Most people spend 90 per cent of their time doing
what other people want them to do instead of what they want to do themselves.
Most people. perhaps you, are haunted by self destructive feelings they don’t
understand. These are feelings which may frighten and depress you, for example:
the constant fear that other people are somehow better; the fear that you are
now, and will always remain, a second class citizen in life; or the crushing
realization that you always feel poor no matter how much money you earn, and
always feel inadequate no matter how great your accomplishments.
Because
of two crippling pressures the constant attempts of other people to exploit you
and your own self destructive feelings of inferiority you spend your life in an
emotional prison instead of a palace. You allow yourself to be surrounded by
enemies instead of friends. You accomplish only a fraction of what you are
really able to accomplish. You find yourself constantly driven away from the
real enjoyments, the real achievements, the real meaning, of your life.
Learn
to control your destiny. Study the Ancient sciences, for this knowledge will
guide you through the present age of anxiety and depression.
The
very first step for the reader into the hidden pathway of nature's mysteries is
the face to face confrontation with a starting fact the fact that all his
preconceptions, all his education, all his accumulated materialistic wisdom, are
unable to account for the simple phenomena which transpire and transcend the
action and interaction of life forces on the planet on which he lives.
As
a chemist, he may pursue the discrete discontinuities of force until they are
lost within the realms of the imponderable. "The great unknown", or
"the aching void", as it is christened amid the groan of scientific
travail, swallows him. But he can get no further.
As
a physicist, he may decompose light and sound into what he thinks are their
component parts and, with scientific accuracy, dissect before your very eyes
these truths as a surgeon would his anatomical subject. No sooner is that point
reached than the shy molecules and timid vibrations become alarmed at man's
daring presumption, and fly into the realm of the infinite and occult unknown.
There in the aching void they sport in delight, safe from man's vulgar
intrusion.
The
realm of the unknown imponderables is the Universal, an infinite ocean of
something, yet nothing, which Science created in her frantic endeavor to account
for the material phenomena of the real world. For a time, she was infinitely
pleased with her own peculiar offspring, which has now become a restless
phantom, a grim, unlovely spectra, which haunts the laboratories of its parent
night and day, until at last Science has become frightened at her own child. Now
Science tries in vain to slay that ghost of her own creation, but she dares not
enter the void she has called into existence, and there pursue and recapture the
truant atoms and timid vibrations of this sublunary sphere we call Earth. But
much is missing!
Therefore,
at the very outset of man's pilgrimage through these vast and
"scientifically unknown" regions, the reader had best unload all the
heavy and useless baggage of educated opinion and scientific dogmas which he may
carry. If he does not, he will find himself top‑heavy, and will either
capsize or be buried amid the debris of conflicting opinion.
The
only equipment which man has found useful, and which will repay the cost of
transportation, is an unbiased, open mind, logical reasoning, genuine common
sense, and a calm, reflective brain. Anything else on the voyage into the
unknown upon which we are now about to embark is simply useless, costly
deadweight, hence, so far as modem science is concerned, the less the reader
has, the better. If he can use his scientific acquirements merely as aids and
crutches in climbing the spiritual steps of Occultism and if he will find
Science an auxiliary force, the Science is no longer a sacred cow, but a
functional tool.
But
this is an exceedingly rare gift, and one seldom found. It also has a delusive
snare, because nine out of every ten people cheat themselves into the belief
that they possess such an ability; whereas, in reality they are woefully
deficient. It is always a safe course to mistrust the absolute in all opinions
and reasoning.
Before
starting out on such a mighty and important undertaking, we must draw serious
attention to the major obstacle of the voyage the one which will be the most
difficult to surmount. This hidden rock, upon which so many profound students of
the Occult become shipwrecked, is the failure to realize the duality of Truth.
The Truth of appearances. The Truth of realities. The former is relative; the
latter is absolute!
If
we possess half of anything, we know by the laws of common sense and
logical reasoning that there must be another half somewhere. No subtle twist of
metaphysical sophistry can cheat us into the belief that we possess the whole.
We know and see that we have just exactly half, and no more.
