First lessons in reality, or, The psychical basis of physical health

Preface

The following lessons are now given to the public without the slightest alteration, just as they were prepared, and taught by correspondence to a few friends and fellow seekers after Truth.

Although it would seem desirable, because of their somewhat mystical nature, to attempt to fortify them against misconception, yet experience has taught that the attempt would, after all, but court the very danger to be avoided.

To interpret them too literally will be to lose their essence. On the other hand, not to discern the vital relation between the ideas herein expressed, and the symbols embodying them, will be equally fatal to their true apprehension; for the terms employed are not as one might suppose merely fanciful, figurative, poetic, etc., but are used because they express the dual unity of Thought and Symbol.

To have a knowledge of facts is one thing, but to grasp the relation of these facts to each other, is quite another thing. One mind can help another in the former case, but in the latter each soul must discern relations for itself. This discerning must be inborn, it cannot be imparted. One cannot discern a relation for another any more than a joke can be appreciated vicariously. So in these lessons Thought and Symbol have been placed in juxtaposition, the insight into their relation must be left to the Soul in travail with Truth.

"Wisdom Red

SYNOPSIS.

Introduction — The Staff.

I. REFLECTION.

Ray-ment 1 Audible. Food < Eating.

(^ Tangible. ( Assimilating.

II. REFRACTION.

{Proportion. f Ray.

Door. Hearth-fire < Images.

Hearth. (^ Law.

Conclusion — The Wall.

FIRST LESSON IN REALITY.

Introduction

THE STAFF.

One end of a staff implies another end. I cannot (as tradition relates of a certain Hibernian philosopher) cut off one end from my staff, and then have only one end left. I may thus reduce the size of my staff, but while it holds out it continues to have two ends, Neither do the two ends remain after the staff has gone. The staff and its ends are real, or polar opposites, which mutually imply each other, which are utterly meaningless and unthinkable apart.

However, although I cannot detach the staff from its ends, nor the ends from the staff, yet I can distinguish between them. One end is not the other end. The head is not the foot of the staff, neither is the foot the head. There must, therefore, be some invisible point of union between the two. A point which is neither the one end nor the other, but where the two are one. This invisible centre I take to be the point of equilibrium. I, therefore, balance my staff until I find this point. Now but one thing remains io make my staff living,

INTRODUCTION.

to turn the rod into a serpent, and that is motion. The motion of my staff about its invisible centre is circular, a form of spiral. Spiral is from the Latin spira, Greek (rnecpa, meaning breath, coil, spire, etc. Spirit is from the same word. Motion is, accordingly, the breath of life.

The staff as a whole expresses Unity/ as composed of polar opposites it is a Duality / as polar opposites and point of equilibrium, a Trinity / as living it manifests a Quarterni, — the sacred Quarterni of Pythagoras.

The two ends of the staff, as visible, symbolize the phenomenal, or terrestrial portions of this Quarterni. Point of equilibrium, and motion, as invisible, symbolize the more real and celestial elements.

Having learned this much of the nature of the rod, I wish to know what use I am to make of it in the study of Reality. Finding that the words real^ ray, thing and thought are all derived from the word meaning Rod, I conclude that Reality is Rod-ality, and that to spare the rod, in this study of Reality, would be to spoil the child.

Accordingly, my staff, whether I take it as a rod of light, or as a type of all vegetation, from the blade of grass to the tallest tree, symbolizes to me an invisible and more real rod of thing and Ray of Thought.

LESSON II

KAY-MENT-VISIBLE.

If, when standing beside a body of water, I chance to see the form of a cloud mirrored in golden and rosy tints upon its surface, I am not deceived by the picture. Beautiful as it is, I know that it is but a reflection of a cloud in the sky, far above my head, which I do not see as long as my attention is directed to the cloud upon the water. I know that, although I thus distinguish between the cloud upon the water and the cloud in the sky, I cannot separate the one from the other. I cannot detach the cloud upon the water from the one in the sky, and still have my picture upon the water after the picture in the sky has drifted away beyond the horizon.

Still further, I know that as my cloud upon the water depends upon the cloud in the sky, so they both depend upon the light from the sun, and that while my picture upon the water is simply a reflection produced by the action of rays of light and the reaction of the surface of the water, so the picture in the sky is a refraction produced by the action of rays of light and a reaction of vapor in

10 RAY-MENT VISIBLE.

the atmosphere. My cloud celestial, and my cloud terrestrial, are each a Ray-ment (rod-men t) resulting from an action and a reaction.

But if I cannot separate the refracted picture from the reflected picture, then there must be some invisible point of union between the two, a centre of equilibrium between the action implied in the term refraction, and the reaction implied in the term reflection, a point which is neither celestial or terrestrial, but where the two are One.

