Chapter I: DESIRE not to disgrace the soul. The fact that I am here certainly (2)

The Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University recently published a new _Paper_ (Vol. VI, No. 1) on the subject of Central American hieroglyph writing. The _Paper_ is entitled "_Commentary upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex_, with a concluding _Note upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs_." Professor Wm. E. Gates, International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma, the author, has been a member of the Theosophical Society for about twenty-five years, beginning the serious study of Theosophy during H. P. Blavatsky's lifetime. Later, an ardent supporter of William Q. Judge, he is now one of the most active workers at Point Loma under the direction of Katherine Tingley. Professor Gates has applied himself largely to the historical and ethnological side of H. P. Blavatsky's teachings, and, by a careful study of her _Secret Doctrine_ and other works, he has been able to bring to the problem of ancient American culture a fund of information and many valuable clues not familiar to the average student of archaeology. Professor F. W. Putnam of the Peabody Museum, Harvard, in his prefatory note to the _Commentary_, says:

The Museum is fortunate in adding to its collaborators Mr. William E. Gates, of Point Loma, California, who for more than ten years has been an earnest student of American hieroglyphs. From his life-long studies in linguistics in connexion with his research in "the motifs of civilizations and cultures" he comes well-equipped to take up the difficult and all-absorbing study of American hieroglyphic writing. Mr. Gates has materially advanced this study by his reproduction of the glyphs in type. These type-forms he has used first in his reproduction of the Codex Perez, and now in this Commentary they are used for the first time in printing. This important aid to the study will be highly appreciated by all students of American hieroglyphs, as it will greatly facilitate the presentation of the results of future research.

The Harvard _Papers_ are taken by the principal Universities and learned societies throughout the world. The Commentary on the Perez Codex and the reproduction of it have been printed by the Aryan Press at Point Loma and are fine examples of the highest class of printing.

The Perez Codex itself, of which Professor Gates' _Commentary_ treats, and of which he has just issued a new, definitive edition, redrawn, colored as in the original and slightly restored, is a Central American manuscript on specially coated "maguey" paper, of unknown antiquity. It was discovered about fifty years ago in a forgotten chimney corner of the Bibliothèque Impériale, Paris, black with dust and without record of its antecedents. It is but a fragment, but fortunately the twenty-two remaining pages contain several chapters complete. The artistic quality of the work is of a high order; the coloring is most harmonious and the drawing of the hieroglyphs firm and refined. The human figures in the accompanying illustrations are conventionalized in certain grotesque though evidently intentional ways, but they have character and a real dignity, and admirably fit the spaces alloted to them. As an example of decorative art the manuscript must take high rank. It irresistibly reminds one of the best Egyptian Papyri. Professor Gates says:

And when, ... one advances to an appreciation of the work in its bearings as a whole, one has to acknowledge himself facing the production of craftsmen who had the inheritance of not only generations, but ages of training. Such a combination of complete mastery in composition, perfect control of definite and fixed forms, and hand technique, can grow up from barbarism in no few hundred years.... Had we nothing but the Perez Codex and Stela P at Copan, the merits of their execution alone, weighed simply in comparison with observed history elsewhere, would prove that we have to do not with the traces of an ephemeral, but with the remains of a wide-spread, settled race and civilization, worthy to be ranked with or beyond even such as the Roman, in its endurance, development and influence in the world, and the beginnings of whose culture are still totally unknown. As to the Codex before us, we can only imagine what the beauty, especially of the pages we now come to discuss, must have been when the whole was fresh and perfect.

But, alas, no one can yet read the meaning of this and the two other Maya Codices that have escaped the destructive hands of the over-zealous Spanish missionaries who saw nothing in such things but hindrances to the spreading of the "True Faith," yet at the time of the Conquest they could be read easily by the cultured natives, and the _language is still spoken_! Though it seems almost incredible, there is no living person known who can decipher any of the hieroglyphs on the manuscripts or the hundreds of stone monuments except a few calendar signs and other signs of little consequence. We are indebted to Don Diego Landa, second bishop of Yucatan, for the destruction of all the manuscripts he could find, but it is to him also that we owe some gratitude for preserving the meaning of the hieroglyphs of the days and the months and a few other signs, which he inserted in his book. The little he has given us is not enough to help much; we may have to await the discovery of some "Rosetta Stone" like that which opened the lost secret of the Egyptian sacred writings to Champollion. In Professor Gates' words:

Up to date our knowledge of the meanings of the glyphs is still to all intents and purposes limited to the direct tradition we have through Landa, and the deductions immediately involved in these. We know the day and month signs, the numbers, including 0 and 20, four units of the archaic calendar count (the day, tun, katun and cycle), the cardinal point signs, the negative particle. We have not fully solved the uinal or month sign, which seems to be chuen on the monuments and a cauac, or chuen, in the manuscripts. We are able to identify what must be regarded as metaphysical or esoteric applications of certain glyphs in certain places, such as the face numerals. But every one of these points is either deducible directly by necessary mathematical calculation, or else from the names of certain signs given by Landa in his day and month list, and then found in other combinations, such as _yax_, _kin_, etc. That we have as many of the points as we have, and still cannot form from them the key--that we cannot read the glyphs--is a constant wonder; but a fact nevertheless.

A large portion of the _Commentary_ is devoted to a highly technical, detailed and closely-reasoned examination and analysis of the glyphs and illustrations in the Codex, of interest chiefly to specialists, but a considerable space is given to some general conclusions on language which are highly significant to students of Theosophy.

There is one point from which this question of American origins, at least of American place in human society and civilization, can be studied in its broader lines, even with what materials we have. It is that of language in general. From one point of view language is man himself, and it certainly is civilization. Without it man is not man, a Self-expressing and social being.... It is the constant effort of the conscious self to formulate thought. It is the use of the energy of creation, of objectivation, a veritable many-colored rainbow bridge between the inner or higher man and the outer or lower worlds. And it is not only the expression of Man as man, but in its varied forms it is the inevitable and living expression of each man or body of men at any and every point of time. Itself boundless as an ocean, it is in its infinite forms and streams and colors and sounds, the faithful and exact exponent both of the sources and channels by which it has come, and of the banks in which it is held, racial, national or individual.... Every word or form comes to us with the thought-impress of every man or nation that has used or molded it before us. We must take it as it comes, but we give it something of ourselves as we pass it on. If our intellectual and spiritual thought is aflame, whether as nation or individual, we may purify it, energize it, give it power to form and arrange the atoms around it--and we have a new literature, a new and beneficent, creative social vehicle of intercourse, mutual understanding, and human unification....

It is evident that the criterion of the perfectness of any language is not to be found in a comparison of its forms or methods with those of any other, but in its fitness as a vehicle for the expression of deeper life, of the best and greatest that is in those who use it, and above all in its ability to react and stimulate newer and yet greater mental and spiritual activity and expression. The force behind man, demanding expression through him, and him only, into the human life of all, is infinite--of necessity infinite. There is no limit, nor ever has been any limit, to what man may bring down into the dignifying, broadening and enriching of human life and evolution, save in his own ability to comprehend, express, and live it. And the brightness and cleanness of the tools whereby he formulates his thought, as well as the worthiness and fitness of the substance and the forms into which he shapes it for others to see, are the essentials of his craft....

There is one great broad line that divides the nations and civilizations of the earth, past and present, in all their arts of expression. We may call it that of the ideographic as against the literal. It controls the inner form of language and of languages; it manifests in the passage of thought from man to man; it determines whether the writing of the people shall be hieroglyphic or alphabetic; it gives both life and form to the ideals of their art. It is a distinction that was clearly recognized by Wilhelm von Humboldt, when he laid down that the incorporative characteristic essential to all the American languages is the result of the exaltation of the imaginative over the ratiocinative elements of mind.

Ideographic writing directs the mind of the reader by means of a picture or a symbol directly to the idea existing in the mind of the one who uses it; while alphabetic or literal writing is simply the written expression of the sound, and only indirectly expresses the idea.

Passing on from the culture of ancient America with its ideographs, the writer draws attention to the great transition of thought, as indicated by language, that took place in Central Asia probably, the supposed seat of the Aryan beginnings after the destruction of Atlantis and the general break-up of the former civilizations. He says:

I believe ... that coincident with a new and universal world-epoch, as wide in its cultural scope as the difference between the ideographic and literal, there was finally formed a totally new vehicle for the use of human thought, the inflectional, literal, alphabetic. That this vehicle was perfected into some great speech, the direct ancestor of Sanskrit, into the _forms_ of which were concentrated all the old power of the ancient hieroglyphs and their underlying concepts. For Sanskrit, while the oldest is also the mightiest of Aryan grammars; and no one who has studied its forms, or heard its speech from educated native mouths, can call it anything but concentrated spiritual power. That the force which went on the one hand into the Sanskrit forms, was on the other perpetuated on into the special genius of Chinese, in which, as we know it, we have a retarded survival, not of course of outer form so much as of method and essence. And in Tibetan, in spite of all that is said to the contrary, I suspect that we have a derivative, not from either Chinese or Sanskrit as we know them, but by a medial line from a common point.

Many students feel convinced that once we solve the problem of the Maya-Tzental manuscripts and carved inscriptions, which undoubtedly relate to enormous periods of time, we shall have conclusive evidences of the civilization and destruction of Atlantis. Several illuminating quotations from H. P. Blavatsky's _Secret Doctrine_ are given by Professor Gates, and in his last paragraph he sums up the results of his long application to the study of ancient American and other languages, in which he has been so notably helped by the teachings of Theosophy, in these words:

And I am convinced that the widest door there is to be opened to this past of the human race, is that of the Maya glyphs. The narrow limitations of our mental horizon as to the greatness and dignity of man, of his past, and of human evolution, were set back widely by Egypt and what she has had to show, and again by the Sanskrit; but the walls are still there, and advances, however rapid, are but gradual. With the reading of America I believe the walls themselves will fall, and a new conception of past history will come.

A NEW MAGAZINE

Translation of an article that appeared in the Gothenburg paper _Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfarts Tidning_ for August 23, 1911, written by the literary and dramatic critic of the paper, J. Atterbom.

THE first number of a new international magazine which seems worthy of recognition is now out in a Swedish edition. The publication is called _Den Teosofiska Vägen_ (_The Theosophical Path_) and the ultimate direction is in the hands of Katherine Tingley, the Leader of the international Theosophical Movement. The editor of the Swedish edition is Dr. Gustaf Zander, Stockholm.

This monthly magazine is intended to continue, on a broader scale, the work of the former magazine _Theosophia_, which has been published for a good many years. The interest in Theosophy has grown steadily of late, not only in our country but in all civilized countries. And the more attention the Theosophical Movement has attracted through its propaganda and educational activities, the more the need has been felt of a publication which, instead of devoting most of its space to theoretical Theosophy and the deeper teachings of its philosophy suited to advanced students, would serve primarily to enlighten and inform all genuine seekers of Truth upon the essential character of this Theosophical Movement throughout the world, and indicate _the path_ along which its workers are trying to make Theosophy a living power in the world's life, as well as in the daily life of each of them.

The new international magazine, which is published in America at the Center of the Movement, Point Loma, California, and in England, Germany, Holland, and Sweden in the respective languages, will thus be a valuable source of information for all who wish to know what Theosophy, as understood in the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society and as an ideal power for good, is really doing in a practical way. The magazine seems to have an important mission to fulfil towards the public in dispelling divers prejudices which the Movement has encountered in its progress; prejudices of which its adversaries have readily sought to avail themselves. And all who would like to see better established those principles of compassion and helpfulness that lead to practical results have in this magazine an excellent means of reaching and helping new fellow-travelers on the path of Theosophy.

The international character of the magazine ensures contributions from prominent foreign writers on problems and questions of general human and international interest. And the intimate connexion with Point Loma, it is stated, will allow it to present some views of the life of the Students there, and to show some of the causes that have made the Râja Yoga College at Point Loma an educational institution of world-wide significance.

Not long ago Mrs. Tingley secured an estate on Visingsö, as all know, in order to establish a school there on the same lines. As a reminder of this the Swedish publication opens with a picture of the ruins of Visingsborg Castle. Under the heading "The Path" are given some quotations from William Q. Judge, who was a Student and co-worker of H. P. Blavatsky, the Founder of the Theosophical Movement. Later he became her successor. He passed away in 1896 and was followed by Mrs. Tingley. General information regarding the early days and growth of the Theosophical Movement can be found at the end of the magazine, where a résumé is given.

H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society is the subject of a special article. Then follow under the heading "On Firm Basis Stands the Doctrine of Karma" some profound thoughts of Viktor Rydberg. He says in part:

Our acts and their effects constitute a series as everlasting as all other series of causes in nature. If you think that death on earth is able to break it, do not for confirmation plead the judgment of natural science. Science has its own ground and method, and knows that it has to explain the quantitative series of causes; beyond these it is unable to go. If you have not conviction with respect to the unseen, beware of the contrary shallow idea, that everything which cannot be seen does not really exist.... The doctrine of Karma has sprung from the depths of righteousness, which are indeed those of truth. No one escapes the effects of his acts.

An article by the editor, Dr. Zander, is on "The Power of Imagination Inherent in Man." Professor Osvald Sirén gives a profusely illustrated description of Point Loma; and Mr. Per Fernholm, M. E., who is living at that place, gives some thoughts on Sweden in the Stone Age, elucidating some points in our ancient history in the light of Theosophical chronology, which seems to differ somewhat from that still adopted by archaeologists and geologists.

The American publication presents perhaps a still fuller outline of the field proposed to be covered by the magazine, as also of the resources that the Theosophical Movement possesses for the realization of its objects. A prominent place is evidently given to Art--music, painting, and sculpture, literature and drama--as a means to reach a wider circle; serving as a mediator between the supersensible and the sensible, the immaterial spiritual life and the material physical life.

The object of the magazine is placed in a special light by a quotation from H. P. Blavatsky, chosen as motto in the American edition. It reads:

The Secret Doctrine is the common property of the countless millions of men born under various climates, in times with which History refuses to deal, and to which esoteric teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of Geology and Anthropology. The birth and evolution of the Sacred Science of the Past are lost in the very night of Time.... It is only by bringing before the reader an abundance of proofs all tending to show that in every age, under every condition of civilization and knowledge, the educated classes of every nation made themselves the more or less faithful echoes of one identical system and its fundamental traditions--that he can be made to see that so many streams of the same water must have had a common source from which they started. What was this source?... There must be truth and fact in that which every people of antiquity accepted and made the foundation of its religions and its faith.

A full list of general Theosophical literature is found in the magazine.

THE STRANGE LITTLE GIRL: a Story for the Children, by V.M.

Illustrations by N. Roth. 12mo, about 70 pages, cloth 75 cents.

This little book, printed by the Aryan Theosophical Press, Point Loma, California, will be ready in time to form a wholly charming Christmas or New Year's gift. It is in large clear type on good paper, and the fourteen illustrations are quite unique. Eline, a princess who lived in a marvelous realm of joy and peace, divines from what some travelers left unsaid that there is another and a different world. She interrogates the king, who finally says the children are free to come and go. A harper arrives whose music speaks of far off sorrow. They pass away together; she drinks the cup of forgetfulness, and reaches the other world where many things happen of interest so supreme that we fancy older folk will be eagerly reading this book when the children are asleep, for it will interest both young and old.

The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society

Founded at New York City in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky, William Q. Judge and others

Reorganized in 1898 by Katherine Tingley

Central Office, Point Loma, California

The Headquarters of the Society at Point Loma with the buildings and grounds, are no "Community" "Settlement" or "Colony." They form no experiment in Socialism, Communism, or anything of similar nature, but are the Central Executive Office of an international organization where the business of the same is carried on, and where the teachings of Theosophy are being demonstrated. Midway 'twixt East and West, where the rising Sun of Progress and Enlightenment shall one day stand at full meridian, the Headquarters of the Society unite the philosophic Orient with the practical West.

MEMBERSHIP

in the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society may be either "at large" or in a local Branch. Adhesion to the principle of Universal Brotherhood is the only pre-requisite to membership. The Organization represents no particular creed; it is entirely unsectarian, and includes professors of all faiths, only exacting from each member that large toleration of the beliefs of others which he desires them to exhibit towards his own.

Applications for membership in a Branch should be addressed to the local Director; for membership "at large" to G. de Purucker, Membership Secretary, International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma, California.

OBJECTS

This Brotherhood is a part of a great and universal movement which has been active in all ages.

This Organization declares that Brotherhood is a fact in Nature. Its principal purpose is to teach Brotherhood, demonstrate that it is a fact in Nature, and make it a living power in the life of humanity.

Its subsidiary purpose is to study ancient and modern religions, science, philosophy, and art; to investigate the laws of Nature and the divine powers in man.

It is a regrettable fact that many people use the name of Theosophy and of our Organization for self-interest, as also that of H. P. Blavatsky, the Foundress, and even the Society's motto, to attract attention to themselves and to gain public support. This they do in private and public speech and in publications. Without being in any way connected with the Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, in many cases they permit it to be inferred that they are, thus misleading the public, and honest inquirers are hence led away from the original truths of Theosophy.

The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society welcomes to membership all who truly love their fellow men and desire the eradication of the evils caused by the barriers of race, creed, caste, or color, which have so long impeded human progress; to all sincere lovers of truth and to all who aspire to higher and better things than the mere pleasures and interests of a worldly life and are prepared to do all in their power to make Brotherhood a living energy in the life of humanity, its various departments offer unlimited opportunities.

The whole work of the Organization is under the direction of the Leader and Official Head, Katherine Tingley, as outlined in the Constitution.

Inquirers desiring further information about Theosophy or the Theosophical Society are invited to write to

THE SECRETARY

International Theosophical Headquarters

Point Loma, California

The Theosophical Path

An International Magazine

Unsectarian and nonpolitical

Monthly Illustrated

Devoted to the Brotherhood of Humanity, the promulgation of Theosophy, the study of ancient & modern Ethics, Philosophy, Science and Art, and to the uplifting and purification of Home and National Life

Edited by Katherine Tingley

International Theosophical Headquarters, Point Loma, California, U.S.A.

_A knowledge concerning spiritual and Divine things is surely attainable with much greater precision than commonplace modern philosophy dreams of: it has been attained by great Theosophists in all ages; it is recorded in a hundred enigmatic volumes, the comprehension of which exacts the care and effort which in due time it will so well reward, and the pursuit of this knowledge is one of the great aims of the Theosophical Society.... And another great aim of the Theosophical Society has been to show how the pursuit even of the highest philosophical knowledge must itself, to be successful, be wedded with the wish to do good to the whole family of mankind. As a mere intellectual luxury, sought for in a selfish spirit, spiritual knowledge itself must necessarily be futile and unprogressive. This is a great mystic truth, and out of the full knowledge thereof on the part of those from whom the Theosophical Society received its creative impulse, has arisen_ THAT PRIMARY WATCH-WORD OF OUR ASSOCIATION "UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD."--H. P. BLAVATSKY

(_The Theosophist_. Vol. I, No. 2, Leading Article.)

THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH
MONTHLY ILLUSTRATED

EDITED BY KATHERINE TINGLEY

NEW CENTURY CORPORATION, POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.

Entered as second-class matter July 25, 1911, at the Post Office at
Point Loma, California under the Act of March 3, 1879
Copyright, 1911, by Katherine Tingley

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VOL. I NO. 6 CONTENTS DECEMBER 1911

Southeastern View of the Râja Yoga College,
Point Loma, California _Frontispiece_
Christmas Kenneth Morris 387
Views of Rothenburg, Germany (_illustrations_) 390-391
Peace on Earth: Good Will toward Men R. Machell 391
Psychism: A Study in Hidden Connexions
H. T. Edge, B. A. (Cantab.) 393
A Magic Boat D. F. 399
Irish Scenes (_illustrated_)
Fred J. Dick, M. INST. C. E., M. INST. C. E. I. 400
The Bluebells of Wernoleu: A Welsh Legend (_verse_)
Kenneth Morris 404
The Soul at the British Association Henry Travers 406
Warwick Castle (_illustrated_) C. J. Ryan 409
Man and Nature R. Machell 410
The Will as a Chemical Product Investigator 413
Open-Air Drama (_illustrated_) Per Fernholm, M. E. (Stockholm) 415
Intra-Atomic Energy H. Coryn, M. D., M. R. C. S. 417
A Japanese Writer's Views on Modern Civilization
E. S. (Tokyo, Japan) 418
Copán, and its Position in American History (_illustrated_)
William E. Gates 419
Scientific Brevities The Busy Bee 427
Views of San Diego, California; Seraejevo, Capital of Bosnia;
Klamath Reclamation Project, Oregon-California (_illustrations_)
434-435
Conflict of the Ages (_verse_) S. F. 435
Women who have Influenced the World The Rev. S. J. Neill 436
The Turkish Woman Grace Knoche 439
An English Lady's Letter (_with illustration_)
F. D. Udall (London) 442
A Magic Place: A Forest Idyll for Young Folks (_illustrated_)
M. Ginevra Munson 443
Current Topics Observer 447
Book Reviews: _Les Derniers Barbares: Chine, Tibet, Mongolia_
(Commandant d'Ollone), _with illustrations_;
H. Alexander Fussell. _The Plough and the Cross_
(William Patrick O'Ryan): F. J. D. 452
Notices; Advertisements 458

THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH

KATHERINE TINGLEY, EDITOR

VOL. I DECEMBER, 1911 NO. 6

The dayspring from on high hath visited us, ... to guide our feet into the way of peace.--_Luke_ i. 78. 79

CHRISTMAS: by Kenneth Morris

This is the time when we decorate our habitations with holly and mistletoe, and our hearts with unwonted good feeling, commemorating the dawning of a great light. There are certain stations in the journey of the year, where we may see the legend writ large on the signboards: "Change here for a better way of life; change here for happiness." We read, and come out on the platform; make festivity a little in the waiting (and refreshment) rooms, and then bundle back into the old train, having never changed at all. The Christmas-New Year time, and the Easter-time of the flowers, are two such important junctions; and it is worth while to note that these feasts were kept long before the advent of Christianity. For Christmas is in the very nature of things, and not merely historically, the birthday of the Christ. It is the end of the winter solstice, when the sun is, as it were, born anew after his months of decline, and begins to flow towards the high tide mark of his power.

That there is a certain reality in the significance of the season, is proven by the bright good will that greets us when we rise on a Christmas morning, and that it is so hard to escape. Marley's ghost and the three spirits will be apt to haunt the veriest Scrooge among us, forcing issues, compelling us to see that benevolence and kindliness are part of the essential business of life. Though we starve our souls on a thin diet of self-interest during the rest of the year, now our fare shall be less meager, and the whole world demands of us that we share in the common joy. There lies the heart and crux of it all--_share_. It is a great thing that there should be the habit of present-giving; it is so easy, when one is considering the giving of a gift, to escape from self, and take thought in some degree for the one to whom the gift is destined. Just a little such thought is cleansing; for even the least trickle of it, Augean selfhood is the sweeter and more habitable. And here it is flowing at Christmas time, a full current of which all the world may partake. The force of age-long custom has dedicated the day, and the habit has been formed of making an effort at brotherly feeling. We think of the children, of absentees, of many we give no thought to at other times. No doubt but for this, many a soul still flickers on, that would else have dwindled long since into pin-point insignificance, or waned altogether out of minds anchored at all other times to dreary and sordid self-interest. No doubt our civilization would be nearer to the rocks even than it is, or quite battered and broken on them, were it not that we do put some strain on the rudders, and turn, if falteringly and without clear design, to the free open waters on this one day of the year.

It is the proof of brotherhood, and that we are all filled with a common life, this generality of Christmas good will. We share in thought and feeling, as much as we do in the very air we breathe; mental infection is as real, and perilous, as the physical infection of disease. One man's thinking, though unuttered, shall pass through a thousand minds, sowing wheat or tares, good or evil, light or darkness, health or disease, in every one of them. What a new light this sheds on the question of reform! New laws are only efficient as old modes of thought are sweetened and uplifted. Will you move heaven and earth over the mote that is in your brother's eye, forgetting the beam that is in your own? Then do you stand accused, not merely of hypocrisy, but of being a worthless, profitless laborer, a twister of sand-ropes, a plower of the barren shore.

But what might not Christmas be for us, were we to treat it really reasonably! Happiness lies not in the region of sanctimonious ecstatics; but then, it is also incompatible with an overloaded stomach. We begin well enough with the wishes for a "Merry Christmas"; excellently well with the geniality and present-giving. What a promise there is for all sorts and conditions of men, or nearly all, on a Christmas morning: what a general sun of Austerlitz is it that rises! But how of its setting? What heavy physical clouds there are apt to be; what a sinking low, a simple vanishing, of ideals--what mere brute, material indigestion! Heigho! here's a come-down--from PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN, to these well-known, brain-deadening results!

It all comes of our erratic, freakish extremism. We pride ourselves on the practical trend of our lives: Gad, there's no nonsense here; it is a businesslike and commonsense generation, with the whole trade of the world on its hands; and what would you have, sir? Why, some evidence of that same so-much-bragged-of commonsense, if there be any. Our notion of carrying on the work of the world is, on the whole and for the most part, a fever; a wearing out of manhood, a furious, unseemly jostling round the trough wherein providence, like a swineherd, pours the wash of money, position, fame, power, etc.; and while we are so fighting and swilling, the work of the world is left undone; it may take care of itself, it may go hang, we will have none of it. Does anyone doubt that? Let him look around and see the abuses that remain and fester, heaven knows, till the world is rank with the corruption of them. Let him think of the reformatories that don't reform; of the horror that walketh by night in the cities. When he has taken note of _all_ the work left undone within the limits of his own nation, let him consider, but with more charity--for the conditions will be less easy for him to understand--the work that other nations are leaving undone; the work that humanity as a whole whistles past unheeding. And meanwhile we sweat and drudge and strain, strain and drudge and sweat after the things we desire, money and so forth; we give health for it, culture for it, leisure for it, honor for it, virtue for it, manhood for it; and call that business; call that doing the work of the world. Oh how this aching earth must be desiring a humanity that can put in some claim to be human!

We cannot go on so always; we must of course have safety-valves somewhere; and so we arrange these holidays and festivals, when we shall react and revolt against the things of common day, and be wildly different, for those few annual hours at least. Now we will have pleasure, rest, recreation. So--

Oh, we know the sweet fair picture! We know how it is done, only too often, this recreation business. Come now, who is it that is recreated? Which element, which party, which guild or stratum of society in that curious pathocratical republic, that kingless, impolitic, mob-swayed kingdom called the human personality, rises like a giant refreshed from the somnolent, torpid nebulosity wherewith the liver, poor drudge on strike, has its revenge on its tyrant? How much of Christmas good will, Christmas merriment and cheer, will be carried forward? What new light will shine on our workaday activities?

You pass through a treasure-house, from which you may take what you will, and the more you take, the better. But you "take no thought for the morrow"--with a vengeance! you pay no heed to the rich and beautiful things; you allow yourself to be beguiled, from entrance to exit of it, by that most wily esurient companion Appetite, that should be slave and porter but has tricked himself into the position of master and guide. We do go in there, indeed; we do see the treasures; it is proven for us that they exist, and undoubtedly we are the better for that. But we might go forth enriched for the whole year; and--we don't. Christmas, that might be perennial, hardly lasts for a whole day.

Why should not such a birthday be kept in a fitting manner? Is there nothing within ourselves that corresponds to the Hero of the day--no sunbright redeeming principle? Indeed there is; and it is the service of that that pays (to put it vulgarly); for that is the soul, whose mere garments are brain and body and appetites; indeed, whose mere hopples and handcuffs they are. No joy is acceptable, or without its sickening foul aftertaste, unless countersigned by It; that feast is poisonous of which It does not partake. To carry through the day the jolly atmosphere of good will and good service, of stepping outside selfhood; to keep one's insolent servant, appetite, cowed and right down in its place, finding pleasure in the things that belong to ourselves, not to it--that would be to celebrate Christmas rationally. When we do so, we do not find that the Christmas spirit wanes with the waning of the holidays.

I wish the whole world could have just a glimpse of the Lomaland Christmas, which is such a rational one, permeated with sunlight "both within and without." Then it would be more generally understood, how that the day may be, and ought to be, the feast-day of Human Brotherhood, the annual reconsecration of the celebrants to all things bright and beautiful, and cheerful and excellent, and happy and thoroughly practical and of good report. By heaven, the influence of these Theosophical Christmases will make its mark on the world yet!

PEACE ON EARTH: GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN: by R. Machell

Peace to all beings! is an Eastern benediction. Peace on earth: good will toward men! is the Christian expression of the same heart-felt emotion. But what is peace? Is it merely the suspension of war, or the prevention of war, or its postponement? Is a long period of peace merely _in itself_ productive of "good will toward men"? Does prosperity necessarily produce generosity, love, nobility, dignity, purity, or happiness? Can we possibly answer in the affirmative with the statistics of want and crime, corruption and suicide before our eyes constantly? Is peace the absence of war? If so we must stretch the meaning of the word war very considerably, stretch it indeed until it includes all unbrotherly acts; but then it will include a great part of our commercial system as well as of our social life. What then? Is peace a mockery? If so why is it so generally recognized as a desirable state, a blessed state, a state of beauty and joy? The cessation of international wars, so greatly to be desired, is peace of one kind only. "The peace of God that passeth all understanding," is another.

It has been found that the greatest stability can be attained by maintaining rapid motion in a heavy body, as in the gyrostat, the power of which has made the monorail train and other strange things a possibility. Thus stability in mechanics is found to be increased by rapid motion; rest is produced by action. Even in the arts of peace, and indeed more particularly in these, prosperity depends upon intense activity; when the works are at rest there is not usually an extra amount of peace and good will in evidence. Prosperity is not the result of idleness, and peace is not attained by the prevention of war; an idle man may grow fat, and a nation that does not fight may grow rich; but the fat man is not the healthy man, not the ideal human being, and the rich nation is not the happy nation; neither the fat man nor the rich nation are types of true progress in the eyes of any but the grossest of materialists.

I venture to think that peace is not at all a question of war or its prevention, but entirely a matter of _self-discipline_: self-discipline in the individual, in the family, the community, the nation, and the entire human race. It is the result of ceaseless activity. If this activity of self-discipline (_not_ self-torture or abuse of the body) ceases there is an end of the state of peace as surely as the top or gyrostat falls when its rotation ceases. The essence of this rotation is the recognition of the center or axis of rotation by all the particles of the revolving body, from which an important analogy may be drawn. Self-discipline begins at home, as surely as the circle can only be described around a center. A circle without a center is unthinkable, and so is self-control without a self; but as the center of any visible object is itself an abstract point (having no magnitude) but subsisting on the plane of the immaterial, so the self is not material, but in its spiritual reality bears a similar mysterious relation to the material body that the abstraction called the center bears to a mass. A homeless man may be self-disciplined, but a nation is not composed of homeless men; national life depends upon the family and the family depends upon the home. The home is the spiritual center of the nation. It is everywhere and depends upon the ceaseless activity of its parts. This is the great binding-force that holds a nation in balance, and when this home-life weakens, the whole nation, like a top whose rotation slows down, begins to wobble; then, like the top, it is likely to fall over and rush off violently in any direction, and it becomes a dead body.

So if we would have peace in ourselves we must keep up a ceaseless fight against the inertia of the lower nature and replace the false peace of inertia by the stability, which, as in the gyrostat, results from rapid motion round its own center--that is to say, constant attention to duty. If we would have peace in the nation we must have it in our homes, and the home must have its invisible center of attraction, and the constant attention to duty of its parts or members.

If this is established there will be no great need to think about the sorrows of international wars or the means of preventing them.

* * * * *

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD has no creeds or dogmas; it is built on the basis of common sense. It teaches that man is divine, that the soul of man is imperishable, and that Brotherhood is a fact in Nature, and consequently takes in all humanity.

Men must rid themselves of fear, and reach a point where they realize that they are souls, and where they will strive to live as souls, with a sense of their duty to their fellows.--_Katherine Tingley_

PSYCHISM: A Study in Hidden Connexions: by H. T. Edge, B. A. (Cantab.)

The wave of psychism which is sweeping over us grows more pronounced as time goes on. If we do not master it, it will master us and bring our civilization to an untimely end.

Theosophy did not bring on this tide of psychism. Theosophy was introduced (in part) for the purpose of coping with it. When H. P. Blavatsky entered upon her work she foresaw what was approaching. An era of materialism was about to be succeeded by a reaction towards psychism. The first beginnings were already manifest in the rise of phenomenalism. One of the objects of founding the Theosophical Society was to prevent the disasters that would arise if this wave of psychism should come in the midst of an atmosphere of selfishness and ignorance. Some people still wrongly suppose that H. P. Blavatsky initiated the interest in psychism; but what she really did was to prepare the way for a successful fight against the abuse of psychism; to prepare the way by introducing to the world a knowledge of OCCULTISM--a very different thing. She did work among the Spiritists because that movement was there ready to hand; among them she found many awaiting the teachings of Theosophy. She sought to turn the prevalent craze for phenomena into channels of true knowledge. Her writings all show how strongly she emphasized the dangers of dabbling in phenomenalism and the distinction between Occultism and the occult arts, between Spiritual powers and psychic powers.

Some may think the warnings of Theosophists against psychism are exaggerated, but the record of facts tells a different story. Every day brings new justification of these warnings. In a newspaper published by the American-Examiner Company there lately appeared an article entitled "The Soul-Destroying Poison of the East." Let it be said at the outset that the phrase thus unqualified would constitute a libel upon the East, and that it is not the East in general, but merely a particular phase of orientalism, that is intended. The title goes on: "The Tragic Flood of Broken Homes and Hearts, Disgrace and Suicide, that follows the broadening stream of Morbidly Alluring Oriental 'Philosophies' into Our Country."

The article begins as follows:

It is startling to realize that in many a commonplace flat ... occult rites are being celebrated as shocking as the ancient worship of Moloch and Baal. A long series of recent occurrences has proved that Oriental occultism in various forms has many followers in the United States.... Hindu occultism is leprous.

This kind certainly is; but should it not be the ambition of Hindûs to clear their name from such an aspersion? The article then recounts several cases of the breaking up of homes, suicides, and other calamities, of a kind with which we are daily becoming more familiar through the columns of the newspapers; and it traces all these to the subtle influence of the said poison. It goes on to speak of "Tantrikism," a cult which is said to have 100,000 followers in the United States and to have been introduced by the "Swamis," many of whom came over ostensibly to attend the Congress of Religions in 1893. We know of a certain class of Swâmis, sanctimonious and plausible individuals, who reap a harvest from a credulous and admiring public.

According to my interpretation of the following quotations, the basis of this cult is a deification of passion and sensuality. Indeed that seems to be the whole tenor of it. It exalts weakness and vice into an appearance of virtue and makes a religion of depravity. The fundamental principle is thus expressed:

Our emotional longings are not to be crushed, but we must lend brain, heart and muscle to secure their eternal gratification.

To quote again:

Some of the American Tantriks would persuade American parents that it is an honor to have their daughters chosen as nautch-girls, _and it is sad to say that they sometimes succeed_.

Oh, parents! Fond and foolish, but how ignorant!

All this fully justifies Theosophists in asserting that there is a cancer lurking at the roots of our racial vitality. How futile and frivolous, in face of this terrible fact, seem our puny efforts at reform by legislation and philanthropy, a mere tinkering at the symptoms. The sexual passion has obtained a fearful hold on us, as is manifested in numerous ways, in secret and open depravity, in the form of new religions and philosophies. Here we have a cult which exalts it into a worship and which is well calculated to ensnare the morbidly excited imaginations, debilitated nervous systems, and untrained minds of our ill-guided youth of either sex.

No doubt the above account will come as a revelation to many, and it may serve to enlighten them on some matters which before were dark, particularly as to the underground connexions between certain things which on the surface seem unconnected. One of these is _the connexion between psychism and crank religions on the one hand and sexual depravity on the other_. From the beginning Theosophists have insisted on this fact and issued warnings against the danger. It is a commonplace of the history of religions and cults that, when the devotees fail in following the path of light and duty, they lapse into sensual perversions. As far as we can trace back, we find instances of pure worship and sacred symbolism being perverted into gross license and corrupt teachings. In our times we have witnessed many eruptions of vice associated with crank religions. The connexion is not accidental; it simply means that when anyone dares to try and make the higher nature serve the lower he ends in a complete breakdown.

How well is illustrated the truth that psychic practices merely stimulate the animal centers, send up a foul current to the brain, and produce an emotional and erotic intoxication, which is often mistaken by the ignorant dabbler for divine inspiration!

And here we call attention to the circumstance that innumerable people today are _ignorantly and heedlessly dabbling in psychism_. Many of them are perfectly innocent of any leanings to depravity. Yet observe the connexion. Theosophists have never failed to warn them; and for their pains have been laughed at; yet see the confirmation of their warnings. We merely take this occasion to point out to the heedless and innocent experimenters the dangers that lie ahead of them in the path they are treading. There are only two paths in Occultism--the right and the wrong; the right path is the path of duty, service, and righteous living; any other path is the wrong path.

In an age when nothing is immune against perversion, it is no slur upon the Theosophical Society to say that even that body, pure and lofty as its teachings and work are, has not been free from attempts made to divert it into some wrong direction. From time to time ambitious and misguided adherents have deserted its ranks that they might pursue outside the courses which they were prevented from pursuing within.

In this way a number of so-called "Theosophical" cults have originated, which in varying degrees carry on a propaganda that misrepresents Theosophy and thereby wrongs the public. The reason for alluding to this here is that some members of these cults are preaching the very psychism which, as has just been shown, is so intimately related to these grave abuses. In books and on the lecture platform we may find their leaders reproducing some form of the original Theosophical teachings and even professing lofty principles of morality; but a closer examination of the teachings prevailing among them reveals only too often the same unsavory atmosphere of psychism. If these "teachers" really followed the lofty teachings they profess there could be no reason why they should not be working in harmony with real Theosophists; but it is because they have cut themselves from the pure teachings of H. P. Blavatsky and the original Theosophical program that Theosophists are obliged to repudiate them.

It behooves all people who have a reputation to preserve to search out carefully these hidden connexions and make sure of the nature of everything they may endorse; for a man is judged by his associations.

Again, all kinds of "new" social doctrines are being preached, usually in the name of liberty, honesty, and purity; and those who protest against them are dubbed "slaves of Mrs. Grundy." But in view of the above newspaper revelations it would seem as though the protestors had some justification for their warnings. In much of this talk about liberty we detect not liberty but license. We are told, on high authority, apparently, that it is better to give vent to one's "youthful vitality" than to let it smoulder; but what becomes of this argument in view of the Tântrik program mentioned above, or other similar cults?

There is a class of popular writers who, having won the public ear by novels, brilliant criticism, or some such way, are now using the opportunity to vent their crude speculations and unripe imaginings, which pass current as "daring and original views." The morbidity, acidity, or angularity of their minds--seemingly unsuspected by themselves--is revealed in a way that dismisses them from the consideration of the more thoughtful readers; but they serve as ringleaders to a host of readers who share their temperament if not their literary gifts. They analyse in their peculiar fashion the institutions of human life as though they were people sent from another planet to inspect this world. Ignorant of the existence or possibility of points of view other than their own, they discuss marriage as if it were a physiological problem, and men as if they were but draughts on a checkerboard.

We have had novels based on the theory that human life is a physiological question, whose heroines are soulless over-cerebrated women of the most intolerable type; and a continuous torrent of smart writing whose aim seems to be to turn everything upside down and take the perverse view on every possible occasion. All this literary rubbish, whatever its moving spirit may be, must be regarded as a part of the general disintegrative force that is at work among us; its effect is to unsettle inexperienced minds at a time when they need guidance; and thus to pave the way for the implanting of the noxious seeds described above.

Time and space will not suffice for a full list of the movements and cults and fads which are all heading, consciously or unconsciously, in this dangerous direction--fads scientific, religious, social, what not. Sometimes one can detect the same element at the root of them--the morbid craving, the pruriency of thought, the subtle suggestion of the lower nature seeking new recognition for itself by assuming an attractive disguise.