Furthermore,
when we look at any known thing, we know that for it to possess the attributes
of a thing it must possess three dimensions ‑length, breadth, and
thickness. This being so, we also know it has, broadly speaking, two
sides‑an outside and an inside. The outside is not the same as the inside,
any more than the boiler is the steam which drives the engine.
This
logical process of reasoning is the only chart which has so far been prepared
for the Occult explorer. It is vague and 'probably unsatisfactory; yet, when it
is used in conjunction with man's conscious intuition (the only true compass
to guide man in his winding, uneven pathway upon the shores of the Infinite),
one never need fear being lost or failing in his endeavors to know the Truth.
In
order to carry the same line of reasoning a little further, let us take a type
of architecture, the Gothic, for example and examine a well known specimen of
this structural conception. The mind will say What
a beautiful building; how imposing and grand; what a triumph of man's mechanical
skill!"
So it appears, and upon the plane of visual
appearance, so it really is. Consequently, it is a truth for the time. But when
examined in the light of Occult Science, we find this visual truth is only
relative. It is only a truth on the external, transitory plane of material phenomena.
We see, that in addition to being the result of man's trained mechanical ability
it is the external form of his mental ideal. It is the phenomenal outcome of
man's creative attributes.
When
we look at this solid building from the earth's plane, we only see the outside
of an object having length, breadth, and thickness. We know there must be an
inside, but we must enter the interior plane before we can see it. Therein we
shall find the building as it exists within the subjective world of its
architect. The solid stone edifice will crumble to decay and fall; in the end
not one material particle will remain to indicate the place whereon it stood.
Hence, the building was not real; it was only a passing appearance assumed by
matter under the molding forces of man's mechanical ability. When the forces
which gave it shape and form became polarized by the restless oceans of
planetary magnetism, it dissolved and finally vanished "like the baseless
fabric of a dream."
Even
though the external structure of stone and mortar was lost within the realms of
"the great unknown", the idea which created it was eternal. It was a
spiritual reality. Therefore, the idea was the absolute truth, reality, yet the
actual nonreality of stone appeared to be the real.
It
is these delusive appearances which created the confusion regarding the exact
meaning of the terms "Spirit" and "Matter." Science refers
all she cannot grapple with to some undiscovered forces of Matter, whereas
Theology refers them to the Spirit. Both are right, and both are wrong!
As
we explore the territory belonging to both Spirit and Matter during the progress
of our journey, we will state that Spirit and Matter as we know them, are but
the duality of expression of the one great Deific principle. The duality is due
to a difference in polarity. Spirit and Matter are a unity under two modes of
action. This duality can be comprehended in its true relationship when viewed
from both planes and realized by the true science of correspondence. Science
is but a material system of symbolism from which we regulate our conceptions of
all things.
Plato said that ideas rule the world. And Plato was
right; for, before the divine ideal was evolved from within the divine sensorium,
the Universe was not. The result of the divine ideal was the creation of a pure
symbolic form.
Just
as symbols are the product of ideas, so in their turn, ideas are the symbols of
thought. Thought itself is but the symbolic response of the Self to the
pulsating throb of the radiant Soul. Beyond this we cannot penetrate, even in
our most exalted conceptions. Thus, all serious study and meditation as to the
nature and existence of God is unprofitable, and cannot bring the reader any
substantial return either in this world or the next. The infinite can never be
comprehended by the finite. We must rest satisfied with the certain knowledge
that we can, by one grand chain of
sequences, trace the transmission of thoughts, ideas, and symbolic forms to
their Devine source.
The
angelic world is but a prototype or symbolic expression of the divine sphere of
the Infinite. The celestial world is but a reflection of the angelic. The
spiritual world is the prototype and the symbolic outcome of the celestial
heavens. The Astral is the reflection of the spiritual sphere. And lastly, the
material is but the concrete shadow of the Astral Kingdoms.
Now
the reader can perceive how we, in our present state, are a long way down on the
scale of creative life. But if we exist, we know by the laws of our being that
we can and shall find our way back through this valley of the shadow. We can
leave this plane of inverted images and delusive appearances for the bright
realms of our former state. There in those spheres of pure angelic life we can
exist with the everliving reality of all the infinitude of apparent realities.
