TAT Journal Issue 13 | forum for awareness

TAT Journal is published by the TAT Foundation, a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation, that was established to provide a forum for philosophical and spiritual inquiry, based upon the principle that cooperation with fellow inquirers expedites one's own search. The TAT Foundation supports workshops, seminars, study groups and related services. The views and opinions expressed in the TAT Journal are not necessarily those of the editors or of the TAT Foundation. Address all correspondence, including manuscripts, to: TAT Journal. Manuscripts will be returned only upon request and when accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope.

Editor: Mark Jaqua;
Associate Editor: Louis Khourey;
Production: Cecy Rose, Paul Cramer.

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LET THE RAYS SHINE THROUGH

AS OF THIS MORNING, to my knowledge, no one has come up with the total answer, the all-revealing truth, so I shall relate to you a new meditation technique that will allow one to enter an undisturbed state-of-mind while moving about in this relative field of existence.

The other night I entered a deep meditation heightened by a high fever due to a virus. I had decided to withdraw my senses and take care of the problem at hand - fighting off my sickness - when some very strange events occurred.

Exterior sounds and sensations had nearly ceased when, suddenly, I was enveloped by intense rays of various color and shape. They seemingly entered my body, stayed for a short time, then passed on, although never breaking their continuity!

"Something" was informing me that there were five permanent waves or rays of light, penetrating all things in all stages and states of matter. And from these emanated a specially designed ray for each individual, to be recognized, understood and utilized, so that we could benefit thereof.

Once this revelation came about I seemingly rose above the five rays and entered a "shielded" energy field where the hurts and joys entered, but were not registering. It was sort of a deflector state where nothing could attract my mind to a point where decisions of any kind would have to be made. It was as if only the super-important messages would be allowed to enter, while all the others would be sent merrily on their way.

It was at this point that I gained a clear perception of my surrounding environment (although the only things that I saw or felt were the rays), and "heard" a voice, telling me certain secrets of incoming data.

With my individual ray, ascended above the constancy of the five rays, I was able to separate feelings into categories, excluding all disturbances and centering my attention onto the problem at hand. Each time my attention was drawn to an activity it would immediately withdraw before becoming involved and attached.

In this manner I was able to discern an acute amount of noise and simply delegate it to one of the five senses, namely sound. All sound was carried along by this ray. Disturbances, distractions, sounds of pleasure and joy, anger and pain. It was all very clear: sound is eternal, constant. Whether one becomes a victim or a user of such phenomenon, it can better be comprehended once it is seen for what it is, and not for what it is accepted to be.

I was able to extricate myself from further pain that "listening to the noise" would have caused. Instead, I took refuge in my ascended state, and paid attention to the other four aspects of nature.

Even with my eyes closed (or were they?), I was entertained by a multitude of panoramic finery. I was shown a vast array of spectral sights. It seemed to stem from the originating point and then would enter into our material world where it would take complete form and alter and attract various beings. Since I was apparently in the middle of things I decided to decipher all that I could and see why phenomena were altered so much before material beings were presented with its impact.

It was then that a "set of hands" presented to me a model of a code machine that each living thing was connected to. It is for this reason that not all beings see episodes in the exact same manner. Or sequence. They have to decide or decipher for themselves what the action means or represents.

For Instance, when a visual ray is in sequence, many see the same thing; some don't, but the mind's action is paramount here. The visual scene stimulates the various minds and separate codes are set off as the scene progresses through this material world carrying minds with it, placing them in a new reality, while the ones that didn't attach themselves remain where they are.

The rays don't lose their intensity or purpose, when they enter this materiality; they merely refract somewhat causing general confusion and misunderstanding. They do not correspond to any color or sound on our scale so they can use any existing colors or sounds as they please to suit their intended purpose.

So the five rays which manifest in this world and give rise to our five senses are no more than broken down pictures of the true scale of things. It is with this corrupted version of our five senses that we try to comprehend our environment and the universe around us. It can't be done.

Physics teaches that for every action there is a reaction. So if one were to touch an object the theory would state that the action of touch created a reaction which was some sort of stimulation affecting the brain which would then give its response. The action is the ray of Touch itself; the reaction is when some one or some thing comes into contact with it making that object want to touch it. And when it does, another action-reaction occurs, creating several layers of sensation on various levels of consciousness. So it is with all of the five permanent rays.

The ray that carries smell comes along and affects beings in various ways. Memories are set in action, instinct is aroused, and something is either thought of or done, again proving that the rays are the action and the one who smells is the reaction. If the smell be traced past the apparent cause, then the truth would be near, but people, animals, and plants have no such curiosity.

These rays permeate all existence, having no equal; yet they are of one source, one purpose: to keep in animation and bondage all living things, to afford opportunity to escape and reorganize.

If you want to know what kind of world you really live in, then mentally strip yourself of your five senses and what you have left is what you are - an unborn thing waiting for birth being nourished by FIVE RAYS OF TRUTH.

Without the five rays no one could think because there would be nothing to think about. A thought could not be raised because there would be nothing to raise it against! No visions could be had for nothing could be seen or envisioned.

What it boils down to is this - we are existing in a state where five beams of knowledge operate. In the process, we are bombarded, transformed, and activated. All of the past, present and future is a mirage. The truth is not seen because we are trying to see it from without. All of our goals and plans are useless. Whatever heights or lows we attain are mere appearances, apparitions of the real event.

The reason for all diseases and death is the process of being carried away by "our" senses. Death comes when the realization is made that the events of one's particular passions or motivation have ended. And since they were riding right along with them, their end came also.

It is safe to say that the senses have countless trillions of response mechanisms; and if there are avenues of escape or elevation, you'd best believe that they are all covered because whatever is made known by the senses, is known by the senses. And no thing using the five rays can escape them by looking for get-away routes supplied by them!

The only escape is to free yourself from them. Disconnect and sever their tyrannical hold. Use them when needed but don't let them use you. If you wish to avoid the destruction in store for you simply disengage your senses. Since this life exists only in the five senses, so does death. And if life doesn't exist - how can death? You do not have to die, you are made to die!

So, in a passive state of mind monitor whatever sensory organ is in progress and refuse to be captivated by it. Do not be alarmed, overwhelmed or enthralled. Just simply see it for what it is, and in this manner you can disengage more easily.

There are no strenous exercises, sitting postures or chants to follow. It is entirely up to the individual where they begin or end. But know for a fact that if you don't program your Alpha and Omega, your addiction to the awesome powers of the Eternal Five Rays will plan it for you without the necessity of a higher sanction!

Since this is your life, why don't you take possession of it? And stop letting eternal and external forces drag you around. Use the senses, lest they use you.

Walter Yates, Chesapeake, VA

THE YIN AND THE YANG OF IT

REFERENCE the symbol which depicts the circular sky which surrounds the Earth. Taoism conceived this symbol to clarify the principle of the Universe - the Way.

To Taoists the movements of the heavens are the causes of the phenomena appearing on Earth. Behind all of the visible symptoms of Nature, is Tao, the universal cosmic energy. This energy produced the Yin, the negative force, and the Yang, the positive force. These polarity definitions were extended into all of the opposite principles of Nature.

These forces, in interaction, brought forth heaven and earth, which in turn produced all beings - plants and animals. Humanity, therefore, is a product of this cosmic energy.

Yin and Yang sums up life's basic opposites such as: good-evil; active-passive; positive-negative; light-dark; summer-winter; male-female; love-hate. All these forces complement as well as counter-balance each other. Each also invades the other's hemisphere and establishes itself in the center of the opposite's territory, resolving itself as a composite of a final unity of Tao, specifying that all things are one.

All things, through this synthesis, lose their absolute character. A sense of fatalism permeates this melding. For instance, the happening of any event may be good, but it may develop into something bad. An example would be the winning of a million dollars in a lottery. The aftermath of this happy occurrence may be the purchase of an auto in which the recipient of the fortune may suffer major injuries or death. Hence, the Taoist asks, "What is good or bad?" One can lead into the other.

Taoists believe Nature is to be befriended. Humans do not "conquer" Nature. They aid it in any way they can, in order to be in tune with it. This belief and practice is basically ecological in interpretation.

In achieving this approach to symbiotic relationships, the Taoist endeavors to meld with nature and to let its cosmic energy work through Man to aid all living things. The universality of this thought explains the depth and breadth of their belief in Compassion as a principle by which they live.

The alternating forces of Yin and Yang tend to explain the cyclical interpretation of human history. The opposing forces of peace and disorder among human social groups do not depend on the rise and fall of political forces but upon the happiness or distress of the people affected by Nature's cosmic forces.

When human activity disturbs the harmony of Nature (the cosmic forces of Yin and Yang), Taoists believe that Nature will react abnormally through natural phenomena.

Sidney S. Donaldson, San Juan Capistrano, CA

A STRANGE EXPERIENCE

IT HAS BEEN MY GOOD FORTUNE to travel, and live, in many countries in the last twenty years. Granted, I have been relieved to find kindred spirits everywhere; yet, it is the odd quirks (to me) that I have found in foreign cultures that stick in my mind, the memory of which, years later, can still fill me with amazement, even coloring my day with laughter. One such incident occurred while I spent some years in Peru.

My husband, an engineer with an American mining company, and I, were on a trip by jeep through the Andes Mountains. Our driver, Julio, a Peruvian Indian, had accompanied us on many such adventures along the narrow roads throughout this wild landscape. Over the years, we had established an easy-going camaraderie, and knowing each other so well, we chatted freely as we drove along in the bright sunshine. Suddenly, the car skidded on some debris from a previous landslide, and we found ourselves careening wildly down the steep incline to the abyss below. A river-bed, thousands of feet down, seemed our obvious resting place. However, fate was kind... the wheels of the car caught, and held, on a stony ledge some distance down the ravine. In a state of shock, we managed to gingerly extricate ourselves from the back seat of the jeep, and in what seemed an eternity, my husband inched forward and carefully dragged Julio's body out. Fortunately, he was alive, with no injury that we could see. My husband's words, "I think he only had the wind knocked out of him," came like a scream in that wilderness. I realized that these were the first words spoken during our narrow escape.

Then began the arduous climb to the top. As we crept carefully upward, Julio's smaller body supported between us, we heard a loud rumble as the car was catapulted off the ledge and down the mountainside. By the time we reached the top, Julio had regained consciousness. Completely exhausted and short of breath, we stretched out in the road. Finally my husband stood up, and gazing down at the wreckage, uttered words that had been forming in my own mind, "God, what a narrow escape!" Silently, my lips formed an Amen ... a thank-you to our Maker. Julio, on the other hand, jumped to his feet, and began beating his chest and crying, "Que Lastima, Que Lastima!" (what a pity). My husband, thinking he was overcome at the thought of losing the expensive jeep that was his pride and joy, hastened to assure him that it was of no importance; the only thing that mattered was that we were safe. After some time, Julio turned to us. The change in the man was most remarkable; no longer our smiling friendly driver, his haughty and aristocratic demeanor shocked us. Generation upon generation of rubbing shoulders with foreign cultures had fallen away. Before us stood the true Peruvian, a son of the Incas. Sadly, and with a faraway look in his eye, he simply stated, "But senor, what a glorious way it would have been to die!"

Cristine Westby, Bayville, NY

THE MORNING AFTER THE NEW AGE

DESPITE the alleged arrival of the Age of Aquarius, or "New Age," sometime during the mid-1960's, mainstream society has lagged far behind in its transformation to the above-mentioned revolution's somewhat polluted and naive ideals, (which, in turn, have finally become institutionalized into its fallen descendent: "enlightened" narcissistic hedonism).

