Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul Part 7

People pa.s.s into the spirit world in the full bloom of their egotism; hordes of them return to tell their friends things they know absolutely nothing about, and the folks on this side believe all they say, and so fool ignorance is pa.s.sed along and stays in the minds of those who listen to the "messages" of egotism and ignorance. There are "dead loads" of people who think this is all there is of Spiritualism. While it _is_ blessed that friends can return, and comfort the mourning ones by their a.s.surances of remembrance and love, this should never be the final result sought for. Those who have lived but a limited time in the spirit world--the world of causes, of law--cannot teach people here the knowledge that can satisfy their souls. But there are educated souls, who have once lived honored and useful lives here, who are only too glad to respond to the needs of inquiring humanity, teaching them the ways of wisdom, and lifting them out of ignorance and darkness into the light.

RESPONSIVENESS.

Surely we are trying to solve the biggest problems before the cla.s.s.

The people who are our profoundest teachers, through whom come our largest experiences and knowledge are often most unconscious of their influence on other minds; and this is lawful, for the moment a human soul begins to wriggle either from anxiety or egotism, the divine "chemical affinities" are disturbed.

Long before we get up to G.o.d, our nearer relative, "Mother Nature," is most gracious in her methods of unfoldment, standing ever ready to whisper in the devoted, or willing ear, her "open sesame" to the manifold workings of her secret laws. It is ever the same old exhortation: "Seek and ye shall find," "Knock and it shall be opened to you," and the most wonderful of all is, the amount of unexpected testimony, and endors.e.m.e.nt which she will contrive to bring to bear to prove to you the truth of what she a.s.serts through your own individual experience.

"Elective affinities" hold their own royally. You shall think and feel deeply, and the first friend you meet shall tell you--quite spontaneously--of his ponderings which tally with your own, never suspecting that they are held to you by a subtle, and beautiful chemistry, the response of soul to soul.

There is but one integral law. All others are but its radiations. The natural tendency of the human mind is ever toward being satisfied with its present limitations, instead of which we ought to constantly exercise our will and aspiration to fling off the mists of prejudice which so easily envelop the soul, and strive ever to enlarge our horizon, and push on to higher and better things.

h.e.l.l.

Such men as J. Knox in Scotland and J. Edwards in this country must have had chronic indigestion or cancers in their insides, or they could not have revelled so in h.e.l.l, and "eternal d.a.m.nation" as they did.

What unreckoned miseries would surely have been spared their listeners if they, and thousands of their sort, could have developed a modic.u.m of Christian feeling and a little kindness toward their hypnotized hearers!

Not only from their immediate, personal teachings came awful fears of what must be the fate of all who were under the judgment as set forth by the unbalanced minds of such as these; but the long ineradicable chain of influences that haunt, and torture the minds of good folks, even to this day. The utter lack of wisdom and knowledge of G.o.d's laws and providence, in the realm of theological teachings, is undoubtedly the cause of much of the diablerie of the world today.

If all the priests and parsons who have ever infested this earth with their blasphemous theology were to unite their fiendish forces in a concentrated effort to doom one human soul--one spirit--to be burned forever in the endless h.e.l.l fires which they have so long exulted in holding up over poor, wretched, ignorant peoples, they could not do it!

They have had a glorious time persecuting, torturing, burning and slaying human bodies, driving millions of innocent inhabitants off the planet, who had just as much right to this--their home--as had, or can ever have any set of bloodthirsty ruffians, claiming their commissions from G.o.d Almighty! How thoughtless, expecting the religionists to put aside this, their most cherished dogma, of "eternal punishment in h.e.l.l fires!" What would they have left to scare folks with, and make them hand over their dollars, and what, O what! vent could they have for their own natural, pure cussedness?

THE COMMONPLACE.

Great is the G.o.d Commonplace, and his prophets of the accredited order of the "Common, ornary Kusses" are legion. They are of both s.e.xes and of every race, age and condition. Consent to render homage to their Deity by confessing by word and deed that every man is as good as another and better too, and they will continue to smile openly; but, in secret, they will prey upon you. Their capable emissaries go around with measuring line and shears, alert to discover, and ready to reduce to the proper dimensions anyone who shall dare to outgrow their prescribed proportions. You can never know when you are safe from their incursions.

