between the finer atoms of the seen
and the unseen worlds, as to render possible the interlock-
ing of their respective atoms, thus forming a single system
of animate nature — for there is no such thing as inanimate
nature — of which one jjart is visible and the other part in-
visible, and of which tlie visible may be a broken and dis-
torted image of some portion of the other part, — broken and
D
50 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
distorted, because the medium of our senses through which
we can become conscious of it, is so limited and imperfect.
These, however, in the case of certain persons, are still suf-
ficiently developed to enable them to perceive, in a dim and
obscure way, that the world in which they live, is a reflex of
events which are transpiring in one which is unseen, and of
the processes of nature there, and of the moral and intel-
lectual activities which prevail in it. At the same time, the
representation is imperfect and partial in the extreme ; while
in the case of no two observers does the image thus observed
present the same aspect of character, because the glimpses
which they catch of it are conditioned by the quality of
their material atoms, which become the transmitting medium
for their internal vision.
He, however, who has penetrated far enough into the mys-
tery of the union of these two worlds into one system, soon
begins clearly to perceive that it is through the interlocking
of the atoms of the unseen world with those of our own, and
of the people on it, that all natural life is maintained. When
apparent suspension of animation occurs in nature, a certain
dislocation of these atoms takes place, resulting in entirely
new combinations of them, by means of which the grosser ones
are liberated from those which are more sublimated ; these
latter remaining interlocked with those with which they have
affinity, and being for the time inseparably attached to them,
contribute the life they have, as it were, withdrawn from this
world, to the world to which they now belong ; from which
they again discharge it into this one, as water is drawn from
the seas and the streams of earth into the heavens, where it
recondenses, and descends with its life-giving moisture again
to the soil. Thus there is an endless vital circle radiating life,
none of which is ever wasted, for it is part of an endless
system of absorption and distribution, deriving its life in
turn from another system revolving eternally round the
centre of all life, which at the same time permeates to the
circumference of all life, till, once more in contact with the
infinite, human thought fails in its faculties of conception.
We have an exact counterpart of this process in the cycle
or evolution through which material particles, suitable for
organisation, incessantly run in the same portion of our uni-
VITAL CYCLES. 51
verse. Science tells us that " at one moment they exist as
' inorganic combinations in the air or soil, then as portions
' of animals, then they return to the soil, again to renew their
* cycle of movement. . . . Material particles are thus the
* vehicles of force. They undergo no destruction. Chemically
' speaking, they are eternal. And so, likewise, force never
' deteriorates nor becomes lessened. It may assume new
' phases, but it is always intrinsically unimpaired. The only
' changes it can exhibit are those of aspect and distribution :
' of aspect, as electricity, affinity, light, heat ; of distribution,
' as when the diffused aggregate of many substances is con-
' centrated in one animal form.
"It is but little that we know respecting the mutations
' and distributions of force in the universe. We cannot tell
' what becomes of that which has characterised animal life,
' though of its perpetuity we may be assured. It has no more
' been destroyed than the material particles of which such
' animals consist. They have been transmuted into new
' forms — it has taken on a new aspect. The sum-total of
' matter in the world is invariable, so likewise is the sum-
' total of force."!
Here, then, we have science admitting that it does not
know what becomes of the forces which have characterised
animal life, while it is assured of their perpetuity; and of
course the same must be said of the finer material particles
which are the transmitting media of that force. The two
together form the " matter in motion," the sum-total of which
is invariable, but which, none the less, forms the endless cycle
by which it re-enters that portion of our universe which is
invisible to us, recombines there according to the affinity of
its constituent atoms, and returns charged with newj life-
potency, vitalised first by the divine solar ray, and afterwards
by the material solar ray, to impart its vigours to the visible
creation, in the form of heat, light, electricity, or gaseous com-
pound, appropriate to the functions it is destined to fulfil.
Hence it follows that we can arrive at no just appreciation
of the nature we see, without taking into consideration the
nature we do not see, for the two combined fonn one indivis-
ible universe. It is on that part which is invisible that we
' Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. ii. p. 342.
52 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
depend for existence, for it is by means of the forces pro-
jected thence, on our finest nerve-centres, that we are enabled
to exercise all the faculties we possess, whether they be moral,
intellectual, or physical. That this is so, I am aware that I
have no means of proving to those who have not passed
through like experiences with myself, but it does not in-
volve a very strained or impossible assumption, and will be
found to solve many problems hitherto deemed insolvable ;
it is, in fact, the true origin of the idea of the " world soul,"
or anima mundi of the ancient philosophers, — and if it is so,
it follows that there is no such thing as initiative absolutely
independent of influence on the part of any created thing in
this world ; but inasmuch as the whole of our world, seen
and unseen, and every living thing upon it, is pervaded by
the divine principle, of which the essence is freedom of will,
this remains indestructible in spite of the influences brought
to bear upon it from both worlds, and constitutes the sensa-
tion which resides in the faculty of choice. This choice can
of course be exercised for good or for evil ; and in the degree
in which we set our wills to obey one impulse or the other,
do we come under the influence of good or of evil men and
women, both seen and unseen, and are controlled by them.
As this fact takes form in one's mind, does one begin to
perceive its truth by experience, and, in the case of unseen
personalities, to realise the operation of the interlocked atoms
which act and react upon one another with a systolic and
diastolic motion, sometimes apparently in the brain, and
sometimes in the nerve-centres and solar plexus. I will
venture to illustrate this by the influence under which I
am at present writing, and which I am conscious to be that
of my wife, who is no longer by my side in the flesh ; but
in order to do so it will be necessary to describe first the
circumstances under which a book edited by me,^ and which
appeared not long since, was written. I had been conscious
for some months in the summer of 1882 that a book was
taking form within my brain, though I could obtain no clear
idea of its nature, — and indeed the same experience has
preceded the pages I am now penning, — when. I decided
^ Sympneumata : or, Evolutionary Forces now Active in Man. William
Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh : 1885.
DUPLEX CEREBRAL ACTION. 53
one day to attempt a beginning, and trust to the inspiration
of the hour to carry me on, as I am doing now. I had
scarcely written the first sentence and begun the second,
when the ideas which had presented themselves on taking
up my pen, suddenly left me, and my mind became a sheet
of blank paper. I remarked upon this to my wife, who was
sitting in the room, and reading what I had written, asked her
if she could finish the sentence ; this, without a moment's
hesitation, she had no difficulty in doing. I now most labori-
ously began another, but soon the same difficulty presented
itself, which was solved in the same way. I found it hope-
less to try and write another word. I therefore said to my
wife that it was she evidently who was intended to write the
book, and begged her to continue to dictate to me. To this
at first she objected, on the ground of a want of literary
practice, of material, and of capacity to treat properly so pro-
found a subject ; but she finally consented to try, and for a
couple of hours dictated to me slowly, but without hesitation
or correction. She then became too exhausted to continue.
On the following day I suggested that, as I had a good deal
of literary work to do, she had better write the book herself,
and I went to write a magazine article in another room.
After the lapse of a few minutes she came to me saying that
she had not been able to write a line, or to find an idea in
her head of any sort, suggesting that I should come back and
continue to be her amanuensis. I had no sooner taken up
the pencil than she began to dictate, and continued for some
moments with apparent ease, when she paused, and finally
announced that again all her ideas had vanished, and asked
me if I could suggest a cause. As a few moments previously
a new idea had struck me with reference to the article I was
writing on quite another subject, I remembered that perhaps
it might be owing to my abstraction from the matter in
hand. On my again directing my attention to it she con-
tinued without hesitation, and wishing to help her, I endeav-
oured to formulate some ideas. " Now," she said, " you are
' doing something that confuses me terribly. I have a whole
' mass of thoughts crowding on my brain, and I cannot feel
' which is the riglit one." I told her how my mind had been
working, and suggested that I should try as much as pos-
54 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
sible to keep it an absolute blank. This I managed, with
more or less success, to do, and in the degree in which I
succeeded, did she dictate with freedom. We also found
that if I had written anything on any subject previously, or
been engaged in any matter of business the same day, it was
useless for her to attempt to dictate. "We were obliged to be-
gin our writing the first thing in the morning, to allow of
no interruptions, and to be in no way anxious or preoccupied
with worldly matters till it was concluded. In this way
the book was written, but the process was a slow one, owing
to the many days lost by interruptions, which were unavoid-
able, and her own feeble health during a great part of the
time. But there was nothing abnormal in her condition
when dictating^no indication of the state popularly known
as " medium istic." Her mind was in full and active opera-
tion, and all her intellect, which was a very powerful one,
was concentrated on the effort of expressing in appropriate
terms the ideas which were suggested to her.
The book speaks for itself as a remarkable effort of com-
position, the only defect of which is the length of some of
the sentences, which are sometimes too involved ; but I found
that any attempt on my part to correct or modify, immedi-
ately interrupted the flow of idea. From a psychical point of
view, this experience is interesting, as illustrating a condition
of moral and intellectual affinity which was the result of a
long and arduous effort, extending over many years, and by
processes to which I may briefly refer later. The effect of
this internal connection was to mitigate to an inconceivable
degree the sense of loss which at first threatened to over-
whelm me when she passed into her present sphere of use-
fulness; for she was soon able to reach me through the
internal tie which had been formed by this interlocking of
our finer-grained material atoms while in the flesh, and it
was only during the short interval consequent upon their dis-
location from the atoms of ordinary matter that my suffering
was acute. On the re-establishment of the vital connection
between us under new and more powerful conditions, I was
enabled to advance into the appreciation of knowledge which
had been concealed from me ; but this enlightenment never
takes the form of being projected upon my brain from any
INSPIRATION BY ATOMIC COMBINATION. 55
outside source, but rather as a spontaneous idea suggested by
my own consciousness, and yet accompanied by the peculiar
internal sensation produced by this atomic interaction, which
is sufficient to check me if, in writing, I am following a cur-
rent of thought which is in opposition to hers, and to convey
to me a sense of approval when I have succeeded in con-
veying the idea which, interweaving itself with mine in the
atomic cerebral processes, she desires to have conveyed.
It will readily be understood that nothing but what I
conceive the paramount importance of the subject I am here
endeavouring to elucidate, and of the interest to humanity
at large which it involves, would induce me to enter upon
these details ; but they were necessary as an illustration of
a certain form of inspiration — the atomic combination having
been formed on earth — which involved a duplex cerebral
action in order to the composition and production of a book.
That atomic combination, composed as it was of those finer
particles of two separate organisms which do not corrupt
with the flesh, although dislocated at the juncture of their
withdrawal from the coarse atoms of the one organism at the
moment of death, could soon recover the faculty of reforming
a new and more effective combination with the corresponding
atoms in the one still alive, with which they had formerly
been associated; the very fact of such pre\'ious association
rendering a union of atoms possible, which would otherwise
have been impossible. In the case of ' Sympneumata,' the
elements which I contributed could only be so contributed
during a period of entire mental inactivity on my part ; for
if I allowed my mind to work, I withdrew them from my
wife — in other words, she appropriated all the powers of my
mind, whatever these may be, incorporated them with her
own by a process of which she was entirely unconscious ; and
the result was a composition containing ideas which were,
many of them, new to both of us until they appeared in
manuscript. A somewhat similar process is taking place
now, and the means whereby I can distinguish one influence
from any other, arises out of the fact of this prior intimate
atomic association, wliich has so interwoven the subtle ele-
ments of our organisms, that their separation could not take
])lace witliout producing premature physical deatli in my case,
56 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
and acute suffering in hers. It is therefore quite impossible
for any other influence to hold the ground thus occupied
without involving dire disaster. At the moment of my death,
which may occur at any moment from natural causes, this
union will still remain intact; but means have been pro-
vided, into which it is not necessary now to enter, which
will enable me to leave behind organisms as internally
atomically united with the joint organisms of my wife
and myself, though both in another state of existence, as
we are to each other; but this is not possible except
in the cases of those who have succeeded in forming a
pneumatic atomic union here. These, however, will con-
stantly increase in number as these truths come to be under-
stood and acted upon, under the direction of those who have
become conversant with their laws, and as they augment will
the force and grandeur of the inspirational descent increase.
This is necessary, for were it otherwise, an infernal inspira-
tional invasion would sweep through the world, without any
counteracting agency to check the disastrous consequences
which would result from it, and which, in spite of the
divine antagonistic inspiration which is now gathering force
to meet it, will still prove powerful enough to produce the
moral convulsion to which I alluded in the introductory
chapter. The reason why I venture to predict this is because
this moral conviilsion has already begun in the unseen world,
and its influence on this one must sooner or later be felt here.
The test of the value and nature of an inspiration is to be
found in the efficiency of the remedy it proposes to meet
the pressing human needs. Inspirations that do not pretend
to grapple with the earth malady, and attack it at its root,
lack the essential quality which is contained in the divine
love for humanity, and which, as I propose to show later, was
the one supreme animating principle of Christ, who was
such an incarnation of divine inspiration as was never mani-
fested upon the earth either before or since, and who is now
the radiative centre of the seen and unseen worlds, which,
enfolded one within the other, compose one system for the
radiative influence of the highest forms of inspiration ; and
it will be found that all inspirations which ignore Him as
their source, through whatever channel they may come, de-
DISCIPLINES ESSENTIAL TO INSPIRATION. 57
generate into speculative theories as to the nature and com-
position of man, and the cosmogony of the universe, which
have no direct bearing upon its present actual condition
with a view to fundamentally changing it; but which at-
tempt rather to solve, ex cathedra, such problems as the
character of man's previous existence, his reincarnation, his
progress through future conditions, and final fate, than how
to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and infuse
moral vitality into those who are spiritually dead to their
obligations to God and their fellows.
In order to prepare the will, the affections, and the intel-
lect to be collectively the transmitting media of an inspira-
tion, which shall have a minute and practical bearing in this
sense, their training and discipline must have lain in the
performance of minute and practical details, controlled the
while by an absorbing desire to perform them as an act of
worship to God, and of benefit to the race. In the degree
in which tliis motive dominates all thought of self, whether
in the most sacred family affections, or in the ambition for
spiritual progress of a personal character, will the divine
inspiration descend into these minute and practical details,
and the human problem begin to find its solution in the
small everyday cares of life. The light which shines in upon
a man who is sitting under a bo-tree with his eyes on his
nose, or in a cave tapping a gourd, is of a very different
quality. It may unfold to him the views of those in another
state of existence with whom he is in atomic rapport, about
the seven principles of which he is composed, and of the
various stages through which human beings, after leaving
this world, may pass before they return to it again, and what
they may have been in a previous state of existence, but it
gives him no hints as to social reconstruction in this one.
By abstaining from eating meat, by always eating alone, in
order to avoid contagious magnetism, and by various other
corporal disciplines, he may attract from his invisible associ-
ates into his organism such powerful magnetic forces as to
enable him to make converts by hypnotic suggestion, or raise
his body in the air, or suspend his respiration for an in-
definite time ; but so far from feeding others, as a rule he
makes them feed him, so far from bearing their burdens, they
58 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
bear his — iu spite of his powers of levitatioii ; and the final
result of more than three thousand years of this kind of
inspiration has been to crowd a greater number of idle useless
monks, of ragged religious mendicants, and of revolting fakirs,
upon a given area of the world's surface, than can be found
in the same space in any other part of the world.
The most ancient religions of the East, whilst, as I shall
presently show, they contain most valuable fundamental
truths, have thus degenerated into practices by their devotees
productive of no good to the human race, and the effort to
apprehend mysteries which will help to raise man to a higher
moral level, by attempting to put any such practices into
operation in crowded cities of the West, exposed at all points
to a hurricane of conflicting magnetisms, and in the midst
of perverted social conditions, can only result in disappomt-
ment, and in inspirations of a most turbid and fantastic
order. Those who think they can obtain light by sitting
round tables with their little fingers joined, through mediums,
whether professional or otherwise, are indulging hopes no
less futile, so far as the direct application of what they re-
ceive to the great human needs is concerned. As a rule such
communications are given to satisfy a curiosity which, if not
altogether idle, is at all events rarely the result of an absorb-
ing desire to find out what God's will is, and at all costs to
do it; and such is the only motive by which an inspiration
worth anything can be invoked, but even then it will be
found that it cannot be relied upon as a guide. There is
absolutely no certainty as to the source from which it springs,
or the channel through which it has reached the medium,
who is in his turn the automatic mouthpiece of an unknown
influence, who is by no means independent of the physical,
moral, and psychical conditions of the medium. "Whatever
be the source, then, of the purest communication, it only
finally reaches the recipient, charged with the taint of those
lower influences who — except under very special circum-
stances — alone frequent spiritualistic stances, in spite of the
surface beauty of utterance, and with the taint not only of
the medium, but of many others who take part in the
performance.
Those who are so constituted that they can receive their
MEDIUMISTIC CONDITIONS. 59
own impressions privately, provided they do not allow them-
selves to be used automatically, are far more favourably cir-
cumstanced ; but even then they are as a rule too full of
preconceived theological, or other prejudices of their own, to
receive anything which transcends the commonplace, though
occasionally, as in the case of some of the inspirational works
referred to in a former page, they do transcend it, and that
in a very remarkable degree ; but these instances are com-
paratively rare, and the effusions, though often containing
hints of sublime truths side by side with most exaggerated
statements,^ are generally worded so obscurely as to be un-
intelligible to the general reader, and not unfrequently to the
writers themselves. This arises largely from the fact that
the difficulty of conveying ideas thus presented in simpler
language is extreme, and depends mainly on the processes of
discipline which have been previously gone through as a pre-
paration for their reception. If these have involved much
study of other mystical writers, or abstract contemplation, or
bodily austerities, unaccompanied by active physical labour
to maintain a general equilibrium of the faculties, the in-
spiration is apt to be abstruse, mystical, or fanciful ; because
it is impossible for an influence, however pure and powerful,
to communicate in such a manner as to be independent of
the psychical condition of the medium; and the spiritual
projection always finds its way into ultimate expression
lieavily charged with the idiosyncrasies, modes of thought
and of phrase, and hereditary or acquired prejudices and
tendencies of the human author. There is no human being,
whatever may have been his training, who can avoid this,
and it applies to this, and to every book, prophecy, or
teaching which has ever attempted to convey subsurface ideas
to the surface consciousness. Still this is no reason why
those who have cause to believe that they have been charged
with messages pregnant with import to humanity, should
' In illustration of this I may mention tliat no less than four individuals
have come under my own observation who were informed inspirationally that
tliey were immortal and would never see death in this world — of these the
two most iiotahle were " Jezreel," the author of the 'Flying Roll,' and T. L.
Harris, the author of the 'Arcana of Christianity.' Of these four Mr Harris
alone survives.
60 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
not give them to the best of their ability : it is only a reason
why each such message should be fully tested on its own
merits, why none should be regarded as infallible, and why
those who become conscious of an inward monition convey-
ing to them the impression that they may be chosen as
messengers, should shrink from no sacrifice in the effort to
fit themselves for the fulfilment of their mission.
If, with a most profound sense of my utter unworthiness for
the task, I now venture to think that the time has come
when these lines may be written, it is because I can no
longer resist the impulsion to put into words, the thoughts
that imperatively demand expression. This impulse was felt
after an unconscious incubation, lasting many years, and for
which I was prepared, together with my wife, by a long
period of suffering and privation, involving the abandonment
of country, family, and human ambitions, and during which
time I worked as a day-labourer under a broiling sun, teamed
as a common teamster through the rigours of a Canadian
winter, served as a common domestic servant and cook's
assistant, peddled grapes and flowers in American villages,
lived at one time a life of almost absolute solitude, cooking
my own meals, and holding no intercourse with the outer
world ; during several years I even remained separated from
my wife, who at the same time, but in another part of the
country, was either performing domestic housework, or earn-
ing her daily bread as a seamstress, or by giving lessons in
music and painting, or as an under-mistress in a school.
All this we did under a direction for which I shall ever feel
grateful, although it involved a loss of many thousands of
pounds ; but it would have been absolutely valueless, had
not the contact into which we were thus thrown with persons
of divers nationalities and degrees, brought us into an in-
ternal sympathy with them, the nature and efficacy of which
depended in its turn upon the fact that the ruling motive of
our action, which was steadily kept uppermost in our minds,
was, that we submitted to it all in the one hope that we
might thereby become the more available instruments in
God's hands.
I have ventured thus briefly into my own experiences, not
for the purpose of suggesting that exactly similar ones are
J
TRANSMUTATION OF FORCES. 61
necessary for others, but with the view of illustrating the
different psychical effect which must result from discipline
of this kind, as contrasted with that which ascetics impose
upon themselves, and the different inspirations which must
ensue therefrom. The object to be attained in both cases
is, an entire change in the distribution of the atomic particles
composing the animal magnetic force, so as to render them
susceptible by magnetic contact to the highest order of beings
in the unseen world, and impervious to the invasion of
counter-currents, whether from persons in this world or the
other.
The ascetic endeavours to arrive at this condition by aus-
terities, dirt, contemplation, isolation, trances, and like ab-
normal, physical, moral, and psychical efforts. The result
is, that he infallibly attracts to himself kindred unseen in-
fluences, and while his magnetic forces undergo the change
he desires, he becomes confirmed in his belief in the value of
the process by which it has been accomplished, and receives
without question the gloomy impressions of this world and
the other, and man's mission and destiny, which they convey
to him, mingled at the same time witli lofty elevation of
thought, a high moral code, and motives which to some
natures, though they are more or less vague and shadowy,
are not without their fascination.
In the case of those seeking their inspirations through the
labour of their hands, and the active development of their
affections towards those who are animated by the same mo-
tives themselves, and co-operating with them, they also attract
to themselves kindred influences who are engaged in the
unseen world in active service for God and the neighbour,
who are full jof the potent energies of this service, which
they communicate to those engaged in it here, thus inter-
locking their atoms with those of their mortal associates,
and conveying to their minds the ideas which enable these
latter to perform the unaccustomed details of manual laljour,
under an inspiration which compensates for the lack of pre-
vious training, and brings with it a sense of joy to which the
artisan or peasant, working for liis daily wage, is an absolute
stranger. Wliy this must be so may easily be understood,
by the experience familiar to those who have liad anytliing
62 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
to do with prison discipline. Men who are turning a tread-
niill-wlieel, which they know is doing nothing but revolving
uselessly, suffer far more than if they knew it was attached
to mill-stones which were grinding the corn to make their
bread. The notion that the painful effort they are making-
is going to result in something, produces quite a different
atomic combination from that which is produced by the con-
viction that it will result in nothing. And in the same way,
the efforts that are made by a man who is learning how to be
a carpenter, in order to arrive at a point that will enable him
to sympathise internally with the artisan class, and so carry
out a divine purpose, are quite different in their effect upon
the atoms of his whole moral and physical structure, from
what they would be if he was learning the trade because he
had no other way of making a living for himself. But his
endeavours in this direction have a far wider purpose than
merely the outpouring of sympathy and the corresponding
moral change which results from it. They go to the root of
the matter which vexes his heart, and suggest the only re-
medy possible for the world's malady. For as he labours
thus side by side with his fellow-men, tilling, perhaps, the
land, and ploughing deep furrows into his own soul, which
are destined in good time to bring forth an abundant crop,
he perceives that he is in fact laying the foundations of a
reconstructed society ; and a vista opens out to his charmed
gaze of co-operative industries, harmonious communities, and
a political system in which liberty, equality, and fraternity
shall develop under the tegis of absolute authority, and in
association with a hierarchy composed of such different
degrees of rank as correspond to their fitness to enjoy it.
The form which inspirations take, derived under these
influences, is eminently practical, and those who seek truth
thus find in their hours of hardest labour, the solution of
economic, social, and political problems suggested to them,
sometimes with marvellous lucidity and clearness; but they
find, moreover, that all inspiration of this sort depends upon
a correspondence between the results which they are pro-
ducing practically, with those that reach them theoretically,
and that they can only propose them on a large scale, in the
degree in which they have been found to work on a small one.
CONSOLIDATED MAGNETISMS. 63
Just as the first investigator into electricity could not
logically assert that it might some day be possible to send
a message round the world, until he had experimentally
proved that he could make a needle vibrate by the force of
a current passed from one end of his laboratory to the other,
so, though the mental vision may picture a society perfectly
constituted, on certain given principles, by the proper appli-
cation of certain forces, it is necessary to begin by the
application of those forces to the home, and work out the
conditions of their application there. If, under this practi-
cal inspiration, which does not confine itself to ideas, but
penetrates into atoms of the physical organism, directing with
its energies the very fibres and muscles of the frame, a sat-
isfactory result is produced, there is no reason why it should
not be extended to another home ; as the instinct of people
seeking the same inspiration is to aggregate together, a com-
munity harmonised by a common inspiration would thus be
formed, later on growing into a town, then becoming the centre
of a district, and so increasing into a province, which, in its
turn, should expand into a country, and gradually extend its
influence, in the degree in which its consolidated magnetisms,
all bearing the same current, attracted those who felt the
attraction of sympathy, and repelled those who felt the repul-
sion of antipathy ; and as the laws which govern magnetism
in the human organism, are more or less identical with those
which govern it in other substances, the smallest home could
thus radiate the divine magnetism which it had received to an
infinite extent, with no sense of loss or waste.
In order to illustrate the difterence between mystical and
practical inspiration, and to convey some idea of the prin-
ciples upon which an inspired home should be constructed, I
will here introduce a paper, dictated to me by my wife
soon after we made our home in Palestine, and which is called
" The Introduction to the House-Book."
64
CHAPTER IV.
INTRODUCTION TO THE HOUSE-BOOK ; A TREATISE ON DOMESTIC LIVING,
BY THE LATE MRS OLIPHANT — REASONS WHY HOUSEHOLDS SHOULD
BE FORMED TO SECURE THE ADVENT OF IDEAL GOOD — MANNER OF
LIFE TO BE NEITHER LAVISH NOR PARSIMONIOUS — REASONS FOR
THIS — RELIGION NOW TO BE THE POSSESSION OF EACH MAN — ALL
BORN TO ENACT, WHAT WAS FORMERLY TAUGHT — FAMILY GROUPS
A MACHINERY FOR SOCIAL SERVICE — NECESSITY FOR THE PROTEC-
TION AND NOURISHMENT OF A HOME — ALL ARTIFICIAL DISTINCTIONS
OF RANK, OCCUPATIONS, AND CREEDS ABOLISHED — MAKERS AND
MAINTAINERS OF THE FAMILY RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS DEVELOPMENT
— THE QUALITIES REQUIRED FOR SOCIAL REDEMPTION — ALL TO
STAND IN SYMPATHY TO THE LAWS OF EARTH's SOCIETY BUT NOT
TO BE SUBJUGATED BY THEM — ANGELIC CO-OPERATION WITH MEN —
DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITIES — ASSISTANCE IN LABOUR — SUBORDIN-
ATION TO LAW — NOTES OF EXPENDITURE.
It may at first sight seem superfluous, and almost absurd,
to preface a mere series of memoranda about simple house-
keeping, with any explanation of the grounds upon which that
housekeeping is carried forward. But there are various reasons
which excuse this ceremony on the present occasion. The
people who will use the following memoranda to refresh
their memories, or to suggest the simple methods of life, are
the people who, above all other desires, cherish that of under-
standing fully each other's motives and methods of work even
in the slightest details, in order that the work which they
may share may rest upon a perfect unity of motive and of
method, and so establishing this unity amid the multiform
necessities of domestic life, that such an organisation may
admit of any work being performed according to convenience,
now by one person, now by two, or now by twenty, &c. ;
THE FORMATION OF HOUSEHOLDS. 65
whilst this power of contraction and expansion in different
branches of necessary work, must be secured for a system of
life in which the indi\'idual must not be sacrificed for the
work, nor the work for the individual, but in which both
the members and the versatility of faculty would suffice to
meet the fluctuating demands of daily needs ; the methods of
training the co-operating units in any household into this
facile, expansive, and contractive machinery will be discussed
a little further on, it being here in place to refer first to the
reasons for domestic living which bring together the children
of the sympneumatic era.
Let it then at once be established that it can never be
asserted that any special manner of co-operative living is
iper se better or worse than another ; that families, large or
small, households large or small, divisions into ones or twos,
or agglomerations of the size of communities, are to be ad-
justed beforehand as necessarily superior or inferior forms
for the interdisplay of human love and power. Men and
women should at all times select and reject their ways and
means of righteous action, unhampered by any fixed opinions
as to the relative merits among the rich choice of manners
which experience and possibilities present.
The little household in which these lines are penned, has
constituted itself by \'irtue of the apparent accidents of the
moral and physical necessities of its various members, numbers
of whom are not even able to be continuously resident in it.
Its members, therefore, set up no pretension to offer, either by
their number or by their differences of nationality, of occupa-
tion, or of age, any special model of what any other house-
liold actuated by the same motives, and following the same
fundamental methods should be ; for the essential living in
liomes of one blood, of one country, of one generation, or of
fewer or greater numbers, or with entirely different pursuits,
would be identical with theirs, wlierever the belief were aliglit
that men and women work to secure the advent throng] i-
out all the earth of ideal good — work in the presence and
with the powers of a loftier order of unseen human beings,
and do this equally in the minute or in the magnificent actions
which they may deem it proper to perform. Tliis little house-
hold has selected, however, its present scale of style with a
E
66 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
motive and a plan somewhat more important than the mere
guidance of external possibilities or desirabilities alone, — that
is to say, that in deciding whether to have paid servants, and
what servants to have ; how many meal-times to establish, and
what to place upon the table ; what branches of semi-domestic
industry to associate with the housekeeping (such as farming,
chicken-keeping, bee-keeping, gardening, &c.) ; on what scale
to facilitate by comfortable provision of domestic articles the
various works, or in what measure to sacrifice temporarily
the facility of work for economy of utensils, — I repeat, in de-
ciding these things, it is making an effort to do something
more than live honourably and rationally : it is trying to find
a manner of life that shall be neither lavish nor parsimonious,
that shall differ alike from the habits of the self-indulgent
and the depraved — a manner of living to which the luxurious
classes would readily, and without loss of health or mental
vigour, descend, did they see a reasonable purpose for so doing,
and to which all who live coarsely or poorly could be expected
to rise with the better distribution of society's resources, when-
ever their improved intellectual condition demands for them a
richer stock of the elements of food, of comfort, and of ease,
than the masses of working men have hitherto been able to
control. This little household would be ready to reconcile
some people with a relative simplicity of living, and to call up
some into a relative affluence : it is groping for ways of draw-
ing together the extremes of waste and of want, of superfluity
and of insufficiency, of suggesting the creation of recruits for
the most divergent classes of earth's civilisation ; and of the
new middle class, whose function will not be that of preying
upon the classes on either side of it, while it transmits the
means of life from one to the other, but that of feeding in
such diverse forms the legitimate wants of men, that they will
be drawn together in it away from all the antagonisms estab-
lished by their present unsatisfied requirements.
This search for moderation in the demands of daily life
should not at the present day be a mere accidental result
of necessity. The middle line of conduct serves no high
spiritual end, while it is simply the line into which indi-
viduals are forced by artificial influences. There is no merit
and no use in being neither rich nor poor, but something
MEDIOCRITY OF CIRCUMSTANCE. 67
between rich and poor, if we cannot help ourselves ; and in
point of fact, if there is to be no exercise of personal intention
in the style of circumstance in which we live, the middle
style of moderation is not the one which people of high aspira-
tion would wish to have offered to them, for it is, of all styles
of living, the least generative of spiritual vitality. Devotion
to high thought, and reverence for what is pure and elevating
throughout human life, springs up more readily among people
who are rich enough to pay others for relieving them entirely
of every acquaintance with the methods of material existence.
The trials of real poverty protect and urge the spirit, so that
many of its virtues spring up in that condition which are
almost lost to any other ; but life which is without physical
privation, but in which sufficiency depends upon the personal
effort to acquire and manage material resources, is neither high
nor low enough for excellence to be easy. It neither helps
men to suffer, nor places them so far beyond suffering that
they are ashamed not to aspire ; and it is inclined to breed
in them a stupid satisfaction in tlie easy accomplishment of
operations requiring a purely material order of faculty, and
resulting in nothing higher than the comfort and satisfaction
of a few individuals.
Nevertheless a wise mediocrity of circumstance will neces-
sarily be adopted more .and more by all people who seek the
general good ; for those who can command luxury and the
displays required for the forwarding of private and family
ambition, will more and more refrain from wasting upon
these the superfluity which they will prefer to devote to the
better regulation of general social necessities; and on the
other hand, such efforts as the wealthiest are at this day more
and more desirous to put forth, will enable the poor to tend
more to comfort. A condition, therefore, of moderate ease,
in spite of its tendency to deaden spiritual sensibility, is
tlie only one fitted to a rational moral development; and
the art must be discovered of utilisin<' it without falling into
moral sloth for lack of privation, and of maintaining a con-
centrated aspiration for mental and spiritual growth in spite
of labours amidst the material bases of earthly existence.
We must learn to seize all the more delicate elements that
the human spirit is accustomed to develop in its extremes of
68 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
suffering and of refinement, and bind them to the wheels
of vulgar working-day machineries. We must do this to
redeem these machineries from misapplication to ends of mere
private gain. "We must not forget that the risk of decaying
spiritually is all the greater with all those people who are
conscientiously unable any longer to recognise as duties the
demands of ecclesiastical organisations : these, at the time of
their vigour, have always imposed practices which reminded
men, at recurring intervals of time, that they lived for some-
thing beyond material good. But a great number of those
natures most deeply fraught at this day with the desire of
obtaining and distributing all highest sorts of excellence, find
in themselves no response whatever to the expectations of
any Church, and these have to beware lest ease of life, and
the withdrawal even from ignoble effort, do not obscure their
sense of the inner personal sanctuary where the divine pres-
ence dictates in the still small voice.
For that which has been called religion, and which has
rested on wide bases of popular assent, has grown to self-
dependence among men, and is now, or must be made, the
personal possession of each one. As it fades out of public
institutions, or as its practical influence weakens there, as the
most earnest, single-minded, and spiritual people require less
and less the forms and formularies of. Churches, or obey them
merely by innocent acts of social custom, that condition of
high spirituality and morality which these Churches fostered
in their day, which has outgrown their comprehension now,
but is itself religion, this must be held by each individual as
the atmosphere in which to act daily and hourly in the whole
effort of duty. Individuals now generate religion as of old,
but not isolated individuals — for this has man "evolved."
But as the responsibility lay heavy upon the souls who for-
merly were charged, rarely with great powers of mind and
thought, to give them forth to mankind ; as would have been
the loss if mighty teachers turned aside from the effort to
deliver their high instruction, — so now is the responsibility
with each, when all are born to enact that which used to
be taught — so now is the loss to the whole mass of men, if
any one fails to live striving to enact it.
It is this maintenance of the highest possible level of re-
NEED OF FAMILY GROUPS. 69
ligious vitality in practical life, that is the all-sufficient reason
why people should associate in groups, why homes should
exist, — whether the individuals which compose them are
drawn together by the apparent accident of blood or of
material necessity, or whether by any more conscious pro-
cess of mutual selection, it matters not. The home, the place
where a rich atmosphere of varying elements of mind and
spirit can be generated, protected, consolidated, and set in
activity, is a necessary integer of elevated social conditions.
If family connections, and the repose of all familiar customs
which grow up in them, are not a means of obtaining strength
of united moral action, they miss the performance of their
proper function, and generate, perforce, harm to the world's
interests, instead of help. But because this may be, it does
not disprove the fact that ties of blood, which are the soil of
spontaneous loves and virtues, of honour, fortitude, patience,
and self-control, should be the strength and background of
world-service, as they are fraught with power, even in their
lowest development, to reveal the innate altruism of the
human being. When the true strength of family groups is
better understood in the research that man begins to institute
for material of beneficence, the social brigandage which they
now exercise, by means of their relative unity of action, will
be converted instead into a machinery for social service.
But unity of action, whether among blood relations or among
people drawn together by sympathy or mutual dependence
of any kind, is the great social necessity of the hour. The
statement is not new : co-operation, and moral as well as
material co-operation, is a cry that recent generations have
learnt to repeat, and co-operative action is no longer an
unknown thing. But the full meaning and necessity of
spiritual unity is not generally understood ; and is least un-
derstood, as a rule, by those people who are tlie most generous
of their time and service in seeking general reforms. For
public services, social or industrial, it is not difficult at this
day to find people who will act harmoniously to improve
the outer forms of life ; nor has it been at any time otherwise
than easy for bodies of people with any distinct religious bias,
to recruit members willing and anxious to distribute physical
relief by common methods as an assistance to the persuasion
70 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
of religious forms; but the natural order of spiritual and
social development requires co-operative unity in private as
well as in public life — nay, requires it in the minutiae of the
home circle, as the basis of all vaster co-operation.
Those who go forth out of divided and unsympathetic
private atmospheres, to enforce propriety in the various
branches of public life, carry with them a theory, an intel-
lectual conception of things that should be, but carry no ele-
ments of moral life, to create growth of co-operative intelli-
gence among those for whom they labour. There is no truly
reproductive species of virtue or moral f)Ower but that with
which men and women are elementally charged, — no virtue
or power with which men or women can impregnate others,
so that they in their turn produce them afresh, except what
has developed in each one by solid growth of moral particles
which pervade the being ; and this growth in each person of
a healthy and potent moral organisation, as well as its con-
stant increase in maturity, requires, as imperatively as the
wellbeing of the physical constitution, the repose, the protec-
tion, the nourishment, and the pleasure of familiar home sur-
roundings. It requires the simple essences that are struck
forth by simple acts. It requires primary examples of the
great social needs. It must call its own a dwelling-place
where direct ministrations of love are easy, to keep alive the
absolute conviction that love exists. It requires home, as
meat or raiment or sleep, for the maintenance of its growing
condition. Thus the tone of the familiar life becomes a more
and more important matter for consideration to those who
contribute to it, — more and more important with the uprising
throughout the social bosom of this true sense, that social
purity and truth and energy must now be striven for, and
that the power of close co-operation is necessary to this strife ;
for there is no perfect knowledge nor practice on a large scale,
that has not first been learnt upon a small, and he cannot
contribute to true unity in great and far-spreading services,
who has not learnt to practise it in the minute things of home.
The value of these groupings of individuals in intimate
juxtaposition is incalculable: there are no other circumstances
which are capable of producing the same results ; and these
results in the individual are indispensable, at this period of
SELF-CRITICISM. 71
high social effort, to the lofty character which society strains
to embody.
Such convictions lying at the root of the action which drew
together the little fraternity here alluded to, it is evident
that each member of it must adopt, with a solemn sense of
responsibility to the world at large, whatever occupation befits
them within it, or whatever they befit.
It is this sense of responsibility, this solemnity, which at-
taches to the action of all members of such a household while
they constitute it, which makes them, old or young, embrace
life now, not less as a training process, than as a field for
work.
Those who have begun, however totteringly, to " walk with
angels " — those even who but begin to train their faculties
unto this thought, lest perchance they miss its truth — begin
also to measure themselves with the ideal, with the true facts
of higher human nature, with personalities whose type has
hitherto drawn all pure imaginings before towards itself in
aspiration, but who now join hands with men and women on
planes of growing consciousness. Yes ; now we look on this
image and on that — those of us who will — we compare what
we are, with the perfect manhood with which we feel, with
greater or lesser clearness, that we have companionship, and
we work to change ourselves. The nearer that the far ideal
draws to us, tlie more we see the differences between it and
ourselves ; and as we would grow like it for great services on
earth, as we would work l)y power of better natures against
the sufferings and the vices of earth's masses, we must first
establisli this bettering of ourselves in the humble sphere of
home. Thus we are obliged to exercise a self-criticism which
magnifies each slight defect into a subject of world import-
ance, for slight defects jar on tlie harmony, the regularity, the
calmness, and the whole beauty of the domestic circle —
jarring, in fact, the actual spiritual organisation of each mem-
ber of it, whose action then upon the outer world, whenever
exercised, is Ijy that jar impaired — and not only must the
members of households watch inquisitorially against their
personal imi)erfections, to restrain them ceaselessly, liolding
these imperfections as being each one injurious to universal
interests; but for the development of a large and generous
72 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
wisdom, for the preparation of vaster organisations in the
future, they must question constantly of their habits and
their methods, whether they are such as would conduce to
every highest interest, if used by tens and hundreds of people
as well as by two or three.
The effort, therefore, to formulate and to obey simple and
broad rules in the conduct of daily life, is more than import-
ant, — it is indispensable to all servants of God's world.
Being thus indispensable, the little bands of workers who
are devoted to it have their necessary places in the social
scheme ; and having these, their duty to fit themselves for
every detail of united labour, is as necessary to general pro-
gress, as either the wise means that they would use materi-
ally, or the high spiritual condition which they endeavour to
establish.
The difficulty of distributing financial responsibility in a
satisfactory manner has broken up many of the best attempts
at societary co-operation. It is probable that this responsi-
bility, in common with others, the discharge of which affects
equally every member of a family or group, will have to
rest with all its weight and all its freedom upon one person.
As time goes on, people will not be found lacking, who, in
the name of the divinest service, the free evolution of the
purest faculties of existing man, will gather others around
them — their children, or their brothers, or their friends — the
name of that service will prohibit disagreement of creed, —
creeds and denial of creeds being all too weakly human,
and too partial for the new necessity. It will prohibit all
differences of social rank — these having done their service
and become superfluous. It will prohibit artificial distinctions
in diverse dignity in pursuits — this being obstructive to plea-
sure in work, and to its right selection. It will prohibit every
motive for personal effort, for personal virtue, for personal
enjoyment, except that they are necessary to the general
human interest. They will be brave men who will call others
to follow under this banner, brave and bold, even though
an inner light of strong perception, rational and instructive,
guides them surely ; even though they know the attainments
of strong developed faculty and enlightenment and power,
that will grow beneath its folds upon each soldier that they
HARMONY OF FEELING. 73
have called. They need their courage, although iu clearest
consciousness they call down, hold down, and irradiate
heavenly forces in earth ; for work, true work, is slow, con-
tinuous, and quiet; yet the root of social excellence must
thus be set. But the order of the courage they require is
moral — the courage to maintain the purity of moral percep-
tions — courage to enact spiritual convictions in the strained
intervals of their fluctuation — courage to obey the voice
within during the pleasure of its silences. The wear and
tear of recklessness, of wilful improvidence, of disregard of
the divine law throughout external nature, will not be in-
curred by those who are seeking to draw forth inner wisdom
into outer things ; they will not kick against the known lim-
itations of industrial possibilities ; they will not court priva-
tion or starvation in carelessness or wilfulness for those whom
they would empower for all good work. If they invite co-
operation, they must practise a keen and inspired discretion
ill recognising the signs of rational possibility of success. It
is true that, being relieved of the desire to maintain all arti-
ficial standards of what constitutes success, financial com-
petence will often prove a sufficient basis for useful activities,
whether of an intellectual or of a muscular nature, while
obviously no one wiU struggle for enrichment by any processes
that of necessity impoverish their neighbours, nor hold riches
as "per se valuable, or as certainly to be sought — the eWdence
of their use for special purposes requiring to be corroborated
by the deepest and most earnestly sought internal guidance.
"We will assume, therefore, that a man, or, probably of ne-
cessity, a man and woman, have summoned together, under
the clearly felt guidance of God, people whose harmony of
feeling is absolute in respect of the principles just enumer-
ated, whose motto is free evolution ; we will also assume that
the wisdom of that gathering, of which the responsibility
necessarily rests with those who have formed the group, is
justified by a rational probability of providing the things
necessary for daily life. This provision may at once exist
in the established possessions of this head of the family, or it
may exist partly in income contributed as shares by difi'erent
members of the household, or it may exist only in the produce
of the industry of the head and members. This gathering,
74 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
to be a home, to be the indispensable fulcrum for power in
far-spread labours, to be the battery of a love-force which
shall unceasingly empower those who take rest in it, must
be constituted in the form of a family of children, whose
parents provide and guide. At the limits of the home this
form breaks up ; the various members who are not required
for devotion to the immediate necessities of the establishment,
may be carrying on occupations single - handed, or in co-
operation with others of every description ; and in those
occupations they will act as free individuals, or as members
of associated bodies, in every diversity of manner. Profes-
sions and industries of home management, unless they dis-
tinctly form part of domestic economy, should remain free
in their exercise — there should obviously be no limit to the
variety of method under which industries or public services
will be carried on, or to the different ways in which pro-
fessions or other occupations will be pursued; but in the
home, which may be regarded as an artificial extension or
reproduction of the natural family, a hierarchical system of
direction is necessary for the spontaneous action constantly
required in all its departments.
Now it is evident from this, that people who would create
domestic bodies as the kernels of a new and high social de-
velopment, whether by the mere training of children of their
own, dedicated by their very birth to this object, or by the
moulding of people who join them in this plan, must do
more than to foresee the spiritual ground solidified by a
common aim, and the material ground made safe by a suffi-
cient basis for the works proposed. They must be prepared
themselves to regard each member of the group which becomes
their family, as held by them in charge for the world's service.
These parents must take upon themselves the collection of all
home funds, from whatever source contributed, in order to
redistribute them with free exercise of judgment and of love
among the members, according to the requirements of their
moral and physical condition. They must remember that
from the moment they have made themselves responsible
to God for creating a domestic body, they cannot shift the
responsibility of any action of which the results will affect
the body as a whole. The responsibilities which they delegate
ASSOCIATED EFFORT. 75
must be those connected with special branches of activity,
in which mistakes or faihire will affect principally the special
individuals charged with the control of such departments, and
will only indirectly, and in unimportant degrees, affect the
whole. The heads, for example, while they may derive valu-
able assistance from the perceptions and experience of any
member of the household, with whom they will freely consult,
cannot divest themselves of the duty of acting freely for the
immediate interests of the group, and for the greater interest
of spiritual evolution in general society, by the choice they
make of a general plan of life, of a locality to live in, of the
people to draw into the sphere of their own ministrations,
of those to be removed from it, of managers and assistants in
each branch of help or service, of what advice to offer on
moral questions affecting the action of individuals, on the
little social body as a whole. In a word, the makers and
maintainers of the family, whose existence they regard as
fraught with infinite importance to the divine plan for earth,
must freely make it in the best way that they can find.
But they will institute a systematic attempt to develop in
each individual the highest degree of responsibility in special
functions that is compatible with their age, judgment, or
faculty and moral condition.
In view of the serious aspect which such efforts as are being
now discussed, bear to those who maintain them, it will be
no easy and no simple work to guard hourly against the
disintegration of such associations by individual lack of per-
ceiving the interest of the mass, or by too great a concen-
tration of the individual on tlie interests of the mass to the
sacrifice of one another. Yet it is useless to embrace the
leadership of any mass, unless it is possible to watch equally
over the welfare of the whole, and the welfare of the parts.
Neither will this leadersliip be successful, unless each member
of the co-operative body that it associates shares with it, in
the degree of his or lier personal capacity, this sense of the
serious and important nature of their work. This sense must
be developed in the young and fed in the adult, as the very
basis of a true moral atmospliere.
It is not possible to produce lives which will sliow in joint
action the qualities required for social redemption, unless the
7G SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
knowledge among them is strong and clear that they stand in
weighty responsibility towards one another as individuals, and
towards humanity as a group. To regard their position lightly
or indifferently, is to annihilate it.
Isolated lives have always shown, and show at this day,
immeasurably the strongest and the purest material for
humane action ; but the work of the world has become
gigantic at the period in which we live. Life in its modern
aspect creates co-operation in error : the vices, the industrial
or social tyrannies, political rivalries, the craze for wealth,
the pursuit of pleasure, in one place, reinforce — by the sym-
pathy established throughout the civilised world in its ready
intercommunication — all these things in every other place.
It is not enough now to aim individually at affecting right-
eously immediate surroundings. The immediate neighbours
of any given person are a hundredfold more powerfully affected
by the myriad influences that strike upon them from the
vast social universe, than by any impulse which a mere indi-
vidual could communicate. "We must, if we aim at a univer-
sal good, or indeed at any good, work in the methods cal-
culated to affect large masses. The youth of the time instruct
themselves for good or for evil out of the general movement,
unconfined to country or to continent, and cannot be content
to accept knowledge merely at the hands of parents, pastors,
or masters. The grandest work yet delegated to physical
sciences is accomplished.
The life - appliances that they have produced, make each
human being a child of the universe, and the ordinary asso-
ciations of civilised life at this era, focalise upon each indi-
vidual direct movement from every part of universal society.
But if the gain be great of a personal acquaintance with
the truth that each one is affected by the many scattered
throughout the world, the danger is great of misunderstand-
ing the divine purport of new possibilities thus opened for
the individual and for the masses.
It is well to stand in mental and emotional sympathy with
the laws of earth's vast society ; but it is ill to be personally
subjugated by them, as ill as to be subjugated by any more
local tyrannies. Yet this is a common fate. Victims of the
confusion which reigns amid the raw processes of unification
UTILISATION OF INDIVIDUAL FORCE. 77
in world interests are countless — not less in retired domestic
circles than in heaving political scenes. And for these
reasons associations of life among individuals become a neces-
sity. They are necessary to protect in individuals their in-
dividuality of power ; they are necessary to produce a united
individual power massive enough to affect society at large ;
and they are necessary, because, by their existence, they
generate the only moral material which can be reasonably
expected to hold a sufficient amount of force to influence the
colossal development of modern life. Humanity has de-
veloped needs so poignant, and individuals have responded
so loudly those needs, that machineries must be found that
will aim, by the utilisation of the greatest individual force,
at the widest social good. To aim at less is insult to the
constitution of individuals of the species now produced ; and
the aim of vast social rectitude, as motive for all individual
action, is the only protection to be found for each individual
against suppression by the vastness of existing social error.
Thus a universal quality, so to speak, has to be introduced
into the minutest efforts and actions of domestic life, con-
secrating domesticity to the only true and persistent instincts
of modern man, establishing at every hour the identity of
the reason for mundane existence, with the reason of every
exercise of man's operative power during the course of it. If
to live in order to induce co-operation with the divine ac-
tivities throughout the world is good, it is not less good, as
an indispensable part of such living, to stand in the very
current of these divine activities. With every motion of the
hand and every action of the mind operating in this spirit,
and co-operating for this object, the order of the simplest
labours becomes experimental science, and the fitness for such
order of each labourer becomes to himself a subject of con-
stant inquiry. Hence self-discipline and self-modification
will become the constant habit of each. They will scrutinise
themselves for those things wliich render them imperfect
assistants of consolidated operativeness — knowing that the
quality of this operativeness must affect with endless con-
sequences the future of all society.
But it will sutlice, without enlarging on the more purely
ethical side of this subject, to mention that the most difficult
78 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
part of this work of discipline and modification docs itself,
by tlie very fact of juxtaposition of natures according to laws
— the laws of mutual relief of superfluous vitality by spiritual
organisms, as elsewhere described ; and that it is generally
sufficient to seek and recognise frankly the imperfections in
question, to guard against the mental inertia which would
otherwise impede the spontaneous action of true law.
Each person will also work on all sides to perfect in the
details of his duties what has been missing in his previous
education ; and while this will be the more difficult for those
who embark in co-operative efforts late in life, it will be the
more necessary for them to do it in the degree of their op-
portunity, because it is assumable that they may find them-
selves, by the very reason of age and general experience, called
upon at any moment to act as leaders, and to infuse a varied
quality of power into the direction of many lives. It is diffi-
cult to say which is the more needful to true service in works
both small and great, the little sciences of practical life, or
the high arts and knowledge that place us in communication
with the minds charged at all times with those inspirations
by which man has been raised out of his grovelling among
the bare necessities of physical existence. The superior ne-
cessity of either will exist only to individuals who have been
led by circumstances to a special neglect of one class of know-
ledge. Those persons who have been obliged to confine the
application of their faculties more exclusively to the require-
ments of the body in domestic and industi-ial arts, will feel
more and more the degradation of exclusive participation in
material interests, and will seize every opportunity of enter-
ing the realms of intellectuality and spirituality, by acquaint-
ing themselves with the rich products of the human spirit,
mind, and imagination ; by opening their blunted sensibilities
to joy in art and beauty ; and by storing their memories both
with the acts of men and nations in all times, and their
thoughts and mode of feeling, — because these acts and
thoughts and feelings record the march of a divine growth on
earth. Those persons, on the other hand, who, by drift of
circumstance or pursuit of inclination, have held aloof from
the whole region of material and industrial ways and means
of living, will condescend towards these in spite of personal
DEPARTMENTS OF SERVICE. 79
disiuclination, when they reflect that the higher qualities of
spirit, developed by lives and generations among refined pur-
suits, must be infused for the unification of the social body
into material labours, that the basis of earthly existence may
not remain foul when its superstructure can be so fair, and
when they reflect further that no one can make this infusion,
but he whose good fortune has developed in him the refining
quality. Therefore the necessities are broad and many for
meeting together of high and low, rich and poor, one with
another, when those come forth out of the ocean of va^ue
social movement who see, or think they see, in the idea of
angelic co-operation in men, an explanation of the pressure
now straining and fevering society, and a gTound of faith in
the rapid advance of society towards a state which human
hearts desire.
Even a few thus gathered together may be the central
machinery of a mighty social engine, if they aim thus vastly
and work thus minutely. There must be order in every work,
— the order and discipline of responsibilities judiciously dis-
tributed, faithfully recognised, and clearly limited. It should
be known to each and all, as much as ^^ossible, under whose
eye each detail of work is performed. Wlien the general
organisers have distributed the various domestic operations
into their classes, and have laid the charge of each class
upon special persons, and have selected for each the necessary
assistance, it will require care to avoid confusion, and for
many reasons. Say, for instance, that while the group of
those ready for responsible charge is still small, one person
has charge of several departments of domestic operations,
that person may have to instruct assistants, either co-operative
volunteers or hired servants perhaps, in respect of these dif-
ferent Ijranclies ; that person must be careful to give such
instruction to each assistant only in respect of the particular
work (jf the said charge, and must not slide into the habit of
offering suggestions to an assistant in tliis charge, about work
performed by him or her at other hours under diflerent
superintendence. Any one person, volunteer or paid — tliat is
to say, a corporate member or an accidental member of tlie
liousehold — may Ije helper in one or more departments, and
may have full charge at the same time in several others, sa
80 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
that the boundary-line of these departments must be very
exactly defined, or it will not be possible to know on what
points simply to perform work according to instructions, and
on what points to exert authority over others, or individual
freedom of idea. Again, any person may be invited to give
help temporarily at any moment in departments under others'
charge, and much of the charm and sweetness of united lives
arises from these spontaneous appeals from one another ; but
the person thus called in must be careful not to pervert the
circumstance of this call to an opportunity for interference
with the individual responsibility of the one temporarily to
be served. The most highly and extensively burdened with
free responsibilities, must simply serve without criticism,
mental or expressed, when asked for help for the simplest and
most mechanical operation. If the distribution of responsi-
bility is clear, and the respect for them perfect, exchanges
of assistance can be infinite, and the painful monotony of
unchanging labours will be pleasantly avoided ; but until co-
workers are skilled to discern disorder, it will easily occur,
and the most easily through the most generous and devoted.
A kind person will, for instance, be inclined by the first
movement or impulse to obey at once any demand for help ;
yet to obey it will often disturb the order of work. He must
therefore reflect if the- call is legitimate or not, provided
always that he has time and strength at his disposal for the
purpose. It is a legitimate call if the person who makes it
has had given to him free responsibility for the work in
question ; in that case his freedom extends to the calling in
of volunteer labour. It is not a legitimate call if the person
who makes it serves in the work in question under the re-
sponsibility of another. In this latter case, the assistant who
requires help should only obtain it through the responsible
director or with his sanction. To illustrate this — a little
child asks for some help in the matter of its play. This
is a just demand : it has been left free in that play, and is not
responsible to any one for the manner of its performance.
But suppose a person charged, we will say, on the one hand
with the whole administration of the cooking department, and
accustomed on the other to assist for one hour in making
clothes, falls ill, she must act differently regarding the two
DISTRIBUTIOX OF RESPONSIBILITIES. 81
labours. In seeking her substitute, she will select one for
the cooking amongst her own subordinates, or, not finding
one, will refer the matter to the head of the house, and will
not, of course, feel free to exercise her right of claim to friendly
help, even as head of a department, if this would absorb the
time required for the other duties ; but should the amount of
help she wants, require only the leisure of her neighbour,
reference to the general head would not be necessary. As
regards, on the other hand, the hour of needlework, she will
obviously leave the choice of her substitute to the manager
in that department. It is not difficult to train the least gifted
with intellectual conceptions into obedience of the laws of
organisation ; and it is not difficult to reconcile the most
spirited to perfect subordination, when it is the subordina-
tion to useful and intelligible law. It is more difficult to dis-
tribute each detail of a varied labour on a distinct organic
scale, and watch over preservation of the whole plan by
delicate guidance of authorities and obediences along their
appointed channels ; and this is an operation which, though
it be necessary to all great and effective social work, should
not be attempted even on a little scale by any one not pre-
pared to guide individuals in their little acts with tender love,
and to guard organisation as a holy principle with earnest
devotion.
On the other hand, so necessary is the preparation, obtained
only through familiarity with details for correct and benefi-
cent organisation, that scarcely any sacrifice of time or per-
sonal inclination is too great a price for making it ; and to
work in meekness, in order as rapidly as possible to be
fitted to watch over the lives of many others, is an ambition
which will not unworthily replace many which are not pro-
ductive of high moral and social evolution.
Tlie foregoing remarks were suggested by the simple neces-
sity of having, even in a very small household, ample registries
of possessions. On the grounds here stated, it will often be
found necessary for people otherwise talented and capable
of what might appear higlier employments, to award some
part of tlieir lives to simple things, and to concentrate upon
them earnest efforts for perfection. Thus the house-l)ook, or
Ijooks it may be, including lists, and rules, and recipes, and
F
82 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
accounts, is a collection worthy of good faculties in the mak-
ing, and of respect in the keeping of it. Current records,
in the shape of accounts, lists, &c., of all operations, are more
than ever indispensable to people who direct such operations,
with the desire of training all engaged in them into such
clear understanding of their effect, as will enable each one
safely and intelligently to direct them on a still larger and
larger scale.
ISTow, to be ignorant of the amount of material invested
in any given domestic work, of its changing market values,
to fail in noticing the accustomed consumption and wear
and tear of the material, and to make no record of these
things, for the purpose of assisting memory, of clearing
understanding, and of instructing others, — is to carry forward
a result, whatever artistic substitutes one may have at the
moment, almost sterile from a co-operative point of view.
To do well is very little, and may be less. To do well so
as to make it possible and easy for others to do well also,
and to do better, is necessary to work that makes its horizon
wide. The type of persons who can produce good performance
in any mode of labour by concentrating upon it their faculties
with the single view of performing it well, is a very ordinary
one ; but the procreative quality of generous faculty at this
date, requires us to develop a type of workers who hold the
drive of personal energy in perpetual check ; who scatter it
by the way, preparing paths of others' work ; who inquire of
their own performance constantly if it creates facilities for
performance by others ; who act in all things in reference to
the acting power of others. He can no longer be esteemed an
excellent workman who can only work excellently. For his
work to prove that it is living, it must be generative; and
it will not be generative unless the workman has his mind
trained to a clear conception of his own methods, and their
connection with the laws of nature ; unless he can impart
that understanding by word of mouth at any time or write
it down ; unless the sum of his experience, while he is
constantly increasing it, is as constantly forced by him into
mental shape easy of registration, and, whenever useful,
registered, so that it may be at all moments ready of access
to all his fellow-creatures, and so that he may be at all
RECOED OF EXPENSES. 83
moments in a mental position to impart his methods to others.
We will suppose a household where there is no record kept
of what moneys go for the buying of food, and what for the
buying of clothes — that is to say, what sum for a purpose
indispensable to health, and what for a more elastic necessity,
— how can such a household know absolutely if it can afford
to burden itself or not with the cost of another member, to
whose destitution it might wish to minister ? It would answer
the question at once if it had made note of such expenditures
as could be reduced or postponed without danger to the general
wellbeing, by deciding to moderate these ; but it would not
wisely add hea\'y burdens to itself if they necessitated in-
fringing upon the sums devoted to absolute necessities. Still
more important must it be to keep graduated accounts of
funds embarked, say, in uncertain speculations, imperfectly
tested industries, or fine arts, or things termed luxuries, which,
rightly selected, develop the refinements that lurk within all
natures, but which are all among the things which could be
set aside for the sake of any more important duty. There
should, properly speaking, be no haziness about the financial
condition of any occupation. What it represents of material,
of labour, should stand clearly at all moments before the
mind and before the eye of some one, and all people should
be either possessed of the capacity for formulating clear ideas
and statements concerning the value of labours, or be in train-
ing for that purpose.
84
CHAPTER V.
INSUFFICIENCY OP THE NATURAL REASON AS A GUIDE TO DIVINE TRUTH,
BECAUSE IT CANNOT DIVEST ITSELF OF THE IDEAS OF TIME AND
SPACE — HENCE THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE BOTH BLIND GUIDES — MAN
THE ARENA OF CONFLICTING ATOMIC FORCES — TRANSMUTATION OF
MATERIAL FORCES BY CONVERSION OF MORAL PARTICLES — METHODS
AND MANIFESTATIONS OF INFESTATION — ATOMIC CONSTITUTION OF
MORAL ATMOSPHERE — PHENOMENA OF HEREDITY — ASTROLOGY — WILL-
FORCE UNDER SPECIFIC INFLUENCE — FAITH -HEALING — ELIXIR OF
LIFE — RADIATION OF DIVINE LIFE DEPENDS ON MAGNETIC CON-
DITIONS — SUFFERING INVOLVED THEREBY — RELIGION USELESS AS A
MEANS TO A PERSONAL END — WORLD - REGENERATION TO BE AC-
COMPLISHED BY A RADIATION OF DIVINELY INSPIRED HUMAN
AFFECTION — INSPIRATION THREEFOLD : THROUGH UNION WITH GOD,
MAN, AND NATURE — POLLUTION OF ITS CURRENT THREEFOLD : BY
PRIDE, BY SELFISHNESS, BY APATHY — ITS FORCE DEPENDS UPON ITS
CONCENTRATION UPON GROUPS ANIMATED BY THE SAME MOTIVE.
It is my hope that among those who have had the patience
to follow me thus far, there may be some who will be ready
to admit that we have reached ground where the theologian
and the man of science may meet, without doing violence
to those conscientious convictions which have hitherto driven
them into opposite extremes : these atoms, which form the
essence, so to speak, of what has heretofore been considered
" matter," and which are the transmitting media of procrea-
tion and sustaining life, are sufficiently substantial to satisfy
the requirements of science, while, as they also compose the
immortal part of us, and are the habitations of thought
and emotion, they should be sufficiently spiritual to satisfy
the requirements of theology for those that make them.
"The existence of nothing" being a contradiction in terms,
the thing which exists, whether it be called body or soul,
CONTEST BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 85
matter or spirit, must consist of substantial force of some
kind — indeed, it is stated of Christ in the Nicene Creed
that He is of one substance with the Father. The reason
why conchisions at which disputants have arrived are irrecon-
cilable, is because they both persist in introducing into the
consideration of the question the elements of time and space,
which have no existence outside of the relation which they
derive from that very limited class of faculties, which we
call our senses.
The revelations which we receive, as another class of
faculty connected with our subsurface consciousness develops
within us, are incapable of being transferred into language,
because all our methods of verbal expression are derived from
the experiences of our senses, with all their present limita-
tions, and rest upon the assumption that time and space
are realities, — ^just as another language and an entirely new
vocabulary would need to be invented, to enable people who
live in the third dimension of space to understand those
who live in the fourth. It would be useless, therefore, to
attempt to describe many things which, if people were in
a position to apprehend them, would render such differences
as now exist between them impossible. That neither the
men of science nor the men of theology struggle to develop
these more interior faculties, is entirely their own fault, and
I am afraid must, in some cases, be set down to the compla-
cent self-satisfaction arising from a conviction on the part
of both, that they know their own business too well to con-
descend to take a hint from anybody. But a blind belief in
the superficial senses is as unsafe a guide to truth, as a blind
belief in a book : science is as mole-eyed as theology, and yet
to one or the other tlie whole civilised world trusts for en-
lightenment. No wonder that these two sets of blind guides,
leading their blind followers, sliould stumble against each
other in the dark, an<l fight furiously. The pity is, that one
ray of light let in from the proper quarter would show that
tliey were figliting over a shadow ; but this ray each man
must let in for liimself, nobody can do it for him, and he must
do it by getting rid of all his old preconceived notions and
prejudices, and by opening the chambers of his affections,
through incessant service for others, and arduous discipline
86 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
and painful self-sacrifice. There is no royal road to the
hidden knowledge which reveals the mystery of the action
of the vital forces on natvire. Each man must laboriously
travel it alone ; but he reaps a rich reward as the light dawns
on his heretofore beclouded consciousness, and the problems
which distracted it melt away before its heat, like ice under
the rays of the sun. But the divine sun can alone perform
this marvel, and it is only by inmost union with God that
man can attain a perception of the wonders of divine science.
Let us then assume as a hypothesis that the invisible world,
with all the beings in it, as well as this one, — the two, in fact,
forming a single universe, — is sustained and animated by a
material force, which emanates from the Great Source of
Life who pervades all things ; and that owing to a disturbance
in that force — the nature of which will be alluded to later —
its energies are displayed in a disorderly manner, and produce
what we term physical disease and moral evil ; — the question
naturally arises in the minds of those who would fain see
that force restored to its normal activities, How can this
result be brought about ? and how can we contribute to bring
it about ? Is there any process by which we can convert our
organisms — each one of which is a battery of that force — into
a distributing agent for a purer and more powerful current
than any which now exist ? Manifestly only by approaching
nearer to its source, and receiving it as unpolluted as possible
by its passage through other impure organisms. The first ex-
perience of which the man engaged in this attempt becomes
conscious is, that he is the arena in which two strongly
antagonistic currents come into collision, and that he is frus-
trated in his attempt to open himself only to that which
is pure, by a flood of that which is impure, seeking ingress
by the opening which his efforts to receive a greater measure
of the pure effected in his organism. If he doubted it before,
he now becomes conscious that this invasion of the force he
has roused, and which, though constantly prompting him to
evil formerly, did so insidiously, and through a subtle action
on what seemed to him his own initiative, is distinctly per-
sonal and intelligent; in other words, he perceives that a
malignant influence seeks to possess and dominate him, which
he recognises to be outside of his own personality ; while
ANGELS AND DEMONS. 87
his perhaps unconscious cry for aid, in the heat of the combat
is responded to by a beneficent influence which he also re-
cognises as personal ; in other words, no matter how scientific
he may have been when he began his experiment, he will
veiy soon, if he is persevering and sincere, come to recognise
in one influence what in old parlance was called a " guardian
angel," and in the other an infesting demon, and he will
further learn that the degree ui which he can attract the one
and repel the other, depends upon the force of his will, and
the promptitude with wliicli he puts into operation his de-
termiuation to obey the one and resist the other, at all cost
and sacrifice. Thus he seeks, through constant and unremit-
ting combat, to fit himself to become a medium for the trans-
mission of the pure life-current, instead of being, as he was
formerly, a medium of mixed and opposing currents. For
it cannot be too strongly urged that we are all of us mediums
of one kind or another, and that however much polluted the
current may have become by the channels through which it
passed before it reached us, it derived its origin in the first
instance from God, and to stop the impulses of life which are
thus projected into us, would be synonymous with cessation
of life itself. This increases the difficulty, for it becomes a
question of the transmutation, not of the expulsion, of tlie
material force, the atoms of which, interlocked witli our own,
form the basis of all that is bad and impure, as well as of
what is good, in our own moral nature. By the aid which
we derive from our angelic allies we transmute and recom-
bine these ; but as some of them form part of the life of the
infesting being, the latter is thus directly affected by this
conversion of moral particles, and can only escape from the
regenerating influence tlms cast upon him, by a very power-
ful exercise of will in the opposite direction, involving a
jjainful dislocation of atoms.
As a general rule, the eartli-man who has fought the good
fig] it, and vanquished his unseen enemies, has also the satis-
faction of knowing that lie has converted them, and that they
pass, tlirongli liis instrumentality, into tlie tutelage of those
who have lielped him to release them from the bondage to
which tliey had l^een reduced by their own evil passions. It
is thus that the visible reacts on the invisible, and that we
88 SCIENTIFIC KELIGION.
are here unconsciously the guardian angels of those whose
vices remained unsubdued in this life, but who can now be
reached in a more effective manner than was formerly pos-
sible ; because an angel can act far more powerfully on a
disembodied organism through an embodied one, and by its
assistance, where the atoms of the two are interlocked, than
directly. This is borne out by the fact, well known to spirit-
ualists, when " elementals," as they are termed by them, or
unfortunate beings, usually of a very debased type, who are
still chained to this earth magnetically, owing to the gross
condition of their atomic particles, implore human beings to
release them — a testimony I am aware that will not be re-
garded as worth nmch by the world at large ; but those who
can realise that men here, influence most materially by their
lives, the lives and conditions of those who have passed into
another state of existence, must feel that it adds most seriously
to their responsibilities ; while it should operate as a powerful
stimulant to them to rise into new and higher conditions in
this world, than they have hitherto deemed possible. It
should also be remarked that men suffer much, not only
morally but physically, from these invasions ; for the lower
class of infesting spirits obtain magnetic elements from
human organisms by which they sustain their own, and
urge them to vices which furnish them with the sustenance
^they desire.
Thus the first impulse of a man who dies of drink, on
reaching the other world, is to infest the organism of a
drunkard here, and urge him to saturate himself with al-
cohol, the essential quality of which he drains out of the sub-
jected organism, thus intensifying the desire of the victim,
to an uncontrollable degree, to satisfy a craving that can
never be satisfied, till the external tissues of the organism
are finally wasted. During his drunken bouts he becomes
a medium, through whom his infesting demon often speaks
and raves ; while the latter foresees and shrinks from the
prospect of the physical death of his victim, because he knows
that it will involve a dislocation of atoms, which will convey
the same sensation of decease as if he were himself passing
through the death-agony. In like manner, a coquette, ac-
customed to live on the admiration of men while in this
INFESTATION. 89
world, no sooner passes from it than she seeks the form of a
beautiful woman in which to take up her abode, and there
nourish herself on the male elements which she draws from
the homage rendered to her victim, whose love of admiration
she excites to the utmost possible degree in order to obtain
them. If the beauties of society, who live on the devotions
paid to their attractions by the opposite sex, only knew that
they were feeding sirens, by no means beautiful, all the time,
they would be less vain of themselves, and more chary of
their charms. These are truths which have been stated in
a different form by Swedenborg and other seers ; if I restate
them here, I do so because I believe the majority of people to
be ignorant of them, and because it is of the highest import-
ance that they should know the truth.
From this it is plain that what is generally termed " sin,"
is, in fact, the outward and visible sign of infestation, and
the expression "forgiveness of sins," so often used in the
Xew Testament, means, in reality, " expulsion of infestation "
— the word dipLtj/jLi having been wrongly rendered "to for-
give." This reading will throw new light on many passages,
the true import of which is now totally misapprehended.
As in certain of the grossest organisms an affinity exists
between the atomic particles of man, and those of the lower
animal creation, suggesting vices of the most degrading de-
scription, so those who exhibited this tendency in earth-life,
now draw the magnetic elements they require from the bodies
of animals, which they more or less inhabit. This occupation
of the organisms, both of men and animals, by those in
another state of existence, is the origin of the idea of metem-
psychosis so prevalent in Eastern religions, while the intimate
association of the atomic particles of this world and the
other, forms a medium by which the memory of the invisible
associates passes into those they haunt here, and results in
what seem to them Hashes of recollection of a former state
of existence. This is the origin of the doctrine of reincar-
nation.
It is in the atomic constitution of the moral atmosphere
by which a man surrounds himself by his own acts during
life, that he creates for himself what the Buddhists call his
Karma ; and it is the interlocking of the atomic particles of
90 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
parents with their ofispriiig, during the process of procreation
and parturition, which accounts for all the phenomena of
heredity. The ancient science of astrology was based upon
the same fact; for inasmuch as no atom of the universe is
absolutely unaffected by the combinations of all the other
atoms, but are ever presenting kaleidoscopic changes, by
reason of which every minute particle occupies a different
relation to all the other particles, and inasmuch as they are
interlocked through all apparent space, visible and invisible,
the movements of the heavenly bodies, and their constantly
changing relations to each other, cannot be without their in-
fluence upon the atoms of this world, and of the human beings
who inhabit it. An illustration of this atomic connection
between the sun and the earth, occurs in the well-known fact
that electrical disturbances and hurricanes are most numerous
during the years of the maximum of sun-spots.
The power which the will-force exercises over the atoms of
the constituent principles of the organism, has been already
alluded to in the phenomena which have resulted from
hypnotic experiments ; it is this will-force, concentrated under
a specific influence, which constitutes what is known as
" faith " — the potency of which is alluded to by Christ when
he says that by it we can remove mountains, and the exer-
cise of which was an indispensable preliminary to the cures
which He wrought, deemed at the time miraculous. It is by
means of the projection of this faith-force into nature, that
some of the more remarkable instances of answers to prayer
have been obtained; and it is by the combined operation of the
atoms of the faith-force in the operator — provided that the
magnetism is of the right quality — and of the patient, that
those cures, of which a good deal has been heard lately, of
healing by faith have been accomplished. The oriental mys-
tics, who have from the most ancient times been conversant
to some extent with the correlation of atoms and the laws
which govern it, positively assert that they have succeeded in
prolonging life to an extent quite incredible to the Western
mind, and in modifying the conditions of death, though this has
only been in rare instances, which I have not had any means of
authenticating, but I see nothing impossible in it ; and if it be
so, it would probably account for the fable of the " Elixir of
WILL-FORCE. 91
Life " — the elixir being nothing more than the concentration
of the will, exercised in an almost superhuman degree for
many years upon the one idea of prolonging existence, ac-
companied by an absolute certainty on the part of the dev-
otee that it would be prolonged; the effect of this fixed
idea, backed by a fixed will, upon the atoms of the constituent
principles of the man, being finally to bring them under a
certain control, and so to regulate that constant mutation of
them, which, it is well known to medical science, is accom-
plished every few years in the outer human frame. This
involves a knowledge of the different principles of which
man is composed, and which is placed by oriental science at
seven. The question whether this is so or not, is too abstruse
to discuss here, the more especially as it has no practical
bearing — length of days not being by any means an object
worthy of ambition in itself. That the term of a man's life
will be prolonged if the atomic disorder, which now produces
physical decay and moral evil, can be overcome, is certain ;
but it is an incident in the great triumph of the race, not the
triumph itself.
The tremendous dynamic potency which is stored in the
human will, when it is thus reinforced by the wills of beings
who are unseen, is only just beginning to dawn upon Western
science, which does not yet admit the invisible agency. It is
manifest that those who happen to be exceptionally endowed
with this will-energy, should learn how to use it to the benefit,
and not to the injury of mankind ; and these especially should
open themselves, by the moral discipline and ordeals to which
I have alluded, to receive divine impression. This is espe-
cially true of those engaged in healing the sick. Unless
there is a strong internal impression that this power should
be put forth for this purpose, faith or will cures are not in the
divine order ; for a healing power can be put tlirougli a well-
intentioned human instrument by malevolent influences, and
a life may thus be prolonged to its own serious injury. This
does not iniply that medical remedies should not in all cases
of illness be resorted to, because the malevolent influences on
them can always lie counteracted by beneficent influences;
but wliere the luiniau will comes into play for selfish pur-
poses, an entirely new set of atomic combinations are intro-
92 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
duced, which resist the operation of those wills iu the unseen
which are acting under, divine impulse.
We are thus furnished with the key to many problems
which have hitherto been deemed insolvable, the value of
which, unfortunately, can only be appreciated by those whose
faculties are to some extent internally developed. As, how-
ever, the system of the visible and invisible worlds forms
one indivisible whole, pervaded throughout by the same
material forces, in infinite permutations and combinations,
and as every unit in it is inseparably bound with every other
unit in it, it is evident that no one, whether a human being
or an angel — and by this latter term I mean only those who
at some epoch of our planet's history have inhabited it — can
reach a state where they are unaffected by the suffering con-
sequent upon the debased moral condition which reigns both
here and in the unseen world. Nor is it possible for them
to receive divine life without giving it forth to those who
need it.
This is the first and fundamental law of life, that it cannot
be passive : it is, in fact, " matter in motion." In like manner
the evil ones are perpetually giving out the life which they
have polluted, and which is so poisoned that it carries with
it the seeds of death. The human recipients of these op-
posite qualities of life cannot help magnetically imparting
them to others. Hence we feel the presence of one person
vivifying, and of another exhausting. Those who come into
atomic relations of a deeper kind — induced, for instance, by
intense sympathy of labour for a common divine end — become
incredibly sensible to the interchange of atomic particles,
charged either with sympathy, or, in the case of an evil in-
fluence invading too powerfully, with antipathy. The result
is not merely moral, but actual physical suffering. To such
an extent is this sometimes the case, that the moral defects
of others with whom one is in this close relation, are each
characterised by a different physical sensation, so marked
that it is possible to tell by the sensation from whom the
magnetism is projected, even though the person may be dis-
tant. Under such circumstances, the thought of the person
increases the pain, which is also caused by the projection of
thought by the person. Hence circumstances often arise
MORAL SYMPATHY OR ANTIPATHY. 93
when two persons may be strongly attached to each other,
but when, owing to their respective magnetic conditions, it is
not possible for them to live together without severe suffering
to both.
These are facts which cannot be denied, — at all events
their denial can only be the result of ignorance, and cannot
render them the less true. I have lived with many others in
this internal relation, the sensitive condition being more or
less developed in all of us ; thus, for instance, I had a dear
friend who had naturally a violent temper, which, nevertheless,
he succeeded in keeping under control, but however he might
conceal the impulse to anger, I was always instantly aware of
its existence by a pain in my face. I have felt shooting pains
in the head or chest, and many other sensations, all indicating
certain moral conditions in others, while they were equally
sensitive to moral changes in me. In fact we acted as moral
barometers to each other. It was possible to modify these
conditions by varied groupings of the individuals, so that the
magnetisms of one should neutralise those of the other;
magnetism was employed to a large extent amongst us,
and many de\ices resorted to, often invohdng go-eat suffer-
ing and discomfort, to induce harmonic action between the
conflicting currents from above and below, to which we were
especially open. In a word, the experiences which I then un-
derwent, resulted often in phenomena which would be deemed
incredible, and to which it is, therefore, not necessary to
allude here.
I gathered from the criticisms which appeared on a novel ^
which I published not long since, in which I endeavoured
to describe the organic effects which might thus be induced by
moral sympathy or antipathy, how completely in the dark
tlie general public still is in regard to this whole class of
subjects.
These things being so, and the angelic ministrants being ^
in the constant radiation of their affections to those they
desire to serve, it is plain that tliey can only reach them
by a contact of atoms which produces suffering, — suffering,
it is true, which contains within it a boundless peace and
happiness. Indeed the capacities of the good for joy, and
' Masollani : A Problem of the Period. W. Blackwood & Sons.
94 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
of the bad for suffering, are infinitely beyond anything we
can conceive here, owing to the presence of tliat gross material
husk which we call our bodies, and which deadens emotional
sensation in either direction. But the idea that we can reach
a condition in which we can individually free ourselves from
the great human disease is utterly vain; if one member of
the universal body suffers, all the members must suffer with
it ; and the great mistake which Buddha made, was in thinking
that any amount of bodily mortification, or abstract contempla-
tion, could emancipate him from the common lot of all man-
kind. At the same time, his instinct that rest could only be
found by penetrating the surface of physical and material
life, was a sound one, but it was the rest of torpor.
In the first reaction from the inversions which we find in
nature, there is in humanity a disposition to cast away its
idol, or crush it as an unworthy or useless thing beneath its
feet. But when divine science and experience can prove that
no being, whether in this world or the other, can exist without
a body, or be reverenced except through contact with its
outward as well as its inward forms, and that nature herself
is a reflex, although a broken one, of all that is most divine,
we must return to an elevated worship of nature, if we
would drink at one of the purest springs of inspiration.
There are three modes by which divine life and inspiration
are continually acting upon us. They relate to our union
with God, with man, and with nature. From the deep inmost
of our spirit there penetrates to outer consciousness the far-
sounding but distinctly audible echo of the voice which
proclaims the eternal inner union between the Creator and
the created. From man and from our loving fellowship with
him, and service for him, come to us the love-gifts which
■we both impart and receive. From nature, when we, with
the labour of our own hands, the energy of our wills, and the
exercise of our faculties, redistribute and reorganise the dis-
located atoms, there returns to us a vibration of harmonic
motion in the magnetic currents which react upon our frames,
and bring God down through us to the soil of outer things,
placed in our own especial charge ; the whole forming a
grand inspiring trinity of Wisdom, Love, and Operation.
Of these three modes, Buddha, and the religious teachers
LIFE-EECEIVEKS AXD LIFE-GIVERS. 95
who preceded him, sought only the first. There was an
intense desire for union with God, and an earnest lono-ino-
tor absorption into Him, accompanied by a moral code in-
culcating a pure and noble system of ethics; but it was
only as a means to this personal end : their teaching took no
cognisance of the atomic chain which binds man and nature
into one inseverable whole, and its application to the human
need has been, in consequence, absolutely barren of results.
It is only through the radiation of our affections upon man,
and of our energies upon nature, that we can aid in the
regeneration of the one, and in the reconstruction of the
other, and so by co-operating with the diA'ine purpose, find
that inner union with God which the ancient teachers so
evidently yearned after ; and to do this effectively, w^e must
realise the power which the affections can exercise, through
the magoietic currents, of sympathy over man, and that the
will can exercise, through the intellect, over nature ; for in
the human will and rational faculty reside those potential
atoms, which are derived from the infinite creative potency,
and which enable man to fashion, and to some extent
control, the material nature by which he is surrounded.
In the degree in which we open ourselves to the channels
of the divine love, and of the creative life, will man and
nature respond to our touch, and shall we be partakers of
the joy which is inseparable from that love, and that life.
There is in reality no such thing as passivity towards God :
we must move towards Him, or we in effect close the avenue
of His approach ; and we can only move thus towards Him in
the degree that we realise that every faculty of our being
is generative and reproductive, and that our capacity of re-
ceiving divine potency is conditioned upon our promptitude
in imparting it. We are life-receivers, because we are life- ^
givers. Stagnation is as impossiljle in us as it is in the
atoms of which we are composed: we are all "matter in
motion," moving upwards or downwards in the great whirl
of cause and effect, with a velocity which would startle us
if we could watcli our progress, as those can who are them-
selves hidden from our gaze.
If then, as I have endeavoured to show, the most divine
inspiration issues from the threefold fountain of Wisdom,
96 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
Love, and Operation, whose life-giving currents should im-
pregnate human thought, sympathy, and deed, and will retain
their purity just in the degree in which the receptacles
which receive them are free from taint, it follows that the
diversion of them into devious channels, their pollution, and
their obstruction, must be attended with the most untoward
consequences to the human race. Nevertheless these three
currents are invariably so diverted, polluted, and obstructed,
and this is due to the pride, the selfishness, and the apathy
of man.
Firstly, the current of the divine wisdom is diverted by man
into devious channels by his pride, when he creates his God
after his own image, and attributes to Him the qualities of
anger, jealousy, cruelty, injustice, and revenge. Such a God
is the God of the Old Testament: "Thou thoughtest," says
the Psalmist, " that I was altogether such an one as thy-
self." Nor is His nature much modified in the New, out of
which a scheme for the salvation of man has been constructed
by human invention, as opposed to the spirit of the divinely
inspired life of the pure Being whose teaching it records, as it
must be revolting to all who have ever felt, however faintly,
the ineffable touch of the Great All Father and All Mother,
thrilling the inner sense by contact with the Word made
flesh. Doctrines which are alike insulting to the Almighty,
and dishonouring to Him whose mission it was to impart to
man a new and higher conception of the Deity — however
earnestly and devoutly held — form one of the most potent
barriers to the descent of an inspiration by divine wisdom ;
for it renders impossible that inner union with God, through
Christ, who is its channel ; and this union can only be ob-
tained by a true conception of the relations which God, the
Saviour, and man, bear to each other ; to which I shall refer
hereafter.
In default of a pure conception of the attributes of the
Deity, man can no more be a reflex of the divine wisdom,
however faint, than the rays of the sun can be reflected from
the surface of a slough of mud.
Secondly, the inspiration of divine love is polluted by man's
selfishness, when it paralyses his activities in the service
of his fellows. When this current of the divine affections
THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMANITY. 97
pours into a man who is cold, and hard, and cruel, and self-
seeking, its atoms are transformed into the atoms of which
the selfish instincts are composed, and become potent for
hate, just as they would have been powerful for love, were
the large capacity which he has for loving himself, converted
into one for loving his neighbours.
But even those who desire most earnestly to receive this
love-current in its purity, and to crush out all selfish instincts
which may impede their free and absolute devotion to their
fellows, find that the effort is one which taxes all their powers
of endurance ; for we often meet with the most determined
resistance from those whom we are called upon to serve, in
whom coldness finally gives place to ingratitude, and passive
opposition is succeeded by active persecution. Unless under
these trials we are able to stand firm and to endure, all the
concessions we make, and the weakness we show, pollute the
love-current, until our usefulness is finally destroyed. If, on
the other hand, we maintain our attitude of forbearance and
tenderness, the love-currents store themselves till the requisite
force has accumulated, until at last, by the outpouring of its
energies, the enemies' citadel is stormed, and the victory,
which seemed hopeless, is finally won.
But the combatant thus fighting for humanity against
the forces which obsess it, must be prepared for apparent
defeat. The nobler the cause, the more heroic and self-
sacrificing the character of those to whom it is intrusted, the
greater is the risk and probability of their becoming the
victims and martyrs to the world's unwillingness, and unreadi-
ness to respond to these inspirations. It must too often be
the destiny of such, not only to suffer constantly from the
necessary suppression of the stores of life they would other-
wise receive and impart, but to pass through inward if not
outward martyrdom, in the painful doubt whether it may not
liave been due to some shortcoming of their own, that tliey
fail to see as yet the accomplishment of their purest and
highest aspirations. It was under sucli an agony that the
highest teacher and profoundest lover of humanity, passed
from eartli with the despairing cry, " My God ! my Cfod ! why
hast Thou forsaken me ? "
Thirdly, the inspiration of the divine operation is ob-
Q
98 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
structed by the apathy of man, when he does not put pliysical
energy forth into the external nature by which he is sur-
rounded. He must organise the atoms of his material environ-
ment, so that they may correspond with the atoms of the
other two currents, if he would effect a perfect synthesis of
the three, and this can only be done by a certain amount of
physical energy.
The man who seeks the highest inspiration, and who ne-
glects this important factor in it, may receive an impulse
of a very high and pure quality, but it will lack the essen-
tial element of the practical. He may form a far higher
and truer conception of God than other men, he may exercise
an abundant charity, and feel a tender sympathy for his
fellows ; but his life will be relatively barren of results,
because he will have organised nothing. He will not have
added a stone to the foundation of that new society which
we are labouring to reconstruct: he cannot form part of a
home thus engaged, because on the one point of daily labour
in details as an act of worship, he will be out of sympathy,
and the current of operation being obstructed in him, it will
be obstructed in all ; for the magnetism of apathy which will
radiate from him will paralyse the atoms of energy in the
organisms of the others, and a sense of discomfort will ensue,
which will render companionship impossible. Though exter-
nal harmony may be preserved, the sense will become general
that progress is hopeless with such an influence permanently
active, and his absence will be necessarily but reluctantly
enforced.
For the measure of inspiration is enormously increased
by the number of those engaged in seeking it in one group,
and in the same way, and whose atoms have combined in
such a manner as to form one wire, so to speak, which
may transmit from the unseen, the electric inspirational cur-
rent. The result then becomes the inspiration, not of any one
of the number — though upon him may devolve the duty of
putting it into words — but of the group.
Thus I am conscious, while writing this, of receiving inter-
nal assistance from others with whom I am in special atomic
rwp'port for the purpose. In proportion as the group increases,
does the value and trustworthiness of the inspiration increase,
GROUPS AXD THEIR FUNCTIONS. 99
as there is less chance of its being charged with the per-
sonality of the writer ; while in the event of a statement
being made out of harmony with the general current of the
inspiration, it would be checked.
In order to ensure a wholesome and effective co-operation
in all the details wliich make for divine progress, it is neces-
sary that all those engaged in the same effort — especially if
they are living together, and their magnetic interchange is
constant and active — should put forth the utmost energy of
which they are severally capable. It is as though a group
of persons all attached together, were swimming against the
current of a powerful stream : any slackness on the part of
one, impedes the progress of aU the others ; nor is it possible
for any one to strike off in a direction of his own, without
rendering an immediate severance necessary of the cord
which attaches him to all the others. On the other hand,
the more numerous the group engaged, the more easy in
some ways does it become to attach new members to it, though
few who desire to be thus attached, have any idea, till they
try, of the tremendous struggle in store for them in the foam-
ing torrent into which they are about to be launched ; while
those who thus take on an extra charge, know full well
from experience the extra risk which is thus incurred, and
the more arduous effort which it will involve.
Tliey also know — and this is perhaps the hardest lesson
of all to learn — how slow and toilsome the progress is, how
little there is to show for all the sufferings borne and labour
accomplished, what faith and patience are required, and how
immeasurable the distance between the real that they are
grappling with, and the glorious ideal dimly showing in
the glow of the far-distant horizon. But in spite of it all
they have had their victories ; and when the stress is hardest
it is wise to look back on these for encouragement, as songs
of joy and triumph bring strength and support along a way
beset with pain and sorrow and disappointments, which, when
seen in their true proportions, are only as faint and fading
specks showing in a universe of infinite light.
It is when the earnest and awakened man, who has become
thoroughly alive to the truth of the foregoing observations,
has entered with unflinching determination and set purpose
100 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
of will upon the apparently hopeless task of making himself,
in conjunction with others, a radiative centre for the recrea-
tive "life-current into nature and into man, that he becomes
aware of the painful effect that it produces on his own
organism. He has, as it were, placed himself directly under
the concentrated ray of the Divine Sun ; and, tempered
though it be by its passage through the appropriate inter-
mediate channels, its ardours are to many wellnigh insupport-
able. This is not so in every case ; it depends largely on
organic conditions and previous experiences. Some may have
been long gradually and unconsciously, and through much
suffering, approaching the burning bush ; while others, sud-
denly awakened, as it were by an electric shock, from the
life of coldness and indifference in which they had been
steeped, are almost immediately forced into sharp suffering.
But this very fact is the strongest evidence they could desire
of the reality of the effort in which they are engaged, and of
the truth on which it is based. And herein does it differ
from every other religious impulse which has since crystal-
lised into a Church or a sect. It involves the profession
of no creed, the observance of no ceremony, the celebration
of no rites, the construction of no dogma ; it relies upon no
evidence, on nothing that has been written in this book,
but on the individual experience of every man or woman
who is ready, on the assumption of the possibility of what is
here stated being true as a hypothesis, to take the great risk,
and undergo the great sacrifices which it involves, of making
the experiment, on the chance that it may be true ; and it
differs from all existing religious corporations, sects, ecclesi-
asticisms, in this, that it cannot possibly become a formalism,
inasmuch as it demands no profession of faith, and is not
possible to be held as a theory. It is either the life itself,
with all the daily acts of sacrifice and service that it involves,
or it is nothing. These acts and this self-sacrifice are as
much within reach of the peasant as of the duke, who, if
they are equally whole-hearted and sincere, will very soon
find themselves working side by side ; for between the top and
the bottom of society, there is an immense reorganisation and
redistribution of atoms necessary ; and it will reach the ex-
tremes — as it has already done to some extent-^not so much
NEW RELIGIOUS IMPULSE. 101
through written or spoken elaboration of the matter I have
here endeavoured to set forth, as through internal jDrepara-
tion, which will render one here and one there sensible to
the magnetic influence of those who have already begun to
radiate this life, and who will thus be drawn to it often
almost in spite of themselves. But inasmuch as they will
very soon find their own efforts powerless to enable them
to realise the expectations here held out, and become con-
scious of a feebleness of will, and a physical, as well as a
moral incapacity to fight successfully against those powers of
darkness to which I have already alluded, and who will con-
centrate all their infernal enginery upon the aspirant feebly
struggling to evolve his dormant faculties, and rise into new
and higher conditions, a divine potency, hitherto latent in
nature, has been developing during these latter years, to
which allusion is made in the first chapter, and without
which the stupendous task of the regeneration of man and of
nature, through the instrumentality of man, would be utterly
hopeless.
I will presently endeavour to describe what this potency
is ; how the world has been prepared to receive it ; how it has
been dimly foreshadowed in the sacred books of all religions,
of which it is the fulfilment; and how at the moment when
society is most threatened with revolution by explosive ele-
ments from below, it will descend from above with a counter-
energy of construction, even more powerful, to enable man
to rear a new and perfected social fabric upon the d6hris of
the one which its own vices had laid low.
Before, however, entering upon this subject, it will be
necessary to expose the weakness of all social and ecclesi-
astical institutions, and the dangers which threaten them, in
consequence of the vices inherent in their operation and
constitution.
102
CHAPTER VI.
HISTORY OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH, A RECORD OF SWIFT DE-
MORALISATION ; PARTLY OWING TO DESIRE TO MAKE CONVERTS, AND
PARTLY TO THE SUBSTITUTION OP A FUTURE LIFE FOR PRESENT
PRACTICE — CONFLICT BETWEEN ROME AND THE EAST — EXTINCTION
OF GNOSTIC SECTS DESTRUCTIVE OF MUCH OF THE DEEPER TRUTH —
COMPILATION OF THE PRESENT CANON OF SCRIPTURE UNTRUST-
WORTHY — APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS AND EPISTLES — "THE TEACHING OF
THE TWELVE APOSTLES " — THE BOOK OF ENOCH — THE CHURCH OF
ENGLAND ON THE VERGE OF A GREAT MORAL REVOLUTION — THE
CONFESSIONS OF A PARISH PRIEST — NEED OF A REFORMED CHRIS-
TIANITY.
An examination into the history of all existing religions will
show us, either that the prophet or teacher himself adapted
his morality to the conditions of the people he taught, as
in the case of Moses and Mohammed — or that, if the teaching
was too elevated for the masses, as in the case of Christ, and
in a minor degree of Buddha, it was very soon reduced to
their level by their followers.
The first instinct of the disciple is to deify the master ; the
second, to make concessions in order to gain converts. It
never seems to have occurred to the disciples of those who
enunciated the highest doctrine, that the ethics which it con-
tained, should form the foundation upon which a new society
should be reared, in which the moral standard thus suggested
should be practicable. The desire of making converts inva-
riably supersedes every other consideration. The history of
the early Christian Church is a lamentable record of swift
demoralisation, largely owing to this cause. In the aban-
donment of the practice of having all things in common, in
the disputes which arose between the disciples, in the sup-
pression of the writings which were deemed authoritative
QUARRELS AMONG THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 103
by the most spiritual and enlightened portion of the early
Church, and the struggle between the worldly element — which
founded a Church in the most dissolute capital in Europe, by
reason of the concessions it made to the social conditions
which prevailed in it — and the Gnostic sects, wliich, until
extinguished, retained hold of the spiritual life which had
been preserved in the Church of the brethren in Jerusalem,
presided over by James, the brother of Christ, — we have the
story of a spiritual fiasco unparalleled in the history of
religious movements. No sooner was the great Personality
removed from the midst of His followers, than those who
had asked which should sit upon His right hand in heaven,
began to struggle for the highest place here, and jealousies,
rivalries, and bitternesses envenomed the infant communities,^
wliich were finally to give birth to the ecclesiastical mon-
strosities represented at this day at Jerusalem in the different
angles of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where, on
the occasion of sacred Christian festivals, the worshippers
over the tomb of the Lord of love, are only kept from flymg
at each other's throats by a strong guard of Moslem soldiery.
The fact that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is not over
tlie tomb of Christ is a lie the more, but the desecration of
His memory is none the less on that account. It has been
reserved for the most sacred city in the world to represent
the most degrading spectacle of human ignorance, supersti-
tion, and hypocrisy which exists anywhere in the nineteenth
century ; as it was reserved for those who call themselves the
vicegerents of Christ on earth, to rival the wickedest sover-
eigns of their time in lust, cruelty, and the worst vices of the
dark ages. These are they to whom Clirist referred when
He said, " Beware of false prophets, which come unto you in
' sheep's clotliing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. ]*>y
' their fruits ye shall know them."
