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REESE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
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REESE LIBRA] 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CAL. 
 
 hl'O^yC^ 
 Accession No. /^"2 6' Class 
 
xtyilosoptyy 
 of 
 
PHILOSOPHY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HERMETICS 
 
 ISSUED BY AUTHORITY OP THE 
 
 There are some wbo will see and seeing will perceive, 
 others hearing will understand. 
 
 B. R. BAUMGAKDT & CO. 
 
 PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS, 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CAL. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY D. P. HATCH 
 
 OF 
 
 lyOS ANGELES, CAL. 
 Alt rights reserved. 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CAL.: 
 
 B. R. BAUMGARDT & CO. 
 
 231 W. FIRST ST. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 rAPHYSICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 465 FIFTH AVE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE 5 
 
 HERMETICS 7 
 
 PHILOSOPHY 9 
 
 FAITH 13 
 
 CONCENTRATION 18 
 
 PRACTICE 22 
 
 MEMORY 26 
 
 IMAGINATION 31 
 
 THE BOOK OF REVELATION 37 
 
 PRIDE AND PHILOSOPHY ;... 41 
 
 WHO ARE THE CRANKS? 47 
 
 ONE DAY 53 
 
 SECRET GRIEF 56 
 
 COLD DESPAIR , 61 
 
 BEAUTY ART POWER 65 
 
 SPIRITS AND DEVILS 70 
 
 DEATH WHAT OF IT? 73 
 
 NATURE'S JEST 79 
 
 YOUR FRIEND 83 
 
 THE ONE THING 86 
 
 THE DEVIL 90 
 
 THE PAIRS 94 
 
 ADONAI 98 
 
 MAGIC 103 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Nature has a way of concealing and 
 revealing. She tells half her story out in 
 the sunshine in a loud voice, and the other 
 half in whispers underground. 
 
 She is coy like a coquette, and stern like 
 a judge. She excites curiosity in the 
 student, and dread in the debauchee. 
 
 She holds the man of science to her 
 breast, but is dumb to the lover of pleasure. 
 She scorns the victim of priestcraft and 
 repudiates the supernatural. The Sage 
 takes his cue from his mother; like Nature, 
 he conceals and reveals. He who would 
 see other than the smiling, scowling face 
 of Hermes must search the dark places 
 by the light of his own candle ; Hermes 
 locks the gate between the outer and inner 
 
Temple; and he, only, enters the latter, 
 who has the pass word and the key. 
 
 In reading this book please notice how 
 the essays vary in style ; some of them 
 falling into a weird rhapsody, others laconic 
 and plain The Mystic will understand the 
 reason of the difference, while another will 
 peruse only the words. 
 
 The barbaric splendor of Nature reveals 
 truth and law as surely as does her terrible 
 logic. She speaks in poetry and in prose. 
 Facts are rarely ever naked, but often not 
 only draped but masked. The occult eye 
 sees straight to the heart of a fact, while 
 the normal lens dwells on the habiliments. 
 
 Enough has been said save this Man 
 inevitably cometh unto his own. 
 
THE HERMETICS. 
 
 Wlio were they ? What are they ? They 
 were those who could speak or keep silent. 
 They are those who whisper or shout. They 
 believe in silver and gold. " If speech is 
 silver silence is gold." They believe in the 
 conservation of energy, and its transforma- 
 tion. They believe in the Unit and in the 
 many the special and the general. They 
 have found the Philosopher's stone the 
 elixir of life. They catch glimpses of Eldo- 
 rado the promised land. They know time 
 and realize eternity. They comprehend 
 distance and space. They circumscribe the 
 square with the circle, and death with life. 
 They teach an eternity of being, and an 
 endless variety of form. They wed involu- 
 tion to evolution, and yesterday to tomor- 
 row. They insist on object as the mirror 
 
of subject, and consciousness as the child of 
 the two. They hold that Nirvana is poise 
 a motionless motion the paradox of 
 being. 
 
 To find the Hermetic out of Thibet is to 
 discover him next door. He is as likely to 
 be in broadcloth as in adept's robe and as 
 possible in London as in Benares. He is 
 rare. Gold is not picked up without stoop- 
 ing, nor the fountain head discovered with- 
 out searching. Swine are about and pearls 
 are treasured. 
 
 Enough, save this The false implies the 
 true. Chaos, order. The word, secrecy. 
 " The one thing, many." 
 
PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 With your heart filled with emotions, 
 your head stormy with thought; with your 
 back on the years behind you, facing the 
 years ahead you, a man, stand trembling 
 with the consciousness of self, and wonder 
 what next. 
 
 Philosophy ! ah me ! Philosophy ! When 
 the heart beats to the tune of love, or your 
 brain throbs with a master-passion Philoso- 
 phy ! you plunge headlong into life as the 
 comet into space-living-living-living-only 
 living. 
 
 Philosophy ! What need have you ? Your 
 blood surges up to your heart and on to your 
 head you feel, you think Philosophy ! 
 Life is for life, you say Philosophy ! but- 
 but-you hav'nt it-life, only a shiver of it- 
 only a thrill of it. 
 
io SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Philosophy brings it-life. She is beauti- 
 ful she carries a cup in her hand it is 
 gold; she begs you to drink and live. She is 
 your hand-maiden Philosophy the cup is 
 pure metal the drink is elixir life. As 
 man, you are mortal; you have stood in the 
 sunshine so long you are blind. As man, 
 you are drunk with a drop of pure life; 
 you have listened so long to the seas, you 
 are deaf. Philosophy brings you the cup and 
 you drink, and you open your eyes; she waits 
 and you listen and hear what what do 
 you see do you hear? 
 
 Yourself in the sun, in the sea your- 
 self in the sky, in the air yourself in the 
 winds, in the stars yourself in the depths, 
 in the heights yourself in the distance 
 yourself nearer home yourself in the open 
 yourself in the closed yourself in the 
 seen and unseen yourself everywhere; 
 yourself in her eyes Philosophy's eyes 
 yourself in her voice Philosophy's voice 
 yourself in the speech of the beasts, in the 
 song of the birds, the rustling of leaves; in 
 nothing, in something, in naught and in all; 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS n 
 
 in negative, positive, neither and both; in 
 you and in other, in other and you. 
 
 Life! inward and outward, receding ad- 
 vancing, coming and going Life ! Feeling 
 is feeling thinking is thinking Life! 
 Sleeping is sleeping waking is waking 
 Life ! Living is living dying is dying 
 Life! 
 
 Open the windows and breathe the fresh 
 air open the windows and look at the sky 
 open the windows and feel the soft rain 
 breathe breathe breathe full to the chest 
 breathe. 
 
 I've traveled the spaces by thinking I've 
 mounted the zenith by wishing I've floated 
 in air by a longing I've melted in mist 
 when a dreaming I have flashed in the fire 
 by desiring I have blended in water by 
 looking I have entered a soul by aspiring. 
 I am many or one I am one or the many. 
 
 Each day is mine own not anothers; each 
 day is all days, all days are each day. 
 
 I floated in blood in the veins of a bird, 
 and beat in his heart to the tune of his wings ; 
 I sucked at the breast of a flower and dripped 
 
12 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 in the honey of bees; I spun the fine silk of 
 a web, and tied up the knots of a snare; I 
 have lain in the arms of a cloud and turned 
 up my face to the sky; I died and entered 
 the tomb, and rotted away in a corpse; I 
 crawled through the pores of the earth in the 
 succulent bodies of worms, and buried myself 
 in the mire to shiver with cold in a stone. 
 Ah ! Life and Philosophy ! Wisdom and 
 Life! 
 
 Do you ask me the reason of all, I give 
 you the reason of none; do you ask me the 
 reason of none, I give you the wisdom of all. 
 
 You burn with desire and you thrill; 
 then dip in the blood of yourself and write 
 on the parchment a scroll, and read in the 
 letters the words, and read in the words the 
 command, and in the command the design, 
 and in the design, the beginning and end; 
 and living you read, and reading you live; 
 and cease to be mortal, but soar as a god. 
 
 If ever the bush is on fire harken for 
 language and hear; something is speaking 
 listen and listen something is shining 
 the bush is on fire. 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 13 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 We will present the subject of faith in a 
 secondary aspect, and show you how to 
 make out of it a mighty lever towards 
 accomplishing results. We advise you 
 to be alert, and in a certain sense skep- 
 tical in all save the principle upon which 
 you found your premise. 
 
 Take as a starting point yourself, for it is 
 not necessary to travel far from home in 
 order to find a subject on which to work. 
 Believing in your existence, a priori, and 
 resting upon the fundamental consciousness 
 of the Ego, suppose you branch out into 
 a series of unusual experiments as to what 
 the possibilities of that Ego are. 
 
 Most people find certain dominant tend- 
 encies uppermost, and are entirely satisfied 
 to develop and live by them, never striving 
 
14 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 to discover hidden mines within themselves 
 along lines where they have not taken the 
 trouble to penetrate. 
 
 If you see a leaf floating on the wave at 
 sea, you have some reason to think that 
 land is near. May it not be possible that 
 some indication as small as a leaf, floats 
 round on the sea of your being, and you 
 have failed to draw any conclusion from it. 
 The mariner discovers the bit of green, and 
 makes for the shore ; you discover the sign 
 of unseen things and sail out into deeper 
 waters. 
 
 The lesson we would teach is this, observe 
 the signs, no matter how insignificant ; let 
 them create in you a sort of conditional 
 faith ; follow them up and see what you will 
 discover. 
 
 The scientist is well used to this condi- 
 tional faith ; it is not absolute faith, but a 
 suspension of judgment, an abandonment of 
 prejudice, and a simple research based upon 
 indications. When the miner strikes a sign 
 of color, a certain faith is developed in him; 
 it is conditional of course ; it is based on 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 15 
 
 possibility, not on probability. It is quite a 
 different thing from a man's faith in gravi- 
 tation or repulsion. It is what might be 
 called a blind faith ; and the only excuse for 
 its being is that in time, it will develop into 
 a certainty or fall through altogether, in 
 other words prove itself. 
 
 Suppose for instance, you find at some 
 one time, that you have seen clairvoyantly, 
 treat that as the leaf on the sea of your 
 being ; follow it up, and be not astonished 
 if you land on the shore of an unknown 
 country. Your faith which was suf- 
 ficient to lead you to explore, has brought 
 you a certainty which translates itself into 
 an added power. 
 
 The reason that we insist on a conditional 
 faith such as the scientist has, is this; if you 
 blindly follow signs, so swallowed up in 
 your belief that you are incapacitated to 
 reason, or to think, or to bear disappoint- 
 ment, you will become fanatical, and lose 
 your discrimination and power of judgment. 
 
 There is a faith that is prepared for 
 either success or failure ; it is a kind of half 
 
16 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 belief in a thing, still strong enough to lead 
 one to honest, unbiased investigation about 
 it. It is the proper faith for one who inves- 
 tigates spiritualistic, psychic and sleight-of- 
 hand phenomena ; a watchful, fair, consider- 
 ate faith which weighs the pros and cons in 
 an investigation, and allows no undue influ- 
 ence to be brought to bear either for or 
 against the result sought. 
 
 This is strictly the scientific faith, and 
 it is the first essential in the mind of the 
 student of Philosophy. It should be laid 
 down as an axiom by all beginners in the 
 pursuit of knowledge, that our desiring or 
 not desiring a thing to be, cuts no figure in 
 the investigation. Truth does not arrange 
 herself to suit us, but forces us to conform 
 to her. 
 
 If we enter the study of Philosophy with 
 certain fixed ideas of what we would like to 
 have, and of how we wish the Universe to be 
 conducted, we are pretty apt to abandon the 
 pursuit when we come to find out that Truth 
 does not cut her clothes after a pattern of 
 our own designing. Truth is safe enough 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 17 
 
 and we can not improve upon her. It is our 
 business to pursue her, and catch and hold 
 some aspect of her if possible, otherwise we 
 had better return to our delusions. 
 