Looking again upon the w T ater I behold my face reflected upon its surface, and then call to mind the fact that my own face I have never seen ; its reflected image is alb that I ever have seen, or can see. Now the reflected face upon the water is certainly only a ray-ment produced by the action of rays of light and the reaction of the surface of the water, and if, what I have hitherto considered my real face is only a ray-ment produced by an action and a reaction, the fact that it has never occurred to me proves nothing against its truth, especially when I remember that since real and ray are the same in derivation, from the meaning of the words, my real face is my ray face.

Turning my attention to my body, I conclude that if my face is ray-ment my whole body is ray-ment, produced by an invisible action and reaction. If, then, this terrestrial body or ray-ment is like my

KA Y-MENT VISIBLE. 1 1

cloud terrestrial, simply an inverted reflect of mycelestial ray-ment, the fact that I have never consciously recognized my celestial ray-ment proves nothing against its existence, for while my attention was directed exclusively to my cloud floating upon the water, I became for the time being entirely oblivious of the cloud above my head which I could not see.

But if this terrestrial ray-ment is only an inverted reflect of a true and celestial ray-ment, then I am possessor of an heritage hitherto unknown ; for, like the two clouds, they cannot be separated, they are real (ray) or polar opposites which mutually imply each other, which are utterly meaningless and impossible apart. Now if my consciousness has been located, hitherto, solely within the reflected image of my true self, then I am a slave bound down, by my own ignorance, to chains of sense and suffering. But with this recognition of my serfdom I also see clearly the way of escape. There must be an invisible point of union between the two, and I must locate my consciousness at that invisible centre of equilibrium between my refracted and my reflected self, the point which is neither celestial nor terrestrial, but where the two are One.

The question of how to emancipate my consciousness from its inverted reflection and to locate ir at. its true and invisible centre, is the most momentous

12 RAY-MENT VISIBLE.

in the universe. It involves the meaning and object of existence. It is the problem of all times, that of the perfectibility and immortality of the soul. Of the soul, for this earthly consciousness is but the inverted reflection of my true consciousness, which is the same thing as soul. These first lessons in Reality, then, are first steps in the path of Rodality, — a straight and narrow ray of light !

Turning, therefore, to my staff, I state the problem in terms of rod. The two visible ends are terrestrial ray-ments ; the head of the staff is the body ; the foot of the staff is the purely finite or earthly mind; the point of equilibrium, or the invisible centre, where body and sensations are one, is consciousness ; motion, the breath of life, completes this Quarternio

Consciousness and motion symbolize the refracted or celestial elements of the Quarterni. Body and finite mind, the terrestrial portions.

Body is the strictly visible member of this Quarterni. And body, again, as a whole, is four-fold, corresponding in structure to the four elements. The solids of the body (bones, tissues, etc.) correspond to earth. Heat, the agent of the functions especially connected with solids and between solids and liquids, corresponds to the second element, or fire. Secretions of the body correspond to the third element, or water, while breath is the fourth element, or air.

RAY-MENT — VISIBLE. 13

The action of respiration and the reaction of secretions form an upper dualism, and to destroy, e. ff., the balance between the action of the lungs and the reaction of the blood, would instantly produce violent and even fatal results, from which the visible body would soon pass to the realm of the invisible.

The action of heat and the secretion of tissues form a lower dualism, and to destroy the balance between heat and tissues would likewise produce a wasting away of the visible body.

Now the harmonious equilibrium between these upper and lower dualisms is what is ordinarily termed physical health, and if, as I have already decided, equilibrium of body is simply a reflect of a celestial or soul equilibrium, then the basis of physical health is purely psychical.

But as long as my consciousness is located within my body, body rules soul, whereas body should be simply raiment (ray-ment) for my true consciousness.

Again, this raiment for my soul must be like all rays, or, like my staff. It must have two ends and a central point. I, therefore, regard the Visible as the head of my staff, the Audible as the foot, and the Tangible as the point which is neither visible nor audible, but where the two are one.

LESSON III.

RAY-ME^TT- AUDIBLE.

Once, by means of an aperture in a shutter, and a prism, I tried to detach a raj of sunlight from the sun, and shut it up within a dark room. It arranged itself in beautiful colors upon the wall, but when the sun went, the ray went too. So with each step in this study of Ray-ality I am confronted with the impossibility and unthinkability of any such thing as separateness. Thus, by means of refraction and reflection, combined according to definite numeral conditions, light becomes visible; also, by means of refraction and reflection combined according to definite numeral conditions, breath becomes audible y yet breath and light cannot be separated, for light without breath or motion would not be light, would not exist at all.