Similarly the new religion, psychology, and its expression through and influence upon the media, have likewise failed in providing the people with a true perspective on right living and sanity, or at least the road to get there. Not only that, but it has also maintained a conceited pretense of knowing, while obstructing possible wisdom from subverting its authority. It has become a classic case of refusing to look up and so assuming it is at the highest point. H.G. Wells' proverb could be altered to fit: "In the country of the mindless, the blind man is king."

Mainstream psychology's primary objectives seem to be to anesthetize people to their pain (but not ending its cause), to condition their body-minds to function properly in the societal machine, and to teach people to masturbate - in various forms - without guilt.

But some new sprouts of wisdom - born of battle-fatigue - are now popping through the manure-covered Zeitgeist of convention.

Two recent books give voice to this post - Timothy Leary/ Hugh Hefner/ Fritz Perls/ B.F. Skinner/ Joyce Brothers/ Phil Donahue/ Sex Pistols message; one which is still, as yet, only a whisper amidst the mad crowd's roar.

The Sensuous Lie by Celia Haddon, an English journalist, presents the novel notion that maybe the whole sexual revolution was, in fact, not the liberation from foolish, neurosis-inducing inhibition, as loudly promoted, but rather a new form of enslavement - by degeneracy, mutual degradation, and self-destruction.

Without belaboring traditional religion's reasons for teaching morality, she makes her assessment of the current state-of-the-art of human interaction and the individual's own reaction to the commonly accepted modes of sexuality, from the honest, common-sense perspective of someone who had also been deceived by the big lie, had recognized the suffering caused by it, had fought for mental clarity and freedom, and lived to tell the tale, to those who are still tempted to bite the bait.

Much of her message is that the modern, herpes and suicide-infested sexual libertarianism has turned out to be as false a philosophy of life as was the crippling, dishonest repression of unredeemed lust of previous generations. Her conclusion is that real maturity, freedom, and self-mastery would naturally and inherently manifest as morality, unselfish friendship, and self-sufficiency. This would then leave subjective conditions open and available for the emergence of the much-pretended but seldom realized, quality of "love." "Cosmopolitan" magazine is not likely to run excerpts from this book.

The second title is The Observing Self by Arthur J. Deikman, a psychiatrist. He provides and describes a bridge between mysticism - the original mental science - and psychotherapy. He gives a professional clinician's insight into material previously covered (and with greater intensity and detail) by Richard Rose in his Psychology of the Observer.

Traditional, or even current pop-psychology, textbooks do not include statements like: "Western psychology... is defective because its center is missing; it does not recognize the observing self as the center of all experience"; "Teachers must teach by means of what they can transmit, because of what they have become"; and "The basic activity of psychotherapy is to extract the observing self from the contents of consciousness."

To find the answers to sanity and identity, the questions and premises must first be properly defined. His message is that psychology's chronic and arrogant mistake has been to try, in futility, to cure a sick mechanism in an illusory sleepwalker through manipulative and self-hypnotic means, whereas the true road to Being is to retreat to the final observer of the whole complex scene, including the make-believe character one plays in the dream, and realize one's identity with the Source. An incidental by-product of this process is psychic healing and social betterment - which are psychotherapy's failed (and currently impossible) tasks. "Psychology Today" magazine is not likely to run excerpts from this book.

I am sure Deikman and Haddon would agree: the observing self evaporates all lies, both sensual and subjective. Herein lies the true direction towards well-being.

I am glad and grateful to see these glimmers of hope in the dark desolation. Maybe the "New Age" will arrive after all - for at least those who are willing to see, and change, and become.

John Kent, Pittsburgh, PA

THE ILLUMINATION OF JACOB BOEHME
by Mark Jaqua

JACOB BOEHME was the most unlikely of mystics. Born into a Lusatian peasant family on April 24, 1575, it would have been considered an accomplishment for his times to merely learn to read, let alone become one of Christianity's outstanding mystic. Boehme is of the class of uncanny geniuses who may unpredictably be born in any time or place. His writings served as inspiration to such philosophers as Hegel, Schopenhauer, Saint Martin and Newton. Hegel called Boehme "the father of German philosophy" and Schopenhauer remarked that in understanding Boehme's system he "could withhold neither admiration or tears." His writings are dazzling but confusing and contain nuances of meaning which stir a haunting wonderment. The eighteenth century mystical poet Gerhard Tersteegen wrote of Boehme, "I cannot say that I understood, but I read until I was filled with strange fears and bewilderments... At last I took the books to their owners, and it was like a weight lifted off my heart." (1)

An unusual event in Boehme's youth intimated that great things were to come to him. Jacob apprenticed himself to a shoemaker while in his teens and would later make this his occupation. He was working in his master's shoe-shop when he was approached by a stranger about the price of a certain pair of shoes. The stranger seemed poor and was dressed as a peasant, but he had a radiating glow about him and "great eyes which sparkled and seemed filled with divine light." Jacob's master was out and the boy trembled to name any price. The stranger pressed him for a price and Jacob named a very large amount. Surprisingly the man immediately paid him and took the shoes. When a short way down the street the stranger turned and cried, "Jacob, Jacob, come forth!" Frightened and astonished Jacob ran out of the store and to the stranger. The mysterious man took him by the right hand and prophesied: "Jacob, thou art little, but shalt be great, and become another Man, such a one as at whom the world shall wonder. Therefore be pious, fear God, and reverence His Word. Read diligently the Holy Scriptures, wherein you have Comfort and Instruction. For thou must endure Misery and Poverty, and suffer persecution, but be courageous and persevere, for God loves, and is gracious to thee." (2)

Frankenberg, Boehme's biographer and first publisher, claimed that Jacob's initial mystical experience occurred in 1592 when Boehme was only 17. Boehme left no account of this experience but did mention several times an experience he had in 1600. Frankenberg claimed that this experience was catalyzed by sun flashing off a pewter dish. Boehme received an illumination of knowledge and wrote:

"... my spirit directly saw through all things, and knew God in and by all creatures, even in herbs and grass... the gate was opened for me that I saw and knew more in a quarter of an hour than if I had been many years in the universities." (3)

Boehme's awakening was not limited to just this one experience but resulted in a long-term elevation of his mind. He wrote that this experience "unfolded again from time to time" and that he went about "pregnant" with it for the following 12 years.

Jacob Boehme's first book, Aurora, was an attempt to externalize his insights and was not intended for publication. He wrote some twenty books in the last five years of his life, but Aurora was his only one in the 19 years following his experience. Aurora was originally Boehme's personal notebook. Word spread of the young philosopher and Boehme allowed his writings to circulate among an increasing number of scholars and open-minded clergy. In Boehme's time it was illegal to disagree with even a literal interpretation of the Bible. When his writings eventually came to the attention of Lutheran' Church authorities he was called before a tribunal. Boehme was threatened with banishment from his home of Gorlitz unless he agreed to write no more. Boehme agreed and would write no more for the following seven years until 1619, when he again began writing in secret.

Boehme was the object of much persecution after this unfortunate event. His chief opponent was the local Lutheran pastor Gregory Richter who would preach wild sermons against the "drunken cobbler" - even while Boehme was seated in church before him! Richter once incited a mob against Boehme which resulted in the windows being broken from his house. Under pressure of conscience, Boehme began writing again in 1619 and succeeded in smuggling some of his works out of Gorlitz by hiding them in sacks of grain. He was once again discovered by the Church in 1620 and banished from Gorlitz. Jacob had given a masterful defense of himself at his trial, but peacefully agreed to the Church's decision. This must have confounded the members of the tribunal because the next day they unanimously agreed to send a search party to find Boehme and bring him back to the city!

Boehme's mystical experience seems to differ in type from what we normally refer to as "enlightenment" or "Christ consciousness." His writings do not describe a state of being such as "Nirvana" or an identity with God or the Absolute. What Boehme seemed to receive was an illumination of Knowledge. He saw the inner aspect and "clockwork" of the cosmos, as it were, and tried to bring his intuitive insights into material form by the use of symbology and analogy. His ideas were the result of an instantaneous illumination and not of concept-building and arduous philosophizing. He wrote of his experiences:

"Therein I first knew what God and man were and what God had to do with men. Previously I understood little about the high articles of faith... much less about nature. For the Spirit shot through me like a bolt of lightning. I began to write like a school-boy, and so I wrote continuously, but only for myself.

"For I saw and knew the Being of all beings, the ground and the unground; the birth of the holy trinity; the source and origin of this world and all creatures in divine Wisdom. I saw all three worlds in myself, [1] the divine, angelical, or paradisiacal; [2] the dark world; [3] the external, visible world; and I saw and knew the whole being in evil and in good, how one originates in the other ... so that I not only greatly wondered but also rejoiced.... For the Light's spirit moved my soul very much ... repeating many things very often, ever deeper and clearer, from one step to another - it was the real Jacob's ladder." (4)

H.P. Blavatsky in her Secret Doctrine claims that Boehme was under the tutelage of Genii or the Nirmanakayas - those beings who watch over the evolutionary progress of the Earth. We have no way of knowing if such beings exist, but the fact that Boehme was illuminated in such an orderly fashion by a seeming external spirit or "Light" does lend some credence to Blavatsky's viewpoint. Regardless, he discovered his knowledge from an inner fountainhead and not from an external, worldly source. As counseled by all sages, Boehme held that all knowledge was contained within oneself. He wrote in his Libri Apologetici:

"For we men have one book in common which points to God. Each has it within himself, which is the priceless Name of God. Its letters are the flames of his love, which He out of His heart in the priceless Name of Jesus has revealed in us. Read these letters in your hearts and spirits and you have books enough. All the writings of the children of God direct you unto that one book, for therein lie all the treasures of wisdom.... This book is Christ in you." (5)

Boehme believed that this world is but a shadow-play and representation of what occurs in higher dimensions. Everything in this world is the "signature" or symbol of something which exists more concretely in the spiritual world. Since the spiritual world is contained within oneself, the external world and the body could be viewed as a projection from these interior contents. Boehme's insight on this was that:

"The whole outward, visible world with all its being is a signature or figure of the inward spiritual world; whatever is internal, and however its operation is, so likewise it has its outward character.... for whatever the natural light is spiritually, that the earth is in its coarseness." (6)

Boehme speaks of the "corporeality" of the spiritual worlds. We normally think of the "ethereal" realms as just that, as being more ethereal and abstract than our normal physical experience. Actually this cannot be the case at all. The mystical realm must be more real and substantial than our physical dimension. If the physical world is a symbol and creation of what exists in a superior dimension, then our world must be "ethereal" or illusory in comparison. Boehme referred to the physical world as "the sphere of transmutation and phantasy" (7) and said that it is "like a smoke or a fog." (8) It can little be wondered that those who have experienced the mystical often regard the physical world with detachment. If one has experienced Real Life then our mundane grubbing must seem of little importance in comparison.

Boehme took two seemingly contradictory poses in his advice on the method necessary to achieve spiritual illumination. At the same time one must surrender and yet fight with warrior-like intensity. Self-will prevents understanding in ordinary men but this very same self-will is necessary to overcome obstacles in the path. It takes the "dark consuming anguish of the fire" (9) to change man, and this fire is kindled by an interior battle.

"Man must here be at war with himself, if he wished to become a heavenly citizen. He must not be a lazy sleeper. Fighting must be his watchword, and not with tongue and sword, but with mind and spirit, and not give over...

"Do you believe that my spirit has sucked this [knowledge] out of the corrupt earth, or out of a felt hat? Truly no, for at the time I am describing my spirit did unite with the deepest birth of God. From that I got my knowledge, and from that it is sucked. What I thereafter had to suffer from the Devil, who rules my outer man, you cannot understand... unless you dance in his round.

"Therefore if anyone will climb... after me, let him be careful that he be not drunk... For he must climb through a gruesome deep and hell, and he will have to endure scoffing and mocking. ...such knowledge requires no state of melancholy, but a knightly wrestling." (10)

Boehme held that it was impossible for man to experience illumination through an act of his own will. Illumination was an act of grace which could only be obtained through surrender and resignation to God.

