Studies In The Thought World - Practical Mind Art E-Book

Henry Wood

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 293

Beschreibung

These disconnected studies have been gathered and presented to the public in book form. A part of the volume consists of lectures and essays which have not before been published, while the others (subjected to some changes) have been reproduced through the courtesy of the publishers of the various magazines in which they originally appeared. While all the papers are metaphysical, psychological, or evolutionary in character, they are, with one or two exceptions, essentially unitary, and therefore the order in which they are placed is not significant. Like " short stories," each is measurably complete in itself. The power, quality, and exercise of the human thinking-faculty are attracting unwonted attention and interest, and the potency of concentrated ideals is increasingly understood and utilized. The priceless value of impersonal truth, and the saving power of optimism, are receiving increased and merited appreciation. It is not merely a duty, but rather a privilege, for the author of this book to join with many others in urging forward the great cause of the higher life, and of a general human incarnation of the divine quality.

Leseprobe

Studies In The Thought World ; Practical Mind Art

Henry Wood

Contents:

Studies In The Thought World ; Practical Mind Art

Preface.

Ownership Through Idealism.

The Evolutionary Climb Of Man.

A Great Art Museum.

The Vital Energy And Its Increase.

A Corrected Standpoint In Psychical Research.

The Divinity Of Nature.

The Hygiene Of The Consciousness.

"What Is Man?

Our Relations To Environment.

Divinity And Humanity.

Has Mental Healing A Valid Scientific And Religious Basis?

The Unity Of Diversity.

The Dynamics Of Mind.

Auto-Suggestion And Concentration.

Human Evolution And The "Fall."

Omnipresent Divinity.

Mental And Physical Chemistry In The Human Economy.

The Education Of Thought.

The Nature And Uses Of Pain.

The Sub-Conscious Mind.

The Psychology Of Chime.

The Signs Of The Times.

Studies In The Thought World ; Practical Mind Art , H. Wood

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Germany

ISBN: 9783849626556

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

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Cover Design: © James Steidl - Fotolia.com

Studies In The Thought World ; Practical Mind Art

PREFACE.

IN response to frequent requests from friendly co-workers and students of truth, these disconnected studies are gathered and presented to the public in book form. A part of the volume consists of lectures and essays which have not before been published, while the others (subjected to some changes) are here reproduced through the courtesy of the publishers of the various magazines in which they originally appeared.

While all the papers are metaphysical, psychological, or evolutionary in character, they are, with one or two exceptions, essentially unitary, and therefore the order in which they are placed is not significant. Like " short stories," each is measurably complete in itself.

The power, quality, and exercise of the human thinking-faculty are attracting unwonted attention and interest, and the potency of concentrated ideals is increasingly understood and utilized. The priceless value of impersonal truth, and the saving power of optimism, are receiving increased and merited appreciation.

It is not merely a duty, but rather a privilege, for the author of this book to join with many others in urging forward the great cause of the higher life, and of a general human incarnation of the divine quality.

All truth which is above the plane of the intellect should be accepted, not upon external authority, but just in the measure that it receives the full sanction of the inner " Guide,'' or spiritual intuition of the individual. To aid in and point out the law of the development of this supernal faculty to his readers is the writer's earnest desire and effort.

It may be observed that some basic principles are reiterated in various settings and combinations. This is due to the character of the book, and to the fact that vital truth needs repeated and positive delineation in order that it may become mentally graphic.

OWNERSHIP THROUGH IDEALISM.

THERE is a universal craving for desirable things ; but in many particulars there would be wide variation of opinion as to what is deservedly to be sought. The subjective bias of different individuals is very unlike; and it is this, rather than abstract merit, which determines the quality and intensity of personal demand.

The lack of completeness is a universal feeling ; therefore there is a general reaching out for something not yet realized. This longing is vague, and not readily interpreted ; consequently its real significance is generally misunderstood. Experience shows that, as one object after another that has been sought is gained, the demand is at once enlarged; so that, contrary to expectation, the feeling of incompleteness, instead of being satisfied, is even more accentuated. Man stretches out his hands, and grasps that which he has craved, but is surprised to find that the hunger within him has moved forward, and far outstripped its former outermost limit. When intelligently comprehended, however, he finds that this divine dissatisfaction is what differentiates him from the beast, and keeps him faced God-ward.

