LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ®jf8p... ©qmrhtfrt %. Shel£.M<£. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. LIFE AND HEALING. A SEGMENT OF SPIRITONOMY. BY HOLMES W. MERTON. 'i?*7 publtsfyeb by % author, 212 Columbus Avenue, Boston, Mass. WRITTEN APRIL 5TH, 1893. COPYRIGHT 1894, BY HOLMES W. MERTON. HOLMES W. MERTON. THE ARGUHENT OF DENIAL. The material body can neither create nor maintain life; can neither heal discords (dis- ease) nor establish harmony; cannot feel, rea- son, or will; is not sentient, sensuous, or inde- pendent. THE ARGUflENT OF POSSESSION. Those truths that relate to life are found in solving spirit laws through their expressions in organized bodies, by which expressions it becomes possible to understand the pheno- mena of life and to gain tho.se elements of knowledge concerning the nature of things that will lead our reason, faith, and judgment to the more perfect use and control of the spirit forces of the Omni verse. We attempt to find that concord of nature which the material world does not possess ; to proclaim that the mental living constitution of man is a spirit organism, composed of spirit substances and governed by spirit forces ; that all life de- pends upon such government as shall be in harmony with those spirit laws of the Omni- verse which create life conditions and life action. We argue that disease in all its varied forms is but the loss of spiritual self-rulership, discordant in its habits, but easily mastered by mental self-government, by confidence in self- rightness, and by the absence of fear, hatred, extreme passions or depressing emotions. LIFE AND HEALING. province. It is our province in this little book, to state what seems to us to be the un- derlying substances, forces and forms that are essential to life. We shall not attempt a negative attack upon the vast number of variable explanations of the solution. But leaving those systems to defend themselves against the presence and evidences of more positive thought, we shall proceed with what we believe to be the nearer solution to the habits of living things. We have included the doctrine of healing with our argument of life laws, because all healing is the gaining of life ; all life is spirit growth and progress. That which contributes life and harmonizes life elements, heals or makes whole. object of inquiry. I^ife is a condition of elements. What those elements are, what kinds of power they have, and how to gather together those elements with their powers, are questions to which we seek answers. Such is the intuitive nature of man that in every great age there have lived persons with the same great intuitions of the nature of life. If we listen to the intuitive hermit or the in- tuitive philosopher of this age we shall hear the intuitive affirmations of ages past. These have changed but little, except in the terms of expression. We cannot rely upon our intuitions alone ; they are the indefinite precursors of the superior methods of measurements. We must elaborate and confirm our in- tuitions and inspirations concerning the rela- tions of one truth to another, by the more rigid processes of reason. If an object of inquiry extends beyond the range of our knowledge or beyond the limits of our capacity to inquire, we cannot possibly know more than those parts that are within the range of inquiry. It is thus with the Omniverse. No amount of imaginative exten- sion can carry our knowledge beyond our lim- its of inquiry. The materialists, weighing the evidences of their senses, attribute to matter all of the forces, watch the changes of life through long ages, 9 and finally, their senses apparently giving them nothing but material energies, substan- ces, and their sequences, these materialists remain in thought only material scientists in a material Omniverse. And thus they confide even yet almost utterly in the power of material elements to originate life ; and that, in the long course of time given them, these elements have brought about more and more perfect beings. Some have noticed that "these elements in some un- explainable way," seem to change their nature in so doing. But this has been noted only in a dim and indefinite way, and more from dissatisfaction at the result obtained than from the evidences of apparent law. How chemical elements can create life, none seem able to give even a reasonable hypothesis ; yet, once having life, a long line of living objects constantly becoming more and more complex individually, and as a race, they claim as the result of chemical nature. evolution. They do not seem to realize that the same laws that made the higher orders possible, made likewise the lower orders of life possible, inasmuch, that the higher laws made the lower orders necessary. So far as evolu- tion is concerned, it is not in any way a law of matter, — evolution is, in fact, an effect of the involution and habit of spirit substances. There could be nothing at all strange in sim- ilar parts or functions existing in great numbers of living things at nearly like stages of their development ; their parts are the products of like laws in each. alternative. Or, our philosopher and scientist who is unable to believe the orderly course of myriads of events to be the product of unintelligent matter, repudiates matter as the cause, in favor of Mind, or of God, or of Principle. That either of these could be analyzable seems to him impossible ; that they could be composed of parts — equally irrational. Why should the mental nature of man reach a high state of inspiration concerning his own nature and the Deity, before physical science was made reasonably clear, unless his inspirations were true ? How could man know aught con- cerning the spiritual Omni verse, before he knew the contour and relations of even the solar system ? And if the laws of the visible Omniverse were discovered, how could that explain the phenomena of intelligence ? The progress of knowledge to those who are unfamiliar with the laws of mental action, seems to be quite contrary to natural law. Such questions as these, then, they find quite as far unanswerable by the laws of physics as they are beyond the firmest steps of philoso- phy. II Where science seemed to contradict ethics, philosophy, or religion, we see and have seen "the division of the waters;" two great systems of thought rushing on. The mass of facts of both are true. Of the mass of conclu- sions drawn, we reserve opinion now. Of the two great systems, the essential of one is the evolution of matter in life; the essential of the other is the constantly sustained incessant cre- ations of an omnipotent being. infinite. We have spoken of the first; let us dwell a moment on the second. Ac- cording to the latter system this omnipresent power must rule all things, and therefore, in order to govern, He must be omnipotent, and finally, in order that the Omniverse should be freed from sin, He must be omniscient. Carrying their deductions along this narrow path, the existence of a "material universe;" and an Infinite Being, in Infinite Space, seemed no barrier to their reasoning ; over these impassable obstructions no progress could be made in solving the nature of life. The Omniverse was bereft of limits because "finite" man could not measure its' last limit. The limited could not comprehend the unlimit- ed, the finite could not comprehend the Infin- ite and must therefore in this life on earth, re- main ignorant of all except that somewhere, somehow, the Infinite existed. 