"It is not a very easy thing to become a Christian; it is the most difficult thing in the world. To become a real Christian, one must break the power of the selfish will, and this no man can do by his own human power. He must render his self-will like dead. He will then live in God and be submerged in the love of God; while he still continues to live in the external world....

"If Christ is to arise in you, then must the will of death... die in you. For Christ has broken death... and become Lord over death and hell. When he makes his entry in a man, there must death and hell in the inward ground of the soul break and give way. He destroys the Devil's kingdom in the soul... makes the soul into God's child... gives it his will... slays the will of the corrupt nature." (11)

Advice to surrender the self-will is often met with in spiritual literature and it is difficult to determine just what is meant. One might think that if he were to surrender his self-will he would be shuffled off to the nearest institution from the resulting catatonia. While this may have been the case of a misguided mystic or two, it is obviously not what is implied. Boehme seems to indicate that surrender of the self-will is actually something that is done to you as a result of sincere spiritual effort. One's own will is realized at a deeper level as a result of partial escape from the obsessing influences and ambitions of the lower personality. We cannot attempt to do "God's will" because no one knows what this is in any concrete sense. "God's will" can only be interpreted in terms of humanity's deepest aspirations. In the strictest sense, God as the Absolute is beyond anything we could describe as desire or will.

Boehme was definitely not a utopian. He believed that there would never be a paradise on earth other than the one found within man's heart. He saw creation as a manifestation or representation of God, but in our sphere this manifestation takes its coarsest form. In the mystical realms duality takes the form of harmony while on Earth duality takes the form of constant tension and battle. He wrote:

"Nature, up to the day of judgment, has two inherent qualities; one is lovely, celestial, and holy, and the other one wrathful and hellish.... Light and darkness are opposed to each other, but there is between them a link, so that neither of them could exist without the other." (12)

Still a young man when he died from a short illness in 1624, his last words to his family were, "Now I go hence to paradise." Boehme had experienced both worlds during his life, the earthly world of battle and the paradisiacal world of harmony and knowledge. Volumes could be written of Boehme's cosmology, but this would miss the most important point, Boehme experienced a realm that can never be fully described in words. Coleridge could have had Boehme in mind when he penned these lines:

Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of paradise.

References

Jacob Boehme: His Life and Thought, John Joseph Stoudt, Seabury Press, New York, New York, 1968, p.19.
The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manly P. Hall, Philosophic Research Society, Los Angeles, CA, 1975, p. 179.
Stoudt, p. 59.
Ibid, p. 60.
Hall, P. 73.
Stoudt, pp. 243, 248. 7. Ibid, p. 242.
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme, Franz Hartmann, Health Research, Mokelumne Hill, CA, 1970, p. 172.
Stoudt, p. 117.
Ibid, pp. 120, 62, 61, 66.
Ibid, pp. 64, 163.
Hartmann, pp. 174, 81.

The Feel of Things
by Warwick Deeping

IT MAY SOUND HERETICAL for a craftsman to assert in this mechanical age that the art of life is not the mere product of the machine shop or the draftsman's desk. You cannot make a blueprint of life and say, "That is what it is going to be."

In my hustling, strenuous youth I rather thought I could know everything, and order everything just as I wanted it. I was rather like a carpenter nailing up a packing case and thinking he knew exactly what was inside.

One day a very wise sailor man said to me, "Don't be in such a hell of a hurry. Softlee walkee catchee monkey."

Now, I suppose my monkey was my craft as a teller of stories, and bound up with it was the sort of life I had to live. To begin with, one was so very pragmatical. The thing should go as I pleased; I was busy with hammer and saw, but life and its craftsmanship are not built in that way.

There is what I might describe as "the feel of things." Right down below the skin of our senses is the collective, intuitional wisdom of that profound other consciousness. It is a kind of well of wisdom, of strange experience, of rich emotion, forgotten memories. Our forefathers and the Stone Age are there.

Now, as I grew older and wiser, I began to learn that the art of living and one's craftsmanship might depend upon one's getting into touch with that larger self. The thing was to let it well up in one. There is a quality which we used to call inspiration. The word seems rather out of favor. It suggests mystery. Yes, and without a sense of mystery, man is just a pragmatical prig.

Sit, relax, wait for the feel of things.

I had set out to write books. I found in time that I was not writing books. The books were writing themselves. I did not know what they were going to do. In a sense. I just sat and watched and listened, and let my pen attempt to describe what that deeper consciousness chose to throw up.

Copyright Garrett Publications, reprinted by permission. This article appeared originally in the February 1942 issue of Tomorrow magazine.

I used to worry about a book. Now, I do not worry. I may feel that I have not an idea in my head, but that other self is gently seething below the surface. It seems to know much better than my shallower surface-self what will happen and what life is.

Not only in books does this intuitional self provide one with vision. I am also a designer of gardens, and in this craft also one has to wait and watch. The willful, drawing-board plan is not a happy one. Suddenly, you will see your garden as it should be, proportioned and dressed by that strange inward sense which seems to come from nowhere out of nothing.

So it is with life. When the hustle and hurry of youth are chastened, that other wisdom comes to us. We do not vex our problem. We do not sit and pick it to pieces with restless, fidgeting fingers. We wait for the Feel of Things. We wait for the inward plan which our more profound and intuitional self will throw up. We do not worry. We sit and wait.

I realize now how much of my life, as well as my craft, has been prompted by this inward feeling about things. Did I plan to fall in love with my wife, that supreme good comrade who has given me so much? I did not. I just fell in love with her. My intuition told me that I was utterly right in loving her, and I was wiser than I knew.

Did I plan to live in this peaceful old house? I did not. I had a feeling about the place I wanted. I searched, I opened a gate, and there the house was.

I believe most profoundly in being guided by this inner wisdom. We may call it by all sorts of names, but the art of living is in its keeping.

"Between-ness" - A New Theory of the Paranormal
by Tom Mackay

EXPERIMENTS INVESTIGATING THE NATURE OF ESP and the paranormal have been carried out in the West now for over 100 years. ESP abilities have been demonstrated to the satisfaction of most but we still have no inkling of how it operates. We do not know scientifically how paranormal information is received or sent, and even more puzzling is its unpredictable nature. In the laboratory no subject has been able to consistently produce ESP results. Outstanding results may be produced for a short period of time, only to have further efforts bring nothing whatsoever. A certain serendipity is involved that defies any conscious control.

Richard Rose, founder of the West Virginia based TAT Foundation, has formulated a general theory of the paranormal that contains this serendipity or "Between-ness" as its central facet. Rose's concept of Between-ness is that it is a peculiar mental state that "causes things to happen." This idea is complex, but through intuition it can be conveyed in simple terms. A radio show host once asked Rose to describe Between-ness in the simplest manner possible. He replied that it would take some time to explain it adequately, but that perhaps an example in everyone's experience would help. "If you have ever rolled dice, then you know what Between-ness is. Any man that has ever rolled dice or played cards has had it in the back of his mind that if he held his head a certain way, he'd win."

The elusive nature of ESP phenomena becomes obvious in the laboratory setting in which card guessing and other means are experimented with. One curiosity has been labeled "psi-missing." This has repeatedly been observed and occurs when a subject being tested for ESP consistently guesses below chance. That is, if 25 % right guesses can be expected from chance, the subject may consistently get only 15 % right answers. This is as great an indication of ESP as if he were to score significantly above chance.

Another peculiar unpredictability that has turned up in ESP experiments is that a subject may be "out of phase" with the series of cards he is guessing. He may only get chance expectations on the specific cards at which he is guessing, but if his guesses are later matched to the next card or two cards ahead in the series, then his guesses turn out to be highly significant. In these cases it would appear that the subject is being precognitive even though he is not trying to be precognitive.

Successful ESP scoring has been found to have very little to do with amount of effort. It has been found that the best results occur when the subject is relaxed and interested in what is going on. In many studies belief in ESP has proven to have little to do with significant results. Gertrude Schmeidler, in extensive tests in the 1950's, discovered that a negative but interested attitude toward ESP favored significant scores below chance! In other words, it has been found that the best subjects are in a state between making a strenuous effort and not being interested at all, or making no effort.

The "catch me not" nature of ESP has been described by parapsychologist John Palmer as best attained in a mood of "relaxed spontaneity." Eileen Garrett has described it as a "playfulness," a mood between being serious and not serious. It is a mood of interest, but not too much interest. Researcher Charles Honorton describes the ESP-productive mood in the following way:

"The kind of mental relaxation described... seems to involve effortless intention, or what some present-day bio-feedback researchers call 'passive volition.' This is a mind-set which is characterized by 'allowing it to happen' with a minimum of ego involvement and conscious striving."

"Effortless intention" or "passive volition" are paradoxical states to our normal manner of thinking. They are mid-states or Between-ness points to our normal emotions.

It has been established scientifically that there is no physical medium for ESP. Experiments have been successfully conducted in Faraday cages which eliminate all electromagnetic emanations such as radio waves and the like. This would point to a non-physically-detectable source as the carrier of ESP. Since - presumably - a nonphysical mind is the receiver and sender of ESP, it would seem dependent on the state of that mind to determine how receptive it is. This state would seem to be an alert ambiguousness or Between-ness in which mind is momentarily not chained to any obsessive or totally occupying state of functioning as it normally is in the day-to-day world. Moments of reverie, dreams, and hypnagogic or hypnopompic states fit into this category, and all have been demonstrated as conducive to ESP.

Eileen Garrett, probably this century's most outstanding psychic, wrote that "... I knew from experience that conscious effort was the one thing which would produce no results that could be described as supernormal." Felicia Parise, the European telekinetic psychic, made a discovery similar to Garrett's. She had been trying for several weeks to move small objects with her mind and had given up in failure. She had made great efforts of concentration but it had been to no avail. One day the telephone rang and she answered it only to discover the shocking news that her grandmother had died. After hanging up, she reached for a plastic bottle and it scooted away from her across the table.

The conscious ego and conscious effort seem to interfere with paranormal results. As shown in an extensive study by Louisa Rhine, the greatest frequency of valid ESP experiences is in dreams when the conscious ego is not present at all. This ego-caused inhibition apparently includes any attempt to use the powers for personal gain. Katherine Craig writes in her book The Fabric of Dreams that "...psychically gifted persons know that when they attempt to apply their powers of clairvoyance and of penetration to themselves or for personal ends, these powers become void." Uri Geller has tried to use his abilities at Las Vegas several times only to lose his shirt each time.

If the ego is inhibitory to psychic phenomena, it explains why a subject cannot perform on demand in a laboratory. A certain egoless or relaxed state is called for between trying and not trying. In our normal ego state paranormal abilities are not considered possible or likely. In our normal paradigm we simply do not believe that we can tune in on someone's thoughts. It may be that the paradigm or belief-status creates limits on reality and what is possible. Our belief-status or paradigm may have a greater effect on our experienced reality than we suspect.

I once observed my young brother repeatedly open a good quality padlock with a paper clip. He seemed to think nothing unusual about it and continued to amuse himself closing and then opening it again. I asked him how he did it and he replied that "It's easy," and did it again for me. After I finally expressed my great amazement, it was curious that he could no longer open the padlock. My postulation is that he did not realize that people weren't supposed to be able to do such things. After I expressed my amazement I succeeded in indoctrinating him into the world-view that such things are impossible. I convinced him that it was an extraordinary thing to do and then he could no longer do it.

The very laws of what is possible and impossible may be controlled by our belief systems in even more dramatic fashion than this minor example. Many machines and techniques have been discovered or designed which were thought to be physically impossible before their employment. Often the inventor does not know that what he does is supposedly impossible. It is only afterward that new "laws" are discovered to explain the inventions.

