Section 10

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of the present character. Patients come to a surgeon for treatment of astigmatism. Is astigmatism an hal- lucination or is it a fact ? An astigmatic declares the crookedness of a line that is perfectly straight to ordi- nary people. An astigmatic denies the very existence of a line that I behold plainly. How is this conflict of assertion to be settled ? I start by measuring the cornea of my own eye and find it to be a perfect seg- ment of a perfect circle. I pass to the eye of the astigmatic, and here I find that there is not a perfect segment of a perfect circle. Finding difference, I am led to appreciate that proof or disproof of an astig- matic's assertions is to be made if a possibility exists of putting my own eyes in exact shape with the eyes of a patient. Learning that this change in eye-form is to be accomplished by means of glasses ground to corre- spond with the measurements of the eyes of the person considered, I use such lens, and at once find that what the astigmatic declares as to seeing and not seeing is quite as true to him as ordinary seeing and not seeing are to me. Now, after a not dissimilar manner, I find that ability exists to comprehend Sensitivity, and, as well, to make it. The matter I learn lies here, not, however, with glasses, but with cultivation existing in concentration. To cultivate poetry is, I discover, to attract the Muse. To cultivate music is to invite the melodious. To concentrate on the psychical is to find the Ego looking on other things beside brick and mortar.
Here, however, doctorly sense of danger as alluded to in chapter on *' Disillusions." Profoundly inter- ested at one period of professional life in the study
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referred to, astigmatism, it was a habit to place my own optical apparatus in exactly the same condition tempo- rarily as that of every Astigmatic met with in practice. A consequence is, the eyes are more or less permanently altered from an original condition to correspondence with those of the people whose habits have been as- sumed.
As regards cultivation of Sensitivity to a sight of, and to relation with things not seeable by or relatable with the unsensitized, this is a matter of not unlike signification as is, perhaps, wisely to be taken into the account, to that which considers the desirability of growing things, as by hothouse forcing out of season. The peach is a fruit of midsummer; it can, however, be made to show itself in midwinter. If let alone, a peach comes in its proper season. Is it better to force the peach or to let it alone ?
A Sensitive, as interpreted in the cases of great poets or musicians, is found, not unlikely, to become lost or indifferent to things which are of ordinary every-day concern ; such persons come to be unfitted for the battlings of to-day, as to-day is with them.
But as to living two lives at once ! Whether, as queried by Rosicrucians, it is or is not desirable to live double in one and the same body ? Whether or not the law of the peach which provides for the fruit coming in its season is not better than acquired intelli- gence which can bring peaches out of season ?
Philosophy and man are identical. Without man there would be no philosophy. The two being one, it is not to be disputed that the one has capability to know itself. Assuredly it will not be disputed that
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what IS not possibly knowable to the one is of no con- cern to the one.
Is it possible to find, in the Universal, other entities beside the three named in preceding chapters ? The Creative power is universal, whether maker of things above the earth or under it. Matter is universal, whether as the planet Uranus or as a ring of Saturn. Ego is universal to him who is Ego. Knowing itself, it exists to itself.
But the way of the mountain? Are principles, which explain everything, to be understood save as grasp is gotten of them through study of detail ? Ini- tiates are born and Initiates are made. He is to know himself as initiate, whether born so or made so, who, standing where we now are, espies the key of the gar- den. He, on the contrary, is to know himself as not initiate who as yet perceives nothing different from the beginning and intermediate of way.
One not come to comprehension is to make a new start with beginning ; otherwise, having understanding of the invisibility of matter, he is to accept that Key is perceived and possessed by others ; he is to go back or he is to follow the key-bearers.
A multitude will go back ; if not this, will remain where they find themselves, making no advance. The Key obtained and held by Rosicrucians is not of itself the garden of the gods, but it is means of entrance to the Subjective world. By this it is not at all meant, as certainly is recognized, that a key-bearer has come to a day or point of any special translation. What he has come to is appreciation, through understanding, of the existence of a psychical life which every human
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is capable of living. He has learned how serene, how beautiful, how rich a territory there is within a man's self. Philo he proves to be right in his saying that ''between life and death there is no difference." He has come to understanding with Socrates and Plato and Plotinus, and perceives the immateriality of that which knows self as self. While a mortal he recog- nizes himself as immortal. While finding his means of sight to be with eyes, he has learned that there are eyes back of eyes. To-morrow is nothing at all to him. Yesterday is as though it had not been.
