Section 13

OF THE HERMETICS
going farther back, each inanimate thing also. In fact our mother nourishes individ- uals; she deals in variety, and abhors mo- notOBy. To synthesize the nature of things, to do and to be so and so, would be to imagine that abstract tendency to become individuals as opposed to that other attri- bute which inclines to uniformity. To be sure, we might again assert that the ten- dency to equalization is Nature also; yet as things are each different from the other, and striving for a unique expression, in order to distinguish one pole of being from the other, we call this Nature. The word Nature would not apply here unless there were individuals: contrast and difference alone reveal it. Unless individuality be a passing dream. Nature manifesting in variety is unerring and endless.
We then have a mother who is in us rather than without. She is determined that we shall express some phase of herself which no other of her children can manifest, and urges us on to that end. She glories in the multiplicity of her progeny; and their
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continual struggle, the one with the other, is the source of unceasing amusement to her restless self. She is not in the least alarmed about the result, she knows that nothing of hers can be destroyed. The light put out is not the annihilation of fire. The figure rubbed off the slate is not its destruction in mind. So, determined that they all shall have a chance, she allows her offspring (or rather her myriad little selves) to have their fight out, one with the other, getting au immense amount of enjoyment from the unceasing strife.
People speak of Nature as belonging to some things and not to others, using language so loosely that the words make lies of themselves for the deluding of mankind. For instance, one says, "Nature is never cruel, but man is;'' as though man had escaped his mother, and stood aloof. If he flatters himself in this way, his conceit will be overthrown on the day, perhaps, when he comes to die. However there is one thing
OF THE HERMETICS
certain, he can apparently cheat ier through her own attributes. I say apparently, for in reality he does nothing of the sort. Our mother is lazy ; she puts up with her child, if he expresses a little of her, and seems to be amazed and outraged if he attempts to do more, but secretly she is rejoiced and exhilerated. If mayhap you discover her deeper intent in regard to yourself, and attempt to realize it in haste, she wiU undoubtedly chastise you, but each blow will be followed by a kiss, and it will be such a precious thrashing, that you will wish to hold it in memory for the rest of you natural life.
Fear nothing then ; allow your individu- ality as full an expression as other individuals will tolerate. It is only the half expressed individual that is vicious ; he is the sour apple, the blasted bud ; he murders and tortures others. You perhaps are a sinner because Nature has not had her way with you. You have disobeyed your mother, and behold yourself in the mirror of human eyes, a monstrosity, a dwart. If you will
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but remember that the Nature of you is not a thing apart, but yourself temporarily completed, which shall again evolve another expression of you as an individual, you will learn the meaning of the word variety, and awake to the consciousness of life.
OF THE HERMETICS 213
THE UNEXPECTED.
The Orient prates a great deal about the Law of Cause and Effect, while in the Occi- dent there is a phrase after this manner, " ^Tis the unexpected that always happens." We believe that there is no getting away from the East or the West; their maxims appear contradictory, but let us see. If we knew cause and causes, we could easily figure out effects. In fact the two would appear to our understanding side by side; but causes have a way of hiding themselves, while effects flaunt their handkerchiefs in our faces; they are imps that seem to be bom out of nothing, in the country of nowhere. To be sure, the nests and dens of some of them are easily discovered, but the majority, like snakes and tigers, conceal their lairs. Causes are
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fathered by causes, and the present results, which presume to please or insult us are metamorphosing before our very eyes, and becoming the parent of eflFects due to-morrow. The Occident comes in at this stage and sneeringly asserts that " It is the unexpected that always happens." If yesterday's cause were an eflfect of the day before, nevertheless, I have had it temporarily in my hand as a breeder, and I might have discovered what kind it would bring forth. So today was not necessarily pregnant with a great sur- prise, but of course I failed to watch; I was busy. A match was dropped, I forgot, and it lay where it fell. This morning my house burned over my head ; I have no roof but the sky. It was quite unexpected; the cause was a mouse and a match.
It is not always possible nor convenient to trace events backward. In many cases some think that it is necessary and wise to look upon them as thunderbolts in clear heaven, miracles, or visitations of Providence. It is more comfortable to our so-called conscience, to relegate disaster and "good luck" to an
OF THE HERMETICS
all-wise dispenser of rewards and punish- ments, than to discover ourselves, in a way, behind the apparent surprise. "As you sow, so shall you reap," is banded back and forth, yet each morning most of us awake, aston- ished, that things are as they are. No doubt that there are Units beside ourselves that have a hand in the mischief that befalls us, Perhaps, however, we might have, to some extent, worked out the corahination, had we beeu alert, and though we could not have prevented the catastrophe, we should at least have escaped the shock.
