THE CREATIVE PROCESS IN THE INDIVIDUAL

BY T. TROWARD

1915

FOREWORD

In the present volume I have endeavored to set before the reader theconception of a sequence of creative action commencing with the formationof the globe and culminating in a vista of infinite possibilitiesattainable by every one who follows up the right line for their unfoldment. 

I have endeavored to show that, starting with certain incontrovertiblescientific facts, all these things logically follow, and that therefore, however far these speculations may carry us beyond our past experience, they nowhere break the thread of an intelligible connection of cause andeffect. 

I do not, however, offer the suggestions here put forward in any otherlight than that of purely speculative reasoning; nevertheless, no advancein any direction can be made except by speculative reasoning going back tothe first principles of things which we do know and thence deducing theconditions under which the same principles might be carried further andmade to produce results hitherto unknown. It is to this method of thoughtthat we owe all the advantages of civilization from matches andpost-offices to motor-cars and aeroplanes, and we may therefore beencouraged to hope such speculations as the present may not be withouttheir ultimate value. Relying on the maxim that Principle is not bound byPrecedent we should not limit our expectations of the future; and if ourspeculations lead us to the conclusion that we have reached a point wherewe are not only able, but also _required_, by the law of our own being, totake a more active part in our personal evolution than heretofore, thisdiscovery will afford us a new outlook upon life and widen our horizon withfresh interests and brightening hopes. 

If the thoughts here suggested should help any reader to clear some mentalobstacles from his path the writer will feel that he has not written to nopurpose. Only each reader must think out these suggestions for himself. Nowriter or lecturer can convey an idea _into_ the minds of his audience. Hecan only put it before them, and what they will make of it depends entirelyupon themselves--assimilation is a process which no one can carry out forus. 

To the kindness of my readers on both sides of the Atlantic, and inAustralia and New Zealand, I commend this little volume, not, indeed, without a deep sense of its many shortcomings, but at the same timeencouraged by the generous indulgence extended to my previous books. 

T. T. 

June, 1910. 

CONTENTS

 I THE STARTING-POINT II THE SELF-CONTEMPLATION OF SPIRIT III THE DIVINE IDEAL IV THE MANIFESTATION OF THE LIFE PRINCIPLE V THE PERSONAL FACTOR VI THE STANDARD OF PERSONALITY VII RACE THOUGHT AND NEW THOUGHT VIII THE DÉNOUEMENT OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS IX CONCLUSION X THE DIVINE OFFERING XI OURSELVES IN THE DIVINE OFFERING

 I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough, None has ever yet adored or worship'd half enough, None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the future is. I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion, Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur. --WALT WHITMAN. 

CHAPTER I

THE STARTING-POINT

It is an old saying that "Order is Heaven's First Law, " and like many otherold sayings it contains a much deeper philosophy than appears immediatelyon the surface. Getting things into a better order is the great secret ofprogress, and we are now able to fly through the air, not because the lawsof Nature have altered, but because we have learnt to arrange things in theright order to produce this result--the things themselves had existed fromthe beginning of the world, but what was wanting was the introduction of aPersonal Factor which, by an intelligent perception of the possibilitiescontained in the laws of Nature, should be able to bring into workingreality ideas which previous generations would have laughed at as theabsurd fancies of an unbalanced mind. The lesson to be learnt from thepractical aviation of the present day is that of the triumph of principleover precedent, of the working out of an _idea_ to its logical conclusionsin spite of the accumulated testimony of all past experience to thecontrary; and with such a notable example before us can we say that it isfutile to enquire whether by the same method we may not unlock still moreimportant secrets and gain some knowledge of the unseen causes which are atthe back of external and visible conditions, and then by bringing theseunseen causes into a better order make practical working realities ofpossibilities which at present seem but fantastic dreams? It is at leastworth while taking a preliminary canter over the course, and this is allthat this little volume professes to attempt; yet this may be sufficient toshow the lay of the ground. 

Now the first thing in any investigation is to have some idea of what youare looking for--to have at least some notion of the general direction inwhich to go--just as you would not go up a tree to find fish though youwould for birds' eggs. Well, the general direction in which we all want togo is that of getting more out of Life than we have ever got out of it--wewant to be more alive in ourselves and to get all sorts of improvedconditions in our environment. However happily any of us may becircumstanced we can all conceive something still better, or at any rate weshould like to make our present good permanent; and since we shall find asour studies advance that the prospect of increasing possibilities keepsopening out more and more widely before us, we may say that what we are insearch of is the secret of getting more out of Life in a continuallyprogressive degree. This means that what we are looking for is somethingpersonal, and that it is to be obtained by producing conditions which donot yet exist; in other words it is nothing less than the exercise of acertain creative power in the sphere of our own particular world. So, then, what we want is to introduce our own Personal Factor into the realm ofunseen causes. This is a big thing, and if it is possible at all it must beby some sequence of cause and effect, and this sequence it is our object todiscover. The law of Cause and Effect is one we can never get away from, but by carefully following it up we may find that it will lead us furtherthan we had anticipated. 

Now, the first thing to observe is that if _we_ can succeed in finding outsuch a sequence of cause and effect as the one we are in search of, somebody else may find out the same creative secret also; and then, by thehypothesis of the case, we should both be armed with an infallible power, and if we wanted to employ this power against each other we should belanded in the "impasse" of a conflict between two powers each of which wasirresistible. Consequently it follows that the first principle of thispower must be Harmony. It cannot be antagonizing itself from differentcenters--in other words its operation in a simultaneous order at everypoint is the first necessity of its being. What we are in search of, then, is a sequence of cause and effect so universal in its nature as to includeharmoniously all possible variations of individual expression. This primarynecessity of the Law for which we are seeking should be carefully borne inmind, for it is obvious that any sequence which transgresses this primaryessential must be contrary to the very nature of the Law itself, andconsequently cannot be conducting us to the exercise of true creativepower. 

What we are seeking, therefore, is to discover how to arrange things insuch an order as to set in motion a train of causation that will harmonizeour own conditions without antagonizing the exercise of a like power byothers. This therefore means that all individual exercise of this power isthe particular application of a universal power which itself operatescreatively on its own account independently of these individualapplications; and the harmony between the various individual applicationsis brought about by all the individuals bringing their own particularaction into line with this independent creative action of the originalpower. It is in fact another application of Euclid's axiom that thingswhich are equal to the same thing are equal to one another; so that thoughI may not know for what purpose some one may be using this creative powerin Pekin, I do know that if he and I both realize its true nature, wecannot by any possibility be working in opposition to one another. Forthese reasons, having now some general idea of what it is we are in searchof, we may commence our investigation by considering this common factorwhich must be at the back of all individual exercise of creative power, that is to say, the Generic working of the Universal Creative Principle. 

That such a Universal Creative Principle is at work we at once realize fromthe existence of the world around us with all its inhabitants, and theinter-relation of all parts of the cosmic system shows its underlyingUnity--thus the animal kingdom depends on the vegetable, the vegetablekingdom on the mineral, the mineral or globe of the earth on its relationto the rest of the solar system, and possibly our solar system is relatedby a similar law to the distribution of other suns with their attendantplanets throughout space. Our first glance therefore shows us that theAll-originating Power must be in essence Unity and in manifestationMultiplicity, and that it manifests as Life and Beauty through the unerringadaptation of means to ends--that is so far as its cosmic manifestation ofends goes: what we want to do is to carry this manifestation still furtherby operation from an individual standpoint. To do this is precisely ourplace in the Order of Creation, but we must defer the question why we holdthis place till later on. 

One of the earliest discoveries we all make is the existence of Matter. Thebruised shins of our childhood convince us of its solidity, so now comesthe question, Why does Matter exist? The answer is that if the form werenot expressed in solid substance, things would be perpetually flowing intoeach other so that no identity could be maintained for a single moment. Tothis it might be replied that a condition of matter is conceivable inwhich, though in itself a plastic substance, in a fluent state, it mightyet by the operation of will be held in any particular forms desired. Theidea of such a condition of matter is no doubt conceivable, and when thefluent matter was thus held in particular forms you would have concretematter just as we know it now, only with this difference, that it wouldreturn to its fluent state as soon as the supporting will was withdrawn. Now, as we shall see later on, this is precisely what matter really is, only the will which holds it together in concrete form is not individualbut cosmic. 

In itself the Essence of Matter is precisely the fluent substance we haveimagined, and as we shall see later on the knowledge of this fact, whenrealized in its proper order, is the basis of the legitimate control ofmind over matter. But a world in which every individual possessed the powerof concreting or fluxing matter at his own sweet will irrespective of anyuniversal coordinating principle is altogether inconceivable--the conflictof wills would prevent such a world remaining in existence. On the otherhand, if we conceive of a number of individuals each possessing this powerand all employing it on the lines of a common cosmic unity, then the resultwould be precisely the same stable condition of matter with which we arefamiliar--this would be a necessity of fact for the masses who did notpossess this power, and a necessity of principle for the few who did. Sounder these circumstances the same stable conditions of Nature wouldprevail as at present, varied only when the initiated ones perceived thatthe order of evolution would be furthered, and not hindered, by callinginto action the higher laws. Such occasions would be of rare occurrence, and then the departure from the ordinary law would be regarded by themultitude as a miracle. Also we may be quite sure that no one who hadattained this knowledge in the legitimate order would ever perform a"miracle" for his own personal aggrandizement or for the purpose of merelyastonishing the beholders--to do so would be contrary to the firstprinciple of the higher teaching which is that of profound reverence forthe Unity of the All-originating Principle. The conception, therefore, ofsuch a power over matter being possessed by certain individuals is in noway opposed to our ordinary recognition of concrete matter, and so we neednot at present trouble ourselves to consider these exceptions. 

Another theory is that matter has no existence at all but is merely anillusion projected by our own minds. If so, then how is it that we allproject identically similar images? On the supposition that each mind isindependently projecting its own conception of matter a lady who goes to befitted might be seen by her dressmaker as a cow. Generations of people haveseen the Great Pyramid on the same spot; but on the supposition that eachindividual is projecting his own material world in entire independence ofall other individuals there is no reason why any two persons should eversee the same thing in the same place. On the supposition of such anindependent action by each separate mind, without any common factor bindingthem all to one particular mode of recognition, no intercourse betweenindividuals would be possible--then, without the consciousness of relationto other individuals the consciousness of our own individuality would belost, and so we should cease to have any conscious existence at all. If onthe other hand we grant that there is, above the individual minds, a greatCosmic Mind which imposes upon them the necessity of all seeing the sameimage of Matter, then that image is not a projection of the individualminds but of the Cosmic Mind; and since the individual minds are themselvessimilar projections of the Cosmic Mind, matter is for them just as much areality as their own existence. I doubt not that material substance is thusprojected by the all-embracing Divine Mind; but so also are our own mindsprojected by it, and therefore the relation between them and matter is areal relation and not a merely fictitious one. 

I particularly wish the student to be clear on this point, that where twofactors are projected from a common source their relation to each otherbecomes an absolute fact in respect of the factors themselves, notwithstanding that the power of changing that relation by substituting adifferent projection must necessarily always continue to reside in theoriginating source. To take a simple arithmetical example--by my power ofmental projection working through my eyes and fingers I write 4 X 2. Here Ihave established a certain numerical relation which can only produce eightas its result. Again, I have power to change the factors and write 4 X 3, in which case 12 is the only possible result, and so on. Working in thisway calculation becomes possible. But if every time I wrote 4 that figurepossessed an independent power of setting down a different number by whichto multiply itself, what would be the result? The first 4 I wrote might setdown 3 as its multiplier, and the next might set down 7, and so on. Or if Iwant to make a box of a certain size and cut lengths of plank accordingly, if each length could capriciously change its width at a moment's notice, how could I ever make the box? I myself may change the shape and size of mybox by establishing new relations between the bits of wood, but for thepieces of wood themselves the proportions determined by my mind must remainfixed quantities, otherwise no construction could take place. 

This is a very rough analogy, but it may be sufficient to show that for acosmos to exist at all it is absolutely necessary that there should be aCosmic Mind binding all individual minds to certain _generic_ unities ofaction, and so producing all things as realities and nothing as illusion. The importance of this conclusion will become more apparent as we advancein our studies. 

We have now got at some reason why concrete material form is a necessity ofthe Creative Process. Without it the perfect Self-recognition of Spiritfrom the Individual standpoint, which we shall presently find is the meansby which the Creative Process is to be carried forward, would beimpossible; and therefore, so far from matter being an illusion, it is thenecessary channel for the self-differentiation of Spirit and its Expressionin multitudinous life and beauty. Matter is thus the necessary PolarOpposite to Spirit, and when we thus recognize it in its right order weshall find that there is no antagonism between the two, but that togetherthey constitute one harmonious whole. 

CHAPTER II

THE SELF-CONTEMPLATION OF SPIRIT

If we ask how the cosmos came into existence we shall find that ultimatelywe can only attribute it to the Self-Contemplation of Spirit. Let us startwith the facts now known to modern physical science. All material things, including our own bodies, are composed of combinations of differentchemical elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, &c. Chemistryrecognizes in all about seventy of these elements each with its peculiaraffinities; but the more advanced physical science of the present day findsthat they are all composed of one and the same ultimate substance to whichthe name of Ether has been given, and that the difference between an atomof iron and an atom of oxygen results only from the difference in thenumber of etheric particles of which each is composed and the rate of theirmotion within the sphere of the atom, thus curiously coming back to thedictum of Pythagoras that the universe has its origin in Number and Motion. We may therefore say that our entire solar system together with every sortof material substance which it contains is made up of nothing but this oneprimary substance in various degrees of condensation. 

Now the next step is to realize that this ether is everywhere. This isshown by the undulatory theory of light. Light is not a substance but isthe effect produced on the eye by the impinging of the ripples of the etherupon the retina. These waves are excessively minute, ranging in length from1-39, 000th of an inch at the red end of the spectrum to 1-57, 000th at theviolet end. Next remember that these waves are not composed of advancingparticles of the medium but pass onwards by the push which each particle inthe line of motion gives to the particle next to it, and then you will seethat if there were a break of one fifty-thousandth part of an inch in theconnecting ether between our eye and any source of light we could notreceive light from that source, for there would be nothing to continue thewave-motion across the gap. Consequently as soon as we see light from anysource however distant, we know that there must be a continuous body ofether between us and it. Now astronomy shows us that we receive light fromheavenly bodies so distant that, though it travels with the incrediblespeed of 186, 000 miles per second, it takes more than two thousand years toreach us from some of them; and as such stars are in all quarters of theheavens we can only come to the conclusion that the primary substance orether must be universally present. 

This means that the raw material for the formation of solar systems isuniversally distributed throughout space; yet though we find that millionsof suns stud the heavens, we also find vast interstellar spaces which showno sign of cosmic activity. Then something has been at work to start cosmicactivity in certain areas while passing over others in which the rawmaterial is equally available. What is this something? At first we might beinclined to attribute the development of cosmic energy to the ethericparticles themselves, but a little consideration will show us that this ismathematically impossible in a medium which is equally distributedthroughout space, for all its particles are in equilibrium and so no oneparticle possesses _per se_ a greater power of originating motion than anyother. Consequently the initial movement must be started by somethingwhich, though it works on and through the particles of the primarysubstance, is not those particles themselves. It is this "Something" whichwe mean when we speak of "Spirit. "

Then since Spirit starts the condensation of the primary substance intoconcrete aggregation, and also does this in certain areas to the exclusionof others, we cannot avoid attributing to Spirit the power of Selection andof taking an Initiative on its own account. 

Here, then, we find the _initial_ Polarity of Universal Spirit andUniversal Substance, each being the complementary of the other, and out ofthis relation all subsequent evolution proceeds. Being complementary meansthat each supplies what is wanting in the other, and that the two togetherthus make complete wholeness. Now this is just the case here. Spiritsupplies Selection and Motion. Substance supplies something from whichselection can be made and to which Motion can be imparted; so that it is a_sine qua non_ for the Expression of Spirit. 

Then comes the question, How did the Universal Substance get there? Itcannot have made itself, for its only quality is inertia, therefore it musthave come from some source having power to project it by some mode ofaction not of a material nature. Now the only mode of action not of amaterial nature is Thought, and therefore to Thought we must look for theorigin of Substance. This places us at a point antecedent to the existenceeven of primary substance, and consequently the initial action must be thatof the Originating Mind upon Itself, in other words, Self-contemplation. 

At this primordial stage neither Time nor Space can be recognized, for bothimply measurement of successive intervals, and in the primary movement ofMind upon itself the only consciousness must be that of Present AbsoluteBeing, because no external points exist from which to measure extensioneither in time or space. Hence we must eliminate the ideas of time andspace from our conception of Spirit's _initial_ Self-contemplation. 

This being so, Spirit's primary contemplation of itself as simply Beingnecessarily makes its presence universal and eternal, and consequently, paradoxical as it may seem, its independence of Time and Space makes itpresent throughout all Time and Space. It is the old esoteric maxim thatthe point expands to infinitude and that infinitude is concentrated in thepoint. We start, then, with Spirit contemplating itself simply as Being. But to realize your being you must have consciousness, and consciousnesscan only come by the recognition of your relation to something else. Thesomething else may be an external fact or a mental image; but even in thelatter case to conceive the image at all you must mentally stand back fromit and look at it--something like the man who was run in by the police atGravesend for walking behind himself to see how his new coat fitted. Itstands thus: if you are not conscious of something you are conscious ofnothing, and if you are conscious of nothing, then you are unconscious, sothat to be conscious at all you must have something to be conscious of. 

This may seem like an extract from "Paddy's Philosophy, " but it makes itclear that consciousness can only be attained by the recognition ofsomething which is not the recognizing _ego_ itself--in other wordsconsciousness is the realization of some particular sort of _relation_between the cognizing subject and the cognized object; but I want to getaway from academical terms into the speech of human beings, so let us takethe illustration of a broom and its handle--the two together make a broom;that is one sort of relation; but take the same stick and put a rake-ironat the end of it and you have an altogether different implement. The stickremains the same, but the difference of what is put at the end of it makesthe whole thing a broom or a rake. Now the thinking and feeling power isthe stick, and the conception which it forms is the thing at the end of thestick, so that the quality of its consciousness will be determined by theideas which it projects; but to be conscious at all it must project ideasof some sort. 

Now of one thing we may be quite sure, that the Spirit of Life must _feelalive_. Then to feel alive it must be conscious, and to be conscious itmust have something to be conscious of; therefore the contemplation ofitself as standing related to something which is not its own originatingself _in propria persona_ is a necessity of the case; and consequently theSelf-contemplation of Spirit can only proceed by its viewing itself asrelated to something standing out from itself, just as we must stand at aproper distance to see a picture--in fact the very word "existence" means"standing out. " Thus things are called into existence or "outstandingness"by a power which itself does not stand out, and whose presence is thereforeindicated by the word "subsistence. "

The next thing is that since in the beginning there is nothing exceptSpirit, its primary feeling of aliveness must be that of being alive _allover_; and to establish such a consciousness of its own universallivingness there must be the recognition of a corresponding _relation_equally extensive in character; and the only possible correspondence tofulfil this condition is therefore that of a universally distributed andplastic medium whose particles are all in perfect equilibrium, which isexactly the description of the Primary Substance or ether. We are thusphilosophically led to the conclusion that Universal Substance must beprojected by Universal Spirit as a necessary consequence of Spirit's owninherent feeling of Aliveness; and in this way we find that the greatPrimary Polarity of Being becomes established. 

From this point onward we shall find the principle of Polarity in universalactivity. It is that relation between opposites without which no externalMotion would be possible, because there would be nowhere to move from, andnowhere to move to; and without which external Form would be impossiblebecause there would be nothing to limit the diffusion of substance andbring it into shape. Polarity, or the interaction of Active and Passive, istherefore the basis of all _Evolution_. 

This is a great fundamental truth when we get it in its right order; butall through the ages it has been a prolific source of error by getting itin its wrong order. And the wrong order consists in making Polarity theoriginating point of the Creative Process. What this misconception leads towe shall see later on; but since it is very widely accepted under variousguises even at the present day it is well to be on our guard against it. Therefore I wish the student to see clearly that there is something whichcomes before that Polarity which gives rise to Evolution, and that thissomething is the original movement of Spirit _within itself_, of which wecan best get an idea by calling it Self-contemplation. 