Alexander wept for other worlds to conquer; and this spirit of out-reaching for new accomplishments and greater possessions is a universal experience. One who had attained everything he desired would be rightly accounted either as abnormal or idiotic. There will be a normal feeling of incompleteness in every human being until, in a certain sense, he feels and realizes that all things are his own.

The cravings of humanity begin upon the lowest plane, and not only expand in breadth, but reach continually higher. The infantile demand for simple warmth and nourishment is but the starting-point of desires which are absolutely illimitable in extent and duration. On all the lower planes of consciousness the expectation is general that perfect contentment is to follow the attainment of present low and limited ideals. This acts like a powerful but ever retreating magnet, which draws men onward, and still onward.

The young man who engages in business says, " When I have accumulated such a sum I shall be content, and anything further will be a superfluity." But before that point is reached the resistless demand has swept on in advance. The artist sets before him a high standard which will fill the measure of his ambition; but, in time, that which was at the summit of his desire is left below in the distance. The scientist will solve a great problem, or utilize a new discovery, and then rest contentedly upon his laurels ; but, as he moves on, grander views loom up before him, and unseen hands beckon him forward. This universal soul-hunger for complement, or rather possession, is normal and good. It is the divinity in man which gravitates upward.

But wholesome dissatisfaction, like every other normal quality, is capable of perversion; and this mistake is almost universal upon the lower planes of man's nature. This noble quality, which in the evolutionary unfoldment of the past was only reached as he emerged above the level of animalism, is unwittingly turned backward in its action, and centred upon things which are below its own legitimate domain. Alexander's desire to conquer was laudable, but his application of the law was a sadly erroneous one.

Every one may rightly aspire to "own the earth," but not through physical conquest, or by means of legal title-deeds and exclusion. There is a higher and a 'truer kind of ownership. The realist will exclaim that such an idea is purely imaginative, and has no solid basis. But let us look more deeply. It is true that, in a sense, we often have outward possession or control of things we do not own. But making the closest application of true ownership, let us inquire as to the proper method of taking an inventory of one's assets.

Before passing to the metaphysical definition of ownership, which is by far the most real and intrinsic, it is proper to say that we do not in the least impinge upon the legitimate rights of material ownership in its own domain. This right, as recognized by all organized governments, is to be sacredly observed. To question it would be to introduce anarchy and chaos in the place of law and order. It is indispensable upon its own plane and in its own time, and will rightly remain until outgrown by regular processes of evolutionary advancement.

The millionaire is the object of much envy because his actual possessions are assumed to be large. But real ownership requires capacity. That important factor has been left out of the account. No one can truly own beyond it. A legal title may give outward control, but true ownership is deeper. Capacity, or power to contain, cannot be enlarged to order. In reality, one owns that which he can absorb, appropriate, and appreciate, and no more.

Suppose two men together roam through a great conservatory. One has the title-deeds of the same in his pocket, but is quite destitute of all aesthetic feeling and cultivation. To him it is only a piece of "property" representing a sum of money. It is not a conservatory in uses or purpose. He is incapable of its real ownership. Its wealth consists not even in the color, fragrance, and graceful proportion of every plant and flower, but in their intelligent appreciation. Its value is contained in the delight which these can awaken in the soul of the beholder. As a conservatory it has no other uses. The companion of the title-holder may be penniless ; but, if he have the developed capacity, the riches he beholds are his own. The other may externally manage a conservatory, but he cannot own one. The same is true of the riches of a great library, and of the beauty and quality enshrined in art, architecture, nature, or a landscape. But ownership, in its true sense, is not limited to the aesthetic appreciation of material things, but covers the whole range of moral and spiritual quality and attainment. Even the ideal things in the character of our neighbor, which we have not yet actualized, are ours, through love and appreciation. Every true quality that one desires is his, wherever it be found. We may thus take possession and pay for what we wish, without the formality of legal documents, " signed, sealed, and delivered."

