Chapter XLIII: Part II: The Crescent (3)

The new work by Captain Serjeant (New Dispensationist and Fellow of the Theosophical Society) is certainly what he describes it as being, the “book for the age,” if, at least, it be admitted that the age requires arousing. I have no hesitation in saying that no such book has before been presented to the public. It sounds forth like a trumpet to arouse the sleepers from their crass forgetfulness of every law of Brotherly Love and Spiritual Truth. One might almost imagine, in reading it, the sensation produced upon his contemporaries by Ezekiel, when first he gave forth his prophecies to a wondering world; or by Bunyan, when he startled the English of his time with the magnificent allegory of the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It is true that here and there whole passages are bodily transplanted from St John’s “Revelation,” but they are so marvellously dovetailed into the context that, without constant reference to the Apocalypse, it is almost impossible to say where the quotations begin and where they end. From a literary point of view this may be a fault; but if we recognise the one Spirit speaking through many voices we cannot deny that the same truth may call for repetition and expansion, and the same Spirit may emit again, with fuller details, what it has emitted before.

Were this an _orthodox_ journal, I am aware that I dare not advance such tenets for fear the luckless editors should be deemed blasphemous by their subscribers. But LUCIFER at least must allow that the Universal Spirit has not in the sacred books of olden times breathed its last words. Then, again, Captain Serjeant disclaims all _personal_ responsibility for these utterances when he states that the very passages which the reader will find the most glowing in the fierceness of their heat, are not words conceived by his own personality, but given to him by processes well-known to Spiritualists as “direct” and “automatic” writing.

The root idea of the volume is that _one Spirit_ permeates all men and all things, and that this Spirit is that of Wisdom, Love and Truth; yet that this Spirit is denied or hidden out of sight by its own children; and that not till it is again made manifest in the public affairs of the world, can mankind hope for that happiness which it is now vainly pursuing in every other direction save the right one, namely, _within_. The dedication of the book sounds the key-note of its contents; for it is inscribed to “Love, the Queen of Heaven; and to Faith, the Star of the Soul.” The inscription closes with the words “Follow after Love—Love never faileth,” and the reader is intentionally left to supply the third term, “God is Love.” It is in this conception of the Supreme that we shall find the whole meaning of the work. The words “God” and the “Father,” as also the “Mother” and “Christ,” are employed pretty freely; yet with this clue, we shall see that the writer believes in no _personal_ Deity, but in one Universal Spirit, of whom each intelligence is a manifestation in the flesh, little though such being may show or know it.

It is impossible in a short review to touch upon all the striking features of “Spirit Revealed,” and I must, therefore, content myself with noticing but a very few, referring the readers of LUCIFER to the book itself; for they will find in it a “Guide, Philosopher and Friend.”

The preface reminds one of a passage in Ezekiel too often forgotten. “And they were _scattered_, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, _when they were scattered_.” Captain Serjeant points out the necessity of a bond of _union_ in these words:—

“The contentions amongst many religious sects have been to a considerable extent responsible for the rise, growth, and development of numerous societies of professed religious, as well as of an anti-religious character. Each and every one of these Societies possesses its own peculiar views on the Deity, as well as on life and death, and though the majority of the more enlightened of them have evidently the same fundamental principles underlying the teachings which they endeavour to inculcate in the minds of men generally, yet the manifest confusion generated by what are seemingly conflicting opinions, tends, unhappily, to increase the bewilderment and distrust experienced in connection with the truths of the Spirit throughout all classes of Society in the nineteenth century.”

He then proceeds to claim for his work that it “places in the hands of Christian Ministers” (Note, that he employs the word “Christ” continually in the sense of the divine Spirit within mankind) “many powerful weapons wherewith to establish and uphold the universal Church of the Living God.” The preface, which is conceived throughout in the most elevated style of address, concludes with an appeal to “all who, in their hearts, are ready and willing to labour loyally in the interests of their less enlightened fellow creatures existing in this ignorant, selfish, and love-starved world.”

After a brief Introduction, couched in a prophetic form, the writer deals with the nature of God, man, matter, the power of Spirit manifest in and through matter, the omnipresence of Spirit, the Intelligent Principle, and the Seven Rays of Truth. In these seven chapters is comprised what I may call the theoretical part of the book. The following quotations must suffice to show in what vein these world-riddles are worked out. “We are endued with two natures, one of which is human or mortal, and subject to chemical change, commonly termed dissolution or death; the other, immortal or spiritual, capable of adding to itself by an inherent power to comprehend the nature, qualities and capabilities of all created visible things, which comprehension signifies the reconversion of all material existences into true ideas.” “It is an absolute fact that _everything is literal_. To the spiritual man symbols are literal; they are indeed more literal than the natural man considers what he terms facts or realities.“ ”_The ultimate atom is Spirit._ Finite wills are points on which the Infinite Will acts, for no creature can will without being a manifestation of the Supreme Intelligence who first wills that it shall will.“

The subsequent portion of the book deals partly with an expansion of the general tenets laid down in these seven chapters, and their application to the present _practical_ needs of the world; partly with prophetic utterances as to the near approach of an awakening of the peoples to their real position as members of one great Spiritual community. Under the first heading a very important document is presented to the world, being a form for enrolment in the “Universal Rights Support Association,” which if generally adopted in the true spirit would indeed herald the millennium. Under the second heading in Chapter XIII. a remarkable reading of part of the Apocalypse is given, commencing with the words from Daniel, “and at that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of the people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a Nation even to that same time: At that time the people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” Such words as these are not to be understood on the first reading, and indeed will probably meet with nothing but derision from many. Yet LUCIFER will see in them another and a most powerful battery opened against the powers of darkness to wage war with which is his own chief mission.

