CHAPTER II.

THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS,
In the study of nature a variety of natures attract attention. Why should human nature claim precedence over all others ? " Who knoweth the spirit of man that it goeth upward and the spirit of a beast that it goeth downward ? " The same law operates in both, for all life is one ; the form that it manifests is of value only as showing the station at which the life has arrived on its evolutionary journey.
What is evolution ? Is it something coming out of nothing? Whither is it bound? Life comes in and goes out of matter as the breath comes and goes ; but whither ? If evolved from matter it must in the last evolvement be free from matter.
In a burning pile heat, light, and smoke escape, leaving at last only cold ashes, but these ashes are no more lifeless than was the wood before burn- ing. The phenomenon of fire is the motion that
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 2$
the life of the wood makes in its escape, or in its evolution from inertia to — what ?
Does it return again to inertia ? By no means. It divides itself into flame, smoke, heat, sound, and ashes, and in each is more of life than the wood held prior to the conflagration.
We cannot, however, measure or weigh life. It is spirit, of which light, heat, and vapor are elements of various degrees of density and of motion.
The spirit of man is perceived as white light.
Life is active and inactive, conscious and un- conscious, mind and matter. In passing from one form of life to another motion is evolved, and hence to understand nature and life we must study the laws of motion. All motion describes a circle ; there is no such thing as a straight line. In combustion the motion is analogous to breath- ing, and the outgoing of hot and the ingoing of the cool air, like the inspiration and expiration of the breath, describe an ellipse. The original cause of the motion is not easily perceived, for living as we do in a series of effects which are also causes, it is difficult to retrace the series and find the origin of any motion. When we think
24 EVOLUTION OF IMMORTALITY.
we have reached the cause of phenomena, further investigation proves that we have at best only another effect of some precedent cause. Every effect is in itself a cause of further effects, and we may conclude that life also comes under the same law, being both cause and effect. If this is true we need not look outside of the life within us for the cause of what we are, or of what we do, neither for the cause of that which we may be- come.
Causes are perceived when we understand the combination of their effects, for nothing exists in complete isolation, all are interwoven and inter- dependent. The motion of one disturbs the entire economy, and on analysis the cause of the motion will be found in a series, or combination of effects centered in that which moves.
There is a trinity of which each member is so interdependent that neither can exist without the other, viz., space, matter, and motion.
Nothing can exist without motion and space to move in, nor can there be motion without some- thing to move, and that object forms a center in space from which arises the perception of a circumference. The mind takes cognizance
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
25
only of the limited ; the unlimited is beyond thought.
To discover the origin or cause of this self- existent trinity is beyond our power. To assume that this trinity is self-existent and eternal is as logical as to assume an uncreated deity outside of this trinity who has the same self-existence and endless duration.
Motion is necessary to the development of life, whether in animate or inanimate nature, and is most apparent in the sensitive and volatile parts of things. Space itself is motionless, but it is a component of everything that moves. It is be- tween every organ of all bodies and every atom of matter, and while each atom moves in space, that remains motionless.
All energy draws into centers. Worlds are centers of energy and they are living beings, with souls which are inert, silent, and motionless, but which hold with unyielding grasp to the universe of souls which surround them, and with which an exchange of energy or spirit is effected, as the air gives itself to fire.
Motion causes heat, and inversely heat causes motion. One must precede the other, but if life
26 EVOLUTION OF IMMORTALITY.
is latent where there is no apparent motion, by observation we may perceive the beginning of its manifestation.
Heat is evolved from matter by pressure. The center of gravity is the soul of the earth ; and as the earth revolves on its axis all the fluids and gases are forced toward the center, crowded to- gether with such pressure as to develop intense heat, which, occasionally finding vent, bursts forth in volcanoes.
If a bucket of water is swung swiftly in the air over the head, as long as the circular motion is kept up not a drop will be spilled. So gases and volatile substances, flung into space, form vortices, or rush to a center, cooling and hardening into a circumference as the rotary motion is continued, and worlds are evolved.
