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T II E 
 
 Seven Creative Principles: 
 
 BEING 
 
 A SERIES OF SEVEN LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 SOCIETY FOR ESOTERIC CULTURE, OF BOSTON, WITH 
 
 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON THE IDEA OF 
 
 GOD, AND CONCLUDING LECTURE ON THE 
 
 ESOTERIC SIGXHTCANCE OF COLOR. 
 
 BY 
 
 HIRAM ERASTUS BUTLER 
 
 TOttfj (Eolorco Illustrations. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ESOTERIC PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 478 Shawmut Avenue. 
 
 1887. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by 
 
 Esoteric Publishing Company, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 GIFT 
 
 PRESS OP 
 
 ROCKWELL AND CHTRCHILL, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 3- 
 
 BFlT 
 387 
 
 These Lectures are published at the particular request of 
 the members of the Society for Esoteric Culture, before 
 which body they were delivered during the spring of 1887 ; 
 an earnest desire having been unanimously expressed to 
 possess the same in permanent form. 
 
 They will be found highly suggestive and valuable to think- 
 ing people, on account of the original views presented, and 
 the novel and forcible analysis and treatment of the great 
 subject of Creation. 
 
 They contain so many central thoughts that are new to the 
 general public, that, in treating the several Principles, some 
 repetition has been found necessary in the different lectures, 
 on account of the mutual dependence and interrelation of the 
 Seven ; but not more than was deemed essential to fully im- 
 press and enforce the central facts and workings of Nature. 
 
 They are not submitted as labored and polished essays, 
 but rather as gushing springs from the great fountain of 
 natural Truth, to refresh the soul, strengthen the mind, and 
 open the eyes of the spiritually inclined to possibilities of 
 attainments not now thought of. 
 
 Editor. 
 
 734 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 The Idea of God 1 
 
 Force, — The First of the Seven Creative Principles . 23 
 Discrimination, — The Second of the Seven Creative Prin- 
 ciples ........... 41 
 
 Order, — The Third of the Seven Creative Principles . 57 
 Cohesion, — The Fourth of the Seven Creative Principles. 79 
 Fermentation, — The Fifth of the Seven Creative Prin- 
 ciples 97 
 
 Transmutation, — The Sixth of the Seven Creative Prin- 
 ciples . . . . . . • . . • .117 
 
 Sensation, — The Seventh of the Seven Creative Prin- 
 ciples 135 
 
 Esoteric Significance of Color 153 
 
mrr 
 
 "/ will be what I will to be." 
 
 DIAGRAM OF CHART REFERRED TO IN THIS LECTURE. 
 
"I will be what J will to be." 
 
FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 THE IDEA OF GOD. 
 
 The subject selected for the lecture of this evening 
 is the Idea of God. All religions and all systems of 
 occult science, from the earliest history of the world 
 to the present time, have been characterized entirely 
 by that ideal of God which has been held by the 
 people with whom these systems originated. 
 
 The word God in all languages of the world, with 
 perchance the exception of the English, has carried 
 with it the idea of power. In the Hebrew language, 
 for instance, we find, as the expression of the idea, 
 the word El or Eloheim, which embodies and expresses 
 the idea of power or almighty creative power ; and in 
 all the languages and religions of the world the word 
 selected for the expression of a people's conception of 
 a Supreme Being had for its principal signification the 
 idea of power, — a power that was over and above all, 
 and that was not only power in itself, but the cause 
 and source from whence all manifestations of power 
 emanated. 
 
 When scientists search for the prime cause of crea- 
 tive energy, they commence by examining the methods 
 of nature. They observe the growing vegetation, they 
 
2 THE IDEA OE GOD. 
 
 see the molecules of matter gathered together by the 
 forces of the great mother earth ; with the aid of the 
 microscope they trace the formation of these molecules 
 from a stage where atoms are too minute to be dis- 
 cerned, even by the magnifying lens, and arrive at the 
 conclusion, that, from all that is revealed, the process of 
 building matter into form is invariably the same, and 
 that beyond the molecules and atoms that can be dis- 
 cerned there are myriads that are imperceptible, and 
 whose existence can be affirmed only by the unanswer- 
 able argument of analogy and logic. The creative 
 force they have thus far been unable to discover, but 
 the result of a creative force is fully manifest, — an 
 interior power that builds and demonstrates, and from 
 which orderly and harmonious structures arise, emblems 
 of an interior and invisible order and harmony, be its 
 source what it may, yet ever orderly and expressive of 
 method and intelligence in its creative manifestations. 
 
 The materialistic scientist has usually arrived at the 
 conclusion that matter has in itself the requisite potency 
 to build orderly structures, beyond which he cannot go, 
 and thus is empty of adequate or satisfactory solution 
 of the great problem of life. 
 
 In our effort to present to your minds our ideal of 
 God, we shall endeavor to enable you to conceive of a 
 Supreme Being who has attributes much broader and 
 greater than has heretofore been generally accepted. 
 We do this because we believe that in order to attain 
 to the knowledge of grand truths and states of unfold- 
 ment one's conception of a great, all-pervading divine 
 essence must embrace the grandest and most ennobling 
 ideal of which human nature is capable. It is only 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD. 3 
 
 necessary to look into the history of the world to see 
 how closely the character of the nations has been 
 moulded by their ideals of God. The nations which 
 have believed in one or many gods — gods whose prin- 
 cipal endowments were those of the worst attributes of 
 human nature; who were vindictive, jealous, constantly 
 warring with each other or with their subjects — mod- 
 elled their lives in conformity with their belief, justi- 
 fying their desire for revenge and domination by force, 
 — the strong oppressing the weak b} r the power of their 
 own might, — thus honoring and imitating the over- 
 bearing, unsympathetic ideal gods of their imagination. 
 Thus we find in all history that according to their 
 ideal of God such has been the character of the people. 
 
 Man is of necessity a religious being. The idea of a 
 God has possessed all nations and classes. A people so 
 low down in the scale of unfoldment, who have not had 
 an idea of God — calling it " The Great Spirit," as did 
 the American Indians, or by some other significant 
 name — has never yet been found. Why this should 
 be would be a difficult question to answer, were it not 
 that at the foundation of all being there is a something 
 oftentimes vague and indefinite, but that nevertheless 
 gives a consciousness of an infinite, an over-power, upon 
 which man in his necessities may rely, unto which he 
 may pray or offer sacrifice, propitiate by destroying his 
 enemies, or anger by neglect or scorn of its power. 
 
 Scientists tell us that we cannot understand or even 
 think of anything of which we have not some corre- 
 spondent within ourselves. Thus far we bear them com- 
 pany ; but when they state that we can know nothing 
 but that of which the five senses take cognizance, we 
 
4 THE IDEA OF GOD. 
 
 take issue, for this is far from true. When we speak of 
 cause, which of the material senses perceives or com- 
 prehends it? Not one of them can do it ! They cannot 
 perceive the commonest principle in nature, which is 
 force ! To what does such a materialistic assumption 
 lead? Let us consider. You may feel the weight of 
 the stone that falls upon your hand or person, but do 
 you feel the impelling force ? No ! Gravity was there 
 before and after the fall of the stone, but you were un- 
 conscious of its presence ; but when this power takes 
 possession of the inanimate stone and brings it down 
 upon your person, you feel the result of the action, but 
 that which caused the stone to fall you cannot feel. 
 You may see the train of cars whirling along, but that 
 subtle something that has been brought into play by 
 the expansive action of heat, producing the energy 
 which so forcibly propels them, you cannot see : it is 
 beyond the scope of the five senses. Thus you may go 
 over the entire catalogue of moving forms, and you will 
 find that the material senses cannot take cognizance of 
 anything that belongs to cause. This makes it neces- 
 sary that we should reason from the facts of our ob- 
 servation and experience, and accept the deductions 
 logically resultant therefrom as the obvious truth. 
 Philosophy began, and has expanded, with the effort 
 to determine what is life ; and to-night the same prob- 
 lem is before us for consideration, and we still ask, 
 What is life ? We see the manifestations of life in the 
 animal world; we observe it in the vegetable domain; 
 we find that even the earth, the rocks, and every exist- 
 ing thing is filled with life, and that all are constantly 
 undergoing change through the unceasing effort of this 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD. 5 
 
 something we call life. If we endeavor to look beyond 
 this realm of matter, how much can we see ? what can 
 we thus learn of life through the agency of the five 
 senses? We turn and investigate the human body; 
 this is the starting-point of the ancient philosophers. 
 They began with the body, and sought inward and up- 
 ward for the cause, unlike the modern scientist who, 
 commencing with man, traces down and out until he 
 is lost in the intricacies of nature. Let us in our in- 
 vestigations return to the methods of the ancient phi- 
 losophers, beginning with the highest attribute of man, 
 — the will. 
 
 It is by the power of will that we are enabled to 
 move a hand. If a more powerful will takes control of 
 ours, — psychologize us, as we say, — it can prevent us 
 from moving even that, notwithstanding our own will 
 may desire so to do. We know that we cannot move 
 a muscle without the consent of the will. We talk 
 about the involuntary action of the system, but such 
 action is nothing more or less than the movement by 
 the will in accordance with an established habit of 
 being. Every possible action of our organization may, 
 by the effort of our own will, be suspended; and inves- 
 tigation has proved that there are those who are capable 
 of suspending every action or function of the system, 
 even bringing the involuntary activities under control 
 of the will. Thus habit, being induced through the op- 
 eration either of one's own will or of that of the parent 
 organism, may again be dominated by the same agency. 
 Continued practice causes the hand of the mechanic or 
 musician to act in as regular and systematic manner as 
 do any of the apparently involuntary muscles. I have 
 
6 THE IDEA OF GOD. 
 
 seen men execute the most intricate mechanical work, 
 that which required the utmost nicety and exercise of 
 fine artistic sense, such as could be attained only by 
 long and untiring application, without any apparent 
 thought or attention. Therefore, we see that the will 
 not only establishes but corrects and controls habits, 
 and is the dominant power and ruler of all. 
 
 In our search after God it becomes necessary to look 
 within and beyond. We therefore proceed in accord- 
 ance with this law in our analysis of the highest form 
 of earthly organization ; namely, man. When we have 
 ascertained what man actually is, we begin to form a 
 rational, in fact the highest possible, conception of how 
 and from whence he originated. Let us turn our atten- 
 tion to the old cabalistic name Yahveh, which I have 
 chosen to place on this chart (see diagram) as repre- 
 senting the cause of the seven creative principles, 
 which we shall discuss in subsequent lectures. This 
 (pointing to the chart) is the Hebrew word Yahveh. 
 It occurs over sixty-four hundred times in the Hebrew 
 Bible. It is translated, I think, in our version but four 
 times, in three of which it is rendered as Jehovah, and 
 in the fourth as Jah or Yah ; and you will notice in the 
 English translation of the Scriptures, that wherever the 
 name of the Deity is used, when derived from Yah- 
 veh, it is invariably spelled with capital letters. This 
 word Yahveh, the cabalistic name for GOD, means, 
 " I will be what I will to be." You will see that 
 this expresses supreme ability and indomitable potency. 
 Who among the sons of men dare step forward and say, 
 " I will be what I will to be " ? Think of it ! not merely 
 implying, but asserting, that the ability to be whatever 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD. 7 
 
 lie wills to be exists in himself. Here we have a foun- 
 dation thought, and here I will say, that in this " I will 
 be w r HAT I will to be " we find the key to the whole 
 Hebraic Scripture. 
 
 Now let us look and see what a subtle power the will 
 is. We will, and we move ; or the will may be excited, 
 and we say that we are angry; and when the will is 
 excited to anger, what a storm exists in the body ! how 
 the red blood mounts to the face ! every nerve is strained 
 to its utmost tension ! what an abnormal strength is 
 called into being to resist and overcome obstacles! And 
 thus even the weakest organizations are by this power 
 of the aroused will enabled to assert and maintain their 
 right (or possibly wrong) at all hazard. Thus you see 
 that the will is the absolute monarch, ruling every 
 muscle and nerve, governing every thought ; and that 
 every other power in man is subservient to this king, 
 
 THE WILL. 
 
 Let us look still further, and turn our attention to 
 this planet, earth. It is relatively but a little ball 
 revolving around the sun, its great centre of light. It 
 has eight companions, — yes, more ; there is a large family 
 of worlds, each revolving around the same centre, each 
 following in its own prescribed orbit. Here we must 
 become conscious that there is a great power that 
 causes these worlds to revolve around their common 
 centre, each travelling in its defined orbit ; and then we 
 find that our centre, the sun, is but a planet of a greater 
 and grander system, and is, with its family of worlds, 
 revolving around another sun ; and further still, that 
 this third sun and its family of worlds, is travelling 
 around another sun of a still greater and grander 
 
8 THE IDEA OF GOD. 
 
 system, so great and grand that it is supposed by 
 some that to complete one revolution consumes over 
 twenty-two and a half million of our years. Here the 
 telescopic deductions of man now cease. But do 
 mathematics cease here ? We think not. There are 
 mathematical methods by which it can be proven that 
 all these worlds are born from a great central sun ; and 
 that as they are farther and farther removed from it, 
 they become finer and more ethereal, are more fully 
 developed by the same law of transmutation and 
 change that we observe in our planet, the earth ; 
 which earth is but an immense electric machine, gen- 
 erating currents of electricity and magnetism which 
 bind it to its sun. The material elements are being 
 transmuted to finer essences of being, and in these 
 worlds born from the central sun we find that they 
 are getting finer and less physically strong in their 
 currents ; therefore they are drifting farther away from 
 their centre. If we will investigate our planet, the 
 earth, we shall find that it is becoming finer and less 
 strong physically ; that every generation of its inhabi- 
 tants is becoming more refined than its predecessor. 
 Look back for a few generations, and see what a different 
 character they bore from the people of to-day ; how much 
 weaker are we in muscle, how much stronger in brain ; 
 how much greater flights of thought are being taken to- 
 day than in years long ago. Thus thought and mental 
 power are gaining, while physical energy is decreasing. 
 Thought is the co-worker of the will; it is not the 
 will, but is submissive to its power : we think, and 
 consequently act. But there are powers that can over- 
 come the mandates of our will : for instance, let us take 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD. 9 
 
 electricity. Suppose you take hold of the poles of a 
 strong electric battery, put your will to work and say 
 you will hold it ; let a strong current of electricity be 
 turned on, and where is the will? The arms are drawn 
 up, the muscles are contracted, and the will has no 
 power whatever over them. Here is a power that acts 
 like the will, but is much stronger. It is the solid 
 and grosser materials of the decomposing elements of 
 nature, potent with the Divine will, that are throwing 
 off and emitting a current that is stronger than the will 
 of man, and will dominate it in spite of his greatest 
 exertion ; if but the necessary mechanism and material 
 is supplied. From the fundamental idea, then, that these 
 worlds are born, grow, unfold, become more and more 
 spiritual, — or, if you should choose a perhaps better 
 word, more mental, — they become more like the Author 
 Mind, the physical energies decrease, they drift farther 
 away from their centre, as their mentality becomes 
 developed so as to enable them to support their exist- 
 ence at a greater distance from the parent sun ; and the 
 farther they are removed from their centre of light, the 
 more luminous they become of themselves. As we go 
 farther on, we observe, and shall try to show, that there 
 is no difference between life and light. Taking this 
 as an analogy, then, our earth must of necessity be 
 destined at some far-away period of time to become a 
 central sun, luminous with life and light, from which 
 worlds will be born. It has thus far had but one child 
 born from it, — our moon. The greater planets have 
 greater numbers of worlds born to them, and at some 
 far-away period of the future they will each form a 
 great system, filling their allotted sphere. 
 
10 THE IDEA OF GOD. 
 
 We can only discern material substance and things 
 that are like ourselves. As these worlds of which we 
 have spoken become finer, more ethereal, more inde- 
 pendent of their sun, they become suns themselves. 
 Chano-insr our line of thought, let us trace from our 
 earth to its central sun, which suu being but a planet, 
 itself revolving around another sun, its centre, — this 
 centre revolving around another sun, its centre, — jet 
 visible, and supposed to be a star in the constellation 
 Pleiades, and we find that we can logically go still 
 farther ; but for the material eye to see, the telescope 
 and other appliances for aiding its vision are not yet 
 adequate. We find that we may go on and on, and 
 that each sun, as we come nearer the great centre, is 
 finer and more ethereal. It has been asserted that 
 there is a fourth dimension of matter ; something more 
 than length, breadth, and thickness ; something that is 
 interior to what we have been considering. As we go 
 on tracing these worlds, finding them to be finer and 
 yet finer, we mathematically conclude that this planet 
 of ours may, at this very moment, be sweeping the 
 interior organization of a far grander world than any 
 of which we have formed the slightest conception, and 
 whose people are refined to such an extent that they 
 have no more consciousness of our existence than we 
 have of theirs. So from mathematical conclusions we 
 may trace until we can conceive the thought that all 
 which we call space is peopled with worlds and sys- 
 tems of worlds, interior to other worlds and systems 
 of worlds, until there shall be no such thing as space ; 
 and that in this which we call space we could, were 
 our eyesight sufficiently refined to take cognizance of 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD. 11 
 
 all the conditions of matter, perceive millions and mil- 
 lions of worlds, interior to still other worlds, all inter- 
 pervaded by one Great Essence of Being, which, for lack 
 of better terms, we call God, spirit, soul, or life. We 
 are bewildered when we seek to locate cause, and when 
 thus going out in thought into the breadth and vast- 
 ness of creation we can see that we may logically con- 
 clude that this which we call space is so densely filled 
 and inhabited, and not only inhabited, but interinhab- 
 ited, that it is not space, but is occupied by existing 
 and orderly moving worlds. We can also see that all 
 these systems are governed by a definite law of order. 
 Order pervades everything. Not a plant can grow, not 
 an organic life exist, except by the law of order. We 
 need never expect a machine to be made to do our work 
 except it have form and order. It takes mind to make 
 a machine, and to so construct it agreeably to the law 
 of order that it will perform the work which we design 
 it shall do. If a man should bring to us, perchance, 
 the delicate machinery of a watch, and say, " This grew 
 of itself," could we believe it ? Could we possibly be- 
 lieve that the existence of such machinery happened 
 by chance? that the pieces of metallic substance fell 
 down from somewhere, and by some jostling came to- 
 gether in this perfect order ? No ! nothing could con- 
 vince us, or any other number of thinking men and 
 women, but what there was a mind, an intelligent and 
 reasoning power, that caused every part to be made, 
 put in its place, and arranged in its order. When we 
 look out upon our world and see how it, and everything 
 in and upon it, is in the most perfect order, can we 
 think that it was formed without intelligence? — much 
 
12 THE IDEA OF GOD. 
 
 less when we look into our solar system and see its 
 multitude of worlds, each revolving around a common 
 centre, all held in perfect order, all working with the 
 exactness of unparalleled machinery which surpasses 
 the possibilities of the conception of the human mind, 
 can we for a moment think that there is not a mind 
 behind it? that there is not a will that controls it? 
 Certainly not. Now we must pause in the presence of 
 this great, almost unknowable machinery of nature, 
 working in perfect harmony, without inharmonious ac- 
 tion in any part. 
 
 It hsis been stated by astronomers that if it were pos- 
 sible for one world to be out of time for a moment, 
 that all systems would be thrown into chaos, so per- 
 fect is the law of order in nature. Now there must be 
 a mind and will that is holding everything in its place. 
 There is a thought that has built everything. There is 
 a will that controls all, and that will is like the will 
 which governs the machinery of our bodies. When we 
 get further on in this course of lectures, we will show 
 you that there are reasons for believing that not only 
 is there an intelligent cause, but that this intelligent 
 cause has actually the form of man. The old philoso- 
 pher and astronomer who gave to us the picture we 
 have in the common almanac of to-day — of the man 
 with the twelve zodiacal signs around him — had a 
 reason for it ; and we will show you further that Swe- 
 denborg, although considered a dreamer and visionary, 
 agreed exactly with all the visions and prophecies of ^ 
 antiquity; that the planet earth and its inhabitants 
 were all members of one great body, one grand man. 
 These facts are arrived at from the annual revolution 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD. 13 
 
 of our planet through the four quarters of its ecliptic. 
 These four quarters being again divided into twelve 
 parts, give to us an insight to all the mystic symbols 
 of our Bible, wherein we find the twelve sons of Jacob, 
 the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and the twelve which 
 are so constantly referred to in all the prophecies. 
 These twelve divisions of the ecliptic through which 
 the earth passes, if you will observe them, take for 
 commencement the sign Aries. This sign has reference 
 to the head and power of the reason. The earth enters 
 into this sign of the zodiac on the twenty-first of March. 
 Now if you will take the trouble to examine into the 
 characters of persons who were born when the earth 
 was in this sign, say for one month dating from the 
 twenty-first of March, you will find that they are all 
 persons who demand a reason for everything, are ready 
 to give their own reason for all they bring forward, 
 and are generally inclined to support their reasons in 
 a somewhat logical manner. By thus comparing the 
 character of persons with the indications belonging to 
 each of the twelve signs, you will find that character 
 may be more fully delineated than by any system of 
 phrenology ; for these twelve departments of the zodiac 
 actually contain the twelve principles that form the 
 twelve different functions of man, and their centre is 
 the will, which controls the grand man. (This subject 
 is fully treated in my work on " Solar Biology.") We 
 then conclude that the God of the solar system, the 
 power which controls life within the limits of that sys- 
 tem, is in the form of man, and works through the 
 grand functions of the solar man. The same evidence 
 teaches us that we may carry the idea of man into the 
 
14 THE IDEA OF GOD. 
 
 ecliptic through which our sun travels in its revolutions 
 around its centre, and so we may go on eternally and 
 still find the form of man interior to all created suns 
 and worlds, tracing this divine principle yet more and 
 more interior, until the mind is lost in its inquiries into 
 the mystery of what this God-man is. I tell you, friends, 
 that the same law of logic holds good in considering 
 individual man ; and when we have solved the question, 
 " What is man ? " we have also solved the problem, 
 "What is God?" Man himself has possibilities of 
 godly attributes and powers greater than any that has 
 yet entered into the conceptions of human thought, 
 superior to any that has had being or form on this 
 planet. But what does this bring us to? To this con- 
 clusion : that that which we call God, the creator and 
 cause of all things, could, as Swedenborg truly says, 
 " create but from himself." 
 
 In our bodies we are limited in creative work to the 
 powers within ourselves. Generation and creation may 
 be used as synonymous terms, for all things have come 
 into existence by generation, formed of the parts and 
 particles of the parent organism. If we trace this to 
 the infinite and unknowable man whom we call God, 
 the great universal man who is the life of all things 
 that exist, where do we come? We reach the conclu- 
 sion that all that we call matter is only another state of 
 existence of the same Being or Cause. When we have 
 an idea of a spiritual and unseen being that we call 
 God, we, with the ancient cabalists, formulate an idea 
 of a place or state of perfect white light, which light 
 is the source of all fire, but of a fire that is creative, 
 gives life, but destroys nothing. Whatever our idea 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD. 15 
 
 may be, let us expand it once and for all to this : that 
 the gross matter upon which we walk is but the con- 
 centration of the Infinite Spirit. Matter itself is only 
 a condition of spirit, and as that condition changes, it 
 becomes invisible to our perception ; and so we may go 
 on, on, eternally on, from state to state interior and 
 yet more interior. What we call solids to-day may to- 
 morrow be changed into gases, pass out of sight. We 
 may call it ether, spirit, mind, or what we will; for the 
 fact that there is nothing known in the universe that 
 cannot be turned into gases and thrown off into what 
 we call space, and no longer have form, measurement, 
 or weight, is in itself evidence that as into this it can 
 be turned, from it it must have come. Then what shall 
 we think of God ? What is God ? God is everything, 
 is everywhere ; fills all space ; fills all things ; is the life 
 and intelligence of all things ; is the motive power of 
 all things. "But," you may say, "you are destroying 
 entirely the ideal we have been worshipping under the 
 name of God." No, no ! not at all ! For, as we have 
 already said, this idea of God brings you back to the 
 idea of your own being. For you are of God, and God 
 is within you ; all that you are, all that you can be, 
 all that you may attain to, is of God ; and without the 
 God within you, the essence of the Great Soul of the 
 universe, which animates and inspires you, what would 
 you be ? The physical shell, which is the house that 
 contains this great vivifying and all-enlightening spirit, 
 is but a clod of senseless matter, which must soon be 
 resolved into the elements from whence it came. 
 
 To enlarge upon this theme : the entire mass of hu- 
 manity are but parts of one grand whole ; each member 
 
16 THE IDEA OF GOD. 
 
 is but an emanation from the great universal mind, and 
 it takes the whole to make the one great body; and 
 you and I, and our earth, and all that is within it, are 
 members of this one body ; hence we cannot injure a 
 single member without injuring the whole body. There- 
 fore, there is true logic in the idea of the Orient of to- 
 day, when they express the thought that "all life is 
 precious, therefore kill nothing " ; because if you kill 
 anything, it must of necessity react upon yourself, for 
 all that exists on this planet is part of your body, part 
 of the great God who rules this body, a part of your 
 mind, and your mind a part of it. Again, all there is in 
 the whole planetary system is a part of this one mind, 
 this controller of all ; and so on, from system to system, 
 up to the Infinite itself, it takes all to constitute one 
 grand unit. 
 
 Where, then, shall we look for the Highest ? In the 
 individual, the will is the supreme monarch : we cannot 
 move a muscle without it so ordains. Has it form? 
 No ! we should define it rather as function. It has an 
 organ, and that organ has form. Is it anything of form 
 that causes me to move my arm ? No ! There is a 
 centre of power — call it either if you choose. My 
 hand moves quicker than thought: will has done it; 
 the action produces thought. Has this thought form ? 
 Yes; thought has form called into existence by the 
 mandate of the will formulated from the essence of the 
 body. Each of } r ou, my friends, are a thought-form of 
 the solar mind, through which the God of this universe 
 operates. A thought-form, an expression ? Yes, a word 
 of God. How truly John expressed this when he said, 
 " in the beginning was the Logos," — the word ; and 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD. 17 
 
 the word was God, or power ; and all things were made 
 by it, or him : when the thought was formed, a world 
 was born, and in that world was the essence of being 
 that brought us here. You and I stand, a thought of 
 that Infinite. Is that all? If we find that all that we 
 call space is filled and intertilled with that which we 
 call God, then what? We do not weaken our concep- 
 tion of God, but we are inevitably brought back to our 
 Hebraic Bible, which states that God is everywhere 
 present, and knows the heart and thoughts of every 
 living soul. Yes ; he knows ! he thinks ! If this were 
 not so, how could you think and know ? From whence 
 did you receive the higher attributes that we call love? 
 We love our wives and our children, and are willing to 
 labor to uphold and maintain those dear ones. We 
 derived these attributes from the fountain of all good, 
 and yet we are a condition of matter; and although 
 part of a great whole, are bound here and insphered 
 within certain limits. But a mind has projected you 
 into being, and that mind is everywhere. Man is a 
 being of love, and there is nothing that can live without 
 it: love is a magnet; it draws to, and embodies in 
 itself, the object of its love. Without love, the grass 
 could not grow, not a flower spring forth, not an animal 
 organization could exist: no, it has formed all things; 
 and therefore the wise man said, "God is love." Love 
 is power. When we refer to the ancient Cabala, and to 
 the Hebraic Bible, we read that after a panoramic view 
 of the whole order of creation, God said that all that 
 he had made was very good ; therefore we are right in 
 attributing everything that is good to Love, for God is 
 Love, and Love is power. There is nothing in nature 
 
18 THE IDEA OF GOD. 
 
 but what is good ; and when we call anything evil, it is 
 because it opposes us. Now that mind of which you 
 are the expression, of which everything that is, is an 
 expression, by which all worlds were formed, is every- 
 where; and all the attributes possessed by human nature 
 are everywhere. Take a thimble and hold it up ; what 
 does it contain ? Atmospheric air. What more ? Why, 
 it contains enough of that infinite thought-potency to 
 make a world, give it sufficient time. It contains so 
 much of the infinite power that if you should breathe 
 a desire, thought, or prayer to it, it would become a 
 servant to your desire. Then pray always. Remember 
 this: that this divine love, this divine thought, this 
 divine wisdom, this infinite knowledge and infinite 
 power, this will which holds in its right hand all these 
 worlds, causing them to wheel around their centres, each 
 in its appropriate orbit, — desires, yea, seeks, to serve 
 you, but it cannot act other than in accordance with its 
 nature ; therefore conform to its nature, and it will be 
 your servant. Remember, I repeat that this will which 
 pervades everything is in you, and that it is Love ; 
 therefore strive to fulfil the commandments so forcibly 
 expressed by the Nazarene, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
 with all thy mind . . . and thy neighbor as thyself." 
 