12 These premises and their conclusions are the body of their philosophies, and because mortals cannot rationalize these with the vari- able course of events under supposed invaria- ble laws, and in the contradictions of habits and accidents, they constitute the One Great Mystery. effect. Cause and effect when concerning an object, are ever the same, so far as the thing in which they transpire is concerned ; cause is an historical statement of an effect, and otherwise never exists. methods. We shall seek to find upon what great general laws the orderly procession of things moves, each particle and part, and whole seeking to fulfil its own motive in the eternal Now. Wherever we turn we shall find the inter- pretation of action toward Harmonic Habit, harmonic law ; will find that concord within each part to the perfection of that part will bring unity of parts, and that unity of parts brings perfection of wholes. The spirituality of the investigator will aid, it is true, in getting an insight into the pre- liminary outline of the subjects at hand. But we shall appeal to nature and nature's evi- dences, and shall not hide behind the screen that so often pretends to hide great truths by claiming that it requires " great spirituality " or a " mystical nature " to understand. Few 13 persons indeed have learned to interpret their impressions of spirit law ; and intuition or spirituality alone are not sufficient for the end in view. Natural laws compared, reasoned upon, and the combination of great synthetic and analytical power were necessary to the first understanding, but thereafter the truth, as rapidly as it is discovered, should be clear to any interested and logical mind. natural law. The evidences we shall point out as we proceed, in order to substan- tiate our successive claims, must of ne- cessity be only a small number as compared with the perpetually recurring mass of evi- dence open to the student, when once the relation of the form and quantity of an object to its forces have become reasonably clear. As we have seen, there seems to have been insurmountable obstacles in the way of the materialist and physical scientist to find physical ' ' cause ' ' for an effect apparently opposite the nature of physical effects. They were forced to credit the evidences given their senses from one direction, and to doubt an equally strong series from another ; to squabble over "cause and effect' ' as though they were separate in action and in place ; were forced, according to their own philoso- phy, to accumulate a knowledge of all the vis- ible habits of things, and then try to find in the inferior (or less complex) the "cause" of the habit of the superior (or more complex.) H But the physicists and materialists went even farther than this in their worship of mat- ter as chemical elements ; they trusted the microscope, telescope, and chemical retort, but doubted the reason that constructed those implements. Some writers deny the existence of ' ' mat- ter " or chemical elements, and include all things as mind. It is of little consequence what we call the diamond, the flake of steel, or the malleable fragment of gold. They are crystaline — life opposing substances. We may as well recognize that fact first as last. The discovery of gravitation, and the apparent incapacity of man to produce an absolute vacuum, lent remarkable staying power to the system of physics, yet we may find that the forces of gravity are insufficient to planitary revolutions, and that force is im- possible without vacuum. We shall not dwell upon these two great elements of physics and power. We cannot afford to doubt the truths that seem evident, nor yet to assume to know what knowledge the future holds in store for us ; neither need we apologize for our convic- tions by stating a half dozen alternatives to each element of opinion we announce. There- fore, while realizing that we may be wrong, we shall proceed with our statement. chemical laws. We find that chemical elements in living bodies, act very contrary to 15 their habits in lifeless bodies ; we find that matter (the chemical elements) must decay or change from its rigid individual forms before it can become a vital part of a living structure, and, when within the living structure, must continually disobey, in a very large degree, its own laws. We take a step further, and we find that about only one-fifth of the known chemical elements are easily involved in living objects, and the rest are nearly all rejected. We also find the scientists claiming that there are six great forces, or modes of motion, and that living objects are so constituted that these, with the chemical elements, cause the condition we call life. The discovery of the process called evolu- tion adds another great law to their structure, and has, as we have already stated, become one of the great doctrines of this age. synaktesis. We shall try to disprove the doctrine of material evolution. Evolution is not a law of matter, or material force ; evolu- tion, in its process, is a law of spirit substances and their forces. Evolution is the successive effects of the involving of spirit substances and the attendant forced action of matter. By this synartesis physical life is possible while the spirit substances rule. The synarchy of spirit and matter form life. i6 We shall find that the physical forces, such as light, heat, chemia, gravity, electricity and magnetism, are, after all, only of essential use to material processes, and are not able to effect or continue life. These six great modes of motion — light, heat, gravity, chemia, electricity, and mag- netism — may stop the material accompaniment to life, either by their absence or their exces- sivepresence — at least, heat, electricity, grav- ity and chemic force may do so. But these facts are not evidence that they create life pro- cesses. crystaline. The crystal is the unit of the material Omniverse. Every chemical element, so far as known, when reduced to its lowest consistency, forms a crystaline body. It is then bounded by straight lines, and governed by right-line poles. Its motions are acute or oblique angles, its internode (path of vibration) assumes the direction of its poles, and, in the absence of one or more of the great material forces, it tends either to disintegrate like from like, or, to assume rigidity. If this were not true, the problem of life would yet. be un- solved. Before we proceed further, let us con- sider in condensed form, the opposite doctrine, that of Deism in general. We have become accustomed to generalities in metaphysics and theistic arguments ; we often fail to