A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Re: A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

Postby admin » Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:53 am

II

On the old wagon road which existed ere ever iron rails linked Oregon's greatest city to the metropolis of the Golden West, there still stands, as for thirty years, not many miles from the State line, a station established for stage line uses, and "run" by "Daddy Dollarhyde." A lonely place, hidden amongst towering pines, which make regal raiment for the great "Siskiyou Ridge" of the Coast Range extending in gloomy grandeur not miles, but hundreds of miles, Dollarhyde's appeals to the heart of the traveler' as Saharan oasis, to the weary caravan. "'Tis a lodge in some vast wilderness," and in the days of this second "Shasta Scene" (A. D. 1884) was the only footprint of civilization for many a long mile.

Leaving Dollarhyde's, the road wound as directly as possible up a two-mile stretch of exceedingly steep mountain. Up this steep, long before aught but hinted dawn lit those grand ridges, a youth, on foot and alone, was climbing. A tramp? Temporarily; down below, at Dollarhyde's, the rest of his party yet slept. Up, up he toiled, stopping when the love of nature prompted him to "bold communion with her visible forms," and listen to her "various language"; pausing, the better to enjoy the exhilarating freedom, the beauty of the piny slopes, the whirr of the early grouse, and the chattering of squirrel and chipmunk. Once, enchanted by the exquisite charm of a crystal spring that leapt into and across the road, he stayed his step; and again, he stood gazing afar down into the gloom of a great canyon, which became lost to view "in the dawn's early light." The summit at last! But still no sun in the sky. All beneath was yet quietly resting 'neath the sway of Morpheus. Ah! what is that? Away in the south is a huge, dim mass, dull gray below, but, where its peak holds aloft the sky, 'tis rosy, glowing pink. As the youth gazes, spellbound, Old Sol dispels the valley glooms, thrusts aside the night, and the new day is born. The rose tints are gone, but also the gray, and in their place appears a giant, pointed cone of purest white, albeit streaked at its base with black lines, each some awful gorge. It rises not like other mountain piles, from ranges rivalling its own height; no, all alone it stands forth from its high plateau, piercing heaven's blue, from base to summit, eleven thousand feet, from ocean's plane to apical peak thirty-five hundred more--Shasta, O, Mt. Shasta.
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Re: A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

Postby admin » Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:55 am

III

Of the youth, what? A year later we find him suffering a violent fever, the "gold-fever," which yet lingers in that region of once famed mines; lingers, though it be now A. D. 1890. Away up on a mountain's side with pick, pan and shovel he has camped where a little gold may always be found; where hope whispers he may find a "pile" some time and--fortune.

All through that region forest fires have raged many weeks; all the valleys lie hidden under a pile of smoke. But the miner on the mountain is above it all, and as he labors looks out over the undulating surface of the silvery, smoky. ocean, down below. He sees a strange sight. No waves disturb this sea, which, nearly a mile deep, extends away beyond scope of vision. Two or three islands dot its expanse; these are all that is left to see of lofty mountain peaks whose bases are hidden. Perchance the words "smoke-ocean" seem figurative. Look heavenward from its bottom down in the valleys; the sun, appearing like a globe of blood, needs no colored glass to shield too sensitive eyes. Now go aloft to the miner on the mountain, looking down on, but seeing not, Yreka (town). With him again gaze at the "islands"; one only of them is not black in hue. It is the largest; sharp-summited, white, shrouded in eternal snows, Mt. Shasta rises, a noble island in the murky ocean about it, nine thousand feet.
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Re: A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

Postby admin » Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:55 am

III

Of the youth, what? A year later we find him suffering a violent fever, the "gold-fever," which yet lingers in that region of once famed mines; lingers, though it be now A. D. 1890. Away up on a mountain's side with pick, pan and shovel he has camped where a little gold may always be found; where hope whispers he may find a "pile" some time and--fortune.

All through that region forest fires have raged many weeks; all the valleys lie hidden under a pile of smoke. But the miner on the mountain is above it all, and as he labors looks out over the undulating surface of the silvery, smoky. ocean, down below. He sees a strange sight. No waves disturb this sea, which, nearly a mile deep, extends away beyond scope of vision. Two or three islands dot its expanse; these are all that is left to see of lofty mountain peaks whose bases are hidden. Perchance the words "smoke-ocean" seem figurative. Look heavenward from its bottom down in the valleys; the sun, appearing like a globe of blood, needs no colored glass to shield too sensitive eyes. Now go aloft to the miner on the mountain, looking down on, but seeing not, Yreka (town). With him again gaze at the "islands"; one only of them is not black in hue. It is the largest; sharp-summited, white, shrouded in eternal snows, Mt. Shasta rises, a noble island in the murky ocean about it, nine thousand feet.
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Re: A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

Postby admin » Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:56 am

IV

Night. Otherwise the same scene. Our miner sits in his tent door, meditating on the novel beauty of the scene before, below him. A north breeze has rolled the smoky sea silently away and left no sign. Beneath the tent outspreads a vast abyss, dark, silent, "the night's Plutonian shore." Our miner's fancy fills it with golden phantoms. Only the stars, "night's tall tapers," lighten the gloom. But far away east, over ranges of lesser mountains, dim shapes couched in the darkness, far away, miles real as well as seeming, familiar shadowy shape of vast, uncertain size appears to shut from sight vision of some awful conflagration. Look! It grows, it brightens, till on the charmed eyes bursts a sudden, intense spark, then a full flame in Ieka's side--'tis the moon at its roundest! And now Ieka's snows glow in its ray like molten silver, the dark abyss before, beneath the tent lightens, the phantoms flee, while over all, sublime, glorious, supreme, rises Shasta's argent image.
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Re: A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

Postby admin » Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:57 am

V

Traveling, southward, miner no more, the youth bends his course. A year agone the golden phantoms died, the mine caved in, and "no man knows that sepulcher" in the wilds of Siskiyou. Winter wet had extinguished the flames and laid the smoky sea. But the succeeding summer saw all aglow again, matched by the lightnings of heaven. Our traveler is at the very base of Ieka Butte, and he and his steed crawl along the slopes and vales in the bed of the fireborn ocean of smoke as do crustacea on the bottoms of aqueous seas. A flaw of wind decreases the denseness of the clouds, and above his head he sees an indistinct shape, lit feebly by the smoke-smothered moon, at its full now, as on that other night, a year ago. Beautiful through the murky air it is not; but when told that the point dimly seen overhead is the smoke-free, gleaming crest of Shasta, fifteen miles away as the crow flies, e'en though we gaze at it from its own base, we feel an indescribable sense of awe. And we liken the mount, with the flaming forests glowing at its feet and its own muffled form rising in obscured grandeur, to a silent sentinel by his watchfire, wrapped around with his cloak, and meditating on the trust he has kept, lo! these many ages, still keeps, and forever!
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Re: A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

Postby admin » Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:58 am

VI

Returned from the far south, and in camp. In camp at the timber line on Tchastel's side, awaiting the nightfall, and through the long afternoon gazing out over a wealth of scenery not in word power to paint. To the north "Goose Nest" mountain, its crater ever full of fleecy snow, rears itself aloft eleven thousand feet. Down yonder in that gemlike valley is the lovely town of Sissons; down, to our traveler, albeit on a plane seven thousand feet above the ocean. Night. But not in a tent door. No, on muleback, he and a companion are toiling upwards. There is no moon, no wind, no sound, save a few strange noises arising from the nether regions. No moon, yet plenty of light, since the snow seems self luminous, so that objects appear against it in sharp silhouette. How black the bleak rocks and ledges! And those glimmerings of light afar in the night, what are they? Lamps; lamps miles away, thousands of feet lower, yet in seeming not so far off. It is cold; oh, so frightfully cold, numbing the mind! And still-as the grave. No sounds now arise to the ear; 'tis too high for aught save silence. So cold; and yet midday sun heats reflect from the snows as from a mirror, and then the temperature if fearful to feel, yet the snow melts not. Here is a hot, sulphur spring, one-thousand feet below the apex. Warm your chilled hands in the hot mud, wipe them quickly, lest they freeze, and climb on. Your eyes, could you see them, congested as they are in the rarefied atmosphere, the color of liver, would horrify you. Your breathing pains you; your heartbeats sound like the thuds of a piledriver; your throat is afire from thirst. No matter; here is the top! Two o'clock a. m. in July, 188-. As yet no light, but faint dawn. But ere long the soul is awestricken by a weird glow in the cut, which lights nothing. The beholders are filled with a strange disquiet; see the waxing light, and--in a fearful wonder, almost terror---see the great sun, scarce heralded by the aerial rarity, spring from. beneath the horizon. Yet all below is in "the darkest hour before the dawn." No ridges, no hills appear, no valleys, nothing but "night's deep darkness." We seem to have lost the world, and, for the nonce, are free of time! The planet is swallowed up, leaving the mountain top's half acre sole visible spot of all the Universe, save only the fearful splendor of Helios. Understand now, for you may, the sensations of Campbell's "last man." The world all gone, and self and comrade alone on a small spot in midair, whereon the almost rayless sun casts cold beams of strange, weird brightness. Look north. Afar in the night axe four cones of light, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. Tacoma, and St. Helen's tall torch, all peers of our Ieka. As the Day King soars higher lesser peaks appear, then long black ridges, ranges of vast extent, begin near by, only to lose themselves in distant darkness.

Now the void of night vanishes, hills stand forth, silvery spots and streaks appear as the dawn lights lakes and rivers, and at last, no fog obscuring, in the distant west, seventy miles away, is seen a great gray plain, the Pacific's broad expanse. To the south, interrupted streaks of silver show where flow Pitt and Sacramento rivers, while over two hundred miles away behold an indentation of California's central coast, marking the Golden Gate, and San Francisco's world-famed bay.
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Re: A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

Postby admin » Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:58 am

VII

Beside a roaring, dashing mountain torrent, failing in myriad cascades of foam white as drifted snow, interspersed with pools of quiet water, deep, trout-filled, blue, reflecting flowery banks and towering pine-crested ridges, "ribs of the planet," we pause. The day is hot, but the waters of this branch of McCloud river axe cold -as the pristine snows of Shasta from which they flow to our feet and thence away.

We recline on the brink of a deep blue crystal pool, idly casting pebbles into and shivering the image of a tall basalt cliff reflected from the mirror-calm surface.

What secrets perchance are about us? We do not know as we lie there, our bodies resting, our souls filled with peace, nor do we know until many years are passed out through the back door of time that that tall basalt cliff conceals a doorway. We do not suspect this, nor that a long tunnel stretches away, far into the interior of majestic Shasta. Wholly unthought is it that there lie at the tunnel's far end vast apartments, the home of a mystic brotherhood, whose occult arts hollowed that tunnel and mysterious dwelling: "Sach" the name is. Are you incredulous as to these things? Go there, or suffer yourself to be taken as I was, once! See, as I saw, not with the vision of flesh, the walls, polished as by jewelers, though excavated as by giants; floors carpeted with long, fleecy gray fabric that looked like fur, but was a mineral product; ledges intersected by the builders, and in their wonderful polish exhibiting veinings of gold, of silver, of green copper ores, and maculations of precious stones. Verily, a mystic temple, made afar from the madding crowd, a refuge whereof those who, "Seeing, see not," can truly say:

"And no man knows . . .
"And no man saw it e'er."