Modern research is now happily enabling us to estimate at
tlieir true value the books wliich form what is called " the
' In illuHtration of this, see the first chapter of the 1st Epistle of Clemeut
to the Corinthians, in which he denounces " that wicked and detestable sedi-
' tion, so unbecoming in the elect of God, which a few headstrong and self-
' willed men have fomented to such a degree of madness, that your venerable
' and renowned name, so worthy of all men to be beloved, is greatly blas-
' phemed thereby."
104 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
canon of Scripture." We find that, so far as the New Testa-
ment is concerned, it is not possible to disconnect it from the
bitter feud which originated in the divergent views of Peter
and Paul, and their violent hostility towards each other.
AVhile the Christian Church at Pella, where it was estab-
lished after the destruction of Jerusalem, retained to some
extent the pure spirit of the teaching of Christ, its rival at
Eome was adapting itself to its worldly surroundings, and
had already inaugurated that policy of compromise and dupli-
city which soon enabled it to claim a universal supremacy.
Meantime at Alexandria, and throughout most of the Eastern
Churches, the internal sense was clung to, and they were thus
enabled to invoke — as such of their writings as have been
preserved, show — a far purer and truer inspiration. It was,
in fact, a war at last between the spirit and the letter, be-
tween the East and the West ; and it is scarcely to be won-
dered at that the inspirations which animated the former
should have been the purest, when we consider the corrupt
social and political conditions under which the Church of
Eome had struggled into life, as compared with the purer
influences which surrounded the Gnostic communities and
the Ethnico Christians. The quarrel culminated in what was
known as the Marcion heresy, towards the end of the second
century, and the canon of Scripture clearly bears on its record
the traces of the struggle which terminated in the triumph of
Eome, and the suppression of all that militated against the
doctrines it had espoused. Hence we find that the Gospels
have been tampered with, especially Luke's ; that the Acts of
the Apostles are an incorrect narrative of events,, in which
few traces of any lofty inspiration are to be found ; and that
interpolations have occurred in the various writings which
were then collected to form the text-book of the religion,
though even its compilers did not assert that they were in-
fallibly inspired — that was a dogma that was not invented
until many hundreds of years after.
I am aware that this will be controverted, and the martyr-
doms and persecutions of nearly four hundred years will be
pointed to as an evidence of the staunchness of the early
Christians in Eome to their principles. But men will die for
what they believe to be fundamental dogmas of faith, while
CANOX OF SCRIPTURE. 105
they will yield for the sake of expediency, details which they
consider of less importance, in the presence of an overwhelm-
ing pressure. Our records of the history of the first four or
five centuries after Christ are too meagre to enable us to
assert that belief as well as practice did not undergo great
changes during that period. Indeed we have every right to
assume, from the controversies and disputations that we know
occurred, that they did. Although it has now become neces-
sary to consider the compilers of the canon of Scripture to
have been as fully inspired as the books we owe to their selec-
tion, their authority was not universally considered infallible
at the time. Indeed, the divisions and scandals which took
place among them, the numerous so-called heresies and sun-
dry patristic discussions, fuUy justified scepticism on this
point then, as it does still.
Thus we have St Paul's epistle to the Laodiceans, which,
in his Epistle to the Colossians, he expressly orders should be
read in the Church, excluded from the canon of Scripture,
with about twenty other books, which were deemed authori-
tative during the first four centuries in the Christian Churches,
among them the epistles of Barnabas, Clement, and Ignatius,
which contain many passages full of an inspiration as pure
and lofty as are to be found in the canonical epistles.
Wlien we investigate the constitution of the Council of
Nice, convoked hy the Emperor Constantine — himself not a
Christian at the time, and a man of dissolute character —
charged with the high function of providing Christendom with
its Bible, we find that it was composed of 318 violent parti-
sans, of whom Sabinus, the Bishop of Heraclea, affirms that,
"excepting Constantine himself and Eusebius Pamphilus,
they were a set of illiterate creatures that understood noth-
ing ; " but then he was of the opposite faction. They began
by quarrelling among tliemselves, and libelling each other to
the Emperor; but we learn from Mosheim's 'Ecclesiastical
History ' that the Emperor burnt all their libels, and exhorted
them to peace and amity ; while Pappus tells us in his Syno-
dican to the Council, that the means employed for discovering
what books sliould be selected as canonical, was promiscuously
to put all the books referred to the Council for deliberation,
under the Communion-table in a church, when they besought
106 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
the Lord that the inspired writings might get on the table,
while the spurious ones remained underneath, " and that it
happened accordingly." ^
Whatever may have been the method adopted to discover
which books did, and which did not contain the mind of God,
Archbishop "Wake and other learned divines were not satisfied
with it, and have translated all the rejected books into Eng-
lish from the original, professing at the same time their be-
lief in their inspiration. Meantime, that portion of Christen-
dom which especially resents the pretensions of the Church
of Rome, cling with the most intense tenacity to the infallible
inspiration of the letter of the books thus selected for them
400 years after Christ, out of a mass of sacred literature, by
318 Eoman Catholic bishops.
It is remarkable that of the three writings which are gen-
erally supposed, and with reason, to have issued from the
Church of Jerusalem, practically the first Christian Church,
two have been excluded. These consist of the Epistle of St
James, which Canon Spence says " possesses that indefinable
' something — we call it inspiration — which distinguishes the
' writings, included by tlie general voice of the Church in the
' New Testament Scriptures, from all other writings in the
' world." ^ The other two are " The Teaching of the Twelve
"* Apostles," and " The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs,"
which all three dwell entirely on life and practice, and
ignore the atonement and other dogmas. Many will feel
the two last to contain more of the " indefinable something "
called inspiration, than much that is written in the canonical
Epistles, with some of which they are contemporaneous.
How early corruptions and interpolations began, may be
gathered from the 2d chapter of Ignatius's Epistle to the
Philadelphians, the 19th, 20th, and 21st verses, where he says:
" Nevertheless I exhort you that you do nothing out of strife,
' but according to the instruction of Christ. Because I have
' heard some who say, unless I find it written in the originals (or
' archives), I will not believe it to be written in the Gospel.
' And when I said ' It is written,' they answered from what
' lay before them in their corrupted copies. But to me Jesus
^ Mace's Com., N. 7, p. 875.
- The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, by Canon Spence, p. 99
CORRUPTIONS AND INTERPOLATIONS. 107
* Christ is instead of all the imcorrupted monuments in the
' world ; together with those undefiled monuments, His cross
' and death and resurrection, and the faith which is by Him,
' by which I desire through your prayers to be justified." If
corrupted copies existed in the Church in the time of Igna-
tius, a contemporary of St John, whose epistles are mentioned
by Origen, Irenteus, Eusebius, Jerome, and others, what
guarantee for their purity have we now ? What other test
of the value of writings purporting to be inspired can exist
beyond each man's own inner consciousness ? And of what
avail can intellectual effort be in this direction ? As Jesus
Christ was to Ignatius, " instead of all the uncorrupted monu-
ments in the world," so He must ever be to those who have
found Him.
When these facts become understood and realised, it is
impossible that history or prejudice can cling much longer to
tliis compilation as an infallible guide to spiritual truth, ex-
cepting where that truth is confirmed by the spiritual insight
which it is in each man's power to obtain for himself ; he
will then feel more than ever its transcendent value, and
rejecting the dross, which, after all, is but a small proportion
of the whole, rejoice in the evidence which its main body
of testimony affords in its more interior sense, to the truths
which have been personally revealed to him, but which take
a totally different aspect from those which the Church has
constructed out of the dross, or the external letter, as dogmas.
A better illustration of the lukewarmness of the Church in
its search after divine truth, cannot be afforded than in the
history of the Book of Enoch. This book is quoted by Jude :
it was accepted as divine authority by many of the fathers of
the Christian Church, and seems to have been in existence
until about the year 800 A.D., when it is quoted at length
by the Byzantine chronicler, George Syncellus. Then it dis-
appears until 1773, wlien Bruce discovered it in Abyssinia
and brought three manuscripts of it to Europe. It was
translated into English by Laurence, but few have ever heard
of it, and it would be considered as great a sacrilege to bind
it up as an inspired book in the Old Testament, as to expunge
Jude as an inspired book from the New, and yet it is evident
that either one or other should be done. In the fourteenth
108 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
verse of his epistle, Jude says, " And Enoch also, the seventh
' from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord
' cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment
' upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them
' of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly com-
* mitted, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners
' have spoken against Him." Now it is very important to
know the end of this prophecy, and it is surely the business
of the Church to afford the earnest inquirer in search of truth,
the facility of finding it in the Bible, instead of having to go
for it to the British Museum. Otherwise Jude should be
expunged from the New Testament as uninspired and mis-
leading. I do not offer any opinion as to the authorship of
the Book of Enoch, excepting in so far that it was certainly
not written by Enoch, any more than the Pentateuch was
written by Moses, or the Psalms, with very few exceptions,
by David, or all Isaiah by Isaiah, or Daniel by Daniel ; but
it contains, nevertheless, inspired truth of the deepest import
to humanity, in regard to which I shall have more to say
presently.
Meantime men will not be contented with this lukewarm-
ness on the part of their spiritual pastors or guides, and the
mutterings of the coming storm are already beginning to be
heard within the pale of the Church itself.
As men are conscientiously and impartially examining the
history of the birth and infancy of the Christian Church,
and as new documents are discovered which throw new
light upon it, those among them who are honest, whether in
the Church or out of it, are compelled to abandon the conten-
tion that the dogmas it most relies upon have a divine origin,
and to seek for some new basis for their theological super-
structure. Thus the Hon. and Eev, Canon Fremantle re-
marks, in a striking article recently published, " The early
' history of the Church has likewise been subjected to a minute
' criticism, which has been stimulated of late by the discovery
' of ' The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' The result has
' been to give us a simpler view of the organisation of the
' Christian societies, and of their life and thoughts, to show
' the influence of various social circumstances working nat-
' urally upon them, and forming their institutions and their
APPROACHING MORAL REVOLUTION. 109
' theology. It becomes less and less possible to attribute to
' the earliest period of the Church, as having been formally
' imposed, or exclusively admitted, any of the theories of
' Church government which we now know, whether Episcopal,
' Presbyterian, or Independent, or the formed doctrines of
' later times, whether relating to the plan of redemption, or
' to the incarnation, or the Trinity." ^
It must, I think, be admitted, that when Anglican clergy-
men are permitted by their Church to publish their readiness
to give up these cardinal doctrines, that Church itself must
be on the verge of a great moral revolution. It has never
been by the operation of the Spirit of God which was in the
Church, that men — outraged by its profanities or its apathy
— from time to time struggled to reform it, but by the Spirit
of God working in them in spite of the Church ; and this
Spirit is at the present day more active than ever, and will,
before long, accomplish the sacred work of its entire trans-
formation. At the same time, I am willing to admit that
even in its most corrupt form it has had its use, as the Levit-
ical law had its use to those to whom it was given ; but the
religious instinct of man has outgrown its dogmas, and, re-
volted by its superstitions, demands a new departure. It .
would be in the highest degree ungrateful to deny that we *>
owe this tendency to self-emancipation from the thraldom of
priestcraft, in a large measure to science, and to the material-
istic tendency of tlie day. If superstition is the bane, old-
fashioned materialism is the antidote ; they are both poisons,
but they have a tendency to neutralise each other.
That the Church of England, though preserved from many
of the more glaring vices of the Roman and Eastern Christian
Churches, fails altogether to satisfy the consciences of a large
class of those who nominally belong to it, must be generally
admitted, and this uneasiness of spirit is not confined to the
laity only. I will here introduce a document with which
I have been favoured by a clergyman of the Established
Church, and which, I am assured, is not without its echo in
the breast of many of the clergy in England.
' Fortnightly Review, March 1887. "The New Reformation: Tlieology
under its Changed ConditionH."
110 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
The Confessions of a Parish Priest.
"In my training for the priesthood, I was taught to accept
implicitly all that is inculcated by the Church, without question
r or demur ; and I was warned of the awful danger of schism and
heresy which might happen to me, if I ventured to indulge in any
private opinion, or, as it was called, free-thought, on the subject of
■- religion.
" I was told that what the Church taught was identical with
what Christ taught; that the doctrines of the Church were all
derived from Him; that the outward government of the Church,
and administration of the Church's offices, were all modelled on
a plan laid down by Him ; and, above all, that the whole Bible
was directly inspired by God, or, as it were, written by God,
using as a pen the human agent whose name is connected with
the authorship of each book. I was told that I must hold and
teach that salvation is to be found entirely, and found alone, in
the Church, its ordinances, sacraments, functions, and devotions ;
and that all outside the pale of the Church, however pure and
noble their daily lives and conduct, were in a hopeless miserable
state of darkness and death, included under the category of unbe-
lievers.
" So for several years I believed and taught ; or rather I taught,
and flattered myself that I believed. But by degrees some serious
considerations forced themselves upon my mind, and set me think-
ing for myself.
" I. The first thing that I remarked was that all my preaching,
all the services of my Church, all my religious functions and sacra-
ments, had very little, or rather no, practical effect on the daily life
and conduct, either of myself or of those to whom I ministered.
" I could not help feeling that salvation, if it was worth the
name at all, must mean a transformation of daily life ; and that if
salvation were really the result of Church doctrine, ritual, and
function, it would show itself in the disappearance from the
Church's members of evil passions, worldly ambitions, lusts,
envies, and all sinful thoughts, words, and actions — and the sub-
stitution for them of whatsoever is pure, holy, and of good report.
That this was not the result of the Church's influence was very
apparent, both in my own individual case, and in the case of
all with whom I had to do,
" I tried to discover the point of weakness. I found in self-
examination very many causes of failure, clearly to be attributed
to my own lack of steadfastness of life, earnestness, diligence, care,
and purity of intention and purpose ; and these faults I tried hard
to correct, with more or less success.
" But this was not sufficient to account for all the utter failures.
THE CONFESSIONS OF A PAKISH PRIEST. Ill
As I looked around on other parishes, I found it everywhere the
same. Professing Churchmen were no better than those who be-
longed to other Christian sects — nor these in their turn than those
who professed no religion at all, so far as their daily conduct,
and the principles which guided their words and actions were con-
cerned ; and though there were to be foimd here and there bright
and holy exceptions to the general rule, I found these exceptions
also outside the Church, and was therefore forced to the conclusion
that they were not the result of the work of the Church, but of
some other independent cause. Eeligion and daily life were uni-
versally regarded in practice, if not in words, as two distinct matters ;
worship and work were placed on entirely different planes ; and,,
in short, so far as regenerating human lives on earth was con-
cerned, Christianity — i.e., the Church's influence — must be pro-
nounced a total failure.
" I began to question whether mankind, in its daily life, was
better now than it was before the existence of Christianity, or
than it would have been if Christianity had not been actively at
work for 1900 years.
" II. The realisation of this fact set me thinking deeper. What
is the cause of this failure ? I asked myself. The answer came at
once. Either what the Founder taught was wrong, or else His
followers have departed from His teachings. This alternative I
was obliged to face, painful and serious as the ordeal was. I read
the life of Christ carefully as related in the Gospels ; I studied
His teaching, His principles of morality, His rules for daily conduct,
and I saw that He at any rate had never been given a fair trial.
What He taught Avas not taught by the Church; what He de-
nounced was not denounced now ; His rule of life was no one's
practical standard now ; and the worst of it was, I could not see
how to set about making it so, either for myself or others.
" I went to consult a bishop ; but he lived in a rich and
luxurious mansion, waited on by servants in livery, 'clothed in
purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day ; ' and
at the very beginning of our interview I had to disobey the teach-
ing of Christ by addressing him as ' Eabbi,' ' my Lord.' I turned
instinctively away from consulting him on the matter most deeply
affecting me, and spoke to him instead of some minor subject
quite foreign to my original purpose ; and as I did so there
passed in review before me all the pomp, wealth, pride, ambition,
and self-satisfaction of Cliristian popes, cardinals, abbots, bisliops,
and priests, and I shuddered as I thought that I was one of those
apostate followers of the meek and lowly Jesus, who preached the
doctrine of self-abasement, purity, and humiliation.
" I unburdened my mind to some of my brethren, fellow-priests
of the Church. I was met by them in various ways. Some I
112 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
found who shared my disquiet feelings, and who were anxious to
find a remedy if possible ; but they did not see what to do.
Others rather pooh-poohed the matter, as being of an unpleasant
nature, calculated to disturb their equanimity and peace of mind —
and these dwelt on the nature of unsettling faith; whilst others, again,
sheltered themselves beneath the wing of the Church, and persuaded
themselves that, notwithstandmg outward appearances and inward
misgivings to the contrary, it must be all right, because it was the
practice of the Church. Lastly — and probably these were really
the majority — there were those who did not dare to face the ques-
tion, unconscious to themselves that they were living a perpetual
lie, teaching what they did not believe in the depths of their souls,
practising devotions, administering sacraments, and discharging
functions, which, if honest in themselves, they would acknowledge
to be as fruitless in remedying the human malady of sin and suf-
fering as any fetich of the barbarian savage. Driven back upon
myself and my own meditations, I resolved to try and get rid of all
prejudice resulting from my education and training, and forget for
the time that I belonged to any Church, or to any religious party,
and from the standpoint of an unbiassed outsider, to examine the
fundamental principles of the Christian faith, as it is held and
taught by the Church of the present day.
" But this, again, I found that I could not do, until I had freed
myself from the false position in which I was living. In my desire
to keep up the position of a country parson, and owing to other
causes to which I need not now refer, I had for several years been
living beyond my income, and was heavily oppressed with debt.
The burden of this debt had long weighed me down with the
utmost anxiety and care, and, combined with my religious doubts
and questionings, rendered my life almost intolerable to me. I
did not at that time realise the actual wickedness of living beyond
one's means, or the dishonesty of being in debt beyond one's power
to discharge. My great aim was to keep up appearances, and to
avoid bringing scandal on the Church, and I lived in a vague hope
that sooner or later I should be in a position to pay all that I
owed; nevertheless, though I did not realise the wickedness of
my condition, I was fully alive to the unpleasantness of it, and
the evil that would result from a crisis in my pecuniary affairs.
Thus I was driven to adopt all kinds of schemes for tiding over
my difficulties, and borrowed money from various friends without
any reasonable prospect of paying them back. At the same time,
as my living was a good one, and as my wife's relations were well
to do, I justified myself by imagining that ' it would all come right '
in the end.
" Thus distracted with worldly cares, and overwhelmed by re-
ligious doubts, I existed rather than lived, striving to satisfy the
THE CONFESSIONS OF A PARISH PRIEST. 113
voice of conscience by a zealous discharge of the functions of the
Church.
"During six years I preached 1800 sermons, and conducted
special missions in numerous parishes all over England. My fame
as a preacher became tolerably widespread ; yet all the time I
felt myself to be a living hypocrite. I longed most earnestly to
see my way out of my false position. I prayed fervently and
frequently for divine guidance and help. I sought light in the
sacraments of the Church ; I studied the Bible ; I meditated and
made resolutions without end ; — and yet no practical benefit appa-
rently ensued.
" At last, in the providence of God, I was aroused to the con-
viction that a decisive step must be taken without further delay,
be the cost to me what it might, and even though it seemed cer-
tain to involve loss of home, position, and reputation. I therefore
called my creditors together, and my living was placed under
sequestration till all the debts which I owed should be discharged
in full. I was tlien freed from the grinding distractions of care, and
at the same time was enabled to seek the retirement which I needed
for a candid and impartial inquiry into the truth of God.
" This blessed result I owed to a combination of circumstances
Avhich brought me into contact with one who pointed out to me
the only course that I could pursue in honour to my neighbours,
and in obedience to the dictates of my conscience. It was tlius
that Providence, in answer to my earnest longing, and at the
moment of my sorest stress, opened the way to a retreat, far from
the busy haunts of men, where the conditions were most favourable
alike to the realisation of my highest aspirations, and to the develop-
ment of those faculties which had been dormant during my ministry
in the Church. The result has been what I can only describe as a
personal revelation made to me by Crod, and as a living conscious-
ness of a union through Him with Christ, so intense as to furnish
me with a daily and hourly guide to my conduct in life. In the
degree in which I submit myself to this guidance, do I receive light
upon those divine mysteries which contain the essence of the truth
that I liave so long and earnestly sought, and Avhich hold out to me
the hope of the possibility of realising that ideal which will literally
coincide with the teaching of Christ."
It is certain that many most devout and earnest men only
remain within the pale of the Church because they cannot
see what is to be put in its place. In the degree in which
they can discard prejudices, which are the results of the
accidents of birth and education, and narrowly and impar-
tially investigate the history of tlie canon of Scripture, and
H
114 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
of the spiritual chaos of conflicting thought and belief in
which the existing Christian Churches had their origin, and
in the degree in which they consider the full force and mean-
ing of the word " inspiration," will their doubts increase as
to the value of the authority to which they have hitherto
yielded obedience, and will they dare to explore for them-
selves regions beyond the limits of what is considered ortho-
dox. As ecclesiastically all Churches or sects form an integral
part of that system of enlightened selfishness, upon which
the whole system of society — from which it is not possible
for the Church to disentangle itself — is based, they are bound
by the very exigencies of their office, to preach that doctrine
of compromise which is the chief corner-stone of all Churches ;
for they are well aware that any attempt to preach social
reform upon the lines of Christ's moral teaching, literally
applied and carried out to its logical consequences, would be
to undermine the foundations of every existing ecclesiastical
establishment, whatever its age, size, or form, and bury
its hierarchy in its ruins. Therefore they are obliged to
maintain that the moral teaching of Christ is not to be held
literally, l^ecause it is utterly impracticable in society as at
present constituted.
It is not possible to turn the other cheek when one is
smitten ; it is not possible to give the man who asks for your
coat your cloak also ; it is not possible to take no thought
for the morrow, or to expect men to act practically upon the
principle that the love of money is the root of all evil. All
these words must be understood in such a qualified way as
to allow men to act in direct opposition to their literal sense
— and, indeed, they can only act up to their spirit, to the
very limited extent that the constitution of society permits.
The only persons who cannot be blamed for holding this at-
titude, whether in the Churches or out of them, are those —
and they are probably the majority — who hold it conscien-
tiously ; but the minority, who do so as the result of a con-
scious compromise with their highest convictions, will not be
held irresponsible for thus violating their purest and divinest
instincts, even though they may not see clearly what practical
step to take themselves. It implies a distinct want of faitli,
if a man's conscience clearly shows him that he is violating
THE EVILS OF COMPROMISE. 115
it, not to obey the impulse it suggests at all hazards. God
does not act thus directly upon the inmost essence of man's
nature, without ha\dng provided a satisfaction for the craving-
after truth, which the uneasiness thus engendered indicates.
The conscience becomes restless when it desires to progress
Godward ; and to stifle it from fear of consequences, or lest
some worse evil may befall by obeying it than by disobeying
it, is not merely an act of weakness and of timidity, but it
is a deliberate insult flung into the face of the Almighty.
Those who, perceiving the glaring e\ils attached to the
ecclesiastical system with which they are connected, are
impelled by their conscience to believe that they can best
remedy those e^'ils by remaining witliin its pale, and working
for its reform from within, are bound to follow that guidance ;
and may rest satisfied that in doing so they are carrying out
the will of God, as certainly as others to whom a different
message is conveyed by the same still small voice : both may
be the voice of God, though the message to each may be dif-
ferent — for abuses may be attacked from within as effectively
as from without. But those who feel called to quit their
present form of ministry, need not fear that another will not
be provided for them, where each aspiration will be responded
to by the inspiration appropriate to it, and every prayer for
guidance be answered by the revelation of a duty, involving
prompt and unhesitating performance. It is not the finding-
out what God desires to be done, which is difficult — it is the
doing of it. If the path is rugged and narrow and dangerous,
and beset with snares and pitfalls, there is never any lack of
light upon it to him who knows in what quarter to look for
it : for the light of the world is shining more gloriously than
ever to those who wait for its appearing ; and there is again
a star shining in the East, to guide wise men to the cradle of
a new birth of divine life into the world.
If the work to which such men find themselves called, is
vast, it is eminently practical; for it consists, not in preaching
against the views which they condemn, but in undermining
them by means of the explosive energy of a spiritual dyna-
mite, which will soon be recognised as a new and irresistible
force in the world, and which will work its own social revo-
lution ; and this it will do at the critical juncture when the
116 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
elements of socialism have culminated, and the triumph of
anarchy seems to its promoters to be assured ; for the flood
of infidelity which is now gathering force, with spoliation in
its train, to burst the social barriers, will rush in with such
tumultous energy, that sovereigns, priests, and soldiers will
be powerless to stem it. That can only be done by the divine
reconstructive energy, operating through the willing organ-
isms of those who, perceiving the fatal defects of society
as at present constituted, have banded themselves in the
sacred cause of divine order, and have freely offered them-
selves to be used as instruments by the hand of God for the
purpose. They will accomplish this, in the words of Paul, so
badly rendered in both versions of the New Testament, " Not
' in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in personal ex-
' perience of pneuma and force. In order that your faith might
' not depend upon man's wisdom, but upon God's force." ^
That those who are ready to give themselves to this great
work may the better realise its nature, I will endeavour, as
concisely as possible, to point out the moral defects which
render society so vulnerable, and to suggest the method by
which alone it can be so reconstructed, as to be rendered
impregnable to the fierce assaults with which it is menaced.
^ 1 Corinthians ii. 4, 5.
117
CHAPTER VIL
MORAL PALL WHICH SHROUDS EARTH's SURFACE — DETERIORATION OF
moral atmosphere under invasion of western civilisation —
Christ's Christianity diametrically opposed to that of the
churches — false system of religious and secular education
— christendom : its politics, commerce, and finance, all on
an infernal basis — corruption of its churches — blindness
and indifference of so-called christians to the inconsist-
encies of their lives — christian ethics buried under anti-
christian dogmas — a quickening of conscience taking place
among the clergy — canon fremantle on the " new refor-
MATION."
To any one who has caught a glimpse, however transient, of
this world as it appears to those who are in the superior
regions of the one which is interlocked with it, though invisi-
ble to us, it presents a most appalling spectacle. What we
call the beauties of nature are more or less concealed by
what I can only describe as clouds, composed of living,
sentient, perpetually moving atoms. The thickness of these
clouds corresponds in density to the moral condition of the
invisible human beings whose atoms compose them. Inter-
mingled with them are the atomic forces of the animal crea-
tion, and in a lower stratum those of nature, which reveal
themselves in a more or less distorted aspect, according to
the medium through which they are seen. There are still
portions of the globe where nature does not appear altogether
unlovely. These are the regions sparsely inhabited Ijy
savage tribes, where the population is extremely thin, and
which, excepting in the case of some rare explorer, are un-
known to, and untouched by, civilisation. Here the atmos-
phere is comparatively clear, and nature relatively undefiled.
118 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
There are other portions also to some extent free from .taint :
these are the regions from which an ancient civilisation
has long since vanished, and which, having been left for
many centuries undisturbed, have regained a comparative
purity of atmosphere. This moral pall, which seems to
shroud the earth's surface, is constantly spreading and in-
creasing in denseness and darkness. From this point of view
the dark continent par excellence is Europe. London is
enveloped in a moral fog as black as the blackest it has ever
known materially: on all the planet's superficies there is
no blacker spot than this, though the other European capitals
are as dark. But everywhere there are degrees of texture,
of colouring, and of vivacity, on the part of the atomic par-
ticles, corresponding to the national character, and the pre-
vailing moral quality. Thus visualised, the atoms take the
form in the beholder's eyes of infusoria, and the whole of this
material atmosphere seems a vast scene of the most ferocious
animal life, where every unit is struggling in incessant and
never-ending combat with those around. It is a field of
predatory warfare of the most sanguinary description. It is
" matter in motion " indeed, and very angry matter. Whole
hordes of these militant atoms seem now and then to invade
spaces where the texture of the atmosphere is finer, the colour
lighter, and the atoms less voracious ; then the nature which
appeared beneath it becomes obscured, and a new region is
more completely subjugated than it was before by the in-roll-
ing volume of more dense and concentrated evil.
Japan is especially an illustration of an invasion of this
description. Before the opening of this island to Western
civilisation, " so called," there was no area, containing the
same denseness of population, where the moral conditions of
the enveloping cloud were so relatively pure. Alas ! now it
has altogether changed both texture, colour, and disposition
of atoms, and though differing widely in all other respects
from that of China, the process of deterioration is going on
far more rapidly than in the latter empire.
I am aware that this picture will be considered fantastic in
the highest degree, — the product of the inexplicable but con-
venient expression " a disordered imagination," or of that still
more unknown quantity, " a slight tinge of insanity," — so I
ANTI-CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 119
present it to the incredulous and — if I may without offence
call him so — dense reader, as an image, and not as a fact,
if he cannot entertain the possibility of its being one. It
will still enable him to form some vague idea of the horror
and the darkness of the moral conditions by which he is
surrounded, and in the midst of which he lives so cheerfully.
Of this he may rest assured, whether he believes it or not,
nothing that he can picture, at all approaches the reality. It
is true there is to this black cloud a silver lining, of which
I will speak later ; were it not so, nothing would be left to
humanity but utter despair.
In order to contrast the light with the darkness, let us
compare Christ's Christianity with the world's.
Christ said, " Suffer little children to come unto me, and
forbid them not ; " and again, " If any man desire to be first,
the same shall be last of all and servant of all." The Church
says, " Little children, come regularly to the Sunday-school ;
try and get to the top of the class, and if you succeed in de-
feating your companions, you shall have a prize." Thus from
its early infancy the child is taught the vice of competition,
the door is opened by its spiritual pastors and masters to the
evil spirits of envy, ambition, conceit, and egotism, who do
not fail to rush in and lock it after them. "When it is well
barred against the entry of the angelic ministrants of love,
meekness, and humility, and the child arrives at a certain
age, under the stimulant of rivalry, jealousy, and emulation,
the Church says, " Xow you are old enough to eat some
bread and drink some wine. This is the royal road to Christ's
favour ; now keep the interests of your own soul steadily in
view — which you will find all the more easy after the training
to keep yourself always at the top of the class at school —
' communicate ' regularly, and you are safe."
Meantime the religious teaching which the cliild received,
began probably in its infancy witli liiblc anecdotes illustrated
with ])ictures. First he is told the story of the Fall, and
shown the serpent twisting round a tree, and Eve under it
eating an apple. It is explained to him that in this way sin
entered into the world. He now knows the reason why he
sometimes feels nauglity. Tlien lu; is shown God as a grey-
bearded man walking in the (larden of Eden in the cool of
120 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
the day, looking very angry, and searching for Adam and
Eve, who are hiding behind a bush ; and the conversation
which takes place is repeated to him. He now understands
the nature, character, and appearance of the Deity, and of
the relation he occupies towards Him. He is now told the
story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden, all because
Eve was disobedient and ate an apple. When he reflects
upon his tendency to fall into the same temptation, he feels
very sad, has a lurking sympathy with Eve, and a slight
sense of undue severity and injustice on the part of God.
This is confirmed by the story of Cain and Abel, in which
God disregards Cain's sacrifice without any apparent cause,
and afterwards brands him with the mark of a curse for kill-
ing his brother ; but what infuses* the first slight distrust
into his innocent confiding mind, is Cain's remark that every
one who finds him will slay him, when, as Abel was dead, the
only man alive on earth was his own father Adam. Then
he is told the story of the Flood, when all the world was
drowned except eight persons, which he also thinks was a
very terrible thing for God to do ; and to impress it upon
him, he is given an ark with a great number of little wooden
animals in pairs. If he is a child of a thoughtful turn, this
gives him much food for reflection, more especially as they
are the only toys he is allowed to play with on a Sunday ;
and he asks why these are holier toys than other toys, and
speculates how the animals could all get into the ark, and
on what they were fed, and how only four men could take
care of them all, and which was the smallest that it was
worth while to save; — and so on through the whole Bible,
till his religious conceptions are reduced to the level of those
of a savage on the Congo, and are stamped upon his tender
imagination with an indelible impress which carries its hate-
ful mark upon him far into life, and either develops into an
ignorant and superstitious fanaticism, or crystallises into an
apathetic conformity, or, by the force of reaction, impels him
to break out into open unbelief.
Under the combined influence of an imagination thus ex-
cited, and a temper thus roused to emulation, the child enters
upon life. At school and at college his worst passions are
stimulated, that personal success may be achieved at the
SECULAR TEACHING. 121
cost of his fellows. He is punished if he helps them ; every
triumph that he gains, every prize that he wins, is purchased
at the price of a humiliation upon some of those brethren
whom he is told by Christ to love better than himself.
This desire to be first, which is actually denounced in so
many words by the great Teacher as fatal to moral progi'ess,
is the one which so-called Christian teachers insist upon most
earnestly, because it is essential to worldly progress ; and men
strive to be senior wranglers, in the hope that it may be a
stepping-stone to what is called "ecclesiastical preferment,"
and ultimately possibly to rich bishoprics.
These be thy teachers, Israel !
Nor is the educational system all over the world funda-
mentally wrong only in the principle of competition which it
excites, but all intellectual development as at present prac-
tised in all Christian countries is anti-Christian, in the sense
that it is not preceded by a corresponding moral development.
To force intelligence alone, before the affections have been
trained to steer the human will Godward, is like crowding sail
upon a ship, and exposing her to the tempests of the ocean
without a rudder. This is especially true of state-aided edu-
cation. Inasmuch as the popular idea of religion is, that it
consists of dogmas, about which people differ, and that moral
training is inseparable from these dogmas, moral training is
left to depend upon the accident of the home, and the acqui-
sition of secular knowledge is forced upon children, who thus
grow up into educated devils, instead of into uneducated ones.
Unless there be an inherent instinct of rectitude, or the
family training happens to be good, the development of
the intelligence and the acquisition of knowledge, means
simply the development of the capacity for crime, and the
acquisition of means for committing it. At this moment
many governments — the Ih-itish among the number — are
actually contributing large sums from the pockets of the tax-
payers, for the manufacture and education of socialists, nihil-
ists, internationalists, and the whole party of anarchy in
Europe, which are a speciality of Christendom. So are hypo-
crites. Secular teaching produces the one, and religious
teaching the other. In Moslem countries, where tliere are
no schools in which the Koran is not taught, neitlier class
122 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
exists. Society is nevertheless infected in other and not less
fatal ways. The nature of the moral training to be given
to the young, does not consist in instructing them by word
of mouth as to what is right and what is wrong, and as to the
difierence between what we call good and evil, that standard
being at present a purely arbitrary one, based not upon the
divine law, but the law which enlightened selfishness has
suggested, as being the most expedient in the interests of
society. The process by which a child can be brought into
internal union with the Deity, is one of those mysteries
which may have been known to the mystics, and the sages of
the most early religions ; but those of their interpreters who
have attempted to unravel them for us in these latter days,
are silent upon the point : it nevertheless exists, though I am
not able to do more than allude to it here, because it can
only be apprehended as it is unfolded in practice. There is
much hidden knowledge of this description, which can only
be mentioned as existing at present, because it is by experi-
ment and illustration alone that it can be understood. It
will be readily admitted by any lecturer on chemistry or elec-
tricity, for instance, that if he could not illustrate his lecture
as he went along by experiment, he could not convey his
meaning to his audience, and indeed many of his facts would
excite their incredulity if they rested upon his ipse dixit alone.
It is the same thing with the divine science which governs
the chemical changes, the magnetic affinities, and the atomic
combinations of human organisms. Suffice it to say that in
them, when their laws come to be understood, will be found
to reside the potencies by which the pure life-current may
be invoked, charged with divine wisdom ; and that under
its guidance those little children who are not now suffered
to come to Christ, will be no longer the victims of an educa-
tional system which forbids them to do so, but will be gently
led to the loving arms which long to fold them now, as they
did 1900 years ago, to the infinitely tender bosom.
It is no wonder that the man who has been thus educated,
enters keenly into the competitive system, which gives its
infernal life and energy to civilisation, " so called." In com-
merce he struggles to enrich himself at the expense of his
fellows, and inasmuch as the commercial code is elastic, and
FINANCIAL CORRUPTION. 123
it is impossible even for the most cunningly devised laws
to anticipate the ingenuity of pirates, who could not live at
all if they did not prey upon each other, there are liundreds
of ways by which even the relative honesty which these laws
seek to impose may be evaded, so that men's consciences are
often practically regulated by the dangers they may incur of
being sent to prison. Here, again, the Church affords no
assistance : it does not consider it to be its province to inter-
fere in the practical details of finance ; but, on the con-
trary, as it forms part of a great financial system, and is
bound up with the economic interests of the country, it
thrives in proportion as the country is rich — in other words,
in the degree in which other countries are exploiUs for its
own benefit— and fattens on the prosperity of rich bankers,
brokers, merchants, tradesmen, and so forth, who in turn find
that the ostentatious profession of religion gains them con-
fidence, and consequently facilities for their financial com-
binations; the most pious men, therefore, not unfrequently
figure in the list of the most fraudulent of bankrupts.
The whole system of commerce and finance is as rotten to
the core, as fundamentally anti-Christian, as the system of
education. That love of money, that taking thought for the
morrow, that hasting to be rich, which is denounced in the
most unequivocal terms by Christ, who told His disciples
that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a
needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
heaven, fiourishes under the iegis of the Christian Church,
wliich makes its own rich livings an article of commerce,
which traffics in the cure of souls, and instead of claiming
for its head the lowest station in society, claims for it the
liighest, utterly denying that tliere is any truth in the divine
saying, "He that abaseth himself shall be exalted, and he
' that exalteth himself shall be abased." So Christ says now,
as He said then, "Beware of the scribes, which love to go
' in long clothing, and love salutations in the market-places,
' and tlie cliief seats in the synagogues, and the ui)])ermost
' rooms at feasts ; which devour widows' houses, and for a
* pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater
' damnation." Indeed tlicre is not a denunciation wliicli He
liurled at tlie Pliarisees, which does not apply with ec^ual force
124 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
to the Christian priesthood of the present day all over the
world. There is not a Church called by His name, which
is not full of money-changers, or one to which the scourge
and the epithets which He employed, are not as appropriate
as they were then. The " dens of thieves," and the " ser-
pents," and the " generation of vipers," the " blind guides,"
the " fools," and the " hypocrites," are all here awaiting their
judgment, " straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel,"
with this difference, however, that while they also omit " the
weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith,"
instead of paying tithes of mint, anise, and cumin, they
insist upon receiving them. This is the Church which awaits,
decked with bridal attire, the approach of the Bridegroom.
Those " long robes " which distinguish the spiritual from the
temporal peer, are perchance " his wedding garment," and
the electric light which illumines his palace, the " lamp kept
trimmed and burning."
Under the auspices of these spiritual lords does the State
make wars, annex territory, break treaties when necessary,
and perform all and sundry acts of statecraft, in its struggle
for supremacy with other Christian States, each engaged in
one perpetual effort to suppress the others, and aggrandise
itself at their expense, by force or fraud.
In co-operation with these Church dignitaries does each
political party in the State intrigue for place and power, too
often sacrificing what they know to be the interests of the
country to party supremacy, and always sacrificing the in-
terests of true religion, as embodied in the teaching of Christ.
I do not mean to imply that they can help doing this.
As society is at present constituted, it is practically impos-
sible for any class of men, in whatever profession they are
engaged, to fulfil the law of Christ.
Soldiers and sailors must murder ; statesmen must rob,
since it is always a question of robbing or being robbed,
lawyers must lie ; parsons must compromise, and so violate
their consciences, if they have got any ; merchants and
tradesmen must cheat if they expect to live, — and so on.
There is- not a man from the top of society to the bottom, who
is not compelled to live a life of crime, regarded from the
standpoint of divine morality, and the essential spirit of
RELIGIOUS INCONSISTENCY. 125
Christ's teaching and example. That it was impracticable
in His day, is proved by the fact that He was not allowed
to preach it and live more than three years. But it has
become practicable now, and though those who combine to
prove it to be so may suffer a moral martyrdom in the
attempt, their success sooner or later is assured. It was for
this Christ was born into the world, and He accentuated it
when He said, " Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit
the earth." For as St Ignatius says in the third chapter of
his Epistle to the Ephesians, — " Christianity is not the work
' of an outward profession, but shows itself in the power of
' faith, if a man be found faithful unto the end. It is better
' for a man to hold his peace, and be, than to say he is a
' Christian, and not to be. It is good to teach, if what he
' says he does likewise."
So long as men persist in considering that secular life
is one kind of life, which is to be followed during six days of
the week, and that the one remaining day is to be devoted
to another kind of life altogether, which they miscall religious,
so long will the anomalies which characterise Christendom
continue ; because it implies that a wide distmction must be
maintained between the service of God and the service of self
— and that the latter is legitimate apart from the former.
Whereas, there is only one service for man on earth, and
that is the service of God and the fellow-man.
Unfortunately many of those who will admit the fearful
inconsistencies by which their consciences are grieved, are
reconciled to them by the fixed belief that they are irre-
mediable in this world, owing to the evil inherent in the
nature of man. They console themselves by the consideration
tliat his heart is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked, and must always remain so ; that man is the victim of
a moral malady, which they call " original sin," which is in-
curable because it was born in him ; that because we are
suffering from the fault of our first parents, therefore our
redemption does not lie in any effort that we can make our-
selves, Init that we liave been bought with a price, and our
salvation in another world has been secured by the blood of
Christ, wlio is the propitiation for our sins ; that to think that
we can overcome or expel the evil taint in us, is in fact an
126 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
outrage upon the majesty of God, and a denial of the efficacy
of His scheme for our salvation ; that it is not the function
of religion to do this — which wovild be to try and achieve the
impossible — but to prepare us for another world, and imbue us
with a belief in the efficacy of the sacraments, and the means
appointed by Providence for reaching it; that the contrast
between the luxury of the rich, and the squalor and misery
of the poor, is included in the divine social order, because
it is said, " The poor ye shall have always with yoii," unmind-
ful of the divine method ordered for the relief of these same
poor, " Sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor ; " that a
human effort to change all this would be futile as well as pre-
sumptuous, because it would strike at the basis of the whole
social fabric — the defects of which are freely admitted — and
would, if it were persisted in, excite a number of visionary
enthusiasts to engage in an attempt at what might appear
reform, but which would have the practical result of bringing
down both Church and State, and producing a condition of
chaos, the evils of which latter state would be worse than the
first, — for there would be nothing to put up in the place of
that which had been pulled down. While, therefore, not at-
tempting to deny that these evils exist, they maintain that
it is better to bear the ills we have, than to fly to others
that we know not of, more especially as these last but a
short time ; while we have the promise of God that, if we
believe in the merits of His Son, we have a future of eternal
bliss secured to us in spite of our manifold shortcomings.
It will be observed that the whole of this line of argument
is based on doctrines which have been constructed out of the
Bible, on the hyj)othesis that it is literally, or at all events, in
a spiritual sense, infallibly inspired. Happily I am relieved
from entering upon any discussion on these points, for evi-
dences are every day multiplying that, in the Church itself,
many eminent divines are rapidly abandoning them one after
another, and I will allow some of them to speak for them-
selves. Thus, a professor of divinity, preaching in the Uni-
versity of Oxford not long since, said : " The field of speculative
' theology may be regarded as almost exhausted, — we must be
' content henceforward to be Christian agnostics." The rector
of the City Church, at Oxford, Mr Cartaret Fletcher, preached
THE XEW REFORMATION. 127
a sermon before the University recently, in which the follow-
ing passage occurred : " Xot long since it was the general
' belief that man had l^een created perfect, and that he had
' fallen from perfection into an abyss of doom, whence only
' an elect fragment of the race would emerge ; but it is now
' dawning on us that man was created in an undeveloped state,
' with a splendid potential wealth of faculty, and that he had
' advanced through long ages to his present stage, whence he is
* destined to rise higher than imagination can follow him. In
' him we see a rough-hewn block being moulded into perfect
' shape, and not the reconstruction of the shattered pieces of
' a faultless image." This may not be orthodox according to
the majority, but it is consolatory to know that there are men
in the Church, who dare to preach their belief in the possi-
bility of moulding the rough-hewn human block into perfect
shape. Canon Fremantle, in the remarkable article already
quoted, writes : " As regards the Scriptures, the theologian of
' our epoch will start without any theory of inspiration. He
' will be ready to admit that God has revealed Himself in part
' m other systems, ancient and modern. He will not pretend
' that the Scriptures are absolutely perfect in any part, but
' will take them for what they are really worth, and as consti-
' tuting a history and a literature in which the development
' of a religdon is to be studied." " The theology of sin and
redemption " is treated in an equally broad and enlightened
spirit. " This," says the writer, " is the department of the-
' ology in which a kind of ideal dogmatism has most interfered
' with truth. The ideal characters of the wicked and the
' just, as they are described in Scripture, have been taken as
' literally existing ; and since men cannot be ranked with the
' ideally righteous, they have been taken in the mass as belong-
' ing to the ideally wicked. Each atom has been regarded as a
' conscious and open-eyed contradiction of a revealed standard
* of riglit — a contradiction which is described in the Gospel
' as a sin against the Holy Ghost. The false judgments, the
' mutual condemnations, the hypocrisy, the strange tlieories
' of redemption, the readiness to l)elieve in eternal torments,
' the ascetic practices and unreal life which have resulted
' from this, could hardly be traced out in a lifethae. The re-
' construction which will be required will need great labour.
128 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' But in no department will the results be more fruitful They
' will bring theological ethics into closer alliance with general
' science and practice. They will enable Christian teachers to
' treat all men as brothers, and make Christianity the means
' by which the state of men generally may be ameliorated."
Here, then, we have the popular idea of inspiration aban-
doned, the theological dogmas concerning sin and redemption
repudiated, and the Church arraigned for " the false judg-
' ments, the mutual condemnations, the hypocrisy, the strange
' theories of redemption, the belief in eternal punishments,
' the ascetic practices and unreal life which have resulted from
' those doctrines," — in a popular review by a clergyman of the
Church of England, without official protest by the authorities.
Nay, more, the existing state of the Church being utterly
unsatisfactory, he proposes to " reconstruct it upon altogether
new lines." " The theologian of our epoch," he says, " will
' take care not to represent God as a demiurge standing outside
' His work, and putting His hand in here and there. . . . He
' will probably be little concerned with miracles. It is evident
' that the arguments relied on in the last century do not help
' us now, ... so little stress will be laid on the accounts
' of the infancy of Christ, since they are mentioned nowhere in
' the New Testament outside the first chapters of the first and
' third gospel." ^
The conclusions at which the writer arrives, after a careful
study of early Church history, and the accretions which have
buried Christian ethics under anti-Christian dogmas and for-
mularies, is one which commends itself to the religious in-
stinct of all earnest and thinking men. " The notion of the
' Church," he says, " the study of Church history, the practice
' of Church life, will be profoundly modified when once men
' realise that the Church is not necessarily a society held apart
' from the rest of mankind by having different pursuits as its
' object, and a peculiar form of government enjoined upon
' it. The Church will be simply that section of society in
' which the Christian spirit reigns ; its history will be the his-
' tory of the working out of the divine principle in human
' society, with all its blessed results. The Church of the
' future will make its worship bear upon the higher end of life,
^ Fortnightly Review, March 1887.
THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 129
' or rather it will teach that the true ritual is a holy life in
' all its departments, and thus it will merge itself more and
' more into the general society, being ready, in the true spirit
' of the Lord, to lose itself that it may save mankind."
That an Anglican divine should have discovered that the
true mission of the Church is to lose itself that it may save
mankind, and that he should be able to write that his views
" are not opposed by any solid array of party opinion, but
rather find men in all parties who admit them," is in itself
a justification for this attempt to point out the way by which
the Church may '' lose itself " with the greatest advantage to
the humanity it professes to desire to benefit.
I have quoted Canon Fremantle's article freely, because
it is always more desirable that corrvipt institutions should
be assailed by those who are within their pale, than by those
who, being without it, may be supposed to be swayed by
undue prejudice ; but I venture to differ widely from him as
to the quarter to which we must look to find foundation-
stones on which to rear that Church of the future, to which
he has so eloquently alluded. " The ground," he says, " has
been cleared and the building has to be erected. The chief
point on which our energies must be expended is" — not,
as one might suppose, the search after divine truth where
alone it is to be found ; not the withdrawal with bent head
and uncovered feet into tlie Holy of Holies, into that inward
sanctuary where God dwells in each of us, into which, when
we have prepared it by lives of self-abnegation and self-
purification. His own glory shines, and the light of inspira-
tion penetrates, to show us how we may be builded up as
living stones into His temple, — it is not in that " kingdom of
God which is within us " that we are to seek for guidance
at this supreme moment, when all that we have heretofore
believed in is so rapidly slipping away from us. No ; the
chief point on which our energies must be expended is —
" Church history " ! Oh, most lame and impotent conclusion !
Wluit shall we get out of it, except wrangling in these days,
over the wranglings men had in those ? Kenewed strife over
dogmas and doctrines which no man can settle, because the
disputations to which they will give rise will be intellectual
disputations ; and it is not upon the intellect that the Church
I
130 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
of the future must l)e founded, but upon the affections.
Men fought over the letter then, for the spirit had soon
vanished out of it, and the concentration of our attention
on the quarrels of the first Christians, beginning with the
apostles, will only increase our conviction that the divine
life by which alone the world can be redeemed, cannot be
extracted from so impure a source. This study will be most
useful in stimulating us to pull down : it will help us in no
wise to build up.
If all impartial, laborious, and conscientious research
hitherto, has only revealed the essential rottenness of that
foundation which is causing the whole fabric to totter, why
imagine that a further investigation into musty parchments,
or long-buried scripts, will afford more solid building-ground ?
If they contain most brilliant flashes of inspiration, as un-
doubtedly they do, it is only he who has the faculty of de-
tecting inspiration when he sees it, who can discriminate
between the true and the false. To begin by grubbing into
these records is to put the cart before the horse. " Seek ye
first the kingdom of Heaven and His righteousness, and all
other things shall be added unto you," even these gems of
early inspiration ; but they will come as confirmations of
truth already discovered by quite another process than that
of the antiquary, and herein they possess a great value to
those who need such confirmation, as I shall presently proceed
to show. Meantime there is another class, for whom such
records will have a very slight value indeed ; and as no
Church of the future can stand, of which they do not form
the living stones, as well as the theologians, and as they are
quite as sincere in their search after divine truth, as those
whose profession it is to teach it, it is time to see how this
new structure, which is to be at once social, scientific, and
religious, can be adapted so as to meet their requirements.
131
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EFFECT OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY UPON MODERN THOUGHT — THE
PREJUDICES WHICH IT EXCITES — THE CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE
AND RELIGION TO WHICH IT HAS GIVEN RISE — INTOLERANCE BOTH
OF THEOLOGIANS AND MEN OF SCIENCE — BIGOTRY OP THE LATTER —
CONTRADICTIONS IN WHICH THEY HAVE BECOME INVOLVED — FACTS
OF NATURE, DISCOVERED BY SUPERFICIAL INVESTIGATIONS, VALU-
ABLE — EMPIRICAL SCIENCE INCOMPETENT TO ARRIVE AT THE DIVINE
TRUTHS IN NATURE — THIS CAN ONLY BE ACHIEVED BY DEVELOPMENT
OF INNER FACULTIES IN MAN — HENCE ALL SCIENTIFIC CONJECTURES
AND HYPOTHESES WORTHLESS — CONFLICTING UTTERANCES AND CON-
CLUSIONS OF PROFESSORS HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ILLUSTRATE THIS.
No one wlio has watched the signs of the tunes can doubt
that the Churcli has exercised a very disastrous influence,
during the last few years, upon the more intelligent part of
the cominunity ; and upon no section has it operated more
detrimentally than upon men of science, and the youth who
are developing under the impulse which science has given
to independence of thought. It has acted disastrously in this
way, that the tendency of those who are reverting to the
autocratic pretensions of liome, is to invest the priestly body
with a monopoly of knowledge of spiritual things as an in-
herent attribute of their sacred oflice, a sort of third-hand
inspiration derived from the Church. In these days a claim
of this sort is a barbarism, which will no more be tolerated
than that of a lied Indian "medicine-man." The only
monopoly any Church has a right to claim, is a monopoly
of the errors which are peculiar to it — what truth it has, is
generally C(jnnuon to all. The arrogance of this assumption
is especially galling to scientific men and philosophers — who
are, as a rule, e([ually arrogant in their own way — for it
132 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
implies that those who make a business of science, are
morally inferior to those who make a business of religion,
and are excluded from any knowledge of it by reason of their
rejection of clerical authority. Hence arises a prejudice
against truths, which, if they were not so inseparably linked
with error and authority, might appeal to their purer and
nobler instincts. In throwing the dirty water out of the
theological tub, they throw the child out with it, and the
emotional part of their natures is apt to wither under the
constant exercise of that rational faculty, which they insist is
the only guide to truth. Looked at from the angelic stand-
point, these two classes present a very painful and startling
spectacle. Inasmuch as religion deals entirely with the affec-
tional side of nature, when this is perverted, it takes, in the
eyes of those who regard it with the tender gaze of pure love,
the form of lunacy ; and inasmuch as science, as at present
pursued, exercises only the intelligence, when this is per-
verted, it takes, under the clear eye of perfect reason, the
form of imbecility. Looked down upon from the lofty sum-
mit of pure love and perfect wisdom, the contest which rages
here between philosophers and theologians, seems to be one
between idiots and maniacs.
Swedenborg, who was one of the most learned men of
science which the last century produced, and whose opinion,
therefore, is entitled to some weight, insists very strongly on
this point. " The insanity of science," he says, " is likened m
' the Bible to drunkenness. Those are called drunkards who
' believe nothing but what they comprehend, and therefore
' investigate the mysteries of faith ; in consequence of which
' they necessarily fall into errors, since they are under the
' guidance of sensual, scientific, or philosophic knowledge only.
* The thinking principle in man is merely terrestrial, corporeal,
' and material objects, and in which the ideas of his thought
' are founded and terminated. Now to think and reason from
* those ideas concerning things divine, is to plunge into erron-
* eous and perverse opinions. . . . The errors and insanity thus
' derived are called in the Word drunkenness. Thus Isaiah
' says : ' How say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise,
' the son of ancient kings ? Where are thy wise men ? and let
' them tell thee now. Jehovah hath mingled a spirit of per-
SCIENTIFIC INSANITIES. 133
' versities in the midst thereof ; and they have caused Egypt
' to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in
' liis vomit.' ^ A drunken man here denotes those who desire
* to investigate spiritual and celestial things by the light of
' science ; and Egypt signifies the scientific principle, and hence
' calls himself the son of the wise. They who believe nothing
' but what they comprehend by the evidence of the senses, and
' the light of science, were also called ' miglity to drink.' As
' in Isaiah, ' Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes,
' and intelligent in their own sight ! "Woe unto them that are
' mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong
' drink ! ' " ^ Again the Swedish seer remarks : " A desire to
* investigate the mysteries of faith, by means of the senses and
' of science, was not only the cause of the decline of the most
' ancient Church, but it is also the cause of the fall or decline
' of every Church, for hence come not only false opinions, but
' also evils of life. The worldly or corporeal man says in his
' heart, if I am not instructed concerning faith and everything
' relating to it by the senses, so that I may see them, or by
' science, so that I may understand them, I will not believe ;
' and he confirms himself in his incredulity by this fact that
' natural things cannot be contrary to spiritual. Thus he is
' desirous of being instructed in celestial and divine subjects
' by the experience of his senses, which is as impossible as for
' a camel to go through the eye of a needle — for the more he
' desires to grow wise by such a process, the more he blinds
' himself, till at length he comes to believe nothing, not even
' the reality of spiritual experiences or of eternal life." ^
When we reflect upon the bigotries, the hatred, the perse-
cution, and the intolerance which have characterised all
Churches that have taken as their chief corner-stone the
teaching of Clirist, which was pure love and nothing else,
we can only account for the people who profess to be ani-
mated by this love, and who manifest it by a hate which has
provoked bloody wars, as having become insane ; while those
who maintain that the laws which govern the world are
the result of a fortuitous concourse of atoms, and that man
derived his origin from the amoeba, and his intelligence from
> I-iaiali, xix. 11, 12, 14. - A. C. 1072.
» A. C. 126, 128.
134 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
the monkey, propound theories which suggest a feeble and
distorted condition of the rational faculty. It is a somewhat
melancholy reflection, that as ancient superstitions lose their
hold upon religious devotees, men of science should pander
to their credulity with scientific superstitions of another kind,
concerning the physical basis of life, the evolution of man
from protoplasm, and so forth, in which the public are exhibit-
ing extraordinary readiness to believe. If the effort of imagi-
nation which the Biblical narrative calls upon them to make,
in supposing man to have stepped full-fledged on earth from
the hands of his Creator, is too great for the modern mind,
that which the popular theory of evolution involves is no
less violent. It does not seem to have occurred to searchers
after truth on this subject, that the resources of the Deity
are not so easily exhausted, and that there may have been
a third way ; but this is not to be found in the superficial
letter of the Bible, nor in the superficial observations of
science. Both classes of truth-seekers must learn to dive
deeper, for there is a spirit within the letter, as there is a
soul in nature, and it is in their concealed arcana that the
book of nature, and the most divinely inspired passages in
the books of God, find their synthesis. It is there that the
theologian who has found the key to the inner meaning of
what is now obscure, unintelligible, and even often obscene,
in what is called Holy Writ, will arrive at the same truth
with the philosopher who has found the key to the mysteries
of the book of nature, by probing into them by the light of
his own intelligence, when this has become divinely illumi-
nated by the development of his purest affections. It is not
in the outer material sense of words, nor in the outer material
aspect of things, that divine truth is to be found : they are
merely the caskets in which it is hidden. Both sets of investi-
gators must develop the inner material sense ; and with that —
enlightened by the spirit of God, which pervades both — they
may each continue their respective methods of research : but
they must begin by admitting that this inner material or
subsurface sense exists, as contradistinguished from the outer
material or literal sense, which is surface, and, turning
away from the husk, must go in search of the kernel. This
can only be accomplished in one way, and that is the same
COMMON BASIS OF EECONSTRUCTION. 135
for both. It involves a special effort of self-sacrifice and self-
purification, which would be unpossible of human attainment,
had God not provided the special potency to which I have
so often alluded, but the nature of which it is not possible
to describe without entering upon these preliminary remarks,
which have extended over a greater number of pages than I
anticipated when I first took up my pen.
From passages which I have already quoted, it has been
made clear that there are men in the clerical profession who
are ready to abandon their old dogmas ; who, conscious of the
defects in the Church, are ready to see it lose itself for the
sake of humanity ; and who are anxious to co-operate in
building up a Church for the future, which shall "teach
that the true ritual is a holy life in all its departments."
Here is a basis for reconstruction, wpon which the man of
science cannot refuse to build ; once let it be clearly under-
stood that the Church of the future does not demand a belief
in any special dogma, that it imposes no ceremonial observ-
ances, and demands no subjection of the reason, no violation
of the conscience, and the man of science will be the first to
join hands in the good work of rearing such an edifice. If we
are to judge from a recent utterance by Professor Huxley, he
is already far on the road towards such a consunnnation.
In an article entitled " Science and Morals," ^ he writes : —
" The student of nature, who starts from the axiom of the
' universality of the law of causation, cannot refuse to admit
' an external existence ; if he admits the conservation of energy,
' he cannot deny the possilnlity of an eternal energy ; if he
' admits the existence of immaterial phenomena in the form
' of consciousness, he must admit the possibility, at any rate,
' of an eternal series of such phenomena ; and if his studies
' have not been barren of the best fruits of the investigation
' of nature, he will have sense enough to see that, when Spinoza
' says, ' Per Deum intelligo ens absolute infinitmn, hoc est siib-
' stantiam constantem infinitis attributio,' the God so conceived
' is one that only a very gi'eat fool indeed would deny, even
' in his lieart. Physical science is as little atheistic as it is
' materialistic."
Tlie importance of this passage is that it is written from
' Fortniglitly Iteview, December 1886.
136 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
the heart and not from the intellect, for it is in indirect con-
tradiction with the logical deductions of Professor Huxley's
scientific conclusions. In the same article he remarks, " That
it would be quite correct to say that material changes are the
causes of psychical phenomena." And again, he talks of
the " phenomena of consciousness as such, and apart from
the physical process by which they are called into existence."
These phenomena he has already described as being immaterial
phenomena, and these, he says, are called into existence, not
by God, but by a physical process, a conception as unthink-
able as any ever propounded by theologians, and irreconcilable
with the statement that physical science is not materialistic.
The words "psychical phenomena," are a little vague; and
Professor Huxley would probably include affection, volition,
and reason under this head, and he makes them have their
origin in " material changes." But his nature is too noble,
and the affectional side of him too highly developed, to allow
him to be dragged by his rational faculty down to the atheism
and surface materialism, which have reduced some philoso-
phers to the condition of imbecility I have already alluded
to, and which, he admits, makes a man " a fool indeed " ; so
he clings to his God, and to immaterialism, in spite of the
logical dilemma in which he is landed thereby, and which
forces from him some curious and contradictory utterances.
Thus he says at one moment that " consciousness is a func-
tion of the brain," and as it certainly cannot be of a brain
which has undergone the chemical change called death, he
"oes on to explain that by function he means " that effect
or series of effects which result from the activity of an organ."
This implies that the brain is made active by a force acting
on it, otherwise it would keep itself alive by its own gen-
erative energy, and contradicts his previous statement that
" material changes are the causes of psychical phenomena."
It is evident they are only the transmitting media for them.
In discoursing to the Christian young men of Cambridge,
he tells them that " it is an indisputable truth that what we
' call the material world is only known to us under the forms
' of the ideal world ; and, as Descartes tells us, our knowledge
* of the soul is more intimate and certain than our knowledge
BIOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS. 137
' of the body." ^ If our knowledge of the sovil is so intimate
and certain, is it identical with that consciousness which is
a function of the brain ? or is the brain the organ which it
renders active ? If the soul is not material, of what does it
consist ? On these and many other questions regarding the
soul we should have been glad of some light from Professor
Huxley, more especially as he tells us that, " If there is one
' thing clear about the progress of modern science, it is the
' tendency to reduce all scientific problems, except those which
' are purely mathematical, to questions of molecular physics
' — that is to say, to the attractions, repulsions, motions, and
' co-ordination of the ultimate particles of matter." Is the
composition of the soul a scientific problem ? and if not, why
not ? If it is not, because it is beyond the region of scientific
investigation, and cannot l)e reduced to a question of molec-
ular physics, why venture to say that our knowledge of it
is more intimate and certain than that of our body ; or to
include in that investigation consciousness, and dare to tell us
what it is or is not a product of, and that it is immaterial,
and therefore " devoid of the ultimate particles of matter " ?
In a word, why trespass upon the regions of subsurface
matter with the processes of surface observation, and presume
to tell us anything about them ? Science plumes itself upon
refusing to investigate anything outside the region it calls
positive — but to this region it fixes no limits ; and no medium
at a spiritual circle makes greater claims upon our credulity
than when it tries to tell us how we are made, and what part
of us is material, and what immaterial.
The professor of biology, discoursing upon the origin and
nature of human life as an authority, is as arrogant and pre-
sumptuous as the professor of theology who assumes to him-
self the right to dictate on matters of divine truth. It is
difficult to say which set of guides is the blindest.
" The phenomena of matter and force," says Professor
Tyndall, " lie within our intellectual range, and, so far as
' they reach, we will at all hazards push our inquiries ; but
' behind, and above, and around all, the vast mystery of this
' universe lies unsolved, and, so far as we are concerned, is
' Lay Sermons, p. 340.
138 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' incapable of solution." ^ Then why go beyond it ? Unfortu-
nately that intellectual range is so excessively limited, that it
just perceives the few surface croppings up of the laws which
govern the phenomena of matter and force ; but the data
which they furnish are not only totally inadequate for the
construction of any sound theory of the universe, but are
highly misleading. This is because all attempt to solve the
vast mystery of this universe, under the limitations imposed
by our external senses and our intellectual faculties, must
prove abortive, because it necessarily involves the ideas of
space subject to those limitations, and dependent upon meas-
urements which they afford, but which do not exist in fact.
This is illustrated by the statement of Professor Tyndall,
" that the idea of distance between the attractive atoms is of
' the highest importance in our conception of the system of
' this world ; for the matter of the world may be classified
' under two distinct heads, — atoms and molecules which have
' already combined, and thus satisfied their mutual attractions
' — and atoms and molecules which have not yet combined, and
' whose mutual attractions are therefore unsatisfied." But in-
asmuch as there is no limit to atoms, which are as eternal,
infinite, and indestructible as the forces of which they are the
transmitting media, it is evident that we shall soon reach a
region which transcends the range of intellectual speculation,
and to which the idea of distance is absolutely inappli-
cable, because it implies the existence of space, which is
merely a creation of our limited faculties. It never seems to
enter the head of any man of science that faculties may
exist within us, which would enable us to extend our
range of vision. " Granted," says the same distinguished
man, " that a definite thought and a definite molecular
' action in the brain occur simultaneously ; we do not pos-
' sess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of
' the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of
' reasoning from the one to the other : the chasm between
' the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellec-
' tually impassable." .Intellectually impassable — yes; but
morally passable by those organs of which we all possess the
rudiments, if they were developed by processes of discipline
^ Fragments of Science, vol. ii. p. 95.
VAGUE DEFINITIONS. 139
which it is the province of those engaged in the " Xew Eefor-
mation " to discover and apply. These have no limitations,
either of time or space, for they are evolved by love of God,
who is infinite, and by service of the neighbour, whose collec-
tive life is eternal. It is satisfactory to have Professor Tyn-
dall's own statement of a belief in the existence and efficacy
of spiritual insight wliich can grapple with problems beyond
the scope of superficial observation, for in describing the ulti-
mate problem of physics, he says that it is " to reduce matter
* by analysis to its lowest condition of divisibility, and force
' to its simplest manifestation, and then by synthesis to con-
' struct from these elements the world as it stands. We are
' still a long way from the final solution of this problem, and
* when the solution comes, it will be more one of spiritual
' insight, than of actual observation." ^
He, too, like his distinguished colleague, becomes involved
in contradictions by the conflict which takes place Ijetween
the forces of his spiritual and intellectual nature. For else-
where he says that " the aim and effort of science is to ex-
plain the unknown in terms of the known ; " so he proceeds
to describe an " entity," and tells us that it is not necessarily
" a free human soul." This is a definition of one unknown
as being not necessarily another unknown. Again he re-
marks, " All our xjhilosophy, all our science, and all our art
— all are the potential fires of the sun." And again : " Wliat
' are the core and essence of this hypothesis (physical evolu-
' tion) ? Strip it naked, and you stand face to face with the
* notion that, not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular
' or animal life, not alone the exquisite and wonderful mechan-
' ism of the human body, but that tlie human mind itself,
' emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena were once
' latent in a fiery cloud."
Professor Huxley differs from liim here, for in an attempted
definition of vitality he compares it with " aquosity." After
referring to some of the well-known properties of water, he
remarks : " Nevertheless, we call these and many other
' strange plienomena, the properties of water, and we do not
* hesitate to believe that in some way or other they result
' from the component elements of water.
' Fragiiientw <>f Science, vol. ii. ]>. 94.
140 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
" We do not assume that something called ' aquosity '
' entered into and took possession of the oxide of hydrogen as
' soon as it was formed. What justification is there then for
' the assumption of the existence in the living matter, which
' has no representative or correlation in the not-living matter
' which gave rise to it ? What better philosophical status has
' vitality than ' aquosity ? ' "
Those who have begun to bridge, however imperfectly,
Professor Tyndall's impassable chasm, know that all the pro-
perties of water contain life, and what Professor Huxley calls
aquosity is the result of vitality in its constituent elements ;
that there is no such thing as " not-living matter," and that
the only difference between it and so-called living matter
consists in a chemical transformation of the atomic life-
particles ; that matter without life is a contradiction in
terms ; that death is merely an appearance which is con-
ditioned by our senses, and that it is in reality only another
form of life, the one set of non-sentient interlocked atoms
continuing to act vitally, though unconsciously, in surface
nature, and the other set of sentient atoms, which have been
set free, acting vitally and more or less consciously in sub-
surface nature ; and that a theory on " the practical basis of
life," based on the hypothesis that the phenomenon we call
death implies an actual extinction of the vital principle, must
be from first to last a contradiction in terms. What is energy
but another name for life ? and what is the " conservation of
energy " but the conservation of life ? Of the two great scien-
tific discoveries of the day — the origin of species, and the
conservation of energy — the one involves a great fallacy,
though there is a reflection of truth in it ; and the other, if by
energy is understood life, is the most fundamental truth that
science has ever discovered.
Professor Tyndall says : " Believing as I do in the continuity
' of nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscope ceases
' to be of use. Here the vision of the mind supplements
' authoritatively the ' vision of the eye.' By an intellectual
' necessity I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence,
' and discover in matter . . . the promise and potency of all
' terrestrial life." There is a stronger indication of Professor
Tyndall's " rudimentary organ " in this than in anything he
SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 141
has ever written. It is this potency which resides in tlie
matter of all terrestrial life, which vivifies aquosity, and "dead "
as well as li^ing protoplasm, and soul, and consciousness, and
physical phenomena, and all the other products of the uni-
verse, visible or invisible, surface material or subsurface
material ; and this potency we call God. Once admit that,
and surface materialism, with atheism in its train, disappears
from the region of philosophy ; and scientific men, and pro-
fessors of biology, will no longer find themselves dragged
in opposite directions by their higher moral and lower in-
tellectual natures. The sayings of these distinguished men
and their colleagues all over Europe might be quoted ad
infinitum, to prove that the more they seek to probe the
secrets of nature, the more vague, contradictory, and shallow
are the deductions which they extract from those secrets.
If I have felt impelled to write strongly on this subject, it
is because, while their discoveries are most valuable, the
conclusions drawn from them are becoming daily more
dangerous to the higher moral development of man. Their
names carry great weight, their singleness of purpose, their
devotion, indefatigable industry, and earnestness cannot fail
to inspire the highest respect ; but so long as each conclu-
sion at which they arrive tends more and more to make
surface nature its own first cause, and relegates the creative
agency into an idealism which many of them only cling to
because they are afraid to abandon it in the face of a world
not yet prepared to lose its God, — so long will they continue
unwittingly but insidiously to undermine the moral fabric
of society, in the hope of rearing in its place an intellectual
phantasy, which, wliile it tortures good men with doubt, will
open wide the doors to social disintegration and increasing
moral depravity.
In saying this, however, I must make many exceptions.
I am merely alluding to the general tendency of scientific
research. In ' Tlie Unseen Universe,' by Professors Balfour
Stewart and Tait ; in ' Life after Death,' by rechner, formerly
I'rofessor of Physics at Leipzig; in a work called 'Extra
I'hysics,' and in the writings of several men of science in
America, — we have indications of that spiritual insiglit, with-
out which all scientific investigation must be vain indeed.
142 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
Professor Huxley says that "in whichever way we look
at tlie matter, morality is based on feeling, not on religion ;" ^
Ijut he also tells us, in the article above quoted, that " the
safety of morality is in science." From the present standpoint
of religion and science, these utterances directly contradict
one another ; but they would not if science, like morality, was
looked at through the burning-glass of divinely illuminated
feeling or affection. Religion could then be made rational
enough to satisfy science, and science divine enough to be
incorporated into religion. So soon as scientific men have
laboured as energetically and as conscientiously with them-
selves morally, as they have intellectually ; and have flooded
those mental expanses, which their studies have rendered
receptive, with that divine scientific illumination, — so soon
as, by arduous effort and ordeal, they shall have placed them-
selves upon that moral eminence, where atomic contact can
be established with appropriate divine force, will they solve
their doubts as to God's existence, His overruling providence.
His surpassing love, and His infinite attributes. They will
not understand Him — for who by searching can find out God ?
— but they will feel Him, and receive revelations in regard
to Him adapted to their own condition, but often incom-
municable to others. They will know more. They will un-
derstand what that latent potency in matter is, by means of
which the world is to be lifted by their efforts, combined
with those of others, of all countries, ranks, and races, out
of the slough of selfishness in which it is wallowing, and
placed on that solid foundation of love ; the first stone of
which was laid on earth by Christ, acting under the direct
operation of the divine affection, as never man did before or
since, and especially adapted for this great work in a manner
to which I shall presently allude.
' Huxley's Hume, p. 207.
143
CHAPTER IX.
RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS : THEIR USES AND ABUSES — ASPIRATION DEMANDS
INSPIRATION — RELIGIONS EXTRACTED FROM HUSK, INSTEAD OF KER-
NEL OF REVELATION — IMPOSSIBILITY OP DEMONSTRATING TO THE
SUPERFICIAL REASON, TRUTHS DISCOVERED BY THE INNER FACULTIES
— VARIOUS CHANNELS AND METHODS OF INSPIRATION — DEVELOPMENT
OF SUBSURFACE CONSCIOUSNESS — MAGNETIC CONDITION OF UNSEEN-
WORLD AS RELATED TO OURS— ATTRACTION AND REPULSION DEPENDS
ON MORAL ATOMIC AFFINITIES — GROUPS IN THE UNSEEN WITH WHICH
EVERY INDIVIDUAL IN THE VISIBLE WORLD IS AFFILIATED — SO ALSO
WITH ALL CHURCHES, RELIGIONS, AND SECTS — CHRISTIAN, BUDDHIST,
MOSLEM, AND OTHER RELIGIOUS ORGANISATIONS EXIST IN THE UN-
SEEN, AND INSPIRE THOSE HERE — HENCE DIVERGENCY OF INSPIRA-
TION AND RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE.
In the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to analyse the
nature of what is called "inspiration"; to apply that analysis
to the sacred books upon which religions have been founded
from the earliest times, and especially to the Bible ; and to
show that tlie systems of theology which have resulted
from them, while they liave no doubt served as a valuable
moral agent, and were adapted to the moral and intellectual
condition of the races, and the epochs at the time of the
delivery . of the ethical teaching and ceremonial observances
which they enjoined, were also a fruitful source of evil,
giving rise to a peculiar class of violent passions, and
engendering among men bigotry and hypocrisy, spiritual
])ri<le, intolerance, and infidelity, by reason of the arrogance
with which they claimed a monopoly of truth; by the bitter-
ness witli which they denounced unbelievers ; by the narrow
and human view which they took of the divine attributes ;
by the mystical, vague, and contradictory character of tlieir
utterances; Ijy the terrors whicli tliey Haunted lu-fore evil-
144 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
doers, and the bribes they held out to the good, — thus causing
bloody wars and relentless persecutions, and barring all pro-
gress towards a better knowledge of divine truth than that
which they presented — excepting at the cost of martyrdom
to those who dared to attempt to advance Godward.
It was not possible that this should be otherwise. It is
a condition of man's existence, that he should be engaged
in a perpetual struggle after a knowledge of God ; and he is
thereto impelled, in pursuance of an instinct as firmly im-
planted in him as that which causes an infant to seek for
its nourishment at its mother's breast. This craving after
the Deity is universal, excepting in the still happily very
small class, which is confined to Christendom, which is
suffering from mental indigestion, and in which exclusively
intellectiial development is rapidly crushing out all moral
aspiration, and committing -suicide by the unwholesome
strain. For, though science may not yet realise it, the
negation of the Deity, and the adoption by man of sur-
face matter as his origin, would inevitably, sooner or later,
destroy his sympathy for his fellows, were it not that no
amount of metaphysical rigmarole — though it may do much
harm to the few — will ever extinguish the yearning after God
of the many. Men may crave after matter, and even go
so far as to eat the clay of which they think they are made,
like some South American tribes, but they will never instil
this unnatural appetite into the world at large.
It is, then, to this insatiable longing, that the world owes its
blind attachment to its religions ; but inasmuch as the men
who thus crave are nevertheless full of imperfection, and of
evil passions of all sorts, as well as of aspiration after God,
and of an instinct of brotherly love, their inspirations partake
of the prevalent character of the period and of the race, and
although more or less charged with divine truth, are also
heavily charged with moral imperfection. For the inspired
teacher, though in advance of his time, was nevertheless a
reflection of it. The misfortune has always been that he
could not convey to his followers the divine life which had
charged him with the message he delivered, and which had
raised him to his high office, without tincturing it with his
personal imperfections.
THE UNIVERSAL INSPIRATION. 145
While the religious aspiration was powerful enough to de-
mand a revelation with such persistence that it was obtained,
it was not powerful enough to keep men up to the spirit of it.
They treasured the husk and worshipped it, principally quar-
relled over it, and appropriated it from each other, because
they considered it a sort of talisman to avert danger, and
ensure safety ; but with the exception of those who are called
" mystics," they never tried to get at the kernel ; and even
these, as I shall presently show, only partially succeeded,
and kept what they knew so buried in secresy, that the
world was none the wiser for it. For this, however, the
mystics are not to be blamed ; for in its then condition the
world was not ready for it, and now humanity has passed
into a new phase, to which mysticism is not appropriate.
It is from this husk instead of from the kernel, then, that
religious systems have been extracted — upon it the Churches
have been built, and with it society has been fed. No won-
der that the results have been what we have shown them
to be ! But the time has come for the prodigal to turn away
from this unwholesome diet ; for the husk has ceased to satisfy
his awakened religious instinct, and he craves food more
suited to his spiritual digestion — food not administered to
him, in the first instance, by inspired prophet or seer, in
the second by inspired Church, and in the third by semi-
inspired priest, but drawn from the richer storehouse of his
own inspiration, and his deep inner experience and conscious-
ness. The day of exclusively inspired men, and exclusively
inspired Churches has passed away. The universal inspira-
tion is about to descend upon all who earnestly seek for it ;
the day of that 'Comforter' — or, more literally, 'Helper'
— which was promised, and which will guide those who re-
ceive it into all truth.
If, therefore, I am aljout to enter upon a series of what
may appear dogmatic statements, as being the result of what
I believe this ' Helper ' has taught me, I shall endeavour to
do so in all humility — conscious tliat they must be very
imperfect ; for, as I have already said, knowledge thus derived,
must always partake of tlie taint of the individual tlirougli
whom it comes — it being morally as well as ithysically
impossible for any liuman being to purge himself from it;
K
14G SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
aud for this very simple reasoii — that he forms an integral
part of a great diseased whole.
The popular theological idea, that by the action of the Spirit
of God a man can become actually dissevered spiritually from
his fellows, and elevated above them by a " discrete degree " —
to use Swedenborgian phraseology — on to another moral plat-
form, is a stupendous fallacy, the nature of which none knew
better than Christ, when He was incorporated into the earth-
malady. Therefore He said, " How am I straitened until
these things be accomplished ! " If a man is full of scrofula,
there is not a speck of his organism which is free from taint ;
and so it is with the world, and all that is in it — if one
member suffers, all the members must suffer with it. More-
over, any attempt of a man to disconnect himself from his
fellows in the hour of their need, by rising higher, would be
so selfish, that the very effort would cause him to sink, instead
of to rise. It is not, therefore, because I imagine myself to
be any better than others, or more favoured than others, or
expect to be saved more than others, or, so far as I am aware,
have any personal feeling in the matter, that I enter upon
this task, but simply because I feel it to be imposed upon
me as a sacred duty, from which I dare not shrink.
If I am obliged to make statements dogmatically, which are
incapable of proof by a process of reasoning, it is because,
when one is absolutely certain of a fact, it is difficult to speak
of it otherwise than dogmatically, even if it is not suscep-
tible of proof. Thus I may be conscious of having pain in
some part of my body in consequence of a remedy which I
had applied, and state it as an absolute fact ; though it may be
quite impossible for me to prove it except by saying to those
who doubt me, " Apply the same remedy, and you will feel
the same pain." And as a certain class of spiritual experi-
ences are either emotional, psychical, or physical, and not
intellectual, they are not susceptible of intellectual demon-
stration, and, in fact, may not be demonstrable by emotional,
psychical, or physical evidence — much depending in that case
on temperament or organic conditions. Thus one person is a
powerful magnetiser and another incapable of magnetising,
but very susceptible to magnetic influence.
Scientific men who are now dealing with forces which are
DYNASPHERIC FORCE. 147
inexplicable to them, in consequence of their capricious charac-
ter and irregular manifestation — should have no difficulty in
admitting tliat when one is dealing with these same, or
analogous forces, in a far more subtle region of nature, one
is neither bound to explain their action, nor to guarantee any
similarity of result in every case. The most one can do is to
give the conclusions at which he has arrived, as the outcome
of experience ; and having put others on the same track, leave
them to work out their own results. The great difficulty
which presents itself in the endeavour to describe these experi-
ences, is the poorness of the language, which does not provide
terms for the elucidation of them. Any attempt to convey
the nature of the conclusions arrived at, must suffer from this
cause. Moreover, as comparatively few persons have entered
into conditions where their subsurface consciousness has been
at all developed, many statements which are made, must
necessarily appear fantastic and scarcely comprehensible.
I have already used the illustration of Keely's Motor to
show how dynaspheric force can operate on external substance,
and the tremendous potentiality which it possesses. It is
this same interatomic energy — of which science has now
discovered the existence, but which is itself transmitted by
means of atoms — that produces the phenomena of hypnotism,
telepathy, mediumship, and the abnormal manifestations which
characterise occultism and oriental magic, and which is called,
in the language of the Esoterists, " astral fluid." It is this
same force, in a still higher development, which is projected
from invisible beings into the organisms of persons still in the
flesli, by various processes which I shall presently describe,,
and which enables them, under certain conditions, to inter-
weave their organisms with ours in a manner inconceivably
intimate, and Ijy acting directly on our nerve-centres, to affect
us sensationally in a manner indescribable to those who have
not undergone the experience, but unmistakable to those who
have. It is to this dynaspheric contact that tlie liysteria
and convulsions that so often attend religious exaltation and
revivals are due, which are generally supposed by the en-
thusiasts who witness them, to be the operation of the Holy
Ghost.
Assuming, then, tliat conditions can be reached by the
148 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
interlocking of the dynaspheric atoms of those who are in-
visible, with those of persons still in this life, especially in
the case where pneumatic as well as psychic interlocking has
preceded the decease of one of the parties ; and that it is
possible for a commingling of ideas to take place, in which
those of the invisible partner shall largely predominate,
though they will have to take form through the channel pro-
vided for it in the moral expanses and mental processes of
the living partner ; and assuming, further, that the invisible
partner was possessed of a powerful and well-trained intellect,
and was developed morally to a very exceptional degree, — it
is evident that, being released from the trammels of the flesh,
the faculty of insight and observation into natural phenomena
of such a person would result in knowledge of a deeply
interesting and valuable kind. It would not be infallible, for
the highest angels of which we have any knowledge are pro-
gressing, and progress implies imperfection ; but it might
contain certain truths which are absolutely vital to our own
progress, and warnings by which terrible and unknown
disasters may be averted. So far as we know, no prophets or
seers have had any other channels of inspiration than those
thus provided by the invisibles of our own universe, who are
in immediate rapport with those above them, and so on up
the series ; and any claim to a higher inspiration is the result
of ignorance or conceit on the part of those claiming to be
inspired. The value of the inspiration must always be con-
ditioned on the moral status of the recipient here, and of
the recipient in the unseen part of our world ; and as there
are those who have risen to very lofty and j)ure states, what
they transmit cannot be other than lofty and pure — indeed
the difficulty they feel is to reduce their inspiration to the
level of our faculty of reception and apprehension ; the visible
side of the world not being in a condition to receive any in-
spiration higher than it can obtain from the invisible side of
it. Why, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, these are
either so mystical, or so unpractical, or so vague, or so vulgar
as to be of very little use, I have explained in an earlier
chapter.
In order, however, to understand what follows, it is neces-
sary again to revert to the moral, social, and intellectual
THE UNSEEN WORLD. 149
composition of that subsurface or supersensuous world which
forms part of our own. The magnetic conditions there being
altogether different from what they are here, in consequence
of the absence of any of those gross molecules, which we
call 'material,' the functions of the supersensuous physical
bodies of those there can scarcely be conceived of by us ;
and any attempt to describe the relation they bear to in-
tellect and emotion, would be like trying to describe red to
a man who is colour-blind. Suffice it to say, that both the
physical and mental systems are, far more than they are here,
absolutely dominated and controlled by the emotional, which,
operating through the will, projects the powerful forces which
are stored in it. The result is, that attraction and repulsion,
as between individuals, act infinitely more powerfully there
than they do here ; and as locality there is the result of the
moral conditions which create it, the place where people are,
means the moral state or condition in which they are. Time
in the same way is calculated by the progression of states,
neither time nor space having any existence as we understand
them here. It results from this, that people are all either
irresistibly attracted or repelled according to their moral
affinities ; but these in turn depend upon the moral and
intellectual condition in which they were at the time of
leaving this earth, with reference to the societies in the other,
through which, by atomic correlation, they derived their life.
To these on leaving this world they are at once and irre-
sistibly drawn. As, however, impermanency is, as Buddha
so strenuously and earnestly insisted, the law of the universe,
it is not to remain with them always, for the individuals
of which these societies are composed, in obedience to the
powerful magnetic conditions which prevail, are constantly
changing, and passing into liiglier or lower conditions, as the
case may be. It follows from tliis that every individual here
is affiliated, so to speak, with a group who correspond to
his moral and rational condition, and from whom he draws
his life. It is a curious reilection that materialists here
derive their inspiration that there is nothing beyond the
matter of which tlieir senses are cognisant, from the materi-
alists who liold the same view tliere, and who consider that
there is no matter outside of that of wliich their 1 todies are
150 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
composed, and which they hold to be the origin of life. This
view having once impregnated the minds of those who are
affiliated to them here, the latter are also unable to conceive
of any matter outside of them, and which is not sensuous.
In the same way, all races and religions have their cor-
responding races and religions from which they draw their
life. Thus the very lowest types — such, for instance, as the
Bosjesmen of South Africa, or the Vedas of Ceylon, or the
aborigines of Australia — are physically sustained through,
and morally inspired by, those who have passed from this
world, and who belong to the same races ; for their atomic
condition would render it impossible for them to draw life,
intelligence, or moral consciousness from the highest earthly
human types, with whom their atomic elements have no
affinity. Thus there are races in the unseen world who have
not yet developed there, as there are races in the natural
world who have not yet developed here, according to our
notions of development. This is due to the fact of the time
not having yet come for the efflorescence of the peculiar
spiritual type which they represent, in which the intellectual
side of their nature is subordinate to the emotional ; as, for
instance, in the case of the African races, whose moral evolu-
tion, when it once begins, will progress with vast rapidity.
These races will not suffer in the evolutionary process from
having lived so long in a state of barbarism, and from
having been preserved until now from the blighting influence
of what we call " civilisation."
The law of the affinity of atoms governs the relations of
the two sections of the universe, and the transmission and
interchange of life between them. Thus, the good of each
race, according to their quality of moral consciousness and
intelligence, act upon their own race on earth to enlighten
them, while the bad endeavour to influence them for evil,
all being atomically interlocked together psychically, and
thus possessed by good and evil people, who, to distinguish
them from those in the flesh, we call " spirits."
It is the same with the religions. Churches, and sects.
Their influence is very powerful, because it is always more or
less organised. The most powerful organisations of this kind
are the Buddhist, the Moslem, and the Eomanist. Of these
EELIGIONS IN THE UXSEEX. 151
the Buddliist is the most powerful. It owes its strength to
its antiquity, to its numbers, and to the mighty stores of force
it has garnered up, by the practice of religious asceticism
during 2500 years — to its profound knowledge of the laws of
that force, and the methods of its conservation and applica-
tion — and to the potency of its spirit of self-sacrifice, which,
although misdirected, renders it by far the most powerful
spiritual agency which now exists of a special kind ; the best
evidence of which is, that it has but to put forth a little of
its long-latent energy, and it can affect the most mighty,
educated, and civilised community in Christendom, far more
powerfully than that society, with all its missionary enter-
prise, can affect it. I do not mean in the number of so-called
converts, but in their quality.
The Moslem is the next most powerful society, because
there is far more faith in its adherents than there is among
the Eomanists, the large proportion of whom, who believe, are
women or peasants. It is also far more in sympathy with
savage tribes ; and the religion itself being of a debased, and,
at the same time, fanatical type, can more rapidly come into
atomic relation with them than Christians can. It therefore
makes more converts annually than any other religion of
the present day ; though, as these are among the Central
African tribes, its operations in this direction are little
known,^
The Ilomanist society derives its strength from its admira-
ble organisation, its unscrupulous methods, and its immense
prestige. The internal corruption of the Greek Church, the
degradation of its priesthood, its race limitations, and the
social and political elements which are combining against it,
render its invisible organisation much less powerful than
that of Rome.
It is the most encouraging sign of the times, that there is
no religious society in the unseen part of our universe which
is weakening with the same rapidity as the Anglican. Tliis
arises from the fact of its defective organisation, of the wide
differences of opinion which obtain within its pale, and which
prevent all cohesion of the numbers who profess to belong
* Siuce the aVjove was written, attention lias been called to this fact by
Canon Taylor and Mr Boaworth Smith.
152 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
to it here, but who abandon it immediately they leave earth-
life — for the same reasons for external conformity do not
exist in the unseen which do here — and also from the defec-
tion of that immense class of truth-seekers who desert it here,
because they are in atomic relation with many who have
abandoned it there, and whose reasons for having done so, are
so forcibly projected into the minds of their earthly friends,
that these latter at once follow their example.
At the same time, the identical differences continue to pre-
vail among those who cling to it in the invisible world, which
do here. There are those who, not having found the bliss they
anticipated by an act of faith here, still trust to the merits of
the blood of Christ to procure it for them there ; and others
who, for the same reason, rely on the promise made to Peter,
as to the rock upon which the Church was to be built, and on
the efficacy of the Eucharist ; and so with every sect, down
to that small and worthy body the Christadelphians, they all
draw their life and inspiration from the group that belongs
to them, and that to which they belong. A special peculiarity
attaches to the latter sect alluded to, because they derive their
inspiration from a class of persons in the unseen, who imagine
themselves to be dead. This is not an uncommon form of
hallucination ; and Swedenborg gives some singular instances
of persons who were convinced that they would not live again
until the resurrection, and refused to rise from their beds,
which they believed to be their graves. The delusion common
to some people that death is tantamount to annihilation, and
that which possesses others, that there is no life after death
until the judgment-day, is one which those who have died
under its spell, and therefore continue to cherish in the un-
seen, project unconsciously to themselves into the minds of
mortals here, because they remain fixed in it. Those who
arrive at this conclusion from their interpretation of certain
texts in the Bible, do so from a mistaken conception of the
event which is called the resurrection, the nature of which
the apostles themselves did not clearly understand, or they
would have stated it in terms which would have avoided the
divergencies of opinion which exist among Christians on the
subject. The " resurrection " does, in fact, express in one
word that recombination of atoms, which will be rendered
THE RESURRECTION. 153
possible as the result of the new development of dynaspheric
force now beginning to operate in the surface world, and
which certainly could not operate were it not for the exist-
ence and active labours of those very beings who are to rise
again. By these labours, they will, with the co-operation
of human beings here, so assimilate the conditions of the
\asible with the in\dsible, that the moment will finally arrive
— it may be more or less catastrophically — when we shall
once again see those who have been laid in their graves,
living and moving amongst us as human beings, while our
own organisms will have undergone such a mighty change
that they will partake of the same nature, and death will
have been swallowed up in victory. This is the dawn of the
restitution of all things, a certainty in the dim future, but of
the times and the seasons knoweth no man.
It should always be remembered that those from whom
this inspiration comes are, as a rule, those who have most
recently "joined the majority," because of course they are
in the most intimate atomic rapport with those they left
behind ; in fact, except in the case of a direct blood-tie,
which creates a special atomic relation, it is impossible for
those who have long since passed away, to establish atomic
relations with a person on this earth, excepting through the
channel of an organism which had established such atomic
relations with that person previous to external dissolution.
The Hindoo, Jewish, and Parsee religions deserve a word of
notice; the first, because it is the only religion now extant
which has existed since prehistoric times — a fact which bears
sufficient testimony to the extraordinary spiritual energy
which must have launched it into the world, through the per-
sonalities of Eama and Khrishna, who, although they have
come to be regarded as mythical personages, were none tlie
less men, and the recipients of a divine wisdom suijerior to
anything tliat has existed since, with one exception, and
whose work remains the most stupendous religious monument
of whicli we have any record, debased, degraded, and frag-
mentary though it be now, and though the subsurface Hin-
dooism which has sustained it through so many thousands of
years, has long been undergoing a process of gradual but
sure disintegration and decay.
154 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
The Jewish and Parsee societies have many points in com-
mon. Among the great teachers of the world, none have had
more marked personalities than Moses and Zoroaster. The
religious life which they infused into the societies they taught,
has resisted in a remarkable way attack both from within
and from without. It has survived spiritual treachery and
worldly persecution, and has been powerful enough to bind
and hold together, by its internal atomic tie, each of these two
sets of wanderers over the earth's surface. They have had a
peculiar and trying ordeal to pass through, because a peculiar
destiny awaits them. The special characteristic of the unseen
societies of which they form the visible portion, is toughness
combined with flexibility. It is this pliable obstinacy which
has enabled them to weather the storms through which they
have passed, and which is now beginning to take an altered
shape in the unseen societies preparatory to a new develop-
ment, which need not involve their destruction, but which
must involve their transformation. In this they will differ
from all the other religions to .which I have alluded. The
reason of this is that with them alone to name the race is to
name the religion. This tribal characteristic, which is iden-
tified with their respective religions, operates in a special
manner in the relations which the Jewish and Parsee com-
munities in the invisible part of the universe occupy towards
the rest of its inhabitants ; and when the religious and social
cataclysm which is now beginning there, culminates, they
will not be affected by it in the same way as the other races
and religions ; but it is not given to me to know any details
in regard to this. All that is certain is, that as religions have
waxed and waned in times of yore, until nothing was left of
them but inscribed monuments, or engraved tablets, or mytho-
logical legends and poems, so all existing religions are doomed
again to wane, and indeed are waning now, and from their
debris the quickened life of humanity will burst forth, to the
realisation of a new and higher ideal than the most ardent
disciples of the greatest teachers ever deemed possible.
As to the rapidity of the growth of this new development,
no one can predict ; for that depends upon man's exercise of
his own free will, in fostering and co-operating with the forces
that must use him as their channel of operation ; but it will
J
ATOMIC AFFINITY. 155
aid him immensely to give his will an impetus in the right
direction, if he is made aware of some of the laws that govern
that force. The most important of these is that it can only
act through a chain of atomic particles specially adapted for
it. This law was apparently unknown to seers, who have
imagined themselves in direct communication with the pro-
phets and sages of a bygone period, and notably with Christ.
This was the case with Swedenborg, whose splendid intro-
missions into the unseen, equal, if they do not surpass, those
of any other seer, and palpitate with divine truth, and who
was doubtless convinced that he conversed face to face with
Christ ; but this was not possible, and for this reason.
It is well known to science that in the natural body all
the atomic particles undergo periodical change in the course
of a certain number of years. The same holds good with
the spiritual body, only there is not the same periodicity
as in natural time ; but the atoms of a person who has
passed into the inner world are perpetually changing, as the
person rises or falls morally, and so at last lose all direct
affinity with persons still in the flesh. In the case of those
whose moral condition here is very advanced, they can still
remain attached atomically to those who are rising upward,
for a longer period than persons of a lower type ; but sooner
or later their hold becomes attenuated, and they either follow
them, or are attached to a more recently deceased organism
in the unseen, suited to their moral condition. In any case,
it would be impossible for a person here to be so attached to
one who had passed away — say, more than a hundred years
ago — or beyond the extreme limit of natural old age ; but it
would be perfectly possible to be indirectly attached to sucli
a one through an intermediary who had passed away more
recently, and thus could form tlie link between the two.
In tliat case the contact would seem direct, though in point of
fact it would not be ; and whatever apparent communication
took place between the two, would be heavily cliarged with
the individuality of the intermediary.
When it comes to a question of contact between a human
personality and the personality of Clirist, the intermediaries
would be more numerous, tliougli the effect upon tlie Iniman
being here would .still be that of direct contact with Christ.