 To find Truth we must use the scientific 
 method, which is always founded upon a 
 temporary faith ; a premise assumed for the 
 time being, as a test of the possibility of the 
 solution of the problem. This is not the 
 supreme faith which is founded upon the 
 principle of being, and must be the rock 
 upon which we build up any lasting struc- 
 ture. It is the shifting faith which can be 
 abandoned, as we find the object upon which 
 it is fixed useful or not ; but we do insist 
 that when you start out to explore yourself, 
 and to discover the latent possibilities within 
 you, that you do as Columbus did, who 
 hoped to find a new Continent, which up to 
 the day when the first sign of land appeared, 
 was to him and the whole of Europe an 
 image and a dream. 
 
i8 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 CONCENTRATION. 
 
 We urged you in the last talk to go on a 
 voyage of discovery in yourself, and see if 
 some waking potentiality was awaiting 
 development. In this paper we desire to 
 insist on the use of concentration to this effect. 
 You who think you know how to concen- 
 trate, will find on attempt at a sustained 
 effort how difficult it is, and how weak you 
 are. 
 
 Look back and see how many things you 
 have begun, how many good resolutions you 
 have made, and how much you have 
 attempted and failed to complete. 
 
 Youth climbs up the ladder of his own 
 hopes and scans the prospect ; he expects 
 to do every thing, to conquer every thing ; 
 he levels mountains of opposition in his 
 own mind. He figures on becoming king 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 19 
 
 of opportunity and creating it at his own 
 bidding. Notice him ten years later sitting 
 at the foot of the ladder of his dreams. He 
 has spent his summers and his winters, his 
 springs and his autumns in dabbling. 
 
 First an attempt at this and then at 
 that, tasting here and there of everything 
 and nourished by nothing. He starts 
 down a road to view an object, and 
 slips off into a byway to view something 
 else. He gets to singing a new tune and 
 forgets the first stanza of the old one. He 
 knows people and forgets their names, or he 
 knows their names and forgets their faces. 
 He is forever experimenting and never 
 finishing ; he rests half way up the moun- 
 tain and a positive climax is something that 
 he knows nothing about. 
 
 Look over your life and see what you 
 have done. You have dipped into books, 
 but they never dipped into you. You have 
 studied human nature and been cheated a 
 hundred times. You have kissed a friend, 
 and then another without reading the heart 
 of the first. You came to the realm of 
 
20 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Philosophy, and wandered around in a maze; 
 you plucked a leaf and threw it away ; you 
 inhaled the perfume of a flower and passed 
 on; you gathered a bouquet and tossed it 
 into the stream ; you dabbled your feet in 
 the water, and washed your face in the dew ; 
 and then, you entered the front door of a 
 church and passed out at the rear. 
 
 You tickled the wings of cupid, and he 
 flew away, and sitting down on a grave you 
 sighed ; and the next week, you danced. 
 Such your life. Now you come to our doors 
 and knock ; and we say to you, from behind 
 the lock, "Can you look at the point 
 of a pin and look and look. Can you 
 rest on a premise, and think and think 
 up to the conclusion can you pile up 
 facts on facts to the pinnacle of a principle 
 can you study on one line to the very end of 
 the question can you act on your conclu- 
 sion as against the world can you resist 
 straying to the right and left when you have 
 started towards a place or condition can 
 you keep on aiming with the same stone at 
 the same spot till you hit it can you stay 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 21 
 
 fixed in any pursuit any length of time, or 
 are you a child?" 
 
 Start out with yourself and follow the leaf 
 on the wave of your sea; follow follow 
 concentrate and follow, by the blind faith 
 of science, some sign in yourself till its value 
 be disclosed. Be like the dog that gives 
 chase, and is bound to be in at the death or 
 the capture. 
 
 We tell you now, at the very inception of 
 the study ot Philosophy, that you must have 
 two kinds of faith; one absolute, the other 
 secondary and changeable; also concentra- 
 tion; without these it is useless to go on. 
 
 To cultivate concentration you must prac- 
 tice. Cultivate that bull-dog tenacity to hold 
 on to a thing till you know what it is, if you 
 have once decided to grapple with it. 
 
 Look into yourself and see if your past 
 indicates concentration ; if not, begin. 
 
22 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 PRACTICE. 
 
 There is something truly pathetic in the 
 lives of those who preach and do not practice; 
 who revel in the generalities of Philosophy 
 as a sort of intellectual tonic, and are at the 
 same time too lazy to try the formulas and 
 hold fast to that which is good. 
 
 I desire you to avoid a method of prac- 
 tice that is backed by habit. To take 
 stated times to become good (say Sundays), is 
 not at all after the manner of our system; 
 and if you continually pursue this means, 
 you will grow as fixed as a rock crystal. 
 
 Life is your business, all kinds of life; 
 rustling among men, eating drinking 
 sleeping just as Christ did; and the best 
 time for you to practice, is all the time. 
 
 I who give you these instructions, know 
 what life is from its pleasures to its agonies; 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 23 
 
 from its feasts to its graveyards ; and the 
 more of a Philosopher I am, the more do I 
 know of its fulness. So when I tell you to 
 practice, I mean that you are to stay where 
 you are and practice. 
 
 The great need of the world is the living 
 Philosopher. Cloisters are out of date. 
 Monasteries are old fashioned ; they belong 
 to the middle ages. 
 
 People must clash with each other in 
 order to live ; must feel each other's pulse, 
 and jostle shoulder to shoulder; they must 
 mingle magnetism, I might say, and give 
 and take. In this rush, this hurry, is the 
 time to try your cult and test its value. 
 
 If you hide a diamond in a box, it loses 
 all its power to be saucy and throw back the 
 sun's rays to the sun; in fact it forgets after 
 a while that it is a diamond at all, and be- 
 comes as sullen as a cold pebble. If you 
 have anything good, you must find it out; 
 and you never can do that by shutting your- 
 self up in an occult room and imagining. 
 
 Do not mistake us; we told you to con- 
 centrate, and contemplate the point of a pin, 
 
24 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 but not forever. While a certain amount 
 of daily retirement into "your closet" is 
 good, just as rest is necessary after exercise, 
 too much of it is bad. Learn to concentrate 
 and act too; this is practice of the best kind. 
 Have a purpose, a means, a way, and ACT 
 on it. Having a theory and getting no fact 
 out of it, is like having a friend who will 
 never embrace you. 
 
 Concentration and action should go to- 
 gether. To be sure, you should reverse and 
 retire into yourself when the occasion de- 
 mands, but never periodically and to order. 
 Learn to do it when you have need of it (and 
 you can tell that) but do not do it because 
 you have arranged to. 
 
 We preach practice from morning until 
 night; all the time, everywhere. Your 
 Philosophy should stick to you closer than 
 the hairs of your head, and should put in an 
 appearance on every occasion. If it is good 
 for great things, it is good for little things. 
 
 This does not mean that you are to be like 
 the self-conscious Christian who can never 
 get rid of his sense of responsibility; on the 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 25 
 
 contrary, it assures you the best that there 
 is in life. It shows you how to extract the 
 most honey from the flower, the grestest 
 beauty from the landscape, and the truest 
 love out of a fellow mortal. It is also a sort 
 of accident policy, it bestows on you a weekly 
 allowance in case of something unfortunate 
 and unforeseen ; and if you die, it pays up to 
 the last penny those whom you have left 
 behind. 
 
 It is practical, practical, practical, and if 
 what you are getting is not, you hav'nt the 
 right thing. Practice at all times, and when- 
 ever you fail in making the application, you 
 are that far short of grasping the situation. 
 
26 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 MEMORY. 
 
 When you go down into the shadowy 
 place where the sun's rays can not come, 
 you are reconciled to the gloom because you 
 remember. What is it that you remember ? 
 That the sun still shines. You know very 
 well that not a ray can penetrate where you 
 are ; that as far as you are concerned, for 
 the time being, the Giver of Life the Con- 
 soler the Sun might as well be put out. 
 It is a dark place gloom gloom gloom 
 every where, and along with the gloom, 
 dampness and chill. But what of it your 
 memory serves you well you recall the 
 splendor outside the half hour ago when 
 you basked in heat and color all the tints 
 that the sun brings out all the brilliancy 
 and instead of a realization, you substi- 
 tute a memory. 
 
OF THE HERMBTJCS 27 
 
 In your pursuit of Philosophy, understand 
 that your path will not be all sunshine. 
 Philosophy does not undertake to supply 
 glory and glitter, nor does it guarantee you 
 a freedom from shadows and tears. Philo- 
 sophy does not undertake to change nature; 
 it gives you no seven-leagued boots with 
 which to stride over the land no sandals 
 like those of Pallas Athene, nor wings of a 
 Mercury. Philosophy lets Dame Nature 
 alone so far as changing her is concerned ; 
 in fact she is very self-willed and like all 
 feminine things, has her own way ; but here 
 is a secret Philosophy deals with nature 
 somewhat as a good husband does with 
 a stubborn spouse ; Philosophy manages 
 nature through her own attributes. A 
 natural attribute by the way, is memory. 
 Philosophy knowing this, brings it to bear 
 at the right time, and reaps the reward. 
 Philosophy has much tact, just as a wise 
 husband has. 
 
 To use art in remembering, is an essen- 
 tial towards Philosophic life. To be a good 
 forgetter, is as necessary as to be a good 
 
28 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 recaller. There is nothing more uncomfort- 
 able and out of place, than to have some- 
 thing that you have put under the sod, 
 protrude its head at the wrong time. When 
 you bury, bury deep, and do not dig up the 
 thing unless you want it. 
 
 Some memories are bores, just like some 
 people ; they stay and stay out of pure 
 viciousness, and the more you curse them 
 the more staying power they show. A 
 Philosopher will never allow this ; he knows 
 that he can get rid of one memory by sub- 
 stituting another, just as you would shove 
 an impertinent person out of a chair and 
 put another in his place. As you can forget 
 by a sort of substitution, you can remem- 
 ber by a mental suggestion. 
 
 When down in the shadow, recall some- 
 thing a star, a diamond, or a friend's 
 eyes ; and see how quickly the place will 
 glow as if a sun had been born, with 
 dropped lids it is the same. There is a 
 flash and a shimmer in the fire of memory 
 which radiates in the now, if you desire it. 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 29 
 
 Let us carry this lesson farther. Physi- 
 cal darkness is but one phase ; there is a 
 mental and a spiritual blackness which 
 tongue can not speak of, nor pen portray. 
 Even in this dungeon of dungeons memory 
 can send a straight ray, and turn black to 
 white, night to day. When you recall the 
 sun, at the time shadows enshroud you, 
 with that recollection comes the conscious- 
 ness that the sun is a fixed fact that it ex- 
 ists, and that shadows can not extinguish 
 it ; this makes you safe ; safe in your mind, 
 safe in your heart ; you wrap the mantle 
 of darkness about you, and laugh in the 
 face of the night for the sun IS. You 
 have remembered. 
 
 When any trouble gloom mood, en- 
 folds you in a cloud, remember that the 
 sun /5, and the rays are warm, love warm, 
 and they shine somewhere even in your 
 recollection, and with the remembering 
 will come a flash like that of Jupiter on 
 Olympus like that of a friend's eyes 
 and black will turn to white and night 
 to day. 
 
30 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 This is the office of memory. Memory 
 is your servant, if you can only realize it, 
 memory is your slave, and all slaves impose 
 upon their masters when allowed. 
 
 Put impertinent memories to sleep ; wake 
 up the right one at the right time ; and 
 cheat Dame Nature into believing that she 
 has conquered Philosoph}^. 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 31 
 
 IMAGINATION. 
 