I can reflect on another incident from my childhood that seems highly improbable now but didn't at the time when I was seven years old. My five year old brother had carved a wooden knife which probably weighed no more than a few ounces. We were cleaning out a corn-crib and, as anyone knows who has grown up on a farm, there were quite a few mice and rats liberated in the process. I was standing by my brother when a rat ran by about five or ten feet away. My brother had been pretending that he was an Indian and had become totally involved in the imaginary play-acting. When he saw the rat he hurled his paper-weight knife at it and - amazingly - it went through the animal and killed it! Under normal circumstances that knife would have bounced off a balloon, let alone killed an animal. I believe that, in his childish innocence, my brother caused another reality to momentarily manifest - the reality of himself as a mighty Indian hunter.

In nearly every school of esoteric philosophy it is claimed that our physical world is a projection or creation of a superior and more "real" dimension. This physical world is seen as a sort of dream or re flection of essences from another plane of existence. I will not try to support this claim here, since there is ample literature on the subject, but postulate the "dream-nature" of the world as a basis in my explanation of Between-ness. In a Between-ness state one momentarily gains access to this source of creation and produces an actual alteration in manifestation on this physical level. What was originally one way is altered and becomes something different. It is as if the script is changed in a drama. One "deposits" a new idea into the creative realm and it is "born" on this plane.

If being addicted and involved in our normal paradigm restricts the mind's paranormal abilities, anything that weakens that paradigm and makes it more remote may facilitate these abilities. If the normal paradigm is escaped temporarily through hypnosis, sensory isolation or meditation, a new paradigm may arise which makes more likely the occurrence of the paranormal. In fact, this is exactly what occurs. There are higher ESP results in these altered states. Charles Honorton has compiled a review of over 80 studies performed in 26 different laboratories and the over-all ESP performance in these altered states proves very significant. In these states there is no conscious attempt to produce a new paradigm, but this automatically occurs as a result of escaping or denying the exclusiveness of normal reality. Between acceptance and doubt a new paradigm is born. This new reality includes or is what we consider the paranormal.

The I Ching and Tarot are uses of ritual to occupy the conscious mind with a certain controlled meaninglessness, in order for a non-ego function to manifest. Such divination does not make sense in our usual way of thinking, but at the same time we are hoping for something else and telling ourselves that normal reality may not be all there is. We are caught between normal reality on one hand and an indefinite appeal to "something else" on the other. In this Between-ness state access to paranormal information may exist. A new reality is temporarily created and this new reality does not bow to normal reasoning. The crucial state is the balanced tension between normal reality and the consideration of the "impossible" or the paranormal.

There is a mass of evidence pertaining to the psychic powers of witch doctors and shamans of primitive cultures. In anthropological investigations there is much written about the shaman's understanding of the Between-ness required in producing paranormal results. Paul Adams, in his study of Huichol Indian shamans, writes: "There is a doorway within our minds that usually remains hidden and secret until the time of death. The Huichol word for it is 'nierika.' Nierika is a cosmic portway or interface between ordinary and non-ordinary realities. It is a passageway and at the same time a barrier between worlds."

While Between-ness is a mental balance and tension, shamans often incorporate physical acts of balance into their rituals to induce the proper mental state. Australian Aborigine shamans will stand balanced on one foot all day in the desert sun in the state they call "dreamtime." Anthropologist Barbara Meyerhoff, in her article "Shamanic Equilibrium," describes the peculiar balancing ritual of a Mexican Indian healer she met. The man had developed a considerable reputation, and as he didn't accept money for his services, he limited healing to weekends and worked for his living during the week. On Friday people would begin arriving, some from as far away as Europe. Every Friday afternoon the man would climb to the roof of his shack and remain perched on one foot on the peak for the rest of the day. Meyeroff originally thought it was his peculiar way of observing people arriving, but later realized it was a mental preparatory ritual of balance.

Meyeroff witnessed a unique display of balance by a shaman during her own work with the Huichol Indians of North Central Mexico:

"One afternoon, without explanation, he interrupted our sessions of taping mythology to take a party, Huichol friends and myself, to an area outside his home. It was a region of steep barrancas cut by a rapid waterfall cascading perhaps a thousand feet over jagged, slippery rocks. At the edge of the falls, Ramon removed his sandals and announced that this was a special place for shamans. He proceeded to leap across the waterfall, from rock to rock, frequently pausing, his body bent forward, his arms outspread, head thrown back, entirely birdlike, poised motionlessly on one foot. He disappeared, reemerged, leaped about, and finally achieved the other side."

He later told Meyeroff that his display was to impress upon her what extreme balance a shaman must have, and demonstrated this by marching his fingers up the strings on his violin. He also implied that it was dangerous to attempt this balance because one might "fall into the abyss." Meyeroff further describes the elusive Between-ness state of shamanic balance:

"Shamanic balance is a particular stance. It is not a balance achieved by synthesis; it is not a static condition achieved by resolving opposition. It is not a compromise. Rather it is a state of acute tension, the kind of tension which exists... when two unqualified forces encounter each other, meeting headlong, and are not reconciled but held teetering on the verge of chaos, not in reason but in experience."

[Illustration: A Lapp shaman lies in a trance in preparation for his fortune telling activities. His vital magic drum remains on his back.]

Writers may sometimes place insights down in the form of fiction when they do not have enough hard evidence to place them in a scientific format. I believe Colin Wilson's The Mind Parasites is one case of this guise. In it Wilson gives the best description of Between-ness available in any popular book. Wilson's chief character finds a peculiar way of "holding his head" to do unusual things:

"At this moment, a mosquito buzzed viciously past my ear with its high pitched whine; a moment later, it came past again. My mind still full of Heidegger, I glanced up at it, and wished that it would find its way to the window. As I did so, I had a distinct sense of my mind encountering the mosquito. It veered suddenly off its course and buzzed across the room to a closed window. My mind kept a firm grasp on it, and steered it across the room to the fan vent in the open window, and outside.

"I was so astonished that I sat back and gaped after it. I could hardly have been more astonished if I had suddenly sprouted wings and started to fly. Had I been deceived in supposing that my mind had guided that creature? I remembered that the washroom had a plague of wasps and bees, for there was a bed of peonies underneath its window. I went along there. It was empty, and there was a wasp buzzing against the frosted glass of the window. I leaned my back against the door, and concentrated on it. Nothing happened. It was frustrating - there was a sense of doing something wrong, like trying to pull open a locked door. I cast my mind back to Heidegger, felt the lift of exaltation, of vision, and suddenly felt my mind click into gear. I was in contact with the wasp, just as certainly as if I was holding it in my hand. I willed it to move across the room. No, 'willed it' is the wrong phrase. You do not 'will' your hand to open and close; you just do it. In the same way, I drew the wasp across the washroom towards me; then, just before it reached me, made it turn and veer back to the window and out. It was so incredible that I could have burst into tears, or roared with laughter."

Wilson's character discovers a state of mind between trying and not trying, pure mental will-power he finds will not work. "You do not 'will' your hand to open and close; you just do it." Wilson compares the unused powers of the mind to that of a huge computer at which we sit every day, only to perform simple arithmetic problems instead of using the computer's other vast powers. In the last chapter of his Mind Parasites, Wilson's keen imagination has fifty minds "en rapport" being able to alter the orbit of the moon. While this feat is proper to the realm of science fiction, such a sober mind as philosopher Franklin Merrill-Wolff believes that similar actualities are within the potential of the human mind, perhaps in some far-off age. Once again Merrill-Wolff refers to the peculiar mental balance in which the paranormal can occur:

"There is a hidden, as well as an obvious, meaning behind the 'lever of Archimedes.' There is both a lever and a fulcrum, mastery of which gives power to move the world. But these forces act solely at a point of very fine balance, which is attained only with very great difficulty, and which is also not easily maintained after having been achieved. The violent wind of world-consciousness affords a most serious obstacle to the realization of such a balance, and right here lies part of the reason why humanity enjoys so restricted a portion of the benefits that might accrue to it from the great Hidden Powers of Man."

The parapsychology of the future must in part be a subjective science and investigate the subjective state that is conducive to ESP. Paranormal information has been proven to be the result of no known and measurable physical force and thus appears to be the function of a non-physical domain and a peculiar mental state. The concept of Between-ness is an effort to describe a peculiar subjective state that has been alluded to throughout paranormal literature. It is difficult to describe elusive, subjective states and an attempt to describe Between-ness is no exception. It is not a state that can be controlled, created and tested in the laboratory, but the concept of Between-ness and its ramifications can be the beginning of a whole new subjective science of the mind.

The Childhood Door
by Howard E. Rawlinson

While I was yet a child, I knew a stream
That snaked its way
Through bushes, brambles, briers
Until it burst upon an open grassy glen.
This was my hide-away, my secret place
To which I stole to think my boyhood thoughts
To dream my boyhood dreams.
I sought it only during day, never after dark
If I had known of Shakespeare then and dared to go at night
I would have seen - I'm sure I would have seen
Titania, that fairy queen, laughing, leaping on the lawn
With Oberon. A fawn, I once found sleeping there beside the stream
And fairy necklaces that glistened in the sun.
Though I was one who had not learned the lore of fairy folk,
Still there were those who came to romp within my room at night
Who brought delight, who made my spirits gay.
They were real, as real to me as were my playmates of the day.
I did not ask them who their parents were,
Nor how it happened they could visit on the sly.
The pleasure of their presence there brought joy enough
Besides, a child learns early not to pry.
It's strange I never saw them in my secret spot
And I did not invite the ones with whom I played by day.
There lay within my mind the haunting thought
That if I brought them to my secret place,
The place itself might go away
Might vanish as my phantom friends of night would
Vanish at the sound of footsteps on the stair.
There beside the stream I listened to the waters
As they bubbled, burbled, gurgled as they swirled among the rocks.
I lay content to listen to their liquid lulling sounds
Sounds uttered as they muttered over stones

Sometimes their tones were sibilant and soft
As if they whispered lest I understand.
Sometimes they chatted, blatted, babbled loud
Defying me to pierce the shroud
Of meaning in the sentences they spoke.
One day I thought I heard a word,
Stirred, my body moved beside the stream
Canted ear to catch the sound
Found I almost understood the words the waters said--
An almost thing that teased and tantalized
Later, when I prized myself upon my knowledge of a foreign tongue
I found that while my mind sought meaning in the sound
I gained the word but lost the sense of sentence and of phrase
So was it when I heard the waters talk
The words I heard or thought I heard were
Like some half-remembered tune
That will not come to mind
Although one knows the tune lies just beyond the wall of knowing.
That night with glowing words
I told my parents what I thought I knew
My mother laughed a scornful laugh
My father drew my hand to his
And said it is a pity to contaminate your mind
With thoughts that things inanimate can speak
I said no more. I did not seek to penetrate their adult world.
But still the gift that I'd received
Lay curled around my heart locked forever in my secret self
They were my parents, wiser far than I.
But still, I knew the thing I knew
And something stirred within me and rebelled.
I quelled my anger, kept my secret in my secret place
Not even daring tell it to my friends.