156 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
Were the communications not so tempered, the potency of
them would be such that no man could receive them and live,
— even if he could survive, he possesses no faculties which
would enable him to comprehend them. They therefore
reach him exactly adapted to his moral state, and the
quality of his internal faculty ; transforming their character
by new atomic combinations with the atomic elements of
each intermediary on the downward scale ; and in each case
taking up some of the quality of those atoms, and finally
reaching the human being in a form which his own idiosyn-
crasies enable him to assimilate. Had Swedenborg, for in-
stance, been born and bred a Jew, he might have equally
supposed he saw and talked with Moses. His " memorable
relations," which were representations projected on his* mind
by those with whom he was in sympathy and atomic attach-
ment, would in that case all have been adapted to the Jewish
instead of the Christian theology ; he might have been per-
fectly honest, and yet have conveyed a totally erroneous im-
pression of the relations which actually subsist now between
Moses and Christ. For the same reason, it would be almost
impossible now for a strong believer in Swedenborg, whose
internal faculties were thus opened, to see anything but a
Swedeuborgian view of things.
Wlien, at spiritual stances, Newton, Kepler, Aristotle, and
other ancient sages profess to appear, and write their names
as an evidence of their identity, it is absolutely certain that
it is not Newton, Kepler, or Aristotle at all, but a lately
deceased individual, probably of a very low type, or the
medium himself, if he happens to be a dishonest man.
As human relations with the unseen have become much
closer during the last half-century, in consequence of a cer-
tain alteration which has taken place in the gross external
molecules of the human organism, groups have been formed
in the unseen which concentrate their energies upon individ-
uals selected here, whose organic conditions render them
appropriate to psychic or pneumatic-psychic impact or im-
pression, as the case may be. Hence, we have mediumistic
centres of various groups of spiritualists, with varying forms
of conmiunication, directing or misdirecting their votaries,
according to the fancy or belief of their unseen dominating
SPIRITUAL INSANITY. 157
group ; and we have impressional writers controlled or in-
spired by such groups, and endeavouring to form societies,
which are daily increasing in number, with more or less
occult or mystic pretensions, all of whom, no doubt, sin-
cerely believe that they have been furnished with a key to
the mysteries, and all of whom are conscious of very distinct
guiding and direction, which the more orthodox and devout
naturally ascribe to Providence. In regard to the group
under whose inspiration I am writing this, I only offer the
impression which they have conveyed to me in the pages of
this book, as the purest and loftiest revelation which it has
been in my power to obtain, the value of which can only be
estimated by those whose inner perceptions have been opened
by such a long moral disciplinary process as may constitute
them judges on such an important question.
It is not to be wondered at that persons whose internal
faculties are open — and these are increasing every day —
and who imagine themselves to be in direct personal com-
munication with Christ, should ultimately arrive at very
exalted ideas of their own spiritual function and general
moral condition — though this cannot in any manner be said
of Swedenborg. Herein lies the terrible danger of an opening -,
of the supersensuous faculty, beyond the stage where the
moral nature is able to bear the strain. The man who thus
finds himself lifted, as he supposes, to the highest regions of
our unseen world, and made a companion on equal terms
with its denizens, soon imagines himself to be one of them,
and their vicegerent on earth. He becomes in his own eyes
infallible, and incapable of sin, and invested with supreme
dominion ; his " proprium," to use a Swedenborgian term, be-
comes inflated, and consequently a magnet which attracts a
very powerful class of influences, in whom pride, tyranny,
ambition, hypocrisy, and deceit, the lust of money and the
lusts of the flesh, rule supreme — and who in turn use their
intermediaries to take possession of their victim, until he
finally becomes spiritually insane, — of such a one it may
be truly said, that his last state is worse than his first. Nor
is the danger to himself alone, for he becomes a channel of
enormously potential magnetism of a virulently poisonous
kind, which enables him to control liypnotically those who
158 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
may have unwarily come under his influence, attracted by
the beauty of many of his utterances, which may often still
continue full of the majesty and force of inspiration. To
such he still appears an angel of light — the only chosen
medium for divine truth on earth to men, and the pivotal
centre of all humanity.
There is no doctrine attended with greater danger than
this one, which involves the necessity of a pivotal man,
through whom alone God can act upon the human race. It
was invented by the early Church, is illustrated in Eome,
and has since been acted upon by others. It is a doctrine
which casts its magnetic fetters round the affections, the
will, and the understanding, and makes abject slaves of those
who yield themselves to it. The whole tendency of the
divinely vital descent now occurring, is to develop the entire
nature of man, morally, rationally, and physically ; to eman-
cipate him from the bondage of Churches and of men ; to
make him his own pivot, standing erect in the light of his
own divine illumination, and lifting his arms Godward, in-
spired by the dignity of his own aspiration — neither borne
into the unseen in the swaddling - clothes of a sect, nor
driven thither in a chain-gang under the cruel lash of a slave-
driver, nor projected into it upon the fagot of an auto da fL
159
CHAPTER X.
FORCE INCONCEIVABLE EXCEPT IX CONNECTION WITH MATTER AS A
TRANSMITTING MEDIUM — THE PSYCHE OR "SPIRITUAL BODY," THE
ABODE OF THE PNEUMA OR " SPIRIT " — CHRIST's BIRTH AND DEATH
ESTABLISHED A NEW ATOMIC RELATION BETWEEN THE SEEN AND
THE UNSEEN — THE ORGANISMS OF THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN MAN
DESCRIBED — THEIR RELATION TO EACH OTHER, AND THE METHODS
OF THEIR INTERACTION — THE PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM, OCCULT-
ISM, HYPNOTISM, TELEPATHY, FAITH-HEALING, AND THOUGHT-READ-
ING ACCOUNTED FOR AND EXPLAINED UNDER THE OPERATION OF
NATURAL LAW — PHENOMENA UNRELIABLE AS A GUIDE TO TRUTH —
CRAVING FOR IT UNWHOLESOME AND ATTENDED WITH DANGER —
INSANITY EXPLAINED — PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH — DISEASE NOT AN
UNMIXED EVIL — POPULAR IDEAS OF HEAVEN, HELL, PURGATORY,
ERRONEOUS — MAGNETIC CONTACT ESTABLISHED BETWEEN CHRIST
AND THE WORLD, THE CHANNEL OF A NEW MORAL RECONSTRUCTIVE
POTENCY — THE HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL MAGNETIC BATTERIES NOW
CHARGED, AND THE CONSUMMATION AT HAND — QUALITIES REQUIRED
IN THOSE WHO WOULD CO-OPERATE IN BRINGING IT ABOUT.
From the foregoing remarks it will be seen that, as it is im-
possible to conceive of force as disconnected from matter, and
that as all matter of which science is surfacely cognisant
is in motion, dynaspheric force — which is the transmitting
energy of the will, the emotions, and the intellect — must also
be in motion, and must differ in quality, as light, heat, elec-
tricity, and other forces, of which we are sensuously cognisant,
difi'er from eacli other ; and tliis brings us to a consideration
of the nature of the bodies which people inhabit after tliey
have shuttled off tlie gross external covering which formed
their fleslily tabernacle. St Paul calls these " spiritual bodies," ^
and in fact that is tlie name generally given to them by
* 1 Corinthians xv. 44.
160 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
non-materialists ; but few Biblical students form any definite
idea of the terms "soul" and "spirit," or "psyche" and
" pneuma," which are so constantly employed in the New
Testament, and of the wide distinction which exists between
them, or they would have clearer notions than seem to obtain
at present, of the condition of those who have passed through
the phase of their earthly existence. The masses who derive
their ideas on these subjects from pictorial representations,
believe in an unknown cloudy region, inhabited by sexless
diaphanous beings, with wings and harps, whom they call
angels, and whom they do not connect directly with this
world ; but beyond that, their minds are a blank upon the
subject.
Now, in order to have definite ideas, we must begin by
attaching definite meanings to words, and understand the
precise signification we connect with the terms soul and
spirit. The expression " spiritual body " is an accurate defini-
tion of soul, only so far as it conveys the idea that the psyche
or soul is the abode of the pneuma or spirit — in other words,
the psyche is composed of those atomic particles which form
the outer covering or body of the pneuma, and without
which the transmission of pneumatic force would be impos-
sible, though they may transmit it in very different ways.
The word pneuma is used in several separate senses in
the Bible. In one of these it means the human spirit of
man, whether embodied or disembodied. In another, the
divine influx or afflatus — it is then called " a spirit," or " the
spirit of God." In another signification, it applies to the
divine feminine, when it is called "a holy spirit," or "the
spirit which is holy." ^
The translators not having recognised any such difference,
and having utterly ignored the particles, and made an arbi-
trary and capricious use of capitals, the only way of appre-
ciating the full force of the distinction is by reading the
original Greek text.
At present we are considering the pneuma only as applied
to man. Thus an intimate fusion or interlocking of pneu-
matic atoms between a person here, and one who has lately
passed from this eartli, has only quite recently become pos-
^ See Note in Appendix to Chapter xxi.
THE NEW SPIRITUAL POTENCY. 161
sible. The potency thus derived does, in fact, furnish man
with the moral energy which he has lacked hitherto, and
which will enable him to give practical effect to his highest
aspirations, until now impossible ; to overturn the false sys-
tems of science, religion, and society which prevail, and to
build upon their ruins a fabric patterned after a divine model.
It is an event more pregnant with consequences of the
deepest import to humanity, than anything that has happened
on earth since the appearance of Christ upon it, for it alone
renders His coming a second time possible; and it was to
establish this new link between the visible and the invisible
regions of our universe that He was born into the world, and
suffered death by violence.
It is to indicate how this was rendered possible for man
by that event, and by what process it can be achieved, that
this book has been written.
Hitherto the loftiest communications, and the most power-
ful displays of celestial spiritual energy which the world has
seen, have resulted, not from identic pneumatic vibration of
atoms, but from pneumatic vibratory combinations of these
atoms of an irregular kind. These have been exhibited in
tlie prophecies and visions of seers in old time, in a few rare
instances up to the present day, and in a very special and
orderly manner on the occasion of the phenomenon which
occurred shortly after Christ's departure from earth, when,
as the result of the close atomic affinity which He had
established with His disciples, the great outpouring of spir-
itual energy, known as the descent of the Holy Ghost, took
]»lace. This divine force is constantly alluded to in the New
Testament ; but the word Swu/xl^ is usually rendered " power "
by the translators, and its real meaning, wliicli is " force," is
thus weakened.
In order to make this clear, the reader must bear in mind
that the psyche is, in fact, a body, differing only from ours in
the composition of the atoms of wliich it consists, but other-
wise exactly resembling ours in its physical construction.
We call it the soul, but it is not tlie less a body, of which our
(niter body is tlie outer shell or covering. It is separated
from the spirit, or pneuma, which resides witliin it, by a
medium or sulistance in the nature of an insulator or diclec-
L
162
SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
trie, which is nevertheless capable of transmitting the vibra-
tions of the pneumatic atoms within to the psychic atoms
witliuut, and, combining with these, to radiate upon human
beings. In the case of the earth-man there is a human body
outside his psycliic dielectric, encompassed by a third dielec-
tric, which Eeichenbach called his odylic sphere — the func-
tions of wliich I shall explain presently. I will endeavour to
make my meaning more clear by a diagram.
Spiritual Man.
The three human dielectrics are all permeable to the atomic
forces which radiate from spiritual beings, in varying degrees.
In the case of the highest inspiration formerly known, and to
which we owe sacred writings, the human dielectrics not only
almost lost their insulating properties, but became powerful
conductors of atomic vibration from the spiritual pneuma to
the human pneuma, but this was unaccompanied by any
interlocking of the respective pneumatic atoms.
By the absence of interlocking, I mean that no such har-
mony was established between the two as to render the
atomic vibration identical. It is from contact of this sort
that we obtain impressional writing and preaching that is
not purely automatic. Its character and value must always
depend upon the harmony which exists between the vibration
of the pneumatic atoms, as well as upon the purity and eleva-
tion of the inspiring pneuma. What is called " genius " is the
result of pneumatic contact of this sort ; and poets and artists
in particular must be conscious of the inspirations that pro-
ceed from it, and of times when ideas suddenly present them-
selves, projected from some invisible source into the brain.
As both the human and the spiritual dielectrics differ in-
finitely in their capacity of conductivity, there is an infinite
DANGERS OF MEDIUMSHIP. 163
variety in the intellectual and moral characteristics of every
human being, the great majority of whom are unconscious of
any radiation of spiritual influence upon them, and find it
exceedingly difficult to believe that contact of this sort is
possible. Where there is cerebral distu.rbance, the external
or body dielectric is violently ruptured, and insanity or mania
of some sort results — its nature depending upon the nature of
tlie disturbance, and of the infesting influence which takes
advantage of it, and other causes.
In the case of the grosser forms of spiritualistic manifesta-
tion and mediumship, the two outer dielectrics are powerful
conductors, while the pneumatic or inner one generally, but
not always, retains its insularity. In this case the spiritual
pneumatic atoms, taking up the psychic atoms, impinge
\-iolently upon the human psyche of the medium, who for
the time being is completely dominated by them, or, in the
language of spiritualists, " under control." In proportion as
the- two outer dielectrics are permeable to this impact, is
he what is called " a powerful medium for physical mani-
festations ; " and in proportion as his pneumatic dielectric is
permeable, are the results of value. The reason why they
scarcely ever are of value, is because the control of his psyche
1 )y the spiritual influence, destroys all rational balance between
it and liis pneuma, which thus becomes open to fantastic im-
] tressions, often leading to insanity ; while this control of
lioth body and psyche, being utterly disorderly, sooner or
later depletes the organism of vitality, destroys the nerves,
and results in many painful forms of mental and l)odily
malady. The cultivation, tlierefore, of the mediumistic
faculty is in the highest degree to be deprecated. It is of
little practical use, and involves bodily and spiritual danger
of the most serious kind.
The function of the external human dielectric, or odylic
s])]iere, is the transmission between human beings of the
sentiments of sympathy, antipathy, and other emotions de-
]»ending on the affinity of tlie atoms, or the reverse, and
on the accord with which they viljrate. In some cases
they are peculiarly subject to spiritual agency, as, for in-
stance, wlien they are projected in the human form of tlieir
living' owner before tlie <'i\z(^ of anollier liviuu' iikiii, forming.
164 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
with the atoms of his dielectric, a presentation visible to him
alone, sometimes in dreams, sometimes in waking states. In
the same way apparitions of persons who have passed into the
other world are formed out of their psychic dielectrics, and
are presented visually to persons in the flesh who happen to
be in appropriate dielectric conditions.
The reason why phenomena of this kind, as well as those
called spiritualistic, are so capricious and irregular in their
manifestation, is because they depend entirely on the quality
of the human dielectric. Where there is scepticism in the
human pneuma or inmost thought of the man, antipathetic
atomic combinations are formed in his two external dielec-
trics, and interpose a hostile atomic element which encom-
passes the medium, and forms a barrier that the psychic force
of the spiritual agent cannot penetrate. It is for this reason
that physical manifestations are successful just in proportion
as there is a strong faith-sentiment in the spectators, whose
external dielectrics are then co-operating with the spiritual
agent. It constantly happens, however, that some may be
present whose external dielectrics oppose an insurmountable
obstacle from other causes, too varied to enter upon here,
which prevent visible results from being obtained.
It is by this abnormal vibration of psychic atoms that most
of the phenomena known as " telepathic " or psychic are
produced — that wills are dominated, suggestions obeyed,
trances induced, automatic writing and speaking are propelled
through the medium, materialisation and all the grosser ex-
hibitions of a physical character are displayed, which have
for the last forty years or more excited the incredulity
of one class of mind, while they have exercised a powerful
fascination over another class. There has never been a period
of the world's history, nor a country, in which phenomena
due to this cause have not exhibited themselves in some form
or other, and they form the basis of savage superstitions, and
of their barbarous and often cruel rites and customs. They
depend entirely for their character and value on the force
of the pneumatic battery, and the quality of the dielectric
of the medium — whether he be a Cingalese devil-dancer or
an American " sensitive."
Another class of phenomena depends chiefly upon the af-
J
PSYCHIC INFLUENCE. 165
finity which exists between the atomic elements of two human
beings and their dialectric conditions. Thus there are those
whose atomic elements have a powerful capacity for psychic
vibration, or, in other words, of domination; while others
again are exceptionally receptive of psychic influence. These
two classes, in cases of hypnotic experiments, healing by
faith, and kindred phenomena, become operator and patient
respectively. The operator is always — often unconsciously
to himself — in close psychic rcqoi^ort with the influence in
the unseen, which is sometimes a beneficent and sometimes
a maleficent one, who projects, by pneumatic impulsion, his
or her atomic psychic force into the operator, where, becoming
reinforced by the magnetic elements of the latter, it passes
on into the patient with whom atomic affinity has been
established ; and the results are rapid, powerful, and direct,
just in the degree in which, by constant exercise, the mag-
netic influence has been rendered dominant. As the rela-
tions of the operator with the invisible influence are subject
to constant variations, arising from the fact that their atomic
affinity is liable to change — and the same holds good as
between operator and patient — and as there is an infinite
variety of operators and patients, it is no wonder that the
results are capricious and irregular, and that all attempts to
classify or reduce them to sliarply defined categories must end
in failure, and in such disputations as have already occurred
between the hypnotic schools of Paris and Nancy, who are only
agreed to deny the operation of any invisible agency whatever.
This is merely a rough sketch of the processes by which
seen and unseen beings act upon each other, and does not
profess to classify, after the manner of oriental philosophy,
the series of vital principles of which the invisible human
organism is composed — a subject so complex, that it would
only tend to confuse the reader. It would also be impossible
to put into language, the process which distinguishes the
orderly method of acting tlirougli spirit agency upon the
pneuma of tlie natural man in its centres, from the disorderly
method of reaching it through the circumferences. Suffice it
to say, that all divine action proceeds from centres outwards
to circumferences, and all infernal action from circumferences
inwards upon centres.
166 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
\
Until this whole class of considerations is recognised as
existing, and worthy of investigation, science will continue to
flounder in a very dangerous quagmire indeed ; and although
much good may be done by conscientious practitioners, the
dangers, as I pointed out in a previous chapter, are of a fatal
character.
From which it will appear that the lowest order of contact
with the invisible world — so far as the attainment of divine
truth is concerned — is that which usually, though not nec-
essarily in every instance, accompanies spiritualistic pheno-
mena — which is only psychico-pneumatic impulsion ; that
the phenomena of hypnotism, and those ordinarily termed
psychic, are due to this method ; that a higher order exists,
to which we owe what is called divine inspiration, and im-
pressional communications of the more elevated kind, which
is due to pneumatic-atomic combinations and psychic inter-
locking; but that a higher still has now become possible,
by means of pneumatic as well as psychic interlocking, when
the atoms of the pneumas vibrate in exact accord, the nature
of which will be more precisely defined presently, as well as
the difference which exists between that and what I have
called vibratory combination.
It must be observed here, that there is a projection of ideas
into the mind open to this highest order of inspiration, accom-
panied by an internal visualisation, altogether different from
clairvoyance, in that the latter is objective to the internal
senses, while the former is subjective to them. The difference
is not to be described in language, because so few have under-
gone any experiences which would render it intelligible to them ;
but this should be understood in estimating the value of any
inspiration, that inaccuracy with regard to the external facts
of history, science, and so forth, does not affect its possible
accuracy with regard to the deeper matters affecting the pro-
gress and destiny of the human soul. The reason of this is,
that it is not possible, even for an angel, to put into the mind
of a human being knowledge for the reception of which no
mental expanses exist in his brain — except automatically.
Then the inspiration loses all its value, because the human
instrument has no means of judging of its origin by his own
internal consciousness. The more he can retain the full con-
IMPERFECTIONS OF INSPIRATION. 167
trol of all his faculties, the more the inspiration seems to come
spontaneously from himself, the keener does his internal per-
ception become as to its true source. Then it seems to flood
the centre of his consciousness, and to allow the circumference
to take care of itself. But as external facts are on the cir-
cumference, the accuracy with which these are presented by
him must always depend upon his own faculties, his train-
ing and education, and the amount of everyday information
which has previously been stored in his mind, and which he
can use to illustrate the ideas pictured in his deep internal
consciousness.
The inspiring genius cannot, therefore, be held responsible
for historical or scientific errors any more than for grammat-
ical ones. The external presentation of the inspiration must
ever depend upon the man's own surface education and sur-
roundings. Hence the numerous astronomic and other errors
contained in the Bible, which, however, do not affect the
transcendent value of its inspiration, in some places where
these errors are most apparent.
This is the reason why, as inspiration becomes fuller and
deeper, and therefore more divine, it will lose its phenomenal
character. It is a great mistake to suppose that occurrences
termed " miraculous " or " supernatural " are any evidence
of a divine origin. It is true that most rehgions are based
on such occurrences ; but that was because the human mind
at that time was more open to a due discrimination of their
nature and value — because the rational faculty had not
swollen to the undue proportion it has now, at the expense
of the emotional.
It was, in fact, in an unduly suppressed condition, and few
divine truths were appreciated intellectually; but in these
days we must liave a reason for the faith that is in us be-
yond phenomena, which are quite as likely to be infernal
as divine.
There is no more unwholesome craving than that after
])henomena, none more weakening to the reason, more unbal-
ancing to the judgment, or more fruitful in misleading those
wlio indulge it, from tlie truth of which they are in quest ;
and tliere is no statement in this book which will be more
vehemently denied by spirits through the mediums under
168 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
their control, than the above explanation of their methods
of action. For if spiritualists acted upon it, their occupation
and their amusement would be gone ; it will be confirmed by
some, however.
Above all are those in danger who seek to open them-
selves to the operation of this psychic force from motives of
curiosity, gain, or the mere desire to exhibit phenomena which
may gratify their vanity. They are playing with fire, and
I would earnestly warn all those before whose eyes these
lines may fall, on no account to take part in any of those
after-dinner experiments in which telepathy, thought-reading,
and hypnotism are trifled with as a more lively amusement
than a round game. They may be unconsciously opening
themselves to influences, and establishing connections with
agencies in the unseen, from which they may find it almost
impossible to free themselves, and which may possess a power
of torturing them, both here and hereafter, in ways very
little dreamt of ; nor will they ever be able to trace the
source of their misery to the fatal evening when, uncon-
sciously, they let the poison into their systems. All super-
ficial dabbling in the occult, or in spiritualism, or in hypno-
tism, should be carefully avoided. God is not approached by
these methods — they lead, as a rule, in quite the opposite
direction. Many sad cases of illness from these causes, which
have terminated fatally, have come under my notice.
On the other hand, it is of the highest importance that all
should remember that they are in intimate connection with
the unseen part of the universe, from which they draw their
life, and from which it is impossible that they can disentangle
themselves ; and that in the degree in which they rise morally
here, will they unconsciously to themselves become associated
with high moral intelligences there, and create, as it were,
for themselves the home and the society which they will find
waiting to receive them.
Let those who have sown in tears here know that, if they
have learned the lesson their grief was intended to teach
them, the harvest will be found on the other side. There
is not an atom of suffering — and suffering, like everything
else, is composed of atoms — which they have endured here
which has been wasted, for it is a peculiarity of the atoms of
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SUFFERING. 169
the emotions, that they become transmuted by the amount of
divine vitaHty which can be projected into them during their
earthly passage. The suffering, and the pain, and the misery
of the world, are its dross, but they are all capable of being
transformed in the crucible of life into pure gold. Every
pain-atom, whether it be moral or physical pain, becomes a
joy-atom when it has done its work of purification here, and
passes upwards, like incense, to that bright atmosphere, where
it condenses into a joy-atom, and forms a piece of substantial
happiness, waiting to be entered into by the one who felt the
agony of it on earth, and who, instead of rebelling then,
cherished it as a priceless gift from God. This is the true
Karma.
And let those who have lost loved ones here know that
they are not lost, but only gone before, if, while on earth, all
were struggling to fulfil the divine behest, and that it is pos-
sible to be more deeply and interiorly united with them after
their departure, than could ever have been possible through
the medium of their fleshly atoms ; and let them realise
further, that death is indeed a new birth, and necessary to
the soul's progress. If this were properly understood, part-
ings would lose half their sting, and it would no longer be
incomprehensible why so many bright examples and useful
lives were nipped in the bud, at the moment when the ex-
ample was most bright, and the life most useful. The influ-
ence which seemed so powerful for good here was removed,
Ijecause it could be more powerful for good there in its opera-
tion upon those who are left behind, and because in many
cases the finer moral atoms had developed so rapidly, that
they could no longer be compressed by those which were
more material, but burst their fleshly bonds because they
needed expansion, and that freedom to rise which was denied
them on eartli. Their work ikjw consists in lifting those they
left on earth to higher moral conditions, and this they can
accomplish just in the degree that the latter deny themselves
the luxury of selfisli grief, and throw themselves with re-
doubled energy into tlieir daily duties — recognising in the
apparent loss they have sustained, a new evidence of their
Fatlier's love — and invoke by constant and cheerful recollec-
tion of tlie loved one, who is no longer outwardly visible to
170 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
them, the potency of the inward presence to guide, aid, and
sustain them in the service of the neighbour. It is not by
visiting the carved tablet tliat marks the resting-place of a
few bones, or decorating it with immortelles, that this pres-
ence can be enjoyed ; but in co-operating with it in the daily
activities of life, in the consciousness of its inspiring affection
for others, of its faculty of illuminating the understanding,
nerving the will, and stimulating the energy, — in the con-
scious sensation of thrills of vital force pulsating through
the organism, in the delight of the well-known moral and
mental touch spurring to new endeavour, lifting to new con-
tact with beings ineffable, and so lightening the burden of
the remaming days of the earthly pilgrimage, by an earnest
of bliss to come, and the promise of a meeting under condi-
tions which shall more than compensate for all pains endured,
and all worldly hopes extinguished.
At present, through the universal ignorance which prevails
of the relations which the seen bears to the unseen, these
experiences are vouchsafed to few, but they are within the
grasp of all ; nevertheless they will not be accorded to those
who shape their lives on earth with a view to attaining them,
for in that case the selfishness of the motive would vitiate
the endeavour. The effort for union with God, through ser-
vice for the neighbour, must be solely based upon the idea
that the neighbour cannot be saved except by virtue of this
union — because it is this union alone which can render man
■a fittmg instrument in divine hands to aid his fellows ; and
as no human being should be dearer to one than God and
humanity at large, therefore to try and serve God and hu-
manity, in order to retain an internal union with any one
human being, is to degrade the celestial principle of love of
God and the neighbour, by making it the means to a selfish
end.
What we call death, however, is not generally caused by
the development or growth of spiritual life, but is more often
due to various other causes, of which the principal is the
decay of spiritual life, owing to the invasion of infernal energy,
which poisons the celestial vitality, until the outer frame
sinks under the mephitic influences thus brought to bear.
This is the case where the man gives way to the uncontrolled
CAUSES OF DEATH. 17 1
indulgence of his e\dl passions, and allows himself to become
the habitation of unclean spirits, who feed on the atomic
elements of the vices in which they indulged during earth-
life. Another cause of death is the draining of the elements
of the vital atoms by human vampire organisms ; for many
persons are so constituted that they have, unconsciously to
themselves, an extraordinary faculty of sucking the life-
principle from others, who are constitutionally incapable of
retaining their vitality.
Thus, it is well known that old people can derive physical
life from fresh young organisms by sleeping beside them, and
the experience is common among invalids, whose organisms
have been rendered sensitive by illness, that the presence of
certain people is exhaustive, and of others life-giving. It is
rare for married people to exchange the elements of vital
atoms in equal proportions, one of the partners nearly always
gives more than the other receives; nevertheless, this constant
change of vitality is a necessary condition of our existence as
we are at present constituted ; but as the laws by which it
is governed are absolutely unknown to the medical profession,
which does not treat patients except on their surfaces, an
appalling amount of wholesale mutual slaughter now goes on
imchecked. This might be very much diminished if doctors
would open themselves to divine illumination, and not rele-
gate to the Church that part of the human organism, which,
if they knew a little more about it, they would perceive
comes directly within the sphere of their operations.
All these three causes of death exhibit themselves exter-
nally in various forms of malady known to the profession,
and which are treated by them irrespective of their origin,
which is further complicated by heredity. Hereditary taint
is in itself another cause of death, and diseases which spring
from it are so intimately connected with the human source
from which they were derived — whether the patient be alive
or dead — that any treatment, to be thoroughly successful,
involves considerations connected witli the invisible world
which would entail ruin of the professional reputation of any
medical man wlio should dare to entertain, inuoli less act
upon, them.
When deatli ensues from old age, it is because the psychic
172 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
atoms have burst the physical atoms which contain them —
in other words, the physical frame dissolves from excess of
internal vitality, which it is not capable any longer of assimi-
lating, and therefore slowly decays. Death is also the result
of violence and other causes not necessary to specify here ;
but in all cases, our relation with those who have passed away
is retained in one form or other, and we are able to influence
their lives where they are, as they are able to influence our
lives here. It is of the utmost importance that this should
be thoroughly understood and appreciated, as it is calculated
powerfully to affect our conduct in this life. Few realise
how much they can often help those who have preceded them,
and how much they can be helped by them. When, however,
it is clearly apprehended that visible matter is purely relative
to our senses, and that the matter which is invisible to us
bears the same relation to the senses of invisible beings
that surface-matter does to our senses, we shall have less
difficulty in imagining a condition of things in some respects
analogous to the nature with which we are familiar. It dif-
fers in this, however, that its aspect to its inhabitants is con-
ditioned upon their moral vision : thus, the same scenery in
the invisible world will present a totally different appearance
to two persons in opposite moral states — the one esteeming
divinely beautiful what seems to the other infernal and
altogether unlovely. In the same way, their modes of life
and personal appearance present the most violent contrasts,
while their external bodies are totally dissimilar from each
other — those of the lowest order appearing to those of the
highest as gross, and often, indeed, far grosser than our own ;
and increasing in repulsiveness in the degree in which they
sink into depths of moral depravity, and their atomic vices
take expression in their outward forms. We can form some
idea of this from the face of a man in the flesh, in whom the
furrows ploughed by vice and dissipation are strongly marked,
and betray the character within.
It is to this low and debased creature in the invisible, that
we owe the phenomenon of insanity. When, through hered-
ity, accident by violence, sudden shock, nervous overstrain,
or any other cause, a cerebral disorder takes place, depriving
the victim of that control which, in the normal condition of
HUM AX INSANITY. 173
his faculties, he retains over his brain-power, he instantly
l)ecomes a field for invasion of influences in whom the in-
dulgence of especial vices, pushed to their extreme, become
insanities. For in the eyes of beings in the upper invisible
world, the lower presents the appearance of a vast lunatic
asylum; its inhabitants literally take possession of human
beings thus afflicted, and melancholia, religious frenzy, in-
ordinate vanity, and all sorts of infernal delusions are thus
represented before our eyes. As, however, the derangement
is caused by a disturbance in the most exterior cerebral
structure, new atomic combinations take place during the
process of transition into the invisible world, and the suf-
ferer is placed in conditions where his cure can be speedily
effected. "VMien, therefore, we read in the Gospels of the
cures by Christ of men possessed by devils, the expression is
literally accurate : they would have been styled by us luna-
tics ; but, in some respects, knowledge in those days was more
accurate than it is now.
AVe read every day, in our law courts, of the abortive at-
tempts of medical men of the present day to define insanity;
it is, in fact, undefinable — for no such thing as a perfectly
sane human being exists, or he would be sinless, and the
patients are often more sane than their doctors. It being
perfectly impossible, so long as our earth is atomically inter-
locked with its own lower region, to impede infernal cerebral
invasion, it is all a question of degree, and it is not possible
to draw a hard and fast line between sanity and insanity.
All we can do is to put under treatment those who develop
tendencies dangerous to life or property ; and this might be
done far more effectually, and with far happier results, if
medical men would look beyond the actual brain-cells for the
cause of the malady, for they are, in fact, only its habitation.
The same remark applies to all diseases — even the most
trivial ; a cold in the head, is a form of infestation. In other
words, sitting in a draught lias produced a slight organic dis-
turbance, which opens the healthy life to invasion by a certain
poisonous quality of atomic force, which finds its way from
tlie lower invisible region, where all disease is generated.
The fact tliat it can be cured Ijy external remedies, in no
way disproves the fact that tiie life wliich comes from above
174 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
is healthy, wliile that from below is unhealthy, aud that un-
healthy life always streams into us when organic conditions
admit of its doing so ; but that the current of it is checked
as soon as the physical balance is restored by remedial agents.
These remedial agents would not be confined to pills and
drugs, if the laws which govern the interchange of atomic
elements were understood, and, indeed, the efficacy of mag-
netic and hypnotic treatment in certain cases has long been
recognised ; but, as I have said elsewhere, it is attended
with dangers of another kind, in which evil influences can
work more harm than the most conscientious practitioner —
as the world is at present constituted — can do good. Divine
science, acquired by moral effort, can alone deal satisfactorily
with physical disease, and there are men in the profession
upon whom this conviction is beginning to force itself with
irresistible authority ; in illustration of which, I may mention
a work by Dr Garth Wilkinson, called ' The Human Body,'
in which many of these truths are insisted upon.
At the same time, it should be understood that disease is
by no means an unmixed evil; that it is generated by the
lower, and not the upper life, is unquestionable : but divine
laws perform their functions through the lower as well as
through the upper agencies, and the operation of the former
is therefore made subservient to beneficent ends. Thus
disease, which is, in fact, an effort of nature to throw off
poisonous invasive elements, often leaves the organ attacked
in a far healthier condition than it was before — in which,
possibly, planes existed for moral infestation, A radical
change in the organ, produced by disease, often closes the
avenue to the invasion. Again, it sometimes happens that
when the organism is extremely reduced physically by dis-
ease, atomic combinations can be effected in the moral nature,
which would be impossible in conditions of robust physical
health ; and one of the commonest experiences of those who
make the violent change in their external mode of thought,
aims in life, and daily habits, which is involved in the at-
tempt to rise above the conventional moral standard, and be
absolutely and unreservedly self-surrendered to the service
of God and the neighbour, is a serious attack of illness, from
wliich they rise with new and liigher faculties developed —
infestations". 175
the effect of the illness ha^^.ng been to attenuate the gross
atomic covering of the finer atomic elements, and so to allow
these latter to expand. Sometimes it is the very effort of
these to expand which is the cause of the disease. Thus the
final effect of disease upon those who are struggling to enter
into new and higher conditions is always, in a greater or less
degree, to develop the subsurface faculties.
It is for the more gross and infesting class of invisible
beings when they are in their earlier stages, that the earth-
man can labour, and it is in this phase of their existence that
the idea of reincarnation has had its origin ; for, as I have
already said, the instinct of the depraved, who are recently
deceased, is to find for themselves human habitations, and it
thus becomes possible, for those on earth who understand
these things, to labour for those of their fellows who are thus
infested and obsessed. Where their labours are successful,
and the man is turned from the error of his ways and reformed,
the possessing spirit, who cannot realise in his phantasy that
he is not himself the earth-man, becomes captured by the
power of the divine energy operating through the human
instrument, and is liberated from the thraldom of his vices
at the same time as his victim.
Those, on the other hand, who rise, are perpetually in-
creasing in beauty of expression, as their virtues shine from
their countenances, and their organisms become refined and
])urified of all earthly taint by incessant labour for others.
These others are not only those whom they left behind on
earth, but those in the invisible world who have not yet sunk
into irreclaimable depths of vicious self -gratification, and
who are painfully and laboriously lifted, by angelic effort, out
of regions in which they find alike their misery and their
insane delight. There is a point, however, where their insani-
ties become so confirmed, that these efforts are of no avail ;
where memory fails, and all continuity of individuality is lost.
I>ut the divine spark still burns in them — as it does in every-
thing — and their atoms will finally undergo a transformation
corresponding to death, by which that spark will be liberated,
and the atoms will recombine around it under new and altered
conditions. This is the final consumiaation of that sulfering
stage of the planet's life through which we are now passing ;
176 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
the preparation for it formed, as I propose to show later, the
one object of Christ's mission to earth, and it will be succeeded
by the condition known among theologians as millennial — but
the term is misleading, for it has no reference to time, accord-
ing to our measurement, nor can it be entered upon until that
unseen region which forms part of our universe has been
purified by the dissolution and reconstruction of the atomic
vice-particles, which are the prison-houses at present of the
divine elements awaiting their liberation.
At the opposite extreme to the dej^ths of this pit is the
ascending scale, which is endless, and where those connected
with the earliest stage of our planet, and its subsequent
highest religious life, form the connecting links between it
iind that still higher region which we call heaven.
Midway between the upper and lower regions of our uni-
verse is a spiritual tract, which forms a sort of neutral ground,
and is more closely attached to our earth than the other two,
for it is composed of atomic elements far more nearly allied
to our own. It is into this that those who pass from earth
immediately enter, — the most highly developed morally,
merely to pass through it into the upper region ; the most
debased to sink with almost equal rapidity into the one below ;
but the vast majority to linger for a shorter or a longer
period, according to their moral conditions, hovering as it
were between good and evil, sometimes rising under the
attraction of the upper region, and the powerful influences
for good which are brought to bear, sometimes sinking under
the counter-influence, only to react upwards again. In some
instances the organisms of the beings in this region are so
coarse, as to be visible to hypersensitive persons on earth,
and their occasional appearances have given rise to the belief
in ghosts, and the numerous stories of haunted houses and
.so forth — the atomic influence of earthly localities often pos-
sessing such a powerful magnetic attraction, that it is impos-
sible for these unfortunate creatures to liberate themselves
from it. It is to this region that the beings from the lower one
rise, when, under the operation of angelic love, they are drawn
upwards. It is not possible for those who have passed through
it into higher conditions to sink back into it again, for the
attraction of goodness, in the midst of which they dwell, is
CHILDREN IN THE UNSEEN. 177
too powerful to admit of their doing so ; but it is possible for
those who have sunk through it downwards to be drawn up
to it again, and so finally saved. This is the origin of the
doctrine of purgatory.
It is into this region, then, that everybody passes on leaving
tliis world, from still-born children upwards. Infants, on
entering it, are tenderly cared for, but not relieved from the
responsibility of free-will, when, as they grow up, they be-
come exposed to the attacks of the lower class of influences.
They develop there, as they would have done here, the taint
of the world into which they were born : their hereditary and
inherent tendencies, whether for good or evil, manifest them-
selves with their earliest consciousness, and they rise or sink
in the degree in which they yield themselves to the angelic
attraction which draws them upwards, or to the infernal
attraction which drags them in the opposite direction. At
the same tune they are far more favourably situated than
they are here, in regard to surroundings; and are so pro-
tected, that a child's nature must be very bad indeed to break
away from its spirit guardians. We have no reason to regret,
therefore, that the proportion of infants born in the slums
of great cities, whose only experience of life would be that
of squalor and crime, who pass into the other world with-
out knowing anything of this one, should be so much larger
than those of the classes more comfortably situated. It is
one of the most blessed occupations of good persons who
have left this world, to rear and watch over children who
come to them from earth. At the same time, those who
are atomically connected with them by blood-ties, whether
in this world or the other, continue to exercise a most powerful
magnetic influence over them, helping them or retarding their
progress, according to the quality of their loves and lives.
Parents wlio liave lost children should always remember
that the progress of tlieir offspring in the unseen, is much
influenced by their own lives here, and that in proportion
that they rise here, does the upward attraction increase upon
tlie chikl there ; while many of their own impulses to liigh
and noble action here, may be projected upon tliem, quite
unconsciously to themselves, from children wliom they say
they have " lost," but with wliom they are far more nearly
M
178 SCIENTIFIC KELIGION.
connected than if they had lived — who act as their guardian
angels, and to whose ministrations they may possibly owe
their salvation.
On the other hand, parents may exercise a most power-
ful and fatal influence over the future of an infant, by the
terrible crimes of infanticide or abortion ; for the atomic tie
between mother and child is then so very close, that a virulent
poison is projected into the infant organism, which infects its
psychic atomic structure, and carries its infernal taint with it
into the other life — thus, as it were, surrounding it with a
barrier to retard its upward progress. This barrier, if the
will of the child co - operates with that of its guardians,
can be broken down, but it must ever be a great danger and
hindrance.
These are very solenni and affecting considerations, and
the tie which binds parents to children and infants who
have gone before, and the influence they mutually exercise
over each other's destiny, should never be forgotten.
From this it will be seen that nothing can be more
misleading than the popular conceptions of heaven and hell,
which have been constructed out of a grossly superficial and
perverted interpretation of Biblical expressions, and made to
signify places of reward and punishment, instead of conditions
which human beings create for themselves out of their
virtues or their vices. Those who do not work out their own
happiness by constant endeavour for the happiness of others,
but fall under the delusion — which invaded the world in a
manner to which I shall refer later — that it could be worked
out for its own sake, and at the sacrifice of the happiness
of others, continue in this delusion until the vices which it
propagates, produce atomic forces which, after causing excru-
ciating suffering, not unmixed with insane delights, finally
neutralise each other; but as the divine life-principle in
them still exists, it reconstitutes them under entirely new and
pure conditions, the only loss being that of conscious con-
tinuity of existence on the part of the individual, whose moral,
intellectual, and physical nature they composed.
Among the people who can really be said to die, because
they finally lose continuity of individual consciousness, are
those also who live in the personal desire for immortality.
i
THE DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT. 179
and in the delusion that their own happiness here and here-
after is the one end and aim of existence. But those who
are ready and willing to die that they may save others — who
have no thought of their own safety or happiness here or
hereafter, provided only they can win happiness for their
fellows — they are immortal on this earth ; and though they
may shuffle off what is called their " mortal coil," will never
really die, or lose their own individuality, but progress eter-
nally in the joys of service.
This is what Christ meant when He said, " For whosoever
will save his life shall lose it : but whosoever will lose his life
for my sake, the same shall save it ; " and this is the death
to which he alluded in the declaration, " Verily I say unto
you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death ; "
and again, "There be some standing here which shall not
taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in His
kingdom." The Son of man came to them in His kingdom
when, after His death. He connected Himself atomically with
them, through the pneumatic tie which He had established
with them while on earth, and which was magnetically created
by the laying on of hands, and transmitted by the disciples in
the same manner to those who accepted His teaching. The
method, however, soon lost its efficacy through the unfaith-
fulness of those who practised it, and was superseded by a
process more effectual and interior.
It was to this internal contact with Christ that the won-
derful success of the early teachers of Christianity was due,
and it formed the medium of that manifestation which is
described in the second chapter of Acts " as the sound of
a rushing mighty wind," and as the appearance of "cloven
tongues like as of fire " which " sat upon each of them," the
whole occurrence being theologically termed the descent of
the " Holy Ghost."
The revolution which was produced by the stupendous
moral energy that this psychico-pneumatic force contained,
has remained potent in Christendom to the present day. It
remains in all the Churches, in spite of the fact that " they
draw near unto Christ with tlieir mouth, and honour Him
with their lips, while their heart is far from Him," and that
" in vain do they worship Him, teaching for doctrines the
180 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
commandments of men ; " for its presence is not banished
from the hearts of men because the ecclesiasticisms to which
they belong liave proved unfaithful ; and it remains with
those who are outside the Churches, because no human organ-
isation can limit its sphere of operations. It is by virtue
of its silent influence, notwithstanding the vices, and the
quarrels, and the perversions of Christendom, that a great
moral quickening is taking place within it ; and it is in
consequence of the forces which it has been gathering in the
unseen world during nineteen centuries, that a new develop-
ment of its energy is now impending.
The reason why this could not take place before, is be-
cause the atomic chain by which alone it could be con-
ducted from the source of spiritual potency, is only now
being completed. It consists of "the spirits of just men
made perfect ; " and before the great mass of humanity could
feel the electric shock which it is destined shortly to impart
to the visible universe, the batteries had to be prepared,
and the conducting wires led to the hearts of men ; and
these had respectively to be charged with, and composed
of, atoms containing the potential elements of good men
who had fought the good fight in their lives here, and had
often sunk in the conflict, having apparently accomplished
nothing. Such martyrs as Savonarola, Madame Guyon,
and, in our own day. General Gordon, supply illustrations ;
but their names are legion, for the greater part died obscure
and unknown, and were accounted nothing in their humble
and limited spheres of faithful service. The crown of glory
which they have won, is the part they are now playing in the
great work of universal redemption, and this great work was
begun when He whom Christendom rightly calls its Saviour,
brought the restorative vital current into the world, and,
by the dissolution of His outward frame, distributed its atoms
once for all throughout the decaying structure of the earthly
universe, by methods I shall presently describe. Thus the
accomplishment of that work, which seemed a failure at the
time, is at hand; and thus the bread of His body,. which He
cast upon the waters, will after many days be found.
Nothing hinders the consummation of His great work more
than that misconception of its scope and nature, which
THE lord's prayer. 181
forms the basis of the doctrines of the Churches, and which is
indeed tlie " commandments of men." If we would co-operate
with Christ, it is not by worshipping the fictitious relics of a
cross on wliich He fulfilled His mission nineteen hundred
j^ears ago, or by metaphorically clinging to it now. The
solemn words in which He announced His success, though
their import was not understood at the time, are pregnant
with meaning to us in these days — " It is finished."
Our concern is not what He accomplished then, except
as a matter of most sacred history, but what He demands
of us now. He did not die to rescue us from the pangs of
selfish craven terror, nor to minister to the greed and ambi-
tion of egotism. His work was for no one individual, and no
one individual has the right to appropriate it to liimself,
and turn it to his own private and personal advantage. It
was for all humanity, and we can only share in it, as we
lose ourselves in the great humanitarian need ; and the great
humanitarian need is not a harp and a crown, but social
reconstruction — the extinction of crime, poverty, sorrow,
and physical disease, and the substitution for them of sin-
lessness, health, and happiness.
All such prayers as are daily offered in the Churches, are
a direct hindrance to the highest kind of spiritual union with
Christ, for they are all tainted by the selfish spirit, and more
or less ignore the great co-operative work in which we should
be engaged with Him. There is one prayer which Christ
adapted in its external sense to the spiritual apprehension of
those to whom it was given, which contains a sublime hidden
meaning, a garbled version of which is daily degraded by
constant and unmeaning reiteration, as if it was a kabbalistic
formula, while its sense has been perverted by the Church to
suit a still lower class of intelligence than that to which it
was originally addressed. There is nothing to justify the
translation of iiriovaiav into daily bread. It means, as
Canon Carter tells us, " super-su])stantial," and was so taken
by all early Christian mystics. The Eoman Church, Ijy sub-
stituting " quotidianum " here, (and " carnis " for ao)fiaro<; in
the Creed) brought down the doctrine to the understanding
of the vulgar, and lost the inner meaning to a large extent.
There are other " orthodox " meanings given to this word —
182 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
(1) ' sufficient for sustenance, and necessary to real existence ; '
and (2) " semper paratus," ' coexistent before all worlds, be-
stowed in time, but brought into being independently of time
and space,' but the Church prefers " daily bread " ! It is no
wonder that the fearful mockery of beseeching God that
His will should be done upon earth as it is done in heaven,
half-a-dozen times every Sunday, by ignorant, worldly, and
indifferent congregations, who make no effort to do that will,
never seems to strike their spiritual pastors and masters. It
would be far better never to utter this prayer than thus to
insult its author by its " vain repetition." In point of fact and
of experience, the man who is atomically united to Christ, and
whose sole object in life is to do God's will here as it is done
in heaven, does not need formally to pray to Him ; for every
act is a prayer, and every thought is an aspiration, and every
aspiration is an inspiration. His life is hid with Christ in
God. All he needs to pray for is, to know from hour to hour
what he is to do next, and this — if he is entirely devoid of
personal desire and inclination — will always be shown to him.
The service of humanity, which is the only service He de-
mands of us, is instinct in every human breast, and must
ever be the source of the highest inspiration ; for how sings
the poet ? —
"Unto each man his handiwork, unto each his crown,
The just Fate gives ;
Whoso takes the world's life on hini and his own lays down,
He, dying so, lives.
Whoso bears the whole heaviness of the wronged world's weight
And puts it by.
It is well with him suffering, though he face man's fate ;
How should he die ?
Seeing death has no part in him any more, no power
Upon his head ;
He has bought his eternity with a little hour,
And is not dead.
For an hour, if ye look for him, he is no more found
For one hour's space ;
Then ye lift u\) your eyes to him and behold him crowned,
A deathless face." i
1 Swinburne's Songs before Sunrise.
DIVINE CO-OPERATION. 183
Let us then rise out of a condition of spiritual mendicity,
and the fetich instinct of propitiating a ferocious Deity, into
one of divine co-operation — from being beggars for self, into
being fellow -labourers with Christ in a great task, where
there is no distinction of persons ; for the moral atoms of
the stupidest and the humblest may be of more value pneu-
matically than those of the most learned and the most ex-
alted, and may connect him with a far higher group of
spiritual beings.
Let no man esteem himself unworthy to be a participa-
tor in this divine work : all he needs is an intense longing
after God, and a passionate love for his fellow-man. This
at once constitutes him a burning-glass, on which must
inevitably focalise the ardent rays of the divine affections ;
for the inspirations of which I have been speaking are not
special emanations vouchsafed only to persons peculiarly
organised for their reception, but are radiations which fill the
spiritual universe ; and though they reach human beings
through the atomic forces I have described, it needs only
the requisite moral attitude to ensure their concentration
upon any man who seeks to receive the light and the warmth
that they impart ; and he will feel their blessed and vivifying
influence grow more potent in the degree in which he can
shake himself free from the scientific and theological tram-
mels which now impede the development of men's higher
faculties, and blind them to the perception of facts, which
are only concealed from their finer vision by the prejudices
and the superstitions of the learned and the devout.
184
CHAPTER XL
THE KELATION OF MAN TOWARDS GOD, CHRIST, AND THE UNSEEN WORLD,
HERE SET FORTH, CONFIRMED BY THE INNER SENSE OF THE BIBLE
— ALL SACRED BOOKS HAVE THEIR HIDDEN SENSE — TEACHING OF
THE KABBALAH AND OF THE FATHERS ON THIS POINT — INNER SENSE
OP Christ's teaching has been lost, and the symbols and ex-
ternals ALONE REMAIN ; HENCE SUPERSTITION, BIGOTRY, AND HYPO-
CRISY — FREQUENT ALLUSIONS TO THE " MYSTERY " IN THE NEW
TESTAMENT — ST PAUL'S APPREHENSION OF IT — THE MOST ANCIENT
RELIGIONS CONTAIN IT IN THEIR UNIVERSAL CONCEPTION OF GOD,
AS AN INFINITE PATERNAL AND MATERNAL PRINCIPLE, PERVADING,
ANIMATING, AND SUSTAINING ALL THINGS BY THE " WORD " — JUDA-
ISM, WHICH WAS AN IMPROVED RENDERING OP THE EGYPTIAN AND
CHALDEAN RELIGIONS, CONTAINED IT CONCEALED IN THE MOSAIC
LAW, OF WHICH CHRIST WAS THE FULFILMENT — GENESIS COMPOSED
AND COMPILED UNDER A MOST POWERFUL INSPIRATION — MYSTICISM:
ITS USES AND ABUSES.
The view which has been presented of the relation which
man generally — but more especially the man who calls
himself a Christian — occupies towards God, the unseen world,
the founder of his religion, and his fellow-men, while it is
essentially unorthodox in so far as the popular theology is
concerned, is absolutely in harmony witli the spirit of the
traditions upon which the greatest religions of the world
have been founded, including those of the Bible. For although
all these sacred records are full of human imaginings, of con-
tradictory utterances, of unintelligible symbolisms, of mythical
legends, and of vague traditions, they all possess to a greater
or less degree an inner sense, the meaning of which was gener-
ally concealed from the prophets and seers from whom they
emanated ; and it is tlie interpretation of this inner sense
which has formed the devotional exercise of the mystics from
THE HIDDEN MEANING. 185
the earliest timest To this day the Eastern religious retain
their associations of " initiated," who are versed in the hidden
meaning of their Scriptures. Buddhist and Hindoo, Jew and
Moslem, Parsee and Druse — not to mention Ansaryii, Meta-
walies, Ismailians, and numerous minor sects — all recognise
the existence of an esoteric side to their religions ; all ven-
erate those who are supposed to be versed in it, and be-
lieve that the truths which it contains are of a higher order
than those which appear in the external sense of the words.
This was also the case with the earlier Christians; and the
fact that the Bible possesses this inner meaning is indicated
1)oth in the Old and New Testaments. It is recognised in the
Talmud, believed in by the Chassidim or orthodox Jews, and
strongly insisted upon in the Kabbalah. Thus it is written :
' Woe be to the son of man who says that the Tora (Penta-
teuch) contains common sayings and ordinary narratives !
For if this were the case, we might in the present day com-
pose a code of doctrines which woujd excite greater respect.
If the law contains ordinary matter, then there are nobler
sentiments in profane codes. Let us go and make a selection
from them, and we shall be able to compile a far superior
code. But every word of the law has a sublime sense and a
heavenly mystery. . . . Now the spiritual angels had to put
on an earthly garment when they descended to this earth ;
and if they had not put on such a garment, they could neither
have remained nor been understood on earth ; and just as it
was with the angels, so it is with the law. When it descended
on earth, the law had to put on an earthly garment to be un-
derstood by us, and the narratives are its garments. There
are some who think that this garment is the real law, and
not the spirit with which it is clothed. But these have no
position in the world to come ; and it is for this reason that
bavid prayed, 'Open Thou mine eyes, that I may beh(jld
the wondrous things of Thy law ' (Psalm cxix. 18). What
is the garment under the law ? There is a garment wliieh
every one can see, and there are foolish people who, when
they see a well-dressed man, think of nothing more worthy
tlian this Ix'uutiful garment, and take it for the body, while
the worth of the body itself consists of the soul. The law,
too, has a body; this is the commandments, whicli are called
186 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' the body of the law. This body is clothed in garments, which
' are the ordinary narratives. The fools of the world look at
' nothing else but the garment, which consists of the narratives
' of the law ; they do not see any more, and do not see what
' is beneath the garment. But those who have more under-
' standing, those do not look at the garment, but at the
' body beneath {i.e., the moral) ; while the wisest, the servants
' of the heavenly King, those who dwell at Mount Sinai,
' look at nothing else but the soul (i.e., the secret doctrine),
' which is the root of all the real law, and these are destined
' in the world to come to behold the soul of this soul (i.e., the
' Deity) which breathes in the law." ^
It was in allusion to this hidden meaning that Christ said,
" I come not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it." In what
sense He was the fulfilment of the law I propose to show
later. We learn from the Kabbalah that this knowledge
was made known to the chosen of God after painful initiations.
It was called "the luminous mirror," in contrast with the
non-luminous mirror, the vision of ordinary mortals. It
was called the tree of life, as contrasted with the tree of
knowledge. " Come and see where the soul reaches — that
' place which is called the treasury of life. She enjoys a
' bright and luminous mirror which receives its light from
' the highest heaven. The soul could not bear this light
' but for the luminous mantle it puts on. For, just as the
' soul, when sent to this earth, puts on an earthly garment
' to preserve herself here, so she receives above a shining
' garment in order to be able to look without injury into
J the mirror whose light proceeds from the Lord of light.
' Moses, too, could not approach to look into that higher
' light which he saw without putting on such an ethereal
' garment, as it is v/ritten, ' And Moses went into the cloud,'
' which is translated by means of the cloud, wherewith he
' wrapped himself, as if dressed in a garment. At that time
' Moses discarded almost the whole of his earthly nature, as it
' is written that Moses was on the mountain forty days and
' forty nights, and he thus approached that dark cloud whereon
' God is enthroned. In this time the departed spirits of the
' righteous dress themselves in the upper regions in luminous
^ Sohar, 3. 152 a — -Dr Giusburg's translation.
DIVINE MYSTERIES. 187
' garments, to be able to endure that light which streams from
' the Lord of light." i
Thus it was that Christ retired to a mountain for forty
days and forty nights, to receive that law which He gave to
His disciples, wliich, in its outward sense, contains simple
ethical precepts which all can understand, though none obey
them, while the hidden meaning of it is now waiting to be
revealed to those who will internally receive Him. It was to
this inner sense that Clement of Alexandria made allusion,
when he said that Christ imparted it exclusively to James,
Peter, John, and Paul. The inclusion of the last named shows
that in the mind of the writer it must have been, in Paul's
case, by internal illumination — a statement borne out by Paul
himself in his assertion that he was taken up into the third
heaven, and heard things which it is not lawful for man to
utter. And here I would parenthetically remark, that while
a great many of Paul's utterances are, as he says, of himself,
and not of the Lord, a great many are pregnant with the
deepest internal meaning, and these are for the most part
exactly those which have been wrested by the Churches into
dogmas dishonouring alike to God, and to Him whom they
call their Lord.
Clement says further, in reference to this secret teaching
of Christ, " that it was not designed for the multitude, but
' communicated only to those who were capable of receiving
' it orally, not by writing " ^ — allusion to which is made in the
Acts, where it is said that after His resurrection, Christ
" through the Holy Spirit had given commandments unto the
' apostles whom He had chosen ; to whom also He showed
' Himself alive after His passion Ijy many infallible j)roofs,
' being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the tilings
' pertaining to God," And Paul describes the difficulty he
finds in conveying these higher truths when he writes to the
(Jorinthians : " And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as
' spiritual, but as carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I
' have fed you with milk and not with meat ; for liitherto ye
' were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able, for ye
' are yet carnal."
1 Ginsburg, pp. 37, 38.
- See Clement of Alexandria, by Dr Kaye, Bishup oi Lincoln, \>. 211.
188 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
The reason of this spiritual denseness, he proceeds to say,
lies in the tendency they had already begun to exhibit, to
dogmatise.
The process of unfolding deep spiritual truth to the spirit-
ually evolving man, is beautifully imaged in the Sohar, where
the hidden sense is likened to a lovely woman concealed in
her palace, who, when her friend and beloved passes by, opens
for a moment a secret window, and is seen by him alone, and
then withdraws herself for a long time ; so the doctrine only
shows itself to him who is devoted to her with body and soul,
and then only by degrees. Eirst, she beckons the passer-by
with her hand ; this is the first and most extreme glimpse of
truth. Then she approaches closer and whispers, but her face
is still covered by a thick veil ; this is the second stage of
revelation. She then talks to him with a thin veil ; this is
the third stage. Finally, she shows herself face to face, and
intrusts him with the innermost secrets of her heart.^
It will thus be seen that, according to the Kabbalah, there
are four degrees of the inner sense of the " Word," and to
these it furnishes elaborate keys. That the early Christians
also recognised an internal interpretation to the sacred record,
is indicated by the advocacy of Origen of three senses, which
he calls aeo/xaTCKo^, yjrvxi'fcof;, Trvevf^arcKo^;, or earthly, psychic,
and pneumatic. " The sentiments of Holy Scripture," he says,
"must be imprinted upon each one's soul in a threefold
' manner, that the more simple may be built up by the flesh
' (or body) of Scripture, so to speak, by which we mean the
' obvious explanation ; that he who has advanced to a higher,
' may be edified by the soul of Scripture, as it were ; but he
' that is perfect, and like to the individual spoken of by the
' apostle (1 Cor. xi. 6, 7) must be edified by the spiritual law,
' having a shadow of good things to come." ^
In the same way, Swedenborg recognises three senses, which
he classifies as natural, spiritual, and celestial — of which his
books purport to give the spiritual sense, and those of T. L.
Harris the celestial ; but neither Kabbalists, Gnostics, S weden-
borgians, or any other Church or sect have yet turned their
knowledge of the hidden treasures, which they admit the
Bible contains, to any practical account. And this notwith-
^ Sohar, 2. 99. - -n-fpi apxc", lib. v. cap. 11.
SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION. 189
standing the fact that they have extracted from it moral truths
which should revolutionise society, and might help to lay the
foundation for that new spiritual departure after which the
whole creation is yearning.
As a rule, the very fact that any such inner sense exists, is
ignored by the world at large, and in the Churches of Christ-
endom nothing remains of it but the outward symbolisms of
the sacraments, the true significance of which has been per-
verted, until they have dwindled down to mere acts of cere-
monial observance, in which a hidden virtue, ensuring ever-
lasting salvation and a present means of grace, are supposed
to reside ; which, however, produce a scarcely appreciable
effect upon the manner of outward living. For, as Paul says,
" The kingdom of heaven is not eating and drinking, but
righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." ^
In point of fact, the internal meaning of the Word is
neither threefold nor fourfold, but manifold, and to each one
who seeks earnestly, will be revealed the internal meaning
adapted to his moral and intellectual condition, his past train-
ing, and his present capacity for reception.
The reason why those who have sought for light by kab-
balistic methods, by the interpretation of symbols, the appli-
cation of keys, and so forth, have quarrelled among themselves
over the meanings of passages, and have failed, with all their
occult science, to enlighten the world to its own salvation,
has been partly because they have applied their intellect and
not their affections to the work, and partly because they were
themselves open to the perception of truth in different de-
grees ; and one could see in a passage what was hidden from
another, just as an artist, looking at a Eaphael, might discover
beauties which would be hidden from an ordinary observer,
while a peasant might fail to distinguish it from the sign-
board of an inn. It is the same with spiritual sight ; it is as
impossible to prove that the internal meaning discovered in a
passage of sacred writ is true, to one who can only see its
outward meaning, as it would be to try and explain tone and
breadth of treatment in a picture to a peasant.
The denseness of spiritual perception of the Jews in regard
to sacred mysteries, both in the times of Isaiah and of Christ,
^ Romans xiv. 17.
190 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
is alluded to by the latter in His quotation from the prophet
— " By hearing, ye shall hear, and shall not understand ; and
' seeing ye shall see, and not perceive : for this people's heart
' is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their
' eyes they have closed ; lest at any time they should see with
' their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand
' with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal
' them." These words apply literally to the present day ;
and " the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven," to which
Christ was referring, are as hidden from " the wise and pru-
dent " now as they were then — for they are all summed up
in that wondrous Personality, whose nature, achievement,
and mission have never been apprehended.
The mysteries which, as Christ said, it was given the
apostles to know, are but a fraction of those waiting to be re-
vealed — for they were unprepared for more than a compara-
tively superficial apprehension of the great work which their
Master performed on earth. Therefore He said to them,
" There are many things I have to say unto you, but ye can-
not bear them now ; " and therefore it was, that when He
endeavoured to explain to His disciples the greatest mystery
of all, which was contained in His death and resurrection,
they so little understood it, that Peter " began to rebuke Him,
' saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord : this shall not be unto
' Thee. But He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind
' me, Satan : thou art an offence unto me ; for thou savourest
' not the things that be of God, but those that be of men."
The saying of Ezekiel applies with equal force now that it
did then, to any man who woidd try to call Christendom
to repentance : " Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a
' rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not ; they
' have ears to hear, and hear not : for they are a rebellious
' house." And the prophets of Christendom are like the false
prophets of Israel in those days, " which prophesy concerning
Jerusalem, and see peace when there is no peace, saith the
Lord God."
The influences which deaden the spiritual perception of
a Church and of a people are ceremonial, formalism, priest-
craft, dogmatism, and the intolerance which results there-
from. They are accurately described in the first chapter of
THE SEVENTH DAY. 191
Isaiah. " Bring no more vain oblations," says the prophet ;
'■' incense is an abomination to me ; the new moons and sab-
' baths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with ; it is
' iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and
' your appointed feasts my soul hateth : they are a trouble
' unto me ; I am weary to bear them." There is not a Church
in Christendom which does not worship God with its lips,
while its heart is far from Him ; and they all represent, in
their several degrees, the various hypocrisies denounced by
the prophet. The "oblations," the "feast-days," and the "in-
cense " distinguish one group ; the " calling of assemblies "
and the " Sabbath " distinguish another, and more especially
the Ultra-Evangelicals, Presbyterians, and Dissenters, among
whom hypocrisy is more highly developed than among other
Christians : this is principally due to the fact that they
devote one day in the week more exclusively to the practice
of this hypocrisy than other sects, and that day they call
" the Lord's." The result is bigotry and self-righteousness,
which renders them especially deaf and darkened and foolish
spiritually.
All Churches are still blind to the elementary fact that
every day is the Lord's, and that it would be better to deny
Him any day, than to put Him off with only one. The
institution of the Sabbath, or seventh day, which was in
existence, as we learn from Accadian records, in the populous
city of Eridu, about the time of the creation of the world,
according to the Biblical chronology (see Professor Sayce,
' Hibbert Lectures '), had a special internal signification. Not
only did it mark seven periods of the world's evolution, but
it typifies seven periods of race-history, also seven periods in
tlie history of every human soul. It would occupy too much
time to enumerate all the passages in the Bible in which the
number seven has an esoteric sense, but there are at least
fifty ; among the most interesting are those in Eevelation,
wliich describe the " Lamb as it had been slain, having seven
horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God,"
who alone was found wortliy to open the book witli the seven
seals ; those referring to the seven angels with the seven
tnmipets, to the seven thunders, to the beast with the seven
heads and the seven crowns, to the seven antrels with the seven
192 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
last plagues, and to the seven vials. When, therefore, the
Jews were commanded to keep the seventh day holy, the
command was derived from a much older theology, and
there was a special mystical reason for it which they did
not understand — so, by way of an explanation adapted to
their comprehension, they were told that upon that day God
got tired with the exertion of making the world, and rested ;
but the real reason was, that it closed one period of the
internal history of the race. This period terminated with
the advent of Christ, who practically abolished the Sabbath,
when he said, " The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath."
He did not, however, substitute any other single day for
it, but all days ; His teaching being that the service of God
and the neighbour was a daily duty, and that the " Sabbath
was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." The disciples,
however, continued to observe the Jewish Sabbath until the
destruction of Jerusalem, gradually substituting for it after-
wards the first day of the week : since then the whole of
Christendom has persistently broken the fourth command-
ment ; while the more unintelligent portion of it, without any
Scriptural warrant, applies rules which had reference especi-
ally and exclusively to the seventh day of the week, to the
first, and even goes so far as to call it the seventh or Sabbath
day, instead of by its true Hebrew name.
Christians of all denominations cannot too speedily recog-
nise that their solemn assemblies, as at present conducted —
on whatever day they may be held — are an " iniquity." Those
who have once experienced the quickening thrill of the divine
afflatus, and the actual physical change in external respira-
tion which accompanies it, will bear me out in the asser-
tion, that to enter a Christian Church, unless to carry out
some divine mission specially imposed, while what is called
" worship " is going on, often produces a sensation of oppres-
sion and suffocation which sometimes becomes too painful to
endure. I appeal to the testimony of others, because, thank
God, the number of those who are physically as well as
morally conscious of this increasing respiratory sensitiveness,
is daily augmenting.
These things being so, I can scarcely venture to hope that
many will realise the truth of the interpretations which I
DEGREES OF INSPIRATION. 193
am about to give to passages of Scripture, which their out-
ward sense does not convey. I only refer to the Bible at
all, because it is necessary, in writing upon subjects of this
nature, to appeal to the authority which the masses still
respect, if tliey do not obey it ; and because it is so absolutely
confirmatory of views which had forced themselves upon my
consciousness, irrespective of the sacred record: but I am
always confronted with this difficulty, that the prejudice
among men of science, who only judge of sacred books by
their external sense, and by their effect upon the lives of so-
called believers in them, is so strong, that any appeal to them
tends rather to repel than to attract. Nevertheless sacred
books, in spite of their imperfections, have had a transcendent
value for humanity in the history of the ages, and to ignore
them, would be to ignore the most powerful moral engine
which has been employed by Providence for the control and
restraint of human passions. To treat them with contempt
is alike unphilosophical and narrow-minded — the more especi-
ally as they contain treasures of knowledge and wisdom for
those who know how to dive for them ; but in order to do so
successfully, they must be taken for what they are really
worth — neither elevated into infallible guides on the one hand,
nor despised as old wives' fables on the other.
There is an infinite variety in the degree of inspiration
in all writings claiming to have a supernatural origin, though
the signification of the word "supernatural" depends upon
the arbitrary definition we choose to attach to the word
"natural." There are parts of the Bible which have been
derived from so low a source, that there is very little that is
divine in them, and which are calculated to do more harm
than good ; and there are parts pregnant with the deepest
spiritual meaning, and with trutlis, still unrevealed, of inesti-
mable value. All unfolding of arcana must be purely arbi-
trary, and can only be judged by the appeal it makes to
the respective faculties of the reader ; and as these vary in-
finitely, wliat is clear to one is obscure to another, and wliat
attracts one, repels the other.
It may safely be affirmed, that the more full a book is
of divine trutli, tlie more on its first presentation it will re])el
the majority. Tliis is as true of a book as of a man, and
N
194 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
we know what the result of three years of Christ's teaching
was to the Teacher. The hest proof, therefore, of its value,
will be the violent hostility and antagonism which it will
excite. Should what is here written, be received with popular
approval, I should require no better evidence of its falsity,
and feel that the source from which I had derived my inspi-
ration, was exactly the opposite to that which I believed it
to have been.^
It may often appear, then, that the meanings which I attach
to certain passages in the Bible, may seem strained and
fanciful, to those who have regard only to its external sense.
If, for instance, I should say that Hagar, Sara's maid, whom
Abraham married on her mistress's recommendation, meant
really Mount Sinai, and corresponded to Jerusalem, it would
seem in the highest degree fantastic, had not St Paul said the
same thing. Indeed we find him, in the fourth chapter of
Galatians, calling the whole history of Abraham, his wives and
children, an " allegory," and he assumes, in the first chapter of
Eomans, that the most profound mystery, that of the creation
itself, may be understood, " For the invisible things of Him
(God) are clearly seen, being understood by the things that
are made, even His eternal force and Godhead." It seemed
1 I have been induced to come to this conclusion by some of the criticisms
with which ' Masollam ' was received, of which I give a few specimens : —
" It is not necessary, or perhaps desirable, to discuss Mr Oliphant's theory ;
it practically means that men may become on earth what it is taught by
theologians the blessed become in heaven. It may be questioned whether
such teaching as this can have any healthy efFect."
" We have some suspicion of those who profess too all-embracing aims. We
think we see the altruistic household in that of Mrs Jellaby."
" On another planet existence so ecstatic might be possible, but on earth it
is scarcely even desirable."
" The British Philistine will probably turn away with supreme scorn from a
book with which his intellectual development allows but little sympathy."
" The hazy altruism which Mr Oliphant would substitute for the faith once
delivered to the saints."
" Mr Oliphant's fad of altruism."
What was the faith once delivered to the saints but altruism ? and what
was Christ's fad but altruism ? Well may Mr W. S. Lilly, in a recent article,
talk of the "congenital imbecility of the English mind in respect of eternal
and divine things."
SACRED SYMBOLISMS. 195
relatively simple to Paul, who was probably an Essene, that
mysteries which had formed the subject of study from the
earliest times, should offer no difficulty to those who now
looked into them by the light of that Gospel which Christ
had come to teach, and which is described as " the power " —
or " force " — " of God unto salvation," endowing man with
a wisdom heretofore denied him, " yet not the wisdom of this
' world, nor of the princes (men of science) of this world, that
' come to nought : but we speak the wisdom of God in a
' mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained be-
' fore the world unto our glory : which none of the princes
' of this world knew : for had they known it, they would not
' have crucified the Lord of glory " ^ — as they do to this day.
So then, " he that is spiritual discerneth all things, yet he
himself is discerned of no man."
We have a remarkable illustration of the tendency of the
early Christian Church to search for the hidden meaning in
the Old Testament narrative, in the General Epistle of Barna-
bas, the 8th chapter and 10th verse, where he says : " Under-
' stand therefore, children, these things more fully, that
' Abraham was the first that brought in circumcision, looking
' forward to the spirit, to Jesus ; circumcised, having received
' the mystery of three letters. For the Scripture says that
' Abraham circumcised three hundred and eighteen men of
' his house. But what, therefore, was the mystery that was
' made known unto him ? Mark — first the eighteen, and next
' the three hundred. For the numeral letters of ten and eight
' are I.H., and these denote Jesus. And because the cross was
' that to which we were to find grace, therefore he adds, three
' hundred, the note of which is T (the figure of his cross).
* Wherefore by two letters he signified Jesus, and by the third
' His cross. He who has put the engrafted gift of His doctrine
' within us, knows that I never taught to any one a more cer-
' tain truth ; Ijut I trust that ye are worthy of it."
It is clear to those who have made a study of the most
ancient religions, by the light of their more interior faculties,
that they are — not the result of the fetich gropings of primi-
tive man, or were derived from dreams, as Mr Herbert
Spencer and other pliilosophors would have us l)elieve — l)ut
' 1 Corinthiaii.i ii. 6-8.
196 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
the remains of much higher truths that man once possessed,
in regard to tlie nature of God, the creation of the world,
the changes it has undergone, the introduction of what we
term evil, and the progress of the human soul; and the
tradition of this more illumined condition is still preserved
in the legend of the " Golden Age."
The religious instinct of man has heen devolving, not
evolving, though the tide has turned, and the evolutionary
period has once more commenced. In all the highest utter-
ances of extinct religions, as well as of those that exist, we
find the same leading ideas, all pointing to a common origin,
and all presenting the same fundamental principles, though
they have been perverted by human imagination into poly-
theisms and superstitions, and surrounded by myths and
legends, which have in some cases almost obscured the primi-
tive worship. It would need a volume devoted to the subject
to do justice to it, but modern research is tending strongly
in this direction ; and provided that those who engage in this
study are animated by the right motives, and are thoroughly
free from preconceived philosophical or theological prejudices,
I have no fear of the assertion I have just ventured to make
being confirmed; and I am the more assured of it by the
concluding paragraph of Professor Sayce's very remarkable
essay on the ' Religion of the Ancient Babylonians.' " This,"
he says, " is the day of specialists ; the increased application
' of the scientific method, and the rapid progress of discovery,
' have made it difficult to do more than note and put together
' the facts that are constantly crowding one upon the other, in
' a special branch of research. The time may come again,
'nay, will come again, when once more the ever- flowing
' stream of discovery will be checked, and famous scholars
' and thinkers will arise to reap the harvest which we have
' sown. Meanwhile I claim only to be one of the humble
' labourers of our own busy age, who have done my best to
' set before you the facts and theories we may glean from the
' broken shreds of Nineveh, so far as they bear upon the reli-
' gion of the ancient Babylonians. It is for others whose
' studies have taken a wider range, to make use of the ma-
' terials I have endeavoured to collect, and to discover in
' them, if they can, guides and beacons towards a purer
ANCIENT CLASSIFICATIONS.
197
' form of faith thau that which can be found in the official
' creeds of our modern world." ^
When we find a professor of science prepared to look back
six thousand years for guides and beacons towards a purer
form of faith than can be found in official creeds, and a
Canon of the Church prepared to give up the popular \dew
of the atonement and the Trinity, we have evidences of
the commencement of an evolutionary epoch tending to-
wards a purer and higher morality, which is infinitely en-
couraging.
Inquirers in this direction have already discovered that
the most ancient conception of the Deity was that of an
infinite paternal and infinite maternal principle, united in
one, pervading all things, and animating all things, by virtue
of an infinite creative and sustaining principle which was
called the " Word." As an illustration of the point to which
students have already arrived, I annex a table made out by
Mr Arthur Lillie,^ in which, however, he styles the " Word "
the solar God-man. Although I do not agree in his classi-
fication, the question of nomenclature is purely academic, and
does not bear upon the point, which is so highly important,
of the prevalence throughout all of the same idea.
Father.
Mother.
Solar God-Man
(or Word).
Rig Veda .
Varuna
Aditi .
Mitra.
Manu
Brahma .
Maya .
Brahma.
Buddhism
Buddha .
Prajna or Dharma
Sangha.
Zoroastrianisui .
Zervau Akarine
Ardvi Cura
Aliura Mazda or
Ormuzd.
Egypt .
Amin Ra .
Neith .
Osiri.s.
Old Greece
The Serpent .
Ceres .
Bacchus.
Plato
Father .
Mother or Nurse.
Logos.
Woden .
All Father
Frigga
Woden.
Kabbalali .
Ensopli
Sophia
Logos.
Gnostics, per-
Abraxas .
Sophia
Gnosis or Christos.
haps Essenes
China
Yn .
Yang .
Taiki.
Babylonia
Bel .
1
Melissa
Tammuz.
' Hibbert Lectures.
» The Popular Life of Buddha, p. 249.
198 SCIENTIFIC KELIGION.
There is one change, however, I would wish to make, and
this is the orthodox Jewish, as well as sometimes the kabba-
listic symbol of the Divine Feminine, which is Shechinah,
and which, although it signifies tent or covering literally,
was used to conceal the ark, in which was contained the
mystery of the Divine Feminine. So the Hebrew for " The
Word " is Davad, and in the Targum, Memra.
Judaism is nothing more nor less than a Jewish rendering
of the ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, Hindoo, and Zoroastrian
religions, blended, modified, improved, and inspired to suit the
exigencies of the time, and the character of the people for
whom it was adapted. Hence we find much of the Levitical
law in the Egyptian ritual for the dead, much of the Mosaic
cosmogony in the tablets of creation, which have lately been
brought to light through the efforts of the late Mr George
Smith and Professor Sayce, containing the legends of ancient
Accad, and much of the mysticism of the Mazdeans, which
more especially pervades the Talmud and the Kabbalah.
This in no way affects or reflects upon the value of Bib-
lical cosmogony and theology ; it simply proves that God
did not leave the world, with its teeming population, and
its advanced civilisation, for thousands of years prior to the
days of Abraham, without any religion at all, but that such rev-
elations of Him as existed, obscured, perverted, and modified
as they were by man's ignorance and inventions, were the re-
mains of a still higher one which had preceded them, and that
Judaism was the purest outcome as a reform of those religions,
for which society was prepared at the period of its initiation.
From these most ancient sources it is easy now to con-
struct the history of the creation of the world in six days, the .
story of the fall of man, the account of the deluge, and of the
building of the Tower of Babel, which no doubt vary in many
particulars, owing to the fact that so far as we know they ex-
isted only in oral tradition among the Jews for a long period ;
the first and second books of the Pentateuch being only
committed to writing, according to the conclusions of those
who have devoted themselves to research on this subject,
about B.C. 800, and some of the others contained in the Old
Testament, such, for instance, as the Book of Esther, being
disputed as canonical down to the time of Christ.
THE INSPIRATION OF GENESIS. 199
The books termed Mosaic, though it seems to be generally
conceded that they were not written by Moses, are to a great
extent practically his, for it was owing to his great learning
as a priest of the Temple of the Sun, and as a pupil of Jethro,
who was one of the most learned mystics of his time, and as
a descendant of Abraham, who was the chief of a society of
occultists in Chaldea, that he was enabled, under inspiration,
to give his people an account of the creation of the world, and
impose upon them a law, both of which have a very profound
internal meaning. In fact there are no books in the Old
Testament more pregnant with occult divine wisdom than
some portions of the Pentateuch, except perhaps the Book of
Job ; while others, such, for instance, as the books of Chron-
icles, are entirely devoid of any arcana whatever, and are
merely an historical record compiled by Jewish rabbis and
scribes, probably not earlier than B.C. 200, and owing to the
strong anti-Samaritan bias by which they are disfigured, are
liistorically misleading.
It is evident, however, that the compilers of Genesis,
although they incorporated other traditions into those of
Moses, were under a most powerful inspiration. The ap-
parent confusion in the record, which has given rise to their
division into the Jehovistic and Elohistic accounts, possesses
really a deej) internal significance. In the Talmud and
Kabbalah we have the internal meaning of the Mosaic account
of the creation, elaborated in a form of mysticism, which
strikes the reader, judging it only by its surface meaning,
sometimes as childish, sometimes as fantastic and even re-
volting, and sometimes as profound. The Talmud especially
is full of inspiration from sources in the highest degree mis-
leading ; much of it is silly trash, lacking any inner meaning
at all, while at other times it contains passages of high
significance. The Kabbalah may be said to be the only
really valuable r4sum6 of ancient mysticism ; but while it
contains much of the wisdom of the ages, conveyed in a
form which is unintelligible except to the initiated, it must
always dejtend largely upon tlie initiated themseh'es what
hidden meaning they discover in it; and in view of tlie far
more sure and simple method of arriving at divine truth
which now exists, its study can scarcely be said to be at-
200 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
tended with profit, excepting for reference, and under very
special circumstances. Modern criticism has been much ex-
ercised as to the date and authorship of the Kabbalah, as if
the value of its contents could possibly be affected either by
the date at which it was written, or the man who wrote it.
Wliether Moses de Leon wrote it in the thirteenth century,
or Eabbi Simon Ben Jochai in the first, does not in the least
affect its intrinsic value ; any more than the intrinsic value
of the Pentateuch would be affected if it could be conclu-
sively proved that it was written by Ezra, and not by Moses.
It would none the less have been founded on tradition which
had reached him, and written under inspiration ; in the same
way some of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament, as
for instance the books of Enoch and Esdras, are quite as full of
inspiration as any of the minor prophets ; but this can only be
felt by each, as the divine afflatus which each book contains,
may reach the reader according to his moral state. Thus one
book will seem inspired to one man, to quite a different degree
from that which it may appear to another, and no man can
lay down a positive rule, and say this is inspired and this
is not. If, in the foregoing remarks, I seem myself to have
been doing this with regard to certain books, I do so with the
reservation that I distinctly feel them to be so inspired, and
am personally conscious of the divine afflatus in some and
not in others ; but I do not venture to apply my sensations
on the matter to others.
It has been necessary to make these remarks, because they
suggest large fields of inquiry, that can only be advantage-
ously entered upon by those who have, by long and arduous
moral discipline, prepared themselves to seek confirmation of
their experiences, and of the conclusions at which they have
arrived, by an examination into the sacred writings and
mystical records of all religions. They also form an essential
introduction to considerations regarding the cosmogony of the
world, the early history of man, and his obligations under
the new conditions that have now overtaken him, which I
am about to present to the reader.
201
CHAPTER XII.
MASCULINE AND FEMININE ATOMIC ELEMENTS — SENTIENT AND NON-
SENTIENT ATOMS — THE DEITY OF THE BIBLE, AS WELL AS OF FOR-
MER SACRED RECORDS, MASCULINE AND FEMININE — EFFECT OF THE
DIVINE MATERNITY ON MAN — REVELATION BY THE SPIRIT, WHICH
IS FEMININE, A PERSONAL ONE — THIS MYSTERY CONTAINED IN THE
HIDDEN SENSE OF BOTH OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
A FUNDAMENTAL difference exists between the atomic ele-
ments of the masculine and feminine principles in nature.
It is evident that this must be so ; because, as a difference
exists in the most external male and female forms, the
atoms which compose them must be differently combined
and arranged.
It is a peculiarity of atoms, well known to chemists, that
their properties or behaviour depend upon their arrangement,
though their nature is not changed ; thus, the difference in
constitution between a molecule of ozone, and one of oxygen,
is absolutely imperceptible, but they have widely different
properties. Wliy this should be so is a mystery which is
perfectly unfathomable to science ; and as science generally
explains what it cannot understand by a name, it calls this
" allotropism." Now the mystery of generation is to be found
in the mystery of allotropism.
The nature of the male molecule and of the female molecule
is essentially the same, but they possess entirely different
properties, and this is due to the arrangement of tlie atoms of
which they are respectively composed. When, in tlie process
of conception, these molecules combine, it depends upon the
interlocking of their atomic particles whether the result is a
male or a female. It is a mistake to suppose, because science
202 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
has not been able to discover from any outward manifestation
in the embryo, until parturition is far advanced, what the sex
is to be, that this has not been determined from the begin-
ning. The influence which controls this result is the great
dual influence which pervades all nature, and which imparts
to every object in it, even to those which we call inanimate,
its twofold sex-life.
It was by the operation of this twofold principle that ex-
ternal nature, as we see it, was called into existence ; and it
is by its constant operation that it is sustained. Its origin
and source we call God.
This sex-principle pervades the dynaspheric force atoms,
which may be divided into two categories — those which are
sentient, and those which are not sentient. Non-sentient
atoms are those which compose what we term inorganic matter,
and pervade the material forces of which we are cognisant —
such as electricity, material magnetism as distinguished from
animal magnetism, light, heat, and so forth. Sentient atoms
are those which operate in animal magnetism, in the will,
intellect, and emotions ; but they are graduated downwards
in infinite variety to the non-sentient atoms, as animal life is
linked by zoophytes to vegetable life. The lowest form of
atoms which animate the human race, are in the shape of
infusoria or predatory animalcule, corresponding in appear-
ance to its worst vices and passions, for every thought and
emotion is represented structurally in invisible substance ;
the highest and purest emotions and intellectual aspirations
consist atomically of bisexual human beings, patterned after
the shape of primal man. These, however, can only display
their force in, and operate through, mortals here, who are
struggling to regain the lost bisexual condition in a manner
presently to be described. This is the new force of which it
is the purport of this book to treat. It has only commenced
to operate in the world within the last few years, excepting
in very rare instances, but it was fully manifested in the
person of Christ. What is called by theologians His second
advent, consists in His personal operation through this bi-
sexual force, in the organisms of those who, after long pre-
paration, have received it, and invoke His presence by vir-
tue thereof. Hitherto the purest force known consisted of
MAGNETIC HEALING. 203
unisexual homuncules, and this force it is which operates
generally in the organisms of all good and unselfish indi-
viduals. These atomic male and female divided entities are
susceptible of transmutation into bisexual human atoms ; but
they can be only thus transmvited by severe moral discipline
and sufiering on the part of those individuals who, having
given themselves to the service of humanity, struggle to
effect this organic change in the forces of which their own
emotions, passions, and volitions consist.
The person in whom this change has been accomplished, is
conscious of it through the new sensations which begm to
vibrate in his nervous centres — affecting more especially the
solar plexus — by the inspirations by which they are accom-
panied, and by which he can be guided in his everyday life ;
as well as by the new potency with which he finds himself
endowed for the performance of his various duties, and the
imparting of moral and physical vitality into the organisms
of those who seek to approach these new conditions, and
whose progress he is thus enabled to assist. He is also able
in certain cases to heal disease, as I have myself experienced ;
but this only under a very powerful internal guidance, and
in very special circumstances, as no man is a judge when, by
an act of his own will, disease should be checked. Physi-
cal malady often produces atomic structural changes of the
highest moral value, and should be allowed to run its course
for that purpose. It also produces death at a critical period
of the soul's history, when to prolong natural life would be
to affect most injuriously the immortal body ; but this is no
reason why remedies, in which the forces consist of non-
sentient atoms, should not always be employed, because they
act irrespective of luiman volition, and are controlled by the
unseen agencies which operate through them, independently
of the selfish ambitions, interests, or affections of human beings.
The only magnetism wliicli it is safe for one person to impart
to another, is tliat in wliicli tlie atomic forms are bisexual,
because tliey contain the Christ element, and because they
refuse to be imparted, except where the volition is under
divine control — in other words, the operator feels his will
resolutely set against imparting it, except wlien he is inter-
nally ordered to do so. Tlie quality of a healing magnetism
204 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
which is imparted for purposes of pecuniary gain, is generally
morally debased, sometimes containing atomic creatures of a
ferocious and sanguinary moral type, which, although wonder-
ful pliysical cures may be accomplished through their agency,
continue to affect the soul long after it has left the body which
had thus been temporarily healed.
It is evident that these considerations must have an im-
portant bearing on the origin and conditions of physical life.
The hypothesis that because, where 36 atoms of carbon,
26 of hydrogen, 4 of nitrogen, and 10 of oxygen, are found in
combination, you get a substance exhibiting visible life, and
call it protoplasm — which I believe is now being split up, and
explained by the word " plastogen " — therefore protoplasm or
plastogen is the source of this great twofold sustaining and
animating principle in nature, is the most stupendous fallacy
which it has entered into the mind of man to conceive,
though some have indulged it to the extent of expecting
the day to come, when they will be able to make living
protoplasm.
Such a notion would not have been possible, had not the
rational atomic structure of the persons holding this view
been altogether disintegrated by overstrain, and by the entire
repudiation of the controlling function which the atoms of
the moral structure exercise, by divine prerogative, over those
of the reason. There can be no better illustration of the
fantasies of which the human mind is capable, when left to
itself, than the theory that protoplasm is the origin of life ;
and yet it is one which finds wide response among what are
called " the intelligent classes," and who call those who can
see a little further into the nature of matter than they can
with their microscopes. Visionaries ! Let them accept rather
the teaching of the Psalmist than of these philosophers,
when he says, — " I am fearfully and wonderfully made : mar-
' vellous are Thy works ; and that my soul knoweth right
' well. My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was
' made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts
' of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being
' unperf ect ; and in Thy book all my members were written,
' which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was
* none of them."
THE DIVINE BISEXUALITY. 205
Tlie principle of bisexuality is even in the amoeba, and it is
by virtue of it that it is enabled to multiply itself by fission.
There is no more potent argument in favour of design in
the order of the universe, than is supplied to us by the exist-
ence throughout it of the sex-principle ; and the fundamental
truth that it emanated from a bisexual source, the Father and
Mother of all Life, Two-in-One, finds expression, sometimes
mystically, sometimes in distinct language, in the most ancient
of religions. I will confine myself to a very few illustrations
in support of this assertion ; but those who consider these
religions of value as a confirmation of its truth, will find it
in them all, in one form or other.
Thus in Buddhism there are two Paramitas, Upaya and
Prajna, which represent the Fatherly and Motherly principles.
" From the union of Upaya and Prajna," says an old Buddhist
book, cited by Mr Hodgson, " proceeded the world." ^ Prajna
is the exact equivalent of the Hebrew Chokmah and the
Alexandrine word Sophia — Wisdom imaged as a woman.
Upaya is variously translated ; its literal meaning is " ap-
proach." ^ Upaya Prajna with the Buddhists is similar to
the Ardha Xari (literally half- woman) of the Brahmans —
the Cosmos imaged as a bisexual God.^ While in that
most ancient religion of Accad which Professor Sayce has
been revealing to us, he tells us that " it was believed that
' Ana Sar was the male principle which, by uniting with
' the female principle (ana) ki-sar," (the goddess of) the
earth (and) the hosts of heaven, " produced the present
' world. It was to this old elemental Deity that the great
' Temple of Esarra was dedicated, whose son was said to be
' the God Ninip or Adar " * (the Word).
A recognition of this truth is to be found in the Talmud,
while the Kabbalah discourses on the subject very elaborately.
Thus in tlie Sohar we find that from the boundless En Soph
emanated the Sephiroth, consisting of masculine and feminine
principles, of which the first were Wisdom, represented by the
divine name Jah (masculine), and Intelligence, Jehovah (femi-
nine), and it is from a union of these, which are also called
Father and Mother, tliat tlie remainder proceeded, or, accord-
' HodgHon'H EKsays, p. 88. ^ l'.u<lflliiKni in Cfiristianity, p. 91.
^ HodgHon'8 Estiays, p. 78. * Hibbert LectureH, 1887, ]). 12.'».
206 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
ing to the same authority, " When the Holy Aged, the con-
' cealed of all concealed, assumed a form, he produced every-
* thing in the form of male and female, as things could not
' continue in any other form. Hence Wisdom, which is the
' beginning of development, when it proceeded from the Holy
' Aged, emanated in male and female, for Wisdom expanded,
' and Intelligence proceeded from it : and thus obtained male
' and female — viz., Wisdom the Father and Intelligence the
' Mother — from whose union the other pairs of Sephiroth suc-
' cessively emanated." ^
These are either masculine, feminine, or two - in - one.
Thus " love " is masculine, " justice " feminine, and they are
united in " beauty," the whole composing a figure somewhat
after the Grand Man of Swedenborg, and each triad of Sephi-
roths giving birth respectively to the intellectual, moral, and
material worlds. There is, moreover, a trinity of triads, and,
above all, a supreme trinity of crown, king, and queen.
I mention this, not relying upon it in any way as an au-
thority, but merely as illustrating what a prominent position
the divine feminine held in the most ancient conception of
the Deity — for whatever may be the date of the Kabbalah in
its present form, there can be no doubt of the antiquity of
the traditions which it contains.
The Kabbalists to this day pray for " the reunion of the
' Holy One, blessed be His name, and His Shechinah : I do this
' in love and fear, in fear and love, for the union of the name
' [masculine] ni with n^ [feminine] into a perfect harmony ; "
for they imagine in their conceit that the afflictions of the
race proceed, not from the fact that they have lost their
biune God, but that He has lost His Shechinah, or feminine
principle.
"For some reason best known to themselves," says Mr
Macgregor Mathers, in his introduction to his very interesting
work, ' The Kabbalah Unveiled,' " the translators of the
' Bible have carefully crowded out of existence and smothered
' up every reference to the fact that the Deity is both mas-
' culine and feminine. They have translated a feminine phiral
' by a masculine singular in the case of the word Elohim.
' They have, however, left an inadvertent admission of their
1 Sohar, iii. 290a.
TEACHING OF THE KABBALAH. 207
' knowledge that it was plural, in Genesis i. 26, 'And Elohim
' said, Let us make man.' And again (verse 27), how could
' Adam be made in the image of Elohim, male and female,
' unless the Elohim were male and female also ? The word
' Elohim is a plural formed from the feminine singular ALH —
' Eloh — by adding IM to the word. But inasmuch as IM is
' usually the termination of the masculine plural, and is here
' added to a feminine noun, it gives to the word Elohim the
' sense of a female potency united to a masculine idea, and
' thereby capable of producing an offspring. Now we hear
' much of the Father and the Son, but we never hear anything
' of the Mother in the ordinary religions of the day. But in
' the Kabbalah we find that the Ancient of Days conforms
' himself simultaneously into the Father and Mother, and thus
' begets the Son. Now this Mother is Elohim. Again, we are
' usually told that the Holy Spirit is masculine. But the
' word EVCH — Euach — is feminine, as appears from the
' following passage of the Sepher Yetzirah, ' ACHTH EVCH
' ALHIM CHIIM — A Chath (feminine, not masculine)
* Ruach Elohim Ohiim — One is she, the Spirit of the Elohim
' of Life.' " 1
And again (page 25) : " This Sephira completes and makes
' evident the supernal Trinity. It is also called Ama,
' Mother, and Aima, the great productive Mother, who is
' eternally conjoined with Ab, the Father, for the mainten-
' ance of the universe in order. Therefore is She the most
' evident form in whom we can know the Father, and therefore
' is She worthy of all honour. She is the supernal Mother,
' coequal with Chokmah, and the great feminine form of God,
' the Elohim, in whose image man and woman are created,
' according to the teaching of the Kabbalah, eqiial before God.
' Woman is equal with man, and certainly not inferior to him,
' as it has been the persistent endeavour of so-called Chris-
' tians to make her. Aima is the woman described in the
' Apocalypse (ch. xii.) . . . She is the supernal Mother, as
' distinguished from Malkuth, the inferior Mother, ]>ride,
' Queen." This inferior Mother, Bride, or Queen is, as will
presently appear, the feminine principle of the Son, or the
Word made flesh. I have thought it worth while to ([uote
' The Kabbalali Unveiled, p. 22.
208 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
in full some passages from ' The Kabbalah Unveiled ' con-
cerning the androgynous character of the Son, which will be
found at the end of the Appendix.
This truth was contained in the hidden meaning of the law
which Moses gave his people, and in the arcana of number-
less passages of the Old and New Testaments, especially in the
Book of Job and the Eevelation. It was held by the mystical
sect of the Nazarites, for it formed part of the lore which
they had received from the mystics of Egypt, Chaldea, and
Persia ; it was well known to the Essenes, who succeeded
them, and to the Pythagoreans ; while in the Orphic poems,
Zeus, who is " one force, one spiritual being, great rector of
all things," is described as being at once a male and an im-
mortal nymph. And again he calls Jupiter the divine hus-
band and wife — Zev<; a(f)or}v jeveTo, Zev<; afi^pioro<; eTfXrjro
vvfi(fir), The Osiris-Isis of ancient Egypt, and the Iswara
Prakriti of ancient India, represent the same truth.
The twofold character of God was held by the Therapeuts
and Gnostic sects, and it was not until the suppression of the
latter that Christendom may be said to have lost its God,
and adopted the God of the Jewish Pharisees and Sadducees ;
the cruel, implacable, vindictive, unjust male monster, which
exoteric Judaism created after its own image, and which was
the hideous legacy they left to the civilised world on their
own extinction as a nation. If the ignorance, bigotry, and
cruelty of Christendom, have made the Jew a martyr for well-
nigh two thousand years, amply has he revenged himself
upon it by presenting it with his God, as material out of
which to invent a Trinity.
