CHAPTER XII.

BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.

Knowledge consists of accumulated facts, which
are of two classes, viz. — those of the mind and those
of the soul.

Knowledge is generally attributed to the mind,
which is made a vast storehouse for the accumulation
of book learning, or the recorded facts of the past,
or facts which have been acquired through the ex-
periences of others. This is learning — like the
training of Parrots, which speak by rule without
real knowledge — hearsay.

Facts are the foundation of all knowledge, — as the
the One fact of existence is the Mother of all
experiences.

This primal fact of being is a soul fact, the mind
has nothing to do with it, except to recognize it, as
an infant recognizes its mother. It exists prior to
mind, and is back of all experiences, which rise up
out of it as the trees do out of the earth. Mental
knowledge consists of the laws of motion, the manner
and methods of motion or how things act, while soul
knowledge consists of what we understand of the
things themselves.

BELIEF AND KNO WLEDGE. 1 3 3

The first motion is the first experience, and life
emanated from this point to reach in its weakness a
belief 'in something besides itself — even its mother.
In belief it rests, as in its mother's arms till some-
thing disturbs its rest, when up through this painful
experience it arrives at the fact of the uncertainty of
rest, of belief and of knowledge. In the uncertain-
ties of existence we cannot help believing in a cer-
tainty, because we Know we are, — and we believe
in other things because they are also as we are.
Thus believing we try and test those surrounding
things, and arrive at conclusions regarding them which
seem true and certain to us. These conclusions are
the understanding of the mind, the one solid fact
upon which the spiritual man stands, — what he
imagines that he knows, — here he rests.

But these external things by their actions desert
us — they prove false — they give us pain — and we
slowly let go of them by doubting what we formerly
so certainly knew of them. Here, in this doubt, is
the beginning of a downward action of the mind,
viz. — a Knowledge of the uncertain and the untrue.
This is a lower knowledge which undermines and
unsettles the mind, destructive to trust, satisfac-
tion, confidence, and repose in ourselves as well as
others.

Unbelief in others is unbelief in ourselves at the
same time, since we are all linked together. So
knowledge follows belief both upward and downward,
always antagonized by ignorance which does not

134 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

knoWy but which always believes in the unknowable,
and in its unrest and dissatisfaction is always striving
for the real, which somehow one feels is himself, and
in the absence of knowledge we guess as we desire
it to be, and whether true or false we grow by
guessing.

Knowledge is the basis for conjecture. He who
does not believe in conjecture is an unbeliever, (trusts
only in facts, physical, tangible, and shuts the win-
dows of the soul through which we may gaze upon
fields of infinite beauty, and behold truth in its pu-
rity), and there rests satisfied. He who believes
nothing except what he knows, is a very small pattern
of a man, for in point of reality he knows nothing.

The man who ties himself to " facts " is like a fly
in a spider's web : he is not satisfied. There is a
wail within him, as of a drowning babe. It is only
when he can forget himself and his doubts that he is
happy. When you have gone through the whole
gamut of experiences, and find reality and perma-
nence in nothing, and vanity and vexation of spirit as
the sum total of this life, you have then reached the
plane of knowledge. This takes the egotism out of a
man. He is then empty and receptive of Divine
influences, and is led to trust, and to have confidence
in creative wisdom. Trust leads to love of God in
his works — not of objects, but of a principle em-
bodied, and working in objects. Thus it may be seen
that the road to power starts at belief in God.

He who believes has Hope. Hope is cheerfulness

BELIEF AND KNO W LEDGE. 1 3 5

and happiness. Truly we believe in that which har-
monizes with our feelings. To believe in a thing
through fear is not belief in this sense, but rather a
conviction of experience, far beneath belief. It is
a shock, an agitation, wherein there is no rest or
satisfaction. All conversions through fear testify
to this truth. He who is converted through fear has
no intuition ; hence he is not called from above, but
from below.

Intuition does not come from without, hence no
teaching can awaken or open it. Instinctively we
fear that which is not in harmony with us. How,
then, can we believe in that which we fear? We
always desire to destroy that which gives us pain.
The fear of God is a pain which the world tries in
vain to remove by sacrifices, prayers, and flattering
ceremonies. Fear does not lead to knowledge, or
blending of natures, but to unreal and erroneous
views of God and of each other. It builds walls
around us, as a citadel in which to defend ourselves.
It isolates man from his fellows, and arms nation
against nation.

We fear that which we hate, and love and serve
that which we are in fellowship with. Fear springs
from belief, but it is in a descending scale : it is
beneath and not above. The fearful are not the
hopeful. Hope is the anchor of the soul. It is
God's garden in the soul ; the Eden wherein the tree
of life and of knowledge grow side by side. With
hope, the poor in their hovels can live in palaces built

136 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

in air. Without hope, the sick in their palaces live
in real hovels.

Conjecture is stirred in the mind by the last expir-
ing wave of heat that descends from Divine fire, as it
deposits its ashes as the facts and forms of existence.
Belief is the flame-tip ; hope the glow of the red
flame ; knowledge is where the flame bursts forth ;
unbelief is cold ashes. Right belief is belief in man,
and it inspires hope in man, and gives a correct
knowledge of man. This is a correct knowledge of
God. How can we believe in God when we do not
believe in man ? How can we have hope in man
when we fear him, and hold aloof from each other ?
How can we know God when we really do not know
any thing in existence ?