Now this may seem an extremely abstract conception and one with which wehave no practical concern. I fancy I can hear the reader saying "The Lordonly knows how the world started, and it is His business and not mine, "which would be perfectly true if this originating faculty were confined tothe Cosmic Mind. But it is not, and the same action takes place in our ownminds also, only with the difference that it is ultimately subject to thatprinciple of Cosmic Unity of which I have already spoken. But, subject tothat unifying principle, this same power of origination is in ourselvesalso, and our personal advance in evolution depends on our right use of it;and our use of it depends on our recognition that we ourselves give rise tothe particular polarities which express themselves in our whole world ofconsciousness, whether within or without. For these reasons it is veryimportant to realize that Evolution is not the same as Creation. It is theunfolding of potentialities involved in things already created, but not thecalling into existence of what does not yet exist--_that_ is Creation. 

The order, therefore, which I wish the student to observe is, first theSelf-contemplation of Spirit producing Polarity, and next Polarityproducing Manifestation in Form--and also to realize that it is in thisorder his own mind operates as a subordinate center of creative energy. When the true place of Polarity is thus recognized, we shall find in it theexplanation of all those relations of things which give rise to the wholeworld of phenomena; from which we may draw the practical inference that ifwe want to change the manifestation we must change the polarity, and tochange the polarity we must get back to the Self-contemplation of Spirit. But in its proper place as the root-principle of all _secondary_ causation, Polarity is one of those fundamental facts of which we must never losesight. The term "Polarity" is adopted from electrical science. In theelectric battery it is the connecting together of the opposite poles ofzinc and copper that causes a current to flow from one to the other and soprovides the energy that rings the bell. If the connection is broken thereis no action. When you press the button you make the connection. The sameprocess is repeated in respect of every sort of polarity throughout theuniverse. Circulation depends on polarity, and circulation is the_manifestation_ of Life, which we may therefore say depends on theprinciple of polarity. In relation to ourselves we are concerned with twogreat polarities, the polarity of Soul and Body and the polarity of Souland Spirit; and it is in order that he may more clearly realize theirworking that I want the student to have some preliminary idea of Polarityas a general principle. 

The conception of the Creative Order may therefore be generalized asfollows. The Spirit wants to enjoy the reality of its own Life--not merelyto vegetate, but to enjoy giving--and therefore by Self-contemplation itprojects a polar opposite, or complementary, calculated to give rise to theparticular sort of _relation_ out of which the enjoyment of a certain modeof self-consciousness will necessarily spring. Let this sentence be wellpondered over until the full extent of its significance is grasped, for itis the key to the whole matter Very well, then: Spirit wants to Enjoy Life, and so, by thinking of itself as _having_ the enjoyment which it wishes, itproduces the conditions which, by their re-action upon itself, give rise tothe reality of the sort of enjoyment contemplated. In more scientificlanguage an opposite polarity is induced, giving rise to a current whichstimulates a particular mode of sensation, which sensation in turn becomesa fresh starting-point for still further action; and in this way eachsuccessive stage becomes the stepping-stone to a still higher degree ofsensation--that is, to a Fuller Enjoyment of Life. 

Such a conception as this presents us with a Progressive Series to which itis impossible to assign any limit. That the progression must be limitlessis clear from the fact that there is never any change in the method. Ateach successive stage the Creating Power is the Self-consciousness of theSpirit, as realized at that stage, still reaching forward for yet furtherEnjoyment of Life, and so always keeping on repeating the _one_ CreativeProcess at an ever-rising level; and since these are the sole workingconditions, the progress is one which logically admits of no finality. Andthis is where the importance of realizing the Singleness of the OriginatingPower comes in, for with a Duality each member would limit the other; infact, Duality as the Originating Power is inconceivable, for, once more toquote "Paddy's Philosophy, " "finality would be reached before anything wasbegun. "

This Creative Process, therefore, can only be conceived of as limitless, while at the same time strictly progressive, that is, proceeding stage bystage, each stage being necessary as a preparation for the one that is tofollow. Let us then briefly sketch the stages by which things in our worldhave got as far as they have. The interest of the enquiry lies in the factthat if we can once get at the principle which is producing these results, we may discover some way of giving it personal application. 

On the hypothesis of the Self-contemplation of Spirit being the originatingpower, we have found that a primary ether, or universal substance, is thenecessary correspondence to Spirit's simple awareness of its own being. Butthough awareness of being is the necessary foundation for any furtherpossibilities it is, so to say, not much to talk about. The foundationfact, of course, is to know that I Am; but immediately on thisconsciousness there follows the desire for Activity--I want to enjoy my IAm-ness by doing something with it. Translating these words into a state ofconsciousness in the Cosmic Mind they become a Law of Tendency leading to_localised_ activity, and, looking only at our own world, this would meanthe condensation of the universal etheric substance into the primary nebulawhich later on becomes our solar system, this being the correspondence tothe Self-contemplation of Spirit as passing into specific activity insteadof remaining absorbed in simple awareness of Being. Then thisself-recognition would lead to the conception of still more specificactivity having its appropriate polar opposite, or material correspondence, in the condensation of the nebula into a solar system. 

Now at this stage Spirit's conception of itself is that of Activity, andconsequently the material correspondence is Motion, as distinguished fromthe simple diffused ether which is the correspondence of mere awareness ofBeing, But what sort of motion? Is the material movement evolved at thisstage bound to take any particular form? A little consideration will showus that it is. At this initial stage, the first awakening, so to say, ofSpirit into activity, its consciousness can only be that of activity_absolute_; that is, not as related to any other mode of activity becauseas yet there is none, but only as related to an all-embracing Being; sothat the only possible conception of Activity at this stage is that of_Self-sustained_ activity, not depending on any preceding mode of activitybecause there is none. The law of reciprocity therefore demands a similarself-sustained motion in the material correspondence, and mathematicalconsiderations show that the only sort of motion which can sustain aself-supporting body moving _in vacuo_ is a rotary motion bringing the bodyitself into a spherical form. Now this is exactly what we find at bothextremes of the material world. At the big end the spheres of the planetsrotating on their axes and revolving round the sun; and at the little endthe spheres of the atoms consisting of particles which, modern sciencetells us, in like manner rotate round a common center at distances whichare astronomical as compared with their own mass. Thus the two ultimateunits of physical manifestation, the atom and the planet, both follow thesame law of self-sustained motion which we have found that, on _a priori_grounds, they ought in order to express the primary activity of Spirit. Andwe may note in passing that this rotary, or _absolute_, motion is thecombination of the only two possible _relative_ modes of motion, namely, motion from a point and motion to it, that is to say centrifugal andcentripetal motion; so that in rotary, or absolute, motion we find thatboth the polarities of motion are included, thus repeating on the purelymechanical side the primordial principle of the Unity including the Dualityin itself. 

But the Spirit wants something more than mechanical motion, something morealive than the preliminary Rota, and so the first step towardindividualized consciousness meets us in plant life. Then on the principlethat each successive stage affords the platform for a further outlook, plant life is followed by animal life, and this by the Human order in whichthe liberty of selecting its own conditions is immensely extended. In thisway the Spirit's expression of itself has now reached the point where itspolar complementary, or Reciprocal, manifests as Intellectual Man--thusconstituting the Fourth great stage of Spirit's Self-recognition. But theCreative Process cannot stop here, for, as we have seen, its root in theSelf-contemplation of Spirit renders it of necessity an InfiniteProgression. So it is no use asking what is its ultimate, for it has noultimate--its word is "Excelsior"--ever Life and "Life more Abundant. "Therefore the question is not as to finality where there is none, but as tothe next step in the progression. Four kingdoms we know: what is to be theFifth? All along the line the progress has been in one direction, namely, toward the development of more perfect Individuality, and therefore on theprinciple of continuity we may reasonably infer that the next stage willtake us still further in the same direction. We want something more perfectthan we have yet reached, but our ideas as to what it should be are veryvarious, not to say discordant, for one person's idea of better is anotherperson's idea of worse. Therefore what we want to get at is some broadgeneralization of principle which will be in advance of our pastexperiences. This means that we must look for this principle in somethingthat we have not yet experienced, and the only place where we can possiblyfind principles which have not yet manifested themselves is _in gremioDei_--that is, in the innermost of the Originating Spirit, or as St. Johncalls it, "in the bosom of the Father. " So we are logically brought topersonal participation in the Divine Ideal as the only principle by whichthe advance into the next stage can possibly be made. Therefore we arriveat the question, What is the Divine Ideal like?

CHAPTER III

THE DIVINE IDEAL

What is the Divine Ideal? At first it might appear hopeless to attempt toanswer such a question, but by adhering to a definite principle we shallfind that it will open out, and lead us on, and show us things which wecould not otherwise have seen--this is the nature of principle, and is whatdistinguishes it from mere rules which are only the application ofprinciple under some particular set of conditions. We found two principlesas essential in our conception of the Originating Spirit, namely its powerof Selection and its power of Initiative; and we found a third principle asits only possible Motive, namely the Desire of the LIVING for everincreasing Enjoyment of Life. Now with these three principles as the veryessence of the All-originating Spirit to guide us, we shall, I think, beable to form some conception of that Divine Ideal which gives rise to theFifth Stage of Manifestation of Spirit, upon which we should now bepreparing to enter. 

We have seen that the Spirit's Enjoyment of Life is necessarily a_reciprocal_--it must have a corresponding fact in manifestation to answerto it; otherwise by the inherent law of mind no consciousness, andconsequently no enjoyment, could accrue; and therefore by the law ofcontinuous progression the required Reciprocal should manifest as a beingawakening to the consciousness of the principle by which he himself comesinto existence. 

Such an awakening cannot proceed from a comparison of one set of existingconditions with another, but only from the recognition of a Power which isindependent of all conditions, that is to say, the absolute Self-dependenceof the Spirit. A being thus awakened would be the proper correspondence ofthe Spirit's Enjoyment of Life at a stage not only above mechanical motionor physical vitality, but even above intellectual perception of existingphenomena, that is to say at the stage where the Spirit's Enjoymentconsists in recognizing itself as the Source of all things. The position inthe Absolute would be, so to speak, the awakening of Spirit to therecognition of its own Artistic Ability. I use the word "Artistic" as morenearly expressing an almost unstatable idea than any other I can think of, for the work of the artist approaches more closely to creation _ex nihilo_than any other form of human activity. The work of the artist is theexpression of the self that the artist is, while that of the scientist isthe comparison of facts which exist independently of his own personality. It is true that the realm of Art is not without its methods of analysis, but the analysis is that of the artist's own feeling and of the causeswhich give rise to it. These are found to contain in themselves certainprinciples which are fundamental to all Art, but these principles are thelaws of the creative action of mind rather than those of the limitations ofmatter. Now if we may transfer this familiar analogy to our conception ofthe working of the All-Originating Mind we may picture it as the GreatArtist giving visible expression to His feeling by a process which, thoughsubject to no restriction from antecedent conditions, yet works by a Lawwhich is inseparable from the Feeling itself--in fact the Law _is_ theFeeling, and the Feeling _is_ the Law, the Law of Perfect Creativeness. 

Some such Self-contemplation as this is the only way in which we canconceive the next, or Fifth, stage of Spirit's Self-recognition as takingplace. Having got as far as it has in the four previous stages, that is tothe production of intellectual man as its correspondence, the next step inadvance must be on the lines I have indicated--unless, indeed, there were asudden and arbitrary breaking of the Law of Continuity, a supposition whichthe whole Creative Process up to now forbids us to entertain. Therefore wemay picture the Fifth stage of the Self-contemplation of Spirit as itsawakening to the recognition of its own Artistic Ability, its own absolutefreedom of action and creative power--just as in studio parlance we saythat an artist becomes "free of his palette. " But by the always present Lawof Reciprocity, through which alone self-consciousness can be attained, this Self-recognition of Spirit in the Absolute implies a correspondingobjective fact in the world of the Relative; that is to say, the cominginto manifestation of a being capable of realizing the Free CreativeArtistry of the Spirit, and of recognizing the same principle in himself, while at the same time realizing also the _relation_ between the UniversalManifesting Principle and its Individual Manifestation. 

Such, it appears to me, must be the conception of the Divine Ideal embodiedin the Fifth Stage of the progress of manifestation. But I would drawparticular attention to the concluding words of the last paragraph, for ifwe miss the _relation_ between the Universal Manifesting Principle and itsIndividual Manifestation, we have failed to realize the Principlealtogether, whether in the Universal or in the Individual--it is just theirinteraction that makes each become what it does become--and in this furtherbecoming consists the progression. This relation proceeds from theprinciple I pointed out in the opening chapter which makes it necessary forthe Universal Spirit to be always harmonious with itself; and if this Unityis not recognized by the individual he cannot hold that position ofReciprocity to the Originating Spirit which will enable it to recognizeitself as in the Enjoyment of Life at the higher level we are nowcontemplating--rather the feeling conveyed would be that of somethingantagonistic, producing the reverse of enjoyment, thus philosophicallybringing out the point of the Scriptural injunction, "Grieve not theSpirit. " Also the re-action upon the individual must necessarily give riseto a corresponding state of inharmony, though he may not be able to definehis feeling of unrest or to account for it. But on the other hand if thegrand harmony of the Originating Spirit within itself is duly regarded, then the individual mind affords a fresh center from which the Spiritcontemplates itself in what I have ventured to call its ArtisticOriginality--a boundless potential of Creativeness, yet always regulated byits own inherent Law of Unity. 

And this Law of the Spirit's Original Unity is a very simple one. It is theSpirit's necessary and basic conception of itself. A lie is a statementthat something is, which is not. Then, since the Spirit's statement orconception of anything necessarily makes that thing exist, it is logicallyimpossible for it to conceive a lie. Therefore the Spirit is Truth. Similarly disease and death are the negative of Life, and therefore theSpirit, as the Principle of Life, cannot embody disease or death in itsSelf-contemplation. In like manner also, since it is free to produce whatit will, the Spirit cannot desire the presence of repugnant forms, and soone of its inherent Laws must be Beauty. In this threefold Law of Truth, Life, and Beauty, we find the whole underlying nature of the Spirit, and noaction on the part of the individual can be at variance with theOriginating Unity which does not contravert these fundamental principles. 

This it will be seen leaves the individual absolutely unfettered except inthe direction of breaking up the fundamental harmony on which he himself, as included in the general creation, is dependent. This certainly cannot becalled limitation, and we are all free to follow the lines of our ownindividuality in every other direction; so that, although the recognitionof our relation to the Originating Spirit safeguards us from injuringourselves or others, it in no way restricts our liberty of action ornarrows our field of development. Am I, then, trying to base my action upona fundamental desire for the opening out of Truth, for the increasing ofLivingness, and for the creating of Beauty? Have I got this as an everpresent Law of Tendency at the back of my thought? If so, then this lawwill occupy precisely the same place in My Microcosm, or personal world, that it does in the Macrocosm, or great world, as a power which is initself formless, but which by reason of its presence necessarily impressesits character upon all that the creative energy forms. On this basis thecreative energy of the Universal Mind may be safely trusted to work throughthe specializing influence of our own thought[1] and we may adopt the maxim"trust your desires" because we know that they are the movement of theUniversal in ourselves, and that being based upon our fundamentalrecognition of the Life, Love, and Beauty which the Spirit is, theirunfoldments must carry these initial qualities with them all down the line, and thus, in however small a degree, becomes a portion of the working ofthe Spirit in its inherent creativeness. 

This perpetual Creativeness of the Spirit is what we must never lose sightof, and that is why I want the student to grasp clearly the idea of theSpirit's Self-contemplation as the only possible root of the CreativeProcess. Not only at the first creation of the world, but at all times theplane of the innermost is that of Pure Spirit, [2] and therefore at this, the originating point, there is nothing else for Spirit to contemplateexcepting itself; then this Self-contemplation produces correspondingmanifestation, and since Self-contemplation or recognition of its ownexistence must necessarily go on continually, the correspondingcreativeness must always be at work. If this fundamental idea be clearlygrasped we shall see that incessant and progressive creativeness is thevery essence and being of Spirit. This is what is meant by theAffirmativeness of the Spirit. It cannot _per se_ act negatively, that isto say uncreatively, for by the very nature of its Self-recognition such anegative action would be impossible. Of course if _we_ act negatively then, since the Spirit is always acting affirmatively, we are moving in theopposite direction to it; and consequently so long as we regard our ownnegative action as being affirmative, the Spirit's action must appear to usnegative, and thus it is that all the negative conditions of the world havetheir root in negative or inverted thought: but the more we bring ourthought into harmony with the Life, Love, and Beauty which the Spirit is, the less these inverted conditions will obtain, until at last they will beeliminated altogether. To accomplish this is our great object; for thoughthe progress may be slow it will be steady if we proceed on a definiteprinciple; and to lay hold of the true principle is the purpose of ourstudies. And the principle to lay hold of is the Ceaseless Creativeness ofSpirit. This is what we mean when we speak of it as The Spirit of theAffirmative, and I would ask my readers to impress this term upon theirminds. Once grant that the All-originating Spirit is thus the Spirit of thePure Affirmative, and we shall find that this will lead us logically toresults of the highest value. 

If, then, we keep this Perpetual and Progressive Creativeness of the Spiritcontinually in mind we may rely upon its working as surely in ourselves asin that great cosmic forward movement which we speak of as Evolution. It isthe same power of Evolution working within ourselves, only with thisdifference, that in proportion as we come to realize its nature we findourselves able to facilitate its progress by offering more and morefavorable conditions for its working. We do not add to the force of thePower, for we are products of it and so cannot generate what generates_us_; but by providing suitable conditions we can more and more highlyspecialize it. This is the method of all the advance that has ever beenmade. We never create any force (_e. G. _ electricity) but we provide specialconditions under which the force manifests _itself_ in a variety of usefuland beautiful ways, unsuspected possibilities which lay hidden in the poweruntil brought to light by the cooperation of the Personal Factor. 

Now it is precisely the introduction[3] of this Personal Factor thatconcerns us, because to all eternity we can only recognize things from ourown center of consciousness, whether in this world or in any other;therefore the practical question is how to specialize in our own case the_generic_ Originating Life which, when we give it a name, we call "theSpirit. " The method of doing this is perfectly logical when we once seethat the principle involved is that of the Self-recognition of Spirit. Wehave traced the _modus operandi_ of the Creative Process sufficiently farto see that the existence of the cosmos is the result of the Spirit'sseeing itself _in_ the cosmos, and if this be the law of the whole it mustalso be the law of the part. But there is this difference, that so long asthe normal average relation of particles is maintained the whole continuesto subsist, no matter what position any particular particle may go into, just as a fountain continues to exist no matter whether any particular dropof water is down in the basin or at the top of the jet. This is the_generic_ action which keeps the race going as a whole. But the questionis, What is going to become of ourselves? Then because the law of the wholeis also the law of the part we may at once say that what is wanted is forthe Spirit _to see itself in us_--in other words, to find in us theReciprocal which, as we have seen, is necessary to its Enjoyment of acertain Quality of Consciousness. Now, the fundamental consciousness of theSpirit must be that of Self-sustaining Life, and for the full enjoyment ofthis consciousness there must be a corresponding _individual_ consciousnessreciprocating it; and on the part of the individual such a consciousnesscan only arise from the recognition that his own life is identical withthat of the Spirit--not something sent forth to wander away by itself, butsomething included in and forming part of the Greater Life. Then by thevery conditions of the case, such a contemplation on the part of theindividual is nothing else than the Spirit contemplating itself from thestandpoint of the individual consciousness, and thus fulfilling the Law ofthe Creative Process under such specialized conditions as must logicallyresult in the perpetuation of the individual life. It is the Law of theCosmic Creative Process transferred to the individual. 