Both Jews and Gentiles have yet to find the Infinite Father
and Mother whom they have lost. Among a sect of the
former, it is true. He exists theoretically in His twofold
essence ; but Christians have only a faint emblem of it in the
person of the Virgin Mary, who, as the mother of Christ,
occupies the same relative position to a minute fraction of
Christendom — which still finds a profound mystical meaning in
some of the dogmas of the Church — that Maya does, as the
mother of Gautama, to Buddhists ; but to Christendom at
large, this is not comprehended even as a symbol.
In proportion as a Church loses the infinitely tender ele-
THE INFINITE MATEKNITY. 209
ment of the divine maternity, and substitutes for it the char-
acter of an unjust judge, does it become harsh, self-riohteous,
and arrogant. We see evidence of this in what are called the
evangelical sects of the West, whose hatred of Popery has led
them to repudiate the feminine element in it.
If we accept the idea of a Deity at all, as a great First
Cause, or creative principle, it is surely rather a self-evident
proposition than a mystery, that the twofold principle of life
must emanate from Him, and that if He is our infinite Father
He must also be our infinite Mother, though the idea is so
foreign to us, that we have no pronoun in our language to
attach to a bisexual being.
To him who seeks his God by the light of this truth, will
its substantial verity be revealed in ways of which he can
little dream ; for it is evident that a conception of the Deity,
even if it be vague, which contains a vital truth, furnishes a
foundation-stone for a living faith ; and two incomprehen-
sibles wliich form one, by virtue of a combination of two
principles which we all understand, form a basis more solid
to build upon, than tliree iucomprehensibles which form one,
by virtue of three principles which none of us understand.
Beyond this no human mind, as at present constituted, can
furnish to another any adequate conception of the great First
Cause; though Churches have endeavoured to define Him,
and have dared to stigmatise what they call pantheism, or
the belief that His essence must be present everywhere, and
that nothing can be where He is not, as error. That a dual
principle should be all-pervading, and yet constitute a person-
ality, is only incomprehensible to us, because we cannot eman-
cipate ourselves from the false perceptions which attach to
our limitations in time and space. And as, while these per-
ceptions are relative to our senses, it is impossible that
this should be otherwise, the revelation of His nature by
God to man must always be a personal one, conveyed to
his affections through the subsurface faculties which those
affections can alone develoj).
Those to whom God lias revealed Himself in His divine
womanhood, become conscious of a new tenderness stealing
over them, wliicli emln-aces the whole visil)le world. The
beauties of nature now become invested with an indescribable
210 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
attraction. Tlie swelling hillsides, the craggy rocks, the
undulating ocean, the rustling foliage, are all palpitating with
God in a way they never did before ; and the life which is
in them seems to blend mysteriously with the affections.
They do not need to be told that nature has a soul, for
they feel themselves to be united in most loving sympathy
with it.
If this is the case with what is called " inanimate creation,"
how much more strongly is it the case with all living things !
and how intense becomes the compassion and the yearning
over the fellow-man, irrespective alike of colour, race, or con-
dition in life ! It was this Divine Feminine which spoke
through Jesus, when He called the little children toward
Him ; when He refused to condemn the fallen woman ; when
He brooded as a mother over Jerusalem, and drew the beloved
disciple to His bosom. It was this tenderness which evoked
a response from the hearts of women, such as no prophet or
teacher had ever evoked before, and prompted Him, in the
moment of His suj^reme agony, to utter the sublime ejacu-
lation, " Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they
do."
It is this revelation of the divine maternity to the soul of
man that brings with it a new sense of spiritual potency, and
that enables those who have received it to exercise an inde-
finable influence over those who are being prepared for its
reception : it is the infusing of a new warmth into nature,
the dawning of a new brightness upon the soul's horizon, the
palpitating of a new joy throughout all the being. To those
who have rejected the theological Christ, and misunderstood
His work, and His true relation to God and man, it is an
inspiration which sweeps away old prejudices, and lifts the
veil that has hidden the animating principle of His person-
ality from our gaze. We see Him now, no longer through a
glass darkly, but face to face, and we feel the infinitely sweet
touch of a nature, in which the Divine Feminine has been de-
veloped, and which can reach us through atomic sympathy
by the appointed channels, because He was Himself once
tempted in all points like as we are.
It is by the light of this revelation that we can judge of
the work of the great religious reformers and teachers of the
THE FUNCTION OF CHRIST. 211
world ; and while to some of them we accord a majesty of
inspiration and a dignity of effort which claim our highest
respect and veneration, we are enabled to perceive that
though they in some instances recognised the existence of
this principle, and taught it as a mystery, to none was given
the highest illumination that it imparts.
This internal illumination can only be attained by an
occult union with the bisexual Deity, for which the world
was not yet prepared, and for which the elements did not
exist in nature. Therefore it was that the efforts of the
mystics in this direction proved of comparatively little advan-
tage to the world at large ; and that the attempts of those
who now seek by the methods which they employed, of asceti-
cism, dirt, self-concentration, and so forth, to attain the same
end, will be of no avail, unless they recognise the supreme
function of Christ, as the divinely appointed channel by which
this union can alone be won by the elements which he im-
parted. iSTevertheless He can visit those who have not so
recognised Him, and the visitation will, sooner or later, con-
vey the revelation.
If the intelligent classes in Christendom understood that
there was an esoteric sense in the letter of the Bible, and
if this fact had been recognised as essential to its true com-
prehension by the Church, materialism and scepticism would
not have assumed the proportions tliey have attained during
this century; and instead of searching for arguments to
prove the scientific absurdity of Biblical statements, men
would have devoted themselves rather to the task of dis-
covering what that inner meaning was.
If the Churches Iiad not lost the inspiration of tlie Holy
Spirit, that can only operate in man through the Divine
Feminine, whicli Christ was tlie first to embody on earth,
they would have been able to oppose a barrier to the fiood of
infidelity which now tlireatens the submergence of all reli-
gion ; and it is with the object of urging all those who are
animated by a sincere love for their fellows, to search for tliis
hidden wisdom, not in the Bible alone, but in tlicir own
hearts, that this book is written.
80 long as those who regard the Bible as an authority,
attempt to meet the conclusions of science by clinging to the
212 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
literal interpretation of records, adapted in their outward
form to the ignorant, credulous, and superstitious conditions
which existed among the common people three thousand
years ago, so long will they get worsted in their endeavours,
and build up scaffoldings of fallacies for their opponents to
pull down.
When, on the other hand, there are to he found in those
records concealed verities, which are only true to those to
whom they have been revealed, and which therefore make
no appeal to the unenlightened reason of those who seek to
dictate to the world, from the lofty summits of their darkened
intelligence, these latter are deprived of all the weapons of
argument or demonstration, and are perforce driven to silence,
or to the more congenial armoury of gibes and sneers.
I have more than once remarked that the religion of the
future will be founded on personal revelation and personal
experience. It will not be a subject which can be discussed
in the schools, nor ventilated in the public press, nor defined
by Convocation in catechisms. The only catechism which
the religious man, animated by the quickening life that is now
descending, needs, his own conscience will formulate ; the
only doctrines are those which will be shown him by the
eftbrt of doing the will of his Father ; the only demonstrations
upon which he will rely to convince the unbelieving, will be
" the demonstrations of the Spirit with power " ; and the force
of his arguments will lie in the force of his sympathies.
He will draw men to him, not by " the enticing words
of wisdom which man speaketh," but by the magnetic attrac-
tion of his atomic elements, which are the same in their na-
ture as those which enable men and women to attract each
other, or, in other words, to fall in love ; but are altogether
different in their properties and behaviour, as those who are
searching into the mysteries of allotropism wdll understand
to be possible.
Eead only by the light of the external meaning of the
word, the first few chapters of Genesis are not only opposed
to all the conclusions of science, but to common-sense : or, as
Origen says, " What person in his senses will imagine that
' the first, second, and third day, in connection with which
THE INNER SENSE. 213
' morning and evening were mentioned, were without sun,
' moon, and stars ? — nay, that there was no sky on the first
' day ? Who is there so foolish and without common-sense
' as to believe that God planted trees in the garden of Eden
' eastward, like a husbandman ; and planted therein the tree
' of life, perceptible to the eyes and to the senses, which gave
' life to the eater thereof ; and another tree which gave to the
' eater thereof a knowledge of good and evil ? I believe that
' everybody must regard these as figures, under which a recon-
' dite sense is concealed."
I will therefore give such of the inner sense of these chap-
ters as has been shown me, premising that though it is in
some extent supported by the Kabbalah, it is in no way drawn
from it, though its confirmation is not without its value.
Not would I enter upon a subject so recondite, were it not
necessary to do so, for the purpose of explaining the origin of
the moral malady from which the world is suffering, in order
to elucidate the nature of the remedy to be applied, for it is
impossible to cure a disease, unless it be in the first instance
dipgnosed, and this diagnosis involves a glance at the early
history of the planet, the story of its creation, and of the evils
which befell it.
At the same time, I make no claim upon the credulity of
my readers, nor expect those to believe me who hear no
whisper within them, urging them to make the experiments
here suggested for verification ; but some there may be, so
internally prepared already, tliat they will desire to respond
at once to the call to consecrate themselves to the life which
is here proposed. And to those it will be shown how they
may extricate themselves from the worldly complications
which may seem to bar the way to the absolute self-sur-
rendry which it demands ; or how, at all events, to manage
their lives in the midst of their surroundings, as Girod may
direct, with the view to their ultimate emancipation. For,
however vaguely liitherto tliey may have been conscious of
the influence in tlieir affairs of an overruling I'rovidence,
however insufficiently they may l)ave found guidance and
direction when souglit for in diflliculty, wlien once they have
decided to allow nf»tliin'f to interfere witli an iiiinicdiate re-
214 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
spouse to the voice within them, all doubt and uncertainty
on this head will cease. God will prove to tliem that He
exists by unmistakable evidence, that He hears, that He
answers, that He directs, that He consoles, that He sympa-
thises. But to oljtain this consciousness, the dearest earthly
ajffections must be sacrificed, the most trying ordeals must
be endured, the most intense faith must be exercised, the
most unflinching courage displayed, and a fortitude a toutc
6preuvc must be exhibited.
The words of Christ, which have never been acted upon
yet, must be put in force now : " For if any man come to me
' and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children,
' and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot
' be my disciple."
Even now "the abomination of desolation spoken of by
Daniel the prophet," is " standing where it ought not," as it
was prophesied by Christ that it would, and many are coming
in His name, saying, " Lo, here is Christ, or lo, He is there."
It is time, therefore, for those who are in the Judtea of the the-
ologies of Christendom, to flee to the mountains of spiritual
truth, and this they can do by discovering each for himself
where the true Christ is ; but to those alone will He reveal
Himself, who literally follow His precepts — which are now
ignored — and who are prepared to sacrifice everything they
hold dear, to find Him.
As spiritual impressions and mediumistic communications
increase, will the difficulty become greater, for the evil ones
take advantage of the ignorance and credulity of those they
can influence directly, to speak in the name of Christ, and to
" show signs and wonders, and to seduce, if it were possible,
even the elect." There is no way of escaping from deception,
except by efforts of verification, which will involve tremendous
personal sacrifice. Should those who have made such efforts
find, as the result of them, that what is here written contains
I": error, I should be the first to co-operate with them in the at-
tempt to correct it ; for I make no claim for it, except that
it is the highest truth that I have been able to reach. I am
well aware that it is rudimentary. It is not until such an
effort has been made, that any one is in a position to search
QUALIFICATION FOR CRITICISM. 215
for the hidden wisdom contained in those sacred records,
which one class of minds regards now with a bhnd unbelief,
and another with an equally blind credulity ; and to estimate
at their true value such interpretations as may be submitted
to them.
Any criticisms, therefore, which may be offered upon the
interpretations of sacred records I am now about to offer, by
persons who have not fulfilled those conditions, are absolutely
worthless.
PART II.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE GENERATION OF UNIVERSES — FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS DESCRIBES
THE CREATION BY EMANATION OF A PREVIOUS UNIVERSE — ANALYSIS
OF ITS HIDDEN MEANING — THE REBELLION OF LUCIFER — ARCH-
ANGELS OR SERAPHIM, AND ARCH-DEMONS OR SIDDIM — THE FIRST
ADAM, OR ADAM CADMON.
UxiVEESES come into being under the fixed, orderly, and
predetermined operation of law. They are not the result of
arbitrary acts, or catastrophic interventions of Providence,
but of a process of combined emanation and creation, or fash-
ioning, wliich is in eternal and infinite progression, through
the agency of other universes and their inhabitants. For as
life is eternal, and matter is indestructible, and as life is two-
fold, and therefore generative, procreation is incessant, and
its manifestation is by emanation.
The faculties and potencies of the loftiest orders of beings
on the liighest universes are inconceivable by man, as is the
material of which those universes are composed, which would
not be cognisable to his present senses. None of the heavenly
bodies, therefore, tliat we see are in this category ; Ijut they
are, like our own eartli, emanations from these unseen uni-
verses. The scientific theory of the nebular hypothesis, and
of the gaseous incandescence which was the primal substance
out of whicli they took form, is, so far as our senses are con-
cerned, in the main correct; but even in that condition they
were only the outward manifestation of an unseen arclietype.
The connection between these two conditions of tlie same
universe is inseparable ; their interaction is incessant, and
their dependence upon each other absolute. But it varies in
deirree. so that iii some instances the difference between the
220 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
outer manifestation and its archetype is apparently very great,
and in others scarcely perceptible.
These conditions depend on those of the universes from
which they emanated, and on the intelligences which con-
trolled their development and evolution. These intelligences,
who are the agents of the divine will and operation, are in
atomic affinity with the universe which is called into exist-
ence, through their fertilisation of the atomic particles com-
posing the substances of those materials, which first take the
form to human consciousness of incandescent gases.
This cosmic ether, or biod, or biogen, or protyle, or by
whatever name it may be called, is, in fact, world-seed ; ^
each atomic germ-cell containing in its essence a twofold
masculine and feminine principle. These evolve, according
to the conditions which presided over their generation, and
these again differ infinitely in their variety. Hence there are
no two worlds alike.
This is the " fiery cloud " of Professor Tyndall, and when
he says that " human mind itself, emotion, intellect, will, and
all their phenomena," were once latent in it, he catches a
glimpse of a great truth.
The processes of generative emanation, as well as of sub-
sequent evolution, are protracted over a period of almost
unimaginable duration.
The foundation of a universe under these conditions is
recorded in the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis. It
was an emanation from the infinite Elohim, or Two-in-One,
through the agency of the Elohim, a race of beings of an
inconceivably high type, inhabiting a universe beyond our
ken, but whose life and potency are visible to us in the sun
of our own system. They are one of the angelic hosts, of
whom ten, according to the Kabbalah, compose the " world of
formation." The angelic hosts — like all beings in their
essence — are bisexual.
The world which was called into existence through their
operation was prior to our earth. It was formed of substance
beyond the range of our cognisance, and took countless ages
to evolve before it was ready to receive the race which was
prepared for it, called Adam in the Bible — and " Adam Cad-
1 The world-seed is the Golden Germ of the Rig Vedai.
THE GENESIS OF A UNIVERSE. 221
mon " ill the Kabbalah, to distinguish it from the siibsequeut
race of the same iiame — which is, in fact, only the Hebrew
word for red earth, and who were patterned bisexually after
the Elohim.
It is not possible with our limited faculties to form any
mental image of the nature by which this race was sur-
rounded, because every object in it, animate or inanimate, was,
so to speak, an eidolon — that is to say, the representation of
an idea.
The classification of these is indicated in the distinction
drawn between those brought forth by the waters and those
brought forth by the earth, also between those that had
" souls " and those of which this is not said. Thus we are
told that God said, " Let the earth bring forth grass, the
' herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his
' kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth." This repre-
sented one class of moral and intellectual conceptions, and
physical faculties and energies ; and again, " Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving thing that hath soul,"
represents another class ; and " let the fowl fly above the
earth in the open firmament of heaven," has reference to
those forces which are connected with the operation of the
will-principle, represented by the word firmament ; but it is
impossible for us, with our finite perceptions, to form any
notion of the character of the potencies, faculties, conceptions,
and ideas here indicated. Thus the expression rendered by
our translators " great whales " represents another class ; and
the things brought forth by the earth, " the living creature
after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything
that creepeth on the earth after his kind," another class.
The repetition that everything was after its respective
kind, is an accentuation of the distinctions of the different
principles contained in these ideas. Lastly came man, repre-
senting the divine idea, and controlling the forces, moral and
intellectual, which pervaded the nature over which lie was
given dominion ; and to whom was given, together with the
superior animal forms representing the highest conceptions,
the principles symbolised by the herbs, the trees, and their
fruits, as moral sustenance. The whole of nature being, as it
were, a book, representing the sublimest truths in a pictorial
222 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
form, of the divine life and love principles, living, moving,
and having their being in the bosom of the infinite Father
and Mother of all, and being, in fact, an embodiment of the
creative fiat or word,^ and of the Divine Masculine and Femi-
nine principles.
That the emanation occurred through the operation of
these principles in the Elohim, through whom it took form,
is indicated in the first verse, " By wisdom God created the
heavens and the earth." ^ The word " heavens " here signifies
force, and " earth," substance. It is a fact well known to those
conversant with the ancient religions, and with mystical in-
terpretation generally, that force is deemed to be masculine,
and substance feminine, whether it be solid or liquid. Hence
we have the earth called Prakriti, or the Mother, in the Vedas ;
and water is almost always symbolised by a goddess in the
old mythologies, as in Zoroastrianism by Anahita, and in the
Kabbalah by Aima, " the great sea."
The Divine Feminine principle represented by " substance "
is love. The Divine Masculine principle represented by
"force" is operation. In other words, the divine wisdom,
love, and operation, which are ever present in the infinite
Elohim, acting upon and through the representative Elohim,
called into existence a universe, by forming a conjunction of
atoms appropriate to its new conditions, and which emanated
from them.
The statement that " the earth was without form, and void ;
and that darkness was upon the face of the waters," signifies
that the bisexual principle was not yet in operation. " The
Spirit" — or Euach — "of God moving upon the face of the
waters," signifies the quickening by the divine potency of the
^ According to the Hindoo cosmogony, Prajapati, getting tired of his soli-
tude, " emits," that is to say, draws forth from himself, everything that exists,
or who begets it, after having divided himself into two, the one half male, the
other half female. — Earth's Religions of India, p. 69.
Irenseus, speaking of our own universe, says, " God made the world by
means of the Word and Wisdom " (Hser., 4. 28).
- The word Berashith, which Onkelos, Le Seirtagius, and others, including
our own translators, render " in the beginning," is translated in four different
ways by Grotius, Tertullian, Rabbi Bochai, and Simeon respectively ; but the
Jerusalem Targum, which may be esteemed the highest authorit}^, renders it
"by wisdom."
THE LOST ORB. 223
feminine principle in the universe. " And God said, Let there
be light : and there was light," signifies that the divine life now
animated the universe. Hence John says, " And the life was
the light of men." The division of the light from the dark-
ness signifies the division between the bisexual principle oper-
ant in God, and the bisexual principle which was to be operant
in the universe, under the conditions of free-will. The " firma-
ment," by means of which this division was brought about,
signifies the principle of free-will. The collection of the
waters into one place, and the appearance of dry land, signi-
fies the conditions under which the bisexual principle was to
operate in nature. The passage from the 15th to the 19th
verses contain arcana in regard to the processes of love,
wisdom, and operation, represented by the " greater " and the
" lesser " light, and the stars in the firmament, or free-will,
by means of which tliree great principles, operating in free-
dom, the universe was to be governed.
This is the universe which has given rise to the tradition
of the fallen orb, to which allusion is made by the prophet
Isaiah in the 14th chapter, where he says, '•' How art thou
" fallen from heaven, Lucifer " — or Day-star — " son of the
' morning ! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst
' weaken the nations ! For thou hast said in thine heart, I
' will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the
^ stars of God : I will sit also upon the mount of the congre-
' gation, in the sides of the north : I will ascend above the
' heights of the clouds ; I will be like the Most Higli. Yet
' thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
' They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and cou-
' sider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to
' tremble, that did shake kingdoms ; that made the world as a
' wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof ; that opened
' not the house of liis prisoners ? " Tlie special interest of
this passage consists in the fact that it is a prediction of the
judgment which is to overtake the powers of darkness on the
occasion of tlie Messianic advent, as distinctly foreshadowed
in tlie licvelation, wliicli will clearly appear when we come
to consider the 20th chapter of that book.
The story of tlie r('l)cllion of Lucifer and his host, of tlieir
habitation in a lower world, of their invasion into tliis one,
224 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
of the archangels who remained loyal, and were saved, together
with that part of the inhabitants of the orb who did not take
part in the rebellion, with many legends of great interest, are
to be fonnd in the sacred literature of the Hebrews, and
especially in the Book of Enoch, while the Bible contains
many allusions to it. Thus the Psalmist says, " I said. Ye are
' gods ; and all of you the children of the Most High : yet ye
' shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." And
Jude, quoting from the Book of Enoch, thus alludes to this
event : " And the angels which kept not their lirst estate, but
' left their own habitation. He hath reserved in everlasting
' chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day ;"
and again, — " Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with
•' the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not
' bring against him a railing accusation, but said. The Lord
' rebuke thee." The greater part of the Eevelation contains
in its hidden meaning the narrative of events which have
transpired, and will yet transpire, in the world of which the
first chapter of Genesis records the creation, sometimes under
a very thin veil ; as, for instance, where it is said, " And there
' was war in heaven : Michael and his angels fought against
' the dragon ; and the dragon fought and his angels, and pre-
' vailed not ; neither was their place found any more in
' heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent,
' called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole
' world : he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were
' cast out with him." And says Peter, " If God spared not
' the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and de-
' livered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto
' judgment." And Job, comparing the people of this world
with those of its predecessor, says, " Shall a man be more
' pure than his Maker ? Behold, He put no trust in His
' servants ; and His angels He charged with folly : how
' much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foun-
' dation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth ? " ^
The enormous structural difference between existing man,
whose bodily tenement is of clay, and the nature of the fallen
angels is here alluded to. They were, in fact, patterned closely
after the divine image, with an absolute freedom of will, and
1 Job, iv. 17-19.
FALLEN AND UNF ALLEN ANGELS. 225
powers of a stupendous character. In accordance with the
divine method of rule, there was one among them in whom
supreme authority was vested. His faculties transcended
anything of which we have any idea, and in him origi-
nated the idea that his will, which was free, was his own,
and not God's freedom acting in him. The consequences
which resulted to humanity from this false conception we
shall see later. It produced a conflict in the " Day-star," to
use Isaiah's nomenclature, and there was " war in heaven,"
Michael and those who clung to the true conception of free-
will, rebelling against the authority of the Prince of Dark-
ness, who is since known as Satan. It was the supreme
position with which the latter was endowed, which gave rise
to the tradition, recorded in Jude, that Michael, disputing
with Satan " about the body of Moses, durst not bring against
him a railing accusation," but could only say, " The Lord
rebuke thee."
This passage is deeply interesting, as throwing light upon
the relations which subsist between the fallen and the un-
fallen parts of the preceding, or Elohistic, universe. Though
divided into two hostile camps, and though it underwent a
violent atomic dislocation on the occasion of the conflict which
took place between the opposing will-principles, it still forms
but one universe, and the collision continues between the
antagonistic forces ; nor can the magnetic contact by which
they are united be severed. This contact is both direct and
indirect. Direct as between the two liostile portions in the
region they occupy, and indirect through both the visible and
invisible portions of our universe.
And here I feel compelled to make a statement which it
lias been necessary tlius to lead up to, but which does, in
fact, furnish us witli a key to tlie mystery of our complex
earthly existence.
Races are generated tlir(jugh a primal pair. The primal
pair, in the case of the world preceding our own, were called
Adam, or Adam Cadmon. And it was the perversion of the
will-princii)le l)y this Adam Cadmon, who was su])reme in his
universe, which produced tlie catastrophe. In other words,
the first Adam mentioned in the Jiible, has become the Devil
or Satan, who wages perpetual war against Iiis Maker, and
226 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
whose rebellion was succeeded by an atomic dislocation in
his outer organism, which involved a divorce from his own
feminine complement; and by a conflict between the male
and female principles in that region of the fallen universe
in wliich he still exercises rule. Nevertheless in its deep
interior the bisexual principle remains intact.
It is important that this should be understood, because
there has been in the minds of intelligent people, a very
natural reaction against a narrative which, taken in its literal
sense, seems so fantastic, that with the rejection of the talk-
ing serpent, has followed that of a personal devil, largely,
because he is invested in the popular imagination with horns,
hoofs, and a tail ; but the whole Bible teems with references
to this personality, and it stands to reason that, to use Paul's
expression, if " the rulers of the darkness of this world " exist
at all, there must be among them some who are more power-
ful and intelligent than others. In the Talmud and Kabba-
lah these have names, just as among the Seraphim or unfallen
angels we have the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and others.
So there are arch-demons, and, besides Satan, we read in the
New Testament of Beelzebub and Apollyon, and in the
Talmud of Ashmedai, Samael, and others. Ashmedai is the
Asmodeus of Tobit, iii. 8, vi. 14, &c. TJie Kabbalah gives us
a list of ten archangels and ten orders of angels, and of ten
arch-demons and ten orders of demons.
But the ruler of all is generally known as Satan, and his
power may be inferred from the verse, " And God said. Let us
' make man in our image, after our likeness ; and let them have
' dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
' air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
' creeping thing that creepetli upon the earth." This signifies
that the first Adam, or Adam Cadnion, was invested with
powers almost equal to the Deity — that he could control all
the principles represented in the nature by which he was
surrounded, and that he possessed the divine attributes to
such a high degree, that when his will became perverted, he
imagined himself to be equal, if not superior, to God.
On this insane delusion taking possession of his mind, and
the Divine Feminine principle within him having become per-
verted, he represented instead the infernal feminine or lust
SATAX AND THE SIDDIM. 227
principle, as his name Satan implies. This will appear later,
when we come to consider the threefold nature of the Deity.
Henceforth the object of the internals was to close the
creation which was about to come into existence — and which
is our world — to the operation of the Divine Feminine, and
to substitute for it the infernal feminine ; and the struggle
between the Seraphim and the Siddim,^ or the unfallen
and the fallen angels, has been carried on in man over
this principle ever since. For the Seraphim never lost their
divine bisexual nature in their outer organisms, and are the
guardian angels of our planet. Satan, on the other hand,
controls that section of the world which fell with him, and is
regarded by the Siddim as the Deity — a delusion in which
he is himself fixed. Hence all the abominations perpetrated
through their agency are justified on the highest moral
grounds ; and the effect of their inspiration in the religions
of the world is to be seen in the atrocities which have been
committed in the name of religion, as, for instance, those
under the Inquisition. All crime becomes lawful as the
means to the end, which appears to their perverted ima-
ginations to be divine. Their strongholds upon our earth
are the religions which fiourish largely under their tegis,
and, as we shall see later, especially the Churches of Chris-
tendom.
It has been necessary to dwell upon the nature of the
catastrophe which overtook the Elohistic universe, because
our own fortunes are inextricably bound up with it ; and a
knowledge of its history and present condition, forms an indis-
pensable preliminary to an apprehension of the nature of the
destiny reserved for our own world, and of the struggles and
duties which await us. It has also been necessary, because it
is to be hoped that the attempt to reconcile a chronicle of
cosmogony wliich has no reference to our own world — except
indirectly — with the conclusions of modern science, will be
abandoned, as one of tlie most fatal blows which can be struck
at those parts of tlie Bible which contain divine truth in tlieir
hidden meaning. It gives scoffers most unnecessary occasion
for satire, so thin, that it would lose all its point if the subject
satirised was not considered sacred ; and it brings tlie intelli-
' Note for the f>rigiii of the words Satan ami yiddim. See Appendix.
228 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
gence of those who cling to the external sense of the record,
from habit, prejudice, or panic, as the case may be, into a
contempt which even they might be spared.
The effect of the violent shock which this former universe
sustained, as the result of the conflict between the Seraphim
and the Siddim, was to shatter it, in so far as the original ar-
rangement and combinations of its atomic structure was con-
cerned, and it passed through a stage corresponding to what
we call death, shedding off its grosser atomic particles, while
those which were finer, rearranged themselves according to
their moral attraction, and ultimately formed themselves into
two widely opposite systems, of extreme good and extreme
bad, with an intermediate region of a mixed character.
These three regions are connected atomically with three
corresponding regions in our own invisible universe; and
although we on earth are practically cut off from direct
contact with the inhabitants of the previous world, there have
been in former periods exceptional instances of visitations by
them. Thus we have records of Satan appearing to Job and
to Christ ; and of messages borne to it by Gabriel to Zacha-
rias and to the Virgin Mary ; and upon two occasions to
Daniel, in order to explain visions to him ; while Michael is
mentioned as " the great prince that standeth up for the
people," with especial reference to a period of moral and
physical revolution which was in store for our own universe.
229
CHAPTEE XIV.
SECOND CHAPTER OF GENESIS DESCRIBES CREATION BY EMANATION OF
OUR WORLD — ANALYSIS OF ITS HIDDEN MEANING — THE CREATION
OF BISEXUAL MAN — ANCIENT BELIEFS IN HIS ANDROGYNOUS NATURE
— STORY OF HIS FALL — AND SEPARATION INTO TWO DISTINCT SEXES
— STRUCTURAL CHANGES CONSEQUENT THEREON.
The narrative of the creation of the world which succeeded
that which underwent atomic dislocation, under the circum-
stances above described, commences at the fourth verse of the
second chapter of Genesis. It contains in its internal mean-
ing a description of the process by which the new generative
emanation took place, which forms the basis of existing
matter.
On the dislocation of the previous world, its physical cUhris,
consisting of those grosser particles which it had shed off at
the time of its dissolution, now solidified into cosmic ether,
or a " fiery cloud " of unparalleled density, and formed world-
seed of a debased and corrupted quality, composing a matrix,
out of which should condense a nature of a type correspond-
ing to the unhappy mixed conditions to which it owed its
origin.
It will \)Q. oljserved that the narratives of the two creations
Ijear no similarity to each otlier. There is no mention in the
second of tlie number of days in which the world was made,
nor of the order of creation ; and especially is the distinction
marked in all that concerns the creation of man. We are
not told that he was made in God's own image, nor that
he was given dominion over the nature by whicli he was
surrounded, as was tlie case with tlie preceding Adam. The
narrative commences abruptly —
230 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
" These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth,
in the day that Jehovah Elohim made the earth and the
heavens." " These are the generations of the heavens and the
earth," signifies the nature of the generative process by means
of which force and substance — in other words, "matter in
motion " — underwent violent transformation in the case of the
world, whose creation is now being described ; in contradis-
tinction to the process of gentle emanation from the Elohim,
by means of which the preceding world had been called into
existence.
" In the day that Jehovah Elohim made the earth and the
heavens." The transposition of substance and force indicates
the nature of the new atomic combination, which was effected
" under the immutable operation of divine law, by the com-
bined, but, at the same time, antagonistic, agency of the
angels, fallen and unfallen, of the former universe."
" And every plant of the field before it was in the earth,
and every herb of the field before it grew," signifies the prior
existence in another form of substance, of the nature which
was now being created, and indicates the slow and gradual
character of the process.
" For Jehovah Elohim had not caused it to rain upon the
' earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there
' went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face
' of the ground," signifies that the only feminine principle
which vivified nature, was that which ascended to it through
the substance of the previous world — man not having yet
been formed — and the new feminine principle which was to
descend through him not having yet done so.
" And Jehovah formed man out of the dust of the ground " —
in other words, fashioned Adam out of Adamah — signifies that
the substance of which he was made, was far more gross and
material than that out of which the previous Adam had been
formed, and closely allied in its atomic structure to the nature
by which he was surrounded. It is worthy of note that in
the first instance the Hebrew word meaning " created " is used,
and in this case another word, which can best be translated
by " fashioned," is employed, indicating a different process of
formation.
" And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," signi-
THE GARDEN OF ED EX. 231
fies that this process of fashionmg was by exhalation — that
is, that the divine attlatus or pneuma, passing through the
Elohim into the Seraphim, contained within it the vital prin-
ciple by which the new man was to be animated. It also
indicates that these principles diffiered in quality from those
of wliich the former race had been composed.
" And man became a living soul," signifies that now, instead
of partaking of the nature of the Elohim, as in the first in-
stance, he partook of the nature with which the creeping
things of the water and of the earth, who were called " li\dng
souls," had been endowed in the former creation ; for atomic
affinity existed between him and the beings of the fallen
world, as well as between him and the Seraphim.
"And Jehovah planted a garden eastward in Eden, and
there he put the man whom he had formed," signifies a spe-
cially protected region set apart for man, and indicates the
relation which it bore to the rest of the universe.
"And out of the ground made Jehovah Elohim to grow
every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food,"
signifies that in this region was provided all the moral sus-
tenance necessary for man, to enable him to accomplish the
high purpose for which he had been placed in it.
" The tree of life also in the midst of the garden," signifies
the mystery in which lies hidden the secret of the creative
potency, and the conservation of energy by atomic combina-
tion, which renders impossible the destruction of the human
X^ersonality. In other words it typified the bisexual body.^
"The tree of knowledge of good and evil," signifies the
knowledge of the fact that the newly created world was
already in atomic contact with botli regions of the previous
world, and in danger from the one that had fallen. It typified,
therefore, the separated body.
"The river that went out of Eden to water the garden," and
" was parted into four heads," signifies the divine life-current,
which, flowing from the specially protected centre of the
universe, divided into four vitalising streams ; one flowing
' In the K.ibbalah it in waid, " l}ut wlienKoevcr tlic colours are mingled to-
gether then i.H He called Tiiihcreth, and the whole body i« formed into a tree
(the Autz Ha-Chaiiin or tree r,f life), gi-eat and .strf)ng, fair and lieautiful."
Dan. iv. 1 1 ; \>. 336, Mather's Kabbalah.
232 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
into the surface of so-called inorganic nature, one into the
vegetable creation, one into the inferior animal creation, and
one into man.
"And Jehovah Elohim took Adam, and put him in the
garden of Eden to dress it," signifies the duties and functions
which now devolved upon man in the nature by which he
was surrounded, with a view to its ultimate restoration to
perfect conditions.
" And Jehovah Elohim commanded the man, saying. Of
' every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the
' tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of
' it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
' die," signifies that if man wilfully opened himself to direct
atomic contact with the beings of the lower world, he would
imbibe a virus, which would prove destructive to his natural
life, and result in the sexual separation of his body.
" And Jehovah Elohim said. It is not good that man should
be alone; I will make an help meet for him," signifies that up
to this time man had been unconscious of the feminine prin-
ciple that had been enfolded within him, and that God was
about to impart to him a consciousness of it, as without it it
would not be possible for him to fulfil the great function that
devolved upon him,
" And out of the ground Jehovah Elohim formed every
beast of the field, and every fowl of the air," signifies that
this creation differed from the one that preceded it by the
composition of its atoms, which were nevertheless a reconsti-
tution of those which had previously existed ; but the process
of this reconstitution had been slow and gradual, having been
evolutionary in its character, and having been developed from
the principles of the ideas which had been contained in the
representations of them in the previous world. They were,
nevertheless, still the symbols of those ideas.
" And brought them unto Adam to see what he would call
them : and whatsoever Adam called every creature, that was
the name thereof," signifies the apprehension by man of the
symbolical meaning of the creation.
" And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of
the air, and to every beast of the field : but for Adam there
was not found an helj) meet for him," signifies that the femi-
THE GARDEN OF EDEX. 233
nine principle appropriate to man was not to be found in the
lower animal creation — the feminine principle of which was
contained within itself. It also indicates the great difference
which existed between man and the animal creation, the
latter ha\'ing evolved from pre-existing types, through the
agency of the life-current flowing through the Elohim, and
thence through the combined operation of the Seraphim and
the Siddim, while the latter had been generated subse-
quently by an altogether different process. For not only
was the feminine principle inferior in the animals, but it had
become polluted ; the new creation having from its outset
suffered from the influence of the poison of the infernal fem-
inine which pervaded its atoms, by reason of their affinity
with the atoms of the fallen region of the previous world.
Hence carnivorous and other disorderly species had evolved.
It was the function of man by his efforts to regain the
ground that had been lost, and this could only be achieved
through the orderly operation of the combined masculine and
feminine principles within him, and by abstention from
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which contained
within it the infernal principle that had become interwoven
in the universe, by reason of the complex conditions under
which it came into existence. In other words, it behoved
him to avoid all contact with the Siddim. For as he him-
self had been generated through the ultimate operation of
the preceding human type, he was in atomic affinity with the
lower intelligences ; from invasion by whom he could only
be saved by implicit obedience, and the preservation of the
purity — with which he had been endowed — of the Divine
Feminine principle. A specially protected region was there-
fore set apart for his hal^itation, called " the garden of Eden."
" And Jehovah Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon
' Adam, and he slept : and He took one of his ribs, and closed
' up the flesh instead thereof ; and the rib, which Jehovah Elo-
' him had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought
' her unto him."
This signifies the process by which the atomic elements
constituting the feminine principle, which had been com-
bined with tliose forming the masculine principle — thus
renderinu man l>isexual — were so altered in their c(jm1jina-
234 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
tions, that without being internally disassociated, they could
be externally separated. The nature of their new association
being such that they could interweave themselves, or separate
themselves at pleasure. Thus presenting the appearance
either of a man and a woman apart ; or of a man infused, as
it were, by a woman — the two forming one. This permeation
of atoms by one another, being possible in the case of beings
whose atomic structure differs essentially from ours as theirs
did, or, in other words, were four dimensional.
" And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of
my flesh: she shall be called Isha, because she was taken out
of Ish," signifies the comprehension by man of the nature
of the bisexual principle with which he was endowed, and
which, although externally he might appear as two persons,
rendered him substantially one ; and the names which he gives
these principles, signifies his perception of the fact that the
feminine principle is contained within the masculine.
" Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
and shall cleave unto his wife," signifies that these principles
are absolutely inseverable, and are inherent in every man and
every woman long before the moment of birth. Though
neither may know in mortal life who the complementary
being is, each person is born with an atomic structure, the
particles of which are interlocked with those of the com-
plementary being, and must be so to all time ; for there is no
such thing, either in this world, or those that are invisible —
fallen or unfallen — as a being who is unisexual in essence,
though all sense of bisexuality has long been completely lost,
and almost the only external trace of it that remains is the
male rudimentary breast. Nevertheless it is in this deeply
seated principle that all our affections, emotions, and passions
originate ; and sooner or later the complementary being is
found, with whom we are each internally, and as yet un-
consciously, atomically interlocked, proving, if the scene of
meeting be the upper world, a source of infinite joy ; if
the lower, a cause of intense misery. Hence the whole
struggle of the Siddim is against bisexuality.
It is not possible, however, for two beings who are thus
interlocked, to pass into two opposite regions ; for inasmuch
as an internal attraction is constantly drawing their souls
BISEXUALITY OF MAX. 235
together, though their bodies may be far apart, and inasmuch
as the atomic quality of their affections or passions is essen-
tially one, they always develop in the same direction. The
upward or the downward tendency is common to both,
because they are essentially not two but one. Christ quoted
the words here put by the inspired writer into Adam's mouth,
to the Pharisees, for He understood the profound truth which
they contained, when He said : " Have ye not read, that He
* which made them at the beginning made them male and
' female, and said. For this cause shall a man leave father and
' mother, and shall cleave to his wife : and they twain shall
* be one flesh ? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one
' flesh. "VVliat therefore God hath joined together, let not man
' put asunder." He does not say what the Church has joined
together, or the priest hath joined together, but what God hath
joined together; and the presumption of Churches and priests,
that God joins the male and female principles together through
their agency, betrays an ignorance equal to its arrogance.
If Christ denounced an attempt to put them asunder —
which is an impossibility — it was only because it was neces-
sary, in the cause of morality, to meet this question on the
low plane of His interrogators, and allow the allusion to have
reference to external wives ; but even here some of the
Churches called by His name repudiate His teaching, and
deliberately sanction adultery, by marrying those who are
divorced, in express defiance of His command to the con-
trary — and tliese they say solemnly, in a temple dedicated
to Him, God has joined together.
In point of fact, though it was not understood l)y the
Pharisees, the bisexnality of man was held among tlie initiated,
both by the Xazarites and afterwards by the Essenes, and
is to be found alluded to in the apocryphal writings of the
early Christian Church. Thus Cyril of Jerusalem calls " the
Anointed" male and female; and in the second Epistle of
Clement of Home we find, " The Lord Himself was asked by
' some one when His kingdom should come ; and He said,
' ' When the two shall be one, and the external as the internal,
' and the male with the female, neither male nor female.' "
Clement of Alexandria repeats the saying — " Wlien Salvine
' asked, when these things of which slie was asking sliould
236 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' be known, the Lord said, Whensoever ye shall have trampled
' down the garment of shame ; and whensoever the two have
' become one, and the male with the female, neither male nor
' female." ^
The explanation of Christ's saying that in heaven there
will be neither marrying nor giving in marriage, is evidently
in allusion to the fact, that it would no longer be in the power
of men to unite in a disorderly way, those who had been
eternally divided by God. The popular idea that angels are
sexless, can only be held by those M'ho are entirely closed as
to their subsurface, or supersensuous, vision ; but so many are
open now sufficiently as to their subsurface faculties to be
convinced by their own experience and observation that this
is a delusion, that it is scarcely necessary to insist upon a
point which it is impossible to prove to those who cannot
see behind the veil.
Those, however, who care to look into the testimony of
ancient writers, will find much curious lore upon the sub-
ject. Thus the Naassene is represented as a believer
in man becoming androgynous when he is "passed over
' from the earthy range of the nether world to the eternal
' substance above, where there is neither male nor female,
' but a new creature, which is androgynous." ^ Simon Magus,
in the ' Great Announcement,' says, concerning a class of
spiritual beings, that " they possess a bisexual power and
' intelligence, whence they form a mutual apposition . . .
' being one ... so it is, therefore, that likewise their
' manifestation, while actually one, is found to be two ; a bi-
' sexual being, holding the feminine within itself."
This doctrine is to be found among the Pythagoreans, while
Plato devotes many pages of his ' Symposium ' to its elucida-
tion. " In the first place," he says, " the sexes were originally
' three in number, not two, as they are now. There was man,
' woman, and the union of the two, having a name correspond-
' ing to this double nature."
In the Egyptian ritual of the dead, perhaps the earliest
known tradition on the subject, we find — " I, Ra, appeared be-
' fore the sun, when the circumference of darkness was opened ;
' I was as one among you (the gods). I know how the woman
^ Strom., iii. 13. - Hippolytus, Ref. Hser., 5.
BISEXUALITY OF MAN. 237
' was made from the man." It was taught by Zoroaster in the
' Arda Viraf ' (iv.), in a mystic way ; but it is strongly in-
sisted upon in the Kabbalah. Thus the Sohar tells us, " Each
' soul and spirit, prior to its entering into this world, consists
' of a male and female united into one being. Wlien it de-
' scends on this earth, the two parts separate, and animate two
' different bodies. At the time of marriage the Holy One —
' blessed be He who knows all souls and spirits — unites them
' again as they were before. And they again constitute one
' body and one soul, forming, as it were, the right and left of
' one individual. Therefore there is nothing new under the
' sun. . . . This union, however, is influenced by the deeds
' of the man, and by the ways in which he walks. If the
' man is pure, and his conduct is pleasing in the sight of God,
' he is united with that female part of his soul which was his
' component part prior to his birth." ^ The marriage here
alluded to is that which takes place after death. So Eabbi
ben Jochai talks of his death as entering into his nuptials
(see AjDpendix).
Tliis view is maintained by many Jewish rabbis of the
present day, outside of those who are learned in the Kabbalah,
and finds expression in the Talmud, as, for instance, where
the Eabbi Samlai says, " Man is impossible without woman,
woman without man, and both without the Shechinah."
" And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and
were not ashamed," signifies the absolute and essential purity
of the divine bisexual life-principle.
" Xow the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the
field which Jehovah Elohim had made," signifies that the in-
vasion of the lower animal creation by the Siddim, enabled
them to use it as a cliannel by which to approacli man ; for
before man had appeared upon the world, it was already
poisoned with ferocity and lust, with the exception of tliat
region whicli had been specially set apart as the centre, from
which the deliverance was to be achieved by man.
" And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye
shall not eat of every tree of tlie garden ? " signifies tlie metliod
of approach by which the Siddim sought to invade the
feminine princi])le in man, and to introduce into liis organism
^ Sohar, i. 91/a
238 SCrENTIFIC keligion.
the impure forces which had heeii developed in the fallen
world, where the bisexual principle had become debased, and,
by the disorderly practices of the infernal feminine, had gen-
erated the fatal passion of lust.
It was by means of the introduction of this inverted sex-
principle into the newly created universe that the Siddim
sought to achieve its conquest, and thus extend the sphere of
their own influence and domination. The story of what is
known as " the Fall " records in allegorical language the suc-
cess of this attempt. It is not necessary to describe, by giv-
ing at length the internal signification of each verse, the
method by which this was done. Enough has been written
by way of interpretation, to indicate the nature of the veil by
which the external sense shrouds the inner meaning, and to
dispose for ever of the doubts and difficulties which arise in
some minds, because they are unable to reconcile this mask
of words, with either reason or common-sense. Suffice it to
say, that the Siddim clothed themselves with atomic parti-
cles drawn from the organisms of the lower animal creation
of earth, and were thus able to make an intrusion into that
part of the universe which, up to that time, had been the
habitation of the infancy of the Adamic race, whose inter-
course had been confined to the Seraphim, from whom they
had emanated.
This resulted in an unholy union between the celestial
feminine, represented by Isha, and the infernal masculine,
represented by the serpent.
Tlie effect of the impregnation of the pure feminine prin-
ciple, by the virus thus injected into humanity through the
lower animal creation, was to infect the divine bisexual life-
current at the fountain-head in our world ; and the four rivers
of the garden of Eden became polluted with a poison, preg-
nant with increased disaster to the universe through which
they flowed.
The rush of this tainted torrent into nature, when once
the sluice-gates were opened by sex-intercourse by the human
race — represented by Adam and Eve — with the Siddim,
was almost more than the delicate atomic structure of man
could bear. He now perceived the consequences of his act,
and he sought to protect himself from the destruction whicli
THE FALL. 239
seemed about to overwhelm him, by increasing in some way
his organic power of resistance to infernal invasion.
This is indicated in the words, "And the eyes of them
both were opened, and they knew that they were naked ; and
they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons."
Nevertheless the effect of the introduction of an opposing
current into the organism, threatened an absolute atomic
wreckage. Man found himself between the opposite poles of
an electric battery, and his extinction under existing circum-
stances seemed imminent ; for it was only by an atomic dis-
location of the earthly human structure, tantamount to the
physical death of man, that he could be assimilated to the
organisms of the Siddim, and so become completely enslaved
by them, unless he could protect himself from this fate, by
acquiring the hidden knowledge concealed in the mystery of
the tree of life. He would thus have gained not merely
power to protect his life, but have augmented his faculties so
enormously by infernalising the quality of the pure bisexual
principle which it contained, that he would have become even
more highly diabolised as the Siddim, and more potent for
evil. Not only would this world have been lost, but the
means provided in it for the salvation of the former one,
would become instead the means of sinking it still lower.
This danger is indicated in the verse, " And Jehovah
' Elohim said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know
' good and evil : and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take
* also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever : therefore
' Jehovah Elohim drove him forth out of the garden of Eden,
' to till the ground from whence he was taken." It also signi-
fies that the celestial or seraphistic conditions, by which man
liad been surrounded for his protection, had become intoler-
able to him, and that he would now find himself condemned
to a perpetual struggle with the evils in his own organism, or
to " till tlie ground from whence he was taken."
The diminution in his faculties for controlling not only his
own nature, but the nature l^y whicli lie was surrounded, is
indicated in the words, " Cursed be tlie ground for thy sake ;
in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life," and
the two following verses.
The orgjinic change which the human race underwent is
240 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
indicated in the words, " Unto Adam also and to his wife
did Jehovah Elohim make coats of skins, and clothed them."
This signifies that every atom of the human structure, was
now enclosed in another atom composed of elements drawn
from the atoms of the lower animal creation, and that thus
was formed a more solid material frame, still, however, far
more highly attenuated than the fleshly covering which we
now wear. The enclosed atoms which remained intact, cor-
respond more nearly to the material composing our psychic
bodies or souls, or, in other words, the frames we carry with
us when we undergo the process of change called death, and
pass into the invisible part of our universe.
The relatively dense bodies of the Adamic race, are the coats
of skins above mentioned, and the fact is alluded to more than
once in the Kabbalah, as it was known to the ancient mys-
tics, of whose knowledge this obscure record is largely a
repertory. So we read in the Sohar — " When Adam dwelled
' in the garden of Eden, he was dressed in a celestial gar-
' ment, which is a garment of heavenly light ; but when he was
' expelled from Eden, and became subject to the wants of this
' world, what is written ? Jehovah Elohim made coats of
'■ skins unto Adam and to his wife, and clothed them, for
' prior to this they had garments of light — light of that light
'■ which was used in the garden of Eden."^
This transformation did not merely affect the whole nature
of man, and prove the indirect cause of certain modifications
in the earth's crust, but it also had a most direct effect upon
the fallen world. This is indicated in the words, " And Je-
' hovali Elohim said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done
' this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast
' of the field ; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt
' thou eat all the days of thy life : and I will put enmity be-
'■ tween thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her
' seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his
' heel."
The atomic connection which had been established be-
tween our universe and the fallen world by sex-intercourse,
rendered this inevitable : no such change, as that involved by
the solidification of the human organism, could take place
1 Sohar, ii. 219&.
THE CHERUBIM. 241
without lia\'ing a direct influence upon these nether regions
which had now become inextricably interlocked with our
own. Tlie result has been incessant warfare. Warfare there,
and warfare of another kind here. The warfare here is of
another kind, because it is the effect of a conflict between
divine and infernal atomic forces — in other words, between
good and evil ; while there it is the clash of angry passions,
developed by the principle of lust, — the insane struggle with
each other, of lunatics.
The time is approaching when on our globe the conflict
will enter upon a new phase, for the atomic conditions are
undergoing change, the effect of which will be to increase our
sensitiveness to influences from both worlds, and therefore to
intensify, as it approaches its climax, the stupendous struggle
of which our universe has been the theatre. The progress,
and some of the results of that great struggle, are detailed
at length in the inner meaning of the book of Revelation,
as well as in some of the prophetic writings of the Old Tes-
tament.
The cherubim with the " flaming sword which turned
every way, to keep the tree of life," signify the divine dual
principle through which alone man can win his way to
immortal life ; and the flaming sword signifies the penetrat-
ing quality and heat of the force contained in tliis twofold
principle, which has barred the way to man to a knowledge
which sliould enable him to take in the immortal life-prin-
ciple, which lies concealed behind it. But, as we learn else-
where in Scripture, this flaming sword is not to bar the way
for ever, for it will be grasped by the liand of the Messiah,
and prove the sword of victory.
Thus did man lose his original likeness to God. From tliis
time, owing to tlie separation of the sexes into two solid
halves, neither knowing which belonged to the other, man's
life on earth has been one of sorrow, disease, and sin, for
eacli half is now the receptacle of an impure sex-force, instead
of a pure one. So man procreates impure and diseased off-
spring ; he violates the laws of nature, and gives vent to tlie
passions of rapine and violence which infernal lust lias
generated in liis organism.
Q
242 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
It is only by man's own effort that he can win deliverance
from this condition of things ; and he will be supplied with the
forces requisite for the combat, which will precede the vic-
tory. It is because the days are at hand, when those who
desire to be lighting on the right side will need all the
spiritual weapons that can be forged in the white heat of
the divine affections, and all the potency for action which
those affections can impart, that I have felt myself impelled,
by no force of natural inclination, to attempt to explain the
origin and nature of the warfare upon which we are entering,
and to reveal, so far as is permitted, the secret of the world's
malady.
243
CHAPTER XY.
THE ORIGIN OF EVIL — MIXED CONDITIONS IN THE GENESIS OF EARTH —
EVOLUTION OF THE FIRST FORMS OF LIFE, UNDER THE OPPOSING
INFLUENCES OF SERAPHIM AND SIDDIM — THE GARDEN OF EDEN —
man's MISSION — METHOD OF ITS ACCOMPLISHMENT — THE EARTH-
MALADY CAUSED BY THE POLLUTION OP ITS SEX-LIFE — ITS PURIFI-
CATION POSSIBLE — NATURE OF THE STRUGGLE FOR PURITY THUS
INVOLVED.
Having in the previous chapter attempted to give, in as
condensed a fonn as possible, the account of the cosmogony
of the world, contained in the first three chapters of Genesis,
as read by the light of the inner meaning of the terms em-
ployed, it may be well to recapitulate it as shortly as possible,
in a form more adapted to the mind of the present day, and
reconcile with it, so far as may be, the discoveries of modern
science, without adopting necessarily the conclusions which
have been arrived at as a consequence of those discoveries,
and which are generally hypothetical ; though it will be
necessary, in continuing to follow the liistory of the human
family, constantly to refer to the inner meaning of the Biblical
narrative.
In making this attempt I shall invoke not merely the
sacred record on the one hand, nor scientific discovery on the
other, but such aid as may be vouchsafed for the purpose.
The method of operation of the divine love, wisdom, and
proceeding, is hidden from the angels who inhabit the invis-
ible region of our world; but it is known to them that a
universe was called into existence by the creative fiat, prior
to our own ; that, owing to the extraordinary faculties witli
which the beings wh(j ])e(jpled it were endowed, and the
entire freedom of will which — as it is an essentially divine
244 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
attribute — is inherent in every created being, certain of
the beings who inhabited this prior world, appropriated
these faculties to themselves, not recognising the fact that
while they felt themselves free, they did not belong to
themselves, but to the Great Cause of their existence, whose
freedom was in them, and therefore not their own, ex-
cepting as they remained in Him. Hence arose a diver-
gency in the will-principle, which induced a conflict with-
in itself. And this engendered a sense of independence,
which in its turn generated separation, isolation, pride, love
of dominion, and introduced a disorder, which finally ended
in a disruption between the antagonistic will-principles, and
which penetrated to the very foundations of the universal
structure, culminating at last in two regions of the same
world, dominated by opposing principles, — the ruling senti-
ment in the one being love of God and the neighbour, and
in the other, love of self to the exclusion of the neighbour ;
these two remaining nevertheless in atomic affinity, and being
united by an intermediate region.
As the reproducion of life in new forms is a universal law
of nature, there evolved from the wreckage which resulted
from the catastrophe above alluded to, a new substance or
world-seed, the atomic elements of which contained principles
inherent in the material of the opposing sections of the uni-
verse which had given it birth.
The fertilisation of the world-seed of our universe, under
the rival operation of the Seraphim and Siddim, took place,
therefore, under conditions in the highest degree disorderly
and antagonistic. And as the Siddim could act more
powerfully upon the lower forms of nature, for reasons which
will presently be explained, than their unfallen opponents,
there resulted a chaotic and relatively disorderly evolutionary
process, which, although it took place under the laws which
controlled it, exhibited — in the features of disturbance which
characterise the solidification of the earth's crust, in its prim-
itive atmospheric conditions, and in the debased forms of
early animal life, which alone could exist in them until they
underwent modification — all the evidences of an almost over-
powering infusion of that corrupt atomic force which we
call evil.
EVOLUTION UNDEE OPPOSING FORCES. 245
The result was the generation of many forms of vegetable
and animal life which are now extinct, and which were more
in afiinity with the lower than the upper world. As these
evolved, the infernal force increased its hold on nature, because
the action of the Seraphim is from above through the highest
form of living being, which is man, who had not yet come
into existence ; while that of the Siddim is from below,
through the lowest forms of nature. The tendency of the
►Siddistic force is to disintegrate ; that of the Seraphistic
is to unite. The former endeavoured, therefore, to introduce
into nature the principle of unisexuality, they having lost all
consciousness of their own bisexuality ; while the Seraphim
opposed their effort with the force of bisexuality, which, being
derived from the source of all nature, was impregnable to
their attacks in its centre, though open to them on its cir-
cumference.
Species developed under these complex and disorderly
conditions ; hence we find in vegetable nature so many plants
bisexual, side by side with others which are male and female,
while in many of the lower forms of animal life, beginning
with the amoeba itself, from which we are supposed by evolu-
tionists to have sprung, the bisexual principle is retained,
though concealed from the scientific eye, and each specimen is
furnished with the reproductive powers necessary for its own
propagation by fission. . As larger forms evolved, the division
of the sexes became manifest, and the action of the Siddim
became more apparent in the hideousness of the monsters,
of which we find the remains so far back as the palaeozoic
period. Nor is it unlikely, although we have no direct
evidence of it, that at that period transmutation of species
may have taken place.^ The aspect of nature prior to the
1 A tradition of the confusion which now reigned is evidently contained in
the cosmogony of Eridu, professed to have been inscribed by the god of Eritlu
liiniself, and which was long anterior to the Mosaic cosmogony : " There was a
' time in which there existed nothing but darkness and an abyss of waters,
' wherein resided the most hideous things, which were jjroduced by a twofold
' jirincijde. Tiiere appeared men, some of whom were furnished with two
' wings, others with four, and with two faces. They had one body, but two
' heads — the one that of a man, the otlier that of a woman. They were like-
' wise, in their several organs, both male and female." Here is a distorted allu-
sion to the biune composition of the first human pairs as thej' originally
246 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
appearance of man in it has been graphically portrayed for
us by science, and there is no reason to think that the picture
is in any important respect inaccurate ; but it is impossible
to conceive of anything more weird, desolate, and forbidding
than this world was under the influences which were now
controlling its evolution. It was when it had reached its
extreme stage of disorderly development, that man appeared
upon the scene, in a region more highly favoured than any
which has been pictured by the pen of science. It was one
upon which the Seraphim had concentrated the divine energies
for this purpose, and was upon a continent which has since
been submerged. Here both fauna and flora were of a fairer
type than in other parts of the world, the seasons less in-
clement, and the conditions of existence in every way more
favourable.
The great contrast which existed between the primitive
condition of man, and that of the nature by which he was
surrounded, arose from this fact, that the formative or evo-
lutionary action of the Siddim was diffused, that of the
Seraphim was concentric. The one set of influences acted on
the circumference, their life-emanations germinating in the
very lowest forms of nature, and on its most external ex-
panses, — the other set, focussing as through a burning-glass
the rays of the divine vitality on the anima mundi, or world-
soul, and thus developing life from the centre outward, from
whence it radiated to all parts of those outer expanses in
which the Siddim were so busily employed, infusing a
divine element into their field of labour, and preparing it for
the special vitalising force which man was destined to bring
emanated from the Seraphim, mixed \x]i with that Siddistic invasion to which
we owe the monsters of the period prior to the appearance of man upon
earth, and which are thus described : " Other human figures were to be seen
' with the legs and horns of a goat ; some had horses' feet, while others united
' the hindquarters of a horse with the body of a man, resembling in shape the
' hippocentaurs. Bulls likewise were bred with the heads of men, and dogs
' with fourfold bodies terminated in their extremities with the tails of fishes.
' In short, there were creatures in which were combined the limbs of every
' species of animal. In addition to these there were fishes, reptiles, serpents,
' with other monstrous animals, which assumed each other's shape and coun-
' tenance — of all which were preserved delineations in the Temple of Belos in
' Babylon."— Hibbert Lectures, 1887, p. 369.
SIDDISTIC INVASION. 247
to bear upon it through the principle of bisexuality. For
this purpose a concentration of divine force was directed
upon that locahty on the earth's surface symbolised by the
garden of Eden, which was in fact the point of external
magnetic contact with the upper world, and hence the myth
which has located it in the vicinity of the Pamir plateau, in
the Hindoo Koosh, which is sometimes called " the roof of
the world," and sometimes its navel ; for it may be said that
the umbilical cord which connected this world with the one
which was unfallen, was attached by the atomic chain of the
Seraphim, who, in spite of the more finely attenuated sub-
stance of which they were composed, were able to visit it,
and to a certain extent make it their abode. They were, in
fact, the progenitors of the human race ; giving birth to our
first parents, not by any process of propagation known to men
in these days, but by what I have already called generative
exhalation.
The near relations which the Siddim bore to primitive
man is indicated in the sixth chapter of Genesis, where it is
said that " the sons of God saw the daughters of men that
they were fair ; and they took them wives of all that they
chose." This, however, was after man had succumbed as to
his feminine principle, to infernal invasion. The consequences
of this sex-contact on the part of the Siddim I shall allude
to presently. They were called sons of God, although
Siddim, because originally made in His likeness. Although,
as I have explained, the generation of man took place through
the Seraphim, in a region specially prepared for him, and he
was surrounded by a nature in strong contrast to the rest of
the world, the greater part of which was so miasmatic and
pervaded by infernal poisons, that it would have been un-
inhabitable by him, his position was in the highest degree
critical. Even tliough he had been preserved free from
taint, tlie exquisite nature by whicli lie was environed was
not ; for even though surrounded by sea, the continent
figured under tlie name of tlie garden of Eden, had its roots
in the poisoned earth-crust, and its atomic particles were
pervaded by the virus, though to a far less extent than else-
where, which infected the wliole creation.
The persistent attacks which the Siddim brought to bear
248 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
upon this portion of the earth's surface ultimately caused its
submersion. Still mail was provided with protection from
the dangers arising from this source, which are symbolised in
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words,
he was intuitively conscious of the laws which ensured his
safety, and of the consequences of disobedience. Moreover,
he was in constant relations with the angelic visitors to
whom he owed his origin, and of whose frequent visitations
he was externally cognisant. This is indicated by the internal
meaning of the words, " And they heard the voice of Jehovah
Elohini walking in the garden in the cool of the day," and in
the narrative of the conversation which followed, which they
recognised as a divine inspiration through the Seraphim.
The substance of the Adamic man, although grosser than
that of his angelic progenitors, was far more attenuated than
that of the nature by which he was surrounded, which was
permeable to it ; he was, in fact, more nearly allied to that
of a being who has passed away from this world, than to one
now on it, or, to use a term now in common use, he was
fourth dimensional. His partial supremacy over nature was
due to this fact ; and it was by virtue of the potency with
which he was thus endowed, that he was intrusted with the
lofty mission of purifying the earth, or rather of preserving
his own bisexual purity, in order that through it the ardours
of the divine energy might descend, and thus restore this
universe to the primal condition of our parent world, and so
reconquer and redeem the region of it that had fallen.
In a word, the whole story resolves itself into this : —
Worlds generate worlds. In our case the world that
brought us forth involved itself in a catastrophe, consequent
upon the violation of a law controlling the operation of the
will, by which its freedom is lost so soon as it ceases to be a
divine freedom, and becomes a personally appropriated free-
dom. It was not possible for God to endow man with His
own will, which is free, and at the same time so to limit it
that its recipient should be deprived of the sense of individual
freedom, which would naturally take the form of personal
independence, were it not held in check by the constant recol-
, lection of its origin. The indulgence of this sentiment of
independence is the first step to a separation from God, which,
FEEE-WILL. 249
in the case of such stupendously endowed beings as those who
inhabited the world prior to our own, would at first uncon-
sciously develop into pride, and so gradually into a more or
less conscious antagonism. This is the origin, so far as our
universe is concerned, of what is called " evil." As the off-
spring of that world we inherit its taint, and, indeed, are
unpregnated with it to such an extent that few among us
have yet learnt that we have no freedom of will of our own,
apart from the divine will which should be freely operating
through us.
It is by the recovery by man of God's freedom of will,
that he can recover his own ; and this can only be done by
regaining the condition he has lost, with all the potencies in-
herent to it. He then becomes the instrument, not merely of
the redemption of his own world, but of the one that gave it
birth. To these contending streams of energy, — one from
below, tainted with the poison of evil ; one from above, con-
taining within it concealed potencies of unknown capacity
for good, — is due the complex character of the universe in
which we dwell ; with its death-dealing and health-giving
properties of plants and minerals ; its noxious and revolting
insects, and those that charm the eye with their beauty of
form and colour ; its animals that war upon man, and those
that serve him ; and lastly, man himself, aspiring or debased,
gentle or ferocious, as the case may be.
This nature it is now man's function and mission to purify
and redeem ; and to this end he must understand, first, the
secret of its malady, secondly, the causes that produced it,
and lastly, the remedy which it is in his power to apply.
He must no longer allow his prejudices, derived from the
very finite and imperfect observation of his senses, to close
his eyes to the fact that we are in direct rapport with two
opposite classes of invisible beings, and that upon the re-
lation which we occupy towards them everything depends.
This is a truth that Christians ought to have no difficulty in
accepting, for it is taught in almost every page in the ]>i])le.
He must also realise that these two classes consist, on the one
hand, of those who have lived upon this earth, and who have,
by the exercise of will in the right direction, placed tliem-
selves in close atomic union with the inhaljitants of tiiat
250 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
superior region which preserved its first estate, and who
are in relation with the Elohim, and so with the infinite
Jehovah Elohim ; and on the other hand, of those who have,
by the exercise of the will in the wrong direction, placed
themselves in atomic union with the inhabitants of that
lower region whicli lost its first estate, and who use every
effort to oppose the vital life-current that descends through
the first-mentioned class of beings, by a covinter-current,
which, meeting in man, produces the incessant conflict of
which he is the victim, and which is known as the struggle
between good and evil. This assertion is not one which is
susceptible of mathematical proof, but it is one which it is
open to every man to verify by his own personal experi-
ence by a moral process, the nature of which will always
be made clear to every man who honestly sets to work to
discover it.
In the course of his effort to verify the existence of these
rival influences, which will bring him into violent and painful
internal conflict, he will become conscious of the truth of the
next statement, which is, that the root of the moral disease in
himself, and which is also the seat of the malady in nature, is
the poison which has polluted the vital or generative principle
in his organism. The most powerful current in nature is the
life-current — that whicli propagates and sustains; for it is
by the force inherent in it that worlds generate worlds. If
this is impure, vitality is poisoned at its fountain-head ; but
inasmuch as tliis force, like every other force, is atomic, and
depends for its impurity upon its present atomic combinations,
it is evident that the introduction of new force of the same
essential quality, but with different properties, would involve
chemical changes and a recombination of elements, by means
of which those which are now impure might be relieved of
their taint, and the character of the whole vitalising cur-
'- rent- altered. The man engaged in the moral experiment
of discovering in his own person what this force is, and how
it may be applied for the " restitution of all things," without
taking thought for himself in the matter, will soon discover
that while it is of sex-quality, it is of a different sex-quality
from any of which he has hitherto had any knowledge ; and
he will find himself entering upon a region of investigation
THE STRUGGLE FOR PURITY. 251
from which he would gladly turn aside, for it will expose him
to attack, misconstruction, and persecution from many quar-
ters. It is also one in which snares, pitfalls, and dangers of
every description abound ; and it would be better far never to
enter upon it, than to do so unimpressed with the fearful
responsibilities it involves, with the solemn issues which are
at stake, and with the utter unworthiness of any human
creature to tread upon such holy ground, until he has prepared
himself, by long and arduous combats for purity, and has
placed himself in such relations with his protecting and
assisting angels, as will assure him against overwhelming
attacks by the infernals.
Having thus fortified himself both from within and from
without, and liaviug steeled himself against charges of impur-
ity on the part of those he is giving his life to purify, he may
venture, tentatively and cautiously, upon this dangerous
ground ; but he will immediately become aware that it is not
safe to do so alone, and that he must be upheld, guided, and
assisted by those who have trodden it before him, and who
have learnt to discriminate between the divine bisexual force,
and the unisexual simulation of it projected from the lower
world.
Those who, from fear of a public opinion impregnated with
impurity, slirink from grappling witli the disease inherent in
the generative and re})roductive principle of the universe,
after they have become convinced that the only hope of the
world's redemption lies in its purification, will reap the reward
of their timidity when they pass into another life, and find
the problem of their own purification presented to them under
conditions much more trying than tliose which surround it
here. But those wIk; are willing, inspired by love for human-
ity, to place themselves in God's hands as ready sacrifices for
the advancement of this great work, will find a consolation in
tlie supreme peace and joy whicli will fiood tliom, that will
more than compensate for the rage that will be concentrated
upon them by the infernals, and which will find expression
through their agents in this world, generally among those
most noted for what is called their " piety " and " good works."
As in the days of Christ, so it will be again ; tlie most bitter
enemies of him who tries to hihvf new life and love into the
252 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
world from the source of life and love, will be the Churches,
and the Pharisees by whom they are haunted.
The problem of the origin of evil has long been the one
which has vexed the soul of humanity : we now see that evil
may be extirpated from its origin, which is no lower than the
fallen part of a universe which has assisted in the develop-
ment and evolution of our own, in which will, asserting that
it possessed a personal freedom inherent in itself, indepen-
dently of the divine freedom, separated itself from God, and
thus from the quality of love which is in God, For in the
degree in which man feels that his will is God's will operating
in him, does he feel that his love is God's love operating in
him, and the nature of that love is all-embracing, and its
quality is out-giving. But the man who feels that his will is
his own, feels also that his love is his own, and the nature of
that love is exacting, and its quality in-taking. Therefore it
is evident that in the degree in which man feels that he has
no other will but God's, does the potency of that will increase ;
and in the degree that the divine love flows into him by the
channel of that will, does it flow out of him upon the nature
and the humanity which is so dear to God ; and he will recog-
nise in its ardours an uncontrollable desire to serve his fel-
lows, and can discriminate it thereby from that false love,
which, having its root in the principle of personal human
will, is essentially parasitical, and sustains itself by the life
which it drains from others, thus perverting tlie principle of
L divine love, and transforming it into infernal lust.
The evolutionary period is now commencing when, if we
look in vain for help from theology, we may at least hope for
sympathy from science ; for even it will admit that if electric
and other forces contain, as has been suggested by science
itself, " files of particles," the most powerful force in nature,
which is the sex-force, must also be atomic. And indeed, con-
sidering its natural results in the shape of offspring, this is an
almost self-evident proposition ; for it cannot be doubted that
the character of the offspring is determined by the quality of
the masculine and feminine atoms which ^combine to form it,
and it is the knowledge of this fact which governs the breed-
ing of stock, accounts for the phenomena of heredity, and
explains the varieties of species, both in vegetable and animal
THE NEW VITAL CURRENT, 253
nature. If, then, a new atomic force can be introduced into
man's organism, of a higlier and purer quality than any of
which we have any cognisance, it is evident that a new door of
evokition is open to him. He will survive, not because he is
able to destroy more of his fellow-creatures in a given time
by means of a curiously invented gun than other men ; not
because he is the pioneer of a civilisation so deadly in its
cliaracter, that the Red Indian or Australian perishes before
it as before a pestilence ; not because he has greater facilities
than his fellows for starving others that he may enrich him-
self ; not for these, and many other kindred reasons, will he
survive ; but because he will find himself endowed with the
vigours derived from a new and pure sex-potency, which
will enable him ultimately to produce offspring of a loftier
physical and moral type, possessing those finer faculties
of a supersensuous kind, which were lost when the Adamic
race closed all the subsurface region of its consciousness,
and stupefied alike its moral instinct and its rational intelli-
gence, by absorbing a current of lust from the lower animal
creation.
To those who have had the patience to follow me thus far,
the question will now naturally suggest itself. By what pro-
cess can the pure bisexual force be introduced into the
organism ? and what channel of descent has been provided
for it ? Before reaching this point it will be necessary briefly
to revert to the history of the race from the period of the
commencement of the new conditions under which it was
destined to exist. The internal meaning of tlie Book of
Genesis records the story with nmch elaborateness of detail,
as handed down by tradition on which was grafted the in-
spiration of the writer ; but it is foreign to the purpose of
this book to do more than notice the points which have a
practical bearing upon the special subject we are discussing.
It has been said that the process of atomic accretion, which
resulted in the materialisation of the particles in their present
form, was a slow and gradual one, and during its progress the
struggle between the Siddim and the Seraphim over the
sex-principle in man — the one still further to debase it, the
other to preserve it — was fierce and incessant. It resulted in
the division of tlie Adamic race into two opposing forces,
254 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
represented by Cain and Abel, the one dominated by the
Siddim, the other under the influence of the Seraphim.
Up to this time physiological birth was unknown, the
human race being, by means of the respiratory organs, pro-
pagated in pairs, the male with the female, who formed the
complete being, though it was divided materially as to the
surface substance.
The tradition of this exists in the Talmud, where it is said
that both Cain and Abel were born with twin sisters ; ^ and
it has been handed down to us from the most ancient times
as one of the signs of the zodiac, though mystics apply it
also to the progress of the soul.
The individuals of the Adaniic race were also, owing to
their atomic composition, endowed with vitality which pro-
tracted existence over long periods of duration ; the tradition
of this accounts for the longevity ascribed to the patriarchs.
The idea of procreation by respiration will of course seem
fantastic to the natural mind, until it reflects upon the fact
that we actually do procreate by respiration every day of our
lives. This is only brought forcibly to our notice in cases of
infectious maladies, for nothing is more certain than that the
exhalations of diseased persons are charged with microbes or
bacilli, or minute living organisms which carry with them
the germs of death, which are, so to speak, hatched in our
bodies, and which we breathe out into nature, thus becoming
their human parents. There would therefore be nothing
strange in the phenomenon of similarly generated organisms
being life-giving, instead of death-dealing : such do in fact
exist in the sentient atoms of healing magnetism, the quality
of which largely depends on the respiratory processes of the
r operator. In proportion as the breath is long and deep, is
the magnetic current powerful and effective, I am able to
state this from personal experience. As the inhalation of
infinitesimal living organisms, which generate in the lungs,
produce consumption, and as the exhalation of them propels
their life into other human organisms, so the human soul-
germs were propelled from the creative source into the
respiratory organs of those beings of a former world, where
1 Sanhedrim, fol. 38, col. 2.
THE NEW VITAL CUKRENT. 255
tliey generated, and from which they issued in a bisexual
aromal form, filled with the In-eath of life, and acquired, by
atomic condensation and combination, the structural condi-
tions necessary to their growth and development. It was
thus man was first generated through the Seraphim ; it was
thus, though under somewhat different conditions, that he
was procreated throughout the early stage of his existence
on earth — and this is the mystery of the origin of man.
256
CHAPTEK XVI.
THE FIRST PERIOD OF THE RACE — ESOTERIC SENSE OP THE CONFLICT
BETWEEN CAIN AND ABEL — THE MARK OF CAIN — THE INTRODUCTION
OF PHYSIOLOGICAL BIRTH — OF POLYGAMY — THE FATE OF THE LAMECH
RACES — INVASION OF THE PLANET BY THE SIDDIM — THEIR MIXED
PROGENY — THE BOOK OF ENOCH —THE DELUGE — EARLIEST COSMO-
GONIC TRADITIONS — THE GOLDEN AGE.
In order to trace the early history of man to historic times,
it is necessary that I should enter upon a somewhat detailed
examination of the esoteric sense, contained in the Biblical
narrative up to the period immediately succeeding the deluge.
Geologists admit the existence of a miocene continent which
has been submerged, and which has received the name of
Atlantis. From the evidences which have been obtained as
to the conditions of nature upon it, there is nothing impos-
sible in supposing it to have been the scene of the catas-
trophe called the Fall, and of the subsequent experiences of
the Adamic race.
Eastern occultists of the modern school throw back the
first appearance of man upon earth to a period far anterior
to this : though they insist strongly on his androgynous com-
position, they hold that the separation of the sexes took
place with the third root-race — the Lemurians of the second-
ary geological epoch. Physiological birth was, according to
them, unknown to the second race, who were androgynous,
and will close before the sixth race.
Without entering upon this theory, it is interesting, as
pointing to a common origin in tradition, and a certain simi-
larity in detail ; for the change in the method of reproduc-
tion is symbolised in the story of Cain and Abel.
CAIN AND ABEL. 257
As the processes of nature are gradual, the events which
preceded this episode — namely, the expulsion from the garden
of Eden, which consisted in a modification of the earth's
crust ; and the clothing with skins, which consisted in a
slow atomic change in the organism of man — was extended
over a protracted period, as measured by our standard ; dur-
ing which time a constant separation was being effected
between the masculine and feminine principles, until it
reached the point signified in the fourth chapter of Genesis,
by the birth of Cain and Abel. Cain, as his Hebrew name
implies, signifying the male principle — therefore when Cain
was born. Eve said, I have gotten a man of the Lord ; and
Abel, as his name implies, signifying the breath (pneuma) or '
female principle.^ " And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but
Cain was a tiller of the ground," signifies the difference
between the interior functions of the feminine principle and
the exterior functions of the masculine. " And Cain brousrht
of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord," signi-
fies the desire of the masculine to approach God directly, and
not through the feminine, which is the divine order, and
thus to dominate the feminine. Abel's sacrifice signifies
adoration by the human feminine. " And God had respect
unto Abel and his of!ering," signifies the union of the divine
masculine with the human feminine ; " but unto Cain and to
his offering he had not respect," signifies the divine repudi-
ation of the disorderly attempt of the human masculine to
unite itself with God, otherwise than through the feminine.
" And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell," signi- i
fies the revolt of the male principle. " And the Lord said unto
' Cain, Wliy art thou wroth ? and why is thy countenance
' fallen ? If thou doest well, shalt thou not have the excel-
' lency ? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and
' he shall be subject unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him,"
signifies that God does not interfere with the freedom of
man's will, but allows him to take the consequences of his
own acts. Therefore in this case the human mascuUne prin-
ciple violated the divine order, and asserted its supremacy
over the feminine, thus pointing to the fulfilment of the
' The inarijinal trandalions of both names are not (juitc correctly given in
the Bible.
258 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
condemnation of Eve, to whom it was said in the sixteenth
verse of the previons chapter, "and thou shalt be subject
to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." In other
words, the feminine principle had, by this act of fatal dis-
obedience, incurred subjection to the masculine.
The conflict between Cain and Abel signifies the struggle
between the two principles, and the murder of Abel or the
"breath," signifies the conquest of the female by the male
principle, and the extinction of the respiratory generative
process which had hitherto prevailed. Cain's exclamation in
answer to the demand of God after the feminine, " Am I my
brother's keeper ? " signifies his repudiation of the relation
of guardianship, which, in the divine order, the masculine
principle bore to the feminine. " The voice of thy brother's
blood crieth unto me from the ground," signifies the com-
plaint of the feminine upon being thus animalised by the
masculine.
" Now thou art cursed from the earth, which hath opened
her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand,"
signifies the degradation which would ensue to man through
an atomic change of particles of a still grosser material char-
acter, by which his organism and its functions would become
nearly allied to those of the lower animal creation. " When
thou tillest the ground, it shall not yield thee her strength,"
signifies that it would be impossible for man to draw from
the principle which he had thus debased the divine nourish-
ment, as he had hitherto done. " A fugitive and a vagabond
shalt thou be in the earth," signifies that by this act man had
separated himself from internal union with God. Cain's ex-
clamation, " Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from
the face of the earth ; and from Thy face shall I be hid ;
and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth,"
signifies the despair of the race at finding the change which
had supervened in consequence of the extinction of the
external manifestation of the Divine Feminine principle,
and of the method of procreation thereby previously existing ;
thus involving man in a period of spiritual desolation, and
of rapid decay as to his natural life, and, as he supposed, of
cessation from race reproduction. " And the Lord said, There-
fore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on
THE MARK OF CAIN. 259
him sevenfold," signifies that the sex-principle would be pre-
served notwithstanding that it had been thus debased, and could
only be further prostituted on the penalty of a still heavier
punishment than that which had befallen the race already.
"And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding
him should kill him," signifies that a method of procreation
had been provided, suitable to the new organic conditions
which had now been introduced, allied to the lower animal
creation ; and that the physical organism of man underwent
the change as to the formation of his body, which thus con-
stituted the outward mark of his animal degradation.
This change could only be effected under the conditions
which the introduction of the Siddistic virus into the human
system imposed. It was a slow and gradual process of dev-
olution from the more plastic or fluid man, downward to
the gross and solid brute creation, and involved a structural
change in his organism almost as complete as if he had
evolved upwards from the amoeba. It involved a correspond-
ing mental and moral degradation, and extended over an
immense period of time, during which the forces of the
Siddim were incessantly active, until, at last, man was almost
reduced to the condition of a monkey. Being, however, ori-
ginally atomically constituted as to his moral and reasoning
faculties on a fundamentally different basis, it was not pos-
sible for the moral and intellectual chasm which separates
him from the brute creation to be bridged over. During all
this time the process of procreation underwent a gradual
change, developing new conditions which entirely altered its
character, until it became enshrouded in the secrecy and the
shame which the mark of Cain bears with it to this day.^
The physiological change culminated at the race of Seth,
^ " St Augustine makes Abel the type of the new regenerate man ; Cain that
of the natural man." — (I)e Civ. Dei, xv. 1.)
' The oriental CJnosticism of the Sabtcans made Abel an incarnate jcon, and
' the Gnostic or Manichttan sect of the Abelittc in North Africa, at the time of
' Augustine (De Ha-r., 86, 87), so called themselves from a tradition that Abel,
' though married, lived in continence. In order to avoid perpetuating original
' sin, they followed his example ; but in order tfj keep up their sect, each mar-
' ried jmir adopted a male and female child, who in their turn vowed to marry
' under the same conditions." See Smitli's Dictionary of the Bible. The
ab<jve traditiipii evidently had relation to the change in the sex-relation con-
cealed in the allegory of Cain and Aljel.
260 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
as we read in the 25th verse of the same chapter, "And
' Adam knew his wife again ; and she bare a son, and she
' called his name Seth : For God, she said, has appointed me
' seed otherwise,^ instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." These
words signify the completion of the change, and the name
Seth implies the nature of the change, which may easily be
deduced from the Hebrew.
The birth of Seth marks a new departure for the race,
which is indicated in the first verses of the next chapter, in
which we are told that Adam " begat a son in his own like-
ness," in contradistinction to the immediately preceding verse
where it is said, " In the day that God created. man, in the
likeness of God made He him ; male and female created He
them ; and blessed them, and called their name Adam." It is
scarcely possible to have a statement emphasising and recapit-
ulating more strongly the bisexual nature of the first created
man than this. For, though it refers to the first Adam, or
Adam Cadmon, it is expressly repeated to give point to the
great change which had taken place in humanitary conditions,
and which resulted in a man being no longer born in the
divine likeness as two-in-one, but in that of his father alone.
Hence the son of Seth was called " Enos," a word signifying
" a man of sorrow."
" Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord,"
signifies the effort man made to unite himself with God in
his new condition.
We are given the pedigree of Lamech, the seventh from
Adam, up to Cain, and also of another race Lamech, the ninth
from Adam, up to Seth, in order to mark the two opposing
moral currents, which had resulted from the new organic con-
ditions that now controlled the human race.
It should always be borne in mind that these names in
their deepest signification indicate principles, and in their
more external sense mean races. In the descendants of Cain
we trace the lower or material development of man, in that
of Seth the higher or spiritual one. Thus, in one case, we
have Enoch, the father of Irad, and the third from Adam,
establishing the selfish lust-principle as a vital energy in the
organism ; which is represented by Cain, or the masculine
^ The Biblical translation is incorrect.
INTRODUCTION OF POLYGAMY. 261
principle, founding a city in his name ; and in the other we
have Enoch, the son of Jared, and the seventh from Adam,
representing the absohitely pure divine love-principle ; for we
are told that he " walked with God : and he was not ; for God
took him," which signifies that at this period of the race, a
certain specific manifestation of the pure love-principle which
had lasted up to this time became temporarily extinguished ;
but only temporarily, for this principle is one of the two
witnesses mentioned in the eleventh chapter of the Eevelation,
in which, " after three days and a half the Spirit of life from
God shall enter," and these three days and a half are even
now terminating. The second witness is Elijah, who repre-
sents another principle ; as it is written, " Behold, I will send
' you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and
' dreadful day of the Lord : and he shall turn the heart of the
' fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their
' fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." The
precise signification of the two witnesses will be explained
later.
"We have further, in the descendants of Cain, the vices in-
dicated which characterised the material progress of the race,
and in their most external sense that progress itself. Thus
the names of the three women mentioned mean respectively,
" adornment," " music," and " beauty " ; while the occupa-
tions which are given of the three sons of two of them, indi-
cate the state of civilisation at which the world had arrived.
All these names have, however, other inner meanings.
The names of the descendants of Seth indicate the moral
condition of the race, and such virtues as it still retained.
Up to this time, although the process of procreation, which
characterises the lower animal creation, had been introduced
by the catastrophe represented in the legend of Cain and
Abel, the external marriage-tie which had resulted therefrom
had been strictly monogamic, and an essential principle of
tlie Divine Feminine had thus been retained.
It was reserved for the race, signified under the name
Lamech, seventh from Adam, to destroy this last vestige of
purity by the introduction of polygamy. " And Lamech said
unto his wives, Ada and Zillah, hear my voice ; ye wives of
Lamech, hearken unto my speech : for I have slain a man to
262 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
my wounding, and a young man to my hurt." The presence
of the two wives, and the fact that the speech is addressed
specially to them, imparts a peculiar significance to the con-
fession of Lamech. The man slain to his wounding, and the
young man to his hurt, signifies the monogamic principle, as
represented by Cain, who was thus in his turn slain.^ " There-
fore," he continued, " if Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly
Lamech seventy and sevenfold." In other words, so little
of the divine purity was now left, that if the destruction of
what Cain preserved deserved a sevenfold vengeance, the
extinction of the slight semblance of it still retained by
Lamech, deserved one much heavier.
The reason why the crime of Lamech exceeded, if possible,
that of Cain, was because, so long as the monogamic principle
lasted, it represented, however feebly, the original dual con-
stitution of man, a principle embodied in the " Word " or the
creative " Two-in-One," proceeding from the infinite Father
and Mother, incarnated at last on earth as Christ. This is
remarkably illustrated by the records which have reached us
of the most ancient Accadian religion of Eridu, as elucidated
by Professor Sayce, from which the allegories contained in
the Pentateuch are derived. Tammuz, as we know, was the
sun-god, or " Word," proceeding from the two-in-one, Ea and
Dav-kina, the sources of life, and represented in Genesis,
according to Professor Sayce, " by the two varying forms of
Methuselah and Methusael," which in Assyrian should be
Mutu-sa-ilati, " the husband of the goddess " — i.e., Tanmiuz,
the husband of Istar, who was his feminine complement.
We learn from the same authority that Lamech would be the
Semitic equivalent of Lamga, a name of the moon-god ; that
" Adah and Zillah, his wives, would correspond " with Edu
and Isillu, " darkness " and " shade " ; that " Jabal and Jubal
' are merely variant forms of the same word, which is evi-
' dently the Assyrian Ablu, ' son,' from Abalu, to ' bring down,'
' hence Abel. Ablu refers us to the only son Tammuz, who
' was a shepherd like Jabal and Abel, whose untimely death
' was commemorated by the musical instruments of Jubal,"
and that " there are some who would aver that the Tubal-
' cain of Genesis is but the double of Cain, and that it was
^ According to the Talmud Cain was slain by Lamech.
MONOGAMY RESTORED BY CHRIST. 263
' he, and not his father Lamech, who had slain the young
' man " (Yeled, Assyrian, ilattu, a title of Tanimuz). The
patriarchs of the Pentateuch thus became deities in the more
ancient religion, but there runs through all its mythology the
thread of the same idea, that a great sacrilege had been com-
mitted in regard to the sex-principle, which was typified by
Tammuz and Istar, by Venus and Adonis, Isis and Osiris,
Baal and Beltis, and elsewhere ; but the Accadian mythology
is especially interesting, because the Abel slain by Cain, and
the young man slain by Lamga, the moon-god, are in both
instances Tammuz, the sun-god, or "Word. With regard to
Enoch, Professor Sayce says : "If I am right in identifying
' Unuk with the Enoch of Genesis, the city built by Kain in
' commemoration of his first-born son, Unuk must be regarded
' as having received its earliest culture from Eridu, since
' Enoch was the son of Jared, according to Genesis v. 18, and
' Jared or Irad (Genesis iv. 18), is the same word as Eridu." ^
It was part of the great mission of Christ, by His life and
death, in preparation for a mucli greater event which was
to follow, to restore the monogamic principle; and it was
reserved for Mohammed and Joseph Smith to receive in-
spirations from the lower regions of our universe, which
proclaimed as a divine revelation, the essentially infernal
principle of polygamy.
Christ's reply to the Pharisees, that in heaven there was
neither marrying nor giving in marriage, had reference to
the condition of the race before the introduction of marriage,
that followed on the procreative method resulting from the
suppression of generative exhalation, and wliich implied that
bisexual union, where male and female principles form one
indissoluble being.
We hear nothing more of the polygamous races, whose
lapse is thus recorded ; nor of their extinction as separate
nationalities, which is figured under the death of each
patriarch, because they spread over the face of the habitable
globe, and became literally fugitives and wanderers, soon
losing the last traces of any civilisation tliey may have
possessed, and sinking to the lowest depths wliich it is
possible for humanity to attain. We have traces of them to
^ Hibbert Lectures, 1887, pp. 185, 186.
264 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
this day in the remains of palaeolithic man — in the rude im-
plements and debased physical conditions which characterise
the earliest specimens that have been found of the human
race.
It was otherwise with the race Lamech, the ninth from
Adam. Their organic conditions still admitted of a close
external contact being maintained between the beings in the
fallen and unfallen regions of the world which had preceded.
Hence we read in the Biblical narrative " that the sons of
God saw the daughters of men that they were fair." The
sons of God here mentioned were the Siddim or fallen angels
of the previous world, the term " sons of God " merely signi-
fying their di\ine origin, although now debased and corrupted.
The Book of Enoch, referred to by Jude, contains many chap-
ters describing this event in detail. I will quote part of one
of them, from which their general tenor may be gathered.
" It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those
days, that daughters were born to them elegant and beautiful.
And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they
became enamoured of them, saying to each other : Come, let
us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and
let us beget children. Then their leader Samyaza said to
them, I fear that you may be perhaps indisposed to the per-
formance of this enterprise, and that I alone shall suffer for
so grievous a crime. But they answered him and said. We all
swear and bind ourselves by mutual execrations, that we will
not change our intention, but execute our projected under-
taking. Then they all swore together, and all bound them-
selves by mutual execrations. Their whole number was two
hundred, who descended upon Ardis, which is the top of
Mount Armon. That mountain therefore they called Armon,
because they had sworn upon it and bound themselves by
mutual execrations. These are the names of their chiefs —
Samyaza,^ who was their leader, Urakabarameel, Akibeel,
Tamiel, Eamuel, Danel, Azkeel, Sarakuyel, Asael, Armers,
Batraal, Anane, Zavabe, Samsaveel, Ertael, Turel, Yomyael,
Arazyal. These were the prefects of the two hundred angels,
and the remainder were all with them. Then they took
wives, each choosing for himself, whom they began to
^ Samyaza may possibly be the Samas of the Accadians.
i
THE BOOK OF ENOCH. 265
' approach, and with whom they cohabited, teaching them
' sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of root.s and trees ; and
' the women conceiving, brought forth giants." These are the
Nephilim or giants aUuded to in the fourth verse of the sixth
chapter of Genesis.
The efforts of Michael, Gabriel, Eaphael, Suryal, and Uriel,
and the unfallen angels to intercede for those who had com-
mitted this wrong, and to preserve the earth from the fatal
consequences of the act which involved the race in destruc-
tion, are fully recounted in this rejected book, which, however,
was undoubtedly anterior to Christianity, was accepted as in-
spired by Jude, Tertullian, Irenaus, Clement of Alexandria,
and other early Christians, and what is more important,
alluded to in the Sohar of the Kabbalah, " The Holy and
' Blessed One," it is said, " raised him, Enoch, from the world
' to serve Him, as it is written, for God took him. From that
' time a book was delivered down, which was called the Book
' of Enoch. In the hour that God took him, He showed him
' all the repositories above. He showed him the tree of life
' in the midst of the garden, its leaves and its branches : we
' see all in this book." The Book of Enoch loses none of its
interest from the fact that it cannot possibly have been
written by Enoch, but by some Jew, probably about two
centuries B.C., who fancied himself inspired by Enoch, and
whose inspirations, from whatever source, certainly possess a
high interest and value, as having both an internal sense of
their own, and throwing light upon the internal sense of
tliose included in the canon of Scripture. According to the
Accadian cosmogony, the Siddim or fallen angels are rep-
resented by the Anunagi, the Seraphim by the Igigi, the
deluge was caused by Mul-lil, who was the devil, and whose
wife, Nin-lil, is the Lilith of the Hebrew tradition, the first
wife of Adam of the Talmud, and the " bright monster,"
mentioned by Isaiah, ch. xxxiv., v. 14
The result of this contact between the Siddim and the
human race tended rapidly to infernalise the latter. Hence
we are told that " every imagination of the thoughts of his
' heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord
' that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to
' His heart."
266 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
Making allowance for the anthropomorphic conception of
the Deity which pervades this passage, we gather from it
plainly, that it was thus that the great change which was
impending, was afterwards accounted for ; as the idea of the
inevitable operation of law was foreign to the mind of the
writer. What really happened was this ; the conflict of
currents, which had been for cycles in antagonism in the
organism of man and of nature, now again culminated, and a
new chemical change was operated throughout the universe,
by which it was once more convulsed ; of this convulsion the
records are to be found in the glacial epoch, in the sub-
mergence of some of the earth's surface, and in many other
evidences of disturbance and modification, both of a physical
and climatic nature. Under this influence the especial region
that may be said to have been the seat of the disease — for
it was the point of contact between the opposite poles of the
battery — disappeared beneath the ocean. Hence come the
traditions of the flood, which are to be found in some form or
other in all the most ancient religions, which had derived
them, as well as the knowledge of the high truths which had
been imparted by the Seraphim to the submerged races, and
of which the remains have been handed down to us in the
religions of the East, from a fragment of the race which sur-
vived the catastrophe, known under the name of Noah.
" And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have
' created, from the face of the earth ; both man, and beast, and
' the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air ; for it repenteth
' me that I have made them," signifies the confusion which
had been created upon the Edenic continent by the commerce
of the Lamech race with visitants from the previous world,
whereby physical and animal nature was becoming tainted,
and the action of the Siddim which had been centred upon
it, with a view to its destruction, finally culminated in catas-
trophic changes upon the earth's surface, above described,
resulting in the more or less gradual submergence and up-
heaval of certain portions of it, and in the extinction of the
races which had become entirely dominated by them.
The protection afforded to the race of Noah, who alone
retained a knowledge of divine primitive truth, is figured by
the ark, into which the animals entered by pairs, thus symbol-
THE ANTIQUITY OF RELIGION. 267
ising the principle of pure bisexual love, which the Noachic
race still preserved as a religious belief, and which therefore
constituted their salvation, and that of the region in which they
found a refuge. It was this ark which was destined to pre-
serve for humanity all its most profound religious ideas ; for
all the leading religions of the world owe their parentage to
the knowledge of divine truth which this race transmitted
from the most ancient times, and in which they had been
instructed by the Seraphim.^ From this time forth these
angel visitations were destined to be comparatively rare,
though the legends of mythology are based upon them, and we
have no fewer than a hundred and sixteen allusions to angels
in the Bible, either as recording instances of their appearances
to man, or as referring to their functions in his behalf.
Meantime those portions of the earth's surface which were
unaffected by the catastrophe known as the flood, were in-
habited by the descendants of the polygamist Lamech race,
who, having lost every vestige of divine truth, had long before
sunk to the promiscuous condition of almost brute beasts,
with their cannibalism, their fetich- worship, and other unholy
rites. It is from the crude perverted instincts of these races
tliat Mr Herbert Spencer and other philosophers have built
up an evolutionary theory of the religious sentiment in man,
deriving it, if we trace the theory to its origin, from the
moral instinct of the amoeba. Professor Max Mliller, in his
' Chips from a German Workshop,' discussing the ancient
religions of the East, on the same lines, ascribes to the earliest
Yedas an antiquity of only about B.C. 1500, and in his
' Science of Eeligion,' he tells us that the polytheism and
mythology that they contain are the childish prattle of religion.