Once I was there, friend, casting pebbles in the stream's deep pools; yet it was then hid, for only a few are privileged. And departing, the spot was forgotten, and to-day, unable as any one who reads this, I cannot tell its place. Curiosity will never unlock that secret. Does it truly exist? Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. Shasta is a true guardian and silently towers, giving no sign of that within his breast. But there is a key. The one who first conquers self, Shasta will not deny.

This is the last scene. You have viewed the proud peak both near and far; by day, by night; in the smoke, and in the clear mountain air; seen its interior, and from its apex gazed upon it and the globe stretched away 'neath your feet. 'Tis a sight of God's handiwork, sublime, awful, never to be forgotten; and as thy soul hath rated itself with admiration thereof, in that measure be now filled with His Peace.
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Re: A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

Postby admin » Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:00 am

BOOK SECOND

CHAPTER I


"I have called you friends, for all things that
I have of the FATHER I have made known unto you.

With Chapter Twenty-four of Book First closed the last devachanic experience of a personal life history, a history enacted over one hundred and twenty centuries ago. It has its good and its bad phases. Under the social rules and customs of a people whom the modern world regarded as pure myth until after the cruise of the "Challenger" and the "Dolphin," there existed a personality whom those who have followed this history thus far know by the name of "Zailm," an Atlantean cognomen not less euphonious than its significance is interesting, viz: "I live to love."

According to his narration, Zailm's youth was that of an obscure mountaineer. He was possessed of an overmastering ambition to make his name blaze among those of the noble of earth. He succeeded in his ambition, for his name, his wealth, his social and political position became of the highest of the aristocracy of a proud and, in myriad ways, marvelous people. If he failed in one particular, if his moral life became awry, his record in other respects was most commendable. For the one failure he paid dearly, and, if you credit his own apprehensions, the payment would not be complete for many along, long year after you would have lain

"--Down with the patriarchs of the infant world--
With kings, the powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past"

You have a view of Zailm, that boy so obscure, that man so celebrated throughout a land not paralleled to-day, nor ever matched since old ocean rolled over it and the sun saw it no more in all his proud course.

From the perusal of that record I ask you to turn to the history of another personality, that of Walter Pierson, my own humble self. If the Poseida Zailm was proud to declare himself a Poseida, I am equally proud to say, "I am an American citizen!"

---------------

While I was still so young as to be unable to understand anything concerning my parents' death, except the agony of being left alone, I was orphaned by the fell stroke of an epidemic. I cried in my childishness, and begged to be allowed to see my papa and mamma, nor could I comprehend the statement, "They are dead and gone."

My orphaned boyhood was passed under circumstances of such sharp contrast to those years of my babyhood which knew parental kindness, that my inherent tendency to rove grew stronger, until at twelve years of age I became a cabin-boy on board ship, running away to accomplish my ambition. For many years thereafter I realized that actual hardship was an unforeseen part of the dream of travel and of sailor life; but its toil and trouble had to be endured.

My ability, willingness and honesty in service told in my favor so well, that at eighteen years of age I found myself first mate on a splendid British merchantman. With this advantageous position, intervals in which to study such books as tie captain, an educated man, had on shipboard, were mine, and I used the opportunity to excellent advantage, reciting my lessons to the captain, who took much interest in me. An invention for which many a seafarer has been grateful, and to which many a man whose life has, been spent on the ocean wave has owed continuation of that life, paid me such a handsome sum, in royalties, that ere I was of age I had no small fortune, which by wise investment soon gave me a sum to put in the bank with the assurance of a fair support for life. I did not long continue in marine service after my money began to accumulate, but left sea life to enjoy travel on terra firma. I had seen the chief ports of every land, and now was bent upon wing the interior of my own country.

In the gold placers of California, I added immense sums to my fortune during the years 1865-6, where I drifted after my discharge from the Army of the Cumberland, having served two years in that, famous corps during the War of the secession.

I gloried in the absence of two fingers, lost by a vicious fragment of shell at the battle of Missionary Ridge. I wonder if any reader remembers the morning of the 25th of November, 1863?

"All night the flash of rifles from the outposts had gleamed through the fog; and when day dawned it had not yet been determined whether the enemy had been forced from his almost unassailable position on the mountain. The morning was clear. All eyes in the Union bivouacs were strained towards the summit. Gradually the east purpled with strengthening light, and just as the sun rose, a squad of men walked out on the rock overhanging the precipice. Then, in full view of the watching tens of thousands, they unfurled 'Old Glory.' Amid thunderous cheers an army of veterans looked long through its tears at the Stars and Stripes, mute announcement of victory."

At the close of this saddest of wan, because the hands of fathers against sons and of brothers against brothers were raised, I presently found myself in the city of my birth, Washington, D. C.

--------------

Two months, later I was in faraway California, in one of its most beautiful mountain countries, and formed one of a company of gold miners. So rich were the returns of labor that we soon began to feel the work onerous, and employed men to do it for us. Amongst these was a man from China. I say a man from China because he certainly appeared, from the very first, to be not one of the class sneeringly called "coolies," but a real man. "Coolies" were numerous in the town, some two or three miles from our mine, but Quong had nothing in common and did not associate with them; neither was he privately addicted to their habits of gluttony, gin-drinking or opium-smoking. His dress was that which always distinguishes the Tchin from other nationalities, but his features were not thus significant. Indeed, his high, prominent forehead, well-developed sinciput, bold eyebrows and delicate neck marked him as a man of high character, spiritual cast, splendid perceptive abilities and nervous temperament. His eyes--such eyes! calm, clear, light gray, resting upon one with so kindly, unprejudiced and dispassionate a gaze, charitable, forgiving and strictly upright and conscientious himself, but always ready to overlook faults in others. Such was the appearance of a remarkable man. His speech was intelligible to every one with whom he had dealings, yet it always seemed to me that his broken English, a commingled Chinese and Anglo-Saxon idiom, would have been wholly unintelligible gibberish in the mouth of any other Chinese. I am no Don Quixote, and do not propose to contend that it is not an evil of serious import to the white man of America, Australia and the people of the Spanish-American republics to be forced to compete with Chinese laborers or the commercial products of that nation. I think it a very real evil, and I sympathize with the Caucasian race. But in all frankness I would ask if the hordes of unskilled, uneducated, almost unassimilable laboring poor of Europe are not an even greater menace? The immigration of either is fraught with fearful peril to the free institutions which I believe in, to the extent of having at the point of the bayonet risked my life for their preservation. But far be it from me to urge a spirit of strife; rather I counsel you to follow Him whose life meant "Peace on earth," and the true brotherhood of man.

In deference to a correct sentiment, these pages will henceforth refer to my one Chinese employee as the "Tchin," or Quong (his given name), instead of "the Chinese."

After the change of policy which gave the hard work to hired men, my partners and myself resided in town, although. one or more of us were always at the mine in the capacity of overseers. We employed two gangs of workers that worked on alternate days, each thus giving but half of the time to labor, although the wages were not reduced in consequence. These easy arrangements made the men extra faithful, for they saw that our object was not to get all the work out of them which they were able to accomplish, irrespective of their comfort or the fact that they were men not beasts of burden. That white men treated thus considerately will do more in the way of results than those who are made to work at their highest power every week-day hour has been my uniform experience. Treat your fellowman as you would like to be treated were you in his place.

None of the men felt the least objection to Quong as a fellow-worker; most of them were ready to admit, indeed, that he did not seem like a heathen. They were right, for he was not one. His demeanor towards all was respectful and manly, rather reticent, very quiet, but always so full of benevolent feeling that he won the affection of his fellow workers. They felt that he was a true man. On one occasion a new man was hired by the company, and he "didn't like pigtails." But in less than a week he fell W, and, unasked, the despised "coolie" not only worked all day, but nursed the sick man through the brief but severe fever, sitting up all night, and only taking a few hours rest next day, his "off" day. No more was heard from the shamed objector to coolies, for he was completely won over, so far as Quong was concerned. Thus he, too, was proved a real Man, when the canker of intolerance was healed.

More than once were the Tchin and I companions on his leisure days. Sometimes we went to the town, but more often we turned our horses' heads away into the wilderness of the mountains. Without his guidance I had surely been lost there, amid the vast gorges, with their shade of giant pines lying between the almost interminable ridges, those stem ribs of the planet. But Quong was never lost, never hesitated, though the night was upon us so dark on more than one occasion that I could not see my hand before my face, a fact I never quite comprehended at the time, though it is clear to me now. Once at such a time as this I felt the need of a light, so greatly, it was in a cavern which we had found, that he said: "Here, I give you light." I heard him break off a fragment of rock from the side of the wall of the cavern; next he put it into my hand, saying: "Have care now, it must not touch you; like lightning; would kill you." As may be imagined, I touched so little of the rock that Quong directed me to hold it tighter. Then up sprung a brilliant light from the tip of that rock, illuminating all the cave like sunlight! Had this amazing thing occurred a few years later, I should have first pronounced it an electric light, then, bethinking me that no battery was there, nor any dynamo-electric machine, I would have done as I did do, sat down and gazed at the marvelous light, forgetful of where I was. As Quong would give no other explanation than he had already given, I was, perforce, content; only I was not! But his power of keeping his course where not even the track of an animal was to be discerned, was sufficiently astonishing, and I was often amazed at the man for not losing his way amongst ranges of sierra which stretched away to where the vast snowy peaks defined the horizon and kept the blue of the sky from blending insensibly with the blue of the mountains.

When we took such trips as these we were accustomed to leave the mine as early after supper as possible, that is, at half past five in the afternoon. If the other men were fatigued, Quong never seemed to share their weariness, although there was not a fellow worker but admitted that he accomplished more than any of them.

If the night was one of Luna's own, it was our habit to ride for several hours, frequently not halting before midnight, when we might be thirty or more miles from the mine.

On one of these occasions, when we and our horses were alone with nature and the night, we stopped in a remote solitude to wait for morning, to sleep or not as we felt most agreeable. Quong sat down on a rock by the edge of a roaring crystal torrent, and gazed in silent enjoyment upon the solitary grandeur of the sombre pines and moonlit peaks. I left him there and wandered up the stream, till, on looking back, I saw that my friend was hidden from view by a sharp turn in the canon. But heedless of this I wandered on, musing at the scene, "rockribbed; ancient as the sun."