 Who is my neighbor? Every living thing, my fel- 
 low-man, even the reptile crawling at my feet, — all are 
 a part of me, a part of my flesh, a part of my being ; for 
 I am a part of the grand man, and everything which is 
 below me are but embryonic conditions of me, which 
 will in time become man, taking 1113* place. Then let us 
 follow the commandment, and love God and our neigh- 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD. 19 
 
 bor as it directs : then we shall find practical the idea 
 of the Bagavad Gita, to arise and go up into some quiet, 
 secluded spot, and think on me, even me, Om (the San- 
 scrit word for Omnipotent), and you shall find such 
 meditation to be good for your soul. 
 
 Where shall we find the God of our ideal? In the 
 quiet room, or lonely spot on the mountain top, or by 
 the surging sea ; wherever the mind can sit in calm 
 meditation, and go out in this wonderful thought of the 
 Infinite, tracing and following it wherever the imagina- 
 tion may lead, feeling certain that we cannot go astray ; 
 for it is God we seek, and God is infinite life and love 
 and thought, infinite wisdom, power, and everything of 
 which we can form any conception. When j r ou know 
 how to take hold upon yourself by the power of your 
 own superior will, and then begin to think about that 
 God, begin to imitate and try to be like him, and en- 
 deavor to bring your body and all its parts to the utmost 
 perfection ; begin to unfold, to think, to know, to will, 
 to be, — then you commence to be like that Infinite; 
 then the limits around you will begin to expand, the 
 boundaries of the will will become wider and broader, 
 and soon you will find that there are possibilities within 
 you and within all that are so far beyond anything we 
 have heretofore conceived, that we might imagine a 
 man who possessed such power was the god of the 
 universe. 
 
mrr 
 
SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 FORCE. 
 
 THE FIRST OF THE SEVEN CREATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 In our last lecture we endeavored to bring before 
 your minds a more comprehensive idea of God ; to 
 enable you to realize that God, the soul of the uni- 
 verse, is equally the soul of man. He is not a being, 
 altogether unconditioned, beyond the bounds of time 
 and space ; nor is he a man, seated upon a high throne, 
 in some far-away region, subject to human passions, 
 and, like man, swayed by the force of circumstance. 
 No, the Infinite Soul possesses and combines in itself 
 all of the finer attributes of which we are enabled to 
 form a conception. Everywhere that conscious being 
 is present. Every thought, every word, is taken cog- 
 nizance of by that superior intelligence. This fact, if 
 regarded properly, would cause us to restrain many of 
 our foolish thoughts and idle words, and would cause 
 us to guard and control ourselves throughout life. 
 
 The object of considering, in these lectures, the 
 seven creative principles, is to bring us into a mental 
 condition where we shall cease to see evil as an 
 absolute principle, and recognize the useful and good in 
 
24 FORCE. 
 
 everything. We learn that there is nothing in the uni- 
 verse, but what is necessary to the accomplishment of 
 an ultimate purpose. When we come to realize this as a 
 fact, or, as Paul expressed it, that "all things work 
 together for good," we see that all things are working 
 with unanimity and harmony, and for the purpose of 
 forwarding a common object, viz., the building of a 
 perfect man. What is most needed now is to look 
 upon this world as a great factory, where men and all 
 living things are engaged in the work of preparing our 
 planet to become a paradise. When we get the 
 thought clearly defined in our minds, that all Nature is 
 working with us and for us, that we are parts of the 
 Infinite Soul, and that, as parts thereof, we should over- 
 look our father's workshop with the interest which sons 
 should feel in caring for the factory of their father, 
 then we shall be in harmony with Nature in all its 
 forms. 
 
 Upon looking into Nature, we find that there are two 
 great creative principles, the male and female, the 
 divine and infinite father and mother. 
 
 The male and female principles pervade everything 
 in Nature ; the positive and negative, the centripetal 
 and centrifugal. The two forces balance, and maintain 
 an equilibrium. In consequence we are here. Were 
 the positive principle to be released from the grasp of 
 the negative, it would go out into space and be lost in 
 the ether. It is the negative principle which gathers 
 together, holds and concentrates, binds and preserves. 
 Our planet, the Earth, has two poles on extremes, the 
 north and the south ; of these, the north represents 
 
FORCE. 25 
 
 the positive principle, the south the negative. The 
 north has a greater area of cold than the south and 
 belongs to the positive or masculine principle, while the 
 south has less area of cold, but is more intense, and 
 represents the negative or feminine principle. Thus 
 the positive and negative are opposed to each other, 
 and the currents of electricity passing from one to the 
 other bind, enfold, and maintain all things in their ap- 
 pointed places. On looking into Nature we find that 
 everything which grows is either positive or negative, 
 male or female, that creation itself is carried on by 
 these two factors. 
 
 When Moses went out of j Egypt, as a keeper of 
 Jethro's flock, his mind was stored with knowledge 
 derived from the Egyptians. By reason of this knowl- 
 edge he was enabled to develop his soul-powers to 
 such an extent that he became capable of receiving and 
 communicating with the Soul of the Universe. He 
 became conscious of the existence of these two forces 
 (the positive and negative), and of their great potency, 
 without whose reciprocal action nothing which lives 
 could have been brought into objective existence ; and 
 the two cherubs which he afterwards caused to be at- 
 tached to the Ark of the Covenant, in conformity with 
 the command given him upon Mount Sinai, were sym- 
 bolical of these two forces. 
 
 Such knoidedge and power as was possessed by the 
 Hebrew Prophet may be attained by all of you if you 
 but pursue the methods necessary for their attainment as 
 diligently as did Moses. 
 
 In treating of the seven creative principles repre- 
 
26 FORCE. 
 
 sented by this star, we will commence with the first, 
 FORCE, which is negation. That which we call soul 
 necessitated a change of condition before it could become 
 that which we recognize as matter; therefore force, as 
 one of the creative principles, must be brought to bear 
 upon the universal soul or twelve electric oceans, to 
 concrete matter as the basic substance of all objective 
 forms. 
 
 The word " Logos " that appears in the centre of the 
 diagram is in accordance with the thought expressed 
 by John, who is accepted by all mystics as being a 
 great cabalist. He began his gospel most wisely, 
 when he said, "In the beginning was the Word ('The 
 Logos') ; the "Word was with God, and the Word was 
 God . . . All things were made by him, and without 
 him was not anything made that was made." Let us 
 examine this more closely. If the word God meant 
 power, we should read, " In the beginning was the 
 Word, and the Word was Avith power, and the Word 
 was power, and all things were made by it, and with- 
 out it was not anything made that was made." This is 
 evidently the true meaning of John. 
 
 In our consideration of God, the everywhere present 
 and all-powerful Spirit of the universe, we think of it 
 or him as we do of the power of thought. You form 
 a thought preparatory to its expression. How is this 
 done? The life-essences of your being are called 
 together, concentrated in the brain, formulated in the 
 mind, sent out by the will as a thing or entity. Per- 
 haps we had better pause here, and look a little deeper 
 into this idea. We have said that a thought partakes 
 
FORCE. 27 
 
 of the essences of our own being. How do we know 
 this? We know that when a man labors hard every 
 day, that necessity obliges him to feed and sustain his 
 body accordingly ; if he is engaged in physical labor, 
 the forces that are created through the food are ab- 
 sorbed by the body, and go no farther than physical 
 energy, and are expended there. If the labor is men- 
 tal, those forces are utilized by the mind. If a man is 
 laboring very hard with his brain it is necessary for 
 food to be furnished the body more abundant than 
 when both body and mind were quiescent ; this is evi- 
 dence that the food we take into the body is for the 
 purpose of supplying material from which this chemi- 
 cal laboratory of ours may transmute and bring into 
 existence a subtle element which supplies and sustains 
 the thought-formulating powers of the brain with its 
 requisite material, and it is beyond question, as any 
 thinking investigator may prove, and it has been 
 proven thousands of times, that every word that we 
 speak is formed of the essence of our being. To such 
 an extent does this fact obtain that even the walls of the 
 house in which we live partake enough of the essence 
 of our being to enable sensitive persons, by taking a 
 piece of paper from the walls, to draw from it, without 
 having ever seen or even heard of its inmates, the same 
 magnetism that was formulated and sent out by the 
 brain and characterized by our essence ; they will see 
 us there, know our nature and character, and can 
 describe us accurately ; this, I say, has been proven 
 over and again. Now, if this is a fact, it necessarily 
 follows that every thought formed in our minds, and 
 
28 FORCE. 
 
 every word uttered by us to the mind or soul of 
 others, appears like the thinker, partakes of every 
 particle of our entire nature and being. 
 
 So, in the beginning was the Word. This infinite 
 incomprehensible intelligence formed a thought, that 
 was to create a world, and people it with man in its 
 own image, and like unto itself. In the first chapter of 
 Genesis, the twenty-sixth verse, we find these words : 
 " Let us make man in our own 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." The very central thought in the 
 Hebraic Bible is expressed by this thought. The key- 
 note of the whole subject is concentrated in the expres- 
 sion that the thought of the mind of the Infinite 
 Spirit was to form a world and create beings like unto 
 itself; and who, by possessing the powers and attri- 
 butes of that spirit, should be enabled to control the 
 fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and all things in 
 the earth ; such is the thought that went into space 
 with its dual activities. 
 
 We often say, " I conceived a thought." Yes, we 
 conceive thought, through the agency of those dual 
 principles ever active within us, and without which we 
 cannot live. The two forces of the mind must tome 
 together, or there is no power to think ; every thought 
 of ours is as much our child, our offspring, as a child 
 that is incarnate in the flesh, and comes into being by 
 means of the same law, the same essence of being, 
 without which essence we have nothing out of which 
 to make a thought. Eemember that the creative prm- 
 
FORCE. 29 
 
 eiplcs of Nature are the principles of generation, it 
 underlies everything ; every grain of sand upon which 
 we tread, was once a living entity; we are constantly 
 walking upon the ashes of the dead. Then the thought 
 formed by the Infinite Soul and sent into Nature, was 
 the Son of God. John spoke with great wisdom, when 
 he said, "The word was made flesh and dwelt among 
 us, and we saw His glory, as the glory of the only 
 begotten of the Father." What did he mean? John was 
 a philosopher, and he knew that he was speaking to 
 people who were low down in the scale of understand- 
 ing ; he intended simply to convey the idea, that in the 
 beginning the word of God formed a world ; then the 
 work of creation passed on through its successive 
 stages of evolution, until finally, in the fulness of 
 time, there stood forth one man in the world, w T ho 
 was able to demonstrate the fact that he had power 
 over the fish of the sea, to say to them, "Bring the 
 necessary tribute-money," and be obeyed by them, and 
 to command both the animate and inanimate forces of 
 Nature, and have their compliance to his mandates. 
 He Mas the first man brought forth by the earth, to 
 that people and in that age, who possessed such power. 
 He was the expression of that power and thought, that 
 went forth into space, and created worlds. 
 
 The word of God that was sent forth into space had 
 in it principles of a triune nature ; therefore we have 
 illustrated upon the diagram, two triangles, representing 
 the positive and negative, one the exact opposite and 
 antithesis of the other. The triangle represents in its 
 character, and has always done so from earliest history, 
 
30 FORCE. 
 
 first, the physical body as the base, with the spiritual 
 and the soul or mental nature standing over ; one side 
 of the upper part of the triangle represents the soul, 
 the opposite upper part represents spirit. These trini- 
 ties, blended together, form the six-pointed star, and, in 
 and through the workings of this double trinity, crea- 
 tion is what it is. 
 
 The father was always in the attribute of spirit ; 
 while to the mother has always been given the attribute 
 of earth. Why? Because, the positive is centrifugal, 
 goes out from the centre, scatters, ramifies, goes into 
 space, ceases to be solidified, knows no bounds ; while 
 the negative reaches out and gathers in*, lays hold of 
 the positive and inspheres it, binds it within its own 
 limits, and forms to itself the germ of being. It re- 
 mains there until aided by the higher life-principle 
 which we get from our solar ray, which gives it life ; 
 when it begins to draw additional strength, it begins to 
 aspire, — yes, to pray. It reaches out, it gathers the 
 sunbeams, it attracts the life-giving principle which 
 strengthens its power to advance, for this sunbeam 
 contains the positive and negative, the male and female 
 principles, and the thought-forming principle ; there- 
 fore within the material matrix is formed a thought, 
 and that thought comes forth in its own image, let it be 
 what it will, that of insect, reptile, animal, or bird. 
 Thus thought breaks the shell of negation, and comes 
 forth into light and life. Through the creative pro- 
 cesses of nature the action of the magnetic principle 
 gathers together the material essence, and that material 
 essence, in its efforts to free itself, assumes function 
 
FORCE. 31 
 
 and some form of usefulness that was in the mind of 
 the great thinker in the beginning, who planned their 
 being and sent them forth to work his will ; for will 
 is the underlying power in all nature. 
 
 I want you, my thinking friends, who are wishing to 
 unfold, and who are desirous of developing the higher 
 powers, to think a great deal about the powers of the 
 will. You cannot dwell too much upon this subject, 
 for it will constantly expand and grow in your thought 
 and life ; it goes out into everything, and is found to be 
 the active worker everywhere. 
 
 Force, then, is first, negative conservative magnetism, 
 and is a principle of bondage or binding. It is a prin- 
 ciple that, when carried into the realm of mind or mat- 
 ter, binds, restrains ; and thus all men to-day are 
 bound and held by woman. Every man is bound by 
 her, — confined within the sphere of her limitations, out 
 of which he cannot go without a struggle and effort of 
 his own will ; this, however, is not the voluntary action 
 of her will, but is the magnetic potencies generated 
 through her, and, as he cannot wholly escape limita- 
 tions, neither can he advance save as she advances with 
 him. Here then is laid the arena of combat, — of a 
 struggle between the two great forces of creation which 
 we now see active in domestic life, the positive and 
 negative, between the etfort of man to become spirit- 
 ual and like his Creator, and the effort of the negative 
 principle to hold and bind in the gestative sphere. 
 The interior of woman is masculine. And it is incum- 
 bent on woman, at the present time, that she pause and 
 think. Now this is contrary to her outward nature, 
 
32 FORCE. 
 
 which does not pertain to thought, but love ; therefore 
 she must think from the interior, the intuitive. She is 
 magnetic, holding, binding, restraining the object of 
 her love, to keep it within the limits of her own sphere ; 
 this is her outward nature ; when she stops and thinks 
 interiorly, reasonably and logically, she will find a 
 place of higher usefulness where she can be free and 
 become spirit, like the author of being, and thus ad- 
 vance with man. 
 
 In the seven creative principles we find there are 
 seven struggles, as spoken of in the Apocalyptic vision ; 
 there are also seven steps that lead to the sacred temple, 
 which was symbolized by Solomon's temple at Jeru- 
 salem. That which we are now considering is the first 
 step of struggle and conquest, — the binding influence 
 of the first of the creative principles. This principle 
 of force must be subjugated by the higher will and in- 
 telligence ; for, when we turn our attention toward our- 
 selves, we find we are, in reality, spirit, though under 
 the limitations of a physical body, which is binding, 
 holding, and using our spiritual forces in the mere work 
 of physical generation, in which the flesh begets flesh, and 
 thus spirit goes on down the ages, inheriting bondage 
 and imprisonment. If we would but recognize the fact 
 that we are spirit, and, as such, in duty bound to hold 
 control over these physical and generative forces, then 
 would our inner and higher nature break the shell 
 which inspheres and binds, and come into the light and 
 freedom of the spirit. 
 
 Force, then, was the first principle of Nature, its 
 magnetic focus attracted, concentrated, until atoms were 
 
FORCE. 33 
 
 gathered into an agglomerated mass. The astronomer 
 points his telescope to the heavens and beholds nebulae. 
 He sees these concentrated atoms in great quantities, 
 without form. They are, as yet, without the second and 
 third principles. Were they imbued with the second 
 principle, discrimination, polarization, they would then 
 begin to crystallize ; and if they were endowed with 
 the third principle, order, they would then be- 
 gin to assume orderly structures. But they are 
 not. They have simply been concentrated together by 
 force. This force is operative everywhere. First, in 
 the workings of Nature, atoms are concentrated, and 
 by the power of positive and negative force, we have 
 heat and cold, fire and water. As stated in our Bible, 
 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
 earth." In the Hebrew we find "Elohim" as the 
 creator; in our translation it is rendered "God." 
 Truly rendered, it would read, "Fire and water created 
 the heavens and the earth ; " tire the positive, water the 
 negative, or heat and cold as the underlying cause. 
 Through the operation of heat and cold atoms are 
 formed and condensed as water ; in these drops of water 
 we see that there are worlds of living possibilities. 
 The germs of being, when they were but molecules in 
 the ether, had no objective form ; but, as soon as they 
 became a dense body of water, they absorbed enough of 
 the solar ray to give life, they began to take form in 
 this mass of water, and these forms fed upon the 
 essences with which they were surrounded, and upon 
 each other ; and, as they generated their kind and in- 
 creased, they died, and the solids that had thus been 
 
34 FORCE. 
 
 formed, commenced to deposit sediment at the bottom, 
 and thus earth began. So we see that the world, at 
 the beginning, was insphered and bound by this force 
 of negation that gathered together the molecules or life- 
 principles that formed atoms, and these, by the action 
 of the two forces, were concentrated, and became water, 
 which, in turn, brought forth living things ; these living 
 entities, having organs, generated their kind with great 
 rapidity, and, as they expended the vitality that was 
 within them by generating other organisms, they be- 
 came ashes, and settled to their appointed centre of 
 gravity, as controlled by the enveloping and binding 
 magnetic and electric sphere. 
 
 If we should take a glass globe, fill it with water, put 
 in sediment, and then begin to turn it slowly, we would 
 find that, after a while, the sediment in the globe would 
 form a hollow tube running from pole to pole, but if we 
 had the globe so arranged that we could constantly 
 change the axe of this rotation, instead of forming a 
 hollow T tube, it would form a round sphere, w^herein 
 there would be water inside and water outside. The 
 sphere would be larger or smaller, according to the 
 rapidity with which we turned the globe. This solves, 
 to my mind, the mystery of how this earth was formed, 
 and that it is, undoubtedly, a hollow globe, having water 
 at the centre as well as water outside. Probably, how- 
 ever, that through ages of continued compression there 
 may have been enough heat to decompose the water 
 and leave only a heated mass of gases, hydrogen, and 
 oxv2 - en. 
 
 As the water brought forth its kind, and they died, 
 
FORCE. 35 
 
 their ashes formed solids, though the globe had probably 
 not then begun to revolve ; for, very likely, before this 
 motion began, it was like the nebula that had no revolu- 
 tion until the solids have formed suffieiently to settle to 
 their centre of gravity, where, by compression, and by 
 the principle of negation which concentrates and binds, 
 and bv virtue of which compression of chemical ele- 
 ments, chemical change took place, and by those 
 changes there were electric forces sent out from pole to 
 pole, both positive and negative. These again, by con- 
 tact, created new currents, and from the heat caused by 
 compression, expansion undoubtedly took place, of 
 which we find evidences all over the earth, such as 
 volcanic mountains and other upheavals, which indicate 
 the force generated by compression and chemical action. 
 We have also to notice that there is a magnetic current 
 flowing up and down as well as north and south, from 
 pole to pole. This can be proved by taking an iron 
 bar, — the ordinary stove-poker will suffice for the ex- 
 periment, — stand it upright against a chair, then take a 
 magnetic needle and place it against the bottom of the 
 poker, and you will find that the south pole of the 
 needle will turn to the poker, showing that the lower 
 end is negative ; move the needle up the poker, and you 
 will find that as it passes the middle it will turn around, 
 and the north pole of the needle will point to the poker. 
 This shows that there is sufficient current, up and down, 
 to polarize an iron bar in from five to fifteen minutes' 
 time. 
 
 This up-and-down current is the emanation of decom- 
 posing mineral substance, and is the emblem or element 
 
36 FORCE. 
 
 of decomposition and death. This, to our eyes, is dark- 
 ness and death, because it is the opposite of light and life. 
 Being the opposite of the current that emanates from 
 the sun, therefore, we find it flowing towards the sun, 
 to which it holds a negative relation. On the contrary, 
 the rays of the sun are positive, and impart force, 
 motion, life. Let us consider a globe, — a planet ex- 
 posed to its rays. It becomes magnetic by induction, 
 and gets its polarity or axis north and south ; but, in 
 addition, there is an electric energy which results from 
 the action of light ; this again arranges itself according 
 to electric laws, and one side of the globe becomes 
 positive, and is repelled from the sun, while the other, 
 being negative, is attracted, and thus revolution on its 
 axis is established. To further illustrate, let us imag- 
 ine this watch to be a ball, and that above is the sun. 
 The side toward the sun gets light and heat ; we turn 
 it a little, and the dark, cold portion is presented ; the 
 sun's rays strike upon the cold portion, and there is 
 mutual attraction ; but where it is light and hot, having 
 absorbed its equivalent and become like the sun, it is 
 repelled, as can be readily demonstrated by simple 
 electrical experiments. Therefore, Ave realize that the 
 earth must continue to revolve, in the ratio of the elec- 
 tric energy that is brought to bear upon it, and we 
 have no reasons to apprehend a diminution of the 
 supply. 
 
 Light is an element, just as much as water ; and you 
 may be aware that watch-dials and other articles are 
 now being made, which have the capacity of absorbing 
 enough of this element, during the day, to enable one 
 
FORCE. 37 
 
 to see the time, at night, without the aid of other light. 
 So is darkness an clement, but it pertains to death and 
 decomposition ; and, therefore, the human mind quite 
 naturally associates black, as the symbol of death and 
 grief. We find man, as a rule, acts wiser than he is 
 aware, as intuition leads him to do many things with 
 greater perfection than he comprehends. If we watch 
 the action of children, Ave will find the same thing is 
 true, and that they often manifest an instructive 
 method and that their actions are in conformity with 
 a reason beyond their comprehension ; and this is so 
 because there is an infinite soul that animates and 
 guides their being. 
 
 Thus we see that there is an active, attractive, and 
 enveloping principle in nature that set this earth in 
 motion, and, when motion commenced, it begun to take 
 form. Life and creation commenced in the water, and 
 went steadily forward. Sediment deposited, chemical 
 action took place, and upheaval followed upheaval, and 
 when there was a sufficient amount of solid matter 
 above the water, vegetation began to form. Of neces- 
 sity I have been obliged to encroach upon the work 
 of the other principles, for there can be no progressive 
 formation without the operation of the principles of 
 order and discrimination, and these principles are 
 present, and, to a certain extent, active, even hi the 
 molecules and atoms before they become water. 
 
 In summing up this lecture Ave desire not only to 
 give you the principles of the subject, but to impress 
 you with their direct bearing and use to-day ; yet it is 
 well to say that, during this course of lectures, there 
 
38 FORCE. 
 
 may be some points of philosophy that may not be 
 clear to you, and you may not be able to understand all 
 their practical bearings and use ; but you must keep in 
 mind that there are two objects to be attained, as ex- 
 pressed in the earlier portion of the lecture, viz., to 
 bring your mind to the comprehension of the fact that 
 all creation is working together for your ultimate good, 
 that you may be brought into harmony Avith nature in 
 its objective and higher degrees, and those of you 
 reading the subsequent lectures to the society will 
 have the benefit of more direct and practical instruc- 
 tion. Again, as we advance, methods of attainments 
 will be given, higher degrees unfolded by which } r ou 
 can gain control over yourselves and the forces of 
 nature, whereby you may become sons and masters, 
 instead of servants. Therefore, as we proceed, you 
 will find that these thoughts are but stepping-stones to 
 that which lies beyond, " within the veil, " and which 
 must, of necessity, for the present, to some degree at 
 least, seem mere matter of theory ; but, later on, to 
 those of you who follow out and make the required 
 attainments, they will become matters of realized fact, 
 having served as a bridge enabling you to pass over the 
 chasm and enter the new world of thought and power. 
 
mm 
 
 "/ will be what I will to be." 
 
THIRD LFX'TUEE. 
 
 DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 THE SECOND OF THE SEVEN CREATIVE PRIXCirLES. 
 
 In our last lecture we considered the subject of world 
 building, under the leadership of the first principle of the 
 seven creatives, — Force. We called your attention to 
 the fact that this force, being negative, called into exist- 
 ence a sphere, not by itself alone; for it is impossible 
 for us to consider these seven principles, in their opera- 
 tion in the world, entirely separate one from another, 
 as they work together, and no one of them can work 
 entirely independent of the other. They are united 
 together in their action, as literally in all their workings, 
 as they are in the diagram of the star that represents 
 them. Therefore, all through the consideration of these 
 principles we are forced to take each of the seven as a 
 head, controller, and subjugator, we may say, of the 
 other principles, that are acting jointly with it. 
 
 These seven principles are the foundation and means 
 by which the multifarious conditions that w r e" see in the 
 world arise into objective existence ; and, as the mind 
 scans the vast w r orld-radius and workings of these prin- 
 ciples in their successive stages, we are lost, and feel 
 
42 DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 like turning away as from a task beyond the possibility 
 of human intelligence ; but, having before us a diagram 
 which is the formula that expresses these principles, we 
 are enabled to take up each, and trace them in their 
 creative workings. 
 
 In the operation of this second principle, discrimina- 
 tion, which is the subject for consideration in this lec- 
 ture, we observe that it is, in itself, first, the manifesta- 
 tion of the polarizing principle. "We are told that even 
 atoms have polarity, and that polarity gives them the 
 nature of attraction and repulsion, which is the manifest 
 action of discrimination. This polarization will be seen 
 in its first phase of operation by taking two needles, 
 polarize them with a magnet, and then lay the positive 
 pole of one to the positive pole of the other, on a piece 
 of paper, and they will immediately fly apart ; reverse 
 them, turning the negative pole of one to the positive 
 pole of the other, and they will come together. Here 
 is the first manifestation of the law of discrimination, — 
 a principle in nature that discriminates as to the relation 
 of atom to atom. This principle is not only found in 
 the atom, but it is the prime factor in all formation ; but, 
 of course, without the third principle united with it, it 
 would only build together the atoms of matter, not in 
 the form of molecules, or even in the form of vegetation, 
 but it would simply build together in a straight line, 
 which line might continue on and on eternally. We 
 know that we can take a bar-magnet, cut it in two as 
 many times as we please, and every piece will still be a 
 magnet, having positive and negative poles which would 
 come together just as it was cut apart, in the same di- 
 
DISCRIMINATION. 43 
 
 rection, one to the other. That is to say, none of the 
 pieces could be turned around and put back in place 
 and adhere ; but if the pieces were all kept in the same 
 direction, and then put together they would cohere by 
 the power of the magnetism that was within them ; but 
 take the pieces and turn them about hither and thither, 
 and then put them together ; some of them would be 
 repelled, and some would fly together. This law of 
 discrimination is found operative at the very base of 
 material formation. It would be unwise in us, at this 
 time, to attempt to trace this law further in the building 
 processes of nature, because, in so doing, we should 
 have to intrude upon our next lesson ; therefore we will 
 endeavor, in this lecture, to regard it in its more fully- 
 developed phase, where it will be useful to us ; and its 
 growing process and building powers will be considered 
 under the law of order, in the lecture on the third 
 principle. 
 