The dignified old man who sits next you at your hotel table seeming to be entirely preoccupied by the discussion of his dinner, may only be biding his time, waiting an excuse to deliver you over to their insatiable maw, to be dealt with according to the rules of their society. Or, perhaps the lady who in the first flush of your acquaintance quite dazzles you with her fluent chat upon mult.i.tudinous topics, suddenly, upon finding you unguardedly expressing opinions not approved by the high priests of mediocrity, lets fall her mask, and shows herself to your astonished gaze a secret emissary, a determined servant of their most ancient and established order. "Thus far," so far as we can accompany you, "shalt thou go and no farther" at your peril. Woe to the soul that yields a ready obedience to the master's voice, that is ever calling to all who can hear: "Come up higher." The sash with which he would gird up his loins, "the latchet" with which he tightens his sandals that he may run more swiftly the race set before him, the staff upon which he would lean shall all be turned by these demon wors.h.i.+ppers into scourges. He shall be "beaten with many stripes," for so it hath been ordained from long time, until the pain of his wounded heart and hurt brain shall deaden his sensibilities so that he can no more hear the voice nor see the helping hand.

Defy, resist, and the limp, sprawling, accommodating G.o.d becomes a sinuous, hydracrested, overpowering dragon, stopping at nothing to "put you where you belong"--his favorite battle cry--himself judge, jury and executioner. This he has not the power to do unless he can prove to you that you "belong" where he seeks to place you, for his veins are full of mud. He is of the "earth earthy," and in the rarified atmosphere of n.o.ble ambition and great achievements, he is utterly blind and of no account. Take heart, then, O aspiring soul! "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Render unto every true principle that which is its due; but beware how you wors.h.i.+p or lean upon teachers, leaders who, beneath their proudly-worn garb, and insignia of leaders.h.i.+p, may be all the time wearing the robes of the high priests of the G.o.d Commonplace.

PETROLEUM.

"'Pears like" the affairs of life on this planet are dreadfully "higgledy-piggledy"; but in reality, there is a divine purpose, a use in it all. It is the soul's kindergarten. It is interesting to observe the curious and round-about ways Nature takes to insure the greatest good to the greatest number of her needy children. Long before the first nitro-glycerine "go-devil" was sent down, down, to the uttermost depths, to shatter the oil-bearing rock, and set free the wonderful deposit that was destined to mark a new era in the affairs of men, rang out the Biblical mandate: "Let there be light," and in due time the whole world was illuminated.

The sorcerers, who have abstracted vast wealth from this earth product have fancied it was for their special benefit and use, that nature had garnered up her stores to be thus liberated, and chemicalized into a thousand forms, by their sagacious work. Not so! Quite indeed, not so!

Came--at last--the kerosene lamp. How marvelous the light of its clear flame, after "tallow dips" and "pine knots"! How the little lamp of the first experiment grew, and grew into gorgeous centers of sun-like radiance, s.h.i.+ning everywhere, illuminating hitherto darkened, impenetrable places, carrying the torch of civilization round the entire world. Alike in slum and palace, in homes of poverty, and set to s.h.i.+ne in the gilded resorts of the n.o.ble and wealthy; blessing the student, and the vast army of enforced workers; lighting the paths of men, and the ways of the mult.i.tude; making vice and crime more difficult, by dispersing the darkness from hidden purlieus. Through primeval depths and mountain fastnesses, wherever the footsteps of men have wandered, the magic lamp has pioneered the way.

All war is horrible. Through what agonies of loss, and orgies of death, and tortures of the weak driven to the wall by unscrupulous men the war against material darkness on this planet has been carried on is utterly unimaginable and impossible ever to be known. The end has been reached, the great needs of humanity at large have been and are being served, and while superior sources of light have largely taken the place of the oil lamp, it still s.h.i.+nes calmly on in the homes of the poor, and will, for ages yet to come.

"As a man thinketh, so is he." This may be only measurably true, in consequence of the stress of circ.u.mstances; but sooner or later, the thought moulds the individual beyond the power of disguising the real character.

LAW.

It was all in order for Yahweh, the guardian spirit of the Hebrew race, to "hetchel" the Jews--and from all accounts they needed it--but the most anomalous phase of this whole affair consists in the fact that after having set forth to the world that the church, and all were to come under the rule of the "new dispensation," and represent the teachings of the Master, they should turn back to the old, old history of the Jews, and incorporate bodily into the so-called Christian religion, and into the political life and jurisprudence of nations, the restrictions, the penalties, and, in a word, the Hebraic law in its entirety. Law, as it is applied in America, is a process lacking in equity and justice. It is circ.u.mvented by $-s for the benefit of the rich, a menace to the poor man, binding on the needy burdens that kill, or lead to despair. Jesus Christ did not make law; he only indicated the presence of the higher law--the scientific law--that must rule all life on this planet ere justice to all can ever prevail.