This, it seems to me, is the Divine Ideal: that of an Individuality whichrecognizes its Source, and recognizes also the method by which it springsfrom that Source, and which is therefore able to open up in itself achannel by which that Source can flow in uninterruptedly; with the resultthat from the moment of this recognition the individual lives directly fromthe Originating Life, as being himself _a special direct creation_, and notmerely as being a member of a generic race. The individual who has reachedthis stage of recognition thus finds a principle of enduring life _withinhimself_; so then the next question is in what way this principle is likelyto manifest itself. 

CHAPTER IV

THE MANIFESTATION OF THE LIFE PRINCIPLE

We must bear in mind that what we have now reached is a principle, oruniversal potential, only we have located it in the individual. But aprinciple, as such, is not manifestation. Manifestation is the growthproceeding _from_ the principle, that is to say, some Form in which theprinciple becomes active. At the same time we must recollect that, though aform is necessary for manifestation, _the_ form is not essential, for thesame principle may manifest through various forms, just as electricity maywork either through a lamp or a tram-car without in any way changing itsinherent nature. In this way we are brought to the conclusion that theLife-principle must always provide itself with a body in which to function, though it does not follow that this body must always be of the samechemical constitution as the one we now possess. We might well imagine somedistant planet where the chemical combinations with which we are familiaron earth did not obtain; but if the essential life-principle of anyindividual were transported thither, then by the Law of the CreativeProcess it would proceed to clothe itself with a material body drawn fromthe atmosphere and substance of that planet; and the personality thusproduced would be quite at home there, for all his surroundings would beperfectly natural to him, however different the laws of Nature might bethere from what we know here. 

In such a conception as this we find the importance of the two leadingprinciples to which I have drawn attention--first, the power of the Spiritto create _ex nihilo_, and secondly, the individual's recognition of thebasic principle of Unity giving permanence and solidity to the frame ofNature. By the former the self-recognizing life-principle could produce anysort of body it chose; and by the latter it would be led to project one inharmony with the natural order of the particular planet, thus making allthe facts of that order solid realities to the individual, and himself asolid and natural being to the other inhabitants of that world. But thiswould not do away with the individual's knowledge of how he got there; andso, supposing him to have realized his identity with the UniversalLife-Principle sufficiently to consciously control the projection of hisown body, he could at will disintegrate the body which accorded with theconditions of one planet and constitute one which accorded just asharmoniously with those of another, and could thus function on any numberof planets as a perfectly natural being on each of them. He would in allrespects resemble the other inhabitants with one all-important exception, that since he had attained to unity with his Creative Principle he wouldnot be tied by the laws of matter as they were. 

Any one who should attain to such a power could only do so by hisrealization of the all-embracing Unity of the Spirit as being theFoundation of all things; and this being the basis of his own extendedpowers he would be the last to controvert his own basic principle byemploying his powers in such a way as to disturb the natural course ofevolution in the world where he was. He might use them to help forward theevolution of others in that world, but certainly never to disturb it, forhe would always act on the maxim that "Order is Heaven's First Law. "

Our object, however, is not to transfer ourselves to other planets but toget the best out of this one; but we shall not get the best out of this oneuntil we realize that the power which will enable us to do so is soabsolutely universal and fundamental that its application in this world isprecisely the same as in any other, and that is why I have stated it as ageneral proposition applicable to all worlds. 

The principle being thus universal there is no reason why we shouldpostpone its application till we find ourselves in another world, and thebest place and time to begin are Here and Now. The starting point is not intime or locality, but in the mode of Thought; and if we realize that thisPoint of Origination is Spirit's power to produce something out of nothing, and that it does this in accordance with the natural order of substance ofthe particular world in which it is working, then the spiritual ego inourselves, as proceeding direct from the Universal Spirit, should be ablefirst, to so harmoniously combine the working of spiritual and physicallaws in its own body as to keep it in perfect health, secondly to carrythis process further and renew the body, thus eradicating the effects ofold age, and thirdly to carry the process still further and perpetuate thisrenewed body as long as the individual might desire. 

If the student shows this to one of his average acquaintances who has nevergiven any thought to these things, his friend will undoubtedly exclaim"Tommy rot!" even if he does not use a stronger expletive. He will at onceappeal to the past experience of all mankind, his argument being that whathas not been in the past cannot be in the future; yet he does not apply thesame argument to aeronautics and is quite oblivious of the fact that theSacred Volume which he reverences contains promises of these very things. The really earnest student must never forget the maxim that "Principle isnot bound by Precedent"--if it were we should still be primitive savages. 

To use the Creative Process we must Affirm the Creative Power, that is tosay, we must go back to the Beginning of the series and start with PureSpirit, only remembering that this starting-point is now to be found _inourselves_, for this is what distinguishes the individual Creative Processfrom the cosmic one. This is where the importance of realizing only ONEOriginating Power instead of two interacting powers comes in, for it meansthat we do not derive our power from any existing polarity, but that we aregoing to establish polarities which will start secondary causation on thelines which we thus determine. This also is where the importance comes inof recognizing that the only possible originating movement of spirit mustbe Self-contemplation, for this shows us that we do not have to contemplateexisting conditions but the Divine Ideal, and that this contemplation ofthe Divine Ideal of Man is the Self-contemplation of the Spirit from thestandpoint of Human Individuality. 

Then the question arises, if these principles are true, why are we notdemonstrating them? Well, when our fundamental principle is obviouslycorrect and yet we do not get the proper results, the only inference isthat somewhere or other we have introduced something antagonistic to thefundamental principle, something not inherent in the principle itself andwhich therefore owes its presence to some action of our own. Now the errorconsists in the belief that the Creative Power is limited by the materialin which it works. If this be assumed, then you have to calculate theresistances offered by the material; and since by the terms of the CreativeProcess these resistances do not really exist, you have no basis ofcalculation at all--in fact you have no means of knowing where you are, andeverything is in confusion. This is why it is so important to remember thatthe Creative Process is the action of a Single Power, and that theinteraction of two opposite polarities comes in at a later stage, and isnot creative, but only distributive--that is to say, it localizes theEnergy already proceeding from the Single Power. This is a fundamentaltruth which should never be lost sight of. So long, however, as we fail tosee this truth we necessarily limit the Creative Power by the material itworks in, and in practise we do this by referring to past experience as theonly standard of judgment. We are measuring the Fifth Kingdom by thestandard of the Fourth, as though we should say that an intellectual man, abeing of the Fourth Kingdom, was to be limited by the conditions whichobtain in the First or Mineral Kingdom--to use Scriptural language we areseeking the Living among the dead. 

And moreover at the present time a new order of experience is beginning toopen out to us, for well authenticated instances of the cure of disease bythe invisible power of the Spirit are steadily increasing in number. Thefacts are now too patent to be denied--what we want is a better knowledgeof the power which accounts for them. And if this beginning is now with us, by what reason can we limit it? The difference between the healing ofdisease and the renewal of the entire organism and the perpetuation of lifeis only a difference of degree and not of kind; so that the actualexperience of increasing numbers shows the working of a principle to whichwe can logically set no limits. 

If we get the steps of the Creative Process clearly into our minds we shallsee why we have hitherto had such small results. 

 Spirit creates by Self-contemplation; Therefore, What it contemplates itself as being, that it becomes. You are individualized Spirit; Therefore, What you contemplate as the Law of your being becomes the Law of your being. 

Hence, contemplate a Law of Death arising out of the Forces of the Materialreacting against the Power of the Spirit and overcoming it, and you impressthis mode of self-recognition upon Spirit in yourself. Of course you cannotalter its inherent nature, but you cause it to work under negativeconditions and thus make it produce negative results so far as you yourselfare concerned. 

But reverse the process, and contemplate a Law of Life as inherent in thevery Being of the Spirit, and therefore as inherent in spirit in yourself;and contemplate the forces of the Material as practically non-existent inthe Creative Process, because they are products of it and not causes--lookat things in this way and you will impress a corresponding conception uponthe Spirit which, by the Law of Reciprocity, thus enters intoSelf-contemplation on _these_ lines from the standpoint of your ownindividuality; and then by the nature of the Creative Process acorresponding externalization is bound to take place. Thus our initialquestion, How did anything come into existence at all, brings us to therecognition of a Law of Life which we may each specialize for ourselves;and in the degree to which we specialize it we shall find the CreativePrinciple at work within us building up a healthier and happier personalityin mind, body, and circumstances. 

Only we must learn to distinguish the vehicles of Spirit from Spirititself, for the distinction has very important bearings. What distinguishesthe vehicles from the Spirit is the Law of Growth. The Spirit is theFormless principle of Life, and the vehicle is a Form in which thisprinciple functions. Now the vehicle is a projection by the Spirit ofsubstance coordinate with the natural order of the plane on which thevehicle functions, and therefore requires to be built up comformably tothat order. This building up is what we speak of as Growth; and since theprinciple which causes the growth is the individualized Spirit, the rate atwhich the growth will go on will depend on the amount of vitalizing energythe Spirit puts into it, and the amount of vitalizing energy will depend onthe degree in which the individualized Spirit appreciates its ownlivingness, and finally the degree of this appreciation will depend on thequality of the individual's perception of the Great All-originating Spiritas reflecting itself in him and thus making his contemplation of It nothingelse than the Creative Self-contemplation of the Spirit proceeding from anindividual and personal center. We must therefore not omit the Law ofGrowth in the vehicle from our conception of the working of the Spirit. Asa matter of fact the vehicle has nothing to say in the matter for it issimply a projection from the Spirit; but for this very reason its formationwill be slow or rapid in exact proportion to the individual spirit'svitalizing conception. We could imagine a degree of vitalizing conceptionthat would produce the corresponding form instantaneously, but at presentwe must allow for the weakness of our spiritual power--not as thinking itby any means incapable of accomplishing its object, but as being far slowerin operation now than we hope to see it in the future--and so we must notallow ourselves to be discouraged, but must hold our thought knowing thatit is doing its creative work, and that the corresponding growth is slowlybut surely taking place--thus following the Divine precept that men oughtalways to pray and not to faint. Gradually as we gain experience on thesenew lines our confidence in the power of the Spirit will increase, and weshall be less inclined to argue from the negative side of things, and thusthe hindrances to the inflow of the Originating Spirit will be more andmore removed, and greater and greater results will be obtained. 

If we would have our minds clear on this subject of Manifestation we shouldremember its threefold nature:--First the General Life-Principle, secondlythe Localization of this principle in the Individual, and thirdly theGrowth of the Vehicle as it is projected by the individualized spirit withmore or less energy. It is a sequence of progressive condensation from theUndifferentiated Universal Spirit to the ultimate and outermost vehicle--atruth enshrined in the esoteric maxim that "Matter is Spirit at its lowestlevel. "

The forms thus produced are in true accord with the general order of Natureon the particular plane where they occur, and are therefore perfectlydifferent from forms temporarily consolidated out of material drawn fromother living organisms. These latter phantasmal bodies are held togetheronly by an act of concentrated volition, and can therefore only bemaintained for a short time and with effort; while the body which theindividualized spirit, or ego, builds for itself is produced by a perfectlynatural process and does not require any effort to sustain it, since it iskept in touch with the whole system of the planet by the continuous andeffortless action of the individual's sub-conscious mind. 

This is where the action of sub-conscious mind as the builder of the bodycomes in. Sub-conscious mind acts in accordance with the aggregate ofsuggestion impressed upon it by the conscious mind, and if this suggestionis that of perfect harmony with the physical laws of the planet then acorresponding building by the sub-conscious mind will take place, a processwhich, so far from implying any effort, consists rather in a restful senseof unity with Nature. [4]

And if to this sense of union with the Soul of Nature, that UniversalSub-conscious Mind which holds in the cosmos the same place that thesub-conscious mind does in ourselves--if to this there be superadded asense of union with the All-creating Spirit from which the Soul of Natureflows, then through the medium of the individual's sub-conscious mind suchspecialized effects can be produced in his body as to transcend our pastexperiences without in any way violating the order of the universe. The OldLaw was the manifestation of the Principle of Life working underconstricted conditions: the New Law is the manifestation of the samePrinciple working under expanding conditions. Thus it is that though Godnever changes we are said to "increase with the increase of God. "

CHAPTER V

THE PERSONAL FACTOR

I have already pointed out that the presence of a single all-embracingCosmic Mind is an absolute necessity for the existence of any creationwhatever, for the reason that if each individual mind were an entirelyseparate center of perception, not linked to all other minds by a commonground of underlying mentality independent of all individual action, thenno two persons would see the same thing at the same time, in fact no twoindividuals would be conscious of living in the same world. If this werethe case there would be no common standard to which to refer oursensations; and, indeed, coming into existence with no consciousness ofenvironment except such as we could form by our own unaided thought, andhaving by the hypothesis no standard by which to form our thoughts, wecould not form the conception of any environment at all, and consequentlycould have no recognition of our own existence. The confusion of thoughtinvolved even in the attempt to state such a condition shows it to beperfectly inconceivable, for the simple reason that it isself-contradictory and self-destructive. On this account it is clear thatour own existence and that of the world around us necessarily implies thepresence of a Universal Mind acting on certain _fixed lines of its own_which establish the basis for the working of all individual minds. Thisparamount action of the Universal Mind thus sets an unchangeable standardby which all individual mental action must eventually be measured, andtherefore our first concern is to ascertain what this standard is and tomake it the basis of our own action. 

But if the independent existence of a common standard of reference isnecessary for our self-recognition simply as inhabitants of the world welive in, then _a fortiori_ a common standard of reference is necessary forour recognition of the unique place we hold in the Creative Order, which isthat of introducing the Personal Factor without which the possibilitiescontained in the great Cosmic Laws would remain undeveloped, and theSelf-contemplation of Spirit could never reach those infinite unfoldmentsof which it is logically capable. 

The evolution of the Personal Factor is therefore the point with which weare most concerned. As a matter of fact, whatever theories we may hold tothe contrary, we do all realize the same cosmic environment in the sameway; that is to say, our minds all act according to certain generic lawswhich underlie all our individual diversities of thought and feeling. Thisis so because we are made that way and cannot help it. But with thePersonal Factor the case is different. A standard is no less necessary, butwe are not so made as to conform to it automatically. The very conceptionof automatic conformity to a _personal_ standard is self-contradictory, forit does away with the very thing that constitutes personality, namelyfreedom of volition, the use of the powers of Initiative and Selection. Forthis reason conformity to the Standard of Personality must be a matter ofchoice, which amounts to the same thing as saying that it rests with eachindividual to form his own conception of a standard of Personality; butwhich liberty, however, carries with it the inevitable result that we shallbring into manifestation the _conditions_ corresponding to the sort ofpersonality we accept as our normal standard. 

I would draw attention to the words "Normal Standard. " What we shalleventually attain is, not what we merely wish, but what we regard asnormal. The reason is that since we sub-consciously know ourselves to bebased upon the inherent Law of the Universal Mind we feel, whether we canreason it out or not, that we cannot force the All-producing Mind to workcontrary to its own inherent qualities, and therefore we intuitivelyrecognize that we cannot transcend the sort of personality which is normalaccording to the Law of Universal Mind. This thought is always at the backof our mind and we cannot get away from it for the simple reason that it isinherent in our mental constitution, because our mind is itself a productof the Creative Process; and to suppose ourselves transcending thepossibilities contained in the Originating Mind would involve the absurdityof supposing that we can get the greater out of the less. 

Nevertheless there are some who try to do so, and their position is asfollows. They say in effect, I want to transcend the standard of humanityas I see it around me. But this is the normal standard according to the Lawof the Universe, therefore I have to get above the Law of the Universe. Consequently I cannot draw the necessary power from that Law, and so thereis nowhere else to get it except from myself. Thus the aspirant is thrownback upon his own individual will as the ultimate power, with the resultthat the onus lies on him of concentrating a force sufficient to overcomethe Law of the Universe. There is thus continually present to him asuggestion of struggle against a tremendous opposing force, and as aconsequence he is continually subjecting himself to a strain which growsmore and more intense as he realizes the magnitude of the force againstwhich he is contending. Then as he begins to realize the inequality of thestruggle he seeks for extraneous aid, and so he falls back on variousexpedients, all of which have this in common that they ultimately amount toinvoking the assistance of other individualities, not seeing that thisinvolves the same fallacy which has brought him to his present straits, thefallacy, namely, of supposing that any individuality can develop a powergreater than that of the source from which itself proceeds. The fallacy isa radical one; and therefore all efforts based upon it are fore-doomed toultimate failure, whether they take the form of reliance on personal forceof will, or magical rites, or austerity practised against the body, orattempts by abnormal concentration to absorb the individual in theuniversal, or the invocation of spirits, or any other method--the samefallacy is involved in them all, that the less is larger than the greater. 

Now the point to be noted is that the idea of transcending the presentconditions of humanity does not necessarily imply the idea of transcendingthe normal law of humanity. The mistake we have hitherto made has been infixing the Standard of Personality too low and in taking our pastexperiences as measuring the ultimate possibilities of the race. Ourliberty consists in our ability to form our own conception of the NormalStandard of Personality, only subject to the conditions arising out of theinherent Law of the underlying Universal Mind; and so the whole thingresolves itself into the question, What are those fundamental conditions?The Law is that we cannot transcend the Normal; therefore comes thequestion, What is the Normal?

I have endeavored to answer this question in the chapter on the DivineIdeal, but since this is the crucial point of the whole subject we maydevote a little further attention to it. The Normal Standard of Personalitymust necessarily be the reproduction in Individuality of what the UniversalMind is in itself, because, by the nature of the Creative Process, thisstandard results from Spirit's Self-contemplation at the stage where itsrecognition is turned toward its own power of Initiative and Selection. Atthis stage Spirit's Self-recognition has passed beyond that ofSelf-expression through a mere Law of Averages into the recognition of whatI have ventured to call its Artistic Ability; and as we have seen thatSelf-recognition at any stage can only be attained by the realization of a_relation_ stimulating that particular sort of consciousness, it followsthat for the purpose of this further advance expression through individualsof a corresponding type is a necessity. Then by the Law of Reciprocity suchbeings must possess powers similar to those contemplated in itself by theOriginating Spirit, in other words they must be in their own sphere theimage and likeness of the Spirit as it sees itself. 

Now we have seen that the Creating Spirit necessarily possesses the powersof Initiative and Selection. These we may call its _active_ properties--thesumming up of what it _does_. But what any power does depends on what it_is_, for the simple reason that it cannot give out what it does notcontain; therefore at the back of the initiative and selective power of theSpirit we must find what the Spirit _is_, namely, what are its_substantive_ properties. To begin with it must be Life. Then because it isLife it must be Love, because as the undifferentiated Principle of Life itcannot do otherwise than tend to the fuller development of life in eachindividual, and the pure motive of giving greater enjoyment of life isLove. Then because it is Life guided by Love it must also be Light, that isto say, the primary all-inclusive perception of boundless manifestationsyet to be. Then from this proceeds Power, because there is no opposingforce at the level of Pure Spirit; and therefore Life urged forward by Loveor the desire for recognition, and by Light or the pure perception of theLaw of Infinite Possibility, must necessarily produce Power, for the simplereason that under these conditions it could not stop short of action, forthat would be the denial of the Life, Love, and Light which it is. Thenbecause the Spirit is Life, Love, Light, and Power, it is also Peace, againfor a very simple reason, that being the Spirit of the Whole it cannot setone part in antagonism against another, for that would be to destroy thewholeness. Next the Spirit must be Beauty, because on the same principle ofWholeness it must duly proportion every part to every other part, and thedue proportioning of all parts is beauty. And lastly the Spirit must beJoy, because, working on these lines, it cannot do otherwise than findpleasure in the Self-expression which its works afford it, and in thecontemplation of the limitlessness of the Creative Process by which eachrealized stage of evolution, however excellent, is still the stepping-stoneto something yet more excellent, and so on in everlasting progression. 

For these reasons we may sum up the Substantive Being of theAll-originating Spirit as Life, Love, Light, Power, Peace, Beauty, and Joy;and its Active Power as that of Initiative and Selection. These, therefore, constitute the basic laws of the underlying universal mentality which setsthe Standard of Normal Personality--a standard which, when seen in thislight, transcends the utmost scope of our thought, for it is nothing elsethan the Spirit of the Infinite Affirmative conceived in Human Personality. This standard is therefore that of the Universal Spirit itself reproducedin Human Individuality by the same Law of Reciprocity which we have foundto be the fundamental law of the Creative Process--only now we are tracingthe action of this Law in the Fifth Kingdom instead of in the Fourth. 