" The world had its childhood, and when it was a child it
* spoke as a child, it understood as a child, it thought as a
' child " ; but differing totally from Mr Herbert Spencer, he
continues, "and I say again in that it spoke as a child, its
' language was true, in that it believed as a child, its religion
' was true. The fault rests with us if we insist on taking the
' language of infants for the language of men. . . . The
' language of antiquity is the language of infancy. . . .
' Hence we find the ark iircHcrved in the Egyptian and Baliy Ionian religious,
a« a sacred symbol, long Ijefore the time of Moses.
268 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' The childish prattle of religion is not extinct, witness the re-
' ligion of India." ^ Geological science here, at all events,
comes to our rescue, and proves to us that the human race was
hoary-headed, having been many hundreds of thousands of
years upon the earth in the year B.C. 1500, when the Professor
calls it in its infancy. In the last three thousand years, after
a childhood of unexampled length, the race has suddenly
shot up into a man, and these learned professors are the
result. So blind is science, when it leaves facts and begins
to formulate theories, to the logical absurdities into which
it is driven by its own discoveries. It is, however, some
satisfaction to obtain from science the admission that the
religion of the world's infancy was true.
We are now able to trace profane history with tolerable
distinctness to the year 1500 before the flood, as given in
the Biblical chronology, which places the birth of Enos at
a period as nearly as possible contemporary with that which
Professor Sayce assigns to the Hymns of the Sun-God of
Sippara at the court of Sargon of Accad, which, he con-
siders, marks the period of the commencement of Semitic
literature.
The Biblical chronology, therefore, with many of its time-
honoured illusions, must be abandoned as being several hun-
dred thousand years out of date, if we are to take the geologi-
cal evidence furnished by the miocene flints found at Thenay,
and which were undoubtedly shapen by human hands, pos-
sibly of the race of Lamech ; while the fact that Eridu, now
twenty-five miles inland, was, at the date assigned to the
creation of the world, the seaport of the Euphrates, and the
seat of Babylonian commerce with Arabia and India, is now
pretty well established.
Professor Sayce, however, seriously interferes with Pro-
fessor Max Miiller's ethnological theories, when he describes
our ancestors as a " fair-haired, blue-eyed, light-complexioned,
dolichocephalic race, which is still found in its greatest pu-
rity in Scandinavia,"
Eeferring to this and other utterances of the Hibbert lec-
turer, the ' Times ' says : " These are some of the instances
' which show how science advances and changes. What was
^ The Science of Religion, p. 278.
FALLACY OF SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSIONS. 269
' thought to be demonstrated in 1861, is now known to have
' been little more than brilliant guesswork. Facts accumulate,
' and old theories are proved by them to be untenable.
' Meantime the world takes us to new positions ; but it is
* just as well that it should admit that they, too, are only
' provisionally occupied." But this is exactly what the w^orld
does not do. It is as difficult for a philosopher to learn hu-
mility in this respect, as a bishop.
The formulating of theories is especially dangerous where
they refer to the religious instinct of man, and are based upon
the e\'idences of that instinct which he may have left, either
in the shape of carved monuments and hieroglyphs, as in
Egypt, or engraved tablets, as in Babylonia and Ass}Tia.
Because the earliest record from the modern point of \dew
superstitious belief in evil spirits, and forms of exorcism and
magic, and the great Deity is veiled under symbols wliich
have an inner meaning, which is quite beyond the reach of
" professors," it by no means follows that their conclusions as
to the religious ideas of the initiated classes in those early
days is sound. Indeed the very fact that the ancients be-
lieved in possession by evil spirits, and used methods of
exorcism, shows a far more accurate knowledge of the mys-
teries of nature than is possessed in these days.
The faculties do not exist in the learned men of our time
for tracing the history of religious thought. To do so involves
a moral training which is incompatible with the requirements
of modern civilisation, and with a residence in the vortex of its
superstitions, its infidelity, and its corruption. This applies
no less to the theologians than to the men of science ; and to
understand the profound conceptions which underlie the sym-
bols and carvings, the prayers and the legends, of the religions
of Egypt and Babylon, requires not only the diligence, intelli-
gence, and skill which have enabled those who have devoted
themselves to the study, to decipher the external meaning;
but tliat divine intuition by which alone light can be obtained
that shall enable them to apprehend their esoteric sense.
In point of fact, the religions and superstitions of the
world spring from two sources. No philosophic analyses of
them, or deductions in regard to them, drawn from analogy,
possess any value, which do not recognise their twofold origin,
270 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
and the nature and operation of the influences from the
invisible world to which they have been subjected.
The great majority of the races we call savage — that is,
of those which compose the lowest human type, and whose
superstitions are the most debased, revolting, and inhuman —
are descendants of the antediluvian races, who, as I before
explained, fell under the curse attaching to the polygamous
crime of Lamech, and who, being specially open to Siddistic
invasion, have introduced the insanities, cruelties, and lusts
of the fallen region into this world, and thus minister to an
ignorant, degraded, and absolutely perverted religious instinct.
They continue to derive their inspiration from the lower
mvisible region of our universe, where the same practices
prevail.
The other class of religions, which may be traced back
through Egypt, Babylonia, and India, although in the most
degraded expression of them which has reached us, they may
offer some analogy to the debased superstitions of which we
have been speaking, owe this degradation also to Siddistic
invasion, which, however, was never able absolutely to obscure
the remains of the religion of the Noachic race, which was a
far purer, loftier, and more sublime spiritual conception than
any of which we have any idea; and the period immediately
following the deluge is that which has been handed down to
us by tradition, as the period of the " golden age " — a period
indicated in Scripture by the words, " And the whole earth
was of one language and of one speech."
Once more humanity made a new departure — from a lower
level, it is true, than that which had characterised the earlier
stages of its existence, but still on a far higher level than
that to which it afterwards sank ; and it is to this subsequent
history that we must now turn our attention.
271
CHAPTER XVII.
THE NOACHIC RACE — THE GUARDIANS OP THE MYSTERY — TRANSMITTED
TO THE ABRAMIC — MAGNETIC CONDITIONS OF THE HOLY LAND — THE
DIVINE TRINITY OF THE EARLY RELIGIONS — ANALOGY OF THE RE-
LIGION OF ACCAD WITH THAT OF THE JEWS — THE SECRET CON-
TAINED IN THE LAW OF MOSES — THE FULFILMENT OF THE LAW —
EFFECT OF MODERN CRITICISM ON JUDAISM.
We are now approaching the historic period, though the date
of the catastrophe aUuded to in the last chapter, and the
golden age which succeeded it, was a great many thousands
of years prior to that assigned to it in the Biblical chronology.
The region occupied by the ISToachic race and its subdivisions
was all that part of Central Asia, extending from Persia to
China, including Thibet, Turcomania, and Northern India.
The legend of the Tower of Babel, which subsequently found
a literal expression in Chaldea, symbolises the pride and
arrogance by whicli this race began to be puffed up, in con-
sequence of the high pitch of moral, intellectual, and material
development to which they had attained ; and the " confusion
of tongues " signifies the quarrels which ensued, and the reli-
gious schisms resulting therefrom, which finally culminated
in widespread migrations even as far as Scandinavia — giving
rise to those divisions in the human family which are known
somewhat incorrectly among us as Aryan, Semitic, Turanian,
Dravidian, and so forth ; and to sundry religions, in all of
which were to be discovered the fundamental ideas ujiou
which the Noachic religion was founded, Init whicli by
degrees became so distorted and debased, in order to meet
the popular comprehension, to subserve local conditions, and
to pander to priestly anil^ition, that tliey ended by presenting
272 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
widely different superficial conceptions, and became degraded
into polytheisms, idolatries, and superstitions, of various types
and character.
The most remarkable feature, however, of these early reli-
gions was the prominent position assigned to the vital prin-
ciple. Emblems of reproduction were almost invariably
objects of religious worship. Mysteries were celebrated in
their honour, and much of the most profound occult lore was
devoted to the conservation of secrets which had been derived
from the Noachic race on this subject. Any one who will
take the trouble to study the early religions, especially if
they are at all initiated into their internal or mystical sense,
will find that this is so, and I need not dwell upon it more
particularly now ; my object being to show that a special
method had been provided for the preservation of the most
profound mystery of all, from the knowledge of the vulgar,
until the time had arrived when it might be revealed ; and
the transcendent value of the Bible, over other sacred books,
consists in this, that it is the only one of them which contains
in its inner sense, the history of the conservation of the
secret, as well as the secret itself, which has defied the pene-
tration of the ages, and which had to be preserved in a form
that could afterwards be unfolded. It concealed the kernel,
of which the literal meaning was the husk ; and mankind has
behaved in regard to it very much as a savage might, who
was intrusted with a bottle containing spirits of wine as a
remedy for his ailment, but which was corked in such a
manner, lest the spirit should escape before he was intelligent
enough to know how to apply it, that he ended by thinking
that the virtue lay in the bottle, and that by keeping tight
hold of that, he could be cured.
But not only was it necessary to embody it in a written
record, but to find a custodian for it, and for that purpose a
special race was chosen to whom it should be confided, and
the history of that race, which was contained in that record,
was to symbolise the history of human development in regard
to the mystery they guarded ; and a man of that race was to
appear at a precise period of that history, who should embody
in his life and death the occult fulfilment of it, and prepare
mankind for its full revelation in his own person ; and inas-
EARLY GUARDIANS OF THE TRUTH. 273
much as the special race failed to recognise the fulfilment of
their law — which more especially contained the mystery —
in the person of Him whom they crucified, those who are
called by His name now also guard the sacred book, become
doubly sacred, since it contains the record, however imper-
fect, of the life and death of Him whose life was destined to
be the light of men, and whose death their redemption.
On the dispersion of the Noachic race, those who retained
the fullest measure of the divine truth were those who re-
mained behind, and who transmitted it to their descendants,
among the earliest of whom were Eama and Chrishna, who
were turned into mythological personages, but through whom
came the traditions which afterwards found expression in the
Vedas. By this time, however, they had become corrupted,
and overlaid with myth, by human transmission and repro-
duction, and were only preserved in a comparatively un-
tainted form, by a small group of persons who were the
descendants of those who had filled exalted priestly functions
during the golden age, and who had migrated to Palestine
and established themselves at Jerusalem, where they retained
a knowledge of the secrets which had been transmitted to
them in their purity. This sect is internally signified in the
Bible by the name Shem.
Meantime we find relics of them in Chaldea, and subse-
quently in Persia, where a highly inspired teacher and sage
appeared in the person of Zoroaster, who reformed to some
extent the Vedantic religion, and reproduced some of the old
truths in the Zend-Avesta and other Mazdean writings, thus
founding a new school of mysticism, the influence of which
was speedily felt in Assyria and the neiglibouring countries.^
At this time there lived in Chaldea a sect who had also
preserved many of tliese truths, and who warmly identified
themselves with the attempt of Zoroaster to revive them ; but
the Chaldeans resented any interference with the abuses they
liad introduced, and with the superstitions of a debased type
to which they clung, and hence arose a strife, to which the
Talmud contains many allusions ; for the leader of these re-
^ A mucli later date is usually assigned to Zoroaster tlian tl>e jieriod above
indicated, which is rather in accordance with Parsee tradition than learned
conjecture.
S
274 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
formers is known to us in the Bible as Abrani, who found
liimself compelled, with his followers, to quit the country of
his birth and seek a refuge in Egypt. The whole of the history
of Aljram, Sarai, and their posterity, contains, as Paul tells us,
an interior or allegorical meaning, bearing upon the nature of
the great trust which was to be confided to him and to his
descendants, and which was to prove a blessing to all human-
ity. Therefore God is reported to have said to him, " In thee
shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
The affinity which still exists between the Parsee and
Jewish religious ideas may be traced to this early connection
between Abram and Zoroaster, and the parallelism which has
attended the fortunes of the two peoples. The exclusiveness
and fidelity with which they have both clung to their ancient
traditions, is not without its significance. As, at this period,
the priests of Egypt were deeply learned in the occult lore of
Chaldea, Persia, India, and Thibet, the expelled sect was led
thither by Abrani, but were received coldly. The internal
signification of this journey is the rejection of the principle of
the pure Divine Eeminine, represented in the person of Sarai,
Ijy the Egyptians.
Eeturning to Canaan, Abram was received at Jerusalem by
the last representative of that group of holy men to whom
had been intrusted the divine mysteries, to whom I have
already referred as having migrated thither long previously,
and who throughout the period following the confusion of
tongues, had preserved the truth intact. Their mission, repre-
sented by the person of Melchizedek, had now come to an end,
while that of the Jews, represented in the person of Abraham,
their father, was to begin. ^ Abram, therefore, rendered the most
^ The Talmud has a tradition somewhat confirmatory of this. Rabbi
Yochanan ben Nuri says : " The Holy One, blessed be He, took Shem and
' separated him to be a priest to Himself that he might serve before Him ; He
' also caused his Shechinah to rest with him, and called his name Melchizedek,
' Priest of the Most High and King of Salem. His brother Japhet even
' studied the law in his school until Abraham came and also learned the law in
' the school of Shem, where God Himself instructed Abraham, so that all else
' he had learned from the lips of man was forgotten. Then came Abraham and
' prayed to God that the Shechinah (Divine Feminine) might ever rest in the
' house of Shem, which was also promised to him, as it said, Thou art a priest
'for ever after the order of Melchizedek." — Avodash Hakkodesh, Part III.,
chap. 20.
MELCHIZEDEK. 275
divinely gifted man then alive the homage which was his
due, and paid him tithes, and was instructed by him in the
knowledge which he had been brought to this sacred spot to
acquire ; for Jerusalem had even then been chosen as a local
focus of inspiration, and prepared, by the residence on it of
those devout men who had been the depositaries of divine
truth, to be the territorial centre of the race that had been
selected to succeed them as its custodians. It is for this
reason that the rare allusions to Melchizedek which the Bible
contains are pregnant with the deepest meaning, and that Christ
is called "a priest for ever after 'the order of Melchizedek."
That the true significance of his character was known to the
Jews, is evident from the reference made to him by the writer
of the Epistle to the Hebrews: "To whom also Abraham
' gave a tenth part of all ; first being by interpretation King
' of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is,
' King of peace ; without father, without mother, without
' descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life ; but
' made like unto the Son of God ; abideth a priest continually."
In order to apprehend the full significance of this passage,
we must refer to the origin of the word Melchizedek, as under-
stood by the light of its inner meaning. We find in the 9th
chapter of ' The Lesser Holy Assembly,' concerning the Son
and His Bride, who are concealed in the last two letters of
the Tetragrammaton IHVH (Jehovah), an explanation of the
14th verse of the 89th Psalm, Tzcdcq Va-Meshephat, " Justice
and judgment are the abode of Thy throne ; " Chcsed Va-
Emeth, " mercy and truth shall go before Thy countenance ; "
from which we gather that from the Father of all light there
proceedeth light, for which " two light-bearers are found, which
' are the conformation of the throne of the King, and they are
' called Tzedek, justice, and Meshephat, judgment. And they
' are the beginning and the consummation. And througli
' them are all the judgments crowned, as well superior as
' inferior. And they are all concealed in Meshephat. And
' from that ]\Iesliephat is Tzedek nourished.
' And sometimes they call the same Meleki Tzedek, Melek
' Shalem, ]Mi-lrliizcdck, King of Salem." Thus Christ was the
Light of the wcjrld, emanating from the Father of liglits, to
whom the light-bearers were justice and judgment, and thus
276 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
was He a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek ; but,
as we shall see from what follows, because the female prin-
ciple had not been conjoined to the male, disorder ensued.
" When the judgments are crowned by Meshephat, all
* things are mercy ; and all things are in perfect peace,
' because the one tempereth the other.
' Tzedek and the Eigours are reduced into order, and all
' these descend into the world in peace and mercy. And
' then is the hour sanctified, so that the male and the female
' are united, and the worlds, all and several, exist in love and
' in joy.
' But whensoever sins are multiplied in the world, and
' the sanctuary is polluted, and the male and the female are
' separated ;
' And when that strong serpent beginneth to arise. Woe
' unto thee, World ! who in that time art nourished by this
* Tzedek. For then arise many slayers of men and execu-
' tioners (of judgments) in thee, World ! Many just men
' are withdrawn from thee.
' But wherefore is it thus ? because the male is separated
' from the female ; and judgment, Meshephat, is not united
* unto justice, Tzedek." ^
It was to restore this balance between justice and judgment
that Christ came into the world, and to lay the foundation of
that union between the male and female principles which
should enable Him to return as Melchizedek, King of peace,
so that, in the words of the Psalmist, mercy and truth should
go before His face, and " that great serpent " be overthrown.
The whole of this will be more fully made manifest when we
come to consider the nature of Him who is called the Son
of God.
I may here remark parenthetically, that the three books
of the New Testament which were written under the most
powerful inspirational descent, and which are therefore most
pregnant with hidden truth, are those, the authorship of which
is most shrouded in mystery — namely, the Gospel of St John,
the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the book of the Revelation.
Jerusalem had now become, and has ever since remained,
in spite of the vicissitudes through which it has passed, the
1 Mather's Kabbalah, p. 293.
MAGNETIC INSPIRATIONAL CONDITIONS. 277
most sacred spot on the earth's surface, for here the sublime
tragedy was afterwards enacted which was the occult fulfil-
ment of the law that contained the mystery ; and this Holy
City is destined yet to play a part in its final revelation. It
is thus that surface nature is enlisted in the service of divine
design, and that the highest forms of inspiration can only
descend, when the magnetic conditions of soil and climate are
favourable to certain combinations of the atomic elements of
the moral, psychical, and physical organisms of those who
seek it. Medical science recognises this fact in a degree,
when it recommends change of air and scene as being good
for the health and spirits ; and few persons are so dense organ-
ically, as not to be conscious that a heavy damp air and a
light dry one afi'ect them differently — while, if their attention
was sufficiently turned to it, they would also perceive that
the influence of a hea\y clay soil was different from that of a
light sandy one.
If this relation between soil and climate and health and
spirits, is sufficiently palpable for persons who are perfectly
closed as to their interior faculties to appreciate, it will easily
be understood that when once these are opened, the organic
sensitiveness increases to such a degree, that quite a different
set of sensations may be perceived in one country, from those
which are felt in another. This is, no doubt, largely due to
the magnetism radiating from the inhabitants, according to
their quality. When -these are in strong contrast, they be-
come appreciable even to dense persons ; thus there is a
sensible difference of sensation between walking in the streets
of London and those of Canton. People have just as much
right to deny that this is so, as to deny the existence of an
odour because they cannot smell it, though others can.
The magnetic conditions which conduce to inspirational
receptivity, are warmth, light, clearness, and a certain amount
of rarefaction of atmosphere, and therefore of elevation, with a
liglit soil and a nature sparsely inhabited, or, in other words,
as free as possiljle from human taint. l>ut there are otlier
essential conditions of a more internal kind, which are con-
nected witli the history of the locality, as affected by the char-
acter of the influences which have at different times centred
upon it. Thus, wlierever an opening has been made by a
278 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
stream of inspiration upon it more or less constant, there
nature is peculiarly bounteous in her response to the man who
is struggling to offer himself to the highest sources of light ;
for her atoms always retain the original impregnation of the
divine life, which descended through them to the hearts and
brains of men, who received their inspiration in her solitudes.
For although, as I have said, preparation for the highest in-
spiration must be acquired in the busy hum of men, and in
active service for them, as well as in occasional retirement,
the descent itself can only take place in comparative solitude,
in conditions of environment peculiarly adapted to it, and
in the especial locality indicated : therefore Moses ascended
Mount Sinai, and remained there for forty days and nights ;
and Christ withdrew for the same period to a solitary moun-
tain before He began His ministry ; and Buddha retired for
forty-seven days into the wilderness of Uravila to be tempted
of the devil.
I have been led into this digression, because it has been
necessary to account for the flood of inspiration which de-
scended upon the Jewish prophets during the residence of
the race in what is called the Holy Land, and also to explain
why, when that race had proved itself unworthy of the high
mission which had been confided to it, it was necessary to
banish it from the land, in order that the elements which ex-
isted there suitable for inspirational descents, should be puri-
fied and restored, for they had already suffered corruption.
Therefore it was that the land was condemned to a period of
desolation — for nature, like man, requires to be devastated
in order to be purified : and this land, once so densely pop-
ulated, has had to lie fallow for fifteen hundred years ; its
flourishing cities heaps of ruins, and its population dwindling
down to a mere fraction of that with which it formerly
teemed. But this period of desolation has drawn almost to
its close, and new conditions have been induced, which will
fit it once more for its high destiny.
The future of the race to whom it once belonged must de-
pend upon themselves. In order to show why this is so, we
must recur to their history from the time when the land was
given to Abram and his seed for an heritage. "With Abram
himself a solemn covenant was made, the terms of which are
THE TRINITY. 279
contained in the first fourteen verses of the seventeenth chapter
of Genesis, and the confirmation of whicli was the change
which took place in the names both of himself and of Sarai —
in the case of Abram, by introducing the feminme letter " he,"
and in that of Sarai by cutting off the masculine letter " jod,"
and adding " he," thus signifying that to them and to their seed,
was intrusted the guardianship of the mystery of the Di\dne
Feminine being concealed within the Divine Masculine.
It is worthy of note that on the occasion of this covenant
we, for the first time, find the word " Shaddai " used as a
name for the Almighty, — a word of the deepest and holiest
import, for in its internal meaning it signifies the Di^dne
Feminine. "We now know God in one aspect of His Trinity ;
as Elohim, when He created the first world; as Jehovah,
when out of its wreck He reconstructed, and then destroyed,
a great portion of the world which succeeded it, and again
when He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah ; and now we hear
of Him as Shaddai, in connection with the peopling of the
world, because not only in His promises to Abram, but in
other places where this name is mentioned it is generally in
a similar connection ; thus He says to Jacob in the thirty-fifth
chapter of Genesis : " I am Shaddai ; be fruitful and multiply."
In the Hindoo religion we find the same Triad, represented by
Brahma, Siva, Vishnu — the Creator, the Destroyer, the Pre-
server; in the case of the latter he is often represented in
Hindoo temples as having many breasts, — an idea which was
signified by the word " Shad," meaning in Hebrew a breast.
Each member of the Hindoo Triad is androgynous, — Brahma,
with His complement, Sarasvati, and here we have them rep-
resented almost identically in the words Abraham and Sarah,
as the earthly prototype ; Siva, with his complement, Devi ;
and Vishnu with Lakshmi. The Sakti or feminine comple-
ment of the Deity with wliom she forms one, " has its roots,"
^Ir Bartli tells us, " far away in those ideas, as old as India it-
' self, of a sexual dualism placed at the beginning of things
' (in a Brahmana of the Yajur-Veda, for instance, l*rajapati
' is androgynous), or a common womb in which beings are
' formed, wliich also is their common tomb." ^
The parallel between the two religions, as si lowing liow
' The Keligions of India, p. 200.
280 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
much of the Jewish nomenclature is derived from one still
older, and containing the same idea, may still further be
illustrated by the name given to Jacob when he struggled
with the "man," — who was in fact one of the Seraphim, — and
who changed his name from Jacob to Israel : the masculine
principle is called in the Vedas, Iswara, which is allied with
or encloses the feminine Prakriti, hence we get Iswara-El or
Israel, Therefore Jacob raised an altar which contained the
whole mystery in its name, and called it El-Elohe-Israel.
But the time was at hand when this mystery was going to
be embodied more permanently and elaborately than by an
altar, and for this purpose a man was specially prepared, of
remarkable character and attainments, who was destined to
become celebrated as the great lawgiver of Israel, and the
reputed author of the Pentateuch, and who is always called
in Scripture the -'man of the Elohim," which, as before re-
marked, is a feminine plural. The training of Moses as a
priest of the Temple of the Sun in Egypt, the high pro-
tection he enjoyed as the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter,
and his own force of character and abilities, singularly
qualified him for his lofty mission. For this he was still
further prepared by his long residence with his father-in-law,
Jethro, the priest of Midian, who was more deeply initiated
than any man at that time in the most hidden knowledge
which he imparted to Moses. This is indicated by the
deference which the latter paid to his advice, and the authority
with which he tendered it, as when he says : " Hearken now
' unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be
' with thee : Be thou for thy people God -ward, that thou
' mayest bring the causes to God." ^
The mysteries which Moses had received from the tradi-
tions handed down from Abraham and his sons, together with
the stores of occult knowledge he had acquired from Jethro,
and from his training in the mystical lore of Egyptian wor-
ship, especially qualified him for the task of perpetuating
^ There is a curious kabbalistic legend as to the connection which subsisted
between Moses and Jethro, according to which, Cain had robbed the twin
sister of Abel, and therefore his soul passed into Jethro. Moses was possessed
by the soul of Abel, and therefore Jethro gave his daughter to Moses. — Yalkut
Chadash, fol. 127, col. 3.
THE MOST ANCIEXT TEMPLE. 281
them, for preservation by his people, in a form by which
they should be concealed in the letter of the law, and the
ceremonial observances which symbolised its deeper meaning ;
and this had become the more necessary, as the Jews had
fallen into the habits of worship of the common people among
the Egyptians, and were losing their sense of the majesty of
God, in their veneration for His attributes under the forms of
animals.
It is desirable here to notice the many similarities which
exist between the Mosaic theology and that of Accad, from
which, as well as from the funereal ritual of Egypt, it was
in great part derived — more for the sake of directing atten-
tion to them, than with any \iew of following them into
detail, which would occupy too much space. The most
ancient religious observance of which we have any record
is that of the Sabbath. It was strictly enforced upon the
people of Eridu more than a thousand years before it was
enjoined as a commandment upon Moses. So we have records
at the same period of vicarious sacrifices, of distinctions made
between clean and unclean animals, and of the rite of circum-
cision ; while here, as in Egypt, we have the Ark and the
Temple, with its Holy of Holies, with its veil which concealed
the mysteries. " Within," says Professor Sayce, " the Temple
' bore a striking likeness to that of Solomon. At the ex-
' treme end was the Paraku, or Holy of Holies, concealed by a
' curtain or veil from the eyes of the profane. . . . There
' seems to be evidence that the institution of the shew-bread
' was known in Babylonia — ' On the high altar mayest thou
' found a place of feeding ' — i.e., a table of shew-bread. . . .
' The cofier of the little temple of Imgur-Bel, or Balawat,
' resembled in form the arks or ships, as they were termed, in
' which the gods were carried in religious processions. It
' thus gives us a fair idea of what the Israelitish Ark of the
' Covenant must have been like." ^
So we have the Kerubu or Cherubim, wliose function it was
to guard tlie mysteries of the Temple, while the duties and
ranks of the hierarchy bear a striking resemblance to that of
the Jews. In fact it is clear that, whether they understood
it or not, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Hindoos
' Hibbert Lecture:^, pii. 64, Go, 66.
282 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
were all ancient custodians of the mystery which was now to
l)e contided to Moses, under an outward symbolism and ordi-
nance analogous in externals to that under which it had
always been concealed.
The time has now arrived to explain the secret which the
law that Moses gave to his people contains. It is described
in a few words by Pavil in the third chapter of his first
Epistle to Timothy, though the translators of the New
Testament have apparently for ecclesiastical purposes cut
off the first line of the sixteenth verse to which it belongs,
and added it on to the end of the fifteenth, thus making the
last lines of the latter read — " Which is the Church of the
living God, the pillar and ground of the truth ; " whereas
the pillg^r and ground of the truth is not applied to the
Church at all, but to the mystery of godliness, and the six-
teenth verse should read — " The pillar and ground of the
truth — and undoubtedly great — is the mystery of godli-
ness." ^ The apostle then goes on to tell us what this
mystery, which is the pillar and ground of the truth, is —
" He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit,
seen of angels, preached unto Gentiles, believed on in the
world, received up into glory." This mystery was revealed
to Paul, but only in so far as the world to whom he preached
could apprehend it — though we have indications that he him-
self perceived more of its real significance than externally
appeared in his writings — as, for instance, where he says :
" If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God
' which is given me to you-ward : how that by revelation He
' made known unto me the mystery ; (as I wrote afore in few
' words, whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my know-
' ledge in the mystery of Christ ;) which in other ages was not
' made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed
' unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." ^ And
Paul describes the revelation made to him when he was
caught up into the third heaven, and heard "unspeakable
^ This tendency of the translators, possibly unconscious to themselves, to
give inaccurate renderings of the original, so as to support ecclesiastical
dogmas, of which many instances occur both in the Old and New Testaments^
even in the revised version, is verj' unfortunate and misleading.
^ Ephesians iii. 2-5.
THE MYSTERY CONTAINED IX THE LA\V. 283
words " which it was not lawful for him then to utter ; so
again he alludes to the mystery " which had been hid from
' ages and from generations, but now is made manifest in the
' saints, and to the revelation of the mystery which was kept
' secret since the world began."
This mystery is dwelt upon with great power and detail in
the Book of Enoch. Considering that this book was un-
doubtedly written before the advent of Christ upon earth, the
numerous references which it contains to the Messianic
function and secret are in the highest degree interesting. I
will content myself, however, with one quotation : " In that
' day shall all the kings, the princes, the exalted, and those
' who possess the earth stand up, behold, and perceive, that He
* is sitting on the throne of His glory ; that before Him the
' saints shall be judged in righteousness ; and that nothing
' which shall be spoken before Him shall be spoken in vain.
' . . . One portion of them shall look upon another. They
' shall be astonished and liumble their countenance, and
* trouble shall seize them when they shall behold this Son of
* woman sitting upon the throne of His glory. Then shall the
* kings, the princes, and all who possess the earth, glorify Him
' who has dominion over all things, who was concealed ; for,
' from the Vjeginning, the Son of man existed in secret, wdioni
' the Most High preserved in the presence of His power, and
' revealed to the elect. He shall sow the congregation of the
' saints, and of the elect, and all the elect shall stand before
' Him in that day. All the kings, the princes, the exalted,
' and those who rule over the earth, shall fall down on their
' faces before Him, and shall worship Him. They shall fix
' their hopes on this Son of man, shall pray to Him, and peti-
' tion him for mercy." ^
The Messiah of Enoch is the Messiah in which the ortliodox
Jews still believe. As Professor Marks tells us : " The more
' troublous the time, tlie more hostile fanaticism waxed, the
' closer the Jew clung to the hope that persecution would
' gradually abate, althougli its spirit might flicker at intervals ;
' and that the crowning scene of the Messianic drama would
' realise the Psalmist's anticipation of mercy and truth meeting
' together, and righteousness and peace being locked in fond
' Book of Enoch, chap. 61.'
284 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' embrace. This idea finds its most intense expression in the
' apocalyj)tic books of Daniel and Enoch, Sirach, and the
' Sibylline Leaves, all of which date downwards from about
' the year 170 before the Christian era." ^
The Kabbalah, in the Sohar, alludes to the Book of Enoch
as having been " carefully preserved from generation to gen-
eration."
The fact that the Messiah is called the Son of woman and
the Son of man in almost the same passage, and the assertion
that notwithstanding He was the Son of woman and of man,
He had existed in secret from the beginning as such, indicates
on the part of the author of this book a very deep intromis-
sion into the sacred mysteries.
This mystery, which has generally been assumed by theo-
logians to be the scheme of the atonement, contains, in fact,
another and altogether different signification ; though, in its
primitive sense, the word atonement, or at-one-ment, is ex-
actly applicable to it. That different sense is to be found
in the inner meaning of the law of Moses, which while it
contains arcana too profound for us yet to penetrate, still
supplies us with all that is needful for our present re-
quirements, for it shows us how Christ was its fulfilment,
as He said, "I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil
it." It shows us how " the law having a shadow of good
' things to come, and not the very image of the things, can
' never with those sacrifices which they offered year by
' year make us perfect ; " it shows us how " Christ is the
end of the law unto righteousness, unto every one that be-
lieveth." It shows us how, what " the law could not do, in
' that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own
' Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned
' sin in the flesh : that the ordinance of the law might be
' fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
' Spirit ; " and Christ Himself said, after He was risen, to His
disciples, " These are the words which I spake unto you, while
' I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which
' was written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and
' in the Psalms, concerning me." But although we are told
^ Professor Marks on the Jews in inodern times — 'Jewish Chronicle,' 17th
February 1885.
THE MYSTERY CONTAINED IN THE LAW. 285
that He opened their understanding that they might under-
stand the Scriptures, the time had not come for them to
penetrate its meaning. He had to adapt the fulfilment of
the law to their gross conceptions, as Moses had been obliged
to adapt the law itself to the moral and intellectual condition
of the people to whom he gave it. The apostles' minds were
still too much impregnated with the Jewish conception of
the Deity, as a god in the likeness of a man, with all the
passions of anger, jealousy, and ^dndictiveness, delighting in
the blood of bulls and of goats, and of propitiatory sacrifices,
to conceive of any other fulfilment of the law but that of a
stupendous sacrifice which should take the place of all these,
and therefore they imagined that this fearful Deity could
derive satisfaction from the sacrifice of His own Son, as a
propitiatory offering for the sins of the race He had Him-
self created. This darkened their understanding ; and hence
their conception of " repentance and remission of sins," which
" should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem," resolved itself into an elaboration of this pro-
pitiatory scheme, which has ever since been received among
Christian Churches as the fulfilment of the law, accomplished
in the person of Christ, and has thrown a veil over their
moral vision, which has prevented men from recognising
what the real internal meaning of the law was, in what the
fulfilment consisted, and what was the true nature of that
mystery which has " been kept secret since the world began,"
which could only be revealed by the apostles through the
imperfect medium tliat their own crude moral condition pro-
vided, and which, had their perceptions been more deeply
internal, would have been premature, and unfitted them to
appeal to the moral and intellectual capacity of the congre-
gations they addressed.
Nevertheless, much of the spirit of tlieir teaching lias been
overlooked, and the literal meaning of tlieir words strained
in a wrong sense, into the construction of dogmas foreign to
the whole tendency of their thought. Many passages have
.seemed obscure, which, read by the light which a knowledge
of the mysteries throws upon them, become not only compre-
hensible, but indicate that the apostles tliemselves knew
a great deal more than they could give to the people ; and
286 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
this is confirmed by the fact, which a study of the early
history of the Church will reveal pretty plainly, that there
was among themselves a class of initiated, wlio met for secret
rites and worship — a fact which is not denied by TertuUian,
as we read of " mysteries which were to be kept secret and
* concealed from all exxept the faithful, inasmuch as to others
' the very manner and method of their actions were unknown,
' which was observed by the pagans, who objected to the
' Christians and the secrecy of their mysteries, which charge
* TertuUian does not deny, but, confessing it, answers that it
' was the very nature of mysteries to be concealed, as Ceres
' were in Samothracia." ^ But these Christian initiates were
in advance of the age, and were crushed by the early Church
as soon as it had firmly established itself at Eome. Paul,
indeed, alludes to the incapacity of the converts generally to
receive truth in its more essential degree, when he told them
that he could only feed them with milk, not with meat, for
they were not able to bear it — " Nay, not even now are ye
able to bear it, for ye are yet carnal." It has taken nearly
two thousand years for the meat which was withheld by
the apostles, and which is therefore not contained exoter-
ically in their teaching, to be food adapted for the mind
of the educated classes ; but a new dispensation is dawn-
ing upon the world, and therefore it is that the mystery
may be revealed ; for the religious instinct craves earn-
estly for new food, and that food is contained in the inter-
nal meaning of the law of Moses, and of the Psalms, and
of the Book of Job, and in the proj)hets, and in the New
Testament.
It is not necessary for those who seek this new food to
cast away the book they have so long cherished in the letter,
but rather for some who receive their spiritual enlightenment
in that way to study it ; while to others it can be imparted
otherwise, more secretly and more effectively, and to them
the book will ever be a blessed confirmation of their own
discoveries and experiences, but it will not be necessary for
them, any more than a stick which has been a support to
^ An Inquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity, and Worship of tlie
Primitive Church within the first Three Hundred Years after Christ. Pub-
lished 1692.
THE COVENANTS WITH THE JEWS. 287
an invalid is needful when lie has acquired strength enough
to walk alone.
It is, however, of inestimable value to those who are at-
tempting to lead others by the light of the arcana which it
contains, and to trace in it the history of the mystery which
it has preserved, and which, so far as the race to whom it
was confided is concerned, culminates in its first unportant
stage with the two covenants which God made with them,
and the terms of which are recorded in the 29th and 30th
chapters of Deuteronomy. The curse attached to the first
covenant contained in the 29th chapter was fulfilled after the
crucifixion of Christ, when the second temple was destroyed
and the dispersion of the race among all the nations of the
earth was accomplished. For they did not recognise in the
Jewish carpenter the fulfilment of the law. Therefore, when
the tragedy was consummated, the law practically disappeared
from outward observance. They had allowed the spirit to
evaporate from the flask of which they were the guardians,
and the flask was taken from them, to be restored to them,
according to their belief, when they are themselves restored
to their own land ; but this restoration can only take place
upon condition that they fulfil the second covenant, which
is contained in the 30th chapter. It is too late now to give
them back the letter of their old law : in these enlight-
ened days they would not know what to do with it if
they had it. It is impossible to conceive the civilised Jew
of the present day returning to Levitical observances, sacri-
ficing lambs as trespass-offerings, and having some of the
blood put upon the tip of his right ear, and some upon the
thumb of his right hand, and some upon the great toe of his
right foot, and so forth. Either they must be content to
remain exiles, and practically abandon the law — which is, in
fact, the one thing that makes them Jews — or they must
recognise the fact that the law was a mere outward cere-
monial, which only involved obligations so long as it con-
tained a mystery, but that with the revelation of the mystery,
the law and the obligations attached to it ceased to have any
raisrm d'etre. But more than that : if the law and the obli-
gations go, then so far as the Jews are concerned, tlie book
must follow ; and if the book goes, there will be nothing left
288 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
of the Jew. Unless an inner meaning can be found for the
book, and it is rescued from the attacks made on its literal
and historical value, it must certainly perish as divine author-
ity, from Christians no less tlian from Jews.
Symptoms of uneasiness are already beginning to manifest
themselves among the more intelligent Jews in this direction,
as is evidenced by a recent article, which I regret is too long
to quote at length, but from which the following extract is
well worthy of reproduction. After discussing the effect of
modern criticism upon the Biblical record, the writer, Mr
Alfred Henriques, says : " As to the effect of this new
' learning upon Judaism, a few remarks will now be offered.
' It is proper to observe that the patriarchs are rejected as
' entirely unhistoric characters, and are relegated to the region
' of myths and legends. If this destructive criticism can be
* maintained, the miraculous call of Abraham and the promises
' made to him must be abandoned. Doubtless these conclu-
' sions will greatly surprise pious Hebrews, The unhistoric
' character of the Biblical account of the exodus, and of the
' tremendous events said to have taken place at Sinai, is,
' however, fatal to the claims of dogmatic Judaism. It has
' long been believed that the authorship of the Ten Command-
' ments has to be sought in Egypt, where the Book of the Dead
' gives some remarkable parallelisms. These are the great
' questions on which Jewish thought has to be concentrated.
' In the present condition of Biblical criticism, it would be
' most unwise to form inflexible opinions or to assume un-
' changeable positions either favourable or antagonistic to the
' new learning. The object of the writer will be fully attained
' if he succeed in directing a very much larger share of public
' attention to questions which are \dtal to Jewish belief, and
' which in the near future will imperatively press for solution.
' They are questions which cannot profitably be set aside or
' ignored. The Hebrews are the people of the Book. By the
' Book dogmatic Judaism must stand or fall. It is needless
' to point to the immense antiquity of Judaism and to the
' severe trials it has gone through. Antiquity in many aspects
' is an element of weakness, not of strength. No danger that
' Judaism has ever escaped is as formidable as the present
' one. Judaism has in the past entered into contest with
MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 289
' rival creeds, has overcome them all in solid argument ; but
' the approaching combat will be of a totally different kind.
' None of the old weapons will avail, none of the old argu-
' ments will succeed, against an array of learning which the
' world has never before equalled. The field of the combat
' has also changed. It will not be a challenge of a doctrine
' or of a text, or of the interpretation of a prophecy — it will be
' a challenge as to the value of the records upon which all is
' founded. If the Book be unhistoric and incapable of sustain-
' ing the pretensions of dogmatic Judaism, pious Hebrews
' need not be disheartened. The fundamental beliefs need no
' historic records to validate them. A new foundation must
' be sought for the ancient faith, and it will no doubt be no
' less potent to concentrate religious fervour, than that which
' may be lost. For indeed, on the failure of dogmatic Judaism
' to fulfil the intellectual needs and aspirations of the coming
' generation, a new and more solid and also a more rational
' basis may be found for the grand and simple faith, which,
* rejuvenated by the infusion of modern knowledge, may still
' continue to give comfort and solace to those of the ancient
' race who cannot conscientiously sacrifice their reason or their
' standard of historic truth in favour of records, however
' ancient their origin or however beautiful their contents." ^
The foundation for the ancient faith which Mr Henriques
seeks is not a new one, for it is to be found in the principle
which sustains the universe, and in the revelation of the
mystery contained in the law which Moses, who was without
doubt an historical personage, gave to his people. It is
none the worse for being in some measure derived from the
Egyptian funereal ritual, for that also contained the mystery ;
but its presentation will discover features calculated to touch
the race, to whom the lofty mission is offered of laying this
foundation for all humanity, in its most sensitive point, and
to ofl'end prejudices so deeply rooted that the operation of the
Divine Spirit can alone remove them.
It is in tlie earnest hope that I may be guided by that same
Spirit, that I now venture to approach this most profound and
vital subject.
> The Jewirth Clironicle, .July 22, 1887, " Modem Biblical Criticism." Alfred
Henriques.
T
290
CHAPTER XVIII.
T,HE MISSION OF THE JEWS — THE MYSTERY OF THE DIVINE FEMININE
CONFIDED TO THEM — THE VISION OP ISAIAH — THE DIVINE FEMININE
ENFOLDED IN CHRIST— THE METHOD OF HIS BIRTH — JEWISH BELIEF
IN THE MESSIAH — THE VIRGIN MARY — NATURE OF THE DESCENT OP
THE FEMININE PRINCIPLE — COVENANTS WITH THE JEWS — REASONS
WHY THEY SHOULD RECOGNISE IN THIS PRINCIPLE THEIR MESSIAH.
The life of a nation differs from the life of an individual in
this, that the individual frequently escapes the results of his
own misconduct in this world by passing away from it before
the consequences, which must always, sooner or later, follow
the infraction of divine laws, can overtake him ; but these con-
sequences pursue him into the next phase of his existence, and
he undergoes there the penalties they involve, from which he
can only escape by his own efforts, and by going through that
severe disciplinary process to which he refused to submit in
mortal life. The nation, on the other hand, perishes in this
world, by reason of its collective violation of those same laws.
History testifies to the decay and final disappearance of one
form of civilisation after another, and of the nations which
represented them, by reason of the vices inherent in them, and
the corruption which, in some instances slowly, and in others
with greater rapidity, putrefied the whole social and political
system.
A special destiny was reserved, however, for the race which
was intrusted with the guardianship of the Sacred Mystery ;
for the external form in which it was veiled, and which was
called the law, was so framed as to ensure the tribal distinc-
tiveness of its custodians, and thus endowed them with an
element of cohesion which is lacking in other nations and
JEWISH CONTUMACY. 291
the religions they profess. This developed a tenacity of race
that has resisted the fiercest persecution — which, indeed,
only had the effect of cementing it more strongly — and has
tided it through epochs which witnessed the rise and fall of
mighty empires.
The history of all nations is a history of moral discipline,
if they would but see it. Their wars and revolutions, their
pestilences and famines, are all so many moral lessons to warn
them against prominent national vices, and so to give them an
opportunity of averting the judgment which the indulgence of
those ^^ces must inevitably entail. But the Jews alone were
carefully instructed in this fact, and were privileged in pos-
sessing a class of men who preached, and warned, and de-
nounced incessantly, — a class of men of whom history con-
tains no similar record, who were perpetually reminding their
nation of its lofty mission, and prophesying the calamities it
would bring upon itself if it proved unfaithful to it. The
Jews alone recognised as a nation their sacred character,
and gloried in it ; calling themselves a people chosen by God,
and pointing with pride to the covenants which they believed
He had specially made with them, and to the infraction of
which sucli fearful penalties were attached.
But whilst conscious that this was so, they persisted with a
singular infatuation in violating even the letter of their law ;
in allying themselves with the natives of the land which they
had received as an inheritance, contrary to the divine com-
mand ; in adopting the worship of their gods, and in manifest-
ing their contumacy in many ways.
Notwitlistanding the severe affliction they underwent in
tlieir banishment to Babylon, and in the numerous hostile
invasions to which their land was subjected, they remained
stiff-necked to the last ; their worship sank to a mere formalism,
their conscience became deadened, and their spiritual percep-
tions so utterly blunted, that, witli the exception of a very
small group of persons connected with a mystical sect who
devoted themselves to the study of the internal meaning of
the law, there were none among them who were sufficiently
illuminated to })erceive that the period of the fulfilment of the
first covenant was at hand, and that the time liad arrived
when, if they did not apprehend its inner sense, thcjy were to
292 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
be " rooted out of the land " and " cast into another land," as
it is this day. Yet, notwithstanding this, they were promised
that the revelation of the mystery contained in the law should
still remain their inheritance, for it is written in the following
verse : " The secret things belong unto the Lord our God : but
those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our
children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." ^
The reason that the history of the Jews contains a record
of exceptional infidelity and backsliding, is because upon
them was concentrated a terrific and sustained infernal
attack. The powers of darkness well understood the lofti-
ness of their mission if they themselves did not ; the former
knew the mystery contained in the law of which the latter
were the guardians, and how it was to be fulfilled, and all
their ingenuity was expended in blinding the eyes of the
Jews to its fulfilment, and in perverting their moral sense
by tempting them to repeated infractions of the outward law,
with the view of destroying them utterly as a nation before
it was fulfilled. In this they succeeded with nearly all the
tribes ; while the minority, who remained faithful to it, have
never to this day recognised its fulfilment.
Not only did God treat them with infinite tenderness and
long-suffering, out of compassion to the exceptionally difficult
position in which they had been placed, but He made another
covenant with them containing a blessing, even as the former
covenant contained a curse, compliance with which would
ensure their return to their own land. " If any of thy out-
' casts be in the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the
' Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch
' thee : and the Lord thy God will bring thee unto the land
' which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it ; and
' He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers." ^
But this blessing is made conditional on the recognition of
the " Word " ; and the Word, they are told, is to be found in
the heart of him who opens himself to its influence. " It is not
' hidden from thee, neither is it far off: it is not in heaven, that
' thou shouldest say. Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring
' it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it ? Neither is it beyond
' the sea, that thou shouldest say. Who shall go over the sea for
^ Deuteronomy xxix. 29, - Deuteronomy xxx. 4. 5.
THE FULFILMENT OF THE LAW, 293
' US, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it ? But
' the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy
' heart, that thou mayest do it." What this Word was, was
at once recognised by some of those among the Essenes who
had studied the mysteries, and were familiar with the divine
Triad of Wisdom, Love, and Operation, and who could recog-
nise the Word in that "Operation"; whether it took form
in a law, or in a man, or in a mystery contained both in the
law and in the man. Therefore, says Paul, who never saw
Christ, but who perceived a part, but only a part, of the sense
which is now fully to be revealed, in which Christ was the
fulfilment of the law, " For Christ is the end of the law for
' righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses de-
' scribeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man
' which doeth those things shall live by them. But the right-
' eousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not
' in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven ? (that is, to
' bring Christ down from above ;) or, Who shall descend into
' the deep ? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
' But what saith it ? The word is nigh unto thee, even in
' thy mouth, and in thy heart : that, is, the word of faith,
' which we preach."^
Now the mystery which the law contained was, I have al-
ready said, the Divine Feminine principle, and the mystery in
Christ was concealed in His androgj^nous nature. He was the
second Adam in this, tliat He contained within Himself the
Divine Feminine pruiciple enfolded within His external mas-
culine. Moses, however, could not have given the law, had he
not contained the principle organically within his own atomic
frame. This principle has never been absolutely and entirely
withdrawn from eartli, and a latent atomic connection has al-
ways been maintained with human organisms, but only in very
special cases lias it been manifested. Of these the most re-
markable Biblical instances were Melchizedek, Moses, Elijah,
and John the liaptist. I do not include here the founders or
sages of other religions, in whom it was more or less developed,
or Christ, who possessed another principle in addition to it.
But the case most undoubtedly interesting to the Jews is that
of Moses, of whom we are told that God " buried him, and no
' Romans X. 4-8.
294 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
man knows his sepulchre to this day." This signifies that
the altogether exceptional development of the principle in
him, and which culminated in him during his retirement on
Mount Sinai, was withdrawn from earth ; as it was also in
the case of Elijah, on the occasion of his withdrawal. The
account, to which I have already alluded, of the dispute which
took place over the body of Moses between Michael and
Satan, was for the possession of these Divine Feminine organic
elements.
The fact that we never read of the death of those thus
exceptionally favoured, implies a peculiar transference of
atomic elements, under conditions whicli should protect them
from infernal appropriation, for they contain potencies of
which the Siddim were deprived by their rebellion, and
which they have always desired to regain, in order that they
might pervert them. Could they succeed in this, their victory
over man would be assured. Hence it is that the potencies
of the Divine Feminine have been so carefully guarded, and
that Moses was not allowed to enter into Palestine, charged as
he was with so large a measure of them, as they would have
superinduced magnetic conditions in the country, too powerful
for the people to bear. As it was, we owe the prophets, with
their remarkable utterances, to this influence. There is a
curious passage in the Talmud bearing upon this subject:
" Six months did the Shechinah (or Divine Feminine) hesitate
' to depart from the midst of Israel in the wilderness, in hopes
' that they would repent. At last, when they persisted in
' impenitence, the Shechinah said, May their bones be blown ; as
' it is written. Job xi. 20, ' The eyes of the wicked shall fail,
' they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as a puff of
' breath,'" 1 The puff of breath is the false or infernal pneu-
matic afflatus, as contradistinguished from the true and divine
pneuma or breath.
It was thus that the Divine Feminine was only allowed to
enter the promised land in the person of Joshua and some of
the priests, in whom it was tempered and suppressed, and only
made itself manifest in certain persons, — as, for instance, in
Samuel, whose birth was attended by circumstances somewhat
similar to those of John the Baptist, and whose mother bore
' Rosh Hashanah, fol. xxxi., col. 1.
THE VISION OF ISAIAH. 295
a child in her old age, because, we are told, " the Lord remem-
bered her " ; and in the case of Isaiah, who received an in-
spiration on the subject for a special purpose, which bears so
directly on the present position of the Jews in regard to this
important matter, that it is necessary to examine the inner
meaning of the sixth chapter, which contains it.
The prophet narrates a vision in which he saw the " Lord
sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train [or the
skirts thereof] filled the temple."' The train or the skirts
thereof signify the Shechinah. " Above it stood the sera-
phim : each one had six wings ; with twain he covered his
face, with twain he covered his feet, with twain he did fly."
The first pair of wings signify " adoration," the second pair
" abasement," and the third pair " obedience." " And one
cried unto another and said. Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord
of hosts : the whole earth is full of His glory." The three
holies apply to His threefold nature — to Jehovah, masculine
and feminine combined, to El, masculine, and to Shaddai,
feminine. The " glory " is the glory of the Shechinah.
" And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that
cried, and the house was filled with smoke," signifies the
physical and psychical eflects of the Divine Feminine upon
nature.
" Then said I, Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because I am
' a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of
' unclean lips : for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of
' hosts." This signifies the seer's consciousness of his impurity,
in the absence of the Divine Feminine principle in his organism.
The "Lord of hosts," signifies the divine male generative
principle. (See chapter quoted from the Kabbalah in the
Appendix.)
" Then fiew one of tlie seraphim unto me, having a live
' coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from
' ofi" the altar ; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo,
' this hath touched thy lips ; and thine iniquity is taken
' away, and thy sin purged," signifies tlie atomic contact of
the Divine Feminine with the organism of the seer.
" Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom sliall 1
' send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I;
' send me. And He said, Go, and tell tliis peo])le, Hear ye
296 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' indeed, but understand not ; and see ye indeed, but perceive
' not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears
' heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their eyes,
' and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart,
' and convert, and be healed." This signifies the impossibility
of conveying to the Jewish race at that time any conception
of the Divine Feminine.
" Then said I, Lord, how long ? And He answered. Until
' the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses
' without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the
' Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great for-
' saking in the midst of the land," signifies the desolation
which was to overtake Palestine, and the dispersion of its
race, before the knowledge of the Divine Feminine should be
conveyed to them.
" And yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and
' shall be eaten : as a teil-tree, and as an oak, whose substance
' is in them, when they cast their leaves : so the holy seed
' shall be the substance thereof," signifies that the principle
shall be preserved in Palestine, and shall form the sustenance
of those who accept Him who sowed its sacred seed in that
holy land by His death, and of those also, who, if they are
unable to accept Christ in His first advent, will open them-
selves to the reception of the Divine Feminine.
I may here note incidentally, in illustration of the degree
of sanity whicli characterises the religious instinct of the
present day, that if any man now was to say that he had
seen such a vision as the one above narrated, or indeed such
as any of those recorded by the prophets, he would instantly
be put into a lunatic asylum. The lapse of a certain number
of years makes divine revelation at one time what would be
madness at another. What is divine revelation, and what
insanity, is left to be determined by the clerical and medical
professions, who have in this nineteenth century compounded
l)etween them the strangest jumble of childish superstition
and ignorant scepticism which the world has ever seen. It is
to their guardianship, assisted by courts of so-called justice,
that the consciences and the liberties of unfortunate human
Ijeings are confided.
The fulfilment of the law, then, consisted in the advent to
THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST. 297
earth of a Being atomically bisexually constructed, whose
nativity took place under circumstances which ensured His
complete union, through the operation of the Divine Feminine,
with His own feminine complement.
Christ thus approached, as nearly as external conditions
admitted, the primitive man, and in this sense was a second
Adam. This completion of His twofold nature, however, did
not take place until He ascended out of the water, after being
baptised by John the Baptist, when we have it recorded that
the spirit, or pneuma, descended upon Him in the form of
a dove. This was the outward symbol of His own feminine
complement, and in recognition thereof there was heard a
voice from heaven saying, " This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased."
It will be explained later how John was specially prepared
atomically by the circumstances of his birth, for the import-
ant function he was called upon to perform, which was to
impart a special pneumatic element contained in his organ-
ism, to that of Christ — the outward and visible sign of the
interior contact thus established, being figured by the rite
of baptism. This was, in fact, a baptism of the Holy Spirit
and of fire.
The real signification of baptism consists in its typification
of the descent of the Di"sdne Feminine ; for water was an
emblem of that principle. Thus Aima, the Supernal Mother,
who is eternally conjoined witli Ah, the Great Father, is
sometimes called " The Great Sea," and to her are attributed
the divine names, Elohim and Jehovah Elohim.^ This rite
had been understood and practised by the Jewish sect of
Essenes, to which John the Baptist belonged, and by other
sects which had preceded it, from ancient times ; but its
signification was soon lost in the early Christian Church,
though certain of the apostles, who had been instructed in
the hidden myster}' by Christ, understood, wlieu they were
commanded to baptise in the name of the holy pneuma or
Ruach, that this spirit was the feminine principle of God, as
the feminine Hebrew word Iluacli implies. In this sense,
baptism typified tlie regenerating infiuence of the Divine
Feminine principle in man, though the Church soon con-
' Mather'rt Kiil.l.alali, p. 25.
298 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
verted it into a mere formal ceremony, by means of which
man was to be saved from eternal torment in hell-fire.
It is not to be wondered at that the Jews failed to recog-
nise their Messiah in Christ, for it involved the belief in a
double Messianic advent, which is nowhere clearly prophesied
in the Old Testament, excepting to those who could interpret
the hidden meaning of the visions and predictions of its
seers. The necessity for the first Messiah was to sow the
seed of the Divine Feminine, the harvest of which the second
Messiah, whose approach is now at hand, was to reap. But
as real belief cannot be acquired by an intellectual effort, but
descends by inspiration to the affections, a belief in the first
Messiah is not necessary to those who desire to form the
first-fruits of that harvest. When once such persons, of
whatever race or religion, have prepared themselves by the
necessary discipline, to receive the Divine Feminine into their
organisms, their subsurface faculties will be opened to the
apprehension of all mysteries appertaining to the proper
exercise of the new forces which will descend upon them,
for the more perfect service of God, their race, and of
humanity at large. The Jews will not be judged because
they failed altogether to apprehend the nature and mission
of the first Messiah ; but let them beware how they turn
their backs upon the second, who now invites them to
receive Him atomically in the inmost recesses of the organ-
ism, in His twofold nature — as Bride and Bridegroom, as
King and Queen.
Here I must refer to the belief of certain initiates among
the kabbalistic Jews in regard to the Messiah. As a rule,
the sentiment of the nation at large upon this point is very
vague, and based upon divers renderings of Talmudic tradi-
tions, while some among the more advanced of Western Jews,
who, however, are still called by that name, go so far as to
repudiate any anticipation of a Messiah at all. But the
mystical, oriental, ultra - orthodox Jew, who is profoundly
versed in the Kabbalah, entertains secret views in regard
to its meaning of which his co-religionists know nothing ;
and he, although disbelieving most profoundly in the Mes-
sianic character of Christ, whom he holds in horror, does
nevertheless believe that the tetraorammation contains the
THE MYSTERY OF THE JUBILEE. 299
Messianic mystery. Now, the tetragrainmatiou consists of
the four letters wliich compose the name of Jehovah, IHVH —
or Yod (masculine), He (feminine), Van (masculine), He (fem-
inine). These possess a great variety of significations, accord-
ing to the order in which they are placed, while the word
itself is too holy to be pronounced ; nor is it supposed that
any, except a few initiated, know the sacred pronunciation.
Eead in their proper order, they signify kabbalistically, Yod,
the Father ; He, the mother ; Vav., the Son ; and He, the Bride —
that is, the Bride of the Son, with whom He is eternally and an-
drogynously united (see Appendix). Therefore the Kabbalists
to this day accept the belief of the ancient rabbis, that the
Messianic advent will be the descent of the Divine Feminine,
as it is written in the Book of the Greater Holy Assembly :
" And in the days of King Messiah there shall be no need
' that one should teach another ; for that one Spirit, who in
' Herself includeth all spirits, knoweth all wisdom and under-
' standing, counsel and might, and is the spirit of science and
' of the fear of the Lord ; because She is the Spirit compre-
' bending all spirits." ^ And again, in the ' Book of Concealed
Mystery,' where the " horn " mentioned in the Old Testament
is interpreted as meaning "influx from the Mother," as in
the 132d Psalm, 17th verse : " ' There sliall the horn of David
flourish ' — that is, the Queen (the Bride of the Son) shall re-
ceive influx from the Mother ; " and again, in paragraphs 41,
42 : " For it is written, Josh. vi. 5, ' And it sliall be when the
' horn of jubilee is sounded.' This is the splendour of the
* jubilee, and the truth (path) is crowned by the Mother
' (that is), the liurn which receiveth tlie horn and the spirit,
' that it may restore the spirit of Yod He unto Yod He (that
* is, when the spirit is to be given to the Son, His Mother
' contributed as much — which is the liorn, the brilliancy — as
' the increase which He receiveth from the Father). And
' this is the horn of jubilee, . . . and He (fern.) is the spirit
' rushing forth over all (because the Mother is the world to
' come, wben in the resurrection all tilings will receive the
' spirit), and all things shall return into their place (like as in
' the jubilee, so in the world to come)." ^
The jubilee here alluded to corresponds to the millennium
' Mather's Kabbalah, j.. 133. - Ibid., p. ]07.
300 SCIENTIFIC KELIGION.
of the Christians. The wliole of these obscure and mystical
writings, which are replete with the most profound inspira-
tion, though they are altogether repudiated by Western Jews
as possessing any authority, are full of arcana containing the
mystery of both the first and second advents of the Son and
the Bride, contained in the last two letters of the tetra-
grammation, which are concealed from the most learned
Kabbalists in the absence of the key furnished by the first
advent. The fact, however, that they understand what the
nature of the approaching Messianic advent is to be, places
them in a far more favourable position for the reception of
the Bride and Bridegroom, than their advanced and civilised
co-religionists of Western countries, who ignore it.
Nevertheless, though the Jews of every shade of opinion
may refuse to accept our explanation, we must, for the sake
of Christians, return to the details of Christ's appearance
upon earth, in order to show how the Messianic advent,
which so many of them are looking for, has become possible.
Upon the completion of His bisexual nature, through atomic
contact with John the Baptist, Christ retired for forty days
into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. In the in-
ternal meaning contained in the record that has been given
us of His temptations, — which was, in fact, His own de-
scription of them to His disciples, — we have conveyed to us
a summary of the nature of the trials, temptations, and
ordeals througli which every man and woman will have to
pass, who receives the bisexual life which is now descending
upon the world, whereby we are entering the path which is
leading us back to an approximate image of our Maker.
It was a dim perception of the Godlike nature that Christ
had thus acquired, which caused His deification by His
apostles, and in tlie religion which they founded ; but though
His actual nature differed from ours in this respect, and also
in respect of His origin, it did not make Him God, except in
the sense that any man who can embody this Divine Fem-
inine principle can become absorbed in God.
The profound significance of Christ's mission on earth, con-
sists in the fact that it is through Him that the channel for it
is provided. In order to explain this, I must again revert to
the atomic structure of the universe, and of all that it contains.
THE ATOMIC ACCRETION. 301
I should be considered a lunatic if I ventured to assert the
possibility of a man coming into the world otherwise than by
the ordinary process of procreation, or of his passing away
from it otherwise than by the ordinary process of corruption,
were it not fortunately the case that this is admitted, or pro-
fessed to be admitted, by all who call themselves Christians.
What they would deny is that this should be possible without
violating any law of nature. Now, not only is this perfectly
possible under natural law, but the day is not so very far
distant, when the organic changes, which are now in their
incipient stage, will have reached such a point that tliis
possibility will be made manifest. I have already described
how the human organism became as it were locked up by
a winter frost, which set in to arrest its control in its fluid
condition, by the lower region of the previous orb. Since
that time it has strained against its icy fetters, unable to free
itself from the bondage of incrustation of gross atomic sub-
stance, and enthralled by the limitations of surface sensuous
perceptions. This is what Paul means when he says, " For
' we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in
' pain until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which
' have the first-fruits of the Spirit [or the Divine Feminine],
' even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the
' adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body," — which can
only be achieved by its operation.
But the thaw is setting in, the atomic incrustation is
becoming attenuated, witness the phenomena of hypnotism,
telepathy, spiritualism, and those attendant upon various
phases of what are called " nervous " maladies. The effect of
this is to bring about great variations in the conditions under
which atomic force manifests itself in the human organism.
I have already described the three methods of contact be-
tween the visible and invisible worlds, and will presently
enter with more detail into the process by means of which
this force acts, through pneumatic-atomic interlocking, and
thus imparts a new vitality to our frames, and a new potency
to our faculties. It is to this change that Paul alludes when
he says, " for the earnest expectation of the creature waitetli
for the manifestation of the sons of God." This manifestation
of the sons of God will enaljle them once more to unite them-
302 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
selves with the daughters of men, as they did in old time,
and once more visitants from the nether sphere will appear
on earth, and it will become the arena of the conflict at which
I hinted in the introductory chapter, and those who will
engage in it are thus described in the Eevelation : " For they
' are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth
' unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to
' gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
' Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and
' keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his
' shame. And he gathered them together into a place called
' in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon."
Now it is quite within the bounds of possibility that this
atomic change for which the world is being gradually pre-
pared, may have taken place under very exceptional circum-
stances, and in a single instance, nearly nineteen hundred
years ago ; for there is scarcely a law in nature that is not
subject to irregularity and variation, and this is especially true
of the laws which govern the will and the emotions in their
relation to the reproduction of life.
In order to apprehend this, it is necessary to understand
that the propagation of every human soul into the visible
part of our universe, is preceded by its generation into that
which is invisible. As by death we are born again from this
world into the other, so by birth here we die out of the other,
after having been generated into it from the Infinite Source of
all, by the interaction of successive male and female atomic
elements, through a long series of beings, as a vital spark or
soul-germ, which is finally let down into human organisms,
there to receive from the earthly parents an atomic overlay,
derived more or less from their physical and moral natures,
but still retaining its own essential characteristics as to atomic
sensibility and capacity for recombination. The moral and
intellectual condition of a being born into this world depends
not so much on its hvmian parents, from whom it has derived
its fleshly covering and many of its hereditary characteristics
and resemblances, as upon its more immediate invisible pro-
genitors, who are usually in blood affinity with its parents,
and who by similarity of moral constitution and temperament
are atomically allied with them. It is for this reason we often
I
SO-CALLED MIRACULOUS BIRTH. 303
find that after three or four generations even physical resem-
blances will be reproduced. It is perfectly possible, therefore, '
for a child to be born here, whose immediate invisible pro-
genitors were exceptionally gifted with the faculty of endowing
a soul-germ with a peculiar recepti^'ity to atomic combinations,
which should render it sensitive to direct special operation
upon its organism, and this receptivity might be still further
developed by growth and cultivation.
It is thus that mediums appear every now and then capable
of achieving the most phenomenal results — by no effort of
their own, but simply because their atomic elements are so
constituted that they can be invaded by those of invisible
beings, who, in cases of materialisation, literally clothe them-
selves externally with those elements. The bodies thus formed
are composed of materials drawn from the grosser atoms of
physical nature ; but in such cases the contact is made by
surface adhesion, not by internal combinations.
Where, however, a soul-germ is projected into the world
by. progenitors who have attained lofty spiritual conditions,
through natural parents who have also been especially pre-
pared by moral training and previous insemination of vital
currents from a pure source, that soul-germ would, upon being
let down into them, in its turn develop into a mortal excep-
tionally endowed with atomic sensitiveness and receptivity
to vital forces directed from tlie beings to whom it owed its
origin in the invisible world, and with whom an interior atomic
comljination would be effected.
This was the case with the Virgin Mary, and thus it was
that a soul-germ was projected into her organism by invisible
agency, and clothed upon witli fleshly particles without the
aid of human instrumentality. Buddhists in the same way
maintain that Gautama was born of a virgin.
It follows as a matter of course that the atomic structure
of a child born under these conditions differs from that of
ordinary men. It was open to the in -flowing of energies
from the invisible world, and possessed a capacity for their
distribution and radiation which resulted in those pheno-
mena called " miraculous," by the aid of which the sick were
healed, the elements dominated, material substance indeflnite-
ly increased, natural life restored, and iuvisiljle transference
-7
r-1
304 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
effected from one locality to another ; and it further follows
that the process of translation from this world was also
attended with different atomic conditions, from whence
resulted the phenomena which succeeded the crucifixion of
Christ, and the death of His natural body, but not its corrup-
tion in the usual course of nature.
The fact that it was only through the descent of the Divine
Feminine principle into the organism of the Virgin, that it
could become enfolded into that of her babe, invests her
with a character of peculiar sanctity, and with spiritual
functions, having reference to this world, of a very high
order. It is due to a sort of dumb consciousness of this fact,
that she occupies such a prominent position in the worship
of the Greek and Eoman Churches, and which, in the latter,
has found expression in the dogma of the Immaculate Con-
ception. She is the atomic link between the invisible pro-
genitor and the " Son of man " — so called because the source
of His being had been Himself a man. She now presides
with Him over that divine descent into the world which first
touched her organism ; and is worthy of all the worship and
adoration which she receives at the hands of those who have
exalted her into her rightful position of an intermediary,
but who wrongly style her the Mother of God, The peculiar
relation which she bears to Christ, is a mystery which can
only be apprehended by those who have received into their
organisms that most sacred principle which she represents,
and against which the prejudices of what is called Protestant
Christendom, have erected a serious barrier. Nevertheless,
those who honour the Virgin Mary, and invoke the potencies
of that life which she imparted to her Son, will progress far
more rapidly in bisexual life than those who do not.
This explanation of the functions of the Virgin, and the birth
of Christ, is not derived from any preconceived idea, based on
the Biblical statement that He had no natural father ; for
until I began to write this account of His birth, I did not
believe that statement, it never having been shown to me be-
fore that it was a true one. I feel therefore impelled to make
it against my preconceptions in the matter ; but as I do so, the
certainty arises in my mind that Christ was thus exception-
ally born into the world, in order that a contact of a new
THE DISTRIBUTION OF CHRISt's ELEMENTS. 305
kind might be established between Him and the inhabitants
of those regions, who form an atomic chain which finally at-
taches itself to the Almighty. He thus, in conjunction with
the Virgin, becomes the essential connecting-link between all
human beings, and the universal Father and Mother ; and
there is no phrase which more accurately expresses His inter-
mediate position than that which is used when prayers are
offered "through Jesus Christ our Lord." Thus He is the
mediator or intermediary between God and man ; and thus
so many of those texts with which the New Testament teems,
and from which the false doctrine has been coined that He
was a blood-offering and a sacrifice for guilty man to appease
an angry God, receive their literal and exact application. In
one sense He was a blood-offering and a sacrifice, but not in
the sense usually received, but in one quite different. It was
necessary that He should shed His blood, not to appease an
angry God, but in order to distribute into nature the atomic
elements of the Divine Feminine with which He was charged.
Therefore He said, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone :
but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."
The atoms of that blood, and of that fleshly covering, which
passed into nature, were like a drop of some potent medi-
cine infused into the decaying structure of the world's
vitality. Ever since it has been silently imparting its
health -giving vigours. It is true there has been a long
period of apparent religious stagnation since that sublime
event, but it has only been apparent. The seed seemed
dead, but it was all the time germinating ; and the energies
had been slowly storing themselves in preparation for a
great crisis foretold by Him in the words : " Now is the
' judgment of this world : now shall the prince of tliis world
' be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
' draw all men unto me." For this purpose He needed to be
born into the earth through a natural woman, and to die, and
be lifted up from it, because He could only thus acquire an
atomic construction which would enable Him to come into
close affinity witli man, and so draw all men unto Him.
There is no other being in that world, constituted as to His
organic elements with reference to ours as He is ; and hence
u
306 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
He is our Saviour, to whom alone we must cling, and through
whom alone we can draw the vital currents which will im-
part the potency necessary for the salvation of the race.
But while this applies to Christians, who are thus excep-
tionally favoured in that they can invoke Christ, with a full
understanding of their reason for doing so, it does not exclude
those who have no intellectual appreciation of, or belief in, it.
A method has been provided, in the infinite love of God, by
which the Divine Feminine principle can descend, through
Christ, to all who love the neighbour better than themselves,
and are ready to give themselves for humanity — whether
they be Materialists, Agnostics, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, or
of any other religion, or form of philosophy or superstition.
There were two reasons why what seems to us so long an
interval should elapse between Christ's sacrifice of Himself,
and His return in the plenitude of His might, to accomplish,
through the organisms of those who yield themselves to Him,
the work which He had begun. One was, that it has taken
all these years for the seed which He sowed in the world,
through His body and blood, to germinate. The other is,
that it has taken all these years before a sufficiently powerful
pneumatic battery could be charged, and an atomic chain could
be prepared out of the organisms of those who have passed into
the invisible world in the faith and love of Christ, to transmit
the forces which are necessary for the world's redemption.
This vital energy had to be stored both here and there. It is
through the chain thus formed that we reach Christ, and that
He reaches us ; and it is through atomic sympathy, by means
of the energies stored here, that those who feel the truth of
what is here written, will be attracted to each other. As
soon as the earthly battery is powerful enough to draw down
the life which is waiting to be poured out upon us, those
which have been hidden from us by death hitherto will be
made manifest. This is " the manifestation of the sons of
God," and when the atomic combinations are complete be-
tween ourselves and those which have gone before, "then
' we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together
' with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so
' shall we ever be with the Lord." This does not, of course,
mean a literal ascension in our present bodies, but an atomic
i
THE SECOND COVENANT. 307
modification of them, which will altogether alter our relations
to matter in its existing form, and enable us to exercise the
same powers, which are not imknown to fakirs in the East
and mediums in the "West, though it will be under conditions
altogether different from those which operate in their case,
and enable us to unite ourselves with those who are in ap-
proximately like condition with ourselves.
Then we shall be able to bear, what it is not possible for
us to bear now, a more direct contact with Him who will
return in glory to lead this great redemptive movement, and
be our leader in the great battle which is impending. This is
what is called by theologians " the second coming of Christ,"
and it is in anticipation of this event, now not far distant,
that we are called upon to engage without delay in the work
of preparation. Por even now He begins, by a process pres-
ently to be explained, to steal into the hearts of each one of
us ; silently, but surely, to those who open themselves to
Him. Therefore He says, — " Behold, I come as a thief ;
blessed is he that watcheth."
The reason that this warning, while it applies with the
utmost force to all of us, should be especially heeded by Jews,
is because they, as the custodians of the mysteries contained
in Christ and in their law, are called upon to lead into the
world the full revelation of them ; and because failure to do
so will bring upon them the judgment pronounced in the
second covenant. For what is the doom attached to the
non-fulfilment of their part of this covenant ? " But if thine
* heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be
' drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them ; I
' denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and
' that ye shall not prolong your days upon tlie land whither
' thou passest over Jordan to possess it." The gods here
spoken of are not the gods of other religions, which have
long since lost all attractions for the Jews ; but tlie great
god Mammon, whom they have worshipped more devoutly
and more successfully tlian the people of any other race do ;
to such an extent, that the wealthy, civilised, and intel-
lectually cultured Jew has not only lost all patriotic senti-
ment in regard to the land of his forefathers, but shrinks
with dismay from the prospect of the coming of that Messiah
308 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
whom he expects, and from the sacrifices and obligations
which the advent of the Prince of Peace would involve.
Such are they who desire only to be left to wallow amid the
flesh-pots of Egypt ; and any Moses who should arise and bid
them to follow him to the desert of personal suffering, disci-
pline, and self-sacrifice, as a needful preparation for entering
the promised land and welcoming their King, would be
rejected as a fanatic, and denounced as a traitor to that
golden calf which they have set up as their god, and which
they so diligently worship.
It is most likely, if this appeal finds a response in any
Jewish heart, it will be rather amongst those who pray for
the reunion of the Jehovah with the Shechinah, than among
those who have lost all interest in the inner meaning con-
tained in the law, who are rapidly abandoning even its letter,
and who can regard with composure the disappearance of the
Book itself, and the prospect of " a new and more solid and
more rational basis " than the Book affords, " for the grand
and simple faith " of their forefathers.
But the Book itself, when rightly understood, affords this
new and solid and rational basis. Unfortunately it is a basis
which can only be built upon by those who are not utterly
blinded by prejudice. For, in the words of one of your own
prophets, " the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of
' deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes : the prophets and
' your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all
' is become unto you as a book that is sealed, which men
' deliver to one that is learned, saying, Eead this, I pray thee :
' and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed."^ And yet, if the
eyes of your inner understanding could be opened, and you
could as a race adopt the view of the descent of the Divine
Feminine here set forth, you would be the direct means in
God's hands of overturning every Church in Christendom;
for that view is as much opposed to their theology and to
their prejudices as it is to yours, and the first achievement
of those of your people who can see in Christ the channel
for it, will be the destruction of that so-called Christian
creed which has for so many centuries persecuted you in
His name.
^ I.saiali xxix. 10.
THE KABBALAH. 309
For the benefit of those oriental Jews who still accept the
Kabbalah as authoritative, I will here insert a fragment of
its teaching on the subject of the nature and operation of the
Divine Feminine : —
" Come and behold ! When the Most Holy Ancient One,
' the Concealed of all Concealments, desired to be formed
' forth, He conformed all things under the form of Male and
' Female ; and in such place wherein Male and Female are
' comprehended.
' For they could not permanently exist save in another
' aspect of Male and Female (their countenances being joined
' together).
' And this wisdom, embracing all things when it goeth
' forth and shineth forth from the Most Holy Ancient One,
' shineth not save under the form of Male and Female.
' Therefore is this wisdom extended, and it is found that
' it equally becometh Male and Female. Chokmah Ab Binah
' Am. Chokmah is the Father, and Binah is the Mother ;
' and therein are Chokmah, wisdom, and Binah, understand-
' ing, counterbalanced in perfect equality of Male and Female.
' And therefore are all things established in the equality of
' Male and Female ; for were it not so, how could they sub-
' sist ? ^ This beginning is the Father of all things — the
' Father of all fathers ; and both are mutually bound together,
' and the one path shineth unto the other — Chokmah, wisdom,
' as the Father ; Binali, understanding, as the Mother.
' It is written, Prov. ii. 3, ' If thou callest Binah, the
' Mother.'
' When they associated together they generate, and are
' expanded into truth.
' In the teaching of the school of Eav Yeyeva, the Elder, it
' is thus tauglit : ' What is Bineli, the Mother of understand-
' ing ? ' Truly when they are associated together.
' Assuredly Yod, I, impregnateth the letter He, H, and
' produceth a Son, and Slie Herself bringetli Him forth.
' iUit tliey both are found to be the perfection of all things
' when they are associated together, and when the soul is in
* them, the Syntagma of all things findeth place.
' Here m authority derived fri)ia the niuHt ancient tradition for " woman's
rights."
310 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' For in their conformations are they found to be the
' perfections of all things — Father and Mother, Son and
' Daughter.
' These things have not been revealed save unto the Holy
' Superiors, who have entered therein and departed there-
' from, and have known the paths of the Most Holy God
' (may He be blessed), so that they have not erred in them,
' either on the right hand or on the left." ^
There are two reasons why this lofty mission has been in
the first instance offered to the Jews. The first is, because
Christ was a Jew, and He is thus enabled to occupy an excep-
tional relation to His own race by reason of atomic affinity,
even though they may not consciously accept Him. This
exists to a greater or less degree among all nations and
races, but among none to the same extent that it does among
the Jews. Therefore it is, that it has been imposed upon
them to keep themselves exclusively apart, so that their blood
might not be tainted with intermarriage, and that this inter-
nal structural condition might be maintained, by which they
could be interiorly and atomically united with the channel
for the Messianic descent of the Divine Feminine, and
could therefore be acted upon by Christ with a more direct
potency and energy than those who are not of His own blood.
And the second reason is, because the law not only contains
the mystery of His bisexual nature, by means of which this
potency can be brought to bear, but it also contains the whole
method of the construction of Messianic society upon a theo-
cratic basis, differing from anything that the world has ever
seen, and which will contain within itself the solution of all
those social and political problems v/hich have distracted the
civilisation of the nineteenth century, and which threaten
now to overturn it.
Therefore it was prophesied that the day should come when
ten men should " take hold out of all languages of the nations,
' even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying,
' We will go with you ; for we have heard that Elohim is
' with you.' " 2
^ Mather's Kabbalah, chap. viii. of the ' Book of the Lesser Holy Assembly,'
p. 281 — " Concerning the Father and Mother in special."
* Zechariah viii. 23.
EECONSTRUCTED SOCIETY. 311
The task of the reconstruction of this new society will be
committed to the Jews, to be built up by them in conform-
ity with the instructions concealed in the hidden meaning
of their law, for it is thus, and thus only, that the temple
can ever be rebuilt in Zion, and thus, and thus only, that
the words of the prophet Isaiah can be fulfilled, " that the
' mountain of Jehovah's house shall be established in the
' top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ;
' and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall
' go and say. Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of
' Jehovah, to the house of Elohim of Jacob ; and He will
' teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths : for
' out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Jeho-
' vail from Jerusalem." ^
The Book of Ezekiel is full of prophecy regarding Israel's
restoration, and the visions, from the fortieth chapter to the
end especially, contain arcana, concealing under the figure of
the rebuilding of the temple, instructions for the rearing of a
social structure upon a divine model, which shall be theocratic
in its form, hierarchic in its constitution, and co-operative in
its organisation.
The modern Jew can expect no literal fulfilment of this
mystical symbolism. He must either accept some such in-
terpretation as is here offered, or discover another, and this
I am not aware of his having yet attempted to do. It will
not do for him to sit down apathetically and wait for some
unknown fulfilment, for in that case he will never recognise it
when it comes. It is only by ardent and disinterested service
of God and the neighbour, that his eyes can be opened, and
his ears quickened, and his heart softened.
Excepting among the more " advanced " section of Western
Jews, the advent of the Messiali is still universally believed
in by tlie nation ; and although I have explained in this
chapter, that those who apprehend what I believe to have been
the true nature of tlie work of Christ on earth, will see in it
tlie i>reparation for His second coming, I repeat that it is
not necessary that Jews who desire to receive an inflow of
Messianic or Divine Feminine life now, should begin by doing
violence to their prejudices, and accept the view of Christ's
' iHaiah ii. 2, 3.
312 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
work which has here been set forth. What is above all things
necessary is, that they should recognise the feminine element
in the Messiah whom they expect ; that they should divert
their gaze from the angry vindictive Father, upon whom it has
been so long riveted, to the tender loving Mother, the mystery
of whose nature was concealed in the Shechinah, and of whose
secret presence among men, they have been the ancient and
unconscious guardians. It is in Her outstretched arms that
they will find their Messiah ; and if, when the revelation is
made of His twofold presence among them, they are unable to
recognise in it the human form whom we call Christ, He will
still remain Christ to us, while to them He will appear as
the long-looked-for conqueror, and their deliverer from the
social and spiritual bondage from which they have so long
suffered.
Although these prophecies seem sure, they cannot override
the free-will of those concerning whom they are made ; for
there are others equally explicit, foreshadowing the judgment
which will follow non-compliance with the covenant, which
only made these blessings conditional on its fulfilment. It is
expressly stated, in the event of unfaithfulness to this trust,
" I denounce to you this day, that ye shall surely perish."
And this consummation must inevitably follow upon the
abandonment of the Book, and the adoption instead of that
" new and more solid and more rational basis " for the " grand
old simple faith," when it is " rejuvenated by the infusion of
moral knowledge," as proposed by the writer of the article
already quoted. I have shown what the value of modern
learning in matters of religion amounts to, and it would
be difficult to imagine a greater act of sacrilege than that
of supplanting the Book by the ' Origin of Species ' or the
' Descent of Man.' This is being drawn away and wor-
shipping other gods, and serving them with a vengeance.
As surely as this is done, must the race perish, for there
will be nothing left to hold it together. The law will van-
ish with the Book, and the children of Abraham will take
unto themselves wives from the women of the lands in which
they dwell, and be lost for ever in the society which they
have helped to corrupt.
THE ALTERNATIVE. 313
If the Book be abandoned, the law spurned, and its fulfil-
ment denied, there is no way by which this fate can be averted,
Nor can the Book be retained, the law preserved, and its
fulfilment accomplished, excepting as here set forth. " I call
' heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have
' set before you life and death, blessing and cursing : therefore
' choose Kfe, that both thou and thy seed may live."
314
CHAPTER XIX.
THE TRUE POSITION OF WOMAN — THE FALSE POSITION ASSIGNED HER
BY CIVILISATION — HER NEW FUNCTIONS IN LIFE — THE DESCENT OF
THE DIVINE FEMININE THROUGH HER — THE CO-OPERATIVE STRUGGLE
OF THE SEXES FOR PURITY — WOMAN'S RIGHTS — THE TRUE HIGHER
EDUCATION OF WOMAN.
Although the Jews may thus be intimately associated with
the great scheme of the elevation of humanity to new and
higher conditions, it need scarcely be said that it in no way
depends upon them, and that it is they, and not the world,
that will suffer by their not co-operating in it.
The earth received an electric shock when contact was es-
tablished with the battery of the Divine Femininity, by the
death of Christ upon it; and it is in no human power to
impede the storage of that transcendent energy which has
ever since been transmitted, or to hinder its ultimate mani-
festation.
It is to this manifestation that Christ alluded so fre-
quently to His disciples, though they did not perceive the
interior meaning ; as, for instance, when He explained to them
the parable of the tares and wheat. And this is " the good
seed," of which He spoke, when He said, " He that soweth
the good seed is the Son of man ; " and this is the " kingdom
of heaven " which He likened to " treasure hid in a field, the
which when a man hath found he hideth, and for joy thereof
goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field ; " and
to " a pearl of great price ; " and to " a net that was cast into
the sea ; " and to " a grain of mustard-seed, which, when it is
' sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs,
' and shooteth out great branches ; so that the fowls of the air
THE POSITION OF WOMAN. 315
' may lodge under the branches of it ; " and to " leaven which
' a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the
' whole was leavened."
It is to this indestructible and all - pervading principle
that man will owe his salvation, and it is to its method of
operation that we must now turn our attention.
It has already been shown how the poisonous element
which we call e\dl, and which is the cause of all the crime,
disease, poverty, and suffering in the world, entered into it
through the organism of woman, and tainted the springs of
human life. The immediate effect of the woman's fall was to
abase her before the man, who visited upon her the affliction
she had brought upon him, and the internal separation from
himself which was the consequence of it, by reducing her to
a position of inferiority.
Hence it is that, as far as we can trace back in history,
woman has in all countries been regarded as man's inferior,
and this tradition exists most strongly in the East, and in
the vicinity of those regions which were the cradle of the
Noachic race. In some of the sects in these countries woman
is not even supposed to have a soul ; she is not instructed in
matters of religion, or allowed to take part in worship ; and in
all of them she is treated as a slave, and ground down under
the iron heel of a social, if not always a domestic tyranny.
In the most civilised countries of the West, the state of the
law as regards woman and her relations to man, especially her
husband, is a disgrace to our age. Her most sacred instincts
are violated, lier inmost shrine of purity is legally outraged,
and she is dragged through the mire of law courts, a spectacle
for gods and men. There is no fouler stain upon that dish-
clout covered with spangles, which we call our civilisation,
than the position which it still assigns to woman ; nothing
more anti-Christian — for it prostitutes the principle embodied
in Christ, and whicli He sanctified upon earth by the sacri-
fice of His body and blood. But now its pent-up energies
are finding irregular and disorderly vent in woman herself.
Already slie is beginning to make efforts, more or less frantic
and misdirected, to assert her rights; but in default of any
interior perception of what these rights are, she will only
succeed in creating confusion and producing discord. The
316 SCIENTIFIC KELIGION.
hope for woman lies in the recognition by man of the Divine
Feminine principle in God. When once he clearly perceives
that God is a dual Being, containing within Himself woman as
well as man, as the word " Jehovah " signifies, he will see that
— as it is impossible for one part of God's being to be inferior
to another part — woman must be essentially man's equal.
The mistake that woman now makes is to suppose that,
feeling herself to be man's equal, she is therefore qualified
to exercise the same functions as man, to engage in the same
pursuits, and to compete with him in the same avocations.
Her province is to inspire man, not to rival him, to strengthen
him by her love, not to drain him of the elements which he
needs for his work in life, by struggling to surpass him in it.
Woman represents the affectional side of humanity, whilst
man represents its intellectual faculty and executive capacity.
Woman, therefore, as the Divine Feminine descends, will be
exonerated from the hardening cares of material productive-
ness, and will now stand, God willing, in growing grace as
those lilies of the field, while man remains their outer provi-
dence. They will train themselves to watch for the tracings of
God's workmanship in man, and to offer to that their reverence
and the sustaining power of their affections ; they will not re-
gard themselves as the immediate instruments for the divine
application of power to the world's needs. They will feel no
responsibility in devising the ways and means of external
existence, nor suggesting the plans and movements for it.
They will not venture to formulate opinions as to how men
should act in great things or in small; they will feel that
they stand as media for the transmission of a moral force
which makes true action in the men a possibility ; and when,
in loyalty to their own internal insight and to their outgoing
love, they give to men prepared to receive them, some fresh
perceptions of greater or lesser truth, it will be by apprecia-
tion of some force or growth or desire in man's nature, which
he failed to recognise, which her love discerns, but which he
alone knows how to apply in life's activity. She can reveal
him to himself as she learns meekly to look in him for signs
of how God works through him ; but the true woman owns
not the harsher intellectual faculty required for making
active impress on the external world. The machinery of her
woman's love. 317
nature is not constructed for direct contact with the resist-
ances excited in external life by human activities, and she
does herself deep injury if she exposes herself needlessly to
such contact. But in direct ratio with her conception of the
vastness of man's work in all the universe, which she feeds
with elements that she alone can draw from the divine im-
mensity, will be the delicacy of her succouring service. She
will train herself to take up the minute tenderness of the
divine currents, and apply them to those intricate necessities
of men, for which they are destined. With the expanding of
her bosom-love will come the multiplication of her sensi-
tive atomic fibres, and their vibratory capacity. She will
thus grow, educating herself by the whisper of God's love
that she will hear every hour, more watchful, more gentle,
more tender, more reverential, as she becomes more potent to
all men, and as she seeks to know all the fulness and all the
littleness of the divine service. In the degree in which she
does this, will the man, who is opening himself to the same
influence, recognise in her the divinely appointed channel for
the transmission of that force by which his intelligence can
be inspired, and his creative faculties operate ; and he will
reverence her not only as his equal, but as his presiding
genius, drawing from God those rich stores of life with which
he is supplied through her. He will feel her to be his indis-
pensable copartner in the great evolutionary task to which
he has set his hand, while he becomes in turn the medium
through which her love flows out upon humanity ; inspiring
him the while with an exquisite sense of unison with her,
and revealing to him unsuspected depths of capacity for en-
joyment, in the absolute unselfishness of a love that demands
nothing, but that floods him with its life by the very act of
pouring through him. Such a love the world at present
knows nothing of; but Christ knew of it, when he said,
" Behold, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love
one another ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one
another." Had it not been that the love was new — for His
love contained in it the Divine Feminine — there would have
been nothing new in the commandment; for people had al-
ways lieen in the habit of loving each other, after their own
selfish fashion. The newness of the commandment consisted
318 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
in the newness of the love, which was to be fashioned after
His bisexual love ; which should banish, by the quality inher-
ent in it, all those exacting passions of envy, jealousy, crav-
ing, and suspicion, which characterise what still goes by the
name of love, and which, by reason of its perverted nature,
carries desolation into homes that might otherwise be happy,
poisons the very springs of pure affection, and prompts to
murder, suicide, and all manner of crime.
It is evident that, as through woman disease entered into
the world, it is through woman that the remedy must be pro-
vided, and that it is by uniting herself with the Divine Woman,
that the force will descend which will expel the impurities
which now taint her organism. The link which has been
furnished to form this union is to be found in the person of
Christ ; therefore He repeatedly calls Himself the Bridegroom,
and illustrates His relation to the race by the parable of the
wise and foolish virgins. It is through this interior union
with Christ, that the Chvirch, of which woman is the feminine
principle, becomes the Bride, the Lamb's wife. To those who
can see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and under-
stand with their hearts, the book of Eevelation is full of this
mystery; therefore, "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give
' honour to Him : for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and
' His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted
' that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white :
' for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." ^ The " fine
linen, which is the righteousness of saints," signifies the
atomic overlay with which she becomes clothed by the opera-
tion of those who have passed into the other world, and by
whom alone she can be prepared for her union with Christ ;
it is they who furnish her with the wedding garment ; and
herein lies a great mystery, for, as I have said before, it is
impossible for any man or woman in their present condition
to come into direct relations with Christ. The rays of His
glory are too intense for any human being to support, without
the modifying influence of a transmitting medium. This trans-
mitting medium is composed of the spirits of just men made
perfect, and their relation to us is fully described in the
Epistle to the Hebrews. They are those who have " all died
^ Revelation xix. 7, 8.
HUMAN COMPLETION. 319
' in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen
' them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced
' them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims
' on the earth ; " and again, " these all, having obtained a
' good report through faith, received not the promise ; God
' having provided some better thing for us, that they without
' us should not be made perfect." ^
The reason that the saints who died in faith received not
the promise, but only saw it afar off, is that the visible and
invisible parts of our world do in fact only form one universe,
so intimately interlocked atomically, that it is not possible
for one part of it to be redeemed without the other. There-
fore, although this " great cloud of witnesses " by whom we
are encompassed have " received the promise " of the Divine
Feminine which they saw afar off, and are persuaded of it and
have embraced it, so that they have become the media of
transmission for its descent, they cannot enter into its fulness,
unless we who are on earth enter into it also. Therefore it is
said that " God has provided a better thing for us, that they
without us should not be made perfect." This "better thing"
is the ultimate victory to be accomplished through us, and
they " cannot be made perfect without us," because our organ-
isms contain certain elements essential to the perfection of
theirs, of which they were deprived by the process of natural
death. In a word, they are still suffering from the infernal
virus which has poisoned the whole universe, both visible
and invisible, and which can only be expelled by the com-
bined operation of those in the flesh, with those who have
parted from it.
There has been so much delusion concerning all these
things, that although they seem very clear to the babes to whom
they have been revealed, it is difficult to make them so to
the wise and prudent from whom they are hidden ; chiefly
because it is characteristic of those who are wise and prudent
to feel a very profound contempt for babes, and an e(|ually
profound respect for their own superior wisdom and prudence.
The propositions, therefore, that an invisible region exists,
that it is only invisil)le to the multitude because they are
short-sighted, and that it is not a difterunt world from the one
' Hebrews xi. 13, 39, 40.
320 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
visible even to the short-sighted, but is an integral part of it,
are not likely to be accepted, excepting by those who feel that
this must be so by a higher faculty than their reason supplies ;
but to them it will not seem strange that the conditions there
are not very widely different from those which exist here;
that the struggle between good and evil goes on there as it
does here ; that Christian Churches continue to fight, heathen
to rage, and the people to imagine a vain thing ; while occultists
mystify, Buddhists contemplate and beg, and learned profes-
sors and metaphysicians investigate and discuss. Only the
conditions differ, the attraction of affinity is stronger, and the
forces are ranged against each other more systematically,
especially in the higher and lower regions, where the union
of the good, and the consolidation of the bad, are each more
powerful respectively.
Numerically the population of the seen part of the universe
is, of course, but a fraction of that which inhabits the unseen ;
and the forces in operation there are therefore infinitely more
powerful than they are here. Nevertheless, its progress and
fortunes are absolutely dependent upon those of the earth we
inhabit, and the regeneration of the universe can only take
place through the instrumentality of man upon our own orb.
The reason that this is so is, that upon it the disease entered ;
and it is through the influence of woman upon man, that the
leaven is to be introduced which will leaven the whole lump,
as it was through the influence of woman upon man that the
virus entered by which the whole was infected. It is in
order to endow the woman with a new force which will
enable her thus to act upon man, that the chain of saints has
been established, by means of which the Divine Feminine ele-
ments may be transmitted to her directly from Christ.
As once she listened to the voice of the tempting serpent,
so now she must tune her ear to the whisper of the tender
angel. As once she felt the shock of an infernal vibration,
convulsing and debasing her organism, so now she must invite
the thrill of a divine impulse to purify and uplift it. As once
she gave to the man the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil, so now she must give to him the fruit of the tree of
life, which is freely offered to her.
And as once she deceived him with lying speech, so now
DISCIPLINE OF THE AFFECTIONS. 321
she must inspire him with the true Word itself. As to her
was due his expulsion from the garden of Eden, so to her
must be due his restoration to it. She is the priestess of
the shrine at which man is henceforth to worship, and repre-
sents there the High Priest, her Bridegroom. These are
woman's rights, and this is woman's mission.
"Ha\'ino' therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the
' holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way " —
i.e., the atomic distribution of the elements of the Divine
Feminine into nature — "which He hath consecrated for us
' through the veil, that is to say. His flesh " — or His human
organism — "and having an High Priest over the house of
' God ; let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance
' of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil con-
' science, and our bodies washed with pure water" — i.e.,
divine purity — "let us hold fast the profession of our faith
' without wavering ; for He is faithful that promised."
The atomic overlay, to which allusion has been made as
the bridal investiture of woman, consists of elements intro-
duced into the present gross animal atomic covering of
feminine passion, whereby a chemical change takes place in
them of a sul)limating and purifying character. This is a
slow and gradual process, and the preparation required for it
is one of severe self- discipline of the affections. All natural
affections must be subordinated to those which are divine.
Those instincts which have hitherto been considered the
highest and purest in human nature, must give way to others,
higher and purer still ; thus the love of children for their
parents, of a wife for her husband, of a mother for her chil-
dren, must be relegated into the second rank. This is what
Christ meant when He said, " Every one that hath forsaken
' houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife,
' or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an
' hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life."