The wealth of the realist and materialist is very meagre, for they are only rich in deficiency and limitation. Riches to them are impossible except through the narrow channel of title-deeds. Instead of entering into possession of the admitted superior qualities of their neighbor, contrast makes them feel poor. To rejoice in another's superior and superb health, wisdom, talent, or beauty, which we are not yet manifesting, is gradually to take possession of them without dispossessing him. Idealism breeds riches because the good, the true, and the beautiful, in their universal aggregate, belong, not merely to the community in general, but to each individual member. Measured by the financial scale, each one becomes a multi-millionaire, minus the usual care and anxiety.

If the ego be soul, and not matter, it is obvious that all real proprietorship must be mental and spiritual. Of necessity it must be subjective, while the holding of legal titles means only objective regulation. The treasures of the mind and investments in ideals are not subject to decline or bankruptcy, and the market is never glutted. With the enlargement of the capital stock comes the continual growth of the power of acquirement. But those mental powers which through a special training gain an expertness that commands only a commercial value which comprises nine-tenths of so-called education are only technical and subordinate. True education is the increase of the richness of the mind for its own sake.

All the accumulated attainments of science, triumphs of art, researches of philosophy, achievements of invention, penetration of logic, music of poetry, grandeur of heroism even the ecstasy of love, the beauty of virtue, and the very inspiration of the Spirit of Truth belong, not all to all, but all to each. Emerson, the great idealist and intuitive philosopher of modern times, graphically moulds this grand truth :

'I am owner of the sphere,

Of the seven stars and the solar year,

Of Caesar's hand and Plato's brain,

Of Lord Christ's heart and Shakespeare's strain.'

Idealism is the vital element in religion. Paul, philosopher as well as apostle, crowned the apex of a pyramid of spiritual wealth with the aphorism, " All things are yours." From Plato down to Emerson, all the great idealists have been capitalists in the profoundest sense. .

What a contrast between the puny, material title-deed, which is not only superficial, but exclusive, and the ideal law of acquirement, whereby every one may own everything ! Poverty is a condition of soul. This is even true on the material plane. The millionaire who feels poor is poor, and nothing but a mental revolution can make him otherwise. On the other hand, the humblest task and the simplest gift may be transmuted into a pleasure and privilege. The world is full of poor people who are rich, but they are utterly unaware of it. There are boundless deposits of virtue, love, goodness, beauty, health, and happiness waiting for drafts to be made upon them. But the eyes of the world in general are fixed upon deficiency, and they see little else.

The pessimist will ridicule such a philosophy, and tell us to come down to the facts ; to get out of the clouds, and stand upon the solid ground. He hugs his own woes, and asks, is not the earth full of wretchedness and illness, and poverty and oppression ? Apparently, yes ; but it has all been gratuitously self-created. The seen negative creations have not been made in a moment, and it is not claimed that idealism will at once transform them. True subjective wealth is a growth. But so soon as the law of accumulation is grasped, the trend of the world will be rapidly toward universal wealth on every plane. Human vision has been almost entirely rilled with outlines of limitation. We must "right about face." Every one can be rich because he can multiply his ideals and hold them. As this is done, they press with ever-increasing intensity toward expression, articulation, and actuality.

Every one loves his own ideals. His fancy is not for his actual friend, duty, occupation, book, or profession, but for his ideals of these. He paints them in his own colors, and loves them for the aspect he has thrown around them. Even lovers love not each other, but their own mental pictures. Thus everything real and normal may be clothed with beauty. But our ideals, however fine, cannot exceed the intrinsic actual. Expression to-day may be faulty, but the constructive vision penetrates beneath the outwardly imperfect to the coming manifestation of the Real.

Our aspirations are all too low. The inmost actual will at length have expression. Everything is therefore intrinsically better than it seems, because we have made up our opinions from superficial incompleteness. We can rectify, yes, re-create, the external universe by polishing the subjective lens through which we view it. The highest attainment to be sought is the incapacity to see evil. Contrary to the conventional view, this greatly increases our ability to correct it. To fill ourselves with a knowledge of it, in order to combat it, is like attempting to drive darkness out of a cellar without the aid of light. Thought-space is possession ; therefore, to think no evil is simply to have no ownership of it. In proportion as it becomes unfamiliar to consciousness, it is remitted to oblivion.