Still, although I cannot separate visible rays from audible rays, yet I must distinguish between them in order to reach an understanding of them. As a first step in distinguishing between visible and audible rays, I turn my attention to the numeral conditions according to which all external manifestation takes place. And in order to study

RAY-MENT — AUDIBLE. 15

numbers, I regard them as visible numerals and as irivisible numerals.

The visible numerals are three, viz., the point, and the two forms of the line, or, the straight line and the crooked line. When I draw a picture on a piece of paper, I use the three visible numerals. But in order to complete the manifestation, to make my picture living, there must be the light spaces of the paper to bring it out. A moment's reflection convinces me that the whole visible universe is pictured out to my vision solely by means of the three visible numerals in space. All the infinite variety is but gradation and combination of these primary numbers. The horizon gives me the perfect circle. The line from the zenith to my feet is the straight line. The outlines of the clouds present a loose combination of the straight and the crooked lines, while the rocks, trees, etc., of the earth's surface, display a more minute and compact combination of the two forms of line. Geometry, or the art of measuring the earth, as well as the whole science of Astronomy, depend upon these visible numerals, and with this thought comes to me the meaning of these visible numerals. The point symbolizes the centre of the two forms of line, or the point which is neither the straight line nor the crooked line, but where the two are one. Again, the straight line symbolizes the form

16 RAY-MENT AUDIBLE.

of force which strikes out from the center, termed in science the centrifugal y while the crooked line symbolizes the form of force which draws back to the centre, termed centripetal. Thus is all visible but the type of an invisible force — a force which is dual in its action, and its dual action being balanced at a central point which is neither centrifugal nor centripetal, but where the two are one. And if this balance were overcome by either form of force, the visible universe would vanish like a shadow.

Just as the art of measuring deals with the visible numerals, so the art of counting or numbering treats of the invisible numerals. All counting is based on the Quarterni, 1, 2, 3, 4. Their sum is 10, ten tens are 100, and so on to infinity. All the operations of arithmetic are also based on the first four, viz., addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. But counting cannot be separated from something to count. The elements which comprise the earth's surface and atmosphere combine only according to count. Take e. g. the two invisible gases, oxygen and hydrogen. They combine and form water only according to the number two. And, moreover, this combination is audible at the instant at which it becomes visible.

This number two holds the balance of power. It represents the point which is neither oxygen nor hydrogen, but where the two are one, and I have

R A Y-MENT A UDIBLE . 1 7

only to overcome this polarity to cause the visible - water to vanish into two invisible gases. But what is true of water is true of all compounds comprising the earth's surface. Destroy the numeral condition and the visible vanishes. Even the diamond, the hardest known substance, heated in oxygen gas, burns to carbonic acid, and carbonic acid at the ordinary atmospheric temperature is a transparent, colorless gas.

In order to determine the relation of measuring to counting, I turn to my imprisoned ray of sunlight, pictured on the wall in seven different colors, viz.:

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. __ __ _ _ _____ _____ __

Now, the odd numbers, 1, 3, 5, 7, are certainly different gradations of refraction from the white back to the white, completing the circle. But 2, or orange, which is between red and yellow, reflects both red and yellow, and is thus a mixture or compound of the two. Again, _, or green, reflects both yellow and blue ; 6, or indigo, reflects both blue and violet. Thus I see that the odd numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, signify different gradations of the centrifugal force, or straight line, while the even numbers _. 4, 6, are gradations of the centripetal force, or crooked line. Counting expresses gradations of measuring.

18 RAY-MENT AUDIBLE.

But what is true of the seven colors is equally true of the seven notes :

12 3 4 5 6 7

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Yiolet.

<j,e,g,b are different gradations of refraction from the octave to the octave, while ©,1,1 are reflected tones, corresponding in quality to the colors they represent.

The exquisite primary chord 1, 3, 5, or C, E, G, is Red, Yellow and Blue manifested to my consciousness through my ear instead of my eye. So every conceivable chord and combination of tone and color can be written out in figures, until I am led to exclaim : Sound is color made audible ; and color is sound made visible ! My eye and my ear are avenues to my consciousness of the two halves of a unity. In order to determine whether the sense of touch is the avenue to my consciousness of ilio unity of the two halves, I next give my attention to the Tangible.

LESSON IV.

RAY-ME^T-TA^GIBLE.

I might have been born blind, and yet been able to determine the meaning, the harmony, and to a certain degree, even the color of objects about me, by means of touch. I might have been born deaf, and yet been able to determine the meaning of words, and the harmonies of sound from touch and sight. I might have been born with only the sense of touch, yet have attained to a higher and truer knowledge of the world in which I live than many about me endowed with five senses.