We discover, therefore, that the third law of motion is revolution, the form of motion that holds every atom in place.
The revolution of the earth on its axis causes attraction, suction, a centering of force the ulti- mate of which is inertia. Matter becomes of great density toward the center of the earth ; its specific gravity is greatly increased and more intense heat is developed.
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
27
To get a conception of the enormous weight pressing on the earth's center it is only necessary to know that there is a pressure of fifteen pounds on every square inch of its surface. The increas- ing ratio of pressure on the center produces an almost inconceivable degree of heat and density, which arrests all motion. If the pressure were withdrawn for an instant from the surface of the earth it would vanish like smoke, leaving no trace behind.
Professor Milne estimates the increase of weight per square inch of the earth's surface, two hun- dred miles toward its center, at six hundred tons instead of fifteen pounds as on the surface. The atoms of the earth's surface move around its axis at the rate of over one thousand miles per hour, but as the center is approached the velocity grows less and less, until at the central point of its mass rotation ceases. There is another motion, however, that of the whole mass of the earth around the sun, — an equal revolution of every atom around the great luminary, which causes the outward or centrifugal motion. This motion is the expiration of the earth, its outgoing breath of life, and is a positive electric force as it goes out, re-
28 EVOLUTION OF IMMORTALITY.
turning as a negative magnetic current. The out- going breath is flame from the central fire of energy and scatters sparks, that gradually cool as they recede from the center. Those deposited at the circumference form the crust of the earth, or become the bodies of animate nature.
Thus evolution and revolution carry on the work of creation. Study that work as it goes on in the formation of an Ggg and the evolution of a chick. In the dark and secret chamber of the mother body the same methods and laws are operative as in the creation and evolution of worlds.
First, attraction of the male germ to the vacant procreative cell, which is the soul of the future living being. This cell is globular in form and motionless, as the point in a magnet where the positive and negative forces separate, or the point of perfect equilibrium in the lungs where the in- drawn breath deposits its accretion of life and turns back, as the outgoing breath, to the atmos- phere again. The nuclear point in the cell is matter and spirit in union, undivided energy, the one. The cell is a womb which attracts the im- pregnating atom as the soul attracts the vivifying energy by its emptiness, inviting to fullness and
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 29
expansion. The nature . of attraction is to press together, to clasp, to embrace, generating heat, which disintegrates the matter in which the seed is imprisoned, causing division and separation of the atoms of matter in which it is held. With the freedom thus obtained the living spark begins to burn, to breathe from itself, and two forces begin to play instead of one alone, viz., attraction and repulsion. Attraction has made the center for the germ of the new being ; repulsion carries the coarser matter to the circumference to form the shell, the finer to form the body of the chick, each atom finding its place through attraction.
" Behold, I show you a mystery." The chick exists in still life, or negative spirit, long prior to the impregnation of the cell. Its phantom form, silent, intangible, takes its place in the perfect egg, drawn thither by attraction, and in motionless rest awaits the pressure of heat from the body of the mother to kindle the fire of life at the center, from which matter is evolved to clothe the phantom form.
Note that the germ in the egg is at rest until heat from another body rouses motion, and that the motion is dual, attraction and repulsion, or
3
involution and evolution. But neither of these motions can exist without revolution. These mo- tions are first on the interior or spirit plane, for every cell has an aura, or spirit atmosphere, sur- rounding it in which the motions described are continually playing ; and when a cell is sufficiently developed to be self-poised, or centered, its atoms move in the same manner.
The law is one, and the methods are the same in the building of a cell or the evolution of a world. Energy, in order to manifest, centers a portion of itself, and out of this division are evolved all forms of motion.
The heat which is constantly exhaling from the earth is matter dissolved by fire, the kindling point of which is at the center of gravity, where motion is not. Energy, the inbreathing force, is dis- charged, and, rushing again to the surface, the breath of the earth comes laden with devitalized spirit.
The vital point in an object is that where force culminates ; when all ways unite to produce the crowning effect, the striking of fire from a sub- stance hard as granite or solid as steel, or, in a spiritual sense, electrifying into life and intel-
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 31
ligence a soul as dense as the center of the earth.