This Standard, then, we may call the Universal Principle of Humanity, andhaving now traced the successive steps by which it is reached from thefirst cosmic movement of the Spirit in the formation of the primary nebula, we need not go over the old ground again, and may henceforward take thisDivine Principle of Humanity as our Normal Standard and make it thestarting point for our further evolution. But how are we to do this? Simplyby using the one method of Creative Process, that is, theSelf-contemplation of Spirit. We now know ourselves to be Reciprocals ofthe Divine Spirit, centers in which It finds a fresh standpoint forSelf-contemplation; and so the way to rise to the heights of this GreatPattern is by contemplating it as the Normal Standard of our ownPersonality. 

And be it noted that the Pattern thus set before us is Universal. It is theembodiment of all the great principles of the Affirmative, and so in no wayinterferes with our own particular individuality--_that_ is something builtup upon this foundation, something additional affording the differentiatingmedium through which this unifying Principle finds variety of expression, therefore we need be under no apprehension lest by resting upon thisPattern we should become less ourselves. On the contrary the recognition ofit sets us at liberty to become more fully ourselves because we know thatwe are basing our development, not upon the strength of our own unaidedwill, nor yet upon any sort of extraneous help, but upon the Universal Lawitself, manifesting through us in the proper sequence of the CreativeOrder; so that we are still dealing with Universal principles, only theprinciple by which we are now working is the Universal Principle ofPersonality. 

I wish the student to get this idea very clearly because this is really thecrux of the passage from the Fourth Kingdom into the Fifth. The greatproblem of the future of evolution is the introduction of the PersonalFactor. The reason why this is so is very simple when we see it. To take athought from my own "Doré Lectures" we may put it in this way. In formerdays no one thought of building ships of iron because iron does not float;yet now ships are seldom built of anything else, though the relativespecific gravities of iron and water remain unchanged. What has changed isthe Personal Factor. It has expanded to a more intelligent perception ofthe law of flotation, and we now see that wood floats and iron sinks, bothof them by the same principle working under opposite conditions, the law, namely, that anything will float which bulk for bulk is lighter than thevolume of water displaced by it, so that by including in our calculationsthe displacement of the vessel as well as the specific gravity of thematerial, we now make iron float by the very same law by which it sinks. This example shows that the function of the Personal Factor is to analyzethe manifestations of Law which are spontaneously afforded by Nature and todiscover the Universal Affirmative Principle which lies hidden within them, and then by the exercise of our powers of Initiative and Selection toprovide such specialized conditions as will enable the Universal Principleto work in perfectly new ways transcending anything in our past experience. This is how all progress has been achieved up to the present; and is theway in which all progress must be achieved in the future, only for thepurpose of evolution, or growth from within, we must transfer the method tothe spiritual plane. 

The function, then, of the Personal Factor in the Creative Order is toprovide specialized conditions by the use of the powers of Selection andInitiative, a truth indicated by the maxim "Nature unaided fails"; but thedifficulty is that if enhanced powers were attained by the whole populationof the world without any common basis for their use, their promiscuousexercise could only result in chaotic confusion and the destruction of theentire race. To introduce the creative power of the Individual and at thesame time avoid converting it into a devastating flood is the great problemof the transition from the Fourth Kingdom into the Fifth. For this purposeit becomes necessary to have a Standard of the Personal Factor independentof any individual conceptions, just as we found that in order for us toattain self-consciousness at all it was a necessity that there should be aUniversal Mind as the _generic_ basis of all individual mentality; only inregard to the generic build of mind the conformity is necessarilyautomatic, while in regard to the specializing process the fact that theessence of that process is Selection and Initiative renders it impossiblefor the conformity to the Standard of Personality to be automatic--the verynature of the thing makes it a matter of individual choice. 

Now a Standard of Personality independent of individual conceptions must bethe _essence_ of Personality as distinguished from individualidiosyncrasies, and can therefore be nothing else than the Creative Life, Love, Beauty, etc. , viewed as a Divine Individuality, by identifyingourselves with which we eliminate all possibility of conflict with otherpersonalities based on the same fundamental recognition; and the veryuniversality of this Standard allows free play to all our particularidiosyncrasies while at the same time preventing them from antagonizing thefundamental principles to which we have found that the Self-contemplationof the Originating Spirit must necessarily give rise. In this way we attaina Standard of Measurement for our own powers. If we recognize no suchStandard our development of spiritual powers, our discovery of the immensepossibilities hidden in the inner laws of Nature and of our own being, canonly become a scourge to ourselves and others, and it is for this reasonthat these secrets are so jealously guarded by those who know them, andthat over the entrance to the temple are written the words "EskatoBebeloi"--"Hence ye Profane. "

But if we recognize and accept this Standard of Measurement then we neednever fear our discovery of hidden powers either in ourselves or in Nature, for on this basis it becomes impossible for us to misuse them. Therefore itis that all systematic teaching on these subjects begins with instructionregarding the Creative Order of the Cosmos, and then proceeds to exhibitthe same Order as reproduced on the plane of Personality and so affording afresh starting point for the Creative Process by the introduction ofIndividual Initiative and Selection. This is the doctrine of the Macrocosmand the Microcosm; and the transition from the generic working of theCreative Spirit in the Cosmos to its specific working in the Individual iswhat is meant by the doctrine of the Octave. 

CHAPTER VI

THE STANDARD OF PERSONALITY

We have now got some general idea as to the place of the personal factor inthe Creative Order, and so the next question is, How does this affectourselves? The answer is that if we have grasped the fundamental fact thatthe moving power in the Creative Process is the self-contemplation ofSpirit, and if we also see that, because we are miniature reproductions ofthe Original Spirit, our contemplation of It becomes Its contemplation ofItself from the standpoint of our own individuality--if we have graspedthese fundamental conceptions, then it follows that our process fordeveloping power is to contemplate the Originating Spirit as the source ofthe power we want to develop. And here we must guard against a mistakewhich people often make when looking to the Spirit as the source of power. We are apt to regard it as sometimes giving and sometimes withholdingpower, and consequently are never sure which way it will act. But by sodoing we make Spirit contemplate itself as having no definite action atall, as a plus and minus which mutually cancel each other, and therefore bythe Law of the Creative Process no result is to be expected. The mistakeconsists in regarding the power as something separate from the Spirit;whereas by the analysis of the Creative Process which we have now made wesee that the Spirit itself _is_ the power, because the power comes intoexistence only through Spirit's self-contemplation. Then the logicalinference from this is that by contemplating the Spirit _as_ the power, and_vice versa_ by contemplating the power _as_ the Spirit, a similar power isbeing generated in ourselves. 

Again an important conclusion follows from this, which is that to generateany _particular sort_ of power we should contemplate it in the abstractrather than as applied to the particular set of circumstances we have inhand. The circumstances indicate the sort of power we want but they do nothelp us to generate it; rather they impress us with a sense of somethingcontrary to the power, something which has to be overcome by it, andtherefore we should endeavor to dwell on the power _in itself_, and so comeinto touch with it in its limitless infinitude. 

It is here that we begin to find the benefit of a Divine Standard of HumanIndividuality. That also is an Infinite Principle, and by identifyingourselves with it we bring to bear upon the abstract conception of infiniteImpersonal Power a corresponding conception of Infinite Personality, sothat we thus import the Personal Factor which is able _to use_ the Powerwithout imposing any strain upon ourselves. We know that by the very natureof the Creative Process we are one with the Originating Spirit andtherefore one with all the principles of its Being, and consequently onewith its Infinite Personality, and therefore our contemplation of it as thePower which we want gives us the power to use that Power. 

This is the Self-contemplation of Spirit employed from the individualstandpoint for the generating of power. Then comes the application of thepower thus generated. But there is only one Creative Process, that of theSelf-contemplation of Spirit, and therefore the way to use this process forthe application of the power is to contemplate ourselves as surrounded bythe conditions which we want to produce. This does not mean that we are tolay down a hard and fast pattern of the conditions and strenuously endeavorto compel the Power to conform its working to every detail of our mentalpicture--to do so would be to hinder its working and to exhaust ourselves. What we are to dwell upon is the idea of an Infinite Power producing thehappiness we desire, and because this Power is also the Forming Power ofthe universe trusting it to give that form to the conditions which willmost perfectly react upon us to produce the particular state ofconsciousness desired. 

Thus neither on the side of in-drawing nor of out-giving is there anyconstraining of the Power, while in both cases there is an initiative andselective action on the part of the individual--for the generating ofpower he takes the initiative of invoking it by contemplation, and he makesselection of the sort of power to invoke; while on the giving-out side hemakes selection of the purpose for which the Power is to be employed, andtakes the initiative by his thought of directing the Power to that purpose. He thus fulfils the fundamental requirements of the Creative Process byexercising Spirit's inherent faculties of initiative and selection by meansof its inherent method, namely by Self-contemplation. The whole action isidentical in kind with that which produces the cosmos, and it is nowrepeated in miniature for the particular world of the individual; only wemust remember that this miniature reproduction of the Creative Process isbased upon the great fundamental principles inherent in the Universal Mind, and cannot be dissociated from them without involving a conception of theindividual which will ultimately be found self-destructive because it cutsaway the foundation on which his individuality rests. 

It will therefore be seen that any individuality based upon the fundamentalStandard of Personality thus involved in the Universal Mind has reached thebasic principle of union with the Originating Spirit itself, and we aretherefore correct in saying that union is attained through, or by means of, this Standard Personality. This is a great truth which in all ages has beenset forth under a variety of symbolic statements; often misunderstood, andstill continuing to be so, though owing to the inherent vitality of theidea itself even a partial apprehension of it produces a correspondingmeasure of good results. This falling short has been occasioned by thefailure to recognize an Eternal Principle at the back of the particularstatements--in a word the failure to see what they were talking about. All_principles_ are eternal in themselves, and this is what distinguishes themfrom their particular manifestations as laws determined by temporary andlocal conditions. 

If then, we would reach the root of the matter we must penetrate throughall verbal statements to an Eternal Principle which is as active now asever in the past, and which is as available to ourselves as to any who havegone before us. Therefore it is that when we discern an Eternal andUniversal Principle of Human Personality as necessarily involved in theEssential Being of the Originating Universal Spirit--_Filius in gremioPatris_--we have discovered the true Normal Standard of Personality. Thenbecause this standard is nothing else than the principle of Personalityexpanded to infinitude, there is no limit to the expansion which weourselves may attain by the operation in us of this principle; and so weare never placed in a position of antagonism to the true law of our being, but on the contrary the larger and more fundamental our conception ofpersonal development the greater will be the fulfilment which we give tothe Law. The Normal Standard of Personality is found to be itself the Lawof the Creative Process working at the personal level; and it cannot besubject to limitation for the simple reason that the process being that ofthe Self-contemplation of Spirit, no limits can possibly be assigned tothis contemplation. 

We need, therefore, never be afraid of forming too high an idea of humanpossibilities provided always that we take this standard as the foundationon which to build up the edifice of our personality. And we see that thisstandard is no arbitrary one but simply the Expression in Personality ofthe ONE all-embracing Spirit of the Affirmative; and therefore the onlylimitation implied by conformity to it is that of being prevented fromrunning on lines the opposite of those of the Creative Process, that is tosay, from calling into action causes of disintegration and destruction. Inthe truly Constructive Order, therefore, the Divine Standard of Personalityis as really the basis of the development of specific personality as theUniversal Mind is the necessary basis of generic mentality; and just aswithout this generic ultimate of Mind we should none of us see the sameworld at the same time, and in fact have no consciousness of existence, soapart from this Divine Standard of Personality it is equally impossible forus to specialize the generic law of our being so as to develop all theglorious possibilities that are latent in it. 

Only we must never forget the difference between these two statements ofthe Universal Law--the one is cosmic and generic, common to the whole race, whether they know it or not, a Standard to which we all conformautomatically by the mere fact of being human beings; while the other is apersonal and individual Standard, automatic conformity to which isimpossible because that would imply the loss of those powers of Initiativeand Selection which are the very essence of Personality; so that thisStandard necessarily implies a personal selection of it in preference toother conceptions of an antagonistic nature. 

CHAPTER VII

RACE THOUGHT AND NEW THOUGHT

The steady following up of the successive stages of the Creative Processhas led us to the recognition of an Individuality in the All-creatingSpirit itself, but an Individuality which is by its very nature Universal, and so cannot be departed from without violating the essential principleson which the further expansion of our own individuality depends. At thesame time it is strictly _individual_, for it is the Spirit ofIndividuality, and is thus to be distinguished from that merely _generic_race-personality which makes us human beings at all. Race-personality is ofcourse the necessary _basis_ for the development of this Individuality; butif we do not see that it is only the preliminary to further evolution, anyother conception of our personality as members of the race will prevent ouradvance toward our proper position in the Creative Order, which is that ofintroducing the Personal Factor by the exercise of our individual power ofinitiative and selection. 

It is on this account that Race-thought, simply as such, is opposed to theattempt of the individual to pass into a higher order of life. It limitshim by strong currents of negative suggestion based on the fallacy that theperpetuation of the race requires the death of the individual;[5] and it isonly when the individual sees that this is not true, and that his race-nature constitutes the ground out of which his new Individuality is to beformed, that he becomes able to oppose the negative power of race-thought. He does this by destroying it with its own weapon, that is, by finding inthe race-nature itself the very material to be used by the Spirit forbuilding-up the New Man. This is a discovery on the spiritual planeequivalent to the discovery on the physical plane that we can make ironfloat by the same law by which it sinks. It is the discovery that what wecall the mortal part of us is capable of being brought under a higherapplication of the Universal Law of Life, which will transmute it into animmortal principle. When we see what we call the mortal part of us in thislight we can employ the very principle on which the negative race-thoughtis founded as a weapon for the destruction of that thought in our ownminds. 

The basis of the negative race-thought is the idea that physical death isan essential part of the Normal Standard of Personality, and that the bodyis composed of so much neutral material with which death can do what itlikes. But it is precisely this neutrality of matter that makes it just asamenable to the Law of Life as to the Law of Death--it is simply neutraland not an originating power on either side; so then when we realize thatour Normal Standard of Personality is not subject to death, but is theEternal Essence and Being of Life itself, then we see that this neutralityof matter--its inability to make selection or take initiative on its ownaccount--is just what makes it the plastic medium for the expression ofSpirit in ourselves. 

In this way the generic or race-mind in the individual becomes theinstrument through which the specializing power of the Spirit works towardthe building up of a personality based upon the truly Normal Standard ofIndividuality which we have found to be inherent in the All-originatingSpirit itself: and since the whole question is that of the introduction ofthe factor of personal individuality into the creative order of causation, this cannot be done by depriving the individual of what makes him a personinstead of a thing, namely, the power of conscious initiative andselection. 

For this reason the transition from the Fourth Kingdom into the Fifthcannot be forced upon the race either by a Divine fiat or by the genericaction of cosmic law, for it is a _specialising_ of the cosmic law whichcan only be effected by _personal_ initiative and selection, just as ironcan only be made to float under certain specialized conditions; andconsequently the passage from the Fourth into the Fifth Kingdom is astrictly individual process which can only be brought about by a personalperception of what the normal standard of the New Individuality really is. This can only be done by the active laying aside of the old race-standardand the conscious adoption of the new one. The student will do well toconsider this carefully, for it explains why the race cannot receive thefurther evolution simply as a race; and also it shows that our furtherevolution is not into a state of less activity but of greater, not intobeing less alive but more alive, not into being less ourselves but moreourselves; thus being just the opposite of those systems which present thegoal of existence as re-absorption into the undifferentiated Divineessence. On the contrary our further evolution is into greater degrees ofconscious activity than we have ever yet known, because it implies ourdevelopment of greater powers as the consequence of our clearer perceptionof our true relation to the All-originating Spirit. It is the recognitionthat we may, and should, measure ourselves by this New Standard instead ofby the old race-standard that constitutes the real New Thought. The NewThought which gives New Life to the individual will never be realized solong as we think that it is merely the name of a particular sect, or thatit is to be found in the mechanical observance of a set of rules laid downfor us by some particular teacher. It is a New Fact in the experience ofthe individual, the _reason_ for which is indeed made clear to him throughintellectual perception of the real nature of the Creative Process, butwhich can become an actual experience only by habitual personal intercoursewith that Divine Spirit which is the Life, Love and Beauty that are at theback of the Creative Process and find expression through it. 

From this intercourse new thoughts will continually flow in, all of thembearing that vivifying element which is inherent in their source, and theindividual will then proceed to work out these new ideas with the knowledgethat they have their origin in the selection and initiative power of theAll-creating Spirit itself, and in this way by combined meditation andaction he will find himself advancing into increasing light, liberty andusefulness. The advance may be almost imperceptible from one day toanother, but it will be perceptible at longer intervals, and the one who isthus moving forward with the Spirit of God will on looking back at any timealways find that he is getting more livingness out of life than he was ayear previously. And this without strenuous effort, for he is not having tomanufacture the power from his own resources but only to _receive_ it--andas for _using_ it, that is only the exercise of the power itself. Sofollowing on these lines you will find that Rest and Power are identical;and so you get the real New Thought which grows in Newness every day. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE DÉNOUEMENT OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Then comes the question, What should logically be the dénouement of theprogression we have been considering? Let us briefly recapitulate the stepsof the series. Universal Spirit by Self-contemplation evolves UniversalSubstance. From this it produces cosmic creation as the expression ofitself as functioning in Space and Time. Then from this initial movement itproceeds to more highly specialized modes of Self-contemplation in acontinually ascending scale, for the simple reason that self-contemplationadmits of no limits and therefore each stage of self-recognition cannot beother than the starting-point for a still more advanced mode ofself-contemplation, and so on _ad infinitum_. Thus there is a continuousprogress toward more and more highly specialized forms of life, implyinggreater liberty and wider scope for enjoyment as the capacity of theindividual life corresponds to a higher degree of the contemplation ofSpirit; and in this way evolution proceeds till it reaches a level where itbecomes impossible to go any further except by the exercise of consciousselection and initiative on the part of the individual, while at the sametime conforming to the universal principles of which evolution is theexpression. 

Now ask yourself in what way individual selection and initiative would belikely to act as expressing the Originating Spirit itself? Given theknowledge on the part of the individual that he is able by his power ofinitiative and selection to draw directly upon the All-originating Spiritof Life, what motive could he have for not doing so? Therefore, grantedsuch a perfect recognition, we should find the individual holding preciselythe same place in regard to his own individual world that theAll-originating Spirit does to the cosmos; subject only to the same Law ofLove, Beauty, &c. , which we found to be necessarily inherent in theCreative Spirit--a similarity which would entirely prevent the individualfrom exercising his otherwise limitless powers in any sort of antagonism tothe Spirit of the Great Whole. 

At the same time the individual would be quite aware that he was not theUniversal Spirit _in propria persona_, but that he was affording expressionto it through his individuality. Now Expression is impossible exceptthrough Form, and therefore form of some sort is a necessity ofindividuality. It is just here, then, that we find the importance of thatprinciple of Harmony with Environment of which I spoke earlier, theprinciple in accordance with which a person who had obtained completecontrol of matter, if he wished to transport himself to some other planet, would appear there in perfect conformity with all the laws of matter thatobtained in that world; though, of course, not subject to any limitation ofthe Life Principle in himself. He would exhibit the laws of matter asrendered perfect by the Law of Originating Life. But if any one now livingon this earth were thus perfectly to realize the Law of Life he would be inprecisely the same position _here_ as our imaginary visitor to anotherplanet--in other words the dénouement of the Law of Life is not the puttingoff of the body, but its inclusion as part of the conscious life of theSpirit. 