 To imagine something is to call up an 
 image in the mind by the will. This is vol- 
 untary imagination. Involuntary imagina- 
 tion (which is a bad thing always) is that 
 state where the image or images come of 
 their own accord, oftentimes as unwelcome, 
 vulgar or wicked guests. 
 
 Most lewd, vile, uncanny people are tools 
 of the imagination. Images which seem to 
 be like conscious entities, persist in dwelling 
 in, and dominating the untrained tenant 
 of an abused brain, and do incalculable 
 mischief to him and those with whom he 
 associates. 
 
 Imagination is man's greatest friend and 
 his greatest enemy; if you control him he 
 will serve you; and no artist can paint pic- 
 tures as beautiful as his. Command him to 
 
32 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 sketch the sea, the sky, the stars, the unseen 
 and seen wonders of earth and heaven, and 
 he will produce instantaneous results. He 
 will decorate your castle for you and place 
 you in it; he will create an interior environ- 
 ment that will so overpower your soul that 
 crude outer surroundings will cease to 
 trouble you. 
 
 Imagination controlled by the will, is the 
 one thing to be desired. On the other hand, 
 involuntary imagination, that creature which 
 like a snake slips into your sanctuary in the 
 dark and conceals itself to coil and sting 
 when you are totally unable to combat it, is 
 to be abhorred and dreaded. Not that he is 
 forever ugly the serpent has an unrivaled 
 grace, and is a marvel in color not that, 
 but he is unreliable, treacherous and poison- 
 ous; he may not sting, but if he does the 
 antidote is hard to find. Worse than that, 
 he is eternally reproducing himself; he 
 brings forth a brood, or rather like the worm, 
 the more you divide him the more alive he 
 becomes; each piece of him in its turn ma- 
 turing and producing. 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 33 
 
 He turns your mind into a nest, and wal- 
 lows in it as the swine wallow in the sty. He 
 loves luxury and splendor as does the har- 
 lot; and his beauty, when it glitters has all 
 the fascination of a lewd woman. 
 
 The true sage controls his imagination 
 somewhat as he does his memory, putting it 
 out as he would extinguish a lamp, or light- 
 ing it as he would kindle a fire. The true 
 sage can build himself an air castle that 
 floats in a cloud, and frescoe it with the pic- 
 tures of angels. He can conjure forms of 
 grandeur that outrival nature's own work; 
 and create storms, the thunders of which 
 will drown the voice of Jupiter. He can tint 
 the rose and perfume the lily; still further, 
 he can create the NEW, and build palaces 
 that no architect before him has conceived, 
 and design landscapes that as yet, are 
 strangers to the brush. The sage but wills 
 and his servant, the imagination, does. 
 
 On the contrary, he who is unwise, is the 
 coward lackey of his Master Imagination. 
 He grovels at his feet, and hides his head, 
 and stops his ears against the horrors thrust 
 
34 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 upon him. He fears the dark, and dreads 
 being alone. He is tortured about his health, 
 and magnifies every twinge of pain into the 
 death agony. All symptoms are to him as 
 fatal ; he sleeps in his own coffin every night, 
 and is resurrected from the grave every 
 morning. His dreams are all warnings and 
 prognosticate some future weal or woe. 
 
 His animal instincts run riot, while he is 
 fettered and bound; his progeny haunt him 
 like bad children, and lean on him for sup- 
 port. The air is peopled with his loathe- 
 some offspring, and they follow him where- 
 ever he goes. 
 
 This fate is inevitable to him who allows 
 his imagination to go rampant. In time, 
 his will falls to sleep and he becomes like 
 one in fever the prey to uncanny dreams 
 or like the brandy-soaked victim who is ever 
 terrified at the reptiles which his diseased 
 fancy brings forth. 
 
 Take your imagination in hand, and hold 
 it as you would a pair of horses ; do not 
 let it break, but pull on the bit even 
 though it foams and writhes. To have 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 35 
 
 your imagination run with you, is to have 
 it bring you up any where either throwing 
 you upon the rocks or landing you in the 
 gutter. 
 
 Every one has imagination in some form. 
 The power to call up images, is in all 
 normal human minds, and the power to 
 bid them leave is there also. 
 
 The sage can free his mind of either 
 unpleasant memories or undesired imagin- 
 ation, by an effort of pure will or by a 
 substitution. It is just as easy to substi- 
 tute one imagination for another as one 
 memory for another. 
 
 The power to conjure is a ready power 
 and easy to handle; ghosts, hobgoblins, 
 saints and sinners will come at a wave of 
 the magic wand, and if you did but know 
 it, at another wave they will disappear. 
 
 Evil imagination leads to suspicion, 
 this (as a rule) is a bad tenant. To be 
 forever suspecting, is to go through life as 
 some people go through a kitchen, sniffing 
 right and left for bad smells ; searching 
 out hidden corners with an eye for finding 
 
36 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 fault; weighing all commodities with a 
 pair of test scales, under pretext of detect- 
 ing theft; or like one who steals into 
 places at unsuspected times on the lookout 
 for scandal ; listening at key-holes, prowl- 
 ing like a cat at night, peeping into 
 windows, over-hauling coat-pockets, rum- 
 maging desk drawers, talking in ambiguous 
 phrases, dealing in hints, implying every- 
 thing and saying next to nothing. 
 
 All this is the fruit of an ungoverned 
 imagination ; and in its train come jealousy 
 and envy a hideous pair who trample on 
 hearts and reputations, and mark their 
 trail with a stream of blood. 
 
 Catch your imagination while you can, 
 and wither it with a glance of your eye; 
 otherwise it will curse you and in cursing 
 you, will curse the world. 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 37 
 
 THE BOOK OF REVELATION. 
 
 It is not the Koran, nor the Bible, nor 
 the Tripitaka. It is not the sky with its 
 glittering pattern of stars, nor objective 
 nature as manifested in the sea, the 
 mountains, the rocks nor the rivers. It is 
 not hidden in the debris of the past, nor 
 written upon the tombs of Egyptian Kings. 
 It is not stamped upon tables of stone, nor 
 will it come in handwriting upon the wall. 
 No savant will search it out for you in 
 some concealed vellum covered thickly 
 with hieroglyphics ; nor will some priest 
 of the future reveal it to you, taken down 
 from the mouth of an angel. 
 
 To go far to find it will be to waste your 
 time. To wait to have it come to you, will 
 be as fruitless as the waiting for an impos- 
 sible Judgment Day. 
 
38 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The Book of Revelation exists, neverthe- 
 less, and its pages can be counted by 
 hundreds. It is in many volumes, bound 
 in skins finer than that of the sheep or the 
 chamois. Its letters are written in the 
 three fundamental colors intershaded by 
 many tints ; some of them flash fire, and 
 some are wet with tears. It is fully illust- 
 rated with pictures in pigment mixed with 
 blood, and in etchings of black and white. 
 The scenes are humorous, grotesque, be- 
 wildering, sad, ecstatic, divine. 
 
 "And where is this book," you ask; I 
 answer, "Look within, read yourself, and 
 behold the revelation" 
 
 The skin covers enfolding each volume 
 inclose a life of your being the fine skin 
 covers the tale is your own sorrowful, 
 happy story which never ends, but has se- 
 quel after sequel eternally. The letters pick 
 out the emotions, in dark or light, in blood 
 or fire. The blank pages are your dream- 
 less sleeping hours; and each sentence points 
 the moral like the finger of fate. 
 
 It is the Book of Mystery the record of 
 
OF 7HE HERMETICS 39 
 
 the dead and the living its initial letters 
 speak beginnings and the closing word of 
 every page its endings. You can read this 
 book from first to last, or backward from last 
 to first. It reveals, reveals, reveals. The 
 more yon read, the more you learn. No two 
 pages are alike; no two scenes are the same, 
 yet one flowers out of the other as naturally 
 as the rose from the bud. 
 
 It is an inspired book; inspired by Mother 
 Nature, by the Priest of Friendship, by the 
 God of Love, by the King of Evil. 
 
 It contains prophesies innumerable and 
 warnings without number. Its sallies of wit 
 conceal an element of sadness; its snatches 
 of pathos, a strain of gladness. In the read- 
 ing, your eyes travel between the lines, and 
 up and down and right and left. The words 
 form into things and the things become 
 alive; even the thoughts march on in file, a 
 long procession holding volume to volume, 
 as an army spans a river and binds land to 
 land. 
 
 This book was used at your christening, 
 and will be brought forth at your funeral. 
 
40 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 It is given to you for a plaything in your 
 cradle and will be folded in your hands in 
 your coffin. It is your Sacred Book your 
 Bible your Bhagavat your Ritual. It 
 encases your prayers and your psalms. 
 Alas ! it embodies your evil thoughts and 
 your woes. 
 
 Each letter casts a shadow, and the bright- 
 est throws the blackest. It is illuminated 
 with its own light, and the color of the glow 
 varies with the turning of the pages. It is 
 written in hieroglyphics which you alone 
 can understand and even you puzzle over 
 the letters, when naught but the dictionary 
 of objectivity can help. 
 
 Study the world, that you may find its 
 final interpretation. 
 
OF THE HERMETfCS 41 
 
 o c I f F) j> 
 
 /V 
 
 f UNIVERSITY 
 
 -4 
 PRIDE AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 It is not strange that pride is the usual 
 vice of all young Philosophers. By young 
 Philosophers I mean those just beginning 
 the pursuit of a genuine system. The 
 first result of ardent and earnest investiga- 
 tion is an increase of power, and with power 
 comes pride. A consciousness of strength 
 makes one teem with self-respect, or in other 
 words an emotion which the vulgar call 
 conceit. 
 
 To be a few inches higher than your fel- 
 low-men on the ladder, enables you to look 
 down upon them, and alas ! to despise 
 them. We condemn self-respect, pride, self- 
 love and self-pity, because to respect your- 
 self is, to a great extent, to be satisfied; and 
 to be satisfied in this sense of self-admira- 
 tion, is to check all further advancement 
 along the line of consciousness. 
 
 A respect of self is simply another way 
 
42 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of being proud of self, and this entire sen- 
 timent should be replaced by a something 
 which puts the contemplation of self, in the 
 petting, coddling, comforting way, entirely 
 out of your thought. 
 
 Pursue a thing for its own sake beauty 
 art health happiness, and in the pur- 
 suit after the ideal self-respect will be killed. 
 Do not be alarmed, there is no danger of 
 your going wrong in this; the object of 
 your pursuit will save you from degrada- 
 tion. When you are on the chase, no one 
 can hurt you by enticements or allurements. 
 You will not stop to lie or to steal or to do 
 vulgar acts. You have no time to call 
 names or, in any manner, to lower your 
 moral standard. 
 
 Other people will honor your concentra- 
 tion and the results produced by it. You 
 have no need to contemplate yourself, or 
 pay homage to your own soul. 
 
 Pride is an uncomfortable thing to have 
 about one ; it pricks like a paper of pins ; it 
 is easily knocked over, and it falls like lead, 
 and in the overturning makes a noise and 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 43 
 
 attracts everybody's attention. A haughty, 
 self-respecting person is ever sensitive lest 
 his pride shall be hurt, and challenges the 
 world with his satisfied gaze ; which world, 
 proceeds immediately upon the challenge to 
 knock him down. 
 
 It is not in the least strange that the 
 young Philosopher is proud, because an in- 
 creased sense of power makes one superior, 
 and being strong, he takes delight in mani- 
 festing this consciousness. There are two 
 reasons for this ; one is that he sees the 
 littleness of his fellow-man as he never did 
 before (this is right), and the other reason is 
 that he is not yet himself sufficiently in 
 love with the object of his pursuit (say 
 truth) to rise above this enervating con- 
 sciousness of self (this is wrong). We 
 find ourselves only in something outside, 
 never in dwelling on self emotionally. To 
 dwell on self in this way is to sap your own 
 life. This has nothing to do with self-con- 
 templation intellectually, which is desir- 
 able. We prohibit emotional self-contem- 
 plation only. 
 