It was the warm breath of God breathed into Adam that caused him to become a living soul, when that center within was illuminated by the fire of living energy borne on the magnetic cur- rent to the center of being.
It has been demonstrated that air can by pres- sure be liquefied, and by greater pressure can be converted into a solid, as water may be converted into ice by the pressure of intense cold.
Air can also by expansion be rarefied and ex- panded into volatile gases by heat. Expansion of the atmosphere is greatest at the equator, where the earth's exhalations are then most vigorous, while at the poles inhalation is so powerful that the whirling atmosphere becomes liquid and then solid in its fearful rush for the center of the earth, where the pressure is so great that motion ceases and even fire itself is quenched, or indrawn.
How intelligent, how enduring, how perfect are these self-supporting beings which we name suns, stars, and worlds ! They suggest infinity and the eternal, while we poor crawling insects on the surface of one of them doubt and deny the intelli-
3 2 EVOLUTION OF IMMORTALITY.
gence of this mother who has borne us, and of that divine energy whose eyes of light and power are on us by night and by day. By suns and moons and stars humanity has been invited through countless ages to look up and learn from them the lesson of the self-sphered, self-supporting units of the universe.
The small powers that man now has suggest the possibility of infinite acquisition. Why do I feel in all my being that I am f Because nature is truth and affirms that the great I am who is in and of this and all other worlds is the same as / am in essence, although infinite in degree. The spark within man is the same as that which blazes in the sun, and he is exhorted to use every effort to increase its brilliancy, working with, rather than against, the evolutionary forces for that end.
Self-supporting power, self-poise is the acme of all attainment, the rounding out and perfection of being, which is completeness of evolution, for evo- lution is not from but in the nature to be per- fected.
The mere evolution of families, nations, or worlds is not the perfecting of anything. The
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 33
race is no stronger than when it built the pyra- mids, nor wiser as the ages increase.
Strength is not increased by division, or by un- equal development of parts. \ Nothing is made in vain, and all that is in human nature is needed in complete development to form the perfect man. One part of his nature cannot be perfected at the expense of another part.]
There is evolution of lorm as well as of mind and morals. Excision will not rid us of angulari- ties or abnormal development of parts. The forces playing around and through us will return to us, for evolution ; everything so excised, and the good which is in all evil must be evolved, by putting it to its legitimate use.
From division of energy comes the only fall of man. Death ensues from the weakness which is unknown in the one ; evil exists only after the division of energy, and the only antidote for the "fall" is to be found in the evolution of the good, or oneness, in man, which disintegrates, super- sedes, and scatters the evil. As we cannot get outside ourselves, evolution for us must begin and end within the nature we call human. Being is both tangible and intangible, seen and unseen.
34 E VOL V TION OF IMMOR TALITY.
Man is not merely a form ; he consists of acts which are spirit and flow out of him as the breath flows — his oversoul which he creates. These acts are the circumstances of his life, from which he cannot escape. They make him what he is, and by them he is judged. Acts are the real man in motion, — involuntary motion, like the motions of worlds.
Life grand and beautiful is in all things, wait- ing to be evolved into consciousness. This in- herent life can only move, or come under the laws of motion, in its entirety, in form. No form is perfect which adheres to or vegetates on the surface of the earth. We say of " this straddling biped man," that he is the epitome of form. Alas for our conception of the perfect even in form !
A perfect form adjusts itself readily and naturally to the laws of motion, which are circular. Such form must be globular, which cannot be for a being who depends on the earth for a standing-place. Life as a whole is perfect, but it manifests in all kinds of imperfect forms, and evolution deals, not with the life, but the forms of its manifestation.
The essential life-sustaining motions of the body are the same as those of the earth swinging in
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 35
space. Expansion and contraction, the out and in of attraction and repulsion, are analogous to breathing.
There is not a throb of the heart or a muscular movement which does not operate in obedience to these laws. If man were perfect, the body would be free, without angles to prevent perfect revolu- tion. Angular forms move slowly, but the perfect form, the globular, is capable of inconceivably rapid motion, and has also immense power of resistance.
