True memory, the philosopher's stone

Preface

Now I say unto you, refrain from these men, and let them alone ; for if this counsel or work be of men it will come to naught.

But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it ; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God. — Acts v., $&, 39.

Contents

Chapter. Page.

I. PREPARATION . ... 5

II. THE REVELATION. What God is. The Worlds, how created, how peopled, how divided into Societies 9

Chapter I

From my earliest childhood I had been preparing myself under unseen guidance to do some peculiar kind of work. What it was to be had not been revealed to me, but I had been constantly urged to make myself ready. If I sought my chamber in childhood and lay down upon my bed by the window to look out and muse on the mysteries of life about me there came a silent Monitor whose face I could not see, but whose voice seemed to speak inside of me: " Do not lie here idle. You must learn to read and write, and understand the use of language, to do the work you were created to do."

So persistent was this voice that I would get up and get my books, and read and

D TRUE MEMORY.

memorize them. When quite young my mother taught me the beautiful story of the Incarnation and had me memorize the first chapter of St. John, and took great pains to show me that the Babe in the manger described by St. Matthew was the Light of the World described by St. John. And this something that urged me to study always helped me with my lessons and made them a joy to me. It would say: " Learn this and yon will know that without stndy. Cling to and always keep with you the memory of the Babe born in Bethlehem ; of his escape from death by Herod by being sent into Egypt ; his return to Israel by way of Galilee ; dwelling in the city of Nazareth in order to fulfil the prophets, ' He shall be called a Nazarene'; His baptism of John in the river Jordan ; being led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil ; His fast and His temptation ; His answer to the tempter ; following minutely, step by step, the record of His disciples from their different planes. If I would learn this, believe it, I would know all ; that nothing could be hidden from me and that in that knowledge came man's redemption."

I believed ! My faith was sure ! God knows I believed, and thus He set apart for me a work to do that required only a knowledge of using the human language, for the work to be done would be unfolded to me as A Scroll which I should read and write in the language of my fellow creatures.

At a certain age I found that my senses of sight and hearing were more acute than those of others, and afterwards when I closed my eyes I could see clouds of beautiful colored light, and figures of beauty about some people, or just the reverse about others. At last I heard that this was called spheres. And I could generally tell the quality of the person and even the thoughts by those spheres. But I was timid, afraid of being misunderstood or called a spiritualist, a thing that from childhood I abhorred.

This preparation continued until the following revelation was given me :

Chapter II. The Scroll

As it was unrolled I read, and wrote it down : "God is a spirit, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, and through His divine Wisdom He created from Himself worlds. Not by His might but by the power of His Spirit, the Word ' Let there be!'

"And there came forth a spiritual -natural world, His footstool. And upon this footstool were images, likenesses of Himself, called men, and they were male and female, perfect in all their spiritual organism, recipients of His divine Love and Wisdom.

"And they worshipped God and remembered that He was their father from whom they received every blessing, and they took no thought for themselves for they knew that He would provide all things for their good and their happiness. And they loved each other and worshipped the Lord God Jehovah and served Him in good works.

" A beautiful world it was, and there was no need of sun for God was their light. And there was no speech necessary, for each could read the other's thoughts ; they were transparent. Husbands loved their wives as the highest, holiest part of themselves, their God-given love principle ; and wives loved their husbands as their strongest God-given principle, their wisdom and rationality; and from these spiritual unions were births of numerous children called Goods and Truths and Charities.

'And there were societies on this spiritual-natural world, of spiritual men and women, which differed the one from the other only according to their reception of the divine proceeding, that is, Divine Goodness and Divine Truth which proceeds from the Sole Fountain of all Life.

"They realized that everything in the universe had reference to goodness and truth. And when in conversation, they could read the nature of their friends by their thought creations which formed a a sphere about them ; for instance, a man from one Society approaching another knew by the clouds of beautiful colored light the condition of their love and faith in God, and charity towards each other. In their presence were beautiful birds, happy infants, flowers, fruits, laughing waters, soft, sweet music. And all day long they were occupied in good uses; doing good to each other and loving each ether; not the person, but the good they perceived in them and the truth that flowed from them, knowing that all good and all truth came from God, and that they must see it and acknowledge it, and return thanks for it.