44 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Pride is an emotion, a feeling ; self-respect 
 explains itself in its name. It is a warming 
 up of self to self, an admiration of self for 
 self, a gloating over, a feeding upon self. 
 This is one of the greatest evils. 
 
 When the young man came to Christ and 
 informed him in a self-complacent way, that 
 he had kept all the Commandments from 
 his youth up, the Master requested him to 
 sell all that he had and follow him ; mean- 
 ing, that in pursuit of the Ideal he should 
 forget his own goodness. 
 
 Do not mistake us. Your final object is 
 to find yourself, but you never can do it by 
 self-admiration. As you never have seen 
 your own face except in a mirror, you never 
 can behold yourself except in another. 
 When you gaze into the eyes of a friend you 
 find a little image of yourself imbedded 
 there. To find the beauty of the subject, 
 you must gaze at the object. 
 
 Pore over self, look into self, analyze self, 
 dissect self; but never shed one tear upon 
 the soil of your own soul; if you do, some- 
 thing rank and poisonous will grow with 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 45 
 
 roots so deep, that it will take your whole 
 Unit of Force to pull it out. 
 
 The true Philosopher does not carry his 
 pride with him long. Before he enters the 
 narrow path he is stripped naked and his 
 pride falls first. He is allowed nothing 
 heavy about him, and pride is heavy; he 
 has to run, for he is after something which 
 eludes and evades him. His eye must be 
 steadily fixed on the object or it will escape 
 him ; and self-respect would be a fatal encum- 
 brance. He becomes so in earnest in view- 
 ing himself in the thing that he is after 
 that he forgets himself altogether; this 
 proves that one who would save his life must 
 lose it in the life of another. 
 
 The first sorrow that comes to the young 
 Philosopher is the fall of his pride; when it 
 has been broken he becomes a servant ; and 
 that to the very ones upon whom he for- 
 merly looked down. " He that is first shall 
 be last." He stoops to conquer, and when 
 he again holds up his head, it is for the pur- 
 pose of seeing better, rather than that of 
 looking over the hats of people. 
 
46 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The object of this Philosophy is to gain 
 Power; not that we may come down on 
 others with crushing blows, but that we may 
 give them a lift upward. You might stiffen 
 your back till you walked like a heathen 
 king, but as your strut becomes intensified 
 your line of equipoise might be overlooked 
 and your next position would be that of a 
 fool in the dirt. 
 
 Save your energy for the race; you are 
 supposed to be after something and very 
 much in earnest. Other people will see 
 you running and possibly they will start in 
 too, just for the running's sake, and later 
 on they may find an object to chase. 
 
 If you have a vestige of pride left, if your 
 self-respect still lingers; if your self-love 
 whimpers and whines, get rid of them all. 
 They will block your way where ever you 
 turn; and as long as you harbor these 
 vices you will get no where. Your haughty 
 looks will set others to laughing; and you 
 will freeze yourself. Before you go farther 
 strangle your pride, lest it get too heavy for 
 you and throw you down. 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 47 
 
 WHO ARE OUR CRANKS? 
 
 What are cranks ? Who are they ? These 
 questions are easily answered. First let me 
 say, that there are all degrees of cranks, 
 from absolute to comparative ; that they 
 range from a fool to a knave and from a king 
 down to a peasant. Let me add also, that 
 they are dangerous every one of them, from 
 the highest to the lowest. A crank is an 
 unbalanced person; by this we do not mean 
 insane, but one whose consciousness is 
 clouded; he wears a veil and does not see 
 straight ; he is cross eyed and intrinsically 
 evil. 
 
 A person may be ignorant and not be a 
 crank ; he may see but a short distance but 
 his vision will be correct as far as it goes . 
 He will not have a mountain-top sweep, but 
 he can make out a horse or a dog as truly 
 
48 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 as could Lord Bacon. Ignorance and short- 
 sightedness do not mean crankism. 
 
 A crank has crooked sight ; no matter 
 what he sees nor how far, everything is out 
 of gear, distorted. To be seen properly even 
 a small thing should be consistent with 
 itself and to the one who sees. A crank's 
 vision is out of focus; not only his physical 
 vision, but his mental and psychical vision 
 as well. 
 
 The mass of humanity have a vast deal of 
 common sense. Selfishness develops this 
 very early. The great body of mankind 
 adjust themselves to their environment 
 without knowing why. They avoid spectacles 
 and steer clear of oculists. They have a 
 sort of horse understanding which enables 
 them to find a stable and fodder. Selfish- 
 ness is the cause of this, but it is a proper 
 selfishness and of a different kind from that 
 of the crank. 
 
 If the crank is not born an Egoist he very 
 soon becomes one, for it is almost invariably 
 the love of notoriety that leads him into 
 eccentricities. He longs for some sort of 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 49 
 
 fame, any sort. The idea of the love of 
 truth for itself has never entered his 
 head. His first ambition is to be looked up 
 to. He begins by becoming odd, and thus 
 attracts notice. There is so much of the 
 fakir about him, that he grows more eccen- 
 tric as people stare. If he gets a following, 
 he begins to believe in himself and finally 
 concludes that he is inspired ; having no 
 balance, but only love of fame, he does more 
 and more absurd things until the world 
 hisses him down. 
 
 His disciples become contaminated with 
 his unholy magnetism, and become lesser 
 cranks themselves, rushing with their 
 erratic Master to destruction. 
 
 There are religious, scientific, artistic, 
 scholastic, dogmatic cranks ; cranks of both 
 sexes; cranks among the rich and the poor. 
 They run after all sorts of absurdities which 
 have no basis of reason. They like conceal- 
 ment and mystery; they hate the light of 
 the sun and sense. Alas ! a vast proportion 
 are women, whose little minds dabble right 
 and left in mysterious cults, that they may 
 
50 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 have hobbies and fads. They bring greater 
 cranks to their drawing rooms to lecture 
 them on X plus nothing, and that they may 
 drink in words as a toper swallows rum. 
 They ask no questions other than, " Is it 
 new?" "Is it strange? " They never once 
 inquire u On what is it based?" "Is it 
 sound? " They abhor logic, evidence and 
 facts ; they adore theories, dreams and asser 
 tions. They love one who will state to them 
 something in positive tones with divine 
 authority. They delight in being hypno- 
 tized by fools more foolish than themselves. 
 They glory in the Kingdom of Fooldom and 
 long to dwell there forever. 
 
 Talk to them in plain Saxon, and they 
 accuse you of being rough; present them a 
 syllogism and they dub you as dry; preach 
 to them plain facts, and they call you com- 
 mon ; give them experience and they banish 
 you at once. They desire and promulgate 
 hypotheses and theories; they stand with 
 each foot on an assertion and shake their 
 fists at reason. 
 
 You will find the crank on nearly every 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 51 
 
 street of every city in America, to say noth- 
 ing of Europe and the Holy East. But the 
 Arch Crank is rarer; and like the Chief 
 Devil is slippery and evasive. He is around 
 though, and he has one quality that the 
 ordinary crank has not wickedness; his 
 very crankiness is abnormal self-interest 
 and sin. Beware of the others, but very 
 much of him ; he is horned and hoofed and 
 clawed. He can hurt you with his head or 
 his feet or his hands, even with his eyes. 
 In fact, His Majesty the Prince of Evil, is 
 a crank, if crookedness means anything. 
 
 You ask anxiously, "How shall we recog- 
 nize those who are truly clairvoyant and 
 honest ? " By one simple rule a common 
 sense seeker after synthetic truth for truth's 
 sake is never a crank. If he is in earnest, 
 fame and notoriety are side issues. He is so 
 serious that he forgets to pose; he is not sit- 
 ting for his photograph, he is engaged in 
 living. Life is his object, not position; he 
 may appear cranky at times, and exceed- 
 ingly absurd, but his motive, if he let you 
 see it, will clear his name. The would-be 
 
52 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Sage often seems like a fool, but to look the 
 crank and to be one, are vastly different. 
 
 " Are there no honest cranks? " you ask. 
 Yes, a few. They are the great specialists, 
 who have scarcely any power of generaliza- 
 tion; they accomplish something in one 
 particular line, but their vision is narrow ; 
 they see straight ahead, but they cannot look 
 out at the sides. They have a defect of vis- 
 ion which the doctors find hard to cure. 
 
 The all-round Sage has eyes peering to 
 all points of the compass. Try to "evolute " 
 eyes ; the more eyes you have, the less of a 
 crank you will be. 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 53 
 
 ONE DAY. 
 
 In the dark we dream of the dawn and 
 youth divine youth starry-eyed. We 
 pray for the morning and the flash a sky 
 warm with the bud of passion a form soft- 
 limbed and strong. It comes We have 
 prayed. It comes morning youth. 
 
 We stand somewhere on a high place, and 
 thrill with our blood and the sunrise. 
 The bud steals up on the sky like the 
 promise of a fiery rose the blood mounts 
 to our cheeks like a prophesy of creation. 
 But it is opening the great flower. The sky 
 quivers with red rapture youth is fulfilled 
 passion is rising our soul is on fire. 
 
 Alas ! We stare at the sun and he puts 
 out our eyes the new sun the young sun 
 he stabs us with needles of light till 
 pleasure is pain. And our passion the 
 
54 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 flower of our youth. pierces us through and 
 through till ecstacy weeps. 
 
 Alas! We long for the noon the 
 climax the zenith. We go in the dark 
 and wait. 
 
 Up the high path of the sky the sun 
 triumphantly marches and we wait in the 
 dark. The noon of our life the climax 
 the zenith when glitters the mind like 
 steel in the battle when the heart beats 
 time to the fight when our muscles are 
 hard like a rock our nerves tense like the 
 string of a bow. 
 
 Alas ! We uncover our heads and go 
 out at the stroke of the clock High noon 
 when the mass is said and the aged die 
 And we stare, but the sun more cruel than 
 fate pierces us through with its darts. We 
 are blind struck by the light. 
 
 Alas ! Our blood had grown rich we 
 were ripe our muscles and nerves were 
 tense our heart beat time to the march of 
 our feet We lifted our arm, our strong 
 right arm, and hurled the lance It was 
 noon it struck at the sun in the zenith 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 55 
 
 above, and backward it flew to our heart 
 straight to our heart. The rose of our 
 passion was dead killed by our strong 
 right arm. 
 
 We go in the dark and pray pray for the 
 eve and the setting sun for the splendors 
 that usher in night, when the stars of hope 
 come out. We pray for the calm of our 
 poisoned blood for the cool of the slow 
 heart beat for the quiet of sleep for 
 comforting dreams. 
 
 Alas ! the sun goes down and we stare 
 in its face but our eyes are gone eaten 
 by worms the worm of age. And we fall 
 to the ground for our limbs are weak 
 they shake with years. And we look within 
 but we cannot see, for our blood is cold and 
 thick our heart is ice, and beats with a 
 noise like the cracking of snow. 
 
 Alas! Alas!! But wait !!! The GODS 
 do face the sun. BE GODS. 
 
56 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 SECRET GRIEF. 
 
 You will understand it, and how impossi- 
 ble it is to seek sympathy anywhere. You 
 would go to the rack ere you would tell it ; 
 torture could never force it from you. You 
 hide it and hide it deeper and deeper for fear 
 some far-reaching eye will pierce to the 
 secret. It is yours, emphatically yours. 
 Your closest friend never suspects it, or if 
 he does he cannot divine it. Shame would 
 paint your face redder than roses if it were 
 dreamed of; not the shame of guilt, but the 
 shame of shyness. You know that no mor- 
 tal can comprehend it, no mortal but you ; 
 even God must be puzzled about it you are 
 sure. It is utterly inexplicable, and simply 
 is as life is. It is something so foreign to 
 what you would tolerate in another, that 
 you wonder that you nurse it in yourself. 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 57 
 
 It is altogether out of the Conventional, and 
 has a close kinship to Mother Nature un- 
 painted and unpowdered by the hand of 
 Civilization. 
 