It is not possible for a person alive to the beauties of nature, long to remain insensible to the more serious thoughts evolved by meditation pursued amidst the wilds, untroubled by man's sordid methods. Gradually my thoughts assumed a reflective cast, which, almost unperceived, became tinged with the dead black shadow of materialism. Many a time and oft had grim despair seized upon me while pursuing to philosophical end the mysterious questions of the soul; "Whence" and "Whither?" Unreasoning faith had never held any place in my nature, and yet mine was a deeply religious disposition. "To reason is to be lost," thundered the church of those days, and even yet does it maintain this attitude concerning reason as applied to faith. The queries which haunted others pursued me; but I lacked the Ingersollian desire to propound the question, which maddened me, to a world I doubted not had misery enough already. But the despair which arose from the hidden questioning was not less keen because hidden. Eagerly I read scientific works; studied anatomy, physiology, mechanics, the structure of cells and the essays of Darwin and Huxley, and I came to the same conclusions that have troubled the world so mercilessly in all ages. The gray matter of the brain, and the white cerebral substance, the medulla oblongata and vital magnetism, and the blood---these became so much phosphorized fat, haematin, and magnetic vibration; that same "unconscious cerebration" theory in fact, which even yet disturbs certain philosophers. Thus joy and sorrow, and every other emotion, became a form of vibration, akin to sound waves, heat waves, light waves and undulation in general. I saw, in brief, my joy become a mere vibratory thrill of nerve tissue, similar, but more complex, to the throb of a violin string. My grief became a similar pulsation or wave. But neither were less keen; if my delight were mere pulsation of bundles of fibers proceeding from a cell or nucleus, principally composed of phosphorized fatty substance; if in passing, this delight but gave rise to a magnetic thrill, and a minute quantity of phosphoric acid, while any chance muscular exertion produced, ultimately, only relatively small amounts of carbonic acid and other excretory chemicals, nevertheless, it was keen joy. And my grief over a deceased friend, if it produced exactly the same chemics, having their formulas reducible to the symbols PO4 and CO2, etc., etc., was this emotion less agonizing, less painful? None the less, when all queries were finished, when all were reduced to their ultimates, ever and forever faced me a blank wall, insurmountable, and everything ceased short of God. In my despair I cried: "There is no God, no immortality, and man differs from the oyster only in having a more complex organization. Only because I, believing thus, lack incentive to crime, am I prevented from lust, from murder; what reek if I kill a man and no witness be there? When I, too, die, the clock of life is either worn out, or broken; both are irreparable, and there will be never more resuscitation, nor punishment, for death levels all, equalizes all. Perhaps I myself am only a complex vibration of atoms, not dyads, but mult-atomic arrangements of matter acted upon by--what? Force, wave force, moving ether. We are but puppets, creatures of uncontrollable circumstances. 'Kismet,' says the Arab, and I must say so, too!"

Do hideous, natural causes of fright seek those moments to appal poor, despairing man when he is already a prey to shapes of awful oppressiveness to his very soul's life? I have thought no, and even the next moment thought so; soul in peril, and body also, for then in my path arose a terror, a huge grizzly bear, Ursus horribilis. "Surely horrible enough," I thought, as the animal raised himself in frightful posture. I had no weapon except a clasp knife, and the remembrance emphasized the reality of my peril. Wildly I looked about for a tree, into the branches of which to climb for safety. None except giant pines were near; down the stream towards Quong were cottonwoods, but to go there was to put my friend, unwitting his peril, into extreme danger. Yet bruin was rapidly forcing me to decide on the courses of flight, or remaining to be eaten, so I turned to run and--stood face to face with the Tchin! Calm and cool himself, he bade me have no fear.

Stock still I stood, amazed to see him walk slowly up to the grizzly which, from its fierce-eyed aspect, changed to docility of looks, got down on all fours, and awaited the man's approach! Was Quong insane? I expected to see him rent in pieces; instead, he placed his hand on the head of the animal and said:

"Lie down!"

The order was obeyed at once, and then Quong sat down on the prostrate animal and fondled its great, stiff ears! Very gently, the bear licked the human hand, as gently indeed as if caressing its own cubs. What occult power was here? Was the Tchin a worker of miracles? Never before had any action betrayed to me this ability of his. True, the example of producing the light in the cave was one, but it had not then so occurred to me because I knew enough, and at the same time, not enough, to know that the production of electric light was a possibility, but not possible to any electrician or chemist in the way the Tchin performed it. It was not possible to ordinary science then, nor is it now any more so. But it would be possible to them if they would but take the proper occult method; it is one of the earliest learned and easiest feats performed by the novitiate. But I was not then a novitiate.

After a few moments Quong got up and, speaking to the conquered ursine, said: "Go!" As obediently as before the shaggy beast lumbered heavily off up the canon and was soon lost to view amongst the rocks and shadows of the night.

Once more the granite boulders shone silvery in the glorious summer moonlight; the dark pines swayed in the gentle breeze which, descending from its play with the whispering boughs, blew the spray of the rushing torrent over the grateful wild flowers nodding on the banks. And beside the rocks, the crags and peaks, the torrent and the pines, the moon shone down on two figures, two men. One stood wrapped in meditation; the other, not thinking at all, simply regarded the first with eyes where amazement yet lingered. Neither moved, neither spoke. But one, at least, though he thought not, yet felt. I felt how little difference existed between men, so that they were worthy men. I would have acknowledged the Tehin as my equal before the world; perhaps, indeed, as my superior. In the clearest nights some mists come over and obscure the face of things. So with the soul; in its clearest moments it knows Truth, only to forget in later moments how Truth seemed. Them, anon, the fogs clear away again. Sometimes, alas, it is after the obscured orb has set. So also the soul: death may get its darkness over it ere the clouds of prejudice have melted, or it may not.

But there in the moonlight, the sky of my soul was also clear. But neither man moved, neither spoke.
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Re: A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

Postby admin » Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:03 am

CHAPTER II. A SOUL IN PERIL

Many days I pondered that scene in the mountains, marveling over the wonderful power possessed by Quong over wild animals. Did he know how he exerted this control, or was it simply a feature of his nature, sufficiently astonishing, truly, but still not understood by its owner? At Bombay, I had seen snake charmers exercise the same dominion over serpents, but it was an inherited ability, unexplained even by the operator. To querists they would reply:

"So did my father, and my father's father, and his father. I know not, except he got it from Brahm."

But perhaps Quong knew the law which governed his phenomena; if he did, and knew one occult law, did he not know two, or more than two? I determined to ask him when opportunity presented. While in Hindustan I heard that there were certain men there, not fakirs, but learned men who lived in the Himalayan solitudes, who wrought magical feats of wonderful variety and power. Had Quong come from these; learned of them? Was he an occult adept, such as I had heard of? These were called, so I had been told, Ragi-Yogees, and to the curious person trying to learn more about them than the meager statement of their vast occult or theosophic wisdom, the native laity proved dumb as the Sphinx of Egypt.

I had an early chance presented to question my friend, who, well as I knew him, still proved more communicative than I had hoped.

It pleased me greatly to learn that not one in a hundred thousand Chinese had any occult wisdom whatever; pleased me, because I felt that if the degraded, groveling Mongol had such knowledge, then because it did not lift that benighted race it could not be of an elevating character. But all through the Orient, here and there, the magicians were to be found; the reasons for such secrecy, as they maintained, arose from the fact that ere such knowledge as they were custodians of could be gained, the soul must be calm with that calmness which comes best from life amidst the wilds of nature. Now this may seem strange, but it is a calm which can hardly be maintained in the habitats of those addicted to meat eating, or of persons engrossed in the selfishness of common life. You may imagine that these students could seclude themselves from disturbance; men who wish to study do so seclude themselves, even in cities. Not so the occultist. For, from the social order and communal life of the world emanates an aura, or atmosphere of its own disturbed muddiness, an aura fatal to the absolute peace required by the theosopher. I am impelled to remark at this point that what goes under the name of "theosophy" in the world to-day is an article so far removed from the genuine that the name has even thus early been laid aside by the silent nature student, who, now as ever, is a Son of the Solitude.

But to return to Quong and the question which I asked him. I append his answer verbatim:

"Yes, in this land of the Starry Flag there are students known as the 'Lothinian Brotherhood.' Their lodges, called 'Saches,' are habited throughout the western hemisphere; there is one Sach near here. No one not privileged could hope to learn where it is, or who are its members. Yet as I have led you, Mr. Pierson, to ask the question you have; as I have done this with consent of the brethren, to every one of whom you, who, however, know none of them, are yourself well known, to what do you ascribe my action?"

I could construe it in only one way; so I told the Tchin that doubtless they knew and favored my deep desire for occult fraternization, a desire ever baffled until that hour; I felt my Sonship; I did not know it.

"It is so; thou art to be taken as a Brother Son by a class of men who seldom allow fraternity even to new affiliates, and never to any other persons whatsoever. But be this clear to thee forever; there is no order of mystic students anywhere, never was and never will be. The Lothins of America, the Yogis of Hindustan, do not combine for study of occult lore. It is not possible so to study. He who attains, grows; he doe's not study as collegiates study. It is not in books. Each student of God is in himself the plane he dwells on, a radiating center of God-wiseness. The very vows asked of initiates are but tests to determine if in themselves they are that which they seek to affiliate with. The Theo-Christian indeed does live with others as to body, but because similars are mutually attractive only. The Kingdom of God is within thee, or else (for thee) nonexistent elsewhere. Be that thou knowest, and then Christos will give it to thee to know and become more, which also do thou become, and thus grow, as the lilies of the field, which toil not, nor spin, but are God thoughts externalized. 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,' said our Great One. Thou art, Walter Pierson, of right by growth one of the Sach. And this right is because thy life for ages is known to them.

"My what? My life for ages? Am I so old?" I asked, laughing at the supposed joke.

"You will learn in time, Mr. Pierson, in time," gravely said Quong, in meditative tones. "I am not speaking humorously."

The reason assigned for the interest taken in me made nothing clearer, so I fell to studying the question.

"No, you can not guess why, sir," said Quong. "Look at me; you say I seem about thirty years of age. I am more. Multiply that figure by three and add its half, and you will be correct within one year. I have watched over you since your birth, using my psychic powers for the purpose, since until a year ago your present eyes have not beheld me. You are born with powers which you can educe so as to become wiser than I. If it please you we will go to the Sach to-night. You are surprised that I, whom you have heretofore heard speak only in pidgin-English, as it is called, now use such fluent language. I have my reasons, believe me; perchance you find them obvious."

In the afternoon I went to town, telling Quong that I would meet him there if access to the Sach was as convenient from there as from the mine.

On my way into town I met an acquaintance at whose very popular liquor saloon I had more than once taken refreshment, thinking it no harm, for I drank moderately. When we came near his place, on the main street, he insisted on my tying my horse and coming in to have a social glass with him. But the idea of acceptance jarred, and I felt that it disturbed the calm reflections which had filled my thoughts on parting with the Tchin. Quong never drank liquor, smoked, or was aught but abstemious in his habits. But I entered, resolved not to take any form of spirituous liquor. The scene presented was familiar: men stupid, foolish, or excited from their potations, and public women mingling with the crowd in the place. Previoussly to the week just passed these sights were viewed by me with indifference. But now they seemed revolting in the extreme. One exemplification of the satanic influence of liquor I saw with different emotions now from those of other days: a fair, beautiful girl, a moderate user of liquor, not reached to the depths as yet, but a wanton, for all her education, culture and refinement; beginning life in the midst of the influences of school, church and home, in the far Eastern States, but fallen through a man's heartless treachery, and that cruel and equally heartless judgment of society--that whited sepulcher, outwardly stainless, but secretly worse than the victims it stones with its merciless opinions. All the worse is this pharisaical spirit in that it lets the betrayer go free.

"Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." She was already passing her days in the midst of hell. And the original cause was liquor. Liquor? Yes, I knew her history. Her parents saw no harm in the moderate use of wine, and with the taste created in the girl's nature for the use, came that for "fast" society--and then ruin! Only eighteen years old, yet her feet had stepped on the embers of Hades. Was she lost, entirely lost? I hardly thought so. I believed her story, that all the glitter of erroneous ways, wine and fast society had been embraced in her eastern home because not discouraged by her parents. She said she had no care for those wild ways, but rather a disgust. I felt that she spoke the truth, for tears of genuine sorrow stood in the bright brown eyes, and I knew the possessor of such eyes had trod the path of sin, not through preference, but, as she said, "Through it seeming that at home no one cared what she did, until her disgrace, and then they had put her out and locked the doors of house and hearts against her." All this she told me while she sat in her own home, the finest in the little city, known as the "Retreat." She was occupying the day in painting, for her skill as an artist was only equalled by that which she had as a pianist. Her walls were covered with pictures of her own execution--such paintings! so sad and full of pathos. One was an ideal picture representing a fair maiden, with a feverish light in her eyes and a look of defiance on her face, sitting under a great tree on a lawn. Beside her was a young man, and before them was a serving woman with a tray on which were four glasses, two full of milk, two of red wine. With a smile of ridicule the young man placed his hand on the wine, and the girl, with flushed cheeks and defiant eyes, was reaching for the other glass of liquor, although it was evident that she preferred the milk. Behind her, unperceived by any of the three, stood a shadowy form, a man with a face of divine purity, who was gently weeping over the girl's error. Behind her companion was another shadowy form, black, and with a satanic countenance, his hand on the young man's shoulder and a smile of triumph on his evil features. Below the picture was the title: "The Defeat of Purity."

After I had studied long over the picture, I turned to its painter and said:

"That represents your life and its woe, does it not, Lizzie?"

She made no reply other than to break into a storm of tears. I waited for the cessation of her anguish, and as I sat, she dried her tears and replied:

"Yes, my woe. Oh, God! that I have fallen so low, and there is no hope! No hope! If I could, I would leave this sort of life and go away to begin anew where no one knew anything of me or my past. But I can not, for I can not get away; I have no means of support if I could."

"Your art, Lizzie," I suggested, gently.

"Yes, my art, I know; but I fear not, for I have no means adequate to a beginning."

It was from that girl's parlor I had, gone forth when, in the evening of the same day, Quong and I went into the mountains, and the grizzly bear episode occurred. That was a week ago now, and to-day I stood in the saloon of Charles Prevost and saw, engaged in conversation with the barkeeper, over a glass of sherry, Lizzie.

The barkeeper turned away to wait upon another customer, and at the same time I went up behind the girl and bending my head close to her ear, said, almost in a whisper:

"Would you not rather that sherry was milk?"

The hard look died out of the mournfully sweet face and a tear leaped to each eye and trembled there like a dewdrop, as she said, oh, so wearily: "Yes."

"Then come with me; let us go to your house."

We went, followed by the curious, misjudging eyes of the saloon idlers. Having arrived and having entered the parlor, I offered her a chair and took another myself. Then I said, as she looked at me wonderingly:

"Lizzie, let me rather say Elizabeth, for it is more stately, dignified, and so suits you better, you said you would rather it were milk; now, I know what you meant, that your soul yearned for the better life of which we were speaking last Monday. Well, I am rich; no one in the West dreams how rich. To me the loss or mere absence from my control of twenty thousand, or even more than twenty thousand dollars, would be unfelt; the income of a couple of months would replace it. Since we talked here last week I have thought of you many times; to-day I come prepared to-to, well, smother your pride, and accept this check on the First National Bank of Washington, D. C. Will you, Elizabeth, will you take it and go there; flee from the misery of to-day and begin life there anew?"

"But, but-how can I repay it, if I do; or how will you know that I do not waste it and abuse your confidence?"

"My girl, I do not want you to repay it ever, in any way, to me. Use it as I ask; as for me the Savior has said: 'He that giveth even a cup of cold water shall in no wise lose his reward'; and again He said: 'He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it again.' If life, Elizabeth, what of money, which is so much less? I trust you. Will you take it from me as a 'cup of cold water' to save you from perishing?"

"Yes, if you give it in that way, I will, and as God shall help me I will be true to promise!"

How she kept her faith, dear reader, you will find by and by. But ---------- City knew her no more, nor was a trace of her destination known to any one there except myself. All that was known was that her finer pictures were boxed and consigned to a firm of picture dealers in New York City, via San Francisco and the Horn. This was a blind, for while the impression was sought to be conveyed that they were sold to the consignees, such was not the case, for nothing could have induced her to part with them except dire necessity. The less valued pictures were sold at an auction, along with her house and furniture, bringing quite a sum of money. Her own ticket, I was told a month or so later by a mutual acquaintance, a Catholic Sister of charity, may God bless those sisters! who went to San Francisco with her, was purchased for the city of Melbourne, Australia. The information surprised even me, and I thought her plans were deep laid, indeed. The Catholic Sisters gave me a small painting which Elizabeth had left for me. It was a picture of the Capitol at Washington, and under it the words in quotation marks, "Home, sweet home." The sister had never been in Washington and did not know what the subject of the picture was, nor had any other person seen it, so that not a soul but myself knew through the picture or in any way else where the fair, frail, but newly born to a high purpose, artist had gone.

Dismissing further special thought about her whom I believed to be saved, I began to reflect on my next actions. I felt, in thinking of my proposed visit to the Sach, as if I were about to leave the world; joining their order was, according to Quong, virtually, and perhaps in fact, leaving the world of ordinary humanity. As I walked along the streets after writing out the check for Lizzie, a wind-blown sheet of paper fell on my arm and remained until I picked it off. As I was about to let it flutter away, my own name on the paper caught my eye and aroused my curiosity. Then I read the entire note, and will repeat its words for your sake:

"Give not the rest of thy fortune away; so far thou hast given well, but do not rashly throw away the rest of it. Yet, as thy mining days are practically over, as well as thy life in this community, therefore sell thy share in the mine. It is a good mine, and will bring a high figure; yet be not discouraged if thou find not a taker for it now, but wait. Offer it now, for time is an essential.

M ---------------."

Whence came this message? I could not tell, and, strange to say, my usual abundance of natural cautiousness never suggested that the whole thing was an artfully planned scheme to defraud me. So far from such an idea occurring to me, I sought my partners and asked what they would give me for my third share of our joint property. The reply was not immediate. At last, one cautiously asked:

"Pierson, wily do you sell? Do you fear the 'pay' is petering out?"

I replied that I did not, but had reasons of a private nature. Then, too, I wanted to go home. They did not know that I meant by the word "home," a figurative rendition; that home was not Washington, the city which they knew I had come from, and that instead, I meant affiliation with an occult brotherhood. They promised me an answer upon the next day. To this I agreed, but "next day" came not for more than a month; when it did, the interim had seen a "strike" at our mine, uncovering what was, in the belief of the company, millions of dollars. In the "pay dirt," lying on the "bedrock," a lode of gold quartz was found which, according to the assay, ran into the thousands of dollars per ton. Unconscious of this coming good fortune, I left my partners engaged in debate and went out upon the street. At the appointed place and hour of seven o'clock in the evening, now come, I met the Tchin. Our meeting place was beyond the town limits, and night had fallen when I arrived. He sat by a tall pine tree, and I did not see him until I had been there., supposing myself first arrived, some five minutes. It was the night of the full moon of that lunar period, and I sat musing on a rock by the roadside, thinking of the myth of Morpheus, who with leaden scepter wafts the many into the dim land of dreams, the only respite from woe that weary millions of sufferers ever find on earth. But Quong was not to usher me into peaceful slumber; he was not come as Morpheus, but he was to introduce me into a realm which, new to me, was old in the earth since the first flight of years began back in the aeons of dead time, a realm that has existed from the time of the creation, the spiritual, far-away land of the soul, where the vagaries of dreamland are supplanted by verities stranger yet. I was about to enter on the path of Kabala, wherein travel those whose researches into the occult penetralia come from an antiquity of hoary seers of ages past. Would I prove worthy? Then the Tchin broke in upon my reverie with the bidding,

"Let us go."

Strange as it may seem, I was in no wise startled at his sudden appearance. Soon we were among the rock-ribbed hills, and the pine forests waved above us, around us, and adown the slopes beneath our feet. Deer roamed here, despite the comparative nearness to the habitations of men, and many a bright flower was faintly visible in the moonlight, peeping from its shy retreat, wood lilies, tiger lilies, violets. My thoughts dwelt musingly on these natural beauties and seemed to say, "How fitting that they who, in love of nature, hold communion with her visible forms should go, from listening to the tongues of the visible, to take note of the various language wherewith she tells of things unseen." To the thrill of feeling which swept over me at the meditation, my very soul responded.

By the time we were fairly amongst the enforested mountains and the silences of nature, the night was well advanced. The moon's round shield now shone broadly upon us, or again peeped forth between swaying pines. Scarce a cloud floated in the heavens, the air was warm and still, the entire scene seemed a most appropriate introduction to greater beauties which I felt were about to be presented.

Then, as I beheld Quong ahead with his blue Mongolian blouse, and in the act of uncoiling his queue to cool his head, the sight acted upon my deep-seated prejudice against the Chinese race and, like a ruffling breeze, swept over my placid soul and marred my enjoyment, my serenity. For a moment I forgot the superiority of manhood in Quong, and there arose within me a repugnance to investigating, in the company of a Chinese, things which impressed me as sacred. My vanity whispered that, because he was a Chinese, he was my inferior; yet for the world I would not have breathed a word of it to him. I almost felt inclined to return to town, nevertheless.

Quong's voice interrupted this disagreeable train of thought, and his words became a mirror to reflect my conceited egotism so faithfully that I was aghast, and wondered that my own sense of justice had allowed such vain ascendance of meanness. Swept away at last was every vestige of the notion that nationality was of the smallest consequence where real manhood was under consideration. Replacing the narrowness was the conviction that, while one race may have more numerous exemplifications of nobility than another, none the less the individuals of every race may leap the highest social barrier and stand equal at last, because it is the soul, not the casket, which springs aloft to God.

"What said the Tchin?" do you ask? This:

"Alas for human vanity! It is more prolific of evil than any other emotion, makes men weak when they should be strong, cringe to prejudice when bravery is meet, and sows the seed of Injustice, which hath the flower Intolerance and the ripe fruit Iniquity."

He then turned to me direct, saying:

"Brother, ought the penalty earned by the depravity of the Chinese race to be visited upon me, who have no part in their iniquity? Shall the good stone in the pile rejected by the masons of society be also cast aside? Perchance, it might become the head of the comer. Oppression of tyranny is rejection, for it denies a man's rights. Behold, then, what a pillar of strength is built of the rejected stones of the nations upon the rock of the American Declaration of Independence! Yet, let it not be built too high, and never of any but choice stone, whatever its source, lest it become of ill proportion and fall in ruin!"