 We find, in our relations to each other, that the same 
 principle of discrimination is operative between man and 
 man, also between beasts, birds, insects, and with every- 
 thing that has life ; it is observed that discrimination is 
 manifested in a natural attraction and natural repulsion. 
 These principles of attraction and repulsion in matter 
 are but the same conditions or the same principles that 
 we see operative in the relations of mind. As from 
 mind all things came, into mind all things return ; 
 therefore we can logically and reasonably trace this 
 action in animate nature, as we call it, from the 
 inanimate and gross element to the thought and 
 will of man, and find that our thoughts, feelings, 
 
44 DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 and emotions are controlled by exactly the same 
 principles. 
 
 This principle of discrimination is the principle that 
 keeps in purity all things that are. Were it not for 
 this principle we would have nothing distinct. There 
 would be no gold, silver, iron, vegetable or animal for- 
 mations ; there would be nothing but a formless mass 
 brought together with all qualities intermixed. You 
 must readily see that, without this principle of discrimi- 
 nation, there could be nothing but chaos. This prin- 
 ciple is active in everything that is, whether it has or 
 has not animate life. This is the cause of our pro- 
 nouncing so many things in the lower order of nature 
 as being bad, and accounts for a feeling of antagonism ; 
 for instance, we want to kill snakes, lizards, and all 
 reptiles ; in fact, there is a natural repulsion to all things 
 below us, otherwise we should absorb their qualities 
 and descend to their level. 
 
 Many who have begun to think and observe these 
 laws of mind have concluded, because of this strong 
 repulsion and attraction, that those persons that they 
 were repelled from must, of necessity, be evil ; that 
 there must be something about them that was bad, or 
 else they would not be so repelled by their presence. 
 The ignorance of the law of discrimination leads them 
 to this conclusion ; but we must not be too hasty, but 
 should remember that while such persons may be evil 
 to them, and doubtless are, that they are no more evil 
 in the aggregate than they themselves. 
 
 Perchance they may be superior persons in every 
 way, and yet this repulsion be felt ; in fact, there are 
 
DISCRIMINATION. 45 
 
 few persons in the ordinary walks of life, who, if they 
 should meet a man possessed of the attainments of some 
 of the grand masters that we read of in the works of 
 antiquity, but what, as soon as they should come into 
 their presence, would feel a repulsion, and shrink away 
 from them. We might very readily imagine that the 
 person was evil, and do often so imagine. When 
 people on the present plane of life find a man or woman 
 that is really, in all their characteristics, superior to 
 themselves, thev do not understand them, and feel re- 
 pelled. They see that such persons are self-possessed, 
 and at once imagine evil concerning them ; multifarious 
 evil conjectures arise in their minds, until, perchance, it 
 may even seem proper to do them violence, or subject 
 them to the law for imprisonment. The Xazarene 
 implied this when he said, "Ye are not of this world; 
 if you were of this world, the world would love its 
 own ; but ye are not, therefore the world hates you." 
 Therefore, when we come to consider this law of dis- 
 crimination, we find that, often we meet persons that 
 at first sight hate us, that arc possibly even malignant, 
 and seek every opportunity to bring us into condem- 
 nation, and to provoke us to do something that will put 
 us in their power; why do they do it? Is it because 
 they are vicious and bad? Not at all. It is because 
 they are themselves on a low plane of life ; they love 
 that plane of life, and, as soon as one with a higher 
 nature comes into their atmosphere, they feel that there 
 is something in them that is breaking up and interfer- 
 ing with their plans of life, which is, in a measure, true, 
 and they at once begin to antagonize them, and to seek 
 
46 DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 for some grounds of condemnation ; and we know how 
 prolific the imagination is when people get the idea 
 that there is something bad in another, how easy it is to 
 distort some of the best acts of life, and transform them 
 into appearance of a desperate character. We must 
 expect these things in life, because of the potent factors 
 in the workings of creation. This is one of the causes 
 (there are many others however) that induced all the 
 ancients, who made great attainments in the mastery 
 over self and in controlling the power of the elements, 
 to seek isolation from the world ; they retired into the 
 wilderness, into caves where they could be separated 
 from their fellows, where they could be free from those 
 antagonisms from which they would otherwise have to 
 suffer, and this was well on their part ; but we believe 
 that the conditions are not so adverse to-day. 
 
 We have reasons now to believe that there are a 
 great many people, wdio have become so fully unfolded 
 in their interior or higher nature, that they are ready 
 and anxious to let go of this lower nature, — this lower 
 condition of life, — and step upon a higher plane of being. 
 This principle has developed in them a discrimination 
 between right and wrong, between error and truth, be- 
 tween the descending currents of involution, and the 
 ascending currents of evolution, to which all things 
 are subject. And ever in our physical bodies these 
 two currents, of necessity, continue their action, and 
 will so do whilst w 7 e remain in the flesh. In fact, I 
 doubt there ever coming a time, in all the stages of pro- 
 gress that we may make in the ages to come, that these 
 two currents will not be active in our bodies. 
 
DISCRIMINATION. 47 
 
 The descending currents of involution arc by virtue of 
 prayer. What is prayer? The very act in itself, calls 
 out, as a prime factor, the law of discrimination ; You 
 desire. Desire what? You discriminate even in your 
 desire. You desire something, not everything. You 
 are, then, like the needle that points to the pole. You 
 at once concentrate all your thoughts, all your desire, 
 on whatever object you determine. If you desire 
 knowledge of the cause-world, you begin by reaching 
 out to the c;reat centre of cause. You formulate an 
 idea of what that centre is, what its nature is, what 
 its qualities arc, and, after you have formulated the idea 
 of the nature and qualities of that first great cause, you 
 then centre or polarize the magnets of your desire upon 
 that central source. Y'ou desire to have the know- 
 ledge of that infinite mind. That desire then becomes 
 a powerful magnet, which reaches out into the spheres 
 above, and lays hold upon the substance of its desire, 
 and brings it down and incorporates it into your being ; 
 it is aspiration that goes out and gathers the substance 
 that it needs and incorporates it into the very centre of 
 being. It is the law known and acted upon by the Sages. 
 
 It is said in " Yoga Philosophy " that if we concentrate 
 our mind on the north polar star, we obtain knowledge 
 of Astronomy; on the sun, Spiritual Wisdom; on the 
 moon, knowledge of Earth ; if on the palm of the 
 hand, knowledge of future events, etc. 
 
 The response does not come into the head first, 
 neither into the reason, but into the centre of the love- 
 nature ; for Love is the magnet, and, unless we cultivate 
 the law of love, we shall never acquire the magnetic 
 
48 DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 power that will enable us to reach out and gather the 
 things we need. Love is the only power in the 
 world. In our previous discourse upon the first of 
 the seven principles (Force), we told you that it 
 was negative, feminine in its nature ; and we now 
 tell you that the feminine or the nature of the 
 female is, externally, love ; while the interior of 
 man is negative, feminine in its character, and 
 thus love in its operation. Love, then, without the 
 activity of this principle of discrimination, would 
 become a force that would gather around it all kinds of 
 useless elements, and make up a heterogeneous mass of 
 confused ideals. It would, in practice, amount to evil 
 obstructions ; but, loving, Ave must have a definite idea 
 of what we love. Here is where our Mother Church 
 has made a great mistake. It has taught us that we 
 are to love every person ; love your enemies, love the 
 wicked as well as good, but we must discriminate in 
 our love between loving the man, the person and the 
 divine principle that animates him. We know that 
 all life is good ; that this animating principle, wherever 
 it is found, let it be in man, in your brother, your 
 loved companion, or in the most loathsome serpent 
 that is creeping in the swamps, that life is good ; it is 
 a part of the infinite, and must, of necessity, be good. 
 It is the animating principle. We call it by a variety 
 of names, but it is the spirit that animates all being. 
 Now, we discriminate in our love. We love what? 
 The good ! God is good ! God is the only good ! 
 — the only good that maintains, supports, and sustains 
 all things. But now we are speaking of absolute good. 
 
DISCRIMINATION. 49 
 
 There is absolute good, which is spirit; there is 
 relative good, which is a condition of usefulness. It is 
 necessary for us here to make a fine point of discrimi- 
 nation. Anything that is useful to assist one in accom- 
 plishing their object is regarded as good ; but anything 
 that hinders or obstructs one's plan or design is con- 
 sidered evil. This, however, is but relative good and 
 relative evil. In the broad sense there is no such thing 
 as absolute evil, but there is such a thing as absolute 
 good. 
 
 Let us consider this principle of discrimination in its 
 relation to prayer, which is the love-principle turned 
 towards one's highest ideal of God, or good, with the 
 desire to receive that we stand in need of; we thus 
 draw down and incorporate in ourselves the substance 
 of things desired. Now, as to the result. At first it 
 enters the interior of our being, the love-nature. It 
 takes form in the essences of our life, is carried up to 
 the brain, formulated into thought by the power of rea- 
 son, and thus the inspiration becomes to us a revelation. 
 For then that which we have inspired from the higher 
 spheres through the action and aspiration of our love, 
 entering into our life, forms itself into reason, and, 
 being a thought-form, stands out before us in its image, 
 in the exact form of the principle of which it is the 
 expression. Now, this is inspiration, and revelation is 
 its consequent result. The receiving is the inspira- 
 tion, the formation in the intellect is the revelation, 
 and it is thus that we gather to ourselves something 
 that we did not possess before, something higher, some- 
 thing grander than we had. That which we before loved 
 
50 DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 and clung to we now hate because we have no more 
 use for it. In its relation to this higher and grander 
 it becomes evil ; and, because of discrimination, we 
 repel it from us, we spurn it, we say it is error, we 
 must break that habit ; if persevered in it will bring 
 inconvenience, disease, and suffering. 
 
 The new revelation that has been made to our mind, 
 by the law of discrimination says : "Repel ! " From this 
 state comes the mental condition that promotes the work 
 of evolution. The incoming of a higher condition pro- 
 duces a spontaneous unfoldment of mind. Now, what 
 is it that is involved in our nature ? It is the thought- 
 crystallization of former expressions ; and, when we 
 repel and throw them off, they go down into a lower 
 plane where they are drawn in, insphered and become 
 a part of the lower elements, and make room for the 
 new and higher conditions in ourselves. It is w r ell 
 known that vegetation feeds on that which human life 
 throws off. And the animal world also feeds mentally 
 from the thought-potency that the human mind exhales ; 
 so that these very principles that are to-day a part of 
 our soul-life, and which would otherwise go with us 
 into another stage of being, may be, and should be, 
 thrown off, and go down into the lower stages of being. 
 In other words the lower stages of existence aspire to- 
 wards us. They seek and reach up to us as we do to 
 that which is above, — to God. They feed from the 
 overflow of our nature as we from the infinite essence. 
 That is the law of involution ; the flowing down of 
 the surplus elements, through us, to the very lowest 
 stages of being. They are, when once disintegrated, 
 
DISCRIMINATION. 51 
 
 scattered as it wore, torn to pieces, and every part 
 scattered to its place. The law of discrimination, it 
 is thus perceived, works most diligently in nature. 
 As these elements descend indiscriminately, this prin- 
 ciple of discrimination causes each to take just what 
 part it needs, and to repel all beside, exactly as does the 
 little seed in its process of germination and growth. 
 We, perchance, take two seeds, one whose nature is bit- 
 ter, the other sweet, make a hole in the ground, drop those 
 two tiny seeds into it; they lie side by side, the same 
 moisture softens and expands, the same sunlight warms 
 them, they germinate, they grow up side by side. 
 Their stalks at once begin to draw away from each 
 other, and we can scarcely find two such seeds but 
 what, when their stalks come up through the ground, 
 would be some distance apart, as far apart as they can 
 well got, for they are repelled each by the other. Their 
 roots are all mingled together, drawing their sustenance 
 from the same earth and the same sun ; one repels all 
 the bitter elements, and attracts all the sweet ; the other 
 attracts all the bitter and repels all the sweet. They 
 grow up together, and each maintains its own nature, 
 regardless of the fact that they were germinated side 
 by side, regardless of the fact that their roots were 
 interwoven and they are drawing their sustenance from 
 the same fountain in every particular. 
 
 So this principle of discrimination has relation to the 
 law of involution, and even the effete elements that are 
 thrown out from our bodies, even the thought-potencies, 
 which are elements, as I have shown you previously, 
 are carried down to the lower plane of being, where 
 
52 DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 each thing in its order attracts parts of it, takes it up, 
 scatters it, builds new organisms, and, as these new 
 organisms are built, they begin the work of aspira- 
 tion, which is the factor in evolution. Observe the 
 plant come out of the ground ; two little leaves ; then, 
 right out from the centre of these two, comes another, 
 and thus the plant grows from the interior. Finally, 
 the first two leaves die and fall back to the earth to 
 nourish other plants. They grow and unfold from the 
 centre ; from the innermost they grow out and become 
 the outermost, and then in turn they fall off, and out 
 from the innermost again come others. Such is the 
 expression of our life, if we are as active and as 
 diligent, intellectually and spiritually, as the vegetable 
 kingdom below us, and we certainly should be. 
 
 The mind that is not active, desiring knowledge, 
 desiring wisdom and understanding, expanding to its 
 uttermost power to obtain knowledge, to obtain under- 
 standing of all that is around it, is not doing as well as 
 the humble growing plant. 
 
 All life is growing by force of circumstances, and 
 these aspiring, and these descending elements become 
 to us an incentive to reach out, to aspire to something 
 better and better, therefore, from this interior con- 
 sciousness, we are constantly discriminating between 
 elements and conditions that we have already attained, 
 that have served their purpose, and those which 
 we are still reaching out for and desiring to secure. 
 Then let us learn this lesson from the plant, never to 
 stop growing, so long as life and opportunity remains. 
 What we know to-day should not satisfy us to-morrow. 
 
DISCRIMINATION. 53 
 
 I can say for myself that there is no pleasure, worthy 
 of the name of pleasure, that is obtainable through 
 any other means than through the procuring of knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 We talk about pleasurable sensations ; if Ave dis- 
 criminate accurately we will discover that many sensa- 
 tions are at the expense of our life, and not in reality 
 pleasure, but rather a form of pain. It is only the 
 ideal that gives pleasure. When we are imbued with 
 a knowledge of the cause-world, and begin to reach 
 out and inspire from that great fountain of knowledge, 
 our appetite is spoiled for that which the world calls 
 pleasure, — the pleasure of the senses ; we then find 
 no true pleasure save in thinking the thoughts of the 
 Infinite. 
 
 The thoughts of the Infinite express themselves in 
 nature in the workings of the seven creative principles, 
 first, in their primitives, and fully in their ultimates. 
 We find that the angel, in his revelation to John, 5, 12 ; 
 named the ultimates of the seven creative principles in 
 the following language. f Worthy is the Lamb that 
 was slain to receive 1st, Power; 2d, Riches; 3d, 
 Wisdom; 4th, Strength; 5th, Honor; 6th, Glory; 
 7th, Blessing. " These thoughts of God are the true 
 Riches. 
 
 AVe find that all sensations in the incidents of life, that 
 which the world calls pleasure, is rather the exhaust, 
 the wasting of the life-element. Whilst this is sojno- 
 on there is sensation, and we imagine it is pleasure ; 
 whereas, if we discriminate accurately and carefully, 
 we find it is pain. It is the working of death and 
 
54 DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 destruction ; but, when we are carrying this life-force up 
 to the higher stage of transmutation, by virtue of con- 
 quering the lower passions, conquering all waste in the 
 line of sensations and the generative energies, we turn 
 it up to the brain and mature it there, forming thoughts 
 and sending them forth to do our will, through which 
 means life is matured more perfectly, and our senses 
 are made finer, the workings of these senses become 
 so harmonious that they are to us like the most delight- 
 ful music, like the music of the spheres. We will find 
 our higher thoughts are extremely pleasurable, when 
 in accord with this law of inspiration that is ever active 
 in us ; that is the power of our being ; that gave us 
 birth ; whose power, as we have shown you, is that love 
 that reaches out and lays hold on the life of the infinite 
 and perfect Soul, drawing it down into the centre of our 
 being, where it fills our whole nature, thrilling it and 
 animating: it from centre to circumference. And, when 
 it is called up to the brain, oh, what pictures it makes 
 in our intellect ! what thoughts of a perfect being ! 
 Think of it, the thoughts of the perfect thinker ! Why 
 perfect? Because the law of discrimination has done 
 its perfect work ! Every line of demarcation has been 
 distinctly made ; all unfit elements have been elimi- 
 nated, it has rejected all that was unfit and impure, and 
 has selected the purest and finest of all things in nature ; 
 therefore it is filled with the true riches, the life of the 
 Infinite Soul. 
 
m.T 
 
 "I will be what 1 will to be." 
 
FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 ORDER. 
 
 THE THIRD OF THE CREATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 These thoughts on order, the third principle of 
 creation, lead us to consider its first manifestation in 
 nature. Having laid down a foundation-principle in the 
 first lecture, on "The Idea of God," we are now ready 
 to present a more complete understanding of this third 
 principle in its unity with the other two. Now, this 
 third principle, united with the two previous, brings us 
 to manifest organization. In its first phase the atom 
 is polarized and endowed with order, and, by virtue of 
 their innate endowments, form into orderly structures 
 by the action of cold and heat. 
 
 How many times have I stood, in my childhood, also 
 in manhood, and looked upon the pictures drawn by the 
 Divine Artist, as the frost gathered and pictured upon 
 the window-pane beautiful swamp-scenes, where the 
 forms of vegetation in great variety were represented. 
 Again have I paused as I walked along the streets, 
 after a rain followed by freezing, where the water, by 
 virtue of the cold, had concentrated and congealed, and 
 stood out upon the pavement in the form of a beautiful 
 
58 ORDER. 
 
 vine or a lovely tree, thus imaging the growth of 
 vegetation. And, as I looked upon these scenes, my 
 thoughts at once went back to the mind that endowed 
 matter with this potential, orderly energy. 
 
 Jesus, the Nazarene, expressed but little more when 
 he said, tf As the Father hath life in himself, so hath 
 he given to the Son to have life in himself." And as 
 the Father and author of all being has life, order, 
 mind-power, and intellect in himself, so all that ema- 
 nates from that infinite mind has the same attributes 
 innate in themselves ; therefore, as Ave walk through 
 this grand old earth of ours, and see the beauteous 
 structures created by this in-dwelling divine mind, how 
 can we help but worship. But, as we see the frost 
 gathering upon the window-pane, or upon the flag-stone, 
 or congealed in the tumbler or in the creek, those 
 beautiful forms have but three principles combined ; 
 therefore, these crystals are not substantial, but as 
 soon as the fourth principle is added to them, the prin- 
 ciple of cohesion, which in itself is heat, it at once dissi- 
 pates them ; it becomes a destroyer ; it tears down and 
 prepares them to come up in vegetable life, where they 
 can be further matured. 
 
 These two forces, the positive and the negative, 
 cold and heat, are the formative agents of nature ; 
 and, wherever they meet and produce these sub or 
 transient formations, they leave the essences of such 
 endowed with a principle of life that causes vegetation 
 to spring up and life to be manifested in all its various 
 forms in nature. These principles, of which order is 
 the third, are active in the formation of all crystalliza- 
 
ORDER. 59 
 
 tion, and wc find them manifest in minerals, where 
 the different chemicals combine, and crystallization 
 takes place ; and in each case they assume a definite 
 form, according to quality. Every crystal that is 
 possessed of perfect essence — that is, where the law 
 of discrimination has its full force — will take a regular 
 shape. Probably all of you have seen those beautiful 
 crystallizations brought from the West and elsewhere, 
 where they have formed the octagon, and the different 
 angles and ovals, and all the various shapes, as 
 accurately as if they had been made by some artisan, 
 and had been formed for an express use. We cannot 
 but admire and wonder when we look into nature, and 
 see in it these beautiful expressions of the infinite 
 mechanic that are so like the effort of the human hand 
 and brain. 
 
 As we consider the law of order, it leads us further 
 into the realm of vegetable life, Avhere we see atoms 
 gathering together, taking shape, coming forth in the 
 form of whatever quality they possess ; and here we 
 see the trinity of principles. First, the solids are con- 
 centrated by force ; by the maternal or mother- 
 principle the magnet thought draws together and 
 inspheres and binds ; then comes the second principle, 
 discrimination, giving it polarization, when it begins to 
 resist the concentrative power ; and then comes in the 
 master-workman, order, and calls everything into its 
 place. Discrimination came, and said, " This atom must 
 not be gathered up by this, and this must not be 
 gathered up by that " ; then order, says, " This belongs 
 here, the other belongs there"; and so goes on the 
 
60 ORDER. 
 
 work of both, so that, two seeds of a different nature 
 being planted side by side, the same water will nourish 
 them, the same soil will supply their common needs; 
 but each of these, by virtue of their discriminative 
 power, will reject certain chemical elements, and, by 
 order of the master-workman, they take others, carry 
 them to their destination, and deposit them in their 
 place, the one chosen by the great architect of nature. 
 Should there be something that would interrupt the 
 workings of the law of order in matter, we would see 
 at once that there was malformation in plants, trees, 
 and animal life, such as abnormal growths, knots on 
 plants and trees ; also, false growth in animal bodies. 
 These are the workings of the three principles : the 
 first collects the elements ; the second selects the 
 qualities ; and the third takes them and places them 
 where they belong. Can there be found a principle in 
 mechanics working together with greater harmony, 
 with greater accuracy, than these principles work, in 
 their chemical selections, and in their orderly structure- 
 buildins? I think not. 
 
 We cannot but admire and wonder when we look 
 into this process, and se3 a mind at work there whose 
 capacity so far surpasses the human intellect. This 
 law of order, united with the other principles, gives 
 every plant, every vegetable, and every animal their 
 distinct form, by virtue of the quality of the germ-life 
 coming from its parental source. That germ-life has 
 been organized with power to gather around it like ele- 
 ments, to mature principles of which it was the expres- 
 sion, and it always carries it out to the letter of the 
 
ORDER. Gl 
 
 law, making no mistakes ; so wc are in the habit of 
 looking into each other's faces, and saying, "You look 
 like your mother," and "you look like your father," and 
 so on. Again, we look into each other's faces, and we 
 read there the nature of the person. "We say that person 
 has something good ; that person is disposed to live in 
 this or that way. How do we know? We know only 
 because this divine architect has done his work per- 
 fectly. He has made no mistake ; he has expressed his 
 thought in perfect language. Not only has he done 
 this so that we may read character from physiognomy 
 or phrenology of mankind, but this principle of read- 
 ing character from the language of form, was the first 
 principle of thought. As animals came into being on 
 this planet and began to devour one the other, self- 
 protection became the one thought most necessary ; and 
 in the work of self-protection there came fear, and they 
 at once began to take cognizance, and to look at and 
 judge of the objects that were approaching them, 
 whether they should fear them or not. 
 
 Thus, animals began to recognize the image of 
 a thing before they did the nature of it ; this must, 
 of necessity, be the first starting-point, — that of 
 judging from physiognomy, as we call it. "We go 
 into the woods, and the wild beasts know each 
 other. Some will feed together because they realize 
 that they do not antagonize each other, and, as soon as 
 an antagonistic beast comes along, they flee for their 
 lives. How do they know? Here, again, the lan- 
 guage of form stands out, and they know from the 
 image what is combined and embodied in the form. 
 
62 ORDER. 
 
 They know, at least, this, that it is a form of antagonism 
 and destruction to them. Thus, the faculty of mind in 
 man to-day, that enables him to judge of things and 
 qualities by form, is the most perfectly developed 
 faculty in the human brain ; and this should be the one 
 that we utilize to the greatest advantage. In my 
 thought and study, years past, I saw that every line 
 upon the face spoke a language ; and every mark that 
 comes there, without injury, tells a story; it speaks of 
 some in-working principle. Yes, every line upon the 
 hand is a hieroglyphic that tells of one's minute char- 
 acter ; even the formation of the nails on the fingers, 
 the shape of the hand, every minute particle of the 
 man, reveals the character therein expressed. Think 
 of such a mechanism ! Think of a mind that is capable 
 of causing nature to come together so perfectly in ac- 
 cordance with the lanjxuase of its own inner being ! 
 This lesson is ever before us, we see it on every 
 side ; and the more we think upon it, the more will we 
 realize its truth. 
 
 We so into the woods, and, whilst anions the 
 trees, we find, springing up, a little leaf. We do not 
 know what it is ; to us it is mute. We present it to a 
 botanist, who makes a story of plant-life ; he observes 
 its color, its outline, the lines upon it, the thickness, 
 the little fibres, — all its minutiae unite together to 
 tell him the history of the plant to which it belongs. 
 Then, at once, he becomes a prophet, a fortune-teller, 
 and tells you that if you see that shrub in the fall, 
 when it is fully matured, you will find on it berries 
 of such and such qualities, and that it possesses such 
 
ORDER. G3 
 
 and such chemical properties, etc. lie can tell you 
 everything about it, just from one leaf. Think what 
 an orderly workman Nature is ! We do not find this- 
 tle-leaves on apple-trees, nor cabbage-leaves growing 
 on potato-plants. 
 
 We do not sufficiently consider the wonderful wis- 
 dom that is working under this divine order to cause 
 the chemistry of this world ; the molecules fly through 
 the atmosphere, seemingly without any government ; 
 the wind sweeps hither and thither, everything appar- 
 ently going by chance, all being hurled together here 
 and there ; but stop ! In it all is that wonderful mind 
 — that wonderful mechanic — that, no matter how it 
 is hurled together and mixed up by the upheaval of 
 forces, and cyclones of wind and storm or rain, it 
 never makes any mistakes, but always gets everything 
 in its right place. Now, the human mind has the most 
 perfect development in that function, more so than in 
 any other of its nature. That function is the one that 
 has built our railroads ; that has made up our mechani- 
 cal interests ; that has actuated the workingman, as he 
 hewed and chopped aAvay at the great oaks that once 
 covered this land, who squared and built them into the 
 crude houses, — the law of order in the brain of that 
 mechanic enabled him to rear the structure. But, look 
 again ; he conceives a way of obviating much of this 
 hard labor. He goes to work and invents machinery ; 
 he carries this divine order that he sees everywhere 
 working in nature into a mechanical device to do his 
 work, to save his strength, to relieve his muscles. 
 