This does not imply any difference in the molecular structure of the bodyfrom that of other men, for by the principle of Harmony of which I havejust spoken, it would be formed in strict accordance with the laws ofmatter on the particular planet; though it would not be subject to thelimitations resulting from the average man's non-recognition of the powerof the Spirit. The man who had thus fully entered into the Fifth Kingdomwould recognize that, in its relation to the denser modes of matter hisbody was of a similar dense mode. That would be its relation to externalenvironment as seen by others. But since the man now knew _himself_ as notbelonging to these denser modes of manifestation, but as anindividualization of Primary Spirit, he would see that relatively tohimself all matter was Primary Substance, and that from this point of viewany condensations of that substance into atoms, molecules, tissues, and thelike counted for nothing--for him the body would be simply PrimarySubstance entirely responsive to his will. Yet his reverence for the Law ofHarmony would prevent any disposition to play psychic pranks with it, andhe would use his power over the body only to meet actual requirements. 

In this way, then, we are led to the conclusion that eternal life in animmortal physical body is the logical dénouement of our evolution; and ifwe reflect that, by the conditions of the case, the owners of such bodiescould at will either transport themselves to other worlds or put off thephysical body altogether and remain in the purely subjective life whilestill retaining the power to reclothe themselves in flesh whenever theychose, we shall see that this dénouement of evolution answers all possiblequestions as to the increase of the race, the final destruction of theplanet, and the like. 

This, then, is the ultimate which we should keep in view; but the factremains that, though there may be hidden ones who have thus attained, thebulk of mankind have not, and that the common lot of humanity is to gothrough the change which we call death. In broad philosophical terms deathmay be described as the withdrawal of the life into the subjectiveconsciousness to the total exclusion of the objective consciousness. Thenby the general law of the relation between subjective and objective mind, the subjective mind severed from its corresponding objective mentality hasno means of acquiring fresh impressions _on its own account_, and thereforecan only ring the changes on those impressions which it has brought with itfrom its past life. But these may be of very various sorts, ranging fromthe lowest to the highest, from those most opposed to that ultimate destinyof man which we have just been considering, to those which recognize hispossibilities in a very large measure, needing little more to bring aboutthe full fruition of perfected life. But however various may be theirexperiences, all who have passed through death must have this in commonthat they have lost their physical instrument of objective perception andso have their mode of consciousness determined entirely by the dominantmode of suggestion which they have brought over with them from theobjective side of life. [6] Of course if the objective mentality were alsobrought over this would give the individual the same power of initiativeand selection that he possesses while in the body, and, as we shall seelater on, there are exceptional persons with whom this is the case; but forthe great majority the physical brain is a necessity for the working of theobjective mentality, and so when they are deprived of this instrument theirlife becomes purely subjective and is a sort of dream-life, only with avast difference between two classes of dreamers--those who dream as theymust and those who dream as they will. The former are those who haveenslaved themselves in various ways to their lower mentality--some bybringing with them the memory of crimes unpardoned, some by bringing withthem the idea of a merely animal life, others less degraded, but still inbondage to limited thought, bringing with them only the suggestion of afrivolous worldly life--in this way, by the natural operation of the Law ofSuggestion, these different classes, either through remorse, or unsatisfieddesires, or sheer incapacity to grasp higher principles, all remainearth-bound, suffering in exact correspondence with the nature of thesuggestion they have brought along with them. The unchangeable Law is thatthe suggestion becomes the life; and this is equally true of suggestions ofa happier sort. Those who have brought over with them the great truth thatconditions are the creations of thought, and who have accustomed themselveswhile in objective life to dwell on good and beautiful ideas, are stillable, by reason of being imbued with this suggestion, to mold theconditions of their consciousness in the subjective world in accordancewith the sort of ideas which have become a second nature to them. Withinthe limits of these ideas the dominant suggestion to these entities is thatof a Law which confers Liberty, so by using this Law of the constructivepower of thought they can determine the conditions of their ownconsciousness; and thus instead of being compelled to suffer the nightmaredreams of the other class, they can mold their dream according to theirwill. We cannot conceive of such a life as theirs in the unseen asotherwise than happy, nevertheless its range is limited by the range of theconceptions they have brought with them. These may be exceedingly beautifuland thoroughly true and logical _as far as they go_; but they do not go thewhole way, otherwise these spirits would not be in the category which weare considering but would belong to that still higher class who fullyrealize the ultimate possibilities which the Law of the Expression ofSpirit provides. 

The otherwise happy subjective life of these more enlightened souls hasthis radical defect that they have failed to bring over with them thatpower of original selection and initiative without which further progressis impossible. I wish the student to grasp this point very clearly, for itis of the utmost importance. Of course the basis of our further evolutionis conformity to the harmonious nature of the Originating Spirit; but uponthis foundation we each have to build up the superstructure of our ownindividuality, and every step of advance depends on our personaldevelopment of power to take that step. This is what is meant by taking aninitiative. It is making a New Departure, not merely recombining the oldthings into fresh groupings still subject to the old laws, but introducingan entirely new element which will bring its own New Law along with it. 

Now if this is the true meaning of "initiative" then that is just thepower which these otherwise happy souls do not possess. For by the veryconditions of the case they are living only in their subjectiveconsciousness, and consequently are living by the law of subjective mind;and one of the chief characteristics of subjective mind is its incapacityto reason inductively, and therefore its inability to make the selectionand take the initiative necessary to inaugurate a New Departure. The wellestablished facts of mental law show conclusively that subjective mindargues only deductively. It argues quite correctly from any given premises, but it cannot take the initiative in selecting the premises--that is theprovince of inductive reasoning which is essentially the function of theobjective mind. But by the law of Auto-suggestion this discarnateindividual has brought over his premises with him, which premises are thesum-total of his inductions made during objective life, the conception ofthings which he held at the time he passed over, for this constituted hisidea of Truth. Now he cannot add to these inductions, for he has partedwith his instrument for inductive reasoning, and therefore his deductivereasoning in the purely subjective state which he has now entered isnecessarily limited to the consequences which may be deducted from thepremises which he has brought along with him. 

In the case of the highly-developed individualities we are now consideringthe premises thus brought over are of a very far-reaching and beautifulcharacter, and consequently the range of their subjective life iscorrespondingly wide and beautiful; but, nevertheless, it is subject to theradical defect that it is debarred from further progress for the simplereason that the individual has not brought over with him the mental facultywhich can impress his subjective entity with the requisite forward movementfor making a new departure into a New Order. And moreover, the higher thesubjective development with which the individual passed over the morelikely he will be to realize this defect. If during earth-life he hadgained sufficient knowledge of these things he will carry with him theknowledge that his discarnate existence is purely subjective; and thereforehe will realize that, however he may be able to order the pictures of hisdream, yet it is still but a dream, and in common with all other dreamslacks the basis of solidity from which to take _really creative action_. 

He knows also that the condition of other discarnate individualities issimilar to his own, and that consequently each one must necessarily live ina world apart--a world of his own creation, because none of them possessthe objective mentality by which to direct their subjective currents so asto make them penetrate into the sphere of another subjective entity, whichis the _modus operandi_ of telepathy. Thus he is conscious of his owninability to hold intercourse with other personalities; for though he mayfor his own pleasure create the semblance of them in his dream-life, yet heknows that these are creations of his own mind, and that while he appearsto be conversing with a friend amid the most lovely surroundings the friendhimself may be having experiences of a very different description. I am, ofcourse, speaking now of persons who have passed over in a very high stateof development and with a very considerable, though still imperfect, knowledge of the Law of their own being. Probably the majority take theirdream-life for an external reality; and, in any case, all who have passedover without carrying their objective mentality along with them must beshut up in their individual subjective spheres and cease to function ascenters of creative power so long as they do not emerge from that state. 

But the highly advanced individuals of whom I am now speaking have passedover with a true knowledge of the Law of the relation between subjectiveand objective mind and have therefore brought with them a _subjective_knowledge of this truth; and therefore, however otherwise in a certainsense happy, they must still be conscious of a fundamental limitation whichprevents their further advance. And this consciousness can produce only oneresult, an ever-growing longing for the removal of this limitation--andthis represents the intense desire of the Spirit, as individualized inthese souls, to attain to the conditions under which it can freely exerciseits creative power. Sub-consciously this is the desire of _all_ souls, forit is that continual pressing forward of the Spirit for manifestation outof which the whole Creative Process arises; and so it is that the great cryperpetually ascends to God from all as yet undelivered souls, whether in orout of the body, for the deliverance which they knowingly or unknowinglydesire. 

All this comes out of the well-ascertained facts of the law of relationbetween subjective and objective mind. Then comes the question, Is there noway of getting out of this law? The answer is that we can never get awayfrom universal principles--_but we can specialise them_. We may take it asan axiom that any law which appears to limit us contains in itself theprinciple by which that limitation can be overcome, just as in the case ofthe flotation of iron. In this axiom, then, we shall find the clue whichwill bring us out of the labyrinth. The same law which places variousdegrees of limitation upon the souls that have passed into the invisiblecan be so applied as to set them free. We have seen that everything turnson the obligation of our subjective part to act within the limits of thesuggestion which has been most deeply impressed upon it. Then why notimpress upon it the suggestion that in passing over to the other side ithas brought its objective mentality along with it?

If such a suggestion were effectively impressed upon our subjective mind, then by the fundamental law of our nature our subjective mind would act instrict accordance with this suggestion, with the result that the objectivemind would no longer be separated from it, and that we should carry with usinto the unseen our _whole_ mentality, both subjective and objective, andso be able to exercise our inductive powers of selection and initiative aswell there as here. 

Why not? The answer is that we cannot accept any suggestion unless webelieve it to be true, and to believe it to be true we must feel that wehave a solid foundation for our belief. If, then, we can find a sufficientfoundation for adequately impressing this suggestion upon ourselves, thenthe principles of mental law assure us that we shall carry our objectivefaculty of initiative and selection into the unseen. Therefore our quest isto find this Foundation. Then, since we cannot accept as true what webelieve to be contrary to the ultimate law of the universe, if we are tofind such a foundation at all it must be within that Law; and it is forthis reason that I have laid so much stress upon the Normal Standard ofHuman Individuality. When we are convinced that this ideal completeness isquite normal, and is a spiritual fact, not dependent upon the body, butable to control the body, then we have got the solid basis on which tocarry our objective personality along with us into the unseen, and thewell-established laws of our mental constitution justify the belief that wecan do so. 

From these considerations it is obvious that those who thus pass over inpossession of their complete mentality must be in a very different positionfrom those who pass into a condition of merely subjective life, for theyhave brought their powers of selection and initiative with them, and cantherefore employ their experiences in the unseen as a starting-point forstill further development. So, then, the question arises, What lines willthis further development be likely to follow?

We are now considering the case of persons who have reached a very highdegree of development; who have succeeded in so completely uniting thesubjective and objective portions of their spiritual being into a perfectwhole that they can never again be severed; and who are therefore able tofunction with their whole consciousness on the spiritual plane. Suchpersons will doubtless be well aware that they have attained this degree ofdevelopment by the Law of the Creative Process working in terms of theirown individuality, and so they would naturally always refer to the originalCosmic Creation as the demonstration of the principle which they have tospecialize for their own further evolution. Then they would find that theprinciple involved is that of the manifestation of Spirit in Form; and theywould further see that this manifestation is not an illusion but a reality, for the simple reason that both mind and matter are equally projectionsfrom the Great Originating Spirit. Both alike are thoughts of the DivineMind, and it is impossible to conceive any greater reality than the DivineThought, or to get at any more substantial source of reality than that. Even if we were to picture the Divine Mind as laughing at its productionsas being mere illusions _relatively to itself_ (which I certainly do not), still the relation between the individual mind and material existence wouldbe a reality for the individual, on the simple mathematical ground thatlike signs multiplied together invariably produce a positive result, eventhough the signs themselves be negative; so that, for us, at every stage ofour existence substance must always be as much a reality as mind. Thereforethe manifestation of Spirit in Form is the eternal principle of theCreative Process whether in the evolution of a world-system or in that ofan individual. 

But when we realize that by the nature of the Creative Process substancemust be an eternal verity we must not suppose that this is true also of_particular forms_ or of _particular modes_ of matter. Substance is anecessity for the expression of Spirit, but it does not follow that Spiritis tied down to any particular mode of expression. If you fold a piece ofpaper into the form of a dart it will fly through the air by the law of theform which you have given it. Again, if you take the same bit of paper andfold it into the shape of a boat it will float on water by the law of thenew form that you have given it. The thing formed will act in accordancewith the form given it, and the same paper can be folded into differentforms; but if there were no paper you could put it into any shape at all. The dart and the boat are both real so long as you retain the paper ineither of those shapes; but this does not alter the fact that you canchange the shapes, though your power to do so depends on the existence ofthe paper. This is a rough analogy of the relation between ultimatesubstance and particular forms, and shows us that neither substance norshape is an illusion; both are essential to the manifestation of Spirit, only by the nature of the Creative Process the Spirit has power todetermine what shape substance shall take at any particular time. 

Accordingly we find the great Law that, as Spirit is the Alpha of theCreative Process, so solid material Form is its Omega; in other words theCreative Series is incomplete until solid material form is reached. Anything short of this is a condition of incompleteness, and therefore theenlightened souls who have passed over in possession of both sides of theirmentality will realize that their condition, however beatific, is still oneof incompleteness; and that what is wanted for completion is expressionthrough a material body. This, then, is the direction in which such soulswould use their powers of initiative and selection as being the true lineof evolution--in a word they would realize that the principle of CreativeProgression, when it reaches the level of fully developed mental man, necessarily implies the Resurrection of the Body, and that anything shortof this would be retrogression and not progress. 

At the same time persons who had passed over with this knowledge wouldnever suppose that Resurrection meant merely the resuscitation of the oldbody under the old conditions; for they would see that the same inherentlaw which makes expression in concrete substance the ultimate of thecreative series also makes this ultimate form depend on the originatingmovement of the spirit which produces it, and therefore that, although_some_ concrete form is essential for complete manifestation, and is asubstantial reality so long as it is maintained, yet the maintaining of theparticular form is entirely dependent on the action of the spirit of whichthe form is the external clothing. This resurrection body would thereforebe no mere illusory spirit-shape, yet it would not be subject to thelimitations of matter as we now know it: it would be physical matter still, but entirely subject to the will of the indwelling spirit, which would notregard the denser atomic relations of the body but only its absolute andessential nature as Primary Substance. I want the student to grasp the ideathat the same thing may be very different when looked at, so to say, fromopposite ends of the stick. What is solid molecular matter when viewed fromthe outside is plastic primary substance when viewed from the inside. Therelations of this new body to any stimulus proceeding from outside would bethose of the external laws of Nature; but its relation to the spiritual egoworking from within would be that of a plastic substance to be molded atwill. The employment of such power would, however, at all times be basedupon the reverent worship of the All-creating Spirit; and it wouldtherefore never be exercised otherwise than in accordance with theharmonious progress of the Creative Process. Proceeding on these lines thespirit in the individual would stand in precisely the same relation to hisbody that the All-originating Spirit does to the cosmos. 

This, then, is the sort of body which the instructed would contemplate asthat in which he was to attain resurrection. He would regard it, not as anillusion, but as a great reality; while at the same time he would not needto trouble himself about its particular form, for he would know that itwould be the perfect expression of his own conception of himself. He wouldknow this because it is in accordance with the fundamental principle thatexternal creation has its root in the Self-contemplation of Spirit. 

Those passing over with this knowledge would obviously be in a verydifferent position from those who passed over with only a subjectiveconsciousness. They would bring with them powers of selection andinitiative by which they could continue to impress fresh and expandingconceptions upon their subjective mind, and so cause it to carry on itswork as the seed-ground of the whole individuality, instead of being shutup in itself as a mere circulus for the repetition of previously receivedideas; and so in their recognition of the _principle_ of physicalresurrection they would have a clear and definite line of auto-suggestion. And because this suggestion is derived from the undeniable facts of thewhole cosmic creation, it is one which both subjective and objective mindcan accept as an established fact, and so the suggestion becomes effective. This suggestion, then, becomes the self-contemplation of the individualspirit; and because it is in strict conformity with the generic principleof the Original Creative Activity, of which the individual mind is itself aproduct, this becomes also the Self-contemplation of the Originating Spiritas seeing itself reflected in the individual spirit; so that, by the basiclaw of the Creative Process, this suggestion is bound sooner or later towork out into its corresponding fact, namely, the production of a materialbody free from the power of death and from all those limitations which wenow associate with our physical organism. 

This, then, is the hope of those who pass over in recognition of the greattruth. But how about those who have passed over without that recognition?We have seen that their purely subjective condition precludes them fromtaking any initiative on their own account, for that requires the presenceof objective mind. Their subjective mind, however, still retains itsessential nature; that is, it is still susceptible to suggestion, and stillpossesses its inherent creativeness in working out any suggestion that issufficiently deeply implanted in it. Here, then, opens up a vast field ofactivity for that other class who have passed over in possession of bothsides of their mentality. By means of their powers of initiative andselection they can on the principle of telepathy cause their own subjectivemind to penetrate the subjective spheres of those who do not possess thosepowers, and they can thus endeavor to impress upon them the great truth ofthe physical ultimate of the Creative Process--the truth that any serieswhich stops short of that ultimate is incomplete, and, if insisted upon asbeing ultimate, must become self-destructive because in opposition to theinherent working of the Universal Creative Spirit. Then, as the perceptionof the true nature of the Creative Process dawned upon any subjectiveentity, it would by reason of accepting this suggestion begin to develop anobjective mentality, and so would gradually attain to the same status asthose who had passed over in full possession of all their mental powers. 

But the more the objective mentality became developed in these discarnatepersonalities the more the need of a corresponding physical instrumentwould assert itself, both from their intellectual perception of theoriginal cosmic process, and also from the inherent energy of the Spirit ascentered in the ultimate ego of the individual. Not to seek materialmanifestation would be the contrary of all we have traced out regarding thenature of the Creative Process; and hence the law of tendency resultingfrom the conscious union of subjective and objective mind in the individualmust necessarily be toward the production of a physical form. Only we mustrecollect, as I have already pointed out, that this concentration of theseminds would be upon a principle and not upon a particular bodily shape. Theparticular form they would be content to leave to the inherentself-expressiveness of the Universal Spirit working through the particularego, with the result that their expectation would be fixed upon a _generalprinciple_ of physical Resurrection which would provide a form suited to bethe material instrument of the highest ideal of man as a spiritual andmental being. Then, since the subjective mind is the automatic builder ofthe body, the result of the individual's acceptance of the Resurrectionprinciple must be that this mental conception will eventually work out as acorresponding fact. Whether on this planet or on some other, matters not, for, as we have already seen, the physical body evolved by a soul that isconscious of its unity with the Universal Spirit is bound to be inconformity with the physical laws of _any_ planet, though from thestandpoint of the conscious ego not limited by them. 

In this way we may conceive that those who have passed over in possessionof both sides of their spiritual nature would find a glorious field ofusefulness in the unseen in helping to emancipate those who had passed overin possession of their subjective side only. But from our present analysisit will be seen that this can only be effected on the basis of arecognition of the principle of the Resurrection of the Body. Apart fromthe recognition of this principle the only possible conception which thediscarnate individual could form of himself would be that of a purelysubjective being; and this carries with it all the limitations of asubjective life unbalanced by an objective one; and so long as theprinciple of physical resurrection is denied, so long the life mustcontinue to be merely subjective and consequently unprogressive. [7]

But it may be asked why those who have realized this great principlesufficiently to carry their objective mentality into the unseen state areliable to the change which we call death. The answer is that though theyhave realized _the general principle_ they have not yet divested themselvesof certain conceptions by which they limit it, and consequently by the lawof subjective mind they carry those limitations into the working of theResurrection principle itself. 