The tie at present existing in these cases is magnetic, and
the rapport which constitutes it is direct. This direct rap-
port must be broken, which is a most painful process, as it
involves a certain amount of atomic dislocation. Between
husbands and wives, where this is sometimes of a very inti-
mate kind, the suffering caused seems almost unbearable ;
X
322 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
but I can assure those who have the courage to make the
attempt, from personal experience, that a satisfaction will
come later, that will more than compensate for any suffering
that may be thus incurred. The woman who would convey
the right kind of love to those she loves must make it pass
through Christ. She must detach her affections from the
beloved object, and attach them to Him. She is aided in
doing this by the chain of saints who connect her with Him.
Her love, thus purified, passes back again to earth through
the same channel to the loved one here, who begins to feel
conscious of a totally different quality in it, and whose im-
pulse it is to return it by the same channel ; for if it is a
man, he also can come into relations with Christ by a similar
chain, and be acted upon as to his affections by the same
process ; but this he must do under female guidance.
When once the new magnetic tie is established between
earthly man and woman, they are in a position to co-operate
, together in their struggle after purity ; for, in both cases, this
conjoint male and female co-operation is an essential prelimin-
ary to receiving the complete angelic atomic overlay. It may
last a lifetime, or it may be accomplished in a comparatively
brief period. This depends upon the condition of the atomic
particles, which vary in every one, according to temperament,
the modifications they may have undergone by the habits of
a lifetime, their inherited character, and many other causes,
r which operate in life to create organic changes. But in every
case, so far as my present experience testifies, a long period is
necessary of entire suppression of all passional instincts, and
of abstinence from indulgence in them. There are plenty of
persons in the world to carry out its peopling, without those
who have decided to enter upon this struggle after renovated
life-currents, contributing to the population with their old
ones. A pause is absolutely necessary before a new depart-
ure, and it is not for us to judge how long that pause may
be. One thing, however, is quite certain, it must last until
the overlay is completed, and that cannot commence until
much preparatory work has been gone through, not only in
the purification of the sex-magnetisms, but in all those which
have been superinduced by social contact, general environ-
ment, and the pursuits and habits of a lifetime. In many
woman's mission. 323
cases the work of preparation has been progressing, uncon-
sciously to the person in whom it is taking place, during a
long course of years, and will account for much suffering
which seemed cruel and superfluous at the time. Indeed it
may be remarked, parenthetically, that all losses, sorrows, ill-
nesses, or suffermg, moral or physical, are designed to convey
lessons, and can be turned to most valuable account by those
who regard them in that light.
There are many women who, on reading these lines, will
feel that they appeal to an inner sense, which will at once
make response, but who are so hedged in by the circumstances
of their surroundings, so entangled by family and other com-
plications, that it seems absolutely impossible for them to
give effect to their aspirations, or to enter upon the mission
which they instinctively feel is their true one, and to which
they would gladly at all costs dedicate their lives and energies.
Let such take comfort ; if their present duties and position
render the abandonment of home-ties impossible in a world
as yet unable to appreciate their sense of what their liighest
aspirations demand, it is because they themselves are not
ready, and because further preparatory work has yet to be
accomplished. This internal preparation any earnest woman
can continue for herself, no matter what the complications
which fetter her freedom of action may be. Trials will be
sent her, duties imposed upon her, and sorrows encompass
her about, in which she will find her discipline, if she only
looks for it. She must kiss the rod, remembering that it is
not sent to chastise her in the way of punishment, but to
purify her affections and to fortify her will. She has got to
learn the important lesson of self-reliance, and to accustom
herself to the thought that in this great new moral departure
upon which the world is entering, it is she, and not the man,
who must lead the way ; it is she who must be his strength,
and not he hers, as he has hitherto been. She must give up
leaning upon liim, and learn to support him ; it is she wlio
must supply him witli courage, endurance, and aspiration.
Even his intelligence he must derive from her, though she
knows it not ; for he draws from her unconsciously tlie
elements necessary to complete his own, as well as tlie
energies whicli shall enable 1dm to give practical effect to
324 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
the ideas thus derived. And yet she must not consider her-
self upon this account in any way superior to man, but simply
the complementary half of his being — she having inherently
in herself none of the faculties which would enable her to
grapple successfully with the problems of life, or to organise
the reconstruction of society upon that new basis, which alone
can be accomplished by her supplying man with the materials
for the purpose.
At present women are reversing this process, and, by reason
of their absorptive capacities, are unconsciously draining man
of the elements of his moral and executive faculties. By this
inverted method of procedure, they are enabled to compete
with more or less success in the intellectual and executive
paths of life ; but in the degree in which they succeed in this,
do they stunt and destroy their own higher faculties, and in-
terpose a barrier which will close the avenues to the descent
of the Divine Feminine. This practice is much to be depre-
cated ; and those colleges for the higher education of women,
which attract a certain class of the sex, are nurseries of
hybrids, which turn out an inferior species of man-woman.
They promote evolution utterly in the wrong direction.
Woman must evolve in the realm of her affections, which is
especially her kingdom, and develop those faculties, which are
essentially hers, for the aid of man ; and man must evolve
in his own empire of thought, and develop those which are
essentially his, for the aid of humanity at large. In no
case should either sex invade each other's territory in a
struggle for any personal advantage, or in a spirit of rivalry ;
but the two should always be found fighting side by side
for the universal good, in a spirit of mutual love and co-
j^ operation.
It has been said that the circumstances of each case are
different. No rule, therefore, can be laid down for the guid-
ance of those who are desirous of opening themselves to the
Divine Feminine, beyond the general principle of individual
training and discipline above stated. But it may be remarked
that though this discipline is always attended with more or
less suffering, this varies much in degree ; and there are those
who have become conscious of the divine descent, whose
FEMININE EVOLUTION. 325
atomic condition was such, that the change in the elements
could be effected without any of tliat acute pain which attends
the process in other instances.
In order, however, to understand how this consciousness
manifests itself, it will be necessary to enter upon a con-
sideration of the next stage of feminine evolution, as bearing
not only upon her own development, but also upon the new
and higher conditions which await the advancing man.
326
CHAPTER XX.
METHOD OF THE DESCENT OF THE DIVINE FEMININE — AND OF ITS RE-
CEPTION BY WOMAN — THE SYMPNEUMA — INTRODUCTION OF THE
DIVINE FEMININE INTO THE WORLD, THROUGH THE BIRTH, LIFE,
DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND ASCENSION OF CHRIST — THE OUTPOUR-
ING ON THE DISCIPLES ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST — THE SYMPNEU-
MATIC CONSCIOUSNESS.
The two dogmas of the Churches of Christendom that operate
most powerfully against the descent of the Divine Feminine,
which now seeks to impart its purifying and regenerating
influence to the " Bride, the Lamb's wife," are the atonement
as popularly understood, and the Trinity ; for it is mainly to
these dogmas that the present debased and degraded condition
of the religious instinct is due. I have already shown the
fatal effect which such a thoroughly false conception of the
Deity as that which the doctrine of a propitiatory sacrifice
of the just for the unjust presents, must exercise upon His
worshippers.
The dogma of the Trinity, according to the theology of
Christendom, operates no less injuriously, though in a differ-
ent way. Its tendency is to confuse the faculty of spiritual
perception to such an extent, that it is extremely difficult for
those who have incorporated it into their religious belief, to
apprehend the true nature of God.
It was, in fact, a dogma projected, from a lower source than
that which inspired Arius, into the mind of Athanasius, and
the majority of the Council which supported him, in the
earlier part of the fourth century after Christ ; but it is not
to be found even in the external sense of the New Testament,
though insidious attempts have been made to introduce it ;
DESCENT OF THE DIVINE FEMININE. 327
as, for instance, in the seventh verse of the fifth chapter of
the First Epistle of St John, which was such an evident inter-
polation that it has been altogether omitted in the Revised
Version ; and in the manufacture of that strange expression,
"the Holy Ghost," which to the popular mind conveys a
somewhat different idea from the Spirit of God, partly owing
to the unwarrantable use of capitals where none are used
in the original, and partly to special occasions being selected
for its application.
There is no possible excuse for the word irvevfui being
sometimes translated " spirit " and sometimes " ghost," nor is
there the slightest reason for supposing that when Christ
commanded His disciples to baptise in the name of "the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," He was then, for the
first time, imposing upon them a triune God, in the sense
which has since been invented. The expression signified
God ; Humanity, as typified by Himself ; and the Spirit or
pneuma by which alone they could be united through
Hun.
The pneuma is, in fact, the spirit which conveys to man the
consciousness of the Divine Feminine, by a process presently
to be described, as it did to Christ when it descended upon
Him in the form of a dove ; and it is by its operation in the
organism of man, that the new revelation descends to him,
and conveys to him the fundamental truth that he is a
biune being in the service of a biune God, and that, until
he regains the lost image of his Maker, he can never be
reunited to Him.
In the first instance, the Divine Feminine descends to
woman, and the method of its descent is tlirough Christ,
masculine and feminine Himself, the biune Word. From
Him it descends through angelic pairs in the upper region of
the invisiljle world to pairs beneath them, becoming tempered
as it passes earthwards, till it reaches that pair which has
been divinely commissioned for its final transmission to the
woman on earth, in whom they have been labouring during
her preparatory and disciplinary stages, and with whom they
are in special structural atomic affinity.
When a suilicient change lias been effected in the gross
passional particles of lier nature, for physi-^al sensation to be
328 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
conveyed, she becomes conscious, for the first time, of a pecu-
liar vibratory motion in her nervous centres, affecting the
whole organism with thrills of exquisite delight, the abso-
lutely pure and divine character of which are quite unmis-
takable, if the work of preparation has not been unduly
hurried ; but inasmuch as it is in the power of human beings
who have not the necessary experience, or whose zeal outruns
their discretion, to precipitate results, too much care cannot
be taken in these early stages not to anticipate, by hypnotic
suggestion or otherwise, the divine process. Any human
interference with these is in the highest degree dangerous, as
advantage can be taken of it by the evil ones, who are on the
alert, and whose whole effort is to simulate these sensations
by others which are nearly allied to them, but which are
antagonistic in their operation, and which, if encouraged,
would end in terrible disaster.^ If, however, the perils by
the way are to daunt those who are prepared to sacrifice
themselves in the effort to purify and renew the human life-
currents, it would be better that they never entered upon the
struggle ; for, after reaching a certain stage, they will only
encounter greater dangers by turning back, than by pressing
forward. They need have no fear if the motive be kept
absolutely pure : it is better, by excess of daring, to risk
encountering a pitfall, than by excess of timidity to step
backwards into one. The outstretched hand is never short-
ened that it cannot save ; and however dexterously the snares
are concealed, they are always visible to the eyes illumined
by the light of love and faith.
Progress in this difficult path is zigzag. We advance by
the very force of our blunders, for they mean experience.
We first try in one direction, and finding that we are getting
off the track, we try another, till we are checked again by
some mistake, and so on ; but on looking back, we find we
have made progress : it is like tacking in the teeth of a gale
of wind, and it sometimes seems slow work, for often we may
lose a little way, but this is our own fault. We have failed
to keep up the incessant strain which the effort requires, have
^ The chronicles of tlie Roman Catholic Church contain numerous instances
of obsession, by Incubi and Succubi, of tlie nature here indicated, among its
devotees.
STRUGGLES AFTER PURITY. 329
thought we would run into some little harbour to take breath
and find shelter, only to discover that it was a pirate's cove,
and that our only safety was once more to face the storm ;
but when we feel quite exhausted, and a further combat with
the elements seems impossible, then, in the most unexpected
way, at the very crisis of our despair, laud appears, and we
are gently wafted into the harbour of refuge which has been
prepared for us, there to taste delights which compensate for
all our perils and fatigues — delights which are indescribable,
because they are the revelations of the divine mysteries, which
can only be understood by those who have, by long and arduous
effort, won their way to initiation into them. But of this
whosoever has tasted them feels sure, that they are divine, in
that they excite an all-absorbing desire of service, with an
all-embracing love of humanity ; and in that they convey an
ineffable sense of personal union with Christ, and a peace that
literally passes all understanding.
These are results that the e\dl ones cannot simulate —
though it is not impossible that the pioneers into this new and
unexplored land of the purest and loftiest affections, may have
tumbled into one of their traps. If so, they have gained an
experience which, however agonising it may have l^een at the
time, will be of great value when they have effected their
escape ; and, indeed, when they have reached a certain point,
they find that they have passed a whole class of dangers, and
can breathe again, and, like Christian in ' The Pilgrim's Pro-
gTess,' can go on their way rejoicing.
The woman, then, pursuing this upward path, encased in
tlie panoply of the purity slie has so long struggled for, and
vigilant at all points, boldly presses onwards, inspired by a
heroism which increases with every effort that she makes, and
radiant witli the ardours of new affections, which she feels
glowing witliin her.
With this fire of the new life burning in her, will dawn
upon her awakened consciousness the absolute conviction of
the duality of lier nature. She will know — not because it is
to be found in tlie J3ible — not because her reason suggests its
truth — but because her physical organism forces the fact
upon lier, that she is the feminine half of a twofold being,
and that her completion consists in union -vitli lier masculine
330 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
complement ; and as she progresses, that union will take form
in a manner which she cannot mistake, though it will remain
veiled from her who he is, whether he is in this visible world
or has passed away from it. This is kept a secret for her own
protection, for woman must be far advanced before she can
resist the tendency to imagine that he who is to be hers for
all eternity, and who was part of her from the first concep-
tion in the creative womb of the biune soul-germ, is not the
man she most loves or has loved on earth. This may or may
not be the case ; but she is not allowed to know it while he is
on this earth, although in rare cases, and for very special pur-
poses, it may be made known to others. When, however,
she has reached a certain stage of progress it may be revealed
to her, if he has passed away from it. In that case he will
himself reveal it to her, when her natural affections have
been so uplifted out of all personal desire that it is no longer
dangerous to her.
It is through the operation of the biune principle of the
divine affections, transmitted in the manner described to her
physical, moral, and psychical nature, that this consciousness
of the complementary being, whom we call the " Sympneuma,"
is attained ; and thus it is that the revelation of this sym-
pneuma is effected through the operation of the " pneuma "
or " spirit " of God, with which it is so absolutely identified,
that the union with the sympneuma seems identical with a
union with Christ ; and therefore it was that Saint Theresa,
Madame Guyon, and other devout persons, whose exceptional
temperament and organisation permitted of such revelations,
felt themselves to be brides of Christ. Such instances in
time past were very rare ; but, owing to the organic changes
which are taking place in the world, they are every day
becoming more common.
It is to the divine pneumatic operation, which can only be
effected by the channel provided by His organism, that Christ
alluded when He said, " But the helper, which is spirit, which
is holy, whom the Father will send in my name, it shall teach
you all things ; " and therefore it is said of Christ Himself,
that He was conceived of a holy spirit, because it was by this
" operation " that He was brought into being in the womb of
the Virgin. And so again He said, " But when the helper is
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH. 331
' come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the
' spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, it shall
' testify of me,"
The evidence that this divine biune descent is the spirit
of truth of whom He here speaks, is that it does most em-
phatically testify of Him in the organism of every one whom
it visits ; but the world could not receive it in His day, for
He tells His disciples, when they dreaded losing Him, that He
" will pray the Father, and He shall give you another helper,
' that it may abide with you for ever, even the spirit of truth ;
' whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth it not,
' neither knoweth it ; but ye know it, for it is abiding by
' your side, and shall be in you." And He explains that this
promise cannot be accomplished, unless He dies as to His
outer frame here, and passes into the invisible world : " Never-
' theless I tell you the truth ; it is expedient for you that I go
' away : for if I go not away, the helper will not come unto
' you ; but if I depart, I will send it unto you. And when it
' is come, it will convict the world of sin, and of righteous-
' ness, and of judgment."
We read of the partial fulfilment of this promise in the
account of the descent of the cloven tongues of fire in the
book of the Acts. It was necessary that Christ should die
first, because only by the dissolution of His outer frame could
the particles containing the Divine Feminine principle be dis-
triljuted, and atomic affinity established between them and
His disciples. " But ye know it," He says, " for it is abiding
by your side, and shall be in you." That is to say, whilst
Christ was still on eartli, abiding by the side of His disciples,
the pneuma, being in Him, was thus abiding by them ; after
His departure, the pneuma, emanating from Him, should
enter into and be in them. The atomic rapport was theirs
whilst He spoke ; but the combination consequent on that
raiyport could not be effected, until the particles of His own
frame had been liberated, and those who were most conscious
of this rapport were the women who clung to Him to the
last, and especially that one woman who early felt the pure
attraction of the peculiar magnetism with which He was
endowed, and wliom, wlien she anointed His feet, with a
divinely inspired prescience of the change peculiar to it which
332 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
His body was to undergo during interment, He commended to
all who should believe in Him, saying, " Wheresoever this
' Gospel shall be preached throughout the world, there shall
' also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial
' of her." It was no wonder, then, that she was not only the
first to see Him, but also to speak to Him in His subsurface
body, when she was attracted in the early morning to His
sepulchre, and when He said, " Touch me not, for I am not
yet ascended to my Father ; " for her organism could not have
borne the contact, while His needed translation into the higher
sphere, before He could allow the elements it contained to
stream forth upon man.
The significance of the descent of the cloven tongues has
never been recognised by the Churches, owing to their dark-
ened condition as to the nature and functions of the Holy
Spirit ; and even the disciples themselves did not fully appre-
hend it. Peter saw in it the fulfilment of the prophecy of
Joel, which had reference not to that manifestation, but to the
evolutionary epoch upon which we are now entering. It is
evident, from the epistles in the New Testament and the
writings of the period which have been handed down to us,
that the general impression among the disciples at this time
was, that the final catastrophe was at hand ; and that the
second coming of Christ was to occur within the lifetime of
some of them. This appears very strongly in the 3d chapter
of the Second Epistle of Peter, and in some of the writings
of Paul. It was based upon the statement that Christ made
to some of those to whom He was speaking, that they should
not taste of death until they should see the Son of man com-
ing in His kingdom ; and again, upon His promise, just before
His crucifixion, that " in a little while '' they would see Him
again.
The apparently miraculous powers that accompanied the
manifestation of the cloven tongues confirmed this impression ;
though these were the results, under natural law, which must
of necessity have attended the introduction of this new vital
energy into the organisms of such of the disciples as had been
prepared, by daily magnetic contact with Christ, to receive it ;
and we are told that when the disciples asked Christ, " Wilt
Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ? " He said.
THE FIRST ADVENT. 333
" It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father
hath settled on His own authority."
In point of fact, the promises of Christ in regard to the
advent of the " helper," as preceding His own coming, had
reference to two separate events. The one was the initiation
of His great work ; the other, its accomplishment. This great
work was not, as has been before remarked, His death upon
the cross as a " propitiation " for our sins, but His death,
burial, resurrection, ascension, and descent upon His dis-
ciples in fiery potency. It was in the sequence of these
events that the distribution of the atomic particles of His
biune nature could be accomplished, and the elements of the
Divine Feminine could be incorporated into the organism
of man.
Each of these events contained a mystery, too profound to
be entered upon at length here. By His death — and each
account of it contains an interior signification, which I may
perhaps be permitted to write about at some future time — He
distributed the atomic elements of the Divine Feminine into
nature. By His burial, He was enabled to descend into the
lower unseen region of our universe, and distribute them
there ; for its redemption would be impossible, unless atomic
affinity had been established between the particles of visible
and those of invisible nature. By His resurrection He came
into physical relations with His disciples, and thus was
enabled magnetically and inseverably to attach His sub-
surface body to their grosser organisms. Without this the
descent of the pneuma would have been impossible. By His
ascension. He inaugurated a new method of translation from
the visible to the invisible world, and became the first-fruits
of them that slept. And by His descent on the day of Pen-
tecost, He completed His first mission to earth.
The internal meaning of the manifestation which took
place when the disciples were gathered together, fully ex-
plains its nature. The " sound from heaven as of a rushing
mighty wind " signifies the new spiritual birth of those who
came unrler its influence ; the necessity and character of this
spiritual Ijirtli was explained by Christ when He said, " Mar-
' vel not that I said unto thee. Ye must be born again. The
' wind bloweth where it listetli, and thou liearest the sound
334 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it
' goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
The " cloven tongues, like as of fire," were cloven to sym-
bolise the two -in -one nature of the principle they repre-
sented; they were of fire, because that principle was the
ardour of bisexual potency ; and they were in the form of
tongues, because the "Word" itself was thus manifested.
This was the fulfilment of Christ's promise, that His disciples
should see Him again, although it was stated so enigmatically
that they were mystified. " And they said therefore. What is
this that He saith, A little while ? We cannot tell what He
saith." And it was plain that He perceived that they mis-
understood his explanation, for He said, at the end of it,
"These things have I spoken to you in proverbs: but the
time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in pro-
verbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father." That
time came to them when they passed away from the earth ;
it is coming to us now.
Had the apostles and these disciples understood that the
cloven tongues contained a far deeper meaning than the fac-
ulty they acquired of speaking in foreign languages, healing
the sick, prophesying, and so forth, and had they perceived, in
the new forces they thus acquired, the principle of the Divine
Feminine operating through them, as it had through Christ,
they would not so soon have lost their powers, which scarcely
lasted their lives and those of their immediate followers.
But though the outward manifestation of its potency dis-
appeared, the great work of Christ — the planting of the divine
spjirk of that fire of love for the race, with which He burned,
in the human organism — had been accomplished; and it is
because it has been kindling and burning ever since, that men
are now beginning to feel its heat, and to know what that heat
means.
So it is that much that must have been obscure to the
disciples, is, by the light of this revelation, made plain to us.
As, for instance, when he says, " I have yet many things to
' say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit
' when the Spirit of truth is come, it will guide you into all
' truth : for it shall not speak of itself ; but whatsoever it shall
' hear, that shall it speak : and it will show you things to come.
THE SYMPNEUMA. 335
' It shall glorify me ; for it shall receive of mine, and shall
' show it unto you." This passage refers to the method of
inspiration which reaches man through the " operation " of
the spirit of truth, which reveals the existence of the Sym-
pneuma, and by virtue of that revelation opens to him an
avenue of inspiration which he never before possessed ; there-
fore Christ says of the spirit, " It shall not speak of itself ;
but whatsoever it shall hear, that shall it speak " — that is,
inspiration will be adapted to the recipient through the
appointed channel. " For it shall receive of mine, and shall
show it unto you," signified that this biune principle, oper-
ating between the pair in the invisible world, and the per-
son acted upon by them on earth, reveals to that person the
Sympneuma. So Christ is glorified in the spirit of truth
or the " helper." And so of all His other promises and pro-
phecies, of which His disciples expected to see the fulfilment ;
we see them in the descent of the Divine Feminine by the
operation of the " helper," and they come as an individual
revelation to the heart of every one that is open to it. The
sign of the times in which we live, and of the end of this
dispensation of darkness, which is popularly called " the end
of the world," is to be found in the fact that this is the com-
mencement of the great era of personal revelation.
Therefore when Christ " was demanded of the Pharisees,
' when the kingdom of God should come, He answered
' them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with obser-
' vation : neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, lo there ! for,
' behold, the kingdom of God is within you."
When, by the operation of the Pneuma, the Sympneuma
is revealed to woman by atomic contact with the pair in the
invisible world divinely commissioned for the purpose, she
becomes conscious of an immense increase of faculty, and
this lies chiefly in the direction of correcting the faults of
her nature which she was unable to grapple with before.
Heretofore the experience of the most earnest and excellent
people has been that in spite of the energetic endeavours of
a lifetime, they have been unable to eradicate from their
natures their besetting sins. They accounted for this by the
fact of all sin being " original," and in this they were
right, for it was an inherited taint of virus from the fallen
336 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
world, projected through the animal creation into this one ;
and they comforted themselves by the reflection that it was
washed out in the blood of the Lamb, and in this, again,
they were right, for it is by the distribution of the atomic
elements of the Di^dne Feminine contained in His blood, that
the redemption of both the visible and invisible worlds has
become possible.
The great work of Christ was to bring the Divine
Feminine within reach of every human being here, and this
the woman is the first to find out when the Sympneuma is
revealed to her, because that revelation brings to her con-
sciousness the biune principle through which she derived
her life, even when she was unconscious of it; but it is
not until she becomes conscious of it that she is taught how
to employ its vigours for the expulsion of her own evils —
indeed those evils cannot be fully revealed to her until then.
I am alluding exclusively to woman, because I shall treat of
man separately in his new relation to her. It was to her that
the revelation contained in this book was first made, and it
is upon her that the responsibility is laid of first evolving
in accordance with the principles which she derives from it.
Not only does she acquire new powers of introspection, new
weapons for combat, and new dexterity in using them, but
she acquires also increased capacity of subsurface vision,
increased intelligence for understanding what she sees, in-
creased potency of sympathy, and increased ingenuity in dis-
covering methods by which that sympathy can be imparted
to encourage, to support, and to uplift.
I will here quote some words which my wife dictated to
me on this subject before leaving this world : —
" "Woman will soon be called to deep and solemn duties,
' in which nothing can take the place of her own effort, for
' she must, all alone, in her appointed time and place, bear
' the consciousness of the growing Word of God within the
' inner frame, that forms as Sympneumata unite. She must,
' for this end, stand in isolation from all the currents of the
' outer world ; she will soon stand in sweetest contact with
' the currents of the heavens.
" The woman who is becoming sensitive to sympneumatic
' life, need change in nothing of her ministrations of hand
THE MYSTEKY OF WOMANHOOD. 337
and head, so far as she gives out life, thought, pity ; but let
her not dare to take in aught from friend or world — only
and alone from the life of the higher beings whom God brings
now to those who seek to rise. Every thought of the natural
man or woman, not yet instructed in the heavenly education,
is poison to her mind ; every highest feeling in them, is now
insufficient as food for her aspirations. She must case herself
with steel against the whole mental, moral, and physical
movement of Kfe around her, for it is positive and literal
death to her, and to the growing formation within her frame,
which is the tender sweet growth of the Beloved One, from
whose presence opens all the being to the influences of the
great Two-in-One.
" Great pity should be felt towards those called to minister
to others in their incipient stages of growth, and who have
learnt to stand in the region of the forming beings, as to
deeper consciousness ; but who suffer into ' outmosts ' from
every variation in the states of those they are called upon
to uplift and to encircle, and with whom the rejection of
the growth into highest life would now be almost death ;
because their love seeks to flow out towards their charge,
and any unwillingness to open the whole organism to
that love, whether conscious or unconscious, tortures and
crucifies.
" Of inner laws which women must know for themselves,
there are these : however deep within the nature that point
may be at which occurs an interchange of love — that is, life
— between the closest bound of souls, fraternally, conjugally,
or otherwise, in the case of the woman there remains beyond,
a depth into which man can never penetrate ; — in that
' within ' she is eternally alone with God.
" What she knows within that depth is for ever to man a
myster)', save for what God, for ends of service, instructs
her to set forth ; but it can never be known to man except
through woman. In the deep and inward man-woman
union of pure essences, she touches God herself : througli
whatever atomic chain of beings this union is effected, man
touches God tlirough lier.
" Hence arises a most solemn science, in which she must
Y
338 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' be educated now by the wisdom of the angelic womanhood,
* — for without her understanding it, men cannot be saved.
' The inner life- currents of God, which are the interior spirit
' and power of all others, pass out through the woman's form
' radiating from her centre, to which no other life-currents
' can have access but the divine one. She is properly and
' only a radiative orb, and her life is passed immediately into
' the enveloping outer form of herself, — her Sympneuma ; and
' then mediately, by countless methods of distribution, into
' the universe at large.
" Let woman, with spirit consecrated to the Holy One who
' first designs to love and visit her, seek for her world-service
' that it may no longer be hourly violated, as it is now, by
' every method and custom of the man-womanhood of the
' race."
Much more could be written on this subject, but this is
not the place to say it ; nor would it be appropriate, except
to those who have given proofs of their devotion and sincerity
by passing successfully through those earlier trials which
no human will can impose upon them, but which, in the
course of the divine training, they may be called upon to
encounter.
Enough has been said to appeal to the nobler instincts of
every pure woman ; for those instincts must be revolted by
the relations which she bears to man under existing condi-
tions. It needed not this book to tell her that they must be
the result of a foul inversion ; that, though the source from
which the generative principle of life emanated, is infinitely
pure, its current has been perverted. The maiden shrinking
which many an innocent girl feels at the prospect of marriage,
is a testimony to the fact that the animalism which has de-
graded the union which her purer nature craves, to one she
dreads, is not what was originally intended, but that it has
become corrupted through an infernal and poisonous element
which has been introduced into it, and which it is her function
now to expel. If the picture which I have attempted to
draw of woman's present position, and of her relation to man,
may seem harsh in some respects, it is not to discourage
her, but to stimulate her to redeem that position, and to re-
WOMAN, THE SAVIOUR OF MAN. 339
form those relations; and my experience of the patience,
the courage, the fortitude, and the heroism of woman, con-
vinces me that this appeal will not only find a responsive
echo in her breast, but will rouse her to exertions which will
finally culminate in triumph. It can only be by her efforts
that man can be lifted from the slough of ignorance and
sensuality into which she first dragged him, and where he
now tramples upon her.
140
CHAPTER XXL
THE SYMPNEUMATIC DESCENT — ITS INFERNAL SIMULATION — THE FUNC-
TION OF BISEXUAL ATOMS — CONTACT "WITH PNEUMATIC CENTRES —
SOCIAL CONVENTIONALITIES IMPEDE MALE AND FEMALE CO-OPERA-
TION — INSANE DELUSIONS — THE RELATION OF CHRIST TO MAN
THROUGH WOMAN ILLUSTRATED BY ST PAUL — KABBALISTIC INTER-
PRETATIONS.
It is about fourteen years ago since the consciousness of
the sympneumatic presence was first awakened — in the or-
ganism of a devout pure-minded woman of about sixty-five
years of age, who has now passed away — in its present ful-
ness, and as the inauguration of a new revelation on the
subject ; for, although history from a very remote period
records visitations somewhat similar in character, which
degenerated into the most filthy and obscene mysteries, and
though they have been known in later times, as in the cases
I have already cited, as well as in infernal obsessions, the
time had not arrived for such manifestations to be understood,
and they were too full of danger to be jDermitted, except under
very special conditions. Now, however, they have become
absolutely necessary to counteract the invasive sex-current,
which has already begun to work much mischief among
persons of sensitive temperament, especially in spiritual-
istic circles ; many of whom are under the impression that
their experiences are from celestial sources, and who will
only find out the grievousness of their mistake when it is
too late.
Theology and science alike are powerless to grapple with
this danger ; the former denounces it as of the devil, — which
is true, but which carries no con\dction to the mind of the
subject, who probably does not believe in a devil, or who may
i
A HIDDEN DANGEK. 341
easily mistake him for an angel of light, and who feels that
his clerical adviser is merely using a Church formulary, and
is probably utterly ignorant of the whole matter so far as his
personal investigation is concerned.
Indeed, the class of persons among whom these experiences
occur, as a rule keep them profoundly secret : they are con-
stantly increasing, however, both in England and America,
especially in the latter country, and statistics on the subject,
could they be obtained, would astonish the sceptical, and
afford an extensive field of operations for the Psychical Ee-
search Society, who, nevertheless, would escape from the di-
lemma in which they would be placed, by the easy expedient
of calling them subjective ; a term which explains nothing.
Science is, of course, powerless to meet the evil : for, in the
first place, it denies that it exists ; and, in the second, if it
was forced upon its notice, it would be explained by some
long word, of which neither those who invented it, nor any-
body else, would understand the meaning. It will not 136
possible, however, much longer to maintain the reticence
which has hitherto been observed on the subject, as the effect
upon the human organism is sooner or later certain to pro-
duce physical or mental disturbance. This has already been
the case in numerous instances ; and if medical men do not
talk of them, it is either because the cause has been concealed
by the patient, or because it is regarded as merely the result
of a cerebral disturbance instead of its origin.
But neither priests nor doctors will be able to stem the
tide as it grows in volume : it is a bane which can only be
met by its antidote ; and as it is the result of the direct opera-
tion of invisible beings from the nether region of our own
world, it must be met by the direct operation of invisible
Ijcings from the upper one. Persons must therefore be found
who will brave the dangers, suspicions, ridicule, or obloquy
with which they will be assailed in their attempt to acquire
the powers that will not only enable tliem to beat back this
invading iniluence, but to draw down into the world such
currents of divine purity as shall cleanse the foul magnetisms
which taint all social and domestic relations, and to which all
the miseries and woes of linmanity are primarily due.
Almost immediately on the sympneumatic descent, above
342 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
alluded to, taking place, many persons — myself and wife
among the number — became conscious of it. During the
fourteen years which have elapsed since then, new develop-
ments have occurred ; but the time had not come until now
to give to the world the manner in which these have taken
form in my mind, under the influences which have directed
this statement, although, three years ago, some conchisions
and explanations arrived at then were given, as far as possible,
in the book called ' Sympneumata,' the method of production
of which I have described in the fourth chapter of this book.
It deals exclusively with the practical bearing of this new
advent upon the fortunes of the race, and I would earnestly
recommend it to the perusal of such of my readers as may
have had their interest sufiiciently aroused by the subject
treated of, to follow me thus far.^
A few words, however, are necessary to explain, so far as
language enables me to do so, the difference between pneu-
matic-atomic interlocking and pneumatic-atomic combination ;
the former being the special characteristic of sympneumatic
contact, as contradistinguished from the only contact which
has been heretofore possible between man and the beings in
the unseen.
I have already alluded to the difference which exists be-
tween sentient and non-sentient or moral atoms ; if I have
shrunk from entering more fully into the subject, it is not
because I feared the mockery and ridicule which this book is
certain to evoke, but because I did fear that if I made too great
a demand upon the credulity of my readers, many, who might
be disposed to accept some of the truths which I feel it con-
tains, would reject them if they were called upon to believe too
much. As I cannot offer them any proof for what I am about
to state, I do not ask them to believe it, but merely to assume
it as a possible hypothesis, just as they have assumed Dar-
win's hypothesis as to the origin of man.
The fact, then, which has been so clearly shown to me in
regard to these moral atoms that I cannot doubt it myself, is,
as I have already said, that they are all sentient beings, and
that they correspond in appearance to the moral qualities
^ Sympneumata ; or, Evolutionary Forces now Active in Man. William
Blackwood & Sons.
BISEXUAL ATOMS. 343
which they represent. Thus, all those representing virtues
are exquisitively beautiful, whilst those which correspond to
%dces are monstrously hideous. We have a faint analogy to
this in terrestrial insect life. A great variety, again, are of a
mixed character : the elements of which they are composed
form combinations according to structural affinity, and the
result upon man is an infinite variety of complex emotions,
violent passions, lofty aspirations, and, in fact, all that goes
to make up what we call character and temperament.
Those corresponding to the purest and most celestial attri-
butes are in pairs, representing man's original dual nature ;
but these exquisitely formed bisexual beings were unable to
make their abode in man until he himself had become open
to the divine bisexual life, or, in other words, until he be-
came prepared by Christ's work on earth, for sympneumatic
consciousness. They were expelled from man when he was
expelled from Eden, and enfolded in the all-sheltering embrace
of the Divine Feminine, where they remained protected until
the time arrived when they were once again to be let down
into a human organism. They made their advent into the
world through the womb of the Virgin, in the person of
Christ, and after His death were distributed into nature, on
the occasion of the descent of the cloven tongues. Since then
they have been incessantly labouring in the human organism,
endeavouring to arrange themselves, like particles in an iron
bar, under the influence of Christ the Divine Magnet. This
process, however, had first to be accomplished through a long
series of beings in the invisible world ; and these bisexual
atoms form, in fact, the medium of transmission of the divine
sympneumatic potency to earth. It is only, however, since
that potency has been active in man, that it has been possible
for him to transmit them to other organisms. These infinitesi-
mal biune innocencies are in human form, and the fact of their
existence was one of the secrets known to the ancients, and was
lianded down by tradition by tliem. They only form a trans-
mitting chain for the divine vigours when they are in conjugal
union, and hence they differ from the chain formed by atomic
coml^ination, wliere the union is not bisexual, but according
to affinity. This statement may jjcrhaps not seem so fantastic
to scientific men as to the world at large, for they are familiar
344 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
with the idea of the generation of human life by means of
infinitesimal li\dng entities in the vital fluid, and of disease
by microbes, whicli propagate in tlie human organism, and with
the fact that certain diseases thus produced affect the moral
character and temperament, rendering persons violent, irri-
table, melancholy, nervous, and so forth. Thus vices may, in
the first instance, be sometimes traced to the action of animal-
culre, of which there are in fact three classes — those which
are atomically connected with the structure of the outer
organism, those which are atomically in affinity with the
psychic organism, and those which actually form the atoms
of the pneumatic organism.^
I must here insert an explanation which would have ap-
peared more appropriately on page 162, with regard to the
method of the approach of the highest form of inspiration
into the pneumatic centre of the human organism, as con-
1 With regard to the transmission of thought, which is one of the results of
this atomic combination, I am confirmed in my contention that the trans-
mitting force has its origin in the invisible world by the following passage
from a remarkable pamphlet published since this book was WTitten, by a
French writer, entitled, ' Esquisse d'une Demonstration Scientifique de I'Exist-
ence de la Vie Future. Suivie d'une courte appreciation des consequences
qu'aurait sur la Litterature et les Arts une demonstration complete (Geologie,
Magnetisme, Hypnotisme, Generation, &c. ) : par P. C. Revel. ' Taking as his
basis the axiom that effects which are similar to each other are due to causes
which are similar to each other, he remarks that if we apply this law to thought-
transmission, we arrive at this remarkable result : —
" The visible brain is the instrument of an invisible body, in which reside
' memory, intelligence, will, or, in other words, the faculties termed intellectual.
' In fact, physiology teaches us that intelligent phenomena have the brain as
' their point of departure. Now, in experiments of thought-transmission, the
' intelligent phenomena which the magnetised person exhibits, have for their
' cause, as experience unquestionably demonstrates, the influence of the mag-
' netiser.
" Therefore the brain of the person magnetised is the instrument of the mag-
' netiser. But we have said effects which are similar to each other are due to
' causes which are similar to each other, from which we conclude that the
' brain in its ordinary condition is the instrument of a particular body belonging
' to the invisible world, which body acts upon the brain, in the same manner
' that the magnetiser himself acts in his experiment upon the brain of the
' magnetised person."
Monsieur Revel then points out that the diflference between the action of the
brain of the magnetiser and magnetised person is more apparent than real, and
arrives at the conclusion that tliis forms a complete refutation of the theory
which establishes the visible human brain as the sole direct cause of the effects
produced.
CONTACT WITH PNEUMATIC CENTRES. 345
trasted with the disorderly inspirational approach towards
that centre from the circumference. In the latter case all
the defences of the human pneuma are broken through by
the current which invades the organism from an invisible
source, resulting in those psychic phenomena with which we
have lately been familiar, and which are attracting increasing-
attention. In the other case, the human will, which is the
central and most potent principle of the human pneuma,
attracts by the force of its aspiration, when it is fixed in the
service of God and humanity, the divine potency with which
it is in affinity. It is owing to this attraction that persons
who rise in prayer to the highest states of devotion, receive
what they feel to be answers to their supplications, and are
inspired thereby to great acts of religious fervour and hero-
ism ; but these do not break down any of the barriers which
guard the inmost shrine, but reach it subtly and silently, by
reason of its elevation, by long psychic and corporal discipline ;
fortifying rather than otherwise those defences through which
they have so mysteriously penetrated. This faculty of per-
meation is due to the composition and nature of the sentient
atoms of which the purest and loftiest inspirations are com-
posed. Once lodged in the inmost centre of the human
structure, they press outwards towards the circumferences of
it, transmuting the atomic particles, first of the pneumatic
dialectric, then of the psyche, then of the psychic dialectric,
then of the natural body, and finally of the sphere which sur-
rounds the natural body, thus rej)elling disorderly invasion,
and slowly but surely, if the human will is vigorously co-
operating, making all things new.
There is no greater mistake than to suppose that human
organisms which are called "sensitive" — or which, in other
words, are mediumistic — are in more favourable conditions of
receptivity to the divine touch, than those which are organic-
ally dense, and closed to psychic influences. On the contrary,
the latter expand from tlie centre more perfectly, and develop
into more powerful pneumatic batteries than those where the
external breaches have first to be repaired. On the other
hand, this latter class of organism has its advantages when
those breaches have once Ijcen repaired, and can Ijc used for
purposes for wliicli the previous class is not adapted. All
346 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
have tlieir special functions, and all can co-operate in the great
service which should be dear to them. But it is most im-
portant that those who desire to be engaged in this service,
should not imagine that they are qualifying themselves for it
by what is usually termed " developing their sensitiveness."
They should seek rather to close it to all external psychic in-
fluence. Hence, I repeat, and I cannot insist upon this too
strongly, that all dabbling in spiritualism, hypnotism, and
what is called magic, or experiments in occultism, is attended
with serious danger to the progress of the soul, which can
only safely develop under the direct operation of the spirit of
God acting upon its will-centre, through the channels pro-
vided for it, and more especially through that new and power-
ful sympneumatic descent which, in these latter days, has
been vouchsafed to the world, to reinforce the will, purify the
affections, and arm for the fray those who have decided to
invoke its energies, that they may become instruments in the
divine hand for the restitution of all things.
I have alluded to the pneumatic organism ; by it I mean
the spirit which abides in the soul of man. Pneumatic
atoms form the battery which acts upon psychic atoms.
It is not possible for sympneumatic force to act upon man
upwards from the lower invisible world, because there is
no bisexual transmitting chain ; but it is possible for earth
contact to exist with that world by pneumatic-atomic com-
bination, and j)romiscuous unions are used for that purpose.
The communications which have reached the world in the
form of revelations have depended for their value and char-
acter, not only upon the pureness and elevation of the
earthly recipient, but also of the atomic beings, because
they represent the nature of the invisibles from which they
emanated.
When, however, two human beings occupy sympneumatic
relations to each other on this earth, without being conscious
of it, there is always the danger of their both falling under
delusions — even after they have been opened sympneumatically
to the divine descent — and being deceived by infernal simula-
tions. The result in this case is very disastrous, for they still
remain magnets, and for some time they can be used as such
by the infernal agencies. Not for long, however, for the
SOCIAL CONVENTIONALITIES. 347
effect of the disorderly contact into which they are now
brought, must surely demagnetise them, and, although they
may still remain powerful media for infernal spiritual influx,
the special quality which carries conviction to the hearts of
men will be wanting, and sooner or later they will become
powerless. During the period of their obsession they re-
main more or less insane, but as their mediumistic faculty
dies out, their moral balance gradually reasserts itself, and
they may be restored to the sympneumatic consciousness they
lost, if not in this life, in the next.
The main obstacle to the rapid evolution of sympneumatic
life in the world is to be found in its existing social con-
ditions, and the conventionalities which have sprung from
them. These are naturally based upon the perfectly correct
hypothesis, that man is such an essentially impure creature
that it is dangerous to leave two persons of opposite sexes
alone together in a room ; while if they should happen to travel
for a couple of days upon the most sacred mission, the vilest
suspicions are aroused. This surrounds the co-operation of
any man or woman, unless they happen to be married, with
the gravest difficulty. It was right and proper that this
should be so, for these conventionalities are the result of the
experience which gave rise to them, and which furnishes all
the evidence required to prove that a society in wliich they
are needed, is quite incapable of criticising the motives and
actions of those who have sought and achieved a purity of
whicli it knows nothing, after long and arduous struggles of
a kind to which it is a stranger, and which have lasted over
a long period of years.
I say advisedly that the world is ignorant of the nature of
this purity, because I liave never heard of, nor read of, nor
met with, organic conditions such as may be induced by the
special training Ijy which alone it can be acquired. Yet, to
attain to it has been a motive by whicli tlie highest and
purest men and women that tlie world has known, have been
inspired; but they sought it in seclusion and aljstiuence, and
the coldness and deadness which they attained, they called
purity. Wliereas the higliest purity means lieat and life. It
is not the extinction of tlie generative principle within us,
but its restoration to divine conditions. Men and women
348 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
can never find purity by keeping apart from one another ;
they must train for it together. And this training is of such
a nature as to cause a suffering far more acute than all the
self-imposed rigours and penances of monks and nuns. It
may consist of a variety of disciplines — as, for instance, when
two young people, who are both in quest of this pearl of great
price, and who are passionately attached to each other, feel
that they must marry if they would win it, and yet never
know in this life what the marriage relation, as commonly
understood, is. Or it may consist in intimacies which, though
pure and innocent, are calculated to arouse jealousy in quar-
ters where it would be legitimate under ordinary circum-
stances, and excite suspicions which nothing but supreme faith
can banish ; to say nothing of other ordeals to be undergone,
which differ in each case, but are always of a character to try
most severely the peculiar quality of the temperament to
which they are applied. For the position of man in relation
to woman, in this particular struggle, is reversed. It is she
who, when she has herself attained to the consciousness of
sympneumatic life, must lead him to it. From first to last
he must be a passive instrument in her hands; under her
guidance he must crush out of his nature every instinct of
animal passion, and become dead to all the old sensations,
before he can become alive to the new.
The man who has undergone this training finally becomes
absolutely impervious to, and case - hardened against, the
subtle magnetisms which radiate from ordinary women. He
forgets at last what the emotion of being what is popularly
called " in love," was like ; no charms can captivate his outer
senses, no feminine sympathy, based on a mere personal
sentiment, can penetrate into that inmost shrine, which he
has dedicated to the worship of the Divine Feminine. His
reverence for woman has never stood so high as when woman
has become nothing to him personally, but everything to
humanity at large. His attachment to woman depends solely
upon her attachment to Christ as the universal Bridegroom,
and upon his deep internal tie with her as an indispensable
colleague and copartner in the stupendous mission which has
been imposed upon her.
Men and women who ]iave arrived at these new relations
MALE AND FEMALE CO-OPERATIOX. 349
towards each other, enjoy a happiness in them which com-
pensates for all the suffering they have undergone to reach it
— a happiness which would be shattered at a blow, if they
could be guilty of any such act of physical gratification as
the closeness of their external relations would justify the
world in attributing to them. And yet the progress of the
work in which they are engaged, involves an intimacy as
close as that between sister and sister, or mother and
daughter, and as pure ; for the needful interchanges of mag-
netism can only be effected by constant and close proximity,
by which new electro -magnetic forces can be generated,
sufficiently powerful to resist the invasion of the infernal
lust -currents which are now struggling to make an entry
into the world, through the organisms of "sensitives," who
are ignorant of the nature of the forces which are accom-
plishing their subjection. To rescue such, when their eyes
have been opened ; to close up the rupture in their odylic
sphere which has given entrance to the invading tainted
magnetic current ; and to restore them to physical health and
moral sanity, is one of the most blessed duties which devolves
upon those who are labouring in this new sphere of action ;
for it is one which medical science, with its present limita-
tions of ignorance and prejudice in such matters, is quite
unable to undertake.
But the co-operation of persons of opposite sexes, who have
attained to sympneumatic conditions, extends far beyond
this : they have undertaken no less a task than tlie recon-
struction of society from its foundations, upon the corner-
stones of purity and co-operation, which must begin by the
grouping of indiviihuils socially who are prepared to enter
upon it, under the conditions of self-sacrifice already described,
and wlio will have tlie courage to face the unlioly conjectures,
the bitter sneers, tlie unjust criticism, and the violent opposi-
tion, not only of the world at large, l)ut of their own friends
and families. Once again, the man or the woman who lias
determined to abandon the profession of being a Christian for
the reality, must be prepared to share the real Christian's fate ;
for the time has come, which was predicted by Christ when
His disciples asked, "What shall Ijc the sign when all these
things shall be fulfilled ? " and Jesus, answering them, began
350 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
to say, " Take heed lest any one deceive you ; for many shall
come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive
many." Those who have come in the name of Christ, and
have deceived many, are all the existing Churches and sects
in Christendom without exception ; until the conscience of
the whole civilised world has been drugged by their dogmas
and their formularies. The result of that conscience being
quickened, must inevitably lead to the overthrow of the ec-
clesiasticisms which have held it so long in bondage, and to
the discovery that the Christ whom they proclaimed was a
false one.
But inasmuch as the infernals are intrenched more
strongly in the Church than anywhere else, and can fight
against the true Church more effectively under the banner of
the false one than under any other, the hostility of the priest-
hood and ministry in all countries will be more bitter against
those who are struggling for purity, than that of any other
class. It will not be in music-halls or on race-courses that
this effort will be denounced, but in cathedrals and con-
venticles ; and the true Christ again will find His home, not
among the Scribes and Pharisees, but among the publicans
and sinners.
What is stranger still is, that, while materialists are treated
with comparative tolerance by these Christians and dignitaries
of the Church, who lavish the hiohest ecclesiastical honours
they can bestow upon the burial, and read funeral eulogies
over the grave, of the prophet of a No-God like Mr Darwin,
they will furiously resent the teaching of those who believe
that the mission of Christ was to introduce into the world the
purity of the Divine Feminine ; and they will traduce all
who should offer themselves, under a guidance which they
believe to be divine, to be the instruments for its introduction
to fallen man ; because it is not possible to do so without
violating the conventional relations of the sexes which im-
purity has established, and denouncing Churches which
cement adulterous marriages. But those who have received
the Sympneuma by the channel of Christ and the Holy
Pneuma need not fear, for He says : " Wlien they shall
' lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand
' what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate ; for what-
THE SYMPNEUMATIC CHRIST. 351
' soever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye : for
' it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Pneuma, Now the
' brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father
' the son ; and children shall rise up against their parents,
' and shall cause them to be put to death. And ye shall
' be hated of all men for my name's sake : but he that shall
' endure to the end, the same shall be saved."
That these prophecies did not refer alone to the persecu-
tions which the disciples were afterwards called upon to suffer,
is evident from the context.
The reason why the true Christ has been lost is, because
the Churches have never understood the full significance of
the fact that He alone, of all the world's great teachers and
regenerators, of all the founders of religion, was never mar-
ried, and preserved Himself wholly untainted as to the flesh.
This was because the true order of the relation which
should subsist between the sexes had been reversed by their
separation ; and as He contained enfolded within Himself His
own feminine complement, or Sympneuma, all other women
were to Him, like all other men, objects of liis disinterested
love and compassion. The restoration of the sympneumatic
union involves, sooner or later, the restoration of the divine
conditions of procreation ; but herein lies a great mystery, the
revelation of which is reserved for One who has retained the
Christ-like condition, concerning which it is not expedient to
write further at present than to say, that the period when
this revelation will be made does not seem very remote. But
before it can be made, it will be necessary for the two or three
who have passed away from this earth in full sympneumatic
consciousness, to be reinforced by the addition of others now
alive who have attained the same state.
As it was impossible for Christ to send the " Helper " until
He died, and ascended into the invisible region of our uni-
verse, there to form a new atomic combination and generate a
new force, which took form in the descent of the fiery cloven
tongues, so now we, who are called upon to prepare the way
for a second and more triumpliant descent of the Word-niade-
flesh, as Conqueror and as Bridegroom, nmst expect soon to
be summoned to strengthen the battery of sympneumatic life
beyond the toml). We are like mariners swimming from a
352 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
wreck to the shore with life-ropes ; and it is not until sym-
pneumatic groups, more numerous than yet exist, are formed
both in the seen and the unseen, that the next revelation can
be made.
There is no more profound delusion than that which pre-
vails in certain c^uarters, that a crisis is at hand which will
sweep all humanity from the face of the earth, except a
chosen few, who will be preserved immortal amid the general
crash. A crisis is undoubtedly at hand, but it will not be
catastrophic or outside of natural law. It will consist simply
in the further development and collision of those forces which
are already exhibiting themselves in unknown and startling
phenomena ; and the day will no doubt come when the con-
ditions of death will undergo the change predicted in the
Bible, and when it will be swallowed up in victory.
But this cannot be until the victory has been won ; and the
victory cannot be won until the forces on the other side of
the grave have established sympneumatic connection with
those on this side ; until both have learned thoroughly how to
co-operate with each other, and have acquired the necessary
combined potency. For any man who has attained sym-
pneumatic conditions, or who thinks he has attained them, to
desire immortality, or to suppose that he has already achieved
it, is to nurse himSelf in a delusion as ignorant as it is selfish.
It is one which has been projected into the minds of those
who are in close psychic rcqii-iort with the lower region of our
universe, and is suggested by the certainty they have acquired
of an approaching collision between the forces, hitherto latent,
which are now develoj)ing with such remarkable energy.
To this collision I referred in the introductory chapter to
this book ; and in a subsequent chapter I quoted the testimony
of medical science in France, to the effect that these forces
had already developed to such an extent, that it had become
possible by hypnotic suggestion for an operator to arrest the
vital functions of a patient, and to put an end to natural life.
Similarly there also resides in those forces latent potencies for
prolonging it. It is to obtain the control of these potencies
that the struggle will take place. The effort of the infernals
is to acquire it by pneumatic propulsion and psychic impact
of atoms, and by the subsequent absorption of the principle
INSANE DELUSIONS. 353
of human vitality into themselves, from those over whom they
have thus acquired control, whereby they would reinforce the
electro-magnetic force of their own organisms, and then, by a
simulation of the sympneumatic descent, connect themselves
so indissolubly with their victims on earth, that these latter
would become instruments in their hands for shortening or
prolonging human life, to suit their own purposes. There are
those now on earth who are rapidly approacliing this condition,
and who have arrived at the conviction — no doubt sincere —
that they are not only immortal themselves, but that they can
control the vitality of others. Of this — which must seem in
the highest degree fantastic to the general public — I have had
personal experience, and have got written evidence of it in my
possession. The fact that the world may call them lunatics,
does not invalidate the danger of the delusion, nor of the
insanities to which it may give rise, since, as I have shown,
men of science have experimentally tested the nature of the
forces upon which it is based, and have proved that by their
operation they can either arrest life, or prolong it as they are
every day doing in several French hospitals, by using them
for the cure of disease.
It is to meet this danger that the sympneumatic descent
has become necessary; but the man who is vitalised by it
seeks no immortality for himself, nor does he desire to be the
means of controlling the vitality of others. He knows he has
become impervious to anti-sympneumatic attack, or to hyp-
notic suggestion from any quarter, whether seen or unseen,
which can limit the divine freedom within him. He would
not consciously shorten the life of an agent in this world of
the powers of darkness, even if he were able to do so, nor
attempt to prolong his own, Ijy the avoidance of any risk he
should incur in the service of his Master.
It is in this that those who have received the true sym-
pneumatic consciousness, can be distinguished from those who
have only received the infernal simulation of it, or who have
had it and lost it — that tlie former have no desire for lengtli
of days on earth ; but, asking only to be God's instruments,
place themselves unreservedly in His hands, and are equally
ready to go or stay. All that they seek is to be shown His
will, from hour to liour, and to do it effectually.
z
3^4 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
It is by this earnest effort alone that they can keep their
lamps trimmed and burning, and clothe themselves in the
wedding garment ; and this wedding garment is the sym-
pneumatic overlay with which their particles can be clothed
as effectively in another life as in this ; for all, whether they
be on this earth or not, are invited to the feast of the Bride-
groom and the Bride. " And he saith unto me, "Write,
' Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper
' of the Lamb. And he saith unto me. These are the true
' sayings of God."
In the internal meaning of the book of Eevelation, the
views which have been set forth in the preceding pages may
be clearly found ; though, as much which that book contains
refers to the future, and some of it conceals mysteries which
are still veiled, its study can only be pursued under con-
ditions which require long preparation. Nor is it even ex-
pedient that all the results which may have been arrived at
should be made public, for much that is hidden is too sacred ;
while any attempt to unravel the future by intellectual in-
terpretations of its symbols, springs from a morbid curiosity,
which will certainly not be gratified by revelations that can
be relied upon.
This has been abundantly illustrated by the utter failure
which has hitherto attended the numerous endeavours that
have been made to fix dates, and predict political events by
human interpretation of prophecy, whether in the Old or New
Testament.
In attempting, therefore, to unfold the inner meaning of
such passages as have been shown to me as being appropriate
to these pages, I shall confine myself to those to which 1 feel
most strongly impelled to call the attention of my readers ;
and as it would occupy too much space to quote the entire
text, I must leave them to do that for themselves. At the
same time, I would remind them that a mere intellectual
apprehension is of very little avail ; and that, in such matters
as those dealt with in this book, it is better to reject the
inspiration it contains, than to think it true as a matter of
theory, without at once acting upon it. Nor can any one
judge of its value, one way or another, except those who have
already subjected themselves to a severe course of moral dis-
man's relation to CHRIST. 355
cipline, or have inwardly decided to sacrifice all that they
may find truth.
Before, however, entering upon this task, I must once more
refer for confirmation of what has been stated in the fore-
going pages, to the writings of St Paul as well as to the
Kabbalah.
The sympneumatic nature of man, and his relation to Christ
in the twofold quality of his love, is very clearly indicated
in the 11th chapter of First Corinthians, where the apostle
says, " Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman,
neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." In other
words, as the Lord contains within Himself the bisexual nature,
it is not possible for those to be absolutely and completely
united to Him, who are not themselves similarly united as to
their masculine and feminine principles. It is not possible
for the man alone to be in the Lord, nor for the woman alone
to be in the Lord. They may separately and individually be
attached to Him by a certain external atomic adhesion, as all
good people who love Him are ; but they can never know the
bliss of the deep interior atomic interlocking, which seems to
melt them into His ineffable Personality, unless they come to
Him as two-in-one ; for the masculine cannot unite itself to
the masculine principle in Him, excepting through its own
feminine complementary half ; and the feminine cannot unite
itself to the masculine principle in Him, excepting through
its own masculine complementary half. This is what is
meant by the expression "neither is the man without the
woman, neither is tlie woman without the man, in the Lord."
And he goes on to say, " For as the woman is of the man,
even so also is the man by the woman ; but all things of God."
The two being inextricably interwoven by God, from the day
that tliey were created two-in-one by Him.
The chapter in which these verses occur furnishes a very
remarkable illustration of the mixed inspirational influx, to
which I have already alluded as characterising all the earliest
Christian writings which are assumed to be infallible. The
apostle is discussing a subject which would seem unaccount-
ably trivial, were it not that a spiritual significance attached
to it, the nature of wliich he did not liimself fully conipre-
liend. The position of woman having become changed by
o56 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
the work which Christ had already done on earth, the
apostles felt themselves spiritually impressed to change the
Jewish custom by which the men while they worshipped
remained covered, while the women were compelled at all
times to shave their heads — a custom which prevails in or-
thodox Jewish communities to this day. The new order now
introduced was that the men should worship uncovered, and
the women allow their hair to grow.
This was evidently a shock to the Jewish mind, and Paul
attempts to give an explanation of the reasons which involved
it, in his Epistle to the Church at Corinth, which doubtless
contained Jews. His mind, however, was still too deeply
imbued with the social prejudice which prevailed throughout
the whole East, and was by no means confined to the Jews,
of the inferiority of woman, to understand the full significance
of the change. He considered that the woman being taken
out of the man stamped her with inferiority, not realising
that the most interior principle must be in some senses the
superior, and that her ajDparent inferiority was in fact the
result of a previous catastrophe which involved the appear-
ance of man upon our earth under conditions different from
those which had characterised his previous creation, but which
in no way affected the broad fact that the Divine Feminine
must always be equal to the Divine Masculine in God, and
therefore in all His created beings. A dim consciousness of
this forces itself upon him, however, when he says, " But all
r things of God " ; and again, " For this cause ought the woman
to have power on her head because of the angels." This
verse has been so utterly enigmatical to the translators, and
so apparently contradictory to what has preceded it, that they
have ventured on an explanation in the margin. " That is,"
they say, " a covering, in sign that she is under the power of
her husband." Now the meaning of e^ovcrla, rendered " jDOwer "
in the authorised version, is really " authority." By no pos-
sible licence or contortion of terms can it be made to mean
" covering." Still less is there anything to justify an explan-
ation which is in palpable opposition to the words of the
text. There can be no better illustration of the pride and
ignorance with which man, even to our own day, insists upon
woman's subjection to him, than that he should presume to
THE RELATION OF MAX TO WOMAN. 357
put in a marginal note, which in the minds of the ignorant
has almost the authority of the text itself, in explanation of
the words, " For this cause ought woman to have authority
on lier head because of the angels," this means, " A covering,
in sign that she is under the power of her husband." Had
women been the translators, the explanation would have been
different. The true internal significance is, that woman is
the connecting-link between man and the angels, and that it
is through her affectional atomic union with them that a
channel is formed by which alone the Divine Feminine can
descend to man ; and the reason why the apostles were "^
divinely impressed to forbid the women to shave their heads
was, in the inverse sense, analogous to that which caused
Delilah to shave the head of Samson when she wished to
deprive him of his strength. There is a certain quality which
pertains to the electricity that resides in hair, as to its essen-
tial atoms, of which, if I spoke further, I should only excite,
still more than I have already done, the ridicule and scepti-
cism of men of science, for it is far beyond their ken, which
renders it an important factor in the transmission of force
derived from those whom Paul calls " the angels," and to
tamper with this transmitting medium of electric magnetic
force is to limit woman's power, and therefore her authority
in her own special sphere of operations, over man.
But there is another far more internal meaning connected
with the word " hair " as applied to woman, which will appear
when we come to consider a passage in the chapter I am
about to quote from the Kabbalah, " Concerning the Bride of
the Son, or ' Lesser Countenance,' " which also throws remark-
able light upon the inner meaning of the Apocalypse. From
this it will be seen in what manner the hair of the woman
signifies the male Sympneumata, and why the expression
of St Paul in a previous verse, that " the head of the woman
is the man," does not imply his lordship over the woman,
l)Ut signifies the nature of liis organic relationship to her,
wliich is tliat of tlie intellect; while of him it might in like
manner be said, " tlie heart of the man is the woman," in
allusion to the affectional character of her functions towards
liim. It is probable, liowever, that Paul liimself was too
much impregnated with tlie prejudices of his race on the
358 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
subject fully to apprehend the true significance of his own
words.
I have already said that, according to kabbalistic interpre-
tation, the four letters of the Tetragranimaton, IHVH, which
compose the word Jehovah, indicate the Father, the Mother,
the Son, and the Bride or Son's Wife — the two latter, VH,
being emanations of the former. And here I would remark
that Christ, in whom the Bride was enfolded, was an emana-
tion from and manifestation of VH in the sense — modified
by the peculiar circumstances attending His birth — in which
we can all become manifestations of VH when once we have
acquired the twofold nature with which our Lord came to
endow humanity ; and to that degree, and only to that degree
was He divine. The ineffable divinity of IHVH, in His four-
fold comprehensiveness, it is beyond the grasp of the human
mind to fathom.
This being so, I will quote the dark sayings of the Book of
the Lesser Assembly on the subject : —
" Unto His (the Son's) back adhereth closely a ray of
' vehement splendour, and it flameth forth, and formeth a
' skull concealed on every side.
" And thus descendeth the light of the two brains, and is
' figured forth therein.
" And She (the Bride) adhereth to the side of the Male ;
' wherefore also she is called my dove, my perfect one
' (Cant. V. 2). Eead not ' Thamathi,' my perfect one, but
' ' Theomathi,' my twin-sister, more applicably." Therefore
after the baptism of Christ by John, the Divine Feminine
was seen descending in the form of a dove.
" The hairs of the Woman contain colours upon colours, as
' it is written (Cant. vii. 5). ' The hair of thy head like
' purple.' But herewith is Geburah, severity, connected in
' the five severities {i.e., vjJiich arc si/mholiscd in the numerical
' value, 5, of the letter H, final of IHVH, which is the Bride),
' and the AVoman is extended on Her side, and is applied to
' the side of the Male."
This passage — and indeed the same may be said of the
whole Kabbalah, — contains arcana referring to Christ in His
conjoined Masculine and Feminine nature, which has been
concealed from the most learned students of that Book of
KABBALISTIC INTERPKETATIONS. 359
Myster}', owing to the veil which hid from their view the
true nature of that wonderful Personality. The symbolism
contained in the words " the hairs of the AVoraan which con-
tain colours upon colours," will be understood when we refer
to what is said of the hair of her Spouse in the chapter " con-
cerning the hair of the Son or Lesser Countenance," p. 307.
" From the skull of the head (of the Divine Son, the Spouse)
' depend all those chiefs and leaders (otherwise all those
' thousands and tens of thousands), and also from the locks of
* the hair, which are black, and mutually bound together, and
' which mutually cohere.
" But they adhere unto the Supernal Light from the Father
' AB, which suri'oundeth His Head (i.e., is the Son's), and unto
' the Brain, which is illuminated from the Father.
" Thencefrom, even from the Light which surroundeth His
' Head (i.e., the Son's), from the Mother AIMA, proceed long
' locks upon locks of hair.
" And all adhere unto and are bound together with those
' locks which have their connection with the Father."
The chiefs and leaders spoken of above, as being thousands
and tens of thousands, symbolised by the locks of hair which
are black, are the male sympneumatic complements of earthly
women, as the hairs of the Bride, containing colours upon
colours, are the female sympneumatic complements of earthly
men here, which all depend originally from the Great Father
and Mother,- Two-in-One — AB and AIMA; "the colours"
are the germinating essences, and the five severities are the
evils which afflicted the world, because the balance has been
lost in it owing to the absence of the Divine Feminine prin-
ciple, the separation of the sexes, and the inferiority in which
woman has been placed, and which is symbolised by the
words, "and the Woman is extended on Her side, and is
extended Ijy the side of the Male," and these severities will
continue until, in the words of the next sentence, " She is
separated from His side, and cometh unto Him, so that She
may be conjoined with Him face to face." It was to prepare
the way for this union that Christ appeared on earth. Tliere-
fore continues the Kabbalah, " And when they are conjoined
together, they appear to be only one body.
" Hence we learn that the Masculine, taken alone, appeareth
360 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' to be only half the body ; so that all the mercies are half ;
' and thus also is it with the Feminine. But when they are
' joined together the (two together) appear to form only one
' body. And it is so.
" So also here. When the Male is joined with the Female,
' they both constitute one complete body, and all the universe
' is in a state of happiness, because all things receive blessing
' from their perfect body. And this is an arcanum."
The arcanum is simply the sympneumatic descent, and
herein is its secret revealed — for it will result in the union
on earth of the halves hitherto divided, whereby man will
regain his lost condition. Nevertheless, this arcanum has
never before been revealed to Jewish students of the Kabba-
lah. Now will commence the Sabbatic year spoken of therein
as follows : —
" And therefore it is said ' Tetragrammaton (IHVH, or
' Jehovah) blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.' For
' then all things are found {to exist) in the perfect body ; for
' Matronitha {i.e., the Inferior Mother, the Bride) is joined unto
' the King, and is found to form one body with Him. And
' therefore are there found to be blessings on this day. And
' hence that which is not both male and female together, is
' called half a body. Now no blessing can rest upon a muti-
' lated and defective being, but only upon a perfect place and
' upon a perfect being, and not at all in an incomplete being.
" And a semi-complete being cannot live for ever, neither
' can it receive blessing for ever. The beauty of the Female
' is completed by the beauty of the Male. And now have
' we established these facts (concerning the perfect equality
' of Male and Female), and they are made known unto the
' companions.
" With this Woman (the Bride) are connected all those things
' which are below : from Her do they receive their nourish-
' ment, and from Her do they receive blessing ; and She is
' called the Mother of them all.
" Like as a mother containeth the body (of her child before
' birth), and that whole body deriveth its nourishment from
' her (otherwise containeth a garden, and the whole garden
' is from her), thus is She unto all the other inferiors.
" It is written (Pro v. vii. 4), ' Say unto Chokmah (wisdom),
THE BRIDE. 361
' Thou art my sister.' For there is given one Chokmah (male),
' and there is also another Chokmah (female)."
" And this Woman is called the Lesser Chokmah, in respect
' of the other.
" And therefore it is written (Cant. viii. 8), ' We have a little
* sister, and she hath no hreasts.'
" For in this exile (i.e., separated from the King) she appear-
' eth unto us to be our little sister. At first, indeed, she is
' small ; but she becometh greater and greater, until she be-
' Cometh the spouse whom the King taketh unto Himself."
Then is she the Bride, the Lamb's Wife — the city of the
New Jerusalem arrayed as a Bride to meet her Husband, for
this is the restitution of all things.
We will now turn to the book of Eevelation, in which the
ultimate triumph of this Di^'ine Feminine principle on earth
is described.
162
CHAPTER XXII.
THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CHAPTERS OF THE BOOK OF REVELA-
TION INTERPRETED — THE EFFECT OF CHRISt's MISSION TO EARTH
UPON THE UPPER INVISIBLE REGION OF OUR WORLD — CONCEALMENT
OF THE DIVINE FEMININE — THE TWO WITNESSES — THE FUNCTIONS OF
JOHN THE BAPTIST — HIS RELATION TO CHRIST — TEMPORARY TRIUMPH
OF THE INFERNAL FEMININE — THE BEAST, ANTI- CHRISTENDOM, OR
THE GENTILE CHURCH — THE MARK OF THE BEAST, THE FALSE CROSS
— man's present relation TO CHRIST.
That portion of the book of Revelation, of which the inner
meaning bears more particularly upon the subject of the pres-
ent volume, commences with the 12th chapter.
" The mother, the woman clothed with the sun," who was
" with child and pained to be delivered," is the Divine
Feminine.
The dragon, waiting " to devour her child as soon as it was
born," is the Prince of the fallen region of the previous world,
and of the Siddim.
The child which was " brought forth," and " caught up unto
God and His throne," was Christ,
The " wilderness " into which the woman fled, and " was
sustained for 1260 days, in a place prepared for her," is
the hearts of the saints, in which she has found refuge and
sustenance since her descent, through Christ, into the human
organism.
The " war in heaven " between " Michael and his angels "
and " the dragon and his angels," was the struggle between
the Seraphim and the Siddim over the Divine Feminine, in
the invisible part of our universe, to preserve its atomic
elements in the organisms of those who, having received it
here, had passed away from earth.
TEIUMPH OF THE SERAPHIM. 363
" And the gi-eat dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called
the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the world ; he was cast
out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him,"
signifies the victory of the Seraphim, and the final expulsion
of the Siddun from the upper in-vdsible region of our universe,
and the transference of the struggle to earth.^
This was what Christ meant when He said, " I saw Satan,
like lightning, fall from heaven."
" And I heard a loud voice saying, Now is come the salva-
' tion, and the force, and the kingdom of our God, and the
' authority of His Christ : for the accuser of our brethren is
' cast down, which accused them before our God day and
' night," is the song of triumph of the Seraphim at the sal-
vation, which had been accomplished through the mission
of Christ to earth, of the upper region of the invisible world
in which the supremacy of Christ, as ruler, is henceforth
established.
" And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by
the word of their testimony ; and they loved not their lives
unto the death," describes the process by which the early
Christian martyrs, who had received into their organisms the
atomic elements of the Divine Feminine, which had been dis-
tributed throughout humanity by the actual blood of Christ,
redistributed them by their own death as martyrs. This has
given rise to the saying that " the blood of the martyrs is the
seed of the Church."
" Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them,"
signifies the completion of Christ's work so far as regards our
own invisible upper world.
" Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea ! for
the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because
he knoweth that he hath but a short time," indicates the
violence of the struggle which was now to take place over the
Divine Feminine on earth.
' Tlie wlir)le r,f tiii.-< coinlmt is (lcscribe<l in the ]}abylonian inytholngy in the
legend narrating the conflict between Bel or Merodach and Tiamat the Dragon
of DarknertB (Hayce, Hil^bert Lccture.s, p. 102) ; and indeed many most inter-
CHting analogies can be traced between the myths of Accad and I>abylonia, the
Dhammapada r)f the Kuddhists— in which a city resembling the New Jerusalem
is described — and the Revelation.
364 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
" And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the
earth, he persecuted the woman which had brought forth the
man-child," signifies the infernal attack made to prevent the
introduction on earth of the Divine Feminine.
" And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle,
' that she might tiy into the wilderness, into her place, where
' she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from
' the face of the serpent," signifies the means which were
adopted to conceal the Divine Feminine from the infernals ;
and indicates the nature and period of duration of the
struggle.
The next two verses contain arcana, as to the method of
the infernal attack and the means employed to meet it.
" And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to
make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the com-
mandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ,"
indicates that the infernal attack was especially concentrated
upon those few who had " the testimony of Jesus Christ " — in
other words, had received the atomic elements of the Divine
Feminine distributed by Christ into their organisms.
This vision terminates here. It must be remembered that
the order in which the different visions occur in the book, have
no reference to any relation which they bear to each other in
order of time.
The next vision is that of the Beast, who rose from the sea,
" having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads the
names of blasphemy."
This beast symbolises the infernal lust-principle introduced
by the Siddim into humanity, with the six other deadly
sins, at the period known as " the Fall." The source from
which this beast derived his origin is signified in the words,
" And the dragon give him his power, and his seat, and great
authority."
" And I saw one of his heads wounded as it were to death ;
and his deadly wound was healed : and all the world wondered
after the beast," signifies the wound which this lust-principle
received by the advent of Christ into the world, and the sub-
sequent healing of the wound by the suppression of the Divine
Feminine. The worship of the dragon by the world, the power
he exercised, and the evil that he wrought, are described in
THE TWO WITNESSES. 365
the following verses. The duration of his reign is given as
three years and a half, which is half of the mystical number
seven, that signifies perfection, and which corresponds to the
three days and a half during which the dead bodies of the two
witnesses were to " lie in the street of the great city, which
spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord
was crucified " (chapter xi. 8).
Here I feel compelled to make a digression concerning
these two witnesses, and the relation they bear to the work
of Christ.
The two witnesses represented typically by Enoch and
Elijah are the Sympneuma, or complementary being which
completes man's bisexuality, and the Holy Spirit, the Pneuma
or Divine Feminine, through the operation of which the
Sympneuma — so called because it is the companion of the
Pneuma — is united to man. Of Enoch we read that "he
walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." This
signifies that traces of sympneumatic life lingered in the
world, notwithstanding the fatal wounds it had received,
first, by the disobedience of woman, and secondly, by the
slaughter of a vital principle in it, typified by Abel, until the
race called " Enoch," when it was finally withdrawn from the
luiman organism. The races in the invisible world, prior to
this date, who passed away from this earth in sympneumatic
conditions, however imperfect, are differently constituted
atomically from all those who passed into it subsequently,
and remained therefore as a witness of that sympneumatic
life which again descended to earth in the person of Christ.
The whole history of Elijah, which, if the events recorded
ever really happened, would be one of the grossest cruelty
and vengeance, is in reality pregnant in its inner sense with
the most profound spiritual significance ; for tlie operation of
the Divine Feminine is concealed in the legendary history of
the prophets, but more especially in tliat of Elijah, who was
cliarged witli a fuller measure of it than any man had been,
from the days of Moses to those of John the Baptist. Tlie
pneuma, of which Elisha is said to have received a double
])ortion, differed in quality from that which Elijali carried
with liim on his departure from earth, which was of tlie fiery
l)0tency which characterises the ardours of a high degree of
366 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
the Divine Feminine, and which, reinforced by elements re-
ceived from earth, returned to the invisible world, thence to
be once again projected into this one through the organism
of the Baptist. Hence we find all the most striking episodes
of Elijah's career accompanied by a fiery manifestation.
It is fire from heaven which consumes the sacrifice on Car-
mel ; it is fire from heaven which consumes successively two
captains of fifty with their men ; it was after a great strong
wind, and an earthquake and fire, that he heard the still small
voice ; and it was in a chariot of fire that he disappeared from
the gaze of Elisha. Therefore he typifies the fiery pneuma
of God, whose purifying flame is about once more to touch
the hearts of men, either to kindle in them divine ardours, or
to devastate them and lay them waste.
We read that the dead bodies of the two witnesses, the
Sympneuma and the Pneuma, were to lie for three days and a
half " in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called
Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." The
Sympneuma was trampled upon by the sin of Sodom ; ^ the
Pneuma was crushed out of man's consciousness in the early
Church by the dogma of the Trinity, which owes its origin to
Egypt.2 But in its larger sense the " great city " signifies the
gigantic imposture called " Christendom," where our Lord is
being daily crucified, and in whose streets the dead bodies of
the two witnesses are still lying.
The representative of Elijah was John the Baptist, and it
is very important that his relationship to Christ should be
understood.
The Gospel of St John introduces him as a "man from
God," or, as the Greek preposition irapa with the genitive
implies, " from alongside of " God.
The angel Gabriel, in announcing his birth to his earthly
father, Zacharias, says : " Thou shalt call his name John, and
' there shall be joy and gladness to thee ; and many shall
' rejoice at his descent [that is, the source from whence he shall
' come]. For he shall be great in the presence of Jehovah,
' and he shall by no means drink wine or intoxicating liquor ;
' and he shall be filled with a holy pneuma, even from his
' mother's womb. And he shall turn many of the sons of
^ See Appendix. " See Appendix.
JOHX THE BAPTIST. 367
' Israel to Jehovah their God. And he shall proceed in His
' presence, in Elijah's presence and force, to turn the hearts
' of parents to their children, and unbelievers by means of the
' intelligence of just ones, to make for Jehovah a people fur-
' nished" (or constructed as a dwelling-place), Luke i. 13-17.
These words are almost textually those of the prophet Malachi
predicting the same event.
" John " signifies the " gift of God." " Many shall rejoice
at his descent," signifies that the progenitor of John in the
invisible world being Elijah, the potency of the pneuma in
him would cause many to rejoice who came under the influ-
ence of the Baptist.
Although true and complete sympneumatic union does not
fully exist in the invisible part of our world, among the de-
scendants of races which have passed into it since its final ex-
tinction on earth in the Enoch race, yet there is a degree in
which it exists, which is awaiting completion, through the co-
operation of earthly mortals, who contain elements necessary
thereto, " for they without us could not be made perfect."
The fact that some have passed recently into the invisible
world, who had attained to sympneumatic consciousness here,
has already operated powerfully on sympneumatic conditions
there ; but John, although of such high descent, came into
the world througli human parentage, and his progenitor —
though filled with so large a measure of the Divine Feminine
— had not attained to full sympneumatic consciousness. Never-
theless, John proceeded in Jehovah's presence, and in Elijah's
pneuma and force ; the pneuma being the feminine, and the
force the masculine element, by means of which he was gen-
erated through Elijah. Hence, too, from his mother's womb,
he was to be filled with the Divine Feminine, and to be called
the " gift of God." The important significance of this appel-
lation was attested by the dumbness of Zacharias, and wliich
was removed as soon as he wrote, " His name is John."
" To turn the hearts of the parents to their children," signi-
fies the yearning of the saints wlio form the pneumatic chain,
over their cliildren whom they are labouring for here ; " and
unbelievers by means of the intelligence of tlie just ones,"
signifies the effect of inspirational impression by the saints
on tlie hearts and minds of unbelievers.
368 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
" To make ready a people furnished," signifies that the
eft'ect of John's advent would be to prepare men to receive
the sympneumatic life, which would be distributed by Christ ;
and indicates also the power of the Divine Feminine, when
operating in the hearts of men, to make them wise unto
salvation.
Therefore it was, when the disciples who were present at
the transfiguration asked Christ, saying, " Why say the scribes
that Elias must first come ? " He answered and said unto
them, " Elias truly shall first come, and shall restore all things.
' But I say unto you, that Elias has come already, and they
' knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.
' Likewise shall the Son of man suffer also of them. Then
' His disciples understood that He spake unto them of John
' the Baptist."
These disciples were at the time under the influence of a
very powerful descent of the Divine reminine,which had over-
shadowed them on the occasion of Moses and Elias appearing
with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. The effect of
this remarkable event was not only to charge them with the
Divine Feminine, but to reinforce the elements which Christ
contained in His own body, prior to their distribution into
nature ; therefore Moses and Elias, who appeared " in glory,"
or in an outward manifestation of the Divine Feminine,
" spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jeru-
salem ; " and this influence was so powerful that " Peter said
' unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here ; and let us
' make three tabernacles, one for Thee, and one for Moses, and
' one for Elias, not knowing what he said." The tabernacle
was, as we know, the abode of the Shechinah — one of the
Hebrew terms for the Divine Feminine — and this utterance
was forced from his unconscious lips by its presence at the
moment within him. The visible evidence of which was " that
while he thus spake, there came a cloud and overshadowed
them, and they feared as they entered into the cloud ; " and
from the cloud was made the same announcement which ac-
companied the descent of the dove on the occasion of Christ's
baptism, " This is my beloved Son ; hear Him."
It was this perceptible influence which radiated from
the principle with which Elijah and John the Baptist had
THE baptist's RELATION TO CHEIST. 369
been filled, that invested the personality of Christ with so
much mystery among the Jews, so that when He asked His
disciples, " Saying, Whom say the people that I am ? They
' answering said, John the Baptist ; but some say Elias, and
' others say that one of the old prophets is risen again. He said
' unto them. But whom say ye that I am ? Peter answering,
' said. The Christ [or anointed] of God." He then goes on to
describe the nature of the sufferings He will be called upon to
endure in order to fulfil His lofty mission, and strictly charges
them to keep the revelations He makes to them on this
mysterious subject a secret.
The parentage of Christ in the invisible world is hidden
from us. All that is shown to us is that He was generated
directly by the Seraphim, in complete sympneumatic biunity.
This is indicated by the terms of the angelic announcement
to Mary, who was told that a " holy pneuma " should come
upon her, and that " force of the Highest " should over-
shadow her ; the pneuma and force being the Divine
Feminine and Masculine principles respectively. It was by
means of this powerful bisexual concentration upon a pre-
pared virginal organism that, as I have already described,
Christ's descent into the world without a human father was
effected.
Nevertheless, before His sympneumatic complement could
internally manifest herself to Him, it was necessary for
certain atomic combinations to be made by elements derived
from a human organism, specially filled with divine pneu-
matic life for the purpose. These elements were contained in
the organism of John. It was the pneuma residing in John's
yet unborn personality which recognised the superior sym-
pneumatic personality of Christ Himself, at the time under-
going conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary, which
caused the l^abe to leap in Elisabeth's womb, and called fortli
the exclamation, " Blessed art thou among women, and blessed
' is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the
* mother of my Lord should come to me ? For, lo, as soon as
* the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the babe
' leaped in my womlj for joy."
It was to effect this atomic combination, that it was neces-
sary for Christ to be baptised of John, and when the latter
2 a
370 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
remonstrated, saying, " I have need to be baptised of thee,
comest thou to me ? " " Jesus answering said. Suffer it to be
so now : for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."
Christ needed baptism by the Pneuma to develop the full con-
sciousness of the Sympneuma in Him, which descended in the
form of a dove. When this had taken place, John recognised
the sympneumatic nature of Christ at once ; for when the
Jews came to him, pointing to Christ as a rival who was
also baptising — though there were good internal reasons
why He should not baptise, but only His disciples — " John
* answered and said, A man can take unto himself nothing,
* except it be given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me
* witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent
' before Him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom :
' but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth
^ him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This
' my joy therefore is fulfilled." It is impossible to have a
clearer testimony to the sympneumatic nature of Christ, and
the completion of His bisexuality, than is afforded by this
allusion to His bride by the only man then alive capable of
apprehending this profound mystery.
Christ himself recognises His twofold character when He
says to His disciples, " Can the children of the bride-chamber
' mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them ? but the
* days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from
' them, then shall they fast." In this saying He foresees that
the children of the bride-chamber, whom He called by that
name because He was preparing them to receive sympneu-
matic life, would soon lose the slight consciousness of it
they possessed, when His presence was removed from them,
and mourn and fast for lack of the vivifying principle which
that life imparted ; and this in fact they did, only sustaining
themselves by the delusive hope of His reappearance among
them during their lifetime.
We are now in a position to understand the meaning of
Christ's statement, " Verily I say unto you. Among men that
' are born of women there has not risen a greater than John
' the Baptist ; yet he that is least in the kingdom of heaven
* is greater than he." John the Baptist entered this world
endowed with a loftier invisible parentage than any human
EESURRECTIOX OF THE TWO WITNESSES. o7l
being who had preceded him ; but inasmuch as he lacked the
Sympneuma, he failed on earth in his biune perfection, and
the least of all the sympneumatic subjects of the kingdom of
heaven must be greater than the gi'eatest of those who have
not yet entered into sympneumatic conditions. That John
recognised this most fully, is evident not only from the words
I have already quoted, but from his saying, " I indeed baptise
• you with water unto repentance ; but he that cometh after
' me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.
' He shall baptise you with the Holy Pneuma and with fire."
It is this baptism with fire that every one of us, who are
struggling to enter into that condition which John had not
attained, must be baptised with ; and it is that Holy Pneuma,
through whose operation alone we can regain the lost image
of our Maker, that we must invoke.
It was the Divine Feminine, which so powerfully impreg-
nated the nature of John, that aroused against him the fury
of the infernal feminine principle which infested Herodias
and her daughter Salome, and caused them to contrive the
beheadal of the Baptist, in order to secure the withdrawal
from the earth of the Divine Feminine potency which resided
in him.
Tliis tragedy was followed shortly afterwards by the cruci-
fixion of Christ, and the two witnesses lay dead in the streets
of the great city. But the time is accomplished, and the hour
of the second woe is come, when we are told that " the Spirit
of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon
their feet ; and great fear fell upon them which saw them."
The final catastroplie is described in a few words, when
the seventh angel sounded, and there were " great voices in
' heaven, saying. The kingdoms of this world are become the
' kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign
' for ever and ever."
But a great deal is to happen between the resuscitation of
the two witnesses and this glorious climax, and in order to
apprehend it, we must return to the chapter in the llevelation,
from which we have digressed.
While the witnesses are lying in the streets, the dragon is
reigning, and the fourth and three following verses describe
the triumph of the lust-principle on earth, and the worship
372 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
of it by all those " whose names are not written in the book
of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."
Tliis indicates that from the time when our universe eman-
ated from the previous one, it was foreseen that its redemp-
tion could only be accomplished through the means that were
then provided in the person of Christ.
"He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he
that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.
Here is the patience and the faith of the saints," signifies
that it will also be their final triumph.
" And I beheld another beast coming out of the earth ; and
he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon."
This second beast signifies the Antichrist, which Christen-
dom has represented to this day. This beast is a false Christ ;
therefore it is said to be like a lamb. His two horns signify
lust and pride ; but his voice is the voice of Satan.
" And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before
him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein
to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed,"
signifies that the world was apparently as much under in-
fernal influence, after Christ's advent, as before, and as much
a slave to the lust-principle ; for it was the unfaithfulness of
the early Christian Church which healed the deadly wound
of the beast.^
The remaining six verses of this chapter contain arcana,
which I would gladly have been spared interpreting ; but the
pressure upon me has been so strong not to shrink from what
has been presented to me, however unpalatable it may be to
some, that I have no alternative but to obey it,
" And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come
' down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and
' deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by means of those
' miracles which he had jpower to do in the sight of the beast ;
' saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should
' make an image, which had a wound by the sword, and did
' live," — signifies that the Christian ecclesiastical organisations
which sprang up on the ruins of Christ's teaching, by the
suppression of all its inner meaning, and the perversion of its
outer sense for sacerdotal purposes, speedily began to prosti-
^ See ApiJendix.
THE MARK OF THE BEAST. 373
tute their holy office by imposing upon the popular imagina-
tion by so-called miracles, and such superstitious practices as
may be witnessed in the Greek and Roman Churches to this
day — using the sacred authority to cover or enforce the vilest
crimes of cruelty, ambition, lust, and avarice, and setting up
the emblem of Christ's death as an object of worship. Banners
bearing the cross of Christ were flaunted over armies engaged
in bloody wars waged in His name — as, for instance, at the
time of the Crusades ; false relics of the cross were scattered
broadcast over Christendom as objects of worship, and the
ignorant masses prostrated themselves before them in adora-
tion ; processions of priests bearing crucifixes led hundreds of
victims to be burnt at the stake in the name of Christ. When-
ever a crime was to be perpetrated by the Church, whether
Eastern or Western, the cross was exalted, as furnishing the
warrant for it ; and the body and blood of Christ were thus, so
to speak, trampled in the mire in effigy by the very persons
who believed that, every time the sacrament was administered,
that body and that blood underwent a miraculous change,
which enabled them to eat the one and drink the other.
" And He had power to give life unto the image of the beast,
' that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that
' as many as would not worsliip the image of the beast should
' be killed."
The power to speak, with which the image of the beast was
thus endowed, signifies the abominations which liave been
perpetrated in the shape of dogmas under the claim of in-
fallibility, the tyranny which has been exercised by Papal
bulls, and the profanity which has suggested that the cross
gave any man authority to assume the title of Christ's vice-
gerent on earth. The image of the beast, then, signifies the
false Churches of the false Christ throughout so-called Chris-
tendom.
"And lie causetli all, both small and great, ricli and poor,
' to receive a mark into tlicir right liands or on their fore-
' heads ; and tliat no man might buy or sell, save he tliat liad
' the name of the beast or the number of tlie name."
The mark of tlie beast on the forehead signifies tlie false
cross made at Itaptism, and tlie mark of the beast into the
right hand signifies the sign of the false cross. This spurious
374 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
cross has for eighteen centuries been the trade-mark of anti-
Christendom. No salvation was worth anything unless it had
received its brand. Its devotees are taught that out of the
Church there is no salvation ; that " two sacraments are neces-
sary thereto — Baptism and the Supper of the Lord ; " and
that " they that have done evil, shall go into everlasting fire.
' This is the Catholic faith ; which except a man believe faitli-
' fully, he cannot be saved. Glory be to the Father, and to
' the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." ^
But the Calvinists vie with the Romanists in the cruelty
and bigotry of their creed, as will appear from the following
quotations from the ' Presbyterian Confession of Faith ' : —
" Although the light of Nature, and the works of creation
' and Providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and
' power of God as to leave man inexcusable, yet they are not
' sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of His will
' which is necessary to salvation. . . .
" By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory,
' some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life,
' and others foreordained to everlasting death. These angels
' and men, thus predestined and foreordained, are particu-
' larly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so
' certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or
' diminished. . . .
" Men not professing the Christian religion cannot be saved
' in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to
' conform their lives according to the light of Nature. We
' cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin. There is no
' sin so small but that it deserves damnation. "Works done
' by unregenerate men, although, for the matter of that, they
' may be things which God commands, and of good use both
' to themselves and others, are sinful and cannot please God,
' or make a man meet to receive Christ or God. . . .
"The souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they
' remain in torment and utter darkness, reserved to the judg-
' ment of the great day. At the last day the righteous shall
' come into everlasting life, but the wicked shall be cast into
' eternal torment and punished with everlasting destruction,
' The wicked shall be cast into hell, to be punished with un-
^ Athanasian Creed.
THE GENTILE CHURCH. 375
' speakable torment, both of body and soul, with the de\'il
' and his angels, for ever. . . .
" At the day of judgment you, being caught up to Christ
' in the clouds, shall be seated at His right hand and there
' openly acknowledged and acquitted, and you shall join with
' Him in the damnation of your son."
No man is to be allowed to buy salvation except stamped
thus, and no Church to sell it. Until quite recently, any man
in Christendom who had not been baptised, or who denied
that he was a Christian according to this faith, was an out-
cast ; and a few hundred years ago would not have been
allowed to exist. Jewish persecutions up to the present day
testify to the cruelty of " the beast."
Dr Edward Irving, one of the noblest men and greatest
spiritual geniuses which this century has produced, was pene-
trated with the conviction that Christendom was the beast,
and gave vent to that con\'iction in the following words :
" The present visible church of the Gentiles, which hath been
' the depository of the oracles and the sacraments and the
' ordinances since the Jewish state was dissolved — I mean
' the mixed multitude which are baptised in the name of the
* Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost under that seal,
* including Protestants, Edman Catholics, Greek Church,
* Arminians, and all the sects of each, as Scottish, English,
' Irish, Lutheran, and Calvinistic Churches, with the dis-
' senters and seceders from each. This body of baptised men,
' which I call the Gentile Church, who should every one of
' them have been a saint, being by baptism ingrafted into
' Jesus Christ, to be made partakers of His justice, whereby
' our sins are covered and remitted, standeth threatened in
' the Holy Scriptures because of its hypocrisies, idolatries,
' superstitions, infidelity, and enormous wickedness, because
' it hath transgressed the laws, changed tlie ordinance, and
* broken the everlasting covenant (Isa. xxiv.), with such a
' terrible judgment, as hath not heen, nor ever shall again be
' seen upon the eartli ; in the which deluge of wrath she shall
' be clean dissolved, as the synagogue was heretofore in tlie
' destruction of Jerusalem, when she in like manner had
' filled up the measure of her iniquity ; which fearful con-
' summation I judge to be close at hand, Ijotli by the signs of
376 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
' the times, and from the prophetic numbers expressly given
' to guide us in the anticipation of these great Gentile judg-
' ments which are mentioned in Scripture wherever and
' whenever the coming of the Lord is mentioned."
Those who dare to denounce the perverted theology and
false dogmas which have led to such results, must be pre-
pared to meet the storm which will be roused against them
by what the same writer calls " the British Inquisition,
' whose ignorance of truth I know to be equalled only by
' their malice against everything which touched the infalli-
' bility of their idol Public Opinion. I mean," he continues,
" by the British Inquisition, that court whose ministers and
' agents carry on their operations in secret ; who drag every
' man's most private affairs before the sight of thousands, and
' seek to mangle and destroy his life as an instructor, trying
' him without a witness, condemning him without a hearing,
' nor suffering him to speak for himself ; intermeddling in
' things of which they have no knowledge, and cannot on any
' principle have a jurisdiction ; and defacing and deforming
' the finest beauty and the profoundest wisdom by the rancour
' of their malice. I mean those who set principle, who set
' truth, who set justice, who set everything sacred up to sale :
' I mean the ignorant, unprincipled, unhallowed spirit of
' criticism, which in this Protestant country is producing as
' foul effects against truth, and by as dishonest means, as ever
' did the Inquisition of Pwome." ^
" Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count
the number of the beast : for it is the number of a man ; and
his number is six hundred and sixty-six."
If we take the numerical value of the Hebrew letters,
according to the usual methods of kabbalistic or mystical in-
terpretation, we find this name to signify the offspring of the
polluted Pneuma and the inverted Shaddai.
It must be remembered that the denunciations, in the sub-
sequent chapter of Ptevelation, of those who worship the
image of the beast, and have received his mark, do not apply
to the ignorant and superstitious masses, but to those who
are responsible for the gross perversions and flagrant iniqui-
^ Preliminary Discourse to Ben Ezra's work on the Second Advent, by the
Rev, Edward Irving, pp. 5 and 22.
THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 377
ties which have characterised the religion, almost ever since
it has been called by the name of Christ.
The history of the Eoman and Greek Churches is a hideous
record of blasphemy and crime, of the most wanton desecra-
tion of the name and teaching of Christ, of the foulest hy-
pocrisy, of unbridled lust, and of relentless cruelty. It is
only held in check now by the requirements of modern civil-
isation ; but the old spirit is still latent, and in the eastern
parts of Europe and west of Asia, Christendom is inferior to
most Eastern religions, and in fact scarcely removed from
the paganism of the savage. At the same time, among its
devotees, as among the devotees of all religions, whether lay
or clerical, are to be found the " salt of the earth," whose
intuitive instinct it is to discover what is good in their
religion, by whatever name it is called, and to practise it.
Anti-Christendom abounds in true Christians. Many of these
will feel a pang at the idea of giving up the beloved symbol,
which has proved so often a solace to them in suffering, and
an encouragement to them in effort; but one of the most
powerful hindrances to tlie approach of Christ the Bride-
groom, is this constant clinging to the cross of Christ the
victim.
It is a hindrance for two reasons. One is that the ma-
jority of people cling to the contemplation of the sacrifice
of Christ, because they believe that by doing so they will
escape eternal damnation. In the first place, there is no
such thing as eternal danniation ; and in the second, if there
were, they could not fit themselves for it more aptly than by
making use of a perfectly innocent victim, for purely selfish
purposes, in order to appease the wrath of an angry God. The
stagnant and utterly feeble condition of Christ's Church on
earth is well expressed by the line of the popular hymn —
" Simply to Thy cross I cling."