Except for one, (the poets of the past would have pronounced her Fey)
A wisp of girl, pale-haired, pale-skinned, pale-eyed
Who lay beside me as we wriggled through the brush
Until we heard the rush of water over stones
Then she bent her head beside the stream
Turned enquiring eyes to mine and whispered,
"Do you understand the words the waters say?"
"They say that ere the spring is gone I shall be dead."
Her tender fingers touched my cheeks
To brush away the tears that brimmed my eyes
"This is no time for sighs," she said, "no time to grieve.
Although the words the waters say are true,
If you believe, I never shall be dead to you."
I did not cry as I past by her bier.
Although a tear or two I shed
When no one else was nigh, she never had deceived
So I believed the words she'd whispered
On the bank that afternoon.
That very night she joined my playmates in my room.
But soon I knew, I do not know exactly how I knew,
That neither she nor they were flesh, nor blood, nor bones
Life often hones the blade of childhood wisdom to a sharpened edge
That cuts away the bright full world of fantasy
And I began to see but emptiness within my room.
Reality and logic ruled my mind
I could not find a place for fairy folk
For things which can't be measured, weighed, nor analyzed
I prized myself upon my knowledge of a golden mean
By which one tested everything that was,
Found evidence that it was real,
Or lacking such, acknowledged it was not.
There was no middle ground, no place for things unseen

No faith that moves the mountains to the sea
"What is," the credo said, "is what it is,
Is what it was, and what it ever more shall be."
More recently I've come to doubt the adult world
The way that world once doubted mine
And I consign their truths
To where they once consigned my truths
I find uncouth the rigid patterned mind
That is content with only what it touches, tastes, or feels.
Who kneels before an Altar pledges faith in things unseen
But often will deny that other things unseen can be.
I sometimes wonder if the faith which he vouchsafed so boldly there
In praise and Prayer is real to him
Or just a thing which grows to be a part of him
The way a wart grows on a finger or a nose.
Reality is never all that it appears
It's just a point of truth which moves from here to there
A light that gleams a moment then goes out,
A flickering shadow on a caveman's wall.
My fey companion never died at all
Although I buried her in later years
When fear of what the world might think of me bound me in chains.
Now there remains a second opportunity,
And I know truth is never just exactly what it seems.
It is a growing, living thing that changes
With the time, the tide, the place.
She tells me all about it in my dreams.

The Lost Chord
by Philip George Beith

SNUGGLED AMONG THE TOWERING BUILDINGS of a well-known research and development corporation is a small, attractive reception office. The approaching visitor is lured through a wide glass door entrance and confronted by an immense painting that startles the accustomed thinker.

Harmoniously daubed on silvery metal the artist depicts the profile of a man, standing alone, with raised arms stretched toward the heavens. A bright orange-yellow fireball streaks across a star speckled background leaving a contrail of colors like the tail of a comet that homogenizes into a majestic violet aura surrounding the head of the lonely man.

At the bottom of the painting, inscribed in bold English are these eight words:

STRIKE THE COSMIC CHORD O YE INSPIRED SEEKER.

How do we define an inspired seeker; and how can he strike the cosmic chord? To be inspired is to have an invigorating influence exerted upon the emotions to animate and stir them into action. To seek is to search, to strive, to obtain.

The seeker is then forever searching. The seeker is being influenced, but what is this influence that is being exerted upon the seeker? Why is the seeker forever searching? We see evidence of this drawing power by the discontent in the world today.

The alcoholic is searching for relief in the swallow of burning liquid. The unclean beatniks of the 'sixties were searching for a release by an attitude of carelessness. The marching integrators were searching for their answer through physical violence. The bankers and tycoons are seeking happiness through the power of money. The multitude of religions are searching for peace, but fail to find truth because they are lost in the forest of theology.

All are being drawn by a magnetic pull that they cannot resist. This influence is the positive attraction of the human soul yearning for the GOD of his or her own heart or Supreme being or whatever name you bestow on Deity.

The creative intelligence has endowed man with the ability to experiment with this magnetic attraction. And man has been able to harness and control one phase of this ever present force. An analogy of this force can be demonstrated through the manifestation of the world of electronics. Due to the vibratory nature of the earthly elements, a so-called current can be caused to flow by applying a force with opposite polarities.

For example we will take a common battery as a source of power. We have been taught that opposites attract. Then by connecting a wire to the negative pole of the battery through a light bulb and back to the positive pole of the battery we will cause a steady current to flow. Why? Again because opposites attract. The positive terminal is absorbing and drawing the electrons through the wire from the negative pole. The negative electrons in turn are desperately seeking a path to return to their positive source. The positive draws and influences the negative. The negative seeks and searches for the positive. There must be opposites to cause an attraction.

This attraction produces a steady flow of current through the wire only as long as the one end remains positive with respect to the other end being negative. A potential power does not have the quality of positive alone. Neither does it have the quality of being negative.

This attracting force has the amount of energy in exact proportion to the difference between the positive and the negative. The greater the span between the opposites, the greater is the attraction from the negative toward the positive.

The lesser always seeks and becomes the greater. The river races toward the ocean. The seed grows into a tree. Man emulates his more evolved brethren as he himself slowly evolves. The soul is for ever seeking knowledge. This great attracting force of power manifests through us and radiates in the form of true LOVE. This force, this power - is LOVE. Love means a craving for the GOD of our hearts.

As the current flows through the wire toward its source, it is silently performing the work it was destined to do. That of lighting the bulb. Just as the growing flower gives off a delightful fragrance and the reaching tree produces edible fruit, so is man on his upward climb destined to perform a service according to his past desires. Silently strive to be of service to those who are in need - for love is real only when it is useful and expresses itself through action. Let us again return to the analogy of the electrical wire. The electron current does not flow through the wire without a struggle. As the electrons are drawn toward their positive source, a magnetic field will expand and surround the wire. This field, or aura, will expand and contract according to the frequency or vibration of the source of power.

If a second wire is positioned within the magnetic field of the first wire, an equal but opposite current will be caused to flow through the second wire. This in turn will produce a reluctance in the current flowing through the first wire. Thus if many wires and electrical components are placed in close proximity to one another, the magnetic field or individual aura of each component will have a definite effect on every other component according to the polarity of its vibration.

If a negative field is projected between the opposite poles of the battery, it will create a deterring effect on the flow of current and cause the light bulb to become dim. If this field becomes more negative than the negative pole on the battery, it can cause the current to cease flowing through the bulb and the light will go out, because the polarity has now changed making the negative pole of the battery the positive attraction to the negative interference. The current has found a new path to follow due to the laws of attraction.

But if a positive field were projected it would aid, it would support, and it would assist the current flow causing the bulb to become brighter and more powerful.

If one would look at the bottom of a radio or television set he would see many electrical components of different size and shape and color. The perplexity of magnetic fields heterodyning within the set are as great in number as the amount of components. Each has been placed in a physical position or environment to do a specific job according to the manufactured scale of vibrations.

The positive will attract and control the finer signals of reception - not alone - but in harmony and unison. The negative will react in the coarse static and fuzziness by the nature of their lower vibrations.

This is why good company is of paramount importance, for you will always be in the center of a multitude of magnetic fields or auras. You need the inspiration of better company - of those more highly evolved than yourself - to constantly improve. You must also share your own goodness with people of inferior qualities who need your help. Unselfishness takes everybody into the circle of brotherhood. Consider no one a stranger. Whatever you want others to be, first be that yourself. For you are the attraction.

The signal coming from the transmitter to the antenna of your radio or television set is government controlled at one specific frequency or vibration. In order for you to receive a clear picture, the components must be adjusted and aligned so that their auras are in tune with that one frequency and one vibration only. This is done by applying batteries or sources of power at different levels of polarity to bias and control the magnetic fields into a condition of alignment and attunement with the transmitting source.

Our battery that puts a bias on conditions around us is our volition. Exerting our will with a cool, calm, determined, steady, smooth-flowing effort of the attention and the whole being toward oneness with a definite goal, we are aligning ourselves with the infinite.

The greater the exertion of the will, the greater the flow of energy. Thy will be done.

We become out of tune with restlessness. Learn to destroy foolish desires and nourish only those that are worthwhile with environment and activity. Unhappiness is caused by failure. Mental conquest brings happiness. Concentration is the power to focus the mind on any desired line of thought. Meditation is concentration used only to know the GOD of your heart.

Practice loving those who do not love you. Constant communion with the Infinite through meditation will fill you with divine love - that power, that attraction - which alone will enable you to love your enemies.

We are all seeking. We are all searching. Whether for attunement to the cosmic or for some greater material thing in life, it is always from something lesser to something greater. The measure of success is described in a few lines of verse written by Berton Braley:

If you want a thing bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
Work day and night for it,
Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it,
If only desire of it
Makes you quite mad enough
Never to tire of it,
Makes you hold all other things tawdry and cheap for it,
If life seems all empty and useless without it
And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,
If gladly you'll sweat for it,
Fret for it, Plan for it,
Lose all your terror of GOD or man for it,
If you'll simply go after that thing that you want,
With all your capacity,
Strength and sagacity,
Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,
If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt,
Nor sickness nor pain
Of body or brain
Can turn you away from the thing that you want,
If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,
YOU'LL GET IT.

Seek ye first the kingdom of the GOD of your heart and all these things shall be attracted toward you - according to thy will. Strike the cosmic chord O ye inspired seeker.

MY PLATONIC SWEETHEART
by Mark Twain

I MET her first when I was seventeen and she fifteen. It was in a dream. No, I did not meet her; I overtook her. It was in a Missourian village which I had never been in before, and was not in at that time, except dreamwise; in the flesh I was on the Atlantic seaboard ten or twelve hundred miles away. The thing was sudden, and without preparation - after the custom of dreams. There I was, crossing a wooden bridge that had a wooden rail and was untidy with scattered wisps of hay, and there she was, five steps in front of me; half a second previously neither of us was there. This was the exit of the village, which lay immediately behind us. Its last house was the blacksmith-shop; and the peaceful clinking of the hammers - a sound which nearly always seems remote, and is always touched with a spirit of loneliness and a feeling of soft regret for something, you don't know what - was wafted to my ears over my shoulder; in front of us was the winding country road, with woods on one side, and on the other a rail fence, with blackberry vines and hazel bushes crowding its angles; on an upper rail a bluebird, and scurrying toward him along the same rail a fox-squirrel with his tail bent high like a shepherd's crook; beyond the fence a rich field of grain, and far away a farmer in shirt-sleeves and straw hat wading knee-deep through it; no other representatives of life, and no noise at all; everywhere a Sabbath stillness.

I remember it all - and the girl, too, and just how she walked, and how she was dressed. In the first moment I was five steps behind her; in the next one I was at her side - without either stepping or gliding; it merely happened; the transfer ignored space. I noticed that, but not with any surprise; it seemed a natural process.

I was at her side. I put my arm around her waist and drew her close to me, for I loved her; and although I did not know her, my behavior seemed to me quite natural and right, and I had no misgivings about it. She showed no surprise, no distress, no displeasure, but put an arm around my waist, and turned up her face to mine with a happy welcome in it, and when I bent down to kiss her she received the kiss as if she was expecting it, and as if it was quite natural for me to offer it and her to take it and have pleasure in it. The affection which I felt for her and which she manifestly felt for me was a quite simple fact; but the quality of it was another matter. It was not the affection of brother and sister - it was closer than that, more clinging, more endearing, more reverent; and it was not the love of sweethearts, for there was no fire in it. It was somewhere between the two, and was finer than either, and more exquisite, more profoundly contenting. We often experience this strange and gracious thing in our dream-loves; and we remember it as a feature of our childhood-loves, too.

We strolled along, across the bridge and down the road, chatting like the oldest friends. She called me George, and that seemed natural and right, though it was not my name; and I called her Alice, and she did not correct me, though without doubt it was not her name. Everything that happened seemed just natural and to be expected. Once I said, "What a dear little hand it is!" and without any words she laid it gracefully in mine for me to examine it. I did it, remarking upon its littleness, its delicate beauty, and its satin skin, then kissed it; she put it up to her lips without saying anything and kissed it in the same place.