"Indeed, indeed! I knew not that you could so easily fathom my thoughts; nor did I know how illiberal I had grown through my vanity! Forgive me, my friend!"

"Ask not my pardon. I am not offended. But I saw clearly that you were doing yourself an injustice in allowing such play to prejudice. It was to set you right, not to humble you, that I spoke."

Somehow the beauty of the scene was enhanced in my sight. Like a gladdening rain laying the dust were the words of my friend, and my soul's atmosphere was cleared, so that all things appeared more lovely.

As we walked, a doe and her fawn stepped into the path before us. Their impulse, on seeing men was to take flight. But Quong held out his hand and called them as if they were pets familiar with him. The animals stopped, and returned along the path until within reach. He stroked them gently and as we passed on they followed behind. I was wondering if Quong, in his many solitary walks in the mountains, had not made a few pets, as, for example, these deer, and even the bear, when the idea was put aside by a new occurrence. As we came under an overhanging rock a puma, or "California lion" (Felix concolor), leaped into our midst with the evident intention of having venison for supper, indeed, had not the deer for which he sprang been too nimble, it would have been an instant victim; but it and its companion affrightedly closed about Quong, and the latter turning to the panther, said sternly, but in a calm, low tone:

"Peace!"

And there was peace, for the carnivore slunk down for an instant, like a whipped dog, then resumed a normal catlike attitude, and, purring, walked with soft, feline tread on one side, with the deer on the other side of the human mediator, and I, lost in amazement, brought up the rear. Verily, the fable of the lion and the lamb was realized in actuality.

"See, my brother, what it is to know the law and to live it; for I myself am a vegetarian, and the perfect peace such food allows renders my soul calm, so that I see the law as in a mirror. Behold proof of the truth in this occurrence!"

As he ceased to speak we halted in front of a huge lodge of basaltic rocks, some hundreds of feet in height. The ledge was broken and twisted as if by some rending convulsion. All about the base lay huge fragments broken off the face of the wall. Against the cliff rested a giant block many tons in weight. Touching this with his hand, the Tchin said:

"Here is our Sach, our Temple, so to say; this rock is guard at the entrance to a place remarkable, to say the least, if viewed from an occidental standpoint."

I looked in vain for the doorway, or any crevice which might lead into a cavern. Meanwhile Quong laid his hand on the great cat with us and said:

"Go!"

And the lion, pausing not, went leaping along in bounds, for these animals have such a limber spinal column that they can not run or trot like other animals not of the feline tribe, leaps by which it was soon lost to sight. Then Quong said:

"As it will not return here, these gentle deer would best remain; no other spot is so safe for them. Good bye, my little friends!"

Continuing, Quong said to me: "Have you found the doorway? It is not strange that you should fail, for it was constructed with the special purpose of baffling the curious."

Again he touched the enormous quadrangular block. Immediately it tipped on edge and leaned outward over us, causing me to spring away in terror lest it fall on me. "Be not afraid, my brother. See, it is under my control as if on hinges"; and he swung it back on its lower outer edge with wonderful ease, only keeping his own nearest hand firmly upon it. To my amazed query he replied that it worked to his will through magnetism. But I saw no magnet, and said so.

"Truth! In me is the magnet you do not see. Did it ever occur to you that the processes of all life are carried on by what for our present purpose may be called magnetism? Assimilation of food and drink, waste, excretion, all vital processes whatever? The magnet is in the cerebellum or back brain, and in the medullary substance of the corporae striatum, a veritable wound magnet. The force which causes the heart to act, the lungs to act, maintains bodily heat, and so on, is enormous; it amounts to many hundreds of thousands of foot pounds per day. He that knows occult law can make nature parallel this magnet, for the universe itself moves only because of the current, which flows from positive to negative, from one-half of matter into the other half, continuously. Here, now, is an occult secret: make a place of separation in this, the Fire of Life, and where the poles come in contact there shall force be in action. This block of stone, the door, is an armature in a natural field of force. Here on the ground. is another."

Putting the door-stone back in place, Quong drew a circle on the ground about a foot across. Then in this circle a couple of lines in a simple cross, one north and south, the, other east and west. As the four ends of the cross were contacted with the circle, a tall, steady flame sprang up, its spear-shaped cone trembling within itself, but being wholly uninfluenced by the wind, which had some time before commenced blowing in vigorous gusts. Then sad the Tchin:

"Behold the Vis Mortuus. Of all mankind only an occult student could bring it forth; only such a one could put it out, unless by accident. Touch it not; 'twould be fatal, on the principle that the greater contains all lesser forces, and it would instantly absorb the force of life, or of wind or wave, or projectile; it exists visibly here because on a thaumaturgic symbol. You think that symbol might as well be of any other form? So think those who comprehend not. See that moth darting about the flame of the light; it will enter, but not be burnt; no, quicker--see! it touches, and disappears, and leaves no sign--yet the light is not hot, no, not even warm. I will put it out."

Suiting his action to the word, he drew a stick through beneath the dust on which the circle was described, and the light in that instant was gone. Then another circle made he, drew but one line across it, north and south, then stepped into the figure, one of his feet on each semi-circle. Immediately his whole person was covered with a brilliant flame, so that he appeared on fire. I was exceedingly terrified.

"Do not fear for me! It is well with me. The other flame was negative odicity, and would have instantly been fatal to whatever motion touched it and have disintegrated its form; yea, a rock thrown into it would at once have disintegrated, or a cannon ball discharged from the muzzle of the piece would have fared the same. But this is a positive flaming of the Vis Naturae, and preserves life. I might stand here till the centuries mounted and be not weary, nor hungry, nor sick, cat not, nor drink, yet live; for this keeps all things untouched by time, as when they enter it. No difference in symbolic figures, think you now? Indeed, yes. But my soul will not progress; so that case of living though its use offers, I care not to employ its aid, except that when weary it gives me rest; ill, it restores health."

He broke the circle with his foot, and coming away, swung back the door-stone again and stepped within the tunnel disclosed behind it. 1 I followed, the door was replaced, and I found that the passage led into the mountain. I was still thinking of the biblical legend of the rolling away of the stone from the mouth of the sepulcher of Jesus the Christ, and paralleling it with this act of the Tchin, aware now that neither were miracles, but manifestations of higher natural law, when we began to walk along the hall of the tunnel I following closely in the rear of my guide, whom I could hear but not see, for since the closing of the door-stone the blackness was appalling in its intensity. Mistrusting this blind guidance, I approached the wall, that I might feel my way, when suddenly all about me shone a marvelous white light. It was not emanant from any point, but all the air was luminous, for I observed that nothing cast a shadow, either below, above or on any side. 'Twas the same marvelous light I had once before seen in the cavern we had found together. After going about two hundred feet we came to a door made apparently of bronze covered with artistic cameo and intaglio figures of men and animals ranged about a double triangle inside of a circle. This door gave entrance to a large circular chamber not less than sixty feet across, with domelike ceiling ten or a dozen feet high at its junction with the wall, but over twenty feet in the center. The same wonderful illumination was omnipresent in this great apartment as in the hall outside. But I asked no questions; I deemed observation the better way. Here it was that Quong temporarily left me, going into another room through a narrow doorway closed by a portiere. I devoted the time to looking about me, examining the surroundings. I found that the chamber, like its approach, was hollowed from the living rock, only that while the beginning of the hallway was in a basalt cliff, the room was in a different formation, being in mineral-bearing rock. The central part of the walls and ceiling cut across a wide vein of gold-bearing gray quartz of hard texture. This lode, fully twenty-five feet wide, had on one side a granite ledge, and on the other red porphyry of the variety chiefly found in the quarries of upper Egypt. Beyond the granite was another lode of metalliferous rock, and in this one side of the room was reached without cutting into other veins. The porphyry almost completed its side of the chamber, but not quite, as a second body of gold quartz was intersected, but not cut through. Now imagine the extreme beauty of such walls as these when polished like glass, thus enhancing the veinings of the clouded rock and brilliant beauty of silver and gold, both native and in their ores, and not a few other metals and minerals.

The makers of the wonderful room had "builded like giants and finished like jewelers." But how had such an enormous task been accomplished, and when? A town of many hundreds of people lay but a few miles distant; but the inhabitants knew nothing of all this. It did not occur to me in explanation that its builders were of the Lothinian Brotherhood, and had formed their temple by the disintegrating force of the Vis Mortuus, into which I had seen Quong cast a stone and had witnessed its instantaneous disappearance. It was long afterwards ere I, musing o'er memory's pages, thought of this solution to the puzzle of the existence of the Sach, or Sagum. But when I did, I knew it for the truth; knew that neither pick nor drill, nor any tool of human kind had been used, and that what I had thought the result of years of patient toil was but the work of a short time. Yet this was the fact, my friends!

On the floor was a carpet of oriental variety. The fabric was of long fibers woven together at one end, but loose like hair at the other; in color a quiet gray. A footfall upon it gave no sound whatever, any more than would a carpet of eider down. Around the sides of the Sagum extended a wide divan, continuous except at the three entrances. Covering it and depending from its edges was the same silky fabric as lay upon the floor. The one article of movable furniture in sight was a singular looking stand made of brass, which stood in the middle of the apartment. Its top indicated that it was used as a brazier. I would have made sure of its real use, but refrained from asking, not desiring to appear curious.

"Weed, ask questions if you wish," said Quong, who had just returned. "Have no fear of seeming inquisitive. That is, as you suppose, a censer; its use will, appear."

I was again astonished at my friend's occult powers, for his answer proved a clear case of mind reading. I now felt an unconquerable sense of fatigue and sleepiness, and without saying anything, or asking permit as I might more courteously have done, and would but for my being so sleepily stupid, sat down on the divan, and then reclined at full length; but this act seemed to arouse me so that I could not sleep. I tried very determinedly to do so ere finally admitting to myself that it seemed impossible.

"So you can't sleep? I will aid you."

Again the Tchin had fathomed my wish, for I had hoped as a last resort that he would offer to put me to sleep, having myself no doubt of his power to do so. He leaned over me, and touched a knob in the wall; a small door flew open, disclosing a number of shelves. From one of these Quong took a peculiar looking flute of reed pipe. Placing it to his lips he began playing an air which had a very familiar sound. Like some sweet, half-forgotten memory floating back from "Lang Syne," bringing an exquisite sense of pleasure and pathetic pain, so the wild, sweet notes brought to my mind a faint, indistinct recollection of some former delight. In trying to remember where--what--remember when--ah, me--sleep, had overtaken my senses.

It matters little how long I slumbered, whether minutes or hours; yet it must have been hours.

