Section 1

Google
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on Hbrary shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we liave taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
at |http : //books . google . com/|
SoriE More Philosophy
OP THE
Hermetics
ISSUED BT JIUTMORITT OF THE
m
BY THC sane AUTHOR AS
Some Fhilosofht op the Hermetics,
Tbus fve speak ; iuttrpret you who am.
1898 R. R. Battmoardt & Co.,
PRINTBRS and PUBLI8HXR8, J^OB ANOBLB8, CAL.,
AND
ALxjAHCB Publishing Company,
19 AND 21 WB8T 8l8T ST., NBW YORX.
LIBRARY OF THE LELAIi/D STAFFORD JR. UNIVFRSITt,
COPYRIGHT. 1898, BY D. P. HATCH,
OP
I«08 AmoblM, Cal.
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS.
PAGB
PrBi^acb 3
The Absence oif Thought 9
Thought 14
Science 21
Love 27
Woman 34
The Martyrs 42
Habit 51
The Famed Ei^ixir 60
Words 68
Sii
Inspiration 83
The False Prophet 92
•*My Country *Tis oif Thee'* 97
CONVENTIONAI, OPINION I02
HEI«If no
Nirvana 120
Ghosts Again 124
The Law of Rhythm 130
The Phii^osophy op the Other Cheek 140
The Preacher 147
The Optimist 151
The Pessimist 158
How Men Argxte 164
The Poet 167
Rei«igion 169
Il,I«UMINATl 186
Al^ONE.... 194
YOU 198
Nature 206
The Unexpected 213
Prayer 219
The Ai«pha and Omega 225
&BOX8TBRBD
TRADE
PREFACE.
It is possible that some of you have won- dered about our symlrol, the sealed packet or letter, and it is quite proper that we make ourselves clear in regard to it, so that your normal curiosity may be satisfied. Hermeti- cism is very old, older than written history, in &ct, as old as man. The society goes back before chronology, and its beginning is lost in the fog of the ages. History can tell but little of it, because it is Hermeticism. In Masonry, in the higher degrees, it is well understood, but Masons are close mouthed.
Hermeticism is the result of two things ; first the constitution of man himself, and second, the state of society in which he lives. Man is a life preserving animal; as he grows wiser, by life he means his soul, his affec- tions, his intellectual conceptions, and his subtler instincts. In order to keep these in- tact, he found that a certain amount of prudence was necessary; that the very gloss
and sheen of his soul's purity necessitated a sacred, secret, internal monastery with locks and bolts and bars, drawn only when one akin to himself demanded entrance. So then from man's very constitution, as a preserver of Ideals, he can not " Wear his heart on his sleeve,'' nor uncover his palpitating brain. Second, from the point of society, no two are alike; each bows to a diflFerent god, and he who enshrines Baal is more likely than not to persecute, if he have the opportunity, the worshipper of Jehovah. To be able then to live in peace with one's philosophy, a mask is worn, easily nnveikd by kindred souls, but untranslatable by those of a different creed.
About the symbol, we would say that the nature of things being as it is, from the fact that philosophies and religions have wran- gled through all time and are fighting still, on account of the ghastly trophies of cen- turies in the form of mutilated bodies and ashes of the tortured dead, the symbol is a necessity. It is nothing other than a secret cypher, in order that people of the same cult may communicate undisturbed. There are
many signs used among Masons and Her- metics ; in fact there is a language more or less comprehended by them all. There is nothing uncanny nor ultra about the symbol ; rightly used, it is no more pernicious than the English Alphabet. During long ages, when the state meant the church, and the king the priest, men who dared to be " Free Thinkers '' were in danger of their lives. If the anathemas and excommunications of the pope had been the sum total of punishment, they might have shouted their convictions from the housetops ; but the stake and gibbet were diflferent affairs and eflfectually shut their mouths. There is a silence^ however, more deadly than words — ^an underhand work that tells on the ages.