Around a curve of the road, at the end of half a mile, we came to a log house, and entered it and found the table set and everything on it steaming hot - a roast turkey, corn in the ear, butterbeans, and the rest of the usual things - and a cat curled up asleep in a splint-bottomed chair by the fireplace; but no people; just emptiness and silence. She said she would look in the next room if I would wait for her. So I sat down, and she passed through a door, which closed behind her with a click of the latch. I waited and waited. Then I got up and followed, for I could not any longer bear to have her out of my sight. I passed through the door, and found myself in a strange sort of cemetery, a city of innumerable tombs and monuments stretching far and wide on every hand, and flushed with pink and gold lights flung from the sinking sun. I turned around, and the log house was gone. I ran here and there and yonder down the lanes between the rows of tombs, calling Alice; and presently the night closed down, and I could not find my way. Then I woke, in deep distress over my loss, and was in my bed in Philadephia. And I was not seventeen, now, but nineteen.

Ten years afterward, in another dream, I found her. I was seventeen again, and she was still fifteen. I was in a grassy place in the twilight deeps of a magnolia forest some miles above Natchez, Mississippi; the trees were snowed over with great blossoms, and the air was loaded with their rich and strenuous fragrance; the ground was high, and through a rift in the wood a burnished patch of the river was visible in the distance. I was sitting on the grass, absorbed in thinking, when an arm was laid around my neck, and there was Alice sitting by my side and looking into my face. A deep and satisfied happiness and an unwordable gratitude rose in me, but with it there was no feeling of surprise; and there was no sense of a time-lapse; the ten years amounted to hardly even a yesterday; indeed, to hardly even a noticeable fraction of it. We dropped in the tranquilest way into affectionate caressings and pettings, and chatted along without a reference to the separation; which was natural, for I think we did not know there had been any that one might measure with either clock or almanac. She called me Jack and I called her Helen, and those seemed the right and proper names, and perhaps neither of us suspected that we had ever borne others; or, if we did suspect it, it was probably not a matter of consequence.

She had been beautiful ten years before; she was just as beautiful still; girlishly young and sweet and innocent, and she was still that now. She had blue eyes, a hair of flossy gold before; she had black hair now, and dark-brown eyes. I noted these differences, but they did not suggest change; to me she was the same girl she was before, absolutely. It never occurred to me to ask what became of the log house; I doubt if I even thought of it. We were living in a simple and natural and beautiful world where everything that happened was natural and right, and was not perplexed with the unexpected or with any forms of surprise, and so there was no occasion for explanations and no interest attaching to such things.

We had a dear and pleasant time together, and were like a couple of ignorant and contented children. Helen had a summer hat on. She took it off presently and said, "It was in the way; now you can kiss me better." It seemed to me merely a bit of courteous and considerate wisdom, nothing more; and a natural thing for her to think of and do. We went wandering through the woods, and came to a limpid and shallow stream a matter of three yards wide. She said:

"I must not get my feet wet, dear; carry me over."

I took her in my arms and gave her my hat to hold. This was to keep my own feet from getting wet. I did not know why this should have that effect; I merely knew it; and she knew it, too. I crossed the stream, and said I would go on carrying her, because it was so pleasant; and she said it was pleasant to her, too, and wished we had thought of it sooner.

All the long afternoon I bore her in my arms, miles upon miles, and it never occurred to either of us that there was anything remarkable in a youth like me being able to carry that sweet bundle around half a day without some sense of fatigue or need of rest. There are many dream-worlds, but none is so rightly and reasonably and pleasantly arranged as that one.

After dark we reached a great plantation-house, and it was her home. I carried her in, and the family knew me and I knew them, although we had not met before; and the mother asked me with ill disguised anxiety how much twelve times fourteen was, and I said a hundred and thirty-five, and she put it down on a piece of paper, saying it was her habit in the process of perfecting her education not to trust important particulars to her memory; and her husband was offering me a chair, but noticed that Helen was asleep, so he said it would be best not to disturb her; and he backed me softly against a wardrobe and said I could stand more easily now; then a negro came in, bowing humbly, with his slouch-hat in his hand, and asked me if I would have my measure taken. The question did not surprise me, but it confused me and worried me, and I said I should like to have advice about it. He started toward the door to call advisers; then he and the family and the lights began to grow dim, and in a few moments the place was pitch dark; but straightway there came a flood of moonlight and a gust of cold wind, and I found myself crossing a frozen lake, and my arms were empty. The wave of grief that swept through me woke me up, and I was sitting at my desk in the newspaper office in San Francisco, and I noticed by the clock that I had been asleep less than two minutes. And what was of more consequence, I was twenty-nine years old.

That was 1864. The next year and the year after I had momentary glimpses of my dream-sweetheart, but nothing more. These are set down in my notebooks under their proper dates, but with no talks nor other particulars added; which is sufficient evidence to me that there were none to add. In both of these instances there was the sudden meeting and recognition, the eager approach, then the instant disappearance, leaving the world empty and of no worth. I remember the two images quite well; in fact, I remember all the images of that spirit, and can bring them before me without help of my notebook. The habit of writing down my dreams of all sorts while they were fresh in my mind, and then studying them and rehearsing them and trying to find out what the source of dreams is, and which of the two or three separate persons inhabiting us is their architect, has given me a good dream-memory - a thing which is not usual with people, for few drill the dream-memory and, no memory can be kept strong without that.

I spent a few months in the Hawaiian Islands in 1866, and in October of that year I delivered my maiden lecture; it was in San Francisco. In the following January I arrived in New York, and had just completed my thirty-first year. In that year I saw my platonic dream-sweetheart again. In this dream I was again standing on the stage of the Opera House in San Francisco, ready to lecture, and with the audience vividly individualized before me in the strong light. I began, spoke a few words, and stopped, cold with fright; for I discovered that I had no subject, no text, nothing to talk about. I choked for a while, then got out a few words, a lame, poor attempt at humor. The house made no response. There was a miserable pause, then another attempt, and another failure. There were a few scornful laughs; otherwise the house was silent, unsmilingly austere, deeply offended. I was consuming with shame. In my distress I tried to work upon its pity. I began to make servile apologies, mixed with gross and ill-timed flatteries, and to beg and plead for forgiveness; this was too much, and the people broke into insulting cries, whistlings, hootings, and cat-calls, and in the midst of this they rose and began to struggle in a confused mass toward the door. I stood dazed and helpless, looking out over this spectacle, and thinking how everybody would be talking about it next day, and I could not show myself in the streets. When the house was become wholly empty and still, I sat down on the only chair that was on the stage and bent my head down on the reading-desk to shut out the look of that place. Soon that familiar dream-voice spoke my name, and swept all my troubles away:

"Robert!"

I answered: "Agnes!"

The next moment we two were lounging up the blossomy gorge called the Iao Valley, in the Hawaiian Islands. I recognized, without any explanations, that Robert was not my name, but only a pet name, a common noun, and meant "dear"; and both of us knew that Agnes was not a name, but only a pet name, a common noun, whose spirit was affectionate, but not conveyable with exactness in any but the dream-language. It was about the equivalent of "dear," but the dream-vocabulary shaves meanings finer and closer than do the world's daytime dictionaries. We did not know why those words should have those meanings; we had used words which had no existence in any known language, and had expected them to be understood, and they were understood. In my note-books there are several letters from this dream-sweetheart, in some unknown tongue - presumably dream-tongue - with translations added. I should like to be master of that tongue, then I could talk in shorthand. Here is one of those letters - the whole of it:

"Rax oha tal."

Translation. - "When you receive this it will remind you that I long to see your face and touch your hand, for the comfort of it and the peace."

It is swifter than waking thought; for thought is not thought at all, but only a vague and formless fog until it is articulated into words. We wandered far up the fairy gorge, gathering the beautiful flowers of the ginger-plant and talking affectionate things, and tying and retying each others ribbons and cravats, which didn't need it; and finally sat down in the shade of a tree and climbed the vine-hung precipices with our eyes, up and up and up toward the sky to where the drifting scarfs of white mist clove them across and left the green summits floating pale and remote, like spectral islands wandering in the deeps of space; and then we descended to earth and talked again.

"How still it is - and soft, and balmy, and reposeful I could never tire of it. You like it, don't you, Robert?"

"Yes, and I like the whole region - all the islands. Maui. It is a darling island. I have been here before. Have you?"

"Once, but it wasn't an island then."

"What was it?"

"It was a sufa."

I understood. It was the dream-word for "part of a continent."

"What were the people like?"

"They hadn't come yet. There weren't any."

"Do you know, Agnes - that is Haleakala, the dead volcano, over there across the valley; was it here in your friend's time?"

"Yes, but it was burning."

"Do you travel much?"

"I think so. Not here much, but in the stars a good deal."

"Is it pretty there?"

She used a couple of dream-words for "You will go with me some time and you will see." Non-committal, as one perceives now, but I did not notice it then.

A man-of-war-bird lit on her shoulder; I put out my hand and caught it. Its feathers began to fall out, and it turned into a kitten; then the kitten's body began to contract itself to a ball and put out hairy, long legs, and soon it was a tarantula; I was going to keep it, but it turned into a star-fish, and I threw it away. Agnes said it was not worth while to try to keep things; there was no stability about them. I suggested rocks; but she said a rock was like the rest; it wouldn't stay. She picked up a stone, and it turned into a bat and flew away. These curious matters interested me, but that was all; they did not stir my wonder.

While we were sitting there in the lao gorge talking, a Kanaka came along who was wrinkled and bent and white-headed, and he stopped and talked to us in the native tongue, and we understood him without trouble and answered him in his own speech. He said he was a hundred and thirty years old, and he remembered Captain Cook well, and was present when he was murdered; saw it with his own eyes, and also helped. Then he showed us his gun, which was of strange make, and he said it was his own invention and was to shoot arrows with, though one loaded it with powder and it had a percussion lock. He said it would carry a hundred miles. It seemed a reasonable statement; I had no fault to find with it, and it did not in any way surprise me. He loaded it and fired an arrow aloft, and it darted into the sky and vanished. Then he went his way, saying that the arrow would fall near us in half an hour, and would go many yards into the earth, not minding the rocks.

I took the time, and we waited, reclining upon the mossy slant at the base of a tree, and gazing into the sky. By and by there was a hissing sound, followed by a dull impact, and Agnes uttered a groan. She said, in a series of fainting gasps:

"Take me to your arms - it passed through me - hold me to your heart - I am afraid to die - closer - closer. It is growing dark - I cannot see you. Don't leave me - where are you? You are not gone? You will not leave me? I would not leave you."

Then her spirit passed; she was clay in my arms.

The scene changed in an instant and I was awake and crossing Bond Street in New York with a friend, and it was snowing hard. We had been talking, and there had been no observable gaps in the conversation. I doubt if I had made any more than two steps while I was asleep. I am satisfied that even the most elaborate and incident-crowded dream is seldom more than a few seconds in length. It would not cost me very much of a strain to believe in Mohammed's seventy-year dream, which began when he knocked his glass over, and ended in time for him to catch it before the water was spilled.

Within a quarter of an hour I was in my quarters, undressed, ready for bed, and was jotting down my dream in my note-book. A striking thing happened now. I finished my notes, and was just going to turn out the gas when I was caught with a most strenuous gape, for it was very late and I was very drowsy. I fell asleep and dreamed again. What now follows occurred while I was asleep; and when I woke again the gape had completed itself, but not long before, I think, for I was still on my feet. I was in Athens - a city which I had not, then seen, but I recognized the Parthenon from the pictures, although it had a fresh look and was in perfect repair. I passed by it and climbed a grassy hill toward a palatial sort of mansion which was built of red terra-cotta and had a spacious portico, whose roof was supported by a rank of fluted columns with Corinthian capitals. It was noonday, but I met no one. I passed into the house and entered the first room. It was very large and light, its walls were of polished and richly tinted and veined onyx, and its floor was a pictured pattern in soft colors laid in tiles. I noted the details of the furniture and the ornaments - a thing which I should not have been likely to do when awake - and they took sharp hold and remained in my memory; they are not really dim yet, and this was more than thirty years ago.