 On and on we have gone, until now the more subtle 
 
64 ORDER. 
 
 forces of nature are under our control. By bringing 
 into orderly forms certain mechanical appliances we 
 control the lightning, bring it down, and make it our 
 errand-boy to carry the messages, not only from house 
 to house, and from one city to another, but through the 
 very depths of the great ocean, from shore to shore. 
 This is the law of order, as it is working in the human 
 mind. It imitates nature, and observes cause and 
 effect, how one thing acts upon another, produces 
 combinations like the machinery of a watch, or other 
 machinery where speed of movement is required, and 
 where the cogs, intercepting each the other, each wheel 
 must have definite proportion to the other. For, if 
 they lessen the one and increase the other, they increase 
 the speed ; herein the human brain begins to imitate 
 the divine architect. But this imitation goes but a 
 short distance. It simply takes the material that has 
 been created by that divine power, and forms the struc- 
 ture for us by physical or mechanical effort ; but there 
 is a step beyond this, — that is, if we carry out the imita- 
 tion of that divine mind, — that is, the workman in nature. 
 We do not see a man-god coming down and, by his 
 hand, taking these atoms and putting them in their 
 place, and giving them form as a child would build cob- 
 houses ; but we perceive a mind-power that is enabled 
 to send forth thought, to endow nature with that ten- 
 dency to cause a world to build itself, and not only to 
 cause a world to be built, but regulated and con- 
 trolled in all the minutiae of structure. After we have 
 scanned all the visible objects on the planet earth, we 
 have taken only the first step toward beholding all that 
 
ORDER. G5 
 
 there is. We take the magnifying lens and a single 
 drop of water, and discover there is a little world 
 within itself, all tilled with active, organized life. This 
 great mechanic has gone down into minutiae, where it 
 takes a lens magnifying seven, eight, and ten thousand 
 times in order that our eyes can discern what is going 
 on, and yet this wonderful mechanic has gone to work 
 there, has made a structure that is perfect; yes, and 
 sometimes, as we scan those beautiful little things, we 
 think that nature has been partial to them, because of 
 the beauty, agility, activity, and vivacity that they 
 manifest. Now, if we turn from this small world and 
 direct the telescope to the heavens, there again wc find 
 the architect and mechanic at work. All is order, perfect 
 order, perfect harmony. There we find other worlds, 
 hundreds of times larger than our own, indications of 
 far greater complications in their workings ; suns 
 millions of times larger than our world, and these all 
 Hying through space with lightning speed ; suns and 
 systems of worlds moving around their centres. To 
 think of this intelligently, to realize it, we stand in awe 
 at such a presence, — a presence that is even under our 
 feet. As we stand upon the solid earth, that divine 
 principle is changing the grains of sand upon which we 
 rest, taking of their qualities ; and, notwithstanding we 
 are pressing upon them, they are actually changing and 
 being built into other forms. 
 
 We are told, in the Hebrew Bible, that the declared 
 purpose of God was rr Let us make man in our own 
 image and like us ; and let him have dominion over 
 the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, and over all 
 
6Q ORDER. 
 
 the earth." That is very sweeping. — " all the earth ;" 
 and such words from a mind that is so discriminative, 
 so orderly ! What a declaration from such a source, 
 that these microscopic objects, those mighty suns and 
 worlds, every objective thing, with their governing law 
 and creative engines, — man to have dominion over all 
 this! "What kind of man would this necessitate? How 
 many, many millions of cycles must pass, ere such 
 Avill be manifested on this planet? 
 
 But let us consider this subject from another point 
 of view : the habit we have formed of recognizing 
 friends, of determining qualities in persons, in animals, 
 in things in general. This habit Ave find so established 
 that it goes on imaging, even in our sleep, so that, 
 if we dream, the act of dreaming is to see images. 
 What is a dream? Perhaps Ave are lying in our beds, 
 resting quietly ; but, whilst Ave dream, Ave see ourseh r es 
 somewhere, perhaps in danger, struggling with antag- 
 onistic forces, their images appearing to us, perchance 
 as wild beasts. How real it all seems to us for the 
 time ; and in the struggle, perhaps, Ave wake up, come 
 back to our normal consciousness to find that it was 
 not real. What has caused it? The physician will 
 tell us there Avas a derangement in the digestive forces ; 
 there sometimes is ; Ave find that, if Ave have taken 
 something into the stomach that has chemically fer- 
 mented and produced gases foreign to our nature, 
 these elements or gases press upon the brain. The 
 brain is thus forced to act Avhilst the body sleeps, and 
 it images forth the antagonistic essences that are gener- 
 ated in the body ; and, if it were possible for one to be 
 
ORDER. 67 
 
 so fine a chemist as to be able to trace the workings of 
 this law of order to the very animals that you saw in 
 your dream, you would find there was some bond of 
 relatedness and chemical cause for the objects imaged, 
 that the chemical nature of the beast seen was like that 
 produced in the stomach through the derangement. 
 This is where the law of order is interrupted in the 
 digestive function, which works faithfully on the brain. 
 When we have become the wonderful chemists that we 
 shall be some time, we will then know just exactly what 
 chemical properties produce each given result upon 
 the mind as well as upon the physical body, so that we 
 will be enabled to extract the thought-essence that pro- 
 duced the plant, and then the contact with the human 
 nerve will produce like thought-essence and imaged 
 likeness. 
 
 I told you there are but seven creative principles in 
 all nature. No matter where you go, these, in their dif- 
 ferent combinations, produce all the qualities that there 
 are. But, whilst these seven are creative principles, 
 they are not qualities of things ; for qualities of things 
 are wholly related to conditions in the stages of trans- 
 mutation. Transmutation goes to a higher degree in 
 some natures than in others. The chemistry of the 
 body is more perfect in some organisms than in others, 
 and, therefore, it does finer work ; so the difference in 
 quality that we find in matter is owing to the stage of 
 change or unfoldment. 
 
 "We find these elements and chemicals in the sun- 
 ray and in the atmosphere above us. As the worlds 
 are changing in their position, the solar fluid is being 
 
68 ORDER. 
 
 changed and altered systematically. According to this 
 definite mechanical law there are constantly changing 
 thought-potencies being imparted to the world ; and, as 
 these changing thought-potencies are received, it affects 
 all vegetation and animal life. When the human mind 
 is perfected to a greater degree, and has become polar- 
 ized on the God of the universe, as was the mind of 
 the Hebrew prophets, whose desire was to know the 
 ultimate and future of this world, and the object of 
 creation, then, musing upon the cause of the wonders 
 of creation that we see around us, endeavoring to rise 
 higher and higher, we shall get above this fermenting 
 mass, and, as with them, so this imaging power that 
 does its perfect work in nature will continue to do its 
 perfect work in our brain. With them the life-forces 
 were more and more perfected until they were so re- 
 fined in their life that they could sense the very essence 
 of the creative mind, — the mind of the great workman 
 that we see forming and arranging and controlling this 
 wonderful workshop, nature, and causing it all to 
 work together toward one great object. Thus they, 
 by constant meditation, were enabled to actually sense 
 that mind, to actually collect and think the thoughts 
 of this Infinite Soul, long years before they had 
 wrought out their ultimation in physical form. For, 
 through aspiration, they collected the creative thought ; 
 it took image in their brain, and was clothed like a 
 seed Avith their essence, and prepared for its descent 
 into matter, the same as a seed is clothed with a shell 
 to prepare it for the earth. So the thought, emanating 
 from the infinite mind, that was sent earthward to bring 
 
ORDER. G9 
 
 into the world an order of humanity who should enact 
 certain parts in the great drama of life, in order to 
 produce desired results upon this planet, was collected, 
 imaged, and realized in their minds. 
 
 This imaging power of the brain, when once we are 
 capable of sensing these infinite thoughts, will put 
 them into their exact imao-e, and there will be no 
 mistake. They will accomplish their work ; and, if 
 we should live a thousand years, and at the end of 
 that time see the ima<re of our vision standing forth 
 in human form, we would know it, and if we could 
 have had a photograph taken from the image in our 
 mind, we would say, "There is the picture, accurate; 
 every part and particle of it is exact." 
 
 Again, we go among a class of people known as spirit- 
 ualists, who have begun to feel after and inquire about 
 these strange workings of the human mind. We go to 
 a clairvoyant, and sit down before him or her, and they 
 begin to tell us of the images that present themselves 
 to their minds, and as they do so they attempt to 
 explain them to us. Now, what is going on, and what 
 is there real about it? You have around you certain 
 mental conditions, perhaps the souls of some departed 
 ones whose thought-potency clings closely to you. 
 They sense it. They see forms standing before them 
 and describe them perhaps accurately. By what 
 means? By this imaging power of the brain. You 
 take a letter, a lock of hair, a glove, a garment, that 
 some loved and lost one has worn, take it to a psychog- 
 nomist, who takes it in hand, and says, " I see such and 
 such a one," drawing the picture, clear and unmistakable, 
 
70 ORDER. 
 
 of your lost one. " Yes, I know whom you mean ; I 
 know all about it ; I know the person well ; that was 
 such a one." 
 
 What has taken place? Why, there was enough 
 of the magnetic life-essences of the thought that had 
 been formed in the life and action of that person, left 
 attached on that garment to enable this sensitive brain 
 to draw it in ; and, as it did so, it would be able to see 
 an unmistakable image of the wearer. This is a law of 
 the infinite order that is active in us. 
 
 It is not every brain that perceives things or makes 
 its images alike. As some have different functions, 
 so this imaging power varies in different minds. 
 Sometimes it is the order of sound, in others color (for 
 order has a color, and color has an order, as we will see 
 when we come to consider the cause of* the seven 
 colors). But, remember this, it is not necessary that 
 we should have the soul of the departed come and 
 present itself to the spiritual eye in order to see it ; 
 for we can prove by the glove or the garment that the 
 image-power of the brain can take the little magnetic 
 molecules of thought and give you the picture of the 
 person from whose body they emanated. Here we see 
 something of this divine mechanical power in each of 
 us. It knows exactly what to do with every particle 
 of this ethereal essence that comes in contact with us. 
 It is a mechanic, indeed. It images a person, an 
 animal, in an instant. It produces birds, reptiles, 
 everything in its proper order. 
 
 The moment the element, the ether, if you please, 
 whose nature it is to form such lives, comes in contact 
 
ORDER. 71 
 
 with the imaging power of the brain it makes it into 
 the appropriate image in a minute : shall we say it 
 deceives us? I think not. But, certainly, we could 
 not make the image unless we had the proper material 
 to work with. You can never see the image of your 
 father, or your mother, or your daughter, by taking 
 the glove or handkerchief that has been endowed with 
 the magnetism of some other person, unless you do so 
 by a thought projected from your own mind. The law 
 of order in the mind of man works in exact accord- 
 ance with the above rules. By tracing this law of order 
 in its growth and unfoldment, and manifestation in the 
 physical world, we have the explanation of all vision, 
 of all these mystic and, at present, largely uncompre- 
 hended phenomena of the human mind. Here we 
 will find the uses of thinking over the relations of these 
 seven creative principles ; for, remember this, friends, 
 the God of creation does not deal with persons or 
 things arbitrarily, but through the action and opera- 
 tion of these seven principles, which, in time, reveal 
 their workings to the higher consciousness ; this by 
 virtue of constant practice, constant use, generation 
 after generation, for ages up to the present time, has 
 produced in us a certain likeness to the author-mind 
 from whence we came ; consequently, the mind begins 
 to act like its parent, or, in other words, the man 
 begins to look like his father; and Christ well says, 
 w Call no man your father, for one is your father, even 
 God." And here we find the first manifestation of the 
 sixth sense, and of the God-prinriple in its sublimated 
 expression of the law of order in the human mind ; and 
 
72 ORDER. 
 
 it is in conformity with this law that mind acts on 
 mind, and that, within certain limits, we have the 
 power to appropriate or reenact the manifestations of 
 the seven principles from our higher nature. 
 
 To a very great extent, in our large cities, we are in a 
 sea of psychic influences from the masses, and to such 
 an extent that it is only by a constant struggle or 
 effort that Ave can act from our own nature ; and the 
 finer persons are, the more they are affected by the in- 
 fluences. We would be surprised, if we were separated 
 from those altogether, at the change that would be pro- 
 duced ; we would then discover how much we are 
 acting from the influence of other minds. Persons who 
 are fine and sensitive are often afflicted with disease 
 through the controlling influence of low or evil-dis- 
 posed persons ; for, when the mind is under control of 
 another, it affects the discriminating power of the 
 digestion, and causes the persons to take into their cir- 
 culation like elements to those who, for the time, con- 
 trol them ; these elements are poison to them ; thus 
 disease is often produced, and sometimes death. 
 
 Humanity is involved in series, and stand intimately re- 
 lated each to the other, and thus we are constantly being 
 acted upon by minds both above and beneath us ; and, 
 were we isolated from this magnetic relation with other 
 minds, we would be astonished at finding how depend- 
 ent the individual is ; in fact, apart from the series of 
 which we are an entity, individuality would be a mere 
 cipher. We derive value and importance from discrim- 
 ination and orderly adjustment and coherence to the 
 force around, within, and above us, and may elect to 
 
ORDER. 73 
 
 work in a low or a high series the same as wo discrimi- 
 nate and select in matters of diet and clothing ; and this 
 is a most important thought to keep in mind. 
 
 We may, therefore, bo interiorly poisoned and par- 
 alyzed, or nourished and exalted, according to social, 
 mental, and spiritual discrimination. These laws are 
 absolute and eternal facts of nature, and cannot he 
 controverted or ignored. Then why should we, as 
 thinking men and women, when we see this law acting in 
 this subtle manner in the human mind and nature, say it 
 is all a delusion. We may delude ourselves with the 
 phenomenon of the most simple things ; but, when we 
 stop and think, these are the means, this is the law, 
 here is the power, and, according as we select, so are 
 we servants or masters. 
 
 We are already joint-creators with the infinite mind. 
 We are not conscious of it, because these creative ener- 
 gies that come from the infinite will come down to us 
 through their successive stages, float through the sue- 
 cessive degrees of mind and mechanical life, being fitted 
 and prepared for their material use. Let us, then, begin 
 to gather of the creative energy, and think its thoughts ; 
 and, as we do so, we throw off this surplus life, and ani- 
 mals and plants gather it up and make their bodies out 
 of it, and so on, down and down, until it moves and moulds 
 even gross matter. We stand here in this chain of ex- 
 istence, reaching from the Infinite Unknowable to the 
 lowest, and every link of that chain is a stage of ani- 
 mate unfoldment. Man stands just between the animal 
 and spiritual, or God-world, as we cull it; and, because 
 of our capacity to feel, to see, and to handle those finer 
 
74 ORDER. 
 
 forces that are above and beyond us, they are just far 
 enough so that we can reach and touch them, can re- 
 ceive of their thoughts, and then we bring them down 
 into the lower faculties of our nature, and in turn aid 
 those just below us, the higher faculties of whose being 
 are capable of receiving these thoughts from us, and 
 again carrying them down into the lower faculties of 
 their nature, which are enabled to receive according to 
 the uses and needs of their position. 
 
 We are standing in direct lineage to the God of the 
 universe, being a joint-creator with him. All there is 
 remaining for us to do is to go to work on self, clear 
 away these gross elements of our being, get our minds 
 refined, give the soul an opportunity to think and act 
 freely, and then we will be enabled to follow the advice 
 of the Nazarene when he said, "After this manner, 
 pray." Yes, continually we will say, " Our Father, who 
 art in heaven." But now, in this gross condition of 
 the world, when none can realize spirit, — and God is 
 spirit, — how then ? Is it real, or is it hypocrisy, when 
 we say, "Our Father, who art in heaven," and yet do 
 not realize or believe it, when we have no idea of what 
 spirit is, — no idea of that heavenly Father? Prayer is 
 the sincere desire of the heart, the soul-yearning, the 
 reaching out of the inner self towards something that it 
 feels the need of. Can we truly feel the need of that 
 we do not know anything about? Certainly not. The 
 very foundation of the Christian religion demands that 
 we should understand these laws and principles, and 
 put them into practice, before we can take the first step 
 in it, which is to "pray." 
 
ORDER. O 
 
 "When we recognize these things in the divine law of 
 order, and our inner consciousness is open, so that the 
 soul does actually recognize the source of its being, as 
 the child recognizes its parent, its father, its mother. 
 Then, with this evidence, it reaches up and says, "My 
 Father, let thy kingdom come, that thy will may be 
 done on earth as it is in the heavens," and is ready to 
 labor for that ultimate in himself, and when all our 
 thoughts and desires are concentrated on knowing the 
 ultimate of this divine order on earth, we will possess 
 the true Wisdom. 
 

run* 
 
 "I will be what I will to be." 
 
FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 COHESION. 
 
 THE FOURTH OF THE SEVEN CREATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 The subject for this evening's thought is Cohesion. 
 I wish, before proceeding, to state certain facts neces- 
 sary to give you some idea of our position. I find, by 
 a careful analysis of my own personal experiences in 
 the past, that I had no natural faculty for acquiring 
 book-education, my chief love, from early childhood, 
 being to read the great book of Nature, and, in my 
 perusal of that book, the conclusions reached, I find, are 
 identical with those of the old sages and philosophers, 
 in regard to the creative principles ; namely, that there 
 are, in all, but seven principles that are operating in 
 the realm of the earth, in the work of creation. Mark 
 you, I am dealing with principles and not phenomena 
 or materials. 
 
 We wish to distinguish, to draw the line carefully 
 between principles and things. A principle is that in- 
 terior potency that causes action and gives character, 
 quality, and kind, when embodied in the conscious 
 energy of man. Thus we can understand what is 
 meant when we speak of principle. We often hear 
 
80 COHESION. 
 
 men say that they act from principle. Now, these are 
 the creative principles that are active factors in the work 
 of bringing up the lower conditions of matter to the 
 higher conditions of manhood, in the work of evolution, 
 — for we believe in evolution. We differ, perhaps, 
 somewhat with Darwin and some others in the material- 
 istic view of evolution. We do not believe in evolu- 
 tionary unfoldment and stages of change through 
 external and physical generation, but we believe in evo- 
 lution of the mind, — of the more subtle principles of 
 life. Everything in creation is aspiring to a stage 
 above itself; and, when it has completed its expe- 
 rience and unfoldment upon one stage of existence, 
 it, by the law of aspiration, reaches out to a higher 
 stage of existence, in which it finds incarnation, and so 
 the o-erm of life that now animates the blade of grass we 
 tread upon, will, in some far-distant time in the future, 
 be part of the mind that rules our planet Earth. This is 
 the brief statement of my idea of evolution. We have, 
 in the past, considered the idea of God, the cause and 
 source of all being, which lecture should be read care- 
 fully, because without it you cannot form an adequate 
 idea of the foundation upon which we are building; for 
 we know that all religious systems and civilizations 
 have been just what their idea of God was, let it have 
 been what it may. Therefore, we find it to be abso- 
 lutely necessary to make that thought the foundation 
 on which to build. The second subject of consider- 
 ation was the principle of force, which is magnetic and 
 concentrative. The third lecture was a consideration 
 of discrimination and polarization. The fourth treats 
 
COHESION. 81 
 
 of the law of order, which manifests itself in everything 
 of form in Nature. This evening's thoughts will be on 
 the principle of cohesion. 
 
 We considered, in our last lecture, the law of order, 
 also the two other principles, the gathering and con- 
 centrating, and the discriminating power ; we saw their 
 manifestation in the frost-crystal upon the window- 
 pane, which had, however, no true cohesive properties. 
 As soon as warmth and sunlight came upon it, it was 
 disintegrated and freed for another state of existence. 
 
 We have, to-night, to consider this fourth principle of 
 Nature. Finding that the ancient philosophers gave 
 us four general or universal "Elements" to start with, 
 namely : lire, air, water, and earth, we have these 
 four elements present and active in the earth ; hut we 
 shall treat them as effects rather than causes, and pro- 
 ceed with our consideration of cohesion, the fourth 
 principle. To " cohere " implies the unity of the whole, 
 to come together and adhere one to the other, to re- 
 main intact. Assisted by the other three primates, 
 organic bodies spring into existence and adhere and 
 remain in existence, go on in the work of gathering 
 like substances around them, unfolding and manifesting 
 themselves in their ultimates, and bringing forth their 
 final fruits. 
 
 This fourth is the principle which expresses the idea 
 of the mother-nature, and it may be carried from the 
 lowest stage of maternal life to the highest that we can 
 conceive of — spiritual motherhood. We hear the 
 word frequently, " Theos Sophie," involving in it the 
 dual relation of God as father and mother; this 
 
82 COHESION. 
 
 fourth principle is feminine, and we begin to consider it 
 from that stand-point, drawing the line between the 
 positive and negative ; for we find that everything in 
 Nature is either male or female, and that, as such, every- 
 thing that belongs to life is dependent upon those two 
 as factors of existence. Even the grass and all vege- 
 tation is thus known and accepted to be dual. It is also 
 well known, that the first phase of organic life is 
 almost invariably female. In some insect existences 
 there are supposed to be at least two generations of the 
 female before there is any male existence. 
 
 The female principle is that which nourishes, that 
 holds toaether and encircles all things within its sphere. 
 It protects and strengthens all things in Nature ; and, as 
 we look upon the animal world, we find the mother- 
 nature possessed of two manifestations, — one of love 
 and carefulness of its offspring, the other of defence, fury, 
 and destruction to every invader. Therefore, where- 
 ever we find this principle manifest, we may expect 
 these two extremes ; and, in fact, everything in Nature 
 exists by virtue of them. If we find a person or ani- 
 mate thing, let it be what it may, that manifests one 
 principle in the extreme, it must of necessity have the 
 opposite standing over against it, as a counterpoise 
 in order to maintain its existence. This mother-princi- 
 ple is, in a degree, an adversary to the progressive un- 
 foldment in Nature : yet it is the great friend to all that 
 lives. 
 
 "We speak of the mother's love. "We magnify it in 
 the highest degree. How carefully Nature everywhere 
 guards her young ! How eagerly she reaches out the 
 
COHESION. 83 
 
 hand to gather the supplies necessary for their wants ! 
 How vigilant in looking after and protecting her own ! 
 But were it not for an adversary that is equally potent 
 in nature we never should have been here. Were it 
 possible that this principle of cohesion which gathers, 
 forms, and maintains, had not an equal set over against 
 itself, there would be no change throughout all time. 
 
 I called attention, the other evening, to the fact that 
 this mother-nature was one of instinct rather than 
 reason. It loves its offspring, the object of its care, no 
 matter what it may be. Not only so, but I have heard 
 mothers who have an over-endowment of this mother- 
 nature in them, say, "I wish baby could always remain 
 just as he is." It came as a thought and desire that 
 the child should never unfold beyond its childhood, 
 so that she might always have it in her arms, and be 
 always in the exercise of motherly care. 
 
 Let us think of this mother-principle standing out 
 distinct, alone in human form. This principle that thus 
 holds and preserves and cares for all things in Nature, 
 is the principle we so much admire. There are two 
 reasons why this is so. One is, that by nature, all 
 animal life loves ease ; it does not like to struggle for 
 self-preservation, it wants to be at ease, and this 
 mother-principle is struggling to give rest and comfort ; 
 therefore we love it, and we magnify it as something 
 good, as being superior to the other seven principles. 
 Our next lesson will bring us to consider the adversary 
 of this mother-nature, "the Serpent," "the Devil," we 
 have heard so much about ; and it may surprise you to 
 hear that this is one of the sevencreative principles, and 
 
84 COHESION. 
 
 that it is just as necessary as the mother-nature. This 
 mother-nature which we love, being conservative of 
 present conditions, becomes adverse to every effort on 
 the part of human intelligence to break through old 
 conditions and rise into a new sphere of thought, life, 
 and action, and thus it becomes an adversary. Jesus 
 said, when he was here, "that a man's foes should be 
 they of his own household," and it is wholly because of 
 this principle being the controlling one. 
 
 We must also consider this principle jointly with 
 its companion, that we treated of in the previous 
 lectures. This mother-nature inspheres in its action the 
 positive principle, the principle of order. It holds and 
 limits this divine activity, puts the material that has 
 been gathered into form, holds and maintains this form, 
 which, having in it also the active principles of force 
 and discrimination, struggles for a manifestation in a 
 broader and higher career. This is inevitable, because 
 the negative principle of Nature has gathered in and 
 insphered the object of its love. It is the divine mascu- 
 linity that this cohesive principle has insphered and 
 bound within its own limits ; therefore, this captive life, 
 this divine masculinity is restive and active to develop 
 and come forth into a higher, broader, and better order 
 of Nature, which can only be done through unfoldment 
 from the innermost to the external, on account of the 
 cohesive and binding properties of the mother-nature. 
 
 When we examine a plant we find that this principle 
 of cohesion compacts and holds it, giving it a hard, 
 solid stalk. It stands, perchance, with two branches, 
 as if it were to remain there to all eternity ; but a more 
 
COHESION. 85 
 
 subtle principle is ever working from the innermost, pro- 
 jecting from between its two branches another that grows 
 out from the centre ; and, as it unfolds, it expands the 
 confines of its position, that it may have room to mani- 
 fest itself; and when it has burst its bonds, the mother- 
 nature, being ever active, lays hold and concentrates 
 her energy on the new branch that is just forming, and 
 as she gathers material to support, nourish, and preserve, 
 she is inclined to overfeed her young. We never knew 
 a mother, no matter in what kingdom, whether in the 
 plant-world or in the more perfect state of human ex- 
 istence, who was not inclined to overfeed her young. 
 She always keeps gathering and gathering ; for preser- 
 vation is her attribute. It is the principle that is most 
 active to-day among men, and that is cursing our land. 
 The disposition to gather, heap up, and hoard millions 
 of treasure, without stopping to ask the question, what 
 use they will be to them. 
 
 We are acting under these blind forces of Nature, and 
 never stopping to think what their qualities are, and 
 therefore we are struggling all the time, and combating 
 one with the other without any reason or judgment ; 
 thus this divine principle for the preservation of all 
 things becomes an adversary because of abuse and over- 
 doing. Thus, in all the workings of Nature, the best 
 things, when misused, become the very worst things, 
 as instanced in the Lord's saying, "that a man's foes 
 should be of his own household." 
 
 This mother-nature is supposed to maintain and hold 
 all things as they are, to preserve and maintain present 
 conditions. It looks back and sees what has been. It 
 
86 COHESION. 
 
 acts from its own present status, without any regard to 
 the thought that is beyond. While this principle con- 
 trols the home, family, and public mind, as it does to- 
 day, every advanced thought that comes into our minds 
 will be opposed by our friends, by those who love us 
 most, especially if that advanced thought necessitates 
 any change on our part. Here again we find we are 
 led to struggle against the very things that we love the 
 most, — the principle that conserves our lives, that main- 
 tains our existence, as if it were our adversary ; other- 
 wise Ave would be bound and held by it, and be unable 
 to move forward in any direction. It is for that reason 
 that Jesus, the. master, said, "that unless a man hate 
 father, mother, wife, and children, yea, and his own 
 life," he could not be his disciple. For this law is one 
 that is absolute, acting in life everywhere. 
 
 I called your attention, in the early part of the lecture, 
 to the tact that each one of those seven principles may 
 have the dominancy and be found the specially active 
 one ; but none of the seven can act alone. All must 
 co-work with it. But we can consider some one as the 
 leader in the action, and we must consider each in their 
 sphere of leadership, and how the action results, so that 
 we may know how to subject these powers and bring 
 them under control of our will, and make them useful 
 factors in our life. These thoughts are for the purpose 
 of aivinir an understanding of these seven primate laws 
 of Nature, so that each of you may, by their own will, 
 take control of them, and become master of the work. 
 As we announced at the beginning, the thought in the 
 Infinite Mind was to make man in his ima^e and like- 
 
COHESIONS 87 
 
 ness, and lot them have dominion ; and, in order to do 
 so, we must have knowledge of these laws, and when 
 we have, wc may lay hold upon them and resist their 
 control, accept of their assistance, and move on in har- 
 mony, not allowing eccentricities to carry us beyond 
 the bounds of reason. 
 