_______________

Footnotes:

272:1 NOTE.--This was in one of the walls of one of the vast canyons which seam the sides of Mount Shasta, in Northern California.--Author.
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Re: A Dweller on Two Planets, by Phylos the Thibetan

Postby admin » Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:06 am

CHAPTER III. TAKE THEREFORE NO THOUGHT FOR THE MORROW

When I awoke, rich, delicate perfumes, and the low hum of voices greeted my still slumberous senses. On opening my eyes, I found that Quong was by my side, having either remained while I slept, or returned before I roused. In the center of the room, sitting on the floor, I saw about a dozen people, each clad in a long gray robe. Quong had one of these robes on his person, and to my astonishment, I found myself attired in like manner. A high caste Thibetan, two Hindoo pundits and an Egyptian were, excepting Quong, the only foreign brethren, the remaining persons being American and English. The Egyptian was to the Sakaza what the Grand Master is to a Masonic fraternity. Understand that he was not a teacher in the sense that a professor in a college is an instructor. He was in himself more of the Way, more of the Truth, more of the Life of God than any other present. And hence, as in himself the highest plane, he stood before the rest as a pinnacle each might study, and rise unto. This man alone was standing.

Perceiving that I had awakened, Quong said:

"Let us seat ourselves in the circle, brother, that the ceremonies of the evening may commence."

When seated we formed two in a circle of ten persons, arranged in a ring in the center of the chamber, our hands clasped on either side by our neighbors, and so around the circle. In its center stood the brazen censer, and beside it the Grand Master. Presently this person began to speak in the best of English, giving a clear, concise statement of the wisdom-religion of the Lothinians. He disclaimed the idea that anything which was performed under occult law could be a miracle, and declared that no miracle had ever yet taken place in the world, because a miracle would be a contravention of law, and what was a violation of law but evil? It being evil, Jesus the Christ would have been the last ever to have worked one. Not a man or woman, it was asserted, and it is true, comprehends how these laws operate, or understands anything of their nature, unless such man or woman is an occult student. The world of science is more ignorant of these mysterious forces of Nature than even the sect styled "Spiritualists," for these do comprehend a little, but so very, very little as to expose them to fearful dangers, handling as they do forces so terrible when abused that their field of operation might well give pause to the wisest ere they trod therein. Yet science soon shall know, following the Cross-Bearer.

Beyond admitting me to free hearing of what was said and done, no notice other than salutatory courtesy was paid me; that is, I was not invested with any membership degrees; no degrees can be conferred, for each is in self the degree represented. But the Adept, as I clearly perceived, had spoken so personally direct that I knew he addressed me. This was when he said:

"There is within this sacred place of meeting one who hath studied deeply; studied as scientific modernism contemplates all life, and ever hath the study filled him with melancholy, yea, even despair. He hath questioned of the stars, 'What art thou?' and no reply hath been given beyond that which astronomy, ever returns, 'Worlds, suns, blazing orbs, mighty beyond power of mentality to conceive.' And of the grass, and it hath said, 'I am of cells aggregated and vitalized by the spirit of nature.' The animal hath replied, but in Darwinian terms: 'I am a form evolutionized, and come up from protoplasm.' Man has he seen to be at the apex of animal life, and so he says of himself: 'Lo! there is naught but at one end the simple cell; at the other a complexity of cells aggregated. But to me the world and all its forms speak of action, and eternity; but of the immortality of man, of a soul or a spirit, or of God, nay, no word! Death ends all!' O my brother! speaketh not this joy, these griefs of thine, to thee of aught but magnetic vibration? Art thou blind to the message of God that the 'vibratory' joy or grief or 'unconscious cerebral action,' where by thou comest to a given knowledge, is but the method of thy life? And the animal, saith it not: 'Lo! I am a soul, and this animal body is fit tool for my soul powers, which, if they increase beyond the power of the tool to express, force me (the ego controlling) to cast it aside and seek a fitter tool in a body suited to my progress.' And saith not man to thee: 'O brother in darkness, I am at the apex of animal life, truly; in my admirably adapted physical body is a fit tool to prose cute to the utmost any and all material processes. It brings me to the wall of all physical life, and behold! it enables me, the ego, to reach the top of this wall, and find that I am a spirit, not a vital stone. And because of my sight, I will leave behind the pursuit of materiality for that of spirituality, and go even unto my Father's house, where are many mansions (conditions) of spirit, but where matter breaketh not in to corrupt nor steal the treasures.' Who hath asked, let him hear me. I have spoken. May peace be with thee."

I thought my friend Quong was speaking in a humorous vein when he said that the Adept, whose name was Mendocus, had not so much as opened his lips, or used his vocal organs at all. Not so, however; I was mistaken. Quong read my thought, and said:

"Nay, my brother, not in jest! Each of us has heard Mendocus, and to each it seemed that his national tongue was used; to me, my own; to you and five others, Anglo-Saxon; to the Hindoo pundits, their tongue. Because Mendocus spoke from his soul unto ours is the reason of this seeming paradox."

I thought at once of my Bible, which was a treasure to me above all other books, and of the passage wherein it is written:

"'Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language."

In answer to the unspoken thought, Mendocus, the Adept, turned to me and said:

"Verily, they spoke unto the souls of that multitude; it was no miracle, but law. The Bible is sound occult doctrine so far as the matter in it has escaped the revisers, and worse than revisers, the Roman Catholic interpolators and twisters of its truths. Thou doest well to read it; I have read it through eighty-seven times."

Here another brother joined with the remark: "The hearers and the speakers were to each other as a perfectly attuned violin to its bow, every string ready to respond to the least master-touch."

To this Mendocus added:

"They heard the speakers as thou heardst me, not with ears, for no aerial connection is needed between souls in sympathy, but the consciousness of what was said existed as does the consciousness of one's own thoughts; thou needst not speak thy thoughts that thine ears may convey to thy consciousness what 'thoughts thou thinkest. Neither are thine ears of more use in comprehending me. Yet because the thoughts did not originate in thy brain, but in mine, and so were external to thine, inner consciousness, therefore thou didst suppose that thou heardst me with thine ears, when it was thy soul which understood, for my voice I used not."

I now understood in the light of the mind-reading power which these students had revealed, why no question had been put to me concerning my life, my thoughts or will in regard to affiliation with themselves; they knew these things, through this ability, without asking.

Mendocus, Master, now requested attention from all present, and then made an invocation to God and to all occult initiates in this world and elsewhere in the universe. At the conclusion of this petition, he slowly raised his right hand, whence, after half a minute, he dropped it to his side and bowed his head. The wonderful light commenced to wane and, simultaneously with its disappearance, a blinding flash of light seemed to dart from the ceiling overhead, striking the censer by his side. Then succeeded that inky blackness which follows the midnight flashing of the lightning of heaven; but it was not destined to last very long. Soon in the deep darkness there was a noticeable lightening which continued to increase until the whole interior of the Sagum was illumined by a lurid glow which rendered every object clearly visible. Like the other, it seemed not to emanate from any particular point, but as if the entire atmosphere were like red-hot iron, self luminous. The next instant I observed that the faces of the Lothins had assumed an exceedingly ghastly hue, bloodless in appearance as are the countenances of dead men. Their pallor was soon explained, however, when my eyes fell on the brazen censer standing in our midst. The gaze of every brother was fixed with unwavering intensity upon a small globe of blue fire which rested on the firepan. I noticed also that the self-luminosity of the atmosphere was gone, and that the light from the blue globe cast shadows. Although in size it was not larger than a filbert, yet its intensity counteracted the luridness of the air. It was beautiful in the extreme, but not dazzling. On the contrary it was cool and calm, resting the eyes. Evidently the light was the same as the positive flaming of the Vis Naturae with which I had seen the Tchin envelop himself. It trembled and quivered like a globule of molten, boiling metal.

Such absolute silence reigned, not even a sound of breathing being audible--that I turned a quick glance on my friends. Except for the glitter in their eyes as they gazed on the blue light, every one would have seemed only a perfect but non-vital semblance of a human being. Then my gaze reverted to the! object which centered the common attention. It had been growing, and, now of a size of half a dozen inches, was gloriously beautiful. Although I had seen no human agency concerned in its creation, yet I felt that it was produced by the occult knowledge of which I had witnessed so many other manifestations. Mind over matter. Marvelous, novel, all this to me, but I knew it was not miracle, although magical. "What is magic?" do you ask? Magic is the comprehension of laws not ordinarily possible to grasp by means of physical experiment, because their phenomena in general lie higher than the physical realm, just a little lower than mental or psychic operations, and partaking of the last to a major extent.

As I watched the blue globe, I gradually became en rapport with the mental condition of the Lothins about me. Instead of wondering what were to be the perfected dimensions and what the object of this glowing ball, I contentedly watched it, with a sense of perfect knowledge of its ultimate size and use. But this intuition aroused in my mind no train of disturbing conjecture. I thought of nothing, absolutely nothing, taking no thought for the morrow, or the next moment. My intelligent friend, try this once; try to think of nothing; to have no thought, not even the one that you are not thinking. I doubt your success in the attainment of such a state of mind; but if you are, happily, successful, you will remember to the end of your allotted years on earth how great was the sense of rest, of peace, of perfect joy, felt, not thought of, in that moment. Could you attain and then retain such a mental state for half an hour, you would become clairvoyant and clairaudient during that time, and both see and hear across the leagues of earth; aye! and be conscious of futurity, so that a prophecy then made by you would be found to come true in every detail, though in scope was over years mounting to centuries. You must perceive, then, what a beautiful condition the Lothins enjoy: thc whole present, and each way, from the present almost to eternity, is theirs to know. These states of mind are protracted with them, and in the quiescence which is theirs at such times, they find themselves en rapport with the architect of the world, and know His ways. Like Job are they then: hearing of Him by the hearing of the ear, their eyes also behold Him. 1 Some few of God's works they can do, many more of them they can understand, laying the line on the foundations of the earth; entering the springs of the sea, knowing where light hath its way, and the place of darkness and the bounds thereof; yea, in this still time of their souls God opens to them even the gates of death, through which they go and return. But though they know all this, and so friend, might you, too, yet it is because the Creator shows them the paths unto the place thereof; and He will show you if you enter the occult door through which Christ has gone unto the Father. Follow Him, and greater things than these shall ye do.

Mendocus, Master, now perceived that the lurid glow of the atmosphere had been neutralized by the light of the blue sphere, which, full twelve inches through, rested motionless in completion, its glorious, radiant center of entrancing loveliness. He raised his hand slightly, as if giving an unspoken command. Upon this the sphere of light rose to a height of perhaps eight feet from the floor, where it hung without visible means of support. Again the hand waved in command, and the sphere moved horizontally over our heads to a point about fifteen feet from the center of the chamber. Here it was permitted to remain. Although every one present was intuitively aware of all that was about to occur, I will describe every incident for the benefit of my readers. Following the pure blue light came a sphere of intense indigo color upon the brazier, its process the same as that of its predecessor, and when complete it was assigned position thirteen feet from its neighbor, on the same eight-foot plane. Next came a sphere of violet, of equally intense brilliancy, differing only in color, not size. Then followed a globe of pure red, then one of orange, another of pure yellow, and lastly one of glorious green. Every one was at the same height from the floor, and equidistant, approximately, from its neighbors. Any attempt at describing the extreme beauty of these iris-hued spheres would indeed The futile, as they hung, motionless, above our heads.