In conclusion I can only add that, in my humble opinion, few men have shown such courage in facing the ridicule of society as Captain Serjeant, and that he has chosen to risk the forfeiture of a place in social circles to which his right is undeniable, rather than give way to the temptation to prophesy smooth things. He is one of the foremost in the New Dispensation movement, and a man whose working power must be enormous, if it be measured by the labours which he daily and voluntarily undertakes. His peculiar style of writing lays him open to the accusation of calling himself the coming Messiah. If his accusers would only meet him face to face, they would find that no man is humbler than he, and none is more fully conscious nor more loudly proclaims that “individuality is but an emanation from the one Great Spirit,” in which alone he recognises the true Christ, the Saviour of the world. He would tell them that in _themselves_ is incarnate the Spirit of Wisdom, and that it only awaits its union with the Spirit of Love, to manifest itself as the Spirit of Truth. How little he values his own personality and his own well-being or fame, those who know him best can testify. If Theosophy is to be a living thing, and not a mere intellectual amusement, it is by such men as this that it must be followed. Were there many such the world would soon be freed from its misery, by the force of their united volition. Verily their reward is at hand.

WILLIAM ASHTON ELLIS.

-----------------------

TRAITÉ ÉLÉMENTAIRE DE SCIENCE OCCULTE, par PAPUS.

Published by Georges Carré, 58, Rue St Audré des Arts.

This, the latest of the admirable publications now being issued by M. Georges Carré, under the auspices of “L’Isis,” the French branch of the Theosophical Society, deserves a hearty welcome at the hands of all students of Occultism, as it fulfils the promise of its title, which is high praise indeed.

The book is written and constructed on correct Occult principles; it contains seven chapters, three devoted to theory and four to the application and practical illustration of that theory.

After an eloquent introductory chapter, M. Papus proceeds to lead his readers by easy transitions into the mysterious science of numbers. This—the first key to _practical_ Occultism—is at once the simplest and the most subtle of sciences. Hitherto there has existed no really elementary exposition of its primary, fundamental principles. And, as this science of numbers lies at the base of every one of those applications of occult science which are still to any extent studied, a knowledge of it is almost indispensable.

Astrology, Chiromancy, Cartomancy, in short, all the arts of divination, rest ultimately on numbers and their occult powers, as a foundation.

And yet, though the students of each of these several arts must, perforce, acquire a certain knowledge of numerical science, yet very few of them possess that knowledge in a systematic and co-ordinated form.

Of course M. Papus does not, and cannot, give anything like a complete textbook on the subject, but he does give, in clear language, the fundamental guiding principles of this science. Moreover, he illustrates the methods of numerical working, by numerous and well-chosen examples—an aid which is simply invaluable to the student who is making his first entrance into this field of study. In the third chapter these abstract formulæ are given as they relate to man, as an individual, and as a member of that larger whole, called humanity. This completes the purely theoretical portion of the book, and in the fourth chapter we are shown how these general principles work in their application.

Signs and symbols are proved to be the _natural_ expressions of ideas in accordance with fixed laws, and the method is applied by way of illustration to the interpretation of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. The relation between number and form is shown as exhibited in geometrical figures, and M. Papus gives a clue to a subject which has puzzled many—the actual _influence_ in life of _names_. This chapter is most enthralling, but lack of space forbids any detailed comments, for so much would have to be said.

Chapters five and six are almost equally interesting; full of lucid illustration and valuable hints to the practical student, they form almost a manual in themselves. But on one point M. Papus is certainly in error, though, since it is on a matter of history, its importance is relatively small. He attaches _far_ too much weight to the Jews and to their national system of occultism—the Kabbala. True, that system is the most familiar in Europe; but it has been so much overlaid by a semi-esoteric veil, and additions and interpolations by Christian Occultists, that its inner grossness is lost sight of; so that students are apt to be led away from the truth, and to form erroneous conceptions as to the value and meaning of many symbols, the importance of which in practical work is very great. What esoteric knowledge the Jews possessed, they derived either from the Egyptians or the Babylonians during the captivity. Hence M. Saint-Ives d’Alvidre, his gigantic erudition notwithstanding, is altogether mistaken in the stress he lays on their knowledge, their place in history and their mission as a nation. This, however, is but a matter of small moment in a book, the practical value of which it would be difficult to over-estimate.

-----------------------

THE NEW WAGNER JOURNAL.