They are limited by the race-belief that physical death is under allconditions a necessary law of Nature, or by the theological belief thatdeath is the will of God; so then the question is whether these beliefs arewell founded. Of course appeal is made to universal experience, but it doesnot follow that the universal experience of the past is bound to be theuniversal experience of the future--the universal experience of the pastwas that no man had ever flown across the English Channel, yet now it hasbeen done. What we have to do, therefore, is not to bother about pastexperience, but to examine the inherent nature of the Law of Life and seewhether it does not contain possibilities of further development. And thefirst step in this direction is to see whether what we have hithertoconsidered limitations of the law are really integral parts of the lawitself. The very statement of this question shows the correct answer; forhow can a force acting in one direction be an integral part of a forceacting in the opposite direction? How can the force which pulls a thingdown be an integral part of the force which builds it up? To suppose, therefore, that the limitations of the law are an integral portion of thelaw itself is a _reductio ad absurdum_. 

For these reasons the argument from the past experience of the race countsfor nothing; and when we examine the theological argument we shall findthat it is only the old argument from past experience in another dress. Itis alleged that death is the will of God. How do we know that it is thewill of God? Because the facts prove it so, is the ultimate answer of allreligious systems with one exception; so here we are back again at the oldrace-experience as the criterion of truth. Therefore the theologicalargument is nothing but the materialistic argument disguised. It is in ourmore or less _conscious_ acceptance of the materialistic argument, underany of its many disguises, that the limitation of life is to be found--notin the Law of Life itself; and if we are to bring into manifestation theinfinite possibilities latent in that Law it can only be by lookingsteadily into the _principle_ of the Law and resolutely denying everythingthat opposes it. The Principle of Life must of necessity be Affirmative, and affirmative throughout, without any negative anywhere--if we oncerealize this we shall be able to unmask the enemy and silence his guns. 

Now to do this is precisely the one object of the Bible; and it does it ina thoroughly logical manner, always leading on to the ultimate result bysuccessive links of cause and effect. People will tell you that the Bibleis their authority for saying that Death is the will of God; but these arepeople who read it carelessly; and ultimately the only reason they can giveyou for their manner of interpreting the Bible is that the facts provetheir interpretation to be correct; so that in the last resort you willalways find you have got back to the old materialistic argument from pastrace-experience, which logically proves nothing. These are goodwell-meaning people with a limited idea which they read into the Bible, andso limit its promises by making physical death an essential preliminary toResurrection. They grasp, of course, the great central idea that PerfectedMan possesses a joyous immortal Life permeating spirit, soul and body; butthey relegate it to some dim and distant future, entirely disconnected fromthe present law of our being, not seeing that if we are to have eternallife it must necessarily be involved in some principle which is eternal, and therefore existing, at any rate latently, at the present moment. Hence, though their fundamental principle is true, they are all the time mentallylimiting it, with the result that they themselves create the conditionsthey impose upon it, and consequently the principle will work (asprinciples always do) in accordance with the conditions provided for itsaction. 

Unless, therefore, this limiting belief is entirely eradicated, theindividual, though realizing the fundamental principle of Life, is bound topass out of physical existence; but on the other hand, since he does takethe recognition of this fundamental principle with him, it is bound to bearfruit sooner or later in a joyous Resurrection, while the intermediatestate can only be a peaceful anticipation of that supreme event. This isthe answer to the question why those who have realized the great principlesufficiently to carry their objective mentality into the unseen world arestill liable to physical death; and in the last analysis it will be foundto resolve itself into the remains of race belief based upon pastexperience. These are they who pass over in sure and certain hope of aglorious Resurrection--sure and certain because founded upon the very Beingof God Himself, that inherent Life of the All-creating Divine Spirit whichis the perpetual interaction of the Eternal Love and Beauty. They havegrasped the Life-giving Truth, only they have postponed its operation, because they have the fixed idea that its present fruition is an absoluteimpossibility. 

But if we ask the reason for this idea it always comes back to the oldmaterialistic argument from the experience of past conditions, while thewhole nature of advance is in the opening up of new conditions. And in thisadvance the Bible is the pioneer book. Its whole purport is to tell us mostemphatically that death is _not_ the will of God. In the story of Eden Godis represented as warning man of the poisonous nature of the forbiddenfruit, which is incompatible with the idea of death as an essential featureof man's nature. Then from the point where man has taken the poison all therest of the Bible is devoted to telling us how to get rid of it. Christ, ittells us, was manifested to bring Life and Immortality to light--to abolishdeath--to destroy the works of the devil, that is the death-dealing power, for "he that hath the power of death is the devil. " It is impossible toreconcile this life-giving conception of the Bible with the idea that deathat any stage or in any degree is the desire of God. Let us, therefore, start with the recognition that this negative force, whether in its minordegrees as disease or in its culmination as death, is that which it is thewill of God to abolish. This also is logical; for if God be the UniversalSpirit of Life finding manifestation in individual lives, how can thedesire of this Spirit be to act in opposition to its own manifestation?Therefore Scripture and common-sense alike assure us that the will of Godtoward us is Life and not death. [8]

We may therefore start on our quest for Life with the happy certainty thatGod is on our side. But people will meet us with the objection that thoughGod wills Life to us, He does not will it just yet, but only in some dimfar-off future. How do we know this? Certainly not from the Bible. In theBible Jesus speaks of two classes of persons who believe on Him as theManifestation or Individualisation of the Spirit of Life. He speaks ofthose who, having passed through death, still believe on Him, and says thatthese _shall_ live--a future event. And at the same time He speaks of thosewho are living and believe on Him, and says that they shall never die--thuscontemplating the entire elimination of the contingency of death (John xi. 25). 

Again St. Paul expresses his wish not to be unclothed but to be clothedupon, which he certainly would not have done had he considered the latteralternative a nonsensical fancy. And in another place he expressly statesthat we shall not all die, but that some shall be transmuted into theResurrection body without passing through physical death. And if we turn tothe Old Testament we find two instances in which this is said to haveactually occurred, those of Enoch and Elijah. And we may note in passingthat the Bible draws our attention to certain facts about these twopersonages which are important as striking at the root of the notion thatausterities of some sort are necessary for the great attainment. Of Enochwe are expressly told that he was the father of a large family, and ofElijah that he was a man of like nature with ourselves--thus showing uswhat is wanted is not a shutting of ourselves off from ordinary human lifebut such a clear realization of the Universal Principle, of which ourpersonal life is the more or less conscious manifestation, that ourcommonest actions will be hallowed by the Divine Presence; and so the granddénouement will be only the natural result of our daily habit of walkingwith God. From the stand-point of the Bible, therefore, the attainment ofphysical regeneration without passing through death is not animpossibility, nor is it necessarily relegated to some far off future. Whatever any one else may say to the contrary, the Bible contemplates sucha dénouement of human evolution as a present possibility. 

Then if we argue from the philosophical stand-point we arrive at preciselythe same result. Past experience proves nothing, and we must therefore makea fresh start by going back to the Original Creative action of the Spiritof Life itself. Then, if we take this as our starting point, rememberingthat at the stage of this _original_ movement there can be no interventionby a second power, because there is none, why should we mentally impose anyrestriction upon the action of the Creative Power? Certainly not by its ownLaw of Tendency, for that must always be toward fuller self-expression; andsince this can only take place through the individual, the desire of theSpirit must always be toward the increasing of the individual life. Nor yetfrom anything in the created substance, for that would either be to supposethe Spirit creating something in limitation of its own Self-expression, orelse to suppose that the limiting substance was created by some other powerworking against the Spirit; and as this would mean a Duality of powers weshould not have reached the Originating Power at all, and so we might putSpirit and Substance equally out of court as both being merely modes ofsecondary causation. But if we see that the Universal Substance must becreated by emanation from the Universal Spirit, then we see that nolimitation of Spirit by substance is possible. We may therefore feelassured that no limitation proceeds either from the will of the Spirit orfrom the nature of Substance. 

Where, then, does limitation come from? Limiting conditions are created bythe same power which creates everything else, namely, theSelf-contemplation of Spirit. This is why it is so important to realizethat the individual mind forms a center from which the self-contemplatingaction of Spirit is specialized in terms of the individual's own mode ofthinking, and therefore so long as the individual contemplates negativeconditions as being _of the essence_ of his own personality, he is ineffect employing the Creative Power of the Self-contemplation of Spiritinvertedly, destructively instead of constructively. The Law of theSelf-contemplation of Spirit as the Creative Power is as true in themicrocosm as in the macrocosm, and so the individual's contemplation ofhimself as subject to the law of sin and death keeps him subject to thatlaw, while the opposite self-contemplation, the contemplation of himself asrejoicing in the Life of the Spirit, the Perfect Law of Liberty, mustnecessarily produce the opposite results. 

Why, then, should not regeneration be accomplished here and now? I can seeno reason against it, either Scriptural or philosophical, except our owndifficulty in getting rid of the race-traditions which are so deeplyembedded in our subjective minds. To get rid of these we require a firmbasis on which to receive the opposite suggestion. We need to be convincedthat our ideal of a regenerated self is in accord with the Normal Standardof Humanity and is within the scope of the laws of the universe. Now tomake clear to us the _infinitude_ of the truly Normal Standard of Humanityis the whole purpose of the Bible; and the Manifestation of this Standardis set before us in the Central Personality of the Scriptures who is atonce the Son of God and the Son of Man--the Great Exception, if you will, to man as we know him now, but the Exception which proves the Rule. Inproportion as we begin to realize this we begin to introduce into our ownlife the action of that Personal Factor on which all further developmentdepends; and when our recognition is complete we shall find that we alsoare children of God. 

CHAPTER IX

CONCLUSION

We are now in a position to see the place occupied by the individual in theCreative Order. We have found that the originating and maintaining force ofthe whole Creative Process is the Self-contemplation of the Spirit, andthat this necessarily produces a Reciprocal corresponding to the ideaembodied in the contemplation, and thus manifesting that idea in acorrelative Form. We have found that in this way the externalization of theidea progresses from the condensation of the primary nebula to theproduction of human beings as a race, and that at this point the simple_generic_ reproduction of the idea terminates. This means that up to, andincluding, _genus homo_, the individual, whether plant, animal, or man, iswhat it is simply by reason of race conditions and not by exercise ofdeliberate choice. Then we have seen that the next step in advance mustnecessarily be by the individual becoming aware that he has power to moldthe conditions of his own consciousness and environment by the creativepower of his thought; thus not only enabling him to take a conscious partin his own further evolution but precluding him from evolving any furtherexcept by the right exercise of this power; and we have found that the cruxof the passage from the Fourth to the Fifth Kingdom is to get people so tounderstand the nature of their creative power as not to use itdestructively. Now what we require to see is that the Creative Process hasalways only one way of working, and that is by Reciprocity or Reflection, or, as we might say, by the law of Action and Re-action, the re-actionbeing always equivalent and correspondent to the action which generated it. If this Law of Reciprocity be grasped then we see how the progress of theCreative Process must at length result in producing a being who himselfpossesses the power of independent spiritual initiative and is thus able tocarry on the creative work from the stand-point of his own individuality. 

Now the great crux is first to get people to see that they possess thispower at all, and then to get them to use it in the right direction. Whenour eyes begin to open to the truth that we do possess this power thetemptation is to ignore the fact that our power of initiative is itself aproduct of the similar power subsisting in the All-originating Spirit. Ifthis origin of our own creative faculty is left out of sight we shall failto recognize the Livingness of the Greater Life within which we live. Weshall never get nearer to it than what we may call its _generic_ level, thestage at which the Creative Power is careful of the type or race but iscareless of the individual; and so at this level we shall never pass intothe Fifth Kingdom which is the Kingdom of Individuality--we have missed thewhole point of the transition to the more advanced mode of being, in whichthe individual consciously functions as a creative center, because we haveno conception of a Universal Power that works at any higher level than thegeneric, and consequently to reach a specific personal exercise of creativepower we should have to conceive of ourselves as transcending the UniversalLaw. But if we realize that our own power of creative initiative has itsorigin in the similar faculty of the All-Originating Mind then we see thatthe way to maintain the Life-giving energy in ourselves is to use our powerof spiritual initiative so as to impress upon the Spirit the conception ofourselves as standing related to It in a specific, individual, and personalway that takes us out of the mere category of _genus homo_ and gives us aspecific spiritual individuality of our own. Thus our mental actionproduces a corresponding re-action in the mind of the Spirit, which in itsturn reproduces itself as a special manifestation of the Life of the Spiritin us; and so long as this circulation between the individual spirit andthe Great Spirit is kept up, the individual life will be maintained, andwill also strengthen as the circulation continues, for the reason that theSpirit, as the Original Creative Power, is a Multiplying Force, and thecurrent sent into it is returned multiplied, just as in telegraphy thefeeble current received from a distance at the end of a long line operatesto start a powerful battery in the receiving office, which so multipliesthe force as to give out a clear message, which but for the multiplicationof the original movement could not have been done. Something like this wemay picture the multiplying tendency of the Originating Mind, andconsequently the longer the circulation between it and the individual mindgoes on the stronger the latter becomes; and this process growing habitualbecomes at last automatic, thus producing an endless flow of Lifecontinually expanding in intelligence, love, power and joy. 

But we must note carefully that all this can only proceed from theindividual's recognition that his own powers are a derivative from theAll-originating Spirit, and that they can continue to be usedconstructively only so long as they are employed in harmony with theinherent Forward Movement of the Spirit. Therefore to insure this eternallyflowing stream of Life from the Universal Spirit into the individual theremust be _no inversion_ in the individual's presentation of himself to theOriginating Power: for through the very same Law by which we seek Life--theLife namely, of reciprocal action and re-action--every inversion we bringwith us in presenting ourselves to the Spirit is bound to be faithfullyreproduced in a corresponding re-action, thus adulterating the stream ofPure Life, and rendering it less life-giving in proportion to the extent towhich we invert the action of the Life-principle; so that in extreme casesthe stream flowing through and from the individual may be renderedabsolutely poisonous and deadly, and the more so the greater hisrecognition of his own personal power to employ spiritual forces. 

The existence of these negative possibilities in the spiritual world shouldnever be overlooked, and therefore the essential condition for receivingthe Perfect Fulness of Life is that we should present ourselves before theEternal Spirit free from every trace of inversion. To do this means topresent ourselves in the likeness of the Divine Ideal; and in thisself-presentation the initiative, so far as the individual is consciouslyconcerned, must necessarily be taken by himself. He is to project into theEternal Mind the conception of himself as identical with its Eternal Ideal;and if he can do this, then by the Law of the Creative Process a returncurrent will flow from the Eternal Mind reproducing this image in theindividual with a continually growing power. Then the question is, How arewe to do this?

The answer is that to take the initiative for inducing this flow of Lifeindividually it is a _sine qua non_ that the conditions enabling us to doso should first be presented to us universally. This is in accordance withthe general principle that we can never create a force but can onlyspecialize it. Only here the power we are wanting to specialize is the veryPower of Specialization itself; and therefore, paradoxical as it may seem, what we require to have shown us is the Universality of Specialization. 

Now this is what the Bible puts before us in its central figure. Taking theBible statements simply and literally they show us this unique Personalityas the Principle of Humanity, alike in its spiritual origin and itsmaterial manifestation, carried to the logical extreme of specialization;while at the same time, as the embodiment of the original polarity ofSpirit and Substance, this Personality, however unique, is absolutelyuniversal; so that the Bible sets Jesus Christ before us as the answer tothe philosophic problem of how to specialize the universal, while at thesame time preserving its universality. 

If, then, we fix our thought upon this unique Personality as the embodimentof _universal_ principles, it follows that those principles must exist inourselves also, and that His actual specialization of them is the earnestof our potential specialization of them. Then if we fix our thought on thispotential in ourselves as being identical with its manifestation in Him, wecan logically claim our identity with Him, so that what He has done we havedone, what He is, we are, and thus recognizing ourselves in Him we present_this_ image of ourselves to the Eternal Mind, with the result that webring with us no inversion, and so import no negative current into ourstream of Life. 

Thus it is that we reach "the Father" through "the Son, " and that He isable to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before thepresence of the Divine glory with exceeding joy (Jude 24). The Gospel of"the Word made flesh" is not the meaningless cant of some petty sect noryet the cunning device of priestcraft, though it has been distorted in boththese directions; but it can give a reason for itself, and is founded uponthe deepest laws of the threefold constitution of man, embracing the_whole_ man, body, soul and spirit. It is not opposed to Science but is theculmination of all science whether physical or mental. It is philosophicaland logical throughout if you start the Creative Process where alone it canstart, in the Self-contemplation of the Spirit. The more carefully weexamine into the claims of the Gospel of Christ the more we shall find allthe current objections to it melt away and disclose their ownsuperficialness. We shall find that Christ is indeed the Mediator betweenGod and Man, not by the arbitrary fiat of a capricious Deity, but by alogical law of sequence which solves the problem of making extremes meet, so that the Son of Man is also the Son of God; and when we see the reasonwhy this is so we thereby receive power to become ourselves sons of God, which is the dénouement of the Creative Process in the Individual. 

These closing lines are not the place to enter upon so great a subject, butI hope to follow it up in another volume and to show in detail the logic ofthe Bible teaching, what it saves us from and what it leads us to; to showwhile giving due weight to the value of other systems how it differs fromthem and transcends them; to glance, perhaps, for a moment at theindications of the future and to touch upon some of the dangers of thepresent and the way to escape from them. Nor would I pass over in silenceanother and important aspect of the Gospel contained in Christ's commissionto His followers to heal the sick. This also follows logically from the Lawof the Creative Process if we trace carefully the sequence of connectionsfrom the indwelling Ego to the outermost of its vehicles; while the effectof the recognition of these great truths upon the individuality that hasfor a time put off its robe of flesh, opens out a subject of paramountinterest. Thus it is that on every plane Christ is the Fulfilling of theLaw, and that "Salvation" is not a silly shiboleth but the logical andvital process of our advance into the unfoldment of the next stage of thelimitless capacities of our being. Of these things I hope to write inanother volume, should it be permitted to me, and in the meanwhile I wouldcommend the present abstract statement of principles to the reader'sattention in the hope that it may throw some light on the fundamentalnature of these momentous questions. The great thing to bear in mind isthat if a thing is true at all there must be a reason why it is true, andwhen we come to see this reason we know the truth at first hand forourselves and not from some one else's report--then it becomes really ourown and we begin to learn how to use it. This is the secret of theindividual's progress in any art, science, or business, and the same methodwill serve equally well in our search after Life itself, and as we thusfollow up the great quest we shall find that on every plane the Way, theTruth, and the Life are ONE. 

"A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth inphilosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. "--_Bacon. Essay xvi_. 

CHAPTER X

THE DIVINE OFFERING

I take the present opportunity of a new edition to add a few pages oncertain points which appear to me of vital importance, and the connectionof which with the preceding chapters will, I hope, become evident as thereader proceeds. Assuming the existence in each individual of a creativepower of thought which, in relation to himself, reflects the same powerexisting in the Universal Mind, our right employment of this power becomesa matter of extreme moment to ourselves. Its inverted use necessarily holdsus fast in the bondage from which we are seeking to escape, and equallynecessarily its right use brings us into Liberty; and therefore if anyDivine revelation exists at all its purpose must be to lead us away fromthe inverted use of our creative faculty and into such a higherspecializing of it as will produce the desired result. Now the purpose ofthe Bible is to do this, and it seeks to effect this work by a dualoperation. It places before us that Divine Ideal of which I have alreadyspoken, and at the same time bases this ideal upon the recognition of aDivine Sacrifice. These two conceptions are so intimately interwoven inScripture that they cannot be separated, but at the present day there _is_a growing tendency to attempt to make this separation and to discard theconception of a Divine Sacrifice as unphilosophical, that is as having nonexus of cause and effect. What I want, therefore, to point out in theseadditional pages is that there is such a nexus, and that so far from beingwithout a sequence of cause and effect it has its root in the innermostprinciples of our own being. It is not contrary to Law but proceeds fromthe very nature of the Law itself. 