 If we look into the workings of Nature, as I have pre- 
 viously shown you, everything is based on the duality 
 of sex. This fourth principle cohesion, being the 
 mother-principle, is peculiarly the love-principle, the 
 magnetic, and if we love a person we know that we will 
 do everything in our power for their good as we under- 
 stand it. 
 
 Now the mother-nature, considered as a distinct 
 principle, has no reason. The law of order in the pure 
 mother-principle has no place. The feminine principle, 
 as manifested in the higher order of womanhood, is not 
 a reasoning principle, but it acts from the spontaneous 
 soul, from within. It acts from the law of its nature, 
 and we call it intuition. Intuition, when governed by 
 cohesion, struggles againsts human progress. If you 
 have a son ; and that son has an inclination to a life that 
 is not according to the life your father lived, not ac- 
 cording to that you yourself arc living, you at once 
 condemn it, and at once begin to struijii'le against it. 
 If a man or woman attempts to live on a different plane 
 of existence from that on which you are, you condemn 
 it, and do all in your power to hold on to that friend, 
 and bind him in the sphere of your own existence. 
 These are thoughts that we ought to think about, be- 
 cause we are in the time of progress. We have nearly 
 
88 COHESION. 
 
 finished a cycle of the earth's unfoldment. What do I 
 mean by "cycle"? We all understand what a cycle of 
 the earth's revolution around the sun means. It means 
 spring-time, the time of planting, mid-summer, the 
 fulness of growth, the time of harvest, and of winter, 
 the time of cold, when all things congeal, when the 
 chilling blasts blight all vegetable life. This we under- 
 stand to be a cycle of earth. Human life is of the same 
 order. The Nazarene, and all the ancient prophets and 
 sages delighted in that as a figure. '' The seed-time 
 and harvest of the world." We have a history of this 
 world, supposed to be for about six thousand years. 
 Back of that we have but very little knowledge ; some 
 nations traced much farther back ; but the knowledge is 
 vague and uncertain, and all so different from the ex- 
 perience of these six thousand years that it bears every 
 resemblance of belonging to another time, to ages or 
 cycles different from ours. But we have now come near 
 to the closing scenes of another cycle. Human life to- 
 day is struggling with an energy never before mani- 
 fested in the history of the world. The mind of man 
 is reaching out for knowledge in every direction. New 
 thoughts are being gathered in, and new unfoldments 
 and new conditions are demanded ; and, by virtue of 
 this we find that the mother-principle is becoming an 
 adversary in our midst, and we are forced to become 
 positive to it. Think of it, an adversary to our 
 mother ! That which brought us into being ; that which 
 has preserved us, given us our life ! What a cruel 
 heart it must require! Yet, what shall we do? The 
 very object in the mind of the great parent of all life 
 
COHESION. 89 
 
 that organized these forms of maternal nature, was that 
 you should break away from that condition of environ- 
 ment, and arise into a higher condition, — into one 
 broader, more useful, more characteristic of that divine 
 nature of which }'ou arc the expression. 
 
 Let us look at this from another stand-point. We 
 read the ancient cabala, and find much about the 
 " Elementals." We find that nearly all the ancient 
 philosophers taught a great deal about the elementals 
 of Nature. (However, they made a distinction between 
 elementals and elementaries, at least some of them 
 did.) What are these elementals ? We have them de- 
 scribed to us as being of four different natures ; the 
 nature of fire, the nature of air, the nature of water, 
 and the nature of earth. They also, as they come 
 nearer to earth and its atmosphere, combine the pure 
 elements of air with that of fire, and that of water, 
 and, finally, with that of the earth. These combinations 
 are also described as having forms like men, very beau- 
 tiful, very wise. We have heretofore been trying to 
 present to you the idea of what our thoughts are. 
 That our thoughts are our children, born of our con- 
 ceptive intellect, born of the materials of our body, 
 through this intellect or brain, projected out from us by 
 the will, sent into the ether. The fine sensitives see 
 them, absorb them into their brain, interpret them, 
 even describing their author. Perchance my thoughts 
 may be gathered and interpreted by those that never 
 saw me, and they may describe me just as I am speak- 
 ing to you to-night. These elementals that have been 
 seen by the clear-eyed seer of the past are thoughts 
 
90 COHESION. 
 
 generated from the creative mind ; and, as they come 
 nearer and yet nearer, they begin to take more and yet 
 more of the earth-conditions. These thoughts have de- 
 scended into earth ; and the mother-principle, which is 
 the earth-principle, has laid hold upon them, and in- 
 sphered them in living forms, covered them with sub- 
 stance, and preserves and holds them in earth-bondage. 
 Such are the souls of men that have come up through 
 the successive stages of earth-existence to where w T e are 
 to-day. These are not uncreated beings, as thought 
 by many of the ancient philosophers, but they are 
 created. The same as I am this moment creating 
 thought-forms and sending them out into this room, 
 so, too, the Soul of the Universe is constantly cre- 
 ating thought-forms. Yea, the planetary worlds, in 
 their revolutions and relations one to the other, are 
 creating thought-forms and concentrating a share of 
 them upon the planet earth. These, through the agency 
 of this fourth principle, are being laid hold upon and 
 incarnated in material bodies. 
 
 The office of this mother-principle is to preserve 
 and hold spirits in material bodies. That is why the 
 ancient philosophers said it was impossible for woman 
 to become a master, because her nature was that which 
 took hold of, and bound all things in the flesh, and 
 would not admit of that unfoldment that led into the 
 spirit and the transmutation of the flesh. Therefore, 
 they said, it was an absolute necessity that woman 
 should go down to the grave and return as man in the 
 second incarnation ; for it was so believed by them. 
 (For instance, you who to-day are here as women, the 
 
cohesion. 91 
 
 next time you will return as men. Again, you pass 
 away and return as women, and so on, alternately. 
 This is in harmony with the law of reincarnation. In 
 connecting 1 these subjects I am necessitated to throw 
 out many things that may seem vasme and unreason- 
 able to those "who have not thought deeply on such 
 subjects, too great to expound in a single lecture. 
 This is a new field of thought to the Occident, but 
 not to the Orient.) 
 
 "Woman has got to stop and think and try to unite 
 her soul with the <n-eat Mother of the Universe. She 
 has got to begin to look at herself and her companion, 
 not as flesh, not as body, or as mere material. As long 
 as she does, just so long will she be an adversary, and 
 so long she herself will be bound in earth and will 
 know nothing of the higher life, and the object of her 
 love, because of that flesh she loves and clings to, will 
 struggle against her, and slip out of her hands, and she 
 will be found deserted and alone. The time has come 
 when that mother-love must begin to take higher form. 
 The divine Mother loves all her children alike, and so 
 woman has to consider all as her children, all as objects 
 of her special care and protection, and the husband as 
 counterpart of her spirit, and not merely of the flesh, and 
 that this spirit is a part of her spirit and as such it 
 must be the object of her love, the object that she must 
 try to aid, to unfold, and to free from its encumberinirs 
 of earth. That, 3011 see, at once reverses all the action 
 of the old love-life. That is a question that she 
 must consider. For, as long as the action of her present 
 life is that manifestation that belongs to cohesion alone, 
 
92 COHESION. 
 
 it is holding the persons she loves ; it is binding their 
 thought, consequently hindering their action, and keep- 
 ing them just as they are. 
 
 Should this principle of cohesion have sway from 
 this time, all would stop thinking and acting. Every- 
 thing would be at a dead stand-still. We bless that 
 divine principle ; wc should, and do admire and adore 
 the mother-love. Yet, while it is good, it is good only 
 while it is useful. There is nothing permanent that 
 does not serve a use. Keep this maxim ever before 
 you, that the great law of the Infinite Mind is that the 
 use of a thing determines whether it is good or not. 
 Now, when as mothers, as wives, those of you whose 
 natures are overflowing with that divine maternal prin- 
 ciple, and who have looked higher, deeper, more into 
 the real man and the real woman, have discerned that 
 a man is not the flesh, but the spirit, the soul, then 
 will you begin to find that your relation to him is the 
 relation of one-half of his being, and that Paul had in 
 mind a law which is beyond that understood to-day 
 when he said, ' f The man is not without the woman 
 or the woman without the man in the Lord." There- 
 fore the first thing to do is to conquer self, conquer this 
 maternal nature in its lesser manifestations. Mothers 
 and sisters, conquer yourselves ! Men and brothers, 
 rise above it ; do not allow it to hinder your progress ! 
 Some may say, " "Why, what will this do ; where will it 
 lead us ? " It will lead you into new and higher con- 
 ditions. Remember this : if, for the time being, it 
 does cost you a struggle, caused by misunderstand- 
 ings, live up to your highest ideal of right ; do not 
 
COHESION. 93 
 
 think that you are injuring any one, though it may ap- 
 pear so for a time. Suppose you should sit down, each 
 one of you, because this one or that one says you are 
 eccentric, and, therefore, submit to this mother-princi- 
 ple that holds you, year after year, in what would it 
 result? In the end it Mould make you a burden upon 
 those loved ones, whereas, if you, like the man who 
 has fallen in the mire, rise up, notwithstanding the re- 
 monstrance of your fellow, rise up out of it yourself, 
 you get on a solid foundation, and then reach down and 
 help your companions. The mission of this world re- 
 quires action. We cannot stand still where we are ; we 
 must go forward, and the only method for us, men or 
 women, is : First, go to work in accordance with the 
 higher idea of right in yourself, live up to your highest 
 ideal ; and, when you have done that, }'ou will find your- 
 self placed on a solid foundation, upon high ground 
 where you can help those who are trying to hinder you. 
 That is how you should "love your enemies, bless them 
 that persecute, and do good to them that hate and de- 
 spitefully use you," "because they know not what they 
 do." 
 
 There is not a man or woman in the world who is in- 
 tentionally and wholly evil. They have a law of right 
 that seems to justify their action. "When we look at 
 these things from the stand-point of law we will find 
 that it is difficult to blame any one for the things he 
 does. But, on the contrary, when we see persons so 
 low down in darkness, and so overwhelmed by some 
 one of these seven principles, that they can see nothing 
 beyond it, we sympathize with them, and, in the same 
 
94 COHESION. 
 
 degree that we have ourselves made attainments and 
 taken control, we will have power to lift the load from 
 our fellow that is being crushed by it, let it be our wife, 
 our husband, our son, our daughter, a comrade, or a 
 stranger, or any man or woman that lives. Let us lift 
 the burden, and help them on their journey. 
 
 Just as soon as we allow one feeling of hatred to 
 come into our heart against any thing or person, their 
 ignorance has control of us, and that moment we be- 
 come an adversary perhaps to their higher good, and 
 certainly to our own. Such thoughts take form and o-o 
 out and become an active factor to create adversaries 
 that tear and rend us. For they do not always destroy 
 the object of their hate ; but such thoughts often £o out 
 and unite with others, and cause the object of the hatred 
 to generate a multitude of like thoughts, and send them 
 back upon us for our destruction. However, while 
 this mother-nature on the lower plane is evil, when it 
 has taken its place in proper harmony in the truly 
 united man and woman it becomes the source of 
 strength, as it restrains the positive nature of man 
 from rashness and violence, and concentrates all the 
 forces, puts them under control of the will. And this 
 will is the only principle that enables us to take the 
 name of God, place it "in our forehead" (the seat of 
 intelligence), and to say, "I will be what I will to be," 
 thus lifting the principle of cohesion to its ultimate, 
 which is "Strength." 
 
mrr 
 
 «/ will be n-hat I will to be.* 
 
SIXTH LECTUKE. 
 
 FERMENTATION. 
 
 THE FIFTH OF THE SEVEN CREATIVE FRINCIFLES. 
 
 "NYe are brought this evening to the consideration of 
 the fifth principle of creative energy. We have in the 
 past considered, first, force, that which is the cause of 
 action and also the cause of negation ; second, discrim- 
 ination, which distinguishes and causes everything to 
 seek its kind ; the third is order, which is that won- 
 drous mechanic, so faithfully performing his duty in 
 building everything in the world into variety and 
 beauty of form, as we everywhere behold ; fourth, co- 
 hesion, the mother-principle that we so love and venerate, 
 and which works so faithfully in preserving, holding, 
 and maintaining all things that have been brought into 
 existence by the three prior forces. Now we come to 
 the fifth principle ; and let us for a moment consider the 
 world, when all Nature is in full bloom, vegetation and 
 animation beaming with life and beauty. This life and 
 beauty would be immortal, unchangeable, were it not 
 for the fifth principle, which comes in as a destroyer, to 
 tear down that which has fulfilled its use, to scatter its 
 parts, and, at the same time, to prepare for another 
 
98 FERMENTATION. 
 
 state of existence where its atoms may return again, 
 each to their own appointed further uses. 
 
 This, being the fifth principle, it is, consequently, 
 stronger than any of those which have preceded it, 
 therefore we find ourselves in a domain of struggle. 
 This fifth principle has been represented to us from the 
 time of antiquity as the old Serpent, the Devil, and 
 Satan, that deceiver of the world. There are many 
 reasons for this. First, that in the fall of the year, as 
 the leaves fall, vegetation is cut off and the rain carries 
 these leaves and decaying matter down into the swamps 
 where fermentation holds its court and has its sway. 
 The life essences that caused the vegetation and ma- 
 tured its existence are there brought within the prov- 
 ince of the adverse principle of life ; a struggle goes 
 on and throws off unfit matter; and life itself, being im- 
 mortal, Gathers itself into a new form. The first form 
 of animation which is thus brought into existence by 
 fermentation is that of the insect, reptile, and serpent. 
 We find that the same law obtains in the first phase of 
 life in the water, which is in the form of the reptile. In 
 fact, the first form of everything that has life, our- 
 selves included, in germ state, is that of the reptile, and 
 these first forms of life always appear in that depart- 
 ment of our nature or physical structure which answers 
 to and is characterized by the principle of fermentation. 
 We have observed and may have read that in autumn, 
 as vegetation is decaying, there are great quantities of 
 flies and insects in the air ; at times the air seems to be 
 literally filled with them, and the solution is given that 
 we are having a great deal of decomposition of vege- 
 
FERMENTATION. 99 
 
 tation, and therefore these flies and insects. That is 
 true, but by what law does the decaying- vegetation 
 bring these insects into existence? The life in the plant 
 is immortal as much as the life in you or me, but it is 
 in a crude state of being. We take it and analyze it. 
 We extract the chemical essences and name the chemical 
 qualities of which that plant is composed. We may 
 bring it down to the quintessence of those qualities, and 
 we find its power of chemical combination ; how it may 
 form the most powerful agents by its many strong prop- 
 erties that produce strange results when brought in 
 contact with other chemicals, and, at this present stage 
 of chemistry, after analyzing and extracting the quali- 
 ties of plant life, we give them names according to the 
 rules of chemistry. But we stop there ; Ave are not 
 educated to think that these chemical substances have 
 anything in them of life, simply because our chemistry 
 to-day is not perfected to trace far and deep enough to 
 find the thought-essence that brought that plant into 
 being. 
 
 You will remember that in our earlier considerations 
 of this chart we called attention to the word " Logos " 
 in the centre, which carried us back to the Bible where 
 John, Avho is accredited as being a cabala student, 
 said, " In the beginning was the Word and the Word 
 was with God and the Word was God,'' or, in the more 
 critical rendering, " and the Word was with Power and 
 the Word was Power, and that all things were made by 
 it, and without it was not anything made that was 
 made.*' The "Word" is a thought formed out of the 
 essences of the person or thinker, as w r e have shown you 
 
100 FERMENTATION. 
 
 before, which is proved in Psychogonomy. Every plant 
 and vegetable that grows is a thought-form from the 
 mind of the thinker; the life essences have proceeded 
 from that thinker. The same element of life that gave 
 us birth, that gave animation to the germ from which 
 we came ; and, if that germ had been retained in the 
 body, it would have been transmuted and called up to 
 the brain, — would have been the element for thought- 
 forms that would have came forth instead. Our 
 thoughts are as much our children as the physical chil- 
 dren that are born to us in the marital relation. So, 
 also, is vegetation the thought-forms of the Infinite Mind. 
 The grass on which we unthinkingly tread will yet become 
 the people that will walk this earth in time to come, — 
 the men and women that take our place. 
 
 Thus the life-essence that forms grass and all vege- 
 tation is the essence of the Thinker, and when this 
 principle of fermentation lays hold upon it, that es- 
 sence being endowed with higher life, struggles to 
 maintain its existence. 
 
 We find in all Nature, and especially in our own 
 existence, that we have to struggle to maintain our 
 standing among the living, and how hard it often is for 
 us to get the necessary food to supply the exhaust due 
 to the anxiety and restlessness of our life-energy ! 
 These are some of the struggles we experience in our 
 own personal efforts against this adversary and de- 
 stroyer. 
 
 Now, in the action of the plant, this life-essence 
 concentrates, unites its forces, to become new organic 
 life. So, again, the mother, when she is pressed to an 
 
FERMENTATION. 101 
 
 extreme in the preservation of her children from some 
 enemy, how quickly she gathers them and puts her 
 arms around them and holds them together ! So this 
 maternal principle in the action of fermentation, when 
 life is about to be thrown off into gases, and the last 
 remains of its forms to be scattered, concentrates the 
 germs of its being, and at once formulates, out of the 
 scattering essences of the plant, living organisms, 
 built together according to the polarity of the atoms, 
 according to the necessity and character of the body, 
 worm or insect existence, or whatever its qualities may 
 be. For every plant has its own leading chemical 
 qualities which determine what kind of an insect it 
 will be that comes forth from it, and when we have 
 sjone farther on in our studies of this wonderful law of 
 order in Nature so that we shall be as wise as those who 
 have passed into the eternal world, and need no other 
 language but the actual form of the thing, we will be 
 able to know when we sec those little insect-forms the 
 exact chemical properties of which they are composed. 
 But not only that, but we shall know also the exact 
 thought that they are the formation of, and again we 
 shall know that the essences of that plant, when once 
 extracted, brought down to the very quintessence of 
 its nature, will be substance, which, brought in contact 
 with man, will produce a thought in him exactly char- 
 acterized by its nature, so that the art of mental healing 
 will some day have also a system of chemistry. For as 
 long as generation abounds in the world, while this law 
 of fermentation controls, sickness will exist, until man 
 has learned the chemistry of Nature as well as the law 
 
102 FERMENTATION. 
 
 of mind, for the two belong together, and when Ave 
 have learned just what thought is embodied in each 
 plant, our faculties being sufficiently refined, we can 
 draw and take from them the very essences of thought 
 and apply them. A change of mind is directly pro- 
 duced, and the disease will be healed. This is no new 
 idea, however. It is the thought of the alchemists of 
 antiquity, and was known long ages ago, though tne 
 knowledge was kept in great sacredness by the old 
 Magi, because if this knowledge was given to the public 
 great harm would have come of it. These subtle es- 
 sences of plants may be so refined that even a touch 
 would change the whole mental condition of a person. 
 For instance, I have read, of late, of an axe-handle be- 
 ing made hollow, and in the open space there was 
 placed a certain chemical essence. It had been there a 
 great while, yet every one that took that axe in his 
 hand was filled with a desire to murder his best friend ; 
 and, finally, an attempt was made to carry it out ; 
 through accident the handle broke, and the secret was 
 discovered. Such are the stories which are brought 
 down to us from antiquity ; they are not without 
 foundation. All these powerful essences are found 
 and obtained through the law of fermentation. 
 
 Fermentation, again, finds its locality in the places 
 where the old must be torn down, and where a new and 
 higher organism must be built up. In one way it is an 
 adversary, a devil, an evil one ; one to be struggled 
 against ; on the other hand, it is a benefactor. There- 
 fore you see that in everything in Nature there is noth- 
 ing that lives, no principle, but what is good. We 
 
FERMENTATION. 103 
 
 are again brought to the maxim that the greatest evil, 
 when inverted, is the greatest good. We are told that 
 without fermentation the food would never digest. 
 Without fermentation of the body there would be no 
 germs of new life formed. Without fermentation in 
 the world, we are brought to say again, everything 
 would remain as it is. Now, this fermentation does not 
 stop with merely the tearing down of decaying vegeta- 
 tion, but in everything that dies fermentation comes 
 as a liberator of the forces. If circumstances are 
 favorable, so that the liberated, life-essences can come 
 forth in the form of worms or insects, they will be 
 formed ; if not, then those life-essences arc sent out 
 into the elements and again become parts of the forces 
 of nature called " elementals." These clementals have 
 been, to all philosophers, a great mystery in Nature. 
 We hear of late much said about the elementals and 
 the elementary spirits. What are they? We are taken 
 back for an answer to the word we have just called 
 your attention to, "Logos," the Word of God, the 
 thought-emanation which is sent from the mind of the 
 Creator earthwards ; and to the fact that these thoughts 
 appear to the clairvoyant eye in the form of the thinker. 
 You all know and remember if you take a glove or 
 handkerchief and put it in the hands of the psychogno- 
 mist, though she may never have seen the one who 
 wore it, she holds it and sees the image of the wearer 
 and describes him accurately to you. So, when man is 
 sufficiently unfolded from within, and his finer nature 
 takes cognizance of the forces in Nature, his clairvoy- 
 ant eye takes cognizance of these thought-formations. 
 
104 FERMENTATION. 
 
 He comes into communication with them by the same 
 method as the psychognomist does. 
 
 Some time ago I called your attention to the law by 
 which the ancient Hebraic prophecies were formed. 
 How that the masters of antiquity, devout ones who 
 gave their lives to knowing the will and the mind of God 
 the creator, clearly saw it was necessary for them, in 
 order to be able to collect and understand the mind of 
 God, to isolate themselves from the public. They lived 
 in dens and caves in the wilderness and desert places 
 where no man could penetrate and find them, dwelling 
 constantly in the contemplation of the cause-world and 
 of the God of the universe, holding and maintaining 
 their own life-forces, carrying on the work of the regen- 
 eration and refinement of their own inner mind-power. 
 They went on and on, until they began to take cogni- 
 zance of the mind of the Creator. They saw in the 
 angel-forms that appeared to them the thoughts of 
 God descended to earth and having in them all the 
 elements of the Infinite Spirit, the spirit of the God of 
 creation, that had formed the thought and sent it earth- 
 ward to gather to itself all the elements, first of fire, 
 then of air, of water, of earth, and finally be im- 
 mersed in vegetable formations on the earth. From 
 these the pure essences of being would be gathered up 
 by the animal, taken into his chemical laboratory and 
 formed into flesh ; and again a higher order of ani- 
 mals would come and feed on his flesh, carrying this 
 life on, higher and higher, from the little insect, born 
 and perishing in a day, up to the highest order of man. 
 The ox goes to the grass. He gathers there the life- 
 
FERMENTATION. 105 
 
 essences. "We cat the flesh of the ox and take his life- 
 essences into our own body, and formulate with them 
 what arc called elemcntals. They have not been under- 
 stood, and I have never found evidence yet that any of 
 even the Cahalists, or Oriental philosophers, knew what 
 these spirit-forms, as they appeared to them, were. 
 They found out this much, — that they disappeared, 
 that they seemingly did not live forever, and went some- 
 where, but where they could not tell. But we know 
 from the law of creation that these pure elementals, 
 pure as the God himself, when starting from the Infinite 
 Mind, came down, down, down through the multifarious 
 changes, until final ly they stand here as an incarnate 
 mind, ascending again to the cause from whence we 
 came, these elementals being the animating principle of 
 our body. 
 
 It is the spirit of life that makes us men and women, 
 thinking and reaching out for higher and grander 
 things. That life was once that pure element that 
 floated in the ether ; it was once that bright Sylph that 
 floated in the air ; the Salamander that flashed through 
 the flames, clothed with its elements ; that pure Nymph 
 that lived in the element of water, and, again, that Gnome 
 that lived in the earth. These are the four kinds of 
 spiritual elements, and in these four there are multifa- 
 rious stages. Now, then, these life-giving elementals, 
 finding their incarnation merely in the earth and vege- 
 table, were it not for this fifth principle of fermentation 
 where would they be to-day? AVhere would Ave be? 
 Not here, no ; but we are here by virtue of the faith- 
 ful performance of the duty, or the faithful acting out 
 
10G FERMENTATION. 
 
 of the nature of the old Serpent, the Devil, the opposer 
 of human life and of the perpetuity of all formation 
 that is. 
 
 That same principle of fermentation exists in our 
 minds. The lower nature, we say, must not control. 
 If the lower nature control, then we become combat- 
 ive, destructive, disposed to find fault with and combat 
 our fellows, and to be restless and dissatisfied. It is be- 
 cause that principle is a warring one, it is a struggling 
 adversary ever ready to kill, to tear down and to 
 destroy. It is the principle, too, of anger. It is 
 said if a cat is made very angry her bite is almost 
 equal to that of a mad dog, and have you not no- 
 ticed in persons of a very intense nature, when 
 they are angry, how changed their eyes are, how 
 much like the glassy eyes of the serpent that seem 
 to pierce you through. There, again, the fermenta- 
 tive principle has risen up and taken control of 
 the man or woman, and the serpent and destroyer is 
 the master, and rules the body. And what chemical 
 change is going on in the body while that rules? Could 
 you again come into that interior state where your spirit 
 eyes were open, and see these bare elements of Nature, 
 you would see around that man, and, emanating from 
 his words, dragons and reptiles of the most terrible 
 forms coming forth out of his mouth and even pendant 
 from his hair and from every part of his body ! That 
 poisonous chemical essence, coming in contact with the 
 nature* of sensitive persons, causes an intense chemi- 
 cal action there and brings on many diseased condi- 
 tions, especially with our women, in whom this fer- 
 
FERMENTATION. 107 
 
 mentative principle is so active ; it is that very thing 
 that the women of to-day should investigate. It is 
 noted that there is scarcely one of our American ladies 
 thoroughly healthy in the reproductive functions, be- 
 cause of the excited, active, combative state of our 
 people. The fermentative principle is active, and it lays 
 hold of and destroys the very fountain of their being. 
 "We know when we go on further that man cannot live 
 without woman, and that man, whose sphere it is to go 
 out into the world and battle in business, and act, 
 labor, and struggle, draws his energy and power from 
 the woman, for she is the tree of life from which he ob- 
 tains inspiration and power. I have watched men for 
 many years in their habits of life and business, and I 
 can tell you what kind of a wife a man has from his 
 business habits. By seeing a wife I can tell you what 
 kind of a business man her husband is, because I see 
 the nature of the chemical fountain, and know what it 
 will produce. 
 
 When the fermentative principle dominates man, as 
 it does to-day, he is angry at once with the least thing ; 
 he is excitable and ready to combat instantly, because 
 of the forces stored up by the old serpent. It rules 
 him ; it is tearing down his body and scattering it to 
 the winds. This waste of his life is creating those 
 worms that are destroying our vegetation. It is caus- 
 ing the destructive insect-existences that till the air 
 with poisoning fungus causing many forms of disease. 
 
 Could we look into Nature we would deem it a won- 
 der that man or woman can exist in our cities, beset as 
 they are on every side by such terrible spiritual agents. 
 
108 FERMENTATION. 
 
 These are the works of fermentation. What shall we 
 do ? As wise men we have got to go back and begin at 
 the fountain of being, the sex-function, which embodies 
 that principle of fermentation, and take control of it, 
 subdue it, and rule it, by a wise and exalted mind. 
 