We have received from Mr. Geo. Redway, Publisher, 15, York Street, W.C., the prospectus of a new Journal, “THE MEISTER,” which is about to be edited for the _Richard Wagner Society_ by Mr. Wm. Ashton Ellis, author of “Theosophy in the Works of Richard Wagner” (Theosophical Society’s Transactions), and of “Richard Wagner as Poet, Musician and Mystic,” read before the Society of Fine Arts. As Mr. Ellis is a member of the Committee of the Wagner Society, and a member of Council of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society, we hope that prominence will be given to the esoteric side of Richard Wagner’s works; and for this hope we have justification not only in the pamphlets above alluded to but also in the words of the prospectus of the MEISTER. “Religion, Art, and Social Questions are in these works (Wagner’s) presented to his readers under novel aspects, and such as are of the greatest interest to a generation which is eagerly scanning the horizon for some cloud which may be the harbinger of refreshing rain long looked for to quench the thirst of the arid sands of Materialistic Science.”

The prospectus presents us with a specimen of the cover of the journal, designed by Mr. Percy Anderson, an artist who has already made a name for himself in other walks of the decorative art, and whose first attempt in this direction shows great power of broad effects of light and shade, and considerable expertness in symbolism. We hope in our next issue to review the first number of the MEISTER which, we understand, will appear on the 13th inst. It will be published for the present _quarterly_, at the subscription rate of 4s. per annum, but we trust that it may shortly become a full-fledged “monthly.”

NEW YEAR’S EVE.

All sound was hushed, except the sad sad bells,
Chanting their requiem o’er the dying year;
Alone I knelt beneath the watchful stars,
And held communion with my restless soul.

* * * * *

The Old Year died, the sad bells all were stilled,
And o’er a silent city, shone the pure cold moon.
Then unrestrained my soul poured forth its cry,
“O God Eternal, Changless, Sacred, O. M.
Let my past die with the Old Year to-night.
And when the joy-bells hail the New Year’s birth,
Let each sweet note waft up a pæan of praise,
Straight from a new-born Soul unto its Maker.”

* * * * *

The New Year dawned, madly the bells clashed forth
Beneath the stars, I still knelt on—in peace.

KATIE DUNCAN KING.

=Correspondence.=

---

AUTOCENTRICISM.[183]

-----

Footnote 183:

“Autocentricism; or, the Brain Theory of Life and Mind,” being the
substance of letters written to the Secular Review (1883-4). By
Robert Lewins, M.D. “The New Gospel of Hylo-Idealism, or Positive
Agnosticism.” By Herbert L. Courtney.

-----

Man has made God in his own image. Taking his thoughts and passions, fears, hope and aspirations, with part thereof he endows his fellow-men, whose natures he knows only as figured and interpreted by his own, and thus he becomes a social being; with part thereof he inspires the inanimate world—“the sun, the moon, the stars, the sea, the hills, and the plains,” and thus he becomes a poet; “with the residue” he forms his God, and “falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my God.”

The first of these processes is legitimate, indeed necessary, for there is a foundation of unity in human nature, however diverse and complex are its varied developments; and the humanity which dwells in all can recognize itself under strange disguises.

The second process is innocent and elevating, so long as it is kept within just limits, and claims to reach results subjectively, not objectively, true.

The third process is inevitable at a certain stage of racial evolution, but beyond that stage becomes absolutely noxious and degrading, because it extols as truth that which conscience and reason have begun to condemn as untruth.

Dead are the Gods of Egypt, those supreme plutocrats, under whom costly mummification and burial in a sculptured tomb were the conditions of posthumous life, so that a poor man could by no means enter into the kingdom of Osiris. Dead are Jupiter, Apollo, Pallas, Aphrodite, the products and reflexes of Greek majesty, beauty and intellect; or, if not dead, they are immortalised only by the art of their human creators. Dead, or dying, as a power to be loved and feared, is that Jehovah who reproduces the cruelty, selfishness and stubbornness of the typical Jew, with his substratum of conscience, showing itself from time to time in a more or less wrong-headed zeal for righteousness.

In its infancy, every race unconsciously forms an ideal, and makes this ideal its God. As the race grows in civilisation the ideal is modified, and for some time the god continues to undergo corresponding changes, and is, so to speak, kept up to date. But increasing experience and knowledge bring increasing secularism of thought and feeling, and incapacitate the mind for reconstructing its Divinity. Religion loses its life-blood. In this stage, the Deity is either an anachronism, incompatible with the highest instincts of his worshippers, and therefore holding them back morally and intellectually, or else he becomes a nonentity, an abstraction, which can have no influence on life and conduct. It is this effete conception which Dr. Lewins combats in the tract entitled “Autocentricism, or the Brain Theory of Life and Mind.”