" Oh, such a beautiful world ! God looked upon it and pronounced it all good, and He loved it, and His love gave it light and heat, and His children who worshipped Him from His footstool knew that the light was Divine Truth and the heat Divine Love; for their memory was true memory ; they could feel the Divine presence and see Him in everything, for they lived under His Divine law. And they knew there was yet a higher state of bliss to which they could attain, and from men become angels, mounting upon good deeds like stepping-stones to His throne, and in successive states rise to become archangels. They knew this because they perceived that those who excelled most in love and faith and good works rose higher in the scale; their music was pitched to a higher key ; their sphere a shining light, gleaming at a greater distance from them. Did these children of God desire to visit their friends they might go upon the wings of love, or it was possible to visit a Society upon horses swift and white, which they called understanding. Others used birds, called thoughts, to convey them, but in this world there were only heavenly hues. And there were trees and lakes and plants and flowers."

Reading the scroll with all these beauties of God's creation, my heart going out in silent adoration for His Divine goodness, I was startled by a new phenomenon : — A dark cloud came, and a voice saying, "We are dying, dying. We must hold court and see who shall make The Record of our creation — our life — before the Adam exterminates True Memory."

The court held that those who remembered most were they who had forgotten least and they should keep The Record; or else in dying they should die and leave no trace behind that they had ever lived in this beautiful world that God in his goodness and love sent forth.

Chapter III. The Record

In the beautiful world God made for man, spiritual man, all was spiritual, for God is a spirit, and He created man in His own image and in His own likeness. He endowed him with all His own attributes ; that is, capable of receiving them as the plant receives dew, the flowers shades of color and perfume, and the goblet water or wine, with memory and rationality ; and this memory at first always served to remind him of the One Source of all Life, Love, Goodness and Truth ; and the good that man did to his fellows he knew he did from the Lord ; and the love he gave his neighbor he knew was from the Lord. But there were different Societies, higher

1G TRUE MEMORY.

or lower, according to their reception of Divine Goodness and Divine Truth. It came to pass that a Society, called Adam appropriated the goods and the truths to themselves. And very soon they were lost to the view of other Societies because they were hidden by a dark cloud — such a thing as had never been seen in all the world — a total absence of light at a distance ; and when they came nearer, the men from other Societies saw, and behold, a man and a woman earth-bound ; that is, they could not float in the air any more, but their feet were firm and heavy, as were all their limbs ; their veins had become red with blood, their framework ossified, and Eve, the wife, was at all times separated from her husband ; they no longer blended and appeared to others as only one man or one woman ; and the man spoke to them in a strange language that they

A beautiful world it was, and there was no need of sun for God was their light. * * * And when they came nearer

the men from other Societies saw, and behold, a man and a woman earth bound.

could not understand, and made discordant tones unlike anything that had ever been heard in the world before.

As time passed Adam could no longer see those from other Societies when they came. He had lost true vision and could see only, the gross things about him, which had all become like himself. But they understood from him that the earth upon which he lived was his own and all that dwelt thereon. He tilled the ground and ate of food that grew out of the ground, and at last killed the beautiful birds and innocent lambs, which, under a kind of corresponding law, became gross and earthly like himself. And there were no beautiful children about them ; they were alone. And it came to pass as men visited these Adam people they learned to understand them; and God came to Adam and said: "You have appropriated to yourself the goods and truths, or eaten, as you would now say, of the fruit of the garden ; for the intellectual principle was as a garden, and what you developed therein was as fruit of a tree ; and in so doing you have brought upon yourself, first fear, then shame.

" I did give thee the power to love the good and the true, and love was represented by thy spiritual partner. Thou hast perverted love. Thou sayest that the woman, representing love, deceived thee, and the woman sayeth that the serpent (self-love), did tempt her.

" I divided the heaven from the earth and did give thee the light of truth for thy day and showed thee that the absence of truth was darkness. I did make the waters and everything that moved therein. And the earth, thy natural mind, and everything thereon. And I did gfive thee dominion over thyself — free will. The heaven represented thy internal, the earth thy external mind. And I gave thee all that was good for thee, and I pronounced all good. Wherefore hast thou eaten of the tree which should cause thee to arrogate to thyself the knowledge of good and evil ? As I made thee thou wert happy and free as the birds and the flowers ; but thou hast loved self more than Cod and taken upon thyself to know and to be.