 Our Mother Church has made an effort to cut off one 
 of the main branches in that direction. It teaches us 
 that when we get angry Ave do wrong, and must con- 
 quer our lower nature. This is an effort to cut off some 
 of the tops, but it does not go down to the root. Jesus, 
 the Great Master, and whom I adore as such, says, 
 "Behold the axe is laid at the root of the tree and every 
 tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down 
 and cast into the fire." To lay the axe at the root of 
 the tree is to lay it at the root of our being, at the very 
 fountain-head of our existence, the very source from 
 whence we came. There the old Serpent has his home, 
 there the creator Elohim, the power over generation, 
 yes, the power with which Jacob wrestled and which 
 he conquered; — then said the angel to Jacob, ' Thy 
 name is no longer Jacob, but shall be called Israel," 
 that is, "Prevailing Prince." "For now thou hast 
 power with God and man and thou shalt prevail." He 
 laid the axe at the root of the tree. He struggled with 
 the God of creation, the God of generation, the God 
 that has created all things. For all things are created 
 through the functions of generation, even the sands on 
 which we walk were once the living, animated bodies of 
 fish and animals of the sea and earth. We are walking 
 constantly on the ashes of the dead. There are no 
 other solids but what have come into being by that 
 
FERMENTATION. 109 
 
 principle of generation. Here is the God of creation, 
 and we have known him in this function only as of the 
 devil. "We have hated him and loved him. We have 
 spurned him and we have drawn him to us. We have 
 called him evil and we have enthroned him in dominion 
 over our lives. These are the workings of humanity 
 in their ignorance of law. 
 
 Now, you see that it is necessary that we should be- 
 ffin to think, in order that we begin to assert our rights 
 as sons of God, to know something about these laws 
 that govern our being. And when we do understand 
 them, we will see that it is not sacrilege to say that " I 
 will be what I will to be." Nothing more than saying 
 what was said in the ancient Scripture, " God will not 
 hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." His 
 name, which is "Yahveh," meaning, "I will be what I 
 will to be." "That is my name forever," said He to 
 Moses, "and that is my memorial to all ages." Who 
 can say, "I will be what I will to be"? Yet we have 
 got to step out in the dignity of our divine sonship and 
 say to the god of generation, to this creative destroyer 
 that is active in us, that is destroying our bodies for the 
 sake of our offspring, " I will no longer be subject to 
 your law. I will be what I will to be, and you. shall 
 serve my will." Thus, like Jacob, Ave shall wrestle 
 with this sex-principle where life is generated and that 
 should be utilized in perfecting and unfolding our life- 
 forces, giving power and animation to our bodies. 
 
 Many say "this cannot be," but you have only to 
 look into your own families. You have one son, who 
 through some mental condition, perhaps, that was active 
 
110 FERMENTATION. 
 
 in your mind at the time of conception, created in him 
 a desire to control these forces. He is never led into 
 any abusive habits, and you will see him grow and de- 
 velop, broad-shouldered, a noble form of manhood and 
 strength, with red cheeks and bright eyes. The other 
 son, through some thoughtlessness on your part, has 
 been endowed with that inflamed passion. He has 
 abused and wasted those forces. You see in him a 
 narrow chest and shoulders, a dwarfed body, pale 
 cheeks, dull, watery eyes, a mere pigmy of a man 
 beside the brother. Why? Because he has wasted 
 the very elements that should have been used to 
 make him a grand man. The other cherished them, 
 and now when he comes to manhood, if he knew this 
 divine law, he could become like Jacob, "a Prevailing 
 Prince." The law is not a new one, it was carried out 
 by the masters of antiquity. It has been known from 
 the history of the world. By conquering and controll- 
 ing that function, that power, saying to the old serpent, 
 "You are my servant," you put the heel of your foot 
 upon his head, and then, in the dignity of your manhood, 
 you will become master and head of that power, thus 
 making this most destructive principle, this "old ser- 
 pent," this adversary of all right, this destroyer of all 
 existence, this father of all sin, of all evil, your obe- 
 dient servant. 
 
 The sex principle is now the master of the w T orld. 
 It rules all men ; it rules from the highest down to the 
 krwest grades of mankind, and how does it rule? 
 Observe the ruin. Look back over the history of the 
 world and behold our earth running with blood like 
 
FERMENTATION. Ill 
 
 streams of water ; it was that old serpent's rule that did 
 it. And that old serpent is the adversary that comes 
 in between the beloved wife and her husband. They 
 marry, they know nothing but purity. The wife, from 
 her childhood pure as the angel spirit from whence she 
 came, with her forces all turned toward the brain, all 
 serving to the finer works of the spirit, loving with a 
 pure and angelic love, that gives herself, soul and body 
 and mind, to the object of her love. lie, on the other 
 hand, with his admiration and animation, being at- 
 tracted by that fountain of pure love, draws it to him 
 and finally, when they come into that most sacred 
 relation, devoid of that true knowledge, bein^ taught 
 nothing by you, parents, who have let that principle 
 rule unrestrained, becomes the swift destro3'er of the 
 pure love he has won, converting it into an adversary that 
 makes of his home a hell, transforming that pure and 
 divine love into a demon that cares and struggles only 
 for self-gratification. Where is that loving family, that 
 beautiful home, that ideal companion, that was so 
 beautiful a picture in the maiden's mind, that lived and 
 grew in the mind of the young man? Where has it 
 gone? What was the cause of it? The old serpent, 
 the principle of fermentation and destruction, has done 
 it ; but only and simply because we have not known 
 how to use this principle. We have not stopped to 
 think that Ave should teach our young men and women 
 that this principle has a specific use, and that we should 
 be the master and have the say and control. We turn 
 and look upon the animal world. By what means do 
 they know ? Because they have never yet begun to 
 
112 FERMENTATION. 
 
 reason, therefore they live unci act from the Solar mind. 
 They utilize their forces for reproduction alone, and no 
 more. They know where to go and get their food, 
 how to protect themselves, because their life is still 
 purely under the control of the invisible mind. 
 
 "We read that strange history of Adam in the 
 garden of Eden. Eden means chaste, pure pleasure. 
 He was in that pure state of pleasure. He had followed 
 the thought of the instinctive, or intuitive mind. By 
 the leading of that mind, the powers had unfolded 
 within him, and finally he came to discern the divine 
 law, and be led by it ; for, remember, we started 
 out by telling you that the original thought that made 
 this world, — of which all the chemical essences are 
 constituted, — was to make a world, people it with men, 
 and with men that should be in the likeness and ima^e 
 of the Creator. Everything in Nature, the element of 
 the solar fluid, and all the world, is teeming with that 
 thought. Animals, birds, insects, and everything, are 
 diligently at work everywhere lo carry out their part 
 of the great work. Adam was led by it up to the 
 point of time where he began to use his reason in op- 
 position to his soul's intuitive guidance, and as soon as 
 he refused to obey the commands of the soul, he fell. 
 His power was gone, he was plunged into darkness, 
 into uncertainty. Long ages of struggling, ambitious 
 reasonings and combatings followed, wherein the old 
 serpent, this sex and creative principle, has held the 
 rod of government as a monarch ruling over all the 
 earth, even up to the present day. Now we have come 
 to a time when reason is being spiritualized ; it is being 
 
FERMENTATION. 113 
 
 called upon to unite with intuition, and to know why 
 these things are so, by what laws they have been, 
 and what methods it is necessary to apply in order 
 to rise up and take control of them. Therefore, we 
 adopt the words of Jesus and " lay the axe at the root of 
 the tree," and begin at the principle of generation. We 
 begin by taking control of that function, regenerating 
 ourselves, perfecting our bodies, becoming god-men 
 and god-women, so that we may come into our inheri- 
 tance that was prepared for us from the foundation of 
 the world. Being king's and priests unto God, reigning 
 on the earth, and thus obtaining the ultimate of this 
 principle, which is "Honor." 
 
mrr 
 
 «'/ will be what 1 <rill to he.: 
 
SEVENTH LECTURE. 
 
 TRANSMUTATION. 
 
 THE SIXTH OF THE SEVEN CREATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 The subject for this evening's consideration is fitly 
 expressed by a simple illustration, like this lighted 
 match. The solid substances here are transmuted into 
 gases by what we calibre. This work is transmutation. 
 It is the sixth of the seven creative principles. The 
 first four bring into existence, formulate, and maintain 
 organic life. The fifth, as you have been shown, is the 
 adversary of all organic life that is formed ; and not 
 only the adversary, but the tearer down of the unfit. I 
 called your attention, some time ago, to that peculiar 
 function, the mother-principle, cohesion; how it binds, 
 and mspheres, and holds in bondage, the elements col- 
 lected by the first principle, force. In the fifth princi- 
 ple, fermentation, we find a means of the liberation of 
 the divine essence that has been collected and bound and 
 caused to be a servant to Nature. Its main office is that 
 of a destroyer, and finds its expression in those prin- 
 ciples of nature that we have already demonstrated as 
 being the adversary, the devil. The sixth brings us to 
 the principle of fire, transmutation. 
 
118 TRANSMUTATION. 
 
 The ancient Cabala has much to say of the Salaman- 
 der. Strange stories are told of these beautiful creat- 
 ures ; for they are not hideous, as we have had them 
 pictured to our minds by the ignorant and unlearned in 
 these subjects, but most beauteous creatures to human 
 perception. These beautiful thought-forms of the cre- 
 ative mind descend, and are absorbed in Nature, and give 
 vitality and vivacity to the lower creations, which we 
 call inanimate matter. Although we realize, when we 
 begin to examine Nature, that there is no such thing as 
 absolute inanimation ; everything is animate, living, and 
 acting, teeming with life, not only in earth-forms, in 
 their multifarious conditions, microscopic and gigantic ; 
 but, when our eye becomes clear, and the inner senses 
 are opened, we also see that what we call space, is 
 teeming with life, whose forms are far more varied than 
 those w-e see with the ordinary eye ; all emanations from 
 the one great centre of Cause. 
 
 I told you in our last lecture that the fourth principle 
 brings us to vegetable life, and the fifth produces the 
 first phase of animal life, in which sensation is only 
 borrowed. No matter in what way it appears, sensa- 
 tion is a form of thought, and in this lower order of 
 creation it is thought belonging to the great Soul of the 
 Universe, and acts from the mind of that Soul according 
 to its own qualities ; for as soon as an organism is 
 formed there is always something ready in Nature to 
 animate it. If conditions are ready for an organic body, 
 that divine life that permeates all things will animate 
 it, and make it an individualized existence. 
 
 When Ave look for this principle of transmutation 
 
TRANSMUTATION. 119 
 
 down in the first forms of animate life, we see but dim 
 shadowings of its action. The only phase of manifes- 
 tation there is in the power that the creatures possess of 
 reproducing their kind, and also of taking nourishment 
 into the body and transmuting the incorporated 
 elements to finer substances that are adapted to the 
 needs of the organized body. For as soon as the little 
 insect that comes from decaying and fermenting vege- 
 tat ion conies upon the stage of action it begins to feed 
 upon the emanations from the parent plant. It receives 
 strength sufficient to begin to act independent of its 
 surroundings, according to its quality. 
 
 The nearest approach that the human mind has come to 
 understand what life is, is that it is of the nature of fire. 
 Wherever there is life there is heat. There are said to 
 be in the water what we call cold-blooded animals, yet 
 we have many reasons to believe that even in them the 
 blood-centres have heat. The main part in creative 
 action is carried on by the principle of fire. Fire is the 
 animating principle in all things. Why does a piece of 
 wood burn? First we start a fire, and it burns. We 
 see the flame emanations, and it works of its own accord 
 until the matter is consumed. We have given the 
 ascendency to the fire-principle, by either friction or 
 chemical methods, and, as soon as the equilibrium is 
 broken, the fire-principle holds its dominancy, and 
 consumes the material within its reach. 
 
 We are told by natural philosophers that fire is 
 motion ; that the heated molecules in a piece of iron 
 will revolve and continue to revolve, making larger and 
 yet larger circuits in their orbit, until finally the iron 
 
1 20 TRANSMUTATION. 
 
 itself is dissolved by the transmutative force, and goes 
 off in the form of gas. 
 
 There are many evidences that this principle of fire is 
 the underlying potency in all Nature. We see worlds 
 revolving around their central blazing sun, subject to 
 the changeful conditions of heat and cold, each globe 
 being filled with fire. Fire is the true, divine essence of 
 being laid hold upon by the first principle of force, con- 
 centrated, bound, and stopped in its motion. The cen- 
 trifugal, expansive fire-principle struggles against limi- 
 tation ; it goes out seeking liberty. It is the symbol of 
 the infinite Being, — spirit, insphered in bondage ; for all 
 organized bodies, no matter what their forms are, have 
 this first primitive force, bound, insphered, and caused 
 to serve according to the needs of the structure. 
 
 Transmutation is that principle Avhich enables us to 
 progress, to unfold ; and here again we find the same 
 law that everywhere meets us in life, viz. : that the great- 
 est benefactors we have we regard as our greatest adver- 
 saries. Why? Because we are naturally lazy, and 
 hate change ; the mother-principle having the dominance 
 in us, we love the physical body and natural life, and 
 hate that divine principle that comes in to liberate us 
 from the old conditions, and expand our being into the 
 higher life of the great Soul of the Universe. 
 
 As the physiologist looks into the structure of our 
 bodies he finds that those little molecules that are 
 taken in through the digestive functions are distributed 
 throughout the system, and as soon as they, reach the 
 embrace of life they are immediately again torn down 
 and others put in their place. The life-essences have 
 
TRANSMUTATION. 121 
 
 been made more dense, and that love of life that is con- 
 centrated within ourselves has appropriated the life of the 
 molecule, and the husk, being unsuited for further ser- 
 vice, is thrown otf, so that all the time there is a trans- 
 mutation going on. Could we but see our bodies ; had 
 we that clear eye to perceive the work that is going on 
 in our organism ; to see the flame of life luminous in 
 us, burning like a seething furnace, and those molecules 
 of matter whirling into that tire, coming into its em- 
 brace, and being changed there and liberated, to go 
 to their respective uses. So, our mind is struggling 
 constantly between these two, the principles of transmu- 
 tation and cohesion. For mind is the factor of this 
 organism, and, like the Creator, it holds sway over the 
 subtle elements of Nature. 
 
 You cannot think of a thing, no matter w T hat it may 
 be, but the moment that thought enters your mind, 
 along with it comes the sublimated essence of the thing 
 thought of, and makes a chemical change in the mole- 
 cules out of which the body is being constructed. It 
 controls the chemist that is working deep down in the 
 centre of the body, the Solar Plexus, the gray spot. 
 It directs him as to what chemical essence he shall take 
 into the body to replace that which has been taken 
 away, and what he shall reject. Therefore, while we 
 are in the seething furnace of life, the body, changing, 
 being burned up and yet ever taking on more, — to pre- 
 serve the balance of power between negation and 
 positivcness, negation having the dominance, — the 
 lower our thoughts and sympathies, the coarser our 
 structure. Now, as we thus find this body, changing, 
 
122 TRANSMUTATION. 
 
 throwing off the old, taking on the new, the mind is the 
 master, or, as our merchants would say, the "buyer." 
 It goes out and selects the proper elements and essences 
 according to the uses of the occasion and surroundings 
 and conditions that may be forced upon us. Thus in 
 accord with what we think, we chemicalize our bodies. 
 
 Let us look into the habits of our every-day life. 
 We take food to replenish and supply the waste, to 
 keep up the fire and the work going on. That function 
 of the body, "the gray-spot," that controls the stomach, 
 is the chemist, and has control of all the chemical quali- 
 ties of the body. He is most diligently and faithfully 
 at work. He receives every telegraphic message com- 
 ing from without to the brain ; it is instantly transmitted 
 to him to supply the material to form the thought, what- 
 ever the subject may be. For every thought partakes 
 of a peculiar chemical essence that would create a like 
 form in Nature ; in other words, as the ancient alchemists 
 tell us, every little plant is a thought-formation. Yes, 
 it has a certain form and color, and thus expresses its 
 quality by virtue of its own inherent chemical essence. 
 This essence, and the sublimated essence thrown off by 
 the creative mind, are identical ; that plant was once 
 a thought. The thought that emanates from your mind 
 may become a plant, and a plant may become a thought 
 of yours. Quality always expresses itself in its form. 
 
 Botanists of a truly scientific mind, when they take a 
 leaf or plant, are certain as to what chemical properties 
 it possesses ; they can tell you all about it, because of 
 its exact form in accordance with the law of order, 
 so exquisitely minute in Nature. The same law obtains 
 
TRANSMUTATION. 123 
 
 in your thought-life. You think a thing in your brain ; 
 that thought is telegraphed to the chemist in your body. 
 If, during the time of eating, and for an hour after, 
 while the chemist is doing his work of digestion, you 
 begin to think of some unpleasant thing, this divine 
 chemist at once begins to take into the body those ex- 
 citing essences that are like that thought, and begins to 
 build up in the body the very substance of it. Thereby 
 the same thought will repeat itself afterwards, and rush 
 in upon your mind with great energy. For instance, a 
 man thinks he has a cancer. It at once is telegraphed to 
 the chemist that there is a cancerous condition needing 
 substance ; and he at once begins to take into the body 
 the very poisonous essences needed to supply the work 
 of a cancer. The one thing to do is to control our 
 thoughts by the effort of will. We must think, espe- 
 cially during the time the chemist is doing his work, just 
 such thoughts as we want our body to be made up of, 
 as we want our after-life to lie. If we do so, we shall 
 find that this places our physical bodies, so hard to 
 master, under our control. Thus, this control begins in 
 the mind ; all chemical action for the health or disease 
 of your body begins in your thought. Therefore, be- 
 gin with mastering your thoughts. Think what you 
 will to think, not be driven, like an unthinking horse, 
 hither and thither. We talk to people about control- 
 ling the mind, holding still and thinking on one subject 
 for a few moments. They say, " I cannot think on any 
 subject for two minutes." Why? Because they have 
 never decided with a, will to take control of themselves, 
 and are just like a leaf in the wind, and every intiu- 
 
124 TRANSMUTATION. 
 
 ence that meets them takes control of them for the 
 instant. 
 
 The work of thinking is the work of combustion in 
 the body. It is fire, it is the liberation of the divine 
 elements, by transmuting the grosser into the finer, sub- 
 limating them into a subtle element we cannot see or 
 feel but by the aid of the unfolded finer senses. But, 
 if we give the ascendency to the next lower prin- 
 ciple, fermentation, whose office it is to tear down and 
 build other organisms out of the material substances of 
 the parent organism, then we are subject to the mind 
 that controls the lower nature, the animal generative 
 functions, " the Serpent." This principle takes your 
 life-essences and forms other organisms in your chil- 
 dren, and your lifetime is spent to bring into existence 
 offspring. But the result is that the parent organism 
 returns to its earth without having made much progress. 
 If, on the contrary, you give the control to the sixth 
 principle, transmutation, these elements, sublimated by 
 the tr fire," are drawn up to the brain, and turn all their 
 power in that direction. These higher thoughts, tele- 
 graphed to the chemist, will cause him to take purer 
 elements into the body, so that the whole being will be 
 constantly getting finer and more spiritual ; and, in con- 
 sequence, the brain will again receive higher and yet 
 higher thoughts, until man is enabled to think like his 
 lather, God. 
 
 The great chemist of Nature is most abundant in his 
 work, he gives the body any amount of fuel to work 
 on. The only thing for us to do is to utilize it wisely, 
 for the lower forces will certainly utilize it if we do 
 
TRANSMUTATION. 125 
 
 not. If we arc like the leaf in the wind, driven by our 
 animal conditions, then this divine chemist can do noth- 
 ing more than venerate life-i>erms and give them into 
 the hands of "the Serpent" — the god of generation. 
 The choice is given into our hands. If we keep the 
 divine principle of fire, this transmuting life-energy, 
 ever aetive in ourselves, then our body will be viva- 
 cious, — full of energy and animation, — our cheeks 
 flushed, our eyes bright. And, in the midst of that 
 blazing energy, we step out and, as we started out in 
 our first lecture, take the name of God, "I will be 
 what I will to be," and in the dignity of our manhood 
 say, " I will no longer be controlled by these lower 
 principles from whence I sprang, but I will take con- 
 trol of my thinking powers, and of all the seven cre- 
 ative forces operative in my body. I will make my 
 body God's temple, — an instrument that will enable me 
 to be a man; yea, more than a man, a god-man!" 
 For the tire-principle, the very essence of the God of 
 the universe, is in everything. AVhy, everything we 
 touch is filled with that divine fire ! You have powers 
 within you to begin at the right place and take control 
 of that fire, which will immediately begin to sublimate 
 your nature. 
 
 The flame of the little match I held before you was 
 red ; it was not clear, pure white, like the electric spark, 
 simply because in that flame there was a great quantity 
 of grosser elements not transmuted. Sufficient heat 
 could be applied to that burning wood to have made 
 the flame pure and white. "We are told that Moses 
 saw a bush burning and it was not consumed ; and he 
 
126 TRANSMUTATION. 
 
 turned aside to see the wonder. He saw the fire con- 
 centrated there, but no consumption. "We are told 
 that in combustion the particles, being liberated, re- 
 volve with great rapidity among themselves. But the 
 finer essences of the divine being are pure ; there are 
 no crude substances at all to be taken hold of and to 
 be transmuted. There is no grinding process to tear 
 down the particles, and thereby to create this lurid con- 
 dition ; and when the fire is free from all organic life 
 and free from negation, it consumes nothing; it is 
 pure, calm, gentle. It is the only thing in the uni- 
 verse that is still : being pure, it has nothing to evolve 
 or revolve. 
 
 At this place I wish to give you my thought about 
 sight. "What is this sight? We look at that gas- 
 flame and from it emanates something that enables us 
 to see all in the room. "We all know the theory of the 
 eye : of its being a lens ; of the image being thrown 
 back on the nerves, and of the sensation produced by 
 the waves of light telegraphed to the brain. If we ex- 
 amine a nerve Ave find it is filled with a crystal 
 water bright and clear as the clearest spring-water. 
 Touch that little nerve, and oh, how sensitive it is ! 
 Touch the central tube where that water is and the sense 
 is more acute there than anywhere else. The fact is 
 that the crystal water is the sense-element which, 
 when brought into combustion, being so pure, so near 
 the point of evaporation, produces no flame affecting 
 the fibres of the nerve or its surroundings. The 
 nerve-fluid has in itself the very quintessence of life, 
 and therefore, of sense ; one more stage of transmu- 
 
TRANSMUTATION. 127 
 
 tation would make of it light. This the tire in the 
 brain does ; so that thought-forms appear luminous to 
 the clairvoyant. Positive life tills the eye. Like is 
 positive to like. Life takes cognizance of that like 
 itself, and if the life that fills the eye is pure, and no 
 gross substance in it at all, it will be pure, white light, 
 and not see cross matter, but thought-essence. The 
 
 © ' © 
 
 iluid that fills the nerve cognizes that like itself, light 
 cognizes light ; darkness cognizes darkness. \Ye re- 
 turn now to our main subject. 
 
 The principle of fermentation in our body has its 
 centre in the generative function. It is ever tearing 
 
 © © 
 
 down the body, and giving opportunity for that life 
 in the torn-down elements to form another organism, 
 — a germ. Now, what should be done with this germ? 
 
 © ' © 
 
 I am sorry that so many of our physiologists, so called, 
 tell you it is necessary to give the germs to the Serpent 
 to Avaste. Never was a worse lie told by a human be- 
 ing, — a lie that has dragged down more men and women, 
 
 © ' ©© 7 
 
 and ruined our domestic happiness, more than any other. 
 If, instead of wasting that germ, you retain it in the 
 body, the tire will take those little serpent-like forma- 
 tions and burn them up. It will transmit their essences 
 to these pure elements of nerve fluid, which is life itself. 
 The body will distribute them through every part, so 
 that every movement will be a pleasure, and the soul 
 will be made conscious of having a power superior to 
 the ordinary environments. Those essences will be to us 
 the " Substance " referred to by Paul when he said, 
 "Faith is the substance of things." Jesus said: "If 
 you have Faith as a grain of mustard-seed, you could 
 
1 28 TRANSMUTATION. 
 
 say to that tree, "Be thou plucked up and cast into the 
 sea," and it would obey you. This is the process by 
 which to obtain Magic Power. "What a contrast be- 
 tween this pleasure and that which is produced while 
 the life is being concentrated in the sex-function and 
 thrown off in that relation ! As long as you give that 
 divine essence, created by the God within you. to the 
 Serpent to waste and destroy, you go through life bur- 
 dened, heavy, and sad. Well has such a life been 
 called, "a lonsr-drawn sish" ! Here are the two ways. 
 One is following down the chain of animal life, the 
 other is going up the ladder toward the divine Cause. 
 There fire is our friend, burning and transmuting our 
 body. When this is done, we have said to Force: 
 " You shall no longer bind my elements in this narrow 
 sphere. I will call for that divine essence of fire, and 
 burn it out." To Discrimination we say : " You are to 
 make my being superior to all other beings. And lo ! all 
 life is God, and everything that is is filled with that 
 essence, and I will open out and aspire of that essence.* 
 We say to Order: "You are my servant, and shall 
 create for me thought-formations according to that 
 higher principle. You shall build for me my heaven." 
 For all the heaven we shall ever have is the thoughts 
 we are thinking ; they will be our future consciousness ; 
 out of your thoughts you are building your heaven or 
 your hell. We shall say to Cohesion: "You shall be 
 my Strength of Will, conserve and maintain my body 
 and furnish the appropriate elements for my laboratory 
 so that I shall have abundance of all I need." We shall 
 say to Fermentation : " You also are my servant, and 
 
TRANSMUTATION. 129 
 
 through your subtle power (usually known as Psychic 
 Power), I will send forth my thought to do service in 
 whatever department of Nature I will." We shall say 
 to Transmutation: "You shall transmute the gross cle- 
 ments of my body into those most subtle, that I may be 
 superior to earth, and belike my Maker, and through you 
 I will say to Sensation : You shall be my messenger 
 to keep me informed of all I wish to know of this world 
 and its laws and methods, and shall make me conscious 
 of the thoughts of men, angels, and of God, and cause 
 me to live in the enjoyment of the Paradise of God's 
 Thought forever." 
 
 For, as that Love-nature gathers and provides the 
 necessary elements out of which I make and transmute 
 this divine essence of being, and make of it whatever I 
 will to make, Nature thus becomes subject to my will, 
 because I control the Thinking Power by the Will. 
 By taking the Name of the Creator, that implies "the 
 will to be what I will to be." These powers are in you, 
 and all there is for you to do is to take hold of one 
 thing at a time. Yes, take hold of your own body 
 first ; be master of your own mind, then be master of 
 your own senses, and then you can easily be master of 
 all the other forces, and fire will be found to possess a 
 consciousness that our thought will control in all its 
 forms until in all its phases it will become obedient to 
 your thought and your will. 
 
 When the essences of our being are so sublimated 
 fire is held in abeyance within ourselves, and if you 
 have taken control of that fifth principle, and utilized 
 the sixth, you will find the truth of the stories that 
 
130 TRANSMUTATION. 
 
 come to us across the water from- the Orient of 
 persons who, through these processes, have conserved a 
 natural fire in their own bodies capable of kindling a 
 real fire by blowing their breath upon ordinary fuel. 
 But if you allow the Serpent to w 7 aste and destroy the 
 finer substances of your nature, that seething fire 
 burning within you will become a smouldering mass of 
 ruins, so closed with gross material that it cannot be 
 luminous and bright; whereas, if you turn it in the 
 other direction, you will clear up the body, fill it with 
 that crystal element, and the fire will burn bright like 
 the electric spark, and be the light of Life, Knowledge, 
 Wisdom, Power like unto the great Cause and Source 
 from which it comes. All things, both earthly and in- 
 visible, will begin to be your servants; for the earthly 
 things are only the expression of the invisible things, 
 through the action of the principles I have shown you. 
 