There was a person present - Agnes. I was not surprised to see her, but only glad. She was in the simple Greek costume, and her hair and eyes were different as to color from those she had had when she died in the Hawaiian Islands half an hour before, but to me she was exactly her own beautiful little self as I had always known her, and she was still fifteen, and I was seventeen once more. She was sitting on an ivory settee, crocheting something or other, and had her crewels in a shallow willow work-basket in her lap. I sat down by her and we began to chat in the usual way. I remembered her death, but the pain and the grief and the bitterness which had been so sharp and so desolating to me at the moment that it happened had wholly passed from me now, and had left not a scar. I was grateful to have her back, but there was no realizable sense that she had ever been gone, and so it did not occur to me to speak about it, and she made no reference to it herself. It may be that she had often died before, and knew that there was nothing lasting about it, and consequently nothing important enough in it to make conversation out of.

When I think of that house and its belongings, I recognize what a master in taste and drawing and color and arrangement is the dream-artist who resides in us. In my waking hours, when the inferior artist in me is in command, I cannot draw even the simplest picture with a pencil, nor do anything with a brush and colors; I cannot bring before my mind's eye the detail image of any building known to me except my own house at home; of St. Paul's, St. Peters, the Eiffel Tower, the Taj, the Capitol at Washington, I can reproduce only portions, partial glimpses; the same with Niagara Falls, the Matterhorn, and other familiar things in nature; I cannot bring before my mind's eye the face or figure of any human being known to me; I have seen my family at breakfast within the past two hours; I cannot bring their images before me, I do not know how they look; before me, as I write, I see a little grove of young trees in the garden; high above them projects the slender lance of a young pine, beyond it is a glimpse of the upper half of a dull-white chimney covered by an A-shaped little roof shingled with brown-red tiles, and half a mile away is a hill-top densely wooded, and the red is cloven by a curved, wide vacancy, which is smooth and grass-clad; I cannot shut my eyes and reproduce that picture as a whole at all, nor any single detail of it except the grassy curve, and that but vaguely and fleetingly.

But my dream-artist can draw anything, and do it perfectly; he can paint with all the colors and all the shades, and do it with delicacy and truth; he can place before me vivid images of palaces, cities, hamlets, hovels, mountains, valleys, lakes, skies, glowing in sunlight or moonlight, or veiled in driving gusts of snow or rain, and he can set before me people who are intensely alive, and who feel, and express their feelings in their faces, and who also talk and laugh, sing and swear. And when I wake I can shut my eyes and bring back those people, and the scenery and the buildings; and not only in general view, but often in nice detail. While Agnes and I sat talking in that grand Athens house, several stately Greeks entered from another part of it, disputing warmly about something or other, and passed us by with courteous recognition; and among them was Socrates. I recognized him by his nose. A moment later the house and Agnes and Athens vanished away, and I was in my quarters in New York again and reaching for my note-book.

[Illustration: Windsor Castle.]

In our dreams - I know it! - we do make the journeys we seem to make: we do see the things we seem to see; the people, the horses, the cats, the dogs, the birds, the whales, are real, not chimeras; they are living spirits, not shadows; and they are immortal and indestructible. They go whither they will; they visit all resorts, all points of interest, even the twinkling suns that wander in the wastes of space. That is where those strange mountains are which slide from under our feet while we walk, and where those vast caverns are whose bewildering avenues close behind us and in front when we are lost, and shut us in. We know this because there are no such things here, and they must be there, because there is no other place.

This tale is long enough, and I will close it now. In the forty-four years that I have known my Dreamland sweetheart, I have seen her once in two years on an average. Mainly these were glimpses, but she was always immediately recognizable, notwithstanding she was so given to repair herself and getting up doubtful improvements in her hair and eyes. She was always fifteen, and looked it and acted it; and I was always seventeen, and never felt a day older. To me she is a real person, not a fiction, and her sweet and innocent society has been one of the prettiest and pleasantest experiences of my life. I know that to you her talk will not seem of the first intellectual order; but you should hear her in Dreamland - then you would see!

I saw her a week ago, just for a moment. Fifteen, as usual, and I seventeen, instead of going on sixty-three, as I was when I went to sleep. We were in India and Bombay was in sight; also Windsor Castle, its towers and battlements veiled in a delicate haze, and from it the Thames flowed, curving and winding between its swarded banks, to our feet. I said:

"There is no question about it, England is the most beautiful of all the countries."

Her face lighted with approval, and she said, with that sweet and earnest irrelevance of hers:

"It is, because it is so marginal."

Then she disappeared. It was just as well; she could probably have added nothing to that rounded and perfect statement without damaging its symmetry.

This glimpse of her carries me back to Maui, and that time when I saw her gasp out her young life. That was a terrible thing to me at the time. It was preternaturally vivid; and the pain and the grief and the misery of it to me transcended many sufferings that I have known in waking life. For everything in a dream is more deep and strong and sharp and real than is ever its pale imitation in the unreal life which is ours when we go about awake and clothed with our artificial selves in this vague and dull-tinted artificial world. When we die we shall slough off this cheap intellect, perhaps, and go abroad into Dreamland clothed in our real selves, and aggrandized and enriched by the command over the mysterious mental magician who is here not our slave, but only our guest.

BOOK REVIEWS

MAGIC, WHITE AND BLACK, Franz Hartmann, M.D., Pyramid Press, Benwood, Wv, 1980, 298 pp., $5.00

Franz Hartmann deals with the highest possible effort that man is capable of pursuing. His is not crude, manipulative, or lower-dimensional magic, - even though he allowed the title to hint that black magical formulae might be incorporated in this work. Franz Hartmann was manifestly a man of very high moral nature, more spiritual and more educative along spiritual lines than most of all Christian teachers. We might presume that the title was chosen to encourage the first openings of the book, but the immortality of the work was a direct result of word-of-mouth references as to its great value.

Today we are going through a strange metamorphosis. We are experiencing an inversion and confusion of human attitudes. Materialism has started to become ethereal, with science no longer expressed by hard numbers and symbols with exact meanings. The Tao of Physics points the way for this direction, wherein the essence of matter may be force, and the force someday may be discovered as Mind.

On the other hand, in regard to subjective matters like religion the public has gone the other way. The masses which have ever been the bulwark of subjective, spiritual speculation are now drifting toward the abolition of the spiritual quest. God has been summoned to the witness stand and did not appear. Mind, the only faculty which is indispensable in spiritual realization, has been denied existence by behavioral psychologists. Even though immorality is directly tied to insidious diseases, there is an attempt to cure those diseases with chemicals (and thus chemically abolish guilt and immorality for all time), and with word-inversions so that we will no longer think about certain diseases as being negative. So that the word "syndrome" is the replacement for terminal affliction in some cases.

Franz Hartman was timely and valuable in the pre-inversion era a hundred years ago when Europe was suffering from powerfully invested, spiritual nebulosity. And once more, he is timely, for his formulae will prevent the terminal "syndromes," with a process that begins with symptoms of "peace of mind" and contains the potential for maximum realization of such abolished items as mind, Mind, and The Absolute Dimension.

His book is one of the greatest of all time, in comparison to those which might deal with the wisdom of man, psychology, science or social relationships. He finds all wisdom within the self, and this wisdom can be attained by not allowing the lower self to prevent the greater Self from experiencing and becoming. He notes that intellectuality drifts into lower-self (mundane and somatic) selfishness unless it is always pointed toward Self-definition with the help of our own internal energy.

Magic, White and Black is of no value to those who are interested in power or possessions. But its lucid formula will change your life to something of conscious direction, and to an experience of beauty... the beauty that lies only in the depths of the Self.

Riccardo Flores

A NEW SCIENCE OF LIFE, Rupert Sheldrake, J.P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles, 1981, $12.95

Rupert Sheldrake's A New Science of Life is one of those books which either is a herald of things to come in scientific paradigms, or is destined to become a curious divergence from validity. I suppose that in order to fully evaluate this work, one must be a research biologist, but it is certain to fascinate anyone who has struggled to reconcile mainstream scientific thought with occultism or mysticism. Outside of scientific circles, the book's greatest appeal will be to those who are content neither with hard-headed materialism or with wishful-thinking metaphysics. To those who cannot ignore the efficacy of scientific findings and yet cannot deny the grey area of unexplained phenomena where logic falters, this work will help reconcile seeming opposites. To be sure, it is not a compendium of Psi phenomena or a book of neat answers to thorny questions. It is more a challenge and a stimulant.

Sheldrake takes many of the same examples found in biological texts to advance his theory. Basically, he postulates that a non-material force or principle causes the manifestation of physical forms and processes. These non-material forces (morphogenetic fields) serve as a pattern for the organization of physical forms. Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation seeks to explain the repetition of forms and patterns of organization in both organic and inorganic matter. He borrows the concept of morphogenetic fields from holistic philosophy.

Sheldrake is careful to avoid untestable hypotheses. His point of departure from the Vitalists and Organicists is this very factor. He is attempting to bridge the gulf between speculative philosophy and scientific experimentalism by proposing a verifiable hypothesis. This in itself sets the book apart. He is presenting a non-materialistic hypothesis couched in a testable framework.

Sheldrake also exposes the dogmatic nature of current scientific thinking.

"In practice, the mechanistic theory of life is not treated as a rigorously defined, refutable scientific theory; rather, it serves to provide a justification for the conservative method of working within the established framework of thought provided by existing physics and chemistry."

In addition, he criticizes the two major alternatives to dominant scientific thought, Vitalism and Organicism, and carefully delineates the difference between these two schools and his own approach. He makes it clear that he is not concerning himself with ultimate definitions or the question of "why."

A New Science of Life is a book to be taken seriously, but at this time it is wishful thinking to expect scientific materialism to erode overnight. Science necessarily moves very slowly. Paradigms rarely change quickly, yet a perusal of current trends in the biological sciences gives the impression that a quantum leap forward in our knowledge of the nature of physical reality may be close at hand. The author sums this up very aptly.

"This new way of thinking is unfamiliar, and it leads into uncharted territory.... The alternative to going on would be to return to the starting point; the choice would once again be narrowed to that between a simple mechanistic faith and a metaphysical organicism."

Dave Atanasoff

PSYCHEDELICS ENCYCLOPEDIA (Revised Edition)., Peter Stafford, J.P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles, 1983, 420pp., $12.95 (softcover)

If you wish to know anything at all about psychedelic drugs, you are very likely to find it in this book. Stafford has done a thorough reporting on every well-known psychedelic. He provides historical data, results of psychological testing, accounts of their use in religious rituals throughout the world, and even chemical compositions and brain effects. While Stafford furnishes us with a wealth of information, his Psychedelic Encyclopedia reads more like a novel than a top-heavy reference work. The many anecdotal stories and accounts of personal psychedelic experiences make for easy and enjoyable reading.

Stafford takes an unduly positive attitude toward the use of psychedelics (he dedicates the book to his young son "for future reference.") While psychedelics may have the ability to open a door to another dimension of the mind and reality, it is unlikely they can do much more than this. He virtually ignores any negative information pertaining to the drugs, except to refute the cases involved. No great philosophers, artists, or scientists have been created from ingesting psychedelics, although many outstanding minds have labeled an experiment with a psychedelic as a very valuable experience.

Mark Jaqua

CONCEPTS OF QABALAH., William G. Gray, Samuel Weiser, York Beach, Me., 1984, 366 pp.

As one of the leaders of Western esotericism, William Gray's publication of his four-volume "Sangreal Sodality Series" will be greeted with interest by all serious students of Western occultism. Concepts of Qabalah is the third book to be released in this series (the fourth is yet to come). Of the first three volumes, I find it the most appealing from a philosophic standpoint. Gray has the ability to bring a very abstract subject, the Qabalah, down to the level where it can be comprehended by nearly anyone. His use of analogy is his strong point. He is able to bring the most difficult idea down to understandable terms without destroying its essence.