 It is an enigma, and yet you comprehend it 
 in a way and feel that it is the key to your- 
 self. Could you discover the meaning of it, 
 you would know who you are, what you have 
 been, and will be. Your Secret Grief is 
 sacred; it dwells in your innermost heart 
 where no other may enter. It puts your 
 character in a strange light the after-glow 
 of a long gone past floods it, and the dawn 
 of tomorrow gilds its edge. It is not so 
 much something that you have done, as a 
 something that you have felt and still feel; 
 a something that Society says you shall not 
 feel ; that man prohibits. As if Society and 
 man could stop the natural beat of the heart, 
 and escape the brand of Cain. 
 
 It may be a secret love which the very 
 secrecy sanctifies. It may be a secret hate, 
 which God suffers. It may be an unful- 
 filled aspiration at which the world would 
 laugh. It may be a memory upon which 
 
58 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Priests frown and God smiles. It may be a 
 regret which grows like a tropic palm, be- 
 cause of yonr scalding tears. Whatever it 
 is, it is not as man would have it, and you 
 are satisfied. You wander in the wilderness 
 with your Ishinael and no one sees. It is 
 your sacred property, the text of your scrip- 
 ture. It is the unnatural child, dearer to 
 the mother than the one born in wed-lock. 
 It is the wild flower, sweeter in scent than 
 the garden rose. It is the crystal spring, 
 hid in the height of inaccessible mountains. 
 It is the ocean depth which the plumb line 
 misses. It is the star out of sight which 
 pulls on the planets. Stop a moment ! 
 Think ! Now do you know? Do you 
 understand. 
 
 There are open secrets, honorable sor- 
 rows, respectable griefs where mourners 
 stand about, and sympathizers swarm. There 
 is priceless crepe, there are flowers and cof- 
 fins satin-lined. The minister condoles and 
 prays, and angels stop their ears. There 
 are donated years when sorrows sit down in 
 the house, well dressed in black; when com- 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 59 
 
 forters come and go, in black; when light 
 steals into the eyes through black respect- 
 able black and the clock calculates the time 
 for the wearing of black and the seasons 
 are ravens in black. 
 
 But one with the Secret Grief steals up to 
 his room alone and looks out in the dark on 
 the sky, and catching a glimpse of the moon 
 he melts her with his eyes. The moon of flint 
 floats in the mist the mist of his eyes. 
 He locks the door and bids his Secret Grief 
 come forth. Her face chiseled by Destiny 
 defiantly meets his own. She kisses him. 
 Her form, hewn by the Fates, enfolds him. 
 Her hair, shaded from dark to light by the 
 ages, entangles him. Her Karmic eyes meet 
 his and absorb them. Her teeth, hardened by 
 time, bite with their passion his tender flesh. 
 He writhes and quivers in throes of delicious 
 despair. He loves her, and the more lie 
 loves the more she tortures. She melts into 
 him and is lost again deep deep in his 
 heart. 
 
 Then, calmly and unflinchingly he carries 
 her about in the mart of trade, to church 
 
60 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 even to his own fire-side. He talks with 
 friends; they know not. He smiles in 
 women's eyes and they smile back. He 
 dances, eats and laughs. He earns gold and 
 spends. He studies and invents. He dies. 
 And when they try to bury him, something 
 weighs the coffin down the bearers stagger. 
 The Grief is there 'tis like a stone. He 
 left it when he died. 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 61 
 
 COLD DESPAIR. 
 
 A feeling of despair once felt, is ever 
 afterward appearing in memory, somewhat 
 as a death escaped comes back torturing 
 like a phantom fiend. Very few on earth 
 have drank the cup to the dregs. To drain 
 the cup, is reserved for the elect. 
 
 Sorrow has touched you, and you call it 
 despair. Agony has passed before you, and 
 you name it despair. Pain has vanquished 
 you, and you have imagined despair; 
 but the horrid thing, the never-forgotten 
 thing, comes rarely. As long as Hope 
 casts a single ray, despair is not, for the 
 creature glows with its own light the lurid, 
 sulphuric, blue glitter of hell. 
 
 Hope shrouds one in white mist through 
 which the eyes cannot penetrate. Where 
 Hope is, all is white mist the fog of 
 
62 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 illusion. But despair crawls on its belly, 
 and lights up the night with the shine 
 of its scales phosphorescent like fire-flies. 
 There are things that are light and cold. 
 Despair is light and cold colder than ice 
 colder than space colder than the dead. 
 To feel its touch, checks the flow of your 
 blood, and neither the fire nor the sun can 
 warm you. You shrink back and back into 
 yourself, farther, farther back in search of heat 
 of the white heat of life. But the furnace 
 is cold, the fire smoulders. Despair waits 
 his chance. He bides his time. He catches 
 Hope napping, and he freezes her ; and then, 
 he seizes you with his eyes. If Hope is not 
 frozen stiff, if she be not stark and dead, she 
 will arouse and veil your face and Despair 
 will wander off ; but Memory, like his slimy 
 trail, will stay. 
 
 What can you do, what will you do if he 
 appear ? 
 
 "Fore warned, fore armed. " 
 
 Despair and Hope are twins, born from 
 the same womb at the same hour. The 
 secret sympathy between the two, you can 
 
OF THE HERM ETICS 63 
 
 not fail to feel. Where one is, there the 
 other dwells. Though Hope shrouds you 
 in her veil until Despair is not, beware ! for 
 this illusion veil this maze of tint and 
 light this many colored rainbow shroud 
 this cloud of bubbles and dew this irides- 
 cent lace entwined with opals, amethysts 
 and pearls this dainty dream of splendor 
 dazzling while it soothes, is but the burial 
 shroud of truth. It is the mist upon the 
 microscopic lens. It is the mote within the 
 telescopic eye. It is the mask upon a 
 woman's face. It is the fool's cap on the 
 Sage's head. 
 
 In flying from Despair you leave fair 
 Hope behind. Fair Hope ! The aphrodite 
 of your dreams the golden-haired the 
 amber-eyed. Fair Hope ! who points to 
 something yet unseen who smiles on some- 
 thing yet unknown. 
 
 Truth will have none of her, for like a 
 harlot, she conceals within her ample skirts 
 her brother Cold Despair. She hides him 
 mid the draperies and dances madly in the 
 sun her partner hugged close to her 
 
64 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 breast but when she tires and falls upon 
 the ground asleep, sometimes alas ! some- 
 times the dew trailed mystery of her robe is 
 rent, and from her very vitals does her 
 awful mate come forth. Sometimes but 
 you who never dance with Hope, see him 
 not. Sorrow, agony and pain have been 
 your guests, but Cold Despair is yet to come. 
 Beware ! beware of Hope, and seek ye 
 wisdom. Truth neither hopes nor fears ; 
 she understands. What she sees is essence, 
 more glittering than illusion in the glare of 
 fire, more brilliant than all the suns above, 
 more real than Karma, more enduring than 
 the Fates. And on the door-post of her 
 temple there is writ in blood, u He who 
 enters here, leaves Hope behind." 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 65 
 
 BEAUTY ART POWER. 
 
 What is it you desire, Beauty? What 
 for ? Is it to please a friend ? Is it to win 
 a heart ! Is it to gain admiration, flattery 
 or fame, or is it for the love of it ? 
 
 The object of this Philosophy is power. 
 You ask for Beauty for the reason, perhaps, 
 that you love it, but still more for the sake 
 of power. Now pay close attention. The 
 sense of Beauty is in some sense the most 
 pleasing of all the abstractions ; for it is a 
 sense and an abstraction. Beauty is that 
 certain combination of things that appeals 
 to us in a manner to fascinate. In this 
 sense it is rather different from all other 
 abstractions. The abstraction lies in the law 
 of the combination. The same things thrown 
 together in some other way, would be gov- 
 erned by another abstraction which would not 
 be that of Beauty. 
 
 Suppose you desire this result, Beauty, in 
 
66 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 order to please a friend, or to win a heart. 
 What comes ? Beauty, but not in the form 
 which appeals to the heart you desire to 
 engage. // comes to you as you ap- 
 preciate, and fails to do the work 
 desired. You are duped, and have 
 missed your end. The love of Beauty 
 not being the ultimate, but the love of the 
 friend, you have neither a reward from the 
 abstraction nor the desired heart. Alas ! 
 desolation. Your premise was wrong. To 
 gain power from Beauty you must seek it 
 for its own sake, leaving out of your mind 
 all thought of what it will do with 
 others, and filling yourself with the 
 idea of what it will do with you. Out of 
 this goes and comes Power. Beauty blesses 
 you, and with the touch of the tips of her 
 fingers, you feel the magnetic thrill. Your 
 magic then over others comes not from your 
 conception of Beauty, nor your passion for 
 her, but from the added power which your 
 consciousness of her bestows. 
 
 Your effect upon others comes always 
 from a concealed power; and a love of Beauty 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 67 
 
 for itself, aids that power. Having such a 
 devotion to the abstraction, you find it mani- 
 fests in form everywhere and always con- 
 gruous. Beauty is never incongruous ; she 
 combines well and appropriately. She does 
 not adorn her sea-nymphs in muslin ball 
 dresses, nor her belles of the dance in a bath- 
 ing suit. She puts the right thing in the 
 right place, and makes it fit to the landscape 
 and environment. 
 
 A woman devoted to the beautiful would 
 endeavor to be so even on a desert where no 
 eye, not even her own, could behold her. 
 She would seek all things being equal 
 for the adored one, and would beg her com- 
 pany. She would instinctively adorn her- 
 self for the Beauty's sake, even though 
 her conception of her be different from 
 all others ; and in this converse with the 
 divine abstraction harmony manifested in 
 the Real she would grow strong. 
 
 In the world no one can laugh down the 
 Beauty lover. He is supremely happy in 
 his divine association and smiles back on 
 the scorner in his consciousness of power. 
 
68 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Do you desire Art ? What for for whom ? 
 If for another, to gain by it, to hold another, 
 your quest is vain; but if your motto is, 
 " Art for Art's sake/' pray on. Like Beauty, 
 Art is an abstraction growing out of combi- 
 nation. It has a meaning, subtle, and its 
 own. It includesctf/zs^fe^cjxand congruity. 
 But Beauty is not necessarily its divine con- 
 sort. 
 
 Art brings holy satisfaction, in fact a 
 species of ecstacy; but the rapture is differ- 
 ent from that of Beauty or Love. There 
 is a sense of the dual nature of Truth about 
 Art, which is not found in the glamour of 
 Cupid. In the trail of Art is a stream of 
 blood on the brow of Art is the shadow of 
 hate in the eyes of Art is the lust of life. 
 
 Art like a white star, twinkles in all 
 tints fire which burns heaven's blue and 
 blackness. Art is master of heaven and 
 hell he soars to the zenith and dives to 
 the center. He is awful he is sweet he 
 appeals to the worst and the best in you. 
 He is a God, all-sided. He fires you with 
 the lust of a fiend, and inspires you with 
 

 
 c 
 
 OF THE HERMETICS 69 
 
 the love of an angel. He tempts you to 
 the low, and beckons you to the high. 
 Splendid ! magnificent ! he stands on the 
 rock-granite foundation of earth, and 
 lizards crawl over his feet. But the tower- 
 ing head rears itself into the cold spaces 
 where feeling is lost in intellect and fear 
 in knowledge. The heat of the planet's 
 internal fires warm him the cold of the 
 sky's chilling ethers freeze him Art the 
 terrible Art the divine. 
 