The mind is the depository of its own riches. Even the beauty of a landscape dwells in the beholder. Idealism is the electric motor, by means of which we may make rapid transit from in-harmony to harmony, and from poverty to wealth. We go to the ends of the earth to find riches in climate, air, scenery, art, entertainment, and health, with indifferent success. The divine restlessness is upon us, but we misinterpret it. Our poverty is outwardly apparent. Let us therefore turn within, to the safety-deposit of Mind, and acquaint ourselves with its treasures.

THE EVOLUTIONARY CLIMB OF MAN.

THE eons of the past have been occupied with a struggle to bring forth man. That great effort is still in progress, for he is not yet completed. Generic man, or the human ideal, is, and always was, potentially complete ; but in actualized existence and expression he is ever more becoming.

This is an era of remarkable progress and discovery. But the most wonderful of all the new accomplishments is man's discovery of himself. Only through evolutionary interpretation has this been possible. Without such a divining-rod he had no way to measure his own proportions, or to estimate his relations, and therefore had no idea of his size and importance.

The new philosophy has proved to be a universal clew; but, though we may follow it faithfully, we shall never arrive at its end. Only in its light can phenomena be translated, whether organic, inorganic, vegetal, animal, human, intellectual, or spiritual. It is the new mental telescope; and only through its lenses can be discerned the universal trend and specific aim of the cosmic economy. As before noted, its whole end and purpose that " for which the whole creation groaneth and travaileth " is the bringing forth of man.

In a very realistic sense, evolution has created a new heaven and a new earth, and, in fact, made all things new. Take all the so-called sciences, and they would not now recognize their likenesses, as faithfully taken two score of years ago. Geology, botany, zoology, astronomy, biology, in fact cosmology, which embraces them all, are to us new creations. All the theories, systems, text-books, and authorities extant, that have been formulated without the light of this all-inclusive philosophy, are worthless lumber, warped and decayed. They are as incongruous as the Ptolemaic system of astronomy.

In this special study we are not to take up, technically, the details of material evolution ; for these have been ably formulated by modern exponents from Darwin to Drummond, and to do this would require an especial equipment to which we lay no claim. Our purpose is rather to interpret the spirit, trend, and meaning of this great philosophy, as we follow its clew among the higher aspects, and to trace its all-inclusiveness in man.

Lifted from its blind materialism, evolution may be simply defined as the divine method of continuous creation ; or, in more specific terms, as God's way of making ideal man or the man that is finally to be the full expression of himself. To accomplish this grand work taxes the entire cosmic resources.

Evolution is not to be reconciled to the various fragmentary systems, dogmas, and opinions that have been built up into disconnected structures in the human consciousness of the past; but these must all come before its judgment-bar, and receive its righteous verdict. The truth to just the degree that it is contained in them will not only be electively made manifest, but put in orderly and connected form. Before tracing, a little in detail, some incidents that have occurred during the interminable human march to the present vantage-ground, we must establish a very radical and significant premise.

Evolution, as conventionally set forth, has been grossly materialistic. It has dealt with mere figures, rather than the numbers which they represent ; with sensuous forms, instead of the moulding force which shapes and rules them. The materialism of Darwin still lingers largely with most of the recent exponents of the new philosophy. But though their attention has been almost exclusively centred upon outward forms, which are only indexes, yet even such superficiality has been indispensably useful as a stepping-stone to the deeper reality. A knowledge that recognizes progress in beauty, complexity and perfection of form, leads to an -understanding of the advancing orderly shaping force, which is thus given outward expression. Visible forms are only symptomatic of the moulding reality that is back of them, the quality of which they are striving to express.

They are the printed characters which tell a great truth. It is admitted that forms are endowed with a quality called life or soul; but this has been regarded as an incidental property resulting from organization. Mere fortuitous combination was thus looked upon as a creator of life. Cause was mistaken for effect. Definitely stated, it is that matter evolves itself, or that it could be both actor and material acted upon. Darwin embodied it in his famous aphorism, "All potency is contained in matter."