notice the distinction between a 17 part and a whole — fail in our thought and speech to separate our ideas of a thing from those of its habits. Thus we find .he mistake most often made by intuitive as well as other thinkers is that of confounding the thing — the body or substance of an object — with its condition. Many of the mistakes of intuitive thinkers, and of those who are filled with intense faith, come from the desire to condense statements of truth into epigrammatic form, and to modify the common meaning of a word or sentence by extreme emphasis. Let us take as an instance a statement fraught with much comparative truth: "All is good;" intensified into " All is Good;" then into "All is Good, or God." The word "good" as first used is an adjective, and relates to a condition of things ; the second "Good" is made a noun and relates to the kind of benefits or advantages that things ma)* or do give; the third "Good, or God," is made to represent, not the condition of things or the powers involved, but a thing itself. All this is confusing, the shortened sentence requires more explanation (if it were true at all) than would be required to state the true meaning. We shall soon see how necessary it is that, in our thinking, we do not confuse the idea of the substance or body of a thing with that of its habit. i8 attributes. A thing, or object, cannot transfer itself or be tranferred to another thing, except by accretion thereto; it must add its body and form to that of the thing it joins. Let us not forget this : Every thing in the Omniverse has its own form, occupies its own space, has its own individuality. These attri- butes are not all that things possess, which necessitates that we consider the habit, or method of acting, in fact, the motions of things; the power of one or more things to modify or change the motion of another thing. For the sake of brevity we will call this habit. We cannot deny that things vary greatly in their habits and conditions, and must necessarily be relative in their goodness, and yet all may do good. aix is good, Now we return to the epi- gram quoted above. "All is good" may then read, "All is relatively good;" but if God is a being, or an object, or a substance, the meaning conveyed by the statement "All is Good, or God," cannot be made to read "All things do, relatively, Good, or God," for the intent must be that good is a condition pos- sessed or given, and God is a thing. Either both terms must mean the same object, without reference to quality, or both relate to condi- tion alone. habit. We cannot think logically or clearly if we confound the habit of a thing 19 with the thing itself. The reasons why Ave can- not are plainly these: A thing by its own habit may overcome the habit of a weaker thing, or may change the habit of a conscious thing be- cause of a desire to change in the conscious thing. Habit may be either transferred or emulated. Habit is the mode of an object, not its substance ; substances may join each other's movements, ma}' succumb to each other's motions, but they can neither destroy each other or their own laws. force. Thus we may approach nearer the clear conception of the forces, for force is the individual habit of a thing either acting alone or in the presence of other things. The habits of some things — that is, pai tides, sub- stances, or bodies — harmonize with the habits of other things, their movements synchronize ; this we note as mutuality of time. The habits of some things antagonize the habits of other things. Their movements may be either asyn- chronous, (out of time) or may be different in length of movement or in direction. When this happens and the substances or bodies repel each other, we note it as antagonism. mutuality. Spirit subtances have all these habits. Matter also has them. But the curved directions of spirit movements have much greater mutuality of movement than have the angular directions of matter. In the 20 living body, the movements of spirit are in such direction and proportion as to make their harmony almost perpetual. In the higher living bodies, the desire and expectancy of harmony of conscious spirit is of itself both synchronic and sympathetic with the habit of spirit substances around. The ability to receive originates in the receiver; the effect is involution of spirit substances and the incursion of spirit habit (forces) from contact with surrounding substances. We are conscious that we supply our phy- sical body with elements which we derive from many different sources. There is no diffi- culty in understanding that these different particles aggregate into one body of many parts. Why should it be difficult to under- stand that the spirit body, in a similar way, gathers together the particles that compose its aggregate body of many parts ? Certainly it does this through different laws, different forces, and different paths of action, than those of matter. We know not how great may be the inter- stices of material substances; we can only measure material energy by material ener- gy, and, as we overcome it, by spirit energy. The physical body is warmed from without, as well as from within ; is nullified from with- out and built from the material elements that 21 exist around it. Why not the spirit body ? It is vitalized, harmonized, fed, strengthened, and made intelligent, affectionate and voli- tional from the masses of spirit substances that move in their curved harmony, the suns and planets of the Omni verse. There is no lethargy in the vast concourse of bodies. Every single object, from the small- est atomic particle of substance to the greatest body of substances, has its powers, each de- pending upon surrounding substances for a full manifestation. Thus we know that each particle or combin- ation of particles has it own way of acting — its favorite habit — its method of movement — its inherent energy — it principle of effect — that is, its own natural law. This is true of spirit, true of matter, The questions needing solution are those which determine the forms and laws of such sub- stances as are able to produce life. If chemical elements and their natural habits can effect the condition called life, then material involution and the processes of physical change are enough to account for the living as well as the inorganic objects that are found within the range of human knowledge. But every parti- cle obeys it own natural law, unless governed by more powertul particles ; it obe} T s its own natural law in preference to any other, simply because that is its habit and its polarity. 