The current objection to the Bible teaching on this subject is that no suchsacrifice could have been required by God, either because the OriginatingEnergy can have no consciousness of Personality and is only a blind force, or because, if "God is Love, " He could not demand such a sacrifice. On theformer hypothesis we are of course away from the Bible teaching altogetherand have nothing to do with it; but, as I have said elsewhere, the fact ofour own consciousness of personality can only be accounted for by theexistence, however hidden, of a corresponding quality in the OriginatingSpirit. Therefore I will confine my remarks to the question how Love, asthe originating impulse of all creation, can demand such a sacrifice. Andto my mind the answer is that God does not demand it. It is Man who demandsit. It is the instinctive craving of the human soul for _certainty_ thatrequires a demonstration so convincing as to leave no room for doubt of ourperfectly happy relation to the Supreme Spirit, and consequently to allthat flows from it, whether on the side of the visible or of the invisible. When we grasp the fact that such a standpoint of certainty is the necessaryfoundation for the building up in ourselves of the Divine Ideal then itbecomes clear that to afford us this firm basis is the greatest work thatthe Spirit, in its relation to human personality, could do. 

We are often told that the offering of sacrifices had its origin inprimitive man's conception of his gods as beings which required to bepropitiated so as to induce them to do good or abstain from doing harm; andvery likely this was the case. The truth at the back of this conception isthe feeling that there is a higher power upon which man is dependent; andthe error is in supposing that this power is limited by an individualitywhich can be enriched by selling its good offices, or which blackmails youby threats. In either case it wants to get something out of you, and fromthis it follows that its own power of supplying its own wants must belimited, otherwise it would not require to be kept in good temper by gifts. In very undeveloped minds such a conception results in the idea of numerousgods, each having, so to say, his own particular line of business; and thefurthest advance this mode of thought is capable of is the reduction ofthese various deities to two antagonistic powers of Good and of Evil. Butthe result in either case is the same, so long as we start with thehypothesis that the Good will do us more good and the Evil do us less harmby reason of our sacrifices, for then it logically follows that the morevaluable your sacrifices and the oftener they are presented the betterchance you have of good luck. Doubtless some such conception as this washeld by the mass of the Hebrew people under the sacrificial system of theLevitical Law, and perhaps this was one reason why they were so prone tofall into idolatry--for in this view their fundamental notion waspractically identical in its nature with that of the heathen around them. Of course this was not the fundamental idea embodied in the Leviticalsystem itself. The root of that system was the symbolizing of a supremeideal of reconciliation hereafter to be manifested in action. Now a symbolis not the thing symbolized. The purpose of a symbol is twofold, to put usupon enquiry as to the reality which it indicates, and to bring thatreality to our minds by suggestion when we look at the symbol; but if itdoes not do this, and we rest only in the symbol, nothing will come of it, and we are left just where we were. That the symbolic nature of theLevitical sacrifice was clearly perceived by the deeper thinkers among theHebrews is attested by many passages in the Bible--"Sacrifice and burntoffering thou wouldest not" (Psalms xl: 6, and li: 16) and other similarutterances; and the distinction between these symbols and that which theysymbolized is brought out in the Epistle to the Hebrews by the argumentthat if those sacrifices had afforded a sufficient standpoint for theeffectual realization of cleansing then the worshiper would not need tohave repeated them because he would have no more consciousness of sin(Hebrews x: 2). 

This brings us to the essential point of the whole matter. What we want isthe certainty that there is no longer any separation between us and theDivine Spirit by reason of sin, either as overt acts of wrong doing or aserror of principle; and the whole purpose of the Bible is to lead us tothis assurance. Now such an assurance cannot be based on any sort ofsacrifices that require repetition, for then we could never know whether wehad given enough either in quality or quantity. It must be a once-for-allbusiness or it is no use at all; and so the Bible makes theonce-for-allness of the offering the essential point of its teaching. "Hethat has been bathed does not need to be bathed again" (John xiii: 10). "There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Romansviii: i). 

Various intellectual difficulties, however, hinder many people from seeingthe working of the law of cause and effect in this presentment. One is thequestion, How can moral guilt be transferred from one person to another?What is called the "forensic" argument (i. E. , the court of law argument)that Christ undertook to suffer in our stead as our _surety_ is undoubtedlyopen to this objection. Suretyship must by its very nature be confined tocivil obligations and cannot be extended to criminal liability, and so the"forensic" argument may be set aside as very much a legal fiction. But ifwe realize the Bible teaching that Christ is the Son of God, that is, theDivine Principle of Humanity out of which we originated and subsisting inus all, however unconsciously to ourselves, then we see that sinners aswell as saints are included in this Principle; and consequently that theSelf-offering of Christ must actually include the self-offering of everyhuman being in the acknowledgment (however unknown to his _objective_mentality) of his sin. If we can grasp this somewhat abstract point of viewit follows that in the Person of Christ every human being, past, present, and to come, was self-offered for the condemnation of his sin--a _self_-condemnation and a _self_-offering, and hence a cleansing, for the simplereason that if you can get a man to realize his past error, really see hismistake, he won't do it again; and it is the perpetuation of sin and errorthat has to be got rid of--to do this universally would be to regainParadise. Seen therefore in this light there is no question of transferenceof moral guilt, and I take it this is St. Paul's meaning when he speaks ofour being partakers in Christ's death. 

Then there is the objection, How can past sins be done away with? If weaccept the philosophical conclusion that Time has no substantive existencethen all that remains is states of consciousness. As I have said in theearlier part of this book, the Self-Contemplation of Spirit is the cause ofall our perception of existence and environment; and consequently if theSelf-Contemplation of the Spirit from any center of individualization isthat of entire harmony and the absence of anything that would cause anyconsciousness of separation, then past sins cease to have any part in thisself-recognition, and consequently cease to have any place in the world ofexistence. The foundation of the whole creative process is the calling intoLight out of Darkness--"that which makes manifest is light"--andconsequently the converse action is that of sending out of Light intoDarkness, that is, into Notbeing. Now this is exactly what the Spirit saysin the Bible--"I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions"(Isaiah xliii: 25). Blotting out is the sending out of manifestation intothe darkness of non-manifestation, out of Being into Not-being; and in thisway the past error ceases to have any existence and so ceases to have anyfurther effect upon us. It is "blotted out, " and from this new standpointhas never been at all; so that to continue to contemplate it is to give afalse sense of existence to that which in effect has no existence. It isthat Affirmation of Negation which is the root of all evil. It is theinversion of our God-given creative power of thought, calling intoexistence that which in the Perfect Life of the Spirit never had or couldhave any existence, and therefore it creates the sense of inharmony, opposition, and separation. Of course this is only relatively to ourselves, for we cannot create eternal principles. They are the Being of God; and asI have already shown these great Principles of the Affirmative may besummed up in the two words Love and Beauty--Love in essence and Beauty inmanifestation; but since we can only live from the standpoint of our ownconsciousness we can make a false creation built upon the idea of oppositesto the all-creating Love and Beauty, which false creation with all itsaccompaniments of limitation, sin, sorrow, sickness, and death, mustnecessarily be real to us until we perceive that these things were notcreated by God, the Spirit of the Affirmative, but by our own inversion ofour true relation to the All-creating Being. 

When, then, we view the matter in this light the Offering once for all ofthe Divine Sacrifice for the sin of the whole world is seen not to be amere ecclesiastical dogma having no relation of cause and effect, but to bethe highest application of the same principle of cause and effect by whichthe whole creation, ourselves included, has been brought into existence--the Self-Contemplation of Spirit producing corresponding manifestation, only now working on the level of Individual Personality. 

As I have shown at the beginning of this book the cosmic manifestation ofprinciples is not sufficient to bring out all that there is in them. To dothis their action must be specialized by the introduction of the PersonalFactor. They are represented by the Pillar Jachin, but it must beequilibriated by the Pillar Boaz, Law and Personality the two Pillars ofthe Universe; and in the One Offering we have the supreme combination ofthese two principles, the highest specialization of Law by the highestpower of Personality. These are eternal principles, and therefore we aretold that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world; and because"thoughts are things" this supreme manifestation of the creativeinteraction of Law and Personality was bound eventually to be manifested inconcrete action in the world conditioned by time and space; and so it wasthat the supreme manifestation of the Love of God to meet the supreme needof Man took place. The history of the Jewish nation is the history of theworking of the law of cause and effect, under the guidance of the DivineWisdom, so as to provide the necessary conditions for the greatest event inthe world's history; for if Christ was to appear it must be in _some_nation, in _some_ place, and at _some_ time: but to trace the steps bywhich, through an intelligible sequence of causes, these necessaryconditions were provided belongs rather to an investigation of Biblehistory than to our present purpose, so I will not enter into these detailshere. But what I hope I have in some measure made clear is that there is areason why Christ should be manifested, and should suffer, and rise again, and that so far from being a baseless superstition the Reconciling of theworld to God through the One Offering once-for-all offered for the sin ofthe whole world, lays the immovable foundation upon which we may buildsecurely for all the illimitable future. 

CHAPTER XI

OURSELVES IN THE DIVINE OFFERING

If we have grasped the principle I have endeavored to state in the lastchapter we shall find that with this new standpoint a new life and a newworld begin to open out to us. This is because we are now living from a newrecognition of ourselves and of God. Eternal Truth, that which is theessential reality of Being, is _always_ the same; it has never altered, forwhatever is capable of passing away and giving place to something else isnot eternal, and therefore the real essence of our being, as proceedingfrom God and subsisting in Him has always been the same. But this is thevery fact which we have hitherto lost sight of; and since our perception oflife is the measure of our individual consciousness of it, we have imposedupon ourselves a world of limitation, a world filled with the power of thenegative, because we have viewed things from that standpoint. What takesplace, therefore, when we realize the truth of our Redemption is not achange in our essential relation to the Parent Spirit, the Eternal Father, but an awakening to the perception of this eternal and absolutely perfectrelation. We see that in reality it has never been otherwise for the simplereason that in the very nature of Being it _could_ not be otherwise; andwhen we see this we see also that what has hitherto been wrong has not beenthe working of "the Father" but our conception of the existence of someother power, a power of negation, limitation, and destructiveness, the veryopposite to all that the Creative Spirit, by the very fact of ItsCreativeness, must be. That wonderful parable of the Prodigal Son shows usthat he never ceased to be a son. It was not his Father who sent him awayfrom home but his notion that he could do better "on his own, " and we allknow what came of it. But when he returned to the Father he found that fromthe Father's point of view he had never been otherwise than a son, and thatall the trouble he had gone through was not "of the Father" but was theresult of his own failure to realize what the Father and the Home reallywere. [9]

Now this is exactly the case with ourselves. When we wake up to the truthwe find that, so far as the Father is concerned, we have always been in Himand in His home, for we are made in His image and likeness and arereflections of His own Being. He says to us "Son, thou art ever with me andall that I have is thine. " The Self-Contemplation of Spirit is the CreativePower creating an environment corresponding to the mode of consciousnesscontemplated, and therefore in proportion as we contemplate ourselves ascenters of individualization for the Divine Spirit we find ourselvessurrounded by a new environment reflecting the harmonious conditions whichpreexist in the Thought of the Spirit. 

This, then, is the sequence of Cause and Effect involved in the teaching ofthe Bible. Man is _in essence_ a spiritual being, the reflection on theplane of individual personality of that which the All-Originating Spirit isin Itself, and is thus in that reciprocal relation to the Spirit which isLove. This is the first statement of his creation in Genesis--God saw allthat He had made and behold it was very good, Man included. Then the Fallis the failure of the lower mentality to realize that God IS Love, in aword that Love is the only ultimate Motive Power it is possible toconceive, and that the creations of Love cannot be otherwise than good andbeautiful. The lower mentality conceives an opposite quality of Evil andthus produces a motive power the opposite of Love, which is Fear; and soFear is born into the world giving rise to the whole brood of evil, anger, hatred, envy, lies, violence, and the like, and on the external planegiving rise to discordant vibrations which are the root of physical ill. Ifwe analyze our motives we shall find that they are always some mode eitherof Love or Fear; and fear has its root in the recognition of some powerother than Perfect Love, which is God the ONE all-embracing Good. Fear hasa creative force which invertedly mimics that of Love; but the differencebetween them is that Love is eternal and Fear is not. Love as the OriginalCreative Motive is the only logical conclusion we can come to as to why weourselves or any other creation exists. Fear is illogical because to regardit as having any place in the Original Creative Motive involves acontradiction in terms. 

By accepting the notion of a dual power, that of Good _and_ Evil, theinverted creative working of Fear is introduced with all its attendanttrain of evil things. This is the eating of the deadly tree which occasionsthe Fall, and therefore the Redemption which requires to be accomplished isa redemption from Fear--not merely from this or that particular fear butfrom the very Root of Fear, which root is unbelief in the Love of God, therefusal to believe that Love alone is the Creating Power in all things, whether small beyond our recognition or great beyond our conception. Therefore to bring about this Redemption there must be such a manifestationof the Divine Love to Man as, when rightly apprehended, will leave noground for fear; and when we see that the Sacrifice of the Cross was theSelf-Offering of Love made in order to provide this manifestation, then wesee that all the links in the chain of Cause and Effect are complete, andthat Fear never had any place in the Creative Principle, whether as actingin the creation of a world or of a man. The root, therefore, of all thetrouble of the world consists in the Affirmation of Negation, in using ourcreative power of thought invertedly, and thus giving substance to thatwhich _as principle_ has no existence. So long as this negative action ofthought continues so long will it produce its natural effect; whether inthe individual or in the mass. The experience is perfectly real while itlasts. Its unreality consists in the fact that there was never any realneed for it; and the more we grasp the truth of the all-embracingness ofthe ONE Good, both as Cause and as Effect, on all planes, the more theexperience of its opposite will cease to have any place in our lives. 

This truly New Thought puts us in an entirely new relation to the whole ofour environment, opening out possibilities hitherto undreamt of, and thisby an orderly sequence of law which is naturally involved in our new mentalattitude; but before considering the prospect thus offered it is well to bequite clear as to what this new mental attitude really is; for it is ouradoption of this attitude that is the Key to the whole position. Putbriefly it is ceasing to include the idea of limitations in our conceptionof the working of the All-Creating Spirit. Here are some specimens of theway in which we limit the creative working of the Spirit. We say, I am tooold now to start this or that new sort of work. This is to deny the powerof the Spirit to vivify our physical or mental faculties, which isillogical if we consider that it is the same Spirit that brought us intoany existence at all. It is like saying that when a lamp is beginning toburn low the same person who first filled it with oil cannot replenish itand make it burn brightly again. Or we say, I cannot do so and so because Ihave not the means. When you were fourteen did you know where all the meanswere coming from which were going to support you till now when you areperhaps forty or fifty? So you should argue that the same power that hasworked in the past can continue to work in the future. If you say the meanscame in the past quite naturally through ordinary channels, that is noobjection; on the contrary the more reason for saying that suitablechannels will open in the future. Do you expect God to put cash into yourdesk by a conjuring trick? Means come through recognizable channels, thatis to say we recognize the channels by the fact of the stream flowingthrough them; and one of our most common mistakes is in thinking that weourselves have to fix the particular channel beforehand. We say in effectthat the Spirit cannot open other channels, and so we stop them up. Or wesay, our past experience speaks to the contrary, thus assuming that ourpast experiences have included all possibilities and have exhausted thelaws of the universe, an assumption which is negatived by every freshdiscovery even in physical science. And so we go on limiting the power ofthe Spirit in a hundred different ways. 

But careful consideration will show that, though the modes in which welimit it are as numerous as the circumstances with which we have to deal, the thing with which we limit it is always the same--it is by theintroduction of our own personality. This may appear at first a directcontradiction of all that I have said about the necessity for the PersonalFactor, but it is not. Here is a paradox. 

To open out into manifestation the wonderful possibilities hidden in theCreative Power of the Universe we require to do two things--to see that weourselves are necessary as centers for focussing that power, and at thesame time to withdraw the thought of ourselves as contributing anything toits efficiency. It is not I that work but the Power; yet the Power needs mebecause it cannot specialize itself without me--in a word each is thecomplementary of the other: and the higher the degree of specialization isto be the more necessary is the intelligent and willing co-operation of theindividual. 

This is the Scriptural paradox that "the son can do nothing of himself, "and yet we are told to be "fellow-workers with God. " It ceases to be aparadox, however, when we realize the relation between the two factorsconcerned, God and Man. Our mistake is in not discriminating between theirrespective functions, and putting Man in the place of God. In our everydaylife we do this by measuring the power of God by our past experiences andthe deductions we draw from them; but there is another way of putting Manin the place of God, and that is by the misconception that theAll-Originating Spirit is merely a cosmic force without intelligence, andthat Man has to originate the intelligence without which no specificpurpose can be conceived. This latter is the error of much of the presentday philosophy and has to be specially guarded against. This was perceivedby some of the medieval students of these things, and they accordinglydistinguished between what they called Animus Dei and Anima Mundi, theDivine Spirit and the Soul of the Universe. Now the distinction is this, that the essential quality of Animus Dei is Personality--not A Person, butthe very Principle of Personality itself--while the essential quality ofAnima Mundi is Impersonality. Then right here comes in that importance ofthe Personal Factor of which I have already spoken. The powers latent inthe Impersonal are brought out to their fullest development by theoperation of the Personal. This of course does not consist in changing thenature of those powers, for that is impossible, but in making suchcombinations of them by Personal Selection as to produce results whichcould not otherwise be obtained. Thus, for example, Number is in itselfimpersonal and no one can alter the laws which are inherent in it; but whatwe can do is to select particular numbers and the sort of relation, such assubtraction, multiplication, etc. , which we will establish between them;and then by the inherent Law of Number a certain result is bound to workout. Now our own essential quality is the consciousness of Personality; andas we grow into the recognition of the fact that the Impersonal is, as itwere, crying out for the operation upon it of the Personal in order tobring its latent powers into working, we shall see how limitless is thefield that thus opens before us. 

The prospect is wonderful beyond our present conception, and full ofincreasing glory if we realize the true foundation on which it rests. Butherein lies the danger. It consists in not realizing that the Infinite ofthe Impersonal _is_ and also that the Infinite of the Personal _is_. Bothare Infinite and so require differentiation through our own personality, but in their essential quality each is the exact balance of the other--notin contradiction to each other, but as complementary to one another, eachsupplying what the other needs for its full expression, so that the twotogether make a perfect whole. If, however, we see this relation and ourown position as the connecting link between them, we shall see onlyourselves as the Personal Factor; but the more we realize, both by theoryand experience, the power of human personality brought into contact withthe Impersonal Soul of Nature, and employed with a Knowledge of its powerand a corresponding exercise of the will, the less we shall be inclined toregard ourselves as the supreme factor in the chain of cause and effectConsideration of this argument points to the danger of much of the presentday teaching regarding the exercise of Thought Power as a creative agency. The principle on which this teaching is based is sound and legitimate forit is inherent in the nature of things; but the error is in supposing thatwe ourselves are the ultimate source of Personality instead of merely thedistributors and specializers of it. The logical result of such a mentalattitude is that putting ourselves in the place of all that is worshiped asGod which is spoken of in the second chapter of the Second Epistle to theThessalonians and other parts of Scripture. By the very hypothesis of thecase we then know no higher will than our own, and so are without anyUnifying Principle to prevent the conflict of wills which must thenarise--a conflict which must become more and more destructive the greaterthe power possessed by the contending parties, and which, if there were nocounterbalancing power, must result in the ultimate destruction of theexisting race of men. 

But there is a counterbalancing power. It is the very same power usedaffirmatively instead of negatively. It is the power of the Personal withthe Impersonal when used under the guidance of that Unifying Principlewhich the recognition of the ONE-ness of the Personal Quality in the DivineSpirit supplies. Those who are using the creative power of thought onlyfrom the standpoint of individual personality, have obviously less powerthan those who are using it from the standpoint of the Personality inherentin the Living Spirit which is the Source and Fountain of all energy andsubstance, and therefore in the end the victory must remain with theselatter. And because the power by which they conquer is that of the UnifyingPersonality itself their victory must result in the establishment of Peaceand Happiness throughout the world, and is not a power of domination but ofhelpfulness and enlightenment. The choice is between these two mottoes:--"Each for himself and Devil take the hindmost, " or "God for us all. " Inproportion, therefore, as we realize the immense forces dormant in theImpersonal Soul of Nature, only awaiting the introduction of the PersonalFactor to wake them up into activity and direct them to specific purposes, the wider we shall find the scope of the powers within the reach of man;and the more clearly we perceive the Impersonalness of the very Principleof Personality itself, the clearer our own proper position as affording theDifferentiating Medium between these two Infinitudes will become to us. 