" Behold the serpent, thine own sensual principle represented by a serpent, hath deceived thee. It told thee that in knowing good and evil thou wouldst be a God. Behold thou knowest thou art naked and art ashamed. To be naked signified thou wert innocent as I created thee, but in the gross earth (flesh) to which thine own lust hath lowered thee thy form is no longer an image and a likeness ; it hath lost its power to reflect good and truth and its spiritual beauty. Thou hast covered thyself with a gross covering ; thou hast in thy sensual thoughts materialized thy heavenly spiritual form which was most beautiful as I created thee. Thou art indeed a gross earth man. And thus dying thou shalt die before that spiritual body can again be free. Thou hast cursed the ground whereon thou standest. Thou hast taken upon thyself all that I would so gladly have done for thee. And why? Gave I not food and drink suited to thy needs ? Did I not clothe thee as I clothed the flowers and the birds whose hues changed with man's thoughts? And man changed his own garments with his own states of thought or feeling when pure, as I created him.

"As memory dies out of thee thou wilt forget me or say that I have done this to thee.

"And, woman, thou hast my pity. Thou art now at thy husband's mercy. He must provide for thee and thou must in this condition be subject to his law and suffer. What I made a delight to thee becomes now in this gross flesh a pain and sorrow. Flesh children will be born of thee. Self-made cares, all of them.

" Dominion ! I gave thee dominion over thyself in giving thee freedom and now in thy arrogance thou wouldst have it over all the world. Wherever thy children go it will be the same. They will materialize their thoughts instead of spiritualizing them and thus the whole world will be come the grave of men instead of the habitation I did make it for them.

" But I will never leave nor forsake man. Though he forget me I cannot forget him for I can see hidden things. He has only covered the real man. I must prevent his destroying himself utterly and teach him how to regain the blessings he has voluntarily cast away."

And it came to pass that as Adam spoke with men they listened to him and turned from God. They, too, must possess the world. They must own all their eyes could see. And those who were not thus infected passed utterly out of sight for they were still spiritual men and the flesh men could no longer see them. Some lost only a part of their spirituality and those were they whom God made his prophets.

Adam and Eve had earth children, and they called the first Cain (or faith), and the second Abel (charity or love) , because they still remembered that all their children before their fall to the earth state were Faiths and Charities, and Goods and Truths. But the name Cain showed that he represented faith alone without charity in him, and his work of tilling the ground did not elevate him, but God promised to spare him even though he had slain his brother who represented charity (Abel.)

And Enoch departed from his father Adam into a place even more destitute of goodness ; because each successive earth child lost more and more of True Memory and wandered spiritually still further from his God.

And God saw that men in the flesh became very wicked as they multiplied upon the earth, and lo ! He numbered his days to one hundred and twenty years.

Of all the men of earth Noah, the grandson of Methuselah, who had represented the eighth church, still retained a memory, (inherited) of God, and was less wicked than the rest of earth men, so that in the great flood of wickedness and falsity that came upon the world he and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and their wives and all that God showed them to take with them, were saved because they were not yet so corrupt and so filled with violence as the other men of flesh had become. They were in a condition represented by an ark that could safely ride the waters of falsity, and they still had love, represented by the dove, with them, although they, too, had falsities represented by the raven.

Chapter IV

the record — continued.

And lo ! it came to pass that the flesh man forgot how his own ills had come upon him, and he then, being able to judge only from appearances, and knowing, too, that God was all, laid off all his miseries upon God ; attributed all his evils to the Divine Creator.

God 'had created him a spiritual man whose thoughts created images of spiritual things. He fell of his own free will into lower planes, and ultimated or reproduced nis sensual thoughts upon the sensual plane.