Gray likens the practice of magic and study of the Qabalah to the mathematical aspect of the search for God. While literature and mathematical science are the two polar opposites in worldly scholasticism, mysticism and magic are the two polar opposites in the search for God. Gray believes the "Qabalah is the only coherent, workable, and dependable scheme relating computable values with spiritual realities." The Jewish and later Christian originators of the Qabalah believed that creation occurred according to certain mathematical principles and processes. The study of the Qabalah is the attempt to uncover these principles, and the practice of magic is the attempt to put the discoveries to use in self-development and inner understanding.

In Western esotericism there is really no concept of "enlightenment" as is found in the East. Eastern tradition contends that it is possible to discover an ultimate value or experience in a single lifetime and thus end our round of incarnations. With the exception of a few Christian mystics, such as St. John of the Cross, the concept of an Absolute experience is simply not acknowledged in the West. Gray is no exception to this perspective. He sees the spiritual path as a progressive evolution that can reach its fruition in no earthly incarnation.

William Gray's "Sangreal Sodality Series" is written in the form of a series of workbooks for esoteric students who wish to adopt ritual magic as their method of spiritual endeavor. He provides progressive meditational disciplines and concludes each chapter with questions and exercises to insure the student has understood the preceding chapter. Contrary to many writers on the occult, Gray has a good deal of common sense. In this most abstract of human efforts, we are lucky to be able to get sound advice from someone who, while his head may be in the heavens, still has his feet firmly planted on the ground.

Mark Jaqua

THE CONTINUING DISCOVERY OF CHIRON, Erminie Lantero, Samuel Weiser, York Beach, Me., 1983, 189pp., $8.95

In late 1977, astronomer Charles Koval of Hale Observatory in California discovered a new planetary body. The new satellite was observed in an orbit between Saturn and Uranus and is thought to have a diameter between one hundred and three hundred miles. While it is considerably smaller than other planets, it has been referred to as both a planet and an asteroid. Koval named his new discovery "Chiron," after the wise centaur in classical mythology who was the son of Saturn and grandson of Uranus. The Continuing Discovery of Chiron is Erminie Lantero's investigation of the astrological significance of this new heavenly body.

Lantero has a rich and varied background in religion and philosophy, having received her M. Div. at Union Theological in New York and her Ph.D. in philosophy at Radcliffe. She has taught in several colleges and was active for many years in the Christian ecumenical movement. Recently her interests have turned toward the esoteric and she has spent the last ten years in a study of astrology. She currently resides in a community based on the principles of philosopher Rudolf Steiner.

Mythologically, as the son of Saturn, Chiron (Ch pronounced as K) was considered an immortal. Chiron was a half-man, half-animal centaur and was put under the guidance of Apollo. Here he learned science and art, which raised him above the mere animalistic nature of the centaur. In fact, he became known as a wise teacher and physician and numbered among his pupils Achilles. Astrologically, Chiron symbolizes these refined traits as well as the animalistic facets of the centaur.

Dr. Lantero believes the effect of Chiron is present to a large degree in the recent prevalence of terrorism in international affairs. She examines the findings of other researchers in this area and applies this data to the assassination attempts on President Reagan, Pope John Paul and Anwar Sadat.

Lantero does an excellent job of presenting the information to date on Chiron, while adding that much is still left to be done. She also speculates about the effects of Chiron during the rest of this century. Few things can be more exciting to astrologers than the discovery of a new planetary body, and as one of the first books available in this new field, Lantero's The Continuing Discovery of Chiron may well prove to be a classic.

Eric Hadidian

Vegetarianism As Spiritual Practice
by Tom Sperry

WHEN ONE THINKS OF A VEGETARIAN, he may visualize anything from a skinny girl picking at sunflower seeds to someone slaving for hours over a stove creating some "bean-delight." We in America are probably less familiar with vegetarianism than any other people in the world. Most of the world is on a vegetarian-centered diet and may not have the choice that we do in our prosperous country. I find it curious that of the many people I know who have undertaken a vegetarian diet, very few return to their former meat-eating ways.

When people determine to be vegetarians, it is normally because of one of four rationales - health reasons, moral reasons, political/ ecological reasons, or "spiritual" reasons. There is much evidence to indicate that a well-balanced vegetarian diet is superior to a meateater's diet. Meat contains trace quantities of several toxins and poisons and is generally harder on the digestive system than a vegetable, seed and fruit diet.* Morally, some people object to a meat diet because they do not believe in the "unnecessary" killing of animals, and especially the manner in which they are killed in slaughterhouses. Politically and ecologically, a vegetarian diet is the only alternative if there is any hope of adequately feeding the entire population of the globe. The world passed the point at which its population could be fed by a meat-centered diet over a century ago.

Most simply stated, beef cattle must be fed 21 pounds of vegetable-protein to produce one pound of beef-protein.
There are several valid reasons for becoming a vegetarian, but the most arcane of any reason is its practice in hopes of producing some spiritual or beneficial change in the psyche.

* The reason that meat contains undesirable poisons such as uric acid is that for a few hours after the slaughter of the animal, its body cells still continue to function and produce waste products, even though the blood is no longer circulating to remove the wastes.

In a basic sense, all rationales for becoming a vegetarian are spiritual in nature. A person attempting to improve his health is also trying to improve his whole being and mind. A person who is vegetarian for moral reasons is drastically altering his life for a spiritual conviction, and a person who becomes vegetarian for political reasons interprets spirituality in terms of social concern. Some, however, practice vegetarianism for directly psychological and "spiritual" reasons, because of the beneficial effect it has on refining and calming the mind.

Numerous spiritual teachers, especially from the East, recommend vegetarian diets. The ground given for this is to make one more receptive to subtle mental and spiritual influences. The Indian sage, Ramana Maharshi, has this to say: "Regulation of diet, restricting it to 'satvic' food, taken in moderate quantity, is of all the rules of conduct the best; and it is most conducive to the development of the 'satvic' qualities of the mind. These, in their turn, assist one in the practices of Atma vichara or inquiry in quest of the Self." (3) Satvic foods are described as "simple and nutritious food which sustains but does not stimulate the physical body." Satvic qualities of mind are "purity of heart, self-restraint, evenness of temper, tenderness towards all beings, fortitude and freedom from desire, hatred and arrogance."

How is it that a vegetarian diet makes a person more receptive to spiritual influences? Prerequisite in all schools of yoga is a control of the body. The mind seems to be divided into two halves, one "half" or level deals with all the input of the senses and the restlessness and feelings of the body. The "second half" or higher level of the mind deals with subtle mental realms like intuition, abstract logic and spiritual perceptions. If the attention is constantly occupied with the lower mind in dealing with a chaotic body and constant sensory stimulation of some sort, then concentration cannot be held in the higher and more spiritual portions of the mind. The first step in yoga is to calm the body so that the concentration can be directed to spiritual matters. Hatha-yoga develops control over the body through diet and exercise so that the mind can be undisturbed in meditation.

Many who practice vegetarianism for spiritual purposes claim that animal hormones contained in meat products and eggs stimulate the body by arousing baser animal drives and emotions. Most spiritual disciplines attempt to gain control over sexual and aggressive drives (to control them and not to be controlled by them.) An excess of animal hormones in the body only makes this attempt more difficult. This is why many Indian gurus recommend "satvic" foods that do not goad the body with an overabundance of influential hormones. The mind can be trained to control the body, but the state of the body has a definite effect in the perceptions and decisions of the mind. It could be argued that, once the instinctual desires are fully in one's control, a vegetarian diet would no longer be of much practical aid. All this is very difficult to prove objectively, since science does not think in these terms and is not directed toward this type of study. The only way it can be possibly "proven" is by reference to spiritual teachers or by the evidence of subjective and direct personal experimentation.

The regulation of the diet should be done with common sense and not taken as a substitute for spiritual disciplines. The vegetarian diet is only meant to be a foundation or aid to spiritual disciplines. The Indian teacher, Vivekananda, said: "The manipulating and control of the grosser is absolutely necessary to enable one to arrive at the control of the finer. The beginner, therefore, must pay particular attention to all such dietetic rules as have come down from the line of his accredited teachers." (4) He warns, though, of needless and harmful fanaticism in regard to diet. A suitable diet aids one in becoming "in tune" with spiritual dimensions, but dietary fanaticism cannot be substituted for spiritual endeavor. A good diet aids spiritual development but does not produce it automatically. "...The extravagant, meaningless fanaticism, which has driven religion entirely to the kitchen, as may be noticed in the case of many of our sects, ...is a peculiar sort of pure and simple materialism."

Vegetarian diet is also recommended occasionally in the Western spiritual tradition, but not so frequently as in the East. Actually, in the East, the question is often not even for consideration, since meat products are not readily available to the general population. In Western ceremonial magic, a vegetarian diet is usually prescribed in the purification rites before undertaking a magical ritual.

Gurdjieff, the famous Russian philosopher and teacher of the first half of this century, writes nowhere in regard to diet, as far as I am aware. The only reference to eating practices he makes is in his fantasy-like autobiography, Meetings With Remarkable Men. In his early life he maintained careful and fastidious eating habits, chewing each mouthful an exact number of times. A "wiseman" observed him eating and informed him that if he was so careful of his eating habits now, in his old age he would have a very weak stomach. To paraphrase the wiseman, "You should eat bones and rocks when you are young so that when you are old your stomach will be very strong!" Gurdjieff maintained that it didn't matter what you ate, but what you "did" with it after you ate it.

Robert Leftwich is an interesting case of a Western psychic. Colin Wilson devotes one-third of his book, Strange Powers, to this amazing man. Leftwich has proven his ability to astral-project, dowse and, apparently, even disperse clouds with an act of will. (5) According to an account in the encyclopedia Man, Myth and Magic, "He is a strict vegetarian, a tee-totaler, a non-smoker, and even abstains from tea and coffee, explaining that any form of stimulant is capable of interfering with his powers." Wilson claims that Leftwich has enough control of his abilities that he can "make" things happen while the vast majority of psychics are merely passive experiencers of phenomena.

There is a common belief that vegetarians cannot have as much "energy" as persons with meat in their diets. Leftwich is dramatic example of this fallacy. Wilson writes, "From my own experience of him, I can vouch that he never seems to get tired - at least, not noticeably. At seven in the morning, as Joy (Wilson's wife) was sleepily switching on the kettle and preparing to get the children's breakfast, Robert would appear outside the kitchen window, as chirpy as if he'd been for a ten-mile walk, looking for the shredded wheat and eager to elaborate on some point he'd overlooked the night before." Some even claim that a vegetarian diet can provide more strength and endurance than a meat diet.

The state of our mentality can be drastically affected by the chemical balance of the body-system. One usually thinks of himself as "unchangeable" and stable in some vague manner but therapeutic experience indicates that chemical imbalance or deficiencies can alter a person's attitude toward life and even mental capacity. George Watson in Nutrition and Your Mind relates the case of a man who so dramatically improved his mentality through taking a B-complex supplement that he left his mundane job and achieved a doctorate in mathematics in a few years. Dr. Watson writes, "Psychochemical behavior ranges from simple moodiness to extreme abnormality. In between lie a large number of conditions, such as lack of confidence, lack of ambition, vague fears, shyness, apathy, sadness, anger, irritability, and feelings of distrust and suspicion that puzzle and disturb the person who experiences them because he can neither understand nor control them."

The whole field of nutrition is truly "muddy water." The old adage, "One man's meat is another man's poison," seems to be true. George Watson postulates that there are "psychochemical types" and that chemicals, vitamins, and minerals may have drastically contrary effect