The Impersonalness of the Principle of Personality looks like acontradiction in terms, but it is not. I combine these two seeminglycontradictory terms as the best way to convey to the reader the idea of theessential Quality of Personality not yet differentiated into individualcenters of consciousness for the doing of particular work. Looked at inthis way the Infinite of Personality must have Unity of Purpose for itsfoundation, for otherwise it would consist of conflicting personalities, inwhich case we have not yet reached the ONE all-originating cause. Or to putit in another way, an Infinite Personality divided against itself would bean Infinite Insanity, a creator of a cosmic Bedlam which, as a scientificfact, would be impossible of existence. Therefore the conception of anInfinite of Personality necessarily implies a perpetual Unity of Purpose;and for the same reason this Purpose can only be the fuller and fullerexpression of an Infinite Unity of Consciousness; and Unity ofConsciousness necessarily implies the entire absence of all that wouldimpair it, and therefore its expression can only be as Universal Harmony. If, then, the individual realizes this true nature of the source from whichhis own consciousness of personality is derived his ideas and work will bebased upon this foundation, with the result that as between ourselves peaceand good will towards men must accompany this mode of thought, and asbetween us and the strictly Impersonal Soul of Nature our increasingknowledge in that direction would mean increasing power for carrying outour principle of peace and good will. As this perception of our relation tothe Spirit of God and the Soul of Nature spreads from individual toindividual so the Kingdom of God will grow, and its universal recognitionwould be the establishing of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. 

Perhaps the reader will ask why I say the Soul of Nature instead of sayingthe material universe. The reason is that in using our creative power ofThought we do not operate directly upon material elements--to do that isthe work of construction from without and not of creation from within. Thewhole tendency of modern physical science is to reduce all matter in thefinal analysis to energy working in a primary ether. Whence this energy andthis ether proceed is not the subject of physical analysis. That is aquestion which cannot be answered by means of the vacuum tube or thespectroscope. Physical science is doing its legitimate work in pushingfurther and further back the unanalyzable residuum of Nature, but, howeverfar back, an ultimate unanalyzable residuum there must always be; and whenphysical science brings us to this point it hands us over to the guidanceof psychological investigation just as in the Divina Commedia Virgiltransfers Dante to the guidance of Beatrice for the study of the higherrealms. Various rates of rapidity of motion in this primary ether, producing various numerical combinations of positively and negativelyelectrified particles, result in the formation of what we know as thedifferent chemical elements, and thus explains the phenomena of theircombining quantities, the law by which they join together to form newsubstances only in certain exact numerical ratios. From the first movementin the primary ether to solid substances, such as wood or iron or our ownflesh, is thus a series of vibrations in a succession of mediums, eachdenser than the preceding one out of which it was concreted and from whichit receives the vibratory impulse. This is in effect what physical sciencehas to tell us. But to get further back we must look into the world of theinvisible, and it is here that psychological study comes to our aid. Wecannot, however, study the invisible side of Nature by working from theoutside and so at this point of our studies we find the use of thetime-honored teaching regarding the parallelism between the Macrocosm andthe Microcosm. If the Microcosm is the reproduction in ourselves of thesame principles as exist in the Macrocosm or universe in which we have ourbeing, then by investigating ourselves we shall learn the nature of thecorresponding invisible principles in our environment. Here, then, is theapplication of the dictum of the ancient philosophy, "Know Thyself. " Itmeans that the only place where we can study the principles of theinvisible side of Nature is in ourselves; and when we know them there wecan transfer them to the larger world around us. 

In the concluding chapters of my "Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science" Ihave outlined the way in which the soul or mind operates upon the physicalinstrument of its expression, and it resolves itself into this--that themental action inaugurates a series of vibrations in the etheric body which, in their turn, induce corresponding grosser vibrations in the molecularsubstance until finally mechanical action is produced on the outside. Nowtransferring this idea to Nature as a whole we shall see that if our mentalaction is to affect it in any way it can only be by the response ofsomething at the back of material substance analogous to mind in ourselves;and that there is such a "something" interior to the merely material sideof Nature is proved by what we may call the Law of Tendency, not only inanimals and plants, but even in inorganic substances, as shown for instancein Professor Bose's work on the Response of Metals. The universal presenceof this Law of Tendency therefore indicates the working of somenon-material and, so to say, semi-intelligent power in the material world, a power which works perfectly accurately on its own lines so far as itgoes, that is to say in a generic manner, but which does not possess thatPersonal power of _individual selection_ which is necessary to bring outthe infinite possibilities hidden in it. This is what is meant by the Soulof Nature, and it is for this reason I employ that term instead of sayingthe material universe. Which term to employ all depends on the mode ofaction we are contemplating. If it is construction from without, then weare dealing with the purely material universe. If we are seeking to bringabout results by the exercise of our mental power from within, then we aredealing with the Soul of Nature. It is that control of the lower degree ofintelligence by the higher of which I have spoken in my Edinburgh Lectures. 

If we realize what I have endeavored to make clear in the earlier portionof this book, that the whole creation is produced by the operation of theDivine Will upon the Soul of Nature, it will be evident that we can set nolimits to the potencies hidden in the latter and capable of being broughtout by the operation of the Personal Factor upon it; therefore, granted asufficiently powerful concentration of will, whether by an individual or agroup of individuals, we can well imagine the production of stupendouseffects by this agency, and in this way I would explain the statements madein Scripture regarding the marvelous powers to be exercised by theAnti-Christ, whether personal or collective. They are psychic powers, thepower of the Soul of Man over the Soul of Nature. But the Soul of Nature isquite impersonal and therefore the moral quality of this action dependsentirely on the human operator. This is the point of the Master's teachingregarding the destruction of the fig tree, and it is on this account Headds the warning as to the necessity for clearing our heart of anyinjurious feeling against others whenever we attempt to make use of thispower (Mark xi: 20-26). 

According to His teaching, then, this power of controlling the Soul ofNature by the addition of our own Personal Factor, however little we may beable to recognize it as yet, actually exists; its employment depends on ourperception of the inner principles common to both, and it is for thisreason the ancient wisdom was summed up in the aphorism "Know thyself. " Nodoubt it is a wonderful Knowledge, but on analysis it will be found to beperfectly natural. It is the Knowledge of the cryptic forces of Nature. Nowit is remarkable that this ancient maxim inscribed over the portals of theTemple of Delphi is not to be found in the Bible. The Bible maxim is not"Know thyself" but "Know the Lord. " The great subject of Knowledge is notourself but "the Lord"; and herein is the great difference between the twoteachings. The one is limited by human personality, the other is based onthe Infinitude of the Divine Personality; and because of this it includeshuman personality with all its powers over the Soul of Nature. It is a caseof the greater including the less; and so the whole teaching of Scriptureis directed to bringing us into the recognition of that Divine Personalitywhich is the Great Original in whose image and likeness we are made. Inproportion as we grow into the recognition of _this_ our own personalitywill explain, and the creative power of our thought will cease to workinvertedly until at last it will work only on the same principles of Life, Love and Liberty as the Divine Mind, and so all evil will disappear fromour world. We shall not, as some systems teach, be absorbed into Deity tothe extinction of our individual consciousness, but on the contrary ourindividual consciousness will continually expand, which is what St. Paulmeans when he speaks of our "increasing with the increase of God"--thecontinual expanding of the Divine element within us. But this can only takeplace by our recognition of ourselves as _receivers_ of this Divineelement. It is receiving into ourselves of the Divine Personality, a resultnot to be reached through human reasoning. We reason from premises which wehave assumed, and the conclusion is already involved in the premises andcan never extend beyond them. But we can only select our premises fromamong things that we know by experience, whether mental or physical, andaccordingly our reasoning is always merely a new placing of the old things. But the receiving of the Divine Personality into ourselves is an entirelyNew Thing, and so cannot be reached by reasoning from old things. Hence ifthis Divine ultimate of the Creative Process is to be attained it must beby the Revelation of a New Thing which will afford a new starting-point forour thought, and this New Starting-point is given in the Promise of "theSeed of the Woman" with which the Bible opens. Thenceforward this Promisebecame the central germinating thought of those who based themselves uponit, thus constituting them a special race, until at last when the necessaryconditions had matured the Promised Seed appeared in Him of whom it iswritten that He is the express image of God's Person (Heb. I: 3)--that is, the Expression of that Infinite Divine Personality of which I have spoken. "No man hath seen God at any time or can see Him, " for the simple reasonthat Infinitude cannot be the subject of vision. To become visible theremust be Individualization, and therefore when Philip said "Show us theFather, " Jesus replied, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. " TheWord must become flesh before St. John could say, "That which was from thebeginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which wehave looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life. " This isthe New Starting-point for the true New Thought--the New Adam of the NewRace, each of whom is a new center for the working of the Divine Spirit. This is what Jesus meant when he said, "Except ye eat the flesh and drinkthe blood of the Son of Man ye have no life in you. My flesh is meatindeed, and my blood is drink indeed--" such a contemplation of the DivinePersonality in Him as will cause a like receiving of the Divine Personalityinto individualization in ourselves--this is the great purpose of theCreative Process in the individual. It terminates the old series whichbegan with birth after the flesh and inaugurates a New Series by birthafter the Spirit, a New Life of infinite unfoldment with gloriouspossibilities beyond our highest conception. 

But all this is logically based upon our recognition of the Personalness ofGod and of the relation of our individual personality to this Eternal andInfinite Personality, and the result of this is Worship--not an attempt to"butter up" the Almighty and get Him into good temper, but the reverentcontemplation of what this Personality must be in Itself; and when we seeit to be that Life, Love, Beauty, etc. , of which I spoke at the beginningof this book we shall learn to love Him for what He IS, and our prayer willbe "Give me more of Thyself. " If we realize the great truth that theKingdom of Heaven is _within_ us, that it is the Kingdom of the innermostof our own being and of all creation, and if we realize that this innermostis the place of the Originating Power where Time and Space do not exist andtherefore antecedent to all conditions, then we shall see the true meaningof Worship. It is the perception of the Innermost Spirit as eternallysubsisting independently of all conditioned manifestation, so that in thetrue worship our consciousness is removed from the outer sphere ofexistence to the innermost center of unconditioned being. There we find theEternal Being of God pure and simple, and we stand reverently in thisSupreme Presence knowing that it is the Source of our own being, and wraptin the contemplation of This, the conditioned is seen to flow out from It. Perceiving this the conditioned passes out of our consideration, for it isseen not to be the Eternal Reality--we have reached that level ofconsciousness where Time and Space remain no longer. Yet the reverencewhich the vision of this Supreme Center of all Being cannot fail to inspireis coupled with a sense of feeling quite at home with It. This is becauseas the Center of _all_ Being it is the center of our own being also. It isone-with-ourselves. It is recognizing Itself from our own center ofconsciousness; so that here we have got back to that Self-contemplation ofSpirit which is the first movement of the Creating Power, only now thisSelf-contemplation is the action of the All-Originating Spirit upon Itselffrom the center of our own consciousness. So this worship in the Temple ofthe Innermost is at once reverent adoration and familiar intercourse--notthe familiarity that breeds contempt, but a familiarity producing Love, because as it increases we see more clearly the true Life of the Spirit asthe continual interaction of Love and Beauty, and the Spirit's recognitionof ourselves as an integral portion of Its own Life. This is not anunpractical dreamy speculation but has a very practical bearing. Death willsome day cease to be, for the simple reason that Life alone can be theenduring principle; but we have not yet reached this point in ourevolution. Whether any in this generation will reach it I cannot say; butfor the rank and file of us the death of the body seems to be by far themore probable event. Now what must this passing out of the body mean to us?It must mean that we find ourselves without the physical vehicle which isthe instrument through which our consciousness comes in touch with theexternal world and all the interests of our present daily life. But themere putting off of the body does not of itself change the mental attitude;and so if our mind is entirely centered upon these passing interests andexternal conditions the loss of the instrument by which we held touch withthem must involve a consciousness of desire for the only sort of life wehave known coupled with a consciousness of our inability to participate init, which can only result in a consciousness of distress and confusion suchas in our present state we cannot imagine. 

On the other hand if we have in this world realized the true principle ofthe Worship of the Eternal Source from which all conditioned life flowsout--an inner communing with the Great Reality--we have already passedbeyond that consciousness of life which is limited by Time and Space; andso when we put off this mortal body we shall find ourselves upon familiarground, and therefore not wandering in confusion but quite at home, dwelling in the same light of the Eternal in which we have been accustomedto dwell as an atmosphere enveloping the conditioned life of to-day. Thenfinding ourselves thus at home on a plane where Time and Space do not existthere will be no question with us of duration. The consciousness will besimply that of peaceful, happy being. That a return to more active personaloperation will eventually take place is evidenced by the fact that thebasis of all further evolution is the differentiating of theUndifferentiated Life of the Spirit into specific channels of work, throughthe intermediary of individual personality without which the infinitepotentialities of the Creative Law cannot be brought to light. Therefore, however various our opinions as to its precise form, Resurrection as aprinciple is a necessity of the creative process. But such a return to moreactive life will not mean a return to limitations, but the opening of a newlife in which we shall transcend them all, because we have passed beyondthe misconception that Time and Space are of the Essence of Life. When themisconception regarding Time and Space is entirely eradicated all otherlimitations must disappear because they have their root in this primaryone--they are only particular forms of the general proposition. Thereforethough Form with its accompanying relations of Time and Space is necessaryfor manifestation, these things will be found not to have any force inthemselves thus creating limitation, but to be the reflection of the modeof thought which projects them as the expression of itself. 

Nor is there any inherent reason why this process should be delayed tillsome far-off future. There is no reason why we should not commence at once. No doubt our inherited and personally engendered modes of thought make thisdifficult, and by the nature of the process it will be only when _all_ ourthoughts are conformed to this principle that the complete victory will bewon. But there must be a commencement to everything, and the more wehabituate ourselves to live in that Center of the Innermost whereconditions do not exist, the more we shall find ourselves gaining controlover outward conditions, because the stream of conditioned life flows outfrom the Center of Unconditioned Life, and therefore this intrinsicprinciple of Worship has in it the promise both of the life that now is andof that which is to come. Only we must remember that the really availingworship is that of the Undifferentiated Source _because It is the Source, _and not as a backhanded way of diverting the stream into some petty channelof conditions, for that would only be to get back to the old circle oflimitation from which we are seeking to escape. 

But if we realize these things we have already laid hold of the Principleof Resurrection, and in point of principle we are already living theresurrection life. What progress we may make in it depends on our practicalapplication of the principle; but simply as principle there is nothing inthe principle itself to prevent its complete working at any moment. This iswhy Jesus did not refer resurrection to some remote point of time but said, "I am the resurrection and the life. " No principle can carry in itself anopposite and limiting principle contradictory of its own nature, and thisis as true of the Principle of Life as of any other principle. It is we whoby our thought introduce an opposite and limiting principle and so hinderthe working of the principle we are seeking to bring into operation; but sofar as the Principle of Life itself is concerned there is _in it_ no reasonwhy it should not come into perfect manifestation here and now. 

This, then, is the true purpose of worship. It is to bring us intoconscious and loving intercourse with the Supreme Source of our own being, and seeing this we shall not neglect the outward forms of worship. Fromwhat we now know they should mean more to us than to others and not less;and in especial if we realize the manifestation of the Divine Personalityin Jesus Christ and its reproduction in Man, we shall not neglect His lastcommand to partake of that sacred memorial to His flesh and blood which Hebequeathed to His followers with the words "This do in remembrance of Me. "

This holy rite is no superstitious human invention. There are many theoriesabout it, and I do not wish to combat any of them, for in the end they allseem to me to bring us to the same point, that being cleansed from sin bythe Divine Love we are now no longer separate from God but become"partakers of the Divine-Nature" (II Peter I: 4). This partaking of theDivine Nature could not be more accurately represented than by ourpartaking of bread and wine as symbols of the Divine Substance and theDivine Life, thus made emblematic of the whole Creative Process from itsbeginning in the Divine Thought to its completion in the manifestation ofthat Thought as Perfected Man; and so it brings vividly before us theremembrance of the Personality of God taking form as the Son of Man. We areall familiar with the saying that thoughts become things; and if we affirmthe creative power of our own thought as reproducing itself in outwardform, how much more must we affirm the same of that Divine Thought whichbrings the whole universe into existence; so that in accordance with ourown principles the Divine Idea of Man was logically bound to show itself inthe world of time and space as the Son of God and the Son of man, not twodiffering natures but one complete whole, thus summing up the foundationprinciple of all creation in one Undivided Consciousness of Personality. Thus "the Word" or Divine Thought of Man "became flesh, " and our partakingof the symbolic elements keeps in our remembrance the supreme truth thatthis same "Word" or Thought of God in like manner takes form in ourselvesas we open our own thought to receive it. And further, if we realize thatthroughout the universe there is only ONE Originating Life, sending forthonly ONE Original Substance as the vehicle for its expression, then itlogically follows that _in essence_ the bread is a portion of the eternalSubstance of God, and the wine a portion of the eternal Life of God. Forthough the wine is of course also a part of the Universal Substance, wemust remember that the Universal Substance is itself a manifestation of theLife of the All-Creating Spirit, and therefore this fluid form of theprimary substance has been selected as representing the eternal flowing ofthe Life of the Spirit into all creation, culminating in its supremeexpression in the consciousness of those who, in the recognition of thesetruths, seek to bring their heart into union with the Divine Spirit. Fromsuch considerations as these it will be seen how vast a field of thought iscovered by Christ's words "Do this in remembrance of Me. "

In conclusion, therefore, do not let yourselves be led astray by anyphilosophy that denies the Personality of God. In the end it will be foundto be a foolish philosophy. No other starting-point of creation isconceivable than the Self-Contemplation of the Divine Spirit, and thelogical sequence from this brings us to the ultimate result of the CreativeProcess in the statement that "if any man be in Christ he is a Newcreature, " or as the margin has it "a new creation" (II Cor. V: 17). Suchvain philosophies have only one logical result which is to put _yourself_in the place of God, and then what have you to lean upon in the hour oftrial? It is like trying to climb up a ladder that is resting againstnothing. Therefore, says the Apostle Paul, "Beware lest any man spoil youthrough philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of man, after therudiments of the world, and not after Christ. " (Col. II: 8. ) The teachingof the Bible is sound philosophy, sound reasoning, and sound sciencebecause it starts with the sound premises that all Creation proceeds out ofGod, and that Man is made in the image and likeness of his Creator. Itnowhere departs from the Law of Cause and Effect, and by the orderlysequence of this law it brings us at last to the New Creation both inourselves and in our environment, so that we find the completion of theCreative Process in the declaration "the tabernacle of God is with men"(Rev. Xxi: 3), and in the promise "This is the Covenant that I will makewith them after those days (i. E. , the days of our imperfect apprehension ofthese things) saith the Lord, I will dwell _in them_, and walk _in them_, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and I will put mylaws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and theirsins and their iniquities will I remember no more" (Heb. X: 16. II Cor. Vi:16. Jeremiah xxxi: 33). 

Truly does Bacon say, "A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind toatheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. "--Bacon, Essay, xvi. 

FOOTNOTES

Footnote 1: See my Doré Lectures, 1909. 

Footnote 2: See my Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science. 

Footnote 3: See my Doré Lectures, 1909. 

Footnote 4: For the relation between conscious and sub-conscious mind seemy "Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science. "

Footnote 5: See "Self-Synthesis" by Dr. Cornwall Round. 

Footnote 6: For the relation between subjective and objective mind see my"Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science. "

Footnote 7: This view, it may be remarked, is not necessarilyincompatible with the conception of reincarnation, on which theory thefinal resurrection or transmutation of the body would terminate the seriesof successive lives and deaths, thus bringing the individual out of thecircle of generation, which is the circle of Karma. I may, perhaps, havethe opportunity of considering this subject on some future occasion. 

Footnote 8: See my "Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning. "

Footnote 9: See "Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning" by the present author.