Sensuous science has made an effort to eliminate divinity from nature and man, or at least to crowd it back to the most remote protoplasmic energy. Secondary gods have been set up, and labelled " natural selection," " chemical affinity," " inherent energy," and " resident forces," in the attempt to make a great orderly, unitary Intelligence unnecessary. It has virtually assumed that matter grows in and of itself. In its conflict with theology, science has almost out-dogmatized the dogmatists, by teaching a practical though unadmitted atheism.

On the other hand, the ranks of traditional literalism have become exceeding thin, and few remain who still hold that a Deific fiat suddenly created all things from nothing.

There is an impassable gulf between evolution and all special dispensations. Every link in the endless chain of events is firmly attached to the ones which precede and succeed it. If the established order has ever been abruptly broken into from without, upon any plane whatsoever, then evolution is a myth. God reigns in and through orderly law, and is never self-contradictory. When reverently followed, a true evolutionary philosophy leads up to the conclusion that all phenomena are the manifestations of one Infinite Mind.

True evolution, in its essence, is the name of a law of progress, rather than of a series of seen forms. The life, mind, or soul, of whatever grade, is always the cause, and not the result, of organization. The real progression is in the ascending quality of mind or life. Each step is a successive state of internal character, and its visible form is only its sensuous translation.

It is not matter, per se, that progresses. The same physical material appears, disappears, and reappears in higher or lower combinations, as the case may be. It is passive clay grasped by the hand of a moulder. The elements which to-day make up the body of a dog or tree may have figured long ago in the material organism of a seer or philosopher. There was no ascent -or descent in the material, but only in its user. All progress is in the unseen. Your body is not you, but only your out-picturing index. The seen figure is not the progressive reality, but just the well-fitting clothing which shows the quality and taste of its present owner. The human ego picks up material, and erects it into an animated statue, in perfect correspondence to its interior quality. If he drop the material, and it be utilized by a horse life or mind, it at once assumes the corresponding equine expression in every detail. There is no exception to this rule. In the deepest sense, the real tree is the tree-life, and not the temporary material which it has grasped for outward expression. True, we may study and admire the latter, but it is unprofitable to invert the relation. A piece of marble, or even a clod of earth, has a kind of life. It will be increasingly evident that all true evolution is metaphysical.

In the great cycle of creative development, the Divine life, first involved into the lowest conditions, is at length, through a series of grand steps, gathered, organized, individuated, and evolved into " sons of God," in which form, with ever-growing reciprocal affection, the return is made to the " Father's House."

Realizing now distinctly that progress is located entirely in the quality and complexity of life, mind, and soul, of which the ascending outward forms are only indexes, we emerge from the thick fog of materialism into the clear sunlight of the true, progressive reality. Visible shapes are only the printed text which is to be read and interpreted. We cannot afford longer to mistake mere numerals on the blackboard for the realities of number for which they stand.

It will then be understood that, in noting some of the steps and processes which man in his lower estate has passed over, we are dealing with his unseen but real self, rather than the wayside inns along the road, in which he has been temporarily sheltered. The promise and potency of coming perfected spiritual man was assured from the beginning of the involution of divine energy into the lowest elemental conditions. The protoplasmic quickening that lies at the foundation of all things stands for and is a definite prophecy of man as finally complete in God's image. The Spirit of God, moving upon and involving itself into primal conditions, is the eternal conception and gestation which will continue until archetypal man shall be born into full expression.

What interminable struggles and efforts, and evolutions upon evolutions, all working for " one divine event to which the whole creation moves " ! Based upon the prodigality of expenditure, what infinite value must be placed upon man, always bearing in mind that he is soul, and not body !

How such a comprehensive view puts us in universal touch and fellowship with all forms of life ! Everything is not only our friend, but our consanguineal relative. Each has been a kind of abiding place along the great highway over which we have passed.