Once again the Master gave silent order, and the spheres began to move horizontally around their common center. Slowly at first, gradually the speed increased until persistence of vision presented them to the sight as a great circle of light ninety feet in circumference; nevertheless the orbital revolution did not in any degree merge the colors into becoming white light. And now an additional feature of beauty was presented: as the seeming ring sped around, from each of its compound globes a shaft colored like its parent was simultaneously projected horizontally to the center, when, from the junction a. perpendicular column of light of purest white went forth, up-ward and downward, the one to the great quartz crystal in the ceiling overhead, the other to the carpet of gray below, for the censer had been removed from underneath. Thus was presented the spectacle of an enormous wheel, axle, spokes and rim, revolving at great speed, and all formed of imponderable light. Though it rested on the carpet, there was no scorching, for this was but Viviant Fire, positive, not the negative Vis Mortuus. Buddhism symbolizes the latter element as "Siva," the destroyer; it is the Fire of Death, the one wherein I had seen the moth perish and the stone disappear. There is an esoteric Buddhism as well as an exoteric, or religion of the masses, and the names of Siva and Vishnu, which to the exoterist are names of personal Gods, of the Destroyer and the Preserver respectively, are to the esoterist merely the terms distinguishing the obverse and reverse aspects of Nature, that is, growth and satiety, change and destruction.

Would power like this of the Lothins ever be mine? It seemed to me that if Mendocus, Master, had come to such wisdom, he, being but a man, could not do more than I--we were both souls. The wondrous temple in the heart of the mountain; the lighting of the darkness; the lifting of the great stone at the entrance; the Vis Viva and the Vis Mortuus; all this that I had seen and was to see, was only the work of men who had, in their calmness of soul and purity of heart and body, done these things because the Christ-Spirit, in the pure of heart, is perfect human and extends unto the Father. Could I not hope to attain the power of doing likewise? I asked myself, and knew that I could, for I was then in the peace of clairvoyance. Yet I saw not all that must intervene, not all the events of the nearer future, nothing of them, in fact, but only the more distant perspective of my soul's destiny.

"Verily," said Mendocus, "but not now, not until a time of trial be past. To thee, as to all other occult neophytes, will come moments of darkest doubt. and thy very soul will weep in the agony of despair. No, thou wilt not doubt the truth of hermetic wisdom at any time, but thine ability to acquire it only. Study, then, the principles of truth, not its phenomena only. For its own sake it is more to be desired than its works, though usually less attractive to neophytes. Thy doubts will be born of an imperfect conception of thine own self, a want of perception of symmetry; giving undue proportion to certain facts, and upon finding these of less importance than thy conception of them originally painted, thy heart will fail thee, for in themselves they are great, and if comparison declares them small, what power shall grasp the greater? Then will it be that thou wilt fear thou art but finite, and these things infinite, and thou wilt say to thy soul: 'My weakness is to these things as packthread wherewith to draw leviathan.' But this is not so, for no creature is more than the Creator, and thou art of the Father and joint Creator with Him. What shall prevail? Only Faith like that of the Spirit who overlighteth Jesus and all them that triumph over time. Woe unto thee if thou shall faint while buffeting the billows of doubt. Miserable indeed is the lot of such a one, for, debarred from. the society of the Brothers because, of his faint heart, he is yet possessed of a knowledge of something purer, better, higher than the ordinary ambitions of humanity. After his glimpse into the greater possibilities of his being, he disdains to resume his former sense-relations with the world. He can not descend to the world's level, nor raise his fellowman to his own height. So through the rest of his life on earth he is alone. My friend, there is no solitude so drear as he hath who is in the world, but not of it. Wilt thou venture onwards, braving this peril? At this point there is yet a chance of return without incurring the danger which follows when further advanced. Set not thy hand to the plow if thou canst not go to the end of the furrow; it is long and difficult to follow. The world hath not so hard a task as this to impose in all its power. I offer thee option."

Mendocus now watched me as I pondered the proposition. I felt that I could not in any event resume the old life; within me the fire was already alight, and the Sword of the Lord had cut off the old from the new, so that I felt it was between me and the past. No; "Onward, Christian Soldier," must be my song leading to victory. I was decided in my mind, though I had not as yet said so; but I had no need to utter aloud my decision, although, forgetting this fact, I was about to do so, when Mendocus said:

"Thou hast, then, decided to go onward. I am sorrowful because of it. For though thou shalt come forth at last as gold burned in the fire, yet the ordeal confronting thee is fierce. But I will not allow that thy feet go alone; for that were unwise. I will so do for thee that the step be not irretrievable, lest it perchance be as I fear. O, Brother! I fear me woe is thine!"

After this decision I was required to take vows of secrecy, whereby I was bound not to reveal any part of what I should learn in any manner which might give the hearer of my words practical use of what I told him. I might drop a hint which might be followed as a clue to the Voiceless Silence where blooms the Flower of Life; but, beyond a hint, my friend, I can tell you nothing. Of hints I have given many. Nor, were I to disregard my word, and divulge secrets of immediate working value, would you thank me. No, rather would you curse me. Why? Suppose we wit an instance: Suppose I were to reveal the secret of the Vis Mortuus, would you thank me? It is, remember, that force which may be projected in all its fatal strength to any distance and which is personified in the famous poem, "The Destruction of Sennacherib," in the line:

"The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast."

Suppose I revealed that secret? How long would it be ere the world would find that the unscrupulous amongst men were using it to work undetectable murder? And its uses are many besides, for it is the principle in nature which governs transmutation, disintegration, decay, destruction, death. All these, but never does it build anew; it is Siva, the Destroyer. Used aright, it is a beneficent force, for without it there would be no progress in nature, because no change could occur--there could not even be retrogression, but utter stagnation. Its sign is Image. Much as that means to me, it can be but a hint to you. Study it if you will, and one day it shall be revealed to you. In reason you can no longer ask why occult matters are so imperatively secret, for it must be evident that this fair earth would be made by the unscrupulous into a very hell of misery and crime, were they not thus secret. For a time those who chose to subvert their knowledge would seem to thrive and prosper, even though the world about them suffered. But subversion of the law is violation, and the penalty at last visited is in tenfold degree upon those who went most astray in their blindness and sin. It would cause them to curse the giver of such wisdom. Nine-tenths of the people of this world are unable to govern themselves well; they cannot in saneness expect to be made sharers of such awful knowledge as Siva represents. Men and women are really not following the Christ until every part of their own nature is held in an iron grasp of merciless subjection to high principles. But study, my friends, study. Christianize the money power of this world, so that capital shall not work harm to men but good, and from good thus born the karma of the world will lead to the goodness of heart which gives calmness of soul; in that calmness your study will bear fruit, and then it will not be a mockery, in seeming, of your hopes for me to say "Study!" I rejoice in those earnest workers whose motto is: "Look up, not down; look out, not in; look forward, and not back, and lend a hand." Only this: the occult student gazes in, and not out! But these are not esoterists. Their name shall one day be great in the world, and though you who desire to study and know occult truths now may not see your hopes fruit in your present incarnation, yet in coming lives you will grasp these truths which elude you at present. Follow Him.

Before me, Mendocus, Master, had opened a view of life so radically different from the old, restless existence, that my heart grew warm, regardless of his prophecy that bitter woe was perhaps to be my portion ere I could enter the haven of my desires. The fact was that my optimistic nature deceived me with a hope that somehow I could manage to avoid the threatened sorrow, and, having escaped its menace, could go happily onward. Alas, poor me! I knew nothing of karma, and in that day knew nothing of Zailm of Poseid. Else, had I known, I would have trembled when the Master expressed his fears for my sake. I saw before me a great ocean of wisdom, flashing in the light of truth, its horizon defined only by the voyager's temporary inability to go farther, its depth measurable only by that of the Universe. Free from the dogmatism of cramping creeds and of superstition, that ocean reaches out into the eternity which enshrouds the stars as well as the dust in mystery, that mystery which veils the Creator from the created, veils it from the joint Creator, man, too, just so long as his soul shall lean to creation instead of to the Creator, his Father. Veils it until the aeons of time shall be swallowed up in eternity--beyond the stars, Earth, Venus, and Mars, when man shall cease to be man in becoming more than man, and Life the Less be gathered into Nirvana, sum of all the, parts. I repeat it, sum of all the parts, for it is not in any wise that horrible cessation of being which Sanscrit scholars have interpreted the word "Nirvana" to mean. They have misconceived the facts; it is not the end of life, except Life the Less, any more than the statement "God is nothing" (that is, not one thing, but the sum of all things) should be construed as a denial of the being of God, the Eternal Father of Life.

A change had come over the Master. Up to the present his attention had been that of one controlling a process. Now, with his back to the shaft of the wheel of light, he stood beside the censer, looking upward, his gaze like that of one beholding a sight pleasing, yet absorbing. At last he bowed his head and said:

"Welcome Mol Lang, friend and brother!"

I saw no one, but was aware that the person addressed could not be one of the Sach. Mendocus, Master, turned to the brazier by his elbow and struck it lightly with his outspread fingers, whereupon the fire pan became red hot. Then he thrust his hand into a pouch depending from his waist and drew it out filled with a white powder, which he cast on the fire plate, producing a dense white smoke. I regarded this as a mere ceremonial offering of incense, and thought it savored of superstition, for I had now lost my intuitive perceptive power, and could only depend on conjecture. This idea was scarcely formed ere abandoned, for the cloud of smoke rapidly took the human form, into which the solid appearance of genuine personality was introduced as the incense consumed, until upon the glowing stand stood a man of commanding presence.

Some men seem to be not of any distinctive nationality but very citizens of the world, or, even more largely, representatives of the race, and one feels that they might be of this world or of any other capable of supporting human life. Such was the man before us. He was addressed by Mendocus as, Mol Lang, of Pertoz, and though I knew no such country, I unquestioningly accepted this appellation.

His deepset eyes, under massive brows, and a head of similar contour to that of the philosopher Socrates; his snowy hair and long, white beard, together with a soldierly erectness of person, made Mol Lang, the Pertozian, the very personification of occult wisdom, from my point of view; nor was I far wrong. His turban, which in fact was blue, mottled with brown, seemed, chameleon like, to assume different colors as the varicoiored spokes of the wheel of light passed by, not through him, but he through them. He wore a long, gray robe, depending from the shoulders and belted at the waist. On his feet, of goodly, delicate shape, were sandals.

The Pertozian stooped and put his hand on the shoulder of the Master, making some remark, the import of which I did not catch, then stepped to the floor with a light bound, and with Mendocus went to the divan and sat down, engaging in an earnest conversation, which they held secret from the knowledge of the others. Do you ask where our clairaudient, mind-reading ability was, that this converse should have been unknown to any of us? Unless one who knows that mind readers present are apt to exercise their ability desires to have them share his thoughts, they can not. He preserves as an almost unconscious habit the mental desire of having his thoughts remain impenetrable, and to such a will no human power can pierce the barrier it sets.

At length they returned to our circle, and Mendocus seated himself with us. The visitor then said:

"Though the men of Lothus have known others of my fellow Pertozians, few heretofore have known me; none, indeed, but thy Master. I am come to induct one of thy number into the land of the departed, while another I take home with myself.