 Would you know him, touch him kneel 
 at his feet ? Let me whisper a secret only 
 for his own sake, will he have you only 
 for his own sake And more, while you 
 crawl near his skirts and pick flowers, he 
 is likely to tread on your form. He will 
 think you a worm. Rise up. Stand near, 
 and measure stature with him. Though 
 he towers to the stars, stand near. Dare 
 thou to stand; and gazing on him thou 
 wilt grow taller taller elbow to elbow 
 shoulder to shoulder taller taller neck 
 to neck head to head eyes to eyes. 
 
 Power Beauty Art Power / 
 
70 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 SPIRITS AND DEVILS. 
 
 We have a good deal to say on this sub- 
 ject, and what we do not put into words 
 may be easily read between the lines. In 
 the first place, to go spirit hunting is bad 
 business, unless here we make a dash , 
 for there are conditions. 
 
 If you have the scientific mind, which is 
 nothing other than one bent on knowing 
 for the knowing's sake ; if you are sure of 
 yourself, you may search after ghosts. 
 Anything you can find in the Universe is 
 a good thing, if it comes to you in the form 
 of a hard fact. Do not congratulate 
 yourself; it is possible that you have not 
 as yet evolved the scientific mind. 
 
 But wait a moment, there is another 
 condition ; perhaps you have lost a friend 
 one very much loved ; that the living 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 71 
 
 without him is a long agony ; possibly you 
 have not gone far enough in philosophy to 
 understand the full meaning of this, so 
 you call him to come to you out of the 
 darkness out of the unseen if only 
 the vapor him that you may know his 
 breath on your cheek cold like the wind 
 of winter, but his. Have you the right to 
 this you have. 
 
 The " touch of the vanished hand " will 
 set you singing again ; only know this, 
 that where you head, there is danger. In 
 the wet where the lilies grow, the devil is 
 hid ; those pale ghost lilies spring from the 
 slime where the wallowing snake lies low. 
 
 In the seance room, His Majesty sits, 
 where the horse-shoe circle divides. He 
 pays no money and laughs in his scarlet 
 sleeve when you pay yours. Respectable 
 ghosts stay away, all SPIRITS except 
 himself all. If as savant you seek for a 
 ghost, keep clear of the seance room 
 where a fee is paid. And more, look out 
 for the unseen guest who laughs in his 
 scarlet sleeve. If you seek for the loved 
 
72 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and lost, keep clear of the seance room 
 for they never come that way. 
 
 His Majesty cheats you again in the 
 guise and form of a bride or a friend. 
 Some day we will tell you how. Satan 
 goes round disguised as a ghost, and devils 
 both great and small emerge from the cur- 
 tained box unseen but real. 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 73 
 
 DEATH WHAT OF IT? 
 
 "If I should die/' you say, "If I should 
 die just at the moment when I have learned 
 to live, what, good? Philosophy is for life, 
 life but death! What has the frozen 
 corpse, embalmed, shrouded, boxed, to do 
 with truth ? The charnel-house is a dreary 
 place ; the grave is foul ; even the mauso- 
 leum, touched up with gold, is a lonesome 
 spot. " If I should die what then ? " 
 
 Philosophy is for life, we still reiterate, 
 for life; nor do we deny that death is stalk- 
 ing up and down the world to meet even you 
 you. Some day the wind will blow 
 colder than ever before it will lay you low, 
 and transform you into a fallen statue. The 
 breath of Death ! more chill than the winds 
 of the Arctic Death ! He has a twin 
 
74 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 brother sleep a zephyr of him, yet bleak. 
 He lowers your pulse and lays you down and 
 closes your eyes. 
 
 Where does Truth sit while you sleep ? 
 Have you watched the sea when the tide is 
 low have you heard it sigh in its dreams? 
 
 You sleep, and the tide of your life goes 
 down down to the ebb and you sigh in 
 your dreams ; but Truth never closes her 
 eyes ; she watches through night and day 
 and she smiles when you sigh when the 
 sea sighs. 
 
 When you die you will grow so cold that 
 you will forget to breathe your brain will 
 be frozen hard your lungs will turn to ice 
 you will even forget to think to love. 
 But wait ! Philosophy, garbed in the robes 
 of Truth will watch the tomb for three long 
 days, till the butterfly breaks the cocoon ; 
 till the seed bursts open its husk; till the 
 chick is hatched from the egg; till the tide 
 begins to rise; till the stone is rolled away 
 and the Christ comes forth. 
 
 Remember that death is the soil of life 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 75 
 
 and life is the despair of death. Remember 
 you enter the womb to come out; you come 
 out to return again. What manner of man 
 goeth in, cometh out; what manner of man 
 cometh out, Philosophy knows. She meets 
 her own at the gate of birth, and walks by 
 his side to the gate of death. Three days 
 in the tomb three days. 
 
 When you wake from sleep, you take up 
 the thread and weave it into the warp where 
 it dropped the night before; if you find it 
 knotted Alas ! you left it so. When you 
 wake from the ebb-tide of death and open 
 your eyes in the realms of self, you pick up 
 your thread and weave again where you 
 ceased to weave the night before. If knotted 
 Alas! you left it so. 
 
 O loved ones do you not see that the silken 
 cord never breaks ; you pick it up, now here, 
 now there, and you spin, and spin, and spin, 
 like the sisters of fate. Yoii spin as the 
 spider spins, and fasten yourself to the web. 
 You spin with the silver cord, as fine as a 
 silken hair, as strong as the fiber of life. 
 
76 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The fabric you weave hangs high twixt this 
 and the other world. 'Tis a veil of gossa- 
 mer stuff, perfect on either side. You look 
 through its meshes without you look 
 through its meshes within now standing 
 in front in the cold now standing behind 
 in the heat. 'Tis an endless veil and you 
 spin, and spin, and spin but what do you 
 spin? 
 
 The genius seeks his muse and kneels at 
 her feet " O muse! One look from thee 
 that I may know eternity." 
 
 You who die, remember Philosophy 
 your muse! She closes your eyelids in sleep, 
 and sits at your side the long night through. 
 Dawn comes in, you open your eyes, your 
 questioning looks melt into hers. She has 
 watched through the night with steady gaze. 
 She saw the stars come up and the moon 
 dip into the sea. Her glance swept the 
 spaces and comprehended the drama of 
 earth. She saw Love's rhapsody and Hate's 
 gore. She beheld sorrow, weeping and pain 
 writhing. She watched the Mother in the 
 pangs of child-birth and the sufferer on his 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 77 
 
 bed of death. All this time you breathed 
 softly your pulse was low you slept. 
 
 When death touches you and the wind 
 blows cold, your muse stands firm. 
 She wraps you in her cloak and lays you 
 out. She braces herself against death as a 
 single will defies the universe. She faces 
 the Arctic winds. She sets her teeth, and 
 for three days challenges hell. Out upon 
 her leap the devils of Inferno. She stands 
 fast. Calmly you sleep on as calmly as 
 the plant sleeps under the snow. 
 
 Your muse calls heaven to help her the 
 saints the cherubs the seraphs the an- 
 gels the arch-angels God. She dares 
 with her eyes the terrible glitter of the dog 
 star. She shifts her gaze to the awful flash 
 of Arcturus. She appeals to the majesty 
 of Orion. She draws on the fires of the 
 Pleiades. She summons the combined forces 
 of Hercules. She faces all heaven. Her 
 soul drinks at the firmament and you 
 sleep on. 
 
 When the Sage of Athens drank the hem- 
 lock his muse shuddered, but stood firm. 
 
7 8 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 When the heart of Christ broke, his muse 
 wept, but lived on. When death meets you, 
 your muse will conquer hell, and face the 
 eternal fires. Fear not. 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 79 
 
 NATURE'S JEST. 
 
 Our whimsical old Mother Nature is ap- 
 parently a great jester. So it would seem 
 from the expression of her face, but beware! 
 She may be more in earnest than you 
 imagine. 
 
 Madame Beauty stands before her mirror 
 and weeps bitter tears as she drapes herself 
 in rags, but Poverty, off in the corner, 
 laughs and laughs. It is a pitiful picture, 
 but not to Poverty, who laughs and laughs. 
 Beauty might pose for Venus naked but 
 now ! Ha ! Ha ! How Poverty laughs ! 
 There stands the idol of men in the sun- 
 light, with hair that wreathes her round and 
 round magic hair ! so electric that a glint 
 of fire is in it perfumed hair ! Nature's 
 own aroma ! 
 
 But where is the jeweled barb with which 
 
8o SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 to fasten it ? Beauty is too poor ! and her 
 eyes! Tears make them brighter as dew 
 freshens the roses! Her white breast is but 
 half covered Alas! the rags are rent where 
 the skin is softest, where the cold strikes 
 coldest. 
 
 Poor Beauty! She is honest no daub 
 of rouge, nor puff of powder, nor roue's kiss 
 has touched her, only the wind nipping at 
 her ears, and her shoulders and her pink 
 finger-tips. Her tears freeze in her dimples, 
 she has forgotten to smile, but Poverty 
 laughs laughs till the wind is lost in her 
 voice laughs till the sound of the church 
 bell is drowned laughs till the city's roar 
 is faint and Beauty stares in her bit of 
 glass, which is lit with the flash of her eyes. 
 
 Is Nature playing a joke, or is she adjust- 
 ing the scales ? 
 
 Madame Ugliness sparkles with gems. 
 They shine in her ears gross ears that 
 gather scandals and lies, as the pitcher plant 
 gobbles the flies they shine round her neck, 
 gaunt like the arm of a sycamore tree- 
 wrinkled and old they shine in her hair 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 8l 
 
 where it clings to her head, as moss in 
 patches sticks to a stone. They shine on 
 her fingers, kitotted like claws and destined 
 to scratch scratch. She is swathed in satin 
 and silk as a mummy is swathed; bound and 
 banded and draped till her cracking bones, 
 and her shrunken flesh and her bosomless 
 chest are rigid and stiff. 
 
 She fears to gaze in the glittering lake, 
 she dreads the mirror and shining pool, she 
 shuns reflecting eyes. Wealth stands by 
 and sneers wealth, her consort, secretly 
 sneers and jingles his money-bags. She is 
 so ugly he covers her up with things of 
 beauty, and sneers; he piles on more and 
 more and sneers and sneers. 
 
 But what of Nature the Wise? Does 
 she jest when she brings forth Beauty and 
 sends her adrift with rags on her back, 
 while hugging Ugliness close to her breast 
 where the rich milk flows ? 
 
 Ah! Beauty! thy rags but emphasize 
 thee the white of thine arms, the pose of 
 thy limbs. Thine hair is thy robe. The 
 sun is thy love. Thou holdest thy glass. 
 
82 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 But Ugliness thou? Can Nature bal- 
 ance the scale where beauty is weighed ? 
 She loads on the silks, the satins, the furs ; 
 she heaps on the rubies and gold, she piles 
 in the diamonds, the emeralds, the pearls, 
 and yet, even yet, Beauty is heavy, gold is a, 
 feather, the jewels a speck. And Nature, de- 
 spairing, goes down to the sea, she dives for 
 more jewels, and more, she digs into earth 
 and brings up more treasure and more. She 
 slaughters the beast and the bird, she tears 
 off the hide and the plume, but Ugliness 
 crouches, light as the skin of a fish, while 
 Beauty outbalances all. 
 
 Ah ! Nature ! you jest, unless time and 
 causes long gone can be caught to weigh 
 down things as they seem. 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 83 
 
 YOUR FRIEND. 
 
 Is he hateful today think of tomorrow, 
 remember last week. Is he scowling, recall 
 his smile. Has his tongue twisted itself 
 into harsh words forget not the sweet ones 
 you have caught from his lips. 
 