What a leap upwards was that from the inorganic to the organic ! But the same omnipresent divine life binds the rock into form that thrills through the soul of an archangel. Mollusk, fish, reptile, and mammal these grand subdivisions, each again many times subdivided, all these, form the rounds of the ladder upon which we have been climbing.

The tremendous ascent is a many-graded school, and the supreme lessons to be acquired are self-conscious individuality, and a developed recognition of oneness with our source.

The psychic nature of man was potentially present in the very clods of the valley. Every lesser grade of life made its supreme contribution, and passed it along to the next in order. All in turn have been melted in that vital crucible whose contents is being cast into man.

The road to a spiritual self-consciousness has been hewn through a great forest of expressive forms, each of which has been pushed aside for its more able successor. The clod becomes a vegetable, the vegetable an animal, the animal a man, the man a self-conscious spirit, and the spirit a god. We must ever bear in mind that all this progress is in positive quality of life, and that each of the rising forms is only its outward symbol. It is like a banner which shows the rank of the force which is marching behind it.

All the motives, mysteries, riddles, and potentialities of the universe find their solution and focalized climax in man. The world is, because he is. He is its reason and explanation. All things are concerned in his coming and becoming. Humanity is the universal goal, toward which, from all directions, there is a supreme effort. From the primal cell upward, everything has this tendency, aim, and transcendent purpose. Man is eternally begotten by the one Omnipresent Life, and is forever being born. The fingers of God, who is Spirit, are all through the cosmos, shaping the life or mind of every atom and molecule, and impressing upon it its grand destiny.

Our family kindred reside on every terrace that is stretched between the amoeba and Shakespeare, the reptile and Emerson. Each atom and molecule has magnetic polarity, and its polar star is humanity. The tree is coming man not yet loosened from the ground, and the fossil long ago passed on his best contribution and is resting a while. The evolutionary vesture is a robe, woven without seam, from bottom to top, from protoplasm to seraph.

Man is not only poetically, but scientifically, a microcosm. In the profound deeps of his being, in orderly arrangement, are sun, moon, fixed stars, comets, mountains and valleys, trees and flowers, quadrupeds and birds, with all variations and possibilities, terrestrial and celestial. Man is in the universe, and the universe is in him.

The memories and traces of our brutehood still linger with us, and all our friction comes because we lose our equilibrium by lagging behind the normal onward trend. Any man who loses his soul is the man who has not found it. The great command which rings down through the ages is, " Forward ! " and our failure to fall into line is responsible for all abnormity.

As suns, with their worlds and satellites, float in the free and fluid ether, so all sensuous matter rests upon its spiritual base. Mind slumbers in the pebble, dreams in the plant, gathers energy in the animal, and awakens to -self-conscious discovery in the soul of man. The psyche of the lower form, involved from the One Life and Mind, for the great purpose of education through evolution, at length learns its great lesson, and takes its degree. Adam could name all the animals out of his own past qualitative experiences. Evolution may, therefore, simply be defined as experimental education.

An endless caravan is travelling on the "King's highway," and each section is laboriously toiling up the gradual, spiral ascent. But from the deceptive materialistic standpoint many things seem to fall away, and drop out of the procession. Forms dissolve, shapes disappear, things are said to die, buds and leaves and blossoms wither and fade ; but the unseen life, which for a while held them in form, resumes its march in yet sweeter and more noble configurations. Conservation is the universal law, therefore nothing real can be lost.

The animal psyche is tethered to a little circle of instincts; but the human soul, although on the present plane connected with expressive materiality, mounts aloft and abroad in ever-increasing range. Not until the ever-expanding psyche has reached the human estate can it turn around and look inward upon itself, and discover the engraved pattern of divinity.

To bring human expression up to the full normal standard requires innumerable eons of frictions, polishings, and experiences. All lower conformations are but a stammering prophecy of the becoming ideal. There is a re-birth in every death, so that the conventional demise of one order is far more exactly the advent of the next.

Man is to be the personal expresser of the one Creative Spirit; so that purposeful evolution is a multiplying of self-conscious, divine personalities. The upward spiral stretches from infinite involution to infinite evolution. The God-energy stores itself in the humblest forms ; and as the oak is potential in the acorn, so man is wrapped up in every one of them. The process of ripening is orderly on all planes.