22 It is impossible to conceive of an Omniverse composed of one kind of substance, with one kind of polarity, and necessarily one habit of motion, yet producing objects with uncounta- ble kinds of forms and phenomena. All evi- dence thus far discovered by the human in- tellect, affections or will, affirms the unchange- ability of each element and the accomplish- ment of variable effect through the variable ratios of differing substances — substances with different forms, polarities, and consequent different motions and laws. to create. The condition created is in sym- pathy with its creator. One substance acting with another substance to effect a third condi- tion of their bodies — to transform or reform — is to create. Hence, the body created is in sympathy with itself, and like habits produce and support like habits. It matters little whether the action is between two or more of the smallest, or of the largest, parts of the Omniverse. Thus harmony develops harmoii3 T , and antagonism develops antagonism. truth. A law is a method of action. All action is true ; it may be disagreement. Truth relates to actions or past actions, and false- hood is a misstatement of action, a condition of doubt; and doubt leads to disease, to loss of government. Hence, law and truth are in objects — things — parts — and cannot be taken from them. 23 We know the laws of an object only as far as we know the thing in which the truth is. We must try not to be mistaken in regard to these parts of knowledge. We cannot solve all the laws of life by a study of its cell structure. We find there an essential method and motion, but we shall only find the complete expression of cell power when we study their masses and their habits in the higher forms of life. Of these the human brain and its receiving organs are undoubtedly the arch-type of form and power; and, as it is through a knowledge of the human brain as a spirit organism that we can solve those ele- ments of natural life and of human develop- ment, that can be discovered in no other way, we proceed with a tentative statement of some of its functions. The writer here credits Dr. Sivartha with the great discoveries upon which this book is founded, but, so far as he knows, he (the writer) is solely responsible for many of the conclusions here set forth. human brain. The human brain and its organs of sense translate, transform and ad- just the material forces into movements that harmonize with the spirit structure of the brain and body. These movements of material substances thus become as near the direction and internode of spirit movements as it is yet possible for the motions of material elements 24 and their compounds to become. The brain is thus, in its habits and products, essentially a spirit organism, and not a material one. Clairvoyance, audivoyance, thought tranfer- rence and similar mental effects are partially transformed and spiritually transferred forces before they are felt by the organs of sense. The compound organs of sense must mod- ify the incoming material forces before the brain can recognize them as pleasurable forces. If it cannot sufficiently modify and govern them they become destructive. It is thus with all poisons — they are ungoverned — and all elements, when ungoverned, are destructive to life. The movements caused by light and sound, never, as such, enter the living brain. Odors, flavors and motions of touch are trans- formed before they reach the brain, although the substances which effect these forces may afterward enter into the blood and become a part of the brain structure. But these forces as received by the senses, must be changed into motions such as the brain can, as a spirit organ, understand. Neither physiologist nor physicist has yet realized how the brain, as a physical organ, or the "mind," can take cognizance of force or sense, or receive ' impressions and commands " from each other" back and forth. ' ' The point of contact cannot be known," is their oft-repeated statement, and no wonder. The "mind" they have never 25 yet located. Some thinkers have dematerial'ized it into nothing, and failed to reconstruct it with anything else. Whether the ' ' mind' ' is a condition or a thing no one seems yet to have determined. To say it is "the soul," or "a soul," or that its action is "psychical phenomena," only leads further away into greater quicksands of reason. There is, it seems to this writer, no other solution, than that forces are the habits of bodies, and these habits can be changed by combination and conservation of their energies. "Mind" thus expresses the habits and nature of a spirit mental mechanism. momentum. Another bold step must be taken before the "forces" can be accounted for, and that step is in opposition to the doc- trine that "nature abhors a vacuum." The theory of an elastic ether, filling space and the interstices of matter, is without sufficient sup- port to be accredited. Nature abhors a vacuum only when the re- sistence is great enough or the polarities strong enough to thrust or draw particles to- gether. Vacuum exists between particles wherever force is manifested, and as great in proportion as the liberated node of momentum will admit. The mode of motion of a substance is its internode of momentum. Over this very short path it travels to and fro with great rapidity. 26 This path is along the direction of its poles. This atomic power, by joining other particles, may create another motion which includes the internode of atomic momentum. The first explains the forces, the second — dynamic en- ergy and movement. the senses. We can now return to a con- sideration of the organs of sense. It is very essential that we understand them if possible. We shall then better understand how to feed our spirit nature, for spirit is substance — not an hallucination, not a force. The different vibrations of light, giving the effect called colors, are transformed by the eye into vibrations of nerve-substances. These transformed vibrations have a spirit-force habit, because the nerves themselves are gov- erned by spirit. When these particular curves and forms of force are carried to the brain by the optic nerve they are there recognized as light, each color depending upon its particu- lar length and shape of movement to give it its individuality. The same is true of heat, sound, odors, flavors, touch and the milder forms of electric force. Each organ has its own process and habit of effecting the change it is adapted to make. Thus by these compound spirit-and-matter organs of the nervous system, there is a con- servation of material energy into spirit en- ergy, and the reverse. 