 Do your friend justice. Place him on the 
 scale of your own conjuring and weigh 
 yourself with him. Perhaps after all he is 
 heavier, a better man than you. When you 
 judge another make two columns in your 
 mind, the pros and cons. Reckon them up 
 as you would a sum, and subtract one result 
 from the other. If there is more good than 
 bad more that is delightful than repellant 
 more sweetness than gall, hold fast to him 
 forever. You have found a jewel, one with 
 a flaw to be sure, but a jewel. It is not 
 
84 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 paste nor pebble, but a gem. It will 
 flash in a comparatively dark place, brighter 
 than in the sunshine. Wear it on your 
 breast, and look into the glass when the 
 light is dim. But if the balance is against 
 him, if the cons outweigh the pros, avoid 
 him. He may shine for another, but not 
 for you. By no amount of polishing can 
 you make a diamond of him, or a ruby, or a 
 pearl. Another may, but not you. 
 
 Never let your heart deluge your head, 
 when friendship comes your way. The head 
 must be above tears and smiles in clear 
 cold air where it can think. 
 
 The heart is a fountain whose stream 
 flows forever, warm and gushing. You can 
 not stop it nor would you. But keep your 
 head high, that you may see clearly, to turn 
 the course of the waters where the flowers of 
 friendship can best grow. It is better to 
 overlook a field of ice with cold judging 
 eyes, than to raise a crop of weeds in a soil 
 watered by tears. 
 
 Be just to your friend and you will deal 
 squarely with yourself. Await his coming 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 85 
 
 It may be a long time ere he appears 
 You can afford it wait. 
 
 Jewels are not used for side- walks, nor 
 stars for street-paving. You may find the 
 pearl in the oyster you would eat, possibly 
 at the retailers. Be sure it is a pearl before 
 you set it. If it is precious conceal it, for 
 there are thieves about. If it is luminous 
 hide it, for it might dazzle some one else. 
 
 Your friend is your own not anothers- 
 in that which makes him yours ; otherwise 
 go friendless, and live with the birds, the 
 mountains and the sky. In nature some 
 aspect of you is concealed, find that. 
 
86 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 THE ONE THING. 
 
 Man wearies of everything save one. He 
 plucks the flower he has striven after, in- 
 hales its perfume and withers with it. 
 Every thing tires him, even the most loved. 
 When the flame goes out, he finds ashes 
 black and gray. No outer splendor holds 
 his eye long. He turns wearily from the 
 vale to the mountain, and again from the 
 mountain to a star. In the face of the star 
 he closes his eyes. He is tired, even of 
 the smile of his loved friend. At times he 
 would fly from it. He wearies of the days 
 of his youth He throws no kiss after them 
 He is glad they have gone He wearies 
 of his prime and seeks to escape it, into the 
 easy chair of age. He wearies of old age, 
 and of the old clothes which alone suit it. 
 He makes his own coffin while yet alive. 
 He drives the nails himself, and longs to lie 
 down therein, even before he dies. He is 
 tired surfeited with everything. 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 87 
 
 This is the natural man, the man of 
 rhythm. He rubs off the down from the 
 peach and eats it He wins a heart to 
 trample it All because he is tired. Be- 
 cause the demon change has told but 
 half his story, shutting its mouth in the 
 midst of the tale. 
 
 But the One Thing What of the One 
 Thing ? Is there somewhere a bird of para- 
 dise whose feet never touch the earth ? Is 
 there a gem that charms the eye to flash 
 ever ? Is there a flower that excites one to 
 ecstasy by its breath ? Is there a song that 
 one sings always? Is there a land where 
 the grass never withers ? Alas ! no. The 
 One Thing is subtle and mighty It dwells 
 out of sight. No eye has beheld it nor ear 
 heard its voice. Philosophy Truth fas- 
 cinating as the Ideal, faithful as the Real, 
 ready at all times every where to fit change 
 to change as the lapidary fits gem to gem 
 linking incident to incident, mood to 
 mood, hour to hour, day to day, year to year 
 with the goldsmith's art. Of IT This 
 power which ties and binds, holds and con- 
 
SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 nects, fits and matches you never weary. 
 The mood may worry you, the day may ex- 
 haust you, but the art to adapt and link 
 them, is the Master Creative Art the 
 magic power, which if once you feel, will 
 reveal the ONE THING. 
 
 The charm of conquering, solving, blend- 
 ing, combining, is the charm of God. It is 
 the power which adapted Earth to the Sun 
 and Venus to Mars. It is the potency 
 which patterns the constellations and 
 spangles the sky with starry designs. This 
 master power of adjusting our moods and 
 our hours one to another this art of sway- 
 ing to environment, has in its essence the 
 charm of the new The ecstasy of creation 
 This Art is the Philosopher's own. The 
 normal man knows nothing of it He is 
 forever tired but the Sage smiles at pros- 
 perity, and goes with it, as man does with 
 woman even to the precipice of adversity, 
 where he smiles again and ties a knot He 
 has bound the two firmly like husband and 
 wife, and he blesses them both. The Phil- 
 osopher bares his head to the gale and lets 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 89 
 
 the wind's sharp fingers tear at his blowing 
 hair He suffers the knives of ice to prick 
 to his bones He tests himself on the grind- 
 stone of fate and finds the new. 
 
 Each morn a new sun peers over the bor- 
 ders of dawn Each eve a new splendor 
 melts into the bosom of the night Each 
 day is a virgin immaculate, who conceives 
 and gives birth to a Christ. A mystery 
 appalling, but sweet, challenges the Wise 
 with each fresh beat of his heart, for to him 
 is given the One Thing the power to 
 Create. 
 
 All other men tire. They sicken with 
 the stench of the old, the fetid, the stale. 
 They shrink from the same dull colors and 
 shapes the picture comes back at each turn 
 of the wheel the same. They start at 
 familiar sounds, the shriek of the whistle, 
 the roll of the drum the same from cradle 
 to grave the same But the Sage ! He 
 touches the old A Philosopher's touch- 
 as soft as the falling of snow the kiss of a 
 friend and lo ! the new . 
 
90 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 THE DEVIL. 
 
 He is out of fashion. He went off the 
 stage with Jonathan Edwards and men of 
 his cult. The masters of the " new 
 theology '' have not fist enough to shake at 
 his phantom, so they deny him. They stand 
 in their pulpits and preach goodness, love, 
 music, flowers, paradise. They believe in 
 an eternal heaven of splendors without the 
 u great white throne." They have banished 
 the angels and the harps, and they give you 
 Nature (when she smiles). The storms they 
 ignore. When the wind blows they become 
 as deaf as stones They hear nothing. 
 When it is cold, they sit over their church 
 furnaces and declare it is warm. They are 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 91 
 
 as one-sided as the moon. If they have 
 another face, they conceal it. This is 
 " namby-pamby. '' It is gush. 
 
 We face facts. We believe that every- 
 thing has two sides. If there is an up, 
 there is a down. If there is a white, there 
 is a black. We know very well that lilies 
 thrive in mud, and roses in decay. We have 
 seen the cat eat the mouse and the dog kill 
 the cat. Insects destroy trees, and elephants 
 tread on worms. We are also aware that 
 man builds his ladder to fame out of dead 
 bodies, and climbs to the stars to the tune 
 of dying shrieks. The sea fish gorge them- 
 selves with one another, the air fiends in the 
 shape of birds dive out of heaven after 
 helpless victims. 
 
 You may call the Devil by whatever name 
 you choose, evil is a fact or good could not 
 be. We believe in the Pairs the Paral- 
 lels. Life and death go arm in arm. Pain 
 and pleasure are close linked. Heaven is 
 on the verge of hell. God implies the 
 Devil. We believe he takes a thousand 
 forms, a million, a billion. He is not con- 
 
92 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 fined to hoofs and claws. Like that of Good 
 his coat is "many-colored." 
 
 We have told you to practice. We have 
 spoken emphatically, and you ask with 
 reason" On what ? " On the Devil. He 
 is the best muscle developer known. He 
 can put you through a regular course. He 
 will teach you to aim a straight blow and 
 hit between the eyes. To be sure you will 
 be knocked down over and over again, but 
 get up. To lie and groan is to give him a 
 chance. You must be quick, as quick as he 
 is. You will grow as strong as a Greek 
 athlete, and be ready for the ring on all 
 occasions. He does you a good turn in giv- 
 ing you the chance. In time you will glory 
 in your own strength as a young man does. 
 In fact the Devil is mightily afraid of the 
 Philosopher, he prefers the nervous man, 
 one who loses his head. 
 
 Philosophy is the " bete noire" of the 
 Arch Fiend. He fears naught else than 
 that. There is a smile on the Sage's lip 
 that makes his majesty shrivel. There is a 
 steadiness in the wise man's eye that galls 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 93 
 
 even the Devil. He is sarcastic, but the 
 Philosopher is more so and when the fire 
 fights fire, you know the outcome. 
 
 So then we accept him, as we do the other 
 side of heaven, for the inner implies the 
 outer The height the depth. 
 
94 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 THE PAIRvS. 
 
 One's illusions vanish one after another ; 
 what today we deem real tomorrow will be a 
 dream. We are building day after day upon 
 the shifting sand, and the tide comes up and 
 washes the shining bits away. Hopes 
 fondly cherished break like bubbles or drown 
 our hearts in tears. 
 
 By and by our eyes will be dry, no tears 
 will come, and we will stare dimly and 
 straight ahead into vacancy, to see nothing, 
 not even an illusion. Then upon all men 
 we will smile a ghastly smile, hoping for, 
 believing in, wanting nothing. At this 
 point we reverse and look in. Something 
 appears, some one, and that appearance, that 
 one makes the illusion plain. This appear- 
 
OF THE HER ME TICS 95 
 
 ance which looks into our eyes is the Real, 
 the everlasting mate of the Unreal. 
 
 Had you not dreamed Had you not suf- 
 fered Had you not sobbed on your pillow 
 at night alone alone Had you not longed 
 and longed when the stars came out Had 
 you not begged the grass-blades to speak to 
 you, and the leaves to whisper to you Had 
 you not looked on the back of your friend 
 whose eyes were turned elsewhere Had the 
 sky not rained on you, and the sea sought 
 to clutch you Had the mirage not come 
 nor the dim island faded, the Real would 
 have failed. 
 
 Mortal man goes on and on, plodding and 
 plodding; he eats, he drinks, he sleeps, 
 alas! he does not dream. His wife makes 
 his bed and his bread. The beasts in his 
 yard are his kin. He dies. No castle ever 
 faded out of his sky. No bird with fire-tinted 
 wing flew over his head ; and the Real 
 the face he has failed to see. 
 
 When you have drank the wine down to 
 the dregs When the golden bowl breaks 
 When love flies off to the moon When 
 
SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the blood congeals and will not flow, and 
 Beauty flaunts her hair in your face, look in. 
 
 The bank must need follow the fickle 
 river, the inconstant river, but on the bank 
 the water-rushes grow. Ah ! the meander- 
 ing stream. Ah ! the constant shore and 
 the water-rushes. When drowning in the 
 cruel river, forget not the shore and the 
 faithful reeds. Wet and dripping you seek 
 refuge deep within the rushes deep within 
 the rushes. 
 
 Drenched in the fog of illusion you rush 
 inland and look into a pair of faithful 
 eyes. I have brushed the cob-webs from 
 mine forever, the spider's web, and now I see 
 straight to the heart of a star. But to my 
 friend I am a mystery. Now and again he 
 hates me, and yet he loves me too. He 
 turns here and there for something better ; 
 he tries to go ; he lies to himself, but he 
 comes back. 
 