When man discovers that God is in his being, he feels an impulse to give him manifested expression. Life is a great gulf-stream, sweeping away from divinity, and bearing everything on its bosom, but only to finally float all back in perfected form to their primal source. During this great cycle, individuation and voluntary God-likeness are developed.

All creation is through thought, or, more exactly, each thought is a creation. Looking back upon the great cosmic economy, at first sight it seems blended, confused, and even chaotic. Evolution takes this seeming complex entanglement in hand, and through an orderly discipline erects its eternal masterpiece, completed man. But this purposeful outline and ideal is not yet filled out. Man always lived, and moved, and had his being in God, but must needs be created in low form, or distanced from the Deity in consciousness, in order that he might discover his true rank, through the process of working his way back. In reality, he has never been away from the "Father's House," except through his dream in sensuous matter, and material embodiment. " The Word became flesh " in order that flesh might finally become " The Word."

Having thus briefly traced the outlines of the great evolutionary cycle, let us turn for a little to consider a few of the laws or methods through which we may accelerate the process of our own unfoldment. On all the inferior planes, progress comes from a pushing from behind, and is accompanied by friction. Lessons are difficult, acquirement slow, and seeming mal-adjustments many. The wheels of progress groan and creak upon their axles, often hardly moving, or even appearing to move backwards.

But when the plateau of spiritual understanding is finally reached, man, through the knowledge of law, begins to aid powerfully in his own advancement. He learns the uses of ideals, and places them in front, where, like great magnets, they draw him onward. He finds the highway smoothed and made easy before him, and glides along without the jarring and grinding of his former movement. He becomes a conscious creator, which only means that the divinity within him has come to self-recognition. , Unconscious creation is always slow and labored. It grinds its way among obstacles, as a glacier presses forward into a valley, crowded by the huge mass from behind. This continual friction in the human economy results from ignorance of law, and its fruits are dis-order, dis-ease, mal-adjustment, arrested development, decay, and premature material disembodiment.

We have spoken of matter as mere passive material which is grasped by various grades of life for formal expression. We have also said that there was no dead material, and that everything possesses some quality of life. How can this seeming inconsistency be reconciled ? Live material is sufficiently passive for all purposes of utilization. All life is positive in degree; but it is law that, of whatever grade it may be, it moulds and uses those forms which are less positive than itself. Therefore man's physical organism is composed of myriads of inferior organisms, and his mind of an aggregation of the subordinate mentality of the past. We have not only left behind us on the evolutionary highway all the lower and simpler qualities of existence, but we also have brought them with us, and have them in us.

Man cannot go out beyond himself, for the universe is contained within the circumference of his being. In him potentially exist celestial harmonies and hellish flames, heavenly ecstasies and demoniacal orgies. He has the equipment to play saint or sinner, devil or angel.

We may now consider more definitely how man, having arrived at that plane of the conscious possession of creative power resident in his own volition, can supplement the universal trend in perfecting his own expression. He has come to the point where he understands himself, because he observes the forces that evolution has employed in bringing him up to his present altitude. What may be called the law of uses is a vital principle, and its scope is universal. If we neglect to exercise any talent, power, or quality, it soon falls away from us. Nature, in the widest sense, always casts away all her useless material. She refuses to nourish all drones, until they finally die from inanition. If, however, we wish to eliminate the brutish forces that still lurk within us, we need not destroy their energy, but turn it into a higher channel. In every past step of biological progress, organs which have served their purpose drop away; but it must not be forgotten that they are always supplanted by a more worthy successor. But the legitimate use of a talent actually feeds it.

The eternal climb through the ages has come from an ever-present inherent craving, not only for more, but for higher and better and richer. Demand always brings supply, and it is entirely adequate. Potentiality is limitless ; and it invites you to help yourself, and take what you want. But if our wants are not centred upon that which is superior to present attainment, their supply only puts us back, to again learn a lesson more dearly than before, which really belongs to the past. There is a universal desire for happiness ; and happiness means harmony, or rather harmonious development.