To die, as men call dying, he knows is to dream, as men call dreaming. To dream or to die is absolutely one. The environment found by Ego in dreams, as he has learned, is never less adapted to requirements than the environments existing with Ego in the waking state. . . . Casting a whole body, he has found out, is quite analogous with the casting of single atoms. A probable seventy pounds lost in his house by an ema- ciated consumptive he understands as not a whit of different history from other seventy which, through funereal pomp, gets into the long grass, the tree leaves, and the odorous flowers of the God's acre.
The absolute, the unchangeable belief of him who holds the present Rosicrucian pen is that what is called death finds perfect illustration in common nightly dreams. No dreamer knows that he dreams. Death is not known to him who is said to have died. Death is that beginning of a new end wherein an acorn buries itself under mould that fresh environment be gotten for other centuries of life as a great mast in the forest. Death is the law in creation through which ponderable
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changes to imponderable. Death is one with progres- siveness. Death is one with unseeable body. Death is one with liberty enjoyed by a butterfly over a cater- pillar. Death is one with an advance which is the meaning of man. Death is its own demonstration of oneness with life. Death is a crooked finger replaced by a straight one. Death is cumbersome gotten rid of for felicitous. Death is flight for him who has been working at the cultivation of wings. Death is what Living makes it.
Now concerning this invisibility into which the so- called dead depart.
There is but one Universe. Visible and Invisible are in it. As has been demonstrated with Matter, visi- ble and invisible are one. He who travels in a dream travels as one awake, only by the former water is found to support and atmosphere to hold up. A dreamer is stopped by no turnpike gate ; he needs no conveyance from continent to continent; he finds himself as pure Ego. Still materialized, he differs from the old self alone and only as matter differs through its phenomenal expressions. Celestial, while one with terrestrial, is yet of relation with wider and freer action ; this, in a sense, as birds fly while worms creep. A dreamer sees everything while himself unseeable. A dreamer finds a new state while utterly unconscious that the state is not the common lot of everything and everybody.
Now comes the last and greatest question of Rosi- crucianism. Can intercourse be had between the so- called living and the so-called dead ?
Here the circle and meaning of Subjectivism. Here Subjectivism to be appreciated as one with Occultism.
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Here understanding and demonstration. Here the secret of the higher plane. Here, too, self-deception. Here, as well, the richest and most beautiful reality of the Universal. He who has been led to understand Subjectivism understands the seeing a spirit.* In ex- actly like manner, as has been made plain, as spirits are to be seen, are unbuilt cathedrals seen and unsung melodies heard; devils and gods and churches and songs are everywhere that ability to see them is, and are not anywhere where ability to see them is not. Let long pause be made here for consideration. Here is the mystery, the only, the sole mystery, of seeing spirits with spirit eyes. Every published strain of music has been heard by a musician before being written. No architectural design exists upon earth which was not first a vision to the architect. Who sees God, devil, or angels, sees after a common manner ; there is but one manner. Let him who is able analyze ; every end must have a means; sight of an objective thing is after its manner, sight of a subjective thing is after its manner.
The Human, as understood, is an immortal. He is then always seeable by that which is able to see. A departed mortal being, quite as likely as otherwise to be in a familiar locality, as understandable in dreams, familiar places are where the departed are to be looked for; not always, however, are home haunts the place where search is to be made, as is equally illustrated in dreams where attenuated environment is taken advan-
* The word Spirit is used for the reason that it implies to readers generally what in the language of the Occultist is known as Umbratile or shadow ; what the Germans call the Doppelgaenger of a person.
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tage of to rise to heights of association never attained in the flesh.
The Universe is high, and broad, and deep. Height of association is, however, of no relation with altitude. It is not at all strange that the Ego of the dream is found often enough lost to a consciousness of old asso- ciations. With new clothes have come new looks. With refined environments is forgetfulness or indiffer- ence to coarse attributes.
But is there possible relation between the so-esteemed two worlds? Surely! Else is the Christian Bible an untruth and the great doctrine of Exclusion a lie. Again, there are not two worlds, the Universal is one.
But as to the Relater, the Seer. What or where is association between the materialized and the so-called dematerialized ?
Let answer to this beautiful question be made after the manner of the initiates.
Any man or woman who courts higher planes than the one upon which he or she finds himself or herself, will approach or reach these exactly in proportion as efforts are directed to accomplishment. The chapter in the present volume entitled "Psychics" is to show doctorly knowledge taking alarm at what Occultist or poet recognizes and receives as the highest and greatest favors conferable on man. The holder of a pen seats himself in stillness emptying head and heart of ordi- nary every-day concerns. Soon imaginations constitute new surroundings. Imaginations assume materializa- tion. Faces, forms, lines, buildings, show plainly. Subjective exhibits as one with Objective. Continuing to court such a world new will surely take the place of
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old. Continuing to look what is looked for will reveal itself.