But without the sense of touch I could not maintain my terrestrial existence. When feeling goes, life of the visible body goes too. Touch is, then, the vital sense of the terrestrial body.

When I push my hand against a stone, or thrust it into water, or pass it through the air, I am conscious of different degrees of resistance. And I classify objects about me according to the different degrees of resistance which they offer to my touch. The air, when it offers no resistance to my touch, is unperceived, so without resistance there is no touch.

But what is resistance? Resistance is simply force, an invisible action and reaction, which is expressed by, and can be determined from, numbers, e. g., the resistance of water is expressed by the number 2. I have only to overcome the polarity or equilibrium expressed by this numeral to render the water, which was tangible, tangible no longer.

But what can be done in the case of water is also possible in the case of the most seemingly immovable solids of the earth. By means of burning glasses the sun's rays can be collected to a central point, or focus, and heat obtained sufficient to change solid rocks into liquid flames. And thus I come to realize that the tangible is tangible only according to certain definite conditions which correspond exactly with the conditions according to which the Visible is visible and the Audible is audible.

Upon comparing the three forms of ray-ment still further, I am convinced that the visible, and the audible, likewise, are perceivable by me, only by means of Resistance. The one is resistance of light vibrations, or radiations, and the other is resistance of breath vibrations, or radiations. So that sight and sound can be said to be forms of Touch. Touch thus represents the point where sight and sound are one.

All sensation may then be called touch, or Resist-

(mice expressed in different degrees. The sense of touch (ordinarily so called) expresses the first degree, or most actual and living contact; sound, the second degree ; vision, the third degree, or most remote and external contact.

Thus, to hear and see flames may affect me very agreeably, but the effect of touch would be quite the contrary. Yet the flames come in contact with my consciousness as truly in the one case as in the other.

The fact of the unity of sensation is well illustrated in the case of a child. It is never satisfied with simply looking at an object. It must see with its fingers as well as its eyes. And shakes or drops the object in order to see with its ears also.

Now since I have decided that this terrestrial ray-ment is only an inverted reflect of a celestial ray-ment, or thoughtment, I must strictly apply this fact in the case of sensation.

This resistance, comprised under the three forms of visible, audible and tangible sensation ; this purely terrestrial touch ; this my means of communication with the external world, or terrestrial minds about me, is simply an inverted reflect of a higher sense of Touch, of a Resistance to an interior or celestial world of Thoughts and Minds (since thoughts imply minds).

If I have hitherto been entirely unconscious of this interior three-fold sense, it is because my attention has-been so taken up solely with external resistance that the interior resistance has been unobserved.

But when I do observe this interior resistance I find that, in its development, my experience corresponds to that of the child in the case of its exterior sensation. I see first with my fingers. This is the interpretation of bodily suffering. Body first responds to this thought resistance. But as I advance in knowledge and acquire this thought resistance through the other avenues of touch, thought vibrations, or radiations, which, like the flames, now cause me acute suffering, will become a source of most wonderful knowledge and understanding as soon as I can hear them and see them, instead of simply feeling them. Then, what now prostrates me with physical suffering will become to me the greatest possible source of power and wisdom.

But before I can raise my interior and true sense of touch to the celestial plane, I must first pass through a terrestrial plane of thought. I am encompassed round about by a dense atmosphere of absorbing cares , in traffic, and in social and political life. I must feel my way through this earthly atmosphere before I can reach a higher realm of Thought. First, I feel my way with touch in the first degree, which means suffering ; . second, with touch in the second degree, by means of which I begin to observe a harmony and meaning in the confused din and squabble about me ; and finally, with touch in the third degree, whence my eyes are gradually opened, and seeing for the first time in my life, I come to know how to see less witli my fingers and more with my ears and my eyes.

Thus I come to discern the relation of terrestrial body and mind to celestial body and mind.

Reflected body and its three-fold sense is simply raiment, or garment, or visible expression for the celestial body, or soul.

Finite, or earthly, or reflected mind is the food or nourishment for the soul, by means of which the soul after hungering, eating and assimilating the husks of finite thought, returns to its Father's house, to be fed with the heavenly bread and staff of life, and to enter upon the celestial heritage.

This great truth of my celestial heritage is first refracted to my consciousness through the teardrops of suffering, then afterwards refected, by means of numbers and harmony, to my vision.

Touch is the refractory medium through which the Divine Ray\s transmitted to my consciousness, while the medium refracts outwardly, the Ray is a rod of correction, but when it refracts back toward its celestial source, it is the staff which comforts.