He had perverted every internal principle and made them servants to the external ; thus man could no longer understand man. They could deceive each other by the language they used as readily as they could convey their true meaning. Their countenances became thick veils of flesh to hide their feelings and emotions, but their flesh revealed the spiritual qualities they had perverted most, and changed color ; some became black, and they were those who had perverted Truth ; others red, who had perverted Love; others yellow, who had perverted Charity ; the white race retaining most of Truth. The color of the eyes (representing perception) also changed ; and they grew more wretched on the earth.

They began to have teachers from those who pretended to know most, and they established worship. They sacrificed animals and birds upon altars instead of yielding up their own lusts and desires.

They were mighty in their own conceit, and with their own hands would build of brick and mortar a city and a tower whose top would reach unto heaven.- They had forgotten that God had given them a spiritual body, a temple in which to worship Him in spirit and in truth, and in which through love, and good deeds, and prayers to Him they could reach heaven, always be in conjunction with Him. But self, love of self, dominion over others had ensnared them, and those who instructed them led them further from God because they would have the people follow them, and obey them, and serve them. But still God did not forsake them even in their wickedness, for He knew they would utterly perish. He knew all, but He would have them voluntarily return to Him even as they had voluntarily turned away from Him.

Chapter V

the record — continued.

Abram, still having a remnant of good, was remembered of God, but he had lost True Memory; he did not know God. And thus when he sacrificed he sacrificed to the material sun. His memory was dim of spiritual things. Faintly lingered the memory, coming like a light from some far away chamber of his soul, that God was the spiritual Sun, and a true memory of Him was the only light that could redeem mankind ; yet in ignorance he offered sacrifice to the material sun. Fading like the light of truth from off the face of the earth was True Memory in this man; but God spake to him, and blessed him, and likewise Isaac and Jacob.

TRUE MEMORY.

Fading, fading, disappearing from their shortened vision, their earth-bound spirits, men lost view of the spiritual world in which they had lived, and like themselves, they had materialized by gross thoughts everything about them, and at last they began to fashion tools of brass and iron and clay, and gold and silver and wood. How clumsy these imitations of God's works ! How gross and sensual became their thoughts of Him when they fashioned images !

• CHAPTER VI.

the record — continued.

There was a man drawn from the water called Moses and God commanded him to copy the law for the flesh man. He could no longer understand spiritual law so he must have a law adapted to his fallen state, but this law must be written in natural language so constructed as to hold a spiritual meaning, just as the natural man contained the spiritual man ; and it must be written as it appeared to man to be true, otherwise he would not accept it, but it must be written so as to be adapted to his regeneration.

And as man was building his own natural history from his own spiritual condition so Moses recorded the history of the Most

Ancient Church, using his natural surroundings to describe his spiritual state.

He found them in the Egyptian state spiritually and enslaved to Pharaoh naturally. He led them through God's guidance, through the successive spiritual states giving an accurate history of them, so that when man reads the internal or spiritual meaning he can thoroughly understand himself and all his hereditary evils. He will no longer believe God the author of the ills of life, but only of the good ; and when once he fully perceives how man fell he will know how to rise. Through Adam he fell from the spirit to the flesh ; through Christ he may again return to his Father's house from the flesh to the spirit.

And still they fell. Adam began the fall and the human race continued to fall ; everything was dwarfed or inverted to his sensual vision. He pronounced good and evil upon all things, and being able to judge only from external appearances he was always appropriating evil instead of good because it was to his gross nature at the time most pleasant ; and thus he brought upon himself disease and sorrow and suffering. Because he knew he could now think wicked things and no longer be detected by men he loved to think evil thoughts and plan evil deeds, but these evils came to the flesh man as disease and sickness, and ever and always he laid the blame upon God. He had forgotten that his father had put it off upon the woman, his wife, and she in turn had blamed the serpent, and indeed they did not then know that the serpent was their own sensual principle ; to them it had become a materialized, creeping thing, a relic of the first lie that was ever spoken upon the earth, trailing in the dust, where it drags all men who follow their sensual appetite.

In like manner had they materialized all their animal passions, so that the world was infested with wild, untamable beasts, and the sea with mighty monsters representing the character of their own abominable doctrines. Their hate had withdrawn heat from a part of the globe and they claimed that God had made a Frigid Zone. Their infernal lusts had caused a belt of burning heat and they said that God had made the Tropics, the home of the deadly cobra. But for the few who retained a remnant of truth there would be no Temperate Zone, no domestic animals.