— Only a repetition, what has just been said, of the biblical expression **the kingdom of heaven is within a man."
Sight is proportioned with that which is the user of sight. Here, however, as elsewhere the universe over, is no miracle, or if miracle, man is his own miracle- maker.
To see hideous crawling monsters in a particle of cheese, or more frightful swimming creatures in a drop of water, or wriggling serpents in an atom of vinegar, is a process of means to ends, nothing different. Matter itself is understood as being invisible. What is not seeable by the eyeless, however, is evident enough to one who has eyes. The keen-sighted see plainly what is wholly without existence to a myope. The telescopist and the microscopist see and understand where the ordi- narily keen-sighted are blind. So, after a like develop- ment, does an initiated Rosicrucian see new environ- ments arising out of old ones.
A sensitive, as inferred now to be clearly understood, is one who out of temperament or education is found concentrated in a given direction. A money-making sensitive is one who concentrates on the rise and fall of the market. A musical sensitive is one who listens eternally for sounds unheard by the money-maker by reason of rattle and confusion with which the latter surrounds himself. A poet is alert to rhymes unreal to everybody but himself, but which he catches and holds, showing thus their reality. Romanesque and Mediaeval sensitives wandered among round and angu-
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lar interlacing branches of trees and beheld visions of Gothic arches. Christian sensitives waited at the gate of the tomb for the coming forth ; the reward was in seeing while the unsensitive remained blind. Not dif- ferent is it in the present day, A multitude see Christ, a greater multitude see nothing of Him, — nothing at all of the grand meaning of Christ.
Sensitivity cannot see what does not exist. Poetry is not made by the poet, nor architecture by the archi- tects, nor music by the musicians.
Sensitivity, this meaning the same as exceptional discernment, is a state of natural or cultivated nervous organization, otherwise it is directly in Ego, consti- tuting a condition where the ordinary senses are dupli- cated by refined processes as are the common eyes by telescope or microscope.
Visions are seen and are seeable. That a multitude of visions are deceptions practised on the senses, and that another multitude are resultant of disease lying with the self-same senses, is not to be gainsaid by any one who will advance his studies to a succeeding chapter. It is the object of the recitals to make this very plain.
But if here the reader finds himself prepared to rise above deceptions and confusions with a view to understanding, or perhaps to cultivating, the conditions of a sensitive, a spiritual sensitive, searching after God and the immortals, he will indeed soon find himself "looking after new fashion," as may be promised, " beholding and understanding many new and beauti- ful things," if, indeed, he shall not behold and under- stand the Universal.
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Here a few concluding words concerning what is to follow and what is to be referred to in the chapter on Psychics as visions.
If the reader having the volume in hand happens to be of sensitive organization, he will be apt to find that by closing the eyes and concentrating the attention on a desire to behold faces, image after image will appear before him. These images are more or less familiar to a little multitude of people and are esteemed produc- tions of the imagination. In this concentration is the full secret of the Yoga system of Hindoo philosophy ; the secret is nothing greater than this, it is not any- thing less.
To say nothing as to any supernatural relation, con- centration is a matter of great scientific interest, nor is it possible to indulge in it without finding brought to our knowledge things which serve to astonish and overwhelm. What is to be described is to be under- stood as Subjectivism. The measure of things to be seen is one with the measure of the meaning and pur- pose of a percipient.
Does Rosicrucianism, not to specify him who holds the present pen, believe in the honesty, the sanity, and the truthfulness of people who tell of visions? To doubt or deny is to doubt or deny what is being ad- vanced and explained in these pages. Assuredly, what is told by the people referred to may be true, — true to them ; not true, however, to other people. Mistake on the part of sensitives seeing apparitions lies with non-comprehension on their part as to difference be- tween subjective and objective, or, to put this in other h 10*
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language, not comprehending as to difference between ideal and corporeal. Here is great paradox to under- stand. Let the reader stop and think. A Fulton tries and tries and succeeds eventually in materializing a steamboat. A Stephenson tries and tries and succeeds at last in materializing a locomotive. Now, it is the case that what is seen by a sensitive of the spiritual type is precisely one in principle with what is seen by a Fulton or a Stephenson. If it is to be admitted that the one can materialize, similar capability is not too hastily to be denied the other.