Man, in brief, is his own God. Saints and mystics, and all the most beautiful souls of all religions, have seen this truth as in a glass darkly. Christ expressed it in mystic form when he said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you,” and, “I and my Father are one.” But in Christ’s time Animism was so ingrained in human nature that it was impossible he could escape it.[184] He had not the scientific data on which to found a true cosmology; and even had he possessed the data, he would have lacked the power to use them. Scientific habits of thought were necessarily alien to the mind of the Galilean peasant.[185] He could _feel_ rather than _comprehend_ the unity of God, Man, and the World; but he could not know that this unity is centred in the thought-cells of the cerebral hemispheres, and that the Divine glory is the offspring of a material organism.[186] Scientific synthesis can now give a solid basis to Christian and Buddhist mysticism, to Berkleyan and Kantian Idealism, by declaring that the brain is the one phenomenon which certifies its own nomenal existence. It thinks, therefore it is; it creates, therefore it exists. Yet Dualism is condemned, whatever stand-point we adopt. “For my main argument ... it matters not a jot or tittle whether you proceed on the nöetic or hyloic basis. A European ought to take the latter, which admits of scientific research and discovery. An Asiatic or African, who has not the genius for original realistic research, may safely be left to the former.”[187] Beyond himself, no man can think. We are apt to be deluded by the exigencies of language, and to look upon “our” ideas, “our” imaginations, as in some way separable from ourselves; as possessions rather than components of the Ego. Yet nothing is clearer than that the sum of these sentient states actually _constitutes_ the Ego, so far as it knows itself; and that a “dominant” idea, engrossing the attention to the exclusion of all others, is for the time absolutely identical with and equivalent to the mind which it is said to “rule.” For moments which are eternities, because the sense of time is abolished, the musician may be “absorbed in” or identified with his sonata, the poet with his verse, the mystic with his vision of the Divine Essence. “I am as great as God, and He as small as I,” sings Angelus Silesius; but we may rather say that in such states of rapture the relations of “great” and “small,” of “internal” and “external,” of “space” and “infinitude,” of “time” and “eternity,” are annihilated, and the whole universe fused into one point of light.

-----

Footnote 184:

“Autocentricism,” &c., p. 10.

Footnote 185:

_Christ_—A Galilean peasant! [ED.]

Footnote 186:

Nor does Dr. Lewins _know_: assumption is no proof. [ED.]

Footnote 187:

“Autocentricism,” &c., p. 33.

-----

This feeling, rationalised and stripped of mystery, though not of wonder and solemnity, is the truth and life of Hylo-Idealism. Worship is done away with, not by iconoclasm, but by apotheosis. “By it we are, indeed, for ever and entirely relieved from the humiliating and overwhelming sense of human insignificance, thus making ourselves quite at home in the more than terrestrial grandeurs of the universe, in which our planet is but a sand-grain.”[188]

-----

Footnote 188:

Ibid, p. 19.

-----

In conclusion, I should like to recommend Dr. Lewins’s tractate, with its Introduction by Mr. Courtney, and its succinct and luminous Appendix by G. M. Mc., and also Mr. Courtney’s articles reprinted from “Our Corner” to the attention of all sincere souls. Hylo-Idealism, or “Autocentricism,” has the merit of not being negative merely, but also positive and constructive, substituting for the “renunciation” preached by Christ and Buddha, a perfect fulfilment of self, and conquering selfishness by self-expansion. It is thus especially potent in the fields of theoretical and practical ethics, indeed the central idea of Spinoza’s admirable and still unsurpassed analysis of the Passions is distinctly deducible from our thesis, though generally regarded as an excrescence rather than a natural growth from his own. Upon all this I cannot, at present, dwell, but must content myself with the bare indication of fields of thought and action which are “white already to the harvest.”

On the Nile, _Dec._ 1887.

C. N.

--------------

WHAT OF PHENOMENA?

_To the Editors of_ LUCIFER:

“I avail myself of your invitation to correspondents, in order to
ask a question.

“How is it that we hear nothing now of the signs and wonders with
which Neo-theosophy was ushered in? Is the ‘age of miracles’ past
in the Society?

“Yours respectfully,
“*”

“Occult phenomena,” is what our correspondent apparently refers to. They failed to produce the desired effect, but they were, in no sense of the word, “miracles.” It was supposed that intelligent people, especially men of science, would, at least, have recognised the existence of a new and deeply interesting field of enquiry and research when they witnessed physical effects produced at will, for which they were not able to account. It was supposed that theologians would have welcomed the proof, of which they stand so sadly in need in these agnostic days, that the soul and the spirit are not mere creations of their fancy, due to ignorance of the physical constitution of man, but entities quite as real as the body, and much more important. These expectations were not realized. The phenomena were misunderstood and misrepresented, both as regards their nature and their purpose.

In the light which experience has now thrown upon the matter the explanation of this unfortunate circumstance is not far to seek. Neither science nor religion acknowledges the existence of the Occult, as the term is understood and employed in theosophy; in the sense, that is to say, of a super-material, but not super-natural, region, governed by law; nor do they recognise the existence of latent powers and possibilities in man. Any interference with the every-day routine of the material world is attributed, by religion, to the arbitrary will of a good or an evil autocrat, inhabiting a supernatural region inaccessible to man, and subject to no law, either in his actions or constitution, and for a knowledge of whose ideas and wishes mortals are entirely dependent upon inspired communications delivered through an accredited messenger. The power of working so-called miracles has always been deemed the proper and sufficient credentials of a messenger from heaven, and the mental habit of regarding any occult power in that light is still so strong that any exercise of that power is supposed to be “miraculous,” or to claim to be so. It is needless to say that this way of regarding extraordinary occurrences is in direct opposition to the scientific spirit of the age, nor is it the position practically occupied by the more intelligent portion of mankind at present. When people see wonders, nowadays, the sentiment excited in their minds is no longer veneration and awe, but curiosity.