 Such powers are in your bodies, and if you stop and 
 think as you should, going through this course of les- 
 sons, you will know just where to begin and what to do, 
 and how to conserve these forces, making them your 
 servants. And, when you have done so, you come to 
 this first and last principle, the seventh stage of unfold- 
 ment which we are to consider, when fire will have be- 
 come your servant and you the master. 
 
 The ancients had in their thought the same work of 
 sublimating the essences, and subjecting the seven forces, 
 and came to a point in their unfoldment, w T hen their 
 inner consciousness was illuminated, and told us there w r as 
 a place where there was nothing but that pure, perfect, 
 white light, the most sacred place in the universe, — 
 
TRANSMUTATION. 131 
 
 the home of God. At Niagara Fulls, this winter, as I 
 was standing and looking at the tremendous fall of 
 water, my soul seemed to be opened, and I was conscious 
 of that great centre of pure whiteness ; it was to me a 
 conscious vision as of a plaee ; yet I am not prepared to 
 say it is a locality. Let it be what it will, that pure 
 ethereal whiteness brings a calm of restful satisfaction. 
 
 We talk about pleasure and enjoyment. "We know 
 nothing about it. Xot one of us has anything like an 
 adequate idea of it, and we never can have until the old 
 Serpent is absolutely enslaved to our will. "When this 
 is done, and the inner consciousness, that most beautiful 
 and sublime life, has come to be unfolded within, and we 
 have a cognizance of that eternal rest and satisfaction, 
 realizing that it permeates our inner being, then there 
 will be a realization that you have attained a point Avhere 
 there is an absolute consciousness that if this body 
 should pass away, should be consumed in the flames, 
 you would be unmoved, your soul satisfied, restful, 
 and at peace, consciousness going on and on into the 
 unbounded realms of knowledge, wisdom, enjo}ment, 
 surpassing all the thought of sense. This consciousness 
 may and yet will be ours. 
 
 I am not endeavoring to get you to believe any doc- 
 trine. I come to you as men and women, able to think ; 
 and I ask you to think, not for my sake, but for your 
 own, for humanity's sake ; to turn your thoughts in the 
 right directions ; to rise above that dark and dismal 
 sphere of a mere animal life. Be men, and come into the 
 divine inheritance, and " be what you will to be," having 
 passed through Transmutation, to awake in everlasting 
 "Glory." 
 
mm 
 
 "/ will be what I will to be." 
 
EIGHTH LECTURE. 
 
 SENSATION. 
 
 THE SEVENTH OF THE SEVEN CREATIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 AVe are this evening brought to the consideration of 
 the seventh of the seven principles, being the one 
 denominated on the diagram as " Sensation." To enforce 
 the subject more fully I would say, that, beginning 
 with Force, we traced around, considering each of the 
 seven principles in their order. Each is united to the 
 other, and cannot work without that unity ; but, as we go 
 on, each successive one is more and yet more potent in 
 its operation, as it calls into unity all the forces that 
 have preceded it ; so that, having been brought, this 
 evening, to the seventh, it necessitates the other six in 
 order that this may exist. We begin with Force as 
 the principle that concentrates and brings matter into 
 existence. The second principle discriminates and 
 polarizes the atoms of matter. The third gives order 
 to all formation. The fourth causes all thing's, after 
 the formation has taken place, to cohere and adhere 
 together, and makes growth of vegetation possible. 
 The fifth is the state of fermentation, wherein the ele- 
 
13 <) SENSATION. 
 
 ments of which the vegetable is composed are chang- 
 ing, the life-forces concentrating and forming for 
 themselves independent organisms wherein to manifest 
 their nature, the first mode of which life is, through 
 transmutation, when insect existence begins to take 
 nourishment, which is transmuted from the condition in 
 which it is in when taken into the little organism, to 
 that like the higher essences of its nature. The result 
 of this combination makes possible the reception of the 
 principle of sensation. 
 
 While, in itself, sensation is a distinct principle, yet, 
 without its alliance to matter, to organism, there is no 
 sensation. Sensation is a mode of consciousness. I 
 presume that there is no word more commonly used, 
 and none having so little known of its nature and 
 quality as the principle of sensation. In fact, the real 
 principles underlying it can never be comprehended by 
 human intelligence ; but it may be apprehended. We 
 may, this evening, be enabled to trace its workings, to 
 observe the laws and methods and localities ; but when 
 we have asked the question, What is sensation? we 
 can only answer, that sensation is the instrument or the 
 mode by which the life reaches out and preserves itself, 
 the mode of cognizance, the instrumentality by which 
 knowledge comes to life. Then, when we have come to 
 consider the idea of sensation from this interior stand- 
 point, we ask the question again, What is life? Here 
 we are lost in the infinite ocean of Cause, — the great 
 
 7 ~ 
 
 source of being, the spirit essence which alone has the 
 power of cognizance. 
 
 The interior essence of being has, in all organisms, 
 
SENSATION. 137 
 
 formed instruments for itself by which it reaches out 
 and comes in contact with the physical world, through 
 which contact it takes cognizance of it. This principle 
 of sensation becomes the means by which the life is 
 preserved from destruction, by itself or by its enemies. 
 Sensation is the germ of all thought, from which all 
 thought originates. Were it not for sensation thought 
 would not be known in the world. 
 
 Thought has unfolded from sensation in this way : 
 Those insect existences grow and develop and increase, 
 feed one upon another, multiplying qualities, and thus 
 necessitating additional functions, and also organs, 
 until higher and yet higher stages of insect existence 
 appear in the world. Sensation lies at the foundation 
 of the multiplicity of organic life. The sense of sight, 
 the sense by which we cognize light, is the means by 
 which the eye has been formed. The sense of pain and 
 pleasure, or the idea of being hurt, and the effort to 
 preserve themselves from destruction among their fel- 
 lows, has caused them to earnestly desire. Again a 
 thought has been created which answers to that desire, 
 to be able to take cognizance of, and protect themselves 
 from the adversaries of their life. This effort to take 
 cognizance we see in the little insects that have no 
 eyes, but shoot out a feeler and feel their way around 
 them. They are standing quietly, or may be moving 
 along rapidly, and a little unusual noise or sound will 
 cause them to stop suddenly, and their little feelers will 
 go out in every direction, and, as soon as they are made 
 conscious of some unusual fellow-creature, of whatever 
 size or character it may be, they at once seek their 
 
138 SENSATION. 
 
 methods of self-protection. Here it is that the neces- 
 sity of throwing the senses into the extremities 
 springs up. 
 
 As we come to examine and look after the elements, 
 or substances, if you please, in which the sense is found 
 most dominant, we find it is in that crystal water that is 
 usually denominated, "nerve fluid," and with which the 
 nerve is filled. In it is the most acute sense, and wher- 
 ever the thought goes, there goes its essence of life with 
 it. The blind man I referred to before, who has been 
 taught to read with the finders, soon gets so that 
 he can read with astonishing rapidity ; scarcely is it 
 necessary for him to touch the raised letters. I knew 
 a man that was totally blind, yet, if a cat ran across the 
 street before him he knew it. He had been in the 
 habit of throwing the senses to the front, and that habit 
 had made the nerve-centres so acute that they took 
 cognizance of a shadow or of anything that passed 
 before them. 
 
 "We are taught by the masters of the Orient, both 
 ancient and modern, that we should conquer sensation. 
 What does this imply? "We conquer that which gives 
 rise to thought. Yes, we conquer this basis, this 
 foundation principle, and we turn our attention toward 
 the cause ; that is, after the work of evolution has 
 gone to its limit in ourselves, then we no longer feel as 
 though we were down here on the earth, but draw our 
 consciousness, our cognizance, from the earth condition, 
 as we see the butterfly arising from a lower form. 
 Having developed the interior and spiritual essences, 
 and filled the body with their purer essence of life, 
 
SENSATION. 139 
 
 through a persistent conserving of the life-potencies 
 within the body ; having conquered all the baser nature, 
 the principle of uncontrolled generation ; having turned 
 all the forces into the higher uses of the body, and 
 filled it with luminous life-elements, — then the body 
 begins to be able to take cognizance of purer, higher, 
 and grander thought than can be found upon the 
 earth-plane ; for, when we begin to conquer the sensa- 
 tions that come to us from the physical body, we at once 
 reach out and begin to sense the more subtle and more 
 perfect thought-emanations of the Creator. There can 
 be no effort made without a desire. Desire is the 
 method of prayer, as has been well said. " Prayer is 
 the sincere desire of the heart." Love is a form of 
 desire. God is love. 
 
 In the consideration of these seven principles Cohe- 
 sion was shown to be the mother-nature, the mother- 
 love being the active one in the world, that we admire 
 and respect more than all others as the preserver of all 
 things, as that principle that has such zealous care over 
 all its subjects. When the mother-nature is well em- 
 bodied, and has its full and comprehensive understand- 
 ing in us, and we come to recognize the subject that 
 we have been talking to you about, namely, that we 
 are only one of a great family of the Infinite Father, 
 God, and that all men, all creatures, all life, all forma- 
 tion are alike the offspring of the one great Mind, then 
 we enlarge the sphere of the mother-love from merely 
 that narrow family relation, to become like the Divine 
 Mother that loves all her creatures alike, that is no 
 respecter of persons. The pure mother would give 
 
140 SENSATION. 
 
 her life, would work until the flesh was worn from her 
 bones, would lie down at night exhausted, sleepless, 
 and anxious for the sake of providing for her offspring, 
 for her children, for their education, for their qualifi- 
 cation to enable them to step out on the field of action 
 to take care of themselves in the world. 
 
 When that mother-love in us has had its perfect un- 
 foldment, and we look out upon the world of humanity 
 and see that all are God's children, — and we are the 
 sons of God, — that we are joint-heirs, and, therefore, 
 these are all our children, then we enlarge the sphere, 
 and take into the encompassing love all things, and we 
 labor with diligence, combined with divine wisdom, 
 that we may educate and uplift and relieve the suffering 
 of all God's creatures. This desire, when formulated, 
 will at once possess and polarize our inner conscious- 
 ness, so that it will reach out and begin to take cogni- 
 zance of the Everlasting Father, and then, and not until 
 then, comes to us, ever, the prayer — The Lord's 
 Prayer — that we have so frequently heard in our 
 churches, where Jesus says, "In this manner pray ye." 
 The very first utterance is " Our Father." Now, we 
 are told by the same authority, " Without faith is sin." 
 And without a consciousness of that object to which 
 we speak there can be no faith, there can be no ade- 
 quate concentration. How can you concentrate the 
 mind, the desire, upon an object, upon a principle, 
 upon a spirit, unless there is some means within you 
 by which you may take cognizance of that something 
 to which you are reaching out in love ? Can you love 
 something that you know nothing of; that you have 
 
SENSATION. 141 
 
 no idea of? No. Go to those devotional ones and 
 ask them, Do you love God? Oh, yes, they answer. 
 What is your idea of God, -\ve then ask? Can we get 
 them to define it at all? Do they not usually refuse, 
 because their own reason condemns it? Yet, when they 
 will define it, what is the result? They have pictured 
 to themselves a grand man, a high, ideal man, and 
 that man is the image of their worship. In that sense 
 they may be elevated by having fixed a standard of 
 manhood, desiring that standard, reaching out toward 
 it, inspiring from it. It has been a means of the 
 elevation of the race for ages past. But yet it is not 
 the highest one. While men have been in this state, 
 and have pictured for themselves a man, and have 
 reached out in their aspirations toward that man, 
 though there may have come thoughts directly from 
 the true God of the Universe, they have been reaching 
 out to something like themselves, — reaching out merely 
 throiurh the external senses. 
 
 I want here to call your attention to a thought. 
 Every thought that you think must of necessity have 
 a form. You cannot think anything without putting 
 it into form. We will illustrate it thus : The spiritual 
 man dwells within. Now, if a thought comes to a 
 man from without, reaches the senses without, and, 
 through the senses, becomes conscious to the spiritual 
 entity within, then it must give the exact inversion of 
 the form that it was in when it left the thinker's mind. 
 In other words, the type that makes the impression 
 has the wrong side up. It is inverted. 
 
 In the same way the human intelligence has received 
 
142 SENSATION. 
 
 every thought of God inverted. It is a wonderful 
 thing, if you will stop and think of it, to take the 
 thoughts, the doctrines, that are received by the think- 
 ing world at large. "We have received them through 
 this; living in the five senses. How thoroughly they have 
 inverted every divine thought, — even the one I have 
 just called your attention to, the Lord's Prayer ! 
 Where is there a Christian on the continent to-day 
 who, when he prays, " Father, let thy kingdom come, 
 and thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven," 
 if you should say, "Stop! what do you mean, — to 
 desire that God's will should be done here on the earth 
 as it is in heaven ? " He does not expect that, but 
 means all the time the other way about. " Let me go up 
 there and do thy will in heaven, for I cannot down 
 hero on earth." Just inverted. Go through the entire 
 revelation of the Scriptures, and you find that the mind 
 of men who have come to these things from the external 
 senses and reasoning of the brain, exclusively from 
 the external senses, has every idea exactly inverted ; 
 therefore the five senses cannot be trusted for spiritual 
 discernment. You cannot trust them any more than 
 you can read the type before the impression is made. 
 What must be done ? The inner consciousness must be 
 opened to the Soul of the Universe. There must be a 
 development from within, so that the soul itself, the 
 inmate that dwells within the house, has a power inde- 
 pendent of the five senses, to go out into the cause- 
 world, and to receive into the innermost consciousness 
 the thought of God, and project it out to the world. 
 We have to go by ourselves, independent of any man, 
 
SENSATION. 143 
 
 of any teachers, and reach out for the knowledge by 
 that innermost principle of love which is God-love, 
 and there is no God-love but that which is love to all 
 his creatures. And if I love my wife, my children, my 
 own little circle, to the exclusion of all others, and even 
 perchance to the oppression of others, — which we see all 
 the time, — this is self-love, and not God-love. 
 
 Now, this principle of true love is as necessary and, 
 in fact, it is (lie necessary principle to have always 
 active, being the true sense, the soul-sense, which can 
 be opened and made a receptacle of the thoughts of 
 God, that work from the interior out through the ex- 
 terior. " We must grow," says the Hindoo master, 
 " as the flower grows ; " and the flower gathers its 
 vitality from within, and unfolds from within to with- 
 out, and the external is being constantly thrown off. 
 Thus we must grow from within. AVe must cultivate 
 the interior senses to the suppression and perfection of 
 the external senses. 
 
 There is nothing more deceptive to the world than 
 the senses, in more ways than the inspirational. The 
 sense of pleasure is the most deceptive thing that we 
 have. Pleasure is nothing more than life in motion. 
 There can be no sensation without something that pro- 
 duces a movement of the life elements. There must be 
 a cause of motion before there can be any sensation. 
 Even for the sensation that belongs to the interior and 
 spiritual there must be a spiritual cause to produce it 
 before it can be manifest. We sense the touch of some 
 person or thing. There has been a movement from 
 without that has caused the sensation. 
 
144 SENSATION. 
 
 If we trace further, and ask the question, "What is that 
 we call pleasure? " we feel all animated and joyous, and 
 the bright red blood springs to the cheeks. The eyes 
 glow with all the lustre, and fulness, and vitality that 
 fills the body ; Ave are animated, we are happy ; but that 
 lasts for a little time only, and we begin to feel tired. 
 Now what has taken place? This life, and animation, 
 and joy, was merely a going out and throwing off of the 
 finest elements of our life. A waste. Yes, perhaps a 
 waste of the purest elements that we possess. That is 
 all there is in it. We Ave re simply using and exhaust- 
 ing the very essences of being, and it was pleasure 
 while it was going on, but the reaction comes after- 
 wards. The very principle that controls the animal 
 world in the function of generation is sensation ; the 
 sensation of all kinds of pleasure rules sufficiently 
 strong to dominate OA^er all mankind as an incentive to 
 action ; and why? Because the very finest essences of 
 our existence are being concentrated and formulated in 
 a germ, using the divinest principle of our being, and 
 in that action of concentration all these finer essences in 
 their action impart a sense of pleasure. And the final 
 exodus of that essence is the ultimate of that pleasure. 
 Then come exhaustion and repulsion. The body is 
 weakened ; the mind is lost ; the A'italizing principle that 
 animates the molecules of the body has gone. Right 
 here can be found the cause of our being so subject to 
 diseased conditions. The mind may be very active, 
 the brain fully engaged in some useful, and perhaps 
 thoughtful labor. Finally the body gets full of life 
 and animation. Every molecule seems to be aglow Avith 
 
SENSATION. 145 
 
 life. We perhaps overfeed the body to secure .addi- 
 tional strength, or as a matter of habit. Finally, when 
 the body is filled with this additional material, there 
 comes the demand of the lower, the sense-nature ; it 
 reaches the mind ; that life-essence is then concentrated in 
 the sex-nature and goes out from us. The body is ex- 
 hausted. The creative part of this animating, vivifying 
 life that permeated all the particles of the body is gone. 
 Death has entered the body. Millions of molecules of 
 matter are left without their animating essence. At once 
 the divine mother-nature, coworking with the wonderful 
 mechanic, order, concentrates her forces upon the most 
 fit, leaving all the rest to be thrown off, and the work 
 begins in the body to gather up these dead atoms and 
 bring them into the blood, and carry them off through 
 the ordinary channels of effete matter. In that con li- 
 tion we feel tired, languid, irritable. We are ansrry at 
 the least thing. We do not know why. But stop and 
 think, and we will find that there is an interior will that 
 is called into action. Every nerve is strained. All the 
 forces are diligently at work in the body to cleanse it 
 from these dead carcasses that are left there because of 
 the injudicious waste of the finer essences of the system. 
 Perhaps they are resurrected in another form. But 
 our life must now be taxed. We must go to work and 
 tear down and get rid of those dead and impure mole- 
 cules in the body, and the act of doing so taxes the 
 body to its utmost. Supposing, at that time, some 
 poisonous condition comes in, — some extra taxation on 
 the body from another source, — the body is then like 
 an army that has an adversary to fight hand to hand, 
 
14(3 SENSATION. 
 
 man to man ; and now the enemy is suddenly re- 
 enforced, and you fall victims, simply because you have 
 not maintained that perfect equilibrium of life. 
 
 We are taught by the masters that we must obtain 
 that deep soul-calm that is unmoved under all circum- 
 stances ; that we must move through the world as one 
 with power to be and to do what he wills to be and to 
 do. Such is necessary. No one will be master until 
 he can move through this world having sufficient 
 mastery to be unmoved, self-controlled. "We would 
 not think a man was very much of a master of his 
 enemies, if, when he walked through their midst, he 
 went skulking here and there. He is the master who 
 walks through the midst of his enemies without fear, 
 without a tremor, feeling within himself that he is 
 master of his surroundings ; moving with a calm self- 
 possession. 
 
 We must conquer our senses ; for they exhaust the 
 vital fluids and leave us depleted, and, whilst we are 
 ruled by them, we are jostled here and there. We are 
 crowded by adversaries from within and without, and 
 these adversaries without, and the irregularity of our 
 own life within, ^keep us continually in this struggling 
 condition. Here poising your mind on one object, 
 dwelling there day after day, and week after week, will 
 not give you the needed power ; no ordinary drill will 
 suffice ; this power must come from within, — from the 
 forces that you possess, from the actions and laws of 
 your being. 
 
 That which allies us to this world is sensation. It 
 was there our consciousness began. We seek its cause ; 
 
SENSATION. 147 
 
 > 
 
 we know its workings ; we know what is accomplished 
 when sensations are active within us. Therefore, we 
 watch them as we would watch a thief. When we feel 
 that sensation is in the body, we know there is some 
 cause for it. Watch carefully what is being done ; 
 what is being accomplished. Watch from the inner 
 consciousness ; hold still all other senses ; look into 
 the mind, and observe the springs of thought and sen- 
 sation. Be quiet. Listen with the stillness of every 
 function and faculty of the mind and body ; and, as you 
 listen and question, — for the God that dwells within you 
 is identical with the God that rules the universe, both 
 in power and wisdom, — that God within you is able 
 to answer every question. Listen to his voice ! 
 
 No wonder, as Isaiah said, " When I spake, there was 
 none to answer. When I called there was none to sav, 
 'Here am I.'" Because, as the voice of God calling in 
 the garden (Whose garden? Why, the garden of your 
 bod}"), when all these animal senses are active, he 
 speaks, and speaks, and speaks again, and there is no 
 ear to hear. We are too busy with these inverted senses. 
 The glitter and glamour of a world of sense stultifies 
 the mind, deafens the ear; and, though it calls aloud, 
 we think it is the voice of fancy, and again we go more 
 and more deeply into the senses. The teachers of 
 spiritual laws tell us we must be careful and not run 
 after phantoms ; that God is spirit, yet God never any 
 more approaches man ; that man is isolated from God. 
 Oh, sad condition if it were so ! No ! God dwells within 
 the soul, is enthroned upon the will, rules in the life- 
 forces, serves as a faithful and over-indulgent mother, 
 
148 SENSATION. 
 
 anxious for the good of all ; serving and sustaining vou 
 ever, though you do evil ; constantly laboring to pre- 
 serve your life. If you waste the gold of pure life he 
 at once goes to work diligently to replace it. On and 
 on the divine principle labors, until, finally, you have 
 sinned "against the day of grace ; " in other words, you 
 have so exhausted the body that it has become unfit for 
 other uses, and that same principle disintegrates the 
 body for service in other directions. 
 
 Then the sense that we want is that inner sense that 
 listens, hears, feels, and cognizes God, the Cause, the 
 indwelling pure Spirit ; and, to do so, the man who is 
 master of himself, has reason above sensation, he 
 knows the voice of the Almighty as it calls within 
 him. God acts and speaks through the consciousness, 
 is zealous, in the man or the woman, for the good of 
 all men and all women. This should cause vou and me 
 to desire, with the same earnest, anxious love that the 
 mother has for her child, to labor for humanity, to 
 desire their well-being, to desire that they should come 
 into this divine consciousness. 
 
 "When heavenly desire is active, then man can pray ; 
 but not without it can he pray effectually. Then the 
 prayer of that soul that looks out upon the human 
 family and the world, and sees the fallen condition we are 
 in to-day, and reaches out with that pure thought that 
 they should have : " Oh, for wisdom and power ! that 
 I might work under thy divine guidance for the 
 elevation of my brethren, of those under my care! — 
 Oh, that I might become an instrument in the hands 
 of that Infinite Power to work that I may alleviate, 
 
SENSATION. 149 
 
 elevate, and strengthen ; that I may bring my fellows 
 into the consciousness of that glorified life ! " 
 
 We are now like the tube that has been lying across 
 the rapid rushing stream until its interior is tilled with 
 gravel and clay and dirt ; but, if it is turned around 
 lengthwise with the stream, the waters rush through 
 and clean it, and the waters have free course through it. 
 So you and I. When our interior is turned in a direct 
 line to the Great Soul that loves the world and gives 
 itself for its elevation, when we are thus blessed with 
 the divine life, the current flows through us as the 
 mighty rushing river flows through the tube to all 
 the creatures for whom we desire this " Blessing " that 
 we have obtained. 
 
NINTH LIC T U E K. 
 
 COLORS. 
 
 We will accept that there arc but three primary 
 colors, and that from these three all colors may he 
 made. It is also accepted that there are but three 
 primary principles in Nature. 
 
 This primary condition or manifest principle in man 
 is represented by the triangle. Red is the base of the 
 material flesh. It is the color of the blood, or animal 
 life, the force principle, or the first principle of Nature, 
 the primary that calls together and binds and enspheres 
 all things. It is that color which gives to the sense 
 the inclination to self-preservation ; which inclination, 
 when carried into the intellectual realm of humanity, is 
 selfishness. (Of course, the more intellectual the per- 
 sons who indulge in selfishness may be, the greater 
 ability they will have to make that selfish principle one 
 of great evil and oppression.) 
 
 I take up the subject of colors mainly for this reason : 
 There are thousands to-day whose sixth sense is being 
 opened, so that they begin to have a conscious percep- 
 tion of thought-forms, of spirit entities, as they are 
 called, and actually are, in some cases ; and the sixth 
 sense is one that ramifies in such a multifarious munner 
 
154 COLORS. 
 
 that it would take a whole evening's consideration to 
 even present to you anything like an adequate idea of 
 its extent. 
 
 As we begin at the lowest sense and come up to the 
 highest, we find in their order that they expand in their 
 utility and power. So, when we take another step be- 
 yond the five senses into the realm of cause, or rather 
 make a nearer approach to cause, with this sixth sense, 
 which reaches out more largely and broadly into that 
 realm, and in many cases, in my own experience espe- 
 cially, with those persons whose minds are allied prin- 
 cipally to sight, as the sixth sense, or, as some have 
 called it, " the spirit eyes " are opened, first begin to see 
 a variety of colors. Therefore, this subject of colors 
 is in order, because of the teachings which are beinar 
 given from time to time, not only here, but throughout 
 the world wherever Theoxophy has found a hearing. 
 Those teachings, in fact, lead to the unfoldment of these 
 higher senses that we are not now conscious of. The 
 people that are most perfectly endowed by, or, rather, 
 allied to, Nature in its purity, in its order and harmony, 
 are those whose minds, when the sixth sense begins to 
 be opened, will take cognizance of colors and forms. 
 
 Forms relate to the magnetism of the universe and 
 the language of the Creator, because all forms are 
 thoughts, and all thoughts are forms. Otherwise, they 
 would never act upon our consciousness, or we would 
 never be conscious of them. Therefore, when the 
 " spirit eyes," or the sixth sense is opened, colors and 
 forms present themselves before the vision. These are 
 the thoughts we find employed throughout the Hebrew 
 
COLORS. 155 
 
 prophecies. "We find that the imagery, which was the 
 language of creation, of beasts of varied characters, 
 birds, creeping things, all varieties of animate and vege- 
 table existence, was called into use to illustrate or 
 express the " word " or thought of the Creator. 
 
 Thought imaged itself upon the mind of the prophets of 
 antiquity, and we are not far remote in our natures from 
 those old seers and sages. The thing for us to do is to 
 live in accordance with the same methods with which 
 they lived, and the same powers are ours. I do not 
 think that the race has declined, or that the interior 
 powers, which we once possessed, from eighteen hun- 
 dred to six thousand years ago, have passed away by 
 means of diminution or loss. God's laws never change. 
 They are the same forever ; and though, through foolish 
 teachings, we may have believed that these interior 
 powers belonged only to a special few ; though we 
 may have formed the idea of a srod-man, or a man-god, 
 who controlled his subjects, as do kings of the lower 
 plane of existence, by edicts, and by being angry or 
 pleased ; and though we may have thought that the 
 people at one period of the world were favored by this 
 superior monarch, and that this favor has now been 
 withdrawn, yet we should be sorry to believe this now. 
 "We believe that grand old book itself which tells us, 
 from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, 
 that the God, of whose thought it is the record never 
 changes, works always by law and according to law, and 
 that it is rce who change. By virtue of these changes we 
 are either come into more perfect harmony with his law, 
 and become more cognizant of its workings, or into less 
 
156 COLORS. 
 
 harmony, and become less cognizant of its workings or 
 of any higher principles of Nature. 
 
 The first color, then, that relates directly to the 
 human organism, to the animal forces, is the color red. 
 This has in it the property of heat, because its function 
 is concentrativeness. It is magnetic to the extreme ; 
 and, because it is magnetic and concentrative, it is 
 heating. 
 
 The second color is that outgrowth of the workings 
 of the spirit upon the physical body, representing the 
 mind and the first principles of mind, which is order, 
 and is symbolized by the color blue, which is the 
 counterpart of green, the symbol of mother Nature. 
 