The absurdity of the Hermetic of the Middle Centuries would be laughable were it not so pathetic. When he speaks of sul- phur and mercury and so forth and so on, his pages in print appear more like the rav- ings of a lunatic than any thing else. To pass as a harmless crank was his only hope of living at all, once upon a time. " But to-day,'' you say, " there is no danger, why
tisabsurd symbolism?" We reply, partly from the association of ideas, wHicli, in a way, has become pleasant to us, for the past is at our backs and its memories are sacred, and partly from the first reason given, which is, that man is by constitution her- metic and tells only so much of his story as the world is willing to receive. A certain symbolism, in guise of parable and illustra- tion, was used by the great Masters of philo- sophy and religion — Jesus and Guatama, to say nothing of the Masters in Bgypt — ere written history began. The symbol con- denses, and carries a deal of meaning along with it, that pages can not express.
While there is good in a symbol, there is evil also. We, of all people, are disgusted with the abuse of the symbol, and have shorn ourselves of most of them on that account. All sorts of hidden and malignant meanings may be conveyed from mind to mind by these simple instruments, to say nothing of the vulgarity and debasing suggestion which some of them carry in their apparently harmless exteriors. There are two sides to this question as well as to every other, and
we leave you to solve tbe problem as best you can.
In our first book, "Some Philosopby of the Hermetics," recently published, we stated that our cue is taken from Nature, and our aim is the mastery of self. Our god is that invincible Law, which, while we find no word in which to express it, is nevertheless manifested in and through us, at all times. We realize the Unknowable because of the Knowable, and feel that on this master parallel of the seen and the unseen, we must rest content.
In this maze and multiplicity of super- ficial philosophies, hurried men and women, those who have hardly time to discover truth for themselves, ask in a kind of semi- despair, " Which of all these is right ? " A positive philosophy (if philosophy at all) must necessarily be the outcome of a funda- mental premise, which is, at least, the basis of a /air hypothesis, with data, or self- evidence for its reason. Second, a philosophy must be consistent with itself; this is of vital importance.
If one but take the trouble to look into
the mass of modem isms, propounded by innumerable teachers going to and fro throughout the land, he will find, in bring- ing these two tests to bear upon them, that they are failures; not that they have no grain of truth in them, but that as systems of philosophy, proving their right to be by their logical consistency, they are failures — ^build- ings with insecure foundations, top-heavy, minus architectural design; studded with gems perhaps, but the mass so thrown to- gether that all sense of Unity is lost.
To hurl assertions at the world without giving reasons for the same, to deluge humanity with generalities, amounts to nothing unless the data appear in the back- ground, or the assumption is self-evident.
Any amount of astounding assertions is admissible if the proof be forthcoming: any sort of a wilderness is bearable if there ^ a possible entrance or exit; but to be dropped, blind-folded, into the center of an Indian jungle, unaware of how you arrived there, and desperate as to the means of getting out, is to steer clear of philosophy, and go rampant with Chaos.
THE ABSENCE OF THOUGHT.
Can you approximately empty your mind, not only of imagination and memory, but also of thought ? A mental vacuum is im- possible while maintaining consciousness, but can you order thought away from your brain as you would drive intruders from the house, at least when you desire to enter "The Silence"?
By "The Silence," I mean that restful place where there are voices which sing lullaby s such as a mother hums to her child. Can you throw yourself upon your mother^s breast where thought is not, and lying there hear but her music which is full of sweet- ness and echoes. She will sing to you of her undying passion for the sun, which yet is somewhat colder than in days of her youth. She will croon fairy tales of times when she brought forth gods. She will hum
lo SOME MORE PHILOSOPHY
away of the by-gone, when the moon was nearer and bigger — ^a lusty infant scarcely weaned. She will croak of age, and com- plain of cold, and the fickle sun. She strokes you with pity, a puny child of her middle life, and you nestle up to her heart and forget to think. You are all ears and eyes — memory, imagination, logic, have gone. You are negative, receptive, vacant, and your mother seives her dreams through you, in the silence ; they rush into you and out as a stream through a citlvert. You feel, but this is not passion, there is scarcely a positive element about it; it is revelry void of aim. You are drawing the milk from your mother's breast, with scarce more consciousness than that of a petted child. To be sure, it intoxicates like a mild wine, it calms like a soothing drug. You feel scarcely yet bom — Your sense of individu- ality is stupefied by hers — You are lost almost, on the billows of her bosom, with- out thought, as I define it, without memory or creative power — a speck on her breast rising and falling with its rythmic heave.