Life divides into four primal forms of manifes- tation— animal, mental, spirit, and soul life.
On the physical side, animal life includes all the forms of life in earth, air, and water ; spiritually, it includes the passions, or purely animal nature of man, which acts from instinct, or involuntarily. Man develops to a certain plane of life without conscious volition.
On the animal plane he is more brutal than the beast of the field, because of his greater intelli- gence. Those on the animal plane are of two classes — the animal in act and the animal in thought. Those whose idea of justice is founded on retaliation, " an eye for an eye," blood for
36 EVOLUTION OF IMMORTALITY.
blood, are not just, but vindictive, and have not evolved from the mental plane of the ravening wolf. Even those who have reached a higher mentality, professing to be governed by laws of right and justice, do not scruple to kill and eat of the flesh of animals.
When conduct is regulated by legal enactments and the fear of punishment, life is mechanical, run by machinery of church or state, a condition of barter and sale when all work for wages and each one has his price. The system of church machi- nery is one of credit, pay day in some uncertain future after death, where God is the bookkeeper. The service is largely a system of prayer, song, and praise, the mainspring of which is duty and gain ; i.e., laying up of treasure in a future king- dom of heaven. The few who have grown out of forms into true spiritual life are strangers among men, are ostracized as fanatics, poisoned like Soc- rates, or crucified like Jesus. The life of Jesus, his apparent death and triumph over the grave, is an example of the evolution of the spiritual nature into power and splendor.
The phenomena of spiritualism have established as a fact the continuous life of man. Death
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 37
changes him only from the visible material plane to the invisible material plane. In himself there is no change.
Some of the so-called dead have the power to make themselves visible and tangible for a brief space of time, showing that there are degrees of knowledge and power the other side of death, just as there are on this side.
We are spirits in this clay form just as surely as we shall be in any other form or condition, and being dead, we shall be in the same life we are now in ; if spiritual, a spiritual life ; if animal, an animal life. There is a distinction between having spiritual life within, and being in spiritual life. Spiritual life may burn within, while the outward life is in the animal plane, where death rules.
There are two states of being, the visible and the invisible, the seen and the unseen worlds ; but both are in reality one, although divided. /, my- self stand between the two as the dividing factor, and I also am that which is divided. I live only in part and am alternately in and of each state. I am visible and also invisible, for I inhabit a vis- ible body and am myself invisible and intangible.
These angular bodies we inhabit belong to the
38 E VOL UTION OF IMMOR TALIT Y.
animal life, but the astral, the invisible body is mental, evolved from our thought and action, and is of and in an invisible world. This mental body is an exact reproduction of the physical body, but differs from it in mobility and rapidity of motion, those which vibrate most rapidly being nearest to the spiritual state.
These visible and invisible states are only separa- ble as / stand between them, being alternately in either until by will and increased motion an other state is evolved into conscious existence, first as an idea, a seed, around which all energy and thought revolve, expanding it so that the / can enter into it as into another life.
Growth is toward freedom, and perfect freedom is spirituality. The mind which is untrammeled by tradition, or the opinions of others ; which is free from the dominion of the senses, from fear, care, or ambition, or pride, trembles on the verge of that creative power which speaks a new world into being. To create or to renew is as simple as to destroy. If a force exists which can instantly destroy the growth of centuries, the same power can in like manner produce any desired change.
But in the weak nature of man power grows
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 39
slowly because there is a lack of appropriation of energy. That which is complete in body and mind is all energy, and can defy the lightning's flash and the earthquake's shock.
To know is one form of power ; to be is quite another. Those possessed of the latter power may enter the soul world at will, in any form desired, or in no form at all. To spirit time has no dura- tion, space no limitation, and form no existence. It is unity, the all in one.
This oneness can only be reached by the per- fect in form and in mind. The perfect form is a sphere ; the perfect mind is the union in one har- monious whole of all its discordant faculties and powers.
40 E VOL UTJON OF IMMOR TALIT Y.