The gospel of Jesus--the Nazarene--was the first that ever brought hope or promise of any possible good to the outcast, and the children of poverty.

COMMUNISM.

Communism is the beginning, and not the culminating state of societies and peoples. All efforts on this line fail, because they are based upon the false and impossible premise of the absolute equality of all men. There never has been, there never can be any such adjustment of the forces of nature on this planet; because no two souls are alike and there can only be equality in alikeness. Spirits come here in groups.

They start simultaneously on their pilgrimage across the "sands of time"; but at the very outset there are obstacles and handicaps innumerable. At once there is heredity. There is no equality in heredity. It is good, bad or indifferent as the case may be. But the great divergence is in the soul itself; it grovels or aspires, and unfolds its powers according to the laws of its own individual being, and all men, and women should not be held accountable or judged alike.

It is not just. Communism would seek to suppress all individuality and reduce everyone to the "dead level" of the commonplace, under the mistaken idea of universal equality. Gifted persons daring to lift up their heads above the common ruck of mankind, are at once shoved back into the narrow groove the heads of the cult have decided to be the proper rut for human beings to run in.

In this view, persons of ign.o.ble and narrow natures may sit in judgment upon people of genius and refinement, and may force back the most aspiring seer into expressionless life by the utter lack of any comprehension by their dull, selfish fancy. Ye G.o.ds! How they exult in doing it! This trick is played upon sensitive, modest, gifted people everywhere. Fools set the pace and rule, and those who know the least of the responsibilities of living are the first to rush forward and grab them up. Envy and jealousy have it all their own way, and so it is the world around; everyone is forced to pay a fearful price for his superiority.

At different times poets and writers, good people of distinction and philanthropy, weary of the "storm and stress" of life and of invasions and intolerable "b.u.mptiousness" of the vulgar and indiscriminating, have tried to secure a place and surroundings where high thinking and simple living might order their days and secure to them companions.h.i.+p fit for the G.o.ds; but the n.o.blest and best of humanity are not permitted to go off by themselves in such ways and have a little heaven on earth all to themselves. This cannot be. They must stand apart each in their place, out in the world--"in the open"--that they may each one stand as a beacon light, object lesson, leader, and thus a.s.sist in "leavening the whole lump" of ignorant and unregenerate humanity.

HAPPINESS.

Happiness is the final achievement of the human soul. Perfect happiness can only come as the result of absolute at-one-ment with G.o.d, the divine will, and in this conforming there is no loss of personality, or of individuality; it only rounds out the soul into its G.o.dlike completeness. It is unimaginable that there should come loss of any attribute of the soul on its way up to the rendez-vous with its Parent, G.o.d. Rather, that its powers should increase in every possible direction with use, in conformity with divine law. This is the only true happiness.

The ideals of happiness cherished by men take in an immensely wide range, and bring into action all the peculiar attributes of the composite natures of man. The brutal instinct cries out: "Kill! kill!"

Bloodsheding is its ravis.h.i.+ng delight. When it arrives at a point where it may not destroy its fellows, the whole created animal kingdom--including woman--is its prey. Wars and rumors of wars will never cease on this planet until humanity at large develops out of this grade which expects to find happiness in the exercise of its very lowest, primitive instincts.

Further along in the line of the evolution of the soul, ideals of happiness pursued by man are simply futile and childish; the awakening to a realization of this is a commonplace, world-wide experience, and only repeated embodiments can purge the soul, educate the minds of men, and turn their attention to the only true and lasting ideals of happiness.

PAIN.

Physical pain beyond a certain point ceases to be pain and becomes an ecstasy. The same beneficent law controls mental and spiritual agonies. They each have their limit. To the keenest of sorrows, the deepest of griefs our Maker has spoken: "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." Nurse them as we may, draw them as deeply as we can into our soul's recesses, and make them, in our morbid states, idols to cherish, they yet lose their power to hold our souls in subjection.

Both physically and mentally, the nerves of feeling refuse to respond.