To hang on to it like a drowning wretch is considered the
highest evidence of piety, and the noblest effort man can
make for his atllicted fellow-men. Tliough it has not been
without its value as a moral agent and an emblem of self-
sacrifice, it has now become a mere drag to hold man back
from the side of his Master, who is tlius placed like a magnet
378 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
ill the remote past to attract Christians backward, or root
them to the ground, and the lofty inspirations and high en-
deavours for humanity of those who love Him thus become
paralysed.
But the standard of Christ is floating before us, and not
behind us ; and on its folds is emblazoned the Dove, the
emblem of His Bride, the Sympneumatic Church — and not
the Cross.
The second reason why the cross of the victim operates as
a hindrance to the approach of the Bridegroom is, that it
falsifies our entire conception of Christ as He is now, and
His present work, and of our duties in regard to it. He is a
conquering warrior, summoning us to the battle which is to
precede His nuptials. We get near Him just in the degree
in which we realise that this is the case, and, " forgetting
' those things that are behind, and reaching forth to those
' things that are before, press towards the mark for the prize
' of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
It is not on the wound that our General received on the
first day of His first battle, that we are to fix our minds if we
would co-operate with Him, but on the orders which we
receive in the struggle in which we are now engaged under
His leadership, and in a determination to do or to die, as He
did ; and by our deaths, if necessary, to help to win salvation
for the race.
The last chapters of the Eevelation, to which we must now
return, describe the overthrow of His enemies, and the descent
of His Bride.
379
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE FOURTEENTH AND FOLLOWING CHAPTERS OF REVELATION INTER-
PRETED — COLLISION ON EARTH BETWEEN THE SYMPNEUMATIC AND
ANTI-SYMPNBUMATIC FORCES — CATASTROPHIC CHANGES IN CONSE-
QUENCE — THE FATE OF THE SIDDIM— THE TRIUMPH OF THE SAINTS
— THE SECOND ADVENT, AND THE DESCENT OP THE BRIDE — RE-
CAPITULATION.
The first five verses of the fourteenth chapter have reference
entirely to the joys of the saints in the invisible part of our
universe, who " were redeemed from among men, being the
first-fruits unto God and the Lamb." " The angel that flew
' in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to
' preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every
' nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a
' loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him ; for the hour
' of His judgment is come," signifies the proclamation of the
Sympneuma to man, and the advent thereof.
The angel that follows, saying, " Babylon is fallen, is
fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink
of the wine of the wrath of her fornication," signifies the
proclamation of the overthrow of anti-Christendom, with its
existing ecclesiastical organisations. The expression " wine
of the wratli of her fornication " seems to have no sense, on
account of its incorrect rendering. It is literally the " wine
of the essence of her fornication," and has reference especially
to the desecration of the sympneumatic elements contained
in the blood of Clirist, by the ecclesiastical dogma, which
transmutes ordinary wine into His actual blood.
"The same shall (h-iuk of the wine of the wrath of God"
should in the same way mean "of the essence of God";
380 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
" which is poured out witliout mixture into the cup of his
indignation " is also a misleading translation, " indignation "
meaning more properly " temperament," and referring not to
God, but to the temperament of the man who drinks of the
essence of God. In other words, these verses signify a
collision between the divine pneumatic force and the in-
fernal ecclesiastical one ; and the " torment with fire and
brimstone " signifies the acute suffering caused by this col-
lision ; " torment " meaning literally " testing by suffering,"
which will overtake every one " who worships the beast or
' his image, or receives his mark on his forehead or into his
' hand," and who refuses the gift of sympneumatic life now
offered to him.
" Here is the patience of the saints : here are they that
keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus,"
signifies the trials which those who have accepted this gift
will be called upon to endure.
" And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me. Write,
' Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord henceforth, saith
' the Spirit, for they rest from their labours ; and their works
' do follow them," signifies that those who have received this
gift enter the invisible world under different conditions
atomically from those who predeceased them, in ignorance
of sympneumatic contact. "And their works do follow
them," signifies that their efforts here receive their full
fruition by a perfect sympneumatic union hereafter.
The remainder of the chapter contains an account of judg-
ments to come ; but it must be remembered that none of
these judgments are in the sense of punishment or vengeance,
but are the inevitable results of the infractions of law. The
Greek word Kpiat,<i, which is usually translated judgment,
would be more correctly rendered by a word which did not
carry with it the idea of condemnation.
The following chapter refers entirely to the upper region
of the invisible portion of our universe. It must be borne
in mind that the words " heaven " and " hell " in the Bible
always include the upper and lower portions of our world,
and sometimes refer to them exclusively.
The seven plagues of the sixth verse are various methods
of operation of divine pneumatic force, which, antagonising
THE SEVEN VIALS. 381
the corresponding methods of infernal pneumatic force, bring
man to a crisis for violating law.
The sixteenth chapter contains an account of the crises
wliich have overtaken man, both in the visible and invisible
portions of our universe, and of the violent disturbances thus
produced ; also of those which are yet to follow.
The first, second, and third vials have reference to events
which have already occurred, in consequence of this collision,
on earth.
The fourth vial refers to crises which have overtaken the
race in the lower invisible region of our universe.
The fifth vial refers to crises which are about to overtake
anti- Christendom.
The sixth vial refers to crises which are about to overtake
Islam and the Eastern religions ; the three " unclean spirits,"
which are " the spirits of devils working miracles," are the
polluted pneumatic forces working in man by three different
modes of operation, and which are being projected by the
Siddini, through the lower invisible region of our universe,
into this world ; " which go forth to the kings of the eartli,
and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that
great day of God Almighty (Shaddai)," signifies that these
forces are about to precipitate the crisis, to meet which the
pure sympneumatic forces are now being developed in man.
" Behold, I come as a thief," signifies the secrecy with which
these forces steal into the organism. " Blessed is he that
watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and
tliey see his shame," signifies the necessity of protecting the
sympneumatic force by vigilance, purity, and discretion.
" And he gathered tliem together into a place called in the
Hebrew tongue Armageddon," signifies that the battle-field
will ])(i, as tlie name implies, masculine strength and femi-
nine fruitfulness.
" And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air ;
and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven,
from tlie throne, saying, It is done." This signifies tlie second
coming of Christ into the world, and the final accomplishment
of His work in man.
Tlie next three verses describe the troubles wliich will ensue
to humanity, not in anti-Christendom alone, from the terrific
382 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
projection of pneumatic force consequent on Christ's descent ;
these are likened to voices, thunderings, lightnings, and a great
earthquake.
" And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every
' stone about the weight of a talent : and men blasphemed God
' because of the weight of the hail ; for the plague thereof was
' exceeding great," signifies the descent, from the upper invis-
ible portion of our universe, of a great company of saints, in
sympneumatic relations with those here, and the impotence
of men animated by the infernal pneumatic forces to resist
them.
The seventeenth and eighteenth chapters describe the final
extinction and destruction of the Gentile Church, which ex-
ists now, and is called by the name of Christ, with all its
dogmatic ramifications, ecclesiastical organisations, and sects,
tawdry ceremonials, and empty formulas. This inversion is
figured as a " woman, sitting upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full
' of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns,
' arrayed in scarlet and fine linen, decked with gold, and pre-
' cious stones, and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand
' full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication." By
a certain section of Christians this is applied to the Church
of Rome ; but it applies to themselves as well, for the whole
spirit of existing Christianity is one of rank blasphemy, inas-
much as it is based on the anti- Christian principle of enlight-
ened selfishness. The social and political systems, involving
bloody wars and hideous immoralities, constructed upon this
basis, they call by the most holy name of Christ ; thus cruci-
fying Him afresh, and putting Him to an open shame.
There is no language which can fitly describe this gross
profanation ; but the seer has designated it by the name writ-
ten upon the forehead of the woman, which is —
" MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS
AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH."
" Mystery " here signifies darkness. I have in a previous
chapter described the aspect of Christendom, as seen from
the invisible portion of our universe, under its black pall
of atomic infusoria. " Babylon the great " signifies that the
THE MILLENNIUM. 383
inversions are as pagan in their essence as those which char-
acterised the inversions of the Babylonian religion, after it
lost its primitive purity ; and it is called " the great," be-
cause it includes all Christendom, and not any one section of
it, " The mother of harlots and abominations of the earth,"
signifies that from its womb have sprung impurities and
crimes of the blackest description.
The rest of the chapter contains arcana with reference to
these, which it is not necessary here to specify ; nor is it nec-
essary to enter upon the details of the nature of the crises by
which anti-Christendom or the Gentile Church will be over-
taken, contained in the eighteenth chapter.
It is a relief to turn from so painful a subject to the des-
cription given in the nineteenth chapter of the final pi-epara-
tions for the marriage supper of the Lamb, which signifies the
union of Christ with His sympneumatic Church, and the con-
quest of the Siddistic infestation of humanity.
The twentieth chapter foretells a period of repose into which
the world will enter owing to this victory, and the reign of
Christ and the sympneumatic Church upon the earth for a
long period, which is popularly known as the Millennium.
During this time the earth will be open to the upper invisible
region of our universe, to whom, as to their atomic structure,
the inhabitants of the earth will be likened. This is signified
in the words, " Blessed is he that hath part in the first resur-
' rection : on such the second death liath no power, but they
' shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with
' Him a thousand years."
The earth during this time will not only be impervious to
Siddistic attack, but to invasion from the inhabitants of the
lower invisible region of our universe. This is signified in
the words, " But the rest of the dead lived not again till the
thousand years were finished." At tlie expiration of the
period liere mystically indicated, the earth will be exposed
to a new Siddistic attack, which is signified in the words,
" And when the tliousand years have exjiired, Satan shall be
loosed out of jtrison."
The result of the struggle whicli will then ensue will be a
victory over the Siddini, which will be accomplished by the
descent of the Seraphim — a word meaning " fiery creatures" —
384 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
to earth. This is signified in the words, " And fire came down
from God and out of heaven and devoured them."
Their subsequent fate is signified in the words, " And the
' devil, that deceived them, was cast into tlie lake of fire and
' brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and
' shall be tested day and night for ages of ages." The words,
"tormented for ever and ever," contained in the English
version of the Bible, are a strained translation of the original,
to accord with the idea of eternal punishment, which is a
radically false one. The literal translation is the one given
above, and signifies the long period of probationary discipline
through which the Siddim must pass before they can be
finally redeemed. This is the necessary consequence of the
lengthened duration of their wilful inversion of truth, and vio-
lation of law ; but the final and ultimate extinction of the
world they inhabit, and the liberation of their wills from the
prison-house of self in which they have been so long confined,
and their reaffesorption into the will of the infinite All-Father
and All-Motli.er, however long delayed, is certain. The ex-
tinction of the invisible portion of our universe will also take
place simultaneously with the conquest over the Siddim ;
some of those, who were too fixed in their vices to be restored,
having their future lot cast with the latter in the region of
testing or purification, signified in the words, " lake of fire " ;
and others being restored to our own world, as is signified in
the words, " And the dead were judged out of those things
which were written in the books, according to their works."
The change which will thereby be effected is signified in the
words, " And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire."
The final union of Christ with His Church is described in
the next chapter. By this time the animal, vegetable, and
mineral worlds will have undergone atomic transformations
of so vast a kind that they are indicated by the seer in the
words, " And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for the
first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; and there
was no more sea." This last sentence signifies that the ocean
which now separates the visible from the invisible will no
longer exist. The universe will again form one, visible to all
its inhabitants, for the atomic accretion will have been re-
moved, faculties which are now subsurface or supersensuous,
THE SHECHINAH. 385
will be developed, the conditions of life and of translation to the
new heaven, which is the unfallen region of the former world,
will be altogether changed. And this change will no less
affect the animal creation, which will also develop new fac-
ulties and instincts, losing all those which are predatory or
carnivorous, and fulfilling the prophet's words that " the lion
shall lie down with the lamb."
Therefore, " He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I
make all things new " ; and there was a " great voice which
cried out of heaven, saying. The tabernacle of God is with
men."
These are the most pregnant words in the whole book ; for
they signify the presence of the Divine Feminine, because the
tabernacle was the abode of the Shechinah. The elaborate
instructions given to Moses during his retirement of forty days
and nights on the top of Mount Sinai, in regard to the con-
struction of the tabernacle, contained the mystery which the
cloud concealed, out of which God called to-'Moses,^ when
" the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on
the top of the mount, in the sight of the children of Israel,"
and which was, in fact, the Shechinah or Divine Feminine.
Therefore he said, " There will I meet with the children of
Israel, and the tabernacle will be sanctified with my glory ; " ^
for the tabernacle was to contain the ark, over which this
cloud of glory brooded, between the wings of the cherubim,
and from which issued the divine instructions ; and so we
are told that when the tabernacle was finished, "a cloud
' covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the
' Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter
' into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode
' thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." ^
Thus was typified that grander tabernacle which has yet to
be erected in the liearts of those wlio have recovered the lost
bisexual image : and tliis is the great consummation predicted
by tlie seer, when he said, that God " shall dwell witli them ;
and they shall be His j^eople, and God Himself shall be with
them, and be their God."
That this blessed consummation will be tlie result of the
death of Christ, receives a remarkable confirmation in an event
* Exodus xxiv. 16, 17. - Exodus xxix. 43. ^ Exodus xl. 34.
2b
386 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
which, we are told, occurred on that occasion. It will be
remembered that the ark was hidden from the public by a
veil, within which only the high priest was allowed to enter ;
the mystery of the Divine Feminine, which brooded between
the cherubim, was thus shrouded. In the second temple,
though the original ark was no longer there, the veil still
concealed from view the Holy of Holies, which was the
sanctuary of the hidden mystery. But at the moment of
Christ's death, we are told, the veil of the temple was rent
in twain from the top to the bottom. In other words, that
act made a breach in the outer covering, and a way was made
into the Holy of Holies by which man might henceforth have
access to the mystery it had concealed. The words " Holy of
Holies " contain another still more esoteric sense which I
am not permitted here to explain.
The writer now gives a picture, in glowing and poetic lan-
guage, of the happiness resulting from the constant presence
of God with man, and follows it with a description of the
descent of the Bride, the Lamb's wife, typified under the
symbol of a bridal city — the New Jerusalem — of which we
are told that there was " No temple therein : for the Lord God
' Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city
' had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it :
' for the glory of the Lord did lighten it, and the Lamb is the
' light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall
' walk in the light of it." All these allusions to glory and
light refer to the Divine Feminine principle, with which the
world has then become endowed through the descent of the
Bride. The blessed consequences of this descent are still further
developed in the last chapter, where " the pure river of water
' of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God
' and of the Lamb," with " the tree of life, on either side of it,
' whose leaves are for the healing of the nations," need no
interpretation.
The story of the race has thus been narrated, in the form
of the Word contained in the Bible, from its Alpha to its
Omega. It has been shown how it was an emanation from
a previous world ; how what is called " evil " entered into that
world through will-perversion ; how evolution could only pro-
RECAPITULATION. 387
gress under mixed conditions in consequence ; how man was
generated by respirative emanation ; how he differed as to his
atomic substance from the animal, vegetable, and mineral
nature by wliich he was surrounded ; how, by atomic affinity
with the fallen race of the previous world, he was exposed to
their attacks ; how his atomic elements underwent changes in
consequence, and the Divine Feminine receded from him,
while the Divine Masculine took an unnatural and debased
form ; how his conception of the Deity suffered in conse-
quence ; how, under the influence of the infernal masculine
and degraded feminine, he fell still further ; how the bisexual
principle became at last absolutely severed, until he lost con-
sciousness that it had ever existed ; how, in consequence of
the changes he was undergoing, and the constant attacks to
which he was subjected from the Siddim, great portions of
the w^orld and of the race upon it were submerged ; how a
remnant remained to preserve the truth ; how it was neces-
sary to veil the truth from the common herd, for fear of its
profanation ; how it existed in some form or other in the most
ancient sacred books of all religions ; how it was finally con-
fided to the guardianship of a special race ; how, nevertheless,
a means existed for preparing man to receive it, and to com-
prehend and invoke its potency ; how that means was a
human being, born under appropriate conditions, who should
voluntarily allow himself to be put to death, because only thus
could he distribute the elements of the Divine Feminine here,
and so connect the visible part of our universe by an atomic
sympneumatic chain with that which is invisible ; how these
two, being atomically interlocked, form only one universe,
constantly acting and reacting upon one another ; how, ever
since the first coming of Christ, the sympneumatic processes
liave been developing both in the visible and invisible worlds ;
how that development has now reached a stage which has
enabled this revelation to be made ; how the agency of the
forces which they contain, offer the only means of purification
for the world from the infernal lust -principle, which has
poisoned the springs of its life; how those springs will be
purified by the efforts of that portion of humanity which is
prepared to give itself up to the work ; liow, finally, it is ouly
through the co-operation of those of our own race, who have
388 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
passed into the upper invisible region of our universe, acting
under the direction and control of Christ, that this great end
can be achieved, which will have for its final result not merely
the salvation of our own visible world — not merely that of
the lower portion of it which is invisible — but, in the far-
distant future, of that still lower world which is the fallen
portion of the universe from which we sprang, which is the
origin of what we call evil, but which is sustained, neverthe-
less, by the divine vitality, and bears concealed in its darkest
recesses the imprisoned elements of bisexual life, with their
latent germs of perfect good and perfect purity.
This is the glorious mission of humanity, " and the pneuma
and the bride say. Come."
I cannot close the message, with the delivery of which I
felt myself charged, without expressing my sense of the im-
perfections I labour under as a medium of transmission for
the truths which I have endeavoured to convey in these
pages.
I have explained in the earlier chapters how entirely the
form of such a work is dependent on the idiosyncrasies, the
training, and the natural gifts of the person intrusted with
its expression, and I am painfully aware of my own deficiency
as an instrument for putting into suitable language, the preg-
nant ideas which have forced themselves upon my con-
sciousness.
Until I was six-and-thirty years of age my mind was
wholly absorbed by the pleasures and ambitions of a
thoroughly worldly life, and I carefully suppressed an under-
current of thought which occasionally reminded me that I
was not put into the world to gratify my own tastes. At that
period, under a pressure that was at the time irresistible,
I felt myself compelled, much against my natural inclina-
tion, to abandon the life I had hitherto been leading, some
account of which I have given in a book which I have
recently published,^ and to devote myself to the investi-
gation of those more hidden laws of nature, which, I felt
^ Episodes in a Life of Adventure ; or, Moss from a Rolling Stone. William
Blackwood & Sons.
CONCLUSION. 389
convinced, concealed di\ine truths that had as yet been
hidden from man. There is no more finality in the know-
ledge of sacred things than in any other kind of wisdom;
but I looked in vain for religious progress in any quarter.
The great moral impetus given to the world nearly nineteen
hundred years ago soon expended itself, in so far as its
practical bearing upon outward daily life was concerned;
and since then, the gleams of truth shed upon the problems
which vex humanity have been few and fitful.
In the endeavour to throw such light as I have been vouch-
safed upon them, a previous scientific or theological training
would have enabled me to utilise knowledge which I do not
now possess, in further illustration of the subject. This, how-
ever, I will leave the men of science and theologians to do for
themselves, while I avail myself of this opportunity to assure
them, that if I have felt constrained to speak severely of the
prejudice and intolerance which characterise both schools of
thought, I have not done so from any sentiment of disrespect
to the men themselves, feeling convinced that no better men
could be found than among agnostic professors and Trini-
tarian priests ; no thanks, however, to the dogmas either of
their science or their theology.
I have availed myself of the kind services of a friend who
once belonged to the latter category, but who is now able,
from his own personal experience, to write from the sym-
pneumatic standpoint, and to confirm by Biblical quotation
and illustration the statements made in this book ; but I am
impressed to inform my readers that this is only the unfold-
ing of the outer covering of the mystery. The real mystery,
for which they are not yet prepared, lies within.
This outer covering makes no claim to infallibility, but
it does claim to be experimentally tested, and not merely
intellectually judged ; for the rational faculty of man is too
strained and warped by exclusive development, to the sacrifice
of his moral evolution, to be of any value in estimating results
wliicli have been arrived at by moral, and not by intellectual,
effort.
Above all, it is not for tlie purpose of adding to the number
of religious sects which are now existing, that this message
390
SCIENTIFIC KELIGION.
has been delivered, but rather for the purpose of preparing
the minds of men — whatever be their religious or philo-
sophic opinions — for one which is to follow it, and of
urging them to enter upon a more severe and searching
process of self-discipline than any Church can impose, for it
does not hold out salvation as a reward, nor offer the aegis of a
Church as a shelter and support.
Popular theology and popular science will alike prove
broken reeds to trust to in the days which are approaching.
APPENDIX I.
5fi
APPENDIX I.
I APPEND here some extracts from the Book of the Lesser Holy
Assembly (Mather's 'Kabbalah Unveiled,' chapters viii. and xxii.)
They will probably be found too mystical for the ordinary reader ;
but they, together with many other passages in the Kabbalah bear-
ing on the same subject, possess great value and importance, as
showing the profound knowledge which existed from a very early
period, among a mystical sect of Jews, of the nature of the Divine
Feminine, or Pneuma ; of the proceeding " Word," or Son ; and of
the Bride, or Sympneuma — for the Bride of the Son is His Sym-
pneuma, and the two conjoined are the type of all human Sym-
pneumata, whereby we are united through Christ the Son and His
Bride, to the Great Father and Mother, the Infinite Two-in-One.
" (As to the sacred name, IHVH.^) I, Yod, is included in this Chok-
mah. Wisdom ; H, He, is Aima, and is called Binah, Understanding ;
VH, Vau, He, are those two children who are produced from Aima, the
Mother.
" Also we have learned that the name Binah comprehendeth all things.
For in Her is I, Yod, which is associated with Aima, or the letter H,
He, and together they produce BN, Ben, the Son ; and this is the word
Binah, Father and Mother, who are I, Yod, and H, He — with whom are
interwoven the letters B, Beth, and N, JVun, which are Ben ; and thus
far regarding Binah.
" Also She is called Thelnmah, the Special Intelligence. Wherefore
is She sometimes Thebunah, and not Binah ?
"Assuredly Tiiebunah is She called at that time in which Her two
children appear, the Son and the Daughter, Ben Va-Balh, who are Vau,
He; and at that time She is called Thebunah.
1 (Jeliovah.) For the metlioils of interpretation of alphabetical symbolisms, the
reader is referred to Mr Mather's Introduction to the ' Kabbalah Unvuile<l.'
394 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
" For all things are comprehended in those letters, Van, He, which are
Ben Va-Bath, Son and Daughter. . . .
" In the Book of Rav Hamennna the Elder, it is said that Solomon
revealeth the primal conformation (that is, the Mother), when he saith,
Cant. i. 15, 'Behold, thou art fair, my love ;'^ wherefore he foUoweth
it out himself.
" And he calleth the second conformation the Bride, which is called
the Inferior Woman.
" And there are some who apply both these names (those namely of
Love and Bride) to this Inferior Woman, but these are not so.
" For the first H, He (of IHVH), is not called the Bride ; but the last
H, He, is called the Bride at certain times, on account of many symbolic
reasons.
" For many are the times when the Male is not associated with Her,
but is separated from Her.
"Concerning this period, it is said (Lev. xviii. 19), 'Also thou shalt
not approach unto a woman in the separation of her uncleanness.'
" But when the female hath been purified, and the male desireth. to
be vinited unto her, then is she called the Bride — the Bride properly so
called.2
" But as to that which pertainetli to the Mother, then the benevolence
of them both is not taken away to all eternity.
" Together they (Chokmah and Binah, IH) go forth, together they
are at rest ; the one ceaseth not from the other, and the one is never
taken away from the other.
" And therefore it is written (Gen. ii. 10), ' And a river went forth out
of Eden.' Properly speaking, it goetli forth, and never faileth,
" As it is written (Isa. Iviii. 11), 'And like a fountain of waters, whose
waters fail not.'
" And therefore is She called ' My Love,' since from the grace of kin-
dred association they rest in perfect unity.
" But the other is called the Bride — for when the Male cometh, that
He may consort with Her, then is She the Bride ; for She, properly
speaking, cometh forth as the Bride.
" And therefore doth Solomon expound these two forms of the Wo-
man ; and concerning the first form, indeed, he worketh hidden!}', seeing
it is hidden.
" But the second form is more fully explained, seeing it is not so
hidden as the other.
" But at the end all his praise pertainetli unto Her who is supernal,
as it is written. Cant. vi. 9 : ' She is the only one of Her mother ; She
is the choice one of Her that bare Her.'
"And since this mother, Aima, is crowned with the crown of the
Bride, and the grace of the letter I, Yod, ceaseth not from Her for ever,
1 This affords an illustration of the esoteric meaning attached to certain portions
of sacred literature by the Jewish mystics.
2 This separation symbolises the alienation of humanity, or the earthly bride —
also called the Church — because of its uncleanness, from the Divine Spouse.
APPENDIX I. 395
hence unto Her arbitration is committed all the liberty of those in-
ferior, and all the liberty of all things, and all the liberty of sinners, so
that all things may be purified.
" As it is written, Lev. xvi. 30, ' Since in that day he shall atone for
you ' ; 1 also it is written, Lev. xxv. 10, ' And ye shall hallow the fiftieth
year. This year is YobeU
" What is Yobel ? as it is written, Jer. xvii. 8, ' Va-el- Yobel, and
spreadeth out her roots by the river.' Therefore that river, which ever
goeth forth, and floweth, and goeth forth, and faileth not.^
" It is written, Prov. ii. 3, ' If thou wilt call Binah the Mother, and
will give thy voice unto Thebunah.'^
" Seeing it is said, ' If thou wilt call Binah Mother, why is Thebunah
added?'
" Assuredly, according as I have said, all things are supernal truth ;
Binah is higher than Thebunah. For in the word Binah are shown
Father, Mother, and Son ; since by the letters IH, Father and Mother
are denoted, and the letters BX, denoting the Son, are amalgamated
with them.
"Thebunah is the whole completion of the children, since it con-
taineth the letters BN Ben, BTH Bath, and VH Vau He; by which are
denoted the Son and Daughter.
"Yet AB VAM, Ah Ve-Am, the Father and Mother, are not found,
save BAIMA, Be-Aima, in the ^lother, for the venerable Aima broodeth
over them, neither is she uncovered.
"Whence it cometh that that which embraceth the two children is
called Thebunah, and that which embraceth the Father, the Mother,
and the Son, is called Binah.
"And when all things are comprehended, they are comprehended
therein, and are called by that name of Father, Mother, and Son.
" And these are Chokmah, Wisdom, Father ; Binah, Understanding,
Mother ; and Diiath, Knowledge (the Son).
"Since that Son assumeth the symbols of His Father and Mother
^ The arcanum contained in this passage is, in fact, the mystery of Christ's
mission to earth. While the conjugal union of the Son and the Bride is subject to
interruption in consequence of the ])ollution by wliich humanity has become
tainted, the grace of Yod, the Infinite Father, ceaseth not from Aima, the Infinite
Mother — in other words, their conjugal union remains ever comjilete. And it is
through the Infinite Mother, "to whose arbitration has been committed the
liberty of all things, that all things may be purified," that means have been pro-
vided for the redemption and purification of humanity through the operation of
the Son, "since in that day he shall atone" for us — this atonement consisting in
the incarnation in Christ of those elements of the Divine Feminine through the
supernal Son and Daughter, or Bride, which could only be distributed throughout
nature by His death ; and thus, through the combined operation of the I'neuma
and Sympneuma, imlissolubly uniting us to the Infinite Father and Motlier, Two-
in-One.
2 This river that " fioweth, and goeth forth, and faileth not," is the infinite love
of Aima, or, when She signifies Understanding, Binah.
' According to the English version, " Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and
liftest up thy voice for understanding."
396 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
and is called Diiath, Knowledge, since He is the testimony of them
both.i
"And that Son is called the first-born, as it is written, Exod. iv. 22,
' Israel is my first-born Son.'
"And since He is called first-born, therefore it implieth dual off-
spring." ■-
Although there are many other allusions to this subject, which
are deeply interesting, I will only quote part of one other chapter,
in the arcana of which may be discovered, by those who carefully
study it, the extreme sanctity with which sex-conjunction was in-
vested from the earliest times, as symbolised in the construction
of the Jewish Temple. It also found expression in the earliest
religions, in Phallic worship, and in those rites and mysteries
which were soon so profaned, that the infinitely pure and sacred
source to which they owed their origin became choked with pol-
lution, and finally ceased to flow ; for the earth was unfit to re-
ceive the touch of the Divine Feminine, To protect it from still
further prostitution, all consciousness thereof was withdrawn from
the minds of men, until nature should receive a fresh discharge of
purifying elements through a human organism specially prepared
for the purpose. The time has once more arrived when those who
are inspired with that courage which a passionate love for hu-
manity can alone impart, may once more approach, with uncovered
feet, that holy ground ; for it is only in the mystic temple reared
by the operation of the Divine Masculine and Feminine principles
in the human breast, that the neAV worship can be inaugurated,
and those potencies invoked, which shall redeem and purify the
race. It is thus alone that, after her separation because of her
uncleanliness, the Bride can be fitted for the arms of the Bride-
groom, whose return is predicted in Holy Writ, and for whom
those who love Him are eagerly watching.
Chapter xxii. of the Book of the Lesser Holy Assembly, " Concerning
the remaining members of the Son, or the Lesser Countenance " : —
" 734. The Male is extended in right and left, through the inheritance
which He receiveth {i.e., from Chokmah and Binah).
" 735. But whensoever the colours are mingled together then is He
called Tiphereth, and the whole body is formed into a tree {the Autz
Ha-Chaiim, or Tree of Life), great and strong, and fair and beautiful.
Dan. iv. 11.^
1 Hence He is "The Word."
2 The dual offspring is humanity, when it has become bisexual through sympneu-
matic union ; and Israel, in this connection, typifies Christ.
2 The Tree of Life is the bisexual body.
APPENDIX I. 397
" 736. ' The beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls
of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed on it.'
" 737. His arms were right and left. In the right is Chesed and
Life ; in the left is Geburah and Death.
" 738. Through Daath (Knowledge) are his inner parts formed, and
they fill the Assemblies and Conclaves as we have said.
" 739. For thus is it written, ' And through Diiath shall the Conclaves
be filled.'
" 740. Afterwards is His bodj- extended into two thighs, et intra hsec
continentur duo renes, duo testiculi masculini.
" 741. Omne enim oleum, et dignitas, et vis masculi e toto corpore in
istis congregatur ; nam omnes exercitus, qui prodeunt ab iis, omnes
prodeunt et morantur in orificio membri genitalis.
" 742. And therefore are they called Tzabaoth, the Armies ; and they
are Netzach (Victory), and Hod {Glory). For Tiphereth is Tetragram-
maton,! but Netzach and Hod are the armies ; hence cometh that name
Tetragrammaton Tzabaoth.^
" 743. Membrum masculi est extremitas totius corporis, et vocatur
Yesod, fundamentum, et hie est gradus ille qui mitigat fceminam. For
every desire of the Male is towards the Female.
" 744. Per hoc fundamentum ille ingreditur in foeminam ; in locum
qui vocatur Tzion et Jerusalem. Nam hie est locus tegendus foeminse,
et in iisore vocatur uterus.
" 745. And hence is Tetragrammaton Tzabaoth called Yesod,^ the
Foundation. Also it is written, Ps. cxxxii. 13 — ' Since Tetragrammaton
hath chosen Tzion to be a habitation for Himself ; He hath desired Her.'
" 746. When Matronitha, the mother, is separated and conjoined with
the King face to face in the excellence of the Sabbath, all things be-
come one body.
" 747. And when the Holy One — blessed be He ! — sitteth on His
throne, and all things are called the Complete Name, the Holy Name.
Blessed be His Name for ever, and unto the ages of the ages !
" 748. All these words have I kept back unto this day, which is
crowned by them for the world to come. And now herein are they
manifested. blessed be my portion !
" 749. When this Mother is conjoined with the King, all the Avorlds
receive blessing, and the universe is found to be in joy.
" 750. Like as the Male (the Son) existeth from the Triad Kether (the
Crown), Chokmah (Wisdom), and Binah (Understanding), and His begin-
ning is with the Triad, in this same manner are all things disposed, and
the end of the whole body is thus ; also the Mother {Inferior), receiveth
not tlie blessing excei)t in the Syntagma of the Triad, and these paths
are Netzach, Hod, and Yesed.
J Tetragrammaton is Jehovah — that word being too holy to be jTonounced.
2 The Lord of Hosts.
' Yesod is the Lord ; Tzabaoth, composed of Hod and Netzach, are The Hosts ;
hence we obtain the full internal significance of the expression, "The Lord of
Hosts."
398 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
" 751. And She is mitigated, and receivetli blessing in that place
which is called the Holy of Holies below.
"752. As it is written, Ps. cxxxii. 13 — 'Since there Tetragrammaton
giveth His blessing.' For there are two paths ; that which is above, and
that which is below.
" 753. Hence there is permission granted unto none to enter therein,
save unto the High Priest, who entereth from the side of Chesed, in
order that none other might enter into that supernal place save that
which is called Chesed.
" 754. And He entereth into the Holy of Holies, and the Bride is
mitigated, and the Holy of Holies receivetli blessing in the place which
is called Tzion.
" 755. But Tzion and Jerusalem are two paths, one denoting Mercy
and the other Justice.
"756. For concerning Tzion it is written, Isa. i. 27 — 'Through
Meshephat, Judgment, it is redeemed.' And concerning Jerusalem, it is
written, ibid., 21 — 'Justice, Tzedek, abideth in Her,' as we have before
explained.
" 757. And every desire of the Male is toward the Female. But thus
are these called, because hence proceed blessings for all the worlds, and
all things receive blessing.
" 758. This place is called Holy, and all the holinesses of the Male enter
therein through that path of which we have spoken.
" 759. But they all come from the supernal head of the Male skull,
from that portion of the supernal brain wherein they reside.
" 760. And this blessing floweth down through all the members of
the body, even unto those which are called Tzabaoth, the Armies.
" 761. And all that which floweth down throughout the whole body
is congregated therein, and therefore are they called Tzabaoth, the
Armies ; because all the armies of the superiors and inferiors go forth
therefrom.
" 762. And that which floweth down into that place where it is con-
gregated and which is emitted through that most holy Yesod, Founda-
tion, is entirely white, and, therefore, is called Chesed.
" 763. Thence Chesed entereth into the Holy of Holies ; as it is
written, Ps. cxxxiii. 3 — 'For there Tetragrammaton commanded the
blessing, even life for evermore.'"
These were the last words Avhich Eabbi Simeon Ben Yochai,
whom Kabbalists believe to have been the writer of a great portion
of the Kabbalah, ever spoke. The scribe to whom he was dictat-
ing, Eabbi Abba, said, " Scarcely could the Holy Light-bearer
(Eabbi Simeon) finish the word ' Life ' before his words ceased
altogether. But I was Avriting them down, and thought there
would still be more for me to write, but I heard nothing." The
scribe then proceeds to describe the phenomena which attended
his death — "And a voice was heard (saying), Come ye, and as-
semble together, and enter into the nuptials of Eabbi Simeon,
APPENDIX I. 399
Isa. Ivii., ' Let him enter in with peace, and let them rest in their
chambers/ " From this it is clear that even in that early day-
holy men, who were versed in the mysteries, looked forward to
that sympneumatic union after death by which they should be
completed as to their personalities. And Eabbi Simeon brings
this out still more clearly on a previous occasion when he says : —
"And those words have hereunto been concealed, therefore have I
feared to reveal the same, but now they are revealed.
"And I reveal them in the presence of the most Holy Ancient King;
for not for mine own glory, nor for the glory of my father's house, do I
this ; but I do this that I may not enter ashamed into His palaces.
" Henceforth I only see that He, God the Most Holy — may He be
blessed ! — and all those truly just men who are here found can all consent
(hereunto) with me.
" For I see that all can rejoice in these my nuptials, and that they
all can be admitted unto my nuptials in that world. Blessed be my
portion ! "
APPENDIX 11.
BY
A CLERGYMAN OF THE CHUECH OF E^^GLAXD
2
CONTENTS OF APPENDIX 11.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
M.
N.
0.
P.
Q.
R.
S.
T.
Preface, . . . . . . ,
On Angelic Ministry, or Spiritual Agency,
On Inspiration, ......
On the Nature of God, ....
On the Miracles of Christ, ....
On True Theology, .....
On the Purification of the Human Organism,
On the term "Forgiveness of Sins,"
On the Dogma of the Atonement,
On Implicit Obedience to the Dictates of Conscience
On Love, .......
On the word "Power," as used in the English New
Testament, ......
On the Physical Relation of Present Pain to Future
Joy, .......
On the Future Life, .....
On the Hidden Meaning of Scripture,
On Spiritual Experiences, ....
On the Word "Shaddai," ....
On the Atomic Affinity between Christ and True Chris
tians, ......
On the Dogma of the Trinity,
On the word "Pneuma," ....
On the Restoration of True Christianity,
Postscript, ......
PAGE
403
405
407
411
414
418
421
425
428
431
433
437
439
442
444
445
447
453
457
463
470
472
APPENDIX IL
PEEFACE TO THE ^OTES m THE APPENDIX.
The following notes are the result of a simple and honest search
after the truth of God.
The writer, in the course of a somewhat long and varied ex-
perience as a priest of the Church of England, had for some time
Ijeen conscious of a growing uneasiness in his mind as to the
present condition of Christianity. He had met, in the course of
his ministry, with many evidences of a widespread sense of dis-
satisfaction at the results hitherto achieved by the dogmas and
organisations of the Churches and sects of Christendom.
Nor, so far as his powers of investigation went, did he find
it otherwise as regards the effects produced by the other great
religions of tlie world. As to the practical daily life of the
liuman race, the Avorld at this moment is scarcely better than if
all its religions had never existed. Evil passions of every kind
were never more rampant than they are at present : misery, pain,
sickness, and death, devastate humanity with their terrible scourges,
as powerfully now as in any age of man's fallen history. In a word,
the regeneration of the human race, irom sin and its consequences,
seems to be as far as ever from its accomplishment.
To any one who truly loves God and his fellow-creatures, this
condition of things must appear inexpressibly sad ; and to none
more so than to honest and candid priests and ministers of
religion, who should be the first to welcome any unprejudiced
and intelligent attempt to investigate the causes of past fuiluri!,
404 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
and to discover the secret of future success. In order that such
an attempt should be made u.nder fitting conditions, it was
necessary to divest one's self, for the time, of all preconceived
notions, — to remove one's self entirely from the sphere of past
duties and associations, and, in the childlike spirit of open recep-
tivity and humble trust, to give one's self up to the guidance of the
Spirit of God.
Such has been the simple aim of the writer, who lays no claim
whatever to any infallible inspiration, who is conscious of the
imperfection of his work, and who neither desires nor expects any
of his readers to accept his dictum on any of the subjects treated
of, without due investigation and conviction of its truth. All he
asks is that his readers will approach the task in the same candid
spirit as that which he has endeavoured to maintain for himself ;
and that they will give him credit for no other motive than that
of seeking to discover the truth of God.
He would suggest that these notes can only be profitably
studied by those who will be content to take their Bibles and
undergo the labour of examining the various passages referred
to one by one ; for a mere cursory reading of this appendix will
do no good whatever.
One other word of personal explanation may, perhaps, be per-
mitted. The writer has at present withheld his name; not be-
cause he is ashamed of his efforts in the cause of truth, nor be-
cause he is afraid of any results to himself that might attend the
publication of it ; but for entirely independent reasons, which the
reader will doubtless accept as satisfactory when he learns that
they meet with the approval of so fearless and straightforward a
writer as Mr Oliphant. If at any future time he feels that the
cause will be aided by the divulgence of his name, he will no
longer keep it concealed.
Meanwhile, to remove all occasion for cavil, he wishes to state
that he is at present deriving no personal pecuniary benefit from
any ecclesiastical organisation, nor is it his purpose ever to do so
again in the future.
M.A. Cantab.
APPENDIX II. 405
NOTE A.
ON ANGELIC MINISTKY, OR SPIEITUAL AGENCY.
Chapter i. page 21.
" The unseen xoorld teems with intelligences, whose action upon
this one is very direct."
One would imagine that this proposition was self-evident to
any student of, and believer in, the Bible ; and we should scarcely
think it worth while to support it by passages from Holy Writ,
were it not that the majority of professing Christians deny alto-
gether, in the present day, the action of unseen intelligences and
sensible manifestations of their power; though these manifesta-
tions are constantly occurring in Bible history, and have, more-
over, of late, forced themselves upon public notice by phenomena
so remarkable that societies have been formed to investigate them.
The Book of Genesis contains at least twenty-two distinct in-
timations of this truth (xv. 10-17; xvi, 7-13 ; xvii. 1-22; xviii.
xix. 1-22; XX. 3-7; xxi. 17-19; xxii. 1-18; xxiv. 7; xxvi. 24
xxviii. 12-17; xxxi. 11; xxxi. 24; xxxii. 1, 2; xxxii. 24-32
XXXV. 1; XXXV. 9; xxxvii. 5-11; xl. 5-19; xli. 1-36; xlvi. 2-5
xlviii. 16).
In the Book of Exodus we find six passages which can only be
explained by the action of unseen intelligences on the wills or
persons of the human beings affected (vii. 13; ix. 12; x. 20;
xi. 10; xii. 27-29 ; xxiii. 20-23).
In Leviticus there are three statements as to those who have
"familiar spirits" (xix. 31 ; xx. 6; xx. 27).
The Book of Numbers records explicitly the direct interference
of an angel with Baalam (xxii. 22, &c.)
Deuteronomy speaks again of familiar spirits (xviii. 11).
In Joshua we lind the " captain of the Lord's host " appearing
to the leader of the Israelites (v. 13-15).
Judges records the appearances of angels to Gideon and ]\Ianoah
(vi. 11-21 ; xiii. 3-22).
The 1st Book of Samuel has several notable instances of the
action of spiritual intelligences on man (iii. 4-18; xvi. 14-23;
xix. 9; xxviii. 3, 7, 13).
In the 2d Book of Samuel it is directly stated that it was an
angel, a personal, intelligent, unseen being, that wrought the
]iestilcnce in the land of Israel during the reign of David (xxiv.
16, &c.)
Elijah and Micaiah, in the 1st Book of Kings, remind us of
406 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
the active interference of the unseen world in the affairs of this
earth (xix. ; xxii.)
Eemarkable instances of the same truth are found in the 2d
Book of Kings, especially in the case of Elisha at Dothan, and
Sennacherib before Jerusalem (i. 10, 12; ii. 11 j vi. 16, 17; xix.
35; xxi. 6; xxiii. 24).
Both the Books of Chronicles contain similar intimations (1st
Chron. x. 13; 2d Chron. xxxiii. 6).
Two distinct accounts of the same action are recorded in the
Book of Job (i. 6-12 ; ii. 1-7 ; iv. 12-17).
The Psalms are full of sentiments expressing a belief in this
truth (viii. 5 ; xxxiv. 7; xxxv. 5, 6 ; Ixviii. 17; Ixxviii. 49 ; xci.
11, 12; civ. 4, &c.)
Ecclesiastes alludes to the same idea (v. 6).
Isaiah dwells frequently and forcibly upon it (vi. 1-9 ; viii. 19;
xi. 2 ; xix. 3 ; xxix. 4 ; xlvii. 9, &c. )
Daniel bears out the same truth (iii. 25; v. 5, 6, 24-28 ; vi. 22).
Zechariah records a notable account of the action of an angel
and Satan with regard to the high priest (i. 9, &c. ; iii.)
We have thus deduced at least seventy-two separate instances —
amongst others, from the Old Testament — testifying beyond con-
tradiction to the active influence and interference exerted by the
intelligences of the unseen world upon humanity.
The New Testament simply teems with passages absolutely irre-
concilable with any theory which excludes the doctrine of invisible
intelligences.
The following passages may be studied with interest in proof of
this : —
Matt. i. 20, 24; ii. 12, 13, 19; iii. 17; iv. 1-11; viii. 8-13,
16, 28-34; ix. 32-34; x. 1, 8; xii. 22-28, 43-45; xv. 21-28;
xvii. 18; xviii. 10; xxvi. 53; xxvii. 19; xxviii. 2-7.
Mark i. 13, 23-27, 32-34, 39; iii. 15, 22-30; v. 1-20; vi. 7,
13; vii. 24-30; ix. 17-29, 38; xvi. 5, 9, 17.
Luke i. 11-20, 26-38; ii. 9-14; iv. 1-13, 33-37,41; vi. 18;
viii. 27-38; ix. 1, 38-42, 49, 50; xi. 14-26; xxii. 31, 43;
xxiv. 4.
John V. 4 ; XX. 1 2.
Acts V. 16, 19, 20; viii. 7; ix. 3-8; x. 3-7; xii. 7-11; xvi.
18; xix. 12-16; xxvii. 23.
1 Cor. iv. 9 ; vi. 3 ; xi. 10 ; xii. 10.
Gal. iii. 19.
Heb. i. 14; ii. 2 ; xii. 22; xiii. 2.
1 Pet. i. 12.
1 John iv. 1.
The Book of Eevelation is so full of the subject that it is im-
possible to note down all the passages.
APPENDIX II. 407
But enough has been quoted to show that the Bible at any rate
teaches unequivocally the intimate connection between the visible
and invisible portions of the universe of God, and their mutual
interaction the one upon the other.
NOTE B.
ON INSPIRATION.
Chapter i. page 25.
" Certainly others sJiould sJirmk from assei'ting, as many do
assert, not merely that these jyrophets and apostles spealz with the
divine voice, hut that it has been personally revealed to them that
they did so ; for it must always come to this, either in the first or
second degi'ee, and that every word written loas suggested literally
hy God."
It is evident that St Paul himself was conscious of different
degrees of " inspiration " at different times ; and that, therefore,
he himself did not consider his epistles, nor expect them to be
considered, as universally divinely inspired, in the sense that every
statement contained therein was to be accepted as coming directly
and infallibly from God Himself.
Every one of his epistles commences with the distinct announce-
ment that it is he, Paul, tliat is about to write ; and not once
does he state, or even hint, in the preliminary announcements, that
what is about to be written must be taken as coming from God, or
held in any other light than an ordinary letter from an earnest
and experienced missionary to a friend or body of friends, living
in some locality where he has already ministered.
Now and then, indeed, he seems to feel more powerfully than
usual a divine influx or afflatus ; and on such occasions he makes
use of expressions intimating that this is the case.
Sometimes, on the other hand, he is conscious of writing with
little or no influx ; and on such occasions he speaks diffidently,
and seems to indicate that he desires his remarks to be taken for
what they are worth. On the whole, his letters are manifestly
those of a deefjly earnest, truth - seeking, religious man, who
thoroughly believes in all that he says, and Avho exi^octs tluit his
communications will be received by his correspondents with the
respect and attention due to one who has been tlie human instru-
ment of their conversion to the faith, and who is held in esteem and
confidence by them for his learning, piety, and nearness to God.
We might go further, and say that, undoubtedly, St Paul wrote
408 SCIENTIFIC KELIGION.
under considerable internal influx; but he himself would have
been the first to repudiate any claim to infallible inspiration.
This will be apparent, if we take his epistles separately, and
freeing them from the false glamour of superstition with which
the Church has invested them, read them as we would any other
letters written, under similar circumstances, by a missionary to
his flock. Thus studied, they will be found to reveal themselves
in a light far more beautiful, because more real and genuine, than
they have ever appeared before ; and in proportion as the false
superhuman fades from our view, the lovely charm of the true
humanity contained in those marvellous compositions, tempered
by the varying shades of internal influx, will be the more clearly
realised and appreciated by us.
Nor need any one fear lest this realisation should diminish the
value and authority of those writings ; for a true conception must
carry with it more power of conviction than that which is false.
By way of illustration as to the foregoing remarks, let us take
his letter to his Christian friends at Eome, commonly called " The
Epistle to the Romans."
After the introductory personal greeting and ministerial bless-
ing, the writer tells his friends how deep is the interest which he
takes in their welfare, how pleased he is to hear that they continue
firm in their faith, how earnestly he prays for them, and how
anxiously he longs to pay them another visit, as soon as the way
is made clear for him to do so. — See Eom. i. 8-13.
All this is evidently purely "human," and as such Paul himself
regards it. He " thanks God " ; he " calls God to witness " of the
truth of what he says as to his feelings ; he places himself on a
level with those to whom he writes, speaking of " the mutual
faith both of you and me." Passing on from mere personal
matters, he discusses certain points of doctrine and conduct con-
nected with the new religion ; and the tone which he employs is
just such as we should expect from one writing a letter of serious
importance to new converts, who were still in doubt upon many
matters of faith and practice. And though he clearly feels very
deeply upon the subjects himself, and endeavours to impress his
views most earnestly upon his readers, there is no sign throughout
that he is conscious of any further inspiration than that accorded
to one whose single aim is the truth, and who, by piety and
self-sacrifice, has become more than ordinarily open to spiritual
impressions, and thus more than ordinarily enabled to distinguish
between a true and a false afflatus.
So much, indeed, does his own personality mingle itself with
his writings, that, in the very midst of his arguments on certain
points of doctrine, he pauses to take his friends into his confidence
as to the spiritual conflict through which he himself has passed.
APPENDIX II. 409
See chap. viL 9-25. At other times, again, he uses such expres-
sions as the following : " I am persuaded," &c. (viii. 38, 39) ; " I
say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me
witness " (ix. 1 ) ; " My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is, that they might be saved " (x. 1 ) ; " We that are strong ought
to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves "
(xv, 1) ; "I myself am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye are
full of goodness" (xv. 1-1); — all tending to show how manifestly
it was Paul's feelings, Paul's belief, Paul's sympathies, Paul's per-
sonality, that were expressing themselves in this epistle.
The very strongest forms of speech that he makes use of are
these: "I say, through the grace given unto me" (xii. 3); "I
know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus" (xiv. 1-i); "I have
written the more boldly unto you in some sort, because of the
grace that is given to me of God" (xv. 15); but even in these he
claims no infallible inspiration for himself, and in the last passage
he explains what he means by " the grace given " unto him —
namely, that he " should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the
Gentiles."
He concludes his letter by repeating his desire to pay them a
personal visit ; and remarks that, as he hopes before long to make
a trip to Spain, it is very possible that he may be able to take
Kome e?i route. He explains his inability to visit them at the
present time, oAving to his being obliged to take some money to
Jerusalem, which had been subscribed for the relief of the poor
Christians in that city by the inhabitants of Macedonia and
Greece ; but he assures them that Avhen he has accomplished that
task, he will start as soon as possible for Spain.
A long series of kind regards and messages of friendship and
affection to several persons, whom he mentions by name, winds up
the letter ; and it is absurd to suppose that when Paul penned
these private greetings, he could have imagined it likely, or even
possible, that his letter could have been considered by future
generations as the infallible dictum of the Almighty, or, as it is
styled, " the Word of God."
We have selected the Epistle to the llomans, simply because it
is placed the first in order of St Paul's Epistles in the Bible ; but
a careful and candid study of all or any of the others will give
very similar results.
The following passages we have noted, as those in which St Paul
most strongly suggests his consciousness of writing under an inter-
nal guidiince.
1. " iS^ow we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the
spirit which is of God ; that we miglit know the things that are
freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in
words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by a holy
410 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
influx ; putting influxes together, and comparing tliem one with
another" (1 Cor. ii. 12, 13). See Note S, p. 463, on the
" Pneuma."
2. " We have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. ii. 16).
3. "I command, yet not I, but the Lord" (1 Cor. vii. 10).
4. " I have received of the Lord, that which also I delivered
unto you" (1 Cor. xi. 23).
5. " The things that I write unto you are the commandments of
the Lord" (1 Cor. xiv. 37).
6. " I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received "
(1 Cor. XV. 3).
7. " I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached,
of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither
was I taught it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ " (Gal.
i. 11, 12).
8. " If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God
which is given me to you-ward, how that by revelation He made
known unto me the mystery . . . which in other ages was not
made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His
holy apostles and prophets in spirit " (Eph. iii. 3, 5).
9. " This we say unto you by the word of the Lord" (1 Thess.
iv. 15).
On these passages, we have to remark that 1, 2, 7, and 8 clearly
refer to his whole ministry, and assert no infallible inspiration for
his writings, and that 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9 allude to Christ's own
sayings, as recorded in the gospels, and related by those who heard
them. (See Matt. v. 32; xix. 6, 9; Mark x. 11, 12; Luke xvi.
18 ; Matt. xxvi. 26 ; Mark xiv. 22 ; Luke xxii. 19 ; Matt. xvi. 28 ;
Mark ix. 1 ; Luke ix. 27, &c.)
On the other hand, in the following passages, St Paul is evidently
conscious of writing on his own responsibility, and without internal
guidance.
1. " I speak this by permission, and not of commandment" (1
Cor. vii. 6).
2. " To the rest speak I, not the Lord" (1 Cor. vii. 12).
3. " Concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord ;
yet I give my judgment to be faithful as one that hath obtained
mercy of the Lord. I sujDpose therefore," &c. (1 Cor. vii. 25).
4. " If any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom,
neither the churches of God" (1 Cor. xi. 16).
N.B. — St Paul has been here giving certain directions ; and in
case any objections might be raised to his dictum, he appeals for
his authority to the custom of the churches. Had he considered
his dictum infallibly inspired, he would have based his appeal upon
that inspiration.
5. " "NVe believe, and therefore sj)eak " (2 Cor. iv. 13).
APPENDIX II. 411
6. " I speak not by commandment " (2 Cor. viii. 8).
7. "Herein I give my advice" (2 Cor. viii. 10).
8. " That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as
it were foolishly" (2 Cor. xi. 17).
"9. "I speak foolishly" (2 Cor. xi 21).
10. "I speak as a fool" (2 Cor. xi. 23).
11. "I speak after the manner of men" (Gal. iii. 15).
12. "I Paid say unto you" (Gal. v. 2).
13. "I count not myself to have apprehended " (Philip, iii. 13).
Finally, he sometimes confesses plainly that he is himself in
doubt as to -whether he is writing under internal influx or no.
Thus, to give one passage by way of example in 1 Cor. vii. 40,
he says : " She is more blessed if she remain thus, according to
my opinion ; and I think that I have also a divine influx on the
matter." See ^ote S. on the " Pneuma."
It is to be hoped that these few considerations will assist to-
Avards removing the epistles or letters of St Paul from the false
platform on which they have been placed by ecclesiastical tradition,
and presenting them in their true and genuine character.
If this be so, a great step will be gained towards a due appre-
ciation of the entire Bible.
NOTE C.
ON THE NATURE OF GOD.
Chapter ii page 38.
" Matter is illimitable. In other words, it is infinite and eternal;
and as we cannot conceive of the Deity being outside of what is
infinite and eternal, He also must be in this sense material."
He who ventures to assert that God is in any sense material,
runs the risk of being branded by the Church as a heretic and
materialist; the latter term having been invented to describe a
believer in what, according to the Church's view, is a heinous and
fatal error. And yet it is maintained with equal vehemence by
the Church, that there is no particle of matter in which God is
not ; though at the same time she repudiates the idea of being
pantheistic in doctrine.
There seems here to be a somewhat strange inconsistency Avhich
is very difficult of reconciliation.
Moreover, the Nicene Creed asserts that God the Son is " of one
substance with the Father;" and the 1st Article declares that "in
unity of this Godhead there be three Persons of one substance."
If substance is not matter, there is no meaning in words.
412 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
That the Bible teaches the universaKty of God in matter is
evident from the following passages amongst many others : —
" Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit 1 or whither shall I flee
from Thy presence 1 If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there :
if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the
wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold
me" (Ps. cxxxix. 7-10).
" Do not I fill heaven and earth 1 saith the Lord " (Jer. xxiii. 24).
" In Him we live, and move, and have our being " (Acts xvii.
28).
" Li Him were all things created, in the heavens, and upon the
earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones, or
dominions, or principalities, or powers ; all things have been
created through Him, and unto Him ; and He is before all things,
and in Him all things consist" (Col. i. 17, Eevised Version).
The last three passages clearly indicate that God is material, in
the true sense of the word ; but the Church has fallen into a con-
fusion of ideas on the subject, owing to the imperfect notion of
" matter " Avhich has hitherto existed in it. That term having
been confined to the portion of matter which is susceptible to
our present senses ; or, in other words, to the " gross matter "
resulting from the Fall, and therefore essentially connected with
sin. The instinctive sentiment of the human breast has naturally
revolted against the connection of Deity with matter, understand-
ing thereby a connection between the Sinless and the sin-stained.
But when once we realise that the gross substance apparent to
our senses is merely an accretion over all that is true and pure
of matter, the difficulty at once disappears, and it becomes a con-
sistent and sublime belief that God is in matter and matter in
God, coexistent and inseparable ; or, in other words, that God is,
in the highest sense, a material Being.
This, in the words of Mr Claude G. Montefiore, M.A., in a
paper lately read before the Jews' College Literary Society,
" brings us close to the central problem in the philosophy of re-
ligion. That problem is to determuie the relation of the Deity to
nature and to man. Eeligious thought and religious feeling are
both continually desiring two qualities in the Godhead, the combina-
tion of which inharmonious unity is always of exceeding difficulty.
According as one quality or another is more rigorously insisted on,
the character of the entire philosophy which maintains it is deter-
mined. . . . Exclusive stress upon the one quality leads to deism,
upon the other to pantheism. The problem of all theistic religions
is to find the higher unity which shall combine and satisfy the
truths for mind and heart, which deism and pantheism alike
contain."
APPENDIX II. 413
In other words, the two qualities in the Godhead, required by
the instincts of the human heart, are " distance " and " nearness."
The infinite majesty of One who dwells " in the high and holy
place," in the light " which no man can approach unto," tends to
remove God far above all nature, and to foster the sense of His
immateriality, thus leading to the idea of deism ; whilst, on the
other hand, the conviction of His omnipotence, and the inner
consciousness of a universal need of His unfailing succour, love,
and support, tend to bring Him down from His exalted position,
and to engender the lower aspect of pantheism.
Both these phases of the conception of the Deity are, in them-
selves, true ; but each depends, for its truth, upon its due and pro-
portionate combination with the other.
It is, to use a homely illustration, like the proportionate com-
bination of oxygen and hydrogen in water.
Take the right proportions of these two gases, combine them
chemically together, and water is the result.
Take too great or too smaU a quantity of either component, and
the combination will be spoiled.
So with the component aspects of the nature of God.
Combine them in their due proportions, and the true nature of
God will result. Take either in excess, and a false God appears.
Further, to make the illustration complete, as in the one case, so
in the other, the difficulty to be solved is how to combine the com-
ponent parts, even when you have them in their due proportions.
In chemistry, the problem is solved by an electric current ; in
theology, by the right conception of "matter."
It is the limited idea of gross, sin-polluted matter, which creates
deism on the one hand, and pantheism on the other.
Conceive of matter as infinite, eternal, illimitable ; divest it
of its debased accretion ; and the infinite, eternal, illimitable
God stands forth, material in the truest and highest sense, —
neither the God of the deist nor that of the pantheist, but a
compound of both, witli being, substance, and qualities as essen-
tially different from eitlier as the being, substance, and quality of
water differ from those of oxygen or hydrogen.
414 SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
NOTE D.
ON THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST.
Chapter ii. page 40.
" Tliis force it is which, 2^(issing through the organism of the
ojyerator into the hypnotised jmtieiit, controls his will, and ins2nres
his words and acts ; and in order to do this, it has to jjenetrate the
atoms of the ordinary matter which compose the fleshly particles of
the visible frames of both."
Here we have an explanation of miracles, as related in the Bible
and elsewhere ; and we can see at once how it was that Christ had
such miraculous powers of healing. For owing to the special cir-
cumstances connected with His birth, and the perfect constitution
of His human nature, the outer covering of fleshly matter, apparent
to the senses of others, was so infinitely fine and rarefied that the
" material force " penetrating the atoms of His visible frame was
able to work its way out of Him, into the patient operated upon,
with such little let and hindrance, that its effects were virtually
instantaneous, and, as it seemed, preternaturally powerful.
A remarkable confirmation of this view is supplied by a careful
study of the various modes of dealing with different cases which
Christ employed, and the degrees of ease and difficulty which He
experienced in achieving the desired results. For evidently the
operation of the " material force " would depend not merely on
Christ's own atomic nature, which was constant in all cases, but
also on the atomic constitution of the fleshly particles of the patients
operated upon. Some would be more receptive than others to the
influence of the " material force " ; while in some cases the density
of the fleslily particles would be such that the force would be un-
able to penetrate them.
This receptivity to the " material force " Christ designates by the
term " faith " ; and so we find that on two separate occasions, at
least. He was unable to perform any miracles, or mighty works,
simply, as we are told, because of the " want of faith " exhibited
by the people of the place. Thus, in Matt. xiii. 58, we read, " He
did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief ; " and
in Mark vi. 5, " He coidd there do no mighty work, save that He
laid His hands upon a few sick folk and healed them. And He
marvelled because of their unbelief."
Setting aside those who were thus impervious to the material
force which issued from Christ, we find three different degrees
of receptivity, or " faith," in the patients operated upon ; and
APPENDIX II. 415
Christ's miracles of healing may therefore be divided into three
classes, corresponding to these three degrees.
In the first, or densest class, are included those cases where
bodily contact between Christ and the patient were necessary.
In the second class, are included those cases where, without
actual bodily contact, Christ's will acted on the will of the patient,
Avhose " faith " was tested by an obedience to an order.
In the third or highest class, are included those cases where the
" faith," or receptivity, was so powerful that the " material force "
was able to pass from Christ's organism into that of the patient by
a simple effort of Christ's will acting upon the j)atient's organism,
no test of " faith " being required.
We will give a few examples of each class.
1. Those where actual bodily contact was necessary.
" There came a leper and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, if Thou
wilt. Thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth His hand,
and touched him, saying, I will, be thou clean. And immediately
his leprosy Avas cleansed" (Matt. viii. 2, 3). See also Mark i. -40,
41; Luke v. 12, 13.
" He took her by the hand, and the maid arose " (Matt. ix. 25).
See also Mark v. 41 ; Luke viii. 54.
" They bring unto Him one that was deaf, and had an impedi-
ment in his speech ; and they beseech Him to put His hand upon
him. And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His
fingers into his ears, and He spit, and touched his tongue ; and,
looking up to heaven. He sighed, and saith unto him, Ephplaatha,
that is, Ee opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and
the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain " (Mark
vii. 32-34).
" Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up ; and he arose "
(Mark ix. 27).
N.B. — In none of the instances in this class is any mention
made of the " faith " of the patient as an active influential factor
in the operation of the miracle.
2. Those whose " faith " was tested prior to the resulting eifect
of the action of Christ's will upon theirs.
" Tlien saith He to the sick of the palsy. Arise, take up thy
bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his
house " (Matt. ix. 6, 7). See also Mark ii. 10-12 ; Luke v. 24, 25.
" Then saith He to the man. Stretch forth thy hand. And he
stretched it forth ; and it was restored whole, like as the other "
(Matt. xii. 13).
" And when He saw them, he said unto them. Go show your-
selves to the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went,
they were cleansed " (Luke xvii. 14).
"Jesus said unto liini, Co tliy Avay ; tliy son liveth. And the
416 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
man believed the word that Jesus had said unto him ; and he
Avent his way " (John iv. 50).
N.B. — In the cases of this class, we find the faith of the
patients or supplicants generally mentioned as special factors in
the healing potency.
3. Those whose " faith " was so powerful, that neither bodily
contact nor test was required by Christ.
Of this class, the following are among the most illustrious ex-
amples : —
The Eoman centurion at Capernaum (Matt. viii. 5-13), See
also Luke vii. 1-10.
The Syrophoenician woman of Canaan (Matt. xv. 21-28). See
also Mark vii. 24-30.
The woman with the issue of blood (Matt. ix. 20-22). See also
Mark V. 25-24; Luke viii. 43-48.
Blind Bartimeus at the gate of Jericho (Mark x. 46-52). See
also Luke xviii. 35-43.
N.B. — In each case of this class, Christ distinctly avers that
the " faith " of the applicants Avas the principal operating cause of
the healing potency. " Thy faith hath saved thee ; " " Thy faith
hath made thee whole;" "According to thy faith, so be it done
unto thee," &c.
This point is very important, and we will therefore make it as
clear as possible. When Christ has to put forth physical energy
Himself, and place Himself in bodily contact with the subject
operated upon, no mention whatever is made of the faith of the
patients. When the effects are produced by co-operation between
the wills of Christ and the patient, such co-operation being tested
by obedience to an order, the faith of the latter is stated to have
had its influence, more or less, on the results produced. And when
no physical contact, or test of submission of will, is necessary, the
faith is said to have actually effected the cure.
Three other classes of miracles, besides those of healing, demand
our passing notice.
(a.) Those effected on the powers of nature.
{b.) The casting out of devils,
(c.) The raising of the dead.
(a.) Those miracles which were effected over the powers of
nature, may be stated as follows : —
Changing water into wine (John ii. 1-11).
Stilling the tempest (Matt. viii. 23-27; Mark iv. 37-41; Luke
viii. 23-25).
Walking on the sea (Matt. xiv. 25 ; John vi. 19-21).
Feeding the multitudes (Matt. xiv. 15-21; Mark vi. 35-44;
Lukeix. 12-17 ; John vi. 5-14; Matt. xv. 32-38 ; Mark viii. 1-9).
Miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke v. 4-11 ; John xxi. 3-8).
APPENDIX II. 417
Withering the fig-tree (Matt. xxi. 17-22; Mark xi. 12-U).
It is only when we realise the intimate connection which exists
between all the parts of creation, and especially between those
parts popularly but erroneously distinguished as matter and mind,
that we can understand how easily the " material force " operating
through Christ's organism, being perfect and sublime as it was,
could produce results upon the atomic particles and the forces of
nature, Avhich would appear mu-aculously astounding to an ordinary
mind.
(b.) In the detailed accounts of the various instances of ejection
of evil spirits, we can trace clearly and conclusively the existence
and operation of the " material force," or SuVa/*t9 tov Trvcv/xaros,
through the organism of Christ ; and a wonderful glimpse is re-
vealed to us of the reality of the invisible world of spirits, as well
as of the close affinity and interaction between the seen and un-
seen portions of our universe.
See Matt. viii. 38-34; xvii. 18; Mark i. 23-27, 33, 34; v.
1-20; ix. 17-29; Luke iv. 33-37, 41 ; ix. 38-42.
(c.) The consideration of the close proximity to this earth of
those who have but lately departed from the flesh, taken in con-
junction with the infinitely refined atomic constitution of Christ,
removes all difficulty in the way of comprehending those three
miracles which have always been considered the most stupendous
displays of His supernatural power — namely, the restoring to life of
Jairus's daughter, the widow's son at Nain, and Lazarus of Bethany.
It has been too much the habit of the apologists of Christianity
to assume that there is no middle course between asserting the
absolutely supernatural character of Christ's miracles, and the deny-
ing them altogether. Thus, in their ardent anxiety to uphold the
evidences of the truth of their religion, they have been driven
to take their stand on an untenable position, because their view of
Christ's so-called miracles has been one opposed to the rational
instincts of the human mind.
So far from being supernatural, or from contravening the law
and order of the universe, Christ's wonderful works are the natural
results of the contact between His person, atomically constructed
as it was, and the atomic constitutions of the persons and things
with whom He dealt.
The miraculous, or supernatural, wonder would have been, if
tliese forces coming into contact had not produced the results
which followed.
418 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
NOTE E.
ON TRUE THEOLOCJY.
Chapter ii. p. 42.
'^ It is hy an effort of his affections, and not by one of Ids brain,
that he can fit this key to the lock of knoivledge."
When the writer of this note passed his " Little-go " examina-
tion as an undergraduate at Cambridge, the best paper on Paley's
' Evidences of Christianity ' was done by a Jew named Numa
Hartog, who was afterwards Senior "Wrangler. Of this the writer
was himself informed by the Examiner Avho set the papers. The
intellectual faculties of tlie Jew enabled him to grasp the argu-
ments logically; but this had no effect upon his affectional emotions
or on his conscience, for he remained as steadfast a Jew as ever.
We have quoted this instance, as an example of the truth so
frequently insisted upon in the Bible, and yet so strangely ignored
in practice by those who profess to regulate their lives by the
teaching of the Scriptures — namely, that the knowledge of true
religion is to be attained by the heart, and not by the mind, or, in
other words, by the affections, instead of the brain.
We have no intention to use this example with a view to
showing that the Christian is all right and the Jew all wrong, or
vice versa. We merely desire to point out how absurd it is to
suppose that people are to be converted by mere argumentative
evidence.
No amount of intellectual disquisition or controversy will help
to elucidate the mysteries of divine wisdom ; for, if we are to
believe what is written in the Bible, the pursuit of knowledge
must be conducted along the pathway of practical heart-affection,
and not through the dark and mazy labyrinths of mental meta-
physics.
It is the " heart," not the " mind," that is appealed to in the
Bible, as necessary to be illumined for the reception of God's
truth. Countless passages might be cited in proof of this; we
will content ourselves with giving a few.
" Oh that there were such an heart in them, that they would
fear me," &c. (Deut. v. 29).
" If thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if
thou seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul " (Deut. iv.
29).
" I will give them an heart to know me " (Jer. xxiv. 7).
" I will put my law in their inward parts, and Avrite it in their
APPENDIX II. 419
liearts ; and. will be their God, and they shall be my people. And
they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man
his brother, sayuig, Know the Lord ; for they shall all know me,
from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord "
(Jer. xxxi. 33. 34).
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God"
(Matt. V. 8).
" Be ye of an understanding heart " (Pro v. viii. 5).
" Wisdom resteth in tlie heart of him that hath understanding "
(Prov. xiv. 33).
" The wise in heart will receive commandments " (Prov. x. 8).
" "With the heart man believetli unto righteousness" (Rom. x. 10).
" The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge "
(Prov. XV. 1 4).
Again, it is owing to a defect in the heart, not the mind, that
men fail to know and understand God's mysteries, according to
the Bible. Thus :—
"A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot de-
liver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand ? "
(Isa. xliv. 20).
" Go, and tell this people. Hear ye indeed, but understand not ;
and see ye indeed, but perceive not. ]\Iake the heart of this
people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest
they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand
with their heart, and convert, and be healed" (Isa. vi. 9, 10).
" Lord, why hast Thou made us to err from Thy ways, and
hardened our heart from Thy fear?" (Isa. Ixiii. 17).
" This people hath a revolting and rebellious heart ; they are
revolted and gone. Neither say they in their heart, Let us now
fear the Lord our God, . . . Your iniquities have turned away
these things, and your sins have withholden good things from
you" (Jer. v. 23, 2.5).
In like manner, we learn from the IJiljle how vain and useless is
a mere intellectual search after the truth, and how impossible it is
to treat religion as if it were a science Avhich could l)e solved by
the investigations and discussions of mere mental inquirers.
" Canst thou by searching find out God 1 canst thou find out
the Almighty unto perfection ? It is as high as heaven ; what
canst thou do 1 deeper than hell ; what canst thou know 1 The
measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the
sea" (.Job xi. 7-9).
" I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the
Avork that is done under tlie sun ; because, though a man labour to
seek it out, yet he shall not find it ; yea farther, though a wise
man think to know it, yet shall he not be aljle to find it " (Eccles.
viii. 17).
420 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
" Then tliouglit I to understand tliis, but it was too hard for me ;
until I went into the sanctuary of God " (Ps. Ixxiii. 16, 17).
" Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
hast revealed them unto babes" (Matt. xi. 25).
" "Where is the Avise 1 where is the scribe 1 where is the dis-
puter of this world 1 hath not God made foolish the wisdom of
this world 1 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by
wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the simplicity of the
thing preached to save them that believe" (1 Cor. i. 20, 21).
" Ye see our calling, brethren, how that not many wise men
after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called ; but
God hath chosen the simple things of the world to confound the
wise" (1 Cor. i. 26, 27).
" The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ;
for they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he know them, be-
cause they are spiritually discerned " (1 Cor. ii. 14).
Lastly, we are frequently taught in the Bible that it is by fol-
lowing the dictates of our consciences and actually rendering the
heart-service of our whole lives and beings to God, not by mere
meditation and theorising, nor by discussion and controversy, that
we shall be enabled to solve the mysteries of religion, and to gain
the highest knowledge of God and of His hidden truth.
" Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice,
and then it was well with him 1 He judged the cause of the poor
and needy ; then it was well with him ; was not this to know
me? saith the Lord" (Jer. xxii. 16, 17).
" Why do ye not understand my speech 1 Even because ye
cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the
lusts of your father ye will to do " (John viii. 43, 44).
" If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the doc-
trine " (John vii. 17).
" He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is
that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my
Father, and I will love him, and Avill manifest myself unto him "
(John xiv. 21).
" Keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane
and vain babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely so called ;
which some professing have erred concerning the faith" (1 Tim.
vi. 20, 21).
" Strive not about words to no profit but to the subverting of
the hearers. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a work-
man that needeth not to be ashamed, holding a straight course in
the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings, for they
will increase unto more ungodliness" (2 Tim. ii. 14-16).
Such are the manifest declarations of Scripture. Yet, in the
face of all, we have theology set before us as a science, like
APPENDIX 11. 421
geology, biology, or any other " ology " ; containing, like them,
its long-sounding definitions and dogmatical statements ; teeming,
like them, TPith matter of continual controversy, and affording sub-
jects of endless heartburnings and disputes ; diifering only from
them in this respect, however, that it is a " science, falsely so
called." For no amount of mental culture or scientific research
■will of themselves bring the inquirer any nearer to the knowledge
of the truth ; no collection of dogmas invented by man and pro-
fanely palmed off upon God, will avail to enlighten the humble
student.
Though our universities may provide their well-paid professors
of theology, and though learned disquisitions without number may
proceed from their pens, these will but serve to " darken counsel,"
and hinder the progress of .the pursuit of true knowledge ; for the
river of wisdom flows into the organism of man through the chan-
nal of his affections and not of his intellect; and it is in the pure,
simple, self-denying love of the godlike heart, not in the abstruse
and metaphysical dogmas of churches and creeds, that the truth of
God shall be revealed.
There is no one more highly endowed with intellectual know-
ledge of the mysteries of God, no more profound and learned theo-
logian, than the devil himself.
XOTE F.
ox THE PURIFICATION OF THE HUMAN ORGANISM.
Chapter v. page 86.
" The first experience of which the man enr/aged in this attempt
becomes conscious is, that he is the arena in which two strongly an-
tagonistic currents come into rollidon, and that he is frustrated in
h is attempt to open himself only to that which is pure, by a flood
of that ivhich is impure, seeking ingress by the oj^ening which
his efforts to receive a greater measure of the ])ure effected in his
organism."
It was to this internal conflict of antagonistic currents that St
I'aul so often alluded wlien he spoke of the warfare Ijetween the
" flesh " an<l the " spirit."
By the " flesh " is signified the impure, inverted, and destruc-
tive forces, the influ.\ of wliicli into human nature l)rought about
originally the gross flcslily accretion of human organisms, and the
action of which tends to render those organisms even more gross
and fleshly ; whilst by the " spirit " is meant the pure, elevating,
422 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
life-giving force entitled the " jDneuma," which originally assimilated
human nature to the divine, and the renewed influx of which into
human organisms tends to restore them to their pristine condition.
These two principles, being antagonistic to each other, cause the
agonising struggle which a person experiences in his inner con-
science, as soon as he lays himself open to the influence of the
" pneuma." In the absence of either of these opposing set of
forces, there is no consciousness of a struggle, and in consequence
there is peace ; but the one is the fatal, lethargic peace of death,
described by Christ when He says, " When a strong man armed
keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace ; " the other is the
eternal peace, which comes as a consequence of victory after
struggle, and which is characterised as " the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding." It was to bring this peace eventually
to the human race that Christ was born into the world ; hence He
was foretold by Isaiah, under the title of the " Prince of Peace " ;
hence also, at His birth, the angel-host proclaimed " Peace on
earth " ; and hence again, before His death, He bequeathed this
legacy, — " Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you ; not
as the world giveth, give I unto you."
But between these two stages of peace, the false and the true,
there must come to every one the period of conflict. Hence, even
whilst promising His peace, Christ added, " In the world ye shall
have tribulation ; " and hence He gave utterance to that apparent
paradox, — " Think not that I am come to send peace on earth ; I
came, not to send peace, but a sword,"
That St Paul himself experienced this internal struggle, and that
it caused him unutterable agony, is evident from his own con-
fession ; " We know that the law is that of pneuma ; but I am
fleshly, sold under sin. For what I accomplish, I do not know ;
for I do not practise what I desire ; but what I hate, that I do. If
then I do that which I do not desire, I assent to the law that it is
good. JSTow then, no longer do / accomplish this, but the sin
which dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh,
dwelleth no good : for the will is present with me ; but how to
accomplish the right, I do not find out. For I do not do good, as
I desire to do ; but the evil which I do not desire, that I practise.
I find then the law that, though I desire to do the right, the evil is
present with me. For I sympathise with the law of God accord-
ing to my inner man ; but I see another law in my members
conflicting with the law of my mind, and enslaving me to the
law of sin which is in my members. A miserable man am I !
Who shall free me from this body of death 1 I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, I myself serve the
law of God in my mind ; but in my flesh, the law of sin."
(Eom. vii. 14-25).
APPENDIX II. 423
Again, the same apostle, in his Epistle to the Galatians, describes
the combatants on either side of this internal conflict when he
says : " The flesh cherishes desires in opposition to the pneuma,
and the pneuma in opposition to the flesh ; and these are antagon-
istic to each other : in order that ye may not do the things which
ye may desire" (Gal. v. 17).
That this conflict, though essentially subsurface, afl'ects the
whole organism, body, soul, and spirit, is also evident from several
passages of Scripture, as well as from practical experience.
Thus it is that all three parts of the human organism are spoken
of in conjunction, when, in writing to the Thessalonians, St Paul
says : " The God of peace make you holy throughout your whole
beings, and may your entire organisms, sphit, soul, and body, be
preserved blameless in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ "
(1 Thess. V. 23).
The painful disturbance caused in the organism of one who is
opening himself to the higher life, by the conflicting elements of
flesh and pneuma, may be appropriately illustrated in the follow-
ing manner.
The human organism resembles a vessel which has been filled in
every part with foul and polluted air. A vessel so filled is puri-
fied by two means, which may be termed 2^ositwe and negative;
or, in other words, infusive and effusive. That is to say, two
channels have to be opened, the one for the expulsion of the foul
air, the other for the inlet of the pure. These two channels must
be open at the same time, and the twofold process must go on
simultaneously. The negative or eff'usive process is not sufficient
of itself, as there would be produced merely a vacuum, which is
fatal to life. The positive or infusive process is equally inoperative
by itself, as, until the foul air is at least in part expelled, there is
no due room for the pure.
For the purposes of purification, it is evident that three things
are necessary —
1. The opening of channels for the expulsion of the foul air.
2. The opening of channels for the infusion of the pure.
3. The closing of all channels by which a fresh supply of foul
air might gain admission.
If these three precautions are rigidly observed, the vessel will
gradually become entirely freed from all pollution, and filled with
pure untainted atmosphere.
Hut meanwhile, during the process of purification, there will be
a severe atmospherical disturbance in tlie vessel. The currents of
the inflowing pure air will come into collision with tho opposing
currents of the outflowing impure.
This disturbance will be all the stronger, if the channels of in-
gress and egress are in close proximity to each other ; whilst, if
424 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
it should happen that the two were identical, it is evident that the
process would be rendered far more difficult, gradual, irregular, and
hazardous ; and all these drawbacks would be immensely intensified
if, in addition, the same channel could become the means of letting
in new supplies of foul air.
Yet this is exactly the case with our human organisms. They
have become filled with foul and polluted spiritual atmosphere.
The Greek word afiapTLo. (hamartia), used for "sin" in the New
Testament, means " that which vitiates or pollutes ; " and the
phrase translated " forgiveness of sins," means literally, " expulsion
of that which vitiates." See Note G, p. 425.
The pneuma is simply the pure spiritual essence, which must
take the place of the " hamartia " when it is being expelled from
the human organism.
The expulsion of the " hamartia " and the infusion of the pneuma
must go on simultaneously, and be in exact correlation to each
other.
This is exactly what Christ meant when He said : " When the
unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places,
seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return to my
house from whence I came out ; and when he is come, he findeth
it ejnjyty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with
himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they
enter in and dwell there ; and the last state of that man is worse
than the first" (Matt. xii. 43-45).
The mistake that Christ wished to guard His disciples against,
by this melancholy picture, was the idea of imagining that the ex-
pulsion of sins from the human organism would be sufficient, with-
out the corresponding infusion of the pure pneumatic essence to
take the place of that which is expelled. Now, inasmuch as the
organic channels for the expulsion of the foul nature, are identical
with those for the admission of the pure ; and inasmuch as, more-
over, the self-same channels, unless carefully guarded, can easily be
utilised by the evil ones for the injection of new supplies of impu-
rity, it will be at once understood how great must be the disturb-
ance, and consequently the agony, which is caused throughout the
entire organism, when these opposing currents come into collision.
It will be seen that the whole process must, from its very
nature, be gradual, painful, irregular, and liable to error : gradual,
because the infiltration will go on very slowly, the moral atmo-
sphere becoming little by little purer as the foul is ejected and the
pure admitted ; painful, because of the violent disturbances within
the system, caused by the collision of opposing moral currents ;
irregular, because, as has been shown, foul currents may be, and
often are, admitted by the very channels which are opened for the
inlet of the pure, thus contaminating, again and again, the organism
APPENDIX II. 425
which is being puriiied ; and liable to error, because it is often very
difficult to distinguish the pure currents from the impure.
But yet, notwithstanding these dangers, drawbacks, and delays,
if we are only faithful to our trust, — which is to keep careful watch
over our channels, so that the purifying element may be constantly
flowing in, the vitiatuig constantly flowing out, and all things per-
taining to the gross elements of our fallen earth-nature prevent-
ed from obtaining an entrance, — if we thus co-operate with Christ
in His saving work, then by slow, painful, yet sure and certain
progress, will our whole beings regain their pristine condition, and
contain within them, filling them through and through, and per-
meating every atom of their organisms, the perfect purity of their
bimie likeness to the Biune God,
NOTE G.
ON THE TERM " FOKGIVEXESS OF SIXS."
Chapter v. page 89.
'^ From this it is 2J^(iin that tvhat is generally termed 'sin,' is, in
fact, the outward and visible sign of infestation^
The term " forgiveness of sins," so frequently met with in the
English translations of the Xew Testament, and incorporated into
the Creeds as a leading dogma of Christendom, conveys to the
general mind an erroneous impression. Tins is owing chiefly to
the false doctrine of vicarious sacrifice, upon which we shall dwell
in Xote H.
There are three Greek verbs in the !N^ew Testament which are
translated in our versions " forgive " or " remit." These three
verbs are a.^i-(][x.i, airor iOrjixi, and xapit^ofxai.. Xow a<jifr]fXL means
simply to " send fortli," or to " expel "; dTruTidrjfxL, to " put away ";
and x«/"^Co/^«-', to " show favour." Not one of the three, except
by severely straining its meaning, signifies " pardon through a
vicarious sacrifice."
1. The word avoTLOrjfjLL is only used once, in Acts viii. 22,
where the passage, " if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be
forgiven thee," ought to be rendered, " if perchance the purpose of
thine heart may be put away from thee " — an entirely difierent
meaning.
2. Thje verb x'H'^O^P-f^*- occurs merely in the few following i)assages,
where it invariably bears the signification of "show favour," or
"oblige": 2 Cor. ii. 7, 10; xii. 13; Eph. iv. 32; Col. ii. 13.
Thus, for example, the well-known text in Eph. iv. 32, rendered
426
SCIENTIFIC EELIGION.
" Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another,
even as God /or Christ's sake liatli forgiven you," should be, "Be
ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, showing favour one to
another, even as God, in Christ, hath shown favour to you."
Here is an excellent example of the manner in which the English
translation has, to use a common phrase, been " doctored," to suit
the dogma of vicarious sacrifice. As it is read in the Authorised
Version, the text explicitly states that pardon is obtained by us
from God, owing to the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf ; whereas
St Paiil simply averred the great truth that God had shown favour
to us in the mission of Christ.
3. The force of a^irjfjii, as we have already said, is to " expel " ;
and when it is used in regard to the relation of sin to God and
man, it invariably means the actual expulsion of sin and its
concomitants from man by God, — not the withholding of a just
punishment from a guilty criminal, because of the sacrifice of an
innocent victim in his stead,
A few examples will show how this simple meaning has been
perverted in our English New Testament.
Authorised Veesiox.
Matthew ix. 2-7.
" Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto
the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good
cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee.
And, behold, certain of the scribes
said within themselves. This man
blasphemeth.
"And Jesus, knowing their thoughts,
said, Wherefore think ye evil in your
hearts ? For whether is easier, to say,
Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or to say.
Arise, and walk % But that ye may
know that the Son of man hath power
on earth to forgive sins, (then saith
He to the sick of the palsy,) Arise,
take up thy bed, and go unto thy house.
And he arose, and departed to his
house."
Matthew xii. 31.
"All manner of sin and blasphemy
shall be forgiven unto men ; but the
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost
shall not be forgiven unto men. And
whosoever speaketh a word against
the Son of man, it shall be forgiven
him : but whosoever speaketh against
the Holy Ghost, it shall not be for-
given him, neither in this world,
neither in the world to come."
Correct Rendering.
* ' Jesus, seeing their faith, said to
the paralytic, Cheer up, my son ; thy
sins have been expelled from thee.
And, behold, certain of the scribes
said amongst themselves, This person
blasphemes.
' ' And Jesus, observing their con-
siderations, said, "Wherefore do ye
consider evil in your hearts ? For
which of the two is the easier, to say.
Thy sins have been expelled from
thee ; or to say, Arise and walk ? In
order that ye may know then that
the Son of man has authority on earth
to expel sins, (then He says to the
paralytic,) Arise, take up thy bed,
and go away to thy house. And
having risen up, he went away to his
own house."
" Every sin and blasphemy shall be
expelled from men ; but the blasphemy
of the pneuma shall not be expelled
from men. And whosoever speaks a
speech against the Son of man, it
[i.e., the spirit which causes him thus
to speak) shall be expelled from him ;
but whosoever speaks against the
pneuma that is holy, it shall not be
expelled from him, neither in this
present age, nor in the age to come."
APPENDIX II.
427
Authorised Veksiox.
Matthew xxvi. 28.
"This is my blood of the uew
testament, which is shed for many for
the remission of sins."
Mark'w. 12.
"Lest at anytime they should be
converted, and their sins should be
forgiven them."
COKEECT ReXDEEIXG.
"This is my blood of the new dis-
pensation, which is being poured out
on behalf of many with a view to ex-
pulsion of sins."
' ' Lest they should ever turn, and
their sins should be expelled from
them."
Luke i. 77.
" To give knowledge of salvation " To give knowledge of salvation
unto His people by the remission of to His people, in expulsion of their
their sins." sins."
Luke vii. 47-50.
" Her sins which are many, are for-
given ; for she loved much : but to
whom little is forgiven the same loveth
little. And He said unto her. Thy
sins are forgiven. And they that sat
at meat with Him, began to say within
themselves, Who is this that forgives
sins also ? And He said to the woman.
Thy faith hath saved thee : go in
peace."
Luke xxiv. 47.
" That repentance and remission of
sins shall be preached in His name."
John XX. 22, 23.
"He breathed on them, and saith
to them. Receive ye the Holy
Ghost : whose soever sins ye remit,
they are remitted unto them ; and
whose soever sins ye retain, they are
retained."
Acts ii. 38.
"Repent, and be baptised every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins, and ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."
Ephesians i. 7.
"In whom we have redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins."
Jlchreus ix. 22.
" Without .shedding of blood is no
remi.ssion."
1 John i. 9.
" If we confess our sins. He is faith-
ful and just to forgive us our sins, and
to cleanse us from all uiirigliteous-
ness."
"Her sins, though many, have
been expelled, because she loved
much ; but the person from whom
little is expelled, loveth little. He
said, then, to her, Thy sins have
been expelled. And His companions
began to say amongst themselves,
"Who is this who expels sins also '
And He said to the woman. Thy faith
hath saved thee : go in peace."
' ' That a change of mind and ex-
pulsion of sins shall be preached in
His name."
' ' He breathed on them, and saith
to them : Receive a holy pneuma.
Whose soever sins ye expel, they are
expelled from them ; and whose soever
sins ye hold fast, they are held fast."
"Repent, and let each of 3-ou be
baptised in the name of Jesus Christ
for the expulsion of sins ; and ye
sliall receive the gift of the holy
pneuma."
"In whom we have redemption
through His blood, the expulsion of
transgressions."
" Without shedding of blood expul-
sion is not generated."
" If we admit our sins, He is faith-
ful and just, so that He will expel
our sins, and make us pure from all
unrighteousness."
428 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
INIany of these passages, which seem at first to be very obscure
and incompreliensible, become perfectly plain and intelligible when
we bear in mind that all sin is an infestation, and that when " sins "
are spoken of, " infestations " are thereby signified.
We are apt to tliink of sins, as if they consisted of an aggrega-
tion of so many sinful thoughts, words, and deeds ; whereas these
are merely the outward manifestations of the real sins which infest
our nature.
Thus, to use a simple illustration —
A person is afflicted with a disease, say, for example, the small-
pox. A quantity of noxious eruptions break out in consequence
all over the surface of his body. These are not the disease, but
the outward manifestations merely, of the disease which infests
the body within.
Expel the disease, and the cause of the eruptions disappears,
and with it the eruptions themselves.
So with the infestations of sin. The only true salvation is the
expulsion of the evil which infests our natures. Forgiveness, in
the accepted use of the word, has not the slightest effect in pro-
ducing the required expulsion ; and therefore forgiveness has
nothing to do with salvation.
Christ came to save, not to forgive, nor to effect a reconciliation
between man and a vindictive, malicious God, who needed the
sacrifice of His Son, before His awful wrath could be appeased.
God is Love ; and being Love, He has secured to man, through
Christ, a means whereby sin and its accompaniments may be ac-
tually expelled from human nature. This is " the force of the
pneuma," i^Swa/Ats tov Trveu/xaros, so frequently spoken of in the
New Testament.
NOTE H.
ox THE DOGMA OF THE ATONEMENT,
Chapter v. page 96.
"A scheme for the salivation of man has been constructed by
human inventioii, as opposed to the spirit of the divinely inspired
life of the pure Being whose teaching it records, as it must be
revolting to all loho have ever felt, however faintly, the ineffable
touch of the Great All-Father and All-Mother, thrilling the inner
sense by contact tvith the Wo7'd made flesh."
The particular dogma here alluded to is one of the fundamental
doctrines of so-called Christianity ; and in its utter fallacy, together
with the insult which it offers to the God of justice and love, is
APPENDIX II. 429
probably to be found one of the main secrets of the failure of the
religion to work out the objects for -which Christ came.
It is well to state the dogma, which is commonly known as that
of "justification by faith," in as plain and simple terms as possible.
It is, then, as follows : —
"All the human race, with one solitary exception, having sinned
against the laws of God, — have incurred guilt deserving of the
severest punishment. These guilty criminals are told that God
has visited His full wrath upon the One only innocent man, in
order that those who merited chastisement might escape scot-free.
But this escape from punishment is made to depend upon whether
or no they believe that God has really perpetrated this most gross
act of injustice. Those who believe it will not only save them-
selves from chastisement, but will receive a rich reward ; those
who do not believe such a thing will be visited with punishments
of increased severity."
It will be acknowledged that the doctrine is here fairly and
tersely stated.
"WTiat does it amount to? "We can best understand it by a
simple illustration. In a certain school, an offence deserving serious
punishment has been committed by every scholar except one. The
master, well knowing this to be the case, calls the one obedient
boy out of the schoolroom. The rest of the pupils are then
addressed by an assistant-master in the following terms : " Boys,
you are well aware that you all deserve to be severely punished.
I am desired to inform you that, because you are all guilty, your
kind, good, just master has taken the one innocent boy out of the
room, and has given him a sound flogging in your stead. Those
who believe what I have told you, hold up your hands ! " Some
of the boys, delighted at the prospect of escaping punishment,
respond immediately by raising their hands ; whilst others, im-
pelled by their sense of justice, reply — * We cannot believe, sir,
that our master has acted in so terribly unjust a manner. You
must have been mistaken ; the boy who is innocent cannot possibly
have been punished because we are guilty. AYe would rather
suffer punishment ourselves than accept pardon on those terms.' "
" Very well, then," replies the assistant-master, " as you do not
believe what I have told you, and as you are so proud as to refuse
pardon on these conditions, come out and be thrashed." So the
sneaks, who applaud their master's goodness in saving their backs,
even at the expense of an innocent victim, are rewarded with a
prize ; while the honest-hearted lads, who refuse to give their
master credit for gross injustice, are branded with pride, and made
to suffer a severe punisliment.
We see at once the absurdity of this, and its utter violation of
the first principles of rectitude. We see that either the master
430 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
was guilty of the most liagrant injustice, or else that the statement
made by the assistant-master was absolutely and entirely false. In
either case, we see what a pernicious effect on the boys themselves
the inculcation of such a belief would have ; how, trained on such
principles, they would inevitably grow np false, self-seeking crea-
tures, with utterly distorted notions of right and wrong.
Nor would the case be altered in the slightest degree, unless
indeed it were aggravated, if the innocent boy happened to be the
master's own son, or if he voluntarily offered himself to be punished
instead of the others. The injustice on the master's part would
remain undiminished. And yet the Christian doctrine, as com-
monly accepted, imputes to God an act from which the mind
instinctively rebels in the case of a man.
Now it is to be especially observed that throughout the whole
teaching of Christ Himself, there is not one word that sanctions
this erroneous dogma, not one hint of His being puni&lied, in order
that the wrath of God against guilty man may be appeased. He
did, indeed, lay great and frequent stress upon the necessity of His
death in connection with the accomplishment of His mission, but
never once in any manner that exhibited that death as a propitia-
tory sacrifice and offering for sin ; though, at the same time, it is
not difficult to see how His followers so soon fell into the erroneous
view which has tainted Christianity with its baleful influence ever
since. Unable to discern the real meaning of Christ's death, and
imbued with the Jewish idea of vicarious sacrifice, the early
teachers of Christianity concluded that that death must have been
in the nature of a propitiatory offering ; and thus, as is shown by
the writings of Paul, Peter, and John, almost from the very com-
mencement of the history of the religion, the great object of Christ's
all-important work was buried in the quagmire of an erroneous
dogma, utterly incompatible with the nature of God, and sufficient
of itself to account for the failure of Christianity. We have taken
great pains to collect all Christ's allusions to His coming death.
These may be divided into the following classes : —
1. Statements concerning the/ac^of His approaching passion,
death, burial, and resurrection. See Matt. xvi. 21 ; xvii. 22, 23 ;
XX. 17; xxvi. 2 ; Mark viii. 31 ; ix. 31; x. 33 ; Luke ix. 22 ; xviii.
31 ; xxiv. 6, 7 ; John ii. 19 ; viii. 28.
2. Statements as to the voluntary nature of His death. See
Johnx. 11, 15, 17, 18; xv. 13.
3. Statements as to the purjiose and effect of His death. See
John iii. 14-17; xii. 24, 32; Matt. xx. 28; xxvi. 28; Mark x. 45.
Now if all these passages be studied, it will be found that not
one of them can by any possibility be construed into an allusion
to a " propitiatory sacrifice," with the exception of the last three,
those, namely, from Matt. xx. 28 ; xxvi. 28 ; Mark x. 45. In the
APPENDIX II. 431
first and thirtl passages, Christ says, " The Son of man came to
give His life a ransom for many ; " and in the second passage,
" This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many
for " (or, as the Eevised Version more correctly puts it, " into ")
" the remission of sins."
It is true the English words " ransom " and " remission " might
imply a propitiatory sacrifice ; but if we turn to the original text,
Ave find that the Greek word for " ransom " is Xvrpov, which comes
from \vtji, " to set free " ; whilst the Greek for " remission " is
a</)€crts, which comes from dcf>Lr)fXL, " to send forth " or " expel."