27 To the extent that each organ is limited in its spirit power it is limited in its reception of material or spirit force. Let us not imagine that material forces only are received. Some of these forces — as heat, electricity, and gravity — may become so powerful that they destroy the receiver, and thus make their conservation impossible by the living organ of sense. The transforming of material forces into spirit forces by the organs of the senses clearly demonstrates that none of the physical forces are life forces. Why not ? In order to answer we must briefly consider two other qualities of force, namely, polarity and atomic momentum. These qualities are distinguished by the difference of direction, length of internode (path) and rapidity with which the body moves from one end to the other of its path. A variation of these three distinct qualities of the motion of a body, whether great or small, makes possible very many different degrees of power and effect. These qualities also distinguish the motions of material bodies from those of spirit bodies, and indicate the presence of one governing the other. The motions of material sub- stances have longer internodes, along acute or oblique angles, according to their single or combined polarities. If we study chemical elements, we can see, in their crystal forms, 28 the contour of their movements. These re- quire to be reduced in length and width of internode — to be rounded and made smoother — in obeying nervous and spirit influences. forms. The form of a body is the product of its substances — of the combined elements of which it is composed. By comparing the forms of living things with the crystal-line forms of the. inorganic world we shall notice remarkably different energies. A living thing is governed by smooth, curved, self-retaining forces. A dead and inor- ganic thing is governed by angular, straight and disintegrating forces. Neither of the two great classes of substances can ever produce the other. An element cannot change its na- ture ; it can voluntarily gain only that which sympathizes with it, and, by accretion, through harmony of form and movement. Matter everywhere demonstrates its desire for supremacy, That supremacy is to crystal- ize, disintegrate, degenerate and compound with its fellows. Organisms having life op- pose these habits and move in curves and el- lipses; accumulate, organize and generate, and are self-repairing. extremes. Between these extremes lie all the known processes of omniversal law. We know of no habit of any substance that goes beyond these in either direction. The first series, that of matter, leads to extreme 29 rigidity; the second series, that of spirit, le'ads to the extreme of conscious mobility, feeling and thought. The first is the method of chemical activity and material law; the second, widely different in every essential habit, is the method of spiritual power and spirit law. This last is the nature of the grand series of substances which govern all the multiplicity of things having life. spirit. This class, called spirit, contains many elements, is curvilineal in form, mode of motion, and in polarity. Life thus becomes the product and effect of the involution, organization, and govern- ment of that class of substances. involuntary physical life. The material body, formed from the elements of bioplasm, is a compulsory accompaniment of matter to the self-governing spirit. We know the whole as a body having life. So long as this incidental and enforced gov- ernment of matter by organized spirit con- tinues the material body obeys the laws of life, but- the instant the spirit body loses con- trol of the material body, material disintegra- tion takes place, and material forces govern the material bod)-. It is then in a state of in- animation — we call it death ; it obeys crystal- line forces, can no longer repair abrasions, 3^ ceases all organized habit and is yielded to the control of its atomic forces. Has any biologist shown that life, or thought, or feeling, or will were products or conditions of matter? Matter is, in life, a servant of these. Every living thing has as its unit of struc- ture, a circular, or nearly circular, cell. This cell is bounded by curved lines and its poles of force are curved in their directions. It is, materially, a globular film of fibers and protoplasm, containing within it fluid sub- stances which, in their simplest states, are usually called bioplasm. But the cell substances which govern its form and effect the different life motions are spirit. sfirofxasm. These substances by their own laws form a compound which we may call spiroplasm, that is, spirit elements in the right proportion to effect life. Among these elements there is one which has a polarity very much like that of oxygen (except that the element is smaller). We may call this element spirogen. It is a genetic spirit substance. Through its habits and by combination of its particles, and with the combined powers of others of its kind, the chemical elements may become attached to the living spirit and must then obey its laws until some gradual or powerful crystaliz- 3i ing element destroys the relation of forced mutuality. We say forced mutuality — perhaps forced co-action (physical slavery) would better ex- press the state they are in. We find no harmonic action in the chemical elements, al- though evolutionists have supposed we could, in the sense that they are organized bodies. True, they aggregate in ratios and stay con- sistent as such until some other element is thrust near them, and then they fly apart without provision for the remnants. With spirit substances the nature is differ- ent. Their tendencies (at least those demon- strated in life) are centerward ; and replace- ment, readjustment, organization and perpet- uation are their natural laws and motions. harmonism. Iyife, then, is a series of har- monic actions carried on by spirit substances that have a tendency, through their circular motions, to return near the place of joining their fellows. This rushing around in curved streams, gathering more and more together, with rearrangement and continual sympathy, produces growth. We shall now pay less attention to the physiology, and more attention to the spirit- ononvy, of living tilings. We shall think less of the inorganic world and more of the organic world. The spirit organism alone has a knowledge 32 or sense of phenomena, a knowledge of part by part. It is, as it were, many conscious wheels of an intricate machine recognizing the existence of other wheels of the same mechanism, all moving each other toward a common effect. consciousness. No single element can ever be conscious of itself. Consciousness is the recognition, by a very complex structure, of the existence of another object. No body but an harmonic one can ever have conscious- ness. Simple living things are spirit governed, but they must become complex before they can know of their own existence. spiritone. A spiritone (living spirit body) is a body each part of which responds to, and has concerted movements with, each other part. When this demonstration is com- plete enough to organize the means for pleas- ure and the provision for existence, it becomes mentality. Mentality is a consummation that can only come through permanency of substance and constancy of motion — substantial memory. Mentality evidences the quantity, but not the quality, of intellect, affection or volition. Thus, reaching mentality, we come to a consideration of man : So far as our senses receive evidence, man is the most perfect spiritone that is incapable of rejecting the 33 involuntary chemical elements, and must, therefore, during combined life, make contin- uous provision for their presence in right pro- portion. As far as experience teaches us, human beings have not been able to develope without the accretion of material bodies. We do not affirm it to be impossible. The material body requires right substances and conditions — those of nutrition, temperature