OF THE HERMETICS ii
■ I I -
This is " The Silence." But you ask me "Do we take nothing away from it, do we come back to positive self again and bring no trophy?" Her dreams did but rush through you, we answer, but you were washed clean, just as the culvert is washed by the hurrying river. No bath in the dews of the morning can purify like this. The sub- tle drip of her dreams, more misty than silver fog, has whitened your face and brightened your eyes. You come back to your positive self made over, because so much has gone from you. You weigh less, you move with speed, you feel yourself a part of the gases ; earth's gravitation has little hold, you are light, you float like a feather on air, you fly like a butterfly. Something has gone; you were stripped by your mother and hugged naked. You discover that your raiment has vanished. Like Eve you are ashamed, and you gather leaves and grasses, and weave a garment, which trails on the ground.
Nature is a great thief — and by nature we mean at this juncture the mother aspect — she is ever struggling to get you back into
12 SOME MORE PHILOSOPHY
herself; if she cannot have you alive, she will take you dead; but be not alarmed, when you think you steal from her, and the balance is struck.
The individual thinks, but he who ap- proximately yields, for the time, his indi- viduality, ceases to reason. I am going to tell you later what I mean by thought ; just now I desire to impress upon you the neces- sity of /w?/^thought. Man can never re- bound to one extreme, unless he can spring to the other. The positive thinker must be a non-thinker. The great reasoner contains within himself the possibilities of a fool. The reaction from thought must inevitably be to the region of non-entity.
Do not imagine that the mass of people are either very positive or very negative; they have neither the dynamic, ejective power of the thinker, who sends a fiery mes- senger from his brain straight to an object, tears out its core and brings it back, nor the abandonment of the baby who fastens itself to its mother.
To suflFer yourself to be hypnotized by
OF THE HERMETICS 13
nature, is to act on the mimic stage of life the part of the clown, who laughs and shivers and winks as the manager dictates. This is possible only to the mighty thinker, who rises so high with his "Balloon of Thought," that when it collapses in the azure, he falls a dead weight on the bosom of her who watches her chance to enfold him. If you find that you cannot get rid of yourself, you have not acquired the power to think; you will never shock the world with your originality, nor overturn kingdoms. But if you should discover some time that you are a fool, be of good cheer, the sage will appear next day.
14 SOME MORE PHILOSOPHY
THOUGHT.
Thought as we have said, is dynamic. Just in proportion as you energize intellect, will thought be. You must first have an object upon which to spend your force, and if that power be great, you will take the de- fenseless thing by storm. To fire your bat- tery of thought at a thing, is to shatter it. You break it to pieces and get at its inner- most construction. Thought is first icono- clastic, and afterward cumulative. In its projectile energy it overthrows, in its con- structive energy it rebuilds. Analysis pre- cedes synthesis, and the thinker plays with the two as a boy plays with a pack of cards.
When thought is approximately absent, you float on the stream of Nature; when thought is present, you row up tide. The thinker is an individual as against all odds; he throws down his gauntlet to the Universe,
OF THE HERMETICS 15
and in his Almightiness tries to define God. He postulates a fundamental premise as solid as the foundation of earth, and erects his tower of Babel in the form of a syllogism, even to the skies. He somehow manages to brace up his individuality and hold his own against an army. He has no vulnerable point, not even a heel, and the arrows of the angels break on him as if he were incased in metal.
A thinker is a positive entity, but uncom- mon of course. A cat even has logic, but it is hardly a thinker, as we define the term. Men as a rule, reason out their little theories, lay down syllogisms, gather data, and infer, but the thinker does more. The master who plays with thought as a child plays with a pack of cards, has a logic no different from that of a cat or the leader of a town- meeting. Logic is logic in the brain of a tit- mouse or the cranium of a Cuvier. But a giant in intellect has a Unit of Force that sends his little ball of logic out into space, at something which it hits and penetrates.