It was in the hope of arousing and utilizing this spirit of curiosity that occult phenomena were shown. It was believed that this manipulation of forces of nature which lie below the surface—that surface of things which modern science scratches and pecks at so industriously and so proudly—would have led to enquiry into the nature and the laws of those forces, unknown to science, but perfectly known to occultism. That the phenomena did excite curiosity in the minds of those who witnessed them, is certainly true, but it was, unfortunately, for the most part of an idle kind. The greater number of the witnesses developed an insatiable appetite for phenomena for their own sake, without any thought of studying the philosophy or the science of whose truth and power the phenomena were merely trivial and, so to say, accidental illustrations. In but a few cases the curiosity which was awakened gave birth to the serious desire to study the philosophy and the science themselves and for their own sake.

Experience has taught the leaders of the movement that the vast majority of professing Christians are absolutely precluded by their mental condition and attitude—the result of centuries of superstitious teaching—from calmly examining the phenomena in their aspect of natural occurrences governed by law. The Roman Catholic Church, true to its traditions, excuses itself from the examination of any occult phenomena on the plea that they are necessarily the work of the Devil, whenever they occur outside of its own pale, since it has a lawful monopoly of the legitimate miracle business. The Protestant Church denies the personal intervention of the Evil One on the material plane; but, never having gone into the miracle business itself, it is apparently a little doubtful whether it would know a _bona-fide_ miracle if it saw one, but, being just as unable as its elder sister to conceive the extension of the reign of law beyond the limits of matter and force, as known to us in our present state of consciousness, it excuses itself from the study of occult phenomena on the plea that they lie within the province of science rather than of religion.

Now science has its miracles as well as the Church of Rome. But, as it is altogether dependent upon its instrument maker for the production of these miracles, and, as it claims to be in possession of the last known word in regard to the laws of nature, it was hardly to be expected that it would take very kindly to “miracles,” in whose production apparatus has no part, and which claim to be instances of the operation of forces and laws of which it has no knowledge. Modern science, moreover, labours under disabilities with respect to the investigation of the Occult quite as embarrassing as those of Religion; for, while Religion cannot grasp the idea of natural law as applied to the supersensuous Universe, Science does not allow the existence of any supersensuous universe at all to which the reign of law could be extended; nor can it conceive the possibility of any other state of consciousness than our present terrestrial one. It was, therefore, hardly to be expected that science would undertake the task it was called upon to perform with much earnestness and enthusiasm; and, indeed, it seems to have felt that it was not expected to treat the phenomena of occultism less cavalierly than it had treated divine miracles. So it calmly proceeded at once to pooh-pooh the phenomena; and, when obliged to express some kind of opinion, it did not hesitate, without examination, and on hearsay reports, to attribute them to fraudulent contrivances—wires, trap-doors and so forth.

It was bad enough for the leaders of the movement, when they endeavoured to call the attention of the world to the great and unknown field for scientific and religious enquiry which lies on the borderland between matter and spirit, to find themselves set down as agents of his Satanic Majesty, or as superior adepts in the charlatan line; but the unkindest cut of all, perhaps, came from a class of people whose own experiences, rightly understood, ought certainly to have taught them better: the occult phenomena were claimed by the Spiritualists as the work of their dear departed ones, but the leaders in Theosophy were declared to be somewhat less even than mediums in disguise.

Never were the phenomena presented in any other character than that of instances of a power _over perfectly natural though unrecognised forces_, and incidentally over matter, possessed by certain individuals who have attained to a larger and higher knowledge of the Universe than has been reached by scientists and theologians, or can ever be reached by them, by the roads they are now respectively pursuing. Yet this power is latent in all men, and could, in time, be wielded by anyone who would cultivate the knowledge and conform to the conditions necessary for its development. Nevertheless, except in a few isolated and honourable instances, never was it received in any other character than as would-be miracles, or as works of the Devil, or as vulgar tricks, or as amusing gape-seed, or as the performances of those dangerous “spooks” that masquerade in séance rooms, and feed on the vital energies of mediums and sitters. And, from all sides, theosophy and theosophists were attacked with a rancour and bitterness, with an absolute disregard alike of fact and logic, and with malice, hatred and uncharitableness that would be utterly inconceivable, did not religious history teach us what mean and unreasoning animals ignorant men become when their cherished prejudices are touched; and did not the history of scientific research teach us, in its turn, how very like an ignorant man a learned man can behave, when the truth of his theories is called in question.

An occultist can produce phenomena, but he cannot supply the world with brains, nor with the intelligence and good faith necessary to understand and appreciate them. Therefore, it is hardly to be wondered at, that _word_ came to abandon phenomena and let the ideas of Theosophy stand on their own intrinsic merits.

--------------

MR. MOHINI M. CHATTERJI.
_To the Editors of_ LUCIFER.

Will you kindly afford publicity in the pages of Lucifer to the enclosed letter I have just received from Mr. Mohini M. Chatterji who has been staying for a few months at Rome, with English friends, on his way back to India.—Yours very truly,

A. P. SINNETT.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE LONDON LODGE OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

SIR,—I understand that among the members of your Society there is a rumour to the effect that I have joined the Roman Catholic Church, which has caused much annoyance to my friends and also to myself. I beg therefore that you will do me the justice to make it known that the rumour is entirely false and that I have no desire to join any Christian Church.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

MOHINI M. CHATTERJI.

ROME (Italy), _January 30th, 1888_.

------------------

_To the Editors of_ LUCIFER.

On behalf of the members of the London Lodge, I beg to state that the rumour referred to in Mr. Mohini’s letter emanated from two acquaintances of his belonging to the Romish Church, who themselves derived their information from the R. C. priesthood. As for the members of the L. L. they never believed in this report.

BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY, Hon. Sec.

=CORRESPONDENCE=

[The editors have received the two following letters—one from the
learned Founder of Hylo-Idealism, the other from a gentleman, a
casual correspondent, of whom they know _absolutely nothing_
except his most extraordinary way of expressing his thoughts in
words and terms hitherto unheard by ordinary mortals. Both take
the editors to task for using their undeniable right of criticism
and editorial judgment. As LUCIFER, however, is a magazine _sui
generis_, and as its policy is the greatest possible tolerance and
fairness to all parties concerned, it will abstain from its legal
prerogative of leaving the letters without reply or notice.
LUCIFER hands them over, therefore, to the “ADVERSARY,” to be
dealt with according to their respective merits. The editors have
never pretended to an “understanding of Hylo-Idealism” nor do they
entertain any such rash hope for the future. They belong to that
humble class of mortals who labour to their dying day under the
belief that 2 × 2 = 4, and can by no means, even hylo-idealistic,
make 5. “C. N.”’s letter placed the new “philosophy” in an
entirely different light; firstly, because it is written in good
English, and because the style of the writer is extremely
attractive; and secondly, because at least one point has now been
made clear to the editors: “Hylo-Idealism” is, like modern
spiritualism, the _essence of transcendental materialism_. If in
Mr. Huxley’s opinion Comte’s Positivism is, in practice,
“Catholicism _minus_ Christianity,” in the views of the editors of
LUCIFER Hylo-Idealism is “Metaphysics _minus_ psychology
and—_physics_.” Let its apostles explain away its flagrant
contradictions, and then LUCIFER will be the first to render
justice to it as a philosophy. Meanwhile, it can only acknowledge
a number of remarkably profound thoughts that are to be found
scattered in independent solitude throughout the letters of Dr.
Lewins (Humanism _v._ Theism) and others, and—no more.]

_re_ HYLO-IDEALISM.

To the Editors of LUCIFER.

Perhaps space may be found in the February or other early issue of your interesting and suggestive serial for the present curt communication. In a footnote of your January number I am coupled with Mr. H. Spencer as being more Atheist than Moleschott and Büchner—to say nothing of such compromising and irresolute scientists as Darwin, Huxley, and Co. Now, that atheistic or non-animist standpoint is the pivot on which my whole synthesis revolves; and is, I contend, the burning problem at this epoch—ethical and intellectual—of the human mind—_thoroughly_ to establish on certain concrete, rational and scientific _data_, that is to say—not on the Utopias of Speculation and Metaphysics. My principle is exactly that of Kant (inter alios) when he formulates the “Thing in Itself.” But we have only to study the short and handy “Critique of Kant,” referred to in your columns—by Kuno Fischer, translated by Dr. Hough, to see how fast and loose that “all-shattering” metaphysician played with his all-destructive theme. Not only does he entirely reverse it and its corollaries in his critique of the “Practical Reason,” and of “Judgment,” but also in the second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason” itself, in which originally, as its corollary, or rather concomitant, he, like myself, only on less sure premises, disposes of God, the Soul (Anima or Vital Principle), and Immortality—that is of another “personal” life after death. I hold with Lucretius, Epicurus, and others in ancient and modern times, of whom Shelley is a typical case, that no greater benefit can be bestowed on humanity than the elimination from sane thought of this ghastly and maddening Triune Spectre. God alone is quite “l’infame” Voltaire dubs the Catholic Church. Looking through Nature “red in tooth and claws” to its _pseudo_ Author, we must expect to find a _Pandemon_. For any omnipotent Being who, unconditioned and unfettered in all respects, “_willed_” such a world of pain and anguish for sentient creatures, must be a Demon _worse_ than mythology has fabled of Satan, Moloch, Mammon, or other fiends. It must be noted that in the classic Pantheon, the Fates, or Fatal Sisters, are “above” all the Immortals of Olympus, including Jove himself—a saving provision quite inadmissible in modern Monotheism, which endows its Divinity[189] with absolute omnipotence and fore-knowledge.

ROBERT LEWINS, M.D.

-----

Footnote 189:

Deuce, _i.e._, Devil, is the synonym of _Deus_.

-----

---

HYLO-IDEALISM.

To the Editors of LUCIFER.

I have to thank you for your kind insertion of my note on above in January issue of the Magazine.

I have not the slightest desire to quarrel with your prefaced comments on my style of writing. It seems to you to be “turgid,” and you take advantage of some unkind epithets lately dealt out to Theosophy in the _Secular Review_ to return the compliment to me with interest added. Be it so. It would seem but fair to, let me say, compliment those, and those only, who have directly complimented you; but I have no wish, as I have just said, to find fault with _any_ comment on Hylo-Idealism or on the methods of its advocacy. _All_ criticism is, I know, received by the excogitator of the system with thanks, and, save that both he and I think your note _re “Theobroma”_ not a little at fault (for explanation I refer you to the well-known Messrs. Epps), I can say the same for myself.

I can see, however, in spite of the raillery with which you honour us, that a right understanding of Hylo-Idealism—I beg pardon, _High-low_ Idealism—is still very far from being yours. Why, in a recent issue of LUCIFER the old difficulty of, as I call it, the “Coincident assumption of Materiality” is started as if it had never before been thought of. It is, in point of fact, fully dealt with in my “Appendix” to the “Auto-Centricism” pamphlet, which has already passed under your review! It is not worth while to enter once more upon this point; suffice it then to say, in addition, that I explained it also, at full length, to a Theosophical writer—Mr. E. D. Fawcett—in the _Secular Review_, some months ago. He had started the same venerable objection, but after my reply, he so far honoured me as not to return to the charge. Let him do so now, and then a Theosophical attack and a Hylo-Ideal defence will be before you. But, really, it is no argument against my position to extract some half-dozen lines of my writing from a contemporary and to follow this _soupçon_ with three printer’s “shrieks.”

I shall wait with interest the promised letter from “C. N.,” placing Hylo-Idealism in a “new and very different light,” as you say. This is something quite new. Dr. Lewins, C. N., and I have, none of us, been able, hitherto, to find any material difference between our several presentations of the system.

I have the honour to be, Mesdames,
Your most obedient servant,
G. M. McC.

TO DR. LEWINS, AND THE HYLO-IDEALISTS AT LARGE.

The several learned gentlemen of the above persuasion, who have honoured LUCIFER with their letters and articles, will please to accept the present as a collective Reply. Life is too short to indulge very often in such lengthy explanations. But “une fois n’est pas coutume.”

In “coupling” Dr. Lewins’ name with those he mentions—especially with Mr. Herbert Spencer’s—the Editors had assuredly no intention of saying anything derogatory to the dignity of the founder of Hylo-Idealism. They have called the latter system—its qualification of _Idealistic_ notwithstanding——“atheistical,” and to this Dr. Lewins himself does not demur. Quite the contrary. If his protest (against a casual remark made in a footnote of two lines!) means anything at all, it means that he feels hurt to find his name associated with the names of such “compromising and (in _atheism_) irresolute scientists as Darwin, Huxley, and Co.” What is it that our erudite correspondent demurs to, then? Just that, and nothing more. His prefixed adjectives refer to the half-heartedness of these gentlemen in the matter of atheism and materialism, not surely, to their scientific achievements. Indeed, these illustrious naturalists are timid enough to leave half-opened doors in their speculations for something to enter in which is not quite matter, and yet what it is they do not, or _do not wish_ to know.

Indeed, they derive man, his origin and consciousness, _only_ from the lower forms of animal creation and the brutes, instead of attributing life, mind and intellect—as the followers of the new System do—simply to the pranks played by _Prakriti_ (the great Ignorance and Illusion) on our “diseased nervous centres”—_abstract thought_ being synonymous with _Neuropathy_ in the teachings of the Hylo-Idealists (see _Auto-Centricism_, p. 40). But all this has been already said and _better said_ by Kapila, in his _Sankhya_, and is very old philosophy indeed; so that Messrs. Darwin and Co. have been, perhaps, wise in their generation to adopt another theory. Our great Darwinists are practical men, and avoid running after the hare and the eagle at the same time, as the hare in such case would be sure to run away, and the eagle to be lost in the clouds. They prefer to ignore the ideas and conceptions of the Universe, as held by such “loose,” and—as philosophically expressed by our _uncompromising_ opponent—“all-shattering metaphysicians as Kant was.” Therefore letting all such “metaphysical crack-brained theories” severely alone, they made man and his thinking _Ego_ the lineal descendant of the revered ancestor of the now tailless baboon, our beloved and esteemed first cousin. This is only logical _from the Darwinian standpoint_. What is, then, Dr. Lewins’ quarrel with these great men, or with us? They have their theory, the inventor of Hylo-Idealism has his theory, we, Metaphysicians, have our ideas and theories; and, the _Moon_ shining with impartial and equal light on the respective occiputs of Hylo-Idealists, Animalists, and Metaphysicians, she pours material enough for every one concerned to allow each of them to “live and let live.” No man can be at once a Materialist and an Idealist, and remain consistent. Eastern philosophy and occultism are based on the _absolute unity_ of the Root Substance, and they recognise only one infinite and universal CAUSE. The Occultists are UNITARIANS _par excellence_. But there is such a thing as conventional, time-honoured terms with one and the same meaning attached to them all—at any rate on this plane of illusion. And if we want to understand each other, we are forced to use such terms in their generally-accepted sense, and avoid calling mind matter, and vice versâ. The definition of a _materialised “Spirit”_ as frozen whiskey is in its place in a humouristic pun: it becomes an absurdity in philosophy. It is Dr. Lewins’ argument that “the very first principle of logic is, that two ‘causes’ are not to be thought of when one is sufficient;” and though the first and the ultimate, the Alpha and the Omega in the existence of the Universe, is one absolute cause, yet, on the plane of manifestations and differentiations, matter, as phenomenon, and Spirit as noumenon, cannot be so loosely confused as to merge the latter into the former, under the pretext that one self-evident natural cause (however secondary in the sight of logic and reason) is “sufficient for our purpose,” and we need not “transcend the proper conditions of thought” and fall back upon the lower level of “lawless and uncertain fancy”—i.e., metaphysics. (_Vide_ “Humanism _v._ Theism,” pp. 14, 15.)