Man goes on sowing to the Devil, and when His Majesty comes to gather him in, as part of the crop, he is amazed at the unex- pected. He has cheated himself into the idea that he is an exception to the rule, that a draught of liquor remains in his stomach and lets his headalone; that a night's debauch resolves itself into a Don Juan refrain, which he can whistle away into uncertain echoes, as the years slip by; that an abuse of hos- pitality, that blackest of crimes, the desertion of friends, redounds to his good, by the
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arrival of others from unlooked for quarters • He has steeped himself in these evil dreams, till his flavor is quite different from that of better men, and when the effect protrudes its head, new-bom from the cause, he is dumb, and terrified with surprise. He had pre- sumed that it was his special privilege to scowl right and left, that repartee and sarcasm were his exclusive right; and when he finds himself paid up in his own coin, he is astonished beyond measure. If he is inclined to cant phrases, he bemoans the dispensations of a Providence which selected him as an example of its mysterious dealings with mankind. His causality, which is keen about others, is utterly wanting in regard to himself; overwhelmed with the unexpected, he poses before the world as an example of human inconsistency.
The question resolves itself then into this : to what extent can men know cause, or to put it another way, to what degree must man be shocked, either pleasantly or otherwise, by the unexpected? It would seem that the more observant and rational
OF THE HBRAfETICS wr
he grows, the more tentative his memory^ the less liable is he to be taken by a surprise which shall throw him off his stable founda- tion, or upset his well-earned poise. A good General, whether on the field of attack or defensive, is phenomenally alert. He takes into account every probable or possible maneuver of the enemy. He sends scouts in all directions, and establishes a picket guard on every side. He watches keenly for ambuscades, he aids his eye with a field glass, and the ears of others with a trumpet. He is a general, in proportion as he can do this, and his work tells accordingly.
That man is fittest to survive, who sees cause and effect as one; who goes back- wards from the reason of yesterday's events to that of a cycle ; who perceives the subtler as well as the more apparent causations. The seer and the poet are the masters of men. But even he who is most efficient in reading the book of the past, and writing that of the future, even he is the constant recipient of surprises. Were every cause
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known, and every result exactly as we had calculated, were we omnipresent and omni- scient, so correct that a mistake would be an impossibility, we should be deprived of the joy of life — the ever var3ring charm of the Unexpected — mystery would vanish, and with it the Veil of Isis.
It is only when the surprise is too sharp that it is a terror and a pain. A deluge of misfortunes, inundations of joy, bring shocks that kill. But the soft delight that thrills, from an unexpected kiss on the cheek, or the throb of sympathy from unlooked-for tears, are necessary to life's shadowy delight.
So then the Orient and the Occident are right. Cause and Effect is the Nemesis that chases us eternally, to spitefully shriek in our ears the maxim of "The Unex- pected."
OF THE HERMETICS 219
PRAYER.
All men pray. Some wear long robes and stand on the street-comers, others retire into their closets. Prayer is longings desire to have. All men pray. But he of the broad phylacteries, loud voice and eloquent tongue, is perhaps speaking to be heard of men. Prayer is a cry, an agonized cry ; it comes from the heart when one is alone. It is the abandon of self in longing, imploring. Rarely can one lose himself in entreaty when others are listening, rarely.
" Philosophy is ice," you say, " to whom, to what, shall we go when in great sorrow, great anxiety ? Upon whose breast shall we pillow our heads, what heart will respond to us, what eyes ? " Philos- ophy! You have but half grasped it,
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if you find the touch cold. To lave wisdom is to be philosophic, and love is of the heart. You may wrestle with ontology and feel nothing, for intellect is icy; but when the emotions warm to Truth, the pulse of Being beats fast. The wisdom- lover is on fire. The pseudo philosopher is a half-fledged bird ; his wings are a burden ; he were better as a quadruped, for now he can neither walk nor fly. Large brained, heartless, having no understanding of the opposite pole of his being, he is top-heavy and unreliable; weighted with thought, lacking buoyancy of feeling, he prays in a dumb uncertainty. His longing is like that of the dimly-conscious plant, that reaches out here and there for, it knows not what. There is a vague ache in the place where his heart ought to be, which he tries to think down. Yet the fire smolders even in him, faintly under the ashes.