The Tangible is thus the point of equilibrium between the Visible and the Audible, the vital point of radiation, while radiation itself, or motion, changes sensation from the plane of reflected body to the plane of reflected Intellect, or to the second spire or coil of the Serpent.

LESSON V.

FOOD-HUNGER.

The polar opposite of touch is desire ; and, although touch and desire cannot be separated the one from the other, yet I at once observe a very important and significant distinction. Touch, I cannot disconnect from bodily sensation ; Desire, I cannot disconnect from mind — the purely finite or reflected mind.

Bodily sensation brings me in contact with the infinite wonders of the phenomenal universe, and spontaneous with this contact occurs the desire to experience and to know the reality back of this phenomenal — its meaning, and its purpose.

The way by which I am to reach this experience and knowledge is, obviously, very direct, if I but follow the straight and narrow path already marked out, viz., as the phenomenal is an inverted and left-sided copy of the real ; as external sensation also bears this relation to interior sensation, then must the desire connected with external sensation be also only an inverted and left-sided copy of a Desire which is interior, or esoteric. In other words, the interior sense of touch implies the esoteric desire, just as external touch implies external desire.

In order to reach this esoteric desire, I ^must, indeed, start from the coterie desire. I must possess myself of the knowledge which only can be bought by experience, and which comes from direct contact with the phenomenal. But I must accept the experience of sensation and desire only as a means of knowing reality — the coterie must always be my ladder to the coterie.

The Visible must simply reflect to me images of objects which in themselves are entirely beyond my range of sight ; from the Audible I must learn to detect the counts of the Still Voice / while the rod of the Tangible, with its two ends of pleasure and pain, must truly

" Feed full my sense for a while;"

until balancing the rod and finding the point of equilibrium between pleasure and pain, I attain to

the interior vision,

" The sight that my soul yearns after."

To refuse the experiences of bodily sensation and desire is to refuse ray-men t and food to the soul ; and thus to deprive the soul of its only means of development toward final perfection.

But, to be deceived by these images — to accept the mere reflections for the realities themselves — is the fundamental error, or, in other words, the fatal si?i of Idolatry. No matter whether I call it error, or whether I call it sin, the thing in itself, independent of what I may call it, is Idolatry.

Therefore, although I must diligently till the soil of this terrestrial ray-men t and its sensations, the fruit must not be consecrated to the idols themselves, but must be brought as an offering and sacrificed to the true desire of soul.

Now, if I say the irrevocable penalty of Idolatry is Disease and Death, I but state in other words the fact that Disease and Death are logical results of calling inverted shadows the entities they are not and cannot be.

The fact in itself acts quite independent of whatever I may choose to call it. Idolatry is not pacified with the term sin any more than by the word error.

As long as I am an Idolator, I am subject to disease and death in spite of the creed to which I may subscribe, in spite of the benevolence and morality I may practice, or even in spite of the drugs I may swallow and the laws of hygiene I may observe.

Nor is this death penalty of Idolatry canceled with once meeting its decrees; on the contrary, it means innumerable deaths for me, until, by my own insight, I renounce the Idolatry of shadow worship, and turn to the Living liay-ality.

Yet the requisite insight, together with the necessary power of choice, do not reside in the finite mind itself. They cannot be separated from it, but their true seat is in the soul.

That consciousness possessed by the finite mind and its desires (hungers), together with its seeming power of choice, are but illusory reflects of Soul (true consciousness), and true Freedom. Soul is the true Ego, while the consciousness possessed by finite mind and its desires is reflected ego. So also in this power of choice which I possess, I must distinguish between a true and a reflected Freedom.

Now, this true ego is the central point of my four-fold system as a whole ; body is raiment to this ego, and, just as I must needs have many garments in the course of my earth life, so must the true ego require innumerable robes in its long course of development toward perfection. Finite mind is food to the true ego, and also, just as my finite mind and its hungers is not in itself developed by one meal of victuals, so the true ego requires for its nourishment during its long process of growth the food supplied by innumerable finite existences. In other words, the true ego is only developed by means of innumerable re-incar nations. Herein is the mystery of birth and death.

So long as the desire clings to its idols of sense — to its shadow pursuits, to its shadow possessions of raiment, food, houses and lands, and its shadow pleasures, just so long must I pay the penalty of repeated birth and death.

But when this desire turns toward Reality with the unspeakable tenacity wdth which it formerly clung to the shadowy reflects of Reality, and as persistently follows the study of Reality as it has pursued pleasure, then will I begin to attain to that msight into the mystery of birth and death which will ultimately free me from these shadows, and enable me to realize the Health which is Wholeness, and the Life w^hich is Eternal.