and rest. The natures of the two classes of substances are such that when the right proportion of mate- rial elements is not present the spiritone must suffer retarded and inharmonic movements. These we call pain. They produce the ac- tions that demand repair, and when repair is not effected may bring on dissolution of phy- sical ratios, crystalization and physical death. pain. The mastery of pain and physical death depends upon spirit conditions that will continue spirit harmony. In order to do that, the spiritone must make provision for, and govern a perfect physical structure. The centre of all this government is the brain. The complex structure of the human brain is the living maximum of cell-life. It can in no wa} T be accounted for by the material sub- stances and their laws that are known to man. It is the only known structure capable of solving its own methods — was itself its last solution. It looked outward to the Omni verse 34 around, gradually drew near to its own na- ture, and at last saw itself co-existant and re- sponsive to the orderly arrangement of life and law around it, began to think of its own perfection by growth, and to find in itself its greatest object of perpetual study. How much more perfect being than man there may be, we know not. An archetype of man could be only a more perfectly har- monic and law-obeying being than man — greater because more conscious of a greater nature ; greater in being more complex and more intense — not through arising above laws, but by containing more of them. In living things complexity gives conscious- ness — gives self-knowledge. As man grows more complex he realizes more of his own nature and power. With this knowledge of elements comes knowledge of self-government and self-perfection. These conduce to health — produce unity of action, not only unity of action of the mental organs, but between the mental and bodily organs — harmony between the governor and the governed. Harmony of mental action is essentially due to fully developed organs of thought, feeling and will, with the higher faculties of each ruling the lower ones. When those faculties that grow — and ra- diate forces — forward and upward are strong enough to mould the wants and supplies of 35 the whole, the nature takes an upward growth, and in very truth follows the path of spirit light. All progress is spiritual growth, gauged by the purity of our foods and by the noble- ness of our mental associates. By keeping these of a quality devoid of poison, hate, re- venge and falsehood, we are enabled to grow ennobled. Thus may we gain the elements that create in us an abundance of amity, hope, devotion and self-rulership. These will give us power to translate — through our organs of inspiration, reason and communion — nature's spirit laws into thought and con- duct. The material body is the servant of the spiritone, which governs by intense mixture with the physical elements. The physical body as a whole is as deathless as is the spiritone, if perfectly governed by it. The more perfect the confidence the spiritone has in its own power to govern, the more united its elements are in their action. Hopeful promises of usefulness make life longer. The more perfectly each part recognizes the needed function and activity of every other part, the greater the power of growth. Knowledge that will direct every part of the spiritone toward doing its duty to the whole— is the key to healing and health— and mental recognition of natural personal 36 strength is the greatest preventive and cure. The higher the degree of life, the greater the intensity, and this intensity can thus be made to produce either greater constancy or greater disintegration, just in proportion to the presence or lack of concord. chemical medicines. The reason that the "proximate principles" that chemically nutrify living things cannot be successfully compounded by any chemist, is due to the fact that spirit elements and their natural organic tendencies are not present. And this is why the chemical compounds of the "ma- teria medica" so seldom give the desired re- sults. They may furnish material substances having, perhaps, forces such as the body seems to require. In reality it is either spirit forces, or elements having those forces, that are needed to effect the healing. Physicians have doctored the body as the ruling elements of man. They have encour- aged pain and disease through ignorance of the nature of either. Pain is very largely habit — will-less habit. When one grieves, is it from loss of an organ ? Is it " physical ? ' ' Certainly not. What causes loss and pain through grief ? Lack of the spirit ruling itself. Equally so when bad action takes place in any part of the organism, call the action "dys- 37 pepsia," "rheumatism," "insanity," — what you will. It is perverted action of mentality, loss of rulership, unspiritual habit. Suppose we are thirsty and refuse to drink, would our thirst be quenched ? Suppose we neglect to feed our spirit organs ; as a conse- quence we " ache." If we refuse to get spirit from food and air, if we doubt the vast reservoir of spirit, will we get nourishment for our spirit ? The possibility of repelling is equal to that of attracting. We may deny the desiring, harmonizing, life-giving substances and life containing substances around us, and they shun us if they can. We repel and they de- part . We trust their forms, act according to their habits, and we get what we trust in — strength, vigor, life. That is spirit law, spirit habit, spirit nature, and our own spiritone forces the issue. When we begin to trust We establish a want ; our want leads to de- mand by persuasive thought, and we receive. We trust in our own government, and we grow strong ; we have no doubt of our power, and it increases; we recognize the food, and it nutrifies ; the creator, and it is admitted to create. From the planets and suns of the heavens, from animal and plant and stone — b}' communion with all of these — we are to reap pleasure. -Spirit and matter are inter- minsrled throughout the known Omuiverse: 38 there is in all regions, in some degree, a man- ifestation of both. We are made intelligent through formal action in the Omniverse ; affectionate through its static action ; willful, in accord with dy- namic habit. We know that every mental faculty and its responding body organ is directly influenced by a special kind of spirit force, which rightly directed , is a specific for diseases (lost government) of those regions. [This very extensive subject will be treated in another work.] But the greatest source of strength and vitality is in the truthful, mutual, honorable inter-relations of mankind. Those who are strong in wisdom, love or will, should aid those who are weak in these. All mankind have these in operation. The organs of the intellect direct us in our labor toward the fulfilment of our desires ; but they never perforin the functions of the other re- gions of mental actions or of mental wants. The affections love and attract. The will demands and