All men pray. " If God is unrelenting law, why beseech him?" you ask. Ah! Love is a law. The Universal is about
OF THE HERMETICS
you, within, without. Something there is for you — a boon ; for the love of it, your magnetism draws, draws till it comes — the thing, the one, you have prayed for. It is an opposite to your own condition, for opposites attract. You are sorrowful, and you kneel; Joy arrives, smiling, and kisses you. One said, "The happy have no his- tory;" we add, "The happy never pray." If you are poor and crave wealth, you kneel to the god Mammon and plead for gold ; yoU are indigent, yon beg for wealth, no poor man supplicates poverty. If you pray intensely, if your petition is terrible, the way will be shown you — the way to the mine. The poorer, the surer are you, for extremes meet. Those who long for wealth, pray hard. Are you sick, health is good, is in God, you demand it ; you kneel to Hebe, youthful, blooming, sweet-smiling Hebe 1 If j'ou care for her, if yon pray in agon}', she will hear, for she seeks her own. The blushing nurse who vivifies with her touch, strokes your aching brow, and you take up your bed and walk. This is not
p./
f
7.
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idolatry ; the Universal manifests in variety ; Kistna has many expressions.
Do you demand a friend ; he comes, he
must. You force him to you by the energy
of your prayer ; the deserted take heaven
by storm. But this is praying for some
J thing. There are others on their knees ;
hark I "Deliver us from temptation, de- i sire." A condition of coolness and calm
steals on one who prays that the fires of his being may be quenched. The flame of life riots and bums, his very soul is seared; the ''. balance between intellect and heart is lost ;
>' in despair of himself he closes his eyes to
shut out the light, and the blessing falls from the sun's arms — 'tis the fog-chill, healing and salt.
The philosopher prays on his feet, as he moves, burning for Truth. Clear-headed to see, hot-hearted to feel, he alternates prayer with thought, wisdom with love.
Remember that there is everything in the All — a mint of gold, a pharmacy of medi- cine, a University of learning, a panorama of sights, a mother's bosom, a lover's heart.
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Those who take but little from the Uni- , verse, and seem to pray much, have weak desires. Without divine unrest, self-satis- fied, coutent, though they kneel three times a day and petition the Almighty on the Sabbath in the Sanctuary, in reality they pray seldom iu their uuhistoric lives. They are the hypocrites that worried Jesus. He called them "whited'' sepulchers, and showered contempt upon their unworthy heads. It was not their lack, but their over- much praying that excited his indignation. To be prayerless, is to be satisfied, without aspiration; this, though a misfortune, is nevertheless au honest condition. But the pretender at prayer, is auother man. He formulates his sentences with precision, cant phrases flow from his lips to order, he kneels at stated periods on demand, his elocution is without flaw, his voice is trained and primed, his throat is cleared, the convenient glass of water is at hand, his amen is rich and well- rounded, and his listeners pronounce judg- ment He receives money for the effort, and the Master, Jesus, quivers with wrath. But
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.even he— this white sepulcher — sometimes grovels in prayer. All men pray.
Dear one, '* Let not your heart be troubled," pray. There is somewhere a bosom for your tired head; pray. To beg at the portal of God, is no disgrace. Ask naught from man, plead where the heart of the Universe beats, aye do more, demand. Stand erect, vidth open eyes, reach out and take. As you warm with prayer, your exordium, a petition, merges into your peroration, a demand.
The Master which philosophy evolves^ lays hands on that which is his.
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THE ALPHA AND OMEGA.
The word God, is but a term, and yet at the use of it, we uncover our heads. It is man's attempt at expressing something which he can not express, of conveying an idea which never can be conveyed.
We are not impressed by the name, for that implies good only; but to the awful Something which lies back of it, and means Power ^ the Beginning, the End, the Ulti- mate, we kneel.
To the Greeks, Zeus roared in thunder and flashed in lightning. Even now man realizes God in the cyclone and the tempest. All things sublime, irresistible, overwhelm- ing are, to an ignorant mortal, God's means of manifestation. The awful love which He inspires is impregnated with fear. From the lowest specimens of humanity to the
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highest, the same dread rapture thrills the nerves and stimulates the heart, at the thought of the Ultimate.
Ignorance makes of God one thing, Wis- dom another; but whatever He or It seems to be. He stands to the worshipper as the arbiter of destiny, and a dread Reality which none can escape. A piercing, all-seeing eye seems to follow man to the uttermost parts of the earth ; no cavern however dark, no pit however deep, efifectually hides him from this penetrating, accusing glance; the light of it floods him in the tomb, and naked, he is seen as he really is, by one whom he calls God. Perchance it is a scaled and horned monster; but the deep orb has caught him; he is recognized, marked, watched. It may be the stolid glare of a wooden image, or a stone idol, its gaze is on him. This terrible eye grows keener in the dark, and draws and accuses its victim, till utterly servile, completely subdued, he brings sacri- fices to blind, or put it out. Could man shut up the eye of God, for but a day, carnage would run riot, and earth would be