 The third color, that of sensation, is yellow. That is 
 the color of sense. It represents in its character rest, 
 harmony ; rest, simply because sensation belongs to 
 knowledge, and is of that golden perfection of spirit- 
 life. The yellow represents, therefore, perfection. 
 The shade of color always has its own significance, 
 which we will consider hereafter. These are the three 
 primary or foundation principles that underlie all 
 others. 
 
 The sun's spectrum, having the seven color-rays 
 clearly defined, is representative of seven distinctly 
 different principles. It is unquestionably a fact in 
 Nature that there are seven distinct color-rays, as 
 there are seven notes in music, seven sounds of har- 
 mony. 
 
 The seven qualities or primary creative energies that 
 we have been talking about as principles are found 
 in each and every one of us. As is shown in our new 
 
COLORS. 157 
 
 system of " Solar Biology," these seven are seven 
 vitals or primaries. There are, in all, twelve spheres 
 of uses or organic qualities in man ; but the seven are 
 the vital principles, without which man cannot exist. 
 These seven, as they are known in music, in simple 
 music demonstrated as a fact, have several octaves one 
 above another, their vibrations differing one from the 
 other. There are vibrations so rapid and others so 
 slow so as to produce no discernible sound to the ordi- 
 nary senses. 
 
 The time will come when w T e can distinguish sounds 
 by their colors. In fact, w T e read that there are those 
 who see, in every note of music, the color. Not only 
 the color, but when these notes are interblendcd 
 according to the law of order (which order is charac- 
 teristic in the human mind, and music produces a har- 
 mony corresponding), there are those who see animate* 
 forms springing forth from the key-board, like living, 
 active, spiritual beings. Why? Because these seven 
 creative principles, no matter how they are expressed, 
 or how they are called into action, act under the same 
 great law of the primal creative thought, the purpose 
 of which was a harmonic Man. 
 
 "We identify red with force, the animal principle in 
 Nature. It is the lowest of all the colors. If you 
 would sit in this room when the evening shades are 
 coming on, and look at these colors on the star you 
 would find that the yellow would disappear first. The 
 order of their disappearance would be such that the red 
 would be the last one to disappear in the darkness. It 
 would become black, and would stand out before your 
 
158 COLORS. 
 
 eyes as if th.it were the only color on that chart ; and 
 that color would appear black, being the strongest of 
 all the colors. 
 
 Pink we consider one of the seven. The idea em- 
 bodied in that delicate tint is love. It is a combina- 
 tion and interblending of the red and the white ; so that 
 there arises a beautiful tint of the living, active, vital 
 principle expressing purity of character. When there is 
 white and enough of the red, there comes to be a mani- 
 festation of discrimination. It also expresses thought, 
 repulsion at the least coarseness, grossness, or im- 
 purity in Nature. When we see the pink flower grow- 
 ing, notice the feeling which it produces in the mind, 
 especially in those who have any susceptibility for the 
 line arts. How delicate it appears ! We feel as if we 
 were almost too coarse to touch that beautiful, delicate 
 little blossom. It appears delicate, as this color is 
 the discriminative, the pure element, and produces 
 purity of feeling in all conditions. It is the principle 
 that should be the one cultivated by all means more 
 than all others, by those wHo are studying to unfold and 
 perfect their own lives. What we want is purity of 
 life, and by purity of life we obtain the purest mind- 
 potencies. We should therefore desire purity. 
 
 So, when your minds began to take cognizance of 
 that beyond the five senses, and you see before your 
 inner eyes this delicate tint of pink, you may know that 
 you have succeeded thus far to attract to yourselves the 
 influence that will work its beautiful work in you, will 
 separate you from all inversions, all impurity, all misuse, 
 and will lead your mind into the pure and the good. 
 
COLORS. 159 
 
 The third principle, the principle order, is blue. 
 Wc look up into the sky, and above us is that beautiful 
 blue. Why? There everything works in exactly the 
 order in which the Infinite Mind has placed it. There 
 is nothing out of order there. No jostling together of 
 worlds, no confusion. All is perfect order, and it is a 
 perfect blue. Those of you who heard the discourse 
 on order can readily apply the law, this evening, to the 
 color blue. 
 
 The antithesis, the opposition of order in Nature, is 
 represented by the color gray, indigo mixed with 
 red. It is the combination existing in matter when 
 order is being misplaced, confusion is being created. 
 The law of order is being taken away from the chemical 
 or vegetable substances. They are being decomposed. 
 The indigo being the most powerful decomposing ray, 
 the red being the most powerful concentrative ray, the 
 two struggle together in their work of tearing down 
 
 Oc © © 
 
 the old, whilst the red holds tenaciously to the life- 
 essences that are in the plant so that they may be 
 formed into another organism. For the law of God in 
 the workings of these seven principles allows nothing 
 to be wasted. There is no such thing as retrogression 
 in the divine law. Nothing in the world can retrograde 
 in the absolute sense. Of course, man may be said to 
 retrograde as a man, as an individual, as a personality, 
 or a conscious ego ; but, as to the essences of his being, 
 there is no retrogression. As soon as retrogression 
 
 © © 
 
 begins in a person the divine law of fermentation comes 
 in and begins to tear the man to pieces, to scatter his 
 parts, and he begins to die. He may, of course, attract 
 
160 COLORS. 
 
 to himself and embody in himself a greater amount of 
 the first principle, and thus be a strong animal ; but as 
 a strong animal he has to serve, so that there is no 
 absolute retrogression after all. Indeed there cannot 
 be. This principle of the red is struggling with the 
 indigo in the plant to maintain the vital principles and 
 to see to it that there is no retrogression in Nature. It 
 lays hold of the life-essences of the plant, and organizes 
 an insect existence which fills the air with winged 
 insects. Millions crawl and fly in the season when 
 vegetation decays in large quantities. Thus the princi- 
 ples of red and blue are overcome by that higher 
 above them. 
 
 But cohesion, the fourth principle, green, is the 
 potent conserver of organic life. It holds and binds 
 together the life-essences. Vegetation takes that color 
 because that is the principle which is most active. It 
 is the symbol of the unfoldment of vegetable life. 
 Therefore it expresses itself in this color, because, as 
 we have shown you, as w T e advance in these seven 
 colors higher and yet higher the immediately above 
 contains all below. The color green, then, represents 
 the mother-nature that preserves and holds together all 
 things. It represents fertility ; it represents growth, 
 unfoldment. Therefore it looks after the preservation 
 of its own, and gathers, and provides for those under 
 its care. To provide is the province of the mother- 
 nature. Therefore growth is always expressed and sym- 
 bolized in the Hebrew prophecies by the color green. 
 
 Take the twelve stones of the twelve signs of the 
 Zodiac, and each of the twelve stones has its color. 
 
COLORS. 161 
 
 The foundation of the Temple is represented as having 
 twelve stones, and the color of the stones is referred to 
 in other places. "Were it not that the color was in- 
 tended to express a meaning as well as the stone, the 
 color would not have been given in addition to the 
 name. The name would have been sufficient. The 
 stones, as crystallizations, are the symbols of all the 
 principles which exist. Therefore, when we see a 
 crystallization which is red, we can say that there is a 
 single principle crystallized there. AVhen we see pink, 
 we see there two principles crystallized ; when we see 
 blue, we see three crystallized principles. So in green 
 we have four principles. Yet, in each of these combina- 
 tions, that which absorbs, or the color which rules, is 
 the one which is active. But all the others must also 
 be there, or else no organic form would be found. 
 
 Yet another strange fact. In the most of crystalliza- 
 tions there will be found a definite form. Some of 
 the most beautiful formations and colors are found in 
 crystals. The most exquisite colors upon which the 
 eye ever looked are to be found in them. When we 
 understand the language of colors we will begin to 
 understand the Bible. None of us can ever know much 
 about the Bible until we understand all that is sym- 
 bolized by this star, all that is expressed in this system 
 of the seven creative principles. The Bible is a book 
 of science which deals with the workings of the laws 
 of Nature. It in no sense tells of a God who issues edicts 
 and then changes his mind. It tells of a people, it is 
 true, who had thoughts of that kind. Now we have 
 come to a time when people want facts. They want 
 
162 COLORS. 
 
 laws. And when we have laws clearly defined then we 
 will find that in that old book, the Bible, is more 
 scientific knowledge than in any number of books which 
 3'ou could obtain, and this notwithstanding the great 
 amount of error which has crept into the book, owing 
 to its passing through the hands of a people on a low 
 plane of unfoldment. There is no book its equal. 
 You may go to the Vedas, the sShastras, all the sacred 
 books and books of science, go where you will, there is 
 none that deals so directly and so harmoniously with 
 the central laws and methods of Nature as this book. 
 There is none which can be compared with this for its 
 mystic sayings. The Scripture writers' words could not 
 be understood by the people, so they were put into 
 similes for those who were thinkers upon the laws of 
 Nature. They were expressed in the language of God ; 
 and the language of God is form. And, as we read the 
 old prophets, we find, "I saw, and behold that beast 
 had so many horns, so many eyes, and so many 
 heads." 
 
 A person blind to the Esoterics of life says, " That is 
 all nonsense." To him so it is. But to those who un- 
 derstand them these symbols are full of meaning. So 
 with those of us who possess the sixth sense, the prin- 
 ciple of clairvoyance or clear sight, those of us who 
 are dwelling in the Esoteric ; — it is no matter by what 
 name you call us, — you are aware that we are not 
 associated or assimilated with any sect. We are the 
 class who want knowledge and truth. We belong to 
 ourselves. There is no truth for us save that which be- 
 longs to the law of divine order in Nature. We want 
 
COLORS. ll)3 
 
 the facts of things that are, not things Avhich appear to 
 be and are not. 
 
 The principle of green, then, in its ultimate, being 
 that of the mother-nature or soul-power, the feminine, 
 the coherent principle, it follows that when it is ulti- 
 mated in the feelings of manhood and womanhood, it will 
 be an expression of the principle of strength, — strength 
 which will enable one to accomplish anything, to do 
 whatever one wills to do. Thus, when we see the color 
 green in its different shades, we see symbolized to us 
 that strength, that maintaining power by virtue of 
 which we can go on and unfold and grow and manifest 
 the higher and nobler qualities of our divine selfhood. 
 
 Indigo-blue represents the fifth principle and belongs 
 to the principle of fermentation. The principle of fer- 
 mentation, however, is not always seen. Indigo-blue ap- 
 pears usually to the mind as black, representing death. If 
 you take the real indigo-blue you will find it would be 
 hard to distinguish it from black. It belongs, therefore, 
 to that condition we call death. Black, again, represents 
 evil, the adverse principle which destroys. Blackness or 
 darkness is a symbolic expression of the law that is 
 brought to light by the principle of fermentation, of the 
 serpent, the adversary, the principle of evil, the tearer 
 down of the unfit. If I should see before me an image of 
 blackness, and that image of blackness continued to fol- 
 low me, I should at once begin to turn my eye within, for 
 something wrong, something that I was doing, sorne- 
 
 © © ' © © ' 
 
 thing that I was thinking, some habit of life that was 
 wrong and was causing this image of blackness to be 
 
 © © © 
 
 ever present before me. I should go right into myself, 
 
164 COLORS. 
 
 and begin to study, begin to examine, begin to think, 
 until I found out what was wrong; and when I did, the 
 image would go. 
 
 Blackness is used all through the Bible as symbolic 
 of mourning and death. It belongs to the principle of 
 destruction, the adversary, the evil thoughts which act 
 to destroy. Black is usually found on the earth in 
 swampy ground, where there is stagnant water, but 
 sometimes, on looking across, the color seems to be 
 indigo-blue. You may observe a pond of stagnant 
 water, where fermentation has its full freedom of 
 action. Look across the surface and you see the indigo- 
 blue quite distinctly because there is decomposition 
 going on. The order of prior formation is being broken 
 up and thrown off, leaving a distinct shade of black. 
 
 The sixth principle is represented by violet. We are 
 told, by those who have analyzed it, that this color is 
 the most powerful chemical ray which we have. But 
 while it is the most powerful chemical ray, how quickly 
 it will leave us ! "We have, perchance, a beautiful carpet 
 of that exquisite color. The sun strikes it, and it dis- 
 appears. It is an active principle, — the sixth, it tran- 
 scends the five senses, and brings us, as a next step, 
 to spirit, the divinest of all things of which we can take 
 cognizance. The principle itself is not spirit, but the next 
 step to sensation. It is the active agent. It is Gabriel, 
 the archangel of the Divine. It is the chief actor, the 
 chief minister in all Nature, because it produces sensa- 
 tion and rightly used ultimates in blessing. This deli- 
 cate tint, wherever it appears, is good, very good. 
 But remember that, regarding all things that are 
 
COLORS. 165 
 
 good, the better they are, the more closely will they be 
 associated with those things which make the most 
 potent factors for evil. 
 
 If in the imagining power of my brain I begin to 
 read the language of God, and I see before me the 
 image of a carnivorous beast, a destroyer of flesh, and 
 I see that this beast is represented in red and in violet, 
 I may say at once there is something determined to 
 change my relation from this state of being to that of 
 another. Why so? Because it has the ultimate power 
 to change. Its function of red is force : its form is that 
 of a destroyer. Therefore it is about to tear and de- 
 stroy, and has the power with which to do it; and 
 being associated with violet would intimate death, 
 violet alone would imply transition to a higher state. 
 What beautiful tints of violet we see sometimes before 
 the mind ! I presume there is hardly a person before 
 me who does not sometimes see these colors. 
 
 AVe are taught by our teachers that these forms and 
 colors are "all imagination ; " and so they are, but of 
 the kind of imagination by which God made the world. 
 Imagination is the most potent factor in the world. 
 There is nothing having form in the universe but is the 
 outcome or creation of the imagination of the Infinite 
 Mind. We will learn also enough, sometime, to know 
 that there is nothing, it matters not whence it comes, 
 or in what form it may be shaped, but has a definite 
 meaning. Every image means something. There is 
 no such thing as chance in Nature. There is a law 
 underlying all life. So watch these imagining powers. 
 There is not a person before me to-night who has not, 
 
166 COLORS. 
 
 at times, on going to sleep, seen colors or images 
 before the mind. 
 
 If you want to know the condition in which you are, 
 just concentrate your mind and see what color first 
 appears. If you find the red coming up before you, 
 that being the color that portrays destruction, you had 
 better stop. Perhaps you may begin to see the beauti- 
 ful color of violet, or a tinge of yellow or gold, or per- 
 haps a bright crystal green. Beware, however, lest 
 you be deceived by the green. There are two kinds of 
 green ; one the beautiful crystal green, and the other the 
 dark, swampy green, the one very good, the other very 
 bad. The one is the divine mother which comprehends 
 all life everywhere, under all conditions. The other, 
 the selfish mother-love that would hold and retard. 
 
 We next have the seventh principle, — sensation, 
 represented by yellow. All through the Hebraic prophe- 
 cies you will find constant reference to "gold," the 
 pure gold, the golden this and the golden that. (I refer 
 to the Hebrew scriptures because, as I told you before, 
 they deal with the language of cause more than do any 
 other books in the world.) Now why is this ? Because 
 gold expresses the nature and embodiment of the princi- 
 ple of yellow, or triumph, the perfection of the seven 
 creative principles. Our Mongolian brothers under- 
 stand the occult value of colors. The yellow flag is, 
 with the Chinese, the symbol of the Divine. It is an 
 expression of the perfection of the seven creative 
 principles. Referring to the essences of life being con- 
 served and regenerated, renewed and perfected in the 
 organism of man, the principle therein is called God. 
 
COLORS. 167 
 
 "When the principle refers to the god-life, it is symbol- 
 ized in :i stone, in :i crystal or yellow-stone, which you 
 will verify on looking over the list of stones in the Bible. 
 Oh, this beautiful yellow ! How quickly, on entering - a 
 room where there is a great deal of yellow in the carpet, 
 or on the walls, with a harmonious blending of a few 
 other colors 3'ou will feel inspired, perhaps, to say : 
 " Oh, I experience such rest." If under excitement, you 
 seem to rest at once. 
 
 On looking over the world to-day we see that there 
 has never been a time in its history when humanity has 
 been so ill at ease, so oppressed by business and the 
 cares of life. Go through our stores to-day, and yon 
 will find that yellow is more extensively used than ever 
 before. In carpets, on wall-papers, in everything relat- 
 ing to home and surroundings, yellow is manifesting 
 itself. And those of you who are familiar with our 
 work, "Solar Biology," will have noticed that the planet 
 Uranus is at the present time in a position leading the 
 minds of men to think and reach out after spiritual 
 causes, or a knowledge of the laws of life. Now the 
 color of gold relates to the laws of life. Golden yel- 
 low, the base of spirituality, is in " sensation." In other 
 words, sensation acts as the hand of the spirit, by 
 means of which cognizance is had of material conditions, 
 and people brought under the sway of the spirit. 
 
 On looking back over the history of our earth, we see 
 how the mental conditions and tastes of humanity have 
 been influenced by forms and images. Take, for exam- 
 ple, a horse-shoe. People all now have a horse-shoe. 
 They do not know the meaning, however, of what they 
 
168 COLORS. 
 
 have got. They have something really which has a magi- 
 cal power like Jacob's famous rods. Jacob made a bar- 
 gain with Laban, his father-in-law (who had been in the 
 habit of cheating him), that he, Jacob, was to have all 
 the ring-streaked, the striped, and the speckled cattle as 
 his personal reward, and Laban agreed. So Jacob peeled 
 rods, that they might be alternately white, and set them 
 in the water-trough, so that as the cattle drank they 
 looked at those bright rods. And, behold ! the cattle 
 that were born were ring-streaked and speckled. That 
 is an evidence of a law of Nature. The image of a 
 thought presenting itself before the mind will impress 
 itself upon the soul, the principle of which afterwards 
 finds expression. Thus the world has been living up 
 to the prophecies and carrying out the very things that 
 were active in the great cause-mind a long time before. 
 We are acting these out in our love for the principle of 
 yellow. We are seeking rest ; but the world is as yet 
 finding little of it, I think. 
 
 We have said enough to enable the student to make 
 up his combinations, and it will be unnecessary for me to 
 go farther. If you have been enabled to hold the pri- 
 mates in your minds, you will be enabled to deduce, 
 or induce, the colors that are made therefrom. You 
 will see what are the combinations and what principle 
 is expressed in a given color, which may be put before 
 you. You now have a key to an unlimited variety of 
 shades and colors. All there is for you to do is to 
 study up a little as to what combinations and leading 
 colors are in any particular shade, and then you will 
 understand the mental conditions they express. 
 
COLORS. K)i) 
 
 I want, by way of conclusion, to say a few words about 
 the seven-pointed star as a geometrical figure. The 
 laws of chemistry in Nature are expressed on this chart. 
 Take the primary force and the second companion, 
 discrimination, unite them as positive and negative, 
 male and female, and the product invariably will be 
 fermentation. The positive dominant principle that 
 determines to hold and bind, and this discriminating 
 principle that wants to get free from bondage and to 
 act on its own account, represent, together, the strug- 
 glinas of Nature in fermentation. The discriminating 
 principle wants freedom, and obtains it only in fermen- 
 tation. Let us take the next two, discrimination and 
 order. The result of those conjoinedly is transmuta- 
 tion. In the case of the two principles, discrimination 
 and order, discrimination struggles with the old order, 
 and tries to inaugurate the new ; and the action which 
 is engendered by the two forces creates luminous po- 
 tency, which is fire, and transmutative in its operation. 
 Next, let us take order and cohesion. Here we have 
 rest. The result is sensation. Here we have the per- 
 fectly organized man, with the divine mother acting 
 within him and keeping all his parts cohering and work- 
 ing together in perfect harmony. How beautiful are 
 the sensations and delights of such a life, if every part 
 of the human being be perfect ! 
 
 Take cohesion and fermentation. Those who indulge 
 in intoxicating drinks know that the fermentation will 
 master the strongest men. In these cases we have 
 cohesion and fermentation united, and the result is like 
 the force we find in an electric battery. Cohesion 
 
170 COLORS. 
 
 holds together, binds the atoms of metallic substances, 
 and when we bring into contact with it the fermentative 
 acid principle, which liberates the material qualities, 
 force is the result. We are about to have our cars run. 
 we are told, by electricity. The force of electricity is 
 strong enough to run the world, and, as the greater in- 
 cludes the less, there is a certainty that electricity could 
 run our railways. 
 
 Take transmutation, and here we see fermenta- 
 tion has done its work. An insect is born, and trans- 
 mutation begins its work also ; the grosser elements 
 are thrown off, and a condition of discriminating and 
 obtaining the right kind of food is the result of that 
 work. 
 
 Jf we put transmutation and sensation together and 
 add to the workings of transmutation the sense of 
 right and wrong, which is the highest principle, we 
 bring into activity the perfect law of order. 
 
 I have now gone around the diagram. As you possess 
 a copy of this star, think it over ; unite two adjacent 
 points into their ultimate, and you will arrive at 
 correct conclusions every time. The seven-pointed 
 star will be the key to a wonderful system of chemistry 
 in the not distant future ; for seven is the perfection of 
 all that is, though not of all that is to be. It is the 
 perfection of physical nature. 
 
THE ESOTERIC, 
 
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A JIYew Scientific, Exact, and Easy Method of Delineating Charac- 
 ter; Diagnosing Disease ; Determining Mental, Physical, 
 and Business Qualifications, Conjugal Adapta- 
 hility, etc., from Date of Birth. 
 
 By HIRAM E. BUTLER. 
 
 Illustrated with seven Plate Diagrams and Tables of the Moon and 
 Planets, from 1S20 to 1900. 
 
 This science proves that " All are members of One Body" (1 Cor. 
 xii. 12-27) ; and that, as such, each one has his peculiar function in 
 life. It throws a flood of new light upon the problems of life, furnish- 
 ing the ground-work, or scientific law, which goes down into the mi ini- 
 tio? of the life of every man and woman, as a mirror reflecting their 
 innate nature. This work tells what is in man and how derived. Tells 
 how to cultivate self and make the most and best of life. Tells one, 
 when a child is born, what kind of training it should have ; to what 
 diseases it is liable, how to avoid or how to cure, when already devel- 
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 belongs, and the consequent mental tendencies, physical fitness, natu- 
 ral sphere, and highest and fittest use in the world. 
 
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 such as heretofore has been available only to those few that were pos- 
 sessed of rare intuitive discernment. 
 
 It is claimed that character is expressed in the countenance, em- 
 bodied in the cranium, even written in the hand ; but Solar Biology 
 introduces the student into the grand workshop of the Solar System, 
 not only defining character and function, but supplying the key to self- 
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 mastered in half an hour. Price, $5.00. The tables alone are 
 worth four times the price of the book. 
 Published by 
 
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Extracts from the numerous Press Notices of "Solar Biology." 
 
 The Boston Globe, under date of April 25, 18.37, says of "Solar 
 Biology " : " It is entertaining, and so plain and concise in its explana- 
 tions that any one can in a moment's time ascertain his or her mental 
 or physical condition, and thus demonstrate the correctness or falsity 
 of Mr. Butler's theories, an investigation that the author craves. All 
 that is necessary is that the readers should know the day of the 
 month and the year of their birth." 
 
 The Boston Commonwealth, of April 30, 1887, says: "The hook 
 is certainly interesting. According to certain well-defined rules, based 
 upon the day and year of nativity, a chart may be drawn up, in which 
 the mental and physical attributes are set forth." 
 
 "Solar Biology " is a large, handsome volume, with special refer- 
 ence to the practical business of life, and the formation of character. 
 
 — Boston Post, April 29, 1887. 
 
 The work of the printer is excellent, the language simple, and the 
 diagrams and tables artistic. The work promises to be most useful 
 to physicians, through their possessing a certain key to the nature of 
 patients. — Dayton, O., Herald, April 20, 1887. 
 
 A book in which the author has grasped with a master mind the 
 relationship of our planetary system to our planet earth and our- 
 selves. His conclusions are embodied in simple language, so that an 
 ordinary mind can comprehend. If the writer's deductions are correct, 
 and so far as we have looked into them they are, they open up a vast 
 field for exploration and observation. The work is replete with ad- 
 vice as to the preservation of health, showing the kind of disease to 
 which we are liable, what talents to cultivate, and what tendencies to 
 restrain. It embodies much information as to the rearing of children, 
 and good advice in all departments of life. — Baltimore Herald, June, 
 18S7. 
 
 " Solar Biology" seems to be one of the books of the newest New 
 Testament now being compiled by various authors in different parts of 
 the globe, — each having his or her peculiar method, but all tending 
 to fix the Parenthood of God and the Brotherhood of Man upon the 
 solid basis of truth, as expressed in natural conditions and operations. 
 
 — World's Advance Thought, Salem, Oregon. 
 
 The book, which is illustrated, is a scientific method of delineatiny; 
 character, diagnosing disease, determining mental, physical, and busi- 
 ness qualifications, etc., from date of birth. Its author lias devoted 
 years to research, and now presents to the public the fruits of his 
 labors in this work. The book offers \mlimited study and reflection to 
 the careful reader. — New York Sunday News, May 22, 1887. 
 
 It cannot be gainsaid but that it is a fascinating subject; that Mr. 
 Butler presents it in a decidedly direct way, giving his reasons and 
 arguments in a clear, concise manner; and that the book contains 
 much of a general nature with regard to the well-being of society, 
 which is to be commended. The book is also full of hints and ideas 
 which will afford those who are interested in esoteric thought rich 
 material for investigation and study. The writer has tested the book 
 quite thoroughly by looking up the characters of personal friends and 
 acquaintances ; the delineations are remarkably exact. — Boston Times, 
 June i>, 18S7. 
 
NEW SYSTEM OF 
 
 Delineating Character. 
 
 TWELVE MANNER OF PEOPLE. 
 
 A 64-page pamphlet, from "Solar Biology," giving the function or 
 part of the Grand Man to which each person belongs (simply from 
 date of birth), revealing mental, physical, and business qualifications, 
 tendencies to disease, etc. Can be immediately comprehended and 
 applied, and gives a remarkable insight into the nature and peculiari- 
 ties of all people, enabling one to classify and characterize their 
 friends, neighbors, and all with whom they are brought in contact. 
 
 Sent, postpaid, on receipt of 50 cents. 
 
 CLOTH, 75 CEIVTS. 
 
 PSYCHOMETRY 
 
 AND 
 
 THOUGHT - TRANSFERENCE, 
 
 WITH PRACTICAL HINTS FOR EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 By N. C, F.T.S., and an introduction by Henry S. Olcott, F.T.S. 
 
 Tells what psychometry and thought-transference is, with a history 
 of discovery and application. Tells about the astral light, nerve aura, 
 etc. How inmost thoughts are recorded, preserved, and recalled. 
 Illustrations of psychometrizing shells, fossils, letters, books, personal 
 objects, drugs, diseases, etc. How to find and train a psychometer. 
 Hints for conducting experiments, choice of object, thought-transfer- 
 ence, how to develop the faculty. Various examples and exercises, 
 with valuable American appendix on soul unfoldment, Physiological 
 method of developing Psychic Powers, Brain and Nerve Aura, The 
 Elixir of Life Controlling the Forces, etc. 
 
 PAPER, 30 CEBITS. - CLOTH, GO CEIVTS. 
 
 ESOTERIC PUBLISHING CO., 
 478 SHAWMUT AVENUE, - - - BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 (We also have in stock all the desirable Occult — Esoteric, Meta- 
 physical, Theosophical — works, imported and <k>mestic. Catalogue 
 sent on applicat : on.) 
 

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