 Look well to the opposites. The Pairs 
 are faithful. The dream, the illusion, is the 
 other half of the Real. It shimmers like 
 the light on the sea It goes and comes like 
 
T//K IIKKMK'HCS 
 
 the moon It lives and dies like ripe corn, 
 but the arc of heaven which Iris bears in 
 her hands, overshadows her never. Iris 
 still brings news from heaven and tells the 
 tale of Zeus. 
 
9 8 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ADONAI. 
 
 To invoke Adonai is to call upon that in 
 your universe of consciousness which is 
 akin to the ecstasy of love, by no means a 
 physical, but a purely spiritual emotion. 
 You call out of yourself, into your conscious- 
 ness, the charm and holy glamour of being. 
 You throw yourself, by an effort of will, into 
 a state where soul is manifested in its 
 beauty, as the flowers display the sex-charm 
 of plants. You call up from the depths of 
 soul its melody, for soul in its most gracious 
 form is music, the singing as it were of the 
 bird to its mate. 
 
 To invoke Adonai is to enter the world of 
 variety where habit is abandoned, drudgery 
 forgotten, and conventionality is no more. 
 All things common are hid from view. It 
 is the world of form, of sound, of languor, 
 and of dream. It is the world of haze and 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 99 
 
 splendor the illumined the shadowy. 
 Here time ceases, the past melts away, the 
 future is unforeshadowed. 
 
 You ask, "Is Adocai a spirit, a Being? " 
 We answer, there is a Being, there are 
 Beings who revel in this Paradise, who 
 hear these sounds and see these sights 
 Beings who dwell forever in a dim glory 
 softened by a veil such as fell over Isis 
 Beings whose sight is clouded by tears 
 of rapture, more entranced than those who 
 smile Beings who hear voices echoing back 
 and forth along the spaces of Heaven 
 Beings who see tender colors when their 
 eyes are closed, and one of them the Mystics 
 call Adonai. 
 
 Life that throes and throes till each throb 
 sings Life born out of continence till every 
 nerve is thrilling with its own identity, is 
 the spell which Adonai weaves upon him- 
 self till he twines his form in rainbows and 
 flashes light from his deep eyes, even as the 
 sun throws flame. 
 
 Adonis kissed too much by Venus drags 
 his wings Adonis free soars upward. 
 
loo SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " Can we " you ask, " Can we as Mystics 
 invoke Adonai ? " We answer, unless you 
 do, you are doomed to see, to face and 
 struggle with the common place. Crude 
 ugliness will strike you hour after hour 
 hard blows The soul of things will be 
 hid, and only the half of every story 
 will be told Your nostrils will be greeted 
 by bad smells Your eyes with ugly sights 
 Your ears will hear revolting sounds 
 The barren wash-day grayness of the world 
 will stare you in the face Your friends will 
 unveil all their petty faults, the very 
 pimples on their foreheads will stand out 
 The great beyond in them will be boxed up 
 in illshaped skulls Their tongues will say 
 rough things and lap coarse food Ordin- 
 ary, all ordinary. 
 
 You have no power to discern what 
 they have brought to you, what they yet 
 will bring You measure but the size 
 of their shoes, and count the spots ou their 
 clothes You have no gift for looking back 
 nor seeing far ahead You are marching in 
 the ranks where grease and oil besmirch the 
 
. 
 OF THE HERMETICS 101 
 
 hands of artisans You smell of lumber, of 
 fresh fish and blood You toil till sweat 
 soaks through your clothes, and gazing up 
 you think it rains. 
 
 Your mother is a woman who breeds and 
 nurses young Your father is a man who 
 gloats and drinks Your brothers kill live 
 things, and laugh Your sisters stuff rag 
 dolls Your wife courts your stomach 
 And gnats and insects suck your blood. 
 You have no heaven nor hell. You serve 
 the common place. 
 
 But lo ! how this doth change when you 
 besiege the pearly gates of your own heart, 
 and to the half truth add the other half. 
 Does he come in the sunlight of morning or 
 the sunlight of evening It matters not. 
 Does he look down from the zenith or up 
 from the depths What difference? Does 
 he appear without or within Who cares ? 
 He is Adonai the Beautiful ! With him 
 you get the full meaning the illumination 
 the glory. When you see him, your feet 
 scorn the earth When you hear him, you 
 answer back. 
 
102 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Venus adores and yet fears him, for he 
 scatters light as he moves, and the flashes 
 heat and thrill you. His countenance 
 beams even though veiled, and his eyes 
 pierce and transfix you. All things seen 
 through the mist of him are beautiful. 
 Beside each leaf on the tree is another like 
 silver, which the sun turns to gold. 
 
 To invoke Adonai is not always to bring 
 him. . Oft times he is taken by force like 
 the kingdom of heaven. If he will not come 
 by your wooing, plunge down in yourself 
 and drag him out of the depths, for he may 
 be asleep. 
 
 Beware of the common place. Better 
 look into heaven one moment and down into 
 hell the next, than to set your house in 
 strict order, starch up your linen, and eat 
 for the palate. 
 
 Beware of the common place That 
 mood where you yawn and stretch, and hunt 
 out your aches and pains as old people do, 
 who gloat over sores and decay. Beware of 
 scavengers, buzzards and flies. 
 
OF 7 HE HERMETICS 103 
 
 MAGIC. 
 
 You may follow Christianity to the yawn- 
 ing grave, you may suck the breast of 
 Buddhism dry, and yet miss Magic an 
 Aphrodite poising on the foam of the sea. 
 
 The magician can subtract glamour 
 from the heart of things ; he can manipu- 
 late combinations he can balance on foam. 
 Out of himself comes a magnetism which 
 envelops and transforms environment. As 
 love turns hell into heaven, so the magician 
 plays at his art. 
 
 Nature covers the woman's skeleton with 
 voluptuous curves of flesh She spreads a 
 pond of slime with water-lilies She bids 
 exquisite ferns to peep from ghastly crevices 
 She paints the sky at the brink of the 
 desert sometimes when the mood is on 
 
104 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 her sometimes. She touches up the vul- 
 ture in the empyrean, till he has the majesty 
 of a heaven sent messenger She glitters in 
 the purity of the gull till he rivals a white- 
 throated angel On winter she breathes, and 
 brings hot splendor out of snow and fire out 
 of ice. 
 
 Magic never goes naked She is as real 
 as the soul of woman, but she drapes herself 
 as did Isis. Her eyes look at you through 
 the veil of her hair her limbs gleam but 
 from the meshes of a net She has the art 
 of the spider ; she catches and holds, but 
 unlike it she never devours you. 
 
 Her food is the pollen of flowers, her drink 
 is the dew on their breasts. 
 
 Truth is truth, but she is sometimes non- 
 com mital. Whatever she bestows is one 
 aspect of her not all. Veiled in glamour 
 she gives you her smile, and bewitches, 
 tantalizes, lures, and bewilders. Her form 
 is clear-cut and awful, like the scars on the 
 brow of Olympus, but her smile is myriad 
 and seen through a veil. 
 
 Mystery and Magic are some way related. 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 105 
 
 The half known transfixes you its spell 
 pierces you, like the glance of a wise man's 
 eyes. The mystery of the moon is in Magic 
 The side which you wonder about is the 
 half that charms. If the satellite turned, 
 Love's dream would vanish. 
 
 We hear strange rumors of Adepts in 
 Thibet and the fakirs in India. We have 
 read fairy tales about the miracles of Christ, 
 and the wonder working of Mahomet. We 
 are familiar with the account of the birth of 
 Gautama, and the magic of Moses. In the 
 face of it all we would tell you, that this is 
 as the blowing of a soap bubble compared 
 with the mystery of the seed or the passion 
 of the plant. 
 
 Nature is a hypnotist and a magician. 
 She arrests the busy man in his round of 
 work, and holds him spell-bound before a 
 growing grass blade She stops the devotee 
 of science on his road to fame, and bewitches 
 him with the remains of a mastodon She 
 glitters in the scalpel of the surgeon, and 
 flashes on the edge of the dissecting knife 
 She rouges the consumptive's cheek, and 
 
106 SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tantalizes Esculapius with microbes She 
 tempts the diver to risk the jaws of the 
 shark, and turns the ills of the oyster into 
 pearls She foils the explorer with her 
 North Pole, and entices the aeronaut to a 
 pitiful rivalry with the chick- a-dee. 
 
 The poet is her victim par excellence. 
 He sees things through the mist of his own 
 eyes a trait from nature by the terrible law 
 of heredity. He is eternally hypnotized and 
 walks about in a dream. Nature's spell is 
 on him from birth to death, and he, as her 
 true child, shines by his own light. He is 
 not a planet but a lesser sun, that warms 
 itself at its own fire. He generates heat and 
 radiates it from his eyes and fingers. Cold 
 people sit at his feet, as beggars lie out in 
 the light. The rabble follow him as the 
 poor followed Christ. They touch his skirts 
 and warm their bodies in electric heat. Like 
 the magician of India, he draws an ignorant 
 crowd, who know nothing except that he is 
 warm. Each word of his is a spark, which 
 sets something on fire. He is rich with 
 smiles, that tickle the half-dead nerves, and 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 107 
 
 metaphors that shock the heart to renewed 
 life. He moves in a glory like the column 
 of fire, and he casts a shadow like the fallen 
 cloud. He is Ariel captured by Earth. He 
 is a god wedded to woman. 
 
 But what of Venus Urania, who makes 
 matches in heaven, and kindles her heart 
 at the shrine of Vesta. What of the love 
 that blends souls rather than bodies, and 
 creates her children in celestial spaces on 
 the down pillows of ether ? What of the 
 splendor of Eden, when the gods walked in 
 the garden, and the serpent lay hid in the 
 glitter of his own skin ? Even yet magic 
 eyes sweep the horizon, where the sky lies 
 softly on the breast of the sea. Even yet, 
 on the altar of Vesta, burn the sacred fires. 
 Even yet, the loves of paradise hold the sun 
 in its place and the moon. 
 
 Would you know the art of Magic? 
 Would you discover the magician in your- 
 self and wake him out of sleep ? Retire 
 within, far back, away from things seen by 
 the natural eye ; and the long-lashed lids 
 of a spirit's orbs will unloose when, lo ! 
 
loS SOME PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the land of dream ! the realm of memories 
 stored by the ages in you. But look still 
 farther back, to the magic region of ice and 
 storm and snow, when the world, like a cold 
 corpse, lay wrapt in her icy shroud you, 
 you were there. Or into those tropic regions 
 where strange plants grew, watered by mists, 
 heated by a seething immensity of sun 
 you were there. Or, if your eyes weary 
 with wonder, and the fringed lids drop, 
 listen ! Hark with the ears of a spirit 
 backward down the aeons of time. Listen 
 to the crashing of the avalanches of the 
 terrible ice period, when chaos roared as the 
 captain shouts in a storm at sea. Listen to 
 the strange note of a long-lost bird that 
 lived in the days of a terrible sun. Listen 
 to the voice which spoke to you, ere Christ 
 traveled the banks of the Galilee, or Caesar 
 mastered the spirit of Rome. // is speak- 
 ing still. 
 
 Magic ! ! Away with the fakir fraud, who 
 gives you a lie for a paradox while truth is 
 truth. Away with the mummery of a false 
 act and a sham occultism while the Phil- 
 
OF THE HERMETICS 109 
 
 osopher's stone exists. Away with the 
 devil's cauldron or the craft of priests 
 while the great laboratory of nature, manipu- 
 lated by the witches of science, is seething 
 with the heat of divine alchemy. 
 
 Would you be a magician, stir up the 
 smoldering coals at your own fireside. 
 Begin to burn. Feel your blood hot in your 
 veins. Warm yourself with memories of 
 sun-tinted dreams. Pray pray pray at 
 the shrine of the Sphinx. 
 
YC 15929 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY