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Spiritual Therapeutics; 
 
 or, 
 
 DIVINE SCIENCE. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 APPLIED TO 
 
 Moral, Mental axd Physical Harmony, 
 
 TWELVE LECTURES. 
 
 / BY 
 
 \ J. COLVI] 
 
 Wr Jf COLVILLE, 
 
 Author of " The Spiritual Science of Health and Healing," 
 
 Etc., Etc. 
 
 ALSO A LECTURE ON 
 
 "Unscientific Science" 
 
 BY 
 
 Dr. ANNA KINGSFORD 
 Author of "The Perfect Way," Etc., Etc. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 EDUCATOR PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 Lock Box 328. 
 
 1890. 
 

 Copyright, 1888, by 
 W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 Donohue & Henneberry, Printers and Binders, Chicago. 
 
PE E FACE. 
 
 ri^IIIS work is issued to meet a long-felt want for a 
 -*-■ compendious statement of the essential principles 
 of Spiritual Science as presented in harmony with the 
 advanced thought of the present day. Xo endeavor 
 has been made to accomplish the impossible, therefore 
 the claim is not put forward that any subject is treated 
 finally or exhaustively. The Spiritual Science of Health 
 and Healing, published in 1S87, first in Boston and 
 then in Chicago, has met with so large a circulation all 
 over the world that the author has consented to pub- 
 lish this new work for the purpose of answering many 
 questions, and more fully elucidating many problems 
 raised in the minds of readers of Spiritual Science of 
 Health and Healing. The original intention of this 
 work was to put in the hands of enquirers into Spir- 
 itual Science everywhere a handy text-book, portable 
 in form and procurable at nominal expense, designed 
 expressly as an aid to study both in the class-room, 
 the home circle and the private study. In addition it 
 has been found highly desirable to append a consider- 
 able number of thoroughly authenticated cases of heal- 
 ing without the use of medicine or any physical contact 
 whatsoever. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The questions and answers have been carefully 
 selected from those asked and answered in classes and 
 also from a great number forwarded to the author in 
 response to public invitation through the press. The 
 directions for treatment have received special at tent i< m, 
 and it is confidently believed by the projectors of this 
 volume that every man, woman and child of averj 
 intelligence, who will study this subject carefully and 
 give it the serious attention it so richly deserves, will 
 find him or herself able to demonstrate the truth of 
 much, at least, of what is expounded in the following 
 pages. "With the earnest hope and fervent prayer that 
 a perusal of these pages may be fraught with blessing 
 to all who study them, the reader is referred to the 
 body of the volume. 
 
 N. B. — The following synopses of twelve class lea- 
 sons are intended as skeleton hints for persons desirous 
 of pursuing a systematic course of thoughtful study in 
 the privacy of their own homes. They are also sug- 
 gested as fruitful for consideration in assemblies of 
 inquirers, where the custom is to have something read 
 by a president, and then talked over by the members 
 of the fraternity or club. They will, also, perhaps, be 
 found of some slight assistance to young teachers in 
 preparing themselves to meet their classes. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LESSON I. 
 
 Page. 
 God — The Relation of Man to the Infinite— Dif 
 
 ference Between Reason and Intuition 7 to 14 
 
 LESSON IT. 
 
 The Human Mind; Its Origin and Destiny — At What 
 Period Did it Begin in Time? — What Room Does 
 it Occupy in Space?— Is it Substance or Force?— 
 Is it a Cause or an Effect?— Wiiat Specifically 
 is its SnAPE, Size and Substance ?— Upon What 
 Principles or by What Properties can it Re- 
 sist Destruction (A Subject Giyen to Mrs. 
 Cora L. V. Richmond by a Philosophical Society 
 in Chicago, and Treated Upon by the Author 
 of This Volume by Particular Request) 15 to 3)> 
 
 LESSON III 
 
 The Dtvtnity of Chrtst, the Only Begotten S 
 of God — The Essential and the Historical 
 
 Christ Contrasted 34 to 54 
 
 iii 
 
iy CONTENTS. 
 
 LESSON IV. 
 Evil and its Remedy 55 to 75 
 
 LESSON V. 
 Resurrection W to 94 
 
 LESSON VI. 
 Transfiguration 05 to 1 18 
 
 LESSON VII. 
 
 True Individuality— In What Sense and to Wiiat 
 extent is Man a Free Moral Agent, and What n 
 the Ultimate of Individual Spiritual A i i \in 
 MEi t T ? 1191 
 
 LESSON VIII. 
 
 What is the Perfect Way, and How May We Walk 
 
 in it ? *. 140 to M 
 
 LESSON IX. 
 
 The Religious Instinct ; Its Origin, Growth and Ul- 
 timate Perfection 163 to 184 
 
 LESSON X. 
 
 How Can We Explain Miracles Scientifically, and 
 Accomplish Wonders Apparently Transcending 
 the Operation of Natural Law ? 185 to 204 
 
CONTKN V 
 
 LESSON XL 
 
 Practical Advice to Students, Healers and Pa- 
 tiknts, asd directions fob the application op 
 Spiritual Science to all the Avocations of 
 Daily Life 205 to 218 
 
 LESSON XII. 
 Formulas, Ttieir Use and Value 219 to 233 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 Questions 234 to 289 
 
 TEACHINGS 
 
 Of Spiritual Science Concerning Treatments of 
 
 the Lower Animals 290 to 292 
 
 UNSCIENTIFIC SCIENCE. 
 
 Moral Aspects of Vivisection, by Dr. Anna Kings- 
 ford 292 to 308 
 
 A FORM OF TREATMENT. 
 Contributed by Mrs. Sara Harris, Berkeley, Cal.. 309 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 LEAVES FROM STUDENT'S NOTE BOOK. 
 Spiritual Science Catechism 310 to 321 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Testimonials From a Number of Experienced Heal- 
 ers 322 f 
 
LESSON I. 
 
 OOD — THE RELATION OF MAN TO THE INFINITE DIFFERENCE 
 
 BETWEEN REASON AND INTUITION. 
 
 SEEKERS after truth, whoever you may be, wher- 
 ever you may dwell, the topic we are now about 
 o discuss appeals vitally to every one of you. As the 
 subject is infinite and eternal in its bearings, neither 
 we who address you nor you who are addressed can 
 rightfully be expected to fully comprehend the subject 
 of this lesson; but it is not to your intellectual com- 
 prehension so much as to your spiritual perception 
 we address ourselves. Consider first how man has 
 grown into a belief in Deity. Whence did this belief 
 spring? How did it originate? These are ques- 
 tions we must look boldly in the face. The mind of 
 man is a mirror, a reflector, but not a creator. The 
 thoughts of the human mind never transcend, but 
 invariably and inevitably fall very far short of the 
 realities of Absolute Being, therefore, all human errors 
 are limitations of truth, negations of fact, but never 
 in a solitary instance has an erroneous human opinion 
 been found to transcend reality. Man perceives (rod, 
 i.e., he realizes intuitively his relation to an Infinite 
 Power, Energy or Force which permeates the Oniverse, 
 and is the Life of the Universe. This Infinite Life we 
 call God, which is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning All 
 Good, or the Good One. 
 
 7 
 
8 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 Agnostics admit the eternity and infinity of Power 
 Energy or Force, but they pronounce its nature and 
 attributes unknowable, and perhaps to the unassisted 
 intellect they are so. We do not disparage or trample 
 upon human reason in any sense when we proclaim the 
 infinite superiority of intuitive perception of truth 
 no intellectual realization of external facts. Intuition 
 is super-rational, but never does it urge upon us the 
 acceptance of anything irrational or sub rational. 
 Eeason infers, intuition proves the being of God. thus 
 we have two witnesses instead of one, ready to testify 
 to the reality of the Divine Being. We wish you at 
 once, before we proceed any further in this lesson, to 
 notice how studiously we avoid speaking of the divine 
 existence, which we consider a word misapplied when- 
 ever used in connection with the Infinite. Being alone 
 is eternal, existence is temporal. God /*. the ex- 
 ternal universe exists. God is the source of all being, 
 is indeed Being itself, consequently cannot be 
 limited or personified. God then is super-personal 
 Spirit, not impersonal but super-personal. Impersonal 
 means less than personal, while super-personal means 
 superior to personality. There are three words we 
 shall often introduce into these lessons: 
 
 1st. Identity. 
 
 2d. Individuality. 
 
 3d. Personality. 
 
 These refer respectively to Spirit, to Mind and to 
 Matter, which constitute the three-fold expression of 
 the absolute Life. The circle has always been chosen 
 as the symbol of infinity and eternity, but any circle 
 we can describe is finite, and therefore resembles man 
 
spramux THERAPEUTICS. 9 
 
 who is in the image of God, but cannot resemble God 
 
 in so far as it has limitations, for God is necessarily 
 limitless. You have all heard often enough of macro- 
 cosm and the microcosm, the former, you know, means 
 the infinite whole, the latter signifies the finite Like- 
 ness of the whole. God is the macrocosm. Man is the 
 microcosm. The difference, then, between God and 
 Man is quantitative and not qualitative. AVhat God is, 
 that is Man, for Aran is in the image and likeness of the 
 Eternal One. The best instructed minds in spiritual 
 truth are by no means invariably such as have profited 
 most by the methods of scholasticism, for scholarship 
 is purely intellectual, while spiritual discernment is 
 altogether independent of the bookworm and pertains 
 entirely to the culture of the psychic faculty. There 
 is in man a psychic element which defies external 
 investigation, and baffles intellectual research, because 
 it invariably transcends the reason, which it, however, 
 never contradicts. Our first lesson, of necessitv, brings 
 us to a point where we are under the necessitv of dis- 
 criminating between reason and intuition, as intuition 
 only can unlock the door of the inner temple of our 
 being which remains forever barred against the per- 
 >i>tent knocking of any lower power. God is known 
 only to intuition. Reason is a faculty whereby man- 
 kind is able to decide with reference to all questions 
 which can be submitted to the human mind for judg- 
 ment. Tt is a purely intellectual and analytical faculty, 
 the possession of which enables one to rise to the lof- 
 tiest heights of purely mental glory, but reason is soul- 
 less. We do not say it is in opposition to man's high- 
 est spiritual nature. It simply fails to apprehend it. 
 
10 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 It is agnostic in its attitude toward all purely spirit- 
 ual revelation or discovery. It can, of course, be 
 employed to prove the reality of spirit and the good of 
 the affections, but it can also be used to deny the very 
 being of Deity and can argue against as readily as for 
 the immortality of man. Reason is unable to oope 
 with spiritual truth; it can neither prove nor disprove 
 what intuition affirms. Intuition is perception. It is a 
 purely spiritual faculty, and is no more intended to change 
 places with reason than eyes are to do duty in the 
 stead of ears. Reason looks to the earth; it is 
 naturalist, a geologist, by natural bent, while intuition 
 looks to the heavens and discovers stars while reason 
 delves amid fossils. We do not for a single instant 
 decry reason, nor would we underrate its power for 
 good in the world, but, like all the physical faculties 
 possessed by man, it is a two edged sword. 1 1 can boused 
 either for good orevil. It will defend right or wrong 
 the case may be. In the hands of a criminal lawyer the 
 closest reasoning, severest logic is often used to justify 
 the wrong doer and thereby to defeat justice and 
 defraud the innocent. The greatest reasoners are by no 
 means always the greatest saints neither are fchey 
 proverbially the greatest sinners, but we fail to 
 where unaided reason contributes much to the high- 
 est welfare or greatest happiness of the race. The 
 steam engine, the telephone, various electrical appli- 
 ances, the deadliest weapons of warfare, the crudest 
 devices for torturing men and criminals, are all alike 
 products of human reason, it depends upon the use to 
 which secular information is put as to whether or no it 
 really benefits mankind in the sense of moral elevation. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIi 11 
 
 We cannot be too rational, too inventive, or too analyt- 
 ical, provided always we are first moral and spiritual. 
 Intuition, as we understand it, signifies clear moral 
 perception, genuine spiritual discernment. Intuition is 
 always loving, kind and just. It is divine reason, and 
 therefore lies beyond the realm in which what is ordi- 
 narily known as reason finds its field of operation. 
 Intuition is certain and infallible. It deals with spir- 
 itual truth by exact methods just as the multiplication 
 table deals with figures — twice 2 must always be 4. 
 We can arrive at certitude in numeration, Mathemati- 
 cal demonstrations are absolute. Are there then no 
 means of arriving at exact spiritual truth? We believe 
 there is a royal way through the gateway of spir- 
 itual perception, which discerns spiritual realities with 
 demonstrable exactitude. The question is continually 
 asked us, How do you stand with regard to the matter 
 of education i Do you consider a person need be liter- 
 ary in order to excel as a spiritual healer? We always 
 reply in the decided negative, for many of the best 
 healers we have ever met were, from a scholastic point 
 of view, the most illiterate. 
 
 Let us see if we cannot decide why this is so. All 
 information is of some value to its possessor. We can, 
 none of us, know too much, but Pope, perhaps, was 
 right, when he sang, "A little learning is a dangerous 
 thing." but wherein consists the danger, probably the 
 ould have answered in the language of the great 
 philosopher, Francis Bacon, "Alittle learning inclineth 
 man to atheism. M But why should it? What is there 
 in learning, any way, to shake man's taith in God? 
 Does not everything testify to the being of an Infinite 
 
12 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 Intelligence ? Is not the argument for design unanswer- 
 able. Verily, still the mind, when first steeped in the 
 pleasure of intellectual acquisition, becomes so infatu- 
 ated and intoxicated with the charms of outer thin 
 and withal so vain of its petty achievements that a 
 frame or mood is too often excited, which correctly 
 expresses itself in the dominant conviction, "what 
 I don't know, is not worth knowing." If there are 
 any such mental states in the way of your accepting a 
 new truth, new to you, though to others old as the 
 universe, you must be converted and become as little 
 children in all teachableness of disposition, before you 
 can possibly perceive the truth of Spirit. Blessed are 
 the clean or pure of heart, for they shall sec God, is 
 no idle dreamer's romance. 
 
 Purity of affection, cleanliness of desire, is as nec- 
 essary to enable one to arrive at spiritual knowledge 
 asever eyes can be to see with or windows in houses to 
 admit the light of day. Strive to forget at the thresh- 
 old of these instructions that you know anything; let 
 every proposition come before you with the charm and 
 weight of novelty; give your memory a rest and come 
 prepared to fully consider in all candor and sincerity 
 whatever maybe advanced. In this temper alone can 
 you be prepared to give, to what may seem to you as 
 a new science, the attention it deserves and rightfully 
 demands at the hands of intelligent lovers of and 
 seekers after truth. Let us for a moment try to dis- 
 criminate carefully and clearly between memory and 
 consciousness. Memory is invariably treacherous at 
 best, in our present stage of development, while con- 
 sciousness is persistently, invariably the same. I am at 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 13 
 
 this instant conscious that I am. That I am what? 
 This question I may be unable to answer satisfact- 
 orily even to myself; I may have to fall back upon 
 words attributed by Bible writers to Jehovah, "I am 
 that I am." What I am I may not realize. I know 
 that I am, i. t\, I am conscious of having being and 
 I feel moreover that however nearly I may be con- 
 nected or however intimately associated with others, 
 I am not another and another is not I. What, then, 
 am I who am not another? and what, then, is another 
 who is not II The mystery of individual identity is 
 displayed and illustrated in all nature from the greatest 
 to the smallest. The identity of the unit is most 
 sacredly preserved. This is never sacrificed to the 
 mass. 
 
 Absorption into the Deity is a foolish expression. 
 Many persons in their struggles to modernize and 
 occidentalize oriental writings, have labored hard in 
 the course of fatiguing disquisitions concerning Xircana 
 to persuade the world that the extinction of individual 
 consciousness is the blissful summit of human attainment. 
 Such, however, is not the highest Eastern thought. 
 Edwin Arnold, at the conclusion of his Light of Asia, 
 takes far nobler ground than this, and in his Itn 
 Ri visit d he tells us of the grateful thanks and cordial 
 welcomes he received from Buddhist priests, both in 
 Hindoostan and Ceylon, as tribute to the faithfulness 
 with which he had portrayed the tenets of Buddhism 
 in his story of the u great renunciation." We allude 
 to this, not because we turn to Asia for that spiritual 
 light which can come only from within, but to show 
 how misleading it is for any one to think that all of 
 
14 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 truth is concentrated in a single system of religion. 
 Universal Theosophy or Spiritual Science is the friend 
 of Truth wherever found, but its main object is to call it 
 out from within the depths of every individual. A know! 
 edge or perception of the logos, divine word, or essen- 
 tial Christ, which is indeed the Way, the Truth and 
 the Life, is the Universal Enlightener and the only 
 absolute source of divine guidance for the individual. 
 
LESSON II. 
 
 THE HUMAN MIND; ITS ORIGIN AND DESTINY — AT WHAT 
 PERIOD DID IT BEGIN IN TIME J — WHAT BOOM DDKS IT OC- 
 CUPY IN SPACE? IS IT SUBSTANCE OK FORCE? — IS IT A 
 
 CAUSE OR AN EFFECT ? WHAT SPECIFICALLY IS ITS 
 
 SHAPE, SIZE AND SUBSTANCE? — UPON WHAT PRINCIPLES 
 OB r.V WHAT PROPERTIES CAN IT RESIST DESTRUCTION? 
 (A SUBJECT GIVEN TO MRS. CORA L. V. RICHMOND BY A 
 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN CHICAGO, AND TREATED UPON 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS VOLUME BY PARTICULAR 
 BEQUEST.) 
 
 QUCII a subject as this can only be satisfactorily 
 ^ dealt with in a series of discourses, there is so 
 much included in these questions concerning the mind 
 of man. The question in such a form as it here as- 
 sumes would never be asked by enlightened Tlie< so- 
 phists acquainted with the spiritual side of man's nature, 
 but is constantly propounded by realistic philosophers, 
 who maintain that everything must be material in order 
 to be real; must have size and shape, gravity and 
 ponderability evident to external sense in order to he 
 in the realm of real existence. 
 
 Now the human mind must 1>< ived of as 
 
 inct from the human soul. Therefore, as our present 
 
 subje< t is the human mind we shall deal only with 
 
 mind as we understand it. leaving the question of the 
 
 divine soul — which is beyond the mind — which is con- 
 
 * 15 
 
16 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 sidered in our first lesson, or only touching upon it 
 when necessary to explain the nature of mind as de 
 rived from the soul. 
 
 Now Mind Cure is a popular term, but spiritual 
 healing is a far more appropriate one and covers a 
 great deal more ground than mental healing, because 
 the spirit is superior to the mind, even as intuition or 
 moral perception is superior to the intellectual. We 
 may be intellectual, rational, very learned; we may bo 
 paragons of perfection in an intellectual hrough 
 
 acquaintance with arts, physical sciences and phil 
 phy, and yet be miserably devoid of soul culture, and 
 if devoid of soul culture, if the divine breath is not 
 made manifest in us, if we are not unfolded on the 
 spiritual side of our nature, all our intellectual develop- 
 ment will not avail to save us from sickness and 
 suffering. 
 
 The mind of man must be subordinate to the divine 
 soul. Intellectual progress must be made subordinate 
 to spiritual culture. Eeason must be subordinated to 
 conscience or the moral sense. If nothing higher than 
 the mind of man be recognized, if nothing beyond in- 
 tellect or reason be cultivated, a man, though a prodigy 
 of valor, or an encyclopedia of information, concerning 
 worldly knowledge, will lack the only wisdom that can 
 guide himsafely over the tempestuous waters of earthly 
 discipline. 
 
 The human mind, its origin and destiny, must sig- 
 nify the origin and destiny of a servant of the soul. 
 There is a power within you beyond the mind, whieh 
 causes you to often build wiser than you know. You 
 declare that your mind changes, and it does. Your 
 
araOTUAL THE&APRUTX 17 
 
 mind is only the accumulated mass of your thoughts 
 All your thoughts together constitute your mental state; 
 
 but the thinking principle, the power that gives yon 
 your mind (the mind being* only an organ or perhaps 
 only a function of the spirit) is the spirit (at ma). 
 
 The individual mind of man originates in the soul 
 of man. We will express our idea in this wise: The 
 soul of man we regard as the ultimate spiritual atom, 
 the essential primary. Those of you who are familiar 
 with scientific analyses and with the terms used by the 
 schools, know well that a distinction is made in the 
 scientific world, and that a very broad one, between 
 the atom or primal, the monad and the molecule. The 
 atom or primal it is inferred is self existent, and being 
 self existent it was of course never created andean, 
 therefore, never be destroyed. The molecule or monad 
 is only an expression of life, a manifestation ; there- 
 fore scientific inference, granting that substance is 
 eternal (as science invariably declares), concludes that 
 an atom always has existed and always will. 
 
 There may have been periods when the molecule 
 or monad was not. Molecules or monads having 
 come into existence during time and being results of 
 the movements of atoms, may pass away in time, but 
 the atoms themselves, whose movements have made 
 the existence of molecules or monads possible, can 
 never pass away. 
 
 It strikes us as extremely singular that learned 
 bodies of men, such as the Presbyterian assembly, for 
 example, should ever have fallen into the error of sup- 
 posing that, according to a true rendering of Qem 
 the human body must have been created by a difl 
 
18 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 act of God's sovereignty out of nothing. Such a 
 ridiculous hypothesis is equivalent to saying God is 
 nothing; because, according to Gensis, every tiling is 
 the result of God's activity. The spirit of God is said 
 to have moved upon the waters, moved through the 
 vast expanse filled by what is called— fur want of a 
 better term — chaos, without form and void, and this 
 directing intelligence organized the original cosmic 
 fluid into organic forms. Such a definition of creation 
 is certainly not to the effect that anything was made 
 out of nothing, but that everything was made from 
 and by the action of the spirit of God. 
 
 The spirit of God is not "nothing," bat according 
 to the Rosicrucian definition, it may be spoken of 
 No Thino- which signifies the Eternal and [q finite can- 1 
 of everything. The spirit of God, the divine lite, is 
 the one Eternal, Primordial Being which defies all 
 analysis and cannot be discovered by any mortal 
 method of research, because it is altogether impalpable, 
 immaterial and wholly spiritual, and if apprehended 
 at all, must be apprehended by the soul which is in the 
 image and likeness of Eternal Spirit. 
 
 Now this theory gives you a logical basis for ex- 
 istence. Out of nothing, nothing comes, but every 
 manifested thing proceeds from something greater 
 than itself. Every effect proceeds necessarily from a 
 cause adequate to produce it. The cause may be 
 greater than the effect, but cannot possibly be less 
 than the effect. As a cause must be equal to or 
 greater than the effect which it produces, and as 
 "nothing" is an unmeaning term, for you can have 
 no idea of "nothing" in your mind (an idea being 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 19 
 
 something), it is absurd to infer that anything was 
 ever made out of nothing, it is also a reductio (id 
 absurdum of sciolistic ignorance that mind is a creat- 
 ure of matter, because mind is demonstrably the right- 
 ful lord over matter. 
 
 If every thing proceeds from what is infinitely 
 greater than itself — every manifestation of life being 
 only an expression of the intelligence of All Pervad- 
 ing Deity — if the life of the entire universe, pri- 
 mordially and elementally is God's life, then we can 
 understand that there is no creation other than or- 
 ganization, and no destruction other than disintegra 
 tion. There can be no annihilation, for annihilation 
 means the destruction of being, but there can be dis- 
 organization. Spiritualists affirm that in materializing 
 circles forms are built up, apparently, out of invisible 
 atmosphere; that they stand palpably in the presence 
 of the sitters for a while and then vanish from sight. 
 The New Testament declares that Jesus after His 
 crucifixion appeared to His disciples, manifesting to 
 them in palpable form, and then vanished out of 
 their sight. Chemistry declares that all substances 
 can be volatilized, i e., converted into impalpable 
 ether; solids and fluids change into gases; the hard- 
 est substances float away into invisible and intang- 
 ible realms. 
 
 The researches nnd knowledge of the scientific world 
 abundantly prove that the realm of potentiality is a realm 
 of invisibility. Electricity, that wondrous motor power 
 now coming into universal use, is strictly invisible; the 
 wind which as it blows manifests such terrible and 
 might} 1 force in tornado or hurricane is invisible; the 
 
20 SPIRITUAL THERAPFXTICS. 
 
 steam that propels gigantic vessels across the ocean is 
 invisible, and so with all the forces of which man knows 
 anything. According to scientific statements there arc 
 many millions of sounds and colors that are neither 
 heard nor seen, because the vibrations which cause them 
 and which indeed, they are, make no impression upon 
 your optic or auditory nerves. Now as the great and 
 mysterious realm of causation, which materialists admit 
 is superior to gross matter, is absolutely unknown to 
 external sense; when we declare life to be invisible, the 
 immortal soul to be real though invisible we simply eon- 
 elude that everthing logically that everything destined 
 to outlive the mortal body is invisible and spiritual 
 accord with science. The fleshlybody is only an aggre- 
 gation of molecules, which are ever being displaced 
 to make room for others. Attraction and repulsion 
 change outward forms incessantly. While consciousness 
 abides, we can reasonably declare that the immor- 
 tality of the soul, yea, and the pre-exist mee of the 
 soul also is an inference of science. 
 
 Epes Sargent, one of the most eloquent and scien- 
 tific writers upon modern spiritualism, in his work 
 entitled, "The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism," proves 
 conclusively by the soundest argument and clean 
 logic that immortality is inferred by physical as well 
 as mental science. 
 
 Rev. M. J. Savage, a popular Unitarian minister 
 of Boston, has taken the ground that immortality may 
 be conjectured from analogical evidences supplied by 
 nature. Many lights in the Unitarian church, and in 
 other liberal denominations, many luminaries in the 
 scientific world, and many philosophers outside all 
 
S1MKITI AL 111 KRA1M.I lh 21 
 
 creeds and denominations take a similar position. The 
 question of questions to-day is, "Are we matter or 
 spirit i " 
 
 Now, the primal source of being must be unitary. 
 There can not be two Eternals, two Infinites, two Al- 
 mighties, and we maintain that the fact of the human 
 mind being totally invisible to sense, and the fact of the 
 soul being entirely beyond the reach of the scalpel or 
 
 eeting knife (neither vivisection nor any other cruel 
 practice invented by the barbarism of materialism to 
 account for the origin of life having discovered its 
 source in anywise), the fact that soul and mind can not 
 be materially discovered furnishes abundant proof that 
 all that is real abides forever in the realm of the All 
 Powerful, which is Spirit. Our senses never apprehend 
 one hundredth part of what our souls recognize, this 
 experience alone sufficiently demonstrates to the un- 
 prejudiced thinker that the invisible realm of intelli- 
 gence is the seat of causation. 
 
 In art everything is conceived by the painter men- 
 tally before there can be any outward expression. The 
 inventor has his model and machine in working order 
 in his mind before he can take the first step toward pre- 
 paring a model for public exhibition or setting any one 
 at work to construct the external body of his invention. 
 
 You may pronounce transcendentalism folly, you 
 may demand something practical, but you could never 
 have any practical object or external knowledge unless 
 some one had first beheld a design in mind. Even 
 in the matter of dress the fashion plate is the result of 
 some new thought in some one's mind; before there can 
 be any outward garment made it must be planned in 
 
22 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 mind. So with every material comfort, with every 
 external thing you enjoy, mind first operates and mat- 
 ter proves its servant. 
 
 As mind first produces plans and models and 
 hands to work afterward constructing apparatus to 
 apply motor power externally, it is invariably the « 
 that the nearer you approach the realm of absolute 
 mentality, the more wonderful are discoveries, tin* 
 mightier and more matchless the exhibitions of man's 
 consummate skill. This is instanced by the fact of no 
 outward effort, however superb, fully satisfying the de- 
 signer. 
 
 The mind of man is the handiwork of the soul, which 
 is an embodiment of the divine creative energy dis- 
 played in universal nature. Materialists or Atheists 
 looking no further than man, often declare that while 
 they find no God in the universe to worship, they are 
 willing to worship great men. So great, so marvelous 
 are the achievements of the human mind guided by 
 the soul that infidelity may almost be excused for pot- 
 ting man upon the throne of the universe and worship- 
 ing man, who is in the image of God, as God. In 
 every school that disallows the existence of an In- 
 finite Divine Spirit as the cause of the universe ire 
 behold, man is made to take the place of God (t> 
 the school of Auguste Comte). At this we do not 
 wonder, as the highest manifestation of God is through 
 the divine in man. We do not wonder that glorious in- 
 tellects are bowed down to, or that human reason is 
 deified; but we must not forget that at the close of 
 the last century, when churches were closed and re- 
 ligious worship proscribed, when all religion* teach- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 23 
 
 ing was under the ban of popular anathema, and 
 reason was set up publicly as a goddess, men were 
 shot down and stabbed in the streets of Paris and 
 elsewhere, and this was because reason alone, intel- 
 lect, apart from spirituality, is not capable of saving 
 or redeeming a nation. No one is capable of gov- 
 erning wisely and well unless his reason is married 
 to intuition. Conscience, the moral sense, the divine 
 affection of the spirit, must be the dominating force, 
 or an age of reason is an age without heart. 
 
 Do not think lor a moment that Ave underrate 
 the power of reason, or that we decry the glorious 
 human intellect, or that we undervalue the advan- 
 tages of mental training in colleges and seminaries. 
 But history certainly proves that Greece and Rome fell 
 in spite of their intellect and their wonderfully beauti- 
 ful art, and they fell solely because the people lacked 
 spirituality. Phoenicia, Babylonia, and many another 
 land once bright and glorious, but now desolate heaps of 
 ruin, fell into decay because reason, esoterically speak- 
 ing — man without woman, intellect without soul, 
 brain without conscience — held sway and was idol- 
 ized. All deep thinkers agree that in the present 
 generation if there be no recognition found for some- 
 thing bevond human reason, if nothing above in- 
 tellect is acknowledged, men will become cultured 
 tyrants. 
 
 Mind of man, thou ail no ruler save of the phya 
 body. Reason of man. thou art not the supreme inter- 
 preter of Deity, still thou hast a mission appointed thee 
 
 • >\rvn these Mind of man, wonderful intellect. 
 
 glorious reason, thou art a captain appointed over all 
 
24 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 the bodily functions and carnal appetites and thou must 
 reign supreme over these; but thou hast a Commander, 
 a General, a higher Officer of the army in which thou 
 arc stationed, whom thou must acknowledge as thy 
 Toiler, for with all thy vaunted strength and boasted 
 superiority, thou art the servant of a loftier power, even 
 the power of the soul divine which isthe source even ot 
 thy existence. 
 
 It is the power of soul, of religion pure and unde- 
 filed, of genuine spirituality, of the divine life in man 
 that can alone save and uplift a nation or an individual. 
 
 We care not how distinguished may be halls of 
 learning, how great the dignity of professors of art and 
 literature, or how profound the teachings of the schools, 
 if there be lacking the power of the living spirit, beyond 
 the finite reason, man will not and cannot be perfected, 
 neither can the earth complete the cycle of its changes 
 and arrive at the golden age so long foretold when sick- 
 ness, sin and sorrow will be utterly unknown. 
 
 The mind of man is not the supreme or primal 
 cause; it is a secondary cause, beyond which we ttf 
 the divine soul which is the primal or ultimate atom of 
 life, related to eternity, the one absolute individuality 
 which is your real self and with which you can never 
 part, no matter what lies before you in the way of 
 perience, either in this or any other world. The soul 
 of man has made itself known to the intellect in some 
 measure, but is quite beyond the perception of bodily 
 sense. Scientists are ever searching for the atom which 
 their microscopes have ever failed to find. Intellect, 
 however, is already somewhat conscious of spiritual 
 existence. It dimly apprehends spiritual entities which 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC8. W 2T> 
 
 are immortal, even souls which can never cease to be, 
 for they never began to be. 
 
 The question is often asked, '< Were souls always 
 individual^ Did man always know himself as an indi- 
 vidual spark of divine life?" This question is unanswer- 
 able unless we deal with it problematically; as one of 
 the profoundest questions ever submitted to the intelli- 
 gence of man, philosophy has often answered it in this 
 manner, /. e. through processes of deduction. 
 
 According to the Greek philosophers the soul is 
 eternal. But though the soul has always existed, it may 
 not always have reflected upon its existence as we 
 now reflect. It may have existed as a seed exists 
 before it is sown. It contains, within itself, unex- 
 pressed, all the potentialities of manifested life. What 
 is earthly discipline but the evolution of the mind's 
 reasoning, intellectual and reflective powers? The soul 
 produces a material form in the act of unfolding the 
 attributes always within it. 
 
 Agriculturists know that it is impossible to really 
 create anything, still by planting a certain kind of seed, 
 a certain unfoldment will follow. The germ of a rose 
 will never produce ageranium. Every potentiality or 
 possibility of fruition must inhere in the planted seed, 
 for what is not within, can not be produced by any 
 out ward effort. So with our earthly discipline. AVe see 
 what growth can do for the seed and how that can be 
 made manifest which is already contained in the primal 
 germ. 
 
 Eere we take decided issue with materialists, and 
 challenge all who declare that mind is the product of 
 matter, and human intelligence the result of physical 
 
26 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 organization. But another view of the statement shows 
 us that if mind is the result of physical organization 
 the declaration is proved true that all is mind and there 
 is no matter. If materialism is logical it is only logical 
 on the basis of the most extreme metaphysics, which 
 declare that everything is mind and therefore there is 
 no matter; if so called matter evidences mind, it is not 
 matter but mind in another phase ofexistenc 
 
 Now we all know, that we can not apprehend any- 
 thing except by the use of our mental faculties. Von 
 talk about seeing with the eye ; hut let an eye be taken 
 out of your head, will the eye see anything \ Alter the 
 spirit has left the body, what can eyes behold \ They 
 see nothing, for they are only mediums of communica- 
 tion between two objects both of which exist in mind. 
 If there were no intelligence behind the eye looking 
 through it, or no intelligence beyond the brain, or no 
 connection between that intelligence and the brain, or 
 no connection between the brain and the retina of the 
 eye, or between the retina of the eye and something 
 external to the eye, could there be any perception 
 through an organ of vision? But, you argue, v * we can- 
 not see without eyes." We beg to differ from yon, for 
 we have known many persons physically blind who have 
 seen clearly without bodily eyes; such we appropriately 
 call clairaudients, meaning persons whosee with unusual 
 clearness. If you refer to the experiments of Mesmer 
 and others upon the subject of clairvoyance and clair- 
 audience, and also pay heed to what is constantly t rans- 
 piring at the present time, you will find there are many 
 people who see without a bodily eye, and clairvoyance 
 does not enable persons to come in contact with ideas 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 27 
 
 exclusively, but it also enables them to describe dis- 
 tinctly the color, form and texture of material objects; 
 and clairaudients when physically deaf or with their 
 ears completely stopped up, can hear sounds both near 
 at hand and faraway when there can be no action upon 
 the physical ear, they will often describe sounds per- 
 fectly which are occurring in very distant places and that 
 with perfect accuracy. 
 
 Psychometric experiments prove conclusively that 
 an object placed in the hand, or for that matter upon 
 the back of the neck of a blindfolded person, can be 
 accurately described as to its texture, color, form, 
 dimensions and everything else you term material. 
 There is evidence in the scientiiic world, among many 
 who have not investigated spiritualism, but who have 
 investigated clairvoyance and clairaudience, and have 
 encountered persons gifted with psychometric power, 
 that people constantly hear independently of bodily 
 ears, taste without material palates, smell independent 
 of nostrils, and detect a difference between velvet and 
 
 ie, without coming into any physical contact with 
 either the velvet or the stone. If you investigate psy- 
 chometrv you can abundantly prove that there is in man 
 a (power that works independently) "soul-measuring" 
 of his material body, a power that far transcends it and 
 proves that the spiritual or psychic body is not an 
 unreality, a mere phantasm, but far more real than the 
 fleshly body of man. We declare that the real body of 
 man is spiritual, man's whole nature is spiritual. But 
 when we endeavor to apply the principle of metaph 
 ics to healing mental and bodily infirmities we do not 
 adopt the phraseology of those teachers who say you 
 
28 SPIRITUAL THERArEUTICS. 
 
 can see as well without an eye as with one. We prefer 
 to say yon can see perfectly with your spiritual eye if 
 you have no bodily eye, you can hear perfectly with 
 your spiritual ear if you have no physical ear; there- 
 fore if you lose your physical sight or your whole 
 material body, remember you have a spiritual body, or 
 you may call it, if you chose, an astral body, which is 
 a body that has form, size and dimensions, and which 
 exists in the realm of mind, and is the cause of your 
 material body, and being its predecessor, outlasts it. 
 
 If size appears in outward expression, there is prior 
 size in invisible realms. If there are external dimensions 
 there are dimensions in the realm of their causation, 
 which is the realm of mind. If there are colors in out- 
 ward expression there are colors in spirit Shut your 
 eyes and you can think ofcolors and sounds. Anvtli 
 you can think about has an existence in the realm of 
 thought. If it did not exist in the realm of thought 
 you could not think about it. As everything produced 
 in the material world is the result of thought, mind 
 must necessarily be the power that produces it. Thai 
 which you term matter is only a result of vibrations in 
 lower octaves of the vibrations which bat Swe- 
 
 denborg terms spiritual substance. 
 
 If the soul of man had not an eternal past, it cannot 
 have an eternal future. But if, as we affirm, the soul 
 has always existed in the bosom of the Infinite, if the 
 soul has always been an individual atom in the eternal 
 life, your immortal individuality is secure. Your reflec- 
 tion upon your individuality may have been brought 
 about in time; in time you may have made discover 
 through your intellect, of something you always per- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 29 
 
 ceived in your soul. When the figurative hooks slial! 
 be opened and the soul fully testifies of itself, then will 
 the groat mystery of dual consciousness be explained; 
 then will you understand how you are fully conscious 
 in spirit when quite unconscious of outward things; 
 then will your dream life no longer remain to you a 
 mystery; then will all spiritual experiences glow with 
 the light of complete interpretation, and you will he all 
 aflame with a knowledge of your relation to the Eter- 
 nal. You will then no more bow down before idols of 
 material belief than you would pray to the images of 
 wood and stone worshiped by poor Pagans who know 
 not of life in spirit 
 
 Materialism says life springs from protoplasm. If 
 everything comes from protoplasm, if it be primal, then 
 it is spiritual, but if protoplasm is only another word 
 for spirit, it is improper to employ it because it is mis- 
 leading. Is it not affirmed in the scientific world that 
 the discovery lias been made by Darwin, Spencer and 
 others of a primordial cell from which alllife arises, and 
 that this cell is the same for the monad as for man. the 
 same for the jelly fish or the tadpole as for the philoso- 
 pher? If this be true, we simply exclaim that this 
 primordial cell, representing the absolute primary in the 
 material world, is the primal manifestation of intelli- 
 gence in the realm of effect. All that Darwin or any 
 evolutionist can accomplish is to trace effects to their 
 
 tiling cause, from the circumference inward toward 
 the center. Involution starts at the center. The soul 
 is the center. Protoplasm is toward the circumference. 
 Materialism starts near the circumference and endeavors 
 to find the soul in dust. When you have found the soul 
 
30 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 you will comprehend protoplasm, which is a product, a 
 
 creation by the soul. When you only know protoplasm 
 you can know nothing of the soul, and thus you en- 
 deavor to argue that unconscious dust has evolved spirit, 
 that material atoms have evolved intelligence, and that 
 consequently, on the breaking up of the physical 01 Q 
 ism, the intelligence vanishes, as brightness from a pol- 
 ished shield when dampness approaches it. It goes no- 
 where, you say, whereas, from the standpoint of spirit, 
 there is found an adequate and satisfactory solution for 
 every material phenomena, while from the standpoint 
 of materialism consciousness is an utterly miraculous 
 phenomenon, 
 
 In the realm of spirit the soul is the acknowledged 
 creator of its expressions. Tin and center of all is 
 
 the divine life. In the divine life there is perfect rest, 
 forit is absolute being. Divinelife is the only center of 
 the wheel of life. All revolutions are around thai center, 
 and no matter how rapidly the wheel may rotate, the 
 center is always calm. Promtheinmosl center, which is 
 the divine cause, to the outermost effect, or circumfer- 
 ence of the wheel, life is made manifest through the 
 descent of spirit (involution) and the ascent of matter 
 (evolution). 
 
 We believe in the gradual development of species, 
 in the ascent of the body of man; but this is a result of 
 the descent of spirit. When spiritual d< and 
 
 material ascent are understood by being studied to- 
 gether; when spiritually minded profess* involu- 
 tion enlighten professors of evolution, light from the 
 realm of causation— which is spiritual— will make com- 
 prehensible the realm of effect, which is termed mate- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPETJTK 3< 
 
 rial. Then instead of supposing that you are mere 
 creatures of dust, or that a handful of dust has evolved 
 an immortal soul; instead of dreaming- that matter lias 
 been refining itself age after age until from uncon- 
 scious dust a conseious soul has been at length pro- 
 luced; itetead of imagining that everlasting life may be 
 the result of an evolution from unconscious molecules, 
 you will understand that from eternal life, wherein ever 
 exists the soul, hasevery outward expression proceeded. 
 Man, then, instead of claiming relationship to dust will 
 claim relationship to Deity. 
 
 It is manifestly absurd to argue that effects are 
 greater than causes, and works greater than their maker. 
 If you are superior to every other form of life on the 
 planet then your soul may have been a world builder, 
 as in ages gone by the triumphant souls called in the 
 Hebrew Scriptures " Elohim" the angels who shouted 
 for joy at the completion of the external world, may 
 have lived on earths long since depopulated and out- 
 grown. Those angels must have been souls who had for 
 
 s been ascending the ladder of progress, who, from 
 their glorious homes in spirit, may have caused their 
 thoughts to have assumed form upon earth, creation 
 may have therefore been — as one of the Hebrew accounts 
 declares — the work of the "Elohim." 
 
 The soul is the creator of all material things. In 
 spiritual life you may change your spiritual bodies 
 you change your material forms on earth ; you will 
 graduate to higher and ever higher forms of expression; 
 you will accrete to you thought essences from the 
 spiritual atmosphere, and finally, expression in all its 
 outward forms having been fulfilled, the soul will know 
 itself as conqueror over all. 
 
32 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 A period will arrive when you will be able to pro- 
 duce any form you please; when upon the wii 
 thought you will pass from planet to planet as easily 
 as birds navigate the air or lish swim in water. As rap- 
 idly as your thought can move from one country 
 another, and from one star to another, dbes^our soul 
 pass from point to point in the boundless univei 
 
 When your eves are opened to the sublimities of 
 eternity there will appear to you no longer any vacuum 
 or void, no interstellar spares in the universe Win 
 now you imagine there is no life, you will find orders 
 upon orders of intelligences, homes and habital 
 spirit, all the universe being filled with thought and its 
 expressions. Then when you have attained to the 
 glorious states which hold sway over all planetary 
 bodies, you will know the material center of gravity 
 on any earth is but the outermost expression of 
 thought, what you now term most real is only the II 
 in g shadow — the world of outward sense being phan- 
 tasmagoric, while the world of son! is alone real and 
 eternal. 
 
 Spencer says the origin of life is unknowable, and 
 therefore he would notdaretocall itmateriaL Matthew 
 Arnold speaks of an eternal energy; t ; 
 tronomers, geologists and chemists that have ever lived 
 have bowed reverently before the Divine ( )ver soul and 
 have acknowledged matter as only an expression of in- 
 finite intelligence. 
 
 Behind all phenomena is God. Man can never J>e 
 educated out of his intuitive belief in spirit. When you 
 are prepared for the teachings angels are ready to give, 
 when minds on earth are prepared to receive such in- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 33 
 
 struct ions, you will listen to glowing words of truth 
 vibrating from celestial homes through this earth's at 
 mosphere, filling your minds with truth eternal, giving 
 
 you perfect knowledge of spirit. Spiritual involution 
 will completely account for earthly evolution. Darwin 
 may yet descend from the realm of spirit to write an- 
 other ** Origin of Species " in which you will find stated 
 the descent o( spirit as the all sufficient cause of the 
 _nt of life through material form. 
 
LESSON III. 
 
 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST, THE ONLY BEGOTTEN BOH 01 OOD 
 
 THE ESSENTIAL AND THE HISTORICAL CIIKIST OOH- 
 
 TRASTED. 
 
 IF OUR conceptions of the Christ do not harmon 
 with the theological opinions of any persons who 
 peruse this volume, they will please to remember thai 
 do not consider the holding of our views upon thedivin- 
 ity of Christ as necessary to anyone's salvation, and 
 therefore if you entertain views different from ours, 
 cording to the spiritual philosophy we are endeavoring 
 to inculcate, you stand as good a chance of salvation, 
 both in this world and in that which is to coin.. 
 though your views were precisely the same as ours. 
 Now, belief rests upon evidence; no intelligent person 
 can believe anything without sufficient evidence. If you 
 believe in the presence of any materia 1 object it is because 
 you rely upon the evidence of } T our bodily senses; and he- 
 fore you believe in the truth of any doctrine, it must be 
 submitted to your intellect for consideration. Spiritual 
 truth appeals to your conscience or moral sense and 
 thus summons as its witness the divinest element of 
 your being. When conclusions are arrived at by any 
 speaker, writer, philosopher, or school of thought which 
 are at variance with truth as it appeals to your inch 
 
 34 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 35 
 
 vidua! mind, you are not only not bound to agree with 
 such teaching, but you are bound in duty, reason, and 
 justice to disagree; we may, however, agree to disagree, 
 or, more properly, to differ. Now, we regard all phases 
 of human thought and feeling as natural expressions of 
 human intelligence, and as doctrines concerning Deity, 
 the divinity of Christ, the personality of the Holy 
 Spirit, trinity in unity and unity in trinity, besides other 
 kindred theological themes, too numerous to mention, 
 may be justly catalogued among the most difficult prob- 
 lems which can be presented to the human mind for solu- 
 tion, the wonder is rather that there are comparatively 
 so few differences in the world, than that there are so 
 many; the wonder is that there are so few sects in 
 Christendom rather than that there are so many; for 
 though there are perhaps three hundred distinct Chris- 
 tian sects, the majority of the sects are, broadly speaking, 
 orthodox, as they agree to accept the divinity of Jesus, 
 and the Trinity or tri-personality of God, even though 
 all contend also for the divine unity. 
 
 Universalists, and particularly Unitarians, have de- 
 parted from the orthodox standard of Christendom by 
 
 itively affirming that Jesus, though possibly supe- 
 rior to ail other men, was still only a man, and though 
 the son of God, in the sense of being peculiarly divine 
 through the nobility and purity of his nature, is not 
 
 d the Son. If you are acquainted with church his- 
 tory you are well aware that Servetus was put to death 
 at the instigation of Calvin, because he would not 
 acknowledge the incarnation of God in Jesus and 
 persisted that Jesus was only the son of God while 
 Calvin insisted that Jesus was God the Son ; when 
 
36 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 preparation was complete for the burning of that 
 noble martyr, Calvin stood ready to doom his soul and 
 body to everlasting flames because of this difference in 
 theological opinion. The friends who gathered around 
 Servetus urged him to confess that Jesus was God the 
 Son, but he consistently prayed, "Jesus, thou son of 
 the living God, have mercy upon me." That prayer, 
 he knew, would not suffice, to save him from a terrible 
 martyrdom; hemustsay "Jesus, thou Son of the living 
 God," no longer, but " Jesus, the living God," or there 
 could be no sal vat ion for him, either in this world or 
 any other. He expired refusing to comply, and thus 
 allowed himself to be offered as a holocaust to theo- 
 logical intolerance. 
 
 Now, as the doctrine of the absolute deity of Jesus 
 is entirely distinct from the simple doctrine of his 
 divinity, imury people declare their belief in the divin- 
 ity of mankind, in the divinity of natural law . and yel 
 do notmean that they believe in the deity of man or of 
 natural law; the word divine does no1 necessarily mean 
 deific, "deific," being a very much higher word in 
 theological parlance than "divine.' 1 The divine son] in 
 man is shared by all humanity, almost all philosophers 
 believe in a divine human soul. Esoteric Buddhists call 
 it Atma, and designate it the seventh principle. The 
 divine soul is superior to the spiritual soul, and again 
 thehuman soul is superior to the animal soul, in Buddhis- 
 tic theosophy. In the first chapter of the fourth Gob- 
 pel, we are introduced to a learned dissertation upon 
 the Logos or divine Word; the Gnostics of the early 
 Christian Church declared the Logos to be the in- 
 dwelling word, revealing the will or law of God in 
 
SPIRITUAL TIlEKArKT'IK -. 37 
 
 every human heart. Now it is quite possible to inter 
 pret the divine sonship of Jesus in such a light as to in- 
 clude the divine sonship of all humanity. And while 
 departing from the ordinary theological standards and 
 rejecting- the canons of interpretation which are re- 
 garded as alone sound in the orthodox Christian world, 
 we may profitably interpret the Gospel of John as a 
 spiritual disquisition concerning the spiritual nature of 
 the universe and man, rathei than as a historical 
 narrative. Let us remove this subject entirely out of 
 that petty, arbitrary and quarrelsome realm, to which, 
 unfortunately, it is so often degraded, and from the noble 
 height of spiritual contemplation see Jesus standing 
 before us not as a mythical personage, or a solar myth, nor 
 as a man mysteriously endowed with a nature foreign 
 to that of all other human beings, but as one who has 
 run the race which we are now engaged in running, 
 won the prize for which we are now fighting, already 
 wearing the crown which shall forever rest upon the 
 brow of each of you when you have accomplished your 
 spiritual warfare as he long ago accomplished his. 
 
 Jesus in history represents whoever has overcome 
 the world; he says to his disciples, " Be of good cheer, 
 I have overcome the world." If he has overcome the 
 world you also will overcome,! >ecause he has overcome 
 it; because he lives you will live also; because he has 
 entered into the heavens you will also enter into them ; 
 because he has ascended to his Father, who is also your 
 
 ther, therefore you will ak ad. 
 
 Thus in the true light in which the New Testament 
 story presents Jesus to mankind, he does not stand to 
 us in the relation of an incarnate deity, a super angelic 
 
38 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 personage, or one belonging to a divine order of beings 
 altogether separated from humanity, but lie appears 
 simply in the light of one who has graduated with the 
 highest honors from the school of earthly discipline, 
 one who has learned every lesson that can be learned 
 on this planet, one who has completed the circle of 
 embodiments on this orb, one who has passed beyond 
 the need of further discipline, and has therefore en- 
 tered that realm of absolute spiritual being which is the 
 true home of every soul. 
 
 Now, many say, is it not strange thai oul of the 
 records of past history you should be able to gather 
 sufficient materials for an ideal character! [snot our 
 ideal in the future rather than in the past i Is not the 
 glorious Eden-time in advance instead of in the rear? Is 
 it not true that to-morrow will surpa > in spirit- 
 
 ual advancement? Is not to-day in advano iter- 
 
 day? In affirming that one who lived 1,800 or 1,900 
 years ago had already attained to spiritual perfection, 
 are you not denying evolution, which demonstrates an 
 incessant improvement of species and progress of man- 
 kind? 
 
 We answer, we are not denying advancement in any 
 sense; but the progress of universal mankind has certainly 
 been indicated or outlined by the special attainments 
 of exceptional Messiahs or Avatars who have blessed 
 the world in ancient days, souls who have periodically 
 visited like spiritual comets different nations of earth, 
 wandering like spiritual stars over the spiritual firma- 
 ment of many climes, in many ages, prophesying of 
 universal human attainment. 
 
 Occasionally upon the tree of human life a fruit has 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 appeared fully ripened ; that thoroughly ripened speci- 
 men has been gathered into the celestial kingdom ; the 
 remainder of the fruit is yet green. Here and 
 there in life's harvest held a golden sheaf has fully 
 ripened, and that sheaf has been gathered in. Those 
 ripened sheaves are first fruits, which have already 
 been waved in the temple as an earnest of the abundant 
 harvests which are to follow. 
 
 jus attained to perfection; he expired physically 
 upon the cross with the words upon his lips, "It is fin- 
 ished;" and you realize that the majority of human 
 being's pass away with the thought in their minds, kk my 
 work is unfinished," they feeling almost invariably that 
 there is much work for them still to do, and if they 
 could only live their life over they could improve that 
 life in every respect. A great deal of the fear of 
 death, of reluctance or unwillingness to take the step 
 into the unseen state is occasioned by a reeling that 
 earthly tasks are not finished, duties appear unfulfilled, 
 conquests yet need to be won, many talents have not 
 been utilized. In contrast to all this, can you not imagine 
 something of the glory of a soul that can pass from 
 earth exclaiming, "My work is finished?" Not fin- 
 ished for eternity, but finished for time; not finished 
 with regard to all the blazing worlds in space, but iin_ 
 ished with regard to this planet; not finished in re. 
 
 1 to my total spiritual mission, which will occupy 
 me throughout eternity, but perfectly finished with 
 
 d to this planet. Jesus is reported to have said, 
 " For a certain cause came 1 into the world.'' lie 
 
 ared he could not leave the world until this work 
 was done. lie stands before us all in hist < perfect 
 
 representation of human perfection. 
 
40 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 You who have studied " The Light of Asia" as 
 interpreted to Englishspeaking readers by Edwin 
 Arnold in his charming poem bearing this title, or 
 "the Great Renunciation," will remember that Buddha 
 attained to Nirvana, or the state of absolute spiritual 
 blessedness (perfect oneness with Deity) before he 
 quitted the material form. This leads us to ask, [sit not 
 possible in this earthly school that once in a while a 
 scholai should graduate with highesl possible bono 
 That once in a while we should behold a foregleam of 
 the utmost possibilities of humanity? Is it not possible 
 that here and there some great and regal spirit should 
 appear before you and willingly take upon himself 
 all material discipline in order that humanity may be 
 uplifted, and then discover at last that there is no vica- 
 rious atonement in the orthodox Bense of the term, 
 but that every one who willingly lavs down his life for 
 another's good lays it down Tor himself as well as for 
 others? The greatest difficulty which lias ever be- 
 set theological controversialists is the difficulty of vica- 
 rious suffering. Now we all see that there is much 
 vicarious suffering in the world. Many sutler for the 
 good of others. Martyrshave been put to death and 
 many future generations have been benefited by their 
 martyrdom. Warriors and soldiers have willingly shed 
 the lastdropof their life blood for their countrymen, and 
 their patriotism has been rewarded in the salvation of 
 the nation for which they died. But if you follow 
 such into spiritual life you will find that no deed of her- 
 oism, no act of patriotism, no willingness to suffer for 
 the sake of humanity has ever left the sufferers unre- 
 warded, Each soul has suffered for its own advance- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 41 
 
 ment, even though unacknowledged, as well as for 
 others; and in enduring suffering with no thought of 
 self, heroes have reached the sublimest heights of unself- 
 ishness and are thereby placed above all need Tor fur- 
 ther encounter with difficulty for the last demon you 
 have to conquer is selfishness; the last enemy you must 
 put under your feet is the devil of personal pride and 
 human ambition ; the last sin that is finally dislodged 
 from the human breast is the love of one's self more 
 than one's neighbor. When divine love for humanity 
 is fully manifest in any individual, when any are will- 
 ing to lay down their life for the world regardless of 
 consequences to themselves, not looking for happiness 
 hereafter or thinking anything about reward, but only 
 tiring to work for humanity, demanding no recom- 
 pense, doing good for the love of it — when any soul 
 reaches such a point in its advancement, we care not 
 whether the man or woman is an avowed atheist or 
 theist, whether the mind is spiritualistic or materialistic 
 in its external proclivities, we care not whether such are 
 members of any church or advocates of any religious 
 tern they may worship in a cathedral or in the open 
 air,orthey may not recognize that there is anyneed for 
 outward worship in the universe; we care not whether 
 such individuals sat on thrones on earth or begged 
 bread from door to door, in such do we behold a true 
 manifestation of divine life. 
 
 True spirituality is not a question of head, brain or 
 intellect, neither is it one of theology, or of belief in a 
 life to come. It is altogether a question of beingso truly 
 imbued with divine life that you love a million of your 
 neighbors a million times better than you love yours 
 
42 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 If you love each of your neighbors as well as you love 
 yourself, you must love two neighbors twice as well as 
 yourself, and the great bulk of humanity as many tin 
 better than you love yourself, as the mass contains 
 more units than one. 
 
 As the bulk of humanity is composed of units, each 
 one must be as valuable as yourself in the gighl of the 
 Eternal and you are not established fully in truth till 
 you look at humanity from the divine standpoint. 
 
 There is certainly in history an ideal life, and we 
 do not hesitate to affirm that no one could ever have 
 written the life of a nobler man than ever lived, for 
 had there been no materials to furnish the story tl • 
 could have been no record. You can not portraya char- 
 acter nobler than your own conception of it. You can 
 not paint a picture beyond your highest conception of 
 art. You can not compose music transcending your high- 
 est genius. If there is a lack anywhere it is always in 
 the outward form, for this can not surpass what is in 
 the author's mind. The author's mind is, however, fre- 
 quently above the book he writes. Therefore if an 
 author presents you with a hero who dazzles you by 
 the splendor of his soul, that hero whose life is written 
 is not so great a hero as the hero who was an actual 
 reality to the author. If anyone sinus a song evei 
 divinely, that song is not so divine in its rendition as 
 it is in the spirit that is beyond all outward interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 So, wlien, after reading a life of Buddha or of Jesus 
 the Christ, you have asked, "But did such a man 
 Buddha ever exist? Was thereever anyone on earth so 
 good as he? Anyone who voluntarily gave up all the 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 4^ 
 
 splendors of an empire to identify himself with Buffer* 
 
 ing humanity i Was there ever anyone so pure as J< 
 ui Nazareth I" 
 
 The answer is emphatically yes. The theory that 
 Jesus is a solar myth and the twelve apostles twelve 
 
 is of the zodiac, is utterly inadequate to account for 
 the moral and spiritual side of the narrative as all rea- 
 sonable people must be well aware. We admit that in 
 ancient days the sun was the chosen symbol of divine 
 life and Light; but when the Egyptians paid adoration 
 to the god of day they did not according to esoteric 
 teachings, bow before the material orb Ave call the sun, 
 but before the mighty angel Osiris, who dwelt in the 
 sun. And when they turned their eyes in worship to 
 Alcyone the center of the Pleiades they declared that 
 central orb in the universe to be the abode of the high- 
 est intelligence which could be made manifest to human 
 comprehension. 
 
 Solar worship was not idolatry, not materialism, but 
 sprang from recognition of every world in space being 
 the result of spiritual laws and operations. When you 
 turn your eyes to the spheres above you, contemplate 
 the stars, and strive to number the constellated worlds 
 shining in the midnight heavens, each star a sun blazing 
 forth in glory with planets and satellites revolving 
 around it in the depths of space, remember thatth 
 not the only inhabited world; we are not the only oon- 
 
 ras intelligent beings looking out upon the glorious 
 night. Ev( r and i am is, was. or will be 
 
 inhabited, e itellite bears some form of life, and 
 
 ..random 1 of the sun, the majesty 
 the planet, or the development of the satellite is the 
 loped life there 
 
14 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 When the old system of solar worship, which a large 
 number of people are to-day bringing forward as proof 
 that there was no personal Christ, no personal Buddha, 
 no personal Osiris, no living Messiahs and Avatars in 
 ancient days is understood and interpreted in the light 
 of the spirit, it will be found to mean nexl to nothing 
 of what it is supposed to mean by the school of Dnpuis 
 and others who declare it to be nothing bey ond exter- 
 nal worship of celestial orbs. Every world is a mani- 
 festation of mind. Ina higher stage of the world's de- 
 velopment men will be able to navigate the air, and even- 
 tually on wings of spirit to pass from planet t<> planet. 
 Observatories will some day be erected upon earth's 
 hilltops, and there, by means of powerful instruments of 
 observation, entirely unknown to you and impossible in 
 your present state of development, you will behold the 
 condition of other worlds and know absolutely of this 
 earth's relation to other realms in space; you will at 
 length perceive those who at the close of any cycle li, 
 passed on (numbering 144,000, in mystical Apocalyptic 
 numeration), have passed from the earth to the next 
 planet. It is to the planet Mars that you must turn to- 
 day for illumination from those who have graduated 
 from the earth and have passed to comparatively celes- 
 tial states. 
 
 We introduce these remarks into this lesson because 
 of the opportunity they afford for reconciling what a 
 great many people imagine to be irreconcilable state- 
 ments concerning the rise and fall of nations. We tell 
 you the very ground upon which you now tread was 
 once occupied by intellectual giants in comparison to 
 which you are pigmies; that the civilization of pre- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPBUTK IT) 
 
 historic California was far beyond its civilization to-day, 
 and that when through natural changes wrought byup- 
 heavals on the Pacific Slope, ancient centers of civiliza- 
 tion were entombed, the immortalized inhabitants hav- 
 ing developed out of material conditions passed on to 
 the next planet, and now shine down upon you from the 
 sphere of Mars. 
 
 Whenever one cycle of advancement is completed 
 anywhere a new era commences. The future of tin's 
 
 Id will witness the absolute spiritualization of the 
 entire earth. The future golden age will include in its 
 blessings every human being. The culminations of the 
 most exalted prophesy, will be seen in the perfection of 
 the entire planet and all upon it. In the past, here 
 and there, there have been seen expressions of what 
 the world and humanity will at length attain to, and 
 
 se expressions have been the essential Christ within 
 humanity revealing itself externally. Many per- 
 constantly use the word God in reading the Bible 
 though there were only one original equivalent for God, 
 whereas every one who can interpret Scripture with the 
 light thrown upon it by an accurate knowledge of 
 
 brew, understands that the word God is used in 
 three if not more senses. You are told that no man 
 hath seen God at any time. God in this place means 
 the Eternal One, the Infinite Being who is utterly in- 
 visible and beyond all outward recognition. You are 
 told in the first and second commandments of the deo- 
 
 jue that there is no form known to man which may 
 be tern i of God, you conclude then, God is 
 
 not in human form, because if God were in human 
 form then the form of God would be known. God the 
 
46 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 Eternal, self-existent Being has never been seen by 
 man, the form of God is not known. Madam Blavat- 
 sky in her "Isis Unveiled " comes much nearer to a 
 correct interpretation of the highest thought concerning 
 Deity than do those whose theology is protrayed by 
 Gustave Dore in his celebrated picture of the Trinity, 
 which represents God as an older man, a younger man 
 and a dove. The older man is called the Father, the 
 younger man the Son, and thedovethe Holy Spirit. In 
 an eternal trinity there oa/n be no senior and junior per- 
 sons, but there can be an older and a newer manifesta- 
 tion of God; thus in a secondary sense a conception of 
 God in human form is not inaccurate as the Infinite 
 Being is revealed to man through humanity and can be 
 revealed in no other manner. 
 
 In an inferior sense the word God has been used to 
 signify a mighty angel, the ruler of the planet. Th< 
 fore though God the Eternal has never been seen by 
 man, the representative or messenger of Deity, the 
 special angel who reveals God to the world has been 
 seen. In a third and yet lower sense of the word God, 
 you read in the New Testament that they were called 
 gods upon whom the spirit of God came; in ancient 
 days they were also called sons of God and sons of 
 God were often called gods. In early chapters of the 
 Bible yon are told that sons of God inter-married with 
 daughters of men. Who were these sons of God \ They 
 were members of those ancient orders at the head of 
 which stood the order of Melchisidec, sons of light, or 
 sons of the sun, they were called in ancient Egypt. 
 Now if those peculiarly endowed and highly privile^d 
 persons inter-married with earthly women, not for the 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPBUTT IT 
 
 purpose of spiritually refining thorn but for purposes of 
 material gratification, those who belonged to the higher 
 orders inspirit degraded themselves without elevating 
 
 those with whom they became united. The fallen ;in- 
 3 of theology are only those who were appointed to 
 a higher mission, but fell through false ambition, while 
 the unf alien are those commissioned with a divine and 
 glorious authority who have been faithful to their trust 
 and never diverged in the slightest degree from that 
 high and holy mission appointed them 
 
 Two Adams appear in the Bible— a first Adam and 
 vond Adam. One Adam is o( the earth earthy, 
 the Adam who fell is called the first Adam, while the 
 Adam who restored the loss caused by the fall of the 
 first is called in the New Testament the second Adam. 
 Christ is called the second Adam, but Christ esoterically 
 means the higher principle in man which redeems the 
 lower. Now the Adam of early days interpreted spir- 
 itually signifies the human soul in its primal innocence, 
 hut the soul in a condition of ignorance, not yet having 
 encountered the trials and temptations of earth. This 
 be may he termed celestial infancy, spiritual baby- 
 hood ; and is like to a child reclining upon the mother's 
 pure and spotless. You call it an immaculate 
 little darling, not knowing the difference between right 
 and wrong, or good and evil, but while you cannot 
 attribute sin to the child, still do you wish your child to 
 remain a child forever? The child must grow up to 
 man's or woman's estate, must go out into the world 
 and encounter every form of temptation, for it is temp- 
 tation that tries the power of the spirit. Therefore 
 when upon the height.- of Calvary, Jesus with triumph 
 
48 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 exclaims, "It is finished/' and he is identified with 
 the second Adam, he represents the soul that has 
 finished its earthly course, having put matter with all 
 its temptations forever beneath his feet. The soul which 
 has vanquished every earthly trial and arisen victorious 
 on the wings of spiritual effort and self sacrifice is 
 above the need of painful discipline forever after. 
 
 The Christ of history and theology is more than 
 the personal Jesus, being the representative of ideal- 
 ized and glorified humanity. What Jesus has already 
 become you will all in future ages attain unto. 
 
 The divine Logos or Word is "The light that en- 
 lighteneth every man that cometh into the world/' 
 and is therefore not a person but the spiritual prin- 
 ciple in humanity which personality must at length 
 make manifest. 
 
 Now, if the divine Word were confined to the 
 personal Jesus, how could it illumine every man that 
 cometh into the world? If salvation depended upon 
 knowledge of a personal Christ, since Jesus was on 
 earth but thirty-three years at one period in the 
 world's history, it would be utterly impossible for 
 hundreds of millions of human beings to be saved, 
 because they could have no opportunity of knowing 
 that such a person as Jesus ever lived. Bishop Thorn 
 an eminent Methodist, has declared that he does not 
 believe in the necessary damnation of the heathen, 
 and says he could not carry any Christianity to the 
 heathen if he felt that Christianity compelled him 
 to teach such an infamous doctrine as the damna- 
 tion of the heathen, who had no opportunity to be 
 saved. This view may be regarded as representative 
 
SriRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 49 
 
 of all enlightened Christian teaching, which is to the 
 effect that only willful rejection of truth is an on- 
 pardonable offense. 
 
 Bat if belief in an individual Christ is not neces- 
 sary to the redemption of the world, if heathens and 
 Jews can be saved as well as Christians, if fifohame- 
 dans and Buddhists can go into the Kingdom of 
 Heaven together, then what is essential to salvation! 
 
 The essential Christ is the divine life within you, 
 your own divine soul, which is the candle of the 
 Lord burning upon the candlestick of your moral 
 nature; and. as salvation does not depend upon be- 
 lief in historical records, neither upon trust in a per- 
 son, it does depend upon following this divine light. 
 And, as salvation depends entirely upon following 
 the divine light, you can readily understand how 
 Jesus taught a gospel totally distinct from that gos- 
 pel in which his name has been disfigured instead 
 of glorified by popular Christianity. Jesus said, 
 Many shall say to him at the judgment, " Lord % 
 L<>,<1" who will not enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 The only passport into the Kingdom of Heaven is 
 the passport of charity, morality and justice expressed 
 by ministering to one's fellow beings. Surely an Athe- 
 ist can feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give conso- 
 lation to the sick and distressed and visit those in prison. 
 Does nol Jesus say those who have done these thii 
 shall be upon the right hand, those who have not shall 
 be upon the left. 
 
 The way of salvation laid down by the gospel proves 
 that a true following of Christ signifies becoming imbued 
 
50 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 with the spirit of truth in love. It is utterly apart 
 from theological controversy, and depends solely on 
 following the divine voice within the souL 
 
 We declare there is no one upon earth who lias not 
 the divine candle within; no one who has not heard the 
 voice of the true Christ; no one who has not been ap- 
 pealed to by the angel side of his own nature; no one 
 who is not invited to become a member of the body of 
 Christ. When Paul said there are many members but 
 one body, and even so is the Christ, did he not say that 
 the Christ was the compact body, the spiritual organiza- 
 tion of true, tried and faithful soulsl 
 
 Jesus may have represented the head to Paul, 
 Buddha representing the head to many Asiatics; Osiris 
 may have represented the head to tin 4 ancient Egyptians 
 in some older dispensation scarcely known to history; 
 other lights whose names are unrecorded may have 
 represented the Christ to those who lived in prehistoric 
 antiquity; still the Christ ever represents the sphere of 
 perfected souls, and the light shines down from the 
 celestial heavens pulsing ever earthward until it reaches 
 to the outermost boundaries of human perception. The 
 Christ of antiquity, the spiritually endowed, the truth- 
 bringer, the truth-teller is not confined to person or to 
 age but is the one divine life made manifest to all hu- 
 manity. 
 
 "We do not urge upon any one to accept a historical 
 manifestation of Christ if they have difficulty in doing 
 so on account of the paucity of evidence. No one should 
 be required to accept anything as spiritual truth which 
 hisown soulisnot capable of discovering for itself. Ex- 
 ternal authority must be displaced in favor of interior 
 conviction. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 51 
 
 We are often asked concerning the position of Jesus 
 in the spiritual world. We state that it lias been given 
 to earth on the testimony of the most exalted intelli- 
 
 ices who have ever communicated with man, that 
 Jesus occupies, as an individual soul, a place of peculiar 
 exaltation in the spiritual heavens overshadowing the 
 earth. If many do not know of Jesus in spirit life, 
 they are simply in ignorance concerning him. But we 
 would urge upon you all when dealing with communi- 
 cations of a negative character, no matter where they 
 come from, to remember that negative testimony is not 
 accepted in any court of law, only affirmative testimony 
 is considered of value. If one honorable, upright person 
 whose word need not be doubted, goes into court and 
 states that he knows such and such a thing to be true, 
 the testimony of that one person is considered of in- 
 finitely more value than the negative utterance of a 
 million persons, who know nothing whatever of the 
 matter under consideration. If one person, whose 
 veracity is unquestioned positively affirms anything, 
 his testimony is accepted and from it jury and judge 
 alike consider and decide. Soit is ever with regard to 
 spiritual truth and the higher aspects of spiritual teach- 
 ing; not what the majority do not know, but what the 
 minority know and are able to impart intelligently is the 
 measure of spiritual truth favorably considered by an in- 
 telligent community. 
 
 We have encountered many — yes, we say "many" 
 
 advisedly — who have absolute knowledge that Jesus 
 
 now exists in the spiritual world and that he is an ex- 
 
 m not then be SO foolish as to say that 
 
 he does not exist, which would be equivalent to putting 
 
52 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 out our own spiritual eyes because somebody else can not 
 see, or destroying our own spiritual ears because some 
 body else can not hear. 
 
 True charity demands no false compromises. We 
 cannot depend for evidence upon what is not known 
 or not revealed; but all should be ever on the alert al 
 all times and everywhere to receive the very utmost 
 that can be received from the spiritual heavens within 
 and without man on earth. 
 
 The gospel of Jesus stands, however, without refer- 
 ence to his personality as the very highesl truth ever 
 embodied in literature. We can surely all maintain that 
 if we live in accordance with that gospel, obey tl 
 precepts, and conduct commercial transactions in har- 
 mony with the Golden Rule, the world will soon become 
 a paradise. We would rejoice to sec merchants put it 
 to the test, and then give an opinion. The trouble 
 between labor and capital is all because the Golden 
 Rule is not obeyed. There can be no settlement in 
 case of strikes and other labor agitation favorable to both 
 sides and to all humanity until the Golden Rule solves 
 the problem of labor and its relation to capital. 
 
 The deepest significance of the Golden Rule is, that 
 you feel toward others as you would have others feel 
 toward you, but there are unfortunately a large num- 
 ber of people who are willing to let their religion lie in 
 the realm of sentiment without putting it into practice 
 such people will readily say, "Oh, yes, you should fed 
 kindly toward evey one," but while they accept truth, 
 theoretically, they are not willing to translate it into 
 action. Jesus found this condition among the people 
 whom he distinctly taught that sentiment was not suf- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUT1 
 
 ficient, religion must be taken oat of the realm of sen- 
 timent and become a part of every-day life, the high- 
 est spiritual convictions are useless until practiced. 
 Jesus practically interpreted convictions in this life, 
 and thus earned immortal qualities. 
 
 Because Jesus is the son of God is no proof that 
 others are not sons of God. Because lighl shone in 
 Palestine 2,000 years ago is no proof that there 
 can not he a spiritual revelation in this day or in future 
 tim- 
 
 We maintain that the teachings attributed to Jons 
 are intrinsically valuable. We do not care whether 
 they were uttered by him in Palestine 2,000 years 
 
 i or in an ante-deluvian country 20,000 years a 
 If the»teachings now on record arc put in practice the 
 world will be saved and redeemed, and if those teach- 
 ings are not practiced all the belief in the world, all 
 the baptism in the world, all the reception of sacra- 
 ments, all the preaching possible will fail to redeem 
 humanity. You must eat and drink spiritual truth. 
 Fou must eat the flesh and drink the blood — that is, 
 your daily life must become one with that spirit of 
 truth which was made specially manifest in the higher 
 
 nei's of humanity. 
 
 Jesus as an historical pers we decidely be] 
 
 in as one who lived in harmony with the highest law ; 
 and the same highest law is now in existence — the law 
 of love. The highest teachings now given to the world, 
 are in response to human needs. Let there be no 1 
 tility between Jew and gentile; no dispute as to 
 whether Moses or Jesus are personages, the teaching 
 true in principle, inspirit it is now here and can stand 
 upon its merit. Whatever bas demerit must fall. I 
 
54 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC-. 
 
 of inherent inperfection and from no other cause. 
 Carping critics who cannot interpret the beauty and 
 sublimity of the gospel would pick Haws in the charac- 
 ter of an angel far more quickly than in an ordinary 
 mortal, because angelical dispositions are not bo much 
 in harmony with their affections. Every one admires 
 most whatever is most in accord with his own standard 
 of excellence; and as every one lias a standard of his 
 own you must perceive the highest standard in order 
 to truly admire the highest teachings. Therefore it is 
 a compliment to Jesus, to the gospel and to all highest 
 expressions of spiritual truth when sensual people 
 throw dust and discredit upon them. Was there evei 
 amartyr or reformer, man or woman, who stood above 
 the age, who was not persecuted by those wh# could 
 not comprehend them? They who have lived in advance 
 of their time have ever been termed in league with 
 Satan. Because Jesus proclaimed the higher truth ho 
 was said to be under the influence of Beelzebub, the 
 prince of Devils. Later on Galileo and Copernicus 
 were called fools and fanatics, so with all great reform- 
 ers and inventors; until the world has grown up to their 
 plane of thought it reviles them. Spiritual truths are 
 often under a ban, but truth must conquer, and that 
 perfect light which is in each one, the ideal life will 
 eventually include in its embrace the entire family of 
 man. Then will the great body of the Christ be 
 vealed. Then will all be one in spirit and at length 
 visibly constitute one great united family. 
 
 Personalities will no longer be objects of worship, 
 but the perfection of spirit made manifest through all 
 mankind will constitute the perfect coming of the 
 Christ in the ultimation of God's kingdom upon earth. 
 
LESSOX IV, 
 
 EVIL AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 THE following discourse is in answer to numerous 
 questions concerning- the Devil, evil spirits, demon- 
 iacal possession, obsession, causes of insanity and many 
 subjects of like nature concerning which we have been 
 literally deluged with inquiries. We trust the reader 
 will find in the next few pages a reasonable exposition 
 of our view of evil and its remedy. 
 
 That belief in an outside devil or in some evil spirits 
 exterior to man, is widespread none will deny, and that 
 there is, in a certain sense, valid ground for supposing 
 the existence of extraneous diabolical agencies scarcity 
 needs arguing; at the same time we can not see how 
 any theory of a personal devil can help to solve the 
 great problem of the ages, the mystery of seeming evil. 
 The very watchword of metaphysicians is," All is good ; 
 there is no evil,'' and so startling is this affirmation to 
 s of many, that, having heard it proclaimed, they 
 turn away in resentment from the only system of 
 thought which can possibly explain the riddle of exist- 
 ence in harmony with the idea of infinite love and wis- 
 dom as supreme in the univer 
 
 Nov. very many orthodox or semi-orthodox persons 
 who can not endorse Calvinism with its frightful doe- 
 trine of election and reprobation, endeavor to explain 
 
 55 
 
56 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 the existence of evil in man by reference to an outside 
 prince of darkness, who injects evil and irreverent 
 thoughts into the human mind. They consider it fearful 
 to contemplate evil as inherent in man. Their view of 
 human natuue is too bright and lenient to permit of their 
 attributing evil to man directly. They therefore indulge 
 in the subterfuge of a scape-goat, and argue from 
 Scripture, poetry and philosophy to prove the exist- 
 ence of a veritable personal devil, whose maiueuvers 
 are so incessant and effectual that man is constrained 
 against himself, and contrary to his own desires, to 
 eschew good and practice evil. 
 
 Such a theory is at once illogical, nonsensical and 
 pernicious, as we will now endeavor, as briefly as 
 possible, to prove, and, as believers in the saered- 
 ness of the Bible are frequently inclined to favor 
 such a ridiculous conclusion, before directing our 
 gaze elsewhere, we will take up seriatim, the script- 
 ural narrative on which the devil theory is usually 
 based. 
 
 The second chapter of Genesis is ordinarily ap- 
 pealed to, to sustain the theory of the personality 
 of the source of evil in the world, the metaphorical 
 serpent being usually considered as his Satanic Maj- 
 esty in the guise of a talking snake. This narra- 
 tive, when intelligently interpreted, however, gives 
 no sanction at all to such a theory; on the contrary, 
 it completely refutes it. Four characters are intro- 
 duced to us by whoever was the author of this very 
 ancient allegory, which the Jews probably derived 
 partly from Egyptian and partly from Persian soun 
 We are told of God and His divine voice, of a male 
 
SPIRITUAL THEBAPEUTK :»7 
 
 Adam, a female Eve, and a representative of a sub- 
 human kingdom, who, in the form of a reptile, un- 
 dertook to dissuade Eve and Adam from obeying 
 
 the divine counsel, promising them knowledge and 
 bliss as the fruit of disobedience. 
 
 Now, a careful analysis of the four characters 
 already referred to will prove to our satisfaction that 
 these four actors are ever present on the stage of 
 human life. God is revealed to us through our in- 
 terior nature, through the moral sense or conscience, 
 of which none are wholly destitute, though it is quite 
 conceivable that primitive or barbaric races have little 
 if any conception of this light. Eve, an interior prin- 
 ciple, though not the innermost of all, stands for 
 human aifections ; while Adam, the external man, 
 represents the intellect. The serpent is none other 
 than the animal or lower self-hood. 
 
 Now all these elements are intrinsically good. Evil 
 is inverted good, and besides inverted good, there is 
 no evil. Evil then, has no real existence; it lias no 
 fundamental principle; it is not, but simply appears 
 to be. 
 
 Inversion occurs only when the affections are led 
 downward and outward, instead of upward and inward, 
 at the solicitation of the animal proclivities, and thus 
 the only devil (old Saxon de , vil) there is, is inordinate 
 self-love, which means a disregard of the monitions of 
 the higher nature in order to satisfy the low^er. 
 
 This view of the serpent of temptation is at once rec- 
 oncilable with anthropology and common sense. Who 
 is there who has not felt the promptings of a higher 
 and lower nature? Who has not felt the counter 
 
58 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 influence of good and evil genii? Paul, in the seventh 
 chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, sets forth the 
 inner conflict with amazing accuracy. After 1,800 
 years the world still feels that what that wonderfully 
 gifted Roman lawyer, Saul of Tarsus, experience*^ ei i 
 one experiences now, unless it he that some are 
 blunt , so dead to all higher impulses, that, living 
 wholly in the senses, they know nothing of the con- 
 flict, which can not be said to rage where no contrast of 
 the opposites is presented to the understanding. 
 
 We venture to declare thai there is not a child in 
 any school or family who can not be brought up to 
 rightly interpret the story of the fall and subsequent 
 elevation of man, for just whal every little one under- 
 goes physically exactly corresponds to what he must 
 pass through mentally and morally. Conflict is essen- 
 tial to growth; without it there could l>r no growth, no 
 development of moral character. Intellectual great- 
 ness is inconceivable apart from effort, and s<> is moral 
 growth. 
 
 Now the symbol of the serpent is a singularly 
 pressiveand appropriate symbol of man's lower nature. 
 as being the most subtle of all earthly creatures, and 
 yet a creeping thing. It suggests immediately a some- 
 thing at once attractive and repellent; a something 
 good enough in its own way, and in its own place, but 
 exceedingly dangerous when permitted to usurp the 
 throne of the affections, and thence domineer over 
 human intellect, using it as a servant of sense, when it 
 should ever be the faithful follower of spirit. 
 
 Serpents are mentioned in the first chapter of Gen- 
 esis, in which earliest account of creation we are 
 
SPIRITUAL THEKAPEUTK 59 
 
 informed that God created creeping things and blessed 
 them. Reptiles were included in the work of the 
 
 Almighty, which lie blessed. The Eternal, we are 
 told, looked with complacent delight upon primitive 
 man, in whom were all the lower kingdoms, and the 
 lower kingdoms themselves were pleasant in the divine 
 
 s. Evil is in man, but what afterward appears as 
 is originally good, and only becomes evil after a 
 conscious act of inversion on the part of man. 
 
 All temptation to error comes through the affec- 
 tions, therefore, it is said, the woman tempted man, 
 and caused him to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. 
 The woman Eve stands for the aifectional impul 
 which are the desires and wishes of our nature. Our 
 will is not in intellect, but in affection; therefore, the 
 old word "heart" is used instead of mind when temp- 
 tation is alluded to in Scripture: "Keep thy heart 
 with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life," 
 signifies, be especially careful as to the bent of your 
 •tions, while "out of the abundance of the heart 
 the mouth speaketh," means that all our conversation 
 and conduct proceeds not from our intellectual convic- 
 tions or beliefs, but from our loves. 
 
 Our loves make us what we are. While, in a 
 
 -e, it is strictly true that as a man thinketh^ so 
 he is, it is plainer and deeper truth that as a man 
 th, and therefore willeth or desiretb, so ho is. 
 
 To deny the freedom of the human will in f<>f<> 
 
 is to advocate a barbarous fatalism, so subversive of 
 
 human weal as to conduce to the justification of every 
 
 e crime and misdemeanor, and surely the intent 
 
 all would-be reformers is to purge the world 
 
GO SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 wickedness, to rescue the evil-doer from the clutches 
 of iniquity, reform the sinner, and thus effectually 
 protect and elevate society. 
 
 Those who say that reverence is natural to man, 
 while the devil is always irreverent, and make like 
 assertions, prove themselves ignorant of the entire 
 nature of man as expressed on earth. The spiritual 
 or interior nature is the good genius of our human 
 intellect, and is forever urging us to a higher and 
 nobler state. Reverence is our love for a Buperior 
 state, and manifests the attraction which the heavens 
 within have for the thinking and reflecting mind: 
 Avhile irreverence is occasioned by the seductions of 
 the lower nature, which is always leading us to the 
 hells or inferior states of our animal existence. 
 
 When Paul advised tin* Corinthians to be on their 
 guard lest the serpent winch beguiled Eve also beguile 
 them, he did not refer to a talking snake, which would 
 be a curiosity to-day in any menagerie, nor to a snake 
 which walked uprightly, and was afterward con- 
 demned to crawl, nor to a fallen angel who, in the simil- 
 itude of an enticing reptile, parleyed with our first 
 parents in a terrestrial paradise. He simply warned 
 them against being led away from higher things by 
 the seducing charms of external nature; and thus he 
 told them to ever be sober and vigilant, lest the inward 
 adversary should lead them, when olT their guard, 
 into the flowery but dangerous paths of sensu< >us enjoy- 
 ment, when duty or moral obligation called upon them 
 to heed a higher call and follow a diviner lead. 
 
 We deny that the sensual nature is an evil nature ; 
 it is a lower nature, good after its kind, but good in a 
 
SPIRITUAL THEBAPSUTK (11 
 
 lesser degree than the intellectual, as the intellectual in 
 its turn is good in a lesser degree than the moral or 
 spiritual nature ; it is a good and useful servant, hut 
 an atrocious and tyrannical master. Rightful subordi- 
 nation of the lower to the higher instincts makes man 
 an angel, while inordinate development makes him a 
 devil, and the only devil there is, no better definition 
 of which has ever been given than the old Latin sen- 
 tence. Demon est 1>< us inversus. We see then at once 
 how in the absolute sense there is no evil, evil being 
 a condition, a state, but not the inherent nature of 
 anything. 
 
 Infinite Good is the sole creator, and man makes 
 evil out of good, by turning good upside down. It is 
 then in his power to repent and be converted, and his 
 conversion is his act which turns the good he has in- 
 verted right side up again. This spiritual truth is also 
 a truth of reason, and can be amply sustained and 
 aptly illustrated by phrenology, physiognomy, and all 
 kindred external sciences, which, like thermometers 
 and barometers, reveal the condition of the mind whose 
 emotions they portray. A student of phrenology places 
 before him a chart of the human head upon which lie 
 
 - delineated the various organs of the brain. In the 
 frontal or coronal regions he beholds such words as 
 benevolence, conscientiousness, etc., indicating the 
 noblest propensities, but toward the base of the brain, 
 and at the back of the head, he reads destructives 
 secret iveness, amativeness, etc. Now, if he be ignor- 
 ant, he will at first assume that the utter suppression 
 of the lower faculties, even to the point of their anni- 
 hilation, is necessary to the development of a Lovely 
 
62 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 character, and following* this mistaken trend of thought, 
 multitudes of self-immolating fanatics have sought in 
 vain to attain the highest heaven hereon earth, as vrell 
 asafter the body's dissolution, by torturing their Lower 
 
 propensities out of existence. 
 
 Science and reason interpose to say subordinaU . do 
 not dedroy, for the hells in man must ever be rendered 
 subject to the heavens in man, that divine order and 
 harmony may prevail. To rein in the lower instincts, 
 to make them utterly submissive to higher loves, is the 
 only way to round out a graceful and delightful charac- 
 ter. What we call evil then is lowergood, and is there- 
 fore not evil, evil in actual sense being only possible 
 when a perverse inclination di one to subordinate 
 
 conviction to appetite,. thereby reversing the divine 
 order which is that appetite should be subdued by rea- 
 son, and intellect become the servant and exponent of 
 the divine innermost in man, which is called sometimes 
 the essential ego, and sometimes the atma in theosophio- 
 al and other explanatory treatise 
 
 Now, having thus far very briefly given a glance at 
 the serpent, who generally is regarded as the devil in 
 orthodox circles, let us turn to thesatan in the Book of 
 Job, and see Avhether we can not account for that mys- 
 terious uersonage without having recourse to any 
 mythical object of mediaeval superstition, such as many 
 theologians offer for our acceptance. 
 
 In the Hebrew rendering of the Massoretic text (we 
 mean that translation which is commonly used when 
 the Scriptures are read in English, or referred to in that 
 tongue in Jewish synagogues), the word Satan is miss- 
 ing, its place being occupied by the word accuser, a 
 word, which, in its original sense, has undoubtedly 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK 68 
 
 reference to the ancient idea of an accusing angel whose 
 
 mission ic was to arraign evildoers before the bar of 
 divine justice. There can be but little doubt that in 
 ptian and other ancient allegories the accuser was 
 nothing other than what we are accustomed to call 
 accusing conscience, conscience offended, which, when 
 it raises its protesting voice, to use Shakespeare's im- 
 mortal phrase, ik makes cowards of us all.* 1 This same 
 conscience, when it speaks approvingly, makes heroes of 
 US all. 
 
 Now, the two personages who appear in ancient 
 allegories as recording angels are probably in their 
 deepest ethical significance two aspects of conscience. 
 In the first case conscience, as the approving angel, 
 smiles on all well-doers ; in the other instance this same 
 conscience, as the accusing angel, frowns upon evil 
 doers and evil doings. Everybody loves the approval, 
 and hates the disapproval of conscience. Whatever 
 conscience is, it is invariably beloved, courted, encour- 
 
 d when it smiles, while all possible measures are 
 resorted to, to deaden and silence it when it utters a 
 protesting word. 
 
 Now, in lighting against this accuser or adversary 
 within, man is lighting against his best and truest 
 friend, as he eventually discovers often to his own most 
 bitter cost. Just as it is with inward conscience, or the 
 moral sense we endeavor to stifle, should it upbraid, so 
 it is with all extraneous influences which bear upon us 
 and pronounce judgment on our acts. Many a man has 
 been reduced to ignominy and disgrace by the flatter- 
 iken friends, while the bitter though whole- 
 Borne tonic of adverse criticism hasmade giants oi many 
 
g4 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 who, had they been left entirely to the tender mercies 
 of particular admirers would have been dwarfs. 
 
 To learn from an enemy, to appreciate hostile crit- 
 icism, to regard an opponent as a friend, is to learn a 
 hard though much needed lesson. We may many of 
 us pray, if we pray wisely, to be delivered from our 
 flatterers far more than from our censors, and not only 
 is insincere or stupid flattery detrimental to our high- 
 est interests, but too much unqualified honest admira- 
 tion is apt to be injurious, as it leads us in! 
 placent modes of thought and by making us thorouj 
 ly contented with present attainments, offi pur, 
 
 and holds out no inducement to futui >ry. 
 
 Job's adversary, Satan, proved his best and most 
 helpjul friend. The character of Satan .snot altogether 
 charming, we must admit. The best elements in 
 the character are undoubtedly sublime from ancient 
 writers' recognition of the important pari. iem- 
 
 ingly adverse influences play in human evolution, but 
 the darker shades are no doubt taken from those un 
 lovely attributes of character so often displayed bj 
 those who take delight in hostile criticisms of otb< 
 Satan is not, however, despicable or unjust. Tbei 
 nothing mean or contemptible about him. Heevidently 
 wants to put Job severely to the test, and after prov 
 ing him at every point, shows himself incapable ol 
 hurting him, while, on the contrary, he proves himseb 
 at length Job's greatest benefactor. 
 
 There is ample room for considerable divergent 
 opinion with regard to Satan's motives and intents 
 A discussion could easily be carried on with consider- 
 able vigor on both sides, were one to undertake to 
 
SPIRITUAL THEBAPEU1 I 
 
 defend the character as royal and noble, while another 
 undertook to prove it harsh and unlovely in the 
 
 me. It stands probably for justice devoid of mercy, 
 for a stern, uncompromising, unmarried justice, and 
 whenever justice, appears without its consort, mercy, 
 it is repellant and severe. We may even go far enough 
 
 say that Satan is a personification of one divine at- 
 tribute, while the Lord, with whom Satan converses, is 
 another attribute. These attributes of Deity, Justice 
 and Mercy, are often represented as separate and dis- 
 tinct persons holding converse with eacli other. In- 
 deed the orthodox Christian trinity lias originated in 
 many theological schools with this very highly per- 
 iled description of the attributes of Deity to be 
 met with in ancient Scriptures. God the Father is 
 ice, God the Son is Mercy, and the two are one. 
 We can not, of course, accept the doctrine of ti 
 
 sons in one God in the sense in which the word 
 person is commonly employed, hut we can readily 
 how the divine justice has given the world a concep- 
 
 i of a severe and implacable Sovereign, while the 
 divine mercy has given the idea of an infinitely gt ntle 
 and loving Savior. A broader view reconciles ti 
 attributes to each other in human thought, and 
 ine atonement or reconciliation is effected between 
 
 divine attributes, so far as we are concerned, when 
 we see them for the first time in their true relation. 
 
 The whole difficulty in theological controversy has 
 
 been that men will persist in arguing about oppositions 
 
 and changes in the divine character and attitude, while 
 
 ing change in God is only a reflection we 
 
 behold of a change in ourselv 
 
66 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 When Job is subjected to Satan's bufferings, he is 
 as much in the hands of infinite beneficence as he was 
 before the commencement of those dire catastrophes 
 depriving him of all his possessions, calamities appar- 
 ently utterly unmerited, and therefore most difficult to 
 understand and most hard to be reconciled to. Job 
 shows his wisdom truly when he raises the cry. Shall 
 we receive good at the hands of God, and shall we Dot 
 also receive evil from the same divine source I 
 
 A flippant critic will point to such pa as these 
 
 in proof of his rabid and hasty theory of Biblical con- 
 tradictions, but the careful and cautious student, the 
 deliberate thinker, who, perusing ancient records, si rives 
 to discover how men thought about the darkest and 
 most perplexing phases of human experience in days 
 of old, will see in it a faithful and penetrative admis- 
 sion that much, if not all, that appears evil is good in 
 disguise. 
 
 It was a thought of olden days widely spread that 
 six months in every year were under the dominion of 
 good, and the other six under the control of evil genii. 
 Anyone acquainted with Egyptian beliefs must be 
 aware that the vulgar thought among the unenlight- 
 ened was that out of the twelve constellations through 
 which the earth annually passes, six were good and six 
 were evil. The reign of the good began in March and 
 ended in September, while the reign of the evil began 
 with the autumnal and ended with the vernal equinox 
 
 In Persia, Ormuzd, the power of light, is repre- 
 sented as creating six gods. Ahriman, the power of 
 darkness, is said to have created six also. But in 
 Egypt? every year on the 25th of December, the 
 
SPIRITUAL TiiERAPErn 7 
 
 victory of light over darkness was celebrated, i 1 ^>1, 
 the builders of that miracle in stone, the great p ra- 
 mid of Gizeh, so constructed it that twice every year 
 
 -hould be fully bathed in the glorious light of the 
 sun, the befitting" symbol of the eternal and ineffable 
 Deity, whose light never grows dim, and whose good- 
 is is meted out to man as truly in the dark winter 
 of adversity, when man's mortal mind, symbolized 
 by earth, turns away from its illuminator, as in the 
 bright summer of prosperity, when that same mortal 
 thought is in perihelion with the divine. 
 
 In the Christian calendar, Michaelmas day, Sep 
 tember 20th, is a festival of rejoicing in honor of 
 an archangel's victory over the dragon, and it is a 
 very impressive circumstance, deserving of far more 
 than passing notice that such a festival occurs at 
 the very season when the earth passes into Draco, 
 or Scorpio, the first of the six evil signs. The in- 
 tent of such a festival, when traced to its origin, is 
 to show that in religious thought God is as much 
 the author of what we call evil as of what we call 
 
 d; that evil is only some obstacle or impediment 
 in our way, which we needs must overcome; and, 
 while trials need to be surmounted, passions to be 
 subdued, and all lower affections to be brought into 
 subjection to the higher, the mystical Michael in OS, 
 our higher nature, must subdue the mystical dragon, 
 our lower nature. And this lower nature is a bl 
 
 . when rightly subordinated, as it affords a sub- 
 stantial base on which the temple of genuine character 
 can stand erect. 
 
 The oft-rendered solo from the M Messiah." " I Know 
 
68 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS 
 
 That my Redeemer Liveth," is one of the most ex- 
 quisite portrayals of confidence in the absolute and 
 certain demonstration of real good out of apparent 
 evil ever written. Remember Job, to whom the 
 words are attributed, is in the lowest depths of 
 misery and suffering when he utters them, and the 
 trumpet of his voice gives forth no uncertain sound. 
 He declares that he has knowledge that all is work- 
 ing for the best. Were the word hop or bdievi in- 
 stead of know, it would bo inadequate. That word 
 hiow is a note of triumph. The word "Redeemer* 
 can be translated "vindicator," if one pi 
 rendering, which is equally correct : while the oon- 
 troverted portion of the passage, "Though worms 
 destroy this body, yet in (or out of) my flesh shall 
 I see God," is really so rich in meaning, that the 
 two seemingly opposite translations are susceptible 
 of a perfect harmonization. Sometimes it is in the 
 flesh, whilst we yet remain on earth; sometimes it is 
 not till we are out of fhe flesh, or have cast as 
 the mortal robe, that we clearly see the divine hand 
 in all our afflictions; but, whether in or out of the 
 flesh, the perfect issue is not to be doubted. 
 
 The common orthodox interpretation which makes 
 this passage allude to a physical resurrection is an 
 utter falsification of the en tiro spirit of the propb 
 and if those who have any doubts an this score will 
 read the last chapter in the book of Job, they will 
 encounter an unanswerable objection to their material 
 idea of a bodily resurrection in a fleshly sense, as Job, 
 after his trials were over, it is said, exclaimed, prior to 
 physical dissolution, when addressing Deity in strains 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 69 
 
 of jubilant thanksgiving, " I had hoard of Thee with 
 
 the hearing of the ear but now mine eye soeth Th< 
 Second Adventism is here robbed completely of one of 
 its chief supports. Its very choicest proof text is seen 
 at once by any enlightened commentator to favor 
 
 denborg, entirely at the expense of Christadelphus, 
 ifho relied on it for so much support. 
 
 We must now proceed to consider very briefly the 
 
 ~ Testament doctrine of demons which needed cast- 
 ing out of minds and bodies afflicted and insane. We 
 
 1 scarcely remind you that demon and demonology, 
 in their strictly philosophic sense, are not words of 
 evil import. Socrates called his highest counselor a 
 demon, which, correctly translated, means only an 
 influence operating otherwise than through the medium 
 of a corporeal structure. Now every student of ori- 
 ental beliefs must be well aware that the Palestinian 
 Jews in the days of Jesus shared the common oriental 
 belief in evil spirits, and looked upon sick people in 
 general, and insane persons in particular, as subjects of 
 an infernal kingdom, of which Beelzebub was ruler. 
 
 Without entering upon a dissertation concerning 
 Bel, Belus, Baal, Belial, and all the various names given 
 to the false god whom the Israelites were perpetually 
 
 countering in some one of its many forms as an 
 object of idolatrous worship, we may safely conclude 
 that as Aaron's golden calf must have stood for mam- 
 mon worship, or inordinate greed of gold and other 
 material possessions, this infamous idol, called the 
 prince of infernal dominions, was sensuality. The 
 worship of this hideous monster was the disgusting 
 and practice of sensuality in all its hybrid forms 
 
70 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 of degradation. When infamous idolaters sacrificed 
 their sons and daughters unto devils, they delivered 
 them up to the curse which follows upon depraved and 
 depraving sensuality. 
 
 If all who are striving to strengthen the moral con- 
 victions of society, and who take an interest in the 
 young, would tell the young men and women of tbfe 
 present day that their sensual appetil tin* devil, 
 
 that the source of temptation is in their ownlower 
 nature, that they must subdue their carnal appetites by 
 turning their thoughts and affections in spiritual, moral 
 and intellectual directions; if they would but assure them 
 that the only tempter to he dreaded is the one afcknowl- 
 eged by James when he says, " Every man is tempted 
 when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed/ 5 
 they would do infinitely more to strengthen morality 
 than by seeking to prove the existence of an alto- 
 gether too convenient scapegoat. 
 
 Devils are to be cast out, and how can they 1><* cast 
 out if they are not in us? They are our own impure 
 thoughts of every kind and name, and until we engi 
 in the work of exorcism, in the righl spirit and accord- 
 ing to the true method, we shall never be able to re- 
 lieve the insane, or elevate the moral tendency of soci- 
 ety. Sensuality in thought is the cause of demoniacal 
 possession or obsession. Lunatic asylums are filled with 
 inmates driven thither either through inordinate grat- 
 ification, or unwilling repression of sensual appetii 
 and we should never forget, when discoursing on 
 psychic influence, that we draw to us from the un- 
 seen states which are all about us whatever our desires 
 attract. 
 
SPIRITUAL THE&APSUTft 71 
 
 Do we believe that persons on earth are ever under 
 control of outside devils J We believe they become 
 so related to the psychic emanations of the impure 
 minded, that they come under the dominion of error 
 from whatever source it may emanate. Do we believe 
 that sensitives are peculiarly liable to come under such 
 malign influence? That depends entirely, not simply 
 upon their surroundings, but upon their thoughts and 
 dispositions. AVe attract and submit to whatever we 
 fear or love. We can not resist what we fear or what 
 we love. Resistance only comes with brave and 
 determinate opposition toward what we neither fear nor 
 love. A weak, yielding, altogether too negative and 
 forceless habit of mind leads to insanity. Victims of 
 mental aberration are frequently those who lack men- 
 tal and moral stamina. They reflect whatever condi- 
 tions are thrown around them. Indecision and weak- 
 
 s of will lead to insanity ; while fear, as well as 
 love of base things, brings us under the dominion of the 
 insidious powers of darkness, which prevade the air. 
 
 Xo moral education is worthy the name unless it 
 promotes vigorous activity of the higher promptings. 
 Children need to be taught the great importance of 
 
 rect thinking, and should never be left without em- 
 ployment and then scolded for being naughty because 
 they have no proper occupation for brain or hands. 
 
 ept and garnished houses are no safeguards 
 the approach of evil, for unless we are con- 
 
 itly occupied with good, we fall easy prey to the 
 
 >ns of any tempter who may chance to come 
 
 our way. Saloons, gaming hells, and other villianous 
 
 haunts, will exert no attraction over the mind of youth, 
 
72 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTO 
 
 if, before exposing young men and maidens to the per- 
 ils and dangers of a city, parents, guardians and teach- 
 ers wisely direct their thoughts into channels of 
 fulness and purity. No disease can invade an organism 
 not receptive to the animalcules in the atmosphere, 
 which are repelled when the body is in a healthy, and 
 invited when it is in an unhealthy state. 
 
 Pure thought can not but eventuate itself in purity 
 of word and act, and no influence from without can 
 gain an entrance, unless invited from within either 
 by morbid desires or mental vacuity. To resist the 
 tempter is not possible unless our minds are attuned to 
 celestial forces, and then, with the actual, positi 
 of active, operative good, we can overcome all evil, 
 
 Talmageand other sensational pulpit mountebanks, 
 in their insane tirades against Spiritualism, are practi- 
 cally denying God and giving omnipotent power to the 
 devil. Many of the Roman Catholic clergy, including 
 the far-famed Monsignor Capel, are no wiser than Tal- 
 mage, when treating a similar subject. Concerning 
 the influence of the departed upon those yel upon 
 earth, we have always stoutly maintained thai the old 
 proverb, "Birds of a feather flock together," is liter 
 ally true, and that close mental associations are impos- 
 sible of continuance apart from kinship of thought and 
 affection. 
 
 If persons believe they have a work to do in elevat- 
 ing those in darkness, and allow mental contact for the 
 benefit of those whom they seek to uplift, we can not 
 conscientiously discountenance their work; but we do 
 maintain that no error is more pernicious than that 
 which teaches that man is a creature of uncontrollable 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 73 
 
 circumstances, and therefore must perforce submit to 
 
 any and every influence which may seek to gain as- 
 cendancy over him. Look for the source of evil within 
 and not without. Fortify yourselves by noble pursuits, 
 wise companionship, and elevating trains of thought, 
 at those points where now you experience weakn 
 and when you feel some dark influence approaching 
 you, and seeking to allure you to destruction, realize 
 that your strength is in perfect trust and absolute con- 
 fidence in Infinite Good, coupled with sincere and active 
 effort to translate your highest sentiments into noble 
 acts and words. 
 
 When Goethe represents Faust in the clutches of 
 Mephistopheles, he shows throughout the play or opera 
 how deftly the seducing tempter plays upon the weak- 
 ness of the student who seeks to win the earthly love 
 of Marguerita, by any wile or artifice an adroit temp- 
 tation may suggest. As a person, Mephistopheles is 
 anyone who is desirous of rendering a service to an- 
 other, no matter how unscrupulous the work in hand, 
 if by so doing he can command a greater service from 
 that other on his own behalf. Mephistopheles is not 
 at all outside of humanity so far as his personality is 
 concerned. He is to be found in clubs and drawing- 
 rooms, at fashionable fi'tes and banquets; but instead 
 of wearing a grotesque costume and protruding horns 
 and tail, his dress is of the latest fashion, his broad- 
 cloth garments are of superfine material and of latest 
 cut, his linen is immaculate, while a choice and fragrant 
 flower, symbolical of innocence and grace, adorns his 
 buttonhole; his manners are suave as suave can be, his 
 diction most polite, his avowed morals irreproachable j 
 
74 SPIRITUAL THERAPFXTICS. 
 
 he often takes a class in a Sunday-school, and some- 
 times mounts the pulpit stairs and there delivers an 
 address of unctious sanctity. He can be all things to 
 all men, in order that he may entrap some, and thereby 
 further his own selfish and nefarious designs. 
 
 Utterly unscrupulous, he seeks his prey wherever 
 he may find it. He is the worst type of a man about 
 town — a polished swindler, an atti dancer, an 
 
 educated liar, a polite villain. Ee finds himself smiled 
 upon everywhere, and often Laughs among his boon 
 companions at the stupidity of his admirers, who are 
 shallow enough to promise him their earthly all in a 
 moment of intoxication induced by himself, after he 
 has carefully studied their weak points and Battered 
 their vanity. 
 
 Mephistopheles, subjectively regarded, is that ele- 
 ment of selfishness, vanity, or sensuality within our 
 breasts that gives the adventurous libertine in society 
 his opportunity. Mothers with marriageable daugh- 
 ters, you may be seeking Mephistophel< son in- 
 law when you are desirous of seeing your daughters 
 marry well, in a worldly sense. Young men of busi- 
 ness, you are courting Mephistopheles whenever you 
 sacrifice principle to policy, and barter your honor for 
 money or the world's applause. The love of money 
 is the root of all evil. The devil is the god of gold; 
 and lie or she who loves material things inordinately 
 is a devil worshiper. 
 
 How shall we kill this devil? We can not annihil- 
 ate a single particle of dust, nor can we destroy one 
 iota of the force which pulsates in the forms of men 
 and women, but we can transform, we can transmute 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC®. 75 
 
 what we can not and should not endeavor to destroy. 
 
 Transmutation leads to glory. We may take all but 
 lower impulses, and mastering them by the might of 
 spirit, so overcome them in their lower sense, so trans- 
 form their downward tendency, that while in their per- 
 verted state they are the occasions of our stumbling, in 
 their transfigured form they are the faithful servants 
 of the soul divine within us. Asceticism is a mistake. 
 All endeavors to eradicate aught that inheres in the 
 constitution of man must prove disastrous in its conse- 
 quences, while to find the true philosopher's stone which 
 is capable of converting all inferior metals into gold is 
 to find the soul within us, and so subdue our appetites 
 to reason and our intellects to moral principle, thai the 
 devil in us, which is but inverted goodness, will be at 
 length transformed into a glorious angel of light. 
 
 Let us all accept our earthly discipline as a means 
 of noblest conquest, and in the understanding of what 
 is meant by the words, 'file that overcometh shall in- 
 herit all things," we can thank God for His goodness 
 in giving us a lower nature to subdue. 
 
LESSON V. 
 
 RESURRECI ! 
 
 AS we have received a great number of questions 
 all bearing on the subject of Resurrection, we 
 have deemed it desirable to reply to a number of them 
 
 in the following address which will be found to con- 
 tain answers to a number of leading inquiries continu- 
 ally recurring in the minds of all who devote much 
 thought to this intensely interesting theme. 
 
 The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the cor- 
 ner-stone of Christianity; without n the whole system 
 falls to pieces. By Christianity in thi we of 
 
 course mean that great religious system which prevails 
 throughout that part of the world commonly called 
 Christendom, not that excellence of character and ami 
 ability of disposition which many people are accus- 
 tomed to indiscriminately designate " Christian." 
 
 Now, so intensely important a doctrine as that of 
 the resurrection can not be supported in any literal or 
 external sensein the face of modern criticism. In its 
 letter the doctrine is most surely doomed. It has I 
 been dying, and is now almost if not entirely dead 
 among earnest and liberal thinkers on the subject ; but 
 while in its letter it is rapidly becoming obsolete, and 
 will soon have to be regarded as an effete dogma, a 
 product of ancient ignorance and mediaeval supersti- 
 
 76 
 
SPIKITUAL THEBAPEUTK 77 
 
 tion, in its spirit it is revealing itself in a light always 
 perceived by a few intuitive and clearly reason 
 minds, but never until very recently beheld by the 
 masses of mankind, unless it be in some remote period 
 lost in the dim haze of legendary narrative which ante- 
 dates the so-called "historic period." 
 
 As an introduction to what we have to say concern- 
 ing the resurrection of Jesus in particular, let us glance 
 at a few of the numerous instances of resurrection from 
 the tomb, or from death, recorded alike in the Old 
 and New Testaments. The power to raise the dead, 
 according to the Bible, is a gift bestowed upon all true 
 prophets, whether under the Jewish or Christian dis- 
 pensation. Elijah is said to have literally restored to 
 life the beloved son of the hospitable woman at Zare- 
 phath, who entertained him at her home, and sinned 
 her scanty supply of provisions with him in a time of 
 direful famine. Elisha, upon whom Elijah's mantle 
 fell, raised from the dead the son of a Shunamite 
 woman who had shown kindness to him. Jesus raised 
 Lazarus, the widow's son at Xain, Jairus' daughter, 
 and others, and in giving his final commission to the 
 disciples who were to succeed him in his ministry on 
 earth alter his disappearance from the plane of mortal 
 perception, he declared that the works he had done 
 they should likewise accomplish, and even do greater 
 works than any he had performed in consequence of 
 his on to the Father. 
 
 In the "Acts of the Apostles" we are told of the 
 
 irrections wrought by thedivine gift bestowed upon 
 
 f similar to those already referred 
 
 to. Now,in the jof resurrection from the dead, if 
 
78 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 the literal sense be strictly adhered to, not only is there 
 no positive proof of human immortality offered, 
 but we can scarcely behold even a faint intimation of 
 the spiritual immortality of man. All these narrati 
 are very popular with the Second Adventi&ts and oth< 
 who deny spiritual life, and affirm the necessity of a 
 bodily resuscitation. Of course it would be quite ] 
 sible, by means of not unfair or illogical special plead- 
 ing, to argue immortality from the fad of the spirit 
 being recalled after it had left the form; still there are 
 so many ways of escape from this conclusion without 
 very much verbal juggling, that in common fairness we 
 are bound to admit that the testimony on behalf of hu- 
 man immortality, furnished by such narratives, is un- 
 satisfactory because uncertain, and wherever ambiguity 
 prevails positive conviction is outofthe question among 
 close reasoners. 
 
 These physical resurrections, in thelighl of modern 
 knowledge, are intensely interesting from a therapeutic 
 standpoint, and are therefore really more important 
 matters to medical men than to theologians,unless theo- 
 logians are willing to return to their primitive and 
 rightful position as healers of the body as well as t he 
 soul. Though it has always been the part of t rue theol- 
 ogy to minister to sin-sick souls, it is none the les 
 province to minister with equal effi< iency to beclouded 
 minds and ailing frames; and because it has for cen- 
 turies almost confined itself to one portion of its proper 
 sphere, instead of working throughout that sphere, it 
 has been not only severely reprimanded, but stoutly 
 antagonized by utilitarians of every school, who can 
 not see even the prospective advantages of a system 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 79 
 
 which duos not hero and now demonstrate its beneficial 
 influence upon mankind, even to the ultimatesof phys- 
 ical expression. 
 
 It is a singularly noticeable fact that priests and 
 prophets in all ages have been healers of the sick. 
 When James said in his epistle, "If any sick among 
 you, let him call for the elders of the church," he was but 
 complying with a usage so ancient that no student of 
 antique customs can discover a period (say in ancient 
 Egypt) when such practices were not constantly re- 
 sorted to. Indeed, we are very much in doubt whether 
 in olden times a priest or prophet would have been 
 
 epted by the people at all if he had not presented 
 his credentials in this manner. To heal the sick, even 
 t<> the extent of raising the seemingly dead, was one 
 of the leading proofs of a spiritual vocation. Words 
 and deeds had to go together, or a claim to spiritual fit- 
 ness for an exalted station was not received as genuine. 
 Of course, it may always be argued by the materialistic 
 school that the priests of old were versed in the knowl- 
 *e of drugs, and, in spite of the mystery which sur- 
 rounded their practice, they were really skillful physi 
 cians. This, of course, may be and is in a sense correct 
 but, notwithstanding all allowance which can be fairly 
 made for this admission, the singular evidence of the 
 prophet's gift was that he could perform works of heal- 
 ing far transcending the work done by the therapi utw, 
 or medical men. 
 
 In tli j days of Moses it appears that the manner of 
 
 ;rue prophet, versus an ordinary magician, 
 
 was at this very touchstone of his possessing or not 
 
 possessing the healing gift. Pharaoh's magicians, at a 
 
80 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 period when the court was one of infamy and despot- 
 ism, could do as wonderful tilings as Moses. When 
 miracles were under consideration, they could claim full 
 equality with the great founder of Mosaism, but when 
 it came to removing plagues from the land, Closes and 
 the magicians differed, as light and darkn and 
 
 day. The magicians could convert rods into serpents, 
 and then turn the serpents back into rods; they could 
 multiply frogs, locusts, and all manner of pests; they 
 could afflict the bodies of men and cattle in a most 
 mysterious and fearful way ; they were complete mas- 
 ters of the black art, but the white art of healing was 
 altogether beyond them. We must never forget that 
 mere wonders are no evidence of the operation ol 
 divine power. Wonders of beneficence are required to 
 attest the action of celestial fon 
 
 That the physical body of man ought to be under 
 the complete dominion of reason, intellect, and //•///, 
 needs no argument, neither does il need an argument 
 to prove that intellect in its turn needs to bow l>< fore 
 the moral sense. The three universally recognized 
 principles in man, the animal, the intellectual, and the 
 moral, must be rightfully subordinated, the one to the 
 other, or harmony, which is wholeness, symmetry, Of 
 health, is impossible. 
 
 The superiority of mind to matter needs nol t*> be 
 argued; it is self-evident, as evident to the practical 
 mechanic, or the potter who molds the clay, as to the 
 most abstract metaphysician. That the higher should 
 govern the lower, that our higher instincts should hold 
 our lower passions in subjection, is admitted by Colonel 
 Ingersoll as much as by any ascetic, but with this dif- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK Bl 
 
 ference, Ingersoll differs from the ascetic in his view of 
 what constitutes the highest welfare of the race. 
 
 Now, it stands to reason that as all material achieve- 
 ments are wrought by the power of intelligence, or, in 
 other words, by mental and moral action; as it is be- 
 yond cavil that in order to subdue the material world, 
 man must at least liberate Ids reason from the chains of 
 passion, it inevitably follows that the more perfect mas- 
 tery one gains over one's own lower impulses, the 
 
 iter Avill be one's influence for good upon one's 
 neighbors. 
 
 It needs no argument to prove that if one can re- 
 move a heavy stone from before one's own door, he has 
 sufficient strength to remove a stone of similar weight 
 and proportions from another's door, if he have but 
 liberty to use that strength on a neighbors 1 behalf, 
 while if he is too weak to roll away a rock which bars 
 the entrance to his own domicile, he can not possibly 
 remove one of equal size from some one else's door. 
 
 W 3 can not impart what we do not possess. The 
 
 more Ave have the more Ave can bestow^ but at the 
 
 time nothing is truer than that the best and 
 
 liest way of learning is to teach what we do know, 
 and thus put ourselves in the true way of learning 
 more, while the way to receive abundantly is to 
 
 ely to the utmost extent of our ability. 
 
 Medical science is avowedly experimental. The 
 
 medical testimony proves that while there are 
 
 multitudes of open questions, there are very few set 
 
 tied <>nrs among the medical fraternity. Joseph Cook 
 
 I, in Boston some . in Tremont Tem- 
 
 befor<3 a wry 1 trge audience, on the occasion of his 
 
82 SPIRITUAL THEBAPEUTH 
 
 memorable discourses on probation in death, in opposi- 
 tion to the theory of probation after death which he 
 was combating, that an infallible test of death had not 
 been discovered by modern scientists, and that a lai 
 reward would gladly be placed in the hands of any one 
 who could furnish the colleges with such infallible test 
 as they stood in need of. 
 
 Now, if a champion of orthodox ( Christianity makes 
 such a statement as this, and it can scarcely be refuted, 
 what proof is there, we ask, that any one of the per- 
 sons raised to life again by Jewish prophets, Christian 
 apostles, or the Christ himself, were really dead J 
 Medical opinion would doubtless be that they were in 
 a stupor; buried in a trance, orsomcthing of the kind 
 comparatively unusual, but by no mean unprecedented. 
 You have all read and heard, doubtless with much in- 
 terested wonder, of many persons rising from their 
 graves after interment, and to raise the seemingly 
 dead, even those already buried, would be less a won- 
 der in a hot country than in a e<>ld one, and still less 
 wonderful at a time when epidemics being prevalent, 
 interment in the ground follows almost immediately 
 upon the supposition that breath has left the body. 
 
 The statement that Lazarus had been buried four 
 days would, of course, in that particular instance, add 
 greatly to the marvel of his restoration, but even in 
 that case it could scarcely be said that the wonder was 
 unparalleled. The simplest exposition, by far the u\ 
 reasonable, practical, and helpful one. is that these nar- 
 ratives have probably been culled from an immei 
 mass of ancient testimony to the efficacy of direct spir- 
 itual healing after all external measures had proved 
 futile. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 
 
 The author of the fourth Gospel ends his record by 
 
 ing that if everything which took place at the time 
 concerning which he wrote had been recorded, the rol- 
 ler ion of manuscripts would have been so greal that 
 the world could hardly contain them, thereby leading 
 u> at once to infer that only sample illustrations 
 were given, testifying to an exuberant outpouring of 
 the spirit extending throughout Judea, and doubtless 
 elsewhere, astounding the populace, arousing the bit- 
 
 est ire and indignation of interested parties whose 
 fortune was derived from monopolistic enterprises, and 
 
 erally proving to the populace that even for bodily 
 ailments there was a cure unknown to the practioners 
 of the prevailing schools of medicine. 
 
 It is impossible to vouch for the accuracy of all the 
 details of these narratives. They are often more or 
 romantic in their style. They may even he parablesi 
 but whatever they are they afford a close insight into 
 the actual occurrences of that age. To say that they 
 
 not original, to state even that they came from 
 pt, hv no means disposes of them, because facts of 
 such a nature can not depend upon time and place, hut 
 upon nature and degree only. 
 
 If such things can be, if they ever were, they can 
 he now, provided we' learn to comply with ne 
 
 requirements for their production. Their place in 
 the Bible gives them a historic base in the minds of 
 id makes them capable of stimulating hope and 
 inquiry, if not positive faith in the minds of the mil- 
 lions the world over who read them. AVe can safely 
 
 e them in their literal sense as challenges to modern 
 
 liples of truth to put the Master's theory into prat 
 tice, and learn by the three fold agency of faith, prayei 
 
84 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 and abstinence to accomplish for suffering humanity 
 to-day benefits as great as any that occurred, from a com- 
 plete surrender of sense to spirit, aj o in far-off 
 countries. 
 
 But it isnot with the letter of these narratives, inter- 
 esting and profitable though it be, that we are most 
 particularly concerned, for through the dimness of the 
 letter beams the everlasting brightness of the spirit ; 
 and while the letter breaks when too hardly strain, d. 
 and fails to justify itself to human reason in some par- 
 ticulars, the spirit to which tin 4 letter isoften sacrificed, 
 but which is never sacrificed for the sake of the lei 
 bursts upon us with a refulgence so glorious that we 
 cease to care whether the letter is accurate or not, 
 satisfied do we become with the kernel of truth after 
 Ave have broken the shell in which it lias been s<> l< 
 enclosed. 
 
 Whatever phenomenal Spiritualists may Bay to the 
 contrary, the evidences of human immortality are, in 
 their final analysis, totally subjective ; and when we 
 say this, Ave do not for a moment intend to repudiate 
 or disparage Buch objective proofs of spiritual action 
 over material things as may he necessary to conduct 
 the doubting mind, immured in sordid materiality, step 
 by step out of the darkness of materialism into the 
 light of true and abiding Spiritualism. We do, how- 
 ever, most emphatically declare that phenomenal evi- 
 dences of spiritual power over mortal things are only 
 means to an end — useful and necessary means in many 
 instances, means to be honored and not despised , but 
 still only means — the end not being attained till the 
 means are no longer needful. 
 
spun it al thebapkutios. 85 
 
 If all Spiritualists, metaphysicians, Swedenborgians, 
 and others would hut compare notes and he reasonable 
 
 on this point, a grand, united army of spiritual work- 
 ers could at once be found to storm the citadels of 
 error, and let in the light of truth to multitudes of dark- 
 ened minds. But just so long as blind and bigoted antag- 
 onisms are inflamed by hot-headed partisans of a partic- 
 ular view of truth, people who see from one point of 
 view only, and persist in maintaining that what they 
 see is all the truth there is to see; so long, we say, as 
 such people are to the fore in any movement, whatever 
 name and proportions it may assume, that much to be 
 desired harmony and genuine spiritual co-operation of 
 
 btered forces so sorely needed in the present junc- 
 ture of human affairs can never be consummated. One 
 side denies phenomena, calls it all fraudulent, delusive, 
 or debasing ; the other side extols it beyond ail reason- 
 able limits, even to the extent of denying the very 
 existence of the end to which, if useful, it must of ne- 
 
 sity lead. 
 
 The Xew Testament presents to us the golden mean, 
 and so do all rational teachers who are at the same 
 time what all rational people should be, eminently 
 al. In the accounts furnished by the evangelists 
 of the resurrection of Jesus we have, when we take 
 only a literal view, many reasons for doubt. Thomas 
 Paine, in his u Age of Reason/' has borne unwitting 
 
 imony to the spiritual sense, which he evidently did 
 not perceive, when he positively ridicules the account 
 as it stands literally. 
 
 The story is that Jesus expired physically on the 
 cross on a Friday afternoon, and that certain women 
 
86 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 remained at the foot of the cross till all was over. 
 They saw their Master's dead body removed from the 
 cross, or, at all events, they saw him during the very 
 latest moments of his earthly existence. Not more 
 than forty hours later, very early before daybreak, the 
 following Sunday morning, they were at the tomb, 
 which they found empty, and when these same women, 
 especially Mary Magdalene, saw the risen Jesus, and 
 held a conversation with him, she had no conception 
 tli at it was he; but, mistaking him for a gardener, 
 she confided her sorrow and amaze to him, without i be 
 least suspicion, it appears, entering her mind that she 
 was talking with the wry friend of whose physical 
 whereabouts she was so diligently inquir 
 
 Now, if the writers had intended to convey t h< k idea 
 that Jesus rose from the (\r t ,i\ in the literal physical 
 form which was buried, why did they not so record 
 the event as to encourage belief, rather than provoke 
 the most decided unbelief in tins connection? I 
 physical form were raised, then why should the 
 women and the disciples, in the case of the resurrection 
 of Jesus, have any more difficulty in identifying him 
 outwardly than the friends and relatives had in ident- 
 ifying those whose bodily resurrection has been already 
 under review? 
 
 What would have been more natural than for Mary 
 Magdalene to have been struck dumb with amazement 
 at beholding Jesus standing beside her, and, for the 
 time being, supposing she had seen a vision or beheld 
 an apparition I But nothing of this nature, nor any- 
 thing approaching it, enters into the narative, so far, 
 at least, as she is concerned. He looks to her like an 
 ordinary man attending to the duties of a gardener. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTU 9. S V 
 
 and it is not until he turns to ber and pronounces her 
 name in some peculiar and doubtless characteristic 
 wav, accompanying the words with some silent, subtile 
 appeal to her inner consciousness, that she is in the least 
 aware that her beloved teacher, whom she mourned as 
 dead, is talking with her, — truly alive, but not in out- 
 ward appearance like unto what lie was before his phy- 
 sical decease. 
 
 Two disciples journey between Jerusalem and 
 Em maus the same day. At evening they hold a long 
 conversation with Jesus, without in the slightest degree 
 recognizing him physically. He made himself known 
 to them at a supper by some characteristic way lie had 
 of breaking bread, and they then remembered how 
 their hearts had burned within them as he expounded 
 Scripture to them while they were on the road; but 
 physical evidences of a personal character were alto- 
 gether lacking, and it does not appear that any physi- 
 cal proofs were given to any disciple except Thomas, 
 whose skeptical mind required more tangible evidence 
 in his case. To meet his necessity, to use a modern 
 word, Jesus u materialized," i. <?., he produced an out 
 ward form so closely resembling the physical organism 
 he had once worn, that even the doubts of Didymus 
 yielded to so convincing a display of the absolute power 
 of spirit over matter. 
 
 What became of the physical body of Jesus is a 
 very interesting query. Most answers are totally un- 
 tory. The only really helpful one is that de- 
 rived from a study of occult chemistry, and a compari- 
 son of the claims put forward by theosophists concern- 
 ing the faculties of adepts, with prevalent views put 
 forward by distinguished natural! 
 
88 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK 
 
 Scarcely a physiologist of any note can be encoun- 
 tered anywhere, who docs not give seven years as the 
 longest time for those changes to become complete 
 which periodically remodel the organic structure 
 man. Oamille Flammarion, a Frenchman of 
 eminence, declares thai the entire physique is remod- 
 eled in less linn one year, while many parts of the 
 body change entirely in not more than thirty d; 
 Now, with such testimony as this before as, how ut- 
 terly futile must 1><> every attempt t<> establish a theory 
 of physical resurrection among intelligent persona 
 
 And what is far more important even than i 
 thrown on the resurrection in its literal sense, is the 
 amazing testimony thus brought forward by physical 
 scientists to the reality of the spiritual man ami the 
 utter impossibility of the physical organism being any- 
 thing more than a temporary and ever-changing instru- 
 ment. The physical body, in the lighl of natural 
 ence, is a chemical compound, susceptible of complete 
 disintegration; when volatilized, as all hard sub 
 can be, according to scientific testimony, — for even the 
 rocks as well as the osseous formations in the human 
 frame are only solidified ether or condensed atmos- 
 phere, — the most rigorous external substances can be 
 reduced to a state ot absolute invisibility. 
 
 When the human will shall gain such f.owerover 
 the physique as rightfully belongs to it, and as can be 
 obtained by a life of complete abnegation of the lower 
 instincts, that the higher may wield unrestricted sway, 
 the disappearance of a physical form will not occasion 
 much surprise, as the power of will is thoroughly ad(>- 
 quate to separate all the particles of the structure, and 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 89 
 
 compe] them, one and all, to return to their respective 
 
 places in the external kingdoms of which they form a 
 part. 
 
 The body of Jesus, in our opinion, was not stolen, or 
 in any way removed from the tomb. It was dispersed, 
 or, as some would say, " de-materialized ." When the 
 human will becomes so sovereign over sense that it is 
 no longer held in captivity to sensuous proclivities, 
 death will not occur even to the outward body. When 
 the intelligent principle which has used it for a tem- 
 porary work has outgrown the need of it, then will it 
 be thrown aside painlessly and willingly. It will not 
 slowly decay, it will be simply cast olF when it has 
 servedits use. To teach thenecessity of disease, and to 
 call decay natural before the spirit has left the body, is 
 to teach a most damnable error, one which is afflicting 
 the world with innumerable sorrows of man's own 
 creation, and one which, in common justice to enlight- 
 ened physiologists, it must be admitted they do not 
 teach. 
 
 Dr. T. L. Xichols and many others have argued 
 splendidly against the prevalent notion that sickness is 
 natural. To attribute disease and premature passing 
 from the mortal form to an act of nature or Divine 
 Providence is to call darkness light, error truth, guilt 
 righteousness, and the unnatural the natural * which is 
 the quintessence of mischievous absurdity. The sub- 
 lime spectacle of Jesus quitting the mortal form after 
 having declared his earthly work finished, is a picture on 
 which all need to gaze whose shallow pessimism leads 
 them to regard the effects of their own weakness and 
 immorality as harmonious with the divine natural 
 
90 SPIRITUAL THEBAPEDTIi 
 
 order, against which their own ignorance or willful- 
 ness causes them to rebel. Illness is something to be 
 ashamed of, and when one meets with accident, it is 
 conclusive proof to the lynx-eyed philosopher who 
 know r s somethiug of the true nature of causation, that 
 spiritual perception is hut dun and instinct obscure in 
 the one who stumbles and falls into danger, while if he 
 were more foreseeing and discerning he could readily 
 have escaped. 
 
 The Egyptian custom of embalming the dead is not 
 one which it is well for modern nations to copy. I 
 mation is, in its turn, farpreferable to burial, while the 
 disposal of human remains by electrical agency will 
 doubtless soon supersede cremation, till at length what 
 Bulwer Lytton, in u Thc Coming Race," calls vril will 
 at length be the agent employed in all such undertak- 
 ings; while there is yet to be discerned, still farther 
 ahead, the sovereign action of will, which will leave 
 even vril, with all its potencies, far in the background. 
 
 But when we dismiss all questions pertaining to the 
 outw r ard shell, and consider as we should what resur- 
 rection means, in its higher aspect, the old Greek word 
 anastasis, which has excited so much a psy, ap- 
 
 pears before us radiantly transfigured, as it carries with 
 it no further thought ol a physical envelope, hut admits 
 to our view that spiritual body which Paul speaks of as 
 altogether separate from the natural (animal) body. 
 There are two bodies, the animal and the psychical. 
 The former, as an individual shape, knows no perma- 
 nency whatever, at any time, but is only an ever- 
 changing aggregation of molecules, attracted and up- 
 held by ever-varying conditions of mortal disposition. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 91 
 
 Beyond this outward form, and altogether independent 
 of it, is the spiritual body, which is a perfect structural 
 organism, beautiful and harmonious in all its parts. 
 In giving Spiritual treatment, one is not called upon 
 
 to deny the existence of the body, and to use such a 
 ridiculous formula as for instance, "You have no head, 
 
 therefore it can not ache." Quite the contrary. A 
 perfect head, not the absence of a head altogether, 
 should be presented to the patient's thought. It is 
 highly important that all should learn to see beyond 
 all external limitations, and regard the whole human 
 family as perfect interiorly and really as regards our 
 common essential spiritual being; and when the thought 
 does turn thoroughly to the spiritual, and all material 
 things are forgotten, intromission to the spiritual world 
 is the result. 
 
 We are told that David, who mourned bitterly 
 for his child before the breath left his body, after 
 the child was actually dead physically, consoled him- 
 self in these Avords, "I shall go to him, but he shall 
 not return to me." Going to our beloved in spirit 
 need not be postponed to a distant day, and indeed 
 we have no reason to expect that the dropping of 
 the material form will introduce any of us at once 
 into spiritual society. We must, while on earth, cul- 
 tivate our spiritual perceptions, and Learn to discern 
 spiritual things spiritually, or after the demise of the 
 physical organism we may lind ourselves hovering on 
 the earth, unconscious of all things spiritual. What 
 more credible than that many who have dropped the 
 
 ment of flesh still continue to imagine themselves 
 encased in matter < 
 
92 SPIRITUAL THERAPEU1 [< 
 
 The principal danger attending promiscuous se- 
 ances and sittings with mediums, with a view to 
 the acquisition of material wealth, is that even 
 though communications are absolutely genuine, they 
 are with an order of mind not far enough removed 
 above the stock-broking level to be really profitable 
 to those who hold interviews with it. Editorials in 
 the Golden U<t1<\ Banner of Lights and oilier avow- 
 edly spiritualistic newspapers, have frequently pointed 
 to the cuibonooi spiritual intercom t something 
 
 entirely distinct From worldly emolument, and we will 
 go so far as to say that it is usually demoralizing to 
 drag earthly business into what ought to be a means 
 for promoting the nobles! and most unselfish instincts 
 of human nature. 
 
 The chief cause of Bickness among well-meaning 
 and affectionate people is sorrow. No grief can be 
 so poignant as that occasioned by the !<»>s of be- 
 loved friends. We are repeatedly asked, in our cla 
 and elsewhere, how such grief can be and 
 
 by a radical removal of the cause the effects be com- 
 pelled to subside. Our answer invariably is that the 
 only salutary treatment in such cases is to direct the 
 mind of the afflicted one to the spiritual state, to 
 use all the moral and mental persuasiveness von pos- 
 sess to induce your patient to look away from sense 
 to spirit, and if you can but get the thought finally 
 off material things and on to spiritual reality, the 
 outward s} T mptoms of disorder at once give place to 
 a placid and even joyful exterior. As light breaks 
 in from the unseen world, immediately we cease to 
 dwell upon external things. 
 
SPIBTTUAL TH£BAPEUT* 
 
 For this reason, Mary's attitude is preferable to 
 Martha's, for an inordinate concern for worldly affairs 
 is like an insect or a cinder in one's eve. When one is 
 traveling through some delightful country, the most ex- 
 quisite scenery is imperceptible to one whose visual or- 
 
 s are blocked up. ^o may we not conclude that the 
 only reason why we are not usually conscious of the 
 presence of spiritual influences is because grief, repining, 
 or some other earthly emotion keeps us absorbed in 
 those externals, which, when they engage our atten- 
 tion, shut out from us all view of spiritual life. After 
 all, all that matters is that those in sorrow should he 
 brought out of their low estate by a realization of 
 spiritual truth. 
 
 If the various resurrections recorded in the Scrip- 
 tures are literal facts, they afford no evidence that 
 those who were thus marvelously raised in flesh did not 
 die again. Parents and sisters whose brothers and 
 sons and daughters were thus physically restored to 
 them, must ever after have been tormented with the 
 fear of losing them again, unless some guarantee was 
 given that their life was immortal. Our greatest source 
 of unhappiness is our own materiality. AVe love the 
 things of sense far too dearly, and thus whatever we 
 may know of spiritual immortality, we are not content, 
 because we sigh perpetually for companionship on the 
 material plane. 
 
 True spiritual resurrection is not the resuscitation of 
 a corpse. It is nothing in any wfty physical. It is an 
 illumination of one's interior being, an openingof one's 
 spiritual perceptions to discern the spiritual stale Sor- 
 row often helps us toward this end because it loosens 
 
94 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 our hold on outward things. Thus Ave can comprehend 
 Job's exclamation addressed to the Almighty at the 
 end of his affliction, "I have heard of Thee with the 
 hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee." 
 Those who are truly resurrected, in the spiritual sense, 
 are those blessed ones who, even while they dwell on 
 earth, are in conscious and continual communion with 
 the spiritual realm. 
 
LESSOX AT. 
 
 TUA.NSFIGUKATIOX. 
 
 H 
 
 A.VDTG received a great many questions con- 
 cerning the story of the transfiguration of 
 
 Jesus and its attendant circumstances, and being 
 particularly asked to apply its teachings to mod- 
 ern life, we present the following summary of our 
 
 views on this intensely interesting subject, and as the 
 subject easily permitted of it, we have embodied in this 
 address replies to several questions bearing on the 
 proper government of refractory children and offenders 
 against the civil law. In the seventh chapter of Matthew 
 we find the story of the transfiguration briefly out- 
 lined as follows : Jesus takes Peter, James and John 
 to a high mountain apart, and is transfigured before 
 them. His face shines as the sun, and his garments 
 appear white as the light. Moses and Elias appear to 
 the disciples talking with Jesus. Peter asks Jesus 
 whether three tabernacles can not be erected on that 
 glorious height, one for Jesus, one for Moses and one 
 for Elias, but before he finishes speaking a bright 
 cloud overshadows them, and a voice speaks from out 
 the cloud saving:, "This is my beloved son in whom I 
 
 a' 
 
 am well pleased,hearyehim." Whenthe disciples hear 
 
 the voice they fall on their faces, and are sore afraid. 
 ►ids them arise and fear not. After he has touched 
 05 
 
9G BPIRITDAL THBRAPBUlft 
 
 them and they raise their cyvs the two visitors are 
 no longer visible, they are alone with Jesus who tells 
 them the time has not yet arrived for making public 
 the vision, but he assures them after his resurrection 
 the time will have arrived for publicly testifying to 
 their marvelous experiences on the mount. This nar- 
 rative is immediately followed by the narration of a 
 marvelous c one who was op] 
 
 with lunacy, which afford on for a homily on the 
 
 need of faith a d of mua a topic of vital 
 
 moment to all spiritual students), and then a practical 
 discourse on paying tribute, winch seems to (.pen up to 
 the earnest and intelligent meditator much import 
 teaching on the subject of the proper relation existing 
 between faith in God, w of the Supreme Being, 
 
 recognition of the sole sovereignty of divine truth in 
 matters of conviction and the honorable discharge of 
 
 our duties in the external state. 
 
 Let us transport ourselves in mind to the scene of 
 the vision. Significant, indeed, is the account of its 
 being seen on a high mountain, pire of speech 
 
 which incessantly occurs in the Scriptures in com, 
 tion with States of Spiritual exaltation, moral and in- 
 tellectual enlightenment and conquest over enemi< 
 
 More than three thousand y< ding to 
 
 the Pentateuch, Moses received the Ten Command- 
 ments from the hand of Jehovah, on tables of stone, 
 upon the top of an Arabian mountain, while the multi- 
 tude at the base were enveloped in thick darlcm 
 Their eyes were so weak that after Moses had come 
 down from the mountain into their midst, they could 
 not gaze upon his features until he had covered his !, 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK 97 
 
 with a veil. How striking the resemblance between 
 the glorified countenance of Moses at the time of the 
 
 giving of the law to the Hebrews in the desert and the 
 transfigured countenance of Jesus when Moses re-ap- 
 peared upon a mountain top in Asia Minor. 
 
 The correspondence of a mountain is not far to seek. 
 
 Mountainous districts are peculiarly salubrious. There 
 
 is far less disease and far fewer early deaths on high 
 
 >und than in low-lying valleys. Miasmic emanations 
 
 do not reach those lofty heights. In India, during the 
 
 summer season, when the climate in all the cities is so 
 
 oppressive to Europeans that they can scarcely endure 
 
 it, the mountainous region round about is health v and 
 
 invigorating. Scarcely ever does a Western traveler 
 
 to the far Orient suffer severely from the climate if he 
 
 can take refuge in the mountains during the hottest 
 
 portion of the year. 
 
 In Europe, when the cities of the Italian plain lie 
 
 ltering under the summer sun Alpine tourists are 
 
 encountering bracing air wafted to them from snow- 
 ed © 
 
 clad peaks whose ermine robes are never melted, even 
 though the torrid rays of the summer sun scorch to 
 death every flower and blade of grass in the low-lying 
 districts. The air is always pure on mountain heights, 
 no matter what form of fell disorder may be raging in 
 the valleys. So universally is this fact recognized that 
 physicians the world over prescribe mountain air as an 
 effectual antidote to disorders considered incurable 
 while the patient remains on lesser elevations. 
 
 In the religious thought of the world we find the 
 sacredness of mountain heights a peculiarly conspicuous 
 feature. Temples were almost always built on high 
 7 
 
98 SPIRITUAL THBRAFBUnOS. 
 
 ground, and it was a common belief among the ancients 
 that divinities dwelt on mountains, and specially was it 
 felt among the Jews in olden times that God could fight 
 for them on mountain tops, and nowhere else. ( hate of 
 the interpretations given of the name, Jehovah (Yah- 
 veh), by some authorities is, "the god of the mountains," 
 a deity who was ever at home in high latitudes, but 
 utterly out of bis element on low land. 
 
 Puerile as this definition would be of the Supreme 
 Being, if any allusion to the Infli ontained in 
 
 it, it accords bo precisely with the universal belief 
 ancient peoplesthat it is but one out of many install 
 proving that the Israelites Bhan d a common faith with 
 the greal mass of humanity, even though a1 certain 
 periods of the world's history they have undoubtedly 
 been the custodians of a particularly pure and noble 
 
 monotheism, while Jewish influence the world over has 
 liberally contributed to the advancement of morals, sci- 
 ence, philosophy and ait. 
 
 But to discard the more external meanings of Bible 
 
 mountains, let us at oncegive way for the spiritual in- 
 terpretation which lies BO thinly veiled in the literal 
 dress which drapes without concealing its majestic fea- 
 tures that any child of ordinary intelligence need not 
 
 err in learning the lessons such narratives as the ac- 
 count of the transfiguration enforce. Asa mountain is 
 a lofty height up "which no one can climb without an 
 effort, as when once gained it secures a commanding 
 view of surrounding scenery invisible in the valley, as 
 it frequently rains down into the valleys when it is 
 clear upon the hill-tops, as clouds hang frequently 
 about the mountain sides, obscuring its peaks and 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 99 
 
 completely hiding the celestial panorama we can gaze 
 at when on its summit, the mountain fitly represents a 
 state of mind attained alone through earnest and oft- 
 times laborious effort, a mental state above the doubts, 
 fears, worries and vexations of every -day existence, a 
 state which once reached allows the one who lias at- 
 tained it to gaze henceforth on spiritual glories undis- 
 cernible by all save those who have scaled the rocky 
 peaks upon whose towers one may see the pageant of 
 the heavens and not the dust of earth; on mountain 
 heights Ave are so far above the noise, strife and bustle 
 of ordinary affairs that we seem to dwell in a fairy re- 
 gion, a charmed estate where music not of earth and 
 sights unknown to mortal observation entrance our 
 eyes and ears with glimpses of the realms eternal. 
 
 The everlasting hills ! What a sublime expression 
 that is. How calm, strong and satisfied the mount- 
 ains seem! How they appear to smile, half disdain- 
 fully and half compassionately at the little nervous 
 enterprises of the ever changing towns and hamlets at 
 their base. 
 
 It is not a foolish speculation which leads many to in- 
 quire if God is not nearer to us on the mountains than 
 in the valleys. He is not nearer to us, but we are apt 
 to be consciously nearer to Him. Tbe vastness of the 
 solitudes brings us into closer relations with our inner 
 selves, and through the highest in us can we alone ap- 
 proach the highest in the universe. Mountain solitudes 
 are often so terribly oppressive to the external mind 
 that the brain reels, reason totters, and insanity ensues. 
 We have heard of many men, some of them mere 
 youths, who have become maniacs through tending 
 
100 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 sheep alone on mountain heights. Such experiences 
 were frequently alluded to in ancient works on occul- 
 tism, where initiatory rites were spoken of as entailing 
 the utmost danger and distress on the weak and fal- 
 tering, while the strong, persistent, and con 
 neophytes grew stronger and more gifted with every 
 trial they encountered, till, at length, they r< rior 
 
 to every dread, and came oil" triumphant victors over 
 sense and its seductions. 
 
 It may be in place here to allude briefly to an arti- 
 cle published some time ago in the Two W<rrlds,a.xx 
 English spiritualistic newspaper, edited l>y Mrs. E. EL 
 Britten. The article is entitled "Poetical Occultism," 
 and the writer is styled "One Who Kn<> This ar- 
 
 ticle was copied by Dr. J. K. Buchanan in the January 
 1888 number of his Journal of Man, accompanied by 
 editorial comments which are on the whole extremely 
 reasonable, as they are to the effeel thai no kind of oc- 
 cult discipline which disqualifies one for the perform- 
 ance of the regular appointed duties of life, can t> 
 much a blessing as a drawback to the p s of 
 
 humanity. 
 
 This is just the point we want to emphasize, and it 
 needs especial emphasis at this particular time when 
 occult studies are being pursued, or, at least, looked 
 into by the most intelligent persons everywhere, while, 
 as maybe expected, there are many bats in human 
 form ready, if possible, to eclipse the sunshine because 
 they are too blind to appreciate its radiance. 
 
 Esoterically considered, the New Testament ag 
 exactly with the Hindoo Vedas, and every other pure 
 and ancient Scripture designed to preserve a concise 
 
SPIRITUAL TIIKKArKUTICS. 101 
 
 record of spiiitual discovery upon the earth in the ex 
 act language of precise and unchanging correspond- 
 ence. The recent publication of the "Bhagavad Gita 
 or the Lord's Lay," in a new form, by Mohini M. Chat- 
 terjij with copious annotations and references to the 
 Christian Scriptures, has furnished a fresh proof of the 
 striking similarity of one inspired form of teaching to 
 another. 
 
 All inspired writers point to one only means of 
 reaching a knowledge of truth, so far as to make it 
 practical in every relation of existence, and that is by 
 going up, or, in other words, going in to the mountain 
 of the higher, which is the inner nature, there to dis- 
 cover th8 pearl of great price which lies buried in the 
 depths of man's spiritual being, so as to be able when 
 that pearl is found to carry it out into all the family 
 and business transactions of life, till, at length, there 
 is a new earth or external state of justice and purity, 
 as well as a new heaven or higher and deeper internal 
 realization of things divine. 
 
 To pay especial attention to the details of the story 
 
 are now specially considering, let us note the three 
 (li^'-iplcs accompanying Jesus up the mountain. We 
 iind these three going with him wherever lie went. 
 John was the most beloved and intimate of all. but 
 Peter, James and John were his constant followers 
 and immediate attendants. They E to us the 
 
 three representative orders of human faculties we all 
 recognize: the moral, the intellectual and the physical, 
 while Jesus represents the immortal soul. All our 
 faculties must go up to the summit of the mountain. 
 
 in other words, our entire nature, classified 
 
102 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC*. 
 
 it may be in three grand divisions, must be employed 
 in the discovery, diffusion and application of spiritual 
 knowledge to the diversified needs ir common 
 
 humanity. 
 
 Every one needs a time for mountain climbing, and 
 a place which may be to him a holy mountain so far as 
 outward isolation from the busy world can make il 
 When it is asked why the Orientals are said to attain 
 spiritual altitudes more readily than members of the 
 bustling communities of the Western world, the answer 
 is invariably the same. Eindoos reply: "We live 
 nearer to the soul of the universe than y< a do; ire care 
 less about money, rank and fashion; we spend less 
 time and thought upon external things than you, and, 
 as a consequence, we have our reward; we seek spirit- 
 ual bread, and we gel it ; you seek the stone of wordly 
 honors and distinctions and you gel them; according 
 to your desires, so are the answers to your prayers, for 
 all desire and effort is prayer, and as you pray, so you 
 are answered, no matter to whom you pray or what 
 you pray for." 
 
 The great question for modern moralists, yes, and 
 for physiologists also to consider is the relation of 
 external striving to health and purity. It may sound 
 to some a worn-out platitude that you are destroying 
 your national health and undermining the very founda- 
 tions of future greatness, but this truth needs to be 
 sounded as with the voice of a trumpet sounding an 
 alarm, in tlie ears of all heads of families and public 
 instructors throughout the land. Morality cannot be 
 taught successfully to youth so long as parents and 
 teachers set the example of mammon worship. The 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 1 0,°> 
 
 influences surrounding a forming mind, subtle, unseen, 
 usually unrecognized influences are what tend to 
 develop character far more effectively than any amount 
 of routine instruction. There is everything in a pure, 
 healthy, invigorating, mental atmosphere. The moral 
 aii 1 a child breathes in unconsciously is what molds his 
 temper of thought and character, not the scholastic 
 drill which is often a painful and unwelcome strain on 
 the intellectual faculties. 
 
 If, as Dr. Buchanan prophesies, psychometiy is to 
 be the dawn of a new civilization, psychometry, which 
 means, literally, soul measurement, another term for 
 psychical perception, must be utilized in tracing the 
 effects of unseen influences on the triune constitution 
 of man. The question is constantly raised as to the 
 education of sensitives. Crammed scholastically they 
 had better never be, for the less they are burdened 
 with pedantic technicalities, the freer and sweeter will 
 be their inspirations. But can any one doubt that some- 
 thing very practical can be accomplished in the way of 
 helping to unfold psychic powers and perceptions nat- 
 urally ? 
 
 In the Two Worlds, " Schools for the Prophets" are 
 discussed. Mrs. Britten and many of her most intelli- 
 gent correspondents are strongly in favor of doing 
 something practical in the way of assisting sensitive 
 persons to unfold and use their powers under the besl 
 possible conditions. Speaking for ourselves, we are 
 not much in favor of endowed and incorporated institu- 
 tions for such a purpose, as trustees and directors are 
 too frequently dogmatic and intolerant. They may 
 have excellent financial and executive abilitv in the 
 
104 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 business world, but spiritual gifts are not in the market 
 to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. You cannot 
 purchase the gift of the spirit for money. Thus if col- 
 leges for sensitives be established there is a dang< r that, 
 falling into the hands of dogmatists, they will devel- 
 op into nothing better than mesmeric establishments, 
 in which all the subjects would he connected by means 
 of invisible wires of thought with some centralis 
 and controlling power, not so much spiritual as mate- 
 rial. 
 
 The gospel story of the transfiguration need not be 
 considered as a literal historical fact, if one does no 
 desire to consider it, as its spiritual import is universal. 
 The evangelists tell us of certain methods being 
 adopted and certain ends obtained. We may say then, 
 in a certain sense, a challenge is thrown out to the 
 world; let whoever will pick up Jesus, 
 
 the central figure, is exoterically whoever (ills the 
 position of a great and advanced tea erically, 
 
 'he is the spiritual nature in all mankind. The Great 
 Teacher gathers together those of his foil who 
 
 are prepared to receive a higher lesson in divine truth 
 on the top of a mountain, and there is transfigured 
 before them. Far away from the strife and bustle 
 of the noisy, mercenary, contentions world they are 
 brought face to face with the sublimest aspects of 
 truth the world has ever witnessed; ^Uoses and Elias 
 appear to them. If this is literal history, then they 
 receive on that high altitude, in the clear, bracing air, 
 a proof of human immortality they could never receive 
 on the low tablelands or in the valleys. If the spirit 
 of the story be alone regarded, then, what is M. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 105 
 
 but an embodiment of law, or what is Elijah but 
 prophecy personified i 
 
 Let us look at Moses in the light of law for a few 
 
 moments, and then at Elijah in the light of prophecy. 
 Flippant, would-be critics may dismiss biblical narra- 
 tives with a contemptuous sneer, because the hidden 
 treasure has to be dug out of the mine, and they have 
 neither inebriation nor ability to dig it out; but to the 
 student of life's mysteries, to the reverent inquirer into 
 the secrets of the universe, every page in all the Scrip- 
 tures of the earth glows with the light of a hidden 
 flame, whose guiding light ever beckons the world on to 
 higher and ever higher attainments. The true theory 
 of evolution is more plainly exemplified in Bible history 
 than in all the treatises of Darwin and his followers, 
 even the latest scientific speculations concerning natural 
 selection, and the survival of the fittest are all magni- 
 ficently illustrated in scripture stories when esoteric; llv 
 interpreted. 
 
 There can be but little question to-day among those 
 whose researches are something more than despicably 
 superficial, of the existence in remote ages in Egypt of 
 a splendid spiritual dynasty, of which the most power- 
 ful and glorious kingly dynasty was but the outward 
 shadow. Chronologists inform us that Egypl was 
 ruled by gods for 13,900 years prior to the reign 
 of demigods, who, in their turn, were succeeded by 
 Pharoahs, who were ordinary men, native prim 
 
 Let us strip ancient history of all its fantastic 
 apparel, and let ancient phraseology melt into modern 
 forms of speech, bet us employ the gospel interpreta- 
 tion as a working hypothesis in deciphering the hi- 
 
106 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 glypliics of the past, contained in the words, "They 
 were called gods, on whom the spirit of God (the Eter- 
 nal) came," and we can readily perceive how the Jews 
 (the word Jew really means any enlightened person, not 
 necessarily a relative by blood of any special human 
 ancestor) in the days of Moses, probably a contemporary 
 of Sesostris the Great, borrowed and never returned, 
 L *., carried out of Egypt, the most valuable treasures 
 of wisdom which they locked up at length in the jewel 
 cases of their correspondentially written scriptures. 
 The Mosaic law was a perpetuation of a system of 
 legislation, dating back no doubt to the sunken 
 Atlantis, from which actual i not fabulous) country 
 Egypt received her first impressions of science and 
 religion. The Atlantian heroes and wise men who 
 colonized Egypt were the gods who ruled the country 
 for nearly L4,000 years in the long ago. 
 
 The most ancient law buried m the letter of exter- 
 nal Mosaism, is the one divine law of truth. It is the 
 universal, spiritual, natural law, to transgress which is 
 sin. This law never changes ; it is absolutely immuta- 
 ble, like its author and sustain er, God. When law is 
 transfigured, and not till then, do we see how perfectly 
 at one are all the religious systems and bibles of the 
 world. The unity of law is to be found only in its 
 spirit; its letter killeth, and that which kills also dies, 
 while its spirit giveth life, and therefore lives forever. 
 The great paradox of the New Testament is the pres- 
 entation of diametrical opposites in the life and teach- 
 ing of the ideal man. Jesus is constantly represented 
 in the two-fold capacity of law destroyer and law ful- 
 filler. In the sermon on the mount, he disallows the 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS lOT 
 
 letter of Hebrew legislation in its cxqvv particular, and 
 attributes the enforcement of antiquated customs to a 
 
 spirit of servile submission to the traditions of the past. 
 
 How can the law be destroyed in letter but fulfilled 
 in spirit? How can we in this day, in this land, com- 
 pletely set aside the letter of the ancient law, and at 
 the same time enforce its spirit in every particular? 
 Take the Sabbath law as an example. The old Jewish 
 institutes concerning Sabbath observance are literally 
 so repellant to the spirit of human liberty and even 
 justice that we shrink with horror from the thought 
 that a human being was ever put to death for working 
 on the seventh day. We can have no sympathy with 
 the old blue law of New England, which ordained 
 heavy fines and imprisonment for the slightest depart- 
 ure from the rigorous enactments of the Puritans. 
 Still, we all know by practical experience, that one day 
 of rest and recreation out of every seven is intensely 
 beneficial to all who observe such a periodical season 
 of refreshment and repose. 
 
 The institution of the Sabbath dates back to an age 
 and country where slave-holding was as common as 
 hired labor is to-day. The Sabbath law was, in its 
 intention, a humane and merciful provision against 
 the overworking of human beings and animals alike. 
 Read the Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue care- 
 fully through, and you must, every one of you, be thor- 
 oughly convinced that men and women, oxen and 
 ls creatures who worked with scarcely an inter- 
 -ion, except for nightly sleep, during six consecul ive 
 
 s of every week', were greatly blessed by having 
 secured to them the rest of the Sabbath. In the olden 
 
108 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC 
 
 days, when men were not to be moved, it appears, by 
 any merely human mandate, the authority of a really 
 or assumedly divine revelation was absolutely necessary 
 
 to compel tyrannical masters to allow their >1. 
 some seasons of repose, and, as Solomon truly and 
 wisely says, U A righteous man regardeth the life of 
 his beast" — the Sabbath law was as stringent con- 
 cerning animals, as it was concerning men, while an 
 extension of the same law insisted that the land should 
 rest every seventh year, and by thus resting the land, 
 
 oriental agriculturists prevented the soil From wear 
 out, and the land from becoming sterile through o\ 
 cultivation. So wise and so beneficent is the Sabbath 
 
 law in its essential spirit, that we can, none <>f us, 
 afford to disregard it here today, and we are happy t<> 
 say that avowedly materialistic papers, such as the 
 Boston Investigator^ are as much in favor of intelligent 
 Sabbath observance as any Christian sheet can he. 
 
 The question which naturally arises is, What do you 
 mean by Sabbath observance! We answer. We do not 
 mean any sort of ecclesiastical observance,but a healthy 
 cessation of businc - and vexations, for the whole 
 
 of one day out of seven. Let people go to church if they 
 like, into the parks, onto the water, or wheresoever they 
 please, and if it is found necessary to employ some peo- 
 ple on the day when others an equitable 
 arrangement might be made whereby some people 
 should observe the Jewish and others the Christian 
 Sabbath. Still, as far as possible, all should - 
 the same day, for the purpose of rendering possibles 
 calm and quiet general mental influence due to the ab- 
 solute cessation of at least nine-tenths of the work done 
 
SPIRITUAL THEBAPECTK 109 
 
 on the six working days. Jesus, in all his teaching and 
 example treated this question in the most practical 
 manner conceivable. lie healed the sick on the Sabbath 
 day, therein' dedicating it to the best good of the race 
 physically, as well as morally and mentally; and when 
 accused of being a Sabbath-breaker, he answered, "The 
 Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab- 
 bath." 
 
 In that statement he caused Moses to appear trans- 
 figured before the mental vision of those who claimed 
 to he devoted disciples of the great Hebrew legislator ; 
 and when we pass on to a consideration of teachings 
 yet mere vital and important, we shall find the same 
 transfigured Moses held up by Jesus to the people 
 in place of the old Mosaic commands, whose literal bar- 
 barity is so shockingly repulsive to the enlightened 
 thought of the nineteenth century. 
 
 When we spoke against the hanging of the Chi< 
 anarchists, at the time of their trial and condemnation, 
 we took for our text, "Whosoever sheddeth man's 
 blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" but we 
 coupled with it many words attributed to Jesus, taken 
 from the sermon on the mount, in which lie most em- 
 phatically dissents from the retaliatory interpretation 
 of those grandly prophetic words, the full inner mean- 
 which can only be comprehended by a true 
 theosophist deeply versed in a knowledge of Karma^ 
 or the law of consequence. Several Boston newspapers 
 were sent to us by friends in Massachusetts, containing 
 
 ermons by Christian minis' 
 approving of the i on of the anarchists. Almost 
 
 ry one of those sermons, delivered in Christian pub 
 
110 SPIRITUAL TnERAPEDTK 
 
 pits, was in downright defiance of Jesus, and justified 
 the comment of a friend who sent us the papers. " If 
 Jesus were on earth to-day, those very ministers would 
 cry out, 'Crucify him.' " We ask, in the nameof com- 
 mon sense, how can preachers or bearers be so hypo- 
 critical, or so blind to the meaning of words as not to 
 see that their applications of old Hebrew texts to 
 modern events are at deadly variance with the teach- 
 ings they profess to regard as the words of incarnate 
 Deity I The Christian Church will never pul down in- 
 quity, so long as it worships Jesus with the lip, and 
 insults him in every act of legislation. Joseph Cook's 
 oft repeated babble, u May God, have mercy on their 
 souls, but may the Government of the Tinted States 
 
 not have mercy on their bodies," was one of the i 
 
 inconsistent sentenees any man pr g to be 
 
 follower of Jesus oould possibly utter or frame. As 
 Moses Bull, editor of Th* New Thought^ said at Mt. 
 Pleasant Park Camp Meeting in August, l ss 7. Why 
 do not these professing Christians condemn men \\>v 
 shaving the corners of their beards, for the same chap- 
 ter in Leviticus which enforces the barbaric commands 
 against which the senium on the mount so forcibly 
 inveighs, is as strict in its denunciations against shaving 
 the whole face, as it is against adultery. 
 
 Swedenborgians interpret the old law spiritually, 
 and thereby assist in the transfiguration of M<>^<>; but 
 we regret to say that even among people professedly 
 constituting the New Jerusalem Church, there are 
 some who advocate capital punishment. -'An eye for 
 an eye, a tooth for a tooth." is stili their motto, in 
 spite of all that Jesus said so earnestly against it, and 
 
SPIRITUAL THKBAPEUTli 111 
 
 the singular anachronism is, tliat the very people ivhe 
 
 advocate these awful barbarities read as a portion of 
 the divine word publicly in their churches the most 
 emphatic condemnation of their own acts. We do not 
 wish to re, but we cannot resist repeating the 
 
 words of an intelligent Oriental, who had just been 
 studying the New Testament, "Well, it is difficult for 
 me to see how any Christian can advocate capital 
 punishment without being- either an idiot or a hypo- 
 crite." 
 
 We have no difficulty in perceiving that the original 
 intent of even such a monstrous act as decapitation 
 may have been to deter others from crime, and tin 
 fore may have seemed legitimate; but that the wis 
 men of the East saw no deeper into human nature 
 than to believe that doing evil that good may come, 
 brings good to pass, is something we neither will nor 
 can believe. 
 
 The lesson to be derived from the appearance of 
 Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration is primarily 
 and essentially the adjustment of our laws in harmony 
 with the Sermon on the Mount. When t lie vail is re- 
 moved, and law appears in its own intrinsic beauty, 
 undimmed by false disguise, there will no longerbe any 
 
 '1 for prisons, jails and penitentiaries, but before 
 these institutions, relics of barbarism that they are, are 
 
 ;lly abolished, prison reform must bo carried to such 
 a pitch that going to prison will be looked upon in the 
 same light as going to school or to a hospital. 
 
 Moral asylums are needed ju ylums for the 
 
 blind, the deaf and dumb. And as visitors go frequently 
 to these latter institutions to watch the progress made 
 
112 SPIRITUAL THKEAPEUTK 
 
 by those who, often from some unknown cause, have 
 been deprived of some natural gift, toward the obtain- 
 ing or recovery of it, 30 should prison inspectors take 
 an active interest and sincere delight in the moral re- 
 covery of those 'who, often through infamous early 
 training, or lack' of training, have so c< mported them- 
 selves as to render their temporary captivity within 
 four walls necessary for their own reform and others 
 safety. We are not I do not i 
 
 done offences ; but what we do maintain is that love 
 being the fulfilling of the divine law, only through 
 loving administration is the world to be redeemed from 
 the innumerable errors which now curse it. 
 
 What a lesson the d j of J< ma must have 
 
 learned on the top of thai mysterious mount wl 
 Moses thus marvelously . I rehabilitated in 
 
 garments of loving kindness! What a difficull les 
 it was for Peter to dig* ven atl 
 
 ing moment of his beloved V surrender of him- 
 
 self into the hands of his accusers, thought to adva 
 that Master's interest by lifting up his sword and cut- 
 ting oflf the ear of the high pri< ml Malchusl 
 How small must be the mind of any caviler who pi< 
 at the outer garb of the gospel story, and utterly fails 
 to see how applicable are all the events therein recorded 
 to the present day and this very land of ours. Was it, 
 after all, enthusiasm for the Master, or was it a 
 of spiteful revenge which lifted Peter's handl He 
 could not have been, at that time, veiy brave or noble, 
 when he so soon after denied his Master! Hot-beaded 
 impetuosity is never associated with genuine fealty and 
 lasting friendship. The man who would light boldly 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 1 13 
 
 for Jesus was the man who was the most ready, through 
 cowardice, to deny him. Physical culture dissociated 
 from spiritual culture develops the pugilist, who is 
 never brave. The gymnasium, and certainly the fight- 
 ing ring, will develop in one and the same person a her- 
 culean bodyand a pigmy soul ; physical giants are often 
 mental dwarfs. To strike a blow or lire a pistol is not 
 courageous. Courage gives the soft answer and there- 
 with tin ns away wrath. 
 
 Oh ! how often do we witness the saddening specta- 
 cle of men and women seeking to enforce discipline by 
 boxing children's ears, and other cowardly and wicked 
 practices. Children grow up sneaks and criminals, be- 
 come yet viler through the machinery of a law of 
 hate and fear, when a loving, just, and merciful regime 
 would educate little ones, and reform criminals. 
 
 But we must revert, ere we conclude, to the ap- 
 pearance of Elijah, or Elias, who was the embodiment 
 of prophecy, as Moses was of law. Prophecy is said 
 by Paul to be the greatest of all spiritual gifts. Now, 
 what is prophecy? A prophet is a seer, one who looks 
 ahead, who scans the heavens, and foretells coming 
 events; but he is, most of all, an exhorter — one pos- 
 ting the power to speak directly to the hearts and 
 consciences, as well as to the intellects of his bean i>. 
 ween priest and prophet there is always the same 
 difference that there is between inventor and copj 
 between creative and imitative genius. Priests and 
 those under them do not usually believe in proph 
 and they often stone the prophets. A prophet can not be 
 confined within the narrow limits of any man madecn 
 . u not submit to having his wings clipped and living 
 
114 SPIRITUAL THERAPKITI 
 
 like an eagle in a cage. lie must be free as the air, and 
 he would rather starve than compromise. < >f such pure 
 metal was Elijah made, and of such, verily in every 
 and country, may it be said, "Theirs is the kingdom of 
 heaven/' No earthly crown decorates their brow, no 
 earthly honors and emoluments are theirs, nor do they 
 seek them; their motto is ever, "For God and for 
 humanity," and their whole life is an exemplification 
 of the truth to which, through good repute and ill, 
 through fire and sword if need be, they steadfastly ad- 
 here. The significance of the apj>earance of Elijah on 
 the Mount of Transfiguration is far removed above thai 
 controversial speculation which disputes over the literal 
 identy of John the Baptist with Elias of old. Whether 
 John the Baptist was the personal Elias re embodied is 
 not a question of any vital moment. 
 
 Elijah is the synonym of prophecy, the representa- 
 tive of prophets everywhere, and for all time. When 
 prophesy is transfigured, or, in other words, understood 
 not in the killing letter, but in the life-giving spirit, it 
 no longer appears as unconditional as it did before. 
 Israel of old was so favorably situated that all things 
 seemed conspiring together to make of the house of Israel 
 and of the city of Jerusalem the greatest nation and 
 the metropolis of the whole earth. Had [srael always 
 remained true to her sacred trust, had she invariably 
 adhered to the commandments of the decalogue, the 
 day could never have arrived when the name of Caesar 
 had to be acknowledged in Palestine. 
 
 It was the scheming, calculating spirit which ani- 
 mated the demagogues in the days of Jesus to curry 
 favor at the court of Rome by condemning the innocent 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 115 
 
 to death, that through many centuries as a deadly but 
 most insidious poison, had been lurking in the veins of 
 the Israeli tish people. This alone it was which wrought 
 their downfall and made it possible for the Christ to 
 weep on Olivet. No more touching scene has ever been 
 portrayed than that of the weeping Savior of a doomed 
 humanity — not doomed by any cruelty of God, but 
 self-destroyed, preferring war to peace, hate to love, 
 falsehood to truth, vice to virtue. Is there a medical 
 man who can not at once apply the scene to many 
 among his own patients? Faithfully and patiently he 
 lias pointed out to them their errors, reasoning and 
 remonstrating with them till time and language were 
 alike exhausted, and then, when they had proved utterly 
 incorrigible, in sadness he has turned away and lam- 
 ented the idiotic folly of men and women rushing head- 
 long to physical perdition, when the means had been 
 placed within their grasp of working out their own salva- 
 tion ere it became too late. 
 
 Prophecy is not prediction solely or chiefly, it is first 
 
 of all and more than all, exhortation. The true prophet 
 
 is a genuine exhorter, one who sets the truth before the 
 
 world with convincing power and fervor; one who, 
 
 with more than usual hindsight, insight, and foresight, 
 
 knows the inevitable law of consequence more fully 
 
 than his fellows, and consecrates that knowledge zejiT- 
 
 ously, untiringly to blessing the world. No prophet 
 
 can tell you what will of necessity befall you ; but he 
 
 can tell you what must inevitably acme if a certain 
 
 arse of action is persisted in. 
 
 Nothing is more natural than prophecy. From a 
 
 ritual standpoint prophecy is an exact science, and 
 
116 SPIRITUAL THERAPRUTR 
 
 the understanding of it as such is the master key to all 
 
 those occult mysteries which continually beset 08. 
 When the followers of Jesus knew what proph< 
 really meant, all their national hopes were dashed to 
 pieces. Xo longer could they regard the Infinite 
 Jehovah as the tribal deity of the Jewish elan, aim 
 exclusively interested in the welfare 
 the human race. A broader conception ( 
 of their minds, and henceforward <T<>d to them appeared 
 as n< ter of pera 
 
 ts only. This sublime view of I teitj 
 Hebrew prophets had entertained and expressed it 
 before, but there is little I for sup; but the 
 
 Jews ;i> a people had ever risen I 
 of the idea of a universal and utterly impartial D< 
 
 To apply this subject to vital i the 1 
 
 present, we have only to change the tin 
 gospel epi> i render them intensely applicable 
 
 present conditions in Europe and America. W< 
 to press the matter still nearer home, and individua 
 the lesson of the story, by contemplati 
 thing is bald prediction when applied to our own circum- 
 stances, while genuine prophecy, thai 
 which Paul extolled above so manyothei 
 dower which can fall to the lot of any human being. 
 
 It requires a lecture on heredity tain in any- 
 
 thing like detail the working of the prophetic element 
 in daily life. Supposing you are told your lungs are 
 weak, and you believe it, and instead tting to 
 
 work to strengthen your system by healthy discipline 
 you give in to the saddening thought — a thought n 
 woefully depressing wherever entertained — that it 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTH B, 117 
 
 part of your ill luck or adverse fortune to succumb. to 
 a terrible disorder. You fulfill a vile, and perhaps 
 utterly baseless prediction by affiliating in thought 
 with the very forces which tend to tear you down, 
 while you might just as readily have affiliated with an 
 opposite class of influences, association with which 
 would have built you up. Now take an instanoeon 
 the other side being told that you inherit an excep- 
 tionally robust constitution, and that inconsequence 
 thus naturally vigorous you are bound to Iv 
 long life and enjoy excellent health to the end of your 
 days, you fritter away your energy in disgraceful dis- 
 
 , tion; you will most certainly fail, like the hare in 
 the old fable, while your less fortunately started neigh- 
 bor may be the winning tortoise in the race. 
 
 These illustrations are intensely commonplace, but 
 our ambition is to be practical, not to indulge in flights 
 of eloquence or flowers of rhetoric. Let the his! 
 the Jewish people two thousand years ago and the his- 
 tory of all peoples who have once been great, but who 
 have yielded to the corroding moth of presumptu 
 
 -satisfaction, lead us all to yield to that glorious 
 Elias ministry of the soul, which, in the stentorian 
 tones of a ruffged and utterlv inelegant dweller in the 
 deserts, often proclaims to us the only means jape 
 
 from all the evils which menace us, when he lifts up 
 his voice in the wilderness, and loudly cries: " Repent, 
 for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." A kingdom of 
 heaven is now at our doors. We are entering upon a 
 new social, religious, and political order. Tin 
 industrial problems of the hour, the tremendous sti 
 gle between capital and labor, between monopoly and 
 
118 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 justice, can not much longer be dallied with ; the final 
 issue can not much longer be delayed by unsatisfactory 
 temporizing in the way of palliative concessions, -when 
 radical reform is loudly called for over all the earth. 
 Not those who fare delicately, and are clad in costly 
 raiment are the prophets, but those who dare to lift up 
 their voice in humanity's cause, espousing right and 
 liberty even though their cry shall cause thrones to 
 totter, and shall shake t lie hoary foundations of a False 
 political system until it falls about 
 whose material interest it is to uphold it. 
 
 Let no cringing servility to wealth or fashion 
 our lips, or cause us to lay down our pens. Lei one 
 and all buckle on the armor and fight with the spirit- 
 ual and intellectual weapons of persuasive argument 
 and forcible denunciation of wrong, the demon tyranny 
 which still holds multitudes in thrall. America, the 
 richest, fairest, freest land beneath the sun, even you, 
 with all your great advantages can not afford to trust 
 idly in your luck, for if you do not speedily hold eon- 
 verse with Elijah on the mountain, or. to change the 
 metaphor, lift high the banner of pure molality upon 
 the folds of which is inscribed the sacred watchword 
 " Justice," all your advantages will be as naught, for 
 unerring prophecy ever declares that nation and that 
 state which is distinguished above others for equitable 
 government, righteous laws and a united people, shall 
 assuredly wear the crown and wave tin 4 palm whenever 
 the day arrives on which we shall see infinite justice in 
 righteousness award the prize of supremacy to those 
 who, above all others, love justice and mercy, and 
 thereby serve the Eternal in truth, and keep 1 1 is com- 
 mandments. 
 
LESSON VIZ 
 
 TRUE INDIVIDUALITY, — IX WHAT SENSE AM) TO WHAT EX- 
 TENT IS MAN A FREE MORAL AGENT, AND WHAT IS THE 
 
 ULTIMATE OF INDIVIDUAL SPIRITUAL ATTAINMENT. 
 
 THE problem of divine sovereignty and human free 
 agency is one of the most difficult ever presented 
 to the human mind for solution, and we certainly do not 
 expect to solve the problem fully so as to remove all 
 dilliculties out of the way of the honest inquirer, never- 
 theless we hope to throw at least a little practically help- 
 ful light upon it. 
 
 In this age when it is customary in many quarters, 
 presumably learned and scientific, to deny the super- 
 natural altogether, it is necessary to define clearly what 
 truth underlies the doctrines of supernaturalism. 
 
 The word nature signifies a something born, there- 
 fore if nature is something born, the laws of nature are 
 laws governing something born, or laws inherent in 
 this something born, we know that* nothing is born 
 without parents and that nothing can come into exist- 
 ence without an adequate cause. The so-called super- 
 natural is strictly speaking only super-phenomenal, 
 supermaterial, super-sensuous, or super-terrestrial, 
 
 Supernaturalism arises with the conviction that there 
 is in divine power an unlimited faculty of causation, 
 (t<mI being an infinite and omnipresent cause, know- 
 ing no beirinnintr or ending of his work but dwelling 
 and working in an eternal present. 
 
 119 
 
120 BPIBITUAL THERAPED1 l< 
 
 Whenever enlightened Hebrews called the Divine 
 Bein<^ Yahveh or Jehovah, they signified by this term 
 the Being who always was and who therefore ever will 
 be. The Eternal One who was never made and could 
 never be destroyed. 
 
 When a child inquires, "If God made every th 
 who made God?" Lis question is b imply puerile and 
 insignificant, because if you could tell who made God, 
 thequestion would then occur, who made the being 
 who made Godl And then if you reached in your 
 
 reply to the being who made (rod, you would have to 
 
 answer still another question, viz.: who made the being 
 who made the being who made God? Jfou would 
 of necessity obliged a1 length to take the position thai 
 there is, because there must be, a self existent some- 
 thing or some one. The cut. re difference between 
 theism and atheism, and between gnosticism and 
 nosticism is a difference with regard to the attribi 
 of the self-existent bei 
 
 The atheisl is obliged to admit that something 
 always was and ever will he : that Bomethii 
 never created and can never be destroyed, lie b 
 you can not destroy an atom, that annihilation is incon- 
 ceivable as applied to substance and if nothing 
 can be put out of existence, then nothing w. 
 brought into existence. Theism goes further and af- 
 linns that the eternal something which never came in- 
 to existence and can never go out of existence is not 
 unconscious and therefore unwise, for it would be an 
 axiomatic absurdity to declare that the something 
 always in existence is less than the something not al- 
 ways in existence ; it consequently follows that if eon- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTI08. 1 L> 1 
 
 Bciousness, love, wisdom, spiritual life, in a word nil the 
 virtues, were not always in existence, you are brought 
 
 i to face with the miracle of creation, of something 
 made out of nothing. Therefore, those who deny 
 God and substitute an unconscious nature teach the 
 absurdity of something being created out of nothing, 
 for if goodness, wisdom, will, intelligence, mind, spirit, 
 soul, if everything relating to our higher being was 
 not always in existence, how did it ever come into exis- 
 ts >nce i But if that which was never made, never even 
 made itself, but ever was and ever will be, if the Eter- 
 nal Being includes all attributes pertaining to nobility 
 of mind and soul, if all the attributes and elements we 
 desire to be permanent, were in the eternal heart from 
 eternity and will remain in the same eternal heart to 
 
 nity. this view induces us to regard our individual 
 finite personal lives here as nothing other than expres- 
 sions in limited form of attributes, elements and prin- 
 ciples which are infinite and eternal in the fullness of 
 their being. 
 
 People talk of divine existence as totally apart from 
 human existence very often. It is not absolutely cor- 
 rect to speak of God's existence, but it is entirely cor- 
 rect to speak of man's existence; existence means ex- 
 pression. Existence isa revelation of something. God 
 
 eternal being, and existence which is external, isa 
 manifestation of being. Therefore we say that we 
 
 ft but that God is. In making such a statement we 
 
 ically, in technical language, convey our idea con 
 cerning eternal being and temporary existen 
 
 When we know what we are, we have discovered 
 the absolute and infinite truth of being itself; when we 
 
122 SPIRITUAL THKRAPl I Tl 
 
 have reached to that stage in tin* ladder of our journey 
 we shall look no longer at thil hut 
 
 shall behold them as they wtk : then we shall know 
 what Longfellow meant and all thai any port could 
 imply in that wonderful statement in the Psalm of 
 Life, "Things are not what they seem." 
 
 As long as we dwell in the region of the 
 we live in a lower region than the region of & 
 When we deal with things as they appeal' we do 
 not usually deal with them as they are. All the 
 delusions and counterfeits with which we 
 
 Customed to deal, will pass away, and he d( 
 
 forever; hut that which is permanent, whatever is 
 real substance, cannot ever be destroyed. Ltestruo* 
 tion of error is accomplished in t! • in which 
 
 folly is destroyed by the advance of wisdom, for wis- 
 dom is greater than folly, folly being hut the ab- 
 sence of wisdom. Ignorance is d d through 
 
 education, for education brings knowledge ; knowledge 
 is greater than ignorance, lor ignorance is hut the ab- 
 sence of knowledge. All our frailties, imperfections, 
 faults, and misbeliefs, all our imperfect dreams and 
 personal vagaries, will at length he cast into a bot- 
 tomless pit, and be burned with unquenchable lire, 
 Avhile all that is real, our true being, all that is pre- 
 servable because worth preserving, will forever, in 
 our individual consciousness, enable us in the limited 
 circle of individual capacity to say, I am as the Eternal, 
 embracing eternal life. Every child of God, every son 
 and daughter of the Most High reaching the bed 
 rock, touching the eternal foundation upon which is 
 reared the temple of finite existence, can say loiv 
 
SPIRITUAL THEBAPEUT* 123 
 
 "Jam." The realization of this divine individuality, 
 this glorious identity of soul that forever will be 
 man's blessed portion, is the only infallible evidence 
 of one's entrance into the true Kingdom of Heaven, 
 or Nirvana, to which many Orientals especially look 
 forward with such earnest and eager quest. 
 
 Many people, in consequence of a total ignorance 
 of genuine Theosophy, suppose that hundreds of mill- 
 ions of people desire annihilation, which implies that 
 they desire that their individual souls should no longer 
 retain identity; what they really desire is complete 
 destruction of personal or external selfhood, or the 
 lower nature, whose passions constantly war against 
 the higher. 
 
 AYe tell you most emphatically that you have to 
 lose your outer self in order to find your inner self. 
 You must part with all that personality which makes 
 you disagreeable to one another and engenders animos- 
 ity and rivalry, in order to find that divine individual- 
 ity which teaches you to enjoy each the other's wel- 
 fare and to live in perfect peace and harmony through- 
 out eternity as a thoroughly united family. When you 
 attain the glorious height of spiritual perfection, when 
 you have trod the perfect way, reached the perfect 
 goal and won the perfect prize, you will have lost every- 
 thing that could possibly make you disagreeable to 
 anvone, and evervone around vou will have lost what- 
 
 r could possibly make them disagreeable to you, 
 but you will retain everything that makes you agree- 
 able and valuable to each other and you will have found 
 in this ocean of love, infinite powers of enjoyment 
 which you never dreamed of when you were on earth 
 
124 SPIRITUAL THEBAFEtn U 
 
 concerning yourself with external business with a view 
 to outdoing your neighbor. 
 
 We endeavor to point our students to the bigher 
 truths of spirit, to the higher view of immortal life, 
 we have to tell them there are things to forget as well 
 as to remember ; there is a memorv to he killed as well 
 as a memory to be cultivated ; there is a carnal selfish 
 self that must die and never rise again, as well as an 
 eternal identity thai never can di >sure you that 
 
 the only things thai can be destroyed are things that 
 cause you discord and trouble by alienating you in in- 
 terest one from another. All desire to kill must he 
 annihilated; the desire of one nation to make war 
 
 upon another must be annihilated; the disposition 
 of one person to hale or slander another must 
 
 be annihilated, with everything thai makes you 
 rivalrous and selfishly ambitions; for when you 
 enter fully into the glorious region of the truly real, 
 and the principle of absolute being is known and 
 understood, you will all unite, all coalesi a to all 
 
 form one glorious heavenly company, one divine eh< 
 and as in a grand organ there arc many stops ami many 
 parts which harmoniously blend er and as there 
 
 swells forth as a result of this blending, a volume of 
 sound wherein one cannot distinguish with Em untrained 
 ear the separate sound of each sweet note; or as in some 
 great and glorious choir pouring forth melodious har- 
 mony you hear the music of fi thousand voices, but can- 
 not discriminate with the untutored ear. one voice from 
 another; the reason why you fail to detect individuality 
 is because you are not trained sufficiently in the sense 
 of hearing to discriminate; but brinsr a thoroughlv 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 1 25 
 
 trained musician into the presence of ever so mighty a 
 
 torrent of sound and lie will tell you he hears each sep- 
 arate voice in the chorus no matter how many are sing- 
 ing at once, and if any voice is singing out of tunc, he can 
 tell which voice it is. When we have found our true 
 identity we shall know each other as we shall know our- 
 selves, we shall all be individual members of the celes- 
 tial orchestra, each an individual member of a per- 
 tly harmonious choir; those angels who are now 
 able to distinguish us truly the one from the other in the 
 sense of recognizing each of us to the extent of know- 
 ing how we are all performing our respective pails, 
 individualize us perfectly in their thoughts and we shall 
 all somewhere find that individuality is ours (in a far 
 more glorious and perfect sense than now) when it is 
 apparently to outward sense lost in the mass of per- 
 fected humanity than it ever was when we took an 
 arrogant position of aggressive selfhood and endeav- 
 ored to annihilate the individuality of every other 
 member of the race by setting our interests in conflict 
 with those of our brethern. 
 
 In the eternal harmonies of the universe every soul 
 must play its own part and sing its own song; in the 
 glorious temple of eternity every individual will be 
 found in his proper place, and as nature has stamped 
 individuality upon every atom, upon every globule, 
 individuality is the very basis of life, true individuality 
 is consistent and compatible with perfect accord and 
 perfect coalescence. In the divine life let as think of 
 ours s all forming one great family of the M 
 
 High, in perfect harmony the one with the other, each 
 individual enjoying the blessedness of recognition by 
 
12G SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 friends and kindred, not in the earthly, but in the high- 
 est spiritual sense forever. 
 
 When we have found our souls, and not until then, 
 have we found the purpose of our existence or the 
 guiding principle of our life. When we have found 
 our inmost identity, we have found that which can 
 never desert us; but until then we arc wandering on, 
 of ten in complete darkness and never in a very bright 
 liffht. We are all thoroughly differentiated on earth; 
 not only arc we endowed with special individuality 
 and appointed special works, but weal! differ the one 
 from the other in our stage of development, and there- 
 fore, in our perception of the principle of being. The 
 reason why there are so many differences of opinion in 
 the world is simply because bo many different people 
 are obliged to look' at matters from their own peculiar 
 standpoints; no one ccm look at a matter from another 
 standpoint than his own. All persons have not an 
 equally wide horizon, all cannot see equally far, no 
 matter how much they may try to; all cannot hear an 
 equal number of sounds, no matter how intently they 
 may listen to music; all cannot smell an equal number 
 of perfumes or taste an equal number of flavors, no 
 matter how much they may st rive to. As we cannot all 
 see, hear, taste, smell or touch equally much, some of 08 
 being far more limited in capacity than others, owing 
 to some being further along the line of spiritual develop- 
 ment than others, so all again cannot look at 
 matters from the same side, some standing as it v. 
 with face to the north, others to the south, and others 
 to the east and west ; those who gaze northward 
 something that exists; so do those who look in the 
 
SPIRITUAL THEKAPEDTK 127 
 
 other directions, but they do not see the same things; 
 but though they do not see the same things, they 
 
 different portions of the one truth; often because 
 of not seeing the whole truth, they act like children 
 having some blocks of a puzzle, but not all, while 
 it is necessary to have every block to complete the 
 puzzle or picture; therefore if you have not all in your 
 
 >sessi on, the puzzle remains a puzzle and the riddle 
 continues a riddle. Leave out a single necessary ingre- 
 dient in some compound, and you cannot form the com- 
 pound until you have procured the lacking ingredient. 
 
 Different people start out in different directions 
 and arrive necessarily at different conclusions; they 
 ignorantly imagine all others must be wrong if they 
 are right, while others may be partially right and they 
 partially wrong, but all will at some time learn they 
 have each seen a portion of truth, and foolishly imag- 
 ined the portion they saw to be the whole; this error 
 was the whole of their mistake. 
 
 One person says, "I believe in fate"; he recog- 
 nizes a portion of truth. Another says, fc> I believe in 
 free will"; he recognizes another portion of truth. 
 One says, "I believe in foreordination, in predestina- 
 tion, in God's sovereignty "; he recognizes a portion 
 of truth. Another says, " I believe that every man 
 enjoys freedom of will, and has to work out his own 
 salvation; that he is the arbiter of his own fate, and 
 that his destiny lies in his own hands"; such an one has 
 also discovered a portion of the truth. Now, when we 
 inquire how the seseemingly irreconcilable truths are 
 all parts of one great truth, it is important for us to 
 remember that while certain grand declarations of 
 
128 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 wisdom are irrefutable, we very often state a principle 
 in words correctly, and then argue incorrectly because 
 we have not understood the true application of the 
 principle as an entirety to all its parts. 
 
 You make a statement which is perfectly true; 
 " there is an infinite will ; the infinite will cannot 
 thwarted; there is an infinite plan which cannot be 
 frustrated ;" hut because this is true you go on to say, 
 erroneously, that certain other things which arc also 
 true, cannot be : that man cannot have a free will be- 
 cause there is an infinite will for example which is lajae 
 reasoning From a true principle. The principle is 
 sound; there is an infinite will, but you 1 
 ered what is the will of the Being whose will is infi- 
 nite; now if it is the will of the Infinite that man 
 should enjoy free will, though man's free will must 
 necessarily be only so far free as the eternal will or- 
 dains it to be free, divine providence permits of the 
 freedom of the human will, as a smaller circle enclosed 
 within the infinite circle of divine sovereignty. 
 
 To bring this eternal and infinite question to the 
 level of our daily actions, and thus bring it within the 
 comprehension of the you child, we will illustrate 
 
 by the familiar representation of parent and child, 
 which is always the highest, sweetest and truest illus- 
 tration that can be given of the dealings of the Eter- 
 nal One with his children. You as a parent are physi- 
 cally and mentally a great deal stronger than your 
 child; if you choose you can restrict your child's 
 tions so that he can never take a step alone, you can 
 so govern and command him, if you will, that he can 
 never give utterance to a single opinion you do not ap- 
 
BPIBITUAL THEKAPEUTK L89 
 
 prove; if you choose to hold your child so thoroughly 
 
 under your control, he never can go out of doors unless 
 you take him out, he need never be a moment out of 
 your sight, and never deviate a single iota from your 
 re. You would under such a regime he fully car- 
 rying out your will as to your child, and in such a 
 
 i it would be your will that your child should 
 have no will of his own. 
 
 But if on the other hand you voluntarily give your 
 child a certain amount of freedom, you remonstrate 
 with him, reason with him, and then say, "Now, you 
 have heard what I say and know what I wish, but you 
 can do as you like; I advise, recommend and request 
 you to do a certain thing, but I permit you to do as 
 you choose;" would you not be exercising your will 
 di>cretionally with your child as fully as in the other 
 
 similar case? In this case it would be your will that 
 your child should exercise some will of his own. 
 
 The question for theologians and philosophers to 
 decide, is this : Has the Eternal Will ordained that 
 
 should nave no will, or some will of our own i lias 
 the Eternal Will decreed we should have a limited 
 amount of freedom,, or no freedom at all i 
 
 Our teaching is, that the EternalWill wills us finite 
 freedom as a means of developing within us nobility and 
 grandeur of disposition. We believe that the post 
 sion of that gift is the primal cause of the soul's em- 
 bodiment. Many Theosophists believe that the soul 
 which has forever dwelt in the bosom of the Eternal 
 Infinite, the soul being an uncreated spark of the di- 
 vine fire, the child of the Infinite Spirit, awakes to the 
 consciousness of its own individuality and begins to re- 
 
130 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 fleet upon it, when an impulse from the Eternal awak- 
 ens within it the power of choice. 
 
 There is much truth in the theological doctrine 
 of the Fall of Man, and also in the Darwinian 
 hypothesis of the ascent of man, for man falls in order 
 to rise. The soul does not come in contact with matter, 
 does not take up its abode in an earthly tabernacle, and 
 enter a terrestrial school to do nothing and learn noth- 
 ing; all our earthly discipline or experience is for the 
 purpose of developing that individuality and voluntary 
 nobility of character which alone makes noble men 
 and women, and at Length devrl<>|» celestial angels. 
 
 We may conceive of the soul prior to any earthly 
 experience doing right from necessity ; but the same soul 
 alter all its earthly pilgrimages are completed, it turns 
 to the angelic home and does right from choice 
 soul before it has known earthly experience at all ob 
 the divine will automatically .'is a machine obeys the 
 machinist, as an instrument responds to the master hand 
 
 of a performer; hut when the soul goes back to that 
 
 wonderful home inspirit whence it came to earth, it 
 has acquired during its term of experience a power to 
 
 love and choose the right, and is therefore no longer an 
 automatic machine, but a machine that understands its 
 own movement, and instead of obeying the hand that 
 
 works it from necessity, consciously and voluntarily 
 obeys from love. Is there not an immense differ* 
 between unthinking and thoughtful obedience! Be- 
 tween reflective and unreflective adoration I Between 
 one who obeys consciously from love, and one who 
 obeys from necessity, without realizing any other p< 
 ble course of action than the one he is pursuing i 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 1P>1 
 
 Again to cite the analogy of child and parent, yon 
 see this truth illustrated ; a very little child obeys you 
 without knowing why ; that little child is pure and inno- 
 cent; you endow it in mind with every sweet and charm- 
 ing, attribute of purity, but when } 7 ou know that the 
 man v trials and tribulations of life lie before that younff 
 and tender one, though you know that ere the child 
 grows up to be a man or woman he or she will have to 
 light a way through the world and may fall into many 
 pits and pass through a veritable Slough of Despond en 
 route to the Celestial City, yon feel that out of it 
 your beloved one will rise with added experience upon 
 the other side, and therefore even though you knew all 
 that your children would have to encounter in the 
 world, you would still send them out into the world; 
 you would not lock them up so that they could never 
 be contaminated with a breath of impurity; you would 
 not say they willlose their virtue while fighting the bat- 
 tle of life, but you still prefer to send them out to fight 
 it; then when like valiant soldiers returning from battle, 
 though there are scars upon their cheeks, those sens are 
 glorious, for they are the evidences of successful en- 
 counter with the adversary; that they have been 
 wounded by the enemy makes the boys dearer to you 
 than they ever were before. 
 
 Do you not think that in times of war when a 
 mother welcomes home herson who has been mutilated 
 in battle, but who has been great and noble through 
 all, she is more proud of him than when she rocked him 
 in his cradle or danced him on her knee as a, litt le babe i 
 It may be that theyoung man has not always maintained 
 a perfectly moral record ; it may be that he has done 
 
132 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTH 
 
 many things for which he was sorry afterward in bis 
 soldier life, much that he would fain erase, many mis- 
 takeshe would not repeat, but st ill there is more pi 
 more rejoicing (and more cau3e for it), when the boy 
 comes homo a bronzed and bearded man withal] the 
 stain of travel and scars of battle upon him, than when 
 he was ushered into 1 lie world ;i sweet little infant who 
 did not know the difference between and wn 
 
 We believe so firmly that all earthly discipline is for 
 a good purpose, that all our Bufferings and 
 part of our educal ion. i hat 1 1" 
 
 shapes ours ends | not a chance or a !*. 
 
 ever we are called upon to 
 
 in sorrow or bereavement, we feel we can honestly with 
 our whole soul tell them that all discipline i^> for their 
 good and they will riseoul of it ennobled ened 
 
 and purified. 
 
 Whenever we moe1 a p<><>r suffering creature who 
 has sinned and suffered, who has, like the prodigal son, 
 in the parable, reached even the swine's trough and only 
 been brought to a right mind when famishing with 
 hunger, we feel that when the discipline is over, when 
 the suffering consequent upon the sin has yielded pe, 
 able fruits of righteousness, when after ha lien 
 
 into manifold temptations he hai | 1 patiei 
 
 and nobility, directly ho has renounced Ins love of evil 
 and overcome his infirmity, borne the penalty and 
 through it grown wiser, that we are fully justified in 
 saying to him — for we have the evidences before us — 
 "Thy sins are forgotten, wiped out, outgrown, ov< 
 come, go in peace/' Such was the course alw;i 
 pursued by the meek and lowly Jesus and all the world's 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. [33 
 
 greatest benefactors everywhere. But remember thai 
 whilst you are doing wrong in rebelling against the 
 higher voice, your own conscience will not allow you 
 peace. You may strive for it, other people may 
 pronounce it, but your conscience permits you no peace 
 until you have overcome the love of evil; then when 
 the dicipline of pain has awakened within you the 
 divine love of virtue, though all the world may brand 
 you, all the uncharitable people in creation may tell 
 you that you are not fit for decent society, God speaks 
 peace in your heart, the returning prodigal and repent- 
 ant Magdalene feels the peace of God which passeth 
 all mortal understanding, a peace which cannot be 
 bestowed by the world and which the world therefore 
 cannot take away. We have all to deal with God as 
 a divine Judge in ourselves, the judgment seat is within 
 us, but the mercy seat is beyond and above us where 
 the Eternal reigns, where angels are, where bright and 
 holy ones are who have passed out of great tribulations 
 into realms of glory, where the pure ones are who have 
 outgrown the love of everything but purity. 
 
 There is the mercy seat, so when we approach the 
 higher power we approach infinite love, in which there 
 is no reproach, but as the infinite love streams down 
 upon us, as the light of divine mercy makes its way 
 into our souls, telling us there is a higher and better 
 wav, ever saying, "Behold, I show unto you a more ex- 
 cellent way," that divine life, light and love constitute 
 all the fire there is in "purgatory" or ,k hell," either in 
 this world or any other. 
 
 Let us think God for the " fires of hell," illustra- 
 tions of which were drawn by Jesus from the pit of 
 
134 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 Gehenna outside the gate of Jerusalem, wherein all 
 the refuse of the city was consumed, Gehenna being a 
 sanitary institution that the atmosphere of the i 
 might be pure and its streets clean. 
 
 So outside of this world, or the realm of man's 
 mortal observation there is an ever-burning lire, and 
 when a rich man who cares nothing for his fellow 
 creatures while on earth, who is less kind than oriental 
 dogs, and will let the dogs pay their able atten- 
 
 tions to the best of their ability to tin* poor Lazarus 
 covered with sores, without taking example from them 
 even to the extent of giving the beggar the crumbs 
 from his table, when such a selfish miser, whocares 
 nothing and no one but thinks entirely o >wn per- 
 
 sonal comfort and luxury finds himself in hell and tl. 
 lifts Ins eyes in torments, what effect does the lire have 
 upon him? When it has burned him so severely that 
 he would gladly fall at the feet of the Lazarus whom 
 he had spurned, if he could but obtain from him but a 
 single drop of water to cool his burning tongue, he 
 outgrows his selfishness and pride, and while we 
 not told that the sufferings have as yel abated, before 
 they begin to abate they have shown their reformatory 
 nature, for that man who was the very embodiment 
 of luxurious self-indulgence, the very personification 
 of egotism, never thinking previously of any one but 
 himself, or of anything beyond his own dinner, his 
 own house and his own comfort, even though Buffering 
 intensely, exclaims, " would that an angel might be 
 sent to my brethren lest they also come into this pi 
 of torment." 
 
 The world wants to know what Jesus really 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 135 
 
 preached, to hear the New Testament explained, 
 instead of ridiculed, the hidden wisdom revealed, 
 instead of listening to ignorant attacks upon ancient 
 spiritual literature made by people who arc not capa- 
 ble of understanding its true meaning. 
 
 Jesus taught that all suffering by lire, all torment, 
 if you will, was God's angel of deliverance leading us 
 to higher knowledge and nobler life. Jesus, familiar 
 as he must have been with the opinions of the people 
 about him, with Jerusalem and its outskirts, with the 
 traditional beliefs of the House of Israel, with Tal- 
 mudic and Rabbinical literature (having when only 
 twelve years of age entered into consultation with the 
 learned council of the Sanhedrim, the highest council 
 in Israel), understood perfectly that Gehenna was a 
 place of purification. In reading jthe Greek Testament, 
 it may not be scholarly to translate the word for ever- 
 lasting (as some Universalists have translated it), long- 
 
 luring, for in several instances the same adjective 
 has been variously translated eternal and everlasting 
 simply for the sake of euphony, the original being in 
 both instances the same. Do not be surprised, when we 
 say that we are very glad the Universalists are not right 
 in this particular, because if the fire were not eternal, 
 if the time ever came when the fire should go out, 
 then those who were not thoroughly redeemed, would 
 have to remain for eternity in their sins. The divine 
 fire which burns eternally, burns in us, as well 
 without us. eternally; it torments us only until we have 
 learned our needed lesson, and then that same (ire 
 yields us indescribable comfort and delight. The ftre 
 burns in the moral sense, and who is there that wishes 
 
136 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC*, 
 
 to get rid of conscience, to blot it out so as to have no 
 conscience throughout eternity ? Not one who thinks 
 at all on this subject, can deny that the conscience 
 which upbraids and accuses and is the source of our 
 greatest misery, when it applauds, is the source of our 
 greatest joy. 
 
 If you are seemingly alone in the world, fighting 
 for the right, with no friend in the material form to 
 stand by you, and your conscieffl you are in the 
 
 right, if you feel the Eternal Being sees your h< 
 readsyour motive, you would surely rather let every- 
 thing else go than hav destroyed or your 
 sense of the divine omnipresence removed. 
 
 Take away from one who bas committed an act of 
 murder in the dark (no man having seen him he cannot 
 be led to the gallows) all sense of divine scrutiny ,of GodVi 
 omnipresence, he might ha >mparative peace, 
 
 because conscience is as terrible to him as it is beautiful 
 and blessed to the other. In the one ease "Thou God 
 seest me " saves a man from suffering; in the other < 
 it drives him to desperation; in the one instance 
 it supports him even though the whole world is against 
 him ; it enables him to so triumph inwardly that though 
 his flesh were to perish at the stake he would sing 
 praises to the Most High and know it is but a 1 
 from flames to glory; but in the other case it compels 
 him to throw himself upon human justice, confess his 
 crime, or else go raving mad and die in despair, possibly 
 by suicide. In both cases it is the same conscience, and 
 the application of its working to two diametrically 
 opposite states of mind is necessarily divine. Now if 
 we follow that poor wretched victim of perverted 
 
SPIRHTAL THERAPEUTICS. |.°>7 
 
 instincts into the invisible world, even though lie is con- 
 demned to execution, or though he commit suicide, 
 even though he drink to drown his sorrow, until through 
 temporary insanity he is run over by horses in the 
 street — no matter what becomes of him, what suffer- 
 ings he may have to endure on the other side of the 
 
 ve as well as on this — you will meet him among the 
 blessed in eternity; and when you meet him thus, no 
 matter when or where, with all his sufferings outlived, 
 with all his sins outgrown, with all his miseries forever 
 vanquished, that man will possess the same conscience, 
 the same realization of right and wrong, though in a 
 higher degree, but it will conduce to his bliss among 
 the angels; he will then say, " Thank God for my con- 
 science. Thank God for that once dreaded text of 
 scripture, ' Thou God seest me', for now I realize the 
 truth involved in it as essential to my unending happi- 
 ness." 
 
 When we realize that all that once caused us pain, 
 suffering or sorrow is necessary to the development of 
 our highest happiness, then we shall have made a right 
 use of free will ; we shall then enjoy perfect freedom of 
 will; a will to choose between our higher and lower 
 self, a will to choose between the hosts of heaven that 
 side with our conscience, and the hosts of those yet in 
 darkness who side with our passions; but we shall 
 then always choose on the right side. 
 
 We are placed here on earth between opposing 
 powers; those who urge us up and those who try to 
 
 g us down; it all comes in the long run to this: 
 That we must struggle between conscience and passion, 
 for all higher influences reach us through our moral 
 
138 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 sense, while all lower influences reach us through our 
 animal proclivities. 
 
 Let us realize ourselves as ever between the hig 
 and the lower spheres, and remember that as our power 
 of resistance, like the extent of our knowledge, is not a 
 fixed quantity that can never be increased. When we 
 are very weak we cannot move a chair out of our w 
 while at another time we can almost carry a piano upon 
 our shoulders. We are continually increasing in bodily 
 and mental strength so that we become daily the 
 creators of circumstances instead of their creatures, 
 and the time will come when we shall acknowledge no 
 sovereign but the Eternal Being; when all personal 
 wills will have lost their hold upon us. when all ex 
 ternal circumstances will be under our government 
 and control, and we who have been faithful over a few 
 things will be rulers over many thim 
 
 Our freedom of will is a constantly growing quan- 
 tity; but we can never be iv^r from God's will, and 
 when we are sensible Ave never wish to be. When 
 we reach our highest condition we shall know God's 
 will, and appreciate as well as understand it. both 
 love and obey it, then we shall be under no earthly 
 control. JSTo one will then be able to enslave us. 
 for having outgrown that condition wherein we are 
 servants to our own lower inclinations and proclivi- 
 ties, and are therefore creatures and tools of lower 
 wills, we shall be servants of God, and shall obey 
 no other ruler. We shall obey the Eternal as he 
 makes his will known in our souls, because we love 
 and appreciate the perfect goodness of his will. And 
 thus with no dread of God, but with the understand- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. ISO 
 
 ing coupled with the love of God; with no dread of 
 punishments, with no irksome sense of being under 
 government, we shall obey, because our own higher 
 nature feels the beauty and blessedness of obedience; 
 in such condition we are perfectly free in truth, and 
 this perfect freedom of our will will be our crown and 
 our prize in that glorious state of immortality where 
 sin and misery are unknown forever. 
 
LESSON VIII 
 
 what IS THE PERFECT way and how may WE walk in \\ '. 
 
 " Be yc perfect even as your Father which is in heavea is per- 
 fect." 
 
 THESE words have been spoken of again and again, 
 as implying that which is imp How can 
 
 man be perfect even as the Eternal ( )no i I Can 
 
 man be omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent I ( 'an 
 
 man be infinitely wis-' and loving, pure and just and 
 good \ Tan man be on a level with the great Eternal 
 Being who is the life and the soul of all the univi 
 and its myriad forms of existence 1 "Can man by search- 
 ing find out God," and can he discover absolutely the 
 very existence of the divine Bein 
 
 This is a question that scientists, philosophers and 
 theologians have endeavored again and again to answer, 
 but have in many instances utterly failed to compre- 
 hend. 
 
 If there is difficulty in finding God, in describing 
 him, in making known to the world bis attributes, what 
 must be the difficulty of complying with the injunction 
 " be ye as perfect as the Eternal?" For surely if we 
 are to be as perfect as the Eternal we must know every- 
 thing about the Eternal and shape our lives voluntarily 
 in obedience to our knowledge. 
 
 If, however, there remaineth no longer any mystery 
 
 140 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK 1 1 1 
 
 for us in the divine nature which our spirit has not 
 solved, if there are no impediments in our search for 
 d which are not thoroughly removed by the discov- 
 eries of intuition, can we not deem it possible for us in 
 ense to obey the commandment, " Be ye peri 
 n as your Father in heaven is perfect." 
 With all reverence we make the assertion that even 
 d cannot be more perfect than his nature allows 
 him to be, and, therefore, if the nature of God is an all 
 perfect nature and God lives in perfect harmony witli 
 the requirements of that all perfect nature, if the divine 
 thought, the divine word, the action are all in perfect 
 union with the divine ideal, in union with the divine 
 
 timent; then the nature of God is infinitely perl* 
 but it has infinite capacities, infinite powers, infinite 
 possibilities. And however glorious our conception of 
 the Eternal One may be, however majestic the idea in 
 our minds, of the Eternal Majesty of the Infinite, our 
 intuition tells us it is impossible for God to be more per- 
 fect than his nature allows him to be, and if he is in- 
 finitely perfect his nature permits of infinite perfection. 
 Why did an Apostle say it is impossible for God to 
 lie. but because God is infinite truth, and a nature that 
 is infinitely true cannot be finitely false, for infinity 
 includes all there is, and outside the pale of infinity 
 there c:m be nothing. Therefore to conceive of an infin- 
 itely true God is to conceive of a God who cannot lie 
 who cannot wish to lie, as the infinite will being 
 v true to truth can have no emotion in the (lit 
 ehood. We only say that God lives in per- 
 harmony with his own law, with his own nature, in 
 all particulars perfectly g 0u d. 
 
14'2 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS 
 
 The beloved Disciple John said. "God is love," 
 using the noun; he did not only say God is loving or 
 God is infinitely lovable, but God is love itself; love 
 is thesuprcme power. If that declaration is true then 
 it is impossible for God to be unkind, it is equally im- 
 possible for God to wish to he unkind. And so with all 
 the divine attributes, justice, mercy, tenderness, etc. ; 
 perfection, the infinitude of these attributes precludes the 
 possibility of a desire in the infinite mind to act out of 
 harmony with the divine conditions. Therefore the 
 unlimited must have limitations in a certain sense and 
 the limitations of the unlimited are infinite limitati< 
 The limitations imposed by infinite goodness render 
 impossible a single iota of unkindness: the lim- 
 itation of infinites truth renders impossible the sma 
 departure from the strictest line of ii y; the limi- 
 
 tation of infinite justice percludes the possibility of a 
 thought deviating by a hair's breadth fromperfeel equi- 
 ty ; the limitation of infinite love shuts out forever the 
 possibility of a single dispensation of Provide! 
 matter how dark and mysterious— proc from an 
 
 emotion which is not purely benevolent. 
 
 When we can hold in mind the idea of an all -perfect 
 Being, when we can rise above all the conflicting en 
 which like fogs surround us on earth, when all the 
 perplexities and inharmoniesborn of our ignorance and 
 imperfection are overcome and we see with th< 
 enlightened mind — yea, with the sight of the soul itself, 
 which is far beyond man's merely intellectual power, 
 the vision of eternal goodness, the sight of that eternal 
 goodness will prove an absolute panacea for all the 
 ills to which imperfect -mind is heir. Knowledge of the 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 14.'> 
 
 Supreme Good is the eternal and infinite antidote to 
 all sorrow, repining, discontent, misery and dissatisfac 
 tion henceforth forever. But there are many persons 
 
 who maintain there are no evidences that an Eternal 
 Being lives, and there are others who maintain that 
 even though God exists, God is not all-powerful. John 
 Stuart Mill fell into the miserable error of supposing 
 that the divine power and its operations were limited, 
 1). i eause when he looked about him in the world he 
 thought he saw equal evidences of divine goodness and 
 of its opposite ; he thought the divine goodness had a 
 circumference somewhere and that beyond the territory 
 occupied by benevolence there was a dark waste occu- 
 pied by evil, ignorance and hate. 
 
 We find when we look at the matter closely that 
 almost all the religions of the world have started out 
 with the assertion, or assumption, that there is one 
 
 1 and there is none beside him, and that he is all- 
 perfect : yet they have soon divided the throne of the 
 universe between this perfectly good God and interior 
 earthly deities. Without saying anything to hurt the 
 
 I ngs of those who differ from us and are not ready 
 
 iccept the statement of pure theism, that goodness 
 in the universe and that there is no supreme 
 being but the eternal God, we wish to point out toy 
 how very naturally mistakes have been made and yet 
 how intolerable and unwarrantable they are beca 
 
 y are flagrant errors, direct results of human igno- 
 rance and weakn< - 
 
 Our first positive affirmation is this: The mind of 
 man cannot think beyond possibilities; there can he 
 no fancy, no imagination which transcends the possi- 
 
144 SPIRITUAL THERAP1 
 
 bilitiesof the uni for our imagtaatit im 
 
 ages thrown upon our minds, reflections of obj< 
 upon the retina of the mind's eye, impres mveyed 
 
 to the interior brain, from which imp 
 wholly removed and upon which impressions cannot 
 made unless th mnething really in 
 
 quate to produce such impressions. So, when 
 say to us this thai or the other is all imagination, I 
 a person is cured by imagination or I d and n 
 
 ill by imagination, thai one ed by imagination 
 
 and another rained by imagination, i 
 may be so, bul imagination isa very important fa 
 in our constitution, and a very important and influen- 
 tial element in human exp inations 
 are always reflected images of realities ; and when we 
 are in a condition of mental harmony and health, when 
 our inward eyes are open and we see t 
 as they really are, when • e learned to m 
 distinction which Longfellow made: " Thil not 
 what they seem." seeing things from the stand p 
 of spiritual reality and no longer from the point 
 view of imperfect Unite appearance, we shall all de- 
 clare goodness supreme in the universe, and G 
 signifying the infinitely good, to be all in all. 
 
 No one can deny thai m the world's thougl I 
 expressed in the noblest literature there is found an 
 idea of infinite truth, infinite l<>ve. infinite wisd< 
 infinite benevolence, and no matter how hard and ter- 
 rible the path of life may be for many, no matter how 
 great the suffering, how bitter the misery, or how s 
 rowful the bereavement many have undergone, yet in 
 the midst of the most terrible torture which men h. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. W) 
 
 ever experienced on earth, faith, genuine loving confi- 
 dence in the eternrlGod,has not been shaken. Irrita- 
 ble and shallow people complain because of their petty 
 worries and annoyances there can he no infinite good- 
 ness in the universe, for if God were infinitely good, if 
 eternal goodness reigned, they would never be sick, 
 never suffer, their business affairs would go smoothly, 
 their friends would not be removed in the very heyday 
 of their youth and prosperity, their children would not 
 be snatched away while yet infants at the breast, but, 
 oh, remember when you hear such wailing notes or are 
 inclined thus to complain yourselves, that men, women 
 and children have gone to the stake and been burned, 
 have been tortured upon the rack, devoured by wild 
 beasts, been stoned to death, and yet in the midst of 
 the most terrible and excruciating tortures have been 
 able to say as the ideal man said in his latest moments, 
 k * Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit/' Such 
 words have not been uttered only by one whom all 
 Christendom has deified and acknowledged as (rod the 
 Son as well as a son of God. but the first Christian 
 martyr, Stepher, in the midst of the tortures of ston- 
 ing, saw heaven open, and his beloved Master waiting 
 to receive him. In the dark days of the persecution 
 both of Catholics and Protestants in Europe only a few 
 turies ago, and indeed throughout the history of 
 the Christian church, many noble men and women 
 from the rack and the flame have seen angels ready to 
 welcome them to a higher life; they have not com- 
 plained, they have not felt the sufferings they under- 
 went irreconcilable with the infinite goodness of the 
 Eternal. 
 9 
 
140 SPIRITUAL THERAFEUTK 
 
 Now if men and women have actually gone through 
 sufferings far more painful than yours, it' many h; 
 absolutely experienced tortures in comparison with 
 which your miseries are trivial indeed, and in Bpiteof 
 such excessive burdens have not lost their faith in God, 
 then the trials you undergo are surely no evidences 
 that there is no infinite Being of goodn< 6 those 
 
 who have undergone far heavier trials have found that 
 the divine light could shine through the densest clouds, 
 that the infinite goodn ild be made manifest even 
 
 in tlie cruellest chambers of torture. 
 
 When we contrast our load with that of oth 
 
 when instead of always looking at those who are 
 favored and fortunate, who live in palaces, who have 
 gorgeous apparel and beautiful carriages, if instead of 
 always envying the great we descend into the hoi 
 of the poor and take our station by the bedside of the 
 sufferer who is tortured by the m< iciating pains ; 
 
 in such wretched places we behold oftentimes intense 
 joy and peace, perfect confidence in God, perfect trust 
 in the eternal wisdom, while very, \^vy often the com- 
 fortably housed, the well fed ami well clothed, the 
 moderately prosperous, are those who, because they do 
 not have everything they desiredeclare there can he no 
 infinitly good Being superintending and controlling, for 
 if there were they would ha ve all their ambitions grati- 
 fied, all their prayers answered, all their doi 
 removed. 
 
 Through the entire experience of the world, and 
 in the history of the universe throughout all its wide 
 domain we learn that the perfect way is not the way 
 
 of sudden achievement, or instantaneous fruition. We 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 117 
 
 learn in all departments of nature, thai seeds must be 
 
 deposited in the ground, grow in darkness and thee 
 hurst forth, first into stalk and blade, then into tender 
 ear and then at last comes the full corn in the ear. 
 We learn that worlds are born grsiduatty, and that they 
 work their way slowly up from chaos and an age of 
 lire mist, until at length they shine as radiant spheres 
 rolling in splendor, as worlds of golden light and glory, 
 upon which life manifests itself in perfect freedom and 
 entrancing beauty. 
 
 The history of man teaches that man has gradually 
 advanced from the savage bushman, who is little super- 
 ior in appearance to a monkey, to a man who can con- 
 trol the most powerful forces of external nature so that 
 the very elements obey him, that by mechanical de- 
 vices he can command rain to fall from heaven, even 
 employing the lightnings of Jove to convey knowledge, 
 as he hurls the very current of life itself (electricity) 
 through space, making it fulfill his commands and de- 
 liver his messages in all parts of the world. 
 
 The gods of antiquity were only men in perspective ; 
 the powers ascribed by cultured polytheists to the 
 deities of Greece and Rome, were only powers which 
 man himself possesses, and which he will at length per- 
 fectly embody and fully unfold and utilize; the gods of 
 ancient days were from a spiritualistic point of view, 
 merely human spirits who had ascended already to the 
 higher realms, and doubtless, as ancient literature reveals, 
 had once been monarchs, rulers, prophet sand mighty per- 
 sonages on earth ; the powers of gods in human form 
 were the actual possibilities of man, and when the mul- 
 titude shall have reached the high level of attainment 
 
148 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC*. 
 
 of those who have already passed on to the true 
 life, the most marvelous powers will be in every o 
 possession to use as he will, but only for good, a 
 power is not in the keeping of the basely disposed, they 
 being unequal to its generation as well as to its em- 
 ployment. 
 
 The perfect way of man's development is the way of 
 evolution, and evolution is the external manifestation of 
 involution. Were y<>u able to see into the spiritual 
 realm and watch the pro* of what you vaguely 
 
 call creation, were you able as scientists to tran 
 your gaze to the spiritual realm and study involution. 
 then you would learn first of the descent of spirit, and 
 afterwards of the ascent of matter ; then you would per- 
 ceive that from the starting point of cause in spirit, 
 thoughts and ideas Mow outward until they produce 
 cellular tissues, protoplasm or germ cells upon earth, 
 spirit manifesting itself ever more and more until the 
 perfect man stands before yott. Von would then know 
 that spiritual power is needed to create protoplasm, 
 and that other actions of the same spiritual power 
 necessary to develop protoplasm into the forms of per- 
 fect manhood and womanhood; you would know thai 
 Lamarkin Prance, Darwin and Spencer in England, and 
 all the grand minds that are endeavoring to trace the 
 ascent of life, an merely beginning with the outermost 
 effect of life and trying to trace it back to t lie realm of 
 causation, as many finding the estuary of a river en- 
 deavor to trace the current back to its primal soui 
 Yon can find the mouth of the Nile without any diffl 
 cnlty; anybody could have discovered its month, for 
 where it empties itself into tin* sea it is conspicuous in 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 14i> 
 
 the eyes of all beholders, but African explorers had to 
 proceed with laborious researches year after year and 
 perhaps century after century, to find the source of the 
 Nile. When physical scientists speak of the source of 
 life, of the beginning of life, they only speak of the 
 most external manifestations of life, of the point 
 where life discharges itself in view of all behold* 
 in earthly form. 
 
 But where is the source of life? The source of life, 
 its starting point is away up in the eternal hills, where 
 from clouds of angels the stream of existence upon 
 earth takes its rise, and flowing gradually through a 
 thousand forms, at length manifests the fullness and 
 glory of its true form in perfect manhood and woman 
 hood. You cannot go back far enough when you sim_ 
 ply studying geology, anthropology or astronomy. 
 You can only discover effects, and then at last you are 
 confronted with the greatest of all problems, but where 
 did life come from and what is life? And when you are 
 told by spiritual scientists among whom must be num- 
 bered all truly eminent theologians and inspired spirit- 
 ual teachers, manifested life is an efflux from eternal 
 life, no onecan say it is not so t Material science knows 
 not whether spiritual definitions are correct or not. 
 Neither Spencer, Tyndall, Darwin nor any other great 
 physicist or sociologist dares to deny the affirmation 
 that life is an influx from Deity; all they say is, wo 
 donot know whether it is or not. Colonel I ngersoll can- 
 not logically go farther than that, and does not attempt 
 to say more than that lie does not know of the origin 
 of life. All life originates in spirit, in divine thought, 
 in divine idea, and when great and noble scienti 
 
150 SPIRITUAL THERAPKU1 
 
 men who have labored year after year until they I 
 exhausted the fire and ardor of their physical fnu 
 in the pursuit of knowledge and the solution of the 
 most difficult problems presenting themselves to ra 
 understanding, shall be conversed with in the realm 
 the greai beyond, when von snail prep; h condi- 
 
 tions of mind that you can enter into true communion 
 with the great and glorious army who have ascended to 
 the bigher life, then there will be disclosures from the 
 spiritual Btate of being explaining every difficulty, solv- 
 ing every problem and de Sphinx of m 
 tery, by revealing the meaning of all that was expn 
 in mysterious symbols, in the glorious architecture and 
 
 art of the Eas1 in olden 1 inr 
 
 When men and women come er without 
 
 prejudice, ready to disarm themselv* 
 
 Conclusions, when they are ready to hear all tli 
 
 explained in the revolutionary new rev< 
 
 lion, when they are ready to study science intuitn 
 as Jesus urged the dews to read tl ords spiril 
 
 ually; when they are ready toaccepl spiritual interpre 
 tations of what Bcienoe is now revealing, even though 
 sucli interpretation widely differs from the & 
 interpretations of universil ies as the command of J< 
 differed from tin* letter of Mosaic law, " An eye tor an 
 eve and a tooth for a tooth." they wdl then he a hie to 
 see as the best Bebrew scholars and the mot eminent 
 and libera] Christians Bee to-day, that there is no discoid 
 whatever between the essence of the Mosaic law and 
 the essence of the Gospel of Jesus, that there is no con- 
 flict whatever between spiritual and physical 
 when both are understood. Evolution and involution. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 151 
 
 will be alike plain when men have listened to the 
 noble teachers who speak from the spiritual sph< 
 and give the result of their knowledge in the immortal 
 world; these can reveal how qycvy impulse works out- 
 ward from spiritual cause to physical effect; all the 
 difference between true theology and genuine material 
 science is, that true theology begins with Theos — God, 
 and true geology with Geos — earth. Working from 
 Geos to Theos yon can trace the evolution of all earth's 
 various forms; working from Theos to Geos you trace 
 involution as the cause of all manifestations of in- 
 telligence. 
 
 And thus, if life proceeding from God to the atom 
 employs the involutionary pathway, and returning from 
 the atom to the Deity employs the evolutionary path wav, 
 then there is no conflict between theoloo*v and sreolosrv, 
 no conflict between the science of heaven and the science 
 of earth. One science tells you how the life proceeding 
 from Deity pulsates in atoms, and the other how the 
 pulsation of atomic life can be traced to the Eternal 
 Mind; both ways are perfect. The way of travel to the 
 circumference is a perfect way, and the way of travel 
 back from the circumference to the center is a perfect 
 way; and when these two perfect ways have been re- 
 solved into the one all-perfect way, then the outward 
 and the return journey of spirit to matter and matter 
 to spirit will be understood as the great truth of the 
 
 3, which all religions and all science have endeavored 
 
 •xplain but have not as yet fully interpreted in any 
 instance. 
 
 There are a few persons on earth who have found 
 the perfect way; a few who have discovered the true 
 
152 SPIRITUAL 'i EEBAK] 
 
 relation between spirit and matt and 
 
 effect* between form and its origin in spirit. W 
 these wonderful p do not necessarily be 
 
 any Brotherhood i rhood,ortoanj ani- 
 
 on, while their home is not n< y in In 
 
 still the recordsof astonishingly wonderful works which 
 you hear of as being performed by Mahatmas, Ad« 
 and others, who have devoted their liv< spiritual 
 
 development, have all been Founded upon the fact that 
 when man becomes superior to material inclinal 
 and lias put under his feet al! prejudice and vain 
 
 ambition, h< 4 tx . no Ion 
 
 blinded by the dust of matter in his mental We 
 
 therefore recommend toyoua spirit u 
 phy as a means of theo I development, which 
 
 signifies an unfoldment in the know! 
 Join. We would not advise you to make long p 
 ages to celebrated shrines in this or any other country, 
 or to clothe yourself in haircloth, or to walk with bare 
 feel over jagged rocl d<» not tell you that you 
 
 must leave your family and fr and hide yourself 
 
 in some ret ired place in the II imalayan Mountains: 
 do not tell you that your own country and your own 
 daily duties are not sufficient for your highest develop, 
 ment. 
 
 Mere asceticism lias frequently developed self right- 
 eousness and vaunted superiority in i the 
 higher matters of the law, justice, and above all, 
 charity, have been neglected. In all exalted teachii 
 that have ever been given to mankind, fasting and 
 prayer have been put forward a- i 
 ward the perfect life; perversion has occurred when the 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 153 
 
 true idea of prayer and fasting lias boon lost sight of, 
 and men have obeyed the letter, but neglected the 
 spirit. A person may be no nearer the kingdom of 
 Heaven because he eats no meat on Friday, and keeps 
 all the vigils and ember days; but if you subsist upon 
 short rations day by day because your means do not 
 allow you to have all you would like, or far better, be- 
 cause you feed some poor hungry sufferer at your gate; 
 if you do not eat your meat because you prefer to give 
 it to one who needs it more than yourself, if you go 
 about in tattered garments because you have given 
 your clothing to keep the cold from the naked body of 
 some one who lacked, then your charitable devotion to 
 the necessities of others, or rather the spirit which 
 causes you to make outward sacrifices, must elevate 
 your soul ; you walk then surely in the true way, and 
 you have prayed to eternal goodness by cultivating 
 divine goodness within your own breast; having risen 
 superior to self love, and having cultivated the love of 
 neighbor, you have demonstrated the reality of the 
 love of God in your soul. 
 
 Whenever we act from a divine impulse, whenever 
 we work to save and help our brethren, we render the 
 accepted offering which is acknowledged as the only 
 sacrifice that God requires, by the most inspired teach- 
 ers of every age. It was the saying of a grand old 
 Hebrew prophet, "What doth God require of thee hut 
 to deal justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with 
 him?" Walking with God is walking lovingly and 
 honestly with one's fellow beings. Now if any one has 
 supposed that rigorous initiations, strange and weird 
 incantations, magical circles and awful rites and cere- 
 
154: SPIRITUAL TIIKK.M 
 
 monies initiate persons into the perfed way, they have 
 surely been deceived by blind ; the blind; 
 
 many who have struggled for perfection on the road of 
 magic have found, to their bitter cost, that the blind 
 led by the blind both fall into the ditch. A deal 
 
 of so-called theosophy and a many theosophists 
 
 have failed because they were actuated by pride, selfish- 
 ness, worldly ambition, by the desire to do sometl 
 greater than anybody else, and nol being actuated by 
 pure benevolence, but rather by love of i lie mysteri 
 In their determination to exalt themselves there has 
 been fulfilled in their experience noothei pi than 
 
 this : "He that exalteth himself shall be abased. 93 
 
 Bui when we go beneath the letter and touch the 
 spirit, when we discover the deep and glorious inner 
 meaning which lies in all the wisdom of th< 
 when reading wisdom alike from the Sanscrit, Hebrew 
 and the Greek, we find that Jesus and Buddha, all the 
 lights of the ( )rient and i in pointing 
 
 out a perfect way. and we ask, wi hat per 
 
 way i Turning to the ideal life of Jesus and to the ideal 
 
 life of Buddha, the Light of Asia, we read in the history 
 
 of both that the great renunciation, the glorious self 
 abnegations, that characterized those great teacl i 
 led them to forget all earthly honor, that they might 
 
 win for humanity a crown imperishable. When they 
 had lost sight of self and had become nothing in their 
 own eyes, having made God and humanity everything, 
 then they found what no penance, nor rituals, nor 
 ceremonials could teach; they found the perfect way, 
 they became pure in heart, and therefore they saw- 
 God. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 155 
 
 You are told in the story of Buddha, us it is mag- 
 nificently related in verse by Edwin Arnold, that the 
 
 truth came to him only after he had given up all associa- 
 tion with his royal family and the splendors of an East- 
 ern court, when he no longer adhered to the externals 
 of the Brahmin faith and practices, when he no longer 
 considered it incumbent upon him to obey the ritual 
 requirements of the East, when he overthrew caste 
 and put down every form of tyranny and carnality, 
 when he acknowledged all men as equals, when he was 
 kind to every beast of the field, when he Avas moved 
 by love of others and sought no self-gratification ; then 
 whilst he was meditating under the holy tree a divine 
 revelation came to him, and he found Nirvana, not in 
 the loss of his identity, not in the absorption of his 
 soul into the essence of Brahm, but in the perfect union 
 of his will with the divine will, as a drop in the ocean 
 flows harmoniously with all other drops and yet re- 
 tains its individuality intact forever; though never los- 
 ing its identity, there is no conflict, no struggle between 
 itself and any other. 
 
 If any ask, what becomes of the individual human 
 soul I Shall I always retain my identity \ We tell you 
 that only when you cease to think of self will you find 
 your highest self ; when you are no longer concerned 
 about your own identity you will have found your 
 highest identity; then will you find the divine image 
 within you, and shine forever in resplendent glory and 
 know yourselves to be children of the Most High. 
 
 Over and over again we are told we may become 
 children of God. We are all children of God now, but 
 when Ave become children of God in a special B61 
 
15G BPIKITCAL THERAPEUTH 
 
 we come to know ourselves as such; when we are intra 
 duced into the knowledge of divine truth it is because 
 our spiritual eyes open, and when our inward eves open 
 all the universe is seen by us as it was never seen before; 
 when our spiritual ears are unstopped and our llpe are 
 unclosed, we hear and speak from the sold as wo never 
 heard or spoke before. 
 
 We are all possessors of divine life, but we are like 
 men and women who are heirs to some wonderful in- 
 heritanceand know not of it; we | by right jewels 
 
 and treasures beyond all price, hut we have not yet found 
 them. When you discover y^ur spiritual] <»ns, 
 
 when you are thoroughly revealed to yourself and know 
 what you really are, when youhavefound your deepest 
 nature that is within you, you will discover that y<>u 
 are each as a drop in the ocean of God's infinitude; you 
 will then be filled with eternal joy, and will not think 
 any more either about forgetting self or preserving 
 identity. 
 
 But your identity is what nothing can destroy; 
 sense of your identity is the only consciousness thai can 
 never leave you; it is the only thing that seemingly 
 takes care of itself under all circumstances and cannot 
 be lost; identity is inseparable from your real being 
 which relates you forever to the infinite identity of the 
 Eternal. To attain to perfect oneness with Deity 
 you must all attain to perfect oneness, i. <. harmony 
 with each other; you must all become co-workers, lov- 
 ing one another with pure hearts fervently, and not 
 preferring yourself or your own interests to those of a 
 neighbor; you must boAV down no more to the competi- 
 tive idol, but acknowledge co-operation or divine com- 
 
si'IRl'ITAI. THERAPEUTICS. 157 
 
 munism ; enlightened minds will no longer fall into tin 
 
 errors of those communists who though setting out with 
 
 :ul and holy purpose, have spoiled their plan or seen 
 
 it ruined by selfishness. Strive to enter into the spirit 
 
 of those great reformers who are actuated alone by 
 divine benevolence and you will discern the pattern of 
 
 universal equity. 
 
 When Robert Owen and Robert Dale Owen, two of 
 the noblest men America has produced, endeavored to 
 
 iblish communistic settlements, it was their highest 
 ambition to do good and elevate society; they were 
 willing to undergo privation and the loss of earthly 
 sessions that they might help others; we cannot 
 but admire these noble and glorious men; both of them 
 were fully conversant before they passed into the spirit- 
 ual world, of the reality of immortal life ; both were 
 spiritualists in the true sense of the word, and endeav- 
 ored to enter into profitable relations with spiritual life 
 by the cultivation of spirituality, knowing that spirit- 
 uality was cultivated by benevolent disposition and 
 action. They trod in the perfect way as far as they 
 could find it, but then why were their endeavors com- 
 paratively unsuccessful? why was so much of their toil 
 
 aingly fruitless? why were their splendid commu- 
 nities castles in the air more than anything else? 
 Surely because the men and women who undertook to 
 walk with them were not so magnanimous as they 
 who led the way. When magnanimity and not). 
 
 shall guide persons to form combinations solely 
 for the good of the race, then we shall Bee an ideal 
 
 imunity; but the preaching of communism as right 
 living, with all the eloquence and argument that can 
 
158 SPIRITUAL TIIKKAI'Kri: 
 
 possibly be brought forward in its defense, will fall to 
 nothingness until the spirit that imbues the worker 
 the enterprise as well as the founders 
 pure philanthropy. 
 
 Wccjiii sec no perfecl way of doing anything when 
 we are imperfect in our thought and desire. There 
 can be nothing perfect on the outside until there 
 perfect state within ; no perfecl government, no perl 
 law, no perfect order, no perfect body until then 
 perfect thought within. There must be perfect thought 
 first, as all works are embodiments of thought. Ex- 
 ternal forms fall short of thought bul never transcend 
 it. 
 
 The thought must be perfect before the external 
 be. Consider a seed ; can you put an imperfi 
 into the ground and make it produce a perfect plant! 
 No; no sunshine or rain.no process of in . no 
 
 enriching of soil can possibly make an imperfi 
 bear a perfecl plant. P< n must inhere in the 
 
 I, and if this be the case then if all climatic influ- 
 ences are favorable and it receives the necessary cull 
 tion adapted to it, it can unfold into a perfect plant. 80 
 in our own minds there must be a perftc! seed, a per- 
 fect thought. M Be ye pei it is within the reach 
 of every one of you. Four thought must be a per 
 seed before it is a perfect acorn, a perfect acorn 
 it is a perfect sapling and a perfect sapling before it is 
 a perfect oak 80 when generation is spiritually 
 accomplished there is first a perfect babe, then a per- 
 fect child, a perfect youth, a perfect young man. a per- 
 fect man of mature years, but a babe as a babe may be 
 just as perfect in nature and freedom from taint as the 
 perfect man. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. lf>9 
 
 So all along the perfect way, in the pathway of con- 
 stant progress there is growth, expansion, unfoldment, 
 ever a further manifestation. But in the perfect way 
 
 there are no worms to eat the seed, no diseases to 
 destroy the beauty and symmetry of j^outh ; no errors 
 introduced to mar the plan, no wild oats sown with the 
 vain expectation that there will never come a reaping 
 time for anything but golden grain. In the perfect 
 life there must be oerfect attention pa id to ewry detail 
 of growth. 
 
 What do you call perfect ? That is only perfect 
 which is perfect in every detail, but that is perfect 
 which during all the stages of its development is per- 
 fect as far as it extends. You may be painting a per- 
 fect picture — but what do you require for a perfect 
 painting? First, a perfect sheet of blank canvas; then 
 you begin to cover it, doing the first day very rudimen- 
 tary work indeed, just a little marking upon the can- 
 vas, but it is perfect as far as it goes, and you go on 
 month after month until your picture is at length a 
 master piece in some school of art. 
 
 Xow that is a sample of what our life should be; 
 that is the idea we should put before our children ; do 
 not expect old heads on young shoulders; do not expect 
 a child to know as much as a man ; do not expect by a 
 single leap or bound to mount up to celestial heights, 
 but always move in the right direction ; never turn 
 back, go' straight ahead; be sure you are right and 
 then keep straightforward. That is the rule of perfec- 
 tion. Do the best you can each day. Let the child 
 recite one portion of the multiplication table perfectly, 
 and then goon and learn the next portion, and so on 
 
160 Kill Af. TIIKUAI'Kl II 
 
 until he has the whole complete. Learn everyth 
 thoroughly as you go. 
 
 This is the meaning of "Be ye perfect;" pei 
 according to your power, according to your knowled 
 according to your ability ; beperfecl in your n 
 perfect in intention, will, desire, motive, Never 
 anythin it ; never <lo 
 
 anything unless you feel il : to do Tallow 
 
 yourself to indulge a though! unless you feel that 
 
 thought is a rightful and holy one. 
 
 " Be ye perfect i our Father who is in 
 
 heaven is perfect," because you hav< bilities 
 
 of perfection, because you are in the image and 
 ness of the all-p □ is theonly 
 
 one thing to be tolerated in all si advancement. 
 
 Perfection never means transcending the order or 
 law of growth ; il i\<»'* not mean ignoring the slow and 
 Bteadyproa involution and evolution. Lei the 
 involuted thought and the evoluted action be alike per- 
 fect, the one the cause, i he ( a her the effect. Then the 
 command, " Be ye perfect even as the eternal is per- 
 fect," will not be undersl 1 by you in any impossible 
 
 sense, but as within the limits of the possibl I of 
 
 every one of you. 
 
 Our application of the subject, therefore, is this: 
 Have only one master, and that master your high 
 
 conviction of right. Acknowledge only one (rod and 
 one revelation from God, and that revelation the di\ 
 voice in your own soul. When you give your children 
 moral or religious education, when you call them to- 
 gether in a Lyceum and teach them so that all may un- 
 derstand, never say a statement is true because it is in 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 161 
 
 the Bible ; never say a thing is right because you tell 
 
 them so; some time they may find you are mistaken 
 and they will grow up to distrust your authority and 
 to doubt your position being a warrantable our. 
 But say to every child, never do anything that will 
 cause you to forfeit your self respect ; always listen for 
 the still small voice of the Holy Spirit within you; 
 always listen to the divine command echoing between 
 the cherubim of your moral and intellectual nature ; 
 always look for the Shekinak within; always remember 
 that the highest oracle is within; that the voice of the 
 Eternal sounds within vour innermost being: do what- 
 ever you do because you feel it to be right. 
 
 But supposing you are mistaken, what will the 
 result of honest mistake be? Mistakes will teach you 
 wisdom. Xever be discouraged and never look upon 
 your work as evil, because that work is not immedi- 
 ately perfect in all the fullness of completion. 
 
 In the perfect life if one lives in harmony with 
 highest intention, conforming himself as far as he 
 may to his loftiest ideal, he is perfect as far as he can go, 
 but not perfect finally because he has not traversed the 
 whole of the way. In building a temple you may have 
 only the foundation laid, and that may be perfect, but it 
 is not a perfect temple; only when the temple is com- 
 pleted can the architect say, u There is a perfect expi 
 sion of perfect thought/' 
 
 Here is the true idea of perfect life. In soul we 
 generate perfect thought, a perfect ideal : then we 
 have to work it out, laying stone upon stone, until 
 that perfect thought is externalized in the perfect 
 temple of our manifested being. 
 10 
 
162 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 And when you feel, "I have committed a sin ; I am 
 so sorry; I thought I acted for the best, bul I find I 
 made a mistake ; I did wrong ; I have hurt some one 
 to whom I would have given the sweetest consolation ;'' 
 we tell you, you did right, relatively, because you did 
 the best you could; it would he unreasonable on the 
 part of God, and, therefore, impossible for him to he 
 angry with you. If you did not feel that your acts 
 were imperfect, you would settle down in contentment 
 and never rise higher. No ad is properly imperfect 
 when it is the best you can pel-form, under the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Let us reverence our ideal of perfection and rest as- 
 sured that the way to perfection is ever to act in har- 
 mony with the hot that we know, so that we may 
 ever do better and better and better, until the compara- 
 tive changes to the superlative, and we are perfect 
 in the purity of our every thought and perfect also in 
 the wisdom that enahles us to carry our perfect 
 thought into perfect effect, which will ever be dis- 
 played in a symmetrical mind expressed through the 
 Instrument of a sound and healthy body. Perfect ph 
 cal health is the ultimate or final consequence on 
 earth of perfect thought in spirit, compatible with 
 present attainments. 
 
LESSON IX. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT; ITS ORIGIN, GROWTH AND ULTI- 
 MATE PERFECTION. 
 
 THERE are many persons whonow-a-days question 
 the desirability of religion, as many consider the 
 word religion implies restrictions antagonistic to liberty, 
 maintaining that as religion is derived from rdigio, 
 which signifies to bind, or to bind again, therefore to be 
 religions implies to be held in bondage. Now while 
 there is no necessary idea of bondage connected with 
 religion, we must all admit in a certain sense that we 
 must be bound in order to be free. 
 
 There are no two words in the English language 
 which mean more directly opposite things than liberty 
 and license, than freedom and lawlessness. No one can 
 be lawless and yet free; no one can be unmindful of 
 the interests of his fellow beings and live as though be 
 were the only occupant of the world and enjoy liberty, 
 for liberty is a pure, holy, divine and healthy senti- 
 ment, which unites man forever and forever with the 
 
 nally true, with the eternally JVee. "He is free 
 whom the truth makes free, and all are slaves beside." 
 isan utterance that has been wisely quoted thousands 
 of times in the past, and will be quoted thousands of 
 times in the future, as it expresses the true idea of what 
 liberty is. Liberty is freedom to serve truth ; freedom 
 
 163 
 
164 SPIRITUAL TIIERAPKril 
 
 to live a life of truth in obedience to one's highest con- 
 victions of right and duty. Genuine liberty is liberty 
 for the soul, for the spiritual nature, for the immortal 
 mind, over which death can have no power and the 
 grave no victory. Liberty is a divine and holy realiza- 
 tion of our relation to divine 4 law and order, and the 
 willing subjection of all our material inclinations to im- 
 mortal guidance. Liberty never concerns itself with 
 the first person singular, with my affairs or my inter- 
 ests; liberty knows nothing of the greal /. but al\\ 
 speaks of ovr interests, of our concei welfare. 
 
 Liberty, therefore, is in perfect accord with self abne- 
 gation, and yet with purest self enjoyment in the spir- 
 itual sense. 
 
 Without doubt it is natural to man to love happi- 
 ness, and, to search for it, it is natural to the 
 human family to try every experiment until they find 
 happiness; every creature Beeks happiness, and i( 
 our supreme conviction that the day is coming in this 
 world when everybody on the planet will be happy. 
 Our sincere conviction is, that that wonderful goal 
 of joy looked forward to by all nations and individuals, 
 will one day be found; that as the Eternal Parent is 
 an infinitely happy spirit, all children of the one Great 
 Eternal are by their very nature, by the essential and 
 unchanging constitution of their being ordained to hap- 
 piness. Our belief is that all darkness and discord, all 
 the pain and trouble through which mankind at large 
 is now passing and through which individual minds are 
 passing, even be} T ond the grave, is never anything wo 
 than a school discipline, and even though a school be a 
 purgatory, it is still an educational institution. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. L6fi 
 
 Our idea concerning man's existence is, that every 
 creature, without exception, is born not only with a 
 great desire to be happy but also with an instinct that 
 happiness is natural to him and will eventually he real- 
 ized by him. 
 
 Happiness can be only attained in one way: in 
 purity, not in impurity; in truth, not in error; in love, 
 not in hate; in knowledge, not in ignorance; in wisdom, 
 not in folly. And as happiness can only be obtained 
 in wisdom, knowledge, love, liberty, truth and right- 
 eousness, no matter where we may be, either in an ex- 
 ternal form or in spirit, we must be unhappy as long 
 we are impure, foolish, ignorant, untruthful, unloving, 
 unwise or unrighteous; and as all onhappiness is the 
 result of ignorance and imperfection, it is as the grand 
 old Grecian sage, Socrates, described, happiness, good 
 and knowledge are all one, while evil, darkness 
 ignorance and misery are all one and inseparable ; so 
 we must all admit that as there is within the mind 
 of man an ineradicable desire to be happy, and happi- 
 ness can only be found in the one way ordained by 
 Eternal Providence, i. e. in compliance with divine 
 order, all souls will at length be happy, all lives will 
 eventually flow together in one divine channel and all 
 feet march together up that great hill upon the summit 
 of which stands the city of gold, the symbol of the 
 transmutation of all life's perplexities into the absolute 
 fullness of eternal harmony. 
 
 Sorrow is often-times an alchemist transmuting 
 the baser elements into the more precious. Our per- 
 plexities and woes, and even our restless discontent, 
 are all servants of the divine plan that works out in- 
 
1C6 SPIRITUAL Til ER API II 
 
 finite good at last ; when we hear the words pronounced 
 so often on funeral occasions, u Peace at the last,' 3 let 
 us pause for a moment and ask, "What is the last :" 
 The last, Omega, is identical with the first. Alpha. In 
 the beginning God created, i. &, in the beginning of 
 the history of a planet God began to manifest himself, 
 and at the last his manifestation is complete to all 
 souls from that planet. In the beginning man was en- 
 dowed with a purfe and holy soul, immortal, ineffable, 
 and at the last, no matter how long tli.it soul may liave 
 been eclipsed, it shines forth in divine splendor, in 
 sheen of glory it bursts from behind the clouds which 
 have so long veiled it and caused shortsighted minds to 
 deem it lost forever. 
 
 All our imperfections and errors may be compared 
 to the mists and fogs, and smoke arising from the 
 earth, especially from great manufacturing cent 
 while our souls in their union with the Eternal may be 
 compared with the glorious lights of heaven that are 
 never diminished or quenched, because earthly factor- 
 ies and chimneys Jill the air with smoke. 
 
 Here on the earth we are surrounded with imperfec- 
 tion and error, we are living in a smoky atmosphere 
 and the smoke arises from the chimneys of our hoc 
 and our factories wherein Ave do material cooking, and 
 engage in material merchandise. We cannot see the 
 glorious lights on high when we are in the midst of a 
 city whose chimneys fill the air with smoke, but when 
 we get some distance out of the city, though our trav- 
 eling brings lis no nearer to the heavens above, no 
 nearer the glorious sun, no nearer the circling planets 
 and the "fixed stars" so very faraway, bv it we get 
 
SPIRITUAL TIIKRAPKITI [67 
 
 out of the smoky atmosphere that we ourselves have 
 created by our own occupation and our own very im 
 
 perfect way of doing business; so when we have go1 
 out of the mental smoke whieh befogs ideas, out of 
 the smoky atmosphere of our doubts and misbeliefs, 
 got rid of all unhealthy sentiments which arise from our 
 perverted nature and which make impure the atmos- 
 phere we breathe — God will have come no nearer to 
 us. angels will be no closer to us, divine power no more 
 ready to bless us, but we shall see the sun where afore- 
 time we saw* the fog; the fog will clear away that hid 
 the sun — then will the sun appear. This simile will bo 
 found very important and easy of application in almost 
 all cases. 
 
 Astronomy teaches that the sun is much older than 
 the earth but no matter how old it is, the earth could 
 know nothing about it until the sun became visible to 
 the earth. Xo matter how old the stars may be the 
 earth could know nothing about them until it became 
 ready to see them, so from man's standpoint of imper- 
 fect observation it appears as though new worlds were 
 ever coming into existence, as though new truths 
 were ever being born, though from God's point of 
 view, from the point of view of the angels who 
 have passed beyond the murky shadows of earthly im- 
 perfection there are no such new creations, new dispen- 
 
 ons and new revelations as less enlightened minds 
 suppose. but they understand how man in his ever inet 
 ing intelligence draws ever nearer and nearer boa knowl- 
 edge of the Eternal and his works. And so when you 
 
 j, " Nearer my (rod to thee, nearer to thee." you must 
 not imagine that the idea of prayer, when interpreted 
 
/ 
 
 i68 SPIRITUAL TIIERAl'ErTI* 8. 
 
 truthfully, spiritually, philosophically, and scientifically 
 carries with it the slightest si on that God ever 
 
 changes his disposition toward us; you must never 
 suppose for one moment there is any such thing as an 
 atonement or reconciliation offered to the offen led 
 Majesty of Heaven whereby lie Is importuned to have 
 mercy upon the sinner; never suppose there can be 
 any opposition in the divine nature bel ween the dr 
 attributes, so thai mercy and justice are reconcilable by 
 vicarious atonement. 
 
 But in the lighl of a true perception of man's 
 spiritual nature he offers atonement who eff< con- 
 
 ciliation, who reveals the fatherly character of the 
 Infinite, who removes all that doubt, fear and pride 
 which as the smoke filling the earth's atmosphere, hides 
 the glorious luminaries of the heavens from man's ob 
 vatioii. and as theology of old lias often concerned itself 
 with changes in God, and from the very earliest times 
 men have engaged in propitiatory rites, inofl tcri- 
 
 lices to placate a hitherto implacable Deity, as men sup- 
 posed that by their altars runningwith blood, by human 
 as well as animal sacrifices they might prevail upon < lod 
 to be merciful — they will learn in the future thai God 
 was never unreconciled to man, but man has, unfortu- 
 nately, often been unreconciled to his brother man, 
 and the reconciliation which needs to l>< k effected in 
 society to-day is, the unification of all races, and the 
 identification of all human interests. We must no 
 longer remain unreconciled to each other, and in our 
 own individual nature we must no longer remain at 
 discord with ourselves. Follow out this train of thought 
 simply and logically and you will all understand the 
 true nature of atonement. 
 
spikiti Al. THERAPEUTICS, 169 
 
 The religious instinct in man is as n:\tural as the in- 
 stinct to walk, talk, eat, clothe ones-self or Bleep. Any 
 good phrenologist will tell you that the organs of ven- 
 eration, spirituality, sublimity, benevolence, conscien- 
 tiousness, and all the others which portray religious 
 and moral faculties are just as natural as the organ of 
 aliment iveness which disposes toward the enjoyment 
 of food, or the organ of destructiveness which immod- 
 erately developed causes men to be dangerous to one 
 another, but when perfectly balanced and wisely un- 
 folded gives strength of character without which man 
 would have no intellectual vigor or spiritual power. 
 
 The religious sentiments are born in man, and the 
 organ of spirituality which phrenology has discovered, 
 as well as the organ of veneration, proves the natural 
 instinct of worship, which, because natural, may be 
 cultivated or repressed, but never totally eradicated. 
 
 Nature worships in every flower that turns its face 
 to the sun, offering an act of adoration to the great 
 fountain of energy; the animal that looks up to man. a 
 dog or horse looking up to his master with loving 
 gratitude, displays the instinct of veneration. And 
 when men erect high pedestals and place upon them 
 statues of great men and women, almost deifying heroes 
 and heroines; while they spare no praise and stint n<* 
 gratitude when asked to pour out eulogistic adoration 
 at the feet of some benefactor of society, man though 
 he calls himself an infidel and avows no faith in God, 
 doubting if there be a spiritual or supreme Being, his 
 natural instinct of veneration leads him to bow down 
 some superior man. In America there are men who 
 acknowledge no supreme Kuler of the universe, who do 
 
170 SPIRITUAL TIIERAPKl'Ii 
 
 not believe in erecting houses of worship, and who dis- 
 regard all religious sentiment and worship altogether, 
 who are ready to almost deify George Washington, 
 Abraham Lincoln and other eminent patriots; ti 
 who read history are so profoundly touched with a 
 sense of the majesty — we may also say divinity — of the 
 greatest characters who appear upon the historian's 
 page, that they consider no monument, no eulogy t<><> 
 extravagant when these men are brought before them 
 as objects of respect. 
 
 There is in man an irrepressible instinct of venera- 
 tion and worship, and when people talk about the time 
 coming for worship to >r adoration and devotion 
 
 to come to an end. we tell you if that time d<>< s come 
 man will be born with only half a brain, but as long 
 he is born with a whole brain pliv tsand phrenol- 
 
 ogists will still behold the outward indications of senti- 
 ments of worship within the mind. 
 
 This true instinct of worship, venerat ion, adoration, 
 this continual looking up to ahigher power is the le 
 in man which lifts him to a higher and more glorious 
 life; that moral sense, or conscience, thai spiritual faculty 
 which is so closely allied t<>, and. indeed, inseparably 
 identified with the distinction between right and wrong, 
 •or the sense of good and evil, is the magnet within 
 man's being that attracts him to a higher life, the 
 inpiration of the soul within him that causes him to 
 rise to a more blessed level and without which moral 
 and spiritual progress would be impossible. 
 
 Unfortunately, man has been so ignorant of his tine 
 nature, that what has been after all the divinest and 
 kindest gift of the Eternal to his children, has been 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 171 
 
 regarded as the voice of God's displeasure, as the anger 
 or wrath wherewith he would smite his enemies. How 
 
 very, very often in human ignorance men denounce 
 cruel that which in days of added wisdom they declare 
 
 to be most kind of all. How very often that parental 
 discipline which brings the most tears to the eye and 
 the most immediate sorrow to the heart of a child in the 
 
 days of its adminstration, in after years proves itself to 
 the absolute satisfaction of the offspring to have been 
 the noblest and kindest ministration of fatherly and 
 motherly love and wisdom. 
 
 So when Ave look back through the dim vistas of 
 by-gone years, when through the long ages we 
 humanity toiling up the steeps of time, and shedding 
 blood even, for what we may now term superstition or 
 fanaticism, we find the instinct of worship even within 
 the savage breast, deepest down in human nature of all 
 instincts, and destined at last to overcome all imperfec- 
 tions and shine forth in its native brilliancy as God's 
 best gift to man. 
 
 Let ns consider briefly some of the forms which this 
 
 natural instinct of worship has already taken to mani- 
 
 itself, how it is now manifesting itself, and how 
 
 - likely, indeed certain, to manifest itself in future. 
 Our first proposition is that no one ever worshiped any- 
 thing without deeming it in some respect superior to 
 himself; no one ever bowed to any power, force or 
 creature without endowing that power, force or creat- 
 ure with superior attributes; and no one ever endov 
 any creature, force or power with superiority unt il that 
 
 • \ power or creature had manifested something that 
 looked like superiority to the worship* r. 
 
172 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 Let us revert to the earliest form of savage worship, 
 the worship of animals. Wherein does animal superiority 
 consist ? Surely in superior physical s1 rength. No one 
 can deny for a moment that the larger animals on earth 
 are man's superiors physically ; in bodily strength, in 
 power to protect themselves, in power to fight, they 
 most certainly excell. Poor, illiterate, naked savaj 
 not armed with the weapons which intelligent and 
 skillful nations have devised, could not protect them- 
 selves against the mauraders of ; they w 
 stung to death by venomous reptiles they could Dot 
 control; they were eaten up alive by mom the 
 forest they could not destroy, bul whomer* des- 
 troyed them; had they not then good reason t<> n< 
 nize superior strength in such creatures 1 Now, us they 
 witnessed in animals and reptiles a disposition to do 
 them harm, they discovered also that they could appe 
 them by offering them food; that they would often 
 eat the food given them instead of destroying them and 
 their children; what was theoutcomc? Surely a system 
 of sacrifice ; even human sacrificegrew up in the world 
 and frequently parents offered their own children to 
 monsters; they offered one child that several might he 
 saved ; later on they frequently offered prisoners whom 
 they had taken in war, and in still later times they 
 offered those who were less perfect than others in order 
 that by the sacrifice of one they might save many : 
 rifices to the barbaric gods of all trib tinted with 
 fear of animals and the elements. 
 
 When men saw creatures of savage propensities 
 holding sway on earth, they soon thought of militant 
 powers in heaven, of wrathful and unmerciful gods, es- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 173 
 
 pecially as they saw nature bestowing what Beamed to 
 
 them her greatest gifts upon the cruel and ruthless; 
 they soon endowed the power that brought everything 
 into existence with attributes like those of the serpent, 
 the bear, the lion, the tiger and the wolf, and then when 
 they turned their eyes to the heavens above, and also 
 contemplated the phenomena perpetually transpiring 
 upon the earth around them, wind, thunder, lightning, 
 volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, cyclones and all forms 
 of devastation, which were more active in early times 
 than now, did they not naturally endow the powers 
 who ruled all things, withawe and majesty, with power 
 and might, but with very little love, mercy or tender- 
 ness ' And indeed to any one who is not a careful 
 scientist, a profound philosopher, or deeply spiritual 
 in his thought, the universe certainly suggests the idea 
 of wrath mingled with beneficence. To any one who 
 cannot read in the future the harmonizing and equaliz- 
 ing of all things, this world appears to be given over in 
 large measure to powers of darkness, hate and cruelty. 
 To those who look only upon the surface, there are no 
 sfactory evidences of a perfectly good God supreme 
 in the universe. We do not w r onder that awful ideas of 
 devils, hells, divine wrath and fiery retribution hold 
 sway, when we see the lightings strike the dwellings of 
 the innocent as well as of the guilty, when the earth- 
 quake does not spare the babe at the breast, or the 
 mother who is so necessary to the maintenance of her 
 offspring, any more than it spares the murderer; when 
 the volcanic eruption has no sympathy for the young 
 and tender, any more than for those who have lived a 
 life of sin. 
 
174: SPIRITUAL THERAPEUT1 
 
 There is an awful mystery in nature; a mystery 
 which scientists, philosophers and theologians have 
 alike endeavored to unravel and have as yet been un- 
 able to satisfactorily explain save when from the higher 
 realms of spirit and the deepest intuitions of man's 
 divine soul a voice has declared this is only a prelude 
 to the oratorio affolding to the temple, which 
 
 when it appears in all its beauty, crowned with 
 light, the scaffolding removed, and the noise of 
 the workmen hushed,— when all th< of anj 
 
 waves have subsided and there is a greal calm, when 
 the rain and wind hav< I. then you will see the 
 
 earth rejuvenated and perfected. Then you will 
 know that all is For the best, and the righteous shall 
 shine forth in the kingdom of their Father. 
 
 There is wonder and dread all over the world, and 
 those poor short-sighted theologians who can see on 
 earth into hell, but can not see through hell into heaven, 
 who can see beyond man to devil, 1ml cannot 
 beyond devil to the angel into which that devil will at 
 length be converted, whocan see the strife, discord 
 and storm, hut can not see beyond it to the day of inef- 
 fable calm and great glory yet to be revealed such 
 short-sighted gazers into the mysteries of human hie 
 and destiny are not merely imagining horrors or suppos- 
 ing calamities— they simply do not see farenough; 1 1 
 point of view docs not reach out into the universe far 
 enough. 
 
 Until we have more powerful tele ater 
 
 powers of spiritual vision, until we are longer sighted 
 with regard to spiritual things, we shall he tormented 
 with dread of fiends and hobgoblins and all the awful 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTH 1 75 
 
 creatures which people the realms of the unknown; hut 
 when ignorance dies and we know good, all is for good, 
 when brighter light and fuller revelation explain the 
 mystery and solve the problem, then because darkness 
 is no more, t lie hobgoblins disappear even from imagina- 
 tion, and in theliffhtall will know that there is nothing 
 to fear. When in the darkness you areafraid of every- 
 thing, even of your own shadow, and often of that most 
 of all. WhenEmanuel Swedenborgin the last century, 
 and Dante centuries before saw into the hells and told 
 of states almost too awful to be depicted, they did not 
 describe what did not exist, but Dante, who had been 
 educated in Roman Catholicism and had therefore been 
 taught that there was an endless hell for those-who 
 died in mortal sin, and Swedenborg. who had been 
 brought up in the Lutheran faith and taught that those 
 who died out of Christ would be damned forever, could 
 only modify their ideas of everlasting torment, they 
 could not see far enough beyond the hells into t ho 
 heavens, which all must at length reach. Anyone 
 standing at a point were he can see but a little way 
 before him can describe only what is not very far ahead 
 and is apt to imagine there is a boundary line, a horizon, 
 and nothing beyond it. A child standing upon the 
 shore, with a field-glass, looking across the water 
 thinks there is nothing beyond the water — it is all 
 water and nothing but water in that direction to this 
 >n. But tho>e who have been overseas have found 
 land on the other side. You can not show the distant 
 d to the child on the shore; you cannot, even if 
 voir is excellent, stand on the Pacific slope and 
 
 1 »ok across the water, to the Sandwich islands, ( !hi 
 
170 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC 
 
 Japan or any land whatever, but when travelers have 
 been across the water and found land, and our comes 
 back to tell the tale, then you accept a revelation from 
 the land invisible; there is water indeed but then 
 land beyond the water. This is but a poor and faint 
 illustration of the heavens beyond the hells, of the par 
 adise beyond the purgatories, of the good beyond the 
 evil, of the light beyond the darkness. 
 
 Looking at matters from your earthly standpoint, 
 unless spiritually endowed and enlightened, or in com- 
 munion with those who ha you 
 know of nothing more than that which follows di- 
 rectly upon your pi< r a few short 
 yeans in the carl lily body you encounter death and 
 the grave, and there is the end of life to physi 
 sight or materia] perception. But there are tl 
 who can see beyond, and where you declare death 
 they declare fullness of life; where you i de- 
 struction they declare resurrection and reconstruc- 
 tion. Siva, among the Brahmins, is " 1 " only 
 to the ignorant, the same divinity is both I) 
 and Reproducer to the enlightened. 
 
 The religious systems of the world must conn 
 go, rise and set, wax and wane, and all that will re- 
 main forever is man's perception of absolute truth, 
 and this will be perpetually increasing. 
 
 We have already alluded to the worship of the 
 lower creation — to the worship of the dark, hiatal 
 and belligerent forces of nature, which led to 
 rifices of the most fearful character — and" we think 
 we have accounted for it naturally, that man being 
 on a material plane, and surrounded with forces he 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 177 
 
 could not control, and seeing no further than his 
 immediate environment, worshiped the physical force 
 
 which was superior to his own ; and there arc mil- 
 lions of people today, who, with all their boasted 
 intelligence, scientific ability and literary acumen, never 
 advance further than savages, in a spiritual direction, 
 thus they only perceive what seems very unjust and 
 cruel in natural phenomena, 
 
 Why do the most illumined minds refuse to how 
 before the blind force which is the substitute for God 
 among atheists and materialists? Why do they not 
 acknowledge that supreme law or infinite force, a vague 
 abstraction in the universe, and declare that is all we 
 can know about causation? Why do they not bow 
 down and worship the blind "necessity" of modern 
 materialism \ 
 
 AYe have only one answer; that ideal "force" is 
 not as good as we are and we will not worship our 
 inferior, we will not bow to the materialists' substitute 
 for God, because it is an image of clay inferior to the 
 substance of which we ourselves are made. 
 
 We claim to have some affection, some intelligence, 
 some mercy, some sense of justice, but a blind, unintel- 
 
 nt force, a mere abstraction, a something not our- 
 not endowed with any intelligence, wisdom, love 
 
 -ense of justice, is infinitely our inferior, and that 
 which is our inferior calls for our contempt not our 
 adoration. 
 
 instead of believing that the universe is guided by 
 
 ie unknowable power that brings multitudes into 
 nocks them with noble powers and wonder- 
 ful endowments, cherishes in their bi the highest 
 12 
 
178 SFnUTUAL THERAPBUTO 
 
 hopes and loftiest sentiments, and then allows a< 
 wheel to run over their body, or some other accident to 
 
 cause their death, and that is the end of them; inst 
 of believing in a power whir glorious life and 
 
 then allows it to be d I by the blundcrir 
 
 drunken cab-driver, or a careless ei . instead oi 
 
 bowing before a power thai intelligence, h( 
 
 aspiration, all that constitutes noblest manhood and 
 womanhood, and then destroys these attributes in 
 a moment by a falling tile or by a missile hurled at 
 your head by a careless boy, we prefer to 
 in an intelligent, controlling power that regards the 
 material body as the m< ternal and superficial 
 
 vesture of man, andsees the manhimseli fely 
 
 alive, forever in spirit. 
 
 II" I am a brute, I naturally worship a and 
 
 stronger brute than myself; if I am merely an animal, I 
 naturally worship a larger and Stronger animal than 
 myself, and it' I am a human being, with no other in- 
 stincts cultivated, no other powers developed than 
 those 1 share in common with the lower creation,] 
 naturally bow to those of the lov ition, who hi 
 
 attributes such as mine but more powerfully deveh ped 
 than mine. And thus it is only natural that as lonj 
 man is on the material plane of thought and affection, 
 and does not recognize anything more than Ins material 
 nature, he will invent a material substitul rod, 
 
 which substitute is the direct result of the mammon 
 worship of this age, a remote result of the ignorant 
 animality of savage times. There is fully as much 
 animality and brutality and more treachery in the 
 respectable man of business, who does not care how 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 170 
 
 many wives and children he ruins, how many beads of 
 families he dooms to misery, and perhaps suicide by 
 his tricks in trade, misrepresentations and gambling 
 speculations, than in the panther or the wol,'. We 
 aid rather be in the clutches of a tiger than in those 
 of a man who lives for self and money only ; we would 
 rather trust to the tender mercies of the wild beasts of 
 the forest than to those of a creature who has more 
 intellect but uses that intellect solely for personal ag- 
 grandizement, recognizing nothing beyond buying and 
 selling, eating, drinking and getting gain. As long as 
 this worship of mammon continues, and to make a for- 
 tune is the supreme object of life, so long as education 
 has for its watchword, competition, and your most ap- 
 proved mottoes: are look out for yourselves, take care of 
 number one, there can be no spiritual revelation to sat- 
 isfy the highest needs of human nature, there can be no 
 sunshine visible in which we can bask with delight. If 
 the air is filled with noxious exhalations and the smoke 
 from a thousand factory chimneys. Man must get rid of 
 the mist and smoke that is continually enveloping him. 
 When he is no longer selfish nor brutal, then he will be 
 able to accept a glorious revelation from the spiritual 
 universe, which is absolutely necessary to happiness 
 and a true understanding of the plan of the univers 
 
 We are ready to make the assertion, extravagant 
 though it may appear to many, that we know people 
 who have absolutely discovered God. But if they have 
 
 overed God, have they met a person and had aper- 
 
 il interview with an omnipotent spirit in the guise 
 of man who proclaimed his deity by name? We an 
 
 r they have beheld the divine presence with the i 
 
180 sriBrruAL thebapeuth 
 
 of the soul; they have become spiritual to the extent 
 of entering into conscious relation with the divine 
 spirit made known to them in the innern sof 
 
 their being. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they 
 shall soo God." A great many people quibble at that 
 beatitude, many want to know what it means to 
 God. According to the statement itself no one can 
 know what it m< ans to " see ( Jod " until perfectly | 
 in heart, therefore until they are in thai condil 
 they have no means of either proving or dispro^ 
 
 the statement. The Bight of God to the pure in h< 
 is the full perception that everything is good and 
 
 the best, that all life will turnout well and all r< 
 lead at length to the great terminus of til 
 city, that all boats will land at length upon tin 
 
 of eternal happiness. By perceiving God we mean per- 
 ceiving spiritual truth, love, wisdom, : nd right 
 eousness; perceiving perfect justice in the order of the 
 
 universe. And when we have found divine just ice ru 
 and governing all we do not trouble ourselves as to 
 whether Deity lias or has not an anthropomorphic form; 
 when we have found divine wisdom, love a ml truth we do 
 not care to ask how love, wisdom and truth are presented 
 outwardlv to sense or intellect, we are satisfied with 
 the knowledge of the soul, with the perception of the 
 interior nature. 
 
 For all discussions in theology concering God's 
 personality or impersonality we shall care less than for 
 the changing sands on the sea shore. It does not mat- 
 ter whether we can decide as to the personality or 
 impersonality ot God. There are a great many things 
 beyond our intellectual range, even beyond our moral 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC8, 181 
 
 preception, and there are a greal many mysteries in 
 the universe that are beyond us which we do not need 
 
 to settle. 
 
 But it' we have found enough to content our souls 
 
 in truth, if we have found enough to still the wild 
 heating of our rebellious, sorrowing hearts, to demon- 
 strate life immortal where we have hitherto found 
 death, and the victory of truth where hitherto we 
 imagined the victory of the grave; if we can stand by 
 the side of a corpse and yet see a resurrected be 
 promoted to a higher state of intelligent existence, if 
 we can shed the tear of sympathy with the mourner 
 who is bereaved of an earthly presence and yet he 
 so convinced that the so-called dead are alive and with 
 us, that the tears which flow through ignorance we 
 can wipe away; if we can bring wisdom's consolation 
 to the sad heart, if we have the certainty that though 
 every earthly prop be destroyed, and every earthly 
 opportunity denied, though we have lived our lives 
 from the ordinary standpoint in vain, labored and 
 toiled for naught, that there is in the spiritual unive 
 a crown, a reward, a glorious result for our even* un- 
 dertaking that can not be observed from earth's plane 
 of observation, then we have found the God we all 
 need to find, for we have found infinite goodness: Infinite 
 d, is "God" which is an old saxon word meaning the 
 
 od One or the All Good. God then becon r ord 
 
 no longer meaningless upon our lips. All human specu- 
 lations concerning God and the life beyond must event- 
 ually pass away, all outward forms and ceremonies 
 
 gion will pass away, but the essence of religion 
 will never pass away. Religion may cast aside its 
 
182 SPIRITUAL THEBAPEUTH 
 
 outward dress, its pagodas, temples, and 
 
 churches may all be looked upon some day as things 
 of the past and no longer needed; but supposing the 
 outward churchdoescometoanend, how will it come to 
 an end! By growth. The church will grow so large 
 it will cover the earth, and when the whole earth is a 
 temple, then nobody will need a smaller temple. When 
 the temple was small li stood on a little spot of ground, 
 and people could easily tell you how large it was ; but 
 when the whole earth becomes holy^you can n< 
 wcai' your shoes anywhere if you bave to remove them 
 when you tread on holy ground. 
 
 We believe in the extension of holy ground, in the 
 enlarging of consecrated territory bo thai we can lind 
 God everywhere. 
 
 Where did Jacob find holy ground i < >ut in the wil- 
 derness where he had bu1 a stone for his pillow. Tl 
 had beennoriteof consecration, no house of worship 
 was buil! there, but be was constrained to remove the 
 shoes from his feet for the place whereon he stood 
 holy ground. Where did ft find ho und, 
 
 whej-e did he see the phenomenon of the burning bushl 
 There was no temple built by human hands and dedi- 
 cated to the Most Elighwherehe received the dn 
 message, he was in the solitary unconsecrated desert. 
 
 Where did Jesus tell the woman of Samaria that 
 God should be worshiped i It was not necessary to 
 approach a holy mountain, as the Samaritans thought, 
 with their ruined temple on its summit; it was not 
 necessarv to enter Jerusalem with its temple of unpar- 
 alleled magnificence or pause within its walls, for God is 
 everywhere. Spirit and truth are the only two essential 
 words used in connection with his worship. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIi 183 
 
 In the future the religious instinct will be entirely 
 disconnected from fear, from all harsh conceptions of 
 Deity and moral obligation ; the very word obligatory 
 will be removed from the thought of religion and God 
 will be worshiped in perfect freedom. 
 
 But some may still ask how can perfect freedom be 
 reconciled with religion or religio, which means bind- 
 ing I Can we be religious — completely bound — and \ el 
 enjoy perfect freedom? Yes, for you can serve youi 
 father and mother from pure love, you do not feai 
 them at all, if you love them perfectly. The youngest 
 child can know what it is to feel: father would never 
 punish me, nor would mother; but when they tell me 
 what to do I do it because I love them, and because I 
 love them I choose to please them. 
 
 The only worship God can care for is the kind of 
 worship we have just mentioned, any other is craven, 
 and usually selfish. When worship i% offered to God 
 for the sake of receiving something in return, is not 
 the worshiper like a child who obeys his parents not 
 from love, but because if he is a good child he may 
 a toy or some sweetmeats, such worship is not religion. 
 There are people who are so afraid of God they wor- 
 ship in order to escape hell. Congregations in times of 
 revival are thrown into hysteria at the thought of 
 endless perdition, and then they are said to receive the 
 spirit, having prayed for the holy spirit because they 
 very naturally did not wish to drop into fire and 
 be burned forever. There is no religion in such exper- 
 iences. Where true religion appears is where people 
 worship lovingly and truly the eternal God, from grati- 
 tude to the God who blesses them : where I heir hearts 
 
184 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 
 
 are full of gratitude to the Eternal Fount of all, and 
 they love the Eternal with all their hearts, with all 
 their souls, with all their minds and with all their 
 strength, Tear is gone, dread is removed from such 
 forever. 
 
 True religion has nothing hut love in it. Theonly 
 reason why the men and women of the future will wor- 
 ship will be because they love the EternaL No 1 
 God wants nothing, ami a- q no! possibly do God 
 
 a favor, a<l<l to his glory or bestow one fraction of 
 
 honor upon t In ■rnallv pos- 
 
 . religion resol If into pract ical philanthropy : 
 
 and love for the Eternal takes the form of love for all his 
 children. Religion, rising in glorious light from its 
 chrysalis, transformed into a butterfly, b< philan- 
 
 thropy, humanitarian ism. When we support religious 
 services in days to come we shall know that otl i 
 
 helped )>y them, and that I .raliy benefit Society j 
 
 we shall do whatever we can to help our brethren to a 
 higher and n<>l>l< r life. There is a divine utilitarianism 
 which recognizes tin 1 usefulness of whatsoever tend 
 promote the spiritual nature, and this will be the im- 
 petus to all religious observance in day- to come. 
 Nothing is more important than that doubting and 
 nervous persons, in particular, Bhould he helped \< 
 spiritual sight of divine goodness, and ! t<> realize 
 
 the truth of immortality. Pains, suffering and d:>e. 
 of every name proceed from doubt, fear and sorrow, 
 and to remove these deadly enemies of health and hap- 
 piness is to employ the only effective measures t<> over- 
 come sickness and insanity. 
 
LESSON X. 
 
 HOW CAN WE EXPLAIN MIRACLES SCIENTIFICALLY, A XI) 
 ACCOMPLISH WONDERS APPARENTLY TRANSCENDING THE 
 
 OPERATION OF NATURAL LAW ? 
 
 QUESTIONS similar to the above having poured 
 in upon us from every direction, we have felt 
 it desirable to devote a special chapter in this work 
 to an elucidation, as far as possible, of a problem, 
 the very nature of which appears at first sight to 
 challenge the ability of even the ablest intellect. But 
 when we look carefully at the proposition, and con- 
 sider thoughtfully the nature of the inquiry, we shall 
 perceive that no so-called miracle has ever claimed to 
 be an interference with immutable law; but only an 
 exhibition of spiritual power overcoming the ordinary 
 limitations assigned by human infirmity to the oper- 
 ation of a law, the scope of which so far transcends 
 ordinary comprehension and discovery as to remove 
 it as completely from the realm of general observa- 
 tion, as the rings belting the planet Saturn are un- 
 revealed to unassisted mortal eyesight, but stand oul 
 in vivid distinctness before the average eye when as- 
 sisted by a telescope. 
 
 Spiritual science is no more at variance with physi- 
 cal science than telescopes arc at war with ey rit- 
 ual perception enables us to see far beyond the limits 
 
 185 
 
ISO SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK 
 
 of average observation, thus the only contention tl • 
 can possibly be between spiritual science and ph\ 
 is on the score of unwarrantable negative assumption 
 on the part of many |>h It was alwa 
 
 of Darwin that the most conspicu 
 greatnes his determination to publish his dis 
 
 eries, and not antagonize in a controversial spirit the 
 opinions of those who e n<»t blessed with the 
 
 knowledge which had fallen to his share. Lei 08 all 
 emulate Darwin in tbi be truly thankful for 
 
 all the positive information i derive from the 
 
 most external source, and at the same time be i 
 ready and desirous to peer more deeply than the outer 
 
 Senses Can into the realm of spiritual which i 
 
 encompasses US, and of which we are now and I 
 denizens. 
 
 NO one can be justified in supposing i ! 
 (went no matter how remarkable is due t<> a suspen 
 of law, 1)1 it is not law in finitely beyond our acquaintance 
 with it, we consider the time Iready come lor a 
 
 clear forcible exposition of the triumphs of mind o 
 matter, not as a contribution to the literature of < 
 matic theology or speculative philosophy, hut of science* 
 itself. Marie Corelli, a deservedly popular author 
 in a most fascinating work which has had a very h 
 sale already, J // '>. has without 
 
 question, in her dissertation upon the nature* and ap- 
 plication of electricity, don.* a good deal to prepare 
 the public mind, which reads science in the form of 
 romance, gladly for yet more explicit and startling dis- 
 closures which are to follow; her method of dealing 
 with the occult forces is far in advance <>f Mr. Sinnett's 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 187 
 
 in his theosophical novels Karma and United^ for 
 while Sinnett deals almost exclusively when discours 
 
 OP 
 
 of phenomenal results, with the wonderful and almost 
 the terrible, Marie Corelli shows how in her own c 
 especially (if her narrative is to be considered a 
 chapter from her own autobiography) the wonderful 
 knowledge of the noble hero of the tale Hdiobas is 
 directed entirely to three most important ends : spirit- 
 ual development, mental improvement and physical well 
 being. In the same book a chapter devoted to the Electric 
 . explains very reasonably how Peter was able to 
 walk on the sea while faith upheld him, but when he felt 
 hinjself sinking, it was at a timewhenfear overcame him, 
 and fear disturbs electrical currents and renders dar. 
 imminent. Other wonderful doings of the Apostles and 
 the strange natural phenomena mentioned frequently in 
 connection with telling episodes in the life of Jesus are 
 similarly explained, Le. the electrical theory is applied 
 throughout audit works well, especially as human > 
 tricity is never confounded with mineral, vegetable or 
 animal electricity and it has always appeared to us that 
 to attribute human force to animal magnetism or to 
 call it by that name is to insult manhood and woman- 
 hood by unduly extolling the animal emanations. Man 
 has an animal nature which links him physically with 
 the lower orders of existence, but'this lower natun 
 totally unable to accomplish those super-animal results 
 w r hich can spring alone from the operation of altogether 
 higher capabilities. With persons who refuse to apply 
 the scientific method of experiment or w tis- 
 
 fied with physical limitations of the m<>st arbitrary 
 character that they seek no spiritual light, also with 
 
188 SPIRITUAL THKRAfEl TICS. 
 
 those who ignorantly and pugilist ically denounce what- 
 ever is above their crude physical perception, we refuse 
 to enter into controversy, such people will throw down 
 a treatise on spiritual themes with a contemptuous 
 sneer or they will attack vigorously what they fail to 
 understand in a manner which positively compliments 
 the work they fondly imagine they demolish, as they 
 only succeed in advertising publicly their own shallow 
 irascibility and overweening self-conceit. To those ;ii<>ne 
 who are in search of light, who are dissatisfied alike 
 with theologic and materialist ic husks, who can neither 
 believe in antiquated Bupernaturalism nor be eon; 
 
 with fro/en materalisin, should teachers and hea 
 appeal, we only waste time in seeking to make 
 proselytes; hungering and thirsty children of the 
 Eternal, our needy brethern and 3 who are 
 
 seeking light, health and peace, and who are will- 
 ing to make material saerifie. uiv higher hi. 
 ings than can possibly flow through the channels of 
 the senses, are the only persons to whole \ illum- 
 ination can come, or by whom it will he welcomed, 
 and to these is now being vouchsafed an interpretation 
 and exposition of spiritual truth far beyond any light 
 previously thrown upon life, its origin, nature and d 
 tiny, and the power of man to control the outward ele- 
 ments and most certainly his own body. We acknowl- 
 edge without qualification an Infinite Supreme Power 
 of perfect Love and Wisdom, and to the Infinite Being 
 alone will we submit, but while we are absolutely cer- 
 tain that God is the one infinite truth in being, we do 
 not allow that we as men and women are unable to so 
 utilize and manifest divine power as to exhibit godlike 
 
sriKHTAL THERAPEUTK L89 
 
 qualities even on earth. There is a passage in the 
 Psalms, which exactly stales our position: "All the 
 whole heaven is the Lord's, the earth bath he given to 
 the children of men," which signifies that while God 
 
 is supreme in the universe as the life and soul of all, 
 man has it in his power to subdue the earth, and there- 
 fore we do not raiseany objection to the teachings of 
 theosophists and transcendentalists who declare that 
 man has such resources within himself that ultimately 
 he can and will control the raying elements and show 
 himself master of the whole earth. Swedenborg's doc- 
 trine that man lives from God but appears to live from 
 himself is perfectly reasonable, and the necessity of 
 man's appearing to live from himself while in reality 
 he lives from God, is also made quite clear in the writings 
 of this greatest of modern seers. Now as we have no 
 intention of intrenching, in this lesson, on the views of 
 Trinitarians versus Unitarians with regard to the deity 
 or divinity of the personal Christ, we shall bring forward 
 only such instances from the Xew Testament as are 
 clearly intended to refer to the exercise of a spiritual 
 power common to all mankind, but like every gift or 
 talent, susceptible to cultivation and needing careful 
 culture for its expansion. 
 
 It is a very great mistake to suppose that spiritual 
 s are so miraculous that they are the possession of 
 a privileged few who have done nothing to merit them, 
 while all others must remain hopelessly destitute of such 
 endowments, however much they may desire to posfi 
 and use them. The manifestation s)i' the Spirit is given 
 to everyone without exception, bul to ail the sa 
 is not given, and where we often fail is in seeking to 
 
190 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 obtain what we have not when it would be wisdom on 
 our part to cultivate what we have. A formal, routine 
 system of school discipline is fatal to normal education, 
 as all children are not adapted to the same pursuits, but 
 no child, with proper care and training, need become 
 or remain a dunce, an idiot or an invalid. Abnormal, 
 unhealthy, unlovely conditions are unnatural. All 
 works on pathology freely admit this. Then do not 
 fall into the errorof supposing that any one exists who 
 has not some vocation, and who can not, by judicious 
 treatment, be brought intoa state of manifesto d health 
 and harmony. Jesus chose his immediate follow 
 from all ranks and stations. Previous to their call to 
 follow him some had been fishermen, but others had 
 belonged to the medical profession, and sal at the 
 receipt of custom. They continued, in some instai 
 at least, to ply their vocations after joining the apos- 
 tolic band, as Paul continued his trade as a tent maker 
 after the greatest orations had fallen from his lips. 
 
 Concentration of mind on a given object is the open 
 door to success ami without it genuine and stable suc- 
 cess is impossible in any direction. Prayer and Faith 
 must ever go together, as aspiration without confidence 
 is well nigh useless, and belief without an endeavor to 
 ascend to a higher interior realm is practically futile. 
 We can pray without ceasing by unceasingly desiring 
 to' accomplish a definite result, we can continually ex- 
 ercise faith by refusing to allow our thoughts to he 
 diverted even for an instant from the good toward 
 which we unceasingly aspire, and we can truly fast or 
 abstain by so subduing the lower to the higher nature 
 that reason is lord over passion, while reason in its turn 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPBUTK \\)\ 
 
 is rendered subject to the moral sense. These thi 
 necessities, faith, prayer and fasting can be so explained 
 as to prove to every intelligent and fair-minded student 
 that the words of Jesus, as recorded by theevangelu 
 are in exact accordance with demonstrable fact, there- 
 fore scholarly orsciolistic criticisms matter nothing, for 
 while the scholar questions and the sciolist impudently 
 denies the authenticity of the gospel tale the enlight- 
 ened spiritual scientist assumes a position Ear in advai 
 of historical controversy, a position which is in fact, 
 utterly impregnable, for to those who understand the 
 law governing the production of marvelous phenomena 
 the recorded facts themselves are taken as illustrations 
 of the consequences attendant upon a certain coura 
 action and line of development, therefore history is <>t 
 quite secondary importance so far as it refers to time 
 and place. It matters not whether persons believed to be 
 dead were raised to life in Palestine 1800 or m Egypt 
 18,000 years ago, the question is, can the so-called dead 
 be raised at all, is there a law which renders their 
 resuccitation possible? History furnishes us with 
 startling accounts of the prevalence of a power in the 
 world confined however to exceptional individuals able 
 t<> restore to physical health and vigor those pronounced 
 dead by all other testimony than that of far-se 
 intelligence consciously ]^osscss(m1 by those a 1 
 whose lives have rendered them superior to every 
 ordinary limitation of mortality Leprosy is instanced 
 
 being cured by remarkable men in accordance with 
 and unalterable conditions, and when we 
 remember thai "men of like paa with oui 
 
 omplished these marvelous >f spiritual prov 
 
192 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 no claim whatever being* made that they were wrought 
 only by Jesus, indeed, the exact opposite being posi- 
 tively stated in the Bible, we can afford to dismiss 
 without attention the silly bombast of those rabid icon- 
 oclasts, who think they can wipe out by their absurd 
 negations man's confidence in what he can prove for 
 himself independent of history, if he only forms the 
 acquaintance of a great spiritual truth and harmon 
 his conduct with his understanding of it. 
 
 One of the most striking illustrations of spiritual 
 agency overcoming what has been universally termed 
 incurable disease, is the story of Elisha directing Xaa- 
 man, the Syrian, to the mystical Jordan in wh 
 cleansing streams every trace of leprosy was washed 
 away. Now Elisha stood in the attitude of a guide, a 
 teacher, a director, but he was in no sense a mesmerist, 
 neither did he attribute Naaman's recovery to any 
 potency inhering in his personality. Elisha wasa prophet 
 and the successor of a prophet. Bis fitness to take 
 Elijah's place after the hitter's translation was deter- 
 mined altogether by his clear-sightedness. Elijah saj 
 Elisha, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall 
 be evidence to you that my mantle has fallen u\;m 
 you, but if you do not see me the hard thing you 1. 
 asked can not be accomplished. Here at the outset we 
 have presented to us a correct view of what Christains 
 might call a/postolic succession. Elisha had been both 
 servant, student and companion to Elijah, for a long 
 time, during which period innumerable opportunities 
 had been afforded him of attaining the high rank of 
 prophet or seer which signifies one in whom the power 
 of insight into spiritual things is coupled with the abil- 
 
SPIRITUAL THKRAPEDTIi [93 
 
 it \- to proclaim truth, and load others Into paths of 
 wisdom. Elisha had so far profited by his disci pleship 
 to Elijah, as to have developed his spiritual perception 
 
 the point of ability to see and describe what was 
 occurring on another plane than that of sense, he proves 
 by this that his advantages have been improved, and 
 that he is,therefore, ready to commence his journey asa 
 witness to truth against every form of error and idol- 
 atry, and he testiiies to the divinity of his mission 
 by hlessing the city into which he first enters, chang- 
 bitterand unwholesome waters into pure and sweet 
 If we could pause to linger over the incidents in 
 Elisha's ministry, w r e could, we think, convince you 
 that his baldness was but typical of the absence 
 of material pomp, authority and show which ever 
 
 ompanies the highest type of spiritual worker. 
 The children of the city who ridiculed him were those, 
 (plentiful in every age and land) who deem exter- 
 nals all important and ridicule every truth, and all 
 who proclaim it unless it is rendered outwardly attract- 
 ive and presented with the pomp and display ever 
 characterizing civil and ecclesiastical, imperialistic des- 
 potism. The children eaten by bears in theold figura- 
 
 e story to be found in the Book of Kin- ike 
 
 multitudes in Europe and America to-day who in i 
 
 e of slighting the only agent of redemption, the 
 
 spiritual teaching which bids them forego externals and 
 
 cultivate the spirit, find themselves devoured by the she- 
 
 of the woods which Swedenborg so aptly 
 
 is human affection tor earthly and dan 
 
 thing 
 
 Elisha represents a man of unswerving nty, 
 
 13 
 
194 SPIRITUAL THEKAPKITICS. 
 
 and loyalty to principle and conviction, lie therefore 
 claims nothing for himself, and stands to the afflicted 
 Naaman as a wise and helpful teacher and he tells this 
 great Syrian captain to bathe seven times in the river 
 Jordan. The name Jordan means a stream flowing 
 from above, and therefore refers to those spiritual 
 blessings which are obtainable only when we divest 
 ourselves of confidence in material things, and permit 
 the cleansing and illuminating grace of spirit to re- 
 move from us all earthly defilements. Naaman, justly 
 proud of the beautiful situation of the city of Damas- 
 cus, and attached to the broad flowing rivers Abana 
 and Pharphar, desires to wash in them and be cleans 
 but following the line of correspondence we shall 
 that these rivers represented external means of 
 lief to apply to which in case of leproSj was mani- 
 festly absurd, as Oriental medicine and surgery had 
 
 proved hopelessly impotent to relieve that ten 
 disorder. Now, as no miracle can possibly be per- 
 formed except in accordance with universal law. Ell 
 could only point Naaman to the fount of healing, he 
 
 could not heal him by any act of personal sovereignty 
 or favor, nor in consideration of a proffered reward. 
 All of you, who are seeking to excel in blessing oth< 
 remember always that though you can open doors 
 and windows, and let in sunshine, you cannot ci« 
 it, even though you can assist others into the light, 
 persuading and directing them by every measure of 
 persuasive force, you can not compel any one to avail 
 him or herself of the means of salvation. Jesus. 
 are told, could do no mighty works in certain phi 
 because of the obstinate infidelity of the people, bis 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAWSUTK I9g 
 
 disciples were directed to leave a sinful, sensual citv, 
 shaking its very dust from their sandals. No work 
 of art has ever been more admired, or portrayed 
 deeper pathos than Christ weeping over Jerusalem, 
 mourning because the children of Jerusalem would 
 not avail themselves of the only means which could 
 possibly save them from degradation and dish 
 The great and leading error in modern thought is 
 precisely the error of olden times. Call it the will 
 of God, or maintain if you please that it is the oper- 
 ation of a blind law of necessity (though the latter 
 position is insane), there is unmistakably a law in 
 the universe which governs and regulates conditions 
 so arbitrarily that no one's wishes are respected in 
 any case more than were Naaman's preferences for 
 the waters of Damascus. 
 
 If the Jordan, or what it corresponded to, posse 
 healing virtue,then a prophet could point out the method 
 whereby that regenerative force could be applied to the 
 cure of an otherwise incurable disorder, and not only t he 
 prophet but the captain's servants and friends could 
 bring argument and moral suasion to bear to induce the 
 suffering ruler to enter and bathe in the healing stream, 
 but that was the extent of their united power. The folly 
 of those who claim that spiritual scientists or metaphys- 
 ical practitioners ignore the law of nature, or that tl; 
 of any name who acknowledge the power of spirit 
 beyond that of "force" or "matter" believe absurdly 
 that God changes or the universal order is i I by 
 
 prayer or any human effort, is commensurate only with 
 their ignorance, and were it not for the almost invinci- 
 ble strength of blind prejudice it would be impossible 
 
190 SPIRITUAL TIIERAPErTT' 
 
 for the merest tyro in logic, or a child who comprehends 
 the ordinary use of language to fail to understand thai 
 called miracles are not in the sligl i lant 
 
 with the immutable law and orderof the uni verse, recog- 
 nized by materialists as a blind foroe,but bytheists as the 
 unvarying expression of divine intelligence. Never* 
 under any conceivable circumstai and t w<> 
 
 make other than four, never can oaks be raised except 
 fromacorns, never can one type be changed into another 
 in the whole economy of nature, hut nature's resoui 
 are so little known that he ifl guilty of insane bomb 
 who undertakes in this age of electrical appliance 
 deny that anything may not be accomplished which 
 which does not Involve a reversal of the orderof nature, 
 or state a mathematical impossibility. One can never 
 be three or seven, hut at the same time the single ray of 
 white light can be made manifest in three primary 
 colors and seven prismatic hues and countless tints and 
 shades, thus the essential life of the universe is one life, 
 but its expression may be both three fold, seven fold 
 and multiform. When in the future direct telegraphic 
 communication is established between this earth and 
 the planet Mars, it will be by means of an electrical 
 tern as natural as the overland telegraph or the sub-marine 
 cable. What marvelous intellectual prodigies tb< 
 men are who conceive the idea of modern applianc 
 the Canadian Pacific Railroad running as it does through 
 a territory presenting at first sight utterly insurmount- 
 able barriers to the skill of the engineer, is a solid 
 working testimony to the fact of mind surmounting any 
 and every material barrier as it unfolds to perceive the 
 method of such mastery. 
 
SPIRITUAL TllKKAlM-'.rn. [97 
 
 Now shall one accept the Brooklyn bridge and 
 
 prospectively the tunnel under the English channel 
 uniting France and England and laugh tosooro predic- 
 tions of further conquests over earth and tides S Does 
 not the wise man speak very cautiously and with infin- 
 ite reserve concerning the wildest dreams of future 
 human attainment I all who think and observe must con- 
 clude that as intelligence unfolds things formerly con- 
 sidered utterly beyond the reach of possibility aswel 
 probability actually will occur. Now toapply this pre< 
 
 zoning to spiritual attainments we declare thai what 
 is meant by the three-fold command, believe, pray, I 
 is that through the exercise of supreme confidence in 
 spirit, coupled with sincere and constant aspiration and 
 a complete subjection of the lower appetites to the higher 
 promptings to the extent that transmutation is accom- 
 plished, wonders of healing can be wrought, truth can 
 he stated and applied with reference to the entire 
 economy of man's finite expression in external form, 
 equaling if not excelling the sublimest works performed 
 in ancient Galilee. The Esoteric Magazine^ published in 
 Boston, constantly publishes very instructive articles 
 giving practical directions in this line, all tending t<> 
 prove the immutability of divine law and the certainty 
 of success in spiritual directions if the affections are 
 ned from earth and centered in the thi the 
 
 spirit. The question of will is one that is continually 
 curring and is a subject upon which more misapprehen- 
 sion prevails than perhaps any other. Mis. Eddy and 
 those calling themselves Christian scientists in general, 
 have much to say against the exereise of personal will. 
 and Health contains some particularly strong 
 
198 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 condemnations of mesmerism, but after all, you will 
 note that Mrs. Eddy's particular aversion is malicious 
 mesmerism. Now all mesmeric operation is no more 
 necessarily malicious than all speech is malicious. If 
 Mrs. Eddy or any one else lias discovered malpractice 
 among her students and sees a danger resulting from 
 the views entertained by some, she is conscientiously and 
 humanely fulfilling her duty by calling attention to 
 erroneous beliefs and pracl ic< 8, but wholesale condemna- 
 tion of what is usually classed as mesmerism is unwise 
 as she herself admit sit can either kill or cure. Its cura- 
 tive proprieties are as serviceable as the constructive 
 action of electricity, while iis destructive action may he 
 likened to the electric Maine, striking and demolishing 
 a building' or blasting a handsome 1 1 1 
 
 Personal will must he subdued to universal divine 
 will, or it runs riot and proves itself an outlaw, while 
 all Selfish abuses of psychology inevitably lead to the 
 misery alike of those who operate and those who are 
 operated upon. Hypnotism, now so fashionable, is not 
 a desirable form of psychology, as the hypnotic state 
 is one of subjective insensibility, but whenever experi- 
 ments are successfully proven in such directions, it is 
 because the one who entrances is more fully in the light 
 than the one entranced. Modern Spiritualism during 
 the past four decades has amply illustrated how much 
 good and evil can emanate apparently from the same 
 source. Pvschologists and Spiritualists will always be 
 in danger till they learn that subjection to the higher 
 is the only safeguard against control by the lower. 
 Our paramount resolve must ever be to educate, not 
 coerce, to unite ourselves lovingly, willingly, com- 
 
SPlKTTt'AL TIIKRAIMXT \\\\\ 
 
 pletely with whatever appeals to us as highest and 
 divinest in the universe. We can not sneered as rebels 
 forever militating against universal order; we can no1 
 turn the eternal current of infinite energy out of its 
 course because we, like straws or tiny boat3, are strug- 
 o float or row against the stream. If, as Mat- 
 thew Arnold said, there is a stream of tendency ever 
 making for righteousness, is it not wisdom on the pari 
 
 ;il to seek to move in and witli tin's glorious current, 
 not to strive against it \ The prayer of Jesus, i% Father, 
 not my will, but thine be done," is the very essence 
 pf profound wisdom, for what man is there however 
 great, who can control the Pleiades or Orion to borrow 
 appropriate similes from the book of Job? He is a 
 lunatic, mad with pride, staggering through the intoxi- 
 cation of vanity, who can gaze at the matchless order 
 of the universe and say with the foolish ones, "There 
 is no God." The utter puerility of atheism or blank 
 materialism is so contemptible as to make cvrvy genuine 
 rationalist pray that modern infidels may learn wisdom 
 from one of their own favorite text-books, Thomas 
 Paine's "Age of Reason," in which that celebrated deist 
 atheism in its true light and atheism or 
 
 \ty with a ghost, professed by some utterly illogical 
 spiritualists, is the most hopelessly chaotic system ever 
 
 sented to any public. 
 
 Now listen to the reasoning of some spiritualists 
 who are utterly unwilling to affirm the being of Deity. 
 They declare most reasonably that intellij 
 through force upon matter. This explanation of the 
 phenomena of existence can scarcely be improved upon, 
 but it at once strikes the reflective mind that 
 
200 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 manifestation of intelligence through matter is the 
 pression of intelligence at least commensurate with 
 such expression. Now while there are many forms of 
 existence below man, displaying far less intelligei 
 than man, man is utterly unable to create. There is a 
 law he can not set aside, immutably fixed byan intelli- 
 gence far superior to his own. Now this law proves 
 God, t. *., Supreme Intelligence, as n<> law can < 
 save as it is a manifestal ion of mind, the being of God 
 is axiomatically proven through this universal law, and 
 the fact that man can discover, obey or rebel against 
 this law but can not possibly change it, i^ to the thinker, 
 proof direct of an infinite and unchangeable intelli- 
 gence, for law is unknown among nan Baveasi! is the 
 result and embodiment of intell It would he 
 
 just as reasonable to argue that a stale was governed 
 by law and then deny the existence of any human will 
 back of that law producing and enforcing it, as to deny 
 the sovereignty of Infinite Will, Eternal Spirit. Now 
 the renunciation of our human will is not required of 
 us. Our will is a talent to be used not renounced. The 
 true attitude of the human will is an intelligent acqui- 
 escence with the divine will, a perfect surrender of 
 pride and rebellion, and a loving, harmonious union 
 with the Infinite. 
 
 In union is strength, in disunion is impotence. 
 Houses divided against themselves cannot stand, and it 
 is because men and women are continually warring 
 against each other, that they are weak, sick and gener- 
 ally wretched and unsuccessful. To gain perfect power 
 over the lower self, and to become strong enough to 
 resist all defiant elements, to live above the reach of 
 
srii;rn ai. niKKAiM-.ri i L > ( »1 
 
 \ is to accomplish a conscious voluntary union 
 with the Infinite Will. Now this union with the divine 
 is diametrically opposed to the relinquishment of free- 
 dom. Our freedom is never so great, never so dearly 
 prized as when with an absolutely free spirit, in peri 
 liberty we elect to walk in paths of righteousness and 
 peace. To love the divine law, to obey it from love, to 
 apprehend something of its perfect wisdom, and to 
 choose the path of wisdom and deliberately walk there- 
 in, is to follow the only course which intuition and 
 common-sense recommend alike. Nowifany of yon feel 
 1, lonely, desolate, and you turn in thought to 
 the Infinite, your cares will be dismissed, your burdens 
 lifted, your sorrows assuaged, while hope will immedi- 
 ately resume the place left vacant by despair. The 
 ks which Jesus said should be performed by 
 disciples, may be understood in two ways : 1st, The 
 ious meaning is that what had hitherto been confined 
 to a very circumscribed area should at length cover 
 the globe; and 2d, as the minds of men expand, they 
 v becoming ready for greater marvels than would 
 have been of any use before. No matter how much a 
 her knows, instruction must ever keep pace with 
 the comprehension of the scholars; because a learned 
 professor can solve an intricate problem in the higher 
 mathematics, does not prove that any among his class 
 prepared for its solution before them, and were it 
 Solved in their presence, it would be practically un- 
 lor all save the professor. If a divine voice 
 iks and but a few can hear what it utters, the mul- 
 Je may confound the sound with ordinary thunder, 
 the fault is not with the voice that speaks in thrilling 
 
202 SPIRITUAL THERAPFXTICS. 
 
 tones of perfect distinctness, but with the deaf ears of 
 the auditors. The voice of truth is ever speaking, but as 
 the world only gradually advances to a point w 1 
 many can interpret the voice of truth or behold 
 its form, the voice seems to be ever drawing nearer and 
 speaking more clearly to men, the voice speaks as it 
 always spoke, the light shines as it always shone, the 
 processes of nature are continued as they always 
 were, but the hearing ear, the seeing eye, and truly 
 understanding heart are only by continuous and 
 apparently slow processes of growth unfolded to per- 
 ceive and understand these "mysteries." Dr. Jai 
 Martineau, one of the most deeply spiritual minds in 
 the Unitarian denomination introduced a beautiful 
 canticle into his Ten $ Puhlic Worship, com- 
 
 mencing with the words: "Blessed be the Lord God of 
 ages, who ever delighteth to draw more nigh. In the 
 morning of the world he appeareth from afar, in the 
 evening hedrawethnigh to abide with us forever." This 
 quotation conveys the aspect of divine revelation, asseen 
 by studentsof evolution, but asall human perceptions of 
 truth are relative, it is no more absolutely true that the 
 Eternal One draws gradually nigh to his children, than 
 that the sun draws gradually near to the earth. In 
 the Mosaic account of creation, the doctrine of gradual 
 and successive developments is stated in such a manner 
 as to lead the uninitiated to suppose that whoever was 
 the author of the Pentateuch, taught the astronomi- 
 cal absurdity that the earth was created before the 
 sun. Interpret the record in the light of science and 
 you will at once perceive that the theory is, that at the 
 time when the moon was formed, through the separa- 
 
SPIRITUAL THEKAPEUTIOa 
 
 tion of an encircling ring from the earth, the sun and 
 stars began to appear, just as colors are a new creation 
 to a man born blind when he first beholds them, and 
 sounds are a new creation to one who was deal' from 
 birth, but whose ears are now for the first time un- 
 stopped. Transposing the idea of revelation it is at 
 once comprehensible and accordant with all science, 
 but let it remain in its old groove and it suggests the 
 idea of a fitful Deity. Once we understand that the 
 ability to perforin any wonder is ours, so soon as we 
 discover the law which makes a result possible, once 
 we get free of the false belief that God or nature is 
 partial, once we behold universal law in place of chance 
 or caprice, and nothing is any longer impossible save 
 a mathematical absurdity. 
 
 Fear in the sense of dread is the great obstacle to 
 human liberty, fear in the sense of doubt is the great 
 drawback to success in all matters where confident de- 
 cision is required, fear in the sense of reverence, respect, 
 submission to divine guidance is the begining of wis- 
 dom. But in its good sense the word fear is now very 
 
 1 v used, therefore we do not commend to you even 
 the fear of God as recommended in the Proverbsof 
 Solomon. Perfect love casteth out all fear, we can not 
 fear what we love perfectly, fear causes men to tremble 
 and cringe even before a partially beloved object, fear 
 and love hold divided sway in many a heart and you are 
 doubtless all of you able to relate some chapters in 
 your own experience when you trembled at the ap- 
 
 ich of one you thought you loved. All that we 
 
 in superior excites to awe until through the full' 
 of our love, all terror is displaced. Before we can heal 
 
204 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 ourselves or others perfectly, we must have lost all fear 
 and then with liberty to utilize our every faculty and 
 gift we shall be equal to every emergency and ready 
 at all times to obey the summons of the Spirit. Strive 
 to excel in calm confident assurance that all is well, in 
 quietness is strength, the calmer weare the m 
 can accomplish. Anything like haste or nervou 
 at deadly variance with success. Do not s< 
 a disease, do not attack' an ailment, hut transfer your 
 thought to the perfection of life immortal and let the 
 soul act. This is ti | of power. 
 
LESSON XI. 
 
 PRACTICAL ADVICE TO STUDENTS, HEALERS AND PATIENT8, 
 
 AXD DIRECTIONS FOR THE APPLICATION OF SPIRITUAL 
 
 IENCE TO ALL THE AVOCATIONS OF DAILY LII 1 . 
 
 OXE of the most misleading errors and yet a very 
 common one into which people tall, concerning 
 
 ritual Science, is that it is to be studied and prac- 
 ticed exclusively for the driving out of physical ail- 
 ments and therefore that its study should be almost en- 
 tirely confined to those who are seeking to identify 
 themselves with a new therapeutic school, or are seek- 
 ing to rid themselves of some physical ailment. Then 
 
 lin, there is a prevailing impression that the practice 
 of healing is extraordinary, that it consists in the men- 
 tal utterance of prescribed formulas, and that to heal 
 it is necessary to withdraw from the world and relin- 
 quish all hold upon common obligations. The>< 
 ments are all founded on fact and are in a limited sense 
 correct, as they apply to special cases, but taken as a 
 whole they are exceedingly misleading, as a very brief 
 study of the science will prove to any intelligent in- 
 quirer. From the earliest days of which there is any 
 written record, the healing art has been practised by 
 - pursuing every imaginable avocation, though 
 in ancient times the power to heal seemed especially to 
 inhere in those who had devoted themselves particularly 
 
 200 
 
206 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 to the service of religion. The elders of the church 
 alluded to in the Epistle of James, were the wisest and 
 most experienced persons in an early Christian associa- 
 tion. Elders were chosen because of their spiritual 
 endowments of a practical character, and while some 
 pursued the work of teachers and healers exclusively, 
 others performed even menial labor, and in many in- 
 stances the most successful healers have been th 
 utterly destitute of worldly means; who have followed 
 a laborious occupation and in its pursuit discovered 
 their spiritual ability through grateful recognition on 
 the part of those whom they have been instrumental 
 in relieving. As Felix Adler lias said thai teachers of 
 ethics will be succ. ; the clergy, s<> we may state 
 
 that mental healers will succeed to t he practice of med- 
 ical men and women. Bui cannot a clergyman widen 
 his views and become a teacher of ethics, enlarging his 
 sphere of usefulness, instead of abandoning his held 
 of effort, provided his knowledge and convict 
 keep pace with the progressive tendencies of thetimeJ 
 So may the professors and doctors of medicine outgrow 
 their physical limitations and do far more for the relief 
 of suffering humanity as their methods become more 
 spiritual than they could ever accomplish when limited 
 by external scholasticisms. 
 
 Esculapius was a divinity of the old world, a god 
 of healing, and while it is customary to call physicians 
 Esculapians, every one acquainted with mythology must 
 be quite well aware that the name is derived not from 
 a study and practice, such as the medical profession 
 usually confines itself to to-day, but from a recogni- 
 tion among ancient peoples of a healing force in nature 
 
SPIRITUAL THEKAPEUT1 20? 
 
 pointed out and directed by invincible intelligence, 
 No one of any experience, be he physician. Burgeon, 
 nurse or attendant, will endeavor to deny that l>v far 
 the largest percentage of diseases and accidents pro- 
 
 1 directly from vice and folly. Subtract from the 
 total sum of painful and distressing maladies those 
 caused by crimes and indiscretions and you would so 
 shorten the list that the few remaining would he 
 resolved into the category of simple weaknesses, while 
 accidents, proceeding as they do from drunkenness and 
 nervous disorders, ill almost all instances, are most 
 intimately connected with vice. It is unless and 
 absurd, indeed, it is far worse, it is positively mis- 
 chievous to turn into ridicule the old doctrine of 
 suffering as a consequence of sin, for nothing is more 
 positively emphasized by modern experience and an 
 ever increasing familiarity with the law of heredity. 
 Sin is so broad a word, it covers so much both of colli- 
 sion and omission that many take exception to it as 
 they confound it altogether with crime, which is an 
 intense and more malignant form of offense. You can 
 against yourselves ignorantly, you can also sin 
 :nst others ignorantly. but to commit crime one 
 must act deliberately for the injury of another. \ 
 under the head of sin may be classed all weak en 
 all mistakes, all violence done to sense of right and all 
 opposition to the law of being. Please observe, we 
 do not talk about laws but only law, as laws are of 
 human device and are therefore constantly chan_ 
 and in no sense binding*. Law is eternal and can never 
 
 put aside. Laws of mortal enactment and varia 
 belief are called laws of mortal mind because they 
 
208 SPIRITUAL THERAPBUTO 
 
 mutable. expressions of mutable will, these are often 
 more honored in the breach than in the observance 
 and they prove themselves mortal because man can 
 make, repeal, break, alter and destroy them. 
 
 Divine law is universal. The law of nature is no 
 respecter of persons and can not be tampered with or 
 evaded by human ingenuity under any circumstai 
 whatsoever, therefore, if il were a law of God or nature 
 that you should become ill through being in a malarial 
 district, there could not b< healthy inhabit 
 
 in such a place. Were it a decree of God through nature 
 that you should catch cold by sitting in a draught or 
 getingyour feel wet, under no circumstances could you 
 escape this penalty. Were it due to the action of uni- 
 versal law that you should suffer from smallpox, chol- 
 era or diphtheria, because it was in the air, no or. 
 certain times in certain cities could possibly escape. 
 Now , if medical precautions can he taken, if doctors and 
 sanitary commissioners advocate antidotes, they must 
 at once see that to succumb to such pestilences is totally 
 unnecessary, and that those who fall victims d< 
 causeof a weakness and through a predisposition which 
 is vanquishable. Spiritual ps in and traces the 
 
 weakness of the physical body to a prior defect in 
 mental and moral condition, and therefore its advocates 
 and interpreters claim that it is utterly to seek- 
 
 to overcome physical disability without first ousl 
 the demon of error possessing the mind. How more 
 than useless it must be to torment an almost heart- 
 broken widow or bereaved mother with pills and pow- 
 ders, lotions and bandages, when everyone know 
 well as she that her health was excellent before the 
 
SPIRITUAL THEBAPEUTK 
 
 departure of her loved one to the invisible state. How 
 ridiculous to seek to assuage results of an accusing con- 
 
 nee or a perturbed mind with physical applian< 
 for how, in the name of reason or common-sense, can 
 any of you suppose that an effect will cease while its 
 cause continues in active operation 1 If you are treat- 
 ing one whose sickness originated with bereavement, 
 argue immortality to the mind of the sufferer silently 
 at first, then as your patient becomes composed, sleeps 
 better.and manifests a visible attachment for vou, intro- 
 duce the subject cautiously in conversation, chiefly in 
 inviting* and answering questions. Never force a 
 doctrine or religious proposition verbally upon any one, 
 but direct the thought silently until the patient feels 
 its influence and wishes to talk about it. The best 
 times forgiving treatment in cities are early morning 
 and late evening; in the country, where the atmos- 
 phere is perpetually quiet, midday is as favorable as 
 midnight, unless you have active occupation which 
 sorbs your attention. 
 
 In seeking a healer, continue your search until you 
 find a person in natural electric sympathy with your- 
 .'. one in whom you instinctively believe, and to whom 
 you are irresistibly drawn. Be guided far more by in- 
 stinctive and intuitive recognition of a power to bless 
 than by any outward credentials, all of which may be 
 misleading. The only faith in a healer necessary on 
 
 part of a patient is confidence born of appreciation. 
 Whenever you encounter any one who can help you, 
 
 I feel drawn to such an one, and such drawing 
 your instinctive response to good already received 
 
 er tax the credulity of a patient, but when givin. 
 14 
 
210 SPIRITUAL TIIEKArill! 
 
 treatment adapt your methods as far as you conscien- 
 tiously can to individual requirement and demand. 
 Persons who are fond of music can be reached mi 
 ally. If you are a musician of any kind, and discover a 
 spiritual relationship or adaptability between yourself 
 and any sufferer, play the organ, piano, violin or cor- 
 net, as the case may be, either with or without the 
 accompaniment of song, and cause the n i strike 
 
 to vibrate to your own consciousness, as echoes of the 
 sentiment you wish to convey, mentally if not orally, 
 to your patient. You can give this treat men t from any 
 distance and lind ii successful, provided you ehooe 
 time when both you and your patient can be undis- 
 turbed. In doing general housework, cooking and 
 chamber work in particular, treatments can be s 
 fully given, as you c;m impart your psychic influence to 
 food you prepare, and leave your mental aura in any 
 room you have swept or d US ted. If your outward 
 engagements are those of the clerk, you can reach th 
 who are attracted to you, and whom you wish to bene- 
 fit, by simply conveying to them, menially, while band- 
 ing them goods, the same thought you would utter in 
 words were they to seek a conversation on the subj( 
 In dealing with troublesome children, you must invari- 
 ably hold them in mind as the very opposite of what 
 they appear, for by so doing you appeal to and stimu- 
 late their dormant higher proclivities. Never repeal a 
 mistake or call attention to an error; counteract and 
 destroy it by affirming and exhibiting its direct oppo- 
 site. Never seek to diagnose disease physically, so 
 to become acquainted with physical defects or derange- 
 ments, but always insist upon seeing every part of the 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 21 l 
 
 body perfectly whole, for by holding before the mind 
 a perfect picture you inducean outward manifestation 
 corresponding thereto. Do not usi^ silly or incompre- 
 hensible phrases, such as, " You have no head, therefore 
 it can not ache," but hold before your own and your 
 patient's mind a perfect head, and as all form is essm- 
 tially perfect in spirit, and outward symmetry is a result 
 of inward harmony, by discarding pathology while 
 retaining anatomy and physiology, you never allow an 
 image to present itself to thought which you do not 
 desire to see reflected or ultimated in externals. 
 
 When seeking for success in legitimate worldly 
 enterprises, always remember that you can bring to 
 pass whatever c you steadfastly adhere to in thought; 
 hut your success will never be to some one else's 
 detriment, but always in a manner conducive to the 
 
 leral good. If you are dissatisfied with your pi 
 ent position, but have no other situation to go to, 
 stay where you are, and faithfully and unrepiningly 
 discharge the duties of your state, but perpetually 
 see yourself in mind where you desire to be. II' you 
 keep a hotel or lodging house, see your rooms filled 
 witli just the kind of people you desire to occupy 
 them, and by persistently so doing you will throw 
 out a wave of mental influence which will attract 
 to your house the very persons who need what you 
 have to offer as much as you need what they have 
 ■ in return. If you are a teacher in search of 
 pupils, a professional person desiring an engagement, 
 an artist with pictures to dispose of, a lawyer need- 
 clients, a lecturer in want of hearers, in a word, 
 whatever your necessities may be, do not content your- 
 
212 SPIRITUAL THERAPED1 I 
 
 self with advertising them in public print, or talking 
 of them to your friends, but bring into requisition 
 that perfectly legitimate occult force with which every 
 one is by nature supplied in some degree, and which 
 can be cultivated by all by a simple use of judicious 
 concentrative methods. 
 
 If any timid souls are afraid of black magic or mal- 
 icious mesmerism Let them silence their doubts once for 
 
 all by remembering two important facts, one is that in 
 order to be influenced by evil there must bea weaki 
 in your own condition, which it is the special province 
 of metaphysical treatment to overcome, and the other 
 that ignorance is no safeguard, but on the contrary 
 knowledge alone is power, and to be forewarned is to be 
 in a position to gel forearmed. Spiritual methods are 
 never competitive, but invariably co-operative. N<> one 
 
 can link himself in spirit with celestial spheres who 
 does not banish from the circle of his immediate thought 
 and desire all uncharitable, envious and sellish ambi- 
 tions. The spiritual view of theuniverse and of the 
 earth is that there is enough and to spare for all. No 
 one needs to go hungry because another is well fed/ 
 none need be paupers because of the opulence of 
 others. Competition and monopoly are gigantic (nils, 
 and even the entire waj < m i> a relic of feudalism 
 
 and will soon be peacefully outgrown as spiritual prin- 
 ciples are universally taught and applied. Whenever 
 you seek to accomplish anything by mental methods, 
 first assure yourself by submitting the project to con- 
 science that it is right, then proceed at once to claim 
 your inheritance. Why should you be deprived of light 
 and air when there is abundance for you withoutde- 
 
SPIRITUAL tiikkaim n [< 213 
 
 priving a living creature of any? Why remain victims 
 
 of disease when you can recover without injuring 
 living thing by your recovery i Why net enter into the 
 realm of truth consciously and en joy that fuller measure 
 
 of health and ampler supply of all vigor which can 
 only conduce to the betterment of the condition of all 
 your brethren \ Discard utterly all false notions of con- 
 tracting disease, render yourselves positive against dis- 
 order by boldly affirming that nothing can possibly affect 
 you to your detriment, because you are immortal spirit 
 and as such proof against all contamination. 
 
 Taking this firm, strong mental attidude will produce 
 a radical change in the state of the body, affirming 
 positively in thought with firm conviction will send 
 an electric thrill through your entire frame. If the ex- 
 tremities have been cold, the lips blue, the cheeks 
 colorless, pulse feeble and heart action weak and un- 
 certain, you will find any one of these symptoms 
 changed so that any medical man would instantly re- 
 port a change in the pulse and bodily temperature, 
 
 ill outward conditions are results of mental oraffec- 
 tional emotions. Though you may not diagnose a c 
 or know or say anything about physical conditions. 
 mental assenerations and denials change the physical 
 state by processes identical with those which make the 
 
 od boil or turn it to ice, to use common expj 
 on receipt of terrifying or distressing news or under 
 provocation of a slight or insult. The body unwit- 
 tingly responds to the mental condition, thus it is not 
 try to know the physical difficulty in order to 
 remove it. Diagnosis is a subject which needs very 
 
 eful handling, as from a retrospective point of view 
 
214 SPIRITUAL THBBAKEUTK 
 
 it is often valuable in convincing a patient that some 
 knowledge derivable only by mental pro is in the 
 
 possession of the healer. This evidence conduces to 
 confidence, and provokes therefore a favorable bearing 
 to the system presented. Prognosis is often highly ob- 
 jectionable, because while it is founded upon a recogni- 
 tion of the accuracy of prophetic prediction, it is usually 
 utterly estranged from the true idea of prediction, 
 which is not to the effect thai certain persons must of 
 necessity suffer certain pains in future, but only that 
 there is a discoverable law of sequence, which can 
 never beset aside, which necessitates certain definite 
 effects springing from certain defined cau& 
 
 True prediction is prophetic in that it is a state- 
 ment of universal law with which the majority are 
 unacquainted. Very few people have any idea of the 
 extent to which tin ir lives are influenced prejudicially 
 by courses of thought and ait ion, they have been 
 accustomed to pursue unthinkingly from servile de- 
 votion to custom, fashion, or habit; therefore it he- 
 comes the prime duty of an intelligent mental prac- 
 titioner to give salutary advice of a strictly prac- 
 tical nature, in accordance with n ned knowledge 
 concerning the inevitable results of thought and con- 
 duct. For instance, it is very common for people to 
 live together in the cl elationship, and yet men- 
 tally antagonize each other and that perpetually. The 
 most prevalent source of sickness is unexpressed dis- 
 cord, for we must never forgel that spiritual science 
 teaches the eradication, not the repression of cantan- 
 kerous feelings. No greater mistake can possibly be 
 made than to endeavor to secure a simulation of good 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPBUT* gig 
 
 will not felt, for though an open enemy may be some- 
 times dangerous to encounter, the secret foe is always 
 the deadliest. Open animosity can be rebutted* and 
 the very expression of erroneous feeling is usually fol- 
 lowed by a better state of mind, as volcanic eruptions 
 are followed by periods when the mountain is in 
 comparative repose. Under no circumstances permit 
 the little foxes of secret animosities to grow to ma- 
 turity and multiply to the destruction of the fruits 
 of your domestic vineyards. Remember tb 
 request, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes that 
 spoil our vines, for our vines have tender grap 
 44 Let not the sun go down upon your wrath" needs 
 to be ever held in remembrance, for nothing 
 pernicious as to fall asleep in a state of discordant 
 feeling, and have one's dreams broken in upon by 
 hideous nightmares and delirious fears. When you 
 are bodily asleep, your minds are intensely active on 
 the psychic plane, while less amenable to outward 
 influences, such as words and acts of those about 
 you, you are far more sensitive than when awake 
 to the thought emanations which are around you, 
 and which are sent to you from those any where 
 who seek to influence you either for good or ill. In 
 treating for nervous affections, general debility and 
 chronic ailments of all kinds, you will soon learn 
 that secret fears, inharmonious and objectionable de- 
 is are at the root of the malady. To endeavor 
 to repress words and actions is more than 
 as the mind turned in upon itself seek- gratification 
 in lustful and revengeful feelings, which owing to 
 the psychic law of attraction and repulsion, bl 
 
210 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 those who indulge them into the circle of those who 
 live in the domain of such foul influence. 
 
 Whenever you have a difficulty or grievance meet it 
 boldly, bravely encounter your adversary in open com- 
 bat. If it is in your power to argue a matter out with 
 anyone who annoys you and who is apt to be vio- 
 lent and unreasonable when you are alone together 
 procure at least one wise truth-loving third party to act 
 as audience, then demand explanation in a calm judicial 
 spirit of inquiry. If such opportunities arc denied you, 
 write to the parties between whom and yourself mis- 
 understandings have arisen, assuring them of your utter 
 repudiation of all malicious feelings. Never accredit any 
 one with evil motive, attribute sin to ignorance, and 
 after fully and freely stating your determination to 1 
 no grudge and never to retaliate, dismiss the whole 
 matter from your mind. Cremate your grievances in 
 the fire of universal charity, and from that day forward 
 refuse to remember that you ever had a quarrel. When 
 you rise to that state of feeling, you are like a granite 
 rock, immovable, no matter what breakers of ill-feeling 
 from other minds may be directed against you. " For- 
 get and forgive" is an imperative command, for the 
 mortal memory of error must he destroyed, that the 
 immortal perception of truth may assert its suprem; 
 at all times, and enable us, whenever we desire it. to 
 have for use all the treasures of knowledge we have 
 accumulated in our varied experiences. We complain 
 of defective memory because we allow ourselves to re- 
 member what we ought to forget, and by retaining in 
 our minds the recollections of what we should forcibly 
 expel we clog our channels of communication with our 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPBUTK L } 1 7 
 
 higher or interior selves, wherein are deposited all the 
 
 wisdom we have accumulated. 
 
 In dealing with lack of adaptability between per- 
 sons who are compelled to live or do business together, 
 the infallible recipe is to carefully lookout for some 
 
 one or more traits of character in those who are in 
 many ways uncongenial to you. Fix your gaze steadi- 
 ly upon their good points and pleasant features to the 
 exclusion of regard for all others and not only will you 
 protect yourselves from annoyance, but you will be 
 benefactors of priceless value to those whom you thus 
 regard, for it is an inevitable certainty that whatever 
 you acknowledge in those with whom you associate, 
 you tend to develope in them and also in yourself. 
 Failure to reform and heal springs from dealing with 
 the imperfection you desire to exterminate. To oblit- 
 erate drunkenness and love of improper pleasuie in any 
 one who frequents places of evil resort, never try to 
 follow the delinquent mentally into dens of vice, but 
 hold steadfastly in your own mind the picture of such 
 an one where he should be, and doing his duty faithfully. 
 Thus the wife of a gambler, or a man who is always at 
 his club when he had better be at home, must, ere she 
 can reform him, picture him constantly happy in her 
 society at his own fireside. She must ever welcome 
 htm without reproaches or expressions of surprise and 
 by constantly holding him in thought as already where 
 hould be she will draw him to righteousness by the 
 superior attractions of " home, sweet home.' 3 A school 
 teacher can correct naughty children by ignoring their 
 naughtiness and placing them in thought as already 
 tractable and just. In a word, tb* •** rule is 
 
218 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 reverse the portrait of evil, and by persistently holding 
 in mind the image of what }^ou rightly desire ta see 
 actualized you form mental union with powerful invis- 
 ible force which accomplishes its externalization. 
 
LESSOR XIL 
 
 FORMULAS, THEIE USE AND VALUE. 
 
 AS we have already given the general outline of 
 both the theory and practise of metaphysical 
 science as applied to healing in its widest sense, w x e 
 shall only in this last lesson briefly review the ground 
 already traversed, and try to help you to see the value of 
 those much controverted formulas which, while nothing 
 in and of themselves, are nevertheless as forms of sound 
 words, calculated to confer inestimable benefit on those 
 who use them understanding^, or who are led by hear- 
 ing them or seeing them in print, to meditate carefully 
 upon the ideas they so tersely embody. You must all 
 have noted many times in your experience how vividly 
 you have been struck and deeply impressed by some words 
 you have heard, not, perhaps, meant for your ears, or 
 by some motto you have seen upon the wall of some 
 railway waiting room. We have known of cases where 
 a scripture text or other motto has prevented suicide. 
 One case in particular we will relate as a sample in- 
 stance, and we are sure many of our readers can easily 
 collect similar anecdotes. A young woman quite alone 
 in the world, without any settled religious belief or 
 conviction of any kind, poorly educated and inured to 
 neglect and misery, was driven to the utmost verge of 
 
 219 
 
220 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 desperation by the coldness and unkind n ess of those 
 who ought to have befriended her. She was traveling in 
 search of work ; everything looked blank before her, 
 and as the train stopped at a side station where 
 was expecting to find some employment, but where no 
 one met her, she sat down in a dreary waiting 
 room alone and hungry to await the coming of a woman 
 who had written to her to accept n hard situation for 
 very little pay, and revolved it in her mind whethei 
 bad not better end her miserable ce in the river 
 
 which was close at hand. Without trust in God or 
 man, or in any form of spiritual protection, her e 
 seemed suddenly fascinated by a hitherto unrecognized 
 text upon the wall, "The Lord wdl provide/ 1 the 
 word will particularly struck he)'; it shone out, a i 
 tain declaration, no faltering may, but a decisive i 
 As she gazed spell-bound at the words, which all the 
 while seemed as though they were being burned 
 her consciousness by some invisible agency, the wall 
 seemed to grow transparent, and through the appar- 
 ently diaphanous substance she saw a figure pointing 
 a pleasant villa residence on the bank of the river far- 
 ther up the stream, (which was a winding one) than the 
 ordinary eye of a spectator could behold. 
 
 It seemed to her as though a beautiful lady was 
 holding the text in one hand over her head, and with 
 the other beckoning the girl to follow. So deeply 
 impressed was the girl with this vision, which lasted 
 for fully half an hour, that when it faded and the 
 room resumed its previous bare appearance, she went 
 out of the station and followed the course of the river 
 a considerable distance without seeing any house at all 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 221 
 
 resembling the villa of her vision. When almost 
 ready to abandon what promised to be a fruitless 
 
 upch, and attribute her strange experience to hallu- 
 cination; the effect of weariness, she saw rising before 
 her in a most picturesque region a house identical with 
 the one which had created so forcible an impression on 
 her inner consciousness. Hurrying toward it, run- 
 ning to the door and eagerly ringing the bell, she 
 found herself at once asking the neat young woman 
 who answered the door whether the lady of tin, 1 house 
 was in search of some one to do plain needlework or 
 
 ist in the housework. Before the girl had time to 
 reply, a clear, commanding, yet gentle voice, said, 
 "Show the stranger into the parlour; I wish t<> 
 her." On entering the room, she stood face to face 
 with a beautiful lady in middle life, but looking much 
 younger than her years, who said, Wk f^o you have an- 
 swered my call, have you I Is it not better to 
 come here and work for your living in this pleasant 
 place, where you will always be well cared for, than 
 go out alone among persons who do not even keep 
 their appointments to meet strangers at the depot?" 
 And then, looking very steadfastly at the girl, she said, 
 witli intense but most kindly emphasis, "The \<<>n\ 
 did provide not a grave in the river, but a home in the 
 valley, for His tired and sorrowing child." At tin 
 words the girl, who had been standing silent and mo- 
 tionless while the stately lady was addressing her, 
 impulsively burst forth into eager questioning : '* But, 
 madam, how could you know what my thoughts w< 
 or anything about me ; you have never been t<> Bi 
 hampton, where 1 was born and reared — have you '" 
 
222 SPIRITUAL TUKKAI'Kl'TI- 
 
 The lady replied, with a sweet and knowing smile, 
 '•No, my child, I have never been to Binghampton, 
 and I never saw you until to-day, but there are many 
 ways of getting acquainted with people, of which you, 
 as yet, know nothing. Bui you must rest to-night 
 after you have had some refreshment. Louisa, the 
 young woman who answered the door, will provide 
 you with all you require, and at nine o'clock tomor- 
 row morning I wish to see you and tell you many 
 things it is important for you to understand, with ref- 
 erence to the position J offer you in my household. 1 
 know you are willing to perform its duties and will 
 serve your employers faithfully." With many protes- 
 tations of fervent gratitude, the weary, but now hope- 
 ful and almost happy girl, left the presence of her 
 mysterious benefactor, and after a good wholesome 
 supper retired to bed and went to sleep in the pretl 
 
 room she had ever occupied. The apartment was 
 simply and inexpensively, hut beautifully because ar- 
 tistically furnished. Everything spoke of order and 
 method, hut not an unnecessary article could he de- 
 tected anywhere. 
 
 The following morning sheawoke precisely at seven 
 o'clock hearing her name called, >* Marie Florence 
 llepworth, it is time for you to rise." Here was an- 
 other surprise. How could anyone in that locality know 
 her name ! She had always been called Mary, occasion- 
 ally her eai's had been offended by that grating mis- 
 pronunciation of the soft and lovely Italian Maria 
 which seems to be spelt Mayryre^ hut Marie Florence 
 carried her back on the swift wings of childish recol- 
 lection to a delightful little ch in Normandy 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUll 
 
 where a tender mother, who passed to the unseen state 
 when she was less than five years of age, said with 
 departing breath, " God bless my little Mane Florence 
 and keep her forever true to truth " As she was dtf 
 ing these words repeated themselves again and again 
 to her inward ears, true to truth. What a sublime and 
 comprehensive expression! She resolved to relate her 
 experience of this morning to the kind lady in wl 
 house she was for the first time in fifteen y< 
 
 ginning to feel what truth expressed through love 
 might mean. At breakfast, which she tool; with 
 the servants almost in silence, for her heart was too full 
 for many words, she seemed to feel a presence looking 
 at her and almost touching her, and as she felt that 
 presence beside her or bending above her, her food 
 
 med filled with a subtle essence of life-giving power 
 food had neverpossesed for her before. She felt palpably 
 stronger with each mouthful, and her mind seemed to 
 grow clearer with every particle she partook of. 
 Alter finishing her meal she went into the large and 
 
 utiful garden which skirted the river, and enjoyed 
 the songs of birds, the perfume of flowers and the 
 general loveliness of the almost enchanted scene until 
 the clock on the village church rang out nine, when she 
 immediately returned to the house and presented her- 
 self to the noble lady to whom she was ahead; 
 
 ply indebted, and toward whom the deepest and 
 
 tenderest emotions of gratitude were already stirred in 
 
 her bosom. The lady received her with a gracious smile 
 
 and inviting her to be seated said, "Now we are ready 
 
 ►us conversation, and ;is I have much to say to you, 
 
 J ven orders that we shall be quite undisturbed tor 
 
224 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK 
 
 at least two hours. Come with me to my private apart- 
 ment where I do all my specially important work, we can 
 there talk without fear of interruption. Entering the 
 charming boudoir, fitted up with that peculiar grace 
 and elegance which seems the natural habitat of truly 
 refined people, the girl was at once struck with a m 
 nificent illumination between the windows, "The Lord 
 "Will Provide." These words stood out in flashing bril- 
 liancy, as though traced in letters of moving fire. From 
 the earthly standpoint only a cunning contrivance 
 the decorator's art, but when viewed spiritually, capable 
 of opening up a field of mystical research which a 
 can not fully unraveL Taking the girl very gently by 
 the hand and kissing her softly on the brow, the lady 
 seated her in a chair exactly in front of these wonder- 
 ful words, and requesting her to remain quite passive for 
 a few moments, said, "relate whatever impression or 
 vision comes toy on." Aiteraboutfiveminute'ssilent i 
 ing upon the words which riveted the attention of < 
 and mind at oner, she started visibly, and exclaimed, 
 "Why, Madam ! I see a thin, white, shining cord running 
 through the air all along the road between here and 
 the railway station, and it ends just with these same 
 words traced upon the wall of tin 4 waiting-room w! 
 I sat yesterday and felt you calling me, for it must have 
 been you, or 1 should never have been led as I 1 
 been, to this beautiful house." * Finding that the girl 
 was truly receptive to mental influence of a high and 
 practical order, the lady gave her valuable directions and 
 much advice of inestimable worth, warning her of 
 the danger of dabbling with occult forces for vain 
 and sordid purposes, but dwelling chiefly upon the 
 
SriKHTAL THEBAPEUT* 
 
 tremendous power for good inherent in thought, which 
 is the greatest of all forces, and of which electricity n 
 the first born child; she then proceeded to explain how 
 concentration of gaze helps concentration of thought, 
 and how it is possible to establish phsychical connection 
 between distant persons and places by means of what is 
 sometimes called occult telegraphy. The telephone, 
 microphone, audiphone and other marvels of nine- 
 teenth century skill are all products of a spiritual wave 
 of enlightenment now sweeping over the earth and 
 inciting inventive genius to outwardly portray in some 
 degree the mighty silent power of intelligence which, 
 in its higher modes of manifestation, accomplishes by 
 invisible methods what physical inventions feebly ex- 
 ternalize to the perception of mortal sense. 
 
 As we have no space to continue this narrative which 
 will be published in full in a story- setting forth the 
 practical workings of the mental telegraph we musl 
 ask our readers to content themselves with pondering 
 over this mystery of the connection between the text 
 in the lady's boudoir and the depot waiting room. 
 While cabalistic incantation, crystal seership and other 
 marvels and mysteries of ancient occultism may be 
 disregarded by multitudes to day as degrading sup 
 tions or devices of the evil disposed to lure the in; 
 
 ting to their doom, we ought never to forget thai 
 the vilest form of black magic is nothing but a reversal 
 of the purpose of beneficent mental operation. As you 
 do not advise the destruction of the tongue or any 
 other member of the human body because of its fre- 
 
 *The Electric Age, a romance of to-day, by \V. J. Colville, now 
 
 in pi 
 
226 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 quent perversion, so we are foolish indeed if we ra 
 a cry of alarm either at the approach of spiritualism or 
 theosophy, for both those systems contain so much of 
 truth, and are expressions of so much hidden power in 
 nature, that because the unscrupulous abuse their gifts 
 and the ignorant sometimes get into trouble, is no rea- 
 son whatever why intelligent people of every phase of 
 opinion should not unite to clarify the air of mental 
 pestilence by vigorously Betting to work to comprehend 
 and utilize the divine power of thought ever at their com- 
 mand. If the unscrupulous do occasionally deceive the 
 unwary, if mercenariness does sometimes eclipse sense 
 of duty in those who make gold their idol, the great 
 majority of those who are practically engaged in the 
 work of teaching and healing by mental methods are 
 striving to obtain a clearer insight than ever bei 
 into the mystic law of spirit which is fathomable by us 
 only as we knock on the door of the temple of knowl- 
 edge by earnest Longing to bless rather than to he 
 blessed. 
 
 A formula or set form of words should always 
 cord fully with the convictions of those who employ it 
 or it cannot be faithfully made use of. In treating :. 
 eral cases, and in striving to keep yourselves fortified, 
 terse, simple, comprehensive formulas ai i useful. 
 
 NEGATE 
 
 God is Omnipresent Good, therefore there is no evil 
 
 Matter has neither intelligence, sensation nor sub- 
 stance. 
 
 There is neither sin, sickness nor death in Real 
 LSeing. 
 15 
 
SPIRITUAL TIIKKAPl'r ! I 
 
 God is working through me both to will and to do 
 
 His good pleasure, therefore I need fear no evil. 
 
 AFFIRMATIONS. 
 
 God is Omnipresent Good. 
 
 God is infinite love, wisdom and truth. 
 
 God is Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent. 
 
 God is infinite life and substance. 
 
 God is our Father and Mother. 
 
 God tills all time, space and place. 
 
 I am in God. 
 
 At the center of my being I am one with (rod. 
 
 As man or woman I cannot get out of God. 
 
 In the Real Being I am "Well, because God is my 
 health — and lie is working through me to will and to 
 do His good pleasure. 
 
 These sentences, most of them compiled or selected 
 by Mrs. Sara Harris, of Berkeley, Cab, are a good 
 sample of formulas of value. 
 
 Our special word of exhortation shall be: Do not 
 permit yourselves to be blindly led by any human au- 
 thority, however admirable. Bemember that every 
 great man and woman the world has ever seen was in 
 one sense an original theorist. Imitators and copyists 
 have never been the great ones in the ranks of science, 
 literature or art. And as we admire originality wher- 
 
 r we find it, as original genius, rather than imitative, 
 places the crown of unfading glory upon the brow of 
 those who have possessed it, while we do well to pay 
 deferential heed to all who would bring us words of 
 truth or encouragement, let us acknowledge 
 
 >le and not outward appearance, as our guide and 
 director at all times and in all things. 
 
228 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 With love and good will toward all, and malice 
 toward none, realizing that the weapons of our warfare 
 are spiritual and not carnal, let us go forward in our 
 work, hand to band, shoulder to shoulder and heart to 
 heart, and let us ever remember that in union, but nol 
 in uniformity, there is jli. AW do not desire all 
 
 voices to sing anthems in unison, hut we all desire to 
 weave glorious harmonics in the anthem of our wort 
 We desire to create symphonies rather than for all to 
 carry the air. When we learn to symphonize ; when 
 we learn to harmonize, and thus fill in the different p, 
 in the song, and play the different instruments of the 
 orchestra; when we can he Likegreat organs with many 
 stops and pedals, producing many variations in sound — 
 now soft as the gentlest zephyr, and now wild as the 
 roar of the ocean on the i inn ; 
 
 when we learn to appreciate the bright red of the 
 poppy and the geranium, the purity of the white lily, 
 the modest purple of the violet, and the lovely family 
 characteristics of the lily of the valley and the little blue 
 forget-me-not; when we can learn to appreciate and im- 
 itate the grain of mustard seed, which is the tiniest of 
 all seeds, and know that from the smallest beginii 
 the greatest result may be evolved, then, never falter- 
 ing, but always pressing on, we forget the things behind, 
 we forget all discouraging circumstances, and bravely 
 press ahead to the radiant goal of perfection, which en- 
 amors our delighted vision, and spurs us on to the over- 
 comingof the gravest difficulties, if we do but keep our 
 mental gaze riveted upon it. We implore you not to 
 look back, but to ever look forward. 
 
 When the hosts of Israel had crossed the Red £ 
 and had placed their feet upon the borders of another 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 country, the words came from Jehovah to Mo€ 
 "Speak unto the children of Israel that theygofor^ 
 
 ward/' Not that they look backward, nor that they 
 stand still, nor even that they look forward, but that 
 they go forward. Let ns take this motto for all our 
 work: " Go forward,'' and let us remember that while 
 in the letter it may be an allegory, in the spirit it is 
 always a fact that Lot's wife, who looks back, is con- 
 verted into a pillar of salt, a warning to those who 
 come after her. Do not let us put our hands to the plow 
 and then look back, and thus become unlit for the 
 heavenly kingdom, but let our career be a continual for- 
 ward march, and if it is such our success is inevitable. 
 If any one character in poetry represents true meta- 
 physicians more than another, it is Longfellow's Alpine 
 climber, who, in that charming lay, u Excelsior," rep- 
 resents the true and glorious child of God and nature, 
 who presses on to ultimate conquest, even over seeming 
 total defeat. Longfellow's "Excelsior," is the represen- 
 tative of all true, noble workers. It stands for every 
 true worker and his enterprise. The youth sees a high 
 mountain before him; he determines to climb it. The 
 worldly wise come to him and say : "Try not the pass." 
 They speak Wth the wisdom of age and experience, 
 and they say: "Other people have been dashed to 
 pieces; try it not ! It is mad folly to attempt it." The 
 girl who loves him represents the affections of the 
 lower nature. She comes with all the allurements of 
 earthly affection, and urges him to desist from his en- 
 terprise, and rest with her, enjoying the sweets of life 
 on an earthly plane. He is deaf to the entreaties alike 
 of the sage and of the maiden, and pressing on and on, 
 
230 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 he still holds in his hand " The banner with the strange 
 device. Excelsior." He still sings that soul:. "Higher 
 ever higher." 
 
 It seems at last as if lie were utterly defeated, but 
 when the monks, engaged in their devotions, and the 
 dogs which are employed to ferret out travelers who 
 fall asleep in the snow among the Alps, find the body 
 of the beautiful boy. still and cold, ere they bury it 
 there comes a voice from the heavens above, with all 
 the light and brilliance of a descending star, and the 
 word "Excelsior" is echoed from the heavens. Thus, 
 from the uttermost confines eming defeat, the 
 
 shout of eternal victory rends the air with the old glad 
 note of triumph. 
 
 That same old word which the boy sang in sadi 
 and joy and in every hour of lone] MinMniiv 
 
 sing as we press to the same dizzy, hut glorious, height 
 he so nobly won. In the final ;' Longfellow's 
 
 "Excelsior v are expressed the reward and certain 
 tory of all true workers, embodied in the sweetest 
 song. All works and all workers, who will place b< k - 
 fore them the highest ami the noblest and the best, 
 whatever their earthly end may be, whatever the seem- 
 ing victory or defeat, must eventually triumph. Of 
 one thing we may be sure, that all true,valiant her 
 all noble, conscientious, never-to-be-dismayed work< 
 become at length like Longfellow's melodious star, 
 whose shining gives light unto others, and encoura 
 with the glorious notes of accomplished victory, bid- 
 ding them ever to come higher, because, even though 
 it be through earthly defeat, genuine victory is 
 sure, and though earthly things may fail us, we enter 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPKUTS 881 
 
 through true devotion the light which ne'er grows dim. 
 
 Let us take for our motto, then, " Excelsior." And 
 when that word enters into the very fiber of our 
 thought, and becomes one with the very blood and 
 
 ■w of our enterprise ; when we are no Longer con- 
 tent with lower tilings, and never gaze backward, but 
 always forward ; then for each and all, helping on the 
 
 *1 work everywhere, victory of the only kind that 
 can be loved and appreciated by true lovers of 
 humanity is a foregone conclusion, an inevitable i 
 tainty. And thus let us endeavor to consecrate ourselves 
 and make our homes places where the silent influence of 
 uplifted thought may bless all who cross the threshold ; 
 let us all follow our highest inward light. Be true t<> 
 the noblest within you; look to things eternal, and not 
 to things temporal ; delight in service to humanity, and 
 not in present and private gratifications: and love not 
 too well the things which perish in the osin 
 
 Hearing one day a company of fashionable people 
 discussing a musical entertainment given the previous 
 
 i nng before a large and brilliant throng compot 
 chiefly of the elite of a fashionable society in a gi 
 and wealthy city, we were particularly struek with a 
 criticism passed upon the performance of a young 
 artist, whose rendering of an old, well-worn ballad 
 was such as to give the old, familiar air a new 
 and deeper meaning than it had ever seemed capable 
 conveying before. As he proceeded with his solo, he 
 introduced some charming variations, which, to the 
 quick ear of the very few present who had known 
 what it was to be introduced in som measun 
 
 the inner sphere of music, (of which mechanical per- 
 
232 SPIRITUAL TIIEKAI'FJTICS. 
 
 formers and professional critics know nothing,) he in- 
 terpreted divinely beautiful thoughts never before asso- 
 ciated with the song. "I should never have known it." 
 was the remark made by several who were comment- 
 ing upon the performer's skill, but how different a 
 meaning did the same words convey uttered by two 
 persons who both ventured to pass an opinion on a 
 rarely beautiful musical effort — an effort in which in- 
 spired genius blended with the results of careful study 
 and diligent application to i<< 
 
 In one case the hard, cold, metallic, musical mechan- 
 ician demurred ;it anythinj ould style an interpo- 
 lation or change of original S( >n the other hand, 
 a perception, in some degree, of I he rather than 
 the letter y oi harmony, enabled the other critic, who 
 might more justly and reasonably be called a grateful 
 
 and sympathetic disciple of genius, to respond to the 
 
 electric thrill which always vibrates through an atmos- 
 phere pervaded with a subtle force, generated only 
 
 when combinations of sound are effected by a per- 
 former who transcends th< typed limit Imi- 
 cal exactitude. 
 
 When the mind is enveloped in a thick shadow of 
 externalism, higher voices than one is accustomed to 
 hear produce the rather disagreeable effect of thunder 
 on a nervous ear, and this rumbling noise causes aver- 
 sion rather than promotes delight. 
 
 To all who are seeking to work in harmony with 
 superior thought, our counsel is, do not estimate your 
 success in any measure by the amount of appreciation 
 you win from a mixed multitude. If you succeed in 
 reaching an unusually high goal or summit of attain- 
 
SPIRITUAL Til ER API-XT I 
 
 ment, you will not be appreciated by the mas* 
 well as though you stood on a lower level, and w 
 nearer their plane of thought ; but it is only by reach- 
 ing this sublimer elevation you can scientifically d*Mn< Mi- 
 te that all disorders of the mind and body mil be 
 successfully vanquished through the operation of n 
 power entirely beyond the physical. When you 
 reach nearer than the multitude to this high station, 
 your presence will heal all who are ready to receive a 
 blessing through the introduction of purer thoug 
 into their mental sphere. 
 
 Perfect tranquility of mind, complete absorption in 
 one's w T ork through the love of it, and total indiffer- 
 ence to the world's censure or applause, are absolutely 
 ntial to everv student who would succeed in giving 
 that evidence of ability to demonstrate spiritual science, 
 which is indispensable to the truly successful practi- 
 tioner. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS- 
 
 UNDER this beading we have replied to a number 
 of important queries from all parts of the world 
 in the order in which we have received them. Owing 
 to their great number and the amount of ground I 
 covered we found it totally impossible to attempt any 
 more definite classification. 
 
 Question. No. 1. What is teally meant by M 
 physical Healing t 
 
 Answer. Metaphysical Healing does not properly 
 speaking mean anything more or other than lh< 
 of thought to overcome all physical lent. 
 
 Without entering into anv lengthened dissertation 
 concerning the reality or unreality of matter, before 
 we can comprehend the theory of Metaphysical Heal- 
 ing we must understand the mean nil:- of the term Meta- 
 physical, which signifies ^ I" phys- 
 ics" and " mindovi r matU r." Th< definitions are 
 sanctioned by the best h. [f then at the 
 outset we simply concede the sovereignty of mind and 
 the subserviency of sense we shall be prepared to loj 
 ally admit that no physical condition can offer an 
 insuperable obstacle to mind. An intelligent Meta- 
 physical Healer who knows something of occult science 
 may readily understand how every human thought is 
 a magnet attracting kindred, and repelling antagonistic 
 thought. If we think bright, happy, useful thoughts, 
 
 2U 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK 
 
 we gather or accrete tons a force Like unto thai we 
 
 send forth into the ambient psychic atmosphere, we 
 thereby are related to whatsoever is true, pure and 
 harmonious, but just as surely, if we entertain sad, 
 
 oneous thoughts, do we draw to us mental influences 
 of a darker hue. 
 
 This fact is pretty generally conceded at present 
 among students of psychic matters, still it is veryne< 
 sary to persist in affirming this continuously, when 
 called upon to treat those in whose minds, knowledge 
 of spiritual law is at best but an uncertain light. 
 
 The germ theory of disease now so much in vogue 
 in medical circles, and said to be in many install 
 proven by the microscope, offers no impediment in the 
 way of accepting Metaphysical ideas, for the very fad 
 of multitudes escaping when contagion is in the air 
 proves beyond question that we must be in a receptive 
 state, or we cannot take in hacter 
 
 Now, while all physicians allow that susceptibility 
 in one instance and non-susceptibility in another 
 answers the query, i% ^Vh\ do some people suffer from 
 infection while others escaped it is only the Mrin- 
 physician who leaves the bodily condition behind and 
 
 s in search of a mental cause for such varied p! 
 ical states. AVe do not deny that persons take cold and 
 suffer in various ways because of their bodily condil 
 hut what we do most persistently maintain is that 
 physical states are invariably the result of mental. 
 
 k the car.se of physical susceptibility or weak 
 
 i indecision, fear or some still worse emotion that 
 
 lowered the tone of your vitality. I I in 
 
 chai he thought radically, and the physical state 
 
 alters of necessity. 
 
236 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 Ques. No. 2. Will you define tfo f thought 
 
 and how it acts on the horty ? 
 
 Ans. To fully define the nature of thought and 
 state just how it acts on the body would indeed require 
 much ability, time and space, in all three of which 
 necessary commodities we feel ourselves in the present 
 instance, at least, sadly deficient. 
 
 If "a word to the wise is sufficient," we trust to all 
 our readers being wise enough to let the following brief 
 and humble word drop as a seed into the fertile soil of 
 their receptive minds, in which it may quicL mitt- 
 
 ate like a grain of mustard seed into a prodigious I 
 Thought we conceive to b< i generated by idea, through 
 a process of mental friction; as two hard substai 
 being rubbed together emit .spark's and kindle dame, 
 two ideas, either two ideasof the same individual, or 
 one of the individual's and one of another's coming 
 together, produce a result, and that result we call 
 thought, which is less than idea, though it must b 
 partial expression and outcome of some idea. We some- 
 times generate thoughts, and oftener still do 
 them; when we receive them we frequently call them 
 impressions^ but nothing can make an impression on as 
 unless we are in an impressible condition. 
 
 Matter is not necessarily a myth, but whatever it is, 
 it is less than mind and is included in it. If matter in 
 its last analysis is force, then what is force i Thoughts 
 are things, and therefore can be felt, and under favor- 
 ing circumstances can be seen and heard also. 
 
 A thought can strike your mind and wound it just 
 as a stone can strike your body. ]>y dexterous mental 
 movemeut you can often dodge an unpleasant thought 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC 
 
 when you feel it coming, as you can avoid being hit bv 
 
 a stone flung toward you by physical dexterity. Those 
 truly appareled in Spiritual sheen are like knights 
 coated in armor of mail through which a bullet cannot 
 pass. Again we must refer to occult science to prove 
 our reasoning. AVe are constantly generating an aura 
 which perpetually surrounds us. If this aura is of the 
 higher type, the result of exalted modes of thinking 
 and aspiring, it renders us absolutely impervious to the .[ 
 attacks of disagreeable thought, thus we become lifted 
 to a region where we are no longer wounded or made 
 angry by anything or any body. 
 
 All outward things commonly called material are 
 correspondences and results of things invisible, thus as 
 our mental state governs our mental susceptibility it 
 reactionally and ultimately determines our physical 
 state. 
 
 Ques. No. 3. Can ice treat ourselves metaphysically 
 > regeneration in the same way that toe < 
 treat <>tJt> r& 
 
 Ans. Most decidedly we can, though it must be 
 admitted that it is a more difficult task to treat our- 
 
 vs than others for the obvious reason that when we 
 most sorely need treatment we are in the worst condi- 
 tion for giving treatment, Regeneration is a \cvy 
 large word and means vastly more than we can now 
 explain in detail, but as it certainly includes the idea 
 of development and reconstruction we can simply 
 affirm and will content ourselves with affirming that 
 neration is most readily accomplished by deliber- 
 ately retiring from the outer world in thought as well 
 as action, and then in some calm retreat at some con- 
 
238 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC 
 
 venient hour, either quite by ourselves or in company 
 
 with some exceedingly congenial friend, fix our mind 
 on whatever we most earnestly desire, and this ob 
 of our desire we must look upon with our mental vision 
 as the artist gazes upon his picture, the architect upon 
 his plan, the inventor upon his machine, as already per- 
 fectly externalized while yet not a single step has been 
 taken in the visible execution of the design. Are yon 
 afflicted with grinding poverty, then sec yourself in 
 comfortable circumsta e will nol advise immoder- 
 
 ately rich); are you physically crippled, tin - air- 
 
 self straight as a dart, hold the image of perfection in 
 the direction in which you particularly seek it pen 
 ently before you, and if you will persevere in this 
 mental exercise, m ecially if you will insist upon 
 
 seeing this image and no! r before you at night 
 
 before you fall asleep, you will soon relate yourself to 
 a sphere of thought which will so invigorate your 
 mind as to render actual in youi body the condition 
 you desire. 
 
 Ques. No. 4. Metaphysi \ett us t<> deny all 
 
 limitations %rm tl> WiUyoujjL 
 
 till us Ik in truth in doing th 
 
 Ans. Regardless of what any persons may sa; 
 every one speak and affirm what he individually f< 
 to be the truth. No metaphysician should I rded 
 
 as infallible, nor his word placed in the stead of the 
 voice of one's own conscience; therefore, never affirm 
 anything which you may deem untrue. Neverthel 
 as we grow in the knowledge of spiritual thinga we 
 attain to a realizing sense of what we are in truth, in 
 absolute reality, and then we find out that we are per- 
 
SPIRITUAL . rues. 
 
 feet and immortal Spirit. The whole secret of StH* 
 in treating is to self ami patients out o( materia] 
 
 thought, L e., thought about material things. When 
 we realia our higher selves we do not think about our 
 lower, and it is only in that exalted frame of mind that 
 ome oblivious to pains, vexations and limits 
 and find ourselves free as birds in the open air. We 
 affirm literally nothing and we deny literally noil, 
 concerning our physical organisms when we are "in 
 the spirit." You have probably all known what i f is to 
 expedience at least occasional and transient absorption 
 of thought in other things than those about you. The 
 mind needs to rest and recuperate its forces by oon- 
 
 usly bathing, as it were, in a spiritual ocean, from 
 which celestial bath it returns re-invigorated to per- 
 form the varied and often irksome duties of the out- 
 ward state; for this reason profound slumber, undis- 
 turbed sleep, is so necessary that insomnia leads to 
 mental aberration. When you enjoy' unbroken rest all 
 night, you awake in the morning mysteriously siren 
 ened and refreshed and often quite buoyantly hap 
 This mental elasticity is due to your having enjoyed a 
 temporary sojourn in the spiritual realm unvexed 
 mortal cares. When giving or taking a treatment you 
 need just this perfect release from material 
 We can only explain it by saying that yoi en- 
 
 vor to travel in thought to the infinitely happy, free 
 tnd rich ; von must journey in mind to the absolul 
 perfect, nnd there bask in ht of the hi 
 
 which the mind can contemplate. St; eel that the 
 
 immortal <-<jo, the deathless / is perfect and p 
 things, and rest assured that only in this manner can yoq 
 
24:0 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC 
 
 so relate yourself with the infinite as to ( tvercome tlie lim- 
 itations of the finite. Your ailments have departed, your 
 sorrows have fled, your pains have vanished and ye1 yon 
 did not see or feel them go, hut they went by reason 
 of your mental postun took a spiritual BUnbath, 
 
 and the heat melted the ice and the light drov< 
 the vapors. Place before yourself your highest p 
 ble conception of ideal humanity and comem 
 
 tive to d and proof a infernal influeo 
 
 you invite construct) pel destructive force. 
 
 You arc well, you are pefecl in your immortal 1 >«inir, 
 which is the center of your 1 ife. I ): av thoug 
 
 to this true vital center and you will behold truth. 
 Qubs. No. 5« ) 
 
 i 
 of God. A /■' If 
 
 not. how '-'in f! 
 
 i. We do not Bay thai 
 manifestation of God in a direcl ■■. hut i 
 
 believe every natural expression to be divine, we can- 
 not thereby include diseased or d 
 mortal error Every work on pathology \\ 
 come across declar bnormal, it 
 
 a natural and therefore healthy condition of affairs 
 that is designated di Perversion pi the 
 
 appearance of . and God is surely not the author 
 
 oftheactof perversion if He he the creator of 
 force which man either willfully or ignorantly per- 
 verts. Students of this subject can glean much under 
 this head from the writings ( 
 arguments are very logical and whose deductions 
 very clear as to the cause and nature of so-called i 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 24 1 
 
 The writings of Henry James, an ardent admirer of 
 Swedenborg, can be consulted with great profit by 
 those seeking light on this subject,but as the themeis in- 
 tensely profound and at first sight intricate, consider- 
 able time and attention must be given to it before the 
 problem will appear solved. To give a patent illustra- 
 tion, you may conceive of all things as essentially, 
 intrinsically good. All is good, there is no evil, but 
 though all things are in their essence good, every sepa- 
 rate thing is good for something and not good (there- 
 fore relatively bad) for something else. Abuse is in- 
 harmony which does not necessarily imply imperfec- 
 tion or error any where except in the use to which an 
 instrument is put. The ability to err is doubtles 
 necessary part of discipline. We do not belong to that 
 school which looks upon all physical expression a 
 mistake, we contend onlv for the possibility of so learn- 
 ing to employ everything aright that evil shall be utt< 
 abolished and discord shall utterly cease. When you 
 are suffering the best attitue to assume toward your 
 suffering is that it is a stepping-stone to a height beyond, 
 you thereby rob it of its sting. The uselessness of 
 pain adds to its bitterness. Make it serve an end, 
 transmute it, regard it as a consequence of some | 
 experience remembered or forgotten, and, therefore, a 
 factor in education. But whenever obstacles and sor- 
 rows present themselves remember we encounter them 
 only to gain strength by rising superior to them. What 
 we cannot agree to is the theory that we should tamely 
 submit to be crushed by them and call our weakl 
 the will of God. We can only avoid falling into mis- 
 ery in the future by learning wisdom from past exp 
 16 
 
242 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 ence and so conducting ourselves mentally as to draw 
 
 to us only purely healthful and beneficent influent 
 
 Ques. No. 6. Is tin laying on of ha 
 able? 
 
 Aks. The laying on of bands is advisable when you 
 feel it to he so, i. e., when you feel an influence unmis- 
 takably good impelling to so act. Ti >word hand 
 is frequently used in Scripture in a figurative sense, and 
 thus it is often straining a point to infer that whenever 
 the phrase "laying on of hands" is met with, it signi- 
 fies any form of bodily contact. We do not wish to 
 appear illiberal, therefore, we are particularly careful 
 to state frequent 1 y in public places, t hal we know many 
 healers do great good who lay on hands in treating, at 
 the same time we are most careful t that in onr 
 
 Opinion it is not the act of manipulation, hut a spirit- 
 ual force going with it that accomplishes the OH 
 
 If one is confined to any ■ al mode of action, 
 
 one's usefulness becomes painfully confined, for this 
 reason we do not advocate manipulation. Then, again, 
 bodily contact is often productive of two serious evil 
 in the first place, it renders the patient's mind too ad 
 on the outward plane, and second, it frequently exp 
 the healer to the danger of contagion. We would, 
 however, allow the utmost reasonable latitude in all 
 such matters. No one should strive to be a law unto 
 another. If yon treat in the way you conscientiously 
 feel to be best, the divine blessing will accompany your 
 effort, whatever it may be. Pure motive is the essen- 
 tial need, and wherever the intent is pure, good must 
 follow r . 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEirA 243 
 
 Que?. No. 7. Of what us< to an a\ 
 feting that it endures? W< can understand that our 
 
 "<rin(j raises us spiritually, and that it is througi 
 that animals suffer^hut as one creatun ought 
 to he sai other, th 
 
 hem to undergo oug/U i - 
 
 Ans. There is indeed much room for speculative 
 inquiry with regard to this interesting and complex 
 subject, and it would be no difficult task for us to oc- 
 cupy many pages in a labored attempt at its satisfac- 
 tory elucidation. Desiring, however, to be as brief and 
 practical as possible, we will content ourselves with 
 remarking that the whole gist of theosophical teaching 
 is to the effect that everything is slowly wending 
 way upward to a higher expression than has yet been 
 evolved. If the theory of involution be studied in 
 connection with evolution, it will be comparatively 
 easy to trace the benefit accruing to all sentient crea- 
 tures from the sufferings to which they are involun- 
 tarily subjected. \Toe is ever pronounced against him 
 by whom an offense cometh, not against those who 
 the victims of such offense. Inexorable divine jusl 
 through the perpetual out-working of the undevial 
 law of Karma or consequence ordains that those who 
 perform an act of cruelty alone suffer for such act in 
 the long run. Appearances are often so deceitful, and 
 it is so hard for us to clearly distinguish be! wren real 
 and apparent loss, that we often fail in seemi 
 to trace the good, but all unmerited suffer] .. all 
 
 suffering not brought upon ours by folly of our 
 
 own, redounds inevitably to our highest interest by 
 celerating thepro< f our development, and let us 
 
 remember that the law of Karma works in the animal 
 
244 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK 
 
 as well as in the human kingdom. Animals as well as 
 men, are all traveling on to a higher bourne than they 
 have yet attained, and as this is a fact known to tl 
 familiar with the ancient wisdom now bring presented 
 to the world at large, the problem is solved, immedi- 
 ately wesee the law of comp >n operating on be- 
 half of animals as well as men. Dr. Anna King] ford, 
 that noble woman and true Theosophist who di< 
 much to enlighten the world on the true basis of moral 
 conduct, argued with overwhelming tom- the 
 eating oi* flesh and particularly against vivisection on 
 the score of these practices bene:- subversive of the high- 
 est interests of human welfare, as they are in 
 opposition to our deepest moral instincts, bul though wo 
 who err must incur a penalty in our own deterioration 
 until we have expunged our fault with hitter suffer 
 the innocent victims of our inordinate selfishness only 
 lose their mortal envelopes and doubtless in ev« 
 receive an impulsion forward through the sad experi- 
 ence which has removed their outward fom 
 philosophy which does not carry the thought of infinite 
 retributive justice in every department of the univ 
 can be ultimately satisfactory to mankind, and for this 
 reason, if for no other, we should defend the doctrine 
 of a future existence for animals and allot their suf- 
 ferings a place in the order of their progression, 
 
 Quss. No. 8. Are not const qm human 
 
 perience often totally disproportionate to the error which 
 induces them f a* for an mistakesa toad- 
 
 stool for a mushroom and <]'< 
 
 Ans. No act can possibly he solitary and unre- 
 lated to other and previous acts, therefore the 
 
SPIRITUAL THBBAPEUT* 2 I 5 
 
 ingor eating of a toadstool in mistake for a mushroom 
 and beingpoisoned inconsequence is an experience which 
 can only becorrectly understood by one whohastra 
 out the relations of cause and effect to an extent \'-av be- 
 yond the attainments of the majority. Say that the 
 standing alone is a very trival mistake, a simpleerrorof 
 judgmentin no sense criminal, a philosophical inquiry of 
 momentous import at once presents itself, viz., what 
 has induced a state of mind rendering such an error 
 possible? Is not the ostensible actonly the first visible 
 expression of perhaps a very long and important chain 
 of unknown antecedent causes? If the spiritual per- 
 ceptive faculty was inany way keensucha mistake could 
 not occur, and why is not the intuition keen enough to 
 avert such a catastrophe, is a very pertinent query in 
 this connection. "We continually attribute the gravest 
 oonsequences to the most trivial acts solely b 
 do not see behind them into the mysterious past 
 whence they sprang. We see a flash of lightning and 
 hear a clap of thunder, these are the first intimations 
 we often have of a terrific storm which has been, all 
 unknown to us, for a long time slowly brewing. We 
 are out in the storm without even a wrap or an um- 
 brella, totally unprotected, surprised and at the mercy 
 of the raging elements, or we are in a railway carri 
 or on a steamboat and an accident overtakes us bo sud- 
 denly that we are instantly maimed beyond probable 
 recovery. These things Ave say are casualties which 
 cannot be prevented, and yet in every instance had we 
 only developed our psychic perception to an extent we 
 have not as yet done, we should have been Eorewan 
 forearmed, protected, or in some manner saved cntu 
 
246 SPIRITUAL THEBAFBUTiaB. 
 
 from the affliction which has befallen us. Belief in 
 special providence and absolute miracles has arh 
 entirely from a failure to account for exceptional 
 occurences in the light of relative psychic culture. 
 
 Ques. No. 9. Do we understand you to main 
 that accidents as well as disea* all pn 
 
 and therefore quite united mm 
 
 Ans. Accidents are invariably the result of folly 
 or ignorance when they are not the fruits of lawl 
 ness or crime. An accident must have a cai 
 it must be the ell fig, it dors not oil 
 
 ate through the arbitrary i of God, neil 
 
 is it a freak of fortune. What occasions for the 
 most part those events commonly termed acci- 
 dents? Drunkenness, frenzy, fear and a hosl of other 
 vices and follies coupled with recklessness and a lack 
 of skill on the part of Bomobody, will account probably 
 for 9Q per cent., while t he remaining 10 per cent., even 
 though seemingly beyond human control, are simply 
 beyond that limit of control which ordinary men and 
 women have yet gained over their surroundings. Now 
 avc wish particularly to call our readers' most careful 
 attention to the following important proposition, which 
 is that all mishaps are avertible, provided we are suf- 
 ficiently developed spiritually to heed those numerous 
 and instructive warnings which invariably precede i 
 aster. Just as the weather prophet can, by scanning 
 the face of the sky, which others can not read, foretell 
 the impending tempest, just as the shrill whistle or 
 clanging bell signals the arrival or departure of a train 
 though a deaf person hears no sound at all, so unseen, 
 and to the ear of flesh inaudible influence- are perpet- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK 247 
 
 ually warning us to get out of danger's way, but alas, 
 the prene2 gourde of our unseen friends is beard by com- 
 paratively few of earth's children. The great p 
 tical advantages attending and resulting from psychic 
 culture are that with our interior vision more fully 
 opened we shall be able to see things in their true pro 
 portions, and thus avoid making mistakes and falling 
 into pits of needless sorrow. The following clipping 
 from the Golden Gate serves to illustrate in somem 
 ore what we are seeking to convey. The editor of 
 that valuable weekly says: " One of the first fruit 
 the 'gift of the spirit' is that of being able fa 
 the spiritual status of those with whom one comes in 
 contact. He reads his fellow-beings, whenever he 
 chooses to do so. as from an open book. He can not 
 tell you how or why, but he knows, and that knowledge 
 is almost infallible. In the higher unfoldment of this 
 wonderful faculty one may ever know in whom to put 
 his trust. Armed with this power how many of 'the 
 rocks and shoals of time' may be avoided." 1( tin 
 true, as it unquestionably is in the main, in all particu- 
 lars, can not we easily extend our view of this entranc- 
 ing subject until it embraces a realization that we can 
 
 oresee coming events as to avoid painful experien* 
 The literature of clairvoyance abounds in striking 
 illustrations of this power, but until recently t! 
 alent opinion has been that clairvoyance in its wi( 
 sense is a special gift, a dower bestowed by heaven on 
 a few, but utterly unobtainable by the many. The p 
 ent trend of advanced spiritual thought is toward 
 demonstrable conclusion that every one can in some 
 measure develop his own inner natu 
 
248 SPIRITUAL THSBAPB1 I B 
 
 able to anticipate danger and thus avoid it. There ia 
 nothing arbitrary in the scheme of the unii im- 
 
 mutable law shows no favoritism. He who base*] 
 hear and eyes to see can walk securely, and those who, 
 mentally and spiritually speaking, arc as yet well nigh 
 destitute of these fundamental organs of perception 
 can by diligent prosecution of befitting metho 
 velop these much-to-be desired avenues of information. 
 
 QuEa No. 10. / 
 a patients desi 
 the person knowing it t 
 
 Ans. It is nol possible for the patient to gel rid of 
 any habit unless he makes an effort. But how is the 
 patient to be induced to make the effort? As . 
 necessary on the patient's part, you must treat him 
 with a view tohis making t he effort. You must hi. 
 down all indisposition. When persons will not work, 
 idleness is t heir disease ; you therefore have to treat for 
 
 idleness. Many treaters fail because they hold their 
 
 patients in error. Th- le down under the 
 
 conviction that their pat I not willing to be con- 
 
 vinced. If you hold any th<- ; idleness over any 
 
 idler it makesliim still more idle; your belief that lie will 
 remain in error strengthens the bond of sin around him. 
 What we have to do in such cases is to treat ourselves 
 for our beliefs concerning our patients. Thai seem 
 be the hardest work of all. for many practitioners. They 
 oan only with great difficulty obey the wise injunction, 
 "Physician, heal thyself." Ladies have often come 
 to us and said their mothers or other relatives never 
 would accept spiritual truth; there was a statement 
 most unspiritual and groundless. Married women have 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 249 
 
 often said : "My husband never will accept the truth." 
 What influence do you suppose people exert over their 
 companions by entertaining such views of them! If 
 they are giving them treatments they are certainly 
 malpracticing. A daughter takes to her mother the 
 idea that she never will look favorably at certain things, 
 and while the daughter is crying over this, her own be- 
 lief, the mother is kept in a state of antagonism by the 
 unconscious mental influence of the daughter. A wo- 
 man going around telling of her husband's untruthful- 
 ness, keeps him untruthful, though of course she is not 
 aware that her conduct keeps him from improvement. 
 If a person is given to drinking or smoking and you tell 
 everybody so, though you are not aware of so doing, 
 you are keeping the one you wish to see reformed 
 under bondage and preventing his reformation. Heal- 
 ers must pluck the beams out of their own eyes ere 
 they can see clearly to cast the motes out of their 
 brother's eyes. It is limitation in ourselves that we 
 have to fight against. You can not successfully treat 
 any person whom you hold in false belief. You must 
 hold no less favorable thought than that your treat- 
 ment is inducing the patient to make all necessary ef- 
 fort, and treatment does not take genuine and perma- 
 nent effect unless patients make efforts themselves to 
 hold their lower appetites in rightful subjection, only 
 if you always hold good thoughts do you treat in tin 4 
 right way. It is certainly easier to lay blame upon 
 others than upon ourselves, but Jesus had no patience 
 with such self-flattery. Some of his disciples com- 
 plained to him that a certain person could not be cured, 
 and he said to them in reply : " O ye of little faith I 
 
250 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 if you have faith ns a grain of mustard seed, you can 
 say to mountains, be removed and cast into the 
 and it shall be done, and nothing shall be impossible 
 with you." If we only break ourselves of this tlet 
 able habit of holding our brethren in error, if wc per- 
 sistently hold mental pictures of harmony our 
 eyes we shall soon be universal publi is. But 
 so long as we acknowledge and dwell upon error in 
 others, we impose limitations upon them and prevent 
 them from making tin they otherwise might in 
 the right direction ; we disqualify ourselves from help- 
 ing them to make the necessary effort. If our mind 
 reaches them it holds them in error, and as mir- 
 age erroneous thought concerning others, it hol< 
 error. We must not think toward any one. I v 
 you would make an effort, but I feel ou will not. 
 Encourage only the thought th; them per 
 We must Bee mentally whatever we >mp- 
 lished already. Just as the cl ure in 
 mind before it is put on canvas. It is complet 
 tally, before he takes up pencil or brush. So in 
 mind of an archifc ' buildir i n. It 
 is all completed before the draughtsman touches pen- 
 cil, or the Brst stone of the material fabric is la 
 before the first really practical and eff step has 
 been taken toward the improvement of your patient, 
 you must see him in thought perfectly well. By hold- 
 ing this mental in the thii 
 make him appear well. First,see him perfectly well in 
 mind, then set to work to build the external in har- 
 mony with the mental design. 
 
 Ques. No. 11. Wha the 
 
 law of Karma ? 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 251 
 
 Ans. Whenever treatment takes effect, it causes 
 
 the patient to make good Karma. If the patient had 
 never made any bad Karma in the past, he would not 
 be feeling" ill now. Karma manufactured in the past 
 has borne fruit in the present. We are what we are in 
 consequence of what we have been. Successful treat- 
 ment is to so act upon a patient as to cause him to 
 make good Karma, and that destroys bad Karma. 
 The past being irrevocable, you find d liferent patients 
 hi very different conditions of receptivity when you 
 first treat them. As you succeed m bringing them out 
 of bad conditions you succeed in helping them to make 
 good Karma, which is only the Buddhistic name for 
 what the Christian calls a good life. You can produce 
 the result of good Karma by inducing the patient to 
 follow truth instead of error. 
 
 [Note. — Karma, only means consequence, and is a Sanscrit 
 term employed chiefly by those designating themselves Theosophists, 
 who study Oriental works of mystical import.] 
 
 Ques. No. 12. Is it always possible in the pri 
 of development to overthrow crime? 
 
 Ans. If you feel after earnest effort to overcome 
 it that it is not possible in the case of a certain patient 
 you may conclude that it is no part of your particular 
 work to treat that particular patient. We have often 
 to make a selection, for we cannot treat everybody. 
 If you feel you cannot hold a certain individual in the 
 highest and purest thought, then leave the case alone. 
 Acknowledge that it may be no part of your special 
 work. We have had many experiences where v 
 felt: Well, whether adesired result can be attained or 
 not, we shall not attempt to decide, but it is clearly no 
 
252 SPIRITUAL TIIERAPEUTI< 
 
 part of our special work to bring it about. Therefore 
 we don't take in hand such a case at all, but are perl, 
 ly willing any one should, who feels it is part of his 
 mission to do so. We do not know to what extent every 
 one can be influenced, but one thing we do knew, and 
 that is that we can never influence patients for good 
 until we can hold them in the thought of good. When 
 we have reached a plane of perl an per- 
 
 haps hold all others on that high level. Tb ins 
 
 to be no definite Karmic limitation mentioned in the 
 New Testament. Jesus w; >nishedat lack of faith, 
 
 he wept over Jerusalem and cried," o Jerusalem, Jerus- 
 alem, how often would I ha 1 hered thy children 
 together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under 
 her wings, and ye would hot!" We do not believe 
 any one is obliged to make had Karma. We do not 
 believe any one is obliged to truth, but all have 
 liberty to do so. If we deliberately reject truth when 
 presented to us we voluntarily create evil Karma. It' 
 it appears that Karma sometimes opera! to pre- 
 vent certain persons fron uth, you as healer 
 may be perhaps allowed to feel : %% Well, I have <i 
 my duty, I must leave results to I Sometii 
 you may have to shake dust offyour feet. Jes 
 4 Go ye into all the world, preach the gospel to every 
 creature/' The preacher mus rayed by no doubt 
 as to whether some people can receive his n 
 whilst others can not. If we entertain a belief that 
 some people cannot he healed, we impose limitat • 
 upon ourselves we should be much better without. If 
 we do our duty faithfully we shall always he blessed. 
 If you undertake some cases and fail, (as you say,) you 
 
SPIRITUAL TBBRAPKUT1 
 
 do not fail utterly because you have certainly been of 
 some use to the person you treated and to humanity 
 large. You have sown good seed. Whenever a person 
 speaks a good word, though it may Dot make any 
 appreciable impression upon the person for whom it 
 was intended it effects somebody f< . we know 
 
 era! cases in point, one of which we will quote: Two 
 ladies were walking on the street, one of them pleading 
 earnestly with the other. A woman whom neither of 
 them saw or knew anything about was walking 
 behind them, and her whole future was changed by 
 what she overheard. AVe never know the extent of 
 our audience. AVe cannot tell when treating how many 
 minds we are reaching. Do not narrow down your 
 treatment to a single patient, but remember always that 
 our work is bound to be of service to humanity at large 
 in ways too subtle for objective analysis many tin 
 Only by doing good toothers can we make good Karma 
 for ourselves. 
 
 Ques. Xo. 13. What would he your explanation 
 ofjyoison coming from minerals or vegetalli 
 
 Ans. Because of their being improperly used A 
 taxidermist finds arsenic very useful in stuffing birds. 
 He has no disagreeable thought with regard to arsenic. 
 He knows it is not intended for food. He knows if he 
 puts it where it does not belong it will become rela- 
 tively evil. Every so-called evil thing must be put in 
 its own place and allowed to do its appointed work, 
 then will it prove itself good in its manner. The 
 thought of poison in plants and minerals pro rom 
 
 a derangement in ideas. Everything has its p! 
 
 : tain things fit into certain grooves. When error 
 
254 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 results discord must have been created. Looking at 
 poisons from another point of view Mrs. Grimke says: 
 "If there were no calumny in mortal mind there would 
 be no arsenic in visible effect." Many say there would 
 be no poisonous plants if erroneous states of mortal 
 mind had never caused them. Some people kill valu- 
 able plants by destructive thoughts, others again s 
 tain noxious weeds. We know a lady who can make 
 nothing but w grow in h< den. Another 
 
 lady's garden has no weeds. It simply comes to I 
 The emanations from the one lady nourish w« i 
 while the emanations from the other nourish Bowi 
 Of course there is truth in the theory of magnet 
 but magnetism is primarily spiritual or mental p<>< 
 If any one benefits another by magnetism, it is really 
 by mental action or thought transference. Magi 
 ism far too often associated with material beliefs which 
 convey ideas not in harmony with spiritual science. 
 It seems to us that, taking the world as it 
 can justly entertain three ideas eoncernin ns . 
 
 In the first place, everything is good provided it is 
 rightfully related, and not otherwise. Therefore you 
 do not think of eating everything. And if you do not 
 eat everything you use, why should you eat certain 
 vegetables, or take certain minerals into your s 
 Then another view is, that everything is produced in 
 obedience to a state of mind we sometimes re< 
 but often fail to recognize, and so long as certain 
 states of mind continue so long will their expressions 
 continue. If we cultivate higher thoughts we shall 
 starve out poisonous plants and animals. If such 
 gigantic creatures as the mammoth and mastodon no 
 
SPIRITUAL THEEAPBU1 K>. 255 
 
 longer exist, why should not poisonous inserts, reptiles 
 and plants die out i They certainly will ultimately 
 
 disappear under the law of the survival of the Btb 
 The third view is that all these things neednol affect or 
 
 move us. We are so far superior to all minerals, veg 
 ables and animals that if we only realize our true 
 relation to God, and also understand our right relation 
 to the inferior or external world, we shall he always 
 safe. In treating one who has been poisoned you 
 must make your patient fully realize his relation to 
 God, he must also realize his relation to the external uni- 
 verse. Your relation to your friends in truth is that 
 of co-operative harmony. Your relation to angelic 
 influences is that of true spiritual communion. But 
 your right relation to every form of error is the rela- 
 tion of controlling power to the thing controlled. 
 Many people talk about mind and matter so as only to 
 confound language. They say matter is negative and 
 spirit positive, but after they have declared this they 
 make spirit negative, and matter positive. They say 
 matter can influence mind and make persons ill. They 
 affirm that influences below man can overcome man. 
 But there can be no real health apart from spiritual 
 understanding, the understanding and realization that * 
 we are children of God. When we truly realize our 
 sonship to the Eternal w r e can completely subdue all 
 below us; we are then in a condition not to dread 
 reptiles and other creatures equally below us. In that 
 state, if a viper lighted upon your arm it could not 
 harm you any more than it hurt Paul. Our most 
 effective work consists in exorcising demons from our 
 own breasts. If we practised stricter self-discipline or 
 
256 SPIKITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 self control we should soon render ourselves invulner- 
 able and no longer care for lower things. We should 
 then no longer dread the viper or the upas tree. We 
 might remove them for the sake of others, but we 
 should ourselves be in no danger from them. When 
 we get on the high ground of spiritual victory we have 
 outgrown the infantile condition of the mind which, 
 being negative even though innocent, rend 
 sessor susceptible to <1, 
 
 Ques. No. 14. Do you think 
 superior to the universal mind in relation to j 
 
 Ans. There is no universal mind except the mind 
 of deity and God's mind is alone infinite; when we trust 
 God fully we become one with (rod. One finite mind 
 alone can not resist all danger. When you realize your 
 relation to God you feel the forceof the words, % * I and 
 my Father are one." The infinite can surely overcome 
 the finite, but the finite can not vanquish the infinite. 
 You say when in the bondage of sense and therefore 
 fear the strength of evil, " I am bul one mind contend- 
 ing against a host of minds. 93 But is it not for 
 you to contend against all there is of finite mind than 
 against the infinite mind of God? God is on the 
 of health and good, disease is opposed to Him, fear of 
 poison is rebellion against the mind of God, or at le 
 it is utter distrust of God's sovereignty. Trust in 
 God is necessary to our deliverance from fear. If we 
 don't trust we remain in fear, because we think of the 
 multitude of evil influences about us. But how many 
 good angels are there I Are there not more angels 
 than devils in the universe} Then why should anyone 
 be overcome by evil? Which is the stronger — evil or 
 
spiritual thesapi 
 
 good 8 Health or disease I Poison or spiritual influx I 
 
 If we only turn our thoughts to angels instead of devils; 
 if we only think of the power of God instead of the 
 power of evil, we gain the victory. A young man in 
 ancient story was affrighted when lie saw the enemy, 
 but when he saw the host of God he feared the enemy 
 no longer. David never was so strong physically 
 Goliath, but when Goliath attempted to light David lie 
 was conquered If David had trusted in any other 
 power than the divine he could not have conquered 
 Goliath. If you have intelligently read Bulwer hvt- 
 bon's story, " The Coming Race," you will know that 
 the vril he speaks of as being carried in little frail sti< 
 by those mysterious people who live under the earth, 
 and who he says are to become the future inhabitants 
 of the upper world according to that romance is noth- 
 ing other than will power. A boy of twelve encoun- 
 ters a tremendous monster, but on directing his little 
 vril stick towards him, the creature is consumed to a 
 cinder. Vril possesses a power like light] 
 one who carries it feels that he has indeed a magic staff 
 in his hand. We all have a similar feeling when 
 realize that in spirit we possess that which can d 
 every form of error. Instead of fearing poist 
 know that we can give error a dose of truth will 
 
 destroy it instantly. We are never safe till we trust 
 entirely in the divine light we derive from the infinite, 
 the electric lire of the Holy Spirit. 
 Ques. No. 15. To what occult 
 pondl 
 
 1 It signifies the human will as superior to the 
 animal will. It is generated by the enlightened mine 
 17 
 
258 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 man when man's sixth principle is developed. H man 
 exercises his sixth principle nothing can injuriously af- 
 fect aim. The human soul (fifth principle) versus the 
 animal soul (fourth principle) always conquers, but vril 
 is discovered only though the sixth principle (spiritual 
 soul), for until reason and intelle illumined from 
 
 above (within) we cannot truly discipline and employ 
 our fifth or intellectual principle in subduing the fourth 
 and its correspondents, which take in the entire range 
 of the animal and yet lower kingdoms; we must unfold 
 the higher to guide the nexl l>e]<>w. 
 
 Que& N<> 16. Wh Wherein 
 
 the chief different* helm \et\ Why did 
 
 Paul plod proph Ifier spiritual gif 
 
 ('(in weatt <tff<t'nt t<> a development of It / lias 
 ogy any connection withgenuim prophetic insight f 
 
 A.\s. The chief difference i prophets and 
 
 priests consists in the fact that the formerare seers, while 
 the latter are hut echoes, so far as their teaching is con- 
 cerned. This statement is not intended as in any man- 
 ner disredpect ful to the priests of anj >n, many of 
 whom are noble philanthropists; it simply embodies 
 the self-evident conclusion that those who look to an- 
 cient canons of authority for all their wisdom, must 
 necessarily refuse to allow that the still small v< 
 speaking within the soul of each individual is that in- 
 dividual's rightful and only absolute guide. 
 
 A prophet is a revelator and an exliorter. Predic- 
 tion, in the ordinary sense, is not always true prophetic 
 insight; a prophet is not a fortune-teller, but one who 
 sees so deeply into the realm of causation and the soul 
 of things as to be able to state the Inevitable outcome 
 
SPIRITUAL THEBAMUTK 
 
 of a certain course of procedure. Prophets know more 
 
 of cause and effect than other people, and ma\ be com- 
 pared to men standing on lofty heights, commanding 
 
 an extended view of the surrounding country. Dwell- 
 ers in the valleys can only see a. little way before them, 
 and thus, through ignorance of where different roads 
 lead, make many false steps, and go in the oppo- 
 site direction to that in which they need to tread. A 
 man on a mountain can call down to them from his ex- 
 alted station, and his voice may be that of a true guide 
 and savior, because lie is in a position to see whither 
 roads tend, the destination of which can be viewed 
 only from a lofty elevation. 
 
 True seership is the most practically useful of all pos- 
 sible endowments, and therefore Paul eulogized it beyond 
 all other gifts. How can we cultivate it, is the impor- 
 tant question to answer. It is necessary to retire into 
 silence, to give no heed for awhile to external voi< 
 to cease interrogating our neighbors, to desist from con- 
 sulting the world's oracles, then if we remain mentally 
 still for a short time, fixing our thoughts and <1 « 
 intently upon the object of our search, we shall learn 
 that we have inward eyes and ears, and that spiritual 
 voices and divine intuitions can Lead us safely over in- 
 numerable difficulties, under which we should, in our 
 ordinary condition, sink. 
 
 Prophecy is insight, hindsight and foresight, and is 
 in truth nothing other than a penetrative perception of 
 the law of necessity. A prophet is not a fatalist, he 
 does not affirm that there is a private destiny marked 
 out for each human individual. Ee deals with the i 
 destiny of man, and with the inevitable sequence of 
 
2f>0 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 events, which does not at all imply that men and 
 women have no power to shape their own ends. 
 
 Ignorance means bondage, while knowledge is indis- 
 pensable to freedom. i)v increasing knowledge the 
 prophet increases the responsibility of man. as it is 
 his sacred mission to so instruct the world thai ignor- 
 ance, which aforetime was only weakness, at length 
 becomes criminal. 
 
 All true teachers are prophets. It should never be 
 our ambition to pry into the future to forestall 
 
 either joy or sorrow, and live as though we were the 
 creatures of luck' and not of effort, but to SO learn the 
 relations of cause and effect, as they concern our daily 
 life, that we may be able to prevent accidents and avert 
 catastrophes. To foretell impending doom in a blank 
 sense is not edifying, it is depressing and enervating. 
 The old adage is true, ■• forewarned is forearmed." If 
 Ave know that certain events are likely to trans; 
 true seership will enable lis to prepare to meet them. 
 By means of it we can conquer obstacles to which, in 
 our blindness, we should yield. 
 
 With reference to astrology the words of an enlij 
 ened astrologer may be quoted with profit : "The v 
 man rules his stars, the fool obeys them." By this it is 
 meant that just as meteorology enables coastmen and 
 farmers to protect their belongings and secure general 
 public safety against the coming of storms, \vl. 
 approach can not be warded oiT, so those who are 
 warned by intuition or clairvoyance may be in a con- 
 dition to guard against wrecks <>r disasters, which need 
 not follow if proper precautions are taken, but which 
 must inevitably supervene unless some skillful mind is 
 
SPIRITUAL TIIEKAPKl'TU & ggl 
 
 ready against an emergency. True prophecy calls at- 
 tention to the leak in the vessel or the bole in the root 
 
 It detects it and proclaims the direful results which 
 must inevitably ensue if it be not attended to in time. 
 
 A true prophet would deliver his mebsage to captain, 
 engineer, or other officer in charge of boat or train, 
 and, by foreseeing danger, stave it off, and thus win 
 the lasting thanks and honors of a saved multitude ; or 
 if his message were unheeded, the doom which befell 
 those who refused to hear, would be a calamity for 
 which they had only their own obstinate obduracy to 
 blame. 
 
 Qubs. Xo. 17. An eminent occult student i 
 private letter, says: Everything in natun to those 
 
 things involved therein, hence pain is as real 
 Will you please explain the discrepancy between this and 
 your teaching {if there is any)? 
 
 Axs. Innumerable controversies have arisen in 
 consequence of persons using one word in several oppo- 
 site senses. The word real is certainly susceptible of 
 more than one definition. "When in the highest meta- 
 physical sense, Spirit is spoken of as the only reality, 
 while matter is declared to be unreal, the thought in- 
 tended to be conveyed is that Spirit alone is eternal. 
 Xow pain may appear as real as pleasure on the exter- 
 nal or sense plane of existence, but we must never for- 
 get that our sensations are transitory, and so fai 
 they appear to arise from external things, they can not 
 be everlasting. Pain as a sensation may be regarded 
 a3 an educator, we do not necessarily disagree with 
 those who call it the voice of an alarmist bidding u* 
 to what is wrong, that having our attention called 
 
262 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 thereto, we may rectify an error. As to saying pain is 
 as real as we are, we consider it a most unscientific 
 statement, unless by " we " is meant simply the lower 
 or earthly nature which the higher and abiding " we" 
 hope some day to outgrow. If we arc replying to a 
 student of theosophical literature ihoold ask him 
 
 to consider pain as an emotion of the inferior princi- 
 ples in. the constitution of man. The higher principle 
 does not and can not sutl'nvisii never errs or sins, and pain 
 is a penalty, educational, redemptive, necessary we admit, 
 when we have fallen into error, but the higher princi- 
 ple does not fall into crmr, and consequently neither 
 needs nor endures such reformatory chastening. A 
 brief oonsideral ion of the three distinct principles which 
 enter into the constitution of man, and of which we 
 are all more or less deeply conscious, may throw some 
 light on this seemingly perplexing problem. We 
 intellectual beings, are living between ti bual and 
 
 the animal in us, and suffering is occasioned by the 
 struggle or conflict continually going forward in us 
 well as around us. Paul graphically describes this 
 in the seventh chapter of his epistle to the Romans, 
 which may be very profitably studied in this com 
 tion. We shall undoubtedly all Buffer pain until we 
 no longer require such discipline; pain therefore, in 
 its place is good, it serves an end, and when it> t» 
 made plain it is no longer the hopeless enigma it was 
 previously. We must outgrow a condition which ne 
 sitates suffering, and true spiritual treatment assists us 
 to do so. A right treatment helps a patient to grow, 
 mentally and morall} 7 . 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTI< 
 
 Ques. 18. Do you agree icith th< following from the 
 same writer f God is not only lore and wU ttigi not but 
 He i f/nny that exists on earthand am/wh 
 
 and effect are one and the sa/m can 
 
 not be separated. Man and Godaret/u sa/me^ 
 physical nature is as holy and saws d a i t lie. 
 
 The points raised in the foregoing statement, which 
 is not a question but an assertion, are far too profound 
 and numerous to be entered into here at any length. 
 We regard the statement as decidedly pantheistic, and 
 as we are not pantheists we fail to endorse it in tot . 
 the same time the ultimate of such assertion is agreeable 
 to the genius of an enlightened philosophy, and cannot 
 be said to differ from the Xew Testament doctrine that 
 the human body is God's temple. In essence every- 
 thing must be divine, there can be no other life than 
 the one infinite life which is the life of God. Such a view 
 is calculated to elevate rather than depress our view of 
 existence, and is therefore largely beneficial. We must 
 get to the root of all things to find their real divinity. 
 We must touch the bed rock in the nature of oar pa- 
 tients before Ave can treat them successfully, and were 
 we called upon to treat a person holding the opinions 
 under review, we should scarcely seek to supplant 
 them. All is good; there is no evil, is ultimately true 
 in every instance. 
 
 Ques. No. 19. Why is it that men t 
 mercenary as they advance in life ? Gi m rot* 
 i,oi] t c stingy men. 
 
 Why are we so sordid, and why do we gr\ 
 
 If we are all spirit^ why such earthly natures ? 
 
2G4 SPIRITUAL T&ERAPBOTl 
 
 Ans. We must never forget that so long as we 
 subject to mortal influence at all, we shall remain to 
 some degree the creatines of our surroundings. While 
 the supreme truth concerning man as an immortal spir- 
 itual entity is that he is pure spirit, we should not allow 
 our eyes to close against 1 lie fact that we have a mortal 
 mind to educate and develop, until it becomes the lit I 
 channel for the expression of the inmost or highest 
 principle of our nature. The lower principle or ani- 
 mal soul in us is not essentially or intrinsically evil. 
 It is, indeed, vet I when rightfully subjected 
 
 to the higher principle, and our earthly discipline 
 can only be said to be complete when this lo 
 nature is completely Bubservienl to the higher. Now, 
 this lower principle is the nature we share in com- 
 mon with the animals, all of whom, without 
 ception, manifest a lower ty] ffection than that 
 
 which bespeaks the spiritual man. Self interest, self- 
 preservation, love of approbation and particular re- 
 gard for those who bestow favors en them are marked 
 characteristics of man v, if not all the lower creature! 
 who serve US and with whom w< . Now, in 
 
 man these animal traits are always conspicuous until 
 the loftier spiritual manhood pertaining to the higher 
 principle, which animals do not share with man. is made 
 manifest. What then is the sordidness of which 
 many complain? Surely it is nothing more or other 
 than an intense, indeed, an overweening regard for 
 one's personal comfort and social standing and that of 
 one'sfamily, without thought or regard for the equal ad- 
 vantages due to others. " Thou shah love thy neighbor 
 as thyself/' introducing as it does, the singular number 
 
SPIRITUAL THEKAPKUH 265 
 
 in both cases, suggests to every attentive mind that the 
 command, when fully interpreted, tells us that it is our 
 duty to recognize all men and women as our brothers 
 and sisters, even to the extent of acting out the sublime 
 principle of fraternity, so far as to think no more of 
 our individual prosperity, than that of any other human 
 unit in the great mass we call society. This is where 
 spiritual science, or true theosophy, antagonizes human 
 selfishness and calls forth the bitterest and most scorn- 
 ful denunciation from selfish and self -sufficient egotists, 
 who will not tolerate the assertion that the rights of 
 our common humanity must never be set aside to favor 
 the caprice of an ambitious individual. If we can hut 
 grasp, in some measure, the glorious idea of God's uni- 
 versal parenthood, we have a base on which to build 
 securely a sound philosophy of human brotherhood and 
 sisterhood. But until this conviction becomes deep 
 enough in every heart to make it the moving principle, 
 the mainspring of all conduct — until man becomes 
 angelic enough to live in the love of heaven, caring 
 more for his brethren than for himself — not, indeed, 
 neglecting his own culture or disregarding his own 
 needs, hut placing himself in such relation to all his 
 neighbors as to consider any two human entities of 
 twice the value of one, even though himself be the 
 unit under consideration — until then, the love of hell, 
 which is nothing other than inordinate self-love, greater 
 regardfor self than for neighbor will continue to plunge 
 men and nations into all the awful depths of crime 
 and convulsive throes of anarchy, which at the present 
 moment so sadly terrify and depress many gentle and 
 most amiable persons. Xow, the only possible remedy 
 
%GQ SPIRITUAL THERAI'KITI' 
 
 for these gigantic evils, ail springing from human self- 
 ishness, is a purely spiritual, but at the same time in- 
 tensely practical system of moral education. Moral 
 education need not lead to I, and it certainly 
 
 does not tend bo fanaticism in any direction. It is purely 
 and simply the culture of the higher dispositions of our 
 nature, and by a constant direction of all our 
 toward spiritual growth, instead of to ward the accumu- 
 lation of earthly property, it diverts the mind from 
 selfish dreams of personal aggrandizement and B 
 eye of ambition on the shining mark of spiritual ad- 
 vancement. False standards of wealth and honor easily 
 corrupt the morals of youth. Fine houses, extern 
 lands, elegant equipages, handsome clot 
 jewels, these and many like vanities are regarded as the 
 highest good by multiti :.<! why? Sur 
 
 cause, as a rule, we all show respect to those in afflu 
 circumstances, while we sho- e of 
 
 far greater moral and mental worth who have not 
 these baubles to display. Riches exert a powerful 
 psychological hold on the minds of men and women, 
 because of their immense purchasing po\i id what 
 
 can they not purchase in society as at present organ- 
 ized 1 If they could only buy collateral advant; 
 an external kind, many who now dote on them would 
 at once despise them. But alas, they purchase in 
 many instances the respect, esteem and homage which 
 by rights belong only to superior character. When 
 our standard of value is reversed and we esteem ) 
 pie for what they are, not for what they have, this 
 sordidness must disappear like murky vapors before the 
 day dawn. Many men who seem intensely sordid iu 
 
SPIRITUAL THKRAPEUT* 267 
 
 business circles are most kind and lovable at home, and 
 try to live up to the Golden Rule; the world's tempta- 
 tions in the commercial sphere are however so Btrong 
 
 that they succumb. Let it be our work to reform pub- 
 lic sentiment so as to deliver such from evil. 
 
 Ques. No 20. What influence is it that prompts 
 
 noble men and women to so far interest therm 
 
 to martyrdom and violent deaths, in the momentous 
 questions of the day — to the advocacy of Anarch 
 America and Nihilism in Russia. Is not tht ir devotion 
 to these causes of disruption a misinterpreted inspirar 
 
 Hon ? 
 
 Axs. We regard the persons referred to as 
 blundering reformers, many of them without doubt 
 are endeavoring, as best they know how, to correct 
 prevalent abuses, but so under the dominion of the 
 lower principle are they, that they fail altogether to 
 detect the only true means, whereby reform can be 
 brought about. Co-operation, not competition, is the 
 natural order. Children are falsely instructed when 
 led to gratify an emulous ambition to rise above others. 
 Poverty is quite unnecessary in America, but it will 
 never be fully abolished as long as the wage system con- 
 tinues. This old system, a relic of feudal institutions, 
 can not, however, be swept away by violent , dona 
 
 on the part of laborers upon the persons and po- 
 of capitalists. Reform can only be attained through 
 processes of social and industrial evolution. Anarchism 
 andXihilismare the children of despotism. They arc the 
 offspring of systems of injustice and inhumanity which 
 r e birth to desperadoes, who destroy their own parents. 
 Evil invariably destroys itself. In these times of 
 
268 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 cessively rapid motion the work of destruction is 
 accomplished by violent measures and at a high rate of 
 speed. The chemicalization of error must needs con- 
 tinue until every vestige of selfishness and animality is 
 purged from human thought and affection, and while 
 w$ may bemoan the measures taken to rectify wro 
 and leave no stone unturned to show our erring breth- 
 ren the better way, the only proper attitude to be taken 
 in these days of angry revolt is thai error in destroy- 
 ing itself is manifesting its true inwardness. We may 
 learn from present disasters how absolutely necessary 
 for the maintenance of social order and domestic pe; 
 are the spiritual truths, which ai« _• the at- 
 
 tention of profound thinkers throughout the world. 
 One evil may destroy another, as our poison may be 
 an antidote to another, hut it takes an enunciation and 
 demonstration of the principle of tr to up- 
 
 build a republic of the nations, in which every citizen 
 will enjoy a comfortable competency as the reward of 
 his own industry, which is possible immediately the 
 demon of selfishness isoasl onl of mind. 
 
 Ques. No. 21. To a p >/ios< happinei 
 
 the higher sort on earth hash the 
 
 ( ,r< rcise of the aff\ ctions^ doi s it j '"it nothing 
 
 this is preservable in our futurt staU 
 ings which have a din ct re > to n llgious or 
 
 iial philosophy t Ts not l 
 
 Ans. All true affection is spiritual, and therefore 
 immortal, but surely none will deny that much that is 
 called love is nothing but self-love. If we love oth 
 in a purely earthly manner by reason of the happiness 
 they give us, our affection can not pertain to the im- 
 
Sl'IKllTAL TUERAFEUTK 
 
 mortal state, but if we love one another purely and 
 unselfishly wo may take the words of Jesus, recorded 
 in the fourteenth chapter of the Fourth Gospel, and 
 
 apply them to every human case. Individuality is the 
 basis of life. We do not teach or believe that a time 
 will ever come when the soul's identity will be lost. 
 Neither do we anticipate a day when those who are 
 truly related in spirit will be forced asunder. Darby 
 and Joan, who after fifty years of wedded bliss arc 
 dearer to each other than on their wedding day, can 
 surely with confidence look forward to a continuation 
 of their mutual love beyond the grave, while tli 
 whose affections are sensual and selfish will assuredly 
 drift apart and eventually discover that what they called 
 love on earth was only a delusive chimera. Unhappi- 
 ness in married life comes from inordinate exaction on 
 one side or the other. The true spiritual scientist must 
 not demand affection or live to be blessed, but bestow 
 affection and work to bless others. Angelic love is all 
 unselfish, the love of heaven that seeks no return is 
 the love that reaps so glorious and plenteous a harvest, 
 that indescribable bliss fills those souls to overflowing 
 who, thinking not of any reward, find the truth of the 
 statement, most perfectly exemplified in their expe- 
 rience, that to give is more blessed than to receive. If 
 our affections are of the earth we must be wounded 
 through them, as, being mortal they must die, and we 
 -utTer in their death if we cling to them. All 
 affection is eternal. 
 
 Qob8. No. 22. What is faith t Is ii 
 (hat ilu patient hoot faith in tlu heaU 
 
270 SPIRITUAL TIIKKAl'KLTICS. 
 
 Ahs. Faith, from the Latin which gives 09 
 
 the English word fidelity, docs not by any means 
 nify that blind credulity or unreasoning belief, which 
 many people mo erroneously dignify with the name of 
 faith. In the oldHebrev of the word, faith in- 
 
 variably meant integrity, and thus the upright man 
 was always styled the man of faith, in business cir- 
 cles, rather than in religious ones, we find this word 
 still employed in its nncorrupted meaning; no etymolo- 
 gist would so far misemploy it as to identify it with 
 gullibility. Faith is a grace, a moral excellence, a virtue 
 of the highest ethical importance Belief is secondary 
 to faith and has a value quite distinct from faith, faith 
 relating to the purpose of >ra a moral standpoint j 
 
 while belief can be only a m >f intellectual con* 
 
 viction at most. Tor line faith of a patient 
 
 is to demand nothing unreasonable, as it is only to 
 quire honesty of purp 
 
 as to belief, no reasonable per another to 
 
 believe without sufficient evidence, as he himself cap 
 not yield assent to any unproven proposition. It is not 
 virtuous to believe, neith< ous to disbelii 
 
 When a stranger makes his app and puts out 
 
 his Bign in anew oity,the inhabitants rightly inquire into 
 his credentials before they take him into their famil 
 So, when a novel theory com- world, w 
 
 people neither endorsi nderan it off hand, they 
 
 earnestly and dispassionately investigate it. J *;i t i< 
 are often tired of experimenting with medicine. They 
 have suffered much at the hands of various schools of 
 practice, and hearing of wh; s to them a new 
 
 and wonderful method of healing, especially when im- 
 
SPIBTTUAL THBBAPEUTICS. L'Vl 
 
 poriuned by friends to do so, they are quite willing 
 
 ami often anxious to give it a trial. Such people can 
 not approach a mental or spiritual healer in perfect 
 confidence that his system is the only true one, nor 
 can they feel absolutely sure of receiving benefit, unless 
 some very strong influence or evidence is brought to 
 hear upon them to produce such a result. Now a h< 
 er should not crave impossibilities or endeavor to exact 
 what is unreasonable from an inquirer. Let the works 
 speak for themselves. Let faith follow rather than 
 precede demonstration. If anyone expects another to 
 believe in him,he must generate and dispense an influence 
 which compels grateful recognition at the hands of the 
 sick and sorrowful, and the true healer invariably 
 does this. You have doubtless all felt a subtile, 
 pervasive atmosphere surrounding particular peo- 
 ple, a "virtue" going forth from them in some 
 indescribable manner, reaching and blessing you, 
 which has compelled you to acknowledge that 
 they are dispensers of a power which ordinary peo- 
 ple seem not to convey. Xow if you are in so 
 
 b manner attracted to a healer it is because he has 
 already treated you and you have felt the beneficial 
 result, which always accompanies and follows the 
 establishment of harmony in your mental Bph< 
 Some people possess this gift in marvelous degree, and 
 only those -who can help others unconsciously by reason 
 of this helpful force going from them to others, are 
 really well adapted to become professional heal 
 in. many lines of business good address go 
 way, and persons of considerable intelli are 
 
 frequently unfit for prominent positions where tl 
 
272 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC*. 
 
 have to constantly meet and converse with many people, 
 because of their lack of all that make up what 
 
 is commonly called "good address," so a public healer 
 who would make healing* his life work, as physicians 
 devote themselves to the pratice of medicine, should 
 invariably be one who can inspire confidence and 
 regard in the great majority of the sufferers he 
 encounters or who come to him lor advice and [ft 
 ment. What is often regarded as necessary on the 
 patient's part is at first inseparable from certain qualifi- 
 cations in the healer eesen I ial to induce it, so while often- 
 times stumbling blocks may be placed by the patient 
 in the way of his own re by his own obdurate 
 
 bigotry or folly, it fi y happens thai the u too 
 
 little faith" is in the healer as well as in the patient. 
 The GrOSpel narratives amply illustrate this fact, 
 they record a vari- < failed 
 
 to heal because of their own imperfe* while many 
 
 otlr -!' the fault being on tin- 
 
 side of the invalids. Faith <>!' tie 
 on both sides. Tl i well groum 
 
 in spiritual conviction, as to be above the doubts and 
 fears which so readil dinary individ 
 
 while the paitent often needs that stimulation of faith 
 which contact with a I ►uglily convinc* 
 
 frequently supplies. Prejudices musl he laid as 
 the patient must endeavor to let go of bigotry and :_ 
 the healer a fair field, though a true healer asks 
 favors. Faith in the sense of belief is a response to a 
 blessing already received, while faith in its deeper 
 sense means perfect straightforwardness, honesty in 
 thought, word and action. If you iind yourselves in- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 873 
 
 spiring confidence in yourself and the system you ad- 
 vocate, even among people who have hitherto been 
 totally indifferent and skeptical if not positively 
 
 antagonistic to spiritual methods of healing, you have 
 evidence that from you has gone forth to them a force 
 as palpable to their interior sense as a flower's fragrance 
 is to your exterior sense of smell. When you can arouse 
 foith in all its meanings in those to whom you fain 
 would minister, you are showing indisputable credentials 
 vouching for your genuine ability to heal. 
 
 Ques. No. 23. r hut is chemicalization? Is it 
 ssary stage In wnfoldmentt 
 
 Axs. Chemicalization is equivalent to crisis and 
 ferment, it occurs when new thoughts are actively 
 engaged in conquering old opinions. All physicians 
 speak much of crises and declare them to be the turn- 
 ing points in the conditions of their patients. Chemi- 
 calization is often inevitable though no one is justified 
 in assuming that it is invariably necessary, for many 
 cases have been known to yield instantly to spiritual 
 power, without the patient suffering anything of the 
 nature of a crisis. To explain the workings of the 
 various forces, all operating upon a patient, from most 
 discordant sources, would require a lengthy discourse, 
 and, as in reply to a question, we can do little mora 
 than hint at the solution of a complex problem, we must 
 request our readers to ponder our remark long and 
 carefully, that by setting their minds upon the subject 
 under consideration they may induce a mental Bl 
 
 arable to the reception of ideas through their own 
 interior avenues of perception. We all speak and hear 
 much of t lie force of habit, and those of us who an 
 18 
 
274 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 all familiar with psychological influence, must be more 
 
 or less aware that when a practice, be it desirable or 
 undesirable, gains powerful hold over a person's mind, 
 it is in consequence of a (usually unconscious) establish 
 ment of psychical relations between his mind and the 
 minds of others. Let us look for a moment at habits 
 and their formation. Almost without exception habits 
 arc forced on sensitive people, very young people, and 
 children in particular, from without, they seem rarely to 
 be evolved from within. Many of the most pernicious 
 practices to which men are addicted, do not seem indi- 
 genous to the natural mind, they are artificially induced 
 through contact with people who influence tl 
 younger and in sonic resp< eaker than themse] 
 
 Drinking and smoking as w ell as the filthy and detest- 
 able habit of chewing tobacco, with many other forms 
 of impropriety, arc usually pressed upon a boy by older 
 companions, into the net of whose vile mesmeric fascina- 
 tion he is ignorantly drawn. Whenever one does any- 
 thing one feels to be degrading or even unpleasant, 
 because of an outside influence urging him to do it, lie 
 is 3 r ielding to a psychological influence of the l>. 
 sort and forming mental associations of th< 
 dangerous character, from whose grasp he may 
 find it difficult in the extreme to struggle i'wc in 
 future years. As men follow each other in paths 
 of vice so do even virtuous women follow each 
 other in the paths of folly, and in many things allow 
 themselves to be led wholly by some stupid fashion 
 or prevailing custom, which in their hearts they thor- 
 oughly despise. These weak yieldings to extraneous 
 influence so far impoverish the will and render people 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUT* 
 
 unnaturally susceptible to every foul thing about them, 
 
 that when they least expect it they find themselves 
 
 rtaken with some pestilential, though fashionable 
 
 ■ausc prevalent, disorder. Now when spiritual four 
 operates to break the chains and loosen the bonds which 
 
 hold the prisoner captive in the clutches of degrading 
 error, a conflict ensues, the devil sti to keep his 
 
 prize in his embrace, while theChrist works t<> take his 
 victim from him. Many instances in tlie New Testa- 
 ment forcibly illustrate this experience. Take the 
 unclean spirits tearing the demoniacs when the; 
 out of them. You probably all know the ancient 
 Oriental theory of disease, it was invariably attributed 
 to the action of powers of darkness, and tl 
 the bonds of wickedness and delivering people i v 
 demoniacal possession (a process often called exorcism) 
 played a very conspicuous part in all Eastern methods 
 of healing. ITodern Spiritualism has thrown much 
 light on some of these ancient records by starting a 
 theory of obsession, which is practically identical with 
 the old belief in demoniacal possession. Such theor 
 while they are not wholly true and are terribly 
 to exaggeration, being frequently pressed so far as to 
 make them ridiculous as well as dangerous, neverthe] 
 contain sufficient truth to explain much which would 
 be utterly incomprehensible without their aid. Chem- 
 icalization is simply a modern expression recognizi 
 exorcism in a more intelligent form. I is 
 
 now being greatly modified in ail enlightened circles 
 where psychology is receiving the attention it desen 
 We can readily see how all the influences which tend 
 to degrade man may have been massed together by 
 
276 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 ancient philosophers, who styled them collectively man's 
 "evil genius," and how all of an elevating char- 
 acter have been similarly massed and designated "good 
 genius." Now the true spiritual healer stands to the 
 patient as a representative of the good genius, while all 
 that opposes his enlightenment and recovery stands in 
 the attitude of evilgenius. The struggle for ascendency 
 between the true and the false, the wise and the foolish, 
 confidence and fear, love and hate, etc.. is chemicaliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Ques. No. 24. Gem y ent in us any other 
 
 tain method ofdi Vi loping the i ruitfuln 
 
 nature than lhat which is laidd 
 where the 2>h f j*< r ''l cmd intellectual 
 fallal to bring spiritual lift to light t Isth< th>- 
 
 ologieal on < <K 
 ism" which has or can cha 
 
 (7. e. passion^ n is n > that freedom qfsj 
 
 and soul which was promised and i 
 Holy Spirit through faith \ whoal 
 
 ever claimed to do the will 
 
 Ans. AVe do not pretend to give any teachings in 
 opposition to those contained in the New Te 
 ment. It is simply our desire to arrive at the spiritual 
 truth enshrined in its letter instead of clinging to its 
 outward husk that causes us to take issue with prevail- 
 ing orthodox opinions. Our view of Scripture is that 
 all ancient Scriptures which have been and still are 
 highly venerated by multitudes, in their letter reflect 
 the general sentiment of the times in which thev \vi 
 written, but in their spirit thev deal with essential 
 truths of vital moment to mankind at all times and 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC 277 
 
 everywhere. Now as to a certain method of developing 
 our moral nature, we should most decidedly b 
 ground that it can only be developed at all by a una 
 and determined effort of will in the direction of 
 
 development, and by will we mean affection putting 
 
 forth an effort to reach its object. In the Athanasian 
 Creed the opening words Quicumque vult signify who- 
 ever wills or earnestly desires salvation must hold to 
 the universal faith, and it has always been a tenet of 
 Christianity that the will must be perfectly surrendered, 
 and that lovingly (not through fear) to the Divine Will, 
 or salvation, for which regeneration is but another 
 word, is impossible. Now it is a self-evident conclu- 
 sion reached by all students of human nature that noth- 
 ing can be successfully accomplished in any direction 
 apart from persistent effort in that direction. The 
 must be directed toward the cultivation of muscle, in- 
 tellect or art, or culture in those lines is impossible. 
 The only unpardonable sin is blasphemy against the 
 Holy Spirit, which means a deliberate steeling of 
 one's affections against truth. It is certainly a correct 
 view to take of education that mere secular training is 
 by no means adequate to secure the highest welfare 
 humanity, but spiritual culture is not brought about by 
 dogmatic theology or by the enforcement of creeds, 
 but solely by the influence of moral suasion in its 
 highest sense. As to changing a soul from slavery to 
 sin, to a state of freedom and righteousness, we should 
 pronounce all creeds and institutions inadequate to the 
 accomplishment of this divine work, which can only 
 brought about by the liberation of the spiritual man 
 from bondage to the mortal belief which make: 
 
278 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 an abiding reality, a potent force in the universe, either 
 personal or otherwise, and thereby creates a dread of 
 its power. To destroy all fear of evil and all belief in 
 its potency is to deliver men from its clutches. We 
 yield universally to what we fear as well as to what we 
 love, and where the love of sin appears not t . the 
 
 fear of it, and particularly the dread of its cdi 
 quences, leads to its commission, not through deliberate 
 intent, but through weakness, which is always at one 
 with abject susceptibility. As to faith in the Son of 
 God, we can understand theSwedenborgianex] 
 that Ave must be adjoined to tJie Lord by affectidtt for 
 good, but the ordinary evangelical interpretation of 
 faith is to our mind extremely unsatisfactory. Faith 
 means fidelity to conviction, and springs from love of 
 truth, not from a mere intellectual assent to proposi- 
 tions of truth. As to the forgn i >f sin, sin n< ver 
 is forgiven in the old ecclesiasl ical sense. It hi b to be 
 outgrown in every sense, and to forgive it as Jesus for- 
 gave is to destroy the love of il and prevent itsr ^com- 
 mission, not at all to deliver the one who hasalready 
 committed it from the reformatory penalty. 
 
 Ques. No. 25. Pleasi explai 
 practical teaching of Christian^ Men 
 Science when, freed from the points of dffi 
 which 8% vrtii % wrangU t 
 
 Ans. Probably most, if not all our readers arc quite 
 well acquainted with the names " Christian Science," 
 "Mental Science" and "Spiritual Science." Metaphys- 
 ical healing is now practiced under these different names 
 all over the world. The essential truth presented by 
 this system is that mind is entirely sovereign, mat 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPBUTK 
 
 being totally subservient to it. All take tin* ground 
 which has been taken by philosophers from time imme- 
 morial, that all is mind, ami therefore there is no n 
 tor. This statement is certainly astounding to the gatf 
 of an ordinary listener. The statement in one sense 
 appears groundless, because it seems to destroy all our 
 confidence in our senses. But when we realize that all 
 that is necessarily implied in such a statement is, that 
 there can be no effect without a cause adequate to p 
 duce it, and that all material things are simply phenom- 
 enal effects, while there is a great spiritual power he- 
 hind everything, we are only called to look upon the 
 external universe as the shadow of the spiritual, which 
 is the substantial universe. The substantial is immor- 
 tal; it can never die or fade a way. The shadow comes 
 and goes, while eternal stability portions only to that 
 which is as deathless as the Eternal Being who has 
 spoken all things into existence. 
 
 Now, when man realizes himself as one with eternal 
 life, he knows that the only life of which lie can be con- 
 scious is the one life which fills immensity, there being 
 no void nor emptiness anywhere. Our views of life 
 are hereby lifted entirely above the material plane. We 
 are carried in thought beyond all perishable forms of 
 clay and made to realize that we are spirit, thai we all 
 belong to one great family, and that we have — in the 
 last analysis of our subject — no parent except the 
 eternal God, and no destiny except to enjoy conscious 
 relation with the eternal soul of all life forever. 
 
 The word metaphysical means beyond physics, and 
 Pilfer. It reallv means, in its fullest 
 everything included in the vast domain of what 
 beyond the reach of the physical 
 
280 SPIRITUAL TIIKKAPIXTICS. 
 
 While metaphysicians do not call themselves The- 
 osophists or Spiritualists, and do not take any sectarian 
 name, or join with any particular creed or party, 
 may safely say that their universal object is to investi- 
 gate the realm of soul, and learn all they can concerning 
 spiritual being, to distinguish between outward exist- 
 ence, which is at the very best transitory and evanescent, 
 and that being which is eternal and immortal, which 
 never changes, and can never pass away 
 
 As the word theology literally means the Bcienc 
 God, and of all things divine, as truly as geology means 
 the science of the earth, or of terrestrial things in gen- 
 eral, equally may we affirm that spiritual science means 
 the science of the spiritual man, the science of the spir 
 itual universe, yes, and the sciena i >r there 
 
 is no sublimer and olearer definition of the Supreme 
 Being to be found in any literature, ancienl or modern, 
 than in John's gospel, where Jesus, in conversation 
 with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, dee] 
 ''God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must wor- 
 ship him in spirit and in truth. n 
 
 Now when the Jews and Samaritans were disputing 
 among themselves whether God should be worshiped 
 in the temple at Jerusalem, or from the top of the 
 mountain where the ruined temple of the Samaritans 
 was still standing, Jesus said practically: It matters 
 not whether in the temple at Jerusalem, or on this 
 mountain-top; whether in the open desert, or in the 
 solitude of your own inner chamber; whether in the 
 crowded streets and busy thoroughfares dedicated to 
 places of business, or in halls devoted to amusement. 
 You can worship God everywhere by doing all things 
 to the glory of God. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 281 
 
 Now, the real object of metaphysical instruction is 
 to help people to put into practice Paul's affirmation 
 that we should pray without ceasing. We can do 
 things to the glory of God, whether we eat Of drink, 
 or whatever we do. It does not need to he explained 
 that God does not need anything at our hands, God 
 is never hungry nor thirsty, nor in want of any kind; 
 we can not minister directly unto Him, l>ut His 
 children all around us are in need, and when we g 
 to them we are presenting an acceptable offering to 
 the Eternal Being, who can only be pleased as we 
 bless the children of His love, who are our brethren 
 as well as His children. 
 
 We agree with all true Theosopbists who explain 
 that the basis of Theosophy is universal brotherhood, 
 and that all true philosophy must be built upon this 
 one foundation. We must recognize the unity and 
 brotherhood of the entire human race, so that every 
 man is our brother and every woman our sUter. We 
 must not only believe, we must fed this, and there can 
 be no true metaphysical work done so long as we un- 
 duly respect wealth or even intellect ; so long as we 
 divide ourselves into aggressive knots and groups and 
 parties, looking down upon some as inferior, while we 
 regard others as superior; so long as we look to the 
 outward form and fashion of men; so long as we care 
 for a long line of hereditary descent, for what is com- 
 monly called blue blood flowing in our veins; so long 
 as we reverence the god of gold, to which s<> many bow 
 in servile adoration ; so long as we care tor vain fash- 
 ions and frivolities, and consequently raise our \<> 
 in concert with the multitude, " Givat is Diana of the 
 
282 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 Ephesians," if she be the popular deity of the hour, we 
 may be spiritual scientists in abstract belief, but we 
 shall ignominiously fail in practice. But when we learn 
 to truly respect ourselves so as to live in accordance 
 with the light which shines in the innermost re< 
 of the soul, when we direct our path by the voice 
 which speaks within us, then we shall be free ind< 
 free in truth, and our freedom will not consist only in 
 freedom from the fear of (hath, but also from sickn 
 and the recognition of death altogether. 
 
 It may sound Btrange to many persons, even if they 
 have read Mrs, Eddy's work, u Science and Health," to 
 be told that there is in reality neither death, si 
 ness nor sin in all the universe; but w< 
 learn to look away from all things perishable to divine 
 realities; We must learn to find within man that which 
 
 is alone enduring, which is never sick and never suf 
 
 J'ers, even the divine soul which never dies. It 
 tainly sounds very strange to be told th no sin. 
 
 no sickness, no death, while we many prisons 
 
 and reformatories, which cause us to say with much 
 show of reason, kk It is, indeed, a reality that sin 
 abounds/' While hospitals are tilled with sick- people, 
 is not sickness a reality! Is not death a reality when 
 we are requested again and again to officiate at funeral 
 services, and cemeteries are Idled with dead bod 
 But we ask, what is it that sins? What is it that suf- 
 fers? What is it that dies? It can only be an external 
 adjunct to man. Man surely is a deathless entity who 
 can neither sin, nor be sick, nor die. 
 
 This great truth concerning man is surely appre- 
 hended, or, at least, vaguely recognized, when we talk 
 
SPIRITUAL THEBAP] 
 
 of our better moments. We all realize that we bav< 
 higher self, and we all talk of our better moments. 
 
 What are we talking of, if not of our real, cardinal 
 nature, which is the foundation of all our existence^ h 
 not this our true and imperishable being) And ; 
 not desirable that we should become practically oblivi- 
 ous to external things, for the sake of more fully appre- 
 ciating the real and ever living spirit that we arc here 
 and now 1 
 
 We shall not become spiritual entities after we have 
 dropped the mortal form. We shall not go to a spirit- 
 ual world when these mortal forms have passed into 
 dust. We shall not then become the sons of God, but 
 we are such, here and now, and when our mortal 
 forms have passed away nothing will have passed from 
 us save an outward garment of flesh. 
 
 Xow, when we undertake to treat patients in har- 
 mony with spiritual science, we find ourselves oblig 
 to direct the patient's thoughts away from external 
 things altogether; therefore, instead of dwelling con- 
 tinually on outward signs and symptoms, instead of 
 highly regarding the body, and always quizzing it to 
 find out, if possible, in what condition it may be; 
 instead of administering medicine at certain hours, and 
 endeavoring to keep a room at a regulation tempera- 
 tore, and performing a variety of outward ceremoi 
 we know that liberation from disease is to get out of 
 the thought of these material works, and forget, ;it 
 least for the time being, that there is anytfa 
 external. 
 
 Xow, in order to get out of the external we must 
 get into the spiritual. You can not think of nothing. 
 
284 SPIHITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 you can not long do nothing. Every person will 
 occupy himself in some way, if not profitably, then 
 mischievously. Our minds will never remain still, and 
 therefore to say we must not think of matter, we must 
 not regard the flesh, and leave the statement in 
 unfinished a form is to preach a doctrine which prac- 
 tically means nothing, brcause no man can long com- 
 ply with its requirements. But when we say, " Fix 
 your thought upon spiritual form; maintain that all 
 is life, all is good; look within, take a glance at your 
 own immortal soul, and find yourself lace to face with 
 the stupendous reality of spiritual being," we know 
 that your mental an be BO riveted upon the 
 
 immortal that you will completely forget the mortal. 
 Your whole thought will he concentrated on tlie 
 eternal, and so you will become unmindful of the 
 material, and of all outside the interior realm, where 
 your higher coi less forever dwells secure. 
 
 Speaking of outward aids to interior development, 
 many people inquire,"Of what possible use can a talis- 
 man be?" We do not ourselves believe that sacred 
 words have any efficacy of their own resting in them. 
 But as for thousands of years people have worn or 
 otherwise employed them, as many dews have placed 
 texts of Scripture in little houses, upon their foreheads, 
 and upon their arms, that they might he perpetually 
 reminded of divine truth; and while among enlight- 
 ened Jews there never was a time when the tephilin 
 were considered of talismanic value, they being only 
 used as reminders of great spiritual truths, so all out- 
 ward assistants are, from a metaphysical standpoint, 
 regarded as valuable only in so far as they direct the 
 
SPIRITUAL THKBAPBUT] 
 
 thought to a desired object. The words, "Hear, 
 Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," whenever 
 
 their eyes lighted upon the Hebrew oharacl 
 
 they wore, would remind them of the great central 
 truth of all religion, the Divine l/nity. So when we 
 are giving treatment either verbally or silently, by 
 presenting a thought we direct attention to a certain 
 plane of idea. Now if you look upon illuminated texts 
 such as " Honesty is the best policy," or u Charity never 
 failetb," or "Do unto others as you would that they 
 should do unto you," you are at once reminded of truth 
 which perhaps you had temporarily forgotten. If in a 
 church a prayer is spoken or a hymn sung in your 
 hearing, you are reminded of what perhaps you had 
 forgotten in the multiplicity of your household can 
 
 While it is impossible for us to do any work for our 
 brethren in their stead, we can assist them to arise and 
 work for themselves. The great work of the truly effi- 
 cient metaphysical healer is the work of one who is 
 continually presenting to a patient or student the line 
 in which thoughts should march. When a line of 
 march is indicated to us. when the right way is 
 pointed out, and a voice says to us. "This 
 the way; walk ye in it," there comes along with the 
 pointing a subtle, restraining and inducing power ; it is 
 not mesmeric; it is not psychologic in any ordinary 
 sense; it is not one mind controlling or exercis 
 authority over another; for the true metaphysical 
 healer is an educator, an enlightener of his brethn 
 for when we undertake to place truth before our 
 patient, we desire to make that patirnt realize it and 
 follow in that way which is pointed out to him by his 
 newly awakened sense of spiritual discernment. 
 
280 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 Spiritual science proclaims liberty for the individual 
 enlightened by truth, to walk in the light of the truth 
 as he himself perceives it. Multitudes of people love 
 truth, but have not yet perceived it very clearly. Mul- 
 titudes are longing to see .some brighter ray befi 
 them, to heai' a voice direct ing them where to go, and 
 to discern a hand pointing in the true direction, 
 and it is to help all such, to help all who | 
 straggling into light, that we should work. 
 
 Ques. No.26. I! intby Metaphy 
 
 Healing^ and / 
 How cni prayi r heal t) 
 
 In reply to t\ n earring question, wha 
 
 meant by raetaphy i nd what are the means 
 
 by which cur ompll8hed, we answer ti 
 
 are three means of healing plainly revealed in the New 
 Testament ; a1 all events lie three n y requie 
 
 are Faith, Prayer and l Jesus says, "This 
 
 kind," meaning the power to heal all manner of infirm- 
 ities, "cometb not fori pi by prayer and fasting.' 1 
 And He als tiding to your faith be it unto 
 you." 
 
 Now, when at define prayer, we say pn 
 
 is our tion of divine good, and our ear 
 
 endeavor to < n dation with it. 
 
 joinery beautifully defined it when 1 . "IVaw 
 
 the soul's Bin cere desire, uttered or unexpressed." 
 Prayer is mental asking, mental seeking, mental knock- 
 ing. 
 
 Whenever we induce people to seek, to knock, bo 
 ask in a definite direction, whenever we help them to 
 aspire toward Ihe light, we teach them to pray rightly. 
 
SPIRITUAL THBRAPSUTE 887 
 
 Prayer, therefore, can be continued without ceasil 
 and if we are cured of any ailment through the agency 
 of prayer, we do not consider that any such cure 
 
 brought about vicariously or in any unnatural manner 
 Individuals arc simply directed into channels of 
 thought in which they continually aspire toward spir- 
 itual light. Desire is prayer ; moral effort to attain to 
 virtue is prayer; but the prayer of faith is the only 
 effectual prayer, as it is aspiration or desire after vii 
 and does not allow the word "cannot" in its vocabu- 
 lary. It maintains that whatever is right for us to 
 have can be received by us just because it is right for 
 us to receive it. Faith in its grand old sense means fidel- 
 ity, honor, straightforwardness of character, nobilitv, 
 integrity; it means everything that stands for grand 
 and noble character, not mere belief, concerning which 
 contentious persons are ever wrangling and disputing, 
 but noble virtue, moral excellence, ethical worth. Then 
 fasting, what is it? Xot °;oin<_>' without food at stated 
 intervals necessarily, but the complete subjugation of 
 lower to higher impulses. ^Ve must deny our lower 
 selves— sacrifice our lower appetites, that we may gain 
 true freedom to fulfill the desires of our nobler instil. 
 
 ]STow, if all students realize that they must pray, 
 exercise faith and fast — in the sense in which we have 
 defined these terms — we know that to-day t. 
 may be a spiritual outpouring as great as there ever 
 was in ancient Galilee. It rests with i 
 whether, when we teach or attempt to heal, t! 
 is or is not a truly pentecostal one. We must all r - 
 member we have still very much to learn. While 
 the writings of Mrs. Eddy, Dr. Evans and others, may 
 
288 spiritual THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 assist many to the light, the source of light is within 
 us. In every human being dwells the divine word ; 
 therefore every essential word of truth must conic from 
 within, not from without. The living oracle, the ever- 
 speaking word of God. must be recognized, or 
 can not crown our endeavors. We need more reliai 
 upon our own spiritual nature, and far more din 
 communion with the source of all light. 
 
 Spiritual science will tend to make us calm, quiet, 
 strong with quiet strength, less dependent upon legal 
 measures, outward modes of attack, controversial ar- 
 gument and money, and infinitely mole dependent upon 
 that silent, spiritual power which is strictly invisible 
 and absolutely potential. .Many live like people who I 
 long subsisted upon fruitful soil and land winch con- 
 tained valuable ore, but have known nothii heir 
 possessions, contented with scanning t lie Burfaoa 
 Now, though our land has become no richer, we are 
 
 told of our hidden ]»< >ns, of the wealth of OUT 
 
 mines, and we discover that our land is highly arable 
 
 and can yield beautiful Glowers, delicious fruits and 
 golden harvests of grain. 
 
 Now, let us set to work and plant our vineyards and 
 olive proves. Let as gel our mines to work and our 
 wells in operation, and though formerly our resour 
 
 were as great, and our possessions as large as now, we 
 knew nothing of them, so we now commence for the 
 first time to enter consciously into our inheritar 
 
 Thus do we find the golden key which unlocks the 
 inmost secrets of our nature, unfolding to us our pr 
 less latent treasures, which, though adding nothing t<> 
 our capabilities, brings to light hidden things divine. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTK 
 
 The science of spirit is the golden key which 
 
 opens up the spiritual heaven to all, just as civilization, 
 with all its discoveries and implements, reveals to lis 
 the treasures hidden within the earth, and beneath the 
 ocean wave — treasures which have been there for cen- 
 turies, but of which we knew nothing until our at ten 
 
 tion was called to them and they were placed at our 
 command. 
 
 Feel that there are spiritual gems of every hue 
 lying buried in your inmost nature, as old Greek phil- 
 osophers would express it, your latent knowledge only 
 needs to be brought out by education; and ever as you 
 seek to bring forth the treasures which are embedded 
 in your soul, remember there are just two effective 
 modes of digging, delving and diving, and these 
 methods are love of truth and practice of charity. 
 
 If you are lovers of truth and also lovers of your 
 fellow-beings; if you can bear to stand alone, face to 
 face with your own interior life, and not quail before 
 its revealments, then you can rise superior to every 
 mortal passion and the consequent ailments proceed- 
 ing from sensuous indulgence. 
 
 
 19 
 
TEACHINGS 
 
 OF SPIRITUAL SCIENi UNINu OUB TREATMENT OF THE 
 
 LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 THAT noble and glorious reformer, Anna bongsford 
 M. C, (Parts) having passed Erom the mortal 
 form, leaving behind her many works of great value 
 which have never been publish d or in any way re-pro- 
 duced in America, thoi eric Publishing Com- 
 pany, 478, Bhawmut Avenue, Boston, issues a very good 
 edition of her marvelous 1 1 entitled, "The Perfeci 
 Way,- at the moderate We have ventured 
 to incorporate into our present work some of this saint- 
 ly and heroic woman's carefully digested and eminently 
 scientific views on "Unscientific Science," which, 
 when contrasted with the human teachings of a gra- 
 cious and merciful spiritual science, will serve to show 
 the utter irreconcilability of cruelty in any form with 
 the work of even physically benefiting humanity. The 
 most serious attention of our readers is particularly 
 called to Dr. Kingsford's unanswerable plea lor " phil- 
 osophic unity" which is expressed in the following 
 words at the opening of her lecture entitled & 
 Aspects of Vivisection, a lecture replete with the mosl 
 valuable and authentic testimony gathered from every 
 available source in Europe. It is with deep regrel 
 we find ourselves unable to insert it in this volume: 
 
SPIRITUAL TIIKKAPKUTI 
 
 " The century in which we live is one of hv on, 
 
 criticism and thought. Dogmas and traditions are no 
 longer accepted upon hearsay, oreven upon am hoi 
 Everything is canvassed, discussed, verified, tested by 
 reason. 
 
 %, The reign of autocratic power seems to be in deca- 
 dence, and that of philosophic force begins to 
 itself. Men are awakening to the fact that the true 
 glory of humanity consists in the faculty of reason, 
 and that that which constitutes the human being is not 
 special physical conformation, hut a mind enlight- 
 ened, enfranchised, and capable of lofty aims. 
 
 "I posit then, this fundamental principle, that the 4 
 truly human and reasonable life is based upon an exact 
 philosophy. The basic idea of philosophy is to reduce 
 everything to Unity; to make of the various facts and 
 diverse interests of our existence a synthesis, a com 
 ent whole, harmonious and equilibrated in all its parts 
 as a sphere of which the radii all converge to one and 
 the same central point. Now it is this condition of 
 equilibrium in the mind which constitute and 
 
 it is the faculty of recognizing and comprehending the 
 necessity of philosophic unity which is the distinctive 
 appanage of the reasonable and enlightened being. 
 
 " It follows from the premiss thus announced that no 
 method of judgment ought to be i red con 
 
 which opposes the interests and indications of science 
 to those of morality, which causes discord between the 
 aims and objects of physical welfare and those of the 
 spiritual being, which creates confusion between i 
 tain supposed material utilities and the necessities 
 the moral nature of mankind. Fromthispoint of vi< 
 
292 SPIRITUAL TBKRAPEOT i 
 
 and guided by this principle of philosophic unity, 
 us examine the theory and art of vivisection I 
 practised by modern biologist 
 
 Dr. Kingsford's lecture uentific aspects of vivi- 
 
 section" concludes with ti eference to the 
 
 testimony of one of the mosl noted physicians Great 
 Britain lias product d : 
 
 " Sir Charles Bell, warned by the unfortunate results 
 of his own and others 1 experiments, devo jhty 
 
 pages of his 'Exposition of the Natural System of the 
 Nerves of the Human Body' (1824) to the study and 
 explanation of clinical and pathological cases, lie 
 gards artificial experimen iperfluous and without 
 
 value in presence of the precious tacts which every hospi- 
 tal ward and pott-inortem room yield to investigation. 
 And he eites examples oalculated to call attention to 
 
 the fact that frequently the true interpretation of 
 
 perimental results altogether escapes the operator, be- 
 cause tin 4 animal on which he experiments is incapable 
 of recounting its sensations, and its mere durabg 
 may, as often as not, give rise to false impressions in 
 regard to their causa In confirmation of this view, 
 lie relates many clinical cases of nerve-injury which 
 served as a basis lor his researches ami discovei 
 solely on account of the explanation given by the pa 
 tients themselves of their personal experiences and sen 
 sations/' 
 
 UNSCIENTIFIC SC1KV 
 
 MORAL A8PBCH D» I tOH. 
 
 BY DR. ANNA RDTOSfOBD. 
 
 Apologists of the practice appear to think that the 
 desire of knowledge is in itself sufficient to vindicate 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPKUTRS. 29J$ 
 
 all the cruelties and injustices imaginable. They do 
 not seem to recognize the fact that every branch of intel- 
 lectual research has its moral limits, and that the quest 
 of pleasure, of wealth, of power, or of knowledge fhust 
 never, in a civilized state, be permitted to outrage jus- 
 tice or the law of humanity. 
 
 In the ancient religious mysteries of all the nations 
 of the globe, it is said that the fall of man ensues when 
 he sacrifices moral obedience to the intellectual desire 
 to know. Ah, it is primal and profound truth, and for 
 this reason it finds its place in the initial chapters of the 
 occult Book. There are certain means of acquiring knowl- 
 edge of which man can not make use without forfeiting 
 his place in the Divine Order. 
 
 We know well that there exist many practices which 
 are extremely profitable in their results, but which are 
 not legitimate, and which civilization does not tolerate, 
 
 In former times human lives were sacrificed to the 
 interests of the fine arts. It is related that a certain 
 painter of celebrity, wishing to sieze the effects of vio- 
 lent death, caused a negro slave to be decapitated in his 
 studio; and that another artist, famous for the talent lie 
 displayed in the interests of the Church, crucified an 
 unfortunate youth in order to secure a faithful model 
 for an altar-piece portraying the expiring Christ. 
 
 Such acts as these are not in the category of legit- 
 imate practices, whatever may be the artistic or other 
 value of their results ; and the same may be said of 
 many other pursuits constituting so many sciences in- 
 vented by man to enrich, to amuse, or to aggram 
 himself, but which are, by the con of modern 
 
 opinion, discountenanced and outlawed. 
 
294 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 It is necessary that men should understand the 
 mere plea of " science" to be insufficient as a justifica- 
 tion of human action. There are sciences of a lee 
 mate and civilized nature, tending toward light, wis- 
 dom and righteousness, and there are others which are 
 neither legitimate nor civilized, and whose results can 
 only end in the obliteration of sentiment, the negation 
 of humanity, and the destruction of true science and 
 true civilization. The progress made by vivisection is 
 an advance upon the downward path. 
 
 And here we are brought face to face with the fact 
 that the vivisecting school is pre-eminently them 
 rialistic and atheistic Bchool; while the school of spirit- 
 ualistic thought is. by the Very nature of its philosophy, 
 opposed to vivisection 
 
 The materialist has no fundamental notion of Jus- 
 tice. For him every thing is vague, relative, inexplica- 
 ble. He is acquainted only with physical atoms, ch< 
 ical elements, protoplasm and the theory of the evolu- 
 tion of forms without aim and without order. Jn 
 view there is only a blind force acting in the midst of 
 darkness. Consequently, morality is not lor him a de- 
 termined and positive quality, having its source in the 
 divine and inviolable Mind which directs and domina 
 all material manifestation ; it is but a matter of human 
 habit and convention, differing according to the particu- 
 lar time, place and race concerned. The man who ado 
 this view of morality of course accepts the civil lav 
 the soul arbiter of action, and regards conduct as repn - 
 
 *Of course I use the word ** spiritualist " in its real and original sen* 
 opposed to " materialist." > . </, regarding the universe as having a spiritual 
 and intelligent basis. 1 do not employ the word a< a synonym for any 
 
 cial doctrines other than this. 
 
SPIRIT AL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 hensible, or the reverse, according to the light in which 
 it is popularly viewed by his own nation and em. The 
 sentiments, such as honor, justice, courage, pity, to 
 loyalty, are for him but idiosyncrasies, varying accord- 
 ing to such and such a temperament and depending 
 for their manifestation and development on physical 
 and accidental causes. Naturally, then, he laughs at 
 appeals to sentiment, and boasts of being inaccessible 
 to the u hysterical attacks" of "sensitive and weak- 
 minded fanatics." When he says this, and other simi- 
 lar things, he simply means that the words " pity " and 
 "justice" have no sense for him. There is but one 
 only thing in the world which appears to him worthy 
 of desire and attainment, and that is knowledge 
 knowledge always, and before all things, without any 
 restriction or limitation of the means employed in its 
 attainment. 
 
 The materialist does not understand that the Source 
 and Substance of every series of phenomena, material 
 and physical, the origin of which be seeks so eagerly 
 to interpret, is equally the necessar^Jause of the - 
 lution which has produced humanity, whose distinctive 
 appanage is the moral nature. To think otherwise 
 would be to create illogical and absurd confusion 
 tween science and morality, by opposing intellect and 
 intellectual interests to justice and the interests of the 
 psychic being. 
 
 Thus is brought about the inevitable negation of 
 philosophic unity. 
 
 But it is no uncommon thing to bear partisans of 
 vivisection meet the charge of injustice and immorality 
 made against the practice by the reply that it is a 
 
296 SPIRITUAL TIIKkWI'KlTICS. 
 
 work of the highest intrinsic merit, because it has for 
 its object the welfare of humanity. 
 
 Let us stop and consider what is meant by "the 
 welfare of humanity." What is the signification of 
 the word u humanity," so often used, so little under- 
 stood? For the materialistic and vivisecting school 
 we know very well that humanity imports nothing else 
 than the special physical form of an animal belonging 
 to the family of apes, a creature having such and Buch 
 conformation of cerebral convolutions, skeleton, and 
 organs. It is the body, the physical form, which con- 
 stitutes humanity, and that is all. But for the spirit- 
 ualistic school of thought, humanity means the mani- 
 festation of certain qualities and principles which find 
 no expression among irresponsible beings— a condition 
 raised above animality in virtue of a special moral 
 pacity. Consequently, even were it true (which it is 
 not) ib&t physical human life could be saved, and bod- 
 ily advantages obtained by means of cruel and tyran- 
 nical practices, such practices would still be. From the 
 human point offpriew, completely unjustifiable. The 
 human race can not be saved or enriched by acts which 
 destroy and rob humanity. The physical life and 
 health of individuals would be too dearly preserved or 
 bought by the sacrifice of the high qualities which 
 alone constitute man's superiority over all other creat- 
 ures. The champions of vivisection demand the 
 abasement of the moral standard of our race to the 
 level of the primitive instinct of purely animal exist- 
 ence—the preservation of the body at any cost. Such 
 a surrender would involve the destruction of that which 
 is infinitely more urecious than our physical life,of 
 
SPIRITUAL TIIKRAPKri! gjft 
 
 that which gives to this life all its worth and all its 
 glory, — the dignity of human sentiment, and the priv- 
 ilege of responsibility. 
 
 What would be said of any person who, being sick 
 or in pain, should cause a number of highly sensitive 
 animals to be tortured for hours or days in his pres- 
 ence, on the remote chance of thereby discovering 
 some means of alleviation for his own malady I Who 
 among us, hearing of such an act as this, but would 
 say that such a man was not worth the saving? And 
 why should the motives of a whole people which act 
 thus in accepting the practices of vivisection as the 
 means of healing its physical ailments be held worthier 
 our respect than those of the individual I 
 
 There can be but one reply. The human race, once 
 beggared of all the attributes which alone enrich and 
 elevate it, has no claim to royalty over the animal-, 
 and its salvation can in no wise profit the world. 
 
 For the unjust king is no longer a king, but a tyrant. 
 
 Vivisection has upon its hands the blood of violence 
 and of abuse of force. No man ought to seek the re- 
 lief of his suffering or the advance of his power at the 
 price of the agonies of his lower brethren, even if such 
 relief or advance should be really proved possible by 
 these means. But it would seem that some physiolo- 
 gists of the modern school are only anxious to prove 
 our common origin with the animals, and consequently 
 the ties of brotherhood which link them to us, in order 
 the more tranquilly to claim the right to torture and 
 misuse them. 
 
 To vindicate the practices of vivisection by appeal 
 to the u la \v of Nature," and to the habit- 
 
298 spiritual therapeutics. 
 
 beasts who live by carnage, i k to regulate the 
 
 conduct of the being highest in the s ! evolution 
 
 by the manners of those beings which are lowest in the 
 scale, and to degrade the code of human morality to 
 the plane of that of the wolf, the tiger, or any other 
 irresponsible and noxious creatui 
 
 What is tl I of being a man — of being a 
 
 "king" — if this high rank, this glorious title, imply no 
 superiority to gross natures and to the common loti 
 What is the meaning of all the mystery of develop- 
 ment and of the transmutation of forms which, 
 cording to the teaching of b 
 
 many thousand ages of painful evolution, and by 
 which alone we men ht ned our majesty of moral 
 
 force and responsibility, if at tin 4 biddingof the \ 
 sector we are to abandon our royal privilege, and sink 
 again into the slime beside thelasi and most obscur 
 
 our vassals 1 
 
 Ay, and lower even than they. For the "struj 
 for existence " among irresponsible b bool which 
 
 the vivisectors talk so much, rarely implies torture, 
 but only death. The claim of the vivis* for the 
 
 right to inflict torture, in which but very few anim; 
 and these the most ferocious and loathsome, appear to 
 take pleasure. If, then, il he true that man lias the 
 right to kill certain animals, as he has that to kill i 
 tain men, this right does not involve the infliction of 
 prolonged and horrible suffering. At the present day, 
 in civilized countries, condemned criminals are given 
 over to death, but never to the flames, never to the 
 rack or the aMiette. We have no right to inflict upon 
 innocent animals torments to which pity forbids us to 
 subject guilty men. 
 
SPIRITUAL THSRAPBUTK 
 
 The force which ought to dominate the world is nut 
 physical force, nor even purely Intellectual force; but 
 
 it is, above and beyond all other, moral and philosoph- 
 ical force, which alone differentiates man from 
 beast and distinguishes the civilized being from the 
 
 barbarbian. 
 
 In fact, the distinctive glory of humanity is based 
 on the sentiments — those divine qualities which h 
 ever inspired all the noble and worthy actions of our 
 race, and which are everywhere recognized as the most 
 ^recious heritage of mankind. 
 
 It is probably because the beliefs of materialism 
 stiHe the sentiments in its devotees that they fail to 
 perceive how inapposite are many of the comparisons 
 drawn by them between the practices they defend and 
 others recognized as useful and necessary to the State. 
 A favorite argument is that which likens the craft of 
 the vivisector to the profession of the soldier. J 
 what is easier than to see that sentiment here en; 
 an enormously important part, and that there is all the 
 difference in the world between the courage which 
 gives itself of its own accord to danger and to death, 
 and the cowardice which, at its ease at home, malttf 
 and martyrizes dumb and inoffensive creator 
 
 Where is the analogy between the vivia lab- 
 
 oratory, with its gagged, bound, and trembling victims. 
 carved to death in cold blood, and the field of battle, 
 where every man in each contending army fights for 
 home and country under the inspiration of enthusiafi 
 ambition or the desire for renown i 
 
 Neither is there any resemblance between the ] 
 tices of vivisection and the great enterprises of civili- 
 
300 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC8. 
 
 zation, such as engineering, exploration in unknown 
 seas, and similar undertakings of a perilous nature, by 
 appeal to which it has been sought to justify the scien- 
 tific torture of animals ; for these last do not volun- 
 tarily devote themselves to the knife. Men who take 
 part in difficult works of construction, adventurers who 
 traverse the arctic wastes or engage in other hazard- 
 ous enterprises, are volunteers who follow the interest 
 of their own satisfaction or personal profitat their own 
 risk. 
 
 There is a complete contrast between the free safe 
 rifice of oneself for the good of others and the enforced 
 sacrifice of others for the good of oneself. The first 
 is divine; the second is infernal. And vivisection rep- 
 resents a sacrifice of the latter kind. 
 
 Moreover, as already has been said, (hath is not tor- 
 ture. Let ns remember thai the rightof vivisection 
 differs from every other right assumed by men over 
 animals by its peculiar nature, and that its defenders. 
 if not wholly illogical or ignorant, vindicate the pro- 
 priety of inflicting, not violent deaths, nor average 
 pains merely, but horrible and prolonged agonies, such 
 as that of the curarized dog out to pieces by inches, and 
 lingering, hour after hour, in the silence and darkn 
 of the night — dying in torment in the laboratory of 
 Paul Bert, the moralist/ 
 
 It is vain to appeal to the vivisectors themselves 
 against the cruelties daily perpetrated in their chambers 
 of horror. Formerly, when the priests of the mediaeval 
 church burnt and tortured men for the salvation of 
 souls, under the auspices of the Holy Office, it was not 
 to the eminent deans and prelates of the sacred hie- 
 
SPIKITUAL THERAPEUT1 301 
 
 rarchy that the world addressed itself in order to obtain 
 the abolition of the Inquisition and of its infamous 
 practices. The priests of the religion of the middle 
 ages, like the priests of science to-day, found line 
 phrases with which to defend themselves as a body of 
 conscientious and disinterested men. Nevertheless, the 
 question between the Church and the world was de- 
 cided by the laity against the members of the eccle- 
 siastical corporation, and there has never yet been Ma- 
 son to regret the loss of stake and rack and dungeon. 
 
 A science based upon torture can no more be true 
 science than a religion based upon torture can be true 
 religion. It is anew Reformation that we want — but 
 this time in the domain of science ! 
 
 For the rest, the instruments used in our labora- 
 tories of vivisection are much the same as in mediaeval 
 times. The modern arsenal is fully as complete as was 
 that of the days of Torquemada, or Isabella of Spain — 
 only now the dumb and innocent dog replaces the Jew 
 or the heretic, and creatures which man judges his 
 inferiors are bound to the wheel and tortured, with the 
 hope of extorting from them the secret of life, in blind 
 ignorance of the fact that Nature, outraged and agon- 
 ized, replies like the human victim on the rack, more 
 often by a lie than by the truth. 
 
 Attempts have again and again been made to dis- 
 suade anti-vivisectionists from the crusade they have 
 undertaken, by inviting their attention and that of the 
 public generally, to other abuses more or le8G 
 with the inquiry, "Why do not you kind-heir 
 people occupy yourselves with reforming the cruel 
 practices of drovers, cab-drivers, sportsmen, slaughter- 
 
302 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 men, and their like \ Why do you not try to solace 
 the misery that everywhere reigns outside the vivi- 
 sector's laboratory, before you think of attacking the 
 methods of men of science \ " 
 
 To all this we reply that we do most strenuously 
 occupy ourselves with these matters, but that every 
 such effort is paralyzed by the fact that not only is 
 vivisection by its very nature the most cruel of all 
 cruelties, and therefore the head and front (if offend- 
 ing, but that it is, alone of all cruelties, protected by 
 State legislation, although other and minor barbarisms 
 are officially condemned. So long as the j> f i/,rfj>L of 
 cruelty is thus encouraged and kept alive by law, in the 
 highest walks of science, all attempts to extirpate less< r 
 cruelties elsewhere musl prove unavailing. 
 
 How, for instance, can we teach our children the 
 duties of humanity toward dumb animals, when, in 
 the course of their studies at school and college, they 
 learn what horrors are perpetrated in the work-rooms 
 of science by the mi and professors they are 
 
 expected torevere and to imitate? Or how can we 
 profitably interfere to check the barbarities of the 
 streets, when it is in the power ofthe brutal carman i r 
 drover to retort that, no matter how he may maltreat 
 his beast, he can not approach the cruelties of the phy- 
 siological laboratory which have the full sanction 
 the law? How can we urge him to cease working 
 some old and worn out horse, broken down by I'ati: 
 in the service of man, when the result of our charitable 
 interference may possibly be, not the well-earned rest of 
 a life long toil, nor even quick death under the blow of 
 the knacker's axe, but a long and horrible agony in some 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUn 
 
 infernal school of vivisection for the benefit of • 
 ence" I Alas, we can but standby silent, pi only 
 
 in our hearts that the poor, ill-used creature may 
 be worked till he drops dead in his harness, than 
 delivered over to the tormentors to end his innocent 
 life of faithful service in the pains of hell. Everything, 
 rather than the scalpel the saw and the hot iron 
 the vivisector ! 
 
 We demand justice! Justice not only for innocent 
 and defenseless animals, but for men therasel 
 
 The present law of this country is a law manifestly 
 unjust and cowardly. It attacks the dwarfs and 
 respects the giants of cruelty. The poor man who, in 
 the interests of his livelihood, accidentally over-dr 
 his horse or his donkey, is punished by the very I.- 
 lature which protects the learned professor who fl 
 and burns alive scores of living creatures systematic- 
 ally. 
 
 The law ought to be administered equally to all 
 men, whether rich or poor, pi - or talcs, ignorant 
 
 or learned. Either it ought to be admitted chat there 
 h no harm in illtreating animals — and in such i 
 a law which protects them is ridiculous — or the man who 
 cuts up a dog alive in a laboratory merits punishment 
 as much as the man who flogs a horse in 
 and in such case the law ought not to favor the social 
 rank or pretext of the first malfactor at the expense of 
 
 last. If vivisection is to be permitted, enoourag 
 endowed by the State, then societies forthe 
 tection of animals from cruelty have no 
 and ought to be abolished as anomal rard 
 
 and illogical. 
 
304 SPIRITUAL TIIERAri liJ 
 
 A good Christian once said to me, "I should n< 
 be happy in the joys of Heaven if I knew that other 
 souls were condemned to eternal torment. Such a 
 thought as that would render all my own felicity hitter 
 to me." Well, this is something like the feeling of 
 an ti-vivisectionists with regard to the suffering of the 
 victims of the phy al laboratory. The frightful 
 
 thought that every day the rising sun will witn< 
 commencement of hundreds of long drawn martyrdoms 
 of inoffensive creatures throughout ( hristendom; the 
 thought that every evening when we go to our rest 
 the silence of night will but bring to these unhappy 
 beings prolonged suffering, terror and agonising death ; 
 the thought that such things take place, not by acci- 
 dent, or by nature, in far-off uncivilized countries, but 
 here, in our midst, in the heart of our towns, next door, 
 maybe, toourown home, by deliberate, organized, 
 tematic law-abiding acl — this is what tears the he 
 embitters life and i'ovcc* u> to the reflection that,aftei 
 all, human civilization and human pi> are hut 
 
 fever dreams, futile, mean : ue. 
 
 And this is why. when the vivi- ask US ;m- 
 
 orilv, " What right have \<>u to meddle with tin 
 
 searches of scientific men?" that we turn upon them 
 with greater anger and retort in ourturn, "What right 
 
 have you to render earth uninhabitable and life insup- 
 portable for men with hearts in their bosoms \" 
 
 It is not the fact, as the partisans of vivisection are 
 never weary of declaring, that the public has shown 
 itself incapable of judgii ntific necessities, hut 
 
 rather that the scientists have shown themselves in- 
 capable of recognizing the obligations of public mor- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 ality. If in matters of technical physiology it be 
 fair to regard the public as "profane," it is equally 
 correct to regard the experts of vivisection as "pro- 
 fane " in relation to the principles of moral conduct 
 Does the diploma of physiologists entitle them to pose 
 as the exclusive arbiters of morality I Or is it not rather 
 the truth that, being themselves indifferent to the inter- 
 ests of morality and incompetent to deal with psychic 
 considerations, they assume the defenders of these t<> 
 be ignorant of scientific exigencies and incapable of 
 understanding them, solely because of their own moral 
 blindness ?" 
 
 Now, the fact is that the question is quite as much 
 of moral as of physical interest. 
 
 If society be right in refusing to recognize the in- 
 fallibility of a purely ecclesiastical caste in matters 
 affecting the public conscience — as, for instance, in re- 
 spect of religious persecution — it is equally right in 
 refusing to admit the assumption of infallibility on the 
 part of a caste exclusively scientific and materialistic in 
 matters similarly affecting the public conscience. It 
 was in the teeth of powerful vested interests that the 
 world rejected compromise with the Inquisition and 
 with the slave traffic, and the same considerations 
 which influenced civilized men in dealing with t! 
 institutions must equally influence them today, face to 
 face with the claims and interests of vivisection. 
 
 It is vain to urge that the majority of modern tor- 
 turers for science's sake are educated, intelligent and 
 eminent men, illustrious savants, venerable professors, 
 who are themselves the best judges of what is net 
 sary for science — who may safely be trusted to 
 20 
 
306 SPIRITUAL THSRAPBtJI U 
 
 for the best, and who are pre-eminently humane 
 and sympathetic in their conduct and methods. J'i, 
 cisely the same was said with equal truth of the ma- 
 jority of torturers for religion's sake. They, too, \ 
 the learned. nd and eminent men of their t 
 
 and like the viviseotor aJ and p 
 
 members of Boc riefs of disl incl 
 
 high importance in th< And there is no reason 
 
 to doubt that the atrocities of which they were the 
 
 eager authors and contrivers w< ted, not by 
 
 a love of cruelty, hut by zeal for the honor of ?■ 
 
 and for the advance of the church, ami by ardor for 
 
 the good of humanity. 
 
 Every custom thai the world lias seen, whatever its 
 
 barbarity, has found apologists, simply because of its 
 
 being a custom. 
 
 History shows us thai the abolition of human and 
 other sacrifices in religious cults was in its time de- 
 nounced as a menace for the faith, as an evidence of 
 
 morbid sensibility and a symptom of degener 
 
 Gladiatorial combats, cruel and barbarous amusements 
 
 of all kinds, formerly popular, have in their turn been 
 
 suppressed, and always in the clamorous pro- 
 
 testations of persons interested in their maintenance. 
 
 No pretext based on the pretended utility of viv ; 
 
 tion ought to exempt it from the category of pracl 
 unworthy of a civilized era. 
 
 The abuse of force is an inexcusable crime and 
 
 shan.e in those who claim despotic authority and to 
 seek to justify such abuse by representing it as a m< 
 of attaining a praiseworthy end is to argue, as did a 
 
 certain celebrated brigand, who attempted to exc 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 307 
 
 his acts of violence by saying, "If I have committed 
 robbery, I have robbed only heretics with the intention 
 of enriching the coffers of the true Church." 
 
 Cruelty is always cruel, and only Jesuits and Paul 
 Berts will dare to rehabilitate the sophistry expressed in 
 the ecclesiastical axiom, "The end justifies the means," 
 even when the "end" is "scientific progress/' the 
 means "suffering the most atrocious that the imagina- 
 tion can conceive," and the victims, beings incapable of 
 defending themselves or of avenging their wrongs. 
 
 Happily for humanity, the arbiters of the national 
 conscience are neither the ecclesiastics nor the biolo- 
 gists, but the people. 
 
 I reflect on the history of the inquisition, of slav- 
 ery and of despotism, and I have confidence in the 
 future ! 
 
 There is a better gospel than that of intellectual 
 science, there is a higher law than that of physical 
 utility. Do not let us fear, any of us, that by living 
 up to the best and noblest in us we shall miss any good 
 thing that might have been ours by baser means. The 
 greater includes the lesser, and the science of Heaven 
 encompasses all lower knowledges. Only let us seek 
 first the kingdom of God and God's justice, and all 
 these things shall be added unto us. There is nothing 
 the righteous man may not know, for the spirit in him 
 is divine, and able to unfold all secrets in their order. 
 
 For love is the universal solvent, and love's 
 method is in all its unfoldings consistent with its ob- 
 ject and intent. 
 
 In conclusion, I recommend specially to my breth- 
 ren of the medical faculty those brave and worthy 
 
308 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 words which Dr. Samuel Johnson addressed to the 
 physiologists of his day: 
 
 "May all men of heart who follow the noble science 
 of medicine, the aim of which is the relief of suffering, 
 publicly condemn the practices of vivisection, for they 
 are of a nature to discredit their profession, and will 
 end by extinguishing in their votaries those sentiments 
 which alone deserve the confidence of the public, and 
 the absence of which is more to be dreaded than t he- 
 worst of physical evils. 55 
 
A FORM OF TREATMENT. 
 
 [CONTRIBUTED BY MKS. SAIIA HARRIS, BERKELEY, CAI,] 
 
 I am Spirit divine in essence and included in the 
 Universal. In the inmost and True Being 1 am not 
 and can not be diseased, for lam perfect in the im 
 and likeness of God. Over me matter lias no control, 
 formatter has neither sensation, intelligence or sub- 
 stance; the real is spirit; only truth is eternal. The 
 beliefs of the race, the current thought of the day, the 
 influence of those around me, both seen and una 
 my own error, ignorance, grief, fear, malice, envy, 
 revenge, murder, jealousy, shall no longer reflect dig 
 in my body. 
 
 God is my life, and I cannot know death; God is 
 my health, and I can not know disease; God is my 
 strength, and I can not know weakness; God is my 
 peace, have no fear, be not afraid, for God is working 
 through me both to will and to do His good pleasure. 
 God's good pleasure is that I should have p 
 mind, health of body and purity of life. This is already 
 true of me in the Real Being. 
 
 And aow, in the name of the Universal Spirit of 
 Truth, and through faith in omnipresent good, I 
 declare all that is good, true and beautiful of me in 
 spirit to be true of me in body. Error and ignorance 
 have held me in bondage; the truth of the I ing 
 
 shall set me free. 
 
LEAVES FROM STUDENTS' NOTE BOOK. 
 
 SPIRITUAL SCIENCE CATECHISM. 
 
 What is God ? 
 
 Infinite Spirit. All Good. 
 
 Wliat is man ? 
 
 The offspring of Infinite Spirit. 
 
 What is m aiter f 
 
 The most external or lowest expression of iiniv< 
 substance. 
 
 Is it necessary to study pathology t 
 
 Spiritual healers require no such stud v. 
 
 Please define Mortal Mind. 
 
 Changing states or conditions of human belief. 
 
 Is God the j I uthw & and I >> ath t 
 
 Decidedly He is not. 
 
 What is t rrort 
 
 Misapprehension of Truth. 
 
 Is diagnosis n 
 
 Not in all cases; it is, however, often desirable. 
 
 Should treatin- ilent, and how long contvn^ 
 
 Silence is the greatest power. No Btated time. 
 
 Some assert that oar Sysh ms of tt< ligi govi rm d 
 
 by our Systems of Medicin* . What is your opinion t 
 
 They are in turn influenced by each other. 
 
 What diel Jesus mean whei\ he said, kk The works 
 that I do, ye shall do also " t 
 
 310 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPBUTK ,) 1 1 
 
 Exactly what he said. 
 
 Is a sick person th 1 Ufa ru fodt 
 
 The real man is never sick, only the mortal append- 
 age of man, which is not God's image, can be side. 
 Is it possible to always avoid j>hys 
 
 It is, provided you understand and obey the divine 
 law of harmony. 
 
 How can ire best overc 
 
 By boldly facing whatever we regard as calculated 
 to inspire fear, then bravely defying its power to harm, 
 which can only be successfully accomplished through 
 unfaltering trust in Infinite Good. 
 
 Does the suicide Jmd a friend in death ? 
 
 Suicide is arrant folly, and folly cannot promote 
 our welfare. 
 
 Is soul in the body? 
 
 It is not, but spirit uses the body as an instrument 
 or machine. 
 
 Should we forsake all for Truth t 
 
 Decidedly, but we must ever remember that truth 
 only calls upon us to sacrifice error, and error is to 
 truth what commonest glass is to purest gems. 
 
 Does chemicalization always follow treatment? 
 
 Not invariably when it does it marks a conflict 
 between truth and error, and truth must triumph. 
 
 Are nerves the source of pain r plea 
 
 Nerves transmit the sensations they can not produce, 
 as electric wires convey intelligence they can n< -t 
 furnish. 
 
 Does spiritual science ignon all medicine and 
 hygen 
 
 It does not rely on medicine, which it far surpai 
 
312 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 and it includes the soul and practice of genuine 
 hygiene. 
 
 Mtist a healer he icell educated ? 
 
 In the sense that educated means morally and men- 
 tally unfolded, yes; in a scholastic sense it is not 
 necessary. 
 
 Do you believe in heredity ? 
 
 So far as mental and physical leanings are con- 
 cerned we do, but all hereditary taints can be elimi- 
 nated. 
 
 Can obstetrics be practiced in this science t 
 
 Not only can be but must be. 
 
 Do you object to m and mediumshipf 
 
 Mesmerism is vastly inferior to Spiritual Science. 
 Mediumship is a blessing when rightly understood, 
 
 What are theprinu causes of sickness t 
 
 Ignorance of the Law of Health ; lack of individual- 
 ity, and too great love of the Belli 
 
 Is not metaphysical set portani 
 
 point of vu 
 
 Unquestionably, as metaphysical methods are the 
 only ones which permanently efface crime. 
 
 Can we treat animals successfully? 
 
 Without difficulty, if they love and reaped you, 
 they respond very quickly to your every thought. 
 
 Do our depart* dfru nds assist us? 
 Your "departed friends" are only "departed" in 
 mortal belief, they are as truly your assistants in 
 every good work as though you could see them physic- 
 
 ally" 7 
 
 What is the cause of a relapst 
 Relapses are consequent upon imperfect acquaint- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC 
 
 ance with truth and nervous susceptibility to one's 
 surroundings. 
 
 Can we al • and ward it off^ '<■ 
 
 know how to do itf 
 
 Just as truly as you can make a roof water-tight or 
 a ship seaworthy. 
 
 Is Rept one of the > titra- 
 
 tion ? 
 
 Repression fosters crime, sickness and insanity. 
 Eradicate evil desires, gratify lawful one-. 
 
 Please explain the words of ■ ' II , thai & 
 
 eth in me, shall never see death"? 
 
 In the simplest interpretation of these words the 
 fear of death and the pain accompanying physical dis- 
 solution is intended. 
 
 Do oar spirits dwell within or without our Indies? 
 
 The spirit itself can not be wholly limited by the 
 body, which it simply vitalizes, and through which it 
 expresses itself. 
 
 What is the relation between the spiritual and (hi ma- 
 terial body ? 
 
 A relation similar to that existing betwen a per- 
 former and an instrument, or a man and his clothing. 
 
 What is the Odylic fame seen l>y claw 
 
 Odylic, from Od (all pervading), means the astral, or 
 emanating flame of vitality. 
 
 How do magnetic healers differ fn 
 dans t 
 
 In that they rely too much on bodily emanations 
 and too little on mind. 
 
 What are mesm i do tfu J 
 
 differ* 
 
314 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 Mesmerism is Anton Mesmer's limited system of 
 psychology, which is founded upon a recognition of 
 animal magnetism. 
 
 What is mind ? 
 
 Intelligence manifesting in reason. 
 
 What is spirit ? 
 
 Life itself ; being; self-existent intelligent princi- 
 ple. 
 
 What is soul t 
 
 The innermost or affect ional element in spirit, mind 
 being the rational. 
 
 What is disease ? 
 
 Inharmony ; discord; lack of equilibrium. 
 
 How can we a/ooi 
 
 By cultivating a mental state which generafa 
 counteracting vital force. 
 
 Why is di> 
 than another f 
 
 Because some persons are more tenacious of error, 
 and at the same time more weakly susceptible than 
 others. 
 
 Is there any definite rule < irds thi length c 
 
 treatment? 
 
 Certainly not ; for in order to treat or he treated 
 successfully^ you must forget time and place. 
 
 Why are some patients eonsidi red incurahU t 
 
 Because spiritual perception of the means of their 
 cure is lacking. 
 
 How does chemicalization differ from the cri& 
 the hydropathist f 
 
 It differs only in this: that metaphysicians consider 
 the mental cause, hydropathists the physical effect. 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTH 315 
 
 How can ■ id being drafted by thi , (lrc 
 
 mentally \ physically and spiritually si 
 
 By feeding on truth ourselvi 
 
 Is God in U8 y i i God? 
 
 The finite is in the Infinite, 
 
 How can we best attain and mairUaifi perfect health t 
 
 By persistently acknowledging good to the exclusion 
 of its opposite. 
 
 What are the qualifications i 
 ful healer f 
 
 Supreme love of truth, coupled with intelligent lit 
 erality of sentiment. 
 
 How far has a physician the right / 
 tienffs will f 
 
 Xo right at all. Truth is submitted to con 
 and reason, and must be embraced willingly. 
 What law governs the will, and how con 
 red it f 
 
 By concentrating our thought and affection upon 
 that object we most desire to reach, and *hat persist- 
 ently. 
 
 Is not pleasant, harmonious 
 rf the lest methods? 
 
 Converse with patients whenever you can without 
 arousing opposition. 
 
 Is it m '/forth*, physician to l> morally < 
 
 spiritually superior to the patient? 
 
 It is difficult to gauge superiority, but no moral 
 and mental standard can be too high. 
 
 Is it absolutely ry that th>- , 
 
 . 
 
 Receptive to truth; yes. Negative to mortal belief, 
 
 na 
 
316 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTIC*. 
 
 Why is silent treatmennt lest ? 
 
 Because it does not arouse excited controversy, and 
 gives the most phenomenal proof. 
 
 Are hereditary diseases (so-Galled) tin most difficult 
 to heal f 
 
 Not unless belief in their ineradicability is Brmly 
 rooted in the patient's mind. Much depends on the 
 healer. 
 
 Should we always call the disease by nam* in healing t 
 
 Not unless the patient often thinks of and mentions 
 it by name. When such is the case, deny it by name 
 often and vigorously. 
 
 Is the subjugation of thi bodily * ru sa/ryt 
 
 The senses must be governed by reason. Where 
 appetites dominate the will dis< inevitable. 
 
 Should we ignore our individuality in our treatments 
 for any set i uL 
 
 No, never use any Formula nor adopt any rule which 
 does not appeal to your sense of right. 
 
 How can we h st discots r truth t 
 
 By cultivating a willingness to forego all else for 
 its possession. 
 
 Is not the personality of thi patient ofU n thi object w 
 error that must be or, ,'<■<> me? 
 
 The idiosyncracies and prejudices of the patient 
 must be vanquished, and particularly all unkind!! 
 and animosity in thought, word or <\a'(\. 
 
 Is there any law of adaptability more potent than 
 love and sympathy f 
 
 Love manifests itself in inevitable, spontaneous sym- 
 pathy which reveals true union. 
 
 What is to be understood by perfection t and is it at- 
 tainable in this life ? 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPKUT1 
 
 Perfection in its relative only implies perfect 
 
 obedience to the highest truth perceived ; this is p 
 tical. 
 
 Which are the most <• 
 
 rior a 
 Books and conversation are valuable only as they 
 help persons to gain experience. Experience is the 1 igh- 
 est teacher. 
 
 In a figurative sense they can; those "dead in sin 
 ca 1 be raised to "newness of life." In a physical a 
 
 those seemingly dead can often be restored. 
 
 How IJishnesst 
 
 By steadily fixing our thought and affection on uni- 
 versal human welfare 
 
 117 ryt 
 
 Probably because, like all other persons, they are 
 often obliged to receive compensation for their servi 
 and mercenary people, who are not true scientists, 
 invaded the ranks. 
 
 }}liat is math i\ and is 
 
 Matter is the lowest expression or manifestation of 
 mind. 
 
 Is '/natter a cause or ■ 
 
 Decidedly an effect, of which the cause is intelligent 
 mind in every instance. 
 
 J/ i you teach i 
 
 No, for it was well known to the ancient 
 only a recent discovery on the part of the m 
 Is this i" w ph 
 
318 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 It is identical with the healing work accomplished 
 by inspired teachers and prophets everywhere^ in 
 every age. 
 
 What is meant by the true Christ ? 
 
 The essential life; divine inmost principle of hu- 
 man nature; God manifest 
 
 Jesus said: u Greater works than these sha/l y< do." 
 What did he mean by gn aU r f 
 
 That whereas his work was Literally confined to 
 Palestine, similar work should at length be accom- 
 plished everywhere. 
 
 Iloio many senses has man. and how many du 
 ered or recognized by th< masses t 
 
 Seven; for in addition to the five recognized univer- 
 sally, clairvoyance and intuition arc clearly distinct. 
 
 Are metaphysical teachin 
 eibtifioor incl/usivi t 
 
 Inclusive in the broadest Benseof the word; hut 
 not so sentimental as scientific when thoroughly sound. 
 
 Is it wise t<> disregard natural lotos t 
 
 True metaphysicians love, honor and obey divine 
 natural law. Laws are human inventions. 
 
 Are anatomy and physiology taught by meta/phys* 
 cia?is, oris an understanding of thos< isary 
 
 to the successful heglert 
 
 Anatomy and physiology are valuable studies, but 
 not always necessary. 
 
 Is there any differ* vptzn name) between m<t- 
 
 apliysieians, Christian scientists^ mental scientists^ men- 
 tal liealers and spiritual healers? 
 
 Very little real difference, save that some Christum 
 scientists make of Mrs. Eddy a final authority. Men- 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 3l!> 
 
 tal science is not so broad and inclusive a term as spir- 
 itual science, while the phrase spiritual healing is oor- 
 rect, but scientifically inadequate. 
 Can wasted lungs be restored? 
 
 Under many circumstances they can bo; but it is 
 difficult to decide how far medical diagnosis is accurate. 
 
 Can we learn to overcome fat'ojue .< 
 
 If we live in harmonious thought we shall Bleep 
 naturally when we need rest without feeling exhaus- 
 tion. 
 
 If a belief exist* that climate and atmosphen an un- 
 healthy what is the result ? 
 
 Nervous and susceptible people are made ill through 
 imbibing prevailing fear. 
 
 Do you believe in contagious diseases? 
 
 Everything is contagious if we are susceptible. We 
 believe in contagious health, which is the antidote to 
 all disorder. 
 
 What, in brief, is the cardinal truth qfmetaphyst 
 
 Good is infinite and eternal. Evil is only a mortal 
 inversion. 
 
 Is it possible to overcome a belief in pain whil sivf- 
 fering from it f 
 
 It is, by turning the thought resolutely to the source 
 of joy. It is often desirable, howyer, to avail oi 
 self of a healer's services when pain is acute. 
 
 How can we b<st cultivate a truly spiritual condi- 
 tion f 
 
 By always acting in harmony with our deepesl con- 
 viction of right. 
 
 i the skill ful metaphysician t w r ( xp < 
 surgery f 
 
320 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 Mechanical surgery is a special study, which no one 
 is thoroughly adapted for unless he be in a broad sense 
 a true metaphysician. 
 
 Would you allow the use of any material remedies ? 
 We know Jesus sometimes used them. 
 
 If you carefully read the gospels you will learn 
 that Jesus trusted entirely in the efficacy of Divine 
 Spirit, and in the use of material simples reversed all 
 prevailing beliefs. 
 
 Do you consider that metaphysical meth suf- 
 
 ficient to meet every condition a ml ofx all discom- 
 
 fort f 
 
 Decidedly we do, as it would be the height of folly 
 to attribute potency to matter (the lesser) which we de- 
 nied to mind (the greater). 
 
 Are chronic oases more difficult t<>h<(tl than (/rut, 
 ones ? 
 
 Not for any other reason than because old fears and 
 prejudices are harder to remove than recent oro 
 
 Are absent treatnu nis as hi neficial as otht 
 
 Frequently far more so, as mind thereby demon- 
 strates its power more absolutely. 
 
 Is there any objection to the 1< rm ( 'hristia 
 
 None whatever, save that it is distinctly ecclesi- 
 astical, and liable to arouse prejudice. 
 
 Can anyone become a healer t 
 
 Every one can heal some one, as healing is possible 
 through an immense diversity of methods. 
 
 Is there any difference between prayer and faith c 
 and metaphysical healing ? 
 
 Metaphysical healing includes the exercise of faith 
 and prayer, but is broader in its definitions. 
 
SPIRITUAL TIIERAPEUTI. ;>21 
 
 Do you hold that metaphysics is vup 
 methods, and espec tally so in insanity? 
 
 Unquestionably as all other methods are pert 
 inferior, and in cases of insanity worthier 
 
 Witt disease eventually be < health 
 
 Ignsupreme <>n earth? 
 
 Never doubt this and ever work to hasten the day, 
 
 How can we ov tierialism and skepticism? 
 
 By clearly presenting spiritual truth to honesl 
 miiuls wjthout anxiety. 
 
 Is suffering an absolute necessity/ 
 
 It is necessary as long as you experience it, for you 
 can only outgrow it by interior development. 
 
 Shall ice in the good time coming die well? 
 
 You will leave this earth when you are ready for 
 promotion without sickness. 
 
 Is it possible, or desirable to have our lives continued 
 in our earthly bodies beyond a ripeoldag 
 
 It is desirable to continue living surrounded by 
 physical limitations until you have ripened spiritu- 
 ally so that you can enjoy a higher state of exist**: 
 Physical immortality is a foolish dream, as no one could 
 very long be contented with physical restrictions. 
 Age signifies nothing to spirit, growth is everything. 
 Strive to grow so that you are prepared for a more 
 glorious state of expression, and do not worry your- 
 selves about the destiny of your tlesh. 
 
 21 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 In compliance with the expressed wish of many of our 
 subscribers we take great pleasure in here appending a 
 few thoroughly authentic testimonies written by persons 
 of unimpeachable integrity, who gladly publish their 
 grateful acknowledgment of the inestimable noon nm- 
 fered upon themselves through a practical application of 
 the principle of the science to the advocacy and elucida- 
 tion of which this book is devoted. We have only put 
 before our readers a very few narratives out of hun- 
 dreds which have been sent to us. Those which we here 
 publish we have carefully selected as being of a char- 
 acter to impress and interest the general reader. .Many 
 others were quite as forcible and important, bat as our 
 work had already exceeded originally proposed limits, 
 we were compelled to confine ourselves to a few typical 
 instances. In offering these facts to the public we do 
 not desire in any way to detract from the well-earned 
 fame of many noble and honest men and women who 
 conscientiously and effectively practice medicine. What 
 we do contend for is the unanswerable declaration that, 
 without having recourse to any outward appliances, the 
 sovereign power of mind alone is adequate to the ac- 
 complishment of all and more than all that medicine 
 can accomplish. Now with reference to medical men and 
 women, magnetic healers and others allow us to state 
 our position clearly ; we believe them capable of re- 
 
 322 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 
 
 lieving many sufferers, not alone or chiefly by their art 
 
 but in consequence of their exercising an influ- 
 ence for good over their patients in ways they 
 often fail to comprehend. In California especially, 
 
 where we have had many pleasant relations with 
 eminent medical practitioners of the several schools 
 we have found id many instances great breadth 
 and liberality of sentiment and a willingness to in- 
 vestigate this subject. 
 
 Druggists, whose business it is to compound prescrip- 
 tions* and who, therefore, have a special interest in the 
 support of an external medical system, have also in 
 many instances freely testified to their knowledge of 
 the effectiveness of mental therapeutics. One highly 
 accomplished young gentleman in San Francisco, a 
 leading druggist in the city, who attended our classes fre- 
 quently, was, in our opinion, as thoroughly practical a 
 metaphysician as any who would feel it against their 
 conviction to even administer hot water to a person 
 suffering acute pain who desired relief from so simple 
 and innocent a remedy. Intolerance and prejud 
 against doctors and apothecaries on the part of mental 
 healers, and the equally unreasoning denunciation of 
 metaphysicians by the advocates of physic, arc alike 
 irrational eccentricities of dwarfed and perverted minds. 
 AVhile the spiritual position we have taken for many 
 years we can never relinrpiish, while we positWi ly I 
 and have ahrrulinthj demonstrated the abeohtt 
 
 \cy of unassisted mind to overcome ailments which 
 no medicine can reach, we at the same time full] 
 nize the necessity and use of duly accommodated truth, 
 and by this we mean an application of healing po 
 
t324 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 to individual necessities in accordance with the under, 
 standing and conviction of those working and those 
 worked upon. All over the world the medical profes- 
 sion is coming to represent a truer and broader eclecti- 
 cism than it ever could represent, until the spiritual 
 awakening of recent years called prominent attention 
 to the spiritual element in therapeutics, and threw down 
 the gauntlet to modern materialism. Mrs. Eddy, of 
 Boston, deserves unstinted praise for opening the 
 door into the light for multitudes, and we who say 
 this by no means endorse all the positions token by 
 that remarkable woman, whose extreme views ne. 
 sarily excite an immense amount of controversy. Dr. 
 Evans, that grand whole-souled humanitarian whose 
 many works on divine, spiritual and mental modes of 
 healing are acknowledged text-books of priceless value, 
 has also done more than words can tell, to turn thecur- 
 rent of popular opinion in the right direction. Many, 
 many others, writers, teachers, practitioners, have sown 
 good seed abundantly, which is now happily beginning 
 to bear fruit in a happier condition of affairs the world 
 over. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF MRS. C. M LEWI8, 166 WARREN STREET* 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 A little boy who had catarrh, and had suffered from 
 birth, whose face was continually distorted, and whose 
 nights were disturbed from inability to breathe, was 
 entirely cured. He had been under the care of two 
 medical doctors, without benefit. This child had one 
 hand covered with warts which had refused to yield to 
 every kind of treatment, but with the radiation of 
 
SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 325 
 
 truth dissolved into nothingness, they went like dew 
 before the sun, gradually fading away. 
 
 This case was healed three years ago, and has stood 
 intact. I mention this as so many claim that mental 
 cures are not lasting. All that I shall mention are 
 cases that have remained cured a year or more. 
 
 An old lady who had suffered long with sciatica, 
 and who had lain only on one side for over five years, 
 was entirely cured with one treatment. She can now 
 lie on one side as well as the other with perfect ease ; 
 cured two years ago at time of writing. 
 
 In a case of eczema that had been under a physi- 
 cian's care, and was being treated with morphine every 
 three hours, the patient after first treatment was hit 
 sleeping and slept quietly through the night without 
 morphine or any drug whatever. A complete cure was 
 performed and morphine totally dispensed with. This 
 was more than a year ago. The lady was eighty-six 
 years of age. 
 
 I was called to a case where a young man had hem- 
 orrhage, and was afflicted with distressing cough. A 
 doctor said he must spend the winter in Colorado if lie 
 wished to live, as he would not be responsible if he re- 
 mained in the East. He responded readily to the truth 
 without traveling, and to-day is strong and well, re- 
 fleeting truth instead of error. Cured two years hgo. 
 
 A babe three months old, who had been treated to 
 eight different kinds of food in its short existence, and 
 who was discharging blood all day before ooming under 
 treatment came into harmony after first treatment and 
 was healed ; is now quite well, two years old. 1 oould 
 give many more instances where truth ha Ued 
 
32G SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 error and where light has proved the nothingness of 
 darkness in equally conclusive ways. 
 
 AN INTERESTING CASE. 
 
 I was called to a lady very ill of pneumonia. It 
 was feared she was dying the morning I was sum- 
 moned. I found her, physically speaking, in a very 
 high fever, her lungs so congested that her breathing 
 was like the panting of a dog. The fever Boon began 
 to subside, the respiration grew easier and longer, un- 
 der my "thought," or, a1 the call of my spirit to hers to 
 come up out of its physical bondage onto the plane of 
 spirit where pneumonia docs not exist. During the 
 treatment I received sudden and strong impression, like 
 a message to "treat the bowels, keep the bowels open," 
 a condition which I believe the regular practitioner 
 seeks to avoid. This surprised me as the point of seem- 
 ing danger, in the thought of patients and attendants 
 was centered elsewhere, bul remembering teh injunction: 
 "quench not the spirit/' I obeyed the inner prompting. 
 At my next visit I was told that the patient had passed 
 a tape worm, in two sections, which by actual measure- 
 ment was seventy-two feel long. The lady's restora- 
 tion to health was rapid. 
 
 Mis- Susie C. Clark, 
 15 Centre St., Cambridgeport, Masa 
 
 Among other cases not generally supposed curable 
 
 by mental or spiritual methods by those who do not yet 
 realize that the physical is alone the realm of limitation, 
 I would record the cure of some very severe corns and 
 
SPIRITUAL THEBAPEUTK 327 
 
 bunions, a case of eczema, one of dyspepsia of twenty- 
 two years' standing-, and a case of peritonitis which r 
 ular physicians had given up to die. The water bad 
 stopped and could not be drawn with instruments, ;n,- 
 successful attempts to do so having b en made, caus 
 great torture. In fifteen minutes after I entered 
 room the water passed freely without the patient's i 
 sciousness that the stricture and inflammation w 
 removed. Recovery was immediate. 
 
 I also treated a lady while two large, double teeth 
 were extracted, she experiencing no pain, or unpleas 
 ant sensation. 
 
 Miss SrsiK C. ( 'lark, 
 15 Centre St., Cambridgeport, M 
 
 A TUMOR CURED. 
 
 A lady who had an ovarian tumor of nearly eight 
 years, growth was healed in five treatments, although 
 before the fifth treatment she pronounced her 
 cured, the tumor having gradually subsided until it en- 
 tirely disappeared. A few months before I studied 
 Spiritual Science, I spent a day or two in her home, 
 during which time she was wonderfully relieved, al- 
 though she did not then mention it. Does this not 
 show that the spiritual power which heals is ;i natural 
 out-breathing, rather than the result of mental argil 
 ment, whether in " silent mind," or in verbal presenta- 
 tion \ The Eternal Spirit is always present to heal, il 
 one lives in the conscious realization of this truth. 
 
 Miss Maky E. Stbtngakdt, 
 1 Pearl St., Lynn. Mai 
 
828 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS, 
 
 TESTIMONIES FURNISHED BY DR. AND MRS. CONGAR, 
 247 OGDEN AVE., CHICAGO. 
 
 San Antonio, Tex., April 22, 188 i 
 The case of Miss Anna Phillips had baffled the skill 
 of medical doctors, and she came to us as a last resort* 
 Inheriting as she thought kidney difficulty from Ik r 
 father, who had died from that disease, she had given 
 up all hope of recovery, and constantly feared insanity. 
 She had been unable to walk, or go up and down stairs 
 for over a year. She was healed by seven treatments, 
 entirely mental and spiritual. Miss Phillips proclaimed 
 the glad tidings of health far and near, and was a 
 striking advertisement for truth seen and read by all. 
 
 Rosa C. Cokgab. 
 
 San Antonio, Tbx., April. 1884, 
 The case of Mrs. W. N. Doffy, was a combination 
 of uterine difficulties, indigestion, constipation and in- 
 action of liver and kidneys, producing partial blindness 
 and dizziness. One treatment produced a marked 
 change in her condition. She was entirely restored in 
 twenty four treatments. Few oases can be found more 
 complicated or physically worse than the above. 
 
 Rosa C. Congab. 
 
 Galykston, Tex., March l vv l. 
 Mrs. Rickey had been unable to work or walk for a 
 year, suffering constant pain resulting from uterine 
 complications, with nervous exhaustion. 
 
 Only eight treatments were needed to restore her 
 to health both of body and mind. She reported her- 
 self strong and well, six months later, expressing great 
 gratitude for such singular benefit. 
 
 Rosa C. Conga r. 
 
SPIR ITJAL THERAPEI7114 
 
 Oakland, CaL., July, 1887. 
 The case of Mrs. J. S., of New Britain, Conn., who 
 visited California, as a last hope, was one of chronic 
 fiver and kidney difficulty, attended with severe cod 
 She declared that by simply talking with us. she fell 
 better. In twenty treatments she was well. Six 
 months later she told us $1,000 would not pay tor all 
 we had done for her. She returned to her home in 
 Connecticut, a strong healthy woman sixty-five year 
 age. Rosa 0. i uel 
 
 cask OF (HAS. CLOUGH. 
 
 Oakland, Cal., July. 1 M 
 Diagnosis: Rheumatism for over six months: con- 
 stipation, stomach and liver troubles; had only two 
 weeks to remain before leaving for Mexico. Could he 
 be helped in that time! Wegave him strong hope that 
 he could be very much benefited. With four treat- 
 ments his lameness was entirely removed, and he 
 declared he was in every way well, and could walk 
 far as he ever could in his life. 
 
 1>K. M. E. ( JONGAS. 
 
 CASE OF JOHN MEYERS. 
 
 Galveston, Tin , March 5, 1884. 
 
 Diagnosis : Injured by a fall ; kidneys failed to do 
 their work ; sunstroke, constipation, rheumatic pain 
 right shoulder, ruptun . declared he was only 
 
 fit for the grave; tried mental treatment to please his 
 wife; was healed in twenty-six treatments; voinntei 
 a strong testimonial; atierman rationalist, without 
 least faith to build upon, but looked at the end of one 
 month like a new man. Ko u;. 
 
330 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 San Antonio, Tex.. May, 1884. 
 
 Mrs. Mary N for seven years had been a victim 
 
 to periodical attacks of sick-headache; was a physical 
 wreck. Her right lung was diseased, and she suffered 
 from a constant cough and many other unpleasant 
 symptoms. Mrs. N was healed in twelve treat- 
 ments by purely metaphysical methods, and said she 
 felt better than in twenty years previously. 
 
 I£r8. \l. (\ CONGAK. 
 
 Galveston, Tex., February, l vv l. 
 The case of Mr. W. O. Rutledge was one of long 
 
 standing; said he had taken drugs enough in the past 
 twenty years to stock a drn^ store; was but a wreck 
 of his former self, the result of a diseased heart, inac- 
 tion of the digestive organs, and poisoned blood; used 
 tobacco excessively; was perfectly healed in forty live 
 treatment. He always slept during treatment. He 
 was also enabled to relinquish his tobacco habit. 
 We received many letters from him during the next 
 year, in which he always reported himself strong and 
 flesli3 r . Rosa ( . ( Iongab. 
 
 EXPERIENCE OF MRS. LILT D. BOTH WELL, BIN DIEGO, 
 
 CAL. 
 In 1874 I had the misfortune to sprain my right 
 
 knee; slight lameness for six or eight weeks was the 
 result, though I did not at that time realize its serious 
 import. It gave me no permanent trouble. At times 
 I lamed nvyself for a few weeks, by making some quick 
 movement. One morning in February, 1886, I awoke 
 to find that I could bear no weight on the riffhl foot. 
 Not sensing the actual condition, I gave it no serious 
 
SPIRITUAL TIIKKAIM TTI 331 
 
 thought until the third day when 1 found that the 
 whole limb was losing power. Two Burgeons p 
 nouneed the ease "fluid around the joint" The limb 
 continued to grow weaker and finally began to shrink. 
 During three months of deep mental and physical de- 
 pression I was under the care of a most capable surgeon, 
 whose every effort to relieve the trouble seemed futile. 
 The case baffled experience. The weakness of the 
 limb became so excessive that day and night I was 
 obliged to rest it upon a piliow. 
 
 A lady asked me one day why T did not try mental 
 cure. I replied that I knew nothing about it. She then 
 spoke of a metaphysician whom she knew to be verv 
 successful, and (to use an old phrase) as a last resort I 
 sent for her. She gave me treatments for a week with- 
 out visible effect on the physical. A few hours after 
 the seventh treatment, sitting quit# alone in my room 
 reading Dr. Evans' Primitive Mind Cure, the chap 
 on the Art of Forgetting Disease, with cratches bee 
 me, my foot resting on a chair and a pillow under 
 the knee, I became so deeply engrossed in the sub- 
 ject that I was oblivious of self until 1 realized that 
 I was standing on the opposite side of the room, and 
 that I had walked there of my own five ,/•.'//, quite 
 without the aid of the friendly cratches, for there they 
 stood beside my vacant chair. I was greatly excited 
 and continued to walk, cry and laugh alternately for 
 an hour or more. As the different members of my 
 family returned and found what had been done they 
 were in much the sam< if mental excitement that 
 
 I was in. 
 
 The following morning the metaphysician came as 
 
332 SPIRITUAL THERAPEUTICS. 
 
 usual, and she, too, was quite overcome when she saw 
 the wonderful work that had been accomplished. It 
 was like one of the so-called miracles of old, so marvel- 
 ous were the results. I shall ever hold this dear lady, 
 Mrs. Shields, of Berkeley, Cal., in grateful and lov- 
 ing remembrance. I consider her work one of the 
 greatest achievements of Spiritual Science. No tpcak- 
 ncss vMsfelt in the knee at tiny firm qfU r I began walk- 
 ing. A course of twenty-one treatments entirely cured 
 me. Some two weeks later Mr. Colville came to Oak- 
 land and opened a class in Spiritual Science. K 
 for enlightenment I joined it. Alter the sixth lesson I 
 had the misfortune to slip on the sidewalk and sprain 
 the knee again. It became swollen and useless. Once 
 more I was obliged to resort to crutches. I felt heart- 
 broken that by carelessness I should bring that calami- 
 tous condition up#n myself. The following morning 
 I attended the class and after the lecture stated the 
 case and asked a class treatment. Mr, Colville said 
 "You have heard the lady's statement, now give her 
 your concentrated thought that she is not lame, that 
 she can walk." The lameness was gone instantly and I 
 arose and walked. My husband carried my crutches 
 home, and from that time I have not used them nor 
 have I been lame. 
 
 N. B. — The incident recorded here took place on the 
 campgrounds bordering Lake Merritt, Oakland, Cal., 
 in June, 1886, and was witnessed by fully two hundred 
 persons. 
 
ALL STUDENTS OF THEOSOPHY 
 
 SHOULD PROCURE 
 
 "The Mystery of the Ages" 
 
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 LADY CAITHNESS. 
 
 ( DuCHESSE DE POMAR.) 
 
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 W. J. COLVILLE 
 
 Will Furnish thia Marvelous Book, Poa1 l ' »i»y 
 
 Address, on Receipt of $2.50. 
 
 N. B. PLEASE SEND POSTAL NOTE WHEN ORDERINC. 
 
W. J. COLVILLE 
 
 IS PREPARED TO ANSWER CALLS TO 
 ... LECTURE ... 
 
 IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD WHERE THE 
 
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS SPOKEN. ALSO 
 
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 CORRESPONDENCE MAY BE ADDRESSED TO 
 
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THE EDUCATOR, 
 
 CAUSE AND CURE OF ALL DISEASE. 
 
 A work of over 660 pages, just Issued. 
 By Rosa Cadman Congar, M.H., and Dr, M, E. Ccngar. 
 
 This work is made up of Twenty-four Chapters, and brief sum- 
 mary. 
 
 Chapter I. — Introductory, by Dr. Cougar. 
 Chapteb II. — Causes: Ignorance and neglect. 
 
 Chapter III.— Remedies : Innumerable and simple; should h. 
 
 varied in application as are the faces of the human family. 
 
 Chapter IV. — Lungs, Stomach and Circulation: These vital 
 organs and their functions duly considered. 
 
 Chatter V. — Heart and Liver. Their relation and Importance 
 considered. 
 
 Chapter VI. — Constipation and Piles: This one ehaj ter Is worth 
 the price of the book to every family. 
 
 Chapter VII. — Baths, Gymnastics and Ventilation : The les- 
 sons taught in this division are all exceedingly important. 
 
 CHAPTEB VIII. — Hygienic Food: If you desire perfect health. 
 you must make a careful study and live the teachings of thfc 
 
 chapter. 
 
 Chapter IX.— Physiology of Marriage: Advice and counsel that 
 parents should not ignore. 
 
 Chapter X. — Fevers and Inflammations: Only signals of dis- 
 tress; friends, and not enemies. 
 
 Chapter XI. — Bowels, Kidneys and Bladder: If dig 
 cause of bad treatment. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. — Sunshine and Shadow: Important, r< ry im- 
 portant health requisites. 
 
 Chapter XIII.— Dress: The subject dressed as only woman can 
 dress 
 
 CHAPTER XIV.— Colds, Catarrh, Consumption, Bronchitis, 
 Asthma and Indigestion : ( lauses shown, and simple rem 
 prescribed which have never failed. 
 
 Chapter XV.- Useful Recipes: Condensed Items; necessities In 
 every household. 
 
Chapter XVI.— Health Crystals: Illustrates) the power of poetry 
 and gems of thought, to heal and uplift the sick and depressed. 
 
 Chapter XVII. — Pregnancy : Parturition without pain considered. 
 The subject treated by a mother, having had large experience 
 and observation. 
 
 Chapter XVIII. Children, their Care at Btrth and During 
 Childhood: Thirty pages devoted to this important subj< < 
 
 Chapter XIX.— Diseases of Women and Children : Women are 
 everywhere suffering from ignorance of the laws of their being. 
 A careful studv will be of great advantage to both mother and 
 child. 
 
 Chapter XX.— Testimony of 100 Eminent M.D's., Professors 
 and Chemists: We ask all who think they are safe in relying 
 upon medicines when sick, to read this chapter of the "Edu- 
 cator " before anjj otl 
 
 CHAPTEB XXI. — Tobacco and Alcoholic Liquors : We only ask a 
 candid, unprejudiced perusal of this division of the work. 
 
 Chapter XXII. —Health Hash: A hundred or more brief hints 
 hashed up for the good of all. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. — Menstruation and Change of Life : Important 
 facts for old and young. 
 
 Chapter XXIV. — Miscellaneous Diseases, Remedies and Sug- 
 gestions: The suggestions will uplift and strengthen your lives. 
 Read every word of this closing chapter. 
 
 The very choice colored illustrations add much to the intrinsic 
 vidue of the Educator. 
 
 Every practical Metaphysician should study it. 
 
 Agents Wanted. 
 
 Unusual inducements are offered agents, both men and women, in 
 every State, County, City and Town-ship in the United States 
 and Canada. Address, 
 
 EDUCATOR PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 Dr. M. £. Congar, Mg'r., Chicago, 111. 
 
 Lock Box 32a 
 
THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 
 
 OR 
 
 H ealth ^ H ealing 
 
 CONSIDERED IN 
 
 Twelve Lecturers. 
 
 — V^^DELIVERED INSPIRATION ALLY & '^ — 
 
 BY W. J. COLVILLE 
 
 In San Francisco and Boston during 1886, and published 
 by urgent request. 
 
 Xo other teacher or writer has yet been able to make the 
 whole subject of Healing by the Mental Methods so clear, 
 plain and easily understood. No other teacher harmon- 
 izes the varied and seemingly conflicting views as does 
 W. J. Colville. 
 
 FINELY BOUND IN CLOTH, 263 PAGES, PRICE $1,00, 
 
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 ADDRESS: <r— 
 
 Educator Publishing Co., 
 
 Dr. M. E. CONGAR, Manager, 
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