We have nothing whatever, I say it again, against “Hylo-Idealism” with the exception of its compound and self-contradictory name. Nor do we oppose Dr. Lewins’ earlier thoughts, as embodied in “C. N’s” “HUMANISM _versus_ THEISM.” That which we permit ourselves to object to and oppose is the later system grown into a _Bifrontian_, Janus-like monster, a hybrid _duality_ notwithstanding its forced mask of Unity. Surely it is not because Dr. Lewins calls “Spirit—a _fiction_” and attributes Mind, Thought, Genius, Intellect, and all the highest attributes of thinking man to simple effects or functions of Hylo-zoism, that the greatest problem of psychology, _the relation of mind to matter_, is solved? No one can accuse “The Adversary” of too much tenderness or even regard for the conclusions of such rank materialists as the Darwinians generally are. But surely no impartial man would attribute their constant failure to explain the relations of mind to matter, and the confessions of their ignorance of the ultimate constitution of that matter itself, to timidity and irresoluteness, but rather to the right cause: _i.e._, the _absolute impossibility of explaining spiritual effects by physical causes_, in the first case; and the presence of that in matter which baffles and mocks the efforts of the physical senses to perceive or feel, and therefore to explain it, in the second case. It is not, evidently, a desire to _compromise_ that forced Mr. Huxley to confess that “in strictness we (the Scientists) know nothing about the composition of matter,” but the _honesty_ of a man of science in not speculating upon what he did not believe in, and knew nothing about. Does J. Le Conte insult the majesty of physical science by declaring that the creation or destruction, increase or diminution of matter, “_lies beyond the domain of science?_”[190] And to whose prejudices does Mr. Tyndall pander, he, who once upon a time shocked the whole world of believers in spiritual existence, by declaring in his Belfast address that in matter alone was “the promise and potency of every form and quality of life” (just what Dr. Lewins does) when he maintains that “the passage _from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of_ CONSCIOUSNESS _is unthinkable_,” and adds:

“Granted that a definite thought and a molecular action in the
brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual
organ nor apparently any rudiments of the organ, which would
enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from one to the other.
They appear together, but _we do not know why_. Were our minds and
senses so expanded, strengthened and illuminated, as to enable us
to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable
of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their
electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately
acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling,
we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem. ‘How
are these physical processes connected with the facts of
consciousness?’ The chasm between the two classes of phenomena
would still remain intellectually impassable.”[191]

-----

Footnote 190:

“_Correl._ of _Vital with Chem. and Physical Forces_.” Appendix.

Footnote 191:

“Fragments of Science.”

-----

To our surprise, however, we find that our learned correspondent—Tyndall, Huxley & Co., notwithstanding—has passed the _intellectually impassable_ chasm by modes of perception, “anti-intellectual,” so to speak. I say this in no impertinent mood; but merely following Dr. Lewins on his own lines of thought. As his expressions seem absolutely antiphrastic in meaning to those generally accepted by the common herd, “anti-intellectual” would mean with the Hylo-Idealists “anti-spiritual” (spirit being a _fiction_ with them). Thus their Founder must have crossed the impassable chasm—say, by a hylo-zoistic process of perception, “starting from the region of rational cogitation” and not from “that lower level of lawless and uncertain fancy,” as Theosophists, Mystics, and other _hoi polloi_ of thought, do. He has done it to his own “mental satisfaction,” and this is all a Hylo-Idealist will ever aspire to, as Dr. Lewins himself tells us. He “cannot deny that there may be _behind_ (?) nature a ‘cause of causes,’[192] but if so, it is a god who hides himself, or itself, from mortal thought. Nature is at all events vice-regent plenipotentiary, and with _her_ thought has alone to deal.” Just so, and we say it too, for reasons given in the footnote. “There is a natural solution for everything,” he adds. “Of course, if there be no ‘cause,’ this solution is the arrangement and co-ordination of invariable sequences in our own minds ... rather than an ‘explanation’ or ‘accounting for’ phenomena. Properly speaking we can ‘account for’ nothing. _Mental satisfaction_—unity between microcosm and macrocosm, not the search after ‘First Causes.’ ... is the true chief end of man.” (Hum. _v._ Theism, p. 15.)

-----

Footnote 192:

We Theosophists, who do not _limit_ nature, do not see the “cause
of causes” or the _unknowable_ deity _behind_ that which is
limitless, but identify that abstract Nature with the deity
itself, and explain its visible laws as secondary effects on the
plane of Universal Illusion.

-----

This seems the backbone of Hylo-Idealistic philosophy, which thus appears as a cross breed between Epicurianism and the “Illusionism” of the Buddhist Yogachâras. This stands proven by the contradictions in his system. Dr. Lewins seems to have achieved that, to do which every mortal scientist has hitherto failed, firstly, by declaring (in Hum. _v._ Theism, p. 17) the whole objective world—“_phenomenal_ or _ideal_”,[193] and “everything in it _spectral_” (Auto-Centricism, p. 9), and yet _admitting the reality of matter_. More than this. In the teeth of all the scientific luminaries, from Faraday to Huxley, who all confess to knowing NOTHING of matter, he declares that—“Matter organic and inorganic _is now fully known_” (Auto-Centricism, p. 40)!!

-----

Footnote 193:

We call the _noumenal_—the “ideal.”

-----