To you, Lothins, I need not say that the body is like unto a coat, to be put off or on at pleasure-by those who know how. I say this only for him known in the world as Walter Pierson, but unto me is Phylos. And some day the world will bear of him as Phylos the Thibetan, yet shall he not reside in Thibet in Asia, but shall be so called because he shall for a time live on the soul plane of the occult Adepts of Thibet. Unto thee, then, Phylos, I say when thou shalt be free of thy mundane body, then if thou wouldst go to any sphere of heaven, unto Neptune, or any planet or star, thou hast but to desire such transference of thyself, and it is accomplished. Wilt thou go with me this night, which is now nearly morning"

Where was this I was asked to go? I knew not clearly whether he meant the soul realm, or in fact just where he did mean to go. But my faith was strong, and I replied:

"Whither thou goest, I go also, for I have faith in thee that thou wilt do me no hurt."

The faith inspired in that hour by the gentle dignity and kindly love I saw beaming from those deepset, calm gray eyes, has known in all these subsequent years no cause for regret; nor for the action which my faith then inspired me to make, has this heart any but a feeling of supreme thankfulness that the Christ-Spirit then put it into my soul to have that faith. I fancy I bear some reader, timid at the prospect of trying the unknown, which might for all I knew at the moment include my corporeal death, saying: "How came it that you felt so sure of Mol Lang; did you not fear he was a devil?" No, I did not, for I was under the protection of goodly men, into whose midst no demon could enter more than night can reign beneath the noonday sun. At least one of my protectors (Mendocus) had arrived at a finality so far as earth's present cyclic age can teach; the physical nature had no secrets from him; but the illimitable realms of the Father hold many "mansions" besides the universe of matter and the house of light, or the dwelling place of darkness. In this mansion of the material universe nothing remained for Mendocus to gain; he stayed but to give. Death had no power over him; he was supra-mundane, and until himself otherwise elected, he must live; only the word of God (the true Logos) by himself invoked could "loose the silver cord." Would you, protected by such an one, fear demoniacal influences? One other query of the multitude you may desire to ask, I will answer. You inquire how these highly favored ones of God can be certain of the truth of their intuitive perceptions, and I answer: the man who lives in his spiritual nature does not believe, but knows that his being is one with God the Father, the Great Parent. And his spirit speaks by the voice of intuition, informing him by a single flash of that which otherwise he would be long years in learning by external methods of investigation, if, indeed, externality could ever impart the knowledge. His spirit gives him from its own source, the Father, an effortless, instantaneous perception of facts, principles and things. I am reminded of the words of Mol Lang to me in this connection: "Phylos, some day thou wilt comprehend this: Earth is a letter in a seven-fold alphabet; the stellar universe is but one book; its pages truly are myriad, its chapters legion, yet, besides this book, the library of the Creator is of endless number."

It occurred to me that we were the ones who should thank our visitor, and he not thank us at the conclusion of his remarks, for it seemed to me a lecture of wonderful power. A few minutes later he turned to me and said:

"Phylos, art thou ready to go with me now?"

I replied affirmatively, as did Quong, whom the visitor called Semla, when the same question was put to him.

Gravely the Brethren arose and took the hands of the Tchin in their own, as one by one they said to him, as to one going into a far country to return not for years, and perhaps not forever, "Semla, may the peace of God attend thee evermore; fare thee well." Then Mendocus, Master, said: "Semla, my peace I give unto thee."

I noted the difference in valedictory, and at another time asked of Mol Lang and received the explanation that while the Brethren could not give peace, not yet themselves perfectly possessing it, Mendocus, Master, having it himself could give it, especially to one who, like Semla, was so near its attainment. To all these Semla said, quietly:

"Peace do I wish thee."

To me no such farewells were accorded, for they said, "We shall see thee here again." This to me was unpleasant, in the frame of mind I was in, but I concealed my feelings as well as I was able, and replied as kindly as they spoke. Then Mol Lang said, "Come."

He started forward to the door of the Sagum, and I should have followed without looking back, had it not seemed as it some one touched me. Imagining that some Brother wished to speak with me and had thus called my attention, I turned and saw that which will never fade from the tablets of memory! Lying on the long, soft silk of the carpet was a human form. Looking more closely I saw that this was my own physical form, my body, my materiality, in short. In the act of raising it from the recumbent position were four of the brethren, two on each side. Others were doing a similar act for the corporeal shell of Semla. It was my consciousness that something was being done to my earthly body which f had mistaken for a touch. It had not occurred to me that I was divested of my mortal casket, so easy had been my disembodiment.

"Death is, after the agony of illness for those long sick, as easy and pleasant an experience," said Mol Lang, in answer to my mental reflection. "If thou wert not to re-enter thy corporeal body again, this would be death for thee," he added.

I was so greatly amazed at this last phenomenon that I stood still, saying nothing, as I watched the bodies being removed from the main apartment and laid on couches in a smaller room. Mol Lang then remarked:

"Essentially this is death. Behold then, body death is but a casting aside of the grosser forms of life, which have served their purpose. As thou wilt return, this is not absolutely death for thee. Semla will not return. His body is therefore dead. When real death takes place, the gross body is cast off, and the sword of the Lord Image cuts it off, and Siva Image takes possession of it and distributes it to the elements, in order that Vishnu Image may receive it for new uses from Brahm ○ the Creator. Then the soul is free for a great length of time, compared to that spent on earth. Though the astral shell can come into spiritualistic circles and manifest through mediums, yet the I AM comes not into any earthly condition until it returns for reincarnation; and then always on a higher, never on a lower plane of progress, still exists a penalty of sin, or, what is the same thing, incomplete severance of one's self from desires for earthly experiences. Will ye prefer Earth to Life?

"We go not immediately to mine own home, but into that realm where those go who have died from earth into devachan, that is, heaven, or the 'Summerland' of the 'Spiritualists,' or the 'Land of the Obb River,' or, again, to 'that bourne from whence no traveler returns.' Phylos, the sect known as 'Spiritualists' are in error when they speak of 'spirit communion' and regard it as they do, for no ego returns out of devachan except it be forced, and this is harmful and vastly unjust to the ego. 1 The astral soul and animal principle may thus return, but the I AM never. To the latter there is no past earth state; mind, I do not say for it, but to it. That is, it has no consciousness of anything earthly or of anything occurring on the earth. We can go to them, but they can not come to us. Let us, then, go."

The mind works quickly, and ere we had reached the bronze door, my consciousness had mastered the truth that death is not in itself agony; that it brings no startling changes, and does not invest the soul born into the hereafter with any wonderful power of foresight. In fact, there is but freedom given from the earthly body, and a few concomitant powers bestowed; nothing remarkable, considering that earth has no more hold on the soul. I speak of those who in mundane decession seek disenthralment from earth, having but little love for its conditions, though much love for its children. Such as these have worked for their brethren and accumulated a good and high karma which takes them away from the prisoning conditions of earth.

Mol Lang here interrupted my reflections, saying:

"One thing else; let us leave thy second self, that part of thee which perceives earthly things and preserves earthly memories. This in order that no disturbing comparisons may arise between that state into which thou goest and the earth behind thee, which thou shalt not see more than they can who really die. But between thee and earth will I preserve a vital link formed of thy second natural principle, so that it shall not be death to thee."

Then he said: "I believe I have no further use for this transient form."

Had an uninitiated observer then been present, the astonishing, not to say terrible, spectacle would have been presented to him or her of a man dissolving into smoke, for Mol Lang liberated the bonds of his smoke-form and it floated away in formless cloud.

Mol Lang laid his hand on my head, and as he took it away I no more remembered anything of the world. I dimly saw before me the bronze door of the Sagum; I knew that Mol Lang opened it, and that we three stepped forth, not into the long hall of the temple, but into an open expanse of green, sunlit meadow or prairie land. But it was no surprise, for I remembered nothing of any special features of earth life: I only knew that I was I, and that I was in a pleasant land; it was much like a vivid dream; no one in viewing a dream landscape is conscious of any other belonging to and seen only in waking hours; the faces in dreams are natural, not novel, not strange, and when seen are not compared with those known during wakefulness, for knowledge of the latter state is blotted out during sleep.

Mol Lang spoke:

"Thou hast come through the portal; lo! physical nature and laws do not reign here; they reign in the objective world, but not here, for this is the subjective world, in no sense physical or existent, nor perceptible to senses belonging to matter. Yet it is real, for Spirit is real, and subjective states, no less than objective ones, are born of the Spirit of the. Father. This is another of the Mansions in His House. It is farther from the earth than the farthest star of the sky, because in no wise of material nature. Things of earth to the inhabitants of this world are but dreams, and vice versa. To either, the other seems unreal. This we are in is the 'Far away home of-the soul.'"

I listened to Mol Lang and had ears to hear, so that I understood. Earth, of which he spoke, was vague, and knowledge of it as an almost forgotten dream. And the vagueness was because that principle of my terrene nature which was the seat of earthly sensing, and of memories of things perceived, was left with the body, This principle might visit a spiritist medium and it would be called me. Yet it would not be me, but my shell, my link of connection between my spirit and my corporeal body. Friend, you will agree that an author is reflected in his autobiography; but that book is not the author. No more is that which has its "actions, passions, beings, use and end" in the body the MAN. Yet that book may live and guide men to action. So may the astral shell of a man or woman who is dead. And the vitality of the medium may galvanize that shell so long as its influence governs any living earthly man or woman. Hence we see the phenomena of the "circles" of believers in spirit communion. There is no return of the ego (the I AM) to circles, neither communion from their plane down, though sometimes from your plane up to theirs. And yet you persist, my spiritist friends, in saying that I am in error. You say that what I call "shells" can not be such because they tell of events after death. Yes; they do, I admit. And they do because they are but records of the ego which for a few brief moments at death is sometimes highly prophetic, and sees forward over every detail, frequently for coming centuries. Or again, the departing soul catches a glimpse of its own self-conceived devachan, and the record of this is imparted to the shell, which carries such views to the spiritist medium. Witness the often absurd description given of the character of the "spirit-world," and that through honest mediums, too. They give none of CHRIST, save where two or three are gathered in His name.

Mediumship is true; its ordinary explanation is false. The medium goes into a trance, his or her vital force is transferred to the "control" which is but a shell, and not the true spirit or ego. Then the hearers enjoy a "communication." Like a reader of a book of record is that medium; events of the past are retold, and more or less accurate prophecies made; the shell lives for the nonce a galvanic life, just as Poe lives anew in the person of an elocutionist rendering "The Raven," from the rostrum. Just so long as the "Commentaries" influence mankind, just that long will the "spirit" of Caesar control mediums; and while the Book of Mormon retains its hold on the deluded masses of Utah, so long will the "Prophet Joseph Smith" influence sensitives. But I grow prolix. Let us therefore turn to the world of effects, and see what it presented to our psychic perceptions. Will you come with us and see what we three saw as we went forth across the plain which confronted us at the door of the Sagum?

_______________

Footnotes:

281:1 Job xiii.--5.

292:1 I Samuel xxviii, 14-15.
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