Thus, in the first statement, Christ says that He came to give His
life in order to set many free from sin ; and in the second state-
ment He says that His blood was shed in order to expel sin from
many.
Both these statements are therefore identical, and simply mean
that Christ's death was to be necessary for the setting free of sin-
bound humanity from the thraldom into which the fall of man
brought them. This was, indeed, the exact and literal object and
effect of that death, not in the manner and sense so ignorantly
imputed by the dogmas of the Church, but in a far more real and
efficacious way.
XOTE I.
OX IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE TO THE DICTATES OF CONSCIENCE.
Chapter vi. pages 11 -4, 115.
" It imjjUes a distinct want of faith, if a mans conscience clearly
shows him that he is violating it, not to obey the impulse it sug-
gests at all hazards. God does not act thus directly upon the in-
most essence of man's nature, without having jyovided a satisfaction
for the craving after truth, lohich the uneasiness thus engendered
indicates."
The Bible is full of evidences of this truth, whether in the way
of precept, example, or warning. The absolute necessity of follow-
ing the dictates of conscience, Avhether it be to avoid evil or to do
good, and of leaving the results to God, however improbable it
may appear, humanly speaking, that a favourable issue < can follow
this implicit obedience, is tlic lesson whicli we are thus tauglit.
"We will take tliese points in order.
1 . Dictates of conscience to avoid evil.
The Scriptural jireccpts on this point are so numerous, that it is
impossible to quote them all ; we will, however, state one or two
of the most emphatic.
432 SCIENTIFIC KELIGION.
" There hatli no temptation taken you, but such as man can
bear ; but God is faithful, avIio will not suffer you to be tempted
above that ye are able ; but will with the temptation make also
the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it " (1 Cor.
X. 13).
"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of tempta-
tion " (2 Pet. ii. 9).
" In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able
to succour them that are tempted " (Heb. ii. 1 8).
Balaam, Saul, the disobedient prophet of Eethel, David, Judas,
and Pilate, are all sad cases of warning against the fatal results of
disobeying the voice of conscience when it would dissuade from
the commission of evil.
On the other hand, we have many notable examples of the
blessings which result from obeying the warnings of conscience.
Joseph, when tempted by Potiphar's wife ; Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego, who preferred the horrors of the fiery furnace to
violating their instincts of rectitude ; Daniel, Stephen, and the first
apostles of Christianity, all bear testimony to the same great truth.
2. Dictates of conscience to ■perform active good.
Abraham, when obeying in faith the order to sacrifice his only
son ; Joshua, when leading his army for seven days around the
walls of Jericho ; the widow of Sarepta, when sharing with Elijah
what appeared to be her last earthly meal ; I^aaman, when bathing
in the Jordan for the cure of his leprosy ; Simon the fisherman,
when casting his nets in the lake of Galilee after a night of fruit-
less toil ; — these and very many other cases all tend to convince us
that, even from the lowest point of all — namely, the benefit result-
ing to one's self — the best and wisest course invariably is to obey
immediately the suggestions of conscience, and to do what it dic-
tates, may the consequences of so doing appear ever so futile or
hazardous.
Perhaps the most noteworthy incident inculcating this lesson,
is that of the three holy women who went on Easter morning to
anoint the dead body of Christ.
Their sacred instincts and loving devotion impelled them to
undertake this task ; they started therefore on their mission, but
on the way a difficulty, ajiparently insurmountable, suggested
itself to them. A huge stone had been placed against the mouth
of the tomb, and it would be utterly impossible for them to remove
it. " And they said amongst themselves. Who shall roll us away
the stone from the door of the sepulchre ? " (Mark xvi. 3). But
their sense of duty would not allow them to be deterred by this
obstacle. They would not meet trouble half-way ; they would go
straight on and leave the issue in God's hands. The consequence
was that, at the very place and time when they expected to meet
APPENDIX II. 433
with the greatest difficulty, they found the difficulty had dis-
appeared. " And when they looked, they saw that the stone was
rolled away." And their faithful obedience to the voice of their
conscience was rewarded by the announcement of the angel at the
tomb, " He is not here ; He is risen."
So will it always be if we implicitly follow the impulse sug-
gested by the voice of God Avithin us. The clouds which seem so
black for us will melt away into golden light, and when we have
passed through them, we shall look back in wonder that they had
seemed to us beforehand so impenetrable.
NOTE J.
ox LOVE.
Chapter viii. page 133.
" Whe7i we reflect upon the Ugotries, the hatred, the persecution,
and the intolerance which have characterised, all Churches that have
taken as their chief corner-stone the teaching of Christ, which was
pure love and nothing else, we can only account for the people
tvho profess to he animated htj this love, and who manifest it Inj a
hate which has provoked hloody wars, as having become insane."
It is important and instructive to note that one, and one only,
test was given by Christ, by which His true Church was to be dis-
tinguished. This test was no formula of doctrine, no dogma nor
creed, no compliance with any form of ritual or worship, but plain,
simple, practical love. He does not say, " If you are to be my
disciples, you must believe in the doctrine of justification by faith,
or in that of the Trinity, or in the dogma of tlie infallibility of any
person or body of persons, or in this, that, or the other shibboleth,
theory, or whim, invented by human ingenuity or perverseness, —
but, " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye
have love one to another " (John xiii. 35).
Nor is this the teaching of one isolated passage, — it is the key-
note of Christianity. It will be well, in order really to show that
tliis is so, to gather together the most significant allusions, in the
New Testament, to love, as the gi-oundwork and test of Christ's
religion. Thus, in the first place, we have Christ's own declara-
tions on the subject, frequently and emphatically repeated.
" I say to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that liate you, and pray for them whicli despitefully
2 E
434 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
use you, and persecute you ; tliat ye may be the children of your
Father which is in lieaven " (Matt, v, 44, 45).
" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matt. xix. 19).
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great
commandment : and the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all
the lata and the projjhets" (Matt. xxii. 37-40). See also Mark xii.
30-31; Luke x. 27.
" A new commandment I give unto you. That ye love one an-
other ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By
this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love
one to another " (John xiii. 34, 35).
" This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have
loved you" (John xv. 12).
" These things I command you, that ye love one another "
(John XV. 17).
" Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom
Thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are " (John
xvii. 11).
" That the love wherewith Thou hast loved me may be in them,
and I in them" (John xvii. 26).
Thus the whole teaching of Christ was " love," pure and
simple. How little even His immediate followers understood of
the simplicity of this religion of their Master, may be gathered
from the fact that in the book of the Acts of the Apostles,
the subject of love, nay, the very loord itself, is not once to be
found from the beginning to the end. Instead thereof, the book
is a melancholy record of quarrels, disputes, and controversies,
even amongst the apostles themselves, over matters of dogma,
and other concerns of comparatively second-rate importance.
St Paul, however, appears to have grasped somewhat of the
overwhelming necessity of making this a subject of primary con-
sideration, at any rate during the latter part of his ministry, when
his proselytising zeal had been tempered by age and experience, and
his heart opened to the love of Christ, by his self-sacrificing fidelity
and nearness of touch to his Saviour.
Thiis the following, amongst others, are passages from his epis-
tles, breathing the pure and Christian spirit of love.
" Let love be without dissimulation. Be kindly afFectioned one
to another with brotherly love ; in honour preferring one another "
(Rom. xii. 9, 10).
" If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended
in this saying, namely. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself "
(Rom. xiii. 9).
APPENDIX II. 435
" Love -vvorketh no ill to his neighbour ; therefore love is the
fulfilling of the law" (Eom. xiii. 10).
"In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, . . .
in pureness, in knowledge, in long-sufFermg, in kindness, in a holy-
spirit, in love unfeigned " (2 Cor. vL 4-6).
" All law is fulfilled in one word, even in this ; Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself " (Gal. v. 1 4).
" The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle-
ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Gal. v, 22, 23).
" That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to
comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and
depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth
knowledge, that ye may be filled Avith all the fulness of God "
(Eph. iii. 17-19).
" Forbearing one another in love " (Eph. iv. 2).
" Walk in love, as Christ also loved us " (Eph. v. 2).
" This I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in
knowledge, and in all judgment" (Philip, i. 9).
"Above all these things put on charity [i.e., love), which is the
bond of perfectness " (Col. iii 14).
We have reserved till the end that most beautiful of all the
Apostle Paul's writings — namely, his picture of love, in the thir-
teenth chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians.
St James says : " If ye fulfil the royal law according to the
Scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, thou shalt do
well " (James ii. 8).
"Above all things," says St Peter, "have fervent charity among
yourselves; for charity shall cover the multitude of sins" (1 Peter
iv. 8).
And again : " Add to your faith virtue ; and to virtue know-
ledge ; and to knowledge temperance ; and to temperance patience ;
and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness;
and to brotherly kindness charity " (2 Peter i. 5-7). Thus placing
charity, or love, in the highest or most important place.
Uut it is, after all, in the writing of St John, the disciple of
love, that the sublime truth is most clearly stated.
" He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in
darkness even until now ; he that loveth his brother abidcth in
the light" (1 John ii. 9, 10).
" In this the children of God are manifest, and the .children of
the devil ; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither
he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye
lieard from the l)egiiiuing, that we should love one another"
(1 John iii. 10, 11).
"We know that we liave passed from deatli unto life, because
436 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
Ave love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in
death" (1 John iii. 14).
" Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in
truth" (1 John iii. 18).
" This is His commandment, that ye should believe on the name
of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us com-
mandment " (1 John iii. 23).
" Beloved, let us love one another ; for love is of God : and
every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He
that loveth not knoweth not God ; for God is love " (1 John iv.
■7, 8).
" Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is per-
fected in us" (1 John iv. 11, 12).
" God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God,
and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may
have boldness in the day of judgment : because as He is, so are we
in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth
out fear : because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made
perfect in love. We love Him, because He first loved us. If a
man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar : for he
that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love
God whom he hath not seen 1 And this commandment have we
from Him, That he who loveth God love his brother also "
(1 John iv. 16-21).
It might, perhaps, be thought that we were fighting a shadow,
in bringing so many texts of Scripture to bear upon what is
acknoAvledged, " in word and in tongue," to be a fundamental law
of Christianity, were it not for the lamentable fact that it is not
also acknowledged to be so " in deed and in truth."
There is not one single Church of Christendom at this moment,
nor one single sect or party within any of these Churches, wherein
the law of love is not wantonly violated, and the commandment of
the Lord made of none effect, through the traditions of selfishness,
intolerance, uncharitableness, narrow-minded bigotry, and fanatical
superstition. Thus, like the dog in the fable, whilst intent on the
shadow, they have lost the substance of Christ's religion ; and no-
where now can be seen the marks of unity and brotherly affection
which drew from the heathen of old the exclamation of wonder and
respect, " See how these Christians love one another ! "
APPENDIX II. 437
NOTE K.
ox THE "WOED "POWER," AS USED IX THE EXGLISH XEW
TESTAMEXT.
Chapter x. page 161.
" This divine force is constantly alluded to in the New Testa-
ment; hut the word Swa/jus is usually rendered 'power' by the trayis-
lators, and its real meaning, which is 'force', is thus weahened."
The looseness and want of strict accuracy, in regard to certain
words and expressions, by the English translators of the Bible, is
really most astounding and inexcusable.
This can scarcely be attributable to ignorance, nor would we
ascribe it to wilful perversion ; and it must therefore be set down
either to carelessness about details, or, as is the most probable, to
the blinding effects of preconceived theories and dogmatic prejudice.
This remark applies, perhaps, more especially to those who were
responsible for what is commonly known as the " Authorised Ver-
sion"; though the compilers of the " lievised " Edition are by no
means free from the same charge.
We shall deal further on Avith one evidence of this, in the treat-
ment of the Greek word " Trvcvfxa," in its several applications. — See
Xote 8, p. 463. We will here give another example, illustrative
of our observations.
The word "power" is to be found 145 times in the Xew Testa-
ment (Authorised Version) : —
In seventy-six cases, as the translation of Sui/a/xts ;
In fifty-six cases, as the translation of i^ovaia ;
In five cases, as the translation of Kpciros ;
In one case each, as the translation of o-pxVy 'O'X^'^' AteyaXeiorv/s,
and TO Svvarov, respectively.
In the remaining four instances — namely, Eev. vi. 4, xi. 3, xiii.
15, xvi. 8 — the word "power" is inserted in the English, with-
out any corresponding word in the Cfreek, though the sense does
not at all necessitate its insertion.
In the Revised Version, it has been omitted in every instance,
to the great imi^rovement of the passages concerned.
If, now, we examine the various Greek words which have been
indiscriminately translated as " power," we shall find a very essen-
tial difference in their respective significations.
'J'hc import of " SvVa/xt?," as the word implies, is " dynamical
power," which is best rendered " force," or " a force," as the sense
of tlie passage may recjuire.
Tliat of " i^ovaia " is " vested power," in the sense of " author-
ity " or " sway."
438 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
That of "Kpctros" is "physical power," Lest rendered " strength."
That of "dpx'?" is simply "magistracy."
That of "l(Txv'i" is from "t?," the same as the Latin "vis," and
may therefore be rendered " might."
That of " fJiiyaXeLOTrjs " is, as the Revised Version correctly has
it, " majesty."
And "to Svvarov," Avhich is the neuter substantival form of the
adjective SvvaTos, "able," is equivalent to the English word
" potency."
In many of the 141 passages in which these words occur, the
meaning will be rendered much more simple and explicit if we
read, instead of " power," the word corresponding to the Greek text,
as given above ; whilst in all the cases it will be well, for the sake of
accuracy and distinction, that the reader should make the required
substitution.
For this purpose we now proceed to enumerate the different
references, after which we will quote at length some of the pas-
sages which are more importantly affected.
1. Where " poAver "=" Swa/tts "= " force," or a " force " : Matt.
xxii. 29; xxiv. 29, 30; xxvi. 64. Mark ix. 1 ; xii. 24; xiii.
25, 26; xiv. 62. Luke i. 17, 35; iv. 14, 36; v. 17; ix. 1;
xxi. 26, 27; xxii. 69; xxiv. 49. Acts i. 8; iii. 12; iv. 7, 33;
vi. 8 ; viii. 10; x. 38. Rom. i. 4, 16, 20 ; viii. 38 ; ix. 17 ; xv.
13, 19; xvi. 25. 1 Cor. i. 18, 24; ii. 4, 5; iv. 19, 20; vi. 14;
XV. 24, 43. 2 Cor. iv. 7; vi. 7 ; viii. 3; xii. 9; xiii. 4. Eph. i.
19, 21; iii. 7, 20. Philip, iii. 10. Col. i. 11. 1 Thess. i. 5.
2 Thess. i. 1 1 ; ii. 9. 2 Tim. i. 7, 8 ; iii. 5. Heb. i. 3 ; vi. 5 ;
vii. 16. 1 Peter i. 5; iii. 22. 2 Peter i. 3, 16; ii. 11. Rev.
iv. 11 ; V. 12; vii. 12; xi. 17; xii. 10; xiii. 2; xv. 8 ; xix. 1.
2. Where "power "= e|ouo-ta =" authority," or "sway": Matt.
ix. 6, 8; X. 1; xxviii. 18. Mark ii. 10; iii. 15. Luke iv. 6,
32; V. 24; x. 19; xii. 5, 11; xxii. 53. John i. 12; x. 18;
xvii. 2; xix. 10, 11. Acts i. 7; v. 4 ; viii, 19; xxvi. 18. Rom.
ix. 21 ; xiii. 1, 2. 1 Cor. vi. 12; vii. 4, 37; ix. 4, 12, 18; xi.
10. 2 Cor. xiii. 10. Eph. ii. 2; iii. 10; vi. 12. Coh i. 13,
16; ii. 10, 15. 2 Thess. iii. 9. Tit. iii. 1. Jude 25. Rev. ii.
26; vi. 8; ix. 3, 10; xiii. 4, 5, 7, 12; xiv. 18; xvi. 9; xvii.
12 ; xviii. 1 ; xx. 6.
3. Where "power "=" KpttTos" = "strength " : Eph. i. 19 ; vi.
10. 1 Tim. vi. 16. Heb. ii. 14. Rev. v. 13.
4. Where " power "= "apx^ " = " magistracy " : Luke xx. 20.
5. Where " poAver "= " la-xy's " = " might " : 2 Thess. i. 9.
6. Where " power " = " iJL^yaX(.t6Tq<i "= " majesty " : Luke ix. 43.
7. Where " power " = "t6 Swarov " = " potency " : Rom. ix. 22.
We will now quote a few passages for the sake of illustrating
the observations given above.
APPENDIX II. 439
Matt, xxviii. 18 : "All sway in heaven and on earth has been
given to me."
Luke i. 1 7 : " He shall proceed in his presence under Elijah's
pneuma and force."
Luke XX. 20 : " So that they might deliver him up to the
magistracy and authority of the governor."
Luke xxiv. 49: "Eemain in the city of Jerusalem, until ye
shall be endued with a force from on high."
Acts i. 7, 8 : " It is not for you to know times or seasons,
which the Father hath settled of His own authority. But ye shall
receive a force, when the holy pneuma has come upon you."
Eom. XV. 18, 19: " Those things which Christ hath accom-
plished through me, to make the Gentiles hearken, by word and
deed, by means of a force of signs and wonders, a force of a holy
pneuma."
1 Cor. i. 18 : "The logos which is of the cross is to those who
are being lost folly ; but to us who are being saved it is a force of
God."
1 Cor. ii. 4, 5 : " Xot in persuasive words of human wisdom, but
in personal experience of pneuma and force ; in order that your faith
might not depend upon human Avisdom, but upon divine force."
Eph. iii. 20 : " Who has a force to accomplish exceeding
abundantly above all Avhich we ask or imagine, according to the
force which energises in us."
Philip, iii. 10 : "That I may know Him, and the force of His
resurrection."
2 Tim. iii. 5 : "Having an outward form of religion, but hav-
ing rejected the force thereof."
NOTE L.
ON THE PHYSICAL RELATION OF PRESENT PAIN TO FUTURE JOY.
Chapter x. page 169.
" Every j)0.in-atom, whrtJier it he moral or physical j^in, hccomes
a joy-atom, when it has done its loork of imrification here, and passes
tipwards, like incense, to that hrigld utmospliere, tvliere it condenses
into a joy-atom, and foi'ins a piece of substantial hajypiness, ivaiting
to he entered into hy the one icho felt the agony of it on earth, and
who, instea/l of rebelling then, cherished it as a ^mceless gift from
God."
The natural and inseparable connection between i)iiin-atoms,
patiently endured and rightly utilised on earth, and joy-nioms in
440 SCIENTIFIC EELIGIOlSr.
the bright hereafter, is a frequent theme in the Bible. But though
most readers of the Bible understand and believe that sorrow here
below is the prelude to joy hereafter above, few apparently com-
prehend the truth that the one actually 2)Toduces the other; that is
to say, not that joy in heaven will be simply a reward for patient
endurance of sorrow on earth, but that it is its offspring, the former
being actually the same substance as the latter, as literally as the
child is of the substance of the mother, or as the full-grown corn is
of the substance of the seed.
The following passages are a few of those which speak of the
intimate relation between terrestrial sorrow and celestial joy ; and
some of them, to which we will afterwards draw especial attention,
trace very clearly the substantial identity between the two.
" Our light affliction which is for the moment, worketh for us
more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory ; Avhile we
look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are
not seen ; for the things which are seen are temporal ; but the
things Avhich are not seen are eternal " (2 Cor. iv. 17,1 8).
" AVlierein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if
need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold temptations, that
the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that
perisheth, though it is proved by fire, might be found unto praise
and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1
Peter i. 6, 7).
" Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament,
but the world shall rejoice ; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your
sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail
hath sorrow, because her hour is come • but when she is delivered
of the child she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that
a man is born into the world. And ye therefore now have sorrow ;
but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy
no one taketli away from you" (John xvi. 20-22).
" They that sow in tears shall reap in joy " (Ps. cxxvi. 5).
" "Wliatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap " (Gal. vi. 7).
" He shall drink of the brook in the way ; therefore shall he
lift up the head " (Ps. ex. 7).
" They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I
lead them ; I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters. And
they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow
together unto the goodness of the Lord, . . . and they shall not
sorrow any more at all, . . . for I will turn their mourning into
joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice out of their
sorrow" (Jer, xxxi. 9, 12, 13).
" Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold
temptations " (James i. 2).
" We behold Him, who hath been made a little lower than the
APPENDIX II. 441
angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with
glory and honour ; that by the gi-ace of God He should taste
death for every man. For it became Him, for whom are all
things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons
to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through
sufferings" (Heb. ii. 9, 10).
" If so be that we suffer Avith Him, that we may be also glorified
together" (Eom. viii. 17).
" "We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in
pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also,
Avhich have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan
within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption
of our body" (Eom. viii. 22, 23).
" "Weeping maj'' tarry for the night, but joy cometh in the
morning" (Ps. xxx. 5).
"Sorrow is turned into joy before Him" (Job xli. 22).
" These are they which came out of great tribulation, and they
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Therefore are they before the throne of God " (Eev. vii. 1 4).
Xow from these passages we see four tilings : —
1. That there is a necessary relation between present sorrow
and future joy.
2. That present sorrow produces future joy (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18;
1 Pet. i. 6, 7 ; Ps. ex. 7 ; Heb. ii. 9, 10 ; Eom. viii. 17 ; Eev. vii.
U).
3. Tliat present sorrow produces future joy, as a woman pro-
duces a child (John xvi. 20-22 ; Eom. viii. 22, 23).
4. As a seed sown produces the fruit Avhich is reaped (Ps.
exxvi. 5 ; Gal. vi. 7).
N.B. — In Ps. cxxvi. 5, it is worthy of remark that the Avords
" They that sow in tears shall reap in joy," do not mean that
those who shed tears whilst in the act of sowing shall rejoice whilst
in the act of reaping ; but that those who sow in the substance of
tears (i.e., sow tears) shall reap in the substance of joy (i.e., shall
reap joy).
From these considerations Ave see that the Bible teaches us
that the joy of the hereafter is formed from the sorroAv of the
present ; for sorroAV and joj', like all other emotions, are in A'ery
truth material atomic substances.
The process by Avhich the substance of the joy is produced out
of the elements of the sorroAv is analogous to the physical opera-
tions Avith Avhich we are familiar in the science of chemistry.
The atoms of pain are incapable of transformation into those of
joy, excei»t liy combination Avith the moral atoms of jKitiencc and
faitli in the human .sufferer. In many cases, sorroAV and pain fail
to i)roduce tlie desired results ; this is because they enter into com-
442 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
bination ■with the wrong moral elements in the person afflicted.
Then discontent, peevishness, and a murmuring spirit of faithless-
ness mar the work which would otherwise ensue.
AVhen suffering and anguish are met by fortitude and patience,
and these ingredients are together submitted to the action of the
divine crucible, then, and then only, do they " work together for
good," as St Paul so beautifully describes it in Rom. viii. 28,
where the Greek word exactly implies the action which takes place
in a chemical retort. Then, and then only, does the refining fire
remove the dross from human nature ; and the atoms of sorrow
combine with the atoms of patience, producing the glorious, im-
mortal, unalloyed substance of eternal happiness and joy.
NOTE M.
ox THE FUTUKE LIFE.
Chapter x. pages 176, 177.
" It is not jpossihle for those who have imssecl through it into
higher conditions to sink hack into it again, for the attraction of
goodness, in tlie midst of which they dioell, is too ;poioerful to ad-
mit of their doing so ; hut it is possihJe for those who have sunk
through it downwards to he drawn up to it again, and so fin-
ally saved."
This is simply a matter of attraction and gravitation ; only the
attraction and gravitation is of moral instead of physical atoms. A
body escaping from earth into the upper regions of the unseen
world comes within the gravitating influence of that region, and
that attraction is powerful enough to resist all counter-gravitation.
This was exactly the same case with the lower world till Christ
went down there, and by His presence and the atomic elements
which He deposited there, weakened the gravitation of the lower
world to such an extent, that it is now possible for beings to escape
from that region into the higher. This was the purpose of Christ's
" descent into hell " : " He went to set free those who were bound,"
— bound, that is, by the force of infernal gravitation ; He released
the " spirits in prison," — in the prison, namely, of the attraction of
the lower world, from which, till the power of that attraction was
Aveakened by the counteracting element of Christ's biunity, they
were utterly unable to escape.
This was what Christ meant by the description which He gives
of the portions of the invisible world, in the parable of " Dives and
Lazarus." "We see there Lazarus " carried by angels into Abraham's
APPENDIX II. -443
bosom," — a figurative expression for the passing of his pneumatic
body into the region of angels and departed saints ; we see the rich
man in tlie agony " afar olf," in the lower regions of Hades.
Between the two " there is an impassable barrier " ; so that it is
impossible for the denizens of the one locality to pay a visit to the
denizens of the other. This " impassable barrier " is the moral
expanse of earth, where the counter-attractions of heaven and hell,
— i.e., of the upper and lower invisible regions — meet ; neither exer-
cising within that region an attraction so irresistible as to nullify
the gravitating force of the other. Outside that region, on either
side, the condition of things becomes changed, and no attraction
Avhatever from the lower world can reach the upper, just as, before
Christ went down into the lower region, no attraction from the
upper could penetrate into it. It was for this reason that Christ,
before His death and descent into hell, described the rich man and
Lazarus as being in positions so entirely asundered that it was im-
possible for them to come again into contact.
Eut that picture no longer holds true. Though Lazarus could
now by no possibility descend to Dives, any more than he could
before, yet it would now be possible for Dives to ascend to the
position which Lazarus occupied.
In this supremely potent work of Christ lies the hope, nay, the
certainty, of the final salvation of the whole universe. Had Christ
been content to humiliate Himself to death, and pass in His pneu-
matic body into the invisible regions of earth, and thence upwards
into heaven, without descending into hell, there could never have
been, for all eternity, any prospect of deliverance of the " sjjirits in
prison."
Kow, however, as gi-adually, under the stronger attraction of the
upper spheres, beings pass, one by one, from the lower, so does the
celestial gravitation constantly increase, with the addition of each
new moral force contained in the pneumatic body of each new-
comer ; whilst at the same time the gravitating force of the infer-
nals in proportion diminishes ; and finally it must become alto-
gether extinct, for all will have passed to the upper regions of bliss.
This is the final salvation ; this is the universal redemption of
the invisible as well as the visible world, which it was Christ's
great mission and Avork to accomplish.
The " impassable gulf " has been a source of great controversy
in the Churcli ; and tlie erroneous conception of the unseen world,
Ijased upon an ignorance of the fact that locality there is simply
the result of the moral conditions whicli create it, has given rise to
such doctrines as purgatory, on the one hand, and eternal damna-
tion, on the other, and has resulted in causing people to regard the
moment of death as fixing for all eternity the condition of the
444 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
soul. Once let the truth be realised that the j;?rtce where people
are in the unseen world, means simply the state in which they are,
and all difficulties disappear which have given rise to so many
conflicting and erroneous dogmas.
NOTE N.
ON THE HIDDEN MEANING OF SCRIPTUKE.
Chapter xi. page 185.
" The fact that the Bible ])ossesses this inner meaning is indicated
both in the Old and New Testaments."
The frequent occurrence of such words as " mystery," " parable,"
" dark sayings," &c., testify to the fact that the Bible recognises
a hidden meaning in its records and teaching; which fact it is
necessary to bear constantly in mind while perusing or studying its
pages. Thus, amongst other statements on the subject in Holy
Writ, we find the following : — ■
" We speak the wisdom of C4od in a mystery, even the hidden
wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory "
(1 Cor. ii. 7).
" According to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept
secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the
scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the
everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of
faith" (Eom. xvi. 25, 26).
" Having made known to us the mystery of His will" (Eph. i. 9).
" By revelation He made known to me the mystery, which in
other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now
revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the pneuma "
(Eph. iii. 5).
"The mystery which has been hid from ages and generations,
but is now made manifest to His saints ; to whom God would
make known Avliat is the riches of the glory of the mystery among
the Gentiles, which is Christ in you" (CoL i. 26, 27).
" Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience "
(1 Tim. iii. 9).
" Stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. iv. 1).
" I will incline mine ear to a parable : I will o]3en my dark
sayings upon the harp " (Ps. xlix. 4).
" I will open my mouth in a parable : I will utter dark sayings
of old " (Ps. Ixxviii. 2).
" The words of the "wise and their dark sayings " (Prov. i. 6).
APPENDIX II. -445
" Son of man, speak a parable unto the house of Israel "
(Ezek. xvii. 2).
" Utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord God " (Ezek. xxiv. 3).
"Go, and tell this people. Hear ye indeed, but understand not;
and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people
fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with
their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their
heart, and convert and be healed" (Isa. vi. 9, 10).
" They say of me, Doth he not speak parables 1 " (Ezek. xx. 49).
" I have declared the former things from the beginning ; and
they went out of my mouth, and I showed them ; . . . I have
even from the beginning declared it unto thee ; . . . thou hast
heard, see all this ; and will not ye declare it ? I have showed
thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst
not know them ; . . . yea, thou heardest not ; yea, thou kneAvest
not ; yea, from that time thine ear was not opened " (Isa. xlviii. 3,
5, 6, 8).
" He revealeth the deep and secret things " (Dan. ii. 22).
" In all his epistles, speaking to them of these things ; in which
are some things hard to be understood, which they that are un-
learned and unstable wrest, as they do also the Scriptures, unto
their own destruction " (2 Pet. iii. 1 6).
" Xow we see through a glass darkly ; but then face to face :
now I know in part ; but then I shall know even as I am known "
(1 Cor. xiii. 12).
NOTE O.
ON SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES.
Chapter xi. page 192.
" / aj)j)eal to the testiinonij of others, because, thank God, the
numher of those ivho are ph>/sicalli/ as well as morally conscious of
this increasing respiratory sensitiveness, is daily aiiguientlng."
The notion oi spiritual influences actually afiecting the physical
respiration may, perhaps, appear to many people fantastic ; yet this
is a matter of constant experience to those who have entered on
the sympneumatic life. The writer himself could scarcely have
credited the pliysical results produced by spiritual causes, if he had
not actually experienced them frequently and powerfully himself,
and witnessed them in others.
This respiratory motion is entirely distinct from cataleptic and
hysteric convulsions ; and yet at times it shakes the whole frame
446 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
from head to foot witli quivering, vibratory currents ; whilst at
others it produces a sensation of intense difficulty of breathing, at
times amounting almost to suffocation.
On two sejDarate occasions the writer has been able to detect the
exact position of an obscure malady in another person solely by
the magnetic vibrations produced in his entire organism, as soon
as his fingers have touched the seat of the disease.
In one instance it was an affection of the kidneys ; in another,
a tension of the nerves at the base of the spine.
In each case, the Avriter, passing his hand quietly and gradually
down the back of the patient, and exercising at the same time all
the powers of his will-force to surrender himself to the guidance
of the pneuma, has felt nothing until he has come in contact with
the spot overlying the source of the complaint. Immediately he
has touched the place, he has felt a powerful current entering his
organism, through the tips of the fingers, Avhich were pressed upon
the patient. This current has passed up his arm and through his
whole frame, and at the same time the peculiar respiratory motion
spoken of has visibly taken possession of him. Directly his hand
has been removed from the patient, the vibratory currents have
ceased. This same phenomenon has occurred every time he has
treated the patient thus, and in both cases the patient derived
immediate and sensible benefit from every succession of the treat-
ment ; being ultimately completely cured after a few days, notwith-
standing the fact that, in the case of the affection of the kidneys,
a doctor who had been previously consulted by the patient declared
that it was impossible for him to recover, except after an illness of
long duration.
The Avriter himself does not attempt to explain the facts; he
merely states them as they occurred, acknowledging, at the same
time, that he was entirely unconscious of possessing in himself any
healing faculty, and that he was throughout distinctly a passive
instrument for the transmission of the vital currents. He can
only account for the results by the unseen action of higher
potencies.
The respiratory motion above described is probably analogous to
that Avhich affected Christ whilst curing the deaf and dumb patient
in the district of Decapolis. St Mark, who relates the circum-
stance, expressly mentions that Christ "put His fingers into his
ears," and " touched his tongue," and " looking up to heaven. He
sighed." That which was mistaken for " sighing " was doubtless
the outward manifestation of the pneuma, imparting healing poten-
cies through the organism of Christ ; for the pneumatic respiration
is generally accompanied by a heaving in the throat, best described
as a succession of strong sighs.
See Postscript, p. 472.
APPENDIX II. 447
NOTE P.
ON THE WOED " SHADDAI,"
Chapter xvii. page 279.
"It is icorthy of note that on the occasion of this covenant tee,
for the first time, find the loord ' Shaddai ' used, as a name for the
Almi(jhty, — a word of the deepest and holiest imioort, for in its in-
ternal meaning it signifies the Divine Feminine"
One of the most remarkable words in the Hebrew Bible is the
word ^K', Shad, with its various derivatives and cognate expres-
sions, A clear understanding of their import will remove much
that is obscure, and will throw a wonderful light on the hidden
meaning of Scripture.
It must be borne in mind that in the Hebrew language, as in all
the oriental languages of antiquity, the forms of Avords have a
deep signification, and that all words compounded of the same
root-letters have a kindred meaning.
Furthermore, inasmuch as vowel-points are a later addition to
the language, and have nothing to do with root-formations, the
vowels may be disregarded in tracing the ramifications of cognate
words.
The triliteral root from which TC', Sluid, comes, is mc', Shadah
= " to suckle."
Hence 1^ comes to mean " the female breast " ; and the tAvo-
fold ideas oi femininity and nourishment are introduced.
Thus mtJ', Shiddah = a lady, a mistress, a Avife, or a jirincess ;
miJ', Sh'dah = a fouiatain ;
mli', Sadeh } _ . , ,
or ntJ', Sadai j' ~
The fountain and the field are, as it Avere, the " breasts " of the
earth ; for out of them are produced the nourishment AA-hich
" Mother Earth " affords to her children.
From the idea of nourishment follows that of sujjport or ^^/'c^^er-
vation. Hence that aspect of God Avhicli represents Him as the
"Almighty Preserver" or "Nourislior of Life," designates Him
under the title of ^'nK', Shaddai, Avhich is, consequently, invariably
translated as " the Almighty " in the Bible.
Tliis rendering, hoAvever, gives but a very faint and unAvorthy
idea of the real meaning of ^'Hti', Shaddai.
The name Avas first revealed to Abram, according to Sacred "Writ
(Ocn. xvii. 1), and afterwards to .Tacol) ((!en. xxxa'. 11), at a special
period in the life of each of these patriarclis, and at tlic moment
448 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
when they were solemnly informed that they and their seed were
to be the depositaries of the arcana of God's mysterious truth.
Hence it was in strict accordance with the gravity and mystery
of this revelation, that the title under which the Deity was then
revealed should be one of the holiest and most mystic import.
Therefore it is that in this word ''1^ is contained nothing short of
the hidden declaration of the eternal Divine Feminine. The " '',"
the first letter of the sacred and mystic name " nin'' " — commonly
but erroneously pronounced Jehovah — designates the divinity ;
the "ItJ'" .declares the femininity.
But this great central truth, which mankind had lost, had to be
concealed from general understanding until the fulness of time for
its revelation should come ; and one curious result of this conceal-
ment has been that the word "'^ti', though indicating the femininity
of God, has been handed down to the Jewish nation as a masculine
Hebrew word.
None the less, however, is it true that, wheresoever in the
Hebrew Bible the word *"nt^ occurs, it is, when rightly understood,
to be applied to the Divine Feminine.
The translators of the Bible, being ignorant of this hidden aspect
of the Deity, have naturally overlooked this truth ; and hence they
only realised the import of " Shaddai " as " the Almighty " Pre-
server, when they ought in reality to have regarded it as " the
life-nourishing maternity of God."
The word "•'nB' occurs in the following passages in the Old Testa-
ment, which we would earnestly recommend our readers to study
carefidly and separately, remembering that they should substitute
for " the Almighty," the words " the Divine Feminine " : —
Gen. xvii. 1 ; xxviii. 3 ; xxxv. 1 1 ; xliii. 1 4 ; xlviii. 3 ; xlix.
25. Exod. vi. 3. Is^um. xxiv. 4. Euth i. 20, 21. Job v. 17;
vi. 4, 14; viii. 3, 5; xi. 7; xiii. 3; xv. 2.5; xxi. 15, 20; xxii.
3, 17, 23, 25, 26 ; xxiii. 16 ; xxiv. 1 ; xxvii. 2, 10, 11, 13 ; xxix.
5; xxxi. 2, 35; xxxii. 8; xxxiii. 4; xxxiv. 10, 12; xxxv. 13;
xxxvii. 23; xl. 2. Ps. Ixviii. 14; xci. 1. Isa. xiii. 6. Ezek. i.
24. Joel i. 15.
Of these forty-six passages, it will be noticed that no fewer than
thirty-one occur in the Book of Job, rightly considered by many
as the most mysterious book in the Old Testament. Indeed, so
long as the truth of the Divine Feminine remained concealed, it
was impossible to understand the Book of Job ; for, as we shall
see presently, the connection between the two is so intimate that
the latter might be appropriately termed, " A Hymn to El Shaddai,
the Maternity of God."
Before entering upon this subject, however, it is necessary to
consider some further modifications of the root rntJ*, Shadah.
It is a well-known rule of Semitic philology that similar con-
APPENDIX II. 449
sonants may be interchanged, one with another, this interchange
effecting certain regular modulations in sense. Thus, sibilants may
be interchanged with sibilants, dentals with dentals, gutturals with
gutturals, and so forth.
Xow, in the case of It*, we have a soft sibUant ti*, sh, and a soft
dental 1, d.
Corresponding to t^, sh, we have two hard sibilants, '^, and D,
both equivalent to the English s.
Corresponding to 1, d, we have also two hard dentals LD, and
n, rendered by the English t, the latter being sometimes modified
into n, th.
These sibilants and dentals may be consequently interchanged
with each other, the conversion of the soft consonant into the cor-
responding hard having just this simple but important effect, — it
inverts the sense, either partly or wholly, according as to whether
one or both of the consonants is changed.
Thus, whereas IK', Shad, and its derivatives, composed of the
soft silibant and the soft dental, represent the true Divine feminine
principle, the compounds of the corresponding hard sibilant and
hard dental represent the false — that is, the entire inversion of the
true ; whilst the compounds of the hard sibilant with the soft
dental represent a partial inversion, or a corruption of the original
true principle.
A remarkable illustration of this rule is afforded by the word
rnc*, Shiddah, and its corresponding word ntStJ*, Sit f ah.
( irntj', Shiddah = a wife.
( ntsb*, Sittah = a wife who has become unfaithful.
Again, "'"lb', Shaddai, represents the source from which man in
his original perfect bisexual nature drew his nourishment, when he
was after God's own image, and was formed entirely of the material
of God.
ntJ', Sadai, " a field," represents the source from which man
in his fallen nature draws his nourishment, now that he is formed
externally of the material of the earth.
Since man has only partially lost the image of God, and only
partially draws the nourishment for his organism from the " breast
of the earth," only one of the original letters (b') is changed, the
other (l) remaining the same.
But though in the sacred shrine of man's inmost being there
still lingers a spark of his original divine reflection, yet the con-
sciousness of the feminine principle in the Deity became for the
time entirely lost to mankind by the agency of the inverted male
principle, as is described in Genesis under tlie story of the murder
of Abel by Cain. Hence, when the first offspring of the new
method of generation appeared, his name was called rib, Seth, to
indicate the total inversion of the true principle "1^, Shad."
2 F
450 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
So, moreover, those beings of the lower invisible imiverse, who
had assumed to themselves fictitious imitations of the qualities of
the Godhead, and who belonged to the fallen portion of that former
humanity Avho are entitled in the Bible " sons of God " — this term
sometimes referring to the lower, though generally to the upper or
unfallen, beings of the primal universe — are designated under the
form of D'''^5^', Siddim, this being simply the plural form of It',
Sad, the partial inversion of the true ntJ*, SJiad.
These " Siddim " are the beings referred to in Geu. vi. 2, when
we are told that " the sons of God saw the daughters of men
that they were fair ; and they took them Avives of all that they
chose."
This nefarious and unnatural sexual intercourse between the
Siddim and the daughters of men resulted in a progeny which
are called in the Bible " Nephilim," erroneously translated " giants "
in the Authorised Version of Gen. vi. 4, but correctly rendered in
the Revised Edition, The word D^?Q3, Nepliilini, is the plural of
733, Nepliil, which signifies primarily, as the Authorised Version
translates it in Job iii. 1 6, and Ps. Iviii. 8, " an untimely birth."
Hence it comes to mean " an off'spring born out of the ordinary
course of nature," such as the progeny of " the sons of God," and
" the daughters of men." These Nephilim were thus what we
term " monstrosities," or " monsters " ; and hence, probably, the
term " giants." It Avas doubtless the existence of these Nephilim
upon the earth which gave rise to the ancient mythological legends
of demi-gods, demi-mortals, centaurs, titans, satyrs, fauns, &c.
The disastrous results of the illicit intercourse between the
denizens of the fallen primal universe and those of this Avorld,
culminated in a tremendous social, moral, and physical cataclysm,
which is represented in the Bible under the story of the Flood.
It would appear that after this convulsion the intercourse between
the two worlds was interrupted for a time ; but after a while the
Siddim, who in later times have been known under the names
of " Incubi " and " Succubi," again infested the earth ; and one
region at least became the scene of the most abominable illicit
traffic between them and human beings. The region thus infested,
and in consequence visited by another cataclysm which utterly
destroyed it, was called, from the practices of which it was the
theatre, the " Vale of Siddim " (Gen. xiv. 8, 10) ; and the principal
town in it, and the one most notorious for the criminal intercourse,
Avas characterised by a name of identical import, and has ever since
been a byword for the basest of unnatural crimes. This toAvn
Avas DID, Sodom.
Captain Conder, R.E., in his 'Handbook to the Bible,' p. 240,
remarks significantly, " The name Siddim has ahvays been a puzzle
to scholars." In the Kabbalah, hoAvever, this contact between the
APPENDIX 11. 451
Siddim and the world is mentioned. See Mather's ' Kabbalah Un-
veiled,' page 249.^
One consequence has been that the particular sin of which the
inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty has been entirely
misunderstood ; and if we bear in mind who these Siddim were,
it is easy to understand the behaviour of the men of Sodom to-
wards the two "angels" who visited Lot, as recorded in the 19th
chapter of Genesis. The crowning feature of their sin in this
respect was due to the fact that these " angels " were denizens
of the upper invisible primal universe, and the men of Sodom
wished to treat them as if they had belonged to the lower.
Such were the Siddim, fallen, degraded creatures, who assumed
fictitious imitations of "Shaddai"; though, at the same time, they
do not represent the absolute and total inversion, as is seen by the
form of their name, in which only one of the two letters of IC' is
changed.
The complete inversion, the diametrically antagonistic principle,
is formed by changing both the letters into their corresponding
hard sounds ; and doing this we get totr, set, the " backslider," or
" the wicked one " ; which, amplified, becomes JDb, Satan ! Hence
Satan signifies also " adversary," because the word represents the
great antagonistic principle to Shaddai.
The way has now been cleared to a comprehensive understand-
ing of many of those very mysterious passages of Scripture, where
Satan is prominently brought forward, especially in that book to
Avhich particular allusion has already been made above — that is to
say, the Dook of Job.
Herein is described, in the mystic language of oriental poetry,
the contest for the ascendancy over man between the true and the
false principles, represented respectively by Shaddai and Satan.
As Shaddai is the maternal giver and preserver of life, so Satan,
the antagonist, is the destroyer. Hence through the agency of
Satan, the cattle, the asses, the flocks, the camels, the servants, and
the children of Job are destroyed ; and Job himself is afflicted
with suffering only just short of death. The patriarcli is tempted
to ascribe to Shaddai the action of Satan, and to impugn the true
nature of God.
The various phases through which the conflict passes occupy tlie
greater part of the book, and are disguised under the form of
arguments and conversations with personal friends.
The tlirec friends of Job who, under the pretence of sympathy,
^ Since the above was written, the writer has come across tlie following
passage in M. Renan's ' Histoire du Peuple d'lsrael,' which affords a reniark-
aVjle independent corn^borat ion of his account of the Vale of Siddim: " Le
nom de Siddim qu'aurait port<5 I'ancienne vallde est peut-etre une fausse jiro-
nonciation pour Sedim, 'la vallde des ddmona.'" — P. 116, Xote 4.
452 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION".
only aggi'avate his grief by tlieir words, and who, with their pious
hypocritical speeches, goad him on by their insinuations to rebel-
lion against Shaddai, are really the emissaries of Satan in disguise,
and represent the threefold weapons of Satan's attacks — " the lust
of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life" (see 1st
John ii. 16).
Eliphaz the Temanite represents '• riches, the pride of life," the
word " Eliphaz " signifying " God of riches." Bildad the Shuhite
represents " the lust of the flesh " ; " Bildad " being the same as
" Bel-shad," or the " Breast of Bel," the false god of fleshly appe-
tite. Zophar the Naamathite represents " the lust of the eyes " ;
the word " Zophar," with the appellation Naamathite, signifying to-
gether " sensual loveliness."
Thus we have here a poetical representation of a mode of attack
made upon Job by Satan, exactly analogous to those which he
made upon Eve and upon Christ.
When Eve was tempted by Satan, the forbidden fruit was rep-
resented to her under a threefold aspect, as " good for food,"
" pleasant to the eyes," and " a thing to be desired to make one
Avise " : " good for food," the " lust of the flesh " ; " pleasant to the
eyes," the " lust of the eyes " ; "a thing to be desired to make one
Avise," the " pride of life."
When Christ was tempted by Satan, the same mode of attack
was used : " Command these stones that they be made bread," the
" lust of the flesh " ; " He showed Him all the kingdoms of the
world and the glory of them," the "lust of the eyes"; "Cast
Thyself down from the temple, for He shall give His angels
charge over Thee," &c, the " pride of life."
The significance of this threefold method of attack by Satan lies
in the fact that these are the very temptations specially directed
against the true principles of Shaddai.
The Divine Feminine is the giver and supporter of life and all
its necessaries. From Shaddai, man in his first pure existence
drew all his food, all his pleasure, all his satisfaction of life.
From the same maternal divinity, man, in his regenerated condi-
tion, will again draw the same essential supplies.
All sin and all disease and misery arise from the fact that man
has, through the agency of Satan, been seduced into drawing these
supplies from an inverted source, and has thus fallen under the
combined temptations of lust, covetousness, and pride, the " lust of
the flesh," the " lust of the eyes," and " the pride of life " ; choos-
ing, as it were, for his companions and advisers Bildad, Zophar,
and Eliphaz the Temanite.
This is the hidden meaning of the Book of Job, before closing
our notice of which, we must draw attention to the personality of
" Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram."
APPENDIX II. 453
This mysterious personage, belonging to the family of Ram, — the
most ancient world-reformer of whom history speaks, and certainly
one of the most renowned, living probably more than eight thou-
sand years ago, — comes upon the scene in the Book of Job as an
impartial censor, alike of the patriarch himself, as of his three
companions. His name " Elihu," is the same in import as " Elijah,"
and his mission is " in the spirit of Elijah," to prepare the way for
the revelation of Shaddai.
Hence we find the name " Shaddai " occurring several times in
the course of his speeches ; and even when it is not actually men-
tioned, the whole of his observations bear manifest allusions to the
sublime truth of the bisexual unity of God.
So when the revelation came at length, when God addressed
Job from out of the whirlwind, the patriarch was ready to recog-
nise the revelation, and to humble himself in the presence of
Shaddai.
" Jehovah answered Job, and said, Shall he that cavilleth con-
tend with Shaddai ? And Job answered Jehovah, and said. Be-
hold, I am of small account ; what shall I answer Thee ? I lay
my hand upon my mouth " (Job xl. 2-4).
Tlius Job emerges safely from his trying ordeal ; Satan is frus-
trated, and Shaddai victorious ; the consequence being that " the
latter end of Job was blessed more than the beginning," and
through the fostering care of Shaddai he received children, servants,
camels, oxen, asses, and flocks, far exceeding in numbers those
whom he had originally lost.
A glorious prophetic picture this of the final triumph of Shaddai
over Satan for the possession of humanity — a triumph which may
still be undoubtedly far distant, but which a multitude of signs,
scarcely to be mistaken, and a general concurrence of undefined
anticipations, are leading many sober and thoughtful minds —
whether rightly or wrongly, none can tell — to regard as " near,
even at the doors."
NOTE Q.
ON THE ATOMIC AFFINITY BETWEEN CHPJST AND TKUE
CHRISTIANS.
Chapter xviii. pages 305, 306. '
" Ha needed to he bom into tlia earth ihrour/h a natural W07na7i,
and to die, and be lifted up from it, because He coidd only thus
acquire an atomic construction which would enable Him to come
into close affinity with man, and so draw all men unto Him. There
is no other beiny in that world, consiitided as to His oryanic ele-
454 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
incnts with reference to ours as He is; and hence He is our Saviour,
to whom alone we must cling, and through whom alone we can draw
the vital currents which tvill iviparf the 2}otency necessary for the
salvation of the race."
All Cliurclies of Christendom profess to believe that "union with
Christ" is a fundamental necessity for salvation. But in most
cases this " union with Christ " is a vague and indefinite idea, con-
sisting of a shadowy, unsubstantial attitude of the mind and intel-
lect towards the Founder of the religion, which is called by its
possessors " faith." This mental conception is, in reality, entirely
different from true faith : and hence it exercises but very little, if
any, influence upon their daily life.
The " union with Christ," to be a means of salvation, must be
an actual, tangible, concrete union; in other words, it must be
" atomic,"
This Christ Himself clearly indicated in the illustrations which
He employed, when He wished to describe the relations which
were to exist between Himself and those who were to be saved by
Him.
This is also to be found in more than one of the Pauline
epistles.
Two of the commonest illustrations will serve to explain this
truth : —
I. A tree.
" As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself," said Christ, " ex-
cept it remain in the vine ; so neither can ye, except ye remain
in me."
"I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that remaineth in
me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit ; for apart from
me ye can do nothing " (John xv. 4, 5).
It is to be noted in this passage that the Authorised Version
has a very misleading phrase, when it says, " without me ye can do
nothing."
The expression " without me " is, in the Greek, X'^P'-'^ ifj-ov,
which means " outside of me " — i.e., " cut off from me," or, as the
Eevised Version puts it, " apart from me."
Thus Christ meant to say that true life was inseparable from
actual union with Him.
Now let us consider what constitutes a living tree.
A tree is an organism. That is to say, a tree does not consist
of a quantity of different pieces of wood, scattered about or heaped
together, with a branch here and a bough there ; but a tree has all
its several parts organically connected together; and each part
maintains its life and health by virtue of its being in organic
union with the trunk and root. Thus, through this union, the
APPENDIX 11. 455
smallest leaf and the remotest bough draws from the root and stem
the vital currents which impart the potency necessary for its life
and vigour. So long as no organic obstacle occurs to check the
flow of the vital current, the leaf, bough, branch, and every por-
tion of the tree maintains its health. Directly the flow of the
vital current becomes impeded from any cause, the limb affected
loses its vigour and becomes diseased. Once severed from the
main stock, the organic union is lost, and the limb can bring forth
no fruit, and from that moment begins to die.
The analogy between this organism and the organic union with
Christ and those who are to be saved by Him, is very exact.
Christ is the root and stem, and salvation for the human race
consists in their being severally and individually brought into
atomic union with Him, as is effected by the ingrafting of a bough
upon a tree. This St Paul expresses when he says, " If the root
be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be
broken ofi', and thou, being a wild olive tree. Avert grafted in
among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of
the olive tree ; boast not against the branches. But if thou boast,
thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. . . . For if thou
wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert
grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree ; how much more
shall they, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own
olive tree?" (Eom. xi. 16, 17, 18, 24.)
From this analogy of a tree, Ave see tAVO things of great import-
ance : —
1. Xo mere attitude of the mind to Jesus, such as feeling a
conviction of His power and goodness, or such as commonly goes
by the name of " faith," is sufficient to bring a person into saving
union Avith Christ. Xor Avill any amount of personal excellence
of character effect that object. There must be an actual atomic
affinity.
A bough may be admirably suited for bearing fruit, if grafted
on to a certain tree, but it does not become a part of that tree, nor
can it draAV any Adtal current from the root of that tree, until it
has been organically united to it by the process of ingrafting. It
may actually be bearing fruit as the branch of another living tree,
and the fruit may be apparently as good outAvardly, but it Avill
not be a fruit of " the tree " which has the particular root, until
it has been grafted into atomic union Avith it.
So it is Avith Christ's salvation. Until a person has been
brought into actual organic union Avith Christ, that person cannot
(IraAv his vital currents from Christ ; or in other Avords, cannot be
made a partaker of the " holy pneuma " Avhich ilows from Christ
into the organism of those Avho are thus in atomic affinity Avith
Him.
456 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
2, It is not necessary for this atomic union that there should he
atomic contact.
As we have seen, every particle of a living tree is in actual
atomic union Avith the root, though not in actual atomic contact.
A tree may be sixty feet high, for instance, and yet the topmost
bough draAA's all its vital currents from the root as fully and truly
as if it were in close proximity to it.
So a human being can draw from Christ the full force of his
necessary vital currents, but these currents may pass through
many intermediaries between the act of issuing from Christ and
the act of entering the human organism.
The intermediaries no more separate Christ from the human
being in atomic union with Him and them, than the main trunk
and side branches separate the leaf from the root. Indeed, the
leaf which is situated on the topmost bough could not live if
actually in contact with the root, for it would have become dis-
located from its proper sphere of existence.
This important feature connected with the affinity between
Christ and man Avill be even more clearly understood if we consider
the second great illustration used in the I^ew Testament.
II. A body.
" As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the
members of that one body, being many, are one body : so also is
Christ" (1 Cor. xii. 12).
"Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular" (1 Cor.
xii. 27).
Now it must be patent to every one that a body is a concrete
organism. It does not consist of a head here, a couple of arms
there, a couple of legs in another place, and so on ; or of differ-
ent limbs conglomerated together without any organic connection.
Every portion of the body is in atomic union with the head, and
draws the vital currents necessary for its life and strength from
the head, by virtue of the sj^iritual essence which permeates the
whole. Impede the healthy flow of this vital current, and the
member affected becomes diseased. Sever a member from the body,
and it is immediately dead.
And as in the case of the tree, so of the body, atomic union
does not imply atomic contact. The foot is in atomic union with
the head, and the hand with the eye, and yet they are not in
atomic contact. Moreover, each occupies its proper sphere, and
draws its full vital current in proportion as it is content to keep
its place and discharge its own functions.
" If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of
the body ; is it therefore not of the body ? ... If the whole body
were an eye, where were the hearing 1 If the whole body were
hearins, where were the smeUin" 1 But now hath God set the
APPENDIX II. 457
members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him.
. . . And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of
thee ; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you "
(1 Cor. xii. 15, 17, 18, 21).
Thus organically united to Christ, as the branch to the vine, or
as the limb to the body, and drawing all our vital force from the
inpouring of the pneuma which flows forth from Christ as the
pervading sap or the permeating spirit, we shall in time " come
into the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ," and " grow up into Him in aU things, which is the
head, even Christ; from whom the whole body, fitly joined together
and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to
the effectual measure of the working of every part, maketh increase
of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph. iv. 13, 16).
NOTE E.
ox THE DOGMA OF THE TKIXITY.
Chapter xx. page 326.
" The two dogmas of the Churches of Christendom that ojierate
most powerfxdly against the descent of the Divine Feminine, which
now seeks to impart its pxtrifging and regenerating influence to the
' Bride, the Lamb's wife,' are the atonement, as j^opidarly under-
stood, and the Trinity."
The doctrine of the Trinity has become so essentially funda-
mental and integral a dogma of Christendom, that it will probably
be a very difficult task to make people realise that it is, after all, a
dogma purely of human invention, and one, moreover, of by no
means the most ancient date of Christianity. Another ditficidty
in the way of dealing with the subject arises from tlie fact that,
in consequence of the action of the ecclesiastical authorities for
many centuries with regard to the dogma, and owing to the in-
fluence of the anathemas in the Athanasian Creed, it is, in the
minds of vast numbers of pious and well-meaning people, an act of
sacrilegious profanation, even to discuss the merits of the doctrine
at all.
The objurgations of ecclesiastics, and the anathemas of creeds,
will not, however, deter for a single moment the honest inquirer
after the truth. The most hallowed sanctuary of the slirine of
Cliristendora, the most cherished dogma of the popular faitli, must
458 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
be explored and examined on its OAvn merits ; and on its own
merits it must stand or fall.
In order to arrive at a just estimate as to the authority and
validity of the doctrine of the Trinity, it Avill be necessary to take
a very brief survey of its history, and of the events which led to
its formal incorporation into the authorised dogmas of the religion
of Christendom. In this we shall endeavour to observe the very
strictest truth and impartiality, and without inclining either to the
one side or to the other, to present the actual state of affairs to the
reader, so far as it is possible to learn them from a careful study
of the best authorities, at this distant period of time.
Scarcely had the Church been set afloat by the apostles, before
it began to be split up into parties and sects, each clinging to
their own favourite modifications of thought and creed. These
ultimately arranged themselves into what may be considered under
three classes — (1) Judaising Christians, (2) Gnostic Christians,
and (3) Platonic Christians. Of the two former, it wiU be
sufficient here to observe, that Judaic Christianity may be said to
have virtually terminated with the destruction of Jerusalem and
the dispersion of the Jews ; whilst Gnostic Christianity, after
having maintained an active influence on the religion for the first
four centuries, was suffered to die away, much to the detriment in
many respects of true Christianity ; for with its disappearance
there passed away most of the arcana that contained the hidden
meaning of the nature and work of Christ.
Platonic Christianity arose and flourished principally in the
Church of Alexandria. As Christianity spread over Egypt, it
embraced amongst its converts many of the philosophers of the
school of Plato, the headquarters of which were at that time at
Alexandria. Thus the Christianity of the Church of Africa be-
came impregnated with ideas and doctrines borrowed from two
independent sources — the philosophy of Plato, and the immemorial
traditions of Egyptian theology. The tendency of the Platonistic
influence was to invent and discuss transcendental theories, based
upon the teaching of the renowned Greek sage; arguments were
constantly arising upon the relations between the Father and the
Son.
Meanwhile the essentially Egyptian notion of Trinities gradually
incorporated itself into the metaphysical investigations of these
Platonic Christians. For thousands of ages the Egyptian system
of theology had represented the divine object of worship under
varied personified attributes ; and all these personified attributes
were arranged in various trinities, in which the third member
invariably " proceeded from the other two." Thus from Amun
and Maut proceeded Kdionso, from Osiris and Isis proceeded
Horus, from Neph and Sate proceeded Anouki, — and so on.
APPENDIX II. 459
During the third century of the Christian era, moreover, Plo-
tinus, an Egyptian who had adopted the tenets of the Platonic
school, assiduously taught at Alexandria a Trinity in accordance
with the Platonic idea.
From this it will he seen how easily the notion of a Christian
Trinity might be evolved by these Egyptian and Platonic adherents
of the religion out of Christ's injunction to His disciples — " Go ye
into all nations, baptising them into the name of the Father, and
the Son, and the Holy Spirit," — as well as from other passages in
the New Testament.
But in order that there should be no mistake as to Scriptural
authority, a spurious verse was deliberately forged and inserted
into the Epistle of St John, affirming, " There are three that bear
witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and
these three are one."
The doctrine of the Christian Trinity, then, was thus first con-
ceived and fostered in the Church of Alexandria, which had become
the metropolis of the eastern portion of Christendom, as Pome was
of the western. Whilst the Alexandrian Church was thus engaged
in formulating dogmas, discussing theories, and wrangling over
theological controversies, the Western Church was occupied in a
very different manner, and was struggling to acquire the temporal
supremacy of the Eoman world. Through innumerable trials, hin-
drances, and persecutions, but aided, on the other hand, by a com-
bination of circumstances which it would be out of the question to
discuss in a brief note like the present, the Christian organisation
had gradually forced itself into a position of such importance that
it was impossible for the Roman emperors to ignore it. By the
close of the third century tliere was not a town or village in the
lioman empire, and scarcely a legion in the Roman army, in which
Christian organisations did not exist. It was the danger threatened
to the imperial system by this state of things that brought about
the terrible Diocletian persecution at the beginning of the fourth
century. This persecution only served to fan the flame of the
religion, and to increase the power which the Christian organi-
sation was so rapidly acquiring. The consequence was that, after
the death of Diocletian, when the empire was divided into two
portions, eastern and western, over which two rival aspirants to
the imperial tlirone assumed command, the Christians practically
lield the balance of power in their liands. Licinius, wlio was
ri;igiung over the eastern portion, Avas not astute enough to grasp
this fact, and thinking to crush out the religion, he feebly
attempted to revive the persecution of the Christians. Rut mean-
while there arose above the political horizon a shrewd, uncom-
promising, keen - sighted, but unscrupulous soldier, who was
destined to exercise an overwhelming influence for evil as well
460 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
as good upon the wliole condition of Christianity. He measured
with consummate accuracy the proportions of the Christian strength
of the empire ; and he saw that if he allied himself to the Christian
party, he would probably be able to establish himself firmly, and
without a rival, upon the throne of the whole Roman empire. He
therefore determined openly to proclaim himself on the side of the
Christians. He announced that he had been favoured with a
miraculous vision ; and marshalling his army under the banner
of the cross, he advanced to the conquest of the empire. The
events of war crowned his enterprise with success ; he became
established on the imperial throne as the first Christian Roman
emperor, and his name has been handed down to posterity as
that of Constantine the Great. Having completely routed his
rival, he transferred the seat of empire to Byzantium, and called
the city, after himself, by the name of Constantinople. The
ecclesiastical historians have thrown a glamour of sanctity over the
memory of Constantine ; but the verdict of the impartial biographer
is by no means of a favourable nature. His profession of Christi-
anity was entirely dictated by motives of personal ambition ; and
though he was obliged to be true outwardly to those who had
placed him in power, and who maintained him on his throne, he
never conformed to the ceremonial rites of the Church until the
close of a life characterised by much firmness, bravery, and fore-
sight, but stained by acts of diabolical cruelty and murder, and by
eff"emmate self-indulgence.
We have dwelt somewhat at length upon the career of Constan-
tine, for to him the Church is mainly indebted for the Nicene
Creed, and for the incorporation of the dogma of the Trinity into
its authorised Articles of Faith.
Soon after he had become established upon the throne, a tempest
broke out amongst his Christian subjects and supporters, which
threatened to jeopardise his imperial position. The bishopric of
Alexandria had become vacant, and there were two rival aspirants
to the see. One was named Arius, the other Alexander. Both
had a considerable number of supporters, but Alexander was ap-
pointed bishop. Thereupon he was vehemently accused of heresy
by the partisans of Arius, and the latter in return was visited
by an anathema. The points in dispute hinged upon the different
philosophical aspects regarding the position of the Son in the new
Trinitarian doctrine, which, as we have seen, had come to the front
in the Church of Alexandria. From a theological controversy the
quarrel threatened to assume the proportions of a political disturb-
ance, and Constantine felt it imperatively necessary to interfere,
and to put an end to the tumult. He therefore, having first ascer-
tained the relative strength of the two parties in the Christian
Church, determined to put down the weaker side, Avhich consisted
APPEKDIK 11. 461
of the adherents of Arius ; and having himseJf decreed beforehand
how eixrything teas to be .settled, he called together a general council
of the Christian Church. This is the true historical account of the
origin of the " Council of Nice," which was so called because it
was held at the town of Nicaea, in Asia Minor. At this Council,
held 325 a.d., the doctrine of the Trinity was first authoritatively
put forward as a dogma of the Church, and the creed issued which
has ever since been known by the name of the " Nicene Creed."
The emperor enforced the decision of the Council by civil authority;
he caused letters to be issued denouncing Arius, and threatening
his followers with death.
Thus we see that for more than three hundred years the doctrine
of the Trinity was unheard of as a necessary article of faith. The
apostles and their followers had no conception of such a dogma ;
and in all probability it would have entirely died away, like many
other theories and doctrines which were broached, fought over, and
abandoned during those earlier centuries of Christendom, if it had
not been for the decisive action taken by the pseudo-Christian
Eoman emperor, Constantine.
Such being the case, the dogma can by no possibility be regarded
as having a divinely inspired origin ; and we are therefore free to
discuss it as unreservedly as any other theory or idea that has
ever been put forth by man in any age, or in any religion of the
world.
So regarded, the doctrine must fall to the ground at once, for it
is based on an utter absence of common-sense. The very attempts
which have been made to explain it have only served to reveal
more clearly how utterly opposed to reason it is ; and the climax
of metapliysical nonsense was reached in the composition of the
Athanasian Creed, which itself was not written, according to the
latest modem authorities, till some three hundred years after the
death of Athanasius, and was fraudulently palmed upon that great
champion of Trinitarianism in order to invest it with the greater
authority. It is not too much to say that scarcely a single fol-
lower of Christianity, lay or clerical, would venture in the present
day to acknowledge his adliesion to that marvellous document,
or would attempt to uphold tlie dogma of the Trinity, if it were
not for the almost universal idea, founded as Ave have seen upon
absolutely false premisses, that the doctrine itself, as well as the
creed which endeavours to enunciate it, have a divinely inspired
authority.
It is only fair that we should, before we close this note, state
tlio i)rincipal j>as8ages of Scripture which are relied on by tlio
Church in support of tlie doctrine.
"We have already mentioned the baptismal form, " In the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt.
462 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
xxviii. 19) ; and, as has been shown by Mr Oliphant, this clearly
indicates God, humanity, and the uniting pneuma.
The passages out of St John's Gospel (14th, 15th, and 16th
chapters) have also been fully treated of in the body of the book ;
and we will here merely remark that the Greek word ■7rapaK\rJTo<:
has been quite erroneously translated " comforter," meaning literally
" one called in to another's aid," and best rendered by the word
" helper."
The doctrine of the Trinity is generally supposed to be indicated
in the wording of St Paul's benediction to the Corinthians : " The
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the com-
munion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all" (2 Cor. xiii. 14).
But here, again, the words have been adapted to the doctrine,
not the doctrine asserted by the words, which are best translated
thus: "The saving influence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the
love of God, and the common sharing of the holy pneuma, be with
you all."
It was the most natural thing in the world for St Paul to pray
that his disciples and friends might experience the saving influence
of Christ, the love of God, and the sharing of the pneuma, these
three things being all essentially bound up with human salvation ;
and yet they by no means necessarily imply the dogma of the
Trinity.
Another text often quoted m support of the doctrine is " Holy,
holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to
come " (Eev. iv. 8).
The word " Almighty " is the Greek -n-avTOKpdTwp, which is taken
from the Septuagint, where it is erroneously employed as a transla-
tion of ''lb', Shaddai (see e.g., Job xxii. 17, 25; xxxii. 8;
xxxiii. 4, &c., &c., in the Septuagint).
" Lord " is " Jehovah," nin'', the import of which word is " male
and female, two-in-one."
" God " is " El " (male principle of the Deity).
Hence the tersandus, " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,"
is really " Holy, holy, holy, Jehovah El Shaddai " ; that is, " Holy
Jehovah, holy El, holy Shaddai " ; or " Holy is God, in His
divine biunity ; holy is God, in His divine masculinity ; holy is
God, in His divine femininity."
These are really the only passages which even appear to favour
the doctrine of the Trinity ; and we have shown how consistent
they are with entirely different constructions.
On the other hand, if the dogma had been true, it would have
been one of such vital and fundamental importance, that Scriptural
writers like, for instance, St Paul and St John, if they had known
and believed in it, could hardly have failed to have stated and ex-
pounded it, in language that could not be misunderstood.
APPENDIX II. 463
But as we have already pointed out, the doctrine was not in-
vented until long after their decease.
The sooner Christendom realises its fallacy, and expunges it from
her creeds, the better for herself and for the cause of truth.
XOTE S.
ox THE AVORD " PNEUMA."
Chapter xx. page 327.
" There is no possible excuse for the word Trvevfia heing sometimes
translated ' sjnrit,' sometimes ' icind,' and sometimes ' ghost.' "
The word Trvev/Ma, " jmeuma," occurs in the Greek Testament
305 times.
1. In 90 passages alone without definite article or qualifying
epithet ; when it means simply " pneuma," or '•' a pneuma."
2. In 49 passages without definite article, but with the quali-
fying epithet ayiov, " hagion " ; wlien it means " holy pneuma,"
or " a holy pneuma."
3. In 127 passages with definite article, but without qualify-
ing epithet ; when it means " the pneuma," or " my," " his," " her,"
&c., " pneuma," as the context requires.
4. In 12 passages Avith both the definite article and qualifying
epithet aytov ; when it means " the holy pneuma."
5. In 27 passages, in the more emphatic form, to irvevixa to
aytov ; when it means " the pneuma which is holy."
As it is very important to distinguish between these various
cases, we earnestly recommend the reader to examine in his
English Bible each separate passage, and to note accordingly.
For this purpose we will give the different passages under their
several headings.
1. "Pneuma," or "a pneuma": j\Iatt. x. 1 ; xii. 28; xxii. 43.
Mark i. 23 ; iii. 30; v. 2 ; vii. 25 ; ix. 17. Luke i. 17, 80 ; ii.
40 ; iv. 18 : ix. 55 ; xi. 26 ; xiii. 11 ; xxiv. 37, 39. John iii. 5,
G ; iv. 23, 24. Acts v. 16 ; viii. 7 ; xvi. 16 ; xxiii. 8, 9. Kom.
i. 4 ; ii. 29 ; vii. 6 ; viii. 1, 9, 14, 15 ; xi. 8. 1 Cor. ii. 4, 13 ;
V. 3 ; vi. 17 ; vii. 34, 40 ; xii. 3, 13 ; xiv. 2, 32 ; xv. 45. 2 Cor.
iii. 3, 6 ; vii. 1 ; xi. 4. Gal. iii. 3 ; iv. 29 ; v. 5,46, 18, 25 ;
vi. 1. Eph. ii. 18, 22 ; iv. 4 ; v. 18; vi. 18. Philip, i. 27 ; ii. 1 ;
iii. 3. Col. i. 8. 2 Thess. ii. 2, 13. 1 Tim. iii. 16. 2 Tim. i. 7.
lleb. i. 14 ; iv. 12 ; ix. 14 ; xii. 23. James ii. 26. 1 Peter i. 2 ;
iii. 4, 18 ; iv. 6. 1 John iv. 1, 2, 3. Jude 19. Eev. i. 10 ; iv.
2 ; xi. 1 1 ; xvi. 13, 14 ; xvii. 3 ; xviii. 2 ; xxi. 10.
464
SCIENTIFIC RELIGIOX.
2. "Holy pneuma," or "a holy pneuma " : Matt. i. 18, 20;
iii. 11. Mark i. 8 ; xii. 36. Luke i. 15, 35, 41, 67 ; ii. 25 ;
iii. 16 ; iv. 1 ; xi. 13. John i. 33 ; vii. 39 ; xx. 22. Acts i. 2,
5 ; ii. 4 ; iv. 8 ; vi. 3, 5 ; vii. 55 ; viii. 15, 17, 19 ; ix. 17 ; x.
38 ; xi. 16, 24 ; xiii. 9, 52 ; xix. 2. Rom. v. 5 ; ix. 1 ; xiv. 17 ;
XV. 13. 1 Cor. xii. 3. 2 Cor. vi. 6. Eph. iii. 5. 1 Thess. i. 5,
6. 2 Tim. i. 14. Titus iii. 5. Heb. ii. 4; vi. 4. 1 Peter i. 12.
2 Peter i. 21. Jude 20.
3. " The pneuma," " my pneuma," " his pneuma," &c. :
Matt. iii. 16; iv. 1 ; v. 3 ; viii. 16; xii. 18,31; xxvi. 41.
Mark i. 10, 12, 27 ; iii. 11 ; v. 8, 13; vi. 7 ; viii. 12 ; ix. 20, 25.
Luke i. 47 ; ii. 27 ; iv. 14, 36 ; viii. 29, 55 ; ix. 42 ; x. 20, 21 ;
xi. 24 ; xxiii. 46. John i. 32 ; iii. 6, 34 ; vi. 63 ; vii. 39 ; xi.
33 ; xiii. 21 ; xiv. 17 ; xv. 26 ; xvi. 13. Acts vi. 10 ; vii. 59 ;
viii. 29 ; x. 19 ; xi. 12, 28 ; xvi. 7; xvii. 16 ; xviii. 25 ; xx. 22 ;
xxi. 4. Eom. i. 9 ; viii. 2, 4, 10, 11, 16, 23, 26, 27 ; xii. 11 ;
XV. 30. 1 Cor. ii. 10,11, 12, 14; iii. 16; v. 3, 4, 5 ; vi. 11, 20;
xii. 4, 8, 10 : xiv. 14, 15, 16 ; xvi. 18. 2 Cor. i. 22 ; ii. 13 ;
iii. 8, 17 ; iv. 13; v. 5 ; vii. 13 ; xii. 18. Gal. iii. 2, 5, 14; iv.
6 ; V. 17, 22; vi. 8, 18. Eph. ii. 2; iii. 16; iv. 3, 23; vi. 17.
Pliilip. i. 19. Col. ii. 5. 1 Thess. v. 19, 23. 2 Thess. ii. 8.
1 Tim. iv. 1. 2 Tim. iv. 22. Philem. 25. Heb. xii. 9. James
iv. 5. 1 Peter i. 11 ; iii. 19 ; iv. 14. 1 John iii. 24 ; iv. 1, 2, 6 ;
V. 6, 8. Eev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 29; iii. 6, 13, 22 ; xiv. 13; xix. 10 ;
xxii. 17.
4. "The holy pneuma": Matt, xxviii. 19. Luke xii. 10, 12.
Acts i. 8; ii. 33, 38; ix. 31 ; x. 45; xv. 28; xvi. 6. 1 Cor. vi.
19. 2 Cor. xiii. 14.
5. " The pneuma which is holy "
29; xiii. 11. Luke ii. 26; iii. 22.
51; viii. 18; x. 47; xi. 15; xiii. 2, 4; xv. 8; xix. 6; xx. 23,
28; xxi. 11; xxviii. 25. Eph. i. 13 ; iv. 30. 1 Thess. iv. 8.
Heb. iii. 7; ix. 8; x. 15.
Kow a considerable amount of confusion and vagueness has
arisen in many of the above-named passages for want of a clear
understanding of the meanings of the word 7ri'eC/i,a, " pneuma," as
applicable to each individual passage.
This confusion has been vastly intensified by the unwarrantable
use which the English translators and divines have made of the
term " Holy Ghost." The word " Ghost," indeed, in its biblical
sense, has become so inextricably interwoven with a dogma, and is
so unnecessarily interpolated in the place of " pneuma " or " spirit,"
for the purpose of supporting that dogma, that it would be impos-
sible to exhibit with sufficient clearness the original meaning of
the different passages, if we continued to use that term. We
Matt. xii. 32. Mark iii.
Acts i. 16; V. 3, 32; vii.
APPENDIX II. 465
therefore recommend our readers, once and for ever, to expunge
from their vocabulary the expression " Holy Ghost."
The pneuma spoken of in the 'New Testament invariably signifies
either the divine source from which all life, inspiration, and con-
sciousness of sympneumatic influx originallj' proceeds, or else the
emanation Avhich proceeds, or has proceeded, from that divine
source.
In other words, it signifies either (1) the Divine Feminine itself;
(2) those created beings who have originally emanated from the
Divine Feminine ; or (3) the influence which proceeds from the
Divine Feminine, and infuses itself into those created beings.
K'ow these created beings may be classified under four heads :
(1) the bisexual beings of the primal universe; (2) the beings of
the upper invisible portion of our own universe ; (3) the beings of
the lower invisible portion of our universe ; (4) the inner and most
sacred portion of man's own nature, commonly called his " spirit."
We may therefore divide the signification of the 'New Testament
TTveufia into the following six classes : —
1. The Divine Feminine.
2. A bisexual sympneumatic being of the primal universe.
3. A being of the upper invisible portion of our present
universe.
4. A being of the lower invisible portion.
5. The pneuma or spirit of a human being in the visible world.
6. The influence, or afflatus, Avhich is infused into man's inner
consciousness from a higher external source, and which is commonly
called " inspiration " or " influx."
We say " from a higher external source," because, althougli this
sympneumatic inspiration or influx proceeds, in the first instance,
from the Deity, it descends through Christ to man's inner con-
sciousness by the channels of intervening grades of created beings,
from the highest rank of sympneumatic creatures of the primal
universe, down to the invisible spirits of our upper spheres who
immediately touch the inner pneuma of man.
It being our desire to make this most important subject
tlioroughly clear to our readers, we will once again take the 305
passages above quoted, and subdivide them into the six classes,
named according to tlie signification to be attached to Trvcv/jLa in
each case.
I. Where 7ri'£i}/Aa refers to the Divine Feminine : Matt. iii. IG
xii. 18, 31, 32; xxviii. 19. Mark i. 10; iii. 29; xiii. 11
Luke iii. 22; xii. 10, 12. John L 33; iii. 6, 8, 34; iv. 24; vii
39 ; xiv. 17; xv. 2G ; xvi. 13. Acts i. 8, 16 ; ii. 33, 38 ; v. 3, 32
vii. 51 ; ix. 31 ; x. 38, 45, 47; xv. 8, 28; xx. 28. Kom. viii
2, 11, 16, 23; XV. 30. 1 Cor. ii. 11, 13, 14; iii. 16; xii. 4
2 Cr
466 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
2 Cor. i. 22; iii. 17; v. 5. Gal. iii. 14; v. 22. Eph. i. 13;
iv. 30 ; vi. 17. Philip, iii. 3. 1 Thess. iv. 8. Heb. x. 15. Jas. iv.
5. 1 John V. 6. Kev. xxii. 17.
II. Wliere Trvcvfjia refers to a bisexual sympneumatic being of the
primal universe, the denizens of which are known under various
names, such as angels, archangels, seraphim, spirits, &c. : Matt. i.
18, 20. Luke i. 15, 17, 35. Eom. i. 4; viii. 26. Gal. iv. 29.
Heb. i. 14; xii. 9.
III. Where iri/iv/jia refers to a being of the upper invisible por-
tion of our universe : Luke xxiv. 37, 39. Acts xxiii. 8, 9. Heb.
i. 14; xii. 9, 23.
IV. Where Tri/eC/Aa refers to a being of the lower invisible por-
tion of our universe: Matt. viii. 16; x. 1. Mark i. 23, 27; iii.
11, 30; V. 2, 8, 13 ; vi. 7; vii. 25; ix. 17, 20, 25. Luke iv.
36; viii. 29 ; ix. 42 ; x. 20; xi. 24, 26 ; xiii. 11. Acts v. 16 ;
viii. 7; xvi. 16. Eph. ii. 2. 1 Peter iii. 19. Eev. xvi. 13, 14;
xviii. 2.
Y. Where TrvcSjua refers to the inner spirit of a human being
living on the visible earth : Matt. v. 3 ; xxvi. 41. Mark viii. 12.
Luke i. 47, 80 ; ii. 40 ; viii. 55 ; x. 21 ; xxiii. 46. John iv. 23, 24 ;
vi. 63; xi. 33; xiii. 21. Acts vii. 59; xvii. 16; xviii. 25.
Eom. i. 9 ; vii. 6 ; viii. 10, 11, 13, 16; xii. 11. 1 Cor. ii. 11,
13, 14 ; V. 3, 4, 5 ; vi. 17, 20 ; vii. 34 ; xiv. 2, 14, 15, 16 ; xv.
45; xvi. 18. 2 Cor. ii. 13; iv. 13; vii. 1, 13. Gal. v. 5, 16,
17, 22 ; vi. 1, 8, 18. Eph. ii. 22 ; iv. 3, 4, 23; vi. 18. PhUip.
i. 27; iii. 3. Col. i. 8 ; ii. 5. 1 Thess. v. 23. 2 Thess. ii. 2, 13.
1 Tim. iii. 16. 2 Tim. iv. 22. Philem. 25. Heb. iv. 12; xii. 9.
James ii. 26. 1 Peter iii. 4, 18 ; iv. 6. Jude 19, 20.
VI. Where Truevfjua refers to the influx, or afflatus, infused into
man's inner consciousness from a higher external source, and which
always partakes of the Divine Feminine character : Matt. iii. 1 1 ;
iv. 1; xii. 28; xxii. 43. Mark i. 8, 12; xii. 36. Luke i. 41,
67; ii. 25, 26, 27; iii. 16; iv. 1, 14, 18; ix. 55; xi. 13. John
iii. 5, 6 ; vi. 63 ; xx. 22. Acts i. 2, 5 ; ii. 4 ; iv. 8 ; vi. 3, 5, 10 ;
vii. 55 ; viii. 15, 17, 18, 19, 29; ix. 17; x. 19; xi. 12, 15, 16, 24,
28 ; xiii. 2, 4, 9, 52 ; xvi. 6, 7 ; xix. 2, 6 ; xx. 22, 23 ; xxi. 4, 11 ;
xxviii. 25. Eom. ii. 29 ; v. 5 ; viii. 4, 5, 9, 14, 15 ; ix. 1 ; xi. 8 ;
xiv. 17; XV. 13. 1 Cor. ii. 4, 10, 12; vi. 11, 19; vii. 40; xii.
3, 7, 8, 10, 13; xiv. 1, 32. 2 Cor. iii. 3, 6, 8 ; iv. 13; xi. 4;
xiii. 14. Gal. iii. 2, 3, 5 ; iv. 6; v. 18, 25. Eph. ii. 18; iii. 5,
16 ; v. 18. Philip, i. 19 ; ii. 1. 1 Thess. i. 5, 6 ; v. 19. 2 Thess.
ii. 8. 1 Tim. iv. 1. 2 Tim. i. 7, 14. Titus iii. 5. Heb. ii. 4; iii.
7; vi. 4; ix. 8, 14. 1 Peter i. 2, 11, 12; iv. 14. 2 Peter i.
21. 1 John iii. 24; iv. 1, 2, 3. Eev. i. 10; ii. 7, 11, 17,
29; iii. 6, 13, 22; iv. 2; xi. 11; xiv. 13; xvii. 3; xix. 10;
xxi. 10.
APPENDIX II. 467
This note avouIcI not be complete without some extracts in extenso
from the Xew Testament, Avhere the passages have become espe-
cially obscured, owing to an incorrect rendering of the original into
English,
"We will therefore ask the reader to pay particular attention to
the following passages, which we have endeavoured to render with
strict accuracy. They should be compared with the Authorised
Version, as well as with the Eevised, for the sake of a clear appre-
hension of their true meaning as distinguished from that which
dogma has assigned to them.
Matt. xii. 28: "If I cast out the demons by a divine influx,
then the kingdom of God has overtaken you."
Luke i. 3.5 : " A holy pneuma shall come upon thee, and a force
of a very high being shall overshadow thee ; wherefore also the
offspring, being holy, shall be called a son of God."
Luke ii. 25 : "And a divine influx was upon him; and it had
been revealed to him by the divine influx, that he should not see
death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came under
the influx into the temple."
Luke ix. 54, 55 : " And when His disciples James and John saw
this, they said. Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down
from heaven and consume them, as Elijah did? But He turned,
and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not under what kind of an
influx ye are."
The meaning of Christ here was, that the influx which prompted
the suggestion of His two disciples was of an infernal nature, in-
stead of being, as they imagined, from a high and holy source.
Luke xi. 13: " How much more shall your heavenly Father give
a divine influx to them that seek Him 1 "
John iii. 5-8 : " Verily, verily, I say unto you. Unless a man has
been born of water and pneuma, he cannot enter into the kingdom
of God. That which has been born of the flesh is flesh ; and that
which has been born of the pneunia is pneuma. Do not be sur-
prised, that I said to you, You must be born from above. The
pneuma operates wherever it wills ; and you hear its voice, but do
not know whence it comes, and whither it leads ; thus is every one
who has been born of the pneuma."
This very important passage has been entirely misimderstood,
and grave errors of doctrine have been founded upon it, owing to
several gross inaccuracies in the Authorised Translation.
In the first place, avo)6ev, as every Greek scholar knows, simply
means " from above " — i.r., from a higher source ; and it is pal-
pably erroneous to translate it " again." Thus " you must be
born again," is really " you must be born from above."
Secondly, the word translated "Spirit" in one place, "spirit"
in anothi-'r, and " wind " iu another, is all one word ; and that one
468 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
word is TTvev/Aa, " pneunia." The word ttvcw, translated " blow,"
is really " breathe "; or, since it is from the same root as Trvevfia,
means the operation of the pneuma, Avhich in outward manifesta-
tion is after the nature of breathing.
Again, <f>(x>vr], translated " sound," signifies more properly
"voice"; and lastly, V7ray€i, rendered "goeth," is really "leads."
Thus the meaning of Christ's explanation to Nicodemus is this.
There are certain conditions on which a human being must enter
before he can become partaker of the salvation which Christ came
to bring. The entrance on these conditions he calls a birth ; and
he describes it as "a birth from above," or "a birth into the
pneuma." He says that the analogy is very exact between the
ordinary fleshly birth into the flesh, and the pneumatic birth into
the pneuma. He then goes on to describe the sensational experi-
ences which will follow the birth into pneumatic life. He says
that the pneuma operates according to its will; that when it
breathes into a person, that person becomes distinctly conscious of
its presence, feels its motions, and hears its voice within him,
prompting him with its suggestions. He cannot tell from whence
this presence, this motion, this suggesting voice, comes ; nor does
he at all know to what it will lead him, if he follows its prompt-
ings. All he knows is, that there it is, — that the suggestion is
distinctly pneumatic " from above," and that he must instantly
and implicitly obey it.
" Thus is every one who has been born of the pneuma," says
Christ ; or, in other words, " This Avill be found to be the experi-
ence of all who shall have entered into sympneumatic conditions."
It will be the universal testimony of all who have already en-
tered upon these conditions, or who shall enter upon them in the
future, that Christ's description to Nicodemus was accurate and
exact in every particular.
'Nov can His description be adeqviately explained in any other
way.
It was doubtless the want of this pneumatic experience on the
part of our translators which led them to imagine that Christ,
when describing to Nicodemus the action of the pneuma, Avas in-
tending to introduce a popular illustration from the phenomenon
of the wind, as an analogy of some vague spiritual process to
which it is difficult to see how the illustration applies. See
Postscript at the end of the Appendix.
John XX. 22 : " He breathed upon them, and saitli to them.
Receive a holy influx."
Acts ii. 4 : " They were all filled with a holy influx." The
term ayioi', " holy," so often used in connection with pneuma,
when it is equivalent to influx, is employed to designate the
source from whence it comes, as well as the quality of which it
APPENDIX 11. 469
partakes ; ia order to distinguish it from the unholy or unclean
influx which comes from the lower invisible world.
Acts viii. 17-19: "They laid their hands on them, and they
received a holy influx. Now Simon, having observed that the
influx which was holy was imparted through the imposition of the
hands of the apostles, offered them money, saying. Give me also
this authority, that upon whomsoever I may lay my hands, he
may receive a holy influx."
Acts X. 38 : " Jesus, who was from l^azareth, whom God
anointed with a holy pneuma and with a force."
Acts xix. 2, 6 : " Having found certain disciples, he said to
them, Did you, on accepting the faith, receive a holy influx 1
And they said to him, Xay. not even did we hear if there be such
a thing as a holy influx. . . . And Paul having laid his hands
on them, the influx which was holy came upon them, and they
spake with tongues, and expounded."
1 Cor. ii. 13: " Which things also we speak, not in words
taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by pneumatic in-
flux ; putting pneumatic influxes together, and comparing them
one with another."
St Paul here distinctly disclaims for the teacher of Clirist's
religion the mere intellectual knowledge which is drawn from
human sources of wisdom, and asserts for him an internal afflatus
and direction ; though, at the same time, he admits the necessity
and importance of correcting the human liability to mistake by
comparing different influxes, or, as expressed elsewhere in the
'New Testament, by " trying the influxes, whether they be of
God." It is so easy and common for the evil ones to simulate a
divine influx, that it is necessary to be constantly on the watch
so as to detect and avoid a false afflatus.
1 Cor. vii. 40 : " She is more blessed, if she remain thus, in my
opinion; and I think that I have also a divine influx on the
matter."
1 Cor. XV. 44, 45 : "There is a psychic body, and there is a
pneumatic body. Thus also it has been written : The first man
Adam reached as far as a living psyche, the last Adam as far as a
life-giving pneuma."
GaL iii. 3 : " Having entered upon the life of the pneuma, will
ye end in going back to the life of the flesh ? "
Gal. v. 16, 18: "Go about under the influence of tlie pneuma,
that ye may not perform the desire of the flesh. For the flesh
cherishes de.sires in opposition to tlic pneuma, and the pneuma in
opposition to the flesh ; and these are antagonistic to each other, in
order that ye may not do those things which ye may naturally
df'sire. IJut if ye be guided by the ])ncuma, ye arc al)0vc earthly
law.
470 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
That is, the promptings of the pneuina will render you inde-
pendent of earthly law, since you will be obedient to the higher
divine law of the pneunia.
1 Thess. V. 19 : "Do not stifle the influx of the pneuma."
That is, when you feel the promptings of the pneumatic voice
within you, beware of hesitating or refusing to obey its impulse.
Heb. vi. 4-6 : " As regards those Avho have been once thoroughly
enlightened, and who have experienced the gift which is from
above, and have been made partakers of the divine pneuma, and
have consciously felt a helpful voice from God, and the forces of an
age yet to come, and have fallen away, it is impossible to raise
them ui^ anew again to a change of mind, since they are crucifying
afresh to themselves the Son of God, and putting Him to an open
shame."
2 Pet. i. 21 : " N'ot by a man's own impulse was a prophecy
ever framed ; but holy men of God spake under the influx of a holy
pneuma."
Jude 19:" These are they who banish themselves, being psychic,
having no pneuma."
AVhat the apostle here means is, that since the pneuma is the
seat of immortal life, those who entirely devote themselves to an
existence no deeper than that of the psyche, practically extinguish
within themselves the pneuma, and so cut themselves off" from the
higher life of immortality.
This, however, can only be as regards the conscious continuity
of individual existence ; the pneuma is of the essence of the Deitj'-,
and therefore is, in its essential principle, immortal, and can never
perish.
NOTE T.
ON THE KESTOEATION OF TRUE CHRISTIANITY.
Chapter xxii. page 372.
"It teas the unfaithfulness of the early Christian Church which
healed the deadly ivmind"
The impulse which led to the reformation of Christendom three
hundred years ago, was undoubtedly a good and true one. The
abominations, which had resulted from the utter inversion of true
Christianity throughout the entire pale of Christendom, had become
so flagrant and outrageous, that the only wonder is that men should
have endured it so long.
The great fault of the Eeformation, however, and that which
rendered its efforts practically futile, was, that those who sought
APPENDIX 11. 471
thus to restore the Church to purity did not probe the evil deep
enough, or trace the stream to its very source. They merely went
back to the fourth century ; they ought to have gone back to
Christ. "Whilst stri\'ing, therefore, to clear away the corrupting
accretions which had defiled the truth, they left untouched the
essence of the pollution. Thus, cherishing such fundamental errors
as the dogma of the Trinity, the doctrine of propitiatory sacrifice,
the infallible inspiration of the Bible, and so forth, they failed
altogether in restoring to mankind the true religion which Christ
came to bring.
They removed, it is true, a great deal of the overlying mud, but
they did not bring to light the " pearl of great price " which re-
mained buried beneath the accretion.
That great work has been reserved for the present generation ;
and with its reappearance we may hope for the restitution of
Christ's saving power.
It may be well to point out here that, unlike the later creeds,
the original record of Christian faith, contained in what is known
as " The Apostles' Creed," may still be held as teaching nothing
which is not, if rightly understood, absolutely and entirely true.
It has been divided by the Church for purposes of dogma into
three separate sections ; but as originally written it was in a single
jiaragraph.
" I believe in God the Father Almighty, ]\Iaker of heaven and
earth " (that is, " I believe in God, the Father-Mother "). Al-
mighty is always equivalent to Shaddai, the Divine Feminine,
" Maker of the invisible and visible worlds, and in Jesus Christ
His only Son " (that is, the only biune man), " who was conceived
of a holy pneuma, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius
Pilate, was crucified dead and buried ; He descended into hell "
(/.''., went down into the lower region of the invisible world); " the
third day He rose again from the dead " (i.e., to sow the seed of
His pneumatic body on earth) ; " He ascended into heaven " (i.e.,
into the upper region of the invisible world) ; " He sitteth at the
right hand of God the Father- Mother " (i.f., He is exalted above
all as being the express image of the biune God) ; " from thence
He shall come again at the end of the age, to judge the quick and
the dead " (i.e., to separate between, or to bring about the crisis,
as the Greek word translated "judge" means, between the quick
— i.e., those who accept the (juickening pneuma, — and tlic dead —
i.e., those who reject it). " I believe in the holy pneuma ; the
lioly universal ecclesia " {i.e., the holy gathering together, as crdesia
means, of those who accept Him from universal mankind); " tlie
common sharing of saints " (i.e., in the pneuma) ; " the resurrection
of the body " (i.e., the pneumatic body) ; " and the life everlasting.
Amen."
472 SCIENTIFIC RELIGION.
To every one of these statements we give in our hearty and loyal
allegiance ; and to the truths therein set forth we confidently look
for the regeneration of the human race.
POSTSCRIPT.
Since writing the above notes, an incident has occurred in the
writer's experience, which it appears to him incumbent to relate,
inasmuch as it illustrates the action of the " pneuma," as described
in l^ote S, page 463, ajyrojyos of Christ's explanation to Nicodemus.
At the same time, it affords another practical instance of the respi-
ratory sensitiveness described in Note 0, page 445.
On Friday, December 16, 1887, the writer was asked to visit
two poor persons living next door to each other, both of whom
were seriously ill. The one case was that of a Avoman, about
sixty years of age, who had been confined to her bed for ten days,
quite unable to move, and suffering severely from acute pain at the
base of the spine and in the loins. The other was that of a man,
sixty-five years old, who had a sharp attack of bronchitis. Having
applied the ordinary natural remedies to suit each case, the writer
returned home. About 5 a.m. on the following morning he was
awakened from sleep by a sensation of the respiratory motion,
which he has learnt to recognise distinctly as a sympneumatic
descent. Opening himself to the voice of the pneuma, he became
aware of tlie intimation that he was to rise at once and visit the
two patients. What was to be the object of his visit he did not
know ; but the command was clear, and he immediately followed
it. On entering the woman's house, he found her in much the
same state as on the previous day, and still unable to move through
pain. He told her that he felt he had been divinely sent to assist
her cure, and she must implicitly obey whatever he ordered her to
do. He then passed his left hand gently down her back, at the
same time taking her right hand in his. As soon as he touched
the small of the Imck, he felt the strange vibratory motion afi'ecting
his whole system, and his inner consciousness became impressed
with the conviction that he was to tell her to get up immediately
and walk about. Accordingly, he did so ; and at once, to her own
astonishment and that of the other persons present, she rose from
the ground, on which she had been lying, and guided by his right
hand, which still retained its hold of hers, she walked up and down
the room several times without the slightest eff"ort or sensation of
pain. She declared herself feeling quite well, and expressed a
APPENDIX II. 473
desire to go to work. However, he advised lier to keep quiet and
warm, and not to be surprised if the pain returned in a measure
again.
He then went to the house of the other patient, quite prepared
to do the same for him if the indications of the pneuma directed
him. Xo sooner, however, had he taken his hand than he felt all
influx leave him, and he knew that this case was not one in which
he was intended to act spiritually. He was therefore obliged to
content himself with administering ordinary injunctions, and offer-
ing words of sympathy and encouragement.
The next day — Sunday, December 1 8 — he visited both patients.
He found the woman lying on the ground as before, and she had
had a slight, but only slight, return of her former pain. This time
she rose without his assistance when he ordered her to do so ; and
after walking about the room for a little Avhile, she again felt
relieved entirely.
The man was evidently much worse, and again the writer could
feel no influx to aid him. The following day, Monday the 19th,
the woman was perfectly well and about her ordinary work ; and
the man was dead.
THE END.
PRINTED BV WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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