There was nothing more sad to the descendants of the flesh men than that they could no longer choose spiritual partners for wives. They were deceived by outward appearances. Beauty of the external

TRUE MEMORY.

might contain a false, corrupt nature, from which the children would inherit their natural mind ; and a man also might be apparently good and true and his spiritual nature, the fountain from which his descendants should flow, be false and corrupt; and thus the children of such parents were unfortunate heirs to all their parents' sins, as the law had pronounced, unto the third and fourth generation of those that hated Him.

When the flesh man numbered his days they mourned for him as dead. They had forgotten that spirit could not die. They lost all True Memory, as their mournings over their dead would signify.

Chapter VII

The sensual teacher uses spoken and written words to convey his ideas to the sensual man. The material universe and its inhabitants are the objective lessons pictured forth, and are taught by those on a higher plane, to be God's ideas pictured forth. Our souls, our spirits, must pierce the veil to find their hidden meaning. You have a beautiful conception. I cannot share it unless you speak or write it, and through the sense of sound or sight I perceive your meaning ; but unless your vords touched something kindred in me I could not understand or believe them.

We express our thoughts by speech, pen or brush, or carve them out of stone. God makes His manifest in the mystery of life. We must not look at the form of man only, to understand him as God's highest creation, but the eyes of our spirits must pierce the covering of flesh, this material veil of illusion, and see the spiritual man as God first created him when he lived in spiritual tents, ate spiritual food, and had True Memory.

Chapter VIII. The Scroll

And I saw one of these flesh men after he was dead. His wise brethren gathered around to discover the cause. They opened his body with sharp swords, and behold, his heart was there, but like a worn-out engine it was still ; the great source of the circulation of the blood was broken, never to be repaired ; therefore the lungs and liver and all the various organs were inanimate and falling to decay like wood, when the sap ceases to feed its veins.

They looked more wise and said they would open the head; that the great centre, the throne of reason, was there, from which every mandate had been given; where sat enthroned the sovereign king that had ruled every nerve and fibre and muscle, and commanded every motion this body in life had ever made, and had its marvellous mechanism to work out his life problem with; a faithful servant to a tyrant king. No crowned monarch had ever had more loyal subject. Alas, no crowned monarch had ever ruled more unwisely.

It was done ! The skull was opened, and behold the brain, a common material thing, not unlike the brain of an ox. And seek as they might, they found no recess there containing a record of this man's thoughts, nor any trace that he had ever had a thought. They found nothing to tell them why this man was a man save his shape, his form. The living, breathing, thinking, working man, whose servant this dead frame was, had vanished,

And I saw one of these flesh men after he was dead. * * And seek as they might they found no recess there containing a record of this man's thoughts, nor any trace that he had ever had a thought.

leaving not a trace behind, no clue by which it might be sought and found.

A chemist looked wise and said to the surgeon, " I assure you, sir, that I can take this body and bring back to you in vials every particle of this man."

" But, sir," whispered the Priest, " go find for me his soul."

" That," answered the scientist, " went out with his breath"

" Then," whispered the Priest, "bring back to me his breath"

" Perhaps," said the scientist, " that returned to your God."

"Where" said the Priest, " shall we wise ones find God? "

" Leave that to the babes and sucklings," said he.

And I cried in my heart, — Can a?iything die that God has made?

And a voice within me answered, — Nay! Nay!

And I cried, — God did not make the flesh man that dies ?

And the voice within me answered, — Nay!

Thou hast been shown what God hath created man to be, and what man changed himself to be.

And I cried, — 'Tis only the natural flesh man that has died ; the spiritual man lives on.

And the voice said, — Aye.

And I said again in the words of the prophet Isaiah : " Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

And then I remembered the shade of the Light of Heaven that had fallen on that spiritual world that had rolled before me in that first vision, so incomprehensibly mild and pure, a light that equally enlightened the understanding and the sio:ht. And I marvelled more and more at the fall of Adam, and I marvelled still more at the great love and goodness and patience of God and His mercy towards man. And I praised the great God, and I was learning to pity man. I could not love him yet.