executes. Intellect, affection, and volition are necessary to make possible a complex product. The measure by which we recognize the right use of any function is that of unity of purpose toward harmonism. nerve forces. Whatever destroys har- mony and equilibrium in a living body, in 59 a like degree destroys life ; whatever estab- lishes these supports life. The forces of affection are of those organs having smooth, looped, calmly flowing spirit forces, forces that draw others toward us and draw us toward others and that which we love. The very calmness of these forces are manifesta- tions of creative habit, of unity of forms and substances in perpetuation of the static con- dition of life. The perpetuation of affection, of harmony, of creative power, and of spirit growth is most fully wrought through the mastery that leads to the ceaseless gathering and ceaseless radiance of smoothly vibrating force-. Thus formal intellect, static affection, and dynamic will aid each other, and neither exists alone ; each is a habit of demand and of desire for life. If the pine tree lives five hundred years, why cannot man ? Is man less by nature than the pine ? Has the pine Inspiration — Hope — Faith ? It reaches out its roots and branches as its command for life substances ; they respond, and it repairs its bruises. With thought, desires, will and intelligent interest, why cannot man command the seasons for his own — daunt the humbug Time ? Why not ? needs. If we have needs, the}- are essen- tially needs of the spiritone, so let us supply it as we should rightly supply our physical 46 body, and thus in our outward look realize that it is concord with the whole Omniverse — and not alone its chemical elements — that we need. Material foods replenish and sustain their kind. We have nearly failed to con- sciously enjoy those of greater power. sources. The spirit substances and their forces, if rightly demanded and desired, can and do cure diseased conditions. These forces radiate from living thing to living thing in bands of life-giving energy. It is essential that we demand these forces ; but to desire and to demand are both, in the true sense, to make conditions right — to fit the self, the spirit nature — to receive. This self is the eternal ego of each of us. If we seek perpetual life, think its nature, will its organization, and develope by good and great deeds, we shall build a spiritone that is almost perpetual in its power of self- reparation, a perpetuation that may again and again lose its material accompaniment without injury to the spiritone. spiritician. The spiritician, by counsel, by sympathetic strength and established con- fidence unites, with the inherent forces, those around the patient, until the equipoise of spirit habit is resumed. Then, as the sun heat warms the physical body, external spirit force warms the spiritone. The spiritician accomplishes this without 41 great waste of energy, for he or she should also receive strength because of the demand. It is living nature's own method to demand those resources that harmonize each lesser part of herself. The spiritician should teach and prove that these things and conditions are true and possible ; teach these and add thereto such personal conduct as shall make the impulse felt by those who desire to grow spiritful. When the human self seeks force from the world around, that supply responds in pro- portion to the thoughtful harmony of the com- mand and need. But the appeal must not be made in the exhausting state of intense supplication, tears or agony, for these conditions are in them- selves products and creations of waste and exhaustion — they are the voice of fear and despair — and, like the strong narcotic to the powerless physical organs, they but add weight to the load of oppression. quietude. Then we must seek in the mental state of expectancy the harmony we desire, and with a determined and conscious quietude put our nature in condition to gain the essential elements from which spring growth. All forces move easiest the paths that others like them have moved before. We must make effort to get in a mental attitude of de- 42 sire, demand, assimilation. The more de- finite onr knowledge of our wants, the stronger our power to get them. Words are symbols of things and of con- ditions of things, and they associate the knowledge of these in the brain ; it is in this fact that the happy and joyous prayer (not of supplication, but of need) opens the mental nature to the reception of pow r er desired, the sympathetic action desired, and finally effect- ing the union of the want with its supply. It is the receptive condition of the needer that is essential ; the supply is perpetual, inexhaust- able, and if properly wanted is ever around the applicant. To establish this receptive condition is the particular labor of the spiritician, whether the applicant desires physical or mental harmony. Under these conditions a constant and or- derly demand will later become reinforced with vivid hope, awakened faith, active inspiration, unity with the greater motions of spirit, and finally, the natural and normal habit of all the organs. To gain this state of life is not often an easy task. We do not easily relax from our instilled ideas of material power, our false conceptions of space, our antagonistic thought and commerce, and — our actionless faith. All these befog our brains: and yet each truth, when once discovered, should be the easiest of all things to accept. . 43 truth. Truth is in all things and no one is its sole interpreter. Growth and progress are as eternal as the Omniverse ; they are its function, its endless rhythm, its unextinguish- able flame. The spiritone that continues in a belief less than this will find itself bound in abasement, anchored in doubt and clouded by error. We must, by growth, avoid compar- ative decay. An essential element of growth is a state of mental rectitude in which we are conscious that we are trying and willing to give to others the greatest amount of happiness in our power to give without extreme waste to ourselves. A state in which we are able to oppose wrong without revenge or hate, but by installing justice and peace. Imperfection easily finds excuses for its existence ; perfec- tion seeks to make conditions such that im- perfection shall cease. We so seldom know those retarding condi- tions that hinder our own growth ; how shall we know all that obstructs the growth of others ? If then, we continue to hate, we create hate in others. Harshness begets harshness, injustice begets injustice, wrong increases wrong and hateful secrecy. All effect physical and spiritual degeneracy. The growth of our complete nature is con- fined only by the range of our thought, feel- ing and form of doing. If these are true, 44 they effect growth ; if false and angular, they lead to degeneracy. We need to create in onr daily actions those benefits to others which act as repayment for benefits we re- ceive, for action is the true measure of growth. They who seek knowledge, but shun action, fail to create the complete insturment in which harmony — concord — synchrony — sym- pathetic nodes of momentum — can exist. . There can be no action without an actor. Enduring growth arises from the accumula- tion of elements in which creative power re- sides; an accumulation of a surplus as yet unused, an accretion of similar and simpler compounds all of which the intensity of spirit modes swirl in and accentuate in the body for its utility. Let us dwell a moment longer on this part of our subject. Let us realize that the bring- ing into existence of a thing from no thing or the putting together of nothings is impossible, even to God. And where has He said it was possible ? The spiritone of man can find per- fection only in obedience to spirit laws. These laws are in essence, the moulding of the complex nature of each of us into more complex and more sympathetic bodies ; this demands the reception of elements in which law resides ; law resides in substances ; sub- stances join each other by their established relations to each other. The relations that 45 effect life are comparative unity of movement in length, direction and velocity ; these habits admit of great juxtaposition — which brings complexity, continuity, convolution — and in the end express mentality. The unity of growth depends upon its con- stancy, upon the ceaselessness of the bringing together. The inward must be greater than the outward going. Spasmodic desire to do good is not a creator of power ; desire must be accompanied by ac- tion, and that action be governed by thought. Ceaseless doing better is the true require- ment of growth and nobility, and the actions of each of us concern every living thing. To do good requires that neither shall be injured by the action — the doer must not be a loser. recompense. In every essentially good deed there must be recompense to the doer, if this is not given, and in some measure recognized, there is loss and waste ; the thing done injures .some one. There is only such a faint conception of good action that many who struggle to do good fail because they lose more than the}* — or an} 7 one else — gain. They struggle to the end that their own nature becomes out of harmony, and their own loss of self-government is greater -than the benefit to those they desire to aid. When we master ourselves we gain the 4 6 surplus strength necessary to do good to others. Thus the realization of selfhood and its dues, of life in which every thought and motion is either loss or gain, will more fully establish our self-government and more clear- ly define our wants. In those experiences we term pain, we are conscious of the loss of government in the part affected; in our experiences of sorrow we do not trace the loss of government to a part, we do not realize the location of our injury; in our experiences of fear the same is true. And yet in each of these there is an actual loss of self-ruling, just as definite in its act as is that of pain. When we become fully self-ruling we .shall experience no pain, no sorrow, and no fear. Not that we shall not realize the existence of change, but we shall realize also that perpet- ual life belongs to harmonious things — real- ize a vast concord of part to part, a ceaseless relation of want to. supply, of good action to good action — that will not allow disseverence of ourselves by habits of waste or the over- powering of rythmic spirit by movements out of time within us. In this way we shall reach the necessary power to exclude injuries from without and prevent injuries within. We will not avoid law, nor suppress it, we will obey law — or- ganic law. 47 The law will not be less, but we will be greater. We will gain power by the creation of new laws by combining the segments of present eternal law ; by the establishment of combined habits that are now single hab- its ; and effect aggrandizement of growth by adding to a conscious spiritone less conscious spirit. Let us banish doubt. Life is ever from the less to the greater, and can never cease. That w r e may exist forever is as evi- dent as that we exist now. The memory of the distant past may have been absorbed and only apparently lost. Time is only change — each greater day encompasses the last. futurity. Futurity is spiritual, just as we are accumulating densities of needing spirit — and we will ever continue to be. Our life is omniversal because the Omni- verse creates its habits and sustains its desires. Life is eternal because its substances and their laws are eternal. Life grows stronger, nobler, more pleasurable, because everywhere is there increasing harmonic movements of spirit particles, intensifying each other's action by rhythm, sympathy, synchrony — all blending eternally toward the perfection of the whole. 4 8 LIFE AND HEALTH. TO THOSE WHO ARE ILL IN BODY OK SPIRIT. There are no mental or physical ailments that can not be cured when thoroughly treated by life-giving forces within and around us. It is the function and natural pleasure of the spiritician to teach and effect self-control and growth in those who cannot, when ill, control and heal themselves. To those who so desire, I will give counsel and treatment toward regaining mental and physical har- mony. The laws and forces used are those embodied in spirit substances as described in "LIFE AND HEALING." The purpose of either present or absent treatment will be to organize the demand, and make conditions for, the reception of spirit substances and their forces These will create strength, health and happiness. Terms for counsel and healing on application by mail or in person. Yours, for betterment, HOLMES W. MERTON, Spiritonomist. Statement Concerning "Life and Healing." The reader may notice repeated sentences and words; in so condensed a book this has seemed neces- sary. The attempt is made to thus more closely con- nect parts of the subject with the least reference to other pages of the book. Some new words are used ; they were necessary. Among these are Omniverse, spiritonomy, spiritono- mist, spirogen, spiroplasm, spiritone and spiritician, in contra-distinction to the material world and the terms of materialism— materialism, materialist, oxy- gen, protoplasm, bioplasm, physical body and physi- 49 IN LIGHTER VEIN. DESCRIPTIVE MENTALITY. Illustrated, 120 pages, paper, 50 cents. By Holmes W. Merton. A concise and practical method of learning to read the character, habit and capacities of the mental facul ties from their definite signs in the head, face and hand. Unlike any other drawings of the face and hand, these have the names of the signs printed on their locations. The author's aim has been to widen the view of mental life, teach a valuable art, and make the book interesting and valuable to the general reader by avoiding technical and tedious descriptions. Printed on heavy paper, clear type, illustrated by eighteen pages of half-tones and photo-engravings, drawn expressly for this book. LIFE AND HEALING; cloth, 50 cts. ; leather, flexible covers, 75 cts. DESCRIPTIVE MENTALITY; paper, 50 cts. HOLMES W. MERTON, 212 Columbus Ave., Boston, Mass. DHH^^^^nania^m